[eDebate] In Defense of the Courts

[Paul Johnson]

Some of what I say will probably echo Justin or Corey,
but I think that a Courts topic has a lot going for
it.

There is probably a lot of critical ground still to be
overturned on this topic- aside from the CLS (which
I'll admit is sorta lame), there are a lot of
perspectives that have developed on the way the law
functions in relation to philosophy or ethics-
numerous Foucauldian analyses give us a chance to have
some Foucault debates none of us <except Fort
Hayes-tsk tsk> have had in a while. And of course
Justin's "hidden K" argument for stuff thats lying
around yet to be stumbled upon is pretty compelling-
even though we continue to rehash international
relations kritiks, stuff like Nayar just came out on
treaties proving people can always go one level deeper
on this stuff. There's some Marxism ground on both
this and energy- its better on energy, but i daresay
thats an argument against, not for.

Environmental k's are some of the best developed and
most compelling out there, so i'll admit to thinking
there could be some good debates on that.

Aff ground on courts would be pretty solid- you get to
tear down any number of pernicious social ills, like
racism. And frankly, its about time the community was
forced to get back to basics on impact evaluation-
when was the last time anyone saw an excellent
utilitarianism v Kant debate? Teams lately have been
advancing fewer "utilitarianism bad" claims in favor
of "its impossible for us to outweigh nuclear wars
with genocide so debate is violent". Forcing people to
figure out how advocates previously were able to win
that racism or sexism were something worth fighting
for even in light of political ramifications seems a
noble and good goal.

Negative ground will prove to be ample- particularly
if its a list topic- I mean, all these caseswere
decided one way and there was a clear set of advocates
arguing on both sides of an issue- a debate over how
the Court should rule on say affirmative action, what
grounds it would use, why a particular ground is good,
etc could literally be had on every single case taken.
there could be some pretty devastating "2 off, 30 on"
1NC's. You might get this on energy too, but those
debates have been had before.

This topic might not relate to the economy as well as
energy- but we did just have a topic with a ton of
free trade debates that probably served to create lots
of economic education.

Politics ground will still be salient and good- the
number of pages of academia devoted to assessing how
the court impacts politics and elections is
significant- plus since all the case rulings will be
fairly big, winning a link will be reasonably easy.
Also, the arg that politix=key neg ground applicable
to all cases is irrelevant is the forced actor is the
courts- then you can always run your minimalism DA. 

Federalism does suck; it doesn't have to be a core
strategy component. Social ecology kinda sucks too and
we'd debate that on energy.

I mean this point about personal politics Johnny makes
seems reasonable, but that shits gonna happen no
matter what- if you start talking about energy policy,
people have family members in Iraq etc. I agree with
Slusher's args here.

The Vernonia V Acton example is pretty damn good for
how some case debates could get in depth
1. vernonia v acton's holding upheld a ruling that
essentially disallowed train drivers to do drugs while
on the job- an overturn would effectively overturn
this precedent-train wrecks DA

2. a huge debate about general/intermediate/strict
scrutiny- overapplying strict scrutiny <which might be
necessary for a total vernonia overturn> could lead to
a weakening of that standard, the very standard that
has protect discriminated minority groups.

3. Vote trading- several members of the Court would
have to reverse their own rulings. This could lead to
vote trading- maybe certiorariy is granted to another
case or a ruling shifts- Justice have even admitted to
this in the past! We have our politics equivalent.

4. War on drugs signal A. Vernonia signaled comittment
to fighting drugs
B. Overturn kills this signal
C. Drugs are bad

I came up with these args in about 3 minutes- without
any formal legal training <I'm not even very smart>. I
think some in depth research could produce excellent
debates.

Health Care blows. I won't even try to defend it.

Anyway, these are my reasons why the Court might be
pretty good to debate. Energy would prolly be pretty
awesome too- but trying something different never
killed anyone. Except Len Bias. Which was a crying
shame cause he could sky. 

-Paul
Pitt



	
		
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