Breaking Down the Resolution, Pt 1.

As a judge, I am – of course – open to argument, but this post constitutes my personal first impression of the resolution.

This is how I would diagram/parse the topic as a English teacher, a political science teacher, a lawyer, a self-confessed “Grammar Nazi,” and a debate coach… and augmented by a thorough review of “the Topic Paper”:

1. “The United States Federal Government” [sorry for the caps, UCLA Nick] –

If someone wants to argue that this entity is something other than what the rest of the world (outside “debate”) calls “the Federal Government,” or, using the proper legal definition, “the United States Government,” – eg., that government created by the U.S. Constitution, and which consists of the COTUS, etc., the POTUS, etc., and the SCOTUS, etc. – I’ll listen… but consider me skeptical.

2. “should” –

“Ought to, not necessaruly will” – In other words, the Plan is to be evaluated on its “merits,” not on its political popularity/viability.

3. “substantially reform” –

???? – in other words, Let the games begin!

This phrase is wide open to competing arguments in my view, and consists of two separate questions: (a) Does the Plan actually “reform” the SQ? (b) Even if the Plan does “reform” the SQ, does it do so “substantially?”

4. “the provision of mental health services” –

Also ???? – Same as “substantially reform” – a highly debateable phrase!

And I hope everyone observes that the topic says “services,” not “treament,” or “therapy,” or “care.”

Caveats: (1) Unless/until someone can give me a good, solid, well-evidenced reason to the contrary, I think this is a unitary phrase. (2) Unless/until someone can give me a good, solid, well-evidenced reason to the contrary, “provision” is a obviously a noun – not a verb. “Provide” is the verb. (Look at the definition Danny posted.)

5. “to the chronically mentally ill.”

???? Big-time opportunity for differing definitions here!

And a final caveat: From a grammatical point of view – if this is not a textbook example of a prepositional phrase, someone needs to explain to me … very carefully … why it isn’t.

P.S. – (1) Hit the medical literature – HARD – on the terms of art “acute,” vs. “chronic,” vs. “recurring,” etc.
(2) Hit the medical literature – even harder – on the definition of “mental illness.” Specifically, are the following “mental illness?”

- alcohol/substance abuse
- mental retardation
- brain injury – especially TBI – “Traumatic Brain Injury”
- PTSD

@ Danny: In answer to your question, I do have a lot of specific definitions – from “authorities” – of these phrases/terms of art. Unfortunately, I can’t post them tonight. I will start doing that on Sunday.

Actually, provision is also a transitive verb. We use the verb form because services are being provided “to” the CMI, as opposed to services “for” the chronically mentally ill. Yes, the wording of this resolution is awful. They have a verb phrase modifying a verb phrase which in turn modifies a noun phrase…it really made my head spin at camp and it’s still making my head spin now.

But regardless, this is my view of how the resolution goes down:

The word “reform” modifies the entirety of the phrase “the provision of mental health services for the chronically mentally ill.” As such, topical cases must reform the manner in which mental health services are provided to the CMI.

What exactly that means in practice, I have literally no idea. I certainly don’t know why such a nebulous phrase like ‘the provision of’ is in the resolution in the first place. That is the fault of the wording committee.

What I do know is that plans that reform the actual content of mental health services, rather than how those services are provided, are effects topical at best.

@ Nick (and again sorry for the caps – two words need emphasis) – the terminology of the resolution is “THE provision,” not “TO provision.” Ergo, in the context of the topic, at least a rebuttable presumption exists that “provision” is a noun.

Sorry to engage in what to may look to many like nit-picking here, but this is what most of the practice of law -and especially the practice of law as it relates to the interpretation of the all American Constitutions and statutes (“judicial review”) – is!

Learning to argue topicality – properly – is a life skill of almost unlimited value – as a teacher, as a lawyer, and -perhaps most importantly – as a well informed voter. It can still be a “fun game,” but the better you play it, the more profitable it will be.

One more ticky-tacky point from the “Grammar Nazi.”

As I read the resolution, the word “reform” doesn’t “modify” anything, because it is plainly used as a verb. I don’t see how it possibly could – verbs express action or a state of being… they do not modify. The only parts of speech that modify anything are adjectives and adverbs.

In addition, it appears to the tired old eyes of this 40-year veteran English grammar instructor/proofreader that – in the context of this year’s topic, – there is a “rebuttable presumption*” that the word “reform” is a TRANSITIVE VERB, and that the OBJECT of this transitive verb is “the provision, etc.”

Predictated upon this analysis, IMHO there is a rebuttable presumption that what the Affirmative plan must “substantially reform” is “the provision of MH services,” which, in turn, means that a winning definition of the phrase “the provision of MH services” is potentially critical.

*By “rebuttable presemuption,” I mean that I require proof to the contrary. As I try to keep emphasizing, IMHO, any good ethical debate judge is always open to argument.

P.S. I will say to any/all debaters reading this thread the same thing I have said – forcefully – to all of my incoming debaters at GCC. And this has nothing whatsoever to do with speed of delivery or speaking style…

If you do not have above-average English vocabulary and grammar skills, you are going to have big trouble with topicality arguments in VARSITY (as opposed to Rookie, Novice, JV) NFA-LD competition, and especially at NFA Nationals. It may not be PC to say this, but it’s just a fact of life.

@Danny-

Mental Health Services- According to the Dept. of Health and Human services, MHS refers to- Beneficial activities which aim to overcome issues involving emotional disturbance or maladaptive behavior adversely affecting socialization, learning, or development. Usually provided by public or private mental health agencies and includes both residential and non-residential activities [http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/systems/ncands/ncands98/glossary/glossary.htm]

It would seem then that the resolution calls for the USFG to reform the provision of beneficial activities that would count as treatment, not exclude treatment as Dr. Miller has suggested. Moreover, I feel that chronically mentally ill is concrete as well.

Next:

Chronically mentally ill means a condition of schizophrenia or major affective disorder (including bipolar disorder) or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), based on a diagnosis from a licensed mental health professional, with at least one documented hospitalization for this condition sometime in the last 2 years or with documentation of a formal assessment on a standardized scale of any serious symptomology or serious impairment in the areas of work, family relations, thinking, or mood. http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title38/38-2.0.1.1.28.0.341.2.html

This interp is from the Federal Code of Regulations, thus probably trumping any other interp on context to the resolution and specificity with regard to what is within the actors limits to reform. Anywho, just wanted to help out. Excited to see yall in nor cal and to come to so cal this year. Happy researching.

(1) Just for he record – I didn’t say, and certainly did not intend to suggest, that the term MHS “excluded” treatment. My intention was to make it clear to everyone that MHS is not limited to treatment, or to therapy, or to care. I have some very nice articles here about providing companion dogs to the CMI as a “service.” (I also have 2-3 articles from yesterday about US military dogs suffering from, and being treated for, combat-related PTSD; but let’s save that for now.)

(2) I was waiting for Danny to address the myriad of definitions of CMI before jumping in. However, before we hear from Danny, I think Steve and the rest of you should know that the CFR definition Steve cites above is certainly persuasive, but it is hardly definitive, even in a technical legal sense.

(a) Nothing in the CFR is technically a “law,”
it is a regulation – which can be changed any time the
“regulator(s)” wish. (b) It is the definition of CMI used to determine eligibility for benefits for one federal program (in this case, a VA housing assistance program for Homeless Vets), and has no precedential value except as to that single program. (c) It is, obviously, a legal definition rather than a medical one.

So – at least IMHO – is the CFR definition a “good” definition of CMI? Absolutely. Is it the only “good” definition of CMI? Hardly. Is it the “best” definition of “CMI?” That depends upon what the debaters in the round have to say for and against it – if anything.

More tomorrow – as promised.

Danny, I would like to know how you think effects topicality should be demonstrated (for any resolution).

@ Dr. Miller

on MHS- I only hoped to clarify for Danny’s question if there was an interp of the whole phrase.

on CMI- While I agree the concept of “best” is to be debated, your critcisms that it is for only one program seems irrelevant as well as a criticism that it is not a medical definition because the resolution calls for a governmental actor to do the plan, namely the USFG. Thus, while there may be other interps, I would strongly suggest letting the other team try to debate out why the USFG should be using a definition approved by the American Medical Association when the AMA is not the actor. And, while it may not be legal and is only for one program, the precedent of being used for the program suggests the government already has an interpretation that is MOST PREDICTABLE and ACCESSIBLE that they already use. Indeed, this is not to say that there are not compelling arguments for why there are better interps, but I am having a hard time finding a complete flaw.

@ Steve -

Assuming your position to be valid, you – and the rest of the NFA-LD community – need to be aware that the term “chronically mentally ill” has been defined a variety of different ways by the USFG, not just in the one CFR definition which comes up on the advanced Google search.

Every time a piece of federal legislation has been passed which affects the CMI – and there have been many since 1946 – new regulations went into effect and were put “on the books” in the CFR. Each one of those regulations had its own definition on “CMI.”

There are five different USFG definitions of CMI that I have discovered in just my limited research – and they vary greatly in scope and content. (Again, I was waiting on Danny to complete his topic analysis before doing my own.)

This also applies to terms like “provision,” “provision of health services,” “provision of mental health services,” “mental health services,” and “substantially reform.”

The USFG has never been short on words; it just takes a real Anal-Retentive-OCD Grammar Nazi to look them up.

I just thought I’d go ahead and throw it out there so its up on the internet at least somewhere. The grammatical breakdown of the phrase “the provision of mental health services” is a complicated one. Provision is actually both a noun and a verb. “Here, have a provision” vs. “Please provision the the food.” So debaters are conflating whether to use the noun or the verb definitions.

Here’s what I understand to be actually grammatically correct on this issue: “The Provision” is being used as a gerund. A gerund is a verb being referenced as a noun so that it can be effected by another verb. Last year we reformed “Domestic Transportation Infrastructure” which is clearly a noun phrase with two adjectives. To my knowledge this is the first year that a gerund has been included in a resolution in quite a while. If provision were just being used in its noun sense, then the phrase “mental health services” would be a clarification of what provisions are, aka parametricization occurring within the resolution (Which is a taboo due to the affirmatives right to parametricize any words in the Res; by parametricizing in the res itself the Aff can’t parametricize “provision”). The general redundancy of declaring provision to be just a noun means that we should probably look at the word differently.

If you take Provision to be a gerund, then you look at the verb’s definitions and reform should take place within “the activity of supply or providing something” which is the most Gerund-like definition I can find off hand on google. In this way, reform should occur within the activity of supplying mental health services to the chronically mentally ill. That would exclude, say, screening for the CMI and then supplying them services the same way. It would also exclude funding the same supplying of services more.

I do not look forward to debates on this word though, mainly because I highly doubt that most competitors and even judges can explain, let alone spot, a gerund.