I shoulda stood in bed

I keep the voting list of LD topics we send in every year to the NFL. So far, the only one the Sailors voted for that got in was eminent domain (although I’ll point out that we didn’t vote for juvey justice only because it seemed so recently that we’d had the same topic, rather than any issues about the topic per se).

The newly released Sept-Oct, that a just government should provide health care to its citizens, would have been on the list of topics that never came close to getting our vote. Not that I have anything against the subject of governments providing health care; not to put too fine a point on it, but I debated that myself when I was a freshman in high school (it was called socialized medicine back then; the world, at the time, was still perceived as flat, if you’re trying to place the date). The subject of health care is a fascinating one: given the intrinsic high cost of the beast, there’s no question that certain people without the wherewithal could be denied care if they were given no government assistance. Some countries have universal health care; maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad. England has free dentistry: if you know anything about English teeth, you’ll understand why the last time I went to England, when my tooth broke off on the airplane as we were landing in Heathrow, I waited till I came home to do anything about it. I would imagine I could do whole bunches of research and come up with all sorts of information on costs, compared to ability to pay, mixed in with need (poor people can’t afford Jaguars, but they also don’t need them, which is why health care is seen as a right in some places) and effectiveness. And if you’re halfway clever, you’ve read what I’ve written so far and clearly seen pretty much all the ways this topic will play out in rounds (or, at least, decent rounds that address the resolution, such as it is, rather than swatting at it, much as they would like to). There’s only one problem: the wording says (implicitly, for the negative) that a government is unjust if it doesn’t provide health care to its citizens. Talk about wanting to flip neg! By this logic, the US government, prior to Medicare/Medicaid in the 60s, was unjust. Thus Norway is more just than the US, because it provides more health care. Let’s face it: the US is pretty punk in the free health care department.

Here’s the core LD conundrum: is this issue a question of our good old friend justice? The problem with government providing (note that word, providing) health care is the problem of government taking on a very big responsibility that it may or may not be capable of discharging. The question of whether it is capable or not is, no matter how you slice it, a question of policy. Will it work? Can it work? Which government are you talking about (since size is a crucial element in this particular policy debate, because it may be easier to provide health care to a few million Norse versus 300 million Americans versus 3 billion Chinese, and it doesn’t say USA anywhere in that topic that I can see)? The question the resolution asks is, in essence, SHOULD a government do this? Is the government unjust if it doesn’t do it? The resolution asks you to evaluate the correctness of a government’s actions, but the nature of the debate arena (LD) prevents the presentation of the most crucial arguments (policy) for making any determination. All those who have complained that, of late, LD resolutions have been too policy-like have finally found their ideal example.

So I can see what will happen. As I said, the basic (polician) arguments are clearly buried in the above paragraphs. And they’ll be strewn with tittles of evidence that prove absolutely nothing. Even remotely providing the justness of action will be unlikely in the extreme. The rounds will be, in a word, cacophonous.

On the other hand, the pre-game prep will be illuminating to one and all. The subject is new to LD (at least for the last decade or so), which means everybody involved will be tossing new information into their heads for a few weeks, and that’s always a good thing. So if there’s any need to demonstrate that the educational value of LD is in everything but the actual competition, all of those who voted for this topic will get to see it first hand.

Any wonder why I’ll be hiding out in the tabroom? Look for me under my copy of The Modest Novice.