Round 7
1nc
1
Democrats will keep the Senate now—best statistical models
Wang 9-9-14 (Sam, professor, Princeton University, "Democrats Now Have a Seventy-Per-Cent Chance of Retaining Control of
the Senate" New Yorker) www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/democrats-seventy-per-cent-chance-retaining-control-senate
In addition to polling data, these analysts are taking into account “fundamentals”—factors that
supposedly capture the state of the political playing field—like incumbency, campaign funding,
prior experience, and President Obama’s job-approval rating. Fundamentals can be useful when
there are no polls to reference. But polls, when they are available, capture public opinion much
better than a model does. In 2012, on Election Eve, for example, the P rinceton E lection C onsortium
relied on polls alone to predict every single Senate race correctly , while Silver, who used a pollsplus-fundamentals approach, called two races incorrectly, missing Heidi Heitkamp’s victory, in North Dakota,
and Jon Tester’s, in Montana. The Princeton Election Consortium generates a poll-based snapshot in
which the win/lose probabilities in all races are combined to generate a distribution of all possible
outcomes. The average of all outcomes, based on today’s polls, is 50.5 Democratic and
Independent seats (two Independents, Bernie Sanders and Angus King, currently caucus with the Democrats). Simplicity,
Simplicity, Simplicity! I did not always appreciate the importance of sticking closely to polling data. I first started analyzing polls
during the 2004 Presidential campaign, in which John Kerry and George W. Bush traded the Electoral College lead three times
between June and November. An October calculation based purely on polls suggested that Bush would win. However, I added an
extra assumption: that undecided voters would break by two percentage points toward Kerry. On Election Day, the president of my
university e-mailed me asking for my final prediction. I told her, with confidence, that it would be Kerry. It was a humbling mistake.
Because polls
have better predictive value than fundamentals do, it would seem prudent to ask what an
unadulterated poll-based snapshot of the Senate race looks like. Today, it looks like this: wang_02 Based on this calculation, if the
elections were held today, Democrats and Independents would control the chamber with an eighty-per-cent probability. (The green
section accounts for Greg Orman, the Independent candidate in Kansas, who would provide the fiftieth vote. Orman has said that he
would caucus with the majority, that he would caucus with the other Independents, and that he wants to break the Senate gridlock.
For this histogram, I have graphed him as caucusing with the Democrats.) But can a snapshot of today’s polls really
tell us that much about an election held eight weeks from now? As it turns out, it might. A poll-based
snapshot moves up and down, like the price of a stock. That movement can show us the range of
the most likely outcomes for Election Day. The chart below displays those ups and downs. On the
right is a zone of highest probability, drawn out in much in the same style as a hurricane strike zone on a weather map. This area
indicates where the campaign is most likely to land. wang_03 At the point marked November, the smaller bracket
indicates the “two-sigma range,” where I estimate about eighty-five per cent of outcomes should
fall. Near the center of this range is the most probable outcome—an equal split of seats, fifty
Democratic and Independent, and fifty Republican, a situation in which the Democrats would retain control. The
entire range includes the additional possibilities of a fifty-one-to-forty-nine split in either direction, as well as a fifty-two-to-forty-eight
split favoring the Democrats and Independents. By adding up the parts of the strike zone that encompass fifty
or more Democratic and Independent votes, it is possible to estimate the probability of sustained
Democratic control after the election: seventy per cent. A more accurate way to interpret the current state of the
race is this: At the start of 2014, conditions slightly favored the G.O.P., when measured by
fundamentals. Based on opinion polls, Democrats are currently outperforming those
expectations. The shape of next year’s Senate is based on whether that level of performance will continue.
Pot ballot initiatives cause youth turnout – which is key to Democratic victory
Dunkelberger ‘14
Lloyd Dunkelberger, staffwriter for The Ledger Tallahassee Bureau, 1/28/14, “Florida's Marijuana Vote Could Affect Other Races”
http://www.theledger.com/article/20140128/NEWS/140129089?p=1&tc=pg
But the
key variable is this: Voting in nonpresidential election years typically skews older, while
polls show support for the marijuana initiative is strongest among the youngest voters.
larger turnout among younger voters — who don't typically show up in big
numbers in nonpresidential years — could help Democrats, as demonstrated by President Barack Obama in his
So on the surface, a
last two successful elections in Florida.
"Very few people are single-issue
voters. But that issue could be a mobilizing issue for younger
voters," said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.
A GOP senate destroys the Iran deal
Julian Pecquet, journalist, “GOP Senate Takeover Could Kill Iran Deal,” THE HILL, 1—23—14,
http://thehill.com/policy/international/196170-gop-senate-takeover-could-kill-iran-nuclear, accessed 5-31-14.
A Republican takeover of the Senate this fall could scuttle one of President Obama’s biggest
second term goals — a nuclear deal with Iran. Republicans have lambasted the interim agreement
with Iran, calling for the Senate to move an Iran sanctions bill. The House last year passed a measure in an
overwhelming and bipartisan 400-20 vote. Both the Obama administration and Iran have warned moving
such a measure could kill a final deal. A number of Democrats have also criticized the interim accord, which lifted $6
billion in sanctions on Iran in exchange for a commitment to restrictions on enriching uranium. Critics in both parties say the deal
gave away too much to Iran. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has given Obama cover by refusing to
bring sanctions legislation to the floor. If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) becomes
majority leader, sanctions legislation could move quickly to the floor and could attract a vetoproof majority. “If Republicans held the majority, we would have voted already; with Democrats in charge,
Harry Reid denies the American people the bipartisan diplomatic insurance policy they deserve, ” a
senior Republican Senate aide complained. The aide suggested Republicans would use the issue of Iran to show
how a GOP-run Senate would differ with the status quo. “So the question really is, what kind of Senate would
people rather have — one that puts politics over good policy, or one that holds Iran accountable and works overtime to prevent a
world with Iranian nuclear weapons?” the aide asked. A total of 59 senators — 16 Democrats and every
Republican save two — have co-sponsored the sanctions bill from Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark
Kirk (R-Ill.). Republicans need to gain six seats to win back the majority, something within their grasp this year.
The party is a solid favorite to pick up seats in West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana, and believes it could also secure wins in
Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
Causes Israel strikes
Perr 13 – B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University; technology marketing consultant based in Portland,
Oregon. Jon has long been active in Democratic politics and public policy as an organizer and advisor in California
and Massachusetts. His past roles include field staffer for Gary Hart for President (1984), organizer of Silicon Valley
tech executives backing President Clinton's call for national education standards (1997), recruiter of tech executives
for Al Gore's and John Kerry's presidential campaigns, and co-coordinator of MassTech for Robert Reich (2002).
12/24 (Jon, “Senate sanctions bill could let Israel take U.S. to war against Iran” Daily Kos,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/24/1265184/-Senate-sanctions-bill-could-let-Israel-take-U-S-to-war-againstIran#
As 2013 draws to close, the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program have entered a delicate stage. But in 2014, the tensions will escalate
dramatically as a bipartisan group of Senators brings a new Iran sanctions bill to the floor for a vote. As many others have warned, that
promise of new measures against Tehran will almost certainly blow up the interim deal reached by the Obama administration and its UN/EU partners in
Geneva. But Congress' highly unusual intervention into the President's domain of foreign policy doesn't just make the prospect of an American conflict
empowers Israel to decide whether the United
States will go to war against Tehran. On their own, the tough new sanctions imposed automatically if a final deal isn't completed in six
months pose a daunting enough challenge for President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. But it is the legislation's commitment
to support an Israeli preventive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities that almost ensures the U.S. and Iran will
come to blows. As Section 2b, part 5 of the draft mandates: If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate selfwith Iran more likely. As it turns out, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act essentially
defense against Iran's nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the
United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the
Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence. Now, the legislation being pushed by Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL), Chuck
Schumer (D-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) does not automatically give the President an authorization to use force should Israel attack the
Iranians. (The draft language above explicitly states that the U.S. government must act "in accordance with the law of the United States and the
constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force.") But there should be little doubt that an AUMF would be forthcoming
from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle. As Lindsey Graham, who with Menendez co-sponsored a similar, non-binding "stand with Israel"
resolution in March told a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) conference in July: "If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a
resolution that will authorize the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb." Graham would have plenty of company from the
hardest of hard liners in his party. In August 2012, Romney national security adviser and pardoned Iran-Contra architect Elliott Abrams called for a war
authorization in the pages of the Weekly Standard. And just two weeks ago, Norman Podhoretz used his Wall Street Journal op-ed to urge the Obama
the lack of an explicit AUMF in the
Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act doesn't mean its supporters aren't giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu de facto
carte blanche to hit Iranian nuclear facilities. The ensuing Iranian retaliation against to Israeli and American
interests would almost certainly trigger the commitment of U.S. forces anyway. Even if the Israelis alone launched a strike
administration to "strike Iran now" to avoid "the nuclear war sure to come." But at the end of the day,
against Iran's atomic sites, Tehran will almost certainly hit back against U.S. targets in the Straits of Hormuz, in the region, possibly in Europe and even
potentially in the American homeland. Israel would face certain retaliation from Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon and Hamas missiles raining
down from Gaza. That's why former Bush Defense Secretary Bob Gates and CIA head Michael Hayden raising the alarms about the "disastrous"
impact of the supposedly surgical strikes against the Ayatollah's nuclear infrastructure. As the New York Times reported in March 2012, "A classified
war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an
Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a
wider regional war , which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials." And that
September, a bipartisan group of U.S. foreign policy leaders including Brent Scowcroft, retired Admiral William Fallon, former Republican Senator (now
Obama Pentagon chief) Chuck Hagel, retired General Anthony Zinni and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering concluded that American attacks with
the objective of "ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear bomb" would "need to conduct a significantly expanded air and sea war over a prolonged
period of time, likely several years." (Accomplishing regime change, the authors noted, would mean an occupation of Iran requiring a "commitment of
resources and personnel greater than what the U.S. has expended over the past 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.") The
anticipated blowback? Serious costs to U.S. interests would also be felt over the longer term, we believe, with problematic consequences for global
A dynamic of escalation , action, and counteraction could
produce serious unintended consequences that would significantly increase all of these costs and lead, potentially, to
all-out regional war.
and regional stability, including economic stability.
Escalates to major power war
Trabanco 9 – Independent researcher of geopoltical and military affairs (1/13/09, José Miguel Alonso Trabanco, “The Middle
Eastern Powder Keg Can Explode at anytime,” **http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11762**)
In case of an Israeli and/or American attack against Iran, Ahmadinejad's government will certainly respond. A
possible countermeasure would be to fire Persian ballistic missiles against Israel and maybe even against American military bases
in the regions. Teheran will unquestionably resort to its proxies like Hamas or Hezbollah (or even some of its Shiite allies it has
in Lebanon or Saudi Arabia) to carry out attacks against Israel, America and their allies, effectively setting in flames a large
portion of the Middle East. The ultimate weapon at Iranian disposal is to block the Strait of Hormuz. If such chokepoint is indeed
asphyxiated, that would dramatically increase the price of oil, this a very threatening retaliation because it will bring intense financial
and economic havoc upon the West, which is already facing significant trouble in those respects. In short, the necessary
conditions for a major war in the Middle East are given . Such conflict could rapidly spiral out of control
quickly and dangerously escalate by engulfing the whole region and perhaps
even beyond. There are many key players: the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Persians and their respective allies
and some great powers could become involved in one way or another (America, Russia, Europe, China).
and thus a relatively minor clash could
Therefore, any miscalculation by any of the main protagonists can trigger something no one can stop. Taking into consideration that
the stakes are too high, perhaps it is not wise to be playing with fire right in the middle of a powder keg.
2
Text: The fifty states of the United States should institute ballot initiatives in the
2014 elections to legalize all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether
growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant;
and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of
such plant, its seeds or resin through federal policy waivers.
Counterplan solves the aff – ballot initiatives for legalization will be approved
Andrea Billups, staffwriter for News Max, 5/6/14, “Marijuana Initiatives Could Bump Youth Vote, Help Democrats”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/marijuana-youth-vote-Florida-election/2014/05/06/id/569803/
As for changes in public opinion, Walker says it is only a matter of time before full legalization
occurs, noting that one recent poll found that 75 percent of Americans think that it is "inevitable." Differences in support
are marked between seniors who oppose it in high numbers and younger voters, who support it
overwhelmingly.
"The success of marijuana reform has often been driven by going to the ballot ," he said. " That has
been the modus operandi of the reform movement . I think we are going to see this play out big
time over the next two elections" in 2014 and 2016.
Counterplan solvency doesn’t prove their link turns – even if legalization is
popular, it isn’t important enough to make people vote FOR Democrats. The
counterplan incentivizes people who aren’t voting now but agree with Democrats
on most issues to come out in order to ensure that pot is legalized.
Waldman ‘14
(Paul Waldman, contributing editor for The American Prospect, 4/7/14, “What Marijuana Legalization Won't Be in 2016”
http://prospect.org/article/what-marijuana-legalization-wont-be-2016)
*gender modified
And with the rapid movement of public opinion in favor of legalization, it would be easy to
predict
that politicians are going to be changing their positions very soon, or as the Atlantic puts it in an article
today, "Weed Is the Sleeper Issue of 2016." OK, so we can put that headline down to an overzealous editor; the article itself, which
runs through the positions of a number of potential presidential candidates, shows that none of them have actually
changed their minds. (And a note of warning: if you see a reference to Rick Perry and "decriminalization," don't be confused.
Though he has used the word himself out of what may be confusion, what heactually wants is for the cops to arrest you for
possession and then send you to rehab instead of to jail. Which is better than going to jail, but not as good as just not being arrested
in the first place.)
There's no question that the political profile of this issue is changing fast. But I doubt we're going
to see much change from presidential candidates about it. This is where the analogy with same-sex marriage
doesn't hold.
As we all know, public
opinion on marriage equality shifted rapidly, and politicians shifted in
response. In 2008, for instance, all the contending Democratic presidential candidate supported civil unions, but none supported
full marriage rights. In the next presidential primary, all the Democrats will support marriage equality, and most if not all of the
Republicans will probably be in favor of some form of civil unions.
Public opinion on marijuana legalization is very similar to that of marriage equality, both in the
pattern of change and the correlation with age. Here are two graphs from the Pew Research Center that make it
clear:
Just looking at that, you
might predict that Democratic politicians would already be stampeding over
each other to come out for legalization. But the ones with national ambitions aren't yet , and they
may not for some time. The reason is that neither they nor voters see pot as nearly the kind of
profound moral question that marriage equality is. Putting aside for the moment the awful consequences of the
drug war, what we're mostly talking about when we talk about full legalization is whether people can
use pot recreationally without breaking the law, which is great for those who enjoy it, but doesn't
rise to a question of their fundamental dignity as human beings.
So it's hard to see cannabis legalization becoming a non-negotiable litmus-test issue for
Democrats in the way marriage equality has become. A Democrat today who doesn't support
marriage equality will be told that he (they) has (have) fundamentally different values from liberal
voters. A Democrat who doesn't support legalization? Well, he may be out step a bit, or behind the times, or
cowardly for worrying he'll be called soft on crime, or a general stick-in-the-mud. But not too many people are going to
say that he (they) can't honestly call himself (themselves) a liberal.
That might change if the Colorado and Washington experiments are successful and legalization spreads to other states. And
legalization might still be a powerful tool to get young voters to the polls wherever it gets put on
the ballot. But I think we'll have to wait an election or two before the effects rise all the way up to the presidential candidates.
Cooperative federalism is resilient
Greve 2K (Michael, John G. Searle Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Ph.D. (Government) Cornell University, 1987,
“Against Cooperative Federalism” Mississippi Law Journal, 70 Miss. L.J. 557, Lexis)
Cooperative federalism is enormously resilient and, moreover, self-stabilizing. The range of conflict
within the system is defined by the participant-beneficiaries' fight over the terms of cooperation.
State and local governments will complain about unfunded mandates and federal imposition; national
interest groups and their congressional patrons will complain about state shirking and noncompliance. Furor over unfunded mandates produces more money and less onerous federal
conditions; interest group complaints over the states' failure to use federal block grants for their intended purposes
leads to the re-categorization of federal programs. n150 Either way, the system returns to its
bargaining equilibrium, typically at a higher level of aggregate spending.
Under ordinary political conditions, cooperative arrangements are virtually immune to political reform. In
Germany and in the United States, cooperative federalism came under challenge during periods of
serious economic malaise and manifest civic alienation, coupled with exogenous shocks (re-unification and
European integration in Germany's case, and the ascent of a determined, ideological administration in the United States). The
record strongly suggests that cooperative federalism is impregnable even under those
disadvantageous conditions.
3
The United States should remove nearly all criminal penalties and legal
prohibitions on marihuana.
2 net benefits
1--Midterms—the CP doesn’t tax
2—Freedom
The only ethical position on marijuana is no laws at all
Medical pot legalization is a step backwards for freedom- it’s better to live under robber barons (d-rule)
**CARD IS IN MEDICAL POT 1NC**
Laurence M. Vance 10 Laurence M. Vance is a columnist and policy adviser for the Future of Freedom Foundation, an
associated scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, November 11, 2010 “The Case against Medical Marijuana” Future of Freedom
Foundation, http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/case-medical-marijuana/ ac 7-26
How tyrannical it is that in America — where thousands of people every year have elective or plastic surgery —
governments prevent people from using marijuana except for medical reasons. How cruel it is that
in America — “land of the free” — people have to suffer with some sickness because they don’t
meet some arbitrary requirement to obtain the medication they want. How authoritarian it is that in
America — “sweet land of liberty” — people need to have a government-issued medical card before they
can purchase certain medications. How dictatorial it is that in America — with its Bill of Rights — people
can only have a government-approved medical treatment. How repressive it is that in America —
“where at least I know I’m free” — people
cannot have access to medication without first paying to see a
doctor .¶ The paternalistic, nanny, regulatory state is at its worse when it comes to the war on drugs. As C.S. Lewis remarked:¶
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most
oppressive . It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral
busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so
with the approval of their own conscience.¶ How hypocritical it is that in America — “God bless the USA” — the
government demonizes marijuana even though millions of people get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes and cirrhosis of the liver
from drinking alcohol. The
sin taxes on these substances mean that the government needs people to use
them even while discouraging their use . This is especially true in the case of cigarettes, whose advertising on
alcohol is a factor in many car accidents,
boating accidents, and child abuse cases, there are nine states where it is the state government
that operates the liquor stores.¶ How tragic it is that in America — with its caring liberals and compassionate
conservatives — the majority of the American people fully support their government’s restrictions on the use of marijuana. ¶ The
libertarian case against medical marijuana is straightforward. There should be no laws regarding
the buying, selling, growing, use, processing, or possession of marijuana for medical reasons . This
is because there should be no laws of any kind regarding the medicinal, therapeutic, or recreational
use of marijuana. And that’s not all. The only honest and consistent libertarian position is that there
should be no laws regarding the buying, selling, growing, processing, use, or possession of any
drug for any reason.¶ “ The only freedom which deserves the name ,” said John Stuart Mill,¶ is that of
pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs , or
television and radio has been banned since 1971. And although
impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are
greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the
rest.¶ Pot
prohibition is the cornerstone of a police state . No country can be described as a free society when its
government demonizes a plant and arrests over 750,000 of its citizens a year for possessing it.
It’s a moral side constraint – every instance is key
Sylvester Petro, professor of law at Wake Forest, Spring 1974, Toledo Law Review, p480
However, one may still insist on echoing Ernest Hemingway – “I believe in only one thing: liberty.” And it is always well to bear in
mind David Hume’s observation: “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Thus, it is
unacceptable to say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of no import because there have
been invasions of so many other aspects. That road leads to chaos, tyranny, despotism, and the end of
all human aspiration. Ask Solzhenstyn, Ask Milovan Djilas. In sum, if one believes in freedom as a supreme value and
proper ordering principle for any society aiming to maximize spiritual and material welfare, then every invasion of freedom
must be emphatically identified and resisted with undying spirit .
4
Legalization corporatizes pot- causes worker exploitation
July 24, 2011 By Keith Humphreys Professor and the Section Director for Mental Health Policy in the Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University11 http://www.samefacts.com/2011/07/drug-policy/mis-imaginingmarijuana-inc/ ac 5-18
I was recently on Nevada Public Radio with Allen St. Pierre, who is a leading marijuana legalization activist. We had similar views on
the likely shape of a legal marijuana industry, namely that it would be corporate dominated, employ armies
of lobbyists and fight to keep taxes and health and safety regulations as minimal as possible. Mr.
St. Pierre said that the food industry would be the best place to look for a parallel: About 90% of food is
produced by mega-corporations and a few small players cut up the remaining scraps of business.
I tend to think that a legalized marijuana industry would look like Big Tobacco — indeed marijuana production
companies may simply be divisions of tobacco companies — but St. Pierre may have the better analogy. Our predictions aren’t
particularly insightful. Indeed, they don’t rise much above common sense: The shape of corporate America isn’t hard to discern. I
was therefore intrigued to hear Mr. St. Pierre say that as he travels around the country, he spends a great deal of time disabusing
legalization advocates of the idea that a legalized marijuana industry wouldn’t be, well, an industry. The likely form of a legalized
marijuana industry isn’t appreciated by many people who oppose marijuana legalization either. Mis-imaginings of legalized cannabis
in both camps are likely a consequence of the cultural meaning cannabis has for a significant portion of the U.S. population. For
millions of Americans, the word "marijuana" is hard-wired to the part of their brain that divides the human population into those who
went to Woodstock and those who went to Viet Nam. The peculiar result is a largely left-wing movement
fighting hard (alongside some corporate billionaires ) to create a multinational corporation and a
largely conservative movement fighting to stop the advance of capitalism and the private sector. Some people on both
sides mis-imagine a legalized marijuana industry made up of bucolic co-op farms run by hippies
in tie dye t-shirts, selling pot at the lowest possible profit to friendly independent business folk in the towns who set aside 10%
of their profits to save the whales. This image is pleasant to some and revolting to others, but that’s as may be because it’s not
what would happen under legalization . This will be tough for baby boomers to hear, but the current generation of
Americans doesn't know Woodstock from chicken stock and understands the Viet Nam War about as much as they do military
action in the Crimea. If the U.S. legalized marijuana today, those now fading cultural meanings would not
rule the day, capitalism would. Cannabis would be seen as a product to be marketed and sold
just as is tobacco. The liberal grandchildren of legalization advocates will grumble about the soulless marijuana corporations
and the conservative grandchildren of anti-legalization activists will play golf at the country club with marijuana inc. executives, toast
George Soros at the 19th hole afterwards and discuss how they can get the damn liberals in Congress to stop blocking capital gains
tax cuts.
The alternative is base communism
Even in absence of a blueprint for an alternative – endorsing a politics of labor
based on communal relations rather than surplus value is essential to avoid
ecological devastation, extinction and fight those things.
Graeber 13 (contributing editor of the Baffler, “A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse”¶ DAVID GRAEBER¶ [from
The Baffler No. 22, 2013] http://www.thebaffler.com/past/practical_utopians_guide
What is a revolution? We used to think we knew. Revolutions were seizures of power by popular forces aiming to transform the very
nature of the political, social, and economic system in the country in which the revolution took place, usually according to some
visionary dream of a just society. Nowadays, we live in an age when, if rebel armies do come sweeping into a city, or mass uprisings
overthrow a dictator, it’s unlikely to have any such implications; when profound social transformation does occur—as with, say, the
rise of feminism—it’s likely to take an entirely different form. It’s not that revolutionary dreams aren’t out there. But
contemporary revolutionaries rarely think they can bring them into being by some modern-day
equivalent of storming the Bastille.¶ ¶ At moments like this, it generally pays to go back to the history one already knows
and ask: Were revolutions ever really what we thought them to be? For me, the person who has asked this most effectively is the
great world historian Immanuel Wallerstein. He argues that for the last quarter millennium or so, revolutions have consisted above
all of planetwide transformations of political common sense.¶ Already by the time of the French Revolution, Wallerstein notes, there
was a single world market, and increasingly a single world political system as well, dominated by the huge colonial empires. As a
result, the storming of the Bastille in Paris could well end up having effects on Denmark, or even Egypt, just as profound as on
France itself—in some cases, even more so. Hence he speaks of the “world revolution of 1789,” followed by the “world revolution of
1848,” which saw revolutions break out almost simultaneously in fifty countries, from Wallachia to Brazil. In no case did the
revolutionaries succeed in taking power, but afterward, institutions inspired by the French Revolution—notably, universal systems of
primary education—were put in place pretty much everywhere. Similarly, the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a world revolution
ultimately responsible for the New Deal and European welfare states as much as for Soviet communism. The last in the series was
the world revolution of 1968—which, much like 1848, broke out almost everywhere, from China to Mexico, seized power nowhere,
but nonetheless changed everything. This was a revolution against state bureaucracies, and for the inseparability of personal and
political liberation, whose most lasting legacy will likely be the birth of modern feminism. ¶ A quarter of the American population is
now engaged in “guard labor”—defending property, supervising work, or otherwise keeping their fellow Americans in line.¶
Revolutions are thus planetary phenomena . But there is more. What they really do is transform basic
assumptions about what politics is ultimately about. In the wake of a revolution, ideas that had
been considered veritably lunatic fringe quickly become the accepted currency of debate. Before
the French Revolution, the ideas that change is good, that government policy is the proper way to
manage it, and that governments derive their authority from an entity called “the people” were
considered the sorts of things one might hear from crackpots and demagogues , or at best a handful of
freethinking intellectuals who spend their time debating in cafés. A generation later, even the stuffiest magistrates, priests, and
headmasters had to at least pay lip service to these ideas. Before long, we had reached the situation we are in today: that it’s
necessary to lay out the terms for anyone to even notice they are there. They’ve become common sense, the very grounds of
political discussion.¶ Until 1968, most world revolutions really just introduced practical refinements: an expanded franchise, universal
primary education, the welfare state. The world revolution of 1968, in contrast—whether it took the form it did in China, of a revolt by
students and young cadres supporting Mao’s call for a Cultural Revolution; or in Berkeley and New York, where it marked an
alliance of students, dropouts, and cultural rebels; or even in Paris, where it was an alliance of students and workers—was a
rebellion against bureaucracy, conformity, or anything that fettered the human imagination, a project for the revolutionizing of not
just political or economic life, but every aspect of human existence. As a result, in most cases, the rebels didn’t even try to take over
the apparatus of state; they saw that apparatus as itself the problem.¶ It’s fashionable nowadays to view the social
movements of the late sixties as an embarrassing failure. A case can be made for that view. It’s certainly true
that in the political sphere, the immediate beneficiary of any widespread change in political common sense—a prioritizing of ideals of
individual liberty, imagination, and desire; a hatred of bureaucracy; and suspicions about the role of government—was the political
Right. Above all, the movements of the sixties allowed for the mass revival of free market doctrines that had largely been
abandoned since the nineteenth century. It’s no coincidence that the same generation who, as teenagers, made the Cultural
Revolution in China was the one who, as forty-year-olds, presided over the introduction of capitalism. Since the eighties, “freedom”
has come to mean “the market,” and “the market” has come to be seen as identical with capitalism—even, ironically, in places like
China, which had known sophisticated markets for thousands of years, but rarely anything that could be described as capitalism.¶
The ironies are endless. While the new free market ideology has framed itself above all as a rejection of bureaucracy, it has, in fact,
been responsible for the first administrative system that has operated on a planetary scale, with its endless layering of public and
private bureaucracies: the IMF, World Bank, WTO, trade organizations, financial institutions, transnational corporations, NGOs. This
is precisely the system that has imposed free market orthodoxy, and opened the world to financial pillage, under the watchful aegis
of American arms. It only made sense that the first attempt to recreate a global revolutionary movement, the Global Justice
Movement that peaked between 1998 and 2003, was effectively a rebellion against the rule of that very planetary bureaucracy. ¶
Future Stop¶ In retrospect, though, I think that later historians will conclude that the legacy of the sixties revolution was
deeper than we now imagine, and that the triumph of capitalist markets and their various
planetary administrators and enforcers—which seemed so epochal and permanent in the wake of
the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—was, in fact, far shallower.¶ I’ll take an obvious example. One often
hears that antiwar protests in the late sixties and early seventies were ultimately failures, since they did not appreciably speed up
the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina. But afterward, those controlling U.S. foreign policy were so anxious about being met with similar
popular unrest—and even more, with unrest within the military itself, which was genuinely falling apart by the early seventies—that
they refused to commit U.S. forces to any major ground conflict for almost thirty years. It took 9/11, an attack that led to thousands
of civilian deaths on U.S. soil, to fully overcome the notorious “Vietnam syndrome”—and even then, the war planners made an
almost obsessive effort to ensure the wars were effectively protest-proof. Propaganda was incessant, the media was brought on
board, experts provided exact calculations on body bag counts (how many U.S. casualties it would take to stir mass opposition), and
the rules of engagement were carefully written to keep the count below that. ¶ The problem was that since those rules of engagement
ensured that thousands of women, children, and old people would end up “collateral damage” in order to minimize deaths and
injuries to U.S. soldiers, this meant that in Iraq and Afghanistan, intense hatred for the occupying forces would pretty much
guarantee that the United States couldn’t obtain its military objectives. And remarkably, the war planners seemed to be aware of
this. It didn’t matter. They considered it far more important to prevent effective opposition at home than to actually win the war. It’s
as if American forces in Iraq were ultimately defeated by the ghost of Abbie Hoffman. ¶ Clearly, an antiwar movement in the sixties
that is still tying the hands of U.S. military planners in 2012 can hardly be considered a failure. But it raises an intriguing question:
What happens when the creation of that sense of failure, of the complete ineffectiveness of
political action against the system, becomes the chief objective of those in power? ¶ ¶ The thought first
occurred to me when participating in the IMF actions in Washington, D.C., in 2002. Coming on the heels of 9/11, we were relatively
few and ineffective, the number of police overwhelming. There was no sense that we could succeed in shutting down the meetings.
Most of us left feeling vaguely depressed. It was only a few days later, when I talked to someone who had friends attending the
meetings, that I learned we had in fact shut them down: the police had introduced such stringent security measures, canceling half
the events, that most of the actual meetings had been carried out online. In other words, the government had decided it was more
important for protesters to walk away feeling like failures than for the IMF meetings to take place. If you think about it, they afforded
protesters extraordinary importance.¶ Is it possible that this preemptive attitude toward social movements ,
the designing of wars and trade summits in such a way that preventing effective opposition is considered more of a priority than the
success of the war or summit itself, really reflects a more general principle? What if those currently running the
system, most of whom witnessed the unrest of the sixties firsthand as impressionable youngsters, are—consciously or
unconsciously (and I suspect it’s more conscious than not)—obsessed by the prospect of revolutionary social
movements once again challenging prevailing common sense?¶ It would explain a lot. In most of the
world, the last thirty years has come to be known as the age of neoliberalism —one dominated by a
revival of the long-since-abandoned nineteenth-century creed that held that free markets and human freedom in general were
ultimately the same thing. Neoliberalism has always been wracked by a central paradox. It declares that economic imperatives are
to take priority over all others. Politics itself is just a matter of creating the conditions for growing the economy by allowing the magic
of the marketplace to do its work. All other hopes and dreams—of equality, of security—are to be sacrificed for the primary goal of
economic productivity. But global economic performance over the last thirty years has been decidedly
mediocre. With one or two spectacular exceptions (notably China, which significantly ignored most neoliberal prescriptions),
growth rates have been far below what they were in the days of the old-fashioned, state-directed, welfare-state-oriented capitalism
of the fifties, sixties, and even seventies. By its own standards, then, the project was already a colossal failure even before the 2008
collapse.¶ If, on the other hand, we stop taking world leaders at their word and instead think of
neoliberalism as a political project, it suddenly looks spectacularly effective . The politicians, CEOs, trade
bureaucrats, and so forth who regularly meet at summits like Davos or the G20 may have done a miserable job in creating a world
capitalist economy that meets the needs of a majority of the world’s inhabitants (let alone produces hope, happiness, security, or
meaning), but they have succeeded magnificently in convincing the world that capitalism—and not just
capitalism, but exactly the financialized, semifeudal capitalism we happen to have right now—is
the only viable economic system. If you think about it, this is a remarkable accomplishment.¶ Debt cancellation would
make the perfect revolutionary demand.¶ How did they pull it off? The preemptive attitude toward social movements is clearly a part
of it; under no conditions can alternatives, or anyone proposing alternatives, be seen to experience success. This helps explain the
almost unimaginable investment in “security systems” of one sort or another: the fact that the United States, which lacks any major
rival, spends more on its military and intelligence than it did during the Cold War, along with the almost dazzling accumulation of
private security agencies, intelligence agencies, militarized police, guards, and mercenaries. Then there are the propaganda organs,
including a massive media industry that did not even exist before the sixties, celebrating police. Mostly these systems do not so
much attack dissidents directly as contribute to a pervasive climate of fear, jingoistic conformity, life insecurity, and simple despair
that makes any thought of changing the world seem an idle fantasy. Yet these security systems are also extremely expensive. Some
economists estimate that a quarter of the American population is now engaged in “guard labor” of one sort or another—defending
property, supervising work, or otherwise keeping their fellow Americans in line. Economically, most of this disciplinary apparatus is
pure deadweight.¶ In fact, most of the economic innovations of the last thirty years make more sense
politically than economically. Eliminating guaranteed life employment for precarious contracts
doesn’t really create a more effective workforce, but it is extraordinarily effective in destroying
unions and otherwise depoliticizing labor. The same can be said of endlessly increasing working
hours. No one has much time for political activity if they’re working sixty-hour weeks.¶ It does often
seem that, whenever there is a choice between one option that makes capitalism seem the only
possible economic system, and another that would actually make capitalism a more viable
economic system, neoliberalism means always choosing the former. The combined result is a relentless
campaign against the human imagination. Or, to be more precise: imagination, desire, individual creativity, all those things that were
to be liberated in the last great world revolution, were to be contained strictly in the domain of consumerism, or perhaps in the virtual
realities of the Internet. In all other realms they were to be strictly banished. We are talking about the murdering of dreams, the
imposition of an apparatus of hopelessness, designed to squelch any sense of an alternative future. Yet as a result of putting
virtually all their efforts in one political basket, we are left in the bizarre situation of watching the
capitalist system crumbling before our very eyes, at just the moment everyone had finally
concluded no other system would be possible.¶ Work It Out, Slow It Down¶ Normally, when you challenge
the conventional wisdom—that the current economic and political system is the only possible
one—the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of
how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy
supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed
program of how this system will be brought into existence . Historically, this is ridiculous. When
has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint? It’s not as if a small circle of
visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called “capitalism,” figured out
the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a
program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves
how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin .¶ This is not to say there’s
anything wrong with utopian visions. Or even blueprints. They just need to be kept in their place. The theorist Michael Albert has
worked out a detailed plan for how a modern economy could run without money on a democratic, participatory basis. I think this is
an important achievement—not because I think that exact model could ever be instituted, in exactly the form in which he describes
it, but because it makes it impossible to say that such a thing is inconceivable. Still, such models can be only thought experiments.
We cannot really conceive of the problems that will arise when we start trying to build a free
society. What now seem likely to be the thorniest problems might not be problems at all; others that never even occurred to us
might prove devilishly difficult. There are innumerable X-factors.¶ The most obvious is technology. This is the
reason it’s so absurd to imagine activists in Renaissance Italy coming up with a model for a stock
exchange and factories—what happened was based on all sorts of technologies that they couldn’t
have anticipated, but which in part only emerged because society began to move in the direction
that it did. This might explain, for instance, why so many of the more compelling visions of an anarchist society have been
produced by science fiction writers (Ursula K. Le Guin, Starhawk, Kim Stanley Robinson). In fiction, you are at least admitting the
technological aspect is guesswork.¶ Myself, I am less interested in deciding what sort of economic system we
should have in a free society than in creating the means by which people can make such
decisions for themselves . What might a revolution in common sense actually look like? I don’t know,
but I can think of any number of pieces of conventional wisdom that surely need challenging if we are to create any sort of viable
free society. I’ve already explored one—the nature of money and debt—in some detail in a recent book. I even suggested a debt
jubilee, a general cancellation, in part just to bring home that money is really just a human product, a set of promises, that by its
nature can always be renegotiated.¶ ¶ Labor, similarly, should be renegotiated. Submitting oneself to labor
discipline—supervision, control, even the self-control of the ambitious self-employed—does not make one a better
person. In most really important ways, it probably makes one worse. To undergo it is a misfortune that at best is sometimes
necessary. Yet it’s only when we reject the idea that such labor is virtuous in itself that we can start to
ask what is virtuous about labor. To which the answer is obvious. Labor is virtuous if it helps others. A renegotiated
definition of productivity should make it easier to reimagine the very nature of what work is , since,
among other things, it will mean that technological development will be redirected less toward creating ever more consumer
products and ever more disciplined labor, and more toward eliminating those forms of labor entirely. ¶ What would remain
is
the kind of work only human beings will ever be able to do: those forms of caring and helping
labor that are at the very center of the crisis that brought about Occupy Wall Street to begin with. What would happen if
we stopped acting as if the primordial form of work is laboring at a production line, or wheat field,
or iron foundry, or even in an office cubicle, and instead started from a mother, a teacher, or a
caregiver? We might be forced to conclude that the real business of human life is not contributing
toward something called “the economy” (a concept that didn’t even exist three hundred years ago), but the fact
that we are all, and have always been, projects of mutual creation.¶ It’s as if American forces in Iraq were
ultimately defeated by the ghost of Abbie Hoffman.¶ At the moment, probably the most pressing need is simply
to slow down the engines of productivity. This might seem a strange thing to say—our knee-jerk reaction to every
crisis is to assume the solution is for everyone to work even more, though of course, this kind of reaction is really precisely the
problem—but if you consider the overall state of the world, the conclusion becomes obvious. We
seem to be facing two insoluble problems. On the one hand, we have witnessed an endless series
of global debt crises, which have grown only more and more severe since the seventies, to the
point where the overall burden of debt—sovereign, municipal, corporate, personal—is obviously
unsustainable. On the other, we have an ecological crisis, a galloping process of climate change
that is threatening to throw the entire planet into drought, floods, chaos, starvation, and war. The
two might seem unrelated. But ultimately they are the same. What is debt, after all, but the promise of future
productivity? Saying that global debt levels keep rising is simply another way of saying that, as a collectivity, human beings are
promising each other to produce an even greater volume of goods and services in the future than they are creating now. But even
current levels are clearly unsustainable. They are precisely what’s destroying the planet, at an
ever-increasing pace.¶ Even those running the system are reluctantly beginning to conclude that some kind of mass debt
cancellation—some kind of jubilee—is inevitable. The real political struggle is going to be over the form that it takes. Well, isn’t the
obvious thing to address both problems simultaneously? Why not a planetary debt cancellation, as broad as practically possible,
followed by a mass reduction in working hours: a four-hour day, perhaps, or a guaranteed five-month vacation? This might not only
save the planet but also (since it’s not like everyone would just be sitting around in their newfound hours of freedom) begin to
change our basic conceptions of what value-creating labor might actually be.¶ Occupy was surely right not to make demands, but if I
were to have to formulate one, that would be it. After all, this would be an attack on the dominant ideology at its very strongest
points. The morality of debt and the morality of work are the most powerful ideological weapons in the hands of those running the
current system. That’s why they cling to them even as they are effectively destroying everything else. It’s also why debt cancellation
would make the perfect revolutionary demand.¶ All this might still seem very distant. At the moment, the planet might
seem poised more for a series of unprecedented catastrophes than for the kind of broad moral
and political transformation that would open the way to such a world. But if we are going to have
any chance of heading off those catastrophes, we’re going to have to change our accustomed ways
of thinking. And as the events of 2011 reveal, the age of revolutions is by no means over. The
human imagination stubbornly refuses to die. And the moment any significant number of people
simultaneously shake off the shackles that have been placed on that collective imagination, even
our most deeply inculcated assumptions about what is and is not politically possible have been
known to crumble overnight.
Federalism
Pot is irrelevant- tons of alt causes
Natelson 14 (Rob, Independence Institute's Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, 1-4-14, "Lessons for Federalism
from Colorado's Pot Legalization" The American Thinker)
www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/lessons_for_federalism_from_colorados_pot_legalization.html
From Colorado's marijuana "legalization" some federalism advocates draw a conclusion that is both
(1) obvious and (2) wrong. The conclusion is that the only way to restore constitutional limits is for
constitutionalists to form alliances with hard core "progressives" in areas of common concern.
After all, wasn't it a right-and-left-wing coalition that successfully repealed Colorado's marijuana ban?
There are, however, at least two problems with this approach. First, the few areas of common
concern are mostly very small and of limited importance. "Progressives" very rarely take a
genuine pro-federalism position, and when they do, the issue is usually narrow. By any objective
measure, marijuana legalization is small POT-atoes compared to massive programs like Obamacare.
No impact to US competitiveness- it’s all hype
Krugman ’11 [Paul, Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University,
received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. He has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford. At MIT he
became the Ford International Professor of Economics, “The Competition Myth,” 1-24-11,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/opinion/24krugman.html?_r=0]
Meet the new buzzword, same as the old buzzword. In advance of the State of the Union, President Obama has telegraphed his
main theme: competitiveness. The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board has been renamed the President’s Council on
Jobs and Competitiveness. And in his Saturday radio address, the president declared that “We can out-compete any other nation on
Earth.” This may be smart politics. Arguably, Mr. Obama has enlisted an old cliché on behalf of a good cause, as a way to sell a
much-needed increase in public investment to a public thoroughly indoctrinated in the view that government spending is a bad
thing.¶ But let’s not kid ourselves: talking about “competitiveness” as a goal is fundamentally misleading. At best, it’s a misdiagnosis
of our problems. At worst, it could lead to policies based on the false idea that what’s good for corporations is good for America.¶
About that misdiagnosis: What sense does it make to view our current woes as stemming from lack of competitiveness?¶ It’s true
that we’d have more jobs if we exported more and imported less. But the same is true of Europe and Japan, which also have
depressed economies. And we can’t all export more while importing less, unless we can find another planet to sell to. Yes, we could
demand that China shrink its trade surplus — but if confronting China is what Mr. Obama is proposing, he should say that plainly.¶
Furthermore, while America is running a trade deficit, this deficit is smaller than it was before the Great Recession began. It would
help if we could make it smaller still. But ultimately, we’re in a mess because we had a financial crisis, not because American
companies have lost their ability to compete with foreign rivals.¶ But isn’t it at least somewhat useful to think of our nation as if it
were America Inc., competing in the global marketplace? No.¶ Consider: A corporate leader who increases profits by slashing his
work force is thought to be successful. Well, that’s more or less what has happened in America recently: employment is way down,
but profits are hitting new records. Who, exactly, considers this economic success?¶ Still, you might say that talk of competitiveness
helps Mr. Obama quiet claims that he’s anti-business. That’s fine, as long as he realizes that the interests of nominally “American”
corporations and the interests of the nation, which were never the same, are now less aligned than ever before.¶ Take the case of
General Electric, whose chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, has just been appointed to head that renamed advisory board. I have
nothing against either G.E. or Mr. Immelt. But with fewer than half its workers based in the United States and less than half its
revenues coming from U.S. operations, G.E.’s fortunes have very little to do with U.S. prosperity.¶ By the way, some have praised
Mr. Immelt’s appointment on the grounds that at least he represents a company that actually makes things, rather than being yet
another financial wheeler-dealer. Sorry to burst this bubble, but these days G.E. derives more revenue from its financial operations
than it does from manufacturing — indeed, GE Capital, which received a government guarantee for its debt, was a major beneficiary
of the Wall Street bailout.¶ So what does the administration’s embrace of the rhetoric of competitiveness mean for economic
policy?¶ The favorable interpretation, as I said, is that it’s just packaging for an economic strategy centered on public investment,
investment that’s actually about creating jobs now while promoting longer-term growth. The unfavorable interpretation is that Mr.
Obama and his advisers really believe that the economy is ailing because they’ve been too tough on business, and that what
America needs now is corporate tax cuts and across-the-board deregulation.¶ My guess is that we’re mainly talking about
packaging here. And if the president does propose a serious increase in spending on infrastructure and education, I’ll be pleased.¶
But even if he proposes good policies, the fact that Mr. Obama feels the need to wrap these policies in bad metaphors is a sad
commentary on the state of our discourse.¶ The financial crisis of 2008 was a teachable moment, an object lesson in what can go
wrong if you trust a market economy to regulate itself. Nor should we forget that highly regulated economies, like Germany, did a
much better job than we did at sustaining employment after the crisis hit. For whatever reason, however, the teachable moment
came and went with nothing learned.¶ Mr. Obama himself may do all right: his approval rating is up, the economy is showing signs
of life, and his chances of re-election look pretty good. But the ideology that brought economic disaster in 2008 is back on top —
and seems likely to stay there until it brings disaster again.
Competitiveness not key to heg
Brooks and Wohlforth ‘8 - Brooks is Assistant Professor AND*** William C. Wohlforth is Professor in the Department of
Government at Dartmouth College [Stephen G., “World out of Balance, International Relations and the Challenge of American
Primacy,” p. 32-35]
American primacy is also rooted in the county's position as the world's leading technological power. The United States remains
dominant globally in overall R&D investments, high-technology production, commercial first decade of this century. As we noted in
chapter 1, this was partly the result of an Iraq-induced doubt about the utility of material predominance, a doubt redolent of the postVietnam mood. In retrospect, many assessments of U.S. economic and technological prowess from the 1990s were overly
optimistic; by the next decade important potential vulnerabilities were evident. In particular, chronically imbalanced domestic
finances and accelerating public debt convinced some analysts that the United States once again confronted a competitiveness
crisis.23 If concerns continue to mount, this will count as the fourth such crisis since 1945; the first three occurred during the
1950s (Sputnik), the 1970s (Vietnam and stagflation), and the 1980s (the Soviet threat and Japan's challenge). None of these
crises , however, shifted the international system's structure: multipolarity did not return in the 1960s, 1970s, or early 1990s, and
each scare over competitiveness ended with the American position of primacy retained or strengthened.24 Our review of the
evidence of U.S. predominance is not meant to suggest that the United States lacks vulnerabilities or causes for concern. In fact, it
confronts a number of significant vulnerabilities; of course, this is also true of the other major powers.25 The point is that adverse
trends for the United States will not cause a polarity shift in the near future. If we take a long view of U.S. competitiveness and the
prospects for relative declines in economic and technological dominance, one takeaway stands out: relative power shifts slowly .
The United States has accounted for a quarter to a third of global output for over a century. No other economy will match its
combination of wealth, size, technological capacity, and productivity in the foreseeable future (tables 2.2 and 2.3). The depth, scale,
and projected longevity of the U.S. lead in each critical dimension of power are noteworthy. But what truly distinguishes the current
distribution of capabilities is American dominance in all of them simultaneously. The chief lesson of Kennedy's 500-year survey of
leading powers is that nothing remotely similar ever occurred in the historical experience innovation, and higher education (table
2.3). Despite the weight of this evidence, elite perceptions of U.S. power had shifted toward pessimism by the middle of the that
informs modern international relations theory. The implication is both simple and underappreciated: the counterbalancing constraint
is inoperative and will remain so until the distribution of capabilities changes fundamentally. The next section explains why.
We’re lightyears ahead in key sectors
Zakaria 8 (Fareed, Newsweek Editor, International Relations Expert, Host of Fareed Zakaria: GPS (on CNN), “The Future of
American Power,” Foreign Affairs, May/June)
This difference between the United States and Britain is reflected in the burden of their military budgets. Britannia ruled the seas
but never the land. The British army was sufficiently small that Otto von Bismarck once quipped that were the British ever to
invade Germany, he would simply have the local police force arrest them. Meanwhile, London's advantage over the seas -- it
had more tonnage than the next two navies put together -- came at ruinous cost. The U.S. military, in contrast, dominates at
every level -- land, sea, air, space -- and spends more than the next 14 countries combined, accounting for almost 50 percent of
global defense spending. The United States also spends more on defense research and development than the rest of the world
put together. And crucially, it does all this without breaking the bank. U.S. defense expenditure as a percent of GDP is now 4.1
percent, lower than it was for most of the Cold War (under Dwight Eisenhower, it rose to ten percent). As U.S. GDP has grown
larger and larger, expenditures that would have been backbreaking have become affordable. The Iraq war may be a tragedy or
a noble endeavor, but either way, it will not bankrupt the United States. The price tag for Iraq and Afghanistan together -- $125
billion a year -- represents less than one percent of GDP. The war in Vietnam, by comparison, cost the equivalent of 1.6 percent
of U.S. GDP in 1970, a large difference. (Neither of these percentages includes second- or third-order costs of war, which allows
for a fair comparison even if one disputes the exact figures.) U.S. military power is not the cause of its strength but the
consequence. The fuel is the United States' economic and technological base, which remains extremely strong. The United
States does face larger, deeper, and broader challenges than it has ever faced in its history, and it will undoubtedly lose some
share of global GDP. But the process will look nothing like Britain's slide in the twentieth century, when the country lost the lead
in innovation, energy, and entrepreneurship. The United States will remain a vital, vibrant economy, at the forefront of the next
revolutions in science, technology, and industry. In trying to understand how the United States will fare in the new world, the
first thing to do is simply look around: the future is already here. Over the last 20 years, globalization has been gaining breadth
and depth. More countries are making goods, communications technology has been leveling the playing field, capital has been
free to move across the world -- and the United States has benefited massively from these trends. Its economy has received
hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, and its companies have entered new countries and industries with great success.
Despite two decades of a very expensive dollar, U.S. exports have held ground, and the World Economic Forum currently ranks
the United States as the world's most competitive economy. GDP growth, the bottom line, has averaged just over three percent
in the United States for 25 years, significantly higher than in Europe or Japan. Productivity growth, the elixir of modern
economics, has been over 2.5 percent for a decade now, a full percentage point higher than the European average. This
superior growth trajectory might be petering out, and perhaps U.S. growth will be more typical for an advanced industrialized
country for the next few years. But the general point -- that the United States is a highly dynamic economy at the cutting edge,
despite its enormous size -- holds. Consider the industries of the future. Nanotechnology (applied science dealing with the
control of matter at the atomic or molecular scale) is likely to lead to fundamental breakthroughs over the next 50 years, and the
United States dominates the field. It has more dedicated "nanocenters" than the next three nations (Germany, Britain, and
China) combined and has issued more patents for nanotechnology than the rest of the world combined, highlighting its unusual
strength in turning abstract theory into practical products. Biotechnology (a broad category that describes the use of biological
systems to create medical, agricultural, and industrial products) is also dominated by the United States.
Alt causes –
STEM shortage means US competitiveness is unsustainable
Waldron ‘12 [Travis, reporter for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, “REPORT: How America’s
Falling Share Of Global College Graduates Threatens Future Economic Competitiveness,”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/21/722571/report-us-share-of-college-graduates-dropped-over-last-decade-compared-tochina-india/]
The United States’ share of global college graduates fell substantially in the first decade of the 21st century and stands to drop even
more by 2020 as developing economies in China and India have graduated more college students, presenting challenges for
American workers’ ability to remain competitive in a global economy in the future. The U.S. share of college graduates fell from
nearly one-in-four to just more than one-in-five from 2000 to 2010, according to “The Competition That Really Matters,” a report from
the Center for American Progress and The Center for the Next Generation: From 2000 to 2010, the U.S. share of college graduates
fell to 21% of the world’s total from 24%, while China’s share climbed to 11% from 9%. India’s rose more than half a percentage
point to 7%. Based on current demographic and college enrollment trends, we can project where each country will be by 2020: the
U.S. share of the world’s college graduates will fall below 18% while China’s and India’s will rise to more than 13% and nearly 8%
respectively.
Cooperative federalism kills civic engagement
Greve 2K (Michael, John G. Searle Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Ph.D. (Government) Cornell University, 1987,
“Against Cooperative Federalism” Mississippi Law Journal, 70 Miss. L.J. 557, Lexis)
American federalism has become an administrative, "cooperative federalism":
state and local governments administer and implement federal programs. n4 Many stateadministered
In practice, however,
programs are funded by the federal government, in whole or, more often, in part. Others take the form of conditional preemption,
meaning that the states may choose to administer the federal program or else, cede the regulatory field to the federal government.
Cooperative federalism covers an enormous array of regulatory fields, from the environment to education to welfare and, lately,
crime control. In its horizontal dimension, cooperative federalism replaces dual federalism's competition with state policy cartels and
uniform regulatory baselines. n5 [*559]
cooperative federalism is a rotten idea , its political popularity notwithstanding. Cooperative
federalism undermines political transparency and accountability, thereby heightening civic
disaffection and cynicism; diminishes policy competition among the states; and erodes selfgovernment and liberty. The sooner we can think of viable means to curtail cooperative programs
and to disentangle government functions, the better off we shall be.
This article argues that
A loss of civic engagement causes extinction – eliminates the ability to solve
every global challenge
Boggs 97 – Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Los Angeles (Carl, The Great Retreat, Theory and Society 26.6,
jstor, /)
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 sidestep 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 at many levels, can 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 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,
collective interests that had vanished from civil society.75
Environment
Industrial ag key to food security- turns the environment
Avery, 4 -- Center for Global Food Issues, Director and Senior Fellow, Former Dept. of State agricultural
analyst
[Dennis, The Nine Most Dangerous Myths About Pesticides and High-Yield Farming, p. 12/1/2004
, http://www.cgfi.org/2004/12/01/the-nine-most-dangerous-myths-about-pesticides-and-high-yieldfarming/]
The same well-fed elitists have been pushing an organic farming mandate that would
be unable to feed more than half
the world’s current human population—apparently not realizing that the hungry people would destroy the
remaining wildlife before they grew too weak to slash, burn, and hunt. And they are against biotech in food production—
although they are happy enough to have it in their personal medical arsenal. Two years ago, the children of the well-fed elites told
the governments of famines-stricken countries in southern Africa that American food aid was “poison.” This was the same biotech
corn that Americans have been eating in their breakfast cereals and snack foods for a decade with no documented danger
whatsoever. This is essentially the same biotech corn that the government of the European Union has now belatedly approved for
sale in the sanctified precincts of the EU countries. We don’t know how many poor Africans starved as a result. Fortunately, it was
less than the 30 millions deaths we must already lay at the door of Rachel Carson’s ghost. How many additional people would die if
the world suddenly shut off the fossil fuels and rationed the electricity for schools and hospitals, the heating oil for homes, the fuel
for ambulances? How many more forest trees would be cut for firewood? How many more women would die of lung disease from
the smoke of their unsustainable cookfires? The Arrogant Selfishness of the Well-Fed Elites Why are the First World elites
trying to push low-yield farming? Apparently, they would like a world with fewer, poorer people. Remember
that classic book sponsored by the wealthy industrialists of the Club of Rome’s book, Limits to Growth. The eco-movement has
always said there were too many people, and fought against affluence for more people. Such constraints might be justified if the
world were truly a lifeboat without adequate resources for all of its passengers. Instead of a lifeboat, however, we live on a planet,
and one of the most important resources is humanity’s ability to learn and use technology— including conserving
technologies such as the herbicides which are making humanity more sustainable through conservation tillage.
AND – this results in World War III
Calvin, U Washington Theoretical Neurophysiologist 1998
[William,–Atlantic Monthly, January, Vol 281, No. 1, p. 47-64)\]
The population-crash scenario is surely the most appalling. Plummeting crop yields would cause some powerful
countries to try to take over their neighbors or distant lands -- if only because their armies, unpaid and lacking food, would go
marauding, both at home and across the borders. The better-organized countries would attempt to use their armies, before they
fell apart entirely, to take over countries with significant remaining resources , driving out or starving their inhabitants if not
using modern weapons to accomplish the same end: eliminating competitors for the remaining food.
This would be a worldwide problem -- and could lead to a Third World Wa r -- but Europe's vulnerability is
particularly easy to analyze. The last abrupt cooling, the Younger Dryas, drastically altered Europe's
climate as far east as Ukraine. Present-day Europe has more than 650 million people. It has excellent
soils, and largely grows its own food. It could no longer do so if it lost the extra warming from the North
Atlantic.
Industrial agriculture is necessary to prevent extinction from inevitable natural
disasters
Anthony Trewavas, University of Edinburgh Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology plant biologist, 65-2000, "GM is the Best Option We Have," http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-info/articles/biotechart/best_option.html
In 535A.D. a volcano near the present Krakatoa exploded with the force of 200 million Hiroshima A
bombs. The dense cloud of dust so reduced the intensity of the sun that for at least two years thereafter,
summer turned to winter and crops here and elsewhere in the Northern hemisphere failed completely.
The population survived by hunting a rapidly vanishing population of edible animals. The after-effects
continued for a decade and human history was changed irreversibly. But the planet recovered. Such
examples of benign nature's wisdom, in full flood as it were, dwarf and make miniscule the tiny
modifications we make upon our environment. There are apparently 100 such volcanoes round the world
that could at any time unleash forces as great. And even smaller volcanic explosions change our climate
and can easily threaten the security of our food supply. Our hold on this planet is tenuous. In the present
day an equivalent 535A.D. explosion would destroy much of our civilisation. Only those with agricultural
technology sufficiently advanced would have a chance at survival. Colliding asteroids are another
problem that requires us to be forward-looking accepting that technological advance may be the only
buffer between us and annihilation.
CO2 key to ag—solves extinction
Philip V. Brennan, journalist, “Inconvenient Facts About Climate Change,” NEWSMAX, 6—10—08,
www.newsmax.com/brennan/climate_change/2008/06/10/103277.html, accessed 6-5-11.
Having swallowed that absurdity, the global warming juggernaut rolls on towards the goal of
legislating a reduction of CO2 levels to prevent future global warming at the very moment
when the world is rapidly entering a period of sustained cooling. Nobody bothers to consider
the consequences of this absurdity. Should their plans succeed and CO2 levels be drastically
reduced, a genuine global disaster would inevitably follow because we need healthy levels of
that essential gas to just to survive. It feeds to plant life that feeds us. As Lawrence Solomon,
onetime global warming enthusiast and author of "The Deniers" wrote in his June 7 Financial Post article, "In Praise of
CO2," scientists Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, found that " over a
period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping
6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres
— enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite
data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500
grams of greenery per year." That study Solomon notes, shows how CO2 is nature's fertilizer,
bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants, he wrote, use the carbon from CO2 to
"bulk themselves up," explaining that carbon is the building block of life. Moreover, they
release oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. "As summarized in a report
last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2:
'Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants
provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant
and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century,'" he wrote. All
that is in jeopardy thanks to the foolhardiness of the global warming fanatics who want to
defy the laws of nature by robbing mankind of the benefits of CO2, a gas essential to our
civilization.
Co2 solves ice age--extinction
David Deming, Associate Professor, Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, “The Coming Ice Age,” AMERICAN THINKER,
5—13—09, www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_coming_ice_age.html, accessed 5-27-11.
In northern Europe, the Little Ice Age kicked off with the Great Famine of 1315. Crops failed due to cold temperatures
and incessant rain. Desperate and starving, parents ate their children, and people dug up corpses from graves for food.
In jails, inmates instantly set upon new prisoners and ate them alive. The Great Famine was followed by the Black
Death, the greatest disaster ever to hit the human race. One-third of the human race died; terror and anarchy prevailed.
Human civilization as we know it is only possible in a warm interglacial climate. Short of a
catastrophic asteroid impact, the greatest threat to the human race is the onset of another ice age. The oscillation
between ice ages and interglacial periods is the dominant feature of Earth's climate for the last million years. But the
computer models that predict significant global warming from carbon dioxide cannot reproduce these temperature
changes. This failure to reproduce the most significant aspect of terrestrial climate reveals an incomplete understanding
of the climate system, if not a nearly complete ignorance. Global warming predictions by meteorologists are based on
speculative, untested, and poorly constrained computer models. But our knowledge of ice ages is based on a wide
variety of reliable data, including cores from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. In this case, it would be
perspicacious to listen to the geologists, not the meteorologists. By reducing our production of carbon
dioxide, we risk hastening the advent of the next ice age. Even more foolhardy and dangerous is the
Obama administration's announcement that they may try to cool the planet through geoengineering. Such a move in
the middle of a cooling trend could provoke the irreversible onset of an ice age. It is not hyperbole to state
that such a climatic change would mean the end of human civilization as we know it. Earth's
climate is controlled by the Sun. In comparison, every other factor is trivial. The coldest part of the Little Ice
Age during the latter half of the seventeenth century was marked by the nearly complete absence of sunspots. And the
Sun now appears to be entering a new period of quiescence. August of 2008 was the first month since the year 1913
that no sunspots were observed. As I write, the sun remains quiet. We are in a cooling trend. The areal
extent of global sea ice is above the twenty-year mean. We have heard much of the dangers of global warming due to
carbon dioxide. But the potential danger of any potential anthropogenic warming is trivial
compared to the risk of entering a new ice age. Public policy decisions should be based on a realistic
appraisal that takes both climate scenarios into consideration.
adaptation solves
Indur Goklany, PhD., “Misled on Climate change: How the UN IPCC (and others) Exaggerate the Impacts of Global Warming,”
POLICY STUDY n. 399, Reason Foundation, 12—11, 12.
The second major reason why future adaptive capacity has been underestimated (and the impacts
of global warming systematically overestimated) is that few impact studies consider secular
technological change.25 Most assume that no new technologies will come on line, although
some do assume greater adoption of existing technologies with higher GDP per capita and, much less frequently, a
modest generic improvement in productivity. Such an assumption may have been appropriate during
the Medieval Warm Period, when the pace of technological change was slow, but nowadays
technological change is fast (as indicated in Figures 1 through 5) and, arguably, accelerating. It is
unlikely that we will see a halt to technological change unless so-called precautionary
policies are instituted that count the costs of technology but ignore its benefits, as some
governments have already done for genetically modified crops and various pesticides.
Hemp fails- won’t displace corn/cotton—subsidies
Skaidra Smith-Heisters, policy analyst, “Illegally Green: Environmental Costs of Hemp Prohibition,” POLICY STUDY n. 367,
Reason Foundation, 3—08, p. 7.
Finally, U.S.
policy not only prohibits experimentation with industrial hemp, it directly subsidizes the production of
competing commodities that might be environmentally inferior. High-yield hemp crops are often said to grow
best in the same areas that produce corn and wheat. In 1995, the USDA also investigated hemp as an alternative for tobacco
farming.30 The Environmental Working Group reports that, from 1995 to 2005, U.S. direct agricultural subsidy
programs amounted to $51.3 billion for corn, $21.0 billion for wheat, and $530 million for tobacco.
Cotton, a fiber comparable in many ways to hemp, was the third-highest subsidized crop in the period at
$15.8 billion.31 Timber and petroleum also benefit from implicit subsidies through U.S. Forest Service timber extraction and
foreign policy programs, respectively.
2nc
cp
Severs “Legalization”-- requires maintaining the option of government regulation
and taxation- the aff is decriminalization
Posted by Austin Petersen • the chief executive officer of Stonegait LLC, Petersen is the editor in chief of The Libertarian
Republic news magazine, former Director of Production at FreedomWorks and was an Associate Producer for Judge Andrew
Napolitano’s show, “Freedom Watch” on the Fox Business Network. 23 Jan 2014 “Rick Perry: Decriminalize Marijuana, Don’t
Legalize It” http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/rick-perry-decriminalize-marijuana-dont-legalize/#axzz3AbHMCjMw ac 8-17
Decriminalizing it would reduce the penalties for marijuana possession , even though you
wouldn’t be able to purchase it in a store such as you can in Colorado. Legalization means that
the government can then step in to regulate and tax it .
Coercion outweighs
A. it’s a moral side constraint –that’s Petro – liberty is what makes life valuable we’d be better off dead
Extinction is justified – it’s absurd to predict that future generations would want to live in a world of tyranny- so we should try to make
the world free even if there is some risk of extinction
Joseph Raz, philosopher, THE MORALITY OF FREEDOM, 1986, p. 307
a person who is entirely passive and is
continuously led, cleaned, and pumped full with hash, so that he is perpetually content, and wants nothing but to stay in the
One way to test the thesis of the primacy of action reasons is to think of
same condition. It’s a familiar imaginary horror. How do we rank the success of such a life? It is not the worst life one can have. It is
simply not a life at all. It lacks activity, it lacks goals. To the extent that one is tempted to judge it more harshly than
that and to regard it as a ‘negative life’ this is because of the wasted potentiality. It is a life which could have been
and was not. We can isolate this feature by imagining that the human being concerned is mentally and physically effected in a way
which rules out the possibility of a life with any kind of meaningful pursuit in it. Now it is just not really a life at all. This
does not preclude one from saying that it is better than human life. It is simply sufficiently unlike human life in the respects that
matter that we regard it as only a degenerate case of human life. But clearly
not being alive can be better than that
life.
B. Makes extinction inevitable – its try or die
Louis Rene Beres, Professor of International Law, Purdue University, Spring,
AND COMPARATIVE LAW, p. 23-4
1994, ARIZONA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL
This, then, is an altogether different kind of understanding. Rather than rescue humankind by freeing individuals from fear of
death, this perspective recommends educating people to the truth of an incontestable relationship between death and
geopolitics. By surrendering ourselves to States and to traditional views of self-determination, we encourage
not immortality but premature
and predictable extinction. It is a relationship that can, and must, be more widely
corrosive calculus of geopolitics has now made
possible the deliberate killing of all life, populations all over the planet turn increasingly to States for security. It
is the dreadful ingenuity of States that makes possible death in the billions, but it is in the
expressions of that ingenuity that people seek safety. Indeed, as the threat of nuclear annihilation looms even
understood. There are great ironies involved. Although the
after the Cold War, the citizens of conflicting States reaffirm their segmented loyalties, moved by the persistent unreason that
is, after all, the most indelible badge of modern humankind.
Fism
Federalism kills biodiversity
Tarlock, Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, 95 [A. Dan, Md. L. Rev. 1315, Summer, p. Lexis]
Federalism doctrines may undermine biodiversity for both ethical and practical reasons because they
unduly check national authority. Biodiversity protection is more the province of national elites than local
citizens and runs counter to the often expressed preferences for lower-level rather than higher-level political control for the use of private property claims to block environmental
regulation. The fact that biodiversity is frustrated by lower-level resistance is, of course, not in and of itself a basis for criticizing a
constitutionally derived doctrine. However, biodiversity protection may provide a new interest for courts to consider in federalism and constitutional adjudication when no other
compelling constitutional values are at stake. The
root of the problem is the preference for local decision-making that runs
through much federalism jurisprudence. This preference can frustrate biodiversity because it
concentrates power at the level where opposition to biodiversity protection may be the strongest. The
preference for local decision-making rests on an alternative vision of the virtues of America as a confederation of city-states, coexisting with the Marshallian vision of a strong
Rose finds the persistence "of stubborn local particularism" a
logical "evolution of a kind of Anti-Federalist praxis, almost invisible in an intellectual environment of
overwhelming Federalist theory." 109 Biodiversity protection is especially vulnerable to this form of localism because it is both a novel and thus difficult
central government curbing parochial tendencies. Professor Carol
theoretical, legal, and political problem. [*1337]
env
Too expensive—harvesting, storage
Dan Mitchell, staff, “Why Legalized Hemp Will Not Be a Miracle Crop,” MODERN FARMER, 10—17—13,
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/10/legal-industrial-hemp-wont-matter/, accessed 9-13-14.
And hemp
cultivation is highly labor intensive . Loflin, the Colorado farmer, took to social media to recruit 45 people
to help him harvest his crop by hand over a weekend. “Use of a mechanical combine,” the Denver Post reported, “would
have harmed the plants’ stalks.” That’s one reason prices are so high — about six times the cost
of wood pulp. Hemp is an annual crop, which means it must be stored in order to be processed
throughout the year, further adding to the cost of using it — and to the incentive for using
something else.
Benefits are exaggerated
Dan Mitchell, staff, “Why Legalized Hemp Will Not Be a Miracle Crop,” MODERN FARMER, 10—17—13,
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/10/legal-industrial-hemp-wont-matter/, accessed 9-13-14.
There has never been a good reason for the ban on industrial hemp. It's no more harmful than industrial switchgrass, or industrial
lumber for that matter. But at the same time, the
claims of hemp activists are often overblown . It's a highly useful,
highly versatile crop, but its utility is, for the most part, fairly marginal, at least going by the size of its
existing markets and estimates for how big a domestic U.S. market could be.
That “activists” have rallied behind hemp is, of course, mainly due to its relationship to marijuana. The plants are cousins — both are
cannabis. Not that hemp should ever have been illegal, but it’s hard to imagine that if flax or jute were for some
reason illegal, such a large, politically-tinged campaign would be organized around legalizing
either of them. As with any political movement, hemp activism has generated tons of wildly exaggerated
claims , such as when a Daily Kos writer in 2011 declared that “Industrial Hemp can save America.”
No big market—experience in other countries proves
Dan Mitchell, staff, “Why Legalized Hemp Will Not Be a Miracle Crop,” MODERN FARMER, 10—17—13,
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/10/legal-industrial-hemp-wont-matter/, accessed 9-13-14.
But “thriving”
doesn’t mean “huge” — not by a longshot. Worldwide, only about 200,000 acres of
land were devoted to hemp cultivation in 2011, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, with that
number being “flat to decreasing” in recent years in the 30 countries where hemp is cultivated. Meanwhile,
in North Dakota alone, flax was harvested from more than 315,000 acres (95 percent of the U.S. crop) in 2012, according to the
Agricultural Marketing Resource Association. For further perspective, consider that corn is planted on about 85 million
acres in the U.S. alone every year (though that might say more about our reliance on corn than it says about hemp.)
There are good reasons for this. Chief among them is demand , which isn’t as high as hemp’s
loudest proponents would have it. In Europe, demand fell through the 20th century as industrial
buyers increasingly chose cheaper or better alternatives for many applications — often artificial
fibers. That phenomenon has been replicated elsewhere. And as more uses for hemp have been found, demand
has grown, but not at levels that would indicate a coming hemp revolution.
The crop’s illegality in the United States hasn’t helped either, of course, though imports of
them from China — have been
hemp-based products — many of
legal since 1998. The total retail market for hemp in the United States is
only about $500 million. That will no doubt grow with domestic cultivation — and perhaps with innovations in manufacturing
technologies that could increase demand. But hemp is unlikely to ever be a world-changer.
CO2 solves food crisis, killing millions—tech can’t keep up
Dr. Craig D. Idso, ESTIMATES OF GLOBAL FOOD PRODUCTION IN THE YEAR 2050: WILL WE PRODUCE ENOUGH TO
ADEQUATELY FEED THE WORLD, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 6—15—11, p. 30-31.
As indicated in the material above, a very real and devastating food crisis is looming on the horizon, and
continuing advancements in agricultural tech nology and expertise will most likely not be
able to bridge the gap between global food supply and global food demand just a few short
years from now. However, the positive impact of Earth’s rising atmospheric CO2 concentration
on crop yields will considerably lessen the severity of the coming food shortage. In some
regions and countries it will mean the difference between being food secure or food insecure ;
and it will aid in lifting untold hundreds of millions out of a state of hunger and malnutrition,
preventing starvation and premature death. For those regions of the globe where neither
enhancements in the techno-intel effect nor the rise in CO2 are projected to foster food security, an
Apollo moon-mission-like commitment is needed by governments and researchers to further increase crop yields per
unit of land area planted, nutrients applied, and water used. And about the only truly viable option for doing
so (without taking enormous amounts of land and water from nature and driving untold numbers of plant
and animal species to extinction) is to have researchers and governments invest the time, effort and capital
needed to identify and to prepare for production the plant genotypes that are most capable of maximizing CO2 benefits
for important food crops. Rice, for example, is the third most important global food crop, accounting for 9.4% of global
food production. Based upon data presented in the CO2 Science Plant Growth Database, the average growth response
of rice to a 300-ppm increase in the air’s CO2 concentration is 35.7%. However, data obtained from De Costa et al.
(2007), who studied the growth responses of 16 different rice genotypes, revealed CO2-induced productivity
increases ranging from -7% to +263%. Therefore, if countries learned to identify which genotypes
provided the largest yield increases per unit of CO2 rise, and then grew those genotypes, it is
quite possible that the world could collectively produce enough food to supply the needs of
all of its inhabitants . But since rising CO2 concentrations are considered by many people to be the primary cause
of global warming, we are faced with a dilemma of major proportions. If proposed regulations restricting
anthropogenic CO2 emissions (which are designed to remedy the potential global warming problem) are
enacted, they will greatly exacerbate future food problems by reducing the CO2-induced
yield enhancements that are needed to supplement increases provided by advances in
agricultural technology and expertise. And as a result of such CO2 emissions regulations, hundreds of
millions of the world’s population will be subjected to hunger and malnutrition. Even more
troubling is the fact that thousands would die daily as a result of health problems they likely would
have survived had they received adequate food and nutrition. About the only option for
avoiding the food crisis, and its negative ramifications for humanity and nature alike, is to allow the
atmospheric CO2 concentration to continue to rise as predicted (no CO2 emission restrictions), and
then to learn to maximize those benefits through the growing of CO2-loving cultivars.
Emissions cuts risk a far worse ice age
David Deming, Associate Professor, Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, “The Coming Ice Age,” AMERICAN THINKER,
5—13—09, www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_coming_ice_age.html, accessed 5-27-11.
In northern Europe, the Little Ice Age kicked off with the Great Famine of 1315. Crops failed due to cold temperatures
and incessant rain. Desperate and starving, parents ate their children, and people dug up corpses from graves for food.
In jails, inmates instantly set upon new prisoners and ate them alive. The Great Famine was followed by the Black
Death, the greatest disaster ever to hit the human race. One-third of the human race died; terror and anarchy prevailed.
Human civilization as we know it is only possible in a warm interglacial climate. Short of a
catastrophic asteroid impact, the greatest threat to the human race is the onset of another ice age. The oscillation
between ice ages and interglacial periods is the dominant feature of Earth's climate for the last million years. But the
computer models that predict significant global warming from carbon dioxide cannot reproduce these temperature
changes. This failure to reproduce the most significant aspect of terrestrial climate reveals an incomplete understanding
of the climate system, if not a nearly complete ignorance. Global warming predictions by meteorologists are based on
speculative, untested, and poorly constrained computer models. But our knowledge of ice ages is based on a wide
variety of reliable data, including cores from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. In this case, it would be
perspicacious to listen to the geologists, not the meteorologists. By reducing our production of carbon
dioxide, we risk hastening the advent of the next ice age. Even more foolhardy and dangerous is the
Obama administration's announcement that they may try to cool the planet through geoengineering. Such a move in
the middle of a cooling trend could provoke the irreversible onset of an ice age.
It is not hyperbole
to state that such a climatic change would mean the end of human civilization as we know
it . Earth's climate is controlled by the Sun. In comparison, every other factor is trivial. The coldest part of
the Little Ice Age during the latter half of the seventeenth century was marked by the nearly complete absence of
sunspots. And the Sun now appears to be entering a new period of quiescence. August of 2008 was the first month
since the year 1913 that no sunspots were observed. As I write, the sun remains quiet. We are in a cooling
trend. The areal extent of global sea ice is above the twenty-year mean. We have heard much of the dangers of global
warming due to carbon dioxide. But the potential danger of any potential anthropogenic warming is
trivial compared to the risk of entering a new ice age. Public policy decisions should be based on a
realistic appraisal that takes both climate scenarios into consideration.
1nr
uncontrollable escalation – draws-in every superpower, specifically US, Russia,
and China – only scenario that rises to the level of extinction
Reuveny, 10 – professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University (Rafael, “Unilateral strike could
trigger World War III, global depression” Gazette Xtra, 8/7, - See more at: http://gazettextra.com/news/2010/aug/07/con-unilateralstrike-could-trigger-world-war-iii-/#sthash.ec4zqu8o.dpuf)
A unilateral Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would likely have dire consequences,
including a regional war, global economic collapse and a major power clash. For an Israeli campaign to
succeed, it must be quick and decisive. This requires an attack that would be so overwhelming that Iran would not dare to respond
in full force. Such an outcome is extremely unlikely since the locations of some of Iran’s nuclear facilities are not
fully known and known facilities are buried deep underground . All of these widely spread facilities are
shielded by elaborate air defense systems constructed not only by the Iranians but also the Chinese and, likely, the Russians as
well. By now, Iran has also built redundant command and control systems and nuclear facilities ,
developed early warning systems, acquired ballistic and cruise missiles and upgraded and enlarged its armed forces. Because Iran
is well-prepared, a single, conventional Israeli strike—or even numerous strikes—could not destroy all of its
capabilities, giving Iran time to respond. Unlike Iraq, whose nuclear program Israel destroyed in 1981, Iran has a secondstrike capability comprised of a coalition of Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese, Hezbollah, Hamas, and, perhaps, Turkish forces.
Internal pressure might compel Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to join the assault, turning a bad situation into a regional
war. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, at the apex of its power, Israel was saved from defeat by President Nixon’s shipment of
weapons and planes. Today, Israel’s numerical inferiority is greater, and it faces more determined and better-equipped opponents.
After years of futilely fighting Palestinian irregular armies, Israel has lost some of its perceived superiority—bolstering its enemies’
resolve. Despite Israel’s touted defense systems, Iranian coalition missiles, armed forces, and terrorist attacks would likely wreak
havoc on its enemy, leading to a prolonged tit-for-tat. In the absence of massive U.S. assistance, Israel’s military
resources may quickly dwindle, forcing it to use its alleged nuclear weapons, as it had reportedly almost
done in 1973. An Israeli nuclear attack would likely destroy most of Iran’s capabilities, but a crippled Iran and its coalition could still
attack neighboring oil facilities, unleash global terrorism, plant mines in the Persian Gulf and impair maritime trade in the
Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Middle Eastern oil shipments would likely slow to a trickle as production
declines due to the war and insurance companies decide to drop their risky Middle Eastern clients. Iran and Venezuela would likely
stop selling oil to the United States and Europe. From there, things could deteriorate as they did in the 1930s. The world
economy would head into a tailspin; international acrimony would rise; and Iraqi and Afghani citizens might
fully turn on the United States, immediately requiring the deployment of more American troops. Russia, China, Venezuela,
and maybe Brazil and Turkey—all of which essentially support Iran—could be tempted to form an alliance and
openly challenge the U.S. hegemony. Russia and China might rearm their injured Iranian protege overnight, just as
Nixon rearmed Israel, and threaten to intervene, just as the U.S.S.R. threatened to join Egypt and Syria in 1973. President
Obama’s response would likely put U.S. forces on nuclear alert , replaying Nixon’s nightmarish scenario. Iran
may well feel duty-bound to respond to a unilateral attack by its Israeli archenemy, but it knows that it could not take on the United
States head-to-head. In contrast, if the United States leads the attack, Iran’s response would likely be muted. If Iran chooses to
absorb an American-led strike, its allies would likely protest and send weapons but would probably not risk using force. While no
one has a crystal ball, leaders should be risk-averse when choosing war as a foreign policy tool. If attacking Iran is deemed
necessary, Israel must wait for an American green light.
A unilateral Israeli strike could ultimately spark World War
III .
Iran war escalates
Jeffrey White, defense fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “What Would War with Iran Look Like,” AMERICAN
INTEREST, July/August 2011, http://www.the-american-interest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=982
A U.S.-Iranian war would probably not be fought by the U nited S tates and Iran alone. Each would have
partners or allies, both willing and not-so-willing. Pre-conflict commitments, longstanding relationships, the
course of operations and other factors would place the U nited S tates and Iran at of more or less structured
coalitions of the marginally willing. A Western coalition could consist of the United States and most of its traditional allies (but very
likely not Turkey, based on the evolution of Turkish politics) in addition to some Persian Gulf states, Jordan and perhaps Egypt,
depending on where its revolution takes it. Much would depend on whether U.S. leaders could persuade others to go along, which
would mean convincing them that U.S. forces could shield them from Iranian and Iranian-proxy retaliation, or at least substantially
weaken its effects. Coalition warfare would present a number of challenges to the U.S. government. Overall, it would lend legitimacy
to the action, but it would also constrict U.S. freedom of action, perhaps by limiting the scope and intensity of military operations.
There would thus be tension between the desire for a small coalition of the capable for operational and security purposes and a
broader coalition that would include marginally useful allies to maximize legitimacy. The U.S. administration would probably not
welcome Israeli participation. But if Israel were directly attacked by Iran or its allies, Washington would find it difficult to keep Israel
out—as it did during the 1991 Gulf War. That would complicate the U.S. ability to manage its coalition, although it would not
necessarily break it apart. Iranian diplomacy and information operations would seek to exploit Israeli participation to the fullest. Iran
would have its own coalition. Hizballah in particular could act at Iran’s behest both by attacking Israel directly
and by using its asymmetric and irregular warfare capabilities to expand the conflict and complicate the maintenance of
the U.S. coalition. The escalation of the Hizballah-Israel conflict could draw in Syria and Hamas; Hamas in particular could
feel compelled to respond to an Iranian request for assistance. Some or all of these satellite actors might choose to leave
Iran to its fate, especially if initial U.S. strikes seemed devastating to the point of decisive. But their involvement would
spread the conflictto the entire eastern Mediterranean and perhaps beyond, complicating both U.S. military
operations and coalition diplomacy.
Iran war escalates
Jeffrey White, defense fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “What Would War with Iran Look Like,” AMERICAN
INTEREST, July/August 2011, http://www.the-american-interest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=982
A U.S.-Iranian war would probably not be fought by the U nited S tates and Iran alone. Each would have
partners or allies, both willing and not-so-willing. Pre-conflict commitments, longstanding relationships, the
course of operations and other factors would place the U nited S tates and Iran at of more or less structured
coalitions of the marginally willing. A Western coalition could consist of the United States and most of its traditional allies (but very
likely not Turkey, based on the evolution of Turkish politics) in addition to some Persian Gulf states, Jordan and perhaps Egypt,
depending on where its revolution takes it. Much would depend on whether U.S. leaders could persuade others to go along, which
would mean convincing them that U.S. forces could shield them from Iranian and Iranian-proxy retaliation, or at least substantially
weaken its effects. Coalition warfare would present a number of challenges to the U.S. government. Overall, it would lend legitimacy
to the action, but it would also constrict U.S. freedom of action, perhaps by limiting the scope and intensity of military operations.
There would thus be tension between the desire for a small coalition of the capable for operational and security purposes and a
broader coalition that would include marginally useful allies to maximize legitimacy. The U.S. administration would probably not
welcome Israeli participation. But if Israel were directly attacked by Iran or its allies, Washington would find it difficult to keep Israel
out—as it did during the 1991 Gulf War. That would complicate the U.S. ability to manage its coalition, although it would not
necessarily break it apart. Iranian diplomacy and information operations would seek to exploit Israeli participation to the fullest. Iran
would have its own coalition. Hizballah in particular could act at Iran’s behest both by attacking Israel directly
and by using its asymmetric and irregular warfare capabilities to expand the conflict and complicate the maintenance of
the U.S. coalition. The escalation of the Hizballah-Israel conflict could draw in Syria and Hamas; Hamas in particular could
feel compelled to respond to an Iranian request for assistance. Some or all of these satellite actors might choose to leave
Iran to its fate, especially if initial U.S. strikes seemed devastating to the point of decisive. But their involvement would
spread the conflictto the entire eastern Mediterranean and perhaps beyond, complicating both U.S. military
operations and coalition diplomacy.
Sanctions destroy Iran negotiations kills US cred and alliances – leads to US-Iran
war and prolif
Alirez Nader, “Pause on Additional Iran Sanctions Crucial to Negotiations,” THE HILL, 11—15—13,
http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/189371-pause-on-additional-iran-sanctions-crucial-to-negotiations
Iran has demonstrated a different tone and approach to nuclear negotiations since the June 14 election of
Hassan Rouhani as president. Nothing concrete has emerged yet, but the U.S. negotiating team, headed by
Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, has described the last round of negotiations as positive and different from
previous sessions with the Iranian team under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ADVERTISEMENT Rouhani’s
election and, more importantly, Iran’s dire economic condition are the reasons for Tehran’s new
approach. Some have taken this to mean that more sanctions are needed. However, just because Tehran is seeking
to ease the pressure brought on by the sanctions that exist today does not mean that it will yield
to new sanctions tomorrow. Rouhani has a limited mandate to solve the nuclear crisis and lift
sanctions. However, more radical elements of the Iranian political system, marginalized for now, are waiting
for him to fail. They believe that the American government is either duplicitous or will be unable to deliver a deal.
New sanctions would confirm their view and further their goals of ending negotiations and
sidelining Rouhani. New sanctions passed before a true test of Iran’s intentions could result in a
bleak future: a risky and costly war with Iran with no guarantee of success, or the acceptance of
an increasingly embittered, isolated, repressive and nuclear capable Islamic Republic. The Iranian
people have borne the brunt of sanctions, but it would be hard to argue that the Iranian regime has not felt the pressure as well.
And it is this crucial portfolio that could determine his fate . He has the support of Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard, without which he would not be able to negotiate or even run his
government. But Khamenei and the Guard are under no illusion that negotiations are sure to succeed ; nor
are they willing to continue negotiations under humiliating conditions. Sanctions are a danger to
their rule, but weakness in the face of pressure might be no less a threat. They must give Rouhani a chance
because the Iranian people and key political constituents support negotiations. The viability of
Rouhani’s platform of moderation and engagement with the West hangs in balance. Khamenei and
hard-line Guard are willing to “test” America as much as the Obama administration is willing to
“test” Tehran. New sanctions under consideration by Congress could lead to a weakening of the
overall U.S. position. First, Rouhani could lose his mandate to continue negotiations. Second, Iran
could begin to undermine the international coalition that has created the harshest peacetime sanctions
in history. Rouhani, weakened at home but still respected abroad, could persuade major Iranian oil buyers
such as China, India, Japan and even European that Iran attempted to negotiate in good faith but
was rebuffed by the United States. Third, Iran could successfully cause a split between the group.
China and Russia might believe that Congress wants regime change in Iran instead of a
diplomatic solution. Germany, which has close business ties with Iran, could become unhappy about its
economic sacrifices. And even the U.K. and France could begin to doubt U.S. intentions . Congress
deserves credit for pressuring the Iranian regime, but it should pause the march toward new
sanctions to give the negotiations a chance. Current sanctions against Iran are effective, and new sanctions can
always be imposed if Iran does not budge. A smart approach toward Iran does not only entail creating
pressure but using it correctly, and for the right goals.
Prolif alone triggers nuclear war
Eric Edelman, Distinguished Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, “The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran,”
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, January/February 2011, Ebsco.
The reports of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States and the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of
nuclear-armed Iran could
trigger additional nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, even if Israel does not declare its own nuclear arsenal. Notably, Algeria, Bahrain,
Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, as well as other analyses, have highlighted the risk that a
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates- all signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (npt)-have recently
announced or initiated nuclear energy programs. Although some of these states have legitimate economic rationales for pursuing nuclear power and
although the low-enriched fuel used for power reactors cannot be used in nuclear weapons, these moves have been widely interpreted as hedges
against a nuclear-armed Iran. The npt does not bar states from developing the sensitive technology required to produce nuclear fuel on their own, that
is, the capability to enrich natural uranium and separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel.Yet enrichment and reprocessing can also be used to
accumulate weapons-grade enriched uranium and plutonium-the very loophole that Iran has apparently exploited in pursuing a nuclear weapons
capability. Developing nuclear weapons remains a slow, expensive, and difficult process, even for states with considerable economic resources, and
especially if other nations try to constrain aspiring nuclear states' access to critical materials and technology. Without external support, it is unlikely that
any of these aspirants could develop a nuclear weapons capability within a decade. There is, however, at least one state that could receive significant
outside support: Saudi Arabia. And if it did, proliferation could accelerate throughout the region. Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been geopolitical and
ideological rivals. Riyadh would face tremendous pressure to respond in some form to a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to deter Iranian coercion and
subversion but also to preserve its sense that Saudi Arabia is the leading nation in the Muslim world. The
Saudi government is already pursuing a
might be
nuclear power capability, which could be the first step along a slow road to nuclear weapons development. And concerns persist that it
able to accelerate its progress by exploiting its close ties to Pakistan. During the 1980s, in response to the use of missiles
during the Iran-Iraq War and their growing proliferation throughout the region, Saudi Arabia acquired several dozen css-2 intermediate-range ballistic
missiles from China. The Pakistani government reportedly brokered the deal, and it may have also offered to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear warheads for
the css-2s, which are not accurate enough to deliver conventional warheads effectively. There are still rumors that Riyadh and Islamabad have had
discussions involving nuclear weapons, nuclear technology, or security guarantees. This "Islamabad option" could develop in one of several different
ways. Pakistan could sell operational nuclear weapons and delivery systems to Saudi Arabia, or it could provide the Saudis with the infrastructure,
material, and technical support they need to produce nuclear weapons themselves within a matter of years, as opposed to a decade or longer.Not only
has Pakistan provided such support in the past, but it is currently building two more heavy-water reactors for plutonium production and a second
chemical reprocessing facility to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. In other words, it might accumulate more fissile material than it needs to
maintain even a substantially expanded arsenal of its own. Alternatively, Pakistan might offer an extended deterrent guarantee to Saudi Arabia and
deploy nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and troops on Saudi territory, a practice that the United States has employed for decades with its allies.
This arrangement could be particularly appealing to both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It would allow the Saudis to argue that they are not violating the
npt since they would not be acquiring their own nuclear weapons. And an extended deterrent from Pakistan might be preferable to one from the United
States because stationing foreign Muslim forces on Saudi territory would not trigger the kind of popular opposition that would accompany the
deployment of U.S. troops. Pakistan, for its part, would gain financial benefits and international clout by deploying nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia, as
well as strategic depth against its chief rival, India. The Islamabad option raises a host of difficult issues, perhaps the most worrisome being how
India would respond. Would it target Pakistan's weapons in Saudi Arabia with its own conventional or nuclear weapons? How
would this expanded nuclear competition influence stability during a crisis in either the Middle East or South Asia? Regardless of India's reaction, any
decision by the Saudi government to seek out nuclear weapons, by whatever means, would
be highly destabilizing. It would increase the
incentives of other nations in the Middle East to pursue nuclear weapons of their own. And it could increase their ability to do so by eroding the
remaining barriers to nuclear proliferation: each additional state that acquires nuclear weapons weakens the nonproliferation regime, even if its
particular method of acquisition only circumvents, rather than violates, the npt. N-PLAYER COMPETITION Were Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear
weapons, the Middle East would count three nuclear-armed states, and perhaps more before long. It is unclear how such an n-player competition
would unfold because most analyses of nuclear deterrence are based on the U.S.- Soviet rivalry during the Cold War. It seems likely, however, that the
interaction among three or more nuclear-armed powers would be more prone to miscalculation and escalation than a
bipolar competition. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union only needed to concern themselves with an attack from the other.
Multipolar systems are generally considered to be less stable than bipolar systems because
coalitions can shift quickly, upsetting the
balance of power and creating incentives for an attack. More important, emerging nuclear powers in the Middle East might not take
the costly steps necessary to preserve regional stability and avoid a nuclear exchange. For nuclear-armed states, the bedrock of deterrence is the
knowledge that each side has a secure second-strike capability, so that no state can launch an attack with the expectation that it can wipe out its
opponents' forces and avoid a devastating retaliation. However, emerging nuclear powers might not invest in expensive but survivable capabilities such
Given this likely vulnerability, the close proximity of states in the Middle East,
and the very short flight times of ballistic missiles in the region, any new nuclear powers might be compelled to "launch on
warning" of an attack or even, during a crisis, to use their nuclear forces preemptively. Their governments might also delegate
launch authority to lower-level commanders, heightening the possibility of miscalculation and escalation. Moreover, if early warning
as hardened missile silos or submarinebased nuclear forces.
systems were not integrated into robust command-and-control systems, the risk of an unauthorized or accidental launch would increase further still.
And without sophisticated early warning systems, a nuclear attack might be unattributable or attributed incorrectly. That is, assuming that the
leadership of a targeted state survived a first strike, it might not be able to accurately determine which nation was responsible. And this
uncertainty, when combined with the pressure to respond quickly, would create a significant risk that it would retaliate against the wrong
party, potentially triggering a regional nuclear war.
B. Eliminates outliers—other models take the average, rather than the median, of
polls which skews the data
Prokp 9-6-14 (Andrew, staff writer, "Why election forecasters disagree about who will win the Senate" Vox)
www.vox.com/2014/9/6/6106047/who-will-win-the-senate-nate-silver-sam-wang-2014
There's another, more technical reason why Wang's model may stand out: he alone relies on the
median of polls . Specifically, he finds the median of the most recent poll from each pollster,
estimates a standard error, and calculates a win probability based on that. "My use of medianbased statistics is a way to get rid of outliers," he has said. "If the numbers say Obama +1, Obama
+2, and Romney +9, the right answer is probably Obama +1, the middle value (median), not the
average." In contrast, HuffPostPollster and Daily Kos look at every poll conducted in a particular race and fit a trendline to them.
Pot on the ballot could save the dems
Michael Mishak, staff, “Florida Democrats Hope Medical Pot Measure Will Boost Voter Turnout,” PBS NEWSHOUR, 4—14—14,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/florida-democrats-hope/, accessed 9-5-14.
Democrats in the nation’s largest swing-state see the question of whether to legalize medical marijuana as a rare
source of hope and high voter turnout in this year’s midterm elections. Party operatives are pushing a constitutional amendment that
would make Florida the first state in the South to legalize some pot use. Polls show the measure has widespread public support,
and it’s particularly popular among young voters – a critical part of the Democratic coalition with
historically weak turnout in non-presidential election years. “I wish that it didn’t take medical marijuana on the ballot to motivate our
young voters to go and vote because there’s far too much at stake for them and their children,” said Ana Cruz, former executive
director of the Florida Democratic Party. “But listen, we’ll take it any way we can get it.” At stake is the Florida governor’s office, as
well as a handful of competitive House seats. But the nation’s political world will be watching Florida’s turnout in November for clues
to whether pot on the ballot could draw young people to the polls. In 2012, both Washington and Colorado saw
spikes in youth turnout when marijuana initiatives were on the ballot. This year, Florida could be a critical
test case for whether those increases were an anomaly or the start of a trend in advance of the presidential election in 2016, when
activists plan to launch legalization campaigns in at least six states, including battleground Nevada. “ It’s a smart move on
the Democrats’ part,” said David Flaherty, a Colorado-based GOP pollster. “It’s going to help them, no doubt about
it.” The marijuana initiative may be one bright spot for Democrats in an election year that could be
grim for the party. President Barack Obama remains unpopular, and Republicans are trying to make the elections a
referendum on his health care law. Gov. Rick Scott is making the health care overhaul a central issue in the governor’s race and
outside conservative groups, such as Americans for Prosperity, are funding a barrage of negative ads against Democrats in a
handful of swing-voting House districts. “I would rather have it on the ballot than not,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic consultant
who managed Obama’s Florida campaign in 2008. “It could have a marginal impact, and a marginal impact in
Florida could be the difference between winning and losing.” A Republican victory in a special House election
last month in Florida underscored the Democrats’ turnout problem. The St. Petersburg-area district has 2.4 percent more registered
Republicans than Democrats, but GOP voters outnumbered Democrats by 8 percentage points among those who cast ballots. While
far from a cure-all, Democrats say the medical pot measure could help counter Republican energy by
motivating young and independent voters. According to a national survey sponsored by George Washington
University last month, nearly 40 percent of likely voters said they would be “much more likely” to vote if a legalization measure was
on the ballot, with another 30 percent saying they would be “somewhat” more likely to vote.
Pot measures increase turnout
CNN, 5/8/14, “Could pot push voters to the polls this fall?” http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/08/politics/marijuana-midterms/
Pot measures are more likely to draw voters to the polls, said Chris Arterton, a political management professor at
George Washington University who helped conduct a national poll in late March examining the issue.
According to the poll "39% of surveyed voters reported that they would be much more
likely to turn out
to the polls if there was a proposal to legalize the use of marijuana on the ticket. An additional
30% said that they would be somewhat more likely to vote in the election under that
circumstance."
Turnout is key for Dems
Linda Feldman, staff, “Are 2014 Midters Really a Referendum on President Obama?” CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 5—5—
14, /www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0505/Are-2014-midterms-really-a-referendum-on-President-Obama, accessed 97-14.
And in the end, Americans don’t vote on a generic ballot, they vote
for or against specific candidates. The real
issue for Democrats is whether they can motivate their voters to show up at the polls. Party leaders say
they will use the same turnout techniques that worked for Obama in 2012 to get their voters to the polls in
2014. But they face a daunting task. Some of the Democrats’ most reliable supporters in presidential
years – single women, minorities, and young voters – vote in much lower numbers when the midterms roll
around. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed some stark data about the so-called “dropoff voters”: 61 percent are
female and 35 percent are between the ages of 18 and 34. In partisan terms, 51 percent of “dropoffs” are Democrats, 17 percent are
independents, and 25 percent are Republicans. The name of the game, therefore, is GOTV – “get out the vote.” That
means recruiting volunteers and raising enough money to pay for the staff and infrastructure needed to get dropoff voters to turn
out.
Turnout is the determining factor
Jackie Gingrich, author, “Turnout Is Key in Midterm Elections,” NEWSMAX, 5—15—14,
www.newsmax.com/JackieGingrich/Turnout-Midterm-Elections-Senate/2014/05/15/id/571463/, accessed 6-13-14.
Of course, elections
are determined not by polls or opinions, but by counting the votes of those who
bothered to go to the polls. Turnout is key, especially in an off-year election. "Typically, the party
whose supporters have an advantage in enthusiasm has done better in midterm elections ," noted
Gallup. "Republicans had decided advantages in enthusiasm in 1994, 2002, and especially 2010 — years in which they won control
of the House of Representatives or expanded on their existing majority. Democrats had the advantage in 2006, the year they won
control of the House. Neither party had a decided advantage in 1998, a year Democrats posted minimal gains in House seats." In
hotly contested primaries such as Georgia, negative ads often have a way of making their way to the forefront, especially in the final
days of the primary when candidates and their staffs may become desperate to make it into the run-off. The challenge with negative
ads is that they might lead some prospective voters to decide not to vote at all. While this might be a plan to win — voter
suppression never works for a democracy in the long run. Elections should be won by candidates who offer a better path and vision
to a brighter future, who engage and energize voters rather than repel them. This year, the midterm elections will be
about turnout. Let's drive turnout based on voter enthusiasm.
GOP Senate ensures sanctions
Eric Pianin, journalist, “Get Ready for One-Party Rule if GOP Wins the Senate,” FISCAL TIMES, 1—16—14,
www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/01/16/Get-Ready-One-Party-Rule-If-GOP-Wins-Senate
There would be other important consequences as well to a return to one-party rule in Congress, with
Republicans in
charge of both the Senate and the House. If the likes of McConnell and Tea Party favorites Rand Paul of Kentucky
and Ted Cruz of Texas are suddenly calling the shots in the Senate, the Democrats’ main bulwark
against House Republican legislation and assaults will be gone – leaving President Obama and his veto pen as
his party’s last line of defense. That would mean Obama would likely spend his last two years in office trying to fend off Republicanpassed legislation to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, strip out sections of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, kill off
Environmental Protection Agency regulations reducing greenhouse gas emissions , further toughening sanctions
against Iran and scores of other measures that strike at the heart of Obama’s legislative accomplishments. Jim Manley, Reid’s
former press secretary, said Washington would be treated to “government by veto.”
GOP will undermine the Iran deal
Albert R. Hunt, “Republian Senate Could Bypass Obama’s Vetoes,” NEWS JOURNAL, 4—1—14,
www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/04/01/republican-senate-bypass-obamas-vetoes/7165339/], accessed 714-14.
• Foreign policy: The
biggest issue might be a nuclear deal with Iran. Odds are the current negotiations will be
For now, only the strong hand of Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid prevents legislation that might scuttle the negotiations from coming to the floor. If a deal is reached, a
extended until the end of this year or next year.
Republican Congress would probably refuse to repeal the sanctions imposed on Iran. The president can waive some of these
measures by executive order. But Congress would still have latitude to complicate any arrangement. As to investigations of alleged
administration misconduct, take the current number and double it. Democrats, when not in a state of panic, predict that such a
scenario would lead to Republican overreach, paving the way for a Democratic president – and Senate – two years later. If so, the
agenda of that new president would be to undo much of what had been done the previous two years.
GOP Senate will reverse Obama’s climate change initiatives
Amy Harder, journalist, “Care About Energy and Environment Policy? Watch These Eight Races,” NATIONAL JOURNAL, 12—
31—13, www.nationaljournal.com/energy/care-about-energy-and-environment-policy-watch-these-eight-races-20131231, accessed
3-20-14.
For environmentalists, the 2014 midterm elections are about settling for the lesser of two evils. Several conservative Democrats up
for reelection in red states are facing tough competition, and if enough of these members lose, the Senate could flip to
Republican control. That would be the worst outcome for environmentalists, who need a
Democrat-controlled Senate to defend against efforts to undo President Obama's climate-change
agenda and other tough environmental policies. For the fossil-fuel industries, it's more of a mixed bag. Many major energy
companies are backing conservative—and influential—Democrats who champion their cause. But at the same time, this industry
also generally supports the Republican quest to take back control of the Senate. When it comes to how the Senate's handling of
energy and environment issues could change in 2015, the trio of vulnerable incumbent Democrats to watch the closest include
Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Here's a roundup of those races and others
you should watch.
GOP Senate will reverse Obama’s climate change initiatives
Amy Harder, journalist, “Care About Energy and Environment Policy? Watch These Eight Races,” NATIONAL JOURNAL, 12—
31—13, www.nationaljournal.com/energy/care-about-energy-and-environment-policy-watch-these-eight-races-20131231, accessed
3-20-14.
For environmentalists, the 2014 midterm elections are about settling for the lesser of two evils. Several conservative Democrats up
for reelection in red states are facing tough competition, and if enough of these members lose, the Senate could flip to
Republican control. That would be the worst outcome for environmentalists, who need a
Democrat-controlled Senate to defend against efforts to undo President Obama's climate-change
agenda and other tough environmental policies. For the fossil-fuel industries, it's more of a mixed bag. Many major energy
companies are backing conservative—and influential—Democrats who champion their cause. But at the same time, this industry
also generally supports the Republican quest to take back control of the Senate. When it comes to how the Senate's handling of
energy and environment issues could change in 2015, the trio of vulnerable incumbent Democrats to watch the closest include
Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Here's a roundup of those races and others
you should watch.
EPA regs Boosts the economy—green technology, health care savings from
decreased pollution
Jeff Spross, staff, “Why EPA’s Carbon Regualtions Won’t Ruin the Economy, in Three Simple Steps,” CLIMATEPROGRESS,
6—3—14, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/03/3444064/epa-explainer-economy/, accessed 7-7-14.
For one thing, EPA’s
regulations will drive demand away from carbon-heavy electricity and into other
emerging sectors like renewable electricity, energy efficiency, and new technological implementation. That will create
new jobs in those sectors to offset jobs lost in traditional coal power. NRDC’s analysis showed its proposal would
create 274,000 jobs in energy efficiency in 2020 — that alone would reduce the job loss the Chamber projected for
2020 by almost two-thirds. We can also expect job creation in renewable energy, as well as in pollution
control technology and installation. But arguably even more important than growth in those sectors are the
health benefits of cutting power plant emissions. The sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter that get released
when power plants burn coal drive up rates of asthma attacks, respiratory disease, heart disease, and a host of other ailments. This
is a big reason why the 1990 sulfur dioxide laws and lots of other regulations actually helped the economy: the economic benefits of
lives saved, hospital visits prevented, and an overall healthier workforce far outweighed the compliance costs to businesses. Now,
carbon dioxide itself isn’t an immediate threat to human health — most of the economic benefits of avoiding climate change are
loaded into the future — but cutting carbon emissions inevitably cuts those other pollutants as well. So when NRDC ran the
numbers on its proposal for the carbon rules, found the benefits of the emissions cuts, excluding the benefits of avoiding
climate change, would
outpace the costs in 2020 by roughly $6 billion to $19 billion. And when the EPA modeled the
to the economy of $7.3 billion to $8.8 billion annually, versus benefits of
$55 billion to $93 billion by 2030. The benefits are primarily thanks to the health effects, which include avoiding
actual regulations, it found annual costs
2,700 to 6,600 premature deaths and 140,000 to 150,000 asthma attacks in children. Those benefits will not be far in the future, they
will arrive much faster. And because poor and minority Americans are disproportionately harmed by coal pollution, they’ll also enjoy
the bulk of those benefits. In short, the unforeseen positive effects of EPA’s regulations will likely overwhelm the foreseen negative
effects.
The benefits of EPA regulations for the economy far outweigh the cost
Jeff Spross, staff, “New Study: The Economic Benefits of EPA Regulations Massively Outweigh the Costs,”
CLIMATEPROGRESS, 5—3—13, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/03/1955891/new-omb-study-the-economic-benefits-ofepa-regulations-massively-outweigh-the-costs/, accessed 7-7-14.
The latest effort to kill it comes via a new study from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which found that
the
benefits EPA regulations bring to the economy far outweigh the costs. The way this works is pretty straightforward. Environmental regulations do impose compliance costs on businesses, and can raise prices, which hurt
economic growth. But they also create jobs by requiring pollution clean-up and prevention efforts. And
perhaps even more importantly, they save the economy billions by avoiding pollution’s deleterious health
effects. Particles from smoke stacks, for example, are implicated in respiratory diseases, heart attacks, infections and a host of
other ailments, all of which require billions in health care costs per year to treat. Preventing those particles from going into the air
means healthier and more productive citizens, who can go spend that money on something other than making themselves well
again. Another example is carbon emissions, which will impose costs on the economy in the form of future disruption to food
supplies, destruction from extreme weather, and other upheavals if they’re not curbed. Researchers generally put those costs at
around $20 to $25 per ton of carbon, but estimates vary widely. Other regulations are actually aimed at reducing red tape, improving
communication between agencies, and facilitating the flow of information. The OMB study looked at a range of regulations across
the economy, and found their benefits outweighed their costs across the board. The blue and red bars below represent the range of
estimates for what the respective costs and benefits of regulations were. In very few instances was even the very upper limit of cost
estimates equal to the very lower limit of benefit estimates. But no where was the effect greater than with EPA regulations
themselves. Over the last decade, they imposed as much as $45 billion in costs on the economy, but they also drove as much as
$640 billion in benefits: The OMB found that a decade’s worth of major federal rules had produced annual benefits to the U.S.
economy of between $193 billion and $800 billion and impose aggregate costs of $57 billion to $84 billion. “These ranges are
reported in 2001 dollars and reflect the uncertain benefits and costs of each rule,” the report noted. Rules from the EPA added
significantly to both sides of the ledger. “It should be clear that the rules with the highest benefits and the highest costs, by far, come
from the Environmental Protection Agency and in particular its Office of Air and Radiation,” the OMB study said. EPA regulations
accounted for between 58% and 80% of the benefits the study found as well as 44% to 54% of the costs. Air regulations accounted
for nearly 99% of EPA rule benefits, according to the report.