Could you provide us with more context? Are you referring to how accused parties should be treated prior to a fair trial? Pardon me, but I think your teachers could have picked a much better issue (if this can even be CALLED an "issue"). They could have at least defined the assignment more clearly. But, alas, teaching you good debating/thinking skills is the furthest thing from your school's agenda.
What does Guilty Until Proven Guilty mean? If jury or judge finds defendant NOT GUILTY, then defendant is still guilty according to the "Guilty Until Proven Guilty" viewpoint. How does an accused innocent defendant ever become known as Innocent with this model?
Sounds like some of that nazi state brainwashing that seems to be so popular these days in the public school system. My recommendation, as usual: Forget about the debate - just get out of that school as fast as you can and please have your parents explore alternatives: private school, homeschool, GED, etc.
Here's the message your school is trying to slip to your subconcious:
You, Gray, are guilty. Of what, we don't know, but we DO know that you are guilty of SOMETHING - because EVERYBODY is. Even if YOU don't know what it is, WE DO - we just haven't found out what it IS yet. So....keep your head low, don't complain, don't ask hard questions, try to blend in with everybody else by looking, acting, and behaving exactly as they do, and as a guilty party to as-of-yet unspecified crimes, you are not really entitled to your own opinions about anything.
Gray, you are the victim of a government wide program of massive proportions to dumb down and dull out the general public through our public school system. Please alert your parents to this immediately and/or feel free to have them contact me at waynebollman@yahoo.com for more information. I'll direct them to uninfected (or LESS infected)alternative educational resources and inform them of what public schools are up to with our kids. Bless you.
- DDN
