Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing.

Alright, here begins the closing argument. My opponent continues to hammer down on two things: First, he continues to believe that the United States government doesn't entitle rights. I have two responses to this. First, nothing in my case says anything about the government ensuring the right to housing. It can just as easily be accomplished by a non-profit across the nation and have nothing to do with the government, so I win this argument because my opponent's argument stands on a slippery slope: he fails to prove why the term "United States" means the government at any point in the debate and cannot do so in the 4th round without violating the fairness in this debate as explained in Round 1. So, I win this argument. But even if you don't buy that, the Constitution is essentially rights-giving. It's a set of exceptions to a general statement "All is ok except..." So essentially, the Constitution enables rights with exceptions. Again, I win this argument, another reason to vote for the Pro in today's debate. Second, the fact that my opponent brings up the right to property is further proof why the Pro wins. If you are conservative and believe in how the Constitution was written, then you must vote Pro simply because the Pro defends the right to own housing. Now this doesn't mean a "house" as my opponent continues insinuating, it just means housing. See my definition in Round 2 for clarification. I disagree with the absurdity of passing laws mandating food simply because Michelle Obama already did that in Public Schools mandating school breakfast and lunch? Again, his argument continues to be contradicted by the status quo. He mentions natural rights again. Please show me in my Round 2 argument where I directly mention "natural rights". Because I didn't. Non-topical argument can be ignored. Now on to the LGBT argument. Two things: 1. If you're anti-LGBT, that's fine. That doesn't, however, allow you to openly discriminate. There are laws against that: https://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.hrc.org... https://www.aclu.org... Please actually refute things with actually evidence instead of your own bigoted ideals. He then closes with, "For so as long as this is ensured to any group of people, they are not being oppressed and have equal right just like everybody else." That's the whole point! Thank you for making my case for me. We need to ensure housing to reduce discrimination. Look to the Espinoza 2014 argument in Round 3 that goes unrefuted to show why LGBT folks desperately need housing to feel safer. This is only done by giving them their right to housing, and that can only be done by voting Pro. Now a few more closing things: The language of rights is key for political mobilization and social change Hartman 2006. Although establishing a right to housing in the United States does not appear to be immediately feasible, that political reality in no way detracts from the argument that our society ought to embrace it. I proceed from a normative, philosophical stance that asserts the wisdom and justice of such a right as well as our society"s clear ability to achieve it. After all, what have "rights" been historically in the United States if not an evolving societal sense of justice and entitlement, won always in political struggle (frequently undergirded by various intellectual efforts)? The right of slaves to be free of bondage was won in that way via armed struggle and political action that produced amendments to our Constitution. The right of women to vote has a similar (albeit less violent) history. Workers won the right to organize, and federal legislation with such guarantees was passed to codify that right. Ending child labor, winning an eight-hour workday and securing unemployment benefits represent other labor victories. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s produced a set of legal rights that did not previously exist and changed profoundly at least the public culture and practices with regard to race. In all these instances, the appeal was to a higher sense of justice, to fundamental principles of a democracy and to foundational docu-ments embodied in the creation of our country. The content of rights is thus a constantly evolving drama, as those lacking what they perceive as fundamental entitlements, together with their intellectual and political supporters, raise new issues, make new demands and organize politically to assert and bring into being new elements to society"s understanding and acceptance of what everyone should have. AND Housing is a fundamental right that exists at the center of social and personal life In short, because housing is so central to one"s life, it merits attaining the status of a right. It is at the core of one"s social and personal life, determining the kinds of influences and relationships one has and access to key opportunities and services (education, employment, healthcare). Housing also is an outward sign of status and affects the health and well-being of the surrounding community. Probably only those who have experienced how hard it is to create and maintain personal and family stability or land a job without a home, how hard it is to keep up with schoolwork in an overcrowded apartment, how much the sheer pressure to make the rent can overwhelm the rest of one"s life" experiences largely foreign to the housing policy analysts, academics and bureaucrats who read and write scholarly articles such as this"can fully comprehend just how central decent, affordable housing is, or might be, and how limiting and burdensome is its absence. WHY JUST HOUSING? The question may be raised: Why housing? Why not a right to decent, affordable food? To health care? Why not guarantee people enough income so that, like the majority of Americans, they can purchase the housing, health care and other basics they need in the market? I would answer as follows. We certainly should have a right to decent, affordable food and health care (in the latter case, the costs, it should be noted, would be somewhat lower were housing-related detriments to good health eliminated); our failure to pass single-payer health reform legislation or otherwise provide these guarantees is a tragedy of massive proportions. It is not an either/or proposition, and movements for basic rights must coalesce into a more potent political force. Housing has a special character, not only because it consumes so large a portion of the household budget, especially for lower-income families, but because it is, as noted above, the central setting for so much of one"s personal and family life as well as the locus of mobility opportunities, access to community resources and societal status (Hartman 1975). It would make things far easier if everyone in the United States had enough income to satisfy his or her needs in the market, but that goal is even less likely to be achieved than is the goal of decent housing for all. The structure of the job market and the shredding of the social safety net make it hard to imagine how every-one could have enough income to pay for housing and other necessities. In fact, an increasingly large number of Americans are unable to attain a decent standard of living as prices outstrip incomes. Moreover, that approach misreads the nature of the housing market. The profit-maximizing behavior of all actors in that market"landowners, developers, builders, materials suppliers, real estate brokers, landlords, even homeowners"at all points works against assuring that everyone has decent, affordable housing, absent a legally enforceable Right to Housing and explicit commitment of resources to its realization. In conclusion, you can vote Pro off of this: 1. My opponent fails to refute anything in Round 2, which means everything extended in Round 3 gains Pro offense 2. He fails to clash with Pro ideas and provide reasons why housing is bad.