[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page

Treaties and Harris

Sean makes  multiple arguments against the treaty topic paper:

1. No predictable negative ground - Wrong, 48 cases you know ahead of time.
   Wrong, International law is bad.  Wrong, specific political action disads.
   Wrong, Foreign policy making power disadvantages (international treaties
   tie our hands in foreign policy crisis - the cards are all over the place
   - see all the debate on UN peacekeeping etc.).  Wrong, actor arguments
   indicting multilateral action through status quo mechanisms such as the UN
   in lieu of better more revolutionary or innovative alternatives.  Wrong,
   Militia disads actually apply on this topic.  Wrong, treaty modification
   or exception counterplans that are actually based in the copious literature.
   Wrong, volumes of specific  evidence on almost every treaty.  Also, this
   argument fails to compare the predictability to our normal harm area topics
   which frequently fail to specify specific literature based actions or actors
   creating moronic and problamatic ground division and predictability
   problems. A very weak argument.
2. The corralary - No T - Well, T was designed to check affirmative abuse of
   the topic....If there is no abuse....No T.....In fact, no need for T and
   good riddance to it.....If the affirmatives do attempt to warp the topic
   intent there will actually be very specific and excellent field specific and
   contextually explained definitions that will make the T debates excellent
   instead of meaningless and annoying....
3. Space Luxemburg - So what...Name a topic that you cannot accomplish this
   feat on......In addition, a whole lot of debates on relations will be
   created by the topic and the link turn debates will make the impacts
   somewhat irrelevent....Oh no....specific topic literature that actually
   refers to the links of the disadvantages....That would be horrible....
4. Small schools - Your argument is that large topics allow small schools
   to run an affirmative that is off the beaten path and allows them some
   equalization of ground on the affirmative against well researched
   big school negatives.....Well....Wrong, it absolutely ensures no ability
   of the small school to win the other four debates because the topic is
   so large and unspecific that they cannot keep up.  Wrong, there are still
   forty-eight possibilities which allow for something to be off the beaten
   path. Wrong, there is more literature that is available to all helping
   affirmatives begin early and defend well and often no matter where they
   come from.  Wrong, novices and younger debaters can hardly comprehend the
   number of options or what the topic means now....At least with this topic
   they immediately understand what ground is available to both sides and the
   topic allows the predictable generic ground to always be useful against
   any of the cases....In other words, I disagree....
Also, what the heck is the alternative?  I have no problem with the other
subject areas but that is hardly the question.....The question is, can
the other areas be as well divided and predictable as the treaties area?
If not, I do not care how interesting they are.  Failure to specify and
failure to limit is crushing participation in our activity.....Vote for
the first limited topic in years......Help me in my quest to maintain a
useable case list....Vote for treaties!!!!!  Josh

Joshua B. Hoe
Asst. Dir. Forensics
Arizona State University
e-mail:IFJXH@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
(602) 965-5578
Follow-Ups:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page