Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens.

Since we have a few more rounds on "Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens" lets regroup our main points of contention. 1) Food security positive or negative right 2) Responsibilities of a just government, including US Constitution 3) United Nations role 4) Role of government in distribution Both parties agree that free markets and the best method to set food prices. 1) Food security positive or negative right Pro states "Food insecurity is a negative right" the word insecurity is clearly a typo. For government to provide food security it must be a positive right. For a right to be negative nothing must be done to satisfy the right. Rights like freedom of speech and life, both of these rights require no action by others. These negative rights everyone has at birth and government can only take away these right. For a government to ensure food security, someone will have a duty imposed on them to feed others. Pro also states "[t]his is a right everyone needs, yet is denied from too many people" only government can deny a person access to trade for food. Government is the cause of food insecurity and should not have any role in correcting the problem. A video about positive and negative rights: 2) Responsibilities of government and US Constitution A reminder of pro definition of a just government "A government that is honorable, fair, and consistent with what is morally right in its dealings and actions." Pro using a definition of government that includes "fair and morally right" can have no other meaning than citizen"s negative rights are protect while not imposing duties to fulfill positive rights. A morally right government cannot force one citizen to provide for another citizen. Using government's monopoly of force to extract food or funds from one person only to transfer to another person can never is considered morally right. A positive right imposes a duty on another to satisfy this new right. Any government that imposes duties on citizens is no longer by just pro's definition, thus is an oppressive government. Pro is now attempting to change the definition of government, "... the government's job is to give them what they desire", and this new definition is in conflict with the initial definition. A government cannot give people what they desire and still be fair and morally right. That brings us to the US Constitution, which pro agrees is a charter of negative rights "The US Constitution is intended to protect citizens' negative rights"" but then attempts to define food security as a negative right "" in this case protecting the negative right to lack of food." Which food security if provided by government is clearly a positive right. The premise of the debate is that "Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens" the word ought is clearly defined as "used to indicate duty or correctness", and ensure as "make certain that something shall occur or be the case". By the provided definitions, a just government cannot ensure that positive rights are enforced on citizens, thus just governments ought to only protect a citizen right to engage in free trade with others for food to meet their personal nutritional desires. 3) United Nations role From Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter of the United Nations, which establishes that nothing contained in the Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the Charter. This clause in the UN charter renders the entire Human rights declaration as a suggestion. 4) Food distribution Pro writes "I am not suggesting that the government distribute food. Rather, the government must find a way to fix the supply of food to ensure that everyone receives food at an equitable amount." A just government cannot and should not ensure equitable amount of food for everyone. Just governments should only ensure that citizen is not prohibited from voluntarily exchanging food. As pro agreed with a free market is the best way to set food prices. A great example of how government causes food insecurity was given in the last round. The example of Cambodia under Pol Pot shows how a country of farmers can be short of food. Here are a few more where government involvement to ensure equitable distribution of food: USSR 1927 "In 1927, the USSR faced a food shortage. This had been brought about by a poor harvest that year but Stalin became convinced that the peasants themselves were responsible for the grain shortages in the cities as a result of hoarding and keeping the market short of food thus increasing its price. He ordered thousands of young Communists from the cities to go to the countryside and seize grain. This was the start of a policy, known as the "Great Turn" that left millions to starve." http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk... PRC 1959 A decade after the Communist party took power in 1949, promising to serve the people, the greatest manmade disaster in history stalks an already impoverished land. In an unremarkable city in central Henan province, more than a million people " one in eight " are wiped out by starvation and brutality over three short years. In one area, officials commandeer more grain than the farmers have actually grown. In barely nine months, more than 12,000 people " a third of the inhabitants " die in a single commune; a tenth of its households are wiped out. Thirteen children beg officials for food and are dragged deep into the mountains, where they die from exposure and starvation. A teenage orphan kills and eats her four-year-old brother. Forty-four of a village's 45 inhabitants die; the last remaining resident, a woman in her 60s, goes insane. Others are tortured, beaten or buried alive for declaring realistic harvests, refusing to hand over what little food they have, stealing scraps or simply angering officials. http://www.theguardian.com... Somalia 1992 A failed socialist state that citizens did not have basic property rights. "Somalia's last major famine was in 1992 and was not caused by drought. Nearly 300,000 innocent people starved to death because of sectarian politics. The epicentre of that famine was in Bay, one of the country's most productive agricultural regions, and starvation was induced by warlords who used food as a weapon against farmers and pastoralists." http://www.aljazeera.com... Mexican food riots 2008 Many experts also point out that U.S. demand for corn to manufacture ethanol is a large factor in the price hikes, especially in neighboring countries. Significant amounts of Mexican corn are now being diverted northward to take advantage of the high prices. http://news.nationalgeographic.com... Thailand 2013 This did not kill any Thai, but shows how government causes distribution problems. "Concern is also rising over the quality of the rice piling up in the warehouses. Rice always deteriorates, but the suspicion is growing that stocks are being contaminated with substandard rice." http://www.economist.com... Pro please provide non-governmental causation for these examples of food insecurity that you use as background for the debate, Mexico, Italy, Morocco, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Egypt, city of Milwaukee, Algeria, Tunisia, and Yemen. Governments mandate food to be converted into fuel, limit distribution of food commodities, subsidize production, pay farmers not to grow crops, and many others programs cause food insecurity. Governments cannot ensure food security; rather governments cause the worst food insecurity.