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RE: Neg Fiat

Paul Xenakis writes:
> I don't think a policy-making body would reject one policy merely to
> consider another.  See my other post inresponse to opp benefit--I think.
> They would still have to acount for the propensity/inevitability of the
> policy they were to consider.

Why?  The policy-making body determines whether the other policy happens 
anyway, so it determines the propensity of the other policy.  This is very 
different from the justified action of an INDIVIDUAL CONGRESSPERSON, which 
I will address below.

> You assume alot in this statement.  A policy-maker might vote against
> a policy IF the propensity for a better policy going to the floor for a 
vote
> was proven.  Again, the neg would in this case have to prove that the
> judge (in the role you provide for him) would ever get a chance to vote 
for
> the c/p.  This can never be proven 100%.  Neg fiat has a *net benefit*
> over this in that it can prove that the judge would get a chance to vote
> for and accept the c/p.  That seems like a clear advantage for the use
> of fiat.

But the judge doesn't assume the role of an individual policy maker!  If 
that role were accepted, neg could just prove that aff plan would be voted 
down by all the policy-makers other than the judge, and win on presumption. 
 This role fails to alleviate the "should/would fallacy" thing.  The judge 
is more likely to assume the role of the policy-making social institution 
of the USFG, and get the power to ensure passage of the counterplan if 
desired, at any time.


> Still one should have to prove that this role would ever get a chance to
> pass policy allowed by rejecting the plan.  Neg fiat solves this dilema.
> If you say they would then you are edging very close to fiat, and the
> only real difference is the terminology.

The USFG policy-making institution can pass whatever policy it desires. 
 The continuation of the judge's role proves the possibility.  But there is 
still a substantial difference from negative fiat.  Negative never 
advocates their counterplan as policy.  This resolves questions of advocacy 
shifts in permutations and dispositionality; justifies the anti-counter, 
anti-anti-counter, second opportunity cost, and so forth; and releases 
opportunity costs from various other traditional advocacy burdens.  It also 
better binds the counterplan into answering the resolutional question, 
justifying the counterplan from a rez focus point of view.

Chris Smith

"Love is apparently killed by time, only because it transcends time; and 
its spiritual and infinite essence cannot be contained with the limitations 
of a material and finite world."
	- Caroline Spurgeon, on Shakespeare's philosophy of love
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