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**Politics DA**

Links
GOP hates respecting tribal rights
Ryan, 12 executive director for the Defending Wisconsin PAC (Jeremy,

AddictingInfo, Wisconsin GOP Votes To Break Native American Treaties,


http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/27/wisconsin-gop-votes-to-break-nativeamerican-treaties/, 1/27/12)
The Wisconsin GOP is attempting to pass a bill called Assembly Bill 426.
Assembly Bill 426 is a bill that was introduced without an author, a bill that
to this day cannot get a single person to claim ownership. What this bill does
is peel back decades of legislation as it pertains to the mining industry. It
allows mining companies to use land in Wisconsin with very little
regulation. The reason for the bill is simple. The mining companies
were upset that they needed to be regulated. In an attempt to
counteract this they wrote a bill, without an author, and had it introduced.
The Republicans then said that there was no need for a public hearing on this
bill and would not allow public input. Wisconsin State Representative Janet
Bewley disagreed and called a public hearing in West Allis, over fifteen hours
round trip from the proposed site of the mine.The locals showed up, despite
the distance. It was then that a second public hearing was scheduled, at the
request of the Democrats. This hearing took place at a small hotel in Hurley,
Wisconsin, much closer to the proposed mine site than West Allis. At this
hearing the people spoke at length and a local consensus was assumed. The
consensus, however, was that while the locals would like to see mining, they
do not want this bill. This bill is far too broad and allows for a $12 billion mine
that would destroy Northern Wisconsin. Northern Wisconsin currently has a
lot of natural beauty. There are also several tribes in this area, all of
which have Federal peace treaties. Many of the tribes showed up today
as the Assembly debated the bill. They worry for their land, their air, and
their water. Smaller mines than this one have caused major issues.
But rather than work with the tribes and local people, Republican
Representative Jeff Stone said it was not his job to provide a seat at
the table for tribes. They kept the bill as is. Tribal land is considered its
own sovereign nation. As with every sovereign nation, we have treaties so
that we can keep the peace. It was agreed, by treaty, that these tribes
would not have their resources infringed upon. This mine, however,
would destroy their water and air, breaking the Federal treaty and
declaring war on a sovereign nation. Treaties are not optional. The
passage of this bill literally and legally declares war on the tribes of
the north.

PC key to overcome animal rights opposition to Makah


whale hunts
Kamb, 5 Intelligence Reporter for the Seattle Post (Lewis, Seattle Post,
Makah try long shot: asking Congress to allow whale hunts,
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Makah-try-long-shot-asking-Congressto-allow-1169021.php)//jk

Already pursuing an obscure administrative waiver in its struggle to one day


hunt whales again, the Makah Indian Nation is now also exploring its options
on another front: Congress. During a recent visit to the nation's capital,
tribal officials informally raised to members of Washington's
congressional delegation the idea of seeking a bill to allow an
exception for Makah whale hunts. "We've just talked to them a little at
this point," Makah Chairman Ben Johnson Jr. said last week. "Whether
anything will come of it, who knows?" Such discussions -- still embryonic, at
best -- have yet to yield any promises of support. There is no such bill
now, nor any guarantees from lawmakers that there ever will be
one.In fact, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., already appears to be
somewhat distancing herself from any potential proposal to allow for
a tribal whaling exception. "It is very unlikely that she would try to
use the Senate to force this issue," Cantwell spokeswoman Charla
Neuman said last week. The Makah have a whaling tradition that dates back
some 2,000 years, but the tribe suspended its whale hunts in the 1920s -- in
part because the commercial whaling industry had hunted gray whales nearly
to extinction. In 1994, with the mammals' numbers rebounding, the federal
government removed the gray whale from the endangered species list. And
the tribe began taking steps to whale again. The Makah -- with support from
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- eventually won a
small annual harvest quota from the International Whaling Commission. In
1999, tribal whalers successfully brought in the tribe's first whale in more
than 70 years. Animal protection activists soon sued the tribe and its federal
backers, winning a string of legal victories to stop the hunts. In its most
recent opinion, the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that NOAA
should have conducted a more stringent environmental analysis before
endorsing the hunts. The court also ruled that, before the tribe can legally
hunt again, it must first seek and win an exception to the Marine Mammal
Protection Act. The 1972 federal law generally prohibits anyone in the United
States from harming gray whales or other sea mammals. The Makah had
argued that because they had an explicit right to hunt whales in their 1855
treaty with the U.S. government, the tribe wasn't subject to the law. But the
court disagreed. And instead of appealing to the Supreme Court and risking
the chance of setting bad precedent for other tribes, the Makah opted to
comply with the ruling last month by filing an application with NOAA for a
waiver to the law. Winning such an exception -- a pursuit that could take two
years or more of administrative hearings and paperwork -- has never
happened before, officials say. While that process moves ahead, the Makah
are considering what might be their only other option: congressional
help. Tribal representatives met individually late last month with
Cantwell, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, DWash., among others, to discuss the possibility of seeking a whaling
exception through federal legislation. Alaskan Natives, who don't have
treaty rights, are allowed to hunt whales under an exception that was written
into the mammal protection law when it was enacted more than 30 years
ago. So why shouldn't the Makah -- the only Native American tribe with an
express treaty right to whale -- also be exempt from the law? "We just think
it's unfair," said John Arum, the tribe's attorney. Some opponents of the
tribe's hunts actually may prefer that the Makah receive a whaling exception

through Congress rather than winning one through an administrative process,


Arum added. The latter would be a first-of-its-kind waiver that some
opponents have said could open the doors to others who may want to seek to
whale. But Naomi Rose, a marine mammal biologist for the Humane
Society of the United States -- among the coalition of opponents that
sued to stop the Makah's hunts -- said either scenario is
unacceptable. "For us, it's a real simple equation: We do not want
them hunting gray whales again, period," she said. The animal
protection group has since voiced its concerns to Washington's
congressional delegation over any potential tribal whaling bill -even though activists foresee the tribe's legislative prospects to be
unlikely. "To get an amendment to the law like that passed, you have
to have an awful lot of friends on the Hill," Rose said. "We don't
think they have enough."

**Humpback CP**

CP

1NC
Text: The United States federal government should fulfill
its 1885 Treaty of Neah Bay obligations to the Makah
Indian Tribe in the area of cultural humpback whaling.
Makahs prefer to hunt humpback whales- speed and
migration
Renker, 12 - Ann M. Renker received her Ph.D. in anthropology from The
American University in Washington, D.C. in 1987, A resident of the
reservation since 1986, she has also been an expert witness for the Tribe
since 1994 (Whale Hunting and the Makah Tribe: A Needs Statement,
International Whaling Commission, May,
http://iwc.int/private/downloads/ds5fzaq2p14w88ocko00o4gcw/64-ASW
%204.pdf)//jk
Archaeological and ethnohistorical data demonstrate that Makahs hunted several species
of whales that traveled through their territory, including the gray (Eschrichtius robustus),
humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae), finback (Balaenoptera physalus), and right (Eubalaena
glacialis) whales. Huelsbeck (1988a:5, 1994:171) discusses the traits which make both gray whales
and humpbacks attractive prey. In addition to swimming slowly and
near the shore, both types of whales could appear during multiple
seasons, including the summer. Humpbacks have also been known to
migrate along the coast, but not to the extent that gray whales do. Non-Indian whale hunters
characterize the gray as the more aggressive species of the two during a hunt (Hagelund 1987).

Gray whales key to ocean biodiversity


Carrillo-Rubio, 8 Program specialist at the National
Endowment for the Humanities (Luisanna Carrillo-Rubio, Whales: Even Giants
Aren't Safe, Climate Institute, April, http://www.climate.org/topics/ecosystems/whales-endangered-climatechange.html)//jk

According to the report, "recent studies have shown that changing climate conditions in the Bering Sea
and nearby areas have reduced prey populations for gray whales." The report further indicates that the
estimate of "typical gray whale abundance suggests that recent problems in gray whale feeding-including
reports of thin adults or high calf mortality-may result from changing conditions in northern feeding

drop in the numbers of gray whales "may be having a


profound impact on the ocean's ecosystem," the report warns, since
grey whales feed themselves in a very unique way. They "scoop up
these gigantic mouthfuls of mud from the sea bottom," and by doing
this, they stir up and bring a substantial amount of sea bottom
sediment to the ocean surface. This manner of feeding is of great
grounds." A dramatic

significance to the marine ecosystem , and when populations are in


healthy numbers, they can help rake up to the surface enough food
to nourish up to a million sea fowl, and countless other sea-dwelling
species. A dramatic drop in the populations of gray whales would
therefore impair the entire marine ecosystem further.

Biodiversity loss risks extinction.


Raj 12

(P. J. Sanjeeva Raj, former Head of Zoology Department, Madras Christian College, Beware the
Loss of Biodiversity, The Hindu, September 23, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/openpage/beware-the-loss-of-biodiversity/article3927062.ece)
He regrets that if such indiscriminate annihilation of all biodiversity from the face of the earth happens for anthropogenic
reasons, as has been seen now, it is sure to force humanity into an emotional shock and trauma of loneliness and
helplessness on this planet. He believes that the current wave of biodiversity loss is sure to lead us into an age that may

Loss of biodiversity is a much


greater threat to human survival than even climate change. Both could act,
synergistically too, to escalate human extinction faster. Biodiversity is so indispensable for
human survival that the United Nations General Assembly has designated the decade 2011- 2020 as the
be appropriately called the Eremozoic Era, the Age of Loneliness.

Biodiversity Decade with the chief objective of enabling humans to live peaceably or harmoniously with nature and its
biodiversity. We should be happy that during October 1-19, 2012, XI Conference of Parties (CoP-11), a global mega event
on biodiversity, is taking place in Hyderabad, when delegates from 193 party countries are expected to meet. They will
review the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which was originally introduced at the Earth Summit or the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Ministry of Environment and
Forests (MoEF) is the nodal agency for CoP-11. Today, India is one of the 17 mega-diverse (richest biodiversity) countries.

Biodiversity provides all basic needs for our healthy survival


oxygen , food , medicines , fibre, fuel, energy, fertilizers, fodder and waste-disposal, etc. Fast
vanishing honeybees, dragonflies, bats, frogs, house sparrows, filter (suspension)-feeder oysters and all
keystone species are causing great economic loss as well as posing an imminent
threat to human peace and survival. The three-fold biodiversity mission before us is to inventorise the
existing biodiversity, conserve it, and, above all, equitably share the sustainable benefits out of it.

Backlines - Makahs Like Humpbacks


Humpbacks are the most historically significant
Renker, 12 - Ann M. Renker received her Ph.D. in anthropology from The
American University in Washington, D.C. in 1987, A resident of the
reservation since 1986, she has also been an expert witness for the Tribe
since 1994 (Whale Hunting and the Makah Tribe: A Needs Statement,
International Whaling Commission, May,
http://iwc.int/private/downloads/ds5fzaq2p14w88ocko00o4gcw/64-ASW
%204.pdf)//jk
The Makahs hunted the variety of whales which swam in their traditional
ocean areas, but favored the predictable gray whale and the slower, less
aggressive humpback whale. According to the Ozette data, these were
the most abundant species and were relatively easy to capture.
Together they account for over 95% of the taxonomically identified
whale bones (Huelsbeck 1994:277).

Backlines - Gray Whales k2 BioD


Gray whales key to Pacific marine ecosystems
Palumbi et al, 2007 - Miller Professor of Marine Sciences
at Stanford University. (Stephen, Lenfest Ocean Program,

http://web.stanford.edu/group/Palumbi/PNAS/LenfestRS.pdf, Have Gray


Whales Recovered From Whaling?, August)//JK
Levels of genetic variation in eastern Pacific gray whales are higher
than expected. The results, together with analyses indicating genetic
similarity across the two populations, suggest that the historic population
size of the entire Pacific gray whale population could have been
three to five times the current population, or about 96,000 individuals.
Gray whales would have had a significant impact on the marine
ecosystem in the Pacific Ocean at these population sizes. A population
size of 96,000 whales could have resuspended 700 million cubic
meters of sediment (as much as twelve Yukon Rivers) and provided food
to at least one million seabirds. Improving the genetic analysis
pursuant to IWC recommendations still led to similar conclusions as prior
genetic studieshistoric populations of Pacific gray whales were likely much
larger than currently estimated. Eastern Pacific gray whales should be
afforded higher protection given their potential historic population
levels. Based on this study's estimates of past population size, the number
of human induced deaths of the eastern population that are
permitted by the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act should be
decreased by at least half, to 208 whales per year or less. Although
the western population of the Pacific gray whale is already listed under the
U.S. Endangered Species Act, this analysis suggests that the population
has decreased even more than originally thought. The IWC currently
prohibits commerical hunting of pacific gray whales. This prohibition is
consistent with the study's findings that current populations are likely
substantially decreased from historic levels. Recent newspaper reports
show gray whales to be thin and starving. A similar episode in 1999 also led
to high adult and calf mortality. If the oceans can not support the current
population of 22,000 gray whales but once supported 100,000, then the
capacity of the oceans to support all kinds of life may be diminishing.
Whether this diminishment is due to global warming, overfishing, pollution, or
other factors is an important question for the future.

Backlines - BioD !
Marine ecosystems key to survival
Sielen 13

ALAN B. SIELEN is Senior Fellow for International Environmental Policy at the Center for Marine
Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The Devolution of
the Seas, Foreign Affairs, November/December,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140164/alan-b-sielen/the-devolution-of-the-seas

Of all the threats looming over the planet today, one of the most
alarming is the seemingly inexorable descent of the worlds oceans
into ecological perdition. Over the last several decades, human activities have
so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now
experiencing evolution in reverse : a return to the barren primeval
waters of hundreds of millions of years ago. A visitor to the oceans at the dawn of
time would have found an underwater world that was mostly lifeless. Eventually, around 3.5 billion years
ago, basic organisms began to emerge from the primordial ooze. This microbial soup of algae and bacteria
needed little oxygen to survive. Worms, jellyfish, and toxic fireweed ruled the deep. In time, these simple
organisms began to evolve into higher life forms, resulting in the wondrously rich diversity of fish, corals,

sea life is now in


peril. Over the last 50 years -- a mere blink in geologic time -humanity has come perilously close to reversing the almost
miraculous biological abundance of the deep. Pollution, overfishing, the
whales, and other sea life one associates with the oceans today. Yet that

destruction of habitats, and climate change are emptying the oceans and enabling the lowest forms of life

The oceanographer Jeremy Jackson calls it the rise


of slime: the transformation of once complex oceanic ecosystems
featuring intricate food webs with large animals into simplistic
systems dominated by microbes, jellyfish, and disease. In effect,
humans are eliminating the lions and tigers of the seas to make
room for the cockroaches and rats. The prospect of vanishing whales, polar bears,
bluefin tuna, sea turtles, and wild coasts should be worrying enough on its own. But the disruption
to regain their dominance.

of entire ecosystems threatens our very survival , since it is the


healthy functioning of these diverse systems that sustains life on
earth. Destruction on this level will cost humans dearly in terms of
food, jobs, health, and quality of life. It also violates the unspoken promise passed
from one generation to the next of a better future.

Spills Over
Makah gray whale hunting justifies Japanese and Icelandic
whaling- kills thousands of whales
Good, 2000 studied Astrophysics at Whitman (Ross, Whitman, Whaling

Ban, http://www.whitman.edu/academics/courses-of-study/rhetoricstudies/resources/public-speaking-example-outlines-videospowerpoints/whaling-ban) // jk
Rep. Jack Metcalf NEEDS DATE stated "The Makahs have already done the
damage we feared. This will now open the door for more quota
increases. Japan has already stated the desire to allow four villages
on the Taiji Peninsula to be granted a quota. Iceland has announced
that it plans to resume commercial whaling. Thousands of whales
may be killed because of this claim of "cultural necessity."'

Allowing makah to kill gray whales spills over


Good, 2000 studied Astrophysics at Whitman (Ross, Whitman, Whaling

Ban, http://www.whitman.edu/academics/courses-of-study/rhetoricstudies/resources/public-speaking-example-outlines-videospowerpoints/whaling-ban) // jk
"Japan seeks permission to kill 50 whales in a "traditional" hunt as
an "short-term relief allocation" to help the economies of it's northern fishing
towns, while Russia requesting that Siberian whalers from the
Chukotska peninsula be allowed to kill five highly endangered
bowhead whales, as well as their existing quota of 140 grey whales
annually, of which they only managed to find and kill 85 last year. Thirteen
tribal bands on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, just across
the Straight of San Juan de Fuca from the Makah, likewise declared their
interest in whaling, and were expected to apply for quotas next year.
These requests are fueled by the Makah promoting their success in
it's whale hunt. The fact that the Makahs have been granted
whaling rights makes any nation or tribe eligible for their own
whaling rights . The Makahs' whaling rights must be torn from their
blood soaked hands.

**Topicality**

T Its
Interpretation- Its refers to the United States Federal
Government and is possessive
Updegrave 91 (W.C., Explanation of ZIP Code Address Purpose, 8-19,
http://www.supremelaw.org/ref/zipcode/updegrav.htm)
More specifically, looking at the map on page 11 of the National ZIP Code Directory, e.g. at a local post
office, one will see that the first digit of a ZIP Code defines an area that includes more than one State. The
first sentence of the explanatory paragraph begins: "A ZIP Code is a numerical code that identifies areas

Note the
singular possessive pronoun "its", not "their", therefore carrying

within the United States and its territories for purposes of ..." [cf. 26 CFR 1.1-1(c)].

the implication that it relates to the " U nited S tates" as a corporation


domiciled in the D istrict of C olumbia (in the singular sense), not in
the sense of being the 50 States of the Union (in the plural sense).
The map shows all the States of the Union, but it also shows D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands,
making the explanatory statement literally correct.

Violation- the plan is carried out by the Makah TribeTribal nations are sovereign governments
d'Errico, 2000 - Peter dErrico is a consulting attorney on indigenous

peoples legal issues. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1968, was a staff
attorney in the Shiprock office of Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe Navajo
Legal Services, 1968 1970, and taught Legal Studies at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, 1970 2002. (Peter, The Encyclopedia of Minorities
in American Politics, Sovereignty,
http://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/sovereignty.html)//jk
The concept of sovereignty, however convoluted and contradictory, remains an
important part of federal Indian law. Tribal councils established
under the Indian Reorganization Act are regarded as vehicles of
"tribal sovereignty"; they act as governments and not just as corporations,
though they are often limited by federal funding and authority. Indian hunting and fishing
rights have been protected against state and local regulation, though an ultimate authority
has been reserved outside the realm of tribal sovereignty. Indian nations are regarded as immune from suit
without their consent, under the doctrine of "sovereign immunity," yet their power over non-members of
the particular nation is sometimes severely limited.

Voting issuea) Limits neg interp key aff functionally doubles topic
size by introducing hundreds of new potential actors
hurts neg research burden and critical thinking.

b) Ground allowing them to use non-usfg actors robs us


of all our politics DAs, spending DAs, and critiques of
USFG action- makes it impossible to be negative
Aff has no intrinsic right to whaling lit proves. Ignore
2AC ground args infinitely regressive justify
increasingly tangential violations of other words in the
resolution which thrashes limits.
c) Effects T aff enables but doesnt mandate whalingmeans the plan is effectually topical at best
d) Extra T- in addition to ocean development the aff
recognizes a treaty- that is not part of the resolutiontherefore the aff is resolution-plus

**Cultural Relativism K**

Notes

What is cultural relativism?


Cultural relativism definition
Dictionary.com, no date

(Dictionary.com, no date, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cultural+relativism,


Accessed: 7/10/14, RH)
the concept that the importance of a particular cultural idea varies from one
society or societal subgroup to another, the view that ethical and moral
standards are relative to what a particular society or culture believes to be
good/bad, right/wrong.

Cultural relativism

(Cultural Relativism: Truth Is Relative, http://www.cultural-relativism.com, Accessed:


7/10/14, RH)
Cultural Relativism: Truth Is Relative
Cultural relativism is the view that no culture is superior to any other
culture when comparing systems of morality, law, politics, etc. It's the
philosophical notion that all cultural beliefs are equally valid and that truth
itself is relative, depending on the cultural environment. Those who hold to
cultural relativism hold that all religious, ethical, aesthetic, and political
beliefs are completely relative to the individual within a cultural identity.
Relativism often includes moral relativism (ethics depend on a social construct),
situational relativism (right or wrong is based on the particular situation), and cognitive
relativism (truth itself has no objective standard).

Real World Examples


Extreme example of cultural relativism
Alger, No date

(David Alger, BA in Philosophy & English, IUPUI, MA in American Philosophy, IUPUI,


Ph.D. in Philosophy from Penn State, Handout 2: Cultural Relativism, No date,
http://www.davidagler.com/teaching/bioethics/ethicaltheories/Handout2_CulturalRela
tivism.pdf, Accessed: 7/11/14, RH)
Cultural relativism (CR) is a theory about the nature of morality which contends that (i)
there are no objective, universal moral rules and (ii) the moral rules that do exist are
culture-bound. In other words,
there is the negative claim there are no moral claims such as killing is wrong that would
apply to every culture, and
there is the positive claim that there are moral rules but they vary depending upon the
culture, society, context.
Concerning the positive claim, what CR contends is that what is morally permissible is
what accords with socially approved customs or standards while what is morally wrong is
what goes against the customs or standards of society. If you do an action e in one
culture, it might be morally acceptable, whereas if you perform e in another culture, it
would be morally wrong.
An Extreme Example: The Jivaro are an Indian clan. They are known to be an
intensely warlike group, tremendously protective of their freedom and unwilling to
subordinate themselves to other authorities. In this fierce society, headhunting
and shrinking the heads is a process much revered and honored. This
practice is morally permissible. In contrast, in the U.S., chopping off
someones head then trying to preserve it is not only a criminal offence, but
held by almost everyone to be immoral. According to CR, there is no
objective, universal rule that says headhunting is wrong. Rather, it is morally
permissible (even admirable) for the Jivaro, while it is morally wrong from
those in the U.S.

NEG

1NC
The Makah tribe uses whaling as a means of cultural tradition.
This exhibits a type of cultural relativism.
Sciullo, 2008

(Nick J. Sciullo, Ph.D. Student, Assistant Debate Coach, and Graduate Teaching
Assistant, Department of Communication at Georgia State University, President & CEO
at Nick J. Sciullo Consulting, LLC, State Director at GoRail, former assistant Debate
Coach in the Department of Political Science at United States Naval Academy, former
Research Assistant at West Virginia University College of Law, A WHALE OF A TALE:
POST-COLINIALISM, CRITICAL THEORY, AND DECONSTRUCTION: REVISTING
THE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE REGULATION OF WHALING
THROUGH A SOCIO-LEGAL PERSPECTIVE, 2008, PDF, Accessed: 7/11/14, RH)
Indigenous people of, what is now, the United States are diverse and distinct
from White people White culture.32 They existed free from the influences of
Christianity, Europe, and the powerful oppression of manifest destiny. Indigenous
peoples had thriving economies that rivaled the efficiency and success of more storied
European economies.33 They advanced powerful ideas of philosophy, science,
agriculture, and religion.34 Indigenous people are not alike, nor are all
members of a particular culture, tribe, clan, or other group alike. Their
diversity is one of the most interesting aspects of indigenous studies.
Steven L. Newcomb argues that we as Indigenous peoples must be extremely cautious
and discriminating when it comes to conceptualizing ourselves in terms of the nonIndian societys dominating categories, concepts, and metaphors, and other cognitive
operations.35 While clearly arguing for resistance by native peoples, Newcombs call for
caution may be applied to all. Our historical understanding should be characterized by
the active inclusion of competing views, especially those of native peoples who have been
particularly and carefully removed or otherized in discussions about their history and
the importance of that history in shaping current cultural practices.
Whaling has been an historical reality for many groups over the years.36
Much of the whaling debate in the United States focuses on the
cultural/historical significance of whaling to the Makah , but this discussion is
shrouded in disdain, if not absolute disgust for whaling.37 For the Makah, whaling
is a culturally significant practice, and not simply an exploitation of
resources .38 The Makah have whaled, beginning roughly 4,000 years ago,
and continuously for 1,500 years up to the present.39 They are an ocean people,40
having long depended on the ocean to maintain their society.41 Whaling has
provided valuable resources beyond supplying food,42 including providing
heat,43 tradable goods,44 spiritual significance ,45 and other necessities. The
Makah is the only tribe in the United States with an explicit treaty right to hunt
whales.46
Whaling is not a practice unique to the Makah. Briefly, New Zealand has a long
history of whaling.47 Japan also has a long history of whaling that dates back to its
earliest coastal communities.48 The Basque people whaled in the 13th century.49 To
understand the cultural significance of whaling, one must understand that whaling is an
historical practice that dates back thousands of years,50 and is not a new invention,
trend, or exploitive behavior. Without a historical understanding of whaling, the scholar
is unable to appreciate the nuances of the arguments for cultural whaling. Failing to

understand its history inevitably leads to a failure to understand cultural


claims.
Cinnamon Carlarne, an author who has written extensively on whaling, is one such
scholar who has failed to fully explore the traditions of the Makah while thoroughly
analyzing other whaling cultures.51 In a recent law review article52 Carlarne, who has an
impressive record of publication and scholarly achievement,53 does not give so much as
a nod to the continuing debate surrounding the Makah. The history of the International
Whaling Commission (IWC) in her article is self-described as brief, but manages to list
multiple other cultures who have participated in whaling.54 There is always a danger in
discussing an issue that is of tremendous international import to forget the many groups
inside a country that may have different, if not competing, stakes in the issues and
policies at hand. This is truly an error or omission that speaks to the tendency of scholars
to ignore or conveniently forget the discussion of ones countrys indigenous populations.

While Cultural Relativism seems a good idea at first, its actually


not a good idea. It justifies mass atrocity, genocide, and racism.
Rachel, 1999

(James Rachel, graduated from Mercer University, received Ph.D. from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he taught at the University of Richmond, New York
University, University of Miami, Duke University, and the University of Alabama at
Birmingham, The Challenge of Cultural Relativism, 1999,
http://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/rachels--cultural%20relativism.htm, Accessed: 7/11/14,
RH)
In the passage quoted above, William Graham Sumner summarizes the essence of
Cultural Relativism. He says that there is no measure of right and wrong other than the
standards of one's society: "The notion of right is in the folkways. It is not outside of
them, of independent origin, and brought to test them. In the folkways, whatever is, is
right."
Suppose we took this seriously. What would be some of the consequences?
1. We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally
inferior to our own. This, of course, is one of the main points stressed by
Cultural Relativism. We would have to stop condemning other societies
merely because they are "different :' So long as we concentrate on certain
examples, such as the funerary practices of the Greeks and Callatians, this may seem to
be a sophisticated, enlightened attitude.
However, we would also be stopped from criticizing other, less benign
practices. Suppose a society waged war on its neighbors for the purpose of
taking slaves. Or suppose a society was violently anti-Semitic and its leaders
set out to destroy the Jews. Cultural Relativism would preclude us from
saying that either of these practices was wrong . We would not even be able
to say that a society tolerant of Jews is better than the anti- Semitic society,
for that would imply some sort of transcultural standard of comparison. The
failure to condemn these practices does not seem enlightened; on the contrary, slavery
and anti-Semitism seem wrong wherever they occur. Nevertheless, if we took Cultural
Relativism seriously, we would have to regard these social practices as also immune from
criticism.
2. We could decide whether actions are right or wrong just by consulting the standards of
our society. Cultural Relativism suggests a simple test for determining what is
right and what is wrong: All one need do is ask whether the action is in

accordance with the code of one's society. Suppose in 1975, a resident of South
Africa was wondering whether his country's policy of apartheida rigidly
racist systemwas morally correct. All he has to do is ask whether this
policy conformed to his society's moral code. If it did, there would have been
nothing to worry about, at least from a moral point of view.
This implication of Cultural Relativism is disturbing because few of us
think that our society's code is perfect; we can think of ways it might be
improved . Yet Cultural Relativism would not only forbid us from criticizing
the codes of other societies; it would stop us from criticizing our own. After
all, if right and wrong are relative to culture, this must be true for our own culture just as
much as for other cultures.

The alternative is to reject cultural relativism and embrace


objectivism. Objectivism does not rely on cultural norms rather
it relies on objective morals that do not force us to depend on
those who make cultural judgments
Curtler, 2002

(Hugh Mercer Curtler, author of five books, holds degrees from St. Johns College and
Northwestern University, he is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Honors
Program at Southwest State University in Minnesota, The Myopia of the Cultural
Relativist, 2002, PDF, Accessed: 7/11/14, RH)
The alternative to cultural relativism is not absolutism, as many have
maintained. To say that values are not mere opinions is not to say that they are
unchanging, eternal standards that are known only to a handful of extraordinary
individuals. The alterna- tive, rather, is objectivism, the view that values are
objective in the sense that they do not depend upon those who make value
judgments in any way, though our grasp of these values is always partial and
tenuous. I have examined this view in some detail in another place,2 but it might be
appropriate to give a brief overview of the position here.
Values are qualities or features of our inter-subjective world that require
ap- proval. To reduce values to approval, as the relativist would, is to ignore
the fact that the approval is brought about by virtue of a distinctive quality
of features in our com- mon world that contributes to our worlds richness
and variety. As John Mullen has said in this regard, We can observe Mother
Teresas goodness [for example] with our own eyes. As we observe her caring
actions, we are observing her goodness. Observa- tion plays a crucial role in
value claims. It makes perfectly good sense to say, in the presence of her
ministering to the poor, Look at what a good person she is, you can see it with
your own eyes.3 What Mullen is talking about, of course, is the intuitive
aspect of Pascals two-minded approach to reasoning. Intuition, for
Pascal, is com- bined with discursive thought (esprit geometrique) to allow us
to reason about complex moral issues. We see Mother Teresas goodness,
but we are also able to reason to it from basic ethical principles, or values, and
the facts we collect when we observe her behavior in the presence of those who suffer.
Pascal, the mathematician and devout Christian, saw more clearly than most how the heart and mind
must work together in our search for truth.
The quality of a given event is valuable, not the approval that is attendant
upon it. If, for example, honesty is valuable in the sense that it requires a

positive response (i.e., we approve of honest actions and judge them to be good),
then honesty, like Mother Teresas goodness, is a charac- teristic feature of
our world that all ought to recognize and espousewhether or not they do
so in fact. Honesty, like any other value, is systemically related to other features of our world such that attention to those other features frequently
opens us to the requiredness of the value itself. We see a man give the
dropped wallet back to its owner and those events lead us to acknowl- edge
the value of honesty, which we admire and approve . Honesty has a gestalt
quality that requires recognition by those able and willing to open themselves to itnot
in the way that the I.R.S. requires our check every year, but in the sense of logical necessity.4
Honesty may not always be called for in a given situation (absolutism), but it is always a
good thing. And most impor- tantly, if it is the right thing to do in this situationto
return the walletthen it is the right thing to do in any similar situa- tion. In a marginal
case in which one might lie to spare anothers feelings, or obviously, to save the life of a
friend, honesty may not be called for. In fact, it might be wrong to tell the truth. The
situation will reveal to us the relationship of one value (honesty in this case) to others
(care for others, for example), and experience and thought will direct us to the
conclusion as to which value ought to be adhered to in a particular case. But whatever we
decide to do in a specific case, honesty continues to be a value: it is a good thing to be
honest. In a particular case, however, it might be better not to be
honest, because honesty is in conflict with, say, concern for the life of another human
being.
The hint of situational relativism in this example is not pernicious, because the situation does not determine the value; it merely makes it possible for us to become aware of
the value and its relation to other values in the same situation. Values themselves are not
situational, despite the fact that our awareness of them happens to be. Atten- tion must
be turned to the values in the situation that confronts us, and not to the situation in
isolation, or our personal reac- tion to the situation. This is a difficult thing to ask in an
age in which consciousness is inverted and we are preoccupied with our own reactions to
the world rather than to the world itself. But it is necessary if we are to make sense of our
moral life.
Objectivism in ethics entails the claim that values are features of our
common world and that the reasons we give in de- fending our value
judgments draw atten- tion to those values either directly or by way of other
features of our world that are related systemically to those values. Our
reasons also try to show the relationship among values. For instance, in our previ- ous
example, our reasons try to show that honesty is entailed by the thin moral
principle of respect for personsin that we would not lie to or deceive
persons who are deserving of respect, and keeping the wallet ourselves is a
form of deception. Our rea- sons also try to draw attention to features of the event
itselfthe spontaneity of the action, the implications of the finders keep- ing the wallet
himself, etc. Reasoning in this manner leads us to the conclusion that the
right thing to do in this case is to return the wallet. In this way, our ethical
judgments can be argued, defended, and if need be rejected on rational
grounds that are bind- ing across cultural boundaries.
Ethical judgments cannot always be sim- ply a matter of one persons opinion at a
particular momentthough they may be much of the time, for those who do not think
much about right and wrong. As long as attention is focused on the values
present in the situation itself (and not our personal reaction to that situation) we
can discuss the question of the truth or falsity of the value judgment in a

meaningful way. Cul- tural relativism does not allow for this kind of give and
take, because the view reduces values to our reactions to situations, sim- ply.
That is, cultural relativism reduces values to the opinions and feelings of
par- ticular people at a particular time and place . But this sort of reduction
is simplistic in the extreme . This is why cultural relativism is truly an
absurd view: it reduces situations to a particular persons take on that
situ- ation. If one adopts this position, then there is really no point in
discussing differences of opinion about what is and what is not valuable:
there is no moral high ground .
Admittedly, though, there are elements of absolutism in the objectivist view. Honesty,
for example, is always a good thing even when it must be avoided in the presence of a
greater goodas when we lie to save a friends life. Thus, while objectiv- ism smacks at
times of absolutism, which is unpalatable to the postmodernist temper, it admits that
our grasp of values is never absolute. We can never be certain that we are right
when we make value judgments. In this way objectivism avoids the pitfall of
absolutism and the specter of imperialism that so bothered Michael Walzer.
In short, the view suggested here does not lead to dogmatism . It rests on the
knowl- edge that our claims in ethics are corrigible. But it insists that, in
principle at least, there are correct and incorrect value judgments, and it
invites those who differ to engage in dialogue. This
invitation cannot be ex-tended by the cultural relativist , of
course, since if values are relative to cultures, then there is really nothing to
talk about . One simply notes that the Taliban, for example, deny women their basic
human rights, at least as we see them, and one leaves it at that. Or one reads that young
Palestinian men and women drape themselves in explosives, walk into a crowded
restaurant, and blow up themselves and a dozen men, women, and children. And then
one hesitates to be judgmental! It is ironic in this regard that those who
embrace cultural relativism seek to avoid a position they regard as intolerant only to fall into a position that closes the door to open dialogue and the
reasonable resolution of moral differences.
Our values and the reasons we have for espousing those values are not
necessarily relative to our culture, to our place and time . Values can be
discussed, compared,
rejected, or displaced, as can our reasons for holding them. They are objective or real,
and while our grasp of them is tenta- tive and is most assuredly affected by
cul- tural considerations, it is not determined by those considerations.
Values are not cul- turally relative . Such a view is myopic and ignores what is most
interesting, what is most important, and what is most valuable about the diversity of
cultures.

Link

2NC
1-The 1ac believes we should allow the Makah tribe to whale
because its a cultural tradition. This tradition dates back to
4,000 years ago-thats Sciullo. However, we believe this allows
for other cultural traditions to be socially acceptable which is
problematic because it justifies unethical actions because one
culture accepts it.
2-They use the whale hunting as a means of rituals and cultural
tradition-thats a link
Makah.com, no date
(Makah.com, website for the Makah tribe, The Makah Whaling Tradition,
http://makah.com/makah-tribal-info/whaling, Accessed: 7/10/14, RH)
The Makah Whaling Tradition
Makah Whaling A Gift from the Sea
Whaling and whales are central to Makah culture. The event of a whale

hunt requires rituals and ceremonies which are deeply spiritual . Makah
whaling the subject and inspiration of Tribal songs, dances, designs, and
basketry. For the Makah Tribe, whale hunting provides a purpose and a
discipline which benefits their entire community . It is so important to the
Makah, that in 1855 when the Makah ceded thousands of acres of land to the government
of the United States, they explicitly reserved their right to whale within the Treaty of
Neah Bay.
Makah whaling tradition provides oil, meat, bone, sinew and gut for storage
containers: useful products, though gained at a high cost in time and goods.

Alternative

2NC
The alternative is to reject cultural relativism and embrace
objectivism. Objectivism does not rely on cultural norms rather
it relies on objective morals that do not force us to depend on
those who make cultural judgments
Curtler, 2002
(Hugh Mercer Curtler, author of five books, holds degrees from St. Johns College and
Northwestern University, he is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Honors
Program at Southwest State University in Minnesota, The Myopia of the Cultural
Relativist, 2002, PDF, Accessed: 7/11/14, RH)
The alterna- tive, rather, is objectivism, the view that values are objective in
the sense that they do not depend upon those who make value judgments in
any way, though our grasp of these values is always partial and tenuous. I
have examined this view in some detail in another place,2 but it might be appropriate to
give a brief overview of the position here.
Values are qualities or features of our inter-subjective world that require
ap- proval. To reduce values to approval, as the relativist would, is to ignore
the fact that the approval is brought about by virtue of a distinctive quality
of features in our com- mon world that contributes to our worlds richness
and variety. As John Mullen has said in this regard, We can observe Mother
Teresas goodness [for example] with our own eyes. As we observe her caring
actions, we are observing her goodness. Observa- tion plays a crucial role in
value claims. It makes perfectly good sense to say, in the presence of her
ministering to the poor, Look at what a good person she is, you can see it with
your own eyes.3 What Mullen is talking about, of course, is the intuitive
aspect of Pascals two-minded approach to reasoning. Intuition, for
Pascal, is com- bined with discursive thought (esprit geometrique) to allow us
to reason about complex moral issues. We see Mother Teresas goodness,
but we are also able to reason to it from basic ethical principles, or values, and
the facts we collect when we observe her behavior in the presence of those who suffer.
Pascal, the mathematician and devout Christian, saw more clearly than most how the heart and mind
must work together in our search for truth.
The quality of a given event is valuable, not the approval that is attendant
upon it. If, for example, honesty is valuable in the sense that it requires a
positive response (i.e., we approve of honest actions and judge them to be good),
then honesty, like Mother Teresas goodness, is a charac- teristic feature of
our world that all ought to recognize and espousewhether or not they do
so in fact. Honesty, like any other value, is systemically related to other features of our world such that attention to those other features frequently
opens us to the requiredness of the value itself. We see a man give the
dropped wallet back to its owner and those events lead us to acknowl- edge
the value of honesty, which we admire and approve . Honesty has a gestalt
quality that requires recognition by those able and willing to open themselves to itnot
in the way that the I.R.S. requires our check every year, but in the sense of logical necessity.4
Honesty may not always be called for in a given situation (absolutism), but it is always a
good thing. And most impor- tantly, if it is the right thing to do in this situationto

return the walletthen it is the right thing to do in any similar situa- tion. In a marginal
case in which one might lie to spare anothers feelings, or obviously, to save the life of a
friend, honesty may not be called for. In fact, it might be wrong to tell the truth. The
situation will reveal to us the relationship of one value (honesty in this case) to others
(care for others, for example), and experience and thought will direct us to the
conclusion as to which value ought to be adhered to in a particular case. But whatever we
decide to do in a specific case, honesty continues to be a value: it is a good thing to be
honest. In a particular case, however, it might be better not to be
honest, because honesty is in conflict with, say, concern for the life of another human
being.
The hint of situational relativism in this example is not pernicious, because the situation does not determine the value; it merely makes it possible for us to become aware of
the value and its relation to other values in the same situation. Values themselves are not
situational, despite the fact that our awareness of them happens to be. Atten- tion must
be turned to the values in the situation that confronts us, and not to the situation in
isolation, or our personal reac- tion to the situation. This is a difficult thing to ask in an
age in which consciousness is inverted and we are preoccupied with our own reactions to
the world rather than to the world itself. But it is necessary if we are to make sense of our
moral life.
Objectivism in ethics entails the claim that values are features of our
common world and that the reasons we give in de- fending our value
judgments draw atten- tion to those values either directly or by way of other
features of our world that are related systemically to those values. Our
reasons also try to show the relationship among values. For instance, in our previ- ous
example, our reasons try to show that honesty is entailed by the thin moral
principle of respect for personsin that we would not lie to or deceive
persons who are deserving of respect, and keeping the wallet ourselves is a
form of deception. Our rea- sons also try to draw attention to features of the event
itselfthe spontaneity of the action, the implications of the finders keep- ing the wallet
himself, etc. Reasoning in this manner leads us to the conclusion that the
right thing to do in this case is to return the wallet. In this way, our ethical
judgments can be argued, defended, and if need be rejected on rational
grounds that are bind- ing across cultural boundaries.
Ethical judgments cannot always be sim- ply a matter of one persons opinion at a
particular momentthough they may be much of the time, for those who do not think
much about right and wrong. As long as attention is focused on the values
present in the situation itself (and not our personal reaction to that situation) we
can discuss the question of the truth or falsity of the value judgment in a
meaningful way. Cul- tural relativism does not allow for this kind of give and
take, because the view reduces values to our reactions to situations, sim- ply.
That is, cultural relativism reduces values to the opinions and feelings of
par- ticular people at a particular time and place . But this sort of reduction
is simplistic in the extreme . This is why cultural relativism is truly an
absurd view: it reduces situations to a particular persons take on that
situ- ation. If one adopts this position, then there is really no point in
discussing differences of opinion about what is and what is not valuable:
there is no moral high ground .
Admittedly, though, there are elements of absolutism in the objectivist view. Honesty,
for example, is always a good thing even when it must be avoided in the presence of a
greater goodas when we lie to save a friends life. Thus, while objectiv- ism smacks at

times of absolutism, which is unpalatable to the postmodernist temper, it admits that


our grasp of values is never absolute. We can never be certain that we are right
when we make value judgments. In this way objectivism avoids the pitfall of
absolutism and the specter of imperialism that so bothered Michael Walzer.
In short, the view suggested here does not lead to dogmatism . It rests on the
knowl- edge that our claims in ethics are corrigible. But it insists that, in
principle at least, there are correct and incorrect value judgments, and it
invites those who differ to engage in dialogue. This
invitation cannot be ex-tended by the cultural relativist , of
course, since if values are relative to cultures, then there is really nothing to
talk about . One simply notes that the Taliban, for example, deny women their basic
human rights, at least as we see them, and one leaves it at that. Or one reads that young
Palestinian men and women drape themselves in explosives, walk into a crowded
restaurant, and blow up themselves and a dozen men, women, and children. And then
one hesitates to be judgmental! It is ironic in this regard that those who
embrace cultural relativism seek to avoid a position they regard as intolerant only to fall into a position that closes the door to open dialogue and the
reasonable resolution of moral differences.
Our values and the reasons we have for espousing those values are not
necessarily relative to our culture, to our place and time . Values can be
discussed, compared,
rejected, or displaced, as can our reasons for holding them. They are objective or real,
and while our grasp of them is tenta- tive and is most assuredly affected by
cul- tural considerations, it is not determined by those considerations.
Values are not cul- turally relative . Such a view is myopic and ignores what is most
interesting, what is most important, and what is most valuable about the diversity of
cultures.

The alt solves


Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2000

(Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2000,


http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/udhr/concepts/356.html, Accessed: 7/12/14,
RH)
The denial that there are certain kinds of universal truths. There are two main
types, cognitive and ethical. Cognitive relativism holds that there are no
universal truths about the world: the world has no intrinsic characteristics,
there are just different ways of interpreting it. The Greek Sophist Protagoras, the first
person on record to hold such a view, said, "Man is the measure of all things; of things
that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not." Goodman, Putnam,
and Rorty are contemporary philosophers who have held versions of relativism. Rorty
says, e.g., that " 'objective truth' is no more and no less than the best idea we
currently have about how to explain what is going on." Critics of cognitive
relativism contend that it is self-referentially incoherent, since it presents its
statements as universally true, rather than simply relatively so. Ethical
relativism is the theory that there are no universally valid moral principles:
all moral principles are valid relative to culture or individual choice . There
are two subtypes: conventionalism, which holds that moral principles are valid relative
to the conventions of a given culture or society; and subjectivism, which maintains that

individual choices are what determine the validity of a moral principle. Its motto is,
Morality lies in the eyes of the beholder. As Ernest Hemingway wrote, "So far, about
morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is
what you feel bad after."
Conventionalist ethical relativism consists of two theses: a diversity thesis, which
specifies that what is considered morally right and wrong varies from society to society,
so that there are no moral principles accepted by all societies; and a dependency thesis,
which specifies that all moral principles derive their validity from cultural acceptance.
From these two ideas relativists conclude that there are no universally valid moral
principles applying everywhere and at all times. The first thesis, the diversity thesis, or
what may simply be called cultural relativism, is anthropological; it registers the fact that
moral rules differ from society to society. Although both ethical relativists and nonrelativists typically accept cultural relativism, it is often confused with the normative
thesis of ethical relativism.
The opposite of ethical relativism is ethical objectivism , which asserts that
although cultures may differ in their moral principles, some moral
principles have universal validity . Even if, e.g., a culture does not recognize a
duty to refrain from gratuitous harm, that principle is valid and the culture
should adhere to it. There are two types of ethical objectivism, strong and weak.
Strong objectivism, sometimes called absolutism, holds that there is one true
moral system with specific moral rules. The ethics of ancient Israel in the Old
Testament with its hundreds of laws exemplifies absolutism. Weak objectivism
holds that there is a core morality, a determinate set of principles that are
universally valid (usually including prohibitions against killing the
innocent, stealing, breaking of promises, and lying). But weak objectivism
accepts an indeterminate area where relativism is legitimate, e.g., rules
regarding sexual mores and regulations of property. Both types of objectivism
recognize what might be called application relativism, the endeavor to apply moral rules
where there is a conflict between rules or where rules can be applied in different ways.
For example, the ancient Callactians are their deceased parents but eschewed the
impersonal practice of burying them as disrespectful, whereas contemporary society has
the opposite attitudes about the care of dead relatives; but both practices exemplify the
same principle of the respect for the dead.
According to objectivism, cultures or forms of life can fail to exemplify an adequate
moral community in at least three ways: (1) the people are insufficiently intelligent to put
constitutive principles in order; (2) they are under considerable stress so that it becomes
too burdensome to live by moral principles; and (3) a combination of (1) and (2).
Ethical relativism is sometimes confused with ethical skepticism, the view that we cannot
know whether there are any valid moral principles. Ethical nihilism holds that there are
no valid moral principles. J.L. Mackie's error theory is a version of this view. Mackie held
that while we all believe some moral principles to be true, there are compelling
arguments to the contrary.
Ethical objectivism must be distinguished from moral realism, the view that valid moral
principles are true, independently of human choice. Objectivism may be a form of ethical
constructivism, typified by Rawls, whereby objective principles are simply those that
impartial human beings would choose behind the veil of ignorance. That is, the
principles are not truly independent of hypothetical human choices, but are constructs
from those choices.

Impacts

Laundry List
Cultural relativism is a huge contradiction and justifies mass
atrocities, racism, genocide, and more
Phillips, 2011

(Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC),
former television executive and presenter, head of the Commission for Racial Equality,
Gay Rights, Religion, and Cultural Relativism, June 24, 2011,
http://thomasmoreinstitute.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/gay-rights-religion-andcultural-relativism, Accessed: 7/11/14, RH)
How would a consistent cultural relativist view civil rights movements which clash with
majority opinion?
Yet relativism has fallen out of fashion because, in order to be consistent, those
who celebrate advances in legal rights for gays and claim that the social
approval of homosexuality in the West reveals its moral goodness, must also
celebrate the fact that homosexuals were publicly burnt alive in fourthcentury Rome, or executed in modern day Iran or Nigeria. After all, they are
only doing what is considered good in their culture. The consistent cultural
relativist, anxious not to commit either of the capital sins of judging or imposing ones
views on other cultures, would also have to celebrate the bloody persecution of
Jews in medieval Europe (even though it was condemned at the time by
Church authorities), and might well have to side with those who scolded
black civil rights leaders in America for polarising the community and
causing social discord by aggravating majority white opinion.
Cultural relativism does not teach man how to listen to the voice of
conscience, or how to use his mind to reason about morality, but simply
pushes him to follow the herd. It is not indisputably a good thing to be a
freethinker who continually questions received moral norms. Careful consideration
may often lead to the conclusion that the mainstream view is correct. Yet
history shows that the mainstream can, and does, go awry, and a society in
which one cannot question the mind of the majority is sliding toward moral
anarchy and tyranny.
Cultural relativism falls apart when confronted with the simple truth that
each individual human being is a member of multiple societies and cultures.
I, for example, am a member of a particular family, belonging to a particular religion, a
particular ethnic group, a particular political party, and a particular nation. Even if we
accepted that the relativistic idea of truth and goodness were correct (which
it is not), we would have no way of deciding which culture, which
mainstream view, we should follow in case of a conflict. The choice of
national culture is arbitrary, owing its potency only to the power of the State to impose
its view by force, which highlights again the link between relativism and tyranny.

Cultural relativism is morally reprehensible because it justifies


the Nazis killing off the Jews because of cultural values and
segregation of blacks in the South due to cultural traditions
Curtler, 2002
(Hugh Mercer Curtler, author of five books, holds degrees from St. Johns College and
Northwestern University, he is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Honors

Program at Southwest State University in Minnesota, The Myopia of the Cultural


Relativist, 2002, PDF, Accessed: 7/11/14, RH)
On the face of it, cultural relativism makes perfectly good sense. We are now
aware of the incredible variety of cultural differ- ences among the peoples of
the world (though perhaps our awareness of cultural similarities has been unduly
eclipsed), and we all wish to avoid ethnocentrism, or the view that our own
culture is superior to others in every respect. We
note, for ex-ample, that one culture leaves the elderly out in freezing
weather to die, while an- other relishes the presence of the elderly in the
home to help raise children, and a third places the elderly in nursing homes
where they will be comfortable, if isolated, in their old age. Cultural relativists
acknowledge these differences and conclude that these customs are the result of
enculturation; they insist that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion
as to whether or not any of these cultural practices is preferable to another.
One mustnt be judgmental, we are told. Any judgment about one cul- ture from
the perspective of another cul- ture is ruled out of order, because, it is said, we are not of
that culture. But is this conclu- sion warranted?
To be sure, if I judge the practices of another culture with respect to the elderly from the
perspective of my own cultural practices, my cultural bias will obtrude. But this does not
render it impossible to make sound judgments based on evidence and argumentation,
since my judgment may not be simply a matter of cultural bias, and it may even be
possible to eliminate bias altogether. Judgments are always perspec- tival, but one need
only recognize the bias in ones perspective to reduce it somewhat. This is the task of
education, one would think, and it is a sign of an educated person that he or she
recognizes and eliminates mere bias whenever it raises its ugly head. Once relatively
free of bias, one might come to see that there are many good reasons why
the practices of another culture are either acceptable or unacceptable on
moral grounds. In saying this, I should note im- mediately that sound moral
grounds are the only basis for cross-cultural criticism. Customs that are
merely strange or pecu- liar from our point of view are not necessar- ily
wrong. I may be put off or puzzled by the marriage practices of another culture, for
example, but it is not clear that this constitutes any grounds for criticism. Some be- haviors, on the other hand, raise
profound moral questions and are deserving of care- ful scrutinyand,
perhaps, condemnation. Treatment of the elderly is a borderline case, so we might
well begin with that.
If, for example, I come to realize that a given culture regards the elderly as a bur- den
and this is why they leave the elderly out in sub-zero weather to freeze, I may also come
to realize that this conviction rests upon fear, prejudice, or simply mistaken information
about the uselessness of eld- erly peoplea view that ignores, for ex- ample, the
wisdom that comes with age and the invaluable aid the elderly can lend in raising the
young and assisting them to avoid past mistakes. Accordingly, I may be justified in
judging that particular cultural practice to be wrong-headed. If, however, the elderly
consent to this treatment, it is not clear that such a practice is morally wrong. At the
heart of every moral judg- ment lies a nest of facts that can be addressed in a reasonable
manner. And while these facts will not entail by themselves a moral judgmentthey
cannotthey can cer- tainly support, or fail to support, that judg- ment.
Thus, we are on much more solid ground when we judge the Nazis to have
been wrong to persecute the Jews based on misinforma- tion about racial
superiority and inferior- ity. We now know, for example, that the notion of
Aryan racial supremacy was biologically untenable. Similarly, many of the

scientific treatises written in the nine- teenth century to prove that


blacks were inferior to whites on the grounds of cranial capacity were bogus
from a scientific standpoint. Cranial capacity has nothing to do with intelligence.
And yet this fact was widely used to justify oppression of blacks in the American South.
In addition to facts that can, or cannot, be substanti- ated to assist us in gaining a
perspective on an action, there are certain fundamental moral values involved in the
latter case as well.
The move from different marriage prac- tices to treatment of the elderly to
persecu- tion of those different from ourselves is complex. And the reasoning
here, as Pascal saw so clearly, must combine both discur- sive and intuitive thinking;
such thinking is not exact and precise, but it can yield plau- sible conclusions.
Furthermore, the grounds for criticism are firmer as we pro- ceed. Michael Walzer has
shown us where to draw the line. In his book, Thick and Thin, Walzer defends the
view that there is a core morality that all humans instinctively de- fend,
regardless of cultural bias. He calls this thin (or minimal) morality, and it
includes fundamental principles of justice and human rights. According to
Walzer, regardless of our cultural bias, and whether or not we can articulate
these principles, all human beings recoil at the sight of injustice or the
denial of human rights, wherever they may occur.
Surely this is correct, and just as surely, this provides a basis for cross-cultural value
judgments. These grounds are precisely the same as the grounds we seek for moral judgments within our own culture as well. This is important to note, because any attempt to
undermine relativism must provide criti- cal grounds that operate within any culture
while also seeking to go beyond the re- stricted boundaries of cultural bias. From the
perspective of the wider culture, one can come to a cross-cultural judgment
that ra- cial persecution is wrong in another culture even if one does not
happen to be a member of that particular culture. As the Marxist critic Terry
Eagleton (of all people) has noted in this regard, cultural relativism leaves itself
with no more reason why we should resist fascism [for example] than the feebly
pragmatic plea that fascism is not the way we do things in Sussex or Sacramento.
Indeed, in Eagletons view, postmodern theorists have produced...an enervating and a
paralyzing skepticism, and unseated the sovereignty of Western Man, in theory at least,
by means of a full-blooded cultural relativism which is powerless to defend ei- ther
Western or Eastern Woman [for ex- ample] against degrading social practices.1
Cultural relativism is an absurd view, and no one takes it seriously in his or her actual
practice. That is to say, despite our theoretical commitment to be tolerant of
others, no one is open to every other point of view, and no one would
hesitate, in prac- tice, to condemn another (regardless of that persons cultural
background) for activities they regard as morally offensive. It is this practical fact
that has so frequently required our contemporary cultural rela- tivists to construct
fantastic and fabulously positive accounts of the value systems of other cultures
otherwise, they could not themselves avoid coming, sometimes, to condemnation.
I hasten to note, however, that the view I am defending does not imply any sugges- tion
of cultural superiority, per se. It does not suggest that one culture is superior or inferior
to another, because it does not consider cultures as wholes. Rather, it fo- cuses attention
upon specific practices that violate the fundamental principles of thin morality. The
judgment that ones own culture is somehow superior to another leads us
directly to ethnocentrism, which certainly must be avoided. The view defended here, however, does suggest that any specific practice as found within any given
culture, at any given moment, might be subject to criticism on rational grounds as
violating fundamental principles of justice and human rights. Injustice and lack of

respect for the dignity of persons (which is the foundation of human rights) are wrong
wherever they are found.
Thus, the same line of reasoning that
leads me to conclude that the Nazis were wrong to
persecute the Jews would also lead me to conclude, within my own culture,
that Southern segregationists were wrong to oppress blacks. Reasoning
about moral- ity cannot be culturebound, and any criti- cisms of another culture that are sound, especially those
based on mini- mal morality, must also apply pari passu to ones own culture.
values of our own culture, but they are true because they are supported by evidence and
critical judgment.

Cultural relativism is unethical


Horner, no date

(Michael Horner, Philosopher, truth seeker who promotes Christianity, IS There Any
Real Right or Wrong?, No Date,
http://www.michaelhorner.com/articles/rightorwrong/page2.html, Accessed: 7/11/14,
RH)
Many people think that since we find different moral principles in different
cultures, there cannot be objective moral principles binding on all cultures;
morality must be culturally relative. This argument, however, begins with a
misleading use of data, is logically fallacious, does not allow us to make
what we would normally consider to be legitimate moral judgments, and
leads to bizarre conclusions.
A closer look at the data shows that moral commonalities among cultures
are much more abundant than moral differences. The differences are
actually a small minority. We study them in anthropology classes because they
are the exception , but in fact the vast majority of moral principles are held
in common. Moreover, many of the dissimilarities are merely variations in moral
reasoning and application of the common principles. The ethical disparity between
cultures is far less than we are led to believe .ii
Second, it doesn't follow logically that just because there are some differences between
cultures, transcendent moral principles do not exist. What follows from the fact that
culture X says action A is wrong and culture Y says action A is right? Not very much! It
does not follow that there is no objective moral truth regarding action A. It may very well
be that culture X is correct and culture Y is wrong about action A, or vice versa.
Relativity in moral belief does not entail relativity in moral truth. Belief
doesn't change truth.iii Not believing in gravity does not change the
objective fact , that if you step off the tenth floor balcony, you will fall to the
ground. Likewise not believing in a moral law does not render it inoperative or nonexistent.
Furthermore, if ethics were culturally relative it would be impossible to
evaluate cultures morally. One could not condemn as immoral what
another culture approves, even if that is racism, infanticide, ethnic
cleansing or wholesale genocide. If cultural relativism is true , the

Nuremberg war trials following the Second World War were nothing more
than a kangaroo court - a farce. Nazi war criminals defended themselves by
claiming that they were just following orders within the framework of their
culture and legal system. But Robert Jackson, chief counsel for the U.S. at the trials
responded by saying that: there is a "law beyond the law" of any individual nation,
permanent values which transcend any particular society.
Furthermore, if ethics were relative to culture, any declaration of universal
human rights would be nonsense. You can't have it both ways. If ethics are just
relative to culture, there are no universal human rights ; and if there are
universal human rights, as the United Nations believes , then ethics are not
relative to culture .
But, as we have already seen, our reactions and judgments show that we do
think that there are moral principles that transcend cultures and justify our
condemnation of such occurrences as apartheid, ethnic cleansing and the
Nazi atrocities .
The furor over the caning of the American teenager, Michael Fay, by Singaporean
authorities in the early nineties is a good example of the fact that people do think
morals are transcultural . If ethics were just culturally relative North Americans
would have no basis for claiming the caning was just or unjust. Yet both those who
support or condemn the Singaporean law, reveal that they think the moral principles at
stake are transcultural in nature.
Another problem with cultural relativism is that one seeking to reform society from
within would find oneself in a real dilemma. If whatever a culture does is right for
that culture, it would be immoral to try to initiate change, no matter how
awful the practices are, whether slavery, child labour and abuse, or denial of
women's rights. None of this is consistent with our moral sensibilities or
practices regarding making moral judgments.
Furthermore, cultural relativism leads to bizarre conclusions. Imagine an island
of 100 people. They take a vote on whether murder is right or wrong and the results are a
50/50 split. The next day some of the "murder is right" side kill one of the "murder is
wrong" side. Now the count is 50 to 49 in favor of the "murder is right" side, and murder
becomes morally acceptable.
Now let's say the "murder is wrong" side slay two of the other group. The vote is now 49
to 48 in favor of the "murder is wrong" proponents. So now murder is wrong even
though it was right when they did it, and so on! A view that leads to such absurd
conclusions cannot possibly be true.vi

Patriarchy/Sexism/FGM
Cultural Relativism enables sexist actions to occur
Namazie, 2001

(Maryam Namazie, human rights activist, commentator, and broadcaster, she is a


spokesperson for Iran Solidarity, Racism, Cultural Relativism and Womens Rights,
August 14, 2001, http://www.maryamnamazie.com/articles/racism_cultural_rel.html,
Accessed: 7/11/14, RH)
Let us be clear about what cultural relativism is. It is a profoundly racist
phenomenon, which values and respects all cultural and religious practices,
irrespective of their consequences for women. It asserts that the rights of people,
women and girls are relative to where they are born, "their" cultures and religions.
There is no right or wrong according to cultural relativists . As a result,
cultural relativism supports and maintains sexual apartheid and violence
against women in Islam-stricken societies like Iran because it is "their
culture and religion " and it creates ghettoized, regressive "minority"
communities in the West where women and girls continue to face apartheid
and Islamic laws and customs.
Cultural relativism doesn't merely ignore violations; it actually legitimizes
them. Moreover, it never opposes any cultural or religious practices. Cultural
relativism not only makes it unnecessary to oppose violations and lack of
women's rights, but also makes it racist and against freedom of choice to do so! I want
to give examples of cultural relativism applied to the status of women living in Iran and
Iranian women asylum seekers living in the West to show how it legitimizes women's
lack of rights and silences opposition.
There are innumerable examples of its promotion in the heart of the secular West where
different laws and customs apply to women who have fled Islam stricken societies. As a
result of this racism, the veiling of girls becomes acceptable in the heart of
Europe and men who kill women in the name of honour are given reduced
sentences. The German government forcibly veils women asylum seekers it wants to
deport to allow the Iranian embassy to prepare their travel documents. When a
woman like Roya Mosayebi refuses to be veiled, she is beaten and forcibly
veiled. When she complains to a German court, the court rules that the
police acted in accordance with the law.
Holland is another good example. In 1997, when the Dutch government wanted
to deport 1300 Iranian asylum seekers back to Iran, it produced a report to
justify the deportations, which made numerous assertions on women that
reveal how far cultural relativists will go to deny women's rights. [The IFIR
along with other progressive groups managed to push back the government's assault but
its justifications are telling nonetheless.] On stoning the Dutch Foreign Ministry said: "as
at least four witnesses are required in order to prosecute for adultery, there are not in
practice any actual prosecutions brought. We are not aware of any cases of stoning to
death for adultery." They further stated: "while the legal and practical disabilities faced
by women in Iran have been well documented, it is now clear that some change has been
effected in recent years and that there are a number of signs that further and substantive
improvements may be on the way." They also said that: "the presence of women is more
visible on the streets and than in surrounding Islamic countries," and that "While the

dress code is mandatory, there are hardly any women voluntarily covering their face with
a veil or wearing the traditional burqah unlike Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia."
On the fact that women have only temporary child custody they said: "This system stems
from Sharia law and is applicable in most Islamic countries."
This is one example of how outrageous acts of brutality and repression by
the Iranian government are denied and excused. This is how a system of sexual
apartheid and lack of rights become mere disabilities. This is how they credit women's
own resistance to the abuser. In Iran, women not only don't cover their faces but they
continuously transgress mandatory veiling. The fact that women are 'improperly veiled'
every day on the streets has nothing to do with the regime or Khatami; it just shows that
women are protesting and opposing compulsory veiling despite its risks. Hundreds of
thousands of women have been flogged, imprisoned, had their bodies
slashed with razors, and had acid thrown in their faces so that they could
walk down the streets with their veils pushed back. Moreover, when they need
to, cultural relativists always compare the situation of women with the
worst possible example. Why not compare the situation of women in Iran with the
best possible example? When all else fails, they state that a discriminatory law is
applicable in most so-called Islamic countries and that's that, which basically means
women are well off enough, this is their Islamic culture, at least they don't cover their
faces like in Saudi Arabia, so don't oppose, leave it be, stay silent...
Western governments, the media and cultural relativists say that Iranian society is
Islamic, implying that people choose to live the way they are forced to. Just as in Canada,
however, there are people with various beliefs in Iran as well. The difference is that in
Iran Islam is in power, enforcing its culture on every one. 25 years ago when the Shah's
dictatorial regime was in power, no one called Iran a Muslim country. If Iranian society
were truly Islamic, 150,000 people would not have been executed for opposing the
Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic regime would not need such extensive tools for
repression, and the regime would not need to control people's private lives - from their
sexual activities, to what they wear. If the entire society is Muslim, why did Maryam
Ayoobi enter a voluntary sexual relationship for which she was buried in a ditch and
stoned to death? Why are thousands of women rounded up in the streets for "improper"
veiling if it's their culture and religion? In fact, these prove that this is not people's
culture but the regime's culture, the ruling class's culture imposed on women and people.
Cultural relativism maintains the Islamic regime in Iran, justifies its
violations, defends the abuser and even goes so far as to credit the abuser
for any gains made through people's own resistance. It also aims to silence
any opposition by making it seem racist to do so. It further implies that if
women " choose " to live without rights then to defend their rights means that you
are against their freedom of choice!
Clearly, civil rights, freedom and equality are universal concepts that have
been fought for by progressive social movements and the working class in
various countries. They belong to every one irrespective of where they were
born and where that struggle took place . We still see the positive effects of a
Bolshevik revolution, a Paris Commune, even the Iranian revolution, before it was
brutally suppressed and expropriated by the Islamic regime, in various parts of the world
today. That people and women worldwide, including in Iran, continue to
struggle for equality and freedom and to overcome their lack of rights and
repressive regimes is a confirmation of this universality.

FGM is unethical
Rachel, 1999

(James Rachel, graduated from Mercer University, received Ph.D. from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he taught at the University of Richmond, New York
University, University of Miami, Duke University, and the University of Alabama at
Birmingham, The Challenge of Cultural Relativism, 1999,
http://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/rachels--cultural%20relativism.htm, Accessed: 7/11/14,
RH)
In 1996, a 17-year-old girl named Fauziya Kassindja arrived at Newark
International Airport and asked for asylum. She had fled her native country of
Togo, a small west African nation, to escape what people there call excision.
Excision is a permanently disfiguring procedure that is sometimes called
"female circumcision," although it bears little resemblance to the Jewish ritual. More
commonly, at least in Western newspapers, it is referred to as "genital mutilation."
According to the World Health Organization, the practice is widespread in
26 African nations, and two million girls each year are "excised." In some
instances, excision is part of an elaborate tribal ritual, performed in small
traditional villages, and girls look forward to it because it signals their
acceptance into the adult world. In other instances, the practice is carried out
by families living in cities on young women who desperately resist.
Fauziya Kassindja was the youngest of five daughters in a devoutly Muslim
family. Her father, who owned a successful trucking business, was opposed to
excision, and he was able to defy the tradition because of his wealth. His
first four daughters were married without being mutilated. But when
Fauziya was 16, he suddenly died. Fauziya then came under the authority of
his father, who arranged a marriage for her and prepared to have her excised.
Fauziya was terrified, and her mother and oldest sister helped her to escape. Her mother,
left without resources, eventually had to formally apologize and submit to the authority
of the patriarch she had offended.
Meanwhile, in America, Fauziya was imprisoned for two years while the
authorities decided what to do with her. She was finally granted asylum, but
not before she became the center of a controversy about how foreigners
should regard the cultural practices of other peoples . A series of articles in the
New York Times encouraged the idea that excision is a barbaric practice that should be
condemned. Other observers were reluctant to be so judgmentallive and let live, they
said; after all, our practices probably seem just as strange to them.
Suppose we are inclined to say that excision is bad. Would we merely be applying the
standards of our own culture? If Cultural Relativism is correct, that is all we can do, for
there is no cultural-neutral moral standard to which we may appeal. Is that true?
Is There a Culture-Neutral Standard of Right and Wrong? There is, of course, a lot that
can be said against the practice of excision. Excision is painful and it results in the
permanent loss of sexual pleasure. Its short-term effects include
hemorrhage, tetanus, and septicemia. Sometimes the woman dies. Long
term effects include chronic infection, scars that hinder walking, and
continuing pain.
Why, then, has it become a widespread social practice? It is not easy to say. Excision
has no obvious social benefits. Unlike Eskimo infanticide, it is not necessary for
the group's survival. Nor is it a matter of religion. Excision is practiced by groups
with various religions, including Islam and Christianity, neither of which commend it.

Method Turn
Cultural relativism is unethical-turns the case
Stanford University, No date

(Standard University, Relativism, no date


web.stanford.edu/~allenw/webpapers/Relativism.doc, Accessed: 7/10/14, RH)
In practice, cultural relativism is sometimes used as a pretext for following
whatever ethical beliefs one finds convenient. For instance, a Western-based
multinational corporation operating in other parts of the world comes from
a culture that believes that it is all right to seek the highest profit you can
within the law; cultural relativism therefore says they may do tha t (even if
it means disrupting the traditions of that culture). But cultural relativism
also says that they need not blame or interfere with practices within that
culture which might be considered wrong in their own culture: practices
such as police-state terror directed against workers who protest the brutally
low wage scales and miserable working conditions through which the
corporations reap their profits. So interpreted, cultural relativism allows
these corporations to do whatever they like.
The above results suggest that cultural relativism doesn't do justice to the
actual views of those who really want to promote cross-cultural tolerance
or oppose Western imperialism . It looks like those views really consist in
holding to certain (absolute, objective, trans-cultural) ethical principles about
how the members of different cultures should act toward each other, such as
that people should be open-minded and tolerant to all human beings, always
treating them with dignity and respect. Perhaps the anti-imperialists are
embarrassed to avow such principles because they obviously come from the modern,
Western Enlightenment tradition, and avowing them will immediately expose you to the
dreaded charge of ethnocentrism. By contrast, cultural relativism's principled stance of
absolute cross-cultural neutrality seems to buy us immunity from this charge. But of
course cultural relativism is a modern Western idea every bit as much as
Enlightenment moral principles are; the only difference is that, as we have
seen, cultural relativism is actually hostile to cross-cultural tolerance and
mutual respect, whereas certain other Western Enlightenment principles
do favor them.

Cultural relativism is the scape goat-worst method


Stanford University, No date

(Standard University, Relativism, no date


web.stanford.edu/~allenw/webpapers/Relativism.doc, Accessed: 7/10/14, RH)
Very likely we end up in this paradoxical position because we start from the correct
perception that everyone's standpoint is limited by their cultural perspective, and then
(directly contradicting this insight) we try immediately to occupy a sublimely neutral
standpoint which is above all such limitations. We would be wiser to align ourselves with
some standpoint situated within a definite culture which, despite its inevitable
limitations, at least makes an effort to be critical of itself and tolerant of other cultural
standpoints. We are reluctant to take this wise course because we know that it is hard to
identify such a standpoint; we realize that the biases from which we start will doubtless

lead us into mistakes, probably culpable ones; and we are aware that by this route we can
never hope altogether to escape the accusation of ethnocentrism, but will just have to
learn to live with it (as part of our human condition).
We find cultural relativism far more appealing because its empty gestures
enable us to announce our good intentions and repudiate our cultural
biases in the abstract , with a mere wave of the hand. It enables us to
absolve ourselves all of our cultural limitations in general without ever
having to overcome any of them in particular (as we have seen, it even provides
an endorsement for them, when that is needed). But perhaps what we have really
wanted all along is a license to behave like brutal, arrogant imperialists
while at the same time thinking of ourselves as tolerant, humane
cosmopolitans who have transcended all their cultural prejudices. This
makes it unsurprising that cultural relativism has had widespread appeal among the
more sophisticated members of Western imperialist culture.

**Anthro Turn**

Anthro Turn
The aff relies on an anthropocentric hierarchy to argue that we
cannot reject animal exploitation because it is part of another
groups culture justifies defending slavery as a part of American
culture
TVL 11, This Vegan Life (On Animal Rights, Racism and Elitism,
http://www.thisveganlife.org/on-animal-rights-racism-and-elitism/)//ED
As I see it, defending animal exploitation on the basis of tradition makes as
much sense as defending American slavery as a tradition of colonists, or
defending the oppression of women as a tradition of men. Just because
something is a tradition doesnt make it ethical or desirable. Issues of justice are issues
of justice, remarks Gary Francione in Ms. Foxs article. And, as a matter of fundamental justice, we cannot morally justify animal use,
however humane. We ought, of course, always to endeavor to present issues of justice in a way that is culturally sensitive and not racist.
But there are some who think that promoting the position that we cannot justify any animal use is inherently racist or culturally

Those in this group beg the question and assume that


speciesism is justified. That is, their position amounts to the view that it is
racist or culturally insensitive to seek to protect the interests of another
marginalized and particularly vulnerable group, nonhuman animals. I
would imagine that most of those who have this view would not object if the
marginalized beings were other humans. But this is just another way of
asserting human supremacy and exceptionalism. I find that as objectionable
as asserting racial supremacy. We can try to educate people who have this
view, and we should do so. But in the end, if the choice is between
maintaining an abolitionist position or not doing so in order to appease
speciesism and human exceptionalism presented as cultural sensitivity or
non-racism, I refuse to appease. I am sincerely sorry if my views offend
anyone but throughout human history, there has not been an idea that has
not offended someone. Ms. Fox also quotes Francione as rejecting the
charge of racism leveled at those who promote ethical veganism: Racism is
failing to include people as full members of the moral/legal community on
the basis of race. How is taking the reasoned position that exploiting
nonhumans cannot be morally justified racist? he queries. The only way
that it can be racist is if the concept of a person in person of color includes
a protected interest in exploiting nonhumans. As I said earlier, that begs the
fundamental moral question in favor of human exceptionalism. And on the
presumption that veganism is elitist, he says: I find the notion that a diet
that rejects violence is elitist is bizarre. There is nothing more elitist and I
mean nothing than the notion that it is morally acceptable to impose
suffering and death on a sentient being because you like the taste. It is true that there
insensitive. He continues:

is a market for expensive, processed vegan foods. But so what? That does not make a vegan diet inherently elitist any more than a market
for people who can buy designer clothes makes wearing clothes inherently elitist .

It remains incomprehensible
to me how many people involved in other social justice work cannot see the
connections between racism, classism, sexism and speciesism. As Nekeisha
Alexis-Baker has so eloquently noted: The same ideology that supports
speciesism is present in ideologies that encourage and justify sexism and
racismAs a black woman who is vegan, I am particularly sensitive to the
ways in which forms of exploitation are intertwined So rather than being
concerned with animal liberation or womens liberation or black and other
people of colors liberation, I think we need to understand how they are all

tied together and to know that we cant free one group if we allow the same
kinds of oppressive ideologies to enslave another group . Liberation has to
come for all.

The idea that whaling is central to the Makah culture is flawed


and incredibly Eurocentric
Deckha 07 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Canada
(Maneesha, 2007 Animal Justice, Cultural Justice: A Posthumanist Response to
Cultural Rights In Animals Animal L. & Ethics)//ED
First, to

suggest as Wenzel and Lynge do that Inuit seal hunting should be accepted because it is crucial to
Inuit subsistence culture removes culture from the realm of the ethical. This
is as problematic from a postcolonial animal justice perspective as removing
nature from politics or basing ethics on biologism or ideas of the so-called natural. 147
Such a position assumes that because a practice is culturally crucial it is
irreproachable. The logical extension of such a position would mean that all
practices are beyond criticism, because we have always existed as cultural
beings. In saying this I do not mean to dismiss this invocation of cultural relativism as quickly as cultural relativists usually do. 148
Nor do I mean to discount the importance of cultural survival and self-determination for
Aboriginal peoples. Yet, recognizing the skewed cultural playing field does not
necessarily mean abstaining from criticism. We encounter several conceptual
problems if we construct cultural differences, or any other difference, as
beyond scrutiny. A primary conceptual problem in immunizing culture
involves authenticity. Receiving marginalized voices as truth-claims , as Wenzel
and Lynge advocate, creates a new brand of authenticity problems. First, any resort to
"cultural traditions" must grapple with the constructedness of traditions
and their partly imagined nature. Lisa Stevenson has noted how the organization of "disparate Inuit groups in
the Canadian Arctic" into the territory of Nunavut meant that Inuit "literally had to imagine themselves as a people, unified partially
through their difference from the rest of Canada," claiming a common, unified future in the Arctic in a way that "would have been
unthinkable" in the past. 149 And while the reality that cultural rights are based on imagined identities may not lead to an ethical
conundrum, it

does raise the question of who is excluded by the identity that is


imagined? What are the threshold characteristics one needs to possess
before one counts as an authentic cultural voice? For example, if hunting,
sealing, and trapping are integral to establishing Inuit identity, is the Inuit
person who does not engage in these practices and has never been "on the
land" not or less Inuit? 150 Even if an unproblematic concept of authenticity could be reached based not on identity but
on similarly circumscribed material life conditions, we would still encounter a second problem: if we equate
marginalized experience with truth do we not assign Others a set of
narrative authorities that enjoy immunity from the collective process of
judgment? Moreover, how will we ever reconcile incommensurate stories within marginalized groups if we cannot question
experience?15 1

The only reason that whale meat is more readily available to


the Makah is due to anthropocentric practices the aff ignores
the fact that whale hunting for meat is a Western practice which
should be rejected along with the other aspects of colonialism
that they denounce
Bailey 07 Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Minnesota State University-Mankato
(Cathryn, We Are What We Eat: Feminist Vegetarianism and the Reproduction of
Racial Identity Hypatia 22.2 39-59)//ED

One of the problems with George's argument in Animal, Vegetable, or Woman? and in a 1994 article that received much
criticism, is that many, if not all, of the reasons she cites for why vegetarianism may be out of

reach for many poor women is precisely a result of the patriarchal system
that devalues women and animals in the first place. It is not a randomly
produced feature of the world that women and children make up the greatest poverty class or that the health of
women and children is especially precarious. Nor is it an accident that "animal protein" in the
form of cheap lunchmeat or fast food is often more readily available than
vegetables in the United States. From the point of view of feminist ethical vegetarianism, these conditions
result from the very racism, sexism, classism, and anthropocentrism that is being
challenged. As Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen have pointed out, "What she [George] ignores is the well-known fact
that, around the world, it is the men and boys who eat the first and most foods, while the girls and women eat last and
least" (1996, 236). Moreover, moral ideals need not themselves be thought of as

discriminatory or elitist in the ways George has suggested, despite the fact that, in some sense, exemplifying
moral virtue may often be tied to some kind of privilege. Consider, for example, the poor mother who is paid to be
complicit with fascist torturers. Certainly, resisting participating in such a moral atrocity is more difficult for her than for
many others, but we do not thereby abandon the moral ideal of avoiding aiding and abetting torturers. We might be more
understanding of her participation, but we should not use it as a basis for abandoning the moral ideal. George's suggestion
that nearly all ethical vegetarians are moral elitists, however, threatens to slide into moral condescension, as if there
ought to be a multiple-tier, separate-but-equal system of moral ideals. Not incidentally, George's suggestion

that
feminist vegetarianism is classist and ethnocentric ignores the fact that
"most non-Western diets are largely vegetarian (perhaps by virtue of necessity):
consider Chinese, Indian, and African traditional cuisines . If anything, it is meateating that is a Western norm that 'development' has imposed upon nonWestern nations" (Donovan 1995, 227). Ironically, George's position erases the number
of poor women who are vegetarians by ethical choice , revealing the hidden
privileged perspective that serves the edifice of her argument . Often vegetarianism
has been caricatured as epitomizing petty moral privilege, with the self-appointed morally empowered vegetarian depicted
as lording it over others. As one character criticizes the vegetarian in Coetzee's novel, "It's nothing but a power-game. Her
great hero Franz Kafka played the same game with his family. He refused to eat this, he refused to eat that, he would
rather starve, he said. Soon everyone was feeling guilty about eating in front of him, and he could sit back feeling virtuous"
(1999, 68). Similarly, George objects, ethical vegetarianism assumes that "a single definable class of persons is designated
as better thanmore morally virtuous thanall others simply because of its physiology and power" (2000, 2). What I
suspect lurks below the surface of George's critique is the worry that ethical vegetarianism is somehow antihumanism
(antiwomanism), that one must choose between animals and humans. As Donovan argues in the introduction to her coedited book, it is a familiar strategy: "Just as feminists were charged with man-hating when we began to channel our
energies and our theorizing to women's needs and experiences, animal activists now stand accused of people hating"
(Donovan and Adams 1996, 4). Here, too, there is the suggestion that one cannot be both for poor women and children
and for animal welfare. The response of the New Haven Register to the PETA exhibit described above further illustrates
the point: "If you care about animals more than people, the comparison [in the PETA exhibit described above] may seem
apt. . . . There is little common ground for agreement if PETA sees the slaughter of livestock for food as the same as the
lynching of blacks or the extermination of millions of people in Europe" (quoted in Christie 2005). Not only is this analysis
a speciesist objection to the comparison but it also implies that one who takes animals seriously is ipso facto
demonstrating a failure to take humanity seriously; by George's parallel account, a feminist who takes animals seriously is
failing to take women seriously. With respect to ethical vegetarianism, I think it is clear that such a

divide-and-conquer strategy only works if one accepts the racist, sexist,


classist terms of the discussion. Part of what is required to understand some
of the resistance to vegetarianism is to appreciate the logic that undergirds
it. We should not, of course, automatically dismiss those who resist vegetarianism as insensitive dupes. To that end, it
helps to appreciate that whether one is a meat eater or a vegetarian would not carry such visceral moral and emotional
impact if it were not experienced as deeply entwined with the production and reproduction of identity. That our identities
are so constituted is not a neutral or inalterable fact, however. The perpetuation of the patriarchy

depends, in part, on the fact that we understand our racial, gendered, and
sexual selves as contingent upon eating practices in the ways described above. Only
then can vegetarianism be used as a wedge to divide people along racial,
sexual, or class lines. A context-sensitive feminist vegetarianism with a deep
critique of the knotted relationship between racism, sexism, and
anthropocentrism offers great promise . Certainly, no viable feminist vegetarianism can proceed
without attempting to understand and dismantle such connections. As I have argued, this is so not only because of the
complex ways that the philosophical ideas have been twisted and bound together, but also for practical reasons. As it
stands now, many people still do not wish to be associated with the animal welfare and vegetarian movements. If white
Western feminist vegetarians, even well meaning ones, overlook or trivialize the historical and conceptual ties between

racism and anthropocentrism by failing to appreciate the connections between eating practices and racial identity,
feminist ethical vegetarianism will be stalled at the class and color lines. However, we should not concede

that ethical vegetarianism is an intrinsically racist, classist, or colonialist


endeavor because doing so effectively allows the continued masking of the
ways in which racism, classism, and imperialism have created foodways
privileging the global elite. It also serves to divide and isolate the most
oppressed, limiting human animals with respect to their ethical agency and
access to quality food and leaving nonhuman animals where, for most of us,
they have been all alongon our plates.

**Case**

1NC

Alt Causes
Alt causes to no whaling
Renker, 12 - Ann M. Renker received her Ph.D. in anthropology from The
American University in Washington, D.C. in 1987, A resident of the
reservation since 1986, she has also been an expert witness for the Tribe
since 1994 (Whale Hunting and the Makah Tribe: A Needs Statement,
International Whaling Commission, May,
http://iwc.int/private/downloads/ds5fzaq2p14w88ocko00o4gcw/64-ASW
%204.pdf)//jk
Lawsuits were not the only problem that the Makah Tribe faced
during this quota period. Four Tribal members alleged that the majority of
Makahs were not in favor of the resumption of whaling, and that the
Makah Tribal Council had misrepresented the opinion of its people. Fueled by
these rumors, anti-whaling advocates staged numerous
demonstrations on and off the reservation, and garnered attention
from the media. The protestors also limited the success of the
Makah hunt by blocking canoes, scaring whales, and threatening
Makah whalers. During the 1999 whaling season, many television spots and
published reports contained inaccurate or partially correct information about
the whale hunt and other Makah cultural practices, and included quotes from
the anti-whaling Makahs who insisted that the majority of Tribal members
did not want the Tribe to hunt whales. These people also accused
Makahs of wasting whale products, claiming that tribal members did
not like, nor consume, whale products. Detractors pointed to an
alleged incident when meat and blubber from a 1995 whale, which
had incidentally been caught in a fishing net, were wasted.

Churchill Bad
Churchills solution can never solve- it prevents coalition
building, supports imperialism, and begets mass violence
Argue, 7 - Steven Argue is a former leader of the socialist California Peace

and Freedom Party. (Steven, Smart Politics, Ward Churchill, Shill for U.S.
Imperialism August 16th, http://smartpolitics.tribe.net/thread/98683785bc04-46b5-a506-5cae52d011e7)//jk
The American Indian Movement is clear. Ward Churchill is a fraud that
has built his entire career around his false claim of being Native
American. Yet many on the left remain unclear about the real issues raised
by the Churchill controversy, issues that are deadly serious in their
importance to the left and the ant-war movement , not just the American
Indian Movement. Ward Churchill is an apologist for the mass murder
of working class people at the World Trade Center. Ward Churchill
said of the September 11th terrorists and mass murderers: "They
did not license themselves to target innocent civilians". There is
simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed
on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside
comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World
Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True
enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break.
They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's
global financial empire -- the "mighty engine of profit" to which the
military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved and
they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" -- a
derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" -- counts as less than an excuse
among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were
unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved
in -- and in many cases excelling at -- it was because of their absolute refusal
to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly
and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and
stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind
and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there
was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty
befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile
sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.
From Some People Push Back Ward Churchill Churchill, give us a break,
Bin Laden used planes full of civilians to murder thousands of
people, including many innocent working class people at the World
Trade Center. Bin Laden was a product of billions of dollars in U.S. /
CIA intervention against the people of Central Asia. He had the same
disregard for human life as his CIA sponsors. When I went to
Nicaragua in the 1980s it was ruled by a popular revolutionary
government that had overcome the butchers of the U.S. imposed
Somoza family and was facing the mass murder of the U.S. organized and
financed Contra War. Yet I was greeted by the Nicaraguan people as a
friend, not as an enemy or little Eichman of the empire as Churchill

would characterize the American working class. So many people came


to me to tell me that I had to go back to the United States to tell the truth
because, as they saw it, if the Americans truly knew what the U.S.
government was doing to the people of Nicaragua, they would be outraged
and stop it. An apologist for that mass murder of Nicaraguans by the
CIA was Ward Churchill with his false claims against the Sandinistas.
Likewise, an apologist for the mass murder of working class people
at the World Trade Center was Ward Churchill. The Sandinistas
made a revolution against the murderous U.S. installed and backed
Somoza dictatorship. Unlike Churchill in his academic Ivory Tower,
the revolutionary people of Nicaragua in the 1980s knew that the
American working class was a potential ally in the struggle against
imperialism that needed to be convinced, not blown up. The Nicaraguans saw
from their own experience under the Somoza dictatorship that governments
often do not represent the people and they saw the American peoples
struggle against the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam as a possibility that
could be repeated. Unfortunately, the U.S. succeeded in destroying
the popular and democratically elected government of Nicaragua
through a long dirty war (terrorism), blackmail of more war, and massive
intervention in their elections. The fact that the Sandinistas failed to make
greater inroads against capitalism, also helped produce their demise. In
1986, I met with Miskito Indians that supported the Sandinistas. At that time
the Miskito Indians were being granted governmental autonomy on the
Atlantic Coast and the Sandinistas had recognized that they had made errors
when they came into the region after the victorious revolution in 1979.
Among other things, the Sandinistas were carrying out literacy campaigns,
vaccination campaigns against horrible diseases, and building housing in the
region. The key error made was in not properly consulting the Miskito and
other indigenous people in what they wanted rather than just giving them
what the Sandinistas felt they needed. The regional autonomy and its
localized democracy was set up to remedy these problems. The CIA war
against the Nicaraguan people caused further hardships, especially in regions
near the Honduran border where the CIAs mercenaries would carry bloody
terrorist attacks and then run back to the protection of the territory under the
control of the U.S. backed military dictatorship in Honduras. Relocating some
people who were otherwise being killed in the middle of a war zone can
hardly be considered a first step towards genocide against the Moskitos as
Churchill presented it. The Sandinistas were part of the solution, not
the problem. The actual genocide against Indians taking place at
that time was under the U.S. backed capitalist military government
of Guatemala. There whole villages were slaughtered with U.S.,
Argentinean, and Israeli supplied weapons. Churchill, instead of
defending the gains of the Nicaraguan Revolution in the struggle
against imperialism, used his false claim of being Native American to
make false and exaggerated claims about the mistreatment of native
people in Nicaragua. Churchill was on the wrong side then, and he
is on the wrong side now. He is a petty bourgeois academic
scoundrel that is getting publicity because of his outrageous
statements, while many better people opposed to war in America, especially

but not limited to Arabs, have no platform to speak, are loosing their jobs,
and are even being imprisoned for their beliefs. To call those that were
propelled into the world trade center by these Bin Laden progeny of
the CIA little Eichmans, turns reality on its head. The American
working class does not willingly give authority to the capitalist class
and its government. That government, and system, maintains its
power through lies and all kinds of coercion from economic survival
to direct repressive violence against workers and others who fight
back. Violence against the innocent people of the World Trade
Center was a crime. The fact that a few of the many were not innocent in
their roles with finance capital does not change this. Likewise, the German
people were the first victims of the Nazis. The capitalist class of
Germany put the Nazis in power to crush a rebellious working class.
It was a minority in the working class, and the population as a whole, that
supported Hitler when he seized power. After, support for Hitler became
compulsory and opposition prohibited. There is no way to gage Hitlers real
support beyond the time of his seizure of power. Hitler could have never
come to power without major backing from the capitalist class. That capitalist
class placed Hitler in power to smash the mass movements of the working
class. Hitler's supporters included a mass movement that was largely made
up of angry small business people, their disillusioned offspring, and other
petty bourgeois and former petty bourgeois elements. Such petty bourgeois
elements, many who had lost their businesses, were caught between the rock
of the failures of the capitalist system, and the hard place of worker unrest,
both cutting into their lively-hoods. These were the people who most
believed in the racial hatred taught both by Hitler and by the capitalist
system before Hitler, and who believed in fighting to defend capitalism by
any means necessary. They blamed their problems on the groups targeted
both by Hitler and the capitalist class. As such, they were well funded shock
troops that were nearly given a free reign by the capitalist government to
terrorize union workers, Jews, socialists, and communists even before Hitler
had taken power. Yes, there were a minority of workers who were fooled into
helping Hitler take power as well, but they were a minority. Many were
attracted to what they saw as needed radical solutions in the face of the
Social Democratic Partys (SPDs) inability put forward a revolutionary
program. The SPD had become just another capitalist party that had
supported the German capitalist class in the inter-imperialist First World War.
The fact that some workers supported Hitler does not change the fact that
the fascist government was created by the capitalist class with mass support
from petty bourgeois and declassed lumpen proletarian elements. Hitlers
was a government created to smash the mass movements of a rebellious
working class that had nearly overthrown the capitalist government in 1920
under the revolutionary socialist leadership of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl
Liebknecht. Just as the mass murder carried out against human beings on
three jet planes used as missiles and other innocent victims at the World
Trade Center was a crime, so was the mass murder carried out by the U.S.
government against the working class of Dresden, another non-military
target. Osama Bin Laden is an extreme lunatic of the religious right
who owes his entire career to the billions of dollars the U.S.
provided to him in his holy war against literacy, womens rights, and

the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Making excuses for Bin Ladens


murderous misogynists is the last thing on earth that the left and
the anti-war movement should be doing. Likewise, Bin Ladens
actions have had the predictable result of bringing on more
repression and war. It is mass movements based among the working
class that have the potential of bringing change, not terrorism
against the working class.

Elders Oppose
Makah Elders oppose the whale hunt
Ides et al, 95 Makah Council Elders (Isabelle, Earth
Island, Whale Hunt Issue,
http://www.earthisland.org/immp/melders.html)//jk
We are elders of the Makah Indian Nation (Ko-Ditch-ee-ot) which means
People of the Cape. We oppose this Whale hunt our tribe is going to do.
The opposition is directly against our leaders , the Makah Tribal Council,
Tribal Staff, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is an arm of the United
States Government. The Makah Indian Nation has been functioning without a
quorum; two Councilmen are off on sick leave for very serious reasons,
cancer. How can any decision be legal when our by-laws state the Treasures
shall be present at every meeting? The Vice Chairman is the other man out.
The Whale hunt issue has never been brought to the people to
inform them and there is no spiritual training going on. We believe
they, the Council, will just shoot the Whale, and we think the word
"subsistence" is the wrong thing to say when our people haven't
used or had Whale meat/blubber since the early 1900's. For these
reasons we believe the hunt is only for the money. They can't say
"Traditional, Spiritual and for Subsistence" in the same breath when
no training is going on, just talk.: Whale watching is an alternative
we support.

Empirics Prove They Cannot Competently Whale


Empirics prove the Makah tribe is incompetent of whaling safely
Watson, 2007
(Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society,
environmental activist, influential member of Greenpeace, Five Incompetent Makah
Make a Mockery of Traditional Whaling, November 23, 2007,
http://www.seashepherd.fr/news-and-media/editorial-071123-1.html, Accessed:
7/14/14, RH)
The Makah tribe situated at Cape Flattery, Washington pride themselves on
being a traditional whaling people. For centuries Makah whalers were the most
respected members of their tribe and harpoons and lances were family heirlooms. The
Makah whalers were esteemed individuals within their culture because they were the
men who fed their people by going to sea in small canoes to hunt the whales with hand
held harpoons. They were men who took their hunting seriously, who made the sacred
sacrifices and endured the rituals required of traditional whalers. In short they were
brave men who were valiant heroes to their people. Theirs was a living culture of a proud
and courageous people who lived off the sea.
And now five extremely inept members of the tribe, men who reportedly
were considered the most competent and skilled modern whalers of their
people have together displayed an exhibition of gross dishonor,
unbelievable disrespect and colossal incompetence with their cruel and
tragic murder of a defenseless gray whale.
I have known these men for over a decade and all of them can be described in one word
and that word is "thug." Not once have I ever seen Wayne Johnson speak with reverence
for the whales or traditional beliefs. I have heard him boast about being a big game
hunter and bragging about shooting his .50 caliber anti-tank gun. He was the man in
a large steel boat that used this "traditional" weapon to kill a baby gray
whale in May 1999 after Theron Parker stuck a harpoon in its back from a
canoe towed by another motorized vessel. Outfitted in wetsuits and
communicating with two way radios they killed the whale, towed it to the beach in Neah
Bay and then went out to drink some beers and party leaving the whale carcass on the
beach for kids to crawl over and Federal government biologists to clean up. Most of the
meat ended up in a dump site and the body was towed out to the bay and
sunk so that scavengers could clean the bones so the "trophy" skeleton could be
placed on display in the Makah museum.
It was a travesty then and numerous Makah Elders were horrified and a few
were outspoken about the disrespect shown to the whale and were punished
by the thugs for doing so. One Makah Elder had her dog killed, the windows on her
home broken and her grandson beaten up.
Since that day Parker and Johnson have flown at government expense to the Faeroe
Islands, Norway and Iceland to study whaling. They have traveled to Siberia and Alaska
to learn how to "efficiently" kill whales. They have had a decade of education in the "art"
of whale slaughter and despite this they will go down in history as the men who inflicted
the most torturous death on a whale in history.
They will also go down in history as the most incompetent whalers to have
ever put to sea. Parker and Johnson and their three criminal colleagues will be known
as the whalers who couldn't shoot straight and their story will be enshrined in the
legends of the Olympic Peninsula as a comedy of bungling errors and sheer idiocy.

If not for the horrendous agony they inflicted upon a defenseless whale, this
misadventure at sea would be hilarious. Straight out of a television sitcom mixing the
incompetence of the Office with the silliness of the Beverly Hillbillies.
The Parker Johnson approach to whaling seems to have been learned from Abbott and
Costello. This dynamic duo and their three stooges decided one morning a few months
ago to load up their boat with guns and harpoons and go out and get themselves a whale.
Not that it would be difficult. A number of Gray whales could be found on any given day
just outside the harbor of Neah Bay peacefully feeding and lazily swimming close to the
shore.
The unsuspecting whale had no reason to fear the approach of the boat.
After all, the whale had been in these waters for years without threat. People
and boats were harmless. So when Parker drove the first harpoon into the
whale's back, the whale screamed in pained surprise and jerked on the line
causing Wayne Johnson to drop the .50 caliber gun into the sea. In
desperation the shocked amateur whalers sank three more harpoons into
the whale and then they opened fire with a .460 Magnum rifle shooting 16
bullets into the whale's body and failing to hit a vital organ.
Alerted by the gunfire, the U.S. Coast Guard arrived on the scene to find the
whale bleeding and gasping and the whalers sitting in their boat helplessly
watching the whale thrash about in abject agony. They had run out of
ammunition. It took ten long agonizing hours for the whale to die. The Coast
Guard was stuck with the task of getting permission to euthanize the whale but because
killing a whale is a federal crime, the Coast Guard was reluctant to put an end to the
misery of the animal without permission from the National Marine Fisheries Service. It
took hours to obtain the official permission to euthanize the whale and by
that time the poor creature had bled to death.
The whale's body sank to the ocean floor. Its life had been wasted because five
men with some serious neurotic afflictions felt they had a need to prove their manliness
by slaughtering an innocent creature. The local newspaper reported that, "There's only
one reason this whale suffered: It was deliberately attacked by five
incompetents in violation of the law. Their vaunted whaling expertise wasn't up to
making a quick kill or even keeping their gun from tumbling into the deep. The result
was a prolonged spectacle of human cruelty. A rat shouldn't have to die like that, let
alone a whale under the protection of the U.S. government."
For years the argument has been raised that the Makah should be allowed to exercise
their "rights" to kill whales. Not because there is subsistence need but because they insist
they must have a cultural need to kill whales. Killing whales is what defines them as a
people some of the Makah whalers have said.
But these five Makah whalers have demonstrated that they can't even kill a
whale with modern weapons and modern boats. They have made a mockery
of the traditions of their ancestors whose whaling was inspired by necessity and
whose expertise with primitive weapons puts to shame the stumbling oafish behavior of
these five moronic nimrods from Neah Bay.

No Cultural ! 2 Whaling
Hunt has no cultural significance- no one knows the
method and they want to sell the meat
Weinbaum, 2000 - completed a Master's Degree in Global Politics at the

London School of Economics. He received his B.A. in political science at the


University of Michigan (Matthew, University of Michigan, Makah Native
Americans Vs. Animal Rights Activists,
http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/Jones/makah.htm#table)//jk
In the Sea Shepherd email (14 Nov 2000), the activist group used three key
points to explain why the Makah do not deserve the right to hunt
whales. Sea Shepherd firmly believes that the Makah proposal is based on
the notion that the Native American tribe initially wanted to sell the meat
from their hunts to foreign countries after Japanese firms told them
this was a profitable enterprise. Sea Shepherd also contested that no
living member knows the method of the hunt because no member of
the last whale hunt is alive today. The E-mail also stated the difference in
how many whales the Makah plan to hunt versus how many are actually
murdered; the Makahas stated intention to land five whales per year means
they may strike and mortally wound twice as many to successfully land five
whales. (Sea Shepherd 14 Nov 2000)

Makahs culture isnt dependent on whaling


Good, 2000 studied Astrophysics at Whitman (Ross, Whitman, Whaling

Ban, http://www.whitman.edu/academics/courses-of-study/rhetoricstudies/resources/public-speaking-example-outlines-videospowerpoints/whaling-ban) // jk
"Despite their treaty right, the Makah voluntarily abandoned whale
hunting for most of the next thirty years. Makah hunters were busy
plying the lucrative commercial fur seal trade. By the end of the 19"
century, the fur seal population had been almost completely
decimated, and the U.S. government moved to stop the trade. Many
Makah hunters returned to hunting whales on a limited basis. Large
scale commercial whaling operations through much of the first half of this
decade had so severely depleted the North Pacific whale populations that it
certainly contributed to the Makah's dwindling whaling efforts in the early
1900s. Makah sporadically hunted and traded whale until 1915, and
then held a few final hunts in the mid-1920s.'" b) The fact that the
Makahs are finding whaling such an important part of their people,
they would have never voluntarily abandoned it for the seal trade in
the first place. Now, seventy years later, they decide it's a necessity
again? I don't think so.

Cultural change inevitable- Makah culture doesnt need


whales
Walker, 99 Assistant Professor, University of Oregon (Peter, WDC,
COMMENTARY: MAKAH WHALING ALSO A POLITICAL ISSUE,

http://us.whales.org/news/1999/06/commentary-makah-whaling-also-politicalissue)//jk
Moreover, the passionate defense of Makah "tradition" by some non-Makah is
naive and even demeaning to the Makah themselves. All cultures change.
The Makah have not actively whaled since the turn of the century.
Pre-European Makah culture cannot be re-created, nor is that
necessarily desirable. The Makah take offense at those who want to make
them "museum pieces" to fit a romanticized vision of the Native American.
Recognizing that cultural change is inevitable calls into question the
idea of an unbreakable, unchanging cosmological circle between
whaling and Makah culture. Some Makah, including many of the
tribe's elders, believe that times have changed and that there are
better ways to revitalize Makah culture. Non-Makah cannot tell the
Makah what to do. The disrespectful behavior of some anti-whaling activists
has only deepened feelings of hostility. But we can hope the Makah will
recognize that today they are key players in the global politics of whaling.
Gray whale populations are strong, but others are not. A voluntary
suspension of Makah whaling would be a powerful blow against
those who will surely exploit Makah tradition for their own profit and
would bolster the precarious international sanctions that stand
between whales and extinction. The Makah should have faith that they
can be a proud culture without killing whales. The whales, on the other
hand, may not survive without help from the Makah.

No Solvency
Anti-oppression politics fail to decolonize, are coopted,
and reinforce cycles of oppression
Kinsman et al, ND - a Canadian sociologist. He is one of Canada's

leading academics on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. (Gary,


Upping The Anti, Anti-Oppression Politics in Anti-Capitalist Movements,
http://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/01-anti-oppression-politics-in-anticapitalist-movements/)//jk
In recent years the rise of the anti-globalization movement has
influenced, and been influenced by, anti-oppression analyses, as the
movement sought to address the effects of global capitalism on different
communities and peoples, and to understand the varied effects of power,
privilege and marginalization in individual communities, as well as in national
and international contexts. Among social justice activists organizing around
anti-oppression politics, many questions have come up as to how to envision
and create a transformative politic around issues of racism, sexism,
heterosexism and able-ism within an anti-capitalist analysis. The current
separation of identity politics from class struggle does not speak to the
experiences of marginalized and exploited people in our communities, and we
need ways to discuss and organize around the connections between various
oppressions and capitalism. As anti-oppression activists, we need to develop
a critical discourse that connects the socio-historical contexts of capitalism
and class to race, gender, sexuality and ability. To the annoyance of some
leftists who argue that capitalism and class form the fundamental basis of all
oppression, anti-oppression organizing seeks to understand the connections
between racism, sexism, heterosexism, colonialism and class. Anti-oppression
politics have the potential to provide a useful antidote to reductionist
perspectives which leave out the fundamental roles of patriarchy and racism
in determining both capitalism and class relations. But is this happening? Or
are anti-oppression activists repeating the same mistakes made by
proponents of identity politics in the 19 60s and 1970s, and being
co-opted by the claimed multiculturalism of the Canadian state? Do
anti-oppression politics expand the analysis of radical organizing, or are
they merely reinventing the wheel by addressing individual behaviors?
Can anti-oppression politics provide a model for a multi-faceted analysis that
addresses oppression and class exploitation as distinct but nevertheless
intimately interrelated social relationships? The dynamics of antioppression politics often reinforce notions of oppression that we
should be trying to debunk. People of colour, for example, are often
deemed anti-oppression experts, and are expected to do antioppression work for primarily white organizations. What are
systemic issues then become problems stemming from individual
behaviour, which can lead to the de-politicization or political
paralysis of activist groups. As the radical roots of anti-oppression in
feminist, anti-racist and queer movements become co-opted, the education
model developed by anti-oppression activists is being taken up by
mainstream, multiculturalist and liberal discourses.

Tribal oppression cant be changed absent societal


overhaul
AC, ND Anti-caste is a Marxist organization in India
(WHY MARXISTS MUST TAKE UP THE FIGHT AGAINST
SPECIAL OPPRESSION, http://www.anti-caste.org/specialoppression-lenin-marxists-must-fight.html)//jk

Caste oppression, women's oppression, the oppression of religious and


national minorities and of tribalsthese burning social problems can never
be solved amid the enforced scarcity and inequality of a backward
capitalist country dominated by imperialism such as India. To sweep
away the material basis for each of these forms of special oppression
will necessarily take a proletarian socialist revolution and its
extension into the imperialist countries. The fight to liberate those
denied social equality under capitalism is therefore not an obstacle to or
distraction from revolutionary struggle, as the Stalinized left in India has
traditionally claimed, but one of its main motor forces.

SQ Solves DeCol
Status quo solves decolonization- UN reports ensure tribal
protection
Reuters, 12 A pretty big news source (UN official: US must return
control of sacred lands to Native Americans, NBC News, 5/5/12,
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/05/05/11551618-un-official-us-mustreturn-control-of-sacred-lands-to-native-americans?lite) // jk
The United States must do more to heal the wounds of indigenous
peoples caused by more than a century of oppression, including
restoring control over lands Native Americans consider to be sacred,
according to a U.N. human rights investigator. James Anaya, the U.N. special

rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, just completed a 12-day visit to the United States where he
met with representatives of indigenous peoples in the District of Columbia, Arizona, Alaska, Oregon,
Washington State, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. He also met with U.S. government officials. "I have heard
stories that make evident the profound hurt that indigenous peoples continue to feel because of the

Anaya said in a statement issued by the


U.N. human rights office in Geneva Friday. That oppression, he said,
has included the seizure of lands and resources, the removal of children from
their families and communities, the loss of languages, violation of treaties, and
brutality, all grounded in racial discrimination. Anaya welcomed the U.S. decision to endorse the U.N.
history of oppression they have faced,"

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2010 and other steps the government has taken, but

His findings will be included in a final


report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council. While not binding, the
recommendations carry moral weight that can influence
governments. "It is clear that this history does not just blemish the past, but translates into present
said more was needed. 'History of oppression'

day disadvantage for indigenous peoples in the country," Anaya said. "There have still not been adequate
measures of reconciliation to overcome the persistent legacies of the history of oppression, and that there
is still much healing that needs to be done," he said. Game hunt for sacred white buffaloes riles Native
groups In Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, where some Native Americans depend on hunting and fishing,
Anaya said tribes face "ever-greater threats ... due to a growing surge of competing interests, and in some
cases incompatible extractive activities, over these lands and resources." "In Alaska, indigenous peoples
complain about a complex and overly restrictive state regulatory apparatus that impedes their access to
subsistence resources (fish and wildlife)," he said. Native American tribe gets permit to kill bald eagles
Mining for natural resources in parts of the country has also caused serious problems for indigenous
peoples. "Past uncontrolled and irresponsible extractive activities, including uranium mining in the
Southwest, have resulted in the contamination of indigenous peoples' water sources and other resources,
and in numerous documented negative health effects among Native Americans," he said. Mount Rushmore

indigenous peoples feel they have too little control over


geographic regions considered sacred to them, like the San
Francisco Peaks in Arizona and the Black Hills in South Dakota.
Anaya suggested such lands should be returned to Native peoples.
He said

"Securing the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands is of central importance to indigenous peoples'

"Continued
efforts to resolve, clarify, and strengthen the protection of
indigenous lands, resources, and sacred sites should be made," he
socioeconomic development, self-determination, and cultural integrity," Anaya said.

added. How genocide wiped out a Native American population Mount Rushmore, a popular tourist
attraction, is located in the Black Hills, which the Sioux tribe consider to be sacred and have territorial
claims to based on an 1868 treaty. Shortly after that treaty was signed, gold was discovered in the region.
U.S. Congress eventually passed a law taking over the land. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the
seizure of the land was illegal and ordered the government to pay compensation. But the Sioux rejected
the money and has continued to demand the return of the now public lands. Anaya said he will make
specific recommendations on these and other issues in a full report later this year.

SQ Solves Whaling
Status quo solves legal barriers to whaling
Schabner, ND Reporter For ABC News (Dean, Evidence appears to be
from 2002 but the website doesnt specify, Save The whales, kill a
culture?, http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90125&page=1)//jk

The Makah may be nearing the end of their legal fight, though. On May
17, a federal judge in Tacoma, Wash., refused to issue a restraining
order to stop the Makah from whaling until a decision is reached in
the animal rights groups' lawsuit against the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service, and
the Commerce Department agencies that cleared the way for the tribe to
resume the hunt. In the suit, the groups claim that the agencies did not do a
thorough job of assessing the potential impact of Makah whaling both on
the whale population and on public safety, because of the risk of stray bullets
as the whalers try to shoot their prey. Judge Franklin Burgess said in his
ruling that the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, since there is no evidence
that the Makah hunt will have any impact, other than the "aesthetic,
emotional" effect on the animal rights groups. Five days after the judge's
ruling, the animal rights groups said they would appeal. Another potential
obstacle to the Makah resuming their hunt was removed Friday when
the International Whaling Commission, meeting in Shimonoseki, Japan,
approved a U.S. request to allow the tribe to kill four gray whales a
year in a re-vote after the proposal was voted down on Thursday.
The commission turned down another request by the United States
to allow Eskimos to take 55 bowhead whales over five years, and one
from Russia to allow the Chukotka to hunt 120 whales per year. The
Eskimo tribes and the Chukotka both depend on whale as a major
food source. According to some observers, the vote to deny the
requests was orchestrated by Japan in retaliation for international
efforts to maintain the commercial whaling moratorium imposed on
Japanese coastal communities.

Status quo solves Makah Whaling


AP, 5/18/14 Associated Press (Spokesman,
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/may/18/makah-tribemarked-last-whale-hunt-on-saturday/, Makah Tribe marked
last whale hunt on Saturday)//jk

Meanwhile, federal officials are in the process of finalizing an


environmental review that could lead to another hunt, the Daily News
reported. The tribe is currently seeking authorization from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency under the Marine
Mammal Protection Act to hunt gray whales for subsistence purposes. In
2012, NOAA scrapped a 2008 draft environmental impact statement of Makah
whaling and began a new draft environmental impact statement, after new
scientific information found that a group of gray whales that frequents the
Washington coast may be different than the 20,000 whales that migrate past

the state each year on their way between Alaskan and Mexican waters.
Donna Darm, associate deputy administrator for the NOAAs west region, said
a new statement incorporating that information should be ready for
public review by the fall. Theres been a lot of new science that we
received since the 2008 draft, Darm told the Daily News on Thursday. That
information will not necessarily affect the tribes hunt, but it will
require that tribal hunters carefully identify what group any future
whales they take come from, according to the Daily News. Whaling is a
centuries-old tradition for the tribe at the tip of Washingtons Olympic
Peninsula. The Makah are guaranteed whaling rights under their 1855
treaty with the U.S. For centuries, the Makah hunted gray whales
but stopped hunting in the 1920s after the grays were decimated by
commercial whaling. The tribe sought to resume whaling after gray
whales were removed from the federal endangered species list in
1994. The Makah applied in 1995 to again exercise its treaty right to
hunt whales, and it killed a 30-foot gray whale during a hunt 15
years ago.

They Do it for money


Whaling isnt cultural, its monetary
Blow, 98 Contributor for Mother Jones (Richard, Mother
Jones, The Great American Whale Hunt,
September/October,
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1998/09/greatamerican-whale-hunt)//jk
The tribal council pointed to an 1855 treaty in which the Makah ceded
thousands of acres of land to the United States but explicitly retained the
right to whale -- the only American Indian tribe to possess that right. "We had
our treaty," says John McCarty, the former executive director of the tribe's
whaling commission. "And our treaty gives us the right to whale." Noting
that whale meat is a delicacy in Japan, Greene told tribal leaders ,
according to Thompson, that a single gray whale could be sold to the
Japanese for $500,000, a substantial amount of money for the small tribe.
"Selling the whale was a thought," concedes McCarty. "And I'll be honest with
you. Selling the whale could be very, very advantageous to the
tribe." Thompson says the whale hunt was Greene's idea: "He
decided that we should go whaling because there would be money in
it." Greene did not return phone calls for this story.

Its all about the money


Good, 2000 studied Astrophysics at Whitman (Ross, Whitman, Whaling
Ban, http://www.whitman.edu/academics/courses-of-study/rhetoricstudies/resources/public-speaking-example-outlines-videospowerpoints/whaling-ban) // jk
"We have obtained documentation that the Makah intend to harvest gray
whales, harbor seals, California sea lions, mink whales, the Harbor
Porpoise, Dall's Porpoise, and potentially, in the future, sea otters.
The Makah are planning to operate a processing plant so as to sell to
markets outside the U.S. The Makah have started discussions with
Japan and Norway about selling their sea mammal products to both
countries. The plant could be used to process the catches of other
tribes as well. The Makah and other tribes plan to reduce local
populations of harbor seals to one-half to one-third of current
population. This documentation alone, reveals the Makah's supposed
intent to hunt California gray whales for "cultural and ceremonial"
purposes, was misleading and a lie."

They Dont Want to Whale


They Makah do not want to whale
Mapes, 1998

(Lynda V. Mapes, Seattle Times staff reporter, writer, Some Makahs oppose whale
hunt, 1998, http://www.orcahome.de/makah.htm, Accessed: 7/14/14, RH)
NEAH BAY , Clallam County - This yew harpoon, hand-carved more than a century ago,
is at home in Charles "Pug" Claplanhoo's weathered hand. Claplanhoo knows the courage
behind every one of the 131 tacks that stud the family heirloom, each one marking a
whale killed for the Makah by one of his ancestors. But despite his link to a heritage of
whaling, the hunt planned by his tribe this fall - the first in 70 years - will happen
without Claplanhoo's blessing. On the eve of this disputed hunt, now planned to
begin Sunday, some among this seafaring tribe murmur a chorus of quiet
dissent. They say there is no need to return to old hunting traditions to be
fully Makah . They say the elders weren't consulted. They say the hunt is a
distraction from more important work . They say, in voices both angry and sad,
that the tribe has little to gain and much to lose by going back to sea - this
time with an elephant gun and a harpoon. Their dissent is not active; tribal members all
say they support their legal treaty right to hunt. Their dissent is not loud; this remote
reservation town can be both a sanctuary and a prison for its 2,000 residents. Those who
speak out are criticized for disloyalty to their leaders, for airing the tribe's laundry to the
outside world. But, when asked, some, like Claplanhoo, say they cannot bless
this hunt. Claplanhoo is not opposed to whaling. Indeed, he holds dear the
family heirlooms - the yew harpoon, the cedar-bark basket that holds the
seal-gut harpoon line, the long pointed stick used to stab into the whale's
blowhole. But he thinks the energy is misplaced . "Let's move on, take care of the
tribe," he said. "If they fought like they are fighting for this whale for our fishing rights,
maybe there would be more jobs." His cousin, "Sonny" Wilbur Claplanhoo,
doubts the whaling crew is skilled enough to hunt safely ; his family's
harpoon was last used to kill a whale in 1910. He says he wouldn't want his
son on the whaling canoe. Alberta Thompson has stood alone among tribal members
in her vocal and visible opposition to the hunt. A 1997 boat trip among the whales
in the Baja, paid for by animal-rights activists, convinced her whaling is
wrong. "They are such wonderful, gentle giants, so intelligent, and they have
such a spirit of trust," said Thompson, 74. "I've paid dearly for standing up, but if I
had it to do over again, I would." In recent weeks, she lost her tribal job of 15 years and
discovered her dog dead in a field. "You could never prove that's why these things
happened," Thompson said of her steadfast opposition. "But I believe it." Her dismissal
letter from the tribal council says she was fired for using office time and telephones to
call whaling opponents. And her sincerity has been questioned by whaling supporters,
who scoff at a $10,000 award for bravery offered her by Paul Mitchell Systems, a haircare corporation, and a paid job as "ambassador to the whales" offered her by the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society. Thompson rejected the job on the advice of her attorney.
It is a testament to how things work on the reservation that Thompson's public stance
has actually hurt her cause; some tribal members who have misgivings about the hunt
have grown more quiet to distance themselves from her, and from trouble.
Constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of assembly don't carry the same weight
on the reservation, where tribal law rules. The tribal police are authorized to throw

anyone off the reservation deemed an enemy of the tribe. Supporters of the hunt have
stepped into that silence with their own message: The discomfort of individuals must not
overshadow the value of the hunt for the whole tribe. The commitment to honor history
has been a unifying force, they say, drawing together long-feuding factions of the tribal
community. "It's really pulled everyone together," says whaler Wayne Johnson. "I had
enemies here before I was even born because of disagreements in the past." Kids toting
"Kill the Whales" signs are greeted with smiles. Some hunt protesters are booted out of
town, left to camp down the road, across the reservation border. Boats operated by
protesters are not allowed to moor at the tribal marina. Tribal leaders speak with pride of
the support they say the hunt enjoys in Indian Country. Tribes from throughout
Washington and coastal Canada will travel to Neah Bay tomorrow for a pre-hunt
celebration of feasting and traditional dances. The gathering is expected to be a joyous
show of solidarity for the Makah, who are standing up to worldwide opposition to claim
their treaty rights and reclaim their whaling heritage. The hunt has been sanctioned by
some tribal elders; Helma Ward, mother of the vice chairman of the tribal whaling
commission, has lent important and prestigious endorsement. But other tribal
elders, like Margaret Irving, 83, and her two sisters, Isabell Ides, 98, and
Ruth Claplanhoo, 96, have withdrawn from the tribe's public conversation
over a return to whaling. Time changes things, Irving said. No living Makah has
ever whaled, and she worries someone will be killed in the hunt. "I don't go
for it myself. But I keep out of it," she said. "They are doing what they want to do. All I
can do is pray for them." She said she has been gratified that some of the younger
members of the tribe have questioned the hunt. And she was hurt that, despite her
standing as a tribal elder, she was not consulted. "To me, they didn't get any
knowledge from the elders, and that's what's made me very unhappy," she said. "They
can't get enough fish for the potlatches, but they are only after the whale. It makes me
sad." Her eldest sister, Isabell Ides, is the oldest living Makah. Ides and their middle
sister, Ruth Claplanhoo, live in adjacent houses on the reservation and are the last two
fluent speakers of the tribal language. Their grandmother, Susie Napoleon, had seven
brothers, all of them whalers. Ruth Claplanhoo said her grandmother was drafted to
paddle a whaling canoe when the crew was a person short. So they know the value of
tribal culture. But the sisters say whaling is not how they wish to preserve their
heritage. "It stirred up a can of worms," Ruth Claplanhoo said. "It brought up the white
people's true feeling toward us. Now they are giving us all this trouble about the whale."
She reserves her strongest criticism for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which
she says is threatening the tribe's whaling canoe with its two big ships parked outside the
breakwater of the tribal marina. The international attention and outrage focused
on the whale hunt will only grow worse if there is a confrontation at sea, she
said. "I'm afraid someone is going to get hurt," Claplanhoo said. "We have lost
enough. We lost our land. We lost our language. We've lost most of our
songs." Ides remembers her father butchering a great Grey on the beach, and the taste
of whale meat in her hungry mouth. But she wants no part of this hunt. "I don't care
about the whale," Ides said. "We went without the whale all this time. . . .
Nobody even knows how to prepare (the meat)." Sidney Bowechop, 58, a
retired logger, worries that the whale will be wasted, drawing even more
criticism. "These people around here aren't going to eat it," he said. "If
McDonald's fixes it or Burger King makes a whale burger, they will eat it. But they
don't have the foggiest idea how to eat what the old people used to eat." Many
here believe that gaining approval to hunt whales was an important test of treaty rights.
But many, like Jesse Hax-Sta Ides, don't think the tribe has to actually kill a whale to
demonstrate that right. "As long as the sun comes up and sets in the West and

the grass is still green, that's how good that treaty is," said Ides, 58. "Our
elders taught us not to give any of that up. "But they don't have to prove it by
killing a whale. . . . In these new modern computer times, it's wrong. I think the guys
doing it are trying to make an identity within." Vivian "Kibby" Lawrence, a former tribal
chairman, also is content to see her family's whaling traditions reside in the past. Tribal
identity needs no boost from a harpoon, she said. "I don't understand all the hoopla
that's going on. We have always been simply Makah," said Lawrence, whose greatgrandfather, James Claplanhoo, was one of the tribe's great whaling chiefs. " We have
never lost our culture. Whaling won't make a difference in my life. " At a
recent family birthday party, Lawrence and her sister, Linda Moss, sang old tribal songs
in Makah. They know so many, they say they can sing for hours without ever repeating a
single one. As Moss took up a drum, the living room furniture was shoved aside to clear
the floor for the children, who stepped and giggled their way through ancient family
dances on the wall-to-wall carpeting. The dances, passed on from generation to
generation, depict the antics of sea serpents, snipes, whales and horses. An ancient tribal
chief's hat made from cedar bark was brought out of a back bedroom, and Wilbur
Claplanhoo clapped it on his head. Lawrence's grandson Michael, 16, put on a
ceremonial shawl and cedar wolf mask, then spun and high-stepped as his relatives sang
and drummed, and the Seattle Seahawks played on TV in the background. The wolf mask
barely cleared the fan hanging from the low living-room ceiling. The family doesn't need
whaling to tell them they are Makah, Lawrence said. "We know who we are and what we
are," Lawrence said. "I don't need a whale killed to be any more Makah than I have been
my entire life."

USFG Supports
The USFG supports Makah Whaling- means status quo
solves and the thesis of the aff is wrong
Martin, 12 - J.D. Candidate at Willamette University
College of Law (Thomas, Social Science Research Network,
Whaling Rights of the Makah,
file:///C:/Users/0089607588/Downloads/SSRN-id2129582.pdf,
June 2012)//jk
In Part III, I discuss the guardianward relationship between the United States
and the Makah. Federal agencies, most notably the NOAA, have
advocated for Makah whaling rights before the IWC and in federal
court. The IWCs response to these federal efforts was a poorly
drafted revised schedule to the International Convention for the
Regulation of Whaling (ICRW). The NOAAs litigation efforts to
fight off conservationist groups were unsuccessful, as the Ninth
Circuits Anderson decision ordered the NOAA to prepare a full
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).20 Moreover, Anderson held
that the Tribe must obtain a MMPA waiver before resuming rights held under
the treaty.21 While the Makah and conservationist groups may have certain
ideals (that happen to be in direct conflict with each other), the reality is that
the federal government will have the last word, with some influence
from the International Whaling Commission (IWC). In short, this
amounts to striking a middle ground whaling will be allowed but
inevitably the United States will attach strings. The Makahs
response is an understanding, willful compliance. The majority of
conservationist groups will accept nothing less than a complete ban, and so
they will likely be disappointed

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