Discrimination should be 100% Legal

RE: Con writes, "Business should not discriminate because they cannot discriminate. It is the law." My opponent continues to appeal to the status quo, but that's a fallacy and simply isn't an argument against the resolution of this debate. I'm specifically arguing against the status quo and Con is required to give reasons to support his contention that discrimination is immoral. Allow me to provide a brief example to illustrate the absuridity of Con's argument. Suppose my son says to me he thinks it is actually morally okay for him to steal a candy bar from the gas station and gives me several reasons as to why. In response to my son's arguments I say that the reason he's wrong and it actually is morally bad for him to steal a candy bar is because stealing is illegal. The problem here is that my son knows it's illegal, but he's arguing that it shouldn't be, and so my argument failed to actually provide any reason as to why it should remain illegal. Stating it should remain illegal simply because it's already illegal is circular logic. RE: It's incorrect to use Frederick Douglass's letter In his letter, Doublass writes about how many of the freedmen in the North would love to return to the South were it not for their love of personal freedom, and the slave owners: "You will be surprised to learn that people at the North labor under the strange delusion that if the slaves were emancipated at the South, they would flock to the North. So far from this being the case, in that event, you would see many old and familiar faces back again to the South. The fact is, there are few here who would not return to the South in the event of emancipation. We want to live in the land of our birth, and to lay our bones by the side of our fathers'; and nothing short of an intense love of personal freedom keeps us from the South. For the sake of this, most of us would live on a crust of bread and a cup of cold water." [1] It's a powerful statement. Blacks who escaped slavery still would return to the South after emancipation, but because they loved their personal freedom so much they wouldn't do so until after emancipation. They would even live off morsels to avoid doing business with slave owners or associating with them. If the audience remembers Con's argument, he would rather the few Blacks who now owned businesses after escaping slavery close up shop because they entered into business with an obligation to openly serve the public and yet refused to associate with their ex-masters. RE: Con's Questions about his preemptive rebuttal based on Christian scripture My opponent here has trouble understanding why his argument is invalid. It's because he offers a rebuttal to a contention I did not make and still haven't. Con writes, "Finally, I believe that there is a (sic) inherent contradiction by conservatives and those who argue that the "right to discriminate should be legal 100%" and their own religious beliefs." The problem is my opponent offered an entire rebuttal to an argument based on religious texts to which he assumed I adhered to and which I never even made. If I didn't use Christian doctrine as a contention to support the resolution, there is no sense in attempting to rebute that contention. Furthermore, Con's rebuttal to the argument I didn't make is also flawed in that he tailored it specifically to Christianity instead of providing a reason as to why religous people in general shouldn't discriminate. It would make just as much sense for me to quote Islamic sources in order to prove that it's actually acceptable to discriminate, but that would be ridiculous because it appeals to just one specific theology. Closing Statement In this debate I put forth the resolution that individuals should have the right to discriminate against anyone for any reason in the business world. The driving reason I offered was the idea that every man has the freedom to associate with whomever he desires and to exclude any he wishes; and to deprive the businessman of this fundamental right of associate while granting it only to others is akin to the horrorific experience Frederick Douglass escaped from. How awful it was for the slave owners of times past be permitted the freedom of associate and yet it was denied to all the slaves. As my opponent rightly pointed out, a businessman who chooses to excercise his freedoms this way may end up precluding himself from potential profit, but he's failed to demonstrate why that is suffucient reason to strip the businessman of this freedom. The only other contention Con offerd is an appeal to the status quo: "Business should not discriminate because they cannot discriminate. It is the law." But circular logic gets you nowhere. I would like to thank my opponent at this time for participating in this important debate, and also the audience for listening to our arguments. Hopefully one day the laws will change and people will be universally allowed to freely associate with whomever they choose in order to preserve their most important values, even if we personally find those values despicable. I encourage the audience to vote Pro.Sources[1] http://www.lettersofnote.com...