Post-retributive felonial disenfranchisement in the United States should be abolished.

Ladies and gentlemen, please do not be fooled by what my opponent has posted. In attempting to illustrate the "validity" of his natural rights argument, my opponent has included a section from the Declaration of Independence. He tries to justify this by saying that it "exerts massive influence on contemporary theories of law", but neglects to include the very important fact that the Declaration is in no way an official document of law. Our official document of law is the Constitution, not the Declaration. My opponent then argues from the Declaration as if though it were a textbook or legal document when in reality, it is nothing more than an opinion paper. My opponent is arguing that according to his philosophy of "natural rights", certain things ought not to be. He states that a government that does not uphold this philosophy is unjust. According to whom? I have asked him to justify the use of that philosophy in determining what ought or ought not to be and he has failed to do so. I hope that in the next round, he will be able to convince me that there is some legitimate reason outside of speculation and opinion, why we should use the philosophy of "natural rights" as a moral yardstick. Let us assume, however, that my opponent's focus on natural rights is legitimate and I concede that we should take the notion of natural rights into account. How exactly does this represent an infringement of natural rights? Where is it stated that the right to vote is guaranteed at birth to every man and woman? And as I said before, if it is an infringement to take away the right to vote from someone who betrayed society through crime, would it not be an infringement even to incarcerate someone? It may be wrong to deny someone the right to participate democratically because of race, since we have no choice in the matter. However, this denial is different in the case of convicts. Ex-felons *chose* to commit crimes, and understood the risks and the penalties associated with betraying society. I apologize, debate. org apparently formats links containing apostrophes incorrectly. However, the wikipedia definition is suitable. Megan's Law is similar to the voting restrictions of ex-felons in that they are punishments that go beyond release from prison. Sex offenders are forced to reveal themselves in the community they relocate to, and are tracked in a database. This is a stark contrast in the amount of privacy that is afforded to any law-abiding citizen. My opponent says that according to his arbitrary moral scale of "natural rights", this dissemination of information is fine. However, I would think that crimes of the past that have been "paid for" should remain private, especially when it can be held against the individual and lead to a great decrease in his social, political, and property-owning life. As for my opponent's assertion that a study has "proven" that Megan's Law is ineffective, I respond with a quote from Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. " My opponent has fallen headfirst into the last of the three. . http://www.ncjrs.gov... This is the actual study. For those who have read and analyzed the actual study, it can be noted that there are too many errors for this study to be legitimate, despite its claims. Not only that, they devoted 8 pages out of 42 (almost 1/5) to discussing how their study and their results may have been flawed. These include a variety of variables they did not bother to control (such as general downward trend, reluctance to report, etc. since it was a cohort study), as well as a statistically insignificant sample size. The report had so much room for error, they did not even know which way the bias might have tilted! So no, this study proved nothing, contrary to what my opponent said. My opponent spends the rest of his time introducing some concepts and phrases to frame a preliminary argument against the use of this as a deterrent. However, since I have not used this argument, nor do I intend to use this argument, the latter chunk of my opponent's argument can be ignored. **** To sum up, none of what I brought up in the first round was satisfactorily answered by my opponent. I will provide a list of issues we need to clear up. 1. Show that the western philosophy of "natural rights" is a legitimate moral scale to use. Is there any objectivity to this whatsoever, or is this just an arbitrary moral scale you choose to interpret however you see fit? 2. Illustrate the difference between the right to vote and the right not to be held against your will. According to you, it is wrong to infringe on the former, but not the latter. 3. What are the repercussions to this disenfranchisement, how is this an illustration of a moral wrong, and what benefits are there to overturning these restrictions? Thank you.