Tournament: Garage Sale ValleyHighSchool May 6 | Round: Finals | Opponent: Evan put a hole in your parents | Judge: He didnt apologize What a monster
Resolved: Killing in self-defense is morally justified.
AIKIDO NC
First, a performance.
We watch, season 6, episode 4, entitled, “The Walking Dead: Here’s Not Here”
Early in the episode, Eastman tells us “I found a flyer to Aikido. Damn thing worked.”
Eastman: It’s about redirecting.
Morgan Jones: Evading.
Eastman: And actually caring about the welfare of your opponent.
Morgan Jones: So you have to care about yourself.
Eastman: You don't have to believe your life is precious, but that all life is precious.
Morgan Jones: You have to redirect those thoughts, the history that tells you otherwise.
Eastman: What we've done, we've done.
Morgan Jones: We evade it by moving forward with a code to never do it again.
Eastman: To make up for it.
Morgan Jones: To still accept what we were.
Eastman: To accept everyone.
Morgan Jones: To protect everyone.
Eastman: And in doing that, protect yourself.
Morgan Jones: To create peace.
And, drama allows us to learn about peoples’ social experiences. Kempe and Floodgate:
“I could probably research factual information concerning specific impairments in a much more fruitful manner than portraying a disabled character. I would gain more actual information from books and the internet. But by physically embodying a character, it is hoped that I will understand their experience to a greater extent. The premise is founded on the old axiom of the benefits of learning through doing. It conforms to the term adopted by the actor Harriet Walter articulated in the title of her book Other People’s Shoes. I learn about the character and the experience of people such as the character by, literally, inhabiting their shoes and experiencing their situation by ‘walking in their footsteps’.”
Kempe, Andy and Simon Floodgate. Drama, Disability and Education: A critical exploration for students and practitioners. Routledge, 2012.
Drama allows for students to learn more about social issues by making them feel they are a part of the event and by putting them in new roles to see situations differently. Teoh:
“Teaching is not just about pedagogy and method. To be truly effective, teaching involves a keen awareness of the context in which one is teaching. In the narrowest sense, context refers to a specific school, classroom, or individual students. Context-sensitive teachers are those who delicately balance self-awareness, context, pedagogy, and method as they strive toward educational outcomes (Grady, 2001). The educational potential of drama lies in the process of communication and setup that explores the working of human minds and instincts. Grady (2001) and Ladson-Billings (1994) make strong links between drama and social justice issues. They support the idea that social awareness can only be fully learned through integration across the whole curriculum. Drama certainly cannot iron out clichés, but it will deal with them, use them, and make them transparent. At the heart of drama is the process of trial-and-error, of groups negotiating meaning, of defining and redefining their relationships, their aims and communication (Kase-Polisini, 1989). Utilizing educational drama raises the stakes for students, making the thoughts and events more meaningful through their kinesthetic involvement. Drama gives the illusion of being there rather than observing from a distance. Listening to a news report of a tragedy from a distant land, for instance the earthquake at Tohoku, Japan in April, 2011, usually has less impact on U.S. citizens than hearing about hurricane Irene in September, 2011 (BBC News, 2011). In this respect, drama can be used to intensify the meaning and feeling for a remote event. Social issues can be explored through drama so that meaningful learning can take place. The students have a chance to role play different characters, especially ones with whom they might not necessarily identify, and begin to see the issues in a new light. It is essential, however, for students to engage in reflective dialogue after the drama so that intuitive experiences can be acknowledged and different ideas, points of views, and experiences can be shared by the entire group involved (De la Roche, 1993).”
Teoh, J. "Drama as a form of critical pedagogy: Empowerment of justice."The Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed International Journal 1.1 (2012): 4-26.
Two implications – A) The neg outweighs automatically because I was the first person to present a dramatic performance, the aff gave up the opportunity in the AC and B) The neg outweighs on a theoretical level because it weighs through education, and education is pre-requisite to the ballot because 1) the round is constrained by education definitionally, Dave even restricted non-educational practices like omitting to cut cards and reading dumb a prioris and 2) It’s the only reason people participate in debate in the first place.
Second, the absolutism of Aikido
Aikido is a proper solution to violence. Stenudd:
I first came across aikido as a teenager, and was immediately taken by the genius of its martial art principles - its strategy, if you will. Taisabaki, the evasive movement, would work against the most ferocious charge. Aiki, the joining of forces instead of opposing them, would work and against the strongest attacker. It was obvious to me that these principles were the only ones with the potential of a limitless martial art. It was equally obvious why such a super-strategy was possible at all, and that was an enchanting circumstance: It is only accessible for defense purposes. Attackers cannot apply it. So, the ultimate martial art needs to be based on non-aggression. That's so sweet it could be turned into a religion. So, very early on I got convinced that aikido is the ultimate martial art - where peace is the goal. And I saw numerous confirmations, in the dojo and outside of it. I have still seen nothing that would change my conviction. Not that it's acquired in a blink. But that's true for just about everything in the universe. What's easily attained is of little value. The basic aikido strategy of the taisabaki evasive movement needs to be exercised so persistently that it becomes a reflex. The aiki joining of forces needs to be learned so profoundly that it becomes at least as smooth as water. Only when it becomes like air, you're home. But it's quite possible, and you need to be neither an athlete nor a genius. Already after a few years of training, most aikido students have reached significant capabilities - often without being aware of it. That, too, is a charming trait of aikido: its practitioners underestimate its power. … No matter how angry, he is certainly not prepared to die just for the chance of giving you a black eye. Probably, he wouldn't do it if it cost him a broken arm, either. Actually, very few people attack others without being convinced that they will succeed - and at a low cost to their own health. They pick their victims carefully. Also, they tend to sort of test their adversary before springing into action. This initial ingredient of self-defense situations is almost impossible to practice in a dojo, because uke is not given the option of not attacking at all. But in aikido, this is at the core of its basic philosophy. We aim to do away with violence altogether, so we should really practice how to make the presumptive attacker refrain from it. It can be practiced, but it has to be done with a certain sensitive awareness in uke as well as tori, and with attention to other things completely, than the mechanics of pinnings and throws. … This is particularly important to understand about and weapons. An attacker in the street who hurries to pull up a knife immediately reveals two things: a need to increase the odds of succeeding with the attack, and a trust in the weapon doing the job for him. These are actually weaknesses, which can be explored by the defender. That is true for any weapon. Therefore, self-defense against armed attacks must focus on the attacker and not the weapon. Well, that's easier said than done. But it should be understood. Furthermore, an armed attacker in the street is unlikely to be a highly trained expert on his weapon. This should also be considered. Even if the weapon is in a very skilled hand, it's the mind of that hand controlling it. That's the real adversary, and not the weapon.
Stenudd, Stefan. "Stefan Stenudd." The Problem of Realism. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
Three implications – A) Deadly force is not necessary in response to the threat of weapons B) Lethal self-defense is useless and only presents moral contradictions in other frameworks and C) If the aff responds to Aikido they trigger the counterplan text: Killing in self-defense is morally justified except for people who have finished a course in Aikido.
The moral permission of killing in self-defense is nonsensical. LaBossiere:
It is generally accepted that people have a moral right to self-defense. That is, if someone is unjustly attacked or threatened, then it is morally acceptable for her to act in her own self-protection. While there are moral limits on the actions a person may take, violence is generally considered morally acceptable in the right condition. This right to self-defense does seem to provide a philosophical foundation for the right to the means of self-defense. After all, as Hobbes argued, a right without the means to exercise that right is effectively no right at all. Not surprisingly, I consider the right to own weapons to be grounded on the right of self-defense. However, my concern here is not with the right of self-defense. Rather, I will focus on the question of whether or not there is an obligation of self-defense. The right to self-defense (if there is such a right) gives a person the liberty to protect herself. If it is only a liberty, then the person has the right to not act in self-defense and thus be a perfect victim. A person might, of course, elect to do so for practical reasons (perhaps to avoid a worse harm) or for moral reasons (perhaps from a commitment to pacifism). However, if there is an obligation of self-defense, then failing to act on this obligation would seem to be a moral failing. The obvious challenge is to show that there is such an obligation. On the face of it, it would seem that self-defense is merely a liberty. However, some consideration of the matter will suggest that this is not so obvious. In the Leviathan, Hobbes presents what he takes to be the Law of Nature (lex naturalis): “a precept or general rule, found by reason, that forbids a man to do what is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving it and to omit that by which he thinks it may be best preserved.” Hobbes goes on to note that “right consists in liberty to do or to forbear” and “law determines and binds.” If Hobbes is correct, then people would seem to have both a right and an obligation to self-defense. John Locke and Thomas Aquinas also contend that life is to be preserved and if they are right, then this would seem to impose an obligation of self-defense. Of course, this notion could be countered by contending that all it requires is for a person to seek protection from possible threats and doing so could involve relying on the protection of others (typically the state) rather than one’s self. … However, a person who could be competent in self-defense but declines to do so in favor of expecting others to die for her would seem to be a morally selfish person. As such, it would seem that people have an obligation of self-defense—at least if they wish to avoid being parasites. An obvious counter is that people do rely on others for self-defense. After all, civilians wisely allow the police and military to handle armed threats whenever possible. Since the police and military are armed and trained for such tasks, it makes sense practically and morally to rely on them. However, as noted in the first argument, a person will not always be under the watchful protection of others. Even if others are available to risk themselves, there is still the moral concern regarding of expecting others to take risks to protect one when one is not willing to do the same for himself. That seems to be cowardice and selfishness and thus morally reprehensible. This is not, of course, to say that accepting the protection of the police and military is always a moral failing—however, a person must be willing to accept the obligation of self-defense and not rely entirely on others. This raises the matter of the extent to which a person is obligated to be competent at self-defense and when it would be acceptable to rely on others in this matter. It would, of course, be an unreasonable expectation to morally require that people train for hours each day in self-defense. However, it does seem reasonable to expect that people become at least competent at protecting themselves, thus being able to at least act on the obligation of self-preservation with some chance of success. This obligation of self-preservation would also seem to obligate people to maintain a degree of physical fitness and health, but that is a matter for another time.
LaBossiere, Mike. "Is There an Obligation of Self-Defense." The Philosophers' Magazine Blog. Talking Philosophy, 4 Feb. 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
Two implications – A) Implying that people have a right to self-defense also implies that they have an obligation to self-defense, and thus there can be generations of obligations to kill within the aff framework – which is contradictory because then the agents who would be those to commit actions would be killed and his framework is non-universalizable, or B) People have an obligation to self-defense, but that self-defense can be subverted from the killing of persons through Aikido.
And, historical analysis proves – the neg is the best option. Lakey:
We have a moral right to defend ourselves against violation; there’s no doubt in my mind about that. Persons and groups have boundaries for a reason, and integrity generally requires that we defend them. Gandhi said that this is an obligation that trumped his call to experiment with nonviolent action; if you can’t think of a way to defend yourself nonviolently, he said, use violence. I believe Gandhi would have sympathized with the Deacons for Defense, for instance, an armed civil rights group in Southern U.S. Of course Gandhi also believed that, with sufficient creativity, there is always a way to devise a nonviolent defense. He also recognized that either violent or nonviolent defense might fail in an immediate sense; there is such a thing as overwhelming force. I think it’s no accident that the question of self-defense has been coming up in some circles in the Occupy movement at this time. Having the discussion reflects how many people are realizing that moving the 1 percent out of the driver’s seat is a revolutionary mission. The person who doesn’t feel fear at the prospect of revolution is out of touch with their feelings. It’s only natural at such a moment to wonder if there is some way to act boldly — and at the same time stay safe. … The staff members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) knew they would get no protection from local law enforcement; men who were police in the day could at night be wearing the white sheets of the KKK. State police were hostile. The FBI was hostile, and Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department was mostly trying to look the other way. SNCC was on its own. The film shows SNCC workers leading training workshops for young students. At one point the trainers harassed a young man in a role-play to toughen him up. When the student lost control and attacked the harasser, the trainers held him and tried to reassure him. The young man said something like, “I can’t do this. I gotta fight back.” The reply came quickly: “By joining us, you are fighting back.” SNCC’s lesson in 1961 was that safety and effectiveness came from fighting back with nonviolent methods. A second big lesson for the young man came a couple of weeks later. He asks the biggest and most muscled SNCC organizer whether he has adopted nonviolence as a way of life. The organizer explains that if someone threatened him at another time he’d beat up the assailant, but he’s adopted nonviolent action as a strategy, in order to win the struggle. This stance was typical of people I met throughout the civil rights movement; most weren’t pacifists but learned that in highly dangerous situations, nonviolent discipline gave them the best chance to stay safe — and to win. SNCC workers said that nonviolence didn’t remove the danger – protesters would still get hurt, and some might be killed. SNCC’s first chairman, and now a member of Congress, John Lewis, was beaten dozens of times, and very narrowly escaped death. He and others in SNCC said the stakes were too high to expect racist privilege to give up easily. But the nonviolent discipline removed the pretext justifying long-term and widespread repression. In fact, the repression most often worked against the perpetrators, just as in jiu-jitsu the savvy warrior uses the violence of the opponent against him. Typically, when white racists used violence against the movement, it grew, and allies appeared, and the racists started dividing among themselves, and the campaign won in one more town. …
Lakey, George. "The Right to Self-defense." Waging Nonviolence. N.p., 10 Apr. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
Impact calc
A) Historical analysis outweighs because we cannot predict the future and thus the only basis for argumentation is past occurrences or moral argument.
B) The success of non-violence in racial movements outweighs possible benefits of violence and killing as it is the only proven change-maker.
Third is skep,
“To negate,” means “to deny the truth of,” which means any argument that renders the resolution false is sufficient to negate. If an assumption the resolution makes is false, the resolution is also false. Thus the resolution implies that the opposing negative burden is to provide reasons why there is not an obligation to affirm
- All ethical knowledge is uncertain. Macintyre:
“The most influential account of moral reasoning that emerged in response to this critique of emotivism was one according to which an agent can only justify a particular judgment by referring to some universal rule from which it may be logically derived, and can only justify that rule in turn by deriving it from some more general rule or principle; but on this view Since every chain of reasoning must be finite, such a process of justificatory reasoning must always terminates with the assertion of some rule or principle for which no further reason can be given. ‘Thus a complete justification of a decision would consist of a complete account of its effects together with a complete account of the principles which it observed, and the effect of observing those principles. If I the enquirer still goes on ask ing ‘But why should I live like that?’ then there is no further answer to give him, because we have already, ex hypothesi, we have already said everything that could be included in the further answer.’ (Hare 1952, p. 69). The terminus of justification is thus always, on this view, a not further to be justified choice, a choice unguided by criteria. Each individual implicitly or explicitly has to adopt his or her own first principles on the basis of such a choice. The utterance of any universal principle is in the end an expression of the preferences of an individual will and for that will its principles have and can have only such authority as it chooses to confer upon them by adopting them.
Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue, 1981
2. There is a disparity between how we internally view the world and how it externally occurs. No reconciliation of this. Frank:
Every aspect of our personal now is a layered impression of a world already lost to the past. To understand how this works, consider the simple fact discussed in last week’s post all we know about the world comes to us via signals: light waves, sound waves, and electrical impulses running along our nerves. These signals move at a finite speed. It always takes some finite amount of time for the signal to travel from the world to your body’s sensors and on to your brain. A distant galaxy, a distant mountain peak, and the not very distant light fixture on the ceiling and even the intimacy of a loved one’s face all things live in the past. Those overlapping pasts are times that you – in your “now” – are no longer a part of. Signal travel time constitutes a delay and all those overlapping delays constitute an essential separation. The inner world of your experience is in a temporal sense cut off from the outer world you inhabit.
Where is Now? The Paradox of The Present. NPR July 26 2011
Double bind: either A) The resolution is impossible to affirm because it is a-temporal and thus the aff would have to prove that in every instance that the res is true or B) If the resolution IS temporal, everything is external and thus cannot generate a moral obligation. Korsgaard:
We must view ourselves from two standpoints, from which we appear as members of two different "worlds." (G 452/53-54) Complete causal determinism holds in the phenomenal or sensible world, the world of things as they it appears to us; but we cannot know that it holds not in the noumenal world, the world of things as they are in themselves. Indeed, since we there must be suppose that there are some undetermined first causes, or free agencies, which generate the appearances, we must suppose that things which exist in the noumenal world must be are free. Insofar as we regard ourselves as "intelligences," the spontaneity of reason induces us to attribute a noumenal existence to ourselves. (G 452/53; C2 42-43/43-44) Insofar as we consider ourselves to be intelligent agents, then, we must regard ourselves as free: indeed, completely and transcendentally so. Yet at the same time we must view our actions, like all phenomena, as fully determined.
Korsgaard, Christine. “Creating The Kingdom of Ends: Reciprocity and Responsibility in Personal Relations.” (p. 315).
But even if the aff proves that there is a possibility of obligation to affirm in the noumenal world, there is no way to know that any other individual you perceive is also one who exists in the noumenal world and has the capacity to reason. Chatalain:
“So stated, The inductive argument for the existence of the external world is thus seen to requires the assumption of the very point which it is supposed to prove: the existence of the population, which is, to the extent that it is larger than the sample, just the external world. Stated in terms of Professor Williams’s logic of induction, The This problem of the existence of the external world amounts to the problem of the existence of a population (in so far as it is larger than the sample); and the crucial point of this critique is that, when the logic of induction is so set up that it requires, as a general major premise in every inductive argument, the law of large numbers, that logic also requires the assumption of the existence of a population. Since The law of large numbers, being a purely logical law, cannot categorically assert, or by its own force establish, the existence of the population, thus the whole inductive argument for the existence of the external world becomes a conditional or hypothetical argument, and thus becomes logically incapable of establishing the existence of the external world.”
Chatalain, George. “Induction and the problem of the external world.” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 49, no. 19, September 11, 1952, pp. 601-607.
And, the arguments that speak to obligation aren’t questioning the presence of the term ought, rather they question whether or not the aff debater can obligate you to vote for them, which means that either A) The aff can give you no argument that can actively obligate you to vote for them or B) Neither of us can give you an argument that obligates you to vote for us, which means you vote neg on permissibility for the following reasons:
1) The resolution posits that the aff must prove the presence of moral justification, which means that the neg’s obligation is to prove the lack of said moral justification, which means that I can claim it is permissible to omit the morality of the topic, or to require that one deem the resolution immoral. Weigh non-theoretical justifications for presumption over theoretical ones because A) This is a practice debate, which means theory is deterred and B) Theoretical arguments are meant to restrict abuse, not to justify arguments which means that absent the claims of abuse, you don’t weigh theoretical arguments.
2) The aff gets framing power, which means that they can always frame the neg out of whatever offense they want, this outweighs all reasons for permissibility in the aff, because those were made under the pretext of aff bias
3) The aff speaks last, gives judges a psychological bias to the aff because they heard aff arguments most recently
4) Extension burden doesn’t matter because having the opportunity to extend more times is better because they can clarify the argument and get out of responses, and cross apply psychological bias
5) Aff time skew arguments go away because A) We both have equal time and B) Time skew doesn’t outweigh substantive arguments and framing power – means at worst for the neg time skew arguments are non-unique
Additionally, the aff has to prove that in all instance killing in self-defense is morally justified, which means that if I can present one case in which it would be unjustified or unreasonable to be justified then you must vote neg, thus A) The aff would allow anyone to kill in response to anything as a means of defense, so if I shoved you in the halls on accident you could whip out a pistol and BRAAAPP BRAAAPP me in the head with no restriction and B) People could pre-emptively kill someone and say that if they hadn’t they’d have died before the opportunity to self-defend, which introduces 1) The possibility of pre-emptive racist murders and 2) Contradictions under universalizability.
Additionally – reasons why the aff must defend killing in self-defense in all instances is morally justified – 1) Otherwise the aff can run a descriptive standard which only has one true argument under it that auto affirms – means 100 aff bias, which has the strongest link to all voters 2) The resolution doesn’t specify one region of the world, which means that arguments based in the law have no grounds, as they are imposing a new wording on the resolution – this means the aff gets to reframe the round however they want and they get to auto affirm no matter what.
ON THE AC
The language of law is not sufficiently deterministic to allow for static understandings of legal truth. Zapf:
“This supposed divide between the Rule of Law and the Rule of Men requires legal precedent to determine the application of law, free from the influence of men's discretion. But a precedent can only determine the outcome of new cases if the precedent, in a manner of speaking, "contains" the applications to new *487 cases. That is, it must be possible to tell what applications of the precedent are proper from the precedent itself. The relationship between the rule and its applications must be "analytic." An analytic relation between the legal rule and its applications, in turn, requires that the words that make up a particular rule have an analytic relation to the particular objects for which they stand. Unless words have definite applications that can be "read off" from them, the rules that consist of these words will not have an analytic relation to their applications. One way of expressing these conclusions is to say that the Rule of Law requires a formalist conception of the relationship between rules and their applications (rule formalism), and that, in turn, requires a formalist conception of the relationship between individual words and their applications (semantic formalism). n3 Skepticism about the legitimacy of this model and the formalism it seems to require is widespread. n4 The skeptics argue that, for one reason or another, the constraints imposed on judges by the Rule of Law are illusory. Thus the skeptics claim that precedent does not determine new cases and that the law is indeterminate in outcome. Instead, they maintain that the law is incapable of expressing rules or principles that genuinely constrain judges and, conversely, is subject to manipulation to reflect the personal preferences of judges. Accordingly, to the skeptics, the Rule of Law proper, as opposed to the Rule of Men, seems impossible to secure. The linguistic indeterminacy argument denies that semantic formalism properly describes the way words work. n7 Its proponents maintain that not words themselves but readers' dispositions about how to apply words determine their applications. As an extension of thuis contention, they argue that not laws themselves but judges' dispositions about how to apply laws determine their applications. Judges are thought to "simply beat the text into a shape which will serve their own purpose." n8 The only debate among the linguistic skeptics concerns the existence and nature of extra textual constraints on this brutality against the text. They ask whether the reader's dispositions about how to apply a word are entirely unrestrained, n9 or are instead limited either by the collective understanding of readers about how a word should be applied, n10 or at least by certain principles concerning a word's application. Efforts to find determinate meaning in a text by looking at the intent of the author n11 or shared canons of legal interpretation n12 fall into this last category. *489 When words themselves do not determine their applications, all the action is with the reader and hence "all readings . . . become songs of oneself." n13 The debate about the collectivity of that song provides small comfort to our common sense faith in the fact that the words in texts, legal or otherwise, have no determinate meanings and confine our applications of them.”
Zapf, Christian, and Eben Moglen. "LINGUISTIC INDETERMINACY AND THE RULE OF LAW: ON THE PERILS OF MISUNDERSTANDING WITTGENSTEIN." Lexis Nexis. Georgetown Law Journal, Feb. 1996. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
And – the aff may not rephrase the resolution more than once, or else the neg will have no idea which resolution to link to, which makes the biggest impact to fairness, resolvability, and predictability, because A) It’s unfair if I have to make offense to multiple resolutions, B) The judge doesn’t know which rephrasing we’re evaluating and C) I can’t predict how he’ll reframe the resolution.
