1NC
T
To be ‘resolved’ is to express an opinion regarding some action following the colon.
Words and Phrases 1964 (Permanent Edition )
Definition of the word “resolve,” given by Webster is “to express an opinion or determination by resolution or vote; as ‘it was
resolved
by the legislature;” It is of similar force to the word “enact,” which is defined by Bouvier as
meaning “to establish by law”.
Should” is an auxiliary verb which expresses the desirability of the action of the verb
phrase following it, which, in the case, is to “legalize all or nearly all of one or more of
the following in the United States: marihuana, prostitution, online gambling, the sale
of human organs, physician assisted suicide.”
Cambridge Dictionary, 2000Cambridge University Press p.792
Should – v. aux. Used to express that it is necessary, desirable, admirable, or imperative to perform the action of the
following verb
B) Violation— The affirmative does not defend a topic area as a good idea
C) Vote Negative—
1) Without Limits debate becomes impossible—T is a jurisdictional voting issue
Shively 2k—Professor of Political Science, Texas A & M
Ruth, Political Theory and Partisan Politics, p. 181-2
The requirements thus far are primarily negative. The ambiguists must say “no” to—they must reject and limit—some ideas and actions. In
what follows, we will also find that they must say “yes” to some things. In particular, they
must say “yes” to the idea of
rational persuasion. This means, first, that they must recognize the role of agreement in political
contest, or the basic accord that is necessary to discord. The mistake that the ambiguists make here is a common one.
The mistake in thinking that agreement marks the end of contest. In most cases, however, our agreements are highly imperfect. We agree on
some matters but not on others, on generalities but not on specifics, on principles but not on their applications, and so on. And this
kind of
limited agreement is the starting condition of contest and debate. As John Courtney Murray writes: We hold certain
truths; therefore we can argue about them. It seems to have been one of the corruptions of intelligence by positivism to assume that argument
ends when agreement is reached. In a basic sense, the reverse is true. There
can be no agreement except on the premise,
and within a context, of agreement. (Murray 1960, 10) In other words, we cannot argue about something if we are not
communicating: if we cannot agree on the topic and terms of argument or if we have utterly different ideas about what
counts as evidence or good argument. At the very least, we must agree about what it is that is being debated before we can debate it. For
instance, one
cannot have an argument about euthanasia with someone who thinks euthanasia is a
musical group. One cannot successfully stage a sit-in if one’s target audience simply thinks everyone is resting or if those doing the sitting
have no complaints. Nor can one demonstrate resistance to a policy if no one knows that it is a policy. In
other words, contest is meaningless if there is a lack of agreement or communication about what is
being contested. Registers, demonstrators, and debaters must have some shared ideas about the subject and/or terms of their
disagreements. The participants and the target of a sit-in must share an understanding of the complaint at hand. And a demonstrator’s
audience must know what is being resisted. In short, the
contesting of an idea presumes some agreement about what
that idea is and how one might go about intelligibly contesting it. In other words, contestation rests
on some basic agreement or harmony.
2) Role of the Ballot: Our role of the ballot is that the affirmative must present a
topical affirmative as per the resolution and the negative must prove it undesirable or
offer a competing option. Our heuristic means we learn about the State without being
it. It won’t entrench dominant norms BUT WE ALSO don’t’ invert the error and NEVER
learn about them.
Zanotti ‘14
Dr. Laura Zanotti is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Her research and teaching include critical
political theory as well as international organizations, UN peacekeeping, democratization and the role of NGOs in post-conflict
governance.“Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World” – Alternatives: Global,
Local, Political – vol 38(4):p. 288-304,. A little unclear if this is late 2013 or early 2014 – The Stated “Version of Record” is Feb
20, 2014, but was originally published online on December 30th, 2013. Obtained via Sage Database.
By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on the possibilities of political agency are reframed in a way that focuses on power and subjects’ relational character and the contingent processes of
their (trans)formation in the context of agonic relations.
Options for resistance to governmental scripts are not limited to ‘‘rejection,’’
‘‘revolution,’’ or ‘‘dispossession’’ to regain a pristine ‘‘freedom from all constraints’’ or an immanent ideal social order.
It is found instead in multifarious and contingent
struggles that are
within
government rationalities and at the same time
exceed and transform them This approach questions oversimplifications of complex
constituted
the scripts of
al
.
the
ities of liberal
political rationalities and of their interactions with non-liberal political players and nurtures a radical skepticism about identifying universally
good or bad actors or abstract solutions to political problems. International power interacts in complex ways
with diverse political spaces and within these spaces it is appropriated, hybridized, redescribed, hijacked, and tinkered with.
heuristic
Government as a
ality
invites historically situated explorations and careful differentiations rather than
overarching demonizations of ‘‘power,’’ romanticizations of the ‘‘rebel’’ or the ‘‘the local.’’ More broadly, theoretical formulations that conceive
the subject in non-substantialist terms and focus on processes of subjectification, on the ambiguity of power discourses, and on hybridization as the terrain for political transformation, open ways for reconsidering political
agency beyond the dichotomy of oppression/rebellion. These alternative formulations also foster an ethics of political engagement, to be continuously taken up
through plural and uncertain practices, that demand continuous attention to ‘‘what happens’’ instead of
fixations on ‘‘what ought to be.’’83 Such ethics of engagement would not await the revolution to come or hope for a
pristine ‘‘freedom’’ to be regained. Instead, it would constantly attempt to twist the working of power by playing with whatever
cards are available and would require intense processes of reflexivity on the consequences of political
choices. To conclude with a famous phrase by Michel Foucault ‘‘my point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always
have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to hyper- and pessimistic activism. ’’84
focuses on performing complex diagnostics of events. It
3) Process impact:– this is the only academic forum where we get education based on
clash and competition. If we aren’t able to prepare in advance for affirmatives the
round becomes a 2 hour conference presentation about whatever books & articles
they are reading, This education o/w any content specific education because
a) you can get content specific education in any other forum
b) Without critical thinking skills developed through clash and competition we can’t
effectively act on content-specific knowledge
English et al 7
Eric English, Stephen Llano, Gordon R. Mitchell, Catherine E. Morrison, John Rief & Carly Woods, all
former debate coaches, “Debate as a Weapon of Mass Destruction”
http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/JPubs/EnglishDAWG.pdf
It is our position, however, that rather
than acting as a cultural technology expanding American exceptionalism,
switch-side debating originates from a civic attitude that serves as a bulwark against fundamentalism of all
stripes. Several prominent voices reshaping the national dialogue on homeland security have come from
the academic debate community and draw on its animating spirit of critical inquiry. For example, Georgetown University law
professor Neal Katyal served as lead plaintiff’s counsel in Hamdan, which challenged post-9/11 enemy
combat definitions. 12 The foundation for Katyal’s winning argument in Hamdan was laid some four years before, when he
collaborated with former intercollegiate debate champion Laurence Tribe on an influential Yale Law Journal
addressing a similar topic. 13 Tribe won the National Debate Tournament in 1961 while competing as an undergraduate debater for Harvard
University. Thirty years later, Katyal represented Dartmouth College at the same tournament and finished third. The
imprint of this
debate training is evident in Tribe and Katyal’s contemporary public interventions, which are
characterized by meticulous research, sound argumentation, and a staunch commitment to
democratic principles. Katyal’s reflection on his early days of debating at Loyola High School in Chicago’s North Shore provides a vivid
illustration. ‘‘I came in as a shy freshman with dreams of going to medical school. Then Loyola’s debate team opened my eyes to a different
world: one of argumentation and policy.’’
As Katyal recounts, ‘‘the most important preparation for my career
came from my experiences as a member of Loyola’s debate team.’’ 14 The success of former debaters
like Katyal, Tribe, and others in challenging the dominant dialogue on homeland security points to the efficacy
of academic debate as a training ground for future advocates of progressive change. Moreover, a robust
understanding of the switch-side technique and the classical liberalism which underpins it would help prevent
misappropriation of the technique to bolster suspect homeland security policies. For buried within an
inner-city debater’s files is a secret threat to absolutism: the refusal to be classified as ‘‘with us or
against us,’’ the embracing of intellectual experimentation in an age of orthodoxy, and reflexivity in the face
of fundamentalism. But by now, the irony of our story should be apparent*the more effectively academic debating practice can be
focused toward these ends, the greater the proclivity of McCarthy’s ideological heirs to brand the activity as a ‘‘weapon of mass destruction.’’
c) without clash-based education we are likely to come to the wrong conclusions
about the content b/c we don’t see both sides
4) Switch-side debating on the topic is uniquely important. It allows debaters to
become better advocates and increases critical thinking – it also solves all your offense
Dybvig and Iverson 99
Kristin Chisholm Dybvig, and Joel O. Iverson, Can Cutting Cards Carve into Our Personal Lives: An
Analysis of Debate Research on Personal Advocacy,
http://www.uvm.edu/~debate/dybvigiverson1000.html
Not all debate research appears to generate personal advocacy and challenge peoples' assumptions.
Debaters must switch sides, so they must inevitably debate against various cases. While this may seem to be
inconsistent with advocacy, supporting and researching both sides of an argument actually created
stronger advocates. Not only did debaters learn both sides of an argument, so that they could defend
their positions against attack, they also learned the nuances of each position. Learning and the
intricate nature of various policy proposals helps debaters to strengthen their own stance on issues .
5) Our interpretation of debate is key to accessing the forms of civic education on the
law that maintains democracy, and allows us to make the law reflexive through
pursuits of justice
MBJ 13 [Jeff Paulsen, Margaret J. Krasnoff, and Bart P. O’Neill; Michigan Bar Journal; Law Related
Education: Why it is Important to America’s Future; May 2013;
http://www.michbar.org/journal/pdf/pdf4article2197.pdf//TonyPlayBoy]
Law-related education equips nonlawyers with knowledge and skills pertaining to the law, the legal
process, the legal system, and the fundamental principles and¶ 1¶ values on which they are based. Civics is the study of¶
theoretical and practical aspects of citizenship and its rights and duties, and the duties of citizens to the
government and one an- other as members of a political body. It includes the study of civil law, the civil
code, and government with attention to the role of citizens as opposed to external factors in the
operation and over- sight of government.2¶ In March 2009, the State Bar of Michigan invited more than 50 stakeholders
involved in law-related education to a summit. In her opening remarks at the summit, then-Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Kelly
said, “The Michigan Constitution begins with the premise that education is necessary to good government. Educated citizens are, not
surprisingly, better citizens.”3 Among the summit’s results were a plan expanding the State Bar’s role in law-related education and creation of
the Law Related Edu- cation & Public Outreach Committee.
6) The aff’s focus on localized politics can’t solve—the void of politics will be filled by
reactionary elites, turning the aff and leading to massive forms of violence
Boggs 97—Professor of Social Sciences at National University in LA
Carl. The great retreat: Decline of the public sphere in late twentieth-century America. Theory and
Society, Vol. 26, No. 6, Dec., 1997
The decline of the public sphere in late twentieth-century America poses a series of great dilemmas and challenges.
Many ideological
currents scrutinized here - localism, metaphysics, spontaneism, post- modernism, Deep Ecology - intersect with and
reinforce each other. While these currents have deep origins in popular movements of the 1960s and 1970s, they remain very much
alive in the 1990s. Despite their different outlooks and trajectories, they all share one thing in common: a
depoliticized expression of struggles to combat and over- come alienation. The false sense of
empowerment that comes with such mesmerizing impulses is accompanied by a loss of public
engagement, an erosion of citizenship and a depleted capacity of individuals in large groups to work for social
change. As this ideological quagmire worsens, urgent problems that are destroying the fabric of American society will
go unsolved - perhaps even unrecognized - only to fester more ominously into the future. And such problems
(ecological crisis, poverty, urban decay, spread of infectious diseases, technological displacement of workers)
cannot be understood outside the larger social and global context of internationalized markets, finance, and
communications. Paradoxically, the
widespread retreat from politics, often inspired by localist sentiment, comes at a time
when agendas that ignore or side- step these global realities will, more than ever, be reduced to impotence. In his commentary on the state of citizenship today, Wolin refers to the increasing sublimation and dilution of politics, as larger numbers of people turn away from public concerns toward private ones. By diluting the life of common involvements, we
negate the very idea of politics as a source of public ideals and visions.74 In the meantime, the fate of the
world hangs in the balance. The unyielding truth is that, even as the ethos of anti-politics becomes more
compelling and even fashionable in the United States, it is the vagaries of political power that will continue to
decide the fate of human societies. This last point demands further elaboration. The shrinkage of politics hardly means that
corporate colonization will be less of a reality, that social hierarchies will somehow disappear, or that gigantic state and military structures will
lose their hold over people's lives. Far from it: the
space abdicated by a broad citizenry, well-informed and ready to participate
in fact be filled by authoritarian and reactionary elites - an already familiar dynamic in many lesserdeveloped countries. The fragmentation and chaos of a Hobbesian world, not very far removed from the rampant
individualism, social Darwinism, and civic violence that have been so much a part of the American landscape, could be the prelude to
a powerful Leviathan designed to impose order in the face of disunity and atomized retreat. In this way the
at many levels, can
eclipse of politics might set the stage for a reassertion of politics in more virulent guise - or it might help further rationalize the existing power
structure. In either case, the
state would likely become what Hobbes anticipated: the embodiment of those
universal, collec- tive interests that had vanished from civil society.75
7) Our interpretation is key to the agonistic forms of confrontation – that create a
democratic debate space – this debate over inclusion is key to the antagonism that
actually leads to inclusion and change in the debate space
Mouffe 5 [Chantal Mouffe; Belgian political theorist, held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and the CNRS (Paris).
Currently holds a professorship at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster in the United
Kingdom, where she directs the Centre for the Study of Democracy 2005; “On the Political: Thinking in Action” //AnthonyOgbuli]
Many liberal theorists refuse to acknowledge the antagonistic dimension of politics and the role of
affects in the construction of political identities because they believe that it would endanger the
realization of consensus, which they see as the aim of democracy. What they do not realize is that, far from
jeopardizing democracy, agonistic confrontation is the very condition of its existence. Modern
democracy's specificity lies in the recognition and legitimation of conflict and the refusal to
suppress it by imposing an authoritarian order. Breaking with the symbolic representation of society as an organic body characteristic of the holist mode of organization - a pluralist liberal democratic society does not deny the
existence of conflicts but provides the institutions allowing them to be expressed in an
adversarial form. It is for this reason that| we should be very wary of the current tendency to celebrate a politics of consensus,
claiming that it has replaced the supposedly old-fashioned adversarial politics of right and left. A well functioning
democracy calls for a clash of legitimate democratic political positions. This is what the confrontation
between left and right needs to be about. Such a confrontation should provide collective forms of
identification strong enough to mobilize political passions. If this adversarial configuration is
missing, passions cannot be given a democratic outlet and the agonistic dynamics of pluralism
are hindered! The danger arises that the democratic confrontation will therefore be replaced by a confrontation between
essentialist forms of identification or non-negotiable moral values. When political frontiers become blurred, disaffection with political
parties sets in and one witnesses the growth of other types of collective identities, around nationalist, religious or ethnic forms of
This is why it is
important to allow them an agonistic form of expression through the pluralist democratic system.
identification. Antagonisms can take many forms and it is illusory to believe that they could ever be eradicated.
Liberal theorists are unable to acknowledge not only the primary reality of strife in social life and the impossibility of finding rational,
impartial solutions to political issues but also the integrative role that conflict plays in modern democracy.
A democratic
society requires a debate about possible alternatives and it must provide political forms of
collective identification around clearly differentiated democratic positions. Consensus is no doubt
necessary, but it must be accompanied by dissent. Consensus is needed on the institutions constitutive of democracy and on the
'ethico-political’ values informing the political association - liberty and equality for all - but there will always be disagreement
concerning their meaning and the way they should be implemented. In
a pluralist democracy such disagreements
are not only legitimate but also necessary. They provide the stuff of democratic politics.
The 1AC mistakes action for activism— Raising consciousness is entirely insufficient
J. Pharoah Doss, black activist blogger and writer—graduate of Geneva College. His writing has
appeared in The New Pittsburgh Courier, The Commonline Joural, Gutter Eloquence Magazine, The
Shepherd, and Commonline/The E Journal. “Protest conveys nothing without a demand” January 28,
2015 http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/01/28/protest-conveys-nothing-without-ademand/
Frederick Douglass said,
“Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Douglass’ demand was specific,
the abolishment of slavery. The movement to end slavery even named themselves after their demand. They were called abolitionist.
What are the specific demands of modern protesters? I remember during the Bush administration I asked an anti-war
demonstrator, “Why are you protesting the war?” He said, “Because the president lied.” During the occupy Wall Street movement I met a
participant. I asked the young lady, “What exactly are you protesting?” She said, “Corporate greed.” After a white police officer was not
indicted by a grand jury for killing an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri there was a rally in my home town of Pittsburgh. The
protesters carried signs that read: Black Lives Matter and People of Color Deserve Equality. The one
sign that actually stated a demand said: Stop Racist Police Terror. What are these modern protesters
asking power to abolish? More importantly does the power being protested have the power to
abolish or change the circumstances? Lying and greed are subjective matters of morality. Congressional staffers and elected
officials assembled on the capital steps with their hands up. Their reason was to show solidarity with those protesting death caused by the
police. But the only thing hands up can symbolize from elected officials and their staff is that they’re powerless to legislate morality. The signs
held by those protesting the grand jury decision made basic statements no civilized person would oppose. Of
course black lives
matter, of course people of color deserve equality, and who would not oppose the concept of racist
police terror? But stopping racist … fill in the blank is not a demand that can be rectified by those in
power. Power has limits. Racism is a belief in superiority. It can be held by any race. Holding this belief is a problem for the holder
alone. It becomes a social problem when the holder puts this belief into practice and discriminates against specific groups. But the
government has already legislated against discrimination. So what is the purpose of modern protest?
According to the editorial board of The Gazette, Western’s Daily Student Newspaper, the purpose of protest … in all of its various forms, has
the same goal -- To create awareness of an issue. Really? I don’t think Douglass and the
abolitionist sought to create awareness of the institution of slavery. Protest is defined by Dictionary.com
as: An expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or
avoid. When
Trayvon Martin, a black teen, was shot and killed by a Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida the
police did not arrest the volunteer. People protested across the country. But they weren't raising awarness of
neighborhood watch violence or racial profiling. They demanded the arrest of the shooter. As
demonstration grew, the demand grew, and power conceded. The shooter was arrested and tried for second degree murder. Too often
modern protests generalize grievances government can not legislate and corporate policy can not
regulate. They mistake activity for activism . They painfully demonstrate a collective powerlessness that the powerful are
fully aware of without a public display. And if Frederick Douglass could address modern protesters he might say, “Protest conveys
nothing to power without a specific demand.”
K
The entire affirmative is a double turn – PAS is NOT a right to die – it’s bootleg suicide
– they place the state through the power of physicians NOT the patient in charge of
conditioning which bodies are and are not eligible for death, which creates a facade
for governmental control over bodies turns the case
Szasz 1 [Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.; ASSISTED SUICIDE IS BOOTLEG SUICIDE; The Los Angeles Times; 2001;
http://www.szasz.com/latimesnovember232001.html//TonyPlayBoy]
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has said that his office won't recognize Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which
allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs for certain patients. Declaring that physician-assisted suicide "was not a 'legitimate
medical purpose' for prescribing drugs," Ashcroft warned: "Any doctor who prescribes such drugs, even one acting
under all terms of the Oregon law, can face revocation of his or her license." ¶ On Tuesday, a federal judge in
Oregon extended a court order that stops Ashcroft from dismantling the law until the state can prepare arguments
defending it. Liberals, who revere medical paternalism, condemn Ashcroft's move. Yet classic liberals and libertarians who
respect the rule of law should applaud it. "Decisions about when and how to die are best left to patients
... not legislators," wrote Jerome Groopman of Harvard. ¶ I agree and wish it were so. The truth is that psychiatrists routinely
prescribe involuntary "treatment" for patients whom they consider dangerous to themselves. Physicianassisted suicide laws permit doctors to write prescriptions for lethal drugs under certain circumstances.
Supporters of such laws misrepresent them as permitting patients to decide when they want to die. ¶ A
so-called self-regarding act--such as self-medication and self-killing--is either a right or not a right, legal or
illegal. If it is not a right, then, in our society, it will be treated as a crime or a mental illness or both. ¶ Prior
to 1914, self-medication was a right; now, it is both a disease and a crime. Prior to the 18th century, suicide was both a sin and a crime; now,
suicide and wanting or planning to commit suicide are considered diseases and quasi-crimes. Mental health
laws and the "standard
of psychiatric care" require psychiatrists to restrain and prevent the "patient-offender" from killing
himself, and other parties are prohibited by law from "assisting" in the act. ¶ Suicide ought to be a basic
human right. I believe that killing oneself with illegal drugs prescribed specifically for that purpose is not
legitimate medical practice. It is bootlegging suicide. ¶ Bootlegging is likely to occur whenever a law
prohibits a human need strong enough to incite people to satisfy it, even at considerable economic cost
and personal risk. Bootlegging carries the connotation that the law being violated deserves disrespect
because it frustrates the satisfaction of a human need so basic and peaceful that it ought to be
recognized as a right. Hiding Jews from the Nazis is an example of a morally praiseworthy violation of criminal law. ¶ Instead of
acknowledging that drug use, the death penalty and suicide are moral issues, some people seek to achieve their particular goals by turning each
issue into a legal battle between states' rights and federal law. The medical marijuana issue has been litigated all the way to the Supreme Court,
which ruled in May that federal drug laws did not provide an exception for the medical use of marijuana, despite voter initiatives allowing it in
several states. Now, advocates of "medical suicide" contend that Ashcroft "has grossly exceeded the terms of the federal controlled-substances
law." ¶ Physician-assisted
suicide--the "solution" as well as the "problem"--is but one of the consequences
of our drug laws. Like every product of nature and human invention, drugs may be abused. Against that hazard,
self-control is the only effective remedy. ¶ The American people are ceaselessly propagandized about the real dangers from which drug
prohibitions are intended to protect us. The damage the prohibitions cause are glossed over in silence or, more often, are unrecognized. We
avoid confronting problems of living as moral problems and choose instead to treat them as medical problems. It is not a good choice.
That façade gives the physician the power to create distinction of the ‘ill’ and ‘well’ in
the symbolic order of dying – this allows the ill to be made the scapegoat of all
problems— creates the worst forms of biopolitics
Szasz 75 (Thomas Szasz, veteran; author; National Board of Medical Examiners; Cornell University Law
School; University of Essex; University of Queensland Medical School; Honorary president, International
Commission for Human Rights, London; Member of board of directors, National Council on Crime and
Delinquency; 1975, “The collective Definition of deviance”, Edited by James Davis & Richard Stivers, part
1, The Expulsion of evil, pg 60-66)
I have argued that both the
medieval witch and the modern mental patient are the scapegoats of society. By
sacrificing some of its members, the community seeks to "purify" itself and thus maintain its integrity and
survival. Implicit in this thesis is the premise that communities of men are often in need of venting their frustration on
scapegoats. What is the evidence for this assumption? And what social and psychological functions does the destruction of scapegoats fulfill?
In this chapter, I shall offer some answers to these questions. The ritual destruction of men and animals is a prevalent custom among primitive
people. "The
notion that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being who will bear them
for us is familiar to the savage mind," writes Frazer. "It arises from a very obvious confusion between the
physical and the mental, between the material and the immaterial. Because it is possible to shift a load of
wood, stones, or what not, from our own back to the back of another, the savage fancies that it is equally
possible to shift the burden of his pains and sorrows to another, who will suffer them in his stead. Upon
this idea he acts, and the result is an endless number of very unamiable devices for palming off upon
someone else the trouble which a man shrinks from bearing himself."2 Anthropological accounts abound in such
"unamiable devices." An ancient Hebrew custom is one of the best-known examples of the ritual of transfer of personal guilt to a scapegoats I
refer to the ceremony of Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holy Day. When the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the scapegoat was a real goat. His duty
was to be the embodiment, the symbol, of all the sins the people of Israel had committed over the past year, and to carry those sins with him out
of the community. "And when he has made an end of atoning," we read in Leviticus, ". . . he shall present the live goat; and Aaron shall lay both
his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins;
and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and send him away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The
goat
shall bear all the iniquities upon him to a solitary land; and he shall let the goat go into the wilderness."4
The same theme is repeated--but with the significant variation that the scapegoat is a person, not a goat—in Isaiah: "Who has believed what we
have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry
ground; he had found no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him He was despised and rejected
by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows . . he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was
the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; and the Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all."5 These passages hint at the Christian ethic, preached but not practiced, that it is better to be wronged than to do wrong, to be
a victim than an aggressor. They presage the legend of Jesus,6 mankind's most illustrious scapegoat, who suffered for and redeemed all men for
all time.? This imagery
of good men suffering for bad, though no doubt lofty in its aim, has probably done mankind little
harm. It is fruitless to exhort men to be self-sacrificing. Indeed, the more the scapegoat
suffers and the more blame he takes upon himself, the more guilt he may engender in those who witness
his suffering, and the more onerous is the task he imposes on those who aspire to justify his sacrifice.
Christianity thus asks more of man than he can do. In the few, it inspires saintliness; in the many, it often promotes intolerance.5
good, and perhaps much
The moral aim of Christianity is to foster identification with Jesus as a model; its effect is often to inspire hatred for those who fail— because of
their origins or beliefs—to display the proper reverence toward Him. The Judeo-Christian imagery
of the scapegoat—from the ritual of
Yom Kippur to the Crucifixion of Jesus as the Redeemer—thus fails to engender compassion and sympathy for the Other.
Those who cannot be saints, and who cannot transcend this awesome imagery, are thus often driven, in part by a kind of psychological selfdefense, to identifying with the aggressor.° If
man cannot be good by shouldering blame for others, he can at least be
good by blaming others. Through the evil attributed to the Other, the persecutor authenticates himself as
virtuous. The theme of the scapegoat is, of course, not confined to Jewish and Christian religion and folkways. Similar practices are described
for other times and places. Frazer tells us that among the Caffres of South Africa, for example, "natives sometimes adopt the custom of taking a
goat into the presence of a sick man, and confess the sins of the kraal over the animal. Sometimes a few drops of blood from the sick man are
allowed to fall on the head of the goat, which is then turned out into an uninhabited part of the veld."1° In
Arabia, "when the plague is
raging, the people will sometimes lead a camel through all the quarters of the town in order that the
animal may take the pestilence on itself. They then strangle it in a sacred place and imagine that they
have rid themselves of the camel and of the plague at one blow."11 These ceremonies are at once religious and medical;
they seek to insure spiritual harmony and protection from illness. The ceremonial destruction of scapegoats for "therapeutic" purposes was also a
common practice in ancient Greece. Together with Jewish customs, these rituals constitute the origin of many later Western medicomoral beliefs
and practices. In sixth-century B.C. Greece, the custom of the scapegoat was as follows: "When a city suffered from plague, famine, or other
public calamity, an ugly or deformed person was chosen to take upon himself all the evils which afflicted the community. He was brought to a
suitable place, where dried figs, a barley loaf, and cheese were put into his hands. These he ate. Then he was beaten seven times upon his genital
organs with squills ... while the flutes played a particular tune. Afterwards he was burned on a pyre . . .”12 In first-century A.D. Greece, the
custom of the scapegoat was of two kinds. One was recorded by Plutarch (C. 46-120), and is described by Harrison as follows: "The little township
of Chaeronea in Boeotia, Plutarch's birthplace, saw enacted year by year a strange and very ancient ceremonial. It was called 'The Driving out of
the Famine.' A household slave was driven out of doors with rods of agnus castus, a willow-like plant, and over him were pronounced the words,
'Out with Famine, in with Health and Wealth.' "18 When Plutarch held the office of chief magistrate of his native town, he performed this
ceremony, and he has recorded the discussion to which it afterward gave rise. There was another, darker, form of this practice, which is
described by Frazer. Whenever
an important locality would be ravaged by the plague, "a man of the poorer
classes used to offer himself as a scapegoat. For a whole year he was maintained at public expense, being
fed on choice and pure food. At the expiry of the year he was dressed in sacred garments, decked with
holy branches, and led through the whole city, while prayers were uttered that all the evils of the people
might fall on his head. He was then cast out of the city or stoned to death by the people outside of the
walls."14 In Athens, this practice was institutionalized. The Athenians maintained "a number of degraded and useless beings at
public expense; and when any calamity . . befell the city, they sacrificed two of these outcast scapegoats."15 One of the victims was sacrificed for
the benefit of men, the other for that of women. Sometimes the victim sacrificed for women was a woman.16 Such sacrifices, moreover, were
not confined to extraordinary occasions but became regular, religious ceremonials, similar to the Jewish Yom Kipper. Every year, Frazer tells us,
"at the festival of the Thargelia in May, two victims, one for the men and one for the women, were led out of Athens and stoned to death. The
city of Abdera in Thrace was publicly purified once a year, and one of the burghers, set apart for the purpose, was stoned to death as a scapegoat
or vicarious sacrifice for the life of all the others; six days before his execution he was excommunicated, in order that he alone might bear the sins
of all the people."17 These examples should suffice to illustrate the ancient origins of scapegoat sacrifices and their far-reaching social
significance.'8 They are sobering reminders, too, of the darker underside of classical Greece. There was more to ancient Greek democracy, the
cradle of Western liberties, than the polls, with its great orators, philosophers, and playwrights; there was also Greek slavery, misogyny, and the
ceremonial sacrifice of human beings. These beliefs and practices, no less than others of which we are more proud, we have inherited from them
and adapted to our own uses. The ancient Greeks persecuted
scapegoats for reasons which, as they saw them, were religious; we do
so for reasons which, as we see them, are medical. The differences between these two perspectives, one theological, the other
therapeutic, are ideological and semantic, rather than operational or social. Indeed, the similarities between them—which I emphasize
throughout this volume by comparing the Inquisition with Institutional. Psychiatry, witches with madmen, religious justifications for violence with
medical—are demon¬strated by Harrison's excellent analysis of the social function of the ritual ex¬pulsion of evil. Choosing as paradigm the
ceremony of "The Driving out of Famine" as practised by Plutarch, because "it expresses with singular direct¬ness and simplicity .. . the very pith
and marrow of primitive religion," Harrison identifies the end goal of the ritual as "the conservation and pro¬motion of life."" This end, she notes,
"is served in two ways, one negative, one positive, by the riddance of whatever is conceived to be hostile and by the
The alternative is to reject the affirmative and their medicalization of suicide. Vote
negative to affirm a symbolic reorientation of death, through the affirmative of
personal suicide
Szasz 99 [Thomas S. Szasz, M.D. – Psychiatrist and philosopher, “SUICIDE AS A MORAL ISSUE”,
published in The Freeman, 49: 41-42 (July), 1999, accessed 7/30/14, <http://www.szasz.com/iol2.html>]
"Suicide is an event that is a part of human nature. However much may have been said and done
about it in the past, every person must confront it for himself anew, and every age must come to its
own terms with it." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Behind Goethe's simple statement lies a profound
truth: dying voluntarily is a choice intrinsic to human existence. It is our ultimate, fatal freedom.
That is not how the right-thinking person today sees voluntary death: he believes that no one in his
right mind kills himself, that suicide is a mental health problem. Behind that belief lies a transparent evasion: relying
on physicians to prevent suicide as well as to provide suicide -- and thus avoid the subject of suicide -- is an evasion of personal responsibility
fatal to freedom. Not long
ago the right-thinking person believed that masturbation, oral sex,
homosexuality, and other "unnatural acts" were medical problems whose solution was delegated to
doctors. It took us a surprisingly long time to take these behaviors back from physicians, accept them comfortably, and speak about them
calmly. Perhaps the time is ripe to rethink our attitude toward suicide and its relation to the medical
profession, accept suicide comfortably, and speak about it calmly. To accomplish this, we must
demedicalize and destigmatize voluntary death and accept it as a behavior that has always
been and will always be a part of the human condition . Wanting to die or killing oneself is sometimes
blameworthy, sometimes praiseworthy, and sometimes neither; it is not a disease; it cannot be a bona fide medical treatment; and it can never
justify deprivation of liberty. Increasing
life expectancy, advances in medical technology, and radical changes
in the regulation of drug use and the economics of health care have transformed how we die. Formerly,
most people died at home. Today, most people die in a hospital. Formerly, patients who could not breathe or whose
kidneys or livers or hearts failed to function died. Now, they can be kept alive by machines,
transplanted organs, and immunosuppressive drugs. These developments have created choices not
only about whether to live or die but also about when and how to die. Birth and death are unique phenomena.
Absent celibacy or infertility, practicing birth control -- that is, procreating voluntarily -- is a personal decision. Absent accidental or sudden
death, practicing death control -- that is, dying voluntarily -- is also a personal decision. The state and the medical profession no longer interfere
with birth control. They ought to stop interfering with death control. Practicing birth control and practicing death control as well as abstaining
from these practices have far-reaching consequences, for both the individual and others. Birth control is important for the young, death
control, for the old. The young are often entrapped by abstaining from birth control, the old, by abstaining from death control. As
individuals, we can choose to die actively or passively, practicing death control or dying of disease or
old age. As a society, we can choose to let people die on their own terms or force them to die on
terms decreed by the dominant ethic. Camus maintained that suicide is the only "truly serious
philosophical problem." It would be more accurate to say that suicide is our foremost moral and
political problem, logically anterior to such closely related problems as the right to reject treatment or
the right to physician-assisted suicide. Faced with a particular personal conduct, we can approve, facilitate, and reward it;
disapprove, hinder, and penalize it; or accept, tolerate, and ignore it. Over time, social attitudes toward many behaviors have changed. Suicide
began as a sin, became a crime, then became a mental illness, and now some people propose transferring it into the category called
"treatment," provided the cure is under the control of doctors. Is
killing oneself a voluntary act or the product of mental
illness? Should physicians be permitted to use force to prevent suicide? Should they be authorized to prescribe a
lethal dose of a drug for the purpose of suicide? Personal careers, professional identities, multi-billion dollar industries, legal doctrines, judicial
procedures, and the life and liberty of every American hangs on how we answer these questions. Answering
such questions
requires no specialized knowledge of medicine or law. It requires only a willingness to open our eyes
and look life -- and death -- in the eye. Evading that challenge is tantamount to denying that we
are just as responsible for how we die as we are for how we live. The person who kills himself sees suicide as
a solution. If the observer views it as problem, he precludes understanding the suicide just as surely as he would preclude understanding a
Japanese speaker if he assumed that he is hearing garbled English. For the person who kills himself or plans to kill himself, suicide is, eo ipso, an
action. Psychiatrists, however, maintain that suicide is a happening, the result of a disease: as coronary arteriosclerosis causes myocardial
infarction, so clinical depression causes suicide. Set against this mind set, the view that, a priori, suicide has nothing to do with illness or
medicine, which is my view, risks being dismissed as an act of intellectual know-nothingness, akin to asserting that cancer has nothing to do
evidence that suicide is not a medical matter is all around us. We are proud
that suicide is no longer a crime, yet it is plainly not legal; if it were, it would be illegal to use force to
prevent suicide and it would be legal to help a person kill himself. Instead, coercive suicide prevention is considered a
life-saving treatment and helping a person kill himself is (in most jurisdictions) a felony. Supporters and opponents of policies
with illness or medicine. The
concerning troubling social issues -- such as slavery, pornography, abortion -- have always invoked a sacred
authority or creed to justify the policies they favored. Formerly, God, the Bible, the Church; now, the
Constitution, Law, Medicine. It is an unpersuasive tactic: too many deplorable social policies have been justified by appeals to
Scriptural, Constitutional, and Medical sanctions. The question of who should control when and how we die is one of
the most troubling issues we face today. The debate is in full swing. Once again, the participants
invoke the authority of the Bible, the Constitution, and Medicine to cast the decisive ballot in favor of
their particular program. It is a spineless gambit: persons who promote particular social policies do so because they believe that their
policies are superior to the policies of their adversaries. Accordingly, they ought to defend their position on the grounds of their own moral
vision, instead of trying to disarm opponents by appealing to a sanctified authority. For
a long time, suicide was the business
of the Church and the priest. Now it is the business of the State and the doctor. Eventually we will
make it our own business, regardless of what the Bible or the Constitution or Medicine supposedly
tells us about it.
Case
Their impacts are wrong, they rely on a totalizing account of biopower –
democratic welfare states check.
Dickinson 4[Edward Ross Dickinson, University of Cincinnati. “Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy: Some Reflections on Our Discourse About
"Modernity"”. Central European History, vol. 37, no. 1, 1—48. 2004. Cambridge Journals.]
The need to theorize the place of the
democratic welfare state in biopolitical, social-engineering modernity is, however,
obvious. This is a state form that — in local variations — was built in the course of the 1950s and 1960s in almost
every European country in which people had meaningful political choices, virtually regardless of
which political party was in government, and has survived ever since without a single major political
upheaval, and certainly without significant episodes of internal violence. (The only modern
regime form that comes remotely close — and not very close, for that matter — to this record is the liberal parliamentary regime
form installed in much of Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century.) The German case offers perhaps the most extraordinary
the Third Reich, in
contrast, survived for twelve years, and was effectively dead after eight. I want to stress that my
example of the almost monolithic stability of this political system. It hardly needs to be said that
point here is not that the democratic welfare state is a "good" thing. There is plenty about it that is reprehensible and frightening. It
does wonderful things — the things it was built to do — for people; but it also coerces, cajoles, massages, and incentivizes its
citizens into behaving in certain ways. It "engineers" their lives, so to speak. It aims at achieving national power (now more often
defined in economic rather than military terms, a discourse on skilled labor rather than on cannonfodder); it pathologizes difference;
it disciplines the individual in myriad ways; it is driven by a "scientistic" and medicalizing approach to social problems; it is a creature
of instrumental rationality. And it is, of course, embedded in a broader discursive complex (institutions, professions, fields of social,
medical, and psychological expertise) that pursues these same aims in often even more effective and inescapable ways.89 In short,
the continuities
between early twentieth-century biopolitical discourse and the practices of
the welfare state in our own time are unmistakable. Both are instances of the "disciplinary
society" and of biopolitical, regulatory, social-engineering modernity, and they share that genealogy with more
authoritarian states, including the National Socialist state, but also fascist Italy, for example. And it is certainly fruitful to view them
from this very broad perspective. But
that analysis can easily become superficial and misleading,
because it obfuscates the profoundly different strategic and local dynamics of power in
the two kinds of regimes. Clearly the democratic welfare state is not only formally but
also substantively quite different from totalitarianism. Above all, again, it has nowhere
developed the fateful, radicalizing dynamic that characterized National Socialism (or for that
matter Stalinism), the psychotic logic that leads from economistic population management
to mass murder. Again, there is always the potential for such a discursive regime to generate
coercive policies. In those cases in which the regime of rights does not successfully produce "health," such a system can —
and historically does — create compulsory programs to enforce it. But again, there are political and policy
potentials and constraints in such a structuring of biopolitics that are very different from
those of National Socialist Germany. Democratic biopolitical regimes require, enable, and
incite a degree of self-direction and participation that is functionally incompatible with
authoritarian or totalitarian structures. And this pursuit of biopolitical ends through a regime of
democratic citizenship does appear, historically, to have imposed increasingly narrow limits on
coercive policies, and to have generated a "logic" or imperative of increasing
liberalization. Despite limitations imposed by political context and the slow pace of discursive change, I think this is the
unmistakable message of the really very impressive waves of legislative and welfare reforms in the 1920s or the 1970s in
Germany.90 Of course it is not yet clear whether this is an irreversible dynamic of such systems. Nevertheless, such regimes are
characterized by sufficient degrees of autonomy (and of the potential for its expansion) for sufficient numbers of people that I think it
becomes useful to conceive of them as productive of a strategic configuration of power relations that might fruitfully be analyzed as
a condition of "liberty," just as much as they are productive of constraint, oppression, or manipulation. At the very least,
totalitarianism cannot be the sole orientation point for our understanding of biopolitics, the only end point of the logic of social
engineering.
Their impact claims are overgeneralized, non-causal assertions—modern
biopolitics includes economic pluralization and democracy that inhibits the
rise to totalitarianism
O’Kane 97 (“Modernity, the Holocaust, and politics”, Economy and Society, February, ebsco)
Chosen policies cannot be relegated to the position of immediate condition (Nazis in power) in the explanation of the Holocaust.
Modern bureaucracy is not ‘intrinsically capable of genocidal action’ (Bauman 1989: 106).
Centralized state coercion has no natural move to terror. In the explanation of modern
genocides it is chosen policies which play the greatest part, whether in effecting bureaucratic secrecy,
organizing forced labour, implementing a system of terror, harnessing science and technology or introducing extermination policies,
As Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR have shown, furthermore, those
chosen policies of genocidal government turned away from and not towards modernity.
The choosing of policies, however, is not independent of circumstances. An analysis of the
as means and as ends.
history of each case plays an important part in explaining where and how genocidal governments come to power and analysis of
political institutions and structures also helps towards an understanding of the factors which act as obstacles to modern genocide.
Modern societies have
not only pluralist democratic political systems but also economic pluralism where
workers are free to change jobs and bargain wages and where independent firms, each with
their own independent bureaucracies, exist in competition with state-controlled enterprises. In modern
But it is not just political factors which stand in the way of another Holocaust in modern society.
societies this economic pluralism both promotes and is served by the open scientific method. By ignoring competition and the
capacity for people to move between organizations whether economic, political, scientific or social, Bauman overlooks crucial but
It is these very ordinary and common
attributes of modernity which stand in the way of modern genocides.
also very ‘ordinary and common’ attributes of truly modern societies.
Right to die movements empirically justify larger use of ableist eugenics
Wright 2000 - Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Clark University (Walter, “Historical
Analogies, Slippery Slopes, and the Question of Euthanasia” foumal of Law, Medicine &Ethics, 28 (2000):
176-186, Wiley)
The gathering threads of the eugenics and “right-to- die” movements converged in the influential 1920
publica- tion Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens: I hr Mass und Form (Permitting the
Destruction of Lives not Worth Living: Its Extent and Form) by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche.37 Binding
was perhaps the most distinguished legal scholar of his time and Hoche was a physician and Professor at
Freiburg. Their independent essays on the com- mon question appeared together. Most importantly,
this little volume became a crucial avenue for disseminating the idea that some lives are not worth
living. I will briefly review Binding's historically influential arguments leaving Hoche’s less germane
discussion to the side. Binding provides a careful legal analysis of a range of related cases, including
suicide, assisting someone to com- mit suicide, responding to a request from a terminally ill, hopeless,
and suffering patient, killing a mentally ill person at the request of family members, and so on. He is very
careful to make important distinctions, and he attempts to maintain clear boundaries around the
specific cases of kill- ing he proposes to categorize as “not legally forbidden.” Thus, while he finds suicide
“not legally forbidden,” assist- ing in a suicide is actually the killing of a third party and the consent of
the victim does not remove legal liability from the assistant. However, not all lives are equal. Binding
introduces the idea that “terminally ill or fatally wounded people” are in a new category. “Here there
clearly appears the idea that such a life no longer merits strict legal protection.” These are, he thinks,
“lives not worth living.” He distinguishes three cases. In the first group are “those irretrievably lost as a
result of illness or injury, who, fully understanding their situation, possess and have somehow expressed
their urgent wish for release.”M For Binding, killing such patients is “a duty of legal mercy.” Among
other examples, he includes the fatally injured comrade on a battlefield or a mountain- eering
expedition. The second group “consists of incur- able idiots."1’ These people have the will neither to live
nor to die. In this case too Binding finds “no grounds— legally, socially, ethically, or religiously—for not
permitting the killing of these people who are the fearsome counter image of true humanity, and who
arouse horror in nearly everyone who meets them.”40 His restriction in this case is that the right of
application should be limited to the family who have been caring for the handicapped patient, or to the
guardian. The third group consists of mentally sound people who “through some event like a very
severe, doubt- less fatal wound,” have become comatose. He docs not think that any blanket rule can
cover this last group of cases, but then goes on to conclude with a general guideline: [OJnly those
persons arc candidates for having their deaths permitted who are terminally ill and who, in addition to
being beyond help, have either requested death or consented to dying, or else would have re- quested
or consented, had they not fallen into uncon- sciousness at the critical time or if they had been able to
achieve awareness of the situation.41 (Emphasis added.) All of this, Binding views within the constraint
that “Every unforbidden killing of a third person must be expe- rienced as a release, at least by the
victim; otherwise allow- ing it is self-evidently ruled out.”42 Having established his basic principle,
Binding then goes on to propose a formal procedure with careful safeguards as a way to implement it
without abuses.4* Binding’s arguments incorporate elements of the “right to die” movement as well
as the eugenicist’s appeals to the preservation of social well-being. If one abstracts from this work’s
historical results, ignores the occasionally crude cal- culations of social utility, and considers the rather
careful protections that he includes against possible abuses, one could perhaps take these arguments
as sensible, compas- sionate and progressive. They are surprisingly modern in tone, suggesting both
Singer’s careful defense of permitting a limited practice of euthanasia, and recent guidelines in the
Netherlands. But can one abstract from the work’s historical effects? This is the core of the slippery
slope argument. Binding’s and Hoche’s views were extensively discussed by their con- temporaries and,
although never officially accepted in the ^Xfeimar period, became widely influential among physicians.
Participants in the T444 program used them explicitly to justify their actions.41 This connection is an
instance of both a “precedent based” and a “causal” slippery slope. First, by providing support for a
limited practicc of medical killing, Binding and Hoche made such things discussible. In doing so, they
provided intellectual cover for people who wished later to abuse the opportunity. Second, their work
brought about a climate among German medical professionals that permitted doctors to accept the
idea of killing their patients. This climate could be claimed to have been a contributing cause for the
vigorous advocacy by some German physicians of a policy of killing mentally retarded, physically
handicapped, elderly people: the “useless eat- ers.” In that respect, Singer’s opponents might say, the
German experience confirms the claim that even discuss- ing the idea that some lives might not be
worth living helps to create the “unmitigated disaster.” Their argument also connects to the “peg”
protecting our wagon from rolling down the hill. Their influence in Germany effectively “pulled the
peg” in the slope (provided by the Hippocratic ethic), so that, when external social forces pushed the
medi- cal cart, physicians were no longer able to arrest its slide .46
Ableism must be rejected, it makes ongoing eugenics and extermination inevitable
Brown 11
, Artist Initiative Grantee at Minnesota State Arts Board Senior Academic Adviser for the College of Education and Human Development at University of Minnesota Steering Committee at Education Abroad
Network at University of Minnesota Volunteer Coordinator for Social Inclusion and Bullying Prevention at Marcy Open School see less Past 2012-2013 Buckman Fellow at Buckman Fellowship Travel and Study Grantee at Jerome
Foundation Loft Mentor Series Award Winner for Poetry at The Loft Literary Center Institute on Community Integration Post-graduate Certificate Graduate Student at University of Minnesota University of Minnesota College of
Education and Human Development/University Honors Program Liaison at University of Minnesota University Honors Program Academic Advisor at University of Minnesota University of Minnesota Learning Abroad
Center/University Honors Program Liaison at University of Minnesota Foreign Lecturer--English Studies, Cultural Awareness, Humanities at Hokkaido University of Education Educational Technologies post-grad certificate program
at University of British Columbia, Vancouver Adjunct Lecturer--Japanese Language at Wayne County Community College Adjunct Lecturer--English Composition at Wayne State University Foriegn Lecturer--English Studies, Creative
Writing, English Literature at Sophia University--Tokyo, Japan ‘Screw normal’: Resisting the myth of normal by questioning media’s depiction of people with autism and their families,
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/gara0030/iggds/Screw%20Normal_FINAL_Dosch%20Brown.pdf
The one societal need in our society that is often unacknowledged, silenced, and left unexamined is
that humans have, as Michalko quoted Cornel West, the ― deep, visceral need to belong ‖ (Michalko,
2002, p. 81) — all of us struggle with full acceptance of ourselves and our desire to be seen as
acceptable or welcome in a society that loves to label people. The media creates walls between its
ideals and the people it views as Others , such as when the media views people with autism as
‘abnormal mysteries’. We are being taught that differences occurring from autism are wrong, and
sadly too many families depicted in the media perpetuate this negative view of their own children.
When thinking of ‗normal‘ henceforth, let‘s consider what Michalko wrote about society and his
blindness. He explained that, although society might have found ways technologically for him to
participate (he is a professor), he is still seen as ‗strange‘ because he is blind. He said the difference in
his blindness must be grappled with inside his being in ―a space between nature and culture‖ and
―normal and abnormal‖ (2002, p. 83), and it is within this confusing, unmarked space where he has
had to build his own identity. By moving through the world with his ―body of blindness,‖ Michalko
has projected himself into the ―social space,‖ just as my son must project his own self, by moving
through the social space with his ‗mind of difference‘; thus, society reacts to people who have
disabilities who cannot live up to the mythical norms with ―help, ―pity, ―ridicule, ―unease,‖ and
―curiosity‖ (2002, p. 88), and it results in an unequal power structure that creates treacherous
terrain for all of us who have been Othered. Michalko (2002) noted that mainstream Western society
views all disabilities as abnormal, and it thus approaches people with disability as tragic people who
live lives ―not worth living‖; they are seen as the Other, as objects of pity, both ―vulnerable and
fragile‖ (p.68). The complexity, diversity, and range of differences of all human beings in this world
are erased, denied, and ignored under a banner of ‗sameness‘ or ‗normalcy‘—and those who cannot
or will not conform are silenced and lumped into the category of Other, and dealt with suspicion for
not conforming to social construction of what is acceptable in appearance, behavior, and experience.
Eugenics, the academic Phil Smith (2008) has concluded, is still very much present in societal attitudes
toward disability. Eugenics formalized ―the Normal, a cultural landscape outlined in order to
support the hegemony of its inhabitants, a liberalist bourgeois class of white, able-bodied men ‖ (P.
Smith, p. 419). By silencing those with perceived disabilities (or those with a particular perceived
race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation , etc.) and deeming them as lesser than ‘normal‘
humans —society is able to continue to deny that ‘being normal‘ is actually a socially constructed
myth (Michalko, 2002, p. 69). Phil Smith further pointed out that not so long ago those who committed
the war crimes by killing or sterilizing people they had deemed of inferior intelligence in the Nazis T-4
project were consistently given less severe convictions and higher acquittal rates (P. Smith, 2008, p.
421)—revealing, indeed, that as a society we devalue the lost lives of those considered too different
from the mythical norm, which we will demonstrate later is a devaluation of human life very much
alive in media depiction of autism. Society rarely has ears for the voices or rooms reserved for those
with differences who think otherwise, and it rarely realizes that indeed people with differences also
have value and critical roles to play in society. The media maintains this gaping silence as well.
Society, Michalko has argued, either expects those deemed ―abnormal‖ will ―get through their
differences by adapting to the dominant rules, so as to be less noticed, or it expects them to ―get
out‖ by removing themselves from view, by being silent and isolated (Michalko, 2002, p. 75); and
some experts, doctors, educators, and therapists make a sizable income from attempting to enforce
these societal expectations on families.
2NC
Case
Not all politics lead to Nazism – each situation has different complexities –
biopolitcal control has become too expensive and time consuming for most
states to attempt
Rabinow and Rose 3 (Paul, Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, Nikolas, Professor of Sociology @ the London School of
Economics, ―Thoughts On The Concept of Biopower Today,‖ December 10,2003,http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/
pdf/RabinowandRose-BiopowerToday03.pdf, pg. 8-9)
The interpretation of contemporary biopolitics as the politics of a state modeled on the figure of the
sovereign suits the twentieth century absolutisms of the Nazis and Stalin. But we need a more
nuanced account of sovereign power to analyze contemporary rationalities or technologies of politics .
Since these authors take their concept and point of reference from Foucault, it is worth contrasting their postulate of a origin and beneficiary of
biopower to Foucaultís remarks on sovereignty as a form of power whose diagram, but not principle, is the figure of the sovereign ruler. Its
characteristic is indeed ultimately a mode of power which relies on the right to take life. However, with the exception of certain¶ ‗paroxysmal‘
moments, this is a mode of power whose activation can only be sporadic and non¶ -continuous. The totalization of sovereign power as a mode
of ordering daily life would be too costly, and indeed the very excesses of the exercise of this power seek to compensate for its sporadic nature.
Sovereignty, in this sense, is precisely a diagram of a form of power not a description of its implementation. Certainly
some forms of
colonial power sought to operationalize it ,but in the face of its economic and governmental costs,
colonial statecraft was largely to take a different form. The two megalomaniac State forms of the
twentieth century also sought to actualize it, as have some others in their wake: Albania under Hoxha,
North Korea. But no historian of pre-modern forms of control could fail to notice the dependence of
sovereign rule in its non-paroxysmal form on a fine web of customary conventions, reciprocal
obligations, and the like, in a word, a moral economy whose complexity and scope far exceeds the
extravagance displays of the sovereign. Sovereign power is at one and the same time an element in this moral economy and an
attempt to master it.
Biopower is inevitable
Wright 8 (Nathan, Fellow at the Centre for Global Political Economy, “Camp as Paradigm: Bio-Politics
and State Racism in Foucault and Agamben”, 2008
http://ccjournal.cgu.edu/past_issues/nathan_wright.html)
Perhaps the one failure of Foucault’s that, unresolved, rings as most ominous is his failure to further examine the problem of bio-political state
racism that he first raises in his lecture series, Society Must Be Defended. At
the end of the last lecture, Foucault suggests
that bio-power is here to stay as a fixture of modernity. Perhaps given its focus on the preservation of
the population of the nation it which it is practiced, bio-power itself is something that Foucault accepts
as here to stay. Yet his analysis of bio-politics and bio-power leads inevitably to state-sanctioned racism,
be the government democratic, socialist, or fascist. As a result, he ends the lecture series with the
question, “How can one both make a bio-power function and exercise the rights of war, the rights of
murder and the function of death, without becoming racist? That was the problem, and that, I think, is
still the problem.” It was a problem to which he never returned. However, in the space opened by Foucault’s failure to
solve the problem of state racism and to “elaborate a unitary theory of power” (Agamben 1998, 5) steps Agamben in an attempt to complete
an analysis of Foucauldian bio-politics and to, while not solve the problem of state racism, at least give direction for further inquiry and hope of
a politics that escapes the problem of this racism.
T
2NC Overview
The United States federal government refers to the actual government
Black’s Law Dictionary 90
6th Ed., p. 695
In the United States, government consists of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in
addition to administrative agencies. In a broader sense, includes the federal government and all its
agencies and bureaus, state and county governments, and city and township governments.
Interpretation - Legalization requires a regulatory regime which is distinct from
decriminalization which has none
Mossman 7 [Dr Elaine Mossman, Honorary Research Fellow Victoria University of Wellington, 2007, International
Approaches to Decriminalising or Legalising Prostitution, Prepared for the Ministry of Justice by Crime and Justice Research
Centre Victoria University of Wellington, http://prostitution.procon.org/sourcefiles/newzealandreport.pdf]
The Ministry of Justice commissioned the Crime and Justice Research Centre to examine overseas legalised and decriminalised models of prostitution law reform.
The work is to inform the statutory review of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA) to be completed in 2008. There have been developments in the legal approach
to prostitution adopted by different countries, with a significant shift away from prohibition, towards legalisation and decriminalisation. But it became evident in
preparing this review that there is much confusion over the main legislative approaches to prostitution in different jurisdictions. There was often misinterpretation –
or at least it could appear so. One difficulty was the variation in the terms used to describe the legislative position, and how they were defined. We clarify the main
three approaches used to classify the jurisdictions covered by this review. These are (i) criminalisation; (ii) legalisation; and (iii) decriminalisation. Criminalisation For
the purposes of this review, we classified countries as criminalised regimes where it is not legally possible to engage in prostitution, because prostitution or its
associated activities would be contravening some law, regardless of the level of tolerance existing. (In some criminalised regimes, there can be a tolerant climate.
Prostitution is known by enforcement agencies to exist, but prosecutions are rarely made.) Criminalisation makes prostitution illegal with related offences appearing
in the criminal code. It seeks to reduce or eliminate the sex industry and is supported by those who are opposed to prostitution on moral, religious or feminist
grounds. Jurisdictions that have criminalised prostitution subdivide into two groups: i. Prohibitionist – where all forms of prostitution are unacceptable and
therefore illegal. This is the approach taken in most states of the USA and countries in the Middle East. ii. Abolitionist – a modified form of prohibition which allows
the sale of sex, but bans all related activities (e.g. soliciting, brothel keeping, and procurement). Making these related activities illegal effectively criminalises
prostitution as it is virtually impossible to carry out prostitution without contravening one law or another. The abolitionist approach often focuses on eliminating or
reducing the negative impacts of prostitution. It is one currently operating in countries such as England and Canada. Sweden is the only country so far to criminalise
the buyers of sex rather than sex workers. The aim was to end prostitution, rather than regulate it – since it was viewed as violence against women and a barrier to
gender equality. Norway and Finland are now considering this approach. Legalisation This is where prostitution is
controlled by government
and is legal only under certain state- specified conditions. The underlying premise is that prostitution is necessary for stable
social order, but should nonetheless be subject to controls to protect public order and health. Some jurisdictions opt for legalisation as a means to reduce crimes
associated with prostitution. Key
indicators of legalised regimes are prostitution-specific controls and conditions
specified by the state. These can include licensing, registration, and mandatory health checks. Prostitution
has been legalised in countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Turkey, Senegal, the USA state of Nevada, and
many Australian states (Victoria, Queensland, ACT and Northern Territory). Decriminalisation Decriminalisation
involved repeal of
all laws against prostitution, or the removal of provisions that criminalised all aspects of prostitution. In decriminalised regimes,
however, a distinction is made between (i) voluntary prostitution and (ii) that involving either force and coercion or child prostitution – the latter remaining
criminal. The difference between legalised and criminalised regimes has been described as often largely a matter of degree – a function of the number of legal
prostitution-related activities, and the extent of controls and restrictions that are imposed. The
key difference between legalisation and
decriminalisation is that with the latter there are no prostitution-specific regulations imposed by the state.
Rather, regulation of the industry is predominantly through existing ‘ordinary’ statutes and
regulations covering employment and health for instance. The aims of decriminalisation differ from
legalisation in their emphasis. While the protection of social order is also relevant to decriminalisation, the main emphasis here is on the sex
worker – respecting their human rights, and improving their health, safety and working conditions. Decriminalisation is also recognised as a way of avoiding the twotier reality of legal and illegal operations, with the latter operating underground. Currently, only New South Wales (Australia) and New Zealand have adopted
decriminalisation. But there are elements of legalisation in both jurisdictions – for instance, brothel operators in New Zealand require certification; and street-based
work in New South Wales is still prohibited. Unregulated regimes There are some jurisdictions where prostitution is entirely unregulated. A review of 27 countries in
Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia found this was the case in eleven of them. These countries are not included in this review, as there are no reforms
intended or legislative recognition of prostitution as either legal or illegal. Categories of prostitution offences The legality of different aspects of prostitution varies
across different jurisdictions, with some being legal (e.g. prostitution in a state-regulated brothel), and others not (e.g. soliciting on a street). Prostitution involving a
seller and buyer may be legal, but the involvement of third parties such as brothel managers or pimps illegal – as in Denmark and Iceland for instance. Prostitutionrelated laws vary greatly, but can generally be grouped into three categories: (i) laws aimed at the sex worker; (ii) laws aimed at third parties involved in the
management and organisation of prostitution; and (iii) laws aimed at those who purchase commercial sex. The two most significant criminal prohibitions relate to
either soliciting in a public place and brothel keeping. The acts of advertising prostitution services or the premises used for prostitution have also been made an
offence in many jurisdictions.
“State-as-heuristic”, not “State-as-descriptor”. That distinction matters for
Framework and Links. heuristics still mean we’ll learn contingent toolkit items AND
avoid pitfalls of foundational “descriptor” frameworks. Those reify and over-value
idealism.
Zanotti ‘14
Dr. Laura Zanotti is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Her research and teaching include critical
political theory as well as international organizations, UN peacekeeping, democratization and the role of NGOs in post-conflict
governance.“Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World” – Alternatives: Global,
Local, Political – vol 38(4):p. 288-304,. A little unclear if this is late 2013 or early 2014 – The Stated “Version of Record” is Feb
20, 2014, but was originally published online on December 30th, 2013. Obtained via Sage Database.
While there are important variations in the way international relations scholars use governmentality
theory, for the purpose of my argument I identify two broad trajectories.2 One body of scholarship uses
governmentality as a heuristic tool to explore modalities of local and international government and to
assess their effects in the contexts where they are deployed; the other adopts this notion as a
descriptive tool to theorize the globally oppressive features of international liberalism. Scholars who use
governmentality as a heuristic tool tend to conduct inquiries based upon analyses of practices of
government and resistance. These scholars rely on ethnographic inquiries, emphasizes the multifarious
ways government works in practice (to include its oppressive trajectories) and the ways uneven
interactions of governmental strategies and resistance are contingently enacted. As examples, Didier
Bigo, building upon Pierre Bourdieu, has encouraged a research methodology that privileges a relational
approach and focuses on practice;3 William Walters has advocated considering governmentality as a
research program rather than as a ‘‘depiction of discrete systems of power;’’4 and Michael Merlingen
has criticized the downplaying of resistance and the use of ‘‘governmentality’’ as interchangeable with
liberalism.5 Many other scholars have engaged in contextualized analyses of governmental tactics and
resistance. Oded Lowenheim has shown how ‘‘responsibilization’’ has become an instrument for
governing individual travelers through ‘‘travel warnings’’ as well as for ‘‘developing states’’ through
performance indicators;6 Wendy Larner and William Walters have questioned accounts of globalization
as an ontological dimension of the present and advocated less substantialized accounts that focus on
studying the discourses, processes and practices through which globalization is made as a space and a
political economy;7 Ronnie D. Lipschutz and James K. Rowe have looked at how localized practices of
resistance may engage and transform power relations;8 and in my own work, I have studied the
deployment of disciplinary and governmental tools for reforming governments in peacekeeping
operations and how these practices were hijacked and resisted and by their targets. Scholars who use
governmentality as a descriptive tool focus instead on one particular trajectory of global liberalism, that
is on the convergence of knowledge and scrutiny of life processes (or biopolitics) and violence and
theorize global liberalism as an extremely effective formation, a coherent and powerful Leviathan,
where biopolitical tools and violence come together to serve dominant classes or states’ political
agendas. As I will show, Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and Sergei Prozorov tend
to embrace this position.10 The distinction between governmentality as a heuristic and governmentality
as a descriptive tool is central for debating political agency. I argue that, notwithstanding their critique
of liberalism, scholars who use governmentality as a descriptive tool rely on the same ontological
assumptions as the liberal order they criticize and do move away from Foucault’s focus on historical
practices in order to privilege abstract theorizations. By using governmentality as a description of
‘‘liberalism’’ or ‘‘capitalism’’ instead of as a methodology of inquiry on power’s contingent modalities
and technologies, these scholars tend to reify a substantialist ontology that ultimately reinforces a
liberal conceptualization of subjects and power as standing in a relation of externality and stifles the
possibility of reimagining political agency on different grounds. ‘‘Descriptive governmentality’’
constructs a critique of the liberal international order based upon an ontological framework that
presupposes that power and subjects are entities possessing qualities that preexist relations. Power is
imagined as a ‘‘mighty totality,’’ and subjects as monads endowed with potentia. As a result, the
problematique of political agency is portrayed as a quest for the ‘‘liberation’’ of a subject ontologically
gifted with a freedom that power inevitably oppresses. In this way, the conceptualization of political
agency remains confined within the liberal struggle of ‘‘freedom’’ and ‘‘oppression.’’ Even researchers
who adopt a Foucauldian vocabulary end up falling into what Bigo has identified as ‘‘traps’’ of political
science and international relations theorizing, specifically essentialization and ahistoricism. I argue here
that in order to reimagine political agency an ontological and epistemological turn is necessary, one that
relies upon a relational ontology. Relational ontological positions question adopting abstract stable
entities, such as ‘‘structures,’’ ‘‘power,’’ or ‘‘subjects,’’ as explanations for what happens. Instead, they
explore how these pillar concepts of the Western political thought came to being, what kind of practices
they facilitate, consolidate and result from, what ambiguities and aporias they contain, and how they
are transformed.12 Relational ontologies nurture ‘‘modest’’ conceptualizations of political agency and
also question the overwhelming stability of ‘‘mighty totalities,’’ such as for instance the international
liberal order or the state. In this framework, political action has more to do with playing with the cards
that are dealt to us to produce practical effects in specific contexts than with building idealized ‘‘new
totalities’’ where perfect conditions might exist. The political ethics that results from non-substantialist
ontological positions is one that privileges ‘‘modest’’ engagements and weights political choices with
regard to the consequences and distributive effects they may produce in the context where they are
made rather than based upon their universal normative aspirations.13
2NC Real World (MBJ and Boggs)
That civic education is key to democracy and changing the problems of the squo
Stimmann and Quigley 98 [Margaret Stimmann Branson and Charles N. Quigley; Associate Director,
Center for Civic Education and Executive Director, Center for Civic Education; September, 1998; The Role
of Civic Education; http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/pop_civ.html//TonyPlayBoy]
Civic Education in a democracy is education in self government. Democratic self government means that
citizens are actively involved in their own governance; they do not just passively accept the dictums of
others or acquiesce to the demands of others. As Aristotle put it in his Politics (c 340 BC), "If liberty and equality, as
is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be attained when all persons alike
share in the government to the utmost." In other words, the ideals of democracy are most completely
realized when every member of the political community shares in its governance. Members of the
political community are its citizens, hence citizenship in a democracy is membership in the body politic.
Membership implies participation, but not participation for participation's sake. Citizen participation in a
democratic society must be based on informed, critical reflection, and on the understanding and
acceptance of the rights and responsibilities that go with that membership.¶ Civic education in a democratic society
most assuredly needs to be concerned with promoting understanding of the ideals of democracy and a reasoned commitment to the values and
principles of democracy. That
does not mean, however, that democracy should be presented as utopia.
Democracy is not utopian, and citizens need to understand that lest they become cynical, apathetic, or
simply withdraw from political life when their unrealistic expectations are not met. To be effective civic
education must be realistic; it must address the central truths about political life. The American Political Science
Association (APSA) recently formed a Task Force on Civic Education. Its statement of purpose calls for more realistic teaching about the nature
of political life and a better understanding of "the complex elements of 'the art of the possible'."
The APSA report faults existing
civic education because all too often it¶ seems unable to counter the belief that, in politics, one either
wins or loses, and to win means getting everything at once, now! The sense that politics can always
bring another day, another chance to be heard, to persuade and perhaps to gain part of what one
wants, is lost. Political education today seems unable to teach the lessons of our political history:
Persistent civic engagement the slow, patient building of first coalitions and then majorities can
generate social change. (Carter and Elshtain, 1997.)¶ A message of importance, therefore, is that politics need not, indeed must not, be
a zero-sum game. The idea that "winner takes all" has no place in a democracy, because if losers lose all they will opt out of the democratic
game. Sharing is essential in a democratic society the sharing of power, of resources, and of responsibilities. In a
democratic society
the possibility of effecting social change is ever present, if citizens have the knowledge, the skills and the
will to bring it about. That knowledge, those skills and the will or necessary traits of private and public
character are the products of a good civic education.
The impact is extinction
Diamond 95 - Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, December 1995, Promoting
Democracy in the 1990s, http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/1.htm
OTHER THREATS This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former
Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through
increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted
the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate.
The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these
new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or
absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness.
LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons.
2NC Agonism
It’s this democratic agonism, that allows change with radical implications to be
allowed into institutions such as the debate community, their extreme radical position
alone would never work to create that change, but the antagonist debate over it is key
– we solve the endpoint of their advocacy
Mouffe 5 [Chantal Mouffe; Belgian political theorist, held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and the CNRS (Paris). Currently
holds a professorship at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster in the United Kingdom, where she
directs the Centre for the Study of Democracy 2005; “On the Political: Thinking in Action” //AnthonyOgbuli]
While it was no doubt important for the left to come to terms with the importance of pluralism and
liberal democratic political institutions, this should not have meant abandoning all attempts to
transform the present hegemonic order and accepting the view that 'really existing liberal democratic
societies' represent the end of history. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the failure of communism it is that the democratic
struggle should not be envisaged in terms of friend/ enemy and that liberal democracy is not the enemy to be destroyed. If we take
'liberty and equality for all' as the 'ethico-political' principles of liberal democracy (what Montesquieu denned as
'the passions that move a regime'), it is clear that the problem with our societies is not their proclaimed ideals but
the fact that those ideals are not put into practice. So the task for the left is not to reject them, with the argument
that they are a sham, a cover for capitalist domination, but to fight for their effective implementation. And this of course
cannot be done without challenging the current neo-liberal mode of capitalist regulation. This is why such a struggle, if it should not be
envisaged in terms of friend/enemy, cannot be simply envisaged as a mere competition of interests or on the 'dialogic' mode. Now, this is
precisely how most left-wing parties visualize democratic1 politics nowadays. To revitalize democracy, it is urgent to gel? out of this impasse.
My claim is that, thanks to the idea of the 'adversary', the agonistic approach that I am proposing could
contribute to a revitalization and deepening of democracy. It also offers the possibility of envisaging the left's perspective
in an hegemonic way. Adversaries inscribe their confrontation within the democratic framework, but this
framework is not seen as something immutable: it is susceptible of being redefined through hegemonic
struggle. An agonistic conception of democracy acknowledges the contingent character of the hegemonic politico-economic articulations
which determine the specific configuration of a society at a given moment. They are precarious and pragmatic constructions which can be
disarticulated and transformed as a result of the agonistic struggle among the adversaries.Slavoj Zizek
is therefore mistaken to
assert that the agonistic approach is unable to challenge the status quo and ends up accepting liberal
democracy in its present stage.21 What an agonistic approach certainly disavows is the possibility of an act of radical refoundation
that would institute a new social Order from scratch. But a number of very important socioeconomic and political
transformations, with radical implications, are possible within the context of liberal democratic
institutions. What we understand by 'liberal democracy' is instituted by sedimented forms of power relations resulting from an ensemble of
contingent hegemonic interventions. The fact that their contingent character is not recognized today is due to the absence of counterhegemonic projects. But we should not fall again into the trap of believing that their transformation requires a total rejection of the liberaldemocratic framework. There are many ways in which the democratic 'language-game' - to borrow a term from Wittgenstein — can be played,
and the
agonistic struggle should bring about new meanings and fields of application for the idea of
democracy to be radicalized. This is, in my View, the effective way to challenge power relations, not on the mode of an abstract
negation but in a properly hegemonic way, through a process of disarticulation of existing practices and creation of new discourses and
institutions. Contrary to the various liberal models, the
agonistic approach that I am advocating acknowledges that
society is always politically instituted and never forgets that the terrain in which hegemonic
interventions take place is always the outcome of previous hegemonic practices and that it is never a
neutral' one. This is why it denies the possibility of a non-adversarial democratic politics and criticizes those who, by ignoring the
dimension of 'the political', reduce politics to a set on supposedly technical moves and neutral procedures.
2NC Gutmann and Thompson
Abandoning deliberative debate results in the tyranny of structurelessness which
inevitably annihilates the other
Tonn 5—Prof of Communication @ Maryland
Mari Boor, Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy Public, Rhetoric & Public Affairs 8.3 (2005) 405430, muse
In certain ways, Schudson's initial reluctance to dismiss public conversation echoes my own early reservations, given the ideals of
egalitarianism, empowerment, and mutual respect conversational advocates champion. Still, in the spirit of the dialectic ostensibly underlying
dialogic premises, this essay argues that various
negative consequences can result from transporting
conversational and therapeutic paradigms into public problem solving. In what follows, I extend Schudson's
critique of a conversational model for democracy in two ways: First, whereas Schudson primarily offers a theoretical analysis, I interrogate
public conversation as a praxis in a variety of venues, illustrating how public
"conversation" and "dialogue" have been
coopted to silence rather [End Page 407] than empower marginalized or dissenting voices. In practice, public
conversation easily can emulate what feminist political scientist Jo Freeman termed "the tyranny of structurelessness" in her classic 1970
critique of consciousness-raising groups in the women's liberation movement,15 as well as the key traits Irving L. Janis ascribes to
"groupthink."16Thus, contrary
to its promotion as a means to neutralize hierarchy and exclusion in the
public sphere, public conversation can and has accomplished the reverse. When such moves are rendered
transparent, public conversation and dialogue, I contend, risk increasing rather than diminishing political cynicism and alienation. Second,
whereas Schudson focuses largely on ways a conversational model for democracy may mute an individual's voice in crafting a resolution on a
given question at a given time, I draw upon insights of Dana L. Cloud and othersto consider ways in which a therapeutic, conversational
approach to public problems can stymie productive, collective action in two respects.17 First, because
conversation has no
clearly defined goal, a public conversation may engender inertia as participants become mired in
repeated airings of personal experiences without a mechanism to lend such expressions direction and closure. As Freeman
aptly notes, although "[u]nstructured groups may be very effective in getting [people] to talk about their lives[,] they aren't very good for
getting things done. Unless
their mode of operation changes, groups flounder at the point where people tire
of 'just talking.'"18 Second, because the therapeutic bent of much public conversation locates social ills and remedies within individuals
or dynamics of interpersonal relationships, public conversations and dialogues risk becoming substitutes for policy formation necessary to
correct structural dimensions of social problems. In mimicking the emphasis on the individual in therapy, Cloud warns, the therapeutic rhetoric
of "healing, consolation, and adaptation or adjustment" tends to "encourage citizens to perceive political issues, conflicts, and inequities as
personal failures subject to personal amelioration."19
This rejection of structured clash makes debate into an echo chamber. This
impoverishes their project even if it is right
Talisse 5—Professor of Philosophy @Vandy
Robert, Philosophy & Social Criticism, Deliberativist responses to activist challenges, 31(4) p. 429-431
The argument thus far might appear to turn exclusively upon different conceptions of what reasonableness entails. The deliberativist view I
have sketched holds that reasonableness
involves some degree of what we may call epistemic modesty. On this
view, the reasonable citizen seeks to have her beliefs reflect the best available reasons, and so she
enters into public discourse as a way of testing her views against the objections and questions of those who disagree;
hence she implicitly holds that her present view is open to reasonable critique and that others who hold opposing views may be able to offer
justifications for their views that are at least as strong as her reasons for her own. Thus any
mode of politics that presumes that
discourse is extraneous to questions of justice and justification is unreasonable. The activist sees no reason to
accept this. Reasonableness for the activist consists in the ability to act on reasons that upon due reflection seem adequate to underwrite
action; discussion with those who disagree need not be involved. According to the activist, there are certain cases in which he does in fact know
the truth about what justice requires and in which there is no room for reasoned objection. Under such conditions, the deliberativist’s demand
for discussion can only obstruct justice; it is therefore irrational. It may seem that we have reached an impasse. However, there is a further line
of criticism that the activist must face. To the activist’s view that at least in certain situations he may reasonably decline to engage with persons
he disagrees with (107), the deliberative democrat can raise the phenomenon that Cass Sunstein has called ‘group polarization’ (Sunstein, 2003;
2001a: ch. 3; 2001b: ch. 1). To explain: consider that political activists cannot eschew deliberation altogether; they often engage in rallies,
demonstrations, teach-ins, workshops, and other activities in which they are called to make public the case for their views. Activists also must
engage in deliberation among themselves when deciding strategy. Political movements must be organized, hence those involved must decide
upon targets, methods, and tactics; they must also decide upon the content of their pamphlets and the precise messages they most wish to
convey to the press. Often the audience in both of these deliberative contexts will be a self-selected and sympathetic group of like-minded
activists. Group
polarization is a well-documented phenomenon that has ‘been found all over the world
it means that ‘members of a deliberating group predictably move towards a more
extreme point in the direction indicated by the members’ predeliberation tendencies’ (Sunstein, 2003: 81–2).
and in many diverse tasks’;
Importantly, in groups that ‘engage in repeated discussions’ over time, the polarization is even more pronounced (2003: 86 Hence discussion in
a small but devoted activist enclave that meets regularly to strategize and protest ‘should produce a situation in which individuals hold
positions more extreme than those of any individual member before the series of deliberations began’ (ibid.) 17 The fact of group polarization
is relevant to our discussion because the activist has proposed that he may reasonably decline to engage in discussion with those with whom he
disagrees in cases in which the requirements of justice are so clear that he can be confident that he has the truth. Group
polarization
suggests that deliberatively confronting those with whom we disagree is essential even when we have
the truth. For even if we have the truth, if we do not engage opposing views, but instead deliberate only with
those with whom we agree, our view will shift progressively to a more extreme point, and thus we
lose the truth. In order to avoid polarization, deliberation must take place within heterogeneous ‘argument pools’ (Sunstein, 2003: 93).
This of course does not mean that there should be no groups devoted to the achievement of some
common political goal; it rather suggests that engagement with those with whom one disagrees is
essential to the proper pursuit of justice. Insofar as the activist denies this, he is unreasonable.
for a larger community or for the country. This is the path to democratic decline–and we are on it.
1NR
T
The United States is a collection of fifty states and the federal government that is
granted constitutional power to govern
American Civil Procedure: A Guide to Civil Adjudication in US Courts, Edited by John Bilyeu Oakley, Professor of Law at the University of
California, Davis, and Vikram D. Amar, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the School of Law of the University of
California at Davis, Kluwer Law International, 20
09, page 19
Although it is commonplace today to refer to “the United States” as a single entity and as the subject
of statements that grammatically employ singular verbs, it is important to remember that “the United
States” remains in many important ways a collective term. The enduring legal significance of the fifty states that
together constitute the United States, and their essential dominion over most legal matters affecting day-to-day life within the United States,
vastly complicates any attempt to summarize the civil procedures within the United States. Within
the community of nations,
the United States is a geopolitical superpower that acts through a federal government granted
constitutionally specified and limited powers. The organizing principle of the federal Constitution,1
however, is one of popular sovereignty, with governmental powers distributed in the first instance to
republican institutions of government organized autonomously and uniquely in each of the fifty
states. Although there are substantial similarities in the organization of state governments, idiosyncrasies abound.
Case
Value to life is intrinsic
Schwarz 2
Schwartz, Lecturer in Philosophy of Medicine at the Department of General Practice at the University of
Glasgow ‘2 (Lisa, “Medical Ethic: A case-based approach, Chapter 6: A Value to Life: Who Decides and
How?”)
The second assertion made by supporters of the quality of life as a criterion for decisionmaking
is closely related to the first, but with an added dimension. This assertion suggests that the
determination of the value of the quality of a given life is a subjective determination to be
made by the person experiencing that life. The important addition here is that the decision is a
personal one that, ideally, ought not to be made externally by another person but internally by
the individual involved. Katherine Lewis made this decision for herself based on a comparison
between two stages of her life. So did James Brady. Without this element, decisions based on
quality of life criteria lack salient information and the patients concerned cannot give informed
consent. Patients must be given the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they think
their lives are worth living or not. To ignore or overlook patients’ judgement in this matter is to
violate their autonomy and their freedom to decide for themselves on the basis of relevant
information about their future, and comparative consideration of their past. As the deontological
position puts it so well, to do so is to violate the imperative that we must treat persons as
rational and as ends in themselves.
K
Perm
The only way to ensure avoiding harms is to straight up reject all instances of the
affirmative
Szasz 6 (Thomas Szasz, 2006, veteran; author; National Board of Medical Examiners; Cornell University Law School;
University of Essex; University of Queensland Medical School; Honorary president, International Commission for
Human Rights, London; Member of board of directors, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, “Mental illness:
sickness or status?” http://www.szasz.com/freeman15.html)
Popular belief and scientific dogma notwithstanding, the term "mental
illness" refers to unwanted behavior, not medical
malady. Derivatively, the term refers to the role of "mental patient," a social role imbued with farreaching legal and political implications. The law assumes that persons called "mental patients" are more
likely to be dangerous to themselves and / or others than are persons not so called, an assumption most people
accept as self-evident fact. Herein lies the source of the psychiatrist's traditional social obligation to control "harm to self and/or others," that is,
suicide and crime. We are cast into roles before we come into this world and inexorably after we enter it. We
are assigned a name, an age, a gender, and a religion. John Doe, infant, male, Protestant. Years pass, during which the roles ascribed
to us multiply and form our sense of self, the "I." The child says, "I am John, my brother is Michael, my mother is Mom,
my father is Dad, and my dog is Puppy." John is being taught his role, his identity. He is beginning to learn
"his place" and play his part in his family, school, society, and world. From an early age, the child is
told many other things as well: that he is excitable, or disobedient, or selfish, or clever, or a Mama's
boy; or perhaps that he is odd and crazy. As he hears such messages habitually directed at him, he is
likely to become the person the important others tell him he is. Psychologists call this the self-fulfilling prophecy. It is a good
term, but it is too narrow. The notion overlooks that the individual cast into a role is not a mannequin whom others are
free to dress as they please. The subject cast into a particular role is also an active agent --- even as a child, and
increasingly as he ages -- free (within limits) to submit to and embrace or resist and reject the role into which others
seek to cast him. Being the member of a community, a religion, a nation, a civilization entails joining the cast of a particular national-religious-cultural
drama and accepting certain parts of the play as facts, not just props necessary to support the narrative. Thus, we in the West today accept as
facts that the earth is spherical, that lead is heavier than water, that malaria, melanoma, and mental
illness are diseases. As against this perspective, I maintain that while there are mental patients, there are no mental
illnesses. There is no mental illness or madness either -- in the bodies of the denominated subjects or in nature. Instead, there is a mental
illness role into which a person is cast by his family and society, which he then assumes and plays, or against
which he rebels and from which he tries to escape. Occasionally, individuals teach themselves how to
be mental patients and assume the role without parental or societal pressure to do so, in order to escape
certain unbearably painful situations or the burdens of ordinary life. Life is full of dangers. Magic and religion are
mankind's earliest warning systems. Science arrived on the scene only about 400 years ago, and scientific medicine only 200 years ago. We flatter and deceive
ourselves if we believe that we have outgrown the apotropaic use of language (from the Greek apostropaios, meaning "to turn away"). Many people derive
comfort from magical objects (amulets), and virtually everyone finds reassurance in magical words (incantations). The classic example of an apotropaic is the
word "abracadabra," which The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines as "a magical charm or incantation having the power to ward off
disease or disaster." I submit that we
use phrases like "mental illness," "dangerousness to self and others," and
"psychiatric treatment" as apotropaics to ward off dangers we fear, much as ancient magicians warded
off the dangers people feared by means of incantations. Growing reliance on compulsory mental health
interventions for protection against crime and suicide illustrate the phenomenon. Physicians, criminologists,
politicians, and the public use advances in medicine and neuroscience to convince themselves that such interventions are "scientific" and do not violate the
moral and legal foundations of English and American law. This is a serious error. Many years ago I suggested that "formerly, when religion was strong and science
weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic." In 1960, when I first publicly asserted
that mental illness is a myth, I meant to remind people that, according to scientific-medical definition, disease is a predicate of bodies. If we accept that
definition, we need not examine any particular person to know that he does not have a mental illness. Separating
literal from metaphorical
diseases is a variation on Kant's theme of separating "analytic truths" from "synthetic truths." We know that
bachelors are unmarried without investigating their marital status. The truth of an analytic proposition is contained in the meaning of the words involved.
Analytic truths are "truths of reason," based on logic and the precise use of language. Conversely, we know that lead is heavier than water by reference to
appropriate observations or reliable records. The
truth of a synthetic proposition is contingent on what we call and
accept as "facts." Physicians discover diseases, such as malaria. Psychiatrists construct and deconstruct
diseases, such as homosexuality. We need linguistic methods to verify or falsify analytic statements,
empirical methods, to verify or falsify synthetic statements. Diseases have causes, such as infectious agents or nutritional
deficiencies, and often can be prevented or cured by dealing with these causes. Persons have reasons for their actions, regardless of
whether they are said to have or not have mental diseases. It is as foolish to look for the causes or
cures of the behaviors we call "mental illnesses" as it would be to look for the causes and cures of the
behaviors we call "religions." Action, behavior, conduct, call it what you will, is goal-directed and meaningful. Unless it's "senseless mental
illness."
Link
Medicalization is the FRAMEWORK in which thanatopolitics may exert violence -increasing the power of physicians over life gives justification for the creation of bare
life and war
Stuart Elden, politics at University of Warwick, 2/29/2002 [“The War of Races and the Constitution of
the State: Foucault's «Il faut défendre la société» and the Politics of Calculation,” Boundary,
http://boundary2.dukejournals.org/content/29/1/125.full.pdf]
The reverse side is the power to allow death. State racism is a recoding of the old mechanisms of blood
through the new procedures of regulation. Racism, as biologizing, as tied to a state, takes shape where the
procedures of intervention "at the level of the body, conduct, health, and everyday life, received their
color and their justification from the mythical concern with protecting the purity of the blood and
ensuring the triumph of the race" (VS, 197; WK, 149). 37 For example, the old anti-Semitism based on religion is reused under the
new rubric of state racism. The integrity and purity of the race is threatened, and the state apparatuses are introduced against the race that has
infiltrated and introduced noxious elements into the body. The Jews are characterized as the race present in the middle of all races (FDS, 76).
38 The
use of medical language is important. Because certain groups in society are conceived of in
medical terms, society is no longer in need of being defended from the outsider but from the insider:
the abnormal in behavior, species, or race. What is novel is not the mentality of power but the
technology of power (FDS, 230). The recoding of old problems is made possible through new techniques. A
break or cut (coupure) is fundamental to racism: a division or incision between those who must live and those who
must die. The "biological continuum of the human species" is fragmented by the apparition of races, which are
seen as distinguished, hierarchized, qualified as good or inferior, and so forth. The species is subdivided into subgroups that
are thought of as races. In a sense, then, just as the continuum of geometry becomes divisible in Descartes, 39 the human
continuum is divided, that is, made calculable and orderable, two centuries later. As Anderson has persuasively
argued, to suggest that racism has its roots in nationalism is a mistake. He suggests that "the dreams of racism actually
have their origin in ideologies of class, rather than in those of nation: above all in claims to divinity among rulers and to ‘blue' or ‘white' blood
and breeding among aristocracies." 40 As Stoler has noted, for Foucault, it is the other way around: "A discourse of class derives from an earlier
discourse of races." 41 But it is a more subtle distinction than [End Page 147] that. What Foucault suggests is that discourses of class have their
roots in the war of races, but so, too, does modern racism; what is different is the biological spin put on the concepts. 42 But as well as
emphasizing the biological, modern racism puts this another way: to survive, to live, one must be prepared to massacre one's enemies, a
relation of war. As a relation of war, this is no different from the earlier war of races that Foucault has spent so much of the course explaining.
But when coupled with the mechanisms of mathematics and medicine in bio-power, this can be conceived of in entirely different ways. Bio-
power is able to establish, between my life and the death of the other, a relation that is not warlike or confrontational
but biological: "The more inferior species tend to disappear, the more abnormal individuals can be eliminated, the less the
species will be degenerated, the more I—not as an individual but as a species—will live, will be strong, will be vigorous, will be able to
proliferate." The death of the other does not just make me safer personally, but the death of the other, of the bad, inferior race or the
existence in question is no longer of
sovereignty, juridical; but that of the population, biological. If genocide is truly the dream of
modern powers, this is not because of a return today of the ancient right to kill; it is because power is
situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population" (VS, 180; WK,
136). "If the power of normalization wishes to exercise the ancient sovereign right of killing, it must pass through racism. And if, inversely, a
sovereign power, that is to say a power with the right of life and death, wishes to function with the instruments,
mechanisms, and technology of normalization, it must also pass through racism" (FDS, 228). This holds for
indirect death—the exposure to death—as much as for direct killing. While not Darwinism, this biological sense of
degenerate or abnormal, makes life in general healthier and purer (FDS, 227–28). "The
power is based on evolutionism and enables a thinking of colonial relations, the necessity of wars, criminality, phenomena of madness and
mental illness, class divisions, and so forth. The link to colonialism is central: This form of modern state racism develops first with colonial
genocide. The theme of the political enemy is extrapolated biologically. But what is important in the shift at the end of
the nineteenth century is that war is no longer simply a way of securing one race by eliminating the other but of regenerating that race (FDS,
228–30). As Foucault puts it in La volonté de savoir: [End Page 148] Wars are
no longer waged in the name of a
sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of all; entire
populations are mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life
necessity. Massacres have become vital [vitaux—understood in a dual sense, both as essential and biological]. It is as managers of
life and survival, of bodies and the race, that so many regimes have been able to wage so many wars,
causing so many men to be killed. (VS, 180; WK, 136)
Medicalizing suicide grants power over death to physicians, legitimizing the control of
culture by medicine and causing the physician’s role to inflate inappropriately
Salem 99 (Tania, Associate, Hospital Operations & Compliance at The Advisory Group W.L.L.,
“Physician-Assisted Suicide: Promoting Autonomy—Or Medicalizing Suicide?” Hastings Center Report,
Volume 29, Issue 3, May-June 1999, pgs 30-36)
Medicalizing suicide also points to the fact that if legalized, physician-assisted suicide as a legitimate
practice would become the prerogative of physicians. Indeed, Jack Kevorkian has seen the exclusive right as the
foundation for a new medical subspeciality of “obitiatry.”17 This monopoly leads to the more general question of why
aid in dying should be provided only by a medical practitioner. Why, that is, should assistance in
suicide be understood as requiring medical authority rather than, for instance, a community of family
or friends? The most obvious answer is that physicians—and only physicians—have the necessary technical skills to ensure a “rapid” and
“painless” death. But as some critics have noted, “Assisted suicide does not even require medical skill…. If freeing up
patients truly is the goal, then assisted suicide's advocates disserve patients when they do not
advocate ending the physician's exclusive power to prescribe medication. Ironically, the advocates
of patients’ rights end up empowering doctors more than they do patients .”18 Yet even those who
maintain that technical knowledge is imperative do not confine their justification of physician-assisted suicide to this reason. Placing suicide
under the stewardship of medicine is further defended as a way of “enhancing public accountability of the practice” and “protecting against
abuse.”19 From
the patient's perspective, the request for aid in dying may mean a “desire for
companionship in pursuing a difficult course of action, a wish for confirmation of a decision about
which the patient is unsure or simply a cry for help” (pp. 88–89, note 42). Moreover, since suicide is
still stigmatized, “seeking a physician's assistance may be a way of trying to remove that stigma.”20
But inasmuch as cultural preconceptions and loneliness (whatever its source) are far from being
exclusively medical issues, we must ask why we expect doctors to respond to them. Two possible answers
come to mind: either medicine is moving beyond its proper role, or the scope of medical competence has
already been extended beyond appropriate boundaries. It seems reasonable to conclude that ceding
monopoly of assistance in suicide to doctors is anchored in an inflation of the physician's role, as well
as in the extreme idealization of physicians’ character and the relationships they establish with
patients. The bond physicians establish with patients is supposedly effective, collaborative, and
committed.21 Both this idealization and the willingness to delegate to physicians the exclusive right
to assist suicide bespeaks the social and symbolic power already conferred on medicine and medical
professionals in our societies. In other words, it is not (or not only) the need for technical expertise that impels us to physicianassisted suicide. Rather, our culture, so impregnated by medicalization, takes for granted that assisted suicide should
fall under the control and supervision of medicine.
Impact Debate
Szasz evidence indicates the worst forms of this violence will create structures where
scapegoating ate the inevitable result. This tunrs the
The right to die, is skewed by psychological capacity
Szasz 99 [THOMAS SZASZ; Fatal Freedom: The Ethics and Politics of Suicide; Fatal Freedom: Rethinking
Suicide; 1999//TonyPlayBoy]
Despite widespread opposition to autonomous suicide and increasing support for¶ medicalized “suicide,”
physicians, lawyers, and journalists maintain that autonomy is¶ our supreme national value and that
physicians promote and safeguard “patient¶ autonomy.” The following opinion by Timothy E. Quill and Howard Brody (1996)
--¶ two respected writers on medical ethics -- is typical. Not satisfied with respecting¶ persons as moral agents, endowed with rights and
responsibilities, Quill
and Brody¶ propose an “enhanced autonomy model [which] allows the physician to
support and¶ guide the patient without surrendering the medical power on which the patient depends”¶ (p.
765). What they mean by “enhanced autonomy” is this: “Other moral considerations¶ may override an
individual patient’s right to autonomous choice or even to participate¶ in the decision. Justice may demand that
one patient is not given what is individually¶ optimal because another patient has a greater moral entitlement to a scarce resource. ..¶ . Mental
competence must be assured before patients can be allowed to make decisions¶ that appear to be against
their own best interests (for example, a suicidal patient who¶ wants to be discharged probably should not
be)” (1996, pp. 767-768; emphasis added).¶ In other words, a patient has “enhanced autonomy” when physicians
deprive him of his right to autonomous choice” to satisfy the needs of “another patient [who] has a¶
greater moral entitlement to a scarce resource.” This statement requires no further¶ comment.¶ Being
terminally ill in a hospital, much less being on a ventilator, reduces the¶ subject’s autonomy to the
vanishing point. That may be one of the reasons why writers¶ on end-of-life decisions vociferously
proclaim their devotion to “patient autonomy,”¶ believe that some patients have a “right to physicianassisted suicide,” and insist that,¶ despite the fact that the term “physician-assisted suicide” contains the
word, physician-assisted suicide is not suicide. Helping such a person die -- indirectly, by disconnecting¶
life-sustaining treatment, or directly, by “euthanizing” him -- may or may not be morally¶ blameworthy or
praiseworthy. But that is not the point. The point is that such acts have¶ nothing to do with the patient’s
autonomy. Nor are those acts suicide (or physician-assisted suicide), even if they are carried out at the
request of and with the consent of the¶ patient. A physician who removes a patient from life support with the patient’s
consent¶ performs a deed that may, morally, be comparable to placing the patient on life support¶ with the patient’s consent. In each case,
the patient is the principal and the physician is¶ his agent. If the patient authorizes the physician’s
removing his life support, then the act¶ is an instance of justifiable medical homicide; if the patient does
not authorize it, then it¶ is an instance of unjustifiable medical homicide.¶ Medical killing is medical killing.
It exists and we ought to have an adequate¶ vocabulary for describing its various forms. Medical killing has
nothing to do with¶ autonomy. A ventilator supporting a person’s respiration is like a beam supporting a¶ platform: remove the
support and the object it supports -- the human body or the¶ platform -- collapses. If a patient discontinues his own life support -- as do some
patients¶ on hemodialysis -- then he terminates his own life: he kills himself (autohomicide).¶ Conversely, if someone else discontinues a patient’s
life support -- which is the case¶ with patients on mechanical ventilators -- then that person terminates the patient’s life:¶ he kills another person
(heterohomicide).¶ Many years ago, I suggested (1976/1985) that “There
is only one offense against¶ authority: self-control;
and only one obeisance to it: submission to control by authority.Ӧ The person who controls himself and
cares for his own well being has no need of, or¶ tolerance for, an authority as his protector from himself.
He is his own self-protector.¶ Which renders paternalistic authority unemployed. What is he to do if he cannot
control¶ others in the name of protecting them? He could mind his own business. But that is a¶ fatuous answer. Persons satisfied with minding
their own business do not aspire to¶ become paternalistic authorities, while persons who become such authorities consider¶ minding other
peoples’ business their own business and call it “caring” and “assuming¶ responsibility.” Authrity
thus needs persons who lack
autonomy or whom they can¶ readily deprive of it (children, old people, and patients). Hence the
ceaseless warfare of¶ authority against autonomy, “against suicide, against masturbation, against self-medication,
against the proper use of language itself” (Szasz, 1976/1985).