Topic quickage

[Doyle Srader <DSRADER@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>]

While I wait for a student to show, another thought about topic-framing.

I think we'd gain a lot by taking an area of foreign action as defined
by the USFG, and then put in a "one or more" phrase including sub-
categories also used by the USFG.

There was an example of this in my previous set of wording ideas: the
"change security assistance policy/ies in one or more of the following
areas: nonproliferation assistance, arms transfers, confidence-building
measures." "Security assistance" is a budget category, and arms
transfers and nonproliferation assistance are both labels applied to
specific programs by the agencies that handle such matters. I'm not _as_
sure about CBMs, but I've been told that the feds have specific criteria
for what they regard as CBMs.

This is not a vote in favor of security assistance. That's just the one
I remember most easily. With a short run-through of the State Department
budget, I'm sure we could come up with a brace of categories and sub-
categories for any subject matter we want: development, human rights,
culture, tourism, student exchange, intelligence-gathering ... It's an
unharvested bounty.

<So why don't I get off my crevasse and do it, you ask? I'm off my
crevasse, thanks much, and up to my neck in dissertatage.>

If we're hell-bent to debate action by the USFG, it just makes a world
of sense to use their labels. What is "human rights policy"? More
importantly, what is NOT "human rights policy"? I think there are good
debates to be had in that subject matter, but what institutional terms
govern it? I know people play havoc both with government definitions and
with non-government definitions, but at least when we ran Pollard and
the GAO report, it was a matter of struggling over the _interpretation_
of a set definition, whereas on the trade topic it was "OK, what does
this have to do with trade? Think of ten ways it affects trade. There's
your T defense." Yes, that's extreme. Yes, most people ran affirmatives
that were on more solid T ground than that. Others have put that choice
in perspective. The point is, people who _did_ stretch the topic that
far were almost impossible to catch.

Emily <the student> just arrived, and says hi.

Doyle Srader
University of Georgia
<706> 548-9938

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