Access to drinking water ought to be valued as a human right instead of a commodity.

Hello. I would like to extend this opportunity to debate to anybody who would like to debate with me. First round will be for presentation of cases, 2/3/4 round are for rebuttals and clash. New arguments are okay in these rounds. Fifth rounds are for final clarification, why you're winning. No new arguments in the fifth round. All types of arguments are okay with me, although I would prefer it to be a LD-style debate. Value-criterion, linking arguments in. I won't hate this if you don't, but it's how I like to debate. If this isn't how you debate, still come debate here! I thank whoever accepts my invitation to debate in advance. ---------- Case ---------- Merriam-Webster defines rights as the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled to. Therefore, the sufficient affirmative burden is to show that access to drinking water is something that we are entitled to. If I can do that, then the ballot becomes an easy vote for the affirmative. Moreover, because of the word "access" in the resolution, the affirmative does not need to provide a plan on how to actually distribute water to everyone, but only to show that we are entitled to it as per human rights. Furthermore, the word ‘ought' in the resolution implies that to sufficiently answer the resolution, an ethical framework must be applied, so the negative can't just stand up and refute the ethical framework proposed by the aff without supplying an alternative theory. I value justice defined as fairness. The only true way to achieve justice is to view things from an unbiased point of view, ignorant to all pre-conceived stereotypes and biases. From this, I propose an ethical framework consisting of the Veil of Ignorance, a theory originally proposed by ethicist John Rawls that explains how one makes a just principle. Behind the veil of ignorance, we are stripped of our pre-conceived biases and stereotypes, which allows us to plan for the betterment of us all, even if we would be the least advantaged. But how do we know that what we plan is truly under the veil of ignorance? Rawls proposes Two Principles of Justice to weigh whether or not our actions would truly be acceptable under the Veil of Ignorance. The first principle states that each person in a society is to have as much basic liberty as possible, as long as everyone is granted the same liberties. For example: giving people the right to water is okay as long as everyone has the same amount of said right. The second principle states that while social and economic inequalities can be just, they must be available to everyone equally and that these inequalities must be to the advantage of everyone. All this basically says is that the social and economic ramifications of the actions, even if they are on the lower end, must be to the advantage of those it would apply to. Everyone must be benefited. That being said, these principles must be fulfilled in order. The second cannot be achieved before the first. We can't just throw away all of our rights to things like life for a few extra dollars an hour. The first principle must be achieved before the second. This will spike out all con economic impacts trying to link back into the Veil of Ignorance because while they may or may not fulfil the second principle, they fail to address the first principle, since sacrificing our right to water would, in the long run, sacrifice our right to life, thus failing to meet the first principle. Also, since Merriam-Webster defines a commodity as something useful or valued, negative economic impacts against the affirmative case are, at best, non-unique since humans also inherently value life. Thus, the standard is following the Principles of Justice under the veil of ignorance. I contend that under the veil of ignorance, access to water deemed as a human right is a just action. 1) Access to clean water fulfills the first Principle of Justice by protecting the civil liberty of life. Sa) Polluted water. When a person ingests contaminated water, they risk the chance of catching certain diseases that could potentially kill them. A study conducted by UNICEF in 2009 concluded that 24,000 kids die in developing countries each day because of drinking contaminated water and contracting a disease that killed them. This statistic works itself out to be one child dies every three and a half seconds. So by affirming, I'm going to be saving massive amounts of lives in the short and long term, which fulfills the first principle of justice under the veil of ignorance. Sb) Dehydration. When a person goes without water for an extended period of time, they run the risk of endangering their lives or causing irreversible bodily harm to themselves because of the lack of water. A general rule of thumb of how long the average person can survive without water can be summarized by the Rule of Three, which says that a person can survive three minutes without air, three hours without adequate shelter in a harsh environment, three days without water, and three weeks without food. So, under this widely accepted rule of thumb, the average person can only go without water for three days without suffering some serious bodily harm or death. Having access to clean drinking water prevents these deaths from occurring, which fulfills the first principle of justice under the veil of ignorance. 2) Access to clean water fulfills the second Principle of Justice by allowing people to earn more money and benefit the economy. When we have access to clean water, we prevent most of the potentially fatal diseases that come from drinking polluted water. When we live longer, this gives us more time to work and earn money, which is an economic advantage. Moreover, it's intuitive logic that not all water out there is clean. In order to clean the water to provide to everyone, we would have to build more water treatment facilities and improve already standing ones. This would put money into the construction industry, which also improves our economy, which is an economic good. Underview: a) The world agrees that access to drinking water should be a human right. The Scientific American Magazine reported on a United Nations meeting in 2010 where they declared that access to clean and safe drinking water was a human right. 122 nations voted in favor of this resolution, and there were zero no votes. Because of this, if at any point in the debate things get muddled, err on the side of the affirmative debater because I'm showing you currently in the status quo how we view access to water.