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Re: Narratives

> The fact that you've mastered the art of email yelling aside, you've just 
> proved my point. There is no rule book for either activity. Therefore, 
> there is no rule book that says "The word should in a resolution means 
> that the affirmative must offer a concrete plan." So, although the 
> negative might have a block set up saying that, it isn't on the flow 
> automatically, and is always subject to debate.

First of all....
Your argument is that there are no "rules" in CEDA. I will certainly 
grant you that. However, there are CONVENTIONS that we follow fairly 
diligently - and in this case you are violating a time-honored one. I'm 
not saying that you violate the rules of CEDA when you don't present a 
plan - I think it's more appropriate to say that you violate a basic 
tenet of argumentation theory. The resolution this semester woul dbe 
universally recognized as a proposition of policy. My argument is that 
diffuse, undefined advocacy damages negative ground.

> You've made several assumptions in this passage. The first is that what 
> we are competing in is technically policy debate. It is not. CEDA has no 
> set framework, no set paradigm. As long as value topics are offered and 
> debated on those terms, then the interpretation of that resolution is 
> always open to question.

Wait a sec...we just went through this. You can't pigeonhole an 
organization like CEDA into a paradigm. This does prove YOUR point as you 
think it does, however. My arguments are grounded in theory based on 
resolutional wording - and when types of proposition switch like they do 
so often in CEDA that's really the only way that you can approach it. The 
fact that next semester might have a res of value of fact does not 
discount the FACT that this is a resolution of policy.

> The next assumption is that "the days of whole rez and hasty 
> generalization" is the only other alternative, and is a bad 
> one. Personally, I think that some people might have a preference for 
> hasty g and whole rez. But that's immaterial. The real issue is that they 
> can work together. If the affirmative believes in offering a whole rez 
> based case, then they have the right to do so. That doesn't invalidate 
> the notion of plans and specific subsets of the resolution, but rather 
> says that it's not necessary. If negative strategies start moving towards 
> always running hasty-g and whole-rez blocks whenever a plan is offered, 
> and they win doing so, then that's the way that debate is once again 
> moving. Change isn't always bad. Besides, if it's going to happen, then 
> you and I are both powerless to stop it, no matter what our personal 
> preferences regarding plan vs. whole rez cases are.

Maybe change isn't always bad, but I certainly think the retro 
non-advocacy trend damages debate immeasurably. And I think you're worng 
to say we're powerless to stop trends like this - it's discussions like 
these that shape theory opinions and debate in general.

> Finally, while I might agree that policy debate is best served by a 
> concrete position of advocacy in the form of a plan, I don't believe that 
> every round needs to be a policy round. If that were the case, then we 
> would have a rulebook, and it would say "Thou shalt offer plans in the 
> 1AC; the word should always means 'this is a policy resolution.'" If you 
> think that's what the implicit CEDA rulebook says, that's fine, but until 
> you show me one, I disagree.

See above - remember, unless you can prove that this isn;t a proposition 
of policy then none of your argument have any relevance. Wait until a 
different resolution comes by to run this narrative stuff.

> Though I personally am running a plan on this topic, and I don't know of 
> many teams that are not, I believe that they have a right to do so, and 
> interpret "should" to mean what the dictionary says it does, without 
> offering any sort of implicit interpretation or policy framework. You say 
> potato, I say potato (why is it those audio jokes never work well over 
> email?).

One last thing... what dictionary definition are you talking about? I'll 
bet I can find different defs as well....If you're talking about the 
moral obligation def, I think you are barking up the wrong tree.

SUMMARY:

1) CEDA rules got nothing to do with it - this is a resolution of policy

2) You concede policy resolution require clear advocacy - yet you 
continue to advocate this amorphous mass called a narrative that keeps us 
from having clear advocacy

See ya

Aaron Klemz
SMS Debate

"I am the Great Corholio. I need TP for my bunghole! Do not make my 
bunghole angry!"

-Beavis
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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