The Modest Novice LD Resolution

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, 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