Resolved: Vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Vigilantism will never work under your VC because it is not for the people because it is not derived for the people, but for the person. You are correct, people have the right to protect themselves against their societey, this is called self-defense and is perfectly legal and fine with the state and further governments. Vigilantism however, is Illegal and is illegal for a reason. It's not illegal because it's benefitial towards societey, society can be protected by it, and because societey wants it [...] but because of quite the opposite. Onto his observation number 1-"The resolution uses the phrase "justified" instead of "just/unjust" meaning the aff is not bound to establishing the act of vigilantism on as the best course of action or even the right thing to do, there just cannot be a Categorical Ban upon it." This is pretty amazing. My opponent is attempting to uphold vigilantism due to morals (his value is Morality), yet on the other hand, he is trying to say he does not have the burden of upholding the fact that it is the best thing to do, and that it is the right thing to do. This is quite contradictory. If your value is that of morality, then no matter what the resolution points out or puts before you, you've made it your burden to uphold vigilantism being the right thing to do, seeing as how you've defined your value as "difference between right and wrong," (meaning you are to do the right thing oppose to the wrong thing). Your Value criterion does not uphold your value because your VC is attempting to justify actions (whether they be good or bad) for the betterment of the individual. You can't say this is not true. Why? Because you know I, as the negative side, am going to bring things wrong with vigilantism, and your point is that no matter what I say, Vigilantism is right because it preserves the will of power (where you say "every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its will to power and to thrust back all that resists its extension."). In LD Debate, your value is to uphold your value criterion, meaning you know your value is there, when your value criterion is there. The same cannot be said for your case. Onto your first contention. "contention 1: The Government in question has sacrificed its monopoly on the Will to Power and thus the Vigilante is Justified" You state "Under a governmental system the government is the highest power, thus has the ability to apply and punish laws. It has what you would call a monopoly on the Will to Power." But fail to realize why. Governments realize that there is a major flaw in opening up ANY AND EVERY citizen into exacting his own vigilante powers onto whomever they thing is committing a crime or not. If you legalize vigilantism the problem with your contention 2 opens up. "Contention 2: Vigilantism is a self-regulating practice" This is the exact problem with vigilantism. It is self-regulated, self-appointed, self-assesed, and every other thing that has to do with SELF. In the declaration of independance and in the constitution it is made clear that governments have their power over people because the people give there consent to the government. Nobody from birth (whether it be a king, dictator, or president) has the power to govern if someone does not afford that person that right. Because Vigilantism is the attempt of trying to govern someone without their consent, it is not only wrong, but MORALLY wrong. The idea of vigilante justice is quite amusing. The idea that a murdering, thieving, anger management needing abusive citizen decides that someone else has gone too far and needs to be punished by them because they somehow feel that they are more just than the government, is morally reprehensible, and the exact definition of irony.