Waterboarding

I negate; "Waterboarding". TORTURE is defined by the United Nations as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions." JUSTICE is defined as giving each their due. I will provide warrants for why this is true if it is contested; this is the generally accepted definition in debate. WATERBOARDING is demonstrated here: http://www.youtube.com... And here (you have to be over 18): http://www.youtube.com... I believe that the above videos prove that it is NOT just "scaring people". I will negate using the following syllogism: -Torture is unjust. -Waterboarding is torture. If I prove both prongs, then the logical conclusion reached is waterboarding is unjust and therefore you negate. We all have certain rights that are unalienable from ourselves, and among those (according to the Declaration of Independence) are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our autonomy and ability to make decisions is where our worth as human beings is derived from. We don't punish squirrels or tornadoes for their actions because they don't know right from wrong and aren't aware of the moral implications of the effects. However, when one of us does something wrong, there is a demand to bring that person to justice. Since the basis of all justice arises from the acknowledgment that we are autonomous agents capable of making our own decisions, If I can prove that the Pro violates human worth, then it is necessarily unjust and you vote CON. TORTURE IS UNJUST A) One of everyone's inherent rights is the right to sanctity of body and mind. This is true because of a few reasons: First, people can only make rational decisions when they are safe. If someone is not safe, their first priority would be to save their own lives and get out of that situation. People tend to worry about themselves and their security before worrying about others, as you cannot help someone if you are dead. Second, if right to sanctity of body and mind did not exist, then we would not care or bring any charges against the person that caused a victim to have half his leg cut off. Sanctity of mind can clearly be shown in high school and cases of domestic abuse: There are severe consequences in schools for spreading rumors, and there are shelters for abused women and children (and sometimes men) and extreme charges can be placed upon the aggressor. What torture does is specifically the opposite: It seeks to take away a person's homeostasis so the victims, or "patients" as some people call those HUMANS, homeostasis and sense of security, and therefore reduces the person on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, resulting in that person eventually resort to giving the torturer what he wants. B) The acceptance of torture brutalizes society. The MOMENT that a society or government of any nation decides that it's okay to torture this person or group of people BECAUSE they are ‘a threat to national security', that justifies the government doing it to every citizen that they have. B1- DEHUMANIZATION: Since torture includes people that are merely suspects of doing something, they have not violated anyone's rights yet. This means, that in the context of this topic and resolution, we are sometimes using torture on suspects to extract information that they do not have. This is unjust for two reasons. B1A-- It rewards those that do have information while kills the ones that don't. Knowledge is not the determiner of which people are worth more and which people are worth less, so if we're going to torture people for information, we're basically telling the people who don't have it, "You're not human anymore, so I get to kill you." B1B-- This places the rights of ours above the rights of theirs. Since the people that are tortured have not violated anyone's rights yet and we have no proof that they did, they have as much right to habeas corpus, life, liberty, sanctity of mind and body, etc, as we do. By us saying we're able to torture them for national security is just dehumanizing them because we wouldn't be torturing them if we felt they were our equals, ONLY if we feel that they are less then we are. B2- BRUTALIZATION: By the government torturing random people for information for national security, this sends an image to the people that torture is just in some instances. The moment that we get to that point, we'll see people torturing each other claiming it's for national security and the government CAN'T do anything about it because they are using the exact procedure themselves. Because torture violates a person's inherent rights, it is unjust, therefore torture is unjust. This proves the first prong. WATERBOARDING IS TORTURE. A) I look for "waterboarding" on google and I see two things: Torture, and Interrogation. B) Waterboarding is a form of torture for several reasons: 1 – It reduces people to the state that they believe they're going to die. John Sifton of the Human Rights Watch agrees; "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law." 2 – It is almost killing them, as an "accident" during waterboarding WILL result in death. All forms of torture do this. 3 – It fits exactly the definition of torture provided by the United Nations, and since my opponent did not define any terms in R1, the UN def will be the def of torture for the debate. SINCE I HAVE PROVED BOTH PRONGS OF MY SYLLOGISM Waterboarding is unjust and therefore you already negate. Now, onto the PRO case. My opponent has provided two levels to affirm: -It is not immoral because it just scares people. -It is necessary for national security. I have already proven that torture dehumanizes because it does not respect human worth. Not respecting human worth is also a direct link into morality because human worth is also the entire basis for morality: It wouldn't be immoral if a banged a toaster on my kitchen counter, but it would be immoral if I did the same thing to a person's head. The only reason why banging a toaster on a kitchen counter isn't immoral is because we value human worth. Taking that into consideration, things that devalue human worth are also immoral. And I have already proven that Torture devalues human worth. Therefore, you cannot look to his first argument. To his second, I would argue that it isn't necessary for national security. Since he didn't provide definitions, I define necessary as "needed in order to maintain". A) He has burden of proof because he made that claim, he doesn't show why, so don't believe in him. B) It's not necessary because we didn't use it until recently and we've been able to keep national security without it in the past, it's not like we've been at a state of war until we started using waterboarding. C) The ends don't justify the means. Maj. Richard Anderson agrees, "if the United States is going to be the champion of human rights and dignity, as our national security policy suggests, it is crucial that we do not violate the rights of others in the process." I will expand on that next round. Ran out of space.