The secession resolution: Menick v. Menick, winner take all

Resolved: The constitutions of democratic governments ought to include procedures for secession.

From my original post on this, both O’C and CP seemed to think that I was suggesting that the US would feature in the arguments. I wasn’t clear. I meant that the US couldn’t feature in the arguments, in a decent debate, as the subject really wasn’t up for grabs here.

The discussion on TVFT was good, and illustrated their opposing point of view on the topic, to wit, not that it was a stinkeroo, but that it was rich with possibilities. I don’t think they’ve persuaded me to give it the 10 they were both suggesting (or maybe they were turning it up to 11, which I’m definitely not buying), but they did get me to think again. Still, I have cavils.

Their point is that nations are sometimes accidental political constructs, formed by history or geography alone rather than the other commonalities of a group (language, religion, culture, etc.) that often distinguish a nation. France, in other words, comprises mostly shared-culture Frenchmen, whereas many African nations (and some European) comprise cultural factions at loggerheads. The creation of the governments of these nations can in practice limit the rights of minorities. For those minorities to secure their rights, they may have no alternative but civil disruption unless failsafes are built into the literal government construct to prevent them. One of these, perhaps the best of them, is the ability for discrete groups to be able to secede from the union to protect themselves, an option of peaceable separation rather than potentially violent separation. Eritrea v. Ethiopia is offered as a cautionary example.

The thought is that this resolution will force students to learn about nationalism, and what it means to be a nation. Very true. It will force research into the various African situations, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, etc., the specifics of which, coupled with an inherent understanding of government theory, will provide meat for the affirmative position. The negative will argue as often as not that the lack of applicability across all constitutions refutes the generality of the aff position; i.e., since no general principle applicable to all constitutions can be presented by the off, the rez is proved false and therefore neg wins. Aff can draw on counterarguments that potential aspects of a constitution need not determine the thrust of the constitution, etc., etc., etc.

I think I’ve got that right. In a way, I may have been intuiting the basic core neg in my original argument against this one, and I have a vague feeling that when we tot up the numbers, neg is going to win like a house afire, but that may just be self-serving baloney on my part. In any case, I have seen the light to some extent, but not to the extent of CP and OC. If I were you, I’d listen to the podcast. Draw your own conclusions.