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Re: treaties and ground

At 11:20 AM 4/17/97 -0500, cripe william ellis wrote:

>     I agree that all the proposed topics have _some_ defendable negative 
>ground, but treaties do this the best???  No Way!  SPACE has got to be 
>the best provider by far of generic Neg ground, while still allowing 
>easily anticipated affs that can be significantly researched and debated 
>to a meaningful level of analysis.  You're absolutely right that cutting 
>cards on Treaty (or any case) X is not a bad thing, but why shy away from 
>research at all?  Why be limited to 48 case areas?  It has been mentioned 
>that with a properly worded rez, the number of _topical_ affs under the 
>Treaties topic could leap to infinity, were anything that _should_ be a 
>treaty be allowed. (I'm not sure who posted that, but I just read it, 
>sorry for not giving credit where credit is due).  Why force the aff in 
>to a box at all?  While the 48 unsigned treaties cover a wide range of 
>topics (luxumbourg et al) they still take away the creativity usually 
>afforded to the aff in constructing a case.

Debate is about creativity to some extent, I agree, but it has to have
bounds as well. If we were most concerned about giving the affirmatives
creative license, why have a topic at all? The resolution always restricts
the affirmative somewhat. And besides, us 2Ns know that affirmative
creativity usually means screw the negative :) Sure part of affirmative
strategy is supposed to be screw the negative, but creativity has resulted
in mish-mash plans compiled with no overall advocate. They make several
internal assumptions not justified by evidence but not addressed by
evidence on the negative side either, since the idea hasn't been proposed
in the literature. We've learned that from all those SoPro debates don't
forget :) While I disagree with that argument as a voting issue, I do think
it would be nice for every plan on a topic to be advocated explicitly in
the literature. That'll help equalize the ground for the negative and also
take debate a bit out of fantasy fiat land and into reality.. 

The affirmative can still have creativity in the strategy and way they
debate the case, advantages they claim, also the possibility for
reservations talked about in the paper could address this concern..

> Space, on the other hand, 
>allows for creativity of galactic proportions.  The ground is there for 
>each team to have a significantly deep debate, both for the big and small 
>schools.  Does having one or two cards on treaty 1 - 48 really constitute 
>an improvement in case debate?  Those who choose to, will get deep in to 
>the literature on each treaty.  But so will those who choose to on each 
>Space case.  I don't think that having 48 possible cases automatically 
>means that each small school will be deep into the case side debate.  We 
>can no more assume this than we can assume that they wont be able to 
>obtain information on Space (especially in an age of inter-library loan, 
>internet, and extensive library systems at most schools and or towns and 
>cities.)

If you only have 1 or 2 cards on the cases at least after a short length of
time, you're pitiful. I believe the concern of most here is not for the
AFFIRMATIVE to get deep on their particular treaty, everyone gets deep on
their case no matter what the topic, but for the NEGATIVE to be able to do
the same.. Space doesn't allow for that, it's just not as limiting or
predictable I don't think. Everyone can get access to the Congressional
Record (Internet/Lexis/Library) - and there will be large amounts of
discussion on most of the possible cases there.



-/-> John Sullivan
-\-> Michigan State
--\> sulliv75@pilot.msu.edu
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