Vote for These Topics by Tomorrow (John Scoggin)

Remember to vote for this year’s LD topics before 4PM CT tomorrow!

NSDA members (including students) can log in to speechanddebate.org/account and click “NSDA voting” on the left side to vote for the topics that will be debated from November 2018 to October 2019.

At Premier Debate, we teach both circuit and local/regional strategies. Some of these topics are great, but some of them are simply not debateable given current circuit styles, so it’s really important that everyone who can vote does.

The way the voting process works is that each voter chooses three topics for each two-month time period. There is some danger that a topic could be heavily favored but have its votes split across the different periods, so for my school’s ballot, I’m choosing three topics and voting them for every time period. I recommend you do the same. I will be voting for the following:

1. Resolved: The United States ought to adopt carbon pricing.
2. Resolved: States ought to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
3. Resolved: The illegal use of drugs ought to be treated as a matter of public health, not of criminal justice.

For those of you who haven’t voted, here are my thoughts on this year’s topic slate that might help you decide.

• Resolved: A just government ought to pay reparations to indigenous populations for historical oppression.

This was a potential topic area maybe 5 years back, and some camps debated it. I thought the debates were pretty compelling. The choice to limit to indigenous people is rather strange since it circumvents a huge body of literature about slavery reparations. It also doesn’t apply to some governments, and “A just government” causes topicality problems. Overall, there is decent policy, framework, and kritik debate to be had. Grade: B-

• Resolved: In the United States criminal justice system, pre-trial detention for non-violent crimes is unjust.

I like this topic, but I worry there are a number of plausible exceptions that make it difficult to know what exactly to do. For example, non-violent felonies such as fraud, cyber crime, racketeering, and even arson seem like crimes where pre-trial detention is absolutely the right thing to do. Topic would have had potential if it was about low-level drug crime, but it wasn’t, so I have concerns that this one turns into one big topicality debate or that the negative has access to many PICs. Additionally, we’ve had a lot of criminal justice topics recently, and they tend to produce very similar affirmatives, which leads to repetitive debates. A few google searches reveal there is decent literature though, so I’m lukewarm on this one. Grade: B

• Resolved: States ought to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

We had a topic like this in 2010, and it was pretty good. This one is better because it uses the verb eliminate instead of the phrase “ought not possess.” There is a robust literature base that supports the topic and I think that enough time has passed to make this a good choice. I would generally prefer a topic with a more specific actor, since “states” gives the affirmative a large number of choices, and vagueness begets theory and T debates. Should the aff defend all states, some states, one state, states in general, the idea of a state, etc. etc. Grade: B+

• Resolved: The European Union ought to use economic pressure to combat the spread of illiberal democracy among its members.

I have to recommend against this one. I find the use of the EU as an actor incredibly attractive and something I want to see more of from the topic committee, but the concrete topic area is too vague and not supported by a clear literature base. Perhaps the topic is trying to suggest that there should be more rule of law proceedings against countries such as Hungary and Poland, but the wording does not get us close enough to those controversy areas for me to have confidence in it as a topic. Grade: C-

• Resolved: The illegal use of drugs ought to be treated as a matter of public health, not of criminal justice.

I have concerns about the first phrase of the topic (should it be “use of illegal drugs” instead?), but on the whole it’s a good topic area with a large amount of literature. We debated an almost identical topic in 2009, and there was great clash, room for plans and counterplans, framework arguments about rehabilitation vs. retribution, and kritiks. I wish it were about the U.S., but I like it overall. Grade: B+

• Resolved: The United States ought not provide military aid to authoritarian regimes.

This one seems to lean aff; there will be a lot of kritikal and structural violence -type affirmatives, and the negative K options seem a bit generic or undesirable. There are some good util debates to be had, and there is fertile ground for plans and counterplans. Negative wording adds some complications, but this topic has some potential. Grade: B

• Resolved: The United States ought to adopt carbon pricing.

We debated this topic at camp. It is excellent all around: specific actor and action wording, consequentialist debate on both sides with big impacts, political relevance, kritik ground that’s relatively unexplored by recent topics, and some framework potential. Grade: A

• Resolved: The United States ought to ban the use of eminent domain for economic development takings.

I debated a topic on eminent domain over a decade ago, and it was okay. It doesn’t seem super politically relevant today, and the impacts on both sides are lacking. I also have concerns about the wording, but all in all, while it’s not one of the most compelling resolutions, it would not be a disaster. Grade: C

• Resolved: Violent revolution is a just response to political oppression.

I’m not sure what this topic is about or how the topic committee expects it to be debated. While there might be decent framework/philosophy ground, it seems one-sided for kritiks and has very limited policy/util ground. This topic is also another repeat, and given how LD debate has shifted in recent years, this one should stay in the history books. Grade: D

• Resolved: In a democracy, the public’s right to know ought to be valued above the right to privacy of candidates for public office.

This topic seems to be an opaque way to talk about President Trump’s tax returns, but people talk about Trump as much as they want regardless of the topic. I’m not sure there’s much else here. There are also some wording problems (no actor, no clear action, “right to know” is vague, “ought to be valued” is bad, “In a democracy” is vague, etc.). Grade: D