Private entities ought to be able to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, etc.

I think I'll tackle your argument backwards and start with the second point. The current status or constitutionality is not up for debate. The resolution states "ought to be able to". Even if there is no constitutional basis for the right to privacy for a private business, which I disagree with, it is not relevant here. If I were to take my opponents word on the claim of no right to privacy the resolution would mean actions should be taken to make it so. It could be done through a constitutional amendment or through the individual state legislatures. In order for my opponents argument to hold water the resolution would have to be along the lines of "There exists a constitutional right to privacy for privately owned entities." I shall offer an example if you are still not following: Recently in Saudi Arabia a woman confessed she "had a forced sexual intercourse with a man". [1] For this she was convicted and sentenced to 100 lashes and a year in jail. I think we all agree this is very sad, it may even be sad enough to spark a debate. For the purpose of this example let's say someone offers the resolution "Saudi women should not be punished for being assaulted and forced into sexual intercourse." During the debate the current Sharia law allowing it to happen would not be a valid argument because the debate is on whether or not it "should" be that way. This debate is the same. We are not arguing the situation now but how it "ought to be". I believe that takes care of your second argument. Now, like The Jeffersons, I will "move on up" to your first. Harr harr. My opponent say there is no excuse for discrimination based on race, skin color, religion or sex and I would have to disagree. Businesses are in the business of making money. In order to make money they have to offer a service or product that appeals to their customer base. That's all basic economics 101. I do not want to come off as sounding racist in this debate, but it's a touchy subject, so please forgive me if you take something the wrong way. A nice middle aged man and his wife own a convenience store in some cow poke suburb. Along with the products they sell they have to hire employees. Their largest customer base happens to be older while retirees. A fact of life is that older people tend to be more racist than their young counter parts [2]. This is not wrong, they just grew up in a different time period when society was different. The nice middle aged couple know this and also happen to have a job opening. They receive 2 applications: 1) Black, 21 Year Old, Male 2) White, 21 Year Old, Male Both are college students and share the same experience for the job. Let's see what happens if they hire the black male. Down on Old Folks Street lives little old Dorothy. Dorothy is an accurate representation of the convenience store's largest customer base. Just like how old people are more racist, they also have more time on their hands which make the quite the gossip. Dorothy goes down to her favorite little convenience store to get her Alcaselser Plus and to her shock at the counter waits a black man. Even though he's a fine member of the community she automatically has a negative connotation of him in her head. She quickly leaves the store to gossip with all her old friends over a cup of tea. They can't believe the store hired a black man and they gossip away creating wild stories about how he may be a robber or criminal. Dorothy convinces her group of friends, the stores main customers, to drive the extra mile to another store where no black men work. They all agree it's for the best, they want to feel safe after all. All Dorothy's claims may be wrong, but the fact remains that she and the store's base think that way. The store is not in the business of changing how society thinks, they are in the business of keeping their customers. The best way to do so would be to hire the while male, even though the skin color will not affect his actual job performance. The middle aged owners of the store have good intentions at heart, but let's look at an another example. We have Billy Bob and he's just moved from Texas to a South Carolina suburb. Billy Bob is racist as all get out, he doesn't like anyone that does not have white skin. He opens a store and starts to look for employees, and because of the way he thinks he hires all white people. No one in the town catches on, but then Billy Bob decides he only wants to serve white people too. He puts up a sign saying "Whites Only" and refuses to service anyone else. This SC suburb is pretty modern, they have a mix off all nationalities and pride themselves in being pretty open minded. When Billy Bob hangs his "Whites Only" sign it angers not only non-whites but all the open minded white folk as well. Four Fifths of his employees quit because they do not want to be associated with a racist bigot. The others that continue to work there are gossiped about and ridiculed. Not only does Billy Bob lose his employees he loses a large chunk of his customers and sponsors. This ultimately causes profits to dry up and he is left with no other choice but to close down. Through society pressure, not government action, the problem was fixed. He was not hassled by the law and yet the problem was still taken care of. To back up my two little anecdotes here is a quote from Harvard economist Robert Barro: "I believe the only meaningful measure of productivity is the amount a worker adds to customer satisfaction and to the happiness of co-workers. A worker's physical appearance, to the extent that it is valued by customers and co-workers, is as legitimate a job qualification as intelligence, dexterity, job experience, and personality. Almost everyone can recognize that severing the link between wages and intelligence would reduce efficiency or lower the gross national product because brain power would not be allocated to its most productive uses. Yet outcomes based on intelligence are clearly unfair in the sense that, by and large, smarter people end up richer, and being smart is to a considerable extent a matter of luck. If one wanted the government to redistribute resources from smart to stupid people, then one would have to believe that the benefits from this redistribution would exceed the resulting losses in national product. The same reasoning applies to physical appearance. This trait is highly valued in some fields, and reducing its importance to employment and wages would effectively throw away national product. The outcomes are also unfair, in the same sense as they are for intelligence. An interference with the market's valuation of physical appearance is justified only if the benefits from the redistribution of resources from more attractive to less attractive people are greater than the losses in overall product. Thus, it makes no sense to say that basing employment and wages on physical appearance is a form of discrimination, whereas basing them on intelligence is not. The two cases are fundamentally the same." [3] In conclusion, the government does not need to handle a situation that will be taken care of by the society it is in. My oppoent does not give society enough credit, he claims "experience and education would become secondary factors to skin color and race." In some situations this may be true, but only in the areas where it is not a problem. If a town consists of mostly one type of people and their business make the choice to only serve those kind of people then so be it. In most areas people are decent enough to realize this behavior is wrong and will not buy or use any services from racist business owners. [1] - http://www.saudigazette.com.sa... [2] - http://glennsacks.com... [3] - http://www.businessweek.com...