LD Theory File Index

LD Theory File Index..................................................................................................1

Utopian Thinking Good..............................................................................................2
Utopian Thinking Bad................................................................................................3
Fairness is a Voter......................................................................................................4
Fairness Not a Voter...................................................................................................5
Education is a Voter...................................................................................................6
Education Not a Voter................................................................................................7
Vagueness Bad; is a Voter.........................................................................................8
Vagueness Not a Voter..............................................................................................9
Education Outweighs Fairness.................................................................................11
Fairness Outweighs Education.................................................................................12
Err Neg on Theory...................................................................................................13
Err Aff on Theory.....................................................................................................14
Reject the Team.......................................................................................................15
Reject the Argument, Not the Team........................................................................16

Utopian Thinking Good

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First, its better for education.

Utopian solutions to lifes problems can help us visualize actual value solutions
because they can stimulate eventual physical change.
Second, its reasonable.
As long as we can prove that our solution will be or at some time was considered a
very realistic, viable option, you shouldnt vote on this.
Third, turn: Utopian thinking is good: Imagining Utopia makes
progression possible. Paul Streeton 99
Streeten 1999 (Paul, Econ prof @ Boston, Development, v. 42, n. 2, p 118)
First,

Utopian thinking can be useful as a framework for analysis

. Just as physicists assume an

atmospheric vacuum for some purposes, so policy analysts can assume a political vacuum from which they can start afresh. The physicists
assumption plainly would not be useful for the design of parachutes, but can serve other purposes well. Similarly, when thinking of tomorrows

for long-term strategic purposes it is essential. Second, the

Utopian vision gives a sense of direction, which can get lost in approaches that are
preoccupied with the feasible. In a world that is regarded as the second-best of all
feasible worlds, everything becomes a necessary constraint. All vision is lost. Third,
excessive concern with the feasible tends to reinforce the status quo. In negotiations, it
problems, Utopianism is not helpful. But

strengthens the hand of those opposed to any reform. Unless the case for change can be represented in the same detail as the case for no
change, it tends to be lost. Fourth, it is sometimes the case that the conjuncture of circumstances changes quite suddenly and that the

Unless we are prepared with

a carefully worked out, detailed plan, that yesterday could have appeared utterly
Utopian, the reformers will lose out by default. Only a few years ago nobody would
have expected the end of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the
disappearance of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany, the break-up of
Yugoslavia, the marketization of China, the end of apartheid in South Africa. And
the handshake on the White House lawn between Mr Peres and Mr Arafat. Fifth, the
constellation of forces, unexpectedly, turns out to be favourable to even radical innovation.

Utopian reformers themselves can constitute a pressure group, countervailing the self interested pressures of the

Ideas thought to be Utopian have become realistic at moments in

history when large numbers of people support them, and those in power have to
yield to their demands. The demand for ending slavery is a historical example. It is
for these five reasons that Utopians should not be discouraged from formulating
their proposals and from thinking the unthinkable, unencumbered by the
inhibitions and obstacles of political constraints. They should elaborate them in the
same detail that the defenders of the status quo devote to its elaboration and
celebration. Utopianism and idealism will then turn out to be the most realistic
vision. It is well known that there are three types of economists: those who can count and those who cant. But being able to count up to two, I want to
obstructionist groups.

distinguish between two types of people. Let us call them, for want of a better name, the Pedants and the Utopians. The names are due to Peter Berger, who uses
them in a different context. The Pedants or technicians are those who know all the details about the way things are and work, and they have acquired an emotional
vested interest in keeping them this way. I have come across them in the British civil service, in the bureaucracy of the World Bank, and elsewhere. They are
admirable people but they are conservative, and no good companions for reform. On the other hand, there are the Utopians, the idealists, the visionaries who dare
think the unthinkable. They are also admirable, many of them young people. But they lack the attention to detail that the Pedants have. When the day of the
revolution comes, they will have entered it on the wrong date in their diaries and fail to turn up, or, if they do turn up, they will be on the wrong side of the barricades.
What we need is a marriage between the Pedants and the Utopians, between the technicians who pay attention to the details and the idealists who have the vision of
a better future. There will be tensions in combining the two, but they will be creative tensions. We need Pedantic Utopian Pedants who will work out in considerable
detail the ideal world and ways of getting to it, and promote the good cause with informed fantasy. Otherwise, when the opportunity arises, we shall miss it for lack of
preparedness and lose out to the opponents of reform, to those who want to preserve the status quo.

AT: Not fair

a) Even if its not fair, its still a potential reality. Extend Paul Streeton 99
imagining utopia makes progress possible.
b) Fairness isnt a voting issue <insert fairness not a voter>

Utopian Thinking Bad

First, its bad for education. 2 reasons:
a) Not real world by definition, we can never learn about practical value
solutions. While nice to think about, an imaginary world is ultimately useless.
b) Impossible to have rational discussion how can you evaluate which value
is better if every thing's perfect? Would excellence even exist in a utopian
world? Not really, since nothing would be non-excellent. In order to have a
debate, we have to assume that some things are inferior to others. In order
to even have a debate, we have to affirm a resolution: the resolution
specifically states that competition is superior. Meaning, cooperation would
be inferior. Which it couldnt be, if we were debating in a perfect world.
Second, Education outweighs.
Learning about real world, real values, and real application of that value is a better
internal link into education because its the only bona fide product of debate.
Education outweighs fairness because the rules were created to maximize
education.
Third, it annihilates our ability to counter the opposing team, which
destroys fairness. 2 reasons:
a) Destroys ground we can literally never win a debate when the other
team can just imagine away all of lifes problems.
b) No literature aff/neg cant research answers to utopian positions because
they simply DONT EXIST.
c) Fairness is a voter <insert fairness is a voter>

Fairness is a Voter
1. Levels the playing field.
A fair playing field is necessary to adjudicate the round in terms of which side did
the better debating, and voting on theory is necessary because forcing me into a
theoretical discussion hinders my ability to engage any other arguments.
2. Check abuse.
Fairness is a necessary check against abuse, otherwise debaters would always
have an incentive to utilize unfair arguments as no-risk issues.
3. Key to education.
Fairness is more important than substance or any theoretical standards because if
debaters cant fairly engage is substantive discussion they wont have any
incentive to debate, meaning that we cant access the benefits of education or any
other standards.
4. Reject opposition.
Rejecting the opposing team sends a message that argument that destroy fairness
are inherently detrimental; voting against them is the most effective way to do
this.

Fairness Not a Voter

1. Fairness is relative. Doug Sigel 85
Doug Sigel, Northwestern University. Punishment: Does It Fit the Crime? 1985;
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Sigel985Water.htm, brackets
not in original (HEG)
First, fairness is almost entirely situational. The fairness argument in debate is
always made when a [debater] team can't think of anything better to say. A new
case is going to place an unfair burden on [the other debater.] any negative team.
If the affirmative can talk faster than the negative an unfair situation exists. If the
negative has four really good counterplans against a case an unfair situation
exists. In debate there is no objective way to tell what is and isn't fair because the
activity by nature favors those participants who stay one step ahead of anyone
else. ... There is no reason to punish the [debater] team for trying to maximize
their own advantages.
2. No brightline.
There's no brightline for how much fairness is enough, so judge intervention is
necessary to determine when to pull the trigger.
3. Fairness is impossible.
Complete fairness would be giving both teams the same number of speeches and
the same time in each. Thats not true, and already fairness is thrown out as
impossible to achieve.
4. Even if possible, we never know when we have it.
Fairness is uncontrollable as it's influenced by external factors like coaching staff or
money for books, so theres no point in discussing fairness because we dont know
when we have a fair playing field.
5. Fairness is inherently unfair
Fairness is unfair because fairness debates go to the debater with the last word, so
the result reflects who has better theory blocks rather than who actually is more
fair.
6. Not a voter
As a last resort, we can sustain a fair playing field by kicking the unfair argument;
there's no need to vote us down because of an unfair argument; well just drop it.

Education is a Voter
1. Why were here
Were here to debate in order to become better communicators and to learn about
the topic. If theres no educational value, then were all spending a ton of money
for nothing except the opportunity to debate, which can happen for free anywhere.
2. Permeates.
Education is a voter because it contains actual out-of-round implications;
substantive discussion of the topic is valuable only insofar as it garners a link to
education.
3. Most important
Education is more important than text or any other standards because if debate
isnt educational then schools wont have an incentive to fund debate and debaters
would quit if they werent doing anything productive.

Education Not a Voter

1. No brightline
There's no brightline for how much education is enough to vote on.
2. If so, then everything hurts education
Running any position against the other team is uneducational because I couldve
run different positions against them that were different. Thus everything hurts
education, which is ridiculous.
3. TURN: education voters destroy education.
His argumentation attempts to make debate trivial, as it asks you to vote
independent of any substantive discussion, and only vote on theory. This devalues
the development of real arguments, giving debaters an incentive to focus on easy
theory arguments instead.
4. TURN: too much education is uneducational
Maximizing education would result in debaters quitting, as no one would be
interested in reading dictionaries for an hour. This is the most important theoretical
implication since it means we can no longer receive the benefits of other
standards.
5. TURN: infinitely regressive
All theory arguments are equally valid so the debate always goes to the debater
with the last word which destroys any conception of fairness or education.
6. TURN: theory is uneducational
Theory is uneducational, as it moves our attention away from real-world issues and
shifts it onto a hypothetical space with no real significance. They brought up a
theoretical education-voter which means theyre being hypocritical; on this alone
you should reject the argument.
7. Wrong forum
LD is centered on debating the resolution, and the judge is asked to evaluate the
resolution, not which side was more educational.

Vagueness Bad; is a Voter

1. Destroys clash
Vagueness is unfair because I cant effectively engage his position if I dont know
what it is until his later speeches.
2. Moving target
Vagueness is unfair because he can just kick out of all my responses by narrowing
his advocacy down to something that they dont apply to.
3. Education disrupted
Instead of focusing on the issue, we're forced to focus on the technicalities in order
to understand the issue. This means less education overall in the round. <insert
education a voter>

Vagueness Not a Voter

1. CX checks.
They can pin down my position by just asking a few questions, in CX or Im happy
to answer clarification during prep time.
2- They can see my case
My opponent can see my case, while I speak and during the rest of the round.
Whenever s/he needs it.
3. TURN: vagueness allows the activity to exist.
The call to remove vagueness from debate would render all argumentation
vacuous. Words and concepts are inherently vague, thats why there are multiple
definitions of terms in dictionaries.
Herbert Wells writes: [First and Last Things, 1908]
Every species is vague, every term goes cloudy at its edges, and so in my way of
thinking, relentless logic is only another name for stupidity - for a sort of intellectual
pigheadedness. If you push a philosophical or metaphysical enquiry through
a series of valid syllogisms - never committing any generally recognized fallacy - you
nevertheless leave behind you at each step a certain rubbing and marginal loss of
objective truth and you get deflections that are difficult to trace, at each phase in the process.
4. TURN: over-specificity bad.
The argument forces an impossible burden on me. Not only does debate has time
limits for the presentation of information, but there are a potentially infinite
number of premises I would have to specify to meet the vagueness standard.
John Searle writes:
The thesis of the Background is simply this: Intentional phenomena such as meanings, understandings,
interpretations, beliefs, desires, and experiences only function within a set of Background capacities that are not
themselves intentional. Another way to state this thesis is to say that all representation, whether in language,
thought, or experience, only succeeds in representing given a set of nonrepresentational capacities.

Suppose I go into the restaurant and order a meal. Suppose I say, speaking
literally, Bring me a steak with fried potatoes. Even though the utterance is
meant and understood literally, the number of possible misinterpretations is
strictly limitless. I take it for granted that they will not deliver the meal to my
house, or to my place of work. I take it for granted that the steak will not be
encased in concrete, or petrified. It will not be stuffed into my pockets or
spread over my head. But none of these assumptions was made explicit in
the literal utterance. The temptation is to think that I could make them fully
explicit by simply adding them as further restrictions, making my original
order more precise. But that is also a mistake. First, it is a mistake because there is

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no limit to the number of additions I would have to make to the original order
to block possible misinterpretations, and second, each of the additions is itself
subject to different interpretations.
5. Context checks
Debate is self-disambiguating as it contextualizes argumentation. If specific
clauses within the case are vague, it is only because of their isolation from the rest
of the debate.

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Education Outweighs Fairness

1. Education permeates
Education is more important because it has outside value; the educational value
attained through debate helps us in the real world, whereas fairness is only
valuable in a hypothetical debate setting.
2. Is why were here
Education is evaluated first because if debates arent educational then theres no
point in debating.

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Fairness Outweighs Education

1. Fairness is a prerequisite
Fairness always comes first as it indicts our ability to evaluate education; we cant
assess other theoretical standards without first securing a fair playing field.
2. Fairness leads to education
Fairness comes first because without fairness debaters wont have any incentive to
debate, as decisions would be arbitrary; thus we wouldnt be able to access the
benefits of education as there would be no one debating.
3. No fairness = education undermined
Fairness comes first because an unfair debater that tries to take advantage of the
rules and exploit loopholes without being checked has no incentive to try to
educate the judge or other competitors.

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Err Neg on Theory

1. Speech order
Aff gets to speak first and last; Im caught in the middle.
2. Number of speeches
Aff gets three speeches; I only get two they can refute everything I say, always,
Im caught cramming everything into two time periods
3. Preparation
They have infinite prep time before the round, meaning I have to prep for all
possible cases.
4. No CX after 1AR
Prefer negative theory because the negative lacks cross-ex after the 1AR as a
check against confusing theory that they might run, so the negative always
outweighs on risk.
5. They present first
They speak first and thus get to present any case and value they want; Im forced
to debate them on turf. Thats a home-field advantage that needs to be checked
back; you should err neg on theory to make up for this.
AT: Time Skew
They get to speak last, meaning they can bring up new things against my position
if they want to, without another speech to check them back any time skew is
offset by the order and number of speeches they have.

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Err Aff on Theory

1. Time Skew
Err aff on theory because time skew is against me; I have four minutes to answer a
seven-minute NC and preempt six minutes of NR responses. Always err aff
otherwise the negative can take advantage of the time skew by forcing me to
cover bad theory.
AT: Speech order
Neg gets a 6- and 7-minute speech, that more than makes up for the speech order.
AT: Number of speeches
I get a 6 minute, 4 minute, and 3 minute speech that adds up to 13 minutes.
They get a 6- and 7-minute speech also 13 minutes. Number of speeches doesnt
matter; if anything you should err aff here, because I only have 4 minutes to
respond to 7 minutes, and 3 minutes to respond to 6 minutes.
AT: Preparation
They have infinite prep time before the round too, and, most negatives present
negative cases to counter aff cases. That means that I have to prep for all possible
negative cases too. Theres nothing unique here.
AT: No CX after 1AR
Theres no CX after the NR, either that means I dont get any clarification if they
didnt clarify enough, or if they brought up something new.
AT: They present first
Once the NC is presented, I have to debate them on their turf we both attack the
others case and attempt to outweigh with our value. I may present first, but they
present an equally prepared case. The only real difference is that I go first.

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Reject the Team

1. Sends a message
Rejecting the opposing team send a swift and effective message that this kind of
argumentation/theory will not be tolerated. Rather than beating around the bush, it
lays down the law: that the argumentation/theory is a bad procedure and should
not be used.
2. Prevents future abuse
Sending a message that this kind of argumentation/theory is bad can prevent
future abuse. Once debaters realize theyll lose rounds if they engage in this sort of
argumentation/theory, theyll stop using it.
3. Promotes fairness
Voting on theory makes the debate more fair to both sides. <insert fairness is a
voter>

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Reject the Argument, Not the Team

1. Best for education. Doug Sigel 85
Doug Sigel, Northwestern University. Punishment: Does It Fit the Crime? 1985;
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Sigel985Water.htm (HEG)
First, the practical impact of punishment arguments is to destroy education. The
punish tactic is so subjective and open to abuse, as we have seen earlier, that it
hurts the activity. The advocate of punishment isn't really concerned about
education anyway. S/he is just whining about arguments s/he can't answer.
2. Mixes judge burdens. Doug Sigel 85
Doug Sigel, Northwestern University. Punishment: Does It Fit the Crime? 1985;
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Sigel985Water.htm (HEG)
Second, punishment arguments confuse the role of a debate judge. The debate
judge is evaluating public policy argument. S/he is not an umpire who hands out
penalties for rule violators. The arguments in a debate about theory are important
because they tell the judge how to evaluate the policy arguments. The theoretical
concerns have no independent value. If hypothesis testing is bad then a judge
shouldn't decide based on that paradigm, To punish a team for advocating
hypothesis testing is to turn a debate judge into an umpire. The notion that the
debate process is a forum for punishment has crept into the activity with little
critical scrutiny. It is ridiculous that a team is able to win a debate by whining about
the practices of their opponents. Debate is educational because it trains students
in oral argument and it is the job of the judge to evaluate who better argues the
policy issues in a debate.
3. More real-world. Doug Sigel 85
Doug Sigel, Northwestern University. Punishment: Does It Fit the Crime? 1985;
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Sigel985Water.htm (HEG)
Third, punishment arguments create an esoteric activity with little real world
applicability. Debate is already charged with being too remote and elitist. The kinds
of theory debates that will probably evolve if punishment arguments continue to
be accepted are mind boggling. Why not turn the impacts of punishment
arguments? Why is destroying debate bad? Why is education good? Why is fairness
ethically justified? We may see the day when a team argues that the destruction bf
debate is good because it hurts democracy. And democracy is bad because it hurts
the transition to a new form of ecological organization. Or maybe we will see
debaters arguing studies that deterrence is counterproductive. This means that the
way to stop bad debate is to vote for the team that runs the worst arguments.

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