Resolved: The Death Penalty is a Morally Tenable Punishment

First an observation: Since my opponent has offered no constructive arguments affirming the resolution, it's already game over for him in terms of the burden of proof. The BOP unless specified otherwise is shared, and even if not one of my arguments stands (I'll explain why they do momentarily), having 0 constructive arguments on the affirmative of any debate, and especially this resolution means that my opponent hasn't proven why the death penalty is a morally tenable punishment. Simply disproving my arguments as to why it is morally untenable doesn't mean it IS in fact tenable. According to the debate.org wikipedia "Bilateral burden of proof' or 'shared burden of proof' is a case in which both debaters have to fufill a burden of proof (BoP). Technically, "shared BoP" indicates that the two debators are arguing in favor of two opposing resolutions. For example, an instigator may wish to debate that "Apples are better than Oranges" and for her opponent to debate that "Oranges are better than apples". In this case, a shared BoP would be perfect, because each debater would be equally obligated to defend their own claim and rebut their opponents' claim. Whereas a debate with a unilateral BoP is concerned with the evidence for or against a single claim, a debate with a Bilateral BoP focuses on both claims. In these debates, the winning party is the one who successfully convinces the judge that their position is more likely than their opponent's position, using both rebuttals and constructive arguments. Unlike unilateral BoP, if there all constructive arguments are negated or equally balanced, then it is possible to have a tie" Based on this analysis the best my opponent could hope to achieve in this debate is a tie, and that is assuming he can effectively refute ALL of my constructive arguments. Moving to my side of the flow: Rebuttal 1 Response: Deterrence is offered as one of the primary justifications for the death penalty, and my opponent basically dodges this by forwarding the same argument critiqued in a different light. If my opponent concedes that he does not support the death penalty at all because of deterrence then the issue flows to neither side, if he says he supports the death penalty even in part because of deterrence, this has to flow to neg because he is supporting the death penalty in part because of deterrence, meaning he is still using individuals as a means to achieving the end of deterrence. Rebuttal 2: That might be the linguistic definition of justice, prefer "to each what he is due" because it is the most commonly agreed upon philosophical definition of justice that originated from Socrates himself and has been the crux of most philosophical debates on the actions of the government. Administering justice then becomes about protecting the rights of others and delivering punishment in such a way that it achieves said end, not about giving someone what they "deserve". My opponent attempts to frame justice in a way favorable to him and in a way that is circular, he essentially says that justice is giving someone a punishment based on what is just, I advise voters to think about that for a moment. Since my opponent's definition of justice is both circular and merely linguistic whether than philosophical prefer my definition. My opponent then defines what is just as "what is morally" right and subscribes to complete moral subjectivism with no warrant, if my opponent wants to do this he has to drop the idea of governments in the first place since a government has to be comprised of people who all agree on certain moral values as being objectively true for a working social contract, and if my opponent doesn't believe in moral objectivity he can't believe in governments in the first place. My opponent has yet to warrant his affirmative position and makes a self defeating claim by erasing the actor in this resolution since if I decide to adopt absolute anarchy my opponent can't coherently say why that is immoral, and without a government there is no actor to impose the death penalty meaning there is no solvency on the affirmative, this will be a huge voting issue. My opponent further states that without life all other rights don't matter, but don't buy this argument since there is no objective consensus on this, I allude to founding father Patrick Henry who said "Give me liberty or give me death", some people would rather die free than live in slavery, and affirming begins to lead us down this path by stripping us of our humanity, as earlier shown. Therefore, Point #2 still stands since if we follow my opponent's logic he automatically loses this debate. Rebuttal #3 Opponent draws a false equivalency between death penalty and life imprisonment. I never specified how I would treat prisoners either and I don't think I'm obliged to present a plan to negate so I won't be, all I will say is that we can treat prisoners humanely in the negative world and my opponent just assumes I want to "lock them in a cage" with no warrant. Rebuttal #4 Fair enough Rebuttal #5 Fair enough, both 4 and 5 can flow to neither side since aff agrees to both. Back to you aff http://ddo.wikia.com...