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**Status Theory**
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Conditionality – Bad
Conditionality is bad for the following voters –
1. Doesn’t help education—the Neg can simply graze the surface of the literature and cover
breadth over depth rather than actually go in depth on a topic
2. Fairness – The neg can kick anything without actually planning on advocating it and the aff
cant which is unfair
3. Counter-Interpretation- The Neg should only be allowed to kick the Counterplan or Kritik
Dispositionally so the aff has some kind of control of the round
4. Reject the Team- The only way to discourage people from running these kind of arguments is
to punish them for running them
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Conditionality – Good
Conditionality- Good
1. Aff bias- neg gets first and last speech, infinite prep, and chooses the substance of the debate
2. Reciprocal- Aff reads multiple advantages and can kick out of some if they’re disproven, neg
should be able to do the same
3. Best policy option- in the real world, amendments can be made to a bill and parts can be
taken out, conditionality allows the neg to find the best option
4. Portable skills- the 2ac has to be able to pick out the strongest arguments and put the most
answers on those
5. Education- learn about a variety of different cps and ks, not just one every round
6. Multiple perms check- they get to make multiple perms on all the arguments and test the
competition of all the ks and counterplans from all sides, if they all compete then we should be
able to run them all
7. Reject the argument, not the team- then we have to defend the status quo, which shouldn’t
be a problem for the aff since they’ve had infinite prep on it
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Dispositionality - Good
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Education –
a.
Best policy option – real policy makers are never forced to pass or
confined to just one solution
b.
Forces strategic 2AC answers and critical thinking
Ground -a.
Neg flex – Our only burden is to disprove the plan. multiple levels is vital
to negative strategy and 2NR also to check aff bias
Non-unique -- negative arguments are dispo.
Air neg on theory – aff goes first, last, and has unlimited prep.
Not a voter -- Reject the argument not the team.
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Dispositionality – Bad
Dispositionality is a voter
1. Strat Skew - Forces the Aff to alter their 2ac to answer arguments that will be dropped. 2ac is
vital throughout the debate to regain control of the round after Neg block. Neg gets to kick out
whenever they want, but we can’t check back by making perms. Key to Fairness
2. Time Skew – More important arguments get less time in answering off-cases the Neg will
drop. Messes with time allocation.
3. Education – The Neg doesn’t have to understand their arguments because they drop them,
preventing the Aff from learning too.
4. Depth over Breadth – In depth argumentation is better than quick overview on many
advocacies. Allows opportunity to learn.
5. Unfair – Aff sticks with the 1AC, don’t let the Neg kick out
6. Moving Target – The Neg can change the definition of dispo to suit their needs, no
predictable definition.
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DA Intrinsicness – 2AC
2AC:
DA not intrinsic – a logical policymaker could pass the plan and ________.
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DA Intrinsicness – 1AR
In a world of policymaking the federal government could pass the plan
and pass legislation for _____. There’s no reason the issues are
interconnected. That’s best because the politics DA is bad:
1. Education – having every debate centered around politics takes
away time from more important issues like the actual
implementation of the plan.
2. Should means theoretical – the plan is the focus of the debate, not
what happens during the process of passing the legislation.
3. Counter-interpretation – DA’s are legitimate if their links are
predicated off of a direct effect of the plan, not the process of
passing it.
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DA Intrinsicness – 2NC
The DA is intrinsic – we provided a specific causal chain.
The politics disad is good for debate –
1. Neg ground – we need generic DA’s to check for unpredictable affs
and large topics.
2. Real world – passing any legislation through Congress has a direct
effect on other Congressmen.
3. Education – learning about the various constituencies and the
effect of implementation is unique education that improves
critical thinking which is the only portable skill and outweighs
their impacts.
4. Counter interpretation – any DA is legitimate as long as it proves a
direct causal chain form the plan.
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**Particular CPs**
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Functional Competition – Good
Counterplans should be functionally competitive
1. Stops the neg from stealing the entirety of the aff- for the neg to be functionally
competitive, they cannot steal the 1ac, making sure that the 1ac stays un-mooted
2. Most real-world- bills aren’t amended to change punctuation, they are amended to
change the function
3. Limited number of CPs- the CP must compete based on a function of the plan.
4. Ground- There is always offence on how the function of the CP differs from the function
of the plan
5. Functional competition is better than the alternativea. Textual competition destroys debate
i. STRAT SKEW: Textual comp. allows for the 1ac to get mooted
ii. EDUCATION DESTRUCTION: Textual competition turns the topic of the
debate to grammar, rather than the res.
b. NO COMPETITION IS STUPID AND DESTROYS DEBATE- TURNS THE TOPIC OF THE
DEBATE AWAY FROM THE RESOLUTION AND EDUCATION ON THE YEAR’S TOPIC.
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Functional Competition – Bad
Counterplans cannot be functionally competitive:
1. Does not destroy policymaking: nothing we do in this round actually matters at all to
actual policymaking.
2. Does not kill topic focus: if we spend 15-45 seconds each speech on theory and the rest
of the debate round on the “actual” topic, we still learn a lot.
3. Not infinitely regressive: these arguments have been run in debate for years, so yes
there would be neg ground, but the aff would be ready to debate it
4. Does not encourage vague plan writing: debaters are smart, and they want to learn out
of this activity, they would not write as little in the plan text as possible so that they
don’t have to defend against any counterplans, because the other team wants to learn.
If they do not want to learn, then they should not be in debate to begin with
5. Functional competition bad: offense is not garnered off how the cp is functionally
different than the plan
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Textual Competition – Good
Textual competition best:
1. Most real world- Legal policy needs to have distinctive language in
order to ensure compliance, and amendments to bills aren’t
“functional”, they’re textual changes to a piece of legislation. The same
applies to a CP.
2. Higher quality of debate- When the aff plan and the neg counterplan
focus on the text of the advocacy, it allows for a more in-depth debate
about the policy in question. That’ a key I/L to education.
3. There’s no bright line to functional competition. Textual competition
is the only way to hold a team accountable to their advocacy. That’s key
to fairness.
4. Text is the basis for function- We can’t accurately debate function if
we don’t have a static text from which we can derive that function.
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Textual Competition – Bad
Textual competition bad:
1. Not real world- Congressmen and Senators care about the function of
a given piece of legislation- not the text. Text isn’t important in the
context of policy debate- if the aff really wanted to be real world, they
would outline the plan in pages of legislation.
2. Abusive- allows for permutations that are textually legitimate but
functionally aren’t valid. You justify ban the plan permutations- that
allows you to just spike out of your entire aff
3. CX checks functional competition- we’re not abusive.
4. Text is meant to ensure function- Textual competition isn’t meant to
be the end goal of competition, it’s meant to ensure functional
competition
5. Kills education- functional competition ensures actual argumentation,
while text comp devolves debate into a giant word game.
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PICS – Good
Voter - PICS are good and a voting issue for fairness and education.
Education - PICs allow the whole aff to be under speculation and that’s how we learn. They
write every part of the aff, they should be able to defend it. We should be able to do that to be
most real world and make debate an effective portable skill.
Fairness - PICs extend fairness, as the aff has infinite prep. The aff has an equivalent to PICs with
perms. They can use perms to take our CP from us. It is impossible for a CP to not be a PIC, as it
has to include at least a bit of the plan.
If anything, reject the arg, not the team.
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PICS – Bad
PICs are bad and a voting issue
Education—When debating our own aff we aren’t forced to think, takes away educational value
that debate holds that we can’t get elsewhere; hurts Aff and Neg teams alike.
Fairness— The Aff is forced to debate against their plan; the Aff will be impossible to win, for
ability the neg will have to CP out of everything; resulting in the Aff having no solvency for its
own.
Predictability—Neg can virtually PIC out of any part of the plan, making it impossible for the aff
to predict and prepare for their arguments.
Reject the team
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Conditions CP – Good
Conditions CPs help education, they give a deeper understanding of the issue and help find best
policy
Conditions CPs are not impossible to prep, the aff knows the issues of their aff and they can
always do say no
Perm is not only option, aff can challenge competitiveness
This is not a cheap shot - It is harder for us to prep this than them
Unfair for neg: it will totally kill our strategy and ruin the debate
Conditions CPs help the aff, they can always add the condition into their plan post round and
debate better because of it
No impact: Even if unfair, there is no reason that it will unbalance debate
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Conditions CPs – Bad
Steals the AFF –the neg should not be allowed to take all aff ground
Fairness - It allows the neg to take all of our ground by just attaching a condition and keeps us
from perming. You can win on nothing but an unrelated NB.
Education – It ruins the debate by creating a world where you aren’t debating the best policy
Abusive - We can’t argue every change the Neg can think of.
Predictability- It changes the debate; untopical item doesn’t help with understanding.
Counter Interp: Legit if it they have a comparative solvency advocate
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Consult CPs – Bad
Consult counterplans are bad and a voter:
1. Unpredictable – The negative can consult any tiny country of the 180 countries in the
world. There’s no way to predict who the neg is going to consult. That undermines
unlimited aff prep
2. Artificially inflates the NB – takes all 1AC offense and adds any miniscule net benefit
that doesn’t have a significant impact
3. Kills education – moots 1AC and aff research, consult CP can link to any aff every year.
4. Unfair – steals entire 1AC. Any offense we read means we’re debating against our
own aff
5. Recipriocity – the affirmative can only use the USFG, neg should too
6. C/I – CP is legitimate if and only if there’s a piece of comparative evidence of the act
of the consultation. And, NB justifies the SQ
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Consult CPs – Good
Education –
a. Better discussion to consultation mechanisms and diplomatic knowledge
b. Tests desirability in which the plan is passed
Real world- Countries engage in consultation process on international plans
Research – Forces research beyond the topic countries
Predictability- Lit base checks
Neg Ground – Forces immediate enactment and governmental action, which is the lynchpin of
all neg disads- their interpretation allows aff severance
Aff Ground - Aff leverages ground on immediacy and certainty
Can’t use back-files – Evidence of the CP must be specific to plan and squo
Fairness- Checks aff on sand-bagging
Aff side bias - The aff has first and last speech and unlimited prep time
Counter Interpretation - Consult CP should have a mechanism which it uses; net benefits
check abuse arguments
Defaulting to theoretical reasonability best for debate- only have to win that the CP just
doesn’t destroy it
Reject the Argument not the Team
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International Fiat – Bad
International counterplans are illegitimate --1. Time and Strat skew --- steals the 1ac and moots 8 minutes of aff speech time
2. Object fiat bad – they can fiat away almost all our impact scenarios if they can fiat any country
they want to do whatever they want.
3. Predictability – there’s hundreds of countries and thousands of international agencies – it’s
impossible to research for all of them
4. No ground – forces us to debate ourselves, which jacks AFF ground and destroys our offense.
They get the NEG block so you need to hold them to a high standard.
5. C/I – they get any actor counterplan within the USFG – solves their offense and limits the
research burden and allows us to make link arguments easier
Justifies permutation – do both
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International Fiat – Good
International fiat is good:
1. Tests the affirmative – they need to be able to defend the entirety of the plan
2. Best for critical thinking – forcing them to debate on specific parts of the plan makes them
prepare more detailed and educational answers
3. International education – allows for education about international actors rather than simply
the USFG
4. It’s not utopian/object fiat - other countries often invest in things like the plan, it tests the
plan’s desirability
5. It is reciprocal – the USFG is made up of thousands of different actors, there’s no reason why
we can’t fiat that many as well.
6. Err Neg on theory – the aff gets infinite prep, first and last speech, and get to set the ground
with the 1AC
7. Checks new affs – generics are key to a debate against the infinite number of plans that are
possible
8 Not a voting issue – reject the argument not the team.
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Agent CPs – Bad
1.
Predictability: there are so many agents to choose from, it is impossible to research,
where as choosing the USFG allows the neg to just choose from out of that.
2. Infinite regression - fairness: we are only allowed to choose from one agent, where as they are
able to choose from thousands, it is unfair.
3. Kills topic specific education: not talking about the actual plan, but only talking
about who does it, provides no education on the topic, this is an unfair use of plausible
debate time that could be used to learn from.
4. Steals the aff: it is absolutely impossible to gather offense when all you do is make a
plan.
Artifical Net Benefits are Bad:
1.
Extremely unpredictable: there is no reason why us, as debaters should have to be
prepared to debate about the external action of the plan, such as who does it, but we
should only be ready to defend reasons why the plan is good or bad.
2. Bad debate focus: we should not focus on an external reason to act, THIS IS BAD
EDUCATION, but we should focus on the artificial net benefits means we are no longer
focused on the topic
3. Strategy skew and time skew: if we straight turn, or impact turn, then they can just
kick the counterplan. DONE.
4. Not an opportunity cost: No where yet have they stated a reason why the plan is
actually bad, they have just talked about why another action would be good, means they
have not met their neg burden and create a bad model for decision making, which is not
real world.
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Agent CPs – Good
1. Education:
a. Most real-world:
i. The federal government is not the only actor who can solve the
resolution
Predictabilitya. Agent counterplans have been used in debate for an incredibly long amount of
time
b. Solvency advocates show that there is enough lit on the topic to be
predictable
2. Educationa. The CP is still about the resolution, the aff must defend their actor to show
that their plan is the best Policy option
b. Breadthi. There is a wealth of arguments for each topic. Debate is meant to be
about breadth, displayed best through how the resolution is written
each year.
Reject the argument, not the team
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Delay CPs – Bad
Delay Counterplans are Bad
1. Unpredictable: Its impossible to accurately have answers on the Aff for something to
happen sometime in the future
2. Education: It kills education we don’t know that anything will happen for sure we just
guess and the debate becomes a guessing game
3. Fairness: It forces the aff to debate against itself and detracts from the actual debate of
whether the plan is good or bad, not just when it should be implemented
4. Reject the Argument and the Team: The only way to discourage people from running
these kind of arguments is to punish them for running them
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Delay CPs – Good
Delay Counterplans- Good
1. Best policy option- the purpose of debate is to find the best policy option, if there is a benefit
to doing the plan at a later time, we should be able to do that
2. Most real world- in the real world if there was a benefit to doing to plan later, congress
people would do that. This is the best internal link to education because we should learn about
how things operate in the real world
3. All CPs have a delay mechanism- consult, agent, and process counterplans can all have delay
elements to them. Taking these away would kill neg ground.
4. It’s predictable- the net benefit is just a DA to the implementation of plan. This is no different
than any other counterplan that solves for another DA to the plan like the actor or the process.
Counter interpretation: reject the argument not the team; we should still debate about issues of
substance as the debate goes on, not just theoretical objections.
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2NC CPs – Good
Education
Promote education – more exposure to arguments allow for more education every round
Doesn’t stop important discussion – the best policy option is the point of the discussion, and CPs
don’t take much time to discuss
Fairness
They can still answer – the 1AR has full ability to answer any arguments our CP makes
Late developing arguments favor aff – the 2AR gives them an advantage here
No time skew – it takes much longer to make a CP than answer it, trade off favors aff even if in
1AR
Not overpowered – even if the aff doesn’t answer well we don’t have the time to make it
competitive
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2NC CPs – Bad
Fairness: Why wouldn’t they have proposed this in the 1NC. It forces a rebuttal speech to
answer something for the first time, even though they could have put it into the 1NC
Predictability: We could not have known the Neg would propose a CP; steals our prep
Counter Interp: It should be in the 1NC
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**Perm Theory**
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Severance Bad
Ground: the perm is a check of the competitiveness not an advocacy. So we can slightly
change the plan to check the competitiveness.
Education: in real world politics politicians make amendments to their plan to help gain
support or fix problems. We will be the future policy makers so we should practice working like
them.
Fairness: The negative can read K’s and CP’s that have nothing to do with the plan except a
similar funding or an advantage. The severance perm is key to checking any abusive negative
CP, PIC or Vague K
Reject the Perm not the team: Voting a team down based on a theory mistake is less
educational than voting on argumentation if there is abuse drop it from the flow
Potential abuse isn’t a voter: the negative needs to prove abuse; if we are debating this
then there is no abuse because it isn’t Abuse its potential abuse
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Severence- Good
Education: in real world politics politicians make amendments to their plan to help gain
support or fix problems
Fairness: The negative can read K’s and CP’s that have nothing to do with the plan except a
similar funding or one word in the case. The Aff needs to be able to adjust the plan to be able to
perm random K’s and CP and perms are vital Aff offence on CP’s and K’s to check
competitiveness
Ground: the perm is a check of the competitiveness not an advocacy. So we can slightly
change the plan to check the competitiveness
Reject the argument not the team: Voting a team down based on a theory mistake is
less educational than voting on argumentation if there is abuse drop it from the flow
Potential abuse isn’t a voter: the negative needs to prove abuse
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Multiple Perms Bad
1. Education – Instead of debating the substance of the negative advocacy we get sucked into a
debate only about whether its competitive. Voter for education.
2. Time Skew – Aff can simply say “perm do both” and the neg has to spend a lot of time
responding to it – makes it hard for the Neg to respond to the argument actually made against
the substantive claims of the K or CP. Voter for fairness.
3. Predictability – The affirmative could make any minute permutation they want – impossible
for the neg to predict every ridiculous perm the aff could read let alone respond to them. Voter
for fairness.
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Multiple Perms – Good
Fairness: the negative can run any amount of CP’s and the Aff needs to be able to check it
and perms are the only way to check them
Time: The negative block can run any amount of new conditional counterplans and the Aff
needs to be able to answer 13 minutes of Neg arguments and perms are the quickest and best
solution
Ground: the perm is a test of competiveness not an advocacy. The Aff should always be able
to test competiveness
Education: in real world you can do any amount of plans and pass them through
Reject the argument not the team: Voting a team down based on a theory mistake is
less educational than voting on argumentation if there is abuse drop it from the flow
Potential abuse isn’t a voter: the negative needs to prove abuse, if we are debating this
then there is no abuse because it isn’t Abuse its potential abuse
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Intrinsicness - Bad
. Moving target – The neg has no idea how the case will change with the permutation – destroys
block strategy making it impossible to be neg. Voter for Fairness.
2. Predictability – They could run an unthinkable number of intrinsic permutations – neg can’t
predict the thousands of minute perms making them impossible to respond to. Voter for
fairness.
3. Unfair Net Benefits – They can add any net benefit to the permutation making it impossible
to respond to - We could read a process CP and they could respond with a perm with a net
benefit totally unrelated to the case that we weren’t prepared to respond to. Voter for fairness.
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Intrinsicness – Good
Education: in real life lawmakers make changes to bills and add things to make it more
successful. We are the future policy makers so we should practice this skill.
Ground: Key to Aff ground because other wise the Neg would be able to run any CP that has
nothing to do with the Aff and the Aff couldn’t perm it (Example here).
Reject the argument not the team: Voting a team down based on a theory mistake is
less educational than voting on argumentation if there is abuse drop it from the flow
Potential abuse isn’t a voter: the negative needs to prove abuse, if we are debating this
then there is no abuse because it isn’t Abuse its potential abuse
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Reject the Team
1. Precedent – Not voting on our theory argument means that they’ll have a further incentive to
continue butchering the neg’s fairness and education, voting them down gives them a higher
incentive to stop being abusive.
2. What’s done is done – all of our voters are reasons you should reject the team – the abuse
has already occurred. They’ve already hindered our education and made it impossible to be the
neg in this debate. The damage has been done.
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**K Theory**
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Aff Inclusive Kritiks - Bad
1. Education: Floating PIC gets rid of the neg burden to prove exclusivity and makes the
debate about who can imagine the best advocacy rather than about the topic
2. Fairness: It is the burden of the negative to prove mutual exclusivity and without the
burden they can come up with any philosophical flaws in the assumptions of the plan and it is
impossible for the aff to prep answers to all of them
3. Ground: The neg can change their advocacy in the block which makes the previous aff
speeches meaningless.
4. Reject the Team: It is the only way to set a precedent for future rounds.
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Aff Inclusive Kritiks - Good
1.Key to real world change- allows us to identify priorities and make rejections,
forcing people to change, the implementation of the affirmative should not have
to preclude the alternative, the alternative should be a mode of identification
that the affirmative is bad and we have to reject it.
2. Key Neg Ground - All arguments include parts of the affirmative- they got to pick all of the
1AC and should have to defend all of it. The K aff is more popular than ever and the AIK is a
critical argument to test if the affirmative presentation is flawed.
Reject the argument, not the team.
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Vague Alts – Bad
Violation: Their alternative does not have a distinct advocacy. They can change their strategy
and undermines affirmative ground and fairness in this debate.
Ground: Vague alts let the neg change their strategy. The aff can’t pin the neg down, making
affirmative offense impossible, and the neg being unpredictable. Neg has the strategic
advantage of reinventing their advocacy. This skews affirmative time by forcing them to pin the
negative down.
Education: Vague alts make the aff go on a wild goose chase instead of focusing the debate on
the topic.
Vague alts are a voter because the negative is committing a strategy and ground skew.
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Vague Alts – Good
Not a voter: Reject the argument not the team.
Ground: Cross X checks. That means we can’t reinvent our advocacy.
Education: Turn: Vague alts solve a greater impact to education- we allow for a wider research
focus and force critical thinking
No bright line: No differentiation between vague and specific.
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Neg Fiat – Bad
The negative shouldn’t get fiat:
1. Best for testing the affirmative – fundamentally questions whether the plan is good or
not, rather than shifting the debate to whether or not there is something better than it
2. Best for breadth of education – counterplans allow the negative to steal the plan’s
offense, shifting the debate to miniscule net benefits versus the plan as a whole
3. Critical thinking – forces the teams to weigh large and different scenarios rather than a
relatively unimportant net benefit
4. Steals aff offense – allows them to nullify our 1AC’s offense by using it as their own
5. Explodes aff research burden – neg has infinite disads, the aff shouldn’t have to prep for
CPs and Ks either
6. Err aff on theory – neg gets the block and infinite generics
This is a voting issue for fairness and education – set a precedent against bad practices. Even if
you don’t buy this, you should limit the debate to plan vs. plan.
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Neg Fiat – Good
The negative should get fiat:
1. Reciprocity – if the aff gets fiat, the neg should too
2. Key to negative ground – the aff gets 8 minutes of pure offense in the 1AC, we need
ways to soak some of that up through CPs
3. Best for testing the affirmative – tests the specifics of the plan
4. Specificity – tests the 1AC in more specific ways, which is key to critical thinking
5. Allows for more diversity in debate – makes debate more interesting than simply disad
vs advantage constantly
6. Consistently fair – the status quo often changes, conditional worlds allow for us to adapt
so that times like an economic recession don’t completely skew the debate
7. Err neg on theory – aff gets infinite prep and first and last speeches
8. Counter-interpretation: neg gets ___ actors to fiat in ___ worlds – sets a limit on
negative fiat while still solving our offense
Not a voting issue – at most, you should reject the fiat-ed off-case positions.
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