Staying Topical: A Debate Podcast

4 – Policy & Pretend: How To Create Plans In Debate (ft. Kristina Rietveld)

Time for Episode 4! We’re going for the long episode today, which includes a new segment called What’s Topical Today. In this segment we briefly glance at several newsworthy events for the week & explain why each is significant. Today we’ll be covering a lot, beginning with the value of roleplaying government in debate. Anecdotally speaking, a lot of debaters go on to pursue careers in law or politics; thus, there’s an interest in understanding government from the inside-out. Even for those of us who don’t wish to pursue a career in politics, understanding our own government’s abilities & limitations has value. Everyone complains about excessive government spending, but it seems that specific figures & numbers are always lacking in these discussions. In order to effectively play government, everyone should understand the implicit superpower that debaters have in each round: Fiat power. Known as the “magic wand” of debate, Fiat gives debaters the ability to assume that their proposed Plans will be enacted, so as to focus attention on the advantages/disadvantages of the debate. Bureaucracy stinks – why should we bring it into the debate round? Given that the discussion for today is Policy & Plans, we’ll also be explaining how debaters can create Plans in debate as hypothetical calls-to-action. The structure is as follows: * Mandate: A statement of what Plan will do exactly. * Agent of Action (AoA): The department/agent who will enact the Plan.* Agent of Enforcement (AoE): The department/agent who will enforce the Plan.* Funding: How much does it cost?* Timeframe: When will Plan be enacted? Our guest for today is Kristina Rietveld, Director of Debate for a speech/debate academy & a former debater with expertise in various debate styles (NPDA + British Parli, IPDA, & LD). Interested in participating? Email me at:stayingtopicaldebate@gmail.com What’s Topical Today music composed by Janiel Victorino:https://www.beatstars.com/kophkeeno/about References Elaine Kamarck, 9-22-2016, “Seven rules for presidential debates drawn from history,” Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/09/22/seven-rules-for-the-presidential-debates/  Jason Lemon, 7-1-2019, “More Than 140 Holocaust, genocide experts think Ocasio-Cortez should be allowed to call migrant detention centers “concentration camps”,” Newsweek, <span class=”skimlinks-unlinked”>https://www.newsweek.com/holocaust-genocide-experts-defend-ocascio-cortez-concentration-camp-1446911</span>  Jeremia Kimelman, 6-26-2019, “Catch up on Night One of the debate with a sortable interactive of frequent topics,” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/full-transcript-first-democratic-primary-debate-2019-n1022816  Kyra Gurney, 2-17-2018, “Last fall, they debated gun control in class. Now, they debate lawmakers on TV.,” miamiherald, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article201678544.html  Laura Bronner, 6-28-2019, “The First Democratic Debate In Five Charts,” FiveThirtyEight,

3 – (Blitz) What’s Topical About Venezuela?

Welcome to Episode  3, where I mispronounce “hegemony” at least once. I’ll be playing around with a new mini “Blitz” episode this week, which intends to cover a debatable topic in the span of 20-25 minutes. Each Blitz episode will be loosely organized in the style of debate cases, which includes a Framework, Background, & arguments for both Aff/Neg. Let me individually explain how the above will be expressed in today’s episode: * Framework – All this means is the way we organize or “frame” a debate. This section includes important info like: * Topic/Resolution intended to be debated. I’ve been coaching & competing long enough to know that this fundamental piece of info can be forgotten at times. * Definitions, which simply definitions for specific words in the Topic (i.e. WMDs in the Topic: This House should stop searching for WMDs).* Type Of Debate – As Dr. Rybold explained in the previous episode, there are several different types of Topics that can be debated (Value, Fact, Policy); thus, it’s important to adhere to the topic presented. * Value Criterion – Or what matters in the debate. Are you preserving liberty? Saving human lives? Stopped the spread of Endgame spoilers? If you at least do the latter…what a saint. Pat on the head for you. Framework discussions help us talk about a topic in a smarter, more cohesive way. Imagine having a discussion with someone about accessibility in healthcare without being specific about what kind of healthcare you’re supporting: Single-payer? Universal? Medicare? Unicare? That last one’s fake, but you’d know that if you’d just defined your terms earlier… Background information is – believe it or not – background information to a complicated topic. Whoa! Amazing! How does he do it?! Moving on. The arguments presented in the episode will follow the structure that we introduced in Episode 2, which is that of: * Claim – What’s the argument?* Grounds/Evidence – What evidence is there to proving your argument? Articles are cool. Statistics are cooler. Personal stories ain’t so much. Still, better to have bad evidence than no evidence, especially in on-the-spot debates. * Impacts/Warrants – Why does the argument matter? Who/What/Where is being affected? GTNW (Global Thermo-Nuclear War) is your friend. Interested in learning more? See the list of sources below. Happy listening y’all. -C. References Associated Press, 1-25-2019, “Before Venezuela, US had long involvement in Latin America,” AP NEWS, https://www.apnews.com/2ded14659982426c9b2552827734be83 Carol Morello, xx-xx-xxxx, “Pompeo presses U.N. Security Council to ‘pick a side’ in Venezuela’s crisis,” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/security-council-meeting-on-venezuela-expected-to-highlight-tensions-between-us-and-russia/2019/01/25/10103b7e-20b6-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f47f65413053 Eyanir Chinea, 3-2-2017, “Job losses, low wages add to Venezuela economic hardship,” U.S., https://www.reuters.

2 – Arguments: The Toulmin Model Of Argumentation (ft. Dr. Gary Rybold)

Stephen Toulmin – British logician, author, & educator – is well-known for his volumes of works on ethics & philosophical reasoning, but even more recognizable than those volumes is his contribution to the way we think about arguments. Arguments aren’t passive – they’re data-driven, impact-heavy battering rams of reasoning; in this endeavor, Toulmin was a titan in the industry, developing a model that made us rethink the way we formulate a case. In the second episode of the program, we dive into Toulmin’s most recognizable work in the field of Communications: The Toulmin Model Of Argumentation. This model is fundamental in providing debaters & non-debaters alike a six-part framework to organize their arguments, which we will examine in this episode. Additionally, we’ll be joined by Dr. Gary Rybold, former Director Of Debate at Irvine Valley College & chairman of their Communication Studies department, who will tell us all why we should care about Toulmin’s model & what factors can lead YOU to become a better debater. Interested in participating? Email me at:stayingtopicaldebate@gmail.com Theme Music composed by Stefan Leigh:https://www.facebook.com/pg/StefanLeighMusic/about/?ref=page_internal