Thursday, June 01, 2006
Adjourn for the day...
We are breaking for the day. We will return tomorrow at 10:00 am.
Items on the agenda are the first amendment area and the full slate of topics.
Thanks for all of the help. Please let us know what you think.
Items on the agenda are the first amendment area and the full slate of topics.
Thanks for all of the help. Please let us know what you think.
posted by Gordon Stables at 6/01/2006 08:35:00 PM
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Comments:
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Five big cases with no unifying mechanism other than "overrule" may be too large for the negative. [Especially if those cases are (justifiably) picked to force the negative into as much specificity as possible.]
I may be wrong, but the breadth of the subject matter of the cases on the "short list" gives me pause.
While treaties was a very successful topic, it was still huge. Even Northwestern, everyone's example of the "uber-borg," had no SORT cards at Georgia State.
Seeing how we haven't had a court topic in 15 years, just about every debater (and a significant number of coaches) will be venturing into wholly new libraries.
We may also have some new NDT rules that will require a season-long shift in focus that puts a premium on pre-tournament preparation by debaters.
Given all that, I'd at least like the opportunity to evaluate a smaller list.
I understand the fear that some will arbitrarily vote for the smallest topic.
I hope that the community at large is more considered and can spend the time to evaluate the educational gains of a larger list against what they think they can educationally prepare to debate over the course of the season.
--JP
I may be wrong, but the breadth of the subject matter of the cases on the "short list" gives me pause.
While treaties was a very successful topic, it was still huge. Even Northwestern, everyone's example of the "uber-borg," had no SORT cards at Georgia State.
Seeing how we haven't had a court topic in 15 years, just about every debater (and a significant number of coaches) will be venturing into wholly new libraries.
We may also have some new NDT rules that will require a season-long shift in focus that puts a premium on pre-tournament preparation by debaters.
Given all that, I'd at least like the opportunity to evaluate a smaller list.
I understand the fear that some will arbitrarily vote for the smallest topic.
I hope that the community at large is more considered and can spend the time to evaluate the educational gains of a larger list against what they think they can educationally prepare to debate over the course of the season.
--JP
# posted by 
: 12:45 AM, June 02, 2006
: 12:45 AM, June 02, 2006
I think Tim hit the nail on the head in his comment on another thread. "Overrule" leaves a lot to be desired. In many areas there really are no solvency advocates for "overruling." It's artificial. There have been over 20,000 SCOTUS cases and just over 100 have been overruled. It simply is not how legal doctrines are created or evolve. This is what I meant the other day when I said I thought the TC was making a mistake by selecting the verb totally divorced from the legal area that would ultimately be selected.
(Ryan says that provides uniqueness to the negative - maybe, but per Zive's point it provides uniqueness to crappy disads like Court legitimacy and Stare Decisis, which are rarely winners. And this comes at the expense of removing affirmatives from the literature because advocates for explicitly overruling are rare.)
The key to affirmatives is not the overrule but the law the plan creates.
In my mind, it is lazy to try to jam in the overrule mechanism to each of a diverse areas of the law. (Lindsey made a similar point, with which I agree, that "overrule" is especially artificial when dealing with recent cases).
Ryan says "core" negative ground. But the core negative ground on overrule is a) weak and b) will lead to endless counterplan debates where the negative seeks to establish the result of the affirmative plan without explicitly overruling some case (which will be very easy). These debates will avoid the legal issues about which you are striving to debate.
Finally, Steve says the community voted for "overrule." I think this is just nuts. The community voted for COURTS (a legal topic with the Court as an agent), not some artificial verb that divorces the topic from the literature.
My apologies for the late weigh in, but it was only after reading the many thoughtful posts from others this morning that my thoughts reached some semblance of clarity regarding the unease I expressed the other day.
Good luck.
(If anyone read this, and thinks it might generate more discussion if it was a post rather than a comment, please post it on the body of the blog).
(Ryan says that provides uniqueness to the negative - maybe, but per Zive's point it provides uniqueness to crappy disads like Court legitimacy and Stare Decisis, which are rarely winners. And this comes at the expense of removing affirmatives from the literature because advocates for explicitly overruling are rare.)
The key to affirmatives is not the overrule but the law the plan creates.
In my mind, it is lazy to try to jam in the overrule mechanism to each of a diverse areas of the law. (Lindsey made a similar point, with which I agree, that "overrule" is especially artificial when dealing with recent cases).
Ryan says "core" negative ground. But the core negative ground on overrule is a) weak and b) will lead to endless counterplan debates where the negative seeks to establish the result of the affirmative plan without explicitly overruling some case (which will be very easy). These debates will avoid the legal issues about which you are striving to debate.
Finally, Steve says the community voted for "overrule." I think this is just nuts. The community voted for COURTS (a legal topic with the Court as an agent), not some artificial verb that divorces the topic from the literature.
My apologies for the late weigh in, but it was only after reading the many thoughtful posts from others this morning that my thoughts reached some semblance of clarity regarding the unease I expressed the other day.
Good luck.
(If anyone read this, and thinks it might generate more discussion if it was a post rather than a comment, please post it on the body of the blog).
Oh, and it is true that there are lots of advocates for "overruling" Roe. It is also arguably the most controversial case the Court has ever decided (and for which there is a certain degree of consensus that as a matter of constitutional law it was poorly reasoned). Roe is the exception. I think it is our collective experience with the Privacy topic that lead people to think overrule was viable.
In most areas of the law other than Roe, those that advocate for change in the Court's doctrine rarely do so by claiming that a decision should be explicitly overruled.
When you remove the topic from the literature base you also remove limits (as Zive pointed out).
And as a negative I would be licking my chops at the thought that the topic will require the aff to overrule when advocates are rare because it means a counterplan to accomplish the legal change sought by the affirmative without explicitly overruling a prior decision is going to solve 100% of the case. Then the crappy overrule disads can win the day because the neg will only need a whisper of a risk of the court legitimacy/stare decisis disadvantage.
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In most areas of the law other than Roe, those that advocate for change in the Court's doctrine rarely do so by claiming that a decision should be explicitly overruled.
When you remove the topic from the literature base you also remove limits (as Zive pointed out).
And as a negative I would be licking my chops at the thought that the topic will require the aff to overrule when advocates are rare because it means a counterplan to accomplish the legal change sought by the affirmative without explicitly overruling a prior decision is going to solve 100% of the case. Then the crappy overrule disads can win the day because the neg will only need a whisper of a risk of the court legitimacy/stare decisis disadvantage.
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