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

To attack my opponent's case: The Negative uses Justice as a value for the resolution, stating that "…the resolution is about punishment. Punishment must be just. Thus, the resolution implies a value of justice" However, there is no place in the resolution where it says the word "punishment". Disallowing a felon to vote would only the protection for the people, according to the negative, because felons can and will make laws that harm the people. Also, Justice is not mentioned anywhere in the Resolution, so Democracy still outweighs justice as a value when it comes to a democratic society, which has the root word demos, which means people. Thus, both democratic society and democracy are closely intertwined. My opponent also uses the value criterion of Contractarianism, which is basically the Social Contract. The social contract is also his contention, so I will attack both at once. Contention 1: Social Contract Theorem. Since there is more than one Social Contract, his Contention is vague. I do not know whose Social Contract exactly he is using. Is it Hobbs's, Rousseau's or Locke's? These three Social Contracts were made on totally different theories. Hobbs believed that all men were evil. Rousseau believed that some men were good, and some were evil. Locke believed that all men were good. There is no general theory that can encompass all three of these largely opposite theories. Therefore, I must press for the Neg. to choose which Social Contract Theory he actually uses. If he does not choose, then I will be able to sink his whole contention if I prove that one of the Social Contracts is either fallacious, or supports the Aff. To attack his sub points, however: C1A: My opponent uses the idea of reciprocated responsibility. Felons, in this idea, make the laws, and thus they have to obey them --- However, felons do not make the law; they only elect the people who make the law. Also, in the Constitution, it says that the people have the right and duty to revolt against the government if it becomes tyrannical. Thus, if a law is passed that tyrannizes a certain race in the country, that race has the right to revolt. However, according to my opponent, they made that law, but they do not have to obey the law. This is not democratic, because the idea would allow the government to make oppressive laws and the people would still not be allowed to stand up for their rights. C1B: The Neg. uses General Will in his second contention. The general will is a concept in political philosophy referring to the desire or interest of a people as a whole. However, the flaw with General Will is that it would submit a minority, no matter how little the difference is, to the decisions of the majority. Ex: There is a democratic country with two rival factions who hate each other and want to exterminate each other. One faction currently has 100,000 supporters. The other faction has 99,999 supporters. However, in a vote for a law, the majority that has only 1 more vote than the other faction can pass a law to kill all supporters of the rival faction. After all, this is General Will. How is this fair, that a teeny, tiny majority of 1 person can decide the deaths of 99,999 people? Thus, the General Will theory is flawed. C1C: In summary, my opponent pretty much states that, since they committed a crime against humanity, they have to lose their rights. However, the problem with this idea is: First, felons should not have to lose their rights in addition to the jail term. There is a law in the United States called double Jeopardy, in which it states that a convicted criminal cannot be punished multiple times for the same crime. So, if the jailing of the felon is already punishment, then the felon should not be disenfranchised because he already has been punished. Second, even if he does have to lose his or her rights, why does it have to be the right to vote? There are many other rights that people have, why can't they lose the right to mobility, or to bear arms, or to free speech, or freedom of the press? Why is it that they only lose the right to vote? There is no reason why the right to vote is more special or less special than the other rights. To defend my case: Actually, the value of Democracy should pretty much stand throughout and is obvious in the resolution based on the root words, as I said before. Both Democracy and a Democratic Society both have the root word demos in them. Thus, both mean, for the people. Also, since democracy is an idea, and a democratic society utilizes the idea of democracy, thus democracy is needed for a democratic society to take place. My value criterion, equality, also connects to a Democracy because it is implied by the definition of democracy. The definition of democracy is that the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system. Now, in a democracy, the concept of voting is that the power of the government is equally distributed through the people, so equality does connect strongly to the value of democracy. Contention Overview: The United States is only being used as an example of a democracy, and by democracy, I did not mean an ideal democracy. Therefore, since my opponent has said that the United States is a democratic republic, it implies that the United States uses democracy, which would enable it to relate to the value. Since my opponent dropped my point about "once a felon, always a felon", I am allowed to use it in my defense. C1: As I wrote before, the 26th amendment of the Constitution states that "all citizens over 18 years old have the right to vote." This quote makes no mention of whether those citizens are felons or not. Thus, the only way for a person in the United States to not have the right to vote would be if they are not a citizen, or if they are under 18 years old. Since a felon does not lose his citizenship when he is convicted, then he retains the right to vote for his jail term, and the rest of his life. It is also irrational to deny a person the right to vote for the rest of his life for something as simple as drug abuse, which is a felony, when his felony has harmed no one. C2: "By voting off his logic the affirmative world would have no punishments because they would all be justified." This line does not make sense, so I do not need to defend my contention unless the Neg. clarifies this line. C3: My definition of "felon" does not contradict the fact that a felon does not have to be from the current democracy. My definition of felon is "Felon: a person who has committed a felony, which is a grave offense against society, such as murder or burglary, and commonly punished by imprisonment of more than a year, or death." In nowhere of the definition does it say anything about the system of government. Thus, the Neg's attack against this contention fails, and the contention still stands. C4: My opponent dropped it, so it stands Thanks!