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The 6 Topics

It is my feeling that the topic chosen will be one of these two.  The 

onl difference being the limiter "airborne" in the second topic.  To 
begin the discussion, let's talk about how best to twist the "intent" 
of the resolution...

1) Foreign Countries:  I don't think that plans necessarily have to 
affect the United States.  By removing the limited "...the domestic 
production and/or emission of environmental pollutants IN THE UNITED 
STATES" I think a certain vaugeness takes hold.  Domestic "of or 
relating to the policies or affairs within a country".  I envision a 
few cases regulating MNC's polluting in foreign countries, thus 
decreasing the domestic production of pollutants in, say, Mexico?

2) Splitting the limiter:  The topic seems to allow a semantically 
inclined debater to argue that there are three options:  to a) Deal 
with domestic production  b) to deal with emission  or c) to deal 
with both.  I would imagine there will be a few people arguing that 
domestic only modifies production not emission .  Yeah, not a 
particularly fearful concept, but I'm just throwing ideas our right 
now and seeing who latches on to them.

3) Domestic means in the home:  the refrigerator and dishwasher 
industries are the focus because they're domestic (meaning 'in the 
home').  Time to clamp down on all the nasty stuff flying out of 
people's apartments and homes.  Ha ha, hmm.

4) Find the list:  "should strengthen regulation requiring industries 
to..." could be taken to mean a) That debaters have to go find the 
list of regulations labeled "REGULATION REQUIRING INDUSTRIES TO 
DECREASE SUBSTANTIALLY THE..." and then strenghten only whats on that 
list (i.e. beefing up numbers 2,3, and 16 on the list).  Or b) to 
find any old regulation and strengthen it up TO the level of 
requriing a substantial decrease in x,y,z.  The plain jane dictionary 
definition of REGULATION (not regulations) is "1. An act of 
regulating.  2. A principle, rule, or law for controlling behavior.  
3. A governmental order with the force of law."

5) Airborne limiter is silly:  I don't it does anything for the topic 
except force people to be a bit more creative in making their case 
topical.  Yea, the toxic sludge pouring out of that pipe ends up on 
the ground, BUT it has a 3 second hang-time in the air before it hits 
the ground thus making it "airborne" for those three seconds.  Plus 
it releases a noxious gas when it combines with soil and the only way 
to decrease THAT airborne pollutant is to eliminate its ground based 
source which plan does.  Nyah, nyah, thpffft.

6) Get ready for the "and/or is a grammatical aberration" res. flaw 
argument.  I fear this creature may raise its ugly head again.


That's it for now, any other thoughts?

Joe Boyle
Graduate Assistant
Fort Hays State University
"Postmodernism is modernism with the optimism taken out"
   -some philosopher person
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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