Hunter College DL (Diana Li)

Cases found here: http://wiki.debatecoaches.org/2010-2011+—+Hunter+College+%28NY%29+

—+Diana+Li

AC

The affirmative should not be held to defend disarmament because the resolution asks if a
state of affairs is desirable
 Run fairness/aff fiat bad theory
 In the international arena, we have to consider consequences and make contingency plans
V: Morality
Util FW
Gary Woller (Professor of Public Management, Brigham Young University). “A Forum on the
Role of Environmental Ethics in Restructuring Environmental Policy and Law for the Next
Century.” Policy Currents 7.2 (June 1997): p. 10-11.
http://www.apsapolicysection.org/vol7_2/72.pdf

Moreover, virtually all public policies entail some redistribution of economic or political
resources, such that one group's gains must come at another group's ex- pense. Consequently,
public policies in a democracy must be justified to the public, and especially to those who pay
the costs of those policies. Such justification cannot simply be assumed a priori by invoking
some higher-order moral principle. Appeals to a priori moral principles, such as environmental
preservation, also of- ten fail to acknowledge that public policies inevitably entail trade-offs
among competing values. Thus since policymakers cannot justify inherent value conflicts to the
public in any philosophical sense, and since public policies inherently imply winners and losers,
the policymakers' duty to the public interest requires them to demonstrate that the redistributive
effects and value trade-offs implied by their polices are somehow to the overall advantage of
society.
At the same time, deontologically based ethical systems have severe practical limitations as a
basis for public policy. At best, a priori moral principles provide
only general guidance to ethical dilemmas in public af- fairs and do not themselves suggest
appropriate public policies, and at worst, they create a regimen of regula- tory unreasonableness
while failing to adequately ad- dress the problem or actually making it worse. For example, a
moral obligation to preserve the environ- ment by no means implies the best way, or any way for
that matter, to do so, just as there is no a priori reason to believe that any policy that claims to
preserve the environment will actually do so. Any number of poli- cies might work, and others,
although seemingly con- sistent with the moral principle, will fail utterly. That deontological
principles are an inadequate basis for en- vironmental policy is evident in the rather significant
irony that most forms of deontologically based envi- ronmental laws and regulations tend to be
implemented in a very utilitarian manner by street-level enforcement officials. Moreover,
ignoring the relevant costs and benefits of environmental policy and their attendant in- centive
structures can, as alluded to above, actually work at cross purposes to environmental
preservation. (There exists an extensive literature on this aspect of regulatory enforcement and
the often perverse out- comes of regulatory policy. See, for example, Ackerman, 1981; Bartrip
and Fenn, 1983; Hawkins, 1983, 1984; Hawkins and Thomas, 1984.) Even the most die-hard
preservationist/deontologist would, I be- lieve, be troubled by this outcome. The above points are
perhaps best expressed by Richard Flathman,
The number of values typically involved in public policy decisions, the broad categories which
must be employed and above all, the scope and complexity of the consequences to be anticipated
militate against reasoning so conclusively that they generate an imperative to institute a specific
policy. It is seldom the case that only one policy will meet the criteria of the public interest
(1958, p. 12).
It therefore follows that in a democracy, policymakers have an ethical duty to establish a plau-
sible link between policy alternatives and the problems they address, and the public must be
reasonably as- sured that a policy will actually do something about an existing problem; this
requires the means-end language and methodology of utilitarian ethics. Good intentions, lofty
rhetoric, and moral piety are an insufficient, though perhaps at times a necessary, basis for public
policy in a democracy.

VC: Max HR, prioritize life

 Run the categorical imperative against this, saying that we can’t prioritize some rights
over others because prioritizing and weighing rights contradicts their definitional
inviolability
 See part of the card highlighted blue, run against this that they are looking at morality for
a value, so if they are basically saying public policy can’t be determined by any kind of
moral mandate, then they contradict themselves because util is a moral theory, so why do
they even bother?

Theft is relatively easy

Wilson, Valerine. “A world without nuclear weapons; Ex CIA agent Valerine Plame Wilson says
we need to make it real”; NY daily news; former CIA agent, specializing in nuclear counter
proliferation.
“We know that terrorist groups… ensure that terrorists do not get the bomb.”

We know that terrorist groups are trying to buy, build or steal a bomb and that top nuclear
scientists have offered to help them - Osama Bin Laden met with some just before 9/11. There is
enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) in the world to build more than 100,000 weapons. There
have been at least 25 incidents of lost or stolen nuclear explosive material. Rogue individuals are
selling technology on the black market - A.Q. Khan of Pakistan did it for years before my group
at the CIA exposed him in 2003.
If terrorists get hold of HEU, they could not be prevented from smuggling it into a targeted city,
building a bomb and exploding it. A hundred pounds of HEU could fit in a shoebox - and
100,000 shipping containers come into the United States every day. Radiation sensors at the
docks stand almost no chance of detecting such a cache.
The only way to eliminate the threat of nuclear terrorism is to drain the swamp. Terrorists don't
have the capacity to produce nuclear weapons or material themselves - they need to buy or steal
them. Eliminating all nuclear weapons and locking down all nuclear material is the only way to
ensure that terrorists do not get the bomb. This will take years of painstaking work. But the
alternative is continued proliferation and, sooner or later, an act of nuclear terrorism.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/07/22/2010-07-
22_a_world_without_nuclear_weapons_excia_agent_valerie_plame_wilson_says_we_need_to.ht
ml#ixzz10IWFez3o

1. The impacts that this card cites would have probably already occurred because it talks
about these issues as pressing in the first few years of the decade. We made it to 2010
and we’re still alive.
2. This provides no mechanism for disarming. I know it says at the top of the case that you
don’t have to provide a mechanism, but this specifically says that we “drain the swamp,”
but there is absolutely no reason why we would be able to do that. Definitely run fiat bad
theory in the NC/1NR.

Using the CATS (Consequences Assessment Tool Set) software created by the US Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA),
the authors have calculated the numbers of dead and wounded to be expected from a 12.5 kiloton
nuclear explosion at ground level in New York City. The casualty model used assumed a
cloudless day and a 100% fatality rate for people in the firestorm area, which extends out to 2.4
km (1.5 mi) for a blast of this size. To calculate the effects of direct radiation exposure from the
explosion, it assumed a 100% fatality rate for people beyond the firestorm who are exposed to >
600 cGY, and a 50% fatality rate for people exposed to 450 to 599 cGy. It also assumed that
people with exposures in the range of 50 to 449 cGy would develop radiation sickness. To
calculate the effects of local fallout beyond the zone of firestorm and direct radiation exposure,
we assumed an attack in September, and the model examined a fallout footprint extending 113
km (70 mi) to the East from the explosion. The size and shape of the fallout footprint were
calculated from the most probable prevailing wind direction and speed at that time of the year.
The model used residential demographic data and thus predicted casualties for an attack at night.
An attack during the day when large numbers of people come into Manhattan from outlying
areas would produce substantially higher casualty figures. For purposes of this study, the
explosion was placed in New York Harbor between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to reflect
concerns that a nuclear device could most easily enter a US city smuggled in a cargo container
on board a commercial ship.

Results

A 12.5 kiloton nuclear explosion in New York Harbor produce casualties more than one order of
magnitude greater than those inflicted at the World Trade Center. Blast and thermal effects
would kill 52,000 people immediately. Another 238,000 would be exposed to direct radiation
from the blast, and of these 44,000 would suffer radiation sickness and more than 10,000 of these
would receive lethal doses. In addition to this direct radiation from the explosion, fallout would
expose another million and a half people. For this group, the 24 hour cumulative dose would be
high enough to kill another 200,000 and cause several hundred thousand cases of radiation
sickness. In addition there would be many thousands of people with mechanical and thermal
injuries.
 1. Ask what the methodology is here
2. No link to the impact here…it talks about a shoebox full of uranium but there is no
reason to believe that we could get a cargo ship with bombs on it into New York

CONTENTION 2: Irrational Leaders

Answer this analytically like we went over in class. Everybody wants something. Kim Jong Il,
for example, is a crazy man, but he wants a basketball. Nobody wants to die for nothing and not
get anything from dying, meaning that nobody is truly irrational. The blame may fall on people
like the CIA for not getting intelligence into the motivations of people, but you can never call
someone a truly irrational actor.

CONTENTION 3: Accidents

The first evidence is by a man named Berkowitz. It talks about warning errors. It was also
written DURING THE COLD WAR IN 1985. The nuclear arena has changed so much since
then, with new concerns about central asia, Iran, and North Korea, that the impacts in here are
irrelevant.

Card #2 is tagged “Emprical Examples of Almost-Accidents”

Yes, this is alarming. True. But it also seems to make the point that we will EMPIRICALLY
NEVER have an accident, but rather get close and avert disaster. It may be better not to come
close, but if the negative shows good reasons to keep nukes around, a hypothetical maybe
almost-accident is not an impact the aff can win on.

Next up is Sagan. Run deterrence empirically good against this. Also, run accients unlikely,
you can crossapply from the card above this one. The deterrence file is in the dropbox.

Finally:
Morton Mintz, Two Minutes to Launch, The American Prospect, February 2001.
“The bitter disputes over national… a nuclear war by checklist, by rote.”

The bitter disputes over national missile defense (NMD) have obscured a related but
dramatically more urgent issue of national security: the 4,800 nuclear warheads--weapons with a
combined destructive power nearly 100,000 times greater than the atomic bomb that leveled
Hiroshima--currently on "hair-trigger" alert.

Hair-trigger alert means this: The missiles carrying those warheads are armed and fueled at all
times. Two thousand or so of these warheads are on the intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) targeted by Russia at the United States; 1,800 are on the ICBMs targeted by the United
States at Russia; and approximately 1,000 are on the submarine-based missiles targeted by the
two nations at each other. These missiles would launch on receipt of three computer-delivered
messages. Launch crews--on duty every second of every day--are under orders to send the
messages on receipt of a single computer-delivered command. In no more than two minutes, if
all went according to plan, Russia or the United States could launch missiles at predetermined
targets: Washington or New York; Moscow or St. Petersburg. The early-warning systems on
which the launch crews rely would detect the other side's missiles within tens of seconds, causing
the intended--or accidental--enemy to mount retaliatory strikes. "Within a half-hour, there could
be a nuclear war that would extinguish all of us," explains Bruce Blair. "It would be, basically, a
nuclear war by checklist, by rote."

This card is basically saying that the US and Russia have huge huge huge nuclear arsenals.
Remember that…
a. big nuclear arsenals = MAD deterrence
b. the size of a nuclear arsenal begins to have diminishing returns

ON THE NEGATIVE

V: Morality
VC: Preventing War
 nukes or not…we can still have war. If you win deterrence bad, this also goes away and
their impact is link turned harder back on them

CAN’T FIND THIS EVIDENCE, BUT I KNOW I’VE SEEN IT. IF I FIND IT I WILL
ADD.
 Do keep in mind facing this that it was written before the fall of the USSR, so it does
lose some credibility that way.
Waltz, Kenneth. Nuclear Myths and Political Realities The American Political Science Review,
Vol. 84, No. 3, pp. 731-745, September 1990.
“The catastrophe promised by nuclear war… disappears in a nuclear one.”

UNFORTUNATELY, THIS ONE IS EVEN HARDER TO FIND THAN THE FIRST.

AGAIN, I WILL ADD IF I CAN FIND IT
Richard Garfield “The Epidemiology of War,” Richard Garfield “The Epidemiology of War”, p.
24 “War and Public Health,” by Barry Levy and Victor Sidel 2007
“The Uppsala Conflict Data Project… may exceed 500,000 per year.”

 Generally against this cause I would say

o Run deterrence bad
o Author/date indicts to show it is non-unique
o Battle with your framework because this case is most likely utilitarian