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

Just so no one gets lost I will start with attacking my opponents case then moving to defend my own. Because both my opponent and I have the same value premise there really is no reason to attack this. However just to clarify we will be defining justice as the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness. Now his value criterion is the social contract, however if the government fails to enforce the law it is not protecting the peoples rights and the agreement is broken. My opponent openly states that "If one side of the agreement is broken, then the other side is no longer obligated to hold up its end of the contract. ". If this is the case then he is advocating that citizens take the law into there own hands. But if citizens are A) Under-qualified, B) Overly violent or C) not fully aware of the situation this could have dire consequences. For example if Joe Brown our vigilante attempts to apprehend a dangerous criminal after the government fails to, due to of lack of resources, but he is under qualified he may only succeed in getting in the way of a more competent enforcer and getting injured himself. Or perhaps a single 16-year old mother of 3 gets caught shoplifting and the government lets her go due to pity if our vigilante were to then go and brutally murder her he would be enforcing the law but in an overkill fashion. In both example our vigilantes were not fully aware of the situation and it ended badly. Similarly in both the government DID fail to enforce the law and the vigilante went and tried to enforce it. Now onto his first contention that vigilantism is justified. He states that because the social contract is broken when the law is not upheld the community can no longer rely on the government so they can do pretty much whatever they want. He fails to take into account situations when the government does not have the resources available to enforce the law. If citizens don't pay taxes for example the government wont have the resources available to enforce the law. There are also instances in which the society breaches the social contract first so that the government cant enforce the law. Now his second contention is fundamental rights. He says that if the government fails to support these rights then vigilantism is justified. However not all laws protect these rights. So this contention falls because the resolution states "when the government has failed to enforce the law" as opposed to "when the government has failed to support these rights. There have been laws in place that infringed on these rights. For example both Jim Crow and Apartheid laws went against these rights yet they were still the law. His third contention is that vigilantism is necessary to withhold society. Now my opponent states that with incompetent governments communities fall into chaos. This is not always the case. A great example of this is the rule of Saddam Hussein. He was the leader of an incompetent government however instead of collapsing into chaos the community just lived in fear. Also when vigilantes enforce unjust laws they are not protecting people fundamental rights. I was gonna defend my case but I'm going to save that for next round because I am really busy right now.