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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 make their own choices about the directions of their lives, Once these rights are identified, it is a matter of how they can best be protected in a world in which others are more than willing, Natural rights, therefore, do not enforce themselves. 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.” conceptually

which includes crucially the choices of how to acquire, use, and dispose of scarce physical resources.

somewhat, but not entirely, separate

institutional design to see

if given half a chance, to interfere with the well-being of others.

They are rather a mode of normative analysis used to evaluate and critique the positive law that is needed to reinforce them.

[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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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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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 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. 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.

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 nonnationals. 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 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 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.” also known as press-ganging.

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[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.