In my last post, we talked about the burdens of counterplans. There is a third and final burden that may seem like an obvious point. There is one part of the burden, though, that is so debated that an entire category of counterplans has formed because of it. The third burden of counterplans is 

3. All affirmative burdens 

Again, you are running a policy just like the affirmative. You must prove that the plan is not inherent, that there are significant harms and impacts, that the harms are solved, and net advantage, which we covered in the second burden. This makes more sense if we consider the rules and what the judge expects both teams in a policy debate round to do. NCFCA and Stoa rules, respectively, are provided below. 

Beginning with NCFCA rules, team policy is meant to simulate legislative debate. If a U.S. Congressman proposes a “counter bill” and it is inherent, insignificant, non-solvent, or provides more disadvantages than advantages, you can probably bet it will not pass. It doesn’t matter who proposes a bill, if you are voting for it to be passed, it should meet all of the characteristics of a good bill. A counter plan should counter the affirmative plan by being better than the affirmative.

As for Stoa rules, the affirmative must fail to uphold the resolution for the negative to win. Thus, as long as you have a reason why the affirmative plan ought not to pass, a counterplan isn’t necessary. That doesn’t mean a counterplan cannot be useful. Resolutions usually read “This body ought to significantly reform ____” or “This body should substantially reform ____.” Key word here is ought, or should, or what the body should do. If the negative can prove that the body can take a different course of action that would better reform the topic, then the negative wins, because governments should always take the best possible course of action. Again, you must prove that your plan cannot be passed along with the affirmative plan. That goes back to the burden of mutual exclusivity. If you can prove that your plans are exclusive of each other and your plan provides a better reform than the affirmative, then the negative wins, because the affirmative has failed to present the policy that the government should or ought to take. 

Simple enough, right? Well, there is one affirmative burden that I didn’t really talk about, and that is topicality. 

Counterplan Category 7 (yes, 7): Non-topical counterplans 

This type of counterplan comes from what I believe is a misconception of team policy theory.  Essentially, this counterplan argues that the affirmative is bound by the resolution. This means their plan must remain within the topic, and the body of enforcement they use can also only be within the resolution. A plan for European Union reform can only be enforced by the European Union and must be about the European Union. The negative argues, however, that they are not bound by the resolution. Instead, their only job is to negate the affirmative plan. Beyond that, they may do whatever they want. If they want to enforce an EU policy about relations with Afghanistan through the Afghanistan government instead of the EU, they can do that. They have the power to act as any government they wish. This also means they can pass any plan they want if it is better than the affirmative plan. You can probably see some of the issues with this, and I want to discuss two issues in particular.

First, it’s simply unfair. By running a plan, you assume the burdens of proof. The affirmative assumes the burden of topicality. If the negative presents a plan, they also assume the burden of topicality. The judge expects the topic of discussion by both sides to be related to the resolution. If one team begins discussing a plan that is unrelated to the resolution, then how is it even a debate? There is also no way for an affirmative to be able to prepare for such an argument, seeing as literally any plan could be run against them. If the affirmative is bound by the resolution but the negative is not, this fails an important principle of debate that every team should have equal access to win the round.

The second issue with non-topical counterplans is that there is always an ideal body of government to pass a plan through. Obviously, we would love it if the Taliban passed a law to protect women’s access to education. They would be the government that needs that law (if you can call them a government) because they are the ones creating the issue. I doubt we would ever have a resolution in which we act as the Taliban. Instead, we rely on external governments such as the UN, EU, and US government to do the best they can to ensure the Taliban acts in an ethical manner. Of course, these bodies of government will never be able to force the Taliban to do anything. Yet, if the negative is not bound by any resolution and may act as any government body they wish, and also assume fiat power over that government body, they would always act as the ideal government body (reminder - fiat power means you have the ability to force the government to pass a law regardless of political checks and balances within that government.) 

Thus, for multiple reasons, non-topical counterplans fail to respect principles of fairness or logic in debate. I would not approve of running such a counterplan. 

Again, let’s look at the rules to be absolutely sure, starting with NCFCA.

Here, it is stated that the purpose of team policy is to simulate a legislative body. A legislative body would be members of the US Congress debating about a bill, or EU Member States debating before the EU Parliament about a proposal. In this case, both the affirmation and opposition are acting within the same legislative body. That is the purpose of this form of debate. 

Stoa 2023 rules:

Unfortunately, this set of rules is a little less clear. Here, non-topical counterplans could be run because there is nothing here that suggests they shouldn’t be. However, in order for the negative to win the round, the round must end in which the affirmative has failed to uphold the resolution. A non-topical counterplan does not itself disprove an affirmative position, it simply suggests that somewhere in some other government, there is a good policy that should be passed. To run a non-topical counterplan and still win, you would need to add arguments specifically to disprove the affirmative position. At that point, for the sake of time, avoid the extraneous argument and just focus on disproving the affirmative since that is the only way that the negative wins. In Stoa, NTCP’s are not against the rules, they’re just pointless. 

Just one more idea to solidify why these are a bad idea. As many of you know, Vice-President Kamala Harris was instructed to be the White House Official in charge of statements and policy updates on the US-Mexico border. The Vice President is the President of the Senate. The American People expect that since her agenda revolves around immigration, she would coordinate with the Senate about immigration policy. Imagine if, in a Senate hearing about immigration, the only thing that is talked about is how to increase funding for cyber security programs against cyber attacks from Russia. That has nothing to do about immigration, and that discussion is best served in another hearing. Similarly, if two teams are called to discuss import/export policy, and the negative runs a policy about fixing the potholes on I-85, then time is wasted where an actual debate could be had. The judge expects the discussion to be geared towards import/export policy, and not something else. It’s as simple as that. So, next time you run 12 point res-kritik non-topical counterplan about increasing funding to the U.S. space force to prevent an alien attack, don’t be surprised when the local church grandmother judge gives you a funny look.

Soon, Josiah will discuss his view on whether counterplans should be topical.