There should be websites that list the identity of people with HIV

I accept. Resolved: There should be websites that list the identity of people with HIVBurden of ProofPro is affirming the resolution. Therefore, the entirety of the burden of proof lies with Pro. He must prove that we "should" in fact do this. The reason the burden is on him, however, is that this is more than a normative issue; it is also a legal issue and a drastic shift from the status quo. So not only must Pro prove that we "should" do this, thus making the moral case, but he must also prove that this is worthwhile, thus making the legal or the political case. I am now going to rebut his arguments before offering my own contentions negating the resolution. Pro says, "Gun owners must be registered, child molesters must be registered and placed on a public website." First of all, this is a non-sequitur fallacy. Just because X may be true for Y does not mean that X must be true for everyone. Because there may be a punishment in place -- registration -- for child molesters, put in place because they have broken the law and pose a severe dangers to others, it does not follow that this should also be true for people with HIV. Pro must be able to prove why this should also apply to people with HIV, who haven't done anything wrong or broken any laws. They have not been convicted of a crime, so why should their freedom be compromised. Though, as I have already pointed out, Pro's logic is deeply flawed, he inaccurately says that gun owners must be registered. This is only true in a very small minority of states and cities. "Outside of 4 cities (DC, Chicago, Omaha, and Clark County, NV), and 3 states (California, Michigan and Hawaii), gun registration is essentially unknown in America." (1) Pro says, "People with HIV should be listed on a website and openly viewed by the public." Pro asserts this, but provides no reasoning as to why this should be so, and thus his burden remains unfilfilled. Pro says, "Hivlist.com kind of does this, but there should be a national HIV registry for every country." Again, he is merely making an assertion. He provides no reasoning as to why there ought to be an HIV registry. Also, I checked the website he has referenced. It is "temporarily unavailable" (2). Obviously we can't verify the contents of it or whether it ever even fulfilled what Pro says it did. If I could act off a hunch, I would argue that it was shut down by virtue of impinging on people's privacy -- if in fact it even remotely served the purpose Pro has stated. Pro says, "A person having HIV is like a human gun and their status should be public. Wouldn't you want to know if your babysitter, nurse, dentist, cook or date has HIV ?"Pro states that a person with HIV is "like a human gun." But this is a patently absurd comparison. In fact, HIV is NOT contagious. I'm quoting from an FAQ put together from the Chatham Council on Aging. The key parts that I want to emphasize are underlined. (Ok, almost all of it is underlined, but this proves conclusively that HIV is NOT contagious, so the walking gun claim is patently false.)"Unlike common diseases like colds, flu, measles or chicken pox, HIV is not highly contagious. It is NOT transmitted through touching, hugging, sneezing, coughing, eating or drinking from common utensils, or being around an infected person. It is now clear that casual contact with a person with HIV infection does not place others at risk. No cases have been reported in which HIV has been transmitted through casual (non-sexual) contact to a household member, relative, co-worker, friend, teammate or student. HIV is NOT transmitted through air, food, water, insects, or by contact with an object touched or breathed on by a person with HIV. There is no reason to fear becoming infected with HIV by using a public rest room or telephone, eating in a restaurant, riding in a taxi or bus, shopping, swimming in a pool or lake, sharing an office or a classroom" (3). To answer Pro's question: I wouldn't care whether my babysitter, nurse, dentist, cook or date had HIV. Now, in the case of a date with whom I was going to have sexual relations, I would want to know. However, a national registry is completely unecessary toward this end. Would you want people to paranoidly start googling their dates? Relationships are about trust, and I would trust my partner to tell me if she did in fact have HIV. I will, with the remaining characters I have, offer my own contentions. C1) There is no need This underscores my earlier point. P1) If there is no need nor viable reason for doing X, we shouldn't do X. P2) There is no need nor viable reason for doing X. C1) Therefore, we shouldn't do X. By attempting to do X, we are merely wasting precious time and resources we could devote elsewhere. This brings me to my next contention. C2) Congressional Gridlock Pro has stated that he wants a national registry for people with HIV. This, of course, would need to be passed by Congress. However, Congress has been less productive than ever before (4). Passing or attempting to pass a bill like this would upset the balance even further. Even if, in some unrealiastic hypothetical scenario, whichever side pushed for the bill would sacrifice an immense amount of political capital, meaning that would nothing would be passed in the future. Moreover, in line with my last contention, Congress would devote time and resources to addressing this non-issue for which there is no need to address when it could be solving real problems, like unemployment. C3) People with HIV are not contagious I addressed this point earlier, and am merely bringing it up again. We know that people with HIV are not contagious. Pro's "human gun" argument is unfounded. C4) Pro's proposal is immoral Pro is shaming an entire group of people who have done nothing wrong. Merely having HIV does not put you in the same category as a sex offender who has committed a vicious, vile crime and threatens everyone around him or her. Why does Pro want to shame innocent people, against their will, by making their names publically available? C5) Pro's proposal could incite violence against innocent peopleSome people are ignorant and may think that people with HIV pose a threat to their lives. As a result, they would be inclined to take matters into their own hands and physically harm these people. Or, people may look down upon these people and publically ridicule them, perhaps inflicting harm on them or injuring them in that way, or even causing so much pain to these innocent people that they decide to harm themselves. This, of course, is normatively wrong and we should not allow such a thing to happen to innocent people. C6) Pro's proposal violates privacy The Constitution affords us a right to privacy. The "Due Process" clause of the 14th Amendment -- "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (5) -- has been interpreted by the courts as a right to personal privacy, and has been used as the justification for Supreme Court cases such as Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut (6). Pro's proposal releases expansive, sensitive information that not only puts people in danger of, say, having their identity stolen or being personally harmed, but which violates their fundamental liberties. ConclusionI have refuted all of Pro's arguments and demonstrated why his proposal is ludicrous. Vote Con. Sources (1) http://tinyurl.com...(2) http://tinyurl.com...(3) http://tinyurl.com...;(4) http://tinyurl.com...;(5) http://tinyurl.com...;(6) http://tinyurl.com...