Nobody Knows the Trouble Ive Seen K

LD debate has become something that allows oppressive behavior and

discourse. The only reason Im participating this year is in order educate the
community in hopes of helping them becoming better debaters and humans as
a whole and furthermore its my last year in debate and I want to make a
difference in todays debate community. I dont care if I lose this round,
however I will attempt to win to spread my message throughout the
tournaments participants.
Partaking in LD makes me endorse oppression inside the community. This is the
closest I will come to a framework for the round. Thus, today, I would like to
have a discussion with my opponent and you judge.
Bleiker Writes
1


A conceptualization of human agency cannot be based on a parsimonious proposition, a one-sentence
statement that captures something like an authentic nature of human agency. There is no essence to human agency, no
core that can be brought down to a lowest common denominator that will crystallize one day in a long
sought after magic formula. A search for such an elusive center would freeze a specific image of
human agency to the detriment of all others. The dangers of such a totalizing position have been well rehearsed.
Foucault (1982, 209), for instance, believes that a theory of power is unable to provide the basis for analytical work, for it
assumes a prior objectification of the very power dynamics the theory is trying to assess.
Bourdieu (1998, 25) speaks of the imperialism of theuniversal and List (1993, 11) warns us of an approach that subsumes, or,
rather, pretends to be able to subsume everything into one concept, one theory, one position. Such a master discourse,
she claims, inevitably oppresses everything that does not fit into its particular view of the world.



Next, is the Link, I have been given RFDs, and told by debaters, locally and
nationally, horrible things. For example, Your Ableism Kritik doesnt matter
because youre not disabled and nobody says retarded anymore. By telling me
that, not only am I offended as abelism is a dear topic to me, but that judge
condoned offensive rhetoric in round. Recently, Jonathan Alston and Aaron
Timmons wrote an article extending my outrage
They Write
2


1
Roland Bleiker (Professor of International Relations Harvard and Cambridge, Discourse
and Human Agency, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. p. 37-38)


Above are statements that we and our students have heard from judges. There are many other equally offensive
statements that can be shared. It seems like the statements above, and similar comments, have become more frequent. Recently the National
Symposium on Debate featured a strategy article by Emily Massey, Geoffrey Kristoff and Grant Reiter that inadvertentlyI do not believe that they fully understand the
implication of their wordsperpetuates the hateful and hostile atmosphere that exists in high school Lincoln-Douglas debate. Hundreds of students
around the country are coached to say that oppression, rape, genocide, and lynching are not
inherently bad. You have to explain why theyre bad, say many respected leaders in the
community. Instead of engaging in a debate about the best methods to prevent, reduce,
mitigate, [and] eradicate oppression, too many adults, coaches, and judges in high school Lincoln-Douglas debate [LD]
believe a more strategic conversation is to talk about the philosophy that justifies why such
things are bad. But doesnt having to prove rape is bad open up the possibility that it is not?

Furthermore

Above are statements that we and our students have heard from judges. There are many other equally offensive statements that can be shared. It seems like the statements above, and similar comments, have become more frequent. Recently the
National Symposium on Debate featured a strategy article by Emily Massey, Geoffrey Kristoff
and Grant Reiter that inadvertentlyI do not believe that they fully understand the implication of their wordsperpetuates the hateful and hostile
atmosphere that exists in high school Lincoln-Douglas debate. Hundreds of students around the country are coached to say that oppression, rape,
genocide, and lynching are not inherently bad. You have to explain why theyre bad, say many respected leaders in the community. Instead of engaging in a debate about the best methods to prevent, reduce, mitigate, eradicate oppression, too many adults,
coaches, and judges in high school Lincoln-Douglas debate believe a more strategic conversation is to talk about the philosophy that justifies why such things are bad. But doesnt having to prove rape is bad open up the possibility that it is not? The
writers of the article seem deeply offended and or confused by an argument that many students around
the country have recently found it necessary to make. Students pushing back against the idea
that they have to prove that rape or genocide is bad have taken to routinely using the works
of of Dr. Shanara Reid Brinkley, TimWise, Henry Giroux, Tommy Curry, Chris Vincent, (former CEDA and NDT Champion), Elijah Smith and others to
warrant the benefit to making arguments that challenge structural oppression. Though debate is a game, it is a game
about issues that have real consequences. We teach future generations how to deal with issues of freedom and oppression. Often the evidence shows that debaters go on to become leaders and impact policy in the real world. This means that it is appropriate for the
judge's role to be an educator responsible for training future generations. Justifications of moral frameworks that dont preclude rape, slavery and genocide are dangerous because rights are only important so long as a critical mass of society believes that they
should exist. To better understand the significance of the aforementioned article, the young authors are heroes
to many younger [LDers]. All of them qualified to the high school Tournament of Champions and reached late
elimination rounds at multiple national tournaments. They graduated fromhigh school just recently enough to be legends in the minds of those currently competing. Fourteen through seventeen year
olds look up to them; they want to be like them. The authors of this article respect the accomplishments of Kristof, Massey, and Reiter, and we understand that there are many
hundreds of coaches and judges who think the way that they do. However, the adults in the debate community, who have made education a lifelong commitment, have an obligation to call out harms to young people. However well-intentioned the authors of that
article are, they are contributing to an environment that hurts young people.



2
Jonathan Alston and Aaron Timmons (Jonathan Alston is the Head debate coach at
Science Park High School (Newark Science) in Newark, New Jersey Aaron Timmons is the
Head coach at Greenhill School in Addison Texas.) 2014
(http://victorybriefs.com/vbd/2014/4/nobody-knows-the-trouble-i-see-and-in-national-
circuit-lincoln-douglas-debate-does-anyone-really-care#!/resources/pre)

Now, Ill now being going over the major issues The NSDs article raised, and
analyzing them.
Of course, the pre-fiat debater needs to do much more than win that oppression is bad. They
must win that (a) it is bad, (b) it is the only thing that is bad, and (c) the particular conception
of oppression with which they operate (usually one that denies the relevance of the intent/foresight distinction) is the
right one. Pre-fiat arguments typically assert all of these claims, and an opponent could contest
every one of them. Kristof, Massey, and Reiter
As Alston and Timmons write,

There is a direct connection between the logic of the above quote and the racist, sexist, ugly statements
said by tournament judges to high schools students, and by other high school students to each other.
Sexual violence is bad. We dont think we should have to go any further. But according to the
above logic, we just made an unwarranted claim about sexual violence. According to their logic, high school
students should not assume that sexual violence is bad so that we can focus on how to keep people safe from it. We need to just delve into the question of why.
Inserting particular forms of oppression into the above quote reveals even more how
reprehensible it is: Of course, the pre-fiat debater needs to do much more than win that
[sexual violence] is bad. They must win that (a) [sexual violence] is bad, (b) [sexual violence] is
the only thing that is bad, and (c) the particular conception of [sexual violence] with which
they operate (usually one that denies the relevance of the intent/foresight distinction) is the right one. Pre-fiat arguments typically
assert all of these claims, and an opponent could contest every one of them (Kristof et al). Inserting the words
lynching and genocide have a similar effect. The last line of the paragraph further exposes its repugnance. The horrible nature of sexual
violence, lynching and genocide, according to [the authors] could be contested. Couldnt we
contest anyone saying that these things are bad? This logic is what encouraged a Florida
debater to argue that the only moral recourse for a woman to avoid imminent sexual assault
is suicide. This logic encouraged the judges to support that position against a horrified teenage
girl. Massy et als article is akin to a four year old repeatedly asking why and, when told by their parent that their line of questions isnt relevant, loudly proclaiming victory.
Their common refrain has been that the arguments based on the belief that sexual assault is bad are based only on intuition. This ignores hundreds of years of social
movements and cultural debates and bloodshed that created a culture where we understand the implication of those statements. The word genocide was created to capture the
horror of the experiences of World War II. Emmett Tills death was a horror that spoke to the countless horrors of lynchings that plagued the United States since the inception of
slavery. Social movements were responsible for defining these atrocities. Moreover, all arguments are based on assumptions, prior knowledge that we believe to be true. Given
the history of oppression, why not adopt these premises rather indifference towards suffering. Communitarian philosophers like Michael Sandel would take exception to rape,
lynching and genocide being bad only through intuition, as would critical race theorists like Maria Matsuda, Patricia Williams, and Derrick Bell. Philosopher George Yancy would
criticize such theories as views from nowhere that assume white privilege to be the universal norm. Rather than accepting the conclusion that a debater has to prove why sexual
violence is bad before a meaningful conversation can be had, we would suggest expanding the library. Being expected to prove why slavery is bad is not a meaningful
conversation; it is a highly offensive and insulting conversation precisely because it ignores history, culture and the hard fought experiences of students whose reality has never
been safe. When a judge lectures an Afro-Dominican student that it is okay for a moral framework to not preclude his lynching, that judge has amplified the students isolation in
a community where he had always perceived his membership to be tenuous. When students push back against structural violence in their homes and their communities,
oppression isnt hypothetical. The verbal and rhetorical attacks against Blacks and women become attacks against the students themselves. When Rutgers College debater Chris
Randall declared war against the University of Kentucky, students of color from around the United States filled his in-box and his Facebook page with love because he articulated
a resistance to the constant psychic attacks of a privileged, inhumane community actively hostile to their existence. There are many theorists who understand that moral
decisions are not made by isolated uses of rationality, intuition, empiricism, and emotivism. Expanding our library is important. The hateful arguments defended by Kristof,
Massey, and Reiter represent only a small, warped part of a much larger world.

Being expected to prove why sexual violence is bad is not a meaningful
conversation; it is a highly offensive and insulting conversation precisely
because it ignores history, culture and the hard fought experiences of students
whose reality has never been safe. This destroys all hope of possible education
in LD debate.


Vote for Me

A. Visibility: If I win this round, I advance further in the tournament,
creating a larger audience for my discussion of the problems in the LD
community.
B. Reject the LD Debate community: The Role of the Judge is an educator.
Alston and Timmons

Though debate is a game, it is a game about issues that have real consequences. We teach
future generations how to deal with issues of freedom and oppression. Often the evidence shows
that debaters go on to become leaders and impact policy in the real world. This means that it
is appropriate for the judge's role to be an educator responsible for training future
generations. Justifications of moral frameworks that dont preclude rape, slavery and genocide are dangerous because rights
are only important so long as a critical mass of society believes that they should exist

Debate, while a competitive game, is an educational gamean extension of the classroom. The idea that regardless of what is
done in a debate, the judge has no jurisdiction or obligation to act as a critical educator is short
sighted at best, and sociopathic in our current environment. In a world of just vote for the better debater, judges
would be under no obligation to give a reason for decision in either a written, or oral form. The concept of just vote for the
better debater absolves the judge of any real responsibility to give constructive feedback to
students, either good or bad. In a worst case scenario a student could use language that was
racist, sexist or homophobic, and if they won the substance of the debate, the language and
behavior would be ignored. In fact, if things became physical between the students, and the aggressor won the debate, using a literal
interpretation of the position of Kristof et al, the judge would be under no obligation to act.

Judge take a stand and vote me up to show the LD community that judges ought not stand for
offensive rhetoric.
C. Embrace awareness: Vote for me to endorse my attempts to show
people the horrible behavior of the LD community towards marginalized
groups. Only by embracing these facts can we work towards solutions to
stopping these things.

Blocks
A2: Ground
Believing in foundations in which we all are to ground our advocacy is both
impossible and exclusionary.
Bleiker, 2000. (Roland, Professor of International Relations Harvard and Cambridge, Popular
Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2000. p. 13)
Departing from both a discursive fatalism and an overzealous belief in the autonomy of human action, I search for a middle ground
that can draw together positive aspects of both opposing traditions of thought. I am, in this sense, following authors such as Pierre
Bourdieu and Richard Bernstein, for whom the central opposition that characterises our time, the one between objectivism and
relativism, is largely misleading and distorting. It is itself part of a seductive dichotomy that is articulated in either/or terms: either
there is an ultimate possibility of grounding knowledge in stable foundations, or there are no foundations at all, nothing but an
endless fall into a nihilist abyss. 33 But there are no Either/Or extremes. There are only shades of
difference, subtleties that contradict the idea of an exclusionary vantage-point. My own attempt at
overcoming the misleading dichotomy between objectivism and relativism revolves around
two major propositions, which I will sustain and expand throughout this book: (1) that one can theorise
discourses and still retain a concept of human agency; and (2) that one can advance a positive
notion of human agency that is neither grounded in a stable foundation nor dependent upon a
presupposed notion of the subject. The point of searching for this middle ground is not to abandon foundations as
such, but to recognise that they are a necessary part of our effort to make sense of an increasingly
complex and transversal world. We need foundations to ground our thoughts, but foundations impose and
exclude. They should not be considered as stable and good for all times. They must be applied in
awareness of their function and with a readiness to adjust them to changing circumstances.

A2: Pre-Fiat Args
Pre-Fiat in LD is dumb-Theyre misusing pre-fiat. Pre-Fiat doesnt exist in LD.
James McElwain, Coach at St. Thomas Academy in Minnesota writes
3
:

If pre-fiat arguments need to die, it is only because the very idea of pre-fiat is no longer useful within LD debate. As
much has been said about the nature of pre-fiat, there is generally a lack of clarity within the LD community as to
what pre-fiat arguments look like and how they function. While pre-fiat arguments have
traditionally been associated with a specific kind of kritik that draws its link from the
discourse used in a debate, there has been a recent trend of referring to any argument that
discusses race or gender as being pre-fiat. Although many positions that address race and
gender involve arguments about discourse, I would argue that labeling these positions as generically
pre-fiat allows critics of such arguments to dismiss them as an argumentative fad or trick that
exploits the structure of fiat in order to gain an unfair advantage and win rounds. Contrary to what the
label pre-fiat might suggest, critical arguments about structural oppression are not an attempt to avoid substantive debate for a strategic advantage.
in policy debate, fiat is a device designed to limit the scope of debate to substantive discussion of the
plan. Fiat provides for the passage of the plan as if by grace in order to refocus the debate on the
material effects of a particular policy proposal rather than its feasibility on the floor of the senate. At its core, fiat
affirms the importance of the resolution as defining the limits of what can be considered
substantive debate. If policy debate is simulation, it is not a simulation of passing public policy,
with all the corresponding legislative rules and procedures, but a creative act of imagining a
world different than the status quoan educational exercise of exploring what public policy
can do rather than what specific legislators cannot do.

Thus, my opponent is A). Using pre-Fiat in the wrong context and B). Using the idea of fiat in the
wrong context. They have no plan thus they do not deserve a fiat. Dont listen to their
arguments that they deserve one, as LD and Policy are very different styles of debate. We are
not discussing public policy rather we are discussing ethics. Thus, pre-fiat does not exist in LD.
Dont let them tell you otherwise. Remember were in a LD round, not a policy round. Finally,
Dont drop the debater, but rather drop their args saying they are winning fiat wise.

Even if you dont by that, they dont have legit Pre-fiat arguments in the first
place
McElwain Continues,
4


In this way, given that fiat is a primarily a defense of substance, it would make sense that the
only legitimate pre-fiat arguments would be arguments that are also theoretical checks on

3
James McElwain, Coach St. Thomas Academy, Pre-Fiat in LD: A Defense of "Kritikal"
Engagement, 2014, (http://victorybriefs.com/vbd/2014/4/pre-fiat-in-ld-a-defense-of-kritikal-
engagement)


4
James McElwain, Coach St. Thomas Academy, Pre-Fiat in LD: A Defense of "Kritikal"
Engagement, 2014, (http://victorybriefs.com/vbd/2014/4/pre-fiat-in-ld-a-defense-of-kritikal-
engagement)

non-substantive arguments, e.g. checks on arguments that function outside of the limits of the
resolution or arguments that unfairly prevent substantive clash. If we understand the purpose
of the pre-fiat layer of debate as being merely procedural, theory would be [is] understood as
a kind of distraction from substantive debate that is permitted only insofar as it
simultaneously recognizes the value in substantive debate. Despite offering an obvious
structural advantage in a debate, theoretical pre-fiat arguments are legitimate as a necessary
evil to deter non-substantive debate.

Therefore, youre still going to drop my opponents args concerning how theyre winning pre-
fiat.

A2: Theyre turning themselves
There is no possible way I am turning myself. You can sign the ballot in their
favor and I wouldnt care. I just want people to hear what LD has become so we
can make this great event better. In the Debate community LD doesnt get the
respect they deserve and for good reason from the evidence I have presented,
like we need to prove why sexual violence is bad, but doing that leaves the
possibility Sexual Violence is good. By expecting me to prove that the current
norms is in the LD community my opponent is doing the exact same thing
Alston, Timmons, and I are trying to warn everyone against.

A2: Limits

My Framework Arguments Call for Limitations in How Things are to Be
Interpreted-this is The Same Obsession with Limits Characterized by Modern
Thought. We Must Reject Limits in Favor of The Possibilities of New Political
Thought
Dillon in 96 (Michael, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at The University
of Lancaster, The Politics of Security)
What is most at issue here, then, is the question of the limit and of how to finesse the closure of the fatally deterministic or
apocalyptic thinking to which the issue of limits ordinarily gives rise in onto-theological thought: as the authoritative specification of
an eschaton; as the invocation of our submission to it; or in terms of the closure of what it is possible for us to say, do and be in
virtue of the operation of it. The question of the limit has therefore to be posed in a way that invokes
a thinking which resists the siren calls of fatal philosophers and historians alike. That is why
limits have to be thought differently, and why the question concerning limits has to be posed,
instead, in terms of that which keeps things in play (for demarcation is lacking nothing can come to presence
as it is) exciting a thinking, in particular, which seeks continuously to keep open the play of
possibility by subtracting the sense of necessity, completeness, and smugness from established organ-izations of
life, all of which are promoted by an insistence upon security.