CYFALLS BIRMINGHAM COME INTO THEY HOOD 1/3

DebaTE
NFL NATS

Because military conscription can serve as a tool to oppressive governments for

enforcement of human rights violations, I affirm.
I affirm the resolution “military conscription is unjust.” In order to clarify the
meaning of the resolution, I offer the following definitions from Oxford
American Dictionary. A military is “an organized body of armed forces
commanded by a given government.” Conscription is “compulsory
enlistment into state service.” Unjust is “deficient in justice.” Justice is
defined as “giving each their due.”

[DON’T BOTHER READING THIS UNTIL THE 1AR IF YOUR JUDGE SPEED RANK
IS BELOW 3] With definitions in mind, it is clear that the resolution is
questioning whether or not citizens of a given nation are due being
conscripted, or drafted, into the military. This means that determining what
obligations governments have to their citizens is key to understanding
whether or not conscription is consistent with due. If citizens aren’t due
being conscripted, then we label it as unjust; and vice versa.

I value just government All people are due rights because rights establish
what makes people unique. Absent universally assured rights, people can be
treated like animals by finding exceptions to the rule, justifying murder,
slavery, torture and abuse. These kind of abuses are never just, so rights
must always be acknowledged in order for justice to exist.

This means that the value criterion must be governmental respect of

natural rights. Randy Bennett elaborates:
“Natural rights identify the space within which vulnerable people need to be free to
conceptually

make their own choices about the directions of their lives, which includes crucially the choices of how to acquire, use, and dispose of scarce physical resources.

Once these rights are identified, it is a matter of how they can best be
somewhat, but not entirely, separate institutional design to see

protected in a world in which others are more than willing, Natural if given half a chance, to interfere with the well-being of others.

rights, therefore, do not enforce themselves. They are rather a mode of normative analysis used to evaluate and critique the positive law that is needed to reinforce them.

When natural rights are correctly formulated, we can observe serious real world
consequences accompanying their violation. Human well-being suffers and dies. No
society will survive as a society if these principles are disregarded completely.”

[END QUOTE] The criterion can be colored in very simply: governments ought
to always yield to the individual rights of citizens that have equal standing in
the law because government is created to protect those rights. When those
rights are violated by the government, it becomes unjust and must endure
changes to mend the problems to once again bring the system in balance.
Since the state is typically a sovereign entity in relation to its constituents, it
must have restricting mechanisms that prevent potential rights violations.
Thus, enforced governmental respect of individual rights best leads to
justice.
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DebaTE
NFL NATS

Based on what has been previously established, this cannot be a weighing

criterion. If individual freedom can be arbitrarily violated to serve the needs of others all
rights become conditional. Rights are meant to be things individuals can claim, and thus, if they
become invalid the moment someone sees benefit in taking them away they serve no purpose at
all. Thus rights are maximized in quantity but become functionally useless. Additionally, many
legal systems typically use this format to determine the justness of an
action; i.e. if a proposed law violates the U.S. Constitution and that is pointed
out, then the law does not get passed. Therefore, in order to negate, my
opponent must beat back all of my offense in order to have access to
offense in their case.

My thesis is that military conscription is a direct violation of individual rights.

1. General tensions between conscripts and voluntary soldiers are

among several problems with the concept of military conscription.
House Member Ron Paul explains:
“A draft weakens the military by introducing tensions and rivalries
between those who volunteer for military service and those who
have been conscripted. This undermines the cohesiveness of
military units, which is a vital element of military effectiveness.
Conscripts also are unlikely to choose the military as a career;
thus, a draft will do little to address problems with retention. With
today's high-tech military, retention is the most important
personnel issue .”
and it seems counter-productive to adopt any policy that will not address this important issue

[END QUOTE] The implication is that military conscription is ineffective at

building cohesive armies and creating soldiers that continue their service.
The problem is that both of these issues weaken the armies of a given
nation, which leaves a government’s citizens more open to rights violations
due to an inferior army. This is clearly a violation of governmental respect of
individual rights because the rights steps aren’t being taken to make sure
constituents are secure and free from potential invasion of other nations that
could violate their rights.

2. Historically, military conscription has served as a tool to spread

imperialist political agendas that oppressed entire nations.

Myron Eschenberg explains:

“To label French military conscription in West Africa a "blood tax"

is not simply to engage in rhetoric. Not only were hundreds of
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DebaTE
NFL NATS

thousands of young Africans drafted to serve overseas in European

and colonial wars during the first half of this century. Thousands more were drafted into what the
French called la deuxieme portion; these were reservists sent back to their villages, but in some cases, also forced to serve a three-year term in dreaded labour-brigades. Especially in Mali, the French designed the labour-

Military and related

brigades in order to obtain less-than-free labour for such so-called public works projects as the Office du Niger irrigation scheme, or the Dakar-Niger railroad.

conscription were clearly forms of labour coercion. In a general

sense, it has long been recognized that the Black African soldier
played an important role in shaping the history of modern French
imperialism in West Africa. As the Romans in Africa had once
employed Numidians and Berbers as mercenaries, so the French
enlisted local Wolof, Serer and Bambara soldiers. While this practice can be traced back to the beginnings of
the French presence in Africa in the seventeenth century, the modern history of the Black African in French military service dates from 1857.”

[END QUOTE] The French used military conscription in nations that they
retained control over during the European imperialist movement. The
implications are two-fold. Firstly, this severs the potential link between civil
duty and forced servitude because military conscription can be used on non-
nationals. Secondly, this means that nations with military power can use
their force to take over other nations and then draft the citizens of that
country and make them part of their military, clearly violating any notion of
individual rights. As a result, we should not treat military conscription as a
just action because it can be used as a tool of imperialist nations that don’t
respect any notion of human rights or sovereign boundaries.
3. Military conscription procedures themselves are unjust inasmuch as they flagrantly
violate the rights of individuals, including children. Raymond Toney and Shazia Anwar
elaborate:
“The most serious abuses of the recruitment phase arise from the common practice of
forced recruitment, In scores of countries, military forces conduct systematic
also known as press-ganging.

sweeps of poor urban and rural areas, abducting military-age youth and children at
gunpoint. These "recruits" often face beatings, insults, and humiliation at the time of
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recruitment and during the journey to military installations. Initially, military forces hold
victims of forced conscription incommunicado for days or weeks at a time. [*523]
Family members often have no knowledge of the whereabouts of those recruited.
Furthermore, individuals who resist forced recruitment, including conscientious
objectors, are especially vulnerable to physical assault.”
[END QUOTE] These harsh abuses of rights are absolutely inconsistent with how a government
ought interact with individuals, meaning that we reject military conscription because it gives the
government too much leeway in what it can and cannot do. The resolution simply questions
military conscription, not ‘military conscription when practiced in X fashion,’ meaning my
opponent must account for why this is just, or why the benefits of military conscription exceed
the beating and abuse of children who are stolen from their families without their knowledge.