The South Korean government should establish an AIDS colony on the island of Yeonpyeong

Thanks for the topic brian. My opponent offers a plan: that the South Korean government should move the 9,300 South Korean men who are infected with HIV to a prison camp on the island of Yeonpyeong. ==Burden of proof== My opponent, as the instigator, has the burden of proving that this plan is a good idea. ==My case== I evaluate my opponent's proposal from two main perspectives: 1. The subjective viewpoint of the South Koreans 2. From the viewpoint of objective morality ---The viewpoint of the South Koreans--- To evaluate what is best from the South Korean perspective, we should evaluate what policy would achieve the greatest good for the greatest number (of South Koreans), adopting a utilitarian weighing mechanism. C1) South Korea has more important things to worry about According to CNN, early this morning, the island of Yeonpyeong was attacked by North Korea. [1] South Korea needs to focus on defending this island from North Korean artillery rather than worrying about building an HIV prison camp, forcibly removing the local inhabitants, and capturing and imprisoning 9,300 HIV positive men on the island. The police action that would be required to round up all 9,300 HIV positive men would significantly erode South Korea's military readiness. Most of the 9,300 HIV positive men would either hide or attempt to flee the country. C2) Human Rights Abuses Forcible imprisonment of HIV positive men violates their right to life and violates theories of criminal punishment that require that someone actually commit a crime before being imprisoned. We can't preemptively arrest people. In addition, brian's policy unfairly targets only HIV positive men. As his own source points out, there are 3,600 HIV positive women in South Korea. Targeting only men is discriminatory. The rest of the world would rightly view this HIV prison camp as an abuse of human rights. The U.S. would be forced to sanction South Korea and pull our support from the country, at the worst possible time for the South Korean people. Tensions with North Korea, over the Cheonan warship sinking and now the Yeonpyeong shelling incident, are at an all time high, and the Korean peninsula is on the verge of war. Now is not the time to lose U.S. support. C3) Unnecessary People can prevent the spread of HIV using condoms. Education campaigns about the need for safe sex have drastically reduced STD transmission rates. [2] In addition, HIV is no longer the death sentence it used to be. The Examiner, in an article entitled "HIV/AIDS diagnosis no longer a death sentence," explains that new, cheap antiretroviral treatments have made the disease entirely manageable. [3] My opponent has no valid reason for punishing people who have HIV with a mandatory sentence of "life in prison," but not punishing people with Chlamydia, gonorrhea, or herpes. C4) Better methods of enforcement Many countries have made it a criminal offense to knowingly transmit HIV to a partner through unprotected sex. [4] The willful transmission of HIV should be illegal; it should not be illegal to have the disease, period. C5) Turn – fewer people will get tested The Examiner article talks about how one of the great advances in preventing the spread of HIV has been the proliferation of HIV testing and "get tested" educational campaigns. If people don't know they are infected, they are more likely to unknowingly transmit the disease to a partner. If having HIV is a crime, punishable by life in prison, people will be too afraid to get tested; they will fear that the doctors will report them to the police, if they test positive. My opponent's policy will have the unintended consequence of increasing HIV transmission in South Korea. ---Objective morality--- According to the Kantian Categorical Imperative, we cannot treat people as a means to an end, but only as ends in themselves. The Kantian system of ethics does not allow us to sacrifice 9,300 people for the greater good. Each person has an intrinsic right to life and liberty that cannot be unjustly violated. John Locke stated that people have a right to life, liberty, and property. The South Korean government has no right to unjustly appropriate the land of the 1,600 current residents of Yeonnpyeong. We cannot treat these people as a means to an end either. ==Rebuttal== o AIDS is not a virus o How much would all this cost? (the forced relocation of the local inhabitants, building a prison on the island, rounding up all the HIV positive men) My opponent must prove that the benefits to South Korea outweigh the costs of implementing this policy. ==Citations== [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com...