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

Thank you for your response Firstly, my opponent asserts that my value show no clear understanding of what I am trying to uphold. Allow me to clarify. Everyone has a different concept of right and wrong. That is my value--moral relativism. Let me give an example. Suppose that my friend Bob kills my neighbor John's dog. However, Bob is not punished because of a silly technicality. John is so angry about this that he decides to become a vigilante and take the law into his own hands. So he kills Bob, even though if Bob had been punished in a real court, he obviously would not have recieved the death penalty. Now from John's moral perspective, he did the right thing. However, from the perspective of most people, John did too much. This is why vigilantism is not justified. Vigilantes all have different values (moral relativism), and many vigilantes may feel justified in an action that is excessive, such as lighting suspected criminals on fire and throwing them off of cliffs. Note that in the example that I just used, John's actions are justified and supported by the resolution and my opponent as well. If you vote for my opponent, it's because you think it is just for people to run around killing whoever they want whenever they feel like government has failed them. Since it is obvious that it is not just for people to do that, you must vote CON. My opponent goes on to say that philisophical basis/value criterion is illogical. I disagree. One of the most important principles of democracy and government is the concept of rule of law, the idea that no man is above the law. Rule of law has been of great importance ever since the signing of the Magna Carta centuries ago, and it continues to be relevant to this debate. Rule of law is the idea that all people are equal, and therefore, no person is above the law. In other words, no person should be allowed to exempted from laws that bind everyone else or have rights that no one else has. Vigilantes will undoubtedly fail to respect rule of law and impose unfair rules and punishments. My opponent attempts to discredit rule of law with the example of slavery. He says that any slave who respects the law will be treated unfairly, therefore rule of law is flawed. There are problems with his example. First of all, he interprets Rule of Law too narrowly. Any law that gives people rights denied to others is a violation of Rule of Law, becuase of its unequal treatment. The 'Law' in Rule of Law is a broad generalization of the natural rights endowed to all people, as well as the laws broadly designed to provide for the common safety and equality of society, not specific or tyrannical laws (such as slavery). The other problem with my opponents example is the context of the resolution. The resolution says "vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law", not "vigilantism is justified when the law itself is unjust". The distinction is important, and my opponents hypothetical is the latter case. My opponent refutes my first contention by saying "Political Authority again is not necessarily just." He is claiming that vigilantes will act more justly and have more political authority than the government. He has no evidence what so ever to support this assertation. Let us compare the political authorities of vigilantes and the government. I have already established the authority of vigilantes comes solely from themselves (making their authority illegitimate). My definition states that vigilantes act out of 'perceived' government action. Also, look at all existing examples of vigilantes. The authority of the punisher and the Juarez city command comes from themselves as well. The fact that vigilantes get their authority from themselves is included in the package of vigilantism. However, this is not the case for the political authority of governments. The resolution does not say what kind of government exists, but I have already stated that it implies a democratic one (read the parargraph on my second contention above). In a democratic government, authority comes from the people, not from itself. Therefore, its authority is legitimate, giving it more legitimacy than vigilantes and negating my opponents refutation. Also, I would like to reiterate that my opponent has the burden of proof. He must prove that vigilantism is always justified, even when the government is democratic and the government has more legitimate political authority than vigilantes. My opponent tries to refute my second contention by saying that vigilantes will work for societal order and justice becuase they "will" to do it (in other words, they want to do it). Well, this is refuted by my value, moral relativism. Sure, every vigilante wants to work for justice, but every vigilante will do it differently. Some of those vigilantes are going to end up doing it the wrong way. Lets go back to my example of John and Bob. John wanted to work for justice. However, in his quest for justice, he committed an unjust and immoral act. We simply cannot trust people like John with real political authority. Remember that vigilantes are not impartial justices and executors of the law. Vigilantes will bring their own beliefs and baises about punishment and justice to the table, and we simply cannot trust those individual judgements. I would like to remind my opponent about the Juarez city command. They seek justice, but look at the crimes they are committing. My opponent has not yet justified or defended their horrifying actions, and he cannot win this debate until he does. My opponent attempts to dismiss my third contention by saying that the government has abondoned its people, therefore its okay for vigilantes to flaunt government authority. Well, lets look at the punisher again. In this instance, the government has not abondoned its people. The punisher just thinks the government has abandoned its people. Remember, vigilantes act out of a "perceived" lack of justice. This means that vigilantes may threatean the government even when the government has not abandoned its people. Also, my opponent dismisses the confederacy example by saying that the U.S. government had not failed yet. Well, I have a question for my opponent: How are we supposed to know when government has failed? The confederacy thought that government had failed. One could argue that the Union had in fact neglected the confederate states. My opponent must answer this question to win the debate. My opponent states that if someone misinterprest justice, then he is not a vigilante. Well, my value shows that everyone naturally interprets justice differently, so my opponent's defense of his first contention is negated. My opponent says his second contention is valid becuase my v.c. has been disproven. First of all, my v.c. has not been disproven, and even if it had been, this does not help his second contention My opponent admits that his third contention was exageratted Considerations: My opponent has yet to defend the actions of the Juarez city command, the punisher, and John the angry neighboor (all angry and violent vigilantes). How are vigilantes supposed to know when government has failed? According to you, if they don't know this, their actions can't be just. What is the proper way to 'interpret justice'? Thanks, I look forward to the next round.