Chapter XLV: Another Awesome Debate

My favorite line of argument was regarding the Counterplan.

In our First Affirmative Constructive, we laid out our plan of having Congress repeal Sections 215, 216, and 218 of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. Those sections had expanded provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, resulting in broader executive authority (ostensibly to fight terrorism) which, we argued, was harmful to the nation because of their impact on constitutionally guaranteed civil rights (1st amendment protection of free speech, and 4th amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure).

The Negative has two options at this point for the First Negative Constructive--they can defend the status quo, arguing that the PATRIOT Act's modifications to FISA are necessary for national security and that the civil liberties tradeoff is justified; or, they can stipulate that there is a problem with the status quo, but offer a different, presumably more solvent, plan. This Negative took the second approach and advocated having the Supreme Court rule the PATRIOT Act unconstitutional. This is more solvent because the Supreme Court has specific expertise in Constitutional law and will set a binding precedent.

We rejoined in the Second Affirmative Constructive that the current composition of the Supreme Court is heavily biased in favor of President Bush and expanded executive authority, and thus would not rule the PATRIOT Act unconstitutional.

The Second Negative Constructive sidestepped this issue by arguing that the Affirmative plan suffered the same difficulty. A Republican dominated Congress, they said, is just as beholden to President Bush as a Republican dominated Supreme Court, so the two weaknesses cancel out. The Negative argues that the debate must focus on only the relative desirabilities of the two plans, not their relative possibilities of occuring.

However, we reminded them that only the Affirmative Plan had fiat--that is, only the Affirmative plan is assumed to be possible (if not desirable); this concession is made because the Affirmative has the burden of proof of showing that the status quo is undesirable, and that the Plan is desirable. However, the Negative Counterplan is not assumed to be possible, nor is it assumed to be desirable, and the Negative, having forgone their opportunity of arguing for the status quo, has the burden of proof to show both possibility and desirability.