I just received an interesting question on some mandates that will be at a tournament this weekend. I believe this will be instructive, because approaching mandates that seem strange can be a difficult and disorganized task. I will recommend the use of Standards, Violations, and Impacts as an organized, brief, and effective approach to communicating the problem.
“[edited summary] The mandates basically say that scientists and other government personnel will cooperate, establish a legal framework, ensure cooperation, and oversee implementation, without stating what those things look like
My thinking is that it fiats itself into perfection. Well first off, it’s incredibly vague. I have no idea what ANY of the requirements include or entitle. And then two, they just fiat that the government will ensure political and financial support from Russia.”
Here is how I would argue.
Our next contention deals with the Affirmative mandates. (insert number of argument, e.g. Solvency 1) Policy vs. Outcome. There are policies and there are outcomes of policies. One achieves a positive result, and the other just sounds good.
(dragonflyeffect.com)
A) Standard: Mandate Policies, Not Outcomes — We are to debate about the policy, and whether or not it will have desirable outcomes. We need to know what actual steps the policy is taking, so that we can evaluate its outcomes.
B) Violation: No Policy. Our opponents’ case has no policy. It only mandates outcomes: we’re going to ensure support, cooperate, coordinate, establish a legal framework, negotiate individual projects, develop technical plans, and oversee implementation.
What is the nature of the support? How will we cooperate? With whom will we coordinate? What is the legal framework? What individual projects will we pursue? What technical plans will we develop? Over what will we oversee implementation?
C) Impacts:
1) Essentially Unevaluatable — We cannot argue whether a case will have solvency or not without knowing what the policy is. You as a judge cannot really predict whether the outcomes are worthwhile unless you can name what policies will cause those outcomes. The only argument we can make is that policies constructed this way fail. So.
2) Solvency: Policies constructed this way fail. When your policy is nothing but the goal, it inevitably fails. The Declaration of Independence sets out the goals of our country and the principles of foundation, but we had to actually have the policies to govern how we achieve those goals in order to get there. First the Articles of Confederation, and then the Constitution achieved this. Likewise, if the U.S. says “The State Department needs to ensure a desirable outcome in Libya” and that is the extent of the policy, there is no real way to ascertain whether that policy will have the desired outcome unless some individual at the operational (not the policy) level figures out what to do.
3) Topicality: Not a policy change. A policy can be defined as a “course of action”. These mandates begin to describe what a course of action will achieve, but they do not actually demonstrate what that course of action will be. Therefore, my opponents have not supported the requirement that they significantly reform policy towards Russia.
In the spirit of competition, here would be my responses if I were running the MPC&A case that Elizabeth and Reagan are. The basic idea of what you want to do as aff when this happens to you is this: In an organized fashion show you meet their standards or they are wrong (mitigation), and THEN provide counterstandards and outweigh (the “even if my opponent was right” offense argument). You don’t want to come up there and throw out a blob of response, nor do you want to forget to support your own position while merely negating theirs.
Here goes… I’m probably writing too much on the subject and you could delete a huge chunk of it (i.e. just hit the links, just hit the violations, or just hit the impacts, or some combo thereof). But this is what the arguments could look like on each level.
I will refute my opponent’s contention point by point, providing my own positive material within his (Drew’s, haha) framework. [Note that you could either refute the contention and then provide your own counterstandards, or you can integrate as I do here].
A. On the standard level of “mandates, not policies” I have several responses.
1. We agree to half the standard: policies are about plans. Let’s clarify it by providing definitions of policy and outcome. Policy is “a plan of action”, and Outcome is the “result”—both according to Princeton’s WordNet. I’ll show how we meet the standard under B, Violation.
2. Outcomes should be part of policies. A good policy should be crafted around a purpose, not created in a vacuum. Those who read and implement the policy should know why they are doing it so as to more effectively carry out the mission. That’s why policies are titled things like “No child left behind” and have a significant preamble laying out the goals of that policy. Additionally, the only way to measure a policy is by its outcomes, so the purposes and outcomes must be defined or one cannot measure the policy. Successful outcomes are therefore inseparable from the policies that achieve them.
3. Counterstandard: Real Policies. Instead of waxing eloquent as high school debaters, let’s look at what the pros do. If we can demonstrate that our policy is in line with how policies are crafted, then our mandates should stand. This standard is more important than the negative’s standards because debate is ultimately about good policymaking as it works, not as analysis of individual dictionary words might make it appear to work.
B. On the Violation
1. We meet. Our legislation does say what will happen—we’re going to develop the MISSING technical plans and program to fill the gaps we’ve identified in our case, and identified by GAO, and recommended as a policy approach. Our plan isn’t just made up – we have modeled it after previous policies and the actual recommendations of the Government Accountability Office.
2. Impossible Standard. Doubtless the negative will argue that we aren’t detailed enough. But where is the brightline? You can ask one level of detail further all the way down to what is the name of the individual doing each element of the plan, and what brand paperclips will he or she use, and what will the salary be, etc. We need to stick to the policy level of what should we do towards Russia, not work out each detail of how.
3. Opponents Violate OUR Standard of Real Policies: Parliamentarian and expert in drafting policy language, Ian Turnbull QC; First Parliamentary Counsel in Australia in 1993 wrote in “Plain Language and Drafting In General – Principles”, that “identifying all the main goals and principles as early as possible, and leaving the details till the main structure is worked out;” is the first step of properly drafting legislation. You see, the outcomes are the essential first component of policy and the details follow. The actions are prescribed by legislation of the goals, which at some level (whether paperclips, or actual strategies as in the case of generals and executives at the State Dept., which we are using) are interpreted and acted upon by a qualified person who knows how to get the job done. That’s what the executive department is all about—Congress writes legislation, and the Executive department figures out how to carry it out. Some legislation has more detail than others, but it is all properly named “policy”.
C. Impacts: Since we have proven our plan meets their standard as well as our greater counterstandard, none of the impacts should apply. But here goes 🙂
1. AT “Essentially Unevaluatable” – You can evaluate it. They’ve really disguised a classic “we don’t have any ground to make arguments” argument with a nice name, but in the end they can evaluate our policy very well. Compare our policy to the status quo’s policy, which we’ve identified has none of the elements of our plan, and you find the elements of our plan are present in the new system. Second, note the contradiction by their second solvency point which does evaluate our policy. They say it doesn’t work because we don’t go into enough detail. Fine, but that doesn’t make it “not a policy that you can evaluate”.
2. AT Solvency – Empirics Prove. This policy has worked before almost exactly as written and can work again. Secondly, we are acting on the recommendations of the GAO. Our plan isn’t the Declaration of Independence, it’s a change to an existing program that ensures the program’s success.
3. AT Topicality – Our first answer to the Violation shows we do meet the definition of policy.
4. Negative Interpretation Harms Policymaking – The negative team wants you to make policies that do not account for their outcomes within the text. If anyone’s approach to policy is harmful, it is the negative’s.