Tournament: St Marks | Round: 6 | Opponent: Montgomery RM | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo
Link:
Your attempt to prioritize forms of oppression is problematic since it kills any meaningful resistance to oppression.
McDonald and Coleman 99
Peter McDonald and Mikki Coleman, Deconstructing hierarchies of oppression and adopting a 'multiple model' approach to anti-oppressive practice. Social Work Education serial online. March 1999;18(1):19.
“By definition, the privileged group within a hierarchy tends to have the maximum access to necessary commodities, as well as political power and social status. Those at the lower levels of the pyramid must either conform to the rules and desires of those at the highest point, in exchange for a given share of the society's resources; or else those at the lower levels must engage in a constant struggle with those at the very base of the pyramid for whatever resources are left in society after the privileged group have taken the majority share. In fact, it is in the interests of those at the top of the hierarchy to allow (or actively to encourage) a certain amount of social conflict between those at the lower levels, and those at the base. While the mass of people below can be encouraged to fight amongst themselves, rather than uniting for a common cause, the privileged group can more easily maintain their position at the top of the hierarchy, as Freire asserted under a heading specifically entitled 'Divide and Rule': This is another fundamental dimension of the theory of oppressive action which is as old as oppression itself. As the oppressor minority subordinates and dominates the majority, it must divide it and keep it divided in order to remain in power. The minority cannot permit itself the luxury of tolerating the unification of the people, which would undoubtedly signify a serious threat to their own hegemony. Accordingly, the oppressors halt by any means (including violence) any action which in even incipient fashion could awaken the oppressed to the need for unity. Concepts such as unity, organization and struggle arc immediately labelled as dangerous. In fact, of course, these concepts are dangerous—to the oppressors—for their realization is necessary to actions of liberation. It is in the interest of the oppressor to weaken the oppressed still further, to isolate them, to create and deepen rifts among them. This is done by varied means, from the repressive methods of the government bureaucracy, to the forms of cultural action with which they manipulate the people by giving them the impression that they arc being helped. (Freire, 1996, p. 122)”

Turns Case:
This turns your role of the ballot since the means of ranking oppression only leads oppressed groups to oppress other groups, allowing the elites to go unchecked.
McDonald and Coleman 99
Peter McDonald and Mikki Coleman, Deconstructing hierarchies of oppression and adopting a 'multiple model' approach to anti-oppressive practice. Social Work Education serial online. March 1999;18(1):19.
“The competition between the members of oppressed groups for what they might perceive as a strictly limited supply of essential resources has some particularly unpleasant and dangerous side-effects. Groups which have suffered long histories of oppression can in turn use whatever power or influence they may have to discriminate against members of other oppressed social groups, believing their own concerns to be most important. Alternatively, people who have been oppressed might, consciously or unconsciously, absorb the values and beliefs of their oppressors. This may lead to 'internalised oppression', whereby members of oppressed groups may come to believe that the stereotypes, misinformation or propaganda being spread about their group are true (or partly true), so that they may develop low self-esteem, or they may behave in ways that are essentially consistent with their social stereotypes. Members of oppressed groups might even compete with other oppressed groups over which of them is most oppressed and which of them is least oppressed, creating yet another hierarchy while fighting for the moral high ground. Members of one oppressed group may have attitudes or behave in ways which oppress members of other groups: ... When you're on the bottom of a pile of oppressed peoples, a community will look for a scapegoat, usually a minority to oppress; this somehow makes the oppressed feel better, boosting the ego. That community will also join with other communities to oppress with more force. This will cross race, gender, class and ability. Black will join with white, able-bodied with disabled, men with women to oppress those who they feel are different or feel threatened by. (Quartcy, 1994).”

Alt:
Your ranking of oppression only retrenches the mindset of the oppressor meaning that your method to resisting oppression is flawed and turns your case—thus the alt is recognizing all forms as being equally bad can truly create a meaningful resistance to oppression. To clarify, my argument is not all forms of oppression are the same, rather it is that when you try rank oppression, it shatters resistance to oppression and keeps the oppressors in power.
McDonald and Coleman 99
Peter McDonald and Mikki Coleman, Deconstructing hierarchies of oppression and adopting a 'multiple model' approach to anti-oppressive practice. Social Work Education serial online. March 1999;18(1):19.
“Having deconstructed 'hierarchies of oppression' and established that any credence given to their acceptability can only be a destructive force, it follows therefore that their inverse, 'hierarchies of oppressive experiences', i.e. 'my oppression is worse/more important than your oppression', can only be similarly counter-productive to anti-oppressive practices and goals, and that therefore: ... there should be no perceived hierarchy of oppressive experiences but a recognition of the cumulative effect of racism, sexism and disablist practices ... (Stuart, 1992). As different forms of oppression are not lived out separately or in a hierarchical structure. (Begum, 1994, pp. 17-18) Richie suggests that giving credence to a 'hierarchy of oppressions' can only 'lead people to dangerous places' (Richie, I996a). If it can be argued that if all forms of oppression arc dehumanising and therefore unacceptable, it then becomes as meaningless to speculate who is either more oppressed or less oppressed, as it would be to give consideration to concepts of being 'a bit pregnant' or 'very dead'. Any speculation of 'how much?’ in relation to another individual or group, becomes a fatuous notion in all instances. People are either pregnant or not, dead or not dead, oppressed or not oppressed, and it is oppression itself in all its forms that must be challenged. Thus, ultimately, any theoretical framework which reifies the acceptability of a hierarchy, whereby one form of oppression is deemed more acceptable, or less unacceptable, than another form, can be said to collude with supremacist thinking which seeks to rationalise dominance and marginalisation of one oppressed group in relation to another.”

Tournament: TFA State | Round: Octas | Opponent: Cypress Woods LC | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo, Demarcus Powell, Blake Andrews
IPV is not a gender issue- painting it in terms of patriarchy only diminishes survivors in existing heterosexual male survivors. Hess 14
http://www.fighting4fair.com/uncategorized/domestic-violence-one-sided-media-coverage-and-bogus-statistics/
Domestic violence (DV), also referred to as Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) or Family Violence, is a shocking blight on the community. This is a scourge that inflicts substantial negative impacts on the lives of countless people men, womin and children. Whilst definitions have evolved and broadened, DV is loosely defined as “physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse“. It is important to acknowledge that DVIPV encompasses man on man, womin on womin, man on woman, and woman on man violence (both cis- and transgender). Further, in many instances violence is perpetrated by both partners as shown in the accompanying diagram. There is also a strong nexus between the incidence of child abuse/neglect and subsequent perpetration of domestic violence by affected individuals upon reaching adulthood. The Wikipedia entry for ‘Epidemiology of domestic violence‘ provides readers with useful background information on this topic. For those willing to read something a little meatier, I would recommend this paper by esteemed DV researcher Malcolm George. Malcolm walks the reader through the historical context to the current debate about gender differences in violent behaviour and the way that society responds to the issue. Many of those working within the DV sector, particularly here in Australia, only choose to acknowledge one element of the problem – that part involving male perpetrators and female survivors victim survivors. It is no coincidence that most staff within these government agencies, universities and NGO’s are strongly influenced by, and biased towards, feminist ideology. The feminist position is unequivocal, and it is that domestic violence = men’s violence towards womin. Here isan example of that mindset, and here are many others. This routine failure by feminists to recognize and discuss male victim survivors, female perpetrators and bi-directional violence is no accident or coincidence. It is a deliberate strategy to build their brand, and in so doing demonize the overwhelming majority of men who have never, and would never, hurt or abuse their partner. As a result, and in order to support the feminist narrative, a great deal of ‘cherry-picking’ and misrepresentation occurs in relation to the statistics provided in DV literature. In addition, the design and implementation of survey instruments is too often tainted with bias. This issue, that of feminist efforts to hide or discredit legitimate research and/or generate false or misleading statistics, is explored inthis further blog post.

Best studies prove- men make up almost 40 of IPV survivors. NCADV http://www.ncadv.org/learn/statistics
On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million womin and men.1 1 in 3 womin and 1 in 4 men have been victim survivors of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime.1 1 in 5 womin and 1 in 7 men have been victim survivors of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.1 1 in 7 womin and 1 in 18 men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime to the point in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.1 On a typical day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide.9 The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500.10 Intimate partner violence accounts for 15 of all violent crime.2 womin between the ages of 18-24 are most commonly abused by an intimate partner.2 19 of domestic violence involves a weapon.2 Domestic victim survivorization is correlated with a higher rate of depression and suicidal behavior.2 Only 34 of people who are injured by intimate partners receive medical care for their injuries.2 RAPE 1 in 5 womin and 1 in 71 men in the United States has been raped in their lifetime.1 Almost half of female (46.7) and male (44.9) victim survivors of rape in the United States were raped by an acquaintance. Of these, 45.4 of female rape victim survivors and 29 of male rape victim survivors were raped by an intimate partner.11 STALKING 19.3 million womin and 5.1 million men in the United States have been stalked in their lifetime.1 60.8 of female stalking victim survivors and 43.5 men reported being stalked by a current or former intimate partner.11
Links: You definitely link your plan text explicitly say womxn, which means that you are excluding men from the discussion.
And, saying that you intend to investigate perpetrators of men is not enough. Your entire framing construes this as a gender specific issue. By using IPV to exemplify any sort of oppression towards womxn, you automatically paint violence against womxn as more important than the opposite.
This toxic mindset throughout the government directly harms battered men and robs them of necessary support. SAVE 10
http://www.saveservices.org/pdf/SAVE-VAWA-Discriminates-Against-Males.pdf
Not surprisingly, the actions detailed above eventually bias the provision of shelter services, outreach, and other services at the local level, which is documented below. Shelters An estimated 1,200 abuse shelters are currently in operation in the United States. It’s well-known that most of these shelters routinely turn away male DV IPV victim survivors, or provide them a substantially lower level of service. One former shelter director revealed, “The shelter did not provide services to male victim survivors of domestic violence, even when the men had suffered physical abuse similar to what womin had experienced. Instead the men were referred to a local police station to 6 SAVE: STOP ABUSIVE AND VIOLENT ENVIRONMENTS request a restraining order.”30 Some shelters only provide men a voucher for them to stay at a local motel or informally restrict their services to homosexual males. Psychologist David Fontes noted that when he advised male victim survivors to call local domestic violence programs for help, his clients found that “either the shelters and centers never returned their calls, or they were told by the workers that they really don’t have the services for male victim survivors of domestic violence.” In those cases when men in desperate straits showed up at their door for help, Fontes noted that “some of the men felt they were treated at these shelters and centers more with suspect than respect.”31 Ironically, not only do shelters discriminate against male victim survivors, they also treat female batterers as victim survivors. In one case a female abuser called wanted to get help with her anger management problem, but the local domestic violence center “tried to convince her that she was a victim survivor and not a perpetrator.”32 In a more curious case: A woman was arrested and ordered out of the house following her assault against her husband. She was referred to a shelter. Her attorney provided the shelter counselor with a detailed account of what had transpired: “Mrs. C. grabbed Mr. C. by his necktie (and) he pushed her away. Mrs. C. then punched his face and her fingernail cut his neck.” And how did the shelter workers assess the situation in its records? “Physical abuse” of the woman by her husband.33
This toxic mindset throughout the government directly harms battered men and robs them of necessary support. Palmatier 13
October 1, 2013 By Dr. Tara J. Palmatier http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/activism/domestic-violence-awareness-month-the-invisible-victim survivors/
October is domestic violence awareness month. In the true spirit of raising public awareness, Shrink4Men,AVoiceForMen and DAHMW (the Domestic Abuse Hotline for Men and womin) would like to shine a spotlight on a group of individuals who comprise approximately half the victim survivors of domestic violence. A group who is afforded very few resources and are typically ignored and/or ridiculed when they speak out about their victimization — often by the very individuals seeking to raise public awareness about the insidious social malady of domestic violence. Who is this invisible and marginalized group of domestic violence victim survivors pushed to the periphery of public awareness? Men. Men are turned away from most domestic violence shelters. Men do not meet eligibility to receive aid from most domestic violence support organizations by virtue of being men, which is nothing short of overt discrimination, sexism and bigotry. To the best of our knowledge, there are no court advocacy programs for male victim survivors of domestic violence. Men (and their children) are not eligible for state and federal stipends for safe housing from their female abusers. There are no free or subsidized counseling programs nor are there free legal services/legal aid for male victim survivors of domestic violence. In the United States, there is only one shelter for male victim survivors of domestic violence (the Valley Oasis Shelter in Antelope, CA) out of the approximately 1,800 shelters available to womin and their children nationwide. Canada also used to have a domestic violence shelter for men that was run by the late Earl Silverman. Mr. Silverman committed suicide this past spring after succumbing to a state of learned helplessness and hopelessness after years of begging for funding and assistance for his much needed shelter. Essentially, Canadian womin domestic violence organizations locked arms and blocked Mr. Silverman from the funding trough. The same thing happens to organizations like DAHMW in the United States. The repeated message to organizations that want to help male domestic violence victim survivors seems to be, “Be grateful for the few scraps of government funding that drop from the table and if you complain about the disparity, you won’t even get that.” The reality is that most governments are willfully blind to and/or profit from the suffering and victimization of their male citizens.
The alt is to embrace a gender inclusive approach to dealing with IPV survivors as well as redistribute funding and support efforts to any and all victim survivors. I won’t defend a floating pic.
Reps first—they precede policy—they don’t get to weigh the case—we’re a prereq.
Neta Crawford 02,PhD MA MIT, BA Brown, Prof. of poli sci at boston univ.   Argument and Change in World Politics, 2002 p. 19-21
Coherent arguments are unlikely to take place unless and until actors, at least on some level, agree on what they are arguing about. The at least temporary resolution of meta-arguments- regarding the nature of the good (the content of prescriptive norms); what is out there, the way we know the world, how we decide between competing beliefs (ontology and epistemology); and the nature of the situation at hand( the proper frame or representation)- must occur before specific arguments that could lead to decision and action may take place. Meta-arguments over epistemology and ontology, relatively rare, occur in instances where there is a fundamental clash between belief systems and not simply a debate within a belief system. Such arguments over the nature of the world and how we come to know it are particularly rare in politics though they are more frequent in religion and science. Meta-arguments over the “good” are contests over what it is good and right to do, and even how we know the good and the right. They are about the nature of the good, specifically, defining the qualities of “good” so that we know good when we see it and do it. Ethical arguments are about how to do good in a particular situation. More common are meta-arguments over representations or frames- about how we out to understand a particular situation. Sometimes actors agree on how they see a situation. More often there are different possible interpretations. Thomas Homer-Dixon and Roger karapin suggest, “Argument and debate occur when people try to gain acceptance for their interpretation of the world”. For example, “is the war defensive or aggressive?”. Defining and controlling representations and images, or the frame, affects whether one thinks there is an issue at stake and whether a particular argument applies to the case. An actor fighting a defensive war is within international law; an aggressor may legitimately be subject to sanctions. Framing and reframing involve mimesis or putting forward representations of what is going on. In mimetic meta-arguments, actors who are struggling to characterize or frame the situation accomplish their ends by drawing vivid pictures of the “reality” through exaggeration, analogy, or differentiation. Representations of a situation do not re-produce accurately so much as they creatively re-present situations in a way that makes sense. “mimesis is a metaphoric or ‘iconic argumentation of the real.’ Imitating not the effectivity of events but their logical structure and meaning.” Certain features are emphasized and others de-emphasized or completely ignored as their situation is recharacterized or reframed. Representation thus becomes a “constraint on reasoning in that it limits understanding to a specific organization of conceptual knowledge.” The dominant representation delimits which arguments will be considered legitimate, framing how actors see possibities. As Roxanne Doty argues, “the possibility of practices presupposes the ability of an agent to imagine certain courses of action. Certain background meanings, kinds of social actors and relationships, must already be in place.” If, as Donald Sylvan and Stuart Thorson argue, “politics involves the selective privileging of representations, “it may not matter whether one representation or another is true or not. Emphasizing whether frames articulate accurate or inaccurate perceptions misses the rhetorical import of representation- how frames affect what is seen or not seen, and subsequent choices. Meta-arguments over representation are thus crucial elements of political argument because an actor’s arguments about what to do will be more persuasive if their characterization or framing of the situation holds sway. But, as Rodger Payne suggests, “No frame is an omnipotent persuasive tool that can be decisively wielded by norm entrepreneurs without serious political wrangling.” Hence framing is a meta-argument.
And prefer prefiat impacts that examine the underlying assumptions behind our discourse as opposed to post-fiat impacts because fiat is illusory. The judge signing the ballot doesn’t actually have effects in the real world whereas you can have actual impacts on how we view the world.

Tournament: UH Cougar Classic | Round: 1 | Opponent: Kempner AB | Judge: Neel Yerneni
A) “Critical forms of education” force the judge into the role of coercer and defeats the purpose of critical pedagogy- outweighs their impact because its masked violence. Rickert 01
Rickert (Thomas, “"Hands Up, You're Free": Composition in a Post-Oedipal World”, JacOnline Journal,)
“An example of the connection between violence and pedagogy is implicit in the notion of being "schooled" as it has been conceptualized by Giroux and Peter Mcl.aren. They explain, "Fundamental to the principles that inform critical pedagogy is the conviction that here schooling for self- and social empowerment is ethically prior to questions of epistemology or to a mastery of technical or social skills that are primarily tied to the logic of the marketplace" (153-54). A presumption here is that it is the teacher who knows best, and this orientation gives the concept of schooling a particular bite: though it presents itself as oppositional to the state and the dominant forms of pedagogy that serve the state and its capitalist interests, it nevertheless reinscribes an authoritarian model that is congruent with any number of oedipalizing pedagogies that "school" the student in proper behavior. As Diane Davis notes, radical, feminist, and liberatory pedagogies "often it camouflage pedagogical violence in their move from one mode of 'normalization' to another" and "function within a disciplinary matrix of power, a covert carceral system, that with aims to of creatinge useful subjects for particular political agendas" (212). Such oedipalizing pedagogies are less effective in practice than what the claims for them assert; indeed, the attempt to "school" students in the manner called for by Giroux and McLaren is complicitous with the malaise of postmodern cynicism. Students will dutifully go through their liberatory motions, producing the proper assignments, but it remains an open question whether they carry an oppositional politics with them. The "critical distance" supposedly created with liberatory pedagogy also opens up a cynical distance toward the writing produced in class.”

B) They cause more social injustice by creating a cookie cutter model for every debate student. Their logic is infinitely regressive- they say X is bad because X is X. My alternative is opening curriculum to rhetoric of power AND rhetoric of contestation- rhetoric where questioning the very validity of morality is accepted - controls the internal link into an equal pedagogy. Rickert 2
(Thomas, “"Hands Up, You're Free": Composition in a Post-Oedipal World”, JacOnline Journal,)
“This essay will employ Deleuze's and Zizek's theories to illustrate the limitations of writing pedagogies that rely on modernist strategies of critical distance or political agency. Implicit in such pedagogies is the faith that teaching writing can resist dominant social practices and empower students; however, the notion that we can actually foster resistance through teaching is questionable. As Paul Mann states, "all the forms of opposition have long since revealed themselves as means of advancing it. ... The mere fact that something feels like resistance and still manages to offend a few people (usually not even the right people) hardly makes it effective" (138). In light of Mann's statement, I urge us to take the following position: teaching writing is fully complicitous with dominant social practices, and inducing students to write in accordance with institutional precepts can be as disabling as it is enabling. By disabling, I do not mean that learning certain skills-typically those most associated with current-traditional rhetorics, such as superficial forms of grammatical correctness, basic organization, syntactic clarity, and such-are not useful. Such skills are useful, and they are often those most necessary for tapping the power that writing can wield. In learning such skills, however, we should also ask what students aren’t are not learning. What other forms of writing and thinking are being foreclosed or distorted, forms of writing that have their own, different powers? If one of our goals as teachers of writing is to initiate students into rhetorics of power and resistance, we should also be equally attuned to rhetorics of contestation. Specifically, we must take on the responsibility that comes with the impossibility of knowing the areas of contention and struggle that will be the most important in our students' lives. Pedagogy could reflect this concern in its practices by attending to the idea that each student's life is its own telos, meaning that the individual struggles of each student cannot and should not necessarily mirror our own. Or, to put it another way, students must sooner or later overcome us, even though we may legitimate our sense of service with the idea that we have their best interests in mind. However, we should be suspicious of this presumptive ethic, for, as Mann astutely observes, "nothing is more aggressive than the desire to serve the other" (48)

Tournament: Longhorn Classic | Round: Octas | Opponent: North Crowley LR | Judge: Asad Sayani, Nolan Burdett, Michael Richardson
There are two major ableist DA’s to your performance:
First, while poetry has a lot of individual value, it is frequently inaccessible to many with learning disabilities. Whether it is a difficulty conceptually pictilizing concert metaphors and ironic disjunction or difficulty with meter and non-standard sentence structure, many learning disabilities make understanding and following poetry extremely difficult. There are ways that poetry can be used as method of personal liberation, even from learning disabilities, however, we should not force students to engage with it, especially as a survival strategy. It is those expectations that drive individuals with learning disabilities out of communities.  Philip Schultz a Pulitzer Prize winning poet who struggles with dyslexia.. “Words Failed, Then Saved Me.” Sunday Review, NYTimes. September 3rd 2011.
“So this summer’s news that research is increasingly tying dyslexia not just to reading, but also to the way the brain processes spoken language, was no surprise to me. I found many ways around my dyslexia, but I still have trouble transforming words into sounds. I have to memorize and rehearse before reading anything aloud, to avoid embarrassing myself by mispronouncing words. And because learning a foreign language is sheer torture to dyslexics (even though it’s a requirement in many schools), to this day I can’t attend a High Holy Day service at my synagogue without feeling I don’t belong there, because I can’t speak Hebrew and must pretend to read my prayer book. When I did finally learn to read, my teachers didn’t have much to do with it. I was 11, and even my school-appointed tutors had given up on me. My mother read the one thing I would listen to — Blackhawk comics — over and over again, hoping against hope that by some leap of faith or chance I would start to identify letters and then learn to arrange them into words and sentences, and begin the intuitive, often magical, process of turning written language into spoken language. One night, lying in bed as she read to me, I realized that if I was ever going to learn to read I would have to teach myself. The moon glowing outside my window, I remember, seemed especially interested in my predicament, perhaps attempting its own kind of encouragement. Was it a dummy, too? I wondered. If only I could be another boy, a boy my age who could sound out words and read and write like every other kid I knew. I willed myself into being him. I invented a character who could read and write. Starting that night, I’d lie in bed silently imitating the words my mother read, imagining the taste, heft and ring of each sound as if it were coming out of my mouth. I imagined being able to sound out the words by putting the letters together into units of rhythmic sound and the words into sentences that made sense. I imagined the words and their sounds being a kind of key with which I would open an invisible door to a world previously denied me. And suddenly I was reading. I didn’t know then that I was beginning a lifelong love affair with the first-person voice and that I would spend most of my life inventing characters to say all the things I wanted to say. I didn’t know that I was to become a poet, that in many ways the very thing that caused me so much confusion and frustration, my belabored relationship with words, had created in me a deep appreciation of language and its music, that the same mind that prevented me from reading had invented a new way of reading, a method that I now use to teach others how to overcome their own difficulties in order to write fiction and poetry. (It’s perhaps not surprising that many famous writers are said to have struggled with dyslexia, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and W. B. Yeats.) We know now that dyslexia is about so much more than just mixing up letters — that many dyslexics have difficulty with rhythm and meter and word retrieval, that they struggle to recognize voices and sounds. It’s my profound hope that our schools can use findings like these to better teach children who struggle to read, to help them overcome their limitations, and to help them understand that it’s not their fault. We knew so much less when I was a child. Then, all I wanted and needed, when I learned so painstakingly to read and then to write, was to find a way to be less alone. Which is, of course, what spoken and written language is really all about. But poetry should be a matter of passion, not survival.”
Second, the linguistic use of body in your own words as opposed to just your cards involves a micro aggressive retrenchment of the holistic delusion which eliminates disabled people from your movement. Thought of the ‘black body’ rarely pulls up a mental picture of a black women in a wheel chair, but a differently colored Vitruvian Man. This also turns the solvency for other liberatory movements.  Creamer
Deborah Beth CreamerCreamer is the author of Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities(2009), a book that encourages thought in new ways about categories like ability and disability. Embracing Limits, Queering Embodiment: Creating/Creative Possibilities for Disability Theology. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 26, No.
“Betcher offers us some openings, some possibilities for conversational intersection. Her appeal to flesh, rather than to body, is one such space for conversational intersection. Two important claims are embedded in her argument against body. The first is that  the use of body invites, as she writes, “the hallucinatory delusion of wholeness”  (108). In other words, body has been taken to be another (disembodied) ideal that no one can attain. The second, related but yet somewhat different, is that we too often take body to be a generic term, leading to what Betcher describes  as “naturalization or normalization.” In this way, the term body had been taken as shorthand for “normal body,” requiring a signifier for other kinds of bodies  (“disabled body” being one example among many). I would argue that these two errors are interrelated, as we all have neither ideal nor normal bodies, and yet  that they must be unpacked or challenged from slightly different perspectives.  A corollary here might be found in other areas of feminist discourse where both the ideal woman and the generic woman have had to be deconstructed—the  first to show that women were, in fact, human, living, people; the second to  highlight ways in which the assumption of a generic type acts to “white”-wash or  erase critical differences between and among these human, living, people.  I find the lens of disability to be a promising way to challenge both the ideal body and the normal body. Clearly, this is significant for people who already wear the label of disability, as we are often identified as those whose bodies are  least normal—and, from this position on the margins, we can first make appar ent and then challenge the assumptions of the center. Yet it is also important  to recognize that this is not just a project for or of people “with disabilities.”  Here I find Sallie McFague’s proposal of attention epistemology to be helpful:  “the kind of knowing that focuses on embodied differences.” Betcher makes a  similar claim when she invites us to focus on “that which we know to be true  of lives” (108). The illusion of the ideal body and the distortion of the normal body begins to fade away as we begin to see bodies (or flesh) with new levels of  complexity, observing that normal only exists in our imaginations, and recognizing ourselves as having limits and “leaky bodies and boundaries.” Once we recognize that limits are unsurprising, we can then begin to move not only to a  perspective where we embrace (value, accept, respect) the idea of having limits  (as individuals and as communities)—whether or not we claim disability as a  label—but can also notice ways in which these limits might embrace us, acting  to make and unmake issues of identity, relationality, space, and place. As I have  argued more fully elsewhere, a limits perspective has profound implications for  theology and ethics, as well as self- and communal understanding. And again,  while clearly there is relevance here for and within the discourses of disability  theology, it is not hard to recognize the ways in which the embrace of limits can  engage other conversations, such as those emerging within postcolonial theory,  as they declare danger in binaries and dualisms and seek new ways of under standing and being.”
Thus your liberation strategy is inaccessible for those with disabilities and makes debate an unsafe space for them.

Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 1 | Opponent: Lynbrook VV | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo
The 1AC’s story is a simulation- they attempt to foundationalize the meaning of a story and apply it to real life.
Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, Page 3
But it is more complicated than that because simulating is not pretending: "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littré). Therefore, pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false," the "real" and the "imaginary." Is the simulator sick or not, given that he produces "true" symptoms? Objectively one cannot treat him as being either ill or not ill. Psychology and medicine stop at this point, forestalled by the illness's henceforth undiscoverable truth. For if any symptom can be "produced," and can no longer be taken as a fact of nature, then every illness can be considered as simulatable and simulated, and medicine loses its meaning since it only knows how to treat "real" illnesses according to their objective causes. Psychosomatics evolves in a dubious manner at the borders of the principle of illness. As to psychoanalysis, it transfers the symptom of the organic order to the unconscious order: the latter is new and taken for "real" more real than the other - but why would simulation be at the gates of the unconscious? Why couldn't the "work" of the unconscious be "produced" in the same way as any old symptom of classical medicine? Dreams already are.
These images of suffering are like a drug, used by the media and politicians to advance their ends. They present these images to you in exchange for the ballot for their own moralistic satisfaction, but this constant search for new catastrophes to “solve” can only end in domination and violence.
Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard , “The Illusion of the End” p. 66-71. 1994.
We have long denounced the capitalistic, economic exploitation of the poverty of the 'other half of the world' 'autre monde. We must today denounce the moral and sentimental exploitation of that poverty - charity cannibalism being worse than oppressive violence. The extraction and humanitarian reprocessing of a destitution which has become the equivalent of oil deposits and gold mines. The extortion of the spectacle of poverty and, at the same time, of our charitable condescension: a worldwide appreciated surplus of fine sentiments and bad conscience. We should, in fact, see this not as the extraction of raw materials, but as a waste-reprocessing enterprise. Their destitution and our bad conscience are, in effect, all part of the waste-products of history- the main thing is to recycle them to produce a new energy source. We have here an escalation in the psychological balance of terror. World capitalist oppression is now merely the vehicle and alibi for this other, much more ferocious, form of moral predation. One might almost say, contrary to the Marxist analysis, that material exploitation is only there to extract that spiritual raw material that is the misery of peoples, which serves as psychological nourishment for the rich countries and media nourishment for our daily lives. The 'Fourth World' (we are no longer dealing with a 'developing' Third World) is once again beleaguered, this time as a catastrophe-bearing stratum. The West is whitewashed in the reprocessing of the rest of the world as waste and residue. And the white world repents and seeks absolution - it, too, the waste-product of its own history. The South is a natural producer of raw materials, the latest of which is catastrophe. The North, for its part, specializes in the reprocessing of raw materials and hence also in the reprocessing of catastrophe. Bloodsucking protection, humanitarian interference, Medecins sans frontieres, international solidarity, etc. The last phase of colonialism: the New Sentimental Order is merely the latest form of the New World Order. Other people's destitution becomes our adventure playground. Thus, the humanitarian offensive aimed at the Kurds - a show of repentance on the part of the Western powers after allowing Saddam Hussein to crush them - is in reality merely the second phase of the war, a phase in which charitable intervention finishes off the work of extermination. We are the consumers of the ever delightful spectacle of poverty and catastrophe, and of the moving spectacle of our own efforts to alleviate it (which, in fact, merely function to secure the conditions of reproduction of the catastrophe market); there, at least, in the order of moral profits, the Marxist analysis is wholly applicable: we see to it that extreme poverty is reproduced as a symbolic deposit, as a fuel essential to the moral and sentimental equilibrium of the West. In our defence, it might be said that this extreme poverty was largely of our own making and it is therefore normal that we should profit by it. There can be no finer proof that the distress of the rest of the world is at the root of Western power and that the spectacle of that distress is its crowning glory than the inauguration, on the roof of the Arche de la Defense, with a sumptuous buffet laid on by the Fondation des Droits de l'homme, of an exhibition of the finest photos of world poverty. Should we be surprised that spaces are set aside in the Arche d' Alliance. for universal suffering hallowed by caviar and champagne? Just as the economic crisis of the West will not be complete so long as it can still exploit the resources of the rest of the world, so the symbolic crisis will be complete only when it is no longer able to feed on the other half's human and natural catastrophes (Eastern Europe, the Gulf, the Kurds, Bangladesh, etc.). We need this drug, which serves us as an aphrodisiac and hallucinogen. And the poor countries are the best suppliers - as, indeed, they are of other drugs. We provide them, through our media, with the means to exploit this paradoxical resource, just as we give them the means to exhaust their natural resources with our technologies. Our whole culture lives off this catastrophic cannibalism, relayed in cynical mode by the news media, and carried forward in moral mode by our humanitarian aid, which is a way of encouraging it and ensuring its continuity, just as economic aid is a strategy for perpetuating under-development. Up to now, the financial sacrifice has been compensated a hundredfold by the moral gain. But when the catastrophe market itself reaches crisis point, in accordance with the implacable logic of the market, when distress becomes scarce or the marginal returns on it fall from overexploitation, when we run out of disasters from elsewhere or when they can no longer be traded like coffee or other commodities, the West will be forced to produce its own catastrophe for itself, in order to meet its need for spectacle and that voracious appetite for symbols which characterizes it even more than its voracious appetite for food. It will reach the point where it devours itself. When we have finished sucking out the destiny of others, we shall have to invent one for ourselves. The Great Crash, the symbolic crash, will come in the end from us Westerners, but only when we are no longer able to feed on the hallucinogenic misery which comes to us from the other half of the world. Yet they do not seem keen to give up their monopoly. The Middle East, Bangladesh, black Africa and Latin America are really going flat out in the distress and catastrophe stakes, and thus in providing symbolic nourishment for the rich world. They might be said to be overdoing it: heaping earthquakes, floods, famines and ecological disasters one upon another, and finding the means to massacre each other most of the time. The 'disaster show' goes on without any let-up and our sacrificial debt to them far exceeds their economic debt. The misery with which they generously overwhelm us is something we shall never be able to repay. The sacrifices we offer in return are laughable (a tornado or two, a few tiny holocausts on the roads, the odd financial sacrifice) and, moreover, by some infernal logic, these work out as much greater gains for us, whereas our kindnesses have merely added to the natural catastrophes another one immeasurably worse: the demographic catastrophe, a veritable epidemic which we deplore each day in pictures. In short, there is such distortion between North and South, to the symbolic advantage of the South (a hundred thousand Iraqi dead against casualties numbered in tens on our side: in every case we are the losers), that one day everything will break down. One day, the West will break down if we are not soon washed clean of this shame, if an international congress of the poor countries does not very quickly decide to share out this symbolic privilege of misery and catastrophe. It is of course normal, since we refuse to allow the spread of nuclear weapons, that they should refuse to allow the spread of the catastrophe weapon. But it is not right that they should exert that monopoly indefinitely.  In any case, the underdeveloped are only so by comparison with the Western system and its presumed success. In the light of its assumed failure, they are not under-developed at all. They are only so in terms of a dominant evolutionism which has always been the worst of colonial ideologies. The argument here is that there is a line of objective progress and everyone is supposed to pass through its various stages (we find the same eyewash with regard to the evolution of species and in that evolutionism which unilaterally sanctions the superiority of the human race). In the light of current upheavals, which put an end to any idea of history as a linear process, there are no longer either developed or under-developed peoples. Thus, to encourage hope of evolution - albeit by revolution - among the poor and to doom them, in keeping with the objective illusion of progress, to technological salvation is a criminal absurdity. In actual fact, it is their good fortune to be able to escape from evolution just at the point when we no longer know where it is leading. In any case, a majority of these peoples, including those of Eastern Europe, do not seem keen to enter this evolutionist modernity, and their weight in the balance is certainly no small factor in the West's repudiation of its own history, of its own utopias and its own modernity. It might be said that the routes of violence, historical or otherwise, are being turned around and that the viruses now pass from South to North, there being every chance that, five hundred years after America was conquered, 1992 and the end of the century will mark the comeback of the defeated and the sudden reversal of that modernity. The sense of pride is no longer on the side of wealth but of poverty, of those who - fortunately for them - have nothing to repent, and may indeed glory in being privileged in terms of catastrophes. Admittedly, this is a privilege they could hardly renounce, even if they wished to, but natural disasters merely reinforce the sense of guilt felt towards them by the wealthy – by those whom God visibly scorns since he no longer even strikes them down. One day it will be the Whites themselves who will give up their whiteness. It is a good bet that repentance will reach its highest pitch with the five-hundredth anniversary of the conquest of the Americas. We are going to have to lift the curse of the defeated - but symbolically victorious - peoples, which is insinuating itself five hundred years later, by way of repentance, into the heart of the white race. No solution has been found to the dramatic situation of the under-developed, and none will be found since their drama has now been overtaken by that of the overdeveloped, of the rich nations. The psychodrama of congestion, saturation, super abundance, neurosis and the breaking of blood vessels which haunts us - the drama of the excess of means over ends – calls more urgently for attention than that of penury, lack and poverty. That is where the most imminent danger of catastrophe resides, in the societies which have run out of emptiness. Artificial catastrophes, like the beneficial aspects of civilization, progress much more quickly than natural ones. The underdeveloped are still at the primary stage of the natural, unforeseeable catastrophe. We are already at the second stage, that of the manufactured catastrophe - imminent and foreseeable - and we shall soon be at that of the pre-programmed catastrophe, the catastrophe of the third kind, deliberate and experimental. And, paradoxically, it is our pursuit of the means for averting natural catastrophe - the unpredictable form of destiny - which will take us there. Because it is unable to escape it, humanity will pretend to be the author of its destiny. Because it cannot accept being confronted with an end which is uncertain or governed by fate, it will prefer to stage its own death as a species.
Entrenching ourselves into the hyper-real renders truth and the real utterly useless, destroying the original and the world as we know it.
Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, Page 3
Which indicates that there is not even the possibility of simultaneity in the order of time, and in the same way no similitude possible in the order of figures. Nothing resembles itself, and holographic reproduction, like all fantasies of the exact synthesis or resurrection of the real (this also goes for scientific experimentation), is already no longer real, is already hyperreal. It thus never has reproductive (truth) value, but always already simulation value. Not an exact, but a transgressive truth, that is to say already on the other side of the truth. What happens on the other side of the truth, not in what would be false, but in what is more true than the true, more real than the real? Bizarre effects certainly, and sacrileges, much more destructive of the order of truth than 106 its pure negation. Singular and murderous power of the potentialization of the truth, of the potentialization of the real. This is perhaps why twins were deified, and sacrificed, in a more savage culture: hypersimilitude was equivalent to the murder of the original, and thus to a pure non-meaning.

Tournament: UH Cougar Classic | Round: 4 | Opponent: St Johns AW | Judge: Kevin Si
CP Text: Public colleges and universities shall not restrict constitutionally protected speech except for fraternity speech.
Fraternities are sites of rape and violence
Flanagan 14 Caitlin Flanagan, citing Douglas Fierberg, attorney specializing in fraternity-related litigation, “The Dark Power of Fraternities,” The Atlantic, March 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-dark-power-of-fraternities/357580/
“Until proven otherwise,” Fierberg told me in April of fraternities, “they all are very risky organizations for young people to be involved in.” He maintains that fraternities “are part of an industry that has tremendous risk and a tremendous history of rape, serious injury, and death, and the vast majority share common risk-management policies that are fundamentally flawed. Most of them are awash in alcohol. And most if not all of them are bereft of any meaningful adult supervision.” As for the risk-management policies themselves: “They are primarily designed to take the nationals’ fingerprints off the injury and deaths, and I don’t believe that they offer any meaningful provisions.” The fraternity system, he argues, is “the largest industry in this country directly involved in the provision of alcohol to underage people.” The crisis-management plans reveal that in “the foreseeable future” there may be “the death or serious injury” of a healthy young person at a fraternity function.
Even bans on fraternity advertising solve
Ryan 14 Julia Ryan, former producer for the Atlantic, “How Colleges Could Get Rid of Fraternities,” The Atlantic, March 3, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/how-colleges-could-get-rid-of-fraternities/284176/
Perhaps the most obvious way to end fraternities is for universities to simply remove Greek life from their campuses. “It’s not even really a turf war anymore between universities and Greek groups because it’s as as if universities have given up,” Alexandra Robbins, author of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities, said in an interview. “If higher education really wanted to get rid of Greek groups, they could. All universities would have to do is put their foot down, but they don’t.” Universities could say no Greek groups or events on campus and prohibit advertising for Greek life on campus. Elizabeth A. Armstrong, a sociologist at University of Michigan and co-author of Paying for the Party, suggested universities could quell the power of Greek life just by treating fraternities like other clubs: “One method would be to say okay you are not so special. You do not get the special attention of the dean. We are going to actually allow other student groups on campus equal power,” she said. “We are going to supervise you just as much as everybody else.”
And fraternity speech is protected by the first amendment
 Lukianoff 11 Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, “To Survive, Fraternities Need to Stand for Something, Anything,” Huffington Post, December 5, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/fraternities-and-free-spe_b_912673.html
A lot of fraternities seem to know that their freedom of association is protected by the First Amendment. (While the freedom to join and form groups is not technically listed in the text of the First Amendment, it is understood to arise from the protections of freedom of speech and the right to assembly.) What fraternities often do not know, however, is that there are several different kinds of freedom of association protected by the First Amendment, and they are not all made equal. The strongest kind of freedom of association protected by the First Amendment is the right to “intimate” association, best represented by the family. Our government recognizes that the bonds of family are particularly important and that it should do its best to avoid actions that interfere with this bond. The second strongest kind of freedom of association is called “expressive” association. Sensibly, courts understand that the right to freedom of expression would not mean a great deal if we are forbidden from joining together with like-minded individuals to amplify the power of our voices and take collective action. This understanding forms the basis of our right to form groups around commonly held beliefs whether they are religious, secular, or ideological. Everything from Mothers Against Drunk Driving to NORML is a kind of expressive association. (This includes my nonprofit, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, as well.)

Tournament: UH Cougar Classic | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Kinkaid SS | Judge: Abdul Asif, Ethan Lau, Arun Sharma
Counterplan Text: Public colleges and universities in the United States should expand the view of sexual violence violations to include revenge pornography as harassment and restrict it accordingly.
The distribution of revenge pornography is constitutionally protected speech – aff allows it on college campuses.
Goldberg 16 Erica Goldberg Columbia Law Review Volume 116, No. 3 April 2016 "FREE SPEECH CONSEQUENTIALISM"
The regulation of revenge porn presents thorny First Amendment issues, even though the speech is considered both highly injurious and of low value.300 Some argue that revenge porn can be regulated as obscenity,301 but, like much pornography, sexually explicit speech that does not rise to the level of obscenity is still protected speech.302 Criminal statutes and torts based on the invasion of privacy and emotional distress caused by revenge porn compromise the freedom to distribute protected speech lawfully obtained. Indeed, the Supreme Court has recognized a right for the media to publish even unlawfully obtained content, so long as the publisher was not involved in the illegal so long as the publisher was not involved in the illegal conduct that produced the content.303 And in United States v. Stevens , the Supreme Court held that individuals cannot be held criminally liable for distributing speech depicting illegal acts, so long as the individuals did not perpetrate the underlying act.304 Revenge porn, as defined here, is both legally obtained and depicts a legal act. In the ultimate articulation of free speech consequentialism, Mary Anne Franks argues for criminalization of revenge porn because "some expressions of free speech are just considered so socially harmful and don't contribute any benefits to society."305 Yet this does not separate revenge porn from any number of categories of protected speech that may cause others emotional distress and are considered by some to pos- sess little value; this is nothing more than a call for judges to make whole- sale and retail judgments about the value and harms that flow from particular forms of speech. If revenge porn can be regulated, legislators should not target the victim's emotional distress or the invasion of pri- vacy, as these focal points threaten to undermine strong free speech pro- tections exceptional to America's free speech regime.
Restrictions work- they are key to forming a cultural shift in society.
Citron 14 Danielle Keats Citron, Mary Anne Franks"CRIMINALIZING REVENGE PORN" 4/21/2014 https://www.law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/isp/documents/danielle_citron_-_criminalizing_revenge_porn_-_fesc.pdf
A criminal law solution is essential to deter judgment-proof perpetrators. As attorney and revenge porn expert Erica Johnstone puts it, “even if people aren’t afraid of being sued because they have nothing to lose, they are afraid of being convicted of a crime because that shows up on their record forever.”68 Nonconsensual pornography’s rise is surely related to the fact that malicious actors have little incentive to refrain from such behavior. While some critics believe that existing criminal law adequately addresses nonconsensual pornography, this Part highlights how existing criminal law fails to address most cases of revenge porn. A. The Importance of Criminal Law Criminal law has long prohibited privacy invasions and certain violations of autonomy. Criminal law is essential to send the clear message to potential perpetrators that nonconsensual pornography inflicts grave privacy and autonomy harms that have real consequences and penalties.69 While we share general concerns about over-incarceration, rejecting the criminalization of serious harms is not the way to address those concerns. We are also sensitive to objections that criminalizing revenge porn might reinforce the harmful and erroneous perception that women should be ashamed of their bodies or their sexual activities, but maintain that recognizing and protecting sexual autonomy does exactly the opposite.70 A criminal law solution would send the message that individuals’ bodies (mostly female bodies) are their own and that society recognizes the grave harms that flow from turning individuals into objects of pornography without their consent. In this way, a criminal law approach will help us conceptualize the involuntary publication of someone’s sexually explicit images as a form of sexual assault. When sexual abuse is inflicted on an individual’s physical body, it is considered rape or sexual assault. The fact that nonconsensual pornography does not involve physical contact does not change the fact that it is a form of sexual abuse. Federal and state criminal laws regarding voyeurism demonstrate that physical contact is not necessary to cause great harm and suffering. Video voyeurism laws punish the nonconsensual recording of a person in a state of undress in places where individuals enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy. 71 Criminal laws prohibiting voyeurism rest on the commonly accepted assumption that observing a person in a state of undress or engaged in sexual activity without that person’s consent not only inflicts dignitary harms upon the individual observed, but also inflicts a social harm serious enough to warrant criminal prohibition and punishment. International criminal law provides precedent and perspective on this issue. Both the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”) have employed a definition of sexual violence that does not require physical contact. In both tribunals, forced nudity was found to be a form of sexual violence.72 In the Akayesu case, the ICTR found that “sexual violence is not limited to physical invasion of the human body and may include acts which do not involve penetration or even physical contact.” 73 In the Furundzija case, the ICTY similarly found that international criminal law punishes not only rape, but also “all serious abuses of a sexual nature inflicted upon the physical and moral integrity of a person by means of coercion, threat of force or intimidation in a way that is degrading and humiliating for the victim’s dignity.”74  The legal and social condemnation of child pornography exemplifies our collective understanding that the production, viewing, and distribution of certain kinds of sexual images are harmful.
Revenge porn causes chilling effect for victims who are afraid to speak out and are silenced. Causes psychological and irreversible violence to victims.  
Citron 14 Danielle Keats Citron Mary Anne Franks 2014 "CRIMINALIZING REVENGE PORN" Wake Forest Law Review digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2424andcontext=fac_pubs
Victims struggle especially with anxiety, and some suffer panic attacks. Anorexia nervosa and depression are common ailments for individuals who are harassed online.33 Researchers have found that cyber harassment victims’ anxiety grows more severe over time.34 Victims have difficulty thinking positive thoughts and doing their work. According to a study conducted by the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, over 80 of revenge porn victims experience severe emotional distress and anxiety.35 Revenge porn is often a form of domestic violence. Frequently, the intimate images are themselves the result of an abuser’s coercion of a reluctant partner.36 In numerous cases, abusers have threatened to disclose intimate images of their partners when victims attempt to leave the relationship.37 Abusers use the threat of disclosure to keep their partners under their control, making good on the threat once their partners find the courage to leave. The professional costs of revenge porn are steep. Because Internet searches of victims’ names prominently display their naked images or videos, many lose their jobs. Schools have terminated teachers whose naked pictures appeared online. A government agency ended a woman’s employment after a coworker circulated her nude photograph to colleagues.38 Victims may be unable to find work at all. Most employers rely on candidates’ online reputations as an employment screen. According to a 2009 study commissioned by Microsoft, nearly 80 of employers consult search engines to collect intelligence on job applicants, and, about 70 of the time, they reject applicants due to their findings.39 Common reasons for not interviewing and hiring applicants include concerns about their “lifestyle,” “inappropriate” online comments, and “unsuitable” photographs, videos, and information about them.40 Recruiters do not contact victims to see if they posted the nude photos of themselves or if someone else did in violation of their trust. The “simple but regrettable truth is that after consulting search results, employers don’t call revenge porn victims to schedule” interviews or to extend offers. 41 Employers do not want to hire individuals whose search results might reflect poorly on the employer. 42 To avoid further abuse, targeted individuals withdraw from online activities, which can be costly in many respects. Closing down one’s blog can mean a loss of income and other career opportunities.43 In some fields, blogging is key to getting a job. According to technology blogger Robert Scoble, people who do not blog are “never going to be included in the technology industry.” 44 When victims shut down their profiles on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, they are saddled with low social media influence scores that can impair their ability to obtain employment.45 Companies like Klout measure people’s online influence by looking at their number of social media followers, updates, likes, retweets, and shares. Not uncommonly, employers refuse to hire individuals with low social media influence scores. 46 Aside from these traditional harms, revenge porn can also amount to a degrading form of sexual harassment. It exposes victims’ sexuality in humiliating ways. Victims’ naked photos appear on slut-shaming47 sites, such as Cheaterville.com and MyEx.com. Once their naked images are exposed, anonymous strangers can send e-mail messages that threaten rape. Some have said: “First I will rape you, then I’ll kill you.” 48 Victims internalize these frightening and demeaning messages.49 Women would more likely suffer harm as a result of the posting of their naked images than their male counterparts.
Revenge porn is the manifestation of a violent feminist patriarchy
Dermody 14 Meagan Dermody, Managing Editor at CT, “Jennifer Lawrence, privacy and the patriarchy,” The independent student press at Virginia Commonwealth University, September 7, 2014, http://www.commonwealthtimes.org/2014/09/07/jennifer-lawrence-privacy-and-the-patriarchy/
The leak falls somewhere between degradation and physical violence; though the violation those involved have experienced was not physical in nature, losing control over sexual images can mean losing control of a piece of your personhood. Woman becomes passive body, cut to discrete and consumable pieces without consent — the photo no longer represents a person sharing an intimate part of a complex and valuable self, but an object to be fantasized about, criticized, and consumed. It doesn’t stop there. Users of the website 4chan attempted to manipulate female users into sharing nude photographs of themselves — in solidarity, they claimed. By painting it as a movement for solidarity, they belied (however ineffectively) their true intentions. The attempt to access sexually explicit images of other women is in fact a manifestation of the will to objectify, an act of patriarchal punishment with a beguiling false attitude. It follows that the leak of these photographs and the demand for more represent a greater initiative to consume the female body as passive sex object — a large-scale manifestation of patriarchal violence, meant to reify women on a grand scale and degrade their consent by stripping them of their control over their image and intimate selves.

Tournament: Harvard | Round: 4 | Opponent: Hunter College TF | Judge: Bob Overing
CP Text: Public Colleges and Universities in the United States ought not restrict any constitutionally protected speech except for term papers produced by professionals who sell them to students who turn them in as original work.
Competes through mutual exclusivity- I don’t include term papers while the aff does.
The sale of term papers, although blatant plagiarism, is speech protected by the first amendment
Duke Law Journal 73, Term Paper Companies and the Constitution, 1973, 1275-1317 (1974) Available at: http:scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol22/iss6/3
TERM PAPERS AS PROTECTED SPEECH UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT The preparation and sale of term papers involves not only written communication but also "pure speech," an exchange of ideas arguably protectable under the first amendment . 2 The Supreme Court has indicated that this protection extends to even the most marginal "exchanges of ideas." Justice Frankfurter conceded in his dissent to Winters v. New York17 that "wiholly neutral futilities, of course, come under the protection of free speech as fully as do Keats' poems or Donne's sermons." The majority in Winters stated, with more enthusiasm, that even though the magazines in question contained "nothing of any possible value," they were "as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature." ' A term paper, arguably, is somewhat more than a "wiholly neutral futility" and is clearly entitled to as much constitutional protection as magazines which contain "nothing of any possible value to society."
Turns and outweighs the case
1 Plagiarism is free-riding the system because it requires the exploitation of others by taking advantage of one’s efforts. Free riding is immoral under the omnilateral will.
Ripstein 09 Arthur Ripstein, Force and Freedom. Harvard University Press, 2009.
So mandatory cooperation cannot treat terms of interaction as reciprocal because they are voluntary. Instead, there is a more direct requirement of reciprocity: everyone must do his or her own part; the person who fails to do so violates reciprocity by taking advantage of the cooperative efforts of others, like the one who fails to keep up his end of a contract. From this perspective, the “free rider” wrongs his fellow citizens by taking advantage of their efforts. The free rider may claim—and it may even be true— that he would rather do without the rightful condition and go it alone. That claim is beside the point, because the obligation to enter a rightful condition is unconditional, that is, it does not depend upon any particular person’s subjective assessment of the benefits it will yield. Others are entitled to treat the creating and sustaining of a rightful condition as one of the free rider’s purposes, quite apart from what he may have to say about it. Thus they can rightly complain that they are being required to work for the purposes of another, or that they and are being used by the free rider, and they can make this claim even if the free rider’s failure to contribute costs them nothing.
2 Plagiarism misrepresents the will of the original author and the plagiarizer
Sadler 11 Brook J. Sadler, “Nothing New Left to Say: Plagiarism, Originality, and the Discipline of Philosophy,” Florida Philosophical Review Volume XII, Issue 1, Winter 2012
Kant’s own view of the author may constitute a metaphysically perplexing extreme, insofar as it suggests that the text, qua speech of a rational agent, is an extension of his noumenal self. But the modern idea that writing emanates from, manifests, or represents the unique personality of an author is what underwrites, so to speak, the modern notion of plagiarism. We must believe in the notion of original writing, seemingly freed of influences, in order to think plagiarism a distinctive, identifiable violation, especially when financial effects are absent. And the violation points in two directions. It points toward the original author, whose very person is co-opted or misrepresented through the unacknowledged taking of her words, and it points toward the plagiarizer, who misrepresents her own person by writing in someone else’s voice, making a puppet of herself as she enacts an original author’s speech. Thus, the modern complaint against plagiarism is doubly invested in the idea that the text is an enactment of the person, and that as such, it must be original.

Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 3 | Opponent: Loyola JN | Judge: James Sanger
College endowments are high now but college protests discourage endowments
Hartocollis 8/4 Anemona Hartocollis, writer for NYT: August 4, 2016, “College Students Protest, Alumni’s Fondness Fades and Checks Shrink” New York Times Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/us/college-protests-alumni-donations.html?_r=0
Scott MacConnell cherishes the memory of his years at Amherst College, where he discovered his future métier as a theatrical designer. But protests on campus over cultural and racial sensitivities last year soured his feelings. Now Mr. MacConnell, who graduated in 1960, is expressing his discontent through his wallet. In June, he cut the college out of his will. “As an alumnus of the college, I feel that I have been lied to, patronized and basically dismissed as an old, white bigot who is insensitive to the needs and feelings of the current college community,” Mr. MacConnell, 77, wrote in a letter to the college’s alumni fund in December, when he first warned that he was reducing his support to the college to a token $5. A backlash from alumni is an unexpected aftershock of the campus disruptions of the last academic year. Although fund-raisers are still gauging the extent of the effect on philanthropy, some colleges — particularly small, elite liberal arts institutions — have reported a decline in donations, accompanied by a laundry list of g5. Alumni from a range of generations say they are baffled by today’s college culture. Among their laments: Students are too wrapped up in racial and identity politics. They are allowed to take too many frivolous courses. They have repudiated the heroes and traditions of the past by judging them by today’s standards rather than in the context of their times. Fraternities are being unfairly maligned, and men are being demonized by sexual assault investigations. And university administrations have been too meek in addressing protesters whose messages have seemed to fly in the face of free speech. Scott C. Johnston, who graduated from Yale in 1982, said he was on campus last fall when activists tried to shut down a free speech conference, “because apparently they missed irony class that day.” He recalled the Yale student who was videotaped screaming at a professor, Nicholas Christakis, that he had failed “to create a place of comfort and home” for students in his capacity as the head of a residential college. A rally at New Haven Superior Court demanding justice for Corey Menafee, an African-American dining hall worker at Yale’s Calhoun College who was charged with breaking a window pane that depicted black slaves carrying cotton. Credit Peter Hvizdak/New Haven Register, via Associated Press “I don’t think anything has damaged Yale’s brand quite like that,” said Mr. Johnston, a founder of an internet start-up and a former hedge fund manager. “This is not your daddy’s liberalism.” “The worst part,” he continued, “is that campus administrators are wilting before the activists like flowers.” Yale College’s alumni fund was flat between this year and last, according to Karen Peart, a university spokeswoman. Among about 35 small, selective liberal arts colleges belonging to the fund-raising organization Staff, or Sharing the Annual Fund Fundamentals, that recently reported their initial annual fund results for the 2016 fiscal year, 29 percent were behind 2015 in dollars, and 64 percent were behind in donors, according to a steering committee member, Scott Kleinheksel of Claremont McKenna College in California. His school, which was also the site of protests, had a decline in donor participation but a rise in giving. At Amherst, the amount of money given by alumni dropped 6.5 percent for the fiscal year that ended June 30, and participation in the alumni fund dropped 1.9 percentage points, to 50.6 percent, the lowest participation rate since 1975, when the college began admitting women, according to the college. The amount raised from big donors decreased significantly. Some of the decline was because of a falloff after two large reunion gifts last year, according to Pete Mackey, a spokesman for Amherst. At Princeton, where protesters unsuccessfully demanded the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s name from university buildings and programs, undergraduate alumni donations dropped 6.6 percent from a record high the year before, and participation dropped 1.9 percentage points, according to the university’s website. A Princeton spokesman, John Cramer, said there was no evidence the drop was connected to campus protests.
Schools with large endowments are able to recruit more low-income students which creates more material equalities on campus.
Freedman 13 Josh Freedman, policy analyst in the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation, “Why American Colleges Are Becoming a Force for Inequality,” The Atlantic, May 16, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/why-american-colleges-are-becoming-a-force-for-inequality/275923/
Not all colleges, however, would need to raise tuition drastically to pay for a larger number of low-income students. Schools with large endowments can cover the shortfall in tuition by drawing money from these reserves. But keeping tuition constant and paying more from the endowment is only an option for schools with monstrous endowments. Many writers cite Amherst College as a success story, which has "aggressively recruited poor and middle-class students in recent years" and has increased its share of low-income students. But Amherst has a very large endowment for the size of its student body. Its strategy is only viable when backed with an endowment of more than three quarters of a million dollars per student from which it can draw additional funds to cover its costs while remaining competitive in its levels of spending.
Endowments are key to education quality
ACE 14 "Understanding College and University Endowments," American Council on Education, 2014
An endowment is an aggregation of assets invested by a college or university to support its educational mission in perpetuity. An institution’s endowment actually comprises hundreds or thousands of individual endowments. An endowment allows donors to transfer their private dollars to public purposes with the assurance that their gifts will serve these purposes for as long as the institution continues to exist. An endowment represents a compact between a donor and an institution. It links past, current, and future generations. It also allows an institution to make commitments far into the future, knowing that resources to meet those commitments will continue to be available. Endowments serve institutions and the public by: Providing stability. College and university revenues fluctuate over time with changes in enrollment (tuition), donor interest (gifts), and public (largely state and federal) support. Although endowment earnings also vary with changes in financial markets and investment strategies, most institutions follow prudent guidelines (spending rates) to buffer economic fluctuations that are intended to produce a relatively stable stream of income. Since endowment principal is not spent, the interest generated by endowment earnings supports institutional priorities year after year. This kind of stability is especially important for activities that cannot readily be started and stopped, or for which fluctuating levels of support could be costly or debilitating. Endowments frequently support student aid, faculty positions, innovative academic programs, and medical research, and libraries. Leveraging other sources of revenue. In recent years, as the economy has been severely stressed, institutions have dramatically increased their own student aid expenditures, and endowments have enabled institutions to respond more fully to changing demographics and families’ financial need. It is not surprising that the colleges and universities with the largest endowments are also the ones most likely to offer need blind admission (admitting students without regard to financial circumstances and then providing enough financial aid to enable those admitted to attend). An endowment also allows a college or university to provide a higher level of quality or service at a lower price than would otherwise be possible. This has been especially important in recent years, particularly for publicly supported institutions that have experienced significant cuts in state support. Without endowments or other private gifts, institutions would have had to cut back even further on their programs, levy even greater increases in their prices to students, and/or obtain additional public funding to maintain current programs at current prices. WHAT DOES AN ENDOWMENT DO? An endowment links past, current, and future generations. It allows an institution to make commitments far into the future, knowing that resources to meet those commitments will continue to be available. Understanding College and University Endowments 3 Encouraging innovation and flexibility. An endowment enables faculty and students to conduct innovative research, explore new academic fields, apply new technologies, and develop new teaching methods even if funding is not readily available from other sources, including tuition, gifts, or grants. Such innovation and flexibility has led to entirely new programs and to important discoveries in science, medicine, education, and other fields. Allowing a longer time horizon. Unlike gifts expended upon receipt, an endowed gift keeps giving over time. Endowed institutions can plan strategically to use a more reliable stream of earnings to strengthen and enhance the quality of their programs, even if many years will be required to achieve some of their goals. By making endowed gifts, alumni and others take responsibility for ensuring the long-term well-being of colleges and universities; their gifts help enable future generations of students to benefit from a higher quality of education and allow these institutions to make even greater contributions to the public good.
Endowments benefit disadvantaged students the most- they increase funds
AAU 9 Association of American Universities, "MYTHS ABOUT COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENTS," January 2009
MYTH: Universities are not using enough of their endowments to make college accessible and affordable for low- and middle-income students. The cost of a college education is much higher for all students than the tuition prices charged by institutions. For college and universities with sizable endowments, the difference is subsidized by earnings from their endowments. The extensive aid colleges and universities extend to students from low- and middle-income families, which often covers tuition, books and living expenses, helps ensure that a top-quality education remains a path to the American dream. Many institutions with significant endowments are making this dream possible by converting loans to grants and by makeing college free for thousands of low- and moderate-income students (students from families with incomes below $40,000, and in some cases below $60,000 or $70,000 a year). Some of these institutions are: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Emory University; Vanderbilt University; the University of Washington; Stanford University; the University of Maryland at College Park; Princeton University; the University of Florida; Yale University; the University of Pennsylvania; Indiana University; Harvard University; Texas AandM University; Columbia University; and the University of Virginia. At these and many other institutions, financial aid is not just for low-income students. Middle income students are also offered significant financial support to help make college affordable, including grant aid to help reduce post-graduation debt. In addition to financial aid, universities conduct a variety of outreach programs to attract low-income applicants. These extensive outreach efforts include sending school repsresentatives to low-income communities, paying for low-income high school students to visit the campus, and waiving application fees.

Tournament: UH Cougar Classic | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Kinkaid SS | Judge: Abdul Asif, Ethan Lau, Arun Sharma
State cuts have led tuition to spike harming the ability to students to enter college, especially those who come from low income backgrounds or are people of color – The impact is a blow to the national economy because a college degree is a crucial internal link to working in a skilled job, decreasing health care costs, and bringing greater wealth to local communities
Mitchell et al 16 (Report published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; authors were Michael Mitchell (State Budget and Tax), Michael Leachman (State Budget and Tax), and Kathleen Masterson, “Funding Down, Tuition Up: State Cuts to Higher Education Threaten Quality and Affordability at Public Colleges”, http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-down-tuition-up,
Years of cuts in state funding for public colleges and universities have driven up tuition and harmed students’ educational experiences by forcing faculty reductions, fewer course offerings, and campus closings. These choices have made college less affordable and less accessible for students who need degrees to succeed in today’s economy. Though some states have begun to restore some of the deep cuts in financial support for public two-and four-year colleges since the recession hit, their support remains far below previous levels. In total, after adjusting for inflation, funding for public two-and four-year colleges is nearly $10 billion below what it was just prior to the recession. As states have slashed higher education funding, the price of attending public colleges has risen significantly faster than the growth in median income. For the average student, increases in federal student aid and the availability of tax credits have not kept up, jeopardizing the ability of many to afford the college education that is key to their long-term financial success. States that renew their commitment to a high-quality, affordable system of public higher education by increasing the revenue these schools receive will help build a stronger middle class and develop the entrepreneurs and skilled workers that are needed in the new century. Of the states that have finalized their higher education budgets for the current school year, after adjusting for inflation: Forty-six states – all except Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming – are spending less per student in the 2015-2016 yeah than they did before the recession. States cut funding deeply after the recession hit. The average state is spending $1,598, or 18 percent, less per student than before the recession. Per-student funding in nine states – Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina – is down by more than 30 percent since the start of the recession. In 12 states, per-student funding fell over the last year. Of these four states – Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, and Vermont – have cut per-student higher education funding for the last two consecutive years. In the last year, 38 states increased funding per student. Per-student funding rose $199, or 2.8 percent, nationally. Deep state funding cuts have had major consequences for public colleges and universities. States (and to a lesser extend localities) provide roughly 54 percent of the costs of teaching and instruction at these schools. Schools have made up the difference with tuition increases, cuts to educational or other services, or both. Since the recession took hold, higher education institutions have: Increased tuition. Public colleges and universities across the country have increased tuition to compensate for declining state funding and rising costs. Annual published tuition at four-year public colleges has risen by $2,333, or 33 percent, since the 2007-08 school year. In Arizona, published tuition at four-year schools is up nearly 90 percent, while in six other states – Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, and Louisiana – published tuition is up more than 60 percent. These sharp tuition increases have accelerated longer-term trends of college becoming less affordable and costs shifting from states to students. Over the last 20 years, the price of attending a four-year public college or university has grown significantly faster than the median income. Although federal student aid and tax credits have risen, on average they have fallen short of covering the tuition increases. Diminished academic opportunities and student services. Tuition increases have compensated for only part of the revenue loss resulting from state funding cuts. Over the past several years, public colleges and universities have cut faculty positions, eliminated course offerings, closed campuses, and reduced student services, among other cuts. A large and growing share of future jobs will require college-educated workers. Sufficient public investment in higher education to keep quality high and tuition affordable, and to provide financial aid to students who need it most, would help states develop the skilled and diverse workforce they will need to compete for these jobs. Sufficient public investment can only occur, however, if policymakers make sound tax and budget decisions. State revenues have improved significantly since the depths of the recession but are still only modestly above pre-recession levels. To make college more affordable and increase access to higher education, many states need to supplement that revenue growth with new revenue to fully make up for years of severe cuts. But just as the opportunity to invest is emerging, lawmakers in a number of states are jeopardizing it by entertaining tax cuts that in many cases would give the biggest breaks to the wealthiest taxpayers. In recent years, states such as Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Arizona have enacted large-scale tax cuts that limit resources available for higher education. And in Illinois and Pennsylvania ongoing attempts to find necessary resources after large tax cuts threaten current and future higher education funding. State and local tax revenue is a major source of support for public colleges and universities. Unlike private institutions, which rely more heavily on charitable donations and large endowments to help fund instruction, public two-and four-year colleges typically rely heavily on state and local appropriations. In 2015, state and local dollars constituted 54 percent of the funds these institutions used directly for teaching and instruction. While states have begun to restore funding, resources are well below what they were in 2008 – 18 percent per student lower – even as state revenues have returned to pre-recession levels. (See Figures 1 and 2.) In the states that have finalized their higher education budgets for the current 2015-16 school year compared with the 2007-08 school year, when the recession hit, adjusted for inflation: States spending on higher education nationwide is down an average $1,598 per student, or 18 percent. In only four states – Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming – is per-student funding now above its 2008 pre-recession levels. 26 states have cut funding per student by more than 20 percent. Nine states have cut funding per student by more than 30 percent. Arizona and Illinois have cut funding by more than half. Over the past year, most states increased per-student funding for their public higher education systems. (See Figures 3 and 4.) Thirty-eight states are investing more per student in the 2015-16 school year than they did in 2014-15. Nationally, spending is up an average of $199 per student, or 2.8 percent. The funding increases vary from $13 per student in Missouri to $1,730 in Wyoming. 15 states increased per-student funding by more than 5 percent. Five states – Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming – increased funding by more than 10 percent. But this trend is far from universal. In 12 states, per-student funding fell over the last year – declining, on average, 8.8 percent or by more than $516 per student. Funding cuts vary from $20 per student in New Jersey to $1,746 in Illinois. Six states – Alaska, Arizona, Illinois, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wisconsin – cut funding by more than $250 per student over the past year. Four states – Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, and Vermont – have cut per-student higher education funding for the last two years. Reductions in support for public colleges reflect in part the strategy that many states chose during the deep national recession and slow recovery. State tax revenues fell sharply during the Great Recession. The recession of 2007-09 led to record-breaking declines in state revenues, and the slow recovery continues to affect them. High unemployment and a slow recovery in housing values left people with less income and less purchasing power. As a result, states took in less from income tax and sales tax, their main sources of revenue for funding education and other services. By the fourth quarter of 2015, eight years after the recession hit, total state tax revenues were just 6.4 percent greater than they were at the start of the recession after adjusting for inflation. Many states chose to close their budget deficits through sizeable budget cuts rather than a more balanced mix of spending reductions and revenue increases. States relied disproportionately on damaging cuts to deal with declining revenue over the course of the recession Between fiscal years 2008 and 2012, states made up 45 percent of the loss in revenue through reducing support for public services – and only 16 percent through increases in taxes and fees. (They closed the remainder of their shortfalls with federal aid, reserves, and various other measures.) States would have lessened the deep cuts to higher education if they had been more willing to raise additional revenue. Meanwhile, college enrollment has risen. Public higher education institutions must educate more students, raising costs. Enrollment in public higher education was up by nearly 900,000 full-time-equivalent students, or 8.6 percent, between the beginning of the recession and the 2013-14 academic year (the latest year for which there are actual data). The recession played a large role in swelling enrollment numbers, particularly at community colleges, as many high school graduates chose college over dim employment prospects and older workers returned to retool and gain new skills. Other areas of state budgets also are under pressure. For example, an estimated 803,000 more K-12 students are enrolled in the current school year than in 2008. Long-term growth in state prison populations – with state facilities now housing nearly 1.56 million inmates – also continues to put pressure on state spending. In recent years states have modestly increased investment in two-and four-year colleges from their recession lows. As such, tuition hikes have been much smaller than they wee in the worst years of the recession. Published tuition – the “sticker price” – at public four-year institutions increased in 34 states over the past year, but only modestly. Average tuition increased $254, or 2.8 percent. Between last year and this year: Louisiana increased average tuition across its four-year institutions more than any other state, hiking it by more than 7 percent, or roughly $540. Nine states raised average tuition by more than 5 percent. In Washington State, tuition actually fell by nearly 4 percent. Nevertheless, tuition remains much higher than it was before the recession in most states. Since the 2007-08 school year, average annual published tuition has risen by $2,333 nationally, or 33 percent. (See Figures 5 and 6.) Steep tuition increases have been widespread, and average tuition at public four-year institutions, has increased by: more than 60 percent in seven states; more than 40 percent in 14 states; and more than 20 percent in 39 states. In Arizona, the state with the greatest tuition increases since the recession hit, tuition has risen 87.8 percent, or $4,978 per student. Average tuition at a four-year Arizona public university is now $10,646 a year. Tuition increases, while substantial in most states, have fallen far short nationally of fully replacing the per-student support that public colleges and universities have lost due to state funding cuts. In nearly half of the states, tuition increases between 2008 and 2015 have not fully offset cuts to state higher education funding. Because tuition increases have not fully compensated for the loss of state funding, and because most public schools do not have significant endowments of other sources of funding, many public colleges and universities have simultaneously reduced course offerings, student services, and other campus amenities. Data on spending at public institutions of higher learning in recent years are incomplete, but considerable evidence suggest that these actions by many public colleges and universities likely reduced the quality and availability of their academic offerings. For example, since the start of the recession, colleges and university systems in some states have eliminated administrative and faculty positions (in some instances replacing them with non-tenure-track staff), cut courses or increased class sizes, and in some cases, consolidated or eliminated whole programs, departments, or schools. Public colleges and universities continue to make these types of cuts, even as states have begun to reinvest in higher education. For example: The University of Alaska Fairbanks eliminated six degree offerings – including engineering management, science management, and philosophy. The University of Arizona cut 320 positions from its budget including layoffs, firings, and resignations, and increased class seizes for core undergraduate courses. In addition to laying off over 200 employees the university of Akron in Ohio eliminated its school baseball team. Facing large state funding cuts, the University of Wisconsin-Madison laid off or reduced staff and faculty vacancies by 400 slots and held faculty salaries level. Nationwide, employment at public colleges and universities has grown modestly since the start of the recession, but proportionally less than the growth in the number of students. Between 2008 and 2014, the number of full-time-equivalent instructional staff at public colleges and universities grew by about 7 percent, while the number of students at these institutions grew by 8.6 percent. In other words, the number of students per faculty member rose nationwide. Over time, students have assumed much greater responsibility for paying for public higher education. That’s because during and immediately following recessions, state and local funding for higher education has tended to fall, while tuition has tended to grow more quickly. During periods of economic growth, funding has tended to recover somewhat while tuition has stabilized at a higher level as a share of total higher educational funding. (See Figure 7.). In 1988, public colleges and universities received 3.2 times as much revenue from state and local governments as they did from students. They now receive about 1.2 times as much from states and localities as from students. Nearly every state has shifted costs to students over the last 25 years – with the most drastic shift occurring since the onset of the Great Recession. In 1988, average tuition amounts were larger than per-student state expenditures in only two states, New Hampshire and Vermont. By 2008, that number had grown to ten states. By 2008, that number had grown to ten states. In 2015 (the latest year for which there is data), tuition revenue was greater than state and local government funding for higher education in 22 states, with six – Colorado, Delaware, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Vermont – requiring students and families to shoulder higher education costs by a ration of at least 2- to -1. The cost shift from states to students has happened over a period when absorbing additional expenses has been difficult for many families because their incomes have been stagnant or declining. In the 1970s and early-to mid-1980s, tuition and incomes both grew modestly faster than inflation; by the late 1980s, tuition began to rise much faster than incomes. (See Figure 8.) Since 1973, average inflation-adjusted public college tuition has increased by 274 percent while median household income has grown by only 7 percent. Over the past 40 years, the incomes of the top 1 percent of families have grown by almost 170 percent. This means that public college tuition has outpaced income growth for even the highest earners. The sharp tuition increases states have imposed since the recession have exacerbated the longer-term trend. Tuition jumped nearly 30 percent between the 2007-08 and 2014-15 school years, while real median income fell roughly 6.5 percent over the same time period. Rapidly rising tuition at a time of weak or declining income growth has damaging consequences for families, students, and the national economy. Tuition costs deter some students from enrolling in college. While the recession encouraged many students to enroll in higher education, the large tuition increases of the past few years may have prevented further enrollment gains. Rapidly rising tuition makes it less likely that students will attend college. Research has consistently found that college price increases result in declining enrollment. While many universities and the federal government provide financial aid to help students bear the price, research suggests that a high sticker price can dissuade students from enrolling even if the net price, including aid, doesn’t rise. Rising tuition may be harming students of color and reducing campus diversity. New research finds that rising tuition and fees jeopardize campus diversity at public four-year colleges as students of color are less likely to enroll as the cost of tuition goes up. “All else equal, a $1000 tuition increase for full-time undergraduate students is associated with a drop in campus diversity of almost 6 percent,” New York University researchers found in a 2015 study. Another study, which examined tuition policy changes in Texas in the early 2000s, concluded that rising tuition rates limited enrollment gains for Hispanic students in the state. The share of students coming from communities of color at public two-and four-year colleges had risen significantly in the years leading up to these tuition increases. State cuts to higher education, made up for with higher tuition rates, jeopardizes this trend. Tuition increases likely deter low-income students, in particular, from enrolling. College cost increases have the biggest impact on students from low-income families, research further shows. For example, a 1995 study by Harvard University researcher Thomas Kane concluded that states with the larges tuition increases during the 1980s and early 1990s “saw the greatest widening of the gaps in enrollment between high-and low-income youth.” The relative lack of knowledge among low-income families about the admissions and financial aid process may exacerbate these damaging effects. Students from families that struggle to get by – including those who live in communities with lower shares of college-educated adults and attend high schools that have higher student-to-counselor ratios tend to overestimate the true cost of higher education more than students from wealthier households in part because they are less aware of the financial aid for which they are eligible. These effects are particularly concerning because gaps in college enrollment between higher-and lower-income youth are already pronounced. In 2012, just over half of recent high school graduates from families with income in the lowest 20 percent enrolled in some form of postsecondary education, as opposed to 82 percent of students from the top 20 percent. Significant enrollment gaps based on income exist even among prospective students with similar academic records and test scores. Rapidly rising costs at public colleges and universities may widen these gaps further. Tuition increase may be pushing lower-income students toward less-selective public institutions, reducing their future earnings. Perhaps just as important as a student’s decision to enroll in higher education is the choice of which college to attend. A large share of high-achieving students from struggling families fail to apply to any selective colleges or universities, a 2013 Brookings Institution study found. Even here, research indicates that financial constraints and concerns about cost push lower-income students to narrow their list of potential schools and ultimately enroll in less-selective institutions. Another 2013 study found evidence that some high-achieving, low-income students are more likely to “undermatch” in their college choice in part due to financial constraints. Where a student decides to go to college has broad economic implications, especially for economically disadvantaged students and students of color. Students who had parents with less education, as well as African American and Latino students, experienced higher postgraduate earnings by attending more elite colleges relative to similar students who attended less-selective universities, a 2011 study by Stanford University and Mathematica Policy Research found. As tuition soared after the recession, federal financial aid also increased.  The Federal Pell Grant Program ― the nation’s primary source of student grant aid ― increased the amount of aid it distributed by just over 80 percent between the 2007-08 and 2014-15 school years.  This substantial boost has enabled the program not only to reach more students ― 2.7 million more students received Pell support last year than in 2008 ― but also to provide the average recipient with more support.  The average grant rose by 21 percent — to $3,673 from $3,028.44 The increase in federal financial aid has helped many students and families cover recent tuition hikes.  The College Board calculates that the annual value of grant aid and higher education tax benefits for students at four-year public colleges nationally has risen by an average of $1,410 in real terms since the 2007-08 school year, offsetting about 61 percent of the average $2,320 tuition increase.  For community colleges, increases in student aid have more than made up the difference, leading to a drop in net tuition for the average student.45  Since the sticker-price increases have varied so much from state to state while federal grant and tax-credit amounts are uniform across the country, students in states with large tuition increases ¾ such as Arizona, Georgia, and Louisiana ¾ likely still experienced substantial increases in their net tuition and fees, while the net cost for students in states with smaller tuition increases may have fallen. Financial aid provided bystates, however — which was far less than federal aid even before the recession — hasfallen on average.  In the 2007-2008 school year, state grant dollars equaled $740 per student.  By 2014, the latest year for which full data is available, that number had fallen to $710, a drop of roughly 4 percent.46 Federal financial aid has certainly lessened the impact of tuition and fee increases on students from families with low incomes.  However, the overall average cost of attending college has risen for these students, because room and board costs have increased, too.  As a result, the net cost of attendance at four-year public institutions for low-income students increased 12 percent from 2008 to 2012.  For those at public community colleges, the increase over the same time period was 4 percent.47   Because grants and tax credits rarely cover the full cost of college attendance, most students — students of color and low-income students in particular — borrow money.  In 2012, 79 percent of students from families whose incomes are in the lowest 25 percent graduating with a bachelor’s degree had student loans (compared with 55 percent of graduating students from families whose incomes are in the higher 25 percent).48 In the same year, more than four of every five African American students borrowed at public institutions (compared with 64 percent of graduating students overall).49 Further, the overall share of students graduating with debt has risen since the start of the recession.  Between the 2007-08 and 2013-14 school years, the share of students graduating with debt from a public four-year institution increased from 55 percent to 60 percent.  At the same time, the average amount of debt incurred by the average bachelor’s degree recipient with loans at a public four-year institution grew to $25,500 from $21,200 (in 2014 dollars), an increase of $4,300, or 18 percent.  By contrast, the average level of debt incurred had risen only about 1 percent in the six years prior to the recession.50 In short, at public four-year institutions, a greater share of students are taking on larger amounts of debt.  By the fourth quarter of 2015, students held $1.23 trillion in student debt — more than car loans and credit card debt combined.51 Yet, while college loan burdens have increased significantly for students at public four-year institutions, the significant run-up in debt levels has been driven in large part by a growing share of students attending private for-profit institutions — such as Corinthian and the University of Phoenix — and two-year community colleges.  In 2000, borrowers entering repayment on student loans from for-profit and two-year institutions made up roughly 30 percent of all borrowers overall, a study from the U.S. Treasury Department and Stanford University researchers found.  By 2011, these borrowers represented nearly half of all federal student loan borrowers entering repayment.  In fact, for-profit institutions have been such a driving force that in 2014, eight of the top ten and 13 of the top 25 institutions whose students owe (collectively) the most in federal student loan debt were for-profit institutions.  (See Table 1.)  In 2000, only one for-profit made the top 25 (the rest were either four-year public or private non-profit institutions).52 The reduced college access and graduation rates that research finds likely result from decreased state support for college hurt more than just students, because college attainment has grown increasingly important to long-term state and national economic outcomes. A college degree is increasingly a pre-requisite for professional success and for entry into the middle class or beyond. A young college graduate earns $12,000 a year more than someone who did not attend college. The benefits of academic attainment extend beyond those who receive a degree. Entire communities benefit when more residents have college degrees. For instance, higher educational attainment has been connected with lower rates of crime, greater levels of civic participation, and better health. Areas with highly educated residents tend to attract strong employers who pay their employees competitive wages. Those employees, in turn, buy goods and services from others in the community, broadly benefitting the area’s economy. As a result, the wages of workers at all levels of education are higher in metropolitan areas with high concentrations of college-educated residents, economist Enrico Moretti of the university of California at Berkeley finds. This implies that – even though not all good jobs require a college degree – having a highly educated workforce can boost an area’s economic success. The economic importance of higher education will continue to grow. In a 2013 report, researchers from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce projected that by 2020, nearly two-thirds of all jobs will require at least some college education, up from 59 percent in 2007. The Georgetown Center further projects that, based on current trends – without significant new investment in capacity – the nation’s education system will not keep pace with the rising demand for educated workers. By 2020, the country’s system of higher education will produce 5 million fewer college graduates than the labor market will need. The increase in student debt in recent years also has important implications for the broader economy, most explicitly for students who incur the college debt but do not graduate. While debt is a crucial tool for financing higher education, excessive debt can impose considerable costs on both students and society as a whole. Research finds that higher student debt levels are associated with lower rates of homeownership among young adults; can create stresses that reduce the probability of graduation, particularly for students from lower-income families; and reduce the likelihood that graduates with majors in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics will go on to the further academic study that is often needed to obtain advanced positions in those fields. There is also growing concern that rising debt levels may be preventing some young adults from starting businesses. Many entrepreneurs rely heavily on personal debt to help launch their small businesses, and rising levels of student loan debt may make it more difficult to obtain loans or other lines of credit necessary for launching a startup. Looking at the period from 2000 to 2010, researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that as student loan debt rose, net business formation of the smallest businesses – those employing four or fewer people – fell. These findings mean states should strive to expand college access and increase college graduation rates to help build a strong middle class and develop the entrepreneurs and skilled workers needed to compete in today’s global economy.  They suggest further that the severe higher education funding cuts that states have made since the start of the recession will make it more difficult to achieve those goals
The only thing keeping graduation rates stable is financial aid -~-- allows students to study full-time, encourages academic progress, and is the only way low-income students can afford to enroll
Johnson 14 (Hans Johnson – supported by the College Access Foundation of California and writing for the Public Policy Institute of California, “Making College Possible for Low-Income Students: Grant and Scholarship Aid in California”, http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_1014HJR.pdf, pg. 20-24,)
Students fail to complete college for many reasons, including financial constraints. Certainly it is well known that low-income students are less likely to finish college than other students, even accounting for differences in academic preparation and records. Surveys of students who drop out of college find that, indeed, financial constraints play an important role. In one survey, respondents not only cited the need to work as the primary reason for leaving college but also said that work and family commitments were the reasons for not being able to return to school. More than half of the respondents said that financial aid “that completely covered tuition and books” would induce them to return to school (Johnson et al. 2009). Studies on the direct effect of grant and scholarship aid on college completion also suggest that financial aid leads to increases in graduation rates. Assigning causality in such work is difficult, however, because students who apply for aid might be more motivated than others to earn a degree and because college prices and grant aid programs vary dramatically across colleges. In general, most studies find that grant aid for low-income students increases persistence rates by as much as 10 percentage points and completion rates by at least a few percentage points (Dynarski 2005; Deming and Dynarski 2009; Kuh et al. 2008).16 A rigorous study of Florida’s “Student Access Grant” found that students whose family income made them just barely eligible for the grant of $1,300 were four percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree within seven years than students who were ineligible for the grant because their income was just above the required level (28 versus 24; Castleman and Long 2013). Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics “Beginning Postsecondary Survey,” we examined college completion rates among students in the United States who first entered college in 2003 and were followed through 2009.17 The data shows that grant aid is associated with higher rates of baccalaureate completion, even after controlling for institutional characteristics and student characteristics such as high school grade point average and family income. And our analysis indicated that the effect of grant aid is fairly strong: Every standard deviation increase in grant aid is associated with a 6.7 percentage point increase in the likelihood of graduating within six years. Our findings are consistent with but slightly different from those of Franke (2014). Restricting his analysis to students first enrolling in four-year colleges, Franke found that the effect of grant aid depends on its source: For every $1,000 in grant aid, federal aid (mostly Pell Grants) led to a 2.5 to 2.8 percent increase in degree attainment, state need-based aid led to a 2.4 to 2.6 percent increase, and institutional aid led to a 1.3 to 1.6 percent increase in degree attainment.18 A key consideration is whether the form of delivery of grant aid might lead to improvements in completion rates. It has been suggested, for example, that performance-based grants in which grant renewal depends on academic outcomes, such as grades and units completed, might be one way to improve college completion rates.19 However, studies have found only minimal if any effects of performance-based grants on student completion beyond the effects of other types of grants.20 The most rigorous of these evaluations, based on randomized controlled trials in seven states (including California), found mixed results (Patel et al. 2013). Among five states with findings related to persistence, the share of students registering at the beginning of the second year was slightly higher in only two of the states, including California (where persistence rates were 81.4 percent for program participants compared to 79.0 percent for the control group). In the six states with published findings on academic units (excluding California), the number of units earned in the first year increased slightly (but was not significant in two of the six states). Finally, in Ohio, the only state with several years of experience, completion rates (attainment of a vocational certificate, associate’s degree, or bachelor’s degree) increased by 3.5 percentage points (26.9 for program participants versus 23.4 for the control group), driven almost entirely by an increase in associate’s degrees. These generally positive results are consistent with, and of the same order of magnitude as, the effects of general grant aid and scholarship programs. In other words, increases in grant aid improve student persistence and completion, but performance-based grants do not seem to have greater effects than other types of grants. These results are not necessarily surprising, as almost all grants already have de facto performance requirements. For example, the amount of most grants depends on full-time versus part-time status, with full-time students receiving more aid. Moreover, the renewal of grant aid often depends on some measure of academic progress (such as not being on academic probation). Finally, and most obviously, students cannot receive grant aid if they fail to enroll in college. In addition to the direct effect on student persistence and completion, grant and scholarship aid can also indirectly improve student outcomes. For example, financial assistance enables students to work less and focus more on school. And to the extent that it allows students to attend college on a full-time rather than part-time basis, grant aid could reduce time to completion and increase completion rates. And finally, because the amount of grant aid offered is higher for full-time students, this form of assistance incentivizes full-time attendance. A second and perhaps more important indirect role of grant aid is that it can induce students to attend four-year colleges rather than community colleges. Because of high net prices at four-year colleges, some low-income students in California opt for community colleges because of their low fees and low net prices. Costs of attending community college can be particularly low for students who live at home, with sticker prices about $10,000 lower than for students with independent living arrangements. Among incoming freshmen at the state’s community colleges in 2007-2008, 50,000 were deemed ready for college-level work. Some of these students would have been eligible for CSU or even UC but instead opted for a community college. The downside of this is that students attending a community college rather than a four-year college are less likely to complete college. Using data from over 2,000 students who were awarded scholarships by the College Access Foundation of California (CAFC) and who were followed for six years, we estimated the probability of earning a bachelor’s degree based on the type of institution first attended. The CAFC students all intended to earn a bachelor’s degree, even if they first enrolled at a community college. However, as shown in Figure 6, students who began their college career at a four-year college were much more likely than those who enrolled at a community college to earn a bachelor’s degree, even when controlling for high school grade point average. Because we cannot control for all the differences between students first attending a community college and those first attending a four-year college, it is likely that our results overstate the causal effect of attending a four-year college on earning a bachelor’s degree. But even if we were able to account for all the differences between community college and four-year college students, we would certainly find that enrolling in a four-year college leads to much higher rates of degree attainment than starting first at a community college and then trying to transfer. 24 In this study, we examine the role of grant and scholarship aid in California in making college more accessible and in helping students complete college. Our primary findings are that: For many low-income students, college would probably not be possible without grant and scholarship aid, which has contributed greatly to keeping net prices from rising as fast as sticker prices. Grant and scholarship aid is associated with higher rates of baccalaureate completion. These findings hold even after controlling for institutional characteristics and student characteristics including high school grade point average and family income. Performance-based grants do not seem to have greater effect than other types of grants, largely because students already must meet institutional academic requirements to remain enrolled in college. An important role of aid is that it can induce students to attend four-year colleges rather than community colleges. Students are much more likely to earn a degree if they first enroll at a four-year college.
Restrictions on free speech may be unconstitutional, but not doing so in cases involving sexual violence causes public colleges to lose federal funding under Title IX
Bernstein 3 (David E. Bernstein – George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law with a focus on constitutional history, “You Can’t Say That: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties From Antidiscrimination Laws”, “Censoring Campus Speech”, https://books.google.com/books?id=zU2QAAAAQBAJandpg=PA60andlpg=PA60anddq=public+colleges+could+lose+funding+if+they+allow+for+racistsandsource=blandots=W67N5E3bznandsig=xXeBW8YaTy_Ilb34MIbu-grciy4andhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiBoqTkn_nQAhVBjFQKHcc7CIkQ6AEITDAI#v=onepageandq=public20colleges20could20lose20funding20if20they20allow20for20racistsandf=false, pg. 60-61,)
Given these constitutional barriers, public university speech codes were on the way out until the federal Department of Education revived them in 1994. Male students at Santa Rosa Community College had posted anatomically explicit and sexually derogatory remarks about two female students in a discussion group hosted by the college’s computer network. Several aggrieved students filed a complaint against the college with the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights. The DOE found that the messages probably created a hostile educational environment on the basis of sex for one of the students. University toleration of such offensive speech, the government added, would violate Title IX, the law banning discrimination against women by education institutions that receive federal funding. Under this standard, to avoid losing federal funds, universities must proactively ban offensive speech by students and diligently punish any violations of that ban. The DOE failed to explain how its rule was consistent with the First Amendment. Speech codes enacted by public universities clearly violate the First Amendment even if the codes are enacted in response to the demands of the DOE, so requiring public universities to enact speech codes or forfeit public funds would obviously be unconstitutional. Nevertheless, facing this choice, public university officials have ignored the First Amendment issue and complied with DOE guidelines. Although a few schools may truly be concerned about the potential loss of federal funding, the prevailing attitude among university officials seems to be that the DOE’s Santa Rosa decision provides a ready excuse to indulge their preference for speech codes. University officials implicitly reason that if the DOE can get away with ignoring the First Amendment, then so can they. Unfortunately, they may be right.
Federal funding is used to maintain financial aid resources and colleges are only growing more dependent on it as state funding goes down
Pew 15 (The Pew Charitable Trusts – compiles evidence and non-partisan analysis to inform the public and create better public policy, “Federal and State Funding of Higher Education: A Changing Landscape”, http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2015/06/federal-and-state-funding-of-higher-education)
States and the federal government have long provided substantial funding for higher education, but changes in recent years have resulted in their contributions being more equal than at any time in at least the previous two decades. Historically, states have provided a far greater amount of assistance to postsecondary institutions and students; 65 percent more than the federal government on average from 1987 to 2012. But this difference narrowed dramatically in recent years, particularly since the Great Recession, as state spending declined and federal investments grew sharply, largely driven by increases in the Pell Grant program, a need-based financial aid program that is the biggest component of federal higher education spending. Although their funding streams for higher education are now comparable in size and have some overlapping policy goals, such as increasing access for students and supporting research, federal and state governments channel resources into the system in different ways. The federal government mainly provides financial assistance to individual students and specific research projects, while state funds primarily pay for the general operations of public institutions.
College credentials are crucial to social mobility and national economic growth – affects everything from health insurance to better marriages to lower unemployment rates
White House 14 (Report by the Executive Office of the President, “Increasing College Opportunity for Low-Income Students: Promising Models and a Call to Action”, pgs. 10 – 11, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/white_house_report_on_increasing_college_opportunity_for_low-income_students_1-16-2014_final.pdf,)
The benefits of postsecondary education are well documented and have major implications for economic growth, equality, and social mobility. Getting a postsecondary credential leads to greater lifetime earnings, lower unemployment, and lower poverty. Over the course of one’s working lifetime, the median earnings of bachelor’s degree recipients are 65 percent higher than median earnings of high-school graduates. 30 College graduates are also more likely to find a job; the unemployment rate for bachelor’s degree recipients is half the unemployment rate of high school graduates – and this gap grew during the Great Recession, which hit lowwage, low-education workers especially hard.31 Gaining a postsecondary education has positive effects beyond higher earnings. Individuals with higher education levels are more likely have retirement benefits and health insurance through their employer.32 Education also leads to better decision making about health, marriage, and parenting; improves patience; and makes people more goal-oriented.33 College access and attainment also leads to positive externalities and benefits to taxpayers by reducing crime and the need for social services, and increasing taxes paid and civic engagement.34 Importantly, the returns to higher education have increased over time as the demand for college-educated workers has outpaced the number of students getting a college education.35 Over the past four decades, the median earnings gap for full-time workers aged 25-34 with and without a college degree increased substantially for women and more than doubled for men; from 1971 to 2011 the earnings premium for men increased from 25 percent to 69 percent.36 Likewise, the earnings gap between those with and without a college degree increases as workers age.37 In response to the growing earnings gap between those with and without postsecondary education, a report from the Pew Economic Mobility Project remarked that, “unless something is done to boost the number of young people earning postsecondary credentials, millions of Americans will continue to be limited in their economic mobility.”38 Without a college degree, children born in the lowest fifth of the income distribution children have a 45 percent chance of staying in the bottom, and just a 5 percent chance of moving to the top Figure 1. Yet when these same children go on to earn a college degree, their chances of making it to the top nearly quadruple, and their chances of moving out of the bottom increase by 50 percent.39
The impact is massive – combatting the structural barriers that prevent individuals from attending college is the main internal link to competitiveness
U.S. Department of Commerce 12 (Prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce with consultation from the National Economic Council, “The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity in the United States”, http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/thecompetitivenessandinnovativecapacityoftheunitedstates.pdf, pgs. 2-10)
Education is a key element for promoting economic growth and increasing the innovative capacity of a firm or a country. Economic growth “closely depends on the synergies between new knowledge and human capital, which is why large in‐ creases in education and training have accompanied major advances in techno‐ logical knowledge in all countries that have achieved significant economic growth.”1 Our nation’s education system underpins the United States’ rise to the position of richest nation on the planet in the last century.2 However, we must recognize and address cracks in this building block of American innovation, lest we fall behind countries that have placed a higher priority on developing a skilled workforce. It is not sufficient in today’s global economy for a nation to have a generally skilled and educated workforce. Increasingly, the specific skills embodied in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education fuel the innovative processes that are especially valuable to our economy. These skills are sought by companies across the economy as they look to expand their work‐ forces. These STEM skills are not only important for those working towards advanced degrees. All levels of the education system should incorporate the critical thinking and other skills that are the hallmark of STEM education.3 This chapter compares the United States to other nations on the dimensions of access to education and training and academic outcomes, with a particular focus on STEM. Furthermore, it outlines the diverse and critical role of the Federal government in building a skilled and competitive workforce. Areas to be addressed are summarized below: The United States must sustain the quality of its post-secondary education system, which is the top destination for students from abroad, while also removing barriers that have limited the post-secondary participation and performance of U.S. students. It is essential that the United States equip future and current workers with the skills needed to compete in a global labor market. Given the importance of the role played by technological progress and innovation in promoting economic growth, investment in STEM education is especially important. Yet the United States is falling behind in this area at all education levels, and addressing this shortcoming is needed if we are to continue to produce not only a workforce with the technical skills needed to fill current job openings, but persons with the unique blend of technical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit who will create the products and industries of the future. Education is a complex and multifaceted process that spans pre‐school through life‐long learning and involves policy issues ranging from affordability and technology, to questions of support for higher education, classroom size, equal access, and teacher compensation. This chapter primarily and narrowly focuses its attention to STEM because of the strong link between STEM skills, STEM occupations, and innovation. However, our narrow attention to STEM in no way implies that other aspects of education policy are not important in making our country more innovative and competitive. Indeed, our attention to STEM should be viewed as only one example of an area where concern has been raised about the nation’s performance relative to other countries in the world. The STEM workforce is typically defined as the set of professional and technical support occupations in the fields of computer science and mathematics, engineering, and life and physical sciences. In 2010, there were 7.6 million STEM workers in the United States, representing about 1 in 18 workers. Computer and math occupations account for close to half of STEM employment, followed by engineering with 32 percent of STEM jobs, physical and life sciences with 13 per‐ cent, and STEM management jobs with 9 percent. Over the past 10 years, growth in STEM jobs (7.9 percent) was three times as fast as growth in non‐STEM jobs (2.6 percent). Looking ahead over the coming years, STEM employment is expected to continue to grow at a faster rate (see figure 4.1). STEM workers fill our nation’s research and development facilities and drive our nation’s innovation and competitiveness by generating new ideas, new companies, and new industries.Not surprisingly, more than three‐fourths of the most celebrated inventors and entrepreneurs since 1800 had degrees in engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science, or medicine.4 Commensurate with their importance in driving economic productivity and growth, workers in STEM fields earn more on average than workers in other fields. As a result, providing more students with the skills to work in STEM fields is crucial both to the nation’s economic future and to improving the incomes of our workers. STEM workers enjoy large earnings premiums over non‐STEM workers. For example, in 2010, the STEM premium earned by workers with a bachelor’s degree was 27 percent, and for workers with a graduate degree, it was 12 percent5 (see table 4.1). STEM workers are also less likely to experience joblessness than their non‐STEM counterparts. Just as innovative processes take place both inside and outside the traditional spheres of research and development (RandD), STEM is now often defined both in‐ side and outside the traditional set of science and engineering jobs. Thus, STEM can be defined not just as a group of workers in science and engineering jobs, but also as a set of workers with STEM education or STEM knowledge and skills, whether or not they work in STEM jobs. The human capital embodied in the work that STEM workers perform is valued in other sectors of the economy. This capital includes knowledge of mathematics, computers, and electronics and more general skills, such as critical thinking, troubling shooting, and various forms of reasoning.6 More generally, a growing number of occupations in the economy have been found to require a greater intensity of non‐routine analytical and interactive tasks—that is, ones requiring reasoning and high executive functioning—while a declining number of occupations rely more heavily on manual and routine tasks.7 Nearly two-thirds of workers with undergraduate degrees in a STEM field are working in non-STEM occupations, such as healthcare, education, the social sciences, and management (see figure 4.2). These workers are not underperforming, nor are they mismatched in their current jobs. Rather, the same human capital that drives innovative processes through traditional RandD-related employment is needed across our economy, a suggestion that is confirmed in surveys of these workers as well. Furthermore, many STEM-educated workers who choose education jobs are likely teaching STEM skills to others. The value of STEM human capital is reflected in the earnings premium enjoyed by college‐educated workers with a STEM degree. All else equal, workers with a STEM degree earn 11 percent more per hour in full‐time non‐STEM jobs than workers with other undergraduate degrees. When STEM majors work in STEM jobs, their earnings premium rises to 20 percent, relative to persons with non‐ STEM degrees working in non‐STEM jobs. Given that more than two‐thirds of STEM workers have at least a college degree and that demand for STEM workers and workers with STEM degrees continues to grow, the U.S. college and university system is a cornerstone of our STEM future. Fortunately, at the college level, the United States continues to set the standard of the quality of the educational system and in the value of obtaining a college degree. However, the United States is losing ground to other countries in important areas of education, specifically in creating opportunities for students to gain expertise in STEM skills. Improvements are required at all education levels, including post‐secondary school, if the United States is to remain internationally competitive and for it to continue to excel in preparing its workforce for an increasingly knowledge‐intensive economy. Elite institutions within the United States’ college and university system typically dominate global rankings of prestigious higher education institutions. In 2011‐ 2012, in a worldwide ranking, 18 out of the top 25 universities and 30 out of the top 50 universities were in the United States. The United Kingdom was next with four in the top 25 and five in the top 50.11 These rankings make our country a magnet for the best students from around the world. The United States is still the top destination for students studying abroad, although its share has fallen some‐ what over time (see figure 4.3). Another way to look at the desirability of the United States as a destination for study is in export terms: when students from abroad come to the United States to study, that is an export of educational services (see figure 4.4). In 2010, receipts from education exports exceeded $21 billion, more than doubling over the previous 10 years in keeping with the rising cost of attending U.S. colleges and universities. Close to half of the receipts came from China ($4.0 billion), India ($3.3 billion), and Korea ($2.2 billion) (see figure 4.5). Roughly 40 percent of international students in 2010–2011 were studying in STEM‐related fields, such as engineering (18.7 percent), math and computer sciences (8.9 percent), and physical and life sciences (8.8 percent). Business and management ranked the most popular individual field (21.5 percent).12 While the United States continues to have top‐flight higher education institutions, fundamental problems in the kindergarten through college system threaten our ability to increase the skills of our workforce as rapidly as needed. Among high school graduates who do enroll in college, a remarkably high proportion—20 percent—takes at least one remedial course their freshman year.13 Stu‐ dents who take remedial coursework often do not fully catch up with their other college‐going peers: compared with college students who need no remediation, students who take even a single remedial course are less likely to earn their bachelor’s degree than students who did not take any remedial courses.14 More generally, the United States has slipped behind other countries in terms of college attainment rates over the second half of the 20th century. The cohort born be‐ tween 1943 and 1952 had the highest share of bachelor degree holders in the world. Since then several other countries have not only caught up but surpassed the United States in the proportion of adults who have completed college. Currently, the share of the U.S. population aged 25–34 that has attained post‐secondary education is only slightly above the OECD average.1 Of those who graduate from college, the United States produces fewer STEM graduates relative to other developed countries. OECD data show that in 2009 12.8 percent of U.S. graduates with bachelor’s degrees were in STEM fields. This places the United States near the bottom of OECD countries in terms of the percentage of STEM graduates produced. Significant economic competitors—such as South Korea (26.3 percent), Germany (24.5 percent), Canada (19.2 percent), and the United Kingdom (18.1 percent)—are on the long list of countries producing a much higher percentage of STEM graduates.16 As they advance through the education system, U.S. students choose not to enter STEM fields or, if they do pursue these studies, do not continue. Three out of four high school students who test in the top math quartile don’t start with a STEM major in college, and only half of all students who start in a STEM major graduate with a STEM degree.17 While no single reason can account for the low share of students in STEM fields, students’ poor K–12 math and science preparation and their unwillingness to commit the additional study time needed for math and science courses relative to other classes are likely contributing factors.18 As detailed below, the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation have developed initiatives to improve K–12 and college‐level STEM instruction and to reduce the number of students exiting STEM majors for other majors. Given the importance of a college education to a worker’s productivity and earnings, particularly for STEM‐educated workers, it is striking that only 70 percent of high school graduates in 2009 went on to some higher education—a rate lower than that of the highest performing countries, such as Norway and New Zealand.19 One barrier to college attendance is the high price of tuition and fees. Whether for a 2‐year or 4‐year degree, tuition has climbed much faster than consumer prices and household incomes. Over the past decade, in‐state public university tuition and fees more than doubled while tuition and fees for 2‐year schools rose 71 percent. During the same period, overall consumer prices increased 27 percent and nominal median household income rose 18 percent (see figure 4.6). In other words, household income over the period was not able to keep up with the overall increase in consumer prices, let alone the soaring sticker price of a college education. The cost of room and board (not included in tuition and fees) was no more forgiving. Between the 1999–2000 and 2009–2010 school years, the cost of staying in a college dormitory rose 80 percent while board increased 55 percent. Grant aid from public and private sources, including Federal Pell Grants and Federal education tax credits and deductions, however, have helped soften the financial blow to families. As a result, the net price of a college education—that is, the published price of tuition and fees minus all forms of financial aid—has not in‐ creased as fast as the sticker prices.20 In fact, in constant dollars the net price for full‐time students attending public, four‐year institutions in 2011–2012 increased just $60 relative to 2007–2008, while the net price for public, two‐year schools and private schools in 2011–2012 was lower than in 2007–2008.21

Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 3 | Opponent: Loyola JN | Judge: James Sanger
The sufficient negative burden is to show there exists one instance where free speech ought not be constitutionally protected.
Google Dictionary defines “not” as https://www.google.com/search?q=not+definitionandoq=not+definitionandaqs=chrome.0.0l6.2170j0j7andsourceid=chromeandie=UTF-8 “used with an auxiliary verb or “be” to form the negative.”
Google Dictionary defines “any” as https://www.google.com/search?q=not+definitionandoq=not+definitionandaqs=chrome.0.0l6.2170j0j7andsourceid=chromeandie=UTF-8#q=any+definition “whichever of a specified class might be chosen.”
Semantics Outweigh
A. Analytic
B. Being semantically in line controls the internal link to pragmatic benefits.
Nebel 15 Jake “The Priority of Resolutional Semantics” vbriefly February 20th 2015 http://vbriefly.com/2015/02/20/the-priority-of-resolutional-semantics-by-jake-nebel/
1.1 The Topicality Rule vs. Pragmatic Considerations There is an obvious objection to my argument above. If the topicality rule is justified for reasons that have to do with fairness and education, then shouldn’t we just directly appeal to such considerations when determining what proposition we ought to debate? There are at least three ways I see of responding to this objection. One way admits that such pragmatic considerations are relevant—i.e., they are reasons to change the topic—but holds that they are outweighed by the reasons for the topicality rule. It would be better if everyone debated the resolution as worded, whatever it is, than if everyone debated whatever subtle variation on the resolution they favored. Affirmatives would unfairly abuse (and have already abused) the entitlement to choose their own unpredictable adventure, and negatives would respond (and have already responded) with strategies that are designed to avoid clash—including an essentially vigilantist approach to topicality in which debaters enforce their own pet resolutions on an arbitrary, round-by-round basis. Think here of the utilitarian case for internalizing rules against lying, murder, and other intuitively wrong acts. As the great utilitarian Henry Sidgwick argued, wellbeing is maximized not by everyone doing what they think maximizes wellbeing, but rather (in general) by people sticking to the rules of common sense morality. Otherwise, people are more likely to act on mistaken utility calculations and engage in self-serving violations of useful rules, thereby undermining social practices that promote wellbeing in the long run. That is exactly what happens if we reject the topicality rule in favor of direct appeals to pragmatic considerations.

Tournament: Barkley Forum | Round: 4 | Opponent: Riverside CB | Judge: Sunil Gedela
I negate the resolution, resolved: Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not restrict any constitutionally protected speech.
I value morality since ought in the resolution implies a moral obligation.
Government must be practical and cannot concern itself with metaphysical questions – they must protect the lives of their citizens.
Martin Rhonheimer, a political and academic philosopher publishes in 2005 (Martin, Prof Of Philosophy at The Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome). “THE POLITICAL ETHOS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY AND THE PLACE OF NATURAL LAW IN PUBLIC REASON: RAWLS’S “POLITICAL LIBERALISM” REVISITED” The American Journal of Jurisprudence vol. 50 (2005), pp. 1-70
It is a fundamental feature of political philosophy to be part of practical philosophy. Political philosophy belongs to ethics, which is practical, for it both reflects on practical  knowledge and aims at action. Therefore, it is not only normative, but must consider the concrete conditions of realization. The rationale of political institutions and action must be understood as embedded in concrete cultural and, therefore, historical contexts and as meeting with problems that only in these contexts are understandable. A normative political philosophy which would abstract from the conditions of  realizability would be  trying to establish norms for realizing the “idea of the good” or of “the just” (as Plato, in  fact, tried to do in his Republic). Such a purely metaphysical view, however, is doomed to failure. As a theory of political praxis, political philosophy must include in its reflection the concrete historical context, historical experiences and the corresponding knowledge of the proper logic of the political. 14 Briefly: political philosophy is not metaphysics, which contemplates the necessary order of being, but practical philosophy, which  deals with partly contingent matters and aims at action.  Moreover, unlike moral norms in general—natural law included,—which rule the  actions of a person—“my acting” and pursuing the good—, the logic of the political is characterized by acts like framing institutions and establishing legal rules by which not only personal actions but the actions of a multitude of persons are regulated by the coercive force of state power, and by which a part of citizens exercises power over others.  Political actions are, thus, both actions of the whole of the body politic and referring to  the whole of the community of citizens. 15 Unless we wish to espouse a platonic view according to which some persons are by  nature rulers while others are by nature subjects, we will stick to the Aristotelian differentiation between the “domestic” and the “political” kind of rule 16 : unlike domestic rule,  which is over people with a common interest and harmoniously striving after the same good despotism and, therefore, according to Aristotle is essentially “despotic,” political rule is exercised over free persons who represent a plurality of interests and pursue, in the common context of the polis, different goods. The exercise of such political rule, therefore, needs justification and is continuously in search of  consent among those who are  ruled, but who potentially at the same time are also the rulers
Thus the standard is maximizing expected well-being or protecting the well-being of society.
Contention 1 – Hate Speech
Hate speech is permissible under the first amendment despite the exceptions
Eugene Volokh, a Law Professor at UCLA publishes in 2015 Eugene Volokh, Law Professor at UCLA, “No, there’s no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment,” The Washington Post, May 7, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/07/no-theres-no-hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/?utm_term=.9e1ed85e9262  
I keep hearing about a supposed “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, or statements such as, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” or “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?” But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans. To be sure, there are some kinds of speech that are unprotected by the First Amendment. But those narrow exceptions have nothing to do with “hate speech” in any conventionally used sense of the term. For instance, there is an exception for “fighting words” — face-to-face personal insults addressed to a specific person, of the sort that are likely to start an immediate fight. But this exception isn’t limited to racial or religious insults, nor does it cover all racially or religiously offensive statements. Indeed, when the City of St. Paul tried to specifically punish bigoted fighting words, the Supreme Court held that this selective prohibition was unconstitutional (R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992)), even though a broad ban on all fighting words would indeed be permissible.
Hate speech leads to a genocidal increase in crimes against marginalized groups.
Jonathan Greenblatt, Nation head director of the Anti-Defamation League writes in 2015 Jonathan Greenblatt, When Hateful Speech Leads to Hate Crimes: Taking Bigotry Out of the Immigration Debate, Huffington Post, 8/21/15, http:www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-greenblatt/when-hateful-speech-leads_b_8022966.html
When police arrived at the scene in Boston, they found a Latino man shaking on the ground, his face apparently soaked in urine, with a broken nose. His arms and chest had been beaten. One of the two brothers arrested and charged with the hate crime reportedly told police, “Donald Trump was right — all these illegals need to be deported.” The victim, a homeless man, was apparently sleeping outside of a subway station in Dorchester when the perpetrators attacked. His only offense was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The brothers reportedly attacked him for who he was — simply because he was Latino. In recent weeks, anti-immigrant — and by extension anti-Latino — rhetoric has reached a fever pitch. Immigrants have been smeared as “killers” and “rapists.” They have been accused of bringing drugs and crime. A radio talk show host in Iowa has called for enslavement of undocumented immigrants if they do not leave within 60 days. There have been calls to repeal the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to people born in the United States, with allegations that people come here to have so-called “anchor babies.” And the terms “illegal aliens” and “illegals” — which many mainstream news sources wiselywere rejected years ago because they dehumanize and stigmatize people — have resurged. The words used on the campaign trail, on the floors of Congress, in the news, and in all our living rooms have consequences. They directly impact our ability to sustain a society that ensures dignity and equality for all. Bigoted rhetoric and words laced with prejudice are building blocks for the pyramid of hate. Biased behaviors build on one another, becoming ever more threatening and dangerous towards the top. At the base is bias, which includes stereotyping and insensitive remarks. It sets the foundation for a second, more complex and more damaging layer: individual acts of prejudice, including bullying, slurs and dehumanization. Next is discrimination, which in turn supports bias-motivated violence, including apparent hate crimes like the tragic one in Boston. And in the most extreme cases if left unchecked, the top of the pyramid of hate is genocide. Just like a pyramid, the lower levels support the upper levels. Bias, prejudice and discrimination — particularly touted by those with a loud megaphone and cheering crowd — all contribute to an atmosphere that enables hate crimes and other hate-fueled violence. The most recent hate crime in Boston is just one of too many. In fact, there is a hate crime roughly every 90 minutes in the United States today. That is why last week ADL announced a new initiative, #50StatesAgainstHate, to strengthen hate crimes laws around the country and safeguard communities vulnerable to hate-fueled attacks. We are working with a broad coalition of partners to get the ball rolling.

The aff's undermining of hate speech destroys the project against systemic racism and oppression as a whole. EVEN if you grant them their silencing impacts – that silencing is KEY to create a cultural shift.
Kim Watterson, a Juris Doctorate from University of Pittsburgh writes in 1991 (Kim M. Watterson, 'THE POWER OF WORDS: THE POWER OF ADVOCACY CHALLENGING THE POWER OF HATE SPEECH', 1991 by the University of Pittsburgh Law Review; Kim M. Watterson, 52 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 955 University of Pittsburgh Law Review Summer, 1991)

Second, hate speech policies manifest our commitment to the elimination of invidious distinctions-both overt discrimination and culturally transmitted stereotypes-based on race. "Legal rights … should be understood as the language of a continuing process rather than the fixed rules.' 123 And the history of judicial decisions regarding racism reveals this process. In the past, racism has been supported and even authorized by the law. 24 More recently, however, we, as a nation, have stated unequivocally that racism is unacceptable. 25 Today, adjudication of hate speech policies tests our commitment to the elimination of racism. When victims of hate speech assert their rights "the claim... it initiates a form of communal dialogue and "seeks judicial statements that will articulate new boundaries and connections between the victim and the perpetrator. As such, decisions that trivialize the effects of hate speech either betray this commitment and perpetuate racism, or, worse yet, implicitly authorize it. If courts instead forge new ground and couch their analysis in rights discourse, the process of eradicating the pernicious effects of racism will be continued and our commitment to equal rights will be strengthened.

The notion of free speech assumes that all voices are equally treated, when in reality power inequities shape who can speak what
Megan Boler, professor at the University of Toronto wrote in 2000 Megan Boler (Professor in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and editor of Digital Media and Democracy), "All Speech is Not Free: The Ethics of "Affirmative Action Pedagogy," Philosophy of Education, 2000
All speech is not free. Power inequities institutionalized through economies, gender roles, social class, and corporate-owned media ensure that all voices do not carry the same weight. As part of Western democracies, different voices pay different prices for the words one chooses to utter. Some speech results in the speaker being assaulted, or even killed. Other speech is not free in the sense that it is foreclosed: our social and political culture predetermines certain voices and articulations as unrecognizable, illegitimate, unspeakable.1 Similarly, neither are all expressions of hostility equal. Some hostile voices are penalized while others are tolerated.2 Hostility that targets a marginalized person on the basis of their her or his assumed inferiority carries more weight than hostility expressed by a marginalized person towards a member of the dominant class. Efforts to legislate against “hate speech” within public spaces cannot, in principle, recognize the differential weight and significance of hate speech directed at different individuals or groups. If all speech is not free, then in what sense can one claim that freedom of speech is a working constitutional right? If free speech is not effective in practice, then a historicized ethics is required.  Thus the discomforting paradox of U.S. democracy: while we may desire a principle of equality that applies in exactly the same way to every citizen, in a society where equality is not guaranteed we require historically sensitive principles that appear to contradict the ideal of “equality.”  An historicized ethics operates toward the ideal of principles such as constitutional rights, but also recognizes the need to develop ethical principles that take into account that all persons do not have equal protection under the law nor equal access to resources. Within a climate of extreme backlash to affirmative action and to women’s rights, I propose what I call an “affirmative action pedagogy”: a pedagogy that ensures critical analysis within higher education classrooms of any expression of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, or sexism, for example. An affirmative action pedagogy seeks to ensure that we bear witness to marginalized voices in our classrooms, even at the minor cost of limiting dominant voices.

Hate speech causes minority students to drop out, which means the only narrative within colleges will be that of the white male – that turns case.
Anti-Defamation League published in 2013. Anti-Defamation League. “Responding to Bigotry and Intergroup Strife on Campus: Guide for College and University Administrators.” Defamation League.
University and college officials need to demonstrate to all how the institution's interests are at stake when minority students fear assault or insult, leading to demoralization and high dropout rates. Even though many existing speech codes have failed in court, campus administrators should not be prevented or inhibited to act and speak out against racist, sexist, homophobic or anti-Semitic expression. Campus administrators should not tolerate or accept abusive discourse without a vigorous response. Those who misuse their freedom of expression to offend, demean or insult members of the academic community need to comprehend that their words are unacceptable in a civilized atmosphere, whether or not they are protected by the First Amendment. While administrators at private institutions have more freedom of action to regulate behavior than do their counterparts at public institutions, both can and should provide firm and unambiguous leadership in this area.

Tournament: Barkley Forum | Round: 1 | Opponent: Christopher Columbus HS | Judge: Sam Azbel
The action of prioritizing is indescribable apart from a reference to the institutional rules of the practice of which an agent is part of. SCHAPIRO:
Schapiro, Tamar (Stanford University).  Three Conceptions of Action in Moral Theory, Noûs 35 (1):93–117, 2001.
In his early article, “Two Concepts of Rules,” Rawls sets out to limit the scope of the utilitarian principle by arguing that it is inapplicable to actions of a certain type. His claim is that actions which fall under practice rules, for example actions governed by the rules of games and social institutions, have a structure which is different from the structure of action presupposed by utilitarianism. Such actions are not, therefore, directly subject to utilitarian evaluation. Whereas a practice as a whole can be judged in terms of its overall consequences, Rawls claims, a particular move within a practice can only be judged in relation to the practice rules. Rawls’ argument turns on a conceptual point about the relation between the rules of a practice and the cases to which they are applied. Practice rules, he claims, are “logically prior” to particular cases. “In a practice there are rules setting up offices, specifying certain forms of action appropriate to various offices, establishing penalties for the breach of rules, and so on. We may think of the rules of a practice as defining offices, moves, and offenses. Now what is meant by saying that the practice is logically prior to particular cases is this: given any rule which specifies a form of action (a move), a particular action which would be taken as falling under this rule given that there is the practice would not be described as that sort of action unless there was the practice.” Rawls illustrates the logical priority of practice rules over actions with reference to moves in the game of American baseball. Outside the “stage-setting” of the game of baseball, it is certainly possible to “throw a ball, run, or swing a peculiarly shaped piece of wood.” But it is impossible to “steal base, or strike out, or draw a walk, or make an error, or balk.” Where the rules of baseball are in force, movements come to constitute moves of particular kinds, and conversely in the absence of such rules, actions, which might appear to be moves are properly, described as mere movements. In this respect, Rawls claims, practice rules differ from another general class of rules called “summary rules.” Summary rules are “rules of thumb.” Their role is to They allow us to approximate the results of applying some more precise but perhaps more unwieldy principle to particular cases. As such, summary rules are arrived at by generalizing the results of the prior procedure. They are “reports” of these results, presented as guides for deliberating about what to do in cases which are relevantly similar to those used to generate the reports. Summary rules are therefore logically posterior to the cases to which they apply. For in order to specify a summary rule, it is necessary to generalize over some range of cases, and the relevant descriptions of these cases must be given in advance if generalization over them is to be possible. Whereas summary rules presuppose the existence of a well-defined context of application, the establishment of a practice imposes a new conceptual and normative structure on the context to which they are to apply. In this sense, a practice amounts to “the specification of a new form of activity,” along with a new order of status relations in which that activity makes sense. From the point of view of a participant, the establishment of a practice transforms an expanse of grass into “playing field,” bags on the ground into “bases,” and individuals into occupants of determinate “positions.” Universal laws come to hold a priori, for example that “three strikes make an out,” and that “every inning has a top and a bottom.” And within that new order people come to have special powers, such as the power to “strike out,” or to “steal a base.” The salient point for Rawls’ purposes is that there Practice rules are constitutive constraints on the exercise of these new powers, constraints by which any participant must abide in order to make her movements count as the moves she intends them to be.
This means for any prioritization to count as resolutional action, it must be done within the practice of international law. Rules of international law define what it means to be a country in the international arena, even if states have different domestic ends-  this hijacks constitutivism sine ilaw defines what is constitutive of a state to begin with. NARDIN:
Terry Nardin
, “International Ethics and International Law”. Review of International Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1992), pp. 19-30, published by Cambridge University Press
. JStor, Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20097279 . RP 2/6/13
Any description of the international system as an association of states that share certain ends is necessarily incomplete. Such an association would not constitute a rule-governed moral or legal order. What transforms a number of powers, contingently related in terms of shared interests, into a society proper is not their agreement to participate in a common enterprise for as long as they desire to participate, but their participation in and implicit recognition of the practices, procedures, and other rules of international law that compose international society. The rules of international law, in other words, are not merely regulatory but constitutive: they not only create a normative order among separate political communities but define the status, rights, and duties of these communities within this normative order. In international society 'states' are constituted as such within the practice of international law; 'statehood' is a position or role that is defined by international law, not independent of it.International law includes rules that are the outcome of cooperation to further shared goals as well as rules that make such cooperation possible and that exist even where shared goals are lacking. But it is rules of the latter sort that are fundamental. First, the particular arrangements through which states cooperate to promote shared goals themselves depend on having available authoritative procedures for negotiating such arrangements. These procedures, embodied in customary international law, are prior to the treaties, alliances, and international organizations through which states cooperate. Customary association. international law is thus the foundation of all international Secondly, it is the rules of customary international law that delimit the jurisdiction of states, prohibit aggression and unlawful intervention, and regulate the activities of treaty-making, diplomacy, and war. Because they govern the relations of enemies as well as of friends, these rules provide a basis for international order even in the absence of shared beliefs, values, or ends. By requiring restraint in the pursuit of national aims and toleration of national diversity, customary international law reflects the inevitably plural character of international society and may be said to constitutes a morality of states, one that is a morality of coexistence.
That outweighs- The standard of assessment is instutionalized in a practice, not the desirability of states of affairs that promote the practice. NARDIN:
The argument that the purpose-practice distinction is spurious, which underlies this moral critique of international law, takes different forms. One can argue that the supposedly non-instrumental constraints of practical association are in fact instru mental to the particular ends of practical association. Mervyn Frost puts the objection this way: The distinction here is between rules that constrains the behavior of people with diverse goals and rules that are aimed at advancing at an agreed-upon goal. It is a distinction between constraining rules and instrumental rules. This way of making the distinction between practical association and purposive association will not do, however, because it is always possible to construe constraining rules as instrumental rules. The rules of . . . practical associations may always be portrayed as advancing some set of goals. Frost gives the following examples of how any practical association can be construed as a purposive association: The rules of chess may be said to have been designed to achieve the purpose of provideing players with an intellectually stimulating game. Performing a mass has as its goal (on one view) providing Christians with the experience of sharing the body and blood of Christ, and so on.10 Thus, he argues, one cannot evade the objection by insisting that the purposes of practical association are categorically different from those of purposive association. The first thing to observe in considering this objection is that the 'purposes' of a practice are not necessarily the same as the purposes either of those who designed the practice or of those who may participate in it. From the standpoint of an umpire supervising however in a particular game of chess, the paramount consideration governing the play is that it should be in conformity with the rules of chess. If a player makes an illegal move, arguing that it will result in a more intellectually challenging game, the proper response is to ignore the argument and prohibit the move. In other words, the kinds of reasons that are valid within the game are different from those that might be considered by chess federation officials contemplating changes in the rules of the game. From the internal perspective of the player or the umpire, the authority of the rules is absolute. Players or umpires may disagree about the interpretation or proper application of the rules, but they may not take the position that a valid, authoritative rule should be set aside. It is also important to distinguish between the intentions that may be embedded in a rule or system of rules and the consequences of observing that rule or participating in the system. The relation between an instrumental rule and its purpose is a causal one: an agent produces a desired state of affairs by acting in the way prescribed by the rule. But the relation between the rules of practical association and its 'purposes' is conceptual rather than causal: the agent achieves these purposes not as a consequence of acting but in acting. Thus, the institution of international law does not 'produce' coexistence as the causal consequence of obeying its rules. On the contrary, co existence is the premise of relations between separate states on the basis of inter national law. Similarly, international law does not produce legality as a product of obedience but as an integral aspect of behaving lawfully.
Thus, the standard is consistency with international law. More warrants 

1. International law education is key to everything – key to understand society, economics, comparative and domestic government policy, and legitimacy. BARRET:
    International Legal Education in U.S. Law Schools: Plenty of Offerings, But Too Few Students¶ Author(s): John A. Barrett, Jr.¶ Source: The International Lawyer, Vol. 31, No. 3 (FALL 1997), pp. 845-867¶ Published by: American Bar Association¶ Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40707359 .¶ Accessed: 23/04/2014 13:26
   Advancements in the modern world have significantly changed the value and ¶ usefulness of the skills and knowledge gained from international Ilaw study. These ¶ world changes make the need to study international Ilaw is more pressing than ever ¶ before and the consequences of failing to study it more dire. What has changed ¶ in the world that increases the value of having the knowledge and skills provided ¶ by studying international law? ¶ Clearly, the most significant change is that the world has become an international ¶ on many different levels.6 Who would have guessed twentyears ago that a major ¶ U.S. television advertising campaign in 1996 would not be in English nor even ¶ in Spanish?7 We have gone from a world full of largely independent societies ¶ to a multicultural, interdependent, interconnected collective. Many feel this trend ¶ will continue making the world even more international. For example, worldwide ¶ communication and transportation are convenient, commonplace, and affordable, ¶ and every day more people communicate efficiently with people outside their ¶ country, whether by phone, fax, e-mail, overnight courier, or the Internet. ¶ On a businesses level, things have never been so international. The rate of growth ¶ has been exponential.8 The number of multinational corporations has grown from ¶ a handful in the 1960s to the point where guides to multinational corporations ¶ frequently limit themselves to only the largest five hundred companies.9 These ¶ multinational companies not only sell abroad, but also manufacture and incorpo- ¶ rate subsidiaries abroad. Furthermore, this multinational trend is multidirectional: ¶ Japanese manufacturers have plants in the United States, Europe, and lesser- ¶ developed nations; U.S. companies have factories in Asia, Europe, and Latin ¶ America; and European companies are similarly expanded. Truly, it can be said ¶ that the sun never sets on IBM, Mitsubishi, Ford, or Phillips, to name but a few. ¶ Equally significant are small companies throughout the United States who look ¶ abroad for new markets, as well as face competition from abroad. Furthermore, ¶ in 1995, U.S. international trade amounted to $753 billion in exports and $641 ¶ billion in imports.10 Capital also moves globally, with Japanese companies devel- ¶ oping ski resorts in Colorado and U.S. retirement plans investing in the Japanese ¶ stock market. In 1990, the United States had over $43 billion invested in the ¶ finance and service sector in underdeveloped countries alone.11 as clients move ¶ abroad, so do their lawyers. Also, the number of foreign legal consultants practic- ¶ ing abroad continues to grow.12 With all this globalization, not only business but ¶ also disputes, both business and personal, become international. ¶ On a governmental level, international issues have always been present. ¶ However, several recent changes are making governments even more con- ¶ cerned with international issues. First, the growth in international trade, travel and communication forces governments to be concerned with protecting their ¶ citizens abroad, both bodily and financially.13 Consequently, an increase in ¶ the scope and nature of domestic regulation on international interaction with ¶ others has occurred. Second, problems of the modern industrial world are  increasingly seen as transboundary in nature, especially pollution, which stub- ¶ bornly refuses to stay within national boundaries. The result has been an ¶ explosion in the number of international conventions and treaties.14 In 1995, ¶ the number of treaties to which the United States was a party required 145 ¶ pages to list.15 Additionally, international organizations, both governmental ¶ and nongovernmental, have grown.16 By 1995, there were over fifty major ¶ intergovernmental organizations17 and in 1992, the Organization for Economic ¶ Cooperation and Development listed over 600 international nongovernmental ¶ organizations in its member states.18 ¶ Such an international world increasingly requires international legal knowledge ¶ and skills.19 For a few, the practice of law has been international for a long time. ¶ Immigration lawyers always had to consider international legal issues. For them, ¶ only particular rules and the number of clients have changed. Similarly, a few ¶ businesses and their lawyers in major urban centers have, for centuries, had to deal ¶ with international business transactions. Additionally, a handful of government ¶ employees have always had careers directed toward the international arena. How- ¶ ever, this small group has grown into the bulk of the bar¶ II. The Benefits of Studying International Law ¶ There are numerous benefits to studying international law. By studying the ¶ laws of other societies, one will be better prepared to assist one's clients in ¶ international transactions. Additionally, by learning something about the culture ¶ and business practices of another country, one can negotiate and structure ¶ agreements more easily and effectively. Most legal systems fit into a family of legal systems. If you have studied one ¶ legal system, you have a basic familiarity with the structure and approach of ¶ other legal systems in that family. One may not know all the particular rules of ¶ a given country, but those rules can be readily learned and will be understood ¶ in the context of how that legal system is likely to work. Therefore, studying comparative law gives a context in which to understand the particular rules of ¶ a given government.22 this understanding is crucial not only to give competent ¶ advice to clients, but also to properly interact with local counsel. ¶ Uuunderstanding understanding public international law provides a useful grounding in both ¶ the nature and source of one's government's power as well as the limits on that  power. ¶ 23 A better understanding of the limits imposed on U . S . law by international ¶ law, for example, in the area of human rights, helps courts uphold the basic ¶ rights of its nation's citizens.24 Traditionally, litigators have not looked to interna- ¶ tionalaw when framing legal arguments before U.S. courts and courts confronted ¶ with international law have often misapplied or misconstrued it, due to ignorance ¶ as to its sources and the relative weight to accord those sources.25 However, a ¶ better understanding of international law will give the courts the tools necessary ¶ to apply properly that law, thereby encouraging litigators to argue relevant inter- ¶ national law issues before the courts.26 Additionally, the proliferation of multilat- ¶ eral treaties and conventions makes knowledge of them increasingly important ¶ for the typical practitioner.27 Human rights and international environmental law, ¶ as well as the numerous treaties and conventions that regulate individual's actions ¶ within a state, will increasingly be subjects before domestic courts.28 ¶ This penetration investigation of international law into domestic law continues to grow, not ¶ only through international agreements but also through the creation and growth ¶ of supranational organizations.29 These organizations increasingly who create domestic law. 
2. Analytic
   2. Analytic

Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 3 | Opponent: Loyola JN | Judge: James Sanger
Agency, or the setting and pursuing of ends, is inescapable.
Ferrero Luca Ferrero (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee) “Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency” Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. IV January 12th 2009 pp. 6-8
3.2 Agency is special under two respects. First, agency is the enterprise with the largest jurisdiction.12 All ordinary enterprises fall under it. To engage in any ordinary enterprise is ipso facto to engage in the enterprise of agency. In addition, there are instances of behavior that fall under no other enterprise but agency. First, intentional transitions in and out of particular enterprises might not count as moves within those enterprises, but they are still instances of intentional agency, of bare intentional agency, so to say. Second, agency is the locus where we adjudicate the merits and demerits of participating in any ordinary enterprise. Reasoning whether to participate in a particular enterprise is often conducted outside of that enterprise, even while one is otherwise engaged in it. Practical reflection is a manifestation of full-fledged intentional agency but it does not necessary belong to any other specific enterprise. Once again, it might be an instance of bare intentional agency. In the limiting case, agency is the only enterprise that would still keep a subject busy if she were to attempt a ʻradical re-evaluationʼ of all of her engagements and at least temporarily suspend her participation in all ordinary enterprises.13 3.3 The second feature that makes agency stand apart from ordinary enterprises is agencyʼs closure. Agency is closed under the operation of reflective rational assessment. As the case of radical re-evaluations shows, ordinary enterprises are never fully closed under reflection. There is always the possibility of reflecting on ordinary enterprises their justification while standing outside of them. Not so for rational agency. The constitutive features of agency (no matter whether they are conceived as aims, motives, capacities, commitments, etc.) continue to operate even when the agent is assessing whether she is justified in her engagement in agency. One cannot put agency on hold while trying to determine whether agency is justified because this kind of practical reasoning is the exclusive job of intentional agency. This does not mean that agency falls outside of the reach of reflection. But even reflection about agency is a manifestation of agency.14 Agency is not necessarily self-reflective but all instances of reflective assessment, including those directed at agency itself, fall under its jurisdiction; they are conducted in deference to the constitutive standards of agency. This kind of closure is unique to agency. What is at work in reflection is the distinctive operation of intentional agency in its discursive mode. What is at work is not simply the subjectʼs capacity to shape her conduct in response to reasons for action but also her capacity both to ask for these reasons and to give them. Hence, agencyʼs closure under reflective rational assessment is closure under agencyʼs own distinctive operation: Agency is closed under itself.15
Impacts:
A Analytic
B Analytic
Next, Analytic
And, all frameworks presuppose liberty- three warrants. 

1. Analytic
   2. Analytic
   3. Analytic
   Freedom implies an innate right to determine the course of your actions. In the state of nature, might rather than right governs these judgments. Absent of a public authority, rights violations are inevitable.
   Varden “A Kantian Conception of Free Speech” by Helga Varden Chapter from: “Freedom of Expression in a Diverse World” edited by Deirdre Golash 2010
   “The first important distinction between Kant and much contemporary liberal thought issues from Kant’s argument that it is not in principle possible for individuals to realize right in the state of nature. Kant explicitly rejects the common assumption in liberal theories of his time as well as today that virtuous private individuals can interact in ways reconcilable both with one another’s right to freedom and their corresponding innate and acquired private rights. All the details of this argument are beyond the scope of this paper. It suffices to say that ideal problems of assurance and indeterminacy regarding the specification, application and enforcement of the principles of private right to actual interactions lead Kant to conclude that rightful interaction is in principle impossible in the state of nature.5 Kant argues that only a public authority can solve these problems in a way reconcilable with everyone’s right to freedom. This is why we find Kant starting his discussion of public right with this claim: however well disposed and right-loving men might be, it still lies a priori in the rational idea of such a condition (one that is not rightful) that before a public lawful condition is established individuals human beings... can never be secure against violence from one another, since each has her own right to do what seems right and good to her and not be dependent upon another’s opinion about this (6: 312).6 There are no rightful obligations in the state of nature, since in this condition might (‘violence’, or arbitrary judgments and ‘opinion’ about ‘what seems right and good’) rather than right (freedom under law) ultimately governs interactions. According to Kant, therefore, only the establishment of a public authority can enable interaction in ways reconcilable with each person’s innate right to freedom. Moreover, only a public authority can ensure interaction consistent with what Kant argues are our innate rights (to bodily integrity and honor) and our acquired rights (to private prop- erty, contract and status relations). The reason is that only the public authority can solve the problems of assurance and indeterminacy without violating anyone’s right to freedom. The public authority can solve these problems because it represents the will of all and yet the will of no one in particular. Because the public authority is representative in this way – by being “united a priori ” or by being an “omnilateral” will (6: 263) – it can regulates on behalf of everyone rather than on behalf of anyone in particular. For these reasons, civil society is seen as the only means through which our interactions can become subject to universal laws that restrict everyone’s freedom reciprocally rather than as subject to anyone’s arbitrary choices.” (46-47)
   Thus, the standard is consistency with the omnilateral will.
   And, prefer omnilateral will over any alternative Kantian interpretation- a public authority interpretation of Kantianism escapes objections of idealism by recognizing that freedom is not protected under idealized private constraints.
   Varden 2 “A Kantian Conception of Free Speech” by Helga Varden Chapter from: “Freedom of Expression in a Diverse World” edited by Deirdre Golash 2010
   “The second related distinction between Kant and much contemporary liberal thought concerns Kant’s explicit challenge of the (typically implicit) liberal assump- tion that the reasoning and actions of the public authority should be thought of as analogous to the reasoning and actions of virtuous private individuals. This line of reasoning is typically assumed by both weak and strong voluntarist theories. On such views, ‘public reason’ is seen as referring to what virtuous individuals would or could hypothetically consent to. Instead, Kant proposes that the reasoning and actions of the public authority should be, exactly, public, meaning that any decisions or actions should be such that all citizens (whether virtuous or not) could hypothetically consent to them. To represent the citizens properly, then, the public authority must reason within a framework set by its citizens’ rights. This is why Kant emphasizes that the citizens’ hypothetical consent is understood as what citizens would consent to simply as citizens (6: 314). And as citizens their aim is to enable a condition in which rightful interaction, or interaction consistent with everyone’s right to freedom, is possible – exactly what is not possible in the state of nature. The perspective of the public authority is therefore not an idealized perspective of personal virtue or of private right, but rather a common public perspective constitutive of a rightful condition. Establishing such a public perspective to regu- late citizens’ interactions is necessary for rightful interaction on this view.” (47)
   And, according to Cornell Law, the Brandenburg v. Ohio U.S. Supreme Court decision maintains that seditious speech is protected by the First Amendment so long as it does not indicate an “imminent” threat.
   https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/444
   But, seditious speech is never compatible with an omnilateral will and must be restricted. The intent requires the right to destroy the state, which justifies the annihilation of all rights.
   Varden 3 “A Kantian Conception of Free Speech” by Helga Varden Chapter from: “Freedom of Expression in a Diverse World” edited by Deirdre Golash 2010
   “To understand Kant’s condemnation of seditious speech, remember that Kant, as mentioned above, takes himself to have shown that justice is impossible in the state of nature or that there is no natural executive right. Since Kant considers himself to have successfully refuted any defense of the natural executive right, he takes himself also to have shown that no one has the right to stay in the state of nature. This, in turn, explains why Kant can and does considers seditious speech a public crime. The intention behind seditious speech is not merely to criticize the government or to discuss theories of government critically, say. In order to qualify as seditious, the speaker’s intention must be to encourage and support efforts to subvert the government or to instigate its violent overthrow, namely revolution. To have such a right would be to have the right to destroy the state. Since the state is the means through which right is possible, such a right would involve having the right to annihilate right (6: 320). That is, since right is impossible in the state of nature, to have a right to subversion would be to have the right to replace right with might. Since the state is the only means through which right can replace might, the state outlaws it. And since it is a crime that “endangers the commonwealth” rather than citizens qua private citizens, it is a public crime (6: 331).” (52

Tournament: UH Cougar Classic | Round: 1 | Opponent: Kempner AB | Judge: Neel Yerneni
A. Interpretation: The affirmative must defend that no constitutionally protected speech can be restricted. To clarify, they may not specify a specific form of constitutionally protected speech that they defend not restricting.
Google Dictionary defines “not” as https://www.google.com/search?q=not+definitionandoq=not+definitionandaqs=chrome.0.0l6.2170j0j7andsourceid=chromeandie=UTF-8 “used with an auxiliary verb or “be” to form the negative.”
Google Dictionary defines “any” as https://www.google.com/search?q=not+definitionandoq=not+definitionandaqs=chrome.0.0l6.2170j0j7andsourceid=chromeandie=UTF-8#q=any+definition “whichever of a specified class might be chosen.”
Any also uniquely prevents specification.
Cambridge Dictionary writes Cambridge English Dictionary, “Any,” Cambridge University Press, Accessed 12-4-2016, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/quantifiers/any  
We use any before nouns to refer to indefinite or unknown quantities or an unlimited entity.
B. Violation: They spec a type of free speech. 

1. Grammar
   Being semantically in line controls the internal link to pragmatic benefits.
   Nebel 15 Jake “The Priority of Resolutional Semantics” vbriefly February 20th 2015 http:vbriefly.com/2015/02/20/the-priority-of-resolutional-semantics-by-jake-nebel/ 
   1.1 The Topicality Rule vs. Pragmatic Considerations There is an obvious objection to my argument above. If the topicality rule is justified for reasons that have to do with fairness and education, then shouldn’t we just directly appeal to such considerations when determining what proposition we ought to debate? There are at least three ways I see of responding to this objection. One way admits that such pragmatic considerations are relevant—i.e., they are reasons to change the topic—but holds that they are outweighed by the reasons for the topicality rule. It would be better if everyone debated the resolution as worded, whatever it is, than if everyone debated whatever subtle variation on the resolution they favored. Affirmatives would unfairly abuse (and have already abused) the entitlement to choose their own unpredictable adventure, and negatives would respond (and have already responded) with strategies that are designed to avoid clash—including an essentially vigilantist approach to topicality in which debaters enforce their own pet resolutions on an arbitrary, round-by-round basis. Think here of the utilitarian case for internalizing rules against lying, murder, and other intuitively wrong acts. As the great utilitarian Henry Sidgwick argued, wellbeing is maximized not by everyone doing what they think maximizes wellbeing, but rather (in general) by people sticking to the rules of common sense morality. Otherwise, people are more likely to act on mistaken utility calculations and engage in self-serving violations of useful rules, thereby undermining social practices that promote wellbeing in the long run. That is exactly what happens if we reject the topicality rule in favor of direct appeals to pragmatic considerations.
   2. Limits
   3. TVA
   Fairness, Jurisdiction, DTD, Competing Interps

Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 1 | Opponent: Lynbrook VV | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo
Interpretation: The affirmative must only defend the hypothetical implementation of a government policy where the public colleges in the United States get rid of restrictions on constitutionally protected speech.
Resolved reflects policy passage before a legislative body.  
Parcher 01 (Jeff, Fmr. Debate Coach at Georgetown University, February, http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200102/0790.html)
(1) Pardon me if I turn to a source besides Bill. American Heritage Dictionary: Resolve: 1. To make a firm decision about. 2. To decide or express by formal vote. 3. To separate something into constituent parts See Syns at *analyze* (emphasis in orginal) 4. Find a solution to. See Syns at *Solve* (emphasis in original) 5. To dispel: resolve a doubt. - n 1. Frimness of purpose; resolution. 2. A determination or decision.  (2) The very nature of the word "resolution" makes it a question. American Heritage: A course of action determined or decided on. A formal statemnt of a deciion, as by a legislature. (3) The resolution is obviously a question. Any other conclusion is utterly inconcievable. Why? Context. The debate community empowers a topic committee to write a topic for ALTERNATE side debating. The committee is not a random group of people coming together to "reserve" themselves about some issue. There is context - they are empowered by a community to do something. In their deliberations, the topic community attempts to craft a resolution which can be ANSWERED in either direction. They focus on issues like ground and fairness because they know the resolution will serve as the basis for debate which will be resolved by determining the policy desireablility of that resolution. That's not only what they do, but it's what we REQUIRE them to do. We don't just send the topic committee somewhere to adopt their own group resolution. It's not the end point of a resolution adopted by a body - it's the prelimanary wording of a resolution sent to others to be answered or decided upon. (4) Further context: the word resolved is used to emphasis the fact that it's policy debate. Resolved comes from the adoption of resolutions by legislative bodies. A resolution is either adopted or it is not. It's a question before a legislative body. Should this statement be adopted or not. (5) The very terms 'affirmative' and 'negative' support my view. One affirms a resolution. Affirmative and negative are the equivalents of 'yes' or 'no' - which, of course, are answers to a question.
Net Benefits:

1. Limits
   Only limited topics protect participants from research overload which materially affects our lives outside of round.
   Harris 13 Scott Harris (Director of Debate at U Kansas, 2006 National Debate Coach of the Year, Vice President of the American Forensic Association, 2nd speaker at the NDT in 1981). “This ballot.” 5 April 2013. CEDA Forums. http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4762.0;attach=1655
   The limits debate is an argument that has real pragmatic consequences. I found myself earlier this year judging Harvard’s eco-pedagogy aff and thought to myself—I could stay up tonight and put a strategy together on eco-pedagogy, but then I thought to myself—why should I have to? Yes, I could put together a strategy against any random argument somebody makes employing an energy metaphor but the reality is there are only so many nights to stay up all night researching. I would like to actually spend time playing catch with my children occasionally or maybe even read a book or go to a movie or spend some time with my wife. A world where there are an infinite number of affirmatives is a world where the demand to have a specific strategy and not run framework is a world that says this community doesn’t care whether its participants have a life or do well in school or spend time with their families. I know there is a new call abounding for interpreting this NDT as a mandate for broader more diverse topics. The reality is that will create more work to prepare for the teams that choose to debate the topic but will have little to no effect on the teams that refuse to debate the topic. Broader topics that do not require positive government action or are bidirectional will not make teams that won’t debate the topic choose to debate the topic. I think that is a con job. I am not opposed to broader topics necessarily. I tend to like the way high school topics are written more than the way college topics are written. I just think people who take the meaning of the outcome of this NDT as proof that we need to make it so people get to talk about anything they want to talk about without having to debate against Topicality or framework arguments are interested in constructing a world that might make debate an unending nightmare and not a very good home in which to live. Limits, to me, are a real impact because I feel their impact in my everyday existence.
   2. TVA
   3. Debate about the method alone is not sufficient- we need to have actual discussions that can actualize what that looks like in the real world.
   Wendt 02, Handbook of IR, 2k2 p. 68
   It should be stressed that in advocating a pragmatic view we are not endorsing method-driven social science. Too much research in international relations chooses problems or things to be explained with a view to whether the analysis will provide support for one or another methodological ‘ism’. But the point of IR scholarship should be to answer questions about international politics that are of great normative concern, not to validate methods. Methods are means, not ends in themselves. As a matter of personal scholarly choice it may be reasonable to stick with one method and see how far it takes us.
   Jurisdiction
   Fairness is a voting issue-
   A. Resolvability
   B. Topical Fairness constraints are key- Violations of competitive equity prevent effective dialogue and participation.
   Galloway 07 Ryan, Samford Comm prof, Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 28, 2007
   Debate as a dialogue sets an argumentative table, where all parties receive a relatively fair opportunity to voice their position. Anything that fails to allow participants to have their position articulated denies one side of the argumentative table a fair hearing. The affirmative side is set by the topic and fairness requirements. While affirmative teams have recently resisted affirming the topic, in fact, the topic selection process is rigorous, taking the relative ground of each topic as its central point of departure. Setting the affirmative reciprocally sets the negative. The negative crafts approaches to the topic consistent with affirmative demands. The negative crafts disadvantages, counter-plans, and critical arguments premised on the arguments that the topic allows for the affirmative team. According to fairness norms, each side sits at a relatively balanced argumentative table. When one side takes more than its share, competitive equity suffers. However, it also undermines the respect due to the other involved in the dialogue. When one side excludes the other, it fundamentally denies the personhood of the other participant (Ehninger, 1970, p. 110). A pedagogy of debate as dialogue takes this respect as a fundamental component. A desire to be fair is a fundamental condition of a dialogue that takes the form of a demand for equality of voice. Far from being a banal request for links to a disadvantage, fairness is a demand for respect, a demand to be heard, a demand that a voice backed by literally months upon months of preparation, research, and critical thinking not be silenced. Affirmative cases that suspend basic fairness norms operate to exclude particular negative strategies. Unprepared, one side comes to the argumentative table unable to meaningfully participate in a dialogue. They are unable to “understand what ‘went on…’” and are left to the whims of time and power (Farrell, 1985, p. 114).
   Drop the debater:
   Evaluate the T debate under competing interpretations

Tournament: Barkley Forum | Round: 1 | Opponent: Christopher Columbus HS | Judge: Sam Azbel
This is descriptive standards + Rodl bad, just changed specifically for the round.
A. On the 2017 NSDA Jan–Feb Resolution, if the affirmative reads a standard of adhering to the will of the sovereign, they can't read Rodl

B. Violation

C. Reciprocity

D. Fairness, DTD, CI

Tournament: TFA State | Round: 2 | Opponent: Plano East Sr High CZ | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo
Counterplan Text: The United States should take a needs based approach to the right to housing.
Competition:

1. Textually competitive- I use a needs based approach instead of a rights based approach which is different from the text of the AC.
   2. Functional competition- the implication of a right is a demand in absolute instances, whereas the CP PICs out of the absolute claim- rather, we just give housing assistance based on circumstances.
   Only a needs-based approach can effectively solve neoliberal institutions. It’s empirically proven to be effective.
   Noonan 17, Jeff (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Windsor), and Josie Watson (clinical nursing Instructor at the University of Windsor). "Against Housing: Homes as a Human Life Requirement." Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research 28 (2017).
   In these sorts of cases, democratic progress depends upon the mobilization of social forces against exclusionary rights to private property. In these cases, a different social morality is brought into play, the social morality of need-satisfaction. Where the structure of rights blocks access to needed resources, it becomes a means of legitimating objective harm. Since it allows the harms of need-deprivation to proceed unchecked, its own legitimacy comes into question. Its legitimacy is challenged by social movements which do not appeal to authorities or experts to satisfy their rights for them, but draw on their own social power to secure access to and control over the resources that they need to satisfy their own rights. This form of organizing is consistent with the master democratic norm of self-determination, and is, in fact, the only way that needs can be satisfied in an empowering, as opposed to paternalistic, way. To put this crucial point another way, only a needs-based social morality exposes the real problem with the capitalist value system: it subordinates the life-value of goods and services to their money-value. The basic life-value of any good is the contribution that it makes to the satisfaction of non-optional needs (McMurtry 1998: 164). When lifevalue is subordinated to money-value, people can be deprived of that which they need and the economy still judged good, because the basis of judgement is not the satisfaction of people’s life-requirements, but return on investment to the owners of capital. Such is the case with housing markets as currently constituted. Hundreds of thousands of people cannot afford homes, but if house prices are rising, the markets are judged good by those who profit from them. Occasionally (as with the Vancouver foreign buyers tax) governments will intervene to cool markets in order to prevent the emergence of bubbles and the deeper social problems they can cause, but this sort of regulation is distinct from a structural solution to the homelessness crisis.
   Rights based approaches to housing are extremely vague and inefficient when held to particular instances- guts solvency and proves needs based approaches do more for the oppressed.
   Noonan 17, Jeff (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Windsor), and Josie Watson (clinical nursing Instructor at the University of Windsor). "Against Housing: Homes as a Human Life Requirement." Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research 28 (2017).
    The Universal Declaration asserts that housing is a right, but it does not further define the conditions that count as satisfying that right. All rights-statements tend to be programmatic and abstract. A discussion of human life-requirements, by contrast, cannot be carried out without reflection on the nature of the life that has the requirements. In other words, it is never enough to assert that “x is a life-requirement,” one must always unpack the life-value of x in relation to human life to explain just what it is that x contributes to life which, if absent, would cause harm. We tried to provide this complex unpacking in the case of the need for homes in Section One. If we content ourselves with the assertion that ‘housing is a right,’ it remains an open question what is required to satisfy the right. Does any sort of ‘roof over one’s head’ constitute satisfaction of the right? Are the rights of social assistance recipients housed in motels while they await public housing violated? There is no straightforward answer to these questions if we focus only on the right to housing, because it does not explain why it is that human beings need housing, beyond the obvious that we require shelter. When the need deprived mobilize to explain just what they need, and demand the resources to satisfy that need through their own labour and intelligence, this problem disappears because they tell everyone exactly what they require to satisfy their need.

Tournament: TFA State | Round: Quarters | Opponent: Westwood RS | Judge: Drew Marshall, Kris Wright, John Sims
The United States federal government should engage in binding regulatory negotiation over the right to housing for internal refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic in the United States of America with the United States should guarantee internal refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic the right to housing in the United States of America as the best alternative to a negotiated agreement
Counterplan competes – doesn’t fiat topical action, the process is uncertain, open ended, and not immediate
USDA 6 (The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service administers programs that facilitate the efficient, fair marketing of U.S. agricultural products, including food, fiber, and specialty crops “What is Negotiated Rulemaking?”, http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5089434)
How reg-neg differs from “traditional” notice-and-comment rulemaking The “traditional” notice-and-comment rulemaking provided in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires an agency planning to adopt a rule on a particular subject to publish a proposed rule (NPRM) in the Federal Register and to offer the public an opportunity to comment. The APA does not specify who is to draft the proposed rule nor any particular procedure to govern the drafting process. Ordinarily, agency staff performs this function, with discretion to determine how much opportunity is allowed for public input. Typically, there is no opportunity for interchange of views among potentially affected parties, even where an agency chooses to conduct a hearing. The “traditional” notice-and-comment rulemaking can be very adversarial. The dynamics encourage parties to take extreme positions in their written and oral statements – in both pre-proposal contacts as well as in comments on any published proposed rule as well as withholding of information that might be viewed as damaging. This adversarial atmosphere may contribute to the expense and delay associated with regulatory proceedings, as parties try to position themselves for the expected litigation. What is lacking is an opportunity for the parties to exchange views, share information, and focus on finding constructive, creative solutions to problems. In negotiated rulemaking, the agency, with the assistance of one or more neutral advisors known as “convenors,” assembles a committee of representatives of all affected interests to negotiate a proposed rule. Sometimes the law itself will specify which interests are to be included on the committee. Once assembled, the next goal is for members to receive training in interest-based problem-solving and consensus-decision making. They then must make sure that all views are heard and that each committee member agrees to a set of ground rules for the negotiated rulemaking process. The ultimate goal is to reach consensus on a text that all parties can accept. The agency is represented at the table by an official who is sufficiently senior to be able to speak authoritatively on its behalf. Negotiating sessions are chaired by a neutral mediator or facilitator skilled in assisting in the resolution of multiparty disputes. The Checklist—Advantages as well as Misperceptions The advantages of negotiated rulemaking include:  Producing greater information sharing and better communication;  Enhancing public awareness and involvement;  Providing a “reality check” to agencies and other interests;  Encouraging discovery of more creative options for rulemaking;  Increasing compliance with rules;  Saving time, money and effort in the long run;  Allowing earlier implementation dates;  Building cooperative relationships among key parties;  Increasing the certainty of the outcome for all and thus enabling better planning;  Producing superior rules on technically complex topics because of the input of all parties;  Giving rise to fewer legislative “end runs” against the rule; and  Reducing post-issuance contentiousness and litigation. What negotiating rulemaking does not do:  It does not cause the agency to delegate its ultimate obligation to determine the content of the proposed and final regulations;  It does not exempt the agency from any statutory or other requirements;  It does not eliminate the agency’s obligation to produce any economic analysis; paperwork or other regulatory analysis requirements imposed by law or agency policy;  It does not require parties or non-parties to set aside their legal or political rights as a condition of participating; and  It is not compulsory, participation is voluntary, for the agency and for others. 

Reg neg facilitates government-civilian cooperation, results in greater satisfaction with regulations and better compliance after implementation—social psychology and empirics prove
Freeman and Langbein 2K (Jody Freeman is the Archibald Cox Professor at Harvard Law School and a leading expert on administrative law and environmental law. She holds a Bachelor of the Arts from Stanford University, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Toronto, and a Master of Laws in addition to a Doctors of Jurisdictional Science from Harvard University. She served as Counselor for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama White House in 2009-2010. Freeman is a prominent scholar of regulation and institutional design, and a leading thinker on collaborative and contractual approaches to governance. After leaving the White House, she advised the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on topics of structural reform at the Department of the Interior. She has been appointed to the Administrative Conference of the United States, the government think tank for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of federal agencies, and is a member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. Laura I Langbein is the Professor of Quantitative Methods, Program Evaluation, Policy Analysis, and Public Choice and American College. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of North Carolina, a BA in Government from Oberlin College. Freeman, J. Langbein, R. I. “Regulatory Negotiation and the Legitimacy Benefit,” N.Y.U. Environmental Journal, Volume 9, 2000. http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/freeman/legitimacy20benefit.pdf//ky)
D. Compliance The compliance implications of consensus-based processes remain a matter of speculation.360 No one has yet produced empirical data on the relationship between negotiated rulemaking and compliance, let alone data comparing the compliance implications of negotiated and conventional rules.361 However, the Phase II results introduce interesting new findings into the debate. The data shows reg-neg participants to be significantly more likely than conventional rulemaking participants to report the perception that others will be able to comply with the final rule.362 Perceiving that others will comply might induce more compliance among competitors, along the lines of game theoretic models, at least until evidence of defection emerges.363 Moreover, to the extent that compliance failures are at least partly due to technical and information deficits—rather than to mere political resistance—it seems plausible that reports of the learning effect and more horizontal sharing of information might help to improve compliance in the long run.364 The claim that reg-neg could improve compliance is consistent with social psychology studies showing that in both legal and organizational settings, “fair procedures lead to greater compliance with the rules and decisions with which they are associated.”365 Similarly, negotiated rulemaking might facilitate compliance by bringing to the surface some of the contentious issues earlier in the rulemaking process, where they might be solved collectively rather than dictated by the agency. Although speculative, these hypotheses seem to fit better with Kerwin and Langbein’s data than do the rather negative expectations about compliance. Higher satisfaction could well translate into better long-term compliance, even if litigation rates remained the same. Consistent with our contention that process matters, we expect it to matter to compliance as well. In any event, empirical studies of compliance should no longer be so difficult to produce. A number of negotiated rules are now several years old, with some in the advanced stages of implementation. A study of compliance might compare numbers of enforcement actions for negotiated as compared to conventional rules, measured by notices of violation, or penalties, for example.366 It might investigate as well whether compliance methods differ between the two types of rules: perhaps the enforcement of negotiated rules occurs more cooperatively, or informally, than enforcement of conventional rules. Possibly, relationships struck during the negotiated rulemaking make a difference at the compliance stage.367 To date, the effects of how the rule is developed on eventual compliance remain a matter of speculation, even though it is ultimately an empirical issue on which both theory and empirical evidence must be brought to bear.

Tournament: TFA State | Round: Quarters | Opponent: Westwood RS | Judge: Drew Marshall, Kris Wright, John Sims
Dems will very narrowly retain filibuster now – key to stop full realization of Trump/GOP agenda
Bayer 1-4-17 (Nick Bayer, “Democrats Look At The 2018 Map And Get Ready To Fight For The Filibuster,” 1-4-17, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-democrats-2018-midterm-elections_us_586d4f81e4b0de3a08fab52f)
The outcome of the 2016 election shocked and worried Democrats across the country. Unfortunately for them, there may be worse to come in the 2018 midterm elections. In less than two years, 33 Senate seats will be up for grabs. Senate Democrats, armed with the filibuster, are the last line of defense against incoming President Donald Trump and the congressional Republican agenda. That means the electoral stakes are high in 2018, and Democrats must fight to keep up their numbers. The picture looks reasonably sunny for Republicans, who have only eight Senate seats on the ballot next year. Six of them (Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming) are likely safe for the GOP. Democrats, on the other hand, have 23 Senate seats to defend ― 25 if you count the independents who caucus with the Democrats. A dozen of those seats are likely safe in the Democrats’ camp. They’ll probably hold onto seven seats in the Northeast ― Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. Democrats are expected to retain five more seats in California, Hawaii, Washington, New Mexico and Minnesota. The two Senate seats now held by independents ― Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.) ― are also likely to stay in the hands of their incumbents or go to Democrats. That leaves 13 seats ― 11 held by Democrats and two held by Republicans ― as potential tossups. Just two of the tossup seats are in states that voted for Hillary Clinton last November: Nevada and Virginia. Others are in states ― like Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan ― that only went for Donald Trump by small margins. But Trump’s victories can’t be ignored. Midterm elections have tended to favor the opposition ― that is, the party that isn’t led by the sitting president. So history could be working for the Democrats. But the 2018 midterms could be different. Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley of Sabato’s Crystal Ball argue that today’s extremely polarized political environment means that the GOP has a good chance of picking up seats in a few “very Republican states” now held by Democrats. Here’s an early look at those tossup races: First-term senators like Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) may have a harder time defending their seats. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, a former GOP presidential candidate, has ruled out a 2018 Senate bid against Baldwin, but Republicans still have time to find another strong candidate to take on the junior senator. The GOP has plenty of time to find a strong candidate to unseat Donnelly in Indiana, too. The first-term senator won office in 2012 after tea party favorite Richard Mourdock took out six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the Republican primary and then took himself out in the general election with controversial remarks about rape. Now the Republicans have a good chance of winning that Senate seat back. As for Heitkamp, she appeared to top Trump’s list for agriculture secretary at one point. That looked like bad news for Democrats trying to hold onto the North Dakota Senate seat. New reports suggest former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is now the best bet for the agriculture post. But even if Heitkamp is running for re-election, she faces a battle in a state that voted for Trump by a 36-point margin. Second-term senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) also hail from states that voted for Trump by wide margins (19 points and 21 points, respectively). Both are well-established incumbents ― a boon for re-election. But if they face strong challengers in their heavily Republican states, McCaskill and Tester could still be in trouble. Tester probably stands a better chance of the two. While going for Trump last year, Montana also re-elected its Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, to a second term. The Senate race in Ohio could get interesting. Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown won his 2006 and 2012 elections by comfortable margins, so the same is possible next year. But the sizable victories of both Trump and fellow Sen. Rob Portman (R) last November could provide momentum for Republicans to oust Brown after roughly four decades of public service in Ohio. Specifically, while Brown could probably beat state Treasurer Josh Mandel again, a bid by Ohio Gov. John Kasich would likely prove tougher competition. The popular Kasich is perfectly positioned for a 2018 Senate bid: He led Trump by 11 points in the state’s 2016 presidential primary, and he can’t run for re-election next year having served two consecutive terms as governor. The Senate seat in Florida has a good chance of staying blue, as long as Sen. Bill Nelson (D) runs for re-election. The three-term incumbent won his previous Senate races by reasonable margins and looks like the favorite in 2018. But there is one key caveat to forecasting Nelson’s victory so soon. Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who will be forced out of office by term limits at the end of next year, has begun to lay the foundation for a potential 2018 Senate bid. Scott could run with the support of newly re-elected Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), by-then-President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress. That gives him a solid chance of knocking out Nelson. In Arizona, the Republican Senate primary next year will probably be more interesting than the general election. During the 2016 campaign, one-term Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) repeatedly sparred with Trump, expressing his clear disapproval and refusing to endorse the nominee. Now he’s under fire within his own party. Former state Sen. Kelli Ward has said she’ll challenge Flake in the Republican primary. Although Ward is fresh off a 12-plus point loss to veteran Sen. John McCain in the 2016 primary, she did mount a formidable challenge to him. Whether or not Flake gets past her, however, Democrats will likely have a hard time snatching this one from the Republicans. There are some tossup states on the 2018 map in which Democrats still hold a slight advantage over Republicans ― mostly states with well-established Democratic incumbents. With the water crisis in Flint still tainting his reputation, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has become increasingly unpopular. This bodes well for Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s bid for re-election. The state did narrowly support Trump in 2016 ― the first time Michigan has gone Republican in a presidential contest since 1988 ― but Stabenow is a strong candidate running for a fourth term. Like Heitkamp in North Dakota, Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia is a moderate Democrat willing to work with the Trump administration. Indeed, Trump considered Manchin for the position of energy secretary. While the job ultimately went to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), Manchin’s willingness to work across the aisle plays well in his red state. If he can soar above the anger toward the Democratic Party in West Virginia ― a state Trump won by 43 points ― he may yet hold onto his seat. In Pennsylvania, Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D) will likely keep his seat despite the huge upset that saw his state back Trump last year and also re-elect Sen. Pat Toomey (R). Still, it will definitely be a race to watch. Similarly, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee last year, will probably hold onto his seat in 2018. Clinton and Kaine carried Virginia by a comfortable, if still surprisingly close, 5 points in November. With lower turnout in the midterm election, the state may be competitive. But given a solid turnout in Northern Virginia, Kaine should be able to secure his seat for a second term. Finally, there’s Nevada. Last year, the state saw some hard-fought battles but still went blue. Voters supported Clinton and elected Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto to take over retiring Sen. Harry Reid’s seat. Democrats could pick up another seat here in 2018 with the right candidate against one-term Sen. Dean Heller (R). While it won’t be easy to knock off the incumbent, a strong candidate and good campaigning would give Democrats reasonable hope. The bottom line for 2018: Democrats likely won’t take back the Senate majority, but Republicans probably won’t reach the 60 seats they need to block a Democratic filibuster, either. To get that filibuster-proof majority, Republicans will have to flip eight of the 11 competitive seats held by Democrats and win their own two tossup contests.

Plan ignites republican opposition
Flegenheimer 17 (Matt, Yamiche Alcindor, “Ben Carson Urges Ending Reliance on Welfare in Bid to Be Housing Chief,” January 12, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/ben-carsons-hud-housing-nominee-hearing.html//utd-va
Yet Americans had come to view HUD’s mission as “putting roofs over the heads of poor people,” Mr. Carson said. “It has the ability to be so much more than that.” As with his presidential campaign, Mr. Carson leaned heavily on his own compelling biography, straying frequently from his prepared opening remarks as he spoke of life in an impoverished section of Detroit as the son of a single mother with a third-grade education. He waded through several contentious moments, including some aimed at his prospective boss, President-elect Donald J. Trump, and the specter of conflicts over HUD funding and Trump family business ventures. But Mr. Carson, who was prone to fits of spaciness and occasionally bewildering remarks as a candidate, appeared to avoid any major slips on Thursday. The tone of the proceedings diverged sharply from that of hearings this week for Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of state, and Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and the selection for attorney general. Both men faced aggressive questioning from Democrats — and, in Mr. Tillerson’s case, from a Republican, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. On Thursday, Mr. Rubio introduced Mr. Carson as a leader with “the values, the compassion and the character and the kind of drive that we need.” Senators from both parties made warm reference to Mr. Carson’s granddaughter in attendance, who wore pink headphones during the testimony. They thanked him for his career in medicine. Even some of the more pointed questioners, like Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, were disarmed. “You remind me of Columbo,” Mr. Carson said at one point, to extended laughs. “I’ve actually heard that before,” Mr. Brown said. Still, there were sharp exchanges. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, sought to pin Mr. Carson down on a simple question: “Can you assure me that not a single taxpayer dollar that you give out will financially benefit the president-elect or his family?” Mr. Carson said he would be driven by morals. Ms. Warren cut him off, saying her specific concern was whether grants and loans could specifically benefit Mr. Trump. “It will not be my intention to do anything to benefit any American,” Mr. Carson said, becoming flustered for a moment before quickly clarifying that he wanted to use the department to help “all Americans.” Ms. Warren called on Mr. Trump to establish a blind trust, accusing him of “hiding” his assets. Mr. Carson would not commit definitively to avoiding Trump businesses if confirmed. “If there happens to be an extraordinarily good program that’s working for millions of people and it turns out that someone that you’re targeting is going to gain $10 from it, am I going to say no?” Mr. Carson said. Later, he agreed to work with Mr. Brown to construct a system to identify properties tied both to the Trump family and the department. He committed to telling senators about the department’s dealings with any businesses owned by Mr. Trump or his relatives. More often, Mr. Carson sat patiently as lawmakers recited some of the most fraught comments of his public life. In one interaction, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, asked if Mr. Carson truly believed in HUD’s mission, given his trail of comments railing against government intervention. “I think the rental assistance program is essential,” Mr. Carson said, when pressed twice, “and what I have said if you’ve been reading my writings: It is cruel and unusual punishment to withdraw those programs before you provide an alternative.” When asked about housing protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens, Mr. Carson, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, said he would “enforce all the laws of the land” if confirmed. But he expressed his personal opposition to any expression of what he called “extra rights” for certain groups. For Republicans, the hearing supplied an opportunity to pay tribute to a figure revered by the conservative base. Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, asked Mr. Carson what he thought was “the best possible thing we can do for someone on government assistance.” “Get them off it,” Mr. Carson said.

That wrecks red-state Democrats – crushes their re-election strategy – gives the GOP a filibuster-proof majority
Roarty 16 (Alex Roarty, “Senate Democrats’ Challenge in 2018: The White Working Class,” 11-16-16, http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/senate-democrats-midterms-2018)
The only thing standing between Senate Democrats and an electoral wipeout in 2018? Donald Trump’s base. A party that’s only three seats short of a Senate majority is nonetheless bracing to play defense for the next two years, hoping to hold a daunting 10 seats in states that went red in last week’s presidential race. In some of the states — Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia — Trump’s margin of victory reached nearly 20 points or more. Another five — Michigan*, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida — unexpectedly swung in the GOP nominee’s favor, instilling fresh fear in Democrats that seats once presumed safe are anything but. Democrats are nervous not just about the fact that Trump won, but how he did so. The New York real estate mogul won because of his popularity with white working-class voters, whose slow drift from the Democratic Party he accelerated to devastating effect. They abandoned Democrats as few, even seasoned, party operatives suspected they could, leading to victories in places like Michigan and Wisconsin that President Barack Obama won easily just four years ago. A new game plan Now, these re-election-seeking Democrats must come up with a game plan to win those voters back — or risk watching their party lose big when they can least afford to see their ranks thinned further. “The underlying vulnerability Democrats have created for themselves is still very present, and probably uniquely so, with the 2018 class of Senate Democrats — almost every place you can think of where Democrats weren’t able to communicate to working-class voters is on the ballot,” said Josh Holmes, a GOP Senate strategist. How Democrats do that isn’t yet clear. Democratic strategists say they won’t know for at least several months — after they’ve had a chance to analyze data — exactly what happened in last week’s election. The evaluation process is all the more important given the fact that the party’s polling and data operations showed them on track to win the presidency. They know they did poorly with blue-collar white voters, they just aren’t yet entirely sure why. “We’re still in the theorizing mode,” said Matt Canter, a Democratic strategist. “We’ll know a lot more by about the beginning of next year.” The 2018 map for Democrats is so poor in large part because this class of senators faced elections in 2006 and 2012, both strong years for the party. It’s how Sen. Heidi Heitkamp delivered an upset victory four years ago in North Dakota, or how Sen. Jon Tester won in Montana. Two of the Democratic senators expected to seek re-election — Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida and Claire McCaskill of Missouri — won four years ago thanks to weak Republican nominees (McCaskill defeated former Republican Rep. Todd Akin, whose statement about “legitimate rape” became a national controversy that year.) Only one Republican senator up for re-election in two years, Dean Heller of Nevada, represents a state won by Hillary Clinton Democrats don’t dismiss the challenge in front of them but add that they’re confident that many of their incumbents are well prepared to win over white working-class voters. Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, for instance, are traditional blue-collar Democrats who have been popular in coal country.
Filibuster-proof majority facilitates immigration restrictions
Diaz 16 (Kevin Diaz, Houston Chronicle, “Trump's tough talk on the border will be tested in Congress,” 12-26-16, http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Trump-s-tough-talk-on-the-border-will-be-tested-10819777.php)
WASHINGTON - After a presidential campaign built on hard-line promises to secure the border and end illegal immigration, Donald Trump will traverse more difficult terrain in Congress next year among worried Democrats and skeptical Republicans. Although advocates of strict legal enforcement have been emboldened by hawkish Cabinet picks like Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Trump will face political and fiscal constraints living up to his vow to build a border wall and deport illegal immigrants on a massive scale, particularly if he widens his dragnet beyond those with criminal records. And despite the bellicose campaign rhetoric, there still is no clear GOP agenda on immigration, with different cliques within the Republican-led Congress favoring different approaches toward visas, deportation and legal status. Democrats, too, have some cards to play. The Republican majorities in the next Congress hardly are filibuster-proof, with 48 Democrats in the Senate. To overcome the 60-vote threshold to stop a filibuster, Republicans will need to peel away at least eight Senate Democrats to pass anything that immigration advocates consider draconian, including a massive border wall. There are some changes Trump could make on his own, particularly in reversing President Barack Obama's executive orders shielding and granting work permits to millions of illegal immigrants who otherwise could face deportation. Funding substantial new border measures - with or without a 2,000-mile wall - or an aggressive new interior enforcement program likely would require money, meaning congressional action. That is where Senate Democrats could be an obstacle. "There's a bunch of stuff that doesn't need Congress, so we have to keep that in mind," said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an immigration reform group founded with the help of tech moguls Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Bill Gates of Microsoft. "But, in terms of what needs to move through Congress, I would say that anything that passes the Senate will probably need 60 votes."
Deportation effort spins out of control – causes widespread conflict and genocide
Allen 16 (Danielle Allen and Richard Ashby Wilson, “Mass deportation isn’t just impractical. It’s very, very dangerous,” 9-23-16, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mass-deportation-isnt-just-impractical-its-very-very-dangerous/2016/09/23/c6d3b4ee-7b77-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html?utm_term=.e4deabe64545)
We’ve hit the home stretch of the election. The time has come to get serious, really serious, about understanding what’s at stake with Donald Trump’s proposal to deport 5 million to 11 million undocumented immigrants and his promise that 2 million will be deported in “a matter of months” if he is elected. In May, former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff told the New York Times: “I can’t even begin to picture how we would deport 11 million people in a few years where we don’t have a police state, where the police can’t break down your door at will and take you away without a warrant.” He also said, “Unless you suspend the Constitution and instruct the police to behave as if we live in North Korea, it ain’t happening.” Trump’s specific policy involves adding 5,000 Border Patrol agents, tripling the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation agents, creating a special deportation force that he has described as a military unit and deporting not merely people who have been convicted of crimes but also immigrants on visa overstays and undocumented immigrants who have been arrested, even if not convicted. He has proposed expedited procedures that would, to ensure speed, presumably require setting aside the due process protections meant to safeguard rights and minimize error. One of the last times the world saw such a major effort at mass deportations in a developed country was in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. That experience is instructive. In 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and four decades of peaceful ethnic and religious relations in Yugoslavia, post-communist politicians of all three communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Croat, Muslim and Serb) came to power on a surge of ethno-nationalist rhetoric. Starting in 1992, they promulgated official policies such as the “Six Strategic Objectives for the Bosnian Serb People” that included the forcible removal of other groups from towns and villages, using new “crisis staffs” made up of police and civilian paramilitaries. The process spun out of control and, in many communities, neighbors turned against neighbors, driving them out of their homes and seizing their assets. It started with a small number of activists, fewer than a few thousand people who were extreme nationalists and members of fringe parties. But as the propaganda and fear spread, the wider citizenry participated in the campaign of persecution. With the cover of official policy, civilians took it upon themselves to hasten the expulsion of members of other ethnic or religious groups. The fratricidal conflict claimed 100,000 lives. The majority of fatalities were civilians murdered in the context of mass deportations. The Bosnian deportations grew into a systematic policy termed “ethnic cleansing.” The U.N. Security Council declared forcible removal based on ethnicity a crime against humanity in 1994. And eventually there was also accountability for political leaders who enacted deportation policies and incited their followers to hatred and violence. In March 2016, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The tribunal ruled that his speeches and official propaganda made a significant contribution to an overarching joint criminal enterprise to create an ethnically homogenous state of Bosnian Serbs. The United States, of course, has its own history of mass deportations. There is the 19th-century Trail of Tears, when the U.S. government forcibly relocated members of Southeastern Native American tribes to land west of the Mississippi River. And in the 1930s and 1940s, under the pressure of the Great Depression, about 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans were deported; many lost their property. This was also the backdrop to the famous Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943, when U.S. sailors and Marines attacked Latino youths. The violence spread to San Diego and Oakland, and developed into broader racial violence that summer in Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, New York and Evansville, Ind. In the 1950s, the deportation of millions was attempted again with Operation Wetback; again people lost their property. Some died in the desert heat of Mexicali. The notion that governments have learned how to conduct mass deportations in “humane and efficient” ways is ludicrous. The summary removal of millions of members of a minority ethnic or religious group from a territory has been accompanied, in nearly every historical instance, by assault, murder, crimes against humanity and, occasionally, genocide. It has involved armed roadblocks to check papers, the smashing down of doors in the night to drag people out of their homes. It has also involved unrestrained popular violence against a target population. We might like to think that we’re above all that sort of thing, that with the right kind of training a special deportation force and beefed-up ICE units would carry out an orderly removal. But we do have in our midst the elements that have historically made mass deportations so dangerous: heated rhetoric that slurs whole minority groups (“they’re not sending their best . . . they’re rapists”); an activist minority of white nationalists; an armed minority of militiamen; and the ongoing militarization of our police forces.

Tournament: TFA State | Round: 2 | Opponent: Plano East Sr High CZ | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo
Policy such as the aff that use the state to target homelessness prop us neoliberalism.
Craig Willse 10 (assistant professor of cultural studies at George Mason University). "Neo-liberal biopolitics and the invention of chronic homelessness." Economy and Society 39.2 (2010): 155-184.
Those populations targeted as ‘chronically homeless’ would appear, then, to fit within programmes of state racism twice over: both as populations considered social and economic drains and also as populations marked as racially inferior. But, rather than directly killed or abandoned, we have what appears to be the opposite, as those designated chronically homeless are moved into housing programmes understood to protect and secure their health and wellbeing. How can this be? Is it the end of state racism? The earlier discussion suggests another understanding of chronic homelessness initiatives, and points to some of the historical limitations of Foucault’s analysis. Foucault’s description of biopower and state racism describes the emergence of the modern state form and its organization as the social welfare state. In such a formation, the modern nation-state seeks to line up a national population with a national economy; the Keynesian welfare state did exactly this. In the contemporary neo-liberal context, social programmes become industries that serve the economy directly, not necessarily through investing in a labouring population, but through the production of service and knowledge industries. In such a situation, illness and unproductivity may not need to be reduced or eliminated, as they would be in the social welfare state. Rather, illness and waste, and populations organized as such, become fertile sites for economic investment, as they multiply opportunities for developing and extending governance mechanisms, making economic life possible. The reproduction of housing insecurity and deprivation attests to the continuation of social abandonment through withdrawal and disinvestment. However, the invention of chronic homelessness suggests something in addition, as those nearest to death and most subject to the subordinating and dehumanizing effects of institutional racism become the privileged targets of federal policy and funding (at least for the time being). But, rather than a reversal of abandonment, the invention of chronic homelessness indicates how abandonment takes place within an economy and in service to the economy. If chronic homelessness programmes enable rather than challenge neo-liberal housing insecurity and deprivation at structural levels, it is not so clear that these programmes are ‘life-saving’, even if they do prolong or save some individual lives. Rather, the invention of chronic homelessness reminds us that the deaths of biopower are not instantaneous or complete, and that, in being slow to die and continuing to bear costs, populations marked by and for death demand of neo-liberal apparatuses a biopolitical investment. Thus, we might want to amend Foucault’s view of illness and death as the negation and loss of power, allowing us to question his assertion that ‘death is power’s limit, the moment that escapes it’ (Foucault, 1990 1976, p. 138). The invention of chronic homelessness emerges in a context of neo-liberal economic restructuring of relationships between life, health, illness and death that moves past Foucault’s formulation of a zero-sum game in which those marked as ill or unproductive would be treated only as negation or loss. State racism in the neo-liberal context is a process of calculation and distribution, in addition to deprivation. Technical programmes such as chronic homelessness initiatives, and the economic investment they entail, should not be mistaken for political and social rescue of abandoned populations. These programmes emerge to manage costs and to transform illness and death into productive parts of post-industrial economies. Neo-liberal forms of state racism facilitate the continued reproduction of housing insecurity and deprivation as forms of racial subordination, even while organizing those ‘losses’ into productive economic enterprises.
Cities are sponges of capital—they absorb surplus value to further push off the inevitable crisis that is capitalism.
Kafui Attoh 11 (Macalester College and his PhD in Geography from Syracuse University, MA in urban studies). "What kind of right is the right to the city?." Progress in human geography 35.5 (2011): 669-685. RC
David Harvey (2008) situates the concept of the right to the city within a broader and more sweeping analysis of urbanization. The rise and transformation of cities, Harvey argues, must be seen as central to the reproduction of capitalist society.23 Cities, he argues, play an active role ‘in absorbing surpluses’ (Harvey, 2008: 25; see also Harvey, 1982) and staving off crises of overproduction and/or under consumption. Cities are crucial in satisfying capitalism’s perpetual ‘need to find profitable terrains for ... surplus production and absorption’ (Harvey, 2008: 24). If cities are indeed sites in which surpluses are absorbed, distributed, and produced, then, for Harvey, to have a right to the city has a very particular meaning.24
Capitalism needs to expend surplus to be survive. Capitalism seeks to maximize profit, inevitably creating surplus value. Spending that surplus is used to justify further exploitation in name of creating more surplus, ad infinitum.
David Harvey 12 (Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He received his PhD in geography from the University of Cambridge in 1961). “Rebel cities: From the right to the city to the urban revolution”. Verso Books, 2012. RC
To claim the right to the city in the sense I mean it here is to claim some kind of shaping power over the processes of urbanization, over the ways in which our cities are made and remade, and to do so in a fundamental and radical way. From their very inception, cities have arisen through the geographical and social concentration of a surplus product. Urbanization has always been, therefore, a class phenomenon of some sort, since surpluses have been extracted from somewhere and from somebody, while control over the use of the surplus typically lies in the hands of a few (such as a religious oligarchy, or a warrior poet with imperial ambitions). This general situation persists under capitalism, of course, but in this case there is a rather different dynamic at work. Capitalism rests, as Marx tells us, upon the perpetual search for surplus value (profit). But to produce surplus value capitalists have to produce a surplus product. This means that capitalism is perpetually producing the surplus product that urbanization requires. The reverse relation also holds. Capitalism needs urbanization to absorb the surplus products it perpetually produces. In this way an inner connection emerges between the development of capitalism and urbanization. Hardly surprisingly, therefore, the logistical curves of growth of capitalist output over time are broadly paralleled by the logistical curves of urbanization of the world's population.
The alternative is complete rejection of the capitalist system; mere reform is insufficient because it ensures the system will regenerate itself stronger from the pieces left.
Joel Kovel 07, Professor of Social Studies at Bard, The Enemy of Nature, 2007, p 142-3
The value-term that subsumes everything into the spell of capital sets going a kind of wheel of accumulation, from production to consumption and back, spinning ever more rapidly as the inertial mass of capital grows, and generating its force field as a spinning magnet generates an electrical field. This phenomenon has important implications for the reformability of the system. Because capital is so spectral, and succeeds so well in ideologically mystifying its real nature, attention is constantly deflected from the actual source of eco-destabilization to the instruments by which that source acts. The real problem, however, is the whole mass of globally accumulated capital, along with the speed of its circulation and the class structures sustaining this. That is what generates the force field, in proportion to its own scale; and it is this force field, acting across the numberless points of insertion that constitute the ecosphere, that creates ever larger agglomerations of capital, sets the ecological crisis going, and keeps it from being resolved. For one fact may be taken as certain — that to resolve the ecological crisis as a whole, as against tidying up one corner or another, is radically incompatible with the existence of gigantic pools of capital, the force field these induce, the criminal underworld with which they connect, and, by extension, the elites who comprise the transnational bourgeoisie. And by not resolving the crisis as a whole, we open ourselves to the spectre of another mythical creature, the many-headed hydra, that regenerated itself the more its individual tentacles were chopped away. To realize this is to recognize that there is no compromising with capital, no schema of reformism that will clean up its act by making it act more greenly or efficiently We shall explore the practical implications of this thesis in Part III, and here need simply to restate the conclusion in blunt terms: green capital, or non-polluting capital, is preferable to the immediately ecodestructive breed on its immediate terms. But this is the lesser point, and diminishes with its very success. For green capital (or ‘socially/ecologically responsible investing’) exists, by its very capital-nature, essentially to create more value, and this leaches away from the concretely green location to join the great pool, and follows its force field into zones of greater concentration, expanded profitability — and greater ecodestruction.
Also, the alternative solves better than the aff: as long as capitalism persists, exploitation is inevitable and piecemeal reforms such as the right to housing will be inevitably rolled back. The alt is a pre-requisite to actually solving for the harms the aff identifies.
Richard Wolff 06 (Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst). “Anti-Slavery and Anti-Capitalism”. 15 December 2006. http://www.rdwolff.com/content/anti-slavery-and-anti-capitalism
Thus, no surprise attaches to the fact, these days, that one widespread kind of social criticism concentrates on softening capitalism’s negative impacts on workers and the larger society. It seeks to raise workers’ wages and benefits and to make governments limit capitalists’ rapaciousness and the social costs of their competition. In the US, this is what “liberals” do: from the minimalist oppositions within the Democratic Party to the demands of social democrats and many “radicals” for major wage increases, major government interventions, and so on. What always frustrates liberals and radicals is the difficulty of achieving these improved workers’ conditions and the insecurity and temporariness of whatever improvements they do achieve. Today they bemoan yet another roll-back of improvements, namely those won under FDR’s New Deal, Kennedy’s New Frontier, and so on. Marxism is that other kind of opposition that demands the abolition of capitalism as a system. Since Marxists find capitalist exploitation to be as immoral and inhumane as slavery, they might logically seek a further amendment to the US Constitution that abolishes it as well. A Marxist program would seek to replace capitalist production by a non-wage system, one where the workers will not only produce surpluses but also be their own boards of directors. The “associated workers” would, as Marx suggested, appropriate their own surpluses and distribute them. The wage-payer versus wage-recipient division of people inside production would vanish. Every worker’s job description would entail not only his/her technical responsibilities to produce a specific output but also her/his responsibilities as part of the collective that appropriates and distributes the surplus. Monday to Thursday, each worker in each enterprise makes commodities, and every Friday, each worker functions as a member of that enterprise’s board of directors. The stakes here are less obtaining higher wages than abolishing the wage system.The point of such a Marxist program is to overcome the conflicts, wastes, and inequalities (economic, political, and cultural) that flow from the existence of capitalist exploitation whether or not wages are raised. The point is likewise to stress the incompatibility of any genuine democracy with the wage system and its usual social effects (and again whether wages are higher or lower). Of course, in the struggle between such a Marxist perspective and its various critics, the latter will depict the programmatic advocacy of an end to the wage system as impracticable, utopian, or deluded. Those persuaded by neoclassical economics will simply dismiss or ignore not only the Marxist criticism of the wage system but Marxism altogether. For them, the wage system is not only eternal and necessary, but also fair and “efficient.” For them, since there “is” no surplus, they need not read or learn Marxist theory and criticism, let alone debate it. So Marxist theory is and its proponents can and are largely excluded from public discourse in the media, the schools, and politics. For liberals suspicious of neoclassical economics – or “neoliberalism” as it is now more often called - the Marxian program sketched above would be seen as utopian fantasy at best. Yet, not the least irony of Bush’s America today is how his regime’s relentless removal or reduction of the past reforms (high wages, pensions, medical insurance, social security, state social programs, etc.) makes a liberal politics today seem painfully deluded to so many. The liberals seem hopelessly weak, unable to stop let alone reverse the Bush juggernaut. Worse still, what liberals they advocate are precisely the reforms now being dismantled and thus revealed as having been fundamentally insecure all along. The audience for capitalism’s critics and opponents is thus being primed to listen rather attentively to Marxist claims that an abolition of the wage system offers not only a better society but also a far better basis for securing those improvements in wages and working conditions that mass action can achieve. What is needed now are Marxists able and willing to articulate those claims to that audience, to persuade ever more of capitalism’s critics and opponents that abolition of exploitation and the wage system must be a component of their program for social change.
Affirming treats the symptom by just brushing over the real issue—they don’t solve anything.
James H. Carr 98 (Senior Vice President for Policy, Research, and Evaluation at the Fannie Mae Foundation), (1998) Comment on Chester Hartman's “The case for a right to housing”: The right to “poverty with a roof"—a response to hartman, Housing Policy Debate, 9:2, 247-257,
The reasons the housing affordability crisis persists, however, are much deeper than obstacles created by those who oppose specific programs or shifting political priorities. Access to decent and affordable housing is an outcome of a number of resource allocation processes, of which the housing market is perhaps the most superficial. The approach that would ensure the greatest and most cost effective allocation of decent, affordable housing is one that is free of discriminatory barriers to broader societal opportunities that ultimately shape access to the housing market. Included are such areas as education, transportation, and employment. Unless all households have equal opportunities to receive an education that prepares them for the labor market, people with similar aptitudes for a given occupation will have different abilities with which to compete for specific jobs. Because public education in the United States is funded primarily through local property taxes, and affluent households and employers have migrated in large numbers out of central cities and into the suburbs, central-city schools districts are often underfunded. At the same time, many of these districts have schools with deteriorating infrastructure and students with systemic social problems resulting from concentrated poverty. Understandably, central-city school districts face a particularly challenging task in providing quality education. Due in large part to the economic restructuring of U.S. cities, quality jobs requiring moderate education and skill levels have largely migrated to the suburbs. Meanwhile, minority populations have concentrated in central cities due partly to past and present discrimination in the housing market. This ‘‘spatial mismatch,’’ further complicated by the low priority U.S. metropolitan areas have given to public transit systems and the high costs of automobile ownership in central cities relative to other areas in the United States, results in many residents lacking access to quality jobs.

Tournament: TFA State | Round: 4 | Opponent: Clements NM | Judge: Emily Jackson
Any public is composited with a plurality of views. This creates a dilemma between accepting subjectivity or coercion. However, subjectivity is untenable. I can’t say, “the sky is blue, but I don’t believe it”, since I have already committed myself the truth of the statement by uttering the preceding statement. This leaves us with coercion, but this just begs the question of what “just” coercion is in the first place.
Benhabib 96 Seyla Benhabib 96 (Turkish-American philosopher. She is Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher), ed. Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political. Vol. 31. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. RC
In the last two decades, theorists of deliberative democracy have stressed the democratic potential for reasoned persuasion to the almost complete exclusion of the independently justifiable arguments for power as coercion in democratic life. Yet democracies must have their coercive as well as their deliberative moments. Against deliberative theorists who associate the coercion in democracy with "violence" and make that coercion at best tangential to the democratic process, this essay argues that coercion must play a large, valuable, and relatively legitimate role in almost any democracy that functions well. But against those who assume the full legitimacy of coercion in conditions of lasting disagreement, this essay argues that any justification for coercion will necessarily be incomplete. In conditions of lasting disagreement there is no unquestionably fair procedure for producing a decision to coerce. Moreover, much coercion in existing democracies will be far from fair, and policies requiring coercion will often have features that are far from just. Recognizing the need for coercion, and recognizing too that no coercion can be either incontestably fair or predictably just, democracies must find ways of fighting, while they use it, the very coercion that they need. Democracies usually fight their own coercive power by girding that power about with the institutional safeguards of individual rights, free speech and association, and other features of the "rule of law," sometimes including constitutional requirements that every policy have at least a nominal "public purpose." Along with these safeguards, democracies need political parties, interest groups, and other traditional institutions that can serve as instruments of formal opposition. Less obviously, this essay argues that democracies also need to foster and value informal deliberative enclaves of resistance in which those who lose in each coercive move can rework their ideas and their strategies, gathering their forces and deciding in a more protected space in what way or whether to continue the battle.
We solve this with deliberation—communicative action bridges the gap between public and private subjectivities, creating ethics.
Liu 02 Hsin-I Liu 02 (University of Hong Kong). “HABERMAS ON NORMATIVE INTERSUBJECTIVITY: THE SOCIOLOGICAL AMBIVALENCE OF “PUBLIC COMMUNICATION”. 2002 http://www.portalcomunicacion.com/bcn2002/n_eng/programme/prog_ind/asp4.asp?id_pre=118 RC
“In my view, Habermas’s picture of bourgeois private and public sphere is like two concentric circles linked through “communication.” The inner circle represents private autonomy and its subjective particularity. The possibility of the outer circle--the public sphere and its generality and abstractness--is a derivative of the inter-subjective dialogues in this inner circle. The “exteriority” of the public and the objective is dependent upon the existence and development of the “interiority” of the private and the subjective. On the other hand, due to its objectivity and abstractness, the public sphere is able to secure a “social space of communication structure” for concrete and subjective private individuals, in which they can “communicate with each other, and confirm each other’s subjectivity as it emerged from their spheres of intimacy” (Habermas 1989a, 54; 1996, 360). The bourgeois public sphere is a historical product of the dialectical play of the subjective interior and the objective exterior spaces. Nonetheless, when this historical relationship between the interior and the exterior in the bourgeois public sphere reversed, the nature of public sphere also under went “social-structural transformation.” Following Adorno’s analysis of the culture industry in the 1940’s, Habermas argues that the arrival of the culture industry contributed greatly to this transformation--in both the spheres of publicness and the concept of rationality implied in it.3”
Moreover, governments represent the conclusion that people reach through deliberation since that determines what is “just” coercion.
Seyla Benhabib 2 (Turkish-American philosopher. She is Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher), ed. Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political. Vol. 31. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. RC
When delegitimation walks hand in hand with legitimation, sufficient legitimation must remain to let reasonably just coercion do its good work of helping organize social arrangements and redressing the greater injustices that would emerge without it. Each individual in each society must feel out this delicate balance for herself. The trick is to recognize the importance , particularly to the most disadvantaged, of having a large number of relatively democratic and relatively unchallenged decisions made (and democratic coercion imposed) on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis as a matter of routine, and at the same time to recognize the importance, particularly to the most disadvantaged, of maintaining, in the institutions and culture of the society and in the minds of its citizens, some ongoing recognition and critique of the ways in which those decisions (and that coercion) are unfair and unjust.
Thus, the standard is promoting deliberation.
I contend that granting a right to housing forecloses public deliberation. Labeling housing as a right shuts down dialogue; it becomes a trump card that prevents us from discussing foundation of the issue.
Fitzpatrick and Watts 10 -- Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Beth Watts. "‘The Right to Housing’for Homeless People." Homelessness Research in Europe (2010): 105-122. RC
First, and most fundamentally, intrinsic to the notion of human rights is the idea that they are self-evident, inalienable and non-negotiable: ‘absolute’ in other words. But are the rights declared by the architects of international and European human rights instruments – particularly social rights such as the right to housing – any less politically contested than other claims about how material resources should be distributed in society? One could argue that labelling such claims as moral ‘rights’ is a mere rhetorical device intended to shut down debate by investing one’s own particular political priorities with a ‘protected’ status; after all, as Dworkin (1977) put it, ‘rights are trumps’. But if one dispenses with theological or other natural law justifications for human rights, then what is the foundation of their protected status? Many human rights supporters argue that they are not anchored in a pre-social natural order or in divine reason, but rather are socially constructed and inter-subjective, rooted in a broad normative consensus about the things that all human beings are morally entitled to in order to attain a basic standard of living and to participate in society (Dean, 2010). But the idea that such a consensus exists at a global level is, at the very least, highly arguable (Finch, 1979; Miller, 1999; Lukes, 2008).

Tournament: TFA State | Round: 6 | Opponent: Earl Warren NO | Judge: Jennifer Melin
Agency, or the setting and pursuing of ends, is inescapable.
Ferrero Luca Ferrero (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee) “Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency” Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. IV January 12th 2009 pp. 6-8
3.2 Agency is special under two respects. First, agency is the enterprise with the largest jurisdiction.12 All ordinary enterprises fall under it. To engage in any ordinary enterprise is ipso facto to engage in the enterprise of agency. In addition, there are instances of behavior that fall under no other enterprise but agency. First, intentional transitions in and out of particular enterprises might not count as moves within those enterprises, but they are still instances of intentional agency, of bare intentional agency, so to say. Second, agency is the locus where we adjudicate the merits and demerits of participating in any ordinary enterprise. Reasoning whether to participate in a particular enterprise is often conducted outside of that enterprise, even while one is otherwise engaged in it. Practical reflection is a manifestation of full-fledged intentional agency but it does not necessary belong to any other specific enterprise. Once again, it might be an instance of bare intentional agency. In the limiting case, agency is the only enterprise that would still keep a subject busy if she were to attempt a ʻradical re-evaluationʼ of all of her engagements and at least temporarily suspend her participation in all ordinary enterprises.13 3.3 The second feature that makes agency stand apart from ordinary enterprises is agencyʼs closure. Agency is closed under the operation of reflective rational assessment. As the case of radical re-evaluations shows, ordinary enterprises are never fully closed under reflection. There is always the possibility of reflecting on ordinary enterprises their justification while standing outside of them. Not so for rational agency. The constitutive features of agency (no matter whether they are conceived as aims, motives, capacities, commitments, etc.) continue to operate even when the agent is assessing whether she is justified in her engagement in agency. One cannot put agency on hold while trying to determine whether agency is justified because this kind of practical reasoning is the exclusive job of intentional agency. This does not mean that agency falls outside of the reach of reflection. But even reflection about agency is a manifestation of agency.14 Agency is not necessarily self-reflective but all instances of reflective assessment, including those directed at agency itself, fall under its jurisdiction; they are conducted in deference to the constitutive standards of agency. This kind of closure is unique to agency. What is at work in reflection is the distinctive operation of intentional agency in its discursive mode. What is at work is not simply the subjectʼs capacity to shape her conduct in response to reasons for action but also her capacity both to ask for these reasons and to give them. Hence, agencyʼs closure under reflective rational assessment is closure under agencyʼs own distinctive operation: Agency is closed under itself.15
This outweighs: A. Analytic B. Analytic
Universal willing is a prerequisite to self-determination of action. Anything else means desire controls our actions, thus the actor is no longer an agent.
Korsgaard“Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant” by Christine M. Korsgaard
The second step is to see that particularistic willing makes it impossible for you to distinguish yourself, your principle of choice, from the various incentives on which you act. According to Kant you must always act on some incentive or other, for every action, even action from duty, involves a decision on a proposal: something must suggest the action to you. And in order to will particularistically, you must in each case wholly identify with the incentive of your action. That incentive would be, for the moment, your law, the law that defined your agency or your will. It’s important to see that if you had a particularistic will you would not identify with the incentive as representative of any sort of type, since if you took it as a representative of a type you would be taking it as universal. For instance, you couldn’t say that you decided to act on the inclination of the moment, because you were so inclined. Someone who takes “I shall do the things I am inclined to do, whatever they might be” as his maxim has adopted a universal principle, not a particular one: he has the principle of treating his inclinations as such as reasons. A truly particularistic will must embrace the incentive in its full particularity: it, in no way that is further describable, is the law of such a will. So someone who engages in particularistic willing does not even have a democratic soul. There is only the tyranny of the moment: the complete domination of the agent by something inside him.
Analytic
Prefer additionally- all frameworks presuppose liberty- three warrants. 

1. Analytic
   2. Analytic
   3. Analytic
   Impact Calc:
2. Analytic
   2. Analytic

NC – Free Markets
Contention x is free markets
Kantianism justifies a system of free markets- we have the right to make inferior choices and businesspeople have a right to choose how they want to distribute their own goods. This also means nobody has to sell you a house either- there should be zero interference, positive or negative
Jones 04 September 2004, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies;2004, Vol. 16 Issue 1/2, p65, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/14576363/immanuel-kant-free-market-capitalist
This essay argues that Kant's philosophy provides a justification for free markets. The myths about Kant are that he was a recluse, knew nothing about business, and that his epistemology divorced reason from reality, while his primary interest was metaphysics. Yet Kant's categorical imperative demands obedience even in the face of uncertainty about the external world. Adam Smith described this principle as the inward testimony of an impartial observer. Smith and Kant put individual decisions at the center of morality, but agreed that people have a tendency to make morally inferior chokes. Those who propose to regulate the economy are as troubled by this tendency as those they regulate. The self-sacrifice prescription is economically, psychologically, and morally unstable. In recommending market competition, Smith was unconsciously applying a Kantian formula. Market decisions are individual decisions. Individuals prefer to do business with those they trust: this is an incentive to honesty. A morality that depends upon incentives is imperfect but superior to a morality imposed by force.
The AFF infringes on the right of employers to decide who to sell to.
Friedman n.d. David Friedman, Some Responses to Mike Huben's A Non-Libertarian FAQ, http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/response_to_huben.html
The problems with this, in the case of both the Scientologists and the ACLU, are that it confuses rhetoric with reality and, more seriously, blurs real disagreements about what freedom and rights are. For a simple example, consider the issue of fair housing legislation--over which my father quit the ACLU many years ago. The ACLU would claim that in supporting fair housing legislation it is supporting the right of blacks, jews, etc. to buy or rent housing. Libertarians would respond that nobody has the right to buy something that the owner does not wish to sell, and that the ACLU was actually attacking the right of an owner to decide whom he would rent or sell his property to. Hence whether the ACLU's position was a defense of rights or an attack on rights depends on what rights you believe people have. This is the point that Mike is getting at later in this section when he writes "Nor might we need or want to accept the versions of "freedom" and "rights" that libertarians propose." But instead of actually arguing it, he rhetorically points out that libertarianism is not egalitarianism--which while true, is not obviously relevant to the question of what rights people do or should have. Perhaps I was too quick, earlier in this response, to offer Mike as a counterexample to his own comments on evangelists. 

The NC also turns the AC- the market has empirically proven to provide better housing for more people than the government. Data proves.
Husock 16 Hussock, Howard. "We Don't Need Subsidized Housing." City Journal. City Journal, 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 05 Feb. 2017. https://www.city-journal.org/html/we-donE28099t-need-subsidized-housing-11954.html.
. Maybe our housing programs haven’t failed because of some minor management problem but because they are flawed at the core. The truth is, devoting government resources to subsidized housing for the poor—whether in the form of public housing or even housing vouchers—is not just unnecessary but also counterproductive. It not only derails what the private market can do on its own, but more significantly, it has profoundly destructive unintended consequences. For housing subsidies undermine the efforts of those poor families who work and sacrifice to advance their lot in life—and who have the right and the need to distinguish themselves, both physically and psychologically, from those who do not share their solid virtues. Rather than confront these harsh truths, we have over the past century gone through at least five major varieties of subsidized housing, always looking for the philosophers’ stone that will turn a bad idea into one that will work. We began with philanthropic housing built by “limited dividend” corporations, whose investors were to accept a below-market return in order to serve the poor. The disappointing results of such efforts—the projects served few people and tended to decline quickly—led housing advocates to call for public, not just private, spending for housing. Government first responded to their pleas with housing projects owned and operated by public authorities. These speedily declined. “Housers” then sought other solutions, such as using cheap, federally underwritten mortgages and rents paid by Washington to subsidize private landlords. The expense of this last approach, which had its heyday in the sixties, and the resultant wave of decline and foreclosure led to the twin approaches of our current era. In the first of these, tenants use portable, government-provided vouchers to pay any private landlord who will accept them. In the second, federal tax credits encourage deep-pocketed corporate investors looking for tax shelters to finance new or renovated rental housing owned and managed by nonprofit community groups. Both approaches have had serious problems, but this hasn’t deterred housing advocates from asserting that the way to fix the housing market is through even more such subsidies than the $12 billion that HUD already provides (out of its $25 billion annual budget) and the billions more in subsidies that state and local governments expend. This mountain of government housing subsidies rests on three remarkably tenacious myths. Myth No. 1: The market will not provide. The core belief of housing advocates is that the private market cannot and will not provide adequate housing within the means of the poor. The photos of immigrants squeezed into postage-stamp-sized rooms in a recent New York Times series on housing for the poor strain to make this point. But housers have been making such assertions for more than 60 years, and reality keeps contradicting them. In 1935, for example, Catherine Bauer—perhaps America’s most influential public housing crusader—claimed that the private housing market could not serve fully two-thirds of Americans and they would need public housing. The post–World War II era’s explosion of home ownership quickly gave the lie to such claims, certainly with respect to those in the lower middle class and up. As for the poor, a look at pre-Depression history shows that housing advocates get it wrong again. From the end of the Civil War up until the New Deal and the National Housing Act of 1937—which gave public housing its first push—the private housing market generated a cornucopia of housing forms to accommodate those of modest means as they gradually improved their condition. In those years Chicago saw the construction of 211,000 low-cost two-family homes—or 21 percent of its residences. In Brooklyn 120,000 two-family structures with ground-floor stores sprang up. In Boston some 40 percent of the population of 770,000 lived in the 65,376 units of the city’s three-decker frame houses, vilified by housing reformers. These areas of low-cost, unsubsidized housing were home to the striving poor. In Boston, as pioneer sociologists Robert Woods and Albert Kennedy describe it in their brilliant 1914 work, The Zone of Emergence, these neighborhoods teemed with clerks and skilled and semi-skilled workmen. “Over 65 percent of the residence property of the zone is owned by those who reside on it,” wrote Woods and Kennedy, “and this is the best possible index that can be given of the end that holds the imagination and galvanizes the powers of a large proportion of the population. Doubtless the greater share of this property is encumbered with mortgage, but it is an index of striving and accomplishment.” Even in the poorest neighborhoods, housing, if modest, was rarely abject. A 1907 report by the U.S. Immigration Commission, for instance, found that in the eastern cities, crowding in such neighborhoods was by no means overwhelming, with 134 persons for every 100 rooms. “Eighty-four in every 100 of the homes studied are in good or fair condition,” wrote the commission. True, many lived without hot water or their own bathrooms. But rents were cheap. A 1909 study by the President’s Homes Commission of Washington, D.C., found that a majority of the 1,200 families surveyed paid but 17.5 percent of their income for housing costs. Many of the poor—just like the “emerging” class that Woods and Kennedy described—lived in small homes they owned or in small buildings in which the owner lived. To be sure, as we know above all from Jacob Riis’s powerful 1891 book, How the Other Half Lives, some families lived in hovels, even in unlit cellars. “It no longer excites even passing attention when the sanitary police count 101 adults and 91 children in a Crosby Street house,” he wrote, “or when a midnight inspection in Mulberry Street unearths 150 ‘lodgers’ sleeping on filthy floors in two buildings.” Many buildings did not have their own toilets, and large numbers of people relied on public baths to get clean. But it is essential to remember that the conditions in which these poor families lived were not permanent—a fact unacknowledged by either Riis or present-day housing advocates. After all, the generation of children for whom Riis despaired went on to accomplish America’s explosive economic growth after the turn of the century and into the twenties. By 1930 the New York settlement-house pioneer Lillian Wald would write in her memoirs of the Lower East Side that, where once Riis had deplored overcrowding, she now found herself surrounded by “empties”: the poor had climbed the economic ladder and headed to Brooklyn and the Bronx. In other words, “substandard” housing was a stage through which many passed, but in which they did not inevitably remain. The arrival of Dominicans from Washington Heights in Hudson River Valley towns and Salvadorans from Queens on Long Island is proof that this process continues. Perversely, housing reformers invariably make matters worse by banning the conditions that shock them. Insisting unrealistically on standards beyond the financial means of the poor, they help create housing shortages, which they then seek to remedy through public subsidies. Even Jacob Riis observed in 1907 that new tenement standards threatened “to make it impossible for anyone not able to pay $75 a month to live on Manhattan Island.” Though Riis’s colleague Lawrence Veiller, head of the influential New York–based National Housing Association from 1900 to 1920, cautioned that “housing legislation must distinguish between what is desirable and what is essential,” most housing programs since the New Deal have rejected this sensible advice. The high standards that have resulted—whether for the number of closets, the square feet of kitchen counter space, or handicapped access—have caused private owners and builders to bypass the low-income market. So stringent are the standards that, under current building codes and zoning laws, much of the distinctive lower-cost housing that shaped the architectural identity of America’s cities—such as Brooklyn’s attached brownstones with basement apartments—could not be built today. True, even with relaxed building and housing codes, we still might not be able to build brand-new housing within the reach of those earning the minimum wage or those living on public assistance. Yet this is not an irresistible argument for government subsidies. Used housing, like used cars, gets passed along to those of more and more modest means. When new homes are built for the lower middle class, the rental housing in which they’ve been living (itself probably inherited from the middle class) historically has been passed along to those who are poorer. In a subtle way, the very existence of subsidized housing is likely to contribute to the over-regulation that leads to constraints in housing supply—and to calls for further subsidies. When builders have plenty of work putting up high-cost subsidized apartments, they don’t agitate for a less regulated market. Why should they seek an opportunity to build lower-margin low-cost housing? The rejoinder, then, to the myth that the market will not provide is that a greater supply of housing could be—and has been—created in a less regulated market. Myth No. 2: By taking profit-driven landlords out of the equation, state-supported housing can offer the poor higher-quality housing for the same rent. Four generations of attempts to provide subsidized housing built to higher standards than the poor could afford on their own in the private market have proved that this idea just doesn’t work. Each generation has seen the same depressing pattern: initial success followed by serious decline and ultimately by demands for additional public funds to cover ever-rising costs. You can see the outlines of this pattern as early as 1854, when the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor decided to build a “model tenement” at the corner of Elizabeth and Mott Streets. Constructed by a newly formed limited-dividend corporation, the building degenerated just 11 years later into what would be called “one of the worst slum pockets in the city.” It was sold and soon after demolished. Like its ill-fated predecessor, later public housing also aimed to do away with profit, financing construction through the sale of public bonds and then using the project’s rental income to pay a public authority to provide maintenance. But the maintenance failures of public housing projects became legendary, to the point that a 1988 study estimated it would take at least $30 billion to remedy them. Instead of providing housing that rental income from tenants can maintain, the federal government has had to supply $4 billion in annual “operating assistance” to housing authorities for maintenance and administrative costs—and still the maintenance problems multiply. The new public housing model that advocates favor retains the core—and fatal—dogma that the profit motive has no place in providing housing for the poor. In this model, nonprofit community groups run smaller, mixed-income apartment buildings, financed by monies raised through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, a program set up in 1986 to encourage corporations to support low-income housing. In New York City some 200 nonprofit groups manage 48,000 housing units. Though at this point such housing is widely viewed as successful, the New School for Social Research has found, in an examination of 34 developments in six cities, that “beyond an initial snapshot of well-being, loom major problems which, if unaddressed, will threaten the stock of affordable housing in this study.” Predictably enough, more than 60 percent of the projects already had trouble maintaining their paint and plaster, elevators, hall lighting, and roofs. Why does non-market housing founder? First, providing the poor with better housing than they can afford also saddles them with higher maintenance costs than they can afford. A newly announced state-financed “affordable housing” complex in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will cost $1.3 million—for eight units. That’s $162,500 per apartment. Recent subsidized projects in the Bronx and central Harlem cost $150,000 and $113,000 per unit, respectively. These apartments may be built to higher standards, but their fancier kitchens, more numerous bathrooms, and larger space mean more maintenance. Not surprisingly, limited rents can’t keep up with the need for service. The New York City Housing Partnership, which arranges private construction of housing for low-income buyers, has observed that nonprofit housing management groups in general “have no magic formula that allows them to manage property at less than cost. Ultimately they will need operating subsidies to remain viable.” Second, it is by no means true that cutting out the profit-making landlord reduces maintenance costs. On the contrary, public authorities and nonprofit management firms are bureaucracies with their own overhead expenses, and unlike private owners, they have no incentive to control costs. Nor have their employees any incentive to provide good service; and tenants, who are not full-fledged paying customers, have little leverage. Indeed, public housing authorities have demonstrated an ability rivaling any slumlord to disinvest in their properties. Rather than being a source of ill-gotten gains, private ownership is a source of cost control. The expensive but ineffective maintenance regime of subsidized housing—with its formal bids and union contracts—replaces housing maintenance performed through a far less costly informal economy. Poor homeowners and so-called “tenement landlords” (owners of small, multi-family buildings, many owner-occupied) contribute their own “sweat equity” or hire neighborhood tradesmen, not all of whom are licensed, let alone unionized. As one study of a low-income neighborhood in Montreal observed, “Owners can maintain their buildings and keep their rents low through the cooperation of their tenants on maintenance and through their own hard work.” None of these factors comes into play in the bureaucratic environment of public or nonprofit ownership. Far from being more cost-effective than private housing, subsidized housing is even more expensive than it first appears. Its cost includes the vast amount of property-tax revenue forgone when rental housing is held by public authorities or non-taxpaying nonprofit groups. By choosing to invest in housing, cities choose not to invest in other services, or not to leave money in the private economy to finance growth that would provide opportunity for poor and non-poor alike. Under the Rebuild New York program championed by the Koch and Dinkins administrations, the city “invested” an estimated $5 billion (much of it from its own operating budget) in housing renovation and gave up millions in property-tax revenues by deeding buildings to nonprofit organizations. The rejoinder, then, to the myth of the public or nonprofit alternative is that gleaming new projects are bound to decay—and to have significant long-term public costs. But for housing advocates, this is really just a political problem: that of making clear to the body politic that perpetually escalating subsidies to guarantee a safe and sanitary environment for the poor are the cost of living in a moral body politic. Here we arrive at the nub of their mistaken ideology. Myth No. 3: The moral qualities of the poor are a product of their housing “environment.” The essence of the housing advocates’ worldview, as the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor put it in 1854, is that “physical evils produce moral evils.” Improved physical surroundings will lead people to become upright, ambitious, and successful. Perhaps the quintessential myth of environmental determinism is that kids who might otherwise have no place to do their homework have their own room in government-assisted housing—and therefore succeed where they would have failed. There is much that is appealing in this view, which has a powerful hold on the liberal psyche. But the track record of public housing—which by almost any physical measure is superior to the housing in which most of its residents have previously lived—has hardly borne out the notion that better housing uplifts the poor. The response of housing reformers to drug- and gunfire-riddled projects has been not to re-examine the premise but to tinker with the model. Having long dwelled on design, they now devote equal attention to the social “environment.” Thus Secretary Cisneros has dreamed of new, low-rise, mixed-income subsidized housing that will correct the mistake of concentrating the poor in apartment towers now said to have encouraged crime. So, too, the nonprofit, “community-based” management of renovated apartment buildings is touted as a nurturing environment, in which the poorest are inspired by gainfully employed “role-model” neighbors to improve their habits and their lot. Here is where housing advocates most radically misunderstand the nature of the unsubsidized housing market. They can’t see its crucial role in weaving a healthy social fabric and inspiring individuals to advance. By pushing to provide the poor with better housing than they could otherwise afford, houses are blind to the fact that they are interfering with a delicate system that rewards effort and achievement by giving people the chance to live in better homes in better neighborhoods. In this unsubsidized system, you earn your way to a better neighborhood. In fact, you must help to create and to maintain better neighborhoods by your own effort. Housing subsidies—whether in the form of subsidized apartments or even vouchers that you can take to a landlord of your choice—turn this system on its head and undermine it, for housing subsidies do not reward achievement; they reward need. Those who strive and save are offered the same subsidized unit as those on public assistance; the provident and the improvident become indistinguishable. Those who work must live alongside those who do not. To believe that this is just is to believe that the poor are fundamentally undifferentiated—that they are all the same in being victims of an oppressive system. Those done the greatest injustice by such naiveté are the hardworking poor, who find to their horror that their new neighbor in a housing project is a drug dealer, or that the house next door has been rented, through a housing voucher, to an AFDC mother who does not supervise her children. Subsidies deny the self-sacrificing, working poor the chance to put physical and social distance between themselves and the non-working or antisocial poor. The New York Times cited the case of a hardworking woman who found herself in a bad neighborhood surrounded by gang violence as evidence of the need for increased housing subsidies, but it more likely demonstrates the opposite. By subsidizing troubled families, perhaps with criminal members, so that they can live in the same neighborhoods as those who hold modest but honest jobs, we expose the law-abiding to the disorder and violence of the undisciplined and the lawless, depriving them of the decent neighborhoods—decent in values if shabby in appearance—that their efforts should earn them. If we fail to allow the hardworking to distinguish themselves, by virtue of where they live, from those who do not share these traits, we devalue them. Even if we could somehow subsidize only the good citizens, the deserving poor, we would still do them a grave disservice, fostering the belief that they have moved to better homes in better neighborhoods by dint of largesse, not accomplishment—an entirely different psychology. A neighborhood of good housing is not necessarily a good neighborhood. And a poor and shabby neighborhood is not necessarily a bad neighborhood. The terms on which residents have come to a place, as well as the extent to which they own property and have otherwise invested in the upkeep and safety of it, matter far more. It is worth recalling the distinctions sociologist Herbert Gans made among different types of poor neighborhoods. “In most American cities,” he wrote, “there are two major types of low-rent neighborhoods: the areas of first and second settlement for urban migrants; and the areas that attract the criminal, the mentally ill, the socially rejected, and those who have given up the attempt to cope with life. The former kind of area, in which immigrants try to adapt to the urban milieu . . . , may be called an urban village. The second kind of area, populated largely by single men, pathological families, people in hiding from themselves or society, and individuals who provide the most disreputable of illegal-but-demanded services to the rest of the community, . . . might be called an urban jungle. “Subsidized housing does not differentiate between these groups. In fact, it seeks to address the problems of the lawless by mixing them in among the law-abiding and upwardly mobile, who are regarded almost as mere instruments for the salvation of the disorderly. Because it is based on the myth that the lawless are victims rather than victimizers, such a policy makes victims of those who would build an urban village by enmeshing them in an unsafe, disorganized neighborhood. True, the new subsidized projects run by community groups, with the advice of such sophisticated organizations as the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Enterprise Foundation, do seek to screen tenants so as to keep bad actors out of mixed-income developments. But it defies imagination to think that such a process will be as effective as the screening that the market does. Indeed, in its analysis of such housing in New York, the New School found that though 6 percent of tenants were in arrears on their rent, the eviction rate was still zero. By remaining focused on the myth that physical conditions are the single most important quality of housing, houses have misunderstood the dynamics of neighborhoods—not merely as places where people live but as communities of shared ideals. As a result, they have blindly based new policies on old mistakes. Consider, for instance, recent housing initiatives that aim to promote racial integration by placing low-income minority families in apartments in the suburbs. These policies are a recipe for racial resentment, which has in fact developed. Asking working-class whites to accept the welfare poor—who would inspire discomfort whether white or black—as neighbors is the worst way to address the race issue. The right way is to enforce housing non-discrimination laws and thus allow the diffusion of upwardly mobile minority-group members into neighborhoods where, if they at first appear to be outsiders, it is only by virtue of race, not class. A realistic housing policy would strive for a non-subsidized world in which many different sorts of housing form a housing ladder. The lower rungs will be modest indeed—as modest as the single-room-occupancy hotels that sprang up in San Diego when that city allowed dwellings with less-than-full bathrooms and limited parking. By relaxing its code requirements, the city catalyzed construction of some 2,700 new SRO units for the working poor—day laborers, cabdrivers, fast-food employees. The SROs have formed a housing ladder all their own: lower-rent buildings may have no TV or phone, while lobby guards in the better buildings enforce more stringent guest policies. A sensible housing policy would purge housing and building codes of unnecessary barriers to construction. The New York City Housing Partnership, for instance, would like to build new versions of old-fashioned Brooklyn row houses, but handicapped-access laws forbid basement apartments, which allow for a less expensive overall design. Requirements for cast-iron or copper pipes instead of less expensive plastic ones, or for excessive numbers of electric outlets, increase the cost of housing needlessly. Hugely expensive environmental cleanup requirements discourage developers from building low-cost (or any other kind of) housing on the many “brownfield” sites of inner cities. Policy makers should push for safe ways to “minimally rehab” older buildings, so that they’re not priced out of the reach of the unsubsidized poor. City Homes, a Baltimore developer, has tried this on a small scale, with the cooperation of local and state authorities that have held renovation requirements to a minimum. Because of its low costs, City Homes doesn’t need the federal rent subsidies on which most low-income housing complexes depend. City Homes rents only to the employed and has created blocks—inhabited by nurses, city sanitation workers, and the like—that are oases of safety and civility in the midst of bad neighborhoods. Even with building codes that focus on basic safety issues and try not to raise prices, there will be people who can’t afford anything we think should be built. In some cases this may be the result of poverty despite effort. In others it may be the result of bad life choices and the wrong values. For those in temporary emergency situations, we should provide shelters, basic arrangements that ensure no one must live on the street. For those whose lack of housing is really a symptom of larger problems—the alcoholic, the drug addict, the teenage mother who cannot afford her own household—we can look to institutional ways, such as group homes, to deliver the combination of shelter, guidance, and treatment they need.

Tournament: TFA State | Round: Octas | Opponent: Cypress Woods LC | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo, Demarcus Powell, Blake Andrews
Interpretation: The aff must explicitly specify in the form of a plan text how the aff implements a right to housing. To clarify, they must specify the specific method of enforcement for the right to housing.
Violation:
There are multiple ways to implement a right to housing based on current demands.  
Schiller ’15. Ben Schiller '15 (Ben Schiller is a New York staff writer for Co.Exist. He edited a European management magazine and was a reporter in San Francisco, Prague and Brussels.), 2-6-2015, "4 Ways To Make Housing More Affordable," Co.Exist, http://www.fastcoexist.com/3037614/4-ways-to-make-housing-more-affordable
If you thought big cities like New York, Mumbai, and London were unaffordable already, here's a depressing prediction: It's going to get worse. A new report forecasts a growing shortage of reasonably priced housing in the coming decades, based on current migration and income trends. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2025 1.6 billion people—or 440 million households—will either be "financially stretched by housing costs" or be living in "crowded, inadequate, and unsafe housing." McKinsey defines affordable as 30 of income, and its 440 million figure includes 200 million existing households in developing countries, 32 million households in advanced economies living in substandard housing, and 100 million households that are finding it hard to meet their costs. On top of that, it expects 106 million households to join the ranks of the "stretched" by 2025. That has huge implications for society, the report says: For families lacking decent affordable housing, health outcomes are poorer, children do less well in school and tend to drop out earlier, unemployment and under-employment rates are higher, and financial inclusion is lower. So what's to be done? McKinsey's overriding point is that traditional approaches are likely to fail. Handing out income support or subsidies will be inadequate. Cities need to take "market-based approaches" that "create value while reducing costs." Below are the four approaches the report recommends: UNLOCK LAND The best thing cities can do is to make more land available for housing, preferably land that puts poor people near opportunities. Siting affordable housing on the outskirts of town runs the risk of cementing poverty, rather than alleviating it. McKinsey recommends cities pursue transit-oriented development (housing built around new lines and stations), open up unused public land, and have policies designed to get development started quicker (like higher taxes for land that sits idle). "Inclusionary planning," meanwhile, allows developers to build more densely in return for commitments to make more affordable housing available. VALUE ENGINEERING McKinsey says improving the productivity of the construction industry would also help make more housing units available (it's been falling behind other industries). Here the report recommends standardizing more aspects of home design, and doing more construction off-site then wheeling it into place. "The off-site manufacturing process improves quality and enables the developer to shrink schedules by having parts delivered as needed, rather than waiting for them to be fabricated on site," the report says. OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE Driving down the cost of maintaining and operating buildings might also help make more homes available. Ways to do that include focusing on energy efficiency (new windows, insulation and so on) and scaling up service operators to make them bigger and more cost competitive. BETTER FINANCING Cities can also help lower-income residents afford new homes by minimizing barriers to finance, particularly in the developing world. The report suggests three ways: reducing the cost of issuing mortgages (by, for example, standardizing the way properties are valued), reducing the cost of funding mortgages, and setting up mandatory savings funds that offer below-market interest rates. Affordable housing may be a dry topic (and the report is a little dry) but it's a vitally important one affecting billions of people. McKinsey believes its four approaches can meet the housing gap for everyone earning 50 to 80 of median income, while those earning less will also need additional support. "Despite efforts to address the affordable housing gap, it continues to grow and its effects are spreading, potentially causing greater harm to citizens and economies," says the report.
You need to spec in order for anyone to understand what the right even means.
Hartman 98 Chester. (Hartman is Executive Director of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council in Washington, DC.) "The Case for a Right to Housing." Housing Policy Debate 9.2 (1998): 223-41. Web. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b39f/779ea88791e8f08dbb1351ec060ab6439085.pdf.
What are the components of this right? I would include affordability, physical quality of the unit, and the social and physical characteristics of the neighborhood environment. What should the affordability standard be? Some version of Michael Stone’s (1993) ‘‘shelter poverty’’ standard is best, taking into account household size, household income, and the cost of nonshelter basics, as opposed to a fixed percentage of income What standards should be used for housing and neighborhood conditions? Local housing codes vary enormously in coverage, detail, and standards. The best of these might form the basis for a national code, or HUD’s Housing Quality Standards might be used. There are few usable neighborhood quality standards at present, and serious work must be undertaken to develop these. Overcrowding standards must guard, on the one hand, against cultural bias (Myers, Baer, and Choi 1996; Pader 1994) and, on the other hand, against accepting dramatically lower standards for the poor. Provision must be made for changing or rising standards. Antidiscrimination requirements should permit choice of neighborhoods: the option of in-place as well as dispersion remedies for badly impacted inner-city neighborhoods.Secure tenure should be a key element. Provision should be made, however, for legitimate changes in land use and for an owner’s business reasons that require removal of residents. Defined behavioral infractions can constitute grounds for eviction. Willful nonpayment would be grounds for eviction or foreclosure, but systems should be established to provide needed emergency and longer-term subsidies if incomes are inadequate to pay contracted housing costs, in order to avoid loss of one’s home.
Impacts:
a) Kills resolvability
b) Debatability
c) Analytic
d) Fiat Abuse
Voters: Fairness, Jurisdiction, DTD, CI, No RVIs

Tournament: TFA State | Round: 6 | Opponent: Earl Warren NO | Judge: Jennifer Melin
Interpretation: The right to housing is a positive right.
Velasquez et al 14 -- Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. “Rights”. MARKKULA CENTER FOR APPLIED ETHICS, Aug. 8, 2014. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/rights/
Kant's principle is also often used to justify positive or, as they are often called, welfare rights. Where negative rights are "negative" in the sense that they claim for each person a zone of non-interference from others, positive rights are "positive" in the sense that they claim for each person the positive assistance of others in fulfilling basic constituents of human well-being like health and education. In moral and political philosophy, these basic human needs are often referred to as "welfare" concerns (thus this use of the term "welfare" is similar to but not identical with the common American usage of "welfare" to refer to government payments to the poor). Many people argue that a fundamental right to freedom is worthless if people aren't able to exercise that freedom. A right to freedom, then, implies that every human being also has a fundamental right to what is necessary to secure a minimum level of well being. Positive rights, therefore, are rights that provide something that people need to secure their well being, such as a right to an education, the right to food, the right to medical care, the right to housing, or the right to a job. Positive rights impose a positive duty on us—the duty actively to help a person to have or to do something. A young person's right to an education, for example, imposes on us a duty to provide that young person with an education. Respecting a positive right, then requires more than merely not acting; positive rights impose on us the duty to help sustain the welfare of those who are in need of help.
Violation:
Standards:
1.Ground
2.Field context
Bo Bengtsson 01 (Uppsala University, Department of Government and Institute for Housing and Urban Research). “Housing as a Social Right: Implications for Welfare State Theory”. Nordic Political Science Association, 2001. RC
The article contributes to two central and interrelated discourses in welfare state theory and housing policy. One concerns the meaning of a `right to housing', and the other concerns the meaning of the dichotomy `universal'^`selective' in housing policy. The right to housing is best seen as a political `marker of concern' pointing out housing as an area for welfare state policy. The more precise meaning of the idea is always de¢ned socially, in a speci¢c national context of relations between state, citizen, and markets in housing provision. Two alternative interpretations of a right to housing are suggested, each related to a certain logic of housing provision. In a selective housing policy, the state provides a `protected' complement to the general housing market, and the right to housing implies some legalistic minimum rights for households of lesser means. In a universal housing policy, the state provides correctives to the general housing market in order to make housing available to all types of households, and the right to housing is best seen as a social right in Marshall's meaning of an obligation of the state towards society as a whole. The concepts of `universal' and `selective' may be applied to either the political discourse or the social outcome of policies. Furthermore, they may refer to di¡erent political levels (e.g. welfare state level, sector level, and policy instrument level). If the dichotomy is not speci¢ed in those two respects, the distinction between a universal and a selective policy will always be seriously blurred.
A) Analytic
3. Limits

Voters:
Jurisdiction, DTD, CI

Tournament: TFA State | Round: 6 | Opponent: Earl Warren NO | Judge: Jennifer Melin
A. Interpretation: If the aff advocates for a subset of the resolution, then they must have a carded solvency advocates that advocates for the aff and explicitly calls it a “right to housing” read in the 1AC.
B. Violation:
C. Standards

1. Limits
   2. Topic Focus
   Fairness, DTD, CI

Tournament: Longhorn Classic | Round: 4 | Opponent: Westwood JA | Judge: Ryan Stephens
A. Counterplan Text – the USFG ought to abolish the Department of Homeland Security.
C. Solvency –  Militia News is the solvency advocate – CP will target border patrol funding through the DHS. Militia News 14
(Militia News, "It Is Time To Defund And Abolish The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)", http:www.militianews.com/time-defund-abolish-dhs/, March 14, 2014)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was formed as a result of the 911, when 19 jihadists, Radical Muslim terrorists, most of whom came from Saudi Arabia, who were armed with box-cutter knives, took over the planes and flew them into the Pentagon and the twin Towers. Since its awkward birth in 2003, it’s safe to say the baby never learned to walk, or stopped flinging its food or sucking its thumb. But it has grown. An umbrella agency that now incorporates 22 different agencies and components with some 240,000 employees, it has survived mostly because of natural bureaucratic intransigence, but fed also, by the lingering specter of 9/11, which gives it near-impenetrable political security. It is currently receiving appropriations of $39 billion for fiscal year 2013 (and that is after sequestration). Of course most of that money goes to DHS components that were independent or part of other agencies before DHS came along. They includinge the U.S Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Federal Protective Service, Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and everyone’s friend, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). But some $4.5 billion of the total budget goes to front office operations and programs, as well as new DHS directorates created after 2003. They involve department management, research and development, security training, the inspector general’s office, the Office of Health Affairs, Analysis and Operations, and a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. And don’t forget its cybersecurity directorate – every agency’s got one! – for which its getting more than a half a billion dollars a year to operate. In other words, the DHS administration has become a bureaucratic planet onto itself and no one can deny it. Case in point: the old St. Elizabeth’s mental hospital in Washington, the site of the (still unfinished) new 4.5 million square foot DHS headquarters, in 2011. I was told by my handlers that the old imposing 19th century main hall, which used to house hundreds of patients and the administration of the hospital – the size of two football fields – would be, once refurbished, for the secretary’s staff only. Another major hall would be for the agency’s lawyers. The rest of the 14,000 employees from other components would be working elsewhere on the 176-acre property. Ben Friedman over at CATO called DHS a “bureaucratic monstrosity” and there are plenty of people outside and inside government who would agree with him. Isn’t it time to consider that this experiment – inspired by the politically driven, essentially emotional, misplaced need to do something after the 9/11 attacks and fueled accordingly by neoconservative grandstanders like Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) and Rep. Peter King (R), who have used the new agency and its corresponding congressional committees as a platform for anti-Muslim tirades and more government intrusion our lives – has failed? Put aside all of the money the government would save, getting rid of the Department of Homeland Security would be a first step at scaling back post-9/11 domestic counterterrorism and law enforcement hubris – not to mention the militarization of domestic security. They’ve already began testing domestic drone surveillance (in addition to the military blimps and aerostats, drones are already used on the border and in the Drug War), and the agency is always on the lookout for the best in spy camera technology, because, of course, they are looking out for our best interest. DHS has also helped local police build up their own armories by giving them money to buy military surplus. “The buying spree has transformed local police departments into small, army-like forces, and put intimidating equipment into the hands of civilian officers,” wrote Andrew Becker for The Daily Beast in 2011. The problem with the DHS administration is that it doesn’t have a clear mission beyond coordinating homeland security efforts already exercised by its major components and working with outside agencies – FBI, the Pentagon, the Centers for Disease Control and state and local homeland security offices, etc. – to share information, launch joint programs, training, policy, whatever. One of the agencies it helped to get off its feet was the new TSA, and from day one, DHS has fumbled and bumbled down the runway, from the enormous amount of money lost in failed contracts, to the conveyor belt of bad press regarding the screening procedures (like old ladies and toddlers getting humiliating pat-downs while explosives and guns sail through checkpoints time and again during undercover inspections). For the last several years, millions of fliers have endured full-body scanners that snap near-naked pictures of their bodies while they “stick ’em up” obediently in something that resembles a mini-transporter but is infinitely not as cool. DHS has insisted these machines are safe and necessary (ironically, the Rapiscan models that ex-DHS chief Chertoff lobbied for when he left the agency to go into the private sector are being pulled from the airports – more millions wasted – because they emit the more dangerous ionizing radiation). But officials still can’t guarantee that full-body scans will detect all explosives hidden on the human body, leading many of us to wonder uneasily about what fresh tortures TSA may have in store for us down the road. Meanwhile, the ACLU is demanding more information about DHS agents detaining thousands of individuals at the borders each year, confiscating their laptops and other electronic devices, even when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. From the ACLU in May: Essentially DHS has adopted a policy of peering into anyone’s data, at any time, for any reason. Through a FOIA request filed three years ago we discovered that more than 6,500 travelers had their devices searched under this policy between October 2008 and June 2010. Almost half of those were U.S. citizens. Flying, to many Americans, has become a very stressful undertaking – and forget it if you’re suddenly put on the “no fly list” by mistake – the DHS redress program, which is supposed to help get you scrubbed from the list (supposedly 21,000 names strong as of 2011, double from the year before) has done nothing of the sort for anyone, according to critics.
D. Net Benefits
COURTS UNLIKELY TO SOLVE POLICE MILITARIZATION. Rahall 15
Karena Rahall (Visiting Assistant Professor, Seattle University School of Law.), The Green to Blue Pipeline: Defense Contractors and the Police Industrial Complex, 36 Cardozo L. Rev. 1785 (2015).

As laid out in Part II, courts have been slow to respond to the harmful effects of police militarization. Given the current state of jurisprudence, relief is unlikely to be found in the Supreme Court.335 Since the Court is more focused on violations involving the scope of searches rather than the manner in which they are executed, SWAT transgressions are difficult to regulate in the judicial arena. However, as the landscape shifts and citizens begin to demand redress, the Court may find itself forced into action in the near future, not to change its recent precedents, but to recognize that a gap exists that must be filled by more than legislation. The Court may come to recognize that there are constitutional implications to manner violations that have not found a forum to accommodate them as cases proliferate and public outcry amplifies the extent of the problem. Meanwhile, policymakers in other arenas have made efforts to slow-and even end-the practice of arming and training domestic police with military equipment and tactics. Part JJJ.B analyzes these efforts and offers some possible remedies to slow or even stop the precipitous transformation of police, from peace officers to soldiers.
 
SMALL REFORMS LEAD TO PACIFICATION WHICH UNDERMINE CHANCE OF RADICAL CHANGE. Butler 15
Butler, Paul (Professor of Law, Georgetown Law Center). "The System Is Working the Way It Is Supposed to: The Limits of Criminal Justice Reform." Geo. LJ 104 (2015): 1419.

Indeed, in some instances, ratchets get in the way of change because they placate and take energy and focus away from the actual transformative work. Professors Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker have made a related point about the death penalty—efforts to make implementation of capital punishment more “fair” may have the perverse consequence of furthering what is a fundamentally unjust practice.322 Further, recall Los Angeles, for example, where after the DOJ intervention, more than two thirds of the black and Latino citizens felt that the police are doing a good or excellent job.323 Despite this newly placated response to policing, the statistics suggest that the level of policing in Los Angeles has increased substantially since the DOJ intervention.324 In essence, the police are still serving as the government for the black and Latino residents of the city.325 Those residents remain disproportionately the victims of police violence. In this sense, the LAPD is not doing good or excellent work for the black and Latino citizens they are supposed to serve and protect. A related dynamic occurred in Prince George’s County Maryland. As discussed above, after the DOJ intervention, the number of complaints about use of force decreased. At the same time, however, the use of force by the police actually increased. In other words, the police used force more and received fewer complaints about it.326 One concern about reform is that it has a pacification effect. It calms the natives even when they should not be calm.327 “False consciousness” is the term some theorists have used to describe the tendency of liberal reforms to “dupes those at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy” with promises of “equality, fairness, and neutrality.” In the context of civil rights and anti-discrimination law, Kimberle´ Crenshaw warned that the “limited gains” of civil rights legislation could “hamper efforts of African-Americans to name their reality and to remain capable of engaging in collective action in the future.”329 Even though civil rights laws passed in the 1960s succeeded in breaking down some formal barriers, subtle and invidious forms of discrimination persisted. Moreover, the perception of progress may have mollified communities of color and sapped the energy needed for a continued push for substantive equality. Some criminal justice scholars and policy makers have focused on perceptions of the fairness of the criminal process. A newsletter from the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services office, entitled “The Case for Procedural Justice: Fairness as a Crime Prevention Tool,” describes the work of the leading procedural justice scholar: Professor Tom Tyler of Yale Law School, has identified several critical dimensions of procedural fairness: (1) voice (the perception that your side of the story has been heard); (2) respect (perception that system players treat you with dignity and respect); (3) neutrality (perception that the decision-making process is unbiased and trustworthy); (4) understanding (comprehension of the process and how decisions are made); and (5) helpfulness (perception that system players are interested in your personal situation to the extent that the law allows). The problem with reform that is focused on improving perceptions about the police is that it can cloak aggressive policing in enhanced legitimacy, and it has the potential to blunt the momentum for rising up against overcriminalization, wealth inequality, and white supremacy.

Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Fenwick SN | Judge: Dan Alessandro
CP Text: Aff actors ought to adopt the Cincinnati Model of policing while maintaining qualified immunity – this entails
A) Community problem-oriented policing 
B) A system that allows complaints against officers, and discipline for those officers
C) Press conferences immediately following police shootings to communicate with the public 

Semeuls 15: Semeuls, Alana Contributor, The Atlantic “How to Fix a Broken Police Department.” The Atlantic. May 2015.
Some of the changes were small: The police department vowed to hold a press conference within 12 hours of any officer-involved shooting and to provide information as well as camera footage from the event. It agreed to track officers who received an inordinate number of complaints or who violated policies, and take disciplinary action if needed. It established a Citizen Complaint Authority with investigative and subpoena powers over police. It adopted new use-of-force policies, changed guidelines on when to use chemical spray, and established a mental-health response team to deal with incidents in which a suspect may have mental-health problems. But those changes were tiny in contrast to what Herold and others say completely altered the department over the course of a decade: the adoption of a new strategy for how to police. The settlement agreement for the ACLU lawsuit, dubbed the Collaborative, required Cincinnati police to adopt community problem-oriented policing, or CPOP. The strategy required them to do fewer out-and-out arrests, and instead focus on solving the problems that cause people to commit crimes in the first place.

You don’t get the perm:
A) Analytic
B) Analytic
C) Analytic

Problem oriented policing solves the ROOT CAUSE of poverty and stops police brutality. Semeuls 2
Semeuls: Semeuls, Alana Contributor, The Atlantic “How to Fix a Broken Police Department.” The Atlantic. May 2015.
Problem-oriented policing was developed in 1979 by Herman Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin professor, and was first adopted in Newport News, Virginia. Other police departments, such as Baltimore, have used the method and then abandoned it, said John Eck, a criminologist at the University of Cincinnati who helped the city adopt problem-oriented policing (which it calls Community Problem-Oriented Policing). The strategy suggests that police should not just respond to calls for service. It says they should also look for patterns in these calls to service, determine what is causing the patterns and then implement solutions to solve them, he said. If hospitals notice an inordinate number of emergency patients coming in with facial injuries due to glass beer bottles being broken over their heads in fights, as was the case in on British precinct, police work with the bottle manufacturer to make bottles are made out of material that won’t break, he said. If police notice a woman is a repeat victim of domestic violence because her partner breaks into her ground-floor apartment, they work with the landlord to move her to a higher floor, link her to a social-services agency and help her find free daycare so she doesn’t have to rely on her abusive spouse for help. In another example, when police noticed an increase in metal thefts in a neighborhood, they worked with property owners to paint their copper pipes green, posted signs about the pipes being painted green and then informed scrap yards of the program to gain support, which led to a reduction in copper thefts. The strategy requires that police intimately know members of the community and listen to their concerns, even if doing so doesn’t lead to arrests. It requires that they get out of their cars and walk the streets, and it requires that they reach out to partners they traditionally would battle, such as the owners of buildings in high-crime spots, or community groups like Legal Aid. New policing approaches come and go, seemingly every year, but leaders such as Herold say that problem-oriented policing differs in important ways from other strategies. Broken-windows policing, for example, holds that police can prevent bigger crimes by cracking down on disorder and small crimes in a neighborhood. But law-enforcement officers often end up just making a lot of arrests with broken-windows policing, instead of addressing the problems that lead to small or big crimes in the first place. Similarly, Compstat, which was pioneered in New York City in the 1990s, uses statistics and mapping to identify crime patterns and direct resources there. It’s been credited with lowering crime in New York City, but also criticized by some criminologists for focusing on the numbers of arrests different officers make, rather than on protecting residents with the help of community input. Hot-spots policing uses data to deploy officers to areas where crime and disorder are concentrated, but its effects are usually short-term because the approach rarely focuses on the causes of the crime, Eck said. “Most cops, in any organization, have seen the reform du jour come through, and it varies from wearing your hats in a certain way to something more sophisticated,” Eck told me. “Police chiefs come, polices chiefs go, just as dumb ideas come, dumb ideas go.” When I asked Eck how he knew that problem-oriented policing, which is also called problem-solving, isn’t just another fad, he admitted that sometimes he wonders the same thing. But when he tries to think of an alternative, he always comes back to the fact that unlike Compstat or other approaches, problem-solving deals with the complexity of what’s going on in a community. The police department, he says, is the only government institution that has a strong hierarchy and works around the clock, and so it can most effectively marshal resources and other departments to solve difficult problems.
Few Implications:
A) Analytic
B) Analytic
C) Analytic
Metastudy proves that problem oriented policing has empirically led to reduction in crime. Weisburd 10
David Weisburd 2010 American Society of Criminology Hebrew University, George Mason University “Is problem-oriented policing effective in reducing crime and disorder http://www.smartpolicinginitiative.com/sites/all/files/POP20Weisburd_et_al.pdf
As noted, we also collected pre/post studies that did not have a control or comparison condition. Typically, these studies examined official crime data before and after a POP intervention to determine how the POP project affected crime. These studies rarely took statistical steps to account for “history”—the idea that crime rates might be rising or falling independent of the specific POP project. We should note that these studies vary somewhat in methodological quality and not all can be categorized as “simple pre-post.”18 These studies also covered various problems that ranged from neighborhood disorder to homicide. As with our main analyses, responses also varied greatly but frequently included a combination of increased community involvement, targeted enforcement, and situational/environmental improvements (see Weisburd et al., 2008, for more information on each study). Thirty two of the 45 studies come from Goldstein or Tilley Award submissions. The fact that more than 70 of the studies are submissions for an award leads to a potential publication bias (Rothstein, 2008) or, rather, to a “nonpublication” bias. In our case, these nonpublished award submissions would be expected to be more positive than the published literature. We will address this issue later. In Figure 7, we use a bar graph to display the percent change in crime and disorder reported in each study. When more than one primary outcome was present in a study, we averaged to create a single outcome. The results are overwhelmingly in favor of POP effectiveness. Of our 45 pre/post studies, 43 report a decline in crime or disorder after the POP intervention. Thus, even though 32 of our studies were award submissions, and 31 of these showed a positive impact, 12 of our 13 other studies also reported a beneficial impact of POP. Only one study (Maguire and Nettleton, 2003) reported an increase in crime after using POP. The average percent change in crime across all studies was a sizeable 44.45 decrease. To account for variation in sample size (i.e., crime incidents or calls for service) between studies, we calculated a weighted average percent change by weighting each study by the in verse of its variance and assuming crime follows a Poisson distribution.19 With this sampling variance, we constructed a confidence interval around the percentage change for each study. A plot of proportion change with confidence intervals is presented in Figure 8. After weighting each study by the inverse of its variance, we recalculated the average percent change. Even with weighting, the average decrease in crime was still 32.49. Accordingly, although these before and after studies did not employ the methodological rigor of a randomized experiment, they did show consistently a substantial impact of POP on crime and disorder in both the award submissions and the published journal articles.
Multiple reasons to prefer the study
A) Analytic
B) Analytic
C) Analytic

Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 1 | Opponent: Mission San Jose LS | Judge: Paras Kumar
CP Text: The Supreme Court should modify Monell claims to operate according to a ‘conscious disregard standard instead of the current ‘Deliberate Indifference’ standard.
Singh 15 clarifies:
Singh, Amit (J.D. Candidate, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law). "Accountability Matters: An Examination of Municipal Liability in Sec. 1983 Actions." The U. of Pac. L. Rev. 47 (2015): 105.
The Court should revisit the standard for municipal liability in § 1983 actions and provide an actual definition to prevent confusion and varying application by lower courts.'7 9 A standard of conscious disregard that combines the California law for imposing punitive damages with the definition from the Nevada Legislature would remedy the failings of the deliberate indifference standard. 80 This comment proposes the courts adopt the following standard for imposing municipal liability in § 1983 actions:
 (a) knowledge of probable harmful consequences of a wrongful act; and' 
(b) willful or deliberate failure to avoid those consequences;182
 (c) by a municipal policymaker, or those persons acting on behalf of a municipal policymaker. 8
Mutually exclusive- Limiting qualified immunity means lawsuit fall on police, not the system - you can’t sue both. Gilles 2K
Gilles, Myriam (Assistant Professor, Cardozo Law School) "In defense of making Government pay: the deterrent effect of constitutional tort remedies." Ga. L. Rev. 35 (2000): 845.
Second, the common practice of bifurcation serves to limit the efficacy of municipal liability claims. 7 Many courts reflexively bifurcate the trial of individual and municipal liability claims under Rule 42(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 8 staying all Monell proceedings, including discovery on Monell issues," until after the resolution of claims against individual officers."' I have a theorem: bifurcation + indemnification = elimination of Monell. Once a case is bifurcated and the plaintiff proceeds against the individual officer, the plaintiff either wins or loses. If plaintiff wins and the officer is indemnified, the plaintiff is made whole. End of case. Plaintiff cannot proceed against the municipality, having been made whole in the first trial against the individual officer. If plaintiff loses against the individual officer, he likely cannot proceed against the municipality. End of case. Having failed to show he suffered any constitutional injury, plaintiff may not then claim that a municipal policy or custom caused him constitutional injury." 1 Either way, the Monell claim never sees the light of day, and the informational and fault-fixing functions of municipal liability lie inert. 10

This modification would lead to more successful lawsuits. Singh 15
Singh, Amit (J.D. Candidate, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law). "Accountability Matters: An Examination of Municipal Liability in Sec. 1983 Actions." The U. of Pac. L. Rev. 47 (2015): 105.
Unlike the deliberate indifference standard, the conscious disregard standard provides an effective remedy for plaintiffs who have suffered constitutional violations at the hands of municipal employees." 9 The current standard often functions as an impossible barrier to relief.'" Although a court may consider a particular municipal "policy" or "custom" as exhibiting an indifference to the rights of a citizen, the court will generally not interpret the policy as amounting to a deliberate indifference.'9 The conscious disregard standard addresses this problem by reducing the burden of proving municipal liability in § 1983 actions.1 92 Instead of the confusing, repetitive language of the deliberate indifference standard, the conscious disregard standard will provide a workable definition for lower courts.' The language is clear and the goal is straightforward: prevent municipalities from engaging in patterns or practices that violate the constitutional rights of citizens.'9
Turns and outweighs the case:
Unlike suits, Monell claims lead to policy reform. Lawsuits on police don’t lead to any change and just deflect blame from the institution.  Gilles 2
Gilles, Myriam (Assistant Professor, Cardozo Law School) "In defense of making Government pay: the deterrent effect of constitutional tort remedies." Ga. L. Rev. 35 (2000): 845.
In addition to serving an informational function, municipal liability claims serve a "fault-fixing" function, localizing culpability in the municipality itself, and forcing municipal policymakers to consider reformative measures. To understand how this fault-fixing function operates, it is important to distinguish between the liability a municipality incurs indirectly, through the indemnification of its officers, and the direct liability it may incur under Monell. Indirect liability does not trigger the fault-fixing function. The municipal indemnification of an individual officer for constitutional damage awards levied against him6" does not necessarily force policy-makers to acknowledge municipal fault and take remedial action, for two reasons. First, indemnification is an ex ante benefit given to individual officers as a form of insurance. The determination to indemnify is made at the front end, as the product of collective bargaining arrangements and political lobbying, and not in response to any constitutional claim.64 The act of indemnifying is largely a ministerial one, and indemnification expenses are easily justified as costs of doing business, along with salaries and other items of overhead.65  Second, where municipalities indemnify officers, they "generally write off the misconduct of an individual officer to the 'bad apple theory,' under which municipal governments or their agencies attribute misconduct to aberrant behavior by a single 'bad apple.'60 This "deflects attention from systemic and institutional factors contributing to recurring constitutional deprivations." 7 As I have argued elsewhere, "the bad apple theory' is essentially an institutionalized belief system ensuring that fault for unconstitutional conduct--even when it results in large damage awards against individual officers or city-approved settlements-will never be localized in the culture of the municipal agency itseltf"' with the result that little or no remedial actions are taken.69  Direct liability, on the other hand, does serve a fault-fixing function. Under the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Monell v. Department of Social Services," municipal liability cannot be based upon principles of vicarious liability; rather, municipal liability will attach only where an identifiable "policy or custom" of the municipality caused plaintiffs constitutional injury." A finding of Monell liability, therefore, fixes the fault of constitutional violations directly on the municipal entity, which "possesses the resources and broad vantage point with which to identify the particular deficiencies, and... take appropriate corrective action,"72 thereby furthering the deterrence goal of § 1983. Holding the municipality itself liable for injuries caused by its own unconstitutional policies and customs makes it more difficult to take refuge in the "bad apple theory" and more likely that the municipality will take steps to remedy the broader problems.
Empirical proof that Monell claims can lead to reform is shown throughout history. Gilles 2K
Gilles, Myriam (Assistant Professor, Cardozo Law School) "In defense of making Government pay: the deterrent effect of constitutional tort remedies." Ga. L. Rev. 35 (2000): 845.
First, as I have argued elsewhere, too many courts and practitioners have failed to apprehend the broad spectrum of policies or customs that may support the imposition of Monell liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.9o Specifically, greater focus upon the "custom" language of § 1983 holds promise for reinvigorating modern civil rights litigation. 
Originally enacted as the Ku Klux Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 was intended to combat the widespread practices of local officials, including rank-and-file municipal officers, that impeded implementation of the principles enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment. In passing the statute, the 42nd Congress understood that, while state and local legislatures were swiftly passing laws throughout the South to conform to the mandates of the Reconstruction amendments, unwritten codes guiding the conduct of local officials in Southern strongholds undermined the new constitutional and statutory edicts.93 The architects of the original Ku Klux Act used the term "custom" to refer to the nefarious unwritten codes of conduct pursuant to which local officials terrorized freedmen and Republicans, and failed to enforce Reconstruction era laws against dissenters.94 While the particular "customs" that prevailed amongst deputy sheriffs, local prosecutors and Klansmen in the post-bellum South have largely subsided, other "customs" in the form of unwritten codes of conduct among modern law enforcement officials regularly impair rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment today. Indeed, I have argued that institutionalized, unwritten "customs"- most particularly the police code of silence-underlie many of the constitutional deprivations suffered at the hands of contemporary police officers.9" As the true range of actionable customs is recognized by more plaintiffs' lawyers and judges, we will see more clearly the deterrent or behavior-altering effect of constitutional damage suits aimed at municipalities under Monell.96

Tournament: Longhorn Classic | Round: 5 | Opponent: Westwood SM | Judge: Suketh Subramanya
Limiting QI clogs the courts – empirically confirmed – best study, Noll 8’
Noll, David L. "Qualified Immunity in Limbo: Rights, Procedure, and the Social Costs of Damages Litigation Against Public Officials." NYUL Rev. 83 (2008): 911
In the context of ordinary civil litigation between two private parties, the total (or “social”) cost of litigation is generally limited to the cost of litigating the claim, the cost to the public of providing a dispute resolution system, and the cost created by an incorrect decision.36 Damages litigation against public officers, however, implicates several additional costs.37 As the case law on qualified immunity suggests, these additional costs should be assessed when deciding how to adjudicate a claim against a government official for damages.38 Damages litigation gives rise to unique negative externalities. Consider a hypothetical, based loosely on Iqbal, in which a mid-level Justice Department lawyer, sued for her personal role in the development of an allegedly unconstitutional policy, is required to comply with discovery requests (depositions, responses to interrogatories, document productions, and so on). Discovery will produce several direct costs: The lawyer will not simultaneously be able to perform her primary responsibilities (a concern that assumes particular importance if she serves a critical public function);39 she will avail herself of government resources, such as legal and informal assistance from other government employees, that are unavailable to private litigants; 40 and, except in cases of clear illegal conduct, the government will most likely indemnify her for any eventual settlement or damages award.41 Beyond these direct costs, the case law recognizes four categories of indirect costs of damages litigation against public officials. In contrast to the opportunity costs of haling a government employee into court and indemnifying her against a judgment, these costs are far more difficult to measure. Moreover, they generally reflect the assumption on the part of the courts that negative systemic effects follow from allowing a “culture” of litigation against government officials to develop.42 The first indirect cost is the risk that the “fear of personal monetary liability and harassing litigation will unduly inhibit officials in the discharge of their duties.”43 A leading statement of the problem was delivered more than a half century ago by Judge Learned Hand.44 He argued that in the abstract, there is no legitimate reason that an official “guilty of using his powers to vent his spleen upon others” should escape liability.45 But Hand noted that denying recovery may nonetheless be in the public interest: The justification for doing so is that it is impossible to know whether the claim is well founded until the case has been tried, and that to submit all officials, the innocent as well as the guilty, to the burden of a trial and to the inevitable danger of its outcome, would dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible, in the unflinching discharge of their duties.46 Characteristically, Hand recognized that for the purposes of determining whether a particular class of claims should be allowed, the aggregate costs and benefits are what matters, not the justice of the individual case. The second indirect cost is the deadweight loss of nonmeritorious litigation, is a problem exacerbated by the disproportionate number of nonmeritorious constitutional tort claims.48 In the most comprehensive study of § 1983 litigation yet conducted, Professors Theodore Eisenberg and Stewart Schwab concluded that “constitutional tort plaintiffs do significantly worse than non-civil rights litigants in every measurable way.”49 One article by a former Justice Department lawyer reported that of the more than 12,000 Bivens actions filed between 1971 and 1986, only thirty had resulted in judgments for plaintiffs, only four of those judgments had been paid, and settlements were rare.50 To be sure, there are meritorious damages claims against public officials, and they may have social benefits surpassing the value of individual claims. Yet the perception that constitutional tort cases “flood the federal courts with questionable claims that belong, if anywhere, in state court”51 is supported at least by anecdotal evidence and has undoubtedly affected the development of the modern qualified immunity doctrine.53
Clogging courts kills fair adjudication of cases and crowds out civil suits like the aff– turns case.
PFAW: PFAW (People for the American way) “Overloaded Courts, Not Enough Judges: The Impact on Real People” 2012. 
Courts play a critical role for our nation and our communities.  All Americans count on being able to “get their day in court.”  Court delays damage small businesses, whether they are seeking to vindicate their rights as plaintiffs or to put a lawsuit behind them.  Courts – the infrastructure of justice – are just as important to the rule of law as roads and bridges are to transportation. Without enough judges, that infrastructure is crumbling.  Making our courts fully functional is an issue of good government. Federal judges are required to give priority to criminal cases over civil ones. Since the number of criminal cases has surged over the past several years – a 70 increase in the past decade – judges are forced to delay the civil cases, often for years. This means long delays for Americans seeking justice in cases involving:  discrimination  civil rights  predatory lending practices  consumer fraud  immigrant rights  environment  government benefits  business contracts  mergers  copyright infringement When there aren’t enough judges on the bench, many plaintiffs are forced into inadequate settlements, and small businesses are pressured to make unnecessary settlements to end the expense and uncertainty of litigation.

Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harvard-Westlake EE | Judge: Neel Yerneni
Indemnification means the Aff solves nothing – the city pays all fees for officers – less than half of one percent of officers ever give up a dime.
Rosenberg: Rosenberg, Paul Contributor, Salon “We must make the police pay: When cops go too far, they must feel the pain too.” Salon. May 2015. 
One key indicator of this is how often officers who hurt or even kill citizens they are supposed to protect are held financially liable for their misconduct. The answer is—quite rarely, according to an extensive research project carried out by UCfLA law professor Joanna Schwartz.  In New York City, over a six-year period, the city paid out almost $350,000,000 in more than 6,800 lawsuits, but officers only paid out of their own pockets in 34 of these cases—half a percent of the total—and the total amount they paid, $114,000, was less than half a thousandth of the total judgments paid by the city. Now here’s the shocker: New York City is the rare exception, in which officers aren’t automatically protected. It accounted for the vast majority of cases in which police officers paid even one thin dime for their misconduct in civil judgements, even when they went to jail for having criminally violated the rights of citizens. Not only should these findings be shocking to the general pubic, they should be shocking to legal system, which continues to work on the false assumption that officers are widely held financially responsible for violating citizens’ rights.
Also empirically proven that departments and cities use overpolicing as a method to make money when they need it most, which turns the aff and leads to more police brutality. Agorist 8/22 Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project, https://www.sott.net/article/326117-Policing-for-profit-New-Jersey-town-has-450-increase-in-traffic-tickets-after-county-officials-threaten-cops-over-shrinking-revenue Police, we are told, are here to keep us safe and protect us from the bad guys. However, public safety all too often takes a back seat to revenue collection. Time and time again, the Free Thought Project has exposed quota schemes in which officers were punished for not writing enough tickets. cBut what happens when officers actually focus on fighting crime instead of revenue collection?  In short, the bureaucrats can't pay themselves, and they get angry — as is the case in Bergen County, New Jersey.  Beginning in 2011, Bergen County saw a sharp decline in the number of tickets written.  While there are multiple inputs contributing to this decline, Sheriff Michael Saudino noted, according to North Jersey.com, that he had asked officers to use more discretion when stopping landscapers and other small truckers who were sometimes hit with eight to 10 tickets in a single motor-vehicle stop. He said that there was no pullback on serious infractions, like weight, but that an officer might choose a warning over a violation for lesser violations, like a light being out or having a bent license-plate frame.  "I think it just gives the working man an opportunity," Saudino said. "Sometimes a warning goes just as far as a summons." But there is no money in a warning.  Former County Police Chief Brian Higgins said that the decline in tickets was also due to police patrolling for actual crime and responding to more allegations of assault.  This decline in ticketing has left county leaders with shrinking court revenue and, predictably, they are fear mongering about road safety. However, there is no data to show an increase in dangerous conditions correlating with the decrease in revenue generation. In fact, it is quite the opposite. 
Being forced to pay destroys poor, Black communities – they pay DOUBLE for police violence, which turns and outweighs the aff.
Phillip: Phillip, Abby Contributor, The Washington Post “Why the poor often pay for police misconduct with their pocketbooks.” The Washington Post. June 2015. 
Floyd Dent, a black man from Inkster, Mich., was pulled over for a routine traffic stop  in January when a white Inkster police officer dragged Dent out of his vehicle, put him in an apparent choke-hold, punched him repeatedly in the head and used a stun gun on him. That officer, William Melendez, was fired and is now on trial, charged with misconduct in office and mistreatment of a prisoner, after dashboard camera video of the incident became public. And now the residents of the small Michigan town will pay the cost for Melendez’s conduct — literally. Late last month, the city of Inkster settled a lawsuit with Dent for nearly $1.4 million. According to the Detroit Free Press, Inkster’s financial manager said the city would levy a tax on property owners to help cover the cost of compensating Dent. Inkster is a city of about 25,000 residents, according to the most recent Census figures, and the median income there is just $26,500. Seventy-three percent of Inkster’s residents are black, and nearly 40 percent of the people in the city live below the poverty line. There is a bitter irony to the situation, but it’s not unusual that the very people who are most beset by police violence are the ones who wind up paying for it with their pocketbooks. When victims or their families are paid out by cities and municipalities in excessive-force cases that are settled or tried, taxpayers pay every time, highlighting the direct relationship between the social and financial costs of police violence. In Chicago: $84 million in one year. Los Angeles: $54 million. Philadelphia: $40 million in cases brought since 2009. In Inkster, the sum is small and deals with just one case. But for its residents, the reality will be unavoidable: The tax will amount to a $178.67 on a home valued at about $55,400, the Free Press estimates. “The price of this is enormous, and it probably is hardest on those who can least afford it and whose communities are most egregiously beset with the misconduct problems,” noted Andy Shaw, president and CEO of the Better Government Association, which has studied the high financial and social costs of police misconduct in Chicago. In Chicago, police-related settlements over the last decade cost the city more than $500 million according to a study published by the group last year. Everyone pays the price, including renters who are likely to be least able to afford it. “They not only face the financial burden and the reduction of services, these dollars could have improved their schools could have given them more cops on the streets to improve their neighborhoods,” Shaw said. “Instead they were transfer payments to victims and victims’ Shaw added: “It takes a terrible toll.”

Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Fenwick SN | Judge: Dan Alessandro
Civil Rights decisions are “flypaper” for movements—they convince people that litigation is an avenue for social change. Yeazell 04
Yeazell, 2004 professor of law @ UCLA, 2004 (Stephen, Vanderbilt Law Review, November, 2004, 57 Vand. L. Rev. 1975; Lexis
First, Brown and the civil rights litigation movement helped create a renewed belief, not just in the law, but more specifically in litigation as a noble calling and as an avenue for social change. That belief lies open to challenge, and it can leave students and lawyers frustrated at the distance between the aspirations that brought them to law school and the world of practice as they perceive it. But whether or not it is well-founded, this belief, with roots traceable to Brown and civil rights litigation, has endured for several generations. Thus, Brown reshaped the aspirations of lawyers in ways that are still important.
Legal reforms do not solve – they only make us complacent in the police state. Freeman 14:
Ademo, 5-21-2014, "Understanding, Surviving, and Resisting the Police State," Cop Block, http://www.copblock.org/54420/understanding-surviving-and-resisting-the-police-state/
We now live in a world where it is legal for police officers to murder not only animals, but innocent people, use the threat of force to coerce peaceful people into submission, and not only avoid punishment, but are ENCOURAGED to act this way. We live in a police state, and before we figure out how to fix it, we have to understand how this situation came to be. It’s easy to focus our anger only on the ones actually committing the violence, but cops didn’t just wake up one day and decide to start violently oppressing people. Injustice flows from the top down. What we’re seeing today is largely the result of the politicians WANTING the people living in fear of the police, WANTING the police brutality which causes so many people to quietly obey whatever arbitrary, oppressive legislation the politicians decide to enact. So while we should definitely be condemning those who blindly follow orders, the ones giving the orders shouldn’t be let off the hook either, and most of us know this, which is why a lot of people, in an effort to fight against tyranny and government abuses, focus on the political process, on voting, campaigning and petitioning. This approach basically amounts to begging the government for freedom, which to me has two major flaws: first, it has a completely horrible track record of ever achieving freedom, and second, it pretty much tells the politicians that we accept that we can only be free if and when they tell us we’re allowed to. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need legislation to tell me exactly how free I am. Now a lot of people ask what the alternative is, how, besides voting and petitioning can we prevent or stop tyranny? After centuries of one society after another voting themselves further into oppression, what we’re left with, our power, is resistance and disobedience. This can come in many forms – some people quietly find ways to circumvent or avoid the powers that be and their laws; some practice civil disobedience, and some forcibly resist. However, a lot of people can’t bring themselves to disobey at all, even quietly and passively, because they’ve been thoroughly convinced that, while it’s okay to ASK the politicians to change their laws, it’s never okay to disobey them, no matter how immoral and unjust. Unfortunately, a lot of the people who will never disobey a command happen to be walking around in a blue uniform with a shiny badge and false sense of authority. Police like to pretend that their job is to “protect and serve.” It isn’t. Their job is to forcibly control the rest of us in whatever way the politicians tell them to. The politicians make up commands, call them laws, and their hired guns–“law ENFORCERS”–hurt any who disobey. Police know this, which is why you will often hear them say things like, “I don’t make the law, I only enforce it,” with the implication being that they aren’t to blame, because they’re just following orders and doing as they’re told. But that excuse was invalid when the Nazis used it, and it’s invalid today. It’s also completely cowardly to deny responsibility for your OWN actions, just because someone else told you to do something. How do you suppose the police would respond to some common thief saying, “Don’t blame me for mugging this old lady; someone else told me to?” They would respond exactly how we should respond to it when they use the excuse: You are responsible for what YOU do.
2 Impacts:
A) Legal reforms merely empower the police state- turns case. Collins 14:
Michael Collins, 12-9-2014, "When Police ‘Reforms’ Only Legitimize Police Abuses," No Publication, http://inthesetimes.com/article/17427/when_police_reforms_only_legitimize_police_abuses - Michael Collins is the vice president of the In These Times board and a community organizer and journalist in Chicago. His interests include popular education and building foundations for a new economy.
While these actions may seem like needed steps towards transparency, another round of reports and high-tech toys will not change policing and its role in sustaining what Michelle Alexander calls “the new Jim Crow.” In fact, liberal-minded reforms such as Obama’s have a long history of legitimatizesing state-sanctioned surveillance and violence. We’ve been here before The Kerner Commission Report, a seminal 1967 work on urban unrest in America quoted frequently, estimated that 50 of urban riots in the 1960s were initiated by police. In the wake of broad civil rebellion, liberal Democrats, Dixiecrats and Republicans joined forces to address riots, crime and civil disobedience. Using a formula that has been repeated across federal and state legislatures, lawmakers sought to quiet domestic unrest through a never-ending process of “police professionalization.” Naomi Murakawa, a professor at Princeton, studies public policy and race in America. In her book The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America, Murakawa details how the catchall term of “professionalization” obscured the very real differences in this unwieldy coalition: Consensus on police professionalization camouflaged differences on professionalism’s purpose: some saw police funding as a way to repressrioting and law breaking, others saw police funding as a way to suppress impetuses for rioting by improving “police-community” relations. Some saw funding as complementary to civil rights, while conservatives saw it as compensatory for court procedural hamstringing.” Given the diverse goals of police professionalization and the compromises required to pass any set of reforms, the resulting 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act ended up provideding the tools and resources for even greater police violence. Instead of solving the root causes of unrest and police violence, the program initiated direct transfers of cash and equipment to local police departments to procure everything from radios to helicopters. Unsurprisingly, in the South, discretionary funding was used to suppress black political agitation. In a federal legislature dominated by Democrats, led by President Lyndon Johnson, Louisiana was given funding to purchase a tank—which was then used to attack the New Orleans Black Panthers. While some liberal commentators have called for more training of the Ferguson Police Department, the St. Louis “unified command” of 1,000 area police received a total of roughly 5,000 hours of training to “deal with potential unrest.” The very process of “professionalizing” the police simply means they’ll get more tools to continue their mission of repressing poor populations—not that they’ll have a new mission. What do police do? Most police departments have a simple motto: to serve and protect. But in a country with an economic system that produces ever-expanding inequality and ongoing racial oppression, the job of police is to serve the political elites and protect the class interests of the wealthy. Or, as former Black Panther and 43 year political prisoner Eddie Conway recently said, “They police look at the poor communities, both white and black, as a hostile war zone, and they act accordingly.” Police are part of a complex set of actors and institutions that work to create a vast class of unemployed (and unemployable) people who are ripe for exploitation by banks and corporations. Attempts to prove that “black lives matter” by pushing for increased police funding and perhaps some diversity training ignore decades’ worth of data suggestsing that liberal interventions in policing have had no impact on police violence. Brad Smith of Wayne State University published a 2003 studydetailing the effect of the racial make-up of police departments on police homicides. His findings were stark: “More diversified departments do not have significantly lower levels of police-caused homicides.” He goes on to report that “regardless of who is carrying out the police function, police will always be seen as representatives of the larger establishment. As such, tensions between police and citizens may be a function of the police role.”
B) Litigation deflects attention for better strategies of reform that are more effective. Van Schaack 04
Van Schaack, 2004 Assistant Prof. of Law @ Santa Clara University School of Law, Vanderbilt Law Review, November, 2004, (Beth, 57 Vand. L. Rev. 2305; Lexis
Although litigation can provoke and promote other processes of social change, it can also inhibit the development of, deflect attention  *2344  and resources away from, or even undermine other strategies for social change that may be more efficacious or durable. These alternative strategies include reparations strategies through the political process; n199 direct action; transnational advocacy in countries where abuses are prevalent; n200 grassroots educational campaigns; traditional human rights advocacy based upon fact-gathering and shaming; the development of monitoring bodies and international regulatory standards, such as environmental or labor codes of conduct for extraterritorial activities; n201 and the creation and promotion of international institutions. n202 The technical, rarified and inaccessible nature of litigation may do little to contribute to the growth of grassroots social movements in certain contexts and communities, especially where individuals are not accustomed to invoking judicial processes to bring about social change. n203 Likewise, lawyers may actually displace natural leaders within community groups, leading to the disempowerment, and even demise, of the group. n204 In addition, litigation (and its attendant legalisms such as standing rules, statutes of limitation, or justiciability doctrines) may diffuse political or moral claims rather than empower potential political constituencies.Indeed, litigation in the United States may ultimately contravene or undermine the strategies of local activists where it is not part of a campaign at the grassroots level in the targeted country.

Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 1 | Opponent: Mission San Jose LS | Judge: Paras Kumar
Presume Neg
1.
2.
3.
I value morality.  First, morality must address the nature of individual personhood and reasons for actions, Morse:
 Stephen Morse is a Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law; Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. “Rationality and Responsibility”
In brief, the law’s concept of the person is a creature who acts for reasons and is potentially able to be guided by reason. Physical causes explain all the moving parts of the universe, but only human action can also be explained by reasons.  It makes no sense to ask the winds or the tides or infrahuman species why they do what they do, but this question makes sense of and is central to our explanations of human behavior.  When we want to know why an agent intentionally behaved as she did, we do not desire a biophysical explanation, as if the person were simply biophysical flotsam and jetsam.  Instead, we seek the reason she acted, the desires and beliefs that formed the practical syllogism that produced intentional conduct.
Only a conception of morality with an understanding of reasons for why people act is able to assess conduct. Just as we don’t place noteworthy blame on a hurricane for killing people, morality must account for the responsibility of its actors, Morse 2
 Stephen Morse is a Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law; Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. “Rationality and Responsibility”
The law’s concept of responsibility follows from its view of the person and the nature of law itself. Unless human beings are rational creatures who can understand the applicable rules and standards, and can conform to those legal requirements through intentional action, the law would be powerless to affect human behavior. Legally responsible agents are therefore people who have the general capacity to grasp and be guided by good reason in particular legal contexts. They must be capable of rational practical reasoning. The law presumes capability and that the same rules may be applied to all people with this capacity. The law We do does not presume that all people act for good reason all the time. It is sufficient for responsibility that the agent has the general capacity for rationality, even if the capacity is not exercised on a particular occasion. Indeed, it is my claim that lack of the general capacity for rationality explains precisely those cases, such as infancy or certain instances of severe mental disorder or dementia, in which the law now excuses agents or finds them not competent to perform some task.
Thus the standard is consistency with individual capabilities. You can only be held to obligations if you are responsible for the reason those obligations are necessary and capable of performing them. Prefer the standard:
Analytic
1.
2.
I contend that Limiting qualified immunity would make police officers liable for actions that they are not culpable for.

Police officers often have to make split-second decisions in their line of work – it’s inevitable. McGuinness 02
J. Michael McGuinness, Law Enforcement Use of Force: The Objective Reasonableness Standards under North Carolina and Federal Law, 24 Campbell L. Rev. 201 (2002). - http://scholarship.law.campbell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1387andcontext=clr
In a split second, officers are required to evaluate and employ force against criminal suspects to thwart apparent dangers to citizens and themselves.' ° The officer is often alone in this nightmare, like a "pedestrian in Hell."'" The officer's environment in use of force deci- 5. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 206 (2001). 6. See Brown v. Gilmore, 278 F.3d 362, 370 (4th Cir. 2002); Schwartz, 2002 WL 312501; Volpe, 224 F.3d 72. 7. One of the three primary United States Supreme Court cases arose from North Carolina. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989). In North Carolina, even investigations into alleged excessive force have generated high profile litigation. See In re Brooks, 143 N.C. App. 601, 548 S.E.2d 748 (2001), where an unprecedented ex parte procedure was used by the State Bureau of Investigation, but ultimately declared improper, to obtain confidential personnel and internal affairs files of officers without a warrant and without notice to the officers and opportunity to be heard. 8. See THOMAS T. GILLESPIE ET AL., Police Use of Force: A Line Officer's Guide (Varro 1998); DR. ALEXIS ARTWOHL and LOREN W. CHRISTENSEN, DEADLY FORCE ENCOUNTERS: WHAT Cops NEED TO KNOW TO MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY PREPARE FOR AND SURVIVE A GUNFIGHT ( Penguin Press 1997). 9. See Saucier, 533 U.S. 194; Graham, 490 U.S. 386; Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985). This trilogy provides the parameters for the typical use of force case. See Bd. of Comm'rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397 (1997)(reviewing governmental liability issues). 10. See Saucier, 533 U.S. 194; Park v. Shiflett, 250 F.3d 843, 853 (4th Cir. 2001); Anderson v. Russell, 247 F.3d 125, 129 (4th Cir. 2001); McLenagan v. Karnes, 27 F.3d 1002, 1007 (4th Cir. 1994). "An officer oftentimes only has a split second to make the critical judgment of whether to use his weapon." Ford v. Childers, 855 F.2d 1271, 1276 (7th Cir. 1988). 11. "The policeman's world is spawned of degradation, corruption and insecurity .... he walks alone, a pedestrian in Hell." WILLIAM A. WEsTLEY, VIOLENCE AND THE POLICE: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF LAW, CUSTOM and MORALITY V. (MIT Press 1970). "A police officer's life is always at risk, no matter how routine the assignment might seem." National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, Inc., Police Deaths Mount Nationwide, , at 1. "On average, one police officer dies within the line of duty nationwide every 54 hours." Id. "There are more than 3 McGuinness: Law Enforcement Use of Force: The Objective Reasonableness Standa Published by Scholarly Repository @ Campbell University School of Law, 2002 CAMPBELL LAW REVIEW decision-making is particularly unique because of the time pressures to act immediately without "armchair reflection"12 and because the lives of officers and bystanders are often at immediate risk. Many of these split second decisions by officers to employ force are correct, while some are mistaken. Under what circumstances does a mistaken belief that deadly force is necessary subject an officer to civil, criminal or civil rights liability? Generally, if the officer's mistaken belief is objectively reasonable under the circumstances, then the officer is not subject to any liability. The perceived danger must only be apparent, not actual, in order to justify the use of deadly force. North Carolina and federal law provide that where officers make reasonable mistakes, there is generally no liability. Professor Rubin of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina has observed that "despite its place in North Carolina jurisprudence, however, the excessive force element has been difficult to apply. The principle difficulty has been with distinguishing the requirement that the Defendant's force not be excessive, or unreasonable, from the reasonable belief requirement embodied" in the law. 13 Recent cases have clarified these issues, especially Saucier v. Katz, 14 where the Supreme Court reaffirmed recognition of the doctrine of mistaken beliefs in use of force cases
Officers do not fully act upon their free will during these split second decisions. Studies prove that hormonal responses to these stressful situations make the officers use “instinctive” thinking. Ross 13
Assessing Lethal Force Liability Decisions and Human Factors Research Darrell L. Ross, PhD, Professor and Department Head, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, and Director of The Center of Applied Social Sciences, Valdosta State University - Darrell L. Ross, PhD, is a professor and the Department Head for the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, as well as the Director of The Center of Applied Social Sciences. His research interests and published works include use-of-force litigation, civil liability issues in policing and corrections, stress and human factors in use-of-force incidents, sudden restraint deaths in custody, criminal law, and criminal procedure. Dr. Ross provides training to criminal justice personnel and expert witness testimony in these subject areas.
It is well-known that physiological stress can impact perception (Janis and Mann, 1977; Welford, 1980). In a high-level stress situation in which the person develops the perception that their life is in immediate peril, a cascade of physiological components are automatically released which prepare the body to respond. Cannon (1929) best described this automatic and adaptive response mechanism as the “fight or flight” response. The physiological response under stress activates the autonomic nervous system triggering a sympathetic nervous system (SNS) discharge which results in an immediate release of epinephrine and hydrocortisone; an increase in blood pressure; an increase in heart rate; perspiration; muscle tension; an increase in pupil size; dry mouth; increased breathing rate; and improved blood flow to the brain, heart, and large muscles. This process is activated without conscious thought to prepare the person to respond to the stressful encounter (Groer et al., 2010; Sapolsky, 2004; Schwartz and Begley, 2003). Under an SNS discharge, physiological resources flow to various regions of the body in order to respond to the threat. In a lifethreatening and stressful circumstance, the focus of the brain shifts from thinking to reacting (Easterbrook, 1959). The focus is on the source of the threat; as cognition processing slows, instinctive decisionmaking takes over. As the brain tunes into the source of threat, the visual system is heightened and narrows if it is the dominant source of the information. The more complex the threat and the environment, the more pronounced the effect of the stress on perception will be (Welford, 1980). The phenomenon is referred to as perceptional narrowing (tunnel vision) or selective attention. Intentional blindness may occur, which is a failure to see what is obviously directly in line of the vision due to an attentional focus on a competing visual input. Peripheral vision can be significantly narrowed, and information thought to be of little concern is unconsciously rejected and filtered out. Hearing may be diminished causing auditory exclusion. If hearing is the dominant source of information, visual exclusion may occur when a loud sound is heard. Other senses may also be tuned out.
Qualified immunity is necessary to give officers the benefit of the doubt. The aff removes this protection. Hanaford 14
Major Crime Assistance Team Seminar, Police Liability and Defenses Under State and Federal Law, February 20, 2014 By Robert H. Hanaford

Qualified immunity is intended to protect police officers in the “hazy border between excessive and acceptable force.” Relying upon Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S., at 201, 125 S. Ct. 596. In police chase cases, the courts are clearly going to give the benefit of the doubt to the police officer, especially in extreme circumstances. Qualified immunity will be granted and the case will be thrown out. Qualified immunity, like absolute immunity for judges, is granted to officials who either acted within the bounds of the law or are reasonable in their conduct given the circumstances at issue. A majority of the United States Supreme Court clearly believes that when a driver endangers the police and the public by attempting to evade authorities, it is as though they assume the risk for their own demise or injuries.
Additionally, culpability falls on the government and police departments for inadequate training of their officers when they make mistakes, they’re culpable, not the officer. Holland 15 Joshua Holland, Are We Training Cops to be Hyper-Aggressive Warriors, 2015
 What got less attention is that less than two weeks before the shooting, the officer who shot Crawford had been trained to respond to “active shooter situations” by shooting first and asking questions later.According to The Guardian, officer Sean Williams and his colleagues were “taught to keep in mind that ‘the suspect wants a body count’ and therefore officers should immediately engage a would-be gunman with ‘speed, surprise and aggressiveness.’” At that training, they were told to imagine that a crazed gunman was threatening their own relatives. Dispatchers led Williams and his partner to believe that an active-shooter situation was underway. Store surveillance videoshowed that Crawford was shot and killed just seconds after police made contact with him, and probably had no idea what was happening. They followed their training, acting with speed, surprise, and aggressiveness. Thanks in large part to pressure brought by Black Lives Matter activists, some police experts are calling for a complete overhaul in the way cops are trained, both as cadets and during the “in-service” training they receive over the course of their careers. There are no national standards for training police, and the amount and quality of their instruction varies from agency to agency. But a survey of 280 police departments conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a Washington, DC–based think tank, found that American cops are given extensive preparation for using violence, and very little guidance on how to avoid it. The median police recruit in the United States will receive 129 hours of instruction on defensive techniques and using his or her gun, baton, OC-spray, and Taser. That cadet will receive another 24 hours of scenario-based training, drilling on things like when to shoot or hold fire. The median trainee also gets 48 hours of instruction on constitutional law and his or her department’s use-of-force policies.But that same future police officer will receive only eight hours of training in conflict de-escalation. And despite the fact that a quarter of the 838 citizens shot dead by police this year showed symptoms of mental-health issues, according to The Washington Post, the median cadet gets only eight hours of training in crisis intervention. The study paints a similar picture with in-service training. A total of 59 percent of a cop’s time is spent on using their weapons or defending themselves. That’s more than four times as much time that he or she will spend on de-escalation and crisis intervention. Almost all of the agencies surveyed offer their cops continual training with firearms, but over a third offer zero in-service instruction on conflict de-escalation.

Tournament: Longhorn Classic | Round: 4 | Opponent: Westwood JA | Judge: Ryan Stephens
Interpretation: The affirmative must only defend the limiting of qualified immunity for police officers.
Letric Law defines QI as
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/q063.htm, Letric Law
The qualified immunity doctrine that protects government officials from liability for civil damages "insofar as they ir conduct does not don’t violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." 
Border Patrol is not Police. My Pursuit
http://www.mypursuit.com/article-250/The_Differences_Between_a_Border_Patrol_and_a_Police_Officer_Career.html
Border Patrol is responsible for the safety of the borders, but within borders, Police Officers safeguard the citizens.  In contrast to border patrol officers, the police officers may be employed by the Federal, state or municipal government and is responsible for enforcing federal and state laws along with municipal ordinances.  They also help maintain peace in the community by keeping a check on anti-social elements.  A uniformed pro-active patrolling within the jurisdiction helps them control criminal activity and attend public calls for service.  They keep a documented record of their activities.
Violation:
Standards:

1. Limits and Ground
   2. Textuality 

Voters: Jurisdiction, Fairness, DTD, Competing Interps, No RVI

Tournament: Longhorn Classic | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Dulles MK | Judge: Cade Skelton
Interpretation: The affirmative must defend that the United States limit the qualified immunity of police officers.
According to Letric Law, qualified immunity is
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/q063.htm, Letric Law
The qualified immunity doctrine that protects government officials from liability for civil damages "insofar as they ir conduct does not don’t violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." 
Violation-
Jurisdiction, No RVI

Tournament: Longhorn Classic | Round: 2 | Opponent: Madiso DR | Judge: Nikunj Patel
Interpretation: The affirmative must limit qualified immunity via a change to the way QI is procedurally applied.
Violation:
Standards

1. Limits
   2. Topic Lit- Procedural questions of how QI is used are the core of the topic lit. Kinports 16, Kit. (Law Professor at Penn State).  “The Supreme Court’s Quiet Expansion of Qualified Immunity.” Penn State Law. 2016.
   The qualified immunity defense available to most executive branch officials in § 1983 cases is a creature of policy constructed by the Supreme Court for the express purpose of “shielding government actors from undue interference with their duties and from potentially disabling threats of liability.”1 In contrast to the absolute immunity accorded to legislators, judges, and prosecutors, the Court no longer engages in any pretense that its qualified immunity rulings are interpreting the congressional intent underlying § 1983.2 In its 1982 decision in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court openly refashioned the definition of qualified immunity in the interest of sparing public officials not only from liability, but also from the costs of litigation, “permitting the resolution of many insubstantial claims on summary judgment.”3 Harlow eliminated the subjective prong of the Court’s prior two-part definition of qualified immunity and rewrote the objective prong to provide that executive-branch officials are safeguarded from liability so long as “their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”4 In the years since Harlow, the Court has continued to refine the defense and expand the protection it affords government officials.5 At the same time, the breadth of the defense has become apparent in the Supreme Court decisions applying the Harlow standard. During the past fifteen years, the Court has issued eighteen opinions addressing the question whether a particular constitutional right was clearly established.
   Impacts:
   Ground
   3. TVA
   Fairness, Drop the Debater, Competing Interpretations, No RVI

Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 6 | Opponent: Brentwood JD | Judge: Leah Shapiro
A is the interpretation: Debaters may not be extra topical
B is the violation:
The affirmative is extra-topical. Two warrants:

1. PART OF THE SOLVENCY COMES FROM CREATING THE ABILITY TO SUE POLICE UNDER THE ADA.  AFFIRMING REQUIRES APPLYING THE ADA TO ARRESTS, AN APPROACH THAT NOT ALL COURTS SUPPORT. Auner 16
   Thomas J. Auner (JD at Loyola Law), For the Protection of Society's Most Vulnerable, the ADA Should Apply to Arrests, 49 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 335 (2016)
   Fortunately, courts began taking this disproportionate figure into account by providing mentally ill people with additional legal protections.5 In Sheehan v. City and County of San Francisco, 6 the Ninth Circuit held that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to arrest situations involving mentally ill persons.7 The Ninth Circuit’s holding significantly furthers the other circuit courts’ momentum and fundamentally changes how police officers approach the mentally ill. However, not all circuits apply the ADA to arrest situations, leading to unequal federal protections for the mentally ill.  
   Implications: A) Analytic B) Analytic
   2. This would require OVERRULING THE SHEEHAN DECISION which IS EXTRA TOPICAL.  IT INVOLVES MORE THAN THE QUESTION OF QI.  THE QUESTION IS ABOUT WHETHER POLICE HAVE TO MODIFY PROCEDURES FOR THOSE WITH DISABILITIES. ACLU 15
   ACLU, 2/13/15, https://www.aclu.org/cases/city-and-county-san-francisco-v-sheehan, City and County San Francisco vs. Sheehan.  
    Whether the ADA's requirement to make reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities applies to arrests and detentions. The question in this case is whether the police must modify their procedures, if feasible, when arresting and detaining persons with disabilities. The amicus brief submitted by the ACLU and leading disability rights organizations highlights the tragic consequences that too often follow when the police fail to make the reasonable accommodations required by the ADA. The brief also explains that standards adopted by many law enforcement agencies across the country demonstrate that both officer safety and public safety are enhanced when appropriate procedures are followed.
   C. Extra T is a voter: 
2. Ground.
   2. Limits
   3. Jurisdiction.
   4. RVA

Voters: Fairness, Jurisdiction, DTD, CI

Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harvard-Westlake EE | Judge: Neel Yerneni
A) Interpretation. The affirmative cannot limit qualified immunity for only one specific instance of police acting badly. 

B) Violation 

C) Standards. 

1. Ground

2. Limits

Fairness, DTD, CI

Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 4 | Opponent: Evanston Township AJ | Judge: Jack Mullaney
Interpretation: The affirmative must defend limiting qualified immunity for all police officers

Violation: 

Net Benefits:

1. Limits:
   Only limited topics protect participants from overload which materially affects our lives outside of round.
   Harris 13
   Scott Harris (Director of Debate at U Kansas, 2006 National Debate Coach of the Year, Vice President of the American Forensic Association, 2nd speaker at the NDT in 1981). “This ballot.” 5 April 2013. CEDA Forums. http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4762.0;attach=1655 

I understand that there has been some criticism of Northwestern’s strategy in this debate round. This criticism is premised on the idea that they ran framework instead of engaging Emporia’s argument about home and the Wiz. I think this criticism is unfair. Northwestern’s framework argument did engage Emporia’s argument. Emporia said that you should vote for the team that performatively and methodologically made debate a home. Northwestern’s argument directly clashed with that contention. My problem in this debate was with aspects of the execution of the argument rather than with the strategy itself. It has always made me angry in debates when people have treated topicality as if it were a less important argument than other arguments in debate. Topicality is a real argument. It is a researched strategy. It is an argument that challenges many affirmatives. The fact that other arguments could be run in a debate or are run in a debate does not make topicality somehow a less important argument. In reality, for many of you that go on to law school you will spend much of your life running topicality arguments because you will find that words in the law matter. The rest of us will experience the ways that word choices matter in contracts, in leases, in writing laws and in many aspects of our lives. Kansas ran an affirmative a few years ago about how the location of a comma in a law led a couple of districts to misinterpret the law into allowing individuals to be incarcerated in jail for two days without having any formal charges filed against them. For those individuals the location of the comma in the law had major consequences. Debates about words are not insignificant. Debates about what kinds of arguments we should or should not be making in debates are not insignificant either. The limits debate is an argument that has real pragmatic consequences. I found myself earlier this year judging Harvard’s eco-pedagogy aff and thought to myself—I could stay up tonight and put a strategy together on eco-pedagogy, but then I thought to myself—why should I have to? Yes, I could put together a strategy against any random argument somebody makes employing an energy metaphor but the reality is there are only so many nights to stay up all night researching. I would like to actually spend time playing catch with my children occasionally or maybe even read a book or go to a movie or spend some time with my wife. A world where there are an infinite number of affirmatives is a world where the demand to have a specific strategy and not run framework is a world that says this community doesn’t care whether its participants have a life or do well in school or spend time with their families. I know there is a new call abounding for interpreting this NDT as a mandate for broader more diverse topics. The reality is that will create more work to prepare for the teams that choose to debate the topic but will have little to no effect on the teams that refuse to debate the topic. Broader topics that do not require positive government action or are bidirectional will not make teams that won’t debate the topic choose to debate the topic. I think that is a con job. I am not opposed to broader topics necessarily. I tend to like the way high school topics are written more than the way college topics are written. I just think people who take the meaning of the outcome of this NDT as proof that we need to make it so people get to talk about anything they want to talk about without having to debate against Topicality or framework arguments are interested in constructing a world that might make debate an unending nightmare and not a very good home in which to live. Limits, to me, are a real impact because I feel their impact in my everyday existence.
Several Impacts:
a. Limits turn solvency. Research shows that research overload leads to superficial education, meaning we won’t learn about the aff or anything else.
Chokshi 10 Niraj Chokshi is a former staff editor at TheAtlantic.com, where he wrote about technology. He is currently freelancing How Do We Stop the Internet From Making Us Stupid? JUN 8 2010 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/how-do-we-stop-the-internet-from-making-us-stupid/57796/
When it comes to focus, turning on the spotlight may not matter as much as our ability to dim the ambient light. Nicholas Carr argued on Saturday in The Wall Street Journal that the Internet is making us dumber and on Monday The New York Times had a front-page feature on the mental price we pay for our multi-tasked lifestyles. If we are indeed losing our ability to think deeply, the key to fighting back may lie in a subtlety: focus may be more about our ability to filter out distractions than our ability to home in on the issue at hand. Carr posed his idea that technology is making us stupid in a 2008 Atlantic cover story and his forthcoming book "The Shallows" is a longer rumination on the theory. According to professors and research cited in The Times piece "the idea that information overload causes distraction was supported by more and more research." And those distractions, according to research Carr cites, are forcing us to change the way we think. Deep thought is losing ground to superficiality. So, if our multitasking lifestyle causes distraction, and distraction leads to superficial thinking, how do we fight back? Carr offers some advice:

b. Analytic

2. Ground

3. TVA

Voters: Fairness, Education, DTD, CI, No RVI

Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 5 | Opponent: Lake Travis KE | Judge: Jen Melin
Text: Indigenous communities should individually decide for themselves whether they want to prohibit the production of nuclear power in their territory commonly known as the United States. 

Competition: Mutually exclusive: they decide for themselves, so they don’t actually necessarily ban. 

The perm is severance. Individually implies that the policy of the action is grouped. Competes through net benefits.
NB - Consult
The Counterplan solves better than the plan:  consultation leads to the best policies for each clan. Thomas 95 EDWARD K. THOMAS, 1995 (PRESIDENT
CENTRAL COUNCIL OF THE TLINGIT AND HAIDA INDIAN TRIBES OF ALASKA,  May 18, 1995, http://www.archive.org/stream/biataskforcehear00unit/biataskforcehear00unit_djvu.txt)
The opportunity for Tribes to participate in the reorganization process was greatly increased by holding the various meetings close to their Tribal headquarters. Many tribal leaders and Tribal members did attend the meetings and many testified at the times set aside on each agenda for hearing testimony. Witnesses either spoke on the business of the day or on the reorganization plan and the reorganization planning process. Their testimony helped Task Force members in their decision-making. We were better able to understand how they felt on many very important reorganization issues. Their testimony did make a difference in our final product. That is why Tribal consultation is important. Tribes, more than anyone else, know what is best for them. They know better than anyone what policies would be bad for them.
Previous consultation processes prove--Consultation processes make clans full partners in the process—the plan merely continues the legacy of colonization. Chino 95 WENDELL CHINO, 1995 (MESCALERO APACHE TRIBE, HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE, http://www.archive.org/stream/biataskforcehear00unit/biataskforcehear00unit_djvu.txt)
The Joint Tribal BIA Tribal Department of the Interior Advisory Task Force on the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs task force was chartered on December 20, 1990 by the Secretary of the Interior. The charter was to develop baseline goals and plans for reorganization to strength the BIA's administration of Indian programs. The creation of the task force was based on a congressional mandate in response to tribal concerns that the Department of the Interior was planning to move forward with the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs prior to appropriate participation and consultation with Indian tribes. The initial task force charter was for 2 years and was extended an additional 2 years by the Secretary of the Interior on November 18, 1992, in order to en- sure that the task force's efforts were tribally driven; yet, at the same time, a joint partnership effort — 36 of the 43 members of the task force were tribal members, 5 were BIA employees and 2 were Department of the Interior employees. The 36 members were 3 rep- resentatives from each of the Bureau's 12 area locations who were nominated by the tribes and appointed by the Secretary. The task force was led by cochairpersons representing the tribal and Federal partnership. The Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs was named the Federal cochair by the Secretary, and the tribal representatives elected Wendell Chino, President of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, the tribal cochair. The task force held its first of 22 meetings on January 22 through 24 1991, in Crystal City, VA. During the 4 years of its charter every effort was made to con- duct its meetings in different administrative areas to allow as many local tribes to participate as possible. To further ensure that this effort was tribally driven several steps were taken: One, time was set aside at each meeting to listen to the concerns and comments of the tribal leaders; two, tribal task force members were made responsible and held accountable for meeting with their respective tribes; three, each BIA area appointed Federal coordina- tors to facilitate ongoing consolidated sessions with the tribes; four, all tribes were invited to submit written comments for task force consideration. As a result of this participatory consultation process, tribes have been full partners in the recommendations presented.

Bringing indigenous views back into the picture is necessary for global survival. Suagee 92 Dean B. Suagee, 1992 (J.D., University of North Carolina, University of Michigan Law School, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis, Accessed July 6, 2009)
The global environmental crisis has more than adequately demonstrated that business as usual will not and cannot ensure global survival. What is needed is a fundamental shift in consciousness, and this means that the views of indigenous peoples -- our laws and rules and relationships to the natural world -- have to be brought back into the picture.

NB - Grouping

Some indigenous people see waste facilities as good. To clarify, my argument is not that all groups should do this, but they need the option- the aff denies that.
Gover et al, Kevin, and Jana L. Walker (Native American Attorneys at Gover, Stetson and Williams). "Escaping Environmental Paternalism: One Tribe's Approach to Developing a Commercial Waste Disposal Project in Indian Country." University of Colorado Law Review 63 (1992): 933.
The second and more controversial issue facing tribes involves the use of reservation lands as sites for commercial solid and hazardous waste disposal facilities. Looking at the waste industry as a form of economic development, in many respects it can be a good match for tribal communities. The industry is usually willing to pay the costs of developing new projects without requiring a tribe to put any cash up front. Since most tribes just do not have the money to independently fund large-scale economic development, this makes the industry attractive to Indian communities desperate for development. The waste industry needs isolation and an abundance of land, and, again, because of the overall lack of tribal economic development, undeveloped land is a resource that many tribes have. The waste industry also provides numerous opportunities for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, including training in the construction and environmental compliance fields. On most reservations, unemployment is extremely high and opportunities for training Indians very limited. Finally, the waste industry is and must be recognized as an indispensable and legitimate part of the services sector of the economy, and as such, can be an extremely profitable form of development for tribes. All of this means that, under certain circumstances, a solid or hazardous waste disposal project may represent a viable and appropriate form of industrial development for some tribes and can provide extraordinary opportunities for economic development on some reservations. It is not appropriate for every community, and we certainly are not urging tribes to site waste facilities on their reservations. Each tribe must decide for itself if it is interested in such development. Our intent is merely to put things in a more honest perspective and to describe one process that, when and if a tribe seriously considers a commercial waste proposal, it can use to evaluate the proposal effectively and, if it's feasible, plan for its development.

Tournament: St Marks | Round: 3 | Opponent: Loyola DK | Judge: Eric Melin
Counterplan – The US should fund nuclear power in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.
Net benefits are that it increases US influence in the region, which you say is key to maintaining stability. And the DAs. Hersh 15
Melissa S. Hersh is a risk analyst and consultant and a fellow of the Truman National Security Project. “The Middle East Nuclear Power Play No One Is Talking About” The National Interest.  July 20, 2015 http:nationalinterest.org/feature/the-middle-east-nuclear-power-play-no-one-talking-about-13372
Russia’s current and foreseeable economic constraints indicate the possibility of not being able to deliver on pledges and MOUs, thus providing an opportunity for the United States to step in. Should the United States want to wield its smart power toolbox, providing support for the American nuclear industry will be crucial. And failure to reauthorize U.S. Export-Import bank is like shooting oneself in the foot. And, nowhere is this more important at the moment than in the Middle East. The Middle East is still exceedingly relevant to U.S. interests, even despite the Asia pivot and America’s newfound wealth of riches coming from shale oil and shale gas, which reduces its import dependency on the Middle East. It is still a major area of instability and of strategic importance. The United States will still import its oil for decades to come, and maintaining safe and open shipping lanes are critical to global commerce. As such, the United States cannot become victim to “flavor of the month” thinking in its foreign policy. By supporting nuclear power plants in the region, the United States could kill three birds with one stone: curtail Russian influence in the Middle East; exert strategic influence and presence in light of the Iran deal to safeguard its relationship with regional allies; and support domestic nuclear-industry exports. Deal or no deal in Iran, this calculus remains unchanged. Furthermore, as the United states is undergoing a domestic renaissance innuclear innovation, it would seem it is a good time to support overseas nuclear power plants (NPPs), as well as stave off foreign competition in the nuclear industry and exert regional influence and contribute to economic development in the Middle East. And while the U.S. nuclear-industry strategy has long been in decline, there is an opportunity to provide sovereign sponsorship for NPPs to offset Russian regional influence in the Middle East. It is time to revisit the role that the Ex-Im bank plays in globally exerting American commercial soft power. U.S. overseas force projection should not be limited to military and humanitarian engagements. Finally, as Washington already struggles to reassure regional allies concerned about its hedge with Tehran, not engaging enough on civil nuclear cooperation with other Middle Eastern capitals is a missed opportunity to reaffirm strategic ties. And the U.S. domestic nuclear industry risks losing out on vital new export opportunities. Taken together, a strong case for the United States to get involved in promoting nuclear energy in the Middle East can be made. It is unfortunate that while Saudi Arabia and Russia are able to engage inpragmatic compartmentalization of their policies, the United States is less flexible.
Also solves prolif and terror - nuclear power industry is key to regulating fissionable materials – only way to stop proliferation.
Bengelsdorf 07
 Harold, currently a Principal with the consulting firm of Bengelsdorf, McGoldrick, and Associates, “The U.S. Domestic Civil Nuclear Infrastructure and US Nonproliferation Policy,” May 2007, available at http:www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/COUNCIL_WHITE_PAPER_Final.pdf
It is, therefore, essential that the United States have vibrant nuclear reactor, uranium enrichment, and spent fuel storage and disposal industries that can not only meet the needs of U.S. utilities but will also enable the United States to promote effective safeguards and other nonproliferation controls through close peaceful nuclear cooperation other countries. The U.S. should establish a high priority goal to rebuild an indigenous nuclear industry and support its growth in domestic and international markets. U.S. nuclear exports can be used to influence other states’ nuclear programs through the nonproliferation commitments that the U.S. requires. The U.S. has so-called consent rights over the enrichment, reprocessing and alteration in form or content of the nuclear materials that it has provided to other countries, as well as to the nuclear materials that are produced from the nuclear materials and equipment that the U.S. has supplied. The percentage of nuclear materials, including separated plutonium, that are subject to U.S. consent rights will diminish over time as new suppliers of nuclear materials and facilities take a larger share of the international nuclear market. Unless the U.S. is able to compete effectively in the international market as a supplier of nuclear fuels, equipment and technology, the quantity of the nuclear materials around the globe that the U.S. has control over will diminish significantly in the future. This may not immediately weaken the effectiveness of the nonproliferation regime since all the major suppliers have adopted the export guidelines of the Nuclear Supplier Group. However, only the U.S., Australia and Canada have consent rights over enrichment and reprocessing of the nuclear materials subject to their agreements. Consequently, if there is a major decline in the U.S. share of the international nuclear market, the U.S. may not be as effective as it has been in helping to ensure a rigorous system of export controls.

Tournament: St Marks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Harvard-Westlake IP | Judge: Demarcus Powell
Bans on nuclear power cause a shift to coal – renewables can’t keep up. Abernathy 15
Mark Abernethy 15 speechwriter, ghostwriter, journalist and author. Born in New Zealand, he has lived in Australia for most of his adult life. A former editor at Australian Penthouse magazine, he has also written for the Australian Financial Review, “Solar, wind, nuclear power on the rise, but coal still has its place”, Financial Review, 30 Nov 2015,
The future challenge is producing reliable power with low carbon emissions, as the population increases and people and continue to live in electricity-hungry cities.¶ Getting the future energy equation right is a moving target. The International Energy Agency forecasts an 80 per cent increase in world electricity demand to 2040, with an increase in total energy demand (gas, coal, oil, renewables) of 37 per cent by 2040. And even with a massive push for renewables, 75 per cent of the energy used globally will be still be the hydrocarbons of oil, gas and coal, which produce the highest carbon emissions.¶ ¶ The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) forecasts Australian energy usage to grow 42 per cent to 2050, with electricity generation growing 30 per cent over the same period. But renewables such as solar and wind will not take over the generation task. Coal's share of total electricity generation will remain stable at about 65 per cent to 2050, according to BREE. And wind and solar currently only comprise 20 per cent of Australia's renewables generation: the bulk is from biomass, in particular from the sugar and timber industries.¶ Observing the patterns of demand is the job of Matt Zema, chief executive of the Australian Energy Market Operator. He says total electricity usage in 2009 was about 200,000 gigawatt hours, and it has shrunk to 180,000 gwh. We are not expected to return to 2009 levels until at least 2020, and in 2035 the total won't rise much past 220,000.¶ ¶ He says the challenge is to forecast power patterns based on behaviour rather than the old certainties of demand and load.¶ ¶ "Since 2005 we've seen a move to decentralised power generation," Zema says. "We're moving away from huge, centralised power stations that were built from the 1960s onward and now we move into a new phase."¶ ¶ Solar only just begun¶ ¶ Zema says the rise of solar PV panels on roofs has only just begun because the arrival of cheap and effective battery storage will increase the uptake and the amount of power generated and used, from rooftops.¶ ¶ "A few years ago, storage was something happening in 10 years, perhaps. Now we can see that affordable storage is three to five years away. Technology will change our future energy usage faster than other factors.'¶ ¶ Zema says the current forecasts are that coal will continue to provide most electrical power in Australia in 2040, but that can't account for technology and consumer behaviour. This is because coal is Australia's cheapest and most "dispatchable" power source, but storage technology might make some renewables dispatchable too.¶ ¶ By 2035, AEMO forecasts that South Australia's PV rooftop panels will account for 28 per cent of underlying residential and commercial consumption, and in Queensland it will be just over 20 per cent coming from PV. When effective storage is added, Zema says, it is consumer behaviour that drives the energy market, not the old metrics of demand and load.¶ ¶ In South Australia, by the end of 2025, PV users could be net generators to the grid, at certain times, Zema says, which means rooftop PV will be sufficient, on some days, to meet the underlying consumption of the residential, commercial and industrial sectors during the middle of the day.¶ ¶ Unhitching from coal as a future energy source is directly reliant on plans for base-load power, says Ben Heard, a director at ThinkClimate Consulting. He says if you take out the fluctuations and spikes of power usage and the daily peaks and seasonal ups and downs, you end up with a base of daily and annual power demand that must always be available.¶ ¶ "When you build a power supply, you have the base-load at the foundation," says Heard, also a doctoral candidate at University of Adelaide. "You want this to be available 24/7 and so you use the cheapest and most reliable way of doing it. And in Australia, that's coal-fired generation."¶ ¶ Nuclear tech under consideration¶ ¶ The other reliable base-load technology is nuclear, a technology now being actively considered for South Australia.
This is empirically verified and leads to millions of deaths—even if we can use renewables, we simply won’t, Japan proves.
David Ropeik 16 (instructor in the Environmental Studies Program of the Harvard Extension School, a consultant in risk communication, and author of How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts.) , The dangers of radiophobia, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2016
Most directly, it sickens and fossil fuels kills by increasing air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels. In the wake of Fukushima, Japan closed more than 50 nuclear power plants, which to that point had been providing 25 percent of the nation’s energy. The US Energy Information Agency reports that to replace that power, coal use in Japan increased 25 percent, and the use of oil for electric power generation doubled (US Energy Information Agency 2015). (Renewable energy – from sources like solar and wind power – increased just two percent.) Even though Japan is slowly edging toward reopening its nuclear fleet, restarting many plants will be difficult because of excessively stringent new safety rules. In 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that “if the plans all come to fruition, Japan’s coal-fired power capacity would increase to around 47 gigawatts over the next decade or so, up 21 percent from the time right before the Fukushima accident” (Iwata 2014). Burning coal and oil produces fine particulate air pollution, which the WHO calls “the greatest environmental risk to health – causing more than three million premature deaths worldwide every year.” (Natural gas, the use of which also increased in Japan, is mostly sulfur-free and does not produce fine particles.) Though the increased morbidity and mortality from particulate pollution in post-Fukushima Japan has not been quantified, it is inarguable that increased use of fossil fuels because of fear of nuclear power will sicken or kill thousands of people if it hasn’t already.

Coal causes huge harms and environmental racism—turns case.. GEP 15, “Environmental Racism in America: An Overview of the Environmental Justice Movement and the Role of Race in Environmental Policies”, The Goldman Environmental Press, 24 Jun 2015,
The problem of racial profiling in America relates to more than just police brutality and the senseless acts of violence that have recently captured the national spotlight. Race also plays a determining role in environmental policies regarding land use, zoning and regulations. As a result, African American, Latino, indigenous and low-income communities are more likely to live next to a coal-fired power plant, landfill, refinery or other highly polluting facility. These communities bear a disproportionate burden of toxic contamination as a result of pollution in and around their neighborhoods. Moreover, these communities have historically had a diminished response capacity to fight back against such policies. A recent report from the NAACP entitled “Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People,” found that among the nearly six million Americans living within three miles of a coal plant, 39 are people of color – a figure that is higher than the 36 proportion of people of color in the total US population. The report also found that 78 of all African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal fired power plant. In an interview for Yale Environment 360, Jacqueline Patterson, the Environmental and Climate Justice Director for the NAACP commented on the disproportionate burden faced by communities of color:“An African American child is three times more likely to go into the emergency room for an asthma attack than a white child, and twice as likely to die from asthma attacks as a white child. African Americans are more likely to die from lung disease, but less likely to smoke. When we did a road tour to visit the communities that were impacted by coal pollution, we found many anecdotal stories of people saying, yes, my husband, my father, my wife died of lung cancer and never smoked a day in her life. And these are people who are living within three miles of the coal-fired power plants we visited.”
Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste. Hvistendahl 07
Mara Hvistendahl 7 American writer. Her book Unnatural Selection was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction “Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste”, Scientific American, 13 Dec 2007,
Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. * See Editor's Note at end ofpage 2 At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas. In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants. The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants. McBride and his co-authors estimated that individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors. Dana Christensen, associate lab director for energy and engineering at ORNL, says that health risks from radiation in coal by-products are low. "Other risks like being hit by lightning," he adds, "are three or four times greater than radiation-induced health effects from coal plants." And McBride and his co-authors emphasize that other products of coal power, like emissions of acid rain–producing sulfur dioxide and smog-forming nitrous oxide, pose greater health risks than radiation.

Tournament: Valley | Round: 5 | Opponent: American Heritage Boca Delray EM | Judge: Cameron McConway
Israel’s water problem is large and is growing. Israeli Foreign Ministry
Israel's Chronic Water Problem http://blog.eteacherhebrew.com/traveling-in-israel/israels-chronic-water-problem/
Water is considered as a national resource of utmost importance. Water is vital to ensure the population's well-being and quality of life and to preserve the rural-agricultural sector. Israel has suffered from a chronic water shortage for years. In recent years however, the situation has developed into a crisis so severe that it is feared that by the next summer it may be difficult to adequately supply municipal and household water requirements. The current cumulative deficit in Israel's renewable water resources amounts to approximately 2 billion cubic meters, an amount equal to the annual consumption of the State. The deficit has also lead to the qualitative deterioration of potable aquifer water resources that have, in part, become either of brackish quality or otherwise become polluted. The causes of the crisis are both natural and man-made. Israel has suffered from four consecutive years of drought. The increase in demand for water for domestic uses, caused by population growth and the rising standard of living, together with the need to supply water pursuant to international undertakings have led to over-utilization of its renewable water sources. The policy for the water sector, particularly in the past decade, combined with the absence of adequate action facing the impending water shortage situation, has contributed to the severity of the present crisis.
Desal is the only solution to water shortages IAEA 2 -- widely known as the world's "Atoms for Peace" organization within the United Nations family. Set up in 1957 as the world's centre for cooperation in the nuclear field, the Agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies, “New Technologies for Seawater Desalination Using Nuclear Energy,” IEAE TecDoc Series, 2015  
Addressing water shortages is a difficult challenge for many countries due to population growth and the increasing need for water to support industry, agriculture and urban development. Innovative water management strategies are certainly needed to preserve water resources. But they may not be sufficient. Throughout the world, many highly populated regions face frequent and prolonged droughts. In these areas, where, for some reason, the natural hydrologic cycle cannot provide people with water, desalination is used to provide people with potable water. Desalination systems fall into two main design categories, namely thermal and membrane types. Thermal designs –including MSF and MED- use flashing and evaporation to produce potable water while membrane designs use the method of RO. Desalination is the main technology being used to augment fresh water resources in water scarce coastal regions. With almost 64.4 million m3 /day (GWI 2012) of worldwide desalination water production capacity, about two third is produced by thermal distillation, mainly in the Middle East. Outside this region, membrane-based systems predominate. Both processes are energy-intensive (Fig. I-1.). Even if power consumption has been reduced as technological innovations, such as energy recovery systems and variable frequency pumps (reverse RO plants), are introduced, it remains the main cost factor in water desalination. Traditionally, fossil fuels such as oil and gas have been the major energy sources. However, fuel price hikes and volatility as well as concerns about long term supplies and environmental release is prompting consideration of alternative energy sources for seawater desalination, such as nuclear desalination and the use of renewable energy sources. Replacing fossil fuel by renewable (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass) or nuclear energy, could reduce the impacts on air quality and climate.
Water crises cause escalating global conflict.
Rasmussen 11 (Erik, CEO, Monday Morning; Founder, Green Growth Leaders) “Prepare for the Next Conflict: Water Wars” HuffPo 4/12
For years experts have set out warnings of how the earth will be affected by the water crises, with millions dying and increasing conflicts over dwindling resources. They have proclaimed -- in line with the report from the US Senate -- that the water scarcity is a security issue, and that it will yield political stress with a risk of international water wars. This has been reflected in the oft-repeated observation that water will likely replace oil as a future cause of war between nations. Today the first glimpses of the coming water wars are emerging. Many countries in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South Asia -- e.g. Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Kenya, Egypt, and India -- are already feeling the direct consequences of the water scarcity -- with the competition for water leading to social unrest, conflict and migration. This month the escalating concerns about the possibility of water wars triggered calls by Zafar Adeel, chair of UN-Water, for the UN to promote "hydro-diplomacy" in the Middle East and North Africa in order to avoid or at least manage emerging tensions over access to water. The gloomy outlook of our global fresh water resources points in the direction that the current conflicts and instability in these countries are only glimpses of the water wars expected to unfold in the future. Thus we need to address the water crisis that can quickly escalate and become a great humanitarian crisis and also a global safety problem. A revolution The current effort is nowhere near what is needed to deal with the water-challenge -- the world community has yet to find the solutions. Even though the 'water issue' is moving further up the agenda all over the globe: the US foreign assistance is investing massively in activities that promote water security, the European Commission is planning to present a "Blueprint for Safeguarding Europe's Water" in 2012 and the Chinese government plans to spend $600 billion over the next 10 years on measures to ensure adequate water supplies for the country. But it is not enough. The situation requires a response that goes far beyond regional and national initiatives -- we need a global water plan. With the current state of affairs, correcting measures still can be taken to avoid the crisis to be worsening. But it demands that we act now. We need a new way of thinking about water. We need to stop depleting our water resources, and urge water conservation on a global scale. This calls for a global awareness that water is a very scarce and valuable natural resource and that we need to initiate fundamental technological and management changes, and combine this with international solidarity and cooperation. In 2009, The International Water Management Institute called for a blue revolution as the only way to move forward: "We will need nothing less than a 'Blue Revolution', if we are to achieve food security and avert a serious water crisis in the future" said Dr. Colin Chartres, Director General of the International Water Management Institute. This meaning that we need ensure "more crop per drop": while many developing countries use precious water to grow 1 ton of rice per hectare, other countries produce 5 tons per hectare under similar social and water conditions, but with better technology and management. Thus, if we behave intelligently, and collaborate between neighbors, between neighboring countries, between North and South, and in the global trading system, we shall not 'run out of water'. If we do not, and "business as usual" prevails, then water wars will accelerate.
That goes nuclear
Zahoor 12 (Musharaf, Researcher at Department of Nuclear Politics – National Defense University, Water Crisis can Trigger Nuclear War in South Asia, http://www.siasat.pk)
Water is an ambient source, which unlike human beings does not respect boundaries. Water has been a permanent source of conflict between the tribes since biblical times and now between the states. The conflicts are much more likely among those states, which are mainly dependent on shared water sources. The likelihood of turning these conflicts into wars is increased when these countries or states are mainly arid or receive low precipitations. In this situation, the upper riparian states (situated on upper parts of a river basin) often try to maximize water utility by neglecting the needs of the lower riparian states (situated on low lying areas of a river basin). However, international law on distribution of trans-boundary river water and mutually agreed treaties by the states have helped to some extent in overcoming these conflicts. In the recent times, the climate change has also affected the water availability. The absence of water management and conservation mechanisms in some regions particularly in the third world countries have exacerbated the water crisis. These states have become prone to wars in future.  South Asia is among one of those regions where water needs are growing disproportionately to its availability. The high increase in population besides large-scale cultivation has turned South Asia into a water scarce region. The two nuclear neighbors Pakistan and India share the waters of Indus Basin. All the major rivers stem from the Himalyan region and pass through Kashmir down to the planes of Punjab and Sindh empty into Arabic ocean. It is pertinent that the strategic importance of Kashmir, a source of all major rivers, for Pakistan and symbolic importance of Kashmir for India are maximum list positions. Both the countries have fought two major wars in 1948, 1965 and a limited war in Kargil specifically on the Kashmir dispute. Among other issues, the newly born states fell into water sharing dispute right after their partition. Initially under an agreed formula, Pakistan paid for the river waters to India, which is an upper riparian state. After a decade long negotiations, both the states signed Indus Water Treaty in 1960. Under the treaty, India was given an exclusive right of three eastern rivers Sutlej, Bias and Ravi while Pakistan was given the right of three Western Rivers, Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. The tributaries of these rivers are also considered their part under the treaty. It was assumed that the treaty had permanently resolved the water issue, which proved a nightmare in the latter course. India by exploiting the provisions of IWT started wanton construction of dams on Pakistani rivers thus scaling down the water availability to Pakistan (a lower riparian state). The treaty only allows run of the river hydropower projects and does not permit to construct such water reservoirs on Pakistani rivers, which may affect the water flow to the low lying areas. According to the statistics of Hydel power Development Corporation of Indian Occupied Kashmir, India has a plan to construct 310 small, medium and large dams in the territory. India has already started work on 62 dams in the first phase. The cumulative dead and live storage of these dams will be so great that India can easily manipulate the water of Pakistani rivers. India has set up a department called the Chenab Valley Power Projects to construct power plants on the Chenab River in occupied Kashmir. India is also constructing three major hydro-power projects on Indus River which include Nimoo Bazgo power project, Dumkhar project and Chutak project. On the other hand, it has started Kishan * hydropower project by diverting the waters of Neelum River, a tributary of the Jhelum, in sheer violation of the IWT. The gratuitous construction of dams by India has created serious water shortages in Pakistan. The construction of Kishan * dam will turn the Neelum valley, which is located in Azad Kashmir into a barren land. The water shortage will not only affect the cultivation but it has serious social, political and economic ramifications for Pakistan. The farmer associations have already started protests in Southern Punjab and Sindh against the non-availability of water. These protests are so far limited and under control. The reports of international organizations suggest that the water availability in Pakistan will reduce further in the coming years. If the situation remains unchanged, the violent mobs of villagers across the country will be a major law and order challenge for the government.    The water shortage has also created mistrust among the federative units, which is evident from the fact that the President and the Prime Minister had to intervene for convincing Sindh and Punjab provinces on water sharing formula. The Indus River System Authority (IRSA) is responsible for distribution of water among the provinces but in the current situation it has also lost its credibility. The provinces often accuse each other of water theft.  In the given circumstances, Pakistan desperately wants to talk on water issue with India. The meetings between Indus Water Commissioners of Pakistan and India have so far yielded no tangible results. The recent meeting in Lahore has also ended without concrete results. India is continuously using delaying tactics to under pressure Pakistan. The Indus Water Commissioners are supposed to resolve the issues bilaterally through talks. The success of their meetings can be measured from the fact that Pakistan has to knock at international court of arbitration for the settlement of Kishan * hydropower project. The recently held foreign minister level talks between both the countries ended inconclusively in Islamabad, which only resulted in heightening the mistrust and suspicions. The water stress in Pakistan is increasing day by day. The construction of dams will not only cause damage to the agriculture sector but India can manipulate the river water to create inundations in Pakistan. The rivers in Pakistan are also vital for defense during wartime. The control over the water will provide an edge to India during war with Pakistan. The failure of diplomacy, manipulation of IWT provisions by India and growing water scarcity in Pakistan and its social, political and economic repercussions for the country can lead both the countries toward a war. The existent asymmetry between the conventional forces of both the countries will compel the weaker side to use nuclear weapons to prevent the opponent from taking any advantage of the situation. Pakistan's nuclear programme is aimed at to create minimum credible deterrence. India has a declared nuclear doctrine which intends to retaliate massively in case of first strike by its' enemy. In 2003, India expanded the operational parameters for its nuclear doctrine. Under the new parameters, it will not only use nuclear weapons against a nuclear strike but will also use nuclear weapons against a nuclear strike on Indian forces anywhere. Pakistan has a draft nuclear doctrine, which consists on the statements of high ups. Describing the nuclear thresh-hold in January 2002, General Khalid Kidwai, the head of Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division, in an interview to Landau Network, said that Pakistan will use nuclear weapons in case India occupies large parts of its territory, economic strangling by India, political disruption and if India destroys Pakistan's forces. The analysis of the ambitious nuclear doctrines of both the countries clearly points out that any military confrontation in the region can result in a nuclear catastrophe. The rivers flowing from Kashmir are Pakistan's lifeline, which are essential for the livelihood of 170 million people of the country and the cohesion of federative units. The failure of dialogue will leave no option but to achieve the ends through military means. The only way to discard the lurking fear of a nuclear cataclysm is to settle all the outstanding disputes amicably through dialogue. The international community has a special role in this regard. It should impress upon India to initiate meaningful talks to resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute with Pakistan and implement the water treaty in its letter and spirit. The Indian leadership should drive out its policy towards Pakistan from terrorism mantra to a solution-oriented dialogue process. Both the countries should adopt a joint mechanism to maximize the utility of river waters by implementing the 1960 treaty, Besides negotiations with India, Pakistan should start massive water conservation and management projects. The modern techniques in agriculture like i.e. drip irrigation, should be adopted. On the other hand, there is a dire need to gradually upgrade the obsolete irrigation system in Pakistan. The politicization of mega hydropower projects/dams is also a problem being faced by Pakistan, which can only be resolved through political will.

Tournament: Valley | Round: 5 | Opponent: American Heritage Boca Delray EM | Judge: Cameron McConway
Energy diversification is key to Israel. Rabinowitz 16
Rabinowitz, Or. "Nuclear energy and desalination in Israel." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 72.1 (2016): 32-38.
Currently, the most influential factor in any Israeli bid to construct nuclear power plants is energy diversification, which in the Israeli context relates to both national security and economic considerations. From a security perspective, Israel is an island that cannot rely on its immediate neighbors for energy exports, because of ongoing regional conflict. Thus energy diversification is crucial to guarantee energy supply. From the financial perspective, Israel’s dependency on imported energy sources makes it highly sensitive to price fluctuations in global energy markets, and Israel is thus motivated to develop its own energy sources – including nuclear power – to mitigate this sensitivity.

Next, a drop on energy will destroy Israel’s stability – Turns Case Eldar 7/11
*Brackets used in article
Shlomi Eldar August 11, 2016 - How Gaza's electricity crisis is becoming Israel's water catastrophe. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/08/gaza-stip-electricity-crisis-water-pollution-aquifer-shore.html#ixzz4LH7tQPGh
Without electricity, water cannot be produced and wastewater cannot be treated,” said Eilon Adar, a hydrologist and the former director of Ben-Gurion University’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology in Beersheba. “An aquifer knows no borders. Water does not stop at a border. At the moment the damage is negligible, but Gaza is now dumping its untreated wastewater near the Beit Lahia wastewater treatment plant. This site, founded a number of years ago with Israel’s agreement, is only about 200 meters 660 feet from Israel’s border and the effluent ‘lake’ seeps into the coastal aquifer.” According to Adar, when Gaza's wastewater treatment plant does not function, Israel stands to suffer as well. The ramifications of this can already be seen. “Gaza sends wastewater to the area of the nonfunctional treatment plant, causing the water level to rise. A virtual mountain of underground water has been created that will flow to the only place in Gaza that still has drinkable water. That water will become contaminated and then disaster will hit. Once contaminated water permeates potable water, it will be almost impossible to fix the situation.

Tournament: Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Loyola ES | Judge: Bennett Eckert
Japan’s economy has improved slightly, but it’s still very weak and deflation persists.  The Associated Press 5/31
Japan's factory output fell 3.5 percent in April from the same month a year earlier, while consumer spending also edged lower, though both improved from the month before, the government said Tuesday. Earlier, the government reported that the consumer price index fell 0.3 percent in April for the second straight month of deflation. However, excluding both energy and volatile fresh foods, it rose 0.7 percent. The world's third-largest economy has been stuck in the doldrums despite massive monetary easing aimed at vanquishing deflation, which tends to discourage corporate investment and consumer spending. Though the latest data present a mixed picture and are better than some economists' forecasts, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking backing from his Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Komeito, for a postponement of a sales tax hike due next year, out of concern the recovery is too weak to endure a fresh hit to consumer spending. In April, consumer spending fell 0.4 percent in April from a year earlier, though incomes rose 0.7 percent. Unemployment was flat at 3.2 percent. Industrial output rose 0.3 percent from the month before, stronger than expected, in one sign the latest dip in growth may be moderating, said Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics. But he noted that private investment remains weak.
Current Japanese trends mean that the plan causes a transition to fossil fuels – renewables fail.
Follett 16 (Andrew, energy and environmental reporter, “The End Of Nuclear Power In Japan Is Bringing Back Coal,” http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/13/the-end-of-nuclear-power-in-japan-is-bringing-back-coal/, Daily Caller)
An analysis published Monday by Bloomberg states that coal power will become the largest source of electricity in Japan due to an effective ban on nuclear power. Nuclear power provided 29 percent of Japan’s total power output before 2011, but will decline to 13.6 percent by 2023 and 1.2 percent by 2040, according to the report. Japan got 24 percent of its electricity from coal in 2010 and the country plans to get more than a third of its power from coal by 2040. Japan previously shut down all of its nuclear reactors in the aftermath of the 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which triggered the Fukushima disaster. The country has since transitioned away from nuclear power. Prior to the disaster, Japan operated 54 nuclear power plants and the government planned to build enough reactors to provide 50 percent of the country’s electricity power. After the disaster, Japan pledged to effectivly abandon nuclear power by the 2030s, replacing it mostly with wind or solar power, causing the price of electricity to rise by 20 percent. The transition to green energy hasn’t gone well and the country likely won’t meet its goals, according to the report. Japan remains a top importer of oil, coal and natural gas and the government estimated that importing fuel costs the country more than $40 billion annually. Japan’s current government sees a revival of nuclear power as critical to supporting economic growth and slowing an exodus of Japanese manufacturing to lower-cost countries, but has faced incredible pushback. Electricity from new wind power is nearly four times as expensive as electricity from existing nuclear power plants, according to analysis from the Institute for Energy Research. The rising cost of the subsidies needed to make green energy work have been passed to ordinary Japanese rate-payers, triggering complaints that poor households are subsidizing the affluent.
That massively destabilizes the status quo – continued fossil fuel dependence kill Japanese foundations.
Cunningham 15 (Nick, a Vermont-based writer on energy and environmental issues, “A Return To Nuclear May Be Japan’s Only Option,” April 3rd 2015, http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/A-Return-To-Nuclear-May-Be-Japans-Only-Option.html, Oilprice.com)
A return to nuclear may be Japan’s only option. Four years after the Fukushima meltdown, Japan is finally eyeing a return to nuclear power. To be sure, some, if not most of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors will remain offline permanently. But the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is crafting a proposal that could lead to nuclear power reclaiming about 20 percent of Japan’s electricity market. It is hard to imagine such a revival. Nuclear power made up just under 30 percent of the country’s electricity generation before the catastrophic tsunami hit in 2011. Now it is at zero percent. Strict new safety standards and strong public opposition will likely keep many of the reactors on the sidelines. But the ruling party is pressing ahead. In mid-March the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) gave the go-ahead to Kyushu Electric Power for upgrades to its Sendai nuclear power plant, removing a hurdle for the plant’s return to service. Kyushu hopes to power up the reactor by June. More approvals could be forthcoming, particularly if the Liberal Democratic Party gets its way. Assuming that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is able to muscle through his proposal to bring nuclear back, what would that mean for Japan? 1. Imports of LNG, Coal, and Oil down. Japan is massively dependent on imported energy. It is the world’s largest LNG importer, second largest importer of coal, and third largest importer of crude oil. If Japan managed to ramp up nuclear power to 20 percent of its electricity, it would be able to slash its purchases of fossil fuels dramatically. 2. Weaker Economics for Energy Exporters. Japan’s sharp increase of fossil fuel consumption for power generation after Fukushima raised international prices, particularly for LNG. Spot LNG cargoes in Asia – the so-called JKM marker – spiked, selling for more than three times the price of natural gas found in the United States. The JKM marker has since come down both because more LNG supplies have come online and due to the collapse in oil prices. A return to nuclear power will obviate the need for elevated imports of LNG, keeping JKM prices from returning to their highs of 2011-2013. That will cap the market for LNG exporters around the world, pushing many LNG export projects into the red – from Western Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast, to Australia. LNG will be a major loser of Japan’s nuclear restart. 3. Trade deficit and electricity rates down. In the three years following Fukushima, Japan spent $270 billion on coal, oil, and LNG imports, a 58 percent increase over what it otherwise would have spent had its nuclear fleet remained online. That forced Japan to run a trade deficit for the first time in 30 years. Japan’s trade balance went from a $65 billion surplus in 2010 to a $112 billion deficit three years later, owing mostly to higher fossil fuel imports. That also translated into higher electricity prices. Japan’s electricity rates increased by 30 percent for industry and 20 percent for residential homes, respectively. Nuclear power can help reverse the ballooning trade deficit and rising electricity costs. 4. Greenhouse Gases. The loss of nuclear power has taken a toll on Japan’s climate posture, as Japan’s greenhouse gases hit a record in 2013. In the absence of nuclear power, Japan is planning on building a lot more coal plants. It has backtracked on its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That could change if nuclear power plays a larger role in the future. More nuclear power generation would mean burning through a whole lot less coal, oil, and natural gas. That would significantly help keep a lid on Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions. 5. Going Against the Public. Still, despite all the positives that would come from bringing its nuclear reactors back online, nuclear power is horrifically unpopular in Japan at this point. A strong majority of the public opposes turning back to nuclear power, with some opinion polls showing as much as 60 percent of the country opposes restarting any reactors.

Tournament: St Marks | Round: 3 | Opponent: Loyola DK | Judge: Eric Melin
Russia supports Egypt, Turkey, Jordan nuclear programs WNA’16
Emerging Nuclear Energy Countries(Updated 13 September 2016)
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/others/emerging-nuclear-energy-countries.aspx

One major issue for many countries is the size of their grid system. Many nuclear power plants are larger than the fossil fuel plants they supplement or replace, and it does not make sense to have any generating unit more than about one tenth the capacity of the grid (maybe 15 if there is high reserve capacity). This is so that the plant can be taken offline for refueling or maintenance, or due to unforeseen events. The grid capacity and quality may also be considered regionally, as with Jordan for instance. In many situations, as much investment in the grid may be needed as in the power plant(s). Kenya sought to evaluate its grid system before considering the generation options. Another issue is that of licensing reactor designs. Emerging countries generally do not have the expertise for nuclear power this, and must initially rely on design licensing by countries such as the UK, USA, France, Russia and China while they focus on building competence to license the actual operation of plants. State-owned nuclear companies in Russia and China have taken the lead in offering nuclear power plants to emerging countries, usually with finance and fuel services. The following table charts the main influence in countries with various agreements but not yet any plants under construction. See also the relevant tables in the Nuclear Power in China and Nuclear Power in Russia information papers:

RUSSIAN ECONOMY IS VULNERABLE BUT STABILIZING. Reuters 9/4
Reuters (International News Agency), Putin says Russian economy stabilized, pledges budget deficit cuts, 9/4/2016
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a speech at the G20 summit in China, struck an upbeat tone on the Russian economy, saying it had stabilized, and pledged to cut the country's budget deficit as well as its dependency on oil and gas exports. "Our economy has stabilized .... We plan to reduce the budget deficit further, and to continue to work on cutting the budget's revenues dependency on the exports of hydrocarbons," Putin said. Russia's economy contracted by 3.7 percent in 2015 due to weaker oil prices, the country's chief commodity export, and international sanctions imposed over Moscow's role in the Ukrainian crisis. According to a forecast by analysts at the central bank, Russia's economy will show low quarter-on-quarter growth in the third and fourth quarters of this year. Putin also said the government would continue to work on improving the business climate in Russia.
 
NUCLEAR NRG MARKET IS KEY TO THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY
Bronson, Rachel (executive director and publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.). "Power shift in the Middle East." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 72.1 (2016): 10-15.
Russia’s push into the Middle East seems part of a broader effort to dominate the global nuclear power sector, especially in emerging markets. As Cape Town expert Emma Lecavalier described in a recent Bulletin piece, “in 2014, Moscow quietly became the leader of the $500 billion global nuclear energy market, building 37 percent of all new reactors in the world, eclipsing the United States’ meager 7 percent share.” Russia has recently signed deals across Europe, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.12 The nuclear agreements give a needed boost to a Russian economy reeling under economic sanctions and plunging oil and gas prices. They also increase Russia’s economic presence in the Middle East and provide Moscow with huge and often underappreciated political influence. The ability to withhold fuel, withdraw technical expertise, or shut down plant operations gives Russia leverage in future Middle Eastern energy markets and security considerations.
 
Russian economic collapse creates multiple scenarios for nuclear war
Filger 9 – American-Canadian writer who is the founder of www.GlobalEconomicCrisis.com, one of the most visible websites on the Internet focused on the global economic crisis
(Sheldon, “Russian Economy Faces Disastrous Free Fall Contraction,” Huffington Post, May 10, 2009,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-filger/russian-economy-faces-dis_b_201147.html)//AC
In 1987 I visited the Soviet Union with Republican Congressman Tom DeLay (who has since moved on to bigger-but not necessarily better-things), and observed firsthand how a society with bright, well-educated people can still undergo a profound economic collapse when the elites running the nation are infused with corruption, fossilized dogmas and misplaced priorities. Four years after my visit, the USSR of old imploded under the weight of its own colossal economic mismanagement and contradictions. Will history repeat itself? The Russia of today is far from immune to the ramifications of the Global Economic Crisis. Though I would not argue that the Russia being ruled by the duality of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is on the same trajectory as Gorbachev's Soviet Union, there has already emerged a sustained trend of harsh macroeconomic data that attests to an severe economic crisis gripping the Russian nation. The country's stock market has sustained losses from its peak in the range of 70, while the prices for Russia's commodity exports, the major source of foreign exchange earnings, have plummeted at a staggering rate, especially with regards to oil and natural gas. Perhaps more alarming, the latest projection by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development reveals a dire forecast of negative 7.5  growth in Russia's GDP for 2009. Though some believe that the EBRD projection may be too pessimistic, only four months ago this same institution was predicting that the Russian economy would contract by a mere negative 1. Recent indicators point to a national economy going south at an accelerating pace, reflected in official Russian government statistics which reveal that the national economy contracted by a staggering negative 9.5. in Q1 of 2009. At the very least, Moscow faces a crippling recession. The Medvedev/Putin regime has initiated a host of policy responses to mitigate the impact of the Global Economic Crisis on the nation's fragile economy. Time will determine their long-term effectiveness; however, in the short-term some measures have proven more efficacious than others. A major goal of Moscow's economic technocrats has been to stabilize the country's banking system, and for the time being a degree of success has been achieved through government provision of liquidity to financial institutions. However, this complex geopolitical space that is Russia is now facing a vast array of complex challenges that other members of the G8 are spared, despite the destructive impact of the global synchronized recession facing all major industrialized countries. In Russia, historically, economic health and political stability are intertwined to a degree that is rarely encountered in other major industrialized economies. It was the economic stagnation of the former Soviet Union that led to its political downfall. Similarly, Medvedev and Putin, both intimately acquainted with their nation's history, are unquestionably alarmed at the prospect that Russia's economic crisis will endanger the nation's political stability, achieved at great cost after years of chaos following the demise of the Soviet Union. Already, strikes and protests are occurring among rank and file workers facing unemployment or non-payment of their salaries. Recent polling demonstrates that the once supreme popularity ratings of Putin and Medvedev are eroding rapidly. Beyond the political elites are the financial oligarchs, who have been forced to deleverage, even unloading their yachts and executive jets in a desperate attempt to raise cash. Should the Russian economy deteriorate to the point where economic collapse is not out of the question, the impact will go far beyond the obvious accelerant such an outcome would be for the Global Economic Crisis. There is a geopolitical dimension that is even more relevant then the economic context. Despite its economic vulnerabilities and perceived decline from superpower status, Russia remains one of only two nations on earth with a nuclear arsenal of sufficient scope and capability to destroy the world as we know it. For that reason, it is not only President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin who will be lying awake at nights over the prospect that a national economic crisis can transform itself into a virulent and destabilizing social and political upheaval. It just may be possible that U.S. President Barack Obama's national security team has already briefed him about the consequences of a major economic meltdown in Russia for the peace of the world. After all, the most recent national intelligence estimates put out by the U.S. intelligence community have already concluded that the Global Economic Crisis represents the greatest national security threat to the United States, due to its facilitating political instability in the world. During the years Boris Yeltsin ruled Russia, security forces responsible for guarding the nation's nuclear arsenal went without pay for months at a time, leading to fears that desperate personnel would illicitly sell nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations. If the current economic crisis in Russia were to deteriorate much further, how secure would the Russian nuclear arsenal remain? It may be that the financial impact of the Global Economic Crisis is its least dangerous consequence.

Russian economy crucial for global economy
Suisse’14 Switzerland trading sector
https://suissegold.com/Market-Updates/cc-precious-metals-newsletter-march-23-2014.pdf
With businesses in Russia accounting for around 3 of world GDP, it is clear that the Russian economy matters not only for the region, but also for the global economy. Both the United States and Russia have gone weak on their respective economic sanctions, with the US going after certain Russian officials/banks believed to be responsible (or complicit) for the Crimea annexation and Russia imposing travel sanctions against certain US officials. In 2013, the two countries traded about $38 billion in goods (imports + exports). Not small, but nowhere near the size of trade between EU and Russia at around $461 billion. At most, the US/Russia spat may reduce anticipated US GDP growth from 2.5 to 2.4, while Russia may drop from around 1.5 to 1.2. German, UK, and other European leaders are much less inclined towards challenging Russia given the size of the economic relationship and the importance of Russia’s energy supply to the European economies. Gazprom and other Russian businesses supply around 40 of all energy to Germany, and account for large energy supply in many other European countries. Should European leaders decide to impose strong economic sanctions against Russian businesses, Russian leaders would certainly respond with measures affecting the price of energy. What is the threshold price of oil at which European countries do more harm to themselves than good by challenging Russia? At around $120 to $130 European leaders will become quite weak. Anything above that would more than likely induce a recession in the US/Europe

Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 4 | Opponent: Prosper MK | Judge: Kim Hsun
U.S. carbon emissions are getting lower and are on track to meet environmental goals
McMahon 6/23 Jeff McMahon, contributor at Forbes, “U.S. On Track To Achieve 2030 Emissions Goals In 2016,” Forbes Magazine, June 23, 2016, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2016/06/23/u-s-on-track-to-achieve-2030-emissions-goals-in-2016/#fa3d9fa42c8e
A dramatic slump in coal production has pushed U.S. carbon emissions so low that, were the trend to continue, the U.S. would achieve its 2030 emissions goals this year, according to one professor’s analysis of data from the Energy Information Administration. Coal production has plummeted 29 percent in 2016 compared to the same period last year, crushed in part by cheap natural gas, which emits about half as much carbon. Unless coal rebounds, the U.S. could achieve a 32 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels, according to Daniel Cohan, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at Rice University. That happens to match the final goal set for the year 2030 in the Clean Power Plan (CPP). “It’s still conceivable to meet CPP this year, depending on the weather and how much further natural gas prices rise,” Cohan told me via email. EIA doesn’t expect that to happen. The agency forecasts a colder winter and rising natural gas prices, which would make coal attractive again to power producers. But the notoriously fossil-friendly agency may be overestimating coal’s prospects, and Cohan notes that EIA repeatedly lowered its carbon emissions estimates as actual data on First Quarter coal use arrived in recent editions of its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). “We’re unlikely to sustain the Q1 trend, which benefited from warm weather and cheap gas. But I’m skeptical of EIA’s forecast of a Q4 rebound, given that its STEO’s have been consistently overestimating coal use. A rebound would have to overcome coal plant retirements, coal mining bankruptcies, and the possibility of another warm winter.” In its June Outlook, the EIA noted an unusually large stockpile of coal left on hand at the end of last winter: “Warmer-than-normal temperatures experienced throughout the United States in March 2016 (and the winter as a whole) and coal’s continuing loss of market share to natural gas for electric power generation contributed to the increase in coal stockpiles,” the document says. In addition to warm weather and low natural gas prices, Cohan credits ”a broad array of emerging and cheapening technologies” for transforming power markets, including inexpensive renewables and increasing efficiency. In scrutinizing EIA’s data, Cohan noticed its emissions estimates were increasingly approaching the Clean Power Plan goal. He realized that if the coal rebound fails to materialize, the goal could be attained. “Yes, you read that correctly: The U.S. could achieve the 2030 emission cuts this year,” Cohan wrote in a blog post he penned for Bloomberg Governance. Even if the U.S. doesn’t achieve its 2030 goal this year, the EIA’s more conservative estimates still bring the country most of the distance. Carbon emissions had already fallen 15 percent from 2005 to 2014, the last year for which reliable figures are available. EIA estimates another 4.5 percent drop across 2015 and 2016. Cohan thinks recent emissions will fall more than 4.5 percent, because the EIA tends to overestimate coal use, and overestimate the cost of renewables. Those EIA estimates also cover energy emissions in all sectors of the economy. Focusing just on the power sector covered by the Clean Power Plan, the cuts are more dramatic, according to Cohan: a 12 percent decline in power sector emissions from 2014 to 2016, adding up to a 25 percent decline from 2005 to 2016. “If we end up just a few percent away from the 2030 target this year, it becomes tough to argue that CPP is unattainable or too costly,” Cohan said. It could be argued, however, that the Clean Power Plan is unnecessary, because its long-term goal has come into view while the regulation remains idled in a court-imposed stay of execution. But without the Clean Power Plan, there’s nothing to prevent a protracted coal rebound in the future that could wipe out the emissions gains. “EIA’s longer term Annual Energy Outlook forecasts an ongoing rebound in coal consumption,” Cohan said, ”if the Clean Power Plan is not implemented.” 

Closing nuclear plants forces increased fossil fuel use
Roston 15 Eric Roston, writer for Bloomberg, “Why Nuclear Power Is All but Dead in the U.S.” Bloomberg News, April 15, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-15/soon-it-may-be-easier-to-build-a-nuclear-plant-in-iran-than-in-the-u-s-
*ellipsis from original text
Say what? The U.S. achieved fission before anybody else. It learned before anybody else to control nuclear power, train it to boil water, to spin turbines, to generate electricity. There are 99 nuclear reactors across the U.S., providing about 19 percent of Americans’ electricity. They account for about 30 percent of global nuclear capacity. No new U.S. nuclear plant has opened since Watts Bar 1, in Tennessee, in 1996. And 20 more may close, “which makes no sense at all, from a common sense standpoint, or anything else,” Gregg said. Not because there’s something dramatically wrong with them. They’re victims of the success of natural gas, a shortage of power lines, eternal environmental enmity, and the eternally unresolved issue of where to store nuclear waste. Natural gas has driven power prices lower than nuclear’s operating costs. If bad economic trends persist for nuclear, more and more of the U.S. fleet may retire in coming years, leaving the communities they serve at the tyranny of plants powered by fossil fuels. That’s a huge problem for climate activists who oppose nuclear power. Nuclear plants would likely be replaced by natural gas or (shudder) coal plants, which would drive up carbon dioxide emissions. It’s happening in Germany, where the government decided to abandon nuclear power after the March 2011 catastrophe at Fukushima. In Vermont, where a 600-megawatt plant closed in December, carbon-free nuclear power is being replaced largely by fossil-powered electricity from the grid. That makes nuclear an energy source that could help nations meet the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. We're already about 0.8 degree there. “I can’t see a scenario where we can stick to the 2 degree warming commitment ... without a substantial contribution from nuclear,” said Michael Liebreich, the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, at its annual conference yesterday. “We have got to figure out nuclear if that envelope is to mean anything to us."

Meeting the 2 degrees Celsius change is key to stopping climate change catastrophe
Mastroianni 15 Brian Mastroianni, “Why 2 degrees are so important to the climate,” CBS News, November 30, 2015, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-un-climate-talks-why-2-degrees-are-so-important/
As the United Nations conference on climate change gets underway Monday in Paris, one temperature that will be on everyone's minds is 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Although it might not sound like a big number, climatologists predict that if the planet warms a total of 2 degrees more than its average temperature before the Industrial Revolution -- when humans started burning fossil fuels -- the results could be catastrophic. What could happen? Think events like greater sea level rise submerging the coasts, more pervasive droughts and wildfires, and plant and animal extinctions across the board. Scientists say this amount of temperature increase could leave us with a significantly different Earth. And unless something changes, we're heading in that direction: U.N. and U.K. climate analysts recently concluded that the Earth has already warmed by 1 degree Celsius, with 2015 the hottest year ever recorded. Yale economist William Nordhaus first defined the 2-degree benchmark in a 1977 paper, "Economic Growth and Climate: The Carbon Dioxide Problem." Since then, the figure has stood as a rallying cry for those advocating for cutting back on carbon emissions. For others, 2 degrees is still too high -- to allow the Earth to warm even that much would be dire for life on the planet. "Those who study the possible impacts of warming think that there is a threshold before we can start to get much more changed in the world -- like the flooding of low-lying countries, and things like that," said Eric Larson, a senior scientist at Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization that provides analysis and information on climate science. "Science has established for quite a while that we need to respect a threshold of 2 degrees, that being the limit of the temperature increase that we can afford from a human, economic and infrastructure point of view," the top U.N. official on climate change, Christiana Figueres, told CBS News in an interview earlier this fall. Beyond that, "we would be moving into exceedingly dangerous zones of abrupt interruptions to our economy, to our livelihood, to our infrastructure that frankly we wouldn't even know how to deal with." Moreover, she noted, "quite recently the insurance industry has come out to say that a world that goes beyond a 2-degree increase is not insurable." At the Paris summit -- known as COP21 since it is the 21st annual Conference of the Parties (COP) on the U.N. Convention on Climate Change -- delegates from more than 190 countries will seek a legally binding agreement to reduce global carbon emissions enough so that the 2-degree threshold is not crossed.

Tournament: St Marks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Harvard-Westlake IP | Judge: Demarcus Powell
Prefer specific consequential impacts over broad root cause claims:

1. Material conditions first- Oppression is created by social systems so only a focus on material conditions can solve.
   Johnson no date Allan Johnson (PhD in sociology, he joined the sociology department at Wesleyan University) http://www.cabrillo.edu/~lroberts/AlanJohnsonWhatCanWeDO001.pdf   2-13-16
   Privilege is a feature of social systems, not individuals. People have or don't have privilege depending on the system they're in and the social categories other people put them in. To say, then, that I have race privilege says less about me personally than it does about the society we all live in and how it is organized to assign privilege on the basis of a socially defined set of racial categories that change historically and often overlap. The challenge facing me as an individual has more to do with how I participate in society as a recipient of race privilege and how those choices oppose or support the system itself. In dealing with the problem of privilege, we have to get used to being surrounded by paradox. Very often those who have privilege don't know it, for example, which is a key aspect of privilege. Also paradoxical is the fact that privilege doesn't necessarily lead to a "good life," which can prompt people in privileged groups to deny resentfully that they even have it. But privilege doesn't equate with being happy. It involves having what others don't have and the struggle to hang on to it at their expense, neither of which is a recipe for joy, personal fulfillment, or spiritual contentment.... To be an effective part of the solution, we have to realize that privilege and oppression are not a thing of the past. It's is happening right now. It isn't just a collection of wounds inflicted long ago that now need to be healed. The wounding goes on as I write these words and as you read them, and unless people work to change the system that promotes it, personal healing by itself cannot be the answer. Healing wounds is no more a solution to the oppression that causes the wounding than military hospitals are a solution to war. Healing is a necessary process, but it isn't enough.... Since privilege is rooted primarily in systems—such as families, schools, and workplaces—change isn't simply a matter of changing people. People, of course, will have to change in order for systems to change, but the most important point is that changing people isn't enough. The solution also has to include entire systems, such as capitalism, whose paths of least resistance shape how we feel, think, and behave as individuals, how we see ourselves and one another.
   2. Particularity is the best standard for understanding the world- root cause claims are not applicable whereas understanding the world through various consequences can. Price 98 (RICHARD PRICE is a former prof in the Department of Anthropology at Yale University. Later, he moved to Johns Hopkins University to found the Department of Anthropology, where he served three terms as chair. A decade of freelance teaching (University of Minnesota, Stanford University, Princeton University, University of Florida, Universidade Federal da Bahia), ensued. This article is co-authored with CHRISTIAN REUS-SMIT – Monash University – European Journal of International Relations Copyright © 1998 via SAGE Publications – http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~courses/PoliticalScience/661B1/documents/PriceReusSmithCriticalInternatlTheoryConstructivism.pdf)
   One of the central departures of critical international theory from positivism is the view that we cannot escape the interpretive moment. As George (1994: 24) argues, ‘the world is always an interpreted “thing”, and it is always interpreted in conditions of disagreement and conflict, to one degree or another’. For this reason, ‘there can be no common body of observational or tested data that we can turn to for a neutral, objective knowledge of the world. There can be no ultimate knowledge, for example, that actually corresponds to reality per se.’ This proposition has been endorsed wholeheartedly by constructivists, who are at pains to deny the possibility of making ‘Big-T’ Truth claims about the world and studiously avoid attributing such status to their findings. This having been said, after undertaking sustained empirical analyses of aspects of world politics constructivists do make ‘small-t’ truth claims about the subjects they have investigated. That is, they claim to have arrived at logical and empirically plausible interpretations of actions, events or processes, and they appeal to the weight of evidence to sustain such claims. While admitting that their claims are always contingent and partial interpretations of a complex world, Price (1995, 1997) claims that his genealogy provides the best account to date to make sense of anomalies surrounding the use of chemical weapons, and Reus-Smit (1997) claims that a culturalist perspective offers the best explanation of institutional differences between historical societies of states. Do such claims contradict the interpretive ethos of critical international theory? For two reasons, we argue that they do not. First, the interpretive ethos of critical international theory is driven, in large measure, by a normative rejection of totalizing discourses, of general theoretical frameworks that privilege certain perspectives over others. One searches constructivist scholarship in vain, though, for such discourses. With the possible exception of Wendt’s problematic flirtation with general systemic theory and professed commitment to ‘science’, constructivist research is at its best when and because it is question driven, with self-consciously contingent claims made specifically in relation to particular phenomena, at a particular time, based on particular evidence, and always open to alternative interpretations. Second, the rejection of totalizing discourses based on ‘big-T’ Truth claims does not foreclose the possibility, or even the inevitability, of making ‘small-t’ truth claims. In fact, we would argue that as soon as one observes and interacts in the world such claims are unavoidable, either as a person engaged in everyday life or as a scholar. As Nietzsche pointed out long ago, we cannot help putting forth truth claims about the world. The individual who does not cannot act, and the genuinely unhypocritical relativist who cannot struggles for something to say and write. In short, if constructivists are not advancing totalizing discourses, and if making ‘small-t’ truth claims is inevitable if one is to talk about how the world works, then it is no more likely that constructivism per se violates the interpretive ethos of critical international theory than does critical theory itself.

Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 2 | Opponent: Cypress Woods YW | Judge: Abbie Chapman
CP Text: All countries except developing countries should ban the production of nuclear power. 

Net Benefits:

Nuclear energy, not renewables, is the best source of energy for developing countries. Solves intermittency problem and provides energy security.
Chowdhury 12 Navid Chowdhury, “Nuclear Energy For Developing Countries,” Submitted as coursework for PH241, Stanford University, Winter 2012, http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph241/chowdhury1/
Introduction Access to energy is regarded as the basic requirement for economic growth. And yet 1.5 billion people in the world today don't have access to the basic form of energy, electricity. 1 Almost all of that population lives in the developing countries. As these countries grow (both in population and economically) the demand for energy keeps growing and unless immediate solutions are sought there then the current energy shortage in these countries will turn acute. Under these circumstances, recently 50 non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries approached IEA with plans to install nuclear reactors in their own countries. Some of those countries had already started talks with current nuclear-able countries like Japan to purchase the technology required to install their first nuclear reactors. Why Nuclear It is the most reliable and clean source of energy for any emerging economy under current scenario. Although there are other safer and cleaner options like wind and solar but the battery technology is still at a stage which makes the later options less practical on a large scale. Nuclear reactors can provide safe baseload power on a large scale while taking the dependence away from oil and gas. It also does not have the intermittency problem that plagues most of the frontline renewable energy technologies we know of. Besides the technological aspect, it also offers the host country the independence and the energy security that is essential for the economic and political stability of the country. The recent protest in Nigeria is an unfortunate example of how volatility of fuel price could lead to a major political breakdown and subsequently affect the economic growth of the country. 2 Nuclear power could remove that volatility. Energy security would also allow countries to be more sovereign is its decision making. Developing countries like Bangladesh quiet often has to make the very unpopular decision to raise fuel price (by cutting down subsidy) at the request of IMF who holds the key to most forms of aid provided to developing countries. 3 Removing dependence on fossil fuel would remove Bangladesh from such obligations set by IMF. 

Energy demand is only increasing in the developing world and nuclear is uniquely key to stopping catastrophic climate change.
IAEA 15 International Atomic Energy Association, “Climate Change and Nuclear Power 2015,” INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY VIENNA, September 2015
Energy is a fundamental prerequisite for social and economic development. Given the fast growth in the global population and economy, and the need to alleviate energy poverty, especially in developing countries, global primary energy demand is projected to increase to over 18 gigatonnes of oil equivalent (Gtoe) by 2040 according to the New Policies Scenario of the International Energy Agency (IEA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Without a major transformation of the global energy system, however, the associated GHG emissions would severely affect the Earth’s climate. Even after accounting for announced (but not yet implemented) policy pledges to mitigate climate change, energy related CO2 emissions are projected to increase from their 2012 level by about 20 by 2040. This is in sharp contrast with the requirements of the Copenhagen Accord. The twin challenge over the next 10–20 years will be to keep promoting socioeconomic development by providing safe, reliable and affordable energy while drastically reducing GHG emissions. Nuclear power is among the energy sources and technologies available today that could help meet the climate–energy challenge. GHG emissions from nuclear power plants (NPPs) are negligible, and nuclear power, together with hydropower and wind based electricity, is among the lowest GHG emitters when emissions over the entire life cycle are considered (less than 15 grams CO2-equivalent (g CO2-eq) per kW·h (kilowatt-hour), median value of 60 reviewed sources). Across a large number of stringent mitigation scenarios consistent with the Copenhagen Accord, nuclear electricity is assessed as avoiding approximately 3.3 to 9 Gt CO2/year in 2050, depending on assumptions about the relative costs and performance of low carbon technologies.

Big energy companies explicitly target developing countries in their marketing and expansions. Expanding use of fossil fuels will have devastating consequences for these countries
Klare 14 Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, “Big Oil Won't Let the Developing World Kick the Habit,” Mother Jones, May 27, 2014, http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/big-energy-developing-country-oil-exxon-coal
The fossil fuel companies—producers of oil, coal, and natural gas—are similarly expanding their operations in low- and middle-income countries where ensuring the growth of energy supplies is considered more critical than preventing climate catastrophe. "There is a clear long-run shift in energy growth from the OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of rich nations to the non-OECD," oil giant BP noted in its Energy Outlook report for 2014. "Virtually all (95 percent) of the projected growth in energy consumption is in the non-OECD," it added, using the polite new term for what used to be called the Third World. As in the case of cigarette sales, the stepped-up delivery of fossil fuels to developing countries is doubly harmful. Their targeting by Big Tobacco has produced a sharp rise in smoking-related illnesses among the poor in places where health systems are particularly ill equipped for those in need. "If current trends continue," the WHO reported in 2011, "by 2030 tobacco will kill more than 8 million people worldwide each year, with 80 percent of these premature deaths among people living in low- and middle-income countries." In a similar fashion, an increase in carbon sales to such nations will help produce more intense storms and longer, more devastating droughts in places that are least prepared to withstand or cope with climate change's perils. The energy industry's growing emphasis on sales to these particularly vulnerable lands is evident in the strategic planning of ExxonMobil, the largest privately owned oil company. "By 2040, the world's population is projected to grow to approximately 8.8 billion people," Exxon noted in its 2013 financial report to stockholders. "As economies and populations grow, and living standards improve for billions of people, the need for energy will continue to rise... This demand increase is expected to be concentrated in developing countries."

Tournament: Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Loyola ES | Judge: Bennett Eckert
Interpretation – The aff must defend the resolution as a generic statement. To clarify, this means you can’t specify a country or enforcement mechanism.

Violation –

Standards –

1. Common usage – the generic interpretation is the only one consistent with common usage.
   Nebel 14 provides an example of governments, 2014, On specifying Just Governments, http://vbriefly.com/2014/12/19/jake-nebel-on-specifying-just-governments/

To my ear, the generic reading is correct. I think the best evidence for this is simply the undistorted judgments of ordinary speakers. No competent speaker of English would, without distorting influence or additional evidence of generalizability, endorse an inference from a plan involving two just governments to the resolution. Suppose Sally, an American citizen, believes that the U.S. and Canada should require employers to pay a living wage, but that no other government (just or unjust, actual or possible) should. She would not represent her view by asserting, “Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.” She would deny this claim and hold that the U.S. and Canada are exceptions. One might object that Sally would endorse this assertion if she believed that the U.S. and Canada are the only just governments. Maybe she would, but that is explained by the generic reading, because she would then be making a generalization about (what she believes to be) just governments. And the onus would be on the affirmative, when specifying particular governments, to add such a premise. Moreover, many linguists would add that Sally could not regard it is as mere accident that these governments are just and that they ought to require employers to pay a living wage: the resolution requires there to be some explanatory connection between the justness of governments and the living wage requirement (Carlson 2005, see). This is good evidence because ordinary speakers have an implicit (but not infallible) mastery over the language in which the resolution is stated. The resolution is stated in English, not in some special debate-specific dialect of English. Facts of usage constrain interpretation. The existential interpretation is not even, as I see it, eligible. So its pragmatic benefits are irrelevant. Compare: I think it would be better if the resolution were, “It is not the case that just governments ought to …” But that’s not the resolution, so it’s not even an eligible interpretation in a T debate. (Here I assume a controversial view about whether pragmatic benefits can justify a semantically inadequate interpretation of the resolution. I cannot defend this view here, but I welcome questions and objections in the comments to be addressed in a later article.)

2. Limits

Fairness and education are voters. Drop the debater. Competing interps. No RVI

Tournament: St Marks | Round: 3 | Opponent: Loyola DK | Judge: Eric Melin
Interpretation: Debaters may not specify a particular country or group of countries in the plan text, they must defend all countries.
Violation:
Standards:

1. Textuality. Bare plurals lack determiners.
   Carlson 77 Greg N. Carlson (linguist) “A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural” Linguistics and Philosophy 1977 413-457 D Reidal Publishing Company, Dordrecht Holland. NS 8/26/16
   ABSTRACT. It is argued that the English 'bare plural' (an NP with plural head that lacks a determiner), in spite of its apparently diverse possibilities of interpretation, is optimally represented in the grammar as a unified phenomenon. The chief distinction to be dealt with is that between the 'generic' use of the bare plural (as in 'Dogs bark') and its existential or `indefinite plural' use (as in 'He threw oranges at Alice'). The difference between these uses is not to be accounted for by an ambiguity in the NP itself, but rather by explicating how the context of the sentence acts on the bare plural to give rise to this distinction. A brief analysis is sketched in which bare plurals are treated in all instances as proper names of kinds of things. A subsidiary argument is that the null determiner is not to be regarded as the plural of the indefinite article a.
   “Countries” is a bare plural which means plans aren’t T.
   Debois 16 Danny (champion of TOC, NCFL Grand Nationals, the Minneapple, The Glenbrooks, and the Harvard Invitational (twice), coaches Harvard-Westlake) “Topic Analysis by Danny Debois” September-October 2016 LD Brief
   Importantly, “countries” in this resolution is a bare plural—i.e. there’s no article or demonstrative in front of adolescents like “the” or “these” indicating which adolescents the resolution is talking about. Bare plurals indicate that the resolution is a generic statement, and consequently, in order to textually affirm, aff advocacies have to be why in general countries have to prohibit nuclear power, not why specific countries should prohibit it.
   Impacts:
   A) Topicality Rule
   Nebel 15 Jake “The Priority of Resolutional Semantics” vbriefly February 20th 2015 http:vbriefly.com/2015/02/20/the-priority-of-resolutional-semantics-by-jake-nebel/ 
   1.1 The Topicality Rule vs. Pragmatic Considerations There is an obvious objection to my argument above. If the topicality rule is justified for reasons that have to do with fairness and education, then shouldn’t we just directly appeal to such considerations when determining what proposition we ought to debate? There are at least three ways I see of responding to this objection. One way admits that such pragmatic considerations are relevant—i.e., they are reasons to change the topic—but holds that they are outweighed by the reasons for the topicality rule. It would be better if everyone debated the resolution as worded, whatever it is, than if everyone debated whatever subtle variation on the resolution they favored. Affirmatives would unfairly abuse (and have already abused) the entitlement to choose their own unpredictable adventure, and negatives would respond (and have already responded) with strategies that are designed to avoid clash—including an essentially vigilantist approach to topicality in which debaters enforce their own pet resolutions on an arbitrary, round-by-round basis. Think here of the utilitarian case for internalizing rules against lying, murder, and other intuitively wrong acts. As the great utilitarian Henry Sidgwick argued, wellbeing is maximized not by everyone doing what they think maximizes wellbeing, but rather (in general) by people sticking to the rules of common sense morality. Otherwise, people are more likely to act on mistaken utility calculations and engage in self-serving violations of useful rules, thereby undermining social practices that promote wellbeing in the long run. That is exactly what happens if we reject the topicality rule in favor of direct appeals to pragmatic considerations. Sticking to a rule that applies regardless of the topic, of the debaters’ preferred variations on the topic, and of debaters’ familiarity with the national circuit’s flavor of the week, avoids these problems. A second strategy denies that such pragmatic benefits are relevant. This strategy is more deontological. One version of this strategy appeals to the importance of consent or agreement. Suppose that you give your opponents prior notice that you’ll be affirming the September/October 2012 resolution instead of the current one. There is a sense in which your affirmation of that resolution is now predictable: your opponents know, or are in a position to know, what you will be defending. And suppose that the older resolution is conducive to better (i.e., more fair and more educational) debate. Still, it’s unfair of you to expect your opponents to follow suit. Why? Because they didn’t agree to debate that topic. They registered for a tournament whose invitation specified the current resolution, not the Sept/Oct 2012 resolution or a free-for-all. The “social contract” argument for topicality holds that accepting a tournament invitation constitutes implicit consent to debate the specified topic. This claim might be contested, depending on what constitutes implicit consent. What is less contestable is this: given that some proposition must be debated in each round and that the tournament has specified a resolution, no one can reasonably reject a principle that requires everyone to debate the announced resolution as worded. This appeals to Scanlon’s contractualism. Someone who wishes to debate only the announced resolution has a strong claim against changing the topic, and no one has a stronger claim against debating the announced resolution (ignoring, for now, some possible exceptions to be discussed in the next subsection). So it is unfair to expect your opponent to debate anything other than the announced resolution. This unfairness is a constraint on the pursuit of education or other goods: it wrongs and is unjustifiable to your opponent. Another deontological argument might appeal to legitimate authority. The NSDA is the only entity with the legitimate authority to determine the topics. This process begins with a committee: anyone can sit in on the committee’s meetings and suggest topics on their website. The process ends with a democratic voting procedure. Some philosophers believe that democratic procedures generate obligations to obey rules. This would yield an obligation to debate the resolution as worded. And some philosophers believe that legitimate authorities can generate reasons that exclude (not merely outweigh) other considerations that would usually be relevant. In general, if your teachers instruct you to do something, then you don’t get to weigh up the reasons for or against it; you just have to do it.3 Similarly, although the fact that some proposition would be good to debate would usually be a reason to debate it, or a reason for the NSDA to propose it and for debaters to vote for it, that fact is irrelevant and no longer a reason if that proposition is not the chosen resolution. Here is a third kind of response to the view that we should directly appeal to pragmatic considerations when evaluating topicality. This view justifies debating propositions that are completely irrelevant to the resolution but are much better to debate. Once you say that pragmatic benefits can justify debating a proposition that isn’t really what the resolution means, or that the resolution means whatever it would be best for it to mean, there is no principled way of requiring any particular threshold of similarity in order to be an eligible interpretation of the resolution. This means that the pragmatic approach justifies affirmatives that have nothing to do with the resolution. Of course some see no problem with non-topical affirmatives whose impacts outweigh the reasons to debate the resolution. But suppose you want a principled response to such strategies. You have one if you take seriously the idea that the debate should be about the resolution, and the idea that the proposition expressed by the resolution is independent of what proposition would be best to debate. Without a commitment to debating the proposition that the resolution actually means, I don’t think there is a principled response to such strategies, as I discuss below.
   Pragmatic considerations just prove we should change the topic. Thus, reasons why plans are good aren’t competitive.
   Nebel 15 Jake “The Priority of Resolutional Semantics” vbriefly February 20th 2015 http:vbriefly.com/2015/02/20/the-priority-of-resolutional-semantics-by-jake-nebel/ 
   The first premise is just the topicality rule. The second premise is that X is the semantically correct interpretation. Pragmatic considerations for or against X do not, in themselves, support or deny this second premise. They might show that it would be better or worse if the resolution meant X, but sentences do not in general mean what it would be best for them to mean. At best, pragmatic considerations may show that we should debate some proposition other than the resolution. They are(if anything) reasons to change the topic, contrary to the topicality rule. Pragmatic considerations must, therefore, be weighed against the justifications for the topicality rule, not against the semantic considerations: they are objections to the first premise, not the second premise, in the argument above.
   2. Limits
   3. Ground
   Voters:
   Fairness, Education, Jurisdiction, DTD, CI, No RVI

Tournament: Valley | Round: 5 | Opponent: American Heritage Boca Delray EM | Judge: Cameron McConway
Interpretation - Nuke power is energy produced by atomic reaction.

West Law 08
West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Nuclear+Power 

A form of energy produced by an atomic reaction, capable of producing an alternative source of electrical power to that supplied by coal, gas, or oil. 

B) Violations:

The Dimona reactor is distinct. Oren 15
Amir Oren Apr 15, 2015 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.651823

Official Israel continues to maintain to this day, 45 years after the disclosure of the efforts to build the facility at Dimona, that its declared purpose was “part of the national effort to develop the Negev, extensive research, study and applied activity aimed at expanding basic knowledge and to further economic development.” From the moment it was caught, Israel admitted the nuclear goal - but stressed that like the small Sorek reactor, Dimona was meant for peaceful purposes. One can assume it wasn’t all just a show of innocence. The U.S. strategic air command also boasted during the Cold War that peace was its aim, that arming itself with nuclear missiles and bombers was designed to deter war. 

Analytic

The entire process by which nuclear power is created is distinct from weapons. Corrice 16
--includes a Bachelors degree in Nuclear Technology and Environmental Sciences. I also have a Masters degree in Philosophy. I am a member of the American Nuclear Society and Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information; “Uranium is not an explosive,” Hiroshima Syndrome, 2016, http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/the-uranium-explosive-myth.html 

Naturally-occurring Uranium cannot be used to make a bomb because it is not a natural explosive. Natural Uranium is a uniform mix of two isotopes, U-238 and U-235. Natural Uranium is 99.3 U-238 and 0.7 U-235. U-238 is such a poor neutron-induced fissioner, under any conditions, that we can correctly say it won't experience a chain reaction in any way,shape, or form. It’s the U-235 that makes the nuclear chain reaction possible because it is a very good fissioner, relative to U-238. However, U-235 doesn't fission very much when bombarded by high energy neutrons which is the kind of neutrons released out of the fission. In order to make a bomb core that will actually explode, the U-235 concentration must be increased to in excess of 90 to produce enough immediate fissions to make an explosion possible. This highly concentrated form of U-235 is necessary for a detonation...anything less won't work. This is in no way a secret, at least not any more. The U-235 concentration needed to make a bomb that works can be easily found in library encyclopedias and numerous websites on the internet. Regardless, anything less than a 90 U-235 concentration, and you can’t make a weapon small enough for a deliverable bomb…even if launched by a powerful rocket. In theory, a ridiculously enormous amount of Uranium with about a 20 U-235 concentration is possible, but in no way realistic; the bomb would be bigger in diameter than the Empire State Building is tall. Less than a 20 concentration of U-235 and a nuclear explosion is absolutely impossible, no matter how much of the material is amassed. However, this is the reason that 20 "enriched" Uranium and Plutonium are defined as "weapon's grade".  The 1-3 U-235, and/or Pu-239 in reactor fuels  cannot explode, regarless of how much is amassed. Power plant reactors never use Uranium with a high U-235 concentration, in order to keep fuel costs manageable. Back in the 1960s, early power plant reactors used Uranium with concentrations of U-235 in the 3-5 range. These were relatively small power plants using cores so small that a concentration increase of U-235 from the natural level was needed to sustain a chain reaction sufficient to produce electricity. As plants got bigger and the reactor cores larger, the U-235 concentrations dropped to between 1 and 3. The precious few nuclear power plants completed in America after the Three Mile Island accident were quite large, and did not need the natural abundance of U-235 changed much at all. They used what is essentially natural Uranium, but those levels have been increased in order to allow longer in-core lifetimes between refuelings. In all cases, the concentration of U-235 found in any reactor fuel is way-too dilute to produce anything like a nuclear explosion. No matter how severe a reactor accident that can possibly be imagined, the fuel cannot explode like an atomic bomb. How can an explosive be made out of something that is not itself an explosive? Perhaps the best commonly-known example is Nitrogen. About 79 of each breath you take is Nitrogen. No one would mistake it for an explosive. It is the wrong form of Nitrogen to detonate. However, chemically transformed from a gas into another, non-gasseous molecular structure, the Nitrogen becomes the primary active ingredient in Nitroglycerine and Tri-Nitro Toluene (TNT), which are unquestionably explosive. Devastating explosives can be made out of Nitrogen, which is not-itself an explosive. With Uranium, the natural form of the element must be metallurgically transformed into a highly un-natural type of Uranium in order to become the primary ingredient in a nuclear bomb. A terrible explosive can be made out of Uranium, which is not-itself an explosive. Power plant reactors use a very dilute concentration of U-235 in their fuel, a level which can never cause a nuclear detonation. It’s not even weapon's grade. Power reactors cannot explode like a nuclear bomb.

Standards - 

1. Field Context
   2. Ground

Voters – Fairness, Education, CI, DTD, No RVI

Tournament: St Marks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Harvard-Westlake IP | Judge: Demarcus Powell
Interpretation - The affirmative must defend that nuclear power is banned now. To clarify, they can not defend things like phasing out nuclear power or prohibiting it over a period of time. 

Dictionary.com defines “prohibit” as:
Dictionary.com. “prohibit”. Dictionary.com/prohibit
“to forbid (an action, activity, etc.) by authority or law: for example Smoking is prohibited here.”

Violation -

Standards - 

1. Ground
   2. Strat Skew

Voters -
Fairness, Jurisdiction, DTD, CI

Tournament: Longhorn Classic | Round: Octas | Opponent: North Crowley LR | Judge: Asad Sayani, Nolan Burdett, Michael Richardson
Interpretation: The affirmative must defend that the United States limit the qualified immunity of police officers.
According to Letric Law, qualified immunity is
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/q063.htm, Letric Law
The qualified immunity doctrine that protects government officials from liability for civil damages "insofar as they ir conduct does not don’t violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." 

Violation-
Net Benefits:

1. Ground-
   A. It precludes the AC because the ballot asks who the better debater is and you cannot do that if the AC is unfair. This means don’t allow cross application from the AC because we don’t know if those are true. Massey et al 14,
   “Pre-Fiat Arguments” , Emily Massey, Grant Reiter, Geoff Kristof 2/3/14 http://nsdupdate.com/2014/02/03/pre-fiat-arguments-by-emily-massey-grant-reiter-and-geoff-kristof/
   Third, pre-fiat debaters claim that their impacts precede fairness. To see what’s wrong with this, we need just to remember why fairness matters in debate in the first place. Fairness constrains substance since abuse skews the judge’s evaluation of who did the better debating on the substantive layer. It constrains pre-fiat impacts for exactly the same reason. Even if the better debater is the person who resists oppression the most, abuse skews the judge’s evaluation of who did the better debating on that pre-fiat layer.
   B. Inclusivity: unfairness kills the incentive for people to debate. Links turns all their offense since there is no reason to work and engage the aff. No one will hear the aff.
   Speice et al 03, Patrick and Jim Lyle, 2003, “Traditional Policy Debate: Now More Than Ever”, Debaters Research Guide, http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/SpeiceLyle2003htm.htm)
   As with any game or sport, creating a level playing field that affords each competitor a fair chance of victory is integral to the continued existence of debate as an activity. If the game is slanted toward one particular competitor, the other participants are likely to pack up their tubs and go home, as they don’t have a realistic shot of winning such a “rigged game.” Debate simply wouldn’t be fun if the outcome was pre-determined and certain teams knew that they would always win or lose. The incentive to work hard to develop new and innovative arguments would be non-existent because wins and losses would not relate to how much research a particular team did. TPD, as defined above, offers the best hope for a level playing field that makes the game of debate fun and educational for all participants.
   C. Violations of competitive equity prevent effective dialogue and participation.
   Galloway 07 Ryan, Samford Comm prof, Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 28, 2007
   Debate as a dialogue sets an argumentative table, where all parties receive a relatively fair opportunity to voice their position. Anything that fails to allow participants to have their position articulated denies one side of the argumentative table a fair hearing. The affirmative side is set by the topic and fairness requirements. While affirmative teams have recently resisted affirming the topic, in fact, the topic selection process is rigorous, taking the relative ground of each topic as its central point of departure. Setting the affirmative reciprocally sets the negative. The negative crafts approaches to the topic consistent with affirmative demands. The negative crafts disadvantages, counter-plans, and critical arguments premised on the arguments that the topic allows for the affirmative team. According to fairness norms, each side sits at a relatively balanced argumentative table. When one side takes more than its share, competitive equity suffers. However, it also undermines the respect due to the other involved in the dialogue. When one side excludes the other, it fundamentally denies the personhood of the other participant (Ehninger, 1970, p. 110). A pedagogy of debate as dialogue takes this respect as a fundamental component. A desire to be fair is a fundamental condition of a dialogue that takes the form of a demand for equality of voice. Far from being a banal request for links to a disadvantage, fairness is a demand for respect, a demand to be heard, a demand that a voice backed by literally months upon months of preparation, research, and critical thinking not be silenced. Affirmative cases that suspend basic fairness norms operate to exclude particular negative strategies. Unprepared, one side comes to the argumentative table unable to meaningfully participate in a dialogue. They are unable to “understand what ‘went on…’” and are left to the whims of time and power (Farrell, 1985, p. 114).
   2. Limits-
   Only limited topics protect participants from research overload which materially affects our lives outside of round.
   Harris 13 Scott Harris (Director of Debate at U Kansas, 2006 National Debate Coach of the Year, Vice President of the American Forensic Association, 2nd speaker at the NDT in 1981). “This ballot.” 5 April 2013. CEDA Forums. http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4762.0;attach=1655
   I understand that there has been some criticism of Northwestern’s strategy in this debate round. This criticism is premised on the idea that they ran framework instead of engaging Emporia’s argument about home and the Wiz. I think this criticism is unfair. Northwestern’s framework argument did engage Emporia’s argument. Emporia said that you should vote for the team that performatively and methodologically made debate a home. Northwestern’s argument directly clashed with that contention. My problem in this debate was with aspects of the execution of the argument rather than with the strategy itself. It has always made me angry in debates when people have treated topicality as if it were a less important argument than other arguments in debate. Topicality is a real argument. It is a researched strategy. It is an argument that challenges many affirmatives. The fact that other arguments could be run in a debate or are run in a debate does not make topicality somehow a less important argument. In reality, for many of you that go on to law school you will spend much of your life running topicality arguments because you will find that words in the law matter. The rest of us will experience the ways that word choices matter in contracts, in leases, in writing laws and in many aspects of our lives. Kansas ran an affirmative a few years ago about how the location of a comma in a law led a couple of districts to misinterpret the law into allowing individuals to be incarcerated in jail for two days without having any formal charges filed against them. For those individuals the location of the comma in the law had major consequences. Debates about words are not insignificant. Debates about what kinds of arguments we should or should not be making in debates are not insignificant either. The limits debate is an argument that has real pragmatic consequences. I found myself earlier this year judging Harvard’s eco-pedagogy aff and thought to myself—I could stay up tonight and put a strategy together on eco-pedagogy, but then I thought to myself—why should I have to? Yes, I could put together a strategy against any random argument somebody makes employing an energy metaphor but the reality is there are only so many nights to stay up all night researching. I would like to actually spend time playing catch with my children occasionally or maybe even read a book or go to a movie or spend some time with my wife. A world where there are an infinite number of affirmatives is a world where the demand to have a specific strategy and not run framework is a world that says this community doesn’t care whether its participants have a life or do well in school or spend time with their families. I know there is a new call abounding for interpreting this NDT as a mandate for broader more diverse topics. The reality is that will create more work to prepare for the teams that choose to debate the topic but will have little to no effect on the teams that refuse to debate the topic. Broader topics that do not require positive government action or are bidirectional will not make teams that won’t debate the topic choose to debate the topic. I think that is a con job. I am not opposed to broader topics necessarily. I tend to like the way high school topics are written more than the way college topics are written. I just think people who take the meaning of the outcome of this NDT as proof that we need to make it so people get to talk about anything they want to talk about without having to debate against Topicality or framework arguments are interested in constructing a world that might make debate an unending nightmare and not a very good home in which to live. Limits, to me, are a real impact because I feel their impact in my everyday existence.
   3. Jurisdiction- Jurisdiction functions as a side constraint on everything- it determines directly what the judge can and cannot vote off, so even if you win pragmatic offense, the judge still should vote neg.
   Branse 15, David, 2015, The Role of the Judge, http://nsdupdate.com/2015/09/04/the-role-of-the-judge-by-david-branse-part-one/
   My ultimate view is that the role of the judge and ballot is to vote for the debater who best defends the truth or falsity of the resolution. The aff burden is to prove the resolution true; the neg’s burden is to prove it false. This certainly doesn’t forbid judges from voting on education voters in theory shells or K roles of the ballot. The judge can still be tab. I argue just that the right answer to the question “should the judge vote on education impacts?” is no. Debaters can certainly be winning the opposite though.¶ My claim is that the judge does not have the jurisdiction to reject an argument proving the truth of the resolution for its lack of critical education nor to prioritize a set of arguments for their educational value. I will refer to this as the truth-testing paradigm.¶ The judge is given one explicit obligation: vote for the better debater (or, on some ballots, the “winner”). This article tries to establish what that means.¶ 2) Establishing the Importance of Rules¶ To determine who is better at something requires normative assessments about the rules of the activity – the winner of a competitive activity is the one who follows the rules and procedures to victory. The better soccer team is the team that scores more goals according to the rules of soccer and the better chess player is the person who achieves checkmate by moving their pieces in accordance with the rules of chess. Any competitive activity’s evaluation of the “better participant” is constrained by the rules that govern the activity.¶ The constraining role of an activity’s rules can answer a couple of common claims for education’s value and the judge as an educator.¶ First, a common reason to view education as “a voter” is a combination of the following:¶ Argument 1: A) education is valuable, and B) debate is a unique space to provide that education.¶ To see how this claim is mistaken consider the follow example:¶ It seems apparent that two claims are true: 1) exercise is valuable, and 2) soccer is an activity structured in such a way that can easily facilitate exercise. This, however, does not seem to be a strong enough reason to make the claim that: “the referee should be a facilitator of exercise”. Intuitively, if one team scored more goals than another team that happened to hustle far more, the proper response is to reward the goal-scoring team the win. There doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to promote exercise just because exercise can easily be promoted.¶ This is because pragmatic benefits are constrained by the rules of the activity. Exercise or education should not be promoted at the expense of the rules since the rules are what define the activity. LD is only LD because of the rules governing it – if we changed the activity to promoting practical values, then it would cease to be what it is. As soon as if referees reward teams that hustle more with the win, the game is no longer soccer, but some new sport that rewards hustle rather than goal scoring.¶ At best, the claim in Argument 1 merely justifies why the rules of debate should change; however, that does not bear any claim to who should win a round.¶ A much stronger claim made for education is as follows:¶ Argument 2: Debate was designed to be educational¶ At first glance, this argument seems intuitive. If debate was designed to be educational, then surely our rules should just be to promote that educational objective. This, however, incorrectly understands the nature of activities. Once again, an example will help illustrate this problem:¶ Although the rules of chess were probably designed to provide an intellectually stimulating game (and for the sake of argument, let’s assume they were), this does not tell you how to play the game. Imagine that a player makes an illegal move and argues that it should be allowed because it will make the resulting position more intellectually challenging. The proper response is to forbid it. Internal rules of an activity are absolute. From the perspective of the players, the authority of the rules are non-optional. The argument the player made could only be a reason to reform the rules outside the round.1¶ Even if debate was designed to be educational, if the rules of debate don’t mandate voting on education, then the judge does not have the jurisdiction to do it. In fact, rules probably shouldn’t exclusively actualize the reason for their instantiation. If chess rules said, “be intellectually stimulating” instead of “move pieces certain ways”, the resulting game would end up being less intellectually stimulating. In the same way, if debate should be educational, a rule of “promoting (or voting on) education” is probably counter-productive. The process of saying something is educational so we should be bound to talking about it limits the range of arguments available. Education arises after the fact: the process itself provides education; we receive value from truth testing. I will elaborate on this argument in more detail in later sections.¶ Thus, from an internal perspective – the perspective of an agent involved in the activity – rules are more important than the purpose of creating the rules in the first place. Within the debate, the judge is bound by the established rules. If the rules are failing their function, that can be a reason to change the rules outside of the round. However, in round acts are out of the judge’s jurisdiction.¶ In fact, I also disagree with Argument 2 since debate was probably created just as a competitive activity. Soccer provides exercise, but schools fund it simply because it is a fun, competitive activity. I view debate in a similar way. This, however, is not relevant to my final argument.¶ 3) The Rules of the Game¶ With the importance of rules established, the question arises: what are the rules of the game?¶ There are of course no natural rules of debate. There is nothing analytically contained within the concept of debate that dictates that certain specific rules must be attached to the activity. There are, however, rules that we have chosen in setting up this debate activity in particular ways. These rules – however arbitrary – govern debate.¶ There are three features of debate that I think are truly constitutive of our current model of debate – three features that define the fundamental rules we have chosen for Lincoln-Douglas Debate.¶ Speech times¶ A resolution¶ An “affirmative” and a “negative”¶ I think these rules (rules 2 and 3 specifically) make the case for the judge’s decision calculus being “truth testing” rather than “educational value”.¶ First, the resolution delineates a topic for discussion. A truth-testing model coheres with this view of a resolution: the resolution is the rule that sets the grounds for the adjudication of truth and falsity claims. In contrast, educational claims seem unable to explain this feature of debate.¶ Of course, advocates of education could claim that the resolution is a starting point for critical discussion. This, I think, does not go far enough. The role of the judge as an educator seems to regard the resolution as merely a helpful tool not a constitutive feature. If the educational potential of the round could be improved by shifting away from the resolution, the education view would say to shift away. The role of the judge as an educator renders evaluative words like ought and justice irrelevant. In fact, education could potentially dictate disregarding the resolution all together (anything is possible when the round is guided by a practical consideration); however, everybody believes that the resolution is at least significant for the debate. The resolution, in fact, offers one of the only constitutive guidelines for debate. Most tournament invitations put a sentence in the rules along the lines of, “we will be using X Resolution.” Thus, discussion confined to the resolution is non-optional.¶ I don’t believe that this is the strongest argument in favor of the truth-testing model, but I think it does offer at least a persuasive reason to adopt it. Common usage seems at least a reason to err on the side of truth testing when viewing what debate means; however, I think the second argument is much more compelling.

4. TVA

Drop the Debater, Competing Interps

Tournament: Tournament | Round: Quads | Opponent: Opponent | Judge: Judge
A) Interp - Both debaters must disclose at least the following from all AC’s and NC’s read at TOC bid distributing tournaments: first, complete tag lines to all cards; second, first 3 words and last 3 words of all cards; third, the standard used to delineate what counts as offense and not offense with the claims to the warrants for that standard and fourth, taglines to all evidence read. If they do not, they must minimally have a wiki page with contact information.

Tournament: Valley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Millburn AJ | Judge: Richard Shmikler
Interpretation – The affirmative must defend the hypothetical enactment of a policy by the government and post fiat offense from it.
“Resolved” means enactment of a law.
Words and Phrases 64 Words and Phrases Permanent Edition (Multi-volume set of judicial definitions). “Resolved”. 1964.
Definition of the word “resolve,” given by Webster is “to express an opinion or determination by resolution or vote; as ‘it was resolved by the legislature;” It is of similar force to the word “enact,” which is defined by Bouvier as meaning “to establish by law”.
Violation:
Reasons to prefer:

Institutional engagement:
The state is inevitable—learning to speak the language of power creates the only possibility of social change debate can offer. This is best served by imagining the consequences of policy.
Coverstone 05 Alan Coverstone (masters in communication from Wake Forest, longtime debate coach) “Acting on Activism: Realizing the Vision of Debate with Pro-social Impact” Paper presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference November 17th 2005
An important concern emerges when Mitchell describes reflexive fiat as a contest strategy capable of “eschewing the power to directly control external actors” (1998b, p. 20). Describing debates about what our government should do as attempts to control outside actors is debilitating and disempowering. Control of the US government is exactly what an active, participatory citizenry is supposed to be all about. After all, if democracy means anything, it means that citizens not only have the right, they also bear the obligation to discuss and debate what the government should be doing. Absent that discussion and debate, much of the motivation for personal political activism is also lost. Those who have co-opted Mitchell’s argument for individual advocacy often quickly respond that nothing we do in a debate round can actually change government policy, and unfortunately, an entire generation of debaters has now swallowed this assertion as an article of faith. The best most will muster is, “Of course not, but you don’t either!” The assertion that nothing we do in debate has any impact on government policy is one that carries the potential to undermine Mitchell’s entire project. If there is nothing we can do in a debate round to change government policy, then we are left with precious little in the way of pro-social options for addressing problems we face. At best, we can pursue some Pilot-like hand washing that can purify us as individuals through quixotic activism but offer little to society as a whole. It is very important to note that Mitchell (1998b) tries carefully to limit and bound his notion of reflexive fiat by maintaining that because it “views fiat as a concrete course of action, it is bounded by the limits of pragmatism” (p. 20). Pursued properly, the debates that Mitchell would like to see are those in which the relative efficacy of concrete political strategies for pro-social change is debated. In a few noteworthy examples, this approach has been employed successfully, and I must say that I have thoroughly enjoyed judging and coaching those debates. The students in my program have learned to stretch their understanding of their role in the political process because of the experience. Therefore, those who say I am opposed to Mitchell’s goals here should take care at such a blanket assertion. However, contest debate teaches students to combine personal experience with the language of political power. Powerful personal narratives unconnected to political power are regularly co-opted by those who do learn the language of power. One need look no further than the annual state of the Union Address where personal story after personal story is used to support the political agenda of those in power. The so-called role-playing that public policy contest debates encourage promotes active learning of the vocabulary and levers of power in America. Imagining the ability to use our own arguments to influence government action is one of the great virtues of academic debate. Gerald Graff (2003) analyzed the decline of argumentation in academic discourse and found a source of student antipathy to public argument in an interesting place. I’m up against…their aversion to the role of public spokesperson that formal writing presupposes. It’s as if such students can’t imagine any rewards for being a public actor or even imagining themselves in such a role. This lack of interest in the public sphere may in turn reflect a loss of confidence in the possibility that the arguments we make in public will have an effect on the world. Today’s students’ lack of faith in the power of persuasion reflects the waning of the ideal of civic participation that led educators for centuries to place rhetorical and argumentative training at the center of the school and college curriculum. (Graff, 2003, p. 57) The power to imagine public advocacy that actually makes a difference is one of the great virtues of the traditional notion of fiat that critics deride as mere simulation. Simulation of success in the public realm is far more empowering to students than completely abandoning all notions of personal power in the face of governmental hegemony by teaching students that “nothing they can do in a contest debate can ever make any difference in public policy.” Contest debating is well suited to rewarding public activism if it stops accepting as an article of faith that personal agency is somehow undermined by the so-called role playing in debate. Debate is role-playing whether we imagine government action or imagine individual action. Imagining myself starting a socialist revolution in America is no less of a fantasy than imagining myself making a difference on Capitol Hill. Furthermore, both fantasies influenced my personal and political development virtually ensuring a life of active, pro-social, political participation. Neither fantasy reduced the likelihood that I would spend my life trying to make the difference I imagined. One fantasy actually does make a greater difference: the one that speaks the language of political power. The other fantasy disables action by making one a laughingstock to those who wield the language of power. Fantasy motivates and role-playing trains through visualization. Until we can imagine it, we cannot really do it. Role-playing without question teaches students to be comfortable with the language of power, and that language paves the way for genuine and effective political activism. Debates over the relative efficacy of political strategies for pro-social change must confront governmental power at some point. There is a fallacy in arguing that movements represent a better political strategy than voting and person-to-person advocacy. Sure, a full-scale movement would be better than the limited voice I have as a participating citizen going from door to door in a campaign, but so would full-scale government action. Unfortunately, the gap between my individual decision to pursue movement politics and the emergence of a full-scale movement is at least as great as the gap between my vote and democratic change. They both represent utopian fiat. Invocation of Mitchell to support utopian movement fiat is simply not supported by his work, and too often, such invocation discourages the concrete actions he argues for in favor of the personal rejectionism that under girds the political cynicism that is a fundamental cause of voter and participatory abstention in America today.
2. Ground
In-round competitive equity
A) Analytic
B) Analytic
Galloway 7 Ryan Galloway 7, Samford Comm prof, Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 28, 2007
Debate as a dialogue sets an argumentative table, where all parties receive a relatively fair opportunity to voice their position. Anything that fails to allow participants to have their position articulated denies one side of the argumentative table a fair hearing. The affirmative side is set by the topic and fairness requirements. While affirmative teams have recently resisted affirming the topic, in fact, the topic selection process is rigorous, taking the relative ground of each topic as its central point of departure. Setting the affirmative reciprocally sets the negative. The negative crafts approaches to the topic consistent with affirmative demands. The negative crafts disadvantages, counter-plans, and critical arguments premised on the arguments that the topic allows for the affirmative team. According to fairness norms, each side sits at a relatively balanced argumentative table. When one side takes more than its share, competitive equity suffers. However, it also undermines the respect due to the other involved in the dialogue. When one side excludes the other, it fundamentally denies the personhood of the other participant (Ehninger, 1970, p. 110). A pedagogy of debate as dialogue takes this respect as a fundamental component. A desire to be fair is a fundamental condition of a dialogue that takes the form of a demand for equality of voice. Far from being a banal request for links to a disadvantage, fairness is a demand for respect, a demand to be heard, a demand that a voice backed by literally months upon months of preparation, research, and critical thinking not be silenced. Affirmative cases that suspend basic fairness norms operate to exclude particular negative strategies. Unprepared, one side comes to the argumentative table unable to meaningfully participate in a dialogue. They are unable to “understand what ‘went on…’” and are left to the whims of time and power (Farrell, 1985, p. 114).
3. Limits
Only limited topics protect participants from research overload which materially affects our lives outside of round.
Harris 13 Scott Harris (Director of Debate at U Kansas, 2006 National Debate Coach of the Year, Vice President of the American Forensic Association, 2nd speaker at the NDT in 1981). “This ballot.” 5 April 2013. CEDA Forums. http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4762.0;attach=1655
I understand that there has been some criticism of Northwestern’s strategy in this debate round. This criticism is premised on the idea that they ran framework instead of engaging Emporia’s argument about home and the Wiz. I think this criticism is unfair. Northwestern’s framework argument did engage Emporia’s argument. Emporia said that you should vote for the team that performatively and methodologically made debate a home. Northwestern’s argument directly clashed with that contention. My problem in this debate was with aspects of the execution of the argument rather than with the strategy itself. It has always made me angry in debates when people have treated topicality as if it were a less important argument than other arguments in debate. Topicality is a real argument. It is a researched strategy. It is an argument that challenges many affirmatives. The fact that other arguments could be run in a debate or are run in a debate does not make topicality somehow a less important argument. In reality, for many of you that go on to law school you will spend much of your life running topicality arguments because you will find that words in the law matter. The rest of us will experience the ways that word choices matter in contracts, in leases, in writing laws and in many aspects of our lives. Kansas ran an affirmative a few years ago about how the location of a comma in a law led a couple of districts to misinterpret the law into allowing individuals to be incarcerated in jail for two days without having any formal charges filed against them. For those individuals the location of the comma in the law had major consequences. Debates about words are not insignificant. Debates about what kinds of arguments we should or should not be making in debates are not insignificant either. The limits debate is an argument that has real pragmatic consequences. I found myself earlier this year judging Harvard’s eco-pedagogy aff and thought to myself—I could stay up tonight and put a strategy together on eco-pedagogy, but then I thought to myself—why should I have to? Yes, I could put together a strategy against any random argument somebody makes employing an energy metaphor but the reality is there are only so many nights to stay up all night researching. I would like to actually spend time playing catch with my children occasionally or maybe even read a book or go to a movie or spend some time with my wife. A world where there are an infinite number of affirmatives is a world where the demand to have a specific strategy and not run framework is a world that says this community doesn’t care whether its participants have a life or do well in school or spend time with their families. I know there is a new call abounding for interpreting this NDT as a mandate for broader more diverse topics. The reality is that will create more work to prepare for the teams that choose to debate the topic but will have little to no effect on the teams that refuse to debate the topic. Broader topics that do not require positive government action or are bidirectional will not make teams that won’t debate the topic choose to debate the topic. I think that is a con job. I am not opposed to broader topics necessarily. I tend to like the way high school topics are written more than the way college topics are written. I just think people who take the meaning of the outcome of this NDT as proof that we need to make it so people get to talk about anything they want to talk about without having to debate against Topicality or framework arguments are interested in constructing a world that might make debate an unending nightmare and not a very good home in which to live. Limits, to me, are a real impact because I feel their impact in my everyday existence.
4. Dogmatism
5. Topical version of the aff
Vote negative:
A) Analytic
B) Analytic
Education. CI. Drop Debater. No RVI

Tournament: St Marks | Round: 6 | Opponent: Montgomery RM | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo
Interpretation: The affirmative must defend the prohibiting of the production of nuclear power through advocating for some policy change. 

Prohibition implies legal implementation: Prohibit is defined as: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/prohibit “to forbid (an action, activity, etc.) by authority or law”
Violation:
Standards:

1. Ground.
   2. Agonistic Constraints
   Dogmatic assertions of identity such as activism destroy the possibility of agonistic democracy – constraints and procedural guidelines are a pre-condition to engagement in discussion. Dryzek 6
   John Dryzek 6, Professor of Social and Political Theory, The Australian National University, Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals, American Journal of Political Science,Vol. 50, No. 3, July 2006, Pp. 634–649
   Mouffe is a radical pluralist: “By pluralism I mean the end of a substantive idea of the good life” (1996, 246). But neither Mouffe nor Young want to abolish communication in the name of pluralism and difference; much of their work advocates sustained attention to communication. Mouffe also cautions against uncritical celebration of difference, for some differences imply “subordination and should therefore be challenged by a radical democratic politics” (1996, 247). Mouffe raises the question of the terms in which engagement across difference might proceed. Participants should ideally accept that the positions of others are legitimate, though not as a result of being persuaded in argument. Instead, it is a matter of being open to conversion due to adoption of a particular kind ofdemocratic attitude that converts antagonism into agonism, fighting into critical engagement, enemies into adversaries who are treated with respect. Respect here is notjust (liberal) toleration, but positive validation of the position of others. For Young, a communicative democracy would be composed of people showing “equal respect,” under “procedural rules of fair discussion and decisionmaking” (1996, 126). Schlosberg speaks of “agonistic respect” as “a critical pluralist ethos” (1999, 70). Mouffe and Young both want pluralism to be regulated by a particular kind of attitude, be it respectful, agonistic, or even in Young’s (2000, 16–51) case reasonable. Thus neither proposes unregulated pluralism as an alternative to (deliberative) consensus. This regulation cannot be just procedural, for that would imply “anything goes” in terms of the substance of positions. Recall that Mouffe rejects differences that imply subordination. Agonistic ideals demand judgments about what is worthy of respect and what is not. Connolly (1991, 211) worries about dogmatic assertions and denials of identity that fuel existential resentments that would have to be changed to make agonism possible. Young seeks “transformation of private, self-regarding desires into public appeals to justice” (2000, 51). Thus for Mouffe, Connolly, and Young alike, regulative principles for democratic communication are not just attitudinal or procedural; they also refer to the substance of the kinds of claims that are worthy of respect. These authors would not want to legislate substance and are suspicious of the content of any alleged consensus. But in retreating from “anything goes” relativism, they need principles to regulate the substance of what rightfully belongs in democratic debate.
   Agonism controls the internal link into any other discussion- we cannot have solvency without it. Harrigan 08 (Casey, Associate Director of Debate at UGA, Master’s in Communications – Wake Forest U., “A Defense of Switch Side Debate”, Master’s thesis at Wake Forest, Department of Communication, May, pp.43-45)
   The Relevance Of Argumentation For Advancing Tolerant Politics Cannot Be Underestimated. The willingness to be open to alternative views has a material impact on difference in at least two primary ways. First, the rendering of a certain belief as “off limits” from debate and the prohibition of ideas from the realm of contestation is conceptually indistinct from the physical exclusion of people from societal practices. Unlike racial or gendered concerns, certain groups of people (the religious, minority political parties, etc.) are defined almost exclusively by the arguments that they adhere to. To deem these views unspeakable or irrelevant is to functionally deny whole groups of people access to public deliberation. Second, argument, as individual advocacy, is an expression of belief. It has the potential to persuade members of the public to either support or oppose progressive politics. Belief itself is an accurate indicator of the way individuals will chose to act—with very real implications for openness, diversity and accommodation. Thus, as a precursor to action, argument is an essential starting point for campaigns of tolerance.  Argumentative pluralism can be defined as the proper tolerance for the expression of a diversity of ideas (Scriven 1975, p. 694). Contrary to monism, pluralism holds that there are many potential beliefs in the world and that each person has the ability to determine for himself or herself that these beliefs may hold true. Referring back to the opening examples, a pluralist would respect the right for the KKK to hold certain beliefs, even if he or she may find the group offensive. In the argumentative context, pluralism requires that participants to a debate or discussion recognize the right of others to express their beliefs, no matter how objectionable they may be. The key here is expression: although certain beliefs may be more “true” than others in the epistemic sense, each should have equal access (at least initially) to forums of deliberation. It is important to distinguish pluralism from its commonly confused, but only loosely connected, counterpart, relativism. To respect the right of others to hold different beliefs does not require that they are all considered equal. Such tolerance ends at the intellectual level of each individual being able to hold their own belief. Indeed, as Muir writes, “It pluralism implies neither tolerance of actions based on those beliefs nor respecting the content of the beliefs” (288). Thus, while a pluralist may acknowledge the right for the Klan to hold exclusionary views, he or she need not endorse racism or anti-Semitism itself, or the right to exclude itself.  Even when limited to such a narrow realm of diversity, argumentative pluralism holds great promise for a politics based on understanding and accommodation that runs contrary to the dominant forces of economic, political, and social exclusion. Pluralism requires that individuals acknowledge opposing beliefs and arguments by forcing an understanding that personal convictions are not universal. Instead of blindly asserting a position as an “objective truth,” advocates tolerate a multiplicity of perspectives, allowing a more panoramic understanding of the issue at hand (Mitchell and Suzuki 2004, p. 10). In doing so, the advocates frequently understand that there are persuasive arguments to be had on both sides of an issue. As a result, instead of advancing a cause through moralistic posturing or appeals to a falsely assumed universality (which, history has shown, frequently become justifications for scape-goating and exclusion), these proponents become purveyors of reasoned arguments that attempt to persuade others through deliberation.  A clear example of this occurs in competitive academic debate. Switch-side debating has profound implications for pluralism. Personal convictions are supplemented by conviction in the process of debate. Instead of being personally invested in the truth and general acceptance of a position, debaters use arguments instrumentally, as tools, and as pedagogical devices in the search for larger truths. Beyond simply recognizing that more than one side exists for each issue, switch-side debate advances the larger cause of equality by fostering tolerance and empathy toward difference. Setting aside their own “ego-identification,” students realize that they must listen and understand their opponent’s arguments well enough to become advocates on behalf of them in future debates (Muir 1993, p. 289). Debaters assume the position of their opponents and understand how and why the position is constructed as it is. As a result, they often come to understand that a strong case exists for opinions that they previously disregarded. Recently, advocates of switch side debating have taken the case of the practice a step further, arguing that it, “originates from a civic attitude that serves as a bulwark against fundamentalism of all stripes” (English, Llano, Mitchell, Morrison, Rief and Woods 2007, p. 224). Debating practices that break down exclusive, dogmatic views may be one of the most robust checks against violence in contemporary society.
   3. Limits
   4. Policy Making
   The state is inevitable- policymaking focus is the only way to create change.
   Coverstone 5 Alan Coverstone (masters in communication from Wake Forest, longtime debate coach) “Acting on Activism: Realizing the Vision of Debate with Pro-social Impact” Paper presented at the National Communication Association Annual Conference November 17th 2005 An important concern emerges when Mitchell describes reflexive fiat as a contest strategy capable of “eschewing the power to directly control external actors” (1998b, p. 20). Describing debates about what our government should do as attempts to control outside actors is debilitating and disempowering. Control of the US government is exactly what an active, participatory citizenry is supposed to be all about. After all, if democracy means anything, it means that citizens not only have the right, they also bear the obligation to discuss and debate what the government should be doing. Absent that discussion and debate, much of the motivation for personal political activism is also lost. Those who have co-opted Mitchell’s argument for individual advocacy often quickly respond that nothing we do in a debate round can actually change government policy, and unfortunately, an entire generation of debaters has now swallowed this assertion as an article of faith. The best most will muster is, “Of course not, but you don’t either!” The assertion that nothing we do in debate has any impact on government policy is one that carries the potential to undermine Mitchell’s entire project. If there is nothing we can do in a debate round to change government policy, then we are left with precious little in the way of pro-social options for addressing problems we face. At best, we can pursue some Pilot-like hand washing that can purify us as individuals through quixotic activism but offer little to society as a whole. It is very important to note that Mitchell (1998b) tries carefully to limit and bound his notion of reflexive fiat by maintaining that because it “views fiat as a concrete course of action, it is bounded by the limits of pragmatism” (p. 20). Pursued properly, the debates that Mitchell would like to see are those in which the relative efficacy of concrete political strategies for pro-social change is debated. In a few noteworthy examples, this approach has been employed successfully, and I must say that I have thoroughly enjoyed judging and coaching those debates. The students in my program have learned to stretch their understanding of their role in the political process because of the experience. Therefore, those who say I am opposed to Mitchell’s goals here should take care at such a blanket assertion. However, contest debate teaches students to combine personal experience with the language of political power. Powerful personal narratives unconnected to political power are regularly co-opted by those who do learn the language of power. One need look no further than the annual state of the Union Address where personal story after personal story is used to support the political agenda of those in power. The so-called role-playing that public policy contest debates encourage promotes active learning of the vocabulary and levers of power in America. Imagining the ability to use our own arguments to influence government action is one of the great virtues of academic debate. Gerald Graff (2003) analyzed the decline of argumentation in academic discourse and found a source of student antipathy to public argument in an interesting place. I’m up against…their aversion to the role of public spokesperson that formal writing presupposes. It’s as if such students can’t imagine any rewards for being a public actor or even imagining themselves in such a role. This lack of interest in the public sphere may in turn reflect a loss of confidence in the possibility that the arguments we make in public will have an effect on the world. Today’s students’ lack of faith in the power of persuasion reflects the waning of the ideal of civic participation that led educators for centuries to place rhetorical and argumentative training at the center of the school and college curriculum. (Graff, 2003, p. 57) The power to imagine public advocacy that actually makes a difference is one of the great virtues of the traditional notion of fiat that critics deride as mere simulation. Simulation of success in the public realm is far more empowering to students than completely abandoning all notions of personal power in the face of governmental hegemony by teaching students that “nothing they can do in a contest debate can ever make any difference in public policy.” Contest debating is well suited to rewarding public activism if it stops accepting as an article of faith that personal agency is somehow undermined by the so-called role playing in debate. Debate is role-playing whether we imagine government action or imagine individual action. Imagining myself starting a socialist revolution in America is no less of a fantasy than imagining myself making a difference on Capitol Hill. Furthermore, both fantasies influenced my personal and political development virtually ensuring a life of active, pro-social, political participation. Neither fantasy reduced the likelihood that I would spend my life trying to make the difference I imagined. One fantasy actually does make a greater difference: the one that speaks the language of political power. The other fantasy disables action by making one a laughingstock to those who wield the language of power. Fantasy motivates and role-playing trains through visualization. Until we can imagine it, we cannot really do it. Role-playing without question teaches students to be comfortable with the language of power, and that language paves the way for genuine and effective political activism. Debates over the relative efficacy of political strategies for pro-social change must confront governmental power at some point. 

Even if the state is ultimately always violent, we should still engage that discussion. Using the state in our discussions is a good heuristic for understanding the state and breaking it down. Zanotti 14 Dr. Laura Zanotti is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech.  Her research and teaching include critical political theory as well as international organizations, UN peacekeeping, democratization and the role of NGOs in post-conflict governance.“Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World” – Alternatives: Global, Local, Political – vol 38(4):p. 288-304,. A little unclear if this is late 2013 or early 2014 – The Stated “Version of Record” is Feb 20, 2014, but was originally published online on December 30th, 2013. Obtained via Sage Database.  By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on the possibilities of political agency are reframed in a way that focuses on power and subjects’ relational character and the contingent processes of their (trans)formation in the context of agonic relations. Options for resistance to governmental scripts are not limited to ‘‘rejection,’’ ‘‘revolution,’’ or ‘‘dispossession’’ to regain a pristine ‘‘freedom from all constraints’’ or an immanent ideal social order. It is found instead in multifarious and contingent struggles that are constituted within the scripts of governmental  rationalities and at the same time exceed and transform them. This approach questions oversimplifications of the complexities of liberal political rationalities and of their interactions with non-liberal political players and nurtures a radical skepticism about identifying universally good or bad actors or abstract solutions to political problems. International power interacts in complex ways with diverse political spaces and within these spaces it is appropriated, hybridized, redescribed, hijacked, and tinkered with. Governmentality as a heuristic focuses on performing complex diagnostics of events. It invites historically situated explorations and careful differentiations rather than overarching demonizations of ‘‘power,’’ romanticizations of the ‘‘rebel’’ or the ‘‘the local.’’ More broadly, theoretical formulations that conceive the subject in non-substantialist terms and focus on processes of subjectification, on the ambiguity of power discourses, and on hybridization as the terrain for political transformation, open ways for reconsidering political agency beyond the dichotomy of oppression/rebellion. These alternative formulations also foster an ethics  of political engagement, to be continuously taken up through plural and uncertain practices, that demand continuous attention to ‘‘what happens’’ instead of fixations on ‘‘what ought to be.’’83 Such ethics of engagement would not await the revolution to come or hope for a pristine ‘‘freedom’’ to be regained. Instead, it would constantly attempt to twist the working of power by playing with whatever cards are available and would require intense processes of reflexivity on the consequences of political choices. To conclude with a famous phrase by Michel Foucault ‘‘my point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to hyper- and pessimistic activism.

5. Jurisdiction

Pragmatic considerations are constrained by the rules, so even if you think the aff is more important than fairness, your role as the judge is constrained by what the ballot says. Branse 15, David, 2015, The Role of the Judge, http://nsdupdate.com/2015/09/04/the-role-of-the-judge-by-david-branse-part-one/
My ultimate view is that the role of the judge and ballot is to vote for the debater who best defends the truth or falsity of the resolution. The aff burden is to prove the resolution true; the neg’s burden is to prove it false. This certainly doesn’t forbid judges from voting on education voters in theory shells or K roles of the ballot. The judge can still be tab. I argue just that the right answer to the question “should the judge vote on education impacts?” is no. Debaters can certainly be winning the opposite though.¶ My claim is that the judge does not have the jurisdiction to reject an argument proving the truth of the resolution for its lack of critical education nor to prioritize a set of arguments for their educational value. I will refer to this as the truth-testing paradigm.¶ The judge is given one explicit obligation: to vote for the better debater (or, on some ballots, the “winner”). This article tries to establish what that means.¶ 2) Establishing the Importance of Rules¶ To determine who is better at something requires normative assessments about the rules of the activity – the winner of a competitive activity is the one who follows the rules and procedures to victory. The better soccer team is the team that scores more goals according to the rules of soccer and the better chess player is the person who achieves checkmate by moving their pieces in accordance with the rules of chess. Any competitive activity’s evaluation of the “better participant” is constrained by the rules that govern the activity.¶ The constraining role of an activity’s rules can answer a couple of common claims for education’s value and the judge as an educator does not meet this.¶ First, a common reason to view education as “a voter” is a combination of the following:¶ Argument 1: A) education is valuable, and B) debate is a unique space to provide that education.¶ To see how this claim is mistaken consider the follow example:¶ It seems apparent that two claims are true: 1) exercise is valuable, and 2) soccer is an activity structured in such a way that can to easily facilitate exercise. This, however, does not seem to be provide a strong enough reason to make the claim that: “the referee should be a facilitator of exercise”. Intuitively, if one team scored more goals than another team that happened to hustle far more, the proper response is to reward the goal-scoring team the win. There doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to promote exercise just because exercise can easily be promoted.¶ This is because pragmatic benefits are constrained by the rules of the activity. Exercise or education should not be promoted at the expense of the rules since the rules are what define the activity. LD is only LD because of the rules governing it – if we changed the activity to promoteing practical values, then it would cease to be what it is. As soon as if referees reward teams that hustle more with the win, the game is no longer soccer, but some new sport that rewards hustle rather than goal scoring.¶ 

6. TVA

John Gery Including an extended study of works by Denise Levertov, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, and John Ashbery." Nuclear Theory and Poetry is an important field. https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/1740662
The first full-length study of nuclear theory and American poetry, this book examines four distinct poetic approaches to nuclear culture - protest poetry, apocalyptic lyric poetry, psycho-historical poetry, and the poetry of uncertainty. Each is developed through a discussion of representative poems from a range of poets.
IRCE
C) Violations of competitive equity prevent effective dialogue and participation.
Galloway 7 Ryan Galloway 7, Samford Comm prof, Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 28, 2007
Debate as a dialogue sets an argumentative table, where all parties receive a relatively fair opportunity to voice their position. Anything that fails to allow participants to have their position articulated denies one side of the argumentative table a fair hearing. The affirmative side is set by the topic and fairness requirements. While affirmative teams have recently resisted affirming the topic, in fact, the topic selection process is rigorous, taking the relative ground of each topic as its central point of departure. Setting the affirmative reciprocally sets the negative. The negative crafts approaches to the topic consistent with affirmative demands. The negative crafts disadvantages, counter-plans, and critical arguments premised on the arguments that the topic allows for the affirmative team. According to fairness norms, each side sits at a relatively balanced argumentative table. When one side takes more than its share, competitive equity suffers. However, it also undermines the respect due to the other involved in the dialogue. When one side excludes the other, it fundamentally denies the personhood of the other participant (Ehninger, 1970, p. 110). A pedagogy of debate as dialogue takes this respect as a fundamental component. A desire to be fair is a fundamental condition of a dialogue that takes the form of a demand for equality of voice. Far from being a banal request for links to a disadvantage, fairness is a demand for respect, a demand to be heard, a demand that a voice backed by literally months upon months of preparation, research, and critical thinking not be silenced. Affirmative cases that suspend basic fairness norms operate to exclude particular negative strategies. Unprepared, one side comes to the argumentative table unable to meaningfully participate in a dialogue. They are unable to “understand what ‘went on…’” and are left to the whims of time and power (Farrell, 1985, p. 114).
Vote negative:
A) Analytic
B) Analytic

Competing Interpretations

Tournament: Valley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Millburn AJ | Judge: Richard Shmikler
A) Interpretation: The aff must explicitly specify a comprehensive role of the ballot and clarify how the round will play out under that role of the ballot in the form of a delineated text in the 1AC. To clarify, the aff must: 

1. Clarify how offense links back to the role of the ballot, such as whether post-fiat offense or pre-fiat offense matters and which comes first. 

2. Clarify what theoretical objections do and do not link to the aff, such as whether or not the aff comes before theory. 

3. Clarify how to weigh and compare between competing advocacies i.e. whether the role of the ballot is solely determined by the flow or another method of engagement. 

B) Violation:

C) Standards: 

1. Engagement
   a) Education
   b) Resolvability
   c) Link turns ROB

CI. Drop Debater. No RVI

Tournament: UH Cougar Classic | Round: 4 | Opponent: St Johns AW | Judge: Kevin Si
Interpretation: If the affirmative reads a standard of voting for the debater whose advocacy best enables stealing away, they must specify a comprehensive role of the ballot and clarify how the round will play out under that role of the ballot in the form of a text in the 1AC. To clarify, the aff must:
1) Clarify how we determine what a legitimate advocacy is, such as whether topicality constrains the aff advocacy or not.
2) Every plank of the ROB must be warranted, just like the standard next for a normative ethical theory.
3) Clarify what theoretical objections do and do not link to the aff, and whether or not the aff comes before theory.
4) Describe how to weigh and compare between competing advocacies.

B. Violation

C. Standards

1. Resolvability
   2. Strategy Skew

Fairness, Education, DTD, CI, No RVI

Tournament: TFA State | Round: 2 | Opponent: Plano East Sr High CZ | Judge: Rodrigo Paramo
A) Interpretation: The aff must specify a comprehensive role of the ballot and clarify how the round will play out under that role of the ballot in the form of a text in the 1AC. To clarify, if the affirmative reads an argument that endows a role of the ballot, they must 

1. Clarify how we determine what a legitimate advocacy is and how offense links back to the role of the ballot, such as whether topicality constrains the aff advocacy or not.
   2. Every plank of the ROB must be warranted, just like the standard text for a normative ethical theory, and what area of debate must be warranted i.e. which assumptions we should accept and which we shouldn’t.
   3. Describe how to weigh and compare between competing advocacies i.e. whether the role of the ballot is solely determined by the flow or another method of engagement.
   B) Violation:
   C) Vote Neg: 
2. Engagement
   A) Analytic
   B) Resolvability
   No RVI, Procedurals, DTD

Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 6 | Opponent: Brentwood JD | Judge: Leah Shapiro
Interp: All theory spikes must be read at the top of the AC

Violation: At bottom

Net benefits:

Strat Skew- 

Fairness, DTD, CI