Brian Rubaie, the Director of Debate Central, spends time each week answering your questions about debate in our forums. Here we have combined all of his answers into a comprehensive, accessible format.
Brian debated for four years at Shawnee Mission East High School. He finished his high school career as the Kansas State Champion in Policy Debate, Foreign Extemp, and Student Congress. He was the NFL’s all-time points leader from 2006-2008. He debated for four years at UT Dallas and was named Debater of the Year for the 2009-2010 season. He qualified for the National Debate Tournament (NDT) for four consecutive years. During his senior year he reached quarterfinals at the NDT and CEDA and advanced to elimination rounds at Harvard, Kentucky, USC, and Texas. He has worked as an assistant coach for Glenbrook North High School, Coppell High School and UT Dallas.
Click the links to skip to the appropriate section.
General Debate
Poverty/Social Services
Military Deployment
Q: What is the universal counterplan?
Q: What do the terms “err neg” and “err aff” mean?
Q: How can I become a faster speaker?
Q: What is the best laptop to purchase for debate?
Q: Where can I find politics evidence?
Q: How do I prepare for an aff you have never heard?
Q: How should I conduct debate research?
Q: What is a critique on politics?
Q: What advice do you have for someone competing at UIL State?
Q: How can I beat a politics DA?
Q: When looking at funding planks, what should I consider?
Re: Funding specification arguments
Q:What is effects topicality (FX-T)?
Q: Will it help me build a strong disadvantage link if I concede solvency?
Q: How should I respond to a counter plan in the 2AC?
Re: permutations
Re: Plan Inclusive Counterplans
Re: Counterplan status
Q: Where can I find NFL results?
Q: What does a properly cut card look like?
Q: How should I approach Topicality?
Q: What is the purpose of Agency Specification arguments (A-Spec)?
Q: Are RVI’s a good strategic decision?
Q: What are appropriate ways to edit cards?
Q: What is the Chaloupka Kritik?
Q: What are the differences between high school and college debate?
Q: Are socialism counter plans effective?
Q: What is purpose of the “resolved” in the resolution?
Re: Is the affirmative responsible for affirming the entire resolution
Q: How can I answer a capitalism kritik?
Q: What kind of arguments exist for kritiking topicality?
Q: As the affirmative, how do I answer a kritik?
Q: What are some tips for winning more affirmative debates?
Q: What has made you so successful?
Q: Do you have any tips for spreading?
Q: What laptop do you suggest for debate?
Q: What should a negative team say to an aff the modifies the federal poverty line?
Q: Would I be kicked out of a tournament if I argued for legalizing marijuana?
Q: What disadvantages should you run on the poverty topic?
Q: What are major genetic disadvantages on the poverty topic?
Q: What will some big arguments be this year?
Q: What affirmative cases will we see on the military deployment topic?
Q: Are civil military relations dead?
Q: We need advantages to removing all troops from South Korea to North Korea for the purpose of taking out key military points, resulting in a regime change and safer world. Can you help?
Q: Do you have any initial thoughts on the military topic?
Q: I’m working on a case related to cyber warfare but I’m not sure how I’ll make it topical…any suggestions?
Answers
Q: What is the universal counterplan?
I’m not sure if this is very elaborate, but here’s my understanding of the Universal CP —
The CP claims to be a plan-inclusive counterplan (if anyone is unfamiliar, a plan-inclusive counterplan is an argument where the negative says that part, but not all, of the affirmative plan is a good idea.) This CP says the plan’s attempt to limit the services provided to *only* those who live in poverty uses a process called ‘Means Testing.’ Means testing involves a process of interviewing and selecting applicants that forces them to disclose sensitive details to government officials. Some argue this process is dehumanizing and discourages applicants from receiving the service. Or, conversely, if it suits a particular purpose, the poor are targeted for the provision of certain services, which coerces them into doing things they wouldn’t have otherwise.
The net-benefit (reason to prefer the neg’s CP to the Aff’s original plan) is that removing the means testing process and offering the service to everyone avoids the process of selection while literally giving the exact same services to the exact same group as the plan.
There are a few areas of Affirmative questioning that are strong —
1. Does the counterplan prove the plan is a bad idea? Not necessarily. It gives all the same services. The ‘means testing’ provision is simply something the Aff affords the negative to limit the size of the topic, not to encourage CPs that do the entire plan.
2. Means testing makes sense. The rich don’t need food stamps or housing assistance. One argument they’ll make in reply to this is that ‘this just proves there’s no reason to put a barrier on it since they’d never apply.’ This seems to support the argument made by the permutation.
3. Stare decisis/legal predictability good. This is especially useful if your Aff uses the Supreme Court. If the government radically broke away from existing precedent it would make the law unpredictable, and therefore ineffective. It is probably a bad idea to turn EVERY social service into an entitlement program. The entitlement programs (Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) all face long term funding issues.
4. ‘Net widening’ – this is useful if they read something like coercion along with their CP. Net-widening is a principle I run into sometimes in my criminology classes. A brief description of it in that context;
Within critical criminology this term is used to describe the effects of providing alternatives to incarceration or diversion programs to direct offenders away from court. While all of these programs developed since the late 1960’s were intended to reduce the numbers of offenders in prison or reduce the numbers going to court, it has been found that what has happened instead is that the total numbers of offenders under the control of the state have increased while the population targeted for reduction has not been reduced. In short, the net of social control has been thrown more widely (or some might say the mesh has been made smaller).
5. Spending and enforcement concerns – along with those two arguments above, there are good reasons for relatively small government. Most politicians support modest, means-tested programs and not broad, blank-check entitlement programs.
Q: What do the terms “err neg” and “err aff” mean?
A really excellent question and BritainKennedy’s answer is right on.
To err one way or another suggests a special appreciation for concerns of one side of an argument because of a structural issue. For example, to ‘err on the side of caution’ would suggest that it is wiser to stay safe than seek adventure. The argument that a judge should ‘err Neg’ works similarly. When the Aff argues that the Neg has done something abusive, the Neg asks the judge to ‘err Neg’ in evaluating whether and how to punish them.
Why would a judge err Neg? A few popular reasons include;
1. The Aff gets to speak first and last. The 2AR gets to hear every other speech in the debate and prepare their arguments accordingly. The negative always has to react while the Aff always gets to anticipate their opponent’s response.
2. The Aff chooses the terms of the debate. This gives the Aff the ability to choose the central issues in the debate.
3. The Aff has more preparation time. The Neg has much less time to prepare to answer an Aff than the Aff has to prepare their own set of arguments.
How might the Aff answer these things?
Answer To: # 1- “Speaks first and last” – Speaking first and last puts the Aff at a disadvantage because it affords the Neg a 13-minute block that has to be covered in 5 minutes by the 1AR. Yes, the 2AR speaks last, but the 2NR gets to choose which arguments to extend based on how well they were covered in the 1AR.
AT: # 2 – “Aff chooses the terms of the debate” – The Neg chooses the terms on which the Aff is contested. While the Aff gets a single deviation from the status quo, the Neg gets to choose which issues to extend in the 2NR to account for the most desirable terms of debate for the Neg while the Aff gets no such choice.
AT: #3 – “Aff has more prep time” – No debater has infinite prep time because all humans eventually rest. The Aff has to allocate in-round prep for two rebuttals while the Negative only needs to allocate prep to the 2NR since the 1NR gets 11 free minutes (8 min 2NC and 3 min CX) to prepare their speech.
Q: How can I become a faster speaker?
Speaking well is the product of a lot of different forces. Speaking quickly is often emphasized exclusively at debate institutes and in debate practice sessions. While I think this is a part of speaking well, there are a lot of important variables in communicating clearly.
Your goal should be to maximize arguments per minute, not just words per minute. Clearly preparing, organizing and highlighting files often saves more time than speed drills ever could. However, speaking is a very important element in debating quickly. I always advise people in this rough order;
1. Choose a good place to speak from. Build a podium in a place that is close enough for your judge to see and hear you. Make sure you build or stand from a podium where the evidence is within a foot or so of your natural line of vision.
2. Start in a good posture. Straighten your back a little bit — enough to make sure you don’t have to slouch over your evidence or put it in front of your face.
This is what I think some of the drills Brittain likes emphasize.
3. As you start your speech, start slowly. It takes a little bit for a judge to adjust to hearing your voice and emphasizing things clearly at the top of your speech can give you great momentum for the rest of your speech.
4. As you gradually speed up, usually about 15-20 seconds into your speech, keep the following 3 things in mind;
a. Develop a breathing pace first. This involves knowing how long you can speak at a particular pace before you need to take a breath. Train yourself to clearly express the author and date in the citation of a piece of evidence and then take a short breath before reading the evidence. In line with that…
b. Place emphasis on the right parts of evidence. Read the tags, authors and dates of your evidence loud and clear. Circle or place special emphasis on the portions of a piece of evidence and express those with extra sound and diction.
c. Project! You should be projecting your voice, not gasping for air to keep it alive. This is the secret to speaking quickly during the last half of your speech.
5. Read each word of the card individually instead of racing through sentences. This keeps your brain on pace with your mouth and prevents your eyes from getting too far ahead.
I think going fast has more to do with things you train your brain to do than things you train your mouth to do but both sets of drills are important. Much like flowing, speaking is a craft that’s developed through practice and the development of an individual style and method.
Hope those tips help!
Q: What is the best laptop to purchase for debate?
I’ve been a really big fan of Lenovo Thinkpads. They’re about the same price as HP, Dell, etc. but have a few more features and tend to be more durable. It travels well, gets wireless signal when most computers don’t get it and (so far) has been mistake free.
I can vouch pretty well for the model on the left; http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087¤t-category-id=ED2B473A3EB14B7AB79E1378C264593A. It is also less expensive than listed — it is actually $414 without any added features.
Q: Where can I find politics evidence?
One thing I’d suggest for politics stuff is getting into google reader, especially Politico (www.politico.com/), TheHill.Com, the Atlantic (www.theatlantic.com/), the New Republic (www.tnr.com/) and any other major Washington news sites. These tend to have slightly more detailed news on the political process effecting major issues like Health Care, Climate, etc
Hey everyone!
I think it’s really cool people found this stuff interesting.
There’s a lot of cites like this at the Wake Forest wiki at http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/.
Most of the stuff our team has read this year is up at: http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/Texas-Dallas.
There’s also cites for some neg responses to the arguments we made (things like hegemony sustainable, hegemony good, etc) from the debates we had against a few teams. Those links are: http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/Northwestern+FS+Matt+Fisher+%26+Stephanie+Spies+Neg#toc8
http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/Whitman+CS+Nate+Cohn+%26+Daniel+Straus-+NEG#toc10
http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/Harvard+JP+(Jacobs+%26+Parkinson)+-+Open+-+NEG#toc2
That base site (opencaselist.wikispaces.com) has a bunch of good cites. A couple other features:
— Stuff from old topics (energy, China, courts, Middle East, agriculture subsidies) at http://archivedcaselist.wikispaces.com/College+Caselists
— If you really pour over this stuff, and it’s a good idea to, you can avoid duplicating prior research by just checking for recent changes at http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/space/changes
— There is a high school version of this that may be more useful to many of you. It is operated by the National Debate Coaches Association at http://www.debatecoaches.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
A lot of what’s been said above about ‘critical’ affirmatives have been popular understandings. Critical affirmatives are sometimes grounded in a particular philosophical approach, such as affirmatives with anti-capitalist motives. They also sometimes criticize assumptions made in the rhetorical framing and goals of modern policy-making.
There isn’t a clear definition of what a ‘critical aff’ is because its constantly being re-written. A few arguments, though, are common themes –
*Affs built to critique ‘framework.’ Examples of this would include arguments about why individual/activists demands towards the government are good and role-playing as state actors is bad. Common ‘framework’ arguments are built around the interpretation that defending government action is a topical burden upon the AFF. These center around a ‘limits’ standard, arguing that there are infinite demands we could make to the government. Responses made by a ‘critical affirmative’ would center around common critiques of government action–biopower, role-playing bad, normative law-making bad, etc.
*Affs built upon a particular framework that affirms the resolution very narrowly. These would include Affs that did things like read narratives about poverty. One popular affirmative this year will focus on the government’s response to Katrina. An affirmative might choose to focus on eyewitness accounts as evidence. The persuasive element of this Aff lies in the things that most people haven’t heard or read about with Katrina.
*Affs grounded in one particular philosophy. The benefit to these affirmatives is that they argue that their particular philosophical approach should foreground a particular approach to debate. These Affs often argue “you can read your DAs, we just get the right to say utilitarianism is bad.” What they mean by this is that they will defend that the plan is passed and implemented but they will argue in turn that things like ontology (the study of what it means to exist) are more important than hypothetical extinction scenarios.
My freshman year in college was one of the strongest years for critical affs I’ve ever seen. Some new, innovative examples would include things like —
From the Courts topic, arguing that: The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions: Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Ex parte Quirin, U.S. v. Morrison, and/or Milliken v. Bradley –
OU’s aff – http://opencaselist08.wikispaces.com/Oklahoma+Aff#toc55?
Idaha State’s aff – http://opencaselist08.wikispaces.com/Idaho+State+Aff#toc0
UMKC’s aff- http://opencaselist08.wikispaces.com/UMKC+Aff#toc1
Q: How do you prepare for an aff you have never heard?
This is an elective I gave at the UNT workshops that I wanted to pass along to y’all —
How to Prepare for an AFF you’re unprepared for – don’t be surprised – find your opponents’ old stuff at debatecoaces.org/wiki and find your judges @ http://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/
I. Before the Tournament –
1. Generics – you should be able to defeat any AFF on the topic by being prepared to say one of four things (a-d);
a. DAs – Politics is your money game. Having a new politics DA they don’t have answers to reclaims the debate in your favor. If the 1NC doesn’t have a bunch of answers to the case, they can rebuild in the 2NC. If the 2AC doesn’t have a bunch of answers to politics, they’re screwed.
Economy is another great fall-back. The trick here is developing something intelligent that their answers won’t consider. Things like tricky/fast links and internals (inflation, sacred cow, PAYGO, etc.) are really important.
Crazy case turns. To put it simply, no one prepares for the core of the topic anymore. To know whether you’re doing this correctly, ask yourself this question – could you have gone for Warming is Good every debate last year? This involves two components – CRAZY IMPACT TURNS – economic collapse good, nuclear war good, hegemony is good/bad, environmental collapse good, poverty good. RESOLUTIONAL TURNS – Being able to have 5-6 generic reasons why social services in general are bad is crucial. Right-wing things like dependency or left-wing things like the ‘biopower turn’ are crucial.
b. CPs – There are three types of these I want to talk about – btw, states = bad idea –
1. Cheater Word PICs – the ‘The’ PIC, the ‘Its’ PIC, ‘persons’, ‘poverty’, ‘erasure’,
2. CPs with an internal net-benefit – consult CPs (Congress) condition CPs (condition on eligibility reform – competes because its net less than the plan), offsets CPs (possibly with both econ and politics NBs. Video of this being deployed in the NDT finals — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoHPiHiWagg (or search ‘ermocito’ on youtube and it is the first thing that pops up)
3. Advantage CPs – you need to figure out what the 10 biggest advantages on the topic are and have a CP. If they read a tricky poverty net benefit and you don’t have a CP like ‘job creation’ then you suck and deserve to lose.
c. The K – You don’t have to be a K person to appreciate the strategic utility of a K. Putting it in the 1NC is at least a good time tradeoff.
Cap K – most slayer K on the topic. See Jim’s video on PlanetDebate under ‘lectures.’ http://www.planetdebate.com/media/view/98 Why the cap K? It links to everything obvi, and its intrinsic to the plan. It TURNS THE CASE.
Nuke War Ks – Have a non-nuke war way everyone dies (i.e. a politics DA with an environment impact.) This shields you a bit from ‘extinction outweighs’ and provides an external net-benefit.
d. Topicality – know the topic and be prepared with core violations. Substantial, social service, persons in poverty.
e. Case – it’s a new AFF for a reason – few teams write their best AFF and wait to break it. The cards are probably pretty bad.
–Prelude to topics II and III-You are in complete control — being calm is crucial to avoiding the impression that you’re intimidated or unprepared.
II. It’s a new AFF!
Part A – Before the Round –
1. Who cares that it’s new? You’ve got generics, you have the block and conditionality is probably ok if they break a new AFF.
2. Ask them – “Is it new for you as a team or new for your whole squad? Have you read any of the cards in the new AFF been read in old AFFs?”
3. Prepare your 1NC under the assumption you’re screwed and can read only generics. Grab the desks in the room and put two args on each to make assembling the 1NC faster/easier.
Part B – During the Round –
1. Read the cards as they’re being flipped. These cards are probably terrible.
2. The rules change – use prep before the CX of the 1AC to talk things over with your partner and make a decision about what to run.
3. Set up options – your goal is to do both of the following – to have at least 3 options and keep the aff off guard. How good is it to have a new AFF if you’re spread out?
III. It’s an aff you’ve never heard but you have time to prepare.
Things to ask yourself and investigate –
1. Do you have answers to their impact areas? If not, you’re probably going for T, the CP with internal net benefit or the K.
2. Do any your impacts turn the case?
3. Who else debated this team earlier in the tournament? Who judged them? What were their tricks and hints?
Q: How should I conduct debate research?
Hey everyone! At the UNT workshops I gave an elective on effective research and wanted to pass it along to the website —
Part A – The Tools
You’ll need the following –
a) A good template – the best one is the Whitman one – available @ untlab@gmail.com
b) A good browser – the bookmarking system in Internet Explore really sucks – Google Chrome, Firefox, etc. – tabbed browsers are key – the transition is really easy
c) A system for central collection of files – a squad gmail is a good start – this not only gives you a central place to collect files, it also gives you a discussion board
d) A target – the wiki is key – to find info on a local competitor try debatecoaches.org/wiki. If you can’t find a card there try using opencaselist.wikispaces.com
Part B – Gathering Info
This is the longest part of the lecture – this is a collection of places you can go –
1) Google
a) Searching Google’s net browser – a few things –
1) “Quotes” – use these for phrases of art – i.e. if you search ‘political’ and ‘capital’ you’ll get 1000s of links and very few, if any, useful ones. Put things like “social services”, “political capital,” “economic growth,” etc. in quotes
2) AND vs OR – start with a huge search and narrow it down – AND will only return searches that have both of those together, OR will send any combination of connectors but send you the largest one – OR returns more hits, AND returns better hits
3) Filetype – typing +filetype: ensures you only get results of a certain genre – most peer-reviewed content on the web is in PDF but won’t turn up that quickly because it isn’t commonly used
4) Being too specific is a detriment – for example, one of my students was searching for evidence about self determination and health services – instead of searching for both of those, search for “native americans” or Indians and health and services
b) Google Reader – I <3 Google Reader – this is an auto-collection of several articles – this allows you to assemble everything from Newsweek, the Economist, etc. and search it for stuff on poverty
c) Google News – great for politics cards – be careful tho of blogs.
d) Google scholar and google book – hard to use for direct card cutting but great for cites. USE THE FOOTNOTES
2) Lexis. Lexis is real awesome. Two big types of searches are the law reviews and the news. Tips for researching on Lexis –
a) w/# – it’ll turn up all results of x within results of y – i.e. obama w/5(political capital)
b) w/p – same thing but within paragraph, or w/s
c) atleast# – ensures something is mentioned a certain number of times – so if you’re doing an authoritative search for new articles on capital, searching atleast10(political capital) would help. If that turns up too many results you can do atleast10(political capital) and atleast3(obama)
d) If you have an article title, just type it in in quotes and it’ll usually come up
e) On the ‘news’ feature look for Congressional testimony. On the ‘law search’ feature look for good articles and follow the trail of footnotes.
f) Use the download feature – do this by clicking the small check box next to the number and then clicking the box that looks like the ‘save’ box in Microsoft Word – this will save all those documents into one thing that you can access anywhere, anytime
3) Other useful search engines – for K stuff, Project Muse. For policy stuff, JSTOR. Problem with JSTOR is that its all PDF so if you don’t have OCR you gotta print and tape.
4) Good think Tanks –
a) For economic stuff the CATO Institute is a good Libertarian one, while the AEI is a good one for conservative or right-leaning stuff.
b) For social policy stuff – Brookings and the Heritage Foundation
5) Good research assemblies that aren’t think tanks –
a) The Foreigns – Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy – might not be that useful for AFF research but super useful for research on other countries for any other assignment
b) RealClearPolitics.com
c) Debate-central.org ‘ask an expert’ section
6) Book reviews are pretty cool – if your opponent reads one particular K from two dudes that aren’t that popular in the lit look for book reviews – these typically include things that dispute the author’s core conclusions, like ‘the alt doesn’t solve’ or ‘perm’ cards
7) Increase your brain power – read about debate – good discussions frequently on ndtceda.com/archives or http://www.the3nr.com/
8) Don’t cheat – you’ll get caught and it will suck – cheating takes both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forms – strong form is faking an article or emailing an author without publically disclosing the dialogue. Weak form is to cut blogs that pass as credible evidence or e-mail an author with a bunch of leading questions and/or failure to inform that person that their thoughts may be published.
Part C – Intelligent Assembly/Tips and Tricks
1) Know what type of researcher you are – will you really come back and do it later? If you won’t, cut it as you find it. If not, I think assembling it all into a word document saves a whole bunch of time. You only have to click ‘paste special’ once – one thing to remember is that you have to collect the cites, too
2) Start with one word document and then make several – if you find random good cards, don’t toss them out or open up a million new word docs – make a random section of the file and print it with the rest of the stuff and then just file it separately
3) Let the cards come to you – make the arg the ev makes, not the one you want the ev to make. DON’T TOSS GOOD CARDS JUST B/C YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING ELSE. Don’t be a slave to jargon or give up on searches if there’s nothing that says something specific. Example is OCS Drilling
4) If you got it, flaunt it – make sure you explain to judges that debate isn’t just a communication activity, it’s a research one and they need to reward good research. You can even make this a theory arg, like – ‘even if their arg is logically intuitive, we have peer-reviewed ev that reaches the opposite conclusion – you should reward this research to promote hard-work, education, etc.’
5) If you’ve both got it, make distinctions – qualifications, recency, credibility of the journal at hand, etc.
6) If the [Censored Word] is dense, read it first and cut it second. Same is true of highlighting if it’s a long card – don’t highlight as you go, read it first and then highlight
7) Anticipate your opponent’s argument and cut the answers
8) You aren’t done when you finish the frontline. Leave yourself options. Cut about 4-5 times as much as you can read and leave yourself choices.
9) Find your best neg strat from the AFF authors or vice versa.
10) Never give up. NO ONE is good at research when they start. The nature of being young is that you’ll spend less time and turn in less than someone who has done it a while. However, some HS kids are as good or better researchers than some college debaters bc they work harder and practice more.
***
Debate is like any other activity in life. Those who work hard get better and excel and those who slum around and rely on the hard-work of others have a limited ceiling. Don’t sell yourself short. Work hard, keep your head up and keep an open-mind and you’ll be on the path to success.
Q: What is a critique on politics?
I definitely agree with the idea of reading Menand against Politics DA. The type of decision making he criticizes is definitely applicable to Politics. A few other cites that might be helpful in the same vein of critiquing scenario construction would be;
**this is the person Menand cites for his original source material;
Tetlock 5 – psychology professor @ Berkeley [Philip E.; Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Chair II in Leadership and Communication at Haas School of Business, University of California-Berkeley; Expert Political Judgment: How Good is It? How Can We Know?. Princeton: Princeton University Press]
Benthall 6 – Open Planning Project [Sebastian, “Kudos for the Mindless Expert,” Critical Review, 19(1):65-79, 2007.]
Taleb 7 – Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainties @ UMass-Amherst [Nassim Nicholas, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, New York: Random House, 2007. pg 76-77]
Kanwisher 89 [Nancy, Prof at U Cal, Berkeley, “Cognitive Heuristics and American Security Policy,” Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 33 No. 4, 1989]
If you’re pressed for time the best of that group is Tetlock. His writing is really fantastic and doubles well as a good general answer to DAs.
Q: How can I beat a politics DA?
I feel your frustration. There are few things more obnoxious than losing to a bad politics DA. A few general things that might help —
1) Intrinsicness arguments. The basic argument is that the DA isn’t intrinsic to the AFF because the political process isn’t an inherent cost to the AFF. A rational policy maker could choose to affirm both alternative energy incentives and (insert agenda item here). There is no intrinsic DA to the perm to do both. The negative’s best argument is that generic DAs are good and process education is important. The AFF’s best argument is that there’s still plenty of good neg ground but non-intrinsic DAs are inherently uneducational, infinitely regressive, etc.
2) General link turns. If the DA is Obama good, just read ‘winners win, the plan is a win that builds momentum for other items.’ A helpful article in this regard is;
Ornstein, 2k1
[Norm, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, “How Is Bush Governing?,” AEI Event, May 15, <onilne> http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.281/transcript.asp]
3) General impact defense. If you can round up a big impact D file it will help you a lot in politics debates. Even if you lose the link turn debate, a large enough solvency deficit should outweigh a questionably unique DA with an unlikely impact. This doesn’t even have to be evidentiated, though that would certainly help. Just write out common responses, like ‘double bind – either Bush did unsolvable damage to protection of democracy or Obama will be able to solve independently through a series of policy actions.’
4) Add-Ons. If worst comes to worst there should be an add-on advantage to federal action. I don’t know what your AFF is but these are fun to come up with and I’d be glad to help if I can be of assistance.
Q: What advice do you have for someone competing at UIL State?
UIL is kind of a mixed bag. Some judges will flow, others will just watch (or sleep) and just sign their ballot at the end. Just remember that the only person who decides whether you win or lose is the judge. Whatever you can do to adapt to the situation at hand will determine your success in the debate,. Stay confident and take it one round at a time and I’m sure you’ll have a great time.
Q: When looking at funding planks, what should I consider?
Here are three things to possibly consider;
(1) Speed. One of the greatest challenges to guaranteeing federal funds is bureaucracy. Creating a new regulatory regime for drugs would, even by the best projections, take a good deal of time to actualize.
(2) Specificity. One of the best ways to defend funding planks is to reveal that they are grounded in the literature of currently available funding sources. While your ideas are very bright, they’re still necessarily speculative in nature and far enough away from the typical policy literature than it would likely make research and education on the question difficult.
Re: Funding specification arguments
One more thing to keep in mind with funding specification arguments is the reason WHY the ground is key. Most teams I judge seem to be stuck on the “it’s key to economy ground” line. Explaining WHY economy ground is an important ground is equally important.
Teams arguably need to be able to ensure core negative generic ground through economy arguments. They’re the one constant factor under “assistance.” In that way, it’s as much or more a “it’s key to this topic” matter rather than a “we need all the DAs we can get” matter.
Q:What is effects topicality (FX-T)?
Effects Topicality is a negative topicality argument that argues the plan text doesn’t directly address the resolution. For example, if a team ran an affirmative plan text that said “the US should disarm all nuclear weapons” and an advantage that said “US nuclear weapons increase the likelihood of nuclear war, and nuclear war would kill African public health,” a negative team would argue that they only discuss public health in the context of the effects of the plan.
The most important standard to effects topicality is that it focuses debate to a limited, predictable number of ways to offer public health. It helps prevent an interpretation that would allow any affirmative that somehow indirectly relates to public health to be considered topical.
Q: Will it help me build a strong disadvantage link if I concede solvency?
It’s bold to concede solvency but it really does help to secure a DA link. One place to think about doing this is with sphere-of-influence DAs (the US crowds out China, the US crowds out Russia, etc.). The good thing about that uniqueness story is that you get to spin some of the uniqueness debate and answer in cross-x with arguments like “well, of course China isn’t worried about US influence in the status quo, your 1AC says the US hasn’t been able secure a current oil contract, which your 1AC oil advantage directly changes. You turn the US into an effective oil power in Africa which would certainly set off alarms in Beijing.”
Q: How should I respond to a counter plan in the 2AC?
This is a mental checklist you might want to perform before every 2AC:
1) Does someone really think this proposal is a good idea? You should look at the 1NC’s solvency evidence for their CP and determine whether their evidence actually suggests their specific CP action. Sometimes evidence just suggests things like “Russia is good at development in general,” not specifically in Africa.
This is important because, arguably, when a negative team reads a CP presumption flips affirmative. Because an affirmative attempts to change the status quo, before the 1NC the negative is considered to have presumption since the affirmative advocates change. When the CP advocates parts of the affirmative, the plan text becomes like the status quo was before; a policy that a team changed part of. If presumption flips negative and they don’t a solvency advocate, arguably they’d lose rather quickly.
2) Why is this incompatible with the 1AC? A lot of CPs today have slid under the radar because they compete only in the barest possible way. To continue the example of the Russia CP, the first question to ask yourself “why can’t the US and Russia both give development assistance?” The most basic negative response is “using Russia as the agent avoids all the DA links to affirmative action.”
This is an important argument to interrogate. If the 1AC and 1NC could be done simultaneously, they arguably should be. Two theory-based arguments are important to consider;
1) If the negative wins that the judge has the hypothetical authority to enact policies from any range of institutions, you grant them an exorbitant role that isn’t grounded in any sort of realistic authority. Because there’s no authority on Earth that has the authority to pull the strings of every government, no realistic policy-maker could say “we’d prefer to just let Russia handle it.” Actors can’t predict each other’s moves which is why they have to recognize unique failures, work on the ground, and take action. It is important to also argue why a realistic mode of policy evaluation makes debates themselves better. More realistic policy assessments benefit the quality of the literature that is discussed, limit it towards a more finite set of questions, and more clearly set a brightline for ground for both sides.
2) In their model there is no way to fairly assess opportunity cost. Nothing in the 1AC precludes the possibility of Russia taking action. In this way, there’s no opportunity cost associated with the plan in relation to the CP. Of course, when weighed against the status quo and the negative’s DAs, there’s a large cost to the affirmative’s opportunity. However, that is weighed versus a more fair model (the status quo) than the one described in the paragraph above. The question to ask is whether the negative gets to add a new opportunity to address the plan’s cost. There always has to be a cost associated with policy; giving the judge authority to hypothetically outsource every African health problem can often ignore that.
Re: permutations
These arguments are almost always effective:
— The permutation still incurs the same disadvantage as the plan. For example, if the CP is EU and the net benefit is a Politics DA, the perm would still have the US act and thus still link to the politics DA.
— There’s no solvency advocate for the permutation. There’s a solvency advocate for the 1AC and a solvency advocate for the CP but none for the permutation.
There are also a variety of theoretical objections to a permutation —
— Severance: If the permutation does not contain a portion of the original 1AC plan text, it is considered to have ‘severed’ that part of the plan text. Many negatives claim this makes the affirmative a conditional, moving target that makers it impossible to establish clash and consistency.
–Intrinsicness: If the permutation contains something that is NOT in the 1AC plan text or CP text it is intrinsic. For example, if the CP was ‘Consult NATO on the plan’ and the perm was ‘Consult NATO on space weapons’ then the perm is intrinsicness because neither the plan text or the CP text deal with space weapons.
–Timeframe: If the permutation does the CP first and the plan second, it’s argued to be a timeframe permutation. Many negative teams argue that the plan’s implementation should be immediate since it’s almost impossible to generate offense to a hypothetical future scenario.
I hope that helps! One last tip is to always make sure that the AFF has written a text to their permutation. The 2AC answer “perm: do both” is incredibly vague on the question of who does what, when they do it, how it’s done, etc.
Re: Plan Inclusive Counterplans
Everyone’s opinion on this is a little bit different. However, if you have a completely lay judge (never seen a debate before) or a more contemporary judge, PICs are some of the best arguments in debate. If you can go to another team’s solvency article and find something else that solves the case without the incentives, using a different type of technology, etc. then its very difficult to generate offense.
A few reasons PICs might be good —
1) They increase education about the plan by testing each part of it to see whether the same benefits can be achieved through a different option.
2) They’re crucial negative ground – they establish ways of solving the most specific DAs to the plan.
3) They’re real world policy-making – they’re just like amending a bill in Congress.
A few reasons PICs might be bad —
1) They’re topical counterplans and don’t disprove the resolution. A judge could still affirm the resolution and vote affirmative even if the counterplan is correct.
2) They moot the 1AC – they don’t contend with 99% of what is said in the 1AC, only a minor, contrived difference.
3) They encourage vague plan-writing – instead of inspiring teams to be careful when writing plan texts, PICs might encourage teams to use vague, evasive language to make sure the plan was difficult to PIC out of.
The arguments above are only really a very brief and incomplete starter, please let me know if you have any more questions I can help answer.
Re: Counterplan status
There is no hard and fast rule about what you can and can’t run with a counterplan. It all depends upon the “status” of your counterplan. The term “status” refers to the set of conditions under which you will continue to advocate the counterplan throughout the debate.
If you the run the counterplan “conditionally” you are arguing you should be able to cease advocating the counterplan at any time.
If you are reading the counterplan “dispositionally” you are often arguing that you have the right to kick the counterplan if the affirmative proves it is either theoretically illegitimate or reads a permutation that shows the counterplan isn’t competitive.
If you are reading the counterplan “unconditionally” you are arguing you will continue to advocate the counterplan regardless of the circumstance.
So, if you’re reading the counterplan conditionally, you can make any other argument, since you won’t be bound to going for the counterplan in the 2NR. If you read the counterplan unconditionally, however, you have to account for how other arguments effect your counterplan.
Q: Where can I find NFL results?
http://www.nflonline.org/points_application/reports.php
If it doesn’t work out, going to ‘Resources’ (it’s the 4th column from the left) and click ‘Membership Reports’ (furthest tab to the left).
I think the argument that “Ks are cheating” is possible to win. It is important to address the most important aspects of a debate; how would the negative’s alternative effect competitive equity, is it a predictable point of clash, a reasonable use of fiat, etc.
If anyone has any questions about the issues I raised above feel free to ask and I’ll explain more, I want to focus more on an important benefit to theory that some teams haven’t quite latched onto yet.
If you make a theory argument that another argument practice isn’t fair, the important thing to do is to move beyond “they cheated, they lose.” You’re asking a judge to do quite a bit to punish the other team. Why not just reject the argument? Because you sometimes have to cut your losses, it’s important to make “even if” statements.
For example, against a K alternative, you could say “even if you don’t reject the team, you should reject their alternative or allow us to make severance permutations to leverage our competitive equity arguments.”
In the second example (the “even if” statement) you’re asking a judge for much less. You’re asking for an equal playing food rather than a reactionary move against a specific argument practice. This is a much softer, easier sell and will often help put you ahead in debates.
Q: What does a properly cut card look like?
(tag) Budget offsetting is exclusive with the AFF’s method of earning funding – Congressional rules mandate a tradeoff
(cite) Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ‘07
[“INTRODUCTION TO THE FEDERAL BUDGET PROCESS.” 12-3-07. http://www.cbpp.org/3-7-03bud.htm acc 6-12-8]
(card)
Independent of the Congressional Budget Act, the House and Senate each have a rule requiring that all entitlement increases and tax cuts be fully offset. For example, a bill that increased Medicare spending would have to be paid for by cutting somewhere else in Medicare or another entitlement program, by raising revenues, or by a combination of the two. The rule does not apply to discretionary spending, which is limited by the allocations set in the annual budget resolution.
If legislation providing for new tax cuts or entitlement increases is not paid for, the “PAYGO” rule gives any Senator the power to raise a point of order against the bill, which can only be waived by the vote of 60 Senators. In the House, any Member can raise a point of order, and there is no opportunity to vote to waive the PAYGO requirement — the bill is automatically defeated, unless the leadership-appointed Rules Committee has decided in advance to waive PAYGO as part of the broader measure (referred to as a rule) setting the terms of debate on the bill as a whole and the House has agreed to that rule.
PAYGO is an additional requirement, separate and apart from the terms of the budget resolution. A bill that cuts taxes or increases entitlement spending without an offset would violate the PAYGO rule even if the budget resolution had assumed the enactment of tax cuts or entitlement increases and allocated the necessary amounts to the relevant committees. (The PAYGO rule does not directly apply to the budget resolution itself or amendments to it, however.)
In order to satisfy the House and Senate PAYGO rules, a bill must be paid for over the first six years (including the current year), and over the first 11 years (including the current year). The Senate PAYGO rule does not consider the impact of a bill on Social Security and other “off-budget” items, whereas the House PAYGO rule applies to the “unified budget,” which includes Social Security.
Q: How should I approach Topicality?
The important part of using the word ‘the’ is to indicate what ‘the’ modifies. In the current resolution, ‘the’ modifies the actor (USFG) and the object of the incentive (in the US).
One thing that might help is to approach topicality from a slightly direction. Instead of first asking ‘what is the most grammatically correct interpretation of the topic,’ try asking yourself ‘which interpretation of the topic most fairly balances negative and affirmative ground.’ Although grammar is very important, most judges are willing to overlook a slight grammatical inaccuracy if the plan serves as a good starting point for debate. If you can disprove that premise, that the plan is a good starting point for debate, you’ll be in a much more effective position to win your Topicality arguments.
Q: What is the purpose of Agency Specification arguments (A-Spec)?
A-Spec typically is run with a politics DA as part of a larger negative strategy. The most popular of these is to run A-Spec, a politics DA, and an executive order counterplan. Running A-Spec prevents the AFF from saying “but we ARE an executive order” and makes it harder for them to generate permutations. The XO is good because (arguably) it isn’t perceived by the public or some elements of political institutions.
Q: Are RVI’s a good strategic decision?
The inclination of most judges is against RVIs, but it’s really a very low risk maneuver. It takes 8-10 seconds in the 2AC to make and at least 20-30 seconds for the negative to answer. The time tradeoff is good and it is an important argument if they don’t answer it.
Q: What are appropriate ways to edit cards?
The practice of gender-modifying evidence (to make it gender neutral) is generally consider to be acceptable as long as a note is made at the bottom of the cite (i.e.–note, this evidence is gender-paraphrased).
Other practices, such as removing sentences from paragraphs or in any way deleting text from an original source, is almost universally considered unacceptable. Many judges, myself included, will vote against teams who have been proven to read evidence in this manner.
Q: What are good tricks to trap my opponent in cross-examination?
A few tricks I’ve seen this year that are pretty good —
(1) Finding a portion of their harms listed in their evidence that they don’t solve. For example, if someone is reading a DDT Aff and their evidence says ‘DDT and other crop sprayers kill millions and destroy the natural environment’ a good question would revolve around the other crop sprayers listed in the AFF’s OWN evidence that they don’t solve for.
(2) Similarly, yet not so much a trap, is finding damaging statements in the unhighlighted portions of their evidence. A sentence that always sparks a judge’s interest is ‘the un-underlined part of your evidence says…’
(3) Know the arguments in your 1NC and think of ways to interrogate the 1AC about them in advance. For example, some negative evidence says great things like ‘advocates often make the erroneous assumption that the infrastructure to deliver new pharmaceuticals is reliable.’ Ask the 1AC questions they aren’t prepared to answer about infrastructure and see if you can get them to make a few of the ‘erroneous assumptions’ outlined in their evidence. If they backtrack, it makes them look contradictory. If they don’t, it’s their word versus your professional author’s.
CX is the most underutilized part of debate, I’m glad to see so many people thinking through smart CX strategies! Keep up the good work, the focus on CX is the surest way to improve your presence and win percentage.
For a good example, the most effective cross-examiner I’ve ever heard was 2007 CEDA Champion Blake Johnson from Oklahoma. He cross-examines a very good Emory debater here at about 10:00: http://debatevideoupload.blogspot.com/2007/02/nw07rd2oklahomacjvemorybc2ncmp4.html
Q: What is the Chaloupka Kritik?
The most basic form of Chaloupka’s argument attempts to prove that nuclear war shouldn’t be feared. Instead, Chaloupka suggests we should ‘mock the bomb.’ A shell to Chaloupka might look something like —
A. Link – The affirmative continues the pervasive fear of nuclear weapons – this analysis ignores that nuclear war is now a virtual uncertainty. The threat of nuclear war only exists textually because poor scholarship perpetuates fear-driven motives
B. Impact – This attitude towards the bomb creates a form of worship towards the bomb – nuclear weapons are built, tested and designed to ensure an ongoing paranoia that makes nuclear violence possible
C. Alternative – Vote negative to mock the bomb and resist the threat of nuclear war
Q: In the Heidegger Kritik, what is the difference between old (techne) and new technology (poeises)?
Poiesis is when one thing fundamentally changes and becomes another thing. This term is often used to describe a literal event – i.e. snow melting, an egg hatching, a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, etc. The crucial distinction is that this involves crossing a certain threshold. This typically ties into alternatives like McWhorter’s, which encourage an ontology that remains fundamentally open and to let beings be. The important element of this standpoint is to remain open to the changing of other beings. This avoids the staticizing temptation of techne to know, map, and control being.
In thinking back to some good debates on this issue with teams like Oklahoma, the question ‘what is the ontology of a chair?’ was actually argued as an example. The point of their investigation was not to approach the question to be answered as ‘what is the chair?’, but instead ‘what are we in relation to the chair?’ The point is that you should never pre-figure the ontology of other beings. Attempting to form distinctions (something like ‘object like a chair v subject like a human’, or ‘the object of the environment,’ etc.) is negative because it prefigures those subjects into whatever role we assign them. According to some Heideggarians, this relationship to being is necessarily violent.
The important distinction here is not to target the alternative as the revealing of some unforseen truth. Rather, teams are usually more successful arguing that they present a method that would offer a truer relation to others and a more peaceful ontology.
I’ll be honest in saying I’m unsure of how to reconcile the difference between ‘old’ and ‘new’ technology. I do know that Heidegger usually highlights historical examples in his examination of technology. The key thing here might to take one concept and explain how that technology has been managed or controlled. For example, wind used to a natural force that humans harnessed to drag small ships. It has always been managed, but before it was managed in a way that had a limited production value, i.e. that it got you down or across a river. Modern wind farms might be designed to enhance consumerist energy use. The affirmative advantage would likely be that they sustain current energy use and prevent a major energy crisis. A Heideggerian alternative would likely say something like ‘wind power is okay, but the plan’s mode of technology and its relation to the environment is bad.’
-We will eventually build super weapons that wipe out the Earth. A limited nuclear war now is crucial to preventing this development.
-We are overpopulated. This crowding will eventually kill us all. A limited nuclear war resolves this problem.
Of course, both claims are wild and crazy, but teams have enjoyed success by catching people off guard. However, now that the argument is more well-known, it is usually difficult to surprise teams with this argument, making its only real value minimal.
Q: What are the differences between high school and college debate?
One of the first major differences is the way the topic is framed. For better or worse, college resolutions are typically very specific and list-driven. There was a list of specific cases the Supreme Court could overrule, a list of limited actors in the Middle East the AFF could engage and now a limited number of crops the AFF can reduce support for. This tends to produce fewer ‘squirrel’ AFFs.
College debate also involves a much smaller group of participants. 90% of rounds are judged by coaches or graduate students, while the remaining 10% are usually judged by college debate alums. As a result, you get to know your judging pretty well. This is especially true as things like mutual-preference judging have become almost standard practice.
While college speech times are only a minute or so longer, that translates into much longer days. Debate tournaments typically involve 8 rounds, each entailing about 30 minutes of prep time and 30 minutes afterwards for a judge to make a decision. The obvious downside is that this tends to make the weekends a bit longer. However, the extra time generally means better preparation, both in coaching afterwards and better judge comments after.
College debate is a bigger challenge but I’ve found all those things to be worth it. If you have any more specific questions about the nature of tournaments or certain squads, etc. feel free to post here or e-mail me anytime at brubaie at gmail dot com
Q: Are socialism counter plans effective?
A few theoretical problems —
1) There are multiple historical models for socialism — China, Russia, etc. — it’s unclear which the CP implements.
2) There’s no mechanism for the CP – no actor within the government has the power to re-write the constitution to change the fundamental structure of government. The nature of the CP’s fiat is utopian, there is no solvency advocate and no literature base defines a process for the US to rid itself of capitalism.
3) What is socialism? Obviously some aspects of US policy are socialist (i.e. Social Security) but others aren’t explicitly defined. This also shows that a permutation to adopt socialism in all instances but one (space development, for instance) would be desirable.
4) Socialism is bad…empirically it hasn’t worked and has been displaced in favor of capitalism, it doesn’t create resource equality, it fails in practice due to pride and bureaucracy, etc.
The ‘Gift’ K challenges the nature of government assistance to a targeted group. The argument is that when the government offers a ‘gift’ it always carries the expectation of reciprocity. For example, when the first European settlers brought ‘gifts’ to native colonies, they carried the expectation of a similar return. When certain tribes didn’t acquiesce it created a process of hostility which disrupted the desired norm of reciprocity.
The two primary authors for this critique are Arrigo and Williams (http://ccj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/3/321) and Derrida/Bataille (http://www.sauer-thompson.com/essays/Bataille%20and%20the%20Notion%20of%20Gift.doc). Both of those resources are pretty good starts for getting into the literature.
I’m not positive there’s a strong link on this year’s topic outside of Natives, but there is still some possible story with AFFs that make claims about justice (Brownfields, Environmental Racism, etc.)
Q: What is purpose of the “resolved” in the resolution?
The most common interpretation is that ‘resolved’ expresses the stance the affirmative must take towards enacting the resolution. It is usually designed to ensure that the affirmative is performed immediately and prevent bidirectionality. I’m not saying this to back up either side of the dispute’s argument, only to argue that ‘resolved’ performs a very limited function.
People still struggling to find a good interpretation of ‘resolved’ should consider its function in a round. While a literal interpretation might mean something like ‘resolved means the AFF has to support the resolution in every instance’, that would obviously be unworkable and destroy the AFF. It is perhaps more useful to simply imagine a good model for debate and then make “resolved” fit in after rather than using “resolved” as a gateway to approch how debate should occur.
Re: Is the affirmative responsible for affirming the entire resolution?
The AFF should be responsible for proving an instance of the resolution true. There is an argument to be made that the resolution is a hypothesis and the AFF has to prove it true in every instance. However (in my personal opinion) that seems grossly unfair to the AFF. If the resolution was true 90% of the time it would probably be a good idea.
The more popular modern argument method is plan focus. The AFF is required to prove that their plan is an example of the resolution which should be performed. ‘Resolved’ then modifies the plan action as an example of the resolution, not as one instance of many which must be proved by the AFF.
I definitely agree the AFF can’t selectively choose which words in the resolution they affirm to dodge CPs. However, the “resolved” stem of the resolution usually seems irrelevant to me unless the AFF says they aren’t enacted immediately or that one area of the topic is bad (i.e. replace corn ethanol with algae, which wouldn’t be resolved to increase the pool of incentives to produce alternative energy).
Q: How can I answer a capitalism kritik?
A. Incentives are capitalist mechanisms of understanding the environment
B. Capitalism encourages global war
C. AFF doesn’t solve the case because they misunderstand the environment
D. The alternative is to do nothing, not taking part in consumption-driven capitalist enterprises means they can’t function (this is the most popular alternative, either by Zizek or Herrod)
Some introductory defensive link responses might include things like:
’empirically disproven – capitalism promotes mechanisms to address its own problems, proven by exxon-valdez, western action to preserve rainforests, etc.’,
‘the plan doesn’t promote capitalism as a way to exploit others’ resources, it promotes it as a way to incentivize better business behavior’, and
‘there’s no threshold or mechanism to weigh the plan’s effect on capitalist markets, rejecting incentive-based effects alone is ineffective’, etc.
Some introductory impact responses would include things like
‘history disproves the ultimate ‘cap leads to extinction and all war’ impact because war pre-dates capitalist economies, wars happen for reasons other than capitalism, and resource wars never go nuclear’, and
‘the NEG impact is hype and impossible to quantify – even if capitalism is flawed we have much more specific evidence on the necessity of the plan in halting an extinction-level impact.’
Other than that, other ways to reply would be “the case is a DA because capitalist incentives are key to solving the AFF”, “capitalism is good”, and “revolutions against capitalism fail.”
Q: What kind of arguments exist for kritiking topicality?
Critiquing topicality is another way of attacking the negative’s “limits” and “ground” standards. It is MUCH easier for the AFF to critique topicality if they, in some way, affirm the idea of the resolutoin. It is much more persuasive to hear “we should get to try different ways to incentivize alternative energy that are experimental” than “we should get to talk about whatever we want.”
If you’re AFF, your argument might be something like:
The advantage to our interpretation is that it promotes education on a critical issue. This education is important because (x). Their grounds and limits standards impose political censorship, which blocks radical change. Education garnered by the AFF is a better method for debate than one which uses censorship to enforce itself.
If you’re NEG, your argument would be something like:
We’re not saying the AFF can’t have revolutionary ideas in debate, we’re simply saying that they have to connect their ideas to the resolution. This is important to clash and education because it encourages good debates that are grounded in things we can predictably research. Education isn’t about teaching people things you think are important, it is a byproduct of two well-informed teams having a debate with research and preparation to aid them. Their model of debate makes that impossible. If people got to talk about whatever they wanted we could never possibly develop a well-researched reply.
Q: As the affirmative, how do I answer a kritik?
There is a growing sentiment that there are two effective ways for an AFF to engage a run-of-the mill critique: link or impact turn. This set of two options bothered me at first because it seems to leave a very logical option off the list — the plan v. the alternative. If anti-capitalist revolutions are bad, it would seem a reason to vote AFF. This is where what other posters above have cautioned is important. It is tough to stick the neg to a stable alternative. It isn’t that they’ll change the text of their alternative, or even become a “floating PIC” by advocating part of the plan.
Instead, they’ll make framework arguments about which set of links they’re winning existing in a separate framework from their alternative. This often sounds something like “even if the Alt doesn’t solve it’s try or die for the negative because extinction is inevitable under biopolitical governance…”
Here are common AFF tools to stop the neg from making this happen —
1. Framing arguments. There is an important distinguishing quality here. There are two types of framework. One is an impact framework, i.e. util or ‘discourse first.’ The other is a theory framework, i.e. whether the existence of the alternative creates a fair framework for debates.
I think it is wise to make both arguments and see if the negative simply groups it and reads theory. If they do they often concede winning impact arguments. Cites for some of these with short explanations are below…
— Former debater Nicholas Bostrom writes about existential risks. These risks are ones where “humankind as a whole is imperiled.” This doesn’t exclude the possibility of other risks being important (i.e. it doesn’t make genocide or famine irrelevant). Instead, it argues for an inclusion of other large-scale risks. The card we usually read for this says:
Bostrom, ‘2 – Prof of Philosophy @ Yale, “Existential Risks; Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” Journal of Evolution and Technology v9, March, http://www.jetpress.org/volume9/risks.html.
Existential risks are distinct from global endurable risks. Examples of the latter kind include: threats to the biodiversity of Earth’s ecosphere, moderate global warming, global economic recessions (even major ones), and possibly stifling cultural or religious eras such as the “dark ages”, even if they encompass the whole global community, provided they are transitory (though see the section on “Shrieks” below). To say that a particular global risk is endurable is evidently not to say that it is acceptable or not very serious. A world war fought with conventional weapons or a Nazi-style Reich lasting for a decade would be extremely horrible events even though they would fall under the rubric of endurable global risks since humanity could eventually recover. (On the other hand, they could be a local terminal risk for many individuals and for persecuted ethnic groups.)
I shall use the following definition of existential risks:
Existential risk – One where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.
An existential risk is one where humankind as a whole is imperiled. Existential disasters have major adverse consequences for the course of human civilization for all time to come.
2 The unique challenge of existential risks
Risks in this sixth category are a recent phenomenon. This is part of the reason why it is useful to distinguish them from other risks. We have not evolved mechanisms, either biologically or culturally, for managing such risks. Our intuitions and coping strategies have been shaped by our long experience with risks such as dangerous animals, hostile individuals or tribes, poisonous foods, automobile accidents, Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts, World War I, World War II, epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. These types of disasters have occurred many times and our cultural attitudes towards risk have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such events are to the people immediately affected, in the big picture of things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life. They haven’t significantly affected the total amount of human suffering or happiness or determined the long-term fate of our species.
With the exception of a species-destroying comet or asteroid impact (an extremely rare occurrence), there were probably no significant existential risks in human history until the mid-twentieth century, and certainly none that it was within our power to do something about.
The first manmade existential risk was the inaugural detonation of an atomic bomb. At the time, there was some concern that the explosion might start a runaway chain-reaction by “igniting” the atmosphere. Although we now know that such an outcome was physically impossible, it qualifies as an existential risk that was present at the time. For there to be a risk, given the knowledge and understanding available, it suffices that there is some subjective probability of an adverse outcome, even if it later turns out that objectively there was no chance of something bad happening. If we don’t know whether something is objectively risky or not, then it is risky in the subjective sense. The subjective sense is of course what we must base our decisions on.[2] At any given time we must use our best current subjective estimate of what the objective risk factors are.[3]
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4] Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately. There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted. Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that we will encounter in the 21st century.
The special nature of the challenges posed by existential risks is illustrated by the following points:
Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors. The reactive approach – see what happens, limit damages, and learn from experience – is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the costs (moral and economic) of such actions.
We cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, social attitudes or national security policies that developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Existential risks are a different kind of beast. We might find it hard to take them as seriously as we should simply because we have never yet witnessed such disasters.[5] Our collective fear-response is likely ill calibrated to the magnitude of threat.
Reductions in existential risks are global public goods [13] and may therefore be undersupplied by the market [14]. Existential risks are a menace for everybody and may require acting on the international plane. Respect for national sovereignty is not a legitimate excuse for failing to take countermeasures against a major existential risk.
If we take into account the welfare of future generations, the harm done by existential risks is multiplied by another factor, the size of which depends on whether and how much we discount future benefits [15,16].
In view of its undeniable importance, it is surprising how little systematic work has been done in this area. Part of the explanation may be that many of the gravest risks stem (as we shall see) from anticipated future technologies that we have only recently begun to understand. Another part of the explanation may be the unavoidably interdisciplinary and speculative nature of the subject. And in part the neglect may also be attributable to an aversion against thinking seriously about a depressing topic. The point, however, is not to wallow in gloom and doom but simply to take a sober look at what could go wrong so we can create responsible strategies for improving our chances of survival. In order to do that, we need to know where to focus our efforts.
— The permutation can be offense. For example, if they ‘capitalism is bad’ and you say ‘we agree, we stop evil oil companies’ that is offense. However, if they say ‘your form of activism is passive role-playing, only we challenge consumer patterns which actually leave the room’ you need something to make your link turn offensive. The reason your old link turn, ‘we fight the oil companies’, is no longer offense is because they’re now controlling a framing argument. However, you can make your own framing arguments. Some people who argue a policy-centered approach should be used as a prerequisite to action:
Restricting ground to arguments about the consequences of institutional adoption is a revolutionary conception of the political that re-orients citizen agency and invigorates social interdependence
Adolf G. Gundersen, Assoc Prof Polisci at Texas A&M, 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 108-9
Will deliberation work the same way among ordinary citizens? Yes and no. Yes, deliberation will tend to heighten citizens appreciation of their interdependence. At the same time, the results are likely to be analogous rather than identical to those in formal governmental bodies, since citizen deliberation must of course function in the absence of the institutional interdependence established by the US constitution, with its clear specification of joint responsibilities. The theoretical mutuality of interests assumed by the Constitution exists among ordinary citizens, too. The difference is that they have only their interests, not the impetus of divided power, to encourage them to discover and articulate them. Granted. But once they begin to do so, they are every bit as likely to succeed as the average representative. Citizen deliberation, in other words, will intensify citizens’ appreciation of interdependence. Although I cannot prove the point, there are compelling reasons to think that citizen deliberation yields an awareness of overlapping interests. I have already alluded to the first, and perhaps most telling of these: if governors in a system of divided government such as our own succeed in deliberating their way to the public interest (however imperfectly or irregularly), surely ordinary citizens can be counted upon to do the same thing. Indeed, if my initial argument that decision-making spells the end of deliberation is on the mark, then we have good reason to expect citizens to deliberate better than their representatives. One can add to these theoretical considerations a lengthening list of empirical findings which suggest not only that citizens are willing and able to engage in political deliberation, but also that they are quite able to do so—able, that is, precisely in the sense of coming to a deeper appreciation of the collective nature of the problems they face (Dale et al. 1995; Gundersen 1995; Dryzek 1990; see also Gundersen n.d., chapter 4). In the end, the claim that deliberation enhances interdependence is hardly a radical one. After all, if deliberation will of itself diminish partisanship, as I started out by saying, it must at the same time enhance interdependence. To aim between Athens and Philadelphia requires, perhaps more than anything else, a changed way of thinking about partisanship. Institutions and ways of thinking tend to change together; hence if the institutional reorientation suggested here is to take root, it must be accompanied by a new way of thinking about partisanship. Shifting our appraisal of partisanship will amount to a nothing less than a new attitude toward politics. It will require that we aspire to something new, something that is at once less lofty (and less threatening) than the unity to which direct democracy is supposed to lead, but more democratic (and more deliberative) than encouraging political deliberation among a selected group of representatives. As I argued above, it will require that we seek to stimulate deliberation among all citizens. With Madison, we need to view partisanship as inevitable. Collective choice, indeed choice itself, is a partisan affair. But we also need to resist the equation of politics and partisanship. If politics is seen as nothing more than a clash of partisan interests, it is likely to stay at that level. Conversely, for deliberation to work, it must be seen as reasonable, if not all-illuminating—as efficacious, if not all-powerful. At the same time, of course, citizens must borrow a page from the participatory democrat’s book by coming to view deliberation as their responsibility rather than something that is done only by others in city hall, the state capitol, or Congress—others who are, after all, under direct and constant pressure to act rather than deliberate. Politics, in other words, must be resuscitated as an allegiance to democratic deliberation.
Their education is distrusting of institutional study and pragmatic reform. Even if their intentions are noble, their message results in fascist totalitarianism
Martin Lewis, Assistant Professor at George Washington, 1992 Green Delusions p. 258
A majority of those born between 1960 and 1980 seem to tend toward cynicism, and we can thus hardly expect them to be converted en masse to radical doctrines of social and environmental salvation by a few committed thinkers. It is actually possible that a radical education may make them even more cynical than they already are. While their professors may find the extreme relativism of subversive postmodernism bracingly liberating, many of today’s students may embrace only the new creed’s rejection of the past. Stripped of leftist social concerns, radical postmodernism’s contempt for established social and political philosophy—indeed, its contempt for liberalism—may well lead to right-wing totalitarianism. When cynical, right-leaning students are taught that democracy is a sham and that all meaning derives from power, they are being schooled in fascism, regardless of their instructors’ intentions. According to sociologist Jeffrey Goldfarb (1991), cynicism is the hallmark—and main defect—of the current age. He persuasively argues that cynicism’s roots lie in failed left- and right-wing ideologies—systems of thought that deductively connect “a simple rationalized absolute truth … to a totalized set of political actions and policies” (1991:82). Although most eco-radicals are anything but cynical when they imagine a “green future,” they do take a cynical turn when contemplating the present political order. The dual cynical-ideological mode represents nothing less than the death of liberalism and of reform. Its dangers are eloquently spelled out by Goldfarb (1991:9): “When one thinks ideologically and acts ideologically, opponents become enemies to be vanquished, political compromise becomes a kind of immorality, and constitutional refinements become inconvenient niceties.
— Impact turning isn’t always as bad as it seems. Some critiques are easier to impact turn than others (i.e. it is easier link turn capitalism than Lacan because neoliberalism is a bit less nebulous and there is empirical evidence about what neoliberal social structures look like and achieve). I think its often useful to impact turn
* representation arguments (the link turns here are sometimes silly — the AFF probably does instill fear of death, etc.).
* management/security arguments.
*capitalism/neoliberalism, etc.
Others can be impact turned as well but those three circumstances above where you will almost certainly enter the game behind the negative on the link debate. You can fight your way through it with technically superior debating but you can also put yourself a step a forward by just choosing to invest time making good strategic decisions that center around a deep, embedded center of controversy (the impact).
Q: What are some tips for winning more aff debates in policy debate?
I’m going to divide each of these sections up into the ‘why’ and ‘how.’ The ‘why’ section is the basis for the advice and the ‘how’ describes the way to implement it effectively in the 2AR.
1. Choose.
Why? Most 2ARs I watch are overly concerned with the idea of “dropping” a major negative argument, causing them to under-develop their own. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard about debate came from former Copeland winner Jacob Polin when he said “winning on the negative is about time and winning on the affirmative is about truth.” The reason most 2NRs are so technical is because it benefits their chances of winning; the 1AR can rarely answer *every* argument advanced by the block because of time pressure.
Another way of putting this is appreciating the difference between quality and quantity. The Negative usually advances a variety of arguments, while the Affirmative is required to choose wisely.
The 2AR has three jobs; to prove the impact of your argument, to prove your ability/your opponent’s inability to resolve that impact and to create an “even if” scenario where you possibly fall behind on the first two chances. You don’t *need* more than one advantage, ‘offense’ on every flow or a perfect 1AR. You need to resolve the largest impact. If the DA isn’t as big as the case and the Aff is 100% solvent, you win the debate. If you don’t solve 100% of the Aff but there’s a lower risk of the DA, you have to calculate risk (more below on this).
How? Ask yourself before the 2AR; which advantage/harm area are we winning most convincingly? Can we win that that issue is the most important issue in the debate? Does my judge care more about their flow or about the quality of arguments?
2. Evaluate risk in three dimensions.
Why? There are three tiers of execution on impact debates. Your ability to reach the pinnacle on this continuum will have an immediate impact on your success in debates.
The novice debater simply argues back and forth without assessing the risk of each impact.
The advanced debater goes through the basic impact metrics. Which happens faster, or whose impact is bigger, more likely to occur, etc.
The champion debater discusses *risk.* What is the difference between risk and impact calculus?
The advanced debater above treats arguments too hypothetically. Judges don’t just think; “how big/fast/likely is the impact?” Instead, they evaluate that first dimension through several more like “how good is the evidence?” “how much did the other team disprove that impact?” etc.
How? Change arguments from “their impact is unlikely to occur, it’s empirically denied and it’s slow” to “they haven’t read any evidence describing a threshold or timeframe for (their impact), which means you should default to our poorly-answered (x) impact.’ In other words; don’t just address their impact, address their evidence and their execution in a comparative fashion.
3. Work with the 1AR.
Why? As mentioned above, some 2NRs are excellent at capitalizing on 1AR errors.
My favorite saying as the Aff came from William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” — “I am the master of my fate.” The 2AR must constantly lead the Aff towards victory by tenaciously seeking routes to win debate.
While the 2A steers the ship, the 1AR usually has as large or larger an impact on who wins the debate. If the 1AR is excellent it puts the pressure applied by the block back on the 2NR, making it the decisive factor for momentum going into the last two rebuttals. While 1ARs can’t always win the debate, they surely can lose it.
How? (a) Use prep time to put together a game plan with your partner, even if it leaves you less for the 2AR. If there’s an important argument you want in the 1AR and it isn’t there, it’s your fault, not their’s. You need to tell the 1AR what matters and make sure they say it in a way that sounds similar to the 2AR so it doesn’t appear new.
(b) Help your partner simplify the debate. Tell them the areas where you think the block made errors, or which arguments in the block you think the 2NR is most likely to go for. Also, if your judge thinks evidence is important, help the 1AR sort through all the evidence. Follow along with evidence read by the block and spend your CX of the 2NC indicting the *hardest* positions to answer instead of stealing the 1AR’s thunder by poking holes in arguments that won’t be in the 2NR.
Q: What has made you so successful?
The short and honest answer is lots of good luck, partners, coaching and opportunity
There are a few things I’ve done that I think helped me improve the most.
First, the internet is a wealth of resources that most debaters don’t fully utilize. I’m clearly a fan of the free services provided by Debate Central, and I’m excited to live in an age of digital debate philanthropy. Sites which discuss debate theory, like the3nr.com, and sites which offer free evidence, like http://www.debatecoaches.org/openevidence/, are tremendous opportunities.
Debate is defined by what you do when no one else is looking. Knowledge is power. Reading, learning and preparing as much as possible is still the most dependable route to success in debate. I did as much of each of those as possible because I really love debate and found it fun.
Second, take advantage of all the resources around you. When I was in high school, I was coached by a very dedicated full-time coach and surrounded by advanced debaters. However, when we were seniors, we really needed someone to watch our practice speeches, revise our files and help advise us on strategy.
We looked around for a long time and found a retired coach had moved to the area with his wife. We knocked on his door and offered to pay him $500 to coach us once a week for a semester. We paid this money out of our own pocket but my partner and I both knew we were making an investment in our future. It ended up being the best investment we could make; Tom is the reason I’m at UTD.
I learned two lessons from this; first, that you can never underestimate the value of good coaching. Hiring him helped propel us to new heights. There are no shortage of good, available people out there who really like to help and need the money. The second thing I learned is that sometimes what you need to do isn’t spelled out for you. No one told us we needed more coaching, but we knew we could use it. You have to constantly keep searching for weaknesses to improve, even when you’re seniors.
Third, you need to devote time to developing a squad. No debater can compete at the highest levels on their own. Debate is a team activity and great teams win championships. This means debaters need to seek out intelligent and dedicated freshmen every year to join the team.
Once they’re there, you need to devote time to transferring as much knowledge to them as you can. If you teach well and help freely, you’ll be re-payed with lasting friendships and a dedicated squad that helps you reach your goals. Having great teammates means you can produce more great files, have more great practice rounds and have more great teachers for the next generation of students.
The best things I ever did to further my own personal success involved teaching the freshman group when I was a sophomore in high school and recruiting the freshman group when I was finishing my freshman year at UTD.
Fourth, you need to work with your partner. I’ve had the good fortune of debating with people I really respect and admire. However, none were close friends when I started debating them.
Being a good partner is just like being a good partner in anything else; you have to patient, dedicated, honest and forgiving. Debate involves a lot of early mornings, late nights, battles over decision-making, etc. There are a lot of things that can drive two people who normally get along great into distress or rivalry.
You have to know how to get the best out of your partner and be willing to listen and be patient when your partner tries to get the best out of you. Treat your partner well, treat your partnership seriously and all good things will come.
Finally, never fear failure or dwell in success. You’re only as good as your next round. The same principles that bring success in life bring success in a debate. You should work hard, love what you do, treat others well, take the advice of those who wish you well and work on getting better every day. Don’t give up or blame others when things don’t go your way.
I hope that helps!
Q: Do you have any tips for spreading?
Speaking well is the product of a lot of different forces. Speaking quickly is often emphasized exclusively at debate institutes and in debate practice sessions. While I think this is a part of speaking well, there are a lot of important variables in communicating clearly.
Your goal should be to maximize arguments per minute, not just words per minute. Clearly preparing, organizing and highlighting files often saves more time than speed drills ever could. However, speaking is a very important element in debating quickly. I always advise people in this rough order;
1. Choose a good place to speak from. Build a podium in a place that is close enough for your judge to see and hear you. Make sure you build or stand from a podium where the evidence is within a foot or so of your natural line of vision.
2. Start in a good posture. Straighten your back a little bit — enough to make sure you don’t have to slouch over your evidence or put it in front of your face.
3. As you start your speech, start slowly. It takes a little bit for a judge to adjust to hearing your voice and emphasizing things clearly at the top of your speech can give you great momentum for the rest of your speech.
4. As you gradually speed up, usually about 15-20 seconds into your speech, keep the following 3 things in mind;
a. Develop a breathing pace first. This involves knowing how long you can speak at a particular pace before you need to take a breath. Train yourself to clearly express the author and date in the citation of a piece of evidence and then take a short breath before reading the evidence. In line with that…
b. Place emphasis on the right parts of evidence. Read the tags, authors and dates of your evidence loud and clear. Circle or place special emphasis on the portions of a piece of evidence and express those with extra sound and diction.
c. Project! You should be projecting your voice, not gasping for air to keep it alive. This is the secret to speaking quickly during the last half of your speech.
5. Read each word of the card individually instead of racing through sentences. This keeps your brain on pace with your mouth and prevents your eyes from getting too far ahead.
I think going fast has more to do with things you train your brain to do than things you train your mouth to do but both sets of drills are important. Much like flowing, speaking is a craft that’s developed through practice and the development of an individual style and method.
Hope those tips help!
Q: What laptop do you suggest for debate?
I’ve been a really big fan of Lenovo Thinkpads. They’re about the same price as HP, Dell, etc. but have a few more features and tend to be more durable. It travels well, gets wireless signal when most computers don’t get it and (so far) has been mistake free.
I can vouch pretty well for the model on the left; http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont … 8C264593A. It is also less expensive than listed — it is actually $414 without any added features.
Social Services
Q: What should a negative team say to an aff that modifies the federal poverty line?
Hey!
As jkdn0 mentioned, we wrote this Aff at the Baylor camp and also put together a neg.
A few arguments I’d consider;
— Read a PIC out of a particular program. For those unfamiliar with the term ‘PIC’, it means ‘plan-inclusive counterplan.’ The counterplan in this instance would say that the poverty line should be raised and more people should be eligible for ALL programs EXCEPT (insert programs you have evidence saying is bad).
This should be the cornerstone of your strategy because it allows you to access a diverse range of arguments. You can PIC out of a particular program that is costly (Economy DA), politically controversial (politics DA), etc. You can tailor the strategy to fit what you’re best at arguing.
— Read topicality, arguing that the affirmative doesn’t ‘increase’ the level of social services. There was a back and forth debate about this at the site pasted below, where I raised some affirmative arguments and Michael Antonucci, a coach at Georgetown, raised some negative ones; http://www.the3nr.com/2009/07/21/my-problems-with-t-persons-in-poverty/#comment-410
— Politics! There are cards in that Baylor file that say the plan would be “political suicide.” The big problem is that poverty statistics are always changing. This allows each new administration to say ‘poverty went down during our term.’ Since the ‘War on Poverty’ was announced, ‘poverty’ has continuously gone down. The President who changes the poverty line will be labeled the first president to preside over an increase in poverty over their term since the War on Poverty was launched.
— For case arguments, focus on a few key facts;
1. Many programs operate at a level above 100% of the poverty line. This means that people who make some multiple above the poverty threshold, say 150% or 200%, are eligible to receive necessary services. This allows programs to work case-by-case, which makes the delivery of services more effective.
2. Defend the original line. It was drawn in 1963 by a Social Security worker who calculated that families spent 1/3 of what they owned on food. They calculated that amount and determined the poverty line as a multiple of it. As time has gone on and food has gotten cheaper, the way they calculate the poverty threshold has gone up enormously. It has been adjusted to fit the minimum wage and other major economic factors. Although some say ‘the line hasn’t been changed since 1963,’ they focus exclusively on formal changes. A variety of informal changes, such as inflationary hikes and programs operating at multiples of the poverty line, are sufficient to resolve most of the complaints about the poverty line.
Q: Would I be kicked out of a tournament for arguing for legalizing marijuana?
You won’t be kicked out of the tournament unless you violate the law.
This is a common and popular affirmative. One version of the Aff is posted here;
http://debatecoaches.org/wiki/index.php?title=2009-2010_Bronx_Science_(NY)_-_Zack_Elias_%26_Andrew_Mar
Q: What disadvantages should you run on the poverty topic?
Politics, economy and trade-off are about as good as those DAs ever are for a high school topic. I’ve heard a lot of people complain that there aren’t a lot of viable DAs on this topic. While it is a more limited pool than last year, it’s equally good. Obama Good DAs will grow fewer but the internal links will grow better as the agenda narrows because the literature will grow more detailed and concentrated. Economy DAs are more compelling than they’ve been at any time since we’ve all been alive, making things like inflation, trade-off, deficit spending, etc. all very real concerns.
Recruitment is better than I think most people give it credit for. However, I think it gets the credit it deserves if teams aren’t reading updated evidence about the military and its goals. Certainly not every aff links to recruitment, but the ones that do ought to have a ready defense. I’m not necessarily arguing it’s a great DA, I’m just saying it’s worth taking seriously.
Q: What are major generic disadvantages on the poverty topic?
Hey everyone, I wanted to see if people had any ideas for major generic disadvantages on the next topic.
My guess is that these will be the 3 biggest DAs —
1) Politics. It’s the biggest DA on every topic and this one will be no exception, with AFFs tackling everything from Medicare to abortion. There is even some interconnection between the topic and Obama’s largest agenda goal, Health Care reform.
2) Federalism. This DA always seems silly at the start of the year and important by the end of it. This is the kind of DA some teams seem to load up on at the start of the year and cruise with throughout due to solid work over the summer.
3) Courts DAs. Many AFFs may use the Supreme Court as an actor in an attempt to avoid politics DAs. For these AFFs, there is the whole gambit of old court DAs from the 2006-2007 college policy topic:
— Court Capital. Kind of like a political capital DA with much specific ‘swing vote’ links. The court attempts to avoid making too many controversial decisions at once to make one blockbuster decision every term. Popular items from the topic referenced above included court cases about warming, the economy, national security/leadership, etc.
— Court Stripping. The Court attempts to tow the line in most decisions to respect Congressional jurisdiction. A judicial overrule would prompt Congress to strip authority from the Courts in other areas, hurting the economy, democracy, etc.
— Hollow Hope. Court decisions send signals of the Court’s disposition towards groups seeking greater legal entitlement. The popular scenario next year will likely be gay marriage. The argument would be something along the lines of — The court is conservative now, plan is a liberal overrule that entices frustrated state activists to turn to the Court, the Court ultimately would strike down those provisions, gay marriage activism is good for rights, oppression, etc.
Q: What will some big arguments be this year?
I think when one imagines the most popular AFFs, they’ll likely envision three major case areas;
— worker compensation (minimum wage, child tax credit, unemployment insurance, unions, etc.)
— assisting children (ranging from everything like after school care to pell grants for college)
— social reconfiguration (consumer products targeting, prisoner re-integration, housing vouchers, etc.)
A greater explanation of each program can found in the topic paper at http://www.nfhs.org/core/contentmanager/uploads/PDFs/SDTA/poverty08.pdf
I agree with the initial concern that critiques will be common. This literature base will incorporate a lot of people who aren’t as commonly referenced in most policy debate literature (sociologists, anthropologists, historians, etc.) This type of common literature source will mean a lot more critiques of social relations and the law as a mechanism for addressing them. Critiques of economic policy will also predominate in the debate about unions and taxes.
As far as DAs go, there are several. The most obvious is the least unique but most well-known, coercion. This is a surprisingly common strategy among top teams against these types of AFFs. There are several economy DAs related to taxes and unions alone. The issue is highly politically charged, opening room for great politics DAs. As debaters begin to navigate the topic, I think they’ll see a number of interesting things that occur during recessions. For example, military recruiting (and all the impact it relates to like hegemony, readiness, rapid-deployment ability, etc.) all go up when the job market is generally down: http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_11369345. The AFF might trade off with some of those recruits by encouraging people to stick with local union jobs or lower-taxed, higher-waged jobs.
Counterplans are a bit trickier. I suspect that many people will perhaps counterplan out of the tax portion of the AFF and do some sort of alternate economic mechanism. The states CP will be back in full force.
One thing that will be interesting about CP literature is that a lot of it will come from think tanks. For example, a lot of Obama’s cabinet has think tank ties (Flournoy, etc.). I agree with Chuck Ballingall in the topic paper when he says “Every private think tank that deals with domestic issues has published materials on poverty. In additional there are a number of academic and private organizations devoted to the poverty issue. Since poverty is also a fundamental economic problem, there is also a substantial amount of academic economic literature discussing the causes and potential solutions for poverty.” That should mean good debates between different schools of thought, i.e. debates about the Brookings Institution proposal versus the CATO proposals on ‘card-check’ for union workers.
Hope that helps, I’d love to hear other ideas for what people think will be common next year.
Military Deployment
Q: What affirmatives will we see on the military deployment topic?
This could shape up to be a really interesting topic.
My big concern is that the topic will be bidirectional. I don’t think the Aff has to defend a net reduction in presence and force. It merely has to end to the roles of the current force.
Why does this matter? First, it hurts negative generic ground. The negative can’t say “Maintaining active deployments is key to the perception of strong American power projection.” The Affirmative will simply say “We agree that troops are good, but they should be serving in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of Japan.” In other words, the Affirmative can defend one part of the resolution (no troops in Japan) while negating it in another (more troops in Iraq).
It also hurts most link arguments. For example, a popular set of disadvantages will center around the failures of offshore balancing. These authors will argue that traditional commitments are important signals of American resolve. They argue that an isolationist turn would hurt global American security interests. The example above would allow the affirmative to persuasively say “Link turn – we discourage an otherwise inevitable withdrawal from Iraq.”
However, with that in mind, the Aff would be smart to get away with what they can. I’ll use Japanese bases as an Aff example to propose some starter ideas;
Some starter reading on Japanese bases and a quick summary; “Under a 2006 agreement, 8,000 U.S. Marines now based on the Japanese island of Okinawa are to be relocated to Guam, beginning this year. But that move depends on implementation of a bilateral deal to close a helicopter base that now lies in a heavily populated area, and to build new facilities in another area near the island’s coast. If Japan does not move forward on the base agreement, U.S. officials have warned, the troop redeployment may be derailed.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/04/AR2010010403142.html
As discussed above, the negative will have quite a bit to say about why the US should maintain its basing commitments. However, Japan affirmatives strategically dodge this question. Affirmatives will argue that the troop force should shift to Guam. They will argue that this might achieve three advantages;
1. Hegemony. Kansas read a basing advantage that centered around why the deal was key to hegemony. Citations for their argument can be found at; http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/Kansas+KS+(Kennedy+%26+Stone)+-+Open+-+AFF#toc1
2. Taiwan war. Guam might solve a war with China over Taiwan, such as this one;
Strengthening the B-52 force stationed at Guam is critical to deter China against Taiwan
Fisher 2004
International Strategy Assessment Center, Richard Jr., April 2, “Deterring a Chinese attack against Taiwan: 16 steps”, http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.7/pub_detail.asp
In September 2001 the new Pentagon leadership under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued a Quadrennial Defense Review that made recommendations to increase the deterrent posture of U.S. forces in Asia. Soon overtaken by the requirements of the War on Terrorism, and then the War in Iraq, the Bush Administration has been unable to fulfill these requirements, which included: increasing the presence of U.S. carrier battle groups; strengthening U.S. Air Force air support units; and increasing East Asian area training for Marine forces. The Bush Administration has increased U.S. forces stationed at Guam to three nuclear attack submarines and 12 B-52 bombers. The requirements to support possible military action in support of Taiwan, or against North Korea, however, now mean that it is time to devote new military resources to Asia. Six steps that the U.S. can take would include: 1. Increase the number of in-region combat strike forces that can be used over a Taiwan theater within 12 hours of a clear warning of imminent PLA attack. This will require that the U.S. increase the number of cruise missile-armed SSNs patrolling the Western Pacific and that it make this region the first deployment priority for new Trident SSGNs. The U.S. should also increase the number of F-15C squadrons deployed to Okinawa from two to four, and deploy B-1 bombers, E-2 AWACS, KC-135 refueling and C-17 transport aircraft to Guam. In addition, the U.S. should deploy new F/A-22 air superiority fighters to Guam as soon as possible. These are especially needed to put in theater a U.S. fighter that will be decisively superior to the 300+ Russian Sukhoi Su-27/Su-30 fighters the PLA Air Force may have by 2005. It is also critical to significantly increase the production of all cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions. 2. Washington should also increase U.S. military assets designed to protect its forces in Asia. It is imperative that the U.S. deploy THAAD missiles to Okinawa and Guam to protect against the PLA’s highly accurate DF-21C and DF-15 Mod 1 medium-range missiles. If THAAD cannot be made available quickly, then the U.S. should consider the purchase of Israeli ARROW missile interceptors. The U.S. must also redouble security around all its forces based in Asia to protect against 5th column or PLA Special Forces attacks. There should be heightened protective measures for U.S. forces in Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. West Coast that may also be used in the event of a Taiwan conflict.
3. Guam shift key to WoT and deterring China
Caryl 2007, Newsweek, http://www.realty671.com/…/Americas%20Unsinkable%20Fleet%20-%20NEWSWEEK%20INTERNATIONAL%20022607.pdf, p. 2-4.
At a time when most of the world’s attention is focused on the United States’ misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon planners are quietly working on ways to fortify the U.S. presence in East Asia. And they’re looking to do so in ways that will give them a free hand in a wide range of contingencies-including fighting regional terrorists and a possible showdown with China. Guam offers the U.S. military both proximity to potential hot spots and the advantages of operating off U.S. soil. The transfer of forces to the island also reflects the Pentagon’s determination to give regional allies such as South Korea and Japan more responsibility for their own security. Guam, a sleepy but diverse place that looks like a cross between Micronesia and Middle America, has long served as a U.S. air base and way station for troops traveling through the Pacific. At the end of the cold war, the Pentagon began shutting down some facilities on the island. But then came September 11, and a dramatic reassessment of America’s global forces. Former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began to advocate the lily-pad strategy: rather than relying on large, static bases in Germany and South Korea, the Pentagon should create a global network of jumping-off points for quick responses to unpredictable attacks. Guam is an ideal lily pad, since the United States can act there without seeking permission from allies, says Honolulu-based defense analyst Richard Halloran. Declares Carl Peterson of the Guam Chamber of Commerce: “This is the U.S. in Asia. This is the tip of the spear.” The island has already become a convenient base for fighting Washington’s “Global War on Terror” in Indonesia and the Philippines. Small wonder that Brig. Gen. Douglas H. Owens, the commanding officer of Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base, describes the island as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier.” It’s also well positioned for possible trouble to come. As Rear Adm. Charles Leidig, U.S. Navy commander on Guam, points out, if you take a map and draw a circle with Guam at the center and a radius of 1,500 nautical miles-equivalent to three hours’ flying time or two to three days by ship-you come close to the main islands of Japan, Okinawa, Indonesia and the Philippines. China and the Korean Peninsula are only a bit farther off. So are several of the world’s most important sea lanes, such as the Strait of Malacca, through which some 50 percent of the world’s oil passes each year. So why all the fuss over a tropical island just 30 miles long, known mainly for its white-sand beaches and glorious sunsets? The answer: the Pentagon has begun a major redeployment of U.S. forces in the region, pulling troops and equipment out of sometimes unreliable allies and beefing up its presence in more-congenial locales. First on its list is Guam, a U.S. territory since 1898 that is fast becoming the linchpin of Washington’s new Asia strategy. Current U.S. forces on the island number just a few thousand but within a decade will total well over 20,000-about the same size as the Bush administration’s planned surge in Iraq. By comparison, there are some 29,000 U.S. troops left in South Korea, yet despite the dangers of a nuclear-armed North, that number is expected to drop significantly. At a time when most of the world’s attention is focused on the United States’ misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon planners are quietly working on ways to fortify the U.S. presence in East Asia. And they’re looking to do so in ways that will give them a free hand in a wide range of contingencies-including fighting regional terrorists and a possible showdown with China. Guam offers the U.S. military both proximity to potential hot spots and the advantages of operating off U.S. soil. The transfer of forces to the island also reflects the Pentagon’s determination to give regional allies such as South Korea and Japan more responsibility for their own security. Guam, a sleepy but diverse place that looks like a cross between Micronesia and Middle America, has long served as a U.S. air base and way station for troops traveling through the Pacific. At the end of the cold war, the Pentagon began shutting down some facilities on the island. But then came September 11, and a dramatic reassessment of America’s global forces. Former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began to advocate the lily-pad strategy: rather than relying on large, static bases in Germany and South Korea, the Pentagon should create a global network of jumping-off points for quick responses to unpredictable attacks. Guam is an ideal lily pad, since the United States can act there without seeking permission from allies, says Honolulu-based defense analyst Richard Halloran. Declares Carl Peterson of the Guam Chamber of Commerce: “This is the U.S. in Asia. This is the tip of the spear.” The nature of the U.S. reorganization reinforces this point. Washington and Tokyo have agreed to move 8,000 Marines to Guam from Okinawa by 2014, at a cost of $10 billion (60 percent of which will be paid for by the Japanese government). But this is only the most public part of a broader buildup that has largely escaped notice. If all the pieces come together, it could mean billions more in Defense Department funds and a total increase in Guam’s population (which is currently just 170,000) of 35,000.
Japan is merely one example of this popular tactic. I would expect that Affirmatives centered around South Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan to do similar things.
In a similar vein, I would expect Afghanistan police Affs to be possible due to the presence of a sizable, one-sided literature base that favors the Aff.
Q: Are civil military relations dead?
Good recent evidence suggests they might be —
Robert Schmuhl, 10-10-10. “‘Obama’s Wars’: An outsider copes with White House infighting,” The Philly Inquirer,
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/entertai … z120pJXDsX
Woodward’s title, Obama’s Wars, carries a double meaning. There are bloody hostilities abroad, but there are also fierce, warlike rivalries within the federal government. While the commander-in-chief is studying briefing papers and pondering what to do, those reporting to him are fighting their own battles over turf, influence, and ego gratification.
The military seems perpetually at odds with representatives of civilian authority, including the president. Woodward depicts Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, now commander in Afghanistan, as an ambitious, ruthless infighter. “If there was someone trying to roll Obama, it was Petraeus,” we’re informed at one point.
Many beribboned officers can’t stand one another, either. Organizational charts might suggest an orderly chain of command, but the Pentagon is really a gargantuan boxing ring, with an unlimited number of rounds and slugging below the belt common.
Similar fisticuffs occur daily within the White House. National Security Adviser James Jones, a retired Marine general and a principal Woodward source, has little regard for his deputy, Thomas Donilon, and others on his staff. Quotations from Jones’ private notebook appear throughout.
Jones is also critical of Obama’s closest advisers, such as strategist David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs, referring to them as “the water bugs.” Woodward writes: “The water bugs did not understand war or foreign relations, Jones felt, and were too interested in measuring the short-term political impact of the president’s decisions in these areas.”
Given what the book reports about Jones’ judgments and the criticism he endured from White House leaks – one broadcast item suggested “he appears to have Alzheimer’s disease” – Woodward predicts Jones will leave soon.
The picture that emerges of Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is of an outsize figure who craves the spotlight and clout. Others, though, don’t share his high opinion of himself, and midway through the book there’s this remark: “It wasn’t until well into the Obama presidency that Holbrooke learned definitively how much the president didn’t care for him.”
Q: We need advantages to removing all troops from South Korea to North Korea for the purpose of taking out key military points, resulting in a regime change and safer world. Can you help?
I think you’re on the right track. The South Korea troops Aff is one of the better affirmatives on the topic.
One of the reasons it is so desirable was yesterday’s news that North Korea had announced its successor; Kim Jong-Un — http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Sou … im-Jong-un . This is an event that bears keeping an eye on, as upcoming events will make a lot of older evidence seem much less relevant. Much like evidence discussing terrorism evidence prior to 9/11, evidence prior to yesterday’s events may lose much of its value. You couldn’t have picked a timelier advantage.
However, I’m not sure it would be topical to initiate military action against North Korea using our troops in South Korea. Although still legally ongoing, a formal ceasefire has kept tensions low (for the most part) since the end of combat in the Korean War.
There is another way to resolve this problem. You could simply read evidence suggesting that a world without deployed US armed forces would ensure a smoother transition from power for Kim Jong Il’s regime. US naval and air forces would remain to deter hostility in the wake of a leadership transition. A US-led ground response might provoke unnecessary backlash and worry regional and international allies.
The group I worked with this summer cut evidence to this effect, which can be instantly download at: http://www.debatecoaches.org/files/download/197 . The portion applicable to the topic of regime change begins on pg 6. A similar set of arguments begins at page 62 of the file available at: http://www.debatecoaches.org/files/download/357 .
There are also a host of ways to write tricky advantages that take this advantage into account. One example of this is seen in the following full text post of a local 1AC available at: http://wiki.debatecoaches.org/2010-2011 … t.+Mark’s+(TX)+%E2%80%94+Rishee+Batra+%26+Alex+Miles+%E2%80%94+Affirmative+%E2%80%94+Greenhill#x-1AC Korea – Greenhill .
Hope that helps! Please let me know if there’s more I can do to help you all prepare.
Q: Do you have any initial thoughts on the military topic?
This could shape up to be a really interesting topic.
My big concern is that the topic will be bidirectional. I don’t think the Aff has to defend a net reduction in presence and force. It merely has to end to the roles of the current force.
Why does this matter? First, it hurts negative generic ground. The negative can’t say “Maintaining active deployments is key to the perception of strong American power projection.” The Affirmative will simply say “We agree that troops are good, but they should be serving in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of Japan.” In other words, the Affirmative can defend one part of the resolution (no troops in Japan) while negating it in another (more troops in Iraq).
It also hurts most link arguments. For example, a popular set of disadvantages will center around the failures of offshore balancing. These authors will argue that traditional commitments are important signals of American resolve. They argue that an isolationist turn would hurt global American security interests. The example above would allow the affirmative to persuasively say “Link turn – we discourage an otherwise inevitable withdrawal from Iraq.”
However, with that in mind, the Aff would be smart to get away with what they can. I’ll use Japanese bases as an Aff example to propose some starter ideas;
Some starter reading on Japanese bases and a quick summary; “Under a 2006 agreement, 8,000 U.S. Marines now based on the Japanese island of Okinawa are to be relocated to Guam, beginning this year. But that move depends on implementation of a bilateral deal to close a helicopter base that now lies in a heavily populated area, and to build new facilities in another area near the island’s coast. If Japan does not move forward on the base agreement, U.S. officials have warned, the troop redeployment may be derailed.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 03142.html
As discussed above, the negative will have quite a bit to say about why the US should maintain its basing commitments. However, Japan affirmatives strategically dodge this question. Affirmatives will argue that the troop force should shift to Guam. They will argue that this might achieve three advantages;
1. Hegemony. Kansas read a basing advantage that centered around why the deal was key to hegemony. Citations for their argument can be found at; http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/Kansas+KS+(Kennedy+%26+Stone)+-+Open+-+AFF#toc1
2. Taiwan war. Guam might solve a war with China over Taiwan, such as this one;
Strengthening the B-52 force stationed at Guam is critical to deter China against Taiwan
Fisher 2004
International Strategy Assessment Center, Richard Jr., April 2, “Deterring a Chinese attack against Taiwan: 16 steps”, http://www.strategycenter.net/research/ … detail.asp
In September 2001 the new Pentagon leadership under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued a Quadrennial Defense Review that made recommendations to increase the deterrent posture of U.S. forces in Asia. Soon overtaken by the requirements of the War on Terrorism, and then the War in Iraq, the Bush Administration has been unable to fulfill these requirements, which included: increasing the presence of U.S. carrier battle groups; strengthening U.S. Air Force air support units; and increasing East Asian area training for Marine forces. The Bush Administration has increased U.S. forces stationed at Guam to three nuclear attack submarines and 12 B-52 bombers. The requirements to support possible military action in support of Taiwan, or against North Korea, however, now mean that it is time to devote new military resources to Asia. Six steps that the U.S. can take would include: 1. Increase the number of in-region combat strike forces that can be used over a Taiwan theater within 12 hours of a clear warning of imminent PLA attack. This will require that the U.S. increase the number of cruise missile-armed SSNs patrolling the Western Pacific and that it make this region the first deployment priority for new Trident SSGNs. The U.S. should also increase the number of F-15C squadrons deployed to Okinawa from two to four, and deploy B-1 bombers, E-2 AWACS, KC-135 refueling and C-17 transport aircraft to Guam. In addition, the U.S. should deploy new F/A-22 air superiority fighters to Guam as soon as possible. These are especially needed to put in theater a U.S. fighter that will be decisively superior to the 300+ Russian Sukhoi Su-27/Su-30 fighters the PLA Air Force may have by 2005. It is also critical to significantly increase the production of all cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions. 2. Washington should also increase U.S. military assets designed to protect its forces in Asia. It is imperative that the U.S. deploy THAAD missiles to Okinawa and Guam to protect against the PLA’s highly accurate DF-21C and DF-15 Mod 1 medium-range missiles. If THAAD cannot be made available quickly, then the U.S. should consider the purchase of Israeli ARROW missile interceptors. The U.S. must also redouble security around all its forces based in Asia to protect against 5th column or PLA Special Forces attacks. There should be heightened protective measures for U.S. forces in Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. West Coast that may also be used in the event of a Taiwan conflict.
3. Guam shift key to WoT and deterring China
Caryl 2007, Newsweek, www.realty671.com/…/America’s%20Unsin … 22607.pdf, p. 2-4.
At a time when most of the world’s attention is focused on the United States’ misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon planners are quietly working on ways to fortify the U.S. presence in East Asia. And they’re looking to do so in ways that will give them a free hand in a wide range of contingencies—including fighting regional terrorists and a possible showdown with China. Guam offers the U.S. military both proximity to potential hot spots and the advantages of operating off U.S. soil. The transfer of forces to the island also reflects the Pentagon’s determination to give regional allies such as South Korea and Japan more responsibility for their own security. Guam, a sleepy but diverse place that looks like a cross between Micronesia and Middle America, has long served as a U.S. air base and way station for troops traveling through the Pacific. At the end of the cold war, the Pentagon began shutting down some facilities on the island. But then came September 11, and a dramatic reassessment of America’s global forces. Former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began to advocate the lily-pad strategy: rather than relying on large, static bases in Germany and South Korea, the Pentagon should create a global network of jumping-off points for quick responses to unpredictable attacks. Guam is an ideal lily pad, since the United States can act there without seeking permission from allies, says Honolulu-based defense analyst Richard Halloran. Declares Carl Peterson of the Guam Chamber of Commerce: “This is the U.S. in Asia. This is the tip of the spear.” The island has already become a convenient base for fighting Washington’s “Global War on Terror” in Indonesia and the Philippines. Small wonder that Brig. Gen. Douglas H. Owens, the commanding officer of Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base, describes the island as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier.” It’s also well positioned for possible trouble to come. As Rear Adm. Charles Leidig, U.S. Navy commander on Guam, points out, if you take a map and draw a circle with Guam at the center and a radius of 1,500 nautical miles—equivalent to three hours’ flying time or two to three days by ship—you come close to the main islands of Japan, Okinawa, Indonesia and the Philippines. China and the Korean Peninsula are only a bit farther off. So are several of the world’s most important sea lanes, such as the Strait of Malacca, through which some 50 percent of the world’s oil passes each year. So why all the fuss over a tropical island just 30 miles long, known mainly for its white-sand beaches and glorious sunsets? The answer: the Pentagon has begun a major redeployment of U.S. forces in the region, pulling troops and equipment out of sometimes unreliable allies and beefing up its presence in more-congenial locales. First on its list is Guam, a U.S. territory since 1898 that is fast becoming the linchpin of Washington’s new Asia strategy. Current U.S. forces on the island number just a few thousand but within a decade will total well over 20,000—about the same size as the Bush administration’s planned surge in Iraq. By comparison, there are some 29,000 U.S. troops left in South Korea, yet despite the dangers of a nuclear-armed North, that number is expected to drop significantly. At a time when most of the world’s attention is focused on the United States’ misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon planners are quietly working on ways to fortify the U.S. presence in East Asia. And they’re looking to do so in ways that will give them a free hand in a wide range of contingencies—including fighting regional terrorists and a possible showdown with China. Guam offers the U.S. military both proximity to potential hot spots and the advantages of operating off U.S. soil. The transfer of forces to the island also reflects the Pentagon’s determination to give regional allies such as South Korea and Japan more responsibility for their own security. Guam, a sleepy but diverse place that looks like a cross between Micronesia and Middle America, has long served as a U.S. air base and way station for troops traveling through the Pacific. At the end of the cold war, the Pentagon began shutting down some facilities on the island. But then came September 11, and a dramatic reassessment of America’s global forces. Former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began to advocate the lily-pad strategy: rather than relying on large, static bases in Germany and South Korea, the Pentagon should create a global network of jumping-off points for quick responses to unpredictable attacks. Guam is an ideal lily pad, since the United States can act there without seeking permission from allies, says Honolulu-based defense analyst Richard Halloran. Declares Carl Peterson of the Guam Chamber of Commerce: “This is the U.S. in Asia. This is the tip of the spear.” The nature of the U.S. reorganization reinforces this point. Washington and Tokyo have agreed to move 8,000 Marines to Guam from Okinawa by 2014, at a cost of $10 billion (60 percent of which will be paid for by the Japanese government). But this is only the most public part of a broader buildup that has largely escaped notice. If all the pieces come together, it could mean billions more in Defense Department funds and a total increase in Guam’s population (which is currently just 170,000) of 35,000.
Japan is merely one example of this popular tactic. I would expect that Affirmatives centered around South Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan to do similar things.
In a similar vein, I would expect Afghanistan police Affs to be possible due to the presence of a sizable, one-sided literature base that favors the Aff.
Q: I’m working on a case related to cyber warfare but I’m not sure how I’ll make it topical…any suggestions?
The hard part of this Aff isn’t whether cyberwarfare is an important part of our military (it unquestionably is). The hard parts of this Aff are “military presence” and “in.” I’m unaware of whether we operate our cyberwarfare strategies *in* the places we have *presence.* If you can find out which parts of our presence are in the countries themselves, and what that consists of, you would have a pretty solid T contention.