In a democratic society, felons ought to retain the right to vote

1.Democratic society: a society in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them. 1.. Freedom depends on contingent judgments, not categorical rights. And the contingent judgments need not lead to universal inclusion. For instance, children do not have the right to vote because they have not reached the age of maturity. With this in mind, it is clear that positive rights are given when the agent receiving them is deemed a responsible person. Therefore, the notion that all rights should be given to everyone in a democratic society is flawed. Furthermore, since voting is a positive right it can be taken away, restricted or limited by the government. The negative values Justice, which is giving each their proper due. In any society, democratic or not, the governments duty is to reach a higher standard. I.e. justice. Furthermore, the resolution is about punishment. Punishment must be just. Thus, the resolution implies a value of justice. The value of justice is achieved by the criterion of Contractarianism. This is the idea that justice is allocated more properly when there is a contract between people or a group of people. If such a contract is created, then justice is built on that mutual agreement. In the case of government, this contract is called the social contract. Therefore, to achieve justice it is necessary for each group to uphold their side of the contract; government to people, and people to government. Contention I: Social Contract Theory A.Reciprocated Responsibility. As the citizen is the "law-maker," he or she should not be the "law-breaker." Since the law is the result of an individual's own decision making in a democratic society the individual is bound to accept it. Allowing felons the right to vote is a fundamental violation of the notion of reciprocity that undergrids a democratic society. Michael J. Cholbi explains "An individual's right to make laws requires that the individual reciprocates by obeying the law. Since felons violate this reciprocated responsibility they in-turn lose the right to make laws which govern society. Felons have shown they can't regulate themselves; therefore they should not have the right to regulate others." B.The General Will. Rousseau theorized that when a contract is made with the consent of the governed, the general will is formed. The general will is not the will of the majority. Rather, it is the will of the political organism that he sees as an entity with a life of its own. Basically the general will is formed when all law-abiding citizens come together to create order within society. However, the general will is only legitimate when it is created by the consent of those that follow the law. Rousseau explains "When an individual blatantly disregards the law and what it stands for becomes an enemy of the general will. His individual will is contrary to the good formed by the governed. Therefore, it is the duty of that government to restrict him from further participating in the compact. The contract is upheld by the consent of the governed whose will determines the law. Law-breakers have shown their contempt for the law itself, and thus ought not have the power to determine the general will." C.Felonies hurt moral agency. Richard L. Lipke explains "A different sort of retributive argument for disenfranchisement focuses on devising criminal sanctions imposing penal losses on offenders commensurate with the harms they culpably caused their victims. In particular, consider offenders whose crimes result in the deaths or drastic diminishment of the quality of their victims' lives. Such offenders may be appropriately sentenced to serve extended prison terms. In these kinds of cases it could be argued, on retributive grounds, that offenders ought to suffer something akin to political death in addition to incarceration. The state should treat them as political non-entities in much the way these offenders treated their victims as moral non-entities." Basically, disenfranchisement is necessary for a just punishment because it is a way to match the action of hurting the victim's moral agency with the political agency of the criminal. [Rebuttal] Value - Democracy I have two responses: First, democracy is not inherent because the resolution states "democratic society." There is a line between the two. For example, Athens would be a "pure democracy," but the US is a democratic republic. Therefore, a democratic society can be a democracy, but doesn't have to be, all it has to have is some values of a democracy. Since he defines a democracy, but not a democratic society, you can drop his value on definitional terms. Second, his value is inferior to mine because justice is what every government ought to achieve, and it is the framework value when talking about punishment. VC - Equality I have 2 responses: First, he says "Equality is the idea that all people should be treated the same, with the same rights. Equality can achieve democracy because in an ideal democracy, the people hold the power, which is evenly distributed throughout the people." I have already shown how an "ideal democracy" is not inherent to the resolution. Second, equality can stretch so far until the idea of equality is lost unto itself. For example, to achieve equality we can let all murderers out of jail so they can be equal to the citizens. However, every sane person would tell you that that is so wrong. Valuing equality for equality's sake is illogical and fallacious. Contention Overview: He writes many times about the US. However the US is not a pure-democracy and thus has not link to his value structure. C1 "All felons are citizens. Just because they have committed a felony doesn't mean that they immediately lose citizenship." --> no, but they can lose rights. E.g. right to bear arms. "This relates to my VC because it talks about voting. Equality means that everyone has equal rights, and since voting is a right, everyone should have equal rights to vote" --> That is fallacious, as I have proven up at the top of the AC C2 "Since statistics show that some types of people are more affected than others by felon disenfranchisement, which is prohibiting felons to vote, my contention relates to the resolution." --> Logic Extension: By voting off his logic the affirmative world would have no punishments because they would all be justified. --> Extend this idea to his sub-points. C3 "it is not always the same. Since the resolution does not state that the democracy has determined the person to be a felon, it is possible that a person who creates a democratic society can be a felon from a dictatorship that had happened before the democracy." --> you provide no impact --> Your definition contradicts this C4 --> you can drop it immediately because the "right to vote," even according to my opponent in his C1 is the abi