Debate subjects

(Normally no posts on weekends, but I feel like it. I apologize for the technical and unappealing aspect of it, but that's what goes on in my head)

Abortion
Euthanasia
Gay Marriage
Quebec Separation
Legalizing Marijuana
Legalizing Prostitution


You know why those sound familiar? Oh that's right! Because we've gone through them all several times already in debates! Woohoo! No change in sec 5! Still the same gorram subjects!

Hey teachers, you don't have to absolutely debate current (as in up-to-date) subjects to keep our interest and and actually teach us something. And hey, even if you are just evaluating our oral competency, how about making an effort to find us some new subjects or allow us to find one eh, since it is us going through the repetitive debate process every year, after all.

It was slightly promising in English with somewhat new subjects, like "Does a good education lead to a successful life" but those were subjects that were still obvious dead-ends, and so plainly don't freaking matter in our lives, no matter what conclusion or trail of thought we end up embarking on.

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Stop here if you don't want your brains blown out
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I just saw a movie today, "Crimson Tide". Now there was a bigass debate subject right there, not relating to us, but then again neither does euthanasia or gay marriage.

Ultranationalist russians have taken control of a Intercontinental Nuclear Ballistic Missile site—ICBM site— and threaten to fire on the US. (So there's the possibility of a few dozen missiles, with up to 10 warheads each—for a shitload of kilotons worth of TNT exploding on the USA)

Cold war scenario. (Pay attention, we're starting that in HIS)

USA @ DEFCON 3. They prepare their ICBM force as well, and hey guess what, they just so happen to have (presently) 14 submarines with 24 ICBMs/SLBMs, each missile with multiple nuclear warheads yielding up to the equivalent of 475 kilotons of TNT each.

Anyways, one of the US subs receive a emergency action message (the big motherfucker of orders a sub commander can receive and requires multiple people and pre-determined codes to authenticate) to launch a pre-emptive strike (hit them before they hit you) on the rogue Russian missile base, which is known to be fueling its ICBMs in preparation for launch. As the US sub prepare to launch, they are attacked by a Russian sub, and receive only a partial second emergency action message (EAM). We don't know what it says. Cancel the pre-emptive strike, or strike new targets, or whatever else.

A proper, authenticated EAM is the equivalent of a non-revocable, nuclear strike order that comes direct from the president.
The captain, following proper procedure, wants to carry out the first EAM, because procedure dictates that he follows an EAM until another supersedes it. A partial EAM does not constitute a properly formatted, authenticated EAM and therefore does not count in the captain's opinion.

Now the second in command wants to surface and receive that second EAM before launching to make sure that the second EAM does not tell them to stand down.

Time is a factor here. The Russians can launch in x amount of time. The US sub's whole purpose is to get their missiles to destroy the Russian missile base before the Russians launch, saving American lives.

If they take the time to verify the second EAM, and it doesn't say that the situation is back to normal, the Russians would launch their missiles and shitloads of people will die. But if they don't take the time to verify the EAM, and it said that the situation was normal, the US sub would have launched a nuclear strike, which would have been retaliated to minutes after missiles were in the air (that's how it works in the cold war), causing a nuclear holocaust, and again, shitloads of people die.

So really both persons are right. The results can be equally shitty, just like with many other things in life. The debate is about the "right" thing to do, responsibility-, and guilt-wise.

You receive a partial EAM, so of course, you'd like to know what it says, but if you take the time to do so, and it doesn't change the situation, you, who had power to prevent the deaths of millions, just failed. Then again, if you don't verify the second EAM, and it did tell you to stand down, you'd just launched a nuclear strike on a friendly nation, causing a nuclear holocuast, also killing millions.

Many ways to go about this debate.
You can debate it from the law aspect.
Military law and established procedures do justify the captains intentions, and he could be saving the lives of millions of Americans. (The people of the nation that he is bound to serve)

But valuing human life can justify the second in command's option of verifying the second EAM before executing the strike even if it means taking the risk of missing the opportunity to stop the Russian missile strike leading to the deaths of millions of Americans.

Or, you can even go at it clinically, and calculate which course of action results in the least amount of human casualty and just go with that.

Up until 1996, the three categories of people that made up the Most Powerful Men in the World were the President of the United States, the President of the Russian Federation, and a nuclear-class submarine captain. Any one of those people could launch an armada of missiles tipped with nuclear warheads at least a dozen times the yield of Little Boy to anywhere in the world.

During the Cold war, tensions were high. One launch necessarily meant retalitory strikes, and possibly nuclear holocaust.
A crazy sub commander could, with a little deception, trick his crew into firing their load (pun?) and fucking the whole world. 5 years after the cold war, they FINALLY fixed this "little" problem. Good job guys.

During the cold war, USSR and USA really did have enough weapons to the entire world up several times. (I'll be looking forward to attending the classes when Mrs. Duboscq gives us some stats)

I'm not scared of many things in this world, but this really scares the living shit out of me.

And hey, "new" trend: airburst nukes that send out EMP waves that'll fry all unshielded electronics. Just think about this: where is most of our knowledge nowadays? Internet. That'll be gone. Your cell phone? Paperweight. Microwave oven? Just a box. Electricty? In your dreams. Heck your car won't even start because even THAT has a computer in it—damn you might not even be able to get in it, electronic door locks, you know.