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Re: SE asia: great for ground and small programs too...

>Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 15:24:32 -0500
>To: ndt-l@uga.cc.uga.edu
>From: Terry Johnson <terryj@nwu.edu>
>Subject: Re: SE asia: great for ground and small programs too...
>
>        Hi everyone.  Still in school here, and I've been trying to keep up
with this, but I'm afraid I missed something.  If small schools cannot beat
new cases on generic counterplans under the SEA or treaties topic because
affirmatives will have specific advantages, why won't that same thing happen
under a civil rights topic?  What idiot school (answer--probably a "big"
one) will write a case that can be solved easier by an alternate mechanism?
>
>To me, the difference is that a wily 2n, forced with a new case, two
options on SEA--a conditional agent/mechanism cp that probably will not
solve all of the case with a generic US action disad, or generic impact
turns to the case.  Not "famine good" or "death good" but impact turns to
the internal link--political stability, growth, arms buildups, etc.  There
are options for the 2nr--cp and disad, cp and case turns, disad and case
turns, or just case turns.  1ar probably undercovers something, and wala,
2-1 negative.
>
>The ground difference that cannot be erased by tricky email barrages is
that discrimination is not good.  Removing the debatability of the harm in
the resolution decreases negative ground intrinsically.  This is not to say
that there will be no ground;  as a debater who has run many a case about
discrimination and lost many a debate, even as I played the "racism card" I
can say that the negative will not become extinct.  However, it will be
harder, since with increased "topic cohesion" there is also increased
predictability of negative strategy.
>
>Later
>Terry
>
>At 11:21 AM 5/20/97 -0600, you wrote:
>>two things occur to me as i read ryan's post.  the first is that all of
>>the arguments that were unwinnable according to ryan when i described
>>them as possibilities on CR--movements and china pressure--are suddenly
>>superb when ryan describes them as possibilities under SEA.  the second
>>is that my arguments seem to be misrepresented when they are adressed. i
>>will discuss this second problem i have with his post below.
>>        ryan engages in an artificial polarization between counterplan debates
>>and case debates.  he seems to be saying that a topic that was good for
>>counterplans would intuitively be bad for case debates, and that good
>>case debates are only possible once we have demolished the hope for
>>counterplan argumentation. i do not believe this argument is true. to
>>adress this argument thoroughly i wil answer it on both levels i see it
>>to be argued: the first is that no counterplans equals good case debate,
>>the second is that the counterplans would be good on SEA.
>>        counterplans do not necessarily stop case debate.  they broaden
>>the strategies available: they make it possible for the neg to not be
>>grossly disadvantaged going into the first tournament of the year.  they
>>allow the potential for a generic negative strategy which is essential to
>>the competetive success of programs which don't have the people-power to
>>assign two cases to each debater and have the whole topic covered.  they
>>are also a valuable argumentative assett.  they force the aff to defend
>>the entirety of their case, they explore other avenues for
>>implementation, they expand the educational potential of the topic
>>fivefold.  they are available on the CR topic: they are not on SEA.
>>        next, ryan says plenty of counterplans are available.  this
>>argument presupposes a resolution which increases US aid.  he grants my
>>argument that were the resolution to call for a decrease in aid, no-one
>>but the USFG would be able to decrease US aid.  i argue that this is also
>>a problem on a bidirectional topic, at least halving the counterplan
>>ground that ryan believes is possible.  Ryan says that the limiting of
>>the harm area could expand counterplan ground, which makes me think of
>>something else interesting: no-one in favor of SEA has explained how that
>>harm ground should or could be limited, which means that while we're
>>fairly certain about which topic wordings are possible on CR, SEA is
>>still an amorphous region subject to all kinds of US policy.  Let's
>>assume for a moment that the resolution called for an increase in aid,
>>though, so that we can examine ryan's argument that in this situation
>>market based programs could be adopted as an alternative to aid as a
>>generic negative strategy.  why wouldn't market based joint programs be a
>>form of aid? it seems to me that this is affirmative ground.  aid could
>>and would be defined as assistance to another country, mechanism
>>undefined.  thus, this counterplan, which i think is the only viable one
>>which ryan mentions, turns out to be aff ground.
>>        on international counterplans, ryan says "of course the 2AC will read
>>specific advantages to US action in SEA."  i think he misunderstood what
>>i argued was the implication.  the implication is that negatives will
>>cease to win with international counterplans.  their case specific 2AC
>>advantages and solvency takeouts will probably always be better than your
>>generic negative cards.  affs are smarter than this, ryan.  one of the
>>questions you ask yourself when writing your case is: "is this
>>counterplan proof? could china do this just as well?" if the answer is
>>yes, you don't write the case, or you figure out some specific
>>disadvantage to chinese action.  regardless, if the topic is
>>bidirectional, international counterplans wouldn't exist either.  china
>>can't decrease US food aid.
>>        the disads ryan lists all rely on a resolution that increases
>>aid.  even if the resolution does call for increased US aid, all the
>>links that ryan discusses talk about increased US economic adventurism in
>>the region.  this would not have to be the case.  why wouldn't increased
>>funding to government outreach programs for womyn be topical?  why
>>couldn't the US exchange debt releif for some action on the part of the
>>SEA government?  besides, these link stories make no sense when you
>>consider the fact that SEA countries are not just a lump of people and
>>governments with pretty much the same dynamics.  at this point, we might
>>as well be discussing which disads link to debating "america."
>>        i think ryan underestimates the research burdens involved when
>>counterplan debate becomes obsolete, or, at the very least, difficult.
>>new cases (i don't care which size of program you come from) become that
>>much more problematic for the neg.  the truth is that we should be have
>>the option of debating case OR counterplans.
>>        one other thing has just occurred to me.  how many times next
>>year on the neg do you intend to argue "war good", "famine good" or
>>"death good"?  these are the impacts that are available for southeast
>>asia--every bit as difficult to turn as "discrimination good"  which is
>>the ONLY problematic negative ground under CR next year.
>>        if the worst happens and the ground debate about the topics comes
>>out a wash, i urge everyone reading this post to come out in favor of
>>civil rights.  all my other arguments to this point and the eloquent
>>advocacy of others has been targeted toward helping you see that a debate
>>about civil rights is not paralyzing--it is liberating.  it does not
>>destroy ground--it expands our ground inside the round and into society
>>as well.  it starts discussion on an issue that is long overdue IN THE
>>DEBATE COMMUNITY.  as debaters and as people, we need to have this
>>discussion.
>>
>>laura
>>
>>
>
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