'Artificial' CP's

["Alyson L. Lewis" <lewisa@holmes.uchastings.edu>]

Josh is right.  Not only is there no theoretical justification for voting 
AFF because NEG wins that there is something 'artificial' about the CP, 
the community can't even seem to agree on what it means for a CP to be 
'artificial.'  For example, some people think exclusionary CP's are 
'artificial' because they use part of AFF plan, but see Korcok and Josh 
for an explanation of how exclusionary CP's are competitive.

In all this confusion, I think people are missing Josh's point in 
bringing up this topic.  We are so use to hearing these magic words (the 
get out of jail free card) that most people don't even look to the 
theoretical justifications.  

I have a theory on why artificiality is such an appealing argument.  If 
you believe that NEG's get to "test" AFF plan, then there is a good 
argument that something should limit the methods NEG can use to test the 
AFF.  Not banning part of plan could be this kind of limitation.  Larry 
seems to be a strong promoter of forcing NEG's to be limited in their 
testing mechanisms, because, he argues, exclusions can be infinitely 
regressive.

However, I think Josh has respond to this concern.  There are other ways 
to limit the NEG.  I.E.  argue the substance of the CP; can't capture case 
advantages, no solvency minus the essential part of AFF plan.  
AND, if you are including non-essential elements in your plan, 
the NEG should get the ground to point that out. (In other words, don't 
say you're going to enact plan on red paper and you won't open yourself 
up to a blue paper is better CP or disad)(*This may lead to vague plans, 
but that's an entirely different thread)

Ultimately I agree with Josh, but I think Larry brought up a scenario 
where 'artificiality' might make NEG lose the CP. (depending on how you 
view NEG ground)

This is the case where something in the status quo is inevitable, AFF 
plan makes it better, then NEG CP's to ban the inevitable.  It looks like 
this:

S.Q.	= X
AFF	= change X, which after plan looks like Y
NEG	= Ban X

In this case, NEG is not testing plan (Y), but testing the status quo 
(X).  Then NEG gets to claim all case harms as an advantage.  This 
is what I would call 'artificial' because it does not test the AFF 
advocacy, but only an assumption the AFF makes; that X is inevitable in 
the S.Q.  If AFF's don't get the ground to assume the S.Q. is the way it 
is when they write the plan, are they really getting all the advantages 
that we claim AFF's get by being AFF.  Whether you accept this as a valid 
NEG strategy depends on whether you think NEG can use all possible worlds 
to test the AFF world (including counterfactuals and topical CP's).

There is an argument that AFF could just try to win the inevitability 
argument (i.e. NEG can't fiat that some global propensity will stop with 
CP), but then aren't you forcing AFF to defend that the status quo is 
what they say it is and not whether plan solves?  At the same time, 
aren't you giving the NEG uniqueness to their truly non-unique dis-ads?  
Do we really want to give the NEG this much power in testing the AFF?


-Aly
(former Cornell debater, but don't blame Korcok if you think I'm way off 
base, he would probably agree with you!)

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