ATS Great Debate
Round One

John Nada vs. britchick

Topic: The Skull & Bones is just a typical university social club/fraternity.

John Nada will take the affirmative position, agreeing with the statement and will have first opening statement.

britchick will take the contrary position, and will have first closing statement.

Editing of your posts is strictly prohibited! For obvious reasons. Editing your post results in immediate forfeiture.

1- Competitors assigned the affirmative position go first with an opening statement, and have right of passing their opening statement post to their contrary position competitor. Opening statements cannot contain links.

2- Each competitor in turn contributes six posts to support their side of the topic. (For a total of seven posts) These are the only posts within the debate that may contain links to articles, or embedded pictures/graphics. (one link or graphic per post). No more than 18 hours between posts or you forfeit your turn.

3- The competitor representing the contrary position has first right of closing statement. As with the opening statement, they have an opportunity to pass to their competitor representing the affirmative position. Closing statements cannot contain links.

4- Each competitor can submit one rebuttal to their competitors closing statement, but cannot exceed 200 words. Rebuttals are not required.

This is a total of 18 posts, the debate is closed, and voting begins. Forum members will vote on the merits of your capabilities arguing your side of the position, not their opinion of the position.

The debate begins at 23:00 GMT today. Opening statement from the affirmative side is due by 17:00 tomorrow, or the opening statement is passed to the contrary side.

Good luck, and have fun.

Right, well I have no idea about the Skull & Bones Club and have had not time to do research so I should really concede.

But hey, F**k It! I'll give it a go anyway. I also have to say that I'm not really comfortable with defending the twisted s**t that is Bush, so it looks like I'll have to swallow my pride.


I do have to say from the get go however that I believe that the Skull & Bones is just a Frat Club for over priviledged rich kids. Anyone who says it's a secret organisation is being paranoid. I mean come on! Who hasn't heard of The Skull & Bones Club? They're not that secret are they?

Then I hear tales of weird rituals that go on. These kind of strange induction tests are involved in alot on Fraternity Clubs. It has even been mocked in movies (The scene in Animal House when Kevin Bacon gets smacked in the ass with a cricket bat, then begs for more). The initiation speech for the club "The Hangman Equals Death/The Devil Equals Death/Death Equals Death." is odd but in no way rare.

This is really nothing to kick up a fuss over. I hear tales of how many powerful men are involved in the Club so "there must be a conspiracy, right?". Well, wrong. As I have said it's a club for conservative rich kids, and you don't get richer than the Bush family or any other politician that is involved.
Money gets you the Presidency. This is why nearly every President has been related through blood, because money goes to money, not because you are part of some secret cult.

As I have said, this subject really does not interest me as I believe there is just nothing there, and it is a distraction from the real truth we are searching for.

Well theres my 1 pence worth. I'll take each argument as it comes along and try and put up a decent debate.

Britchick I hand it over to you.

Personally I don't know an awful lot about Skull & Bones either but I know it has been described as one of the most secret societies in the world, therefore on that basis alone I think it is a bit more than just another university/ college social club - each member had to take a solemn vow of secrecy, it has rules and each member is suppose to deny membership. Each member joins in their senior year at college therefore just before they join the outside world - does that sound like a little innocent social club to you?
Each members initation consists of them telling sexual secrets so they can be blackmailed later on if necessary making every member loyal to the club.
It is not only just a very powerful secret society with very powerful people as members it is also a cult, any group of people that is binded in such a loyal way with that much money and power is not just another social club.

Ok so going by your Rationale Britchick if Batman and Robin had been described as the best movie ever made then it must be so. Right? Well wrong.
Just because someone has an opinion about something it doesn't necessarily make it so.

I think you'll find that every club or frat take a solemn vow of secrecy, it's what makes them a group so that doesn't really make any sense. Otherwise what would be the point? This is what makes a club special, that they are all bound to each other.

As I have already mentioned every rich kid of powerful men will stick to their own, which is why they are all in the same club. The upper class stick together. Now because they are children of powerful men they know one day they too are going to be in politics one day. What makes a club a club is that they make a pact together, namely they all know something about each other that no one else in the outside world knows. It is a sign of trust that they reveal these sexual secrets to each other, this is what binds them. They've all got something on each other which is useful if they are going into politics and I do not find anything unusual about this.

These are all the traits of any kind of frat and just because of the people involved you cry conspiracy. I'm sorry but you are just being melodramatic.

Britchick... you need to respond within 12 hours of this post or default.

John Nada wins by default.