Free T strategy guide

Roy alerted me to this from planet debate: http://www.planetdebate.com/files/view/1039

Granted it has like 100 pages of FG and should definitions, but also some decent topic work in there.

....another new debate blog

So check out www.the3nr.com where you will find yet another new debate blog of me, roy, and batterman talking about debate. FAQ below

Don't you people have lives?
no

Why another blog?
Who know's

What will be on there that isn't here?
Me explaining to the other 2 why they are dummies


Why don't you get a hobby or develop a social life?
This interview is over

RL Debate

As usual Roy has copied me yet again and now has his very own debate blog - complete with a poll. The issue he brings up in his opening post is whether or not new affs are good or bad for debate. You can read his blog here http://rldebate.blogspot.com/ .

My thoughts on this issue:

Much like Natalie Imbruglia, I'm torn. On the one hand, I do think people working hard and churning out new arguments is good. On the other hand I hate the idea of people getting ambushed by garbage and then losing a key debate. Its a conundrum for sure.

Less prep for the 2NC

Cliffs notes-
1. Write blocks ahead of time
2. ????
3. Profit

Some people think that if there is 10 minutes of prep, the 2NC should evenly divide prep time for the 2NC and 2NR in a 5-5 manner. To these people I laugh and say "that is not the optimal prep time distribution newb". Why is this? Ask any old timer what the hardest speech in debate is and they will say the 2NR (they are wrong, but whatever). The reason the 2NR is so allegedly hard is thrice fold
-the 1AR (assuming competence) has collapsed down to a few devastating arguments and made a lot of fast but short arguments so you must be technically proficient
-the 2AR has a lot of options of where to take the debate so you must be strategically sound in figuring out where they can try and eek out a win and lay the hammer down
-you often have to make tough decisions of which of 2 strategies to go for- decisions that include factors like evidence quality, the judge and their biases etc.

That's a lot to get done in 5 minutes, I think it would be better with say 8 or 9. Now lets think about the 2NC- what does the 2NC have to do
-get up and read a bunch of cards
-.....

Oh yea the 2NC does nothing. I don't mean nothing in terms of literally nothing, I mean nothing that is difficult or important or thought provoking. Why is this? Well what happens in a debate is the 1AC reads some cards, the 1NC reads some, then the 2AC reads a few and makes some analytics, and then the 2NC does.... what exactly? Well in 99/100 debates the 2NC takes a few issues and tries to bury the 1AR in arguments, most often evidenced ones. There are not a lot of tough decisions, there aren't a lot of aff arguments to answer (odds are the the 2AC didnt make 30 answers to the politics disad). The 2NC doesn't have to make any all or nothing decisions or take any risks because they have the 1NR insurance policy, its the only speech where if you mess something up there is ZERO COST because the 1NR can just fix it. So obviously you don't need a lot of prep time thinking.

What about preparing your evidence etc. for the speech? I don't think this should take you much tinme either. Lets say before the round you and your coaches decide vs RPS you will read
-states/politics
-cap K
-T pos
-warming good/heg bad
-Oil DA

before the round you have decided the block will either be
-2NC States/politics, 1NR Cap k
or
-2NC Cap K 1nr T pos
or
-2NC Oil and 1NR case

Now, what do you do before the debat to get ready if you are the 2n? There are 3 seperate strategies you are thinking about going for, seems like a lot to get ready in 20 minutes. First, you don't need to prep the cap k- the 1n should do that. The 1n will arleady get 5 hours of prep for whatever is in their 1NR so they don't need to worry, and the cap K is a possible 1NR option, so them doing it is 2 birds with 1 stone. By prep an argument I mean the following
-all evidence highlighted
-case specific links/impact arguments written out/prepared
-considering potential aff answers and getting relevant answers put together/writing out new arguments if need be (coaching can obviously help here as can scouting)

The 1NR is taking case or T so don't worry about that.

So the 2N now has to worry about politics/states and oil. Lets look at oil first

Its the tournament of champions, if you plan on reading the oil DA here you should either
-have link/impact blocks done by now
-be knowledgable enough about oil economics to explain most things without needing to write them out in detail

or you should be shot like a derby horse who breaks their leg. So in the 20 minutes before the debate you maybe take 5 to get the specific links you would want to read together, make sure your generic U 2NC is still highlighted (you should of done this before) and check the caselist/scouting to see what impact turns they read.

Now we have 15 minutes left. States- vs RPS the 2AC will probably say... a whole lot of nonses because they have no answers. I mean, things like "reg certainty" and "patchwork" etc you should already have blocks too. You maybe havent debated RPS all year so you highlight the 5 states solve cards that you will read, that takes another 5-10 minutes maybe. The 2AC will make a lot of args like "perm do both", "50 state illegit" and what not that you should either have a block too or be able to answer off the top of your head, you don't need to worry about prepping these.

Now, politics. What will the aff say here? Well odds are you are reading a terrible politics disad the aff will have no answers to. Odds are that having no answers they will just read stupid generic link turns like "3 people like the plan" and then a card that says "bipart key to the agenda". Before showing up at the tournament, since it is a national championship, is at the ned of the year, and you are not a total joker, you should have
-blocks to common aff turns
-link blocks for popular cases
-uniqueness blocks

etc. So you check the casebook/scouting, see what they say. Your 2NC is pretty simple and consists of
-we control issue specific uniqueness, our link o/w thier turn, da o/w case

Rinse and repeat. None of this should require a lot of prep because you have it ready ahead of time. Now maybe you get the aff link turn cards and read them to make sure you know what they are saying (or better have ur sick partner do it) but thats not adding a lot of prep time either since they will all be highlited to 1 sentence and say nothing anyway. Ditto uniqueness.

Now lets say you are actually having a real debate. You are reading a good politics disad (healthcare) and the aff has good answers. Before the round you want to put them on a percentage system of what you think they will do - link or impact turn. Generally with no other knowledge you can assume its 90-10, the other team will only impact turn politics in 1/10 debates. So you can focus on the link turn. Here you want to do your pre round prep a little different- when uniqueness will be hotly contested it is less useful to have a generic block and more useful to have a small block of your 3 best generic U cards, and then specific responses to aff warrants for why healthcare won't pass. So this may involve more pre round organizing /highliting, but again hopefully you did that ahead of time. So in this debate you may have to spend more time pulling cards as you will be more careful about reading specific cards in specific places, but this won't add a lot of time.

Ok enough with that example, the 2AC is now speaking, what do you do

1. Write down as little as possible- when i debated my flow of the 2AC on the india deal disad looked like this

nu
pc low
not k2 rels
bipart turn
ww

That is pretty brief. The aff may have read as many as 12 cards on politics (3 uniqueness cards, 2 PC spent on another issue, 1 impact defense card, 2x plan key to bipart, 2x bipart key to agenda, 2-3x ww). Now the 2AC might not have said "winners win... more ev winners win.... and winners win..." but in a lot of debates they do. More importantly I grouped like arguments together. So when I got up to give the 2NC it would go like this
-impact overview with 3x turns the case cards (1 for each adv)
-U block, mixed in with specific indicts of their evidence/reasons to prefer ours
-link overview about why if we won issue specific U we won direction of link
-2-3 pc high cards
-specific carded responses to their reasons pc was low
-india deal is k2 relations
-new 2 card impact
-card on why PC most important link
-plan not bipart, no spillover
-winners win non U card, plan not win, winners don't win (point of clarity- many people read winners win non U and then winners lose- don't do this)

Of those things all but maybe 3 were blocked out before the tournament, the other 3 were handled before the round. So during the debate as the 2AC was speaking I would jot down "nu" and then pull my cards together, which generally you can get done while they are still speaking, and you should DEF be able to get it done in the 3 mns of cx.

Now some people might be thinking "this is stupid, i need to read the other teams ev and make super specific witty analytics not just get up and make generic babble". This is a good point, hyper specific witty analytics are in fact good. However,
1. odds are you are failing at that
2. The aff won't go for every argument, if you spend a ton of time being super witty about all of them much of that time will be wasted
3. Its to time consuming.
4. Most 2N's don't flow themselves, and in the 2% of debates where they do think of something intelligent to say in the 2NC, they usually have forgotten it by the 2NR

In my view, you slowplay this wit untill the 2NR. So the 1AR collapses down to just nu and ww. In my model you now spend your 2NR prep getting into hyper specific wit about those 2 things, and you haven't wasted any time on other issues. These are always evidence comparison or that style of arguments so they are never considered new in the 2NR, they are the kind of thing judges WANT you to do.

Some things people seem to waste a lot of prep on
1. "can we get our 1NC back" if you, as the 2N , do not know what your 1NC said you are a total joker. Stop reading this and join the theatre club.
2. Reading irrelevant evidence- in the above hypothetical, if you are going for states politics, you don't need to read the aff oil evidence. If you are reading evidence trying to make your decision on what to go for that is slightly better but still bad play. Here is why- if you are reading their evidence on the oil disad 1 of 2 things has happened
A. you have been caught unprepared with a turn about Crudejikistan that you didn't anticipate- at which point you should probably go for states
or
B. You think a decision is really close/marginal at which point you should of already decided based on
-your relative comfort/how prepared you are
-the other teams weakness
-the 1NR

I will elaborate on the last two. Their weakness- there is no perfect 2AC. There are awesome 2AC's, but it is impossible to be perfect. What I mean by that is in the above example, your 1NC is sufficiently diverse that the 2AC CAN NOT put you in a bad position. Lets say the 2AC is a total baller and
-straight turns everything
-reads 3 add ons

oh no, you are screwed right.... wrong. It is impossible to put you in a bad position using that strategy because you have several mutually exclusive options. If the 2AC does that, how many POSSIBLE answers could they have put on each issue- mayb 8 if they are BLAZING. So you have 2 disads that each have 8 answers, a K that has 8 answers, T that has 8 answers etc. This amazing 2AC cannot "spread the block" unless your 1NC was a total hindenberg. So what you need to do here is keep a cool head and think it through in about 20 seconds. Much like multiple choice tests your gut instinct is usually correct. You dont need to read 32 cards to decide between cap/politics/states/oil. This may seem lazy or anti educational to some, but be brutally honest- the odds of them having a life changing card that would swing your decision and overcome other factors is remote to say the least. In my entire debate career I can think of 1 time where that happened and I lost vs like 20-30 times where I overthought the decision, wasted prep time, and made costly errors because of it.

As for the 1NR- you can't make your strategic decisions in a vacuum. So for example, while they may have boned oil, where they very strong on the case? Do you think you can win with only 1 complete strategy in the block? You have to take into account all the factors. So if you need a complete strategy in the 1NR becuase you think the 1AR is really good and will kill you after a unidimensional block, then oil is out from the get go. Can cap be handled in 5 mns? If yes, then even if you think it is your best option you should extend staates and politics in the 2NC- do you see why? Because people assume the 2NC will go for what will be in the 2NR but also because you are wasting 3 mns of time if you take for 8 what can be done in 5.

Back to things people waste time on
3. Looking for evidence- this should be organized before the round. before the debate if you areextending politics you should have laying out on the table a cross hatched pile of evidence that includes the likely cards you will read. You may have 20 likely arguments in there, the 2AC reads 8 of them, you pull out the appropriate stacks and go. This is much easier than constantly looking at the index of a 200 page politics file, pulling some cards, then taking out the link file- getting some stuff, then getting the RPS neg and grabbing case links etc. All that should be done before the round.

4. Writing a lot down- you need to start practicing writing as little as possible for yor arguments. For example, a beginning debater might write down
"uniqueness o/w the link- they don't have any india deal won't pass cards, the plan can't make it pass anymore, so if we win uniqueness they can't win offense"- writing by hand that will take a while. An intermediate debater might write down "u o/w- they have no issue specific cards". An advanced debater would write down "u o/w". And a born killer wouldn't write down anything becuase they would know to say that. You should be forcing yourself to progress down that line to needing to write as little as possible. In fact I think a top level 2N would be well served by doing what many 1AR's do and not flow the 2NC/1NR but instead write down your responses.

Avoid becoming pot committed

In poker, you are pot committed when you have bet an amount such that you will be mathematically obligated to call no matter what. As an extreme example, you are playing heads up and have a 1 million dollar stack, you raise preflop with JJ to 990,000 and your opponent calls. The flop comes AKx. Your opponent flips over his hand, and has AA. He bets his remaining 10k. You are dead to running jacks or qT, however you are getting 1500-1, you have to call even given your remote odds. That is a little absurd of an example, but will hopefully make the point clear enough that even a poker newb can understand.

In debate, people often become pot committed. By this I mean they take an argument and turn it into a make or break round deciding issue when it need not be. For example, lets take framework.

The aff says RPS + Climate. Neg says eco doomsaying/reps K. Aff says "wrong forum, no K's". Neg now responds with some K's of framework, various cheating etc. Basically what has happend is the aff has raised too much- they have made framework into a round deciding issue- whoever wins the framework will win.

Now why do you raise in poker? There are many reasons, but 2 that are relevant here are value (you have the best hand and want money) and to make your opponent fold (because they may have a better hand and thus you win). Framework falls into the second category- you are trying to push your opponent off a potentially strong argument. If you had the nuts to answer their reps K you wouldn't need fwork obv (this should be self evident).

In poker, when making a bet/raise to get someone to fold, the goal is to bet the precise minimum amount needed to make them fold. For example, your opponent will either fold or go all in. If you bet all your chips, you will win once, and lose it all once. If instead you bet a smaller amount, you win once, and lose a smaller amount when they go all in. So betting the smallest amount that will get them to fold is the goal (I am obviously ignoring a LOT of outside considerations here for simplicity so nits please avoid hitting the comment button).

So to take this concept to debate, your framework argument should be enough to get them to fold, but not enough that you incur significant costs if they decide to raise. A more moderate framework argument will allow you to avoid many of the generic framework offense teams read like
-role playing bad
-exclusion bad style args
-K's of democracy/citizenship
-cheese theory RVI's

Now, the neg can still obv read all this. But all you need to do is no link it in the 1AR.

Other examples of becoming pot committed:
-straight link turning a disad with a unidimensional uniqueness argument- something like "companies fear future regulation more". Then the neg CP's out of that in the 2NC. D'oh.
-Reading a reps K of the 1AC advantage, and then not adequately addressing add ons/disad turns that don't link to your K
-Reading 1 disad in the 1NC with no counterplan
-Extending 2 strategies in the block, one of which has no credibility/could never be gone for

Now, one of the things that seperates mediocre debaters from great debaters is that great debaters can detect when their opponents have over extended themselves and become pot committed and exploit it.

Working on Speech Improvement Alone pt 2

Efficiency

What is it?

1. Saying an argument with the least amount of words possible while still conveying the point
2. Not repeating an argument unnecessarily.
3. not reading unnecessary or repetitive evidence.
4. Extending only the arguments you need to win/not wasting time on un-winnable points.

Breaking them down individually:

Least words- this is pretty simple, instead of saying "this disad is totally not unique judge- because obama already did a stimulus, and in aforementioned stimulus he included some like, incentives for alternative energy projects, and here is a card about it " say "non unique- stimulus".

Seems simple enough. So things you should look to eliminate are
-overly long tags- dont explain warrants you are going to read in the evidence, give unnecessarily detailed descriptions that are contained in the cards etc.
-eliminate fluff language and filler words- this isn't an english essay- it doesnt have to be 3 pages with standard margins. A good tag is rarely over 10 words- remember judges CAN'T write all that down- who are you reading it for? Everytime I hear someone read a card that is like "heg will collapse, 10 reasons" and then lists the 10 reasons my eyes roll.
-highlight tags and theory blocks/overviews- a lot of times people type things out so that they have a stock overview to read, but then that overview is too long and they waste time in every debate they read it. They never think to change this because hey, they wrote it out so its gotta be good right? Case in point:

-highlight tags and theory blocks/overviews- a lot of times people type things out so that they have a stock overview to read, but then that overview is too long and they waste time in every debate they read it. They never think to change this because hey, they wrote it out so its gotta be good right? Case in point

Done and done.


Don't repeat args-
This happens most of the time when say an aff has a non unique trick and then repeats it on every disad (when there are 5 of them). Unless your argument changes dramatically for each disad, just say it once. Other instances are saying "reject argument not team" 20 times in a speech, or "don't vote on potential abuse" etc. Once you have said something like this, if you feel the need to say it in 50 other places just say "cross apply this to other voters" or "this is a universal response to cheap shots" etc. This one seems fairly obvious.

The more bothersome version of repetition arises I think when people have temporarily run out of things to say. They are trying to flounder and find a new argument and instead end up just repeating the argument they just made or an argument they made a short time ago. This is a sympton of trying to go to fast, and generally means you should slow down a little. Some people have argued that one of the benefits of speed is that you can repeat important points to have them sink in better, a la the simpsons (Marge: This town is a part of us all ... a part of us all ... a part of us all! Sorry to repeat myself, but It'll help you remember!). I think this has merit in certain instances to add emphasis, but this is not usually what is being done.

3. Repetitive evidence- 6 uniqueness cards that all say the same thing are not useful. Neither are 20 winners win cards. You should only read new evidence if the new piece of evidence adds a new argument, or in certain instances if it is better than the piece of previously read evidence (either because the argument you need to respond to has changed or because you slowplayed a powerful argument). Generally any time you hear yourself say "more evidence" that is a pretty good sign (unless you are doing the double reverse say more evidence but really its a whole new argument trick, at which point kudos to you).

4. Extending what you need to win- this generally props up later in the debate. The 2NR gets to 3 case flows with only 40 seconds left and tries to extend as much as possible. The better track is to focus on a few key arguments and give them each more time. It is inefficient to spend a small amount of time on a lot of arguments because you never really get to the meet of an issue. In a 2NR to win an argument you generally have to

-explain your argument
-answer their arguments that responded to it
-impact it

When people rush they just do a lot of step 1, and none of step 2 or 3. Step 1 is rarely enough to win an argument.

Pov Topic - T Social Services

Was doing some initial reading on this today, some interesting info that arouse I will compile here


http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/foia/tal315.txt

http://books.google.com/books?id=PD9LlggqoNoC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq="the+term+social+services"&source=bl&ots=RAejHeHpFd&sig=G0sYw4kxnVIXoX482IzqgZI-S34&hl=en&ei=OWPaSYf9AZ2QswPVloS2Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

http://books.google.com/books?id=BB5xtJy1Dp4C&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq="the+term+social+services"&source=bl&ots=NL8DFD8V6o&sig=-YC7o-CYPJ20-D6AYsumy6y-rrk&hl=en&ei=OWPaSYf9AZ2QswPVloS2Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#PPA208,M1

http://www.adversity.net/Terms_Definitions/TERMS/Social_Services.htm

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:2PS67qh-_JkJ:www.iecc.edu/wvc/FMPro%3F-db%3Dprograms.fp5%26-lay%3Dmain%26-format%3Dfmp_pgrm_overview.html%26-lop%3Dand%26-max%3D1%26-op%3Deq%26book%3DWVC%26-op%3Deq%26PageParentCalc%3D35179%26-script%3Dsort%26-Find%3D+"the+term+social+services"&cd=20&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Little used word shortcut keys

As per email request

These aren't a template thing, available in any microsoft word doc (i wittled a list down to ones i actually use and eliminated obv ones like bold/underline)

I don't have all these memorized, but Ryan Burke got me started on them when he claimed you could cut cards faster without a mouse by learning shortcuts (I believe false, but he is adamant)

 All Caps                      CTRL+SHIFT+A
 
  App Maximize                  ALT+F10
  App Restore                   ALT+F5
  Apply List Bullet             CTRL+SHIFT+L
  Auto Format                   ALT+CTRL+K
  Center Para                   CTRL+E
  Change Case                   SHIFT+F3
  Close or Exit                 ALT+F4
  Close Pane                    ALT+SHIFT+C
  Column Break                  CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER
  Copy Format                   CTRL+SHIFT+C
  Date Field                    ALT+SHIFT+D
  Doc Close                     CTRL+W or CTRL+F4
  Doc Maximize                  CTRL+F10
  Doc Move                      CTRL+F7
  Doc Restore                   CTRL+F5
  Doc Size                      CTRL+F8
  Doc Split                     ALT+CTRL+S
  Double Underline              CTRL+SHIFT+D
  End of Column                 ALT+PAGE DOWN
  Font Size Select              CTRL+SHIFT+P
  Footnote Now                  ALT+CTRL+F
  Go Back                       SHIFT+F5 or ALT+CTRL+Z
  Grow Font One Point           CTRL+]
  Hanging Indent                CTRL+T
  Header Footer Link            ALT+SHIFT+R
  Hyperlink                     CTRL+K
  Indent                        CTRL+M
  Justify Para                  CTRL+J
  Left Para                     CTRL+L
  Line Down                     DOWN
  Macro                         ALT+F8
  New                           CTRL+N
  Next Cell                     TAB
  Next Field                    F11 or ALT+F1
  Normal                        ALT+CTRL+N
  Normal Style                  CTRL+SHIFT+N or ALT+SHIFT+CLEAR (NUM 5)
  Open                          CTRL+O or CTRL+F12 or ALT+CTRL+F2
  Open or Close Up Para         CTRL+0
  Other Pane                    F6 or SHIFT+F6
  Outline                       ALT+CTRL+O
  Outline Collapse              ALT+SHIFT+- or ALT+SHIFT+NUM -
  Outline Demote                ALT+SHIFT+RIGHT
  Outline Expand                ALT+SHIFT+=
  Outline Expand                ALT+SHIFT+NUM +
  Outline Move Down             ALT+SHIFT+DOWN
  Outline Move Up               ALT+SHIFT+UP
  Outline Promote               ALT+SHIFT+LEFT
  Outline Show First Line       ALT+SHIFT+L
  Page Break                    CTRL+ENTER
  Para Down                     CTRL+DOWN
  Para Down Extend              CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN
  Para Up                       CTRL+UP
  Para Up Extend                CTRL+SHIFT+UP
  Paste Format                  CTRL+SHIFT+V
  Prev Cell                     SHIFT+TAB
  Prev Field                    SHIFT+F11 or ALT+SHIFT+F1
  Prev Object                   ALT+UP
  Print                         CTRL+P or CTRL+SHIFT+F12
  Print Preview                 CTRL+F2 or ALT+CTRL+I
  Redo                          ALT+SHIFT+BACKSPACE
  Redo or Repeat                CTRL+Y or F4 or ALT+ENTER
  Replace                       CTRL+H
  Reset Char                    CTRL+SPACE or CTRL+SHIFT+Z
  Reset Para                    CTRL+Q
  Revision Marks Toggle         CTRL+SHIFT+E
  Right Para                    CTRL+R
  Save                          CTRL+S or SHIFT+F12 or ALT+SHIFT+F2
  Save As                       F12
  Select All                    CTRL+A or CTRL+CLEAR (NUM 5) or CTRL+NUM 5
  Show All Headings             ALT+SHIFT+A
  Show Heading1                 ALT+SHIFT+1
  Show Heading2                 ALT+SHIFT+2
  Shrink Font                   CTRL+SHIFT+,
  Shrink Font One Point         CTRL+[
  Small Caps                    CTRL+SHIFT+K
  Start of Document             CTRL+HOME
  Start of Line                 HOME
  Style                         CTRL+SHIFT+S
  Subscript                     CTRL+=
  Superscript                   CTRL+SHIFT+=
  Time Field                    ALT+SHIFT+T
  Undo                          CTRL+Z or ALT+BACKSPACE
  Update Auto Format            ALT+CTRL+U
  Update Fields                 F9 or ALT+SHIFT+U
  Update Source                 CTRL+SHIFT+F7
  VBCode                        ALT+F11
  Web Go Back                   ALT+LEFT
  Web Go Forward                ALT+RIGHT
  Word Left                     CTRL+LEFT
  Word Left Extend              CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT
  Word Right                    CTRL+RIGHT
  Word Right Extend             CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT
  Word Underline                CTRL+SHIFT+W

New Razer Mamba

Yes please.

Err, D'oh.

Working on Speech Improvement Alone pt 1

"You said you can improve your speaking without needing a coach around, what kind of things would you do to do that?"

Three things can be improved on most easily in terms of delivering a good speech, in order

1. Clarity
2. Efficiency
3. Speed

I put speed last even though when I debated I probably would of put it first. Having judged for a few years now I will say the following is true
-most people go faster then they are capable of doing clearly
-most people go faster than they are capable of doing smoothly (no stuttering, awkward pauses etc)
-many debaters don't utilize 90% of the arguments they made in previous speeches in their rebuttals, making them a large waste of time.


Clarity- How do you improve this. A few things

1. Transition words- making sure you consistently use numbers or emphasis /transition words (and, next, additionally, sub points) to clearly mark when you move from one argument to another. Many people are relatively clear but don't properly differentiate when one card ends and another begins, so judges have no idea a new card has started until they hear a date or something similar. This is a really easy way to add clarity to your speech- not in the sense of less mumbling, but in terms of organizational clarity.

2. Use emphasis- either changes in how loud you are speaking, changing your rate of delivery etc. Use this on key points not just in pieces of evidence, but on arguments that you think are particularly important. Some people take this too far- telling people to quadruple star an argument etc. That can be an effective technique, but if you have to say "I'm emphasizing this" instead of just emphasizing it then there is a problem. One thing to think about is that there is a fine line between emphasizing and flagging- emphasizing is making something that is more important stand out, flagging is needlessly drawing attention to something. You emphasize that the qualifications of your uniqueness evidence are better, you flag sever perms as a voting issue. Generally if something needs to be flagged it is of a quality such that if its dropped you will barely win on it, thus you want to make it very obvious so that when it is dropped a judge will have no choice but to vote on it. This is generally not a great way to try and win debates.

Working on emphasis is somewhat tricky in that before you can emphasize, you need to know what arguments are important enough to warrant emphasis. However, the techniques you would use are somewhat universal. Some techniques

1. Practice reading evidence and working hard to differentiate tags from the card before them, bold text in the evidence etc.
2. Practice reading un numbered theory blocks and trying to add your own mental numbering/ sub pointing during the speech
3. Practice speed transtions- these are the trickiest. You have probably seen someone who reads tags very slowly, then as soon as they get to the card speed sup into an incoherent mess. A speed transition should not be so dramatic, it should be like 5% max. When you end a card and go onto the next one, slow down 5% for the beginning such as "Next, economic decline causes nuclear war" and then speed back up. This requires yout to have a clear baseline speed obviously.


Annunciation- many people when they speak fast tend to blur words together. Instead of saying "Nineteen Ninety Nine" they end up saying something that sounds like "na-nye". This is obviously terrible. However, since people understand the gist of what they are saying, people rarely object/yell clear. You should make sure you are fully pronouncing and annonciating every syllable you are speaking. You should be saying the same things when you talk slowly as when you talk fast, the only thing that should be changing is the rate of delivery. Drills you have probably done at camp like over annunciating or pen in mouth are to try and get you to overemphasize things so that when you go faster the baseline level of annunciation is coming through. If you do these drills, and then go to give a speech and revert right back to your old habits you aren't getting the point.

It's like high knees in football. I used to hate the crap out of running drills, being a lineman I never saw the point. High knees is where you run and lift your knees artificially high, ideally hitting yourself in the chest with each step. The point is that if you are a running back, and you move your legs very high up and down when you run, it is harder to grab your legs and tackle you. So if you do high knees in practice, then run normally in a game- you aren't getting the benefit. The point is to change the way you are doing things when you run by exagerating the effect in practie, and then finding a middle ground between what you do normally and what you are doing in practice. So do these annunciation drills, and then try and use the same technique when giving actual speeches.

Card Cutting Tips- Tech

A few people have asked me about the tech I use to cut cards recently, so out of laziness I will put it all here and just refer them to it.

1. Speak and type- For this I use a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking . I first bought a version of this as a junior in high school just before the Twins won their last world series. When I first got it it was rough- lots of mistakes, had to talk very slowly etc. Now it is pretty money. I don't speak debate fast into it, but I type at around 80 words per minute last time I consulted Mavis Beacon and I can go faster than that with this. It also works pretty slick- if I alt+tab into gchat you can keep talking and it will fill in the text there. Highly recommended. You can teach it new words like "disadvantage" that never show up in word, you do have to train it for a little while on your voice though- the most extensive I think took me like 45 minutes of reading out loud. I like it esp for doing overviews/theory blocks that are a lot of text because Dragon + wireless headset= don't have to be at your computer ftw.

2. Mouse- I started with one of those microsoft mice with 2 extra buttons but they are sort of clunky/not very precise. Now I use the Razer Diamondback that you can regularly find on sale on amazon for like 35 bones (I think it was like 120 the first time I bought one 6 years ago, I have bought 6 since then because I broke them etc (although I have 3 in use now)). I would suggest if you are going to travel with it to get a mouse case instead of just sticking it in your backpack (the first one I bought came with one, alas no more) because once you first get it it is SO SMOOTH to use and after some poor handling it will still work but the smoothness will be gone. I also have the death adder which I bought because it was new fangled and the blue went with the lighting scheme on my desktop/keyboard/toothbrush/blue tooth headset which were all blue. I like somethings about it better but overall not worth the money I think and the diamondback is probably more durable for sure.

So the buttons- it has technically 4 extra buttons that a regular mouse doesn't have, but I also reporgram the middle scrollwheel "click" to be something other than fast scroll which is the default. Razer mice come with thier own software that works way better than the microsoft mouse software imo. You can adjust scroll speed, click speed everything in one pop up window along with programing the buttons. So basically you have these 5 buttons to work with so like on my template underlined card text is F3, so that is one mouse button. Then I made a paste special macro which is hotkeyed to ctrl+F3 so I hit ctrl with left hand, mouse button which does F3 with right hand. So each button has a key, and then the template has controls for that key, ctrl + that key, and alt + that key, so each botton does 3 things total, for 15 hotkeys on the mouse. That + dragon and I never really need to type much of anything.

I also have a keyboard for my desktop with extra buttons, the Razer Tarantula , generally I programmed these buttons to do general thins like cut and paste, undo/redo etc. that usually take a few buttons but now can be done with 1!! I also made a few of them more complex little macros like past special + eliminate hard returns + format as small card text which could of taken 4's of seconds and upwards of 9 buttons to push before hand. Most of these improvements are trivial, but if you spend 5+ hours a day cutting cards, over the course of a year you will have a lot more free time.

3. Scanner/scan software- I have tried just about every scanning software out there (my brother in law works basically as a archiver/document scanner for a major bank so I have even played around with sort of "industrial strength" programs) and for my money omni page slays everyone. There are programs that are more accurate- but they generally take a lot longer- and in my experience the recent omni page makes maybe 1 or 2 mistakes every 10 pages or so (my senior year it never even made mistakes on chinese characters). A lot of people hate it for some reason but I think they are stupid. Generally when I scan I don't do it a page at a time, i scan a lot of pages into a .pdf- then right click on it and omni page gives me the option to convert the whole thing to a word doc. Now, while this takes longer than doing the pieces individually, I dont have to be at the computer while it does its mojo. So after I get 2-300 pages of scanned text I go eat dinner or whatever while omni page doe sits magic. Then I come back and go find the parts I need. I alwasy skip the corrections phase because I will just manually correct any errors in the parts i need since the odds are low that there will be very many. If you are strapped for cash microsoft office comes with an OCR program as well that is dec.

One thing- if I have a .pdf that was clearly originally a word doc I will use the OCR in adobe acrobat professional which I think is better in this one instance- for some reason it always has 0 errors whereas omni page will occasionally have some, and you can modify the .pdf to be cut and pasteable that way (this is only for pdfs that dont let you cut and paste the text obviously).

Befriend the tech people who work at your school- odds are no one ever pays them any attention and they are pretty smart. just like befriending librarians this can pay dividends- they can oftentimes get you free software the school already has on mass education licenses etc. I find out about most new things by explaining to people like that what i'm doing and then they tell me some new way to do it better.

4. Scanner-don't think you can beat the canon lide series for cheapness/portability. They fit in a backpack, dont have thier own poer source just get it from USB, and are pretty fast/accurate. The sound they make drives some people crazy (ak) but I generally think if it bothers you that much you are probably a baby. You can get them for as cheap as 40 on amazon and the more expensive ones don't really make much of a difference for debate as they usually just have improved color/photo options which you won't use. I have had a few of them, have the 200 right now. The only reason I would get something else is if you have the cash to shell out for a feeder/faster scanner.

5. Recording sound- Audacity is a free program to record/edit sound. Great for recording speeches/lectures. Works substantially better than expensive programs like Camtasia. An external mic will also greatly improve this.

Let me add this- to those of you who plan on recording debates- the microphone is 20X more important than the camera. I frequently see people with 800 dollar camcorders with no external mics who then set up the camera 25 feet away from the debaters and think "great, another recording of an awesome debate that will be worthless because the sound is going to suck". You have all probably seen youtube videos of somethign of debates where the speech sounded garbled, odds are the debater wasnt that unclear (ok maybe they were) but the recording of sound with a standard handy cam blows. Scower AV forums before making your purchase, or just know that RODE makes probably the best mic for this purpose. Also- no one really cares about the video for these things- so recording in 1080p is probably unnecessary and just makes it difficult to share the files. If you have a program like adobe premiere that lets you independently chose the quality of sound and video downplay video and emphasize sound obvi. The mic will eliminate the need for a lot of that though.

Good Articles 3-11-09

Trying to clear out google reader after weeks of neglect

How The Recession Helps The Environment

from Breaking News and Opinion on The *Huffington Post* by The Huffington Post News Editors

Reid Offers Power Grid Plan, Starts States' Rights Debate

from Breaking News and Opinion on The *Huffington Post* by The Huffington Post News Editors

Fight Green Fatigue: Remember The Victories

from Breaking News and Opinion on The *Huffington Post* by The Huffington Post News Editors

What the Stimulus Package Does for Renewable Energy

from Peak *Oil* News

Nuclear waste dogs US energy policy

from Peak *Oil* News

Defense Focus: Warming wars - Part 1

from Peak *Oil* News

Eco Groups Fear Opportunity Lost

from *Common Dreams* | News & Views by andrea

Mar 3, 2009 2:11 PM

Mike Sandler: Questions to Ask of New Climate Legislation

from Breaking News and Opinion on The *Huffington Post* by Mike Sandler

Penny Herscher: Your diet has more climate change impact than your car

from Breaking News and Opinion on The *Huffington Post* by Penny Herscher

Feb 2, 2009 12:29 PM

Leftist Forum Ends in Amazon; Capitalism Seen Dying

from *Common Dreams* | News & Views by andrea

Greens Are Radioactive

from The Daily Dish | By Andrew *Sullivan* by Andrew Sullivan

Pov K

Richard Chin: Slumdog Millionaire: Debate Poverty not "Poverty Porn"

from Breaking News and Opinion on The *Huffington Post* by Richard Chin

In her recent UK Times piece, Alice Miles calls Slumdog Millionaire "Poverty Porn" and yesterday guests on NPR's Talk of the Nation discussed whether these types of films exploit, distort or glorify the poorest people on the planet.

Apparently, tours of Mumbai slums are experiencing a boon since Slumdog Millionaire won eight Academy Awards -- more evidence that this film created an emotional connection between Western audiences and the characters it depicts.

AT: Green bubble DA

The Green Bubble: Why Cleantech Won't Burst Like Housing Did

Obama v Limbaugh?

Anyone else want to see this?

Windows Power Toys

I have to use XP on my school laptop, which I hate. But I just found some gadgets that allow more customization and thought I would pass it along- you can get them here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx

The one I found most useful is desktop management which will allow you to have multiple desktops like you were a person working in the 21st century. Unfortunately no cool compiz cube effects, but at least now I dont have 6,000 windows open all the time.

Anyone having other knowledge of how to make xp not suck please comment.

List of currently run Obama disads-Updates 3-2

If you know of others please add them in the comments


-stimulus- impacts steel, economy, green energy projects, highways, air force readiness
-health care good/bad
-card check
-Panama FTA
-Cuba Embargo
-China Bashing
-Iraq withdrawal- fast/slow
-Mortgage reform
-New banking bailout
-Start 3
-CTBT
-Middle East
-Law of the Sea
-Cap and Trade/Climate
-Entitlement reform
-Nanotech
-Equal pay
-Stem cells
-immigration reform
-north korea 6 party talks

OTEC

coming to SF http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/san-francisco-submits-permit-app-for-wave-power-project/

Sharing Internet

Ever stuck in a hotel room with no wireless and only one plug?

This seems like a handy low tech solution http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/25/data-copy-and-internet-connection-sharing-dongle-explains-itself/

De-dev updates

Economic decline won't cause world war
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090223.wferguson0223/BNStory/crashandrecovery/home/?pageRequested=all

Niall Ferguson: “There will be blood, in the sense that a crisis of this magnitude is bound to increase political as well as economic [conflict]. It is bound to destabilize some countries. It will cause civil wars to break out, that have been dormant. It will topple governments that were moderate and bring in governments that are extreme. These things are pretty predictable. The question is whether the general destabilization, the return of, if you like, political risk, ultimately leads to something really big in the realm of geopolitics. That seems a less certain outcome. We've already talked about why China and the United States are in an embrace they don't dare end. If Russia is looking for trouble the way Mr. Putin seems to be, I still have some doubt as to whether it can really make this trouble, because of the weakness of the Russian economy. It's hard to imagine Russia invading Ukraine without weakening its economic plight. They're desperately trying to prevent the ruble from falling off a cliff. They're spending all their reserves to prop it up. It's hardly going to help if they do another Georgia.”

“I was more struck Putin's bluster than his potential to bite, when he spoke at Davos. But he made a really good point, which I keep coming back to. In his speech, he said crises like this will encourage governments to engage in foreign policy aggression. I don't think he was talking about himself, but he might have been. It's true, one of the things historically that we see, and also when we go back to 30s, but also to the depressions 1870s and 19980s, weak regimes will often resort to a more aggressive foreign policy, to try to bolster their position. It's legitimacy that you can gain without economic disparity – playing the nationalist card. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of that in the year ahead.

It's just that I don't see it producing anything comparable with 1914 or 1939. It's kind of hard to envisage a world war. Even when most pessimistic, I struggle to see how that would work, because the U.S., for all its difficulties in the financial world, is so overwhelmingly dominant in the military world.”

What's that the kids say? PWND?

Pretty awesome little story- scientist is invited to debate a "intelligent design" proponent, writes scathing email response. I have gone back and forth over whether or not this is card worthy, in the end I think yes if for nothing other than humor value. The comments are awesome (and where I stole the title of this post) it appears some science nerds have pretty good senses of humor.

Quote-

Academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics need to have a basis in reality. I would not invite a creationist to a debate on campus for the same reason that I would not invite an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a Holocaust revisionist. These ideas have no scientific support, and that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars. Creationism is in the same category.

Instead of spending time on public debates, why aren't members of your institute publishing their ideas in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences? If you want to be taken seriously by scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish. Academic publishing is an intellectual free market, where ideas that have credible empirical support are carefully and thoroughly explored. Nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying to biology than scientific disproof of evolutionary theory or scientific proof of the existence of a god. That would be Nobel Prize winning work, and it would be eagerly published by any of the prominent mainstream journals.

"Conspiracy" is the predictable response by Ben Stein and the frustrated creationists. But conspiracy theories are a joke, because science places a high premium on intellectual honesty and on new empirical studies that overturn previously established principles. Creationism doesn't live up to these standards, so its proponents are relegated to the sidelines, publishing in books, blogs, websites, and obscure journals that don't maintain scientific standards.

NPR Intelligence squared

I recently learned of these NPR debates you can get as a podcast on itunes- search for intelligence squared. They are pretty awesome- there is a recent one about carbon limits, and a pretty badass one about hegemony entitled Should America be the World's Policeman?- In it Max Boot lays the smackdown on hegemony naysayers dubbing the US "Globo Cop".

You can also download more from the NPR website


In addition to just being interesting, these things are GREAT if you want to learn to debate well in front of lay judges at state tournaments, NFLS, CFLS, or other public oriented formats like Oxford style debates colleges often have. Listen to who gets the best crowd reactions, how they do so, and the style of arguments they make. You can see the better speakers using debate strategies like pre-empts, author indicts, and even pointing out "no offense".


EDIT- UPDATE

Here is the closest thing I could find to the Opening Boot speech in this debate for those hegemony card cutters out there:

To answer the question of why America should be the world’s policeman, start by asking yourself: Does the world need a police force? To my mind, that’s like asking whether San Francisco or New York needs a police force. I think we’d all agree that yes they do need a police force, for the very simple reason that as long as evil exits, you have to have somebody who will protect peaceful people from predators. The international system is no different in this regard from your own neighborhood, except that the predators abroad are far more dangerous than ordinary robbers, rapists, and murderers. They are, if given half a chance, mass robbers, mass rapists, and mass murderers.

There are, to be sure, many international laws on the books prohibiting genocide, land mines, biological weapons, and all sorts of other nasty things. But without enforcement mechanisms they are as meaningless as the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which outlawed war as an instrument of national policy exactly 11 years before the Wehrmacht marched into Poland. The hope of idealistic liberals for more than a century has been that some international organization would arise that would punish the wicked and protect the innocent. But the League of Nations was a dismal failure, and the U.N., as we are seeing recently, is not much better. It is hard to take seriously a body whose human rights commission is chaired by Libya, and up until a few weeks ago Iraq was going to be in charge of the disarmament commission. This sounds like a Monty Python skit, not what a serious world body should be about.

The U.N. provides a useful forum for palaver, but as an effective police force, it is a joke, as shown by its failure to stop bloodlettings in Bosnia, Rwanda, and many other places. Actually, I shouldn’t make light of it, because it’s worse than a joke. In Bosnia, the U.N. sent peacekeepers into Srebenicia, which it assured Muslim Bosnians was a safe haven. Then the blue helmets stood by as Serbs slaughtered 8,000 people in this supposed safe haven. In Bosnia the U.N. was far worse than a joke: it was an enabler of genocide. That’s the obvious reason we can have no faith that the U.N. is actually going to police the world and stop mass murderers like Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.

The best multilateral alternative is probably NATO. Unlike the U.N., NATO has the advantage of being composed exclusively of democracies that share a common heritage and presumably common interests, although the French in particular seem to have forgotten this for the time being. But even before the current controversy over Iraq, it was already obvious that the NATO alliance was too large and unwieldy to take effective military action. As Kosovo showed, targeting by committee does not work very well. And there is no sign, given French opposition to anything America does, that NATO will become any more effective any time in the foreseeable future.

The European Union is perhaps the only other serious multilateral alternative, and it’s even less potent than NATO, since it can neither field an effective military force, nor agree on a common foreign policy. We hear a lot about transatlantic disagreements these days, but the most bitter feuds are now within Europe, among different European nations. Eighteen nations of Europe have signed letters essentially backing the US and our Iraq policy, while France, Belgium, and Germany completely dissent. Europe is completely divided, and even if it weren’t, it would not have the military force required to deal with any kind of threats like North Korea and Iraq. They just don’t have the mans to take action anywhere outside their own borders; they are completely reliant upon American military protection.

So the question I have tonight is: who does that leave to be the world’s policeman, if you agree, as I do, that the world needs one. Who has to play that role. Is it going to be Belgium? Bolivia? Burkina Faso? Bangladesh? Our friends in Paris? I think the answer is pretty obvious. It’s the country with the most vibrant economy, the most fervent devotion to liberty, and the most powerful military. In the 19th century, Britain battled the enemies of all mankind, such as slave traders and pirates, and kept the world’s seas open to free trade. Today, the only nation capable of playing an equivalent role is the United States of America. We have more power than Britain did at the height of its empire. We have more power than any other nation in history in either relative or absolute terms. Don’t get me wrong: we still need allies. But as Madeleine Albright said, America is the indispensable nation.

With all that power, I firmly believe, comes responsibility. I believe we need to use our awesome power for the good of the world. Not only to roll back aggression and stop the spread of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, but also to stop the most egregious human rights abuses, such as the genocide that took place in the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda. As Theodore Roosevelt said: “A nation’s first duties are within its borders, but it is not thereby absolved from facing its duties within the world as a whole. And if it refuses to do so, it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the people that shape the destiny of mankind.

Now I should add that this global policing role that I propose is not entirely a selfless undertaking. In the 1990s, a lot of people fell prey to the illusion that globalization was an inexorable process; that no matter what, the spread of markets and freedom would take place and magically transform the world in America’s image. Tom Friedman of the New York Times even coined his famous McDonalds Theory of conflict prevention, which held that no two states with a McDonalds had ever gone to war. Now that sounded pretty good until 1999, until America and Serbia went to war. And you know what? There was a McDonalds in Serbia.

That suggests that we could no longer rely on “soft power,” in Joe Nye’s phrase, our soft power ranging from McDonalds to Madonna to advance U.S. interests around the world. The notion that we can do so is exactly the same fallacy that much of the world fell prey to before 1914, when there was an assumption that economic interconnectedness was making war obsolete. Clearly, that illusion was shattered in the mud of the Western Front in 1914. I think history shows that there is nothing inexorable about economic progress of the sort that we have all come to take for granted in the past decade and more. Without a benevolent hegemon to guarantee order, the international scene can quickly degenerate into chaos and worse. The 1930s turned out as badly as they did because Britain abdicated its international leadership role and Uncle Sam refused to pick up the mantle. The post-1945 era, by contrast, turned out as well as it did in large measure because America has been willing to underwrite the security of the global economy, which has been much to our benefit and to the benefit of the rest of the world.

Now when I suggest that America play Globo-Cop, skeptics reply that America has an isolationist past, and no desire to play world policeman. The Cold War, many suggest, was an aberration, and since the end of the Cold War America will somehow revert to its traditional isolationist traditions. In fact, if you look at the history, rumors of American isolationism are much exaggerated. Since the earliest days of the republic American traders, missionaries, and solider have penetrated to the farthest corners of the world. America even has a long record of military action abroad. In my book, The Savage Wars of Peace, I document 180 landings of U.S. Marines abroad between 1800 and 1934. Think about that: 180 landings in 134 years, more than one a year. And this at a time when most of us have been conditioned to think of America as isolationist. Far from isolationist, American soldiers, sailors, and marines were landing and fighting in all sorts of places: Sumatra in 1832, or Korea in 1871, Samoa in 1899. If you look at this pattern it does not suggest an isolationist nation. Far from it.

American intervention went up another notch, of course, in 1898. No longer were we landing forces for a few days at a time. Now the U.S. was staying longer in places like the Philippines, Cuba, and Panama, in order to shape the security environment more to our liking. In fact, in 1904 Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine...and I’m sure you will see my weakness for Teddy Roosevelt when I quote his words here. I think the Roosevelt Corollary is an important document. Roosevelt declared that “chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence that results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation. And in the western hemisphere, the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.” That’s exactly what I’m talking about tonight.

Now when Roosevelt wrote those words, the western hemisphere was the only place where America exercised military hegemony. In the rest of the world, we relied upon the Royal Navy to defend ‘civilized society.’ Today, however, America exercises almost as much power everywhere around the world as it once had only in the Caribbean. Thus, I think by Roosevelt’s logic, the U.S. is obliged to stop chronic wrongdoing for the simple reason that if we don’t , nobody else will do the job. And that is precisely what we have been doing for the past decade in places like Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and shortly in Iraq.

As part of this mission, I believe we need to undertake the dreaded task known as nation-building...or as I prefer to call it, more accurately, state formation. Winning a military victory in a place like Kosovo or Afghanistan is meaningless unless you have some way of translating short-term battlefield success into long-term political success. The only way to do that is by forming a stable state that is capable of policing the area and preventing a recurrence of terrorism, ethnic cleansing, or other human-rights violations. Therefore, it is in our own interest to foster viable states in many lawless corners of the world. This I might add is not a new mission for the U.S. It is something we have done not only in Italy, Germany, and Japan, most spectacularly, but also before that in places like the Philippines, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere. There’s a very long history of the kind of nation-building that we’re now undertaking in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

Another name for what we’re doing, by the way, is liberal imperialism. That’s not a name that is traditionally associated with U.S. policy, but it’s apt to describe our mission in many parts of the world, and it’s not a name that we should necessarily shy away from. It used to be that only leftist critics of America talked of American empire; but I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon occurring in the last few years. American empire has become respectable. It’s been featured on the cover of US News and World Report, the New York Times Magazine, the Weekly Standard, and many other publications. It’s also been endorsed, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, by such unlikely figures as David Rieff, Michael Ignatieff, and Christopher Hitchens — all well-known writers and intellectuals of the left. They understand that in a world full of murderous tyrants, the only protection that decent people can count on will come from the United States of America. They certainly can’t count on the French: they can’t deal with Ivory Coast, let alone Iraq. The only thing the French army is good for is teaching other armies to surrender properly.

Any talk of American empire and global policing inevitably brings warnings of blowback, the notion that by strongly asserting our power we will turn the rest of the world against us, and bring greater grief to our shores. This argument has some superficial plausibility, as witness, for example, the great resentment occasioned by the presence of American troops in South Korea, as we’ve seen recently. But there’s a funny phenomenon going on which I’d like to comment on, which is that while some countries want the Yankees out, many more want us in. In places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and very shortly Iraq, ordinary people clamor for American intervention, and welcome U.S. troops as liberators. Once more, very often America’s reviled by the international community for not intervening. For instance, we’ve been heavily criticized for not doing more to stop genocide in Rwanda, to bring peace to the Middle East, to unify the Korean peninsula, to stop AIDS in Africa, and on and on and on. It sometimes seems as if we can’t win: We’re attacked either for being too interventionist or too isolationist. In other words, we get blowback for acting, and blowback for not acting.

Overall, however, I think the risks of being weak are much greater than the risks of being strong. The contrast was on vivid display after 9/11. When the World Trace Center and Pentagon were attacked, there was jubilation in many parts of the world. They were literally dancing in the Arab street. By contrast, three months later, when the Taliban fell, the expected uprising in the Arab street did not occur. Our victory in Afghanistan was met with a deathly silence in the Middle East.

What this goes to show, I think, is that the world is impressed by American strength and contemptuous of American weakness. We hoped in the 1990s that by not confronting terrorists and their sponsors we might be able to appease them, to avoid incurring their wrath. But it turned out that there was nothing we could do to appease these fanatics. They hate everything we stand for: sexual, political, and intellectual freedom; democracy; female emancipation; secularism – the whole bundle of things known as modernity. They hate it, because our very existence poses a threat to the worldview of these Islamist extremists. There is nothing we can do to appease them. Instead, by trying we only convince them that we could be attacked with impunity. When it comes to our implacable enemies, we will never be loved. I hope we will at least be feared.

But can America afford to police the world? Many critics argue that we can’t. They fear that an American empire will, like many of its predecessors, fall victim to imperial overstretch. That’s the argument made famous by Paul Kennedy in his 1989 bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. But if you talk to Paul today, even he admits that America is not declining as fast as he thought it would. In fact, during the 1990s the U.S. rose while most of our competitors — Europe, Japan, and Russia — fell by the wayside. Overstretch can be a legitimate worry for any nation, but given our vast resources, we are not anywhere near the redline yet. Our defense budget is larger than that of the next 18 nations combined, but it still consumes less than 3.5 percent of our gross domestic product, down from twice that during the Cold War on a typical level.

This is hardly unsustainable: if anything, I would argue that we’re not spending enough today, given the procurement holiday we took in the 1990s. And underspending on defense is often much more dangerous than overspending. The British Empire presents Exhibit A of what I’m talking about. Why did the British Empire ultimately collapse? As Neil Ferguson argues in his new book Empire, coming out in a month or so, the British Empire collapsed not because of native revolts, which were never that severe. The Empire ultimately collapsed because the British did not spend enough on defense. In its imperial heyday, from 1870 to 1923, London spent only 3.1 percent of GDP on defense. This created a potent navy but a very weak army. Bismarck was asked what he would do if the British army landed in Germany; he famously replied that he would send a constable to arrest them. Because the British did not spend enough to deter German aggression, they became embroiled in two world wars that bled them dry. It was ultimately the cost of winning those two wars, and not the cost of imperial policing, that cost Britain its empire. In retrospect, it would have been cheaper for Britain to spend more on defense if it would have helped to avert two catastrophic conflicts. For that matter, it would have been cheaper for America to spend more on defense in the 1920s and ‘30s if it might have averted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

This is a lesson worth remembering. If we need to spend more on defense to meet all of our obligations today, and I believe that we do, this is a small cost to pay considering the alternatives. And when I say alternatives, let me be clear: What I have in mind is 9/11. During the 1990s we essentially ignored Afghanistan. Who cared what happened in that small landlocked country far away? So said our foreign policy mandarins. The ‘so what’ question was pretty definitively answered on 9/11. The answer lies in the rubble of what was once the World Trade Center. Now I know that living on the West Coast the events of 2001 can seem rather remote. But let me tell you: I used to work in a building across the street from the World Trade Center. I was down there that day: I saw what happened. I saw the walls of soot and ash; I saw the towers fall; and I saw people dying. That is not something I ever want to see again, and what I saw that day was a direct consequence of the fact that we’d allowed Afghanistan to become a breeding ground of terrorism. And I say never again. Never again must we make that same mistake and lose thousands of American lives.

Now it is in our own self-interest as well as in the interest of local people in Afghanistan that we rebuild that country; that we foster democracy there; and that we ensure that it never exports terrorism again. What was true in Afghanistan is equally true of many other states that sponsor terrorism and scheme to acquire weapons of mass destruction. North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, and other states pose a major threat to world peace and to American lives. So do terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda. If we don’t stop the bad guys, who will? If we don’t police the world, who will? The job of policing these distant lands — places full of failed states, criminal states, or simply a state of nature — ultimately falls to us, which means that whether we like it or not, liberal imperialism appears to be in our future. It’s a big task, but as Kipling warned America, “You dare not stoop to less.” Thank you.

AT: Cap Collapsing

P. J. O'Rourke the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute MA in English at Johns Hopkins University contributing editor at The Weekly Standard and is the author, most recently, of On The Wealth of Nations, Books That Changed the World Financial Times 2-10-09
The free market is dead. It was killed by the Bolshevik Revolution, fascist dirigisme, Keynesianism, the Great Depression, the second world war economic controls, the Labour party victory of 1945, Keynesianism again, the Arab oil embargo, Anthony Giddens’s “third way” and the current financial crisis. The free market has died at least 10 times in the past century. And whenever the market expires people want to know what Adam Smith would say. It is a moment of, “Hello, God, how’s my atheism going?” Adam Smith would be laughing too hard to say anything. Smith spotted the precise cause of our economic calamity not just before it happened but 232 years before – probably a record for going short. “A dwelling-house, as such, contributes nothing to the revenue of its inhabitant,” Smith said in The Wealth of Nations. “If it is lett [sic] to a tenant for rent, as the house itself can produce nothing, the tenant must always pay the rent out of some other revenue.” Therefore Smith concluded that, although a house can make money for its owner if it is rented, “the revenue of the whole body of the people can never be in the smallest degree increased by it”. [281]* Smith was familiar with rampant speculation, or “overtrading” as he politely called it. The Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea Bubble had both collapsed in 1720, three years before his birth. In 1772, while Smith was writing The Wealth of Nations, a bank run occurred in Scotland. Only three of Edinburgh’s 30 private banks survived. The reaction to the ensuing credit freeze from the Scottish overtraders sounds familiar, “The banks, they seem to have thought,” Smith said, “were in honour bound to supply the deficiency, and to provide them with all the capital which they wanted to trade with.” [308] The phenomenon of speculative excess has less to do with free markets than with high profits. “When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary,” Smith said, “overtrading becomes a general error.” [438] And rate of profit, Smith claimed, “is always highest in the countries that are going fastest to ruin”. [266] The South Sea Bubble was the result of ruinous machinations by Britain’s lord treasurer, Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, who was looking to fund the national debt. The Mississippi Scheme was started by the French regent Philippe duc d’Orléans when he gave control of the royal bank to the Scottish financier John Law, the Bernard Madoff of his day. Law’s fellow Scots – who were more inclined to market freedoms than the English, let alone the French – had already heard Law’s plan for “establishing a bank ... which he seems to have imagined might issue paper to the amount of the whole value of all the lands in the country”. The parliament of Scotland, Smith noted, “did not think proper to adopt it”. [317] One simple idea allows an over-trading folly to turn into a speculative disaster – whether it involves ocean commerce, land in Louisiana, stocks, bonds, tulip bulbs or home mortgages. The idea is that unlimited prosperity can be created by the unlimited expansion of credit. Such wild flights of borrowing can be effected only with what Smith called “the Daedalian wings of paper money”. [321] To produce enough of this paper requires either a government or something the size of a government, which modern merchant banks have become. As Smith pointed out: “The government of an exclusive company of merchants, is, perhaps, the worst of all governments.” [570] The idea that The Wealth of Nations puts forth for creating prosperity is more complex. It involves all the baffling intricacies of human liberty. Smith proposed that everyone be free – free of bondage and of political, economic and regulatory oppression (Smith’s principle of “self-interest”), free in choice of employment (Smith’s principle of “division of labour”), and free to own and exchange the products of that labour (Smith’s principle of “free trade”). “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence,” Smith told a learned society in Edinburgh (with what degree of sarcasm we can imagine), “but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice.” How then would Adam Smith fix the present mess? Sorry, but it is fixed already. The answer to a decline in the value of speculative assets is to pay less for them. Job done. We could pump the banks full of our national treasure. But Smith said: “To attempt to increase the wealth of any country, either by introducing or by detaining in it an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver, is as absurd as it would be to attempt to increase the good cheer of private families, by obliging them to keep an unnecessary number of kitchen utensils.” [440] We could send in the experts to manage our bail-out. But Smith said: “I have never known much good done by those who affect to trade for the public good.” [456] And we could nationalise our economies. But Smith said: “The state cannot be very great of which the sovereign has leisure to carry on the trade of a wine merchant or apothecary”. [818] Or chairman of General Motors.

Schwartz AT: V2L is Neg

When faced with a K making a "no value to life" claim, may affirmatives read this schwartz card (below) or some variant that basically says euthanasia/nazi doctors prove that allowing external actors determine the value of someones life is bad/promotes attrocity, only an individual can decide whether their life has value.

This evidence flows neg. Here is why:

The general assumption the aff is making is that the negative has made the argument "you do XYZ, therefore I have determined that your life has no value". I.E. they presuppose that the negs argument is doing X causally results in you having no value to your life, according to me the arbiter of value.

I do not believe this is the claim the neg is in fact making. Instead, the neg is saying that some kind of system (capitalism, biopolitics) does not see value in life, and the affirmative propogates that system. This external system is then the actor who decides life has no value, and is the external system deciding the patients life has no value, so Schwartz would indeed be criticizing that system- which is what the neg is doing, hence this evidence goes neg.

A more concrete example. Cap K. The idea that capitalism commodifies humanity and reduces us all to dollars and cents is not the neg saying "I, the 2NC, believe the affirmatives life has no value, because they endorse capitalism". It is saying the capitalist system that the aff props up is indifferent to life, and therefore it views lives as meaningless/mere commodity. So its like this

Neg- aff props up capital, capital views life as having no intrinsic meaning, that causes genocide
Aff- individuals should get to decide their own value of live
Neg- Agree- they should get to do that- capitalism prevents them from doing so- and you promote capitalism









Card in question (as an aside this is probably the weakest card to make this weak argument, its prevalence confuses me)
Those who choose to reason on this basis hope that if the quality of a life can be measured then the answer to whether that life has value to the individual can be determined easily. This raises special problems, however, because the idea of quality involves a value judgement, and value judgements are, by their essence, subject to indeterminate relative factors such as preferences and dislikes. Hence, quality of life is difficult to measure and will vary according to individual tastes, preferences and aspirations. As a result, no general rules or principles can be asserted that would simplify decisions about the value of a life based on its quality. Nevertheless, quality is still an essential criterion in making such decisions because it gives legitimacy to the possibility that rational, autonomous persons can decide for themselves that their own lives either are worth, or are no longer worth, living. To disregard this possibility would be to imply that no individuals can legitimately make such value judgements about their own lives and, if nothing else, that would be counterintuitive. 2 In our case, Katherine Lewis had spent 10 months considering her decision before concluding that her life was no longer of a tolerable quality. She put a great deal of effort into the decision and she was competent when she made it. Who would be better placed to make this judgement for her than Katherine herself? And yet, a doctor faced with her request would most likely be uncertain about whether Katherine’s choice is truly in her best interest, and feel trepidation about assisting her. We need to know which 110 Medical ethics: a case-based approach considerations can be used to protect the patient’s interests. The quality of life criterion asserts that there is a difference between the type of life and the fact of life. This is the primary difference between it and the sanctity criterion discussed on page 115. Among quality of life considerations rest three assertions: 1. there is relative value to life 2. the value of a life is determined subjectively 3. not all lives are of equal value. Relative value The first assertion, that life is of relative value, could be taken in two ways. In one sense, it could mean that the value of a given life can be placed on a scale and measured against other lives. The scale could be a social scale, for example, where the contributions or potential for contribution of individuals are measured against those of fellow citizens. Critics of quality of life criteria frequently name this as a potential slippery slope where lives would be deemed worthy of saving, or even not saving, based on the relative social value of the individual concerned. So, for example, a mother of four children who is a practising doctor could be regarded of greater value to the community than an unmarried accountant. The concern is that the potential for discrimination is too high. Because of the possibility of prejudice and injustice, supporters of the quality of life criterion reject this interpersonal construction in favour of a second, more personalized, option. According to this interpretation, the notion of relative value is relevant not between individuals but within the context of one person’s life and is measured against that person’s needs and aspirations. So Katherine would base her decision on a comparison between her life before and after her illness. The value placed on the quality of a life would be determined by the individual depending on whether he or she believes the current state to be relatively preferable to previous or future states and whether he or she can foresee controlling the circumstances that make it that way. Thus, the life of an athlete who aspires to participate in the Olympics can be changed in relative value by an accident that leaves that person a quadriplegic. The athlete might decide that the relative value of her life is diminished after the accident, because she perceives her desires and aspirations to be reduced or beyond her capacity to control. However, if she receives treatment and counselling her aspirations could change and, with the adjustment, she could learn to value her life as a quadriplegic as much or more than her previous life. This illustrates how it is possible for a person to adjust the values by which they appraise their lives. For Katherine Lewis, the decision went the opposite way and she decided that a life of incapacity and constant pain was of relatively low value to her. It is not surprising that the most vociferous protesters against permitting people in Katherine’s position to be assisted in terminating their lives are people who themselves are disabled. Organizations run by, and that represent, persons with disabilities make two assertions in this light. First, they claim that accepting that Katherine Lewis has a right to die based on her determination that her life is of relatively little value is demeaning to all disabled people, and implies that any life with a severe disability is not worth The value of life: who decides and how? 111 Write a list of three things that make your life worth living and ask someone else to do the same. Compare your lists. Are they identical? Why? Are they not identical? Why not? living. Their second assertion is that with proper help, over time Katherine would be able to transform her personal outlook and find satisfaction in her life that would increase its relative value for her. The first assertion can be addressed by clarifying that the case of Katherine Lewis must not be taken as a general rule. Deontologists, who are interested in knowing general principles and duties that can be applied across all cases would not be very satisfied with this; they would prefer to be able to look to duties that would apply in all cases. Here, a case-based, context-sensitive approach is better suited. Contextualizing would permit freedom to act within a particular context, without the implication that the decision must hold in general. So, in this case, Katherine might decide that her life is relatively valueless. In another case, for example that of actor Christopher Reeve, the decision to seek other ways of valuing this major life change led to him perceiving his life as highly valuable, even if different in value from before the accident that made him a paraplegic. This invokes the second assertion, that Katherine could change her view over time. Although we recognize this is possible in some cases, it is not clear how it applies to Katherine. Here we have a case in which a rational and competent person has had time to consider her options and has chosen to end her life of suffering beyond what she believes she can endure. Ten months is a long time and it will have given her plenty of opportunity to consult with family and professionals about the possibilities open to her in the future. Given all this, it is reasonable to assume that Katherine has made a well-reasoned decision. It might not be a decision that everyone can agree with but if her reasoning process can be called into question then at what point can we say that a decision is sound? She meets all the criteria for competence and she is aware of the consequences of her decision. It would be very difficult to determine what arguments could truly justify interfering with her choice. Subjective determination The second assertion made by supporters of the quality of life as a criterion for decisionmaking is closely related to the first, but with an added dimension. This assertion suggests that the determination of the value of the quality of a given life is a subjective determination to be made by the person experiencing that life. The important addition here is that the decision is a personal one that, ideally, ought not to be made externally by another person but internally by the individual involved. Katherine Lewis made this decision for herself based on a comparison between two stages of her life. So did James Brady. Without this element, decisions based on quality of life criteria lack salient information and the patients concerned cannot give informed consent. Patients must be given the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they think their lives are worth living or not. To ignore or overlook patients’ judgement in this matter is to violate their autonomy and their freedom to decide for themselves on the basis of relevant information about their future, and comparative consideration of their past. As the deontological position puts it so well, to do so is to violate the imperative that we must treat persons as rational and as ends in themselves. It is important to remember the subjectivity assertion in this context, so as to emphasize that the judgement made about the value of a life ought to be made only by the person concerned and not by others. Of course, this presumes that the person deciding is conscious and competent to make the decision at all, which is especially complicated in cases when the patient is unconscious, immature or suffering from a mental illness, such as depression, that could distort their decisionmaking abilities. Thus, seeking patient choice is not always a viable option. Not all patients are capable of choosing for themselves. In Janet Johnstone’s case, and in the similar case 112 Medical ethics: a case-based approach of Tony Bland, the decision was made externally, by people involved in their care. In such situations, family or practitioners have been known to make the decision on behalf of the incompetent patient, usually because they claim to know what the patient in question would have wanted. Relatives and doctors of Janet Johnstone argued that her condition lacked the dignity and control she valued, and that her situation would not improve. Under the circumstances, the judge decided the quality of her life was so diminished that her life was no longer worth living and that Ms Johnstone herself would have reached the same conclusion. The same sort of proxy decision making occurs when a woman, or couple, decide to terminate a pregnancy based on antenatal screening and testing. Here, parents make the decision on behalf of a fetus or a child. In such cases the parents must decide if, on balance, their child’s life is worth living given the possibility of pain and suffering or such inhibited interaction with the world that it would be of no value to the person living it. Needless to say, this is a difficult and trying dilemma for anyone to face. It also introduces a concern that underlies all prenatal screening programmes, in that these are supported by the social values implied by screening, which direct women towards termination of positive tested pregnancies.3 In the past, women were barred from screening and testing for similar conditions if they had previously decided that they would not terminate a pregnancy if the fetus carried the genetic condition. Hence screening was meant to be followed by testing, and positive results were meant to be followed by termination of pregnancy. The conclusion this yields, like it or not, is that our screening programmes carry with them an implication that the lives of those who are affected with certain conditions ought to be terminated because they are of comparatively less value than the lives of those who are not. This is supported in law by Wrongful Life suits in which parents of people born with screenable genetic conditions, such as spina bifida, have successfully sued doctors for the burden involved in caring for those born with such conditions.4 The problems associated with screening will be discussed elsewhere in Chapter 8 (p. 146–147). They are significant here because they elucidate the third assertion made by supporters of quality of life considerations in the medical context. Equal or unequal value? The third assertion is that, as a result of subjective and relative determinations about the quality of a life, lives can be seen to be of unequal value. At the extreme, it follows that it is possible to describe a life as valueless, especially when it is compared with the value of a life that has greater quality. In the case of the unborn fetus affected by a debilitating inherited condition, the welfare of the parents and their other children can be invested with greater value than the potential good of a potential child born with a severe disability. This allows us to make relative judgements among or between lives of individuals or groups. This is especially useful in healthcare economics, where decisions about distribution of resources rely on comparative information of the effectiveness of treatments. In this way it can be determined that resources will be made available for treatments that are more effective at improving quality of life in The value of life: who decides and how? 113 Case 24 Screening/testing for Down syndrome A 42-year-old woman presented at an antenatal clinic with her husband to discuss the results of her recent amniocentesis. In addition to Down syndrome, echocardiography of the fetus showed cardiac abnormalities, including atrioventricular septal defect. After extensive discussion between the parents and the obstetrician, the parents decided that the fetus had too many problems and that it would be unfair to the unborn child and to their other four children to continue with the pregnancy. particular conditions and not where the quality of life is not improved or so diminished that improvements are too small to justify. This point will be developed more fully in the section on quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and rationing in Chapter 9 (p. 163). Here, it is important to point to the possibility of making comparative judgements based on assessments of the quality of life and to emphasize that such judgements can be used to inform decisions about distributing and rationalizing scarce resources. As a result, there is a concern about quality of life decisions being made for others without their participation, and about decisions imposed without their consent. Both these concerns are tempered by the second assertion of the quality of life ethic. This states that value must be personally assessed by the individual concerned, and imposed externally only in extreme circumstances where patients are unable to decide on their own behalf and their wishes can be reasonably determined. An advance directive can be highly useful in the latter case. If a balance is made between both subjective determination and comparative decisions, we can avoid classifying a life as of comparatively low value where the person possessing it does not agree. Basing value of life decisions on quality of life has strong advantages. It: • Is subjective: takes seriously personal assessments made by individuals about the quality of their own lives • Is flexible: recognizes the possibility that the subjectively determined value of one’s life can change • Is comparative: recognizes that the way one life is valued need not impose the identical value on a similar life condition • Permits rational suicide: recognizes that one can legitimately assert the relatively low value of one’s own life. No one denies the importance of a good quality of life, or one that is acceptable to the person who has to live it. However, some argue that it is not the sole criterion upon which to base value of life decisions. These people include considerations of quantity and sanctity in their determination. Quantity The value of the quantity of a life should not be underestimated. In the past, so much emphasis was placed on the quality of life lived that quantity was virtually forgotten. More recently, attitudes have changed and consideration is given to the possibility that a long life of diminished quality could be as highly valued as a short life of high quality. In some senses the comparison seems absurd, unless we consider cases in which patients have refused complicated or agonising treatments that they perceived would exacerbate their suffering rather than extend their lives. Other patients prefer to extend their lives at any cost or risk to them because they value their existence so much that they will sacrifice quality in favour of quantity. This indicates that quantity ought not to be mistaken for quality and that prolonging a patient’s life might be nothing more than a burdensome and painful extension of suffering for them and their loved ones. However tempting it is for doctors to provide whatever care they are capable of providing, there is a responsibility to ensure that the treatments are actually useful to the patient and not unnecessarily burdensome. This means that a cost–benefit analysis can be usefully applied to a care management plan for an individual patient. The aim is to determine the extent to which treatment will be helpful and where the healing stops and the burden begins. Quantity might not be identical with quality but, often, increased quantity in medicine can be equal to cure or control of disease and hence does enhance quality of life. The Compression of Morbidity principle cited by Downie and Calman is useful for guiding these decisions: 114 Medical ethics: a case-based approach Compression of morbidity principle: the objective of increasing life-span should be associated at the same time with an increasing quality of life or reduction of disability.5 So, provided quality of life is maintained or enhanced, quantity is a positive factor in healthcare. There is a sense in which quality of life judgements are made in a wider context and not just as they pertain to particular patients. Health economists have long tried to determine the appropriateness of costly treatments on the basis of their burdensomeness and effectiveness. The most famous of these is a system known as QALYs. QALYs stand for quality-adjusted life-years, and are a means of making comparisons between health states. Equally concerned with quantity and quality, QALYs can be applied to a ‘relative health states’ scale. The problem is that these scales are themselves value-laden. Such issues will be covered in Chapter 9, where the idea of QALYs will be discussed as they relate to rationing and distribution of resources. They are introduced here because they show how a model for decision making can include the notions of quality and quantity discussed in this chapter. QALYs help decide which healthcare needs will be met by identifying which yield: • the greatest amount of good for • the greatest amount of time for • the greatest number of people.