I Got To Debate Potential LD Res #3: A Stoa 2015-16 Vote Update

I know, I promised a post on the Wildcards and OI/Storytelling Issue. That is on hold for now, although it will come to be soon. For now, something spectacular happened at the Corpus Christi Coastal Clash a few days ago and I must write about it.

The Parli res's were all the potential res's for the 2015-16 year, plus a few extras ('This House believes the odds are ever in Israel's favor' and 'This House would regulate the Academy Awards' were some other favs). I was able to debate the potential resolution I was most curious about:

Resolved: The use of economic sanctions to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals is moral. 

So how did that work out?

Things that happened like I expected:

• It was incredibly similar to the US international mitigation resolution from the 2013-14 season. So much so that we ran almost exactly the same case as the one I ran that year. I'm just glad I remembered it so well. For the sake of informed voting, I'm actually going to put that here, even though that means if this resolution passes you'll have a very loose version of my Aff case for next year. 
• RezA: Value Res 
• RezA2: Moral, not Ethical
• V - Safety of US Citizens
• Vl  - Constitutional Vow (yes, my partner and I both agreed this sounds girly. But it was better than 'Constitutional Promise' and we wrote this in fifteen minutes, kay?)
• Defs:
• Economic Sanctions - Trade barriers, restrictions on financial transactions
• Moral - Right action, morally righteous 
• C1. Moral Responsibility to US Citizens
• Constitution
• Ronald Reagan Quote 
• C2. US Citizens in Danger
• Soviet Union
• Communism
• Cuba [Was Going to Nuke Us. (the actual tag was just 'Cuba')]
• ISIS/Middle East Oil Sanctions
• C3. Best Alternative
• No military 
• Minimum US Harm
• Effective
• If you were here for 2013-14 (Resolved: The United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflicts) then you just recognized some major arguments that you may have even ran. The debate ended up hinging on whether or not governments can have morals and the negative impact on the people of the countries being sanctioned. Eliminate the word 'sanctioned' and replace it with 'invaded for the sake of mitigation' and you have the 2013-14 season. Personally, I absolutely loved that season. It was the bomb. In my 2.5 year, it was very easy to grasp for my mind that was still trying to wrap itself around LD. True, it often turned into an example war and was TP-ish. However, I enjoyed the wide range of historical examples available. Not everyone was running the same applications (except the Rwandan Genocide). The values could be taken a step farther, too, if you wiggled outside the box. Three questions remain. First, is this a broad enough resolution to give us a healthy debate for a large portion of the debate season? Second, for those who competed in 2013-24, is this too similar to the mitigation resolution? Thirdly, do we want to have a very similar debate resolution to what we've had in the past? 
• The phrase ' to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals' was absolutely, completely ignored. We debated as if the resolution simply said 'The use of economic sanctions... (by the US)... is moral'. Why did I expect this? Because I was Prime Minister and that's exactly where I steered the debate.  Because once you acknowledge that phrase you open a whole new can of worms. It's what makes it much less Aff-slanted than one would originally think. Thankfully, the Opposition did not catch my purposeful omission. What if the U.S's foreign policy goals are totally selfish? What if they play favorites in the international community and start WWIII? What if in doing so it severely harms US citizens? Even if not, what if the US's policy goals give our citizens, or the environment, or a small group of wealthy Europeans, minimal benefits at the great cost of the starvation of people in a small, third-world country? Is that moral, even if our government's first priority is to it's citizens? A poor man has a moral obligation to feed his family before his neighbor, but if the man is ridiculously wealthy and the neighbor is poor, what then? But wait, doesn't even the poor man have a secondary obligation to his neighbor? Wait, when did I start talking about obligations??? Oh, no, watch out! Here comes the swimming pool analogy, and the goldfish analogy, and the Rwandan Genocide application, ahhhhhh! Just kidding. Mostly. In all seriousness, what makes this debate interesting and more broad is that phrase. It what's going to really spread out and deepen the battle ground. So your answer to the first question, I believe, is yes. Just don't let the Aff pull a fast one. This also makes the answer to the second question , regrettably, also 'yes'.
• Cuba was mentioned. A lot. 

Things that did not happen as I expected:

• The economic impact that this would have on the US economy was not heavily stressed. It wasn't really mentioned until the Opp Block and wasn't a major argument. This is because most of the US's sanctions are on countries that we barely rely on. Can you imagine if we put an embargo on China, though? The US's economy would be destroyed. This was brought up in the round. This could make this res even more fun, if your opponent lets you play around with the hypothetical.
• The moral vs. ethical debate wasn't touched on. This is some serious kritik ground for the Neg.
• It was argued by the Opp that this was a fact resolution. I have to admit, this threw me for a loop. After all, wasn't this a proposed LD topic? The judge didn't know that, however, and our Opponents took a really neat angle on it. It was something I hadn't considered before. A lot of complaints that this resolution is too TP-esq have been going around, but have we ever stopped to consider this may indeed be too Fact-esq? This was a common oppositional argument to the 2012-13 res (Resolved: Privacy is undervalued). Although I also really enjoyed that res, many agree it was a fact resolution disguised as a value resolution. Amongst the people I know, it was probably one of the least fondly remembered. I liked it because of its strong fact-value dual nature (it was true or false based on what you valued). This resolution seems to be quite similar.
• Because of this, common arguments of significance, 41%/59%, the resolution being a general statement, were all left out of the debate. Either it was true or it wasn't. These were heavily relied upon arguments during the mitigation season, and this may be what sets resolution #3 apart.

Overall, I still remain undecided and much more intrigued. That debate introduced me to new pros and cons for res #3. I hope this helps inform you as you consider your 2015-16 Stoa LD Vote. I'll have that Wildcard post out soon. :)