September/October Resolution

Any guesses on which one it will be?
R: Military conscription is unjust.
R: On reservations, sovereignty claims by indigenous peoples ought to be prioritized above the plenary power of the United States federal government.
R: In a democratic society, felons ought to retain the right to vote.
R: A parliamentary form of government is preferable to the United States presidential system.
R: United States law ought not recognize marriage.
R: United States immigration policy ought to prioritize admitting skilled workers over reuniting families.
R: The United States ought to submit to the jurisdiction of an international court designed to prosecute crimes against humanity.
R: Public high schools students in the United States ought not be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate.
R: The United States ought not issue torture warrants.
R: Vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law.

I want plenary power, but I can see it being torture or parliamentary government.

It will be reservations. That was my guess for the TOC topic. It has a lot of lit, and it seems like an interesting debate.

Torture would be sick. Any topic where we can use cards from Dick Cheney is good in my book.

Reservations would be weak. Considering the dwindling population of natives on reservations, this seems like a pretty boring topic to start off the year. Plus novices don't have a lot of experience with this type of information, which means that it would be much harder to teach in the first few weeks of the season.

Db8rBoi wrote:Torture would be sick. Any topic where we can use cards from Dick Cheney is good in my book.

Reservations would be weak. Considering the dwindling population of natives on reservations, this seems like a pretty boring topic to start off the year. Plus novices don't have a lot of experience with this type of information, which means that it would be much harder to teach in the first few weeks of the season.

Do you think torture will end up being a torture good/bad topic? I can't seem to find an exact definition of Dershowitz's "torture warrant" anywhere. I think aff positions will rest on precarious link turnable ground if they just say torture bad. Do you think there is an easy way for negs to say torture warrants will reduce torture?

After reading torture articles for a few hours, I found little to no neg positions. Ticking time bombs and increased legal discourse arguments for torture warrants are pretty much the only positions that exist. If it is picked, it seems it will be another felon disenfranchisement topic.

Old wrote:
Do you think torture will end up being a torture good/bad topic? I can't seem to find an exact definition of Dershowitz's "torture warrant" anywhere. I think aff positions will rest on precarious link turnable ground if they just say torture bad. Do you think there is an easy way for negs to say torture warrants will reduce torture?

After reading torture articles for a few hours, I found little to no neg positions. Ticking time bombs and increased legal discourse arguments for torture warrants are pretty much the only positions that exist. If it is picked, it seems it will be another felon disenfranchisement topic.

Both sides could go both ways. Affs can make claims from either a moral standpoint, an efficacy standpoint, or a perceptual standpoint (ie heg) for why torture is bad. Affs could claim that the squo is fine, or that extraordinary renditions should be preferred, or whatever. Negs can argue deterrence or argue that torture is, in some instances, productive, so if we can put constraints on its use, we can limit the number of bad circumstances in which torture is used.

Google is eh on the subject, but i'd guess Lexis Nexis has ample literature.

btws - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/22/ED5329.DTL explains torture warrants fairly well

When is the topic announced?

Db8rBoi wrote:When is the topic announced?

August 15 - http://www.nflonline.org/StudentResources/Topics