Free Immigration

Aff CaseLast round I extended my theory arg that explained that we needed a standard I also noted that my opponent offered no alternative to Justice,. His response to this is that he does not know how to use standards and that I should have told this to him in Round 1. However, it is not my fault that my opponent was unable to respond to the theory shell I provided in favor of the standard, so there is no reason to allow him to get away with this. In general, I am not under any obligation to give him my arguments before the debate starts. So, extend the conception of Justice I provide.A key point that I have discussed in this debate is the difference between harming an individual and violating her rights. I gave several examples to prove that there is nothing wrong with harming a person as long as her rights are not violated. My opponent continues to exist that if people exercise their right to autonomy and leave the country, the rights of others are being violated. However, this is not the case because the people who are leaving do not owe anything to the other people. The others are not owed the use of their talents or skills, and if they desire to leave, there is nothing wrong with leaving even if it harms them. The harm in this case is irrelevant because as Rawls noted, the individual, and not society, is of primacy. Against Justice, he claimed it was subjected. I pointed out that just because people believe different things does not mean it is subjective; it simply means one person is wrong. I gave the math example to prove this. My opponent claims that justice will not always have a certain outcome. This is just an assumption-there is no warrant behind this claim. If justice is objective, then it should always have a certain outcome, and if different trials in the United States lead to different results, that means one judge has acted unjustly, not that justice changes. My opponent has not proven that there is anything inherent to justice that makes it subjective; he only has proven that people believe different things about justice. As the math example noted, however, different beliefs do not translate into subjectivity. In response to his claim that we only have an obligation to not violate our own citizens’ rights, I pointed out that this belief rests on the notion of inalienable rights; without inalienable rights, the notion of a social contract is self-defeating. He responds to this by again asserting that free immigration violates the rights of the people in other countries when other people leave. Once again, since the people who are leaving do not owe anything to those other people and their talents belong to themselves, even if it harms them, it is not violating their rights. Second, this argument is nonresponsive to the claim about the social contract being self-defeating if natural rights do not exist, so extend that. Finally, this argument is just absurd because it could be used to justify any sort of tyranny. It harms rural populations in the US while intelligent individuals leave rural states to get good jobs in the city. If I get married to someone outside of my immediate family, my parents are harmed because I cannot not help out with chores around the house. Clearly we would never say that these things violate rights within families and countries, so there is no basis for extending these outside of the country. I had two counters to his elections arg. The first one, which said that citizenship should be on merit and not on accident of birth, was dropped, so extend that. The second was that elections could be held anyways just like they are now. He says that this is unjust because the gov. would no longer be representative. This is entirely nonunique. With every passing moment, the composition of the population of the US right now changes. People die, people are born, people become of voting age, people immigrate, and people emigrate. So, if his theory is true, the US government right now is not representative. It is ludicrous to vote on a new gov. every time the population changes, so we hold elections on cycles. There is no reason this cannot be done if immigration is open.He drops the arg about how people benefitting from the system right now did not work to be a part of it, so extend that. This means that there is no basis for rejecting other people who did not work hard. He also drops the arg that says that just because you buy into the system does not mean you get to pick who else buys in. In response to the Toys example, he says that their right to be free from discrimination is harmed. There is no right to be free from discrimination based on private property. The company belongs to me. If his arg is true, every time a parent pays for her child’s clothes and not someone else’s child, the other child is being discriminated against and this is wrong. Clearly, it is not, however, since the person who owns the property can do as he or she pleases. I pointed out that free immigration is a right, and that some people would be willing to share or rent property at low costs to uneducated people. I also pointed out that they would be screened out on the basis of not being able to purchase private property. He says this is against his definition and we have to let them stay here. No, it is not against his definition because I am giving everybody the opportunity to come in and stay. If someone has no place to stay, however, they would be unable, without any gov. force being used, to stay, because there is no place for them to stay. His definition excludes people de jure; my claim is that even with free immigration, people will be screened out de facto. Since this would not occur as a result of gov. force and law, and rather would be natural, it fulfills his definition. Neg CaseI brought up the point about obligations and autonomy last round, and that was totally dropped, so extend that cleanly across the flow. That is a clear reason to affirm because it takes out the entirely of the neg case, which is based on a harm but not on a violation of rights. Against his unskilled labor point, I noted that there are vacancies in skilled fields like healthcare. He says that immigrants won’t have the skills to have those jobs. That’s not necessarily true. There are plenty of immigrants right now who do have those skills, and there is no reason to assume that immigrants won’t have those skills. For some reason, he’s trying to restrict this debate to unskilled laborers after he posted his R1. He should have made this more clear at that time. You can’t let him make this restriction now. He then reasserts that this harms US citizens because it makes them compete for jobs. Extend the dropped argument that noted that you don’t have a right to be free from job competition because neither the job nor the money belongs to you. The owners can pay anybody they want, and you have no say. I pointed out that racism is not a reason to not let people work just as sexism is not a reason to not let people work. He then says that he agrees that it’s not a reason to stop them from working but also says it causes racism. Ok, that’s fine-if he agrees it’s not a reason to stop them, then this argument automatically falls because he conceded it was wrong. In response to the economy of Mexico argument, I noted that Mexico has an incentive to improve. He says that this is unfeasible. No, it isn’t. If Mexico stops spending money on gov. corruption on and spends more on improving working conditions, it can turn its situation around. Compromises will have to be made, and politicians will have to steal a little less, but they will be forced to do it because, ultimately, they lose their source of income (the people) if they do not fix themselves. I then pointed out that his whole case focused on one country. He says that it was just an example and that other people would come. Ok, that doesn’t matter. My arguments apply to the economies of other countries too.