EMORY HS - ROUND 6: MBA AFF v. FULLERTON UNION NEG

EMORY HS - ROUND 6: MBA AFF v. FULLERTON UNION NEG

NEGATIVE: FULLERTON UNION

Close and good round – both teams deserved to participate in the elimination rounds, in my opinion, and I expressed this with points.

Theory’s the nexus point of this debate – the affirmative can’t catch up on substance. Unfortunately, the 2AR disagrees with this assessment, devoting too much time to defensive arguments against the net benefit, which don’t matter absent a meaningful solvency differential. Although the 2AR is excellent in a number of places, I don’t think that he quite achieves the same level of clashing argument development on theory as his affirmative colleague.

More specifically, I don’t have the 2AR clearly extending the 1AR’s argument that I should hold counterplans to a minimum standard of both functional and textual competition. (I largely blame time pressure for this deficiency.) This combination of standards should win the debate for the aff, given 2NC/2NR mistakes here. The negative should never solely rely on the argument that textual competition hurts the AFFIRMATIVE. The combination (both text and function are a necessary condition for a competitive CP) should crush the negative disads to textual competition since they all impact in "abusing the affirmative is bad." Fullerton has already conceded the underlying premise that we should opt for a vision of competition that best serves the affirmative.

I get very little of this, however. I have components that come awfully close – the 2AR says “both textual and functional” – but that appears to be a description of the permutation, not a description of the way that I should adjudicate competition generally. The 2AR also says “solves all the disads” – but I’m quite sure that he’s talking about solving the disads to the aff, not solving the theoretical disads to textual competition. I can understand why this might be slightly frustrating for MBA, as many of the components come awfully close, but I just don’t have it clearly assembled in a couple of sentences. If the 2AR repeats the 1AR on this section of the flow, I’d likely vote aff.

In a similar vein, the 2AR opts for slightly more scattershot extension on the PICs debate, which I also felt was winnable. The 1AR, for example, continues the process of clash when he advances the argument that minute net benefits, despite their exciting technical detail, can’t aid debate because they don’t attract two sided discussions in the literature. This is a good, responsive argument, which the 2NR neglects. It’s not a component of the 2AR, however.

The 2AR invests more time in invective against PICs than real substantive analysis of their theoretical implications. Labels such as “hyperinflated” and “inconsequential” net benefits always read like empty insults to me. I don’t know how to determine if they “inflated” or “hyperinflated” or if the disad has a “consequence” without referring to some other section of the PICs debate. Without some external analytic support, these assertions seem logically circular. PICs are bad because they hyperinflate net benefits which we determine by referencing the assumption that PICs and their net benefits are probably bad.

As it stands, I don’t have much onpoint answer to “structural side bias dictates negative flexibility” or “these types of counterplans specifically aid topic development, because they’re the only route to a specific and hypertechnical discussion of energy forms.” The second argument is particularly damning, because the 2AR highlights “topic specific education” as a trump impact, without decisively winning the link.

I’d give a more centered 2AR a good deal of leeway, because I didn’t think the 2NR was strong or centered here. Both teams rely on scattershot extension of individual arguments, without assembling a meaningful theoretical gestalt.

I would have prioritized this debate lower in the 2AR, because it’s fairly even, whereas you are probably just 100% correct on the perm.

As a side note, the dropped “resolutional justification” argument on alternative energy specification exerts a minor gravity on evaluation of technical minutiae on these theory debates. I can’t vote on this argument in isolation – it’s neither smart nor well-developed – but I feel that it’s difficult for me to give MBA much leeway when they don’t explicitly address something that Fullerton flags as a voting issue.

On the substantive debate, MBA just has defense. I don’t think that geothermal drilling will kill 5.5 billion people. I think it might hurt some people, though, or scare them. I don’t think earthquakes are good – they’re risky and endanger human health. It’s a linear impact – each earthquake is probably bad enough to overwhelm presumption. I disagree with the 2AR’s assertion that Fullerton drops this argument about German feed-in tariffs empirically disproving the impact. I think she answers this explicitly when she says that the United States system will be more successful and broadly adopted, and thus spur much broader geothermal drilling. Her argument isn’t dazzling, but it’s an argument.

I appreciate the 2AR attempt to argue that offense/defense is bad, and that I should consequently hold their net benefit to high standard of scrutiny, or raise the affirmative presumption threshold. The resolution of small risks recurs as a nexus question in debates, and you have a viable argument. In this context, it’s clearly both too late (the 1AR doesn’t really set up this filter for evaluation, and I imagine Fullerton would like a chance to address this) and too little (there’s no impact to this type of evaluation beyond “it’s a bad thing.”)

Some individual comments:

1AC CX: I don’t think you should concede “immediate and unconditional implementation of the plan.” That seems like you’re baiting consultation, and should probably distinguish between disads and counterplans in your answer. The correct answer:

“We’ll defend that the plan passes according to normal means for the purposes of your disad links. However, the process through which the plan might pass is not a component of our textual advocacy, as you can see, so we will argue strenuously that your process counterplan is not competitive.”

I also think it’s worthwhile to outline your view of “fiat.” It’s a theoretical construct which allows us to overlook questions of the likelihood of implementation. No one “fiats” a plan. It’s a heuristic, not an action.