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.

A Minor Musing About The 2016-2017 Proposed Foreign Insurgents Topic

Resolved: The United States ought to end its provision of arms to foreign insurgents.

I suppose this post's title will put me on some NSA watch list, certain foreign insurgents not being the most popular group of people at present.

I am optimistically ambivalent about this one. Granted the vague nature of it might provide vague clash, and nothing is more frightening that five consecutive weekends of vague clash. Also, I am old enough to remember when the general public made semantic arguments about "freedom fighters." The term "foreign insurgents" seems open to all sorts of language kritiks.

On the other hand, this resolution allows for arguments and clash across the political spectrum. Neocons will of course have plenty of articles and examples of how the world would be a better place if only the right group of insurgents had been given a few more land mines. Those who love Noam Chomsky can find plenty of support for the idea that arming insurgents is just another example of American imperialism at its worst. If one wants to run Richard Rorty's pragmatism, Amazon has a book for you.

I am tired of typing "the wording of this resolution makes it a policy resolution," but that statement applies for this resolution. However, off the top of my head, I can't think of LD debating a version of this resolution lately, so I would like to give it a shot, even at the risk of Hedge DAs disguised as cases.

A Minor Musing About The NSDA 2016 Proposed Rome Statute Resolution

Resolved: The United States ought to become party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The one rates a meh.

The Rome Statute gives the court jurisdiction over "the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole": "The crime of genocide; Crimes against humanity; War crimes; The crime of aggression."

The US's refusal to sign is apparently based on worries that "the Rome Statute created a seriously flawed institution that lacks prudent safeguards against political manipulation, possesses sweeping authority without accountability to the U.N. Security Council, and violates national sovereignty by claiming jurisdiction over the nationals and military personnel of non-party states in some circumstances."

Without adding the words "Federal Government" after "United States" in the resolution, this wording creates a policy resolution. The federal government will ratify the treaty that makes the US a party to the Rome Statute.

Affs will have plenty of ground. Extreme nihilists excepted, crimes against humanity have little support.

The negs will likely respond with an LD version of a DA. Policy debate having appropriated nuclear war and extinction scenarios, negs will likely argue that ratification means the US will be "headed for a disaster of biblical proportions. . . .Old Testament. . . real wrath of God type stuff. . . .Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!. . . Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...The dead rising from the grave!. . .Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

On a more serious note, this topic has a lot of nuance that may be difficult to develop in 13 minutes of speaking time.

A Minor Musing About the NSDA Proposedl 2016-2017 Civil Liberties Resolution

Resolved A just government ought to prioritize civil liberties over national security.

This resolution is probably my favorite of all the proposed 2016-2017 resolutions. Those who want to default to a utilitarian calculus may do so to their hearts' content. Those who wish to engage debates from other philosophical may also do so to their hearts' content. Frameworks and facts will clash and it should be glorious.

More importantly, this will be a great resolution for the novice. The discussion about civil liberties and national security occur frequently in the public sphere. In debate world, the arguments inherent in this resolution--the eternal Star Trek argument about the goods of the many verses the harms to the few--will be covered in nearly every Lincoln-Douglas resolution that students debate.

Personally, I would prefer this one for January and February. I am afraid it will become and March-April or Nats resolution which means most of our students won't get to debate it.

A Minor Musing On The NSDA Proposed 2016-2017 Limiting Qualified Immunity Resolution

Resolved: The United States ought to limit qualified immunity for police officers.

When this topic was announced in June, I was ready to dust off my copy of Radly Balko's The Rise of the Warrior Cop, and tell the young'uns to start prepping their affs. Since then, events in Dallas and Baton Rouge have caused the public debate to degenerate into #blacklivesmatter vs #bluelivesmatter.  Although I believe that our young'uns will be more civil and logical than the folks who currently engage in public discourse about the issue, our young'uns will be relying on some of their information, and those articles will likely generate more heat than light.

This resolution, like many others proposed this year, has policy phrasing. This particular resolution dares/begs/cajoles/demands/craves/desires/needs a solvency mechanism. LD debate as done is South Dakota doesn't demand a plan, so it's going to be really difficult to provide show that solvency will happen if qualified immunity is limited. Police department reviews will still happen; some will be cover-ups. From Rodney King on, communities have been upset with juries' decisions to limit punishment or prosecutors' refusing to indict. Limiting qualified immunity will not change juries or prosecutors.

I will post my final ranking after I finish these quick overviews, but I will likely vote for this one in the March/April or September/October lists, the ones that we don't debate.

A Minor Musing About The NSDA 2016 Proposed Single-Payer Healthcare Resolution

Resolved: The United States has a moral obligation to adopt a single-payer healthcare system.

I don't like this resolution, so I hope the overview will be short and sweet.

First, there will likely be too many arguments about whether stats from other countries should apply because no one apparently agrees on what constitutes a single-payer system. This NPR article offers the following definition:

A single payer refers to a system in which one entity (usually the government) pays all the medical bills for a specific population. And usually (though, again, not always) that entity sets the prices for medical procedures. 

A single-payer system is not the same thing as socialized medicine. In a truly socialized medicine system, the government not only pays the bills but also owns the health care facilities and employs the professionals who work there.

The article goes on to cite Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who contends that only Canada and Taiwan have "true single payer systems." 

Meanwhile, this Atlantic article contends:

The other point of confusion is that “Europe” has single-payer health care, and America should be more like Europe. European countries’ medical systems are all pretty different. Some of them, like the U.K., have single-payer health care. Germany has a system much like ours, except the insurers aren’t for-profit companies and it’s cheaper for the patients. Other countries have mixed public-private systems that guarantee a basic level of health care but allow the rich to buy supplemental private insurance. [Emphasis Mine]

This confusion will result in a large number of debates descending into "throw out the Great Britain statistics" or "prefer my Great Britain statistics" and then arguments about whether the existence of private insurers constitutes a "true single payer" system. 

Further, this resolution limits aff ground. Aff debaters are forced to defend a single-payer system which has its own set of problems. Further, aff debaters not only have to defend a flawed system; they have to prove the US has a "moral obligation" to implement that flawed system.

Negs can defend the status quo which works well for people who have jobs that provide good insurance. Those citizens would be losers under a single-payer system. Negs can also advocate socialized medicine which is not single-payer. They can refuse to advocate any system at all and attack the failings of a single-payer system. They can support a single-payer system but claim that no moral obligation exists to implement it. They can even contend that the United States has a legal/constitutional/contractual obligation to adopt a single-payer system but that such an obligation does not rise to the level of a moral obligation. Finally, they can argue that Medicare means that the US has fulfilled its moral obligation to adopt a single-payer system because the resolution does not specify that the system be available to all citizens and there is no need to create an additional plan or obligation.

The intent of this resolution may be the same as the intent behind the November/December 2012 resolution Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee universal health care for its citizens; however, focusing on the method rather than the result will cause the debate to degenerate into a definitions debate in which the aff has little ground.

NSDA Potential 2016-2017 Lincoln-Douglas Debate Resolutions

The National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) has released their potential LD Topics for 2016-2017.  During the next few weeks, I will be giving my opinions of each of the following resolutions. Kyle Downey also has the keys to this blog, and he will be weighing in as well.

Resolved: A just government ought to abolish intellectual property protections for genetic resources.
Resolved: A just government ought to prioritize civil liberties over national security.
Resolved: In the United States, national service ought to be compulsory.
Resolved: Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not restrict any constitutionally protected speech.
Resolved: The United States government ought to curtail the Commander-in-Chief powers of the President.
Resolved: The United States has a moral obligation to adopt a single-payer healthcare system.
Resolved: The United States ought to become party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Resolved: The United States ought to end its provision of arms to foreign insurgents.
Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing.
Resolved: The United States ought to limit qualified immunity for police officers.

Schools will be able to vote online for which of the above resolutions they would prefer to debate during November/December  2016, January/February 2017, March/April 2017, Nationals 2017, and September/October 2017. Voting will run from August 1 through September 11.

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.

2015-16 NSDA Resolutions That I Don't Hate

These resolutions have potential.

First, Countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power sets up the long term consequences of nuclear waste and the risk of another Chernobyl or Fukushima against sitting in the dark without a cell phone, continued high carbon emissions,  and global warming. It seems like a balanced debate but may get bogged down in the technical aspects of some alternative energies,

The cynic in me believes Donald Trump may have ruined the resolution Immigration ought to be recognized as a human right. On the other hand, the situation in Europe, America's differing treatment of Cuban and Mexican immigrants makes the discussion timely. The power of the state to regulate and defend its borders as opposed to an individual's human right to life, liberty and property makes for good debate. I suppose a few young'uns will find an "eliminate all borders" K or CP and muddy the waters but at least there will be value debate.

In the United States, campaigns that support candidates for public office ought to be financed exclusively by public funds allows young'uns to quote Charles Dickens's Mr. Bumble and assert that the law, or in this case, the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision is an ass. On the other hand, having all campaigns from local school boards to the Presidency does seem  to be overkill. The role of government, American's responsibility as a citizen, and class divides will ensure more than enough quality literature. I do worry about debating this one during a presidential election cycle when money in politics will be a key issue. If the debater is on the side opposing the judge's beliefs, it may be an uphill battle to get the ballot.

Speaking of money, Corporations ought to value their responsibility to shareholders over the public interest when the two conflict allows one to argue capitalism versus whatever social contract still exists. It's a debate that's been done before, but I don't recall having it in a few years. Besides, it will let young Mr. Downey and me continue our debate about whether Ayn Rand is the most evil philosopher of the 20th Century.