Smoking Ban

PRO violates their own rules by actually making rebuttals and counter-rebuttals, while the Rd. 1 rules *only* permit summaries; thus, I urge judges to *IGNORE* any rebuttals PRO makes in Round 4 and only consider the summaries. The motion today is about a smoking ban. PRO and CON both agreed on the framework of the harm principle--that individuals can do whatever they want insofar as there is no harm to any individuals that don't consent to said harm; thus, the debate must be evaluated with regard to which side better fulfills the harm principle, by weighing "harms" against each other. PRO dropped my definition that "harm" also encompasses "lack of benefit"--so the fundamental framework here is a cost/benefit analysis. If I win the impact analysis in this debate, the ballot should go to CON. PRO has three impacts that they have defended through this debate: (1) the deaths and injuries caused to the individual that smokes; (2) the deaths caused by secondhand smoke in which non-consensual actors are affected; and (3) the loss of money and time of the individual that smokes. Both the first and third impacts are *entirely* useless in advancing PRO's burden since they contradict with the standard of the harm principle, as I consistently pointed out in the debate--simply because the individual CONSENTS to the loss of money, and to the injury. PRO's response: "Don't make this debate about the harm principle. " That's a bad response because PRO literally *explicitly* stated that their standard was the harm principle; the *standard* defines the burden of the debate, and PRO has to advance that burden, else they lose. I *thoroughly* refuted the second argument by demonstrating that a ban on smoking in public property eliminates the impact to a substantially smaller or even non-existent extent. PRO's response is that the impact isn't *entirely* eliminated because people will violate the law anyway--with *no proof* whatsoever. Offering no proper warrants to any points, PRO's case entirely fails to fall under the standard of the harm principle. The offensive argument in my case as extension of the harm principle directly succeeds since PRO's case has been refuted, because insofar as there is no demonstrable tangible harm from legalized but regulated smoking, I automatically win the debate under PRO's *own* framework. Vote them down right there. But also vote them down because, as CON, I made an argument with a substantial impact that far outweighs any argument of PRO's--so even if you buy the secondhand impact argument, you can vote them down on the clash with regard to my case. My case comprised of the argument that a ban on smoking would instead perpetuate black market sale of cigarettes, creating dangerous and violent scenarios, increasing violent crime and strengthening gangs and criminal networks. PRO's response to that is nothing short of hilarious: "we should ban the black market. " But the black market is *already* illegal--by definition. If you ban something, that doesn't guarantee that it stops. It continues illegally without sufficient enforcement because some laws are IMPOSSIBLE to enforce. I used the analogy of banned drugs to demonstrate that however much you enforce a smoking ban, tobacco functions in the black market. PRO's main response outside of the prior one is that there is no means for the black market to produce tobacco, but this is objectively wrong for reasons already mentioned, namely that people demonstrably DO illegally produce tobacco by growing tobacco plants, etc. PRO has no justification for this response either, so I urge you to disregard it. Fundamentally, this debate--due to the accepted burden of fulfilling the harm principle--comes down to two key questions: (1) Which side better advanced the value of liberty? (2) Which side better prevented harm? It is objectively clear that I advanced liberty substantially more by allowing people to smoke without harming others (i. e. in their own private property without any passive effects). It is similarly objectively clear that the CON side is the one that prevents greater harm by preventing thousands of deaths from violent crime, cartels, and gang conflict, while the PRO side only prevents the negligible or entirely nonexistent (since PRO lacks any justification for this) harm from illegal passive smoking.