The 2017-2018 NSDA Potential LD Resolution Final Sort

Now for the final overview. Fuller analysis of each or below. As I said on the first post for this year's topics, young Mr. Downey has the keys and can weigh in at his leisure.

I am tempted to use knife reviewer Nick Shabazz's rubric, "the good, the great, the bad, and the ugly," but predicting what will happen with future resolutions is always a dice roll, so I am not going to declare any of these as great. Therefore, I am going to modify it to Good, Meh, Bad, Ugly

The Good

Resolved: Wealthy nations have an obligation to provide development assistance to other nations.

Resolved: In the United States, reporters ought to have the right to protect the identity of confidential sources. (Would be Meh because it's narrow, but the Trump administration's war on leakers keeps escalating, so there will be new issues weekly.)

The Meh list includes

Resolved: A democracy ought to require the separation of church and state. 

Resolved: In the United States, workers ought to have a civil right to unionize. 

Resolved: Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the United States criminal justice system. (I like it, but I remember it getting old fast.)

Resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income. (Another one that might fit in the good category, but I'm feeling cantankerous)

The bad includes the following:

Resolved: In the United States, non-human animals ought to have legally protected rights.

Resolved: The non-therapeutic use of human enhancement technologies is immoral.

Resolved: The United States’ use of targeted killing in foreign countries is unjust.  

The only truly ugly resolution on the list is Resolved: Privileged individuals ought not appropriate the culture of a marginalized group. If I am feeling really cynical, I might argue that the phrasing points to reasons why Trump won the election.

A Minor Musing About The NSDA's 2017-2018 Potential Development Assistance Resolution

 Finally, Resolved: Wealthy nations have an obligation to provide development assistance to other nations.

There are a few defintional arguments, especially the term "development assistance" that might cloud the debate, but on the whole this is an old fashioned LD resolution that allows the discussion of a good number of political and philosophical arguments. Do nations have obligations to those beyond their borders? Do nations have obligations at all? What creates an obligation? Does an obligation exist if the recipient cannot properly use it because that nation lacks the resources or control over its territory? What is the source of a nation's obligation to other nations? Further, one can argue that giving developmental aid might be a good idea and further a nation's self interest, but there is no obligation to do so.

All of the questions produce good debate even though it is frequently trod ground. There are plenty of practical discussions about poverty, starvation, migrant communities, refugees that could also fit. If memory serves, many of the poorest nations are also the one's most adversely affected by refugee influxes.

The wording "other nations" does cause a bit of concern. One can anticipate negs arguing that the resolution obligates the United States to give developmental aid to areas of Canada or that that China is now obligated to give developmental aid to Native American communities. That seems to be a minor concern.

A Minor Musing About The NSDA's Potential 2017-2018 Targeted Killings Resolution

Continuing on to the resolution: Resolved: The United States’ use of targeted killing in foreign countries is unjust. 

It's clear that the U.S. has used targeted killings to some effect. It's also clear that some of the targeting has been ......less precise than it ought to have been. (I think that's a workable euphemism.) There will be facts aplenty to support both sides.

That said, I do worry about ground. It's easy to put together the arguments that killing innocent civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time is unjust. The more critical minded debaters should be able to make an easy case that calling humans "collateral damage" as reports about some targeted killings do is unjust and reason enough to affirm.

Negatives on the other hand are reduced to speculation such as the killing of Terrorist X saved thousands. There is no firm way to prove that argument. Like the arguments about the bombing of Nagasaki and the bar stool favorite "if you could go back in time and kill the infant Hitler, would you?" this resolution gives the negs only speculative utilitarian arguments.

I believe I have only one more to go and I'll do my ratings for all ten

Minor Musings About The NSDA's Proposed 2017-2018 Universal Basic Income Resolution

Next, Resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income. 

I'm not sure that this one is different in kind or degree from the January/February 2015 resolution
Resolved: Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.

I am going to quote myself from an earlier post about another potential resolutions:

. . . , this resolution seems to tick all of the boxes. There are social justice issues and economic issues and individual rights and are corporations people issues. . . .[In addition to] the perennial Hobbes v Locke debate, we can get a classic Adam Smith v Karl Marx debate. The young'uns can run justice with whatever definition they like. Downey's young'uns can run Rand and my young'uns can read our Rand blocks. Fun Times!

Once again, we're confronted with a quasi-policy resolution, but because there is no stock issue demand for a plan text, the debate can and likely will get muddled quickly. How a universal basic income is initiated is important, but LDers will be able to spike out of nearly all specifics by claiming "that's not how the universal basic income I'm advocating will work."

That said, there should be plenty of research. In addition to recent work that advocates the "universal basic income" as a response to jobs lost to technology, Libertarian Charles Murray advocated that the government eliminate social programs and cut a check to to every U. S. citizen.

A Minor Musing About The NSDA's Potential 2017-2018 Proposed Human Enhancement Technologies Resolution

Moving on to Resolved: The non-therapeutic use of human enhancement technologies is immoral.

Given that a Wisconsin company is offering to implant an RFID chip into employees hands so that employees can access vending machines. this one seems timely. (Trust me, accessing a vending machine when one has no cash would turn any normal human into an enhanced being.)

The inevitable "Mark of the Beast" arguments aside, a recent paper set up the potential debate:

A world where everyone is more intelligent will have a cumulative benefit for society, unless of course there is a trade-off between characteristics, say where increased capacity for logic is to the detriment of an ability to empathize with people or where altruism decreases. While there is no evidence to support this concern, it is important to be mindful of the complexity of some neurological constructs—such as intelligence—which may imply improving the functionality of a number different forms (emotional intelligence, rational intelligence), before one can reasonably claim that it has been improved.

The quotation sets up two major concerns that this resolution raises. First, nearly all arguments about the "non-therapeutic use of human enhancement technologies" will be "what if" or "slippery slope." In addition, many of the "scientific" arguments will be stated with certainty that the science may not necessarily support.

Cutting edge science arguments also pose a problem because debaters, judges, and coaches are likely behind the curve on all of these issues. Evaluating cutting edge arguments may not be our strong suit.

I have two other concerns. The first will be the definitional debate. The article linked to contains the following caveat:

Alternatively, genetic enhancement is likely to have different implications from using a pharmaceutical product or a prosthetic device to yield a similar effect. Indeed, debates about the ethics of human enhancement are already so nuanced as to be focused on specific kinds of enhancement, such as neurological, biochemical, or physiological modifications.

In addition to the arguments about whether "physiological" or "biochemical" is or is not  "human enhancement"  will likely get old quick. Further, the arguments that "we should negate because two of the three are ok even if the other is really immoral" will also get old quickly.

Finally, the moral arguments that have been run lately have bothered me. I still am not certain why. This sentence, however,  resonated, at least for now.

There are not always formal ethical codes that govern our existence. Instead people make decisions based on loose, often poorly defined moral frameworks, which nevertheless may guide their actions and organize social conduct.

In short, it's unclear when people apply moral codes, and this resolution may make debaters fit the proverbial square theory into the proverbial round situational hole.

Rankings and voting recommendations will follow the final post on the potential 2017 topics.

A Minor Rant About The NSDA's 2017-2018 Proposed Cultural Appropriation Resolution

Resolution number six is Resolved: Privileged individuals ought not appropriate the culture of a marginalized group.

Remember that "Rankings and voting recommendations will follow the final post on the potential 2017 topics" disclaimer from the posts that preceded this one and that appears in some form or another in posts that follow. It doesn't apply here. This resolution is atrocious.

I freely admit that as a 59 year old white male, I operate from a small position of privilege especially when compared to my position as a 15 year old white male who had spent his entire life in a house without indoor plumbing and a family income that was to the poverty line what the Mendoza line is to a good batting average in baseball. Further, I have no problem admitting that marginalizing individuals because of their poverty, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or a veritable host of other reasons is wrong.

In this resolution, "privileged individuals" is both a euphemism and a pejorative. The term "marginalized group" is designed to evoke sympathy. In short, the resolution at its most basic could read "Those who have much should not take from those who have little." Negatives will be stuck arguing that the privileged should appropriate from those who have little. Granted, there are always arguments that language of the resolution is flawed and the term "marginalized group" creates victims and therefore one should negate. Those arguments will grow stale by the end of the second tournament.

I suppose negatives have one other strategy, trivialization. They can try to hold the affirmatives to ridiculous standards. They can accuse affirmatives of holding on to a principle that says people north of the Mason Dixon line should not say "y'all' because it's a Southern cultural tradition and Southerners are a marginalized group because they were on the wrong side of the War of Northern Aggression which is frequently, albeit incorrectly, called the Civil War. A better example might be arguments over who should and should not eat soul food or listen to soul, blues, jazz, and rap.

Students ought to learn about issues of privilege and marginalization. This resolution will not produce that education.

A Minor Musing About The NSDA's 2017-2018 Potential Plea Bargaining Resolution

Continuing the slog through NSDA's 2017-2018 potential resolutions, we get to Resolved: Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the United States criminal justice system.

In November/December 2007, LDers debated Resolved: In the United States, plea-bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust. In January 2011, public forum debaters debated  Resolved: In the United States, plea bargaining undermines the criminal justice system. If memory serves both resolutions had a shared outcome; college student judges, all of whom had certainly achieved the age of majority, developed drinking games based on the number of times they heard the term "court clog" during the rounds they judged. I expect new versions of that game to be developed should this resolution get picked,

This is a solid resolution that allows debaters to run both pragmatic and philosophical arguments. The issues are substantive, but the issue argumentation he arguments may get a bit stale after a month. More importantly,  this version does seem a bit too broad and may leave affirmatives in a bind. Abolishing all plea bargaining is a far different proposition than arguing it's a necessary evil.

Rankings and voting recommendations will follow the final post on the potential 2017 topics.

Some Minor Musings On The NSDA's 2017-2018 Right To Unionize Potential Resolution

Moving on to Resolved: In the United States, workers ought to have a civil right to unionize.

At first blush, this resolution seems to tick all of the boxes. There are social justice issues and economic issues and individual rights and are corporations people issues. Instead of the perennial Hobbes v Locke debate, we can get a classic Adam Smith v Karl Marx debate. The young'uns can run justice with whatever definition they like. Downey's young'uns can run Rand and my young'uns can read our Rand blocks. Fun Times!

There is, however, a huge caveat. When I do a Google search of "right to unionize" and limit it to the past year, the first 3 or 4 pages are dominated by grad students and Uber drivers fighting for the right to unionize. I'm not sure that's the debate I want to hear. (I know that coaches all tell the young'uns to go beyond Google, but they are young'uns; also, a Google search is a good indicator of what people are thinking about on any given set of issues.)  Further recent studies about economic issues such as raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour seem to have been sponsored by institutions with political agendas. Depending on one's political view, the results are "provocative" and "conclusive" or "the product of a severely flawed methodology." Debaters have 13 minutes to deal with value, criterion, working conditions, fair wage and benefit issues, and economic impacts of the cost of labor. Research methodologies may become a time suck rabbit hole that other resolutions can avoid.

Rankings and voting recommendations will follow the final post on the potential 2017 topics.

A Minor Musing About The NSDA 2017-2018 Protection Of Confidential Sources Potential Resolution

Moving on to the third potential resolution, we get Resolved: In the United States, reporters ought to have the right to protect the identity of confidential sources.

This one is similar to the 1999 January-February resolution:  Resolved: in the United States, a journalist’s right to shield confidential sources ought to be protected by the First Amendment.

Doing a quick search of shield laws, I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that South Dakota has no shield law protecting reporters. Now that a small bit of my daily supply of sarcasm has been expended, let's move on, shall we.

This resolution, like many recent resolutions, allows negs to play the  "affirmatives have to defend the absolute protection of confidential sources in all instances even the times when the source knows the location of a nuclear warhead that has had its fissionable materiel combined with weaponized Ebola and smallpox and the timer is ticking" card.  I also worry a bit that the #fakenews red herrings or discussions of whether Alex Jones or other of his ilk are actual reporters may move debates from the core element of First Amendment protections.

Those caveats aside, this resolution seems to allow both the philosophical and policy folk to construct cases and argue. Since 1999, Snowden, Manning, and numerous whistle-blowers have provided reporters with information. Reporters have been jailed for refusing to reveal their sources. We have seen the rise of hackers who obtain and publish information without the need for human sources. All of these issues can fit into the debate along with the standard argument about whether the good of the public or the individual good should be weighed as more important. This resolution also provides for a debate about whether the public good is best served by secrecy or knowledge.

I'll wait until I have mused about all ten resolutions to do a final rating, but I have few concerns about this one.

Some Minor Musings On The Potential 2017-2018 Non-Human Animals Legal Rights Resolution

Second on the list of NSDA's 2017-2018 potential LD resolutions is Resolved: In the United States, non-human animals ought to have legally protected rights. 

I need to begin with a disclaimer. I live in a house owned by two felines who have spent the past 14 years working to convince me that human civilization reached it zenith when the ancient Egyptians worshiped their feline ancestors. My daily interaction with these two wannabe deities who maintain that legal rights are insufficient for beings of divine status might cloud my judgement on this resolution.

On a more debate related note, there is a Nonhuman Rights Project which works "through litigation, public policy advocacy, and education to secure legally recognized fundamental rights for nonhuman animals." More specifically, the organization seeks to "[t]o change the common law status of great apes, elephants, dolphins, and whales from mere “things,” which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to “legal persons,” who possess such fundamental rights as bodily liberty and bodily integrity." Further, a quick Goggle search uncovers the fact that India declared dolphins and whales as nonhuman persons in 2013. In addition, there seems to be a plethora of recent studies on nonhuman animal sentience.

That fact that no one judging these debates will have degrees in neuroscience portends that the arguments may fall into Free Willy vs Operation Dumbo Drop vs "get your hands off her you damn dirty ape." More importantly, the devil will be in the details: the definition of a nonhuman animal or the scope of the rights granted.  Fans of policy T debate and LD definitional warfare may relish this topic. The rest of us, not so much. 

Those who want LD to focus on traditional ethics and philosophical concepts will suffer through a lot of one person policy debates featuring vague non-plans with a ton of Peter Singer.

On the plus side, I don't recall debating this one before, and we should hear new arguments weekly. (Feel free to insert bad weakly pun here.) Those who are fighting to broaden support for programs within their respective buildings get to involve the science department folk.

As I said earlier, I'll do some sort of ranking after completing these brief musings, but I am certain I don't want to debate this one in January/February.

Some Minor Musings About The Potential Separation Of Church And State Resolution

I'll try to follow the NSDA's alphabetical ordering as I respond.

This first 2017-2018 post will, therefore, be about Resolved: A democracy ought to require the separation of church and state.

First, this resolution is obviously an effort to make me feel old. In January/February 2005, we debated Resolved: democracy is best served by strict separation of church and state.

As I recall there was some decent debate. Several intrepid young folk reminded opponents and judges that Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists sought to reassure the Baptists that the government would not intrude on their religious practices and that the phrase was never intended to keep folk from exercising their faith in the public square. There were arguments for and against creches in front of court houses and the 10 Commandments appearing in courtrooms. I don't recall hearing any debates about the Australia's tax exempt Jedi Knights, but the issue of churches' tax exempt status was rather prominent.

Since 2005 we have experienced the rise of the Islamic State and an increased fear of religiously inspired terrorism. Hobby Lobby has used religious freedom as a reason to argue that corporations ought not be forced to provide insurance that covers contraception. Further, the legalization of same-sex marriage along with several county clerks refusing to issue licenses to same-sex couples and bakers refusing to cater same-sex weddings has created large public debates. In addition, Richard Dawkins angry defense of atheism was published in 2008, and Christopher Hitchens, a far superior wordsmith, published God Is Not Great in 2009. In short, there are plenty of old arguments that will be fun to listen to and more than a few new arguments to keep things from getting stale.

There are, however, some problems with the 2017 version of the resolution. Let's do the easy arguments first. There's the real  possibility that debaters will try to dodge important points with trite one-liners such as "The resolution is about church and state not mosque and state, so all arguments have to be limited to Christianity not Islam." (Feel free to insert temple for mosque, and Judaism, Hinduism, or Buddhism for Islam; the result will be the same.)

Further, this resolution is too vague. In the 2005 resolution, debaters would debate about whether democracy was "best served" by separation of church and state. The current iteration, however,  provides no reason for the separation, "strict" or otherwise. Issue debates and value debates may either fly past each other with no substantive clash or devolve into religion good vs religion bad generalities. Both situations make judge intervention far too likely.

I'll wait until I've finished my random musings on the resolutions to see if I recommend voting for this one. It has foreseeable pitfalls, but the potential for some good debates

The NSDA's Potential 2017-2018 Lincoln-Douglas Debate Resolutions

From NSDA

Lincoln-Douglas Debate – Potential 2017-2018 Topics (in alphabetical order)

• Resolved: A democracy ought to require the separation of church and state.
• Resolved: In the United States, non-human animals ought to have legally protected rights. 
• Resolved: In the United States, reporters ought to have the right to protect the identity of confidential sources.
• Resolved: In the United States, workers ought to have a civil right to unionize.
• Resolved: Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the United States criminal justice system.
• Resolved: Privileged individuals ought not appropriate the culture of a marginalized group.
• Resolved: The non-therapeutic use of human enhancement technologies is immoral.
• Resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income.
• Resolved: The United States’ use of targeted killing in foreign countries is unjust. 
• Resolved: Wealthy nations have an obligation to provide development assistance to other nations.

Online voting for LD occurs August 1 through September 11. The 2017 September/October LD resolution (voted on last fall) will be announced August 8.

During the next few weeks, I'll offer some random musings and try to remind young Mr. Downey and a few other folks to post and comment.