Resolved: Blackmail should be legalized

The negative and affirmative cases are intertwined, so I will discuss the cases together before I present the voting issue. Case His response to my first contention essentially boils down to the notion that blackmail and extortion and fundamentally the same thing. The main problem with this argument is that while his definition of extortion is technically correct, it is deceptively vague insofar as it ignores an important element of extortion. According to U.S. legal code, "Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense [extortion]." (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org...). Thus, extortion involves some sort of threat of violent or illegal behavior. This connects back to the second Block card, which was dropped, which explicitly explains that the difference between blackmail and extortion is that while blackmailers threaten to reveal information, which is absolutely legal, extortionists are threatening to carry out an illegal action. He attempts to blur the distinction by claiming that this amounts to little more than forced kickbacks, but that is essentially the same thing as claiming that blackmail should be illegal because it is coercive. Keep in mind that he conceded in his last speech that coercive mechanisms are not inherently bad or illegal, so even if both are coercive, they are not necessarily the same thing and blackmail does not inherently deserve to be illegal. This means that you can extend the entirety of my first contention, in which I explain that blackmail should be legal because its constituent components are illegal. This is sufficient reason to vote affirmative, so even if I lose the contracts argument, you should still vote accordingly. His second contention was about coercion. Here, he concedes that coercive apparatuses are not inherently illegal, which buttresses the claims that I made in my first contention. He then makes an argument that corresponds to his fifth contention so I will address it there. His third contention was that the information could be false. When I responded that this would still be illegal under slander laws, he responds that this would result in a bureaucratic nightmare because trials would occur. First, this is not inherently a reason to keep something illegal. The same thing occurs whenever a company is sued for making unsafe products, but that should not be illegal. Second, the individual being blackmailed would have little incentive to claim that true information is false because it would then be publically revealed. This link-turns the bureaucratic nightmare argument and means that it is avoided entirely. His fourth contention is that the individual being blackmailed may not have enough money to satisfy demands. I responded that this could be resolved in the contract making process and that asking for more money than one is willing to pay is not illegal. He uses the same bureaucratic nightmare argument, so you can cross-apply all of the arguments I made against his response to his third contention here. His fifth contention presents new arguments (he dropped my second contention previously) against the contracts making process. First, this entire contention is flawed because it completely ignores the crux of my second contention, namely that both sides have incentives to make contracts. My second contention explicitly stated that the blackmailer would be protected because it would guarantee that he would receive the promised money after handing over the incriminating evidence to the individual in question, and the blackmailee would be protected because it would allow him or her to dictate terms that would prevent the individual in question from legally requesting more money and/or blackmailing him again and revealing the information after obtaining the money anyways. Insofar as these ideas were not responded to (and please do not let him respond to them because he would illegally and unfairly be making new arguments), you can extend my second contention. Moreover, they solve for his first point in contention five because the blackmailer has an incentive to join the contract because it ensures payments whereas he was not legally protected under the current system. It also solves point 2 for the same reason. Point three is completely false because we could institute protections that would safeguard the information while it was being verified. This would ensure the integrity of the contract and would also allow for governmental verification of information, meaning that false information would be less likely to damage the reputation of the blackmailee while true information would leave the blackmailee more accountable for criminal activities/actions. This also solves point four for the same reasons. Point five and six discuss timeframes. These are just unwarranted assertions; he gave no inherent reasons as to why they would be slow. This is nothing but conjecture. Point seven is literally just concocted nonsense; there is no reason that taxpayers would have to foot the bill for procedures. In addition, even if people do not take advantage of the contracts, at least I am providing them with an opportunity for safer blackmail. We can assume that many people would take the opportunity because it is mutually beneficial, meaning that I am providing for a more regulated, less exploitable form of blackmail. Keeping it illegal, however, does not provide citizens with this opportunity and leaves blackmail to be exploitable. Voting Issues 1.The first voting issue is that the entirety of the affirmative case stands. Contention 1 discussed the fact that blackmail should be legal because its constituent components are illegal, and Contention 2 discussed the contract making process. My opponent's responses against contention 1 were easily refuted, while his responses to contention 2 were essentially nonresponsive, so the entire affirmative case stands and you should vote affirmative. 2.The affirmative world provides for a more regulated system of blackmail, meaning that it is less exploitable and safer than it is in the negative world.