That children should not be allowed out alone at night

Judge: Amaka Kanayo
Win awarded to: daveythestrange

Judge: nzlockie    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: chathu
Reasoning:
When neither side make a case, the judgement usually goes to CON, since the burden of proof is on PRO to make the affirmative case for the resolution.
It's always disappointing when we get one of these but in this case the judgement had to go to CON since PRO made no case at all. Without making a case, CON has nothing to rebut, so therefore the resolution is not proven.

Feedback:
Guys guys guys. Please. You have to make a case. PRO, this is especially true for you as you have burden of proof. But CON, even though you didn't NEED to make a case, you should have said something. It is just good form.

For what it's worth, CON, your best case was probably something related to safety but I think I would have extended it by claiming that children don't have the ability to make good decisions. This could lead to safety concerns but it also could be shown to lead to increases in petty crime.
You could have strengthened this position by also pointing out the benefits of an early night to bed on grades and health.

PRO, you had the harder row to hoe here but I think your strongest case would have been to define the resolution as the government establishing a curfew based on age. Making it actually illegal for children to be out without supervision.
This makes this a human rights case with the added bonus of the question of how much we need/want a nanny state.
The safety issue would have been an obvious one for you to deflect and fortunately the stats would have been on your side there. You'd have been able to show that children are far less likely to be victims of crime than adults. Naturally this is due to the fact that not many children are represented in the stats but that just turns the bop back to your opponent to prove his assumption based on no statistical evidence that kids are more at risk than adults.

It could have been a good debate.

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1 user rated this judgement as constructive