Limiting Proposition Ground
September 15, 2008
The Round
Adjudicator: Steven Johnson (University of Alaska, USA)
Tournament: IDEA Youth Forum BP Track
Location: Smolyan, Bulgaria
Dates: August 2-4, 2008
Motion: “This house would require law enforcement agents to carry only non-lethal weapons.”
Teams: OP: (4th) Kristina Aluzaite (Lithuania) and Martin Mets (Estonia)
OO: (2nd) Ana Salapic and Dina Salapic (Croatia)
CP: (1st) Hadar Tamir and Naama Peled (Israel)
CO: (3rd) Jesse Towson (USA) and Spela Zupan (Slovenia)
Abstract: The Opening Proposition offers a definition of the motion that attempts to limit Proposition ground. In response to criticism from the Opening Opposition, the Closing Proposition offers a justification of the limited definition that not only functions as a compelling alternative to a traditional extension but saves the Proposition’s case.
Discussion
This motion offers more temptation than most for an Opening Proposition to attempt to limit the debate. To defend that law enforcement agents should face potentially armed criminals with only non-lethal weapons is a difficult assignment for any Opening Proposition; most will at least entertain the desire to limit exposure to Opposition attacks by defining the motion to allow some law enforcement agents to retain their guns. This strategy, though, likely presents more risk than rewards.
In this round, the Prime Minister defines “law enforcement agents” to include regular police and security officials but specifically to exclude so-called “special weapons and tactics (SWAT)” units. The Prime Minister offers no justification for this exclusion. The case features a discussion of how those law enforcement agencies without firearms will be able to call upon the SWAT units to provide support in cases requiring greater “firepower.”
The Leader Opposition complains that the limitation is without merit or justification. Moreover, the Leader Oppositioin argues that-by defining the motion so that SWAT units will retain the use of firearms-the PM has essentially granted that law enforcement agencies need firearms to meet criminal threats and, therefore, the motion is false. The Deputy Prime Minister doesn’t attempt to defend the definition but merely reiterates the Prime Minister’s claim that regular cops can call upon SWAT units to meet the threat of armed criminals. At this point in the round, the Opening Proposition’s case is severely compromised.
In an unconventional move, the Member Proposition chooses to take up the definitional issue in the second half of the debate. Rather than ignoring the problem and merely offering an extension based on the Opening Proposition’s compromised definition, she offers a subtle and ultimately successful justification of the exclusion of SWAT units from the prohibition on firearms. Even though SWAT units are law enforcement agencies, the Member Parliament claims that the exclusion of these units from the prohibition is warranted given the nature the threats they face. Regular cops, because they are first on the scene, regularly encounter situations of intense, urgent threat that require immediate response in circumstances with imperfect and incomplete information. In these situations, the Member Proposition claims, the potential for error is great and the consequences of those errors are amplified by the presence of lethal weapons. SWAT units, on the other hand, have time and perspective to gather information, develop strategy, marshal resources and execute a plan with forethought and deliberation. This distinction, the Member Proposition claims, justifies limiting the restriction on lethal weapons to only those law enforcement agencies that must react to immediate threats and liberates the Proposition from having to prove that all law enforcement agents should be without lethal weapons.
On first blush, the PM’s definition flies in the face of conventional wisdom in BP debating: when faced with a broad motion, the commonly accepted strategy is to defend the broadest interpretation of that motion. For this motion, the broadest interpretation would be to prohibit the use of lethal weapons by all law enforcement agencies. Most adjudicators would be suspicious of what appears to a definition designed to circumvent likely Opposition attacks and sympathetic to Opposition claims that the motion-because of the limited definition-is not proved true by the Opening Proposition’s effort. Indeed, in this round, I was very critical of the Opening Proposition’s failure to explain their focus, particularly in the face of an objection to the interpretation by the Opening Opposition team.
Closing Proposition teams often find themselves required to defend the former Proposition team’s less-than-perfect interpretation of the motion. In this case, the MP could have hoped that the “blame” for the definitional messiness of the debate would rest squarely on the shoulders of the Opening Proposition team and that a well-argued Closing Proposition extension focused on merits of limiting regular cops to non-lethal weapons would demonstrate the Closing Proposition’s proficiency, even if that extension didn’t ultimately prove the motion true. Such a strategy would likely have resulted in a ranking no higher than 2nd, since the Opening Opposition would likely get credit for an effective deconstruction of the Opening Proposition’s definitional strategy and the case-regardless of the effectiveness of the Closing Proposition’s extension-would still be wounded.
Rather than invest the Closing Proposition in a crippled strategy, the MP opted instead to forgo a traditional extension and focus on the definitional debate. By doing so, she appeared to be proactive and in control of the definitional issue rather than merely reacting to the (less-than-desirable) circumstances in which they had been placed by the Opening Proposition’s definition. The MP’s substantive distinction between the circumstances of ordinary policing and special-circumstance policing by SWAT units, her connection of the hazards of lethal weapons to those circumstances in which ordinary cops find themselves and the resulting justification for retaining the use of firearms by SWAT units not only answered decisively the definitional issue (indeed, the Closing Opposition made no mention of the definitional issue) it resurrected an otherwise weak Opening Proposition’s case. The Closing Proposition was rewarded with a 1st place for this round.
This round presents a great example of both the risks and rewards of deviating from conventional wisdom (both by the Opening Proposition and Closing Proposition) and emphasizes the benefits of an honest assessment of the circumstances of the round and the flexibility to adapt to those circumstances.
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