Sept/Oct Sujay Singh

Resolved: The United States ought to extend to non citizens accused of terrorism the same constitutional due process protections it grants to citizens.

Torrey Pines SS // Cosmos. AC

I affirm, The value is morality as ought entails a moral obligation. Debaters should clarify all theory violations in CX or else triggering an I meet, because it skews both debaters time if they have to spend unnecessary time on the theory debate. And, theory is an RVI Prefer this interp as, my opponent could run theory even if I don't violate the shell, skewing my time in the round, as I have to answer back the frivolous theory and read an RVI making the round unfair for me. And the resolution compares non-citizen terrorists and citizen terrorists for 2 reasons: 1. The round will be fairer for both debaters if they both just have to prove one thing in the round resulting in both debaters having to do a reciprocal amount of work. 2. If the resolution compared alien terrorists to regular citizens the round would automatically be giving the negative debater an unfair access to the ballot skewing the fairness of debate as an activity, and as debate ought to give both debaters an equal chance to win the round, the resolution ought to imply the comparison between terrorists that are citizens and noncitizens. And, evaluate T through reasonability if they still have some of their generics and could be expected to have prep on the aff, you shouldnt vote me down on T. 1. Competing Interps is infinitely regressive theres always an interpretation that is slightly better than the one the aff defends. Competing interpretations moves the debate away from the purpose of T, which is to check abuse and ensure both sides are running legitimate strategies. 2. I need to start debate somewhere; competing interps allows the neg to make the aff irrelevant by nitpicking interpretive issues causing massive time and strat skew. And accused is defined as a formal acknowledgement. Prefer this interp as it prevents debaters from saying that the accusation of citizen terrorists is arbitrary stating that they could have been accused with no reason or warrant behind it, resulting in a fair and non-arbitrary debate. First, The meta-ethic is practical reason because all moral rules stem from a universal content of reason that all individuals have access to. Velleman1: As we have seen, requirements that depend for their force on some external source[s] of authority [are] turn out to be escapable because the authority behind them can be questioned. We can ask, Why should I act on this desire? or Why should I obey the U.S. Government? or even Why should I obey God? And as we observed in the case of the desire to punch someone in the nose , this question demands a reason for acting. The authority we are questioning would be vindicated, in each case, by the production of a sufficient reason. What this observation suggests is that any purported source of practical authority depends on reasons for obeying itand hence on the authority of reasons. Suppose, then, that we attempted to question the authority of reasons themselves, as we earlier questioned other authorities. Where we previously asked
Why should I act on my desire? let us now ask Why should I act for reasons? Shouldnt this question open up a route of escape from all requirements? As soon as we ask why we should act for reasons,

however, we can hear something odd in our question. To ask Why should I? is to demand a reason; and so to ask Why should I act for reasons? is to demand a reason for acting for reasons. This demand implicitly concedes the very authority that it purports to questionnamely, the authority of reasons. Why would we demand a reason if we didnt envision acting for it? If we really didnt feel required to act for reasons, then a reason for doing so certainly wouldnt help. So there [It] is something self-defeating about [to] asking for a reason to act for reasons. And arbitrary is defined as determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle.
(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/arbitrary)

Therefore arbitrary distinctions disrupt practical reason as making arbitrary distinctions defies reason, and it cannot be universalized, as we cannot have an objective maxim that states that individuals can act without reason, which would collapse the structure of practical reason itself Arbitrary distinctions are also bad for 2 reasons: 1. It will make certain people feel superior to others, which could lead to historical calamities such as the Holocaust and Slavery. 2. It will defeat the purpose of the word humanity, which defines humans generally, and would create several different sects of people who would form completely different morals leading to a more subjective morality, with irresolvable moral conclusions, leading to the collapse of humanity.

Velleman, David. Self To Self. Cambridge University Press. 2006. Pg 18-19.

Therefore the standard is rejecting arbitrary distinctions between persons. The burden for the negative is to prove that negating would be less arbitrary than affirming, the opposite of the affirmatives burden, as the aff is trying to prove that citizenship is an arbitrary distinction. I contend that citizenship is an arbitrary distinction. A) Our initial duty is to humanity rather than to our country.
http://bostonreview.net/BR19.5/nussbaum.php Martha Nussbaum: Americans have frequently supported the principle of Bande Mataram, giving the fact of being American a special salience in moral and political deliberation, and pride in a specifically American identity and a specifically American citizenship a special power among the motivations to political action. I believe, with Tagore and his character Nikhil, that this

emphasis on patriotic pride is both morally dangerous and, ultimately, subversive of some of the worthy goals patriotism sets out to servefor example, the goal of national unity in devotion to worthy moral ideals of justice and equality. These goals, I shall argue, would be better served by an ideal that is in any case more adequate to our situation in the contemporary world, namely the very old ideal of the cosmopolitan, the person whose primary allegiance is to the community of human beings in the entire world.
B) If we were to pay heed to arbitrary differences such as citizenship it would create superiority between people.
http://bostonreview.net/BR19.5/nussbaum.php Martha Nussbaum 2: One might wonder, however, how far the politics of nationalism really is from the politics of difference. The Home and the World (better known, perhaps, in Satyajit Rays haunting film of the same title) is a tragic story of the defeat of a reasonable and principled cosmopolitanism by the forces of nationalism and ethnocentrism. I believe that Tagore sees deeply when he sees that at bottom nationalism and ethnocentric particularism are not alien to one another, but akinthat to give support to nationalist sentiments subverts, ultimately, even the values that hold a nation together, because it substitutes a colorful idol for the substantive universal values

Once one has said, I am an Indian first, a citizen of the world second, once one has made that morally questionable move of self-definition by a morally irrelevant characteristic, then what, indeed, will stop one from saying, as Tagores characters so quickly learn to say, I am a Hindu first, and an Indian second, or I am an upper-caste landlord first, and a Hindu second? Only the cosmopolitan stance of the landlord Nikhilso boringly flat in the eyes of his young wife Bimala and his passionate nationalist friend Sandiphas the promise of transcending these divisions, because only this stance asks us to give our first allegiance to what is morally goodand that which, being good, I can commend as such to all human beings. Or so I shall argue.
of justice and right.

C) Citizenship is an arbitrary separation between humans.

http://bostonreview.net/BR19.5/nussbaum.php Martha

Nussbaum 3: Let me now return to the defense of shared values in Richard Rortys

article and Sheldon Hackneys project. In these eloquent appeals to the common there is something that makes me very uneasy. On the one hand Rorty and Hackney seem to argue well when they insist on the centrality to democratic deliberation of certain values that bind all citizens together.

why should these values, which instruct us to join hands across boundaries of ethnicity and class and gender and race, lose steam when they get to the borders of the nation ? By conceding that a morally arbitrary boundary such as the boundary of the nation has a deep and formative role in our deliberations, we seem to be depriving ourselves of any principled
But

way of arguing to citizens that they should in fact join hands across these other barriers. For one thing, the very same groups exist both outside and inside. Why should we think of people from China as our fellows the minute they dwell in a certain place, namely the United States, but not when they dwell in a certain other place, namely China? What is it about the national boundary that magically converts people toward whom our education is both incurious and indifferent into people to whom we have duties of mutual respect? I think, in short, that we undercut the very case for multicultural respect within a nation by failing to make a broader world respect central to education. Richard Rortys patriotism may be a way of bringing all Americans together; but patriotism is very close to jingoism, and Im
afraid I dont see in Rortys argument any proposal for coping with this very obvious danger.

I also contend that the fact that citizens sacrifice for their government is irrelevant since: A) The amount that one sacrifices is arbitrary as people sacrifice in different amounts or not at all. As adults pay taxes, while children pay none. Even then, children get the same due process rights as adults. There is no bright line for what sacrifice is required, therefore to give rights to people based on sacrifice is completely arbitrary. B) The sacrifice of rights is offset by other factors, for example taxes pays for health care, and education which are important factors in the growth and life of human beings. C) Non citizens never had the chance to sacrifice, as only citizens are told to sacrifice their rights, therefore to not extend due process rights to non citizens because they don't sacrifice their own rights is completely arbitrary and unfair as they are not given the chance to do so.