Chicago Debate League 2013/14 Core Files


NC Shell: Topicality – Cuba 413



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1NC Shell: Topicality – Cuba 413



A) Interpretation: “Increase” means actively making something greater from a previously existing baseline.
BUCKLEY, 6

[Jeremiah, Attorney, Amicus Curiae Brief, Safeco Ins. Co. of America et al v. Charles Burr et al, http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/06-84/06-84.mer.ami.mica.pdf]


First, the court said that the ordinary meaning of the word “increase” is “to make something greater,” which it believed should not “be limited to cases in which a company raises the rate that an individual has previously been charged.” 435 F.3d at 1091. Yet the definition offered by the Ninth Circuit compels the opposite conclusion. Because “increase” means “to make something greater,” there must necessarily have been an existing premium, to which Edo’s actual premium may be compared, to determine whether an “increase” occurred. Congress could have provided that “ad-verse action” in the insurance context means charging an amount greater than the optimal premium, but instead chose to define adverse action in terms of an “increase.” That definitional choice must be respected, not ignored. See Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 392-93 n.10 (1979) (“[a] definition which declares what a term ‘means’ . . . excludes any meaning that is not stated”). Next, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that because the Insurance Prong includes the words “existing or applied for,” Congress intended that an “increase in any charge” for insurance must “apply to all insurance transactions – from an initial policy of insurance to a renewal of a long-held policy.” 435 F.3d at 1091. This interpretation reads the words “exist-ing or applied for” in isolation. Other types of adverse action described in the Insurance Prong apply only to situations where a consumer had an existing policy of insurance, such as a “cancellation,” “reduction,” or “change” in insurance. Each of these forms of adverse action presupposes an already-existing policy, and under usual canons of statutory construction the term “increase” also should be construed to apply to increases of an already-existing policy. See Hibbs v. Winn, 542 U.S. 88, 101 (2004) (“a phrase gathers meaning from the words around it”) (citation omitted).
B) Violation: The Affirmative removes a barrier to economic engagement, but they do not actively provide additional economic aid that can be measured against a current, pre-existing baseline.
C) Standards:
1) Predictable Ground – Removing a barrier does not provide quantifiable distinctions from the status quo that our links depend on. Core arguments like the Corruption Disadvantage require being able to pin the plan to a stable transfer of resources, and perception-based arguments like the Politics Disadvantage require allocation of new funds rather than simple changes to the text of the law.
2) Effects Topicality – Even if there are material resources transferred eventually, this requires several steps before the plan becomes topical. Every step creates unpredictable advantages that they can claim, serves to broaden the topic unfairly and ungrammatically, and requires the affirmative to win solvency in order to be topical, even though the plan has to be topical on its face.
D) Topicality is a Voting Issue for Fairness and Education.

2NC Extension: A/t #1 “We Meet” 414



1) They don’t meet. The plan removes the embargo, but it does not guarantee purchase of ethanol. We have to win links off of lifting the embargo itself, but that isn’t predictable enough for us to have any solid negative disadvantage ground.
2) Extend our Effects Topicality standard. The plan might create conditions where ethanol is purchased in the future, but we can’t predict that and it isn’t based in the resolution. This allows them to claim artificial advantages to outweigh our topic-based disadvantages.
3) The plan must be topical on its face. They have conceded this standard, part of C2 in the 1NC, but they fail to meet it. The plan does not mandate an increase in economic engagement, as it must do, it only makes an increase possible.

2NC Extension: A/t #2 “Counter-interpretation” 415



1) Extend our interpretation. The Affirmative must be direct economic assistance to Cuba, which requires a measurement against a baseline immediately before. Our interpretation is the clearest and most objective, because the plan either immediately causes more financial assistance to arrive in Cuba or it doesn’t and isn’t topical.
2) Dictionaries also support our definition that increase means to actively make greater.
RANDOM HOUSE WEBSTER’S COLLEGE DICTIONARY, 96
increase: 1)to make greater, as in number, size, strength, or quality; augment 2)to become greater, as in number, size, strength, or quality 3)to multiply by propagation 4)growth or augmentation in size, strength, quality 5)the act or process of increasing


2NC Extension: A/t #3 “Counter Standards” 416



1) Our standards outweigh. Ground is the most important standard because it defines the limits of a fair debate. If the Affirmative has too many possible advantages and we cannot research link arguments, the Affirmative will always have a big advantage which is both blatantly unfair and anti-educational.
2) Our interpretation is just as contextual for government policy as theirs; it is from a brief in a U.S. court case. Our interpretation would also come up in government literature research, which solves their limits standard.
3) Their Education argument is backwards. Their evidence concedes that including Affirmatives that only remove barriers allows for a lot more possible cases. We only have finite time to research between debates, and it is better to focus that research on a smaller number of cases so that we can learn a lot more about each one.
4) They make the topic dual-directional by allowing for a decrease in engagement. Deregulations plans like theirs could eliminate the government interaction entirely, which forces us to research links in every possible direction.
INVESTOPEDIA, NO DATE

[Deregulation, http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deregulate.asp#axzz1yS96vQEH]


Definition of 'Deregulation'

The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry.



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