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Re: Process Disads -Reply to Croasmun

>Process keeps me on 
>lexis week to week to keep abreast of what's actually happening in 
>politics which increases actual understanding of issues......

But what issues?  This weeks bipartisanship discussion as opposed to last
weeks?  How much value it there to that?  This doesn't teach much about
the "political process," any more than following opinion polls and other
daily "horse race" coverage of elections would teach about the political
process.

>I am not saying that just because 
>they are generic they are good.  I am saying it's a weapon that for 
>some people is important to have as a generic.  

I feel very sorry for negatives who have to either research more than a
hundred cases or come up with a few generic arguments.  Maybe this could
be dealt with if topics were more narrow, or debaters did their own
research, or negatives learned to debate better with limited preparation,
or judges had higher expectations for both aff and neg arguments.  But
this particular option, in my opinion, hurts debate.

>You're right...against warming there are plenty of case 
>cards...but sometimes there aren't and I gotta hope I can get a link 
>to one of my generics.

I disagree with this view of generics, but lest this become solely a
discussion of the value of generic arguments I will add that out of the
realm of generic arguments this particular type (political process DAs)
are particularly pernicious.

>I learned 
>how to debate running Anarchy and Clinton....one or the other....every 
>neg. 
>round.  I don't know enough about Anarchism to even really discuss it 
>with you...but I learned how to debate counterplans that way.

I am not sure how much value there is to learning how to debate
counterplans, when it is completely divorced not only from (a) the
specific topic being debated and (b) the specific aff plan being
countered but also from (c) the substance of the counterplan area itself.

Similarly, I think there are many interesting things that could be
learned in debates about "political process."  How about the implications
of replacing our system with a parlimentary system?  How about a national
primary system?  Public financing of elections?  Elimination of soft
money?  Restrictions on TV ads?  But re-doing briefs to update last
week's Clinton-popularity polls with this week's polls, or re-writing the
DA based on a speech Gingrich gave on Thursday afternoon, doesn't seem
very interesting or very educational.  IN FACT, if the arguments change
that much each week

>["......and it's versitile and changes as an argument week to week which
means it's not as stale as you would have us beleive.  We ran over 7
different versions of Process this year....and several other c-plan's
along with them.  Never the same disad at the next 
tournament]

doesn't that suggest that they are PARTICULARLY weak arguments?  I doubt
that your sources on the merits of anarchism would change their minds or
would drastically alter their arguments for anarchism based on one nexis
article or this week's opinion poll.  Isn't it possible that NEXT week's
nexis output of punditry will undercut the DA in the same way that this
week's HELPED the DA?  Where's the value?
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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