Resolved: Vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law.

AFF STATES:" Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions, so the political authority could be a group of vigilantes enforcing the Law. okay great whatever a group of vigilantes could get together and enforce the law? how does this make it any less subjective? they still are not bound to the law, they are in no way ridden of their personal biases and imperfections, and furthermore they are not under any concept of rule of law. this is why vigilantism is inherently flawed because the vigilantes do not have the means to ensure things like "Due process" and civil rights, which are key to justice, are upheld. they work with what they have to enforce the law, and do not have the same means as the government. furthermore, a group of vigilantes would only exacerbate the slight possibility of true justice to occur as we run into things such as mob mentalities and so forth. "Therefore the vigilantes would be enforcing the law and the law itself would NOT be illegitimate and subjective." vigilantes do not make the laws, they enforce them, that is the definition agreed upon by both teams within this round. furthermore, I am not talking about the laws being unjust, I am talking about the means of which the vigilantes enforce the law. "Vigilantes are not necessarily violent." I do not advocate that they always are, however vigilantes are much more likely to be violent than those who are in the government and are enforcing the law, for they have much less of the leisure to act in a manner that is not violent towards perpetrators. for example, if someone came and stole one hundred dollars from you, and you had proof of who stole it, you would likely turn them into the police and get your money back after a long process of small claims court and or pleas/negotiations. however, if there is no formal body to enforce this law, the criminal is a lot less likely to comply. nevertheless, the vigilante must use violence or other malicious means to get that money back. it is almost certain that vigilantes who them selves are the victims of the crime are going to be more violent as they may have extreme vindictive biases against those who have wronged them. "Attorney General John Ashcroft made vigilance a policy when he urged citizens to report suspicious activity through "a National Neighborhood Watch Program," spurring the formation of dozens of new local watch groups. The Department of Homeland Security has made repeated pleas to citizens to help fight terrorism, pushing the pendulum back toward the era of citizen involvement." at this point we must understand the fine line between vigilantism, and what the AFF advocates is a vigilante in this paragraph. The Neighborhood watch program is not designed for vigilantes to go out to enforce the law. it is set up for people to keep an eye on their neighborhood and report any suspicious activities to the local authorities. they are in no way enforcing the law as they do not apprehend or punish the criminal. this can be cross applied to the terrorism argument as the gov doesn't encourage it's citizens to go out and shoot terrorists, but rather to report suspicious activities to the local authorities. "Government powers are just as likely to be abused as vigilante ones." FALSE. whereas in the government there are checks and balances on the authority and power that these entities have to do their job such as the constitution, rule of law, and so forth; vigilantes do not have such checks. vigilantes are not bound by the law, nor by a constitution as they are the ultimate enforcing body when the government has failed to enforce the law. cross apply this argument to the arguments made against my first contention. "The fact that hundreds of prisoners are released each year because of wrongful convictions puts the lie to that argument." my guess is that with no justice system, courts, trials and so forth, there would be thousands upon thousands more who are wrongly convicted. however, instead of being released from prison (which vigilantes do not have the means of maintaining) they risk the chance of being killed, persecuted, any many other over-extreme measures of punishment. leading to severe human rights abuses...ect. "In other words, the State of Illinois was prepared to kill 13 innocent men and would have done so had not modern science" DNA testing, a resource that the vast majority of vigilantes do not have. "My opponent's value criterion doesn't even tie in to his value or the resolved." my criterion ties into the value debate and resolved VALUE DEBATE: JUSTICE- justice cannot be achieved because of the vigilante's subjective and fallible perception of what is just, thus justice is not upheld by affirming. the criterion ties into the value and the value to the resolved. "My definition of vigilantism and my observation are not two different descriptions of vigilantes, but one total description. The definition and observation describe different aspects of a vigilante" okay great I understand that entirely, but WHY are these traits idiosyncratic to vigilantes? what warrants this? just because someone is enforcing the law does not mean that they will be established members of the community or any of the other things that your observation says. "There is nothing to guarantee that the law is just; the government can also be biased" I am in no way arguing that the law is just or unjust, that is not what we are here to debate. the police officers, judiciary branches, ect. enforce the law, as well as vigilantes. because vigilantes are those who enforce the laws, they would be enforcing the same laws that the government would be. HOWEVER governmental branches which enforce the laws have checks on them provided by constitutions, other branches and other laws...ect. they are bound to the law whereas vigilantes are under no such influence. They see, and they execute, nothing more; and that execution is left up to the biases and subjectivity of the person who feels is as the obligation to make things "just". "Your example couldn't even be used in this resolved because it has nothing to do with the government failing to enforce the law. " this was not an example of vigilantism, this was an analogy to show how fallacious it is when the AFF claims that presenting one example of where vigilantism was good undeniably affirms. one example of vigilantism is not enough to affirm when there are countless examples of where vigilantism has gone wrong. "There was no bias in prosecuting the criminals; they were protecting themselves." How can you even claim that there was no such bias in prosecuting the criminals! these people, as you stated, were murdering people stealing their belongings, and terrorizing these poor civilians. once they finally apprehended the criminals, do you not think that they were at least a little bit biased against their favor? How can the AFF claim that these men who were prosecuted by the Big Sword Society, when they were not given due process, a fair trial.... ect? all things necessary when evaluating if a punishment for a crime is just or not. "Your attack on my third contention has nothing to do with the Social Contract" this attack was more focused upon why autonomy is unjust in relation to people choosing what is, and what is not just for other people.