The State Has Rights that the Man Does Not

org. 1) I am defining state as it is defined by (what seems to be) most anarchists: The monopoly on the justified initiation of force. I would say that that also includes all incumbent political entities. a. I think that regardless of which political entity, states will always resort to force- however, there may be a state which I have not heard of that allows the people to also initiate force to settle a dispute. 2) Yes, I mean 'Man' as all people. 3) Individual. If the individuals form a group, it is just a bunch of individuals- not to be taken as a single entity. 4) I think rights are given by law. It is a natural law, so you can say it is a natural right, just know that I don't differentiate between the two. A man-made right and a nature-made right are equal in my eyes. a. In clarification to the topic, I should rephrase to "Is the State justified in legislating itself the justification to do things that a single individual would not be justified in doing" I am fine with the opposition using the United States as an example. My opponent informs me of the US system and how each of the members are sworn to uphold the constitution. I would counter that many unconstitutional things have been passed and are still in effect within the US system (1). Many rights are codified in the Bill of Rights, but I would remind my opponent that many, many more rights come from common law which has existed since well before the United States' existence- the Bill of Rights is just a list of those rights which the founders thought were particularly important. A good number Founding Fathers were opposed to the Bill of Rights because it made the rights that were listed seem more protected than the rights that were not (2). The 5th and 14th amendments are promises by the state and about the state, if the state does not give someone due process, what happens? Well, the state will look into it immediately. I'm glad that my opponent brings up Marbury v. Madison, this is an excellent example of the State doing something that it wasn't meant for. There is nothing in the constitution that gives the Supreme Court the power to deem laws invalid because they are unconstitutional. It is a power that the state created for itself. Thomas Jefferson was very opposed to the idea of the courts being the sole deciders of constitutionality (3). I would argue that the Supreme Court does not protect the rights of individuals by way of calling something unconstitutional, per se. The Supreme Court only protects those rights that the Founding Fathers have decided are important enough to be protected when it decides something is unconstitutional and even then, they have a strong capacity to fail to uphold the constitution. Every time the Supreme Court decides that something is controversial enough that they will hear it, they are given a choice. They must decide that either this controversial issue is constitutional, or it is not. Every time they decide it is constitutional, all of the controversy is ignored and de facto everyone admits that the decision is valid despite the fact that many people thought it was unconstitutional before. It is for this reason that I think the Supreme Court is unarguably inefficient at protecting individual rights. I disagree that the claim is moot. The fact that the State derives it's power from the people is irrelevant. I will demonstrate this by example. X is a young man who disagrees with Y, so X talks to ABC and they agree that Y deserves a beating. X, A, B, and C decide they will hire LMN to beat up Y. L, M, and N do not have the individual or collective right justification to beat up Y despite the fact that they all voted. Perhaps a more well known analogy is the one where 3 wolves and a sheep vote to decide what's for dinner. The fact that the sheep gets a vote doesn't mean that the wolves are justified in eating it. The wolves and the sheep are the state in this instance. I would also argue that all states derive their power from the people, the US just allow the people to make decisions more. I am enjoying my first debate here, and eagerly await my opponents response. (1). http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com... (2). http://en.wikipedia.org... (3). http://www.famguardian.org...