Resolved: Legislation to Extend First Amendment Rights to Employees and Students

I will now counter my opponent's arguments in the order he has listed them (which were listed in order against my case) Then I will go over a few brief points I will accept his definition of the resolution on his first point, where he states that other laws still apply. On his refutation against my argument that stated his case couldn't gather offense because he was trading one's rights for another's, I still contend this. You are removing the right of the employer to keep order and maintain authority in their workplace; this is the right I am getting at, not the supressing of their employers (although this is the means to that end) I will drop the argument I made about defamation, libel, etc. because I unfortunately did not fully understand what he was trying to contend Next, my opponent tries to link free speech being valued over efficiency to slavery in the United States. This argument is fairly extreme, because the rights we are suppressing do not go to that level. Supressing workplace freedom of speech does not lead all the way to slavery because 1, the private sector can only take it to so far of a level before they completely lose the bulk of their employees. 2, workers cannot be referred to as slaves; they will never reach that kind of working condition Now moving on to my opponent's refutations against my advantages: my opponent states that the advantages I create are logical fallacies because the status quo can't change anything. I agree, and I apologize. However, the other half of the point I make still remains: efficiency is still higher with the status quo. My opponent does not contest this. Thus, I will move on. On attacking my opponent's case again, He makes the argument that rights are more important than efficiency. However, this is not always the case. There are two reasons (As well as another related argument that doesn't fit here) 1, Without efficiency, the world collapses. There is a very real slippery slope. If rights are put over efficiency to too great of an extent, the efficiency of the United States will be lowered far too much. This in turn will lead to (1), the end of civilization. Explanation: There are two key concepts here, that of Classical Republicanism (http://en.wikipedia.org...) and Natural Rights (http://en.wikipedia.org...) As of now, we are fairly well balanced between the ideals of classical republicanism (government being the end the people are means to) and natural rights (people being the end government works to) When the latter is overexercised, it leads to the collapse of civilization and the beginning of the state of nature (or the return according to Locke) (2), end of the world. Explanation: if the United States falls into anarchy, not only will quality of life be decreased, but there will be random people in control of nuclear arms and the most powerful (or what was) country on earth. It would not end well, vengeful people looking for people to blame 2, The rights being taken away are trivial. There exist what are called Time, Place, and Manner restrictions. These are the most important; it means the Marching Band can't come playing down the street at 1AM. It basically states that the Time, Place, and Manner must be acceptable for Free Speech. Time, must be a reasonable time such as during the day. Place, must be public. Manner, must be the kind of speech (no defamation, libel, etc.) This is important and relates to this because even though my opponent is trying to change these, if we make it so the Place restrictions extend to even private places, it would lead down a slippery slope which would give citizens free speech everywhere. THAT would be chaotic. There is a reason these restrictions are in place; they have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional under the 1st Amendment. Also, if the place restrictions were removed, it would lead down a slippery slope that would mean the removal of all place restrictions. If we remove workplace place restrictions, people would question why there are place restrictions in other places. Currently, it extends only to public areas. If we even infringe a little bit into the private, then it would most definitely lead to the private area becoming a place for Free Speech. This is not good; it would remove the penumbra that gives the right to privacy under the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 14th Amendments. So in conclusion, this resolution does not do as my opponent states. My opponent says that it will increase rights. You are still trading off rights for others. In fact, you're losing more rights than you're gaining if you vote for my opponent. Employers lose right to maintain their workplace, and many people will eventually lose the right to privacy under the "penumbra" decided in Roe v. Wade. Also, the economical repercussions would be disastrous if you vote in affirmation of this resolution. The efficiency of the United States would decrease, and eventually lead to the END OF THE WORLD. This is too great a risk to take; by voting for my opponent, you are ending the world as we know it. A final statement: Efficiency is more important than natural rights in this particular case because the rights that could be lost are minimal, and already stated is that you will lose more rights if you affirm. Thank you, I look forward to the final arguments to be presented in this debate.