If Texas were to threaten to secede from the Union...

"To conclude this point, the Union still has the freedom to make any choice that either has consent from Texas or does not require consent from Texas, and those would really be the only choices the Union should be allowed to make, so there's no deprivation of deserved choices here. " What he has essentially admitted to doing is somewhat similar to 'checking'[1] in the game of chess. To be as descriptive as possible, he has said that Texas moving to cut off the choice of the federal government to 'enforce tyranny,' whatever that means, is not a deprivation of choice and therefore not an attack on freedom. Yet, would anyone dare say that when you 'check' in chess, you are not blocking off a path for your opponent, restricting his movement, and cramping his freedom? No, of course not; it is a conscious act to bind freedom in order to attain a desired outcome. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. My opponent's other point is that is the people of Texas consent to it, it would therefore be a freedom-quashing move on the part of the federal government is they moved to, 'enforce tyranny. ' There is a major flaw with this though, because how can the people of Texas consent to secession, yet use it as a threat? The way secession works is that once you have the vote, you have separation. Having the 'consent' is akin to having the 'act,' and once again, we are not talking about the act of secession, but the *threat*. The threat of secession is having the climate about that you would ask for the consent (and it helps that there is polling which backs that decision) unless demands are met. There is a big difference between the concepts. You cannot simply have the vote, and then say "well, we won't separate if you do this" - these kinds of votes are absolute and non-negotiable. If you get 60% of your population to say they want to secede, you aren't going to stop halfway if you value your job. So, this is simply negligible to the argument and the resolution. "Now, Texas has control of Union policies through its power to secede. It's the check to make sure that the Union's power doesn't get out of hand and start to destroy personal freedom. " My opponent is again incorrect with his statements. What this 'check' amounts to is the deprivation of property rights for the federal government; they are mandated, legally and with binding documents, as I have shown, to have control over certain aspects of legislation, taxation, and property. In exchange, Texas has certain influences given to them within the federal legislatures, have their own state rights that the federal government cannot trample unless they wish to inflict the wrath of the Supreme Court. Texas also has the right to secession - but that doesn't mean the *threat* of secession is legal, or peaceful, or conducive to freedom, especially in regards to what my opponent has alluded its purpose to be - to stop "enforcing tyranny," his buzzwords which truly mean "to stop the Union from exercising its rights. " It is truly ironic, when you think about it. "The threat of secession, in this way, only deprives the Union of the option it shouldn't have in the first place: the option of tyranny. " My opponent has just contradicted himself. He says that YouTube putting in the ads on videos created by YouTube users (YouTubers) is not something that YouTubers have consented to in the slightest, and that it is tyrannical. Not only do YouTubers agree to the advertisements (as noted in YouTube's privacy policy[2], which is agreed to when users accept the Terms of Service[3]), the YouTube website itself is property of Google, which owns the domain and all within that enables videos to be uploaded, and seen. To say that YouTube putting in advertisements on their own property with the consent of the users is 'tyrannical,' is essentially contradicting my opponent's own belief that property is sacrosanct. Translate that to the resolution, what my opponent is saying is that the federal government enforcing legislation over Texas, whereby the Texas government, the official representative of the citizens of Texas, has agreed to the terms of that ability for the federal government, is 'tyrannical'. He is calling the exercise of freedom on property 'tyrannical'. I'm possibly the most liberal guy on this website and I wouldn't dare call property 'tyrannical'. "Remember, the Union never even deserved the one choice that it here loses. " My opponent peddles notions of "political morality" and what or what the federal government doesn't "deserve. " Such notions are either misplaced or subjective, or both. As I noted earlier, the federal government gains its authorities through the mutual exchange of rights and privileges with the states - feds get power of overriding legislation, states get representation and chance to directly influence that legislation. So to say that the federal government doesn't "deserve" its rights, or that the overriding authority is against the government's "political morality," is to essentially say that Texas does not deserve these rights either. Because if the federal government doesn't get its rights, then there is no reason why Texas should have its own. No mutual recognition means no recognition at all. "The main point is that the school had more freedom in having the choice, and there should not have been an Option C, because the man did not want to live without his culinary degree, and forcing him to do so absolutely violated his own basic freedom. " I believe I can sum up my opponent's argument with this, which is pretty absurd when you think about it. Think of it this way; my opponent is correct in saying that Option 'C' exists, and that yes, the police officers took that option which does destroy the man's choice of freedom. But my opponent purposefully ignores the other side of the story, the culinary school, in an attempt to route the argument. Now, my opponent says that the culinary school had more 'freedom' in choice, but this is absolutely untrue. My opponent is well aware of property rights, and he ignored my point that the student, the one who was threatening to kill himself, bound the culinary school's rights to exercise that property, aka. the diploma, with that threat, unless demands were met. Essentially what the threat did was bind the culinary school into too few options; give the man his diploma, despite his failure; let him kill himself on their property; call police and get them to stop him. That is very far from being conducive to freedom. Equally, the student himself had his freedom taken away by his own self - he backed himself into his own corner, giving himself few options out of the situation. In the attempt to curb the rights of the school, he destroyed his own. And in all honesty, that is one of the cornerstones of Western society - your rights are sacrosanct until you bind the rights of others. ______________ My opponent can scream all he wants about the 'tyrannical' federal government, but in the end the threat of secession is simply two things: 1. Intent to bind the rights of others by force, threatening an action unless demands are met 2. Resulting in the destruction of compromise and rights for both sides of an argument, forcing options to be limited for both sides, until the breaking point occurs Neither is conducive to freedom; neither is respectful of rights; neither is acceptable. My opponent claims that secession is the best way to promote freedom - I have shown that it is not. For nothing that destroys and binds such as a threat of this kind does is anywhere close to the freedom that I do believe my opponent sincerely wishes to emulate. Once again, I thank Mongeese for this interesting debate, which I hope he'll discuss in the future with others, and possibly myself, again. Sources in comments.