Resolved: that governments have a moral obligation to assist other nations in need.

Hey, birthdayfan—thanks for setting up this debate! You’ve set forth a pretty interesting resolution to debate, so I thought I’d get in on the action. I have never debated in Lincoln-Douglas Value format; however, I think you’ve described it well enough for me to understand. Good luck!______________________________________________________ It’s my task to negate the resolution, so let’s take a look at it:“Resolved: That governments have a moral obligation to assist other nations in need."I. Interpretation A. First, I would like to point out an ambiguity in the resolution as stated. It is not clear whether the word “governments” refers to all governments or just some governments. Our debate could go in many different directions, depending on how we choose to interpret this word.So let’s see how birthdayfan interprets “governments.” Uh oh. It seems like birthdayfan’s interpretation does not resolve our ambiguity—because he has interpreted the singular “government” rather than the plural “governments.” This is a mistake by birthdayfan.Well, in that case I will address both possible meanings of “governments.”1. Governments = all governments. This interpretation is very problematic for birthdayfan. Let’s assume that all governments have a moral obligation to assist others in need. In that case, needy nations would be morally obligated to assist other needy nations. For a more concrete example, suppose nation A has enough drinking water for 25% of its population, and nation B also has enough drinking water for 25% of its population. Is A morally obligated to assist B by providing it with drinking water? Certainly not—that would be awful!2. Now let’s address the other interpretation: Governments = some governments. In this case, maybe only the richest countries have a moral obligation to assist others in need. However, if birthdayfan were to choose this interpretation, he would be committed to showing who exactly has this moral obligation. Voters, don’t like birthdayfan get away with not choosing one of these interpretations! B. Next, I would like to address another issue of interpretation. Birthdayfan has argued for an interpretation of the resolution that is unintelligible to me. This unintelligibility arises from his interpretation of the word “need.” We should be able to insert his interpretation of the word into the resolution, and it should make sense; but when we do this, we can see that it makes almost no sense at all: “…That governments have a moral obligation to assist other nations in anything that is necessary but lacking.” Is this really the definition Birthdayfan wants to use? What does this even mean?II. Contention DebateA. Contention I: Human rights are Universal. Birthdayfan's reasoning here is problematic. He argues that the universality of human rights is derived from the meaning of the term "human rights"--he argues that you can see it by just looking at the phrase. But just because the term "human" applies to all humans doesn't mean that all humans have certain rights. By birthdayfan's logic, I could use the term "gnat rights" to arrive at the conclusion that pesky little insects have rights. Obviously gnats do not have universal rights, so birthdayfan needs to come up with a better argument here.B. Contention III: Governmental Assistance leads to Human Rights. This proposition is problematic. We need governmental assistance for human rights to exist? In Contention I, birthdayfan argued that human rights already existed. Now we need governmental assitance to create them? Voters, please make sure birthdayfan makes his position clear. To be clear, it is my contention that human rights--if they exist--exist regardless of whether governments choose to assist people.I'll stop there. Thanks again for the debate, birthdayfan!