***Rez 1NCs

1NC Rezolutionality Traditional

Our interpretationthe affirmative should have to defend that action by the
United States federal government is normatively desirable the affirmative
violates
Resolved means to enact by law
Words 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 government
Blacks Law Dictionary 90
6
th
Ed., p. 695
In the United States, 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 action
Merriam-Webster 2
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2002, 10
th
Edition, http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/should
Used in auxiliary function to express obligation, propriety, or expediency.
B) Violationthe aff does not defend the United States federal government
action
C) Vote Negative
1) Without Limits debate becomes impossibleT is a jurisdictional voting issue
Shively 2kProfessor of Political Science, Texas A & M
Ruth, Political Theory and Partisan Politics, p. 181-2
The requirements thus far are primarily negative. The ambiguists must say no tothey
must reject and limitsome 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
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
ones 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 demonstrators 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 arent 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
cant effectively act on content-specific knowledge
English et al 7
Eric 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
law professor Neal Katyal served as lead plaintiffs counsel in Hamdan, which challenged
post-9/11 enemy combat definitions. 12 The foundation for Katyals 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 Katyals contemporary public interventions,
which are characterized by meticulous research, sound argumentation, and a staunch
commitment to democratic principles. Katyals reflection on his early days of debating at
Loyola High School in Chicagos North Shore provides a vivid illustration. I came in as a
shy freshman with dreams of going to medical school. Then Loyolas 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
Loyolas 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 debaters 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
McCarthys 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 dont 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 thinking
Dybvig and Iverson 99
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 doesnt
matter if we have good arguments against their aff b/c they cant provide an
interpretation that would allow their aff and protect good, predictable debates
in the future.
Oceans Cards
Debates about ocean policy have the unique chance of sparking the advocacy
necessary to save the oceans
Greely 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 seas 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
1990s 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 nations ocean and coasts via the Ocean Blueprint for the
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- its
the only way to stave off extinction
Greely 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 planets 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
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 ones 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.
2NC AT C/I Germane
Infinitely regressivejustifies 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 insufficientan actual advocacy is an important
point of stasis that actually allows us to discuss the issues
Panetta 10
(Panetta, Edward M., PhD and debate director at the University of Georgia, published
2010Controversies 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 negatives right to be heard and respected
-After months of research, prep, and critical thinking, the affirmative silences the negatives
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 play
Galloway, 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)
Debate as a dialogue sets an argumentative table, where all parties receive a relatively fair
opportunity to voice their position. Anything that fails to allow participants to have their
position articulated denies one side of the argumentative table a fair hearing. The
affirmative side is set by the topic and fairness requirements. While affirmative teams have
recently resisted affirming the topic, in fact, the topic selection process is rigorous, taking
the relative ground of each topic as its central point of departure. Setting the affirmative
reciprocally sets the negative. The negative crafts approaches to the topic consistent with
affirmative demands. The negative crafts disadvantages, counter-plans, and critical
arguments premised on the arguments that the topic allows for the affirmative team.
According to fairness norms, each side sits at a relatively balanced argumentative table.
When one side takes more than its share, competitive equity suffers. However, it also
undermines the respect due to the other involved in the dialogue. When one side excludes
the other, it fundamentally denies the personhood of the other participant (Ehninger, 1970,
p. 110). A pedagogy of debate as dialogue takes this respect as a fundamental component.
A desire to be fair is a fundamental condition of a dialogue that takes the form of a demand
for equality of voice. Far from being a banal request for links to a disadvantage, fairness is
a demand for respect, a demand to be heard, a demand that a voice backed by literally
months upon months of preparation, research, and critical thinking not be silenced.
Affirmative cases that suspend basic fairness norms operate to exclude particular negative
strategies. Unprepared, one side comes to the argumentative table unable to meaningfully
participate in a dialogue. They are unable to understand what went on and are left to
the whims of time and power (Farrell, 1985, p. 114). 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 decisions.
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 causeIf we are to be equalrelationships 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 affirmative 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
affirmative subverts any meaningful role to the negative 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.
2NC ClashLong
Clashno predictable point of stasis makes clash impossiblethis outweighs
even if they win 100% of their impact turns

1) Process educationdebate produces the only unique form of educationthe
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) Dogmafailure 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 3
Patricia 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 Jerusalem), 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
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 determineddetermined 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 responsibility 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 totalitarian 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
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 "banality 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
holocaustthe 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 rightrobs the value
of any knowledge they produce
Talisse 5Professor of Philosophy @Vandy
Robert, 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 reect 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
justications 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
justication is unreasonable. The activist sees no reason to accept this. Reasonableness for
the activist consists in the ability to act on reasons that upon due reection 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 deliberativists 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 activists 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
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: 812).
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 condent 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 offenseall aff claims are uncertain unless they can be
rigorously scrutinized which is only possible in a world of deliberative norms
and clashmeans you cant evaluate any of their impact turns unless theyre
based off their interpretation, not the 1AC. Also means you should vote on
presumptionno testable offensive reason to vote aff
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 likely
Tonn 5Prof of Communication @ Maryland
Mari 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 cannot 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 issuesmodels 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 realityjudiciously, as you willwe'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
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 other
Tonn 5Prof of Communication @ Maryland
Mari 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 accomplished 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
AT Fairness Bad/Racist (Delgado)
This misses the pointour argument is that they destroy the possibility of
deliberation from achieving anything productive, meaning that debate
collapses. It isnt as simple as preserving some hegemonic order, rather there
has to be a point of stasis to expect a reasonable dialogue.

Small Schools D/ANo 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 cant 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 topicthe fact that that standard is applied unfairly should not
be a reason to vote affirmative
Farber and Sherry 97Prof of of Law @U Minn, Prof of Civil Rights @ U Minn
Daniel, 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 discriminationand 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
merely the arbitrary result of a game that isn't rigged. Suppose that some grouplet us
say, gentilescomplains 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 responsethe
one most congenial to those who believe that such concepts as justice can have no
objective meaningis 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 outcomeand by definition has more power than its
opponentsthis is a losing argument.
You should toss this argument as non-falsifiable. This insulates them from any
criticism on the grounds its grounded in racism
Farber and Sherry 97Prof of of Law @U Minn, Prof of Civil Rights @ U Minn
Daniel, 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.
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 value
Gunderson 2kProf of Political Science @ Texas A & M
Adolf 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 separation. 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 engagement with the collectivity of which one is a
member. This is all the more true when two or more citizens deliberate together. Yet
deliberation 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 impactsthe framework is the foundational layer of debate
Saurette 2kPhD Johns Hopkins
Paul, 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 -
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.

Policy Focus Good
Policy training is uniquely valuable for social advocacytheir engagement is
defensive and doesnt solve our advantages
Themba-Nixon 2kExec Director of the Praxis Project
Makani, 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
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 2kProf of Political Science @ Houston
Donald S. Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 36-7
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. Politics 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
systemthe character, hopes, fears, needs and environment of the peoplewhich
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 overlookedclassroom 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. Political 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.
AT State BadInevitable
The State is inevitable and should not be rejectedsolving global problems like
nuclear war and environmental destruction require a recognition of state
power and an attempt to transform it
Eckersly 4--Professor and Head of Political Science in the School of Social and
Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia
Robyn, 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 states 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.
Switch Side Debate Good
Clash of PedagogiesThe 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 developsnot the
content of particular truth claims
Siegel 03
Harvey 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 dont 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 were
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
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 Goldmans 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 Goldmans 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 (dont) 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 advocacy
Harrigan 08
Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 29 (2008) 37 AGAINST DOGMATISM: A
CONTINUED DEFENSE OF SWITCH SIDE DEBATE Casey Harrigan, University of Georgia
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).
AT Exclusion
Benefits of Debate outweigh the Disads of Exclusion
Muir 93Dept of Comms @ George Mason
Star, 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 th 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 thse matters are properly handled, stress is not laid on getting the speaker to
think rightly in regard to the merits of either side of thse 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 valuation, 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 politics
Mouffe 99Prof of Politics and IR @ U of Westminster
Chantal, 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 consensusin fact, to define what the common good is,
because that's what is at stake in politicswe 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.
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 93Dept of Comms @ George Mason
Star, 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 are 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
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.