Perms

[truthisjust]

I was getting my hair cut the other day and it got me thinking about perms. I am so punny... one bad joke ah ah ah (laughing like the count from sesame street)

Do you all think that severence perms are legit?

Justin


As you can see I getting my theory fix lately.

[Dan6814]

Just to be clear (since I have no policy experience): severence perms are when the government kicks part of their plan in order to better perm the CP?

If that's right, I think it's a bad and illegitimate tactic. On the most basic level, the government ceases to be topical. In parli, government teams operationally define often vague terms to mean one specific thing for the purpose of the debate: the plan. By severing part of the plan, the government stops advocating their interpretation of the resolution. If the government team stops advocating what has become the sole means of affirming the resolution, then they can't prove the resolution true.

On another level, it's unfair to the opposition, because it cuts off the possibility of negative argumentation. There are two legitimate ways to understand CPs and general opposition argumentation: either by seeing counterplans as an opposition disadvantage (you uniquely cut off the benefits of this other plan), or by viewing traditional SQ defense as an unstated status quo counterplan (in other words, opp implies: gov cuts off the possibility of the status quo, which is net beneficial). Either way, what it means is that if a theory argument applies to counterplans (we can step away from this part of our plan to perm your otherwise brilliant CP), it must also apply to disadvantages (ooh, good point, let's kick that part of plan to perm that aspect of the status quo). It would also apply to Ks that are aimed at a certain argument. It gives the government way too much flexibility and leeway to make bad arguments (and, quite frankly, can lead to deception by throwing out obvious CP ground in the PMC).

If people do think severence perms are ok, how much severence is ok before we say, "that's enough"? Can the gov kick up to 50% of plan? Do they just have to keep at least one plank?

Dan P.

[thedancingbear]

Dan says:

"I think it's a bad and illegitimate tactic. On the most basic level, the government ceases to be topical. In parli, government teams operationally define often vague terms to mean one specific thing for the purpose of the debate: the plan. By severing part of the plan, the government stops advocating their interpretation of the resolution."

I do not understand how, after all these years, individuals still seriously believe that affirmatives advocate the perm. The perm is not an advocacy. No one advocates it or gets it. If you vote aff the perm does not happen, it just might.

A permutation is an illustrative argument that the counterplan is not a reason to reject the plan because they could be done together. It is a link-story take-out for the "opportunity cost" disad that we have named the counterplan.

Thus the argument that you would somehow be able to sever parts of the plan that link to other disadvantages is absurd. The plan is not being altered; the aff is merely challenging the negative assumption that there is, in fact, a link story.

-tdb

[Dan6814]

Dancing Bear,

You're right in that the perm isn't the new government advocacy; I misspoke (mistyped?)if that's your impression. But you're missing the point: if a perm consists of the government saying that part or all of the CP could be done at the same time as the plan, but presents the plan sans a couple of choice cuts, then the government has changed their advocacy from the PMC plan into the modified plan, set to dodge the CP. If the disputed section of the plan is X, I'm not saying that the new plan is (P + CP), but (P - X). That's still an advocacy switch, and makes the gov non-topical for reasons explained in the last post. I think it's nonsensical for us to interpret the perm as anything else besides a "does our plan exclude the CP?" test; if the government is not required to test CP competitiveness against the original plan, then the "perm" only shows that, had the government advocated something different in the PMC, the counterplan would not have been competitive. I suppose, as an alternative to calling the government non-topical, we could just call the perm worthless (although, if that's true, the government will almost certainly lose on the CP).

"The plan is not being altered; the aff is merely challenging the negative assumption that there is, in fact, a link story."

By changing the plan! This "challenging the link story" consists of removing the link from the plan. You call my conclusion that it would apply to different arguments "absurd," but if we're just "challenging a link story," then it should be no problem -- I'll just eliminate the little parts of my plan that deal with that disadvantage! You agree yourself that a CP is just a certain type of disad, so this argument seems pretty clear even in your words.

Dan P.

[thedancingbear]

The severance argument depends on the aff being able to successfully argue that certain parts of the plan are intrinsic and certain parts are not.

If my plan is to lift sanctions on Iran tomorrow, and the counterplan is to lift sanctions on Cuba instead and we only have the political capital to do one right now, a time-order perm certainly does change part of my original plan -- but the time element is likely not an essential, intrinsic part.

Instead of bitching about this, negatives should just realize they have been given leeway to run their own intrinsicness arugments and start inventing non-topical ways to get plan advantages.

-tdb

[vonfic]

I have a little trouble thinking of theory as litgit or illigit, I think that a better way of looking at it is what the effects of the theory are in terms of fairness because that is what it all boils down to in the end of a theory debate. Concepts like recprocity and fairness are the only way to measure the impact of the argument in the debate context. I must warn that I have 4 years of policy background, but I think that is not an issue because the theory aplies to all kinds of plan focused debate. The severance perm can an cannot be ligit in my eyes for several reasons. The most pertantned is the counterplan its self. If the counterplan is a Plan inclusive counterplan, IE. it has part or all of the plan within it, then the severance of the affermative is justified because the counterplan is a severance of the affermetive plan. In those cases it seams that part of the plan is taken, and thus inorder to ensure fairness the Neg must justify why their severance is ligit otherwise I can always find something minute to sever out of an aff plan to creat a PIC with a small net benifit. THis is just the tip of the ICE BURG of counterplan theory, but I have a hard time saying that something is ligit or illigit.

peace

paul