Snyder vs. Wesboro Baptist Church

Pro, in debate the constructive portion of the debate is at the beginning. You should have laid out your case based on domestic tranquility from the beginning. Introducing this argument in round 3 is abusive. You made a general claim to privacy in round 1 which you dropped in round 2 and then began offering evidence for in round 3. This should have all been done at the outset – as the Pro you have an obligation to set the lines of argument in your first presentation. These are the abusive arguments that should be disregarded; however, since I haven't any community response yet, I'll go ahead and answer them, because you have still failed to make your case even with these additions. The quote regarding the picket in the UK is irrelevant. The resolution discusses the case of Snyder v. WBC, a case dealing with the law and its interpretation in the United States. What other nations think of our laws do not and should not influence our High Court. You want the WBC's right to speak on this issue revoked because the speech is hateful. Yet the Supreme Court case that YOU brought up, to wit Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 1988 where the Court found "even when a speaker or writer is motivated by hatred or ill will his expression was protected by the First Amendment: ‘Debate on public issues will not be uninhibited if the speaker must run the risk that it will be proved in court that he spoke out of hatred; even if he did speak out of hatred, utterances honestly believed contribute to the free interchange of ideas and the ascertainment of truth. " My opponent claims that there is such a thing as a right to grieve, but has failed through 4 rounds now to offer any evidence to support this assertion. Bald assertion is not debate, and without evidence such an assertion should be disregarded. My opponent states that the WBC should be voted against in the Supreme court because they chose to protest at a funeral. However, he has failed to provide one shred of evidence to support this position. Yes, it was a funeral. Yes, people are upset at funerals. Yes, people hate the WBC for what they've done. These are all emotional issues. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has standards a bit higher than that. The precedents cited by my opponent uniformly support the WBC's right to speak in this situation. He has not advanced any case that would lead one to conclude that this should be a precedent setting case. He has not proposed well reasoned arguments or evidence to support such a claim. My opponent is relying on you to be blinded by your emotional reaction to the statements made by the WBC. Despite the fact that my opponent conceded the voting criterion of a logical debate, he has run an emotional case from the beginning. Let me state firmly for the record, I personally am disgusted by what the WBC said and continues to say. THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. The issue is whether they have the right, in America, under the First Amendment, to say such things in the setting of a funeral. Allow me to turn for a moment to my opponent's abusive new arguments. First, he contends that the right to privacy is guaranteed by referring to the IX amendment, which simply states that the bill of rights is not an exhaustive list of rights of the people. This might be the beginning of an argument, but he leaves us here. Sure, you might be able to read privacy into the IX amendment, but the amendment itself does not provide that. He also refers to the X amendment. The specific function of this amendment is to secure any other rights that might be fundamental to the people as against the government, not against another citizen. The government was not attempting to invade privacy or impede the so called right to grieve, so this argument is pointless. Since this was the entire basis for Pro's right to privacy and right to grieve arguments, I again submit that these have not been proven with either evidence or logical argument, and can therefore be assumed in the present case not to exist. The sole remaining question is whether WBC's speech was protected in the real world under the First Amendment. My opponent argues that the need for domestic tranquility (which he chooses not to define until the 4th round) demands that we silence those that we disagree with. His evidence amounts to rehashing the assertions that this is hateful speech that makes people upset, so we need to shut them up. Yet the actual relevant evidence has unanimously shown that it is precisely this type of speech that the First Amendment most ardently protects. At one time, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke words that incited racists across the country to violent protest. Our domestic tranquility was upset, our nation torn apart. Should we have silenced him on this basis? At one time, the anti-slavery movement spoke words that divided this nation to the extent that several states attempted to abandon the Union altogether. Our domestic tranquility was shattered as the nation plunged into a civil war. How much easier would it have been to simply shut them up? The question is not whether you agree with what was said, the question is did they have the right to say it. The Con has overwhelmingly demonstrated, with both evidence and logical reasoning, that this right does indeed exist and that it applies specifically to the actions of the WBC. My opponent has failed in 4 rounds to answer my basic contentions that free speech is essential to a free society and that free speech protects unpopular speech. These must be judged to be clearly conceded as true. The Freedom of Speech is one of the cornerstones of American society. This principle separates us from societies that have gone before to the extent that only in such a nation as ours are people really free to be human. The right to self expression is one of the most fundamental of human rights – without it we are merely cogs in a machine. The quest for truth is at the core of human existence. If truth is to be discovered by man, it comes from unpopular ideas and unpopular expression. The world used to burn scientists who proclaimed the truth that the earth orbits the sun. It used to lynch blacks and whites that proclaimed that people of color were still people. It still shuns, mocks, and occasionally does violence against those who claim that homosexuals are equally human. The only way to advance truth is with the unrestricted right to free expression. Our civilization and our humanity depend upon it. The Pro has utterly failed in his arguments. He has failed to refute any of my arguments.