[eDebate] Answers Stanton and Trade in General- Plus other thoughts

[Paul Johnson]

I am just gonna let go some thoughts on the
possibility of a trade topic. I still support a
defense policy topic, because hey, tanks and nukes are
fucking cool, but I am intrigued by a trade topic.
Cause trade causes wars. 

     This community has never really had an entire
topic devoted to trade/globalization (maybe Woodbury
can hit me with a one line post contravening this
statement since he's been around longer than me). Good
god, it would be nice to have a topic that caused the
impact to someone's protectionism DA not be that
freaking spicer card. And the question of whether or
not free trade increases growth/causes wars/oppresses
people I am probably speaking for/brings Stroubian
emails to Europe is probably one that would be a hell
of a lot of fun to debate. Now New Anti-Globalization
Movements may put a damper on that. In fact, they
would. But I mean its not as if New International and
Empire debates haven't at least brought that into
debate. (Writer's Note: Antonio Negri, coauthor of
Empire, killed 17 PEOPLE. They didnt like fall down
his stairs drunk at a dinner party. He led militant
socialists to conspire to kill the Prime Minister of
Italy. That is some bullshit.) Anyway, I think trade
could be a sweet topic, but it'd be important to
compile a list of cases. Areas dont go well (Indians
yo).

Now some people (Tejinder) will run "Treaties was a
list and that was tougher to keep up with". There's
some truth to that argument no doubt. But I think a
list of areas and something to be done in them (ie
liberalize policy on GMO, privacy, arms, human
kidneys) is dangerous unless you specify a particular
specific instantiation of that action (ie the US
should drop tariffs on steel), because then the big
schools get to roll out thousands of affs. Good god,
Nu had 5 in 5 rounds in the NDT elims. Kentucky's
habit of having around "what you say is good is
actually bad" files kept the final round from being as
generic as other rounds (sems was won on gendered
language for example, not to marginalize the
importance of the argument, but the rest of the block
was norm and T=the past tense, if i recall correctly,
which I may not, indicating gender oppression aside
the strategy wasn't terribly tailor made to a
particular case). 

A few more empirical args against resolutions like
"substantially change in X area"
The HS privacy topic my senior year was the USFG
should increase proteciton of privacy in one or more
of the following areas: yada yada yada. The problem
came that many people found things that were in those
areas and just banned them, oftentimes not having a
solvency advocate for them. For lots of major trade
issues its entirely possible there would be a lot of
solvency literature but as the year wears on and
people are looking for anything they can pretty soon
someone will find some small bad policy and ban it and
dare you to run "substantially"

I dont know whether its the size of a topic that
benefits schools more than the scope. Let me explain
the distintion. Environment topics are "big" cause
there are lots of ways to clean up oil spills, or stop
them, or promote RE use etc. But the advantage areas
are limited. You've got warming, water poisoning,
enviro racism, species loss, maybe econ
growth/competitiveness, water wars. On the other hand
a topic like treaties had only 5 Affs, but the
advantage areas were diverse enough that maybe the
only advantage cases had in common were like
multilateralism, and prolif (if you think the SORT
solved prolif, which is an iffy proisition). Past that
there were at least 15 viable add ons and advantages
for the CTBT, nearly as many for the ICC, the DP (not
that many people looked into that), and Kyoto.
Everything encompassed on an environemnt topic, or
nearly everything, could be involved in Kyoto
advantages and implementation. So an environment
topic, while having more cases, was probably easier in
terms of research than treaties. If you didn't do CTBT
neg work for just one tournament you were probably
hosed at that tournament because of all the new shit
people would run. (it works the opposite way too- I
think 2nd semester we only went for a 1AC advantage in
a non-critical round once). So maybe the idea is that
small teams that do a lot of work will have an added
advantage over other small teams and can run with the
big dogs. Of course that sounds like "if you do more
work, you will have an advantage". I think Captain
Obvious is pissed I'm ripping off his schtick. Anyway,
just a couple thoughts. Awaiting the topic committee's
finished work.

-Paul
"Ibid"






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