Public forum superiority.

Persuasion versus Argumentation Con has given you two rebuttals to this point. First, he claims that by encouraging people to focus on persuasion, they simultaneously provide harms to society. Second, he claims that a clear and logical argument, supposedly emphasized in Policy debate, is a prerequisite to being persuasive. Recall, however, that this debate is not about whether Public Forum provides superior benefits. Rather, we’re debating the usefulness of Public Forum versus Policy. Con tells you that people will become charming snake oil salesmen, but doesn’t explain how this provides a net use harm to society. Instead, he lays out why it might seem morally apprehensible, or why we might look down on it. Clearly, however, becoming a charming snake oil salesmen will provide superior opportunities to an individual throughout their lifetime. If I sell cars, or manipulate people into voting for me, I gain personal benefits. Regardless of whether society is being harmed, there is still a net benefit to usefulness, as I gain an opportunity without depriving others of theirs (we live in a society based around persuasion, after all). With my opponent’s first argument dismantled, we can move on to his second claim regarding logical argumentation. Recall my two responses throughout the round. First, that policy debate does not promote argumentation in a manner which could be applied to persuasion. In his last round, my opponent attempted to justify how Kritiks and Theory are important forms of argumentation. Yet, I never once claimed that these were lower forms of debating. Rather, I claimed that they cannot be applied to society in the same manner which Public Forum argumentation can be. Look to my previous round, where I laid out exactly why Kritiks and Theory do not benefit an individual to be persuasive. Regardless of whether or not it is a superior form of argumentation, the opportunities gained from saying “I don’t need to argue this problem, because it’s inherently biased toward my opponent” are slim to none. Similarly, an individual does not benefit from debating at a speed which the majority of society cannot understand, nor do they benefit from saying “X is off-limits when we’re analyzing this problem. ” Public forum prioritizes arguing in a manner which is applicable to modern society and future opportunities throughout an individual’s lifetime. By contrast, my opponent attempted to lay out reasons why we should emphasize Kritiks and Theory in his previous round. He claims that these strategies promote critical thinking, but fails to explain how this occurs to a greater extent than actual argumentation. I openly ask the voters: Does it really require more thinking to say “this topic is biased” instead of actually debating the topic? If anything, it takes less, and the argument is turned on my opponent. He also claims that Kritiks help to apply philosophy later in life, yet completely exaggerates the eventual benefits. First, he ignores that philosophical issues cannot be applied nearly as much as hard, tangible problems to society. Second, he fails to give you any sort of benefit stemming specifically off of Policy debate. Every single example he gave, such as Wall Street, Libertarian Advocacy, and American Democracy are already discussed in depth in Public Forum debate. Except, instead of pulling a Kritik, you learn how to clearly argue in an effective manner, and learn to convince average members of society. Even ignoring these responses, however, we can look to my second claim: that public forum promotes argumentation to the extent which is necessary. Con will not doubt try and persuade you that you should look to clear and logical argumentation over persuasiveness, but has essentially been non-responsive to my claim that Public Forum teaches you both of these skills. In fact, the only major benefit that my opponent claims in terms of argumentation is that Policy Debate emphasizes evidence. While this will be discussed more in the next voting issue, for now we can simply recall that (a) Public Forum uses evidence for every claim, and promotes extensive analysis of evidence throughout speeches and crossfires and (b) extensive evidence analysis beyond what is gained in Public Forum has little value in future societal situations. Topic KnowledgeMy opponent has combined this section with evidence, so I will do the same. Conveniently, this leaves the end voters to be exactly what I laid out in my original case. My opponent will undoubtedly attempt to push through his arguments on work ethic, research, and organization, but remember that this offense is contingent upon the claim that Policy debate requires more evidence, which I will be disproving. We’ll start off with breadth of issues. My opponent’s response to this has been that Policy debate also engages individual’s with a variety of different societal issues. His justification has been that each year-long topic contains sub-arguments which must be researched and understood. However, the extent of knowledge gained from researching sub arguments for Policy debate is laughable, for a few reasons. Sub-arguments are inherently going to be less useful in terms of knowledge than an actual month of debating and applying the topic. More extensive use of the topic means greater depth of understanding regarding your arguments which can be applied later in life. Sub-arguments are not always applied in each debate round. For Public Forum debate, each of our 8 topics has a month solely dedicated to it. With Policy, there is a possibility that you will never actually argue any of your sub-arguments, and thus, not learn to apply it in an effective manner. Sub-arguments are only used when they can apply to the year-long topic itself. For example, research for a topic on transportation infrastructure might also grant knowledge relating to Keynesian economics, but the only aspect of Keynesian economics which is learned is spending specifically relating to transportation infrastructure. However, if we look to the Public Forum topic, you research all aspects of Keynesian economics, rather than just those that can be used to advance a single topic, and simultaneously learn the effects of Keynesian economics compared to other economic theories. Thus, while there are a variety of sub arguments that a Policy debater researches, the actual knowledge gained on each of the topic areas is minimal. Next, move in to evidence/research. My opponent’s analysis on this issue is essentially a claim that Policy debate requires more extensive comparison of evidence than Public Forum debate. There are a number of clear problems with this argument. First, Public Forum also contains extremely extensive analysis and comparison of evidence. Recall that, in addition to every claim being warranted, each major piece of evidence is typically discussed in the 9 total minutes of crossfire, analyzed during the 2 minutes of prep, and brought to the attention of the judge throughout each side’s speech. Second, comparison of evidence doesn’t mean more research. Even if evidence is analyzed more, it doesn’t change the amount of research which is done. The mere possibility of evidence being analyzed, and resulting in an immediate loss for the debate if it is misrepresented, forces each Public Forum debater to know every piece of evidence by heart. Finally, evidence doesn’t translate to topic knowledge. At the point where debate degrades into finding a single card which links back to nuclear war, the actual analysis of evidence becomes irrelevant. Again, even if Policy debate forces an individual to do more research, the actual value of research declines when it is prioritized over actual understanding and logical argumentation.