Thursday, August 10, 2017

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

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