FS T & Theory File

Public Colleges and Universities ought not restrict
constitutionally protected free speech

JF T/Theory – Big Lex
Paradigm Issues/Add-ons:
Voter:
Short [Long RVI]:
Vote on fairness because debate’s a game that needs rules, and
education because that’s why schools fund it. Use competing
interps because reasonability is arbitrary which causes
intervention which is definition-ally unfair. Drop the debater (a)
deter future abuse – empirically confirmed with aprioris and (b)
dropping the arg on T is incoherent because it is dropping the aff
advocacy so its functionally the same. No RVI’s – (a) creates a
chilling effect – aff is dangerous on theory because they get to
prep a long counterinterp in the 1ar and then get the 2ar to
collapse, weigh, and contextualize - negs would always be
disincentives from reading theory against good theory debaters
which leads to infinite abuse so it outweighs time skew and (b)
they’re illogical - “I’m fair vote for me” doesn’t make any sense -
logic comes first on theory since all args need to make sense in
order to be evaluable.
Short [Short RVI]:
Vote on fairness because debate’s a game that needs rules, and
education because that’s why schools fund it. Use competing
interps because reasonability is arbitrary which causes
intervention which is definition-ally unfair. Drop the debater (a)
deter future abuse – empirically confirmed with aprioris and (b)
dropping the arg on T is incoherent because it is dropping the aff
advocacy so its functionally the same. RVIs are bad because (a)
chills theory on decent theory debaters causing net more
abusive practices and (b) they’re illogical - “I’m fair vote for me”
doesn’t make any sense - logic frames their args since all args
need to make sense to be evaluable.
Long/Neg Specific:
Fairness is a voter because unfair arguments arbitrarily skew
your evaluation of the round towards the unfair debater.
Education is a voter because it’s the reason why schools fund
debae. And, vote on jurisdiction - the judge can only vote for
topical cases since the ballot asks who did the better debating in
context of a resolution. Drop the debater on neg theory (1) drop
the argument incentivizes abusive affs that bait theory and then
collapse to substance by kicking case or extending tricks –
means neg always loses and (2) 2ar collapse ensures the aff will
always win if they have free range of arguments – drop the
debater is key to neg layering. And, no aff rvi’s (1) incentivizes
aff to read abusive interps and arguments and just focus on
prepping a long counterinterp to always win and (2) creates a
chilling effect – aff is uniquely dangerous on theory because they
get to read a long counterinterp in the 1ar and then get the 2ar to
collapse, weigh, and contextualize: negs would always be
disincentives from reading theory against good theory debaters
which leads to infinite abuse. Prefer competing interps to
reasonability because reasonability (1) has no bright line for
mitigating a shell (2) invites huge judge intervention because
thresholds for “unreasonable” abuse are different. And, all neg
abuse is the aff’s fault since the neg strat is informed by the aff
meaning I had to choose that strat.
Jurisdiction Ad-On:
Vote on jurisdiction independent of fairness and education ---
the judge can only vote for cases which affirm the res since the
ballot asks who did the better debating in context of a resolution
while they can still vote on an abusive neg strategy.
Framing/Weighing:
T Abuse First:
1] All arguments only function within the umbrella of the topic.
We need to comprehend the scope of the topic before we can
understand the nature of all arguments within the topic, like
theory.
2] We only have 2 months to establish norms for the topic
because after that it changes. Yet for theory we have an
unlimited amount of time to establish norms. Thus, vote on T
first in order to establish norms before a topic change.
3] T constrains theory. If we can combat abuse that particularly
stems from the nature of the topic, it’ll help us address more
generic theoretical concerns.
4] The ballot asks you to vote for who did the better debating,
but if the aff isn’t topical then you can’t say the aff did the better
debating because they’re not actually affirming.
Counter-Evidence:
They need to be winning the evidence debate to win the T debate
because the evidence controls what are legitimate
interpretations of the topic. This means (a) answering back the
standards is insufficient to win the T debate because text
constrains what is relevant topical ground in the first place and
(b) picking a random interpretation that lacks solid backing by
an author or institution supercharges the abuse and (c) just
winning pragmatic reasons to vote for you is not sufficient-
those are just reasons why we should change the topic not adapt
to your non T aff.
2NR – Limits First:
Limits is an independent voter – it precedes our ability to engage
in the activity. HARRIS:
Harris, Scott [Debate coach for over 25 years, coaches University of Kansas Policy Debate Team], " This ballot," Published
on CEDADebate.org Forums. 5/5/13. < http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?topic=4762.msg10246 >.
I understand that there has been some criticism of Northwestern’s strategy in this debate round. This criticism is premised on the idea that they ran framework
instead of engaging Emporia’s argument about home and the Wiz. I think this criticism is unfair. Northwestern’s framework argument did engage Emporia’s
argument. Emporia said that you should vote for the team that performatively and methodologically made debate a home. Northwestern’s argument directly
clashed with that contention. My problem in this debate was with aspects of the execution of the argument rather than with the strategy itself. It has always made
me angry in debates when people have treated topicality as if it were a less important argument than other arguments in debate. Topicality is a real argument. It is
a researched strategy. It is an argument that challenges many affirmatives. The fact that other arguments could be run in a debate or are run in a debate does not
make topicality somehow a less important argument. In reality, for many of you that go on to law school you will spend much of your life running topicality
arguments because you will find that words in the law matter. The rest of us will experience the ways that word choices matter in contracts, in leases, in writing
laws and in many aspects of our lives. Kansas ran an affirmative a few years ago about how the location of a comma in a law led a couple of districts to misinterpret
the law into allowing individuals to be incarcerated in jail for two days without having any formal charges filed against them. For those individuals the location of
the comma in the law had major consequences. Debates about words are not insignificant. Debates about what kinds of arguments we should or should not be
making in debates are not insignificant either. The limits debate is an argument that has real pragmatic
consequences. I found myself earlier this year judging Harvard’s eco-pedagogy aff and thought to myself—I could stay up tonight and put a
strategy together on eco-pedagogy, but then I thought to myself—why should I have to? Yes, I could put together a strategy
against any random argument somebody makes employing an energy metaphor but the
reality is there are only so many nights to stay up all night researching. I would like to actually spend time playing catch
with my children occasionally or maybe even read a book or go to a movie or spend some time with my wife. A world [with] where
there are an infinite number of aff[s]irmatives is a world where [and] the demand to
have a specific strategy and not run framework is a world that says this community doesn’t
care whether its participants have a life or do well in school or spend

time with their families. I know there is a new call abounding for interpreting this NDT as a mandate for broader more diverse
topics. The reality is that will create more work to prepare for the teams that choose to debate the topic but will have little to no effect on the teams that refuse to
debate the topic. Broader topics that do not require positive government action or are bidirectional will not make teams that won’t debate the topic choose to
debate the topic. I think that is a con job. I am not opposed to broadr topics necessarily. I tend to like the way high school topics are written more than the way
college topics are written. I just think people who take the meaning of the outcome of this NDT as proof that we need to make it so people get to talk about anything
they want to talk about without having to debate against topicality or framework arguments are interested in constructing a world that might make debate an
unending nightmare and not a very good home in which to live. Limits, to me, are a real impact because I feel their impact in my everyday existence.
CX Bad:
[1] An AC advocacy text is better because we can hold you to it,
whereas we don’t have a CX exchange memorized.
[2] Skews my CX time-he can stall me in cx taking a lot of time
clarifying. CX time is key bc you need it to clarify the aff.
[3] By specing implementation in the AC we get policy making
education for the whole round, otherwise we don’t get it for the
first few minutes of the round.
[4] Judges don’t pay us much attention in cx as they do in
speeches, so its clearer if he defends implementation in the aff.
[5] Allowing him to change his advocacy in cross-x is bad-it
allows him to be abusive in the NC at no risk and hope I don’t
catch on to the abuse.
[6] Topic specific theory debates are good (a) understanding
what the words in the topic mean is a prerequisite to actually
debating and understanding the topic (b) Theory debates allow
us to create norms for future debates to be more fair and
educational. Impact turns any argument about cx checks
avoiding theory.
Spirit First:
1. Time: Text of the interp allows abusive debaters to get out of
engaging the theory debate by making blippy objections to
random words in my interpretation, skewing my time since it
takes at least a minute to run theory, but they can get out of it
with five seconds of “I meets”. Time is key since it allows us to
make arguments and win.
2. Theory is justified on the standards level; the abuse story and
links to fairness are contextualized in the standards, so meeting
the interp semantically doesn’t prove they are fair if they still
violate the standards.
3. Reciprocity: No one sentence is perfect—they can always
nitpick at single words of my interp and explain why they get out
of it. This literally gives them an extra avenue to take out theory
for every word of my interp. Reciprocity is key because it
ensures equal pathways to the ballot.
4. Deterring legit theory: Text of the interp deters legit theory
since it puts the initiator of theory at a big disadvantage as
there’s always the off chance that they mess up one word of the
interp. Allowing legit theory is key since it ensures that fairness-
related and educational constraints actually have some meaning
in the round.
Topical Theory:
Multiple Colleges Bad:
1N Shell:
A] Interpretation: If the aff defends multiple colleges and
universities act to not consider standardized tests in
undergraduate a, they must defend a single, unified agent that
obligates them all to take the same action. To clarify, you cannot
defend that all public colleges and universities act in
conjunction, but a single unified action.
B] Violation:
C] Vote Neg:
[1] Fiat abuse – multi-agent fiat is uniquely bad on this topic
since colleges and universities requires at least two agents. their
interp requires every public college and university acts in
conjunction, but that’s completely unrealistic and has never
happened. The only reform of public colleges has happened
through a unified legislative action, so I control the internal link
to real world articulations of the plan. Independently, mutli-
agent fiat is bad for resolvability since each university’s
enactment of the plan differs drastically, so there’s no stable
basis for comparing aff/neg solvency which comes functionally
first since it’s prior to evaluating the debate in the first place.
[2] Ground – I don’t have a stable source of mechanism disads to
the case – method of implementation varies drastically from
college to college. My interp forces the aff to establish a unified
standard for what free speech ought to look like so I know what
I’m debating against. Otherwise, the aff can shift out of core neg
ground with different unspecified nuances. Key to fairness and
education since it’s a prior question to me engaging in the case
so we learn anything or the neg can make strategic choices.
Lift Speech Codes Bad:
1N Shell:
A] Interpretation: The aff must not defend that public colleges
and universities ought to roll back a specific set of speech codes.
B] Violation:
C] Vote Neg:
[1] Ground – drawing advantages from a specific speech code of
the college doesn’t justify why restricting free speech is bad, but
that a specific college shouldn’t be trusted – for instance, if I
said Alabama as a state or university can’t be trusted to maintain
free speech restrictions, you don’t justify free speech
restrictions are bad, just that a specific way is bad. That kills
unique neg ground since they don’t directly justify no
restrictions on free speech, instead that it could be possibly done
better. Key to fairness and education since unique neg ground
provides a stable basis for me to engage in their args.
[2] Solves their offense – they can defend a specific college that
ought not restrict free speech or a specific harm that comes
from them not doing so, but in response they cannot defend
repealing a specific speech code. So there’s a fair version of their
aff under my interp means I resolve any counter-interp net
benefits.
[3] Their interp isn’t T – it doesn’t say colleges ought not restrict
anny constitutionally protected free speech, but that only a
specific type of speech code is bad, but that doesn’t make sense
in the context of this topic which requires all free speech.
ECKERT ’16:
[Eckert, Bennett. “Topic Analysis by Bennett Eckert.” Champion Briefs: Jan/Feb 2017. 2016. No Date. LHP MK]
This is potentially the most frustrating word in the topic. Merriam-Webster’s first definition of it is: 1: one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind: a: one or
another taken at random <ask any man you meet>b: every —used to indicate one selected without restriction <any child would know that>8 It seems, then, that
any” does mean something like “every” in this instance. However, that would not mean that the resolution is
this “
the topic intuitively seems to be

saying that colleges could restrict some, but not every instance of free speech. Rather,
saying that colleges cannot restrict any free speech; there should be no restrictions on constitutionally
protected speech. The implication of this is obvious: plans are not topical. There also seems to be an
obvious argument for plans not being allowed on this topic regardless of whether the word “any” was in the topic. If the affirmative were
allowed to say “colleges should not restrict some specific instance of

constitutionally protected speech”, then they would pick absurd, unbeatable
affs. For example, people would read plans like “Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not restrict students’ right to write papers on Kant.”
Or “Colleges shouldn’t restrict students’ right to say racism is bad.” All of these would, if the aff could specify one sort of speech, be theoretically defensible plans.
However, they are clearly terrible for debate: they would force the negative into
an awful position and give them no educational ground to debate about. For this
reason, I will focus my discussion in the next two sections on affirmatives that defend the whole resolution.
Kills fairness and education since your interp kills neg ground
for engaging and clashing in the aff, so we never learn anything
about the topic, and means they have to win they’re T beore they
access their own pragmatics since it isn’t a legit interp of the res.
Topicality:
T – Legal Ought:
1N Shell:
Interpretation: The aff must defend that there is a direct legal
obligation to affirm. “Ought” refers to a legal relationship
between an empirical condition and some legal justification.
KELSEN:
[Kelsen, Hans. “Pure Theory of Law.” 1934]
Both cases involve simply the expression of a functional connection of elements, the connection specific to the respective system—here nature, there the law. In
particular, even causality represents only a functional connection when one frees it of the metaphysico-magical sense originally attached to it by man, still entirely
animistic and imagining in the cause some secret force creating, out of itself, the effect. A causal principle thus purified can never be dispensed with in the natural
sciences, for what is manifest in the principle is simply the postulate of the intelligibility of nature, a postulate that can be approximated only by linking the
material facts given to our cognition. Laws of nature say: ‘if A is, then £ must be.’ Positive laws say: ‘if A is, then B ought to be.’ And neither the laws of nature nor
ought’ designates a
positive laws have said anything thereby about the moral or political value of the connection between A and B. The ‘
category for comprehending empirical legal (p.25) data. In this respect, the
relative a priori
‘ought’ is indispensable, lest the specific way in which the positive law connects
material facts with one another not be comprehended or expressed at all. For it is obvious that this connection is not the connection of cause and effect. It
is not as the effect of a cause that punishment is set for a delict; rather, the legislator establishes between these two material facts, delict and punishment, a linkage
that is completely different from causality. Completely different, but just as inviolable. For in the system of the law, that is, owing to the law, punishment follows
always and without exception from the delict, even if, in the system of nature, punishment may fail to materialize for one reason or another. Where punishment
does materialize, it need not occur as an effect of the delict, functioning as cause; it can have entirely different causes, even if, indeed, the delict has not taken place
if a so-called unlawful act occurs, the consequence of the

at all. When one says that
unlawful act ‘ought’ to occur, this ‘ought’—as designating a category of the

law—simply represents the specific sense in which legal condition and legal
consequence belong together in the reconstructed legal norm. This category of the law has a purely formal character, which
distinguishes it in principle from a transcendent idea of law. It remains applicable whatever the content of the material facts so linked, and whatever the type of the
acts to be understood as law. No social reality can be excluded, on the basis of its content, from this legal category, which is cognitively and theoretically
transcendental in terms of the Kantian philosophy, not metaphysically transcendent. Precisely its transcendental character serves to preserve its radically anti-
ideological stance; and on precisely this point, traditional legal theory launches the fiercest resistance, finding it intolerable that the system of the Soviet Union is to
be conceived of as a legal system in exactly the same way as is that of Fascist Italy or democratic, capitalistic France.
To clarify, this means the normative justification of the aff can’t

be moral in nature, but should justify a theory of the law that
requires we affirm and debate under that.
B] Violation:
Reading a moral framework and saying the law affirms doesn’t meet the shell
questions what the source of our obligations are morality or the law not the
consequences of those actions
C] Vote Neg:
[1] Ground – moral interpretations of the res inherently exclude
neg ground:
[A] Moral interps are undebatable since ‘ought’ statements are
structurally false killing a coherent basis for ground – only a
factual grounding for the res sovles. WITTGENSTEIN ’65:
[By Ludwig Wittgenstein. “A Lecture on Ethics.” 1965]
Now what I wish to contend is that, although all judgments of relative value [are] can be shown to be mere
statement of facts, no statement of fact can ever be, or imply, a judgment of
absolute value. Let me explain this: Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the
world dead or alive and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big book,
then this book would contain[ing] the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book
would contain nothing that we would call an ethical judgment or anything that would logically imply such a judgment. It
would of course contain all relative judgments of value and all true scientific propositions and in fact all true
propositions that can be made. But all the facts described would, as it were, stand on the same level and in
the same way all propositions stand on the same level . There are no
propositions which, in any absolute sense, are sublime, important, or trivial.
That comes conceptually prior to evaluating their impacts since
they beg the question of whether we can effectively engage in a
debate in the first place which only my interp solves since how
we relate to the empirical circumstances of the law can’t change
as the law itself is textually consistent.
[B] Ought as a moral obligation means the aff gets away with
auto-affirms and a prioris which only a legal interp can solve
since the relevance of the law is up for debate. Especially true on
this topic – ‘ought not’ means that they could say a lack of
obligation affirms, which lets for unturnable skep affs that
inherently prove the res true. Outweighs – it allows for both
structurally unfair affs and uneducational ones that skirt topic
discussion.
[2] The resolution presupposes my interp is true since it limits
free speech to a constitutional basis, but that assumes an
interpretation of legal doctrines. Which is key to fairness and
education since it serves as a limit to the topic, and means my
interp is trivially true despite their pragmatic benefits in the
context of this res.
[3] Legal education – rights issues like freedom of speech only
make sense in a legal context, especially in the US where the
Supreme Court makes those rulings. My interp forces the debate
to understand the intricacies of tort law in justifying whether we
should affirm or negate, which better develops legal education
by forcing us to compare and weigh different legal precedents.
That’s an independent voter legal education accounts for a
dialectic approach of reforming and transforming older ideas in
tangible platforms for change. WEINSTEIN ’03:
[Weinstein, Janet. “Stuck in a Rut: The Role of Creative Thinking in Problem Solving and Legal Education.” California
Western School of Law. 2003.]
As legal educators, we follow similar principles. We frequently prepare to approach a "problem," such as teaching
a particular subject area, by looking to see what has been done in the past . Published casebooks
and teachers' manuals make it easy for us to take this path. When the chosen path does not produce the
desired result (the students are not "getting it," they are uninterested, or we are bored), we look for something new.
The law, itself, follows the same principles. When a problem arises, the law
looks to solutions that have worked in the past and then attempts to fit the current
situation into one of those solutions (i.e., precedents). Where the fit is not just
or where two or more precedents collide, new law is created. This dialectic approach closely resembles
generativity theory. In all of the above situations, though, we resist change. Understanding
that the brain functions by using its accustomed pathways explains why
change seems to take such effort. Without the assistance of techniques and an environment that nurtures the thinking process,
attempts to come up with new ideas can be frustrating and uncomfortable. In addition to an understanding of how thought pathways are developed, it is also
helpful to have some understanding of the fact that particular areas of the brain tend to specialize in specific functions, and the importance of the interactions
between these different kinds of thinking.
A2 “Constitution Auto-Affirms”:
[1] Begs the question of whether it truly auto-affirms, under my
interp we’d have a debate and truly determine that as opposed to
their random assertion.
[2] Even if
T – Any 1N
A] Interpretation: the aff must defend removing all
constitutionally protected free speech restrictions
Definitional support
WEBSTER defines any:
[Merriam Webster. “Any.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/any. LHP MK]
every —used to indicate one selected without restriction <any child would
b:
know that>
B] Violation:
C] Standards
First, semantics. This resolution is a universal any, Lallas 1
Brentwood Debate Coach and current coacher of top debaters. A DEFENSE OF T-ANY
BY JACKSON LALLAS February 9, 2017
A good rule of thumb for telling the difference between a universal and
existential any is the ‘almost test,’ (See Carlson 1981, and Kadmon and Landman 1993). Almost
can only modify universal determiners (Kadmon and Landman 1993). Consider: (3) Did you
debate almost any debaters? (4) Almost any debater could win that round. We see that (3) is incoherent, but (4) still
Using the
makes sense. (4) now has a smaller scope than (2), as some debaters would not be able to win the round.
almost test, it’s clear that our current topic is an example of the universal
any: (5) Public colleges and universities ought not prohibit almost any
constitutionally protected speech. Though awkward, this sentence has a
clear meaning. It reads: “With a small amount of exceptions, constitutionally protected speech ought not be
prohibited by public colleges and universities.” Since the resolution passes the almost test, we
know that it uses any as a universal determiner. This demonstrates that the semantics of the
resolution favor a generic reading, as we would intuitively expect.
Semantics outweighs, a) departing from semantics justifies

debating anything, like lemurs bad, if it has good ground, which
outweighs everything since I’d have no prep and you’d always
win, and b) it’s the basis for any argument – ground doesn’t
count as lost if it’s not within the resolution, since handguns bad
isn’t anyone’s ground.
Second, Limits – their interp justifies a limitless number of affs
that ban different types of speech like hate speech, specific
words, or speech at specific time. You allow thousands of affs,
Lallas 2’
LD has had its share of deeply under-limited topics, such as environmental protection vs resource extraction, nuclear
power, and beneficence. But under the affirmative interpretation, this topic is just as bad if not worse than many of them.
The existential reading includes cases such as ones that specify a single type of speech or mode of communication. Even if
there are still far
we apply further limits, such as requiring the aff advocacy to get rid of a specific speech code,
too many affs. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
provides some helpful statistics that demonstrate the scope of the
resolution. In their 2017 survey of speech codes, they reviewed at 345 public
colleges. 33.9% of these schools had a red light rating. Using the data provided, we can also see that
about 59% of public colleges surveyed had a yellow light rating. To put this in perspective we need to understand the
methodology behind the survey. FIRE defined a red light rating as: “A red light institution is one that has at least one
restricting freedom of speech, or that bars public
policy both clearly and substantially
access to its speech-related policies by requiring a university login and
password for access.” A yellow light rating is slightly more complicated: “A
yellow light institution maintains policies that could be interpreted to
suppress protected speech or policies that, while clearly restricting freedom of speech, restrict only
narrow categories of speech . . . Yellow light policies are typically unconstitutional, and a rating of yellow light rather than
red light in no way means that FIRE condones a university’s restrictions on speech. Rather, it means that in FIRE’s
judgment, those restrictions do not clearly and substantially restrict speech in the manner necessary to warrant a red light
rating.” But maybe these limits aren’t so bad – what if these universities only have one policy that caused the red or yellow
light rating? These are the assumptions that the aff interpretation would need to make and they are far too generous.
There are also roughly 1600
Realistically, these schools have multiple codes that FIRE takes issue with.
public colleges in the United States. The survey only looks at 345. When you
combine these facts, the number of possible affs just about speech codes is
likely in the hundreds and maybe thousands.
That kills fairness since a) they can pick trivially true affs and
kill ground quality, so I couldn’t win even if I knew the aff, and
b) I can’t prep all those affs but they can pick the aff and prepare
it, so you’re advantaged regardless.
Third, ground quality. Your interpretation crushes negative
ground, Lallas 3
But this is not the case on the current topic. Specification dramatically
improves aff ground while limiting neg options. As this section header
suggests, there are few case negs in quantity and quality. Allow me to
explain. Almost every neg position comes from one of three topic areas: hate
/ offensive speech, protest, or generic kritiks of free speech. The first is by far the
broadest category, encompassing the hate speech DA, revenge porn DA, title IX DA, offensive speakers DA, alt right DA,
anti-Semitism DA, counter-speech kritiks, positions about safe spaces, etc. Negatives occasionally read positions against
protest, most prominently the endowments DA and heg DA. Lastly there are some kritiks of the concept of free speech
itself, the cap K being the best example. That’s
pretty much it. Despite the current topic’s
broadness, my experience researching, judging, coaching, and looking
through the NDCA wiki indicates that there are very few arguments beyond
these in favor of negating [3]. Many arguments against free speech are
already excluded because the resolution includes the words
“constitutionally protected.” That’s not to say the remaining neg arguments
are bad – some like hate speech are very well defended in the literature.
What’s worrying is that in the big picture there are only a few ways to argue
against free speech. These lines of argumentation quickly dissipate when
talking about specific speech.
Ground is key to fairness since I need to make arguments in

order to win, and outweighs their offense since making
arguments is the only thing I can do in a debate round.
D voter
Fairness is a voter because the ballot asks who debated better
which you can only figure out if the round isn’t skewed. Drop the
debater because it deters future abuse and minimizes unfairness
long-term, empirically confirmed for aprioris and non-topical
affs. Competing interps avoids reasonability’s arbitrariness,
which is the most unfair since I lose do to nothing I did but
randomly. RVIs are maximize unfairness by baiting theory with
unfair affs, and is really unfair to do for T because you would
win just walking into the round because you were fair.
All the benefits to a counterinterpretation are non-unique
because there’s a topical version of the aff, Lallas 4
The common response to the education argument that “ topical version of
the aff solves,” is strong on this topic. In essence, this response explains that
we can still learn about their specific aff if it was read as an advantage in a
case that did not violate T – Any.
T – Any Frontlines
A2 Whole Res sucks
It’s actually good and doesn’t justify the tradeoff, which
outweighs because it takes into account both and weighs and is
empirically specific to debate,
The ground argument thus far is still incomplete. It could be the case that specification is necessary to offset bad aff whole
res ground or general disadvantages to affirming. More specific variants of these arguments, such as the pics objection,
will be covered in a later section. For now I’ll address this concern at the general level. First note that the work done above
shows that the negative incurs a substantial ground loss when the aff violates T – Any. When comparing the difficulty of
affirming to the limitation of neg ground, the neg comes out ahead. Affirming
may not be easy but
negating against these affs is too hard to justify the tradeoff. However, this objection
needs to be covered in more depth. If the ground loss from violating T – Any turned out to not be that bad then the
weighing argument would not hold. My next response to this argument is that the premise that whole res leaves the aff
with bad ground does not apply. As
a society we overwhelmingly favor free speech and
there are years of defending it in the literature. Things like hate speech have
been heavily covered through controversial Supreme Court cases in the past
(Skokie comes to mind) and free speech on college campuses has been a big
topic in the literature from the 90s to the present. It seems clear that the aff
has plenty of arguments to choose from and also that there has been a
dialogue among scholars which can help answer common negative
positions. There is also a side bias component to this argument. Is affirming is hard enough that the aff needs to be
abusive to win? I think this question is worthy of an article by itself given how prevalent it is, so for the sake of brevity I
won’t go into too much depth on it here. Firstly, I think this response misdiagnoses the problem. Affirming is hard because
it requires more work to write a good aff and know how to execute it well. Much fear about affirming could be alleviated by
doing more work. I also think that the difficulty often comes from non-substantive concerns. Theory and Kritiks have been
classically hard strategies for the aff to deal with. It’s layering more than any neg substantive advantage that causes the
problem. Specific advocacies are a misguided way to address the issue. Lastly
I don’t think that
affirming is that difficult on this topic. Almost any theory interpretation
against a whole res aff is frivolous and stock aff arguments interact well
with kritiks. The set of neg arguments on substantive is already not super
expansive which makes it very manageable to prep them out . The high quality whole
res ground mentioned earlier also helps answer this argument. Side bias statistics would be helpful in gauging the
accuracy of this argument.
A2 Weigh against side-bias
Here’s some weighing, and it’s non-unique Lallas 2-9
There is also a side bias component to this argument. Is affirming is hard enough that the aff needs to be abusive to win? I
think this question is worthy of an article by itself given how prevalent it is, so for the sake of brevity I won’t go into too
much depth on it here. Firstly, I think this response misdiagnoses the problem. Affirming is hard because it requires more
work to write a good aff and know how to execute it well. Much fear about affirming could be alleviated by
doing more work. I also think that the difficulty often comes from non-substantive concerns. Theory and Kritiks
have been classically hard strategies for the aff to deal with. It’s layering more than any neg
substantive advantage that causes the problem. Specific advocacies are a
misguided way to address the issue. Lastly I don’t think that affirming is that
difficult on this topic. Almost any theory interpretation against a whole res
aff is frivolous and stock aff arguments interact well with kritiks. The set of
neg arguments on substantive is already not super expansive which makes it
very manageable to prep them out. The high quality whole res ground mentioned earlier also helps
answer this argument. Side bias statistics would be helpful in gauging the accuracy of this argument.
A2 PICs
You cause more PICs Lallas 2-9
Furthermore, reading an aff that violated T – Any would only increase the
incentive to read pics. Because of the lack of neg ground and high chance
that the neg won’t be able to prep the aff, the neg has every incentive to read
word pics or random process pics. Even if the neg doesn’t read a pic , the
ground skew still incentivizes reading a position that moots the aff and
mimics the abuse of pics.
Any argument why PICs are bad means you can just beat a PIC
on theory so no abuse Lallas 2-9
The second problem with the pics argument is that it relies on a faulty line of
justification. The argument is essentially ‘because the neg could read an
abusive argument, the aff should get an advantage.’ The neg could also read
multiple condo, skep, etc. Does the aff need an advantage for the chance that
those things happen too? The pics argument wanders too far into the territory of potential abuse.
Furthermore, reading an aff that violated T – Any would only increase the incentive to read pics. Because of the lack of neg
ground and high chance that the neg won’t be able to prep the aff, the neg has every incentive to read word pics or random
process pics. Even if the neg doesn’t read a pic, the ground skew still incentivizes reading a position that moots the aff and
mimics the abuse of pics. Finally,
if it’s true that pics are so abusive then it should be
easy for the aff to win theory against them. There doesn’t seem to be much
of an impact to allowing the neg to read pics against whole res affs.
The logic here proves PICs are just as bad as the aff – many
warrants Lallas 2-9
If the aff would not be able to engage a

One problem with this argument is that it is self-referential.
pic defending only a single speech code, how should the neg be expected to
engage an aff that criticizes just one code? In essence, the abuse story that the pic argument
paints is that neg pics will be under limited and have little ground to engage them on. The same reasoning applies to
specific affs. Given how prevalent this argument is, it’s controversial to suggest that the abuse caused by a specific aff and
reading a pic are similar or roughly equal. So I’ll spend some time going into the specifics. First consider potential ground
Specific affs significantly limit neg ground; the neg can only defend one
loss.
type of speech restriction. This is the same for a 1AR answering a pic – only
one type of speech is relevant. A smart aff will also include arguments in
their case that indict any restrictions or ban of speech in general to help
offset ground loss. Also keep in mind that there are only few arguments in
favor of the pic, since it is so similar to the aff, so there won’t be too many
different arguments to answer in the 1AR. But reading a pic could still be worse if they are less
limited than specific affs. For instance, many believe that inherency is a side constraint on the aff but not the neg, which
In theory there could
could allow for more pics than specific affs. Solvency advocates help even things out.
be more pics than affs, but many of those won’t have any literature. Likewise,
most authors who criticize speech codes do it because those codes are currently being used, so inherency might not
provide much of a limit on specific affs. Lastly reading a pic could compound some other neg advantage, which makes the
pic more abusive than a specific aff. For instance, the pic could be read conditionally. This argument is answered similarly
to the ‘truism aff’ argument posed at the end of the case neg scarcity section. If this happens in round, there are strong
theory arguments to be raised against it. Also, a specific aff compounds aff advantages such as
frontlining and framing of the round. To fully flesh out these three sub-debates would be getting into
theoretical minutia. Ultimately, I don’t think there is much offense on either side here. Since the abuse from a specific aff
it would be a much
and pic are comparable, the pics argument could actually justify T – Any. It seems like
better norm to not read the specific aff and create a chance that the round is
fair. After all, the neg does not have to read a pic.
A2 Disclosure/solvency advocate solves
Doesn’t solve ground Lallas 2-9
The case neg scarcity

One immediate issue is that debaters try to get away with too much from this argument.
argument is unaddressed. True, there’s a greater chance that the neg will
know what arguments to prep before the round. But those arguments are
still limited in quality and quantity, so the disclosure and solvency advocate
requirements don’t solve for the neg ground loss inherent to violating T –
Any.
Empirically denied that it solves limits Lallas 2-9

The debate about whether or not these requirements solve the limits concern requires closer inspection. One
obvious case that these arguments do not solve is new affs. New affs are usually not
disclosed, and if they are the disclosure is only minutes before a debate. This leaves the negative with not nearly enough
time to prep and is particularly concerning in later elim rounds, where breaking random advocacies
can be used as a tool to deliberately prevent the neg from engaging. Outside of
new affs, disclosure and solvency advocates will mitigate but not solve limits concerns. Before a tournament,
most debaters don’t meticulously comb the wiki and prep out every aff that
they could hit. And it would be wrong to make them – high school students shouldn’t have to dedicate their whole
lives to debate. Most prep against specific affs occurs during tournaments. Even if
disclosure gives the neg a 30 – 60 minute window to prep before round,
there will still be a large prep skew in favor of the aff. The neg will certainly have an easier
time debating a disclosed aff with a solvency advocate, but those requirements won’t solve all the limits abuse.
A2 Advocacy Shift
Solved by tons of other stuff Lallas 2-9
Though I think this response is compelling, there are many ways to mitigate
it. Firstly, the neg can just read an advocacy text to guarantee that they won’t
shift. Cross examination also provides ample time to ensure that the neg will
defend speech codes that the aff is going for in the 1AR. Additionally, if the
neg is being shifty then the aff always has access to 1AR theory as recourse.
But in the big picture, this argument is only strong because we don’t have a
unified understanding on what whole res debate looks like. If there was community
consensus on what the neg advocacy should be, this could easily be avoided. Here’s my attempt at providing a model for
what the neg advocacy should be assumed to be in whole res debate: 1. The neg MUST defend any speech restrictions that
the aff gets offense from in the AC and 1AR 2. The neg MUST defend any speech restrictions that they get offense from in
if the aff reads advantages about things like
the NC and NR. Let’s break this down. Basically,
free speech zones or restrictions on campus journalism, then the neg should
be assumed to be those restrictions absent an advocacy text . Likewise, if the neg reads
a hate speech DA then the neg advocacy includes policies that prohibit hate speech. I think this model is fairly
straightforward and aligns with our intuitions about whole res debate. There are still potential cases of ambiguity. For
instance, the neg could read a generic NC and then spend the rest of the time debating framework. I think that CX can
help mitigate these concerns and there’s also a growing use of spec theory against strategies like these that make negatives
more eager to specify. The model also checks back for this concern by guaranteeing that the neg defends speech codes
criticized in the aff contention, which should ensure stable ground.
A2 people should debate things they disagree with
Non-unique Lallas 2-9
A variation of the educational objection to T – Any is that sometimes we

learn a lot by taking positions that are tough to defend. I don’t think this
argument is unique. Especially on the current topic, its likely that debaters
will strongly disagree with one of the sides and will consequently have to
defend it fairly often.
A2 My aff is educational
Link turn this – multiple warrants Lallas 2-9
This argument is another common response to most T arguments, so naturally it applies to T – Any. Aff debaters will
respond to T by arguing that: “Case [x] is important to talk about and adds educational value to the activity.” I agree with
this argument in spirit. There are a lot of important decisions and policies to talk about, and I’m sure many of the affs that
violate T – Any fall among these. The problem with this argument is that it does not justify why allowing these specific
advocacies is a good way to go about learning these issues. In essence, this argument talks about the impact of learning
about their position but skirts doing the link work explaining how their interpretation achieves that goal. This response
If you don’t have the prep to engage their aff, due to limits
can easily be link turned.
or poor quality ground, then the in round discussion created is probably not
that valuable. The round could teach both debaters more by having them
debate on an issue with equitable ground, allowing clash and creating more
strategic decisions. A deeper concern is that these affs incentivize bad
engagement. An example of this was the 50 states counterplan seen
commonly against plans last year. Instead of creating an actual discussion of
the aff, rounds have been bogged down by random implementation issues
and cheap shot neg strategies. I find that many neg positions read in
response to these affs are about as engaging as moral skepticism. The incentive to
read word pics and uplayer I mentioned in response to the pics objection also applies here. The common response to the
education argument that “topical version of the aff solves,” is strong on this topic. In essence, this response explains that
we can still learn about their specific aff if it was read as an advantage in a case that did not violate T – Any. You may be
able to take this argument a step further. There
could be a unique form of education in
allowing for comparison between things that the topic literature usually
treats as distinct. For instance, a whole res debate could see weighing
arguments comparing the value of student protest to the impact of hate
speech. This increase critical thinking and innovation by encouraging
students to expand upon and synthesize parts of the topic – something we
usually don’t see in round. A variation of the educational objection to T – Any is that sometimes we learn
a lot by taking positions that are tough to defend. I don’t think this argument is unique. Especially on the current topic, its
likely that debaters will strongly disagree with one of the sides and will consequently have to defend it fairly often. On
another level, there is not much educational value to researching objections to
many affs that violate T – Any. Take the free speech zones aff and journalism
aff as examples. Most of the arguments in favor of those policies are based
on administrative or institutional concerns. Schools don’t want their image tarnished in a paper
or to have a public safety hazard during a protest. We don’t learn that much by reading about
these arguments, and they also transfer over to debate poorly.
A2 Staleness means I’d quit
People wont quit, and it’s non-unique if they would Lallas 2-9
You should be skeptical of this argument from the outset. What people find
fun in debate is highly subjective. I enjoyed theory debate but would
certainly not want it to be in every round. This argument is also empirically
denied. Take the example of sports – the rules of the game practically never
change but people still enjoy playing. Within debates there can still be a ton
of variety under whole res constraints. The aff can choose different
frameworks and advantages, while the neg can respond with any combination of the arguments I listed
earlier and more. There are strategic incentives to innovate, as talked about with
new affs, so it’s likely debate wouldn’t get too stale. Lastly, the staleness
argument is not unique. The domestic violence plan was ubiquitous on the
jan feb last year and led to some pretty boring rounds.
A2 Aff flexibility
It’s false Lallas 2-9
One issue with this response is that it doesn’t translate well to the topic.
There’s a fairly limited amount of negative ground. This makes it equally
likely that the aff will be highly prepped for whatever the neg reads and also
allows the aff to gear the AC strategically to be ready for those positions. But
this argument again underestimates the variety still possible in whole res
debate. The aff can choose any framework, advantage, and underview
combination best for each round. New weighing and framing arguments can
easily take the neg off their prep. Evidence comparison can be prepped for
key arguments in the AC. True; a bad whole res case might almost always lose to the negative. But the
same could be said about a bad plan. A prepped aff that knows how to
execute their case can easily offset the lack of flexibility. From my own
observation, whole res cases seem to do pretty well on the topic.
My standards impact turn this Lallas 2-9

Nibs, multiple condo,

Lastly, there’s a deeper question about what makes a legitimate flexibility argument.
multiple pics, 10 theory shells, etc would all add tremendously to neg
flexibility and yet these are obviously bad norms. That’s because flexibility is
a balancing act, a position can be justified on the basis of flex ibility if it
doesn’t significantly disadvantage your opponent. The limits and ground
arguments from the second section demonstrate why we should reject this
form of flexibility.
1N – Non-T:
A] Interpretation: If the aff defends the rejection of a specific
constitutional speech restriction, then they may not defend the
rejection of only that free speech restriction. To clarify, this
interpretation does not require them to adhere to the burden of
topicality in general, it just means that if they defend some
limitation, it cannot be specific. WEBSTER defines any:
[Merriam Webster. “Any.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/any. LHP MK]
some indiscriminately of whatever kind:a: one or another taken at random <ask any man you meet>b:
1: one or
every —used to indicate one selected without restriction <any child would
know that>
B] Violation:
C] Vote neg:
[1] Engagement – the conjunction of defending the resolution,
but not adhering to the ‘any’ clause severely limits all neg args:
(a) it non-uniques all neg methods of engagement – I can’t go for
gnerics since they marginally defend the res, but can’t go for neg
strats since their interp of the res is not a fair one and (b) it
functionally means the neg must defend a total restriction since
the aff picks any instance of non-restriction, but based on the lit
basis of the round no one advocates for that. Link turns their
offense since it’s impossible for us to truly engage in their 1ac in
the context of the aff, and my interp solves since it gives you
access to either non-T affs or a completely T aff.
[2] Solves the abuse – my interp doesn’t require you defend the
topic, rather that you can either completely defend the topic or
not – a middle ground between the topic and not the topic like
this aff is the only thing I’m indicting, which solves any topic
good/bad offense.
[3]
T – College/Univ Plural:
1N Shell:
A] Interpretation: the aff must defend more than one specific
college and/or university ought not restrict constitutionally
protected speech. NALA:
[National Adult Literacy Agency, <NALA> Spelling Print Exercises, www.literacytools.ie]
Plural means more than one of something. Most plurals are formed by adding an ‘s’
to the singular, for example, one shop becomes two shops one car becomes ten cars These are straightforward.
However there are some words that change spelling when ‘s’ is added. This exercise looks at what happens when ‘s’ is added to words that end in the letters ‘y’ For
example party + s = parties If you have a problem remembering this, then this exercise is for you! The answers to the exercises are on the last page. Rules about
words ending in y To get the plural of words ending in ‘y’, there is a rule to remember. If there is a vowel before the y, you just add ‘s’. If there is a consonant before
the ‘y’, drop the ‘y’ and add ‘ies’
B] Violation:
C] Vote neg:
[1] Grammar – Colleges and universities are bare plurals, so
specifying one isn’t T. ECKERT ’16:
[Eckert, Bennett. “Topic Analysis by Bennett Eckert.” Champion Briefs: Jan/Feb 2017. 2016. No Date. LHP MK]
colleges” and “universities” are bare plurals. That is, they are plurals without
Second, “
modifiers (other than public, in this case). Since the resolution has no specific context, some
might interpret these to be generic, meaning that they apply to kinds of things
instead of particulars. If this interpretation is correct, then the affirmative is not allowed to
specify particular colleges or universities to defend. I won’t go into this issue much further, but Jake Nebel
and Bob Overing have both written about topicality and plurals in debate resolutions (Nebel’s article led to the argument now known as “Nebel T”).45
The topicality rule comes first – even if straying slightly from the
text could be good, the practice is bad since it justifies not being
T which is the internal link to all pragmatics by ridding the res
as a basis for clash. Negate on jurisdiction – the ballot asks you
who did the better debating in the context of the tournament
given resolution so it’s impossible to endorse their advocacy.
That also means T outweighs theory because jurisdictions the
most important voter. Precision functions independently of
other standards. NEBEL:
Jake Nebel [Rhodes scholar and TOC semi-finalist – currently at Oxford and graduated from Princeton] “Jake Nebel on
Specifying Just Governments.” http://vbriefly.com/2014/12/19/jake-nebel-on-specifying-just-governments/
ordinary speakers have an implicit (but not infallible) mastery over the
This is good evidence because
language in which the resolution is stated. The resolution is stated in English,

not in some special debate-specific dialect of English. Facts of usage constrain
interpretation. The existential interpretation is not even, as I see it, eligible. So its
pragmatic benefits are irrelevant. Compare: I think it would be better if the
resolution were [something], “It is not the case that just governments ought to …” But that’s not the
resolution, so it’[i]s not even an eligible interpretation in a T debate. (Here I assume a
controversial view about whether pragmatic benefits can justify a semantically inadequate interpretation of the resolution. I cannot defend this view here, but I
welcome questions and objections in the comments to be addressed in a later article.)
[2] Clash – tons of different specific colleges and universities
they can use which makes worse debate since there is no way to
predict and can shift out of specific DAs since they might not link
based on a specific college environment. Outweighs – I need to
counteract the immense ground the aff gets. Empirically proven
on past topics with words like “countries.” DEBOIS 16:
[Danny, extremely qualified author, “Topic Analysis” Victory Briefs, September/October 2016-2017 LD Brief. LHP AA]
Moreover,there’s enough experience in recent memory to show that plans on topics like
these generally don’t lead to good debates. On the 2014 Jan-Feb topic, 2014
September-October topic, 2015 Jan-Feb topic, and 2015 September-October
topic, the resolution was worded in such a way to include many countries. As that
defended plans specific to one country were generally only answered with plans-bad
theory, generic[s] framework negs, generic kritiks that linked to every affirmative, and generic disads—
very rarely were there debates that had high quality , specific evidence, and this is because
there are simply too many countries with too many specific policies for the neg
to be prepared to answer every plan (even in a world where everyone discloses the plans they’re
running).
Fairness and education since it’s the basis for all forms of
argumentation.
A2 – Leslie:
The Leslie evidence talks about syntax, not semantics, which
means it’s totally irrelevant to the issue. NEBEL:
[Facebook Chat, Screenshot: http://cl.ly/Z3M9. Jake Nebel, co-director of Victory Briefs, Philosophy and Marshall
Scholar at Oxford University. Facebook Chat, December 19, 2014.]
Not quite, I think. It's important to distinguish syntax from semantics . Leslie is
say[s]ing that a variety of syntactic structures [i.e.] (bare plurals, indefinite singulars,
definite singulars) can express generic generalizations (which is at the level of semantics, or meaning). " The dog
is a fascinating animal" or "the tiger migrated from Asia in the third century" has a definite singular
subject but is a generic generalization about the kind [of], dog or tiger; you
couldn't affirm it by specifying a particular dog or tiger. It means that although
the res, if generic, could have been expressed with a singular subject (as in Sept/Oct
"a just society"), you still can't spec .
***T – Implementation:
1N Shell:
A] Interpretation: The aff must defend the implementation of a
policy action that doesn’t restrict constitutionally protected free
speech. To clarify, you can’t defend the resolution as a principle.
Definitional support – resolved means the affirmative must
defend the implementation of a policy action by a government.
PARCHER:
(Jeff, Fmr. Debate Coach at Georgetown University, February, http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200102/0790.html)
Resolve: 1. To make a firm decision about. 2. To decide or

Pardon me if I turn to a source besides Bill. American Heritage Dictionary:
express by formal vote. 3. To separate something into constituent parts See Syns at *analyze* (emphasis in orginal) 4. Find a solution to.
See Syns at *Solve* (emphasis in original) 5. To dispel: resolve a doubt. - n 1. Frimness of purpose; resolution. 2. A determination or decision. (2) The very nature
of the word " resolution " makes it a question. American Heritage: A course of action determined or decided on. A formal statemnt
of a deciion, as by a legislature. (3) The resolution is obviously a question. Any other conclusion is utterly
inconcievable. Why? Context. The debate community empowers a topic committee to write a topic for ALTERNATE side debating. The committee is not a random
group of people coming together to "reserve" themselves about some issue. There is context - they are empowered by a community to do something. In their
the topic community attempts to craft a resolution which can be

deliberations,
ANSWERED in either direction. They focus on issues like ground and

fairness because they know the resolution will serve as the basis for debate
which will be resolved by determining the policy desireablility of that resolution. That's not only what they do, but it's what we REQUIRE them to do. We don't just
send the topic committee somewhere to adopt their own group resolution. It's not the end point of a resolution adopted by a body - it's the prelimanary wording of
the word resolved is used to emphasis

a resolution sent to others to be answered or decided upon. (4) Further context:
the fact that it's policy debate. Resolved comes from the adoption of
resolutions by legislative bodies. A resolution is either adopted or it is not.
It's a question before a legislative body. Should this statement be adopted or
not. (5) The very terms 'affirmative' and 'negative' support my view. One affirms a resolution. Affirmative and negative are the equivalents of 'yes' or 'no' -
which, of course, are answers to a question.
B] Violation:
C] Vote Neg:
[1] Ground: (a) constitutional rights are defined through policy
action, not a philosophy, what the policy would look like has to
be known. Even means-based theories are affected by
implementation – how and whether the government does it
affects the act since obligations depend on agent type or the act
in question. (b) They can nullify neg ground --- evaluating the
aim means the aff auto-wins since the aim is obviously good and
doesn’t violate any NCs. Impact turns don’t work since they
don’t apply to means-based standards. No one says an effective
nuclear power ban would actually be bad, just that the side-
effects of the policy are bad (c) Literature –the lit discusses how
the policy affects people’s lives in practice. Even a means-based
violation depends on specifics of policy – their interp kills topic
discussion. Key to education – it’s a unique chance to discuss a
policy that affects people’s lives learning about real-world
issues. Fairness – they gut neg prep and force me to read weaker
evidenced positions. For example, I should be able to say a legal
standard is bad and so that we shouldn’t not restrict free speech
but I can’t because she doesn’t run a policy.
[2] Limits – my interp doesn’t exclude any ground but it allows
for policies – critical thinking also requires examining policies,
not principles in isolation – informed citizenry link turns your
framing. HARWOOD ’05:
[(Karey, associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies) “Teaching Bioethics through
Participation and Policy-Making” Essays on Teaching Excellence Toward the Best in the Academy Vol. 16, No. 4, 2004-
2005 A publication of The Professional & Organizational Development Network in Higher Education] AT
Teaching bioethics to undergraduate students in the humanities and social sciences differs from teaching ethics to medical students or residents. One primary difference is that undergraduates are removed from the clinical setting, where a
clinically-based case method of teaching is widely practiced and where students can develop their decision-making skills "at the bedside" through the mentoring of more senior physicians. Another difference is that undergraduates are not in
training to join a profession, in this case a profession that has developed a fairly stable body of principles that are "applied" to real-life moral dilemmas (Jonsen, Siegler, & Winslade, 2002; Wear, 2002). Instead, as part of a liberal arts
education should prepare students for life as an engaged

, an undergraduate course in bioethics aim to
citizen in a democratic society by developing critical thinking (Callahan & Bok, 1980; Kohlberg, 1981) skills in
and active deliberation of issues

encouraging engagement in the in the areas of medicine and biotechnology. Critical thinking, most plainly, is the ability to make well-
Critical thinking
considered judgments. involves the analysis of concepts and arguments and the interpretation of concrete data or evidence (APA, 1990); but it also requires capacities for self-criticism, moral
enables the discernment of

imagination, and empathy (Momeyer, 2002). It better and worse better and worse arguments or
courses of action It is essential

, and thus rests on the premise that such judgments of value are possible. an set of skills, not because it is immediately applicable to a chosen
because
career, but thorough thinking are important in all areas of
"wide-awake, careful, habits of " (Dewey, 1933, p. 274)
life
human One way to foster critical reasoning skills
, both individual and social. How to Teach Bioethics the development of in the undergraduate
is to provide groups of students with the opportunity to

setting discuss research, analyze, , and propose
public policy on emerging topics in bioethics. This type of activity simulates the work of a national bioethics commission and encourages students to view themselves as participants in a significant public debate. For
example, a group of students might study stem cell research or international research on AIDS, acquiring enough scientific, medical, and historical background on these topics to be able to identify potential ethical questions. Some questions that
might be considered include: Do the benefits of stem cell research justify the use of human embryos? Are all sources of human stem cells morally equivalent? Are the existing safeguards to protect human subjects adequate for international
research on AIDS? Should developing countries be able to benefit from AIDS research when their citizens serve as research subjects? Without necessarily working to achieve complete agreement, students try to
reach enough of a consensus to propose a policy or regulation. A group might decide that allowing stem cell research from "leftover" embryos created in the context of in vitro fertilization is acceptable, for
in articulating reasons,
example, but that creating embryos for the sole purpose of research is not. Students must give reasons for their regulations; and, searching for and these
students are encouraged to examine the moral values that underlie and commitments
their positions. An in-class presentation of the group’s work serves as the culminating exercise, and other students are invited to challenge and contribute to the debate about what ought to be done.
Students see themselves not as a passive audience

typically relish this opportunity, but as
ing to be fed neutral information
participants in a debate that matters the traits of engaged citizens. . In other words, they exhibit
These activities are highly participatory the learning is driven by and inquiry-guided, which means
the task of devising a public policy.

solving a problem: Students are invested in and motivated by the group’s task and discover together what they need to learn about
Included in this
their topic. process is the integration of abstract ethical theories
learning
into the concrete details of the case

and concepts — ideally studied throughout the entirety of the course — at hand. It is not a matter of simply "applying" the principle
of justice to the topic of international research on AIDS, for example, just for the sake of getting something done (Evans, 2000). Students must ask: what does justice look like in this case? Does conducting an experiment to see how cheaply an
individual in a developing country can be treated for AIDS promote justice, as we understand it? In asking these substantive questions, students in an undergraduate bioethics course are engaged in what Callahan calls "foundational" bioethics
They are not merely engaged in

(Callahan, 1999). how best to achieve an already means-end reasoning:
settled goal They are examining the goals themselves

(Wear, 2002). , and thus considering "a multiplicity of ultimate values"
substantive discussion of "ultimate

(Momeyer, 2002). Developing a Wide-awake Citizenry As any teacher of undergraduate ethics can attest, this kind of
values" can be murky territory.

or "the good" The allure of moral relativism is strong and the resources for challenging it seem limited. As Momeyer observed, "Students
frequently arrive in our classrooms with very limited ways of morally engaging problematic situations, by, for instance, appealing to religious dogmas or a relentless subjectivism and/or relativism, or by privileging – as well enculturated
undergrad s need
Americans seemingly must, – the exercise of individual autonomy over all other values"(p. 412). Regardless of how one explains the allure of relativism, what is clear is that uate to develop
critical thinking
skills in to make the well-considered judgments if they are be able to that are
inevitable and necessary in life. a simulated commission directs One benefit of bioethics is that it
students’ attention toward public policy, which is of societal a problem of to say a problem
significance. Discussing classic cases in medical ethics that focus on an individual patient’s dilemma, such as, famously, whether Dax Cowart’s requests to die after suffering severe burns over most of his body should
effective teaching of
have been honored by his physicians, provide essential occasions to learn about important concepts like informed consent, competence, and respect for autonomy. Indeed,
ethics requires a balance between conceptual analysis and

in any setting arguably dynamic
concrete engagement of cases. But undergraduates also need opportunities to learn that their critical thinking skills will be needed in shaping the social policies of the future. Why
the point of education is to

is critical thinking a legitimate and valuable goal? And why is active engagement or participation in shaping social policies important? As Dewey once argued,
teach students to think because conscious thinking are the on their own and participation
hallmarks of citizenship. democratic Others have followed Dewey’s pragmatic sensibilities, including the developmental psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg, whose "just community" schools
were an outgrowth of his belief that democratic participation in the making of rules for everyone in a community fosters students’ moral development. The writings of Jürgen Habermas (1995) on discourse ethics have also influenced legions of
If we are to avoid living in a

teachers to examine anew the value of a consensus-seeking dialogue that is widely inclusive and highly participatory. Conclusion n "administered
society where we passively receive what is handed down to us

," , it is from others
important to develop a sense of engagement in social policies and to the that are made
practice critical reasoning necessary to make well-considered judgments

the skills
(Bellah, et al., 1991). Fortunately, continuing developments in medicine and biotechnology offer an abundance of ethical issues to debate. Teaching bioethics in the undergraduate setting is about paying attention to these debates and having a
stake in their outcome.
Fairness and education since otherwise there’s infinite affs, also

the aff is incoherent absent a stable social context which my
interp allows so you can’t vote off the aff if it doesn’t abide to my
interp.
A2 Definition of Ought
Counter-interpretation – “ought” implies a comparison of states
of affairs
Finlay and Snedegar 12, Finlay, S. [Associate Professor of Philosophy at USC] & Snedegar, J. [PhD
candidate in philosophy at the University of Southern California], (2012). One Ought Too Many. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research. JMN
‘Ought’ sentences seem ambiguous in a variety of ways. We can distinguish normative readings from epistemic readings, moral from prudential readings, and
one difference in
more. Not all of these differences present a challenge for the Uniformity Thesis, as we’ll explain. The challenge is motivated by
particular, which can be observed between paradigmatic examples of nonagential
sentences, like (1) It ought to be that every election is free and fair. (2) It ought to be that Larry
wins the lottery. and of agential sentences, like (3) Bill ought to kiss Lucy. (4) Vince ought to stop driving drunk. The nonagential
sentences (1) and (2) say that certain states of affairs ought to be the case (the “ought-to-be”).
Here ‘ought’ is commonly glossed as meaning it is best that…, 4 so we can call these readings
evaluative. 5
Textuality Weighing --- Resolved
The definition of “resolved” is key – it sets up the context for
what the rest of the sentence is about.
Winning standards or pragmatic reasons to vote on your interp
doesn’t matter, that just means we should change the resolution
not adopt your non T case.
A2 - Have to Defend solvency
[1] Not relevant – affs also have to win framework and impacts
to it, similarly solvency is just part of what you need to win to
make a complete argument - this isn’t abusive
[2] Turn – the neg also has to defend that their advocacy best
links to their standard, which the aff can turn – forcing the aff to
defend solvency, which the neg can answer, makes this
requirement apply to both sides which is more reciprocal
[3] You can defend a means-based theory – you wouldn’t have to
solve then
[4] Turn – that forces the aff to do topic research instead of
recycling the same generic frameworks every topic – forces new
information exposure which is more educational than repeating
framework debates
A2 - Phil Education
[1] No link – my interp allows 100% of the same philosophical
debates, it’s just a question of what our advocacies are. A plan
can still have Kantian justifications and an NC can still link to
the principle the aff defends, for instance. This is empirically
verified – the majority of rounds on this topic are
implementation based, but there’s been no decrease in
framework debates.
[2] Turn – your interp encourages bad philosophical education:
(a) My Ground standard proves that there’s no such things as
the PRINCIPLE of nuclear power– that means we have no topic
literature base and it’s unclear what each side defends and (b)
Policy authors often use moral justifications for their proposals
– for instance, the entire gun control lit is about distributional
justice – but they exclude that lit by excluding debate about real
world conditions. Their interp encourages recycling generic
frameworks at the expense of unique and new philosophical
fields.
Colt Peacemaker:
1NC:
Long:
A] Interpretation: The aff must specify a comprehensive role of
the ballot and clarify how the round will play out under that role
of the ballot in the form of a text in the 1AC. To clarify, if the
affirmative reads an argument that endows a role of the ballot,
they must
[1] Clarify how we determine what a legitimate advocacy is and
how offense links back to the role of the ballot, such as whether
topicality constrains the aff advocacy or not.
[2] Every plank of the ROB must be warranted, just like the
standard text for a normative ethical theory, and what area of
debate must be warranted i.e. which assumptions we should
accept and which we shouldn’t.
[3] Describe how to weigh and compare between competing
advocacies i.e. whether the role of the ballot is solely determined
by the flow or another method of engagement.
B] Violation:
C] Vote Neg:
[1] Engagement – If I don’t know how the role of the ballot
functions, it’s impossible for me to engage the AC offense since
it’s unclear what constitutes a better methodology or
performance. When you don’t spec what offense I can make, that
uniquely harms the aff. Two impacts:
[A] Independently turns your ROB since your impacts are
premised on actually having a debate and engaging issues of
oppression, but if your ROB becomes an exclusive tool only you
understand, you dialogically exclude me from engaging on the
true issues.
[B] Resolvability – if there is no engagement determining which
arguments come first is impossible so the judge can’t resolve the
round. This comes first- judge needs to be able to resolve who is
winning under your role of the ballot, so even if that precludes
theory in general, resolving the round is a gateway issue.
[2] Strategy – You make formulating a strategy impossible since
I don’t know what links to your evaluative mechanism. And,
theories of resistance are too broad to understand through just
your evidence, my interp forces you to proactively implicate
evidence. LUTZ ‘2k:
Donald S. Lutz, “Plitical Theory and Partisan Politics”, pp.39-40, 2000.
Aristotle notes in the Politics thatpolitical theory simultaneously proceeds at three levels—discourse about the
ideal, about the best possible in the real world, and about existing political
systems.4 Put another way, comprehensive political theory must ask several
different kinds of questions that are linked, yet distinguishable . In order to understand the
interlocking set of questions that political theory can ask, imagine a continuum stretching from left to right. At the end, to the right, is
an ideal form of government, a perfectly wrought construct produced by the imagination. At the other end is the perfect
dystopia, the most perfectly wretched system that the human imagination can produce. Stretching between these two extremes is
an infinite set of possibilities, merging into one another, that describe the logical possibilities created by the characteristics
defining the end points. For example, a political system defined primarily by equality would have a perfectly
inegalitarian system described at the other end, and the possible states of being between them would vary primarily in the extent to which they embodied equality .
An ideal defined primarily by liberty would create a different set of possibilities between the extremes. Of course, visions of the ideal
often are inevitably more complex than these single-value examples indicate, but it is also true that in order to imagine an ideal state of affairs a kind of
simplification is almost always required since normal states of affairs invariably present themselves to human consciousness as complicated, opaque, and to a
significant extent indeterminate. A non-ironic reading of Plato's Republic leads one to conclude that the creation of these visions of the ideal characterizes political
Any person can generate a vision of the ideal. One job of

philosophy. This is not the case.
political philosophy is to ask the question "Is this ideal worth pursuing?"
Before the question can be pursued, however, the ideal state of affairs must
be clarified, especially with respect to conceptual precision and the logical relationship between the propositions that describe the ideal. This
pre-theoretical analysis raises the vision of the ideal from the mundane to a
level where true philosophical analysis, and the careful comparison with
existing systems can proceed fruitfully. The process of pre-theoretical analysis, probably because it works on clarifying
ideas that most capture the human imagination, too often looks to some like the entire enterprise of political philosophy.5 However, the value of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau's concept of the General Will, for example, lies not in its formal logical implications, nor in its compelling hold on the imagination, but on the power and
clarity it lends to an analysis and comparison of actual political systems.
Impacts to debatability and turns your framing. Having clearly

defined parameters and guidelines on the role of the ballot
debate is a prerequisite to debate itself. SHIVELY:
Shively, Michael [Prof Politics at Texas A&M]. “Partisan Politics and Political Theory” (p.181-2)
Theambiguists must say "no" to—they must reject and limit—some ideas and actions. In what follows, we will also find that they must say "yes" to
some things. In particular, they must say "yes" to the idea of rational persuasion. This means, first, that they must recognize the role
of agreement in political contest, or the basic accord that is necessary to discord. The mistake that the ambiguists make here is a common one. The
mistake is in thinking that agreement marks the end of contest—that consensus kills debate. But this is true only if the agreement is perfect—if there is nothing at
on
all left to question or contest. In most cases, however, our agreements are highly imperfect. We agree on some matters but not on others,
generalities but not on specifics, on principles but not on their applications, and so on. And this kind of limited
agreement is the starting condition of contest and debate . As John Courtney Murray writes: We
hold certain truths; therefore we can argue about them. It seems to have been one of the corruptions intelligence by positivism to assume that argument ends when
There can be no argument except on the premise, and

agreement is reached. In a basic sense, the reverse is true.
within a context, of agreement. In other words, we cannot argue about something if we

are not communicating: if we cannot agree on the topic and terms of argument or if we have utterly different ideas about what
counts as evidence or good argument. At the very least, we must agree about what it is that is being debated before we can debate it. For instance, one cannot have
an argument about euthanasia with someone who thinks euthanasia is a musical group. One cannot successfully stage a sit-in if one's target audience simply thinks
everyone is resting or if those doing the sitting have no complaints. Nor can one demonstrate resistance to a policy if no one knows that it is a policy. In other
debaters
words, contest is meaningless if there is a lack of agreement or communication about what is being contested. Resisters, demonstrators, and
must have some shared ideas about the subject and/or the terms of their
disagreements. The participants and the target of a sit-in must share an understanding of the complaint at hand. And a demonstrator's audience
must know what is being resisted. In short, the contesting of an idea presumes some agreement about
what that idea is and how one might go about intelligibly contesting it. In other words, contestation rests on some basic agreement or harmony.
And, absent justification for each plank of the role of the ballot,
it’s impossible to understand which assumptions are morally
relevant under their framework so we can never coherently
endorse an advocacy.
Voting issue – if the affirmative justifies a role of the ballot, that
role of the ballot must be consistent with the procedurals
necessary for equal engagement. And, you can’t use your role of
the ballot to preclude this voter, since it doesn’t contest the
legitimacy of your role of the ballot, just functionally constrains
how you can do that. The voter is therefore a methodological
question rather than one of fairness or education, i.e. my
method is your ROTB with specification, your is just the ROTB,
so if the former is better it’s a reason to vote for me even if
method debates in general preclude theory. Also, if they go for K
first that proves the abuse of my shell since they should have
specified in the AC. Now, they should lose for violating this
interp: (a) the abuse already happened since you didn’t specify
as per the 1ac, ruining the potential for legitimate engagement
(b) going for drop the arg is just a performative reason to lose
since you’re severing from your framing. No reverse voter – (a)
my interp constrains how you access your offense, so winning a
counter interp just means you have access to your offense (b) if
you win the counter-interp, that just proves your model of
debate is true, in which theory would be irrelevant and therefore
you would be justifying RVIs are irrelevant. And, evaluate
offense comparatively through competing interpretations – a
sense of reasonableness in the context of a role of the ballot
debate can only be contextualized through my interp.
2NR:
A2 Infinite Spec:
[1] Obviously false --- even if I could read an interp with millions
of planks, I still have to justify them, otherwise they won’t be
offense. The threshold for legitimate spec is determined through
whether there’s offense back to them --- competing interps
solves.
A2 Limits Your Ground:
[1] Turn --- my interp limits the ground to the best amount i.e.
your interp justifies an role of the ballot so abstract that the aff
can just shift in the 1AR.
[2] No abuse --- obviously I acknowledge you can overspecify,
but I wouldn’t read this interp if there wasn’t original abuse.
Framework:
1NC:
1N – Medium::
Interpretation: The affirmative must defend the desirability of a
topical action that concludes public colleges and universities
ought not restrict constitutionally protected free speech.
[1] ‘Resolved’ necessitates legal action. PARCHER ’01:
[Jeff Parcher debate coach at Georgetown, Feb 2001 http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200102/0790.html]
Pardon me if I turn to a source besides Bill. American Heritage Dictionary: Resolve: 1. To make a firm decision about.
2. To decide or express by formal vote. 3. To separate something into constiutent parts See Syns at *analyze* (emphasis in orginal) 4. Find a solution to. See Syns at
Firmness of purpose; resolution. 2. A determination

*Solve* (emphasis in original) 5. To dispel: resolve a doubt. - n 1.
or decision. (2) The very nature of the word "resolution" makes it a question .
American Heritage: A course of action determined or decided on . A formal statement of a decision, as by
a legislature. (3) The resolution is obviously a question. Any other conclusion is utterly inconceivable. Why? Context. The debate community
empowers a topic committee to write a topic for ALTERNATE side debating. The committee is not a random group of people coming together to "reserve"
themselves about some issue. There is context - they are empowered by a community to do something. In their deliberations, the topic community attempts to craft
a resolution which can be ANSWERED in either direction. They focus on issues like ground and fairness because they know the resolution will serve as the basis for
debate which will be resolved by determining the policy desirablility of that resolution. That's not only what they do, but it's what we REQUIRE them to do. We
don't just send the topic committee somewhere to adopt their own group resolution. It's not the end point of a resolution adopted by a body - it's the preliminary
Further context: the word resolved is

wording of a resolution sent to others to be answered or decided upon. (4)
used to emphasis the fact that it's policy debate. Resolved comes from the
adoption of resolutions by legislative bodies. A resolution is either adopted or it is not. It's a question before a
legislative body. Should this statement be adopted or not. (5) The very terms 'affirmative' and 'negative' support my view. One affirms a resolution. Affirmative and
negative are the equivalents of 'yes' or 'no' - which, of course, are answers to a question.
[2] ‘Ought’ denotes an empirical relationship to some empirical

condition and a legally mandated action. KELSEN ’34:
[Kelsen, Hans. “Pure Theory of Law.” 1934]
Both cases involve simply the expression of a functional connection of elements, the connection specific to the respective system—here nature, there the
law. In particular, even causality represents only a functional connection when one frees it of the metaphysico-magical sense originally attached to it by
man, still entirely animistic and imagining in the cause some secret force creating, out of itself, the effect. A causal principle thus purified can never be
dispensed with in the natural sciences, for what is manifest in the principle is simply the postulate of the intelligibility of nature, a postulate that can be
approximated only by linking the material facts given to our cognition. Laws of nature say: ‘if A is, then £ must be.’ Positive laws say: ‘if A is, then B ought
to be.’ And neither the laws of nature nor positive laws have said anything thereby about the moral or political value of the connection between A and B.
ought’ designates a relative a priori category for comprehending

The ‘
empirical legal (p.25) data. In this respect, the ‘ought’ is indispensable, lest the specific
way in which the positive law connects material facts with one another not be
comprehended or expressed at all. For it is obvious that this connection is not the connection of cause and effect. It is not as the effect of a cause that
punishment is set for a delict; rather, the legislator establishes between these two material facts, delict and punishment, a linkage that is completely
different from causality. Completely different, but just as inviolable. For in the system of the law, that is, owing to the law, punishment follows always and
without exception from the delict, even if, in the system of nature, punishment may fail to materialize for one reason or another. Where punishment does
materialize, it need not occur as an effect of the delict, functioning as cause; it can have entirely different causes, even if, indeed, the delict has not taken
place at all.
Violation --- they don’t. Now, vote negative:

[1] Limits – The topic serves as a basis for debate, which
requires specific points of difference around a center of
discussion – the resolution. STEINBERG and FREELY ’13:
Steinberg and Freeley 13, David, Lecturer in Communicatio22n studies and rhetoric. Advisor to Miami Urban Debate
League. Director of Debate at U Miami, Former President of CEDA. And Austin, attorney who focuses on criminal,
personal injury and civil rights law, JD, Suffolk University, Argumentation and Debate, Critical Thinking for Reasoned
Decision Making, 121-4
there must be a controversy, a difference of opinion or

Debate is a means of settling differences, so
a conflict of interest before there can be a debate. If everyone is in agreement on a feet or value or policy,
there is no need or opportunity for debate; the matter can be settled by unanimous consent. Thus, for example, it would be pointless to attempt to debate
"Resolved: That two plus two equals four,” because there is simply no controversy about this statement. Controversy is an essential prerequisite of debate. Where
there is no clash of ideas, proposals, interests, or expressed positions of issues, there is no debate. Controversy invites decisive choice between competing positions.
Debate cannot produce effective decisions without clear identification of a

question or questions to be answered. For example, general argument may occur about the broad topic of illegal immigration. How many illegal
immigrants live in the United States? What is the impact of illegal immigration and immigrants on our economy? What is their impact on our communities? Do
they commit crimes? Do they take jobs from American workers? Do they pay taxes? Do they require social services? Is it a problem that some do not speak English?
Is it the responsibility of employers to discourage illegal immigration by not hiring undocumented workers? Should they have the opportunity to gain citizenship?
Does illegal immigration pose a security threat to our country? Do illegal immigrants do work that American workers are unwilling to do? Are their rights as
workers and as human beings at risk due to their status? Are they abused by employers, law enforcement, housing, and businesses? How are their families
impacted by their status? What is the moral and philosophical obligation of a nation state to maintain its borders? Should we build a wall on the Mexican border,
you can
establish a national identification card, or enforce existing laws against employers? Should we invite immigrants to become U.S. citizens? Surely
think of many more concerns to be addressed by a conversation about the

topic area of illegal immigration. Participation in this “debate” is likely to be
emotional and intense. However, it is not likely to be productive or useful
without focus on a particular question and identification of a line
demarcating sides in the controversy. To be discussed and resolved effectively, controversies are best understood when seated clearly such that
all parties to the debate share an understanding about the objective of the debate. This enables focus on substantive and objectively identifiable issues facilitating
comparison of competing argumentation leading to effective decisions. Vague understanding results in unfocused deliberation and poor decisions, general feelings
of tension without opportunity for resolution, frustration, and emotional distress, as evidenced by the failure of the U.S. Congress to make substantial progress on
the immigration debate. Of course, arguments may be presented without disagreement. For example, claims are presented and supported within speeches,
editorials, and advertisements even without opposing or refutational response. Argumentation occurs in a range of settings from informal to formal, and may not
call upon an audience or judge to make a forced choice among competing claims. Informal discourse occurs as conversation or panel discussion without
demanding a decision about a dichotomous or yes/no question. However, by definition, debate requires "reasoned judgment on a proposition. The proposition is a
statement about which competing advocates will offer alternative (pro or con) argumentation calling upon their audience or adjudicator to decide. The
proposition provides focus for the discourse and guides the decision process. Even
when a decision will be made through a process of compromise, it is important to identify the beginning positions of competing advocates to begin negotiation and
movement toward a center, or consensus position. It is frustrating and usually unproductive to attempt to make a decision when deciders are unclear as to what the
decision is about. The proposition may be implicit in some applied debates (“Vote for me!”); however, when a vote or consequential decision is called for (as in the
courtroom or in applied parliamentary debate) it is essential that the proposition be explicitly expressed (“the defendant is guilty!”). In academic debate, the
proposition provides essential guidance for the preparation of the debaters prior to the debate,
the case building and discourse presented during the debate, and the decision to be made by the debate judge after the debate. Someone disturbed by the problem
of a growing underclass of poorly educated, socially disenfranchised youths might observe, “Public schools are doing a terrible job! They' are overcrowded, and
many teachers are poorly qualified in their subject areas. Even the best teachers can do little more than struggle to maintain order in their classrooms." That same
concerned citizen, facing a complex range of issues, might arrive at an unhelpful decision, such as "We ought to do something about this” or, worse, “It’s too
complicated a problem to deal with." Groups of concerned citizens worried about the state of public education could join together to express their frustrations,
without a focus for their discussions, they

anger, disillusionment, and emotions regarding the schools, but
could easily agree about the sorry state of education without finding points
of clarity or potential solutions. A gripe session would follow. But if a
precise question is posed—such as “What can be done to improve public
education?”—then a more profitable area of discussion is opened up simply
by placing a focus on the search for a concrete solution step. One or more judgments can be phrased in the form of debate
propositions, motions for parliamentary debate, or bills for legislative assemblies, The statements "Resolved: That the federal government should implement a
program of charter schools in at-risk communities” and “Resolved; That the state of Florida should adopt a school voucher program" more clearly identify specific
ways of dealing with educational problems in a manageable form, suitable for debate. They provide specific policies to be investigated and aid discussants in
identifying points of difference. This focus contributes to better and more informed decision making with the potential for better results. In aca demic debate, it
provides better depth of argumentation and enhanced opportunity for reaping the educational benefits of participation. In the next section, we will consider the
To have a productive debate, which

challenge of framing the proposition for debate, and its role in the debate.
facilitates effective decision making by directing and placing limits on the

decision to be made, the basis for argument should be clearly defined. If we merely
talk about a topic, such as ‘"homelessness,” or “abortion,” Or “crime,” or “global warming,” we are likely to have an interesting discussion but not to establish a
profitable basis for argument. For example, the statement “Resolved: That the pen is mightier than the sword” is debatable, yet by itself fails to provide much basis
for dear argumentation. If we take this statement to mean Iliad the written word is more effective than physical force for some purposes, we can identify a problem
area: the comparative effectiveness of writing or physical force for a specific purpose, perhaps promoting positive social change. (Note that “loose” propositions,
such as the example above, may be defined by their advocates in such a way as to facilitate a clear contrast of competing sides; through definitions and debate they
“become” clearly understood statements even though they may not begin as such. There are formats for debate that often begin with this sort of proposition.
However, in any debate, at some point, effective and meaningful discussion relies on identification of a clearly stated or understood proposition.) Back to the
a general subject, we have not yet stated a

example of the written word versus physical force. Although we now have
problem. It is still too broad, too loosely worded to promote well-organized argument. What sort of writing are we concerned with—
poems, novels, government documents, website development, advertising, cyber-warfare, disinformation, or what? What does it mean to be “mightier" in this
context? What kind of physical force is being compared—fists, dueling swords, bazookas, nuclear weapons, or what? A more specific question might be, “Would a
mutual defense treaty or a visit by our fleet be more effective in assuring Laurania of our support in a certain crisis?” The basis for argument could be phrased in a
debate proposition such as “Resolved: That the United States should enter into a mutual defense treaty with Laurania.” Negative advocates might oppose this
proposition by arguing that fleet maneuvers would be a better solution. This is not to say that debates should completely avoid creative interpretation of the
controversy by advocates, or that good debates cannot occur over competing interpretations of the controversy; in fact, these sorts of debates may be very engaging.
The point is that debate is best facilitated by the guidance provided by focus on a particular point of difference, which will be outlined in the following discussion.
[2] Topicality is a call for engagement – contestation and

deliberation allows for testing of the affs ideas which allows us
to defend ourselves against the best version of your opponent
which bolsters advocacy and allows us to actualize the politics of
the 1AC. Having a devil’s advocate is critical to avoid sliding to
dogmatism and groupthink. TALISE 05:
Vanderbilt philosophy professor Robert, “Deliberativist responses to activist challenges”,
Philosophy & Social Criticism, 31.4, project muse
a
Nonetheless, the deliberativist conception of reasonableness differs from the activist’s in at least one crucial respect. On the deliberativist view,
necessary condition for reasonableness is the willingness not only to offer

justifications for one’s own views and actions, but also to listen to criticisms, objections, and the
justificatory reasons that can be given in favor of alternative proposals. In light of this further stipulation, we may say that, on the deliberative democrat’s view,
acknowledgement on
reasonable citizens are responsive to reasons, their views are ‘reason tracking’. Reasonableness, then, entails an
the part of the citizen that her current views are possibly mistaken, incomplete, and in
need of revision. Reasonableness is hence a two-way street: the reasonable citizen is able and willing to offer justifications for her views and actions, but is also
prepared to consider alternate views, respond to criticism, answer objections, and, if necessary, revise or abandon her views. In short, reasonable citizens do not
they recognize their own

only believe and act for reasons, they aspire to believe and act according to the best reasons; consequently,
fallibility in weighing reasons and hence engage in public deliberation in

part for the sake of improving their views.15 ‘Reasonableness’ as the deliberative democrat understands it is
constituted by a willingness to participate in an ongoing public discussion that inevitably involves processes of self-examination by which one at various moments
Hence
rethinks and revises one’s views in light of encounters with new arguments and new considerations offered by one’s fellow deliberators.
Gutmann and Thompson write: Citizens who owe one another justifications
for the laws that they seek to impose must take seriously the reasons their
opponents give. Taking seriously the reasons one’s opponents give means that, at least for a certain range of views that one opposes, one must
acknowledge the possibility that an opposing view may be shown to be correct in the future. This acknowledgement has implications not only for the way they
an obligation to continue to test their own views, seeking

regard their own views. It imposes
forums in which the views can be challenged, and keeping open the
possibility of their revision or even rejection.16 (2000: 172) That Young’s activist is not reasonable in this sense
is clear from the ways in which he characterizes his activism. He claims that ‘Activities of protest, boycott, and disruption are more appropriate means for getting
citizens to think seriously about what until then they have found normal and acceptable’ (106); activist tactics are employed for
the sake of ‘bringing attention’ to injustice and making ‘a wider public aware of institutional wrongs’ (107).
These characterizations suggest the presumption that questions of justice are
essentially settled; the activist takes himself to know what justice is and what its
implementation requires. He also believes he knows that those who oppose him are either the power-hungry
beneficiaries of the unjust s tatus quo or the inattentive and unaware masses who
do not ‘think seriously’ about the injustice of the institutions that govern their lives and so unwittingly accept
them. Hence his political activity is aimed exclusively at enlisting other citizens in support
of the cause to which he is tenaciously committed. The activist implicitly

holds that there could be no reasoned objection to his views concerning
justice, and no good reason to endorse those institutions he deems unjust . The
activist presumes to know that no deliberative encounter could lead him to reconsider his position or adopt a different method of social action; he ‘declines’ to
‘engage persons he disagrees with’ (107) in discourse because he has judged on a priori grounds that all opponents are
either pathetically benighted or balefully corrupt . When one holds one’s view as the only responsible or
just option, there is no need for reasoning with those who disagree, and hence no need to be reasonable. According to the
deliberativist, this is the respect in which the activist is unreasonable. The

deliberativist recognizes that questions of justice are difficult and complex .
This is the case not only because justice is a notoriously tricky philosophical concept, but also because, even supposing we had a philosophically sound theory of
implementation are especially thorny. Accordingly, political philosophers, social scientists,
justice, questions of
, it is difficult to maintain
economists, and legal theorists continue to work on these questions. In light of much of this literature
the level of epistemic confidence in one’s own views that the activist seems
to muster; thus the deliberativist sees the activist’s confidence as evidence of
a lack of honest engagement with the issues. A possible outcome of the kind of encounter the activist ‘declines’ (107) is the
realization that the activist’s image of himself as a ‘David to the Goliath of power
wielded by the state and corporate actors’ (106) is naïve . That is, the deliberativist comes to see, through processes of public
deliberation, that there are often good arguments to be found on all sides of an
important social issue; reasonableness hence demands that one must

especially engage the reasons of those with whom one most vehemently
disagrees and be ready to revise one’s own views if necessary. Insofar as the activist holds a
view of justice that he is unwilling to put to the test of public criticism, he is unreasonable. Furthermore, insofar as the activist’s conception commits him to the
Hence the deliberative

view that there could be no rational opposition to his views, he is literally unable to be reasonable.
democrat concludes that activism, as presented by Young’s activist, is an

unreasonable model of political engagement. The dialogical conception of
reasonableness adopted by the deliberativist also provides a response to the
activist’s reply to the charge that he is engaged in interest group or
adversarial politics. Recall that the activist denied this charge on the grounds that activism is aimed not at private or individual interests, but
at the universal good of justice. But this reply also misses the force of the posed objection. On the deliberativist view, the problem with interest-based politics does
not derive simply from the source (self or group), scope (particular or universal), or quality (admirable or deplorable) of the interest, but with the concept of
interests as such. Not unlike ‘preferences’, ‘interests’ typically function in democratic theory as fixed dispositions that are non-cognitive and hence unresponsive to
reasons. Insofar as the activist sees his view of justice as ‘given’ and not open to
rational scrutiny, he is (they are) engaged in the kind of adversarial politics
the deliberativist rejects. The argument thus far might appear to turn exclusively upon different conceptions of what reasonableness
entails. The deliberativist view I have sketched holds that reasonableness involves some degree of what
we may call epistemic modesty. On this view, the reasonable citizen seeks to have her beliefs reflect the best available reasons,
and so she enters into public discourse as a way of testing her views against the objections
and questions of those who disagree; hence she implicitly holds that her present view is open to reasonable critique and
that others who hold opposing views may be able to offer justifications for their views that are at least as strong as her reasons for her own. Thus any mode of
politics that presumes that discourse is extraneous to questions of justice and justification is unreasonable. The activist sees no reason to accept this.
Reasonableness for the activist consists in the ability to act on reasons that upon due reflection seem adequate to underwrite action; discussion with those who
disagree need not be involved. According to the activist, there are certain cases in which he does in fact know the truth about what justice requires and in which
there is no room for reasoned objection. Under such conditions, the deliberativist’s demand for discussion can only obstruct justice; it is therefore irrational. It may
seem that we have reached an impasse. However, there is a further line of criticism that the activist must face. To the activist’s view that at least in certain
deliberative democrat can raise

situations he may reasonably decline to engage with persons he disagrees with (107), the
the phenomenon that Cass Sunstein has called ‘group polarization’ ( Sunstein, 2003;
2001a: ch. 3; 2001b: ch. 1). To explain: consider that political activists cannot eschew deliberation altogether; they often engage in rallies, demonstrations, teach-
Activists also must engage in

ins, workshops, and other activities in which they are called to make public the case for their views.
deliberation among themselves when deciding strategy. Political

movements must be organized, hence those involved must decide upon
targets, methods, and tactics; they must also decide upon the content of their pamphlets and the precise messages they most wish to
convey to the press. Often the audience in both of these deliberative contexts will be a self-selected and sympathetic group of like-minded activists. Group
polarization is a well-documented phenomenon that has ‘been found all over the world and in many diverse tasks’; it means that ‘members of a deliberating group
predictably move towards a more extreme point in the direction indicated by the members’ predeliberation tendencies’ (Sunstein, 2003: 81–2). Importantly, in
Hence discussion in a
groups that ‘engage in repeated discussions’ over time, the polarization is even more pronounced (2003: 86).
small but devoted activist enclave that meets regularly to strategize and
protest ‘should produce a situation in which individuals hold positions more
extreme than those of any individual member before the series of
deliberations began’ (ibid.).17 The fact of group polarization is relevant to our discussion because the activist has
proposed that he may reasonably decline to engage in discussion with those
with whom he disagrees in cases in which the requirements of justice are so
clear that he can be confident that he has the truth. Group polarization suggests that deliberatively
confronting those with whom we disagree is essential even when we have
the truth . For even if we have the truth, if we do not engage opposing views, but instead deliberate only with those with whom we agree,
our view will shift progressively to a more extreme point, and thus we lose
the truth . In order to avoid polarization, deliberation must take place within heterogeneous ‘argument pools’ (Sunstein, 2003: 93). This of course does
not mean that there should be no groups devoted to the achievement of some common political goal; it rather suggests that engagement with
those with whom one disagrees is essential to the proper pursuit of justice.
Insofar as the activist denies this, he is unreasonable.
Topicality is a voting issue

Frontlines/Add-Ons:
Agonism Voter:
Voting issue – the only value that can come from any conception
of debate is premised on it being a democratic space premised
on contestation. Democratic methodology does not mean
endorsing a democratic state, but means opening up new
perspectives where old ones have been hidden by exposing them
to contestation. This requires the aff to be topical because it
gives a neg a starting point that they can deconstruct. Absent
this democratic pluralism endorsed by switch-side debate, there
is no way to open ourselves up to other view points. Controls the
internal ink to the aff roll of the ballot because it’s the starting
point for any liberation.
Harrigan 08 (Casey, Associate Director of Debate at UGA, Master’s in Communications – Wake Forest U., “A
Defense of Switch Side Debate”, Master’s thesis at Wake Forest, Department of Communication, May, pp.43-45)
willingness to be open to
The Relevance Of Argumentation For Advancing Tolerant Politics Cannot Be Underestimated. The
alternative views has a material impact on difference in at least two primary ways. First, the rendering
of a certain belief as “off limits” from debate and the prohibition of ideas from the realm of contestation is
conceptually indistinct from the physical exclusion of people from societal practices. Unlike racial or gendered
concerns, certain groups of people (the religious, minority political parties, etc.) are defined almost exclusively by the arguments that they adhere to. To deem these
argument, as individual advocacy,

views unspeakable or irrelevant is to functionally deny whole groups of people access to public deliberation. Second,
is an expression of belief. It has the potential to persuade members of the public to either support or oppose
progressive politics. Belief itself is an accurate indicator of the way individuals
will chose to act—with very real implications for openness, diversity and accommodation. Thus, as a precursor to action,
argument is an essential starting point for campaigns of tolerance. Argumentative pluralism can be defined as the proper tolerance for the
expression of a diversity of ideas (Scriven 1975, p. 694). Contrary to monism, pluralism holds that there are many potential beliefs in the world and that each
person has the ability to determine for himself or herself that these beliefs may hold true. Referring back to the opening examples, a pluralist would respect the
In the argumentative context,

right for the KKK to hold certain beliefs, even if he or she may find the group offensive.
pluralism requires that participants to a debate or discussion recognize the right of

others to express their beliefs, no matter how objectionable they may be. The key here is expression: although
certain beliefs may be more “true” than others in the epistemic sense, each should have equal access (at least initially) to
forums of deliberation. It is important to distinguish pluralism from its commonly confused, but only loosely connected, counterpart,
relativism. To respect the right of others to hold different beliefs does not require that they are all considered equal. Such tolerance ends at the intellectual level of
each individual being able to hold their own belief. Indeed, as Muir writes, “It [pluralism] implies neither tolerance of actions based on those beliefs nor respecting
the content of the beliefs” (288). Thus, while a pluralist may acknowledge the right for the Klan to hold exclusionary views, he or she need not endorse racism or
anti-Semitism itself, or the right to exclude itself. Even when limited to such a narrow realm of diversity, argumentative pluralism holds great promise for a
Pluralism
politics based on understanding and accommodation that runs contrary to the dominant forces of economic, political, and social exclusion.
requires that individuals acknowledge opposing beliefs and arguments by forcing an

understanding that personal convictions are not universal. Instead of blindly asserting a position
as an “objective truth,” advocates tolerate a multiplicity of perspectives, allowing a more panoramic understanding of the issue at hand (Mitchell and Suzuki 2004,
p. 10). In doing so, the advocates frequently understand that there are persuasive arguments to be had on both sides of an issue. As a result, instead of advancing a
cause through moralistic posturing or appeals to a falsely assumed universality (which, history has shown, frequently become justifications for scape-goating and
exclusion), these proponents become purveyors of reasoned arguments that attempt to persuade others through deliberation. A clear example of this occurs in
competitive academic debate. Switch-side debating has profound implications for pluralism .
Personal convictions are supplemented by conviction in the process of debate. Instead of being personally invested in the truth and general acceptance of a
position, debaters use arguments instrumentally, as tools, and as pedagogical devices in the search for larger truths. Beyond simply recognizing that more than one
Setting
side exists for each issue, switch-side debate advances the larger cause of equality by fostering tolerance and empathy toward difference.
aside their own “ego-identification,” students realize that they must listen and
understand their opponent’s arguments well enough to become advocates on behalf of
them in future debates (Muir 1993, p. 289). Debaters assume the position of their opponents and
understand how and why the position is constructed as it is. As a result, they often come to understand that a
strong case exists for opinions that they previously disregarded. Recently, advocates of switch side debating have taken the case of the practice a step further,
arguing that it, “originates from a civic attitude that serves as a bulwark against fundamentalism of all stripes” (English, Llano, Mitchell, Morrison, Rief and Woods
Debating practices that break down exclusive, dogmatic views may be

2007, p. 224).
one of the most robust checks against violence in contemporary society.
AND, this democratic methodology mandates that T isn’t an RVI

because the whole point is to hold the aff accountable for
creating a debate space that fosters the change they advocate
for. If they prove that they did do that, that is irrelevant because
it just means it the thing they were supposed to do. AND, the
biggest impact to T is keeping debate a space where we are able
to democratically engage, even if that means less clash in this
round because because until we accept the norms of democracy,
true clash will be impossible. Finally, warranting other voters as
important isn’t a reason to drop the neg under the ROTB
because they each provide unique axis points by which to
compare against the aff. controls the internal link into all role of
the ballot, but is specifically key to the aff project. Preserving the
Aff/Neg Dialectic creates better intersectional analysis by
channeling experience into both sides of the debate. It
encourages creativity and strategic thinking. EVANS 12: 1
Definition: switch side debate

Now, the debate! First, let me look at Casey Harrigan’s (“CH”) definition of SSD. He says that :
(SSD) is the practice that requires debaters to argue both for and against a
given topic in alternating rounds. In effect, it has meant that debaters’
arguments are divorced from personal conviction and instead made
contingently as a means of “testing” the truth value of a proposition . I will accept this
definition, but I think it requires some more refinement. In a practical sense , SSD, at a minimum, requires that the
affirmative defend the resolution. For the most part, the negative is unconstrained
(except by competition) and most debates in which SSD comes up the question is whether the affirmative team should be required to affirm the topic, including
some defense of an action by the United States Federal Government (“USFG”). The essential question posed by SSD is whether the affirmative team should be
required to defend the resolution even when they (1) fundamentally disagree with all or part of it and/or (2) are compelled to affirm other ideas because of their
“personal convictions.” The answer to this question must be yes. First, there are multiple ways to skin a cat and even more ways to affirm the resolution in the
world of parametric debate because one need only affirm an interpretation of the resolution and not the resolution writ large. Therefore, there are rare instances in
which there is no interpretation of the resolution that you cannot defend and these rare instances are most likely the product of lack of creativity and research. So
in reality, the question is an even simpler one: should the affirmative team be required to defend an interpretation of the resolution. There are immense
constitutive and instrumental benefits to SSD that cannot be otherwise obtained and therefore must be required. I ask that the judges: George, Justin and Kyla
they evaluate the benefits of SSD to the speaker

evaluate this debate holistically, which requires that
(constitutive) and to society (instrumental). This also requires that they exclude nothing in their analysis of
this debate The Constitutive Debaters benefit from SSD. It requires that they
engage in topics that they may not otherwise engage. The resolution poses a
unique question and the debate round is a unique time to answer that
1
[RW Evans is a lawyer, professor, coach and entrepreneur. He attended the University of
West Georgia on a debate scholarship where he graduated with honors and a degree in
Marketing. While at the University of West Georgia, RW competed all across the country in
policy debate and in 2001 became the first ever Black National Debate Champion winning
the Cross Examination Debate Associate National Championship.] Debate Against Casey
Harrigan 20. Nov, 2012 http://www.rwesq.com/the-1nc/
question. One is much more likely to consider their personal convictions
outside of the debate round than they are to consider the resolution outside
the debate round. Therefore, independently of whether one agrees with the
resolution or not, there are benefits to defending an interpretation of the
resolution in that it requires you to consider something you may not have
otherwise considered. These thought expiriments create more informed
and thoughtful debaters and citizens. SSD creates a unique opportunity for
self-reflexivity. The idea is to let your personal convictions guide you in the debate. The resolution doesn’t
require that you suppress your identity or convictions, but is instead an
opportunity to infuse that identity and those convictions into the resolution
and public policy discussion. So, given who you are, what you believe and what you know what say you regarding energy
production? What say you regarding democracy assistance? What say you regarding federal control in Indian Country? Therefore, the resolution
is an opportunity for you to refine your personal convictions and put your
identity in politics instead of relying exclusively on identity politics. SSD
allows you to check your own privilege. Here, I will rely on my personal experience. I once participated in a 30 day
creative challenge where the challenge leader would pose questions on facebook and the group would answer them in the comments section. One day he asked us
to imagine we could be the other gender for 3 days and to discuss what would we do. I thought about this on the A-train from Harlem to Chelsea and again from
Chelsea to Harlem and had no answer because I couldn’t imagine being a woman. I explained that as a gay man I don’t need to be a woman to have sex with a man,
I don’t want a baby in me and more importantly I don’t want the physical vulnerability of being a woman. This realization really forced me to reevaluate my
previous jokes even that as a gay many I was ontologically indistinct from a woman. I am not. I am gay and I am black…in many ways I am the the worlds bottom,
That thought experiment taught me a lot

but even I could would not want to occupy the body of a woman.
about myself, privilege and the world. Sometimes , you have to take a walk
in someone else’s stiletto to learn who you really are. Seriously CH, have
you walked in stilettos? It will change your life. SSD is both necessary and
sufficient to ensure that you debate your personal convictions . Remember, if you
are staunchly opposed to the resolution you get to lodge those complaints
on the negative. Also, remember that what is good for the goose is good for the gander and if you don’t have to debate the resolution then no
one has to debate the resolution. This loosening of the restrictions on the resolution may mean that no one gets to debate anything they want. I mean lets face it,
no one wants to be topical! There’s always a better version of your aff that isn’t topical. Every 2AC considers severance or intrinsicness because the resolution is
flawed or insufficient. However, a true debater understands that they both have to debate on the affirmative and the negative and that in order to do either
effectively there must be stability in the relationship between the affirmative and the negative. Therefore, committing yourself to the resolution is key preserving
your own negative ground to engage in your critique of the resolution. As goes the resolution so goes your personal convictions about that resolution The
Instrumental SSD is the only way to organize a fair debate tournament. We must have a topic. There must be rules and allowing any and everyone go rogue
because of their “personal convictions” it is a recipe for disaster. I don’t want to live and debate in that world. There must be strict requirements on defending the
resolution to allow for fair and predictable negative ground. By the way, protecting fair negative ground is easier and more important than all other concerns
regarding fairness. All people of all convictions have to be negative at some point. Which means that the affirmative-negative dialiectic is the only intersectional
analysis that can be performed because all people of all identities will eventually find themselves on the affirmative or negative side in debate. Preserving negative
ground then preserves the ground of women, minorities and hippies. SSD ensures that we have all hands on deck in these extraordinary times. We need all
perspectives and all peoples to engage in all debates. SSD facilitates this. Allowing students to pick their own topic because of their “personal convictions” may
mean that important issues get ignored all together. I mean, what would happen if we let the students set the curriculum? Would they learn anything, ever? How
many times have you heard these questions in a classroom: why do I have to learn this? Will this be on the exam? My major is X, why do I need to learn Y? Blah.
Yes, students would almost always like to do what they want to do. If we allowed this where would we be as a country? Who will be there to tackle the important
questions pertaining to immigration, energy production, the Arab Spring, etc? Engaging the resolution from your specific social location can cause others to change
their views. There are several examples of creative interpretations of the resolution that have inspired folk to view the topic and life differently. This is when
debate is at its best and when it’s engaging in important knowledge production. Debate and debaters have the potential to infuse new arguments, ideas and
perspectives into the resolution and into the broader discussion.
Race Interaction:
Choosing not to advocate for a tangible policy is drenched in
whiteness and privilege– it requires a fluidity and ease that
minority groups cannot access – turns the case. CLARK ’95:
Clark, Leroy D. [Professor Emeritus at the Columbus School of Law] "Critique of Professor Derrick A. Bell's Thesis of the
Permanence of Racism and His Strategy of Confrontation, A." Denv. UL Rev. 73 (1995): 23.
I must now address the thesis that there has been no evolutionary progress for blacks in America. Professor Bell concludes that blacks improperly read history if we
believe, as Americans in general believe, that progress--racial, in the case of blacks--is "linear and evolutionary." n49 According to Professor Bell, the "American
dogma of automatic progress" has never applied to blacks. n50 Blacks will never gain full equality, and "even those herculean efforts we hail as successful will
Progress toward reducing racial

produce no more than temporary 'peaks of progress,' short-lived victories that slide into irrelevance." n51
has never been "automatic," if that refers to some natural and inexorable process without
discrimination and subordination
struggle. Nor has progress ever been strictly "linear" in terms of unvarying year by year improvement, because the
combatants on either side of the equality struggle have varied over time in their energies, resources,
capacities, and the quality of their plans. Moreover, neither side could predict or control all of the variables which
accompany progress or non-progress; some factors, like World War II, occurred in the international arena, and were not exclusively under American control. With
blacks and their white allies achieved two profound and qualitatively
these qualifications, and a long view of history,
different leaps forward toward the goal of equality: the end of slavery, and the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. Moreover, despite open and, lately, covert resistance, black progress has never
been shoved back, in a qualitative sense, to the powerlessness and abuse of periods
preceding these leaps forward. n52 The First Qualitative Leap For two-thirds of American history, African-Americans were, as a
matter of law and practice, the property of white slave-holders from birth until death. Professor Bell commented on the ending of this institution: "Two centuries
after the Constitution's adoption, we did live in a far more enlightened world. Slavery was no more." n53 That must be the most tepid understatement ever about
the ending of the most violent and debasing condition that blacks ever suffered in this country. Slaves worked six and sometimes seven days a week. Idle slaves
could be flogged, and some were maimed after a failed escape. Families were separated, and black females were forced into sexual concubinage. Slaves owned
Ending [chattel
nothing, their movement was strictly circumscribed, and they were kept illiterate as another form of control. n54
slavery] this degrading institution was a profound qualitative leap toward freedom, and it was never reversed. White
southerners did regain control of the legislatures, and imposed racial segregation. Racial segregation, however, was a far cry
from the total domination of slavery. Moreover, blacks seized the opportunity to take many steps, within the
confines of segregation, that became the seeds of the next great leap forward into freedom in the 1950s and 1960s. The newly freed blacks trekked North and
West--not an option under slavery--and there gained critical political leverage. n55 Independent black churches, possible only after the Civil War, developed a
debate between a conservative wing concerned with the hereafter, and a more progressive wing that sought to use the church as an agency for ameliorating the
constrictions in black life. n56 From the latter, one Martin Luther King sprang forth, galvanizing blacks and the whole nation for the next leap towards freedom.
During Reconstruction, black legislators established a free public school system. Even though whites imposed segregation on the public schools, they did not
abolish them. By 1900, 1.5 million black children were overcoming the illiteracy imposed on their parents and grandparents in slavery. n57 Shortly after
the imposition of racial segregation, blacks turned to the United States Supreme Court for relief from its legal
strictures. There were losses at first, the most notable being Plessy v. Ferguson, n58 upholding racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. As
blacks gained more organizational sophistication, the Court, gradually but

progressively, struck down segregation in [specific areas] voting, n59 in housing, n60
and in graduate schools. n61 The culminat[ing in]on was Brown v. Board of Education, n62 which fully
repudiated the Plessy doctrine and held that state sanctioned racial segregation violated the 14th Amendment.
Deleuze Interaction:
Minoritorian becoming requires protocals of experimentation –
that necessitates topical switch side debate to begin becoming.
BOGUE ’11:
[Bogue, Ronald. Professor at Franklin College. “Deleuze and Guattari and the Future of Politics: Science Fiction, Protocols,
and the People to Come.” 2011. LHP MK]
Fabulation does not presume an ideal, nor does it have an external goal as its motivation. It is its own
end, an irreducibly temporal process of becoming-other that is open-ended, and if it is a process of
summoning forth a future people, it is one that cannot move beyond itself without involving the
participation of a collectivity in its action. Fabulation commences with resistance, since ‘to create is to resist’ (Deleuze and Guattari
1994: 110), but if it is resistance to the present in the hope of a better future, that future cannot be predicted, nor can its superiority to the present be assured.Yet
if the object
one might ask, do we simply start blindly becoming, with no coordinates, no point of inception? This brings me to my third question:
of fabulation is the creation of a people to come, how do we get from here

and now to there and then, from the present to the future? Let us remember first, that if
the becoming of fabulation involves resistance, such resistance is always
contingent and specific. One resists the intolerable where one finds it , when
one can no longer tolerate it – hence, the point of inception is no problem.
But what about the coordinates of becoming? Here, I would like to suggest
that protocols of experimentation can provide a certain scaffolding for
resistance. Deleuze and Guattari state that ‘To think is to experiment’, although they add that ‘experimentation is always
that which is in the process of coming about – the new, remarkable, and interesting
that replace the appearance of truth and are more demanding than it is’ (Deleuze
and Guattari 1994: 111). Yet experimentation is not a haphazard activity. In Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, Deleuze and
Guattari find in Kafka’s letters to Felice a prodigious operation by which [Kafka] translates this horror [of impending matrimony] into a topography of obstacles
(where to go? how to arrive? Prague, Vienna, Berlin?). The Surveyor. And also the other operation by which he enumerates a numbered list of conditions that the
subject of the statement thinks can dissipate horror when, in fact, it is this very horror in the subject of the enunciation that inspires them (a Life Plan, or a Life
Program, à la Kleist). (Deleuze and Guattari 1986: 31–2; emphasis in original) The reference to Kleist is intriguing, if in need of further clarification. In several
letters to his half-sister, Ulrike, Kleist does indeed speak of the need for a Lebensplan, a life plan, but he seems to mean something quite mundane. He tells his
sister that he cannot achieve anything if he does not have a plan for his life. He then complains in subsequent letters that he cannot create a satisfactory plan, that
one plan soon gives way to another, and once adopted, each plan proves inoperable. But Deleuze and Guattari give this innocuous concept of a life plan a more
interesting sense. They see the life plan as a programme for experimentation, which suggests that Kafka’s ‘topography of obstacles’ and ‘list of conditions’ are also
elements of an experimental protocol. In Dialogues, Deleuze contrasts French literature with minor literature, in which there is no longer the infinite account of
interpretations which are always slightly disgusting, but finite processes of experimentation [des procès finis d’expérimentation], protocols of experience
[protocoles d’expérience]. Kleist and Kafka spent their time making programs for life [programmes de vie]. Programmes are not manifestos – still less are they
phantasms, but means of providing reference points for an experiment which exceeds our capacities to foresee. (Deleuze and Parnet: 2002: 47–8; emphasis in
coordinates of resistance? They are the ‘reference points for an

original)2 What, then, are the
experiment that exceeds our capacities to foresee’, and it is by way of such

reference points, such protocols, that we may move from the present toward the
future. It is worth noting that in Anti-Oedipus, something of this experimental spirit is invoked indirectly in Deleuze
and Guattari’s remarks about utopias. The elaborate plans, structures and proposed institutions
of utopian thinkers are not maps of achieved perfection . Rather, they say, the great
socialist utopias of the nineteenth century function . . . not as ideal model but as group fantasies
– that is, as agents of the real productivity of desire, making it possible to

disinvest the current social field, to ‘deinstitutionalise’ it, to further the revolutionary institution of desire itself. (Deleuze and
Guattari 1983: 30–1) As they remark at another point in their text, ‘if we must still speak of utopia in this sense, à la Fourier, it is most assuredly not as an ideal
model, but as revolutionary action and passion’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1983: 63).3
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Public Colleges and Universities ought not restrict

constitutionally protected free speech

care whether its participants have a life or do well in school or spend

the topic intuitively seems to be

allowed to say “colleges should not restrict some specific instance of

if a so-called unlawful act occurs, the consequence of the

unlawful act ‘ought’ to occur, this ‘ought’—as designating a category of the

To clarify, this means the normative justification of the aff can’t

Semantics outweighs, a) departing from semantics justifies

Ground is key to fairness since I need to make arguments in

If the aff would not be able to engage a

The case neg scarcity

Empirically denied that it solves limits Lallas 2-9

A variation of the educational objection to T – Any is that sometimes we

My standards impact turn this Lallas 2-9

Nibs, multiple condo,

language in which the resolution is stated. The resolution is stated in English,

Resolve: 1. To make a firm decision about. 2. To decide or

the topic community attempts to craft a resolution which can be

ANSWERED in either direction. They focus on issues like ground and

the word resolved is used to emphasis

education should prepare students for life as an engaged

and active deliberation of issues

enables the discernment of

courses of action It is essential

is to provide groups of students with the opportunity to

Students see themselves not as a passive audience

the task of devising a public policy.

into the concrete details of the case

They are not merely engaged in

settled goal They are examining the goals themselves

substantive discussion of "ultimate

values" can be murky territory.

ethics requires a balance between conceptual analysis and

the point of education is to

If we are to avoid living in a

society where we passively receive what is handed down to us

practice critical reasoning necessary to make well-considered judgments

Fairness and education since otherwise there’s infinite affs, also

particular, which can be observed between paradigmatic examples of nonagential

Any person can generate a vision of the ideal. One job of

Impacts to debatability and turns your framing. Having clearly

There can be no argument except on the premise, and

within a context, of agreement. In other words, we cannot argue about something if we

Firmness of purpose; resolution. 2. A determination

Further context: the word resolved is

[2] ‘Ought’ denotes an empirical relationship to some empirical

ought’ designates a relative a priori category for comprehending

Violation --- they don’t. Now, vote negative:

there must be a controversy, a difference of opinion or

Debate cannot produce effective decisions without clear identification of a

think of many more concerns to be addressed by a conversation about the

without a focus for their discussions, they

To have a productive debate, which

facilitates effective decision making by directing and placing limits on the

a general subject, we have not yet stated a

[2] Topicality is a call for engagement – contestation and

necessary condition for reasonableness is the willingness not only to offer

FS T & Theory File

FS T & Theory File

FS T & Theory File