Liberte, egalite, et...some...other te.

There is one basic theme that underlies most good LD topics. And there are two ways to look at it. First, it is the conflict of the sphere of the individual against the sphere of the community. What rights and privileges and responsibilities are those of each, and what do we do when they are in conflict? When they are not in conflict, then neither matters much objectively. I don’t care what some other individual does if it only affects that individual, or at least I shouldn’t. Live and let live, in other words. (There are those who don’t respect this claim of privacy, usually for religious morality reasons, but we are not looking at religious ethics but social ethics, if for no other reason than that religion does not make for good debate while social engineering is quite arguable.) Similarly, if society as a whole somehow takes actions that don’t affect individuals—maybe things like when the Senate declares the National Muffin—it is of no consequence objectively (aside from the time wasted when they could be solving the Iran/Iraq/Africa/Whatever situation).

The second way to look at the basic theme of the good LD topics is liberty versus equality. One of the pieces I posted to the Coachean Feed recently asserted that in the democratic universe at large, individuals prioritize the latter over the former, and that may indeed be true. Perhaps the concept of justice is merely the attempt to balance the two: when liberty and equality are in balance, we have justice. For that matter, when the individual and the community are in balance, we have justice. Same thing, albeit through different mechanisms of thinking. Justice, for once, however, is not the manifest derivative value of the resolution, so maybe we can put that aside.

Like many people, I firmly believe that you need to have something to say before you start saying it*. In debate terms, that means being able to boil down your case succinctly in such a way that if I were to ask you what you are running, you could answer in one sentence that would, indeed, indicate to me what you are running. I’ve never heard any writing instructor (or almost any kind of instructor of anything) telling a student to complicate what they’re doing. Simplify. Always simplify. If you can’t boil it down, there’s something wrong somewhere. Or if you don’t have a starting point to work from, you’ve got that same something wrong problem. You can see my thoughts on this clearly in the how-to-write-a-case material on my team website. Start first with the idea, then elaborate that idea, or thesis, into a case. If you haven’t got the idea yet, keep striving for it, but don’t start typing quite yet.

The point of all this noodling is just to provide another way to look at the NatNats LD rez. While the topic is asking you about the issue within a specific arena, i.e., economics, it could not be any more clearly a conflict of liberty versus equality. Each side is asked to claim that theirs is the one to be prioritized (except of course for the schmegeggie who runs that neither should be prioritized, which, when you think about it, is a bad approach absent the fact that it tries to preempt both sides of the rez and eliminate the conflict: societies probably should prioritize one over the other, although maybe some societies, say the developing nations, need a different approach than an industrialized nation—interesting stuff that probably is beside the point). If you’re still have trouble getting your mind around the rez at this late date, then just start with that. It’s liberty versus equality. Obviously the words are (virtually) already in the resolution, but that doesn’t mean everyone sees them that clearly. For that matter, when you’re listening to your opponent in the round, make sure that this is what they are talking about too. Resolutionality is rather smiled on at NatNats (and rightly so); if your opponent is non-resolutional, you might be able to pick up a win right off of that.

And on to other things. I’ve got pictures to sort, stories to tell, motel rooms to book. Thank God I’ve got you to tell my troubles to, they being so many and varied: we should be able to get through the off-season without a scratch (especially once WTF starts sending hourly updates on the mystery meat they’re serving at the camp cafeteria et al).

*Readers of this blog may disagreed, but who needs you anyhow, you yabbo!