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Victory Briefs Victory Briefs Resolved: Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified. September-October Novice LD Topic∗ ∗Published by Victory Briefs, PO Box 803338 #40503, Chicago, IL 60680-3338. Edited by Jake Nebel and Chris Theis. Written by Chetan Hertzig, Jerry Chen, and Nick Smith. Evidence cut by authors. For customer support, please email [email protected] or call 330.333.2283. Transaction: 4731 - September 9, 2014 - This product is licensed to: Wilson Wyatt Debate League - [email protected] by Victory Briefs. Any distribution or modification of this file not explicitly allowed by the terms of purchase (including removing or obscuring this text) is a violation of copyright. Please report illicit distribution of this file to [email protected] Contents 1 Introduction 4 2 Topic Analysis by Chetan Hertzig 5 2.1 Background ................................... 5 2.2 What the Resolution Means .......................... 7 2.3 Affirmative Arguments ............................. 10 2.4 Negative Arguments .............................. 14 2.5 Full Text of Evidence Above .......................... 17 2.6 Full Definitions ................................. 17 2.7 Affirmative Evidence .............................. 20 2.8 Negative Evidence ............................... 25 3 Topic Analysis by Jerry Chen 29 3.1 Background Information ............................ 29 3.2 Resolutional Analysis and Definitions ..................... 30 3.3 Framework Issues ................................ 31 3.4 Affirmative Arguments ............................. 33 3.5 Negative Arguments .............................. 35 3.6 Full Text of Evidence (in order) ........................ 37 3.7 Additional Evidence .............................. 41 4 Topic Analysis by Nick Smith 47 4.1 Introduction ................................... 47 4.2 Interpretations ................................. 48 4.3 Affirmative Positions .............................. 50 4.4 Negative Positions ............................... 53 5 Affirmative Evidence 55 5.1 AT Democracy Makes CD Unnecessary ................... 55 5.2 AT Must Exhaust Alternatives ........................ 55 5.3 AT Social Contract Objection ......................... 56 5.4 AT Slippery Slope ............................... 57 5.5 Promoting Change ............................... 57 5.6 Remedying Injustice .............................. 58 5.7 CD Key to Democracy ............................. 58 5.8 Revolutionary War Example .......................... 59 2 Transaction: 4731 - September 9, 2014 - This product is licensed to: Wilson Wyatt Debate League - [email protected] by Victory Briefs. Any distribution or modification of this file not explicitly allowed by the terms of purchase (including removing or obscuring this text) is a violation of copyright. Please report illicit distribution of this file to [email protected] Contents 5.9 Slavery Example ................................ 59 5.10 Workers’ Rights ................................. 60 5.11 Civil Rights Movement ............................. 60 5.12 History Proves ................................. 60 5.13 Republicanism ................................. 61 5.14 Social Contract ................................. 64 5.15 AT Tacit Consent ................................ 66 5.16 Environmental Advocacy ........................... 68 5.17 AT Obligation to Obey ............................ 68 6 Negative Evidence 72 6.1 CD in tension with Democracy ........................ 72 6.2 Rule of Law ................................... 73 6.3 Harm to Others ................................. 74 6.4 Obligation to Obey ............................... 76 7 General Evidence 80 3 Transaction: 4731 - September 9, 2014 - This product is licensed to: Wilson Wyatt Debate League - [email protected] by Victory Briefs. Any distribution or modification of this file not explicitly allowed by the terms of purchase (including removing or obscuring this text) is a violation of copyright. Please report illicit distribution of this file to [email protected] 1 Introduction We are very excited to release an updated brief of the topic, “Resolved: Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified.” Our last brief on this topic was published in 2004, when it was the resolution for the national championship. Much of the advice in that brief is specific to debaters who qualified to Nationals, whereas the advice here is tailored specifically for new debaters. We encourage coaches to use this brief as an applied introduction to LD. Our contributors—Chetan Hertzig, Jerry Chen, and Nick Smith—are three excellent coaches with experience teaching both novices and experienced debaters. Their contri- butions discuss the resolution from different angles, and each topic analysis has its own flavor. We encourage our authors to disagree over fundamental issues, and to express opinions rather than taking neutral stances towards controversial questions. We hope this helps you prepare for those issues as they arise in debates. Much of the evidence in this volume is integrated into each topic analysis, so it contains more explanation and application than other briefs. Some of the analyses contain cards that are modified with ellipses; novices should be sure to cut the full, original text of these cards, which are available in this book’s evidence packet. If you’re not sure about some card or citation, we suggest searching the PDF for the citation elsewhere in the document. We wish you the best of luck this season. Sincerely, Chris Theis & Jake Nebel 4 Transaction: 4731 - September 9, 2014 - This product is licensed to: Wilson Wyatt Debate League - [email protected] by Victory Briefs. Any distribution or modification of this file not explicitly allowed by the terms of purchase (including removing or obscuring this text) is a violation of copyright. Please report illicit distribution of this file to [email protected] 2 Topic Analysis by Chetan Hertzig Chetan Hertzig is the head coach of Harrison High School in New York. He has coached a TOC champion, an NCfl national champion and runner-up, an NSDA Nationals runner-up, two Glenbrooks champions, three Harvard champions, an Apple Valley champion, and winners of numerous other tour- naments. He holds an M.A. from Teachers College at Columbia University, a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and a B.A. from Brandeis University. 2.1 Background FERGUSON, Mo. — The long, white bus emerged from a dark side street earlier in the week. Through the tinted windows, people on the street could see flashing lights and bodies moving to a beat. It was a party bus. It crept slowly through an angry crowd of demonstrators and a cluster of armored vehicles and police officers with large weapons threatening to arrest people if they did not disperse. Some in the crowd started dancing. Eventually, the bus made a U-turn and raced out of the police spotlight’s glare. And the demonstrators returned their attention to the police, shouting, “Don’t shoot me,” and gesturing obscenely. Ferguson is a strange place these days. Ever since a white police officer, Darren Wilson, fatally shot an unarmed black youth, Michael Brown, two Saturdays ago, this St. Louis suburb has been deeply troubled, but also sometimes hard to fathom. By night, it can seethe with anger and frustration; by day, hope and even celebration can appear. It is a place where the emotions of young black men run raw and real, where they say their voices are finally being heard. They hope the fallout from the death of Mr. Brown, 18, will change the way the police treat them.1 FERGUSON, Mo. — Each night on the streets of this city, the nation’s latest symbol of racial unrest, there are two waves of protesters. Call them the A team and the B team. The A team comes out in the early evening, and its demonstrations are largely peaceful. These are people committed to the idea of non-violent protest. .[Then there are] the B-team protesters, the 1Eligon, John. “Anger, Hurt, and Moments of Hope in Ferguson.” The New York Times, 20 Aug. 2014. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/us/in-ferguson-anger-hurt-and-moments-of-hope. html?hpw&rref=us&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module= well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0. 5 Transaction: 4731 - September 9, 2014 - This product is licensed to: Wilson Wyatt Debate League - [email protected] by Victory Briefs. Any distribution or modification of this file not explicitly allowed by the terms of purchase (including removing or obscuring this text) is a violation of copyright. Please report illicit distribution of this file to [email protected] 2 Topic Analysis by Chetan Hertzig people referred to by Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson as “a dangerous dynamic in the night” and “agitators and criminals.” He told CNN on Thursday: “There are some outsiders. There’s a lot of people who live here . We can’t just blame it on outside instigators.”. ..Late Monday night, with police and protesters in a tense standoffthat would erupt into a confrontation, a black male who looked to be about 17 crept along West Florissant Avenue toward the intersection of Ferguson Avenue, looked about furtively, then flung what appeared to be a plastic bottle of water toward police. He fled back down West Florissant, apparently unobserved by the police. Bass says the dire economic situation of many young blacks leaves them receptive to those who would incite them to violence. “There’s a depressed, defeated,
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