Saturday, July 08, 2006

Lectures on the internet

Some of the scholars lectures are now being podcasted and are available on the internet. Happy listening.

Friday night.. and pirates arghhh

















The Risen Spring lab had a fun filled friday night. We went uptown and got dinner and sat out in the park and ate while we discussed strategy. We also saw the premier to Pirates of the Carribean 2 which was .. well you should see it and make your own conclusions. Here are some pictures

Bill Shanahan Lectures

Bill Shanahan of Fort Hays State came yesterday to lecture about Kritiks and Kritiking. Steve introduced Bill as the most influential person in college debate in the last 25 years. This introduction readily proved correct as his lecture showed why he was so innovative and influential. I learned alot and I think everyone did. Good times.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Risen/Spring Finishes Wave One

The Sophmores successfully created two awesome affirmatives that will roll through the camp tournament. The Medical Reserve Corp aff will draft those lazy doctors into emergency preparedness. The Coast Guard aff provides incentives to Coast Guard recruits in order to safeguard our ports.






Sunday, July 02, 2006

LET THE PUBLIC TAKE NOTICE!!!!!

Let it be known to all involved in the debate community that Brett and Paul herby challenge Nicole and Ed in a policy debate. There are two conditions. They can either

A) Go neg against our TIPS aff (which will of course necessitate them supporting terrorists)
B) Pick an affirmative and we will go neg.

Failure to respond to this challenge is clearly an admission of their inferiority at debate, lab leading, and overall lack of courage.

FIRST WAVE OF EVIDENCE COMPLETE

The Wallace/Strait lab, despite being behind in the RedHawk Bee, pulled a full half day ahead of the Lee/Serrano lab in finishing the first wave of assigmments. The Terrorist Information Prevention System Affirmative, Negative, and Terror Talk Kritik (ironically, labee Jack Bauer wrote the terror talk file) were completed at at precisely 4:04 pm.

Hubris made us think that we had also completed one of our negative assigments a whole FOUR days early, with Catie printing out the index for the Foucault Kritik at 5:01. However, upon inspection by both Paul and Brett, there seemed to be no Shell or 1nc written for the kritik, making it substantially more difficult for it to be run in a debate round. It should be complete though after another research session.

The Politics disad, similar to the GOP right now, is slightly in disarray. Jack Abermoff i think stole some of our political theory internal link cards. These problems are expected to be fixed by the time the negative file is due on July 5th.

Redhawk SW Politics lecture

Brett and I discussed the complexities of the politics disadvantage with our lab for four hours. Hao took notes on his laptop and has emailed me a copy, which I have attached below.

------------
Politics DA’s
- This DA links to any plan that affects either the political agenda or an imminent election
- There are many different kinds of politics DAs that talks about the agendas during in Washington
Bush Good DA
- Uniqueness – X will pass now
- Link – Plan stops X from passing
o By spending Bush’s Political capitol so can’t pass X
o Bipartisanship – democrats and republic are working together, and plan breaks that
o Popularity – plan destroys the president’s popularity and he can’t pass X
o GOP Unity/Base – plan destroys the GOP base and agenda X can’t pass
o Losers Lose – when the plan gets FIAT in Congress, would Bush sign it?
o Specific Congressperson
o Flip Flop
o Lobbies
Impact – X is good

Bush Bad DA
Uniqueness – X won’t pass now.
Link – plan causes X to pass
- olive branch/concessions/horsetrading
- winners win – if bush gets a victory, then everyone will think he is a winner and build momentum
- popularity
- specific congressperson
- rider
Impact – X is bad

Midterms DA
The plan affects the Congressional elections in Nov. 06, and the party it helps is bad/good
Link stories
- premise of coattails – GOP depends on Bush
- issue stealth – GOP can steal that Nat’l Service Issue and garner strength from it.
- Base strength – GOP alienates conservative base
Types of Impacts
- post-election Agenda
- pre-election lashout/action
o just doing something before he is out of office

Tips for regarding Politics DA
- don’t disrespect it because you think it’s a load of crap
- don’t become overly dependent on it
- it will be a necessary strategic option on the National Service Topic.
o Politics cards are easy to find and cut – now is a good time to learn how and practice.
o Many affs this year are going to spend money or push PC and very easy to find political DAs.
Topics for Politics DAs
Agenda Items
- Immigration Reform
o Bush has put his political clout behind reform efforts
o Strong conservative opposition exists against the senate’s compromise immigration bill
o Internal link evidence is strong now
§ Bush needs every bit of PC now to pass this bill
§ If you can find good internal link arguments, you have a pretty solid DA
o Impact areas: Economy, Terrorism, Agriculture, Population Control, etc.
- Recent legislative events reflect Election-year politics
o Gay Marriage Amendment and Flag-Burning
o Many spending Items are delayed until after November
o Bush Administration has cleaned house
- Midterms
o Most political analyst agree that the GOP will lose ground in November
§ But how much and where? Is it enough to lose enough power and give it to the democrats?
o Republicans are beginning to distant themselves from Bush
o Bush lacks any victories in his domestic agenda - could national service be his opening?
o While Iraq is the most important issue, what about wedge issues? Swing voters?


Politics DA

Always have a strategy because everything leads to politics
Always have good impacts.
You’ve got to be ready for it on the Aff.
Know the research when you are the Neg
Do updates for both sides.

Search Terms:

“Bush”, “congress”, “house”, or “senate”

Find good idea

Find big impacts

Big internal link

Impacts that do with
- trade/economy
- treaties
- energy
- environment
- relations
- taxes

After finding a good scenario, find uniqueness, but isn’t too determined, but has a fight.
Search terms “uphill battle” “hard push” “hard” “politically controversial” “vote counts”

Two types of uniqueness:

U. Issue specific (example: ANWR will pass)
U. Link specific (example: Bush has political capital)


Warrants given multiple scenarios must be specific to the effects of the plan.

Links

Most generic
Popular Unpopular - Congress
- Public
- International
- Lobbies
o Business
o Environmental
o Labor unions
§ manufactoring
o Old people (Advance Association of Senior Citizens)
o ID politics
o Teacher’s Unions
- President
- Military

If it is an aff that the business lobbies like and they’re going to support it if there is an aff that they already like.

Lobby debate within the link debate. Lobbie comparison
Example: which has money, which has split views, etc.


Congress
Republic and Democrats
- want to say republicans key or democrats key
- “swing vote” people who aren’t ideologically in line with a side.
Public
- not very strong, doesn’t always affect politics
- if the public doesn’t like the aff, there can be an affect, but if they like the aff, nothing’s going to change in the legislative.
International

President
- Political Capitol
- Flip flop
- Vetoes
- XO’s

President Credit/Blame
- steal
- push
o congress/comities push
- signs/veto
o gets link to Bush Good
- media focuses every piece of legislation upon Bush
Focus Link
- focus on one type of legislation vs another. Time spent on other legislations
- can be awesome
- cards, bush must "focus like a laser"
Military
- veterans will lobby a lot on the Armed Forces affs
Link Evidence
- date is very important.
- Bipartisan support <= question it
o Doesn’t always mean all republican and democrats are agreeing with each other.
- difference between senate and house of republicans
- Bush has never vetoed

Internal Links
- GOP Backlash because Bush was flip flop
- Winners win – bush thinks he’s winning, and public looks at him as a winner, perspective argument
- Concessions – olive branch and
- horse trade – interference with another agenda and even if they are opposite work together to get things to occur
- bipartisanship support
- partisanship – causes controversy
Impacts
- impact calculus
o time frame
§ if extinction or nuke war came before the plan was implemented, then the plan’s pointless
§ harms in long run is never positively true
o probability
§ compare it from your ! against the Aff’s !
§ no risk of offense
o magnitude
§ make aff’s impacts look like nothing
- systemic – sure to happen, but might be small, but doesn’t matter because it is positive to happen and on going.
- Opposite is probabilistic, may or may not happen.
Watch out for internal links to strong impacts that are usually bullshit. Take out the i/l.

Impact turning is rough because the Neg has their file ready, but do so if you are desperate for offense.

Politics are the most realistic. The only reason we have voting through legislature is due to the fact that the PC has the affect on passing things

AT: Bad Arguments

Bottom of the Docket
- the list of bills and when they are going to be voted on
- The plan is the last or next thing on the Docket
- Answer by “normal means”.
- 2AC clarification and makes them conditional
- Not topical
- Destroys ground
- And limits because of the timeframe.
- Words in the resolution, resolved, must occur.
- Say: It is future fiat and that is illegit, due to take out on ground, limits, and not topical. Bad for education because it destroys politics DAs

Immediate (Fiat takes out the link)
- FIAT magic wand. No expenditure of PC.
- Causes bad debate of the Neg to read a card just saying that the Aff has no PC and therefore the plan can’t pass. This forces the Aff to fiat and not have to expend any PC.
- This argument is very unreal world.
- Effects of the plan happening, and others are happening of the plan.
- AT: this is irrelevant because Bush can still lose.
- The whole point of the game of debate is to argue the process and the effects of the Plan
- Doesn’t mean things magically happen, and you don’t debate about the process
Not being in session
- if you cut a card when the bill isn’t occurring
- Congress hasn’t been in session, and the date is the same in the political world if congress hasn’t met or voted on anything. Therefore the agenda won’t change until the next session.
- Special session argument, is when bush can push for such a session he should have enough PC to pass the plan anyways.


Link Shields

Teflon President
- nothing sticks to him
- he can deflect blame from anything
- flip flops are inevitable
- “turn shields” makes you win on the link debate. Ex. Public doesn’t matter, lobbies don’t matter.
1NR to go on the Politic DA
- avoid CX (but you want to be questioned about something you know you know you are right)
- more prep time for more evidence comparison.
- They make answers to the DAs
- Add more impacts
- More impact analysis