AC-Kant-AFCC-Util adv NC-Util Fwk-Innovation Da-Case 1ar-Util fwk-innovation DA- Kant-util adv-new off win one layer Nr-AFCC-Independent voter-Case 2ar-Indepndent voter-case
Life
Quads
Opponent: trix | Judge: you
hi
Life
Quads
Opponent: trix | Judge: you
hi
Loyola
3
Opponent: Vestavia Hills DS | Judge: Joey Georges
Ac-Kant Nc- Innovation DA-Util-case-Kant independent voter 1ar- theory afc- theory must spec status in nc- Util Independent voter- skep-kant independent voter Nr- all 2ar- Theory afc-kant independent voter
Loyola
1
Opponent: Marlborough AW | Judge: Gordon Krauss
Ac-Cap Global South Nc- Innovation DA Util Case rest was all
To modify or delete round reports, edit the associated round.
Cites
Entry
Date
00-Broken Interps
Tournament: Life | Round: Quads | Opponent: trix | Judge: you Interpretation: Debaters must disclose all constructive speech docs open source with highlighting on the NDCA LD wiki within an hour after debating.
11/21/21
00-Broken Interps
Tournament: Life | Round: Quads | Opponent: trix | Judge: you Interpretation: Debaters must disclose all constructive speech docs open source with highlighting on the NDCA LD wiki within an hour after debating.
Interpretation – if the affirmative reads both a Role of the Judge and Role of the Ballot as ways to frame offense, they must specify which one comes first and how each interacts with each other in the 1AC
12/4/21
00-Contact Information
Tournament: All | Round: Finals | Opponent: All | Judge: All Hey Im Emerson (He/him).
email: emersonskang@gmail.com
number:646-770-6577
Message me about docs if there is a problem and ill try to send them.
Lmk about trigger warnings. Lmk about Pronouns as well. Ill default to they/them otherwise
Please tell me if there are any interps you would like me to meet before round and I will be happy to comply to a reasonable extent.
10/16/21
00-Contact info
Tournament: All | Round: Finals | Opponent: All | Judge: All Its glitching. I cant add anything. But, If there is anything I can do to accommodate your disclosure practices, lmk and I will be happy to comply to a reasonable extent.
11/21/21
00-Contact info
Tournament: All | Round: Finals | Opponent: All | Judge: All Its glitching. I cant add anything. But, If there is anything I can do to accommodate your disclosure practices, lmk and I will be happy to comply to a reasonable extent.
11/21/21
00-DebateDrills
Tournament: All | Round: 1 | Opponent: All | Judge: All I’m on DebateDrills - the following URL has our roster, conflict, policy, code of conduct, relevant team policies, and harassment/bullying complaint form: https://www.debatedrills.com/debate-club?ld
10/16/21
00-Wiki Glitches
Tournament: any | Round: 7 | Opponent: you | Judge: all So it turns out some of my cites aren't uploading, but the open-source is available or some open-sources aren't uploading but the cites are.
Contact me if you want anything specific.
10/16/21
1-GG-If ROTJ and ROTB Spec
Tournament: Princeton | Round: 4 | Opponent: Harrison JC | Judge: Chasia Jeffries Interpretation – if the affirmative reads both a Role of the Judge and Role of the Ballot as ways to frame offense, they must specify which one comes first and how each interacts with each other in the 1AC Violation – they didn’t Vote negative for Critical Engagement – absent specification the NC doesn’t know what types of offense to read to link under their multiple frameworks. Even if we somehow link offense under one, the 1AR can shift and moot the NC, and we still don’t know how each interacts with each other ie. does the ROTB influence the ROTJ. There are a couple impacts – 1 Movement building – a) Dogmatism DA – Absent specification we can’t discuss countermethods of solving the affirmative which kills solvency and causes polarization b) Legitimacy DA – If NC’s don’t know how to link offense that means your ROTB or ROTJ becomes a NIB that the NC will have to frame out of which is bad because the nuances of the affirmative never get discussed 2 Education – only my model allows debaters to rigorously test the affirmative and learn the literature through countermethods, anything else excludes offense and ends in commodification of literature for the ballot. Independently, not specifying is bad for novice inclusion because they won’t know how to engage with the affirmative and lose everytime – inclusion is a voter you can’t debate if you can’t participate Framing is that they can’t use their aff to take out theory a) that proves the abuse of the shell they should have specified and that’s shifting b) truth testing – we couldn’t rigorously test the aff so we don’t know if it’s true c) form v content distinction – the shell criticizes the ability to read the framing in the first place Voters – Fairness is a voter since debate is a competitive activity that intrinsically requires an equal shot at winning. Education is a voter since it’s the reason schools fund debate and its ultimate impact. DD – a) to deter future abuse, b) otherwise they could just kick and go for the positive time tradeoff on theory, c) the round has been skewed so theory is the only fair place to vote d) DTA doesn’t make sense because it indicts you as a norm CI – a) reasonability requires judge intervention because I don’t know where your BS meter is, and b) reasonability creates a race to the bottom since it motivates debaters to use increasingly unfair strategies and get away with them by playing defense on theory c) collapses because you garner offense based on the brightline d) footnoting because saying “oh lets be reasonable just this once” even if it’s a better norm means we never get the norming potential of the shell e) the bl is catered to your situation not the best situation f) race to the bottom because we never find better norms and think everything is reasonable No RVIs – a) It’s illogical to vote for you for being fair, rounds without theory would be irresolvable b) It incentivizes you to bait theory and win off a scripted CI which means infinite abuse c) you have the 2ar to blippily extend rvis which kilsl substance education
My interpretation is that the resolution should only define the division of affirmative and negative ground and be the only thing we can garner offense from. It was negotiated and announced in advance, providing both sides with a reasonable opportunity to prepare to engage one another’s arguments.
This does not require the use of any particular style, type of evidence, a call to tell you not to speak about your identity, or an assumption about the role of the judge —the topic is a limit on CONTENT to determine the debate’s subject matter.
Violation: They say in cx that they dont
Definition of unconditional right to strike: NLRB 85 National Labor Relations Board; “Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947: Volume 1,” Jan 1985; https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7o1tA__v4xwCandrdid=book-7o1tA__v4xwCandrdot=1 Edited for gendered language As for the so-called absolute or unconditional right to strike—there are no absolute rights that do not have their corresponding responsibilities. Under our American Anglo-Saxon system, each individual is entitled to the maximum of freedom, provided however (and this provision is of first importance), his their freedom has due regard for the rights and freedoms of others. The very safeguard of our freedoms is the recognition of this fundamental principle. I take issue very definitely with the suggestion that there is an absolute and unconditional right to concerted action (which after all is what the strike is) which endangers the health and welfare of our people in order to attain a selfish end.
Vote neg 1 Predictable limits – absent topical constraints affirmative there is no stasis point for neg preparation which means we can’t predictably research your affirmative since there are thousands of literatures bases you could choose to base your affirmative on. That outweighs – a) you can dedicate 4 years to learning one literature base creating a structural skew to debaters who switch topics every 2 months and b) you can cherry pick advocacies like “racism is bad” which makes contesting the aff psychologically violent and they can always revise their aff to de-link from the few generics that are responsive. 2 Clash – the topic delineates aff and neg ground on an issue that allows in depth engagement while their model creates one-sided monologues. Their model forecloses the ability of intricate debate and advocacy refinement by forcing us into stale generics, since we can’t predictably research the 1ac. These positions don’t test the aff in rigorous ways since they are generic and supposed to apply to every affirmative. That turns the aff – absent rigorous testing of the aff echo chambers that operate within existing structural privilege without self-questioning and refinement of strategies. C TVA – defend the unconditional right to strike for queer workers.
In round competitive equity first: 1 Evaluation – their arguments only seem true because they have an advantage – equity is a meta constraint on your ability to determine who’s better under the aff method since if one debater had 10 minutes to speak and the other had 1 it alters the ability to judge the truth value of the aff which means no cross apps and you should presume their arguments are false since I wasn’t adequately prepared to contest them so they don’t get to weigh the case if we couldn’t engage it to start with since I couldn’t disprove it. 2 Ballot proximity – the ballot can’t solve their offense or actualize their method since the arguments we read have no effect on our subjectivity, but the judge can determine the direction of good norms and equitable practices so a risk our interp is good means negate 3 exclusion’s inevitable since you have the ability to exclude my offense with your ROB which means I shouldn’t be punished for excluding the way you presented your advocacy. 4 Quality of discussion – even if it’s true that the scholarship they introduce is valuable, if I can’t answer the aff then there’s no point to reading the position. Debate’s unique value is that it forces engagement and contestation of issues – but this is impossible if I don’t even know what to prepare for which also turns the tangible benefit of their method 5 it’s an intrinsic good – debate is fundamentally a game proven by wins, losses and speaker points which proves its inescapable b)
Drop the debater – Changing your advocacy kills NC strat because the 1ac advocacy is the only stasis point for NC offense, anything else moots all clash and fairness. No cross apps from the aff since framework proves that that layer was skewed to begin with so we can’t actually test the truth of cross applications to the affirmative. DTD- time skew, check abuse
New 2nr answers to AC preemts- otherwise they just preload the aff with 6 minutes and don’t debate substance, cross apps sre impossible to see and shifty
No impact turns or rivis - A Perfcon – if T’s bad and you vote for them on that arg, you’re voting on T. B Substance – if T’s bad then we should try debating on substance – impact turns force me to go for T since I need to defend my position. CI- intervention, collapses, yours vs best, race to bottom
Drop the debater. Drop the arg is severance since you jump ship from your advocacy which perpetuates abuse since it allows you to restart the round. Competing interps: 1. Reasonability causes a race to the bottom where we read increasingly unfair practices that minimally fit the brightline 2. Collapses- you use offense-defense to determine reasonability being good which concedes the authority of competing interps No RVIs: 1. Illogical- being topical doesn’t mean you should win, it’s just a burden. 2. Chilling effect- debaters will be scared to read theory for fear of losing to a prepped out counter interp, proliferating abuse
Overview to the case
Framing (They only said ROB) the ROB is to determine whether the plan is a good idea through policy analysis Fairness – arbitrary frameworks moot the 1AC – there are infinite parts of the 1AC they could problematize which forces 1ar restart. Our scholarship is tied to the consequences of the plan so it makes no sense to separate assumptions from implementation. Fairness matters—debate’s a competitive game and it’s key to foster valuable discussion. Education- Discussing the literal policy of the res is best for education, o/w since we only have two months for this topic and by debating random Fwks we lose a debate we could have used to learn and educate ourselves about the current topic 3. There is no a-priori role of the ballot. Debate is merely a tool which can lead to a whole bunch of outcomes - anything other than voting for who did the better debating leads to tunnel vision
On their underview 1 no warrant. Critiquing epistemology of resolution is fine but Arguments only function under the current topic. So we need to comprehend the topic first before other arguments like theory. The ballot asks you to vote for who did the better debating but if the aff is not topical, then they are not actually affirming, then you cant vote for them or their theory
2 T is not “policing people”- 1 applies to everyone 2 bidirectional so its most fair 3 anything else says some people should get more rights then others
1 Arguments in round don’t have an effect on structural equity only procedural equity. Therefore the burden is on the Affirmative to establish that on the basis of of the perceived violation their advocacy is the only way to remedy PROCEDURAL equity. These can’t be inherently bad as the debater has debated or will debate the opposite side an equal number of times. 2 Automatic suppositions of position without violation, don’t help the cause, but rather commodify the position as a tactic, depriving it of value as a symbolic stance. IE. Dropping neg, and giving Aff the ballot encourages other debaters to tactify the position in order to acquire wins. 3 There is no bright line for Drop the Debater: Puts debaters in a predicament. To argue against the Affirmative even when in support of the cause 4 Allows the judges to engage in slacktivism politics; the judge leaves the room feeling like they have 5 Turn: The debater reading the violation does more for the position by conceding the round and engaging in discussion. A sacrifice is only meaningful and generates movement if it is of oneself, not of the opposite body. Sacrificing the negative does nothing for the cause. IT IS EASY to sacrifice your opponent Hold an in-round discussion about their aff and vote for me. The net benefit is that it would generate even more publicity and solve the problem better. Amanda Liverzani ran a position on feminism in 2004 at Greenhill. The following is an excerpt of an interview. Jon Cruz. “Discussing What She Believes In”. 10/4/2004 http://victorybriefsdaily.com/2004/10/0 ... lieves-in/ Jon Cruz asked: JC: Once you started forfeiting rounds and held discussions instead, what was the climate? Was it awkward? Or were people receptive? Liverzani responded: AL: I don’t think it could have gone any better. At Greenhill, I debated ten rounds. At the round robin, I debated three. None of those rounds were as successful in sparking discourse and thought on the subject as my round with Hirsh Jain. How so? Prior to that round everyone had been approaching my case in that adverserial context…not thinking about the actual issues behind it. I can really say that I had an effect on people in that room once they realized how serious I was about the subject.Hirsh, the judge, and I engaged in a genuine discussion on feminism, rape, sexism in society. Not only did I get my views out there, but I learned from the two of them as well.
It garners all educational aspects of both pre-fiat and post-fiat, while she only gains educational benefits from pre-fiat. 2) It doesn’t skew the round one way or another, meaning it is most fair. 3) It allows genuine reproduction of the values she is advocating for because we can internalize the merits of the situation, and then decide to go further with it. It is preferable because we are not thinking about it in an adversarial and competitive sense.
Reject the aff ballot
1 Cross Apply limits and testing from T shell as independent reasons to reject the case. Also 2 Small schools disad: under-resourced are most adversely effected by a massive, unpredictable caselist which worsens structural disparities. their revolution is only accessible within the bubble of circuit debate. Next
3 Even if it’s a good model the judge shouldn’t endorse it, results in guilt politics where the judge does nothing but believes they participate, this leads to broader exported violence in everyday life. Paints suffering as vote for us to remedy, assuages the judge of guilt bc of indivual actions when they have in fact done nothing 4 Paternalism DA- they deny the possibillity for a legit victory- voting aff doesn’t remedy strucutral harms, you recreate the logic of paternalism where people feel they are helping black debaters and reproduces stereotypes that black debaters can only win on race based arguments 6 Args in round cant remedy structural fairness, only procedural fairnes, a ballot for me can signal my inabillity to debate in this round but doesn’t solve racism.
Reject framing arguments that parameterize content – debate should be an open forum to attack ideas from different directions – anything else brackets out certain modes of knowledge production which their ev would obviously disagree w/.
4. Competition takes out the aff – the ballot becomes a securitizing object that prevents engagement Ritter 13. JD from U Texas Law (Michael J., “Overcoming The Fiction of “Social Change Through Debate”: What’s To Learn from 2pac’s Changes?,” National Journal of Speech and Debate, Vol. 2, Issue 1 The structure of competitive interscholastic debate renders any message communicated in a debate round virtually incapable of creating any social change, either in the debate community or in general society. And to the extent that the fiction of social change through debate can be proven or disproven through empirical studies or surveys, academics instead have analyzed debate with nonapplicable rhetorical theory that fails to account for the unique aspects of competitive interscholastic debate. Rather, the current debate relating to activism and competitive interscholastic debate concerns the following: “What is the best model to promote social change?” But a more fundamental question that must be addressed first is: “Can debate cause social change?” Despite over two decades of opportunity to conduct and publish empirical studies or surveys, academic proponents of the fiction that debate can create social change have chosen not to prove this fundamental assumption, which—as this article argues—is merely a fiction that is harmful in most, if not all, respects. The position that competitive interscholastic debate can create social change is more properly characterize5d as a fiction than an argument. A fiction is an invented or fabricated idea purporting to be factual but is not provable by any human senses or rational thinking capability or is unproven by valid statistical studies. An argument, most basically, consists of a claim and some support for why the claim is true. If the support for the claim is false or its relation to the claim is illogical, then we can deduce that the particular argument does not help in ascertaining whether the claim is true. Interscholastic competitive debate is premised upon the assumption that debate is argumentation. Because fictions are necessarily not true or cannot be proven true by any means of argumentation, the competitive interscholastic debate community should be incredibly critical of those fictions and adopt them only if they promote the activity and its purposes 5. No evidence for the power of the ballot – debate specific – negate on presumption. Ritter 13 Michael, JD UTexas Law, B.A. cum laude Trinity University. September 2013. “Overcoming the Fiction of ‘Social Change Through Debate’: What’s to Learn From 2Pac’s Changes?” https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/9896ec_8b2b993ec42440ecaab1b07645385db5.pdf Up to this point, this article has shown how each of the essential components of “competitive interscholastic debate” makes it very different from any other kind of debate. But one thing that is persuasive in any kind of debate is some sort of properly conducted study (or even a mere survey) that provides empirical proof or even substantial anecdotal support. To date, none of the many academics who coach or participate in the debate community have published a study or survey to support the social change fiction. (Perhaps they have tried, and discovered they were just wrong.) But until such an empirical study of competitive interscholastic debate is conducted, students, judges, and coaches should not take it for granted. Independently, neg on presumption – their affirmative is not a unique liberation strategy – the affirmative fiats change inside of educational spaces which is all of their framing arguments but that is not specific to debate. Radical change, fundraisers, and grassroots education movements proves affirmative solvency CAN be generated by voting negative.
Their description of overkill as an overarching phenomenon that describes asterisks black queer death as part of the universal. Warren says queerness can negotiate its existence based on whiteness but blackness does not have access to the fluidity of queerness. Warren 15: Warren, Calvin, PhD. Assistant Professor of American Studies, American Studies, "Onticide: Afropessimism, Queer Theory, and Ethics". 2015. We can approach this from a different angle: A person understood as “queer” could purchase a black-object from the auction block like his/her hetero-normative counterpart. In those rare instances where the black-as-object was able to participate in this economy and purchase a black-object as well, the black purchaser could, at any moment, become another commodity—if found without freedom papers or validation from a white guardian—the system of fungible blackness made any black interchangeable and substitutional. This movement between object and subject is not a problem for queer-ness, but is an unresolvable problem for blackness. This is the im-portant difference between the two. Queerness does not inhabit the position of the object—which is the ontology of blackness. Blackness is much more than deviance; it is the object that allows the distinc-tion between deviance and normativity to have any meaning at all. To equate blackness with queerness because of shared discourses of deviance, transgression, and perversity misses the “existential ne-gation” of blackness. While we can talk about the non-normativi-ty of liminal subjects, blackness does not travel within the Symbolic the way queerness does and must be conceptualized with different terms.What, then, is queer about blackness? Nothing. In using the gram-mar of queerness to explicate the structure of blackness, we equate fungability with the repertoire of non-normative sexualities that con-stitute conditions of human suffering. In this sense, we get a nuanced interpretation of Hortense Spillers’s profound suggestion that under captivity “the customary aspects of sexuality, including ‘reproduc-tion,’ ‘motherhood,’ ‘pleasure,’ and ‘desire’ are all thrown into crisis” (221). Blackness does rupture sexuality and gender in that it is (mis)applied. This creates something like personification, but in this case, it is the application of human qualities to a sentient object. Sexuality is dubiously appropriate because it belongs to the human, and the signifier “queerness” cannot sidestep this fact or resolve this problematic—despite its desire to exceed identity, sexual practices, etc. We do not have a proper grammar outside of humanism to describe the domain of “pleasure,” “desire,” “sexuality,” and “gender” for the socially dead object. This is part of the torment and dereliction of blackness; it is placed outside of life and its customary lexis. And this is what it means to inhabit the position of the “unthought” and the incommunicable. The impact is overkill. Our erasure of black queers separates the redeemable from those that are dead consigned to the unmarked grave of history. This fractures queer organizing and straight turns the case Warren 15: Warren, Calvin, PhD. Assistant Professor of American Studies, American Studies, "Onticide: Afropessimism, Queer Theory, and Ethics". 2015. The attempt to reclaim Shepard, what I am calling “the project of recuperation,” separates the redeemable from the socially dead, the liminal subject from the derelict object, and the suffering subject from the ‘uninjurable.’ Stanley rightly criticizes the “social screen” for its tendency to sanitize suffering and to present mourning as a “spectacle of mocking pain,” but the social screen also reflects the axiological assumptions about the value of beings. The fact that Shepard’s murder captured the screen at all is an indication that his death was registered as a lost life and his murder registered as unethical suf-fering. Where was the national media coverage on Steen Keith Fen-rich? Because Steen could not participate in the synecdochal play between ‘part and whole’ and because his existence (if we can say he ‘existed’ at all) inhabited such a low frequency on the onto-existential horizon, he never died because he was already dead—there was not a “loss” because there was never a possession of life. You cannot kill that which is already dead. Thus, recuperation was not possible on the social screen and the nation could not perform mourning. This is what it means for “the archive of queer death to disappear.” The nation remembers Shepard; his suffering has a grammar and we can articulate this grammar. His death did not, and will not, disappear. Steen’s death, however, was not registered as a death and so never really appeared at all, or more accurately, was always already absent.What we can say, then, is that overkill is the materialization of onticide. It is not a phenomenon that is generalizable, or applies widely to the ‘queer’ population. What is crucial about Stanley’s theory of overkill is that it is a violence that cannot be recuperated into the ex-isting grammar of ethics and justice. It ruptures intelligibility because it is the precondition for the intelligible—it is its necessary kernel of nonsense. It is a violence lacking utility, and unlike Bataille’s theo-ry of expenditure, its recipient lacks a subjectivity to ‘enjoy’ (in the psychoanalytic sense of enjoyment) the symptom of divestiture and transgression. Overkill cuts the “black queer” into an infinite array of ontological fragments. The missing heads, legs, hands, and limbs, ‘unlocatable’ and unrecoverable by police and investigators, mime the ontological itinerancy and unmappability of the “black queer.” This violence serves both as a vicious allegory and instantiation of the onticide structuring New World antagonism.
Their explanation for violence is reductive and wrong Pinker 13 Steven Pinker, Prof of Psychology at Harvard, "The Decline of War and Conceptions of Human Nature", International Studies Review, 2013, 15, pp. 396-419
2. Human Nature Has Multiple Components People tend to reduce human nature to a single essence and then debate what that essence consists of. Are we nasty or noble, Hobbesian or Rousseauan, ape or angel? In this way of thinking, if we regularly engage in violence, we must be a violent species; if we are capable of peace we must be pacifistic. But the brain is a mind-bogglingly complex organ with many anatomically and chemically distinguishable circuits. Most psychologists believe that human nature is not just one thing, but comprises multiple intelligences, modules, faculties, organs, drives, or other subsystems. Some of these subsystems may impel us toward violence, but others inhibit us from violence. Human violence springs from at least four kinds of motives, each involving different neurobiological systems: Exploitation: Violence used as the means to an end; that is, damaging a human who happens to be an obstacle on the path to something the actor wants. Examples include plunder, rape, conquest, the displacement or genocide of native peoples, and the murder or imprisonment of political or economic rivals. Dominance: The urge among individuals to ascend the pecking order and become the alpha male, and the corresponding urge among groups for tribal, ethnic, racial, national, or religious supremacy. Revenge: The conviction that someone who has committed a moral infraction deserves to be punished. Ideology: Shared belief systems, spread virally or by indoctrination or force, which hold out the prospect of a utopia. Examples include nationalism, Fascism, Nazism, communism, and militant religions. Since a utopia is a world that will be infinitely good forever, one is permitted to perpetrate unlimited amounts of force against those who stand in its way, as in the saying, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” Pushing against these nasty impulses are some of our kinder, gentler faculties: Self-control: Circuitry in the frontal lobes of the brain that can anticipate the long-term consequence of actions and inhibit them accordingly. Empathy: The ability to feel someone else’s pain. The moral sense: A system of norms and taboos centered on intuitions of fairness to individuals, loyalty to a community, deference to legitimate authority, and the safeguarding of purity and sanctity. The moral sense can motivate the imposition of standards of fairness and can render certain courses of harmful action unthinkable. (Unfortunately, it can also be a cause of violence, because it can rationalize militant ideologies based on tribalism, puritanism, and authoritarianism.) Reason: Cognitive processes that allow us to engage in objective, detached analysis. Whether people actually commit acts of violence, then, depends on the interplay among these faculties; the mere existence of human nature does not doom our species to a constant rate of violence. The decision to wage war, in particular, may be triggered by any combination of the violence-inducing motives. If the decision is not overturned by any of the motives that inhibit violence, the decision-maker must then mobilize an aggressive coalition by whipping up the aggressive motives in his compatriots, while disabling the peaceable motives. The actual outbreak of war thus depends on many psychological processes lining up in the right way and escaping the restraining influence of other psychological processes, which are distributed in social networks connecting many other individuals. There is no reason to expect that the relative strengths of these competing influences should remain constant over the course of human history. 3. Facultative Components of Human Nature Many components of human nature are facultative (environmentally sensitive), not hydraulic (homeostatic). The intuition that a respite from war could not possibly be real often rests on a mental model in which the drive toward violence is conceived of as a hydraulic force. At best, it can be diverted or channeled, but it cannot be bottled up indefinitely. The hydraulic model of human motivation is deeply embedded in the way we think about violence. It was given a scientific imprimatur by psychoanalysis, ethology, and behaviorism (in the guise of drive reduction), and it fits with the cybernetic notion of homeostasis, in which a feedback loop maintains a system in a steady state by counteracting any imbalance. It also fits with our subjective experience: no one can go indefinitely without food, water, or sleep, and it is a challenge to do without sex or to hold in a mounting urge to yawn, sneeze, scratch an itch, or expel various substances from the body. But, it is a big mistake to think that all human responses are homeostatic. Many are opportunistic, reactive, or facultative: they are elicited by combinations of environmental triggers and cognitive and emotional states. Consider evolutionarily prepared fears such as those of heights, snakes, confinement, deep water, or spiders. Even if one were born with an innate phobia of snakes, as long as one never encountered a snake one could live one’s entire life without experiencing that fear. Other examples include the tendency to shiver, fall head over heels in love, or experience sexual jealousy. The motives that lead to violence, too, need not be homeostatic. There is no reason to believe that the urge to hurt someone gradually builds up and periodically needs to be discharged. Violence carries significant risks of injury or death when the target defends himself, when he or his relatives wreak revenge, or when he is tempted into attacking preemptively. The theory of natural selection predicts that adaptations evolve when their expected costs exceed their expected benefits. We should not expect a hydraulic urge to violence to evolve, but rather one that is sensitive to circumstances. These may include predation and exploitation, when an opportunity to exploit a victim at low risk presents itself; dominance, when one’s masculinity is suddenly impugned in front of an important audience; vengeance, to punish (and thus ultimately deter) insults or injuries; rampage, when a longstanding menace is suddenly exposed in a window of vulnerability. If the circumstances never materialize—say, if one lives an orderly, bourgeois life, free from grave threats or insults—any tendency to react with violence could lie as dormant as a fear of poisonous snakes. The same sensitivity to environmental contingencies could, if circumstances line up, prevent political leaders from experiencing any urge to mobilize their countries for war.
It’s impossible to generalize specific hypotheses into deterministic theories of the self Richards, M.D., is a psychoanalyst and former editor of The American Psychoanalyst and Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, ‘15 (Arnold, “Psychoanalysis in Crisis: The Danger of Ideology,” Psychoanalytic Review 102.3, June, 389-405)
My own belief is that one definition of science is the repeated formulation of new hypotheses in search of better explanations of observed data. It doesn't matter whether the particulars of any specific hypothesis eventually prove right or wrong. This searching quality is important to psychoanalysis, and as I will show, we do ourselves no favors when we suppress it. Psychoanalysis is also a science in the pride it takes in its predictive power. Its primary postulate is the principle of psychic determinism, which is used both to explain the past and predict the future. (I am reminded of the patient who told Selma Freiberg that she was good at “backwards future talking.”) On the other hand, many have asserted that psychoanalytic evidence “can be so manipulated as to escape refutation no matter what facts are adduced.” (Nagel 1959, cited in Slochower 1964, p. 165) Harry Slochower in his study of psychoanalysis as science and art makes the interesting point that Freud himself considered this a serious lack, at least when applied to other people's convictions. Since religious doctrines can be neither proven nor refuted, Freud said in The Future of an Illusion, that their "reality value" cannot be judged. (Freud, The Future of an Illusion, Anchor Books, New York, 1964.) So while we can respect Freud's scientific sensitivity and aspirations, we must also acknowledge that psychoanalysis is in some ways undeniably unlike other sciences, including even the other human sciences. Its subject is the intangible unconscious, and its tool is the relationship between two human beings. Each analyst/analysand pair is unique, making it very difficult to generalize from the interaction between the observer and the observed. Replication is not possible, and validation is possible only in limited ways -- for instance, tape recorded sessions—and on different terms. Furthermore, psychoanalysis looks not at static states, but at complex processes determined by multiple variables. Under those circumstances, immaculate perception is impossible, and so is immaculate conception. Objectivity in psychoanalysis is always tempered by subjectivity, and the knower always influences the known. Affect is at play as much as reason. Exact science is neutral. Psychoanalysis is not. We can finesse some other aspects of the debate by recognizing that psychoanalysis is not a monolith, and it's good to remind ourselves of this occasionally, too. Psychoanalysis is at once a theory of development, a theory of psychopathology, a theory of how the mind works, and a theory of therapeutic process and cure. Each of these theories is based on different assumptions and offers different propositions with different degrees of validity, and different levels of abstraction (cf. Waelder).
Death drive thesis outdated Smith, Director of the Critical Transdisciplinary Research Program and Editor at Heathwood Institute and Press, ‘3/22/17 (Robert C., “An Alternative Conception of Social Pathology,” in Society and Social Pathology, palgrave, pg. 74-75, *language modified)
Aside from the question of social pathology, at the heart of this book is also the issue of subject development. This involves questions of how a human being develops—or how a child changes during the course of his/ her growth (Litowitz 1999)—and how social conditions, positive or negative, affect that development. “Every psychoanalytic theory from Freud’s earliest models to the latest post-Freudian versions” attempt to capture a theory of development in some way (Litowitz 1999). Freud’s theories claim to describe universal developmental stages, which do not depend upon specific environmental responses, cultural or social or otherwise (Litowitz 1999). Thus significant emphasis is placed on biology in the development of the psyche (Moritsugu et al. 2016). Outside of certain movements within CT and more traditional pockets of psychoanalysis, Freud’s instinct theory and biological model is generally considered highly questionable (Benja eld 2010; Benjamin 1988; Black and Mitchell 2016; Blum and Hoffman 2016; Gomez 1997; Buirski and Kottler 2007; Rogers 1951, 1959; Schneider et al. 2001; Shane et al. 1997; Simanowitz and Pearce 2003). In fact, Freud’s theories in general are being increasingly challenged, or shown as not possible to prove (Dvorsky 2013). Many have either already discarded his theories as postulation without scientic validation or have used them as guidance knowing they are awed or incredibly abstract. As Axel Honneth put it: Only dogmatism can today still blind one toconceal the fact that a string of premises of Freudian theory have ... become highly questionable. Developments in infant research, in developmental psychology generally, but also in evolutionary biology, have cast doubt on central and basic assumptions of the psychoanalytic view of young children. (Honneth 2009, p. 126) Even contemporary theories of the unconscious, which many have labelled one of Freud’s greatest accomplishments, are continuously seeking to establish differentiation from Freudian theory (Romand 2012), rooting their concepts in Gustav Fechner’s earlier hypotheses. Additionally, while efforts at reforming classical Freudian theory have been attempted by the likes of Jacques Lacan and his contemporary followers, which is a popular movement in psychoanalysis today, particularly or primarily in theory and through the work of Slavoj Žižek, this too can be argued for different reasons to be deeply inadequate when weighed against more up-to-date cross-disciplinary research programme (Smith 2013). Indeed, from a wide survey of literature, and from a discussion with different clinical practitioners and psychotherapists, it is clear that Fromm’s challenging Freudian instinct theory is, in present times, a less than controversial course of critique. This lends to the belief that when reading Freud today, as Fisher and Greenberg (1996) argue, what is required is a significant amount of nuance. His theory should be evaluated, they claim, in terms of specific hypotheses rather than as a whole (Fisher and Greenberg 1996; also cited in McLeod 2013). One reason for this, quite simply, has to do with the many “unresolved contradictions in Freud’s writings”, including what has been summarized as an unevenly developed system of ideas that are not integrated into a logical, systematic whole (Boag 2014). Can’t wish away the existing terrain, but single issue focus spills over and is distinct from the ideologies that determine its use
The perm solves - strategically utilizes the potential of futurity Daniel 12 Drew Daniel is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University, Criticism, August 16, 2012, "Trading Futures: Queer Theory's Anti-antirelational Turn", Volume 52, Issue 2, http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=15865andcontext=criticism
Over the course of Cruising Utopia, Muñoz’s response to the provocation of edelman’s No Future alternates between sincere admiration, begrudging concession, and impassioned rebuttal. however heartfelt, Muñoz’s grumpy observation that babystrollers constitute annoying urban obstacles of straight privilege seems less conciliatory than satirical of edelman’s denunciation of the stubbornly exclusive politics of reproductive futurism. But his chapter “Cruising the Toilet: leroi Jones/amiri Baraka, radical Black Traditions, and Queer Futurity” launches a more serious objection to the seductive weightlessness of edelman’s vision of “queerness as a singular abstraction that can be subtracted and isolated from a larger cultural matrix” (94). Citing the structural disparity in acts of violence that threaten youth of color, and lgBT youth of color in particular, Muñoz denies that all children qua children are equally subject to regimes of protection and status, thus disrupting the conceptual stability of “the child” upon which edelman’s account arguably relies. For Muñoz, the consequence of edelman’s leveling down of difference on behalf of immaculate abstractions (the child-as-such, the queer-as-such) is a corresponding loss of precisely the temporal dimension through which their political expression and transformation might be realized: Theories of queer temporality that fail to factor in the relational relevance of race or class merely reproduce a crypto-universal white gay subject that is weirdly atemporal—which is to say a subject whose time is a restricted and restricting hollowed-out present free of the need for imagining a futurity that exists beyond the self or the here and now. (94) In the wake of the tragic murders of queer youth of color that Muñoz recounts as evidence of a childhood-which-is-not-one, the point hits home. and yet, from a purely theoretical perspective, one rather doubts that edelman would dispute the core of Muñoz’s claim; indeed, the repetitions of the death drive are nothing if not constitutively defined by just such a “weird atemporality,” and so the allegation that should be damning seems simply apt. Whether Muñoz’s critique of Edelman constitutes a redirection or a palpable hit will be a function of your theoretical optic and your attraction to the purity of theoretical positions as such. Indeed the contretemps between these books risks collapsing into a parody of their respective guilds: if Jacques lacan is to lee edelman as ernst Bloch is to José Muñoz, then the mischievously absolute theoretical commandments of the former and the stridently lyrical close readings of the latter form a romance of star-crossed methodological commitments, and the stage is set for a false choice between theories of the subject and theories of the social. Full disclosure: as a partisan of psychoanalysis, I must demur. given the current superabundance of critical work explicitly formulated as lacanian-hegelian (Žižek, Dolar, Zupancic, Copjec, to name four), we are surely past the point when the bugbear of an inherent impasse between psychoanalysis and politics is credible. homing in on race, in the wake of the work of anne Cheng and hortense Spillers (to isolate just two examples from a burgeoning field), we already know that race does not await complex, politically savvy psychoanalytic readings. accordingly, the pageant of antirelationality between the psychoanalytic tradition and the Marxist tradition rehearsed by the lingering disjunction between edelman and Muñoz induces a queer feeling curiously at odds with their shared subject of the future itself: déjà vu. Whether we take queer theory to be a Freudor-Marx chessboard or a Freudand-Marx dance floor, from their separate vantage points both Muñoz and edelman are simply too productive of queer theory’s own lived present for a simple choice of critical allegiance between their positions to be sufficient. If neither is complete on their own, the “parallax view” generated by their mutually incongruous evaluations of the political stakes of futurity might yet produce a future worth sticking around for.
Perm - use queer theory to improve politics Power 09 Nina Power is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University, Borderlands, 2009, "Non-Reproductive Futurism", Vol 8, No 2, http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol8no2_2009/power_futurism.pdf
Unlike Edelman’s conception of the queer, which is purely negative, perhaps even individualistic, Rancière explicitly stresses the role that equality plays in his conception of politics. In the chapter entitled ‘From Archipolitics to Metapolitics,’ Rancière argues that: Politics only exists through the bringing off of the equality of anyone and everyone in a vacuous freedom of a part of the community that deregulates any count of parts. The equality that is the nonpolitical condition of politics does not show up here for what it is: it only appears as the figure of wrong. (Rancière, 1999: 61) The figure of wrong (to be opposed to the ‘right’ of classical political philosophy and jurisprudence) could, however, be understood as ‘queer,’ even in some of Edelman’s own senses: it is unwanted, negative, and not comprehensible from the standpoint of the existing order and the set demarcation of places. As Marx originally put it, the possibility of German emancipation could only arise: in the formation of a class with radical chains, a class of civil society which is not a class of civil society, a class Stand which is the dissolution of all classes, a sphere which has a universal character because of its universal suffering and which lays claim to no particular right because the wrong it suffers is not a particular wrong but wrong in general. (Marx, 1974: 256) This idea of ‘wrong in general’ exceeds the description of civil society with its regulated classes and parts: ‘Wrong’ does not refer to a group of people that have somehow been ill-treated but something structurally in excess of the very identity of groups or classes. As Rancière puts it: ‘Politics ceases ... wherever the whole of the community is reduced to the sum of its parts with nothing left over’ (Rancière, 1999: 123). When Edelman talks about queerness as ‘the site outside the consensus’ (Edelman, 2004: 3) he comes very close to Rancière’s conception of politics as exception. Except that for Edelman this ‘site’ would somehow be radically opposed to politics as such. But Rancière’s position is less stark: there are two orders of politics and two orders of rationality. On the one hand, there is the politics that he associates with the ‘police,’ classical political philosophy and consensus, on the other, there is politics as disruption, and disagreement (or dissensus). As Rancière states: Politics, in its specificity, is rare. It is always local and occasional. Its actual eclipse is perfectly real and no political science exists that could map its future any more than a political ethics that would make its existence the object solely of will. (Rancière, 1999: 139) Politics for Rancière literally has ‘no future,’ or at least not one that is predictable. As Hallward puts it: According to Rancière, equality is not the result of a fairer distribution of social functions or places so much as the immediate disruption of any such distribution; it refers not to place but to the placeless or out-of-place, not to class but to the unclassifiable or out-of-class. (Hallward, 2006: 110) There are indeed, as Rancière’s work suggests, other ways of thinking about a politics that has ‘no future,’ despite Edelman’s insistence that all politics is futural (‘The Child remains the perpetual horizon of every acknowledged politics’ (Edelman, 2004: 3)). It may be the case that, historically, some ways of thinking about alternative conceptions of politics vis-à-vis the child have been cut off from us: in that sense, then, Edelman’s work can be seen as registering the end of a sequence of political possibilities. His central implication is that politics, in its very nature, is conservative. Edelman argues that politics ‘works to affirm a structure, to authenticate social order, which it then intends to transmit to the future in the form of its inner Child’ (Edelman, 2004: 3). For him, it is clear that ‘reproductive futurism’ has come to subsume all kinds of politics, both left and right. It places: an ideological limit on political discourse as such, preserving in the process the absolute privilege of heteronormativity by rendering unthinkable, by casting outside the political domain, the possibility of queer resistance to this organizing principle of communal relations. (Edelman, 2004: 2)
12/8/21
1-GG-T-Framework
Tournament: AppleValley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Sharon RG | Judge: Richard Li 1 Interpretation: The affirmative must only defend the hypothetical implementation of the Uncondo Right to Strike.
Violation: 1. Cross-ex 2. Their advocacy states the aff as a general principle which is not the same as a policy action because we don’t get to use comparative worlds 3. AT BEST is extra-t because they also “adopt a deterritorialized form of possession and a nomadic property model to create a commons, where Daoist models of creativity and ownership can thrive.” which is outside the scope of the resolution. Hold them to the text of the 1ac since anything else allows them to shift our of our offense in the 1ar.
Standards: Ground- we don’t get to read CPs or even DAs because those all are predicated upon the aff being a policy and they can spike out of links by saying we must prove the aff as a general principle is bad in a normative sense, kills fairness because none of my arguments stick and education because they can skirt questions of topic literature. Burden of Rejoinder- the burden of the neg is to prove that the aff is a bad idea but we can’t do this when they’re a general principle because we become constrained to solely normative indicts and can’t test the aff from multiple angles. Kills neg flex and our ability to engage.
Engagement—they transform debate into a monologue where we can’t read CPs which means their arguments are presumptively false because they haven’t been subjected to well researched scrutiny.
TVA: Literally just defend the aff as a policy plan. Vote neg – they’ve destroyed the round from the beginning and topicality’s key to set the correct model of debate which means it comes first. Voter: Evaluate T through competing interps—it tells the negative what they do and do not have to prepare for. Reasonability is arbitrary and unpredictable Precision o/w – anything else justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim Drop the debater to deter future abuse Fairness is an impact and comes before substance – deciding any other argument in this debate cannot be disentangled from our inability to prepare for it – any argument you think they’re winning is a link, not a reason to vote for them, since it’s just as likely that they’re winning it because we weren’t able to effectively prepare to defeat it. This means they don’t get to weigh the aff. Education is an impact – it’s the only reason schools fund debate No RVIs—it’s your burden to be fair and T—same reason you don’t win for answering inherency or putting defense on a disad. 2 incentivizes baiting theory
12/8/21
2-Reps-Kant
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 1 | Opponent: Strake DL | Judge: Devin Hernandez Vote them down – their framework justifies homophobia which makes debate unsafe – it’s a teachable moment and you have an obligation as an educator to preserve the existence of debate and keep it safe Soble quotes Kant, 03 Alan Soble, 2003, “Kant and Sexual Perversion,” The Monist 86:1 (Jan. 2003), pp. 55-89., https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2324025, SJBE Kant immediately continues by completing his sparse inventory of three objectionable, sexually unnatural, practices: A second crimen carnis contra naturam is intercourse between sexus homogenii, in which the object of sexual impulse is a human being but there is homogeneity instead of heterogeneity of sex. . . . This practice too is contrary to the ends of humanity; for the end of humanity in respect of sexuality is to preserve the species without debasing the person; but in this instance the species is not being preserved (as it can be by a crimen carnis secundum naturam), but the person is set aside, the self is degraded below the level of the animals, and humanity is dishonoured. The third crimen carnis contra naturam occurs when the object of the desire is in fact of the opposite sex but is not human. Such is sodomy, or intercourse with animals. This, too, is contrary to the ends of humanity and against our natural instinct. It degrades mankind below the level of animals, for no animal turns in this way from its own species.75
Kantianism is racist – this is not just Kant himself, but his transcendental system. Kant’s philosophy depends on the character and capacity individuals have for moral reasoning. Eze: Eze 97—1997 (Emmanuel, Professor of Philosophy @DePaul University, “The Color of Reason” in PostColonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing, 1997, 103-131 Over and beyond Buffon or Linnaeus, Kant, in his transcendental philosophy (e.g., Critique of Pure Reason), describes ways of orienting oneself geographically in space, mathematically in space and time, and, logically, in the construction of both categories into other sorts of consistent whole. In the Observations on the Feeling o/the Beautiful and Sublime, a work which ought to be considered as primarily anthropological, Kant shows the theoretic transcendental philosophical position at work when he attempts to work out and establish how a particular (moral) feeling relates to humans generally, and how it differs between men and women, and among different races. For example, "feeling" as it appears in the title of the work refers to a specific refinement of character which is universally properly human: that is, belonging to human nature as such. And we recall that for Kant "human nature" resides in the developmental expression of rational-moral "character." Since it is character that constitutes the specificity of human nature, "human nature proper," then whatever dignity or moral worth the individual" may have is derived from the fact that one has struggled to develop one's character, or one's· humanity, as universal. Kant states: In order to assign man into a system of living nature, and thus to characterize him, no other alternative is left than this: that he has a character which he himself creates by being capable of perfecting himself after the purposes chosen by himself. Through this, he, as an animal endowed with reason (animale rationabile) can make out of himself a rational animal (animale rationale). "Character," as the moral formation of personality, seems to be that on which basis humans have worth and dignity,and one consequence of this is that those peoples and "races" to whom Kant assigns minimal or pseudo rational-moral capacity - either because of their non-"white" skin color (evidence of lack of "true talent") or because of the presence of phlogiston in their blood or both - are seriously naturally or inherently inferior to those who have the "gift" of higher rational attainments, evidence of which is seen in their superior "white" skin color, the absence of phlogiston in their blood, and the superior European civilization While the non-European may have "value," it is not certain that he or she has true "worth." According to Kant: everything has either a value or a worth. What has value has a substitute which can replace it as its equivalent; but whatever is, on the other hand, exalted above all values, and thus lacks an equivalent ... has no merely relative value, that is, a price, but rather an inner worth,. that is dignity ... Hence morality, and humanity, in so far as it is capable of morality, can alone possess dignity. If non-white peoples lack "true" rational character (Kant believes, for example, that the character of the Mohr is made up of imagination rather than reason) and therefore lack "true" feeling and moral sense, then they do not have "true" worth, or dignity. The black person, for example, can accordingly be denied full humanity, since full and "true" humanity accrues only to the white European. For Kant European humanity is the humanity par excellence. Their failure to acknowledge historical racism associated with Kant’s philosophy is a link—no matter what, their principles are rooted in racism Reps matter – that’s a prerequisite to evaluating their framework which outweighs since they kill accessibility – comes first since without accessibility we can’t debate.
12/8/21
3-GG-FWK-Util V1
Tournament: Loyola | Round: 1 | Opponent: Marlborough AW | Judge: Gordon Krauss Framing Pleasure and pain are intrinsically valueable and disvalueable – everything else regresses. Evolutionary knowledge is reliable – broad consensus and robust neuroscience prove. Blum et al. 18 Kenneth Blum, 1Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton VA Medical Center, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA 5Department of Precision Medicine, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA 6Department of Addiction Research and Therapy, Nupathways Inc., Innsbrook, MO, USA 7Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA 8Division of Neuroscience-Based Addiction Therapy, The Shores Treatment and Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA 9Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary 10Division of Addiction Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC. North Kingston, RI, USA 11Victory Nutrition International, Lederach, PA., USA 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA, Marjorie Gondré-Lewis, 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA 13Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC US, Bruce Steinberg, 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA, Igor Elman, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, David Baron, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Edward J Modestino, 14Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA, Rajendra D Badgaiyan, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, Mark S Gold 16Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, “Our evolved unique pleasure circuit makes humans different from apes: Reconsideration of data derived from animal studies”, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 28 February 2018, accessed: 19 August 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446569/, R.S. Pleasure is not AND and addiction or RDS. Thus, the standard is maximizing expected well-being or act hedonistic util. Prefer additionally –
1 Outweighs – A Predictability – most authors assume util when discussing the cost/benefit tradeoffs of voting B topic ed – other frameworks don’t engage with key questions of implemented policy impacts – that’s key, b/c we only have 2 months for this topic. C TJFs first because they assume the framework being good for debate 2 Death is bad and outweighs – a) agents can’t act if they fear for their bodily security which constrains every ethical theory, b) it destroys the subject itself – kills any ability to achieve value in ethics since life is a prerequisite which means it’s a side constraint since we can’t reach the end goal of ethics without life 3 Actor spec—governments must use util because they don’t have intentions and are constantly dealing with tradeoffs—outweighs since different agents have different obligations—takes out calc indicts since they are empirically denied.
12/8/21
3-GG-FWK-Util V2
Tournament: Loyola | Round: 5 | Opponent: Strake Jesuit EP | Judge: Brett Cyan The standard is maximizing expected well being Actor spec—governments must use util because they don’t have intentions and are constantly dealing with tradeoffs—outweighs since different agents have different obligations—takes out calc indicts since they are empirically denied. Extinction first – 1 Forecloses future improvement – we can never improve society because our impact is irreversible 2 Turns suffering – mass death causes suffering because people can’t get access to resources and basic necessities 3 Objectivity – body count is the most objective way to calculate impacts because comparing suffering is unethical
12/8/21
3-GG-Util Framing V3
Tournament: Nano Nagle Voices | Round: 4 | Opponent: Silver Creek KZ | Judge: Quentin Clark Pleasure and pain are intrinsically valueable and disvalueable – everything else regresses. Evolutionary knowledge is reliable – broad consensus and robust neuroscience prove. Blum et al. 18 Kenneth Blum, 1Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton VA Medical Center, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA 5Department of Precision Medicine, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA 6Department of Addiction Research and Therapy, Nupathways Inc., Innsbrook, MO, USA 7Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA 8Division of Neuroscience-Based Addiction Therapy, The Shores Treatment and Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA 9Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary 10Division of Addiction Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC. North Kingston, RI, USA 11Victory Nutrition International, Lederach, PA., USA 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA, Marjorie Gondré-Lewis, 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA 13Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC US, Bruce Steinberg, 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA, Igor Elman, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, David Baron, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Edward J Modestino, 14Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA, Rajendra D Badgaiyan, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, Mark S Gold 16Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, “Our evolved unique pleasure circuit makes humans different from apes: Reconsideration of data derived from animal studies”, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 28 February 2018, accessed: 19 August 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446569/, R.S. Pleasure is not only one of the three primary reward functions but it also defines reward. As homeostasis explains the functions of only a limited number of rewards, the principal reason why particular stimuli, objects, events, situations, and activities are rewarding may be due to pleasure. This applies first of all to sex and to the primary homeostatic rewards of food and liquid and extends to money, taste, beauty, social encounters and nonmaterial, internally set, and intrinsic rewards. Pleasure, as the primary effect of rewards, drives the prime reward functions of learning, approach behavior, and decision making and provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward function. We are attracted by most rewards and exert intense efforts to obtain them, just because they are enjoyable 10. Pleasure is a passive reaction that derives from the experience or prediction of reward and may lead to a long-lasting state of happiness. The word happiness is difficult to define. In fact, just obtaining physical pleasure may not be enough. One key to happiness involves a network of good friends. However, it is not obvious how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to an ice cream cone, or to your team winning a sporting event. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure 14. Pleasure as a hallmark of reward is sufficient for defining a reward, but it may not be necessary. A reward may generate positive learning and approach behavior simply because it contains substances that are essential for body function. When we are hungry, we may eat bad and unpleasant meals. A monkey who receives hundreds of small drops of water every morning in the laboratory is unlikely to feel a rush of pleasure every time it gets the 0.1 ml. Nevertheless, with these precautions in mind, we may define any stimulus, object, event, activity, or situation that has the potential to produce pleasure as a reward. In the context of reward deficiency or for disorders of addiction, homeostasis pursues pharmacological treatments: drugs to treat drug addiction, obesity, and other compulsive behaviors. The theory of allostasis suggests broader approaches - such as re-expanding the range of possible pleasures and providing opportunities to expend effort in their pursuit. 15. It is noteworthy, the first animal studies eliciting approach behavior by electrical brain stimulation interpreted their findings as a discovery of the brain’s pleasure centers 16 which were later partly associated with midbrain dopamine neurons 17–19 despite the notorious difficulties of identifying emotions in animals. Evolutionary theories of pleasure: The love connection BO Charles Darwin and other biological scientists that have examined the biological evolution and its basic principles found various mechanisms that steer behavior and biological development. Besides their theory on natural selection, it was particularly the sexual selection process that gained significance in the latter context over the last century, especially when it comes to the question of what makes us “what we are,” i.e., human. However, the capacity to sexually select and evolve is not at all a human accomplishment alone or a sign of our uniqueness; yet, we humans, as it seems, are ingenious in fooling ourselves and others–when we are in love or desperately search for it. It is well established that modern biological theory conjectures that organisms are the result of evolutionary competition. In fact, Richard Dawkins stresses gene survival and propagation as the basic mechanism of life 20. Only genes that lead to the fittest phenotype will make it. It is noteworthy that the phenotype is selected based on behavior that maximizes gene propagation. To do so, the phenotype must survive and generate offspring, and be better at it than its competitors. Thus, the ultimate, distal function of rewards is to increase evolutionary fitness by ensuring the survival of the organism and reproduction. It is agreed that learning, approach, economic decisions, and positive emotions are the proximal functions through which phenotypes obtain other necessary nutrients for survival, mating, and care for offspring. Behavioral reward functions have evolved to help individuals to survive and propagate their genes. Apparently, people need to live well and long enough to reproduce. Most would agree that homo-sapiens do so by ingesting the substances that make their bodies function properly. For this reason, foods and drinks are rewards. Additional rewards, including those used for economic exchanges, ensure sufficient palatable food and drink supply. Mating and gene propagation is supported by powerful sexual attraction. Additional properties, like body form, augment the chance to mate and nourish and defend offspring and are therefore also rewards. Care for offspring until they can reproduce themselves helps gene propagation and is rewarding; otherwise, many believe mating is useless. According to David E Comings, as any small edge will ultimately result in evolutionary advantage 21, additional reward mechanisms like novelty seeking and exploration widen the spectrum of available rewards and thus enhance the chance for survival, reproduction, and ultimate gene propagation. These functions may help us to obtain the benefits of distant rewards that are determined by our own interests and not immediately available in the environment. Thus the distal reward function in gene propagation and evolutionary fitness defines the proximal reward functions that we see in everyday behavior. That is why foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding. There have been theories linking pleasure as a required component of health benefits salutogenesis, (salugenesis). In essence, under these terms, pleasure is described as a state or feeling of happiness and satisfaction resulting from an experience that one enjoys. Regarding pleasure, it is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it promotes positive feelings (like mindfulness) and even better cognition, possibly through the release of dopamine 22. But on the other hand, pleasure simultaneously encourages addiction and other negative behaviors, i.e., motivational toxicity. It is a complex neurobiological phenomenon, relying on reward circuitry or limbic activity. It is important to realize that through the “Brain Reward Cascade” (BRC) endorphin and endogenous morphinergic mechanisms may play a role 23. While natural rewards are essential for survival and appetitive motivation leading to beneficial biological behaviors like eating, sex, and reproduction, crucial social interactions seem to further facilitate the positive effects exerted by pleasurable experiences. Indeed, experimentation with addictive drugs is capable of directly acting on reward pathways and causing deterioration of these systems promoting hypodopaminergia 24. Most would agree that pleasurable activities can stimulate personal growth and may help to induce healthy behavioral changes, including stress management 25. The work of Esch and Stefano 26 concerning the link between compassion and love implicate the brain reward system, and pleasure induction suggests that social contact in general, i.e., love, attachment, and compassion, can be highly effective in stress reduction, survival, and overall health. Understanding the role of neurotransmission and pleasurable states both positive and negative have been adequately studied over many decades 26–37, but comparative anatomical and neurobiological function between animals and homo sapiens appear to be required and seem to be in an infancy stage. Finding happiness is different between apes and humans As stated earlier in this expert opinion one key to happiness involves a network of good friends 38. However, it is not entirely clear exactly how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to a sugar rush, winning a sports event or even sky diving, all of which augment dopamine release at the reward brain site. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure. Remarkably, there are pathways for ordinary liking and pleasure, which are limited in scope as described above in this commentary. However, there are many brain regions, often termed hot and cold spots, that significantly modulate (increase or decrease) our pleasure or even produce the opposite of pleasure— that is disgust and fear 39. One specific region of the nucleus accumbens is organized like a computer keyboard, with particular stimulus triggers in rows— producing an increase and decrease of pleasure and disgust. Moreover, the cortex has unique roles in the cognitive evaluation of our feelings of pleasure 40. Importantly, the interplay of these multiple triggers and the higher brain centers in the prefrontal cortex are very intricate and are just being uncovered. Desire and reward centers It is surprising that many different sources of pleasure activate the same circuits between the mesocorticolimbic regions (Figure 1). Reward and desire are two aspects pleasure induction and have a very widespread, large circuit. Some part of this circuit distinguishes between desire and dread. The so-called pleasure circuitry called “REWARD” involves a well-known dopamine pathway in the mesolimbic system that can influence both pleasure and motivation. In simplest terms, the well-established mesolimbic system is a dopamine circuit for reward. It starts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain and travels to the nucleus accumbens (Figure 2). It is the cornerstone target to all addictions. The VTA is encompassed with neurons using glutamate, GABA, and dopamine. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is located within the ventral striatum and is divided into two sub-regions—the motor and limbic regions associated with its core and shell, respectively. The NAc has spiny neurons that receive dopamine from the VTA and glutamate (a dopamine driver) from the hippocampus, amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex. Subsequently, the NAc projects GABA signals to an area termed the ventral pallidum (VP). The region is a relay station in the limbic loop of the basal ganglia, critical for motivation, behavior, emotions and the “Feel Good” response. This defined system of the brain is involved in all addictions –substance, and non –substance related. In 1995, our laboratory coined the term “Reward Deficiency Syndrome” (RDS) to describe genetic and epigenetic induced hypodopaminergia in the “Brain Reward Cascade” that contribute to addiction and compulsive behaviors 3,6,41. Furthermore, ordinary “liking” of something, or pure pleasure, is represented by small regions mainly in the limbic system (old reptilian part of the brain). These may be part of larger neural circuits. In Latin, hedus is the term for “sweet”; and in Greek, hodone is the term for “pleasure.” Thus, the word Hedonic is now referring to various subcomponents of pleasure: some associated with purely sensory and others with more complex emotions involving morals, aesthetics, and social interactions. The capacity to have pleasure is part of being healthy and may even extend life, especially if linked to optimism as a dopaminergic response 42. Psychiatric illness often includes symptoms of an abnormal inability to experience pleasure, referred to as anhedonia. A negative feeling state is called dysphoria, which can consist of many emotions such as pain, depression, anxiety, fear, and disgust. Previously many scientists used animal research to uncover the complex mechanisms of pleasure, liking, motivation and even emotions like panic and fear, as discussed above 43. However, as a significant amount of related research about the specific brain regions of pleasure/reward circuitry has been derived from invasive studies of animals, these cannot be directly compared with subjective states experienced by humans. In an attempt to resolve the controversy regarding the causal contributions of mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward, we have previously evaluated the three-main competing explanatory categories: “liking,” “learning,” and “wanting” 3. That is, dopamine may mediate (a) liking: the hedonic impact of reward, (b) learning: learned predictions about rewarding effects, or (c) wanting: the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli 44. We have evaluated these hypotheses, especially as they relate to the RDS, and we find that the incentive salience or “wanting” hypothesis of dopaminergic functioning is supported by a majority of the scientific evidence. Various neuroimaging studies have shown that anticipated behaviors such as sex and gaming, delicious foods and drugs of abuse all affect brain regions associated with reward networks, and may not be unidirectional. Drugs of abuse enhance dopamine signaling which sensitizes mesolimbic brain mechanisms that apparently evolved explicitly to attribute incentive salience to various rewards 45. Addictive substances are voluntarily self-administered, and they enhance (directly or indirectly) dopaminergic synaptic function in the NAc. This activation of the brain reward networks (producing the ecstatic “high” that users seek). Although these circuits were initially thought to encode a set point of hedonic tone, it is now being considered to be far more complicated in function, also encoding attention, reward expectancy, disconfirmation of reward expectancy, and incentive motivation 46. The argument about addiction as a disease may be confused with a predisposition to substance and nonsubstance rewards relative to the extreme effect of drugs of abuse on brain neurochemistry. The former sets up an individual to be at high risk through both genetic polymorphisms in reward genes as well as harmful epigenetic insult. Some Psychologists, even with all the data, still infer that addiction is not a disease 47. Elevated stress levels, together with polymorphisms (genetic variations) of various dopaminergic genes and the genes related to other neurotransmitters (and their genetic variants), and may have an additive effect on vulnerability to various addictions 48. In this regard, Vanyukov, et al. 48 suggested based on review that whereas the gateway hypothesis does not specify mechanistic connections between “stages,” and does not extend to the risks for addictions the concept of common liability to addictions may be more parsimonious. The latter theory is grounded in genetic theory and supported by data identifying common sources of variation in the risk for specific addictions (e.g., RDS). This commonality has identifiable neurobiological substrate and plausible evolutionary explanations. Over many years the controversy of dopamine involvement in especially “pleasure” has led to confusion concerning separating motivation from actual pleasure (wanting versus liking) 49. We take the position that animal studies cannot provide real clinical information as described by self-reports in humans. As mentioned earlier and in the abstract, on November 23rd, 2017, evidence for our concerns was discovered 50 In essence, although nonhuman primate brains are similar to our own, the disparity between other primates and those of human cognitive abilities tells us that surface similarity is not the whole story. Sousa et al. 50 small case found various differentially expressed genes, to associate with pleasure related systems. Furthermore, the dopaminergic interneurons located in the human neocortex were absent from the neocortex of nonhuman African apes. Such differences in neuronal transcriptional programs may underlie a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. In simpler terms, the system controls the production of dopamine, a chemical messenger that plays a significant role in pleasure and rewards. The senior author, Dr. Nenad Sestan from Yale, stated: “Humans have evolved a dopamine system that is different than the one in chimpanzees.” This may explain why the behavior of humans is so unique from that of non-human primates, even though our brains are so surprisingly similar, Sestan said: “It might also shed light on why people are vulnerable to mental disorders such as autism (possibly even addiction).” Remarkably, this research finding emerged from an extensive, multicenter collaboration to compare the brains across several species. These researchers examined 247 specimens of neural tissue from six humans, five chimpanzees, and five macaque monkeys. Moreover, these investigators analyzed which genes were turned on or off in 16 regions of the brain. While the differences among species were subtle, there was a remarkable contrast in the neocortices, specifically in an area of the brain that is much more developed in humans than in chimpanzees. In fact, these researchers found that a gene called tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) for the enzyme, responsible for the production of dopamine, was expressed in the neocortex of humans, but not chimpanzees. As discussed earlier, dopamine is best known for its essential role within the brain’s reward system; the very system that responds to everything from sex, to gambling, to food, and to addictive drugs. However, dopamine also assists in regulating emotional responses, memory, and movement. Notably, abnormal dopamine levels have been linked to disorders including Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and spectrum disorders such as autism and addiction or RDS. Nora Volkow, the director of NIDA, pointed out that one alluring possibility is that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a substantial role in humans’ ability to pursue various rewards that are perhaps months or even years away in the future. This same idea has been suggested by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky cited evidence that dopamine levels rise dramatically in humans when we anticipate potential rewards that are uncertain and even far off in our futures, such as retirement or even the possible alterlife. This may explain what often motivates people to work for things that have no apparent short-term benefit 51. In similar work, Volkow and Bale 52 proposed a model in which dopamine can favor NOW processes through phasic signaling in reward circuits or LATER processes through tonic signaling in control circuits. Specifically, they suggest that through its modulation of the orbitofrontal cortex, which processes salience attribution, dopamine also enables shilting from NOW to LATER, while its modulation of the insula, which processes interoceptive information, influences the probability of selecting NOW versus LATER actions based on an individual’s physiological state. This hypothesis further supports the concept that disruptions along these circuits contribute to diverse pathologies, including obesity and addiction or RDS. Thus, the standard is maximizing expected well-being or act hedonistic util. Prefer additionally –
12/8/21
3-GG-Util Framing V3
Tournament: Nano Nagle Voices | Round: 4 | Opponent: Silver Creek KZ | Judge: Quentin Clark Pleasure and pain are intrinsically valueable and disvalueable – everything else regresses. Evolutionary knowledge is reliable – broad consensus and robust neuroscience prove. Blum et al. 18 Kenneth Blum, 1Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton VA Medical Center, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA 5Department of Precision Medicine, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA 6Department of Addiction Research and Therapy, Nupathways Inc., Innsbrook, MO, USA 7Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA 8Division of Neuroscience-Based Addiction Therapy, The Shores Treatment and Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA 9Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary 10Division of Addiction Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC. North Kingston, RI, USA 11Victory Nutrition International, Lederach, PA., USA 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA, Marjorie Gondré-Lewis, 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA 13Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC US, Bruce Steinberg, 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA, Igor Elman, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, David Baron, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Edward J Modestino, 14Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA, Rajendra D Badgaiyan, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, Mark S Gold 16Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, “Our evolved unique pleasure circuit makes humans different from apes: Reconsideration of data derived from animal studies”, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 28 February 2018, accessed: 19 August 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446569/, R.S. Pleasure is not only one of the three primary reward functions but it also defines reward. As homeostasis explains the functions of only a limited number of rewards, the principal reason why particular stimuli, objects, events, situations, and activities are rewarding may be due to pleasure. This applies first of all to sex and to the primary homeostatic rewards of food and liquid and extends to money, taste, beauty, social encounters and nonmaterial, internally set, and intrinsic rewards. Pleasure, as the primary effect of rewards, drives the prime reward functions of learning, approach behavior, and decision making and provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward function. We are attracted by most rewards and exert intense efforts to obtain them, just because they are enjoyable 10. Pleasure is a passive reaction that derives from the experience or prediction of reward and may lead to a long-lasting state of happiness. The word happiness is difficult to define. In fact, just obtaining physical pleasure may not be enough. One key to happiness involves a network of good friends. However, it is not obvious how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to an ice cream cone, or to your team winning a sporting event. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure 14. Pleasure as a hallmark of reward is sufficient for defining a reward, but it may not be necessary. A reward may generate positive learning and approach behavior simply because it contains substances that are essential for body function. When we are hungry, we may eat bad and unpleasant meals. A monkey who receives hundreds of small drops of water every morning in the laboratory is unlikely to feel a rush of pleasure every time it gets the 0.1 ml. Nevertheless, with these precautions in mind, we may define any stimulus, object, event, activity, or situation that has the potential to produce pleasure as a reward. In the context of reward deficiency or for disorders of addiction, homeostasis pursues pharmacological treatments: drugs to treat drug addiction, obesity, and other compulsive behaviors. The theory of allostasis suggests broader approaches - such as re-expanding the range of possible pleasures and providing opportunities to expend effort in their pursuit. 15. It is noteworthy, the first animal studies eliciting approach behavior by electrical brain stimulation interpreted their findings as a discovery of the brain’s pleasure centers 16 which were later partly associated with midbrain dopamine neurons 17–19 despite the notorious difficulties of identifying emotions in animals. Evolutionary theories of pleasure: The love connection BO Charles Darwin and other biological scientists that have examined the biological evolution and its basic principles found various mechanisms that steer behavior and biological development. Besides their theory on natural selection, it was particularly the sexual selection process that gained significance in the latter context over the last century, especially when it comes to the question of what makes us “what we are,” i.e., human. However, the capacity to sexually select and evolve is not at all a human accomplishment alone or a sign of our uniqueness; yet, we humans, as it seems, are ingenious in fooling ourselves and others–when we are in love or desperately search for it. It is well established that modern biological theory conjectures that organisms are the result of evolutionary competition. In fact, Richard Dawkins stresses gene survival and propagation as the basic mechanism of life 20. Only genes that lead to the fittest phenotype will make it. It is noteworthy that the phenotype is selected based on behavior that maximizes gene propagation. To do so, the phenotype must survive and generate offspring, and be better at it than its competitors. Thus, the ultimate, distal function of rewards is to increase evolutionary fitness by ensuring the survival of the organism and reproduction. It is agreed that learning, approach, economic decisions, and positive emotions are the proximal functions through which phenotypes obtain other necessary nutrients for survival, mating, and care for offspring. Behavioral reward functions have evolved to help individuals to survive and propagate their genes. Apparently, people need to live well and long enough to reproduce. Most would agree that homo-sapiens do so by ingesting the substances that make their bodies function properly. For this reason, foods and drinks are rewards. Additional rewards, including those used for economic exchanges, ensure sufficient palatable food and drink supply. Mating and gene propagation is supported by powerful sexual attraction. Additional properties, like body form, augment the chance to mate and nourish and defend offspring and are therefore also rewards. Care for offspring until they can reproduce themselves helps gene propagation and is rewarding; otherwise, many believe mating is useless. According to David E Comings, as any small edge will ultimately result in evolutionary advantage 21, additional reward mechanisms like novelty seeking and exploration widen the spectrum of available rewards and thus enhance the chance for survival, reproduction, and ultimate gene propagation. These functions may help us to obtain the benefits of distant rewards that are determined by our own interests and not immediately available in the environment. Thus the distal reward function in gene propagation and evolutionary fitness defines the proximal reward functions that we see in everyday behavior. That is why foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding. There have been theories linking pleasure as a required component of health benefits salutogenesis, (salugenesis). In essence, under these terms, pleasure is described as a state or feeling of happiness and satisfaction resulting from an experience that one enjoys. Regarding pleasure, it is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it promotes positive feelings (like mindfulness) and even better cognition, possibly through the release of dopamine 22. But on the other hand, pleasure simultaneously encourages addiction and other negative behaviors, i.e., motivational toxicity. It is a complex neurobiological phenomenon, relying on reward circuitry or limbic activity. It is important to realize that through the “Brain Reward Cascade” (BRC) endorphin and endogenous morphinergic mechanisms may play a role 23. While natural rewards are essential for survival and appetitive motivation leading to beneficial biological behaviors like eating, sex, and reproduction, crucial social interactions seem to further facilitate the positive effects exerted by pleasurable experiences. Indeed, experimentation with addictive drugs is capable of directly acting on reward pathways and causing deterioration of these systems promoting hypodopaminergia 24. Most would agree that pleasurable activities can stimulate personal growth and may help to induce healthy behavioral changes, including stress management 25. The work of Esch and Stefano 26 concerning the link between compassion and love implicate the brain reward system, and pleasure induction suggests that social contact in general, i.e., love, attachment, and compassion, can be highly effective in stress reduction, survival, and overall health. Understanding the role of neurotransmission and pleasurable states both positive and negative have been adequately studied over many decades 26–37, but comparative anatomical and neurobiological function between animals and homo sapiens appear to be required and seem to be in an infancy stage. Finding happiness is different between apes and humans As stated earlier in this expert opinion one key to happiness involves a network of good friends 38. However, it is not entirely clear exactly how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to a sugar rush, winning a sports event or even sky diving, all of which augment dopamine release at the reward brain site. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure. Remarkably, there are pathways for ordinary liking and pleasure, which are limited in scope as described above in this commentary. However, there are many brain regions, often termed hot and cold spots, that significantly modulate (increase or decrease) our pleasure or even produce the opposite of pleasure— that is disgust and fear 39. One specific region of the nucleus accumbens is organized like a computer keyboard, with particular stimulus triggers in rows— producing an increase and decrease of pleasure and disgust. Moreover, the cortex has unique roles in the cognitive evaluation of our feelings of pleasure 40. Importantly, the interplay of these multiple triggers and the higher brain centers in the prefrontal cortex are very intricate and are just being uncovered. Desire and reward centers It is surprising that many different sources of pleasure activate the same circuits between the mesocorticolimbic regions (Figure 1). Reward and desire are two aspects pleasure induction and have a very widespread, large circuit. Some part of this circuit distinguishes between desire and dread. The so-called pleasure circuitry called “REWARD” involves a well-known dopamine pathway in the mesolimbic system that can influence both pleasure and motivation. In simplest terms, the well-established mesolimbic system is a dopamine circuit for reward. It starts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain and travels to the nucleus accumbens (Figure 2). It is the cornerstone target to all addictions. The VTA is encompassed with neurons using glutamate, GABA, and dopamine. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is located within the ventral striatum and is divided into two sub-regions—the motor and limbic regions associated with its core and shell, respectively. The NAc has spiny neurons that receive dopamine from the VTA and glutamate (a dopamine driver) from the hippocampus, amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex. Subsequently, the NAc projects GABA signals to an area termed the ventral pallidum (VP). The region is a relay station in the limbic loop of the basal ganglia, critical for motivation, behavior, emotions and the “Feel Good” response. This defined system of the brain is involved in all addictions –substance, and non –substance related. In 1995, our laboratory coined the term “Reward Deficiency Syndrome” (RDS) to describe genetic and epigenetic induced hypodopaminergia in the “Brain Reward Cascade” that contribute to addiction and compulsive behaviors 3,6,41. Furthermore, ordinary “liking” of something, or pure pleasure, is represented by small regions mainly in the limbic system (old reptilian part of the brain). These may be part of larger neural circuits. In Latin, hedus is the term for “sweet”; and in Greek, hodone is the term for “pleasure.” Thus, the word Hedonic is now referring to various subcomponents of pleasure: some associated with purely sensory and others with more complex emotions involving morals, aesthetics, and social interactions. The capacity to have pleasure is part of being healthy and may even extend life, especially if linked to optimism as a dopaminergic response 42. Psychiatric illness often includes symptoms of an abnormal inability to experience pleasure, referred to as anhedonia. A negative feeling state is called dysphoria, which can consist of many emotions such as pain, depression, anxiety, fear, and disgust. Previously many scientists used animal research to uncover the complex mechanisms of pleasure, liking, motivation and even emotions like panic and fear, as discussed above 43. However, as a significant amount of related research about the specific brain regions of pleasure/reward circuitry has been derived from invasive studies of animals, these cannot be directly compared with subjective states experienced by humans. In an attempt to resolve the controversy regarding the causal contributions of mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward, we have previously evaluated the three-main competing explanatory categories: “liking,” “learning,” and “wanting” 3. That is, dopamine may mediate (a) liking: the hedonic impact of reward, (b) learning: learned predictions about rewarding effects, or (c) wanting: the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli 44. We have evaluated these hypotheses, especially as they relate to the RDS, and we find that the incentive salience or “wanting” hypothesis of dopaminergic functioning is supported by a majority of the scientific evidence. Various neuroimaging studies have shown that anticipated behaviors such as sex and gaming, delicious foods and drugs of abuse all affect brain regions associated with reward networks, and may not be unidirectional. Drugs of abuse enhance dopamine signaling which sensitizes mesolimbic brain mechanisms that apparently evolved explicitly to attribute incentive salience to various rewards 45. Addictive substances are voluntarily self-administered, and they enhance (directly or indirectly) dopaminergic synaptic function in the NAc. This activation of the brain reward networks (producing the ecstatic “high” that users seek). Although these circuits were initially thought to encode a set point of hedonic tone, it is now being considered to be far more complicated in function, also encoding attention, reward expectancy, disconfirmation of reward expectancy, and incentive motivation 46. The argument about addiction as a disease may be confused with a predisposition to substance and nonsubstance rewards relative to the extreme effect of drugs of abuse on brain neurochemistry. The former sets up an individual to be at high risk through both genetic polymorphisms in reward genes as well as harmful epigenetic insult. Some Psychologists, even with all the data, still infer that addiction is not a disease 47. Elevated stress levels, together with polymorphisms (genetic variations) of various dopaminergic genes and the genes related to other neurotransmitters (and their genetic variants), and may have an additive effect on vulnerability to various addictions 48. In this regard, Vanyukov, et al. 48 suggested based on review that whereas the gateway hypothesis does not specify mechanistic connections between “stages,” and does not extend to the risks for addictions the concept of common liability to addictions may be more parsimonious. The latter theory is grounded in genetic theory and supported by data identifying common sources of variation in the risk for specific addictions (e.g., RDS). This commonality has identifiable neurobiological substrate and plausible evolutionary explanations. Over many years the controversy of dopamine involvement in especially “pleasure” has led to confusion concerning separating motivation from actual pleasure (wanting versus liking) 49. We take the position that animal studies cannot provide real clinical information as described by self-reports in humans. As mentioned earlier and in the abstract, on November 23rd, 2017, evidence for our concerns was discovered 50 In essence, although nonhuman primate brains are similar to our own, the disparity between other primates and those of human cognitive abilities tells us that surface similarity is not the whole story. Sousa et al. 50 small case found various differentially expressed genes, to associate with pleasure related systems. Furthermore, the dopaminergic interneurons located in the human neocortex were absent from the neocortex of nonhuman African apes. Such differences in neuronal transcriptional programs may underlie a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. In simpler terms, the system controls the production of dopamine, a chemical messenger that plays a significant role in pleasure and rewards. The senior author, Dr. Nenad Sestan from Yale, stated: “Humans have evolved a dopamine system that is different than the one in chimpanzees.” This may explain why the behavior of humans is so unique from that of non-human primates, even though our brains are so surprisingly similar, Sestan said: “It might also shed light on why people are vulnerable to mental disorders such as autism (possibly even addiction).” Remarkably, this research finding emerged from an extensive, multicenter collaboration to compare the brains across several species. These researchers examined 247 specimens of neural tissue from six humans, five chimpanzees, and five macaque monkeys. Moreover, these investigators analyzed which genes were turned on or off in 16 regions of the brain. While the differences among species were subtle, there was a remarkable contrast in the neocortices, specifically in an area of the brain that is much more developed in humans than in chimpanzees. In fact, these researchers found that a gene called tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) for the enzyme, responsible for the production of dopamine, was expressed in the neocortex of humans, but not chimpanzees. As discussed earlier, dopamine is best known for its essential role within the brain’s reward system; the very system that responds to everything from sex, to gambling, to food, and to addictive drugs. However, dopamine also assists in regulating emotional responses, memory, and movement. Notably, abnormal dopamine levels have been linked to disorders including Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and spectrum disorders such as autism and addiction or RDS. Nora Volkow, the director of NIDA, pointed out that one alluring possibility is that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a substantial role in humans’ ability to pursue various rewards that are perhaps months or even years away in the future. This same idea has been suggested by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky cited evidence that dopamine levels rise dramatically in humans when we anticipate potential rewards that are uncertain and even far off in our futures, such as retirement or even the possible alterlife. This may explain what often motivates people to work for things that have no apparent short-term benefit 51. In similar work, Volkow and Bale 52 proposed a model in which dopamine can favor NOW processes through phasic signaling in reward circuits or LATER processes through tonic signaling in control circuits. Specifically, they suggest that through its modulation of the orbitofrontal cortex, which processes salience attribution, dopamine also enables shilting from NOW to LATER, while its modulation of the insula, which processes interoceptive information, influences the probability of selecting NOW versus LATER actions based on an individual’s physiological state. This hypothesis further supports the concept that disruptions along these circuits contribute to diverse pathologies, including obesity and addiction or RDS. Thus, the standard is maximizing expected well-being or act hedonistic util. Prefer additionally –
12/8/21
JAN-FEB-Chinese Innovation DA
Tournament: Harvard-Westlake | Round: 1 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart EL | Judge: Joseph Barquin cross apply Patel 1NC –Innovation DA Private sector innovation is inexplicably low due to Covid Am et al. 20Partner at McKinsey and Company focused on the intersection of Food, Sustainability, and Innovation, McKinsey and Company, “Innovation in a crisis: Why it is more critical than ever”, June 17, 2020, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/innovation-in-a-crisis-why-it-is-more-critical-than-ever DD MN The COVID-19 pandemic has upended nearly every aspect of life, from the personal (how people live and work) to the professional (how companies interact with their customers, how customers choose and purchase products and services, how supply chains deliver them). In our recent survey of more than 200 organizations across industries, more than 90 percent of executives said they expect the fallout from COVID-19 to fundamentally change the way they do business over the next five years, with almost as many asserting that the crisis will have a lasting impact on their customers’ needs (Exhibit 1). However, more than three-quarters also agreed that the crisis will create significant new opportunities for growth, although this varies significantly by industry (Exhibit 2). Of course, seeing the opportunities emerging from this crisis is not the same as being able to seize them. Fewer than 30 percent of these same executives feel confident that they are prepared to address the changes they see coming. The area in which they feel the most challenged is delivering net new growth opportunities (Exhibit 3). How are executives responding? As might be expected, they are largely focusing on maintaining business continuity, especially in their core. Executives must weigh cutting costs, driving productivity, and implementing safety measures against supporting innovation-led growth. Unsurprisingly, investments in innovation are suffering. The executives in our survey strongly believe that they will return to innovation-related initiatives once the world has stabilized, the core business is secure, and the path forward is clearer. However, only a quarter reported that capturing new growth was a top priority (first- or second-order) today, compared to roughly 60 percent before the crisis hit (Exhibit 4). This decline in focus on innovation is evident across every industry we surveyed; the sole exception is pharmaceuticals and medical products, where we see an almost 30-percent increase in the immediate focus on innovation (Exhibit 5).
NASA is stepping down from spending on space – privatization is now k2 innovation Cooper 15science writer and contributer to Inside Science, Inside Science, “Space Privatization, Tourism And Morals”, March 24, 2015, http://www.insidescience.org/content/space-privatization-tourism-and-morals/2701?utm_source=Folwd.com DD MN And space exploration is about to pick up, according to Impey. The original 1960s space race that spawned the Apollo missions rose out of geopolitical strife during the Cold War. Now, the federal funds for space travel are drying up. In the mid-1960s the NASA budget topped out at almost 4.5 percent of the U.S. Government's budget, a number that has now shrunk to roughly 0.5 percent. "NASA has very little slack in its budget for new, clever initiatives," said Impey. "We are now witnessing a transition to a more private enterprise driven space program." He thinks the rise of space travel will mirror the development of the Internet. Impey explained, that people have forgotten many of the first Internet pioneers—those who came even before the military began investing in the Internet. Since then the first Internet pioneers, the Internet has expanded with the commercial sector driving much of the innovation. Over the next 100 years, we could decide to tackle anything from building a space elevator on the moon to sending nanobot probes to another star system or even constructing a space colony, said Impey.
China’s private sector is uniquely key to innovation Dychtwald 21founder and CEO of Young China Group, a think tank and consultancy focusing on China's emerging identity on the world stage and the evolving East and West millennial mindset, Harvard Business Review, “China’s New Innovation Advantage”, May-June 2021, https://hbr.org/2021/05/chinas-new-innovation-advantage DD MN But can China innovate? Can it compete at a global level with developed nations that have built their economies on innovation for decades? Many observers are doubtful. In recent years, they note, the West has steadily produced an abundance of innovations and innovators, while China has produced relatively few. In March 2014 this magazine published “Why China Can’t Innovate,” by Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby, and F. Warren McFarlan, an article that captured the conventional wisdom. The authors’ arguments were sound and well supported at the time. But just two years later eight of the 10 companies that had reached a $1 billion valuation in the shortest time ever were Chinese—and six of those eight were founded the year that article was published. Those are startling numbers for a country that in 2020 ranked only 14th on the Global Innovation Index. Something clearly propelled those Chinese companies to the top, but the metrics we use to evaluate innovation have missed it. We tend to focus on people and companies that generate big new ideas—charismatic heroes with dash, daring, and dynamic thinking. By that measure the U.S. innovation ecosystem stands apart. But in the past five years, as an “innovation cold war” has taken shape between world powers, China has achieved a kind of parity with the United States—and the driving force behind its success may not be its innovators at all. To understand what’s powering the global rise of Chinese companies, we need to recognize that China now has at its disposal a resource that no other country has: a vast population that has lived through unprecedented amounts of change and, consequently, has developed an astonishing propensity for adopting and adapting to innovations, at a speed and scale that is unmatched elsewhere on earth. It’s that aspect of China’s innovation ecosystem—its hundreds of millions of hyper-adoptive and hyper-adaptive consumers—that makes China so globally competitive today. In the end, innovations must be judged by people’s willingness to use them. And on that front China has no peer.
Innovation bolsters space exploration and research – prefer an empirical study of Europe Hufenbach 17ESA Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration, ESTEC, “Engaging the private sector in space exploration”, 2017, https://room.eu.com/article/engaging-the-private-sector-in-space-exploration DD MN Fostering open technology innovation is not only about promoting broader use of the International Space Station (ISS) but could also have a positive impact on future missions to the Moon and Mars. ESA is committed to participating in the development of a market-driven economy in low Earth orbit and here Bernard Hufenbach explains the agency’s step-wise approach to partnering with private companies that are ready to share risks. He also highlights pilot projects that are aiming to demonstrate their feasibility and commercial viability. In 2015, ESA launched a process for setting up strategic partnerships with the private sector to facilitate its exploration ambitions - and to foster growth and competitiveness of the European space and non-space industrial base. The initiative is nurturing the gradual establishment of private sector services, led by European companies for low Earth orbit (LEO) exploitation in support of lunar exploration. It aims to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry, stimulate research and development and integrate innovative solutions into ESA space exploration missions.
Space is the sole solution to climate change Autry 19American space policy expert, educator, entrepreneur and author, Foreign Policy, “SPACE RESEARCH CAN SAVE THE PLANET—AGAIN”, July 20, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/20/space-research-can-save-the-planet-again-climate-change-environment/ DD MN Today conservationists and other critics are more likely to see space programs as militaristic splurges that squander billions of dollars better applied to solving problems on Earth. These well-meaning complaints are misguided, however. Earth’s problems—most urgently, climate change—can be solved only from space. That’s where the tools and data already being used to tackle these issues were forged and where the solutions of the future will be too. Space research has already been critical in averting one major environmental disaster. It was NASA satellite data that revealed a frightening and growing hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole, galvanizing public concern that, in 1987, produced the Montreal Protocol: the first international agreement addressing a global environmental problem. Since then, thanks to worldwide restrictions on damaging chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone situation has stabilized, and a full planetary recovery is expected. As this case showed, space can provide the vital information needed to understand a problem—and a surprising range of ways to solve it. Climate change is a poster child for the critical role of space data. Trekking across the globe to measure ice sheets with drills and gauge sea temperatures from the sides of ships is an expensive, slow, and insufficient way to assay the state of the planet. Satellites operated by NASA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and an increasing number of commercial firms provide a plethora of multispectral imaging and radar measurements of developments such as coral reef degradation, harmful plankton blooms, and polar bears negotiating thinning ice. Much of the technology involved in observing the Earth today was initially developed for probes sent to explore other planets in our solar system. Indeed, understanding the evolution of other planets’ climates is essential for modeling possible outcomes on Earth. NASA probes revealed how, roughly 4 billion years ago, a runaway greenhouse gas syndrome turned Venus into a hot, hellish, and uninhabitable planet of acid rain. Orbiters, landers, and rovers continue to unravel the processes that transformed a once warm and wet Mars into a frigid, dry dust ball—and scientists even to conceive of future scenarios that might terraform it back into a livable planet. Discovering other worlds’ history and imagining their future offers important visions for climate change mitigation strategies on Earth, such as mining helium from the moon itself for future clean energy.
Climate change risks ‘extinction domino effect’ Flinders 18public research university in Adelaide, South Australia, Flinders University, “Climate change risks 'extinction domino effect'”, November 29, 2018, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181129122506.htm DD MN This would be the worst-case scenario of what scientists call 'co-extinctions', where an organism dies out because it depends on another doomed species, with the findings published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Think of a plant's flower pollinated by only one species of bee -- if the bee becomes extinct, so too will the plant eventually. "Even the most resilient species will inevitably fall victim to the synergies among extinction drivers as extreme stresses drive ecosystems to collapse." says lead author Dr Giovanni Strona of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre based in Ispra in northern Italy. Researchers from Italy and Australia simulated 2,000 'virtual earths' linking animal and plant species. Using sophisticated modelling, they subjected the virtual earths to catastrophic environmental changes that ultimately annihilated all life. Examples of the kinds of catastrophes they simulated included runaway global warming, scenarios of 'nuclear winter' following the detonation of multiple atomic bombs, and a large asteroid impact. "What we were trying to test is whether the variable tolerances to extreme global heating or cooling by different species are enough to explain overall extinction rates," "But because all species are connected in the web of life, our paper demonstrates that even the most tolerant species ultimately succumb to extinction when the less-tolerant species on which they depend disappear." "Failing to take into account these co-extinctions therefore underestimates the rate and magnitude of the loss of entire species from events like climate change by up to 10 times," says co-author Professor Bradshaw of Flinders University in South Australia Professor Bradshaw and Dr Strona say that their virtual scenarios warn humanity not to underestimate the impact of co-extinctions. "Not taking into account this domino effect gives an unrealistic and exceedingly optimistic perspective about the impact of future climate change," warns Professor Bradshaw. It can be hard to imagine how the demise of a small animal or plant matters so much, but the authors argue that tracking species up to total annihilation demonstrates how the loss of one can amplify the effects of environmental change on the remainder. "Another really important discovery was that in the case of global warming in particular, the combination of intolerance to heat combined with co-extinctions mean that 5-6 degrees of average warming globally is enough to wipe out most life on the planet," says Dr Strona. Professor Bradshaw further warns that their work shows how climate warming creates extinction cascades in the worst possible way, when compared to random extinctions or even from the stresses arising from nuclear winter.
1/15/22
JAN-FEB-T-No Gov
Tournament: Harvard-Westlake | Round: 1 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart EL | Judge: Joseph Barquin 1NC—T No Gov Interpretation – The affirmative cannot defend governmental action. Private entity is non-governmental Cornell (https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840andheight=800andiframe=trueanddef_id=6-USC-625312480-168358316andterm_occur=999andterm_src=title:6:chapter:6:subchapter:I:section:1501) private entity (A) In general Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, the term “private entity” means any person or private group, organization, proprietorship, partnership, trust, cooperative, corporation, or other commercial or nonprofit entity, including an officer, employee, or agent thereof. (B) Inclusion The term “private entity” includes a State, tribal, or local government performing utility services, such as electric, natural gas, or water services. (C) Exclusion The term “private entity” does not include a foreign power as defined in section 1801 of title 50.
Private entities are majority owned and managed by nonstate actors Warners 20 (Bill, JD Candidate, May 2021, at UIC John Marshall Law School) "Patents 254 Miles up: Jurisdictional Issues Onboard the International Space Station." UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law, vol. 19, no. 4, 2020, p. 365-380. HeinOnline. EE To satisfy these three necessary requirements for a new patent regime, the ISS IGA must add an additional clause ("Clause 7") in Article 21 specifically establishing a patent regime for private nonstate third parties onboard the ISS. First, Clause 7 would define the term "private entity" as an individual, organization, or business which is primarily privately owned and/or managed by nonstate affiliates. Specifically defining the term "private entity" prevents confusion as to what entities qualify under the agreement and the difference between "public" and "private."99 This definition would also support the connection of Clause 1 in Article 21 to "Article 2 of the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization." 100 A succinct definition also alleviates international concerns that the changes to the ISS IGA pushes out Partner State influence. 101 Some in the international community may still point out that Clause 7 still pushes towards a trend of outer space privatization. However, this argument fails to consider that private entities in outer space have operated in space almost as comprehensively as national organizations. 102 Violation: They defend Chinese governmental action. Standards: 1 Vote neg for predictable limits. Their aff justifies ignoring words in the resolution which destroys any predictable basis of neg prep. There’s no non-arbitrary way to choose which words aren’t changeable under their interp. This leads to debates where we’re forced to go for generics which destroys education. 2 Clash: they destroy clash by attaching and adding anything they want to the resolution – this allows them to unlink from ks and das that were prepped for the actual res and prevents any engagement. 2 TVA solves: Defend no governmental action Fairness is a voter – debate’s a game that needs rules to evaluate it and answers to it rely on the judge evaluating the argument fairly No RVIs: a. Chills theory – If people know they might lose for reading theory, it will disincentivize them. b. You don’t get to win by being fair. c. Theory Baiting – good theory debaters will bait people into reading theory against certain cases. T link turns 1AR theory – proves the aff forced me to be abusive Use competing interpretations: a. Reasonability causes a race to the bottom with testing the limit of it b. Judge intervention shouldn’t be allowed bc it produces bias c. Uniquely, use competing interps on T – you can’t be reasonably topical Drop the debater: for being abusive – we can’t restart the round from the 1AC and I’m skewed for the rest of the debate.
1/15/22
JANFEB-Innovation DA
Tournament: Harvard-Westlake | Round: 5 | Opponent: Dougherty Valley KM | Judge: Vontrez White 1NC –Innovation DA Appropriation is key to private sector innovation: regulations hinder it significantly. EOPCEA 21 Executive Office of the President Council of Economic Advisers. “Economic Report of the President.” 1/21. Chapter 8: “Exploring New Frontiers in Space Policy and Property Rights.” https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/ERP-2021/pdf/ERP-2021-chapter8.pdf The Department of Defense continues to foster partnerships with the private sector through design competitions that award contracts to both large and small space technology companies, and through consulting programs that mentor small companies in competing for these contracts. These events and programs include the Space Enterprise Consortium; the Space Pitch Day, which awards grants to accelerate new technology; and the National Security Space Launch, which is helping to create new engines and launch vehicles. These partnerships help break down barriers to entry for smaller firms in this industry, which will drive competition and innovation, while decreasing the cost of operating within the space economy. To ensure that the United States maintains its leadership in space innovation and remains the flag of choice for space commerce, it must maintain a business-friendly regulatory environment that offers streamlined permitting, encourages innovation and risk-taking, and safeguards workers, the public, and property. The Trump Administration has prioritized regulatory reform over the past four years, and it continues to focus on cutting red tape in the space sector. With regulatory authorities distributed among the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the Trump Administration has made efforts to modernize the authorization process for new space missions, as directed in Space Policy Directive-2. In addition, Federal Government procurement regulations are often complex and burdensome for the private sector. In fact, government-procured space systems were historically characterized by high costs, long program schedules, and frequent delays due to these regulations (Butow et al. 2020). This discouraged efficiency, innovation, and the entrance of new actors into the market. In the interest of increasing competition and innovation while reducing costs and bureaucracy, the Administration continues to remove undue regulatory barriers and increase the efficiency of existing processes. Doing so will foster a free and prosperous space economy, enable commercial space companies to operate more efficiently, and allow new firms to participate in the private space industry.
Public sector space innovation continues to fall short. The private sector is key to space research/innovation. Follett 21 Andrew Follett- previously space and science reporter for Daily Caller News Foundation, researcher for the Congressional Committee on Science, Space and Technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Cato Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. currently conducts research analysis for nonprofit in Washington, D.C., area.. “Private Firms Are the Key to Space Exploration.” 8/21/21. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/private-firms-are-the-key-to-space-exploration/ America’s public-sector space program recently had a rough couple of weeks that perfectly exemplify why it desperately needs a free-market overhaul. On July 29, the International Space Station (ISS) suffered a serious loss of control after a Russian spacecraft docked with it, accidentally causing the station to make a full 540-degree rotation and a half before coming to a stop upside down, when the astronauts got it under control. Like most NASA programs, the ISS is massively over budget. Costs were initially projected at $12.2 billion, but the bill ultimately reached a stunning $150 billion. American taxpayers paid around 84 percent of that. What happened to the American dream of human space exploration? Put simply, the government happened. NASA devolved into a jobs program to bring home the space bacon. Then, on August 10, NASA’s inspector general released a report deeming plans to send astronauts back to the moon in 2024 unfeasible because of significant delays in developing the mission’s spacesuits. Right now the suits are being built by 27 different companies that successfully lobbied the government for a piece of the action. SpaceX’s Elon Musk has rightly noted that NASA has “too many cooks in the kitchen.” The difference between NASA’s cumbersome designed-by-committee suits and SpaceX’s suits — created by a single contractor — is remarkable, even to the naked eye. The report unconvincingly blames NASA’s failure to develop a new spacesuit over the last 14 years solely on shifting technical requirements. It recommends “ensuring technical requirements for the next-generation suits are solidified before selecting the acquisition strategy to procure suits for the ISS and Artemis programs.” Instead of dealing with the problem, the Biden administration is trying to distract attention from the space agency’s mismanagement by announcing plans to land the first person of color on the moon . . . even though NASA has been incapable of sending astronauts of any color into space under its own power since July 2011. NASA has been reduced to begging the Russians for a ride. The agency’s troubled Constellation program, meant to replace the Space Shuttle fleet, was canceled after tens of billions of dollars had already been spent. But NASA’s troubles are, depressingly, likely to get even worse. In November the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally launch, after taxpayers have forked over $9.7 billion. It was originally supposed to launch in 2007 on a budget of $500 million. That means the project is over a decade behind schedule and costing almost 20 times its initial budget. Perhaps the telescope, meant to locate potentially habitable planets around other stars and perhaps even extraterrestrial life, could instead search for a calendar . . . or fiscal sanity . . . in the stars? JWST isn’t the first NASA space telescope to suffer cost overruns and setbacks. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was originally intended to launch in 1983, but technical issues delayed the launch until 1990 because the main mirror was incorrectly manufactured. JWST is very likely to fail because it is supposed to unfold itself “origami style” in space in an extremely technically complicated process. If difficulties arise, JWST lacks HST’s generous margin for error because of its location far beyond earth’s orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 LaGrange point. NASA currently lacks the capability to send a team of astronauts out that far to fix any problems. Even if NASA could get out to JWST, the telescope doesn’t have a grappling ring for an astronaut to grab onto and thus could potentially kill astronauts attempting to fix it. It is hard to imagine a better example of the private sector’s amazing ability to outcompete government bureaucracy and mismanagement than NASA’s planned Shuttle replacement, the Space Launch System. It is estimated to cost more than $2 billion per flight. That’s on top of the $20 billion and nine years the agency has already spent developing the vehicle. Contrast that with the comparatively inexpensive $300 million spent by SpaceX to develop the Falcon 9 in a little over four years, and the fact that each Falcon 9 costs around $62 million. One SLS launch could pay for over 32 SpaceX launches. Private ventures such as SpaceX are more efficient because they have a lot more incentive to avoid excessive costs and focus on solutions: Their own money is at stake, and people spend their own money more carefully than they spend taxpayer dollars collected from others. Multiple private American space firms are currently pursuing accomplishments beyond those of NASA, and they are more advanced and ambitious than the entire government space programs of China and the European Union combined. So one possible solution to NASA’s woes would be to greatly increase its reliance on commercial launch providers. And one way to do that would be to return to the system that made civil aviation great: prizes to reward private-sector innovation. Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean in pursuit of the privately funded Orteig prize, valued at almost $395,000 in today’s money. Another famous example was the X Prize, which rewarded Burt Rutan’s company Scaled Composites with over $14 million in today’s money for becoming the first nongovernmental organization to launch a reusable and manned space vehicle, SpaceShipOne. The X Prize succeeded in creating over $100 million in investment by private corporations and individuals. Aerospace experts expect that establishing a $10 billion prize for successfully landing a crew on Mars and returning it safely to earth could very well lead to a successful landing. That’s a bargain compared with the $500 billion cost estimates NASA puts out for the same objective. And of course in the worst-case failure scenario for a prize program, taxpayers would pay nothing until the mission was complete. A system based on private enterprise incentivized by a fixed prize would end government cost overruns and waste. The cause of space exploration is simply too important to leave to the public sector.
Space is the sole solution to climate change Autry 19American space policy expert, educator, entrepreneur and author, Foreign Policy, “SPACE RESEARCH CAN SAVE THE PLANET—AGAIN”, July 20, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/20/space-research-can-save-the-planet-again-climate-change-environment/ DD MN Today conservationists and other critics are more likely to see space programs as militaristic splurges that squander billions of dollars better applied to solving problems on Earth. These well-meaning complaints are misguided, however. Earth’s problems—most urgently, climate change—can be solved only from space. That’s where the tools and data already being used to tackle these issues were forged and where the solutions of the future will be too. Space research has already been critical in averting one major environmental disaster. It was NASA satellite data that revealed a frightening and growing hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole, galvanizing public concern that, in 1987, produced the Montreal Protocol: the first international agreement addressing a global environmental problem. Since then, thanks to worldwide restrictions on damaging chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone situation has stabilized, and a full planetary recovery is expected. As this case showed, space can provide the vital information needed to understand a problem—and a surprising range of ways to solve it. Climate change is a poster child for the critical role of space data. Trekking across the globe to measure ice sheets with drills and gauge sea temperatures from the sides of ships is an expensive, slow, and insufficient way to assay the state of the planet. Satellites operated by NASA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and an increasing number of commercial firms provide a plethora of multispectral imaging and radar measurements of developments such as coral reef degradation, harmful plankton blooms, and polar bears negotiating thinning ice. Much of the technology involved in observing the Earth today was initially developed for probes sent to explore other planets in our solar system. Indeed, understanding the evolution of other planets’ climates is essential for modeling possible outcomes on Earth. NASA probes revealed how, roughly 4 billion years ago, a runaway greenhouse gas syndrome turned Venus into a hot, hellish, and uninhabitable planet of acid rain. Orbiters, landers, and rovers continue to unravel the processes that transformed a once warm and wet Mars into a frigid, dry dust ball—and scientists even to conceive of future scenarios that might terraform it back into a livable planet. Discovering other worlds’ history and imagining their future offers important visions for climate change mitigation strategies on Earth, such as mining helium from the moon itself for future clean energy.
Climate change risks ‘extinction 'domino effect’ Flinders 18public research university in Adelaide, South Australia, Flinders University, “Climate change risks 'extinction domino effect'”, November 29, 2018, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181129122506.htm DD MN This would be the worst-case scenario of what scientists call 'co-extinctions', where an organism dies out because it depends on another doomed species, with the findings published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Think of a plant's flower pollinated by only one species of bee -- if the bee becomes extinct, so too will the plant eventually. "Even the most resilient species will inevitably fall victim to the synergies among extinction drivers as extreme stresses drive ecosystems to collapse." says lead author Dr Giovanni Strona of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre based in Ispra in northern Italy. Researchers from Italy and Australia simulated 2,000 'virtual earths' linking animal and plant species. Using sophisticated modelling, they subjected the virtual earths to catastrophic environmental changes that ultimately annihilated all life. Examples of the kinds of catastrophes they simulated included runaway global warming, scenarios of 'nuclear winter' following the detonation of multiple atomic bombs, and a large asteroid impact. "What we were trying to test is whether the variable tolerances to extreme global heating or cooling by different species are enough to explain overall extinction rates," "But because all species are connected in the web of life, our paper demonstrates that even the most tolerant species ultimately succumb to extinction when the less-tolerant species on which they depend disappear." "Failing to take into account these co-extinctions therefore underestimates the rate and magnitude of the loss of entire species from events like climate change by up to 10 times," says co-author Professor Bradshaw of Flinders University in South Australia Professor Bradshaw and Dr Strona say that their virtual scenarios warn humanity not to underestimate the impact of co-extinctions. "Not taking into account this domino effect gives an unrealistic and exceedingly optimistic perspective about the impact of future climate change," warns Professor Bradshaw. It can be hard to imagine how the demise of a small animal or plant matters so much, but the authors argue that tracking species up to total annihilation demonstrates how the loss of one can amplify the effects of environmental change on the remainder. "Another really important discovery was that in the case of global warming in particular, the combination of intolerance to heat combined with co-extinctions mean that 5-6 degrees of average warming globally is enough to wipe out most life on the planet," says Dr Strona. Professor Bradshaw further warns that their work shows how climate warming creates extinction cascades in the worst possible way, when compared to random extinctions or even from the stresses arising from nuclear winter.
1/17/22
JANFEB-Innovation DA
Tournament: Harvard-Westlake | Round: 5 | Opponent: Dougherty Valley KM | Judge: Vontrez White 1NC –Innovation DA Appropriation is key to private sector innovation: regulations hinder it significantly. EOPCEA 21 Executive Office of the President Council of Economic Advisers. “Economic Report of the President.” 1/21. Chapter 8: “Exploring New Frontiers in Space Policy and Property Rights.” https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/ERP-2021/pdf/ERP-2021-chapter8.pdf The Department of Defense continues to foster partnerships with the private sector through design competitions that award contracts to both large and small space technology companies, and through consulting programs that mentor small companies in competing for these contracts. These events and programs include the Space Enterprise Consortium; the Space Pitch Day, which awards grants to accelerate new technology; and the National Security Space Launch, which is helping to create new engines and launch vehicles. These partnerships help break down barriers to entry for smaller firms in this industry, which will drive competition and innovation, while decreasing the cost of operating within the space economy. To ensure that the United States maintains its leadership in space innovation and remains the flag of choice for space commerce, it must maintain a business-friendly regulatory environment that offers streamlined permitting, encourages innovation and risk-taking, and safeguards workers, the public, and property. The Trump Administration has prioritized regulatory reform over the past four years, and it continues to focus on cutting red tape in the space sector. With regulatory authorities distributed among the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the Trump Administration has made efforts to modernize the authorization process for new space missions, as directed in Space Policy Directive-2. In addition, Federal Government procurement regulations are often complex and burdensome for the private sector. In fact, government-procured space systems were historically characterized by high costs, long program schedules, and frequent delays due to these regulations (Butow et al. 2020). This discouraged efficiency, innovation, and the entrance of new actors into the market. In the interest of increasing competition and innovation while reducing costs and bureaucracy, the Administration continues to remove undue regulatory barriers and increase the efficiency of existing processes. Doing so will foster a free and prosperous space economy, enable commercial space companies to operate more efficiently, and allow new firms to participate in the private space industry.
Public sector space innovation continues to fall short. The private sector is key to space research/innovation. Follett 21 Andrew Follett- previously space and science reporter for Daily Caller News Foundation, researcher for the Congressional Committee on Science, Space and Technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Cato Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. currently conducts research analysis for nonprofit in Washington, D.C., area.. “Private Firms Are the Key to Space Exploration.” 8/21/21. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/private-firms-are-the-key-to-space-exploration/ America’s public-sector space program recently had a rough couple of weeks that perfectly exemplify why it desperately needs a free-market overhaul. On July 29, the International Space Station (ISS) suffered a serious loss of control after a Russian spacecraft docked with it, accidentally causing the station to make a full 540-degree rotation and a half before coming to a stop upside down, when the astronauts got it under control. Like most NASA programs, the ISS is massively over budget. Costs were initially projected at $12.2 billion, but the bill ultimately reached a stunning $150 billion. American taxpayers paid around 84 percent of that. What happened to the American dream of human space exploration? Put simply, the government happened. NASA devolved into a jobs program to bring home the space bacon. Then, on August 10, NASA’s inspector general released a report deeming plans to send astronauts back to the moon in 2024 unfeasible because of significant delays in developing the mission’s spacesuits. Right now the suits are being built by 27 different companies that successfully lobbied the government for a piece of the action. SpaceX’s Elon Musk has rightly noted that NASA has “too many cooks in the kitchen.” The difference between NASA’s cumbersome designed-by-committee suits and SpaceX’s suits — created by a single contractor — is remarkable, even to the naked eye. The report unconvincingly blames NASA’s failure to develop a new spacesuit over the last 14 years solely on shifting technical requirements. It recommends “ensuring technical requirements for the next-generation suits are solidified before selecting the acquisition strategy to procure suits for the ISS and Artemis programs.” Instead of dealing with the problem, the Biden administration is trying to distract attention from the space agency’s mismanagement by announcing plans to land the first person of color on the moon . . . even though NASA has been incapable of sending astronauts of any color into space under its own power since July 2011. NASA has been reduced to begging the Russians for a ride. The agency’s troubled Constellation program, meant to replace the Space Shuttle fleet, was canceled after tens of billions of dollars had already been spent. But NASA’s troubles are, depressingly, likely to get even worse. In November the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally launch, after taxpayers have forked over $9.7 billion. It was originally supposed to launch in 2007 on a budget of $500 million. That means the project is over a decade behind schedule and costing almost 20 times its initial budget. Perhaps the telescope, meant to locate potentially habitable planets around other stars and perhaps even extraterrestrial life, could instead search for a calendar . . . or fiscal sanity . . . in the stars? JWST isn’t the first NASA space telescope to suffer cost overruns and setbacks. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was originally intended to launch in 1983, but technical issues delayed the launch until 1990 because the main mirror was incorrectly manufactured. JWST is very likely to fail because it is supposed to unfold itself “origami style” in space in an extremely technically complicated process. If difficulties arise, JWST lacks HST’s generous margin for error because of its location far beyond earth’s orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 LaGrange point. NASA currently lacks the capability to send a team of astronauts out that far to fix any problems. Even if NASA could get out to JWST, the telescope doesn’t have a grappling ring for an astronaut to grab onto and thus could potentially kill astronauts attempting to fix it. It is hard to imagine a better example of the private sector’s amazing ability to outcompete government bureaucracy and mismanagement than NASA’s planned Shuttle replacement, the Space Launch System. It is estimated to cost more than $2 billion per flight. That’s on top of the $20 billion and nine years the agency has already spent developing the vehicle. Contrast that with the comparatively inexpensive $300 million spent by SpaceX to develop the Falcon 9 in a little over four years, and the fact that each Falcon 9 costs around $62 million. One SLS launch could pay for over 32 SpaceX launches. Private ventures such as SpaceX are more efficient because they have a lot more incentive to avoid excessive costs and focus on solutions: Their own money is at stake, and people spend their own money more carefully than they spend taxpayer dollars collected from others. Multiple private American space firms are currently pursuing accomplishments beyond those of NASA, and they are more advanced and ambitious than the entire government space programs of China and the European Union combined. So one possible solution to NASA’s woes would be to greatly increase its reliance on commercial launch providers. And one way to do that would be to return to the system that made civil aviation great: prizes to reward private-sector innovation. Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean in pursuit of the privately funded Orteig prize, valued at almost $395,000 in today’s money. Another famous example was the X Prize, which rewarded Burt Rutan’s company Scaled Composites with over $14 million in today’s money for becoming the first nongovernmental organization to launch a reusable and manned space vehicle, SpaceShipOne. The X Prize succeeded in creating over $100 million in investment by private corporations and individuals. Aerospace experts expect that establishing a $10 billion prize for successfully landing a crew on Mars and returning it safely to earth could very well lead to a successful landing. That’s a bargain compared with the $500 billion cost estimates NASA puts out for the same objective. And of course in the worst-case failure scenario for a prize program, taxpayers would pay nothing until the mission was complete. A system based on private enterprise incentivized by a fixed prize would end government cost overruns and waste. The cause of space exploration is simply too important to leave to the public sector.
Space is the sole solution to climate change Autry 19American space policy expert, educator, entrepreneur and author, Foreign Policy, “SPACE RESEARCH CAN SAVE THE PLANET—AGAIN”, July 20, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/20/space-research-can-save-the-planet-again-climate-change-environment/ DD MN Today conservationists and other critics are more likely to see space programs as militaristic splurges that squander billions of dollars better applied to solving problems on Earth. These well-meaning complaints are misguided, however. Earth’s problems—most urgently, climate change—can be solved only from space. That’s where the tools and data already being used to tackle these issues were forged and where the solutions of the future will be too. Space research has already been critical in averting one major environmental disaster. It was NASA satellite data that revealed a frightening and growing hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole, galvanizing public concern that, in 1987, produced the Montreal Protocol: the first international agreement addressing a global environmental problem. Since then, thanks to worldwide restrictions on damaging chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone situation has stabilized, and a full planetary recovery is expected. As this case showed, space can provide the vital information needed to understand a problem—and a surprising range of ways to solve it. Climate change is a poster child for the critical role of space data. Trekking across the globe to measure ice sheets with drills and gauge sea temperatures from the sides of ships is an expensive, slow, and insufficient way to assay the state of the planet. Satellites operated by NASA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and an increasing number of commercial firms provide a plethora of multispectral imaging and radar measurements of developments such as coral reef degradation, harmful plankton blooms, and polar bears negotiating thinning ice. Much of the technology involved in observing the Earth today was initially developed for probes sent to explore other planets in our solar system. Indeed, understanding the evolution of other planets’ climates is essential for modeling possible outcomes on Earth. NASA probes revealed how, roughly 4 billion years ago, a runaway greenhouse gas syndrome turned Venus into a hot, hellish, and uninhabitable planet of acid rain. Orbiters, landers, and rovers continue to unravel the processes that transformed a once warm and wet Mars into a frigid, dry dust ball—and scientists even to conceive of future scenarios that might terraform it back into a livable planet. Discovering other worlds’ history and imagining their future offers important visions for climate change mitigation strategies on Earth, such as mining helium from the moon itself for future clean energy.
Climate change risks ‘extinction 'domino effect’ Flinders 18public research university in Adelaide, South Australia, Flinders University, “Climate change risks 'extinction domino effect'”, November 29, 2018, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181129122506.htm DD MN This would be the worst-case scenario of what scientists call 'co-extinctions', where an organism dies out because it depends on another doomed species, with the findings published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Think of a plant's flower pollinated by only one species of bee -- if the bee becomes extinct, so too will the plant eventually. "Even the most resilient species will inevitably fall victim to the synergies among extinction drivers as extreme stresses drive ecosystems to collapse." says lead author Dr Giovanni Strona of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre based in Ispra in northern Italy. Researchers from Italy and Australia simulated 2,000 'virtual earths' linking animal and plant species. Using sophisticated modelling, they subjected the virtual earths to catastrophic environmental changes that ultimately annihilated all life. Examples of the kinds of catastrophes they simulated included runaway global warming, scenarios of 'nuclear winter' following the detonation of multiple atomic bombs, and a large asteroid impact. "What we were trying to test is whether the variable tolerances to extreme global heating or cooling by different species are enough to explain overall extinction rates," "But because all species are connected in the web of life, our paper demonstrates that even the most tolerant species ultimately succumb to extinction when the less-tolerant species on which they depend disappear." "Failing to take into account these co-extinctions therefore underestimates the rate and magnitude of the loss of entire species from events like climate change by up to 10 times," says co-author Professor Bradshaw of Flinders University in South Australia Professor Bradshaw and Dr Strona say that their virtual scenarios warn humanity not to underestimate the impact of co-extinctions. "Not taking into account this domino effect gives an unrealistic and exceedingly optimistic perspective about the impact of future climate change," warns Professor Bradshaw. It can be hard to imagine how the demise of a small animal or plant matters so much, but the authors argue that tracking species up to total annihilation demonstrates how the loss of one can amplify the effects of environmental change on the remainder. "Another really important discovery was that in the case of global warming in particular, the combination of intolerance to heat combined with co-extinctions mean that 5-6 degrees of average warming globally is enough to wipe out most life on the planet," says Dr Strona. Professor Bradshaw further warns that their work shows how climate warming creates extinction cascades in the worst possible way, when compared to random extinctions or even from the stresses arising from nuclear winter.
1/17/22
JANFEB-T-Appropriation
Tournament: Harvard-Westlake | Round: 5 | Opponent: Dougherty Valley KM | Judge: Vontrez White 1NC – OFF Interp: “Appropriation” means to take as property Leon 18 (Amanda M., Associate, Caplin and Drysdale, JD UVA Law) "Mining for Meaning: An Examination of the Legality of Property Rights in Space Resources." Virginia Law Review, vol. 104, no. 3, May 2018, p. 497-547. HeinOnline. Appropriation. The term "appropriation" also remains ambiguous. Webster's defines the verb "appropriate" as "to take to oneself in exclusion of others; to claim or use as by an exclusive or pre-eminent right; as, let no man appropriate a common benefit."16 5 Similarly, Black's Law Dictionary describes "appropriate" as an act "to make a thing one's own; to make a thing the subject of property; to exercise dominion over an object to the extent, and for the purpose, of making it subserve one's own proper use or pleasure."166 Oftentimes, appropriation refers to the setting aside of government funds, the taking of land for public purposes, or a tort of wrongfully taking another's property as one's own. The term appropriation is often used not only with respect to real property but also with water. According to U.S. case law, a person completes an appropriation of water by diversion of the water and an application of the water to beneficial use.167 This common use of the term "appropriation" with respect to water illustrates two key points: (1) the term applies to natural resources-e.g., water or minerals-not just real property, and (2) mining space resources and putting them to beneficial use-e.g., selling or manufacturing the mined resources could reasonably be interpreted as an "appropriation" of outer space. While the ordinary meaning of "appropriation" reasonably includes the taking of natural resources as well as land, whether the drafters and parties to the OST envisioned such a broad meaning of the term remains difficult to determine with any certainty. The prohibition against appropriation "by any other means" supports such a reading, though, by expanding the prohibition to other types not explicitly described.168 As illustrated by this analysis, considerable ambiguity remains after this ordinary-meaning analysis and thus, the question of Treaty obligations and property rights remains unresolved. In order to resolve these ambiguities, an analysis of preparatory materials, historical context, and state practice follows. 2. Preparatory Materials A review of meeting reports of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its Legal Sub-Committee regarding the Treaty reveals little to clear up the ambiguities of Articles I and II of the OST. In fact, the reports indicate that, despite several negotiating states expressing concern about the lack of clarity with respect to the meaning of "use" and the scope of the non-appropriation principle, no meaningful discussion occurred and no consensus was reached.16 9 Some commentators still conclude that the preparatory work does in fact confirm the drafters' intent for "use" to include exploitation. 170 These commentators do admit, however, that discussions of the term "exploitation" supporting their conclusion focused on remote sensing and communications satellites rather than on resource extraction.17 1 Further skepticism about such an intent for "use" to include "exploitation" also arises given the uncertainty amongst negotiating states about the meaning of these terms. A mere few months before the Treaty opened for signature in January 1967, negotiators were still asking questions about the meaning of "use" during the last few Legal Sub-Committee meetings. For example, in July 1966, the representative of France inquired: "Did the latter term "use" imply use for exploration purposes, such as the launching of satellites, or did it mean use in the sense of exploitation, which would involve far more complex issues?" 172 The representative noted that while some activities such as extraction of minerals were difficult to imagine presently, "it was important for all States, and not only those engaged in space exploration, to know exactly what was meant by the term 'use.'173 In the same meeting, the representative from the USSR offered an interesting response to the question posed by the representative of France: Adequate clarification was to be found in article II of the USSR draft, which specified that outer space and celestial bodies should not be subject to national appropriation by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. In other words no human activity on the moon or any other celestial body could be taken as justification for national appropriation. 174 This response implies that Article II acts as a qualification on Article I's broad provision for free exploration and use of outer space by all. Activity such as resource extraction would be viewed as national appropriation and such activity cannot be justified given Article II's prohibition, not even by falling within the ordinary meaning of "use." Despite this clarification, uncertainty appears to have remained, as lingering concerns were communicated in subsequent meetings by several other states, including Australia, Austria, and France."' Nevertheless, the committee put the Treaty in front of the General Assembly two months later without final resolution of the ambiguities regarding property rights arising from Articles I and II176 The preparatory materials ultimately fail to fully clarify the ambiguities of the meanings of "use" and "appropriation." The statement of the representative of the Soviet Union, one of the two main drafting parties, does, however, help push back on the interpretation of some academics that the nonappropriation principle fails to overcome the presumption of freedom of use.7 3. Historical Context Two interrelated, major historical events cannot be ignored when considering the meaning of the OST: (1) the Cold War and (2) the Space Race. The success of Sputnik I in 1957 showed space travel and exploration no longer to be a dream, but a reality.7 While exciting, this news also brought fear in light of the world's fragile balance of power and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. 17 9 What if the Soviet Union managed to launch a nuclear weapon into space? What if the United States greedily claimed the Moon as the fifty-first state? To many, the combination of the Cold War and Space Race made the late 1950s and the 1960s a perilous time.so When viewed as a response to this perilous era, the OST begins to look much more like a nuclear arms treaty and an attempt to ease Cold War tensions than a treaty concerned with the issue of property rights in space."' The Treaty's emphasis on "peaceful purposes" supports this contextual interpretation. 1 82 On the one hand, as many suggest, this context leads to the conclusion that the vague nonappropriation principle of Article II does not prevent private property rights in space resources and the presumption of broad "use" prevails.1 83 Private property rights were simply not a concern of the Treaty drafters and therefore, the Treaty does not address-nor prohibit-such claims. On the other hand, the context surrounding the treaty's drafting does not necessarily lead to this conclusion. In fact, the emphasis on "peaceful purposes" and reducing international tension might instead suggest a stricter reading of Articles I and II. If things were so unstable and tense on Earth, the drafters may have instead intended Article II as a qualification on the general right to explore and use outer space in Article I, recognizing the simple fact that disputes over property, both land and minerals, have sparked some of history's bloodiest conflicts. The Antarctic treaty experience evidences Cold War concern over potential resource rights disputes. Leading up to the finalization of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959,184 seven nations had already made official territorial claims over varying portions of the frozen landscape in hopes of laying claim to the plethora of resources thought to be located within the subsurface."' Although the Treaty itself did not directly address rights to mineral resources in the Antarctic,186 the treaty is interpreted to have frozen these claims in the interest of "freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end.""' In a manner notably similar to the terms of Articles XI and XII of the OST, the Treaty promotes scientific exploration by encouraging information sharing of scientific program plans, personnel, and observations' and inspection of stations on a reciprocal basis.189 This Treaty along with several later treaties and protocols constitute the "Antarctic Treaty System," which as a whole manages the governance of Antarctica.1 9 0 In 1991, the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty 91 ("Madrid Protocol") settled the question of property rights for the fifty years following the Protocol's entry into force. 192 The Madrid Protocol provides for "the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment ... and designates Antarctica as a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science."193 Article 7 explicitly-and simplystates "any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research, shall be prohibited."1 94 Though Article 25 allows for the creation of a binding legal regime to determine whether and under what conditions mineral resource activity be allowed, no such international legal regime has been created to date. 195 The ban on mineral resource exploitation may only be amended by unanimous consent of the parties. 19 6 The United States signed and ratified both the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 and the Madrid Protocol. 197 The freezing of territorial claims in the Antarctic 98 by the Antarctica Treaty of 1959199 illustrates the existence of true concern over potential resource dispute and conflict during the Cold War, in addition to the major concerns posed by nuclear weapons.2 00 The drafting states also recognized the potential for conflict over property in outer space and drew on the language of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 to draft the OST.2 01 Given these driving concerns, Article II could be reasonably read as qualifying Article I's general rule. Under this reading, Article II serves the same qualifying purpose as Article IV regarding military and nuclear weapon use in space. Some might push back on this interpretation by claiming that the drafters could have used language such as that in the Madrid Protocol to explicitly prohibit mining in space. However, this argument is flawed. The Madrid Protocol was not written until well after both the original Antarctic Treaty of 1959 and the OST. Furthermore, the timing of the Madrid Protocol perhaps provides further evidence that resources in space are not to be harvested until a subsequent agreement regarding rights over them can be agreed upon internationally. While the historical context does leave some ambiguity as to whether the OST permits property rights over space resources, the Antarctic experience provides a compelling analogy and suggests that the OST does not allow for property rights in space resources. 4. State Practice In its Frequently Asked Questions released about the SREU Act, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology forcefully asserted that the Act does not violate international law.20 2 in fact, according to the committee, the Act's provision of property rights "is affirmed by State practice and by the U.S. State Department in congressional testimony and written correspondence."2 03 Proponents of this view base their beliefs on several examples. One, "no serious objection" arose to the United States and the Soviet Union bringing samples of rocks and other materials from the Moon back by manned and robotic missions in the late 1960s, nor to Japan successfully collecting a small asteroid sample in 2010.204 Two, a practice of respecting ownership over such retrieved samples and a terrestrial market for such items exists, as illustrated by the fact that no one doubts that the American Museum of Natural History "owns" three asteroids found in Greenland by arctic explorer Robert E. Peary that are now part of the museum's Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites. 205 Three, Congressmen also cite to a federal district court case, United States v. One Lucite Ball Containing Lunar Material,2 06 to illustrate state practice in favor of ownership over spaces resources. The case involved an Apollo lunar sample gifted to Honduras by the United States. The sample was stolen and sold to an individual in the United States.2 07 When caught during a sting operation intended to uncover illegal sales of imposter samples, the buyer was forced to forfeit the lunar sample after the court concluded the moon rocks had in fact been stolen, basing its decision in part on its recognition of Honduras having national property ownership over the sample. 208 These examples appear overwhelming, but they are not actually examples of activities of the same "form and content" that the SREU Act approves. 2 09 These examples all involve collection of samples in limited amounts and for scientific purposes, while the SREU Act approves large-scale collection and for commercial exploitation. The OST explicitly emphasizes a "freedom of scientific investigation in outer space," and the collection of scientific samples reasonably fall under this enumerated right. 2 10 Alternatively, the OST says nothing with respect to commercial exploitation, only discussing "benefits" of space in terms of sharing those benefits with all mankind.211 Furthermore, the American Museum of Natural History and Lucite Ball examples relied upon are misleading because they suggest that types of celestial artifacts found or gifted on Earth are subject to the same legal regime as resources mined or collected in space, which may not necessarily be true. The analogy of ownership over fish extracted from the high seas is also often cited in response to this pushback. Much like outer space, the high seas are open to all participants, yet the law of the seas still recognizes the right to title over fish extracted on the high seas by fishermen, who can then sell the fish.212 But again, this analogy has limited import because both the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ("UNCLOS") explicitly recognize the right to fish, while the OST grants no such right to exploit space resources. 2 1 3 Furthermore, state practice relevant to the question of property rights under the OST goes beyond these examples and analogies of ownership of resources taken from commons. State practice regarding property rights in general must be considered. For example, Professor Fabio Tronchetti disagrees with the oft-cited notion that state practice affirms the SREU Act.2 14 According to the professor, "under international law, property rights require a superior authority, a State, entitled to attribute and enforce them." 2 15 By granting property rights in the SREU Act, the United States impliedly claims that it has the authority to confer property rights over space resources-an authority traditionally reserved for the owner of a resource. This notion clashes with the nonappropriation principles of the OST. Though there is no consensus regarding whether the nonappropriation principle prohibits claims of sovereignty over resources, a strong consensus at least exists that the principle prohibits states from claiming sovereignty over real property in space.216 In some traditional systems of mineral ownership, however, ownership over resources ran with ownership over land.217 For example, under Roman law, property rights over subsurface minerals belonged to the landowner. 2 18 Thus, if the United States cannot have title in space lands under the nonappropriation principle, it cannot have title to the space resources in those lands either. Without title to the resources, the United States cannot bestow such title to its citizens under traditional international property law; by claiming that it can bestow such title, the United States is abrogating Article II of the OST. One could also argue that the in situ resources the Act grants rights in are actually still part of the celestial bodies; thus, the resources are real property prior to their removal, and are off limits under the Treaty.2 19 Given the limited import of the cited examples of state practice (limited quantity and scientific versus large-scale and commercial), the traditional practice of property rights being conferred from a sovereign to a citizen become incredibly compelling and suggest the SREU Act may abrogate the United States' treaty obligations. A final piece of evidence, however, again inserts ambiguity into the interpretation: the sweeping rejection of the Moon Agreement and its limitations on property rights by the international community discussed supra Part JJJ.A.2. On the one hand, the rejection may imply that the international community approved of property rights. On the other hand, however, there were other reasons for the sweeping rejection. For example, Professors Francis Lyall and Paul B. Larsen claim the "main area of controversy"2 2 0 actually surrounded the Agreement's proclamation of the Moon and celestial bodies and their natural resources as the "common heritage of mankind" in Article 11.1,221 rather than the Agreement's general property-right provisions. Many believed the invocation of the "common heritage of mankind" language would impart actual obligations upon parties to share extracted resources, whereas the "province of all mankind" and "for the benefit and interest of all" language of the OST did not.222 As with ordinary meaning, preparatory materials, and historical context, state practice leaves some ambiguities and state interpretations should also be considered. 5. State Interpretations Much like the preparatory materials discussed supra Part IV.A.1, subsequent state interpretation of the OST fails to fully address the question of the legality of property rights in space resources. On the one hand, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations found that the drafters intended Articles I, II, and III of the Treaty to be general in nature when reviewing the Treaty,223 which perhaps suggests Article II's nonappropriation principle does not qualify Article I's general right to use or act as an exception. Yet, the committee also found the Treaty to be in response to the "potential for international competition and conflict in outer space." 2 24 To the committee, Articles I, II, and III stressed the importance of free scientific investigation, guaranteed free access to all areas of celestial bodies, and prohibited claims of sovereignty.225 Not only would property rights in natural resources potentially ignite and exacerbate conflict in space, but they also seemed somewhat incompatible with scientific investigation, free access, and the prohibition on sovereignty. During its hearing on the Treaty, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations focused a majority of its discussion of Article I on whether or not the language "province of all mankind" imparted strict obligations, while devoting little to no time to the issue of the meaning of "use." 22 6 Former Justice Arthur Goldberg, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, did note the goal of the article was to "cnot subject space to exclusive appropriation by any particular power." 227 Nevertheless, this statement fails to resolve whether natural resources may be exploited, as such exploitation could be carried out in an inclusive manner. The committee's review of Article II consumes only eight lines of the hearing transcript, merely adding that the Article is complementary to Article I and that space cannot be claimed for the country (likely referring to land rather than resources).2 28 A different exchange between Ambassador Goldberg, Senator Lausche, and the Chairman leaves further ambiguity regarding the use of natural resources in space: Mr. Goldberg: We wanted to establish our right to explore and use outer space. Senator Lausche: Yes. That is, any one of the signatory nations shall have the right to the use of whatever might be found in one of the space bodies. Mr. Goldberg: No, no. It doesn't mean that. It means that they shall be free on their own to explore outer space. The Chairman: Or to use it. Mr. Goldberg: To use it. The Chairman: But not on an exclusive basis. Mr. Goldberg: Everyone is free.229 At first, Ambassador Goldberg appears to have refuted the notion that a signatory could simply "use" anything found in one of the space bodies, such as a mineral, implying Senator Lausche's example exceeded the scope of Article I. He then went on to emphasize exploratory activities. But then, Ambassador Goldberg backtracked and reasserted the right to use without clarifying his initial qualification. This sense of ambiguity remains today despite Congress signing off on the SREU Act. While sponsors of the bill and statements from resource extraction companies emphasized the broad scope of the right to "use" outer space and state practice in support of the legality of 230 property rights, several expert witnesses expressed genuine concern that obligations under the Treaty remain unclear and require additional analysis.231 B. Compatibility Employing the treaty interpretation tools of ordinary meaning, preparatory materials, historical context, state practice, and state interpretation offers many possible understandings of the obligations imparted by Articles I and II of the OST. For example, while the ordinary meaning of "use" could reasonably include the exploitation of materials, the meeting summaries of the Fifth Session of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Legal Sub-Committee make clear that no consensus was ever reached regarding whether "use" includes large-scale exploitation of space resources, let alone fee-simple ownership and the ability to sell commercially. State practice dealing with extraterrestrial samples also sheds little light on the confusion, as the examples cited all deal instead with scientific samples of limited quantity. The international community's rejection of the Moon Agreement also fails to bring clarity. While on the one hand the rejection could be read as a rejection of the idea that the OST prohibits private property rights, it could also be read as a rejection of the common heritage of mankind doctrine. Finally, the prospect of privateventure space mining and extraterrestrial resource extraction remained far off and futuristic at the time of the Treaty's negotiation, making drawing legal conclusions about the legality of these revolutionary activities extremely difficult. Overall, however, the Treaty's structure and its purposes (preserving peace and avoiding international conflict in outer space) ultimately indicate that private property rights in space resources are prohibited by Article II's non-appropriation principle, at least until future international delegation determines otherwise (like in the Antarctic). The Treaty's structure confirms this interpretation. Article I lays down a general rule for activity in space. Subsequent articles of the Treaty then lay out more specific requirements of and qualifications to this general rule. Much like Article IV restricts the use of nuclear weapons in space, Article II restricts the use of space in ways that might result in potentially controversial property claims. Historically, claims to mineral rights have resulted in just as contentious conflict as those over sovereign lands. Treaty efforts to avoid conflicts in Antarctica and the high seas reflect similar sentiments. The Soviet Union's representative even hinted at this structural relationship between Articles I and II during Treaty S1 232 negotiations.22 In light of the imminent need to ease Cold War tensions, the potential for conflict over property, and the final structure of the Treaty, this Note concludes that the large-scale extraction of space resources is incompatible with the non-appropriation principle of Article II of the OST.23 3 As a result, the United States' provision of property rights to its citizens to possess, own, transport, use, and sell space and asteroid resources extracted through the SREU Act contravenes its international obligations established by the OST. 2 Two violations – 1) the Plan is Extra-T - since it establishes a new property rights regime AND 2) Effects-T - since the Global Commons ISN’T INTRINSICALLY a reduction on Private Property in Space, it involves actions like creating a governance system AND redistribution/cooperation which is the I/L to their Colonialism Advantage
3 Standards:
extra T is a voting issue – their model justifies any number of new unpredictable additions to “ending appropriation of outer space by private entities” which explodes neg prep and destroys predictable limits. 2. effects T is a voting issue – using existing mechanisms is good because they establish a cap on the number of possible affirmatives and provide core negative ground like the negotiations disad or the cooperation disad. Allowing the aff to create infinite new mechanisms explodes predictable limits with random utopian mechs that aren’t limited by the resolution which hurts fairness and education. It justifies affs that abolish all governments in favor of a new world government, affs that self-abolish their country’s government as a means of disbanding their private space programs, and any other number of affs that incidentally result in private appropriation of space going away.
4 TVA – just defend that space appropriation is bad. 5 No RVIs: a. Chills theory – If people know they might lose for reading theory, it will disincentivize them. b. You don’t get to win by being fair. c. Theory Baiting – good theory debaters will bait people into reading theory against certain cases. T link turns 1AR theory – proves the aff forced me to be abusive 6 Use competing interpretations: a. Reasonability causes a race to the bottom with testing the limit of it b. Judge intervention shouldn’t be allowed bc it produces bias c. Uniquely, use competing interps on T – you can’t be reasonably topical 7 Drop the debater: for being abusive – we can’t restart the round from the 1AC and I’m skewed for the rest of the debate.
1/17/22
JANFEB-T-Appropriation
Tournament: Harvard-Westlake | Round: 5 | Opponent: Dougherty Valley KM | Judge: Vontrez White 1NC – OFF Interp: “Appropriation” means to take as property Leon 18 (Amanda M., Associate, Caplin and Drysdale, JD UVA Law) "Mining for Meaning: An Examination of the Legality of Property Rights in Space Resources." Virginia Law Review, vol. 104, no. 3, May 2018, p. 497-547. HeinOnline. Appropriation. The term "appropriation" also remains ambiguous. Webster's defines the verb "appropriate" as "to take to oneself in exclusion of others; to claim or use as by an exclusive or pre-eminent right; as, let no man appropriate a common benefit."16 5 Similarly, Black's Law Dictionary describes "appropriate" as an act "to make a thing one's own; to make a thing the subject of property; to exercise dominion over an object to the extent, and for the purpose, of making it subserve one's own proper use or pleasure."166 Oftentimes, appropriation refers to the setting aside of government funds, the taking of land for public purposes, or a tort of wrongfully taking another's property as one's own. The term appropriation is often used not only with respect to real property but also with water. According to U.S. case law, a person completes an appropriation of water by diversion of the water and an application of the water to beneficial use.167 This common use of the term "appropriation" with respect to water illustrates two key points: (1) the term applies to natural resources-e.g., water or minerals-not just real property, and (2) mining space resources and putting them to beneficial use-e.g., selling or manufacturing the mined resources could reasonably be interpreted as an "appropriation" of outer space. While the ordinary meaning of "appropriation" reasonably includes the taking of natural resources as well as land, whether the drafters and parties to the OST envisioned such a broad meaning of the term remains difficult to determine with any certainty. The prohibition against appropriation "by any other means" supports such a reading, though, by expanding the prohibition to other types not explicitly described.168 As illustrated by this analysis, considerable ambiguity remains after this ordinary-meaning analysis and thus, the question of Treaty obligations and property rights remains unresolved. In order to resolve these ambiguities, an analysis of preparatory materials, historical context, and state practice follows. 2. Preparatory Materials A review of meeting reports of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its Legal Sub-Committee regarding the Treaty reveals little to clear up the ambiguities of Articles I and II of the OST. In fact, the reports indicate that, despite several negotiating states expressing concern about the lack of clarity with respect to the meaning of "use" and the scope of the non-appropriation principle, no meaningful discussion occurred and no consensus was reached.16 9 Some commentators still conclude that the preparatory work does in fact confirm the drafters' intent for "use" to include exploitation. 170 These commentators do admit, however, that discussions of the term "exploitation" supporting their conclusion focused on remote sensing and communications satellites rather than on resource extraction.17 1 Further skepticism about such an intent for "use" to include "exploitation" also arises given the uncertainty amongst negotiating states about the meaning of these terms. A mere few months before the Treaty opened for signature in January 1967, negotiators were still asking questions about the meaning of "use" during the last few Legal Sub-Committee meetings. For example, in July 1966, the representative of France inquired: "Did the latter term "use" imply use for exploration purposes, such as the launching of satellites, or did it mean use in the sense of exploitation, which would involve far more complex issues?" 172 The representative noted that while some activities such as extraction of minerals were difficult to imagine presently, "it was important for all States, and not only those engaged in space exploration, to know exactly what was meant by the term 'use.'173 In the same meeting, the representative from the USSR offered an interesting response to the question posed by the representative of France: Adequate clarification was to be found in article II of the USSR draft, which specified that outer space and celestial bodies should not be subject to national appropriation by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. In other words no human activity on the moon or any other celestial body could be taken as justification for national appropriation. 174 This response implies that Article II acts as a qualification on Article I's broad provision for free exploration and use of outer space by all. Activity such as resource extraction would be viewed as national appropriation and such activity cannot be justified given Article II's prohibition, not even by falling within the ordinary meaning of "use." Despite this clarification, uncertainty appears to have remained, as lingering concerns were communicated in subsequent meetings by several other states, including Australia, Austria, and France."' Nevertheless, the committee put the Treaty in front of the General Assembly two months later without final resolution of the ambiguities regarding property rights arising from Articles I and II176 The preparatory materials ultimately fail to fully clarify the ambiguities of the meanings of "use" and "appropriation." The statement of the representative of the Soviet Union, one of the two main drafting parties, does, however, help push back on the interpretation of some academics that the nonappropriation principle fails to overcome the presumption of freedom of use.7 3. Historical Context Two interrelated, major historical events cannot be ignored when considering the meaning of the OST: (1) the Cold War and (2) the Space Race. The success of Sputnik I in 1957 showed space travel and exploration no longer to be a dream, but a reality.7 While exciting, this news also brought fear in light of the world's fragile balance of power and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. 17 9 What if the Soviet Union managed to launch a nuclear weapon into space? What if the United States greedily claimed the Moon as the fifty-first state? To many, the combination of the Cold War and Space Race made the late 1950s and the 1960s a perilous time.so When viewed as a response to this perilous era, the OST begins to look much more like a nuclear arms treaty and an attempt to ease Cold War tensions than a treaty concerned with the issue of property rights in space."' The Treaty's emphasis on "peaceful purposes" supports this contextual interpretation. 1 82 On the one hand, as many suggest, this context leads to the conclusion that the vague nonappropriation principle of Article II does not prevent private property rights in space resources and the presumption of broad "use" prevails.1 83 Private property rights were simply not a concern of the Treaty drafters and therefore, the Treaty does not address-nor prohibit-such claims. On the other hand, the context surrounding the treaty's drafting does not necessarily lead to this conclusion. In fact, the emphasis on "peaceful purposes" and reducing international tension might instead suggest a stricter reading of Articles I and II. If things were so unstable and tense on Earth, the drafters may have instead intended Article II as a qualification on the general right to explore and use outer space in Article I, recognizing the simple fact that disputes over property, both land and minerals, have sparked some of history's bloodiest conflicts. The Antarctic treaty experience evidences Cold War concern over potential resource rights disputes. Leading up to the finalization of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959,184 seven nations had already made official territorial claims over varying portions of the frozen landscape in hopes of laying claim to the plethora of resources thought to be located within the subsurface."' Although the Treaty itself did not directly address rights to mineral resources in the Antarctic,186 the treaty is interpreted to have frozen these claims in the interest of "freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end.""' In a manner notably similar to the terms of Articles XI and XII of the OST, the Treaty promotes scientific exploration by encouraging information sharing of scientific program plans, personnel, and observations' and inspection of stations on a reciprocal basis.189 This Treaty along with several later treaties and protocols constitute the "Antarctic Treaty System," which as a whole manages the governance of Antarctica.1 9 0 In 1991, the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty 91 ("Madrid Protocol") settled the question of property rights for the fifty years following the Protocol's entry into force. 192 The Madrid Protocol provides for "the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment ... and designates Antarctica as a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science."193 Article 7 explicitly-and simplystates "any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research, shall be prohibited."1 94 Though Article 25 allows for the creation of a binding legal regime to determine whether and under what conditions mineral resource activity be allowed, no such international legal regime has been created to date. 195 The ban on mineral resource exploitation may only be amended by unanimous consent of the parties. 19 6 The United States signed and ratified both the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 and the Madrid Protocol. 197 The freezing of territorial claims in the Antarctic 98 by the Antarctica Treaty of 1959199 illustrates the existence of true concern over potential resource dispute and conflict during the Cold War, in addition to the major concerns posed by nuclear weapons.2 00 The drafting states also recognized the potential for conflict over property in outer space and drew on the language of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 to draft the OST.2 01 Given these driving concerns, Article II could be reasonably read as qualifying Article I's general rule. Under this reading, Article II serves the same qualifying purpose as Article IV regarding military and nuclear weapon use in space. Some might push back on this interpretation by claiming that the drafters could have used language such as that in the Madrid Protocol to explicitly prohibit mining in space. However, this argument is flawed. The Madrid Protocol was not written until well after both the original Antarctic Treaty of 1959 and the OST. Furthermore, the timing of the Madrid Protocol perhaps provides further evidence that resources in space are not to be harvested until a subsequent agreement regarding rights over them can be agreed upon internationally. While the historical context does leave some ambiguity as to whether the OST permits property rights over space resources, the Antarctic experience provides a compelling analogy and suggests that the OST does not allow for property rights in space resources. 4. State Practice In its Frequently Asked Questions released about the SREU Act, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology forcefully asserted that the Act does not violate international law.20 2 in fact, according to the committee, the Act's provision of property rights "is affirmed by State practice and by the U.S. State Department in congressional testimony and written correspondence."2 03 Proponents of this view base their beliefs on several examples. One, "no serious objection" arose to the United States and the Soviet Union bringing samples of rocks and other materials from the Moon back by manned and robotic missions in the late 1960s, nor to Japan successfully collecting a small asteroid sample in 2010.204 Two, a practice of respecting ownership over such retrieved samples and a terrestrial market for such items exists, as illustrated by the fact that no one doubts that the American Museum of Natural History "owns" three asteroids found in Greenland by arctic explorer Robert E. Peary that are now part of the museum's Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites. 205 Three, Congressmen also cite to a federal district court case, United States v. One Lucite Ball Containing Lunar Material,2 06 to illustrate state practice in favor of ownership over spaces resources. The case involved an Apollo lunar sample gifted to Honduras by the United States. The sample was stolen and sold to an individual in the United States.2 07 When caught during a sting operation intended to uncover illegal sales of imposter samples, the buyer was forced to forfeit the lunar sample after the court concluded the moon rocks had in fact been stolen, basing its decision in part on its recognition of Honduras having national property ownership over the sample. 208 These examples appear overwhelming, but they are not actually examples of activities of the same "form and content" that the SREU Act approves. 2 09 These examples all involve collection of samples in limited amounts and for scientific purposes, while the SREU Act approves large-scale collection and for commercial exploitation. The OST explicitly emphasizes a "freedom of scientific investigation in outer space," and the collection of scientific samples reasonably fall under this enumerated right. 2 10 Alternatively, the OST says nothing with respect to commercial exploitation, only discussing "benefits" of space in terms of sharing those benefits with all mankind.211 Furthermore, the American Museum of Natural History and Lucite Ball examples relied upon are misleading because they suggest that types of celestial artifacts found or gifted on Earth are subject to the same legal regime as resources mined or collected in space, which may not necessarily be true. The analogy of ownership over fish extracted from the high seas is also often cited in response to this pushback. Much like outer space, the high seas are open to all participants, yet the law of the seas still recognizes the right to title over fish extracted on the high seas by fishermen, who can then sell the fish.212 But again, this analogy has limited import because both the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ("UNCLOS") explicitly recognize the right to fish, while the OST grants no such right to exploit space resources. 2 1 3 Furthermore, state practice relevant to the question of property rights under the OST goes beyond these examples and analogies of ownership of resources taken from commons. State practice regarding property rights in general must be considered. For example, Professor Fabio Tronchetti disagrees with the oft-cited notion that state practice affirms the SREU Act.2 14 According to the professor, "under international law, property rights require a superior authority, a State, entitled to attribute and enforce them." 2 15 By granting property rights in the SREU Act, the United States impliedly claims that it has the authority to confer property rights over space resources-an authority traditionally reserved for the owner of a resource. This notion clashes with the nonappropriation principles of the OST. Though there is no consensus regarding whether the nonappropriation principle prohibits claims of sovereignty over resources, a strong consensus at least exists that the principle prohibits states from claiming sovereignty over real property in space.216 In some traditional systems of mineral ownership, however, ownership over resources ran with ownership over land.217 For example, under Roman law, property rights over subsurface minerals belonged to the landowner. 2 18 Thus, if the United States cannot have title in space lands under the nonappropriation principle, it cannot have title to the space resources in those lands either. Without title to the resources, the United States cannot bestow such title to its citizens under traditional international property law; by claiming that it can bestow such title, the United States is abrogating Article II of the OST. One could also argue that the in situ resources the Act grants rights in are actually still part of the celestial bodies; thus, the resources are real property prior to their removal, and are off limits under the Treaty.2 19 Given the limited import of the cited examples of state practice (limited quantity and scientific versus large-scale and commercial), the traditional practice of property rights being conferred from a sovereign to a citizen become incredibly compelling and suggest the SREU Act may abrogate the United States' treaty obligations. A final piece of evidence, however, again inserts ambiguity into the interpretation: the sweeping rejection of the Moon Agreement and its limitations on property rights by the international community discussed supra Part JJJ.A.2. On the one hand, the rejection may imply that the international community approved of property rights. On the other hand, however, there were other reasons for the sweeping rejection. For example, Professors Francis Lyall and Paul B. Larsen claim the "main area of controversy"2 2 0 actually surrounded the Agreement's proclamation of the Moon and celestial bodies and their natural resources as the "common heritage of mankind" in Article 11.1,221 rather than the Agreement's general property-right provisions. Many believed the invocation of the "common heritage of mankind" language would impart actual obligations upon parties to share extracted resources, whereas the "province of all mankind" and "for the benefit and interest of all" language of the OST did not.222 As with ordinary meaning, preparatory materials, and historical context, state practice leaves some ambiguities and state interpretations should also be considered. 5. State Interpretations Much like the preparatory materials discussed supra Part IV.A.1, subsequent state interpretation of the OST fails to fully address the question of the legality of property rights in space resources. On the one hand, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations found that the drafters intended Articles I, II, and III of the Treaty to be general in nature when reviewing the Treaty,223 which perhaps suggests Article II's nonappropriation principle does not qualify Article I's general right to use or act as an exception. Yet, the committee also found the Treaty to be in response to the "potential for international competition and conflict in outer space." 2 24 To the committee, Articles I, II, and III stressed the importance of free scientific investigation, guaranteed free access to all areas of celestial bodies, and prohibited claims of sovereignty.225 Not only would property rights in natural resources potentially ignite and exacerbate conflict in space, but they also seemed somewhat incompatible with scientific investigation, free access, and the prohibition on sovereignty. During its hearing on the Treaty, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations focused a majority of its discussion of Article I on whether or not the language "province of all mankind" imparted strict obligations, while devoting little to no time to the issue of the meaning of "use." 22 6 Former Justice Arthur Goldberg, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, did note the goal of the article was to "cnot subject space to exclusive appropriation by any particular power." 227 Nevertheless, this statement fails to resolve whether natural resources may be exploited, as such exploitation could be carried out in an inclusive manner. The committee's review of Article II consumes only eight lines of the hearing transcript, merely adding that the Article is complementary to Article I and that space cannot be claimed for the country (likely referring to land rather than resources).2 28 A different exchange between Ambassador Goldberg, Senator Lausche, and the Chairman leaves further ambiguity regarding the use of natural resources in space: Mr. Goldberg: We wanted to establish our right to explore and use outer space. Senator Lausche: Yes. That is, any one of the signatory nations shall have the right to the use of whatever might be found in one of the space bodies. Mr. Goldberg: No, no. It doesn't mean that. It means that they shall be free on their own to explore outer space. The Chairman: Or to use it. Mr. Goldberg: To use it. The Chairman: But not on an exclusive basis. Mr. Goldberg: Everyone is free.229 At first, Ambassador Goldberg appears to have refuted the notion that a signatory could simply "use" anything found in one of the space bodies, such as a mineral, implying Senator Lausche's example exceeded the scope of Article I. He then went on to emphasize exploratory activities. But then, Ambassador Goldberg backtracked and reasserted the right to use without clarifying his initial qualification. This sense of ambiguity remains today despite Congress signing off on the SREU Act. While sponsors of the bill and statements from resource extraction companies emphasized the broad scope of the right to "use" outer space and state practice in support of the legality of 230 property rights, several expert witnesses expressed genuine concern that obligations under the Treaty remain unclear and require additional analysis.231 B. Compatibility Employing the treaty interpretation tools of ordinary meaning, preparatory materials, historical context, state practice, and state interpretation offers many possible understandings of the obligations imparted by Articles I and II of the OST. For example, while the ordinary meaning of "use" could reasonably include the exploitation of materials, the meeting summaries of the Fifth Session of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Legal Sub-Committee make clear that no consensus was ever reached regarding whether "use" includes large-scale exploitation of space resources, let alone fee-simple ownership and the ability to sell commercially. State practice dealing with extraterrestrial samples also sheds little light on the confusion, as the examples cited all deal instead with scientific samples of limited quantity. The international community's rejection of the Moon Agreement also fails to bring clarity. While on the one hand the rejection could be read as a rejection of the idea that the OST prohibits private property rights, it could also be read as a rejection of the common heritage of mankind doctrine. Finally, the prospect of privateventure space mining and extraterrestrial resource extraction remained far off and futuristic at the time of the Treaty's negotiation, making drawing legal conclusions about the legality of these revolutionary activities extremely difficult. Overall, however, the Treaty's structure and its purposes (preserving peace and avoiding international conflict in outer space) ultimately indicate that private property rights in space resources are prohibited by Article II's non-appropriation principle, at least until future international delegation determines otherwise (like in the Antarctic). The Treaty's structure confirms this interpretation. Article I lays down a general rule for activity in space. Subsequent articles of the Treaty then lay out more specific requirements of and qualifications to this general rule. Much like Article IV restricts the use of nuclear weapons in space, Article II restricts the use of space in ways that might result in potentially controversial property claims. Historically, claims to mineral rights have resulted in just as contentious conflict as those over sovereign lands. Treaty efforts to avoid conflicts in Antarctica and the high seas reflect similar sentiments. The Soviet Union's representative even hinted at this structural relationship between Articles I and II during Treaty S1 232 negotiations.22 In light of the imminent need to ease Cold War tensions, the potential for conflict over property, and the final structure of the Treaty, this Note concludes that the large-scale extraction of space resources is incompatible with the non-appropriation principle of Article II of the OST.23 3 As a result, the United States' provision of property rights to its citizens to possess, own, transport, use, and sell space and asteroid resources extracted through the SREU Act contravenes its international obligations established by the OST. 2 Two violations – 1) the Plan is Extra-T - since it establishes a new property rights regime AND 2) Effects-T - since the Global Commons ISN’T INTRINSICALLY a reduction on Private Property in Space, it involves actions like creating a governance system AND redistribution/cooperation which is the I/L to their Colonialism Advantage
3 Standards:
extra T is a voting issue – their model justifies any number of new unpredictable additions to “ending appropriation of outer space by private entities” which explodes neg prep and destroys predictable limits. 2. effects T is a voting issue – using existing mechanisms is good because they establish a cap on the number of possible affirmatives and provide core negative ground like the negotiations disad or the cooperation disad. Allowing the aff to create infinite new mechanisms explodes predictable limits with random utopian mechs that aren’t limited by the resolution which hurts fairness and education. It justifies affs that abolish all governments in favor of a new world government, affs that self-abolish their country’s government as a means of disbanding their private space programs, and any other number of affs that incidentally result in private appropriation of space going away.
4 TVA – just defend that space appropriation is bad. 5 No RVIs: a. Chills theory – If people know they might lose for reading theory, it will disincentivize them. b. You don’t get to win by being fair. c. Theory Baiting – good theory debaters will bait people into reading theory against certain cases. T link turns 1AR theory – proves the aff forced me to be abusive 6 Use competing interpretations: a. Reasonability causes a race to the bottom with testing the limit of it b. Judge intervention shouldn’t be allowed bc it produces bias c. Uniquely, use competing interps on T – you can’t be reasonably topical 7 Drop the debater: for being abusive – we can’t restart the round from the 1AC and I’m skewed for the rest of the debate.
1/17/22
JANFEB-T-No Gov
Tournament: Harvard-Westlake | Round: 4 | Opponent: Immaculate heart ES | Judge: Andrew Gong 1NC—T No Gov Interpretation – The affirmative cannot defend governmental action. Private entity is non-governmental Cornell (https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840andheight=800andiframe=trueanddef_id=6-USC-625312480-168358316andterm_occur=999andterm_src=title:6:chapter:6:subchapter:I:section:1501) private entity (A) In general Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, the term “private entity” means any person or private group, organization, proprietorship, partnership, trust, cooperative, corporation, or other commercial or nonprofit entity, including an officer, employee, or agent thereof. (B) Inclusion The term “private entity” includes a State, tribal, or local government performing utility services, such as electric, natural gas, or water services. (C) Exclusion The term “private entity” does not include a foreign power as defined in section 1801 of title 50.
Private entities are majority owned and managed by nonstate actors Warners 20 (Bill, JD Candidate, May 2021, at UIC John Marshall Law School) "Patents 254 Miles up: Jurisdictional Issues Onboard the International Space Station." UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law, vol. 19, no. 4, 2020, p. 365-380. HeinOnline. EE To satisfy these three necessary requirements for a new patent regime, the ISS IGA must add an additional clause ("Clause 7") in Article 21 specifically establishing a patent regime for private nonstate third parties onboard the ISS. First, Clause 7 would define the term "private entity" as an individual, organization, or business which is primarily privately owned and/or managed by nonstate affiliates. Specifically defining the term "private entity" prevents confusion as to what entities qualify under the agreement and the difference between "public" and "private."99 This definition would also support the connection of Clause 1 in Article 21 to "Article 2 of the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization." 100 A succinct definition also alleviates international concerns that the changes to the ISS IGA pushes out Partner State influence. 101 Some in the international community may still point out that Clause 7 still pushes towards a trend of outer space privatization. However, this argument fails to consider that private entities in outer space have operated in space almost as comprehensively as national organizations. 102 Violation: They defend Chinese governmental action. Standards: 1 Vote neg for predictable limits. Their aff justifies ignoring words in the resolution which destroys any predictable basis of neg prep. There’s no non-arbitrary way to choose which words aren’t changeable under their interp. This leads to debates where we’re forced to go for generics which destroys education. 2 Clash: they destroy clash by attaching and adding anything they want to the resolution – this allows them to unlink from ks and das that were prepped for the actual res and prevents any engagement. 2 TVA solves: Defend no governmental action Fairness is a voter – debate’s a game that needs rules to evaluate it and answers to it rely on the judge evaluating the argument fairly No RVIs: a. Chills theory – If people know they might lose for reading theory, it will disincentivize them. b. You don’t get to win by being fair. c. Theory Baiting – good theory debaters will bait people into reading theory against certain cases. T link turns 1AR theory – proves the aff forced me to be abusive Use competing interpretations: a. Reasonability causes a race to the bottom with testing the limit of it b. Judge intervention shouldn’t be allowed bc it produces bias c. Uniquely, use competing interps on T – you can’t be reasonably topical Drop the debater: for being abusive – we can’t restart the round from the 1AC and I’m skewed for the rest of the debate.
1/17/22
Midterms-Politix DA
Tournament: All | Round: Finals | Opponent: All | Judge: All Dems win the Senate now, but it’s close-~--it determines the Biden presidency. Shane Goldmacher 7/17. Reporter, New York Times, “Democrats See Edge in Early Senate Map as Trump Casts Big Shadow,” The New York Times, July 17, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/us/politics/midterm-elections.html, RJP, DebateDrills. Six months into the Biden administration, Senate Democrats are expressing a cautious optimism that the party can keep control of the chamber in the 2022 midterm elections, enjoying large fund-raising hauls in marquee races as they plot to exploit Republican retirements in key battlegrounds and a divisive series of unsettled G.O.P. primaries. Swing-state Democratic incumbents, like Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona, restocked their war chests with multimillion-dollar sums ($7.2 million and $6 million, respectively), according to new financial filings this week. That gives them an early financial head start in two key states where Republicans’ disagreements over former President Donald J. Trump’s refusal to accept his loss in 2020 are threatening to distract and fracture the party. But Democratic officials are all too aware of the foreboding political history they confront: that in a president’s first midterms, the party occupying the White House typically loses seats — often in bunches. For now, Democrats hold power by only the narrowest of margins in a 50-50 split Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker to push through President Biden’s expansive agenda on the economy, the pandemic and infrastructure.
The plan is unpopular-~--it’s seen as soft on China. Cynthia Hicks 21. Director of Public Affairs at PhRMA focusing on polling and opinion research that supports advocacy communications and strategy. “New polling shows Americans are sounding the alarm on the TRIPS IP waiver,” PhRMA, May 14, 2021, https://catalyst.phrma.org/new-polling-shows-americans-are-sounding-the-alarm-on-the-trips-ip-waiver, RJP, DebateDrills *NOTE – the stuff after “include the following” is a picture that couldn’t be pasted. Go to the URL if you want to see it.
2. Americans are concerned that the TRIPS waiver could risk patient safety, sow public confusion, and cede America’s global innovation leadership to China. Americans worry that waiving intellectual property introduces unnecessary and dangerous risks to safety and vaccine manufacturing. The top concerns – expressed by more than six in ten voters – include the following:
Democrats and Republicans in purple states are already leaning into U.S. competition with China as a key issue in the fight to control the Senate in 2022. Why it matters: American voters hold increasingly negative feelings toward the Chinese government, particularly around bilateral economic relations and following the nation’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. President Biden also has made it clear that confronting China remains a foreign policy priority. Possibly vulnerable Democratic senators are capitalizing on the passage of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, a sweeping global competition bill focused on China that recently passed by a rare bipartisan vote. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) visited Kia’s West Point factory in Georgia to address how the bill could address the recent semiconductor shortage and avoid future plant shutdowns, like one the factory experienced. Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) wrote op-eds in their local news outlets highlighting the bill's benefits. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and state Democratic parties are calling out Republicans like Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), both of whom voted against the bill. They’ve also targeted Republicans running in open Senate seats who have expressed opposition to the bill. Meanwhile, Rubio has been making a play for China hawks in Florida, Axios’ Lachlan Markay reported last week. Rubio, who is up for re-election next year, has been sending campaign emails with subject lines such as, "Dems 3 China," and, "Is it time to stand up to Communist China?" to a list maintained by a nonprofit group called Stand Up to China. In Arizona, Republicans latched onto Kelly's ties to a Chinese tech firm last year, and it's likely they'll continue to use that strategy. The senator's team has argued he isn't beholden to Chinese authorities. Republicans have long branded Democrats as "weak" on China as a line of attack. Expect that to continue through the campaign cycle, as Democratic candidates tout the passage of the U.S. Innovation Act and reframe the narrative. They plan to focus on increasing the United States' competitive edge with China as a policy priority. What they’re saying: David Bergstein, a spokesman for the DSCC, said the campaign committee will be “reminding voters that any Republican who refused to back this critical bill was too weak to stand up to China in order to protect and grow good-paying jobs.” Chris Hartline, spokesman for the NRSC, said in a statement that "no one believes that Joe Biden and Senate Democrats will do what it takes to confront the geopolitical and economic threat posed by (President) Xi (Jinping) and the Chinese Communist Party. GOP control of the Senate will be used to usher in a new wave of Trumpism, crushing democracy. Morton Kondracke 21. Retired executive editor of Roll Call, a former "McLaughlin Group" and Fox News commentator and co-author, with Fred Barnes, of Jack Kemp: The Bleeding Heart Conservative Who Changed America. “Why Democrats Must Retain Control of Congress in 2022,” RealClearPolitics, August 4, 2021, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/08/04/why_democrats_must_retain_control_of_congress_in_2022_146189.html, RJP, DebateDrills
The 2020 election demonstrated how fragile our democracy is. As Donald Trump tried, by means both legal and illegal, to overturn the results of a free and fair election, only the courts and a thin line of courageous Republican election officials guaranteed that the peoples’ choice prevailed. But the safeguards are weaker. Although the Supreme Court upheld the last lower-court dismissal of multiple Trump-inspired lawsuits charging election fraud, in July the court upheld new voting restrictions enacted in Arizona. And many of the Republican election officials who refused to back up Trump’s bogus fraud charges have been threatened, fired, or are being challenged for reelection by Trump followers. Meanwhile, 17 Republican-controlled state legislatures have joined Arizona in making voting more difficult: In several of them, legislators are trying to seize control of election management, including power to replace county election officials or even decide how a state’s election results should be certified, regardless of the popular vote. Republicans claim they are acting restore faith in elections, but—with fraud repeatedly shown to be rare and of no effect in in 2020—Trump and his followers are really undermining faith in American elections. The result of this frenzy of activity in furtherance of Trump’s “Big Lie”—that he won the 2020 election (and that he won in a “landslide,” no less) —is that the preservation of American-style self-government depends on Democrats retaining control of Congress in 2022. Republicans have shown that they simply can’t be trusted to safeguard democracy. Donald Trump now owns the Republican Party as GOP politicians up and down the line do his bidding, out of fear or belief. Even after a mob of Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Republicans in Congress voted overwhelmingly against impeaching and convicting him for his actions and inaction. Eight GOP senators and 147 representatives voted not to certify Electoral College counts submitted by two states (had they prevailed, there would have more). Then only six GOP senators voted in favor of forming a truly bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate the insurrection, killing the proposal by filibuster. After Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi established a select committee to conduct an investigation, Republican leaders attacked her as responsible for the riot, falsely claiming she is in charge of security at the Capitol. Republicans who voted against Trump on any issue relating to Jan. 6 now face primary opponents backed by him and censure by their state parties. Rep. Liz Cheney, the most vocal Trump critic in the GOP, lost her House leadership post. Trump has even attacked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who criticized him after Jan. 6 but also blocked creation of the 9/11 commission. It’s classic authoritarian behavior—demanding total loyalty from his followers and total control of his faction, and assailing any rivals in power. Lately, Trump reportedly has encouraged his followers to believe he can somehow be reinstated as president later this month, and the Department of Homeland Security is concerned that the violent acts of Jan. 6 may be repeated when he’s not. The sad, but inevitable conclusion is that if Republicans take control of either chamber in Congress, they will not try to do what’s best for America as a whole. They will do what Trump tells them to do, probably starting with trying to undo everything President Biden and the Democrats in Congress have done during the previous two years. For starters, if Democrats are to prevail next November, Biden must be seen as a successful moderate-progressive president—one who can defy the historical pattern that presidential parties almost invariably lose seats in their first midterm election. The last two Democratic presidents s who launched major initiatives without GOP support, Bill Clinton (tax increases and health care reform) and Barack Obama (Obamacare and anti-recession stimulus spending), suffered historic shellackings in the ensuing midterms—54 House seats and eight Senate seats in 1994, and 63 House and six Senate seats in 2010. Biden, who has multiple big programs in his policy agenda, has smaller Democratic margins in Congress than Clinton and Obama. In other words, the Democrats must hang on to almost all of their contested districts and states. McConnell, who earned the moniker “grim reaper” for blocking Obama, was supposed to be a willing negotiating partner for Biden. Instead, the Senate Republican leader has pronounced himself “100 focused” on defeating Biden’s legislative agenda. So far, Biden has succeeded in passing a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package (with no Republican votes). He is trying to work out a bipartisan $1 trillion “physical infrastructure” package. McConnell isn’t the obstruction with this legislation, as Senate negotiators and the White House sound optimistic. But with Rep. Kevin McCarthy openly angling for Pelosi’s job, nothing is certain in the House. Trump is actively trying to scuttle infrastructure spending. He’s telling Republicans to oppose it, saying passage means letting “the Radical Left play you for weak fools and losers,” and he has threatened primary challenges against GOP legislators who support it. This, despite his promising to pass a $2 trillion bill while president (then never delivering). Republicans who support it obviously want money for roads, bridges and broadband for their constituents. But they don’t like the contents of Biden’s follow-up proposal—a $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” program, which would expand Medicare, caregiving for the disabled and elderly, and child care, while funding universal pre-kindergarten, free community college, national paid family leave, and extended child tax credits. And they don’t like the corporate and capital gains tax increases Democrats propose to pay for it all. So the Democratic plan is to pass it as a “budget reconciliation” measure requiring only Democratic votes. If, next November, the GOP captures one chamber—most likely, the House—whatever Biden can get done in his first two years can’t be easily undone, but he will get nothing more passed. If the GOP gets control of both chambers, Republicans will try to reverse anything he has accomplished. He’ll have only his veto pen as protection. Stalemate from 2023 through 2024—and an unsuccessful-seeming Biden presidency—could reelect Trump (or someone backed by him), in which case constitutional norms and respect for election results and the rule of law would again be in peril. Extinction Kasparov 17 Garry Kasparov, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, former World Chess Champion, “Democracy and Human Rights: The Case for U.S. Leadership,” Testimony Before The Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, February 16th, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/021617_Kasparov_20Testimony.pdf
As one of the countless millions of people who were freed or protected from totalitarianism by the United States of America, it is easy for me to talk about the past. To talk about the belief of the American people and their leaders that this country was exceptional, and had special responsibilities to match its tremendous power. That a nation founded on freedom was bound to defend freedom everywhere. I could talk about the bipartisan legacy of this most American principle, from the Founding Fathers, to Democrats like Harry Truman, to Republicans like Ronald Reagan. I could talk about how the American people used to care deeply about human rights and dissidents in far-off places, and how this is what made America a beacon of hope, a shining city on a hill. America led by example and set a high standard, a standard that exposed the hypocrisy and cruelty of dictatorships around the world. But there is no time for nostalgia. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War, Americans, and America, have retreated from those principles, and the world has become much worse off as a result. American skepticism about America’s role in the world deepened in the long, painful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their aftermaths. Instead of applying the lessons learned about how to do better, lessons about faulty intelligence and working with native populations, the main outcome was to stop trying. This result has been a tragedy for the billions of people still living under authoritarian regimes around the world, and it is based on faulty analysis. You can never guarantee a positive outcome— not in chess, not in war, and certainly not in politics. The best you can do is to do what you know is right and to try your best. I speak from experience when I say that the citizens of unfree states do not expect guarantees. They want a reason to hope and a fighting chance. People living under dictatorships want the opportunity for freedom, the opportunity to live in peace and to follow their dreams. From the Iraq War to the Arab Spring to the current battles for liberty from Venezuela to Eastern Ukraine, people are fighting for that opportunity, giving up their lives for freedom. The United States must not abandon them. The United States and the rest of the free world has an unprecedented advantage in economic and military strength today. What is lacking is the will. The will to make the case to the American people, the will to take risks and invest in the long-term security of the country, and the world. This will require investments in aid, in education, in security that allow countries to attain the stability their people so badly need. Such investment is far more moral and far cheaper than the cycle of terror, war, refugees, and military intervention that results when America leaves a vacuum of power. The best way to help refugees is to prevent them from becoming refugees in the first place. The Soviet Union was an existential threat, and this focused the attention of the world, and the American people. There existential threat today is not found on a map, but it is very real. The forces of the past are making steady progress against the modern world order. Terrorist movements in the Middle East, extremist parties across Europe, a paranoid tyrant in North Korea threatening nuclear blackmail, and, at the center of the web, an aggressive KGB dictator in Russia. They all want to turn the world back to a dark past because their survival is threatened by the values of the free world, epitomized by the United States. And they are thriving as the U.S. has retreated. The global freedom index has declined for ten consecutive years. No one like to talk about the United States as a global policeman, but this is what happens when there is no cop on the beat. American leadership begins at home, right here. America cannot lead the world on democracy and human rights if there is no unity on the meaning and importance of these things. Leadership is required to make that case clearly and powerfully. Right now, Americans are engaged in politics at a level not seen in decades. It is an opportunity for them to rediscover that making America great begins with believing America can be great. The Cold War was won on American values that were shared by both parties and nearly every American. Institutions that were created by a Democrat, Truman, were triumphant forty years later thanks to the courage of a Republican, Reagan. This bipartisan consistency created the decades of strategic stability that is the great strength of democracies. Strong institutions that outlast politicians allow for long-range planning. In contrast, dictators can operate only tactically, not strategically, because they are not constrained by the balance of powers, but cannot afford to think beyond their own survival. This is why a dictator like Putin has an advantage in chaos, the ability to move quickly. This can only be met by strategy, by long-term goals that are based on shared values, not on polls and cable news. The fear of making things worse has paralyzed the United States from trying to make things better. There will always be setbacks, but the United States cannot quit. The spread of democracy is the only proven remedy for nearly every crisis that plagues the world today. War, famine, poverty, terrorism–all are generated and exacerbated by authoritarian regimes. A policy of America First inevitably puts American security last. American leadership is required because there is no one else, and because it is good for America. There is no weapon or wall that is more powerful for security than America being envied, imitated, and admired around the world. Admired not for being perfect, but for having the exceptional courage to always try to be better. Thank you.
11/21/21
Midterms-Politix DA
Tournament: All | Round: Finals | Opponent: All | Judge: All Dems win the Senate now, but it’s close-~--it determines the Biden presidency. Shane Goldmacher 7/17. Reporter, New York Times, “Democrats See Edge in Early Senate Map as Trump Casts Big Shadow,” The New York Times, July 17, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/us/politics/midterm-elections.html, RJP, DebateDrills. Six months into the Biden administration, Senate Democrats are expressing a cautious optimism that the party can keep control of the chamber in the 2022 midterm elections, enjoying large fund-raising hauls in marquee races as they plot to exploit Republican retirements in key battlegrounds and a divisive series of unsettled G.O.P. primaries. Swing-state Democratic incumbents, like Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona, restocked their war chests with multimillion-dollar sums ($7.2 million and $6 million, respectively), according to new financial filings this week. That gives them an early financial head start in two key states where Republicans’ disagreements over former President Donald J. Trump’s refusal to accept his loss in 2020 are threatening to distract and fracture the party. But Democratic officials are all too aware of the foreboding political history they confront: that in a president’s first midterms, the party occupying the White House typically loses seats — often in bunches. For now, Democrats hold power by only the narrowest of margins in a 50-50 split Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker to push through President Biden’s expansive agenda on the economy, the pandemic and infrastructure.
The plan is unpopular-~--it’s seen as soft on China. Cynthia Hicks 21. Director of Public Affairs at PhRMA focusing on polling and opinion research that supports advocacy communications and strategy. “New polling shows Americans are sounding the alarm on the TRIPS IP waiver,” PhRMA, May 14, 2021, https://catalyst.phrma.org/new-polling-shows-americans-are-sounding-the-alarm-on-the-trips-ip-waiver, RJP, DebateDrills *NOTE – the stuff after “include the following” is a picture that couldn’t be pasted. Go to the URL if you want to see it.
2. Americans are concerned that the TRIPS waiver could risk patient safety, sow public confusion, and cede America’s global innovation leadership to China. Americans worry that waiving intellectual property introduces unnecessary and dangerous risks to safety and vaccine manufacturing. The top concerns – expressed by more than six in ten voters – include the following:
Democrats and Republicans in purple states are already leaning into U.S. competition with China as a key issue in the fight to control the Senate in 2022. Why it matters: American voters hold increasingly negative feelings toward the Chinese government, particularly around bilateral economic relations and following the nation’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. President Biden also has made it clear that confronting China remains a foreign policy priority. Possibly vulnerable Democratic senators are capitalizing on the passage of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, a sweeping global competition bill focused on China that recently passed by a rare bipartisan vote. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) visited Kia’s West Point factory in Georgia to address how the bill could address the recent semiconductor shortage and avoid future plant shutdowns, like one the factory experienced. Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) wrote op-eds in their local news outlets highlighting the bill's benefits. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and state Democratic parties are calling out Republicans like Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), both of whom voted against the bill. They’ve also targeted Republicans running in open Senate seats who have expressed opposition to the bill. Meanwhile, Rubio has been making a play for China hawks in Florida, Axios’ Lachlan Markay reported last week. Rubio, who is up for re-election next year, has been sending campaign emails with subject lines such as, "Dems 3 China," and, "Is it time to stand up to Communist China?" to a list maintained by a nonprofit group called Stand Up to China. In Arizona, Republicans latched onto Kelly's ties to a Chinese tech firm last year, and it's likely they'll continue to use that strategy. The senator's team has argued he isn't beholden to Chinese authorities. Republicans have long branded Democrats as "weak" on China as a line of attack. Expect that to continue through the campaign cycle, as Democratic candidates tout the passage of the U.S. Innovation Act and reframe the narrative. They plan to focus on increasing the United States' competitive edge with China as a policy priority. What they’re saying: David Bergstein, a spokesman for the DSCC, said the campaign committee will be “reminding voters that any Republican who refused to back this critical bill was too weak to stand up to China in order to protect and grow good-paying jobs.” Chris Hartline, spokesman for the NRSC, said in a statement that "no one believes that Joe Biden and Senate Democrats will do what it takes to confront the geopolitical and economic threat posed by (President) Xi (Jinping) and the Chinese Communist Party. GOP control of the Senate will be used to usher in a new wave of Trumpism, crushing democracy. Morton Kondracke 21. Retired executive editor of Roll Call, a former "McLaughlin Group" and Fox News commentator and co-author, with Fred Barnes, of Jack Kemp: The Bleeding Heart Conservative Who Changed America. “Why Democrats Must Retain Control of Congress in 2022,” RealClearPolitics, August 4, 2021, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/08/04/why_democrats_must_retain_control_of_congress_in_2022_146189.html, RJP, DebateDrills
The 2020 election demonstrated how fragile our democracy is. As Donald Trump tried, by means both legal and illegal, to overturn the results of a free and fair election, only the courts and a thin line of courageous Republican election officials guaranteed that the peoples’ choice prevailed. But the safeguards are weaker. Although the Supreme Court upheld the last lower-court dismissal of multiple Trump-inspired lawsuits charging election fraud, in July the court upheld new voting restrictions enacted in Arizona. And many of the Republican election officials who refused to back up Trump’s bogus fraud charges have been threatened, fired, or are being challenged for reelection by Trump followers. Meanwhile, 17 Republican-controlled state legislatures have joined Arizona in making voting more difficult: In several of them, legislators are trying to seize control of election management, including power to replace county election officials or even decide how a state’s election results should be certified, regardless of the popular vote. Republicans claim they are acting restore faith in elections, but—with fraud repeatedly shown to be rare and of no effect in in 2020—Trump and his followers are really undermining faith in American elections. The result of this frenzy of activity in furtherance of Trump’s “Big Lie”—that he won the 2020 election (and that he won in a “landslide,” no less) —is that the preservation of American-style self-government depends on Democrats retaining control of Congress in 2022. Republicans have shown that they simply can’t be trusted to safeguard democracy. Donald Trump now owns the Republican Party as GOP politicians up and down the line do his bidding, out of fear or belief. Even after a mob of Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Republicans in Congress voted overwhelmingly against impeaching and convicting him for his actions and inaction. Eight GOP senators and 147 representatives voted not to certify Electoral College counts submitted by two states (had they prevailed, there would have more). Then only six GOP senators voted in favor of forming a truly bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate the insurrection, killing the proposal by filibuster. After Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi established a select committee to conduct an investigation, Republican leaders attacked her as responsible for the riot, falsely claiming she is in charge of security at the Capitol. Republicans who voted against Trump on any issue relating to Jan. 6 now face primary opponents backed by him and censure by their state parties. Rep. Liz Cheney, the most vocal Trump critic in the GOP, lost her House leadership post. Trump has even attacked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who criticized him after Jan. 6 but also blocked creation of the 9/11 commission. It’s classic authoritarian behavior—demanding total loyalty from his followers and total control of his faction, and assailing any rivals in power. Lately, Trump reportedly has encouraged his followers to believe he can somehow be reinstated as president later this month, and the Department of Homeland Security is concerned that the violent acts of Jan. 6 may be repeated when he’s not. The sad, but inevitable conclusion is that if Republicans take control of either chamber in Congress, they will not try to do what’s best for America as a whole. They will do what Trump tells them to do, probably starting with trying to undo everything President Biden and the Democrats in Congress have done during the previous two years. For starters, if Democrats are to prevail next November, Biden must be seen as a successful moderate-progressive president—one who can defy the historical pattern that presidential parties almost invariably lose seats in their first midterm election. The last two Democratic presidents s who launched major initiatives without GOP support, Bill Clinton (tax increases and health care reform) and Barack Obama (Obamacare and anti-recession stimulus spending), suffered historic shellackings in the ensuing midterms—54 House seats and eight Senate seats in 1994, and 63 House and six Senate seats in 2010. Biden, who has multiple big programs in his policy agenda, has smaller Democratic margins in Congress than Clinton and Obama. In other words, the Democrats must hang on to almost all of their contested districts and states. McConnell, who earned the moniker “grim reaper” for blocking Obama, was supposed to be a willing negotiating partner for Biden. Instead, the Senate Republican leader has pronounced himself “100 focused” on defeating Biden’s legislative agenda. So far, Biden has succeeded in passing a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package (with no Republican votes). He is trying to work out a bipartisan $1 trillion “physical infrastructure” package. McConnell isn’t the obstruction with this legislation, as Senate negotiators and the White House sound optimistic. But with Rep. Kevin McCarthy openly angling for Pelosi’s job, nothing is certain in the House. Trump is actively trying to scuttle infrastructure spending. He’s telling Republicans to oppose it, saying passage means letting “the Radical Left play you for weak fools and losers,” and he has threatened primary challenges against GOP legislators who support it. This, despite his promising to pass a $2 trillion bill while president (then never delivering). Republicans who support it obviously want money for roads, bridges and broadband for their constituents. But they don’t like the contents of Biden’s follow-up proposal—a $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” program, which would expand Medicare, caregiving for the disabled and elderly, and child care, while funding universal pre-kindergarten, free community college, national paid family leave, and extended child tax credits. And they don’t like the corporate and capital gains tax increases Democrats propose to pay for it all. So the Democratic plan is to pass it as a “budget reconciliation” measure requiring only Democratic votes. If, next November, the GOP captures one chamber—most likely, the House—whatever Biden can get done in his first two years can’t be easily undone, but he will get nothing more passed. If the GOP gets control of both chambers, Republicans will try to reverse anything he has accomplished. He’ll have only his veto pen as protection. Stalemate from 2023 through 2024—and an unsuccessful-seeming Biden presidency—could reelect Trump (or someone backed by him), in which case constitutional norms and respect for election results and the rule of law would again be in peril. Extinction Kasparov 17 Garry Kasparov, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, former World Chess Champion, “Democracy and Human Rights: The Case for U.S. Leadership,” Testimony Before The Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, February 16th, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/021617_Kasparov_20Testimony.pdf
As one of the countless millions of people who were freed or protected from totalitarianism by the United States of America, it is easy for me to talk about the past. To talk about the belief of the American people and their leaders that this country was exceptional, and had special responsibilities to match its tremendous power. That a nation founded on freedom was bound to defend freedom everywhere. I could talk about the bipartisan legacy of this most American principle, from the Founding Fathers, to Democrats like Harry Truman, to Republicans like Ronald Reagan. I could talk about how the American people used to care deeply about human rights and dissidents in far-off places, and how this is what made America a beacon of hope, a shining city on a hill. America led by example and set a high standard, a standard that exposed the hypocrisy and cruelty of dictatorships around the world. But there is no time for nostalgia. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War, Americans, and America, have retreated from those principles, and the world has become much worse off as a result. American skepticism about America’s role in the world deepened in the long, painful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their aftermaths. Instead of applying the lessons learned about how to do better, lessons about faulty intelligence and working with native populations, the main outcome was to stop trying. This result has been a tragedy for the billions of people still living under authoritarian regimes around the world, and it is based on faulty analysis. You can never guarantee a positive outcome— not in chess, not in war, and certainly not in politics. The best you can do is to do what you know is right and to try your best. I speak from experience when I say that the citizens of unfree states do not expect guarantees. They want a reason to hope and a fighting chance. People living under dictatorships want the opportunity for freedom, the opportunity to live in peace and to follow their dreams. From the Iraq War to the Arab Spring to the current battles for liberty from Venezuela to Eastern Ukraine, people are fighting for that opportunity, giving up their lives for freedom. The United States must not abandon them. The United States and the rest of the free world has an unprecedented advantage in economic and military strength today. What is lacking is the will. The will to make the case to the American people, the will to take risks and invest in the long-term security of the country, and the world. This will require investments in aid, in education, in security that allow countries to attain the stability their people so badly need. Such investment is far more moral and far cheaper than the cycle of terror, war, refugees, and military intervention that results when America leaves a vacuum of power. The best way to help refugees is to prevent them from becoming refugees in the first place. The Soviet Union was an existential threat, and this focused the attention of the world, and the American people. There existential threat today is not found on a map, but it is very real. The forces of the past are making steady progress against the modern world order. Terrorist movements in the Middle East, extremist parties across Europe, a paranoid tyrant in North Korea threatening nuclear blackmail, and, at the center of the web, an aggressive KGB dictator in Russia. They all want to turn the world back to a dark past because their survival is threatened by the values of the free world, epitomized by the United States. And they are thriving as the U.S. has retreated. The global freedom index has declined for ten consecutive years. No one like to talk about the United States as a global policeman, but this is what happens when there is no cop on the beat. American leadership begins at home, right here. America cannot lead the world on democracy and human rights if there is no unity on the meaning and importance of these things. Leadership is required to make that case clearly and powerfully. Right now, Americans are engaged in politics at a level not seen in decades. It is an opportunity for them to rediscover that making America great begins with believing America can be great. The Cold War was won on American values that were shared by both parties and nearly every American. Institutions that were created by a Democrat, Truman, were triumphant forty years later thanks to the courage of a Republican, Reagan. This bipartisan consistency created the decades of strategic stability that is the great strength of democracies. Strong institutions that outlast politicians allow for long-range planning. In contrast, dictators can operate only tactically, not strategically, because they are not constrained by the balance of powers, but cannot afford to think beyond their own survival. This is why a dictator like Putin has an advantage in chaos, the ability to move quickly. This can only be met by strategy, by long-term goals that are based on shared values, not on polls and cable news. The fear of making things worse has paralyzed the United States from trying to make things better. There will always be setbacks, but the United States cannot quit. The spread of democracy is the only proven remedy for nearly every crisis that plagues the world today. War, famine, poverty, terrorism–all are generated and exacerbated by authoritarian regimes. A policy of America First inevitably puts American security last. American leadership is required because there is no one else, and because it is good for America. There is no weapon or wall that is more powerful for security than America being envied, imitated, and admired around the world. Admired not for being perfect, but for having the exceptional courage to always try to be better. Thank you.
11/21/21
NOVDEC- Econ DA v2
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Harker MK | Judge: Margaret Strong DA– Econ The European economy is on an upward trend – the current path is good but preserving the squo is necessary. Nelson 5/12 Eshe Nelson, 5-12-2021, "Europe upgrades its economic outlook as the British economy rebounds.," New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/business/europe-upgrades-its-economic-outlook-as-the-british-economy-rebounds.html//DDPT The economic outlook has brightened considerably across Europe after lockdowns restricted growth at the start of the year. Now, economists foresee the complete recovery by the end of next year from the early effects of the pandemic. The British economy grew 2.1 percent in March from the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. The reopening of schools was one of the biggest reasons for the larger-than-expected jump in economic growth, as well as a rise in retail spending even though many stores remained closed because of lockdowns. The statistics agency estimated that gross domestic product fell 1.5 percent in the first quarter, slightly less than economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted, while the country was under lockdown with nonessential stores, restaurants and other services such as hairdressers shut. Though the British economy is still nearly 9 percent smaller than it was at the end of 2019, before the pandemic, the Bank of England forecasts it to return to that size by the end of this year.
Strikes are uniquely harmful to the economy. Answers and turns case Tenza 20 Mlungisi Tenza (Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal). “The effects of violent strikes on the economy of a developing country: a case of South Africa.” Obiter vol.41 n.3 Port Elizabeth 2020. JDN. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttextandpid=S1682-58532020000300004 When South Africa obtained democracy in 1994, there was a dream of a better country with a new vision for industrial relations.5 However, the number of violent strikes that have bedevilled this country in recent years seems to have shattered-down the aspirations of a better South Africa. South Africa recorded 114 strikes in 2013 and 88 strikes in 2014, which cost the country about R6.1 billion according to the Department of Labour.6 The impact of these strikes has been hugely felt by the mining sector, particularly the platinum industry. The biggest strike took place in the platinum sector where about 70 000 mineworkers' downed tools for better wages. Three major platinum producers (Impala, Anglo American and Lonmin Platinum Mines) were affected. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 25 June 2014. Business Day reported that "the five-month-long strike in the platinum sector pushed the economy to the brink of recession".7 This strike was closely followed by a four-week strike in the metal and engineering sector. All these strikes (and those not mentioned here) were characterised with violence accompanied by damage to property, intimidation, assault and sometimes the killing of people. Statistics from the metal and engineering sector showed that about 246 cases of intimidation were reported, 50 violent incidents occurred, and 85 cases of vandalism were recorded.8 Large-scale unemployment, soaring poverty levels and the dramatic income inequality that characterise the South African labour market provide a broad explanation for strike violence.9 While participating in a strike, workers' stress levels leave them feeling frustrated at their seeming powerlessness, which in turn provokes further violent behaviour.10 These strikes are not only violent but take long to resolve. Generally, a lengthy strike has a negative effect on employment, reduces business confidence and increases the risk of economic stagflation. In addition, such strikes have a major setback on the growth of the economy and investment opportunities. It is common knowledge that consumer spending is directly linked to economic growth. At the same time, if the economy is not showing signs of growth, employment opportunities are shed, and poverty becomes the end result. The economy of South Africa is in need of rapid growth to enable it to deal with the high levels of unemployment and resultant poverty. One of the measures that may boost the country's economic growth is by attracting potential investors to invest in the country. However, this might be difficult as investors would want to invest in a country where there is a likelihood of getting returns for their investments. The wish of getting returns for investment may not materialise if the labour environment is not fertile for such investments as a result of, for example, unstable labour relations. Therefore, investors may be reluctant to invest where there is an unstable or fragile labour relations environment.
Everyone Dies™ Tønnesson 15 Tønnesson, Stein. “Deterrence, Interdependence and Sino–US Peace.” International Area Studies Review, vol. 18, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 297–311, doi:10.1177/2233865915596660. DD PT Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
11/21/21
NOVDEC- Econ DA v2
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Harker MK | Judge: Margaret Strong DA– Econ The European economy is on an upward trend – the current path is good but preserving the squo is necessary. Nelson 5/12 Eshe Nelson, 5-12-2021, "Europe upgrades its economic outlook as the British economy rebounds.," New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/business/europe-upgrades-its-economic-outlook-as-the-british-economy-rebounds.html//DDPT The economic outlook has brightened considerably across Europe after lockdowns restricted growth at the start of the year. Now, economists foresee the complete recovery by the end of next year from the early effects of the pandemic. The British economy grew 2.1 percent in March from the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. The reopening of schools was one of the biggest reasons for the larger-than-expected jump in economic growth, as well as a rise in retail spending even though many stores remained closed because of lockdowns. The statistics agency estimated that gross domestic product fell 1.5 percent in the first quarter, slightly less than economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted, while the country was under lockdown with nonessential stores, restaurants and other services such as hairdressers shut. Though the British economy is still nearly 9 percent smaller than it was at the end of 2019, before the pandemic, the Bank of England forecasts it to return to that size by the end of this year.
Strikes are uniquely harmful to the economy. Answers and turns case Tenza 20 Mlungisi Tenza (Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal). “The effects of violent strikes on the economy of a developing country: a case of South Africa.” Obiter vol.41 n.3 Port Elizabeth 2020. JDN. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttextandpid=S1682-58532020000300004 When South Africa obtained democracy in 1994, there was a dream of a better country with a new vision for industrial relations.5 However, the number of violent strikes that have bedevilled this country in recent years seems to have shattered-down the aspirations of a better South Africa. South Africa recorded 114 strikes in 2013 and 88 strikes in 2014, which cost the country about R6.1 billion according to the Department of Labour.6 The impact of these strikes has been hugely felt by the mining sector, particularly the platinum industry. The biggest strike took place in the platinum sector where about 70 000 mineworkers' downed tools for better wages. Three major platinum producers (Impala, Anglo American and Lonmin Platinum Mines) were affected. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 25 June 2014. Business Day reported that "the five-month-long strike in the platinum sector pushed the economy to the brink of recession".7 This strike was closely followed by a four-week strike in the metal and engineering sector. All these strikes (and those not mentioned here) were characterised with violence accompanied by damage to property, intimidation, assault and sometimes the killing of people. Statistics from the metal and engineering sector showed that about 246 cases of intimidation were reported, 50 violent incidents occurred, and 85 cases of vandalism were recorded.8 Large-scale unemployment, soaring poverty levels and the dramatic income inequality that characterise the South African labour market provide a broad explanation for strike violence.9 While participating in a strike, workers' stress levels leave them feeling frustrated at their seeming powerlessness, which in turn provokes further violent behaviour.10 These strikes are not only violent but take long to resolve. Generally, a lengthy strike has a negative effect on employment, reduces business confidence and increases the risk of economic stagflation. In addition, such strikes have a major setback on the growth of the economy and investment opportunities. It is common knowledge that consumer spending is directly linked to economic growth. At the same time, if the economy is not showing signs of growth, employment opportunities are shed, and poverty becomes the end result. The economy of South Africa is in need of rapid growth to enable it to deal with the high levels of unemployment and resultant poverty. One of the measures that may boost the country's economic growth is by attracting potential investors to invest in the country. However, this might be difficult as investors would want to invest in a country where there is a likelihood of getting returns for their investments. The wish of getting returns for investment may not materialise if the labour environment is not fertile for such investments as a result of, for example, unstable labour relations. Therefore, investors may be reluctant to invest where there is an unstable or fragile labour relations environment.
Everyone Dies™ Tønnesson 15 Tønnesson, Stein. “Deterrence, Interdependence and Sino–US Peace.” International Area Studies Review, vol. 18, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 297–311, doi:10.1177/2233865915596660. DD PT Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
11/21/21
NOVDEC- T Unconditional
Tournament: Princeton | Round: 4 | Opponent: Harrison JC | Judge: Chasia Jeffries 1 Interpretation: The affirmative must defend an unconditional right to strike. This means that the Affirmative must defend that anyone regardless of job or occupation has a fundamental right to strike. Merriam Webster ND, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unconditionalsid not conditional or limited : ABSOLUTE, UNQUALIFIED “Unconditional” necessitates the absence of narrowing restrictions. US Legal ‘ND (US Legal; dictionary of legal terms of art; US Legal; “Unconditional Law and Legal Definition”; https://definitions.uslegal.com/u/unconditional/; Accessed: 10-30-2021; AU) Unconditional means without conditions; without restrictions; or absolute. For instance, unconditional promise is a promise that is unqualified in nature. A party who makes an unconditional promise must perform that promise even though the other party has not performed according to the bargain. Violation – They only grant the Right to Strike to prison workers. That by definition is a condition since they condition the right to strike on a particular occupation. Jensen ’18 (Eric; co-director of the Stanford Rule of Law Program, in collaboration with USAID, The Asia Foundation, and Stanford Law School; April 2018; “Introduction to the Laws of Timor-Leste”; Stanford Law School; https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Timor-Leste-Constitutional-Rights.pdf; Accessed: 10-30-2021; AU) If individuals want to defend their rights at work, the Constitution gives them the right form trade unions and to strike. Individuals are free to join and participate in professional associations that are peaceful. This includes trade unions. Individuals in trade unions have a right to organize their unions independent of the government or their employers. Trade unions should be free and independent, and individuals have the right to set the unions’ internal structure freely. Independent trade unions are important to allow individuals to organize with other workers to collectively defend their interests and their rights. It is important that they are independent so that they reflect the individuals’ interests and not the employer’s or the government’s interests. Individuals have the right to strike. If they feel that their employer is not respecting their rights or interests, employees can refuse to work in protest. The Constitution creates a duty that during a strike, the employer still has to maintain equipment and provide for safety. Individuals’ right to strike is limited by the law. The Constitution states that the right to strike is conditional on the strike being compliant with legal regulations that the government creates. This means that the government can pass laws that limit when and how individuals can exercise their right to strike. The right to strike is important to give individuals the power to defend their labor rights. Vote Neg – 1 Limits – there are endless conditions the aff can place on the right to strike – i.e based on occupation, national holidays, location of strike, etc. That makes the topic untenable since the Aff can just infinitely specify any condition or permutation of conditions which makes predictable preparation and in-depth clash impossible. 2 Neg Ground – specifying scenarios lets affs spike out of core, reduction-based disads like Bizcon and Small Businesses. Links are already non-existent on this topic – letting affs impose restrictions on RTS makes it even narrower. 3 TVA – Defend an unconditional RTS in the US.
Drop the Debater – 1 sets a precedent that debaters wont be abusive 2 DTA is the same since you drop the aff
Voters: 1 Fairness – constitutive to the judge to decide the better debater, only fairness is in your jurisdiction because it skews decision making 2 Education – the only portable education from debate that we care about
Competing Interps - T is a binaristic question, you’re either topical or ur not No RVI – yiou shouldn’t win for being topical
12/8/21
NOVDEC-Dean K
Tournament: AppleValley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Sharon RG | Judge: Richard Li 2-Dean K Delueze’s understanding of capitalism is outdated and ensures a weakening of anti-capitalist movement structures. Scapira and Dean 12 (Michael Schapira and Jodi Dean. 11-14-2012, "Jodi Dean," interview with Jodi Dean. Full Stop. https://www.full-stop.net/2012/11/14/interviews/michael-schapira/jodi-dean/) azi Michael Schapira: We’re speaking on Election Day, concluding what you called on your blog a “bloated, hell storm of an election.” During the Republican primary and running through the general election you would hear people from the Right accuse Obama of being a Communist, Marxist, or Socialist, and pushing his ideological agenda on the American people. The Left would disavow these charges, saying how he is not any of these. Do you see anything revealed in the Right’s continued willingness to use the word Communist, verses the Left’s hesitation to claim any relationship to this word? Jodi Dean: In short, the Left has been cowardly. The Left has let itself be completely defeated and beaten by not holding on to its own best achievements. It pushes away from these ideas and doctrines that have given it strength for 150 years – Socialism, Communism, Marxism, letting some of the facts of history incapacitate it. The Right on the other hand takes its defeats and uses them to strengthen itself. It assumes that the Left does the same, but we just hide the fact that we are Marxists. It uses this to bring folks out by saying “you’re a Marxist,” knowing that the Left will retreat from it. On that one scale you see the difference in how the Right learns from and embraces its failures and the Left wallows in them in this pathetic way. Additionally the Right knows that words matter, knows that there is a strength there, and I think the Left is sometimes afraid of strength, or afraid of what happens when the people have power. But that’s also changing. We seem to be in a process where the Left is waking up. It’s been a long time since there has been a vocal Communist, Marxist, or Socialist Left. There have been individuals who have been Leftist obviously, but one significant change is that the Foucauldian/Deleuzian position doesn’t have legs anymore. People are tired of that. It doesn’t seem to address the primary problems facing the world. Michael Schapira: This seems to relate to what you write in the book about the party. You write that “the power of the return of communism stands or falls on its capacity to inspire large-scale organized collective struggle toward a goal,” and to this end you are against calls to work exclusively outside of a party structure. Slavoj Zizek has been pointing to Syriza in Greece as an example of what this might look like (a coalition of the radical Left). Do you think Syriza is a good example of a renewed embrace of the party structure on the Left? My discussion of the party in the book is really abstract, and for a couple of reasons. First, I want to encourage Leftists who have been influenced by Deleuze, Hart and Negri, identity politics, and all this swarmy stuff to think more seriously about tighter organizational structures. So that’s the first addressee, this general Left feeling of dispersion as a good thing. I want the Left to think, no, maybe it’s not a good thing, and maybe we need to think in terms of tighter structures like the party. The next part is to think that maybe one way to do this and make it more attractive is to rethink what it is that a party does, what’s the point of a party. A typical critique of the Leninist party is that “oh it knows everything and tries to put itself at the vanguard of a linear theory of history, that it’s the one group that knows the truth.” Well, that’s actually historically wrong, it’s a parody and a ridiculous way to think about the party. So what I try and do in the book is to use Georg Lukács to think about the party as this overlap of two lacks. There is a kind of non-knowledge on the part of the party, and a non-knowledge on the part of the people. But these are held together in the commitment to a collective process, a collective moving forward. So it’s an effort to just try and rethink how one might even imagine a party. To me that’s the theoretical part that matters. If we begin to ask whether it is necessarily a revolutionary party, or a reformist party, these questions are coming too quickly when in fact what we need to do is think about how we even understand organization. Delueze’s approach to capital creates revolutionary ambivalence, hierarchy and subjective paralysis that sabotages an effective challenge to capital. Nail 13 (Thomas Nail, post-doctoral lecturer in European Philopsphy. 2013. “Deleuze, Occupy and the Actuality of Revolution.” Theory and Event , Volume: 16 Issue 1. https://www.academia.edu/2973497/Deleuze_Occupy_and_the_Actuality_of_Revolution) azi (1) Political Ambivalence “Affirming Difference in the state of permanent revolution affirmer la Différence dans l’état de révolution permanente,” as Deleuze says in Difference and Repetition (75/53),8 may escape the previous problems of vanguardism and the party-state, but it also poses a new danger: that the “pure affirmation of Difference” will be ultimately ambivalent. Revolution may provide a new non-representational space of liberty, or it may provide a ruptured “open” domain for a new discourse of rights and military occupation by the state, or it may merely reproduce a complicity with the processes of capitalist deterritorialization necessary for new capitalist reterritorializations. Slavoj Žižek, in particular, frequently attributes this capitalist ambivalence to Deleuze and Guattari’s politics (2004, 184). But to say, with Alain Badiou, that affirming the potentiality for transformation as such is to affirm a “purely ideological radicality” that “inevitably changes over into its opposite: once the mass festivals of democracy and discourse are over, things make place for the modernist restoration of order among workers and bosses,” would be to overstate the problem (Badiou and Balmès 1976, 83). Rather, it would be much more appropriate to say, with Paolo Virno, that “the multitude is a form of being that can give birth to one thing but also to the other: ambivalence” (Virno 2003, 131). Accordingly, the affirmation of this ambivalence as a political commitment, and the “politico-ontological optimism and unapologetic vitalism” it assumes in Hardt, Negri, and Deleuze’s work, according to Bruno Bosteels, remains radically insufficient (2004, 95). While the purely creative power of the multitude may be the condition for global liberation from Empire, it is also the productive condition for Empire as well. With no clear political consistency to organize or motivate any particular political transformation “vitalist optimism” is politically ambivalent, speculative, and spontaneous. Showing the nonfoundational or ungrounded nature of politics provides no more of a contribution for organized politics than does the creative potentiality of desire. “A subject’s intervention,” Bosteels suggests, “cannot consist merely in showing or recognizing the traumatic impossibility, void, or antagonism around which the situation as a whole is structured” (2004, 104). Rather, following Badiou, a “political organization is necessary in order for the intervention, as wager, to make a process out of the trajectory that goes from an interruption to a fidelity. In this sense, organization is nothing but the consistency of politics” (Badiou 1985, 12). And in so far as Deleuze and Guattari, and those inspired by their work, do not offer developed concepts of political consistency and organization that would bring differential multiplicities into specific political interventions and distributions, they remain, at most, ambivalent toward revolutionary politics. (2) Virtual Hierarchy In addition to this first danger of revolutionary ambivalence, Deleuze’s concept of revolution, according to Badiou and Hallward, risks a second danger; namely, that of creating a political hierarchy of virtual potential. Badiou argues at length in The Clamor of Being that, … contrary to all egalitarian or “communitarian” norms, Deleuze’s conception of thought is profoundly aristocratic. Thought only exists in a hierarchized space. This is because, for individuals to attain the point where they are seized by their preindividual determination and, thus, by the power of the One-All—of which they are, at the start, only meager local configurations—they have to go beyond their limits and endure the transfixion and disintegration of their actuality by infinite virtuality, which is actuality’s veritable being. And individuals are not equally capable of this. Admittedly, Being is itself neutral, equal, outside all evaluation … But ‘things reside unequally in this equal being’ (Deleuze 1994, 60/37). And, as a result, it is essential to think according to ‘a hierarchy which considers things and beings from the point of view of power’ (Deleuze 1994, 60/37; Badiou 1999, 12–13). The political thrust of this argument is that, if we understand revolutionary change as the pure potential for change as such, and not actual change for or against certain forms, then, contrary to any kind of egalitarianism, there will instead be a hierarchy of actual political beings that more or less participate in this degree of pure potential transformation. The more actual political beings renounce their specific and local determinations and affirm their participation in the larger processes of difference-in-itself, the more powerful they become. Thus, if the point of examining any local political intervention is in every case to show to what degree it renounces its concrete determinations and might “become other than it is” (as a virtuality or potentiality), there is, according to Badiou, a risk of “asceticism” and hierarchy in such a relationship of potential (Badiou 1999, 13). Similarly, Peter Hallward has argued that Deleuze’s political philosophy is “indifferent to the politics of this world” (2006, 162). Hallward claims that “once a social field is defined less by its conflicts and contradictions than by the lines of flight running through it” any distinctive space for political action can only be subsumed within the more general dynamics of creation, life, and potential transformation (2006, 62n16). And since these dynamics are “themselves antidialectical if not anti-relational, there can be little room in Deleuze’s philosophy for relations of conflict and solidarity” (2006, 162). If each concrete, localized, actual political being is important only in so far as it realizes a degree of pure potentiality of a virtual event, “and every mortal event in a single Event” (Deleuze 1990, 178/152), then the processional “telos” of absolute political deterritorialization is completely indifferent to the actual politics of this world (2006, 97). By valorizing this pure potentiality for transformation as such against all actual political determinations, Hallward argues, Deleuze is guilty of affirming an impossible utopianism. “By posing the question of politics in the starkly dualistic terms of war machine or state,” Hallward argues, “by posing it, in the end, in the apocalyptic terms of a new people and a new earth or else no people and no earth—the political aspect of Deleuze’s philosophy amounts to little more than utopian distraction” (2006, 162). (3) Subjective Paralysis The differential reading of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of revolution may be able to avoid the problem of representational subjectivity—that it can reject or affirm particular desires but never change the nature of the “self that desires”—but it does so only at the risk of diffusing the self into an endless multiplicity of impersonal drives: a self in perpetual transformation. This leads to the third danger, that of subjective paralysis. Firstly, to read Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of revolutionary subjectivity as the “simple fact of one's own existence as possibility or potentiality” (Agamben 1993, 43), or as Paul Patton calls it, one’s “critical freedom” (“the freedom to transgress the limits of what one is presently capable of being or doing, rather than just the freedom to be or do those things” (2000, 85) suggests an ambivalence of action. What are the conditions and factors by which one might decide to take an action or not? Emancipation and enslavement in this sense are merely just different things to be done. Secondly, without a pre-given unity of subjectivity, how do agents qua multiplicities deliberate between and distinguish (in themselves) different political decisions? Without the representational screen of reason, or the stateguaranteed grounds of political discourse, what might something like a dispute or agreement look like? If “becoming other is not a capacity liberated individuals possess to constitute themselves as autonomous singularities,” but “what defines ‘autonomy’ itself” (2006, 146), as Simon Tormey argues, then the political danger, according to Hallward, is that the subject is simply replaced by the larger impersonal process of transformation as such: “pure autonomy.” The radical affirmation of the ambivalent and unlocalizable processes of subjective potentiality (qua pure multiplicities) seems then to have nothing to contribute to an analysis of the basic function of participatory democracy and collective decision-making, which remains at the core of many of today’s radical political struggles (See Starr, Martinez-Torres, and Rosset 2011). Insofar as a theory of subjectivity is defined only by its potential for transformation, it is stuck in a kind of paralysis of endless potential change no less disempowering than subjective stasis. Or, as Hallward frames this criticism, Deleuze “abandons the decisive subject in favor of our more immediate subjection to the imperative of creative life or thought” (2006, 163). These criticisms articulate three dangers to be avoided, both in reading Deleuze and Guattari as well as in the practical philosophy of revolution.
The alternative is embracing party politics. This means building a radical coalition that unifies all marginalized by different forms of oppression to challenge capitalism and imperialism. Black Panther Party proves concrete action outside of the state is possible and successful. Curry Stephenson Malott. “In Defense of Communism Against Critical Pedagogy, Capitalism, and Trump.” Critical Education 8, no. 1 (2017). WWEY In her discussion of the International Section of the Black Panther Party Kathleen Cleaver (1998), echoing Harry Haywood, notes that the Party understood that, “Black self-determination was not feasible under American imperialist domination” (p. 212). Cleaver (1998) notes that while the BPP’s membership was exclusively Black, their message and practice was geared more toward the communist ethic of power to the people and the unification of all anti-imperialist movements and workers’ states rather than on the more isolationist practice of Black nationalism and Black Power. Regarding the revolution in Algeria, which the CIA was concerned would pave the way for rise to power of communists through the National Liberation Front (NLF) (Blum, 2004), Cleaver (1998) notes that, “the Panthers admired the Algerian revolution and considered its victory a powerful example of the ability of oppressed people to attain power over their destiny” (p. 213). Black Panther Party members would be represented at the Organization of African Unity conferences hosted in Algeria and had visited and established relationships with workers’ states as Cuba and the DPRK. The BPP therefore struggled to extend the communist movement in the U.S. which was difficult given the limitations of the CP-USA and the SWP as demonstrated by Marcy (1976). Huey P. Newton was not only the BPP’s co-founder, but he was also its revolutionary theoretician, and, as such, was continuously engaged in the process of developing the Party’s tendency, the influences of which were wide-ranging, including Marxist-Leninism. Newton (1995) would eventually come to adopt what is obviously Lenin’s (1917/2015) framework outlined in The State and Revolution. For example, Newton (1995), in a creative twist on Lenin, would argue that U.S. imperialism had negated the conditions for states to exist such as economic and territorial sovereignty. Newton (1995) therefore argued that the world consisted not of states or nations, but of imperialists, on one hand, and dominated or colonized oppressed communities on the other. From this point of view Cuba, China, the Soviet Union, and the DPRK were examples of liberated communities. Oppressed communities within the U.S. such as the Black community, from this perspective, should follow the example of liberated communities adopting their revolutionary goals adapted for the American context. The Panthers therefore argued for a unified struggle of all oppressed communities the world over aimed at destroying imperialism and the capitalist system in general and replacing it with communism. Under communism, in accordance with Lenin’s model, Newton was adamant that oppressed communities would retain their right to self-determination, realized under the protection of democratic centralism dedicated to fighting the counterrevolutionaries of the capitalist class. Newton also understood that racism and all manner of bigotry would also have to be eradicated through education in order for the proletarian state to be able to wither away and for communism to be able to flourish freely. The BPP’s first campaign was the establishment of a regularized armed patrol targeting the state’s Oakland Police Department due to their history of terrorizing and murdering members of the Black community, the vast majority of which represented some of the highest concentrations of unskilled, super-exploited workers. The BPP understood that the role of the police was to employ deadly force to create an intimidation-based consent to extreme exploitation. Huey Newton, who has been described as a youth of rare brilliance, at the height of his popularity, commanded the respect and commitment of the African American community across the country, leading to the establishment of BPP chapters from coast to coast. A fundamental component of why Newton was so dangerous in the eyes of the U.S. bourgeoisie was because he understood that the global proletariat was a great chain, and each conglomeration of workers around the world can be thought of as links in the great chain. What happens to workers in England affects workers and the price of their labor in the U.S. Lenin applied this insight to unions and the role of the strike. When one shop strikes and wins victories, they affect the average price of labor within the whole branch of industry, and can also inspire workers in the same region to take similar actions, thereby affecting other branches of industry. Newton, familiar with the work and tradition of Harry Haywood, employed this concept in the U.S. to understand how racism was used to push down the price of labor amongst Black and Brown workers, and in turn, their communities, and because all workers are links in the same chain, the overall price of labor within the whole country is suppressed. From this view it makes little sense to hold on to colonial structures and pressure more privileged white workers to paternalistically support more oppressed and exploited workers as a moral act because it is far more revolutionary for more privileged workers and less privileged workers to dissolve their class differences through revolutionary struggle as comrades. This requires an engagement with racial differences within the labor market rather than pretending they do not exist. The anti-communism of the American Left is so deep-seated that it is uncommon in retrospective discussions of the BPP to acknowledge that they were a Party in the communist sense that stood in solidarity with workers’ states. For example, as a political prisoner in the U.S., BPP leader George Jackson found inspiration in the political writings of imprisoned Palestinians in Israel (Pierce, 2015). The BPP not only was a descendant of Malcolm X, but they were also following in the communist footsteps of Harry Haywood, adopting much of his analysis and practice. They regularly sent delegations to workers’ states, and routinely distributed Maoist literature at their rallies. Perhaps the internal contradictions of the BPP were too great to overcome, as some commentators suggest. However great their errors were, however, the evidence seems to suggest that the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Programs) operations played the most decisive role in the destruction and elimination of the BPP. The same can be said of the SWP and the CP-USA who had been subjected to COINTELPRO operations since the 1940s (Churchill and Vander Wall, 1990). The goal of COINTELPRO was to disrupt, discredit, and neutralize communism and the political Left in general. Churchill and Vander Wall (1990) describe this war as secret because it was. The FBI, for example, would employ agent provocateurs who would infiltrate the ranks of the BPP in order to foment internal dissent within the organization as well as provide authorities with critical intelligence that could be used against the radicals. For example, the FBI would employ convicts as undercover agents to infiltrate groups like the BPP. William O’Neal was such a character who joined the BPP as an undercover FBI agent. O’Neal would eventually work his way up the ranks of the BPP and become Fred Hampton’s personal security guard. Hampton was of interest to the FBI because he was the Chairman of the Chicago chapter of the BPP and a dynamic, influential revolutionary leader who had made great strides in fostering working class solidarity across racial lines. O’Neal seems to have drugged Hampton and provided the FBI and Chicago PD with a floor plan of Hampton’s apartment making it much easier to execute his assassination, which was carried out in1969 on December 4that approximately 4:30 AM (Churchill and Vander Wall, 1990). Among the tactics employed by COINTELPRO operatives to neutralize the BPP nationwide included eavesdropping, sending bogus mail, “black propaganda” operations, disinformation or “gray propaganda,” harassment arrests, infiltrators and agent provocateurs, “pseudo gangs,” bad-jacketing, fabrication of evidence, and assassinations (Churchill and Vander Wall, 1990). While most of these tactics require explanations and examples to develop a full understanding, suffice it to say that the FBI’s efforts to destroy the communist movement within America’s Black working class was only limited by the creative deviancy of COINTELPRO agents. At the first Black Radical Tradition conference at Temple University in early January 2016, Mumia Abu-Jamal, phoning in from prison to deliver a keynote presentation, argued that the FBI’s secret war to exterminate and neutralize the BPP was designed to not only obliterate them, but to replace them. That is, the goal was to remove the Black community’s organic leadership and replace it with a puppet leadership no different than the way the imperialist U.S. military has instituted regime changes across the globe, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan and as is the current goal for Syria. The Black bourgeois leadership class that has emerged in the U.S. might be understood as serving this purpose. Globally, the Soviet Union, and the communist movement more generally, have suffered the same fate at the hands of the imperialist counterrevolutionaries. Whether operating within the U.S. through federal and state police agencies or outside the U.S. through the military and the CIA the physical bourgeois assault on the communist horizon has been fundamental. This imperialist thread is also another link in the chain of the global class war. The coalescing of the revolutionary center of gravity with that of the economic center will be the great turning point in...history. The first truly revolutionary outburst on the social soil of the American continent will light the flames of a new revolutionary conflagration which is sure to envelop the entire globe. It will graphically demonstrate how "East meets west” not by the construction of new and more tortuous artificial, boundaries, but by the revolutionary destruction of all of them. It will be the supreme and ultimate alliance of the great truly progressive classes of the East and West in a final effort to accomplish their own dissolution. This in turn will terminate the first great cycle of man’s development from sub-man—man—to Communist Man, and set him on the path to new and higher syntheses.(Marcy, 1950, p. 41)What Marcy describes here began to take place in 1966 with the birth of the Black Panther Party. Rather than realizing its global revolutionary vision, its leaders were murdered, imprisoned and demonized. Despite this and other setbacks, the ultimate unification of the world’s proletarian masses, united around a shared vision of communism, remains the unrealized potential of the present, capitalist moment. However, even though it is changing, the communist vision is still stigmatized as incomplete, outdated, or hopelessly Eurocentric. That is, this communist coming-to-be should not be interpreted as the violent imposition of a European conception of being forced onto non-European and indigenous subjectivities. Rather, communism offers a global economic structure where indigenous subjectivities can be reformulated after centuries of physical, biological and cultural genocide. The communist traditions ‘conception of Oppressed Nations offers a more complete picture of how the sovereignty of the world’s indigenous peoples would be an integral component of a socialist future. Marx’s notion of each according to her ability and each according to her need offers a more philosophical approach to understanding the inclusiveness of a communist ethic. Marcy’s work is crucial because he is absolutely clear that the threat of US imperialism situated in a world forever at war, makes all states dedicate such a large portion of their national productive capacity on the military to render serious efforts for socialist planning nearly impossible. For this reason, Marcy (1950) argues that the center of global capitalist economic power, which is the U.S., must develop into the center of global revolutionary gravity. Marcy therefore suggests that only through the defeat of U.S. imperialism can the unification of the global proletarian class camp be realized. This, perhaps, remains true today. Each day then, Lenin (1917/2015) grows more relevant and more urgent. Ironically enough there is a strong tendency within the U.S. Left, and the educational Left in particular, that argues that the actual communists, communists in China, the former Soviet Union, and the DPRK, are not the real communists, but state capitalists betraying the spirit and intent of Marx. The arrogance of such positions is absurd, even taking into consideration the imperfections of real existing communism. Given the anti-communist nature of U.S. society, I believe that other potential communists, people like myself who had been involved in Marxism and/or critical pedagogy for decades, might struggle with the necessary solidarity with the aforementioned communist states. This is important because members of communist parties cannot pick and choose which aspects of the Party’s platform to support and defend. Party members, correctly in my view, must support and defend the entireplatform. To clarify whata communist Party program entails I will briefly turn to the PSL as an example. The purpose here is not to provide a complete overview, but to spark the reader’s interest. The role of the ballot is consistency with the politics of comradery. This results in a clean break in capitalism that allows us to reimagine political work and transcend capital’s limitations on what is possible and feasible. Absent this framing, all movements and coalitions inevitably collapse under the strain of competing interests and the lack of connection. Jodi Dean 19 () “Comrade - An Essay on Political Belonging” Verso, 10-01-2019, http://library.lol/main/429C9EC2E2F0AA8DCC33FE2CC178B11D. Accessed 6-27-2021, WWEY The comrade relation remakes the place from which one sees, what it is possible to see, and what possibilities can appear. It enables the revaluation of work and time, what one does, and for whom one does it. Is one’s work done for the people or for the bosses? Is it voluntary or done because one has to work? Does one work for personal provisions or for a collective good? We should recall Marx’s lyrical description of communism in which work becomes “life’s prime want.” We get a glimpse of that in comradeship: one wants to do political work. You don’t want to let down your comrades; you see the value of your work through their eyes, your new collective eyes. Work, determined not by markets but by shared commitments, becomes fulfilling. French communist philosopher and militant Bernard Aspe discusses the problem of contemporary capitalism as a loss of “common time”; that is, the loss of an experience of time generated and enjoyed through our collective being-together.10 From holidays, to meals, to breaks, whatever common time we have is synchronized and enclosed in forms for capitalist appropriation. Communicative capitalism’s apps and trackers amplify this process such that the time of consumption can be measured in much the same way that Taylorism measured the time of production: How long did a viewer spend on a particular web page? Did a person watch a whole ad or click off of it after five seconds? In contrast, the common action that is the actuality of communist movement induces a collective change in capacities. Breaking from capitalism’s 24-7 injunctions to produce and consume for the bosses and owners, the discipline of common struggle expands possibilities for action and intensifies the sense of its necessity. The comrade is a figure for the relation through which this transformation of work and time occurs. How do we imagine political work? Under conditions where political change seems completely out of reach, we might imagine political work asself-transformation. At the very least, we can work on ourselves. In the intensely mediated networks of communicative capitalism, we might see our social media engagements as a kind of activism where Twitter and Facebook function as important sites of struggle. Perhaps we understand writing as important political work and hammer out opinion pieces, letters to the editors, and manifestoes. When we imagine political work, we often take electoral politics as our frame of reference, focusing on voting, lawn signs, bumper stickers, and campaign buttons. Or we think of activists as those who arrange phone banks, canvass door-to-door, and set up rallies. In yet another political imaginary, we might envision political work as study, whether done alone or with others. We might imagine political work as cultural production, the building of new communities, spaces, and ways of seeing. Our imaginary might have a militant, or even militarist, inflection: political work is carried out through marches, occupations, strikes, and blockades; through civil disobedience, direct action, and covert operations. Even with the recognition of the wide array of political activities, the ways people use them to respond to specific situations and capacities, and how they combine to enhance each other, we might still imagine radical political work as punching a Nazi in the face. Throughout these various actions and activities, how are the relations among those fighting on the same side imagined? How do the activists and organizers, militants and revolutionaries relate to one another? During the weeks and months when the Occupy movement was at its peak, relations with others were often infused with a joyous sense of being together, with an enthusiasm for the collective co-creation of new patterns of action and ways of living.11 But the feeling didn’t last. The pressures of organizing diverse people and politics under conditions of police repression and real material need wore down even the most committed activists. Since then, on social media and across the broader left, relations among the politically engaged have again become tense and conflicted, often along lines of race and gender. Dispersed and disorganized, we’re uncertain of whom to trust and what to expect. We encounter contradictory injunctions to self-care and call out. Suspicion undermines support. Exhaustion displaces enthusiasm. Attention to comradeship, to the ways that shared expectations make political work not just possible but also gratifying, may help redirect our energies back to our common struggle. As former CPUSA member David Ross explained to Gornick:
12/8/21
NOVDEC-EU CP
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Harker MK | Judge: Margaret Strong CP CP: The European Union ought to sanction member nations of the European Union who are deemed as authoritarian by the General Affairs Council using the procedures denoted by Article 7. Sanctions by the EU will result in temporary suspensions of sanctioned member nation’s voting rights in the European Union. The member nations of the EU also ought to develop confidence building measures and a continental framework for emerging tech. HRW 21 Human Rights Watch, 6-18-2021, "EU: Use Article 7 Now to Protect European Values," https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/18/eu-use-article-7-now-protect-european-values//DDPT (Brussels) – European Union affairs ministers should put the governments of Hungary and Poland on notice that there is no place for attacks on the rule of law in the EU and step up scrutiny of their human rights-abusive policies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said today. Ministers from EU member states meeting in the General Affairs Council session on June 22, 2021 will discuss the situations in Poland and Hungary under the Article 7 procedure. Article 7 is the mechanism provided for in the EU treaty to hold accountable governments whose actions threaten the bloc’s rule of law, human rights, and democratic principles. “The actions by Poland and Hungary show that leaving rule-of-law breaches unchecked undermines democratic institutions and eventually affects the human rights and lives of everyone in those countries,” said Philippe Dam, Europe and Central Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The June 22 hearings are a good start, but much more is needed to prove member states’ resolve to protect EU’s democratic values and reaffirm, loud and clear, that there is no room in the EU for those who disown them,” said Elena Crespi, Western Europe Programme Director at FIDH. Resuming hearings on the situations in Hungary and Poland under Article 7 is a strong signal from the Council that violations of EU principles will not go unnoticed within the Union, the organizations said. But EU ministers have a responsibility to make up for the time lost and show readiness to take further action as the situations in both countries continue to deteriorate. The European Commission invoked Article 7 in December 2017 for the first time since its creation in response to the dramatic erosion of judicial independence in Poland by the Law and Justice (PiS) Party government. But the EU Council, consisting of the member states, has not held a formal hearing regarding the situation since September 2018. The European Parliament triggered Article 7 in September 2018 for Hungary because of the repeated deliberate attacks on democratic institutions and human rights by the Fidesz-led government, but the Council has not convened a hearing on the matter since December 2019. EU officials contended that discussions related to Article 7 could not take place during the Covid-19 pandemic, allegedly because EU ministers could not meet in person during this period. While EU action has stalled, Poland’s government has continued to strengthen its grip on the judiciary. Many judges and prosecutors have faced arbitrary disciplinary proceedings for speaking up against problematic judicial reforms. The government has used a politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal to bypass parliamentary objections to its efforts to undermine independent institutions and erode rights across the board. The concerns over the functioning of the Tribunal include, in particular, mishandling of cases by its president and unlawful change in the composition of the already designated hearing benches. In October 2020, at the behest of the Polish government, the Constitutional Tribunal severely undermined access to sexual and reproductive rights for women in Poland by extending the existing ban on abortion to include cases of “severe and irreversible fetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the fetus’ life”. In April, the government used the same tribunal to discontinue the mandate of the country’s human rights Ombudsman, despite the delays in the appointment of a successor. The government is also using the Constitutional Tribunal to seek decisions on the validity of the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women and to try to undermine the binding nature of decisions by the EU Court of Justice on Polish law. In Hungary, the government used the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to intensify its attacks on the rule of law and public institutions, increase executive power, and limit human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, information, and peaceful assembly. Hungary finally abided by the June 2020 EU Court decision by repealing a 2017 law forcing civil society organizations receiving over 20,000 EUR per year in foreign funds to register as foreign-funded. But at the same time the government introduced a new bill requiring the national State Audit Office to conduct annual financial inspections of civil society organizations that report more than around 55,000 EUR, with the risk that it could create a new method to demonize and obstruct the work of watchdog groups. The draft bill leaves untouched the controversial 2018 law criminalizing groups giving assistance to asylum seekers. In July 2020, the editor-in-chief of Hungary’s largest online independent daily, Index.hu, was fired as a result of a financial takeover of the company controlling its revenues by a person with close links to the country’s ruling party. In September, the Media Council, a broadcast regulator tied to the executive after controversial changes passed early in the decade, revoked the frequency for the independent Budapest radio station Klubradio, forcing it off the air. On June 9, the European Commission opened a new legal proceeding against Hungary on the basis that the decision to take Klubradio off the air was discriminatory and non-transparent. Civil society groups in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere in the EU have criticized the European Council and European Commission for failing to uphold the bloc’s founding values of respect for human rights and the rule of law in countries that breach them. In December, the EU established a new mechanism conditioning EU funding upon respect for the rule of law, but both the European Commission and the Council have succumbed to Hungary and Poland’s blackmailing and announced they would not start enforcing the measure until autumn. On June 10, the European Parliament took the European Commission to Court if it further delays the implementation of the mechanism. European ministers should continue to convene regular hearings on the situations in Poland and Hungary and take all steps available under Article 7 to hold both governments to account for violating the EU’s core values. These should include adopting specific rule-of-law recommendations that Poland and Hungary’s governments should carry out by a set deadline and, absent any concrete steps toward compliance, work toward the required four-fifth vote to determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach of the values protected by the EU treaty. Such a determination would open up the possibility of sanctions that the Council could adopt, by unanimity, to react to this breach. “After years of foot-dragging, it’s important for EU states to finally come together to scrutinize the situation in Poland and Hungary,” said Eve Geddie, Head of European Institutions Office at Amnesty International. “EU states have an obligation to act together to halt the hollowing out of public institutions and attacks on the rule of law in Poland, Hungary and any other member state that threatens core European values,” said Natacha Kazatchkine, Head of internal EU policy at Open Society European Policy Institute.
11/21/21
NOVDEC-EU CP
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Harker MK | Judge: Margaret Strong CP CP: The European Union ought to sanction member nations of the European Union who are deemed as authoritarian by the General Affairs Council using the procedures denoted by Article 7. Sanctions by the EU will result in temporary suspensions of sanctioned member nation’s voting rights in the European Union. The member nations of the EU also ought to develop confidence building measures and a continental framework for emerging tech. HRW 21 Human Rights Watch, 6-18-2021, "EU: Use Article 7 Now to Protect European Values," https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/18/eu-use-article-7-now-protect-european-values//DDPT (Brussels) – European Union affairs ministers should put the governments of Hungary and Poland on notice that there is no place for attacks on the rule of law in the EU and step up scrutiny of their human rights-abusive policies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said today. Ministers from EU member states meeting in the General Affairs Council session on June 22, 2021 will discuss the situations in Poland and Hungary under the Article 7 procedure. Article 7 is the mechanism provided for in the EU treaty to hold accountable governments whose actions threaten the bloc’s rule of law, human rights, and democratic principles. “The actions by Poland and Hungary show that leaving rule-of-law breaches unchecked undermines democratic institutions and eventually affects the human rights and lives of everyone in those countries,” said Philippe Dam, Europe and Central Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The June 22 hearings are a good start, but much more is needed to prove member states’ resolve to protect EU’s democratic values and reaffirm, loud and clear, that there is no room in the EU for those who disown them,” said Elena Crespi, Western Europe Programme Director at FIDH. Resuming hearings on the situations in Hungary and Poland under Article 7 is a strong signal from the Council that violations of EU principles will not go unnoticed within the Union, the organizations said. But EU ministers have a responsibility to make up for the time lost and show readiness to take further action as the situations in both countries continue to deteriorate. The European Commission invoked Article 7 in December 2017 for the first time since its creation in response to the dramatic erosion of judicial independence in Poland by the Law and Justice (PiS) Party government. But the EU Council, consisting of the member states, has not held a formal hearing regarding the situation since September 2018. The European Parliament triggered Article 7 in September 2018 for Hungary because of the repeated deliberate attacks on democratic institutions and human rights by the Fidesz-led government, but the Council has not convened a hearing on the matter since December 2019. EU officials contended that discussions related to Article 7 could not take place during the Covid-19 pandemic, allegedly because EU ministers could not meet in person during this period. While EU action has stalled, Poland’s government has continued to strengthen its grip on the judiciary. Many judges and prosecutors have faced arbitrary disciplinary proceedings for speaking up against problematic judicial reforms. The government has used a politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal to bypass parliamentary objections to its efforts to undermine independent institutions and erode rights across the board. The concerns over the functioning of the Tribunal include, in particular, mishandling of cases by its president and unlawful change in the composition of the already designated hearing benches. In October 2020, at the behest of the Polish government, the Constitutional Tribunal severely undermined access to sexual and reproductive rights for women in Poland by extending the existing ban on abortion to include cases of “severe and irreversible fetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the fetus’ life”. In April, the government used the same tribunal to discontinue the mandate of the country’s human rights Ombudsman, despite the delays in the appointment of a successor. The government is also using the Constitutional Tribunal to seek decisions on the validity of the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women and to try to undermine the binding nature of decisions by the EU Court of Justice on Polish law. In Hungary, the government used the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to intensify its attacks on the rule of law and public institutions, increase executive power, and limit human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, information, and peaceful assembly. Hungary finally abided by the June 2020 EU Court decision by repealing a 2017 law forcing civil society organizations receiving over 20,000 EUR per year in foreign funds to register as foreign-funded. But at the same time the government introduced a new bill requiring the national State Audit Office to conduct annual financial inspections of civil society organizations that report more than around 55,000 EUR, with the risk that it could create a new method to demonize and obstruct the work of watchdog groups. The draft bill leaves untouched the controversial 2018 law criminalizing groups giving assistance to asylum seekers. In July 2020, the editor-in-chief of Hungary’s largest online independent daily, Index.hu, was fired as a result of a financial takeover of the company controlling its revenues by a person with close links to the country’s ruling party. In September, the Media Council, a broadcast regulator tied to the executive after controversial changes passed early in the decade, revoked the frequency for the independent Budapest radio station Klubradio, forcing it off the air. On June 9, the European Commission opened a new legal proceeding against Hungary on the basis that the decision to take Klubradio off the air was discriminatory and non-transparent. Civil society groups in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere in the EU have criticized the European Council and European Commission for failing to uphold the bloc’s founding values of respect for human rights and the rule of law in countries that breach them. In December, the EU established a new mechanism conditioning EU funding upon respect for the rule of law, but both the European Commission and the Council have succumbed to Hungary and Poland’s blackmailing and announced they would not start enforcing the measure until autumn. On June 10, the European Parliament took the European Commission to Court if it further delays the implementation of the mechanism. European ministers should continue to convene regular hearings on the situations in Poland and Hungary and take all steps available under Article 7 to hold both governments to account for violating the EU’s core values. These should include adopting specific rule-of-law recommendations that Poland and Hungary’s governments should carry out by a set deadline and, absent any concrete steps toward compliance, work toward the required four-fifth vote to determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach of the values protected by the EU treaty. Such a determination would open up the possibility of sanctions that the Council could adopt, by unanimity, to react to this breach. “After years of foot-dragging, it’s important for EU states to finally come together to scrutinize the situation in Poland and Hungary,” said Eve Geddie, Head of European Institutions Office at Amnesty International. “EU states have an obligation to act together to halt the hollowing out of public institutions and attacks on the rule of law in Poland, Hungary and any other member state that threatens core European values,” said Natacha Kazatchkine, Head of internal EU policy at Open Society European Policy Institute.
11/21/21
NOVDEC-Econ DA v1
Tournament: AppleValley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harrison AA | Judge: Pratham Soni 1-DA
Econ is strong now and will grow World Bank 21 (June 8th 2021, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2021/06/08/the-global-economy-on-track-for-strong-but-uneven-growth-as-covid-19-still-weighs)//AK A year and a half since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy is poised to stage its most robust post-recession recovery in 80 years in 2021. But the rebound is expected to be uneven across countries, as major economies look set to register strong growth even as many developing economies lag. Global growth is expected to accelerate to 5.6 this year, largely on the strength in major economies such as the United States and China. And while growth for almost every region of the world has been revised upward for 2021, many continue to grapple with COVID-19 and what is likely to be its long shadow. Despite this year’s pickup, the level of global GDP in 2021 is expected to be 3.2 below pre-pandemic projections, and per capita GDP among many emerging market and developing economies is anticipated to remain below pre-COVID-19 peaks for an extended period. As the pandemic continues to flare, it will shape the path of global economic activity. The United States and China are each expected to contribute about one quarter of global growth in 2021. The U.S. economy has been bolstered by massive fiscal support, vaccination is expected to become widespread by mid-2021, and growth is expected to reach 6.8 this year, the fastest pace since 1984. China’s economy – which did not contract last year – is expected to grow a solid 8.5 and moderate as the country’s focus shifts to reducing financial stability risks. Lasting Legacies Growth among emerging market and developing economies is expected to accelerate to 6 this year, helped by increased external demand and higher commodity prices. However, the recovery of many countries is constrained by resurgences of COVID-19, uneven vaccination, and a partial withdrawal of government economic support measures. Excluding China, growth is anticipated to unfold at a more modest 4.4 pace. In the longer term, the outlook for emerging market and developing economies will likely be dampened by the lasting legacies of the pandemic – erosion of skills from lost work and schooling; a sharp drop in investment; higher debt burdens; and greater financial vulnerabilities. Growth among this group of economies is forecast to moderate to 4.7 in 2022 as governments gradually withdraw policy support. Among low-income economies, where vaccination has lagged, growth has been revised lower to 2.9. Setting aside the contraction last year, this would be the slowest pace of expansion in two decades. The group’s output level in 2022 is projected to be 4.9 lower than pre-pandemic projections. Fragile and conflict-affected low-income economies have been the hardest hit by the pandemic, and per capita income gains have been set back by at least a decade. Regionally, the recovery is expected to be strongest in East Asia and the Pacific, largely due to the strength of China’s recovery. In South Asia, recovery has been hampered by serious renewed outbreaks of the virus in India and Nepal. The Middle East and North Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to post growth too shallow to offset the contraction of 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa’s recovery, while helped by spillovers from the global recovery, is expected to remain fragile given the slow pace of vaccination and delays to major investments in infrastructure and the extractives sector. With relief from the pandemic tantalizingly close in many places but far from reach in others, policy actions will be critical. Securing equitable vaccine distribution will be essential to ending the pandemic. Far-reaching debt relief will be important to many low-income countries. Policymakers will need to nurture the economic recovery with fiscal and monetary measures while keeping a close eye on safeguarding financial stability. Policies should take the long view, reinvigorating human capital, expanding access to digital connectivity, and investing in green infrastructure to bolster growth along a green, resilient, and inclusive path. It will take global coordination to end the pandemic through widespread vaccination and careful macroeconomic stewardship to avoid crises until we get there.
Strikes are terrible for the economy Haas and Stack 83 (Haas, A., and Stack, S. (1983). Economic Development and Strikes: A Comparative Analysis. The Sociological Quarterly, 24(1), 43–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4106362)//AK Theorists of class conflict have debated the nature of the relationship between economic development and the incidence of strikes. The liberal perspective contends that such developmentsas the growth in size of corporations and the separationof owner- ship from control enable modern management to institutionalize industrial conflict in the form of collective bargaining. In contrast, writers in the radical perspective argue that conflict will increase in late industrializationowing to such forces as the bi- polarizationof classes and an increasein union strength.The presentpapertests these structuralisttheories by using data from a sampling of seventy-one nations represent- ing a wide range in economic development. A polynomial regression analysis indi- cates that strikevolume, a chief measureof overall strikeactivity,follows a parabolic curve-increasing until a GNP per capita of about $4,700 is reached and then declining. No support is found for the radical thesis of an upswing in strike activity at high levels of economic development. The findings on control variables indicate that the inflationrate and mass-mediadevelopmenthave significantlypositive effects on strike activity. Finally, a democraticpolitical climate tends to lower strike volume. Research on the determinants of industrial disputes has pursued a number of re- current themes. First, there is the economic paradigm which links current eco- nomic conditions such as unemployment, real wage change, and profit rates to the incidence of strikes (Yoder, 1940; Rees, 1952; Weintraub, 1966; Ashenfelter and Johnson, 1969; Farber, 1978; Edwards, 1978, 1981). Second, there are those who stress structural factors in industrial organization, such as plant size, the extent of unionization, absentee ownership, industrial specialization, and the degree of centralization in collective bargaining (Britt and Galle, 1972, 1974; Kerr and Seigel, 1954; Crouch and Pizzorno, 1981; Lincoln, 1978). Third, some have stressed contextual factors such as the degree of institutionalization of col- lective bargaining and the political climate as mediating the linkage between so- cial conditions and strikes (Shorter and Tilly, 1974; Snyder, 1975). In contrast to this macrosociological or structuralist literature, another tradition calls for a microsociological approach which investigates the impact of the nature of management-worker relations in explaining individual cases of strikes (Batstone, Boraston, and Frenkel, 1978; Gouldner, 1954; Stern, 1978). Finally, there is a body of work testing theories on the effect of industrialization on strike rates (Ross and Hartman, 1960; Mann, 1975; Hibbs, 1976; Cronin, 1979; Korpi and Shalev, 1979). Macrosociological theories of poltical economy reveal a debate over the relation- ship between the level of economic development and strikes. Authors from vari- ous schools of thought tend to agree only on the thesis that strikes tend to increase during the period of early industrialization. These are the times of widespread social and economic problems such as the uprootedness felt by people involved in the necessary and large-scale rural-to-urban migration, eighteen-hour workdays, mass impoverishment, overcrowded housing, fits and starts in the business cycle, and so on. Such conditions are the breeding grounds of industrial disputes (Ross and Hartman, 1960:44; Mann, 1975). However, theorists disagree about the period of late industrialization. On the one hand, many writers in the radical tra- dition contend that such forces as the bipolarization of classes will produce a period of intensified class antagonisms and industrial conflicts in late industriali- zation (Korpi, 1978; Korpi and Shalev, 1979). On the other hand, liberal political economists expect class war to be increasingly institutionalized and contained through such processes as collective bargaining. Such liberal authors have spoken of the withering away of the strike owing to such developments as the separation of ownership from control and such other imperatives of technological development as the shrinking in the relative size of the blue-collar labor force (Ross and Hartman, 1960; Clegg, 1976; Galbraith, 1967; Kerr and Seigel, 1954).special attention was drawn to two opposed theories of the long-term effects of industrializationor strike volume. The results give support to the liberal position in this debate. The effect of economic development on strikes follows a parabolic curve. The position of the radicals that strikes should follow a linear increase with late industrialization was not supported. More work, especially that following a micromethodological pattern, is needed to detect exactly what conditions in late industrialization are responsible for the general decline in strike volume. Several investigations using (postwar) time-series data on strikes in industrial nations have found a resurgence of strike activity in recent years (Korpi, 1978; Korpi and Shalev, 1979, 1980; Hibbs, 1976, 1978). How, then, might an explana- tion be constructed for the opposed findings of the present paper? While it is true that several industrial nations such as Sweden have had a marked increase in strikes in the 1970s, this level of strike activity is considerably less on the average than that found in the nation at the mid-stages of industrialization.While there are signs of a resurgence of strike activity in some industrial countries, the objective magnitude of the resulting level of activity is overshadowed by that of nations at a GNP level of $4-5,000 U.S. 1977 dollars. There is a possibilty that the radical position would be supported by an alterna- tive specification using a cubic development term: S= bE + b2E2+ b3E3+ c This would represent a curve wherein strike activity increases up to mid-industrial- ization then decreases to late industrialization where the curve swings upward again, although not to the level of mid-industrialization.This cubic polynomial was tested in a separate analysis and did not provide a significantfit for the curve. On the whole, the upswing in strike activity noted by the radicals for some nations is offset by a decline in other nations. It is still too early to discount the radical position altogether. History is not over. If the trend toward an increase in strike activity continues in the nations where it has already developed and spreads to other industrialnations, the cubic model may provide the definitive statement on individual disputes. Such would provide ma- terial for a synthesis of sorts between the two opposed positions. Economic decline goes Nuclear. Tønnesson 15, Stein. "Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace." International Area Studies Review 18.3 (2015): 297-311. (the Department of Peace and Conflict, Uppsala University, Sweden, and Peace research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway) Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene. Extinction Edwards 17 Paul N. Edwards, CISAC’s William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Being interviewed by EarthSky. How nuclear war would affect Earth’s climate. September 8, 2017. earthsky.org/human-world/how-nuclear-war-would-affect-earths-climate Note, we are only reading parts of the interview that are directly from Paul Edwards -- In the nuclear conversation, what are we not talking about that we should be? We are not talking enough about the climatic effects of nuclear war. The “nuclear winter” theory of the mid-1980s played a significant role in the arms reductions of that period. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, this aspect of nuclear war has faded from view. That’s not good. In the mid-2000s, climate scientists such as Alan Robock (Rutgers) took another look at nuclear winter theory. This time around, they used much-improved and much more detailed climate models than those available 20 years earlier. They also tested the potential effects of smaller nuclear exchanges. The result: an exchange involving just 50 nuclear weapons — the kind of thing we might see in an India-Pakistan war, for example — could loft 5 billion kilograms of smoke, soot and dust high into the stratosphere. That’s enough to cool the entire planet by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.25 degrees Celsius) — about where we were during the Little Ice Age of the 17th century. Growing seasons could be shortened enough to create really significant food shortages. So the climatic effects of even a relatively small nuclear war would be planet-wide. What about a larger-scale conflict? A U.S.-Russia war currently seems unlikely, but if it were to occur, hundreds or even thousands of nuclear weapons might be launched. The climatic consequences would be catastrophic: global average temperatures would drop as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) for up to several years — temperatures last seen during the great ice ages. Meanwhile, smoke and dust circulating in the stratosphere would darken the atmosphere enough to inhibit photosynthesis, causing disastrous crop failures, widespread famine and massive ecological disruption. The effect would be similar to that of the giant meteor believed to be responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. This time, we would be the dinosaurs. Many people are concerned about North Korea’s advancing missile capabilities. Is nuclear war likely in your opinion? At this writing, I think we are closer to a nuclear war than we have been since the early 1960s. In the North Korea case, both Kim Jong-un and President Trump are bullies inclined to escalate confrontations. President Trump lacks impulse control, and there are precious few checks on his ability to initiate a nuclear strike. We have to hope that our generals, both inside and outside the White House, can rein him in. North Korea would most certainly “lose” a nuclear war with the United States. But many millions would die, including hundreds of thousands of Americans currently living in South Korea and Japan (probable North Korean targets). Such vast damage would be wrought in Korea, Japan and Pacific island territories (such as Guam) that any “victory” wouldn’t deserve the name. Not only would that region be left with horrible suffering amongst the survivors; it would also immediately face famine and rampant disease. Radioactive fallout from such a war would spread around the world, including to the U.S. It has been more than 70 years since the last time a nuclear bomb was used in warfare. What would be the effects on the environment and on human health today? To my knowledge, most of the changes in nuclear weapons technology since the 1950s have focused on making them smaller and lighter, and making delivery systems more accurate, rather than on changing their effects on the environment or on human health. So-called “battlefield” weapons with lower explosive yields are part of some arsenals now — but it’s quite unlikely that any exchange between two nuclear powers would stay limited to these smaller, less destructive bombs.
11/6/21
NOVDEC-Econ DA v1
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Aff Nova CD | Judge: Phoenix Pittman Economy is good now but future demands upon a steady stream of labor and continued efforts against inflation Foster 10-14 Sarah Foster, 10-14-2021, "How Is The U.S. Economy Doing? 4 Key Areas To Watch As Delta Variant Holds Back Recovery," Bankrate, https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/how-us-economy-is-doing/ Sarah previously worked for Bloomberg News, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Daily Herald and has been quoted in several national and regional media outlets, including Yahoo! News, NBC, the Toronto Star, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and more.RD Debatedrills
That’s because the financial system has made significant progress at rebounding from the coronavirus pandemic-induced plunge in March 2020. Not only that, but the U.S. economy by sheer size is bigger today than before the outbreak began, with economists expecting the fastest rate of growth in decades — a clear green light for the financial system. The question, however, is how long that pace can be sustained. The International Monetary Fund in October downgraded its global growth forecasts, referencing supply chain disruptions, waning fiscal stimulus and threats from the Delta variant. That comes nearly three weeks after the Fed, too, waved a yellow caution flag by revising their own forecasts lower. Meanwhile, fears are also growing that inflation could burn red hot, as Americans pay higher prices on everything from airfares and hotels to rents, housing, groceries and vehicles. Americans are greatly impacted by the U.S. economy because it influences their employment outcomes and how much they pay for goods and services. Here’s four key measures that are worth paying attention to right now and how it could impact your wallet. 1. Job market: Employers are showing record demand for hiring, but not enough people are taking the bait At first glance, the job market should be booming: Employers in August had a near record number of jobs to fill (10.1 million), and those outnumbered the jobless (7.7 million), according to the Department of Labor. The quits rate — the share of workers who voluntarily separated from their positions, a measure generally seen as a sign of economic confidence – soared to new heights in August (2.9 percent). But take a look at other measures, and the story changes. Unemployment in September was still at elevated levels (4.8 percent) compared to before the outbreak, and close to 5 million positions are still missing from the economy. That’s after the pandemic leveled the job market, costing 22.3 million positions and causing joblessness to skyrocket to its highest level since the Great Depression (14.8 percent). Economists reference changing worker priorities, leading to supply challenges rather than low demand for workers. Virus fears could be keeping workers on the sidelines. Remote learning, schools with quarantine protocols and child care restraints are weighing on Americans’ job prospects. Some workers may have retired, while elevated business formation in 2021 suggests others could be going into business for themselves. The Delta variant could also be inspiring workers to stay out of work. Workers who are on the job hunt might not have the skills that match up with available positions. Illustrating those factors is a shrinking labor pool, with 3.1 million fewer people working today than in February 2020. Labor force participation in September also declined by 183,000 workers. Another primary factor: Individuals are reevaluating what they want out of work. The industries most fragile to the pandemic have the highest quit rates, starting with food service and accommodation (6.8 percent) — part of the leisure and hospitality industry, which has a quits rate of 6.4 percent — while retail trade (4.7 percent) trails closely behind. “That plays into the reassessment side of the story,” says Rhea Thomas, senior economist at Wilmington Trust. “The risks are higher in terms of contracting a virus in those industries, and it’s part of the reason why people with those skills may not necessarily be able to easily into other industries, creating some of this friction in terms of being unable to match employees up with where employers are seeking more help.” Meanwhile, the highest percentage of job openings are also in leisure and hospitality (16.4 percent), accommodation and food services (14.3 percent), and retail (11.4 percent), suggesting difficulties in replacing the workers who’ve left. A Bankrate poll from August found that more than half (55 percent) of the labor force plan to look for new employment at some point over the next 12 months, with workers prioritizing flexible work arrangements such as remote work or adjustable hours, as well as higher pay and job security. Companies are already having to hike worker pay, among them retailers and restaurants such as Target, McDonald’s, Under Armour and Chipotle. Average hourly earnings in September rose 4.6 percent from a year ago, according to the Department of Labor. 2. Inflation: Prices are heating up across the board, and experts aren’t sure when that pace will abateIt’s no secret that consumers have been paying higher prices this year. Almost nine in 10 Americans (or 89 percent) said they’ve paid more for goods and services this year, while two-thirds (66 percent) say it’s negatively impacted their finances, according to a separate Bankrate survey from August. Year-over-year consumer price increases have been at 13-year highs for six straight months, rising by 5.4 percent in September. But what’s noteworthy is where the inflationary pressures are coming from. Prices aren’t just increasing on things like hotels (24.1 percent, on a 12-month basis), apparel (1.9 percent), meals at restaurants (4.7 percent), or concert and sporting event tickets (6.3 percent) — areas that would be more closely linked to the reopening of the economy. Americans are also having to pay more for meat (16.7 percent), gasoline (41.8 percent), rent (3.3 percent) and used cars and trucks (21 percent). Home values: Prices are soaring for both owners and renters Even more high-frequency measures tell the same story. The median one-bedroom rent is up 10.7 percent since March 2020, according to data from apartment rental site Zumper. Meanwhile, the median sale price of U.S. houses has soared for five straight months and reached a new record in the second quarter of 2021, rising by 16.2 percent from a year ago, according to the Census Bureau. Economists say that once shelter prices are up, they tend to stay that way — and considering that housing is the biggest line in most Americans’ budgets, that could come as a detriment to consumers’ wallets if wage gains don’t compensate. “We certainly see an environment where inflation could run above 3 percent through 2022,” says Jordan Jackson, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “The shelter piece and wage pressures are probably going to be the primary drivers of what causes inflation to settle down at a higher run rate.” That highlights the ultimate question when it comes to inflation: How long it will last. Consumers theoretically will work through all their pent-up demand and eventually spend all of the extra money that Congress awarded them through stimulus checks and fiscal stimulus. Yet, supply chain bottlenecks are lingering longer than expected, as virus cases continue to shut down factories across the globe and worker shortages reduce production. “There’s a global traffic jam of goods affecting cargo ships, shipping containers, trucks and railroads. That’s leading to price increases,” says Mark Hamrick, Bankrate senior economic analyst. “Resolution of these complicated supply traffic jams doesn’t seem to be in the cards any time soon.” 3. What else to watch: Economic growth, consumer spending and inequality Make no mistake: 2021 is going to be a record year for growth. Officials at the Federal Reserve are expecting that the financial system will grow 5.9 percent this year. That would be the fastest pace of growth since 1984. Even in 2022, the economy is geared up for above-trend growth, surging 3.8 percent in the year according to Fed forecasts, which would be the fastest since 2004. By sheer dollar amount, the U.S. economy is now bigger than it was before the pandemic despite ongoing labor market troubles, rising by an annualized pace of 6.7 percent in the second quarter of 2021. That was in part thanks to record demand. Spending surged 12 percent, as consumers dined out, traveled and shopped again thanks to reopened businesses, vaccinations and leftover stimulus money. Record federal spending has also helped prop up growth this year, rising by an annualized pace of 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2021. But that growth pace is expected to slow by the third quarter of 2021, with the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tool putting growth at 1.3 percent in the quarter, with waning fiscal stimulus, production shortages and the Delta variant to blame. Fed officials have already downgraded their forecasts for the year to 5.9 percent from 7 percent growth, referencing those restraints in records of their September meeting. “Growth here in the U.S. is still overall solid, but you did have Delta throwing a temporary wrench into the recovery and slowing some momentum that might have otherwise been there,” Thomas says. “Even without Delta, you would’ve expected that slowing pace of growth moving into next year. That fiscal boost is not expected to be here next year.” Even as the economy heals, the recovery is feeling uneven for some of the country’s most vulnerable. Black unemployment is nearly twice that of whites (7.9 percent versus 4.2 percent), while 6.3 percent of Hispanic workers are jobless. Meanwhile, low-wage jobs declined more rapidly during the pandemic than middle- and higher-income positions, with employment in the lowest-paying jobs about 20 percent below pre-pandemic levels, according to the Fed’s May 2021 monetary policy report. “The pandemic-related downturn exacerbated income and wealth inequality,” Hamrick says. “Even with a relatively rapid decline in the headline unemployment rate, now below 5 percent, the jobless rates for Blacks, Hispanics and teens remain elevated.” 4. The Fed: Officials are gearing up to back away from extraordinary accommodation That tale of two economies could make the Fed’s job even harder, as officials want to avoid overheating the economy while also giving the labor market plenty of time to run. Officials, however, are judging that it’s time to start backing away from stimulus. That will come in two parts — first by slowing its bond buying and second by eventually hiking interest rates. The Fed’s asset purchase slowdown — a process known as taper — appears all but locked in, with officials in records of their September meeting judging that tapering could begin sometime in mid-November or mid-December and finish by the middle of next year. The Fed looks like it could reduce how many Treasury securities it’s buying each month by $10 billion and how many mortgage-backed securities it’s purchasing each month by $5 billion. That matters for consumers because the Fed’s asset purchases have kept a lid on record-low mortgage rates. To be sure, the Fed would still be in a stimulative stance, just not as much as it was at the onset of the pandemic. When it comes to rate hikes, the Fed is also growing less patient, with officials in September divided on a rate hike as soon as 2022. Investors are already bracing for them, with the majority of market participants betting on at least one rate hike by September 2022, according to CME Group’s FedWatch.
SKO{The very threat of a strike would strengthen unions significantly. Kim 14 Lanu Kim, 2014, " What Makes Unions Strong? A Network Perspective on Union Bargaining Power", Washington University Press, https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/25433/Kim_washington_0250O_12844.pdf?sequence=1DD PT Collective bargaining is a crucial tool in a union’s arsenal, but sometimes negotiations break down. This may lead unions to employ the second means at their disposal: a strike. During a strike, workers refuse to perform their expected duties. Strikes can severely damage a company’s productivity if unionized workers refuse to work for substantial periods of time, or if other workers join the strike in solidarity. By threatening a company with decreasing productivity, strikes can enhance a union’s power at the bargaining table. In addition, strikes help unions gain support from the broader public by publicizing poor working conditions and stagnant wages. Building political pressure outside the company may force employers to pay more attention to workers’ demands. While strikes can enhance a union’s power, strikes are quite a rare occurrence. In 2012, there were only 19 work stoppages that involved 1,000 or more workers, and less than .005 of working time was idled by strikes (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics). In past decades, strikes were somewhat more common, but still rare relative to the working population of the US: in the 1970s, the average number of strikes per year was 287.9 compared to 20.1 in 2000s (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics). Though strikes are a powerful means by which workers can express their grievances and broaden support for their positions, their infrequency suggests that they are very difficult to conduct.
Recognizing the right to strike strengthens the power that unions have by creating unconditional leverage against companies. Hennebert et al. 20 Hennebert, Marc-Antonin, and Marcel Faulkner. “Are Strikes Still a Tool for Union Action? A Qualitative Investigation into the Private Sector in Quebec, Canada.” Economic and Industrial Democracy, vol. 41, no. 1, Feb. 2020, pp. 73–97, doi:10.1177/0143831X16684963. DD PT Economic and structural factors. Many respondents first recognized that the decision to go on strike was a ‘strategic choice’ dictated by several variables including the particularly important variable of their economic environment. Thus, for these respondents, it was important to analyse the economic conditions and, in particular, the conditions of the industry sector involved, and to thoroughly understand the state of the labour market before even considering going on strike as a rational choice of action. At this stage, the company’s financial situation appears to have been the most important variable to consider in making an informed decision. However, the respondents’ comments revealed a paradoxical argument. In fact, in order for a strike to be effective, it must have ‘serious financial consequences for the employer’, that is, it must ‘hurt the company’, but without undermining its survival. One union representative underlined the importance of seeking such a balance: … if I want to go on strike, or even if I want to put pressure on the employer, if I undermine the work of my members and the company, I have nothing to gain by it. So, the decision to go on strike must be taken in light of the company’s situation … I will be in a better position if the economic situation of the company is positive. Although the analysis of the company’s financial situation is not a new step in the decisional process leading to a strike, according to our interviewees, it nevertheless appears to be more complex than in the past because of the changing corporate structures of companies and the increasing blurring of their organizational boundaries. Identifying ‘the real corporate entity’ involved in the negotiation, knowing who ‘the real employer’ is, or ‘simply determining the real corporate profitability level’, have become increasingly difficult tasks. These tasks become even more complex when management teams refuse to be transparent about their financial information. One of our interlocutors summed up these difficulties as follows:
An influx of union power forces widespread wage hikes.- basically turns contention 2 McNicholas et al. 20 Celine McNicholas, Lynn Rhinehart, Margaret Poydock, Heidi Shierholz, and Daniel Perez, 8-25-2020, "Why unions are good for workers—especially in a crisis like COVID-19: 12 policies that would boost worker rights, safety, and wages," Economic Policy Institute, https://www.epi.org/publication/why-unions-are-good-for-workers-especially-in-a-crisis-like-covid-19-12-policies-that-would-boost-worker-rights-safety-and-wages/DDPT On average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 11.2 more in wages than a peer with similar education, occupation, and experience in a nonunionized workplace in the same industry; this wage advantage is known as the “union wage premium.”16 And unions don’t just help union workers—they help all of us. When union density is high, nonunion workers benefit, because unions effectively set broader standards—including higher wages, as noted by Rosenfeld, Denice, and Laird (2016)—that nonunion employers must meet in order to attract and retain the workers they need (and to avoid facing a union organizing drive themselves). The combination of the direct effect of unions on union members and this “spillover” effect to nonunion workers means unions are crucial in raising wages for working people and reducing income inequality. Research shows that deunionization accounts for a sizable share of the growth in inequality between typical (median) workers and workers at the high end of the wage distribution in recent decades—on the order of 13–20 for women and 33–37 for men.17
A sudden increase in wages causes a rapid rise in inflation. Rockeman and Pickert 21 Olivia Rockeman and Reade Pickert, 06-09-21, "Surprise Jump in U.S. Wages Gives Inflation Debate a New Twist," BloombergQuint, https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/surprise-jump-in-u-s-wages-gives-inflation-debate-a-new-twistDDPT An unexpected jump in U.S. wages has given financial markets a new reason to worry that higher inflation may be here to stay. Consumer prices are rising quickly as the economy reopens after the pandemic. A closely watched data release on Thursday is expected to show prices rose another 0.4 in May -- pushing annual inflation above April’s 4.2, already the highest in more than a decade. Many policy makers and economists see the price spike as temporary –- partly because they haven’t been anticipating much in the way of wage growth, which has been relatively stagnant for years at the lower end of the pay scale. Employment is still way down from pre-pandemic levels, suggesting an ample pool of workers from which to draw, and most jobs being created right now are in low-wage industries like restaurants and tourism. But last week’s jobs report showed a larger-than-forecast pickup in average hourly wages for a second straight month. It turns out that whatever the unemployment numbers say, there’s a shortage of people ready to work at the going rate of compensation -- prompting many employers to boost pay or offer bonuses in order to staff up. Dreaded Spiral That raises the prospect of what’s known and dreaded in economics as a wage-price spiral. The idea is that higher wages spur more spending growth that strains production capacity and drives up business costs. In turn, companies raise prices and workers demand even larger pay increases to stay ahead of a rising cost of living. Those dynamics contributed to persistently high U.S. inflation in the 1970s –- a period often invoked by those who fear a lasting wave of post-Covid inflation. Federal Reserve officials aren’t in that camp. They acknowledge that pandemic policies like stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment benefits could push wages up, and noted last week that firms are boosting starting pay. But they also say the increases are concentrated in lower-paid service industries –- where faster wage growth is exactly what the Fed and the Biden administration want to see -- and haven’t spread up through the pay scale. More broadly, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly argued that the once-close link between wages and inflation has broken down in recent years. ‘Full Denial’ Some economists say the central bank is understating a significant risk. “Fed officials do not believe that wage pressures can exist in a world with 6 unemployment, so they are in full denial,” Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC, said in a note. “A substantial pickup in wage gains would be the quickest path to turning a ‘transitory’ inflation blip into a persistent upturn.” Across the U.S., job openings grew to a record-high 9.3 million in April, and some analysts say that’s increased workers’ bargaining power. Other economists cite entrenched trends like declining union membership, and argue that they leave workers lacking the clout to make the pay increases stick in the longer term.
Rapid inflation triggers an economic crisis. Cox 21 Jeff Cox, 06-07-2021, “Deutsche Bank warns of global ‘time bomb’ coming due to rising inflation,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/07/deutsche-bank-warns-of-global-time-bomb-coming-due-to-rising-inflation.htmlDDPT The Deutsche team said the coming inflation could resemble the 1970s experience, a decade during which inflation averaged nearly 7 and was well into double digits at various times. Soaring food and energy prices along with the end of price controls helped push that era’s soaring inflation. Then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker led the effort to squash inflation then, but needed to use dramatic interest rate hikes that triggered a recession. The Deutsche team worries that such a scenario could play out again. “Already, many sources of rising prices are filtering through into the US economy. Even if they are transitory on paper, they may feed into expectations just as they did in the 1970s,” they said. “The risk then, is that even if they are only embedded for a few months they may be difficult to contain, especially with stimulus so high.” The firm said interest rate hikes could “cause havoc in a debt-heavy world,” with financial crises likely particularly in emerging economies where growth won’t be able to overcome higher financing costs.
Economic decline goes Nuclear. Tønnesson 15, Stein. "Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace." International Area Studies Review 18.3 (2015): 297-311. (the Department of Peace and Conflict, Uppsala University, Sweden, and Peace research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway) Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene. Extinction Edwards 17 Paul N. Edwards, CISAC’s William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Being interviewed by EarthSky. How nuclear war would affect Earth’s climate. September 8, 2017. earthsky.org/human-world/how-nuclear-war-would-affect-earths-climate Note, we are only reading parts of the interview that are directly from Paul Edwards -- In the nuclear conversation, what are we not talking about that we should be? We are not talking enough about the climatic effects of nuclear war. The “nuclear winter” theory of the mid-1980s played a significant role in the arms reductions of that period. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, this aspect of nuclear war has faded from view. That’s not good. In the mid-2000s, climate scientists such as Alan Robock (Rutgers) took another look at nuclear winter theory. This time around, they used much-improved and much more detailed climate models than those available 20 years earlier. They also tested the potential effects of smaller nuclear exchanges. The result: an exchange involving just 50 nuclear weapons — the kind of thing we might see in an India-Pakistan war, for example — could loft 5 billion kilograms of smoke, soot and dust high into the stratosphere. That’s enough to cool the entire planet by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.25 degrees Celsius) — about where we were during the Little Ice Age of the 17th century. Growing seasons could be shortened enough to create really significant food shortages. So the climatic effects of even a relatively small nuclear war would be planet-wide. What about a larger-scale conflict? A U.S.-Russia war currently seems unlikely, but if it were to occur, hundreds or even thousands of nuclear weapons might be launched. The climatic consequences would be catastrophic: global average temperatures would drop as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) for up to several years — temperatures last seen during the great ice ages. Meanwhile, smoke and dust circulating in the stratosphere would darken the atmosphere enough to inhibit photosynthesis, causing disastrous crop failures, widespread famine and massive ecological disruption. The effect would be similar to that of the giant meteor believed to be responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. This time, we would be the dinosaurs. Many people are concerned about North Korea’s advancing missile capabilities. Is nuclear war likely in your opinion? At this writing, I think we are closer to a nuclear war than we have been since the early 1960s. In the North Korea case, both Kim Jong-un and President Trump are bullies inclined to escalate confrontations. President Trump lacks impulse control, and there are precious few checks on his ability to initiate a nuclear strike. We have to hope that our generals, both inside and outside the White House, can rein him in. North Korea would most certainly “lose” a nuclear war with the United States. But many millions would die, including hundreds of thousands of Americans currently living in South Korea and Japan (probable North Korean targets). Such vast damage would be wrought in Korea, Japan and Pacific island territories (such as Guam) that any “victory” wouldn’t deserve the name. Not only would that region be left with horrible suffering amongst the survivors; it would also immediately face famine and rampant disease. Radioactive fallout from such a war would spread around the world, including to the U.S. It has been more than 70 years since the last time a nuclear bomb was used in warfare. What would be the effects on the environment and on human health today? To my knowledge, most of the changes in nuclear weapons technology since the 1950s have focused on making them smaller and lighter, and making delivery systems more accurate, rather than on changing their effects on the environment or on human health. So-called “battlefield” weapons with lower explosive yields are part of some arsenals now — but it’s quite unlikely that any exchange between two nuclear powers would stay limited to these smaller, less destructive bombs.
11/20/21
NOVDEC-HealthCare PIC
Tournament: AppleValley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harrison AA | Judge: Pratham Soni 2– CP-Pandemics Text: A Just government ought to recognize a conditional right of workers to strike whereby Healthcare Workers are not permitted to strike during a pandemic. Strikes During a Pandemic decks preparedness – responsivity is slowed, faith is deterred, and resources are overstretched. Its try or die for medical preparedness to mitigate the next pandemic. Jamaluddin et al. 21 Jamaluddin, J., Baharum, N. N., Jamil, S. N., and Kamel, M. A. M. (2021). Doctors Strike During COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia: Between Right and Wrong. Voices in Bioethics, 7. https://doi.org/10.52214/vib.v7i.8586 DD HJ Although doctor strikes do not seem to increase patient mortality, they can disrupt delivery of healthcare.32 Disruptions in delivery of service from prolonged strikes can result in decline of in-patient admissions and outpatient service utilization, as suggested during strikes in the UK in 2016.33 When emergency services were affected during the last strike in April, regular service was also significantly affected. Additionally, people might need to seek alternative sources of care from the private sector and face increased costs of care. HCWs themselves may feel guilty and demotivated because of the strikes. The public health system may also lose trust as a result of service disruption caused by high recurrence of strikes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, as the healthcare system remains stretched, the potential adverse effects resulting from doctor strikes remain uncertain and potentially disruptive. In the UK, it is an offence to “willfully and maliciously…endanger human life or cause serious bodily injury.”34 Likewise, the General Medical Council (GMC) also requires doctors to ensure that patients are not harmed or put at risk by industrial action. In the US, the American Medical Association code of ethics prohibits strikes by physicians as a bargaining tactic, while allowing some other forms of collective bargaining.35 However, the American College of Physicians prohibits all forms of work stoppages, even when undertaken for necessary changes to the healthcare system. Similarly, the Delhi Medical Council in India issued a statement that “under no circumstances doctors should resort to strike as the same puts patient care in serious jeopardy.”36 On the other hand, the positions taken by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) and Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) on doctors’ strikes are less clear when compared to their Western counterparts. The MMC, in their recently updated Code of Professional Conduct 2019, states that “the public reputation of the medical profession requires that every member should observe proper standards of personal behavior, not only in his professional activities but at all times.” Strikes may lead to imprisonment and disciplinary actions by MMC for those involved. Similarly, the MMA Code of Medical Ethics published in 2002 states that doctors must “make sure that your personal beliefs do not prejudice your patients' care.”37 The MMA which is traditionally meant to represent the voices of doctors in Malaysia, may hold a more moderate position on strikes. Although HCW strikes are not explicitly mentioned in either professional body’s code of conduct and ethics, the consensus is that doctors should not do anything that will harm patients and they must maintain the proper standard of behaviors. These statements seem too general and do not represent the complexity of why and how a strike could take place. Therefore, it has been suggested that doctors and medical organizations should develop a new consensus on issues pertaining to medical professional’s social contract with society while considering the need to uphold the integrity of the profession. Experts in law, ethics, and medicine have long debated whether and when HCW strikes can be justified. If a strike is not expected to result in patient harm it is perhaps acceptable.38 Although these debates have centered on the potential risks that strikes carry for patients, these actions also pose risks for HCWs as they may damage morale and reputation.39 Most fundamentally, strikes raise questions about what healthcare workers owe society and what society owes them. For strikes to be morally permissible and ethical, it is suggested that they must fulfil these three criteria:40 a. Strikes should be proportionate, e., they ‘should not inflict disproportionate harm on patients’, and hospitals should as a minimum ‘continue to provide at least such critical services as emergency care.’ b. Strikes should have a reasonable hope of success, at least not totally futile however tough the political rhetoric is. c. Strikes should be treated as a last resort: ‘all less disruptive alternatives to a strike action must have been tried and failed’, including where appropriate ‘advocacy, dissent and even disobedience’. The current strike does not fulfil the criteria mentioned. As Malaysia is still burdened with a high number of COVID-19 cases, a considerable absence of doctors from work will disrupt health services across the country. Second, since the strike organizer is not unionized, it would be difficult to negotiate better terms of contract and career paths. Third, there are ongoing talks with MMA representing the fraternity and the current government, but the time is running out for the government to establish a proper long-term solution for these contract doctors. One may argue that since the doctors’ contracts will end in a few months with no proper pathways for specialization, now is the time to strike. However, the HCW right to strike should be invoked only legally and appropriately after all other options have failed. CONCLUSION The strike in Malaysia has begun since the drafting of this paper. Doctors involved assure that there will not be any risk to patients, arguing that the strike is “symbolic”.41 Although an organized strike remains a legal form of industrial action, a strike by HCWs in Malaysia poses various unprecedented challenges and ethical dilemmas, especially during the pandemic. The anonymous and uncoordinated strike without support from the appropriate labor unions may only spark futile discussions without affirmative actions. It should not have taken a pandemic or a strike to force the government to confront the issues at hand. It is imperative that active measures be taken to urgently address the underlying issues relating to contract physicians. As COVID-19 continues to affect thousands of people, a prompt reassessment is warranted regarding the treatment of HCWs, and the value placed on health care. Disease causes extinction – weakening health care preparedness is the death knell Ord ‘20 (Toby Ord is a moral philosopher, Oxford University, Future of Life Institute. Ord has advised the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Office, and Government Office for Science; “Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics”; The Guardian; D.A. April 18th 2020, Published March 6th 2020; https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/06/worst-case-thinking-prevent-pandemics-coronavirus-existential-risk) TITLE: Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics The world is in the early stages of what may be the most deadly pandemic of the past 100 years. In China, thousands of people have already died; large outbreaks have begun in South Korea, Iran and Italy; and the rest of the world is bracing for impact. We do not yet know whether the final toll will be measured in thousands or hundreds of thousands. For all our advances in medicine, humanity remains much more vulnerable to pandemics than we would like to believe. To understand our vulnerability, and to determine what steps must be taken to end it, it is useful to ask about the very worst-case scenarios. Just how bad could a pandemic be? In science fiction, we sometimes encounter the idea of a pandemic so severe that it could cause the end of civilisation, or even of humanity itself. Such a risk to humanity’s entire future is known as an existential risk. We can say with certainty that the novel coronavirus, named Covid-19, does not pose such a risk. But could the next pandemic? To find out, and to put the current outbreak into greater context, let us turn to the past. In 1347, death came to Europe. It entered through the Crimean town of Caffa, brought by the besieging Mongol army. Fleeing merchants unwittingly carried it back to Italy. From there, it spread to France, Spain and England. Then up as far as Norway and across the rest of Europe – all the way to Moscow. Within six years, the Black Death had taken the continent. Tens of millions fell gravely ill, their bodies succumbing to the disease in different ways. Some bore swollen buboes on their necks, armpits and thighs; some had their flesh turn black from haemorrhaging beneath the skin; some coughed blood from the necrotic inflammation of their throats and lungs. All forms involved fever, exhaustion and an intolerable stench from the material that exuded from the body. There were so many dead that mass graves needed to be dug and, even then, cemeteries ran out of room for the bodies. The Black Death devastated Europe. In those six years, between a quarter and half of all Europeans were killed. The Middle East was ravaged, too, with the plague killing about one in three Egyptians and Syrians. And it may have also laid waste to parts of central Asia, India and China. Due to the scant records of the 14th century, we will never know the true toll, but our best estimates are that somewhere between 5 and 14 of all the world’s people were killed, in what may have been the greatest catastrophe humanity has seen. The Black Death was not the only biological disaster to scar human history. It was not even the only great bubonic plague. In AD541 the plague of Justinian struck the Byzantine empire. Over three years, it took the lives of roughly 3 of the world’s people. When Europeans reached the Americas in 1492, the two populations exposed each other to completely novel diseases. Over thousands of years, each population had built up resistance to their own set of diseases, but were extremely susceptible to the others. The American peoples got by far the worse end of the exchange, through diseases such as measles, influenza and, especially, smallpox. During the next 100 years, a combination of invasion and disease took an immense toll – one whose scale may never be known, due to great uncertainty about the size of the pre-existing population. We can’t rule out the loss of more than 90 of the population of the Americas during that century, though the number could also be much lower. And it is very difficult to tease out how much of this should be attributed to war and occupation, rather than disease. At a rough estimate, as many as 10 of the world’s people may have been killed. Centuries later, the world had become so interconnected that a truly global pandemic was possible. Towards the end of the first world war, a devastating strain of influenza, known as the 1918 flu or Spanish flu, spread to six continents, and even remote Pacific islands. About a third of the world’s population were infected and between 3 and 6 were killed. This death toll outstripped that of the first world war. Yet even events like these fall short of being a threat to humanity’s long-term potential. In the great bubonic plagues we saw civilisation in the affected areas falter, but recover. The regional 25-50 death rate was not enough to precipitate a continent-wide collapse. It changed the relative fortunes of empires, and may have substantially altered the course of history, but if anything, it gives us reason to believe that human civilisation is likely to make it through future events with similar death rates, even if they were global in scale. The Spanish flu pandemic was remarkable in having very little apparent effect on the world’s development, despite its global reach. It looks as if it was lost in the wake of the first world war, which, despite a smaller death toll, seems to have had a much larger effect on the course of history. The full history of humanity covers at least 200,000 years. While we have scarce records for most of these 2,000 centuries, there is a key lesson we can draw from the sheer length of our past. The chance of human extinction from natural catastrophes of any kind must have been very low for most of this time – or we would not have made it so far. But could these risks have changed? Might the past provide false comfort? Our population now is a thousand times greater than it was for most of human history, so there are vastly more opportunities for new human diseases to originate. And our farming practices have created vast numbers of animals living in unhealthy conditions within close proximity to humans. This increases the risk, as many major diseases originate in animals before crossing over to humans. Examples include HIV (chimpanzees), Ebola (bats), Sars (probably civets or bats) and influenza (usually pigs or birds). We do not yet know where Covid-19 came from, though it is very similar to coronaviruses found in bats and pangolins. Evidence suggests that diseases are crossing over into human populations from animals at an increasing rate. Modern civilisation may also make it much easier for a pandemic to spread. The higher density of people living together in cities increases the number of people each of us may infect. Rapid long-distance transport greatly increases the distance pathogens can spread, reducing the degrees of separation between any two people. Moreover, we are no longer divided into isolated populations as we were for most of the past 10,000 years. Together these effects suggest that we might expect more new pandemics, for them to spread more quickly, and to reach a higher percentage of the world’s people. But we have also changed the world in ways that offer protection. We have a healthier population; improved sanitation and hygiene; preventative and curative medicine; and a scientific understanding of disease. Perhaps most importantly, we have public health bodies to facilitate global communication and coordination in the face of new outbreaks. We have seen the benefits of this protection through the dramatic decline of endemic infectious disease over the past century (though we can’t be sure pandemics will obey the same trend). Finally, we have spread to a range of locations and environments unprecedented for any mammalian species. This offers special protection from extinction events, because it requires the pathogen to be able to flourish in a vast range of environments and to reach exceptionally isolated populations such as uncontacted tribes, Antarctic researchers and nuclear submarine crews. It is hard to know whether these combined effects have increased or decreased the existential risk from pandemics. This uncertainty is ultimately bad news: we were previously sitting on a powerful argument that the risk was tiny; now we are not. We have seen the indirect ways that our actions aid and abet the origination and spread of pandemics. But what about cases where we have a much more direct hand in the process – where we deliberately use, improve or create the pathogens? Our understanding and control of pathogens is very recent. Just 200 years ago, we didn’t even understand the basic cause of pandemics – a leading theory in the west claimed that disease was produced by a kind of gas. In just two centuries, we discovered it was caused by a diverse variety of microscopic agents and we worked out how to grow them in the lab, to breed them for different traits, to sequence their genomes, to implant new genes and to create entire functional viruses from their written code. This progress is continuing at a rapid pace. The past 10 years have seen major qualitative breakthroughs, such as the use of the gene editing tool Crispr to efficiently insert new genetic sequences into a genome, and the use of gene drives to efficiently replace populations of natural organisms in the wild with genetically modified versions. This progress in biotechnology seems unlikely to fizzle out anytime soon: there are no insurmountable challenges looming; no fundamental laws blocking further developments. But it would be optimistic to assume that this uncharted new terrain holds only familiar dangers. To start with, let’s set aside the risks from malicious intent, and consider only the risks that can arise from well-intentioned research. Most scientific and medical research poses a negligible risk of harms at the scale we are considering. But there is a small fraction that uses live pathogens of kinds that are known to threaten global harm. These include the agents that cause the Spanish flu, smallpox, Sars and H5N1 or avian flu. And a small part of this research involves making strains of these pathogens that pose even more danger than the natural types, increasing their transmissibility, lethality or resistance to vaccination or treatment. In 2012, a Dutch virologist, Ron Fouchier, published details of an experiment on the recent H5N1 strain of bird flu. This strain was extremely deadly, killing an estimated 60 of humans it infected – far beyond even the Spanish flu. Yet its inability to pass from human to human had so far prevented a pandemic. Fouchier wanted to find out whether (and how) H5N1 could naturally develop this ability. He passed the disease through a series of 10 ferrets, which are commonly used as a model for how influenza affects humans. By the time it passed to the final ferret, his strain of H5N1 had become directly transmissible between mammals. The work caused fierce controversy. Much of this was focused on the information contained in his work. The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity ruled that his paper had to be stripped of some of its technical details before publication, to limit the ability of bad actors to cause a pandemic. And the Dutch government claimed that the research broke EU law on exporting information useful for bioweapons. But it is not the possibility of misuse that concerns me here. Fouchier’s research provides a clear example of well-intentioned scientists enhancing the destructive capabilities of pathogens known to threaten global catastrophe. Of course, such experiments are done in secure labs, with stringent safety standards. It is highly unlikely that in any particular case the enhanced pathogens would escape into the wild. But just how unlikely? Unfortunately, we don’t have good data, due to a lack of transparency about incident and escape rates. This prevents society from making well-informed decisions balancing the risks and benefits of this research, and it limits the ability of labs to learn from each other’s incidents. Security for highly dangerous pathogens has been deeply flawed, and remains insufficient. In 2001, Britain was struck by a devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock. Six million animals were killed in an attempt to halt its spread, and the economic damages totalled £8bn. Then, in 2007, there was another outbreak, which was traced to a lab working on the disease. Foot-and-mouth was considered a highest-category pathogen, and required the highest level of biosecurity. Yet the virus escaped from a badly maintained pipe, leaking into the groundwater at the facility. After an investigation, the lab’s licence was renewed – only for another leak to occur two weeks later. In my view, this track record of escapes shows that even the highest biosafety level (BSL-4) is insufficient for working on pathogens that pose a risk of global pandemics on the scale of the Spanish flu or worse. Thirteen years since the last publicly acknowledged outbreak from a BSL-4 facility is not good enough. It doesn’t matter whether this is from insufficient standards, inspections, operations or penalties. What matters is the poor track record in the field, made worse by a lack of transparency and accountability. With current BSL-4 labs, an escape of a pandemic pathogen is only a matter of time. One of the most exciting trends in biotechnology is its rapid democratisation – the speed at which cutting-edge techniques can be adopted by students and amateurs. When a new breakthrough is achieved, the pool of people with the talent, training, resources and patience to reproduce it rapidly expands: from a handful of the world’s top biologists, to people with PhDs in the field, to millions of people with undergraduate-level biology. The Human Genome Project was the largest ever scientific collaboration in biology. It took 13 years and $500m to produce the full DNA sequence of the human genome. Just 15 years later, a genome can be sequenced for under $1,000, and within a single hour. The reverse process has become much easier, too: online DNA synthesis services allow anyone to upload a DNA sequence of their choice then have it constructed and shipped to their address. While still expensive, the price of synthesis has fallen by a factor of 1,000 in the past two decades, and continues to drop. The first ever uses of Crispr and gene drives were the biotechnology achievements of the decade. But within just two years, each of these technologies were used successfully by bright students participating in science competitions. Such democratisation promises to fuel a boom of entrepreneurial biotechnology. But since biotechnology can be misused to lethal effect, democratisation also means proliferation. As the pool of people with access to a technique grows, so does the chance it contains someone with malign intent. People with the motivation to wreak global destruction are mercifully rare. But they exist. Perhaps the best example is the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan, active between 1984 and 1995, which sought to bring about the destruction of humanity. It attracted several thousand members, including people with advanced skills in chemistry and biology. And it demonstrated that it was not mere misanthropic ideation. It launched multiple lethal attacks using VX gas and sarin gas, killing more than 20 people and injuring thousands. It attempted to weaponise anthrax, but did not succeed. What happens when the circle of people able to create a global pandemic becomes wide enough to include members of such a group? Or members of a terrorist organisation or rogue state that could try to build an omnicidal weapon for the purposes of extortion or deterrence? The main candidate for biological existential risk in the coming decades thus stems from technology – particularly the risk of misuse by states or small groups. But this is not a case in which the world is blissfully unaware of the risks. Bertrand Russell wrote of the danger of extinction from biowarfare to Einstein in 1955. And, in 1969, the possibility was raised by the American Nobel laureate for medicine, Joshua Lederberg: “As a scientist I am profoundly concerned about the continued involvement of the United States and other nations in the development of biological warfare. This process puts the very future of human life on earth in serious peril.” In response to such warnings, we have already begun national and international efforts to protect humanity. There is action through public health and international conventions, and self-regulation by biotechnology companies and the scientific community. Are they adequate? National and international work in public health offers some protection from engineered pandemics, and its existing infrastructure could be adapted to better address them. Yet even for existing dangers this protection is uneven and under-provided. Despite its importance, public health is underfunded worldwide, and poorer countries remain vulnerable to being overwhelmed by outbreaks. Biotechnology companies are working to limit the dark side of the democratisation of their field. For example, unrestricted DNA synthesis would help bad actors overcome a major hurdle in creating extremely deadly pathogens. It would allow them to get access to the DNA of controlled pathogens such as smallpox (whose genome is readily available online) and to create DNA with modifications to make the pathogen more dangerous. Therefore, many synthesis companies make voluntary efforts to manage this risk, screening their orders for dangerous sequences. But the screening methods are imperfect, and they only cover about 80 of orders. There is significant room for improving this process, and a strong case for making screening mandatory. We might also look to the scientific community for careful management of biological risks. Many of the dangerous advances usable by states and small groups have come from open science. And we’ve seen that science produces substantial accident risk. The scientific community has tried to regulate its dangerous research, but with limited success. There are a variety of reasons why this is extremely hard, including difficulty in knowing where to draw the line, lack of central authorities to unify practice, a culture of openness and freedom to pursue whatever is of interest, and the rapid pace of science outpacing that of governance. It may be possible for the scientific community to overcome these challenges and provide strong management of global risks, but it would require a willingness to accept serious changes to its culture and governance – such as treating the security around biotechnology more like that around nuclear power. And the scientific community would need to find this willingness before catastrophe strikes. Threats to humanity, and how we address them, define our time. The advent of nuclear weapons posed a real risk of human extinction in the 20th century. There is strong reason to believe the risk will be higher this century, and increasing with each century that technological progress continues. Because these anthropogenic risks outstrip all natural risks combined, they set the clock on how long humanity has left to pull back from the brink. I am not claiming that extinction is the inevitable conclusion of scientific progress, or even the most likely outcome. What I am claiming is that there has been a robust trend towards increases in the power of humanity, which has reached a point where we pose a serious risk to our own existence. How we react to this risk is up to us. Nor am I arguing against technology. Technology has proved itself immensely valuable in improving the human condition. The problem is not so much an excess of technology as a lack of wisdom. Carl Sagan put this especially well: “Many of the dangers we face indeed arise from science and technology – but, more fundamentally, because we have become powerful without becoming commensurately wise. The world-altering powers that technology has delivered into our hands now require a degree of consideration and foresight that has never before been asked of us.” Because we cannot come back from extinction, we cannot wait until a threat strikes before acting – we must be proactive. And because gaining wisdom takes time, we need to start now. I think that we are likely to make it through this period. Not because the challenges are small, but because we will rise to them. The very fact that these risks stem from human action shows us that human action can address them. Defeatism would be both unwarranted and counterproductive – a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, we must address these challenges head-on with clear and rigorous thinking, guided by a positive vision of the longterm future we are trying to protect.
11/6/21
NOVDEC-Infrastructure DA
Tournament: AppleValley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harrison AA | Judge: Pratham Soni 3-DA Biden’s reconciliation bill passes now but compromises are delicate Caygle and Everett 10/20 (Heather and Burgess, Congress reporters at Politico) “Dems edge closer to ditching disarray” https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/20/dems-edge-closer-ditching-disarray-516312 EE, DebateDrills Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s strategy to force through Democrats’ domestic agenda flamed out spectacularly in September. They’re ready to try it all over again. With their party’s long-sought priorities on the line, the speaker and Senate majority leader are hustling to clinch a deal as soon as possible that would lock in evasive centrists on a framework for President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion social spending package. That framework, in turn, would free up needed progressive votes for a bipartisan infrastructure bill by Oct. 31. It’s a rerun of the playbook Democratic leaders used just weeks ago, only to have it blow up in their faces. But Democrats insist it actually might work this time, with political and legislative incentives aligning more neatly than they did in September. Pelosi and Schumer are telling their members they need to secure an agreement on the social spending bill by the end of this week. The House could even vote by the end of the month. “We’re getting there. The gaps are closing. The vibe in our caucus is different. Folks are being more clear-eyed about: ‘We’ve got to get this done,’” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who is close to Biden. “There’s a lot of reasons why these next 10 days are critical. To chip shot this into December is really, really problematic.” Democrats are also getting more specific, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) tossing a carbon tax and a green utilities program overboard while insisting on means testing much of the bill. Biden also told progressives Tuesday that an expanded boost to the child tax credit could be made shorter and that free community college could be jettisoned. Biden’s price tag for the bill at the moment is around $2 trillion and he wants to lock down an agreement before heading overseas at the end of this month for climate talks, according to Democrats familiar with Tuesday’s discussions. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) said he left Biden’s meeting with progressives thinking “the president is committed to getting this done as soon as possible. And I was kind of surprised by that.” Gomez said things remain “touch and go” and it’s unclear how much is finalized, even as Democratic leaders hope to close in on a framework in the coming days. But it’s clear the momentum has shifted in recent days. Biden and Democrats are having substantive conversations about which programs will stay in the bill, which priorities will be cut and how to knit the rest together into a package both centrists and liberals can support. “He's being decisive, he’s showing leadership,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said of Biden after progressives’ two-hour Tuesday meeting at the White House. “I think it’s going to get done this time.” There’s still much more to get through, however. And Democrats have a crunch of deadlines waiting later this year that they must balance with their last, best chance to capitalize on their full control of Washington and pass once-in-a-generation legislation that would significantly shore up the nation’s social safety net. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are the toughest votes to secure, but both were whirlwinds of activity on Tuesday. Each of the centrists met with Biden. And while Manchin was in the Democratic lunch with his colleagues settling on a quick timeline, Sinema was meeting with senior White House staff, according to her office. Sinema’s office declined to comment on her commitment to finishing things by the end of the week. Though the odds are still stacked against the party, Democrats say it’s clear there’s a renewed sense of urgency among party leaders. Schumer is nudging his holdouts more than ever before, Pelosi is free from the constraints of an agreement with moderates that imploded and Biden is finally engaged in a meaningful way. Plus, nearly everyone has accepted the bill won’t be $3.5 trillion, as originally proposed. “There’s a real consensus that it’s time,” said the party’s No. 3 Senate leader, Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “We all see the timeline, there’s a lot of struggle about what’s going to go in a bill that’s literally half the size of what people envisioned.” A month ago, some Democrats privately grumbled that Pelosi was working with an artificial deadline based on an agreement she made with moderates in her chamber — but one that didn’t motivate, and maybe even alienated, key Senate holdouts from cutting a deal. Manchin and Sinema, specifically, are still fuming that the House hasn’t passed the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. Still, just a few weeks later, several Democrats involved in the negotiations insist that even the centrists much-maligned by their party's base for chipping away at the bill are springing into action. At a caucus meeting Tuesday, Manchin listened intently to his colleagues in what one attendee called a “turning point, in that there was more of a focus on urgency.” Importantly, Democrats on all sides are coming to grips with the reality that all of their demands will not be met. The Obamacare subsidies that House Democratic leaders have pushed for are still in the package, while liberals’ demand for a massive Medicare expansion — something Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called non-negotiable last week — may be significantly pared back. While jettisoning some policy proposals and slimming the bill seem like unwelcome developments for Democrats, the more specific negotiations indicate that the party is actually down to brass tacks. Still, Gomez said some of the discussion involved “trial balloons to see what the reactions of the different factions are.” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said on Tuesday morning that the “fact we don’t have a deal and have been gone for 10 days on recess means we’ve got to do better.” But after meeting with Biden Tuesday afternoon, his opinion had changed: “I think there’s a lot that’s happened the last 10 days, I just wasn’t aware of it. We’re getting to a point where we can move pretty well.” It's critical for Pelosi and Schumer to show they can govern in a sharply divided Congress with the thinnest of majorities. Biden needs a huge win ahead of a global climate summit in Glasgow. And every Democrat wants to put a victory on the board to boost Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, whose loss would be a major setback to the party’s agenda and midterm prospects. Plus, the nation's highway trust fund runs dry at the end of October and will need more money from Congress — which the bipartisan infrastructure bill will supply once it clears the House. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) insisted Tuesday that Democratic leaders are still pushing to finalize both a roughly $2 trillion social infrastructure bill and pass the $550 billion infrastructure bill by the end of the month. But even if party leaders can get their warring factions to agree to a framework for the spending bill after weeks of public feuding, that too will amount to a triumph after months of jockeying. “We're working very hard to have both of those bills ready to be passed by the House of Representatives before that date,” Hoyer told reporters. “Now, if we make significant progress, that'll also be success towards those ends.” The plan gets lumped in with the reconciliation bill and causes conflict Mueller 09/21/2021 (Eleanor, labor reporter) “Unions squeeze pro-labor priorities into Democrats’ spending bill” Politico, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/21/unions-reconciliation-bill-513423 EE, DebateDrills Tucked amid the investments in child care, higher education and clean energy are below-the-radar provisions that would make it easier for workers to organize, such as giving the National Labor Relations Board sharper teeth and empowering it to conduct union elections online. Both of those policies are also included in the Protecting the Right to Organize Act — an overhaul of U.S. labor law Democrats drafted to resuscitate tapering union membership, which is stalled in the Senate. How much the language in the spending bill could really move the needle on the fortunes of organized labor remains to be seen. It must also survive the Byrd rule, which allows only spending-related legislation to move through the reconciliation process that Democrats intend to use to pass the bill. Democrats have had one of their other top priorities — immigration reform — stymied by the rule already. Union officials are pouring time, money and energy into making sure the provisions — which they helped shape — make it across the finish line. If they are successful, it could constitute the biggest pro-union shift in U.S. labor law since the National Labor Relations Act was enacted in 1935, labor experts said. “Labor is not only all over supporting it, it has helped craft it,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in an interview. Some on the employer side of the table say the provisions are far too consequential to be tucked into a massive spending bill. “These are cataclysmic questions of the most fundamental policy that have gargantuan implications for the way labor and management is going to work together or not work together in this country,” said attorney Michael Lotito, who represents employers for the law firm Littler. “And this type of fundamental policy change is being done using a backdoor approach.” Republican lawmakers have also denounced the tactic. "The PRO Union Bosses Act was dead upon arrival in the Senate, so Speaker Pelosi and Committee Democrats are manipulating the legislative process to enact portions,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (N.C.), the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee. Unions and their allies have seen the reconciliation bill as a possible vehicle for the labor provisions since they were introduced in the PRO Act. Infrastructure only passes if reconciliation does Cochrane et al 10/18/2021 (Emily Cochrane, Luke Broadwater, and Jonathan Weisman, NYT reporters) Biden Meets With Feuding Democrats and Expresses Confidence a Deal Can Be Reached, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/01/us/infrastructure-bill-house#house-infrastructure-delay-vote EE, DebateDrills President Biden, facing an intraparty battle over his domestic agenda, put his own $1 trillion infrastructure bill on hold on Friday, telling Democrats that a vote on the popular measure must wait until Democrats pass his far more ambitious social policy and climate change package. It was largely a bid to mediate the impasse that has stalled a planned vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which progressives refuse to support until they see action on the remainder of Mr. Biden’s agenda in a major budget bill to expand health care, education, climate change initiatives and paid leave. “I’m telling you, we’re going to get this done,” Mr. Biden said at the Capitol after huddling with Democrats who have been feuding over the two bills. He added: “It doesn’t matter when. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or six weeks. We’re going to get it done.” In private remarks, he counseled Democrats that while he wanted both pieces of legislation to become law, final passage of the Senate-passed infrastructure bill needed to wait until the party agreed to the details of the broader reconciliation package. But he also warned liberal Democrats that a proposed $3.5 trillion price tag would probably need to drop in order to accommodate centrist holdouts, and he tossed out a range of figures around $2 trillion as a possible alternative. “He is the president of the United States, and he says that he wants to get this done, and he basically linked them together,” said Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas. “I think if we get it done, there’ll be a victory. The question is when do we get that victory?” Mr. Cuellar noted that moderates had an agreement with Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California to vote on the bill this week, and said it was up to her how to handle that promise. On Friday evening, Ms. Pelosi indefinitely postponed a vote on the infrastructure bill that she had promised to moderates who had publicly pushed for a stand-alone vote. She wrote in a letter to colleagues, “Clearly, the bipartisan infrastructure bill will pass once we have agreement on the reconciliation bill.” “Our priority to create jobs in the health care, family and climate agendas is a shared value,” she wrote, adding that leading lawmakers were “still working for clarity and consensus.” Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Mr. Biden “was very clear” that the two bills were tied together.
Failure of the infrastructure package locks in catastrophic climate change---extinction Paul Bledsoe 9/4, strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute and a professorial lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy. He served on the White House Climate Change Task Force under former President Bill Clinton, “Climate devastation is upon us. Congress must act.,” NY Daily News, 9-4-2021, https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-climate-congress-20210904-mqbe75qni5b77ocke5orzrmjce-story.html?outputType=amp Many Democrats publicly expressed the need to act on climate change, and offered legislation at the federal and state level. Yet while the ability of Democrats to pass needed legislation was hindered by some divisions within their own ranks, resistance came primarily from Republicans who overwhelmingly opposed any serious actions to limit climate change and the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it. With a few prominent exceptions like former Sen. John McCain, most Republicans derided climate concerns as alarmism and claimed any attempts to limit emissions would be devastating to the U.S. economy. Fast forward 20 years, and our climate situation has grown immeasurably more grave. As predicted climate change impacts are inflicting huge human and economic costs in the U.S., with much worse to come without immediate action. Yet stunningly, our broken politics on climate change seem much the same as decades before. Democrats, beginning with President Biden, are desperately pushing to enact hundreds of billions of dollars in climate change and clean energy measures later this month as part of a wider economic and budget bill. These actions can cut U.S. emissions by 50 below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, and put the U.S. in a stronger position to force other nations to act in key climate negotiations in November. But right now Republicans are unified in opposition to any but cursory climate actions. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, claimed the Biden climate measure was a “spree to impose this green new disaster on every American,” willfully ignoring the real climate disasters all around us that Biden’s legislation will help limit. This summer, every single Republican member of the key Senate Finance Committee voted against tax incentives for solar, wind, geothermal, electric vehicles and dozens of other clean energy sources. The stakes of the climate crisis are far more profound and long-lasting than most leaders seem to recognize. What’s needed is a united, bipartisan front like that the U.S. created during the Cold War, in part to force other key nations like China to cut their emissions as aggressively as we do. An inkling that this may be possible is found in bipartisan support for recent legislation promoting American technology innovation to compete globally, and significant bipartisan support for infrastructure legislation. But slow action to cut emissions won’t work. We must act decisively and quickly now in Congress this fall to create a clean energy future and cut emissions that are destabilizing our climate. Otherwise, we are consigning ourselves and all of those who come after us to a devastated and denuded world. Infrastructure is key for the U.S. economy Renshaw and Hunnicutt 21 – White House Reporter at Reuters. M.A. in Political Science from Rutgers and B.A. in journalism from Temple University. AND Investment Reporter at Reuters with degree from London School of Economics and Pomona College. Jarrett and Trevor, “U.S. risks losing its ‘edge’ without big infrastructure spending, Biden says”, Reuters, 10/5/21, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-looks-shift-focus-dc-gridlock-swing-state-benefits-2021-10-05///AV President Joe Biden warned on Tuesday that failure to pass his huge social and infrastructure spending package could contribute to America's decline, while lawmakers in his Democratic Party wrangled over its price tag. Squabbling Democratic moderates and progressives dealt Biden a setback last week when they failed to move ahead with his proposed $1 trillion infrastructure bill or a planned $3.5 trillion social spending bill, which is now facing cuts. "These bills are not about left versus right or moderate versus progressive," Biden said in Michigan, arguing the bills would make the United States more competitive and restore its role as a world leader. "We're at risk of losing our edge as a nation ... To oppose these investments is to be complicit in America's decline," he said. Democrats fear that if they fail to pass the infrastructure bill they could be punished by angry voters in November 2022 congressional elections. Rebuilding U.S. infrastructure was one of Biden's main election promises. The larger "Build Back Better" bill Biden proposed includes childcare, housing and healthcare benefits, free community college tuition and clean energy subsidies, all of which the White House said would not increase the country's debt because they would be paid for by taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Biden said the investments were urgent, citing such adversaries as China, which he said had spent around three times as much as the United States on infrastructure as a share of its economy. "Our competitors aren't hanging around waiting to see what we're going to do," he said.
11/6/21
NOVDEC-Prison Workers CP
Tournament: Princeton | Round: 4 | Opponent: Harrison JC | Judge: Chasia Jeffries 4 CP Text: Amend the National Labor Relations Act to extend definition of employee to include prison workers Squo NLRA fails to protect farmer’s rights to strike – plan amends the NLRA to collectively bargain Reilly, 11, Penn State Law, “Agricultural Laborers: Their Inability to Unionize Under the National Labor Relations Act”, Penn State: Masters of Science, JD Law, URL: https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/_file/aglaw/Publications_Library/Agricultural_Laborers.pdf, 2011 + since most recent citation is from then, KR The NLRA gives workers “freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing” in order to equalize the bargaining power between employers and employees in the hopes of limiting the interruptions to the free flow of commerce.10 The statute covers a large number of workers based on the broad definition of “employee,”11 but excludes from coverage all agricultural laborers.12 The NLRA does not define who these agricultural laborers are that are excluded from the right to organize, but rather Congress has instructed the National Labor Relations Boards (NLRB)13 in the annual Appropriations Act that in determining who is an agricultural laborer excluded from the NLRA, to rely on the definition of “agriculture” found in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).14 Agriculture in the FLSA is defined as “farming in all its branches ... and any practices ... performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations...”15 The definition also lists specific activities to further define what would specifically be considered agricultural work.16 Therefore, workers whose responsibilities are contained in the FLSA’s definition of “agriculture” are excluded from the right to organize and form unions under the NLRA. The reasoning behind this exclusion is somewhat vague, especially considering that the bill originally proposed in the Senate did not exclude agricultural laborers from the definition of “employee.”17 There is not much mentioned about the agricultural exclusion because of the statute’s primary focus on addressing problems in the industrial sector. There is, however, a debate from in the House addressing the agricultural laborer exemption,18 where an argument was made that agricultural laborers should be included because they needed the same protections as industrial workers. Agricultural labor issues were brought to light in 1935 after governmental investigations into child labor issues and the lack of clean water provided for such workers.19 In response, two possible reasons were briefly mentioned that may explain why agricultural laborers were excluded: first, in regions like the Midwest, farms are mostly family farms and should not be within the scope of the NLRA, and second there was a concern that Congress did not have jurisdiction over agricultural workers because it was questionable whether such workers were engaged in interstate commerce.20 Many commentators believe that it was the former argument that led to the exclusion of agricultural workers from protection under the NLRA. Another possible reason for this exclusion as presented by some commentators is that the larger farms lobbied to have their workers excluded from the NLRA.21 While not expressly stated, the most likely explanation is that Congress wanted to protect the family farmer from having to pay higher wages that unions would inevitably demand of the employers.22 Realizing that agriculture was important to the entire nation, Congress wanted to shield this industry from unionization, and wanted to protect the family farmer from having to pay what they could not afford. Congress did not think it necessary to equate the family farmer with big business. The broad definition of “agriculture” under the FLSA would seem to exclude from the NLRA any worker who is employed by any agricultural entity. This is not the case, however, because the Supreme Court has adopted a two-part test to determine if an employee is in fact an agricultural laborer excluded from the NLRA.23 An agricultural employee will be excluded from the right to organize if he or she is engaged in either primary or secondary farming. The Supreme Court has taken the FLSA definition of agriculture and essentially limited its application based on a strict application of the statutory language. Primary farming are those tasks specifically referred to in the statutory definition of “agriculture” such as “cultivation and tillage of the soil and dairying.”24 The rest of the definition is considered secondary farming, and therefore a worker is an agricultural laborer if the work performed is of the type that would be performed “by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations.”25 In one of the more recent cases to address the question of who is considered an agricultural employee, the Supreme Court in Holly Farms Corp. v. N.L.R.B. upheld the determination made by the NLRB that workers on live-haul chicken crews do not engage in agricultural labor and therefore are not subject to the agricultural exception from the NLRA.26 The responsibility of the live-haul crew is to enter the farms of independent contractors who raise chickens supplied by Holly Farms; the chickens are then caught and caged by nine chicken catchers, moved by a forklift operator onto a truck to be transported by a truck driver to the processing plant.27 These live-haul crews were not engaged in primary farming because primary farming would have been the actual raising of the poultry, which was the responsibility of the independent contractors, not the live- haul crews.28 The court then focused on whether these live-haul crews were engaged in secondary farming. In doing so, the court immediately found that that the work performed by the live-haul crews were not of the kind “performed by a farmer” because Holly Farms gave up its farmer status as soon as the chicks were delivered to independent contractors for raising.29 As a result of this determination, the truck drivers were not considered agricultural laborers and were therefore not part of the agricultural exception to the NLRA and were able to unionize.30 The court then looked to whether the chicken catchers and forklift operators were engaged in work “on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with” raising poultry.31 The Supreme Court found that neither the chicken catchers nor the forklift operators “worked on a farm” because the work these employees performed were part of Holly Farms’ poultry processing operations and was not of the type of work contemplated to be included in the statutory definition of “farming.”32 The Supreme Court adopted the reasoning of the NLRB in deciding that the catchers and forklift operators were not performing work “incident to or in conjunction with” the farming operations of the independent contractors.33 In doing so, the Supreme Court decided that it was more important to look at the status of the employer as a farmer rather than where the laborer carried out the responsibilities of the job he or she was hired to perform. Because, as previously determined, Holly Farms was not considered a farmer by the time the live- haul crews went in to catch the chickens, the catchers and the forklift operators were not engaged in secondary farming as defined in the FLSA.34 This meant that all the members of the live-haul crews were not agricultural laborers and therefore all had the right to organize under the NLRA. The Supreme Court limited the applicability of the definition of “agriculture” in Holly Farms and in doing so opened up the possibility that more workers employed by large, vertically integrated employers would be able to organize.35 By taking the approach to look at the status of the employer rather than where the work is performed, the Supreme Court broadened the already broad definition of “employee” under the NLRA. More employees working for these vertically integrated employers will be able to experience the protection of the NLRA that has been open to industrial workers since the act was first passed in 1935. The impact of the Holly Farms decision is for courts to engage in an in depth analysis before deciding whether a worker is an agricultural laborer not protected by the NLRA. Switching the focus to the status of the employer rather than where the employees are performing their responsibilities will ensure greater protection for workers and a broader reach of the NLRA. While the definition of “employee” has expanded to include some employees who are employed by agricultural employers, there is still the exception for agricultural laborers included in the statute and therefore there are still many workers who are unable to form unions. These may be the workers that need the most protection because they are the field workers who are subjected to abuse, poverty and hazardous working conditions.36 Many commentators would like to see the NLRA extended to include agricultural laborers. The main advantage to extending the definition of “employee” to include agricultural laborers under the NLRA is that the statute has been in existence for many years, and most of the challenges that would be brought up with respect to agricultural laborers attempting to unionize have most likely already been resolved in other employment sectors allowing the NLRB and courts to rely on precedent. This will make application of the statue to the agricultural laborers consistent with other employment sectors. Reliance on precedent would lead to predictable outcomes when labor disputes arise. Agricultural laborers still have a ways to go before they will be able to reap the benefits of the NLRA; but, if this were to happen, agricultural laborers would be able not only to unionize and have their association protected, but also would have the advantage of being able to rely on others with experience and knowledge of the NLRA and its intricacies.
12/8/21
NOVDEC-T Government V2
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Harker MK | Judge: Margaret Strong T – Government Interpretation: The affirmative may not specify a just government or a subset of governments. “A” is an indefinite article that modifies “just government” in the res – means that you have to prove the resolution true in a vacuum, not a particular instance CCC (“Articles, Determiners, and Quantifiers”, http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/determiners/determiners.htm#articles, Capital Community College Foundation, a nonprofit 501 c-3 organization that supports scholarships, faculty development, and curriculum innovation) LHSLA JC/SJ The three articles — a, an, the — are a kind of adjective. The is called the definite article because it usually precedes a specific or previously mentioned noun; a and an are called indefinite articles because they are used to refer to something in a less specific manner (an unspecified count noun). These words are also listed among the noun markers or determiners because they are almost invariably followed by a noun (or something else acting as a noun). caution CAUTION! Even after you learn all the principles behind the use of these articles, you will find an abundance of situations where choosing the correct article or choosing whether to use one or not will prove chancy. Icy highways are dangerous. The icy highways are dangerous. And both are correct. The is used with specific nouns. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something that is one of a kind: The moon circles the earth. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something in the abstract: The United States has encouraged the use of the private automobile as opposed to the use of public transit. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something named earlier in the text. (See below..) If you would like help with the distinction between count and non-count nouns, please refer to Count and Non-Count Nouns. We use a before singular count-nouns that begin with consonants (a cow, a barn, a sheep); we use an before singular count-nouns that begin with vowels or vowel-like sounds (an apple, an urban blight, an open door). Words that begin with an h sound often require an a (as in a horse, a history book, a hotel), but if an h-word begins with an actual vowel sound, use an an (as in an hour, an honor). We would say a useful device and a union matter because the u of those words actually sounds like yoo (as opposed, say, to the u of an ugly incident). The same is true of a European and a Euro (because of that consonantal "Yoo" sound). We would say a once-in-a-lifetime experience or a one-time hero because the words once and one begin with a w sound (as if they were spelled wuntz and won). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary says that we can use an before an h- word that begins with an unstressed syllable. Thus, we might say an hisTORical moment, but we would say a HIStory book. Many writers would call that an affectation and prefer that we say a historical, but apparently, this choice is a matter of personal taste. For help on using articles with abbreviations and acronyms (a or an FBI agent?), see the section on Abbreviations. First and subsequent reference: When we first refer to something in written text, we often use an indefinite article to modify it. A newspaper has an obligation to seek out and tell the truth. In a subsequent reference to this newspaper, however, we will use the definite article: There are situations, however, when the newspaper must determine whether the public's safety is jeopardized by knowing the truth. Another example: "I'd like a glass of orange juice, please," John said. "I put the glass of juice on the counter already," Sheila replied. Exception: When a modifier appears between the article and the noun, the subsequent article will continue to be indefinite: "I'd like a big glass of orange juice, please," John said. "I put a big glass of juice on the counter already," Sheila replied. Generic reference: We can refer to something in a generic way by using any of the three articles. We can do the same thing by omitting the article altogether. A beagle makes a great hunting dog and family companion. An airedale is sometimes a rather skittish animal. The golden retriever is a marvelous pet for children. Irish setters are not the highly intelligent animals they used to be. The difference between the generic indefinite pronoun and the normal indefinite pronoun is that the latter refers to any of that class ("I want to buy a beagle, and any old beagle will do.") whereas the former (see beagle sentence) refers to all members of that class Violation – they spec Europe Standards – 1 Precision – the counter-interp justifies them arbitrarily doing away with random words in the resolution which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. Independent voter for jurisdiction – the judge doesn’t have the jurisdiction to vote aff if there wasn’t a legitimate aff. 2 Limits – there are infinite governments that could be just – explodes limits since there are tons of independent affs plus functionally infinite combinations, all with different advantages in different political situations. Kills neg prep and debatability since there are no DAs that apply to every aff – i.e. laws about the right to strike in the US are different than in New Zealand – means the aff is always more prepared and wins just for speccing. 3 TVA – just read your aff as an advantage under a whole adv, solves your offense. PICs don’t solve – it’s ridiculous to say that neg potential abuse justifies the aff making it impossible for me to win from the start.Turn – when the neg has no specific prep they’re incentivized to rely on silly backfile word pics, or random open evidence process pics that moot the 1AC and destroy core topic ed. 1AR theory checks PICs—if they’re so abusive you should be able to win the theory debate. Give me new responses to the PICS argument- I only know how to implicate it after the 1ar. Precision o/w – anything else justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. Drop the debater – a) they have a 7-6 rebuttal advantage and the 2ar to make args I can’t respond to, b) it deters future abuse and sets a positive norm. Use competing interps – a) reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention since we don’t know your bs meter, b) collapses to competing interps – we justify 2 brightlines under an offense defense paradigm just like 2 interps. No RVIs – a) illogical – you shouldn’t win for being fair – it’s a litmus test for engaging in substance, b) norming – I can’t concede the counterinterp if I realize I’m wrong which forces me to argue for bad norms, c) chilling effect – forces you to split your 2AR so you can’t collapse and misconstrue the 2NR, d) topic ed – prevents 1AR blipstorm scripts and allows us to get back to substance after resolving theory Evaluate T before 1AR theory – a) norms – we only have a couple months to set T norms but can set 1AR theory norms anytime, b) magnitude – T affects a larger portion of the debate since the aff advocacy determines every speech after it No impact turns to T—T is a procedural that determines case’s validity and every argument says the aff is bad
Fairness – debate is a competitive activity that requires fairness for objective evaluation. Outweighs – it constrains your ability to evaluate the rest of the flow because they require fair evaluation. Drop the debater – T indicts their entire advocacy so drop the arg is the same thing Competing interps – reasonability is arbitrary and invites judge intervention but we create a race to the top where we create the best norms for debate. No RVIs – a illogical, you don’t win for proving that you meet the burden of being fair, logic outweighs since it’s a prerequisite for evaluating any other argument, b RVIs incentivize baiting theory and prepping it out which leads to maximally abusive practices
11/21/21
NOVDEC-T Government V2
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Harker MK | Judge: Margaret Strong T – Government Interpretation: The affirmative may not specify a just government or a subset of governments. “A” is an indefinite article that modifies “just government” in the res – means that you have to prove the resolution true in a vacuum, not a particular instance CCC (“Articles, Determiners, and Quantifiers”, http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/determiners/determiners.htm#articles, Capital Community College Foundation, a nonprofit 501 c-3 organization that supports scholarships, faculty development, and curriculum innovation) LHSLA JC/SJ The three articles — a, an, the — are a kind of adjective. The is called the definite article because it usually precedes a specific or previously mentioned noun; a and an are called indefinite articles because they are used to refer to something in a less specific manner (an unspecified count noun). These words are also listed among the noun markers or determiners because they are almost invariably followed by a noun (or something else acting as a noun). caution CAUTION! Even after you learn all the principles behind the use of these articles, you will find an abundance of situations where choosing the correct article or choosing whether to use one or not will prove chancy. Icy highways are dangerous. The icy highways are dangerous. And both are correct. The is used with specific nouns. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something that is one of a kind: The moon circles the earth. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something in the abstract: The United States has encouraged the use of the private automobile as opposed to the use of public transit. The is required when the noun it refers to represents something named earlier in the text. (See below..) If you would like help with the distinction between count and non-count nouns, please refer to Count and Non-Count Nouns. We use a before singular count-nouns that begin with consonants (a cow, a barn, a sheep); we use an before singular count-nouns that begin with vowels or vowel-like sounds (an apple, an urban blight, an open door). Words that begin with an h sound often require an a (as in a horse, a history book, a hotel), but if an h-word begins with an actual vowel sound, use an an (as in an hour, an honor). We would say a useful device and a union matter because the u of those words actually sounds like yoo (as opposed, say, to the u of an ugly incident). The same is true of a European and a Euro (because of that consonantal "Yoo" sound). We would say a once-in-a-lifetime experience or a one-time hero because the words once and one begin with a w sound (as if they were spelled wuntz and won). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary says that we can use an before an h- word that begins with an unstressed syllable. Thus, we might say an hisTORical moment, but we would say a HIStory book. Many writers would call that an affectation and prefer that we say a historical, but apparently, this choice is a matter of personal taste. For help on using articles with abbreviations and acronyms (a or an FBI agent?), see the section on Abbreviations. First and subsequent reference: When we first refer to something in written text, we often use an indefinite article to modify it. A newspaper has an obligation to seek out and tell the truth. In a subsequent reference to this newspaper, however, we will use the definite article: There are situations, however, when the newspaper must determine whether the public's safety is jeopardized by knowing the truth. Another example: "I'd like a glass of orange juice, please," John said. "I put the glass of juice on the counter already," Sheila replied. Exception: When a modifier appears between the article and the noun, the subsequent article will continue to be indefinite: "I'd like a big glass of orange juice, please," John said. "I put a big glass of juice on the counter already," Sheila replied. Generic reference: We can refer to something in a generic way by using any of the three articles. We can do the same thing by omitting the article altogether. A beagle makes a great hunting dog and family companion. An airedale is sometimes a rather skittish animal. The golden retriever is a marvelous pet for children. Irish setters are not the highly intelligent animals they used to be. The difference between the generic indefinite pronoun and the normal indefinite pronoun is that the latter refers to any of that class ("I want to buy a beagle, and any old beagle will do.") whereas the former (see beagle sentence) refers to all members of that class Violation – they spec Europe Standards – 1 Precision – the counter-interp justifies them arbitrarily doing away with random words in the resolution which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. Independent voter for jurisdiction – the judge doesn’t have the jurisdiction to vote aff if there wasn’t a legitimate aff. 2 Limits – there are infinite governments that could be just – explodes limits since there are tons of independent affs plus functionally infinite combinations, all with different advantages in different political situations. Kills neg prep and debatability since there are no DAs that apply to every aff – i.e. laws about the right to strike in the US are different than in New Zealand – means the aff is always more prepared and wins just for speccing. 3 TVA – just read your aff as an advantage under a whole adv, solves your offense. PICs don’t solve – it’s ridiculous to say that neg potential abuse justifies the aff making it impossible for me to win from the start.Turn – when the neg has no specific prep they’re incentivized to rely on silly backfile word pics, or random open evidence process pics that moot the 1AC and destroy core topic ed. 1AR theory checks PICs—if they’re so abusive you should be able to win the theory debate. Give me new responses to the PICS argument- I only know how to implicate it after the 1ar. Precision o/w – anything else justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. Drop the debater – a) they have a 7-6 rebuttal advantage and the 2ar to make args I can’t respond to, b) it deters future abuse and sets a positive norm. Use competing interps – a) reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention since we don’t know your bs meter, b) collapses to competing interps – we justify 2 brightlines under an offense defense paradigm just like 2 interps. No RVIs – a) illogical – you shouldn’t win for being fair – it’s a litmus test for engaging in substance, b) norming – I can’t concede the counterinterp if I realize I’m wrong which forces me to argue for bad norms, c) chilling effect – forces you to split your 2AR so you can’t collapse and misconstrue the 2NR, d) topic ed – prevents 1AR blipstorm scripts and allows us to get back to substance after resolving theory Evaluate T before 1AR theory – a) norms – we only have a couple months to set T norms but can set 1AR theory norms anytime, b) magnitude – T affects a larger portion of the debate since the aff advocacy determines every speech after it No impact turns to T—T is a procedural that determines case’s validity and every argument says the aff is bad
Fairness – debate is a competitive activity that requires fairness for objective evaluation. Outweighs – it constrains your ability to evaluate the rest of the flow because they require fair evaluation. Drop the debater – T indicts their entire advocacy so drop the arg is the same thing Competing interps – reasonability is arbitrary and invites judge intervention but we create a race to the top where we create the best norms for debate. No RVIs – a illogical, you don’t win for proving that you meet the burden of being fair, logic outweighs since it’s a prerequisite for evaluating any other argument, b RVIs incentivize baiting theory and prepping it out which leads to maximally abusive practices
11/21/21
NOVDEC-T-Goverments
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 3 | Opponent: WestWood AG | Judge: Gordon Krauss 1NC – T Nebel Governments Interp – the Aff may not specify a “just” government. Governments is a generic bare plural. Nebel 20 Jake Nebel is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California and executive director of Victory Briefs. He writes a lot of this stuff lol – duh. “Indefinite Singular Generics in Debate” Victory Briefs, 19 August 2020. no url AG I agree that if “a democracy” in the resolution just meant “one or more democracy,” then a country-specific affirmative could be topical. But, as I will explain in this topic analysis, that isn’t what “a democracy” means in the resolution. To see why, we first need to back up a bit and review (or learn) the idea of generic generalizations. The most common way of expressing a generic in English is through a bare plural. A bare plural is a plural noun phrase, like “dogs” and “cats,” that lacks an overt determiner. (A determiner is a word that tells us which or how many: determiners include quantifier words like “all,” “some,” and “most,” demonstratives like “this” and “those,” posses- sives like “mine” and “its,” and so on.) LD resolutions often contain bare plurals, and that is the most common clue to their genericity. We have already seen some examples of generics that are not bare plurals: “A whale is a mammal,” “A beaver builds dams,” and “The woolly mammoth is extinct.” The first two examples use indefinite singulars—singular nouns preceded by the indefinite article “a”—and the third is a definite singular since it is preceded by the definite article “the.” Generics can also be expressed with bare singulars (“Syrup is viscous”) and even verbs (as we’ll see later on). The resolution’s “a democracy” is an indefinite singular, and so it very well might be—and, as we’ll soon see, is—generic. But it is also important to keep in mind that, just as not all generics are bare plurals, not all bare plurals are generic. “Dogs are barking” is true as long as some dogs are barking. Bare plurals can be used in particular ways to express existential statements. The key question for any given debate resolution that contains a bare plural is whether that occurrence of the bare plural is generic or existential. The same is true of indefinite singulars. As debaters will be quick to point out, some uses of the indefinite singular really do mean “some” or “one or more”: “A cat is on the mat” is clearly not a generic generalization about cats; it’s true as long as some cat is on the mat. The question is whether the indefinite singular “a democracy” is existential or generic in the resolution. Now, my own view is that, if we understand the difference between existential and generic statements, and if we approach the question impartially, without any invest- ment in one side of the debate, we can almost always just tell which reading is correct just by thinking about it. It is clear that “In a democracy, voting ought to be compul- sory” doesn’t mean “There is one or more democracy in which voting ought to be com- pulsory.” I don’t think a fancy argument should be required to show this any more than a fancy argument should be required to show that “A duck doesn’t lay eggs” is a generic—a false one because ducks do lay eggs, even though some ducks (namely males) don’t. And if a debater contests this by insisting that “a democracy” is existen- tial, the judge should be willing to resolve competing claims by, well, judging—that is, by using her judgment. Contesting a claim by insisting on its negation or demanding justification doesn’t put any obligation on the judge to be neutral about it. (Otherwise the negative could make every debate irresolvable by just insisting on the negation of every statement in the affirmative speeches.) Even if the insistence is backed by some sort of argument, we can reasonably reject an argument if we know its conclusion to be false, even if we are not in a position to know exactly where the argument goes wrong. Particularly in matters of logic and language, speakers have more direct knowledge of particular cases (e.g., that some specific inference is invalid or some specific sentence is infelicitious) than of the underlying explanations. But that is just my view, and not every judge agrees with me, so it will be helpful to consider some arguments for the conclusion that we already know to be true: that, even if the United States is a democracy and ought to have compulsory voting, that doesn’t suffice to show that, in a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory—in other words, that “a democracy” in the resolution is generic, not existential. Second, existential uses of the indefinite, such as “A cat is on the mat,” are upward- entailing.3 This means that if you replace the noun with a more general one, such as “An animal is on the mat,” the sentence will still be true. So let’s do that with “a democracy.” Does the resolution entail “In a society, voting ought to be compulsory”? Intuitively not, because you could think that voting ought to be compulsory in democracies but not in other sorts of societies. This suggests that “a democracy” in the resolution is not existential. Violation – they spec Egypt Upward Entailment test fails – democracy was the subject of SeptOct that year the same way governments are the subject of NovDec because “A just government ought to recognize the rights of workers– therefore, only ought to recognize the rights of all workers” is illogical. 1 Limits – there’s so many just governments they could specify, coupled with various types of workers. Kills neg burdens – it’s impossible for me to research every possible just government AND different permutations of those governments. 2 TVA – read your aff as an advantage to a whole rez aff. We aren’t stopping them from reading new frameworks, mechanisms, or advantages. PICs don’t solve – it’s ridiculous to say that neg potential abuse justifies the aff making it impossible for me to win from the start . D Voter: Fairness and education are voters – debate’s a game that needs rules to evaluate it and education gives us portable skills for life like research and thinking. Precision o/w – anything else justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. Drop the debater – a) they have a 7-6 rebuttal advantage and the 2ar to make args I can’t respond to, b) it deters future abuse and sets a positive norm. Use competing interps – a) reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention since we don’t know your bs meter, b) collapses to competing interps – we justify 2 brightlines under an offense defense paradigm just like 2 interps. No RVIs – a) illogical – you shouldn’t win for being fair – it’s a litmus test for engaging in substance, b) norming – I can’t concede the counterinterp if I realize I’m wrong which forces me to argue for bad norms, c) chilling effect – forces you to split your 2AR so you can’t collapse and misconstrue the 2NR, d) topic ed – prevents 1AR blipstorm scripts and allows us to get back to substance after resolving theory Evaluate T before 1AR theory – a) norms – we only have a couple months to set T norms but can set 1AR theory norms anytime, b) magnitude – T affects a larger portion of the debate since the aff advocacy determines every speech after it No impact turns to T—T is a procedural that determines case’s validity and every argument says the aff is bad
11/21/21
NOVDEC-T-Just
Tournament: GlennBrooks | Round: 3 | Opponent: WestWood AG | Judge: Gordon Krauss 2 Interpretation: the affirmative must defend that only just governments ought to recognize the right to strike Just governments respect liberties Dorn 12 James A. Dorn, Cato Journal, "The Scope of Government in a Free Society", Fall 2012, https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2012/12/v32n3-10.pdf If laws are just, liberty and property are secure. The most certain test of justice is negative—that is, justice occurs when injustice (the violation of natural rights to life, liberty, and property) is prevented. The emphasis here is on what Hayek (1967) called “just rules of conduct,” not on the fairness of outcomes. No one has stated the negative concept of justice better than the 19th century French classical liberal Frederic Bastiat (1850 1964: 65): When law and force confine a man within the bounds of justice, they do not impose anything on him but a mere negation. They impose on him only the obligation to refrain from injuring others. They do not infringe on his personality, or his liberty or his property. They merely safeguard the personality, the liberty, and the property of others. They stand on the defensive; they defend the equal rights of all. They fulfill a mission whose harmlessness is evident, whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is uncontested. In short, the purpose of a just government is not to do good with other people’s money, but to prevent injustice by protecting property and securing liberty.
Violation—Egypt is not just and is racist
African migrants fleeing war face horrible racism. I have a article if you need it. And their own amnesty international argument says Egypt violates human rights by cracking down on strikes
Prefer – 1 Precision — anything else justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. 2 Limits – there are 200 governments in the world – letting them pick an unjust ones explodes limits via infinite permutations of governments 3 Phil ed – 1AR will claim no government is just but that just means that we defend ideal theory. That’s good – A forces philosophical contestation which can uniquely happen in LD debate whereas you can util debate on any topic B outweighs – framework debate allows to identify injustice which is a prereq to any other theory voter because they’re all philosophically grounded Fairness- consittutive of comp activites, args presume Edu- funded ny schools DTD- dta illogical, time skew No RVI’s- illogical, baiting CI – intervention, collapses, race to top T first – 1 aff abuse frames neg abuse 2 norming a set early b only 2 months to set T norms ow on urgency
11/21/21
SEPTOCT-Addiction DA
Tournament: Nano Nagle Voices | Round: 6 | Opponent: Lynbrook SM | Judge: Felicity Park Addiction DA Increasing access to addictive medicines means an increase in addiction – previous legalization proves. DuPont Robert L., M.D. (member, Rivermend Health Scientific Advisory Board, President, Institute for Behavior and Health Inc. First Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse) “Marijuana Legalization Has Led to More Use and Addiction While Illegal Market Continues to Thrive”, Rivermend Health, https://www.rivermendhealth.com/resources/marijuana-legalization-led-use-addiction-illegal-market-continues-thrive/DebateDrills LC It comes as no surprise that the prevalence of marijuana use has significantly increased over the last decade. With marijuana legal for recreational use in four states and the District of Columbia and for medical use in an additional 31 states, the public perception about marijuana has shifted, with more people reporting that they support legalization. However, there is little public awareness, and close to zero media attention, to the near-doubling of past year marijuana use nationally among adults age 18 and older and the corresponding increase in problems related to its use. Because the addiction rate for marijuana remains stable—with about one in three past year marijuana users experiencing a marijuana use disorder—the total number of Americans with marijuana use disorders also has significantly increased. It is particularly disturbing that the public is unaware of the fact that of all Americans with substance use disorders due to drugs other than alcohol, nearly 60 percent are due to marijuana. That means that more Americans are addicted to marijuana than any other drug, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and the nonmedical use of prescription drugs. Stores in Colorado and Washington with commercialized marijuana sell innovative marijuana products offering users record-high levels of THC potency. Enticing forms of marijuana, including hash oil used in discreet vaporizer pens and edibles like cookies, candy and soda are attractive to users of all ages, particularly those underage. The legal marijuana producers are creatively and avidly embracing these new trends in marijuana product development, all of which encourage not only more users but also more intense marijuana use. Yet despite the expansion of state legal marijuana markets, the illegal market for marijuana remains robust, leaving state regulators two uncomfortable choices: either a ban can be placed on the highest potency—and most enticing—marijuana products which will push the legal market back to products with more moderate levels of THC, or the current evolution to ever-more potent and more attractive products can be considered acceptable despite its considerable negative health and safety consequences. If tighter regulations are the chosen option, the illegal market will continue to exploit the desire of marijuana users to consume more potent and attractive products. If state governments let the market have its way, there will be no limit to the potency of legally marketed addicting marijuana products. Cannabis addiction has drastic and unknown impacts. CDC 21 “Addiction (Marijuana or Cannabis Use Disorder)”, Centers for Disease Control, https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/addiction.htmlDebateDrills LC People who have marijuana use disorder may also be at a higher risk of other negative consequences, such as problems with attention, memory, and learning. Some people who have marijuana use disorder may need to use more and more marijuana or greater concentrations of marijuana over time to experience a “high.” The greater the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in marijuana (in other words, the concentration or strength), the stronger the effects the marijuana may have on the brain.5,6 The amount of THC in marijuana has increased over the past few decades.6 In a study of cannabis research samples over time, the average delta-9 THC (the main form of THC in the cannabis plant) concentration almost doubled, from 9 in 2008 to 17 in 2017.7 Products from dispensaries often offer much higher concentrations than seen in this study. In a study of products available in online dispensaries in 3 states with legal non-medical adult marijuana use, the average THC concentration was 22, with a range of 0 to 45.8 In addition, some methods of using marijuana (for example, dabbing and vaping concentrates) may deliver very high levels of THC to the user.6,9 Researchers do not yet know the full extent of the consequences when the body and brain are exposed to high concentrations of THC or how recent increases in concentrations affect the risk of someone developing marijuana use disorder.6 Cannabis is also a gateway drug, leading to increased use of other, more dangerous drugs. National Institute on Drug Abuse (lead federal agency supporting scientific research on drug use and its consequences) National Institutes of Health, https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/marijuana-gateway-drugDebateDrills LC Some research suggests that marijuana use is likely to precede use of other licit and illicit substances45 and the development of addiction to other substances. For instance, a study using longitudinal data from the National Epidemiological Study of Alcohol Use and Related Disorders found that adults who reported marijuana use during the first wave of the survey were more likely than adults who did not use marijuana to develop an alcohol use disorder within 3 years; people who used marijuana and already had an alcohol use disorder at the outset were at greater risk of their alcohol use disorder worsening.46 Marijuana use is also linked to other substance use disorders including nicotine addiction. Early exposure to cannabinoids in adolescent rodents decreases the reactivity of brain dopamine reward centers later in adulthood.47 To the extent that these findings generalize to humans, this could help explain the increased vulnerability for addiction to other substances of misuse later in life that most epidemiological studies have reported for people who begin marijuana use early in life.48 It is also consistent with animal experiments showing THC’s ability to "prime" the brain for enhanced responses to other drugs.49 For example, rats previously administered THC show heightened behavioral response not only when further exposed to THC but also when exposed to other drugs such as morphine—a phenomenon called cross-sensitization.50
10/16/21
SEPTOCT-Addiction DA
Tournament: Nano Nagle Voices | Round: 4 | Opponent: Silver Creek KZ | Judge: Quentin Clark Addiction DA Increasing access to addictive medicines means an increase in addiction – previous legalization proves. DuPont Robert L., M.D. (member, Rivermend Health Scientific Advisory Board, President, Institute for Behavior and Health Inc. First Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse) “Marijuana Legalization Has Led to More Use and Addiction While Illegal Market Continues to Thrive”, Rivermend Health, https://www.rivermendhealth.com/resources/marijuana-legalization-led-use-addiction-illegal-market-continues-thrive/DebateDrills LC It comes as no surprise that the prevalence of marijuana use has significantly increased over the last decade. With marijuana legal for recreational use in four states and the District of Columbia and for medical use in an additional 31 states, the public perception about marijuana has shifted, with more people reporting that they support legalization. However, there is little public awareness, and close to zero media attention, to the near-doubling of past year marijuana use nationally among adults age 18 and older and the corresponding increase in problems related to its use. Because the addiction rate for marijuana remains stable—with about one in three past year marijuana users experiencing a marijuana use disorder—the total number of Americans with marijuana use disorders also has significantly increased. It is particularly disturbing that the public is unaware of the fact that of all Americans with substance use disorders due to drugs other than alcohol, nearly 60 percent are due to marijuana. That means that more Americans are addicted to marijuana than any other drug, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and the nonmedical use of prescription drugs. Stores in Colorado and Washington with commercialized marijuana sell innovative marijuana products offering users record-high levels of THC potency. Enticing forms of marijuana, including hash oil used in discreet vaporizer pens and edibles like cookies, candy and soda are attractive to users of all ages, particularly those underage. The legal marijuana producers are creatively and avidly embracing these new trends in marijuana product development, all of which encourage not only more users but also more intense marijuana use. Yet despite the expansion of state legal marijuana markets, the illegal market for marijuana remains robust, leaving state regulators two uncomfortable choices: either a ban can be placed on the highest potency—and most enticing—marijuana products which will push the legal market back to products with more moderate levels of THC, or the current evolution to ever-more potent and more attractive products can be considered acceptable despite its considerable negative health and safety consequences. If tighter regulations are the chosen option, the illegal market will continue to exploit the desire of marijuana users to consume more potent and attractive products. If state governments let the market have its way, there will be no limit to the potency of legally marketed addicting marijuana products. Cannabis addiction has drastic and unknown impacts. CDC 21 “Addiction (Marijuana or Cannabis Use Disorder)”, Centers for Disease Control, https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/addiction.htmlDebateDrills LC People who have marijuana use disorder may also be at a higher risk of other negative consequences, such as problems with attention, memory, and learning. Some people who have marijuana use disorder may need to use more and more marijuana or greater concentrations of marijuana over time to experience a “high.” The greater the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in marijuana (in other words, the concentration or strength), the stronger the effects the marijuana may have on the brain.5,6 The amount of THC in marijuana has increased over the past few decades.6 In a study of cannabis research samples over time, the average delta-9 THC (the main form of THC in the cannabis plant) concentration almost doubled, from 9 in 2008 to 17 in 2017.7 Products from dispensaries often offer much higher concentrations than seen in this study. In a study of products available in online dispensaries in 3 states with legal non-medical adult marijuana use, the average THC concentration was 22, with a range of 0 to 45.8 In addition, some methods of using marijuana (for example, dabbing and vaping concentrates) may deliver very high levels of THC to the user.6,9 Researchers do not yet know the full extent of the consequences when the body and brain are exposed to high concentrations of THC or how recent increases in concentrations affect the risk of someone developing marijuana use disorder.6 Cannabis is also a gateway drug, leading to increased use of other, more dangerous drugs. National Institute on Drug Abuse (lead federal agency supporting scientific research on drug use and its consequences) National Institutes of Health, https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/marijuana-gateway-drugDebateDrills LC Some research suggests that marijuana use is likely to precede use of other licit and illicit substances45 and the development of addiction to other substances. For instance, a study using longitudinal data from the National Epidemiological Study of Alcohol Use and Related Disorders found that adults who reported marijuana use during the first wave of the survey were more likely than adults who did not use marijuana to develop an alcohol use disorder within 3 years; people who used marijuana and already had an alcohol use disorder at the outset were at greater risk of their alcohol use disorder worsening.46 Marijuana use is also linked to other substance use disorders including nicotine addiction. Early exposure to cannabinoids in adolescent rodents decreases the reactivity of brain dopamine reward centers later in adulthood.47 To the extent that these findings generalize to humans, this could help explain the increased vulnerability for addiction to other substances of misuse later in life that most epidemiological studies have reported for people who begin marijuana use early in life.48 It is also consistent with animal experiments showing THC’s ability to "prime" the brain for enhanced responses to other drugs.49 For example, rats previously administered THC show heightened behavioral response not only when further exposed to THC but also when exposed to other drugs such as morphine—a phenomenon called cross-sensitization.50
12/8/21
SEPTOCT-Innovation DA
Tournament: Loyola | Round: 1 | Opponent: Marlborough AW | Judge: Gordon Krauss Covid-19 has supercharged innovation in the status quo Ramalingam and Prabhu 20 Ben Ramalingam- Overseas Development Institute, United Kingdom. Jaideep Prabhu University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. “Innovation, development and COVID-19: Challenges, opportunities and ways forward.” OECD. 1 December 2020. Link: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/innovation-development-and-covid-19-challenges-opportunities-and-ways-forward-0c976158/ JV Coronavirus (COVID-19) innovation: AND global coronavirus outbreak (SARS in 2002–04).
The risks associated with creating new drugs means that patents are key to biopharmaceutical innovation Cockburn and Long 15 Iain Cockburn, Richard C. Shipley Professor of Management. Genia Long, senior advisor and part of analysis group. “The importance of patents to innovation: updates cross-industry comparison with biopharmaceuticals.” Taylor and Francis online, Volume 25, Issue 7, 2015. Published online: 30 April 2015. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1517/13543776.2015.1040762 JV
Due to distinctive AND in other industries 7.
Pharma collapses without strong IP protections Buckland 17 - Danny Buckland (award-winning journalist who writes about health, general features and news, shortlisted for the prestigious Mind Media Awards for his work covering mental health issues), April 26, 2017, “Patents are lifeblood of pharmas”, https://www.raconteur.net/legal/intellectual-property/patents-are-lifeblood-of-pharmas/ WJ Pharmaceutical companies are AND without good IP.
Pandemics are a non-linear, existential risk-~--encompasses AND outweighs other threats. Empirically proven by historic epidemics such as the Black Death and Spanish flu Pamlin and Armstrong 15, Dennis Pamlin, Executive Project Manager Global Risks, Global Challenges Foundation, and Stuart Armstrong, James Martin Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, February 2015, “Global Challenges: 12 Risks that threaten human civilization: The case for a new risk category,” Global Challenges Foundation, p.30-93, https://api.globalchallenges.org/static/wp-content/uploads/12-Risks-with-infinite-impact.pdfRe DE EK Global A pandemic effective anti-pandemic solutions.
12/8/21
SEPTOCT-Opiods CP
Tournament: Nano Nagle Voices | Round: 6 | Opponent: Lynbrook SM | Judge: Felicity Park Opioids CP
CP Text: States ought to ban the prescription of opioids.
Same strcutures- no other drugs. Opiods is adv. Solves case – if there aren’t opioids medically prescribed then people can’t overdose on them. Even if people can get them illegally that isn’t a solvency deficit because in the aff they could do that too.
10/16/21
SEPTOCT-Opiods CP
Tournament: Nano Nagle Voices | Round: 4 | Opponent: Silver Creek KZ | Judge: Quentin Clark Opioids CP
CP Text: States ought to ban the prescription of opioids.
Same strcutures- no other drugs. Opiods is adv. Solves case – if there aren’t opioids medically prescribed then people can’t overdose on them. Even if people can get them illegally that isn’t a solvency deficit because in the aff they could do that too.
12/8/21
SEPTOCT-T Cant Spec IP Protection
Tournament: Nano Nagle Voices | Round: 6 | Opponent: Lynbrook SM | Judge: Felicity Park T – Nebel IP protections Interpretation – the Aff may not specify a specific type of IP protection Intellectual property protections is a generic bare plural Leslie and Lerner 16 Sarah-Jane Leslie (Ph.D., Princeton, 2007) is the dean of the Graduate School and Class of 1943 Professor of Philosophy. She has previously served as the vice dean for faculty development in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, director of the Program in Linguistics, and founding director of the Program in Cognitive Science at Princeton University. She is also affiliated faculty in the Department of Psychology, the University Center for Human Values, the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy, and Adam Lerner, Ph.D, Postgraduate Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University, 4-24-2016, accessed 9-4-2021, "Generic Generalizations (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)," https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/generics/ HWIC There are some tests that are helpful in distinguishing these two readings. For example, the existential interpretation is upward entailing, meaning that the statement will always remain true if we replace the subject term with a more inclusive term. Consider our examples above. In (1b), we can replace “tiger” with “animal” salva veritate, but in (1a) we cannot. If “tigers are on the lawn” is true, then “animals are on the lawn” must be true. However, “tigers are striped” is true, yet “animals are striped” is false. (1a) does not entail that animals are striped, but (1b) entails that animals are on the front lawn (Lawler 1973; Laca 1990; Krifka et al. 1995). Another test concerns whether we can insert an adverb of quantification with minimal change of meaning (Krifka et al. 1995). For example, inserting “usually” in the sentences in (1a) (e.g., “tigers are usually striped”) produces only a small change in meaning, while inserting “usually” in (1b) dramatically alters the meaning of the sentence (e.g., “tigers are usually on the front lawn”). (For generics such as “mosquitoes carry malaria”, the adverb “sometimes” is perhaps better used than “usually” to mark off the generic reading.) It applies to medicines:
Upward entailment test – spec fails the upward entailment test because saying that nations ought to reduce IPP for one medicine does not entail that those nations ought to reduce IPP for all medicines 2. Adverb test – adding “usually” to the res doesn’t substantially change its meaning because a reduction is universal and permanent
Vote neg:
Semantics outweigh: a. T is a constitutive rule of the activity and a basic aff burden – they agreed to debate the topic when they came here b. Jurisdiction – you can’t vote aff if they haven’t affirmed the resolution c. It’s the only stasis point we know before the round so it controls the internal link to engagement – there’s no way to use ground if debaters aren’t prepared to defend it
2. Ground – spec guts core generics like innovation that rely on reducing IP for all medicines because individual medicines don’t affect the pharmaceutical industry broadly – also means there is no universal DA to spec affs
3. TVA solves – read as an advantage to whole rez
Paradigm issues:
Drop the debater – their abusive advocacy skewed the debate from the start 2. Comes before 1AR theory – NC abuse is responsive to them not being topical 3. Competing interps – reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention and a race to the bottom of questionable argumentation 4. No RVIs – fairness and education are a priori burdens – and encourages baiting – outweighs because if T is frivolous, they can beat it quickly. Illogical 5. Fairness is a voter – necessary to determine the better debater 6. Education is a voter – why schools fund debate 7. T first- Arguments only function under the current topic. So we need to comprehend the topic first before other arguments like theory. We only have 2 months to talk about the topic but we have unlimited time to debate theory T o/w on time frame