LD March/April Topic

On his Value of International Relations: 1st he provides no reason as to how gaining International Relations will actually link back to Affirming, therefore he provides no link between International Relations and the Moral Permissibility of Target Killing. 2nd The Aff has to support killing a supposed terrorist in a FOREIGN country. Often with these Targeted Killings people/places tend to get blown to bits. Just as David KilCullen, a Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science stated "When we intervene in people's countries to chase small cells of bad guys, we end up alienating the whole country and turning them against us." This shows how our International Relations will be tainted when we Affirm. 3rd. He provides no link from International Relations to the resolution. The value isn't a clear place to vote for Aff Now on to the Value Criterion He states that his Value Criterion is Self Defense of a Nation. 1st This Value Criterion isn't a weighing mechanism, what are we doing with Self-Defense of a Nation ? Preserving it ? Promoting it ? We can't look to his Value Criterion because it lacks a weighing tool. 2nd He never provides any justification to prefer his Value Criterion over others. He also provides no link from the criterion to the value or the resolution. 3rd The Affirmative doesn't support Self-Defense of a Nation they simply blur the line between defending ones nation and killing someone. Since we can never tell if the person we are killing is truly in the Al-Qaeda or Taliban we might be killing a military general of another country which is certainly not self-defense. The Aff has provided no way to tell whether the action of targeted killing is morally justified or not. Thus the Value of Life must be the value for this round because all Morally Permitted actions are meant to defend this right among all the other rights. This right must be the one valued because without we wouldn't be able to have any other rights or Morality. The Value Criterion must be to prevent risks to life, by Affirming we say it is morally justified to risks killing life which is immoral and wrong, we must stop this mentality that violence can be justified when it never can be. Thus I contend that the act of deliberately killing someone is never justified though it may be excused. The reason the act of killing deliberately may never be justified because it is intentionally taking another persons life, the only reason self-defense is the ONLY situation where the act of killing itself is justified is because the agent of action is not intentionally trying to kill the other person, it is a heat of the passion moment where emotion takes control NOT rationality. The definition of Targeted killing is the deliberate killing of an individual that represents a clear and present threat to the safety of state. This definition entails the deliberate taking of life and this can only be considered excusable because the agent of action isn't held liable for the wrongness of the action, just because one perceives a threat doesn't make the action of taking out the threat justified or permitted it is simply excusable. This is a major reason to Negate and this will be considered the Negative Constructive. On his 1st Observation he tries to justify Targeted Killing is necessary. Targeted Killing isn't necessary to prevent human rights from being desecrated because the fact that the agent using the targeted killing knows where they're at and waits until the right time to strike comes could have used that time to team up with authorities of that state or Nation or Country and taken the terrorist or threat to humanity into custody rather than kill. If we begin saying Targeted Killing is necessary then we'd be justifying another Bush Doctrine or we'd be just in saying "This other country is getting far too powerful and has become a threat we will now attack it and destroy it because we perceive a threat even though we are not in any immediate danger" This becomes problematic because then Morality will be forced to provide even more Immoral options because its "Necessary" at this point Morality will be broken down. This is another reason to Negate this will act as a turn on the Affirmative. Another argument is that we as a world need to stop this idea of patriarchal violence from being used to solve everyday issues. The idea that we're the ones in trouble is still no justification although it still may be excusable. The idea that one is morally just in using violence must CEASE TO EXIST if we are ever to get down to the root cause of all violence and end it. This is yet another reason to Negate the resolved, this will act as a major turn on the Affirmative Constructive. On his 2nd observation He tries to draw a distinct line between assassination and targeted killing however he provides no warrant for this so don't look to it when voting. 2nd There is no distinct line between targeted killing and assassination because both are for Politics and ideology. When we killed Osama Bin Laden that was because he was the leader of a major terrorist group (Politics) and we had to kill him for the safety of our nation. Therefore politics and State Safety go hand in hand. On his 3rd observation He tries to say there are limitations to targeted killing but regardless of the limitations we can't affirm off of all previous arguments made so don't look to his 3rd observation when voting. On his 4th observation He tries to make a tool in the tool box argument but the tool is still considered Morally impermissible, even when other alternatives may fail the act of killing is still NOT morally justified or permitted. On to his first contention Sub Point A- Cross Apply the argument I made earlier where I talk about how he simply blurs the line between self-defense and assassination. The Aff doesn't support a position of Self-Defense. Just because the threat is on the other end of the world doesn't mean it is justified to go over there and kill them for something they haven't even done yet. If anything get authorities in that country to subdue them. This will uphold international relations better and this is yet another reason to Negate. Sub Point B- First he provides no warrant or proof that the UN does say its self-defense. second Just because the UN says its Self-Defense doesn't mean it is Self-Defense once again cross apply the argument I made earlier where I talk about how he simply blurs the line between self-defense and assassination. On to his second contention Sub Point A- Just because something ends a war quickly doesn't make it morally justified. The Atomic Bombs dropped in Japan weren't Morally Justified but they still ended the war quickly. We can't look to this to deem the action of Targeted Killing Morally Permitted On to his third and final contention Once again just because the law supports it doesn't make it moral. We are looking to Morality in this debate not Legality. You can cross-apply almost every argument made in this round on this contention. Also once again just because something is legal doesn't make it moral, slavery was legal but it wasn't moral. There are certain things that can still be considered legal but not moral. I have proved how we must negate to ensure morality stays intact and also to actually put an end to violence. Thus I urge a negative/Con ballad I await my opponents responses