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

I will rebuild the negative, and then attack the affirmative case. Charles tries to say that since he isn't using empirical evidence, my first observation doesn't apply to him, and accepts that the empirical world is inherently unpredictable. However, he ignores the impact I make from this analysis, thereby conceding that the word "Ought" must solely pose a moral question, meaning that we ONLY LOOK TO THE MORAL RAMIFICATIONS of allowing felons to retain the right to vote, NOT to any sort of potential benefits to the empirical world. At this point, all of his arguments about felons contributing some sort of beneficial input to society go away, because he concedes that we can't look to the unpredictable real world. He then accepts my second burden, saying that he agrees that he has to prove that all people have an inherent right to vote before they lose it. However, he never proves that such an inherent right exists. My entire section two gives a very clear explanation as to how rights claims are not actually inherent, and how voting is even further from being inherent than most rights, since it requires registration. He then says that I accept his standards and definitions by not constructing my own. I will accept his definitions, but remember that he cannot use them to make any new arguments throughout the round. Since he doesn't explicitly use his definitions anywhere in his case or in his rebuttal, they can be accepted as nothing more than a check against any potential abuse, NOT as a way to refute arguments. And while I didn't construct my own standards, that does not mean that I accept his. Due to the round structure that Charles has set up, I would only have needed to construct standards in my speech if I had run contention level arguments, which I did not do. I can still attack his case, and show why his standards should not be used. Now, let's move on to the arguments he makes against my sections 1 & 2. He makes 6 points, none of which are actually responsive to my arguments. 1) He says that I argue that you can't measure value and criterion in the round. This is completely false. I make no arguments whatsoever about not being able to use a value or criterion. Burdens may come pre-standard, but do not try to eliminate the criterion from the round. 2) I'm not breaking any LD rules. I'm simply constructing well-warranted burdens that the affirmative needs to meet. This occurs in just about every actual LD round, and is in fact a necessary step in determining a winner. 3) First, I don't actually make contention arguments in the NC, since I just have to show that the affirmative does not meet his burdens in order for you to negate. Second, I don't use any empirical evidence. The authors that I quote are making analytical arguments. 4) He doesn't actually define the parameters of LD debate, and I've already explained how I am within the rules in point 2. 5) The burdens that I set up demonstrate why you can't ever affirm, meaning that you must default neg. He then says that is it impossible to affirm if you accept my burdens, but he accepts them at the beginning of his last speech, so it's clear that he doesn't actually believe this. 6) He doesn't even explain how I'm being unfair, so I can't actually respond to this argument, and you can't vote off of it. At this point you can extend Section 1, which says that he needs to prove that there is an Objective way to Resolve Competing Ought Claims or Moral values. Since he fails this, you have another reason to negate independent of any affirmative arguments. Section 2 is explained with my second observation, and simply says that people do not have an inherent claim to the right to vote. Again, you can negate right here, since he has to prove that people ought to retain something that they have no inherent claim to. He fails to do this, and thus cannot win the round. --- On the affirmative case... Remember that he can't make any new arguments centered around his definitions. Second, remember that he accepted my burdens and failed to meet them, so you negate regardless of any affirmative offense still standing at the end of the round. And finally, remember that HE ACCEPTED my first observation, which says that we only look to a moral evaluation of felons retaining the right to vote, not any of the unpredictable, potential benefits to society. He values Human Rights, and then goes on to define human rights as "all people having the right to vote in any governmental election". Do not use this value, because: 1) His definition is clearly abusive, as he is basically valuing the right to vote, which means that I would automatically lose if you accept his definition. 2) If "all people should have the right to vote in any governmental election", then we would have to allow children and non-citizens with potentially harmful intentions to vote. Thus, his value cannot stand as he defines it, meaning that you can never achieve his value, and therefore, never affirm based on his case. Then, drop his criterion of "equality" because: 1) It is impossible to achieve total equality, meaning that you need some sort of brightline (which he does not provide) in order to know when you can actually affirm. 2) For everyone to truly have an equal say, it would be necessary to force everyone to vote. This is clearly absurd, and renders his criterion highly impractical. 3) In order to achieve equality, we would have to abolish imprisonment, as this obviously marginalizes felons. This serves as a reason to reject his criterion outright, since it would force us to release thousands, if not millions, of dangerous criminals into society at large. Since you can no longer use his criterion, NONE OF HIS CONTENTIONS LINK TO ANYTHING, meaning that you cannot possibly vote off of any of them. But I will offer some brief responses anyways. On C1 1) He claims that the basic purpose of voting is to gather input from citizens, but this can be done by negating, without the potential for felons to directly influence votes in their favor. So this contention is non-unique to the affirmative, as it is not specific to voting, meaning that it does not generate any offense. On C2 1) Adding an additional "punishment" by restricting the right to vote is completely democratic, as long as it was decided by a vote. 2) It is perfectly EQUAL. It seems like he tries to argue that it is not fair, but this doesn't even link to his already defeated criterion, and is not a voting issue. On C3 1) Turn: Within Rational Choice Theory, felons will always do whatever benefits them the most. This means that if they can relax criminal law in order make it easier to get away with certain crimes, they will certainly do it. This will simply lead to an increase in crime. This is an independent reason to negate, even though he already fails to meet the burdens he agrees to. Thus, you negate.