Test Tournament to Teach Ballots
2021 — ONline, SC/US
Congress
Event Description:
Congress:
We will be using the 2021 September bills and resolutions from the NSDA website which will be posted on the 1st of the month.
Click here for the legislation
Explanation of Congressional Debate
Congressional Debate is a simulation of a legislative day divided into 2 sessions of about 3 hours each. At the beginning of each session a student gets elected by his fellow competitors to be the "presiding officer" (PO), and he or she calls on speakers fairly. (For our tournament purposes, we will get an experienced competitor to preside.)
If a student wishing to speak stands and is chosen by the PO, the student has 3 minutes to give a speech about a bill or resolution at hand.
After each speech, the speaker will be "cross-examined" for 1 minute by his fellow competitors, selected by the PO. This cross examination time is divided in 30 seconds segment per questioner, in which the questioner and the speaker will interact back and forth. The only exception to this format is the cross examination after the first Affirmative speech on each bill and the first Negative, for they will have 2 minutes of cross examination as opposed to just 1 minute as explained above.
While the PO will be judged based on his or her ability to effectively run the session, the speakers will be judged on their ability to effectively play the role of a Senator or House Representative, on the content of their speech, on their style of presentation, and on their activity and presence within the chamber. All students receive one score per speech from 1 to 6, 6 being the best.
At the end of each session, each judge will rank the top 6 competitors independently of their speech scores, and the lowest cumulative rank at the end of the day will place the highest.
There is also a "Parliamentarian" that stays for the whole day and serves the dual function to resolve disputes within parliamentary motions and procedure, as well as breaking ties with his or her rank given at the end of the whole day. The Parliamentarian also collects votes at the end of the day to elect the "Best Presiding Officer Award".
Here is a sample speech:
First, start with a basic outline
Intro: Too many cooks spoil the stew
C1: NATO not cohesive
WARRANT: John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy at the Institute for Policy Studies, notes that "over the past 10 years, the member countries of NATO have not been motivated to transcend boundaries and ideologies to grope their way toward effective bargains to address security issues."
IMPACT: self interested countries make NATO inconsistent and this harms compromise
C2: NATO harms US-Russian Relations
WARRANT: A Cato Institute analysis published last year points out that "Russia has always deemed NATO as a political threat because the USSR has disintegrated, therefore NATO has outlived it's original purpose. The alliance only puts Russia on a proactive mode to undermine US hegemony both politically and economically."
IMPACT: A hostile Russia harms our global standing and Foreign Policy
C3: Private Military Firms are better
WARRANT: According to Suzanne Simons, a CNN Executive Producer, "Private security firms provide specialized capabilities and surge capacity to U.S. government in flexible, cost-effective packages, and building capacity for friendly foreign governments continue to be more competencies of our industry."
IMPACT: Private Military Firms are a flexible and effective alternative to achieve our foreign policy agenda
The above outline would translate to the following debate speech:
As an Italian, I love good cooking and I hate bad one. Good cooking is when one professional chef has a clear agenda in the kitchen. Bad cooking is done when too many ideas are thrown on the plate. I would like to offer this bill is a recipe to disaster and offer an alternative menu to success.
Moving on to my first point: how lacks the cohesion necessary to be effective.
There are too many countries within NATO that not only pay a minor share when compared to the US, but they also promote their own self-interest which causes inconsistency within the organization as a whole. John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy at the Institute for Policy Studies, notes that "Over the past 10 years, the member countries of NATO have not been motivated to transcend boundaries and ideologies to grope their way toward effective bargains to address security issues." In essence, the United States foreign policy objectives cannot actually be achieved through NATO because its members lack any motivation to compromise and support the US initiatives. As it always happens, too many cooks in the kitchen end up spoiling the stew
This leads me to my second point, how NATO harms our relationship with Russia.
A Cato Institute analysis published last year points out that "Russia has always deemed NATO as a political threat because the USSR has disintegrated, therefore NATO has outlived it's original purpose. The alliance only puts Russia on a proactive mode to undermine US hegemony both politically and economically." We cannot rely on such an organization if we truly want to maintain our standing in the global community. If we are not careful with the recipe four foreign policy, disaster will happen. This is the reason why we have to explore different alternatives that allow the US to pursue its interest in a efficient way.
This leads me to my third point: how Private Military Firms are a better service provider. According to Suzanne Simons, a CNN Executive Producer, "Private security firms provide specialized capabilities and surge capacity to U.S. government in flexible, cost-effective packages, and building capacity for friendly foreign governments continue to be more competencies of our industry." Today, private security firms perform a number of roles from executive protection and static security, to training partner nations, all in dangerous environments. This is exactly why PMFs are what we can rely on for our foreign objectives abroad instead of NATO.