After the recent election, we now know that Donald Trump will be the president for the next four years, and no matter how you feel about it you can at least say that this election was extremely controversial. In the lead up to the election a team of Judge students held a debate between seniors John Witt and Corrine Higgins. The two debated on immigration, gun rights and women’s rights.
Out of all the topics immigration was by far the most divisive one with Witt and Higgins agreeing on almost nothing. Witt who says that immigration is his most important issue believes that the border should be closed off saying “I mean, we are letting thousands and thousands of people in which are healthcare workers, our teachers, and our society cannot handle it,”
Higgins heavily disagreed with this stance saying “Putting America first is allowing these immigrants in. As I have stated earlier, immigrants as a whole contribute to 17% of our GDP. That’s a large portion if we stop that flow, or kick 11 million people out, that’s going to hurt our economy.” The two both debated back and forth on this issue.
In the end neither of them came to a solid conclusion on what they both thought they should do to fix the immigration issue.
When it came to the issue of what to do with guns both very solidly agreed that automatic weapons should not be allowed to be carried around freely. However when it came to the idea of armed guards the two heavily disagreed.
Corrine said “I think putting armed guards in school is a bad idea as a whole. If you look at the United States, there’s a history of violence against citizens by the police and people put forward to protect our country by the government. If I were a person of color and you brought in a policeman, I would be uncomfortable. The job of school is to provide a safe, comfortable learning opportunity for all students, and considering our history, putting guns in schools is a terrible idea. There are other ways to combat this. Secondly, putting guns in schools, you’re more likely to shoot a kid than a shooter. That’s been statistically proven. There are other ways to combat this, rather than instilling fear within a school.”
John however did not at all agree with statement believing that cops would not just shoot a kid saying “Personally, I would like to know that when a school shooter comes into my school, maybe we have a cop , I guarantee you that if we have a police officer in our school, he is not going to just shoot one of our students. I mean, that’s crazy. These are cops like these things don’t just happen”.
The two both heavily debated on this topic where they agreed however was that if schools had better mental health resources it would make school shootings much less likely to happen.
Finally the two debated on women’s rights regarding things like women’s positions in government and abortion rights. The two agreed for the most part on things when it comes to women’s rights with John saying, “I mean, a man never has to, never has to have a pregnancy scare. I would never have to hold a baby for nine months and have it ruin my whole career, you know, impact my life, embarrass me. I mean, there’s so many reasons. I mean, it risks my life. And as a man, I never have to do that. So I don’t think there’s any reason I can ask a woman to do that as well at the same time.”
Corrine agreed with this statement saying “Yeah, that’s a really good response. I also don’t think anything comes down to education. Specifically, in Catholic schools are sex education is terrible, and doesn’t help women at all. And essentially, it’s the idea that you should abstain from sex until you’re married, which is unrealistic and doesn’t give women the knowledge or the tools that they need to prevent pregnancies.”
The two both ended on good terms and ultimately the debate did not change how they interacted with each other sending a good message for how we should treat each other even when we disagree.
