2008-2009 Resolution Voting
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….