Friday, July 08, 2005

Redhawk Practice Debates Day 2

Round the Third

9:30 AM Saturday

055 RUBIX/HARSHA SCOTT/TONY Nikhil
114 BUDRI/PAT IRIS/DENNYS Sarah
131 WALTER/KEVIN LEE/CHRIS Michaela
134 ANJALI/LIBBY AARON/SCOTT Steve
138 EDDIE/SARA AARON/GABE Maffie

LLS DEBATES -- SEE PRINTED SCHEDULE

Round the Fourth

1:00 PM Saturday

055 IRIS/DENNYS RUBIX/HARSHA Sarah
114 LEE/CHRIS BUDRI/PAT Paul
131 SCOTT/TONY EDDIE/SARA Nikhil
134 AARON/SCOTT WALTER/KEVIN Kenda
138 JEFF/DUNCAN ANJALI/LIBBY Jason

LLS DEBATES SEE PRINTED SCHEDULE

Socrates, to Gorgias

"...when two people are arguing about something, one person tells the other that he [or she] is wrong or has expressed himself[/herself] obscurely, and then they get angry and each thinks that his own point of view is being maliciously misinterpreted by the other person... Sometimes the argument finally breaks up in an appalling state, with people hurling abuse and saying the kinds of things to each other which can only make the bystanders cross at themselves for having thought these people worth listening to."

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Redhawk Practice Debate Schedule -- Day 1

Round the first

1 PM Friday

055 RUBIX/HARSHA BUDRI/PAT Paul
114 SCOTT/TONY IRIS/DENNYS Jason
131 WALTER/KEVIN ANJALI/LIBBY Sherry
134 EDDIE/SARA LEE/CHRIS Lundy
138 ERIN/KOFI AARON/SCOTT Michaela
143 SALLY/ALEX PETER/MAGGIE TODD
250 JEFF/DUNCAN CHIP/PHIL ED
256 AARON/GABE JULIA/ERIN NICOLE

Round the second

3PM Friday

055 AARON/SCOTT RUBIX/HARSHA Nikhil
114 BUDRI/PAT SCOTT/TONY Steve
131 IRIS/DENNYS WALTER/KEVIN Maffie
134 ANJALI/LIBBY EDDIE/SARA Paul
138 LEE/CHRIS SALLY/ALEX Sarah
143 PETER/MAGGIE JEFF/DUNCAN NICOLE
250 CHIP/PHIL AARON/GABE TODD
256 JULIA/ERIN ERIN/KOFI ED


sorry couldnt figure out how to format this, but the first team is aff.

5 Weeks Weekend Schedule

It's time to learn the affs. To accomplish this we will conduct two exercises over the next two days: discussion of the 1AC and basic affirmative strategy and shotgun 2ACs.

The Aff Schedules:

1AC and Strategy Session
Friday
10:00 am DNA Laws 018
10:45 am Enemies Laws 018
11:30 am Borders Laws 018
4:30 pm Korematsu Laws 301


2AC Shotguns
Friday-
6:30 pm DNA Laws 018
7:30 pm Borders Laws 018

Saturday-
10:00 am Enemies Laws 303
2:00 pm Korematsu Laws 301


In between these exercises the following lectures will occur:

Friday
1:00 pm First Affirmative Nikhil Mirchandani Laws 301
2:00 pm Second Affirmative Sarah Spring Laws 301

Saturday
11:00 am First Negative Paul Strait Laws 301
1:00 pm Second Negative Todd Lantz Laws 301

More pictures from the 4th

By popular demand, here is the complete list of pictures from the 4th of July.





















Have fun in lab,
-Mike

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

MSS Demonstration Debate

THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER AND INSTITUTES NEVER END

Oxford, OH, July 6, 2005

GOOD EVENING MR. AND MRS. NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA, AND ALL SHIPS AT SEA, LET'S GO TO PRESS

In the first demonstration debate of the 2005 of the Red Hawk Miami University Debate Institute for the MSS Lab, lab leaders Sarah Spring, Wake Forest University, and Paul Strait, George Mason University, defended the affirmative, and lab leaders Sarah Spring, Wake Forest University, and Nikhil Mirchandani, Harvard University, defended the negative. Following the debate, lab leader Paul Strait, George Mason University, filed this report:

The first affirmative constructive presented the following plan: "Plank 1: Paul and I affirm the resolution as a metaphor for the otherizing element that corrodes society. Plank 2: We affirm the resolution by (dis)affirming. Plank 3: The funding comes from welfare and food stamps. We'll do guantanamo bay and korematsu. Plank 4: This is all ironic. Enforcement is through abnormal means. Plank 5: We reserve the right to change this plan in any speech without prior notice." In addition, the 1AC further clarified this plan by arguing that "We will use the state, we don't endorce patriarchy, we don't endorse terrorists, we don't endorse capitalism, and we don't endorse vaccine use." The 1AC also kritiked notions of fairness, and argued that racism and torture were likely bad things.

The first negative constructive contended that the affirmative team committed a plan flaw and so was in a double bind, because they either specified too much or too little-- either way, they should lose. Additionally, they questioned the affirmative's attitudinal inherency, and kritiked the neo-managerialist assumptions implicit in the affirmative speech act.

The second affirmative constructive called the negative team nazi's repeatedly, argued that the plan flaw argument was genocidal, continued to kritik notions of fairness, and also kritiked notions of inherency. In response to the neo-managerialist kritik, the 2A instructed the negative team to go back to LD, and perhaps get jobs. Additionally, the 2A wondered why the position was called "neo-MANagerialism" and not "neo-personagerialism,"and this was impacted as a voting issue. Also the kritik's uniqueness was called into question.

The second negative constructive kicked out of the inherency argument and the plan flaw argument, and went all in on the neo-man kritik. In response to the gendered language argument, it was contended that gendered language was intentionally used, but they were kritiking the concept of neo-managerialism, so they were in fact critizing the patriarchy. In a surprising turn of events, the first negative rebuttalist kicked out of the neo-man kritik and instead went for the inherency argument.

The debate continued in this general direction. The 2NR emphasized that the AFF was in a double bind because they either used logic which is bad, or they didn't use logic, in which case they agreed with the aff that logic is bad. Also, the an affirmative card footnoted adam smith, who is a capitalist. Finally, questions of ontology and pre-fiat were raised. The 2AR rebutted this by extending the kritik of notions of fairness, and suggested it would be unfair to vote affirmative for no reason, so thats what the judges should do. Additionally, the 2AR suggested that even if the negative removed one of the five legs from a table, tables could still stand with just four legs.

The lab voted 13-3 in favor of the affirmative, with two ballots thrown out since they were incomprehensible. Notable RFDs include: "clubbing baby seals seems unfair, but the kritik of fairness means I vote there," "The only reason that I vote Aff is because the neg took a long walk off a short bridge. The neg had ample time to answer the kritik of the notion of fairness and they conceded it after it was dropped in the 2NR. That's not cool man -- Nikhil needs to go back to school to learn how to debate before he can come to lab again. I also vote on the Lebowski reference that was kick-ass," and "nazi's had five-legged tables, as did the negative team."

Sincerely,
JW Patterson

Whew!

After a flurry of taping, cutting, tagging, editing, the four initial versions of the Oxford Scholars affirmatives and case-negatives are written and photocopied.

The four affirmatives are:

DNA Databases
Korematsu
Enemy Combatants
Border Searches

More details later.

Steve Mancuso

Judge, What you're gonna see in this debate today

The MSS lab has finished strong and produced 7 outstanding files. The politics file may be a little excessive but hey, why wouldnt you need 150 pages of politics evidence? There has been some progression and a few of the labbies have even figured out how to use tape, except for Harsha of course. Nikhil, Paul and Sarah have planned an outstanding demo debate for this afternoon that will feature the neo-man K's glorious reemergence in debate. Now we're just waiting for those practice debates to start and get down to the business of debate.

Until Later,
Sarah

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Grinding It Out

The DNA Databases Affirmative group is hard at work with their final draft blocking. The briefs are due today at 4:30 p.m. and we have miles to go before we sleep.

But the affirmative looks really strong, having a wide variety of types of harm areas.

We've initially produced a "Basic Version" that has the harm areas of (1) Privacy, (2) Racism and (3) Biopower. Our ultimate goal is to produce separate smaller versions: one exclusively about race, one exclusively about biopower, one exclusively about DNA dragnets, and one about constitutional interpretation.

We'll post a complete outline with cites once we're finished.

Steve

Monday, July 04, 2005

Happy 4th of July

Here are some pictures of the days events.







Sunday, July 03, 2005

LLS FINISHES AFF

Miami Debate.

We finished a full aff and neg file, plus got a huge jump start on our future aff supplement. Only the very best of the over 200 page aff file made it into our aff file. The same is true for our abridge neg file.

here's our first draft of a 1ac. All the cards were cut, processed and blocked by the kids!

thanks for everyone in the lab for working so hard and putting up with lab leader antics

Contention One: Inherency
The Bush administration refuses to prosecute or release hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
The Gulf Times 6-27-05

Contention Two: Harms
Advantage 1 : Have you seen my rubber dinghy?
Accusations of torture at Guantanamo have been confirmed.
Klapper, Associated Press, 06/23/05
[Bradley. “UN Experts Cite Guantanamo Torture Reports” http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/gitmo23.html. 06/30/05]
U.S. detentions at Guantanamo are the crushing any credibility on human rights, while setting a global precedent for abuse. Following a transparent legal process would restore the American model of justice.
Tesfaye, EDP North America & Australia Regional Council Representative, 6-20-05
[Seyoum. “Guantanamo Abuse Emboldens Tyrants. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0605/20edseyoume.html]
Human rights protections in war solve extinction of all species from nuclear conflict.
Singh-Gender Paraphrased, former Vice-President of the ICJ 1976-1979, 1981
(Nagendra. Human Rights and The Future of Mankind. Pg.85)

Advantage 2 : Won’t you be my BFFL?
Guantanamo has demolished U.S. credibility as a moral leader among both allies and enemies.
Leahy, Senator, 6-15-05
[Patrick. Statement before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. http://judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement.cfm?id=1542&wit_id=2629]
No other issue has done more damage to U.S. leadership and international security cooperation than Guantanamo.
Amnesty International 4-9-04
[“Undermining security: violations of human dignity, the rule of law and the National Security Strategy in "war on terror" detentions” http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510612004]
International cooperation is critical to U.S. leadership and solving global problems.
Jentleson, Director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Professor of Political Science, Duke University, Winter 2004
(Washington Quarterly http://www.twq.com/04winter/docs/04winter_jentleson.pdf)
Collapse of U.S. leadership causes global nuclear war.
Khalilzad, 95
(Washington Quarterly. Spring. Pg.lexis)

Advantage 3 : If you try swallowing like that you could damn near choke yourself.
Muslim communities worldwide have been alienated and galvanized by Guantanamo detentions and torture.
New York Times 5-21-05 [pg.lexis]
Guantanamo is the driving force of anti-Americanism and principle recruiting tool for terrorism.
Friedman, NYT foreign affairs columnist, 5-27-05
[Thomas L. “Just Shut it Down” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8960.htm]
The Middle East is sitting on a demographic time bomb that will release a global supply chain of suicide bombers. The U.S. must close its credibility gap to successfully promote democracy and will stabilize the region politically and economically.
Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, 05
[Larry. “Between Democracy and Stability” http://www.hooverdigest.org/051/diamond.html]
Terrorists will create global security nightmares with WMDs.
Alexander, director of the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies, 01
(Yonah. The Jerusalem Post. July 5. pg.lexis)

Thus the Plan:
The United States Congress should order that all detainees at Guantanamo Bay be criminally charged or released. We’ll clarify.

Contention Three: Solvency e.g. STFU
Charging or releasing detainees will restore U.S. human rights credibility.
Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, 6-24-05
(Irene. “US Must shut down Guantanamo Bay” http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=16183]e)
Following the legal process at Guantanamo would a powerfully symbolic action against rights abuses around the globe.
Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, 6-8-05
(Michael. “Close Camp Delta” http://www.alternet.org/story/22185/)
Restoring due process for Guantanamo detainees will restore U.S. credibility and allow more effective interrogation techniques to flourish.
Gude, International Rights and Responsibility Program Associate Director at the Center for American Progress, 6-16-05 [Ken. “Git Out” http://www.alternet.org/rights/22244/]
Congress has explicit Constitutional authority to establish due process rights for Guantanamo detainees.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6-15-05 [pg.lexis]

Highlights of the week

It looks like everyone has survived the first week of the Miami debate institute. Here are some of the highlights from this week.

Here are some campers working in the computer lab.













Alec showing us how to be fashionably correct
















Harsha gets a tub ride


















And finally, Will Sears, the birthday boy, prepares for a rap battle


More pictures to come after the July 4th festivities!

-Mike