DVDs on How to Debate!

NCFCA has released the 3 choices for the 2008-2009 academic year in Policy Debate, as shown below:

A - Resolved: That the U.S. should significantly change its foreign policy toward one or more of the following countries: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru.
B - Resolved: That the United States should reform its policies to substantially reduce world hunger.
C - Resolved: That the U.S. should significantly change its foreign policy toward India.

My thoughts:

Option B, “World Hunger,” might be an interesting topic if it had been phrased differently.  This resolution was recycled from 2 years ago when it lost in the voting to the NATO topic.  I predict it will lose again, and it deserves to.  This resolution forces the Affirmative to tie its topicality to its solvency and directs the advantages or goals of the plan to a single path - significantly reducing the number of hungry people in the world.  Unfortunately, while too narrowly limiting the goal, it too broadly leaves open the means.  Any policy that might affect world hunger could be topical.   I can’t imagine how Negatives could effectively prepare for that.

Option A is more interesting, but it still doesn’t get me very excited.  While “foreign policy” is a good idea for a resolution, I’m not sure how many people care about those 5 countries.  The countries with the most controversial policies in South America — Venezuela and Colombia — were left off the list.

Option C is the one I favor: changing US foreign policy towards India.  Nuclear technology, trade in financial services, agriculture and other commodities, outsourcing, military security and cooperation… there is a long list of things that people actually care about that are going on with India today.  The list gets even broader if “India” is defined as some dictionaries define it: the entire subcontinent, including the Republic of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.  It could be a very interesting year….

I look forward to seeing many of you in a couple weeks at Nationals in Birmingham, Ala.  I plan to be there on Thursday and Friday of the week-long festivities.  Stop by the Training Minds table during the week to meet the writers, publisher and coaches who put together the Blue Book and Red Book family of debate materials and Debate Camps.  We’d love to meet all of you!

One of the harms of illegal immigration from Mexico to the US that has often been overlooked by Affirmative teams is “harm to Mexico.”  Is it good for a country to lose large chunks of its able-bodied working population ever year?  What if all those hard-working people stayed home and built Mexico into a strong prosperous nation?

Check out this article:
www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=245631366261614

My favorite part of this article is where the Governor of Mexico’s Central Bank endorses a US border fence, “warning that no nation can afford to lose its human capital indefinitely.”

In this year’s Blue Book, we have a page of harms that illegal immigration from Mexico to the US causes to Mexico (p. 235).  They might be cool surprises for Negatives who have heard all the usual harms about jobs, crime, etc., within the United States.  What if we reduced illegal immigration for the purpose of benefiting Mexico?

Check out this Apr 2008 article from the LA Times on the current state of US enforcement efforts at the Mexican border.  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-na-chertoff19apr19,1,2162957.story

It covers issues like expanding the Border Patrol, the partial fence currently under construction, the attempts at building a “virtual fence,” and the question of how serious the Administration is about really doing enforcement at the border.

• Colorado (Aug. 27-Sept. 1)
• California (Sept. 25-29)
• Virginia (Oct. 30-Nov. 3)

  This is the schedule for 2008 Training Minds Debate Camps.  More info is available at www.trainingminds.org.

  These camps have had a fantastic growth in popularity since starting with 12 students around my dining room table in 2003.  Today, we have hundreds of debaters from all over the country at these exciting camps.   Power-Point lectures, lab exercises, practice debates and the big “Final Showdown” (where the coaches debate a student team) — it all adds up to a program that has gotten literally dozens of students to Nationals in both Policy and LD debate in NCFCA.

  Call to Alumni

  If you’re an alumnus of our Policy (Blue Book) camp, I invite you to contact me through this blog and let me know what topics or lectures you’d like to see added to our program.  If at all possible, I’ll try to accommodate your request.

  Please start planning now!  These camps fill up and every year some students are turned away because they waited too late to register.  Hope we see you at a Training Minds Blue Book Camp this fall!

DVDs on How to Debate!

Q.  What is your advice for dealing with “effects topical” cases this year? There’s a team in our region running a case that runs on the premise that if we fix our legal immigration system, we can solve for illegal immigration. It doesn’t sound topical, but they defend it by defining the word “on” to mean “effecting.”   — B.

A.  Good question.

1.  First, make the decision whether a topicality attack is going to be worth your time or not.  While topicality can be a powerful issue, if your judgment is that it will be a difficult battle, or that the case is probably going to sound reasonable to a judge, then even though you might be able to think of a good T argument, it might not be the best investment of your time.  Just like disads: if you can think of a disadvantage, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should run it - maybe there are other disads that have more impact or other stock issues you can more easily win.

2.  Understand that “effects topicality” varies year to year in how “bad” of a problem judges will perceive it to be.  Since illegal immigration is illegal and that’s our “policy” on it, the resolution taken literally tends to lend itself to generous broadness for effects-topical cases.  My guess is that judges are open a bit more to things that affect illegal immigration just due to the nature of the resolution.  Not saying that’s good nor bad, just observing. But if that observation is true, then again, maybe this isn’t the best investment of time.

3.  Unless… it’s all you’ve got.  If you don’t have a lot of evidence against their mandates and policies, then it makes topicality more attractive as something to use to fill up some speeches.  How would you go about it in that case?  Some ideas:

A.  “Where does it end?” theory.   Judge, if you allow any Aff policy that could “affect” the quantity of illegal immigration in the US, then you’ve opened up this year’s debate season to literally any economic policy that anyone could propose.  That’s because the economy and jobs drive a big part of immigration - so any economic policy that creates or destroys or influences employment in the US is going to impact immigration.  [maybe read a card here about employment drives immigration]   Judge, that means they could offer a minimum wage plan, or have the Federal Reserve change interest rates, or reduce the budget deficit, or a new trade policy - where does it end?  If you allow them to argue that anything that affects immigration is topical, then they can literally run any economic policy they want.”  From here, draw conclusions, impact of abusiveness on topicality, reason to vote Neg, etc.

B.  The Am. Heritage Dict. definition violation.  “American Heritage Dict 4th Ed. 2000:  4a. Used to indicate the object affected by actual, perceptible action: The spotlight fell on the actress. He knocked on the door.”    [If they are using this definition of "on" to justify  "affecting" something]   Judge, they don’t meet this definition for one simple reason:  They are explaining the effect of the action differently from the way the authors of the definition explained it.  Notice in the examples that American Heritage gave (spotlight, door knock) - the action was applied *directly* to the object it was “on”.  There was no intermediary or indirect action.  The spotlight did not fall on someone with a mirror who redirected it “on” the actress.  He didn’t push someone else who then fell on the door.  The action in this definition, to fit the meaning of “on” - is applied directly to the object.  If the Aff wants to follow this definition, they have to apply their mandates directly to the object of the resolution - “illegal immigration” - not to legal immigration and then hope that it will have a secondary effect on illegal immigrants.

C.  If they don’t read the Am. Heritage Dic. definition or don’t read one at all, use this and show they violate it:

“Used to indicate contact with or extent over (a surface) regardless of position:”  (also from American Heritage Dict 4th Ed. 2000)

The mandates are not in “contact with” illegal immigration and they do not have any “extent over” it.  They are in contact with something else - legal visas - hence are not policies “on” illegal immigration.

Q.  Hi! I was wondering what is the best way to explain the impact and “seriousness” of dropped arguments to a community judge. I’ve found that they don’t care too much (and I totally understand why- it seems like a technicality) but it would help us a way for it to make sense to them without pulling out the rule book.

A.  Sorry for the delay in answering - I was on vacation and then had some medical work done, so I’m just now getting a look at things here.

You’re right, a “rule book” approach isn’t the right answer.  The way to go is to think back to why the “stock issues” get raised in the first place.  I know they aren’t really popular with some folks, but these issues (like solvency, signficance, inherency, disadvantages) don’t go away just because they aren’t cool.    They exist in debate because they first existed in real life decision-making processes that we use every day.  Explain how the issue relates to the decision-making process and you can relate to the community judge better, because these issues are common in everyday life.

For example, if the dropped argument is a signficance argument, try relating back to why significance is important in the first place and what happens if it’s missing.  “Judge, they dropped our responses on significance in the first affirmative rebuttal.  Now, what this means is …”      And here you wax eloquent on why an Affirmative case has to deal with “significant” issues.

“One of the important principles of debate is that we have to be debating an issue that affects a significant number of people - because if not, then we’re wasting an hour and a half that we could have used to talk about something really important, or something that really matters to real people in the real world.  By wasting our time on insignificant matters, the Affirmative … ”

In other words, explain why the broader issue matters, not just the individual argument that was dropped.

I got back from India Friday afternoon and finally got around to updating the blog here.  I’ll be judging at tournaments the next two weekends here in N.C.  Meanwhile, I know many of you are running Basic Pilot / E-Verify cases.  You might want to check out this link:  http://www.reason.com/blog/#124914

…which also has links to other details.  Seems the state of Arizona is doing Basic Pilot/E-Verify at the state level and is considering a state-level Guest Worker program.

In related news, be sure to pick up a copy of the Blue Book MidSeason supplement (www.speechsupplies.com) where we have an “Immigration Federalism” case to allow the states more power to enforce immigration law.