Today’s post is an example of a Kritik and some potential responses. The K itself is geared at a higher level of both debate theory and political theory understanding and the responses also debate at a higher level of debate theory.
(pulsarwallpapers.com)
So first off, here’s a shell of the K. It’s essentially a threat construction/threat hype K and is aimed at the NTPA Ethos case for this year.
Framework
− Representations Key
Links
− “Proliferation”: affirmative “solving” spread of nuclear weapons
− “Terrorism”: focused on preventing nuclear “terrorism” and prosecuting “terrorists,” despite having a definition much too ambiguous and lacking clear determination i.e. what even constitutes a terrorist?
Internal Links
− “Proliferation”: A misfocus of national and international priorities
− “Terrorism”: An overhyped threat i.e. threat construction
Impacts
− “Proliferation”: Using rhetoric like “proliferation” and crafting policies aimed at raising awareness and combating the alleged threat actually, in turn, CREATE the very environment necessary for the thriving of proliferation
− “Terrorism”:
a) The very threat of terrorism is self-generating based on the notion of having terror, BECAUSE of them.
b) By attacking terrorist and the notion of terrorism we portray them as less than human and demonize the threat which is wrong
Alternative
− “Proliferation”: Rather than trying to combat other people having weapons we should instead try to disarm ourselves and reduce our own weapons
− “Terrorism”: We should reject policies with ambiguous terminology based upon fear-mongering rhetoric
Solvency
– Awareness: By raising criticism we can effectively combat the construction of threats and therefore you should vote negative, because that’s what we’re doing in this debate round
And now for the responses! It’s fully scripted, locked-and-loaded, and ready to fire.
Framework
– Don’t vote: My opponent gave you no reason to show that my language and the language of evidence used to discuss this issue should mean I lose the debate round. When he’s not debating my policy anymore, guess what, he’s not defeating the resolution, and that’s what you should judge on. Why not dock my speaker points? Write in the opinion section? Turn me in to the tournament director? Do nothing? My opponent just wants to win — that’s the only reason you could ever vote on this issue. Look at the resolution — if we justified it, end of story.
– It’s not a Kritik: There’s nothing a-priori about this argument. My opponent doesn’t try to show why it should be evaluated apart from the case. Without doing that, it must be simply weighed as part of the case. As we will see, my impacts outweigh (wait for it under impacts).
– Actions are MORE key: I agree that representations are important. There’s no getting around that. But what we actually do is always more important. Why? Two reasons:
a) People will forever interpret their own motives and ideas into what we do. Look at Truman dropping the bomb on Japan. Look at Obama running for president. The action is one thing, but what people choose to see it as representing is just uncontrollable.
b) I say threat construction is bad and so is dehumanization. Now, for the rest of the round, my motives are clear. He’s attacking my motives. But what harm is done to you, now that you know the motives of my language? None.
Links, Internal Links, and Impacts, oh my!
– Plan not defeated: My opponent just whines about my language. He doesn’t provide a plan about WHAT WE SHOULD DO in the context of my case. After hearing this argument, should we pass the plan or not? Guess what, his impacts don’t even address it. He linked the impacts to my language, not my plan. So my plan isn’t bad. So it’s good. He doesn’t have one. That’s worse.
– Non-unique: There is so much language and threatcon in the world exactly along these lines. My opponent should have shown how my language in this round or even if I was speaking on the floor of Congress at the very moment is somehow worse than the other language going on. Besides not warranting a vote, whether or not you vote for me, the threatcon continues and if my opponent is right (he’s not) the impacts happen. In other words, I have no unique bearing on the impact. That means this argument doesn’t function as a reason to reject my case.
– No counter-plan: If my opponent really were serious, he’d run a counterplan that prevents the impacts of pro-disarm policies and policies that say the word terrorism. Since he doesn’t, he doesn’t solve for any of it. The REASON he doesn’t is because it would be painfully obvious that he’s not attacking my plan, since his counterplan would be my mandates plus some other ones that used different language. The end result wouldn’t be different.
Kritical Turn
– The Link Turn: If you buy the logic of his argument that this is a K, you still have to vote against the negative team. By the exact same linguistic analysis (cross apply the framework and solvency), my opponent actually short circuits policymaking altogether.
– Link: His solvency point is “exposing bad rhetoric wins”.
– Internal links:
a) There is ALWAYS bad rhetoric, unless you shut off the news, the money, and the electoral system. Dictatorship is probably not an option here. If 300 million Americans can speak, the language will be bad. I guarantee it. We should be concerned about outcomes, not feelings.
b) My opponent says bad rhetoric = never act. He’s saying don’t vote for my plan because of bad rhetoric.
– Impact: We never act. Now think of everything bad that has ever happened. It is a result of actions. The way we stop those bad things, from WWII to secret wiretapping, is also by acting. Since the words used to express action can always have some complaint against them, my opponent ends all good things forever. That’s the logical conclusion of his argument. Doing this is so much worse than dehumanizing terrorists. SO much worse.
So. This kind of argument is silly. But if you don’t think it is all that silly, my opponent’s actual argument is even sillier. It means we don’t act until we get our language down correct. That’ll be the day
You de-link the K….then turn the link?
Sure.
If you think it contradicts, point out how, don’t just use unwritten debate maxims.
I was just clarifying your intent.
To explain what I’m getting at, it’s generally very poor strategy to de-link and turn a link on any argument, kritik, disadvantage, whatever. Here’s why:
You can get into the complications of negation theory, contradictions good, “even if…”, but if you’re going for a logical common-sense refutation, de-link and turn make no sense.
You literally are telling the judge, we don’t think this argument connects to our case at all. In fact, we don’t even think it merits pre-fiat consideration as a kritik. We’d ask you to weigh this philosophical argument just like you weigh all other issues in this round.
BUT WAIT.
We think we can actually get offense off of this argument, so we’re going to tell you that this IS a kritik, that it SHOULD get pre-fiat consideration, but applied to the other team, not to us.
So please vote for us, because we tell you that this is both a kritik and not a kritik.
With 99% of the judges you get, that approach is not a great idea.
Ahh, but I’m not turning the K on him by just using all of his links and impacts against him.
It’s not a contradiction to say:
1. His argument doesn’t apply to me, because a. it doesn’t link and b. it doesn’t provide any *actual* post-fiat impact
2. The entire ideology behind his K is stupid and he should actually lose the round, because here’s what his ideology ACTUALLY means.
I understand the whole logic behind a link turn and a delink, but I personally don’t think that it’s much of a stretch (aside from getting beyond the normative thinking) to buy my arguments.
This is literally an incoherent response that snarkily demonstrates your lack of familiarity with a reps K.
I’ll show you on the lbl
F/W
He says not a voter – doesn’t respond to the warrants in our Discourse First impact evidence – I’ll extend them –
1- Reps shape policy – he hasn’t contested the thesis of the K that orientalist representations of terrorism create inaccurate policy actions because they always only ever respond to this caricatured, monolithic image of “the evil terrorist” rather than investigating the actual structural causes of terror.
2- In round impact. Fiat is illusory, the plan doesn’t happen. The only thing we control in this round is our discourse. In the same way a judge should vote a debater down for using sexist or racist terms, they should vote if we prove their rhetoric is bad. If the judge has to endorse the discourse of one of us, it shouldn’t be the aff.
He says impacts outweigh but:
1- cross apply both above – he can’t solve his impacts in a world where his policymaking is based on orientalist reps AND his plan doesn’t happen. Role of the ballot is endorsing discourse.
2- oh and dehum outweighs.
He says action is key –
Cross apply both above about racist action being counterproductive and illusory.
He says motives –
He misunderstands the K. Its not about his ‘motivations’, its about the rhetorical framing both he and his evidence uses to explain and frame terrorism. His impact evidence proves this; the idea that any and every terrorist attack could lead to extinction or even nuclear war presumes a certain epistemic understanding of terrorists that our link ev says just isn’t accurate. Embedded in his evidence and understanding of the concept “terrorism” are these representations, which is why we get our link ev.
Agreement insufficient –
If the aff said “[censored by the admin dude] the n-word” then agreed racism was wrong. Just agreeing to our impact doesn’t mean you get out of it.
INTERNALS.
He says plan not defeated –
Proves he just doesn’t get this kritik, extend above analysis about turning case and reps first because fiat is illusory.
He says non-u –
Proves he doesn’t understand kritiks in general. The alternative provides a unique option for the judge to take to refuse his threat construction. The alt doesn’t have to “solve” for all instances of racist threat-con – it just has to reject yours, in the same way the judge should drop you for using the word “[censored by the admin bro] the n-word”. The K also means the plan is UNDESIRABLE on a policy level because its policy implications are predicated on an inaccurate epistemology.
And, we still solve – gendered language kritiks prove that reps K’s change the ways debaters approach discourse.
He says no CP –
First, not all opposing debaters are “he”, and treating them like they are is sexist. “He” is not gender neutral. “He” naturalizes the idea that “man” is the norm, contrasted against “woman”. People like the OP are reasons why patriarchy and discrimination exist.
Second, so what? A counterplan would be as illusory as your plan. We’re doing discourse analysis here.
“TURNS”.
group em, they boil down to poorly articulated policy paralysis args –
1)we don’t preclude policymaking
2)we are in fact a pre-req to it – accurate approaches to terror are necessary to policymaking – you’re a caricature at best.
3)No internal to why we PREVENT policymaking once you get your reps right. Once you figure terror out, you can act on terror.
4) No Impact – If your action is undesirable it shouldn’t be taken- dehum outweighs your aff, proves it undesirable, means we shouldn’t act in those cases.
Next time, try not to sound so sophomoric.