Counterplans 101 Part 5 – Should Counterplans be Topical? Josiah’s View

After three articles about TP burdens, we finally return to counterplans.

We spent all that time talking about TP burdens in part because it is fundamental to the question of what counterplans are valid. Now we can look at what kind of counterplans are valid under the two major frameworks.

Planism and counterplans

If you go with planism, you will likely conclude that only topical counterplans are valid, because AFF and NEG can only propose plans that fall within the powers given to the simulated legislature–the powers of the resolution. Luke gives several arguments for why counterplans should be topical here.

Resolutionism and counterplans

Under resolutionism, what kind of counterplans are valid?

It's important to remember that the burdens of the negative are different from the burdens of the affirmative. As we discussed in the last post, AFF has to prove the resolution is true, NEG just has to prove that the AFF has not proven the resolution true. That might seem like an unnecessarily complicated way of saying it, but check the last post as for why it matters.

So in summary, AFF has to prove the resolution true, and NEG has to prove that AFF didn’t meet that burden.

There is one last term we need to touch on: Fiat Power. I discussed fiat power in a previous post, but for this post all you need to know is that this is a fancy word that means the power of the judge to pass a plan.

Topical Counterplans

Topical Counterplans (TCPs) are theoretically possible, but strategically difficult for resolutionists. The issue with topical counterplans is that they support the resolution. Thus they are essentially just giving another argument to AFF. If you are coming from a resolutionist standpoint, it’s hard to get a judge to accept a TCP because of this.

However, there is a good argument for TCPs being valid under resolutionism. Prima facie is the principle that AFF has to fully prove their position in their first speech. If AFF didn’t present their full plan until their 2AC, then we couldn’t have a full back and forth debate about it, thus making it harder to figure out whether their arguments are true or not.

Given prima facie, one could argue that any plans presented after the 1AC can’t be used as support for AFF, and that AFF thus must prove their initial plan is the best plan in order to win. This would make any NEG counterplan valid, because AFF can’t claim it as support for their side regardless of whether it’s topical or not. What is harder to prove is that a TCP actually presents an argument against AFF having proved the resolution true.

I don’t find this argument fully convincing, but it is a strong argument, and last year’s national champion (Ben Brown) has argued for it. However, as you can see, this kind of argument is quite messy. Thus, if you are a resolutionist, it might be theoretically valid to run a TCP, but it's probably not the best strategic decision given how complicated the theory is.

Non-topical counterplans

Non-topical counterplans (NTCPs) are not examples of the resolution, so we don’t run into the same issue as we do with topical counterplans. In fact, I can use a non-topical counterplan to show that we should not affirm the resolution, because the solution to our problems is found not in reforming _______ (imports/exports, Europe, etc.) but rather in reforming something else. Thus the resolution is not true.

The issue we run into is fiat power–do we have the power to pass NTCPs? Let's quickly take a look at one more type of counterplan, then we will look at fiat power. Alt-Actor (alternate actor) counterplans are counterplans that use a different actor from the resolution.

Under (most versions of) planism, we can only pass plans that fit within the resolution–that's all we have the power to do. Thus we don’t have fiat power to pass NTCPs, or alt-actor counterplans (which are another variety of NTCPs).

Under resolutionism, we are not constrained to just plans relating to the resolution, since the debate is about what the actor (usually the US Federal Government) ought to do, specifically whether we should reform a specific area of our policy. Thus, the actor can choose to pass any policy. In any real life scenario involving a debate about the federal government, no one will object and say “but the federal government can only pass policies about the one thing we are talking about today.” Fiat power is limited by who the actor is, not by topicality. The reason topicality matters is not because AFF only has fiat power over topical plans, but rather because AFF has to prove the resolution by using a topical plan.

However, alt-actor plans can’t be passed by either team, because we are debating about what a particular actor should do–we can’t control the other actors. However, there is still a way to run alt-actor counterplans.

The solution: non-fiated counterplans

The last kind of counterplan we will talk about in our series is non-fiated counterplans. Rather than running a formal counterplan, this is an argument where you might say that the best actor to deal with an issue is private individuals, states, or local governments. Thus we shouldn’t address the issue as the federal government, we should leave it to those other actors.

Any time that you want to run a counterplan, but don’t have the power to fiat it, you can just run this sort of argument. The problem is that you can’t guarantee a solution. Thus this argument only works when the policy is so obviously out of the domain of the federal government that even if we can’t guarantee that it would be dealt with otherwise, we shouldn’t pass the policy as the federal government. Another way you could make this sort of argument stronger is by arguing that those other actors are likely to deal with this problem or are already dealing with this problem.

In summary, topical counterplans are theoretically valid, but strategically difficult. Non-topical counterplans are valid. Alt-actor counterplans can’t be fiated. However, any counterplan that can’t be fiated can be run informally–I call it the non-fiated counterplan (although it's technically not a counterplan).

In our next post, Luke and I will share our overall advice for counterplans.