Round 6 aff

1AC
 Plan:
Plan: The United States should legalize nearly all marihuana in the United States.
 Cartels
Contention one is cartels:

Drug violence is spiraling out of control in Mexico

Jo Tuckman Mexico City, The Guardian, Friday 9 May 2014 09.10 EDT Violence erupts again in Mexican state where drug wars began
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/09/violence-mexico-tamaulipas-state-drug-wars ac 8-27

A spate of extreme violence in Mexico's north-eastern Tamaulipas state has ended the relative calm in the region where the country's
drug wars began. Officials say about 80 people have been killed in almost daily street battles. This week the state's top detective,
Salvador de Haro Muoz, was among five people killed in a shootout. Ten police officers have been arrested for allegedly leading him into an ambush.
Fourteen people were killed in one day this month in a string of gun battles between federal forces and unidentified gunmen in the city of Reynosa,
across the border from McAllen, Texas. " It's worse than ever ," said a local woman who saw three shootouts on three consecutive days
while visiting relatives in Tampico in early April. The woman, who asked not to be identified, said authorities did nothing to intervene beyond advising
people to stay off the streets. " This
is a failed state with no law and no authority." Tamaulipas has been a focal point in
the drug wars as one of the busiest places on the border for northbound drugs and migrants and southbound
weapons and cash. But the latest outbreak of bloodletting has prompted fears that the region is set for a return to
the worst days of 2010 , when entire populations fled towns in the region to escape the violence.

Be skeptical of arguments that violence is decreasingfamilies deliberately under-report

deaths for fear of retaliation
By Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek. Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But Violence Persists Filed:
7/23/14 at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists-260990

During Mexicos President Enrique Pena Nietos first year in office, after he had promised to cut back on everyday violence, there were 22,732 recorded
homicides the National Institute of Statistics and Geography announced Wednesday. The figure, which the institute called preliminary, is slightly lower
than the previous year but still higher than when Felipe Calderon, Pena Nietos predecessor, took office. In 2007, shortly after Calderon declared war on
drugs, the number of homicides reached 8,867. During his six years in office, homicides peaked at 27,213, in 2011. This is lower than I expected, said
Rene Jimenez Ornelas, coordinator of the unit for the analysis of violence at Mexicos National Autonomous University, of the number of homicides in
2013. Jimenez Ornelas said one of the reasons for a lower-than-expected number is that many people prefer to
have their loved ones death registered as a heart attack or another natural cause to avoid an investigation.
Why? Because they make the rest of the family pay , said Jimenez Ornelas, implying that criminals might seek
revenge and kill family members who report a homicide.

Nation-wide legalization of marijuana is a game-changer for stopping violence in Mexico

takes a huge chunk out of cartel profits and frees up police resources
Hesson 14 -- immigration editor, covers immigration and drug policy from Washington D.C.
[Ted, "Will Mexican Cartels Survive Marijuana Legalization?" Fusion, fusion.net/justice/story/mexican-cartels-survive-marijuana-legalization-450519,
accessed 6-2-14]

1. Mexico is the top marijuana exporter to the U.S. A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that Mexican marijuana accounted
for somewhere between 40 and 67 percent of the drug in the U.S. The cartel grip on the U.S. market may not last for long. Pot can now be grown for
recreational use in Colorado and Washington, and for medical use in 20 states. For the first time, American consumers can choose a legal product over
the black market counterpart. Beau Kilmer, the co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, says that a few states
legalizing marijuana wont eliminate the flow of the drug from down south, but a change in policy from the
federal government would be a game changer. Our research also suggests that legalizing commercial marijuana
production at the national level could drive out most of the marijuana imported from Mexico, he wrote in a 2013 op-ed.
2. Marijuana makes up more than $1 billion of cartel income Pot isnt the main source of income for cartels. They make most of their
cash from drugs like cocaine and heroin. But marijuana accounts for 15 to 26 percent of the cartel haul , according to RANDs
2008 data. That translates to an estimated $1.1 billion to $2 billion of gross income. The drop in sales certainly wouldnt end the
existence of drug traffickers they bring in an estimated $6 billion to $8 billion annually but losing a fifth of ones income would hurt
any business. On top of that, Kilmer says that marijuana likely makes up a higher percentage of the cartel take today
than it did back in 2008. So taking away pot would sting even more . 3. Authorities could focus on other drugs
Marijuana made up 94 percent of the drugs seized by Border Patrol in the 2012 fiscal year, judging by weight. If pot
becomes legal in the U.S. and cartels are pushed out of the market, that would allow law-enforcement agencies to
dedicate more resources to combat the trafficking of drugs like heroin and cocaine.
Most comprehensive studies prove violence will be significantly reduced in the long-run, and
short-term lashout will be limited
Beau Kilmer et al 10, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, Peter H. Reuter (Kilmer--Codirector, RAND Drug Policy Research Center; Senior
Policy Researcher, RAND; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Ph.D. in public policy, Harvard University; M.P.P., University of California,
Berkeley; B.A. in international relations, Michigan State University, Caulkins--Stever Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie
Mellon University, Bond--research economist in the Office of the Chief Economist of the US Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics
Administration, Reuter--Professor in the School of Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland. Reducing Drug
Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help? RAND occasional paper (peer reviewed),
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf

However, there
is at least one countervailing factor that might reduce violence in the short run. Given that the signal
of market decline will be strong and unambiguous, experienced participants might accept the fact that their
earnings and the market as a whole are in decline. This could lead to a reduced effort on their part to fight for
control of routes or officials, since those areas of control are now less valuable. Of course, that does presume strategic
thinking in a population that appears to have a propensity for expressive and instrumental violence. The natural projection in the long run is
more optimistic . Fewer young males will enter the drug trade, and the incentives for violence will decline as the
economic returns to leader- ship of a DTO fall. 10 However, the long run is indeterminably measured: probably years, and perhaps many
years. The outcome, either in the short or long term, of a substantial decline in the U.S. market for Mexican marijuana in 2011 is a matter of conjecture.
One view is that, in the short run, there could be more violence as the DTO leadership faces a very disturbing change in cir- cumstances. The fact that a
decline in their share of the marijuana market would come after a period in which there has been rapid turnover at the top of their organizations and
much change in their relationships with corrupt police could make it particularly difficult for the DTOs to reach a cooperative accommodation to their
shrunken market. However, if the Mexi- can government lessens pressures and signals its willingness to reach an accommodation with a more
collaborative set of DTOs, the result could be a reduction in violence. In the long run, the analysis is different. One would think that DTO
participation would become less attractive . However, the governments actions are again capable of reversing this. The government
might take advantage of the weakened state of its adversary to break up the larger DTOs; a configuration of many smaller organizations could lead to
greater competitive violence.

Alternative activities cant make up for profitspost-prohibition effect on the mafia proves
Robelo 13 -- Drug Policy Alliance research coordinator
[Daniel, "Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand towards a Regulated Supply to Diminish Violence in Latin America," Oregon
Law Review, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1227, 2013, l/n]

It is also impossible to foresee how regulation would affect levels of violence. Some analysts believe a short-term increase in violence is possible (as
competition over a smaller market could intensify), but that violence in the longer term will decline. n106 Some analysts point out that organized crime
may further diversify into other activities, such as extortion and kidnapping , though these have been shown to be
considerably less profitable than drug trafficking. As one scholar [*1249] notes, given the profitability of the drug trade, "it would take
roughly 50,000 kidnappings to equal 10% of cocaine revenues from the U.S. n107 While the American mafia certainly diversified into
other criminal endeavors after the Repeal of alcohol Prohibition, homicide rates nevertheless declined dramatically. n108
Combining marijuana regulation with medical regulatory models for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine could strike a major blow to the corrosive
economic power of violent trafficking organizations, diminishing their ability to perpetrate murder, hire recruits, purchase weapons, corrupt officials,
operate with impunity, and terrorize societies. Moreover, these approaches promise concrete results - potentially significant reductions in DTO revenues
- unlike all other strategies that Mexico or the United States have tried to date. n109 Criminal organizations would still rely on other
activities for their income, but they would be left weaker and less of a threat to security. Furthermore, the U nited
S tates and Latin American governments would save resources currently wasted on prohibition enforcement and generate
new revenues in taxes - resources which could be applied more effectively towards confronting violence and other
crimes that directly threaten public safety. n110

Even modest losses means cartels cant corrupt the police and judiciary
Usborne 14 [David, "How Central Is Marijuana In The Drug War? Ctd," The Dish, quoted by Andrew Sullivan, 1-11-14,
dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/11/how-central-is-marijuana-in-the-drug-war-ctd/, accessed 6-9-14]

A 2012 research paper by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute in Mexico called If Our Neighbours Legalise, said that the legalisation of marijuana in
Colorado, Washington and California would depress cartel profits by as much as 30 per cent. A 2010 Rand Corp study of what would happen if just
California legalised suggests a more modest fall-out. Using consumption in the US as the most useful measure , its authors posit that
marijuana accounts for perhaps 25 per cent of the cartels revenues. The cartels would survive losing that, but still. Thats
enough to hurt , enough to cause massive unemployment in the illicit drugs sector, says [fellow at the Mexico
Institute at the Wilson Center David] Shirk. Less money for cartels means weaker cartels and less capacity to
corrupt the judiciary and the police in Mexico with crumpled bills in brown envelopes. Crimes like extortion and kidnappings
are also more easily tackled.
Mexico instability undermines U.S. leadership and risks global arms races
Robert Haddick, contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command, managing editor of Small Wars Journal, "This Week at War: If Mexico Is at War, Does
America Have to Win It?" FOREIGN POLICY, 9--10--10,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/10/this_week_at_war_if_mexico_is_at_war_does_america_have_to_win_it, accessed 5-2-13.

Most significantly, a
strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect America's role in the rest of the world . An
increasingly chaotic American side of the border, marked by bloody cartel wars, corrupted government and media, and a
breakdown in security, would likely cause many in the U nited S tates to question the importance of military and
foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world. Should the southern border become a U.S. president's primary
national security concern, nervous allies and opportunistic adversaries elsewhere in the world would no doubt
adjust to a distracted and inward-looking America, with potentially disruptive arms races the result. Secretary Clinton has
looked south and now sees an insurgency. Let's hope that the United States can apply what it has recently learned about insurgencies to stop this one
from getting out of control.

U.S. leadership is key to global stability and preventing nuclear great power wars
Brooks et al 13 Stephen, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics
and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, William
C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College Dont Come Home America: The Case Against
Retrenchment, International Security, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Winter 2012/13), pp. 751

A core premise of deep engagement is that it prevents the emergence of a far more dangerous global security environment.
For one thing, as noted above, the United States overseas
presence gives it the leverage to restrain partners from taking
provocative action . Perhaps more important, its core alliance commitments also deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony
from contemplating expansion and make its partners more secure, reducing their incentive to adopt solutions to their security problems
that threaten others and thus stoke security dilemmas. The contention that engaged U.S. power dampens the baleful effects of anarchy is consistent
with influential variants of realist theory. Indeed, arguably the scariest portrayal of the war-prone world that would emerge absent the American
Pacifier is provided in the works of John Mearsheimer, who forecasts dangerous multipolar regions replete with security
competition , arms races, nuclear proliferation and associated preventive war temptations , regional rivalries, and even runs at
regional hegemony and full-scale great power war . 72 How do retrenchment advocates, the bulk of whom are realists, discount this
benefit? Their arguments are complicated, but two capture most of the variation: (1) U.S. security guarantees are not necessary to prevent dangerous
rivalries and conflict in Eurasia; or (2) prevention of rivalry and conflict in Eurasia is not a U.S. interest. Each response is connected to a different theory
or set of theories, which makes sense given that the whole debate hinges on a complex future counterfactual (what would happen to Eurasias security
setting if the United States truly disengaged?). Although a certain answer is impossible, each of these responses is nonetheless a weaker argument for
retrenchment than advocates acknowledge. The first response flows from defensive realism as well as other international relations theories that discount
the conflict-generating potential of anarchy under contemporary conditions. 73 Defensive realists maintain that the high expected costs of territorial
conquest, defense dominance, and an array of policies and practices that can be used credibly to signal benign intent, mean that Eurasias major states
could manage regional multipolarity peacefully without the American pacifier. Retrenchment would be a bet on this scholarship, particularly in regions
where the kinds of stabilizers that nonrealist theories point tosuch as democratic governance or dense institutional linkagesare either absent or
weakly present. There are three other major bodies of scholarship, however, that might give decisionmakers pause before making this bet. First is
regional expertise. Needless to say, there is no consensus on the net security effects of U.S. withdrawal. Regarding each region, there are optimists and
pessimists. Few experts expect a return of intense great power competition in a post-American Europe, but many doubt European governments will pay
the political costs of increased EU defense cooperation and the budgetary costs of increasing military outlays. 74 The result might be a Europe that
is incapable of securing itself from various threats that could be destabilizing within the region and beyond (e.g., a regional conflict
akin to the 1990s Balkan wars), lacks capacity for global security missions in which U.S. leaders might want European participation, and is vulnerable to
the influence of outside rising powers. What about the other parts of Eurasia where the United States has a substantial military presence? Regarding the
Middle East, the balance begins to swing toward pessimists concerned that states currently backed by Washington notably Israel, Egypt, and
Saudi Arabiamight take actions upon U.S. retrenchment that would intensify security dilemmas. And concerning East Asia,
pessimism regarding the regions prospects without the American pacifier is pronounced. Arguably the principal concern expressed by area experts is
that Japan and South Korea are likely to obtain a nuclear capacity and increase their military commitments, which
could stoke a destabilizing reaction from China . It is notable that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan
moved to obtain a nuclear weapons capacity and were only constrained from doing so by a still-engaged U nited S tates. 75
The second body of scholarship casting doubt on the bet on defensive realisms sanguine portrayal is all of the research that undermines its conception
of state preferences. Defensive realisms optimism about what would happen if the United States retrenched is very much dependent on
its particularand highly restrictiveassumption about state preferences; once we relax this assumption, then much of its
basis for optimism vanishes. Specifically, the prediction of post-American tranquility throughout Eurasia rests on the assumption that security is
the only relevant state preference, with security defined narrowly in terms of protection from violent external attacks on the homeland. Under that
assumption, the security problem is largely solved as soon as offense and defense are clearly distinguishable, and offense is extremely expensive
relative to defense. Burgeoning research across the social and other sciences, however, undermines that core assumption:
states have preferences not only for security but also for prestige , status, and other aims, and they engage in trade-offs among the
various objectives. 76 In addition, they define security not just in terms of territorial protection but in view of many and varied milieu goals. It follows that
even states that are relatively secure may nevertheless engage in highly competitive behavior. Empirical studies show
that this is indeed sometimes the case. 77 In sum, a bet on a benign postretrenchment Eurasia is a bet that leaders of major countries will never
allow these nonsecurity preferences to influence their strategic choices. To the degree that these bodies of scholarly knowledge have predictive
leverage, U.S. retrenchment would result in a significant deterioration in the security environment in at least some of the worlds key regions. We have
already mentioned the third, even more alarming body of scholarship. Offensive realism predicts that the withdrawal of the American pacifier will yield
either a competitive regional multipolarity complete with associated insecurity, arms racing, crisis instability, nuclear proliferation, and the like, or bids for
regional hegemony, which may be beyond the capacity of local great powers to contain (and which in any case would generate intensely competitive
behavior, possibly including regional great power war). Hence it is unsurprising that retrenchment advocates are prone to focus on the second argument
noted above: that avoiding wars and security dilemmas in the worlds core regions is not a U.S. national interest. Few doubt that the United States could
survive the return of insecurity and conflict among Eurasian powers, but at what cost? Much of the work in this area has focused on the economic
externalities of a renewed threat of insecurity and war, which we discuss below. Focusing on the pure security ramifications, there are two main reasons
why decisionmakers may be rationally reluctant to run the retrenchment experiment. First, overall higher levels of conflict make the world a more
dangerous place. Were Eurasia to return to higher levels of interstate military competition, one would see overall higher levels of
military spending and innovation and a higher likelihood of competitive regional proxy wars and arming of client statesall of which
would be concerning, in part because it would promote a faster diffusion of military power away from the U nited S tates. Greater
regional insecurity could well feed proliferation cascades, as states such as Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia all might choose to
create nuclear forces. 78 It is unlikely that proliferation decisions by any of these actors would be the end of the game: they would likely generate
pressure locally for more proliferation. Following Kenneth Waltz, many retrenchment advocates are proliferation optimists, assuming that nuclear
deterrence solves the security problem. 79 Usually carried out in dyadic terms, the debate over the stability of proliferation changes as the numbers go
up. Proliferation optimism rests on assumptions of rationality and narrow security preferences. In social science, however,
such assumptions are inevitably probabilistic. Optimists assume that most states are led by rational leaders, most will
overcome organizational problems and resist the temptation to preempt before feared neighbors nuclearize , and most pursue
only security and are risk averse. Confidence in such probabilistic assumptions declines if the world were to move from nine to
twenty, thirty, or forty nuclear states. In addition, many of the other dangers noted by analysts who are concerned about the destabilizing effects
of nuclear proliferationincluding the risk of accidents and the prospects that some new nuclear powers will not have truly survivable forcesseem
prone to go up as the number of nuclear powers grows. 80 Moreover, the risk of unforeseen crisis dynamics that could spin out of
control is also higher as the number of nuclear powers increases. Finally, add to these concerns the enhanced danger of nuclear leakage, and a
world with overall higher levels of security competition becomes yet more worrisome. The argument that maintaining Eurasian peace is not a U.S.
interest faces a second problem. On widely accepted realist assumptions, acknowledging that U.S. engagement preserves peace
dramatically narrows the difference between retrenchment and deep engagement. For many supporters of retrenchment, the optimal strategy for a
power such as the United States, which has attained regional hegemony and is separated from other great powers by oceans, is offshore balancing:
stay over the horizon and pass the buck to local powers to do the dangerous work of counterbalancing any local rising power. The United States should
commit to onshore balancing only when local balancing is likely to fail and a great power appears to be a credible contender for regional hegemony, as
in the cases of Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the midtwentieth century. The problem is that Chinas rise puts the possibility of its attaining
regional hegemony on the table, at least in the medium to long term. As Mearsheimer notes, The
U nited S tates will have to play a key role
in countering China, because its Asian neighbors are not strong enough to do it by themselves. 81 Therefore, unless Chinas rise stalls, the
United States is likely to act toward China similar to the way it behaved toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 82 It follows that the United States
should take no action that would compromise its capacity to move to onshore balancing in the future. It will need to maintain key alliance relationships in
Asia as well as the formidably expensive military capacity to intervene there. The implication is to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, reduce the presence in
Europe, and pivot to Asia just what the United States is doing. 83 In sum, the argument that U.S. security commitments are
unnecessary for peace is countered by a lot of scholarship , including highly influential realist scholarship. In addition, the argument
that Eurasian peace is unnecessary for U.S. security is weakened by the potential for a large number of nasty security consequences as well as the
need to retain a latent onshore balancing capacity that dramatically reduces the savings retrenchment might bring. Moreover, switching between
offshore and onshore balancing could well be difcult. Bringing together the thrust of many of the arguments discussed so far underlines the degree to
which the case for retrenchment misses the underlying logic of the deep engagement strategy. By supplying reassurance, deterrence, and active
management, the United States lowers security competition in the worlds key regions, thereby preventing the emergence of a hothouse atmosphere for
growing new military capabilities. Alliance ties dissuade partners from ramping up and also provide leverage to prevent military transfers to potential
rivals. On top of all this, the United States formidable military machine may deter entry by potential rivals. Current great
power military expenditures as a percentage of GDP are at historical lows, and thus far other major powers have shied away from seeking to match top-
end U.S. military capabilities. In addition, they have so far been careful to avoid attracting the focused enmity of the United States. 84 All of the worlds
most modern militaries are U.S. allies (Americas alliance system of more than sixty countries now accounts for some 80 percent of global military
spending), and the gap between the U.S. military capability and that of potential rivals is by many measures growing rather than shrinking. 85

Pursuit of hegemonys locked-in the only question is effectiveness

Dorfman 12, Assistant editor of Ethics and International Affairs
(Zach What We Talk About When We Talk About Isolationism, http://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=605)
The rise of China notwithstanding, the United States remains the worlds sole superpower. Its military (and, to a considerable
Its
extent, political) hegemony extends not just over North America or even the Western hemisphere, but also Europe, large swaths of Asia, and Africa.
interests are global; nothing is outside its potential sphere of influence. There are an estimated 660 to 900 American
military bases in roughly forty countries worldwide, although figures on the matter are notoriously difficult to ascertain, largely because of
subterfuge on the part of the military. According to official data there are active-duty U.S. military personnel in 148
countries, or over 75 percent of the worlds states. The United States checks Russian power in Europe and Chinese power in
South Korea and Japan and Iranian power in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Turkey. In order to maintain a frigid peace between Israel
and Egypt, the American government hands the former $2.7 billion in military aid every year, and the latter $1.3 billion. It also gives Pakistan more than
$400 million dollars in military aid annually (not including counterinsurgency operations, which would drive the total far higher), Jordan roughly $200
million, and Colombia over $55 million. U.S. long-term military commitments are also manifold. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN
Security Council, the only institution legally permitted to sanction the use of force to combat threats to international peace and security. In 1949 the
United States helped found NATO, the first peacetime military alliance extending beyond North and South America in U.S. history, which now has
twenty-eight member states. The United States also has a trilateral defense treaty with Australia and New Zealand, and bilateral mutual defense treaties
with Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea. It is this sort of reach that led Madeleine Albright to call the United States the sole indispensible
power on the world stage. The idea that global military dominance and political hegemony is in the U.S. national
interestand the worlds interestis generally taken for granted domestically. Opposition to it is limited to the libertarian
Right and anti-imperialist Left, both groups on the margins of mainstream political discourse. Today, American supremacy is
assumed rather than argued for: in an age of tremendous political division, it is a bipartisan first principle of foreign policy, a
presupposition. In this area at least, one wishes for a little less agreement. In Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age, Christopher
McKnight Nichols provides an erudite account of a period before such a consensus existed, when ideas about Americas role on the world stage were
fundamentally contested. As this years presidential election approaches, each side will portray the difference between
the candidates positions on foreign policy as immense. Revisiting Promise and Peril shows us just how narrow the
American worldview has become, and how our public discourse has become narrower still . Nichols focuses on the years
between 1890 and 1940, during Americas initial ascent as a global power. He gives special attention to the formative debates surrounding the Spanish-
American War, U.S. entry into the First World War, and potential U.S. membership in the League of Nationsdebates that were constitutive of larger
battles over the nature of American society and its fragile political institutions and freedoms. During this period, foreign and domestic policy were often
linked as part of a cohesive political vision for the country. Nichols illustrates this through intellectual profiles of some of the periods most influential
figures, including senators Henry Cabot Lodge and William Borah, socialist leader Eugene Debs, philosopher and psychologist William James, journalist
Randolph Bourne, and the peace activist Emily Balch. Each of them interpreted isolationism and internationalism in distinct ways, sometimes deploying
the concepts more for rhetorical purposes than as cornerstones of a particular worldview. Today, isolationism is often portrayed as
intellectually bankrupt, a redoubt for idealists, nationalists, xenophobes, and fools . Yet the term now used as a political
epithet has deep roots in American political culture. Isolationist principles can be traced back to George Washingtons farewell address, during which he
urged his countrymen to steer clear of foreign entanglements while actively seeking nonbinding commercial ties. (Whether economic commitments do
in fact entail political commitments is another matter.) Thomas Jefferson echoed this sentiment when he urged for commerce with all nations, [and]
alliance with none. Even the Monroe Doctrine, in which the United States declared itself the regional hegemon and demanded noninterference from
European states in the Western hemisphere, was often viewed as a means of isolating the United States from Europe and its messy alliance system. In
Nicholss telling, however, modern isolationism was born from the debates surrounding the Spanish-American War and the U.S. annexation of the
Philippines. Here isolationism began to take on a much more explicitly anti-imperialist bent. Progressive isolationists such as William James found U.S.
policy in the Philippineswhich it had liberated from Spanish rule just to fight a bloody counterinsurgency against Philippine nationalistsanathema to
American democratic traditions and ideas about national self-determination. As Promise and Peril shows, however, cosmopolitan isolationists like
James never called for cultural, economic, or complete political separation from the rest of the world. Rather, they wanted the United States to engage
with other nations peacefully and without pretensions of domination. They saw the United States as a potential force for good in the world, but they also
placed great value on neutrality and non-entanglement, and wanted America to focus on creating a more just domestic order. Jamess anti-imperialism
was directly related to his fear of the effects of bigness. He argued forcefully against all concentrations of power, especially those between business,
political, and military interests. He knew that such vested interests would grow larger and more difficult to control if America became an overseas empire.
Others, such as isolationist imperialist Henry Cabot Lodge, the powerful senator from Massachusetts, argued that fighting the Spanish-American War
and annexing the Philippines were isolationist actions to their core. First, banishing the Spanish from the Caribbean comported with the Monroe
Doctrine; second, adding colonies such as the Philippines would lead to greater economic growth without exposing the United States to the vicissitudes
of outside trade. Prior to the Spanish-American War, many feared that the American economys rapid growth would lead to a surplus of domestic goods
and cause an economic disaster. New markets needed to be opened, and the best way to do so was to dominate a given marketthat is, a country
politically. Lodges defense of this large policy was public and, by todays standards, quite bald. Other proponents of this policy included Teddy
Roosevelt (who also believed that war was good for the national character) and a significant portion of the business class. For Lodge and Roosevelt,
isolationism meant what is commonly referred to today as unilateralism: the ability for the United States to do what it wants, when it wants. Other
isolationists espoused principles that we would today call internationalist. Randolph Bourne, a precocious journalist working for the New Republic,
passionately opposed American entry into the First World War, much to the detriment of his writing career. He argued that hypernationalism would cause
lasting damage to the American social fabric. He was especially repulsed by wartime campaigns to Americanize immigrants. Bourne instead envisioned
a transnational America: a place that, because of its distinct cultural and political traditions and ethnic diversity, could become an example to the rest of
the world. Its respect for plurality at home could influence other countries by example, but also by allowing it to mediate international disputes without
becoming a party to them. Bourne wanted an America fully engaged with the world, but not embroiled in military conflicts or alliances. This was also the
case for William Borah, the progressive Republican senator from Idaho. Borah was an agrarian populist and something of a Jeffersonian: he believed
axiomatically in local democracy and rejected many forms of federal encroachment. He was opposed to extensive immigration, but not anti-immigrant.
Borah thought that America was strengthened by its complex ethnic makeup and that an imbalance tilted toward one group or another would have
deleterious effects. But it is his famously isolationist foreign policy views for which Borah is best known. As Nichols writes: He was consistent in an anti-
imperialist stance against U.S. domination abroad; yet he was ambivalent in cases involving what he saw as involving obvious national interest.He
also without fail argued that any open-ended military alliances were to be avoided at all costs, while arguing that to minimize war abroad as well as
conflict at home should always be a top priority for American politicians. Borah thus cautiously supported entry into the First World War on national
interest grounds, but also led a group of senators known as the irreconcilables in their successful effort to prevent U.S. entry into the League of
Nations. His paramount concern was the collective security agreement in the organizations charter: he would not assent to a treaty that stipulated that
the United States would be obligated to intervene in wars between distant powers where the country had no serious interest at stake. Borah possessed
an alternative vision for a more just and pacific international order. Less than a decade after he helped scuttle American accession to the League, he
helped pass the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) in a nearly unanimous Senate vote. More than sixty states eventually became party to the pact, which
outlawed war between its signatories and required them to settle their disputes through peaceful means. Today, realists sneer at the idealism
of Kellogg-Briand, but the Senate was aware of the pacts limitations and carved out clear exceptions for cases of national defense. Some supporters
believed that, if nothing else, the law would help strengthen an emerging international norm against war. (Given what followed, this seems like a sad
exercise in wish-fulfillment.) Unlike the League of Nations charter, the treaty faced almost no opposition from the isolationist bloc in the Senate, since it
did not require the United States to enter into a collective security agreement or abrogate its sovereignty. This was a kind of internationalism Borah and
his irreconcilables could proudly support. The United States today looks very different from the country in which Borah, let alone William
James, lived, both domestically (where political and civil freedoms have been extended to women, African Americans, and gays and lesbians) and
internationally (with its leading role in many global institutions ). But different strains of isolationism persist. Newt Gingrich has argued
for a policy of total energy independence (in other words, domestic drilling) while fulminating against President Obama for bowing to the Saudi king.
While recently driving through an agricultural region of rural Colorado, I saw a giant roadside billboard calling for American withdrawal from the UN. Yet
in the last decade, the Republican Party, with the partial exception of its Ron Paul/libertarian faction, has veered into such a
belligerent unilateralism that its graybeardsone of whom, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, just lost a primary to a far-right challenger
partly because of his reasonableness on foreign affairswere barely able to ensure Senate ratification of a key nuclear arms
reduction treaty with Russia. Many of these same people desire a unilateral war with Iran . And it isnt just
Republicans. Drone attacks have intensified in Yemen, Pakistan, and elsewhere under the Obama administration. Massive
troop deployments continue unabated. We spend over $600 billion dollars a year on our military budget ; the next
largest is Chinas, at only around $100 billion. Administrations come and go, but the national security state
appears here to stay.

Statistically proven that heg prevents war

Owen 11
John M. Owen Professor of Politics at University of Virginia PhD from Harvard "DONT DISCOUNT HEGEMONY" Feb 11 www.cato-
unbound.org/2011/02/11/john-owen/dont-discount-hegemony/

Andrew Mack and his colleagues at the Human Security Report Project are to be congratulated. Not only do they present a study with a
striking conclusion, driven by data, free of theoretical or ideological bias, but they also do something quite unfashionable: they
bear good news. Social scientists really are not supposed to do that. Our job is, if not to be Malthusians, then at least to point out
disturbing trends, looming catastrophes, and the imbecility and mendacity of policy makers . And then it is to say why, if
people listen to us, things will get better. We do this as if our careers depended upon it, and perhas they do; for if all is going to be well, what need then
for us? Our colleagues at Simon Fraser University are brave indeed. That may sound like a setup, but it is not. I shall challenge neither the
data nor the general conclusion that violent conflict around the world has been decreasing in fits and starts since
the Second World War. When it comes to violent conflict among and within countries, things have been getting
better. (The trends have not been linearFigure 1.1 actually shows that the frequency of interstate wars peaked in the 1980sbut the 65-year
movement is clear.) Instead I shall accept that Mack et al. are correct on the macro-trends, and focus on their explanations they advance for these
remarkable trends. With apologies to any readers of this forum who recoil from academic debates, this might get mildly theoretical and even more mildly
methodological. Concerning international wars, one version of the nuclear-peace theory is not in fact laid to rest by
the data. It is certainly true that nuclear-armed states have been involved in many wars. They have even been attacked (think of Israel), which falsifies
the simple claim of assured destructionthat any nuclear country A will deter any kind of attack by any country B because B fears a retaliatory nuclear
strike from A. But the most important nuclear-peace claim has been about mutually assured destruction, which
obtains between two robustly nuclear-armed states. The claim is that (1) rational states having second-strike
capabilitiesenough deliverable nuclear weaponry to survive a nuclear first strike by an enemywill have an overwhelming incentive not to attack
one another; and (2) we can safely assume that nuclear-armed states are rational . It follows that states with a second-strike
capability will not fight one another. Their colossal atomic arsenals neither kept the United States at peace with North Vietnam during the Cold War nor
the Soviet Union at peace with Afghanistan. But the argument remains strong that those arsenals did help keep the United States and Soviet Union at
peace with each other. Why non-nuclear states are not deterred from fighting nuclear states is an important and open question. But in a
time when calls to ban the Bomb are being heard from more and more quarters, we must be clear about precisely what the broad trends toward peace
can and cannot tell us. They may tell us nothing about why we have had no World War III, and little about the wisdom of banning the Bomb now.
Regarding the downward trend in international war, Professor Mack is friendlier to more palatable theories such
as the democratic peace (democracies do not fight one another, and the proportion of democracies has increased, hence less war); the
interdependence or commercial peace (states with extensive economic ties find it irrational to fight one another, and
interdependence has increased, hence less war); and the notion that people around the world are more anti-war than
their forebears were. Concerning the downward trend in civil wars, he favors theories of economic growth (where
commerce is enriching enough people, violence is less appealinga logic similar to that of the commercial peace thesis that applies among nations)
and the end of the Cold War (which end reduced superpower support for rival rebel factions in so many Third-World countries). These are all
plausible mechanisms for peace. What is more, none of them excludes any other; all could be working toward the
same end. That would be somewhat puzzling, however. Is the world just lucky these days? How is it that an array of peace-
inducing factors happens to be working coincidentally in our time , when such a magical array was absent in the past? The
answer may be that one or more of these mechanisms reinforces some of the others, or perhaps some of them
are mutually reinforcing. Some scholars, for example, have been focusing on whether economic growth might support democracy and vice
versa, and whether both might support international cooperation, including to end civil wars. We would still need to explain how this
charmed circle of causes got started, however. And here let me raise another factor, perhaps even less appealing
than the nuclear peace thesis, at least outside of the United States. That factor is what international relations
scholars call hegemonyspecifically American hegemony. A theory that many regard as discredited, but that refuses to go away, is
called hegemonic stability theory. The theory emerged in the 1970s in the realm of international political economy. It
asserts that for the global economy to remain openfor countries to keep barriers to trade and investment low
one powerful country must take the lead. Depending on the theorist we consult, taking the lead entails paying for global
public goods (keeping the sea lanes open, providing liquidity to the international economy), coercion
(threatening to raise trade barriers or withdraw military protection from countries that cheat on the rules), or both . The
theory is skeptical that international cooperation in economic matters can emerge or endure absent a hegemon.
The distastefulness of such claims is self-evident: they imply that it is good for everyone the world over if one country has more wealth and power than
others. More precisely, they imply that it has been good for the world that the United States has been so predominant. There is no obvious
reason why hegemonic stability theory could not apply to other areas of international cooperation, including in
security affairs, human rights, international law, peacekeeping (UN or otherwise), and so on. What I want to suggest here
suggest, not testis that American hegemony might just be a deep cause of the steady decline of political
deaths in the world.How could that be? After all, the report states that United States is the third most war-prone country since 1945. Many of the
deaths depicted in Figure 10.4 were in wars that involved the United States (the Vietnam War being the leading one). Notwithstanding politicians claims
to the contrary, a candid look at U.S. foreign policy reveals that the country is as ruthlessly self-interested as any
other great power in history. The answer is that U.S. hegemony might just be a deeper cause of the proximate
causes outlined by Professor Mack. Consider economic growth and openness to foreign trade and investment, which (so
say some theories) render violence irrational. American power and policies may be responsible for these in two
related ways. First, at least since the 1940s Washington has prodded other countries to embrace the market capitalism
that entails economic openness and produces sustainable economic growth. The United States promotes
capitalism for selfish reasons, of course: its own domestic system depends upon growth, which in turn depends upon the efficiency gains
from economic interaction with foreign countries, and the more the better. During the Cold War most of its allies accepted some degree of market-driven
growth. Second, the U.S.-led western victory in the Cold War damaged the credibility of alternative paths to
developmentcommunism and import-substituting industrialization being the two leading onesand left market capitalism the best
model. The end of the Cold War also involved an end to the billions of rubles in Soviet material support for regimes that tried to make these alternative
models work. (It also, as Professor Mack notes, eliminated the superpowers incentives to feed civil violence in the Third
World.) What we call globalization is caused in part by the emergence of the United States as the global hegemon.
The same case can be made, with somewhat more difficulty, concerning the spread of democracy. Washington has
supported democracy only under certain conditionsthe chief one being the absence of a popular anti-American
movement in the target statebut those conditions have become much more widespread following the collapse of
communism. Thus in the 1980s the Reagan administrationthe most anti-communist government America ever hadbegan to dump Americas old
dictator friends, starting in the Philippines. Today Islamists tend to be anti-American, and so the Obama administration is
skittish about democracy in Egypt and other authoritarian Muslim countries. But general U.S. material and moral
support for liberal democracy remains strong.
 Econ
Contention 2 is the Economy

US economy is stagnating nowannual growth rate is sluggish

Wall Street Journal 14 (8-26-14, "'Secular Stagnation' May Be for Real" Wall Street Journal) online.wsj.com/articles/william-galston-secular-
stagnation-may-be-for-real-1409095263

The U.S. has an economic growth problem , and it started before the Great Recession. Between 1949 and 2000, Third Way's Jim Kessler
calculates, the annual rate of growth exceeded 3% a total of 34 timestwo years out of every three. During the eight Clinton years, growth reached 4%
five times and fell below 3% only twice. Since 2000 growth has reached 3% just two times and did not reach 4% at all, even during 2003-07, the peak
years of the recovery from the 2001 recession. Since the beginning of the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09,
annual growth has not yet reached 3%, and 2014 looks to be no exception . The big picture puts these details in sharp relief:
Between 1949 and 2000, the economy grew on average 3.6% annually. Since then, growth has averaged only 1.8%. In the economic
circumstances of recent decades, only a sustained period of robust growth has raised wages and household
incomes. Unless the economy can resume the more robust growth of the second half of the 20th century, U.S.
workers will be hard-pressed to regain the ground they have lost , let alone offer the prospects of something better for their
children.

Legalizing marijuana boosts the economy:

A. Job growth

Legalization creates new opportunities for innovation and spurs growth in other industries
which locks in resilience
Cassillas 14 (Cassandra, reporter, quoting Charles Arnold, business development and investment consultant, 6-13-14, "Charles S. Arnold Claims
Marijuana Could Save U.S. Economy" Opposing Views) www.opposingviews.com/i/society/drug-law/charles-s-arnold-claims-marijuana-could-save-us-
economy

The U nited S tates economy has had a rough few years . Inequality has been rising. The middle class is squeezed harder
and harder with each passing year. Innovation is falling off. Outsourcing has become a regular part of doing business for major corporations.
A fresh industry of some sort needed to come along and, fortunately for the economy, it has . Reports from across the board
suggest that the green rush, or legalization of recreational marijuana, may be exactly what the doctor ordered. By now,
everyone has heard about the impressive $2 million in taxes Colorado collected within the first month of recreational
marijuana being legalized, but that is actually just the cherry on top . Tax revenue from marijuana legalization is easy to compute,
which is why it is such a popular talking point. The real benefit of legalization is something else entirely: it opens the doors to a slew of ancillary
businesses, investment opportunities and even stock options. The weed market is relatively untapped and provides entrepreneurs
with nearly endless opportunities. Where there is marijuana, there is also a simultaneous need for pipes, bongs,
containers, growing apparatuses, and everything in between. And this isnt just the opinion of optimistic, pro-pot
activists. The business community agrees. Chuck S. Arnold, a long time business development and investment
consultant who has worked in a variety of industries, is constantly on the lookout for the most innovative new
areas to build businesses. Arnold believes the future is looking bright for people who are willing to bet on legal
marijuana. Marijuana legalization is spurring growth in other industries , Chuck S. Arnold claims. From industrial
lights to smoking apparatus, the legalization of marijuana is blazing a trail for future businesses to not only be
see moderate success, but thrive ostensibly well in an often turbulent contemporary fiscal environment.

B. State budgets

Massive state budget cuts to schools remain in place, which prevents growth and destroys
competitivenessnew revenue sources are needed
Leachman and Mai 14 (Michael, Director of State Fiscal Research with the State Fiscal Policy division of the Center, Ph.D. in sociology from
Loyola University Chicago, and Chris, Research Assistant with the State Fiscal Project, Master of Public Policy from the University of Virginias Frank
Batten School, 5-20-14, "Most States Funding Schools Less Than Before the Recession" Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) www.cbpp.org/cms/?
fa=view&id=4011
States new budgets are providing less per-pupil funding for kindergarten through 12th grade than they did six
years ago often far less. The reduced levels reflect not only the lingering effects of the 2007-09 recession but also continued
austerity in many states ; indeed, despite some improvements in overall state revenues, schools in around a third of states are entering the new
school year with less state funding than they had last year. At a time when states and the nation are trying to produce workers
with the skills to master new technologies and adapt to the complexities of a global economy, this decline in
state educational investment is cause for concern . Our review of state budget documents finds that: At least 35 states are
providing less funding per student for the 2013-14 school year than they did before the recession hit. Fourteen of
these states have cut per-student funding by more than 10 percent . (These figures, like all the comparisons in this paper, are in
inflation-adjusted dollars and focus on the primary form of state aid to local schools.) At least 15 states are providing less funding per student to local
school districts in the new school year than they provided a year ago. This is despite the fact that most states are experiencing modest increases in tax
revenues. Where funding has increased, it has generally not increased enough to make up for cuts in past years. For
example, New Mexico is increasing school funding by $72 per pupil this year. But that is too small to offset the states $946 per-pupil cut over the
previous five years. Restoring school funding should be an urgent priority . The steep state-level K-12 spending cuts
of the last several years have serious consequences for the nation. State-level K-12 cuts have large
consequences for local school districts. Some 44 percent of total education spending in the U nited States comes
from state funds (the share varies by state).[2] Cuts at the state level mean that local school districts have to either scale
back the educational services they provide, raise more local tax revenue to cover the gap, or both. Local school districts
typically have little ability to replace lost state aid on their own. Given the still-weak state of many of the nations real estate
markets, many school districts struggle to raise more money from the property tax without raising rates, and rate increases are often politically very
difficult. Localities collected 2.1 percent less in property tax revenue in the 12-month period ending in March 2013 than in the previous year, after
adjusting for inflation.[3] The cuts deepened the recession and have slowed the economys recovery. Federal
employment data show that school districts began reducing the overall number of teachers and other employees
in July 2008, when the first round of budget cuts began taking effect. As of August 2013, local school districts had cut a total of
324,000 jobs since 2008.[4] These job losses have reduced the purchasing power of workers families, in turn reducing
overall economic consumption, and thus deepened the recession and slowed the pace of recovery . The cuts
undermine education reform and hinder school districts ability to deliver high-quality education, with long-term
negative consequences for the nations economic competitiveness. Many states and school districts have
undertaken important school reform initiatives to prepare children better for the future, but deep funding cuts
hamper their ability to implement many of these reforms. At a time when producing workers with high-level
technical and analytical skills is increasingly important to a countrys prosperity, large cuts in funding for basic
education threaten to undermine the nations economic future.

Legalization generates up to $100 billion in new revenue

Easton 09 (Stephen, fellow at the Fraser Institute, "PRO: FUND CRIMEOR TAXES?" Businessweek)
www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2010/03/legalize_mariju.html

As California readies for its November referendum, the first public test of the marijuana-legalization issue, it makes sense for Americans to have a look in
the rearview mirror. The current prohibition on marijuana consumption exactly parallels the 1920s alcohol prohibition.
like booze
Every year, a widely consumed illegal substance makes potential criminals of millions and actual criminals of hundreds of thousands. And
during Prohibition, this substance, marijuana, is the easy revenue of organized crime , contributing tens of billions of
dollars to growers, who commit a variety of bad acts both at home and abroad. How much money is made from
this single illegal substance? In fairness, nobody knows for sure. "Illegal" means hard data are difficult to come by. We do know, however, that
according to recent figures, U.S. consumers number anywhere from 25 million to 60 million (depending on how likely
survey respondents are to tell the whole truth), and at an average cost of $5 per cigarette (and factoring in one per day for each user),
total spending on marijuana may add up to $45 billion to $110 billion a year. What about possible tax revenue?
From Canada weve learned that the production cost of (government-sponsored) marijuana is roughly 33 a
gram. Currently, U.S. marijuana consumers pay at least $10 per gram retail for illegal marijuana. If the cost of retailing and
distribution is the same as for legal tobacco cigarettes, about 10 a gram, then selling the (legal) product at exactly the same price as on the
street today ($10 per gram) could raise $40 billion to $100 billion in new revenue. Not chump change. Government would
simply be transferring revenue from organized crime to the public purse.

Colorado proves significant revenue can be generatedtaxes dont deter people from buying
within the legal market
Walker 14 (Jon, author of After Legalization, 2-25-14, "These 5 Numbers Show Marijuana Legalization Is Going Well in Colorado" Just Say Now)
justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2014/02/25/these-5-numbers-show-marijua
Limited marijuana possession has been legal for over a year in Colorado and retail shops have been open for
almost two months. This means there is now real data showing that legalization is going well and mostly as its backers
intended. These five numbers tell the story: 1) 77 percent decrease in state court marijuana cases - Legalization has
caused marijuana arrest to plummet saving the state money . This drop is remarkable given that Colorado already had fairly liberal
marijuana laws before Amendment 64 was approved. The Denver Post found, the number of cases filed in state court alleging at least one marijuana
offense plunged 77 percent between 2012 and 2013. The decline is most notable for charges of petty marijuana possession, which dropped from an
average of 714 per month during the first nine months of 2012 to 133 per month during the same period in 2013 a decline of 81 percent. 2) $184
Million in new tax revenue Legal marijuana sales are now projected to bring in $184 million in new tax revenue
for the state during the first 18 months. This is higher than initial projections . Much of this money will go to education and
drug treatment. This number isnt just important because it will help the state balance its budget. Significant tax revenue also proves that
people are choosing to move from the black market to the new legal system even though there are high excise
taxes. 3) 58 percent support for legalization Now the that people of Colorado have gotten a chance to directly experience legalization
they are increasingly supportive. Currently 58 percent of voters in Colorado support the new legalization law while only 39 percent oppose it. By
comparison, in 2012 the ballot measure only won by 55.3 percent yes to 44.7 percent no. 4) 10 percent last month usage rate In the first
This is right in line with use rates
month after retail stores opened only 10 percent of Colorado voters said they actually used marijuana.
before legalization, showing it has not turned the state into a land of potheads . 5) 6.3 percent increase in airline
flight searches Early indications are that legalization will also be a modest boost for tourism. According to Hopper, Flight
search demand for Denver has been 6.3% above the national search average since December 1st. During the first week of January flight searches
were up 14 percent. Since marijuana was legalized in Colorado marijuana arrests are way down, tax revenue is up and support for reform continues to
grow. This is what success looks like.

C. Substitution

Marijuana trades off with alcoholmultiple studies confirm

Anderson and Rees 2013, D. Mark Anderson Montanta State University Daniel I. Rees* University of Colorado Denver Institute for the Study
of Labor (IZA), The Legalization of Recreational Marijuana How Likely is the Worst-Case Scenario? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Winter
2013

Studies based on clearly-defined natural experiments generally support the hypothesis that marijuana and alcohol are
substitutes . For instance, DiNardo & Lemieux (2001) found that increasing the MLDA from 18 to 21 encourages
marijuana use. Using data from the NSDUH and a regression discontinuity design, Crost & Guerrero (2012) found a sharp decrease
in marijuana use at 21 years of age, suggesting that young adults treat alcohol and marijuana as substitutes.
Finally, Anderson, Hansen, & Rees (2013) examined the relationship between legalizing medical marijuana and drinking using data from the
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. These authors found that legalization was associated with reductions in heavy
drinking especially among 18- through 29-year-olds. In addition, they found that legalization was associated with
an almost 5 percent decrease in beer sales, the alcoholic beverage of choice among young adults (Jones, 2008). The results of
DiNardo & Lemieux (2001), Crost & Guerrero (2012) and Anderson, Hansen, & Rees (2013) suggest that, as marijuana becomes more
available, young adults in Colorado and Washington will respond by drinking less, not more . If non-medical marijuana states
legalize the use of recreational marijuana, they should also experience reductions in drinking with the
accompanying public health benefits.

Economic costs from alcohol use are astronomical

Jaslow 13 (Ryan, reporter, citing a CDC report, 8-14-13, "Heavy drinking costs U.S. $223.5B a year: Which state has highest tab?" CBS News)
www.cbsnews.com/news/heavy-drinking-costs-us-2235b-a-year-which-state-has-highest-tab/

Heavy drinking carries major health risks, according to the C enters for D isease C ontrol and Prevention, including
elevated odds of long-term ailments like liver disease, heart problems, fertility issues, some cancers and
neurological issues like stroke or dementia. Shorter term, alcohol poisoning, traffic accidents, falls, violence and risky
sexual behaviors are risks also associated with large amounts alcohol consumption. A new CDC report shows
these alcohol-related health woes take a heavy financial toll on the U.S., to the tune of $223.5 billion a year -- and
some states' wallets fared worse than others. Binge drinking -- defined as when men drink more than five drinks and women drink more than four drinks
in two hours -- was responsible for more than 70 percent of the excessive alcohol costs., a total of $171 billion annually. "It is striking to see most of the
costs of excessive drinking in states and D.C. are due to binge drinking, which is reported by about 18 percent of U.S. adults," report author Dr. Robert
Brewer, alcohol program lead at CDC, said in a statement. A 2012 CDC study estimated about 38 million U.S. adults, or about one in six people, are
binge drinkers, with a reported average of four episodes per month. A study by the agency one year later revealed almost 14 million women binge drink
about three times a month, consuming an average of six drinks per binge. The latest report, published Aug. 13 in the American Journal of
Preventive Medicine, estimated state-by-state economic costs of drinking including those from binge drinking
and underage drinking. The median state cost associated with excessive drinking was $2.9 billion, with about $2 out of every $5 of these costs
being paid for by the government. The state that absorbed the least alcohol costs was North Dakota, coming in at $420 million. The most costs were
found in California, totaling nearly $32 billion. The researchers broke down the numbers even further and found based on population, the District of
Columbia has the highest per-person cost associated with excessive drinking ($1,662 per person) while Iowa had the lowest ($622). "The state
estimates calculated here are most likely substantial underestimates ," wrote Brewer and the researchers.

Marijuana use has a minimal economic impactdecades worth of studies debunk productivity
claims
Dighe 14 (Ranjit, Professor of Economics, The State University of New York at Oswego, 1-30-14, "Legalize It -- The Economic Argument" The
Huffington Post, accessed 7-27-14) www.huffingtonpost.com/ranjit-dighe/legalize-marijuana-economic-argument_b_4695023.html

As for the effect of marijuana on worker productivity, the first thing to note is that nobody is advocating smoking
marijuana or being high on the job, any more than anyone advocates drinking or being drunk on the job. People
are expected to show up for work sober, and employers have always had the right to fire people who fail to meet
that basic requirement. The issue, then, is whether smoking marijuana in one's free time impairs one's job
performance. Long-term memory loss and "amotivational syndrome" have been alleged, but decades' worth of
studies have debunked both of those claims.

Federal legalization is keymaintaining prohibition undermines investor confidence and

creates operational barriers
Mitchell 12 (Dan, 11-19-12, "What would a legal American marijuana industry look like?" Fortune) fortune.com/2012/11/19/what-would-a-legal-
american-marijuana-industry-look-like/

Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana in their states. Other states will likely follow suit. But there
wont be a real marijuana industry until federal laws are repealed . If that happens, everything will change.
FORTUNE Last week, Jerry Brown, the governor of California who leads the worlds eighth-largest economy, issued his strongest
plea yet for the federal government to back off enforcing federal marijuana laws in his state. President Obama and the
Justice Department, he said, must recognize the sovereignty of the states and stop trying to nullify a reasonable state regulation. He sounded almost
like a Southern libertarian as he invoked states rights. Browns statement came in the wake of the passage of ballot measures in two states,
Washington and Colorado, to legalize marijuana. In California voters came very close in 2010 to doing the same, and such a measure seems likely to
pass next time out. Other states are sure to follow as well. But that doesnt mean that a real marijuana industry will
grow out of the countrys changing sentiments toward pot with large-scale distribution, marketing, and retail
sales any time soon. For that to happen, the federal government would have to do a lot more than merely back
off and recognize states rights. It would have to repeal the federal laws banning the possession, use, and
distribution of marijuana. And that might take a long while yet, given that the politics in, for example, Georgia, are a lot different from the politics
in Washington, Colorado, and California (even Oregon isnt quite there yet its ballot measure failed on Election Day). There needs to be a national
consensus, and the nation isnt there yet. And until full federal repeal of prohibition, a multitude of insurmountable barriers
will remain in place. The chief one is simple economics: the industry simply cant scale to a degree that would
attract investors (who would be scared of investing anyway). One of the many reasons that pot costs so much
about $300 an ounce on average is that growers must keep their operations relatively small and, usually,
hidden. Forget for the moment the direct impact that pots illegality (meaning, risk) has on prices: the costs of
production alone are enormous just because economies of scale arent achievable. Even if the state police are no
longer coming after growers, the feds might be. MORE: Big beer dresses up in craft brewers clothing Then there is the
problem that medical-marijuana businesses already face in states where they are allowed: vendors of all kinds of
necessary services cant or dont want to deal with them. Banks wont lend them money. Insurers wont insure
them. Many landlords wont rent to them. Credit-card companies wont process their payments. If your customers
cant sign for something with dignity, and you cant obtain health insurance for your employees, its unlikely that
your business will ever scale.

US growth is key to reverse stagnation

Caploe 9 (David Caploe is CEO of the Singapore-incorporated American Centre for Applied Liberal Arts and Humanities in Asia., Focus still on
America to lead global recovery, April 7, The Strait Times, lexis)

IN THE aftermath of the G-20 summit, most observers seem to have missed perhaps the most crucial statement of the entire event, made by United
States President Barack Obama at his pre-conference meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown: 'The world has become accustomed to the US
being a voracious consumer market, the engine that drives a lot of economic growth worldwide,' he said. 'If there is going to be renewed growth, it just
can't be the US as the engine.' While superficially sensible, this view is deeply problematic. To begin with, it ignores the fact that the global
economy has in fact been 'America-centred' for more than 60 years . Countries - China, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and
so on - either sell to the US or they sell to countries that sell to the US. This system has generally been advantageous for all concerned. America gained
certain historically unprecedented benefits, but the system also enabled participating countries - first in Western Europe and Japan, and later, many in
the Third World - to achieve undreamt-of prosperity. At the same time, this deep inter-connection between the US and the rest of the world also
explains how the collapse of a relatively small sector of the US economy - 'sub-prime' housing, logarithmically exponentialised by Wall
Street's ingenious chicanery - has cascaded into the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. To put it simply, Mr
Obama doesn't seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world economy - and hasn't been for the last six decades. If
the US does not drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen. Thus, US policies to deal with the current
crisis are critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world. Consequently, it is a matter of global concern that the Obama
administration seems to be following Japan's 'model' from the 1990s: allowing major banks to avoid declaring massive losses openly and transparently,
and so perpetuating 'zombie' banks - technically alive but in reality dead. As analysts like Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have
pointed out, the administration's unwillingness to confront US banks is the main reason why they are continuing their increasingly inexplicable credit
freeze, thus ravaging the American and global economies.

Economic stagnation causes global WMD conflict

Hutchinson 14 (Martin, Business and Economics Editor at United Press International, MBA from Harvard Business School, former international
merchant banker, 1-3-14, The chilling echoes of 1914, a century on Wall Street Journal) http://online.wsj.com/articles/william-galston-secular-
stagnation-may-be-for-real-1409095263,

The years before 1914 saw the formation of trade blocs separated by high tariff barriers. Back then, the world was
dominated by several roughly equivalent powers, albeit with different strengths and weaknesses. Today, the world is similarly multi-polar. The United
States is in a position of clear leadership, but China is coming up fast. Europe is weaker than it was, but is still a force to be reckoned with. Japan,
Russia, Brazil, India are also too powerful to ignore. A hundred years ago, big international infrastructure projects such as the Berlin-Baghdad Railway,
and before it the Suez Canal, were built to protect favored trading. Todays equivalent may be the bilateral mining partnerships forged between, for
instance, China and mineral-rich African states. Today, the World Trade Organization offers some defence against tariffs. But protectionism
could be become entrenched if prolonged economic stagnation leads countries to pursue their own narrow
interests. Germany, Austria, Russia and France lost between 20 and 35 percent of national output between 1913 and 1918, according to Angus
Maddisons data used in Stephen Broadberrys The Economics of World War One: A Comparative Analysis. British GDP declined in 1914 and 1915, but
grew 15 percent over the four years, as did the U.S. economy. The 37 million military and civilian casualties may tell a more accurate story but if
history were to repeat itself, the global conflict could be both more universal and more destructive. Nuclear
weapons proliferate. Warped diplomatic anger could lead to the deployment of chemical and biological devices.
Electromagnetic pulses could wipe out our fragile electronic networks. Like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that
sparked World War One, the catalyst for cataclysm might be something quite surprising. A global run on bank and other investment assets or an
outbreak of hyperinflation, maybe? These threats get more serious the more policymakers pump up equity, bond, property and banking bubbles. If
global wealth evaporates, or is proven to be an illusion, todays largely cordial global entente could be smashed with
precipitous speed.

Economic growth causes international cooperation which solves war

Mead 12 (Walter Russell, James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, 7/18/12, Energy Revolution 3: The New
American Century The American Interest) http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/07/18/energy-revolution-3-the-new-american-century/

Abundant energy will also promote global economic growth, an effect that strengthens and stabilizes the
world system. It is easier for countries to cooperate when their economies are doing well. There is less
nationalist pressure inside countries driving political leaders to take confrontational stands, and it is
easier to negotiate win-win solutions and build functioning international institutions when all parties are
relatively optimistic about their prospects.

Best studies prove

Royal, Department of Defense Cooperative threat reduction director, 2010 [Jedediah, Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of
Economic Crises, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, p.213-4]

Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in
understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade
so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for
difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined
to use force to gain access to those resources.Crises couldpotentially be the trigger for decreased trade
expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have
considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Bloomberg and Hess (2002) find a
strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic
downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually
reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to
amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other (Bloomberg & Hess, 2002, p.89) Economic decline has also been
linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, &Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to
external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. Diversionary theory suggests that, when
facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased
MARK
incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995), and
Bloomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi
(1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics arc greater for democratic states than
autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support.
DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus
weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force . In summary, recent economic
scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science
scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between
integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
2ac
 Case
Mexican cartels cause massive structural violence and commit human rights abuses
AP 12 (1-11-12, "Mexican drug war toll: 47,500 killed in 5 years" CBS News) www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-drug-war-toll-47500-killed-in-5-years/

Two decapitated bodies were found inside a burning SUV early Wednesday at the entrance to one of Mexico's most
luxurious malls, feeding fears drug violence is infiltrating privileged realms previously thought safe. Police recovered the
mutilated bodies before dawn off a toll highway at a shopping mall entrance in the heart of the Santa Fe district that's a haven for international
corporations, diplomats and the wealthy. The heads and a threatening message were dumped a few yards away, Mexico
City
prosecutors said in a statement. Hours later, the government released a drug war body count recording more than
47,500 victims in five years , echoing independent death tolls tabulated by Mexican media.

Hegemony highfundamentals are strong

Bruce Jones, senior fellow, Brookings Institution and consulting professor, Stanford University, American Leadership in a World in Flux,
HUFFINGTON POST, 31014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-jones/american-leadership-in-a_b_4934290.html

What we're really seeing is a mounting gap between the fundamentals, on the one hand, and perceptions and policy on the other .
The
fundamentals of American power are still strong. We spend more on our military than the next 15 countries
combined, 10 of whom are close allies, and we have a huge advantage in high-tech weaponry, training, a global network
of bases, a dominant intelligence capacity. (That doesn't necessarily translate into easy military answers to crises, of course.) We
dominate the league tables in higher education. The shale and tight oil revolution give us an increasingly strong position in
global energy markets, and demonstrate the technological dynamism of our economy. Our population is young, and growing. And
no leading power in modern history has had anything like the suite of alliances that America enjoys.
 K

Global violence decreasing

Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor at Harvard University, 7 (Steven, March 19, A History of Violence The New Republic, lexis)

In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a
fire. According to historian Norman Davies, "[T]he spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were
singed, roasted, and finally carbonized." Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the world. This change in sensibilities is just one example
of perhaps the most important and most underappreciated trend in the human saga: Violence has been in decline over long stretches
of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on earth. In the decade of
Darfur and Iraq, and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem
somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to
exactly that conclusion. Some of the evidence has been under our nose all along. Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we
have been getting kinder and gentler. Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a
labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate , torture and
mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of
political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution--all
were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they are rare to nonexistent in the
West, far less common elsewhere than they used to be, concealed when they do occur, and widely condemned when they
are brought to light. At one time, these facts were widely appreciated. They were the source of notions like progress, civilization, and man's rise
from savagery and barbarism. Recently, however, those ideas have come to sound corny, even dangerous. They seem to
demonize people in other times and places, license colonial conquest and other foreign adventures, and conceal the crimes of our own
societies. The doctrine of the noble savage--the idea that humans are peaceable by nature and corrupted by modern institutions--pops up frequently in
the writing of public intellectuals like Jose Ortega y Gasset ("War is not an instinct but an invention"), Stephen Jay Gould ("Homo sapiens is not an evil or
destructive species"), and Ashley Montagu ("Biological studies lend support to the ethic of universal brotherhood"). But, now that social scientists have
started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to
become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler. To be sure, any attempt
to document changes in violence must be soaked in uncertainty. In much of the world, the distant past was a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear
it, and, even for events in the historical record, statistics are spotty until recent periods. Long-term trends can be discerned only by smoothing out
zigzags and spikes of horrific bloodletting. And the choice to focus on relative rather than absolute numbers brings up the moral imponderable of
whether it is worse for 50 percent of a population of 100 to be killed or 1 percent in a population of one billion. Yet, despite these caveats, a picture is
taking shape. The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It
applies over several orders of magnitude of violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment
of children and animals. And it appears to be a worldwide trend, though not a homogeneous one. The leading edge has been in Western
societies, especially England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth
century. At the widest-angle view, one can see a whopping difference across the millennia that separate us from our pre-state ancestors. Contra leftist
anthropologists who celebrate the noble savage, quantitative body-counts--such as the proportion of prehistoric skeletons
with axemarks and embedded arrowheads or the proportion of men in a contemporary foraging tribe who die at the hands of other men--
suggest that pre-state societies were far more violent than our own. It is true that raids and battles killed a tiny percentage of the
numbers that die in modern warfare. But, in tribal violence, the clashes are more frequent, the percentage of men in the
population who fight is greater, and the rates of death per battle are higher . According to anthropologists like Lawrence Keeley,
Stephen LeBlanc, Phillip Walker, and Bruce Knauft, these factors combine to yield population-wide rates of death in tribal warfare that dwarf those of
modern times. If the wars of the twentieth century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the wars of a typical tribal society, there
would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million. Political correctness from the other end of the ideological spectrum has also distorted many
people's conception of violence in early civilizations--namely, those featured in the Bible. This supposed source of moral values contains many
celebrations of genocide, in which the Hebrews, egged on by God, slaughter every last resident of an invaded city. The Bible also prescribes
death by stoning as the penalty for a long list of nonviolent infractions, including idolatry, blasphemy,
homosexuality, adultery, disrespecting one's parents, and picking up sticks on the Sabbath . The Hebrews, of course,
were no more murderous than other tribes; one also finds frequent boasts of torture and genocide in the early histories of the Hindus, Christians,
Muslims, and Chinese. At the century scale, it is hard to find quantitative studies of deaths in warfare spanning medieval and modern times. Several
historians have suggested that there has been an increase in the number of recorded wars across the centuries to the present, but, as political scientist
James Payne has noted, this may show only that "the Associated Press is a more comprehensive source of information about battles around the world
than were sixteenth-century monks." Social histories of the West provide evidence of numerous barbaric practices that
became obsolete in the last five centuries, such as slavery, amputation, blinding, branding, flaying,
disembowelment, burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, and so on . Meanwhile, for another kind of violence--homicide--
the data are abundant and striking. The criminologist Manuel Eisner has assembled hundreds of homicide estimates from Western European localities
that kept records at some point between 1200 and the mid-1990s. In every country he analyzed, murder rates declined steeply--for
example, from 24 homicides per 100,000 Englishmen in the fourteenth century to 0.6 per 100,000 by the early 1960s. On the scale of decades,
comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture: Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth
century. According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more
than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of
the century saw a steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots . Zooming in by a further
power of ten exposes yet another reduction. After the cold war, every part of the world saw a steep drop-off in state-based
conflicts, and those that do occur are more likely to end in negotiated settlements rather than being fought to the bitter end.
Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90
percent. The decline of killing and cruelty poses several challenges to our ability to make sense of the world. To begin with, how could so many
people be so wrong about something so important? Partly, it's because of a cognitive illusion: We estimate the probability of an event from how
easy it is to recall examples. Scenes of carnage are more likely to be relayed to our living rooms and burned into our memories than footage of people
dying of old age. Partly, it's an intellectual culture that is loath to admit that there could be anything good about the
institutions of civilization and Western society. Partly, it's the incentive structure of the activism and opinion markets: No one ever
attracted followers and donations by announcing that things keep getting better. And part of the explanation lies in the
phenomenon itself. The decline of violent behavior has been paralleled by a decline in attitudes that tolerate or glorify
violence, and often the attitudes are in the lead. As deplorable as they are, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the lethal injections of a
few murderers in Texas are mild by the standards of atrocities in human history. But, from a contemporary
vantage point, we see them as signs of how low our behavior can sink , not of how high our standards have risen.
The other major challenge posed by the decline of violence is how to explain it. A force that pushes in the same direction across many epochs,
continents, and scales of social organization mocks our standard tools of causal explanation. The usual suspects--guns, drugs, the press, American
culture--aren't nearly up to the job. Nor could it possibly be explained by evolution in the biologist's sense: Even if the meek could inherit the earth,
natural selection could not favor the genes for meekness quickly enough. In any case, human nature has not changed so much as to have lost
its taste for violence. Social psychologists find that at least 80 percent of people have fantasized about killing someone they don't like. And
modern humans still take pleasure in viewing violence, if we are to judge by the popularity of murder mysteries, Shakespearean dramas, Mel Gibson
movies, video games, and hockey. What has changed, of course, is people's willingness to act on these fantasies. The sociologist Norbert Elias
suggested that European modernity accelerated a "civilizing process" marked by increases in self-control , long-term
planning, and sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of others. These are precisely the functions that today's cognitive
neuroscientists attribute to the prefrontal cortex. But this only raises the question of why humans have increasingly exercised that part of their brains. No
one knows why our behavior has come under the control of the better angels of our nature, but there are four plausible suggestions. The first is that
Hobbes got it right. Life in a state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short, not because of a primal thirst for blood but because of the inescapable logic of
anarchy. Any beings with a modicum of self-interest may be tempted to invade their neighbors to steal their resources. The resulting fear of attack will
tempt the neighbors to strike first in preemptive self-defense, which will in turn tempt the first group to strike against them preemptively, and so on. This
danger can be defused by a policy of deterrence--don't strike first, retaliate if struck--but, to guarantee its credibility, parties must avenge all insults and
settle all scores, leading to cycles of bloody vendetta. These tragedies can be averted by a state with a monopoly on violence ,
because it can inflict disinterested penalties that eliminate the incentives for aggression, thereby defusing
anxieties about preemptive attack and obviating the need to maintain a hair-trigger propensity for retaliation .
Indeed, Eisner and Elias attribute the decline in European homicide to the transition from knightly warrior societies to the centralized governments of
early modernity. And, today, violence continues to fester in zones of anarchy, such as frontier regions, failed states, collapsed empires,
and territories contested by mafias, gangs, and other dealers of contraband. Payne suggests another possibility: that the critical variable in the
indulgence of violence is an overarching sense that life is cheap. When pain and early death are everyday features of one's own life, one feels fewer
compunctions about inflicting them on others. As technology and economic efficiency lengthen and improve our lives, we place a higher value on life in
general. A third theory, championed by Robert Wright, invokes the logic of non-zero-sum games: scenarios in which two agents can
each come out ahead if they cooperate, such as trading goods , dividing up labor, or sharing the peace dividend that comes
from laying down their arms. As people acquire know-how that they can share cheaply with others and develop technologies that allow them to
spread their goods and ideas over larger territories at lower cost, their incentive to cooperate steadily increases, because other people become more
valuable alive than dead. Then there is the scenario sketched by philosopher Peter Singer. Evolution, he suggests, bequeathed people a small kernel of
empathy, which by default they apply only within a narrow circle of friends and relations. Over the millennia, people's moral circles have expanded to
encompass larger and larger polities: the clan, the tribe, the nation, both sexes, other races, and even animals. The circle may have been pushed
outward by expanding networks of reciprocity, a la Wright, but it might also be inflated by the inexorable logic of the golden rule: The more one
knows and thinks about other living things, the harder it is to privilege one's own interests over theirs. The empathy
escalator may also be powered by cosmopolitanism, in which journalism, memoir, and realistic fiction make the inner lives of other people, and the
contingent nature of one's own station, more palpable--the feeling that "there but for fortune go I." Whatever its causes, the decline of violence
has profound implications. It is not a license for complacency: We enjoy the peace we find today because people in past
generations were appalled by the violence in their time and worked to end it, and so we should work to end the appalling violence in our time. Nor is it
necessarily grounds for optimism about the immediate future, since the world has never before had national leaders who combine pre-modern
sensibilities with modern weapons. But the phenomenon does force us to rethink our understanding of violence . Man's
inhumanity to man has long been a subject for moralization. With the knowledge that something has driven it dramatically down, we can also treat it as a
matter of cause and effect. Instead of asking, "Why is there war?" we might ask, "Why is there peace?" From the
likelihood that states will commit genocide to the way that people treat cats, we must have been doing something
right. And it would be nice to know what, exactly, it is.

Pragmatic steps are necessary to achieve the alt

Erik Olin Wright, Professor, Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Guidelines for Envisioning Real Utopias, SOUNDSINGS, 4 07,
www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Guidelines-soundings.pdf

5. Waystations The final guideline for discussions of envisioning real utopias concerns the importance of waystations. The central problem of
envisioning real utopias concerns the viability of institutional alternatives that embody emancipatory values, but
the practical achievability of such institutional designs often depends upon the existence of smaller steps, intermediate
institutional innovations that move us in the right direction but only partially embody these values .Institutional proposals
which have an all-or-nothing quality to them are both less likely to be adopted in the first place, and may pose more
difficult transition-cost problems if implemented. The catastrophic experience of Russia in the shock therapy approach to market reform is
historical testimony to this problem.Waystations are a difficult theoretical and practical problem because there are many instances in which partial
reforms may have very different consequences than full- bodied changes. Consider the example of unconditional basic income. Suppose that a very
limited, below-subsistence basic income was instituted: not enough to survive on, but a grant of income unconditionally given to everyone. One
possibility is that this kind of basic income would act mainly as a subsidy to employers who pay very low wages, since now they could attract more
workers even if they offered below poverty level earnings. There may be good reasons to institute such wage subsidies, but they would not generate
the positive effects of a UBI, and therefore might not function as a stepping stone.What we ideally want, therefore, are intermediate
reforms that have two main properties: first, they concretely demonstrate the virtues of the fuller program of transformation,
so they contribute to the ideological battle of convincing people that the alternative is credible and desirable ; and second,
they enhance the capacity for action of people, increasing their ability to push further in the future . Waystations that
increase popular participation and bring people together in problem-solving deliberations for collective purposes are particularly
salient in this regard. This is what in the 1970s was called nonreformist reforms: reforms that are possible within existing
institutions and that pragmatically solve real problems while at the same time empowering people in ways which
enlarge their scope of action in the future.

Abandoning the law is impossible, but the attempt to do so produces ineffective social
change
Orly Lobel, University of San Diego Assistant Professor of Law, 2007, The Paradox of Extralegal Activism: Critical Legal Consciousness and
Transformative Politics, 120 HARV. L. REV. 937, http://www.harvardlawreview.org/media/pdf/lobel.pdf

At first glance, the idea of opting out of the legal sphere and moving to an extralegal space using alternative modes of
social activism may seem attractive to new social movements. We are used to thinking in binary categories, constantly carving out
different aspects of life as belonging to different spatial and temporal spheres. Moreover, we are attracted to declarations about newness
new paradigms, new spheres of action, and new strategies that are seemingly untainted by prior failures.186 However,
the critical insights about laws reach must not be abandoned in the process of critical analysis. Just as advocates of a laissez-faire
market are incorrect in imagining a purely private space free of regulation, and just as the state is not a single organism but a
multiplicity of legislative, administrative, and judicial organs, nonstate arenas are dispersed, multiple, and constructed. The focus on
action in a separate sphere broadly defined as civil society can be self-defeating precisely because it conceals the
many ways in which law continues to play a crucial role in all spheres of life. Today, the lines between private and public functions are
increasingly blurred, forming what Professor Gunther Teubner terms polycorporatist regimes, a symbiosis between private and public sectors.187
Similarly, new economic partnerships and structures blur the lines between for-profit and nonprofit entities.188 Yet much of the current literature on
the limits of legal reform and the crisis of government action is built upon a privatization/regulation binary, particularly with regard to
social commitments, paying little attention to how the background conditions of a privatized market can sustain or curtail
new conceptions of the public good.189 In the same way, legal scholars often emphasize sharp shifts between regulation
and deregulation, overlooking the continuing presence of legal norms that shape and inform these shifts .190 These
false dichotomies should resonate well with classic cooptation analysis, which shows how social reformers overestimate the possibilities of
one channel for reform while crowding out other paths and more complex alternatives. Indeed, in the contemporary extralegal climate, and contrary to
the conservative portrayal of federal social policies as harmful to the nonprofit sector, voluntary associations have flourished in mutually beneficial
relationships with federal regulations.191 A dichotomized notion of a shift between spheres between law and informalization, and between regulatory
and nonregulatory schemes therefore neglects the ongoing possibilities within the legal system to develop and sustain desired outcomes and to
eliminate others. The challenge for social reform groups and for policymakers today is to identify the diverse ways in
which some legal regulations and formal structures contribute to socially responsible practices while others produce
new forms of exclusion and inequality. Community empowerment requires ongoing government commitment.192
In fact, the most successful communitybased projects have been those which were not only supported by public funds, but in which public administration
also continued to play some coordination role.193 At both the global and local levels, with the growing enthusiasm around the proliferation of new norm-
generating actors, many envision a nonprofit, nongovernmental organizationled democratization of new informal processes.194 Yet this Article has
begun to explore the problems with some of the assumptions underlying the potential of these new actors. Recalling the unbundled taxonomy of the
cooptation critique, it becomes easier to identify the ways extralegal activism is prone to problems of fragmentation, institutional limitation, and
professionalization. Private associations, even when structured as nonprofit entities, are frequently undemocratic institutions whose legitimacy is often
questionable.195 There are problematic structural differences among NGOs, for example between Northern and Southern NGOs in international fora,
stemming from asymmetrical resources and funding,1 9 6 and between large foundations and struggling organizations at the national level. Moreover,
direct regulation of private associations is becoming particularly important as the roles of nonprofits increase in the new political economy. Scholars have
pointed to the fact that nonprofit organizations operate in many of the same areas as for-profit corporations and government bureaucracies.197 This
phenomenon raises a wide variety of difficulties, which range from ordinary financial corruption to the misrepresentation of certain partnerships as
nonprofit or private.198 Incidents of corruption within nongovernmental organizations, as well as reports that these organizations serve merely as
covers for either for-profit or governmental institutions, have increasingly come to the attention of the government and the public.199 Recently, for
example, the IRS revoked the tax-exempt nonprofit status of countless credit counseling services because these firms were in fact motivated primarily
by profit and not by the notfor-profit cause of helping consumers get out of debt.200 Courts have long recognized that the mere fact that an entity is a
nonprofit does not preclude it from being concerned about raising cash revenues and maximizing profits or affecting competition in the market.201 In the
application of antitrust laws, for example, almost every court has rejected the pure motives argument when it has been put forth in defense of
nonprofits.202 Moreover, akin to other sectors and arenas, nongovernmental organizations even when they do not operate within the formal legal
system frequently report both the need to fit their arguments into the contemporary dominant rhetoric and strong pressures to subjugate themselves
in the service of other negotiating interests. This is often the case when they appear before international fora, such as the World Bank and the World
Trade Organization, and each of the parties in a given debate attempts to look as though it has formed a well-rounded team by enlisting the support of
local voluntary associations.203 One NGO member observes that when so many different actors are drawn into the process, there is a danger that our
demands may be blunted . . . . Consequently, we may end up with a lowest common denominator which is no better than the kind of compromises the
officials and diplomats engage in.204 Finally, local NGOs that begin to receive funding for their projects from private investors report the limitations of
binding themselves to other interests. Funding is rarely unaccompanied by requirements as to the nature and types of uses to which it is put.205 These
concessions to those who have the authority and resources to recognize some social demands but not others are indicative of the sorts of institutional
and structural limitations that have been part of the traditional critique of cooptation. In this situation, local NGOs become dependent on players with
greater repeat access and are induced to compromise their initial vision in return for limited victories. The concerns about the nature of both
civil society and nongovernmental actors illuminate the need to reject the notion of avoiding the legal system and
opting into a nonregulated sphere of alternative social activism . When we understand these different realities and
processes as also being formed and sustained by law, we can explore new ways in which legality relates to social
reform. Some of these ways include efforts to design mechanisms of accountability that address the concerns of the new political economy. Such
efforts include treating private entities as state actors by revising the tests of joint participation and public function that are employed in the state action
doctrine; extending public requirements such as nondiscrimination, due process, and transparency to private actors; and developing procedural rules for
such activities as standard-setting and certification by private groups.206 They may also include using the nondelegation doctrine to prevent certain
processes of privatization and rethinking the tax exemption criteria for nonprofits.207 All of these avenues understand the law as performing significant
roles in the quest for reform and accountability while recognizing that new realities require creative rethinking of existing courses of action. Rather
than opting out of the legal arena, it is possible to accept the need to diversify modes of activism and legal categories while
using legal reform in ways that are responsive to new realities. Focusing on function and architecture, rather than on labels or
distinct sectors, requires legal scholars to consider the desirability of new legal models of governmental and nongovernmental partnerships and of the
direct regulation of nonstate actors. In recent years, scholars and policymakers have produced a body of literature , rooted primarily
in administrative law, describing ways in which the government can harness the potential of private individuals to
contribute to the project of governance.208 These new insights develop the idea that administrative agencies must be cognizant of, and
actively involve, the private actors that they are charged with regulating. These studies, in fields ranging from occupational risk prevention to
environmental policy to financial regulation, draw on the idea that groups and individuals will better comply with state norms once they internalize
them.209 For example, in the context of occupational safety, there is a growing body of evidence that focusing on the implementation of a culture of
safety, rather than on the promulgation of rules, can enhance compliance and induce effective self-monitoring by private firms.210 Consequently, social
activists interested in improving the conditions of safety and health for workers should advocate for the involvement of employees in cooperative
compliance regimes that involve both top-down agency regulation and firmand industry-wide risk-management techniques. Importantly, in all of these
new models of governance, the government agency and the courts must preserve their authority to discipline those who lack the willingness or the
capacity to participate actively and dynamically in collaborative governance. Thus, unlike the contemporary message regarding
extralegal activism that privileges private actors and nonlegal techniques to promote social goals, the new
governance scholarship is engaged in developing a broad menu of legal reform strategies that involve private
industry and nongovernmental actors in a variety of ways while maintaining the necessary role of the state to aid
weaker groups in order to promote overall welfare and equity. A responsive legal architecture has the potential to
generate new forms of accountability and social responsibility and to link hard law with softer practices and
normativities. Reformers can potentially use law to increase the power and access of vulnerable individuals and
groups and to develop tools to increase fair practices and knowledge building within the new market

Through discussing paths of government action, debate teaches us to be better organizational

decision makers. Learning about the uniquely different considerations of organizations is
necessary to affecting change in a world overwhelmingly dominated by institutions
Algoso 2011 Masters in Public Administration (May 31, Dave, Why I got an MPA: Because organizations matter
http://findwhatworks.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/why-i-got-an-mpa-because-organizations-matter/)

Because organizationsmatter. Forget the stories of heroic individuals written in your middle school civics textbook. Nothing of great
importance is ever accomplished by a single person . Thomas Edison had lab assistants, George Washingtons army had thousands
of troops, and Mother Teresas Missionaries of Charity had over a million staff and volunteers when she passed away. Even Jesus had a 12-man posse.
In different ways and in vastly different contexts, these were all organizations. Pick your favorite historical figure or contemporary
hero, and I can almost guarantee that their greatest successes occurred as part of an organization . Even the most
charismatic, visionary and inspiring leaders have to be able to manage people, or find someone who can do it for them. International
development work is no different. Regardless of your issue of interest whether private sector investment, rural development, basic health
care, government capacity, girls education, or democracy promotion your work will almost always involve operating within an organization. How well
A well-run organization makes better
or poorly that organization functions will have dramatic implications for the results of your work.
decisions about staffing and operations; learns more from its mistakes; generates resources and commitment
from external stakeholders; and structures itself to better promote its goals . None of this is easy or straightforward. We screw
it up fairly often. Complaints about NGO management and government bureaucracy are not new . We all recognize the need
for improvement. In my mind, the greatest challenges and constraints facing international development are managerial
and organizational, rather than technical . Put another way: the greatest opportunities and leverage points lie in how
we run our organizations. Yet our discourse about the international development industry focuses largely on how much money donors should
commit to development and what technical solutions (e.g. deworming, elections, roads, whatever) deserve the funds. We give short shrift to the
questions around how organizations can actually turn those funds into the technical solutions . The closest we come is
to discuss the incentives facing organizations due to donor or political requirements. I think we can go deeper in addressing the management and
organizational issues mentioned above. This thinking led me to an MPA degree because it straddles that space between organizations and issues. A
degree in economics or international affairs could teach you all about the problems in the world, and you may even
But if you dont learn how to operate in an organization, you may not be able to channel the
learn how to address them.
resources needed to implement solutions . On the flip side, a typical degree in management offers relevant skills, but without the content
knowledge necessary to understand the context and the issues. I think the MPA, if you choose the right program for you and use your time well, can do
both.

Ignoring the state causes neo-liberal violenceworse political forces fill-in

Barbrook 97 (Dr. Richard, School of Westminster, Nettime, More Provocations, 6-5,
http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9706/msg00034.html)
 we have real social
I thought that this position is clear from my remarks about the ultra-left posturing of the 'zero-work' demand. In Europe,
problems of deprivation and poverty which, in part, can only be solved by state action. This does not make me a
statist, but rather an anti-anti-statist. By opposing such intervention because they are carried out by the state,
anarchists are tacitly lining up with the neo-liberals. Even worse, refusing even to vote for the left, they acquiese to rule by neo-liberal
parties. I deeply admire direct action movements. I was a radio pirate and we provide server space for anti-roads and environmental movements.
However, this doesn't mean that I support political abstentionism or, even worse, the mystical nonsense produced by Hakim Bey. It is great for
artists and others to adopt a marginality as a life style choice, but most of the people who are economically and
socially marginalised were never given any choice. They are excluded from society as a result of deliberate
policies of deregulation, privatisation and welfare cutbacks carried out by neo-liberal governments. During the '70s, I was a pro-situ punk rocker
until Thatcher got elected. Then we learnt the hard way that voting did change things and lots of people suffered if state
power was withdrawn from certain areas of our life, such as welfare and employment. Anarchism can be a fun
artistic pose. However, human suffering is not.

Talking about the state does not mean we grant it legitimacy. Justifying proposals need
specific solvency that works within the systemproves the alt lacks solvency
Frost 96 Mervyn FROST, Professor, University of Kent [Ethics In International Relations A Constitutive Theory, pp. 90-91, JT]
A first objection which seems inherent in Donelan's approach is that utilizing the modern state domain of
discourse in effect sanctifies the state: it assumes that people will always live in states and that it is not possible within such a language to
consider alternatives to the system. This objection is not well founded. By having recourse to the ordinary language of
international relations I am not thereby committed to argue that the state system as it exists is the best mode of
human political organization or that people ought always to live in states as we know them. As I have said, my argument
is that whatever proposals for piecemeal or large-scale reform of the state system are made, they must of
necessity be made in the language of the modern state. Whatever proposals are made, whether in justification or
in criticism of the state system, will have to make use of concepts which are at present part and parcel of the
theory of states. Thus, for example, any proposal for a new global institutional arrangement superseding the state system will itself have
to be justified, and that justification will have to include within it reference to a new and good form of individual
citizenship, reference to a new legislative machinery equipped with satisfactory checks and balances, reference
to satisfactory law enforcement procedures, reference to a satisfactory arrangement for distributing the goods
produced in the world, and so on. All of these notions are notions which have been developed and finely honed within the theory of the
modern state. It is not possible to imagine a justification of a new world order succeeding which used, for example, feudal, or traditional/tribal, discourse.
More generally there is no worldwide language of political morality which is not completely shot through with state-
related notions such as citizenship, rights under law, representative government and so on.

All lives are valuablemeans you should prefer util

Cummisky 96 (David, professor of philosophy at Bates, Kantian Consequentialism, p. 131)

even if one grants that saving two persons with dignity cannot outweigh and compensate for killing one
Finally,
because dignity cannot be added and summed in this waythis point still does not justify deontological constraints. On the
extreme interpretation, why would not killing one person be a stronger obligation than saving two persons? If I am
concerned with the priceless dignity of each, it would seem that I may still save two ; it is just that my reason cannot be that the two
compensate for the loss of the one. Consider Hill's example of a priceless object: If I can save two of three priceless statutes only by destroying one, then I cannot claim that saving two makes up for the
even if dignity cannot be simply summed up, how is the
loss of the one. But similarly, the loss of the two is not outweighed by the one that was not destroyed. Indeed,
that I should save as many priceless objects as possible ? Even if two do not simply outweigh and thus
extreme interpretation inconsistent with the idea
compensate for the loss of the one, each is priceless; thus, I have good reason to save as many as I can. In short , it is not clear how the
extreme interpretation justifies the ordinary killing/letting-die distinction or even how it conflicts with the conclusion that the more persons with dignity who are saved, the better.8

Changing representational practices wont alter policylooking to structures and politics is

more vital
Tuathail, Professor of Geography at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 96 (Gearoid, Political Geography, Vol 15 No 6-7, p. 664, Science Direct)

While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the discourse and concerns of
foreign-policy decision- makers are quite different, so different that they constitute a distinctive problem-
solving, theory-averse, policy-making subculture. There is a danger that academics assume that the discourses
they engage are more significant in the practice of foreign policy and the exercise of power than they really are.
This is not, however, to minimize the obvious importance of academia as a general institutional structure among many that sustain certain epistemic
communities in particular states. In general, I do not disagree with Dalbys fourth point about politics and discourse except to note that his
statement-Precisely because reality could be represented in particular ways political decisions could be taken, troops and
material moved and war fought-evades the important question of agency that I noted in my review essay. The assumption that it
is representations that make action possible is inadequate by itself. Political, military and economic structures,
institutions, discursive networks and leadership are all crucial in explaining social action and should be
theorized together with representational practices. Both here and earlier, Dalbys reasoning inclines towards a form of idealism. In
response to Dalbys fifth point (with its three subpoints), it is worth noting, first, that his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He
analyzes certain CPD discourses, root the geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan administration nor its public-policy reasoning on national
security. Dalbys book is narrowly textual; the general contextuality of the Reagan administration is not dealt with. Second, let me simply note that I find
that the distinction between critical theorists and post- structuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn by Dalby and others. Third, Dalbys
interpretation of the reconceptualization of national security in Moscow as heavily influenced by dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist,
an interpretation that ignores the structural and ideological crises facing the Soviet elite at that time. Gorbachevs reforms and his new security
discourse were also strongly self- interested, an ultimately futile attempt to save the Communist Party and a discredited regime of power from
disintegration. The issues raised by Simon Dalby in his comment are important ones for all those interested in the practice of critical geopolitics. While I
agree with Dalby that questions of discourse are extremely important ones for political geographers to engage, there is a danger of
fetishizing this concern with discourse so that we neglect the institutional and the sociological, the materialist
and the cultural, the political and the geographical contexts within which particular discursive strategies become
significant. Critical geopolitics, in other words, should not be a prisoner of the sweeping ahistorical cant that sometimes accompanies
poststructuralism nor convenient reading strategies like the identity politics narrative; it needs to always be open to the patterned mess that is human
history.

Dont make perfect the enemy of the goodthe aff is an important step in the right direction
and creates momentum to challenge the war on drugs more broadly
Burns 14 (Rebecca, In These Times Assistant Editor, holds an M.A. from the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies,
where her research focused on global land and housing rights, interviewing Chicago-based activist Mariame Kaba, founding director of the non-profit
Project NIA, which works to decrease youth incarceration; David J. Leonard, associate professor in the department of critical culture, gender and race
studies at Washington State University, and Art Way, senior drug policy manager at the Drug Policy Alliance in Colorado, which lobbied for legalization,
2-4-14, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Marijuana Legalization" Altnet) www.alternet.org/drugs/unbearable-whiteness-legalization?page=0%2C2

AW: Its true that marijuana reform is just one aspect. The whole question is: Why are we criminalizing people for what they decide to put in their bodies?
Its also important to note that the drug war is a federal policy; states receive money from D.C. to engage. When
Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana, they basically removed themselves from federal policy regarding
marijuana prohibition. I think that will provide momentum to change federal policy regarding other substances . I
dont see the unintended consequence [that the War on Drugs would] somehow become more and more
entrenched when it comes to cocaine and other drugs. ITT: Legalization is expected to be a boon for state coffers, as well as wealthy
investors and so-called ganjapreneurs now flocking to Colorado. But do you think it will create jobs or other economic benefits in communities of color?
DJL: In some ways this looks like a gentrification of the drug those who always benefit will still benefit. AW: Im not aware of any industries that began
with the intention to create jobs for African Americans or poor people of color. No one said that this was some type of panacea for the
various root problems that African Americans face. Its difficult for people to find work if they have a drug conviction on their record, especially a felony,
and thats still the case within the marijuana industry in Colorado although there was a successful push to make sure that only people with felonies
relating to distribution of drugs are kept out. Many
of the concerns about who benefits are valid, but I dont think they should
overshadow that were moving in the right direction.

Prefer proximate to root cause

Thompson 3 (William, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of International Relations at Indiana University,A Streetcar
Named Sarajevo: Catalysts, Multiple Causation Chains, and Rivalry Structures, International Studies Quarterly, 47(3))

Richard Ned Lebow (20002001) has recently invoked what might be called a streetcar interpretation of systemic war and change. According to him, all
our structural theories in world politics both over determine and underdetermine the explanation of the most important
events such as World War I, World War II, or the end of the Cold War. Not only do structural theories tend to fixate on one cause or
stream of causation, they are inherently incomplete because the influence of structural causes cannot be known
without also identifying the necessary role of catalysts. As long as we ignore the precipitants that actually
encourage actors to act, we cannot make accurate generalizations about the relationships between more remote causation
and the outcomes that we are trying to explain. Nor can we test the accuracy of such generalizations without accompanying data on the presence
or absence of catalysts. In the absence of an appropriate catalyst (or a streetcar that failed to arrive), wars might never have
happened. Concrete information on their presence (streetcars that did arrive) might alter our understanding of the explanatory significance of other
variables. But since catalysts and contingencies are so difficult to handle theoretically and empirically, perhaps we should focus instead on probing the
theoretical role of contingencies via the development of what if scenarios.