The conclusions of "The Veil of Ignorance" are a just standard by which public policy must be made

Thank you Con for responding in a timely and intelligent manner, I would be lying if I said that I did not suspect some level of trolling as it is all too common in this site. I would like to remind voters that this round is for rebuttals, no new arguments are to be made. My first rebuttal is on the real and perceived goals of this debate. Even if Con could not accept my second clarification, this would be effectively meaningless. As I stated in R1, before con accepted the debate, "My opponent will argue that adherence to these conclusions would make society unfair". This is clearly a difficult task yet con accepted and so in R2 I softened the criteria by which con must debate to "The goal of my opponent, as laid out in the first round, is to convince the voters that adherence to these conclusions would make society unfair or more unfair. I will also allow him to argue that society (the united states society) is already fair and therefor no solution is even necessary." It appears that my opponent based their argument on the phrase "or more unfair" which only appears in R2. It strikes me then as hypocritical that Con cherry picks changes in R2 for his own benefit. For the sake of this debate, I will allow the criteria that Con laid out in his R2 argument namely "I need only show that another standard is more fair and thus the standard we should use" even though I never stated that this would be the goal of Con in either of my rounds. He then goes on to say that "adding rules after the debate has started is unfair" which is seems to only highlight his hypocrisy. I will continue on with the debate in spite of this, but urge the voters to take this discrepancy into account. Holes in the Veil Terms: The first point my opponent makes is that I have not defined my terms. All definitions are provided in the links I gave in R1 and R2 as I stated that it would be the round of definitions. I would suggest that Con revisit the link. It is also quite clear that Con does in fact understand the meaning of the terms and if he does not, clicking my link, 5 minutes on google or a little chat with Mr. Rawls would solve that problem. I do not think that Con is arguing that they are meaningless, only that I have not adequately defined them. My rebuttal is simple, I provided all definitions via a link to save time and space. The VoI does not reach all the conclusions my opponent claims it does: My opponent over generalizes in this section of his debate. A simpler and more complete description of the experiment is simply: imagine you are a consciousness (not a human as you have no body) who is going to spend life on earth but has not yet been born. You know nothing except that you are a rational actor. How do you assure your goals under this criteria? My opponent claims that I suggest that a rational actor would suggest maximal liberties. I would like to see a quote supporting that. The conclusion Rawls sets forth was "most extensive basic liberties without intruding on the liberties of others" which is obviously not the same as maximal liberties. While I personally would tweak the wording of "B)", my opponent pretty much hits the nail on the head with that one, but not "A)". Con suggest that I imply that liberty is an end, which is clearly incorrect. The obvious end is whatever a citizen wants. All these conclusions do is create an environment where it is more possible for every citizen to do that, as explained in my R2 argument. My example of Jack and Jill clearly illustrate that the "end" is whatever Jack or/and Jill aspire to. Con contends that a rational agent needs values for the veil to work, this is simply not true as well. The purpose of the veil is to create an environment where any citizen, regardless of their values, has the opportunities to express those values and achieve what they desire/aspire to once they define those values. The Religious Extremist: The example of the religious extremist is contradictory to Cons own description of the veil. No one is religious before you are born, religion is something you learn. Therefor it is impossible to suggest that any rational agent that has not yet been born could be religious or an extremist. The thought experiment is simple in its setting. It does not allow for personal values or ideologies or anything other than the simple criteria of a rational human consciousness"s which are frightened at the understanding that the world is not, in fact, fair and that they would change it if they could for the betterment of all. These changes are the conclusions. The Alternative Con begins this section by stating that the flaws he claimed in the VoI lead to another theory. Here I would like to remind voters that the inclusion of Cons own theory is not in the terms of the debate as laid out in R1 or 2 but I will let it continue for sake of argument. This should not, however, go unnoticed. I would also like to point out an important distinction made both in my R1 and R2. This is an argument about the merits of a conclusion, not about the implementation of a system which would yield those conclusions. I stated this by saying "It is not the goal of this debate to provide the "how", of achieving Rawls's conclusions in the best way, nor that these conclusions are in fact the best solution to solve the problem outlined here." The clause "nor that these conclusions are in fact the best solution" negates any counter proposal by my opponent as it is not the goal to find the best solution, only to decide if the conclusions set forth by Rawls's solution in the VoI are in fact just. Due to this, I am forced to understand the goal of my opponent in providing a counter proposal to be to somehow show how my proposal is in fact unfair by showing the greater of merits of his own proposal. On to addressing the supposed flaws of the VoI: I would first like to express a sense of confusion at the description of Con"s alternative. He says "Specifically, it protects the rights that people want for themselves, but do not necessarily want for others". Forgive me for a possible misunderstanding, but it seems that you are suggesting a system in which some people can have rights and others cannot. I see here a dystopian system which endorsees discrimination of rights, which I am sure is not in fact what you mean, but it is the image I"m getting just the same from this specific statement. Your following sentence has glaring problem. "this framework argues that people should have additionally all the rights that they want for themselves, but that the majority does not want them to have, provided that said rights do not infringe upon the rights of others". If you are saying, "anyone has the right to have whatever rights they want, even if people don"t want them to have them, as long as those rights don"t infringe on the rights of others who also have the right whatever right they want, even if people don"t want them to have them" well I find a very obvious and serious problem in this spider web of unlimited rights. Your system proposes the right of unlimited rights as long as those rights don"t infringe on another"s equally unlimited rights. You must realize that this system yields a stalemate of contradicting equal rights which cannot achieve anything at all and must ultimately result in a defined set of rights which will apply to either only some people, which would be discrimination of a sort, or everyone, which would then mirror the conclusions of the VoI. Conclusion Ultimately, Con"s counter proposal is neither feasible or just and finds no consequential flaw in the conclusions of Rawls. Con"s claims on the liberties proposed by Rawls are fallacious or/and out of context. His final statement "a truly just society in which all people are ends in themselves, and are free to pursue and achieve their own goals in life" is the very thing that the conclusions set forth from the VoI achieve.