Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
1NC — Off
1NC — T-Progressive
Criminal justice reform requires constraints on criminalization and
punishment – that’s a prerequisite for effective debates
Sandra G. Mayson, 20 – professor of law at the University of Georgia School of Law; teaches
criminal law and criminal justice reform (“The Concept of Criminal Law” Criminal Law and
Philosophy https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-020-09530-z //DH
Yet The Realm does bear on existential reform debates, because it addresses an overlooked first step in any coherent deliberation about
What is the nature of the thing we seek to reform?
the future of the criminal legal system: defining “criminal law.”
What — if anything — makes criminal law a distinctive kind of law? Duff undertakes this task because one cannot
deliberate about what to criminalize without determining what the criminal law is for; and one cannot deliberate about what the
criminal law is for without determining what it is. This initial, definitional task, though, is necessary to more than criminalization
theory. It is necessary to debates about the value and future of criminal law itself. And notwithstanding the
centrality of the question, there appears to be no clear consensus among either scholars or reformers about what differentiates criminal
law from every other kind of law. This Essay contends that Duff gets the answer right.11 The
fact that makes criminal law a
unique form of law is that it operates as a mechanism of collective condemnation. It is a body of law
and legal practice that censures particular acts in the polity’s name. This concept of criminal law makes sense of the
bulk of existing criminal-law doctrine and institutions. To my mind, it is the only concept of criminal law that can. It is not a novel concept
of criminal law, and it is consistent with nearly all theories of criminal law and punishment in current circulation. But nor is it universally
recognized. Achieving clarity about the nature of criminal law is important for theory and reform alike.12 For
purposes of theory, recognizing criminal law as a mechanism of collective condemnation helps to refine the questions up for debate,
because the concept logically entails certain constraints on criminalization and punishment. For
purposes of reform, recognizing criminal law as a mechanism of collective condemnation is essential to thinking about whether we want
a criminal legal system at all, and what, in its best form, it should look like.
D. Political Cover Compared to the justices on the Supreme Court, state judges are in a precarious position.
State court opinions can be overturned by the Supreme Court, by federal law, or by state law. Most
state constitutions are easier to amend than the U.S. Constitution, and some are notoriously
easier.199 These situations present a substantial risk that a state judge’s decision will be nullified or,
worse, reversed as wrongly decided.200 Further, state court decisions on state-law matters tend to implicate state-
law concerns that resonate with state citizens and state officials. Even if not overturned, state court decisions may
face intense criticism from these constituencies. Were state judges to hold life tenure like federal judges, they might not
care so tangibly about reactions to their decisions. But state judges do not have such job security. Political and
institutional conditions keep them close to state politics .201 Most state judges are elected by state voters;
others are term appointed and reappointed by elected state officials.202 From a career standpoint, state judges may
care very deeply about how their decisions are perceived. State judges have been voted off the bench
because of the opinions they signed.203 Political and public backlash, then, is a real concern for many
state judges.204 Following federal law and federal courts offers some cover against potential
backlash.205 Deciding an issue in tune with federal law allows state courts to shift responsibility to
federal law or the U.S. Supreme Court.206 State law decisions that deviate from federal law are more likely
to be overruled than those that conform to federal law.207 Part of the reason may be the belief among state courts that the
Supreme Court’s decision on an important or policy-laden matter of federal law can reflect public sentiment in a way
that gives state courts confronted with a similar issue comfort that their analogous resolution of state law will
be politically safe. This explanation is especially powerful if the national sentiments reflected in the Supreme Court’s opinion are
mirrored in the particular state in which the state court sits. Another part of the reason may be the political cost of
rejecting the Supreme Court’s view. In other words, even when the Supreme Court does not reflect
public opinion—or at least the public opinion of a particular state court’s state—the Supreme Court commands a level of
gravitas that seems to generate an expectation of following absent compelling reasons for deviation. If a
dropped rock falls to the ground, one needs no explanation, but if it defies gravity, one wonders what the hell is going on. Similarly, it is
far easier for a state judge to tell voters that her opinion follows the reasoning of the Supreme Court than
to try to explain why she diverged.208 These explanations seem to fit particularly well in certain matters of constitutional and
statutory law. Recall the story of gay rights and Bowers v. Hardwick told in Part I.209 Following Bowers—a rights-restrictive decision
holding a state statute criminalizing consensual, private, adult sodomy valid under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution210—
many state courts interpreted their state constitutions accordingly.211 Indeed, despite
its nonpreemptive and narrow
holding,212 Bowers was a major factor in the stagnation of gay rights over the next ten years.213 In 1996,
Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage for
purposes of federal law as between one man and one woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex
marriages validated elsewhere.214 Immediately following the federal government’s lead, most states
enacted mini-DOMAs restricting marriage under state law to opposite-sex couples.215 States that
diverged by expanding gay rights under state law tended to be quickly reined in,216 and, until very recently,
significant popular backlash, both generalized and targeted, to state advances of gay rights was a real threat.217
For example, in a widely reported retention election, three justices of the Iowa Supreme Court were voted down for retention primarily
on the basis of an opinion they joined that required Iowa to recognize same-sex marriage. This was the first time an Iowa Supreme Court
justice had ever been rejected for retention.218 It was
not until the Supreme Court decided United States v.
Windsor,219 holding the federal Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment, that states felt
protected enough to begin advancing gay-marriage equality with vigor.220 Windsor, of course, was purely an
interpretation of federal law and went out of its way to note the federalism underpinnings that give states different
prerogatives on defining marriage.221 Yet even when not controlling, Supreme Court decisions offer states political
cover. The Supreme Court of New Mexico, for example, relied on Windsor (and Romer, Lawrence, and Loving222) in construing its
own state constitution to guarantee marriage equality.223 Those Supreme Court cases did not demand the result the state court reached
—indeed, they expressly disavowed any implications for it—but, as high-profile Supreme Court decisions, they no doubt
gave the state court more security in reaching it. The same scenario plays out in matters of statutory law that focus on
sensitive policy issues. As one commentator has argued, Simply stated, a state judge, despite having the inherent authority to
construe a state statute in a manner inconsistent with federal law, may hesitate to announce to the world that a majority
of the country’s highest court got the issue wrong, either because the judge wants to avoid charges of
judicial activism or out of respect for the reputation of the Supreme Court.224 Procedure cases offer a
counterpoint. Much of procedure is apolitical.225 Procedural choices often escape the attention of the lay public—and often of
legislators. Rulemakers have, at least until very recently, been insulated from the kind of politics that dominate legislation.226 States
were procedural leaders for centuries before the adoption of the 1938 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, so political cover is not a strong
impetus for state following of federal procedure.227 Of course, where federal procedure takes a decidedly provocative turn, such as
through the revolutionary changes of 1938 or the widely maligned Twombly and Iqbal decisions, acceptance of those federal changes can
offer political cover for states that follow them.228 Political cover may thus offer some explanatory value for the following of replica
states or those that have adopted Twombly and Iqbal. In the run-of-the-mill procedure choices, however, there is far less political effect.
Federal procedural law has no preemptive effect, and the Supreme Court cannot reverse a state court on an issue of state procedural
law.229 Procedural choices do not often generate front-page news.230 I thus infer only weak explanatory power of political cover for the
gravitational pull of federal procedure on states.
1NC — Samoa PIC
The United States federal government should enact substantial criminal justice
reform of law enforcement hacking for the purposes of criminal investigations in the
United States in all states and non-Samoan territories.
That interference undermines the cultural autonomy of the Samoan way of life
Somoan Federation of America 8/25/2014 (BRIEF FOR INTERVENORS OR, IN THE
ALTERNATIVE, AMICI CURIAE THE AMERICAN SAMOA GOVERNMENT AND CONGRESSMAN ENI
F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/Faleomavaega-DC-Circuit-brief.pdf)
If Plaintiffs-Appellants and amici are correct and the courts must set aside the framework of the Insular Cases, it would undercut the very
predicate of the fa’a Samoa. American Samoa has worked closely with Congress to maintain a deliberate
distance between the territory and the law of the United States. It has done so because this
distance is necessary to respect the cultural autonomy of American Samoa and its way of life.
See Statement of Hon. Salanoa S.P. Aumoeualogo, LH, Constitution Hearing at 15, 16 (“ American Samoa enjoy and welcome
our present status as an unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States. It signifies our
desire to be part of the American Family, and at the same time, it preserves and protects our communal
land and matai system, the basic core of our Samoan way of life.”). If the courts bridge this distance USCA Case #13-5272
Document #1509225 Filed: 08/25/2014 Page 43 of 57 33 with a novel application of the Citizenship Clause it would effectively decide
the political status of American Samoa without any democratic input.
That creates a geography of evil that legitimizes liberal hierarchies and makes
war inevitable
Grayson, PhD in Political Science, 03
[Kyle, Ph.D., Author, professor of critical geographies, March, YCISS, “Democratic Peace Theory as
Practice: (Re)Reading the Significance of Liberal Representations of War and Peace”,
http://yciss.info.yorku.ca/files/2012/06/WP22-Grayson.pdf, accessed 7/1/13, VJ]
Given the representation practices embodied within the democratic peace theory discourse, it is best to view
the interactions that it fosters as ‘imperial encounters’. According to Doty, ‘the term imperial encounters is meant
to convey the idea of asymmetrical encounters in which one entity has been able to construct ‘realities’ that
were taken seriously and acted upon and the other entity has been denied equal degrees of kinds of agency ’.39
The ‘reality’ of democratic peace theory has been defined by Western representational practices outlined
above. These representations have shaped the production of knowledge and identities as well as making
particular courses of action appear possible/impossible/inevitable.40 Furthermore, to borrow a term from David
Campbell, democratic peace theory has constructed a new ‘geography of evil’ that (re)produces national
identity while dictating what courses of action are apt (i.e., conversion/force) when confronting the supposedly
non-liberal/democratic ‘other’.41 To reiterate this point in a slightly different fashion, “the context of the democratic
peace, then, includes not only the advent of a zone of peace among core states, but also international relations
of domination and subordination in the periphery…”.42 As a result of this analysis, the answers to the questions of ‘for
whom and for what purpose’ is democratic peace theory designed are now evident but not surprising. Democratic peace theory
and its associated discourse is for the people of the US/West. Its purpose is to fix the American/Western
national identity as civilized, peacefully inclined, and democratic with the non-West by definition being
considered uncivilized, war-mongering, and authoritarian. Democratic peace theory also aids in the
justification of the American/Western world-view which perceives both democracy and war in a particular
fashion. In turn, these conceptions of democracy and war help to hide much of the sordid past and present of the
international relations of western liberal democratic states. They help to justify the unjustifiable and to
legitimate the illegitimate. Of utmost importance is the ontological basis of these international relations
practices sanctioned by democratic peace theory and its associated discourse within the popular political
realm. This is the focus of the following section which examines the existence of one of the empirical silences within democratic peace
theory research and the consequences of ignoring these important events. Democratic Peace Theory and the Ontology of War and Peace
In Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War, Michael Shapiro tries to examine “the ways that enmity-related global geographies
and ethnoscapes emerge as collectivities, and how they try to achieve, stabilize, and reproduce their unity and coherence”.43 Historically,
the practice of war has emerged as one the most enduring methods to attempt to fix national identities and
ontological foundations. Victory in war confirms all the positive subjective views of the ‘self’ while at the same
time providing ‘proof’ of the subjectively perceived inferior nature of the ‘other’. Conversely, defeat not only
leads to (geo)strategic losses, but also to a reappraisal of the national identity and deep questioning of the
foundations that helped define national identity. The American defeat in the Vietnam War provides an
excellent example of these identity/foundation casualties . Therefore, Shapiro argues that war is not just
(geo)strategic, but is also about the confrontation between competing ontologies. As mentioned earlier, democratic
peace theory and its surrounding discourse views war as an activity waged by state actors in pursuit of (geo)strategic spoils (e.g.,
territory, resources, wealth), as well as an activity arising over disputes of ‘ownership’ of spoils and/or perceived violations of
sovereignty. As John Vasquez has argued, “the situation that states in the modern global system are most likely to deal
with by the use of force and violence is one in which their territory is threatened....territorial disputes provide
the willingness to go to war”.44 Democratic peace theorists believe that liberal democracies can peacefully
manage these kinds of disputes amongst themselves; however, in circumstances of dispute between a liberal
democracy and a non-liberal/democracy, war is seen as almost inevitable. Conventionally, this has been attributed
to the inherently aggressive nature of the ‘authoritarian’ state, which prevents liberal democracies from
trusting these states to adhere to peacefully negotiated settlements. Yet, when democratic peace theory is
viewed as a representational practice, war becomes inevitable between disputing liberal democratic states
and non-liberal/democratic states not because of the aggressive nature of authoritarian regimes but because
these situations are viewed as an opportunity for liberal democratic states to engage in a ‘civilizing’ mission
and reaffirm their national identity and ontology by demonstrating their superiority in battle. This imperative
becomes especially clear if we abandon the traditional view of war contained within democratic peace theory and look at democratic
non-state/liberal democratic state disputes and the underlying ontological contestations that fuelled them.45 Barkawi and Laffey have
argued that currently “force is used in the service of defending and expanding economic and to a lesser extent political liberalism (in the
guise of democracy) beyond the liberal capitalist core”.46 From a historical perspective, the dispute between the Iroquois Six Nations
and the Canadian government over the Grand River territory during the first decades of the twentieth century, provides an excellent
example of the ontological impetus behind international relations practices and how warfare can also be
directed towards the annihilation of culture.
That puts Biden — right now — above the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win a
majority of the 538 available, leaving Trump with an uphill climb to win reelection. It comes with less than a
month to go in the election — and with millions of votes already cast.
To put Biden's lead in context, even if Trump wins all the remaining toss-up states, it would not be enough for him to win. The president
would need to make gains in the next three weeks in states now leaning toward Biden. Of
course, Trump was able to do
so against Hillary Clinton in 2016, particularly in the Upper Midwest.
We will update our map in a couple of weeks before the election – and things very well may shift and tighten between now and then, as
they did in 2016.
Fueling Biden's lead, according to national and statewide surveys, continues to be the former vice
president's overperformance with white voters, suburban voters, independents and seniors , all
groups Trump won in 2016.
Biden is showing strength in the Midwest and is also eating into Trump's margins in traditionally red
states. Biden is unlikely to win places like Alaska, Missouri, Montana and South Carolina, but being
more competitive there than Hillary Clinton was in 2016 is putting him on track to surpass Clinton's vote total and popular
vote margin of 3 million more than Trump.
It should be noted, however, that Trump remains within striking distance, especially in the Sun Belt
states, across the South and West.
The plan gives Trump that key accomplishment---CJR is a salient issue that
flips the election
Chung 19 – JD @ Georgetown, vice president for Criminal Justice Reform at American Progress
(Ed, “Do 2020 candidates care about criminal justice?,” USA Today,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/07/2020-candidates-should-make-criminal-
justice-central-campaigns/1289640001/)//BB
Last month, criminal justice reform became an issue in the 2020 presidential elections in a manner
befitting the Trump era: through a series of tweets from the president on Memorial Day insulting his potential
Democratic rivals. Trump first declared that anyone associated with the 1994 Crime Bill, the sweeping legislation
known for exacerbating mass incarceration, was “unelectable.” He then pronounced himself to be “responsible
for criminal justice reform” because he signed the FIRST STEP Act into law, even though some of the
most ardent supporters of the federal sentencing and prison reform bill say the legislation is but an
incremental step. Trump is, of course, no reformer. One can look at his actions before he became president when he publicly
campaigned for the execution of the wrongfully accused, and later convicted, Central Park Five. Or consider that his first Attorney
General was Jeff Sessions, who rolled back virtually every meaningful reform effort from the previous administration. Candidates aren't
Trump is an opportunist who is taking advantage of the void left by the
talking about criminal justice Rather,
current crop of candidates who have failed to discuss criminal justice reform on the campaign trail in a
meaningful way. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey has been by far the most vocal about the need to reform the system, and Senator
Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota published an op-ed describing some of her policy ideas. Other candidates have weighed in on single issues.
But by and large, criminal justice reform has been cabined off to a question at the CNN Town Halls about whether
people who are currently incarcerated should have the right to vote (answer: they should). The lack of engagement on this issue by 2020
candidates is shown starkly in an interactive piece that The Washington Post published in April. The Post listed 15 broad topics — such
as healthcare, economic inequality, and climate change along with criminal justice — and measured the candidates’ share of words on
social media posts about each of the topics. Of the 15 issue areas, 13 had at least two candidates devote a double-digit percentage of their
social media posts to the topic. The only two issues that did not meet this low threshold were infrastructure and criminal justice. These
numbers likely have changed since April. But overall, thoserunning for the highest office in the country are
underestimating the importance to the electorate of reforming the criminal justice system. Just
look at recent polling from the battleground state of Ohio which shows that 64% of Ohioans overall —
including 78% of Democrats and 68% of independents — believe that the criminal justice system needs significant
improvement. Moreover, 70% of Democrats and 60% of independents believe too many people are in
prison, while only 24% and 26% respectively think there are too few or about the right number or people incarcerated. Against that
backdrop it remains unclear why so few candidates are talking about criminal justice reform. Perhaps they don’t consider mass
incarceration to be a crisis, even though there are nearly 7 million people locked up in prisons and jails across the country or otherwise
supervised by the system. For context, that’s the size of Los Angeles and Houston combined. Or maybe candidates think the criminal
justice system grew “naturally” because more people committed crimes, but they do not realize that national crime rates are near historic
lows and the system’s expansion is the result of deliberate policy choices to criminalize more behavior and to do it in a harsher fashion.
Criminal justice should be central for candidates It could be that candidates don’t talk about criminal justice
because they don’t see the connection with other traditionally “major” policy areas, like the economy. But mass incarceration has been a
key driver of poverty that has led to depressed physical, mental, and social outcomes especially for children, and especially African
American children, growing up in distressed communities. Thus, criminal justice reform can and should be considered an important tool
for social mobility. Perhaps candidates are listening to the wrong people — or at least defining relevant stakeholders too narrowly. The
conventional approach has been for politicians to consult mainly with judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement on public safety and
criminal justice matters. But candidates must recognize and learn from victims and survivors, people who
have been incarcerated, and their families. The expertise of those who have been impacted by the system must be valued
as much as, if not more than, those who work to maintain it. Criminal justice reform must be integral to the
candidacy of anyone running for elected office instead of merely a wedge for Trump to exploit. Candidates need to
develop substantive policy platforms and cast a vision for how they are going to address the crisis of
mass incarceration. It’s an issue voters care about and one for which candidates will be held
accountable if they take it for granted.
This possible erosion of McConnell’s position raises the second key question, which is one of timing: Does
McConnell push for
a confirmation vote before the election, or does he wait until a lame-duck session? This question is also
tricky. The fact that McConnell’s position will likely be weaker with respect to pure numbers, at least somewhat,
when the votes are counted creates a temptation to act quickly and get the confirmation done
before the election. But that will be hard. The election is only 42 days away, and, while plans could change to
accommodate the process, Congress is not scheduled to be in session for more than 11 of them.
Confirming a Supreme Court justice does take time. It requires hearings. There has to be floor
debate. And Democrats will be doing everything they can to stall and slow things down. Remember also
that all of those vulnerable incumbents whose seats McConnell wants to preserve need to go home and fight for their seats at precisely
the time a quick vote will require them to be in Washington. Even if they support confirming the president’s nominee while reversing the
positions that many of them took four years ago, when McConnell blocked President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland,
remaining in Washington keeps them off the campaign trail. The result is a
complicated little puzzle for McConnell: His
position is stronger if he acts quickly, but he may not have the time to do so, and Democrats will
certainly attempt to slow things down and force the matter into the lame duck, where their hand
may well be stronger. This raises the third key question: How much delaying power do Democrats have, and how much of it will
they be willing to use?
Such episodes are exacting tests of precisely those qualities lacking in the Trump Administration: the
rigor of policy process, the knowledge and skill of advisors, the confidence and mutual respect among and
between policy and intelligence officials and the calmness of the president. Even with the best of
intentions and effort, presidential performance has varied widely over our recent history.
At the extremes, JFK’s skillful management of the missile crisis produced a peaceful resolution, Soviet capitulation, an improved period in
U.S.-Soviet relations and enhanced political standing for the president. George W. Bush’s response to 9/11 was to invade Iraq, arguably
the worst strategic mistake since Vietnam and still paying negative dividends for ourselves and the Middle East.
1NC — Advantage 2
1NC — Democracy Bad
DPT doesn’t solve war
Mousseau 16, Poli Sci Prof @ University of Central Florida, 16 (Michael, Grasping the scientific
evidence: The contractualist peace supersedes the democratic peace, Conflict Management and
Peace Science 1—18)
A weighty controversy has enveloped the study of international conflict: whether the democratic peace, the observed
dearth of
militarized conflict between democratic nations, may be spurious and accounted for by
institutionalized market ‘‘contractualist’’ economy. I have offered theory and evidence that economic norms, specifically
contractualist economy, appear to account for both the explanans (democracy) and the explanandum (peace) in the democratic peace research program
(Mousseau, 2009, 2012a, 2013; see also Mousseau et al., 2013a, b). Five studies have responded with several arguments for
why we should continue to believe that democracy causes peace (Dafoe, 2011; Dafoe and Russett, 2013; Dafoe et al.,
2013; Ray, 2013; Russett, 2010). Resolution of this controversy is fundamental to the study and practice of international relations. The observation
of democratic peace is ‘‘the closest thing we have to an empirical law’’ in the study of global politics (Levy, 1988: 662),
and carries the profound implication that the spread of democracy will end war. New
economic norms theory, on the other hand, yields the contrary implication that universal democracy
will not end war. Instead, it is market-oriented development that creates a culture of contracting,
and this culture legitimates democracy within nations and causes peace among them. The policy implications could
hardly be more divergent: to end war (and support democracy), the contractualist democracies should
promote the economies of nations at risk
(Krieger and Meierrieks, 2015; Meierrieks, 2012; Mousseau, 2000, 2009, 2012a, 2013; Nieman, 2015). In the literature are five factual claims for why we
should continue to believe that democracy causes peace: (1) an assertion that in three of the five studies that overturned the democratic peace (Mousseau,
2013; Mousseau et al., 2013a, b), the insignificance of democracy controlling for contractualist economy is due to the treatment of missing data for
contractualist economy (Dafoe et al., 2013, henceforth DOR); (2) a claim of error in the measure for conflict (DOR) that appears in one of the five studies that
overturned the democratic peace (Mousseau, 2013); (3) an alleged misinterpretation of an interaction term that appears in one of the five studies
(Mousseau, 2009) that overturned the democratic peace, along with in inference of democratic causality from an interaction of democracy with
contractualist economy (Dafoe and Russett, 2013; DOR); (4) a claim of reverse causality, of democracy causing contractualist economy (Ray, 2013); and (5) a
report of multiple regressions with most said to show democratic significance after controlling for contractualist economy (DOR). This study investigates all
five of these factual claims. I begin by addressing the issue of missing data by constructing two entirely new measures for contractualist economy. I then take
up possible measurement error in the dependent variable by reporting tests using both my own (Mousseau, 2013) and DOR’s measures for conflict. Next, I
disaggregate the data to investigate a causal interaction of democracy with contractualist economy. I then examine the evidence for reverse causality, and
scrutinize the competing test models to pinpoint the exact factors that can account for differences in test outcomes. The results are consistent across all
tests: there is no credible evidence supporting democracy as a cause of peace. Using
DOR’s base model, the impact of
democracy is zero regardless of how contractualist economy or interstate conflict is
measured. There is no misinterpreted interaction term in any study that has overturned the democratic peace, and the
disaggregation of the data yields no support for a causal interaction of democracy with
contractualist economy. Ray’s (2013) evidence for reverse causality from democracy to contractualist economy is shown to be
based on an erroneous research design. And of DOR’s 120 separate regressions that consider contractualist economy, 116 contain
controversial measurement and specification practices; the remaining four are analyses of all (fatal and non-fatal) disputes, where the correlation of
democracy with peace is limited to mixedeconomic dyads, those where one state has a contractualist economy and the other does not, a subset that includes
only 27% of dyads from 1951 to 2001, including only 50% of democratic dyads. It is further shown that this
marginal peace is a
statistical artifact since it does not exist among neighbors where everyone has an equal
opportunity to fight.
MARKED
To the contrary: as discussed above, democracies have a more or less moral-emotional inclination to
demonize non-democracies once they dis agree, and to feel a missionary drive to turn them
democratic. This might exacerbate the existing, more interest-based conflicts between
democracies and non-democracies, and it creates fears in the hearts of autocratic leaders that
they might be up for democratization sooner or later. The close inter- democratic relations
which democratic peace tends to produce, in turn, only exacerbate these fears as democracies tend
to be rich, well organized, and powerful and dispose together of much more potent military capabilities than their potential non-
dcnwcratic counterparts. Rather than helping with peace. the inter-democratic consequences of the
democratic peace tend to exacerbate the security dilemma which exists between democracies
and non-democracics an way. This non-peaceful dark side of democratic peace has escaped the
attention of most academic writings on this subject and certainly all political utterances about democratic peace in our political systems.
But democratic militancy is the Siamese twin of democratic peace as the Bush Administration unambiguously taught us (Gels et al. 2013: Mü llcr 2014b).
1NC — Advantage 1
1NC — Barr — Generic
Barr circumvents — he refuses to enforce law and touts risks of increasing
crime
Smith 20 — Allan Smith (Political reporter for NBC News); “These prosecutors want radical criminal justice
change. Barr is fighting to stop them.;” NBC News; February 17th, 2020; https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-
department/these-prosecutors-want-radical-criminal-justice-change-barr-fighting-stop-n1126986 D.A. March 1 st, 2020 //jwilk
Progressive prosecutors, coming off one of the biggest years in their movement's short history, are
looking to 2020 with hope of winning key district attorney offices around the nation and boosting their influence
with an overhaul of the system from within. Attorney General William Barr is standing in their way.
Tensions reached a peak last week after Barr eviscerated the movement in a speech before the Major County
Sheriffs of America. He said the "self-styled 'social justice' reformers are refusing to enforce entire
categories of law, including law against resisting police officers." "In so doing, these DAs are putting everyone in
danger," Barr added, asserting that their "policies are pushing a number of America's cities back
toward a more dangerous past.", 20200:06 In a response signed by about 40 reform-minded prosecutors from around in
the country, the progressives said they "spend every day trying to make our communities safer and healthier." "We hold our jobs because
our communities put us in them after we promised a different and smarter approach to justice, one grounded in evidence-based policies
that lift people up while prioritizing the cases that cause real harm," they wrote. "Sadly, we are perceived as a threat by some who are
wedded to the status quo or, even worse, failed policies of past decades." They added: " This
is the same attorney general
who in the span of 24 hours attacked reform-minded, elected district attorneys for being soft on
crime, while demanding his own federal prosecutors lighten the punishment for an ally of his boss . He
touts the importance of the rule of law, yet undermines it in the same breath." The attack and
counterattack come as progressives' have seen their influence soar over the past few years , winning
district attorney races in cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia and Chicago and enacting or furthering policies such as eliminating the
use of cash bail — which has become a major flashpoint in New York — overturning wrongful convictions, curbing enforcement of
lower-level marijuana offenses, refusing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and vowing to hold police accountable. The
most prominent among them — and the one who has faced the most law enforcement pushback — is hard-charging Philadelphia
County District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose 2017 election was a watershed moment for the criminal justice reform movement.
Krasner has instructed his team to avoid prosecutions "where appropriate " to lower the
incarcerated population, opting instead for a more liberal use of diversion programs . He fired 31
prosecutors at the start of his term for their unwillingness to implement his changes, and he put 29 Philadelphia police officers on a "do-
not-call list" — meaning they could not be considered credible witnesses at trials. Especially notable was Chesa Boudin's victory last
year in San Francisco's district attorney race. Boudin, a Rhodes Scholar whose parents took part in one of New York's most notorious and
deadly botched heists as members of the far left Weather Underground in 1981, pledged to end "mass incarceration" and cash bail while
forming a unit to review wrongful convictions. Boudin, who took office last month, plans to move away from prosecuting minor quality-
of-life crimes and instead focus on taking on corporations and prioritizing the most serious offenses. And progressives have their sights
set on some big targets this year — like electing reformers in Los Angeles, Houston and Detroit, as well as State's Attorney Kim Foxx's
re-election effort in Cook County, Illinois, an election that will test the popularity of the liberal policies. The
Justice Department
and other law enforcement entities have characterized
many of the changes as anti-police and threats to
public safety. Tensions have been "escalating" in recent months, the head of the nation's largest police
organization told NBC News. "The path that we're going is not addressing the core issues that are creating poverty and crime in our
communities," said Patrick Yoes, president of the Fraternal Order of Police. "There has to be a more holistic approach to it rather than
trying to blame law enforcement for everything." Barr
last month announced the formation of a presidential
commission on law enforcement — one that will focus in part on combating the reformers and
provide Barr with recommendations in a report that is likely to come just before the November general
election.
1NC — Police Power Turn
Reform expands police power – turns the aff
Jeffries & Ridgley 20 – (Fiona Jeffries, member of the Ottawa Sanctuary City Network and a
socialist and feminist activist, writer, educator, and editor. She is the author of Nothing to Lose But
Our Fear, among other things, and is working on an oral history of radical healthcare provision;
Jennifer Ridgley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental
Studies at Carleton University and a member of the Ottawa Sanctuary City Network; “Building the
sanctuary city from the ground up: abolitionist solidarity and transformative reform”; Taylor &
Francis group; D.A. May 1st 2020, [Published 2020]; Citizenship Studies, pg. 8-9;
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?
doi=10.1080/13621025.2020.1755177) //LFS—JCM
Mariame Kaba (2017) took up this question in recent debates about police reform following a string of police killings
in US cities. As protracted street protests demanded accountability and justice, debates erupted about the appropriate
course of action to redress the systemic racism and institutional violence of policing. Kaba (2014)
critiqued reform measures that purport to hold police accountable such as mandating body and dashboard cameras
and compelling officers to take sensitivity and implicit bias training courses to excise racist impulses and
punish the few ‘bad apples’ at whose feet responsibility could be laid. Despite their progressive gloss, Kaba (2014) argues
such proposals ultimately preserve and enhance police power by funnelling increased
resources to the police (e.g., in budget lines for new ‘community police’ units, technological
upgrades, and money for training). These reforms should be opposed because they expand ‘the
state’s capacity to punish’
MARKED
rather than diminish police power (Berger, Kaba, and Stein 2017, np). In diminishing police power we create the
conditions of possibility for non-reformist or transformational reforms (Stahly Butts and Akbar 2017) that reduce the state’s capacity for
violence without getting in the way of deeper systemic change (Berger, Kaba, and Stein 2017). Interim
reforms that serious
critics of policing should support, according to Kaba, include changes that boost institutional
accountability, provide reparations to victims of police violence, and proposals that divert
resources away from policing to other social goods such as healthcare, education, housing, and
transportation. These reforms do not in themselves abolish the institutions of policing, but they
focus on eroding police power while not getting in the way of abolition. The distinction between reformist
reforms and non-reformist reforms can provide a strong principle for sanctuary by helping us establish which kinds of sanctuary
practices, goals and proposals help us address immediate and urgent needs in our community while at the same time undermining the
state’s capacity to divide people and punish those with precarious immigration status. We now turn to applying Gilmore and Kaba’s
abolitionist reform criteria to contemporary sanctuary city struggles.
2NC
K — Mattei
The permutation is inevitably co-opted and fails — alt alone solves the links
Oliver P. Richmond 9, professor at the School of International Relations and Director of the
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of St Andrews, 2009, “A post-liberal peace:
Eirenism and the everyday,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 35, p. 557-580
However, other serious issues arise with any attempt to retain, while modifying, the core of
liberal peacebuilding. The neoliberal cooption of the liberal peace, its lack of social welfare
frameworks and failure to mediate cultural difference, and tendency towards assimilation rather
than local cultural engagement, means that it is often exceptionally abrasive when transplanted,
as recent experience in Afghanistan and Iraq illustrates. In addition, there is a serious issue with its incapacity for
environmentally sensitive engagement. It might be said that the conservative end of the liberal peace
spectrum, as with liberal imperialism, has become an exercise in hubris for the internationals,
Western states, donors, agencies and NGOs that propagate it, mainly because it lacks these sensitivities.
Ethically, moving beyond these limitations would amount to an ontological commitment to
care for others in their everyday contexts, based upon empathy, respect and the recognition of difference. This
commitment to care has instead been displaced by a parsimonious orthodoxy that offers its
participants the unproblematic right of interpreting and making policy for unknowable
others, normally defined as states rather than people or communities. This is why the liberal peace is mainly
focused on an international or regional peace, rather than an everyday form of peace .
Escalates globally
Oppenheimer 19 – (Michael Oppenheimer, clinical professor with the NYU School of
Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs; “Will Trump risk war to save his presidency?”; The
Hill; D.A. October 7th 2020, [Published March 1st 2019]; https://thehill.com/opinion/white-
house/432275-will-trump-risk-war-to-save-his-presidency) //LFS—JCM
We face an oversupply of potential crises and all offer ample opportunities for a president prepared
to distort and manipulate external threats for political purposes. Iran could give up on the JCPOA and
resume its nuclear program, reinforcing Iran-Israel conflict arising out of Syria and offering an
opportunity for U.S. intervention; internal conflict in Venezuela could worsen and be attributed to hostile
external influences; territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas could lead to a direct clash
between U.S. and Chinese forces, as could a crisis precipitated by a Chinese move against Taiwan;
there could be dangerous fallout from the failed nuclear negotiation with North Korea; Russia could
move more boldly into Ukraine.
McConnell.
Carney 20 – (Jordain Carney; “GOP rejects Schumer bill protecting ObamaCare amid Supreme
Court fight”; The Hill; D.A. October 8th 2020, [Published October 1st 2020];
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/519179-gop-rejects-schumer-healthcare-bill-amid-
supreme-court-fight) //LFS—JCM
Republicans on Thursday shot down a bill that would have blocked the Justice Department from
advocating in favor of nixing the Affordable Care Act, as Democrats try to squeeze GOP senators
amid an explosive Supreme Court fight. Senators voted 51-43, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill,
after Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) caught GOP leaders by surprise when he set up the
vote, effectively winning temporary control of the floor. Democrats are stepping up their procedural
tactics against Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination, and they view health care as one of their best arguments
against President Trump's pick. The bill would prevent the Justice Department from arguing in court to strike down the ACA. The
Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case that could determine the future of the landmark health care law a week after the election.
“You know we're fighting this Supreme Court nomination with the tools that we have. McConnell
has limited those tools when he so defiled the Senate and changed all the rules — but I managed to go on
the floor when there was no Republican there, ask to put on the floor a proposal that said, we will spend
no money to fight to repeal the ACA,” Schumer said during an MSNBC interview. Schumer earlier this week took a rare
procedural step to pave the way for Thursday’s vote. Typically only McConnell sets up votes on the floor, unless
there is unanimous consent. Underscoring the rarity of the move, senators estimated a member of the
minority party using the Senate’s procedural levers to leapfrog the Majority Leader and force a
vote had last taken place a decade ago. But Democrats are under pressure to use every option at their
disposal to protest Barrett’s nomination and the GOP plan to confirm her, absent a major setback, by the Nov. 3 election.
No COVID relief
Mascaro 10-8-20 – (Lisa Mascaro; “In 25th Amendment bid, Pelosi mulls Trump's fitness to
serve”; Waco Tribune-Herald; D.A. October 8th 2020, [Published October 8th 2020];
https://wacotrib.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/in-25th-amendment-bid-pelosi-mulls-
trumps-fitness-to-serve/article_9e8f934c-fefa-5248-a111-5142168e9d9f.html) //LFS—JCM
She said she told Mnuchin she was willing to consider a measure to prop up the airline industry, which is facing
widespread layoffs. But that aid, she said, must go alongside broader legislation that includes the kind of
COVID testing, tracing and health practices that Democrats say are needed as part of a national strategy to “crush
the virus.” Normally, the high stakes and splintered politics ahead of an election could provide grounds
for a robust package. But with other Republicans refusing to spend more money, it appears no relief
will be coming with Americans already beginning early voting. Democrats have made it clear they will not do a
piecemeal approach until the Trump administration signs off on a broader, comprehensive plan they are
proposing for virus testing, tracing and other actions to stop its spread. They have scaled back a $3 trillion measure to a
$2.2 trillion proposal. The White House presented a $1.6 trillion counter offer. Talks were ongoing when Trump shut
them down.
The plan is a 180 degree pivot from the conservative strategy on surveillance
and privacy—it’s highly polarized.
Birnbaum 9-25 (Emily, tech policy reporter, “What Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court
would mean for the future of tech,” 25 September 2020, https://www.protocol.com/supreme-
court-nominee-future-of-tech, DOA: 10-0-2020) //Snowball
Over the next decade, the Supreme Court will likely be asked to weigh in on issues that shape the future of
the tech industry, including government surveillance, U.S. privacy laws , intellectual property rights,
antitrust and content moderation. Its decisions could determine how far the government is allowed to reach into companies
like Facebook and Google and what the constitution says about digital rights.
If President Trump successfully nominates Amy Coney Barrett to the high court, he would be locking in
a bulletproof conservative majority of five justices to make those decisions, ushering in the most
dramatic ideological tilt to the court in the past 50 years .
Upon first glance, it would seem like Barrett's arrival would bode well for all businesses, tech or otherwise. A conservative-leaning
Supreme Court would be likelier to eschew aggressive regulatory efforts and side with tech companies on issues like taxes.
"I expect this pick to be very focused on so-called 'corporate rights,'" said Gigi Sohn, a former FCC counselor in the Obama administration.
But many of the topics at the heart of tech policy — including privacy, antitrust, Section 230 and intellectual property — do not map
easily along partisan lines, and experts said tech companies should brace for some decisions that they won't like.
"On technology, particularly in recent years, the court in any given case has had strange bedfellows," said Ed McAndrew, a partner with
DLA Piper who worked on cybercrime with the Department of Justice for 10 years. The late Justice Ruth Bater Ginsburg, for instance,
positioned herself against consumer advocates on IP rights, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the liberal justices in the antitrust
case Apple v. Pepper.
"The implications for those issues — net neutrality, antitrust, cyber — are less clear-cut than in other areas because there are cross-
currents that may pull a more conservative court in [a] different direction," said Pantelis Michalopoulos, a partner with Steptoe &
Johnson.
A short track record
There's an extremely small body of opinions from Barrett to examine and extrapolate from. She has only been on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2017 and has spent most of that time on relatively uncontroversial cases with little relevance to the
tech industry. She has a prolific history of academic scholarship, some of which is related to issues like faith and state's rights, but
appears to have stayed out of any of the core areas of jurisprudence that tech cares about, according to Corbin Barthold, the internet
policy counsel with TechFreedom, a tech-focused think tank.
Barthold has been poring over the records of the forerunners for Supreme Court nomination in recent weeks and so far has found that
none of them has weighed in at length on tech issues. That puts them at odds with former nominees — such as the most recent,
Kavanaugh, who, prior to joining the Supreme Court, issued a lengthy opinion arguing that the Federal Communications Commission was
not authorized to impose net neutrality regulations.
Several experts said they were paying attention to see if Barrett would be more of a "law and order"
conservative or a libertarian on issues like government surveillance and data privacy. Chief Justice John
Roberts, for instance, sided with the liberal justices in the landmark case Carpenter vs. U.S., which found the government violated the
Fourth Amendment by accessing cell phone location data without a search warrant. The next several years will almost certainly bring
more cases about how and why the government can collect certain kinds of data, and many of those could hinge on the leanings of the
new judge.
"The Supreme Court discussion that we're now having, I think will launch us into a very broad
discussion of privacy rights and where they exist within the Constitution," Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top
Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, said during a hearing this week.
Advantage — The Other One