Infrastructure and Immigration Final 2012-2013 Topic Candidates

The National Federation of High Schools has announced the final two topic candidates for the 2012-2013 season. Based on voting by states and national organizations, the candidates are infrastructure and immigration:

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment in the United States.

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its legal protection of economic migrants in the United States.

Thoughts?

20 thoughts on “Infrastructure and Immigration Final 2012-2013 Topic Candidates”

  2. SCBennett

    I think civil liberties would hit too many sore spots and guarantee a lot of awkwardness. I think "economic migrants" would suck for T. I hope infrastructure wins at this point.

    1. bgaston

      Debated the civil liberties topic in college—-horrible Neg side bias. Amending title 7 means only congressional action is topical and the supreme court CP and PTX is a winner all day every day. That combined with good K lit for the Neg even when the Aff tries to be critical…..is why I rated is very low on my ballot.

    2. SDaddy

      I wonder what the world would be like if civil rights leaders decided not to talk about civil rights because they "hit too many sore spots and guarantee a lot of awkwardness."

    1. maximiliantiger

      I do NFA-LD policy (its a form of college policy debate). The topic my freshman year was infrastructure. From what I remember, there was a big focus on federal-only transportation. For example, locks and dams, both generically and specific ones like the Chickamauga lock in Tennesee[1], Snake River Dams in Washington[2], and the Chicago Lock [3] (forget specific name). There's also Native American roads, federal park roads, and a few others. So there was definitely a chilling effect of federal-only transport caused by the States CP.

      However, the USFG is really the only one able to fund major transportation projects. I found the 'states can use bonds' etc. evidence really unpersuasive (and moreso given our topic was before the financial crisis). We ran an aff that literally spent trillions of dollars; impossible for states to fund. So its quite possible to minimize dealing with it on the aff if you don't want to.

      We had 1-2 of 14 or so focus heavily on the states CP. Outside that, mostly it was used when people read *really* small affs that there was no inherency for (for example, states pretty much already have rumble strips where ever they need them).

      I don't have it on me, maybe I can look at our caselist from then to throw out some possible plans. Major DAs we read were Sprawl, spending, Trade good/bad, transportation tradeoff (e.g. trains trades off with trucks, trucks k2 jobs) and some others I forget about.

      [1] Its needed to access a major nuclear research facility, but generally a small issue
      [2] There's actually a huge literature base on a series of 4 dams killing Salmon in the Northwest
      [3] There was a major issue at the time about Asian Carp (non-native species, which kills all other species) getting into Lake Michigan.

      1. keysalemass913

        Biopower is literally the best K ever on that topic. The TOC winner will go 1 off the Biopower K in every debate.

          2. keysalemass913

            I'm going to defend that biopower is where it's at…so many topic-specific links, every judge dreams about watching 1 off biopower, and Foucault is the best. Seriously….idk where this sarcasm comes from

          4. DavidKP

            I wonder. If we polled 100 judges for their most looked-forward to 1NC, I wonder how many would scream 1-off biopower! Hmmm

        2. henseldanny

          You're right I completely forgot. You only need arguments, not skills, to win debates. and the biopower k is soooooooo unbeatable omg

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