This previous Thursday, the Second Great Debate or The Great Debate II was held in Swift 500. There was a previous Great Debate last semester. Like the first, the debate was between the UC College Republicans, the UC College Democrats, and the Young Libertarians.
The event was sponsored by Generation Opportunity and YAL Cincinnati. To begin the debate, Tyler from Generation Opportunity thanked everyone for coming and shared what Generation Opportunity does. “We are eliminating barriers to prosperity,” shared Tyler. He shared that the goal was to bring young people together on issues they can agree on.
There was a moderator as well as preapproved questions. The audience could tweet #TheGreatDebate2 with their own questions. You can follow that hashtag to see what kind of questions were being asked of the debaters.
After that the debate began. Each club had two debaters who would alternate speaking about each topic. The topics were minimum wage, criminal justice, college tuition, environmental sustainability, and privacy.
To begin, each club had an opening statement. The UC College Republicans summed theirs up with the quote, “Money is not free unless government is limited.” The Libertarians explained that being a libertarian meant that people had a choice to do what they want to do with their lives and the government shouldn’t decide that. Lastly, the UC College Democrats talked about fairness.
The clubs began by discussing minimum wage which is currently $7.25. The Republicans said that the minimum wage is fine where it is because it is not meant to be a living wage and that raising the minimum wage could cause for a loss of jobs. The Democrats argued for a higher minimum wage because it is a tragedy that people are working 40+ hours a week and not making enough to survive. The Libertarians said that there should be no minimum wage and used examples from European countries who do not have a minimum wage.
Overall, the debate was interesting and informative. It showed how informed young college students are and the importance of knowing what is happening in the government especially now that elections are coming up in November!
To sum it all up, Aditya Roy-Chadhury, the President of the UC College Democrats, shared “With great turnout from all parties, the debate was a very big success. We could see the differences in the groups and most of all could see that there is a drive for student engagement in the political process.”
If you are interested in learning more about any of the clubs, here are there Orgsync websites!
UC College Democrats: https://orgsync.com/133536/chapter
UC College Republicans: https://orgsync.com/133545/chapter
Young Americans for Liberty: https://orgsync.com/133926/chapter