Topic Musings

[MStev11397@aol.com]

Hi--
	I have never been involved in any of the topic discussions and FRANKly have
not been reading too many of the posts either.  Nevertheless, I want to add a
few thoughts about the resolutions which the topic committee came up with.
  As a general overview to the discussion, I am a bit disappointed about the
lack of directionality the vast majority of the topics have.  By this I mean
that it appears as if the affirmatives will once again be at a strategic
advantage which goes beyond the sheer fact that they get to speak last.
 Allowing the affirmative to “substantially change” x or y towards SE Asia
means that the plan can either decrease or increase current statas quo
policies.  I think that this is bad for negative ground in 2 ways.

	1)  It literally doubles the size of the topic.  If, for example topic # 1
is chosen, the negative now must be prepared for a plan which either places
conditions on aid policies to one of the countries listed or takes away
conditions to one of the countries.  I think there is a general consensus
which says that “substantially “ is not a very limiting term.  It’s already
gonna be hard enough to keep up on the events in this region already

	2) a smart affirmative will attemp to structure the plan to link turn many
of the generic disads which promotion of human rights generally provides.
 (i.e. China, self determination, etc)  This may be easily done by any case
which stops or decreases current statas quo policies.  (For example banning
f-16 sales to indonesia because they use the planes to beat the crap out of
people in east timor).  

I also do not like the word “its” in all the topics.  It seems like the
resolutioon could be something like, “The USFG should substantially increase
(or decraese or change) development assistance (or non-military, etc).  Using
it’s in the resolution seems to take away ground for a lot of alternate agent
counterplans.  How does Japan or the UN or anyone else do a policy which
exclusively belongs to the US?  

These are just some preliminary thoughts which are untested.  I hope people
will comment on these concerns. 

Peace, Love and happy card cutting,
Monte Stevens

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