Resolve:Possession of Nuclear Weapons is Immoral

Aff.

For all of history, mankind has been plagued by a great many things. Revolutions, civil wars, biological, pestilence, famine, depressions, and world wars are among the many. Yet how low can hmanity sink, so that our own morals are said to be not as important as war? War, the purpose for which weapons are developed, is immoral. It is immoral to kill other people. This brings me to my value, peace
Peace is diffined by dictionary.com as "Free from strife"
Yet peace is not obtained easily, which causes my criterion to be:stability
Stability is defined by dictionary.com as "The state or quality of being stable, or firm; steadiness; firmness; strength to stand without being moved or overthrown"
I will now give the following definitions from dic.com for your furthor understandment of this round:
Terrorism:The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons
MoralConforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior

Saying this, I would like to state my first contention.

contention one:Homo homini lupus latin for," Man is wolf to man." taken from Plautis, an ancient Roman playright

While mankind has endured many sufferings, the most in humane of these come from our selves, and of these, the worst are on purpose. We have developed weapons, such as mustard gas, that have no point or use other than to harm ohers. They have put terror and pain into the lives of many, Of all of these terrible devices, our most harmful is the atomic bomb. This device had one purpose-to destroy not only the people but the land itself. As John F. Kennedy once said, "Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind." We have gone through a cold war with communism, during which the people of america were so frightened of nuclear attack that they built "nuclear shelters" all over the place. During the cold war, no nuclear weapons were put to use. Compare this to terrorism. Both by terrorism and possessing a nuclear bomb, one could put fear into the hearts of people world wide. According to a report of the National Commission on Terrorism, defending the united states from terrorism ranks with defending ourselves from a hostile country. From this, you can come to another conclusion-possession of nuclear weapons can be considered terrorism. Since terrorism is immoral, so would possession of nuclear weapons. But terrorism and wars are done for a reason as well. The most commen cause is once again, instability. With stability in regions that are now unstable, any possion of nuclear weapons by any man, woman, or group, would be just be a drain on that person or groups economy. Nuclear weaons are mainly used to create an non stable enviroment, using a form of terrorism. But with stability, we can achieve peace for the currant and future times.
I now move on to my second contention

contention two:proton pseudos Proton pseudos is latin for "The first false step" Under this resolve, since there is no ethical, moral use for a nuclear weapon, proton pseudos can be best used to describe the original desision to allow a nuclear weapon to come into ones possession. Furthormore, since a nuclear weapon's only purpase is for death and the distruction of the land, a nuclear weapon would be and is considered imoral.

Furthurmore, according to John Locke "The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts." If one were to come into possession of a nuclear weapon, since a nuclear weapon's purpose is immoral, one's thoughts would be immoral. Therefore, since the only reason for having a nuclear weapon in one's possession would be for immoral purposes. But since one has a nuclear weapon for immoral purposes, the posession would be immoral as well, \ which brings me to my third contention.

contention three:History Repeats Itself
"In many respects, people don't learn from the past. They fight civil wars and always call the outside forces to help one side of another. The outside forces help them and take over the country. Happens over and over again. And they never seem to learn the lesson."
Isaac Asimov
I did not start my third contention with this quote to imply that the possession of nuclear weapons could cause civil wars. What Isaac Asimov meant by this is that mankind repeatedly throughout history and going into the future, will repeat the same basic patterns of thought. That if it happens once, it'll happen again with the same results, even if under different circumstances.
you can apply this to possession of nuclear weapons-once used, they will be used again. Holding nuclear weapons is in this case, the same as a revolutionary war. The historians and the people of that generation remember what happens, but then the next generation goes and creates the same mistake as their ancestors-they call in outsiders to fight a civil war. In this, I am saying that if we are holding nuclear weapons, we are bound to use them, forgetting what can happen.

To further amplify this, the Seattle Times once printed that "The bomb[refering to the nuclear weapons used on hiroshima and nagasagi] was used partly to justify the $2 billion spent on its development." You can link this to Asimov's idea of history repeating itself. Here is a brief example of what this reasoning leads up to;

First Man builds and holds nuclear weapons.
This leads to: Man uses nuclear weapons as not to let money go to waste.
As a result, Man cuts back on nuclear weapons.
A few years later, Man forgets or ignores history
Then we are back to stage one as Man builds/stores nuclear weapons

So now we have it-the possession of nuclear weapons must lead to the use. But since the use can only be immoral, and the possession a nuclear weapon is the same as terrorism, possession of nuclear weapons is IMMORAL.
I am now open for cross examination

Earth, a planet unique in the fact that intelligent beings have evolved upon it. And being one of those intelligent beings, although my grades may reflect otherwise, I can tell that evolution by itself did not leave us as we are in today's modern world.
We got to being the way we are, from the first civilizations to space travel, through progress, forming and learning morals, and society in itself. And through progress, we have designed nuclear weapons. Since Progress led to everything, from our morals to standard of living, I am inclined to give my value as Progress
defined by dic.com as "Steady improvement, as of a society or civilization"
But how do we get progress? through instability in key parts of our society. Therefore, i give my criterion of instability For further clarifications in this round, i give the following definition from dic.com:
morale:rules or habits of conduct

contention one:We "react" to new technologies We, as humans, have adapted wonderfully to new technology. When arrows were being used against knights in the dark ages, medevil nights switched to plate armor from chain mail. At one point, the church tried to ban crossbows, as they were " too powerful and dangerous " when king richard the lion hearted died of a crossbow quarrel during a seige. When cannon were introduced, fortified buildings, such as castles, had to cange from squared corners to round ones, so the cannonballs couldn't knock off odd edges. Even when we switched from wooden ships to ironclads during the american civil war, we were "reacting" to a new technology-an ironclad ship could tear apart wooden ones apart without a scratch.
We could best learn by trying to build on nuclear weapons, as we are doing now. It could help create new inventions, which could greatly improve the quality of human life. As Frederick Douglas once said, "Without a struggle, there can be no progress"
If people were working for progress, it would be moral for the posession of nulear weapons, because they create the neccessary instability required for progress.

contention two:people work better in unstable enviroments
"Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first nessesity of progress. Show me a thorougly satisfied man and I'll show you a failure"
Thomas Edison
I strongly beieve in this quote by Thomas Edison. He, being one of the greatest inventors of his time, had realizaed that you need trouble to be able to work. If there is peace and everyone is happy, what need is there for new inventions? With a threat on the horizen, people build important things, so we as humans need that threat. In the present time, we need Nuclear weapons to create this enviroment. Nuclear weapons create a stabilizing effect in some areas, yet since every action has an equal and opposite re-action, they also create the needed areas of stablitlty. As long as a nuclear weapon stays possessed, it can not be used, and as long as a nuclear weapon is not used, it is not immoral. But nuclear weapons not only create an unstable enviroment, but now they are part of a larger cycle. The cycle, roughly put, is that instability after the dark ages led to progress in science during the renassaince. The science led to nuclear technology in the 30's. Then, the nuclear weapons lead us to stability in some regions yet the needed instability in others. This instability leads back to progress. Since progress is needed for even the human concept of morality to have become, nuclear weapons, as a key part to modern advancement must be considered moral. This is further strengthaned, by William Durant, a historian and college proffeser in the mid 1900's. He believed that "moral codes adjust themselves to enviromental conditions." Therefore, the morals of humanity have and will continue to adjust to currant curcimstances, and as this proves, the possession of nuclear weapons is definatly and un-questionably moral.

contention three:Nuclear weapons are one of our greatest technologies
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment"
Buddah
When buddah said this he meant that one can not say that what mistakes you have made will happen again-you will be less prone to re-make them if you just let go and think of the present.
You must also not dream of the future and say what might go wrong-we cannot affect the un known variable untill it shows itself. We can have no clue what will happen in the future, except by what we do today in this present age.
What we must instead concentrate on, is our lives. What can we learn from nuclear weapons? Nuclear power began with the discovery of nuclear weapons. Instead of denounceing nuclear weapons as immoral, why not expand on it? There is a whole field of science unexplored. Who knows what could happen? One day we might kleave this planet and expand to others on nuclear powered rockets-using the same explosion as in a nuclear weapon except more refined.
But the future is the future, and we should not waste our time on it.
As budah said, we should work on expanding our knowledge, which is in our case on this great technology. From that, you can deduct that posession of nuclear weapons is moral, because society need not worry of the future, and with a little instability provided by the question of the secrets locked inside of a nuclear weapon, we would gain more technology as we progress towards new goals.