Libertarianism (Pro) vs. Socialism (Con)

In this fourth round, I'll simply be correcting my opponent's misconceptions and solidifying my position in today's round. By the end of it all, the voters should be able to easily identify myself as the winner of this ideological debate regarding two much talked about political philosophies. For the sake of readability, I"ll be addressing the opponent's most recent speech according the the headers he presented. The Role of The Government in a Libertarian SocietyThe opponent is mostly correct in everything mentioned in this point, but I believe he has misinterpretted my position. I am not claiming that libertarianism is a philosophy of government where every individual can do whatever they please. Rather, I was pointing out a certain role of the government. The opponent seemed to believe that a socialist government is somehow immoral because it can force some individuals to do certain things and have objective control over the citizenry. I was pointing out that even a libertarian government has the "last word" when it comes to conrol. If a citizen breaks the law, the government has the complete and utter ideological right to punish with force the citizen who broke the law. The opponent has mentioned multiple times that socialism is an "ideology of force", all the while failing to realize that a libertarian government is just as justified in using force when it comes to people breaking the law of the land. I even brought up the contrast between libertarianism and anarchism, which identified the difference in government behavior between the two systems. The Nature of Human RightsPro is attempting to argue that we have "natural rights" from an evolutionary perspective, but offers little logic or evidence to justify this claim. The opponent will find it impossible to prove or even show it is likely that humans for some reason have "inallienable rights" that we simply have. One could claim that God gives these rights, but that is another debate -- and more importantly it is often agreed that there should be a separation of church and state. This is a particularly important aspect of this debate, because if some rights are indeed inherently existent, the Pro side has more credibility. However, one cannot deny that we are simply animals. Sure, we are the most intelligent animals on the planet and we have utilized environmental resources more efficiently than any other species. But this does not suddenly give us a right to anything. While we may feel we have some right to life and while society may agree that it makes sense to value life, this is not an inherent truth -- rather it is a subjective value that people tend to support. If the opponent can offer some objective source of rights, then he should win this argument. But he will find that utterly impossible, as there is no reasonable way to claim that humans have a right to anything. It is true that life is valuable to society, but that does not make it inherently right. Considering this, we are left with the conclusion that "rights" are given by the government. It is a simple matter of social contract -- humans aquiesce to the government's demands in exchange for the benefits said government offers. In today's world, people often enter this social contract without choice, as a direct result of them being born into the country with said government. So a government guarentees certain rights to its citizens. In libertarianism, "life, liberty and property" are offered rights. In socialism, "life and security" is offered. Neither system has inherently correct or true justified rights. Because of this, it is important (and the goal of this debate) that we determine which system is more desirable. The opponent seems only to be justifying his ideology based upon the incorrect notion that people have some natural right to property, which cannot be proven true, or even likely. On the other hand, I have given multiple economic and societal reasons as to why democratic socialism is a preferable system of governance. Forced Charity and the Fallacy of "Need"The opponent's entire argument here is based upon the previously defeated assumption that humans somehow have some special inherent right to property. As such, the point does not stand. Beyond that, the header is highly misleading. The opponent seems to imply he will discuss some "fallacy of need", but fails to demonstrate how "need" is not a reasonable distinction between classes of people of different incomes. As I have already demonstrated, each additional dollar a person owns has diminishing returns in terms of quality of life. Understanding this, economists can determine tax brackets (as they already have) based upon this need. The opponent cannot reasonably deny that one man could possibly need $5,000,000 in order to have a quality life and additionally the opponent could not possibly convince anyone that a homeless man, a poor family, or a disabled individual does not need wealth in order to have a decent quality of life. There is no "fallacy of need". One only needs to possess a certain amount of wealth in order to live a sustainable, happy life. People who are not wealthy enough to meet that standard are no doubt in need. Democratic socialisms holds that people of extreme wealth have an obligation to the poor. This is not unreasonable; after all -- it is often the poor who are working in the factories owned by the rich.Lastly, this redistribution is not "forced charity", because it is not charity at all. Charity is when you give from yourself somethint not demanded in order to help others. Under democratic socialism, there is no option to not give. Redisribution is not charity; it is a legally enforced civic duty to your fellow man. Captalism and the Death of PovertyHere the opponent attempts to imply that capitalism is not compatible with democratic socialism. This is patently false. A legally enforced redistribution does not destroy capitalism. When the riched are taxed highly, they still have plenty of money to fund ventures that bolster capitalism. Beyond that, democratic socialism does not concern itself with controlling industry. This would be unreasonable, as capitalism has proved itself time and time again. There are mutliple modern-day democratic socialist countries that have stable economies, largely due to the capitalism that is allowed to take place there. The opponent seems to be confusing socialism with communism; a fatal mistake. The Tyranny of the Majority; Why Individuals Must Be ProtectedHere, the opponent again falls back upon his flawed argument that humans have some sort of natural rights granted by evolution. Under democratic socialism, all people in the society have the same rights granted by the government. They are more restrictive than what would be offered by a libertarian goverment, but I have already discussed why this is a good thing. The opponent seeks to justify libertarianism based upon the prescription of how the U.S. was founded. While the U.S. is a good source to pull various statistics from (as I have done), we cannot forget that we are not arguing for Libertarianism vs Socialism in the US. We are arguing for the fundamental ideology itself. While pure democratic socialism is likely is not technically compatible with the ideals that the US was founded on, this is irrelevant. I am clearly not arguing for a republic, but rather a democracy. If the majority decides that the land should be a certain way, that is how the land will turn out. The minority may often disagree with majority, but all that can be said is "tough luck". Democratic socialism holds that the country should be run based upon the will of the "average person", which is best determined based upon the majority. The opponent finds this so disagreeable, again, because of his assumption that some rights are simply naturally existent. I have demonstrated that this cannot be proven or even reasonably suggested, so it is not a valid argument. Once one understands that, the merits of democratic socialism become clear.-----------------ConclusionThe opponent has largely based his argument on the idea that natural rights exist. I have shown that the opponent cannot prove this to be true and that it is unreasonable to assume this is the case. I have shown that democratic socialism creates a significant net benefit for society -- a fact which the opponent failed to refute. Rather than attempt to point out flaws in my economic argument, he fell back upon the "natural rights" argument. You should vote Con because a) my position is the most reasonable, b) the opponent cannot prove his fundamental assumption that we have "natural rights, and c) there are great economic benefits to democratic socialism. I look forward to the final round. I hope the opponent will attempt to objectively prove the natural existence of "inallienable rights", though I suspect he will find it truly impossible. I have yet to see a person prove this, and I've seen many, many debates and discussions on the issue.