Resolved: Economic sanctions ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives.

Start with the value debate. He says that Morality varies from person to person however just because people disagree on what morality is doesn't mean it doesn't exist as a peice of truth. Philosophy is the attempt to prove what is difinitively moral. For example I think the Cubs will win the world series and you think the Sox will win. Just because we disagree doesn't mean there isn't a truth that exists. If I can difinitively give warrents for an interpretation of morality (on the governental or personal level) then it is a legitimate criterion for debate. Furthermore, he doesn't dispute that Morality is inherintly appropriate for the resolution so extend my value. Additionally he misses the point against his value that the Common Good must be restrained by issues of Morality and rights. Just because slavery benefited the common good doesn't mean we should continue it. Clearly rights constrain actions for the good, which is why it is important to view government action through the lense of the Social Contract. He makes a lame argument that protecting the innocent is good, which it is, however he doesn't demonstrate how to use this as a legitimate criterion. Remember that government action is defined by its social contract obligations to its own people first then to oppressed peoples of the world. This means that protecting the innocent is only valuable in the context of government action when we use the Social Contract to determine whose rights we should protect in a given situation. Extend my argument that the purpose of foreign policy is to encourage legitimate government among other Peoples of the World and to benefit the prosperity of all legitimate governments. Now lets look at his case. As an overview on the entire case group all the times he makes reference to using war or the threat of war and turn them. Using military force will ALWAYS cause more harm than economic sanctions because there is DEATH involved. It involves risk for our troops and for the enemy troops as well as innocent casualties which have ALWAYS resulted from EVERY war. This is a complete violation of his criterion and not a viable alternative when protecting innocents. Furthermore, this also violates our social contract obligation to protect the lives of our own citizens first when possible. We ought to first try sanctions as a policy before the threat of war is even proposed. Using either criterion this argument leads you to negate. Also, his argument that the threat of war is enough is empiracally denied by the very example I give. The Nazis, Communists, etc all continued human rights abuses even in face of total war. Extend my areguments against his 1st contention that he has to prove the resolution true and simply pointing out times when the use of sanctions would not be appropriate doesn't prove the resolution true. Insofar as it is at times an apprpriate tool economic sanctions ought to be used even if not in the instances he points out. In his 2nd contention he says why risk sanctions not working. The point I made is that we can determine sanctions that WILL pressure nations to change their policies just like President Regan did in the situation with Russia. This evidence proves that the resolution is false under both criteria because sanctions protected the innocent from the casualties of war as well upheld out social contract obligations to protect our people from the expansion of the Communist regime. The point is he has no answer for the fact that sometimes sanctions are appropriate, which proves the resolution false. Period. You must negate. He says that if sanctions don't work on their own then why use them. But he misses the entire point of my case. The fact is that sanctions are a good tool often used in conjunction with other policies. If they are effective at fufilling our social contract obligations (which I've shown they are) then we ought to use them. He argues that we shouldn't hurt the innocent people of other nations however as I pointed out we have an obligation first to our own citizens rights. He says "kill over save lives" however this is a misnomer. Economic sanction do not kill. War does. He advocates war as an alternative... I advocate the peaceful solution. I said that external pressure of sanctions can cause internal revolution. There may not be many historical examplmes off of the top of my head but the point is that it does cause pressure. For example the Green Revolution taking place in Iran is largely due to the citizens being fed up with their lack of standing in the international community because of the saber ratteling and destructive policies of their current illegitimate President. (I need to take this opportunity to say HAIL TO MOUSAVI! UNTIL THE DICTATOR IS DEAD!) Extend once again that he fails to meet his burden of prooving the resolution true. Now to my case: My opponent completely mishandles my first contention. I argue that without economic sanctions other nations can use cheap labor to bid us out of our own markets. We use tarrifs (which I argue are a form of sanctions) to make our labor force competative and save American jobs which is a social contract obligation. This proves that sanctions are neccesary and should be used. This is another voting issue. Against my 1B he again mishandles my argument. We MUST not contribute money to a morally bankrupt policy. War is a good option when it comes to some human rights abuses however the US cannot always effectively police every abuse in the world. And even if we could sanctions would be necessary to conduct war properly as I argue in 1C. Against 1C he makes no sense. I'm saying that we need to sanction them so they we aren't doing business with the war machine. Why would we push money into an economy which we are militarily seeking to destroy. We must use economic sanctions in conjunction with military force in some cases. Look at my second contention. Again he completely mishandles it. In 2A he just says GO TO WAR! However as I pointed out before this violates both of our criteria and puts innocents at greater risk for harm. I demonstrate a solution which doesn't put innocent lives in harms way and fufills our social contract obligations. He completely drops the crux of this argument and this will ultimately lose him the round. In conclusion, this round is over. I have proven time and again that Economic Sanctions are necessary to fufill our social contract obligations. Furthermore, our obligations to our own citizens always preceed the good of protecting the innocent of other nations. Furthermore, his continued insistance that we should go to war instead betrays his own underlying principle and would put many more innocent people in much more way of harm. He completely mishandles my position and fails to ever address let alone fufill his burden to prove the resolution true as a general statement. Because economic sanctions fufill the obligations that government is fundamentally based upon they should be a tool to achieve foriegn policy goals. You must negate.