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Re: New Concerns About Civil Rights Topic

Ronald Fredrick Albright Ii wrote:
> 
> There have been several interesting concerns about the possibility of a
> civil rights topic.  I have a few different concerns of my own.
> 
> 1.  Small Affirmatives-we witnessed the trend begin this year and it
> would certainly continue with the civili rights topic.  Competition is
> the name of the game and nearly every debater would agree.  Some will lie
> and say they don't care about the ballot.  I certainly hope these folks
> will be opposing me in any break rounds or out rounds that I participate
> in.  The point is simple:  there is an eternal search for the small plan
> mechanism that avoids any links to disads.  I can envision teams
> advocating plans that isolate one example of discrimination and claiming
> that they solve for it.  I don't mean to trivialize discriminatory
> actions by saying that recognition of such actions is unnecessary. I
> personally believe that discriminatory acts (race, gender, sexual
> preference, age, etc.) at any level, be it federal policy or a municipal
> ruling in some obscure county in Idaho are unjustified.  However, such
> affirmatives
> will actually serve to delegitimize the integrity of such an issue.  If
> debaters decide to be competitive (and this seems likely) these cases
> will be advocated.  The underlying reason behind this delegitimization of
> the issue will be the negative strategy.  hence, problem #2.

1)  I think this concern is serious.  the topic wording for this 
resolution should be more limited than usual to encourage debate on the 
heart of discrimination issues.  the topic wording should "somehow" 
force the affirmative to present a discrimination defense.
2)  the small affirmatives seem to link into many of the generic 
negative positions that a little help masks the real problems.  that a 
little help causes rising expectations.  etc. etc. etc.  The negative 
would be well prepared for this type of ground debate.


> 
> 2.  Agent Action Counter-plans-if you were annoyed with delay
> counter-plans this year?  I do not want to be around you by the time
> Nationals rolls around.  Affirmatives will force negative teams to either
> delay the plan or locate some obscure actor to do the plan.  This is the
> only ground.  I envision several rounds where either NGO's or States or
> Cities will be better equipped to solve the problem.  Oh boy, a
> federalism debate.  In these rounds, the issue at hand of discrimination
> will not be discussed!  Instead, fiat abuse will be the top argument of
> every 2AR.  It seems to trivialize the issue.  At heart I would like to
> believe differently.  I simply can't.  We are debaters.  We are
> competitive.  Our coaches want us to do well because that is the linchpin
> to the financing scheme of their program
> 
> Furthermore, the weighing process will be quite difficult putting the
> adjudicator in a serious moral dilemma.  How does one determine the
> impact of justifying the continuance of racism in the interim before the
> delay CP kicks in?  I am not sure.  If we evaluate the post-fiat world,
> policies that are inherently bad will continue to exist absent the plan
> or counter-plan worlds.  No affirmative will be able to de-rail all of
> the either sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. blunders that our politicians
> have created.  This creates a disturbing situation where our tabula-rasa
> critcs might have to justify that "a little racism in the interim isn't
> that bad, we can do it later, right?  at least I didn't disrupt the
> bipartisan cooperation on foreign aid appropriations to somewhere in the
> world where it's needed to eventually avoid a conflict."  I personally
> wouldn't want to sit in the back of these rounds.  recent posts lead me
> to believe that judging is already very difficult.  Let alone,  being
> forced to decide these sensitive issues.

it seems that many of the agent debates you discuss are critical 
questions in the literature and probably deserve discussion.  others 
have already suggested that the affirmative actor be something other 
than the USFG per se.  Agent discussion on the question is a REAL 
question ... am i wrong.  And the literature checks abuse in a definite 
way on this subject b/c the agent counterplan without solvency evidence 
would have a significant solvency deficit making the case a 
disadvantage.  And the case would be the moral high ground :)  In short, 
legitimate agent questions in the literature would be worthwhile 
discussions.  Others would be fairly easily discarded.
> 
> 3.  This is a question and not a problem?  Would we include the rights of
> species.  would we debate the environment again?  I'm certain that some
> squads are ready to say that "SPecies loss is irreversible!  It outweighs
> all!"  This is also an answer to those of you who are concerned about
> debating China again because the high schoolers did a year ago.  I
> certainly would like to move away from the topic of the environment.
> Simply put, change is good.

i doubt that the technical terminology concerning civil rights includes 
rights of non-humans.  once again, the phrase (whatever it will be) 
"civil rights protections" needs to be a clearly delineated area.
> 
> 4.  If human rights and civil rights are issues you want to debate.  SE
> Asia is the topic.  Check out the situation in Burma, it's horrific.
> people have been forced away from their native lands and consistently
> lied to by their government.  That is oppression!  Does the US have a
> role in the manner?  Let's answer this question.
> i've thought about this A LOT in the past day.  I recall stories of East 
Timor that are severe.  I think that we have debated human rights in 
other nations many times and have yet to look closely at human rights 
questions in our own nation.  This argument IS the hypocrisy turn so 
often run in foreign policy human rights debates.  I think that the 
discussions would concern different types of issues.  And i think that 
all of the criticisms of moral high ground strategies are more likely 
with a foreign human rights question given our inability to have any 
knowledge from which to assess the validity of journalists claims.

david rhaesa
> Thanks,
> Chip
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