in a democratic society felons ought to retain the right to vote

When you kill a man, you steal a life. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing. Where when dealing with a democratic society which strives for justice by means of considering its consequences one must negate the following resolution resolved: In a democratic society felons ought to retain the right to vote. Ones sole value is that of punishment supported through a value criterion of retributive justice. The following definitions need be offered to earn weight in the round: steal, retributive justice, and punishment. Where steal is defined as the deprivation of something, in this case steal refers to the taking or depriving of others rights. And retributive justice is defined as a matter of giving those who violate human rights law and commit crimes against humanity their "just deserts." Punishment is thought to reinforce the rules of international law and to deny those who have violated those rules any unfair advantages. Together with restorative justice, retribution is concerned with restoring victims and offenders to their rightful position Punishment in its most simplified form is constituted by imposing some burden or by some form of deprivation or by withholding some benefit. Specifying the deprivation as a deprivation of rights is a helpful reminder that a crime is (among other things) a violation of the victim's rights, and the harm thus done is akin to the kind of harm a punishment does. Deprivation has no covert or subjective reference; punishment is an objectively judged loss or burden imposed on a convicted offender. Which is why we must look to retribution to justify the act of stealing or depriving of the right to vote. Its merely a more sophisticated version of an eye for an eye mentality. Brief overview The purpose of imprisoning felons is to remove them from society because they've been deemed a harmful influence. Allowing them to vote (the sole purpose of which is to influence government and therefore society) would be counterproductive to imprisonment. This is why for the following reasons you must oppose the resolution Con 1 Felons are considered less trustworthy. Full rights are often not completely restored following conviction. society considers convicts, even those who have completed their prison terms, to be less trustworthy than non-convicted citizens. For example, federal law prohibits the possession of a firearm for anyone indicted for or convicted of a felony punishable by at least one year in prison. Also under federal law, anyone who has a "charge pending" or has been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for one year or more cannot serve on a jury. So if someone who has a "charge pending" against him is deemed incapable of sitting in judgment of the fate of a single litigant, it hardly seems unreasonable to say that someone convicted of a felony cannot help shape the fate of a city, a state, or the entire nation. Even outside the realm of civic rights and privileges, society recognizes that an exconvict may be less reliable than others. For example, employers routinely ask prospective employees whether they have been arrested (let alone convicted of a felony) because they suspect that the mere fact of an arrest may be an indication of untrustworthiness. Where in a democratic society untrustworthiness is not a value to be upheld. Con2 Felon disenfranchisement is justified by "distribution." according to the theory of Universalizability: "whatever is right (or wrong) in one situation is right (or wrong) in any relevantly similar situation" (Harris et al., p. 37). Universalizability as described above is a basic logical feature of all moral discourse. That is, in making a distinctively moral judgment, you commit yourself to its universalizability. If in making a judgment you refuse to recognize its universalizability, then you are actually refusing to make a moral judgment. Essentially it's a principle of consistency. Where sense it is consistent and applied to all cases its in turn just. Under the affirmative they have to say felons who have committed voters fraud should be able to vote. Con 3 Requirements We don't let everyone vote; children, noncitizens and the mentally incompetent don't. Voting requires certain minimum, objective standards of trustworthiness, loyalty and responsibility, and those who have committed serious crimes against their fellow citizens don't meet those standards. If you refer to the meaning of mentally incompetent you can see that incompetent means one who cant weigh morally right or wrong, thus is deprived of the right to vote. Whereas if you apply that understanding to a felon you can clearly see they were not able to weigh the difference between morally right and wrong, which deems them as mentally incompetent which limits them to the right to vote. Because to participate in self-government, you must be willing to accept the rule of law and even more so understand it.