Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

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Come_Forth
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Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen.

The topic of tonight’s debate is “Detonating the nuclear bombs over Japan in World War II was a morally conscionable act.” Our team (Smooshable, Come_Forth, and Oskar) will be taking the affirmative position, so it will be our responsibility to prove to you that the United States was justified in dropping the atomic bombs. Tonight’s debate topic invokes many strong emotions and preconceived biases, but it is my hope that you the audience will view the evidence with a “Tabula Rasa.”

Before I begin, I would like to take a history trip back to the 1940’s to make sure that everyone has the correct facts about World War II. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese brought the United States into World War II with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon after both Japan and the United States declared war on each other after the attack. Japanese military philosophy was at odds with the United States’ military philosophy. This was evidenced by Japan’s treatment of Allied prisoners of war. To the Japanese these prisoners were less than human because they surrendered rather than fight to the death as the Japanese did. During the island hopping that the United States did to reach Japan some of the bloodiest battles of all time were fought. The Japanese fought to the last man. To illustrate this point I will use the battle of Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific. 20,703 Japanese fought to the death while only 216 were captured alive, while the United States had 27,909 casualties. These battles were instrumental in influencing the United States to drop the bombs on Japan.

It was exceedingly evident that Japan was more than willing to fight to the last person. The United States feared the losses, both Japanese and American, if Japan had to be invaded. The decision to use the bomb was one made out of mercy, preceding the atomic bombings was the firebombing of Japan in which over 100,000 Japanese lost their lives and still they would not surrender. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed an estimated 220,000 lives and brought an end to World War II.


Why was the United States so intent on defeating Japan quickly? There are several key answers to this question. Japan was committing atrocities throughout the pacific, at Nanking alone the Japanese killed an estimated 300,000 Chinese. The Japanese also had over 100,000 prisoners of war, and had already signed the order to kill them if the mainland was invaded. The United States morally had to end the war, and people were starving and dying of disease across the pacific that needed help, but as long as Japan would not surrender they could not be helped. The United States was forced into the war, and had no other option than to end the war with as few deaths as possible.
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Apadizamek
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

Greetings Ladies and Gentleman this is Apadamek representing the Goa'uld Debate team consisting of myself, Jack, AncientAnubis and Phlaminghoe. i would like to thank the "Cheeky Fellows" for allowing us to debate this topic with them.

War is a terrible thing, it costs lives, property, sometimes even entire nations collapse because of it. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not acts of mercy, or legitimate warfare, it was an act of terror, to destroy people's lives, their homes, their entire way of life in one stroke. The bombings entire agenda was to scare the Japanese into submission.

Civilians are always harmed in war, no matter what we all hope. Wars destroy families, and the lives of civilians. However in wars we are not supposed to target innocent civilians on purpose. We do not target innocent children beginning classes, we do not target pregnant women giving birth, we do not target men starting their jobs. However in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war in general this was not true for the Japanese people, we targeted every single human being in those cities.

We had them on the run Japan's empire was down to its mainland. The Atomic Bomb was needed to defeat the Japanese people nobody will argue that. But to call it conscionable, much less moral, is morally wrong and in-human, we had to do it, but in no way was it morally acceptable. The killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and the maiming and disfiguring countless more civilians is unacceptable in the history of warfare. In no way is it morally conscionable to kill hundreds of thousands by burning them alive until they are dead, by causing the skin of small children to hang in strips of their backs, to cause unimaginable pain to the survivors until they died, these acts of horror were for a good cause but they can never be rationally put under as morally right.
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Come_Forth
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

Yes war is a terrible thing, but remember this war was forced on the United States. The atomic bombs were moral because it was the best choice that we had. To choose any other choice would have led to more deaths and a prolonged war. In this case the moral choice was to choose the choice with the least amount of evil. Sometimes for the benefit of the many we are forced to condemn the few. There is also the fact that Japan was on a killing spree and had to be stopped. We had to kill their civilians to force the Japanese to end their reign of terror. The reason why Japan did not want to surrender was nothing short of plain greed. The Japanese did not like our surrender terms, because they would be forced to give up conquered land. We could not let the Japanese enslave the Pacific, so our surrender terms called for Japan to go to its pre-war boundaries. The Japanese were also working on a nuclear weapons program, and even though it did not produce anything we could not let them create a bomb to use to extend the length of the war. The United States had the Japanese best interests at heart when we forced them to end the war, further evidence of this is how much the United States helped Japan and the Germans after World War II.
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

Are you guys done? I'd hate to have to rate the debates without them being finished.
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

Prophet of Truth wrote:Are you guys done? I'd hate to have to rate the debates without them being finished.



No just trying to get my team in order, expect a response and a apology to the Cheeky Fellows within the day.
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Come_Forth
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

I understand, it is a busy time with exams and the holidays coming up.
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
John Stuart Mill
Apadizamek
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

Yes the bomb's were the best chance we had at ending the war. We are not debating weather it was the right thing to do, weather is effects were good or bad. Were debating if the action itself was morally correct and we stand by our argument that it is in no way moral to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Just because the results were good and worth it, does not mean the action itself was not wrong. You can never justify a thing you must accept that it was a wrong thing to do, but the best we could.


Also Japan's civilian rampages were far over, their nuclear program unknown to the World War ll united states. Us helping Japan at the end of the war aids our argument, we felt BAD for destroying those cities. And so we should have been and so should we be now, those cities are monuments to show the limits of brutality. We must take the plate and accept it was a terrible, morally unconscionable act.
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Come_Forth
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

The bombing was either morally right or morally wrong. I have been arguing from a Utilitarian ethical system, basically this view says that the action that causes the greatest amount of good, or the least amount of harm is the morally correct one. The fact that we felt bad for bombing Japan has no bearing on the rightness or wrongness of the act. Sometimes a doctor must cause pain in order to heal someone; I am sure that the doctor feels bad for the harm. The doctor will give the patient pain medicine to reduce the harm, just as we gave aid to Japan to reduce the damage. The United States knew about Japan's nuclear program, good evidence of this is U-Boat 234. This German U-Boat was captured by the United States, and carried uranium oxide along with two Japanese. Its mission to aid Japan's nuclear program failed and further fueled the need to end the war. Also here is a map of what Japan controlled in August of 1945 http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... p_134t.jpg. Japan still had millions of soldiers around the Pacific doing god knows what. As I have stated earlier, an invasion of Japan would have been far worse. Japan would not surrender.
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
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Come_Forth
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Re: Debate: Atomic Bombs (Cheeky Fellows vs Goa'uld Team)

After you respond I guess this can be closed, I am leaving tomorrow to go to my grandparent's house for Christmas. I will not have Internet for a week or so. Good job during this debate Apadamek I enjoyed it.
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
John Stuart Mill
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