As the few readers of this blog have no doubt noticed, I’ve been pretty quiet lately. But, after a wonderful Hunter Debate BBQ last night, I thought that I’d comment on the the proposed Lincoln-Douglas Debate topics that were released at the National Forensic League’s tournament this year. As usual, the wording committee has come up with a mixed bag. In almost every case they have picked interesting topic areas, but as usual there are some awkward wordings. I was talking with one of the committee members this spring and was disappointed to learn that the committee really can’t consult with anyone prior to their meeting to discuss the specific wording of topics. A more open process in which people could suggest and discuss the specific wording of topics would… Continue reading
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Resolved: That the constitutional right of freedom of religion has wrongly evolved into freedom from religion.  The NCFL Grand Public Forum topic is poorly worded: the First Amendment to the Constitution has from the start always provided people both with freedom of religion and freedom from religion. The “Free Exercise Clause” prohibits Congress from “abridging the free exercise” of religion, in other words it guarantees a right to “freedom of religion,” but the “That the United States government has a moral obligation to afford the same Constitutional rights to all people on United States soil. As the very few readers of this blog must have noticed, I haven’t been posting my thoughts on debate topics of late, primarily since the topics haven’t been all that inspiring and the Hunter team, which continues to have the misfortune of having me as their coach, hasn’t been asking many questions. However, Diana has asked a good question about the poorly worded NCFL Grant Tournament LD Topic. Diana writes: I’m trying to figure out exactly how to structure my cases but I’m a little confused on what I should be focusing the debate on. I feel like… Continue reading Resolved: Economic sanctions ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives. With electronic retrieval making it increasingly easier for debaters to find statistics the would appear to prove that contradictory propositions can both be true, it’s not surprising that Isabel is worried about her ability to convince judges that economics sanctions are generally not a particularly effective means of achieving foreign policy objectives. She writes: [I]feel like my case is too dependant on the Pape stat (that they fail 95% of the time). if [Negatives] take out that study, then it seems like that really weakens all the arguments about why sanctions might not work and might have terrible side effects, since so long as the success rate isn’t really low, its much easier to make… Continue reading Resolved: Economic sanctions ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives Isabel is continuing to struggle with the question of whether there is a moral obligation on the part of one country to trade with another. She asks: I’m still confused about how the Neg argument saying we have no obligation to trade impacts into the standard. Lets say I don’t donate to charity. I understand that you can say I didn’t violate any rights, however, the person who has no food is still having a right violated, even if it’s by their own government, rather than by me. If that’s the case, I can understand how the argument would impact into a standard of maximizing the sender country’s protection of human rights, but not simply… Continue reading |
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