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.