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Re: in defense of domestic violence

I think that Mr. Chud's evaluation of the domestic violence is a natural and
understandable position. I also think that he is overall reasonable in his
own personal interpretation of the topic but also overly optimistic about the
way it will be translated into action on the debate circuit.
Chud seems to assess a relative value to this topic over other topics, but  
without an understanding of what uniquely is advantageous to this topic I
find a response difficult. Suffice it to say that I strongly disagree. This
is my least favorite of the six topics, or more appropriately, the one I
despise the most.
Chud thinks it will generate interesting and meaningful discussion of domestic
violence. The original post outlined some clear reasons why I disagree, but
I will explain further. By utlizing domestic violence as an impact or intent
phrase in the resolution rather than as a mandate or fiat-limiting term the
resolution does not make domestic violence the focus. Rather it asks for
federal government policies to be the focus and that we pay token attention
to domestic violence, which I truly believe is what will happen. Case says
"we need more welfare programs" advantages are social movements, starvation,
homelessness, and a token card or two on domestic violence. A more extreme
example: case says "we utilize no-first strike policies" advantages are 
deprolif, solving nuclearism, decreasing patriarchy, and a token card or two
on domestic violence, most likely from the nuclearism or patriarchy sections.
This makes the term "domestic violence" almost (if not completely) meaningless.
The limits Chud sets are certainly not present for this resolution. The policy
you implement is unlimited, you just need to have a diminuitive effect upon
domestic violence (however defined) to be topical. Perhaps, as Mahoney has
pointed out even that is unneccessary. It is possible that simply the intent
of reducing domestic violence will be enough. As I stated before, cases that  
focus on domestic violence are probably going to be of higher quality and 
receive more direct attention on a topic OTHER than the domestic violence one.
Chud also believes this topic is clearly worded. None of the ink on my page is
blurred and I have seen all the words before, so in that sense perhaps.
However, the resolution "Resolved: The federal government should do something 
that affects or intends to affect domestic violence in the U.S." would,
I believe, produce almost the exact same debates. That seems like a really
overly broad topic to me. I can weigh any advantage I want in the round, 
implement any policy, and run basically any case I want as long as I have some
link story to domestic violence or a good explanation of an intent to have
such a link. Clear wording seems irrelevant here.
Chud believes negatives can force affirmatives to stay in the realm of 
spousal and child abuse primarily when interpreting "domestic violence." That
is very likely to become true as the semester progresses. However, that in no
way alleviates the horrendous problem I am describing. Token solvency cards
for those phenomena are a dime a dozen, and not an argument you need to win
to win the round. Especially not with the prevalence of policy-maker paradigms.
Finally, Chud claims that this problem is not unique, that all topics contain
links to these arguments. Partly true. All topics can eventually be linked to
all arguments, and inevitably will in preactice. What differentiates this topic as a special form of evil is that it places no constraints on the topicality
of plan mandates. Other topics require a specific type or nature of policy to
be adopted, rejected, amended, etc. This one does not. Much like the use of
fiat in a non-policy round this resolution creates a "magic wand" for affs who 
find themselves in a candy-store of policy options. A resolution that places
absolutely no limit on the mandates of the plan is a real bummer to try to
link generic disads to. Think about it. Generic disads link to generic or
broad interpretations of the mandates that fall within the resolution. A 
resolution that does not limit the mandates thus removes that ground from
the negative. Agency-linked disads are not going to be easy on such a resolution
either. Especially since the resolution can focus on almost any pertinent issue
in our world (and even some seemingly-not-so-pertinent). 
Suffice it to say I disagree strongly with Mr. Chud's analysis no matter
how natural or understandable a reaction to this topic it may be. I believe 
that if we ddebate this resolution it will be one of the worst semesters CEDA
has seen in a long long time.
-/-Pat Gehrke
-/-Cal State Chico
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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