• MSDI 2007 / Ermo Framework Ans

***Framework File***

The Under View- Our Framework........................................................................................................................................2

AT: Affirmative Choice.........................................................................................................................................................3
AT: Lutz................................................................................................................................................................................4
AT: Shively...........................................................................................................................................................................5
AT: Dietz...............................................................................................................................................................................6
AT: Coercion (Lutz/Shively).................................................................................................................................................7
AT: Shively Voter..................................................................................................................................................................8
AT: Role-playing / Peters......................................................................................................................................................9
AT: Role-playing / Joyner...................................................................................................................................................10
AT: Role-playing / Kulynych..............................................................................................................................................11
Consequentialism Good......................................................................................................................................................12
Consequentialism Good......................................................................................................................................................13
AT: Representations First....................................................................................................................................................14
AT: Ontology First..............................................................................................................................................................15

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The Under View- Our Framework

A. Counter-Interpretation:
Debate should include not only arguments about the unique benefits and drawbacks to a policy, but also the
methodological assumptions that those arguments are based upon – even when those errors exist beyond the particular
policy proposal. Judges should reject policies if it is demonstrated that the policy, including its justifications, are based
on assumptions shown to be false or destructive. If the policy rejected is the affirmative plan, the negative should
prevail. Affirmatives get the 1ac as offense unless the negative undermines that offense through methodological attack.

B. Reasons to prefer:
1.) False Competition – their framework requires the negative to defend a competing policy option, which means
that diminishing the case’s inherency through uniqueness objections or otherwise becomes a voting issue for the
affirmative. This undermines the quality of policy analysis by making objections to the general principle non-unique,
which link turns all their offense.

2.) Defense of Assumptions – their framework claim is based on the assumption that the resolution is objective,
which is a perspective of western thought invalidated by the development K. The bigger picture is that the process of
testing ideas involves determining and critiquing the assumptions behind them. Their framework would literally
preclude all author or study indicts, and most case defense, as those ask methodological questions and implicitly
prescribe rejection of arguments with undefended assumptions. Defending assumptions is crucial to academic and
deliberative link turns, so it turns their position as well. O’Donnell’s view of affirmative choice still requires defending
assumptions, so it link turns anything good about his argument as well.

3.) Deeper Topic education – policy rounds will exist and provide the education they seek. Affirmative choice,
which is part of their framework not just an advantage to it, is the worst threat to topic education, since there’s no check
on affirmatives making the round about who is hotter, dresses nicer, is more ethical personally, etc. Only by defending
assumptions can you access the richer literature base without the nuisance of requiring perm-able disengagement CP’s.

C. It’s not a voter

The better remedy is to use framework as a filter for what arguments are relevant, just as our critique uses methodology
as a filter. The purpose of O’Donnell’s proposal is to decrease framework debates – making it a voting issue link turns
his argument by allowing the affirmative to ignore policy arguments. Also, the voting issue straight up violates their
own framework, which invalidates BOTH claims through inconsistency.

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AT: Affirmative Choice

We don’t agree with O’Donnell’s proposal for affirmative choice – extend that affirmative
choice link turns ALL their other offense by allowing affirmatives to lock in terrible,
uneducational choices. But, his article does provide some offense for us since affirmative
choice is part of their framework.

AFC locks in judge intervention and forces judges to agree when they don’t – this is a link
turn for policy judges and there wouldn’t be compliance from the others
Timothy M. O’Donnell (Director of Debate University of Mary Washington) 2004
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/DRGArtiarticlesIndex.htm
AFC implementation will require action by both debaters and judges. From debaters it will require both willingness to compromise
and recognition that learning to debate in different frameworks has value. I envision a world where prior to the start of the debate, the
affirmative would disclose to the negative team what it is that they wish to talk about (the case/plan) as well as the question
that the judge ought to answer at the end of the debate. In addition, they should be prepared to begin their first affirmative constructive
speech with a rationale for the question which lets the negative know what it is that they need to do to win the debate. AFC will also require a
similar move on the part of judges. Not only will we need to lay our framework predispositions at the doorstep, we
will also need to explain to debaters that we endorse the idea of AFC.

O’Donnell agrees some assumptions should be defend though he lacks a clear line. We contend
assumptions about whether the West should develop Africa at all are policy germane and
predictable – they respond directly to the literature base which predicts the plan would be
desirable. They can’t exclude us under affirmative choice without clarifying O’Donnell’s
article
Timothy M. O’Donnell (Director of Debate University of Mary Washington) 2004
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/DRGArtiarticlesIndex.htm
Would AFC mean the negative could never question affirmative assumptions? There are at least two answers to this objection.
First, not necessarily. The negative would still have ground to critique the assumptions embedded in the framework
advocated by the affirmative team. For example, if the affirmative advocated ceding political control in Iraq to the
United Nations through a policy framework, the negative could still question all of the policy assumptions which speak
to the plan’s desirability. AFC only constrains the negative to the extent that they are limited to the starting point selected by the affirmative.
This means that the negative would be forced to bracket questions regarding the desirability of the affirmative with respect to its language, its
representations, its politics, its performance, its philosophy, etc. Similarly, if the affirmative advocated ceding political control in Iraq to the United
Nations through a performance framework, the negative could question all of the assumptions behind their performance in addition to topically
derived core negative arguments (although those arguments would have to be adapted to the framework advanced by the affirmative). In such
situations, ground loss would be minimal because the ground that the negative loses would not be germane to either the resolutionally derived
question or the affirmative framework. Thus the only thing that the negative loses under AFC is the ability to shift the question of the debate through
critiques of the affirmative framework. Viewed this way, the negative’s complaint is that they don’t get to talk about everything but the affirmative.
But why should they? Second, the benefits gained by adoption of AFC outweigh what would be lost. Limiting negative ground focuses the
discussion and generates richer debates within the framework chosen by the affirmative. There is no substantial benefit to allowing the
negative to question every assumption since the emergence of critical affirmatives ensures a place at the table for these
types of arguments. Third, the negative does not have a right to question every assumption. Infinite preparation time for the affirmative is a
myth. Affirmative teams, only have a fixed amount of time to prepare to debate. If they are forced to defend any and all assumptions that they are heir
to by virtue of their existence at the end of thousands of years of human civilization there is no reasonable expectation that they could ever be
prepared to debate. The number and range of questions that the debate could be about is certainly much greater than the amount of time the
affirmative has to prepare. Such a situation is anathema to any cooperative learning enterprise. If learning is to be maximized, participants
must have a reasonable expectation about what to prepare for. This is, after all, why everyone who participates in two-person “policy”
debate thinks there ought to be a topic. Yet, while we seem to agree that there should be limits placed on the affirmative, the same thinking does not
always seem to apply to the negative. AFC merely recognizes that both sides need to give something up to have a debate.

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AT: Lutz
Their Lutz card is devastating offense for our framework – he says that clarifying the ideal
state of affairs is PRIOR to the question of whether an idea should be pursued. This justifies
placing the K before the case. Our framework checks infinite regression because they get to
weigh the affirmative
Donald S. Lutz (Professor of Polisci at Houston) 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 39-40
Aristotle notes in the Politics that political theory simultaneously proceeds at three levels—discourse about the ideal, about the best possible in the
real world, and about existing political systems.4 Put another way, comprehensive political theory must ask several different kinds
of questions that are linked, yet distinguishable. In order to understand the interlocking set of questions that political theory can ask, imagine a
continuum stretching from left to right. At the end, to the right, is an ideal form of government, a perfectly wrought construct produced by the
imagination. At the other end is the perfect dystopia, the most perfectly wretched system that the human imagination can produce. Stretching
between these two extremes is an infinite set of possibilities, merging into one another, that describe the logical
possibilities created by the characteristics defining the end points. For example, a political system defined primarily by equality
would have a perfectly inegalitarian system described at the other end, and the possible states of being between them would vary primarily in the
extent to which they embodied equality. An ideal defined primarily by liberty would create a different set of possibilities between the extremes. Of
course, visions of the ideal often are inevitably more complex than these single-value examples indicate, but it is also true that in order to imagine
an ideal state of affairs a kind of simplification is almost always required since normal states of affairs invariably present themselves to human
consciousness as complicated, opaque, and to a significant extent indeterminate. t A non-ironic reading of Plato's Republic leads one to conclude
that the creation of these visions of the ideal characterizes political philosophy. This is not the case. Any person can generate a vision
of the ideal. One job of political philosophy is to ask the question "Is this ideal worth pursuing?" Before the question
can be pursued, however, the ideal state of affairs must be clarified, especially with respect to conceptual precision
and the logical relationship between the propositions that describe the ideal. This pre-theoretical analysis raises the
vision of the ideal from the mundane to a level where true philosophical analysis, and the careful comparison with
existing systems can proceed fruitfully. The process of pre-theoretical analysis, probably because it works on clarifying ideas that most
capture the human imagination, too often looks to some like the entire enterprise of political philosophy.5 However, the value of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau's concept of the General Will, for example, lies not in its formal logical implications, nor in its compelling hold on the imagination, but on
the power and clarity it lends to an analysis and comparison of actual political systems. Among other things it allows him to show that anyone who
wishes to pursue a state of affairs closer to that summed up in the concept of the General Will must This justifies placing the K before the
case. However, once the ideal is clarified, the political philosopher will begin to articulate and assess the reasons why
we might want to pursue such an ideal. At this point, analysis leaves the realm of pure logic and enters the realm of the logic
of human longing, aspiration, and anxiety. The analysis is now limited by the interior parameters of the human heart (more properly the human
psyche) to which the theorist must appeal. Unlike the clarification stage where anything that is logical is possible, there are now definite
limits on where logic can take us. Appeals to self-destruction, less happiness rather than more, psychic isolation, enslavement, loss of
identity, a preference for the lives of mollusks over that of humans, to name just a few possibilities, are doomed to failure. The theorist cannot
appeal to such values if she or he is to attract an audience of politicians. Much political theory involves the careful, competitive analysis of what a
given ideal state of affairs entails, and as Plato shows in his dialogues the discussion between the philosopher and the politician will quickly
terminate if he or she cannot convincingly demonstrate the connection between the political ideal being developed and natural human passions. In
this way, the politician can be educated by the possibilities that the political theorist can articulate, just as the political
theorist can be educated by the relative success the normative analysis has in "setting the hook" of interest among nonpolitical theorists. This realm
of discourse, dominated by the logic of humanly worthwhile goals, requires that the theorist carefully observe the responses of others in order not to
be seduced by what is merely logical as opposed to what is humanly rational. Moral discourse conditioned by the ideal, if it is to be successful,
requires the political theorist to be fearless in pursuing normative logic, but it also requires the theorist to have enough humility to remember that, if
a non-theorist cannot be led toward an ideal, the fault may well lie in the theory, not in the moral vision of the non-theorist.

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AT: Shively
The Shively card creates lots of offense for us. First, it shows that that embracing a plan
means rejecting ALL others, so everything is competitive, there are no perms, and debate will
be infinitely distracted from the topic. Second, it shows we should judge ideas, not just
policies. Third, it justifies rejecting their move to silence our arguments. Finally, our
framework checks infinite regression.
Ruth Lessl Shively (Assoc Prof Political Science at Texas A&M) 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 180
Thus far, I have argued that if the ambiguists mean to be subversive about anything, they need to be conservative about some things. They need to
be steadfast supporters of the structures of openness and democracy: willing to say "no" to certain forms of contest; willing to set up certain clear
limitations about acceptable behavior. To this, finally, I would add that if the ambiguists mean to stretch the boundaries of behavior—if they want to
be revolutionary and disruptive in their skepticism and iconoclasm—they need first to be firm believers in something. Which is to say, again, they
need to set clear limits about what they will and will not support, what they do and do not believe to be best. As G. K. Chesterton observed, the true
revolutionary has always willed something "definite and limited." For example, "The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel
against, but (what was more important) the system he would not rebel against..." He "desired the freedoms of democracy." He "wished to have votes
and not to have titles . . ." But "because the new rebel is a skeptic"—because he cannot bring himself to will something definite and limited— "he
cannot be a revolutionary." For "the fact that he wants to doubt everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything" (Chesterton
1959,41). Thus, the most radical skepticism ends in the most radical conservatism. In other words, a refusal to judge among
ideas and activities is, in the end, an endorsement of the status quo. To embrace everything is to be unable to embrace
a particular plan of action, for to embrace a particular plan of action is to reject all others, at least for that moment.
Moreover, as observed in our discussion of openness, to embrace everything is to embrace self-contradiction: to hold to both one's purposes and to
that which defeats one's purposes—to tolerance and intolerance, open-mindedness and close-mindedness, democracy and tyranny. In the same
manner, then, the ambiguists' refusals to will something "definite and limited" undermines their revolutionary impulses. In their refusal to say what
they will not celebrate and what they will not rebel against, they deny themselves (and everyone else in their political world) a particular plan or
ground to work from. By refusing to deny incivility, they deny themselves a civil public space from which to speak. They cannot say "no" to the
terrorist who would silence dissent. They cannot turn their backs on the bullying of the white supremacist. And, as such, in refusing to bar the
tactics of the anti-democrat, they refuse to support the tactics of the democrat. In short, then, to be a true ambiguist, there must be some limit to
what is ambiguous. To fully support political contest, one must fully support some uncontested rules and reasons. To
generally reject the silencing or exclusion of others, one must sometimes silence or exclude those who reject civility
and democracy.

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AT: Dietz
Dietz gives us offense. Their choice to gender modify proves the relevance of non-policy
considerations. Also, their position should be read as endorsing half truths, or the intrusion of
politics into an intellectual forum. Also, it justifies rejecting the case in each instance that it
makes different arguments than a politician would make. Finally, it implies that we are
responsible for validity and coherence, which our K proves the case lacks.
Mary Dietz, Professor of Polisci at Minnesota, 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 117-8
Against this Vaclavian politics of truth, Ash deploys the alternative formulation of "working in half-truth" in order to distinguish "the professional
party politician's job" from the intellectual's, especially as it is "reflected, crucially, in a different use of language" (1995, 35). Here he amplifies
what it means to work in the language of half-truth: If a politician gives a partial, one-sided, indeed self-censored account of a
particular issue, he [or she] is simply doing his [or her] job. And if he [or she] manages to "sell" the part as the whole then he
[or she] is doing his [or her] job effectively.... If an intellectual does that, he [or she] is not doing his [or her] job; he [or she] has failed in
it. (1995, 36) Ash is anxious to insist that he is not casting the intellectual as "the guardian or high priest of some metaphysical, ideological or
pseudo-scientific Truth with a capital T" (1995, 36). Thus, the difference between the role of intellectual and the role of the politician is not
equivalent in any easy way to the epistemological divide between absolute Truth and relativism, or the metaphysical divide between objective
reality and subjective experience. Whatever else they are, Ash's intellectuals are not Platonic philosopher-kings; although from the perspective of
Platonic philosophy his politicians are surely sophists and rogues. The divide between Ash's truth-seeking intellectual and his partisan
politician has rather more to do with the linguistic and ethical terrain on which they work, and not the upper ether of
epistemology and metaphysics. If this terrain is organized along lines of "responsibility," then we might understand the divide between
the intellectual and the politician as a matter of assuming, as Ash puts it, "qualitatively different responsibilities for the validity,
intellectual coherence and truth" of speech in each of these irreducible domains (Ash 1995, 36, italics mine). *

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AT: Coercion (Lutz/Shively)

Lutz is more offense – we show that development is a form of unjust force and violence, and
they seek to protect it and normalize it with their framework. They seek to exclude political
theory and thus legitimate unchecked power.
Our interpretation solves – education through participation in policy debates is essential to
check manipulation of the government by powerful private interests
Donald S. Lutz, Professor of Polisci at Houston, 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 36-7
that to the extent such a discussion between political theorists and politicians does not take
The position argued here is
place we damage the prospects for marrying justice with power. Since the hope of uniting justice with power was the reason for
creating political philosophy in the first place, political theorists need to pursue the dialogue as part of what justifies their intellectual project. Poli-
tics is the realm of power. More specifically it is the realm where force and violence are replaced by debates and discussion about how to implement
power. Without the meaningful injection of considerations of justice, politics tends to become discourse by the most
powerful about how to implement their preferred regime. Although constitutionalism tends to be disparaged by contemporary
political science, a constitution is the very place where justice and power are married. Aristotle first taught us that a constitution must be matched to
the realities of the political system—the character, hopes, fears, needs and environment of the people—which requires that constitutionalism be
addressed by men and women practiced in the art of the possible.2 Aristotle also taught us that a constitution (the politeia, or plan for a way of life)
should address the improvement of people toward the best life possible, which requires that constitutionalism be addressed by political theorists
who can hold out a vision of justice and the means for advancing toward it. The conversation between politician and political theorist stands at the
center of their respective callings, and a constitution, even though it reflects only a part of the reality of a political system, has a special status in this
central conversation. Although the focus of this chapter is on a direct conversation between theorist and politician, there is an important, indirect
aspect of the conversation that should not be overlooked—classroom teaching. Too often the conversation between politician and political theorist
is described in terms of a direct one between philosophers and those holding power. Overlooked is the central need to educate as many young
people as possible. Since it is difficult to predict who will, in fact, hold power, and because the various peoples who take seriously the marriage of
justice with power are overwhelmingly committed to a non-elitist, broad involvement of the population, we should not overlook or minimize our
importance as teachers of the many. Political leaders drawn from a people who do not understand what is at stake are neither inclined nor equipped
to join the conversation. As we teach, we converse with future leaders. Perhaps not everyone who teaches political theory has had the same
experience, but of the more than eight thousand students I have taught, I know of at least forty-nine who later held a major elective office, and at
least eighty more who have become important political activists. This comes down to about five students per teaching year, and I could not have
predicted which five it would be. The indeterminate future of any given student is one argument against directing our efforts at civic education
toward the few, best students. A constitutional perspective suggests not only that those in power rely upon support and direction from a broad
segment of the public, but also that reliance upon the successful civic education of the elite is not very effective, by itself for marrying justice with
power in the long run.

This link turns their Shively impact – our K proves they are defending tyranny
Ruth Lessl Shively (Assoc Prof Political Science at Texas A&M) 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 186
To sum up the argument thus far, the
ambiguists cannot support political contest unless they are willing to say "no" to—or to
bring closure to—some activities, and unless they are willing to say "yes" to the rational rules of persuasion. Like all
other democratic theorists, they must make some foundational assumptions about the goodness of self-determination,
the preferability of reasons over force, and the evils of tyranny, among other things. All democratic visions presuppose that
politics is about rational persuasion. Thus, talk of resisting or subverting all orders or all rational foundations is incoherent. At the very least, the
foundations of rational persuasion must be rigidly upheld. It will not do, then, to say we simply need more contest or more "politics" and less
rationality or foundationalism. It will not do to invoke contest as a kind of talisman against the need to make difficult judgments about good and
bad, healthy and unhealthy, political actions. For inasmuch as the conditions necessary to political contest require constant support and protection
and inasmuch as we require constant education and improvement in upholding and effectively applying them, the conditions necessary to political
contest require these judgments.

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AT: Shively Voter

Their Shively voter is 100% in violation of their own plan-only framework, invalidating both
claims. Also, the K requires dogmatic opposition to fascism and the K proves development is
fascist. Also, we link turn standards of discourse by allowing adaptation and rethinking by
questioning assumptions. Also, we reject the intolerance of their framework.
Ruth Lessl Shively, Assoc Prof Polisci at Texas A&M, 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 179
To put this point another way, it turns out that to be open to all things is, in effect, to be open to nothing. While the ambiguists have commendable
reasons for wanting to avoid closure—to avoid specifying what is not allowed or celebrated in their political vision—they need to say "no" to some
things in order to be open to things in general. They need to say "no" to certain forms of contest, if only to protect contest in general.
For if one is to be open to the principles of democracy, for example, one must be dogmatically closed to the principles
of fascism. If one would embrace tolerance, one must rigidly reject intolerance. If one would support openness in political
speech and action, one must ban the acts of political intimidation, violence or recrimination that squelch that openness. If one would expand delib-
eration and disruption, one must set up strict legal protections around such activities. And if one would ensure that citizens have reason to engage in
political contest—that it has practical meaning and import for them—one must establish and maintain the rules and regulations and laws that
protect democracy. In short, openness requires certain clear limits, rules, closure. And to make matters more complex, these
structures of openness cannot simply be put into place and forgotten. They need to be taught to new generations of
citizens, to be retaught and reenforced among the old, and as the political world changes, to be shored up, rethought,
adapted, and applied to new problems and new situations. It will not do, then, to simply assume that these structures are permanently
viable and secure without significant work or justification on our part; nor will it do to talk about resisting or subverting them. Indeed, they are such
valuable and yet vulnerable goods that they require the most unflagging and firm support that we can give them.

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AT: Role-playing / Peters

Peters is offense for us - ONLY by questioning the reasons and problematizing science do we
make disputes political and reach the ‘truth-testing’ marketplace of ideas he advocates. We
must provide a chance to erase the prejudices of development
Christopher J. Peters (bigelow teaching fellow and lecturer in law) March 1997 “adjudication as representation”
Columbia law review 97 colum. L. Rev. 312
Decisionmaking Through Reasoned Deliberation. - A final functionalist argument in favor of democratic government, one that relies to a great
extent upon the previous three, is that it forces government decisions ultimately to be made not upon the basis of individual interests or "naked
preferences" but through a process of reasoned deliberation, of interplay among a variety of ideas and viewpoints and eventual agreement on the
best course of action. This argument from deliberation incorporates the ideas of allocation of power to interested individuals, diversity of interests,
and participation of talented decisionmakers into a theory about the nature of both electoral and representative decisionmaking. The theory holds
that antithesis ultimately produces a better consensus, that the clash of differing, even opposing interests and ideas in the process of decisionmaking,
because it forces proponents of each position to present reasoned arguments in favor of it, creates decisions that are better for having been subjected
to this trial by fire. Thus better representatives are elected when the election is hotly contested, and better laws are enacted following vigorous
parliamentary debate. Cass Sunstein is perhaps the most influential contemporary exponent of this theory of deliberative democracy. He states the
argument this way: [A] large point of the system [of representative democracy] is to ensure discussion and debate among people who are genuinely
different in their perspectives and position, in the interest of creating a process through which reflection will encourage the emergence of general
truths. A distinctive feature of American republicanism is extraordinary hospitality toward disagreement and heterogeneity, rather than fear of it.
The framers believed that a diversity of opinion would be a creative and productive force...... ... Public deliberation may reveal the truth
or falsity of factual claims about the state of the world or about the likely effects of policy proposals. Through
confrontation among people who disagree, errors of fact may be revealed as such. n97 [*337] Sunstein's version of
deliberative democracy draws upon the thought of the American Founders, who similarly believed in the power of discussion and deliberation in a
representative democracy, n98 and of John Dewey, n99 who in his later writings strongly emphasized democracy's deliberative component.
Dewey - who, as we have already seen, was fond of broad, quotable aphorisms about what "democracy is" - saw democracy as in part the method of
"persuasion through public discussion carried on not only in legislative halls but in the press, private conversations and public assemblies." n100 It
was "the substitution of ballots for bullets, of the right to vote for the lash ... [of] the method of discussion for the method of coercion." n101 The
"democratic faith" was, for Dewey, a "faith in the possibility of conducting disputes, controversies and conflicts as cooperative undertakings in
which both parties learn by giving the other a chance to express itself." n102 The process of deliberation had to be more than merely
a clash of competing viewpoints; it had to be characterized by reasons offered by either side, by "science" and
"intelligence." n103 But when these conditions were present, deliberation produced better decisions not only from the
legislature, but from the electorate itself: "The act of voting is in a democratic regime a culmination of a continued process of open and
public communication in which prejudices have the opportunity to erase each other; ... [and] continued interchange of
facts and ideas exposes what is unsound and discloses what may make for human well-being." n104

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AT: Role-playing / Joyner

Turn: Only juxtaposing US policy and international legal norms such as self determination
gets Joyner’s style of education. Also, reject the affirmative because they exceed the bounds of
LEGAL argument that Joyner imposed in his class. Finally, debate is different from one in
class example and the same reason discussion is better than lecture justifies wider discussion
over narrower.
Christopher C. Joyner (prof. of International law at Georgetown) Spring 1999 “teaching international law: views
from an international relations political scientist” ILSA journal of international & comparative law 5 ILSA J Int’l &
Comp L 377
Confronting international law in practice is critical to achievement of the course objectives, and this is effectively done through a
series of debates in a course that I teach on International law and United States Foreign Policy. Students try to WIN the games
by garnering support from the rest of the class based on the merits and suasion of their legal arguments, although past experience
indicates that clear winners are not often produced. The degree of success this exercise enjoys depends on two key factors: first, the
willingness of students to assume their adopted roles with energy and, second, the extent to which student participants in the debates can learn
and relate how, where, and why international law is [*385] integrated into the United States foreign policy decision-making process and can
demonstrate the tensions between national security considerations and international legal constraints in formulating United
States foreign policy. Taken in tandem, these two ingredients can produce a successful and unique learning experience that
fosters a deeper understanding of the subject matter than would likely be attained through a lecture-format course.

We should not passively consume developmental assumptions

Christopher C. Joyner (prof. of International law at Georgetown) Spring 1999 “teaching international law: views
from an international relations political scientist” ILSA journal of international & comparative law 5 ILSA J Int’l &
Comp L 377
By assessing the role of international law in United States foreign policy- making, students realize that United States actions do not always measure
up to international legal expectations; that at times, international legal strictures get compromised for the sake of perceived national interests, and
that concepts and principles of international law, like domestic law, can be interpreted and twisted in order to justify United States policy in various
international circumstances. In this way, the debate format gives students the benefits ascribed to simulations and other action
learning techniques, in that it makes them become actively engaged with their subjects, and not be mere passive
consumers. Rather than spectators, students become legal advocates, observing, reacting to, and structuring political and legal perceptions to fit
the merits of their case.

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AT: Role-playing / Kulynych

Kulynych assumes that we should role play in official public forums not debate. The card
objects to expert bias, which validates the development K. It assumes we should have non-
rational discourse and arguments about what can be conceived, which refutes their
framework. Only understanding that political discussion includes how we name the world can
allow participation, which is a link turn.
Jessica Kulynych, Asst Professor of Political Science at Winthrop University, Polity, Winter, 1997, n2 p315(32)
When we look at the success of citizen initiatives from a performative perspective, we look precisely at those moments of defiance and disruption
that bring the invisible and unimaginable into view. Although citizens were minimally successful in influencing or controlling the outcome of the
policy debate and experienced a considerable lack of autonomy in their coercion into the technical debate, the goal-oriented debate within
the energy commissions could be seen as a defiant moment of performative politics. The existence of a goal-oriented
debate within a technically dominated arena defied the normalizing separation between expert policymakers and
consuming citizens. Citizens momentarily recreated themselves as policymakers in a system that defined citizens out
of the policy process, thereby refusing their construction as passive clients. The disruptive potential of the energy commissions
continues to defy technical bureaucracy even while their decisions are non-binding. SHE CONTINUES… Consider, for example, a public hearing.
When seen from a discursive legitimation perspective, deliberation and debate are about the sincere, controlled attempt to discern the best, most
rational, least biased arguments that most precisely express an interlocutor’s ideas and interests. In practice, however, deliberation is a much less
deliberative and much more performative activity. The literary aspects of debate – irony, satire, sarcasm, and wit – work
precisely on the slippage between what is said and what is meant, or what can be said and what can be conceived.
Strategies such as humor are not merely rational, but visceral and often uncontrollable, as is the laughter that is evoked from such strategies.
Performative actions are not alternative ways of deliberating; rather they are agonistic expressions of what cannot be captured by deliberative
rationality. As such, they resist the confines of that rationality and gesture toward places where words, arguments, and claims are not enough.
Without an understanding of the performative aspects of political action, Hager cannot explain how citizens are able to
introduce genuinely new and different “ways of perceiving and naming the world” into a realm where such epistemic
standards are unimaginable. It is in the process of acting as citizens in a technical bureaucratic setting, where citizen action is by definition
precluded, that alternative, epistemic standards of evaluation become possible. Only when scholars recognize the performative will
they be able to grasp the intricacies of contemporary political actions and the possibilities for an actually diverse and
participatory democracy.

START HERE

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Consequentialism Good
Political responsibility requires a consideration of consequences
Jeffrey Isaac, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and
Public Life at Indiana University, Bloomington, Spring 2002, Dissent, vol. 49, no. 2
As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught, an unyielding concern with moral
goodness undercuts political responsibility. The concern may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers
from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails to see that the purity of one's intention does not ensure the achievement of what one
intends. Abjuring violence or refusing to make common cause with morally compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if such tactics
entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving any moral good beyond the clean conscience of their supporters;
(2) it fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of powerlessness; it is
often a form of complicity in injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of politics--as opposed to religion--pacifism is always a
potentially immoral stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect; and (3) it
fails to see that politics is as much about unintended consequences as it is about intentions; it is the effects of action,
rather than the motives of action, that is most significant. Just as the alignment with "good" may engender impotence, it is often the
pursuit of "good" that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough that one's goals be
sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask about the effects of pursuing these goals and to judge these
effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this judgment. It alienates those
who are not true believers. It promotes arrogance. And it undermines political effectiveness. WHAT WOULD IT mean for the
American left right now to take seriously the centrality of means in politics? First, it would mean taking seriously the specific means employed by the September 11
attackers--terrorism. There is a tendency in some quarters of the left to assimilate the death and destruction of September 11 to more ordinary (and still deplorable)
injustices of the world system--the starvation of children in Africa, or the repression of peasants in Mexico, or the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by
Israel. But this assimilation is only possible by ignoring the specific modalities of September 11. It is true that in Mexico, Palestine, and elsewhere, too many innocent
people suffer, and that is wrong. It may even be true that the experience of suffering is equally terrible in each case. But neither the Mexican nor the Israeli government
has ever hijacked civilian airliners and deliberately flown them into crowded office buildings in the middle of cities where innocent civilians work and live, with the
intention of killing thousands of people. Al-Qaeda did precisely this. That does not make the other injustices unimportant. It simply makes them different. It makes the
September 11 hijackings distinctive, in their defining and malevolent purpose--to kill people and to create terror and havoc. This was not an ordinary injustice. It was an
extraordinary injustice. The premise of terrorism is the sheer superfluousness of human life. This premise is inconsistent with civilized living anywhere. It threatens
people of every race and class, every ethnicity and religion. Because it threatens everyone, and threatens values central to any decent conception of a good society, it
must be fought. And it must be fought in a way commensurate with its malevolence. Ordinary injustice can be remedied. Terrorism can only be stopped. Second, it
would mean frankly acknowledging something well understood, often too eagerly embraced, by the twentieth century Marxist left--that it is often politically necessary to
employ morally troubling means in the name of morally valid ends. A just or even a better society can only be realized in and through political practice; in our complex
and bloody world, it will sometimes be necessary to respond to barbarous tyrants or criminals, with whom moral suasion won't work. In such situations our choice is not
between the wrong that confronts us and our ideal vision of a world beyond wrong. It is between the wrong that confronts us and the means--perhaps the dangerous
means--we have to employ in order to oppose it. In such situations there is a danger that "realism" can become a rationale for the Machiavellian worship of power. But
equally great is the danger of a righteousness that translates, in effect, into a refusal to act in the face of wrong. What is one to do? Proceed with caution. Avoid casting
oneself as the incarnation of pure goodness locked in a Manichean struggle with evil. Be wary of violence. Look for alternative means when they are available, and
support the development of such means when they are not. And never sacrifice democratic freedoms and open debate. Above all, ask the hard questions about the
situation at hand, the means available, and the likely effectiveness of different strategies. Most striking about the campus left's response to September 11 was its refusal
to ask these questions. Its appeals to "international law" were naive. It exaggerated the likely negative consequences of a military response, but failed to consider the
consequences of failing to act decisively against terrorism. In the best of all imaginable worlds, it might be possible to defeat al-Qaeda without using force and without
To be
dealing with corrupt regimes and political forces like the Northern Alliance. But in this world it is not possible. And this, alas, is the only world that exists.
politically responsible is to engage this world and to consider the choices that it presents. To refuse to do this is to
evade responsibility. Such a stance may indicate a sincere refusal of unsavory choices. But it should never be mistaken for a serious political
commitment.

Nuclear war requires weighing consequences

Sissela Bok, Professor of Philosophy, Brandeis, Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, Ed. David Rosenthal and Fudlou
Shehadi, 1988
The same argument can be made for Kant’s other formulations of the Categorical Imperative: “So act as to use humanity, both in your own person
and in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means”; and “So act as if you were always through actions a
law-making member in a universal Kingdom of Ends.” No one with a concern for humanity could consistently will to risk
eliminating humanity in the person of himself and every other or to risk the death of all members in a universal Kingdom of Ends for the
sake of justice. To risk their collective death for the sake of following one’s conscience would be, as Rawls said, “irrational, crazy.” And to say
that one did not intend such a catastrophe, but that one merely failed to stop other persons from bringing it about would be
beside the point when the end of the world was at stake. For although it is true that we cannot be held responsible for most of the
wrongs that others commit, the Latin maxim presents a case where we would have to take such a responsibility seriously—perhaps
to the point of deceiving, bribing, even killing an innocent person, in order that the world not perish.

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Consequentialism Good
Horrendous consequences justify escape clauses in absolute morality.
G.E.M. Anscombe (Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University) 1993 Absolutism and Its Consequentialist
Critics, ed. Joram Graf Haber, p. 58-59
Whenever a defender of traditional morality protests that there are moral rules which, whatever the consequences, must not be broken, such as the
rule prohibiting murder- the killing of the materially innocent-a natural reaction is to confront him with imaginary horror upon imaginary horror,
and to inquire whether it would not be permissible, nay right, to commit murder if these horrors would be the consequences of his not committing it.
And so it has come to seem natural to accept as much of utilitarianism as this: that no moral system can be philosophically acceptable
unless it is supplemented by an escape clause, to the effect that, in all cases of a choice of evils, if one of those evils is
so great that incurring it rather than any of the others would be calamitous, and if it can only be avoided by taking a certain
action, then that action is to be taken even if it is in breach of a precept of the system.

Extreme circumstances justify a utilitarian calculus.

Jack Donnelly (Professor at College of the Holy Cross) 1985 The Concept of Human Rights, p. 58
But suppose that the sacrifice of one innocent person would save not ten but a thousand, or a hundred thousand, or a
million people. All things considered, trading one innocent life for a million, even if the victim resists most forcefully, would
seem to be not merely justifiable but demanded. Exactly how do we balance rights (in the sense of `having a right'), wrongs (in the sense of
`what is right') and interests? Do the numbers count? If so, why, and in what way? If not, why not? Ultimately the defender of human rights is
forced back to human nature, the source of natural or human rights. For a natural rights theorist there are certain attributes, potentialities and
holdings that are essential to the maintenance of a life worthy of a human being. These are given the special protection of
natural rights; any `utility' that might be served by their infringement or violation would be indefensible, literally
inhuman - except in genuinely extraordinary circumstances, the possibility of which cannot be denied, but the
probability of which should not be overestimated. Extraordinary circumstances do force us to admit that, at some point,
however rare, the force of utilitarian considerations builds up until quantity is transformed into quality. The human rights
theorist, however, insists on the extreme rarity of such cases. Furthermore, exotic cases should not be permitted to obscure the fundamental
difference in emphasis (and in the resulting judgements in virtually all cases) between utility and (human) rights. Nor should they be allowed to
obscure the fact that on balance the flaws in rights-based theories and practices seem less severe, and without a doubt less
numerous, than those of utility-based political strategies. Another way to read utilitarianism would be as an objection to the priority
human rights grant to the individual over society and the state. How can we justifiably require the state to protect the interests of the few, as
expressed in rights, against the interests of the many or the whole, as determined by utilitarian calculation? On what grounds can we say that
individuals are to be protected in certain special ways and, in their specially protected spheres, be given the liberty to exercise their rights so as to
override virtually all other considerations even, if necessary, stop the government dead in its tracks?

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AT: Representations First

Policy analysis should precede discourse – most effective way to challenge power
Jill Taft-Kaufman, Speech prof @ CMU, 1995, Southern Comm. Journal, Spring, v. 60, Iss. 3, “Other Ways”, p pq
The postmodern passwords of "polyvocality," "Otherness," and "difference," unsupported by substantial analysis of
the concrete contexts of subjects, creates a solipsistic quagmire. The political sympathies of the new cultural critics, with their
ostensible concern for the lack of power experienced by marginalized people, aligns them with the political left. Yet, despite their adversarial
posture and talk of opposition, their discourses on intertextuality and inter-referentiality isolate them from and ignore
the conditions that have produced leftist politics--conflict, racism, poverty, and injustice. In short, as Clarke (1991) asserts,
postmodern emphasis on new subjects conceals the old subjects, those who have limited access to good jobs, food, housing, health care, and
transportation, as well as to the media that depict them. Merod (1987) decries this situation as one which leaves no vision, will, or
commitment to activism. He notes that academic lip service to the oppositional is underscored by the absence of focused collective or
politically active intellectual communities. Provoked by the academic manifestations of this problem Di Leonardo (1990) echoes Merod and
laments: Has there ever been a historical era characterized by as little radical analysis or activism and as much radical-
chic writing as ours? Maundering on about Otherness: phallocentrism or Eurocentric tropes has become a lazy
academic substitute for actual engagement with the detailed histories and contemporary realities of Western racial
minorities, white women, or any Third World population. (p. 530) Clarke's assessment of the postmodern elevation of language to the
"sine qua non" of critical discussion is an even stronger indictment against the trend. Clarke examines Lyotard's (1984) The
Postmodern Condition in which Lyotard maintains that virtually all social relations are linguistic, and, therefore, it is through the coercion that
threatens speech that we enter the "realm of terror" and society falls apart. To this assertion, Clarke replies: I can think of few more striking
indicators of the political and intellectual impoverishment of a view of society that can only recognize the discursive.
If the worst terror we can envisage is the threat not to be allowed to speak, we are appallingly ignorant of terror in its
elaborate contemporary forms. It may be the intellectual's conception of terror (what else do we do but speak?), but its
projection onto the rest of the world would be calamitous....(pp. 2-27) The realm of the discursive is derived from the
requisites for human life, which are in the physical world, rather than in a world of ideas or symbols.(4) Nutrition, shelter,
and protection are basic human needs that require collective activity for their fulfillment. Postmodern emphasis on the discursive
without an accompanying analysis of how the discursive emerges from material circumstances hides the complex task
of envisioning and working towards concrete social goals (Merod, 1987). Although the material conditions that create the situation of
marginality escape the purview of the postmodernist, the situation and its consequences are not overlooked by scholars from marginalized groups.
Robinson (1990) for example, argues that "the justice that working people deserve is economic, not just textual" (p. 571). Lopez
(1992) states that "the starting point for organizing the program content of education or political action must be the
present existential, concrete situation" (p. 299). West (1988) asserts that borrowing French post-structuralist discourses about "Otherness"
blinds us to realities of American difference going on in front of us (p. 170). Unlike postmodern "textual radicals" who Rabinow (1986)
acknowledges are "fuzzy about power and the realities of socioeconomic constraints" (p. 255), most writers from marginalized groups are clear
about how discourse interweaves with the concrete circumstances that create lived experience. People whose lives form the material for
postmodern counter-hegemonic discourse do not share the optimism over the new recognition of their discursive
subjectivities, because such an acknowledgment does not address sufficiently their collective historical and current
struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic injustice. They do not appreciate being told they are
living in a world in which there are no more real subjects. Ideas have consequences. Emphasizing the discursive self
when a person is hungry and homeless represents both a cultural and humane failure. The need to look beyond texts to
the perception and attainment of concrete social goals keeps writers from marginalized groups ever-mindful of the
specifics of how power works through political agendas, institutions, agencies, and the budgets that fuel them.

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AT: Ontology First

Preventing widespread death through the aff takes precedence to ontological questioning
Arnold I. Davidson, coeditor of Critical Inquiry, Assoc Prof of Philosophy, U of Chicago, Critical Inquiry, Winter
1989. p.426
I understand Levinas’ work to suggest another path to the recovery of the human, one that leads through or toward
other human beings: “The dimension of the divine opens forth from the human face… Hence metaphysics is enacted
where the social relation is enacted- in our relations with men… The Other is not the incarnation of God, but precisely
by his face, in which he is disincarnate, is the manifestation of the height in which God is revealed. It is our relations
with men… that give to theological concepts the sole signification they admit of.” Levinas places ethics before
ontology by beginning with our experience of the human face: and, in a clear reference to Heidegger’s idolatry of the
village life of peasants, he associated himself with Socrates, who preferred the city where he encountered men to the
country with its trees. In his discussion of skepticism and the problem of others, Cavell also aligns himself with this
path of thought, with the recovery of the finite human self through the acknowledgement of others: “As long as God
exists, I am not alone. And couldn’t the other suffer the fate of God?… I wish to understand how the other now bears
the weight of God, shows me that I am not alone in the universe. This requires understanding the philosophical
problem of the other as the trace or scar of the departure of God [CR, p.470].” The suppression of the other, the
human, in Heidegger’s thought accounts, I believe, for the absence, in his writing after the war, of the experience of
horror. Horror is always directed toward the human; every object of horror bears the imprint of the human will. So
Levinas can see in Heidegger’s silence about the gas chambers and death camps “a kind of consent to the horror.” And
Cavell can characterize Nazis as “those who have lost the capacity for being horrified by what they do.” Where was
Heidegger’s horror? How could he have failed to know what he had consented to? Hannah Arendt associates
Heidegger with Paul Valery’s aphorism, “Les evenements ne sont que l’ecume des choses’ (‘Events are but the foam
of things’).” I think one understands the source of her intuition. The mass extermination of human beings, however,
does not produce foam, but dust and ashes; and it is here that questioning must stop.

It’s impossible to determine an answer to being – ontological questioning results in an infinite

regress and total political paralysis
Emmanuel Levinas, professor of philosophy, and Philippe Nemo, professor of new philosophy, Ethics and Infinity,
1985, pg. 6-7
Are we not in need of still more precautions? Must we not step back from this question to raise another, to recognize
the obvious circularity of asking what is the “What is . .?“ question? It seems to beg the question. Is our new
suspicion, then, that Heidegger begs the question of metaphysics when he asks “What is poetry?” or “What is
thinking?”? Yet his thought is insistently anti-metaphysical. Why, then, does he retain the metaphysical question par
excellence? Aware of just such an objection, he proposes, against the vicious circle of the petitio principi, an alternative,
productive circularity: hermeneutic questioning. To ask “What is. . .?“ does not partake of onto-theo-logy if one
acknowledges (1) that the answer can never be fixed absolutely, but calls essentially, endlessly, for additional “What
is . . .?“ questions. Dialectical refinement here replaces vicious circularity. Further, beyond the openmindedness called
for by dialectical refinement, hermeneutic questioning (2) insists on avoiding subjective impositions, on avoiding
reading into rather than harkening to things. One must harken to the things themselves, ultimately to being, in a
careful attunement to what is. But do the refinement and care of the hermeneutic question — which succeed in
avoiding ontotheo-logy succeed in avoiding all viciousness? Certainly they convert a simple fallacy into a productive
inquiry, they open a path for thought. But is it not the case that however much refinement and care one brings to bear,
to ask what something is leads to asking what something else is, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum? What is
disturbing in this is not so much the infinity of interpretive depth, which has the virtue of escaping onto-theo-logy and
remaining true to the way things are, to the phenomena, the coming to be and passing away of being. Rather, the
problem lies in the influence the endlessly open horizon of such thinking exerts on the way of such thought. That is,
the problem lies in what seems to be the very virtue of hermeneutic thought, namely, the doggedness of the “What is .
. .?“ question, in its inability to escape itself, to escape being and essence.

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