2009-2010 possible resolutions

I’m glad I don’t do LD in college. This topic area seems excessively boring.

Hey topics areas are only as boring as you let them be, which in this case… yeah, it’s going to be boring.

I agree with you analysis of these topic areas almost exactly, especially the last one… I was hoping for something better for the next year after the let down with Cuba. What is it with the topic committee picking topics that are going to kill the inherency for 1/2 the cases?

As far as education goes, I think a lot of students will learn a about a significant part of our country. Which is good.
However, as far as excitement goes…. only time will tell how history judges this topic.

I can already see that most people are gunning for the 4th option. honestly, it is the pick of the litter, too.

For gov, I think we will see – fix the levies, speed limits, railroad crossings (freaking persuasive topics), give pilots guns, and build new/better bridges.
For opp – lots and lots of politics, budget trade offs, Alt Agent/Enf CP’s galore or maybe some time delay/consults WAIT… no topical CP’s le sigh. I say Boulder should come up with a Cuba invades America CP for this year to liven it up.

I agree, the privatization CP will be a big can of worms – toll roads, private security forces, etc. I just don’t see the reason why you cannot do both, besides some form of artificial competitiveness.

“Reform” is the key word in the 1st 3 topics, so only the USFG will have access to being able to change the policies. I guess self regulation cp with biz con da… transit safety has the same issue, only the USFG has access to changing laws. The energy topic is the biz con and self reg cp again.
We will see plan increases political confidence and “political confidence > biz/con con” etc.

People will swing the —> Gates foundation <— (Hint Hint Hint for those that read this) again for an actor cp, but overall I think this topic is death to the CP and 2 DA opp strat for this year… makes me teary eyed.

In the end, these arguments all come down to plan text.

Being positive about the topic, I see the following:

1. Reform seems to mean change, but for the better. Perhaps it is just the framers’ intent to use a different word, as there is a similar movement in the NDT/CEDA world. But “reform” seems to give the topic a direction (positive), whereas “change” could be viewed as bidirectional. It is nice that it isn’t “increase (or decrease) regulations” in that we are not limited to an existing regulation.

2. There is plenty of inherency. You just find a problem that isn’t being solved in the status quo…and the reason is the inherency. Saying there is no inherency is like saying we have no problems in the US…and that is far from being accurate.

3. The topic is a lot broader than someone mentioned earlier. You get to have all the big debates. Going over AFF and NEG ground:

AFF:
warming/big and small environment
terrorism
drug trafficking
pirates
industrial fraud
patriot act/privacy
hazz materials
modelling
immigration issues
union issues

Disadvantages include (off the top of my head):

rising expectations
ethic
growth good/bad
public backlash
social movements
economy
court clog
federalism
presidential powers
rich/poor gap

CP ground is restricted partially because of the LD rules, and some people’s interpretations of those rules. However, you still have:

alternative agent
state

Or…you can just research the cases and argue against them with evidence .

yeah, there is inherency now – but in another 6 months will it still be there? Obama wants to rebuild a shit ton of infrastructure and the bailouts are proof that inherency is dying for a lot of the cool cases I would like to run.

also, a lot of examples you gave ignore the topic – but I guess it is all how much you like running T, which I do. Honestly, it would be nice to have debates other then the “big debates”… The Cuba topic really collapsed down to about 5 arguments by the end of the year and I would rather that not happen with this topic, but again that’s just me.
yeah they are the big topics because they work but it would be cool to see something new from time to time (other then a new T- interp on “substantially”) when someone breaks a new aff.

No offense to whoever “nerdydb8ter” is, but all of the areas I mentioned were in direct response to suggested resolutions. I read all of the possible resolutions, investigated all of the branches of the DOT, and came up with those ideas. If someone cannot see how these areas are related to the suggested resolutions, it may be more appropriate to ask about how they are related rather than accuse someone of ignoring the topic.

Inherency can be established in a variety of ways, structural being only one way. Plenty of policies exist that are not enforced, and I presume that issues related to the DOT are no exception. Executive power does not supercede other agents, and if you would care to look at the organizational chart for the DOT, you would recognize that.

Topicality is supposed to be run against a plan text, by the way, not against a harm scenario. I don’t know really how anyone can jump to a conclusion that a big debate case harm will not be topical when I haven’t suggested any plan. I just want to make sure we are talking NFA-LD on this site, and not some other form of debate.

And if the Cuba Topic collapased to five issues, it is a result of the debating community, not the topic in and of itself. There were plenty of ideas going around, but when people choose not to research and expand their own body of evidence, yes a topic collapses…but that has nothing to do with the resolution.

I am on the same page with Danny. It is highly possible, as it always has been, for plans to be adopted in the middle of the season. It means our debaters were on the right track and should find that rewarding. On the other hand, something can be handed down as an executive order, but other barriers exist to a harm being solved. So you still have your inherency. Nevertheless, everyone will stay current with the research. I am glad for that!

I’m sorry, I guess I misunderstood the idea of a plan solving for harms…
drug trafficking, patriot act/privacy, pirates, industrial fraud, immigration issues, union issues all seem to have rather loose links to most variations on the definition of transportation infrastructure/policy, especially the last few.
From the topics you listed I came up with my own list of possible plans, since this is an NFA-LD site like you pointed out, and some of them are Topical and others are not. Db8rs could try and squirrel it down and find some way to force it to be topical like people sometimes try to do. So, like I said, the T debate is always a debate to be had in front of the judges and not always on a db8 forum. We will see how that starts to work out in another 5 months or so.

On inherency: The argument I am making here is that the infrastructure policies in the US are going to be changing quite a bit this next year because of Obama’s policies. I can see the same scenario that happened with the travel ban happen quite often this next year. Yes, this is just a pain in the ass that comes with the territory but I think I can still point out that it is going to be a pain.

On collapse: I do not believe that collapsing to 5 issues or even 10 is either as fun or as educational as a multitude of cases each year. I think it is awesome to see a new aff or neg strat whenever I get to. However, seeing travel ban/hurricane relief vs child prostitution/tix each round gets boring IMO.

Okay, let me see if I can break some of this down:

Drug trafficking occurs when people transport drugs from one area to the other. This can be done internationally or domestically. There are resrictions on what can be brought across state lines, or into our country, and changing those restrictions can affect trafficking. People bring drugs in through Mexico, for example, stuffed in dead bodies that go through the border in a car. This can be dealt with if we had different restrictions. And, people can bring gobs of marijuana from CA into other states. There is a punishment if they are caught. Changing how we find those people can change the punishment, which can deter the crime.

Safety issues exist for airline travel, for example. We can be searched. The restrictions were changed after 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Many people argue that the search procedures violate privacy.

The Merchant Marines are vulnerable to pirates. I don’t think that needs more explanation.

Industrial fraud can occur when a moving company (or fake moving company) misrepresents themselves as having a DOT license, then they charge huge rates to move people, lose their belongings, and so on.

Immigrants cannot always have drivers’ licenses, not sure how it is now, but before they could not. That would be part of the DOT.

I guess we should keep in mind at this point that these are the choices, but we do not know which one will be selected. The infrastructure one does seem to present the most issues in terms of change, but if B were selected, we would have a wide range of issues to debate. Now whether debaters in this area every branch out from Lafayette briefs is a different story. I agree that it was pitiful that people stuck with the same cases, and that most of the cases were the same. The sad part for me was that we did see the same cases, but rarely heard a case debate. If we are going to hear the same plans/cases, at least perhaps this year we can have debaters who research the cases/plans from tournament to tournament. That would be fantastic.

I am thinking we should have our own debate clinic mid-August. I think we can get quite a few people to come and do our own briefs. Any takers?

sek

Damn, if only most of the debates I have been in have had this good of collapse DoD Kasle, lol. I have enjoyed this conversation immensely! I think that some of my interpretations were a little to conservative to give access to a lot of the arguments you made, but yeah I can see how those cases could be considered for sure. I am a little iffy on some more then others but this is just “self improvement”. (I really do feel like I am in a debate round now, Kicking out of T. Actually I swear I have used this exact excuse in round followed by “don’t vote us down, just don’t vote on T”.)

I think it is just a lame way to debate with no on case/limited case args, maybe that’s just the parli side of me peaking out. Even if you don’t have the best case arg cards it is nice to see something new for once. Shake things up ya know?

Yeah, I am not sure how much it helped or hindered having the Lafayette stuff around. Many people seemed to use it as their whole tub which was sad. Now I will contradict myself by saying that if RCC runs a debate clinic and it is cheap enough for someone as poor as me to come and participate I am all for it. I will even drag whoever I can get to come there with me! (God knows I need a ride there, where is RCC?) Now for the double turn, it would be sweet if we could go for some kind of evidence sharing system to keep smaller schools in the game as well as increase the research burden/continue the research process. A mandatory submission for a case list would be dope, not to mention that it would be more effective then the open case list wiki.

in the end: LONG LIVE A WEST COST LD CLINIC!

‘long live a west coast LD clinc!
damn spelling and stuffs
/kick in butt

I’m glad to know you are enthusiastic about it. I am sure Danny is happy about that as well. The real double-turn is that Riverside is hot as heck, but I would be happy to run a clinic and I intend on it being FREE. RCC is in Riverside, the Inland Empire, and it should be well over 100 degrees in August (but it is a dry heat … ha ha).

I am hopeful to involve Mike Marse and Danny and at least one or two other local coaches. We will have had a few weeks to do our own research, I’m thinking something like mid-August to be more exact. That would be (for me) right after my west coast Phish shows and right before the beginning of the term. Hey, we all have our priorities.

If we can settle on a date and on the number of days, the general run of things, we can move forward. I can get some classrooms reserved and the rest will just fall into place. I’m thinking a day camp to make things easy and cheap. We can have a mixture of topic and theory lectures, and HOPEFULLY some kind of judging clinic for those planning on judging LD this year. I can also attempt to involve some of the four-year coaches in the area, try to get a guest lecturer here or there (there are some excellent former debaters living in the area). I’m hoping to up the ante, so to speak, drawing from the NDT/CEDA community so that we can impart the policy theory (but of course not encouraging speed).

The goal is to learn about theory and the topic, incorporate what is good from Lafayette, but then have our own stuff. As I mentioned last season, we have an opportunity to make LD debate in this area fantastic. We don’t need to be fast and incomprehensible, but we can make smart arguments about CP theory, truly understand T, and have on-case debates (if we try).

Please, keep us updated on this. I have talked to some of my team and at least some of us are down for a trek into the fires of Mordo… Riverside (yes, LotR joke, my name does say I am a nerd)! I look forward to the breadth of information we are going to get to access.

I hope that – someday – all of the academic debate organizations – including NFA – will make a practice of including at least one attorney and/or elected legislator on its/their topic committee(s).

I am excited about all five of these topics; but I regret to say that each of them has unnecessary wording problems. (For example, no real-world litigator and/or legislator would be happy with a bill that mandated use of the term “reform” as a verb. I can think of very few English verbs which are more vague, ambiguous, and overbroad.)

One final point: I hope that next year – unlike this year – NFA contestants spend far more time debating “the specific T” (Transportation) instead of the “generic T” (Topicality). As a debater, coach, and/or judge I was/am second to none in my enjoyment of a well-reasoned, well-applied, well-proved (and especially an innovative) Topicality (and/or Extratopicality) argument. But by the end of this season, I was literally sick to death of hearing T argued – extensively – against patently-topical Affirmative plans.

At least IMHO (in other words, as a “preference”) T should not be argued against “stock” Affirmative cases/plans, and – again speaking ONLY for myself – I would not argue T unless I truly believed the Affirmative Plan did not fall within a reasonable interpretation of “the parameters of the topic” (or, conversely, that a CP did).

To DebaterDanny, NFA fans everywhere West of the Mississippi, and NFA debaters everywhere in the English-speaking world:

I would like to teach a class/clinic in NFA-LD this Summer. Two questions:

(A) To other coaches/teachers: Would anyone join me in setting this up and/or teaching/coaching/judging at it?
(B) To students: Would Anybody attend?

BTW: Just off the top of my balding (and sometimes oxygen-deprived)head, I would suggest a two-week session starting on/about July 24. In the first week, I would concentrate on general NFA-LD theory, current NFA-LD customs, and – especially – (1) Cross-Ex skills (both questioner and respondent) and (2) Research techniques. I would then use the second week for topic-specific work (starting with a “topic announcement party”on August 1), practice debates, and a one-day, 5-6 round (no elims – everyone competes equally) tournament.

Anyone interested? Let’s discuss. Please contact:

Michael H. Miller, J.D. (Jurassic Debater)
sonofshasta1970@yahoo.com

As to a two week nerdy db8 marathon… it would be awesome and again I would drag as many warm bodies to it as I can. However, your 1st week collides with the so-cal parli coop being put on by APU and friends about july 20something to august 1st, not as awesome. The /sarcasm “good news” /end sarcasm (I actually was really depressed by this because it was the most fun I had last summer and was looking forward to it again this year) is that the wyo co-op is not being held this year, which means you wouldn’t be fighting with that camp from august 1-10.

Snapping myself back to reality; again, cost is the biggest issue for a lot of us students… we don’t always get any more backing then a pat on the head for going to something like this. Like every uniqueness part of an econ disad at NPDA this year, the economy sucks so a lot of us cannot afford it even with help from institutions if the price is anywhere near high.
Which is what the project from RCC is able to do for us. I know we are going to get some killer help from them to increase the expectations for this year!

I have never set up a camp but I would think you could cover a lot of the stuff from the “1st week” across the first couple days. I remember at wyoming we had theory lecture every night after dinner for a couple hours. Then, whatever you were planing to do however you would. However, for us West Coasters (I spelled it right this time /yay!), we can see about putting out a better evidence set then LDC, competition is healthy right?

That’s just my 2 cents. which compared to others wouldn’t be worth pocket lint but it will influence my decision making as well as others I know.

I have asked a few of the top coaches in the area (Marse, Rybold, Rutledge, Bishop, and Hack), and here’s the general sentiment:

1. We should not do a workshop that interferes with the one at APU.
2. We won’t get a lot of beginners, the ones who need it the most, because they have to be actually recruited when school starts.
3. A full week may be a bit too much.

Most definitely, this is not an avenue to make money. More likely, a coach with a budget and maybe a kind Dean who can provide a little grant money, or a teacher who can get a special projects funded, would be in a good position to run a camp. We really just need a few rooms, some people interested in LD, and some coaches and some students. The host can also provide the materials, but so much being electronic these days we wouldn’t have that much we’d have to pay for in terms of paper and copying, etc.

I’m interested in not wasting time, so I would really only be interested in doing a workshop AFTER the topic is announced. We can all do our own general work on the DOT from now until then, but the topic really will guide what we do from then on (of course). We can incorporate theory into the topic (meaning we can do lectures on T but have them related to the chosen topic instead of T in general).

I am not really connected to the students from other schools, so all I can say is that I can build it if someone will come. So it is really up to the debaters, not to lay it all on this nerdy guy , but yeah, you have to find us some debaters and then we can run it. It doesn’t have to be many people, as I have to do the work for my own program anyway. I am not even sure if I will have an LDer at that point, but I am hoping to. I am not sure when school starts for everyone, but mine starts the first week of September. I have to do it before then, of course.

My suggestion is to do a little workshop with as many people as we can either mid- or end of August. Maybe this will end up involving more coaches than students, but like I said, I think we need to do a better job informing our NFA-LD judges about things like the stock issues. Delivery is important, but that’s where you find your speaker points. I do not think an LDer should lose on a delivery issue (except for extreme speed issues when warnings are not adhered to), over a stock issue. But that happens all the time with judges who do not know how to weight stock issues.

Then we can have a follow-up clinic once all of us coaches have a chance to recruit out of our new Fall classes. Marse and Rybold are thinking end of October. Maybe we could consider something a bit earlier, but the idea is still a good one.

Mainly, we have to get people on board with the idea of conducting their own research. It is find to use a card here or there from a big stack of briefs from the East Coast, but reading them over and over and never growing as a research or an arguer is just really pointless. We really do not preserve the meaningfulness of an evidence-based policy activity.

1. I intended no offense and certainly intended no conflict. This is the first I have heard of the APU Clinic. Can someone send me some info on it? Even better, is there someway I could volunteer to work there?

2. That’s why I said, “just off the top of my head…”

3. Aside (but I hope not construed as snide) to Sydne: Just how does one go about becoming “one of the top coaches in the area” – at least as far as NFA-LD is concerned?

At the tender age of 60 (61 a week after the new topic is announced… sigh…[!]) I obviously don’t have a lot of time left to acquire more debate “cred.”

MHM

Danny,

“On the inherency point I was more referring to right now how things with Cuba keep changing and someone who had researched and got ready for nationals with the travel ban case had to switch at the last minute.”

Bah, I ran travel ban at NFA. Totally inherent

Mike,

You acquire credibility as a coach in two ways: competitive success and sound criticism. The former is hard to develop in a short amount of time. The latter, on the other hand…

Very funny indeed. By “top coach” I only meant someone who was actively involved in planning events for the area and had been around the block here and involved in planning such events…knew the lay of the land…was connected…could spread the word easily…could survey their massive squad in under 24 hours and get back to me regarding an interest in LD…and nothing more than that. At the age of 60, I’m sure you do not need validation from someone like me . You are a JD afterall . All your debaters think you’re the Tops, and since we agree on many things, like having qualified LD judges, if this LD workshop ever does come about, of course you’d be invited to participate in some major top way .

I like the idea of an NFA-LD camp, just not cool with it conflicting with APU’s Camp since I plan on attending. My thoughts on the NFA topic for next year… I think the Resolution focusing on transportation should be interesting. I just hope that the framers of this resolution don’t place words such as “constructive engagement” into the resolution. Those words made the debate ambiguous at times and I felt it exploded the aff ground.

As far as CP’s go, the resolution of transportation might make it really easy for people to run CP’s by changing the agent, time frame, etc. However, many people forget mutual exclusivity, permutation and ensuring that CP’s solve for Aff harms. These concepts would be fundamental for the new NFA-LDer’s to retain next year.

Well two people can make a camp, plus I have at least one from RCC. Please ask around and find out if we can get more people, and then I will put together a schedule that does not conflict with APU. This is great!

Here is a good thread of comments about the State counterplan from some pretty well-qualified policy coaches. It is worth reading to learn more about the pros and cons:

http://www.ndtceda.com/pipermail/edebate/2009-April/078259.html

And yes people may forget, or may never have learned about CP theory to begin with. I appreciate your comments and would be glad to plan a CP theory lecture for our camp. See also:

http://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/CheshierApr’00.pdf

and

http://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/cxCheshier1201.pdf