Round 1

Moorhead WM vs Eastview DD

The Round

AFF

AC: Good case overall. I feel like the impacts coming out of Cont II - A Point sounds good but the overall impact is low. Is 900 patients enough to affirm? The second part of the 300,000 deaths is much better. I would be specific how sanctions are the cause of these 300,000 deaths. Didn’t Maduro recently say he was ready for more negotiations just recently.

AR: I’m confused by the argument you make about post-date. Isn’t their card from December 2019? I guess we will see if they make it. Also, be more specific in sign-posting. Did you reply to the observation? I think maybe you did but I’m not 100% sure to be honest.

NEG

NC: Question, why would the move to the dollar continue even if we dropped sanctions? Why is it mutually exclusive? The Renden (sp?) card at the end of case is close to this answer but not specific. Is Ecuador a like for like example. Seems like two very different sized of economy and population. I would at least acknowledge it.

NR: You spend far too much time on the AC, not sure you need 4 to 5 responses on each contention off the Aff.

AFF SUMMARY

The responses to the Ecuador examples are fairly non-responsive to the arguments that the NC brought up. Also, I think you need to go for the 300,000 deaths specifically in this speech. Why spend the time on the 900 deaths instead of the bigger number. Just doesn’t make a ton of sense.

NEG SUMMARY

I feel like you make this debate much harder than it needs to be. You spend FAR too much time on negotiations and human rights abuses. But on negotiations, you have the winning evidence that says Maduro (Hill evidence) that its true. This is cold dropped in the summary. And on human rights abuses, they only extend 900 deaths in summary and a new poverty card.

RFD

Framework

There is no specific framework so I will default to cost benefit analysis (util) for this round. But that said, the neg tells me this should be framed around the well being of the Venezuelan people.

Negotiations

I think the aff spends a bit too much on this. Based on what I’m hearing from both sides it sounds like neither side really get Maduro out of office at the end of the debate. I think the aff is right that the initial negotiations happened due to sanctions, but the neg is also right, why in the world would he come back to the table if we remove the sanctions right now.

Economy

The negative is winning this for several reasons. First, using an inflation debate about the Venezuelan currency vs the US Dollar by the aff doesn’t make sense. What the neg is saying is that is doesn’t matter if Maduro prints money because the US dollar will stabilize the country. This benefit comes in the form of decreasing poverty and decrease inflation and these are both good.

Human Crisis

The only offense the Aff goes for in the final focus is again this 900 person number. I will grant the aff is winning this, so if we keep the sanctions its possible another 900 people might die. However, the final focus doesn’t go for either the larger 300,000 or 90% poverty number.

In the end, neither team does a single second of weighing arguments on either side. This is always a dangerous plan because now I get to go through the offense and decide which side outweighs with my own thinking. Make it easy for me!!!

So the aff can save up to 900 lives through the return of the cancer program. The negative tells me they are going to fix the economy. With the absence of any probability weighing, I have to assume both of these impacts are 100% likely to happen so I vote for the bigger number and I negate to decrease poverty which can life 3m out of poverty.