Round 1: dizziedame vs serbsta - "Presidential Book of Secrets"

The topic for this debate is "The Presidential Book Of Secrets Exists And Will One Day Change The World."

"dizziedame" will be arguing the "Pro" position and begin the debate.
"serbsta" will be arguing the "Con" position.


Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

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Any character count in excess of 10,000 will be deleted prior to the judging process.

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When asked a question, a debater must give a straight forward answer in his next post. Explanations and qualifications to an answer are acceptable, but must be preceded by a direct answer.

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Each debate must post within 24 hours of the timestamp on the last post. If your opponent is late, you may post immediately without waiting for an announcement of turn forfeiture. If you are late, you may post late, unless your opponent has already posted.

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Mod Edit: the "pro" position begins the debate. An opponent can not respond prior to his or her opponent until after the 24 hour window has elapsed and assuming that his or her opponent has not requested their 24 hour extension.

Post Removed as it was done out of turn.

-chissler


[edit on 11-24-2009 by chissler]

Since 24 and some hours has passed i assume i have the right to post my opening statement?

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Thanks to chissler for organizing what should be a fantastic tournament. Good luck to dizzidame in the following debate.

I will be arguing in the “Con” position in respects to the following statement:

"The Presidential Book Of Secrets Exists And Will One Day Change The World."

However abstract i consider this topic, let alone unfamiliar, I’ll attempt to argue that there is no such ‘book of secrets’ in existence for the reasons that will be briefly outlined below in this opening statement. In doing so, the resultant of my fundamental debate about the existence of such an item, will in turn disprove its power to ‘one day change the world’.

Take note of the following 3 categories for my reasoning on the “Con” position:

#1 - Practicability: It would be impractical for the government of the United States to have such a book in existence. There may very well be, and in my opinion there are, secrets which are being withheld from the public in regards to many aspects of the military, science, operations, etc. But this alone, makes for the existence of possible secrets in a book impractical as possible requirements of this knowledge from certain power’s would require the physical tracing of the item.

*It is not a practical means of storing secret information.

#2 - Security: Having a Presidential ‘book of secret’s’ in existence would require immense security precautions. The ‘book of secret’s’, as the legend goes, has records of all the United States President’s knowledge and secret’s stored inside it. This complies with issue #1 (Practicability), it would seem almost childish for such powerful information to be stored in a book which is a physical object. This still of course, has the possibility of being stolen, no matter the security in place.

*It is not a secure means of storing secret information.

#3 - Reliability: If the legend is true, than the ‘book secret’s’ is for the President’s eyes only. It would be juvenile to assume that the President would require someone to do some spell checking or some data validity tests so to speak. Therefore, if this supposed ‘book of secret’s’ is actually in existence, it would be unwise to simply believe everything that is written in it, if only the President him/herself has seen and wrote inside it. If we were to then look at it as a form of a personal diary, it brings in issues of bias, etc, which devalue its reliability and usability. Hence, even with the existence of such a book, it would certainly not have the power to ‘change the world’ with questionable diary entries.

*It is not a reliable source of secret information.

Taking note of the above and in combination with my early analysis of this topic, I would say that this abstract topic would be hard to prove, or disprove. Also, taking into account the two elements of this debate i would say that debating and in attempting to disprove the first area of debate (‘The Presidential Book of Secret’s Exists) would in turn eliminate the possibility of the second area of debate ([it] Will One Day Change the World). It would be perplexing, to say the least, that such a ‘book of secret’s’ would be in existence if one is to think about the 3 categories above.

Therefore i would like to propose the following Socratic questions to my opponent, which are in correspondence to my 3 categories of reasoning and will address the two parts of this debate:

Socratic Question #1: Would you, dizziedame, be comfortable with the existence of such a ‘book of secret’s’, knowing that it’s mere physical existence would, however unlikely, be an item that could be stolen by an opposing faction which seeks information for use against the government of the United States?

Socratic Question #2: Knowing the advanced level of information technology in use today, would there not be a more secure mean’s of storing such valuable information that has supposedly been passed on from President to President than a book?

Socratic Question #3: Taking into account the personal lives of the President’s who have supposedly written the secrets of their government and their own lives in this book, how reliable do you think the information held inside could possibly be? Surely you would not take bias information as fact without at least questioning it; you don’t need to go far to see George W. Bush’s alcoholic past which may very well have had after effects during his presidency.

Cheers.

Continuing on with my argument.

Coinciding with my arguments in my opening post I believe it is clear that this supposed ‘book of secret’s’ has been systematically inserted into popular culture through cinema. The fact that National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets revolves around this supposed object, diminishes the plausibility of it’s legitimate existence. Let’s hypothesize for a second; why would a movie revolving around such a secret and powerful item be allowed to operate in mainstream media?

The answer? It is because no such object exists, Walt Disney have simply used a very vague conspiracy theory and manipulated it into cinema. It is certain that the ‘book of secret’s’ has garnered so much attention in recent years due to the movie. Of course i would not slam down the possibility of a legitimate investigation type movie based on the mythical ‘book of secret’s’ if it were at least distributed by a company other than Walt Disney. To illustrate my point, let’s examine some of the titles Walt Disney has distributed in year’s prior and post the release of National Treasure: Book of Secrets in 2007:

Pre 2007

-Your Friend the Rat
-High School Musical 2
-Ratatouille
-The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Post 2007

-The Chronicles of Narnia
-The Jonas Brothers 3D Concert
-Hannah Montana: The Movie

www.imdb.com...

Need I go on?

My point is not to trash Walt Disney as I have been a fan of some of their productions, such as the 3D animation Wall-E, but it is to diminish it’s stance as a company which pushes forth fictional and serious material. It is the movie that has pushed forth this falsified theory to and end where it has somehow managed to lose the credibility it never had. If there is indeed a ‘book of secret’s’ which only the President can see than it would certainly not be:

1) Known throughout the public to be in existence
2) Allowed to be popularized through cinema

Moving aside from the myth of the ‘book of secret’s’ that has been perpetuated through cinema, I will demonstrate the illogical supposed ‘history’ of its existence.

As the legend goes, each President, upon receiving and reading the book hides it in his personal private location which he believes to be most suitable. Again, we are exploring the falsified stories that have been pushed through popular conspiracy theory, but this relates to what i have stated in my opening post. How secure is this really? If such secret information would be stored in such a secret location, what are the chances of it getting lost? Not high, unless of course the only one to know where it is, dies.

Let’s take James A. Garfield as an example, who was the 20th POTUS. Upon his assassination by Charles Guiteau in 1881 the knowledge of the hiding place of the book would surely have died with him since ONLY the President is meant to know of it’s location. Further, according to the legend, the creation of the book commenced before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. So back to the argument:

*Let’s say that the ‘book of secret’s’ was real, did in fact exist before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and only Lincoln knew of it’s location before he was killed. The book SHOULD have been lost in 1865 and therefore there is no way it could be in existence today and could have the power to ‘change the world’.

*In looking at the above point, it becomes a matter of logic to conclude that the book never existed at all, and if it did, it surely held no ‘secret’s’ that would be relevant to today.

I really have nothing more to add to my argument at this stage, so in surmise. It would be a fundamental failure of the government of the United States to allow for the existence of such an item which supposedly contains such vital information. Therefore it is illogical to conclude that the book really exists, because even if it did at one stage, it would by now have been destroyed, lost, or forgotten.

I would like my opponent to answer the 3 questions in my opening statement:

Socratic Question #1: Would you, dizziedame, be comfortable with the existence of such a ‘book of secret’s’, knowing that it’s mere physical existence would, however unlikely, be an item that could be stolen by an opposing faction which seeks information for use against the government of the United States?

Socratic Question #2: Knowing the advanced level of information technology in use today, would there not be a more secure mean’s of storing such valuable information that has supposedly been passed on from President to President than a book?

Socratic Question #3: Taking into account the personal lives of the President’s who have supposedly written the secrets of their government and their own lives in this book, how reliable do you think the information held inside could possibly be? Surely you would not take bias information as fact without at least questioning it; you don’t need to go far to see George W. Bush’s alcoholic past which may very well have had after effects during his presidency.

Also, adding one more here that is a surmise of the argument in this post:

Socratic Question #4: To what extent do you think the movie (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) has perpetuated and fueled the legend and do you think that it in any way subtracts from the legitimacy of its existence?

dizziedame has missed 2 posts and thus forfeits the debate.

serbsta will move on to the second round.