17. Motion Types and Strategies a. Policy Motions Motions of the form “This House Would [do XJ" involve the Government teams arguing that they should be enacting policy X. A policy is a concrete course of action that Government teams wish to convince the judges should be implemented. Such motions are about whether the House should do X ~ with Government teams arguing that they should and Opposition teams arguing that they should not. These debates are purely normative. They do not require teams to discuss whether or not policy X is likely to be enacted in the real world, or whether or not policy X is currently status quo. For the purposes of the debate, the Government teams are the government and the politician that make it up, and the debate is about whether they should or should not do a policy, not whether their real world counterparts. will or will not. It should be assumed thatthe policy will be implemented in the manner that the Government teams set up (also known as Government fiat). As such, it is never a valid line of opposition to such motions to state that “but the government would never do this” or, more subily, “but politicians ‘would never pass this law”, However, it does not mean that a Government fiat is without limitations. While teams must assume the policy will be passed in the parliament, Government teams cannot simply rely on fiat to say that their model/setup will automatically be feasible, effective, beneficial, or sustainable as they are sill equired to prove and analyse the likelihood of such. Asan example, the motion for the round is “This House would impose a sugar tax”. The debate should assume that the Government team has the power to implement such a policy and that this policy will pass the approval of Congress or Parliament. However, the Government team cannot control reactions to this policy, and cannot assume that ‘everyone will behave in a compliant manner once the policy is passed. The question of the debate is whether or not the policy should be enacted in the manner that the Government team has set out, not just about whether or not sugar is good or bad. It is perfectly possible for the Opposition teams to agree that sugar is bad, but oppose the policy of imposing a sugar tax. For Policy motions, Opposition teams may choose to defend status quo, or propose an alternative in the form of a counter-proposition. It is not necessary for Opposition teams to present a counter-proposition, though it may be beneficial in some instances. If presenting a counter-proposition, Opposition teams are granted the same amount of fiat power that Government teams have: the debate should assume that whatever counter: proposition Opposition proposes will also be implemented, and it would be similarly futile 1o argue that Opposition’s counter-proposition would never be passed by any parliament in real life, However, it is crucial to note that the Opposition’s counter- proposition should not take significantly more resources to achieve than Government's policy. 18, Analysis Motions a. “This House believes that [X]" Motions that begin with “This House believes that [XJ" are value judgement debates. They requite Government teams to argue for the truth of the statement represented by X, whilst Opposition teams argue that X is false. There is no need for Government teams to implement a model. ‘Take, for example, the motion “This House believes that capitalism has failed democracy”. The debate is about whether or not the statement is true, not about ‘whether or not democracies should do anything about the statement (by, for instance, abolishing capitalism). Government teams need not have a model; they should, however, still define terms within the debate. In this case, they should define what ough dems, decays. cn tilhon se:5, “This House believes that [X} should. ‘Motions that begin with “THBT [X] should.” are about whether or not the Statement is true from the perspective of a neutral observer. Even though these 'motions are phrased as true or false statements, Government teams are encouraged to explain the most likely form of the model tobe adopted by the stipulated actor. Take as an example the motion “This House believes that developing ‘countries should prohibit microfinancing services.” While itis possible for teams to debate the merits and demerits of microfinancing in abstract (especially in developing countrics), the debate would be much clearer if Government teams present « model outlining what prohibition entails, what kind of sanctions would be ‘implemented if thee i a violation ofthe prohibition, and so on. Opposition may also propose an alternative. These motions should not be confused with actor motions to be discussed in a later section “This House supports/opposes [X]” Motions that begin with “This House supports/opposes [X]" also usually noed ‘not involve the Government teams proposing a model, Instead, the Goverment teams need to argue that they would either symbolically, politically, materially or in some other manner support the person, group, institution, cause, idea, value, oF Satement expressed by X. Opposition needs. to argue that X should not be supported in that way. ‘Take, for example, the motion “This House supports the abolishment of ASEAN". Government teams must argue that the abolishment of ASEAN is positive in totality, without picking and choosing which aspects of this motion they are ‘supporting. Similarly, Opposition teams must oppose this motion in totality, without picking and choosing what to oppose. Teams cannot support only favourable aspects of abolishing ASEAN, nor can they oppose only unfavourable aspects of the same. Additionally, since this is not an actor motion, the Government cannot model how the abotishment will occur. They can argue thatthe abolishment of ASEAN is likely to happen in a certain way, but this characterization is open to challenge by the ‘other teams. In short, Government teams have no fiat power in this type of motions. 4. “This House prefers” ‘Motions that begin with “This House prefers” function in the same way as ‘other analytical debates, with one important difference: Opposition teams are bound to defend the specific comparison provided by the motion. For instance, in motions phrased as, ‘+ THP X to Y: the Opposition teams must defend Y, '* THP X; the Opposition teams must defend the status quo. In the motion “This House prefers corporate practice that dacs not engage with management consultancies”, Government must argue in favour of corporations ‘not engaging with management consultancies. Opposition must argue in favour of corporations engaging with management consultancies as they are in status quo. ‘They cannot argue in favour of abolishing management consultancies Debaters should also be aware that there is @ unique version of “This House prefers" motions, which are phrased “This House prefers a world in which X". These types of motion seta burden on the Government to envision and argue in favour of | the alternate world described in the motion. As in all other types of THP motions, ‘Opposition is still bound to defend the status quo, or whatever comparison is presented in the motion, Inthe motion “This House prefers a world where humanity does not have free will”, the Government needs to conceptualise an alternative world without free will “This motion is also backwards looking: it requires teams to consider how the ‘would have developed had organised free will never existed. Het, it is rea expect the debate to contain some discussion of how the trajectory of hur fr development would have been impacted.As these debates require the conceptualization of an alternative world, ‘arguments about transitions between the status quo and the alternative world are not permissible. For example, using the previous motion, teams should not discuss a sudden chaos where humanity suddenly realises that they no longer have free will in this alternative world Debaters should also use their common sense to determine the point at which this new world diverged from the status quo. For example, some motions mention the introduction of a new technology. It would, in most cases, be unreasonable for teams to assume that this technology existed 2000 years ago. It would be more reasonable to assume that this technology was recently introduced. Similarly, in the motion “This House prefers a world where the referendum for Brexit never took place”, it should be clear that teams are meant to discuss the period of time in which the referendum took place, and not, for instance, a random referendum conducted 200 years ago. “This House regrets [X]" Motions that begin with “This House Regrets [XJ" ask whether the world would have bbeen a better place without the existence of X. In this debate, all teams are debating with the benefit of hindsight - theharms or benefits that teams are attributing to X have already occurred (e. status quo). Teams must alsodescribe how an alternative world that developed without X occurring would look like. This is also known as a “counterfactual”. For example, with the motion “This House regrets the creation of the United Nations", teams cannot just debate the merits or demerits of the United Nations. Instead, they should consider what the world ‘would have looked like without the establishment of the United Nations, and whether that alternative would have led to a better or worse state of the world in the status quo. 19, Actor Motions ‘These motions are more specific about the entity (A) doing (X) and so invite a closer examination of the perspective of the entity about what they should do, with all teams arguing from actor A's perspective, Teams debating these motions should therefore consider what actor A's knowledge, values and interests are, and explain why the motion is or is not in actor A's best interest. Unlike previously discussed debates, actor debates are not about whether or not X action is necessarily best for the world Its important to note at this point that prioritising actor A's perspective is not the same as assuming that actor A only cares about their own interests. Most, if not all, actors hold ‘moral beliefs and principles, and will act to actualize those beliefs. Thus, debaters should feel free to make principled arguments in actor debates, in addition to more practical arguments, so long as they are also able to explain why the actor in question holds those specitic principled beliefs Additionally, what an actor should do is different to what the actor is likely to do. For example, whilst past statements of intent help us to understand an actor’s perspective, this does not mean they could not be persuaded to follow a different path. So if, for example, the motion “This House, as a minority actor, would refuse t0 be nominated or receive an award in the Oscars", the debate should take place from the perspective of a minority actor. In such a debate, Government teams would first have to explain what the interests of a minority actor are, and then explain why refusing to be nominated or receive an award in the Oscars meet those interests. The interests of a minority actor can be principled (e.g. receiving an award from a structurally racist organisation is against the moral compass of the actor) or practical (e.g. receiving the award may result in 1a backlash from other minority actors, effectively harming their reputation). Opposition team can do two things: they can either agree with Government teams about the interests of| the minority actor, and argue that the proposed course of action does not meet those interest, fr they can argue that the minority actor has different interests raised by the Government team, and that this new set of interests can be better met by not refusing to be nominatedor receive an award in the Oscars. Additionally, a motion worded ‘This house would’ should be treated as an actor motion if it contains an Information Slide describing the perspective of an actor (commonly starting with the wording ‘You are a °). For example: You come across a button which, if pressed, will instantly and painlessly erase all of human existence. If not pressed immediately, the button will permanently disappear: This house would press the button. In short, speakers will have to assume the role of the specific actor as described in the info slide.