Good Articles 6-30-08

People ready to act on climate changeThe Register-Guard - Eugene,OR,USABy Bob Doppelt A flurry of e-mails flashed across my computer last weekfrom people distressed about the lack of progress on global warming. ...<http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=118786&sid=5&fid=1>

Global Warming to Melt North Pole Ice Cover For First Time in ...DailyTech - Chicago,IL,USAWhile some remain critical that global warming is occurring at all, themelting of the North Pole represents a sharp indicator against voices ofdoubt. ...<http://www.dailytech.com/Global+Warming+to+Melt+North+Pole+Ice+Cover+For+First+Time+in+Recorded+History/article12218.htm>See

G8 urged over global warming actionThe Press Association -Spiralling oil prices should not distract G8 leaders from efforts to drawup a global deal to tackle climate change, a report has urged. ...<http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hytDg9h2kz1k6bmFI5zE2q4OymZQ>

Crdue Oil trades higher on speculative buyingCommodity Online - Kochi,Kerala,IndiaOil prices jumped to record high levels above $142 a barrel on Friday, asthe US currency weakened further and stock markets tumbled at the end of a...<http://www.commodityonline.com/futures-trading/technical/Crdue-Oil-trades-higher-on-speculative-buying-4967.html>

Oil at $150 ‘may be the tipping point’Business Day - Johannesburg,South AfricaMany analysts think oil prices will hit at least $150 a barrel before theycome down sharply. “We believe the factors driving oil prices higher are...<http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A793098>

Oil price paradoxThanh Nien Daily - Ho Chi Minh City,VietnamSome people might think that the surge in oil prices will bring big profitsto oil producing and exporting countries and that the surge is a golden ...<http://www.thanhniennews.com/commentaries/?catid=11&newsid=39784>

Oily SpeculationsNew Yorker - United StatesSo, with Americans furious about soaring oil prices, Congress has gone insearch of someone to blame. There are a number of usual suspects to choosefrom, ...<http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/07/07/080707ta_talk_surowiecki>

Moving beyond oilLawrence Journal World - Lawrence,KS,USATim Hjersted, of Lawrence, formed a local group, the Lawrence Peak OilAction Committee, to urge the city to take action to stem the potentialeconomic ...<http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/jun/30/moving_beyond_oil/?city_local>

Crude today is dirt cheap: Matthew SimmonsEconomic Times - Gurgaon,Haryana,IndiaPeak oil was one of the main reasons. How much has it played out? Oilproduction is almost certainly past peak output. We are also in earlystages of a ...<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Interview/Matthew_Simmons_Chairman_and_CEO_of_Simmons_and_Co/articleshow/3178465.cms>

The energy crisis needs a clear head and nerves of steelThe Age - Melbourne,Victoria,AustraliaOil is a finite resource. Globally, we are either at or close to the peakoil tipping point where new discoveries can't keep pace with growingdemand. ...<http://business.theage.com.au/the-energy-crisis-needs-a-clear-head-and-nerves-of-steel-20080629-2yuk.html>

EU cap-and-trade aims to cut aviation emissions by three per centBusiness Green - London,England,UK"Money should be used to tackle climate change and not disappear somewherein the general budget," he said. "It is not a tax but an environmentalinstrument ...<http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2220304/eu-cap-aims-cut-aviation>

McCain and Obama's green dreamCNNMoney.com - USAPoliticians like cap and trade - vs. a straight-forward levy on gasoline,coal, and other carbon fuels - because it is essentially an invisible taxand ...<http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/27/news/economy/election_green.fortune/?postversion=2008063005>

California reveals cap-and-trade planCarbon Positive - Hague,NetherlandsThe ‘cap and trade’ design would cover all six greenhouse gases and setcaps on the emissions of the biggest emitters, but is only one of a raft ofmeasures ...<http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1140>

Good Articles- 6-29-08

'Shortage psychology' driving oil prices up, analyst saysPalm Beach Post - FL, United States... he said, which may help lower oil prices. "In our view, 2007 may wellhave been the top, the peak, in terms of US gasoline demand," he said. ...<http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/epaper/2008/06/25/a7b_oilimpact_0626.html>

The challenges of peak oilHouston Chronicle - United StatesPart of the answer may be that we are approaching peak oil sooner than manypeople would have guessed. Peak oil refers to a key turning point whenglobal ...<http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5861525.html>


Expert dispels myths surrounding world oil woesUniontown Herald Standard - Uniontown,PA,USAKaufmann believes a peak in oil production will come in 2014 if there areless than a trillion barrels remaining to be pumped and the peak will comein 2035 ...<http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19809839&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=468387&rfi=6>


End of cheap oil: Growing prices, demand raise uncomfortable questionsGreensboro News Record - Greensboro,NC,USAA growing number of energy experts, investors and concerned citizens worryabout the country’s lack of preparation for "peak oil," the point atwhich the ...<http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/NRSTAFF/774625994/-1/NEWS>

Stocks seen lower after Wall Street fallThe Age - Melbourne,Victoria,AustraliaAustralian stocks are expected to open modestly lower tomorrow after WallStreet fell on concerns that record oil prices and the seemingly endlesscredit ...<http://business.theage.com.au/stocks-seen-lower-after-wall-street-fall-20080629-2ys1.html>

Bears Maul the Market at MidyearWall Street Journal - USAOil prices have soared to a record $140.21-a-barrel close Friday, adding tothe difficulties consumers have been grappling with from an ongoing housing...<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121468870489013597.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>

Recovery hopes dimChicago Tribune - United StatesBut problems such as rising oil prices, sagging home values anddisintegrating consumer confidence have intensified with a fury in recentweeks, ...<http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-wall-jun27,0,6176529.story>

BG Group's Chapman Says Oil Prices Are Too High to Be SustainedBloomberg - USABy Madelene Pearson June 29 (Bloomberg) -- BG Group Plc., the UK's third-largest oil and gas producer, said oil prices are too high to be sustained....<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a0Yyk7dACIBk&refer=asia>

The bright side of oil price inflationTelegraph.co.uk - United KingdomThe fact that so much money is available to invest points to the othercause for optimism: oil price inflation. To most people this is theAchilles heel of ...<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/29/do2906.xml>

Report: OPEC president sees oil at $170 this yearMarketWatch - USABy MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Oil prices will climb to $170a barrel this year because of increased demand, political tension anddecisions ...<http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/opec-president-reportedly-sees-oil/story.aspx?guid=%7BC21A68F2-0A15-4ADB-BE6A-9A18B41642EF%7D&dist=msr_1>

OPEC Leader Khelil Says Dollar Will Drive Oil to $170 (Update1)Bloomberg - USA``Oil prices are expected to reach $170 as demand for fuel is growing inthe US during the summer period and the dollar continues to weaken againstthe euro ...<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aclKiYe3Osv4&refer=home>

`Oil industry needs to re-assert its leadership`Business Standard - Mumbai,Maharashtra,IndiaOil prices threaten to wipe out the economic gains made by developingcountries in recent years. The irrational escalation in oil prices is thecause of ...<http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=327304&leftnm=4&subLeft=0&chkFlg=>

Climate Change Ideas for On Day One: A UN Dispatch-Grist ...UN Dispatch - USACap and trade establishes a low-carbon playing field that lets themcompete. You can get a sneak peek at some of those technologies in a seriesof short ...<http://www.undispatch.com/archives/2008/06/climate_change_10.php>

Researching a Large File - Part 1

First let me deal with some meta level issues before getting into the nitty gritty of research.

When I say large file I mean like a aff or topic DA like oil etc. Something where the end product will be large, nuanced, and you will have to be ready for lots of counter arguments.

1. Start broad- get narrow. Many kids at camp get into an aff research group and say “what is our plan text going to be?”. This is a backwards approach- the fine details like the plan will be the last thing you do. You don’t decide you are going to do a 23.4 percent RPS and then look for solvency evidence, you try and read as much as possible about RPS and figure out what plan text you can support with evidence.

Second, you need to think broad in terms of every conceivable disad or advantage. For this topic if you read a negative incentive you are going to have to prepare for dozens of industry disads/pics like steel, auto industry, below the poverty line etc. You need to find offense against all of these and more. The way you do this is to first read generally about the topic/your area, then write an argument list. This is a place where lab leaders are UNBELIEVABLY helpful. 90 percent of the lab leaders in the country probably debated or coached on at least the college energy topic, and many of them were involved in the last high school energy topic as well. They can help you get a huge initial list of arguments. The reason it is important to do this early is so you don’t MISS CARDS when reading an article because you think they are unimportant. This is also why lab leaders go through your articles- to make sure you are catching all the cards. The more things you know about , the more answers you can be looking for. For example, here is an initial list I gave to my permits group this week:

Permits Aff
Leadership Advantage
-soft power low
-rejection of kyoto hurt soft power
-permits/action on warming restores leadership
-EU angry about no permits
-soft power key to hegemony
-environmental leadership solves global problems (non hegemony)
Economy advantage
-grid sucks/blackouts coming
-renewables solve the grid
-permits cause renewables/investment in infrastructure
-other grid bad impacts
- terrorism etc

Other advantages
-permits solve warming
-solve EU relations
-solve oil prices/dependence
-renewables key to the economy
-international linkage
Im not gonna list disads/CPs twice- so remember you need answers and the neg arg for the ones listed below
DA Answers
-nuke power
-economy
-biz con
-energy prices
-agriculture
-steel
-semi conductors
-politics
-federalism
-auto industry
-industrial flight

Mechanisms
-auctions/grandfathering
-banking/borrowing
-upstream/downstream
-phased in/immediate

CP's
-carbon tax
-states
-voluntary
-incentives


That is a huge list obviously, but its probably only 50 percent of the things you need to be ready for to read a permits aff if you want to compete at the top level.

So you need to make an argument list, and if you are working in a group you need to talk about these lists and keep everyone informed so that no one misses anything and you all know whats up. In an ideal world, a lab leader can read through every single article. In reality any lab leader who is able to do this has some lazy kids. If you have 8 kids in a research group who only do work for the like 5 hour library time, that’s a 40 hour work week just going over their articles. In reality in a group of 8 4 kids probably spend 90 percent of their time G-chatting each other and watching youtube, 2 kids do a decent amount of work and maybe 2 are pretty hard working and go above and beyond library time and cut cards at night/in their rooms.

I break this math down every summer and kids are blown away, but for the official transcript let me do it once here:

At debate camp you will spend probably a week on a file – 7 days
You get at least 5 hours a day of library time/working in lab- 5

So we have 30 hours of work you should be putting in

Assume you can only cut 5 cards per hour ( a ridiculous assumption) that is 150 cards for the assignment from each kid. 8 kids in the group =1200 cards, 3 cards per page= 400 pages. This is assuming no additional cards from a lab leader.

This is the ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM. 5 cards an hour is nothing- its 12 minutes a card. That gives you enough time to cut a card, and then mess around for like 10 minutes making 50 minutes of every hour screwing around.

Needless to say the amount of 400 page files produced at camp is next to nill. (this example ignored quality obviously, but given the rest of the generous number fudging I think the impact is negligible)

When I was in high school and went to the DDI one of the lab leaders expected kids to cut 100 cards PER DAY, and that was before templates/laptops/the interweb… ok maybe not the last one.

I won’t belabor this anymore, just stop being lazy. Its not that hard to put in a 5 hour work day and get a good file

2. BOTH WAYS- for the love of god you have to do the aff and the neg. Every summer countless files get turned out that only have ½ the debate on a lot of key issues. This not only makes practice debates worthless- since the aff has no answers to a DA or the neg has no answers to an advantage, but also is just a bad habit to learn. IF you cut a disad or advantage, you need to turn out decent answers.

The important thing to remember here is- offense/defense. You need both. For every advantage and every disad/disad impact.

Sometimes kids think, if I don’t turn out a neg I will be unbeatable. No, you won’t be.

Other times kids only download aff sounding articles and skip the neg assuming someone else will do it. Don’t.

People probably already think I’m anti practice debate, but one of the reason camp practice debates are crappy is that the neg just throws a wall of garbage out there with no strategy, and the aff does the same. If you have well researched files- i.e. a case neg that contains a STRATEGY and not just advantage defense and politics links, and then aff answers to said strategy- you can actually start to improve in debates and start learning how to write quality blocks.

Good Articles Today

Oil prices go up, up and away...

Peak oil outlook is ominous

Peak Scam

Peak Oil Truths & Consequences

NASA Scientist Says Global Warming Danger Amounts to ‘Planetary Emergency’

New report highlights ties between global warming and US security

Unlocking .pdf files where you can't cut and paste

First, make sure your .pdf is not a scanned image. You can tell either because it will look like a photograph, or because you can select text but not cut and paste it. If the latter is true you have a locked .pdf. You can use the following website:

http://www.ensode.net/pdf-crack.jsf

To unlock it so you can cut and paste out of it.

How to Find Web Site Dates

From Aaron Kall:

type this into where the address is for the web page you are looking at:

javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

make sure you type it exactly this way--with the caps done just like above.

then, press enterthe date the page was last updated will pop up in a small dialogue box (youwon't lose the page you were on).

If you are using Netscape, you can right click the page, select "View Info"and it will usually (though not always) have the date modified along withthe other info.

Purpose of Debate Camp- Part 2

The best debaters are those who have good critical thinking skills. By this I mean, those who are able to hear an argument and start to logically deconstruct it in their heads. To develop this kind of skill is like the tag line on the Othello box- a minute to learn, a life time to master. Unfortunately for all the lazy kids out there, to get into a top 10 percent of critical thinkers in the country is going to take some work. First, however, lets look at how critical thinking skills work in debate to your advantage.

1. Any argument – obviously anything the other team says can be more easily answered with some critical thinking. However, most debaters are more likely to just flip to the aff answer section of a file and pull some cards out than think about constructing a strategy to respond to a particular argument. This is one of the major things that contributes to aff critique losses in my mind. In response to a k the aff pulls the same stock args out and reads them. The neg, who may be very very lazy, has at least taken the step of preparing for this small list of arguments (or their coaches/friends have given them the answers) and they read answers. Then the aff sort of falls apart and loses. The aff needs to go through the process of thinking critically about the negs args in the 2AC, and then again in the 1AR. Under critical scrutiny arguments like no value to life, capitalism is the root cause of your case, and ASPEC make a lot less sense.

2. New arguments- particularly when you debate new arguments you need to think critically to come up with witty analytics and to figure out how the existing evidence you have can be used to generate an answer. The best example of this I can think of is teams who read realism good to answer every K in the world. Realism good is probably not on face an answer to say, Heidegger. However, its not difficult to see how with a little explanation it could certainly answer many parts of the k, or any K for that matter (particularly realist arguments related to the inevitability of certain IR practices or human nature). Many K debaters are very good at critical thinking because they have to be- they use the same generic link evidence but come up with fantastic explanations about how it applies to very different affirmatives.

3. Cross x- the ability to defend your ideas and pick apart those of your opponent will make you devastating in cross-x. You will find you no longer “waste time” asking for evidence or clarifying flow points, you will be shredding disad internal links and making K alternatives seem foolish if you can master logical reasoning and apply it effectively.

So how do you learn this? Research. This is true for a few reasons. When you do a lot of research you will come across a lot of response articles- by this I mean articles someone wrote in response to another article. In these you will see logic and critical thinking put to use to take apart other arguments. This not only helps you in that if you debate that issue someone has already gone to the work of deconstructing it, but also the more you read articles like that the better you yourself will become at breaking things down. There is a bit of a myth in debate culture that the best debaters are the best “arguers” or are smarter than worse debaters. Generally any time I debated an issue I would find (much to my chagrin) that there were already several people far smarter than I who had written on the subject. So instead of coming up with arguments myself, I could rely on them to do a good part of the footwork. Now unfortunately rarely is a response article a complete “debate argument” (i.e. impacted in nuke war). The research process requires you to take the arguments in that article as a basis of your argument, and to then go and research more links/impacts etc.

To close, I want to discuss talent. Most people in debate think of someone as being talented if they are a really good speaker or appear to sound smart. Oftentimes talent is almost viewed as a bad thing, such as “he is very talented but does no work”. In other words, the perception is that talent relates only to the speaking part of debate, and is usually used to talk about people who are thought to do little research but still achieve good results.

In From the Board to the Boardroom: How Life Imitates Chess, Gary Kasparov notices a similar dichotomy in the chess world. Players who don’t do a lot of studying but have huge results are said to be talented, people who work really hard are said to be dedicated. Kasparov says we need to expand our understanding of talent and realize there are different kinds. The person who speaks well but doesn’t do work is talented in that they are a good speaker, but not talented in that they don’t have the self control/willpower to force themselves to put in the hours.

I bring this up to make the following point- some people are naturally better speakers than others, some people are naturally better researchers than others. Both areas can be improved on through hard work. Most people seem only concerned with working on the speaking aspect. This means that if you are a very hard worker through talent or practice you will have a huge asymmetrical edge going into your debate career.

Bringing this all together: critical thinking skills are learned through research and argument construction. If you are not a naturally talented researcher, lab leaders are a great resource for learning to become a better one. If you are not a talented speaker, the work it requires to become one is generally work that you can do on your own. Most people ignore research/critical thinking in order to focus on speaking.

Purpose of Debate Camp

It seems there is a trend recently of kids who think the following “I can do research on my own, the purpose of debate camp is for me to work on speaking”. This could not be further from the truth, in fact in my opinion the exact opposite is the case. Here is why

Speaking
While it may be true that you can’t really have a 4 person debate on your own, this is generally not how you improve as a speaker. You improve through constantly practicing and working on the things you need to improve on. Generally there are 4 things high school kids need to get better at
-Clarity
-Speed
-Efficiency
-Argument Quality

None of these require another person for you to work on. After every practice speech your lab leaders may make some comments about specific arguments you made but in general they are going to tell you to work on those 4 things.

YOU CAN DO THIS BY YOURSELF! The first two, speed and clarity, are easy to work on, its just a practice issue. Speak and speak and speak. You don’t need another person to listen to you do this. You can do it at night in your dorm, or at home after camp. In fact, to improve on these areas quickly you will need to speak for extended periods of time, at least 20-30 minutes. Doing 10 mini debates where you give 1-2 minute speeches is basically worthless in this regard. You need to work in larger increments. This is analogous to the overtraining concept in sports/fitness. If you need to give an 8 minute speech at your top clear speed, train for a 10 minute speech and you will never run out of gas.

Efficiency is trickier ,but also does not require you to have someone else in the room. You can recognize when you are being inefficient. The only way to get more efficient is to make a constant effort to work on saying more with less and not repeating yourself. You don’t need to pay thousands of dollars for another person to tell you “don’t repeat arguments, don’t read 10 uniqueness cards when 3 will do” etc.

Argument quality is one that may actually benefit from you getting more debates in. However, there is a minimum amount of knowledge/prep you must do before a debate will be of any value to you. In order to construct good arguments you need to RESEARCH and understand the issues you are debating. This takes a lot of time before the first words come out of your mouth.

The The War of Art Steven Pressfield defines a concept he calls Resistance. Resistance is anything that keeps you from doing the hard work necessary to advance in life. Resistance is turning on the TV, delaying your diet by saying I will start tomorrow, and thinking you need some kind of external authority to help you improve. Debaters today use practice debates as a form of Resistance. They don’t need to do the hard work of research and argument construction because the short term reward of debate is available. Like any sport, debate is about delayed gratification. You work hard for weeks knowing that when tournament time comes you have put in the hours and will be light years ahead of the competition. Any time you think, I don’t want to take the time to learn about the underwater salt conveyor belt , I just want to have a T mini debate, that is Resistance trying to beat you.

So what is the purpose of debate camp?

You should spend every second of time at debate camp you can trying to learn how to research and construct quality arguments/blocks. Here are the reasons why

1. Why D-Heidt is the best- Anyone who has met Dave knows he is not a rapid fire speaker. When he debated he didn’t overwhelm his opponents with technical prowess. He went into every debate knowing more about the topic and having better researched the issues involved. He had the best cards on each argument and knew when and where to read them because he had a commanding and unparalleled understanding of the issues involved. This has spilled over to his coaching both at Emory and Westminster. Going into a debate with a Dave cut file was a tremendous confidence boost because you knew there was no way you would get caught with your pants down: each argument the other team could make had been anticipated and a block responding to it had been prepared. This is not a magical ability that Dave has, it is something he has learned from years of hard work. If you are in Dave’s lab and you spend all your time re-doing speeches on conditionality bad you are wasting your time. While he has a lot to say about that and basically any other issue that is not what makes him D-Heidt. Your lab leaders can teach you how to produce files like the ones described above, but you need to use them as a resource. However, most kids at camp do the following
-sit on AIM all day in the library
-chit chat with their friends in person
-spend hours preparing for practice debates where there is not even a winner or loser
-cut 10 cards, pat themselves on the back, and start playing computer games
-return out old evidence from planet debate or a school back file
-only look for the cites their lab leaders gave them and do no original research
-just use lexis and never use the top notch university library system they have access to
-assume that since most camp evidence is shared over the internet now it’s a waste of time to do a lot of work at camp when you can free ride

This is resistance. This is a total waste of time, yours and your lab leaders. Most files that come out of camps are of a low quality because the people working on them do the things listed above, procrastinating till the last second, and then lab leaders have maybe a day to fix a file on a huge topic like global warming. The files include few blocks, are rarely organized well, contain lots of bad evidence etc.

You get plenty of off time at camp to see your friends and fool around. If you are at debate camp to become a better debater and win debates you need to work and you need to motivate yourself to do it. When it is time to work you should hit it full stride. You need to do a lot of research and cut a lot of cards. Then you need to take those cards to your lab leaders and find out why they suck, why don’t you have enough on XYZ issue, what sources you overlooked etc. Then you go and research more. Then you go back to your lab leader and find out again what you need to change. Wash, rinse, repeat. Then you have a decent amount of good evidence, now you need to learn how to organize it, how to write efficient blocks, how to predict the other teams arguments, then go research those, write blocks, repeat. These are things you can also learn on your own but they are MUCH EASIER to learn under the tutelage of someone who has been there.

2. Research access. Most of you will leave camp and have very limited access to University quality libraries. You should therefore take advantage of your time with them. Enough said. In addition to that, there are more ways to research electronically than google and google news. You should be trying to learn these from your lab leaders. Every year we give research tips and rarely see them put to use. You should pay attention , learn them, use them, if you have questions- ask them. And then you should be trying to learn more. A 1 hour lecture on research usually only scratches the surface of the things you can do, but due to time constraints and total lack of interest most lab leaders don’t go into any more detail than that. At Michigan we spend about 4 hours in the library almost every day, and during that time kids will on average ask lab leaders maybe 1 or 2 questions a day. As I write this I can see plenty of kids not doing their work. Obviously lab leaders can chastise you and maybe even give you work detail etc. but ultimately you need to make an internal decision to work harder, you have to want it.

3. Argument construction- the most important thing you can learn from your lab leaders. How do you write an alternative text, how do you research one, how do you search for permutation answers, what kinds of search terms produce the best politics uniqueness evidence, etc. etc. The process of research and writing arguments only gets better with practice. Your lab leaders can give you shortcuts that will help you learn faster than you would learn alone.

Energy Google Search

This is a custom google search option I have created for researching the 2008-9 high school debate topic. The way it works is it searches the whole web, but emphasizes results from the websites I have told google are good for researching the topic. So far there are 65 think tank/energy resource websites that have been entered.

I will update this throughout the season with more websites as I find them.

I tried to include a mix of both conservative and liberal sites. I also am trying to cover a really broad range of topics like oil, global warming, energy infrastructure etc. but also some generic things that will help you with other research like politics impact cards etc. If you have a site you think should be added post it in a comment.

Role of the Ballot Vs Framework Part 2

Let's use the most common example of this I heard last year, DADT vs Bush Good DA. Essentially the neg says that allowing gays in the military will cause a conservative backlash in the GOP, negatively affecting Bush's ability to pass some piece of legislation, lets say NMD. The affirmative counters that we should not be concerned that other people will backlash to their plan, they say it would be immoral to allow hate mongers to dictate our policy through intimidation and threats, so the politics DA should be ignored entirely.
This is a pretty straightforward example, its not that differant from normal morality claims. In this instance all you would need to do is to make arguments about why we should be concerned with the overall social acceptance of government actions. Some examples could be:
1. The affirmative is essentially an argument for social integration, and backlash arguments are the heart of any debate about social integration because its the prejudice that underlies backlash that prevents social integration now.
The affirmatives argument is analogous to saying we should launch a mission to Mars and ignore gravity- Gravity is the reason launching rockets is difficult. No one would ever say gravity is a "backlash", but just as gravity must be overcome to go to space, social opposition must be overcome for social integration to occur.
To take the analogy a step further, if the affirmative advocated invading Iran to end Islamo-fascism and said we should not be concerned that people in the Iranian army may fight back because they are bigoted and we should be moral, that viewpoint would be considered absurd. This analogy isn't perfect, but I think it is apt, any time you say we should ignore the major reason X is not done now when considering whether or not to do X, you are looking at the picture in a skewed manner.
2. Utilitarianism
In many debates an explanation of Util normally boils down to "body counts judge", which I think misses the point. While util is concerned with the greatest good for the greatest number, in this instance I think you need to focus on the why and the how. Essentially the affirmative is saying that the thoughts/viewpoints/actions of certain segments of society should be ignored or written off because they are not in line with their own beliefs. Sound like the holocaust anyone?
It may be a crude analogy, but every genocide in history has been based on the premise that certain groups can be ignored and trampled at whim because we are morally superior. This is the classic "morality caused the crusades" argument. The affirmative would no doubt counter such an argument by proclaiming "that is not our kind of morality, our morality is something different that would never allow violence".
Here is where you need to get more in depth. Basically, there is a difference between act and rule utilitarianism. Essentially the affirmative is espousing rule utilitarianism, that we should act according to rules that theoretically will promote well being, like not doing violence, being socially inclusive etc. Act utilitarianism says we should judge an action based on its consequences. So on a moral spectrum you could say that things were arranged deontology----rule utilitarianism----act utilitarianism.
Generic utility good arguments are oftentimes worthless because they don't reject the rule utilitarianism the affirmative is advancing. You need more specific evidence about why outcomes determine morality, not rules or intentions. It may be true that generally it is good to follow rules like don't negotiate with terrorists, because on the whole they may discourage terrorists from engaging in violent acts, however, if a terrorist had a doomsday device and was capable of wiping out the world, we would never be in a position to reap the benefits of not negotiating with them. In that instance rule utilitarianism breaks down and we must rely on act utilitarianism.
Similarly, it may be true generally that we should not give in to threats from bigots, but in the instance where failure to do so would prompt a major war or interfere with affirmative solvency, it would be insane to not consider it.
This last argument is particularly important. Basically what the affirmative has done with role of the ballot is attempt to coopt the middle ground by making themselves seem reasonable and still avoiding the major negative position. A "worst case scenario" form of util allows you to reclaim the middle ground and say that while the affirmative may be generally correct in their view of the world, that the circumstances off this particular instance requires us to use rule utilitarianism.
Lets look at a more complex example. Same DADT vs Politics debate. Now the affirmative says the following, their disad is not real world- our plan would only happen in a world where people were already accepting of it so backlash arguments don't make any sense. So basically they are saying that since the plan, left to its own devices, wouldn't pass until it was popular, than we should assume it passes in a world where it is popular.
At first glance, this seems pretty reasonable as a view of fiat, assume that the plan would only happen in...a ...world where the plan would happen... On any level of careful examination it breaks down pretty quickly. Here is why:
1. Fiat exists to deal with problems that exist now.
If we wait until people are accepting of gays to repeal DADT... why would we need to repeal dadt? If society has already accepted gays then the harms outlined in the 1AC are most likely no longer a problem.
2. Carried to its logical extreme this would eliminate all negative ground.
The invade Iran aff would say their plan doesn't happen in a world where Iranians wouldn't like it if we invaded. The ratify Kyoto aff could claim that their plan doesn’t happen in a world where it would negatively affect the economy. While both of these worlds are possible, they are worlds in which the plan is unnecessary either because Iran is no longer a threat or because the economy is no longer dependant on fossil fuels.
A general argument that applies to both of these examples is that they are arbitrary and self serving. They allow the affirmative to whisk away the negatives best literature based argument against doing the plan. If you wanted to make a meta frame argument about role of the ballot you could say that it is anti educational in that it encourages judges to ignore the heart of any given issue and to selectively look at arguments instead of the big picture. This could also be a fairness claim- that it is unpredictable for the negative to exclude the best arguments against adoption of the plan.
Lets look at one more example that isn't politics. Let's say the affirmative gives a boatload of money to Africa for public health assistance, and argues that the US has an obligation due to the legacy of slavery to assist SSA. The negative reads the spending DA and an EU CP. The 2AC responds that the role of the ballot is to make a decision about how the US can respond ethically to the legacy of slavery, and that neither the CP or the disad is relevant in that setting because the disad fails to shift the focus from economics to ethics, and because the CP dodges the issue of our responsibility. What do you say to that?
First, I think it is important to establish your own "role of the ballot".
Not necessarily because you have to, but because you want to cover your bases against any lame "offense defense/competing interpretations" style of argument. So I would make an argument like, "The role of the ballot should be to make a decision about who should assist SSA that maximizes global welfare". So you have basically PICed out of the decision only being about the US and also about it being based on some arbitrary ethical system. Now I would give some offense for this interpretation. For example, you could say that focusing the debate solely on what the US should do or that saying only the US can remedy the historical injustice of slavery is ethnocentric and replicates the logic of colonialism by saying only the US can do what is best. Then I would give some offense against the affirmative's interpretation such as some of the arguments discussed above.
Finally, I would end with some theory arguments about why the negative should get to choose the roll of the ballot because the deck is already stacked in the affirmative's favor. This way I will have a robust defense of one of the most important issues in the debate.

Role of the Ballot Vs Framework Part 1

Innovative arguments (read: new ways of cheating) tend to trickle down from college debate to high school debate over a period of years. One of the most recent to trickle is the concept of the "role of the ballot". In most debates I've seen teams have handled this by either ignoring it or treating it as a framework style argument. Both of those tracts ignore a bit of subtle nuance that is at play.
What is framework? I would like to draw a distinction between two concepts: the decision frame and the meta frame. In any choice about action, what shoes to wear, what car to buy, what girl to ask out, there is a decision frame. The decision frame is a criteria that is most important in a given situation. You may select shoes that look cool but are uncomfortable, and you may also select a chair that is comfortable and ugly. In those 2 instances you chose different frames: fashion and comfort. Decision frames are often contradictory in that manner. A meta frame is a bigger picture that guides a person or interaction between people. If you get into an argument with your parents about your curfew and they say it is dangerous for you to stay out late, they are using a security frame. When you continue to argue and they say "because I said so", they are now appealing to the meta frame: that they are your parents and in a position of authority.
In debate, the argument most commonly referred to as "framework" is about what the rules of debate are: the affirmative has to defend a topical plan, the negative can't critique representations etc. These are all appeals to the meta- frame: general principles that guide debate. They don't tell you how to make individual decisions like should the gag rule be repealed. For that you need a decision frame. Arguments about the role of the ballot are basically an attempt to make an explicit decision frame. This is not exactly a new technique. Since the beginning of time debaters have said X impact is the most important, sometimes referring to it as a "decision rule" or d-rule. Morality arguments are probably the most prevalent example of this. Role of the ballot claims take this one step further. A morality claim says you should do X regardless of the potential negative consequences because it is morally right. It says ignore all consequences. Role of the ballot claims are much sneakier in that they don't say ignore all consequences, but normally say ignore a particular type of consequence, namely the one the other side is focusing on. Let's look at some examples.
There was a college topic that called for the elimination of the death penalty. A major reason we have the death penalty is essentially political: the majority of Americans support it and so politicians keep it in place. Naturally, this makes the politics disad a natural against the end the death penalty aff. So teams that read the death penalty aff and argued the death penalty was bad for consequentialist reasons would argue that politics disads should be ignored because the role of the ballot should be to to ignore political expediency. Essentially that consequences do matter and are important, but the most likely negative consequence of our plan should not be considered. The strategic utility of this kind of argument should be self evident.
On the college China topic the affirmative had to pressure China to improve its human rights situation. Many teams argued that whether or not this would make China angry with the United States should not be relevant in our decision making process because to not advance human rights out of fear that China won't "like" us anymore is morally bankrupt. They would tailor their argument so that it was only a rejection of the US-China relations disad (the biggest DA on the topic) and thereby try to make the disad go away while also trying to avoid "morality bad" style arguments.
So basically the strategic utility of the Role of the Ballot is to get away with some minimal cheating (making selected arguments disappear) while avoiding the pitfalls of outright cheating (framework arguments, kritiks of morality, linking to utility good style arguments etc).
So while a framework argument may say "we don't defend the plan, you get no disads", a role of the ballot argument says the much more reasonable "we will defend the plan, but X should be considered irrelevant because".
That's the thing about the evolution of cheating. Natural selection picks the kinds of cheating that most seem like they are in fact not cheating. A form of cheating camouflage if you will. Role of the ballot is an evolution that attempts to avoid the framework debate by making a surgical cheat instead of a blunt instrument cheat.
As the negative, if you don't prepare a different kind of argument to deal with this new kind of cheating you will most likely lose. Logically there is no clash between the affirmatives role of the ballot decision frame and your debate has rules meta frame(work) argument. In essence, there is no link. Maybe you have been in a situation before where you knew the other team was cheating but just couldn't explain why. I know I have, and it is very frustrating. What you need to do in that situation is not fall back on generics, but instead try and think of a well reasoned and specific argument about why what the affirmative is doing is bad, a process we will walk through in part 2.
Comments

Extending Politics Links- Part 2

Uniqueness of the link is a concept that many debaters have a tough time wrapping their minds around at first. What makes politics distinct from most other disads you'll run is the complexity of the various link chains - all components of which much be unique.
Link uniqueness
Let’s expand upon this notion mentioned in the previous post. An average politics DA:A. Bush is Pushing Immigration reform - it will pass but political capital is keyB. Foreign aid costs Political capitalC. Immigration reform is key to the economyD. Economic growth prevents war
Has a definite uniqueness component - section A - immigration reform will pass now. But this is not the only uniqueness portion of the DA that it is necessary for the negative to win. This is what’s known as the “issue specific” uniqueness - arguments about a specific issue on the Bush agenda and whether or not it will pas. The rest of the uniqueness can be divided into a few parts
Top Level - Top level uniqueness pertains to all aspects of Bush and his agenda generically that aren’t about the specific scenario. This includes things like is he popular, is there bipartisanship, does he control the agenda, is the base angry etc.
Link Uniqueness - this is the uniqueness for the particular link argument that the negative makes in the debate, in this instance political capital. In order to win the link uniqueness the negative would have to win that political capital was high, or at least high enough to pass immigration reform. This kind of evidence has been difficult to come by as of late due the widespread hatred of the Bush administration, but it is nonetheless a crucial element of the DA.
Impact uniqueness - this would be economic growth high now. More discussion on this in a later post.
Internal link uniqueness - a bit more abstract than link uniqueness. If you read a conservative base disad, the link uniqueness may be base supports Bush now. You also need evidence that says the base is currently supporting immigration reform, simply having evidence that immigration reform will pass and a card that the base is key to reform is insufficient. You need internal link uniqueness- base supports immigration reform now.
Link uniqueness is generally glossed over if not outright ignored, but you do so at your own peril. A debater who takes the time to be updated on all segments of the DA will be able to destroy their opponents because even if these arguments are not offensive, they are generally thought by judge to be absolute defense. Lets look at 2 examples of how to use them.
On the Aff - link uniqueness is a great response to new arguments in the block. As discussed in the last post, if the negative reads a new focus link in the 2NC and you read 2 pieces of 1AR evidence that outline different parts of the agenda Bush is focusing on, that will normally be enough to win the focus link is non unique. If you then explain that this should take out the whole DA because focus is key to the agenda and he doesn’t have it, the negative will usually have difficulty responding.

Extending Politics Links- Part 1

There are definite do’s and don’ts of extending the politics DA in the block. The basic guiding principle is that you should a) turn everything so that the 1AR can’t kick out of things, b) read more evidence then the affirmative, and c) be sweet.
However, translating these generic guidelines into practice can be difficult, so lets get more specific in the following series of articles.
1. New link arguments
New links read in the block should never be more generic than the ones read in the 1NC.
For example, if your 1NC link is "Foreign aid costs political capital", then never in the block read a card that says "passing legislation costs political capital". The reasons for this are two fold. First, it is just unnecessary. If a judge isn’t going to vote on your more specific link, the generic one isn’t going to help. Second, a crafty 1AR will take advantage of this by reading new link uniqueness evidence that says a piece of legislation recently passed. Non uniquing one of your links will generally take out your entire DA.
A more common occurrence of this is the 2NC Focus link. Here the neg will read a new link argument in the block arguing that Bush can only think about one thing at a time before his brain melts down and therefore the plan will be the end of his agenda. This is incredibly easy for the 1AR to jack you on because they don’t even need to read a card that another piece of Bush’s agenda has recently passed, they just need to read a card that says he HAS another part of his agenda and you are basically hosed. If you take the time to put a specific link in your 1NC, don’t mess it up by reading a ton of more generic ones in the block.
One flipside to this, if you absolutely must have that focus link alive in the debate, read it in the 1NC. At least that way you will get more time to deal with potential uniqueness complications in the 2NC and you can then read your more specific links in the block and hopefully the 1AR will drop them.
So what kind of new link arguments should you be reading in the block?
First lets take a step back and think about why are you reading new link arguments in the block to begin with? Most of the time its because the aff made fun of your terrible 1NC link evidence. That’s not a good reason to make entirely new arguments, that’s a reason to read better evidence on your initial argument. Reading new links gives the aff the ability to make new arguments. For the same reason that you don’t normally read new disads in the 2NC (the 1AR can straight turn them making your 2NR miserable), you shouldn’t be reading new link arguments because the 1AR could conceivably make some devastating arguments that are very difficult to recover from. So if possible you should continue to go for your initial link argument and just read more/better evidence to support it.
Another reason people read new links is when the affirmative link turns. This is a slightly better reason, but still not great. Many times a 2NC will say something like "Winners win is non unique because Bush just won on tax cuts and now my focus link". Obviously that is problematic. Keeping consistency between your defense against the Aff’s link turns and your new link arguments can often be tough. Instead, I suggest you just impact turn all the aff’s link turns instead of reading new links. This accomplishes the same goal, you get new links to the disad. But since the aff made the argument initially , they cannot make the vast litany of new arguments that they can to new link arguments. So for example, if the aff says "winners win", you should read several cards on "winners lose", if they say the plan makes Bush popular, say popularity is bad for the agenda and etc.
The downside to this is that 'now the 1AR won’t drop it'. This is probably not true. If the 1AR is bad enough to drop your new focus link, they will probably drop several of your impact turns to their initial link arguments.
But back to the initial question, you should read links that are as specific as possible. Cards about senators, lobbies, or public perception of the plan combined with an internal link about why those groups are essential to the agenda are best. By getting more specific as the debate goes on you limit the aff’s range of new potential answers. The thing you want to takeaway from this though is that reading new links isn’t like reading new impacts in that 1 link can end up costing you the whole DA, so you need to make your choices wisely.

Hegemony Impact Defense

US Hegemony solves every major impact, or so we are lead to believe. No matter what side you are, if the other team reads a hegemony impact you need to make sure you are on top of it. Teams get away with war crime level absurdity by reading a 1 sentence Khalilzhad card and then claiming their Heg impact solves for every other impact in the debate.
No other impact in the history of debate has been as exaggerated as the collapse of US leadership. So here are some ideas for answers that you should make.
1. Timeframe - the collapse of US leadership will not be quick. Since 9-11 Bush has been doing non stop damage to both our international credibility/soft power and our military readiness and yet we have not seen an apolar vacuum emerge. If recent events have not caused a rapid decline in US leadership it seems unlikely that failure to provide family planning assistance to Africa will.
2. Hyperbole - US hegemony impacts generally consist of a laundry list of every region in the world and every good thing from economic growth to ice cream and assert that a decline of leadership will cause hotspots to explode and ice cream to disappear. Personally I think a quick analytics about the lack of empirical proof for this argument, i.e. that we are a leader now and the world isn’t 100 percent perfect, is pretty damming. However, a quick card on this argument is pretty devastating to the other team as they will have to read a warranted, longer card in order to respond.
US Withdrawal Doesn’t Cause conflict
Eugene Gholz and Harvey Sapolsky, Department of Political Science at MIT, International Security, v21 n4, 1997, p. 30-32
Several prominent analysts favor a policy of selective engagement.[70] These analysts fear that American military retrenchment would increase the risk of great power war. A great power war today would be a calamity, even for those countries that manage to stay out of the fighting. The best way to prevent great power war, according to these analysts, is to remain engaged in Europe and East Asia. Twice in this century the United States has pulled out of Europe, and both times great power war followed. Then America chose to stay engaged, and the longest period of European great power peace ensued. In sum, selective engagers point to the costs of others' great power wars and the relative ease of preventing them. The selective engagers' strategy is wrong for two reasons. First, selective engagers overstate the effect of U.S. military presence as a positive force for great power peace. In today's world, disengagement will not cause great power war, and continued engagement will not reliably prevent it. In some circumstances, engagement may actually increase the likelihood of conflict. Second, selective engagers overstate the costs of distant wars and seriously understate the costs and risks of their strategies. Overseas deployments require a large force structure. Even worse, selective engagement will ensure that when a future great power war erupts, the United States will be in the thick of things. Although distant great power wars are bad for America, the only sure path to ruin is to step in the middle of a faraway fight. Selective engagers overstate America's effect on the likelihood of future great power wars. There is little reason to believe that withdrawal from Europe or Asia would lead to deterrence failures. With or without a forward U.S. presence, America's major allies have sufficient military strength to deter any potential aggressors. Conflict is far more likely to erupt from a sequence described in the spiral model. The danger of spirals leading to war in East Asia is remote. Spirals happen when states, seeking security; frighten their neighbors. The risk of spirals is great when offense is easier than defense, because any country's attempt to achieve security will give it an offensive capability against its neighbors. The neighbors' attempts to eliminate the vulnerability give them fleeting offensive capabilities and tempt them to launch preventive war.[71] But Asia, as discussed earlier, is blessed with inherent defensive advantages. Japan and Taiwan are islands, which makes them very difficult to invade. China has a long land border with Russia, but enjoys the protection of the East China Sea, which stands between it and Japan. The expanse of Siberia gives Russia, its ever-trusted ally, strategic depth. South Korea benefits from mountainous terrain which would channel an attacking force from the north. Offense is difficult in East Asia, so spirals should not be acute. In fact, no other region in which great powers interact offers more defensive advantage than East Asia. The prospect for spirals is greater in Europe, but continued U.S. engagement does not reduce that danger; rather, it exacerbates the risk. A West European military union, controlling more than 21 percent of the world's GDP, may worry Russia. But NATO, with 44 percent of the world's GDP, is far more threatening, especially if it expands eastward. The more NATO frightens Russia, the more likely it is that Russia will turn dangerously nationalist, redirect its economy toward the military, and try to re-absorb its old buffer states.[72] But if the U.S. military were to withdraw from Europe, even Germany, Europe's strongest advocate for NATO expansion, might become less enthusiastic, because it would be German rather than American troops standing guard on the new borders. Some advocates of selective engagement point to the past fifty years as evidence that America's forward military presence reduces the chance of war. The Cold War's great power peace, however, was over determined. Nuclear weapons brought a powerful restraining influence.[73] Furthermore, throughout the Cold War, European and Asian powers had a common foe which encouraged them to cooperate. After an American withdrawal, the Japanese, Koreans, and Russians would still have to worry about China; the Europeans would still need to keep an eye on Russia. These threats can be managed without U.S. assistance, and the challenge will encourage European and Asian regional cooperation.
I like this card because it also gives you the opportunity to sneakily make some offensive heg bad arguments in the 1AR.
3. Solvency - most aff’s on this topic will have no business claiming a heg advantage. Make sure you argue against the solvency with evidence and logical analytics. But in addition to this you need to make probability arguments when doing your impact comparisons. Though US hegemony may have a bigger impact than malthus, the likelihood that condom distribution to Uganda restores US leadership is very very low. So instead of emphasizing magnitude discuss probability. In addition to that, you should make arguments about why specific scenarios for conflict should be given more weight than nebulous regional or global stability arguments like the kind made in the short Khalilzhad impact card most teams read.
4. Impact turn - Hegemony bad made a comeback last year but is still somewhat of a black sheep in the debate community. However, if a team reads a 1 sentence Khalilzhad impact card and attempts to use it to solve all your disads you should make them pay. A quick frontline of 6-8 short cards can make the 2AC”s life miserable, especially if hegemony is their only advantage. In that instance you should also read defense so that you have a choice in the block of different arguments to go for.

Impact Calculus

There is an impact calculus epidemic going on. It is happening right now so nothing could be faster and it causes extinction so it totally outweighs your case, and we are always gonna win that.
Sound familiar?
It is important for both sides in a debate to make comparative arguments about the costs and benefits of adopting the affirmative plan. To not do so is a major strategic blunder. However, to simply repeat tired, unwarranted taglines over and over again about timeframe, magnitude and probability may actually be worse.
It is better to be suspected of being a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt, even DMX knows that.
The average impact overview in a 2NC goes something like this: “Our DA outweighs the case because of timeframe- its faster than their case, Magnitude- its bigger than their case, and probability- its super probable, and it turns the case because in a war no one would do their plan.” This is pretty much a waste of oxygen. A complete argument consists of a claim , a warrant, and evidence. Saying economic collapse is fast is a claim. It doesn’t become an argument until you ad a warrant and some evidence. The warrant could be markets are perception oriented, and therefore will react quickly. You then need to provide evidence for this, such as a card from a qualified source (an appeal to authority), give an example of when that has been the case (an empirical example), or a more in depth explanation that relies on logic.
Now sometimes you might not have to do this. If the aff advantage is something obviously long term, like resolving the collapse of social security, and has the same impact as your disad, say the economy, then you can get away with relying on the fact that its obvious your disad happens faster. However, this is very rarely the case. Most of the time debaters are attempting to compare disparate impacts such as the collapse of the economy vs the loss of US primacy. In this case you need to put together a coherent impact overview that takes at least 1 argument and completes it. Let’s look at some examples:
Bad: "Economic collapse outweighs the case because Mead says it causes a global war- theirFerguson evidence only says regional war."
Never ever ever say something like this, its soooo stupid. The Mead evidence is a total of like 3 sentences. It doesn’t make a differential claim that economic collapse causes a bigger war than anything else. While Nial does say regional nuclear wars, that is only 1 sentence from a card that lists several other impacts to a collapse of leadership. This kind of oversimplification and exaggeration is not an argument.
Mediocre: "Immigration DA outweighs - Our impact is faster- markets operate based on perception whereas the structure of hegemony can’t collapse overnight."
This is approaching an argument. It makes some sense that economic growth could decline more quickly than the US military would cease to be effective. However, the Immigration DA doesn’t really have a perception internal link into the economy. Nor will most affs on this topic have an advantage about the US military just collapsing, they will be more related to soft power. While somewhat logical, this explanation still needs evidence to back up the warrants it lists.
Good: "Economic collapse turns the case- Khalilzhad says economic growth is essential to get the population to support engagement- a loss of growth will cause isolationism and immediate withdrawal from the world."
This contains a claim- Econ key to heg- a warrant- people want money or they wont support engagement- and evidence to back it up- a reference to an already read piece of hegemony evidence.
“But my lab leaders say that I should always talk about all 3- time frame, probability and magnitude”.
They probably do. In reality, however, your lab leaders are just channeling Mr. Miagi. They are trying to teach you a broad stroke strategy (painting the fence) so that you can later employ it effectively (blocking a punch). This does not mean that every time you talk about an impact you should mention all three. You will be better served by focusing on the one your disad is actually winning, and explaining why it is more important than the other 2. For example, when going for a politics disad like the 08 presidential election, don’t talk about timeframe. The election is more than a year away. You should instead emphasize the magnitude and explain why slightly longer term impacts with a huge magnitude are more important than short term low magnitude impacts.

Cheaters Never Win? False

Or, what are you doing with the K?
You crazy kids today, I don't know where you get all these new fangled notions. You all have 70's haircuts that weren't cool in the 70's, you wear pajama pants all day every day, and you don't cheat when you run kritiks. I've listened to a few of you try and explain this trend to me, the not cheating one, and your explanations are pretty dumb. Some seem to think its an ethical thing, like they don't cheat because they are of noble blood. Others seem to think its low brow and anti intellectual to cheat when running a K. Both of these views miss the mark. The entire reason k's were invented was so that people could cheat. Long ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth there were some debaters who were to slow and lazy to compete and so they thought, what if there was an argument that allowed us to make everything the fast people say irrelevant, and got rid of all the cards the hard workers cut at the same time, wouldn't that be great? It is great. It's called the K, and if you aren't cheating you aren't doing it right. End of discussion. Cheating: just do it.
Maybe you have seen Jurassic park 3. In this crapfest of a movie people go to yet ANOTHER island inhabited by dinosaurs without any guns and end up , shockingly, in a major debacle. At the end of the movie the marines show up with tanks and rocket launchers and all other manner of hi tech weaponry and the stage is set for some classic Man V. Dino combat. And then the movie ends. That is like running a K without cheating. You set yourself up to demolish your opponent with high tech weaponry that they have no chance of countering because they are stupid dinosaurs and then you don't use it. Who does that?
Ok, so we have established that you should cheat. If you still don't see that please go join public forum.
I like to think if its good enough for the Bible its good enough for cheating, so I use the rule of 3: your block extension of the K should have at least 3 separate and distinct acts of cheating in it. So what exactly constitutes cheating? The SP rule of cheating is as follows: Cheating is any argument whereby if the other team drops it, it's game over. A VI is cheating. There is no status quo is cheating. No value to life- cheating. The list goes on. Basically any argument that in and of itself has the potential to alter the entire debate by mooting a large amount of the other teams arguments. If you had the option to do this, and you opted not to, you would definitionally be insane.
The first, and least cheaterriffic, form of cheating is impact cheating. Impact cheating consists of arguments like no value to life, X is the root cause of your harm, extinction is inevitable etc. These are pretty mild and generally rely on just making a silly argument about why your pile of foof outweighs the aff's actual advantage. While you should do all of these, they shouldn't be the focus of your cheating.
Epistemology
E-cheating basically is about making the aff's harms go away. In it's simplest form, e-cheating takes the form of a "bias" argument, such as western scholars have a flawed view of China so we shouldn't construct them as a threat. This argument is basically no different from saying "of course republicans support tax cuts, they're republicans!". Now granted the explanation here could be more complex and rely on a sophisticated critique of realism or positivist international relations theory, but boiled down to its essentials it says "don't believe what these people say". Usually this argument has two impacts: the K o/w because the case advantage is suspect, and vote neg on presumption. A slightly better e-cheat is to explain this argument in relation to both harms and solvency. So to continue the china example you could say "Western understandings of china operate from a positivist/realist understanding of the world that China doesn't ascribe to, this makes their predictions worthless" and then explain why this effects harms and solvency.
Methodology Cheating
Others will most likely disagree, but to me methodology arguments basically boil down to deontology. They say something like, the means you use are flawed/immoral and so we should ignore potential beneficial positive consequences of acting in that manner. People who write about the importance of method generally incorporate a "bias" argument like those explained above to make this a little more sophisticated. They would say something like, the perceived benefits of using violence are illusory- our recourse to violence has conditioned us to not consider other alternatives to such an extent that the use of violence appears to be the only possible solution to our problems, however, upon reflection we could find alternative means of conflict resolution. This argument boils down to some kind of hidden CP, that somehow the problem of the aff will be solved in another way as long as we stop viewing violence as the ONLY solution and instead view it as one of many possible solutions. This is pretty good- a hidden CP is harder to answer than one you can see; i.e. while you can make solvency deficit arguments, its basically impossible to read offense since you don't know what you are dealing with.
Ontology
This is the root of most "no value to life claims" like "give me liberty or give me death" or "turn off Ally Mcbeal before I kill myself". The basic idea here is that there are certain things that make life worth living and the affirmative somehow infringes on one of them. For example, kritiks of capitalism often say that the market reduces or commodifies us all into a unit of currency, and that this commodification reduces human beings to inhuman objects, making life not worth living. Most of these arguments are pretty weak. Usually there isn't really one thing that makes life worth living, any number of things like video games, roller coasters, ice cream, and the movie Heat all give life meaning. Odds are low the affirmative takes away all these things. The more sophisticated version of no value to life usually involves the word "ontology". An ontology can be thought of as a way of thinking about how we exist in the world. So a capitalist ontology says that we are all rational utility maximizes attempting to improve our economic well being. An ontology argument combines the no value to life claim with a solvency argument: not only is your ontology bad, but it also is false (you mean my whole fallacy is wrong?) that people act in the manner you describe, and since they don't, your solvency claims based on that model are false. Booya.
Alternative
The number of ways you can cheat with your alternative are almost too numerous to mention, and thus will be discussed in the next article.