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Re: Input on types of CEDA Topics

-- Glenn
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In a recent post, Scott Luchetti (luchettis@URVAX.URICH.EDU) wrote:
>I agree with your desire of a policy topic, or at the very least, 
>quasi-policy, but I am unsure of what you mean by a fact topic?  is it 
>different than a policy and value and quasi-policy?  pleas explain... thanks

First, to answer Scott's question with an example:

Res of Fact: The CIA was complicit in the death of <person's name>.
[sorry, I can't recall the name of the person who is most recently
at issue in this respect]

This question follows the pattern, "Is X true"?

Res of value: The CIA's killing of individuals is justified
by the agency's utility in the pursuit of democracy. [??]

This question follows the pattern, "is X good"?

Now to my main point:

Not intending to pick on Scott in particular, but I think that the
fact that this sort of question is being asked is a good reason to
continue to debate at least some non-policy topics. There are many
types of claims that are made in the world; policy propositions are
only one type of claim/call to action/what-have-you. I understand
the sentiment that I belive Tim Mahoney & other are expressing,
that given the debate community's greater theory knowledge & near-common
assumptions about policy debate it lends itself to clearer division of
ground & less subjective competition (well, except for the finer points
of competition, parametrics, inherency, hmm...).

However, I believe it is important that students (and faculty? :-))
not neglect other types of discourse & other types of reasoning in
pusuit of competition. Shouldn't all CEDA-L members be able to recognize
the conceptual difference between a claim of fact and a claim of value?
What are we loosing in the educational process if we focus on only policy
claims?

Having debated on primarily non-topic policies during my career, I can
assure people that it _can_ be done, and it _can_ be done well. If people
prefer policy competition for CEDA Nats, then choose policy topics
for the second semester. But I, for one, would like to see debating about
values continue to be a part of CEDA. [Not that debating about values is
incompatible with a policy topic; but it necessarily takes on a different
character, I believe, when the focus of the debate is placed on the
policy issues.]

Register my $.02 (I don't have an official vote, yet) in favor of varying
the types of claims that are made in the CEDA resolutions, especially in
the spring semester. I think that a topic such as "The United States'
continued support for democracy in Latin America is desirable" would be 
terrific. Or even, "The United States' top foreign-relations priority with 
respect to Latin America should be the promotion of Democracy".

I prefer specific quantifiers (as Tim suggested, "$15 billion" is a hell
of a lot better than "significant"), but I like to leave questions like
"why?" or "what is good?" wide open to promote value comparisons in
the debate rounds. I also like to leave debaters at least the option of
avoiding the implementation issues that come with a policy debate, to
allow greater focus on "why" rather than "how".

Thanks for listening,
Glenn Ellingson
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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