The Modest Novice LD Resolution

See Palmer’s comment (i.e., fightin’ words) on the last post. But for Pete’s sake, what is the wording going to be then? (I admit I’ve just been getting sort of tired of waiting it out. What’s my rush? I mean, after all, I am older than Ben Franklin ever was!)

Last attempt: Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.

Violent ultimately doesn’t hack it for me, because that really isn’t what CD is all about. It’s counterintuitive (you never see Gandhi packing heat in video games, for instance).

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for solving injustice. 

Solving injustice forces the issue of, literally, solving a problem, which seems to give some needed weight to the neg. Protests don’t solve, they publicize. They have virtuousness on their side, but not necessarily effectiveness. This wording is okay. It doesn’t sing, but it hums along.

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is a morally correct tactic for achieving justice/solving injustice.

I don’t really shy away from discussing morality, but I worry that including it in the wording forces the issue in preparation. That is, in my own curriculum (which is, granted, a meeting a week), it takes at least a month to get as far as morality in any meaningful way (and, of course, a minute to learn, a lifetime to master).

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is necessary for solving injustice. 

This requires thought, but if there is injustice in a democracy, then the laws in place aren’t hacking it. So, changing the laws isn’t as easy as it seems. Maybe the laws institutionalize injustice of some sort (e.g., Jim Crow).

My leaning here would be In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for solving injustice. I’m open to anything at this point.

You probably know its sentiments pretty well already, but if you don’t, go back to Ben Franklin’s summation speech at the Constitutional Convention. I think it applies to us. Granted, we’re not exactly building a country here, but the situation has similar aspects. This is probably not perfect, but it is pretty good. And we can always see how it works and tweak it next year.  We’ve all had plenty of opportunity to discuss it and offer whatever amounts of cents we have felt were appropriate. I personally have waffled and vacillated enough to start a new dance craze, and I still see flaws in this and that about it. But as a starting point for training high school freshmen (and the occasional late-starting sophomore), this should work pretty well. And that is the goal, after all, not to create the world’s greatest resolution, but to create an effective resolution for recruiting and training new debaters. In one way or another this has been voted on for use by the NFL membership more than once. It has been selected also for PF debate. The time has come to get going. So, let the going be gotten. By the power vested in me by, well, me, so it shall be written. So it shall be done.

“Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.”

From Sheryl Kaczmarek:

Peter and I spent two hours today with Zach, Victor and Devin today specifically discussing the Modest Novice topic. Although there are lots of things we discussed that aren’t critical, I would really like to argue forcefully against the inclusion of the word “violent” in the resolution. For one thing, most definitions of “civil disobedience” specify non-violent action, which means I am not sure it is a good idea to try to force a discussion of “violent civil disobedience” when the literature doesn’t necessarily support such an interpretation, or define it. Peter wonders what the difference between “violent civil disobedience” and “rebellion” is, and I’m not sure. Was the Civil War an example of “violent civil disobedience?” How about Timothy McVeigh’s attack in Oklahoma City? After all, McVeigh claimed his bombing was a protest against federal actions in Waco and against federal income taxes. Besides, all that is accomplished by adding the word “violent” is to shift the side that gets to claim Rosa Parks. Since the affirmative is required to defend violent action, that means the negative can say that while “violent civil disobedience” is not an “appropriate tactic” ordinary, every day “civil disobedience” is an “appropriate tactic.” I think I’d like to be negative every round when I can blame the affirmative for bombings like the one in Oklahoma City and claim that MLK and Rosa Parks achieved greater justice.

In addition to concluding that inclusion of the word “violent” is a mistake, we wondered about the use of the word “appropriate” in front of the word “tactic.” We are not entirely sure how anyone measures “appropriate” and we worry that there is so much ground between acceptable, desirable, possible or permissible that “appropriate” becomes a very large concept. I think I understand why “appropriate” was chosen over “effective,” for example, since a discussion of efficacy rather implies a discussion of solvency but I am not sure why the phrase “for achieving justice” doesn’t implicate solvency anyhow and if the students were to debate the effectiveness of “civil disobedience” “for achieving justice” at least affirmatives would have to do more than chant MLK and Rosa Parks every round. Affirmatives would have to actually prove that “civil disobedience is an effective tactic for achieving justice,” which actually is debatable, I think. Peter pointed out that there probably were other ways which would have integrated the buses, some of which might have worked faster than what Rosa Parks did, as important as that was. I don’t think the negative needs to prove that Rosa Parks was unimportant or bad to win — instead the negative merely needs to argue that civil disobedience as a tactic is not an effective way to achieve justice.

The “appropriate” vs. “effective” word change is not something we feel as strongly about as we do about removing the word “violent,” and maybe “effective” is also not the best choice, but we would like to a least offer our input on that word choice. I am not entirely certain I would oppose use of the phrase “morally acceptable” in place of “appropriate” although I know there was some discussion earlier about not bringing morality into the resolution directly. We still think morality can be brought in, whether the phrase is in the resolution or not, so maybe it would be better to get all of the big concepts into the resolution right away and be done with it. Regardless of what happens to “appropriate,” we urge that the word “violent” be dropped. Incidentally, I think the negative might still be able to blame the affirmative for all forms of “civil disobedience” if they can find an inclusive definition.

I think this counts as Newburgh’s four and half cents worth…we await responses.

Sheryl

Regarding our story so far, we have “In the USA today, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.”

Sara Sanchez adds to the discussion: “I think Palmer’s suggestion about ‘violent’ in the res is necessary to give the neg any ground at all.  I think the idea that civil disobedience is necessary in a demo is really hard to negate without that qualifier.”

Which would give us “In the USA today, (or in a democracy) violent civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.”

The reigning alternative includes the concept, following the law v. following your conscience. That would give us something like this:

“In the USA today, (or in a democracy) it is something-or-other to follow the law v. following your conscience.”

I continue to feel that the follow wording wouldn’t be optimal. We are talking novices and their training, and I’d be hard-pressed to convince anyone, novice or otherwise, to follow the law when it went against their conscience. This is a private matter, and one that certainly doesn’t lend itself to discussion within a justice paradigm. The goal of the topic is to introduce basic skills and ideas, not necessarily to be the best LD topic per se. Any topic picked will have flaws, I’m sure. I’d prefer to concentrate on justice for a starter rather than morality.

I am beginning to see the point of violent, as CP suggested and as SS confirms. It does answer some of Kate’s issues regarding debating against Rosa Parks. I think it’s probably best moved out of the US, once the violence is added. And I’ve modified “is” to “can be” for the sake of the theory-argument novices who will demand an absolute.

“In a democracy, violent civil disobedience can be an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.”

(By the way, how does one add a posting here if they’re not me?)

“In a democracy the USA today, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice tactic for achieving justice.”

“In the USA today, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.”

This gives us the modern context, and it removes the rather aff-biased “fight for justice.” The more I look at it, the more I can live with appropriate, as it is not a loaded LD term in any way (or a loaded term in any other way, I don’t think). I can address appropriateness perhaps from a moral point of view, or legal justice point of view, or any other way. I worry that including the word moral in the resolution would entail a lot of discussion of classical moral schemas, which is a bit much for the average novice (witness throwing one fat guy gentleman of exceptional girth over the bridge to stop the trolley to save five Mother Teresas further on down the track).

“In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice.” This was the January 2008 PF topic, and I’m having a hard time finding issues with the wording for Modest Novice. Is there any reason not to just say this is the one?

One of the big problems with civil disobedience as a topic is that, as my daughter points out, someone might have to attack Rosa Parks, which is something of a mug’s game. If a law is unjust, it is not hard to make an argument that the law should not be obeyed. The problem is proving that the law is unjust in the first place. One burden of the aff is proving an intrinsic injustice is taking place in the law being disobeyed. That should be a fairly large burden most of the time, i.e., finding a law that specifically limits rights, given that laws exist to protect rights in the first place, at least in a democracy. A core issue with CD at some point is that, just because you don’t like a particular law, that does not warrant your not obeying it. I may not like the law that says I have to drive 55 mph, and I may have a car that is capable of going 120 mph, and the road may be entirely clear of traffic, and I can be as unimpaired in my driving skills as the day is long, but that does not make driving over the speed limit any less illegal.

Question one: Should we say, in a democracy, or, in the US?

If we are defending, in theory, Rosa Parks, we always win. Analysis of the past can inform the present, but should not determine the outcome of the round. Do we want to argue civil rights and Martin Luther King v. Thurgood Marshall, demonstrating injustice or changing laws to eliminate injustice, or do we want to argue something more contemporary, like certain aspects of abortion or maybe same-sex unions. I don’t imply that civil rights is a finished issue, I only suggest that arguing the history of civil rights may not leave a lot of room for the neg. Contemporary issues may not have the bite, though, or may be too biting in the case of abortion.

Question two: Should we add to the wording, today? “In the USA today, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice.”

If we demur from this sort of timeliness, then I would look at the concept of appropriate. When is it not appropriate to follow your conscience? You’d be hard-pressed in our relativistic philosophical universe to find an argument that claims that you have some other objective beacon for morality other than religious dogma, which does not exactly make for good debate.

Question three: Should we say necessary instead of appropriate? “The best” instead of appropriate?

I’m not suggesting, beyond the fact that I don’t want to argue against Rosa Parks, that I’ve pinned anything down here. The question is, which wording, or what other wording, gives us the most bang for the buck? Taking this wording as is from the PF topic is still pretty good. Can we improve it in any way?

C.C. posted these two to my Facebook wall, and they’re interesting.

http://downloads.pfdebate.com/?file=9&sort=3
http://www.publicformula.com/wordpress22/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/jan2008pfsupplement.pdf

I read at them quickly, and my first immediate reaction was that this might be the best possible wording (not to mention some made-to-order materials). Next up I want to read them slowly.

—menick

We need to focus in on the wording. These are the two CD topics used in the past by NFL:
- Civil disobedience is justified in a democracy.
- Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified.

We like CD because it allows us to discuss in class the concept of social contract, and the rule of law, and then we can discuss morality, and then we put them together in discussions of this topic. No problem so far. But there is an issue, which was brought up to me by my daughter. It’s a “huge uphill battle; no one thinks civil disobedience is a bad thing.” She’s right. All we have to go on is MLK and Rosa Parks and Gandhi on one side, and not much on the other side. But if you word it right, “you have Nazis just following orders, and doctors refusing to prescribe plan B, or perform abortions” The question needs to be, at what point does individual morality trump social obligation? And the wording needs to get that across, or else the aff is all saints saving rights and the world and the neg is some babble about social contract.

How do we get around this? I have no easy answer. One thing might be to go with “acts of civil disobedience” rather than CD straight up. So we begin
“Acts of civil disobedience…”
Then what? Any ideas?

— Menick

At Lexington, we agreed that the topic would be about civil disobedience. The feeling was that this topic was basic enough to stem from the sort of initial instruction that makes sense with novices, and that it would be reasonably debatable on both sides. I’ll put some discussion in as follow-ups to this post. (I’m still just getting the hang of the site and the software.)

—Menick