LD – Nationals 2016 – Immigration and Human Rights

Resolved: Immigration ought to be recognized as a human right.

On May 1st they announced the resolution. On May 2nd the following article appeared in a column on philosophy. If I  were building a case, this article is where I’d start. Prof. Bauman’s first paragraph, starting with the “In the modern era…”, is something I would expect to hear opening an Aff on this resolution.

Evans et al – The Refugee Crisis Is Humanity’s Crisis

An earlier article from the same column:

Boehm – Can Refugees Have Human Rights

Immigration isn’t going to stop soon – and this isn’t the only reason:

Incredible heat could make whole swaths of North Africa and the Middle East uninhabitable within a few decades – Quartz

The current impact of Africans moving north:

Daoud – Black in Algeria – Then You’d Better Be Muslim

…and that leads us back to the basic human rights question – do we have human rights simply because we’re human, or only because other people (usually more powerful than we are) grant us certain rights.

I posted this earlier, when I posted my topic announcement:

Refugees fleeing violence that threatens their existence would seem to have a pretty strong case – but what about climate or economic refugees? Is fleeing a particular type of political system that narrows your rights (see: same-sex attraction, or religious rules) enough to justify immigration as a human right?

Note that the Evans article (above) answers most, if not all, of these questions.

This post from October, on the PF topic for Nov. ’15, has some articles that may be relevant.

And a point worth reposting:

When we debated the CX immigration topic back in the 1990s, one point made at the time was that immigration was acceptable only if it met two conditions: 1.) It was good for the individual immigrating, and 2.) It was good for the country to which that person immigrated. How does this view pay into the resolution’s wording?

 

NX/FX/PF/LD/CX – Pop Quiz

There are over 7,000,000,000 humans on our planet. How many of them were born in the 1800s?

FX/NX/LD/PF/CX – Extemp Files updates

The Extemp Files were updated this afternoon, through Friday (the 13th). This includes the Elections and Supreme Court folders. Nationals is rapidly approaching, so I’ll do what I can to keep them up for anyone who might be attending.

The Extemp Backfiles folder is gradually being populated, with about half of 2011 still to go. (2012-2014 are there, though there are gaps where life got in the way.)

Extemp Files instructions repost: The link takes you to a Dropbox folder; if a pop-over window saying something about setting up an account or logging in comes up, just close it.

The files are serious overkill – over 30,000 articles right now. There should be a way to copy or download individual articles when you find the ones you want in your files – try right-clicking the specific PDF file/article and selecting the ‘save link as’ option.

The four-digit numbers at the beginning of most of the file names (and the names of the sub-folders) are simply mm/yy codes so that you can tell how recent the article is at a glance.

Please don’t download the whole thing; it trips up my Dropbox limits and bad things happen that shut down access for others. If you need a full copy, let me know (see the About link for an email address) and I’ll make arrangements to get you a copy or share the folder (so that you get the updates as soon as I post them). Students who want to share the folder will need to have an OK from their coach – I don’t want to step on the toes of any coaches who prefer other methods of team research. (Several coaches already share the folder, if you’re a coach and are interested.) Specific topic subfolders can be shared as well.

Topics for Nationals! – PF and LD

PF:

2016 Nationals PF Topic Area: Election Process

Resolved: On balance, a one-day national primary would be more beneficial for the United States than our current presidential primary process.

Hit the Extemp Files and look for the Elections folder. The catch right now is that, while there have been some articles on the primary process, they’re getting buried by the overwhelming number of articles on the specific candidates and primaries. I’ll pull and post what I can find specifically on primaries in the near future, as well as some thoughts on the topic.

A larger Elections folder, from which the one in the Extemp Files is derived, exists in Dropbox (I have a Government folder for teachers), and I’ll get a link to it up shortly.

Ponder: if you had a single-day primary, would you have to have some sort of ranked voting (listing the order in which you favored the slate of candidates, passing your vote on to your next choice if your earlier choice was eliminated) so that one person would emerge as the consensus pick? Would you have a run-off of the top two candidates if no one received a majority of votes, or could a candidate receiving a plurality of votes get the nomination?

LD:

2016 Nationals Topic:

Resolved: Immigration ought to be recognized as a human right.

Look for past posts on the Nov. ’15 PF topic on migrants and the refugee crisis – several articles posted then will apply to this topic. Some came from the Extemp Files folders on the EU and specific countries, others can be found in the Immigration – US folder. The Extemp Backfiles link will take you to earlier articles, though I’d recommend starting with the Immigration – US folder over other folders, since the crisis elsewhere has mostly been since 2015 began (exception: Syrian refugees in neighboring countries).

The basic question at the root of pretty much any human rights discussion is whether we have human rights simply because we exist (as human beings), or only because others with more power grant us rights (often only a subset of the spectrum of human rights). Then consider why people become immigrants; this goes back to the push factors and pull factors you should have encountered in your U.S. History course(s). Refugees fleeing violence that threatens their existence would seem to have a pretty strong case – but what about climate or economic refugees? Is fleeing a particular type of political system that narrows your rights (see: same-sex attraction, or religious rules) enough to justify immigration as a human right?

When we debated the CX immigration topic back in the 1990s, one point made at the time was that immigration was acceptable only if it met two conditions: 1.) It was good for the individual immigrating, and 2.) It was good for the country to which that person immigrated. How does this view pay into the resolution’s wording?

Topic recap:

Cross-Examination Policy Debate  2015-2016 topic:
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.

After judging Districts, State, and NatQuals, one of my key observations is that teams aren’t keeping current. Check the Terrorism-Surveillance folder in the Extemp Files for the latest articles.

Cross-Examination Policy Debate 2016-2017 topic:
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic and/or diplomatic engagement with the People’s Republic of China.

Both the Extemp Files and Extemp Backfiles have extensive China folders. Debate camps start soon – start reading! I’ll post specific articles later.

FX/NX/LD/PF/CX – Extemp Files updates

The Extemp Files were updated Sunday morning, through the end of April. This includes the Elections and Supreme Court folders. Nationals is rapidly approaching, so I’ll do what I can to keep them up for anyone who might be attending.

The Extemp Backfiles folder is gradually being populated, with about half of 2011 still to go.

Extemp Files instructions repost: The link takes you to a Dropbox folder; if a pop-over window saying something about setting up an account or logging in comes up, just close it.

The files are serious overkill – over 25,000 articles right now. There should be a way to copy or download individual articles when you find the ones you want in your files – try right-clicking the specific PDF file/article and selecting the ‘save link as’ option.

The four-digit numbers at the beginning of most of the file names (and the names of the sub-folders) are simply mm/yy codes so that you can tell how recent the article is at a glance.

Please don’t download the whole thing; it trips up my Dropbox limits and bad things happen that shut down access for others. If you need a full copy, let me know (see the About link for an email address) and I’ll make arrangements to get you a copy or share the folder (so that you get the updates as soon as I post them). Students who want to share the folder will need to have an OK from their coach – I don’t want to step on the toes of any coaches who prefer other methods of team research. (Several coaches already share the folder, if you’re a coach and are interested.) Specific topic subfolders can be shared as well.