Disadvantage
Encyclopedia
In policy debate
, a disadvantage (abbreviated as DA, and sometimes referred to as a Disad) is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered.
Example: If the DA (ran by the Negative) says that the Affirmative plan will create nuclear proliferation, then the Uniqueness in the DA needs to show that there is not nuclear proliferation in the status quo. If the Affirmative claims that there is already nuclear proliferation, and the (affirmative) plan creates nuclear proliferation as claimed by the Negative, then all the negative will need to show is that nuclear proliferation will uniquely increase after the adoption of the plan (the more increase proven, the better Uniqueness). If there is nuclear proliferation before, and after the plan to the same degree, then there is no reason to not do the plan. This would prove that no DA exists by the adoption of, in this case, the Affirmative's plan and the Negative would lose their DA just to Uniqueness.
. The Impact is the edge of the sword of your DA and is usually a significantly bad event caused by inertia evident through the internal links inside the link off over the brink and uniquely so.
In many cases, internal links are often undesirable things by themselves, and could be considered impacts. However, the worst of the consequences, or the final one in the chain of events, is usually given the label of "impact". For example, nuclear war is probably worse than economic collapse, so nuclear war is given the "impact" label, even though economic collapse (the internal link) could itself be viewed as an impact.
The nuclear war impact is the terminal (i.e. final) impact in virtually every disadvantage today. While it appears outlandish to outsiders and even to some debaters now, it originated in the 1980s during the height of the nuclear freeze movement, specifically after the publication of The Fate of the Earth
by Jonathan Schell
. Barring nuclear war, the terminal impact usually ends up as extinction
anyway, either human extinction
or the extinction of all life on Earth; the most common mechanisms for these are cataclysmic climatic change (in the style of The Day After Tomorrow
), all-consuming conventional war
, or uncontrolled undiscovered uncurable disease.
Other terminal impacts might include severe human rights abuses, such as near universal slavery or loss of individuality. These types of impacts are usually argued under a deontological framework or as a turn to a human rights advantage.
.There is also much controversy over kritiks being linear disadvantages, due to the fact that most kritik argue the affirmative plan over a discursive level, while a disadvantage argues the affirmative's actions.
Non-kritikal linear disadvantages frequently face attacks from the Affirmative on debate theory; the theory that linear disadvantages are abusive (i.e. unfair) to the affirmative team has such wid
a shift in the "political capital" of either the President, or a political party, which will affect
the ability of the affected group to pass other bills. An example of a politics disadvantage would be: Uniqueness: Immigration Reform will pass in the status quo. Link: Plan decreases the President's political capital, perhaps with a specific link that increasing civil liberties would be a flip-flop for President Obama. Thus, Obama has no political capital to pass his Immigration Reform. Impac elections cycles. For example, in a presidential election, it might argue that a certain Presidential candidate or his or her opponent is currently weak (or strong), but the affirmative plan will cause him or her to gain (or lose) popularity, and that either his or her election is undesirable or the election of his or her opponent is undesirable. A midterms version could focus on particular races or the general balance of the Congress; an example of a single-race midterms disadvantage would be that the reelection of Senator Daniel Akaka
is critical to free speech, and plan prevents Akaka from winning; a "balance of Congress" disadvantage might hold that the plan is a credit to the Republicans
, who would increase their grip on Congress and allow extensive drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
.
Other debate theorists have recently created a model of fiat
that appears to preclude the politics disadvantage; however, its use in any given debate round is entirely dependent on how well the affirmative argues that the judge should accept the model, a somewhat time-consuming process. Examples of these fiat arguments include Vote No and Intrinsicness. Vote No says that the debate should be a simulation of the debate before congress therefore the president has already exerted political capital meaning there is no disadvantage. Intrinsicness, popularized by New Trier Coach Michael Greenstein, says that there is no reason that congress can't pass both the plan and the bill meaning they aren't competitive.
Economy/Spending DA - plan leads to economy collapse/recession
- Biscon: Plan actualy or perceptualy harms business
- Spending: Plan costs too much money causing the dolar to lose value. A more nuanced version of this argument focuses on rather invistors will buy our t-bills or if a credit agency will downgrade our credit.
Federalism DA - aka the "fism DA" - says that plan = undermine federalism (balance of powers between USFG and states), and since most countries model their democracy on the US, if the US destroys their federalism, then wars will break out in other countries as a result
Constitutionality DA - plan = unconstitutional, and creating it would set a bad precedent, causing other unconstitutional policies to be passed
Overpopulation or "Malthus DA" DA - By the plan saving lives, it undermines natural death checks, which lead to overpopulation and a "Malthusian" catastrophe because of it
Relation Disadvanteges: Plan harms our relationship with another nation.
, which argue that the situation is somehow the reverse of the negative's claim.
An example:
No Link: The plan expends no political capital
Using the example above, an a no-internal-link could either be that the failure to pass the deal will not reduce American influence on the Indian subcontinent, or that reduction of American influence on the Indian subcontinent will not lead to nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
For example:
Uniqueness: American oil consumption high now!
Link: Ethanol trades off with oil!
Internal: OPEC will flood the market with cheap oil
Impact: Destroys Russian and Canadian Economies--global economic collapse--Nuclear war!
Impact Uniqueness--OPEC flooded the market last year with really cheap oil and there was no nuclear war
For Example:
Original DA
Uniqueness: US Military Strong
Link: Plan Decreases military power
Impact: Weak military leads to nuclear conflict.
A non-unique and a link turn would go something like this:
Non-unique: Military weak now.
Link Turn: Plan increases military power.
This strategy turns what was previously a "disadvantage" to the plan into a benefit or advantage of the plan. This helps the affirmative debaters prove that they should win on presumption(that the aff plan is proven to be the better policy option than the status quo).
of a debate round, in particular, the negative block), but some believe that it makes a round much more interesting.
The affirmative team should never run an impact turn and a link turn together—this is called double turning. When the affirmative team double turns themself they claim that "right now the status quo is doing something, and the affirmative plan stops it, but what the affirmative stops is a good thing." In simple terms, the affirmative runs a disadvantage on themselves.
A disadvantage can also be answered by no longer doing a part of the plan that causes the aff to link into the disadvantage. This is often referred to as a severance perm, because by making this claim the affirmative does all parts of the plan except the part that links to the disadvantage, thus severing out of part of their own plan. This argument is also rarely made, due to the theory arguments it brings up on the affirmative changing its plan in the round in order to avoid the disadvantage.
Also if the negative runs a Counterplan in addition to the Disadvantage(which commonly occurs) the affirmative can make a permutation and say that the combination of the counterplan and plan shields the link to the disadvantage. For example: the plan repeals the Hyde Amendment to allow abortion funding through federal sources by using congress; the negative runs a courts counterplan that repeals the hyde amendment and runs a politics disadvantage that says the plan will drain the political capital of the president which causes a certain bill not to be passed; the affirmative would claim that the "perm shields the link" because congress would claim that the courts made them repeal the hyde amendment, therefore no political capital would be lost.
Policy debate
Policy debate is a form of speech competition in which teams of two advocate for and against a resolution that typically calls for policy change by the United States federal government or security discourse...
, a disadvantage (abbreviated as DA, and sometimes referred to as a Disad) is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered.
Structure
A DA usually has four key elements. These four elements are not always necessary depending on the type of disadvantage run, and some are often combined into a single piece of evidence. A Unique Link card, for example, will include both a description of the status quo and the plan's effect on it. A traditional threshold DA, however, has a structure as follows:Uniqueness
Uniqueness shows why the Impacts have not occurred yet or to a substantial extent and will uniquely occur with the adoption of either the Affirmative's plan or the Negative's counterplan.Example: If the DA (ran by the Negative) says that the Affirmative plan will create nuclear proliferation, then the Uniqueness in the DA needs to show that there is not nuclear proliferation in the status quo. If the Affirmative claims that there is already nuclear proliferation, and the (affirmative) plan creates nuclear proliferation as claimed by the Negative, then all the negative will need to show is that nuclear proliferation will uniquely increase after the adoption of the plan (the more increase proven, the better Uniqueness). If there is nuclear proliferation before, and after the plan to the same degree, then there is no reason to not do the plan. This would prove that no DA exists by the adoption of, in this case, the Affirmative's plan and the Negative would lose their DA just to Uniqueness.
External links
For the disadvantage to have relevance in the round, the negative team must show that the affirmative plan causes the disadvantage that is claimed. If the DA stated that the plan takes money from the government, and the affirmative team shows that the plan does not increase governmental spending, then the DA would be considered to have "no link".Internal link
The internal link connects the link to the impact, or, it shows the steps the link causes to get to the impact. Not all DA's use an internal link but some have multiple internals. The internal link in our example would be that government spending leads to economic collapse.Impact
The impact is the result of the policy action that make it undesirable. These results are at the end of the chain of reasoning of your DA (starts with your link with internal links spanning over the Brink with Uniqueness and lead to the Impact), then the Going along with the example, an impact would be that economic collapse may cause nuclear warNuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
. The Impact is the edge of the sword of your DA and is usually a significantly bad event caused by inertia evident through the internal links inside the link off over the brink and uniquely so.
In many cases, internal links are often undesirable things by themselves, and could be considered impacts. However, the worst of the consequences, or the final one in the chain of events, is usually given the label of "impact". For example, nuclear war is probably worse than economic collapse, so nuclear war is given the "impact" label, even though economic collapse (the internal link) could itself be viewed as an impact.
The nuclear war impact is the terminal (i.e. final) impact in virtually every disadvantage today. While it appears outlandish to outsiders and even to some debaters now, it originated in the 1980s during the height of the nuclear freeze movement, specifically after the publication of The Fate of the Earth
The Fate of the Earth
The Fate of the Earth is a 1982 book by Jonathan Schell. This "seminal" description of the consequences of nuclear war "forces even the most reluctant person to confront the unthinkable: the destruction of humanity and possibly most life on Earth". The book revitalized the anti-nuclear movement ...
by Jonathan Schell
Jonathan Schell
Jonathan Edward Schell is an author and visiting fellow at Yale University, whose work primarily deals with nuclear weapons.-Career:His work has appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, and TomDispatch...
. Barring nuclear war, the terminal impact usually ends up as extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
anyway, either human extinction
Human extinction
Human extinction is the end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The scope of this article is existential risks. Humans are very widespread on the Earth, and live in communities which are capable of some kind of basic survival in...
or the extinction of all life on Earth; the most common mechanisms for these are cataclysmic climatic change (in the style of The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling which leads to a new ice age. The film did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally...
), all-consuming conventional war
Conventional warfare
Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted byusing conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined, and fight using weapons that primarily target the opposing army...
, or uncontrolled undiscovered uncurable disease.
Other terminal impacts might include severe human rights abuses, such as near universal slavery or loss of individuality. These types of impacts are usually argued under a deontological framework or as a turn to a human rights advantage.
Traditional
A traditional DA follows the structure above. Traditional DA's can include or exclude the internal link.Linear
A linear disadvantage does not have uniqueness. The negative concedes that the status quo has a problem but insists the plan increases that problem's severity. A commonly-accepted theory holds that a sufficiently philosophical linear disadvantage with an alternative becomes a kritikKritik
In policy debate , a kritik is generally a type of argument that challenges a certain mindset, assumption, or discursive element that exists within the advocacy of the opposing team, often from the perspective of...
.There is also much controversy over kritiks being linear disadvantages, due to the fact that most kritik argue the affirmative plan over a discursive level, while a disadvantage argues the affirmative's actions.
Non-kritikal linear disadvantages frequently face attacks from the Affirmative on debate theory; the theory that linear disadvantages are abusive (i.e. unfair) to the affirmative team has such wid
Brink
A brink disadvantage is a special type of linear disadvantage which claims that the affirmative will aggravate the problem in the status quo to the extent that it passes a brink, at which time the impact happens all at once. The negative team claims that in the status quo, we are near the brink, but the affirmative team's plan will push us "over the edge."The Politics Disadvantage
A politics disadvantage is a special type of disadvantage, in the way that it links to affirmative plan. Rather than linking to the specific plan action, it links to the fact that a plan passes at all. Politics disadvantages typically will say that a plan will pass through Congress, thus causinga shift in the "political capital" of either the President, or a political party, which will affect
the ability of the affected group to pass other bills. An example of a politics disadvantage would be: Uniqueness: Immigration Reform will pass in the status quo. Link: Plan decreases the President's political capital, perhaps with a specific link that increasing civil liberties would be a flip-flop for President Obama. Thus, Obama has no political capital to pass his Immigration Reform. Impac elections cycles. For example, in a presidential election, it might argue that a certain Presidential candidate or his or her opponent is currently weak (or strong), but the affirmative plan will cause him or her to gain (or lose) popularity, and that either his or her election is undesirable or the election of his or her opponent is undesirable. A midterms version could focus on particular races or the general balance of the Congress; an example of a single-race midterms disadvantage would be that the reelection of Senator Daniel Akaka
Daniel Akaka
Daniel Kahikina Akaka is the junior U.S. Senator from Hawaii and a member of the Democratic Party. He is the first U.S. Senator of Native Hawaiian ancestry and is currently the only member of the Senate who has Chinese ancestry....
is critical to free speech, and plan prevents Akaka from winning; a "balance of Congress" disadvantage might hold that the plan is a credit to the Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, who would increase their grip on Congress and allow extensive drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge...
.
The Controversy
In some sections of the country, politics disadvantages are frowned upon because they link to virtually every affirmative plan, destroying the on case debate and focusing solely on the disadvantage. Supporters, however, say the politics disadvantages are "real world" and provide education on how bills are passed and politics in general.Other debate theorists have recently created a model of fiat
Fiat (policy debate)
Fiat is a theoretical construct in policy debate—derived from the word should in the resolution—whereby the desirability rather than the probability of enactment and enforcement of a given plan is debated, allowing an affirmative team to "imagine" a plan into being.There are different theories...
that appears to preclude the politics disadvantage; however, its use in any given debate round is entirely dependent on how well the affirmative argues that the judge should accept the model, a somewhat time-consuming process. Examples of these fiat arguments include Vote No and Intrinsicness. Vote No says that the debate should be a simulation of the debate before congress therefore the president has already exerted political capital meaning there is no disadvantage. Intrinsicness, popularized by New Trier Coach Michael Greenstein, says that there is no reason that congress can't pass both the plan and the bill meaning they aren't competitive.
Other Types of D/As
Tradeoff DA - plan takes money from more important thingsEconomy/Spending DA - plan leads to economy collapse/recession
- Biscon: Plan actualy or perceptualy harms business
- Spending: Plan costs too much money causing the dolar to lose value. A more nuanced version of this argument focuses on rather invistors will buy our t-bills or if a credit agency will downgrade our credit.
Federalism DA - aka the "fism DA" - says that plan = undermine federalism (balance of powers between USFG and states), and since most countries model their democracy on the US, if the US destroys their federalism, then wars will break out in other countries as a result
Constitutionality DA - plan = unconstitutional, and creating it would set a bad precedent, causing other unconstitutional policies to be passed
Overpopulation or "Malthus DA" DA - By the plan saving lives, it undermines natural death checks, which lead to overpopulation and a "Malthusian" catastrophe because of it
Relation Disadvanteges: Plan harms our relationship with another nation.
Responding To Disadvantages
Disadvantage responses can generally be classified into two categories: takeouts, which simply seek to refute a claim made by the negative in the disadvantage, and turnsTurn (policy debate)
In policy debate, a turn is an argument that proves an argument the other side has made is in fact support for one's own side. This is as opposed to a take-out which merely argues that the argument the other team has made is wrong...
, which argue that the situation is somehow the reverse of the negative's claim.
Non-Unique
The "non-unique" argument says that the impact will happen in the status quo with or without the passage of the plan or that it is happening in the status quo.The links and impacts (and thus the entire disadvantage) become largely irrelevant since the status quo is no different from the plan.No Link
A very simple argument. The affirmative simply claims that the plan does not cause the impact.An example:
- Uniqueness: The United States-India nuclear deal is likely to pass now, but just barely. It requires extensive expenditure of limited political capitalPolitical capitalPolitical capital is primarily based on a public figure's favorable image among the populace and among other important factors in or out of the government. Political capital is essentially the opinion of another person, group of people, or nation about you, your organization, or your government...
. - Link: The plan uses political capital that would otherwise be used for passage of the deal.
- Internal Link: Failure to pass the deal will reduce American influence on the Indian subcontinentIndian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. - Internal Link: Reduction of American influence on the Indian subcontinent will lead to nuclear war between IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and PakistanPakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. - Impact: India-Pakistan nuclear war will spiral out of control into a global nuclear conflict.
No Link: The plan expends no political capital
No Internal Link
A variant on the No Link, it states that either the link or the previous internal link does not lead to another internal link.Using the example above, an a no-internal-link could either be that the failure to pass the deal will not reduce American influence on the Indian subcontinent, or that reduction of American influence on the Indian subcontinent will not lead to nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
Impact Uniqueness
Arguing the impact's uniqueness is a underused but effective argument. To prove that an impact is non-unique the affirmative must show that the link has already happened in the past but the impact didn't happen.For example:
Uniqueness: American oil consumption high now!
Link: Ethanol trades off with oil!
Internal: OPEC will flood the market with cheap oil
Impact: Destroys Russian and Canadian Economies--global economic collapse--Nuclear war!
Impact Uniqueness--OPEC flooded the market last year with really cheap oil and there was no nuclear war
Link Turn
The Link Turn is generally accepted to be a better attack on a disadvantage than the defensive take-out arguments, as it is an offensive argument. The link-turn is in two parts: a card that says the disadvantage is non-unique(the impact is going to happen in the status quo)--and reading a link-turn (a piece of evidence that states the plan does the opposite of what the negative link says).For Example:
Original DA
Uniqueness: US Military Strong
Link: Plan Decreases military power
Impact: Weak military leads to nuclear conflict.
A non-unique and a link turn would go something like this:
Non-unique: Military weak now.
Link Turn: Plan increases military power.
This strategy turns what was previously a "disadvantage" to the plan into a benefit or advantage of the plan. This helps the affirmative debaters prove that they should win on presumption(that the aff plan is proven to be the better policy option than the status quo).
Impact Turn
Another way to debate against a disadvantage is an impact turn, in which the affirmative team reads evidence stating that the disadvantages impact would actually be good or that the status quo creates a worse impact. If the impact to a disad was global nuclear war, an impact turn would say that death is good or that the status quo creates a bigger nuclear war. Often impact turns function at the level above this. The argument is then sometimes called an internal link turn. For example, if the disadvantage argued that the plan hurt free trade, which was key to avoiding war, the affirmative might argue that in fact free trade caused war, environmental destruction, and other negative consequences. This type of turn is often much harder to convince the judge of (in part because of the structureStructure of policy debate
In all forms of policy debate the order of speeches is as follows:*First Affirmative Constructive *Cross-examination of First Affirmative by Second Negative*First Negative Constructive *Cross-examination of First Negative by First Affirmative...
of a debate round, in particular, the negative block), but some believe that it makes a round much more interesting.
Straight Turn
One strategy the affirmative may use in order to attack the Disadvantage is to "straight turn it." To straight turn something means to run only offensive arguments against it. Such an example would be to run 3 impact turns against a Disadvantage. This forces the negative team to not kick the Disadvantage because it automatically becomes an extra advantage for the affirmative. If the affirmative did run defensive arguments such as non-unique and an impact turn, then the negative could concede that it is non-unique so the impact turn would be rendered useless thus the negative could kick out of the disadvantage.The affirmative team should never run an impact turn and a link turn together—this is called double turning. When the affirmative team double turns themself they claim that "right now the status quo is doing something, and the affirmative plan stops it, but what the affirmative stops is a good thing." In simple terms, the affirmative runs a disadvantage on themselves.
Other Ways to Answer a Disadvantage
In answering the Link, an affirmative might argue that the link has no threshold, i.e. that the link does not make clear when the impact will happen or even that the impact will happen solely based on what the affirmative plan causes. Or the aff may claim that uniqueness overwhelms the link; that conditions in the status quo are so far away from the threshold that the impact will not happen. This second answer is rarely made however, because it is a strategic gamble.A disadvantage can also be answered by no longer doing a part of the plan that causes the aff to link into the disadvantage. This is often referred to as a severance perm, because by making this claim the affirmative does all parts of the plan except the part that links to the disadvantage, thus severing out of part of their own plan. This argument is also rarely made, due to the theory arguments it brings up on the affirmative changing its plan in the round in order to avoid the disadvantage.
Also if the negative runs a Counterplan in addition to the Disadvantage(which commonly occurs) the affirmative can make a permutation and say that the combination of the counterplan and plan shields the link to the disadvantage. For example: the plan repeals the Hyde Amendment to allow abortion funding through federal sources by using congress; the negative runs a courts counterplan that repeals the hyde amendment and runs a politics disadvantage that says the plan will drain the political capital of the president which causes a certain bill not to be passed; the affirmative would claim that the "perm shields the link" because congress would claim that the courts made them repeal the hyde amendment, therefore no political capital would be lost.