Imagine with me for a second that you are running a race. You are working towards the finish line. But what if the race officials decided that, since there were so many people running the race, it would be too crowded? So they moved of the finish line to a wider road. But the official did not have time to inform the runners, and so you were not informed. You would just keep on running, and never get to a destination thingy whatchamacallit.
The finish line, in this analogy, is an ideal that we work towards. The race officials made a pragmatic choice to do what worked at the time, robbing the runners of the ideal.
This is why my thesis is that my value, Human Rights, is best upheld by affirming the resolution, and that is why I stand resolved that in a conflict, Idealism ought to be valued above pragmatism.
In order to provide mutual clarity in this debate, I will define my terms.
Firstly, Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition defines conflict as “difference: a disagreement or clash between ideas, principles, or people.”
Idealism is defined by The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus as “the pursuit of or belief in noble ideals, principles, and values.”
Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines value as “consider to be important or beneficial.”
Finally, pragmatism is defined by Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition as “a straightforward practical way of thinking about things or dealing with problems, concerned with results rather than with theories and principles.”
Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition defines my value, human rights as ‘freedom, justice, and equality: the rights that are considered by most societies to belong automatically to everyone, e.g. the rights to freedom, justice, and equality.”
Human Rights is the highest value in the high achy of values, because human rights our human rights must be upheld for us to work properly and freely.
Now that I have defined my terms, I would like to move on to my contentions.
Contention One- Pragmatism compromises our human rights. Today I would like to bring up the historical example of World War II. While the battle in the pacific raged, the US decided that people of Japanese decent were a threat to national security, and came up with a very practical solution to this “problem.” They imprisoned all Japanese-Americans in internment camps, and held them there until the end of the war, violating their Human Rights. While this could have made “national security,” it robed the Japanese-Americans to be able to obtain Human Rights, just like the race officials.
Contention Two- Idealism values our human rights. When Idealism is valued, so is our human rights. Idealism is Wal-mart’s secret to success. Wal-mart is not by any means perfect, but Wal-mart has learned to put idealism first. Though Wal-mart’s profits are great, their philosophy is still the same: people come first. Founder Sam Walton said Wal-mart’s purpose is, “to give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.” Wal-mart has succeeded by keeping this ideal as their main focus. Wal-mart has both given jobs to over two million people, and donated millions of dollars to charity. In 2002 President of Klinge and Associates Idea Marketing Consultants, Peter Klinge, said, “[Wal-Mart] understand[s] their customer, and market[s] their needs with consistent execution, and a simple formula and commitment to a vision to this retailer’s business. These are the reasons and forces behind Wal-mart’s success.” Wal-mart shows that idealism values our human rights.
Since pragmatism compromises our human rights, and Idealism values our human rights, I am resolved that my value, human rights is best upheld by affirming the resolution, and so I urge and affirmative ballot.
I now stand ready for cross examination and further points of clarification.
