It should be legal to stalk someone

Introduction In a world where the law ought to protect those vulnerable to crime, my opponent is suggesting that authorities should take away protection from stalking victims, thinking that stalking victims can somehow easily stop stalking. This is irresponsible and would lead to more stalking, ultimately harming society. Therefore, I am proud to, as the only writer on team opposition, oppose the motion that "it should be legal to stalk someone". Signpost In this round of the debate, I shall refute my opponent's points one by one. Then, I shall make one constructive point: encouraging of stalking. Rebuttals Differentiation between stalking and murder Pro once again tries to make a distinction between stalking and murder in order to render useless my objection to his points. Pro argues that one can expect stalking but not murder or muggings. This is patently untrue; if one is walking in an urban slum alone at night, one should reasonably assume that one would become a victim of violent crime. Authorities try to protect potential murder victims, so stalking victims should not be alone in defending themselves against crime either. Ability of victims to protect themselves against stalking without help of authorities Cyberstalking is difficult to stop, since if a stalking victim blocks an account, the stalker could always make more accounts or hack a friend's account to override the blocking. Pro's objection to my argument that hacking could make cyberstalking difficult to stop is based on a misunderstanding of my argument; my argument wasn't about impersonation, it was about getting around blocks. If a stalker learns a victim's address, they can potentially get inside through breaking windows and such. After all, stalkers may be obsessive by definition. Stalking can easily lead to violent crime; thus, banning it is in the best interest of everyone. In addition, simply wearing longer dresses and being more modest would not stop all stalking. Stalkers can stalk because they persue personal vandettas or were angered by rejection; even if some victims were able to prevent stalking by not wearing bikinis outside, other victims who get stalked due to different reasons would end up with no aid from authorities at all. Does banning stalking increase or decrease responsibility? Pro argues a ban on stalking would increase responsibility. This is untrue, since stalking cases are already publicized by media in the status quo, which already causes people to take responsibility. In fact, Pro's proposal would actually make people less responsible; when stalking is no longer a crime, incidences of stalking would become less known as they are no longer reported as much by the media. Thus, we get less responsibility on the side of stalking victims. Pro further argues that women get so great a false sense of security from stalking laws that we might as well let stalkers run rampant. This is illogical, since women are already very careful in the status quo; feminists frequently talk about a "rape culture" and the media reports on stalking incidents, which cause fear and therefore care. False stalking accusations Pro does nothing to refute my point that because other crimes can also have high wrong conviction rates, his logic would result in scrapping many other laws. Instead, his response to the argument does not actually deal with the imperfection in his logic. Prison My opponent says that stalkers are not motivated to leave prison. That's ridiculous, since prison is intended to be undesirable and therefore prisoners almost always want to leave prison. My opponent also states that we should not criminalize stalkers because they are mentally ill. He therefore ignores the fact that potential criminalization gives stalkers a reason to get a psychiatric diagnosis, thereby making their lives better. Constructive points Encouraging of stalking Some would-be stalkers choose not to stalk because they understand its illegality and cannot bear to be sent to prison. If we legalize stalking, they would likely want to "try it out", leading to more stalking. Thus, we would be creating, not reducing, stalking. References [1]https://en.wikipedia.org...