Small vs big Government

Small vs Big government is a principle often used in debates. 

The small government is where the government tries to remain passive meaning that the citizens have more freedom to their life. This however also means that the society could also be more dangerous as people are more free to do any actions they want. Also often referred to as anarchy.

The big government is where the government tries to remain in total control on the society meaning that the citizens get less freedom to their life. This however could also lead to the society being a safer place as it will be more regulated and controlled. However the citizens will have less choices of actions. Often referred to as Dictatorship.

These two opposing ideas often clash in debating and could be a very useful concept as they are used in the context of freedom vs security where freedom represents small government and security represents big government. 

Rebuttals

There are 5 key areas to look at when rebutting. Similar to making an argument, when you rebut you will need to pay particular attention to certain areas that they are talking about which are:

-Reason

-Explain

-Example

-Importance 

-Link to motion

Using an example of This house will ban smoking

If the five points were

-Reason.             Effect on others health

-Explain.              When they smoke you will breath it in 

-Example.            Health warnings 

-Importance         Children are particularly sensitive and easily affected 

-Link to motion.    The harm that smoking causes should lead it to be banned

In this example of an argument each area could be rebutted for example 

-Explain             People have designated areas to smoke 

-Example.          Health warnings does not equal banning

-Importance       It is the parents duty to protect them

An other important part of rebuttals is to notice the soundness or impact of the argument. Usually when the reason, explanation and example are quite sound, doesn't mean that there isn't any errors in it just like the argument above which clearly has a lot of flaws.

The second part is the importance and link to motion having an impact on the audience. If the like importance of the argument does not matter or impact the audience you could simply ask the speaker "why should we care". For example if an importance of an argument would be "millions of chickens are killed daily so we can eat kfc" you should simply ask " why should we care that chickens are getting killed everyday, chickens die everyday anyways, the fact that we are eating them just makes them more useful in the survival of humans".