Human rights do not have adequate justification under a secular government.

This round is for summary only. Table of Content Summary Comments on the Debate Summary In this debate, I and Pro attempt to discuss if human rights do not have adequate justification under a secular government. My opponent takes the stand of Pro, thereby affirming the resolution while I strives to establish that a secular government would be capable of offering sufficient protections for the human rights. Right from the beginning, I attempted to show that all rights are desire, and there were no objective human rights. After establishing that human rights are, in essences, human desires, I proceeded to stress the point that all rights derives their legitimacy from laws, necessarily ordained by the government. Human rights violation would occur when states decide to run afoul of existing laws in an attempt to maintain their rulings. Only democratic government would pay enough attentions to people"s wills, thereby lessing the risk of human rights abuse. In addition, I also stressed the point in which religions were frequently misused in the hand of rulers in the past, thereby significantly raising the risk of human rights abuse. In conclusion, I suggested that only a secular and democratic government would be able to adequately protect human rights. Comments on the Debate I share Pro"s frustration. The main culprit, in my opinion, is perhaps due to the fact that our points are not necessarily collide with each other. Another issue is perhaps due to the way that I, as Con, interpret the resolution. The resolution read: "Human rights do not have adequate justification under a secular government. " Literally speaking, as long as I am able to offer a particular counter-example (in response to the word "a" in the resolution), I shall win the debate. However, I am also under the impression that the the scope of resolution is much broader, perhaps including all forms of secular governments in presence or in theory. Therefore in attempting to cover all possible meaning of the resolution, I resorted to a "middle ground" by including both a broad reading of the resolution and a narrow reading of the resolution in my arguments. In response, Pro suggested that God is the only source that human beings may derive their moral codes from. In a sense, he attempted to affirm the resolution on a broad reading of the resolution. It inescapably creates a certain problem. Many of our contentions are not necessarily against each other, and in fact, we share agreements on some of the issues, thereby creating an impression that we are both arguing for/against the resolution instead of arguing against each other. Besides, some of the contentions seem rather irrelevant to the resolution or the relation between contentions and resolution is not crystal clearly established. The lack of coherence may also contribute to the frustration. In conclusion, I am also under the impression that we, both Pro and Con, have yet achieved what we want. Nevertheless, it is still an enjoyable moment and it is my honor to be a part of this debate. I sincerely hope that we can do better if chance has ever raised again. Thank you.