April Gauntlet Tower: Trial by Fire

So this debate is a fairly simple debate to evaluate since I'm winning on all levels of the debate. But let's start with the Aff side of things.Extend out my refutation to his first contention. Animals are incapable of grasping moral principles and, because this is necessary for the endowment of rights, they are incapable of having rights. His only response to this is that this argument excludes infants and the mentally challenged, who we typically believe of having rights. But there's two responses to this:First, there's three key distinctions between infants and the mentally challenged that entitles them rights that animals don't not have. Frey writes:R. G. Frey. Animal Rights.Analysis, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jun., 1977), pp. 186-189. Oxford University. "to include the baby by means of the potentialityargument: the baby is potentially rational....to include the severely mentally-enfeebled by means of the similarity argument: in all other respects except rationality and perhaps certain mental accomplishments, the severely mentally-enfeebled betray strong similarities to other members of our species,...One might try to include both babies and the severelymentally-enfeebledby means of the religious argument: babies and the severely mentally-enfeebled possess immortal souls....the religious argument does separate both from Fido, who is not conceded an immortal soul by the argument's proponents." So there's still plenty of ways that infants and the mentally challenged are deserving of rights that animals lack.Second, even if he's right in that I'm excluding infants and the mentally challenged, his argument doesn't actually refute mine here. By saying that I exclude infants and the mentally challenged, he doesn't provide any kind of analysis for why animals are deserving of rights. I could simply just concede that infants and the mentally challenged don't have rights and his argument would still fall.This means my responses to his first contention still stand. You can't look to it for aff offense.Extend my two-part refutation to his second contention as well. First, the resolution doesn't actually give us any kind of guideline for what is "needless suffering" and my opponent makes no effort to try and clarify this. Without any kind of guideline for what's needless and what isn't needless, it becomes impossible to actually prevent any kind of suffering because any infliction of suffering could always be worthwhile to have done. Even if we're causing suffering to tens of thousands of animals, if we get the cure to cancer and/or AIDs from it, would the animals suffering not be worthwhile?His only response to this part is that my hypothetical is hyper specific that wouldn't really be called moral in the first place, but animal testing for medical reasons is a very real thing. And his whole semantics point misses what my argument is actually saying. You can call it "needless" or "unnecessary", but he's still not giving you any kind of brightline for what is necessary suffering and what isn't necessary suffering.Second, extend that under this arguments utilitarian logic, we open animals up to the exclusion of their "rights" if it's in the greater good of society. He's not actually protecting animals with this argument. And he makes no resonse to this argument at all, so there's no way he can get any kind of offense from his second contention. So because of this, there's literally nowhere that the aff can get any kind of offense to affirm the resolution. And I'm making offensive turns off of his arguments, mainly that his second argument only hurts animals more, so you can negate off of his case.But let's go to the K now. The only response he makes to the K now is that by running the K I violated the round one rules of the "typical rules".First, if this was actually true, he wouldn't have waited to the very last round to bring it up. This is just him trying to rule-shark his way out of having to respond to something he doesn't understand.Second, this "No Kritiks" rule isn't even a typical rule. Out of the 18 debates in the challenge period currently as of this moment ( http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...), NONE OF THEM have this rule.Too small of a sample size? Out of the 282 debates currently in the debating period, only NINE DEBATES have a "No kritiks" ruling to them ( http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...http://www.debate.org...). I would hardly call 3% of all the active debates going on right now a "typical rule".Moreover, I find this debate highly ironic (http://www.debate.org...). Is the rule really so typical that you...don't...actually use it....in your own debate....?So let's wrap this up real fast.1. The K still stands and refutes the aff case. You can vote off of it rather easily.2. Even if you don't buy the K, I'm making offensive turns off of the aff case, so you can negate there.3. The aff isn't winning on a single front in this debate, which means there's literally no place for you to negate this debate.