Critique my debate cases...pwease. Options

[*Kathleen*]

Topic: "Resolved: To better protect civil liberties, community standards ought to take precendence over conflicting national standards."

Keep in mind I have to debate both sides, so if you see anything that could be easily refuted, do tell me and I'll try to come up with something unless you have a suggestion. Thank you. =D

AFF
V: Individual Welfare
VC: Maximization of Rights

Definitions:
Protect – to defend against harm and danger
Civil liberties – lawful freedom of action or freedom from oppression
National standards – guidelines and requirements at a national level
Community standards – guidelines and requirements at a community
level, which is a subset of a nation
Ought – moral obligation, duty

The famous philosopher John Locke once said, "But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression." Because I believe in the words of this man, I will uphold today’s resolution, “To better protect civil liberties, community standards ought to take precedence over conflicting national standards.”

The highest value in today's debate is that of individual welfare, defined as the good or well-being of an individual, including the protection of his freedoms, rights, and civil liberties. With that, I offer the value criterion of maximization of rights, which is in
essence, the assurance that rights are best protected and enabled to their fullest. Without this, individual welfare is simply not best upheld.

First of all, I'd like to go a bit deeper here in explaining and describing the comparisons between national and community standards; therefore, my first contention will be the characteristics of national and community standards. First, seeing as communities are subsets of nations, communities are smaller in size than entire nations.
Communities must look out for the well being of the people in their designated areas whereas the nations themselves need to look out for all communities and their people. That being said, communities are able to focus more on the individuals of their lands than nations can. For example, in a school, the principal heads the whole building. He cannot teach every student in the total school. He then spreads out the work through teachers, whose classes contain about twenty to thirty kids, as opposed to 2,000. Such is the relationship between national and community levels, respectively with the principal and teacher. The community, in essence, focuses more on the actual needs
and aspects of the individual than the nation is able to simply because the community looks out for (and is more concerned for) fewer people than the whole nation. Moreover, the nation may be able to benefit more people, but not as much of a benefit as the community provides.

Moving onto my next contention, overall, the community better protects civil liberties in comparison to national standards. Communities don't need to compromise with other communities regarding standards liked the nation is forced to. As mentioned in the first contention, the nation must look out for all communities while the communities need to only look to their people for concern. If left up to the nation to decide important standards such as those involving civil liberties, it would most likely have to give up much more to reach a compromise within the states because all communities have their differences. This is almost like a lowest common denominator case here. To better protect civil liberties, nations must observe what similarities the communities have collectively and then proceed; the thing is, communities won't all have enough similarities – each is unique and different in their own right. If left up to the nation to decide important standards such as those involving civil liberties, it would most likely have to give up much more to reach a compromise within the states because of the fact that they're all different in their own right. At the national level, civil liberties would be violated more within certain communities than in one singular community – the communities themselves have no intention of violating their own constituents' civil liberties. It's simply that the nation is forced to limit liberties when communities interests, needs, and ideas conflict. All in all, communities are more focused on the individual and provide a greater good for their own people, benefiting them more, especially enabling a better protection of their civil liberties.

Finally, individuals must be upheld because it is them that ultimately matter – they're the ones who want to see civil liberties protected the most; after all, it directly involves them. Without them, civil liberties would be nonexistent and play no role in government at all. Those civil liberties protect an individual from being wrongfully accused or punished of acting a certain way or doing a certain thing obviously due to them as a human being. For instance, the communities are concerned with the individuals within their community – they're able to become personal with them since they're closer and more personal. They maintain the protection of those individuals' rights and make sure they're able to freely speak or write their mind, amongst other things. Human freedoms and rights fall under civil liberties – without them, an individual has nothing to protect himself from an oppressive government.

-- Yeah, the last paragraph sucks monkey balls and I need to spruce it up a bit, but if you look past that and get the jist if it...hah.

NEG – March/April 2005
V: Community Welfare
VC: Utilitarianism

The highest value in today's debate is that of community welfare, defined as what's best for society as a whole. In order to progress as nation, it must first stabilize the wellness of its communities containing their citizens. The value criterion I offer is Utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number of people. To best take care of the nation, standards must be first considered with this idea of utilitarianism.

To begin, my first contention states that national standards and national standards alone can provide many programs and opportunities that community standards cannot. These programs fall under bettering safety, security, and quality of life. For example, the national standards make the military, DEA, and FDA possible in order for the citizens of that nation, the United States, to be as safe and secure as possible in their hands. As for an overall bettering of quality of life, such things as welfare, education, job programs, and social security exist thanks to national standards. With all of these things present in that society, it is obvious that not only does the national level care much for its society, but would in fact want to better protect the civil liberties of their citizens. It's also quite plain they have the power to do so with the maintaining of those programs, which leads me to my next contention.

This second contention states that community standards not only cannot, but should not provide these programs (or programs of the life) plainly because they are logistically and financially unable to do so. For one thing, as I alluded to at the end of my first contention, at the community level, there is not enough money to persist with those programs, especially at the national level. Even if the community standards could somehow provide these programs, the national level is much more efficient in doing so. They have more resources, connections, and can cover more territory and people. Onto
another point, those certain programs were able to exist not only via national standards, but because the nation must sacrifice the depth of benefit for the number of benefits, as seen with the Social Contract of John Locke. Community standards basically can't compete with the national standards when it comes to providing these things and bettering the quality of life of people, which in turn includes bettering and upholding their civil liberties.

-- Hmm...I need conclusions, but I'll write those on the bus before the tournament tomorrow. x]