Public health concerns justify compulsory immunization.

=== Kritik === A) Link THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION WON'T OBTAIN BIOPOWER "Biopower was a term originally coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects. .. " [1] Read my observation one. I am advocating that we keep the power out of the hands of 'modern states' so that they can't 'regulate their subjects. ' The World Health Organization 1. Doesn't have subjects. 2. Doesn't have any of the other regulatory powers of a 'modern state' that are necessary for power. 3. Has no legitimate property or political interests in waging war, gaining political power, etc. This means you can ignore the kritik right here because affirming the resolution WON'T lead to biopower, even if it is bad, but B) Impact 1. "Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on the behalf of the ontological existence of everyone. " Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a good thing. Is it better to fight because one 'sovereign' says so, or because it is to the benefit of society? It seems to me that accepting this mind set would lead to less arbitrary conflict, not more. 2. Biopower causes war On the contrary, however, biopower has been increasing. In ye ole era, the government simply collected taxes from its people, and in return laid down laws and maintained a military. There was little to no 'biopower. ' However, in modern times we have seen a drastic increase in Foucault's 'regulation of subjects. ' We have required insurance, fingerprinting, social security, passports, public education, etc. In the last few centuries, the government has become much more biopolitical. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we have become less belligerent throughout history, not more. Before recently, territories and boundary lines were always changing. People were always fighting. The territories that survived were the ones that could fight, Sparta, Rome, the Mongols. Only in the last few centuries have we had peaceful relations and a decrease in conflict. It seems to me that this denies Foucault's claim with certainty. Only recently has biopower skyrocketed. Only recently has the rate of conflict dropped. It seems that, if anything, one could conclude that biopower has stopped war, not created it! I think my opponent is going to need more than the ravings of a paranoid fanatic of a philosopher to suggest that 'massacres will become vital' and 'entire nations will be mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter' simply from compulsory immunization. C) Alternative This is all Greek to me. My opponent has opted out of posting anything informative as to how we solve the problem of biopower and instead giving me this asinine gibberish to attack. I can't make heads or tails of it, so I'll expect him to clarify what in blue blazes Chambon is rambling about, and in his own words. [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org... ===== Theory ===== This is a pointless waste of space. I am not in any way being 'abusive' to my opponent. Let's look at his so called 'violation. ' A) We are not debating 'X amount of people should be immunized' or 'Y people should be exempt;' this is NOT policy debate. The very first sentence of my opponent's 1st post says "please accept LD format. " This means we are not debating a specific policy of 'immunize X unwilling people' but a question of philosophy of 'unwilling people can be immunized. ' It is impossible for the affirmative's claim "public health concerns justify compulsory immunization" and the negative's claim "public health concerns do not justify compulsory immunization" to both be true, regardless of whether 0, or 1, or 1 billion people are being immunized. B) i) Solvency He made a solvency disad of biopower. I can think of others that could be made as well. This is obviously untrue. ii) Vaccine specific disads I'm not advocating a specific vaccines, but the belief that vaccination can be compelled when public health concern warrants. It isn't within NEG ground to attack specific vaccines, e. g. "Influenza B vaccine causes autism so vaccines are bad! " iii) Person specific disads All I've precluded him from attacking is disadvantages of "some people are allergic; they will be hurt. " Again, people can not exempt on religious/philosophical/personal beliefs in a world post-affirmation. He could have made disads there, but he hasn't. ====== Topicality ====== Again, obviously not a violation. Just read the AC and tell me that it doesn't affirm the resolution. I'll address these attacks anyway. "an intrinsic burden on the affirmative to show the policy action in question just" This isn't policy debate. I'm only advocating a philosophy. C2 Apparently my opponent thinks that vaccinations shouldn't exist at all, even voluntary ones! I see no warrant for why that would be a good idea, but my 2nd Contention still applies which is: compulsory immunizations are the only way to stop the poor from suffering. This means that: A) I do prove the truth value of the resolution via my criterion by reducing suffering. B) this is entirely relevant because whatever "counterplan" he thinks he's advocating, he has given no reason to believe it is going to stop the rampant disease in poor countries. C1 There's no violation here. Compulsory immunization -> Herd Immunity -> reduction of suffering -> Resolution affirmed There is no other way to solve the problem of 'herd immunity' without providing vaccination. ===== My Case ===== Observation One "there is no solvency mechanism" I am advocating a philosophy that compulsory immunizations are justified. --- Observation Two I already addressed his "theory. " --- Contention Two He says this doesn't work because there are other solutions besides immunization. I'd certainly like to here them! Problem: developing-world countries are not adequately protected from disease. I don't see how there is any real solution besides vaccination, including his obscure 'genealogy' alt. He already said he's not advocating voluntary immunization. I would say that this just seems to dig him further into the problem, because he isn't providing protection at all! This is certainly a unique benefit to affirming. --- Contention One A) The affirmative's burden is not to relieve all suffering, just moreso than negating. I already established this. B) There is no way to immunize people, by definition, without immunization. It's impossible for him to 'solve' this. C) 100% immunization rates aren't required for herd immunity. If it's a severe problem we simply open hospitals. ====== Summary ====== My opponent has argued that compulsory immunizations would cause biopower. a) there is no way the WHO could gain sufficient 'biopower' to do anything. It isn't a political entity. b) Biopower isn't necessarily bad. It forces governments to fight for the greater good, according to his quotation. c) claims that biopower leads to these huge wars and genocides have been empirically denied. He says that I'm being abusive. He bases this on the claim that 0% of the population might be immunized. We are debating a philosophy, which doesn't change regardless of the amount of people vaccinated, so he doesn't lose ground. He claims that I'm being off topic. I outlined a framework (the only one in the round) that says I win if I show that compulsory immunization reduces suffering. Both contentions give a unique benefit to immunization in reducing suffering. If we wanted to debate the framework, he should have established his own. His attacks on my case ignore the burden, which is to prove that affirming reduces suffering. He's given no reason to believe that immunization won't lead to better herd immunity or protection of the poor. I'm meeting all of his a priori standards and the framework.