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Re: Ethics discussion: Sean's Card

> Presuming that we saw the whole article, I believe that this card is out of
> context.  
> The question is, "Does Christopher believe that 'there is no military threat
> in a post cold war world'?"
> Given the article, the answer is quite unambiguously "not."  Christopher
> believes quite explicitly that there are a great number of military threats
> in a post cold war world.
	[substantial material omitted]
> I am at a loss to say what ambiguity would lead one to conclude that this is
> anything other than an out of context card.  I think that standards can be
> applied to resolve questions of context, and I beleive that in some cases this
> can be done clearly and unproblematically.


	I can think of reasons it is ambiguous at worst and probably not an
actionable context violation.  First, the "context" of the round may make 
the tag clearer.  IF the debate is over theater balistic missile defenses 
and the user of the evidence wishes to indicate that generic objections to 
ABM systems premised on their inability to stop an all-out Russian attack are 
obsolete, it works [teams running cases like THADD heard old briefs of this 
type frequently].  In that context, the USER certainly would distinguish 
between the superpower scenarios in the card and the localized scenarios 
in the rest of the article just as the AUTHOR did.  In fact the same team 
would be reading the rest of the article for their purposes too, not just 
"cutting it for the negative" as if the two disagreed.  Therefore the USE 
of the evidence is as important to me as the CONTENT, perhaps more so.  

	Second, in testing the intent of the author one should be wary of 
looking to the final paragraph to assess if the author "concludes 
affirmative [or negative]".  If the author were presented with this 
paragraph and asked "is this true, do you believe it?"  the answer would 
be unambiguous endorsement.  The fact that the author can think of other 
scenarios that are still a threat does not make the content of this 

paragraph false or internally inconsistent.  This example is different from 
the "some people argue ... but ..." type of context violation, where the author 
would disavow the content of the paragraph.  Even if the author at some 
later point in the article disagreed with the final conclusion or plan 
advocated by the user [e.g. the author does not endorse THADD or theater 
balistic missile defenses] that objection would only be relevant to the 
extent that it was based on the content of this evidence.  If the author 
feels that sea-based ballistic missile defenses violate LOST in some way, 
that would not mean the author therefore disagreed with the paragraph 
we are examining.  Two individuals may agree on a fact, but disagree on its 
interpretation or its application.  [One would also NOT be justified here in 
listing the author of this article as a supporter of the affirmative 
THADD plan, just because the author agreed on one factual component, of 
course.] By that standard no one would be allowed to quote statistics from 
the FED on the economy unless they endorsed FRB policies on the economy!

	Third, the card in question does not hide anything.  A key ingredient 
for me in context rulings is whether or not the opposition can discern 
the full meaning of the card from the amount given.  This principle is what 
makes blip cards so subject to abuse.  This example, however, is a compete 
thought (not a blip) and is not edited deceptively (or overtly for that 
matter).  In fact, for the hypothetical case above the affirmative 
probably would wish to omit the last sentence, which could be construed 
as reducing case risk.  [The rest of the article given us suggests that the 
omission of the last sentence would also not be contrary to author's 
intent.]  Any observant debater from the opposition can identify the fact that
the AUTHOR'S claim is fairly narrow [superpower confrontation] and can assess 
its degree of support for the argument being made by the USER. [Even a novice 
would not see this card as an endorsement of unilateral and total disarmament,
for example, even if they did not have the rest of the article before them.]  
Any debater who flowed the tag and just marked X for "card read" without 
looking any further into it has nothing to complain about in this example.
Debaters do "power tag" or "misapply" evidence as they speak but that is 
a logical violation not an ethical violation.  [The question of whether this 
evidence could be reasonably examined at the speed of normal debate is 
irrelevant  -- an argument for doing something about speed as much as an 
argument for doing something about evidence].  And absent a comment by the 
opposition about the evidence it certainly would not seem compelling enough a 
violation for me in the role of community ethics enforcer to step outside 
the role of critic of argument and strike down the sinful user.  



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Glen W. Clatterbuck
Illinois College
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