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# Should the United States Maintain Its Embargo against Cuba?' **Argument** Cuba has not demonstrated a willingness to negotiate in good faith with the United States. President Barack Obama stated in a Sep. 28, 2011 “Open for Questions” roundtable, “Now, what we’ve tried to do is to send a signal that we are open to a new relationship with Cuba… [W]i have to see a signal back from the Cuban government… in order for us to be fully engaged with them. And so far, at least, what we haven’t seen is the kind of genuine spirit of transformation inside of Cuba that would justify us eliminating the embargo.” Fidel Castro responded the following day by calling Obama “stupid” and saying, “Many things will change in Cuba, but they will change through our efforts and in spite of the United States. Perhaps that empire will fall first.” Even though President Obama made efforts to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015, the Cuban government has failed to improve on human rights. According to a 2018 Human Rights Watch report, “Detention is often used preemptively to prevent individuals from participating in peaceful marches or meetings to discuss politics.” **Background** Since the 1960s, the United States has imposed an embargo against Cuba, the Communist island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The embargo, known among Cubans as “el bloqueo” or “the blockade,” consists of economic sanctions against Cuba and restrictions on Cuban travel and commerce for all people and companies under US jurisdiction. Proponents of the embargo argue that Cuba has not met the US conditions for lifting the embargo, including transitioning to democracy and improving human rights. They say that backing down without getting concessions from the Castro regime will make the United States appear weak, and that only the Cuban elite would benefit from open trade. Opponents of the Cuba embargo argue that it should be lifted because the failed policy is a Cold War relic and has clearly not achieved its goals. They say the sanctions harm the US economy and Cuban citizens, and prevent opportunities to promote change and democracy in Cuba. They say the embargo hurts international opinion of the United States. Read more background…
# CBD for Pets - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Pet owners report success in treating their animals with CBD. Many pet owners swear by the use of CBD to treat ailments such as anxiety, pain, digestive issues, and inflammation. Their positive experiences are reflected in the growing market for CBD pet products. The industry was estimated at $400 million in 2019, and could jump to $1.7 billion by 2023. A study of people who gave their dogs CBD found that less than 5% reported any side effects, and the most common side effect was lethargy (a lack of energy). Joshua Hartsel, PhD, chemist and CEO of Delta-9 Technologies, stated that since all mammals have an endocannabinoid system, “the same or similar benefits of cannabinoids found in humans can also be applied to most veterinary species.” In fact, people have been giving medical cannabis to pets and farm animals since the 1800s. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action When people talk about giving marijuana to pets, they are really talking about the use of CBD products derived from hemp. The California Veterinary Medical Board explains that CBD is the “abbreviation for cannabidiol, which is one out of 60 naturally occurring compounds present in cannabis. It is the second-most prevalent cannabinoid in both hemp and marijuana and is nonpsychoactive.” CBD extracted from hemp contains less than 0.3% THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the compound in marijuana that causes the high. [1] THC is toxic for cats and dogs even in small amounts. The ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center reported a 765% increase in calls regarding animals ingesting marijuana from 2018 to 2019.[27] In 2020, pet owners spent about $99 billion on their furry friends, a growth of 12 times over 2019 as more people worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The market for CBD products aimed at companion animals jumped from $32 million in 2018 to $400 million in 2019. During the pandemic, in 2020 sales rose to $426 million and are expected to jump to $629 million in 2021.[2] [3] [34] [35] A survey found that 11% of dog owners and 8% of cat owners gave CBD to their pets in 2019, often in the form of pet treats, tinctures administered under the tongue, and salves or creams applied topically. Reasons cited for giving CBD to companion animals included caring for aging pets and treating conditions such as anxiety, pain, and seizures. [7] [8] [9] [10]
# Should Election Day Be a National Holiday? Top 3 Pros and Cons' **Argument** Other solutions would more reliably increase voter turnout than a national holiday. Solutions such as automatic voter registration, same-day registration, early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, restoring voting rights to former felons, improved civics education, and voter outreach would all improve voter participation more reliably than a national holiday. Trying one of these alternatives would avoid the negative economic impact of closing businesses for Election Day. Henry Farber, PhD, Hughes-Rogers Professor of Economics at Princeton University, conducted an analysis of states that made Election Day a holiday for state employees. He concluded that “having an election holiday, by itself, is not an effective strategy to increase voter turnout.” Automatic voter registration, by contrast, could register an additional 22 million people and create 7.9 million new voters nationwide within a year. Same-day registration boosts turnout by 5%, and universal implementation of it would have added as many as 4.8 million voters in the 2016 election, according to Danielle Root, JD, and Liz Kennedy, JD, from the Center for American Progress. **Background** Election Day in the United States has occurred on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November ever since President John Tyler signed an 1845 law establishing a specific voting day for the entire country. [1] The decision was made taking into account farmers, a large portion of the voting constituency at the time, who would not have been able to travel to polling places in winter months or during planting or harvest times. [2] Sundays were for rest and worship, and on Wednesdays farmers typically sold their crops at the market, making Tuesdays the best day of the week. [1] Over time, voting rights expanded from only white, male landowners age 21 and older to include women and people of color, as well as citizens age 18 and up, resulting in a dramatic increase in the voting-eligible population and a shift in voter demographics. [3] In 1800, 83% of the American labor force was agrarian, but today only 11% of total US employment is agriculture-related. [4][5] The United States currently has 10 national holidays, including Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Christmas Day. [6] Election Day could be made a holiday if a bill were passed by the House and Senate then signed into law by the president. Approximately two million people who work for the federal government would be given a paid day off, and private companies might follow suit. [7] A handful of states have made election day a state holiday, including New York, Hawaii, Kentucky, and, in Apr. 2020, Virginia. [36] Would making Election Day a federal holiday increase voter turnout and celebrate democracy? Or is it an optimistic idea that would exclude already disadvantaged voters while failing to increase turnout?
# Should College Be Free? Top 3 Pros and Cons' **Argument** Tuition-free college will decrease completion rates, leaving students without the benefits of a full college education and degree. Jack A. Chambless, Economics Professor at Valencia College, said that with a free college program, “Potentially millions of young people who have no business attending college would waste their time — and taxpayer dollars — seeking degrees they will not obtain… Free tuition would dupe young people into a sense of belonging, only to find that their work ethic, intelligence and aptitude are not up to the rigors of advanced education.” Under California’s community college fee waiver program, over 50% of the state’s community college students attended for free (before a 2017 program change), but only 6% of all California community college students completed a career technical program and fewer than 10% completed a two-year degree in six years. Vince Norton, Managing Partner at Norton Norris, a campus marketing company, stated, “Students will enroll at a ‘free college’ and borrow money for the cost of attendance. Then, they will drop out and have a student loan – but no skills. Brilliant.” **Background** Free college programs come in different forms but generally refer to the government picking up the tab for tuition costs, while students pay for other expenses such as room and board. [50]   32 states and DC have some variation of free college programs. 9 states have statewide programs with “few eligibility limits,” while 23 have “[s]tate sponsored free college tuition programs with income, merit, geographical or programmatic limitations.” 18 states have no free college programs. [51] [52] Tuition at public four-year institutions rose more than 31% between 2010 and 2020. When adjusted for inflation, college tuition has risen 747.8% since 1963. The average student loan debt more than doubled from the 1990s to the 2010s, according to the US Department of Education. About 16.8 million undergraduate students were projected to be enrolled in college in 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. [29] [53] [54] College tuition is set by state policy or by each individual institution. Some colleges, especially federal land grant schools, had free tuition beginning in the 1860s. And some states had tuition-free policies at state colleges and universities for in-state students well into the twentieth century. According to Ronald Gordon Ehrenberg, Professor at Cornell University, “Public colleges and universities were often free at their founding in the United States, but over time, as public support was reduced or not increased sufficiently to compensate for their growth in students and costs (faculty and staff salaries, utilities etc.), they moved first to a low tuition and eventually higher tuition policy. About 2.9% of American 18- to 24-year olds went to college for the 1909-1910 school year, compared to 40% in 2020. [37] [38] [39] [55] At the national level, free college programs have been in effect for military personnel since the 1944 GI Bill. At least 26 other countries have free or nearly free college tuition: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Panama, Poland, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and Uruguay. [7] [8] [9] [42] [43] [44] According to the 2022 Education Next Survey of Public Opinion, 63% of Americans supported free 4-year college and 66% supported free 2-year college. [56]
# Should Tablets Replace Textbooks in K-12 Schools?' **Argument** The higher cost of tablets marginalizes poorer school districts and increases the “digital divide.” Rich school districts can afford to implement e-textbooks on tablets, while poor school districts cannot. Low income schools are less likely to implement teacher training programs on how to use digital learning in the classroom. **Background** Textbook publishing in the United States is an $11 billion industry, with five companies – Cengage Learning, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, and Scholastic – capturing about 80% of this market. Tablets are an $18 billion industry with 53% of US adults, 81% of US children aged eight to 17, and 42% of US children aged under eight, owning a tablet. As tablets have become more prevalent, a new debate has formed over whether K-12 school districts should switch from print textbooks to digital textbooks on tablets and e-readers.  Proponents of tablets say that they are supported by most teachers and students, are much lighter than print textbooks, and improve standardized test scores. They say tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks, save the environment by lowering the amount of printing, increase student interactivity and creativity, and that digital textbooks are cheaper than print textbooks. Opponents of tablets say that they are expensive, too distracting for students, easy to break, and costly/time-consuming to fix. They say that tablets contribute to eyestrain, headaches, and blurred vision, increase the excuses available for students not doing their homework, require costly Wi-Fi networks, and become quickly outdated as new technologies emerge. Read more background…
# Should the United States Maintain Its Embargo against Cuba?' **Argument** Cuban-Americans support the embargo. US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a Cuban-American, and long-time proponent of the embargo, wrote in a press release, “In addition to imposing economic pressure on the Castro regime and holding it accountable for actions against U.S. interests, the embargo is a moral stance against the brutal dictatorship. Over the last 50 years, the embargo has served as a constant form of solidarity with the Cuban people.” A 2019 poll found 51% of Cuban-Americans supported the embargo. **Background** Since the 1960s, the United States has imposed an embargo against Cuba, the Communist island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The embargo, known among Cubans as “el bloqueo” or “the blockade,” consists of economic sanctions against Cuba and restrictions on Cuban travel and commerce for all people and companies under US jurisdiction. Proponents of the embargo argue that Cuba has not met the US conditions for lifting the embargo, including transitioning to democracy and improving human rights. They say that backing down without getting concessions from the Castro regime will make the United States appear weak, and that only the Cuban elite would benefit from open trade. Opponents of the Cuba embargo argue that it should be lifted because the failed policy is a Cold War relic and has clearly not achieved its goals. They say the sanctions harm the US economy and Cuban citizens, and prevent opportunities to promote change and democracy in Cuba. They say the embargo hurts international opinion of the United States. Read more background…
# Was Ronald Reagan a Good President?' **Argument** Foreign Policy: Reagan broke his own vows not to make deals with terrorists or states that aided them. In the “Iran-Contra” scandal, Reagan’s administration bypassed congressional restrictions on aiding Nicaragua’s Contra guerilla fighters, in part by diverting money to them from the sale of missiles to Iran. Reagan also initiated military involvement in Libya, Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Lebanon. **Background** Ronald Wilson Reagan served as the 40th President of the United States from Jan. 20, 1981 to Jan. 19, 1989. He won the Nov. 4, 1980 presidential election, beating Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter with 50.7% of the votes, and won his second term by a landslide of 58.8% of the votes. Reagan’s proponents point to his accomplishments, including stimulating economic growth in the US, strengthening its national defense, revitalizing the Republican Party, and ending the global Cold War as evidence of his good presidency. His opponents contend that Reagan’s poor policies, such as bloating the national defense, drastically cutting social services, and making missiles-for-hostages deals, led the country into record deficits and global embarrassment. Read more background…
# Should Vaccines Be Required for Children?' **Argument** Vaccines provide economic benefits for society. The CDC estimates that vaccinated children born between 1994 and 2018 have yielded net savings of $406 billion in direct costs and $1.9 trillion in societal costs, which includes money saved by preventing lost productivity due to disability and early death. The United States saves about $27 per $1 invested in DTaP vaccination, and $13 per $1 spent on MMR vaccination. UNICEF estimates that $6.2 billion could be saved in treatment costs if vaccines were more prominent in the world’s poorest countries. According to the International Vaccines Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, $62.9 billion could be saved by providing Hib, pneumococcal, and rotavirus vaccinations to the 73 poorest countries: $1.4 billion in treatment costs, $300 million in lost caretaker wages, $6.2 billion in lifetime productivity loss due to disability, and $55 billion in lifetime productivity loss because of death. **Background** Vaccines have been in the news over the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To date no state has yet added the COVID-19 vaccine to their required vaccinations roster. On Sep. 9, 2021, Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country, mandated the COVID-19 vaccine for students ages 12 and up by Jan. 10, 2022 (pushed back to fall 2022 in Dec. 2021), the first in the country to mandate the coronavirus vaccine. On Oct. 1, 2021, Governor Newsom stated the COVID-19 vaccine would be mandated for all schoolchildren once approved by the FDA. However, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends getting 29 doses of 9 other vaccines (plus a yearly flu shot after six months old) for kids aged 0 to six. No US federal laws mandate vaccination, but all 50 states require certain vaccinations for children entering public schools. Most states offer medical and religious exemptions; and some states allow philosophical exemptions. Proponents say that vaccination is safe and one of the greatest health developments of the 20th century. They point out that illnesses, including rubella, diphtheria, smallpox, polio, and whooping cough, are now prevented by vaccination and millions of children’s lives are saved. They contend adverse reactions to vaccines are extremely rare. Opponents say that children’s immune systems can deal with most infections naturally, and that injecting questionable vaccine ingredients into a child may cause side effects, including seizures, paralysis, and death. They contend that numerous studies prove that vaccines may trigger problems like ADHD and diabetes. Read more background…
# Filibuster - Top 3 Pros and Cons | ProCon.org' **Argument** The filibuster prevents meaningful debate and slows the work of the Senate. In 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC) filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes on Aug. 28 and 29, the longest filibuster on record. Thurmond spent valuable Senate time reciting the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and President George Washington’s farewell address, among other historical documents and state election laws. The effort was in vain: no senator changed their vote and the act passed 60-15 a mere two hours after Thurmond stopped speaking. In Sep. 1981, Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) filibustered for 16 hours and 12 minutes (the fifth-longest filibuster), halting debate about raising the debt ceiling, an action he opposed. His filibuster kept the senate chambers open overnight, costing taxpayers “$47,500 for the extra Congressional Record, $6,500 in police overtime and $10,500 in building maintenance costs,” over $64,500 in 1981 dollars (about $205,065.02 in 2022 dollars). Those figures did not include “incalculable extra man hours from personnel on fixed salaries.” The Senate passed the debt ceiling increase the next day in a 64-34 vote. Moreover, a Jan. 2022 study found that not only do filibusters not increase meaningful debate as defenders claim, but they serve to dampen debate. The study showed that in 2007 when Senate Republicans increased use of the filibuster, there was a fairly immediate 14% decline in debate. Three legislative sessions later, debate had declined 28%. Study co-author William Howell, Chair of the Political Science department at the University of Chicago, explained the filibuster use “was not because those who were using the filibuster were particularly interested in scrutinizing the merits of policy changes to a greater extent, it’s because they wanted to block policy change. What they wanted to do was grind things to a halt.” **Background** A filibuster is a parliamentary means for blocking a legislative body’s vote on an issue. As Encyclopaedia Britannica explains, a filibuster is “used in the United States Senate by a minority of the senators—sometimes even a single senator—to delay or prevent parliamentary action by talking so long that the majority either grants concessions or withdraws the bill.” The strategy is only used in the Senate because “unlike the House of Representatives, in which rules limit speaking time, the Senate allows unlimited debate on a bill. Speeches can be completely irrelevant to the issue.” [1] Two tactics can be used to defeat the filibuster: by invoking cloture (thereby limiting or ending debate and mandating a vote on the issue at hand) or by maintaining around-the-clock sessions to tire those using the filibuster. Perhaps the most famous depiction of a marathon filibuster, and the various tactics used to fight it, is the climactic scene in the classic 1939 movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when the star of the film, an idealistic freshman senator played by Jimmy Stewart, finally collapses on the Senate floor from exhaustion. [1] [2]  The word “filibuster” itself emerged from piracy. Derived from Dutch and Spanish, the term first appeared in English in 1591 as “flee-booters,” referring to people who raided the Caribbean Spanish colonies. The word gained a syllable along the way, and by the 1850s “filibusters” were Americans who traveled to the Spanish West Indies and Central America to encourage revolution. When applied to Senate speechifying, as NPR host Melissa Block has explained, “Filibustering senators were, by extension, pirates raiding the Congress for their own political gain.” [3] Ironically, the first instance of “talking a bill to death” happened during the very first session of Congress, on Sep. 22, 1789. As Anti-Administration Party Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania wrote in his journal, the “design of the Virginians and the Carolina gentleman was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.” Despite the proto-filibustering, the bill was passed 31-17, wrote Maclay. [4] [5] In 1789, both the House and Senate had a rule allowing for a simple majority to end debate: the “previous question motion.” The House rulebook still has that motion. The Senate eliminated it in 1805 when Vice President Aaron Burr (who had just been indicted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton) told the Senate to clean up their rulebook, specifically to get rid of this  tactic. The Senate did so in 1806, eliminating the Senate’s ability to end debate with a simple majority, thereby enabling the filibuster. [6] According to the US Senate, the term “filibuster” first came into congressional use when Mississippi Democrat Senator Albert Brown noted his “friend standing on the other side of the House filibustering” on Jan. 3, 1853, and when North Carolina Whig Senator George Badger bemoaned “filibustering speeches” in February of the same year. Other sources state “filibuster” didn’t take on its Senate meaning until 1889 or 1890. [3] [4] The debate over eliminating the filibuster is almost as old as its appearance in the Senate. As early as 1841, Kentucky Whig Senator Henry Clay, frustrated with filibustering Democrats, threatened to limit debate. Alabama Democrat Senator William King countered that Clay might as well “make his arrangements at his boarding house for the [entire] winter” in preparation for even longer debates to maintain the filibuster. [4] But as the Senate grew in members and the amount of work it had to do, so did frustrations with the filibuster, as long speeches could derail work for days. President Woodrow Wilson made his displeasure known when, at the end of the 64th Congress on Mar. 4, 1917, the Senate’s work had not been completed: the “Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.” [4] [7] [8] [9] At Wilson’s urging, in a special congressional session, Senate Rule 22 was adopted on Mar. 8, 1917. The rule meant that senators could file a motion to invoke cloture, which would prompt a vote on whether to end the debate two business days after the motion was filed, allowing up to 30 additional hours of debate. Two-thirds of the Senate was required to end a filibuster with cloture until 1974 when the rule was changed to three-fifths (meaning 60 US senators). If the motion is approved during the cloture vote, then cloture has been invoked and the Senate will vote on the item in question without further delay and debate. [4] [7] [8] [9] The first invocation of cloture occurred on Nov. 15, 1919, and ended debate on the Treaty of Versailles. Between 1917 and Aug. 8, 2022, US Senators have filed 2,591 cloture motions, voted on cloture 2,062 times, and successfully invoked cloture in 1,361 cases. At first used sparingly, cloture recently became a more popular tool during the 113th Congress (2013-2014) when its use jumped to 187 from 41 clotures in the 112th Congress (2011-2012). [10] [11]  The longest individual filibuster on record occurred in 1957, when US Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina talked for more than 24 hours as part of an unsuccessful attempt by Southern senators to obstruct civil rights legislation. [1] Key to the current debate over filibusters is the political parity that exists in the US Congress. With the US Senate almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, at a time when the parties share little ideological overlap and seldom agree on anything, the filibuster has become a prime tool for hindering the presidential and congressional agendas of the majority party, whose control over the Senate is slight and tenuous and far from a large mandate, making legislation almost impossible to pass. [12] Additionally, senators no longer have to actually talk for hours to filibuster. Just the threat of a filibuster (also called a “virtual filibuster”) is enough to effectively block legislation. William Galston, Cofounder of the Congressional reform group No Labels, describes the tactic as a “sort of a ‘Look ma, no hands’ way of avoiding accountability” and the sweat equity that once required senators to talk for hours. [47] [48] An Apr. 29, 2021, Monmouth University poll found 38% of Americans want to keep the filibuster with no changes, 38% believe the Senate should reform filibuster rules, and 19% would get rid of the filibuster entirely. However, only 19% of Americans stated they were “very familiar” with how the filibuster functions, while 12% were “not too familiar” or “not at all familiar” with the strategy and 29% had never heard of the filibuster. [13] The unfamiliarity with the filibuster creates a difficulty among Americans in thinking about how to reform the Senate procedure. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the filibuster has been modified more than 160 times since its introduction. Recently, the “nuclear option” has been used in 2013 and 2017 to eliminate the use of the filibuster for presidential executive and judicial appointments and US Supreme Court nominees. The “nuclear option” allows senators to change Senate rules with a simple majority vote. Following this option, senators could mandate the elimination of the filibuster for specific key party platform legislation such as voting rights. [14] [15] Another possible reform would be to change the threshold for invoking cloture from 60 to a higher or lower number of senators in order to strengthen or weaken the filibuster. One version is an “inverted filibuster” in which only 41 votes (instead of 60) would be needed to invoke cloture and end a filibuster, thereby shifting the burden to the dissenting senators instead of the senators promoting the legislation in question. Also suggested is to require three-fifths of “present and voting” senators to invoke cloture and end a filibuster instead of the current requirement of three-fifths of “duly chosen and sworn” senators, many of whom may not be present or voting, thereby making it easier to kill a filibuster. [14] [16]
# Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change?' **Argument** CO2 is so saturated in earth’s atmosphere that more CO2, manmade or natural, will have little impact on the climate. As CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise, the amount of additional warming caused by the increased concentration becomes less and less pronounced. According to Senate testimony by William Happer, PhD, Professor of Physics at Princeton University, “[a]dditional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can. The technical jargon for this is that the CO2 absorption band is nearly ‘saturated’ at current CO2 levels.” **Background** Average surface temperatures on earth have risen more than 2°F over the past 100 years. During this time period, atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) have notably increased. This site explores the debate on whether climate change is caused by humans (also known as anthropogenic climate change). The pro side argues rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are a direct result of human activities such as burning fossil fuels, and that these increases are causing significant and increasingly severe climate changes including global warming, loss of sea ice, sea level rise, stronger storms, and more droughts. They contend that immediate international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to prevent dire climate changes. The con side argues human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are too small to substantially change the earth’s climate and that the planet is capable of absorbing those increases. They contend that warming over the 20th century resulted primarily from natural processes such as fluctuations in the sun’s heat and ocean currents. They say the theory of human-caused global climate change is based on questionable measurements, faulty climate models, and misleading science. Read more background…
# CBD for Pets - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** There isn't enough scientific evidence to support giving CBD to pets. Research in this area is so new that no one knows the long-term impacts of CBD use in companion animals, or what an effective and safe dose would be. Sue Lowum, DVM, a veterinarian and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, said she wouldn’t recommend CBD for pets because “We just don’t have enough information at this point to draw any legitimate conclusions… there is no assurance the CBD oil they purchase is safe or effective.” Veterinarians’ knowledge about CBD use in pets is purely anecdotal at the moment because of the limited scientific evidence available. Further, researchers found that some seller’s websites contain “blatant lies” about CBD. The American Veterinary Medical Association stated, “While both marijuana and industrial hemp products are available, no studies, doses, or uses in veterinary medicine have been determined… AVMA cautions pet owners against the use of such products.” **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action When people talk about giving marijuana to pets, they are really talking about the use of CBD products derived from hemp. The California Veterinary Medical Board explains that CBD is the “abbreviation for cannabidiol, which is one out of 60 naturally occurring compounds present in cannabis. It is the second-most prevalent cannabinoid in both hemp and marijuana and is nonpsychoactive.” CBD extracted from hemp contains less than 0.3% THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the compound in marijuana that causes the high. [1] THC is toxic for cats and dogs even in small amounts. The ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center reported a 765% increase in calls regarding animals ingesting marijuana from 2018 to 2019.[27] In 2020, pet owners spent about $99 billion on their furry friends, a growth of 12 times over 2019 as more people worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The market for CBD products aimed at companion animals jumped from $32 million in 2018 to $400 million in 2019. During the pandemic, in 2020 sales rose to $426 million and are expected to jump to $629 million in 2021.[2] [3] [34] [35] A survey found that 11% of dog owners and 8% of cat owners gave CBD to their pets in 2019, often in the form of pet treats, tinctures administered under the tongue, and salves or creams applied topically. Reasons cited for giving CBD to companion animals included caring for aging pets and treating conditions such as anxiety, pain, and seizures. [7] [8] [9] [10]
# Should All Americans Have the Right (Be Entitled) to Health Care?' **Argument** A right to health care could stop medical bankruptcies. According to the National Bankruptcy Forum, medical debt is the #1 reason people file for bankruptcy in the United States. In 2017, about 33% of all Americans with medical bills reported that they “were unable to pay for basic necessities like food, heat, or housing.” If all US citizens were provided health care under a single-payer system medical bankruptcy would no longer exist, because the government, not private citizens, would pay all medical bills. **Background** 27.5 million people in the United States (8.5% of the US population) do not have health insurance. Among the 91.5% who do have health insurance, 67.3% have private insurance while 34.4% have government-provided coverage through programs such as Medicaid or Medicare. Employer-based health insurance is the most common type of coverage, applying to 55.1% of the US population. The United States is the only nation among the 37 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations that does not have universal health care either in practice or by constitutional right. Proponents of the right to health care say that no one in one of the richest nations on earth should go without health care. They argue that a right to health care would stop medical bankruptcies, improve public health, reduce overall health care spending, help small businesses, and that health care should be an essential government service. Opponents argue that a right to health care amounts to socialism and that it should be an individual’s responsibility, not the government’s role, to secure health care. They say that government provision of health care would decrease the quality and availability of health care, and would lead to larger government debt and deficits. Read more background…
# Net Neutrality - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Net neutrality protects consumers by preventing ISPs from speeding, slowing, or charging higher fees for select online content. Allowing ISPs to speed or slow certain websites, or charge fees for fast lane access, may eventually trickle down to consumers in the form of higher internet costs. For example, a person who gets their internet service from Comcast could be charged extra fees to stream Netflix or Amazon (companies not owned by Comcast), while not being charged extra to stream NBC or Hulu (two companies that Comcast partially owns). According to US Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), without net neutrality, ISPs could “cabel-ize” the internet, meaning that “instead of paying a flat price for access to use any app or service free of charge, companies could start bundling services into ‘social,’ ‘video,’ and so on,” and consumers will have to pay for it. On Apr. 27, 2017, one day after then FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, JD, announced the plan to eliminate net neutrality, Comcast (the largest US ISP) removed its pledge to not “prioritize internet traffic or create paid fast lanes” from its corporate website. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action The net neutrality rules adopted in 2015 under the Obama administration regulated the internet as a common carrier, the same category as telephone service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules prevented internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking, slowing, prioritizing, or charging consumers extra money to access certain websites. For example, under net neutrality rules, Verizon could not speed up access to websites it owns, such as Yahoo and AOL, and could not slow down traffic, or charge extra fees, to other major websites like Google or YouTube. [5] [4] On Dec. 14, 2017, under the Trump administration, the FCC voted (3-2) to overturn those net neutrality rules and reclassified internet service as an information source, rather than a common carrier. [1] [5] Many state attorneys general filed suit against the FCC decision. The US Senate voted 52-47 to approve a resolution to invalidate the decision, however the legislation fell short by 46 votes in the US House of Representatives. The FCC’s removal of net neutrality rules was officially implemented on June 11, 2018. [6] [25] [26] [34] In Sep. 2018, California passed a net neutrality law and was immediately sued by the Trump Administration Justice Department. On Feb. 8, 2021, the Biden administration Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit against California, and FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel indicated support for reinstating net neutrality rules. [35] [36] According to the National Law Review, as of Mar. 1, 2021, “seven states have adopted net neutrality laws (California, Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington), and several other states have introduced some form of net neutrality legislation in the 2021 legislative session (among them Connecticut, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, and South Carolina).” [37] Should the US Have Net Neutrality Laws? Pro 1 Net neutrality preserves free speech on the internet by prohibiting internet service providers from blocking content. ISPs may slow or block websites that disagree with the companies’ political viewpoints or interfere with their monetary interests. [2][7] In 2017, then FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, JD, stated that the removal of net neutrality rules will give ISPs “extraordinary new power” and allow them “to censor online content.” [8] According to the 2014 D.C. Circuit court ruling, Verizon v. FCC, the power of ISPs to censor content is not “merely theoretical.” Before net neutrality was in place, instances of content censorship actually occurred, including two separate instances of broadband ISPs blocking access to voice over IP applications, and one instance of an ISP blocking an online payment service. [15] In 2014, President Obama stated that “an open Internet… has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known,” and that if content is legal your ISP should not be allowed to block it. [33] The Electronic Freedom Foundation has argued that, “the meaningful exercise of our constitutional rights—including the freedoms of speech, assembly, and press—has become dependent on broadband Internet access.” This dependency makes net neutrality rules essential for a free society. [16] Read More Pro 2 Net neutrality protects consumers by preventing ISPs from speeding, slowing, or charging higher fees for select online content. Allowing ISPs to speed or slow certain websites, or charge fees for fast lane access, may eventually trickle down to consumers in the form of higher internet costs. For example, a person who gets their internet service from Comcast could be charged extra fees to stream Netflix or Amazon (companies not owned by Comcast), while not being charged extra to stream NBC or Hulu (two companies that Comcast partially owns). [21] According to US Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), without net neutrality, ISPs could “cabel-ize” the internet, meaning that “instead of paying a flat price for access to use any app or service free of charge, companies could start bundling services into ‘social,’ ‘video,’ and so on,” and consumers will have to pay for it. [23] On Apr. 27, 2017, one day after then FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, JD, announced the plan to eliminate net neutrality, Comcast (the largest US ISP) removed its pledge to not “prioritize internet traffic or create paid fast lanes” from its corporate website. [20][11] Read More Pro 3 Net neutrality promotes competition by providing a level playing field for new companies. According to former Internet Association President & CEO Michael Beckerman, “without net neutrality protections, startups would face discrimination from ISP owned or preferred content that’s granted a speed advantage through paid prioritization,” thus hurting competition and consumer choice. [18][29] When the FCC implemented net neutrality rules in 2015, it warned “that broadband providers hold all the tools necessary” to “degrade content, or disfavor the content that they don’t like.” [27] According to Ryan Singel, Fellow at the the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, without net neutrality “broadband providers will be allowed to charge all websites and services, including startups, simply to reach an ISP’s subscribers. That’s a huge threat to the low cost of starting a company, and it totally up-ends the economics of the internet.” [17] A group of over 1,000 startup companies, innovators, and investors signed a petition to the FCC stating that “the success of America’s startup ecosystem depends… on an open Internet—including enforceable net neutrality rules.” [19] Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, MBA, said net neutrality principles must be protected “for the next set of entrepreneurs, building their services and trying to reach users.” [24] Read More Con 1 Net neutrality regulations are unnecessary because the internet developed amazingly well in their absence. Most large internet companies including Google (1998), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006) were started and grew to success without net neutrality regulations. According to former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, JD, “the internet wasn’t broken in 2015,” when net neutrality was implemented and “it certainly wasn’t heavy-handed government regulation” that was responsible for the “phenomenal development of the internet.” [9] As former FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly stated, “periods without net neutrality rules were times of innovation and investment.” [12] According to economist John W. Mayo, PhD, the entire rationale for net neutrality ignores the “positive economic outcomes in the provision of internet services that resulted from twenty years of light-touch regulation.” [32] As economist Gerald R. Faulhaber, PhD, argued: “we have had a decade of experience with broadband ISPs with little evidence of wrongdoing.” [3] A 2017 statement from the Internet & Television Association, signed by 21 large ISPs, stated they remain “committed to an open internet” and “will not block, throttle or otherwise impair your online activity,” once net neutrality regulations are removed. [14] Read More Con 2 Net neutrality created burdensome and overreaching regulations to govern the internet. According to the bipartisan Telecommunications Act of 1996, “the Internet and other interactive computer services have flourished, to the benefit of all Americans, with a minimum of government regulation,” and it should be the policy of the United States “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market… for the Internet and other interactive computer services unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” [32] In 2017, the FCC reported that neutrality rules imposed significant and “unnecessary” reporting burdens on ISPs to prove they were in compliance. For example, the ISP CenturyLink estimated that meeting the net neutrality rules created over 5,000 hours of extra paperwork, costing over $134,000 each year. [10] In addition to being burdensome for ISPs, net neutrality regulations exceed the FCC’s authority. According to the editors of the National Review, the net neutrality rules exceeded “the agency’s statutory mandate,” and “there is no title or provision in the Federal Communication Act that gives the agency a clear mandate to impose pricing and content-management rules on Internet providers, which is what net neutrality does.” [31] Read More Con 3 Net neutrality reduces investment in internet services resulting in less access and higher costs for consumers. Between 2011 and 2015, when neutrality rules were being debated by the FCC, the mere threat of implementing them reduced ISPs investments in network upgrades by 20-30%, a $150-$200 billion reduction in investment. [13] During the years that net neutrality rules were in place (2015-2017), investment in broadband fell for the first time ever in a non-recession period. [10][28] According to AT&T, that “chilled investment in broadband,” threatened “to slow the delivery of broadband services to all Americans… particularly in rural America where broadband investment is needed the most.” [30] Net neutrality regulations also prevent ISPs from charging large content companies (such as video streaming services) additional fees to cover the costs of the massive bandwidth they use. Preventing such paid prioritization fees places the costs of building the additional capacity necessary to carry the content onto ISPs, and these costs will trickle down to consumers in the form of more expensive internet packages – which are paid by all, even those who don’t use the streaming services. [22] Read More Discussion Questions 1. Should the United States have federal net neutrality laws? Why or why not? 2. Do net neutrality regulations protect consumers? Explain your answer(s). 3. Do net neutrality regulations unfairly limit internet companies? Take Action 1. Explore Kevin Taglang’s position that the internet needs net neutrality protections. 2. Consider which states have enacted (or considered enacting) net neutrality legislation according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 3. Analyze Ken Engelhart’s position that net neutrality laws are not needed because the internet is “inherently neutral.” 4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position. 5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives. Sources 1.Federal Communications Commission, “FCC Acts to Restore Internet Freedom,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 2.American Civil Liberties Union, “What Is Net Neutrality?,” aclu.org, Dec. 2017 3.Gerald R. Faulhaber, “Economics of Net Neutrality: A Review,” Communications & Convergence Review, 2011 4.Brian Fung, “The FCC Just Voted to Repeal Its Net Neutrality Rules, in a Sweeping Act of Deregulation,” washingtonpost.com, Dec. 14, 2017 5.Steve Lohr, “Net Neutrality Repeal: What Could Happen and How It Could Affect You,” nytimes.com, Nov. 21, 2017 6.David Shepardson, “21 States Sue to Keep Net Neutrality as Senate Democrats Reach 50 Votes,” reuters.com, Jan. 16, 2018 7.Roni Jacobson, “Internet Censorship Is Advancing under Trump,” wired.com, Apr. 12, 2017 8.Jessica Rosenworcel, “Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 9.Ajit Pai, “Oral Statement of Chairman Ajit Pai,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 10.Federal Communications Commission, “FCC Fact Sheet: Restoring Internet Freedom Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order – WC Docket No. 17-108,” apps.fcc.gov, Nov. 2, 2017 11.Jon Brodkin, “Comcast Deleted Net Neutrality Pledge Same Day FCC Announced Repeal,” arstechnica.com, Nov. 29, 2017 12.Michael O’Rielly, “Oral Statement of Commissioner Michael O’Reilly,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 13.George S. Ford, “Net Neutrality, Reclassification and Investment: A Counterfactual Analysis,” Perspectives, Apr. 25, 2017 14.NCTA, “Reaffirming Our Commitment to an Open Internet,” ncta.com, May 17, 2017 15.Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission, cadc.uscorts.gov, Jan. 14, 2014 16.Electronic Freedom Foundation, “Comments of the Electronic Freedom Foundation on Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” eff.org, July 17, 2017 17.Ryan Singel, “Expect Fewer Great Startups if the FCC Kills Net Neutrality,” wired.com, Dec. 12, 2017 18.Internet Association, “Internet Association Files With FCC and Calls For Net Neutrality Rules to Be Kept in Place,” internetassociation.org, July 17, 2017 19.Startups for Net Neutrality, Letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, engine.is, Apr. 26, 2017 20.Ajit Pai, “Remarks of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai at the Newseum: The Future of Internet Freedom,” fcc.gov, Apr. 26, 2017 21.Steve Kovach, “The FCC Plans to Repeal Net Neutrality This Week – and It Could Ruin the Internet,” businessinsider.com, Dec. 10, 2017 22.Jim Cicconi, “Who Should Pay for Netflix?,” attpublicpolicy.com, Mar. 21, 2014 23.Anna G. Eshoo, “Net Neutrality Repeal Means You’re Going to Hate Your Cable Company Even More,” usatoday.com, Dec. 12, 2017 24.Jordan Malter, “Google CEO: Net Neutrality ‘A Principle We All Need to Fight For,'” money.cnn.com, Jan. 24, 2018 25.Bill Chappell and Susan Davis, “Senate Approves Overturning FCC’s Net Neutrality Repeal,” npr.org, May 16, 2018 26.Erin Carson and Marguerite Reardon, “Net Neutrality Rules Will End June 11th with the FCC’s Final Say-So,” cnet.com, May 10, 2018 27.Federal Communications Commission, “Report and Order on Remand, Declaratory Ruling, and Order,” transition.fcc.gov, Mar. 12, 2015 28.Hal Singer, “Bad Bet by FCC Sparks Capital Flight from Broadband,” forbes.com, Mar. 2, 2017 29.Internet Association, “Principles to Preserve & Protect an Open Internet,” internetassociation.org (accessed May 23, 2018) 30.AT&T, “Open Internet,” about.att.com (accessed May 10, 2018) 31.National Review, “Net Neutrality: Let Congress Decide if It’s Needed,” nationalreview.com, Nov. 11, 2017 32.John W. Mayo, et al., “An Economic Perspective of Title II Regulation of the Internet,” cbpp.georgetown.edu, July 2017 33.The White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Statement by the President on Net Neutrality,” obamawhitehouse.archives.gov, Nov. 10, 2014 34.Jon Brodkin, "Bill to Save Net NeutralityIis 46 Votes Short in US House," arstechnica.com, June 27, 2018 35.Cecilia Kang, "Justice Department Sues to Stop California Net Neutrality Law," nytimes.com, Sep. 30, 2018 36.Federal Communications Commission, "Statement of Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel on Department of Justice Decision to Withdraw Lawsuit to Block California Net Neutrality Law," docs.fcc.gov, Feb. 8, 2021 37.National Law Review, "State Net Neutrality Laws May Lead to Federal Legislation," natlawreview.com, Mar. 1, 2021 window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',function(){var e,t=document.getElementById("procon-page-data"),n=!!t&&JSON.parse(atob(t.innerHTML));n&&n.site&&n.site.theme_uri&&((e=document.createElement("script")).async=!0,e.src=n.site.theme_uri+"js/spot-im-recirculation-and-conversation.min.js?v=1593750185",document.body.appendChild(e))}); .spcv_community-question{font-size:18px;min-height:50px;padding:20px 15px}
# Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?' **Argument** Animals are appropriate research subjects because they are similar to human beings in many ways. Chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans. All mammals, including humans, are descended from common ancestors, and all have the same set of organs (heart, kidneys, lungs, etc.) that function in essentially the same way with the help of a bloodstream and central nervous system. Because animals and humans are so biologically similar, they are susceptible to many of the same conditions and illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. **Background** An estimated 26 million animals are used every year in the United States for scientific and commercial testing. Animals are used to develop medical treatments, determine the toxicity of medications, check the safety of products destined for human use, and other biomedical, commercial, and health care uses. Research on living animals has been practiced since at least 500 BC. Proponents of animal testing say that it has enabled the development of many life-saving treatments for both humans and animals, that there is no alternative method for researching a complete living organism, and that strict regulations prevent the mistreatment of animals in laboratories. Opponents of animal testing say that it is cruel and inhumane to experiment on animals, that alternative methods available to researchers can replace animal testing, and that animals are so different from human beings that research on animals often yields irrelevant results. Read more background…
# Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?' **Argument** Raising the minimum wage would increase the price of consumer goods. A 2013 article by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago stated that if the minimum wage is increased, fast-food restaurants would pass on almost 100% of their increased labor costs on to consumers and that other firms may do the same. A 2015 Purdue University study found that raising the wage of fast food restaurant employees to $15 or $22 per hour would result in a price increase of 4.3% and 25% respectively, or a reduction in product size between 12% and 70%: “a hamburger would be much smaller,” the researchers stated. NBC News found that the price of a cup of coffee went up by 10 to 20% in Oakland, California, after a 36% minimum wage hike in the city to $12.25. The report also found a 6.7% rise in coffee prices in Chicago after the minimum wage rose to $10. The Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association (Canada) found that a “sudden and significant increase to the minimum wage” would result in “[i]ncreased prices for food & beverage, guest rooms and meeting facilities.” **Background** The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 during the Great Depression under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was initially set at $0.25 per hour and has been increased by Congress 22 times, most recently in 2009 when it went from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. 29 states plus the District of Columbia (DC) have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. 1.8 million workers (or 2.3% of the hourly paid working population) earn the federal minimum wage or below. Proponents of a higher minimum wage state that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is too low for anyone to live on; that a higher minimum wage will help create jobs and grow the economy; that the declining value of the minimum wage is one of the primary causes of wage inequality between low- and middle-income workers; and that a majority of Americans, including a slim majority of self-described conservatives, support increasing the minimum wage. Opponents say that many businesses cannot afford to pay their workers more, and will be forced to close, lay off workers, or reduce hiring; that increases have been shown to make it more difficult for low-skilled workers with little or no work experience to find jobs or become upwardly mobile; and that raising the minimum wage at the federal level does not take into account regional cost-of-living variations where raising the minimum wage could hurt low-income communities in particular. Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** School uniforms keep students focused on their education, not their clothes. The National Association of Secondary School Principals stated that, “When all students are wearing the same outfit, they are less concerned about how they look and how they fit in with their peers; thus, they can concentrate on their schoolwork.” A study by the University of Houston found that elementary school girls’ language test scores increased by about three percentile points after uniforms were introduced. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advocated school uniforms as a way to help students focus on learning: “Take that [clothing choices] off the table and put the focus on school, not on what you’re wearing.” Chris Hammons, Principal of Woodland Middle School in Coeur d’Alene, ID, stated that uniforms “provide for less distraction, less drama, and more of a focus on learning.” **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Should Teachers Get Tenure?' **Argument** Tenure allows teachers to work more effectively since they do not need to be in constant fear of losing their jobs. Without the anxiety and fear of losing employment, teachers can focus their efforts on providing the best education for students. **Background** Teacher tenure is the increasingly controversial form of job protection that public school teachers in 46 states receive after 1-5 years on the job. An estimated 2.3 million teachers have tenure. Proponents of tenure argue that it protects teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons, and prevents the firing of experienced teachers to hire less expensive new teachers. They contend that since school administrators grant tenure, neither teachers nor teacher unions should be unfairly blamed for problems with the tenure system. Opponents of tenure argue that this job protection makes the removal of poorly performing teachers so difficult and costly that most schools end up retaining their bad teachers. They contend that tenure encourages complacency among teachers who do not fear losing their jobs, and that tenure is no longer needed given current laws against job discrimination. Read more background…
# Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?' **Argument** Improvements in productivity and economic growth have outpaced increases in the minimum wage. While the estimates of how much the minimum wage should be increased vary, many economists agree that if it had kept pace with rising productivity and incomes, it would be higher than the current $7.25 an hour. According to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the federal minimum wage would have been $21.72 per hour in 2012, instead of $7.25, if the minimum wage had kept pace with increases in productivity since 1968. The Institute for Policy Studies estimated in 2012 that personal income has grown by 100.6% since 1968, while the minimum wage has stagnated: “If our standard for minimum wages had kept pace with overall income growth in the American economy, it would now be $21.16 per hour.” The Economist stated in 2015 that “America as a whole is an outlier among advanced economies… one would expect America, where GDP per person is $53,000, to pay a minimum wage around $12 an hour. That would mean a raise of about 65% for Americans earning the minimum pay rate.” **Background** The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 during the Great Depression under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was initially set at $0.25 per hour and has been increased by Congress 22 times, most recently in 2009 when it went from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. 29 states plus the District of Columbia (DC) have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. 1.8 million workers (or 2.3% of the hourly paid working population) earn the federal minimum wage or below. Proponents of a higher minimum wage state that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is too low for anyone to live on; that a higher minimum wage will help create jobs and grow the economy; that the declining value of the minimum wage is one of the primary causes of wage inequality between low- and middle-income workers; and that a majority of Americans, including a slim majority of self-described conservatives, support increasing the minimum wage. Opponents say that many businesses cannot afford to pay their workers more, and will be forced to close, lay off workers, or reduce hiring; that increases have been shown to make it more difficult for low-skilled workers with little or no work experience to find jobs or become upwardly mobile; and that raising the minimum wage at the federal level does not take into account regional cost-of-living variations where raising the minimum wage could hurt low-income communities in particular. Read more background…
# Should Gay Marriage Be Legal?' **Argument** Legal marriage is a secular institution that should not be limited by religious objections to same-sex marriage. Religious institutions can decline to marry gay and lesbian couples if they wish, but they should not dictate marriage laws for society at large. As explained by People for the American Way, “As a legal matter, marriage is a civil institution… Marriage is also a religious institution, defined differently by different faiths and congregations. In America, the distinction can get blurry because states permit clergy to carry out both religious and civil marriage in a single ceremony. Religious Right leaders have exploited that confusion by claiming that granting same-sex couples equal access to civil marriage would somehow also redefine the religious institution of marriage… this is grounded in falsehood and deception.” Nancy Cott, PhD, testified in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that “[c]ivil law has always been supreme in defining and regulating marriage.” **Background** This site was archived on Dec. 15, 2021. A reconsideration of the topic on this site is possible in the future.  On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is a right protected by the US Constitution in all 50 states. Prior to their decision, same-sex marriage was already legal in 37 states and Washington DC, but was banned in the remaining 13. US public opinion had shifted significantly over the years, from 27% approval of gay marriage in 1996 to 55% in 2015, the year it became legal throughout the United States, to 61% in 2019. Proponents of legal gay marriage contend that gay marriage bans are discriminatory and unconstitutional, and that same-sex couples should have access to all the benefits enjoyed by different-sex couples. Opponents contend that marriage has traditionally been defined as being between one man and one woman, and that marriage is primarily for procreation. Read more background…
# Space Colonization - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Space is inhospitable to humans and life in space, if even possible, would be miserable. As novelist Andy Weir explained, “The problem is that you still don’t want to send humans to the moon. You want to send robots. Humans are soft and squishy and they die. Robots are hard and nobody gets upset when they die.” Bioethicist George Dvorsky summarized the hostile nature of Mars: “The Red Planet is a cold, dead place, with an atmosphere about 100 times thinner than Earth’s. The paltry amount of air that does exist on Mars is primarily composed of noxious carbon dioxide, which does little to protect the surface from the Sun’s harmful rays. Air pressure on Mars is very low; at 600 Pascals, it’s only about 0.6 percent that of Earth. You might as well be exposed to the vacuum of space, resulting in a severe form of the bends—including ruptured lungs, dangerously swollen skin and body tissue, and ultimately death. The thin atmosphere also means that heat cannot be retained at the surface. The average temperature on Mars is -81 degrees Fahrenheit (-63 degrees Celsius), with temperatures dropping as low as -195 degrees F (-126 degrees C).” Meanwhile, lunar dust is made of shards of silica and cuts like glass. The dust clung to the space suits of Apollo astronauts, scratching their visors and getting in their eyes and throats, which could result in bronchitis or cancer. And the radiation on the Moon is about 200 times higher than on Earth, in addition to other problems colonizing the Moon would cause humans. Humans would have a host of illnesses to deal with due to climate differences on Mars or the Moon: cancer, radiation illnesses, reproductive problems (or sterility), muscle degeneration, bone loss, skin burns, cardiovascular disease, depression, boredom, an inability to concentrate, high blood pressure, immune disorders, metabolic disorders, visual disorders, balance and sensorimotor problems, structural changes in the brain, nausea, dizziness, weakness, cognitive decline, and altered gene function, among others. Astronauts who have spent just a year in space have demonstrated irreversible health problems. Humans haven’t even attempted to live in Antarctica or under Earth’s seas, which have many fewer challenges for human bodies, so why would humans want to live on a planet or on the Moon that’s likely to kill them fairly immediately? **Background** While humans have long thought of gods living in the sky, the idea of space travel or humans living in space dates to at least 1610 after the invention of the telescope when German astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote to Italian astronomer Galileo: “Let us create vessels and sails adjusted to the heavenly ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes. In the meantime, we shall prepare, for the brave sky-travellers, maps of the celestial bodies.” [1] In popular culture, space travel dates back to at least the mid-1600s when Cyrano de Bergerac first wrote of traveling to space in a rocket. Space fantasies flourished after Jules Verne’s “From Earth to the Moon” was published in 1865, and again when RKO Pictures released a film adaptation, A Trip to the Moon, in 1902. Dreams of space settlement hit a zenith in the 1950s with Walt Disney productions such as “Man and the Moon,” and science fiction novels including Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (1950). [2] [3] [4] Fueling popular imagination at the time was the American space race with Russia, amid which NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was formed in the United States on July 29, 1958, when President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law. After the Russians put the first person, Yuri Gagarin, in space on Apr. 12, 1961, NASA put the first people, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the Moon in July 1969. What was science fiction began to look more like possibility. Over the next six decades, NASA would launch space stations, land rovers on Mars, and orbit Pluto and Jupiter, among other accomplishments. Launched by President Trump in 2017, NASA’s ongoing Artemis program intends to return humans to the Moon by 2024, landing the first woman on the lunar surface. The lunar launch is more likely to happen in 2025, due to a lag in space suit technology and delays with the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion capsule, and the lunar lander[5] [6] [7] [8] [36] As of June 17, 2021, three countries had space programs with human space flight capabilities: China, Russia, and the United States. India’s planned human space flights have been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but they may launch in 2023. However, NASA ended its space shuttle program in 2011 when the shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21. NASA astronauts going into space afterward rode along with Russians until 2020 when SpaceX took over and first launched NASA astronauts into space on Apr. 23, 2021. SpaceX is a commercial space travel business owned by Elon Musk that has ignited commercial space travel enthusiasm and the idea of “space tourism.” Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin have generated similar excitement. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Richard Branson launched himself, two pilots, and three mission specialists into space from New Mexico for a 90-minute flight on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission on July 11, 2021. The flight marked the first time that passengers, rather than astronauts, went into space. [14] [15] Jeff Bezos followed on July 20, 2021, accompanied by his brother, Mark, and both the oldest and youngest people to go to space: 82-year-old Wally Funk, a female pilot who tested with NASA in the 1960s but never flew, and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old student from the Netherlands. The fully automated, unpiloted Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launched on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and was named after Alan Shepard, who was the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961. [16] [17] On Apr. 8, 2022, a SpaceX capsule launched, carrying three paying customers and a former NASA astronaut on a roundtrip to the International Space Station (ISS). Mission AX-1 docked at the ISS on Apr. 9 with former NASA astronaut, current Axiom Space employee, and mission commander, Michael Lopez-Alegría, Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, Canadian investor Mark Pathy, and American real estate magnate Larry Connor. The group returned to Earth on Apr. 25, 2022. While this is not the first time paying customers or non-astronauts have traveled to ISS (Russia has sold Soyuz seats), this is the first American mission and the first with no government astronaut corps members. [38] [39] The International Space Station has been continuously occupied by groups of six astronauts since Nov. 2000, for a total of 243 astronauts from 19 countries as of May 13, 2021. Astronauts spend an average of 182 days (about six months) aboard the ISS. As of Feb. 2020, Russian Valery Polyakov had spent the longest continuous time in space (437.7 days in 1994-1995 on space station Mir), followed by Russian Sergei Avdeyev (379.6 days in 1998-1999 on Mir),  Russians Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov (365 days in 1987-1988 on Mir), American Mark Vande Hei (355 days on ISS) Russian Mikhail Kornienko and American Scott Kelly (340.4 days in 2015-2016 on Mir and ISS respectively), and American Christina Koch (328 days in 2019-20 in ISS). [18] [19] [40] In Jan. 2022, Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE) announced plans for a film production studio and a sports arena in space. The module will be named SEE-1 and will dock on Axiom Station, which is the commercial wing of the International Space Station. SEE plans to host film and sports events, as well as content creation by Dec. 2024. [37] In a 2018 poll, 50% of Americans believed space tourism will be routine for ordinary people by 2068. 32% believed long-term habitable space colonies will be built by 2068. But 58% said they were definitely or probably not interested in going to space. And the majority (63%) stated NASA’s top priority should be monitoring Earth’s climate, while only 18% said sending astronauts to Mars should be the highest priority and only 13% would prioritize sending astronauts to the Moon. [20] The most common ideas for space colonization include: settling Earth’s Moon, building on Mars, and constructing free-floating space stations.
# Is Obesity a Disease?' **Argument** Obesity is the result of sedentary lifestyles. Compared to 40 years ago, people today spend more time commuting, sitting in front of a computer, watching television, playing video games, and generally exercising less. In 1960 50% of jobs required moderate physical activity compared to just 20% of jobs in 2011; the other 80% in 2011 required little or no physical activity. This shift represents 120-140 fewer calories burned per day, which closely aligns with the nation’s overall weight gain trends. Men expended 142 fewer calories daily and weighed 32.8 pounds more in 2003-2006 than in 1960-1962, while women expended 124 fewer calories daily and weighed 25.13 pounds more in 2003-2006 than in 1960-1962. **Background** The United States is the second most obese industrialized country in the world. 39.6% of American adults in 2016 were obese, compared to 14% in the mid-1970s. Obesity accounts for 19.8% of deaths and 21% of healthcare spending in the United States. Proponents contend that obesity is a disease because it meets the definition of disease; it decreases life expectancy and impairs the normal functioning of the body; and it can be caused by genetic factors. Opponents contend that obesity is not a disease because it is a preventable risk factor for other diseases; is the result of eating too much; and is caused by exercising too little. Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** Students’ legal right to free expression remains intact even with mandatory school uniforms. The US Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (7-2, 1969), which concerned the wearing of black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, confirmed that students’ constitutional right to free speech “does not relate to regulation of the length of skirts or the type of clothing.” Wearing one’s own choice of shirt or pants is not the “pure speech” protected by the Constitution. In Canady v. Bossier Parish School Board (3-0, 2001), the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a school board’s right to implement a mandatory uniform policy, stating that requiring uniforms for the purpose of increasing test scores and improving discipline “is in no way related to the suppression of student speech. [Students] remain free to wear what they want after school hours. Students may still express their views through other mediums during the school day.” **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change?' **Argument** Natural changes in the sun’s activity cannot explain 20th century global warming. The amount of solar energy received by the earth goes up and down in cycles, but overall there is no net change since the 1950s. There has, however, been a big increase in global temperatures that is too large to attribute to the sun. For this reason, NASA and other scientists say the sun is not responsible for global warming.  The sun has had only a minor effect on the Northern Hemisphere climate over the past 1,000 years, and global warming from human-produced greenhouse gases has been the primary cause of climate change since 1900. A study found that solar activity could not have contributed to more than 10% of the observed global warming over the 20th century. **Background** Average surface temperatures on earth have risen more than 2°F over the past 100 years. During this time period, atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) have notably increased. This site explores the debate on whether climate change is caused by humans (also known as anthropogenic climate change). The pro side argues rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are a direct result of human activities such as burning fossil fuels, and that these increases are causing significant and increasingly severe climate changes including global warming, loss of sea ice, sea level rise, stronger storms, and more droughts. They contend that immediate international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to prevent dire climate changes. The con side argues human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are too small to substantially change the earth’s climate and that the planet is capable of absorbing those increases. They contend that warming over the 20th century resulted primarily from natural processes such as fluctuations in the sun’s heat and ocean currents. They say the theory of human-caused global climate change is based on questionable measurements, faulty climate models, and misleading science. Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** School uniforms restrict students’ freedom of expression. The First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees that all individuals have the right to express themselves freely. The US Supreme Court stated in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (7-2, 1969) that “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” In Sweden, a government agency called the School Inspectorate determined that uniforms were a human rights violation because “dress and appearance should be considered an individual expression, decided by the students themselves.” Clothing choices are “a crucial form of self-expression,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which also stated that “allowing students to choose their clothing is an empowering message from the schools that a student is a maturing person who is entitled to the most basic self-determination.” Uniforms take away the ability to use clothing as means of expressing support for social causes. Students at Friendly High School in Prince George’s County, MD, were not allowed to wear pink shirts to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month and 75 students received suspensions for breaking the school’s uniform restrictions. **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Do Standardized Tests Improve Education in America?' **Argument** Standardized tests offer meaningful data to help students in marginalized groups. Keri Rodrigues, Co-founder of the National Parents Union, explained, “If I don’t have testing data to make sure my child’s on the right track, I’m not able to intervene and say there is a problem and my child needs more. And the community can’t say this school is doing well, this teacher needs help to improve, or this system needs new leadership… It’s really important to have a statewide test because of the income disparity that exists in our society. Black and Brown excellence is real, but just because a kid lives in Dorchester [Massachusetts] does not make his or her life is less valuable than a child that lives in Wellesley [Massachusetts]. And it is unfair to say that just by luck of birth that a child born in Wellesley is somehow entitled to a higher-quality education… Testing is a tool for us to hold the system accountable to make sure our kids have what they need. ” Sheryl Lazarus, PhD, Director of the National Center on Educational Outcomes at the University of Minnesota, stated, “a real plus of these assessments is that they’ve really shone a light on the differences across sub-groups. And they have led to improvements in access to instruction for students with disabilities and English learners… Inclusion of students with disabilities and English learners in summative tests used for accountability allows us to measure how well the system is doing for these students, and then it is possible to fill in gaps in instructional opportunity.” Advocates for marginalized groups of students, whether by race, learning disability, or other difference, can use testing data to prove a problem exists and to help solve the problem via more funding, development of programs, or other solutions. Civil rights education lawsuits wherein a group is suing a local or state government for better education almost always use testing data. Chris Stewart, CEO of brightbeam, summarizes, “We only know that there’s a difference between White students and Black students and other students of color because we have the data. We only know about that because we have assessments.” A letter signed by 12 civil rights organizations including the NAACP and the American Association of University Women, explained, “Data obtained through some standardized tests are particularly important to the civil rights community because they are the only available, consistent, and objective source of data about disparities in educational outcomes, even while vigilance is always required to ensure tests are not misused. These data are used to advocate for greater resource equity in schools and more fair treatment for students of color, low-income students, students with disabilities, and English learners… [W]e cannot fix what we cannot measure. And abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools.” **Background** Standardized tests have been a part of American education since the mid-1800s. Their use skyrocketed after 2002’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated annual testing in all 50 states. US students slipped from being ranked 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 40th in 2015, and from 14th to 25th in science and from 15th to 24th in reading. Failures in the education system have been blamed on rising poverty levels, teacher quality, tenure policies, and, increasingly, on the pervasive use of standardized tests. Proponents argue that standardized tests offer an objective measurement of education and a good metric to gauge areas for improvement, as well as offer meaningful data to help students in marginalized groups, and that the scores are good indicators of college and job success. They argue standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations. Opponents argue that standardized tests only determine which students are good at taking tests, offer no meaningful measure of progress, and have not improved student performance, and that the tests are racist, classist, and sexist, with scores that are not predictors of future success. They argue standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations. Read more background…
# Should Abortion Be Legal?' **Argument** Life begins at conception, making abortion murder. Conception is the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell, which begins the process of cell division that creates a human. Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, stated, “life begins from the moment of conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg, because there is the creation of a new, totally distinct, integrated organism or a human being, which is going to be biologically distinct from all other life forms on this planet.” The first cell is biologically distinct because it has its own DNA that is different from either biological parent and all other humans. Ending a life is murder legally and ethically, even a life that is only a few growing cells at the time of death. Pope Francis explained, “Abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill…. At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware (of being pregnant), all the organs are already (starting to develop). It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear…. Scientifically, it is a human life.” That people may face difficulties without abortion as an option does not excuse or justify murder. A reader of The Atlantic, who gave only the initial K., clarified the moral dilemma: “I wish that I could be pro-choice because the awful circumstances so many women face—that I can’t even imagine facing—seem so much more real to me than the rights of a fetus who doesn’t even always look human. But abortion is the intentional killing of a human being and we look back with horror at anyone in history who decided a group of people did not actually count as people. We cannot solve the problem of injustice against women with more injustice. We need solutions that support women without killing fetuses.” **Background** The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests. Proponents of legal abortion believe abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives, while abortion bans endanger pregnant people not seeking abortions, and deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions. Opponents of legal abortion believe abortion is murder because life begins at conception, that abortion creates a culture in which life is disposable, and that increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.Read more background…
# Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change?' **Argument** Increased hurricane activity and other extreme weather events are a result of natural weather patterns, not human-caused climate change. According to a report from the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University, the increase in human-produced CO2 over the past century has had “little or no significant effect” on global tropical cyclone activity. The report stated that specific hurricanes, including Sandy, Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and Ike, were not a direct consequence of human-caused global warming. Between 1995-2015, increased hurricane activity (including Katrina) was recorded; however, according to the NOAA, this was the result of cyclical tropical cyclone patterns driven primarily by natural ocean currents. Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Judith Curry, PhD, stated that she was “unconvinced by any of the arguments that I have seen that attributes a single extreme weather event, a cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme weather events” to human-caused climate change.  Experts have noted that many factors beyond climate change are to blame for events such as wildfires, including failed policies on clearing brush, too much population density, and people who set the fires either deliberately or through carelessness. **Background** Average surface temperatures on earth have risen more than 2°F over the past 100 years. During this time period, atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) have notably increased. This site explores the debate on whether climate change is caused by humans (also known as anthropogenic climate change). The pro side argues rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are a direct result of human activities such as burning fossil fuels, and that these increases are causing significant and increasingly severe climate changes including global warming, loss of sea ice, sea level rise, stronger storms, and more droughts. They contend that immediate international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to prevent dire climate changes. The con side argues human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are too small to substantially change the earth’s climate and that the planet is capable of absorbing those increases. They contend that warming over the 20th century resulted primarily from natural processes such as fluctuations in the sun’s heat and ocean currents. They say the theory of human-caused global climate change is based on questionable measurements, faulty climate models, and misleading science. Read more background…
# Animal Dissection - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Medical studies do not require or benefit from animal dissection. Animal dissection is not required by the College Board for AP Biology, the International Baccalaureate for IB Biology, or the Next Generation Science Standards. The inclusion of dissection units actually dissuades some students from taking elective science classes. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says that “Animal dissection is not required for students to learn about and be engaged in science.” The group found that no medical schools in the US or Canada use animals to train new physicians; revered medical programs at schools such as Stanford, Yale, Harvard, and the Mayo Clinic all use alternatives to animals. Nedim C. Buyukmihci, Professor of Ophthalmology at the Veterinary Medicine School of the University of California at Davis, stated, “As one who did not dissect in high school, and who now is a veterinarian and trains doctors-to-be, I can unequivocally state that the experience of dissection is totally unnecessary for the biologically minded precollege student.” **Background** Dissecting a frog might be one of the most memorable school experiences for many students, whether they are enthusiastic participants, prefer lab time to lectures, or are conscientious objectors to dissection. The use of animal dissection in education goes back as far as the 1500s when Belgian doctor Andreas Vesalius used the practice as an instructional method for his medical students. [1] Animal dissections became part of American K-12 school curricula in the 1920s. About 75-80% of North American students will dissect an animal by the time they graduate high school. An estimated six to 12 million animals are dissected in American schools each year. In at least 21 states and DC, K-12 students have the legal option to request an alternate assignment to animal dissection. [2] [3] [27] While frogs are the most common animal for K-12 students to dissect, students also encounter fetal pigs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, minks, birds, turtles, snakes, crayfish, perch, starfish, and earthworms, as well as grasshoppers and other insects. Sometimes students dissect parts of animals such as sheep lungs, cows’ eyes, and bull testicles. [2] Are animal dissections in K-12 schools crucial learning opportunities that encourage science careers and make good use of dead animals? Or are animal dissections unnecessary experiments that promote environmental damage when ethical alternatives exist?
# Is Golf a Sport?' **Argument** Golf does not require enough physical exertion to meet the definition of sport. Burning 360 calories per hour playing golf without a cart or caddie is far less than the number of calories burned per hour in competitive sports: 900 in soccer, and 727 in football, basketball, and tennis. Nearly half of the maximum calories burned while playing golf are from walking the course and carrying the clubs, but the US Supreme Court ruled that walking is not an essential aspect of golf. In PGA Tour v. Martin (2001), the justices ruled 7-2 that the pro tour had to allow a golfer with a disability to use a golf cart because it would not “fundamentally alter the nature” of the activity. Using a cart while playing golf reduces the number of calories burned by 42% percent (from 721 to 411 for nine holes). Professional golfers are sometimes overweight, old, or out of shape, and their caddies carry the equipment for them. There is no running, jumping, or cardiovascular activity in golf. Many pro golfers smoked while playing (Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Fuzzy Zoeller) or smoked and drank while playing (John Daly). If an activity does not make you break a sweat, or if it can be done while drinking and smoking, then it is not a sport. Golf was ranked 51 out of 60 activities by a panel of sports scientists, athletes, and journalists assembled by ESPN. They ranked the athletic difficulty of 60 activities based on ten categories such as endurance, agility, and strength. The panel determined that the level of athleticism in golf ranked lower than ping pong and just ahead of roller skating. Golf is simply good exercise and does not require enough physical exertion to be a sport. For elderly male golfers, an 18-hole game is moderate to high intensity, however the game requires only moderate exercise for middle-aged men and is low intensity for young men. Regardless of age, all golfers perceived their exercise as weak to moderate. A far cry from the sweat dripping off of athletes like basketball players. **Background** Golf in the United States is a $70 billion annual industry with 24.1 million players. A 2016 poll by Public Policy Polling found that nineteen percent of Americans call themselves golf fans, down from twenty-three percent in 2015. The debate over whether golf is a sport rages on the internet, in bars, amongst sportswriters, and even on the golf course. Read more background…
# Is Social Media Good for Society?' **Argument** Social media can endanger the military, journalists, and activists. The US Army notes that checking in with location based services on social media like Foursquare or Facebook could expose sensitive whereabouts and endanger military personnel and operations. In 2015 a freelance journalist and activist was executed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for reporting on life under the regime via Facebook. In 2015 and 2016, a number of Bangladeshi bloggers who posted their thoughts on atheism on social media were killed by religious fundamentalists who opposed their postings. In 2011, a blogger was found murdered by a Mexican cartel with the note “this happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn’t report things on the social networks.” **Background** Around seven out of ten Americans (72%) use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, up from 26% in 2008. [26] [189]. On social media sites, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more. Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly. Opponents of social networking say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter children’s brains and behavior making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burglars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information. Read more background…
# Should Churches (Including Mosques, Synagogues, etc.) Remain Tax-Exempt?' **Argument** The only constitutionally valid way of taxing churches would be to tax all nonprofits, which would place undue financial pressure on the 960,000 public charities that aid and enrich US society. If only churches were taxed, government would be treating churches differently, purely because of their religious nature. **Background** US churches* received an official federal income tax exemption in 1894, and they have been unofficially tax-exempt since the country’s founding. All 50 US states and the District of Columbia exempt churches from paying property tax. Donations to churches are tax-deductible. The debate continues over whether or not these tax benefits should be retained. Proponents argue that a tax exemption keeps government out of church finances and upholds the separation of church and state. They say that churches deserve a tax break because they provide crucial social services, and that 200 years of church tax exemptions have not turned America into a theocracy. Opponents argue that giving churches special tax exemptions violates the separation of church and state, and that tax exemptions are a privilege, not a constitutional right. They say that in tough economic times the government cannot afford what amounts to a subsidy worth billions of dollars every year. Read more background…
# Is a College Education Worth It?' **Argument** The children of college graduates are healthier and more prepared for school. A Lancet medical journal study from 1970 to 2009 showed college graduates had lower infant mortality rates than high school graduates. Mothers with only a high school education are 31% more likely to give birth to a low-birth-weight baby than a woman with a college degree. Children aged 2 to 5 years old in households headed by college graduates have a 6% obesity rate compared to 14% for children in households headed by high school graduates. 18% more children aged 3 to 5 years old with mothers who have a bachelor’s degree could recognize all letters compared to children of high school graduates. In 2010, 59% of children in elementary and middle school with at least one college graduate for a parent participated in after-school activities like sports, arts, and scouting compared 27% for high school graduate parents. **Background** People who argue that college is worth it contend that college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger salaries, and more work benefits than high school graduates. They say college graduates also have better interpersonal skills, live longer, have healthier children, and have proven their ability to achieve a major milestone. People who argue that college is not worth it contend that the debt from college loans is too high and delays graduates from saving for retirement, buying a house, or getting married. They say many successful people never graduated from college and that many jobs, especially trades jobs, do not require college degrees. Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** Uniform policies save valuable class time because they are easier to enforce than a standard dress code. Doris Jo Murphy, EdD, former Director of Field Experiences at the University of North Texas College of Education, stated: “As an elementary assistant principal in two suburban districts, I can tell you that the dress code took up a great deal of my time in the area of discipline… I wished many times that we had uniforms because the issue of skirts or shorts being too short, and baggy jeans and pants on the boys not being pulled up as they needed to be, would have been a non-issue.” Lyndhurst, NJ school district superintendent Tracey Marinelli had a similar experience before a uniform policy was introduced: “Kids were spending time in the office because they were not fulfilling the dress code… That was time away from class.” **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Should Vaccines Be Required for Children?' **Argument** Vaccines can contain ingredients some people consider immoral or otherwise objectionable. Some DTaP/IPV/Hib combination, Hep A/Hep B combination, HepA, MMR, and chickenpox vaccines are cultivated in cells from two fetuses aborted in the 1960s (listed as and on package inserts). The Catholic Church, in a report about using vaccines made using cells from aborted fetuses, indicated that “there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines” to avoid the “evil” of actively or passively participating in anything that involves voluntary abortion. Some vaccines for DTaP, Hep A, RV, Hib, HPV, IPV, flu, MMR, and chickenpox are made using animal products like , , , , , and cells from , making those vaccines conflict with some vegetarian and vegan philosophies. Others consider it problematic that some vaccines are produced using , a blood plasma protein. **Background** Vaccines have been in the news over the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To date no state has yet added the COVID-19 vaccine to their required vaccinations roster. On Sep. 9, 2021, Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country, mandated the COVID-19 vaccine for students ages 12 and up by Jan. 10, 2022 (pushed back to fall 2022 in Dec. 2021), the first in the country to mandate the coronavirus vaccine. On Oct. 1, 2021, Governor Newsom stated the COVID-19 vaccine would be mandated for all schoolchildren once approved by the FDA. However, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends getting 29 doses of 9 other vaccines (plus a yearly flu shot after six months old) for kids aged 0 to six. No US federal laws mandate vaccination, but all 50 states require certain vaccinations for children entering public schools. Most states offer medical and religious exemptions; and some states allow philosophical exemptions. Proponents say that vaccination is safe and one of the greatest health developments of the 20th century. They point out that illnesses, including rubella, diphtheria, smallpox, polio, and whooping cough, are now prevented by vaccination and millions of children’s lives are saved. They contend adverse reactions to vaccines are extremely rare. Opponents say that children’s immune systems can deal with most infections naturally, and that injecting questionable vaccine ingredients into a child may cause side effects, including seizures, paralysis, and death. They contend that numerous studies prove that vaccines may trigger problems like ADHD and diabetes. Read more background…
# Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?' **Argument** Medical breakthroughs involving animal research may still have been made without the use of animals. Devoting enough money and resources to animal-free alternatives could result in the same medical advances achieved through animal testing. Humane Research Australia (HRA) reports that many discoveries made by non-animal methods were later verified by animal experiments, “giving false credit” to animal use. **Background** An estimated 26 million animals are used every year in the United States for scientific and commercial testing. Animals are used to develop medical treatments, determine the toxicity of medications, check the safety of products destined for human use, and other biomedical, commercial, and health care uses. Research on living animals has been practiced since at least 500 BC. Proponents of animal testing say that it has enabled the development of many life-saving treatments for both humans and animals, that there is no alternative method for researching a complete living organism, and that strict regulations prevent the mistreatment of animals in laboratories. Opponents of animal testing say that it is cruel and inhumane to experiment on animals, that alternative methods available to researchers can replace animal testing, and that animals are so different from human beings that research on animals often yields irrelevant results. Read more background…
# Is a College Education Worth It?' **Argument** College education has a high return as an investment. Return on investment (ROI) is calculated by dividing the gain from an investment (here the money earned as a result of a college degree) by the cost of the investment (the money spent on a college degree). A college degree has a return of 15% per year as an investment, larger than the stock market (6.8%) and housing (0.4%). Completing some college, but not earning a degree, resulted in a 9.1% return on investment. If a student spent $17,860 (the average cost of tuition and room and board in 2012-2013 for four years at a public university ), that student could expect a 15% return of $2,679 each year. According to a 2011 Pew Research survey, 86% of college graduates believed college was a good personal investment. **Background** People who argue that college is worth it contend that college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger salaries, and more work benefits than high school graduates. They say college graduates also have better interpersonal skills, live longer, have healthier children, and have proven their ability to achieve a major milestone. People who argue that college is not worth it contend that the debt from college loans is too high and delays graduates from saving for retirement, buying a house, or getting married. They say many successful people never graduated from college and that many jobs, especially trades jobs, do not require college degrees. Read more background…
# Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?' **Argument** Playing violent video games causes more aggression, bullying, and fighting. 60% of middle school boys and 40% of middle school girls who played at least one Mature-rated (M-rated) game hit or beat up someone, compared with 39% of boys and 14% of girls who did not play M-rated games. A 2014 peer-reviewed study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that habitual violent video game playing had a causal link with increased, long-term, aggressive behavior. Several peer-reviewed studies have shown that children who play M-rated games are more likely to bully and cyberbully their peers, get into physical fights, be hostile, argue with teachers, and show aggression towards their peers throughout the school year. **Background** Around 73% of American kids age 2-17 played video games in 2019, a 6% increase over 2018. Video games accounted for 17% of kids’ entertainment time and 11% of their entertainment spending. The global video game industry was worth contributing $159.3 billion in 2020, a 9.3% increase of 9.3% from 2019. Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence towards women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for simulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts. Video game advocates contend that a majority of the research on the topic is deeply flawed and that no causal relationship has been found between video games and social violence. They argue that violent video games may provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and may reduce crime. Read more background…
# CBD for Pets - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Studies about CBD use in pets have had positive results. A clinical trial found that 89% of dogs who were given CBD oil experienced fewer seizures. Researchers at Cornell University who performed a double-blind cross-over trial on dogs with osteoarthritis found “a significant decrease in pain and increase in activity” with CBD oil. There were no observed side effects from the CBD treatment. Studies on laboratory animals have shown benefits for cardiovascular health, the respiratory system, and cancer and pain treatment. While experts acknowledge that research in this area is preliminary, they speak positively about the results to date. Stephanie McGrath, DVM, neurologist at Colorado State University’s James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital, stated, “We saw a correlation between how high the levels of CBD were in these dogs with how great the seizure reduction was. It’s really exciting that perhaps we can start looking at CBD in the future as an alternative to existing anticonvulsive drugs.” **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action When people talk about giving marijuana to pets, they are really talking about the use of CBD products derived from hemp. The California Veterinary Medical Board explains that CBD is the “abbreviation for cannabidiol, which is one out of 60 naturally occurring compounds present in cannabis. It is the second-most prevalent cannabinoid in both hemp and marijuana and is nonpsychoactive.” CBD extracted from hemp contains less than 0.3% THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the compound in marijuana that causes the high. [1] THC is toxic for cats and dogs even in small amounts. The ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center reported a 765% increase in calls regarding animals ingesting marijuana from 2018 to 2019.[27] In 2020, pet owners spent about $99 billion on their furry friends, a growth of 12 times over 2019 as more people worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The market for CBD products aimed at companion animals jumped from $32 million in 2018 to $400 million in 2019. During the pandemic, in 2020 sales rose to $426 million and are expected to jump to $629 million in 2021.[2] [3] [34] [35] A survey found that 11% of dog owners and 8% of cat owners gave CBD to their pets in 2019, often in the form of pet treats, tinctures administered under the tongue, and salves or creams applied topically. Reasons cited for giving CBD to companion animals included caring for aging pets and treating conditions such as anxiety, pain, and seizures. [7] [8] [9] [10]
# Was Bill Clinton a Good President?' **Argument** Social Policy: Clinton neglected to take to steps to restructure Social Security and Medicare. In anticipation of the upcoming Baby Boom generation retiring and drawing heavily on those social services, Clinton should have worked to secure those programs. In a June 20, 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, he admitted “I’m sorry on the home front that we didn’t get healthcare and that we didn’t reform Social Security.” **Background** William Jefferson Clinton, known as Bill Clinton, served as the 42nd President of the United States from Jan. 20, 1993 to Jan. 19, 2001. His proponents contend that under his presidency the US enjoyed the lowest unemployment and inflation rates in recent history, high home ownership, low crime rates, and a budget surplus. They give him credit for eliminating the federal deficit and reforming welfare, despite being forced to deal with a Republican-controlled Congress. His opponents say that Clinton cannot take credit for the economic prosperity experienced during his scandal-plagued presidency because it was the result of other factors. In fact, they blame his policies for the financial crisis that began in 2007. They point to his impeachment by Congress and his failure to pass universal health care coverage as further evidence that he was not a good president. Read more background…
# Is Social Media Good for Society?' **Argument** Social media can help disarm social stigmas. The Sticks and Stones campaign uses Twitter to reduce stigmas surrounding mental health and learning disabilities. The Stigma Project uses Facebook to “lower the HIV infection rate and neutralize stigma through education via social media and advertising.” Gay people speaking openly on social media, like Facebook site Wipe Out Homophobia, help achieve a greater social acceptance of homosexuality. Jenny Lawson, author of the blog “The Bloggess” and New York Times bestseller Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, has made public her struggles with OCD, depression, and anxiety disorders, which has lessened the stigma of the diseases for others. **Background** Around seven out of ten Americans (72%) use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, up from 26% in 2008. [26] [189]. On social media sites, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more. Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly. Opponents of social networking say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter children’s brains and behavior making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burglars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information. Read more background…
# Should Birth Control Pills Be Available Over the Counter (OTC)?' **Argument** Tying prescription birth control to a visit with a medical professional results in additional screenings, tests, and conversations that promote overall good health. When the Pill is available by prescription only, a doctor usually requires a well-woman exam every one or three years in order to obtain or maintain a birth control prescription. The examination generally includes a pap smear (the test for cervical cancer that may be combined with HPV screening), a breast exam, and pelvic exam that, among other things, screens for ovarian cancer and STIs. Additionally, these yearly exams are a good opportunity to check in with the doctor about general wellness and other preventative screenings. Further, at least 14% of women on the Pill are using the drug exclusively for noncontraceptive reasons, such as acne and irregular menstrual cycles. That’s at least 1.5 million women who could be self-diagnosing medical conditions in a drug store aisle without medical help. **Background** Of the 72.2 million American women of reproductive age, 64.9% use a contraceptive. Of those, 9.1 million (12.6% of contraceptive users) use birth control pills, which are the second most commonly used method of contraception in the United States after female sterilization (aka tubal ligation or “getting your tubes tied”). The Pill is currently available by prescription only, and a debate has emerged about whether the birth control pill should be available over-the-counter (OTC), which means the Pill would be available along with other drugs such as Tylenol and Benadryl in drug store aisles. Since 1976, more than 90 drugs have switched from prescription to OTC status, including Sudafed (1976), Advil (1984), Rogaine (1996), Prilosec (2003), and Allegra (2011). Read more background…
# Saturday Halloween - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Moving Halloween to Saturday would allow kids more time to be mischievous. Halloween has historically always been a night of pranks. Celebrations in Colonial America included “mischief-making of all kinds,” according to History.com. These days, kids might toss toilet paper in trees, jump out to scare people, or drink while underage. Amarjeet Sidhu, a seventh grader at the time of this quote, stated, “I think that Halloween should always be celebrated on the 31st. If it is celebrated on Saturdays, kids would go out late at night and put graffiti on signs, smash pumpkins and egg houses. I know this from experience. It won’t feel right if Halloween is not on Oct. 31.” Many kids don’t realize that pranks they think of as harmless could actually get them arrested for vandalism or assault. Some less serious pranks are still subject to community service or monetary penalties. When Halloween is on a Saturday, kids are able to stay out later causing trouble. If Halloween were always on a Saturday, they could get into the annual habit of coming up with dangerous pranks. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action Halloween takes place on Oct. 31 regardless of the day of the week. In 2021, Halloween is on a Sunday. In 2020, Halloween fell on a Saturday, though the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic led many jurisdictions to adapt or cancel traditional activities. [33] According to tradition, children in the United States dress up in costumes and go door-to-door in their neighborhoods saying “trick or treat” to receive candy. Some would like to see Halloween held on a Saturday every year for safety reasons, and petitioned President Trump via change.org. However, others point out that the federal government doesn’t have the ability to make that change because Halloween isn’t a federal holiday. [1] [2] [3] About 172 million Americans celebrated Halloween in 2019. The top costumes for kids were princess, superhero, Batman, a Star Wars character, and a witch. Almost 17% of Americans buy costumes for their pets, with the top choices being pumpkins, hot dogs, and bumblebees. Americans spent an estimated $8.8 billion, or $86.27 per person, in 2019 on Halloween goods such as candy to hand out, decorations, costumes, and pumpkins. [34] Fewer Americans celebrated Halloween in 2020 (148 million), likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures, however those who did celebrate spent more individually on their festivities at $92.12 per person, or about $8.0 billion total. Top kids’ costumes were princess, Spiderman, superhero, ghost, and Batman. [35] In 2021, experts expect consumers to spend a record $10.14 billion as more people plan to hand out candy or attend parties than in 2020. [36]
# Bottled Water Bans - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Other types of beverages have plastic containers that are more harmful than plastic water bottles, and bans don't necessarily reduce waste. Plastic water bottles contain much less polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic than soft drink bottles that require a thicker plastic container due to the drinks’ carbonation – 9.89 grams of PET v. 23.9 grams for a 16.9oz bottle. A study by Quantis found that between 2007 and 2015, bottled water providers reduced the amount of material used in 8oz-2.5 gallon plastic water bottles by 42.8% – PET plastic is the most common material used in these bottles. Another study by Quantis, commissioned by Nestlé Waters, found that the packaging and distribution of “sports drinks, enhanced waters and soda produce nearly 50% more carbon dioxide emissions per serving than bottled water.” Plastic water bottles make up 3.3% of all drink packaging in US landfills, which is less than both plastic carbonated soft drink containers (13.3%) and aluminum cans (7.9%). A study on the University of Vermont’s ban on selling single-use plastic water bottles found that total shipments of plastic bottles actually increased 20% as consumers increased their consumption of less healthy bottled beverages rather than switching to using reusable bottles and drinking from water fountains. **Background** Americans consumed 14.4 billion gallons of bottled water in 2019, up 3.6% from 2018, in what has been a steadily increasing trend since 2010. In 2016, bottled water outsold soda for the first time and has continued to do so every year since, making it the number one packaged beverage in the United States. 2020 revenue for bottled water was $61.326 million by June 15, and the overall market is expected to grow to $505.19 billion by 2028. [50] [51] [52] Globally, about 20,000 plastic bottles were bought every second in 2017, the majority of which contained drinking water. More than half of those bottles were not turned in for recycling, and of those recycled, only 7% were turned into new bottles. [49] In 2013, Concord, MA, became the first US city to ban single-serve plastic water bottles, citing environmental and waste concerns. Since then, many cities, colleges, entertainment venues, and national parks have followed suit, including San Francisco, the University of Vermont, the Detroit Zoo, and the Grand Canyon National Park. [17] [26] [44]
# Was Bill Clinton a Good President?' **Argument** Environment: Clinton’s pro-environmental policies included preserving 4.6 million acres of land in national monuments, strengthening the Safe Drinking Water Act, and enacting tougher emissions and energy efficiency standards. The communities of more than 44 million Americans were brought up to clean air standards during his presidency. The Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department prosecuted 241 environmental-related crimes in 1999, more than twice as many as in 1992, the year before Clinton took office. **Background** William Jefferson Clinton, known as Bill Clinton, served as the 42nd President of the United States from Jan. 20, 1993 to Jan. 19, 2001. His proponents contend that under his presidency the US enjoyed the lowest unemployment and inflation rates in recent history, high home ownership, low crime rates, and a budget surplus. They give him credit for eliminating the federal deficit and reforming welfare, despite being forced to deal with a Republican-controlled Congress. His opponents say that Clinton cannot take credit for the economic prosperity experienced during his scandal-plagued presidency because it was the result of other factors. In fact, they blame his policies for the financial crisis that began in 2007. They point to his impeachment by Congress and his failure to pass universal health care coverage as further evidence that he was not a good president. Read more background…
# Should the US Government Regulate Prescription Drug Prices?' **Argument** Too many companies with too many private interests are involved in drug pricing, resulting in high prices and limited access to important drugs due to corporate greed. Drug prices are first set by drug companies that have an interest in recouping R&D costs and raising corporate revenues. Drug costs are then negotiated by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which are private companies interested in profit. PBMs keep a portion of the rebate, which were negotiated without public disclosure, and some health insurance companies reported that they saw none of the rebates. Then consumer drug prices are set by insurance companies that want to increase their bottom lines. Without government regulation, drug prices can be increased by the drug company, rebates can be withheld by the PBMs, and insurance companies can refuse to cover a drug, leaving the patient with few options. EpiPen, a life-saving drug for patients who experience severe allergic reactions to things like bee stings and certain foods, contains about $1 worth of epinephrine and cost about $57 in 2007. The price jumped 400% when the drug company Mylan acquired the drug the same year, raising the cost to $500 or more. Even an insured patient could pay upwards of $400. Raising the price allowed the drug to account for 40% of Mylan’s operating profits in 2015. Millionaire Martin Shkreli was dubbed the “most hated man in America” for raising the price of Daraprim, an AIDS drug, from $13.50 a pill to $750. And other drugs have seen similar increases. Why did drug companies raise the costs of these drugs? As journalist Emily Willingham stated, “because they could.” Life-sustaining and life-saving medications should not be subject to the whims of corporations and millionaires. [20] [22] **Background** With 79% of Americans saying prescription drug costs are “unreasonable,” and 70% reporting lowering prescription drug costs as their highest healthcare priority, the popular prescription drug debate is not whether drug costs should be reduce but how to reduce prescription drug costs. One consideration is whether the United States federal government should regulate prescription drug prices. [1] A prescription drug is a medication that may only be obtained with a medical professional’s recommendation and authorization. In some US states, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, clinical psychologists, and other medical professionals are permitted to write prescriptions in addition to doctors. Prescription drugs are generally divided into two categories: brand-name drugs and generic drugs. [2] [3] In the United States, drug companies (also called pharmaceutical companies) set prescription drug prices, which are largely unregulated by the US federal government. Some drug companies will be familiar due to their names being attached to COVID-19 vaccines or other common products: Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, for example. Others may not be household names but command large portions of the market nonetheless: Swiss companies Roche and Novartis, to name two. [4] Read more background…
# Should More Gun Control Laws Be Enacted?' **Argument** Gun control laws are racist. Current gun control laws are frequently aimed at inner city, poor, black communities who are perceived as more dangerous than white gun owners. Charles Gallagher, MA, PhD, the Chair of Sociology at LaSalle University, stated that some gun control laws are still founded on racial fears: “Whites walking down Main Street with an AK-47 are defenders of American values; a black man doing the same thing is Public Enemy No. 1.” In the late 1960s, gun control laws were enacted in reaction to the militant, gun-carrying Black Panthers. Adam Winkler, MA, JD, UCLA Constitutional Law Professor, stated “The KKK began as a gun-control organization. Before the Civil War, blacks were never allowed to own guns” so, after the Civil War, there was “constant pressure among white racists to keep guns out of the hands of African Americans because they would rise up and revolt.” In Virginia, in response to Nat Turner’s Rebellion (also called the Southampton Rebellion, in which slaves killed 55 to 65 people in the most fatal slave uprising in the United States) in 1831, a law was passed that prohibited free black people “to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead and all laws allowing free black people to possess firearms were repealed. . **Background** The United States has 120.5 guns per 100 people, or about 393,347,000 guns, which is the highest total and per capita number in the world. 22% of Americans own one or more guns (35% of men and 12% of women). America’s pervasive gun culture stems in part from its colonial history, revolutionary roots, frontier expansion, and the Second Amendment, which states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Proponents of more gun control laws state that the Second Amendment was intended for militias; that gun violence would be reduced; that gun restrictions have always existed; and that a majority of Americans, including gun owners, support new gun restrictions. Opponents say that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns; that guns are needed for self-defense from threats ranging from local criminals to foreign invaders; and that gun ownership deters crime rather than causes more crime. Read more background…
# Net Neutrality - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Net neutrality preserves free speech on the internet by prohibiting internet service providers from blocking content. ISPs may slow or block websites that disagree with the companies’ political viewpoints or interfere with their monetary interests. In 2017, then FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, JD, stated that the removal of net neutrality rules will give ISPs “extraordinary new power” and allow them “to censor online content.” According to the 2014 D.C. Circuit court ruling, Verizon v. FCC, the power of ISPs to censor content is not “merely theoretical.” Before net neutrality was in place, instances of content censorship actually occurred, including two separate instances of broadband ISPs blocking access to voice over IP applications, and one instance of an ISP blocking an online payment service. In 2014, President Obama stated that “an open Internet… has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known,” and that if content is legal your ISP should not be allowed to block it. The Electronic Freedom Foundation has argued that, “the meaningful exercise of our constitutional rights—including the freedoms of speech, assembly, and press—has become dependent on broadband Internet access.” This dependency makes net neutrality rules essential for a free society. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action The net neutrality rules adopted in 2015 under the Obama administration regulated the internet as a common carrier, the same category as telephone service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules prevented internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking, slowing, prioritizing, or charging consumers extra money to access certain websites. For example, under net neutrality rules, Verizon could not speed up access to websites it owns, such as Yahoo and AOL, and could not slow down traffic, or charge extra fees, to other major websites like Google or YouTube. [5] [4] On Dec. 14, 2017, under the Trump administration, the FCC voted (3-2) to overturn those net neutrality rules and reclassified internet service as an information source, rather than a common carrier. [1] [5] Many state attorneys general filed suit against the FCC decision. The US Senate voted 52-47 to approve a resolution to invalidate the decision, however the legislation fell short by 46 votes in the US House of Representatives. The FCC’s removal of net neutrality rules was officially implemented on June 11, 2018. [6] [25] [26] [34] In Sep. 2018, California passed a net neutrality law and was immediately sued by the Trump Administration Justice Department. On Feb. 8, 2021, the Biden administration Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit against California, and FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel indicated support for reinstating net neutrality rules. [35] [36] According to the National Law Review, as of Mar. 1, 2021, “seven states have adopted net neutrality laws (California, Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington), and several other states have introduced some form of net neutrality legislation in the 2021 legislative session (among them Connecticut, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, and South Carolina).” [37] Should the US Have Net Neutrality Laws? Pro 1 Net neutrality preserves free speech on the internet by prohibiting internet service providers from blocking content. ISPs may slow or block websites that disagree with the companies’ political viewpoints or interfere with their monetary interests. [2][7] In 2017, then FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, JD, stated that the removal of net neutrality rules will give ISPs “extraordinary new power” and allow them “to censor online content.” [8] According to the 2014 D.C. Circuit court ruling, Verizon v. FCC, the power of ISPs to censor content is not “merely theoretical.” Before net neutrality was in place, instances of content censorship actually occurred, including two separate instances of broadband ISPs blocking access to voice over IP applications, and one instance of an ISP blocking an online payment service. [15] In 2014, President Obama stated that “an open Internet… has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known,” and that if content is legal your ISP should not be allowed to block it. [33] The Electronic Freedom Foundation has argued that, “the meaningful exercise of our constitutional rights—including the freedoms of speech, assembly, and press—has become dependent on broadband Internet access.” This dependency makes net neutrality rules essential for a free society. [16] Read More Pro 2 Net neutrality protects consumers by preventing ISPs from speeding, slowing, or charging higher fees for select online content. Allowing ISPs to speed or slow certain websites, or charge fees for fast lane access, may eventually trickle down to consumers in the form of higher internet costs. For example, a person who gets their internet service from Comcast could be charged extra fees to stream Netflix or Amazon (companies not owned by Comcast), while not being charged extra to stream NBC or Hulu (two companies that Comcast partially owns). [21] According to US Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), without net neutrality, ISPs could “cabel-ize” the internet, meaning that “instead of paying a flat price for access to use any app or service free of charge, companies could start bundling services into ‘social,’ ‘video,’ and so on,” and consumers will have to pay for it. [23] On Apr. 27, 2017, one day after then FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, JD, announced the plan to eliminate net neutrality, Comcast (the largest US ISP) removed its pledge to not “prioritize internet traffic or create paid fast lanes” from its corporate website. [20][11] Read More Pro 3 Net neutrality promotes competition by providing a level playing field for new companies. According to former Internet Association President & CEO Michael Beckerman, “without net neutrality protections, startups would face discrimination from ISP owned or preferred content that’s granted a speed advantage through paid prioritization,” thus hurting competition and consumer choice. [18][29] When the FCC implemented net neutrality rules in 2015, it warned “that broadband providers hold all the tools necessary” to “degrade content, or disfavor the content that they don’t like.” [27] According to Ryan Singel, Fellow at the the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, without net neutrality “broadband providers will be allowed to charge all websites and services, including startups, simply to reach an ISP’s subscribers. That’s a huge threat to the low cost of starting a company, and it totally up-ends the economics of the internet.” [17] A group of over 1,000 startup companies, innovators, and investors signed a petition to the FCC stating that “the success of America’s startup ecosystem depends… on an open Internet—including enforceable net neutrality rules.” [19] Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, MBA, said net neutrality principles must be protected “for the next set of entrepreneurs, building their services and trying to reach users.” [24] Read More Con 1 Net neutrality regulations are unnecessary because the internet developed amazingly well in their absence. Most large internet companies including Google (1998), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006) were started and grew to success without net neutrality regulations. According to former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, JD, “the internet wasn’t broken in 2015,” when net neutrality was implemented and “it certainly wasn’t heavy-handed government regulation” that was responsible for the “phenomenal development of the internet.” [9] As former FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly stated, “periods without net neutrality rules were times of innovation and investment.” [12] According to economist John W. Mayo, PhD, the entire rationale for net neutrality ignores the “positive economic outcomes in the provision of internet services that resulted from twenty years of light-touch regulation.” [32] As economist Gerald R. Faulhaber, PhD, argued: “we have had a decade of experience with broadband ISPs with little evidence of wrongdoing.” [3] A 2017 statement from the Internet & Television Association, signed by 21 large ISPs, stated they remain “committed to an open internet” and “will not block, throttle or otherwise impair your online activity,” once net neutrality regulations are removed. [14] Read More Con 2 Net neutrality created burdensome and overreaching regulations to govern the internet. According to the bipartisan Telecommunications Act of 1996, “the Internet and other interactive computer services have flourished, to the benefit of all Americans, with a minimum of government regulation,” and it should be the policy of the United States “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market… for the Internet and other interactive computer services unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” [32] In 2017, the FCC reported that neutrality rules imposed significant and “unnecessary” reporting burdens on ISPs to prove they were in compliance. For example, the ISP CenturyLink estimated that meeting the net neutrality rules created over 5,000 hours of extra paperwork, costing over $134,000 each year. [10] In addition to being burdensome for ISPs, net neutrality regulations exceed the FCC’s authority. According to the editors of the National Review, the net neutrality rules exceeded “the agency’s statutory mandate,” and “there is no title or provision in the Federal Communication Act that gives the agency a clear mandate to impose pricing and content-management rules on Internet providers, which is what net neutrality does.” [31] Read More Con 3 Net neutrality reduces investment in internet services resulting in less access and higher costs for consumers. Between 2011 and 2015, when neutrality rules were being debated by the FCC, the mere threat of implementing them reduced ISPs investments in network upgrades by 20-30%, a $150-$200 billion reduction in investment. [13] During the years that net neutrality rules were in place (2015-2017), investment in broadband fell for the first time ever in a non-recession period. [10][28] According to AT&T, that “chilled investment in broadband,” threatened “to slow the delivery of broadband services to all Americans… particularly in rural America where broadband investment is needed the most.” [30] Net neutrality regulations also prevent ISPs from charging large content companies (such as video streaming services) additional fees to cover the costs of the massive bandwidth they use. Preventing such paid prioritization fees places the costs of building the additional capacity necessary to carry the content onto ISPs, and these costs will trickle down to consumers in the form of more expensive internet packages – which are paid by all, even those who don’t use the streaming services. [22] Read More Discussion Questions 1. Should the United States have federal net neutrality laws? Why or why not? 2. Do net neutrality regulations protect consumers? Explain your answer(s). 3. Do net neutrality regulations unfairly limit internet companies? Take Action 1. Explore Kevin Taglang’s position that the internet needs net neutrality protections. 2. Consider which states have enacted (or considered enacting) net neutrality legislation according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 3. Analyze Ken Engelhart’s position that net neutrality laws are not needed because the internet is “inherently neutral.” 4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position. 5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives. Sources 1.Federal Communications Commission, “FCC Acts to Restore Internet Freedom,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 2.American Civil Liberties Union, “What Is Net Neutrality?,” aclu.org, Dec. 2017 3.Gerald R. Faulhaber, “Economics of Net Neutrality: A Review,” Communications & Convergence Review, 2011 4.Brian Fung, “The FCC Just Voted to Repeal Its Net Neutrality Rules, in a Sweeping Act of Deregulation,” washingtonpost.com, Dec. 14, 2017 5.Steve Lohr, “Net Neutrality Repeal: What Could Happen and How It Could Affect You,” nytimes.com, Nov. 21, 2017 6.David Shepardson, “21 States Sue to Keep Net Neutrality as Senate Democrats Reach 50 Votes,” reuters.com, Jan. 16, 2018 7.Roni Jacobson, “Internet Censorship Is Advancing under Trump,” wired.com, Apr. 12, 2017 8.Jessica Rosenworcel, “Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 9.Ajit Pai, “Oral Statement of Chairman Ajit Pai,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 10.Federal Communications Commission, “FCC Fact Sheet: Restoring Internet Freedom Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order – WC Docket No. 17-108,” apps.fcc.gov, Nov. 2, 2017 11.Jon Brodkin, “Comcast Deleted Net Neutrality Pledge Same Day FCC Announced Repeal,” arstechnica.com, Nov. 29, 2017 12.Michael O’Rielly, “Oral Statement of Commissioner Michael O’Reilly,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 13.George S. Ford, “Net Neutrality, Reclassification and Investment: A Counterfactual Analysis,” Perspectives, Apr. 25, 2017 14.NCTA, “Reaffirming Our Commitment to an Open Internet,” ncta.com, May 17, 2017 15.Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission, cadc.uscorts.gov, Jan. 14, 2014 16.Electronic Freedom Foundation, “Comments of the Electronic Freedom Foundation on Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” eff.org, July 17, 2017 17.Ryan Singel, “Expect Fewer Great Startups if the FCC Kills Net Neutrality,” wired.com, Dec. 12, 2017 18.Internet Association, “Internet Association Files With FCC and Calls For Net Neutrality Rules to Be Kept in Place,” internetassociation.org, July 17, 2017 19.Startups for Net Neutrality, Letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, engine.is, Apr. 26, 2017 20.Ajit Pai, “Remarks of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai at the Newseum: The Future of Internet Freedom,” fcc.gov, Apr. 26, 2017 21.Steve Kovach, “The FCC Plans to Repeal Net Neutrality This Week – and It Could Ruin the Internet,” businessinsider.com, Dec. 10, 2017 22.Jim Cicconi, “Who Should Pay for Netflix?,” attpublicpolicy.com, Mar. 21, 2014 23.Anna G. Eshoo, “Net Neutrality Repeal Means You’re Going to Hate Your Cable Company Even More,” usatoday.com, Dec. 12, 2017 24.Jordan Malter, “Google CEO: Net Neutrality ‘A Principle We All Need to Fight For,'” money.cnn.com, Jan. 24, 2018 25.Bill Chappell and Susan Davis, “Senate Approves Overturning FCC’s Net Neutrality Repeal,” npr.org, May 16, 2018 26.Erin Carson and Marguerite Reardon, “Net Neutrality Rules Will End June 11th with the FCC’s Final Say-So,” cnet.com, May 10, 2018 27.Federal Communications Commission, “Report and Order on Remand, Declaratory Ruling, and Order,” transition.fcc.gov, Mar. 12, 2015 28.Hal Singer, “Bad Bet by FCC Sparks Capital Flight from Broadband,” forbes.com, Mar. 2, 2017 29.Internet Association, “Principles to Preserve & Protect an Open Internet,” internetassociation.org (accessed May 23, 2018) 30.AT&T, “Open Internet,” about.att.com (accessed May 10, 2018) 31.National Review, “Net Neutrality: Let Congress Decide if It’s Needed,” nationalreview.com, Nov. 11, 2017 32.John W. Mayo, et al., “An Economic Perspective of Title II Regulation of the Internet,” cbpp.georgetown.edu, July 2017 33.The White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Statement by the President on Net Neutrality,” obamawhitehouse.archives.gov, Nov. 10, 2014 34.Jon Brodkin, "Bill to Save Net NeutralityIis 46 Votes Short in US House," arstechnica.com, June 27, 2018 35.Cecilia Kang, "Justice Department Sues to Stop California Net Neutrality Law," nytimes.com, Sep. 30, 2018 36.Federal Communications Commission, "Statement of Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel on Department of Justice Decision to Withdraw Lawsuit to Block California Net Neutrality Law," docs.fcc.gov, Feb. 8, 2021 37.National Law Review, "State Net Neutrality Laws May Lead to Federal Legislation," natlawreview.com, Mar. 1, 2021 window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',function(){var e,t=document.getElementById("procon-page-data"),n=!!t&&JSON.parse(atob(t.innerHTML));n&&n.site&&n.site.theme_uri&&((e=document.createElement("script")).async=!0,e.src=n.site.theme_uri+"js/spot-im-recirculation-and-conversation.min.js?v=1593750185",document.body.appendChild(e))}); .spcv_community-question{font-size:18px;min-height:50px;padding:20px 15px}
# Saturday Halloween - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Celebrating Halloween on a Saturday would be more fun and less stressful for everyone. Instead of rushing home from school and work to fit in dinner and homework before setting out for trick-or-treating, kids and parents could enjoy the day and do more fun Halloween activities together on a Saturday. Entrepreneur Matt Douglas noted, “Extended family could gather like they do for other major holidays and special memories can be made.” With a Saturday Halloween, people who work the traditional Monday-Friday schedule wouldn’t miss out on the fun of handing out candy to kids in the neighborhood. The holiday would be less stressful because parents wouldn’t have to worry about kids staying up past their bedtimes on a sugar high. Plus, businesses wouldn’t lose the productivity of hungover workers who attended Halloween parties. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action Halloween takes place on Oct. 31 regardless of the day of the week. In 2021, Halloween is on a Sunday. In 2020, Halloween fell on a Saturday, though the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic led many jurisdictions to adapt or cancel traditional activities. [33] According to tradition, children in the United States dress up in costumes and go door-to-door in their neighborhoods saying “trick or treat” to receive candy. Some would like to see Halloween held on a Saturday every year for safety reasons, and petitioned President Trump via change.org. However, others point out that the federal government doesn’t have the ability to make that change because Halloween isn’t a federal holiday. [1] [2] [3] About 172 million Americans celebrated Halloween in 2019. The top costumes for kids were princess, superhero, Batman, a Star Wars character, and a witch. Almost 17% of Americans buy costumes for their pets, with the top choices being pumpkins, hot dogs, and bumblebees. Americans spent an estimated $8.8 billion, or $86.27 per person, in 2019 on Halloween goods such as candy to hand out, decorations, costumes, and pumpkins. [34] Fewer Americans celebrated Halloween in 2020 (148 million), likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures, however those who did celebrate spent more individually on their festivities at $92.12 per person, or about $8.0 billion total. Top kids’ costumes were princess, Spiderman, superhero, ghost, and Batman. [35] In 2021, experts expect consumers to spend a record $10.14 billion as more people plan to hand out candy or attend parties than in 2020. [36]
# Should Election Day Be a National Holiday? Top 3 Pros and Cons' **Argument** Making Election Day a national holiday would turn voting into a celebration of democracy. Election Day is a holiday in Puerto Rico. Caravanas are joyful, noisy parades of cars festooned with flags and other decorations that stream through Puerto Rico’s streets ahead of an election and are credited with the island’s over 80% voter turnout. In Australia, where voting is mandatory, elections are celebrated with parties and barbeques nationwide, resulting in turnout rates around 90%. The idea that “voting should be a celebration, not a chore” is one argument for turning Election Day into a national holiday, according to Archon Fung, PhD, and Jane Mansbridge, PhD, professors at the Harvard Kennedy School. They stated, “Citizen Day would do more than give our democracy the honor that it deserves; it would help our democracy work better. More people would vote if they had more time to cast their ballots… Furthermore, celebrating our democracy publicly would send the message that we value each other’s citizenship as much as we value honoring past presidents.” Donald Green, PhD, Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, found that nonpartisan community parties celebrating Election Day in 2005, 2006, and 2016 increased voter participation between 2.6 percentage points and about 4 percentage points. **Background** Election Day in the United States has occurred on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November ever since President John Tyler signed an 1845 law establishing a specific voting day for the entire country. [1] The decision was made taking into account farmers, a large portion of the voting constituency at the time, who would not have been able to travel to polling places in winter months or during planting or harvest times. [2] Sundays were for rest and worship, and on Wednesdays farmers typically sold their crops at the market, making Tuesdays the best day of the week. [1] Over time, voting rights expanded from only white, male landowners age 21 and older to include women and people of color, as well as citizens age 18 and up, resulting in a dramatic increase in the voting-eligible population and a shift in voter demographics. [3] In 1800, 83% of the American labor force was agrarian, but today only 11% of total US employment is agriculture-related. [4][5] The United States currently has 10 national holidays, including Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Christmas Day. [6] Election Day could be made a holiday if a bill were passed by the House and Senate then signed into law by the president. Approximately two million people who work for the federal government would be given a paid day off, and private companies might follow suit. [7] A handful of states have made election day a state holiday, including New York, Hawaii, Kentucky, and, in Apr. 2020, Virginia. [36] Would making Election Day a federal holiday increase voter turnout and celebrate democracy? Or is it an optimistic idea that would exclude already disadvantaged voters while failing to increase turnout?
# Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?' **Argument** Teenagers and young adults may be shut out of the workforce if the minimum wage is increased. Minimum wage workers are disproportionately young. According to the Pew Research Center, 16- to 24-year-olds make up 50.4% of minimum wage earners, despite representing only 13.7% of the workforce as a whole. 24% of minimum wage workers are teenagers. Matthew Rousu, PhD, Associate Professor of Economics at Susquehanna University, wrote in a 2014 article that the federal minimum wage “has a devastating impact on teenagers” because firms will not pay many young workers with no skills or experience minimum wage, let alone a higher wage. Casey B. Mulligan, PhD, economics professor at the University of Chicago, stated that the teenage employment index fell sharply after the minimum wage increase of July 2009 (a fall of about 8% in three months, while the previous drop of 8% took over a year): “This suggests that the 2009 minimum-wage increase did significantly reduce teenage employment.” According to a study by Thomas A. Mroz, PhD, and Timothy H. Savage, PhD, for the Employment Policies Institute, “those experiencing unemployment at an early age have years of lower earnings and an increased likelihood of unemployment ahead of them.” **Background** The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 during the Great Depression under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was initially set at $0.25 per hour and has been increased by Congress 22 times, most recently in 2009 when it went from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. 29 states plus the District of Columbia (DC) have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. 1.8 million workers (or 2.3% of the hourly paid working population) earn the federal minimum wage or below. Proponents of a higher minimum wage state that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is too low for anyone to live on; that a higher minimum wage will help create jobs and grow the economy; that the declining value of the minimum wage is one of the primary causes of wage inequality between low- and middle-income workers; and that a majority of Americans, including a slim majority of self-described conservatives, support increasing the minimum wage. Opponents say that many businesses cannot afford to pay their workers more, and will be forced to close, lay off workers, or reduce hiring; that increases have been shown to make it more difficult for low-skilled workers with little or no work experience to find jobs or become upwardly mobile; and that raising the minimum wage at the federal level does not take into account regional cost-of-living variations where raising the minimum wage could hurt low-income communities in particular. Read more background…
# Should More Gun Control Laws Be Enacted?' **Argument** The Second Amendment is not an unlimited right to own guns. In the June 26, 2008 District of Columbia et al. v. Heller US Supreme Court majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia, LLB, wrote, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited… nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” On June 9, 2016 the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-4 that “[t]he right of the general public to carry a concealed firearm in public is not, and never has been, protected by the Second Amendment,” thus upholding a law requiring a permitting process and “good cause” for concealed carry licenses in California. A 2018 study found that 91% of the 1,153 court cases with claims stating a government action or law violates the Second Amendment between the 2008 DC v. Heller decision and Feb. 1, 2016 failed. **Background** The United States has 120.5 guns per 100 people, or about 393,347,000 guns, which is the highest total and per capita number in the world. 22% of Americans own one or more guns (35% of men and 12% of women). America’s pervasive gun culture stems in part from its colonial history, revolutionary roots, frontier expansion, and the Second Amendment, which states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Proponents of more gun control laws state that the Second Amendment was intended for militias; that gun violence would be reduced; that gun restrictions have always existed; and that a majority of Americans, including gun owners, support new gun restrictions. Opponents say that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns; that guns are needed for self-defense from threats ranging from local criminals to foreign invaders; and that gun ownership deters crime rather than causes more crime. Read more background…
# Vaping Pros and Cons - 3 Arguments For and Against' **Argument** E-cigarettes reduce health care costs, create jobs, and help the economy. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist specializing in addiction and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, argued, “promoting electronic cigarettes to smokers should be a public health priority. Given that the direct medical costs of smoking are estimated to be more than $130 billion per year, along with $150 billion annually in productivity losses from premature deaths, getting more smokers to switch would result in significant cost savings — as well as almost half a million lives saved each year.” Grover Norquist and Paul Blair, both of Americans for Tax Reform, stated, “e-cigarettes and vapor products are the Uber of the product industry. They’re a disruptive and innovative technology… Thousands of good-paying jobs are being created by an industry that is probably going to save hundreds of thousands of lives.” Tax policy economist J. Scott Moody calculated that the harm reduction from smokers switching to vaping could save $48 billion in annual Medicaid spending. Juul created more than 1,200 jobs just in 2018. A letter signed by a coalition of anti-regulation groups warned that efforts to limit the e-cigarette industry would destroy tens of thousands of jobs for manufacturers of the devices and the stores that sell them. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action Vaping is the act of using e-cigarettes, which were first introduced in the United States around 2006. [5] E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid into an aerosol vapor for inhalation. The liquid used in e-cigarettes is also known as e-liquid or vape juice. The main components are generally flavoring, nicotine, and water, along with vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol, which distribute the flavor and nicotine in the liquid and create the vapor. Popular flavorings include mint, mango, and tobacco. [3] [4] [44] [45] E-cigarettes are also known as “e-cigs,” “e-hookahs,” “mods,” “vape pens,” “vapes,” “vaporizers,” “e-pipes,” and “electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS).” Some e-cigarettes are made to resemble regular cigarettes, cigars, or pipes, while others look like pens or USB flash drives. [7] [42] [43] The JUUL brand of e-cigarettes, a vaporizer shaped like a USB drive, launched in 2015 and captured nearly 75% of the market in 2018, becoming so popular that vaping is often referred to as “juuling.” Juul’s market popularity has since declined to 42% in 2020. [7] [8] [9] [51] The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has regulated e-cigarettes as a tobacco product since 2016. On Sep. 11, 2019, the Trump administration announced plans to have the FDA end sales of non-tobacco e-cigarette flavors such as mint or menthol in response to concerns over teen vaping. E-cigarette manufacturers were required to request FDA permission to keep flavored products on the market. The FDA had until Sep. 9, 2021 to make a decision. [6][46] [49] On Sep. 9, 2021, Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock and Director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products Mitch Zeller announced that the FDA had made decisions on 93% of the 6.5 million submitted applications for “deemed” new tobacco products (“‘deemed’ new” means the FDA newly has authority to review the products but the products may already be on the market), including denying 946,000 vaping products “because their applications lacked sufficient evidence that they have a benefit to adult smokers to overcome the public health threat posed by the well-documented, alarming levels of youth use.” The FDA had taken no action on JUUL products as of Sep. 9. [55] [56] [57] On Oct. 12, 2021, the FDA authorized the Vuse e-cigarette and cartridges, marketed by R.J. Reynolds one of the world’s largest cigarette manufacturers. The move is the first time the FDA authorized any vaping product. According to a statement from the FDA, the organization “determined that the potential benefit to smokers who switch completely or significantly reduce their cigarette use, would outweigh the risk to youth.” [58] On June 23, 2022, the FDA ordered Juul to stop selling “all of their products currently marketed in the United States.” The order included removing products currently on the market, including Juul devices (vape pens) and pods (cartridges). The following day, June 24, 2022, a federal appeals court temporarily put the ban on hold while the court reviewed Juul’s appeal. On Sep. 6, 2022, Juul settled a lawsuit brought by almost 36 states and Puerto Rico. The states and Puerto Rico accused Juul of marketing to minors. Juul admitted no wrongdoing in settling the lawsuit, but the company will have to pay $438.5 million, stop marketing to youth, stop funding education in schools, and stop misrepresenting the amount of nicotine in the products. [61] [62] [63] Nearly 11 million American adults used e-cigarettes in 2018, more than half of whom were under age 35. One in five high school students used e-cigarettes to vape nicotine in 2018. E-cigarettes were the fourth most popular tobacco products with 4% of retail sales, behind traditional cigarettes (83%), chewing/smokeless tobacco (8%), and cigars (5%) as of Feb. 2019. The global e-cigarette and vape market was worth $15.04 billion in 2020. [1][2][8] [50] According to the most recent CDC data (2018), 9.7% of current cigarette smokers were also current vapers, though 49.4% of current smokers had vaped at some point. Of former smokers who had quit within the last year, 25.2% were current vapers and 57.3% had tried vaping. Of former smokers who quit one to four years ago, 17.3% were current vapers and and 48.6% had tried vaping. Of former smokers who quit five or more years ago, 1.7% were current vapers and 9% had tried vaping. And of people who have never smoked, 1.5% were current vapers and 6.5% had tried vaping. [52] 18-29 year olds were more likely to say they vaped (17%) than smoked cigarettes, while every older age group was more likely to smoke than vape. [54]
# Should the United States Maintain Its Embargo against Cuba?' **Argument** Promoting democracy by prohibiting Americans from traveling to Cuba is hypocritical. Most Americans want improved diplomatic ties and open travel and trade policies with Cuba. Restricting American rights as a means of forcing another country to embrace freedom is hypocritical, as is demanding that Cuba adopt a representative democracy given the long history of US support for brutal dictatorships in countries that favor American interests, such as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. The United States even backed Cuban dictator, President General Fulgencio Batista (who served as elected president from 1940 to 1944, and then as US-backed dictator from 1952 to 1958 before being overthrown by Fidel Castro), someone known to have killed, tortured, and imprisoned political dissenters, because he was friendly to American interests. A 2012 opinion poll of more than 1,000 US adults found that 62% of respondents thought the United States should re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba. Among Americans surveyed, 57% think that the travel ban to Cuba should be lifted, while only 27% think the ban should remain. Regarding the trade embargo, 51% of Americans want to open trade with Cuba, compared to 29% who do not. **Background** Since the 1960s, the United States has imposed an embargo against Cuba, the Communist island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The embargo, known among Cubans as “el bloqueo” or “the blockade,” consists of economic sanctions against Cuba and restrictions on Cuban travel and commerce for all people and companies under US jurisdiction. Proponents of the embargo argue that Cuba has not met the US conditions for lifting the embargo, including transitioning to democracy and improving human rights. They say that backing down without getting concessions from the Castro regime will make the United States appear weak, and that only the Cuban elite would benefit from open trade. Opponents of the Cuba embargo argue that it should be lifted because the failed policy is a Cold War relic and has clearly not achieved its goals. They say the sanctions harm the US economy and Cuban citizens, and prevent opportunities to promote change and democracy in Cuba. They say the embargo hurts international opinion of the United States. Read more background…
# Should the Penny Stay in Circulation? - Top 3 Pros and Cons' **Argument** The existence of pennies helps raise a lot of money for charities. Organizations such as the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Salvation Army, and the Ronald McDonald House ask people to donate pennies to raise funds. In 2009, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society announced that school children had collected over 15 billion pennies in support of its charitable work — that’s $150 million dollars for blood cancer research and treatment. Dagmar Serota, who created a nonprofit called Good Cents for Oakland, said, “Pennies are easy to ask for and they are easy to give. And it’s very easy for a child to say, ‘Will you help me support this nonprofit, will you give me your pennies?’” Elementary school students in Los Angeles, CA, gain significant leadership and civic engagement experience from USC’s Penny Harvest program by choosing how to donate the money they raise. Common Cents, a nonprofit based in Dallas, TX, has run a “Pennies from the Heart” program for 20 years, and the student-led efforts have raised over $850,000 for local charities. The Ms. Cheap Penny Drive for Second Harvest in Tennessee raised enough to pay for 316,039 meals for the hungry in 2017. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action The US Mint shipped 8.4 billion pennies for circulation in 2017, more than all nickels (1.3 billion), dimes (2.4 billion), and quarters (1.9 billion) combined. [1] While countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand have phased out their one-cent pieces, Harris Poll found that 55% of Americans are in favor of keeping the penny and 29% want to abolish it. [2][3] The US Mint produces coins as instructed by Congress, so a law would have to be passed by Congress and signed by the President in order for pennies to be removed from circulation. [4] Several unsuccessful legislative efforts have sought to bring about the penny’s extinction. Most recently, in 2017, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) sponsored ultimately failed legislation that would have suspended minting of the penny. [5] Should the Penny Stay in Circulation? Pro 1 Preserving the penny keeps consumer prices down and avoids harming low-income households. Mark Weller, Executive Director of the pro-penny group Americans for Common Cents, says, “The alternative to the penny is rounding to the nickel, and that’s something that will negatively impact working families every time they buy a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk.” [6] The US Federal Reserve found that minorities and low-income people are more likely to use cash than credit cards. [7] Raymond Lombra, Professor of Economics at Pennsylvania State University, says the extra rounding charges would exceed $600 million annually and would “be regressive, affecting the poor and other disadvantaged people groups disproportionately.” [9] One study found that penny rounding in Canada costs grocery store customers an estimated 3.27 million Canadian dollars (2.5 million USD) annually. [9] Read More Pro 2 A penny can be used for decades and is more cost-efficient to produce than a nickel. Most US coins have an expected circulation life of 20 to 30 years, meaning a single penny could be used thousands or even millions of times. [10][11] So what if it costs 1.8 cents to make? [1] That’s a bargain for how many times it gets used. Without pennies, the Mint would be forced to make more five-cent pieces. That would cost an estimated $10.9 million more annually than it would cost to keep making pennies. [12] Pennies and nickels both cost more to make than their face values, but on average over the last five years, nickels have been made at a loss of 2.58 cents per coin, compared to .65 cents per penny. [1][13] The cost of making and shipping pennies includes some fixed costs that the US Mint would continue to incur even if we abolished the penny, because the Mint would still make other coins. [12] Read More Pro 3 The existence of pennies helps raise a lot of money for charities. Organizations such as the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Salvation Army, and the Ronald McDonald House ask people to donate pennies to raise funds. [11] In 2009, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society announced that school children had collected over 15 billion pennies in support of its charitable work — that’s $150 million dollars for blood cancer research and treatment. [14] Dagmar Serota, who created a nonprofit called Good Cents for Oakland, said, “Pennies are easy to ask for and they are easy to give. And it’s very easy for a child to say, ‘Will you help me support this nonprofit, will you give me your pennies?’” [6] Elementary school students in Los Angeles, CA, gain significant leadership and civic engagement experience from USC’s Penny Harvest program by choosing how to donate the money they raise. [15] Common Cents, a nonprofit based in Dallas, TX, has run a “Pennies from the Heart” program for 20 years, and the student-led efforts have raised over $850,000 for local charities. [16] The Ms. Cheap Penny Drive for Second Harvest in Tennessee raised enough to pay for 316,039 meals for the hungry in 2017. [17] Read More Con 1 The penny has practically no value and should be taken out of circulation just as other coins have been in US history. You can’t buy anything for a penny; vending machines and parking meters won’t accept them. [18] Harvard economist Greg Mankiw stated, “The purpose of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange. The penny no longer serves that purpose. When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, the unit is too small to be useful.” [19] Former US Mint Director Philip Diehl said, “[T]he value of a penny has shrunk to the point that, if you earn more than the minimum wage, you’re losing money stopping and picking up a penny on the sidewalk.” [20] Comedian John Oliver noted, “Two percent of Americans admitted to regularly throwing pennies in the garbage, which means the US Mint is spending millions to make garbage.” [21] Two-thirds of the billions of pennies produced are never seen in circulation again once they reach a consumer via the bank. [22] Read More Con 2 The process of making pennies is costly both financially and environmentally. At a total per unit cost of 1.82 cents, it costs nearly two pennies to make one penny. [1] Aaron Klein, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department, estimates that the United States could see $1.78 billion in losses over the next 30 years if the penny remains in production. [23] Making pennies also has environmental consequences from mining and transportation. Mining zinc and copper produces carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants, and uses vast amounts of energy. [24] Over the last 35 years, 107 million pounds of carbon dioxide have been emitted due to pennies being delivered from the Mint to banks. [25] A California company called Mike’s Bikes has banned the penny from its registers because “Making pennies wastes natural resources [and] is toxic to people and the environment.” [26] Read More Con 3 Eliminating pennies would save time at the point of purchase without hurting customers or businesses financially. The use of pennies in paying for goods and making change adds time to sales transactions. A study by Walgreen’s and the National Association of Convenience Stores found that pennies add 2 to 2.5 seconds to each cash transaction. [27] As a result of that extra time per transaction, the average citizen wastes 730 seconds a year (12 minutes) paying with pennies. [28] Harvard economist Greg Mankiw says that this wasted time costs the US economy around $1 billion annually. [29] An estimate from Citizens to Retire the penny says that the 107 billion cash transactions in the United States annually add up to 120 million hours of time between customers and employees – at a cost of $2 billion to the US economy. [27] Rounding transactions to the nearest nickel instead of using pennies wouldn’t harm consumers or stores. Robert M. Whaples, Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University, crunched the numbers and found that “The convenience stores and the customers basically broke even.” [30] Read More Did You Know? 1. In 1792, Congress created a national mint authorized to make gold, silver, and copper coins, including the one-cent piece known as the penny. Abraham Lincoln’s face replaced an image of Lady Liberty on the penny in 1909, the 100th anniversary of his birth, making him the first real person featured on a regular-issue American coin. [31][32][33] 2. The first penny, known as the “Fugio cent,” was reportedly designed by Benjamin Franklin in 1787. Franklin is also credited with the saying, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” [35] 3. The official name for the US penny is “one-cent piece,” according to the US Department of the Treasury, but early Americans were allegedly in the habit of using the British term “penny.” [4][35] 4. Although originally made of pure copper, pennies today are composed of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper. [34] 5. The Department of Defense banned the use of pennies at overseas military bases in 1980 because the coins were deemed too heavy and not cost effective to ship. [36] 6. The difference between the face value of a coin and and the actual cost to make it is known as seigniorage. [37] 7. Men are nearly twice as likely as women to favor dropping the penny (39% vs. 20%). [3] For more on US currency, explore “Currency and the US Presidents.” Click for an Encyclopaedia Britannica video about how coins became a form of money. Discussion Questions 1. Should the penny stay in circulation? Why or why not? 2. Should the US government consider removing other coins from circulation as transactions become more digital? Why or why not? 3. How would removing pennies impact people who primarily rely on cash transactions? Explain your answer(s). Take Action 1. Analyze the pro argument of Mark Weller from Americans for Common Cents. 2. Explore the penny at the US Mint. 3. Consider the con arguments from NPR’s Planet Money reporter Greg Rosalsky. 4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position. 5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives. Sources 1.United States Mint, "United States Mint 2020 Annual Report," usmint.gov, 2021 2.Brian Milligan, "The Penny Coin: Should We Follow Ireland and Phase It Out?," bbc.com, May 8, 2016 3.The Harris Poll, "Penny for Your Thoughts? Americans Oppose Abolishing the Penny," theharrispoll.com, Sep. 22, 2015 4.US Department of the Treasury, "Resource Center: Denominations," treasury.gov, June 15, 2018 5.John McCain, "Senators John Mccain & Mike Enzi Reintroduce the Coins Act to Save Billions in Taxpayer Dollars," mccain.senate.gov, Mar. 29, 2017 6.Andrew Stelzer, "Phasing out Pennies in a Bid for Change," npr.org, Nov. 29, 2009 7.Shaun O'Brien, "Consumer Preferences and the Use of Cash: Evidence from the Diary of Consumer Payments Choice Working Paper," frbsf.org, June 2014 8.Raymond E. Lombra, "Eliminating the Penny from the U.S. Coinage System: An Economic Analysis," Eastern Economic Journal, Fall 2001 9.Vancouver School of Economics, "Penny Rounding Profitable for Canadian Grocers: UBC VSE Student Research," economics.ubc.ca, Nov. 16, 2017 10.Reuters, "Pennies: The Throwaway Coins We Can't Let Go Of," latimes.com, May 31, 1994 11.Amy Livingston, "Should We Get Rid of the Penny? – 8 Reasons to Keep It vs Eliminate It," moneycrashers.com (accessed July 2, 2018) 12.Rodney J. Bosco and Kevin M. Davis, "Impact of Eliminating the Penny on the United States Mint's Costs and Profit in Fiscal Year 2011," pennies.org, Apr. 12, 2012 13.United States Mint, "United States Mint 2015 Annual Report," usmint.gov, June 2016 14.Associated Press, "US Penny Campaign Benefits Blood Cancer Research," newsday.com, Feb. 10, 2009 15.University of Southern California, "The USC Penny Harvest Wrapped up Its Third Successful Year," communities.usc.edu (accessed July 2, 2018) 16.Common Cents, "Non-Profits," commoncentsdallas.org (accessed July 2, 2018) 17.Mary Hance, "Penny Drive Sets Record in Raising Money for Second Harvest," tennessean.com, Feb. 17, 2017 18.Vlogbrothers, "I HATE PENNIES!!!! (Also Nickels.)," YouTube.com, Sep. 6, 2010 19.Greg Mankiw, "Get Rid of the Penny!," gregmankiw.blogspot.com, Apr. 22, 2006 20.Philip N. Diehl, "The Real Diehl: It’s Time for the United States to Eliminate the One Cent Coin," coinweek.com, Jan. 28, 2015 21.Last Week Tonight, "Pennies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)," YouTube.com, Nov. 22, 2015 22.J. William Gadsby, "Future of the Penny: Options for Congressional Consideration," gao.gov, July 16, 1996 23.Aaron Klein, "Time for Change: Modernizing to the Dollar Coin Saves Taxpayers Billions," dollarcoinalliance.org, July 22, 2013 24.Michelle Z. Donahue, "How Much Does it Really Cost (the Planet) to Make a Penny?," smithsonianmag.com, May 18, 2016 25.Josh Bloom, "Want to Help the Environment? Get Rid of Stupid Pennies," acsh.org, June 17, 2016 26.Mike's Bikes, "Pennies Don't Make 'Cents,'" mikesbikes.com (accessed July 2, 2018) 27.Retire the Penny, "It Makes 'Cents,'" retirethepenny.org (accessed July 2, 2018) 28.Sebastian Mallaby, "The Penny Stops Here," washingtonpost.com, Sep. 25, 2006 29.Greg Mankiw, "How to Make $1 Billion," gregmankiw.blogspot.com, Sep. 25, 2006 30.Consumer Affairs, "The Penny's End Is Near," consumeraffairs.com, July 2006 31.Courtney Waite, "The Origination of the Lincoln Penny," livinglincoln.web.unc.edu, Apr. 16, 2015 32.United States Mint, "Fun Facts Related to the Penny," usmint.gov (accessed July 2, 2018) 33.APMEX, "The 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent – the King of Lincoln Cents," apmex.com (accessed July 2, 2018) 34.United States Mint, "History," usmint.gov, June 19, 2018 35.Jennie Cohen, "10 Things You Didn't Know about the Penny," history.com, Mar. 30, 2012 36.Army & Air Force Exchange Service, "Retail & General FAQs," aafes.com (accessed July 2, 2018) 37.David Kestenbaum, "What Is Seigniorage?," npr.org, Jan. 9, 2009 38.Business Wire, "Strong Support for the Penny in Recent Poll," businesswire.com, Apr. 25, 2019 39.Jenny Gross, "Will the Penny Survive Coronavirus? Some Hope Not," nytimes.com, July 29, 2020 window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',function(){var e,t=document.getElementById("procon-page-data"),n=!!t&&JSON.parse(atob(t.innerHTML));n&&n.site&&n.site.theme_uri&&((e=document.createElement("script")).async=!0,e.src=n.site.theme_uri+"js/spot-im-recirculation-and-conversation.min.js?v=1593750185",document.body.appendChild(e))}); .spcv_community-question{font-size:18px;min-height:50px;padding:20px 15px}
# Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?' **Argument** Violent video games provide opportunities for children to explore consequences of violent actions, develop their moral compasses and release their stress and anger (catharsis) in the game, leading to less real world aggression. Violent games allow youth to experiment with moral issues such as war, violence, and death without real world consequences. A researcher at the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media wrote about her research: “One unexpected theme that came up multiple times in our focus groups was a feeling among boys that violent games can teach moral lessons… Many war-themed video games allow or require players to take the roles of soldiers from different sides of a conflict, perhaps making players more aware of the costs of war.” A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that children, especially boys, play video games as a means of managing their emotions: “61.9% of boys played to ‘help me relax,’ 47.8% because ‘it helps me forget my problems,’ and 45.4% because ‘it helps me get my anger out.” Researchers point to the cathartic effect of video games as a possible reason for why higher game sales have been associated with lower crime rates. [84] A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Adolescent Research concluded that “Boys use games to experience fantasies of power and fame, to explore and master what they perceive as exciting and realistic environments (but distinct from real life), to work through angry feelings or relieve stress, and as social tools.” The games serve as a substitute for rough-and-tumble play. **Background** Around 73% of American kids age 2-17 played video games in 2019, a 6% increase over 2018. Video games accounted for 17% of kids’ entertainment time and 11% of their entertainment spending. The global video game industry was worth contributing $159.3 billion in 2020, a 9.3% increase of 9.3% from 2019. Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence towards women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for simulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts. Video game advocates contend that a majority of the research on the topic is deeply flawed and that no causal relationship has been found between video games and social violence. They argue that violent video games may provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and may reduce crime. Read more background…
# School Vouchers - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** School vouchers allow school districts to overcome racial and other segregations. Betsy DeVos, US Secretary of Education in the Trump Administration, stated, “Empirical evidence finds school-choice programs lead to more integrated schools than their public-school counterparts.” School vouchers allow lower-income parents to avoid sending a child to a bad school, a school overwhelmed with gang violence, or a school that lacks racial diversity. A study of Louisiana’s voucher program found that the program reduced racial segregation, a feat in a state with 34 school districts under federal desegregation orders. Many families use vouchers to avoid the “school-to-prison pipeline,” the phenomenon in which children of color are poorly educated, subjected to racist treatment, and treated like criminals in schools often ruled by gangs. These children deserve better, and vouchers empower students to overcome racial and other disparities in their communities. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action School vouchers are state- or school district-funded scholarships that allow students to attend a private school of the family’s choice rather than sending the child to public school. According to EdChoice, in the 2018-2019 school year, 18 states and DC had one or more voucher programs: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin. At least 188,424 students received vouchers that school year. [21] Though two state voucher programs have existed since the 19th century–Vermont (1869) and Main (1873)–the current debate began with the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, instituted in 1990. [21] In 2002, the US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Ohio’s Cleveland Scholarship Program in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. The ruling held that the voucher program did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, even if vouchers were used for religious schools. [22]
# Is Cell Phone Radiation Safe?' **Argument** US government agencies conclude there is no scientific evidence proving that cell phones cause cancer or other health problems. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), US Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have all concluded that there is no evidence in the scientific literature proving that cell phones cause brain tumors or other health problems. According to the FDA, “attempts to replicate and confirm the few studies that did show a connection [between cell phone radiation and head tumors] have failed.” **Background**
# Should Recreational Marijuana Be Legal?' **Argument** The enforcement of marijuana prohibition is racist because people of color are disproportionately impacted. Statistics show a significant racial disparity in the enforcement of marijuana laws: even though white and black people use marijuana at roughly the same rate, a black person in the United States is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession on average. In Iowa, the state with the highest inequity, black people are 8.3 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. In New York City, 15.8% of marijuana possession cases involving white people result in conviction, compared to 32.3% involving black people and 30% involving Hispanic people.   Marijuana possession convictions can impact people’s ability to get public housing, financial aid for school, loans, and jobs. Over the past ten years, drug sentences for black men have been 9% to 13% longer than those received by white men. Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, Criminal Justice and Drug Policy director for the ACLU of California, stated, “Racial disparities in marijuana enforcement are widespread and longstanding.” Legalizing marijuana would help correct the disparity. **Background** More than half of US adults, over 128 million people, have tried marijuana, despite it being an illegal drug under federal law. Nearly 600,000 Americans are arrested for marijuana possession annually – more than one person per minute. Public support for legalizing marijuana went from 12% in 1969 to 66% today. Recreational marijuana, also known as adult-use marijuana, was first legalized in Colorado and Washington in 2012. Proponents of legalizing recreational marijuana say it will add billions to the economy, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, free up scarce police resources, and stop the huge racial disparities in marijuana enforcement. They contend that regulating marijuana will lower street crime, take business away from the drug cartels, and make marijuana use safer through required testing, labeling, and child-proof packaging. They say marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, and that adults should have a right to use it if they wish. Opponents of legalizing recreational marijuana say it will increase teen use and lead to more medical emergencies including traffic deaths from driving while high. They contend that revenue from legalization falls far short of the costs in increased hospital visits, addiction treatment, environmental damage, crime, workplace accidents, and lost productivity. They say that marijuana use harms the user physically and mentally, and that its use should be strongly discouraged, not legalized. Read more background…
# Is Cell Phone Radiation Safe?' **Argument** Radiation from cell phones can damage sperm. Cell phone storage in front pockets has been linked to poor fertility and higher chances of miscarriage and childhood cancer. According to the Cleveland Clinic Center for Reproductive Medicine, semen quality “tended to decline as daily cell phone use increased.” According to a May-June 2012 meta-study in the Journal of Andrology, “men using mobile phones have decreased sperm concentration” in addition to “decreased viability” of their sperm. **Background**
# Is a College Education Worth It?' **Argument** College degrees do not guarantee learning or job preparation. Many students graduate from college with little understanding of math, reading, civics, or economics. In 2011, 35% of students enrolled in college reported they studied 5 hours or less per week and there was a 50% decline in the number of hours a student studied and prepared for classes compared to a few decades ago. 36% of students demonstrated no significant improvement on Collegiate Learning Assessments after 4 years of college. In 2013 56% of employers thought half or fewer of college graduates had the skills and knowledge to advance within their companies. 30% of college graduates felt college did not prepare them well for employment, specifically in terms of technical and quantitative reasoning skills. A 2011 Pew Research survey found that 57% of Americans felt higher education did not provide students with good value compared to the money spent. **Background** People who argue that college is worth it contend that college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger salaries, and more work benefits than high school graduates. They say college graduates also have better interpersonal skills, live longer, have healthier children, and have proven their ability to achieve a major milestone. People who argue that college is not worth it contend that the debt from college loans is too high and delays graduates from saving for retirement, buying a house, or getting married. They say many successful people never graduated from college and that many jobs, especially trades jobs, do not require college degrees. Read more background…
# Is a College Education Worth It?' **Argument** Student loan debt may not be forgiven in bankruptcy and may not have the same borrower protections as other consumer debt. A study found 60% of people attempting to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy were unsuccessful. Medical, legal, credit card, loan, and even gambling debt can immediately be discharged in bankruptcy, but getting student loan debt discharged is much more difficult and rare. Private student loans often do not have the same protections as federal loans like income-based repayments, discharges upon death, or military deferments. **Background** People who argue that college is worth it contend that college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger salaries, and more work benefits than high school graduates. They say college graduates also have better interpersonal skills, live longer, have healthier children, and have proven their ability to achieve a major milestone. People who argue that college is not worth it contend that the debt from college loans is too high and delays graduates from saving for retirement, buying a house, or getting married. They say many successful people never graduated from college and that many jobs, especially trades jobs, do not require college degrees. Read more background…
# Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?' **Argument** Raising the minimum wage would encourage companies to outsource jobs to countries where costs would be lower. According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, 2,382,000 US jobs were outsourced in 2015 with 44% of companies saying they did so to reduce or control costs. A 2014 study of 400 US Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) by Campbell Harvey, PhD, J. Paul Sticht Professor of International Business at Duke University, found that 70% of CFOs would “increase contracting, outsourcing, or moving actual production outside the United States” if the minimum wage were raised to $10 an hour. **Background** The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 during the Great Depression under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was initially set at $0.25 per hour and has been increased by Congress 22 times, most recently in 2009 when it went from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. 29 states plus the District of Columbia (DC) have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. 1.8 million workers (or 2.3% of the hourly paid working population) earn the federal minimum wage or below. Proponents of a higher minimum wage state that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is too low for anyone to live on; that a higher minimum wage will help create jobs and grow the economy; that the declining value of the minimum wage is one of the primary causes of wage inequality between low- and middle-income workers; and that a majority of Americans, including a slim majority of self-described conservatives, support increasing the minimum wage. Opponents say that many businesses cannot afford to pay their workers more, and will be forced to close, lay off workers, or reduce hiring; that increases have been shown to make it more difficult for low-skilled workers with little or no work experience to find jobs or become upwardly mobile; and that raising the minimum wage at the federal level does not take into account regional cost-of-living variations where raising the minimum wage could hurt low-income communities in particular. Read more background…
# Filibuster - Top 3 Pros and Cons | ProCon.org' **Argument** The filibuster is a Jim Crow relic used to block meaningful legislation. President Barack Obama, in his July 30, 2020, eulogy for Representative John Lewis (D-GA), referred to the filibuster as “another Jim Crow relic.” Between 1917 and 1995, half of the 30 bills killed in the Senate, despite support from majorities in the House and Senate and White House support, were civil rights protections including those to ban poll taxes, employment and housing discrimination, and lynching. In fact, an anti-lynching bill, despite over 240 attempts in 122 years, was not passed until Mar. 7, 2022, when it passed the Senate unanimously. Southern Democrats, unable to kill legislation with votes, delayed civil rights progress for years with filibusters, even though the legislation was supported by a majority of Americans, including those living in the South. The threat of filibuster has also killed several contemporary initiatives that disproportionately impact communities of color, including climate change, universal healthcare, and gun control. For example, the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed the House but was never brought up in the Senate for certainty the bill would be quashed by filibuster. The act “would have set new renewable fuel standards and established a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Kevin Kruse, historian of race and American politics at Princeton University, stated that the filibuster has “been a tool used overwhelmingly by racists…. It is the preferred choice of Southern conservatives, in whatever era and whatever party, who are trying to slow down civil rights and trying to deny equal protection for African Americans.” **Background** A filibuster is a parliamentary means for blocking a legislative body’s vote on an issue. As Encyclopaedia Britannica explains, a filibuster is “used in the United States Senate by a minority of the senators—sometimes even a single senator—to delay or prevent parliamentary action by talking so long that the majority either grants concessions or withdraws the bill.” The strategy is only used in the Senate because “unlike the House of Representatives, in which rules limit speaking time, the Senate allows unlimited debate on a bill. Speeches can be completely irrelevant to the issue.” [1] Two tactics can be used to defeat the filibuster: by invoking cloture (thereby limiting or ending debate and mandating a vote on the issue at hand) or by maintaining around-the-clock sessions to tire those using the filibuster. Perhaps the most famous depiction of a marathon filibuster, and the various tactics used to fight it, is the climactic scene in the classic 1939 movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when the star of the film, an idealistic freshman senator played by Jimmy Stewart, finally collapses on the Senate floor from exhaustion. [1] [2]  The word “filibuster” itself emerged from piracy. Derived from Dutch and Spanish, the term first appeared in English in 1591 as “flee-booters,” referring to people who raided the Caribbean Spanish colonies. The word gained a syllable along the way, and by the 1850s “filibusters” were Americans who traveled to the Spanish West Indies and Central America to encourage revolution. When applied to Senate speechifying, as NPR host Melissa Block has explained, “Filibustering senators were, by extension, pirates raiding the Congress for their own political gain.” [3] Ironically, the first instance of “talking a bill to death” happened during the very first session of Congress, on Sep. 22, 1789. As Anti-Administration Party Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania wrote in his journal, the “design of the Virginians and the Carolina gentleman was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.” Despite the proto-filibustering, the bill was passed 31-17, wrote Maclay. [4] [5] In 1789, both the House and Senate had a rule allowing for a simple majority to end debate: the “previous question motion.” The House rulebook still has that motion. The Senate eliminated it in 1805 when Vice President Aaron Burr (who had just been indicted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton) told the Senate to clean up their rulebook, specifically to get rid of this  tactic. The Senate did so in 1806, eliminating the Senate’s ability to end debate with a simple majority, thereby enabling the filibuster. [6] According to the US Senate, the term “filibuster” first came into congressional use when Mississippi Democrat Senator Albert Brown noted his “friend standing on the other side of the House filibustering” on Jan. 3, 1853, and when North Carolina Whig Senator George Badger bemoaned “filibustering speeches” in February of the same year. Other sources state “filibuster” didn’t take on its Senate meaning until 1889 or 1890. [3] [4] The debate over eliminating the filibuster is almost as old as its appearance in the Senate. As early as 1841, Kentucky Whig Senator Henry Clay, frustrated with filibustering Democrats, threatened to limit debate. Alabama Democrat Senator William King countered that Clay might as well “make his arrangements at his boarding house for the [entire] winter” in preparation for even longer debates to maintain the filibuster. [4] But as the Senate grew in members and the amount of work it had to do, so did frustrations with the filibuster, as long speeches could derail work for days. President Woodrow Wilson made his displeasure known when, at the end of the 64th Congress on Mar. 4, 1917, the Senate’s work had not been completed: the “Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.” [4] [7] [8] [9] At Wilson’s urging, in a special congressional session, Senate Rule 22 was adopted on Mar. 8, 1917. The rule meant that senators could file a motion to invoke cloture, which would prompt a vote on whether to end the debate two business days after the motion was filed, allowing up to 30 additional hours of debate. Two-thirds of the Senate was required to end a filibuster with cloture until 1974 when the rule was changed to three-fifths (meaning 60 US senators). If the motion is approved during the cloture vote, then cloture has been invoked and the Senate will vote on the item in question without further delay and debate. [4] [7] [8] [9] The first invocation of cloture occurred on Nov. 15, 1919, and ended debate on the Treaty of Versailles. Between 1917 and Aug. 8, 2022, US Senators have filed 2,591 cloture motions, voted on cloture 2,062 times, and successfully invoked cloture in 1,361 cases. At first used sparingly, cloture recently became a more popular tool during the 113th Congress (2013-2014) when its use jumped to 187 from 41 clotures in the 112th Congress (2011-2012). [10] [11]  The longest individual filibuster on record occurred in 1957, when US Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina talked for more than 24 hours as part of an unsuccessful attempt by Southern senators to obstruct civil rights legislation. [1] Key to the current debate over filibusters is the political parity that exists in the US Congress. With the US Senate almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, at a time when the parties share little ideological overlap and seldom agree on anything, the filibuster has become a prime tool for hindering the presidential and congressional agendas of the majority party, whose control over the Senate is slight and tenuous and far from a large mandate, making legislation almost impossible to pass. [12] Additionally, senators no longer have to actually talk for hours to filibuster. Just the threat of a filibuster (also called a “virtual filibuster”) is enough to effectively block legislation. William Galston, Cofounder of the Congressional reform group No Labels, describes the tactic as a “sort of a ‘Look ma, no hands’ way of avoiding accountability” and the sweat equity that once required senators to talk for hours. [47] [48] An Apr. 29, 2021, Monmouth University poll found 38% of Americans want to keep the filibuster with no changes, 38% believe the Senate should reform filibuster rules, and 19% would get rid of the filibuster entirely. However, only 19% of Americans stated they were “very familiar” with how the filibuster functions, while 12% were “not too familiar” or “not at all familiar” with the strategy and 29% had never heard of the filibuster. [13] The unfamiliarity with the filibuster creates a difficulty among Americans in thinking about how to reform the Senate procedure. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the filibuster has been modified more than 160 times since its introduction. Recently, the “nuclear option” has been used in 2013 and 2017 to eliminate the use of the filibuster for presidential executive and judicial appointments and US Supreme Court nominees. The “nuclear option” allows senators to change Senate rules with a simple majority vote. Following this option, senators could mandate the elimination of the filibuster for specific key party platform legislation such as voting rights. [14] [15] Another possible reform would be to change the threshold for invoking cloture from 60 to a higher or lower number of senators in order to strengthen or weaken the filibuster. One version is an “inverted filibuster” in which only 41 votes (instead of 60) would be needed to invoke cloture and end a filibuster, thereby shifting the burden to the dissenting senators instead of the senators promoting the legislation in question. Also suggested is to require three-fifths of “present and voting” senators to invoke cloture and end a filibuster instead of the current requirement of three-fifths of “duly chosen and sworn” senators, many of whom may not be present or voting, thereby making it easier to kill a filibuster. [14] [16]
# Should Animals Be Used for Scientific or Commercial Testing?' **Argument** Animals do not have rights, therefore it is acceptable to experiment on them. Animals do not have the cognitive ability or moral judgment that humans do and because of this they have been treated differently than humans by nearly every culture throughout recorded history. If we granted animals rights, all humans would have to become vegetarians, and hunting would need to be outlawed. **Background** An estimated 26 million animals are used every year in the United States for scientific and commercial testing. Animals are used to develop medical treatments, determine the toxicity of medications, check the safety of products destined for human use, and other biomedical, commercial, and health care uses. Research on living animals has been practiced since at least 500 BC. Proponents of animal testing say that it has enabled the development of many life-saving treatments for both humans and animals, that there is no alternative method for researching a complete living organism, and that strict regulations prevent the mistreatment of animals in laboratories. Opponents of animal testing say that it is cruel and inhumane to experiment on animals, that alternative methods available to researchers can replace animal testing, and that animals are so different from human beings that research on animals often yields irrelevant results. Read more background…
# Should People Become Vegetarian?' **Argument** Vegetarians do not live longer. This myth stems from the fact that vegetarians tend to be more health conscious overall, eating a more balanced diet, exercising more, and smoking less than the general population. When a study from the German Cancer Research Center compared health conscious meat eaters with vegetarians, there was no difference in overall mortality rates. **Background** Americans eat an average of 58 pounds of beef, 96 pounds of chicken, and 52 pounds of pork, per person, per year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Vegetarians, about 5% of the US adult population, do not eat meat (including poultry and seafood). The percentage of Americans who identify as vegetarian has remained steady for two decades. 11% of those who identify as liberal follow a vegetarian diet, compared to 2% of conservatives. Many proponents of vegetarianism say that eating meat harms health, wastes resources, and creates pollution. They often argue that killing animals for food is cruel and unethical since non-animal food sources are plentiful. Many opponents of a vegetarian diet say that meat consumption is healthful and humane, and that producing vegetables causes many of the same environmental problems as producing meat. They also argue that humans have been eating and enjoying meat for 2.3 million years. Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** Wearing uniforms enhances school pride, unity, and community spirit. Christopher P. Clouet, former Superintendent of the New London Public Schools in Connecticut, stated that “the wearing of uniforms contributes to school pride.” A study of over 1,000 Texas middle school students found that students in uniform “reported significantly more positive perceptions of belonging in their school community than reported by students in the standard dress group.” Arnold Goldstein, PhD, head of the Center for Research on Aggression at Syracuse University, stated that uniforms help troubled students feel they have the support of a community: “There is a sense of belonging.” A peer-reviewed study found that after uniforms were introduced, “Teachers perceived an increase in the level of respect, caring, and trust… throughout the school” and said “students are made to feel ‘important’ and as if they are a part of a team by wearing a uniform.” **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Was Bill Clinton a Good President?' **Argument** Economy: Clinton gets too much credit for the good economy of the 1990s, which was already growing when he took office. The Republican-controlled Congress helped improve the economy by exercising fiscal restraint. Clinton’s failure to regulate the financial-services markets enabled the bad lending and Wall Street scams that led to the 2007 banking crisis. **Background** William Jefferson Clinton, known as Bill Clinton, served as the 42nd President of the United States from Jan. 20, 1993 to Jan. 19, 2001. His proponents contend that under his presidency the US enjoyed the lowest unemployment and inflation rates in recent history, high home ownership, low crime rates, and a budget surplus. They give him credit for eliminating the federal deficit and reforming welfare, despite being forced to deal with a Republican-controlled Congress. His opponents say that Clinton cannot take credit for the economic prosperity experienced during his scandal-plagued presidency because it was the result of other factors. In fact, they blame his policies for the financial crisis that began in 2007. They point to his impeachment by Congress and his failure to pass universal health care coverage as further evidence that he was not a good president. Read more background…
# Should People Become Vegetarian?' **Argument** Vegetarians live longer. A study of 121,342 people found that eating red meat was associated with an increased risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease. Another study found that adherence to vegetarian diets or diets very low in meat for 20 years or more can increase life expectancy by 3.6 years. A study of Seventh-Day Adventists who were vegetarian (or ate very little meat) showed longevity increases of 7.28 years for men and 4.42 years for women. And a study of 73,308 people found that a vegetarian diet is associated with a 12% reduction in all-cause mortality. **Background** Americans eat an average of 58 pounds of beef, 96 pounds of chicken, and 52 pounds of pork, per person, per year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Vegetarians, about 5% of the US adult population, do not eat meat (including poultry and seafood). The percentage of Americans who identify as vegetarian has remained steady for two decades. 11% of those who identify as liberal follow a vegetarian diet, compared to 2% of conservatives. Many proponents of vegetarianism say that eating meat harms health, wastes resources, and creates pollution. They often argue that killing animals for food is cruel and unethical since non-animal food sources are plentiful. Many opponents of a vegetarian diet say that meat consumption is healthful and humane, and that producing vegetables causes many of the same environmental problems as producing meat. They also argue that humans have been eating and enjoying meat for 2.3 million years. Read more background…
# Should Tablets Replace Textbooks in K-12 Schools?' **Argument** Files on one tablet can be downloaded onto any other tablet, increasing flexibility and convenience for teachers and students. E-textbooks and other files can be stored on “cloud” servers and accessed on any equivalent device. Users can sign into an account on a different device and access all of their information. **Background** Textbook publishing in the United States is an $11 billion industry, with five companies – Cengage Learning, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, and Scholastic – capturing about 80% of this market. Tablets are an $18 billion industry with 53% of US adults, 81% of US children aged eight to 17, and 42% of US children aged under eight, owning a tablet. As tablets have become more prevalent, a new debate has formed over whether K-12 school districts should switch from print textbooks to digital textbooks on tablets and e-readers.  Proponents of tablets say that they are supported by most teachers and students, are much lighter than print textbooks, and improve standardized test scores. They say tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks, save the environment by lowering the amount of printing, increase student interactivity and creativity, and that digital textbooks are cheaper than print textbooks. Opponents of tablets say that they are expensive, too distracting for students, easy to break, and costly/time-consuming to fix. They say that tablets contribute to eyestrain, headaches, and blurred vision, increase the excuses available for students not doing their homework, require costly Wi-Fi networks, and become quickly outdated as new technologies emerge. Read more background…
# Should Teachers Get Tenure?' **Argument** Tenure protects teachers from being fired for teaching unpopular, controversial, or otherwise challenged curricula such as evolutionary biology and controversial literature. According to Edison State College teacher David McGrath, tenure “ensures academic freedom to teach important concepts such as evolution, and classic texts such as ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ or ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ all of which have been banned by some school districts.” **Background** Teacher tenure is the increasingly controversial form of job protection that public school teachers in 46 states receive after 1-5 years on the job. An estimated 2.3 million teachers have tenure. Proponents of tenure argue that it protects teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons, and prevents the firing of experienced teachers to hire less expensive new teachers. They contend that since school administrators grant tenure, neither teachers nor teacher unions should be unfairly blamed for problems with the tenure system. Opponents of tenure argue that this job protection makes the removal of poorly performing teachers so difficult and costly that most schools end up retaining their bad teachers. They contend that tenure encourages complacency among teachers who do not fear losing their jobs, and that tenure is no longer needed given current laws against job discrimination. Read more background…
# Is a College Education Worth It?' **Argument** Young adults learn interpersonal skills in college. Students have the opportunity to interact with other students and faculty, to join student organizations and clubs, and to take part in discussions and debates. According to Arthur Chickering’s “Seven Vectors” student development theory, “developing mature interpersonal relationships” is one of the seven stages students progress through as they attend college. Students ranked “interpersonal skills” as the most important skill used in their daily lives in a 1994 survey of 11,000 college students. Vivek Wadhwa, MBA, technology entrepreneur and scholar, states, “American children party [in college]. But you know something, by partying, they learn social skills. They learn how to interact with each other…They develop skills which make them innovative. Americans are the most innovative people in the world because of the education system.” **Background** People who argue that college is worth it contend that college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger salaries, and more work benefits than high school graduates. They say college graduates also have better interpersonal skills, live longer, have healthier children, and have proven their ability to achieve a major milestone. People who argue that college is not worth it contend that the debt from college loans is too high and delays graduates from saving for retirement, buying a house, or getting married. They say many successful people never graduated from college and that many jobs, especially trades jobs, do not require college degrees. Read more background…
# Should College Be Free? Top 3 Pros and Cons' **Argument** Tuition-free college is not free college and students will still have large debts. Tuition is only one expense college students have to pay and accounts for anywhere from 28.9% to 73.6% of total average college costs. [ On average, 2021-2022 in-state tuition at a 4-year public college cost $10,740 per year. Fees, room, and board for on-campus housing are another $11,950 . Books and supplies are another $1,240, transportation another $1,230, and other expenses cost another $2,170. Without tuition, college still costs an average of $16,590 per year. Tuition accounts for just 20% of the average community college student’s budget, which runs $18,830 annually on average. Sweden has free college and yet students in that country had an average of $19,000 in student debt for living costs and other expenses in 2013, compared to the $24,800 in debt US college students had the same year. **Background** Free college programs come in different forms but generally refer to the government picking up the tab for tuition costs, while students pay for other expenses such as room and board. [50]   32 states and DC have some variation of free college programs. 9 states have statewide programs with “few eligibility limits,” while 23 have “[s]tate sponsored free college tuition programs with income, merit, geographical or programmatic limitations.” 18 states have no free college programs. [51] [52] Tuition at public four-year institutions rose more than 31% between 2010 and 2020. When adjusted for inflation, college tuition has risen 747.8% since 1963. The average student loan debt more than doubled from the 1990s to the 2010s, according to the US Department of Education. About 16.8 million undergraduate students were projected to be enrolled in college in 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. [29] [53] [54] College tuition is set by state policy or by each individual institution. Some colleges, especially federal land grant schools, had free tuition beginning in the 1860s. And some states had tuition-free policies at state colleges and universities for in-state students well into the twentieth century. According to Ronald Gordon Ehrenberg, Professor at Cornell University, “Public colleges and universities were often free at their founding in the United States, but over time, as public support was reduced or not increased sufficiently to compensate for their growth in students and costs (faculty and staff salaries, utilities etc.), they moved first to a low tuition and eventually higher tuition policy. About 2.9% of American 18- to 24-year olds went to college for the 1909-1910 school year, compared to 40% in 2020. [37] [38] [39] [55] At the national level, free college programs have been in effect for military personnel since the 1944 GI Bill. At least 26 other countries have free or nearly free college tuition: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Panama, Poland, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and Uruguay. [7] [8] [9] [42] [43] [44] According to the 2022 Education Next Survey of Public Opinion, 63% of Americans supported free 4-year college and 66% supported free 2-year college. [56]
# Should the Federal Corporate Income Tax Rate Be Raised?' **Argument** Raising the corporate income tax rate would weaken the economy. Erica York, economist, and Alex Muresianu, Federal Policy Analyst, both of the Tax Policy Institute, estimated that raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% “would reduce GDP [Gross Domestic Product] by a cumulative $720 billion over the next 10 years.” They continued, “The $720 billion in lost GDP over 10 years slightly exceeds the estimated $694 billion of tax revenue that would be raised over 10 years after accounting for the smaller economy. For instance, in year 10, the economy would be about $137 billion lower, and the government would raise about $65 billion of revenue—implying about $2.10 of output lost for each dollar of dynamic revenue raised (or about $1.34 using conventional revenue) in the 10th year.” York and Muresianu explain, “Corporate income taxes are one of the most harmful ways to raise revenue. They place a higher burden on investment, reduce economic output, and reduce after-tax incomes across the income spectrum—negative economic effects that compound over time.” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said lowering corporate income tax rates would provide a “certainty premium” that would allow businesses to expand: “you would see the economy grow and momentum continue to build, and unemployment continue to ease down… All that will continue to build on itself.” Business Roundtable Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee Chair Gregory J. Hayes, Chief Executive Officer of Raytheon Technologies Corporation, argued, “Prior to the pandemic, the U.S. corporate tax rate drove economic growth, creating 6 million jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to a 50-year low and increasing middle class wages. From 2018 to 2019, major U.S. companies grew their R&D by 25 percent compared to the two years prior. The current U.S. corporate tax rate has also helped put U.S. businesses on a more level playing field with global competitors and encouraged businesses to invest and grow here in the United States.” **Background** The creation of the federal corporate income tax occurred in 1909, when the uniform rate was 1% for all business income above $5,000. Since then the rate has increased to as high as 52.8% in 1969. Today’s rate is set at 21% for all companies.  Proponents of raising the corporate tax rate argue that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes and that those taxes will keep companies in the United States while allowing the US federal government to pay for much needed infrastructure and social programs. Opponents of raising the corporate tax rate argue that an increase will weaken the economy and that the taxes will ultimately be paid by everyday people while driving corporations overseas. Read more background…
# Should the United States Maintain Its Embargo against Cuba?' **Argument** Free trade, not the isolation of an embargo, can promote democracy in Cuba. And, lifting the embargo would put pressure on Cuba to address problems that it had previously blamed on US sanctions. Trading with China led to economic reforms that brought 100 million people above the poverty line and improved access to health care and education across the country. Cuban officials have not been forced to take responsibility for problems such as a failing health care system, lack of access to medicine, the decline of the sugar industry, decrepit plumbing systems, and water pollution because they use the embargo as a scapegoat. The Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs reportedly blamed the embargo for a total of $1.66 billion in damage to the Cuban economy. President Bill Clinton said in a 2000 interview, “[S]sometimes I think [Fidel Castro] doesn’t want the embargo lifted… because as long as he can blame the United States, then he doesn’t have to answer to his own people for the failures of his economic policy.” **Background** Since the 1960s, the United States has imposed an embargo against Cuba, the Communist island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The embargo, known among Cubans as “el bloqueo” or “the blockade,” consists of economic sanctions against Cuba and restrictions on Cuban travel and commerce for all people and companies under US jurisdiction. Proponents of the embargo argue that Cuba has not met the US conditions for lifting the embargo, including transitioning to democracy and improving human rights. They say that backing down without getting concessions from the Castro regime will make the United States appear weak, and that only the Cuban elite would benefit from open trade. Opponents of the Cuba embargo argue that it should be lifted because the failed policy is a Cold War relic and has clearly not achieved its goals. They say the sanctions harm the US economy and Cuban citizens, and prevent opportunities to promote change and democracy in Cuba. They say the embargo hurts international opinion of the United States. Read more background…
# Should Tablets Replace Textbooks in K-12 Schools?' **Argument** Tablets have too many distractions for classroom use. Students may pay attention to apps, email, games, and websites instead of their teachers. 87% of K-12 teachers believe that “today’s digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans.” Four-fifths of students aged 8 – 18 multitask while using digital media. **Background** Textbook publishing in the United States is an $11 billion industry, with five companies – Cengage Learning, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, and Scholastic – capturing about 80% of this market. Tablets are an $18 billion industry with 53% of US adults, 81% of US children aged eight to 17, and 42% of US children aged under eight, owning a tablet. As tablets have become more prevalent, a new debate has formed over whether K-12 school districts should switch from print textbooks to digital textbooks on tablets and e-readers.  Proponents of tablets say that they are supported by most teachers and students, are much lighter than print textbooks, and improve standardized test scores. They say tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks, save the environment by lowering the amount of printing, increase student interactivity and creativity, and that digital textbooks are cheaper than print textbooks. Opponents of tablets say that they are expensive, too distracting for students, easy to break, and costly/time-consuming to fix. They say that tablets contribute to eyestrain, headaches, and blurred vision, increase the excuses available for students not doing their homework, require costly Wi-Fi networks, and become quickly outdated as new technologies emerge. Read more background…
# Is Cell Phone Radiation Safe?' **Argument** Radiofrequency radiation from cell phones is non-ionizing and is not powerful enough to cause cancer. Ionizing radiation, including x-rays and ultraviolet light, produces molecules called ions that have either too many or too few electrons. Ions are known to damage DNA and cause cancer. Cell phone radiation, like radio, TV, and visible light radiation, is non-ionizing and lacks sufficient energy to add or remove electrons from molecules, and therefore it cannot ionize and cause cancer. Like cell phones, other devices including radios, televisions, cordless phones, and pagers all safely transmit signals using RF radiation. Radio has used RF radiation since at least 1893 and television has used it since at least 1939. The safe, long-term use of those RF-using devices helps prove that cell phones are also safe. According to the authors of a 2005 study of 3.7 million Swedish residents, a “biologic mechanism that could explain any possible carcinogenic effect from radiofrequency radiation has not been identified.” **Background**
# Should the United States Maintain Its Embargo against Cuba?' **Argument** The embargo should be maintained because open travel is insufficient to promote change in Cuba. Many democratic countries already allow travel to Cuba with no results. Lifting all travel restrictions to Cuba would not lead to improved conditions or the spread of democracy. More than 2.7 million people from around the world visited Cuba in 2011, including more tourists from Canada than any other country. Despite the steady flow of tourism from western countries, the Cuban government still maintains total control over its people. Most Cuban nationals are banned from tourist areas such as resorts and beaches, so there would be limited contact with US citizens vacationing there. **Background** Since the 1960s, the United States has imposed an embargo against Cuba, the Communist island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The embargo, known among Cubans as “el bloqueo” or “the blockade,” consists of economic sanctions against Cuba and restrictions on Cuban travel and commerce for all people and companies under US jurisdiction. Proponents of the embargo argue that Cuba has not met the US conditions for lifting the embargo, including transitioning to democracy and improving human rights. They say that backing down without getting concessions from the Castro regime will make the United States appear weak, and that only the Cuban elite would benefit from open trade. Opponents of the Cuba embargo argue that it should be lifted because the failed policy is a Cold War relic and has clearly not achieved its goals. They say the sanctions harm the US economy and Cuban citizens, and prevent opportunities to promote change and democracy in Cuba. They say the embargo hurts international opinion of the United States. Read more background…
# Is a College Education Worth It?' **Argument** Learning a trade profession is a better option than college for many young adults. Trade professions are necessary for society to function, require less than four years of training, and often pay above average wages. The high number of young adults choosing college over learning a trade has created a ‘skills gap’ in the US and there is now a shortage of ‘middle-skill” trade workers like machinists, electricians, plumbers, and construction workers. One 2011 survey of US manufacturers found that 67% reported a “moderate to severe shortage of talent,” “Middle-skill” jobs represent half of all jobs in the US that pay middle-class wages. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “middle-skill” jobs will make up 45% of projected job openings through 2014, but as of 2012 only 25% of the workforce had the skills to fill those jobs. **Background** People who argue that college is worth it contend that college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger salaries, and more work benefits than high school graduates. They say college graduates also have better interpersonal skills, live longer, have healthier children, and have proven their ability to achieve a major milestone. People who argue that college is not worth it contend that the debt from college loans is too high and delays graduates from saving for retirement, buying a house, or getting married. They say many successful people never graduated from college and that many jobs, especially trades jobs, do not require college degrees. Read more background…
# Is Social Media Good for Society?' **Argument** Using social media can harm job stability and employment prospects. Job recruiters reported negative reactions to profanity (63%), poor spelling or grammar (66%), sexual content (70%), and references to illegal drugs (83%), guns (51%), and alcohol (44%) on potential employees’ social media. 55% of recruiters report reconsidering hiring applicants based on social media activities. Anthony Weiner, former US Representative, was forced to resign after a Twitter sexting scandal. Curt Schilling, former All-Star pitcher, was fired from ESPN for his Facebook comments about transgender people; he had previously been suspended for a tweet in which he compared radical Muslims to Nazis. **Background** Around seven out of ten Americans (72%) use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, up from 26% in 2008. [26] [189]. On social media sites, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more. Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly. Opponents of social networking say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter children’s brains and behavior making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burglars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information. Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** The push for school uniforms is driven by commercial interests rather than educational ones. Americans spend around $1 billion on school uniforms every year. Retailer J.C. Penney Co. says school uniforms are “a huge, important business for us.” In one year alone, uniform company Lands’ End spent $3 million on marketing efforts directed at public schools and districts. Multiple studies used to promote the effectiveness of uniforms were partly funded by Lands’ End, and at least one of those studies is “so wholly flawed as to render itself useless,” according to David L. Brunsma, PhD. Reuters reported that retailers were “sensing their opportunity… stepping up competition in the uniform aisles and online. Walmart has set up ‘uniform shops’ or temporary boutiques within some stores.” **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Defunding the Police Pros and Cons | Top 3 Arguments For and Against' **Argument** The level of police misconduct is overstated, more (not fewer) police are being called for in crime-ridden areas, and reforms are both possible and supported by a majority of Americans. In Camden, New Jersey, the local police department was disbanded due to police corruption and rising crime rates. The county now runs the department, and implemented de-escalation training, defined chokeholds as deadly force, and required that officers step in if a colleague is using excessive force. Officers were tasked with patrolling on foot, introducing themselves to residents, and hosting community barbecues. Violent crime dropped 42% between 2012 and 2019. In comparison, the FBI estimates nationwide violent crime fell 9% from 2009 to 2018. Sam Sinyangwe, co-founder of We the Protestors, explained, “if you look at the 30 largest cities, police shootings have dropped about 30 percent, and some cities have seen larger drops. In some of these cities, like Chicago and Los Angeles, activists with Black Lives Matter and other groups have done a lot of work to push for de-escalation, stricter use-of-force policies and greater accountability.” Contrary to the publicly asserted “war” on black people by white police officers, few are actually murdered by white officers each year. An analysis of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, police department found white officers were least likely to shoot an unarmed black person, with a threat perception failure (TPF) rate of 5.2% with black suspects. Black officers had an 11.4% rate, and Hispanic officers a 16.7% rate. According to a June 2020 poll, 82% of Americans agree that police use of chokeholds should be banned. 83% support racial profiling bans. 92% agree that police should wear body cameras. 89% agree on requiring officers to give their name, badge number, and a reason for the stop during police stops. 91% support independent investigations of misconduct in departments. And 75% support allowing police misconduct victims to sue departments for damages. If police departments were reformed to focus on policing black neighborhoods the same way they police wealthy white neighborhoods, police violence would decrease. Black neighborhoods suffer from underpolicing as police officers focus on traffic and drug stops.  Jill Leovy, author of Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, explains that police focus “on nuisance and vice—the cheap and easy, low-hanging fruit of the trade,” while murders in predominantly black neighborhoods go unsolved: “From 1988 to 2002, the number of unsolved homicides in the L.A. Police Department’s South Bureau was 41 per square mile. Even as many white neighborhoods remained untouched by killings during this period, some predominately black ones had three unsolved cases per block—seven at the especially violent intersection of South San Pedro and East 84th streets.” Amid the George Floyd protests in May 2020, Chicago registered the city’s most deadly weekend in six decades: 110 shootings (85 wounded, 25 killed). Nearly all of the victims and shooters were black. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and social activist in the South Side of Chicago, stated, “On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing.’” **Background** Amid the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020, calls to “defund the police” began to populate protest signs and social media posts.  While there are multiple interpretations of “defund the police,” the basic definition is to move funding away from police departments and into community resources such as mental health experts, housing, and social workers. In the larger scope of the civil rights movement, some advocates would reallocate some police funding but keep police departments, others would combine defunding with other police reforms such as body cameras and bias training, and others see defunding as a small step toward ultimately abolishing police departments and the prison system entirely. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]  According to the most recent data available, police departments received about $114.5 billion nationwide in 2017 from state and local governments, up from $42.3 billion in 1977. Police budgets have made up around 4% of total state and local budgets since 1977. About 97% of police budgets go toward operational costs such as salaries and benefits. However, individual cities or counties may allocate more funds to police departments. The 2017 Los Angeles city budget, for example, provided 23% of the budget to police, while 9% of Los Angeles county’s budget went to policing. [7] [8] [9] In June 2020, 64% of Americans opposed the abstract idea of defunding the police, while 34% supported the movement. 60% were against reallocating police budget funds to other public health and social programs, while 39% were in favor. [10] In Oct. 2021, 21% of American adults wanted police budgets “increased a lot” and 26% wanted budgets “increased a little,” while 9% wanted police budgets “decreased a little” and 6% “decreased a lot.” 37% said budgets should “stay about the same.” [58]
# Reparations for Slavery - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** There is already precedent for the paying of reparations to the descendants of slaves and to other groups by the US federal government, US state and local governments, and international organizations. The US federal government paid reparations to victims of Japanese internment camps via the Japanese-American Claims Act of 1948 ($38 million between 1948 and 1965), and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (a $20,000 payment to each survivor for a total of $1.6 billion by 1998). Victims of the Tuskegee Study, which infected 399 black men with syphilis and left them untreated, were paid $10 million in reparations and they and their families were given lifelong medical care by the US government. Not only has the US paid reparations to victimized groups, but around 900 Washington, D.C., slaveholders were paid about $23 million in 2020 dollars to free 2,981 slaves in Apr. 1862 through the Compensated Emancipation Act in DC, which Lincoln also tried in several states where the acts failed. North Carolina set up a $10 million reparations program for the estimated 7,600 people the state forcibly sterilized between 1929 and 1974. [18] Virginia paid $25,000 to each of the living survivors of about 8,000 people forcibly sterilized by the state. Florida passed a $2 million reparations plan for victims of the 1923 Rosewood race riot. Chicago, Illinois, passed an ordinance to pay a minimum of $20 million in reparations to victims of police brutality from 1972 to 1991 under Police Commander John Burge. As of 2012, the German government had paid $89 billion to victims of the Nazis through a reparations program begun in 1952. The country continues to pay reparations. In 2003, South Africa paid $85 million in reparations to 19,00 victims of apartheid crimes. Georgetown University offered reparations to descendants of the 272 slaves the Jesuits sold in 1838. Students voted for a $27.50 increase in fees to raise about $400,000 per year for a reparations fund. Virginia Theological Seminary ($1.7 million) and Princeton Theological Seminary ($27.6 million) have followed suit, and at least 56 colleges and universities have joined Universities Studying Slavery to explore the legacy of slavery at the institutions. In 2018, the Society of the Sacred Heart, an organization of Catholic nuns, paid reparations to descendants of people enslaved by the organization. In 1998, German electronics company Siemens created a $11.9 million fund for slave labor used in World War II, following a similar announcement by German automaker Volkswagen. If reparations can be paid to groups other than the descendants of slaves by the government, and to the descendants of slaves by independent groups, then reparations can be paid by the federal government. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action Reparations are payments (monetary and otherwise) given to a group that has suffered harm. For example, Japanese-Americans who were interned in the United States during World War II have received reparations. [1] Arguments for reparations for slavery date to at least Jan. 12, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Union General William T. Sherman met with 20 African American ministers in Savannah, Georgia. Stanton and Sherman asked 12 questions, including: “State in what manner you think you can take care of yourselves, and how can you best assist the Government in maintaining your freedom.” Appointed spokesperson, Baptist minister, and former slave Garrison Frazier replied, “The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor … and we can soon maintain ourselves and have something to spare … We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own.” [2] [3] On Jan. 16, 1865, Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15 that authorized 400,000 acres of coastal land from Charleston, South Carolina to the St. John’s River in Florida to be divided into forty-acre plots and given to newly freed slaves for their exclusive use. The land had been confiscated by the Union from white slaveholders during the Civil War. Because Sherman later gave orders for the Army to lend mules to the freedmen, the phrase “forty acres and a mule” became popular. [1] [4] However, shortly after Vice President Andrew Johnson became president following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on Apr. 14, 1865, he worked to rescind the order and revert the land back to the white landowners. At the end of the Civil War, the federal government had confiscated 850,000 acres of former Confederates’ land. By mid-1867, all but 75,000 acres had been returned to the Confederate owners. [1] [4] [5] Other efforts and arguments have been made to institute or deny reparations to descendants of slaves since the 1860s, and the issue remains divisive and hotly debated. An Oct. 2019 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found 29% of Americans overall approved of reparations. When separated by race, the poll showed 74% of black Americans, 44% of Hispanics, and 15% of white Americans were in favor of reparations. [6] While Americans generally think of reparations as monetary, Michelle Bachelet, MD, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in the office’s June 1, 2021 annual report, stated: “Measures taken to address the past should seek to transform the future. Structures and systems that were designed and shaped by enslavement, colonialism and successive racially discriminatory policies and systems must be transformed. Reparations should not only be equated with financial compensation. They also comprise measures aimed at restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition, including, for example, formal acknowledgment and apologies, memorialization and institutional and educational reforms. Reparations are essential for transforming relationships of discrimination and inequity and for mutually committing to and investing in a stronger, more resilient future of dignity, equality and non-discrimination for all. Reparatory justice requires a multipronged approach that is grounded in international human rights law. Reparations are one element of accountability and redress. For every violation, there should be repair of the harms caused through adequate, effective and prompt reparation. Reparations help to promote trust in institutions and the social reintegration of people whose rights may have been discounted, providing recognition to victims and survivors as rights holders.” [46] President Obama outlined the political difficulty of reparations on his podcast with Bruce Springsteen, “Renegades: Born in the U.S.A.” He said, “So, if you ask me theoretically: ‘Are reparations justified?’ The answer is yes. There’s not much question that the wealth of this country, the power of this country was built in significant part — not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it — but a large portion of it was built on the backs of slaves. What I saw during my presidency was the politics of white resistance and resentment, the talk of welfare queens and the talk of the undeserving poor and the backlash against affirmative action… all that made the prospect of actually proposing any kind of coherent, meaningful reparations program struck me as, politically, not only a non-starter but potentially counterproductive.” [47] An Oct. 2021 Gallup Center on Black Voices survey found 62% of American adults believe the federal government has an obligation to reduce the effects of slavery; 37% believe the government has no such obligation. Of those who support government action, 65% believe all black Americans should benefit, while 32% believe only the descendants of enslaved people should benefit. [48]
# Banned Books Pros and Cons - Top 3 Arguments For and Against' **Argument** Keeping books with inappropriate content out of libraries protects kids, but doesn't stop people from reading those books or prevent authors from writing them. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council noted that removing certain books from libraries is about showing discretion and respecting a community’s values, and doesn’t prevent people from getting those books elsewhere: “It’s an exaggeration to refer to this as book banning. There is nothing preventing books from being written or sold, nothing to prevent parents from buying it or children from reading it.” What some call “book banning,” many see as making responsible choices about what books are available in public and school libraries. “Is it censorship that you’re unable to go to your local taxpayer-funded branch and check out a copy of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’? For better or for worse, these books are still widely available. Your local community has simply decided that finite public resources are not going to be spent disseminating them,” Weekly Standard writer and school board member Mark Hemingway stated. **Background** The American Library Association (ALA) has tracked book challenges, which are attempts to remove or restrict materials, since 1990. In 2020, the ALA recorded 156 reported book challenges in the United States, a significant decrease from the 377 reported challenges in 2019 perhaps due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, challenges jumped to an all-time high in 2021 with 729 challenges, containing a total of 1,597 books. [22] [27] [28] In most years, about 10% of the reported challenges result in removal or ban from the school or library. However, in 2016, five of the top ten most challenged books were removed. The ALA estimates that only about 3% to 18% of challenges are reported to its Office for Intellectual Freedom, meaning that the actual number of attempts to ban books is likely much higher. [1] [24] In 2021, challenges were most frequently brought by parents (39%), followed by patrons (24%), a board or administration (18%), librarians or teachers (6%), elected officials (2%), and students (1%). Books were most often challenged at school libraries (44%), public libraries (37%), schools (18%), and academic libraries (1%). [30] Sexually explicit content, offensive language, and “unsuited to any age group” are the top three reasons cited for requesting a book be removed. The percentage of Americans who thought any books should be banned increased from 18% in 2011 to 28% in 2015, and 60% of people surveyed believed that children should not have access to books containing explicit language in school libraries, according to The Harris Poll. A 2022 poll found 71% disagreed with efforts to have books removed, including 75% of Democrats, 58% of independents, and 70% of Republicans. [1] [3] [28]
# Net Neutrality - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Net neutrality reduces investment in internet services resulting in less access and higher costs for consumers. Between 2011 and 2015, when neutrality rules were being debated by the FCC, the mere threat of implementing them reduced ISPs investments in network upgrades by 20-30%, a $150-$200 billion reduction in investment. During the years that net neutrality rules were in place (2015-2017), investment in broadband fell for the first time ever in a non-recession period. According to AT&T, that “chilled investment in broadband,” threatened “to slow the delivery of broadband services to all Americans… particularly in rural America where broadband investment is needed the most.” Net neutrality regulations also prevent ISPs from charging large content companies (such as video streaming services) additional fees to cover the costs of the massive bandwidth they use. Preventing such paid prioritization fees places the costs of building the additional capacity necessary to carry the content onto ISPs, and these costs will trickle down to consumers in the form of more expensive internet packages – which are paid by all, even those who don’t use the streaming services. **Background** OverviewPro/Con ArgumentsDiscussion QuestionsTake Action The net neutrality rules adopted in 2015 under the Obama administration regulated the internet as a common carrier, the same category as telephone service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules prevented internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking, slowing, prioritizing, or charging consumers extra money to access certain websites. For example, under net neutrality rules, Verizon could not speed up access to websites it owns, such as Yahoo and AOL, and could not slow down traffic, or charge extra fees, to other major websites like Google or YouTube. [5] [4] On Dec. 14, 2017, under the Trump administration, the FCC voted (3-2) to overturn those net neutrality rules and reclassified internet service as an information source, rather than a common carrier. [1] [5] Many state attorneys general filed suit against the FCC decision. The US Senate voted 52-47 to approve a resolution to invalidate the decision, however the legislation fell short by 46 votes in the US House of Representatives. The FCC’s removal of net neutrality rules was officially implemented on June 11, 2018. [6] [25] [26] [34] In Sep. 2018, California passed a net neutrality law and was immediately sued by the Trump Administration Justice Department. On Feb. 8, 2021, the Biden administration Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit against California, and FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel indicated support for reinstating net neutrality rules. [35] [36] According to the National Law Review, as of Mar. 1, 2021, “seven states have adopted net neutrality laws (California, Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington), and several other states have introduced some form of net neutrality legislation in the 2021 legislative session (among them Connecticut, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, and South Carolina).” [37] Should the US Have Net Neutrality Laws? Pro 1 Net neutrality preserves free speech on the internet by prohibiting internet service providers from blocking content. ISPs may slow or block websites that disagree with the companies’ political viewpoints or interfere with their monetary interests. [2][7] In 2017, then FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, JD, stated that the removal of net neutrality rules will give ISPs “extraordinary new power” and allow them “to censor online content.” [8] According to the 2014 D.C. Circuit court ruling, Verizon v. FCC, the power of ISPs to censor content is not “merely theoretical.” Before net neutrality was in place, instances of content censorship actually occurred, including two separate instances of broadband ISPs blocking access to voice over IP applications, and one instance of an ISP blocking an online payment service. [15] In 2014, President Obama stated that “an open Internet… has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known,” and that if content is legal your ISP should not be allowed to block it. [33] The Electronic Freedom Foundation has argued that, “the meaningful exercise of our constitutional rights—including the freedoms of speech, assembly, and press—has become dependent on broadband Internet access.” This dependency makes net neutrality rules essential for a free society. [16] Read More Pro 2 Net neutrality protects consumers by preventing ISPs from speeding, slowing, or charging higher fees for select online content. Allowing ISPs to speed or slow certain websites, or charge fees for fast lane access, may eventually trickle down to consumers in the form of higher internet costs. For example, a person who gets their internet service from Comcast could be charged extra fees to stream Netflix or Amazon (companies not owned by Comcast), while not being charged extra to stream NBC or Hulu (two companies that Comcast partially owns). [21] According to US Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), without net neutrality, ISPs could “cabel-ize” the internet, meaning that “instead of paying a flat price for access to use any app or service free of charge, companies could start bundling services into ‘social,’ ‘video,’ and so on,” and consumers will have to pay for it. [23] On Apr. 27, 2017, one day after then FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, JD, announced the plan to eliminate net neutrality, Comcast (the largest US ISP) removed its pledge to not “prioritize internet traffic or create paid fast lanes” from its corporate website. [20][11] Read More Pro 3 Net neutrality promotes competition by providing a level playing field for new companies. According to former Internet Association President & CEO Michael Beckerman, “without net neutrality protections, startups would face discrimination from ISP owned or preferred content that’s granted a speed advantage through paid prioritization,” thus hurting competition and consumer choice. [18][29] When the FCC implemented net neutrality rules in 2015, it warned “that broadband providers hold all the tools necessary” to “degrade content, or disfavor the content that they don’t like.” [27] According to Ryan Singel, Fellow at the the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, without net neutrality “broadband providers will be allowed to charge all websites and services, including startups, simply to reach an ISP’s subscribers. That’s a huge threat to the low cost of starting a company, and it totally up-ends the economics of the internet.” [17] A group of over 1,000 startup companies, innovators, and investors signed a petition to the FCC stating that “the success of America’s startup ecosystem depends… on an open Internet—including enforceable net neutrality rules.” [19] Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, MBA, said net neutrality principles must be protected “for the next set of entrepreneurs, building their services and trying to reach users.” [24] Read More Con 1 Net neutrality regulations are unnecessary because the internet developed amazingly well in their absence. Most large internet companies including Google (1998), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006) were started and grew to success without net neutrality regulations. According to former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, JD, “the internet wasn’t broken in 2015,” when net neutrality was implemented and “it certainly wasn’t heavy-handed government regulation” that was responsible for the “phenomenal development of the internet.” [9] As former FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly stated, “periods without net neutrality rules were times of innovation and investment.” [12] According to economist John W. Mayo, PhD, the entire rationale for net neutrality ignores the “positive economic outcomes in the provision of internet services that resulted from twenty years of light-touch regulation.” [32] As economist Gerald R. Faulhaber, PhD, argued: “we have had a decade of experience with broadband ISPs with little evidence of wrongdoing.” [3] A 2017 statement from the Internet & Television Association, signed by 21 large ISPs, stated they remain “committed to an open internet” and “will not block, throttle or otherwise impair your online activity,” once net neutrality regulations are removed. [14] Read More Con 2 Net neutrality created burdensome and overreaching regulations to govern the internet. According to the bipartisan Telecommunications Act of 1996, “the Internet and other interactive computer services have flourished, to the benefit of all Americans, with a minimum of government regulation,” and it should be the policy of the United States “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market… for the Internet and other interactive computer services unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” [32] In 2017, the FCC reported that neutrality rules imposed significant and “unnecessary” reporting burdens on ISPs to prove they were in compliance. For example, the ISP CenturyLink estimated that meeting the net neutrality rules created over 5,000 hours of extra paperwork, costing over $134,000 each year. [10] In addition to being burdensome for ISPs, net neutrality regulations exceed the FCC’s authority. According to the editors of the National Review, the net neutrality rules exceeded “the agency’s statutory mandate,” and “there is no title or provision in the Federal Communication Act that gives the agency a clear mandate to impose pricing and content-management rules on Internet providers, which is what net neutrality does.” [31] Read More Con 3 Net neutrality reduces investment in internet services resulting in less access and higher costs for consumers. Between 2011 and 2015, when neutrality rules were being debated by the FCC, the mere threat of implementing them reduced ISPs investments in network upgrades by 20-30%, a $150-$200 billion reduction in investment. [13] During the years that net neutrality rules were in place (2015-2017), investment in broadband fell for the first time ever in a non-recession period. [10][28] According to AT&T, that “chilled investment in broadband,” threatened “to slow the delivery of broadband services to all Americans… particularly in rural America where broadband investment is needed the most.” [30] Net neutrality regulations also prevent ISPs from charging large content companies (such as video streaming services) additional fees to cover the costs of the massive bandwidth they use. Preventing such paid prioritization fees places the costs of building the additional capacity necessary to carry the content onto ISPs, and these costs will trickle down to consumers in the form of more expensive internet packages – which are paid by all, even those who don’t use the streaming services. [22] Read More Discussion Questions 1. Should the United States have federal net neutrality laws? Why or why not? 2. Do net neutrality regulations protect consumers? Explain your answer(s). 3. Do net neutrality regulations unfairly limit internet companies? Take Action 1. Explore Kevin Taglang’s position that the internet needs net neutrality protections. 2. Consider which states have enacted (or considered enacting) net neutrality legislation according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 3. Analyze Ken Engelhart’s position that net neutrality laws are not needed because the internet is “inherently neutral.” 4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position. 5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives. Sources 1.Federal Communications Commission, “FCC Acts to Restore Internet Freedom,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 2.American Civil Liberties Union, “What Is Net Neutrality?,” aclu.org, Dec. 2017 3.Gerald R. Faulhaber, “Economics of Net Neutrality: A Review,” Communications & Convergence Review, 2011 4.Brian Fung, “The FCC Just Voted to Repeal Its Net Neutrality Rules, in a Sweeping Act of Deregulation,” washingtonpost.com, Dec. 14, 2017 5.Steve Lohr, “Net Neutrality Repeal: What Could Happen and How It Could Affect You,” nytimes.com, Nov. 21, 2017 6.David Shepardson, “21 States Sue to Keep Net Neutrality as Senate Democrats Reach 50 Votes,” reuters.com, Jan. 16, 2018 7.Roni Jacobson, “Internet Censorship Is Advancing under Trump,” wired.com, Apr. 12, 2017 8.Jessica Rosenworcel, “Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 9.Ajit Pai, “Oral Statement of Chairman Ajit Pai,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 10.Federal Communications Commission, “FCC Fact Sheet: Restoring Internet Freedom Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order – WC Docket No. 17-108,” apps.fcc.gov, Nov. 2, 2017 11.Jon Brodkin, “Comcast Deleted Net Neutrality Pledge Same Day FCC Announced Repeal,” arstechnica.com, Nov. 29, 2017 12.Michael O’Rielly, “Oral Statement of Commissioner Michael O’Reilly,” fcc.gov, Dec. 14, 2017 13.George S. Ford, “Net Neutrality, Reclassification and Investment: A Counterfactual Analysis,” Perspectives, Apr. 25, 2017 14.NCTA, “Reaffirming Our Commitment to an Open Internet,” ncta.com, May 17, 2017 15.Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission, cadc.uscorts.gov, Jan. 14, 2014 16.Electronic Freedom Foundation, “Comments of the Electronic Freedom Foundation on Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” eff.org, July 17, 2017 17.Ryan Singel, “Expect Fewer Great Startups if the FCC Kills Net Neutrality,” wired.com, Dec. 12, 2017 18.Internet Association, “Internet Association Files With FCC and Calls For Net Neutrality Rules to Be Kept in Place,” internetassociation.org, July 17, 2017 19.Startups for Net Neutrality, Letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, engine.is, Apr. 26, 2017 20.Ajit Pai, “Remarks of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai at the Newseum: The Future of Internet Freedom,” fcc.gov, Apr. 26, 2017 21.Steve Kovach, “The FCC Plans to Repeal Net Neutrality This Week – and It Could Ruin the Internet,” businessinsider.com, Dec. 10, 2017 22.Jim Cicconi, “Who Should Pay for Netflix?,” attpublicpolicy.com, Mar. 21, 2014 23.Anna G. Eshoo, “Net Neutrality Repeal Means You’re Going to Hate Your Cable Company Even More,” usatoday.com, Dec. 12, 2017 24.Jordan Malter, “Google CEO: Net Neutrality ‘A Principle We All Need to Fight For,'” money.cnn.com, Jan. 24, 2018 25.Bill Chappell and Susan Davis, “Senate Approves Overturning FCC’s Net Neutrality Repeal,” npr.org, May 16, 2018 26.Erin Carson and Marguerite Reardon, “Net Neutrality Rules Will End June 11th with the FCC’s Final Say-So,” cnet.com, May 10, 2018 27.Federal Communications Commission, “Report and Order on Remand, Declaratory Ruling, and Order,” transition.fcc.gov, Mar. 12, 2015 28.Hal Singer, “Bad Bet by FCC Sparks Capital Flight from Broadband,” forbes.com, Mar. 2, 2017 29.Internet Association, “Principles to Preserve & Protect an Open Internet,” internetassociation.org (accessed May 23, 2018) 30.AT&T, “Open Internet,” about.att.com (accessed May 10, 2018) 31.National Review, “Net Neutrality: Let Congress Decide if It’s Needed,” nationalreview.com, Nov. 11, 2017 32.John W. Mayo, et al., “An Economic Perspective of Title II Regulation of the Internet,” cbpp.georgetown.edu, July 2017 33.The White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Statement by the President on Net Neutrality,” obamawhitehouse.archives.gov, Nov. 10, 2014 34.Jon Brodkin, "Bill to Save Net NeutralityIis 46 Votes Short in US House," arstechnica.com, June 27, 2018 35.Cecilia Kang, "Justice Department Sues to Stop California Net Neutrality Law," nytimes.com, Sep. 30, 2018 36.Federal Communications Commission, "Statement of Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel on Department of Justice Decision to Withdraw Lawsuit to Block California Net Neutrality Law," docs.fcc.gov, Feb. 8, 2021 37.National Law Review, "State Net Neutrality Laws May Lead to Federal Legislation," natlawreview.com, Mar. 1, 2021 window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',function(){var e,t=document.getElementById("procon-page-data"),n=!!t&&JSON.parse(atob(t.innerHTML));n&&n.site&&n.site.theme_uri&&((e=document.createElement("script")).async=!0,e.src=n.site.theme_uri+"js/spot-im-recirculation-and-conversation.min.js?v=1593750185",document.body.appendChild(e))}); .spcv_community-question{font-size:18px;min-height:50px;padding:20px 15px}
# Is Artificial Intelligence Good for Society? Top 3 Pros and Cons' **Argument** AI will harm the standard of living for many people by causing mass unemployment as robots replace people. AI robots and other software and hardware are becoming less expensive and need none of the benefits and services required by human workers, such as sick days, lunch hours, bathroom breaks, health insurance, pay raises, promotions, and performance reviews, which spells trouble for workers and society at large. 48% of experts believed AI will replace a large number of blue- and even white-collar jobs, creating greater income inequality, increased unemployment, and a breakdown of the social order. The axiom “everything that can be automated, will be automated” is no longer science fiction. Self-checkout kiosks in stores like CVS, Target, and WalMart use AI-assisted video and scanners to prevent theft, alert staff to suspicious transactions, predict shopping trends, and mitigate sticking points at checkout.These AI-enabled machines have displaced human cashiers. About 11,000 retail jobs were lost in 2019, largely due to self-checkout and other technologies. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a self-checkout manufacturer shipped 25% more units globally, reflecting the more than 70% of American grocery shoppers who preferred self or touchless checkouts. An Oct. 2020 World Economic Forum report found 43% of businesses surveyed planned to reduce workforces in favor of automation. Many businesses, especially fast-food restaurants, retail shops, and hotels, automated jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Income inequality was exacerbated over the last four decades as 50-70% of changes in American paychecks were caused by wage decreases for workers whose industries experienced rapid automation, including AI technologies. **Background** Artificial intelligence (AI) is the use of “computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind,” according to IBM. [1] The idea of AI goes back at least 2,700 years. As Adrienne Mayor, research scholar, folklorist, and science historian at Stanford University, explained: “Our ability to imagine artificial intelligence goes back to the ancient times. Long before technological advances made self-moving devices possible, ideas about creating artificial life and robots were explored in ancient myths.” [2] Mayor noted that the myths about Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention and blacksmithing,  included precursors to AI. For example, Hephaestus created the giant bronze man, Talos, which had a mysterious life force from the gods called ichor. Hephaestus also created Pandora and her infamous box, as well as a set of automated servants made of gold that were given the knowledge of the gods. Mayor concluded, “Not one of those myths has a good ending once the artificial beings are sent to Earth. It’s almost as if the myths say that it’s great to have these artificial things up in heaven used by the gods. But once they interact with humans, we get chaos and destruction.” [2] The modern version of AI largely began when Alan Turing, who contributed to breaking the Nazi’s Enigma code during World War II, created the Turing test to determine if a computer is capable of “thinking.” The value and legitimacy of the test have long been the subject of debate. [1] [3] [4] The “Father of Artificial Intelligence,” John McCarthy, coined the term “artificial intelligence” when he, with Marvin Minsky and Claude Shannon, proposed a 1956 summer workshop on the topic at Dartmouth College. McCarthy defined artificial intelligence as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” He later created the computer programming language LISP (which is still used in AI), hosted computer chess games against human Russian opponents, and developed the first computer with ”hand-eye” capability, all important building blocks for AI. [1] [5] [6] [7] The first AI program designed to mimic how humans solve problems, Logic Theorist, was created by Allen Newell, J.C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon in 1955-1956. The program was designed to solve problems from Principia Mathematica (1910-13) written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. [1] [8] In 1958, Frank Rosenblatt invented the Perceptron, which he claimed was “the first machine which is capable of having an original idea.” Though the machine was hounded by skeptics, it was later praised as the “foundations for all of this artificial intelligence.” [1] [9] As computers became cheaper in the 1960s and 70s, AI programs such as Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA flourished, and US government agencies including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began to fund AI-related research. But computers were still too weak to manage the language tasks researchers asked of them. Another influx of funding in the 1980s and early 90s furthered the research, including the invention of expert systems by Edward Feigenbaum and Joshua Lederberg. But progress again waned with a drop in government funding. [10] In 1997, Gary Kasparov, reigning world chess champion and grand master, was defeated by IBM’s Deep Blue AI computer program, a huge step for AI researchers. More recently, advances in computer storage limits and speeds have opened new avenues for AI research and implementation, such as aiding in scientific research and forging new paths in medicine for patient diagnosis, robotic surgery, and drug development. [1] [10] [11] [12] Now, artificial intelligence is used for a variety of everyday implementations including facial recognition software, online shopping algorithms, search engines, digital assistants like Siri and Alexa, translation services, automated safety functions on cars (and the promised self-driving cars of the future), cybersecurity, airport body scanning security, poker playing strategy, and fighting disinformation on social media, among others. [13] [58]
# Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?' **Argument** Video games that portray violence against women lead to more harmful attitudes and sexually violent actions towards women. A 2012 peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that video games that sexually objectify women and feature violence against women led to a statistically significant increase in rape-supportive attitudes, which are attitudes that are hostile towards rape victims. A 1998 peer-reviewed study found that 21% of games sampled involved violence against women, while 28% portrayed them as sex objects. Exposure to sexual violence in video games is linked to increases in violence towards women and false attitudes about rape, such as that women incite men to rape or that women secretly desire rape. Carole Lieberman, MD, a media psychiatrist, stated, “The more video games a person plays that have violent sexual content, the more likely one is to become desensitized to violent sexual acts and commit them.” In Dec. 2014, Target Australia stopped selling Grand Theft Auto V in response to customer complaints about the game’s depiction of women, which includes the option to kill a prostitute to get your money back. **Background** Around 73% of American kids age 2-17 played video games in 2019, a 6% increase over 2018. Video games accounted for 17% of kids’ entertainment time and 11% of their entertainment spending. The global video game industry was worth contributing $159.3 billion in 2020, a 9.3% increase of 9.3% from 2019. Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence towards women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for simulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts. Video game advocates contend that a majority of the research on the topic is deeply flawed and that no causal relationship has been found between video games and social violence. They argue that violent video games may provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and may reduce crime. Read more background…
# Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change?' **Argument** Glaciers have been growing and receding for thousands of years due to natural causes, not human activity. The IPCC predicted that Himalayan glaciers would likely melt away by 2035, a prediction they disavowed in 2010. In 2014 a study of study of 2,181 Himalayan glaciers from 2000-2011 showed that 86.6% of the glaciers were not receding. A study of ice cores published in Nature Geoscience said the current melting of glaciers in Western Antarctica was due to “atmospheric circulation changes” that have “caused rapid warming over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet” and cannot be directly attributed to human caused climate change. According to one of the study authors, “[i]f we could look back at this region of Antarctica in the 1940s and 1830s, we would find that the regional climate would look a lot like it does today, and I think we also would find the glaciers retreating much as they are today.” According to Christian Schlüchter, Professor of Geology at the University of Bern, the retreat of glaciers in the Alps began in the mid-19th century, before large amounts of human caused CO2 had entered the atmosphere. **Background** Average surface temperatures on earth have risen more than 2°F over the past 100 years. During this time period, atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) have notably increased. This site explores the debate on whether climate change is caused by humans (also known as anthropogenic climate change). The pro side argues rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are a direct result of human activities such as burning fossil fuels, and that these increases are causing significant and increasingly severe climate changes including global warming, loss of sea ice, sea level rise, stronger storms, and more droughts. They contend that immediate international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to prevent dire climate changes. The con side argues human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are too small to substantially change the earth’s climate and that the planet is capable of absorbing those increases. They contend that warming over the 20th century resulted primarily from natural processes such as fluctuations in the sun’s heat and ocean currents. They say the theory of human-caused global climate change is based on questionable measurements, faulty climate models, and misleading science. Read more background…
# Homework Pros and Cons - Should Homework Be Banned?' **Argument** Homework exacerbates the digital divide or homework gap. Kiara Taylor, financial expert, defined the digital divide as “the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and communications technology and those that don’t. Though the term now encompasses the technical and financial ability to utilize available technology—along with access (or a lack of access) to the Internet—the gap it refers to is constantly shifting with the development of technology.” For students, this is often called the homework gap. 30% (about 15 to 16 million) public school students either did not have an adequate internet connection or an appropriate device, or both, for distance learning. Completing homework for these students is more complicated (having to find a safe place with an internet connection, or borrowing a laptop, for example) or impossible. A Hispanic Heritage Foundation study found that 96.5% of students across the country needed to use the internet for homework, and nearly half reported they were sometimes unable to complete their homework due to lack of access to the internet or a computer, which often resulted in lower grades. One study concluded that homework increases social inequality because it “potentially serves as a mechanism to further advantage those students who already experience some privilege in the school system while further disadvantaging those who may already be in a marginalized position.” **Background** From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century. [1] While we are unsure who invented homework, we do know that the word “homework” dates back to ancient Rome. Pliny the Younger asked his followers to practice their speeches at home. Memorization exercises as homework continued through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment by monks and other scholars. [45] In the 19th century, German students of the Volksschulen or “People’s Schools” were given assignments to complete outside of the school day. This concept of homework quickly spread across Europe and was brought to the United States by Horace Mann, who encountered the idea in Prussia. [45] In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies’ Home Journal, decried homework’s negative impact on children’s physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917. In the 1930s, homework was portrayed as child labor, which was newly illegal, but the prevailing argument was that kids needed time to do household chores. [1] [2] [45] [46] Public opinion swayed again in favor of homework in the 1950s due to concerns about keeping up with the Soviet Union’s technological advances during the Cold War. And, in 1986, the US government included homework as an educational quality boosting tool. [3] [45] A 2014 study found kindergarteners to fifth graders averaged 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders 3.2 hours per teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders 3.5 hours per teacher. A 2014-2019 study found that teens spent about an hour a day on homework. [4] [44] Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the very idea of homework as students were schooling remotely and many were doing all school work from home. Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss asked, “Does homework work when kids are learning all day at home?” While students were mostly back in school buildings in fall 2021, the question remains of how effective homework is as an educational tool. [47]
# Should All Americans Have the Right (Be Entitled) to Health Care?' **Argument** Instituting a right to health care could lower the cost of health care in the United States. According to a study from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, under a single-payer system, in which all citizens are guaranteed a right to health care, total public and private health care spending could be lowered by up to $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years due to lowered administrative and prescription drug costs. The American Medical Association reports that private health insurance plans spend 11.7% of premiums on administrative costs vs. 6.3% spent by public health programs. According to data by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Canada and the United Kingdom, two countries that provide universal health coverage, spend 47% and 42% of what the United States did per capita in 2017. South Korea, also with universal coverage, spent just 28%. **Background** 27.5 million people in the United States (8.5% of the US population) do not have health insurance. Among the 91.5% who do have health insurance, 67.3% have private insurance while 34.4% have government-provided coverage through programs such as Medicaid or Medicare. Employer-based health insurance is the most common type of coverage, applying to 55.1% of the US population. The United States is the only nation among the 37 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations that does not have universal health care either in practice or by constitutional right. Proponents of the right to health care say that no one in one of the richest nations on earth should go without health care. They argue that a right to health care would stop medical bankruptcies, improve public health, reduce overall health care spending, help small businesses, and that health care should be an essential government service. Opponents argue that a right to health care amounts to socialism and that it should be an individual’s responsibility, not the government’s role, to secure health care. They say that government provision of health care would decrease the quality and availability of health care, and would lead to larger government debt and deficits. Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** School uniforms can save parents money. Parents can reduce their financial burden when their children are limited to wearing one simple outfit every day. A study of uniform cost in the United Kingdom found that uniforms cost parents £88.05 ($128.79) per outfit, while out-of-school outfits averaged £113.00 ($165.79). A national survey of 517 US school leaders found that 94% of those surveyed believe “one of the main benefits to parents is that school uniforms are more cost-effective than regular apparel,” and 77% estimated the average annual cost of school uniforms per child to be $150 or less.  Without school uniform policies, parents may feel pressure to compete with other families by purchasing fashionable clothes for their children. **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Was Bill Clinton a Good President?' **Argument** Crime: The crime rate fell every year that Clinton was president and was at a 26-year low by the end of his two terms. He got funding for 100,000 new police officers nationwide. He signed the 1993 Brady Bill requiring a waiting period and background check to purchase handguns. Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill included a ban on assault weapons, and there was a 40 percent decline in gun crime by 2001. **Background** William Jefferson Clinton, known as Bill Clinton, served as the 42nd President of the United States from Jan. 20, 1993 to Jan. 19, 2001. His proponents contend that under his presidency the US enjoyed the lowest unemployment and inflation rates in recent history, high home ownership, low crime rates, and a budget surplus. They give him credit for eliminating the federal deficit and reforming welfare, despite being forced to deal with a Republican-controlled Congress. His opponents say that Clinton cannot take credit for the economic prosperity experienced during his scandal-plagued presidency because it was the result of other factors. In fact, they blame his policies for the financial crisis that began in 2007. They point to his impeachment by Congress and his failure to pass universal health care coverage as further evidence that he was not a good president. Read more background…
# Bottled Water Bans - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Bottled water is a practical emergency water supply. If tap water is not drinkable, then bottled water is a necessary replacement, making its availability essential to public health. Ready.gov, the Department of Homeland Security’s preparedness website on how to prepare for natural and man-made disasters, recommends everyone “buy commercially bottled water and store it in the sealed original container in cool, dark place.” In Apr. 2014, officials in Flint, MI, changed the city’s water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Flint River water is highly corrosive – it eroded water pipes delivering tap water to residents’ homes resulting in iron and lead leaching into the water, poisoning those who drank and bathed in it. Between Jan. 2016 and Apr. 2018, the state distributed free 16oz bottles of water to residents for use instead of tap water – it was estimated that a family of three used 151 of these water bottles a day.   Between Dec. 2016 and Mar. 2018, residents of St. Joseph, LA, relied on state-issued bottled water as a replacement for tap water after high levels of lead were found in their system. **Background** Americans consumed 14.4 billion gallons of bottled water in 2019, up 3.6% from 2018, in what has been a steadily increasing trend since 2010. In 2016, bottled water outsold soda for the first time and has continued to do so every year since, making it the number one packaged beverage in the United States. 2020 revenue for bottled water was $61.326 million by June 15, and the overall market is expected to grow to $505.19 billion by 2028. [50] [51] [52] Globally, about 20,000 plastic bottles were bought every second in 2017, the majority of which contained drinking water. More than half of those bottles were not turned in for recycling, and of those recycled, only 7% were turned into new bottles. [49] In 2013, Concord, MA, became the first US city to ban single-serve plastic water bottles, citing environmental and waste concerns. Since then, many cities, colleges, entertainment venues, and national parks have followed suit, including San Francisco, the University of Vermont, the Detroit Zoo, and the Grand Canyon National Park. [17] [26] [44]
# US Supreme Court Packing - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org' **Argument** Historical precedent allows for more than nine Supreme Court Justices, and there are no laws against having more than nine. The US Constitution does not specify the number of justices on the Supreme Court. As the Supreme Court FAQs page notes, “The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress. The first Judiciary Act, passed in 1789, set the number of Justices at six, one Chief Justice and five Associates. Over the years Congress has passed various acts to change this number, fluctuating from a low of five to a high of ten. The Judiciary Act of 1869 fixed the number of Justices at nine and no subsequent change to the number of Justices has occurred.” Originally, there were six justices (1789), the number was reduced to five in 1801, increased to six in 1802, seven in 1807, to nine in 1837, and to 10 in 1863, before shrinking to seven in 1866, and rising again to nine in 1869. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Congress to increase the number to up to 15 in 1937, but Congress did not agree. Ultimately, the number of Supreme Court justices is arbitrary, easily revised by Congress, and ripe for change. Court packing could signal a new era of non-partisanship in the Supreme Court. **Background** Court packing is increasing the number of seats on a court to change the ideological makeup of the court. [1] The US Constitution does not dictate the number of justices on the Supreme Court, but states only: “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.” [2] The number of justices on the Court, set at nine since the mid-19th century, has changed over the years. The court was founded in 1789 with six justices, but was reduced to five in 1801 and increased to six in 1802, followed by small changes over the subsequent 67 years. [14] [15] As explained in Encyclopaedia Britannica, “In 1807 a seventh justice was added, followed by an eighth and a ninth in 1837 and a tenth in 1863. The size of the court has sometimes been subject to political manipulation; for example, in 1866 Congress provided for the gradual reduction (through attrition) of the court to seven justices to ensure that President Andrew Johnson, whom the House of Representatives later impeached and the Senate only narrowly acquitted, could not appoint a new justice. The number of justices reached eight before Congress, after Johnson had left office, adopted new legislation (1869) setting the number at nine, where it has remained ever since.” [3] The idea of court packing dates to 1937 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed adding a new justice to the Supreme Court for every justice who refused to retire at 70 years old, up to a maximum of 15 justices. The effort is frequently framed as a battle between “an entrenched, reactionary Supreme Court, which overturned a slew of Roosevelt’s New Deal economic reforms, against a hubristic president willing to take the unprecedented step of asking Congress to appoint six new, and sympathetic, justices to the bench,” according to Cicero Institute Senior Policy Advisor Judge Glock, PhD. Roosevelt’s proposal was seen by many as a naked power grab for control of a second branch of government. Plus, as Glock points out, a then new law reducing Supreme Court pensions was preventing retirements at the very time Roosevelt was calling for them. [4] [5] [6] The contemporary debate has been heavily influenced by events following the Feb. 13, 2016, death of conservative Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Citing the upcoming 2016 election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to consider President Barack Obama’s liberal Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. At the time, there were 342 days remaining in Obama’s presidency, 237 days until the 2016 election, and neither the 2016 Democratic nor Republican nominee had been chosen. Because the Senate approval process was delayed until 2017, the next president, Donald Trump, was allowed to appoint a new justice (conservative Neil Gorsuch) to what many Democrats called a “stolen seat” that should have been filled by Obama. [5] [7] The court packing debate was reinvigorated in 2019 with the appointment of conservative Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh by President Trump after liberal-leaning swing vote Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in July 2018. [1] In the wake of this appointment, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, then also a 2020 presidential candidate, suggested expanding the court to 15 justices in the Oct. 15, 2019, Democratic presidential debate. [8] Then largely brushed aside as “radical,” the topic resurfaced once again upon the death of liberal stalwart Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sep. 18, 2020. Liberals, and some conservatives, argued that the 2016 precedent should be followed and that Justice Ginsburg’s seat should remain empty until after the 2020 presidential election or the Jan. 2021 presidential inauguration. However, McConnell and the Republicans in control of the Senate, and thus the approval process, indicated they would move forward with a Trump nomination without delay. McConnell defended these actions by stating the President and the Senate are of the same party (which was not the case in 2016, negating—from his perspective—that incident as a precedent that needed following), and thus the country had confirmed Republican rule. [5] [7] [9] Others argued as well that, since there was a chance that the results of the 2020 election could be challenged in the courts, and perhaps even at the Supreme Court level (due to concerns over the handling of mailed-in ballots), it was critical for an odd number of justices to sit on the Court (for an even number, such as eight, could mean a split 4-4 decision on the critical question of who would be deemed the next U.S. president, sending the country into a constitutional crisis). At the time of McConnell’s Sept. 18 announcement via Twitter, there were 124 days left in Trump’s term and 45 days until the 2020 election. Some called the impending nomination to replace Ginsburg and the 2016/2017 events a version of court packing by Republicans. [5] [7] [9] Supreme Court nominees can be confirmed by the US Senate with a simple majority vote, with the Vice President called in to break a 50-50 tie. Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed by the Senate on Oct. 26, 2020 with a 52-48 vote to replace Justice Ginsburg, eight days before the 2020 election. [7] [24]
# Should Teachers Get Tenure?' **Argument** Teacher tenure requires schools to make long-term spending commitments and prevents districts from being fiscally flexible. Teacher employment contracts generally lack provisions for declining enrollment and economic turmoil. **Background** Teacher tenure is the increasingly controversial form of job protection that public school teachers in 46 states receive after 1-5 years on the job. An estimated 2.3 million teachers have tenure. Proponents of tenure argue that it protects teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons, and prevents the firing of experienced teachers to hire less expensive new teachers. They contend that since school administrators grant tenure, neither teachers nor teacher unions should be unfairly blamed for problems with the tenure system. Opponents of tenure argue that this job protection makes the removal of poorly performing teachers so difficult and costly that most schools end up retaining their bad teachers. They contend that tenure encourages complacency among teachers who do not fear losing their jobs, and that tenure is no longer needed given current laws against job discrimination. Read more background…
# Is Social Media Good for Society?' **Argument** Social media facilitates cyberbullying. 52% of students have reported being the victim of cyberbullying with 84.2% naming Facebook as the site through which they have been bullied, followed by Instagram (23.4%), Twitter (21.4%), and Snapchat (13.5%). 17.5% of male students and 21.3% of female students have admitted committing bullying behavior online. 54% of teens have witnessed cyberbullying including on sites such as Facebook (39%), Twitter (29%), YouTube (22%), and Instagram (22%). Middle school children who are victims of cyberbullying are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide. A 2020 study found 39% of cyberbully victims and 29% of cyberbullies showed signs of PTSD. **Background** Around seven out of ten Americans (72%) use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, up from 26% in 2008. [26] [189]. On social media sites, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more. Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly. Opponents of social networking say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter children’s brains and behavior making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burglars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information. Read more background…
# Should Adults Have the Right to Carry a Concealed Handgun?' **Argument** The right to carry concealed handguns is protected by the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment states: “a well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” The federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in the Dec. 11, 2012 case Moore v. Madigan, ruled that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms “must be interpreted to include a right to have a concealed gun in public, to have it ready for use, and to have it for self-defense.” The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Hawaii’s restrictive carry policies in July 2018. The ruling stated, “We do not take lightly the problem of gun violence. But, for better or for worse, the Second Amendment does protect a right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.” Joseph Greenlee, JD, Director of Research at the Firearms Policy Coalition, explained, “The Supreme Court has elucidated that the scope of the Second Amendment is defined by the founding-era understanding of the right, as informed by American history and tradition. A historical analysis shows that both concealed and open carry are protected by the right, and that a government may only restrict one if the other remains available for law-abiding citizens to exercise.” **Background** Carrying a concealed handgun in public is permitted in all 50 states as of 2013, when Illinois became the last state to enact concealed carry legislation. Some states require gun owners to obtain permits while others have “unrestricted carry” and do not require permits. Proponents of concealed carry say concealed carry deters crime, keeps individuals and the public safer, is protected by the Second Amendment, and protect women and minorities who can’t always rely on the police for protection. Opponents of concealed carry say concealed carry increases crime, increases the chances of a confrontation becoming lethal, is not protected by the Second Amendment, and that public safety should be left to professionally qualified police officers.  Read more background…
# Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms?' **Argument** Parents should be free to choose their children’s clothes without government interference. One of the founders of the Wilson County (LA) Parents Coalition, Richard Dashkovitz, stated: “It’s time we let the government know that we are fed up with this. Quit dictating to us what my child should wear… [T]he government is intruding into our private lives, roles as parents and the lives of our children.” According to another parents’ rights group, Asserting Parental Rights — It’s Our Duty, mandatory uniform “policies trample parents’ right to raise children without government interference.” **Background** Traditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. According to a 2020 report, the percentage of public schools that required school uniforms jumped from 12% in the 1999-2000 school year to 20% in the 2017-18 school year. School uniforms were most frequently required by elementary schools (23%), followed by middle (18%), and high schools (10%). Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes. Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more background…
# Should All Americans Have the Right (Be Entitled) to Health Care?' **Argument** A right to health care could improve public health. According to a study in the Lancet that looked at data from over 100 countries, “evidence suggests that broader health coverage generally leads to better access to necessary care and improved population health, particularly for poor people.” In the United States, people are 33% less likely to have a regular doctor, 25% more likely to have unmet health needs, and over 50% more likely to not obtain needed medicines compared to their Canadian counterparts who have a universal right to healthcare. According to a 2008 peer-reviewed study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, there were 11.4 million uninsured working-age Americans with chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, and their lack of insurance was associated with less access to care, early disability, and even death. **Background** 27.5 million people in the United States (8.5% of the US population) do not have health insurance. Among the 91.5% who do have health insurance, 67.3% have private insurance while 34.4% have government-provided coverage through programs such as Medicaid or Medicare. Employer-based health insurance is the most common type of coverage, applying to 55.1% of the US population. The United States is the only nation among the 37 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations that does not have universal health care either in practice or by constitutional right. Proponents of the right to health care say that no one in one of the richest nations on earth should go without health care. They argue that a right to health care would stop medical bankruptcies, improve public health, reduce overall health care spending, help small businesses, and that health care should be an essential government service. Opponents argue that a right to health care amounts to socialism and that it should be an individual’s responsibility, not the government’s role, to secure health care. They say that government provision of health care would decrease the quality and availability of health care, and would lead to larger government debt and deficits. Read more background…
# Should the United States Continue Its Use of Drone Strikes Abroad?' **Argument** Drone strikes allow an emotional disconnect from the horrors of war and inflict psychological stress on drone operators. According to D. Keith Shurtleff, an Army chaplain and the ethics instructor for the Soldier Support Institute at Fort Jackson, stated, “as war becomes safer and easier, as soldiers are removed from the horrors of war and see the enemy not as humans but as blips on a screen, there is a very real danger of losing the deterrent that such horrors provide.” Without this deterrent, it becomes easier for soldiers to kill via a process called “doubling,” in which “[o]therwise nice and normal people create psychic doubles that carry out sometimes terrible acts their normal identity never would.” Drone pilot Colonel D. Scott Brenton, in a July 29, 2012 interview with the New York Times, acknowledged the disconnect of what journalist Elisabeth Bumiller described as “fighting a telewar with a joystick and a throttle from his padded seat in American suburbia” thousands of miles away from the battlefield, then driving home to help with homework. “I feel no emotional attachment to the enemy,” he said. “I have a duty, and I execute the duty… No one in my immediate environment is aware of anything that occurred.” A study from the Department of Neuropsychiatry at the US Air Force’s School of Aerospace Medicine found that drone pilots, in addition to witnessing traumatic combat experiences, face several unique problems: lack of a clear demarcation between combat and personal/family life; extremely long hours with monotonous work and low staffing; “existential conflict” brought on by the guilt and remorse over being an “aerial sniper”; and social isolation during work, which could diminish unit cohesion and increase susceptibility to PTSD. **Background** Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), otherwise known as drones, are remotely-controlled aircraft which may be armed with missiles and bombs for attack missions. Since the World Trade Center attacks on Sep. 11, 2001 and the subsequent “War on Terror,” the United States has used thousands of drones to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries. Proponents state that drones strikes help prevent “boots on the ground” combat and makes America safer, that the strikes are legal under American and international law, and that they are carried out with the support of Americans and foreign governments Opponents state that drone strikes kill civilians, creating more terrorists than they kill and sowing animosity in foreign countries, that the strikes are extrajudicial and illegal, and create a dangerous disconnect between the horrors of war and soldiers carrying out the strikes.
# Should Gay Marriage Be Legal?' **Argument** Gay marriages bring financial gain to federal, state, and local governments, and boost the economy. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2004 that federally-recognized gay marriage would cut the budget deficit by around $450 million a year. In July 2012 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that gay marriage had contributed $259 million to the city’s economy in just a year since the practice became legal there in July 2011. Government revenue from marriage comes from marriage licenses, higher income taxes in some circumstances (the so-called “marriage penalty”), and decreases in costs for state benefit programs. In 2012, the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) found that in the first five years after Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, same-sex wedding expenditures (such as venue rental, wedding cakes, etc.) added $111 million to the state’s economy. **Background** This site was archived on Dec. 15, 2021. A reconsideration of the topic on this site is possible in the future.  On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is a right protected by the US Constitution in all 50 states. Prior to their decision, same-sex marriage was already legal in 37 states and Washington DC, but was banned in the remaining 13. US public opinion had shifted significantly over the years, from 27% approval of gay marriage in 1996 to 55% in 2015, the year it became legal throughout the United States, to 61% in 2019. Proponents of legal gay marriage contend that gay marriage bans are discriminatory and unconstitutional, and that same-sex couples should have access to all the benefits enjoyed by different-sex couples. Opponents contend that marriage has traditionally been defined as being between one man and one woman, and that marriage is primarily for procreation. Read more background…