Final Debate Reflections

It's hard to say who really won this debate between my team and our opponents.  Both teams raised important points, though I may perhaps agree with Kirstin that our team slightly came out ahead.  But, I should probably preface that statement by saying that initially, I would have said that climate change is the greater threat to US power over infectious disease/pandemic, as trends resulting from climate change can even exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases.  But, this isn't about my personal beliefs, which I still largely cling to - it's about the overall arguments.  I became concerned with some of Team 1's responses, as it seemed that they were responding to our points only in tangent in places, and misunderstanding them in others.

I was relieved, however, to see Dan McDevitt's question to Team 1 about the US' positioning and power remaining relatively strong in relation to the rest of the world as climate change continues - it was something we'd attempted to probe Team 1 on twice to that point during the debate postings without exactly receiving a direct answer.  While it's definite that US power is going to be affected by climate change, they never really presented the argument that the US would be affected any worse than other nations, it almost seemed as if they were treating the US as if it existed in a vacuum at some points during the debate.

As far as Team 3 and 4's discussion goes, both teams did an excellent job here, too - but I'm going to give the leading edge to team 3, though I'm having a hard time deducing whether this is related to my personal lefty biases.  Yes, it's true that the US has been marred by inequality for, literally, the entirety of its existence (check out the wealth disparities in the South during the colonial period and up through Reformation.  yikes.)  but inequality is increasing globally, and with it, individuals' purchasing power in marketplaces are being reduced - if we are to continue along with the liberal ideal that trade and commerce will lead to beneficial foreign relations, it seems prudent to fine-tune the system to promote as much commerce/trade as possible, preventing wealth from accumulating at the top and failing to re-enter the economy.

I recognize the potential threat of a change in world order, but, from where I sit, it appears that the US is still one of the major leaders of the current order and what will emerge in the next several decades.  While it's likely that the US will begin to take on a less dominant role in the global sphere as China continues to prosper and grow, that is not to say that, necessarily, we will be edged out of the international sphere.  Given the incredibly intertwined trade relations between the US and China, to me, it seems more likely that we will take on a role more similar to that of the UK's present relationship with the US -  that is, majorly influential, but simply not as much as we once were.

I enjoyed this debate assignment overall, at least - being placed on a team whose position I did not necessarily agree with starting out helped to broaden my horizons a bit, and Kirstin's expertise on the matter of infectious disease definitely served to inundate me with a lot of information I hadn't previously had access to - I feel like I learned a lot from this one.