Plants ought to have the right to vote

[I haven't ever done LD or listened to it so I'm going to try a format of it, you don't have to. I probably messed didn't do it right since I don't think stats are allowed in LD but whatever don't yell at me]I affirm the resolved: plants ought to have the right to vote. My value today is justice, simply and traditionally defined as giving each their due. The criterion for upholding justice is the upholding of human rights in plants. Prefer this value because it is something that is the overarching virtue of all individuals, as Plato writes in Republic. Prefer this criterion because the codification of human rights is the act of giving each individual their moral dues, entirely upholding justice in the broadest sense of the word.Observations:Observation 1. Human rights extend beyond the human.Baxi of the University of Warwick, 1998, writes: "The very term "human rights," ... is itself problematic ... The abundance of its meanings may not be reduced to a false totality ... [n]or may we succumb to an anthropomorphic illusion that the range of human rights is limited to human beings; the new rights to a clean and healthy environment ... take us far beyond such a narrow notion ... The expression "human rights" shelters an incredibly diverse range of desire-in-dominance politics and desire-in-insurrection politics." This means that viewing human rights as a solely human endevour is anthropocentric and not what human rights is really about. Human rights extend to non-humans, such as plants. Observation 2. Democracy is a human right.The United Nations in 2015 write: "The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights. These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further developed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which enshrines a host of political rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful democracies." Thus, democracy is something that protects human rights overall, and must be upheld when we look at the value I provided. We must extend democracy to plants in order to affirm human rights; something warranted by both the prior observation and this one.Case:Contention 1. Botanical suffrage helps boost the economy.The democratisation and furthering of democracy within nations has a net benefit on the economy. This is because consumers are able to purchase more because they feel as though they have a say within the economy. Elias Papaioannou, Gregorios Siourounis in October 2008 say: "First, compared to the pre-transition period, average growth (indicated with the purple dashed line) seems to be higher in the democratic years. Second, compared to the world average, annual per capita GDP growth in democratisation countries drops significantly during the transition; yet after the consolidation of representative rule growth fluctuates at a higher rate. It seems that as democracy consolidates, growth rates stabilise at a higher rate (compared to the non-democratic years). The graph suggests that in the short run there may be non-negligible transition costs, but in the long run growth stabilises at higher rates." This means that there is a net benefit in the economy when there is an increase in democracy or a democracy is established, empirically. Countries with higher rGDP per capita have higher interest rates: this means that while the marginal propensity to consume is the same, there is a higher benefit for those that choose to save: an increase in cash available - people are positively effected because they are able to consume more under the same amount of income.A lack of democratisation or a lower amount of democracy means that interest rates are low: hurting consumers for choosing to save their money. Inflation rates often outpace the interest rates, meaning that people are losing money and can consume less with the same income.Contention 2. Botanical suffrage solves terrorismFoot, Professor of International Relations, St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, 2003 says: "gross violations of human rights generally tend to be the mark of a state that might, wittingly or not, provide the base from which terrorist cells can operate, or be hospitable to the establishment of links with transnational terrorism, or through it actions foment violent unrest that spills over its borders" As said earlier, suffrage is an inherent human right; and Foot here is saying that denying human rights is the mark of a country that can harbor a terror cell. The US has a moral obligation to protect the lives of its citizens in order for it to continue to exist; if there are no people left alive due to terrorism, the government has failed its job and must cease to exist. There are thousands of lives saved when we don't ignore human rights - therefore, we should notice the impact of refusing to give human rights (chiefly, suffrage) to plants is a large humanitarian one.Contention 3. Botanical suffrage solves genocide. Hoffman, Chair of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International, Nov 2004 states: "History shows that when societies trade human rights for security, most often they get neither. Instead, minorities and other marginalized groups pay the price through violation of their human rights. Sometimes this trade-off comes in the form of mass murder or genocide, other times in the form of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, or the suppression of speech or religion. Indeed, millions of lives have been destroyed in the last sixty years when human rights norms have not been observed.' Undermining the strength of international human rights law and institutions will only facilitate such human rights violations in the future and confound efforts to bring violators to justice." If we disregard the human rights of plants, we are advocating for the United States to possibly commit genocide against its own citizens because it has the ability to. Having human rights such as suffrage in plants allows for us to prevent millions of deaths worldwide simply because we allow for plants to have a say in their own life. Thus, I affirm.