2014 March/April LD Topic

2014 March/April Topic
Resolved: Placing political conditions on humanitarian aid to foreign countries is unjust.

March PF Topic

Resolved: Single-gender classrooms would improve the quality of education in public schools.

February PF Debate Topic

Resolved: The Supreme Court rightly decided that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act violated the Constitution.

Jan./Feb. Debate Topics

Lincoln-Douglas January/February Topic
Resolved: Developing countries should prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction when the two are in conflict

Public Forum January Topic
Resolved: Development assistance should be prioritized over military aid in the Sahel region of Africa

Sept./Oct. LD topic

Resolved: In a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory.

September 2013 PF Topic

Resolved: Unilateral military force by the United States is justified to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Extemp topics

I've never done this but I thought it would help those of you who are committed to extemp.  I've created some current practice topics:

1.       What will come of “Biden Group” gun control proposals?

2.       With the discovery of dozens of dead bodies, is there genocide occurring in Syria?

3.       Will the Benghazi embassy attack ruin Hillary Clinton’s chances at a 2016 Presidency?

4.       What is the legacy of former President George W. Bush?

5.       How will the Texas Supreme Court rule in the case of the school districts v. the state?

6.       What can the U.S. do to improve on handling soldiers with PTSD?

7.       What does the assassination of Chokri Belaid mean for Tunisia?

8.       Will the U.S. Justice Department move against the marijuana laws in Colorado and Washington?

9.       Should the U.S. fully support the Keystone Pipeline?

         Is Afghanistan ready for a U.S. troop withdrawal?

1 .   What does the future hold for Venezuela’s Presidency?

1 .   Was the “Arab Spring” of 2011 a success?

 These will also be up in the classroom and we'll use these for practice rounds.  Some are domestic - some are foreign.  Some are current - some are evaluating older issues.

Those of you who do extemp probably don't need to be reminded of this, but I'll do it anyway: Extemp requires commitment.  It is not an event you can do once and then conclude that it's not your thing.  Success at the event relies on your commitment to creating a working knowledge of current events.  It demands that you build on previous knowledge and that you follow certain stories and issues as they develop.  Last year at Nationals was the first time in a LONG time that we did not win extemp., and while not experiencing the overall success at Nationals that we're used to was not fun, not winning extemp was the equivalent of a kick to the gut.  It hurt.  It's more competitive than it used to be and like every other event we as a team have to push ourselves to find ways to improve what we're doing.  We can't get away with merely being confident, citing some made up sources and doing the "Munson Shuffle."  I know we're up to the task, and if you do extemp and know nothing about these practice topics, then you NEED to do a little web-searching to acquaint yourselves with these issues because these questions deal with pretty basic stories.

That said, good luck!

Oak Ridge (Apr. 6) Is Using the March PF Topic!

Huzzah!  Here's the topic:

Resolved: The U.S. government should not require its citizens to have health insurance.

Propositions of Fact

This would be helpful to read before tackling the current PF topic.  I probably should've made this available earlier when you had your November topic (Resolved: Current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East undermines our national security.)

This gentleman explains Props of Fact a lot better than I can.

Proposition of Fact

Jan. PF Topic Analysis

Resolved: On balance, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission harms the election process.

First off, it's been a while since we've seen an "On balance..." topic.   (April 2010 - Resolved: On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United States.)  This is another proposition of fact (A has this impact on B).  I personally dislike these topics.  While we haven't had an "On balance" topic we've had A LOT of propositions of fact.  But before I go over that, let's take a quick trip through CU v FEC.

In June of 2004, controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore released a film titled Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature where freedom burns (clever, huh?)  Moore is no friend of conservatives and this film focused on President Bush's activity before, during and after the attacks even going so far as to assert that 9/11 was an inside job. (These conspiracy theorists are referred to ironically as 'truthers.')  Whatever your opinion on the matter, what was clear was that Moore's goals with the film were to influence the upcoming 2004 election between President Bush and Senator John Kerry.  It apparently didn't work.

Citizens United is a non-profit conservative advocacy group.  They protested that the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 prior to the election violated the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or "BCRA")  This act prohibited corporations and unions from using their general treasury to fund "electioneering communications" (broadcast advertisements mentioning a candidate) within 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election.  Citizens United's challenge of the film's release with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was dismissed.  So CU's response was basically "Okay.  If liberals like Michael Moore can do it, we can, too."  So they released a film in early 2008 called Hillary: The Movie to be released on DirecTV.  This film was highly critical of then-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.  The advertisements for the film ran before the Democratic Primary, which caused the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to claim the film violated the boundaries set by BCRA.  Citizens United appealed the decision to the Supreme Court (which by this time had been restocked with Conservative leaning President Bush picks).  The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United.

A constitutional attorney would be helpful at this point as I've basically summed up what Wikipedia has  to offer on the subject (don't worry - I corroborated with other sources).  If you were able to follow the two previous paragraphs then you might look at the Supreme Court decision and conclude that they sort of had to rule in favor of CU and the airing of their conservative film since the FEC had allowed Michael Moore's liberal film.  Denying CU's appeal would lead people to think there was a partisan double standard - liberals can do this but conservatives can't.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has opened the door to all sorts of "propaganda."  Consider the film 2016: Obama's America.  This was released the year of Obama's re-election campaign and argues that President Obama wants to reduce significantly the U.S.'s influence within the world while increasing the influence of nations that he believes have suffered or been held back economically or militarily due to U.S. and Western domination.  Overall, it's a very negative portrayal of the President.  I haven't seen the film so I won't comment on it, but just like Fahrenheit 9/11, I'll assume it runs with some basic facts and then gives you a very biased picture of what the filmmaker believes is the "truth."  Thanks to the Supreme Court's decision regarding CU vs. FEC, Obama supporters had little recourse but to let the film be released.  Much like Fahrenheit 9/11, it apparently had little effect on the election.

This is really just the back-story.  As Shakespeare wrote, "What is past is prologue."  In future posts I'll go over the way to go about analyzing propositions of fact and some basic PRO and CON approaches.  As with all topics, I highly recommend you do some research on your own.  I've only provided the "children's dictionary" set-up.

Jan./Feb. LD topic

Resolved: Rehabilitation ought to be valued above retribution in the United States criminal justice system.

Several things about this topic:

1. First, it's important to think about the OVERALL impact of rehab vs. retaliation.  Clearly in drug related cases (possession, use, etc.) it's easy to argue rehab vs. retribution.  But what about other types of crimes - crimes that aren't victimless crimes?  Robbery, rape, murder?  These are clearly crimes that involve a victim and the question of how the criminal justice system should approach these criminals becomes more complicated.

2. What is justice?  Is the goal of justice to right wrongs or ensure a safer society?  The easy answer is both and that righting wrongs by imprisonment (retribution) does make things safer.  But can the criminal justice system be an effective deterrent against crime if it's more focused on rehab than retaliation?  Is the criminal justice system which right now prioritizes retribution (hence the wording of the resolution) being undermined by that position?

3. Look at the recidivism rate (the rate at which criminals released from prison commit crimes and return - they become career criminals).  Is retribution really the best way to address that?  This goes back to the  deterrence issue.  If the focus was to rehabilitate these criminals (and rehab entails helping these folks obtain jobs and become functional members of society so that a life of crime becomes less lucrative) would the recidivism rate be reduced?

These are just a few questions to be parsed before jumping into value/value criterion pairings.  This is a great topic and should spur some good debates.  Good luck!

Jan. PF Topic

It's been out for a while. 

Resolved: On balance, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission harms the election process.

This is a good place to get started. Plus it has a Stephen Colbert video.

November/December LD Topic

Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee universal health care for its citizens.

November PF Topic

Resolved: Current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East undermines our national security.

October PF topic

Resolved: Developed countries have a moral obligation to mitigate the effects of climate change.