Resolved: Federal government bailouts of major corporations are just.

Roadmap: AC/NC Let's begin with my opponent's definition of "just" I accept his definition and realize that his entire case revolves around such. His entire case is contingent upon the idea that a bailout does not violate any right or obligation, I will prove otherwise. His criterion is "government fulfilling its obligations" however he shows no where why this leads to justice except by saying that one of its obligations is to establish "Justice". However this is circular reasoning and does not make sense; how can the government fulfilling its obligations uphold justice if its obligation is to establish justice. If justice is not established, it cannot be upheld. The criterion is also flawed because if it is trying to lead to justice (and again this is one of its obligations) this excludes the other obligations of the government which in turn leads to injustice by violating those obligations. These reasons aside from the fact that my opponent offers no justification cause his criterion to collapse. Okay so to his arguments, I am going to show you that bailouts in fact are unjust because they violate the basic human right to own property. As Paul Hein explains: "At the very soul of taxation is the belief that your property is yours only to the extent that the rulers allow it. Taxes are a frontal assault upon private property, which is a basic human right second only to the right to life itself. No government has ever existed without taxation, which is to say that no government has ever existed without the rulers claiming that what is "yours" is, in fact, theirs. You may quite reasonably point out that you need to replace your roof, repair your cracked foundation, and re-pave your driveway, and thus cannot spare any money for the rulers, at least this year. Your remarks will fall upon deaf ears, as their claim upon "your" income, or savings, precedes and takes precedence, over your own. Continue to ignore their demands, and you will discover that "your" property has, hey presto!!, suddenly become theirs to dispose of as they wish." Since taxes are directly needed for a government bailout of a corporation, this shows that it is unjust according to my opponents own definition! You can negate solely on this fact. This directly takes out my opponent's second contention and his first becomes irrelevant. NC  I negate and value justice defined as "fairness" by Philosopher John Rawls. The criterion is maximizing social and economic equalities. Rawls says that all rational individuals under the "Veil of ignorance" would establish two rules under Justice, these are: "Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage and b) attached to positions and offices open to all." I will no define a term from the resolution: Seeing as how my opponent failed to define "bailout" the neg has the exclusive liberty to define it. Bailout solely means the act of giving capital to a failing business, absent of further qualifications one cannot assume that the capital will in some unforeseen future benefit the "common welfare" or any citizen other than those directly accepting the bailout. A federal government is the central government of a federation, or union comprising a number of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government. Observation one: Just government action requires popular support. For an action of the government to be considered "just" it must adhere to the will of the people. If not, as Lock specifies, the populace has the right to revolt/overthrow the government. Because the power of the government to do anything at all comes from (as Locke says) "the freely given consent of the people," it is only if the people support an action does the government have the power to commit it, failing this the government is acting unjustly. Observation two: the aff burden Seeing as how a bailout by a federal government, the aff has the burden to show why that bailout cannot be done at a local or state level. The aff did not show this and therefore loses uniqueness to his impacts. He does not specify why it is the federal government that has to commit the bailout and since he fails this we have no reason to accept his case. Observation three: we must use a US context This is warranted because my opponent is using US specific evidence in his contentions and to deviate this creates an unreasonable scope for the debate that requires the neg to do almost infinite research. Also, just the very fact that he is the aff and set the context for the debate is enough to keep this. Contention one: the continuation of failed policy is unjust In the US there have been 5 bailouts already, none of them have worked. The economy continues to plunge deeper and deeper into a recession and the bailouts, whose totals have amounted to trillions so far (http://www.cnbc.com...), have only made things worse by spending taxpayer money and causing inflation. Bailout have empirically proven to fail and to continue to implement them is unjust since they perpetuate the economic recession, achieve nothing, and violate the rights of citizens. Contention two: because bailouts are unfair they are unjust Under Rawls definition of justice the bailouts are unjust because they perpetuate social and economic inequalities by throwing money at those who are already financially above the status quo (i.e. CEOs/executives of "major corporations"), but also because the resolution that the bailouts are only for major corporations. This is unjust because the other, smaller corporations are just as deserving of aid and yet are given none. The bailouts only expand the gap between that two and sets the stage for a flawed economic structure as minor companies collapse and only large companies remain. These two contentions link to my criterion since they show how bailouts have negative effects on the social and economic equalities inherent to justice according to Rawls. Okay, so lets go over the debate its very clear that I am winning. 1.I accepted my opponent's value and gave you a good definition advocated by Rawls. 2.I completely took out my opponent's criterion, gave you my own and told you why mine is the most important to use. 3.My opponent's case is entirely based on his definition of just as "not violating any rights or obligations" and I use the Hein's evidence to take out his analysis of bailouts and show how they do violate a very fundamental right. 4.My contentions show you why bailouts are not only unjust, but overall detrimental to achieving justice (the value for the round). There is no ballot but for that negative.