Resolved: In a democratic society, felons ought to retain the right to vote.

First of I would like to define a few key terms I will be using in my debate. Democracy: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections Felon: someone who commits a grave crime declared to be a felony by the common law or by statute regardless of the punishment actually imposed My value is equality of rights My value criteria is individual rights Equality of rights can be defined as: a person and/or community having equal status of rights and privileges. Individual rights can be defined as: every person deserves his/her own right in a community or society. C1: Upholding the equality of rights results in the best course of action for this resolution. Equality of rights is something all men/women must share in order to achieve the best outcome for this resolution. When you place felons below people such as you and I, you devalue equality of rights. Felons have equal rights as stated by the constitution of the united states of america. To take away ones rights is to strip down the very morals this country was founded on. If my opponenet truly values democracy then he must believe that to uphold democracy you must follow the constitutional rights it specifies. This being said he must also value equality of rights being that this is the principle upon which the constitution was founded on. You cannot have democracy without equality of rights, so therefore my value supercedes my opponents. C2: Upholding individual rights is the better criteria for upholding values. I will now tell you a clear mechanism that intertwines my value and my value criteria. Individual rights is the only way equality of rights can be upheld. In order in to uphold equality of rights, or giving each person an equal desicion in the society, you must give each person individual rights. Individual rights is being denied to felons by my oppopnent, which means he is not letting each person have an equal say in the society, which devalues our very constitution. My opponent believes in democracy, and yet does not believe in the prime principle behind democracy - EQUALITY. Democracy was founded on the belief that each INDIVIDUAL will have an EQUAL say in the decisions made in society. Denying the right to vote to felons denies them of the very thing democracy is founded on, you cannot single out a group of people because of things done in the past and deny them a right in the present. My opponent also contradicts himself by making his value democracy and then saying he is denying democracy to a specific group of people. In conclusion i urge you to vote affirmative because: upholding my value and value criteria are the only way (in this debate) that the resolution can be upheld to it's fullest extent, my opponent contradicts his whole case by making his value democracy and then denying basic democratic rights to a specific group of people (bigotry?), and also because upholding my value and value criteria is the moral and just way to determine the resolution. That's all I have to say for my 1st round.