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1NC Rezolutionality Traditional

Our interpretation—the affirmative should have to defend that action by the United States federal government is normatively desirable – the affirmative violates

Resolved means to enact by lawWords and Phrases 64 Permanent Edition

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”.

The United States federal government refers to the actual governmentBlack’s Law Dictionary 906th Ed., p. 695

In the U nited S tates, government consists of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in addition to administrative agencies. In a broader sense, includes the federal government and all its agencies and bureaus, state and county governments, and city and township governments.

Should implies obligation to actionMerriam-Webster 2Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2002, 10th Edition, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/should

Used in auxiliary function to express obligation, propriety, or expediency.

B) Violation—the aff does not defend the United States federal government action

C) Vote Negative—

1) Without Limits debate becomes impossible—T is a jurisdictional voting issueShively 2k—Professor of Political Science, Texas A & MRuth, Political Theory and Partisan Politics, p. 181-2

The requirements thus far are primarily negative. The ambiguists must say “no” to—they must reject and limit—some ideas and actions. In what follows, we will also find that they must say “yes” to some things. In particular, they must say “yes” to the idea of rational persuasion. This means, first, that they must recognize the role of agreement in political contest , or the basic accord that is necessary to discord . The mistake that the ambiguists make here is a common one. The mistake in thinking that agreement marks the end of contest. In most cases, however, our agreements are highly imperfect. We agree on some matters but not on others, on generalities but not on specifics, on principles but not on their applications, and so on. And this kind of limited agreement is the starting condition of contest and debate . As John Courtney Murray writes: We hold certain truths; therefore we can argue about them. It seems to have been one of the corruptions of intelligence by

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positivism to assume that argument ends when agreement is reached. In a basic sense, the reverse is true. There can be no agreement except on the premise, and within a context, of agreement. (Murray 1960, 10) In other words, we cannot argue about something   if we are not communicating: if we cannot agree on the topic and terms of argument or if we have utterly different ideas about what counts as evidence or good argument. At the very least, we must agree about what it is that is being debated before we can debate it. For instance, one cannot have an argument about euthanasia with someone who thinks euthanasia is a musical group. One cannot successfully stage a sit-in if one’s target audience simply thinks everyone is resting or if those doing the sitting have no complaints. Nor can one demonstrate resistance to a policy if no one knows that it is a policy. In other words,   contest is meaningless if there is a lack of agreement   or communication about what is being contested . Registers, demonstrators, and debaters must have some shared ideas about the subject and/or terms of their disagreements. The participants and the target of a sit-in must share an understanding of the complaint at hand. And a demonstrator’s audience must know what is being resisted. In short, the   contesting of an idea presumes some agreement about what that idea is and how one might go about intelligibly contesting it. In other words, contestation rests on   some basic agreement   or harmony .

2) Role of the negative: Our interpretation has a clear vision for the function of the negative team. We must disprove the desirability of their advocacy. If there is no predictable limit on what the affirmative can do, the negative is excluded from the debate. We become passive observers of their presentation. Our interpretation is the least exclusionary because it provides a place in the debate for negative teams.

3) Process impact:– this is the only academic forum where we get education based on clash and competition. If we aren’t able to prepare in advance for affirmatives the round becomes a 2 hour conference presentation about whatever books & articles they are reading, This education o/w any content specific education because

a) you can get content specific education in any other forum

b) Without critical thinking skills developed through clash and competition we can’t effectively act on content-specific knowledge English et al 7Eric English, Stephen Llano, Gordon R. Mitchell, Catherine E. Morrison, John Rief & Carly Woods, all former debate coaches, “Debate as a Weapon of Mass Destruction” http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/JPubs/EnglishDAWG.pdf

It is our position, however, that rather than acting as a cultural technology expanding American exceptionalism, switch-side debating originates from a civic attitude that serves as a bulwark against fundamentalism of all stripes . Several prominent voices reshaping the national dialogue on homeland security have come from the academic debate community and draw on its animating spirit of critical inquiry. For example, Georgetown University

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law professor Neal Katyal served as lead plaintiff’s counsel in Hamdan, which challenged post-9/11 enemy combat definitions . 12 The foundation for Katyal’s winning argument in Hamdan was laid some four years before, when he collaborated with former intercollegiate debate champion Laurence Tribe on an influential Yale Law Journal addressing a similar topic. 13 Tribe won the National Debate Tournament in 1961 while competing as an undergraduate debater for Harvard University. Thirty years later, Katyal represented Dartmouth College at the same tournament and finished third. The imprint of this debate training is evident in Tribe and Katyal ’s contemporary public interventions, which are characterized by meticulous research, sound argumentation, and a staunch commitment to democratic principles. Katyal’s reflection on his early days of debating at Loyola High School in Chicago’s North Shore provides a vivid illustration. ‘‘I came in as a shy freshman with dreams of going to medical school. Then Loyola’s debate team opened my eyes to a different world: one of argumentation and policy.’’ As Katyal recounts, ‘‘the most important preparation for my career came from my experiences as a member of Loyola’s debate team.’’ 14 The success of former debaters like Katyal, Tribe, and others in challenging the dominant dialogue on homeland security points to the efficacy of academic debate as a training ground for future advocates of progressive change. Moreover, a robust understanding of the switch-side technique and the classical liberalism which underpins it would help prevent misappropriation of the technique to bolster suspect homeland security policies. For buried within an inner-city debater’s files is a secret threat to absolutism: the refusal to be classified as ‘‘with us or against us,’’ the embracing of intellectual experimentation in an age of orthodoxy, and reflexivity in the face of fundamentalism. But by now, the irony of our story should be apparent*the more effectively academic debating practice can be focused toward these ends, the greater the proclivity of McCarthy’s ideological heirs to brand the activity as a ‘‘weapon of mass destruction.’’

c) without clash-based education we are likely to come to the wrong conclusions about the content b/c we don’t see both sides

4) Epistemology: All aff claims are uncertain. Unpredictable advocacies are not subject to the type of rigorous scrutiny and testing that is required for a claim to be granted. If their claims are not predictable it means they are not subject to rigorous testing and should not be treated as true. You cannot evaluate the validity of their aff arguments until you conclude that it is topical because unTopical advocacies are not subject to the same amount of scrutiny and testing. This means the aff can only claim offense from their interpretation, not from the value of the 1AC since the value of the 1AC has not been established through rigorous debate.

5) Switch-side debating on the topic is uniquely important. It allows debaters to become better advocates and increases critical thinkingDybvig and Iverson 99

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Kristin Chisholm Dybvig, and Joel O. Iverson, Can Cutting Cards Carve into Our Personal Lives: An Analysis of Debate Research on Personal Advocacy, http://www.uvm.edu/~debate/dybvigiverson1000.html

Not all debate research appears to generate personal advocacy and challenge peoples' assumptions. Debaters must switch sides , so they must inevitably debate against various cases. While this may seem to be inconsistent with advocacy, supporting and researching both sides of an argument actually created stronger advocates. Not only did debaters learn both sides of an argument, so that they could defend their positions against attack, they also learned the nuances of each position . Learning and the intricate nature of various policy proposals helps debaters to strengthen their own stance on issues.

6) This debate is about competing interpretations. They must have a sustainable interpretation of debate that includes their affirmative they should lose. If their interpretation provides no limit on affirmative action, it doesn’t matter if we have good arguments against their aff b/c they can’t provide an interpretation that would allow their aff and protect good, predictable debates in the future.

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Oceans CardsDebates about ocean policy have the unique chance of sparking the advocacy necessary to save the oceansGreely 2008 (Teresa [University of South Florida]; Ocean literacy and reasoning about ocean issues: The influence of content, experience and morality; Graduate Theses and Dissertations; http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/271; kdf)Ocean issues with conceptual ties to science and a global society have captured the attention, imagination, and concern of an international audience. Global climate change, natural disasters, over fishing, marine pollution, freshwater shortages, groundwater contamination, economic trade and commerce, marine mammal stranding, and decreased biodiversity are just a few of the ocean issues highlighted in our media and conversations. The ocean shapes our weather, links us to other nations, and is crucial to our national security. From the life-giving rain that nourishes crops and our bodies, to life-saving medicines; from the fish that come from the ocean, to the goods that are transported on the sea’s surface--- the ocean plays a role in our lives in some way everyday (NOAA, 1998). The American public values the ocean and considers protecting it to be a fundamental responsibility, but its understanding of why we need the ocean is superficial (Belden, Russonello & Stewart, 1999). However, a broad disconnect exists between what scientist know and the public understands about the ocean. The ocean , more

than any other single ecosystem , has social and personal relevance to all persons . In the 21st century we will look increasingly to the ocean to meet our everyday needs and future sustainability. Thus, there is a critical need to advance ocean literacy within our nation,

especially among youth and young adults . It has been estimated that less than 2% of all

American adults are environmentally literate (NEETF, 2005). Results from a series of ocean and coastal literacy surveys (AAAS, 2004; Belden, et al., 1999; Steel, Smith, Opsommer, Curiel & Warner-Steel, 2005) of American adults reveal similar findings. Surveys demonstrated that in the 1990’s the public valued the ocean and expressed emotional and recreational connections, however, awareness about ocean health was low. A decade later Americans had an increased sense of urgency about ocean issues and were willing to support actions to protect the oceans even when the tradeoffs of higher prices at the supermarket, fewer recreational choices, and increased government spending were presented (AAAS, 2004). While most Americans surveyed agree that humans are impacting the health of the ocean more than one-third felt that they cannot make a difference. In contrast, a survey of youth reveals strong feelings about environmental issues and the confidence that they can make a difference (AZA, 2003). Collectively, these studies reveal that the public is not well equipped with knowledge about ocean issues. This implies that the public needs access to better ocean information delivered in the most effective manner. The component lacking for both adults and youth is a baseline of ocean knowledge--- literacy about the oceans to balance the emotive factors exhibited through care, concern and connection with the ocean. The interdependence between humans and the ocean is at the heart of ocean literacy. Cudaback (2006) believes that given the declining quality of the marine environment (Pew Ocean Commission, 2003), ocean educators have the responsibility to teach not only the science of the ocean, but also the interdependence with humans. Ocean literacy is especially significant, as we implement a first-ever national ocean policy to halt the steady decline of our nation’s ocean and coasts via the Ocean Blueprint for the

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21st Century (U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004). The need for ocean education and literacy that goes beyond emotive factors is critical and relevant towards preparing our students, teachers, and citizens to regularly contribute to ocean decisions and socioscientific issues that impact their health and well being on Earth. “The biggest barriers to increasing commitment to ocean protection are Americans’ lack of awareness of the condition of the oceans and of their own role in damaging the oceans,” (Belden, et al., 1999). The challenge for ocean educators is to explicitly state the connections between the ocean and daily decisions and actions of people. People enjoy the beauty of the ocean and the bounty of its waters, but may not understand that their everyday actions such as boating, construction, improper waste disposal, or ignoring protected areas, can impact the ocean and its resources. More than one-half of the US population lives within 200 miles of the ocean. Long-term planning for growth, development and use of coastal areas is key to the continued productivity of the ocean (NOAA, 1998). Because the ocean is inextricably interconnected to students’ lives it provides a significant context for socioscientific issues that foster decision making, human interactions, and environmental stewardship. Ocean literacy encompasses the tenets of scientific literacy which is defined by national standards, as the ability to make informed decisions regarding scientific issues of particular social importance (AAAS, 1993; NRC, 1996, 2000). As such, scientific literacy encompasses both cognitive (e.g. knowledge skills) and affective (e.g., emotions, values, morals, culture) processes. Science standards were designed to guide our nation toward a scientifically literate society and provide criteria to judge progress toward a national vision of science literacy (NRC, 1996). Although standards for science teaching andliteracy are established, the fundamental and critical role of the ocean is not emphasized.

High school students should seize every opportunity to discuss ocean policy- it’s the only way to stave off extinctionGreely 2008 (Teresa [University of South Florida]; Ocean literacy and reasoning about ocean issues: The influence of content, experience and morality; Graduate Theses and Dissertations; http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/271; kdf)This research emerged from a wave of recent interest in promoting ocean literacy on a national level (AAAS, 2004; COSEE, 2005; National Geographic Society, 2006; Pew Ocean Commission, 2003; Schroedinger et al., 2006; US Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004). I constructed an operational meaning of the term ocean literacy. Currently, K-12 students and our citizenry at large are under-prepared to contribute individual or societal decisions about our oceans, due to limited ocean knowledge from which to make socioscientific decisions. Any conversation about scientific literacy for our citizenry that does not include ocean literacy as a pivotal focus will fall short of literacy goals for all students by neglecting the planet’s largest environment. The ocean environment is bountiful with opportunities to engage in ocean-related socioscientific issues (OSSI) meaningful to the life experiences of most citizens. By providing ocean content, learning experiences, and socioscientific case studies students and citizens can contribute to the social, economic, and cultural development of an ocean literate society permeated with global implications. The ocean sustains life on Earth and everyone is responsible for caring for the ocean. Individual and collective actions are needed to effectively manage ocean resources for all (National Geographic Society, 2006). I examined the influence of an informal learning experience to advance ocean literacy and reasoning about ocean socioscientific issues. Specifically, my research described what understanding youth currently hold about the ocean (content), how they 31 feel toward the ocean environment (environmental attitudes), and how these feelings and understanding are organized when reasoning about ocean issues (environmental morality). It is hoped that this baseline study will

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provide standardized measures where possible that can be replicated by other researchers. As others conduct similar ocean literacy empirical research, a set of studies that build on each other will be established. This investigation adopts the following position on ocean literacy. An ocean literate person is an individual equipped to use ocean knowledge, to engage in oral or written discussion about the oceans (e.g., support a position), to understand the changes made to the ocean through human activity, and to apply ocean knowledge through actions as citizen, steward or consumer. In as much as educational research supports one’s knowledge as a significant component of scientific literacy and reasoning, the significance as relates to ocean literacy is not known. On a theoretical level it is reasonable to propose that acquisition of content knowledge and social considerations will contribute to ocean literacy and reasoning about ocean socioscientific issues. I propose that the development of ocean literacy may advance functional scientific literacy through an integrated knowledge base, practice doing and reasoning about science, and opportunities for social action. Ocean socioscientific issues (OSSI) may have relevance to a broader audience of learners than current socioscientific issues reported in the literature. Finally, ocean literacy may advance science literacy by lessening the gap between public knowledge and the frontiers of scientific inquiry. While there is a paucity of educational research regarding ocean literacy and reasoning, my findings contribute more generally to the pedagogy of classroom practice 32 and curriculum. Specifically, my research identified current ocean content that advances ocean literacy based on the formal and informal ocean learning experiences examined. In addition, a preliminary metric to evaluate conceptual understanding was developed. Classroom practice and curriculum will be further enriched with the addition of developmentally appropriate ocean socioscientific issues via case studies implemented during my study. Ultimately, ocean literacy research provides (a) ocean science content and experiences as part of a 21st century integrated science curriculum, and (b) opportunities to engage in ocean socioscientific issues (OSSI) meaningful to the life experiences of most citizens.

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2NC AT C/I “Germane”

Infinitely regressive—justifies anything that talks about energy, restrictions, financial incentives which makes the topic bidirectional. Also means discussions of adv areas can be the sole focus

Just discussing the topic is insufficient—an actual advocacy is an important point of stasis that actually allows us to discuss the issuesPanetta 10(Panetta, Edward M., PhD and debate director at the University of Georgia, published 2010“Controversies in Debate Pedagogy: Working Paper”, Navigating Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century, Wake Forest National Debate Conference)

For adherents to the traditional mode of debate, when one retreats from grounding stasis in the annual proposition, there are two predicted intellectual justifications that surface. First, there is the claim that the existence of a resolution (without substantive content) and time limits is enough of a point of departure to allow for a debate. For traditionalists, this move seems to reduce the existing stasis to the point that it has no real meaning. How does the resolution mold the argument choices of students when one team refuses to acknowledge the argumentative foundation embedded in the sentence? What educational benefit is associated with the articulation of a two-hour and forty-five minute limit for a debate and decision where there is not an agreed point of departure for the initiation of the debate? Second, advocates of moving away from a resolution-based point of stasis contend that valuable arguments do take place. Yes, but that argumentation does not meet some of the core assumptions of a debate for someone who believes that treatment of a stated proposition is a defining element of debate. Participants in a debate need to have some type of loosely shared agreement to focus the clash of arguments in a round of debate. Adherence to this approach does not necessarily call for the rejection of innovative approaches, including the use of individual narratives as a form of support or the metaphorical endorsement of the proposition. This perspective on contest debate does, however, require participants to make an effort to relate a rhetorical strategy to the national topic.

They force the negative into the role of passive observer. Either, we are pigeon-holed into ethically indefensible positions or are forced to cede the debate to the affirmative.-Aff sets the neg up with reciprocal ground-If the aff takes more ground than the neg, competitive equity suffers-Removing fairness from a debate round denies the negative’s right to be heard and respected-After months of research, prep, and critical thinking, the affirmative silences the negative’s right to be prepared in a debate-Opponents only respect each other if they can engage on equal ground and reach sound decisions- this has a direct impact on the rules of the game we playGalloway, 7 –professor of communication at Samford University (Ryan, “DINNER AND CONVERSATION AT THE ARGUMENTATIVE TABLE: RECONCEPTUALIZING DEBATE AS AN ARGUMENTATIVE DIALOGUE”, Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 28 (2007), ebsco)

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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 aff irmative reciprocally sets the neg ative. 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 i nvolved 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. Aff irmative 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). Hugh Duncan furthers this line of reasoning: Opponents not only tolerate but honor and respect each other because in doing so they enhance their own chances of thinking better and reaching sound decision s . Opposition is necessary because it sharpens thought in action. We assume that argument, discussion, and talk, among free an informed people who subordinate decisions of any kind, because it is only through such discussion that we reach agreement which binds us to a common cause…If we are to be equal…relationships among equals must find expression in many formal and informal institutions (Duncan, 1993, p. 196-197). Debate compensates for the exigencies of the world by offering a framework that maintains equality for the sake of the conversation ( Farrell, 1985, p. 114). For example, an aff irmative case on the 2007-2008 college topic might defend neither state nor international action in the Middle East, and yet claim to be germane to the topic in some way . The case essentially denies the arguments that state action is oppressive or that actions in the international arena are philosophically or pragmatically suspect . Instead of allowing for the dialogue to be modified by the interchange of the affirmative case and the negative response, the aff irmative subverts any meaningful role to the neg ative team, preventing them from offering effective “counter-word” and undermining the value of a meaningful exchange of speech acts. Germaneness and other substitutes for topical action do not accrue the dialogical benefits of topical advocacy.

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2NC Clash—Long

Clash—no predictable point of stasis makes clash impossible—this outweighs even if they win 100% of their impact turns

1) Process education—debate produces the only unique form of education—the ability to contest knowledge claims directly and argue in a structured way. Any other form turns debate into a 2 hour lecture series which we can get back at home <<<English>>>

2) Dogma—failure to engage in rigorous scrutiny of the plan causes dogmatism-- Effective deliberation is crucial to the activation of personal agency ---this activation of agency is vital to preventing mass violence and genocide and overcoming politically debilitating self-obsession Roberts-Miller 3Patricia Roberts-Miller 3 is Associate Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Texas "Fighting Without Hatred:Hannah Ar endt ' s Agonistic Rhetoric" JAC 22.2 2003

Totalitarianism and the Competitive Space of Agonism Arendt is probably most famous for her analysis of totalitarianism (especially her The Origins of Totalitarianism andEichmann in Jerusa¬lem), but the recent attention has been on her criticism of mass culture (The Human Condition). Arendt's main criticism of the current human condition is that the common world of deliberate and joint action is fragmented into solipsistic and unreflective behavior . In an especially lovely passage, she says that in mass society people are all imprisoned in the subjectivity of their own singular experience , which does not cease to be singular if the same experience is multiplied innumerable times. The end of the common world has come when it is seen only under one aspect and is permitted to present itself in only one perspective. (Human 58) What Arendt so beautifully describes is that isolation and individualism are not corollaries, and may even be antithetical because obsession with one's own self and the particularities of one's life prevents one from engaging in conscious, deliberate, collective action. Individuality, unlike isolation, depends upon a collective with whom one argues in order to direct the common life. Self-obsession , even (especially?) when coupled with isolation from one' s community is far from apolitical; it has political consequences. Perhaps a better way to put it is that it is political precisely because it aspires to be apolitical . This fragmented world in which many people live simultaneously and even similarly but not exactly together is what Arendt calls the "social." Arendt does not mean that group behavior is impossible in the realm of the social, but that social behavior consists "in some way of isolated individuals , incapable of solidarity or mutuality, who abdicate their human capacities and responsibilities to a projected 'they' or 'it,' with disastrous consequences, both for other people and eventually for themselves" (Pitkin 79). One can behave, butnot act. For someone like Arendt, a German-assimilated Jew, one of the most frightening aspects of the Holocaust was the ease with which a people who had not been extraordinarily anti-Semitic could be put to work industriously and efficiently on the genocide of the Jews . And what was striking about the perpetrators of the genocide, ranging from minor functionaries who facilitated the murder

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transports up to major figures on trial at Nuremberg, was their constant and apparently sincere insistence that they were not responsible . For Arendt, this was not a peculiarity of the German people, but of the current human and heavily bureaucratic condition of twentieth-century culture: we do not consciously choose to engage in life's activities; we drift into them, or we do them out of a desire to conform. Even while we do them, we do not acknowledge an active, willed choice to do them; instead, we attribute our behavior to necessity, and we perceive ourselves as determined—determined by circumstance, by accident, by what "they" tell us to do. We do something from within the anonymity of a mob that we would never do as an individual; we do things for which we will not take responsibility. Yet, whether or not people acknowledge responsibil¬ity for the consequences of their actions, those consequences exist. Refusing to accept responsibility can even make those consequences worse , in that the people who enact the actions in question, because they do not admit their own agency, cannot be persuaded to stop those actions . They are simply doing their jobs. In a totalitarian system , however, everyone is simply doing his or her job; there never seems to be anyone who can explain, defend, and change the policies . Thus, it is, as Arendt says, rule by nobody. It is illustrative to contrast Arendt's attitude toward discourse to Habermas'. While both are critical of modern bureaucratic and totalitar¬ian systems, Arendt's solution is the playful and competitive space of agonism ; it is not the rational-critical public sphere. The "actual content of political life" is "the joy and the gratification that arise out of being in company with our peers, out of acting together and appearing in public, out of inserting ourselves into the world by word and deed, thus acquiring and sustaining our personal identity and beginning something entirely new" ("Truth" 263). According to Seyla Benhabib, Arendt's public realm emphasizes the assumption of competition , and it "represents that space of appearances in which moral and political greatness, heroism, and preeminence are revealed, displayed, shared with others. This is a competitive space in which one competes for recognition, precedence, and acclaim" (78). These qualities are displayed, but not entirely for purposes of acclamation; they are not displays of one's self, but of ideas and arguments , of one's thought . When Arendt discusses Socrates' thinking in public, she emphasizes his performance: "He performed in the marketplace the way the flute-player performed at a banquet. It is sheer performance, sheer activity"; nevertheless, it was thinking: "What he actually did was to make public, in discourse, the thinking process" {Lectures 37). Pitkin summarizes this point: "Arendt says that the heroism associated with politics is not the mythical machismo6 of ancient Greece but something more like the existential leap into action and public exposure" (175-76). Just as it is not machismo, although it does have considerable ego involved, so it is not instrumental rationality; Arendt's discussion of the kinds of discourse involved in public action include myths, stories, and personal narratives. Furthermore, the competition is not ruthless; it does not imply a willingness to triumph at all costs. Instead, it involves something like having such a passion for ideas and politics that one is willing to take risks. One tries to articulate the best argument, propose the best policy, design the best laws, make the best response . This is a risk in that one might lose; advancing an argument means that one must be open to the criticisms others will make of it. The situation is agonistic not because the participants manufacture or seek conflict, but because conflict is a necessary consequence of difference . This attitude is reminiscent of Kenneth Burke, who did not try to find a language free of domination but who instead theorized a way that the very tendency toward hierarchy in language might be used against itself (for more on this argument, see Kastely). Similarly, Arendt does not propose a public realm of neutral, rational beings who escape differences to live in the

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discourse of universals; she envisions one of different people who argue with passion, vehemence, and integrity. Continued… Eichmann perfectly exemplified what Arendt famously called the "banal¬ity of evil" but that might be better thought of as the bureaucratization of evil (or, as a friend once aptly put it, the evil of banality). That is, he was able to engage in mass murder because he was able not to think about it, especially not from the perspective of the victims, and he was able to exempt himself from personal responsibility by telling himself (and anyone else who would listen) that he was just following orders. It was the bureaucratic system that enabled him to do both. He was not exactly passive; he was, on the contrary, very aggressive in trying to do his duty. He behaved with the "ruthless, competitive exploitation" and "inauthen-tic, self-disparaging conformism" that characterizes those who people totalitarian systems ( Pitkin 87). Arendt's theorizing of totalitarianism has been justly noted as one of her strongest contributions to philosophy. She saw that a situation like Nazi Germany is different from the conventional understanding of a tyranny. Pitkin writes, Totalitarianism cannot be understood, like earlier forms of domination, as the ruthless exploitation of some people by others, whether the motive be selfish calculation, irrational passion, or devotion to some cause.

Understanding totalitarianism's essential nature requires solving the central mystery of the holocaus t —the objectively useless and indeed dysfunctional, fanatical pursuit of a purely ideological policy , a pointless process to which the people enacting it have fallen captive. (87)

3) Epistemology— This rejection of structured clash makes debate into an echo chamber. This impoverishes their arguments even if it is right—robs the value of any knowledge they produceTalisse 5—Professor of Philosophy @VandyRobert, Philosophy & Social Criticism, Deliberativist responses to activist challenges, 31(4) p. 429-431

The argument thus far might appear to turn exclusively upon different conceptions of what reasonableness entails. The deliberativist view I have sketched holds that reasonableness involves some degree of what we may call epistemic modesty . On this view, the reasonable citizen seeks to have her beliefs reflect the best available reasons, and so she enters into public discourse as a way of testing her views against the objections and questions of those who disagree; hence she implicitly holds that her present view is open to reasonable critique and that others who hold opposing views may be able to offer justifications for their views that are at least as strong as her reasons for her own. Thus any mode of politics that presumes that discourse is extraneous to questions of justice and justification is unreasonabl e . The activist sees no reason to accept this. Reasonableness for the activist consists in the ability to act on reasons that upon due reflection seem adequate to underwrite action; discussion with those who disagree need not be involved. According to the activist, there are certain cases in which he does in fact know the truth about what justice requires and in which there is no room for reasoned objection. Under such conditions, the deliberativist’s demand for discussion can only obstruct justice; it is therefore irrational. It may seem that we have reached an impasse. However, there is a further line of criticism that the activist must face. To the activist’s view that at least in certain situations he may reasonably decline to engage with persons he disagrees with (107), the deliberative democrat can raise the phenomenon that Cass Sunstein has called ‘group polarization’ (Sunstein, 2003; 2001a: ch. 3; 2001b: ch. 1). To explain: consider that

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political activists cannot eschew deliberation altogether; they often engage in rallies, demonstrations, teach-ins, workshops, and other activities in which they are called to make public the case for their views. Activists also must engage in deliberation among themselves when deciding strategy. Political movements must be organized, hence those involved must decide upon targets, methods, and tactics; they must also decide upon the content of their pamphlets and the precise messages they most wish to convey to the press. Often the audience in both of these deliberative contexts will be a self-selected and sympathetic group of like-minded activists. Group polarization is a well-documented phenomenon that has ‘been found all over the world and in many diverse tasks’; it means that ‘ members of a deliberating group predictably move towards a more extreme point in the direction indicated by the members’ predeliberation tendencies’ (Sunstein, 2003: 81–2). Importantly, in groups that ‘engage in repeated discussions’ over time, the polarization is even more pronounced (2003: 86 Hence discussion in a small but devoted activist enclave that meets regularly to strategize and protest ‘should produce a situation in which individuals hold positions more extreme than those of any individual member before the series of deliberations began’ (ibid.) 17 The fact of group polarization is relevant to our discussion because the activist has proposed that he may reasonably decline to engage in discussion with those with whom he disagrees in cases in which the requirements of justice are so clear that he can be confident that he has the truth. Group polarization suggests that deliberatively confronting those with whom we disagree is essential even when we have the truth. For even if we have the truth, if we do not engage opposing views, but instead deliberate only with those with whom we agree , our view will shift progressively to a more extreme point, and thus we lose the truth . In order to avoid polarization, deliberation must take place within heterogeneous ‘argument pools’ (Sunstein, 2003: 93). This of course does not mean that there should be no groups devoted to the achievement of some common political goal; it rather suggests that engagement with those with whom one disagrees is essential to the proper pursuit of justice. Insofar as the activist denies this, he is unreasonable.

Takes out their offense—all aff claims are uncertain unless they can be rigorously scrutinized which is only possible in a world of deliberative norms and clash—means you can’t evaluate any of their impact turns unless they’re based off their interpretation, not the 1AC. Also means you should vote on presumption—no testable offensive reason to vote aff

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AT Deliberative Norms Exclusion

The deliberative debate model best represents the interests of the marginalized –without the framework of debate, hierarchical dominance and exclusion are more likelyTonn 5—Prof of Communication @ MarylandMari Boor, Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy Public, Rhetoric & Public Affairs 8.3 (2005) 405-430, muse

This widespread recognition that access to public deliberative processes and the ballot is a baseline of any genuine democracy points to the most curious irony of the conversation movement: portions of its constituency. Numbering among the most fervid dialogic loyalists have been some feminists and multiculturalists who represent groups historically denied both the right to speak in public and the ballot. Oddly, some feminists who championed the slogan "The Personal Is Political" to emphasize ways relational power can oppress tend to ignore similar dangers lurking in the appropriation of conversation and dialogue in public deliberation. Yet the conversational model's emphasis on empowerment through intimacy can duplicate the power networks that traditionally excluded females and nonwhites and gave rise to numerous, sometimes necessarily uncivil, demands for democratic inclusion. Formalized participation structures in deliberative processes obviously ca nnot ensure the elimination of relational power blocs, but, as Freeman pointed out, the absence of formal rules leaves relational power unchecked and potentially capricious. Moreover, the privileging of the self, personal experiences, and individual perspectives of reality intrinsic in the conversational paradigm mirrors justifications once used by dominant groups who used their own lives, beliefs, and interests as templates for hegemonic social premises to oppress women, the lower class, and people of color. Paradigms infused with the therapeutic language of emotional healing and coping likewise flirt with the type of psychological diagnoses once ascribed to disaffected women. But as Betty Friedan's landmark 1963 The Feminist Mystique argued, the cure for female alienation was neither tranquilizers nor attitude adjustments fostered through psychotherapy but, rather, unrestricted opportunities.102 [End Page 423] The price exacted by promoting approaches to complex public issues—models that cast conventional deliberative processes, including the marshaling of evidence beyond individual subjectivity, as "elitist" or "monologic"—can be steep. Consider comments of an aide to President George W. Bush made before reports concluding Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction, the primary justification for a U.S.-led war costing thousands of lives. Investigative reporters and other persons sleuthing for hard facts, he claimed, operate "in what we call the reality-based community." Such people "believe that solutions emerge from [the] judicious study of discernible reality." Then baldly flexing the muscle afforded by increasingly popular social-constructionist and poststructuralist models for conflict resolution, he added: "That's not the way the world really works anymore . . . We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities."103 The recent fascination with public conversation and dialogue most likely is a product of frustration with the tone of much public, political discourse. Such concerns are neither new nor completely without merit. Yet, as Burke insightfully pointed out nearly six decades ago, "A perennial embarrassment in liberal apologetics has arisen

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from its 'surgical' proclivity: its attempt to outlaw a malfunction by outlawing the function." The attempt to eliminate flaws in a process by eliminating the entire process, he writes, "is like trying to eliminate heart disease by eliminating hearts."104 Because public argument and deliberative processes are the "heart" of true democracy, supplanting those models with social and therapeutic conversation and dialogue jeopardizes the very pulse and lifeblood of democracy itself.

Abandoning deliberative debate results in the tyranny of structurelessness which inevitably annihilates of the marginalized otherTonn 5—Prof of Communication @ MarylandMari Boor, Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy Public, Rhetoric & Public Affairs 8.3 (2005) 405-430, muse

In certain ways, Schudson's initial reluctance to dismiss public conversation echoes my own early reservations, given the ideals of egalitarianism, empowerment, and mutual respect conversational advocates champion. Still, in the spirit of the dialectic ostensibly underlying dialogic premises, this essay argues that various negative consequences can result from transporting conversational and therapeutic paradigms into public problem solving. In what follows, I extend Schudson's critique of a conversational model for democracy in two ways: First, whereas Schudson primarily offers a theoretical analysis, I interrogate public conversation as a praxis in a variety of venues, illustrating how public "conversation" and "dialogue" have been coopted to silence rather [End Page 407] than empower marginalized or dissenting voices. In practice, public conversation easily can emulate what feminist political scientist Jo Freeman termed "the tyranny of structurelessness" in her classic 1970 critique of consciousness-raising groups in the women's liberation movement,15 as well as the key traits Irving L. Janis ascribes to "groupthink."16Thus, contrary to its promotion as a means to neutralize hierarchy and exclusion in the public sphere, public conversation can and has accomplish ed the reverse . When such moves are rendered transparent, public conversation and dialogue, I contend, risk increasing rather than diminishing political cynicism and alienation. Second, whereas Schudson focuses largely on ways a conversational model for democracy may mute an individual's voice in crafting a resolution on a given question at a given time, I draw upon insights of Dana L. Cloud and othersto consider ways in which a therapeutic, conversational approach to public problems can stymie productive, collective action in two respects.17 First, because conversation has no clearly defined goal, a public conversation may engender inertia as participants become mired in repeated airings of personal experiences without a mechanism to lend such expressions direction and closure. As Freeman aptly notes, although "[u]nstructured groups may be very effective in getting [people] to talk about their lives[,] they aren't very good for getting things done. Unless their mode of operation changes, groups flounder at the point where people tire of 'just talking .' "18 Second, because the therapeutic bent of much public conversation locates social ills and remedies within individuals or dynamics of interpersonal relationships, public conversations and dialogues risk becoming substitutes for policy formation necessary to correct structural dimensions of social problems. In mimicking the emphasis on the individual in therapy, Cloud warns, the therapeutic rhetoric of "healing, consolation, and adaptation or adjustment" tends to "encourage citizens to perceive political issues, conflicts, and inequities as personal failures subject to personal amelioration."19

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AT Fairness Bad/Racist (Delgado)

This misses the point—our argument is that they destroy the possibility of deliberation from achieving anything productive, meaning that debate collapses. It isn’t as simple as preserving some hegemonic order, rather there has to be a point of stasis to expect a reasonable dialogue.

Small Schools D/A—No topic debate would allow for a greater disparity in wealth to be realized in debate because it would come down to who can actually research the multitude of different affirmatives. This heavily favors large schools with lots of coaches and makes it so small schools can’t compete. A smaller topic allows for fewer number of affs so teams do not get overwhelmed by the literature base. This internal link turns all of their offense.

The fact that there are unequal social relations does not mean that there should not be a topic—the fact that that standard is applied unfairly should not be a reason to vote affirmativeFarber and Sherry 97—Prof of of Law @U Minn, Prof of Civil Rights @ U MinnDaniel, and Suzanna, “Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law”, p. 67-68, questia

Radical multiculturalists might try to escape the implications of their critique by modifying it. The trouble seems to come primarily from the assertion that standards of merit are the offspring of racism and sexism. Suppose the radicals were to move to the more moderate position that the standards are merely arbitrary (This thesis is one reading of Foucault's work, although the legal theorists we are focusing on tend not to adopt it.) This modification might allow them to make an argument that avoids the charges of anti-Semitism and racism: Jews and Asians have merely had the good luck to profit from these arbitrary rules. So far, so good. The trouble is that this theory also eliminates any basis for criticizing how the standards apply to blacks and other minorities, who are by the same token merely suffering from bad luck. The arbitrary rules could just as easily have favored them rather than the Jews and Asians; things just didn't happen to turn out that way. Radical multiculturalism doesn't supply any basis for criticizing such a situation. To see why, let's assume for a moment that standards of merit are arbitrary. Success often includes an element of luck , and by positing arbitrary standards the radicals would suggest that group success is entirely luck. In that case, however, merit standards are fair and objective: whoever draws the right cards wins, and everyone has had an equal chance to draw. Unlike chess, no one can control his own opportunity to win, but neither can he decrease another's chances. The random rules may be inefficient, but they are not unfair. The radicals cannot escape this dilemma by arguing that some groups don't have an equal chance to win . If someone is holding one group back, we would call that discrimination. But radical multiculturalists don't want to allege mere discrimination—and anyway, we have rules (and enforcement mechanisms) against that kind of discrimination . No radical reformulation of the legal system is necessary if discrimination is the main obstacle to success. The problem is that it is hard to condemn an outcome as inequitable if it is

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merely the arbitrary result of a game that isn't rigged. Suppose that some group—let us say, gentiles—complains that current standards are providing disproportionate success to Jews, thereby depriving their own group of wealth or power. What responses are available to this complaint if the standards are random or arbitrary? One response—the one most congenial to those who believe that such concepts as justice can have no objective meaning—is that no standard is better or worse than any other. If so, the disproportionate success rate is not an argument against current standards. Of course, there is also no argument in favor of keeping current standards, and force becomes the only arbiter. Unless they can appeal to some standard of justice, all the radicals can do is to say that they personally don't like a particular outcome. But since the dominant society apparently does like the outcome—and by definition has more power than its opponents—this is a losing argument.

You should toss this argument as non-falsifiable. This insulates them from any criticism on the grounds its grounded in racismFarber and Sherry 97—Prof of of Law @U Minn, Prof of Civil Rights @ U MinnDaniel, and Suzanna, “Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law”, p. 127, questia

The first defense mechanism derives from the internal logic of multiculturalism, which can defeat challenges by depriving critics of any ground from which to mount a challenge. We saw

in chapter 4 that concerns about storytelling can be rebuffed this way. Defenders of storytelling need only point out that the challengers necessarily assume the very concepts of objectivity and truth that the storytellers are attacking. The critique of truth is peculiarly immune from attack — after all, by what standard could one judge a critique of truth itself to he "false"? Multiculturalist tenets repel by discrediting in advance any evidence against them . Consider an effort to use empirical

information, such as survey results, to rebuff a radical multiculturalist claim. Such a stratagem is subject to a whole string of objections. The basic concepts used in surveys , such as random sampling and statistical tests of significance, reek of objectification. In deciding whether to trust the results of the survey, we must rely on the competence of the surveyors— which is a merit determination, and so inherently suspect. Given the rejection of the concept of objectivity, it's impossible to retain the idea of an unbiased survey question. The interaction between the surveyors and the interviewees, like any other social interaction, is drenched in sexism and racism, which are guaranteed to warp the results. Interviewees may have acquired so much of the dominant mindset that they don't recognize their

own oppression.

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Limits First The deliberative implications of their advocacy are a prior question – pre-conditions of agreement are necessary for your decision to have any political valueGunderson 2k—Prof of Political Science @ Texas A & MAdolf G. Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 104-5

Indirect political engagement is perhaps the single most important element of the strategy I am recommending here. It is also the most emblematic, as it results from a fusion of confrontation and separa tion . But what kind of political engagement might conceivably qualify as being both confrontational and separated from actual political decision-making? There is only one type, so far as I can see, and that is deliberation. Political deliberation is by definition a form of engage ment with the collectivity of which one is a member. This is all the more true when two or more citizens deliberate together. Yet delibera tion is also a form of political action that precedes the actual taking and implementation of decisions. It is thus simultaneously connected and disconnected, confrontational and separate. It is, in other words, a form of indirect political engagement. This conclusion, namely, that we ought to call upon deliberation to counter partisanship and thus clear the way for deliberation, looks rather circular at first glance. And, semantically at least, it certainly is. Yet this ought not to concern us very much. Politics, after all, is not a matter of avoiding semantic inconveniences, but of doing the right thing and getting desirable results. In political theory, therefore, the real concern is always whether a circular argument translates into a self-defeating prescription. And here that is plainly not the case, for what I am suggesting is that deliberation can diminish partisanship, which will in turn contribute to conditions amenable to continued or extended deliberation. That "deliberation promotes deliberation" is surely a circular claim, but it is just as surely an accurate description of the real world of lived politics, as observers as far back as Thucydides have documented. It may well be that deliberation rests on certain preconditions . I am not arguing that there is no such thing as a deliberative "first cause." Indeed, it seems obvious to me both that deliberators require something to deliberate about and that deliberation presumes certain institutional structures and shared values. Clearly something must get the deliberative ball rolling and, to keep it rolling, the cultural terrain must be free of deep chasms and sinkholes. Nevertheless, however extensive and demanding deliberation's preconditions might be, we ought not to lose sight of the fact that, once begun, deliberation tends to be self-sustaining. Just as partisanship begets partisanship, deliberation begets deliberation. If that is so, the question of limiting partisanship and stimulating deliberation are to an important extent the same question.

Prefer our impacts—the framework is the foundational layer of debateSaurette 2k—PhD Johns HopkinsPaul, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - IMAGE OF THOUGHT: COLLECTIVE IDENTITY, DESIRE AND DELEUZIAN ETHOLOGY International Journal of Peace Studies 5:1, http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/ijps/vol5_1/saurette.htm

The problem of concepts -- what they are, where they are located, how we create/discover them -- has always been close to the heart of philosophy and extends deep into the sciences and social sciences. Within IR, this concern has generally been located in the sphere of methodology and it remains crucial to the various behaviourist -

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positivist - empiricist - traditionalist debates. All but the most stubborn empiricists accept that concepts influence our thinking, the validity of studies and the utility of certain perspectives. It is not surprising, then, that some of the most heated debates in the history of IR (and international law) have focused on the proper place, method and definition of certain key concepts such as sovereignty, war, human rights, anarchy, institutions, power, and international. If all concepts are equally created, however, some become represented and treated as more equal than others. There are, in fact, different layers of conceptual understanding and degrees of articulability and these render certain concepts more or less subject to question.8 In any debate, certain understandings are shared by its participants and certain concepts must be common for communication to occur.   These concepts become the foundational layer of the debate, rarely being raised for consideration, but profoundly shaping the contours of the debate. There have been two traditionally philosophical responses to this. The first, more familiar to mainstream IR, might be seen as the empiricist and positivist response in which the importance of this layer is minimized and its concepts represented as 'preliminary assumptions', 'term variables', or 'operative definitions' -- voluntarily accepted concepts that are hypothetically and tentatively accepted for their heuristic value. Because many empiricists and positivists accept an understanding of language and thought as transparent and instrumental, they generally assume that, with enough effort, all of our fundamental assumptions and concepts can be clarified and their consequences known -- allowing for, if not truthful representation, then at least useful manipulation. While this has perhaps been the prevalent view within English philosophy since the scientific revolution, a second approach, what has been called the continental tradition of philosophy, has consistently challenged these premises. From this perspective, Kant's definition of the project of philosophy as the search for the transcendental conditions of thought and morality is the paradigmatic challenge to the English tradition of empiricism. According to Kant (and shifting him into the language of this essay), there exist certain natural preconditions -- transcendental fields -- of thought that allow us to make sense of experience. And while some of these necessary preconditions (categories and concepts) can be traced and categorized, others, such as the constitutive and regulative Ideas, cannot be known with the same theoretical rigor. On this view, the concepts (Ideas) of this deep layer of shared understandings (experience) are not transparent and available to examination.   Even those we can represent cannot be manipulated and reconfigured.   Far from being heuristic devices of our own making, they are the necessary and universal conditions of possibility for any experience and understanding.

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Policy Focus Good

Policy training is uniquely valuable for social advocacy—their engagement is defensive and doesn’t solve our advantagesThemba-Nixon 2k—Exec Director of the Praxis ProjectMakani, Colorlines, Changing the Rules: What Public Policy Means for Organizing Jul 31, 2000. Vol. 3, Iss. 2; pg. 12, proquest

"This is all about policy," a woman complained to me in a recent conversation. "I'm an organizer." The flourish and passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivory-tower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's values-as represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given who's usually present, most policies reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change - especially when we bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means changing the rules . So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power, how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power , fight the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color. Today, racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. What Do We Stand For? Take the public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a bit more fun than defense alone. Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda, thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are just a few

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of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives. Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic pressure, and the tried and true: cold, hard cash. Despite these barriers, grassroots organizing can be very effective at the smaller scale of local politics. At the local level, we have greater access to elected officials and officials have a greater reliance on their constituents for reelection. For example, getting 400 people to show up at city hall in just about any city in the U.S. is quite impressive. On the other hand, 400 people at the state house or the Congress would have a less significant impact. Add to that the fact that all 400 people at city hall are usually constituents, and the impact is even greater. Recent trends in government underscore the importance of local policy. Congress has enacted a series of measures devolving significant power to state and local government. Welfare, health care, and the regulation of food and drinking water safety are among the areas where states and localities now have greater rule. Devolution has some negative consequences to be sure. History has taught us that, for social services and civil rights in particular, the lack of clear federal standards and mechanisms for accountability lead to uneven enforcement and even discriminatory implementation of policies. Still, there are real opportunities for advancing progressive initiatives in this more localized environment. Greater local control can mean greater community power to shape and implement important social policies that were heretofore out of reach. To do so will require careful attention to the mechanics of local policymaking and a clear blueprint of what we stand for. Getting It in Writing Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive manner, we can take our demands to the next level. Our demands can become law, with real consequences if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this work requires a certain amount of interaction with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in our organizing arsenal, but it is a tool we simply can't afford to ignore. Making policy work an integral part of organizing will require a certain amount of retrofitting. We will need to develop the capacity to translate our information, data, and experience into stories that are designed to affect the public conversation. Perhaps most important, we will need to move beyond fighting problems and on to framing solutions that bring us closer to our vision of how things should be. And then we must be committed to making it so.

Our interpretation solves – education through participation in policy debates is essential to check manipulation of the government by powerful private interests Lutz 2k—Prof of Political Science @ HoustonDonald S. Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 36-7

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The position argued here is that to the extent such a discussion between political theorists and politicians does not take place we damage the prospects for marrying justice with power. Since the hope of uniting justice with power was the reason for creating political philosophy in the first place, political theorists need to pursue the dialogue as part of what justifies their intellectual project. Poli tics is the realm of power. More specifically it is the realm where force and violence are replaced by debates and discussion about how to implement power. Without the meaningful injection of considerations of justice, politics tends to become discourse by the most powerful about how to implement their preferred regime. Although constitutionalism tends to be disparaged by contemporary political science, a constitution is the very place where justice and power are married. Aristotle first taught us that a constitution must be matched to the realities of the political system—the character, hopes, fears, needs and environment of the people—which requires that constitutionalism be addressed by men and women practiced in the art of the possible.2 Aristotle also taught us that a constitution (the politeia, or plan for a way of life) should address the improvement of people toward the best life possible, which requires that constitutionalism be addressed by political theorists who can hold out a vision of justice and the means for advancing toward it . The conversation between politician and political theorist stands at the center of their respective callings, and a constitution, even though it reflects only a part of the reality of a political system, has a special status in this central conversation. Although the focus of this chapter is on a direct conversation between theorist and politician, there is an important, indirect aspect of the conversation that should not be overlooked—classroom teaching. Too often the conversation between politician and political theorist is described in terms of a direct one between philosophers and those holding power. Overlooked is the central need to educate as many young people as possible. Since it is difficult to predict who will, in fact, hold power, and because the various peoples who take seriously the marriage of justice with power are overwhelmingly committed to a non-elitist, broad involvement of the population, we should not overlook or minimize our importance as teachers of the many. Politi cal leaders drawn from a people who do not understand what is at stake are neither inclined nor equipped to join the conversation. As we teach, we converse with future leaders. Perhaps not everyone who teaches political theory has had the same experience, but of the more than eight thousand students I have taught, I know of at least forty-nine who later held a major elective office, and at least eighty more who have become important political activists. This comes down to about five students per teaching year, and I could not have predicted which five it would be. The indeterminate future of any given student is one argument against directing our efforts at civic education toward the few, best students. A constitutional perspective suggests not only that those in power rely upon support and direction from a broad segment of the public, but also that reliance upon the successful civic education of the elite is not very effective, by itself for marrying justice with power in the long run.

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AT State Bad—Inevitable

The State is inevitable and should not be rejected—solving global problems like nuclear war and environmental destruction require a recognition of state power and an attempt to transform itEckersly 4--Professor and Head of Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, AustraliaRobyn, The Green State, p. 4-5

While acknowledging the basis for this antipathy toward the nation-state, and the limitations of state-centric analyses of global ecological degradation, I seek to draw attention to the positive role that states have played, and might increasingly play, in global and domestic politics. Writing more than twenty years ago, Hedley Bull (A proto-constructivist and leading writer in the English school) outlined the state’s positive role in world affairs, and his arguments continue to provide a powerful challenge to those who somehow seek to “get beyond the state,” as if such a move would provide a more lasting solution to the threat of armed conflict or nuclear war , social and economic injustice, or environmental degradation. 10 As Bull argued, given that the state is here to stay whether we like it or not, then the call to get “beyond the state is a counsel of despair at all events if it means that we have to begin by abolishing or subverting the state, rather than that there is a need to build upon it.” 11 In any event, rejecting the “statist frame” of world politics ought not prohibit an inquiry into the emancipatory potential of the state as a crucial “node” in any future network of global ecological governance. This is especially so, given that one can expect states to persist as major sites of social and political power for at least the foreseeable future and that any green transformations of the present political order will, short of revolution, necessarily be state dependent . Thus, like it or not, those concerned about ecological destruction must contend with existing institutions and, where possible, seek to “rebuild the ship while at sea.” And if states are so implicated in ecological destruction, then an inquiry into the potential for their transformation or even their modest reform into something that is at least more conducive to ecological sustainability would seem to be compelling.

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Switch Side Debate Good

Clash of Pedagogies—The core question in the debate is what team offers a better pedagogical vision for what competitive policy debate should look like. Debate is a pedagogical activity. It is an educational tool that focuses more on teaching how to think rather than what to think about. The most important epistemological goal of education is the portable skills it develops—not the content of particular truth claimsSiegel 03Harvey Siegel Professor of Philosophy at University of Miami, He has held visiting professorships at Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Groningen Truth, Thinking, Testimony and Trust: Alvin Goldman on Epistemology and Education web2.uwindsor.ca/faculty/arts/philosophy/ILat25/edited_siegel.doc

(a) Given the elusiveness of truth and the difficulty of finding it, justification-conferring critical thinking skills and abilities are central to the lives of truth-seeking epistemic agents, and so to their education. Even when their exercise of critical thinking fails to result in true belief (for example, because of incomplete or misleading evidence), their doxastic situation is preferable to that which would have resulted from the failure to think critically. This must be granted by any epistemologist who grants, as Goldman does, the normative character of justification in particular, and epistemology more generally (e.g. 24; Goldman 1986, pp. 2-3, 20-26, 58, passim). (b) As already noted, we don’t in general have ‘direct access’ to truth; if we want to have true beliefs, we typically have no option but to reason evidentially. That is, we have to judge whether p is true, and, if we’re rational, we do this on the basis of reasons and evidence. This is true generally; it is especially important in the context of education: what we want is for students to judge the truth competently, and that means being able and disposed to reason well, evaluate evidence well, search for evidence well, construct and evaluate arguments well, etc. That is, we want education to foster students’ critical thinking. This point deserves further development. Because we lack direct access to truth, we have no choice but to approach truth by way of justification. The point is made by many contemporary epistemologists. As Nicholas Rescher puts it, “we have no way of getting at the facts directly, without the epistemic detour of securing grounds and reasons for them” (Rescher 1988, p. 43). Roderick Firth puts it as follows: “To the extent that we are rational, each of us decides at any time t whether a belief is true, in precisely the same way that we would decide at t whether we ourselves are, or would be, warranted at t in having that belief” (Firth 1981, p. 19). As Laurence BonJour articulates and explains the point: What makes us cognitive beings at all is our capacity for belief, and the goal of our distinctively cognitive endeavors is truth: we want our beliefs to correctly and accurately depict the world. If truth were somehow immediately and unproblematically accessible...so that one could in all cases opt simply to believe the truth, then the concept of justification would be of little significance and would play no independent role in cognition. But this epistemically ideal situation is quite obviously not the one in which we find ourselves. We have no such immediate and unproblematic access to truth, and it is for this reason that justification comes into the picture” (BonJour 1985, p. 7). Such citations could by multiplied indefinitely. Tellingly, as we have already seen, Goldman himself makes this point: “The usual route to true belief, of course, is to obtain some kind of evidence that points to the

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true proposition and away from rivals” (24). If this point is correct, in an important sense the truth drops out as an (epistemic) educational end: as educators, we want students to be critical thinkers, even when (because of misleading evidence, etc.) being so directs them away from truth. If this is right – that is, if it is right that we want students to engage in critical thinking even when doing so directs them away from the truth – critical thinking is of fundamental educational importance independently of truth. Education is primarily concerned to foster responsible believing and justified belief, which are only fallibly tied to truth. Thus, from the educational point of view, it is critical thinking which is fundamental, not truth. Now, so far as I can see, the veritist can and should grant (a), in which case our disagreement concerns only (b). And that disagreement too seems to me minimal, given Goldman’s agreement with the claim that our main reliable access to truth is through the portal of evidence/justification. I hope that Goldman can acknowledge the intrinsic (and not only the instrumental) value of critical thinking, and moreover its centrality to an overarching view of the aims of education. I think that he can do this without in any way compromising his commitment to veritism, since, as he himself emphasizes, the two aims – true belief, and critical thinking – are compatible. We are agreed on this compatibility, and also on the educational value of each. My challenge is simply to Goldman’s claim that critical thinking is of value solely in virtue of its role as a means to true belief; that is, that critical thinking is of solely instrumental value. On the contrary, it is also epistemically valuable independently of its instrumental tie to truth. There are, moreover, additional reasons for regarding critical thinking, rather than truth, as educationally fundamental. (c) We want students (and persons generally) to be reflective about their beliefs – to question their beliefs; to ask themselves: ‘I (don’t) believe that p, but should I?’ – and that education should help to foster this reflectiveness. Such reflection takes our fallibility seriously. It is clear that it can in turn be justified in veritistic terms – we value it because it can help to weed out error and increase true belief. But it enjoys an integrity and non-instrumental value of its own. That a critical thinker is able and disposed to revise or correct her thought or action in light of criticism (by herself or others) is not just a mark of her ability to identify truth; it is also an important dimension of her character. I turn to this next.

The negative offers a superior pedagogical model

The affirmative offers a vision of debate that allows the aff to advocate any issue they think is important without being constrained to defend topical action. In their world debate pedagogy encourages affs to talk about any issue they feel is important and relieves them of the obligation to switch sides on the resolutional question. The negative pedagogical model views debate as a pedagogical training ground for switch side advocacy on the resolution which makes it a better educational model

Forced switch side debate is a superior pedagogical methodology for teaching portable life skills for advocacyHarrigan 08Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 29 (2008) 37 AGAINST DOGMATISM: A CONTINUED DEFENSE OF SWITCH SIDE DEBATE Casey Harrigan, University of Georgia

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Third, there is an important question of means. Even the best activist intentions have little practical utility as long as they remain purely cordoned off in the realm of theoretical abstractions. Creating programs of action that seek to produce material change should be the goal of any revolutionary project. Frequently, for strategies for change, the devil lies in the details. Lacking a plausible mechanism to enact reforms, many have criticized critical theory as being a “fatally flawed enterprise” (Jones 1999). For activists, learning the skills to successfully negotiate hazardous political terrain is crucial. They must know when and when not to compromise, negotiate, and strike political alliances in order to be successful. The pure number of failed movements in the past several decades demonstrates the severity of the risk assumed by groups who do not focus on refining their preferred means of change. For example, some have argued that anti-nuclear and other peace movements have been largely ineffective because of their inability to coalesce around plans and methods for change (Martin, 1990). Given the importance of strategies for change, SSD [switch side debate] is even more crucial. Debaters trained by debating both sides are substantially more likely to be effective advocates than those experienced only in arguing on behalf of their own convictions. For several reasons, SSD instills a series of practices that are essential for a successful activist agenda. First, SSD creates more knowledgeable advocates for public policy issues. As part of the process of learning to argue both sides, debaters are forced to understand the intricacies of multiple sides of the argument considered. Debaters must not only know how to research and speak on behalf of their own personal convictions, but also for the opposite side in order to defend against attacks of that position. Thus, when placed in the position of being

required to publicly defend an argument, students trained via SSD are more likely to be able to present and persuasively defend their positions. Second, learning the nuances of all sides of a position greatly strengthens the resulting convictions of debaters, their ability to anticipate opposing arguments, and the effectiveness of their attempts to locate the crux, nexus and loci of arguments. As noted earlier, conviction is a result, not a prerequisite of debate. Switching sides and experimenting with possible arguments for and against controversial issues, in the end, makes students more likely to ground their beliefs in a reasoned form of critical thinking that is durable and robust in the face of knee-jerk criticisms. As a result, even though it may appear to be inconsistent with advocacy, SSD “actually created stronger advocates” that are more likely to be successful in achieving their goals (Dybvig and Iverson, 2000).

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AT Exclusion

Benefits of Debate outweigh the Disads of ExclusionMuir 93—Dept of Comms @ George MasonStar, A Defense of the Ethics of Contemporary Debate, Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1993), JSTOR

A third point about isolation from the real world is that switch- side debate develops habits of the mind and instills a lifelong pat- tern of criticai assessment. Students who have debated both sides of a topic are better voters, Dell writes, because of "their habit of analyzing both sides before forming a conclusion."33 O'Neill, Laycock and Scales, responding in part to Roosevelt's indictment, iterated thè basic position in 1931: Skill in the use of facts and inferences available may be gained on either side of a question without regard to convictions. Instruction and practice in debate should give young men this skill. And where thèse matters are properly handled, stress is not laid on getting the speaker to think rightly in regard to the merits of either side of thèse questions - but to think accurately on both sides.34 Reasons for not taking a position counter to one's beliefs (isolation from the "real world," sophistry) are largely outweighed by the benefit of such mental habits throughout an individual's life . The jargon, strategies, and techniques may be alienating to "out- siders," but they are also paradoxically integrative as well. Playing the game of debate involves certain skills, including research and policy évaluation, that evolve along with a debater's consciousness of the complexities of moral and political dilemmas . This concep- tual development is a basis for the formation of ideas and rela- tional thinking necessary for effective public decision making, mak- ing even the game of debate a significant benefit in solving real world problems.

Exclusion is inevitable and necessary for democratic politicsMouffe 99—Prof of Politics and IR @ U of WestminsterChantal, Race, Rhetoric, and the postcolonial, p. 171-2

It's not that I'm opposed to the idea of consensus, but what needs to be put into question is the nature of consensus because I think that every consensus is by nature exclusionary. There can never be a completely inclusive consensus. I would say that the very condition of the possibility for consensus is at the same time the condition of the impossibility of consensus without exclusion. We can find this same idea in Derrida, but Foucault is the one who made it very clear. It's important to realize that in order to have consensus there must be something which is excluded. So the question is not to say that therefore we're not going to seek consensus. That's where I would differ with Lyotard. I think we need in politics to establish consensus on the condition that we recognize that consensus can never be "rational." What I'm against is the idea of "rational" consensus because when you posit that idea, it means that you imagine a situation in which those exclusions, so to speak, disappear, in which we are unable to realize that this consensus which you claim to be rational is linked with exclusion. And rhetoric is important here. But it must be understood that this is the way in which we are going to try to reach some kind of reasonable agreement —"reasonable" meaning that in certain circumstances this is how a political community, on the basis of a certain principle or something it values, is going to decide what is acceptable; but this process can never coincide with "rational" consensus. It is always based on a form of exclusion. So, to come back to Perelman, when we are going to try to establish this form of consensus—in fact, to define what the common good is,

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because that's what is at stake in politics—we can't do without this dimension on the condition that we recognize that there is no such thing as a universel auditoire or the common good and that it's always a question of hegemony. What is going to be defined at the moment as the common good is always a certain definition that excludes other definitions . Nevertheless, this movement to want a definition of the common good, to want a definition of a kind of consensus that I want to call "reasonable" in order to differentiate it from "the rational," is necessary to democratic politics .

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AT Jargon Bad

Even if the jargon is inaccessible it creates modes of analysis that are critical to analyzing public policy and evaluation outside debate. Muir 93—Dept of Comms @ George MasonStar, A Defense of the Ethics of Contemporary Debate, Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1993), JSTOR

Even the specialized jargon required to play the game success-fully has benefits in terms of analyzing and understanding society's problems. Consider the terminology of the "disadvantage" against the affirmative's plan: There is a "link" between the plan and some effect, or "impact"; the link can be actions that push us over some "threshold" to an impact, or it can be a "linear" relationship where each increase causes an increase in the impact; the link from the affirmative plan to the impact must be "unique," in that the plan itself is largely responsible for the impact; the affirmative may argue a "turnaround" to the disadvantage, claiming it as an advantage for the plan. Such specialized jargon may separate debate talk from other types of discourse, but the ideas represented here a re also significant and useful for analyzing the relative desirability of public policies. There really are threshold and brink issues in evaluating public policies. Though listening to debaters talk is somewhat disconcerting for a lay person, familiarity with these concepts is an essential means of connecting the research they do with the evaluation of options confronting citizens and decision makers in political and social contexts. This familiarity is directly related to the motivation and the ability to get involved in issues and controversies of public importance.

Jargon good. It is essential to facilitate the growth of knowledge through specialization and ultimately fuels cross-disciplinary interaction.Montgomery 4 Scott, petroleum consultant, Science, “Of Towers, Walls, and Fields: Perspectives on Language in Science”, 2-27, 303(5662), EBSCO

What, then, of our second theme, the growth and consequence of jargon? Nearly every scientist has familiarity in this area too. Consider the entomologist faced with an issue of Physics Today or Cell, the graduate student in oceanography doing battle with an article in Atmospheric Research. These are not impossible or even improbable encounters, but they would likely be difficult ones. Even within single fields, boundaries of terminology may seem to hopelessly divide specialties and subspecialties, whose numbers grow greatly with each passing decade. How far has this process gone? Calling oneself a "gravitational wave physicist" or an "expert on leg anatomy of Early Cretaceous sauropods" is not at all extraordinary. In the meantime, "biology" and "geology" have evolved into the "life sciences" and "earth and planetary sciences." Ours is the era of such pluralizations. They, too, are part of the language of science. The birth of new fields , and thus new vocabularies, has been a defining aspect of scientific progress. Specialization reveals itself as a mark of intellectual vigor , the historical sign that in order to expand and deepen, natural science has had to diversify and concentrate. It has had to pursue new subject matter, engage in greater precision, work at smaller or larger levels of observational and analytical scale, take up higher mathematics, and develop improved laboratory technologies, all the while inventing new terms and phrases to express the new

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knowledge and new practices gained. On the surface, these new vocabularies have seemed to turn science into a glitter of disconnected realms, self-contained linguistic galaxies spinning outward, ever apart. Yet this perception, however common, misses something critical about the nature of each field's dilemma — and, perhaps, the dilemma of its nature. Increasing specialization, rather than causing only a spiralling dispersal has resulted in new connections of its own, new cross-over. Growing specialization has generated an ever- greater range of opportunities — even demands — for the sharing of language . For instance, the power to examine, analyze, and manipulate phenomena at smaller and smaller scales has brought the province of the molecular, once reserved for chemists, into immediate relevance for botany, zoology, medicine, meteorology, many areas of geology, engineering, and so on. This has meant the adoption of terminologies appropriate to such scales of observation and analysis. Commingling has a number of sources. Integration of computer technology into nearly every aspect of science is one. The adaptive use of other technologies (e.g., nuclear magnetic resonance, laser optics, and neural network applications) is another. Exploring phenomena from a multidisciplinary vantage — the human genome, for instance, or the surface of Mars — continues to be a major part of science. "Transdisciplinary research," as often said, has brought options and opportunities to every field. Formerly separate areas have been united: biopaleogeography, psychoneuroimmunology, planetary geophysics, and chemical anthropology, among many others. At every step is the increased sharing of terminologies. Ours is indeed an era of pluralisms, but a fruitful era as well. The language of science, in consequence, reveals patterns of divergence and convergence both. This language, as it evolves, is headed neither toward ultimate unity nor utter diaspora. Barriers set up by specialized jargon exist, without doubt, as they have for some time. Yet many have become increasingly porous, allowing flow in both directions. Such will undoubtedly continue — science is today the most active area of language creation.