the possesion of nuclear weapons is immoral

Resolved: that the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. I stand strongly affirmative on this issue. I would like to begin by defining a few terms defined by Webster's dictionary the first being nuclear weapons: being a weapon whose destructive power derives from an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. The next being immoral: not moral; broadly: conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles. I will be basing my debate today on the value of the sanctity of life. The value debate handbook states that the value of the sanctity of is based on the premise that human life is uniquely sacred and precious. Contention one: safety. Criteria one: a nuclear war would be completely unpredictable, and is far more dangerous than a conventional, average war. Granted that people are going to inevitably die in any war, however no war, including World Wars 1 and 2 have never threatened to have the damaging effects that would be unavoidable with a nuclear war. Because there is no premise of which to base the possible out comes of a nuclear war, we do not know exactly how a war with these deadly weapons would turn out. The only known fact is a war of this sort would inevitably kill all societies engaged in the war, and if it was large enough possibly all of humanity. Criteria two: the risks of nuclear war were not properly weighed when they were first used. Even though they were used to end World War 2 extremely quickly, when they found these bombs to be an option, they did not consider the possibility that if a nuclear war was developed all of humanity could be destroyed because there is no way to control a nuclear war once it has broken out. Sub point a: we would not walk up to a three year old on the street and shoot them. Even in the average war, we it is a generally excepted value that you try to engage only those concerned in the war, so even then usually we do not kill innocent bystanders. However, nuclear weapons do not discriminate. They do not kill only those who are engaged in the war or those who are responsible for the war. They kill everyone, and everything in their paths-that means every man woman and child. How THAT be moral? Criteria three: the possession of nuclear weapons promotes the use of the weapons. Nuclear wars are possible ONLY because of the possession of nuclear weapons. If no one possessed them, no one could use them. One may argue that it is moral to possess these weapons because they are not being used, however, the more countries which possess nuclear weapons, increase the likelihood that a crisis could escalade into a nuclear war. I ask the question then, if life is in fact sacred, which it is, then how can the possession of nuclear weapons possibly be morally justified? Sub Point A: How many guns do you know of that are bought and not fired? Even if someone doesn't plan on firing the gun just to fire it they probably have it to use incase they need to protect themselves. They would never need to use it if there wasn't bad people in the world, and if it wasn't a well known fact that people break into houses. But one day someone might possibly break into that house and they might have to use that gun, but either way it will be used. The same is with a nuclear weapon, even if it is just for a deterrent, it is a matter of time before someone somewhere pulls the trigger. observation a: Terrorists, who hate our country, are willing to pull that trigger. They do not care that we have more weapons as them, or that we have a so called deterrent by owning more nuclear weapons. They only care about taking the lives of the American citizens who they hate, and do not care about the aftermath and effects their actions will have on the people of their country. Deterrence is not an option with this group of people. If they get their hands on these weapons, which they will because of the fact that they want nothing more than to find the thing which will inflict the most harm on those they hate, there is no knowing how soon their attacks would occur, or the damages they will have Are we really willing to risk leaving our safety in the hands of people like this, just to deter? I do not believe any of us here are willing to take that risk Contention 2 the quality of life. Not only do nuclear weapons threaten to kill all of human life, they also threaten the quality of life man kind can enjoy. The "fallout" or after math of a nuclear blast is known to leave highly toxic radiation which has been infamous for leaving people even many miles away with cancer and other internal problems. In fact right here in our area many people are diagnosed with cancer because of the effects of testing in NEVADA! And this was just testing. One can only guess the damage caused by an actual war. Innocent people again are being affected by these undiscriminating weapons. These terminal illnesses can and SHOULD be stopped. They are completely preventable. Contention 3: Fear. Fear is synonymous with deterrence, which is a negative moral justification, and fear is immoral. Criteria 1: consider this hypothetical situation. Lets pretend that sally is a 12 year old girl who's father is addicted to illegal drugs. Every day when Sally comes home her father beats her to remind her that he has more power than her and to deter her from telling a teacher, friend, or local official about the problem. Sally obviously has not told anyone about her drug abusing, beating father, so her dad's tactics are in fact working juts as he had planned. However is his justifications moral? You be the judge. Sub Point A: Using fear to deter anyone from anything can NOT be moral no matter if it is working or not. Just because "deterrence" is supposedly working, it doesn't mean it is okay. Contention 4: proportionality: Criteria 1: the bad things out weigh the good things. Even though it is an arguable point that nuclear weapons are used as deterrence, there is too many negatives, as I have pointed out previously, plus even justifying it as a deterrent is far too risky and has negative consequences. The bottom line is that the negatives out weigh the positives and we simply can not take the chances that come with nuclear weapons, it is unproportional, and far too dangerous. Sub point a:the movie WarGames, a computer program is developed in order to calculate every possible strategy in war, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. Eventually the computer overrides every thing everyone is telling and decides the only way to win the game is to use the nuclear weapons. To insure the Computer does not in fact launch the nuclear weapons, the main character teaches the computer to instead play tic tac toe. In the end the computer figures out that 99% of the time in tic tac toe the result is a tie with no winner. There for concluding that the only way to win the game is to not play. Now imagine that every x or o dropped on the board was a nuclear weapon, the results would be the same, no one could win, because chances are no one would survive. Even though this is just a silly, quite frankly stupid example, it does show us that in nuclear w In closing I would just like to ask YOU to decide what is moral and what is not, keeping in mind the definition of immoral and my value the sanctity of life. Is it moral to kill innocent people? Is it moral to allow people to be affected by cancer and other diseases when they could be stopped? Is it moral to use fear against people? Is it moral to potentially wipe out every living breathing living thing? You be the judge.