That we should abandon the Bill of Rights

Thanks, Pro:1-Is the BOR necessary? There were three levels in this argument:1. Are our rights protected by legislature? I put forward this argument in Round Two, and my opponent's response was that "It is from the bill of rights that legislative code is derived" and that thus the Bill of Rights was essential for the laws that protect our rights. On the Pro side, I have two responses to this argument. Firstly, it isn't true that the Bill of Rights is the basis of our legislature-it is from the wills of the people, as it is they that the government attempts to satisfy when it submits legislature. Secondly, even if it were true that the Bill of Rights had been useful when formulating our society's laws, that does not mean that it is necessary any longer now that these laws have already been formulated. 2. Are our rights protected by the international community-Though my opponent refuted the UN's role in protecting human rights, he never responded to my analysis of the treaties and conventions of which the US is a signatory that would mean major consequences if rights were violated. For example, the US is a signatory of the Geneva Convention [1]. If it were to violate the protocols set out in the Convention, it could expect major trade sanctions. My opponent says that the US as 'top dog' of international diplomacy would not face such consequences, but there are two problems with this. First, though the US does still hold great sway in international diplomacy, nations such as China have the trading power to inflict major sanctions on it without any real consequences for themselves. Second, if major rights were to be violated, any nation could potentially suffer through sanctions-my opponent claims China is an exception to this rule, but the reason China has not been under heavy sanctions is that, although its human rights record is still poor, it is nonetheless making valuable progress towards better human rights, something the Chinese government has affirmed their commitment to [2] 3. Are our rights protected by the electoral system-My opponent claimed democracy doesn’t protect rights because people will happily allow their liberty to be taken away for advantages in their security. First, that's simply not the case-Pro's examples are poor ones; in Nazi Germany, it was more due to a prevailing hysteria of social minorities, particularly Jews, and the ongoing societal factors at the time that liberties were taken away, and Franklin Roosevelt's actions were never stopped by the Bill of Rights my opponent is today supporting. In fact, people make decisions based on what they believe to be best for their society-though in some instances, this has led to decreases in civil liberties, in others, we have seen civil liberties increase. Nations that do not have a Bill of Rights have not fallen to tyranny and oppression-for example, Australia has continued to function without a Bill of Rights. Second, even if it were true that the people of the US would vote to remove some of their civil liberties, we have no objection to this-if the security increases that would result are worth the cost of removing some civil liberties, the American people should have the right to do so. 2-Is the BOR UndemocraticMy opponent had several rebuttals to this argument: 1. "The purpose of the constitution and the BOR is to ensure that the people are not deprived to the right of consent by the governed -in that regard it serves to frame the structure of our government and outline the powers to be afforded to all three branches"-my opponent claimed the BOR just protects against tyranny and guarantees democracy. This just factually isn't true-a brief look at the Bill of Rights shows that it protects specific rights such as free speech and gun rights.[3] 2. "People do not "choose" rights, rights are natural and flow from natural law” This misconstrued my argument. I stated not that people choose their rights, but that the population as a whole should vote to decide which rights need to be upheld and which can be violated to uphold the rights of others. 3. "Because rights flow from natural law and all people are created equal, what would be "democratic" or just about letting people choose what rights ought to be protected or not be protected?...Numerical supremacy does not grant authority to a majority to deprive a minority of their rights (life, liberty and property) without just cause (for example, like if someone has been convicted of murder, it would be justified to deprive that person of their liberty)" My opponent's analysis here falls down when he claims removing the BOR would deprive the minority of life, liberty and property. In fact, democracies don't work on the basis of the majority voting down the minority to get whatever they want-people make rational choices that take into account the ethical implications of their actions when they vote. Examples of this would be actions like deciding to grant women the right to vote when only men were voting at the time. If my opponent were right and democracies worked on the basis of trampling powerless minorities, this would have been rejected. In fact, people made rational, ethical decisions to allow women equal rights [4].3-Effect on Human Rights In Round Two, I brought forward analysis on how the Bill of Rights promotes frozen rights and causes new reforms to take more time. My opponent responded to this by claiming that "Rights do not evolve over time...They are Life, Liberty and Property (or as Jefferson would describe property, "the pursuit of happiness"). Reforms, then, are unnecessary because rights are static." The very crux of this argument, though, rested upon the Bill of Rights as a vague statement defending 'Life, Liberty and Property'. This is far from being true-as I have already shown, the Bill of Rights has many specific rules on legislation governing rights like freedom of speech and gun rights [1]. These rights are, I propose, not at all absolute. I will defend this statement on two levels. Firstly, in a broad sense, our human rights are subjective constructs that are liable to change over time as our societies change. Consider, for instance, black rights-these have changed greatly over the last few hundreds of years, from a state in which Black Americans were treated as animals to a (for the most part) egalitarian treatment in our modern society. Secondly, and more importantly, in a more specific way, certain rights can only be safeguarded depending on the circumstances that surround them. Societies can only protect rights if they have a certain set of circumstances-if these were to change, it would be entirely reasonable for our rights to do so as well. To make this clear, I'll give examples of how rights put forward in the Bill of Rights should not be respected in different circumstances. Consider, for instance, the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech. However, in a time of war, it may be necessary to place certain restrictions on some types of speech-or it may be argued that we should place restrictions on hate speech, something already done in many other nations but ruled unconstitutional in the US because the people are overruled by the BOR. [3] Another example would be the Second Amendment, protecting gun rights [3]-in a society in which the blackmarket gun trade could eventually be wiped out, why should we not then consider banning guns outright? On the Pro side, we believe the people should choose which rights should be restricted and which be protected, because they know their own circumstances best and will inevitably make better decisions than the frozen rights promoted by the BOR.Good luck. [1] http://www.cfr.org... [2]http://www.cfr.org... [3] http://www.archives.gov... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org...'s_suffrage_in_the_United_States