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RE: STOP THE MADNESS! (TD, CR, EMOTIONAL RESPONSES)
It really is sad to realize that the debate community may be in large agreement about the irrefutability of the need to expand civil rights, and yet the government and popular sentiment seem in large part to be moving in the opposite direction.
It seems a particularly vexing problem.
Why is it that narrow minded, ignorant, and bigoted people have so much influence over public policy? Why do views like T.D.'s carry so much weight in the national and global political arenas, as well as root themselves so deeply in American cultural norms?
Investigating these questions seems pretty important to me. The fact that they are unresolvable seems to make them particularly debatable.
I really do think this issue needs more serious attention on our parts. Distraction into the international geopolitical spectacle seems like fun debate, but not nearly so meaningful or self-reflective as spending the year thinking about the ways we construct and define each other. The civil rights topic area can provide us more meaningful and personal debate. Might it be painful and troublesome? Let's hope so.
As for specific topic wordings, I personally like the Urban Policy topic, though I think it may not centralize some of the more important civil rights issues.
Pat Gehrke
CSU Chico
ps- I cannot receive CEDA-L for some reason. Been reading NDT-L. Anything not cross-posted will miss me, sorry. I'm subscribed to both, but CEDA-L just doesn't come in on my rabbit ears, I guess.
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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