Monday, September 7, 2015

NSDA 2015-16 Resolutions: Three of a Kind

Once again, these three fall into the "I don't hate them" category:
In the United States criminal justice system, jury nullification ought to be used in the face of perceived injustice.
Democracies ought to incorporate provisions for legal secession into their national constitutions.
The privatization of civil services undermines democracy.
All posit an imagined or purported democracy and ask what that democracy should  do and what its citizens ought to be able to do if the government fails. It's a debate worth having and what a citizen values will determine how that citizen responds to the question.

There are bits of problematic phrasing. For example, "perceived" prompts the question whether the injustice actually exists along with the question whether the person perceiving the alleged injustice is a competent actor, but still what one should do if the law fails is a valid question that should produce good debate.

I suppose the legal succession resolution is fraught with "devil in details" problems. How one answers the question may depend upon how many citizens it takes to propose succession and how difficult the terms are. I suppose some cynical young'uns might even run a plan suggesting that West River or East River South Dakota secede form each other. That said, the idea that democratic government is willing to begin by creating principles for a democratic disillusion of the state intrigues me and debating whether a government should deliberately sow the seeds of its own destruction seems to provide for some good value debate.

The third one falls into the nature of the democracy, the services a democratic should provide, and the role of the citizen. These broad issues have been debated before, but off the top of my head, I don't recall debating this specific questions.previously. Further, it seems like a question that would grow and develop over two months.

To sum up the past 4 posts, I will give my debaters the choice of voting for the the three in this post and the four in the previous post. I'll vote for their favorites and go from there. I am not enthusiastic about any of these but I strongly dislike on the three mentioned covered in yesterday's posts.

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