The Lord (or the assembled multitudes of the NFL) giveth: the November PF topic is Resolved: The benefits of domestic surveillance by the NSA outweigh the harms.
Well, let me see. Simple phrasing, what looks to be at first blush equal burdens, and perhaps the most important privacy issue of the moment. Also, it's a quite a bit philosophical, since I doubt if there's much literal data to support either side. A PF coach with an LD bent can't help but be happy with this one.
And the Lord (or the assembled multitudes of the NFL) taketh away. I will reprint what I wrote when the LD topics were originally announced.
5. In the United States criminal justice system, truth-seeking ought to take precedence over attorney-client privilege.
No.
At the point where my legal advocate is no longer my legal advocate, I have no legal advocate. At best there is an opportunity for learning here about the point of the justice system, but the legal system is what it is, and to suggest that we change it by eliminating privilege is to, essentially, kill all the lawyers, which is only a good idea if you happen not to need one. Look for 80% neg wins if this one passes (the 20% going into the random rounds where the top seeds hit first-years and eat them for breakfast).
Rating out of a high of ten: 1.
I guess one could compare the US system to the UK system, but I sort of think that, at heart, they both have the same purpose, protection of individual rights. At the point where individual rights are deprioritized in favor of prosecutorial imperatives, then I would imagine that we throw most legal safeguards out the window. If a lawyer's job is not to do what is best for the client, but to determine the guilt or innocence of the client, then the lawyer is working for the state, not the client. Needless to say, with all those neg wins I'm predicting, for once they'll all be because debaters are running the topic. You won't need any sleight-of-hand on the negative side of this one.
I'd be curious to hear why anyone thinks this stinker is a good topic. Obviously a lot of people voted for it. Feel free to be anonymous. If I were you, I would also want to keep my name out of the papers.
3 comments:
I wonder what LD topic we would have if the voting had been compulsory?
@James Kellams: perhaps it would be "should voting not be compulsory?"
@Anonymous - I should have been more specific - if the voting for LD topics was compulsory (in reference to a statement made in the original article).
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