Macalester PWNZ

Harvard 2007

**PICs Bad (Long)**

PICs Bad: 2AC (Long)

1. Counterinterp: All PICs must have solvency advocates and be

nontopical
a. Key to Fairness:
Eliminate 9 minutes of aff offense against the squo--entire 1AC
should be a reason to vote aff
AND
Drive affs to defend minute changes, shifting debates from the
lit, gutting topic specific education and neg strat options
AND
Create incentive to find most minute exclusion and net benefit
AND
Lack advocates, guts aff ability to generate specific offense
AND
Can run net benefits as disads, checking their offense
AND
b. Key to Education
shift debates from rich, topic-centered lit to narrow, contrived
net benefit literature
AND
don’t reflect the real world because the PIC would be a friendly
amendment

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Harvard 2007

PICs Bad: 1AR General Overview

Our interp is that all inclusive counterplans must have solvency

advocates and be nontopical. This solves all of their reasons that we
should debate these issues while ensuring that the aff both has lit and
is able to leverage offense against the counterplan. The kicker is that
they can run the net benefit as a disad, checking their offense AND a
world without PICs encourages both sides to access big impacts
around which the community already has extensive background
knowledge, fostering educational, in-depth, and predictable debates

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PICs Bad: 1AR Fairness Overview

Next, PICs undermine fairness. Group the 2AC.

First, they eliminate our ability to generate offense because the 1AC is
comparative to the status quo and we can’t predict silly PICs
AND
Second, they force affs to defense minutes policy changes, shifting
debates from the core of the literature towards its margins, undermining
both topic specific education and negative strategic options
AND
Third, it creates incentives to find the most minute PIC and net benefit,
undermining fairness and topic education
AND
Fourth, they lack solvency advocates, which is unfair because we
cannot generate specific offense

Now, they say….

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PICs Bad: 1AR Education Overview

Next, PICs undermine education. Group the 2AC.

First, aff fear of PICs and neg desire to PIC encourages both sides to
defend tenuous links to maximum impacts, producing debates that
seem ridiculous even to us. The counterinterp incentivizes both the aff
and neg to defend robust links to their impacts, producing more in-
depth, educational, and topic-specific debates.
AND
Second, they don’t reflect the real world because the PIC would simply
be a friendly amendment

Now, they say…

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A2 “Aff Bias”: 1AR

1. Empirically false: winning percentages are almost even, especially on

a topic where the aff has to pressure the world’s rising superpower

2. They over-correct—our first fairness argument proves that nullify an

entire aff speech

3. There is no reason why PICs are necessary to rectify these structural

biases

4. Turn, neg bias: kritiks limit small affs, they have the block, lit is
skewed neg, and MSU has 8 judges in the pool

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A2 “Aff Interp Limits Negs to Bad

Counterplans”: 1AR

1. Our first argument on education straight-turns this

2. Counterinterp turns this

a. it encourages debates about the resolution versus the
nonresolution
AND
b. it forces neg to have solvency advocates, which produce better
counterplans and lead to better debates

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A2 “All Counterplans are PICs”: 1AR

Our counterinterp solves this—they can be inclusive if they have an

advocate and are non-topical

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A2 “Best Policy Option”: 1AR

1. This is solved by the counterinterp

2. Our fairness and education offense outweigh because they provide a

level playing field that is key to participation, making “best policy” moot

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A2 “Encourage In-Depth Research”: 1AR

NOTE: these are the same as “narrow the debate” answers

1. Turn: they over-correct by creating an incentive to debate
uneducational, trivial issues

2. Counterinterp solves this while preserving fairness to the aff,

explained above

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A2 “Encourage Specific Plan Writing”: 1AR

1. Turn: risk of topic-irrelevant process and agent PICs force the aff
write vague plans to dodge args against which they have no topic-
specific offense

2. Turn: the counterinterp encourages specific plans around the topic to

leverage offense against the counterplan

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A2 “Judge Discretion Checks Abuse/No In-

Round Abuse”: 1AR

1. This argument is silly—decisions made in theory debates help

establish the parameters for future debates
2. Turn: this claim nullifies theory-related critical thinking and education
because it reduces it to the whims of the judge

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A2 “Literature/Net Benefit Checks

Abuse/Triviality”: 1AR

1. Not true: they can read all of their offense against the case sans PIC

2. Turn: they shift us to non-topic specific lit, explained above

3. Turn: they allow the neg to read the “pressure minus one” PIC and
claim all disads to pressure as net benefits, ensuring muddled,
uneducational debates where the aff cannot leverage specific offense

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A2 “Most Predictable”: 1AR

1. Counterinterp solves: they have to have lit both specific to the

counterplan and outside of the rez

2. There is no reason why a difference in predictability justifies an

abusive counterplan

3. False: most net benefits/exclusions come from work outside of the aff
and topic lit

4. It’s nonresponsive to fairness and education, which are the lens

through which you evaluate theory

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A2 “Narrow the Debate”: 1AR

NOTE: these are the same as “encourage in-depth research” answers
1. Turn: they over-correct by creating an incentive to debate
uneducational, trivial issues

2. Counterinterp solves this while preserving fairness to the aff,

explained above

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A2 “Real World”: 1AR

1. Turn: it’s a friendly amendment, explained above

2. Fairness and education trump any simulation impacts because

participation is the foundation of debate

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