Final List of Proposed Resolutions
Final Balllot of Resolutions
#1
Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should
increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of: Afghanistan,
Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should include
offering them a security guarantee(s) and/or a substantial increase in foreign
assistance.
#2
Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should
increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of:
Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should
consist only of offering them a trilateral security guarantee(s) with Israel,
and/or a bilateral security guarantee(s), and/or a substantial increase in
foreign assistance.
#3
Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should
increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of:
Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, and
Syria, and it should consist only of offering them a trilateral security
guarantee(s) with Israel and/or a bilateral
security guarantee(s).
#4
Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should
increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of:
Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should
include offering them a trilateral security guarantee(s) with Israel, and/or a
bilateral security guarantee(s), and/or a substantial increase in foreign
assistance.
Two questions.
1) Does "include" require the affirmative to do more than a security guarentee / foreign assistance (see my post in End of Day 2 assignments)? This "choice" thing doesn't seem to be supported by dictionary definitions.
2) Dual readings for #1 & #4: after trying to diagram the second independent clause, it occured to me that it could mean "should consist of / include foreign assistance", not necessarily "should consist of / include offering them foreign assistance" as "offering them" could be read to either applying to the first direct object (security guarentee) only, or both (security guarentee and/or foreign assistance).
Now how does this pan out? Given that US Code says "'foreign assistance' means any ... item provided ... to a foreign country or international organization", the second part could be gramatically read to allow FA to other countries or int orgs within a country. Especially since "include" means "in addition to".
There are serious grammatical problems with a number of these. Also, thanks to whoever made sure the domestic topic was limited to 4 cases, while ensuring that the nebulous phrasing of the big-stick policy topic would allow almost any Policy affirmative you could dream of. Thanks.
These topics are just weird. The wording makes the whole concept more confusing, not less. P.S. why are we trying to limit the aff's when the aff win rate is down? I guess we like a world where all we do is negate.
This is looking to be the worst resolution ever crafted.
While I appreciate the work put into crafting these possible resolutions, they are all terribly confusing, grammatically impossible, and contain far too many parts. Why don't we go for something simpler?
Seriously, people, I DO NOT want to listen to grammar debates all year.
Hi Anonymous, Confused and Andrea:
Seriously, we spent an evening and half a day just covering the grammatical structure of these resolutions with Chairs of Departments of English and book editors to ensure that the grammar of these resolutions are correct. Watch the webcast of the last day of the committee meeting to see--ever grammar choice was intentionally made to HELP the affirmative, not screw them on topicality. OUR SOLE PURPOSE was that you did have to listen to bad grammar Ts all year. Of course, we also agreed that if teams could not answer some of the more idiotic grammar arguments, then that was a problem that we could not fix.
Someone said:
There are serious grammatical problems with a number of these. Also, thanks to whoever made sure the domestic topic was limited to 4 cases, while ensuring that the nebulous phrasing of the big-stick policy topic would allow almost any Policy affirmative you could dream of. Thanks.
WTF? You really thought a ME topic could be domestic in some way? We actually had a lengthy discussion on Day 2 and 3 that we thought that a couple of the resolutions were way too small. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by either "domestic" or "allow almost anything possible." Nebulous claims are equally hard to respond to.
I'm sorry, but there is NO way this year is not going to be taken over by ridiculous T/procedural debates. Could there possibly be more "and/or" statements involved?
Someone said:
This is looking to be the worst resolution ever crafted.
I say: wow, the first lesson of debate is that a claim is rather useless without a warrant. I would suggest looking back to history to the EU topic, China topic etc for some of the worst topics ever. Yes, the wording is a bit awkward, but they are awkward solely to give the aff a fighting chance. Offer a reason why this is the worse topic ever and maybe someone could offer a response.
Someone said:
I'm sorry, but there is NO way this year is not going to be taken over by ridiculous T/procedural debates. Could there possibly be more "and/or" statements involved?
Oh I suppose the committee could have included another 10-20 And/Or phrasings. Did you have a better solution to ensure that the aff did not have to defend giving sec guarantees to EVERY nation or defend both sec guarantees AND foreign assistance on some of the topics? What is worse: some awkward wording or screwing the aff from the beginning of the year on non-solvency. Perhaps last year was a good lesson that some different wording structure is better for the aff. SHOCKINGLY, if you compare the lit to the wording, it is very good for the affirmative. If you cant beat stupid procedural arguments, that is an entirely different problem.
Seriously, there were 15-17 topic committee reports released on issues of wording and grammar. What in the hell was the big surprise at the end? The committee even posted the research questions and problems they were facing each day yet I saw none of you posting complaints on any of those days.
"it should consist only of offering them a trilateral security guarantee"
I get that the topic committee is trying to avoid multi-actor fiat (or, at least, that's the only justification I can come up with for this wording), but this seems to open up "[Nation] won't accept the agreement" arguments. The entire point of fiat is that we can assume plan passes and then debate about the merits of that.
With this wording, it would be possible for aff's to lose on - effectively - "Plan won't pass." Or if not lose the round, lose almost all solvency so they can't weigh case.
I think it certainly does open up the ground to X won't accept - but don't see why thats a problem. The heart of the controversy is whether a nice "CE" approach will work - fiating that the countries accept the security guarantee cuts out that debate - leaving very very little to debate, and very aff biased ground - you really want to debate that Iran accepting a U.S. security guarantee is bad?
Also if you're really worried that the X will say no arg is so strong you could also build advantages off of U.S. soft power/relations with Europe increasing - when the U.S. is seen to take a more reasonable approach; e.g. if Iran says no to a generous offer from the U.S. then EU/China/Russia will help isolate it.
Doesn't seem like a problem to me.
Scott-
This is solved by people only running affs where they have solvency evidence that "country X" will accept trilateral security guarantees. No smart aff would write a case without solvency...
Scott- wrote:
"No smart aff would write a case without solvency..."
Most aff's will have solvency it's a matter of how believable it is. If an aff intended make a security agreement with Iran or Afghanistan in the current political climate it will be extremely easy for the neg to take out the solvency. The resolution opens up affs to solvency deficits, take outs and the most crucial solvency turns
Islamic fundamentalism easily raises the paradox in any solvency to constructive engagement. reality already is dead bodies in streets of Bagdad. the wooly mammoth of attitudinal inherency sticks its tusk into this line
Lindsey
why not just:
Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of: Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria.
?
I agree with Lindsey.
Its not rocket science!
These are ugly at first sight, gramattically ($) correct or not.
"The resolution opens up affs to solvency deficits, take outs and the most crucial solvency turns"
DAMN YOU TOPIC COMMITTEE, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!! How DARE you write a topic that allows for rich case debate!?!?!? I demand shitty politics stories and CPs as the only options for the neg....
"How DARE you write a topic that allows for rich case debate!?!?!? I demand shitty politics stories and CPs as the only options for the neg"
Your definition of rich case debate is aff fiating its solvency and those ever prevalent forever repetitive fiat abuse stories versus "enriching the quality of Debate" bottom line the debate will center around ridiculous framework and theory arguments so kiss your solvency T/o evidence goodbye.
I dont think the resolutions are complicated. To me, its like an ice cream sundae. You choose the ice cream, which is the country/area (Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, etc.). Then you choose the toppings, which includes the "offers" (foreign assistance, trilateral security guarantee with Israel, etc.). Naturally, your plan can have more than one scoop of ice cream and more than one topping.
Assuming you only choose one country and one "offer," you get 10 plans for #1, 15 plans for #2, 14 plans for #3, and 15 plans for #4.
The "should include" and "consist only of" phrases seem to expand the topic area for the aff in the former while limiting in the latter.
I'm going to have to agree with this post. I think the first resolution may be "wordy" at the first sight, but it does make a certain amount of sense and does provide for decent limits on the topic.
And quite frankly, I doubt that all debates are going to wind down to "and/or" T args. This isn't bad high school debate and I'm pretty sure it's not going to be very hard for a reasonably topical affirmative to win that arg.
Does not concern the topic comittee that 79% of those who have seen this proposition dislike it.
I do not believe these topics will help with the current discontent. They seem unnecessarily wordy, really complex and confusing at first observation. Sorry that this is the only first impression I can offer. I greatly respect and recognize how much work must have gone into: providing this forum; revising and re-revising the list of topics, engaging/enduring the onslaught of agreement and disagreement, etc.
I truly appreciate the efforts and the task of the Topic Committee. Thank you for your service. I respectfully ask that greater weight might be placed on the idea of bi-annually alternating policy and non-policy resolutions. This reflects back on the history of high participation in CEDA during the mid 1980's. Please place this thought into consideration for next year's topic discussion. If nothing else it might increase the number of community colleges that compete in NDT/CEDA (i.e. regional membership growth--Florida has 28 community colleges--few, if any will debate these topics this year).
Sincerely,
Marna Weston
Santa Fe Community College
CEDA Octo Finalist, 1988
West Point Best Speaker, 1991
I have been away from college debate for a long, long time (the last topic I debated was "Resolved that Woolly Mammoths should lose their hair" when we lost a split decision to some Cro-Magnons in the semis) but my name stil does appear on the NDT page. I was curious about the new wave of college debate and just hapened upon this topic discussion.
Putting aside debate jargon, these ME topics are a HUGE problem for two reasons: First the named ME countries, aside from Israel, are so unstable and fluid that the Egypt or Iran or Palestine of one moment which may be amenable to constructive engagement could already be shifting toward another form of political philosophy entirely inappropriate to any interaction (i.e., Resolved that the today's weather should be changed??). A good example was in the recent U-Tube Democratic debate where Clinton (echoed by Edwards and Biden)refused to commit to any interaction with the ME's rogue states for the first year of her presidency. Another example, current Afghanistan is only being held together with our occupational army with the Taliban waiting in the wings. This is a huge problem for debate research because the evidence of internal political momentum in one direction or another is either unavailable due to these being closed, managed governments or intelligence and classified. Even the well intentioned, meticulously written Controversy Paper that gave rise to these topics on March 1, 2007 was fatally outdated within 30 days of its publication. In the ME, intra-state political estimates have only historical interest unless they are real-time and political projections are mostly pure speculation colored by pre-existing political prejudice.
Second, the fundamental problems in most of the selected countries are religious/cultural/ethnic in origin. Does anyone expect US "constructive engagement" in any form to resolve the Shia/Sunni, Islam/Judaism, Christian/Islam, Hammas/Hezbollah, Secular/Religious disputes that are the root cause of ME upheaval? These topics only make sense if you adopt the same hubris that caused Washington
neo-conservatives to believe that the application of US military force and financial largesse would win over the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq.
At least back in the Dark Ages of college debate, annual debate topics were simply a platform to exhibit research, argumentation and speaking skills. In that context, the domestic areas of health care, retirement, poverty, illegal drugs, housing, taxes, domestic security/surveillance, immigration and/or unilateral foreign policy issues (i.e., unilateral interstate intervention) offered sufficient fertile soil for discussion and debate. Walking into the quicksand of internal ME politics creates a situation where "should" must be interpreted as "somewhere within the realm of human immagination," not necessarily "would."
Thank you for your time and consideration, but I have to run. I'm filming a GEICO commercial later today.