The Kacey Counterplan is an interestingly designed, somewhat obscure, somewhat loony counterplan that the Negative team can run in Policy Debate. It could theoretically be used in other modes of debate, but with less application, and is therefore optimized for the Policy branch.
History
The Kacey Counterplan is of unknown origin, but it first was reportedly used in 1994, in response to ASPEC. The organization specified to enact the Plan was a non-governmental organization that specialized in risk education. The general idea was that it would send education to any geographic or political region currently risking its health or prosperity, by demonstrating the similar plight of others. This would then spur the victimized countries into acting as much as possible on their own, reducing the need for foreign aid. The shell has changed a bit in the 14 years since its reported conception to encompass more inherent international and political Status Quo observations, as well as the current Resolution.
The counterplan has varied theories as to its namesake. One is that it was named after its creator, but that is unverifiable because its original source has never been found. Another theory is that it is simply an acronym for "Kritiking Affirmative Case through Enterprising Yonder". A more widely accepted theory is that it was named for someone who was often criticized as being somewhat an apparent example of what one doesn't want to be. Again, like any Kacey Counterplan origin theory, it lacks any proof or validation, however, this last theory makes the most sense, since it could have been named after the person who inspired it.
Structure
The 1NC Kacey Counterplan shell is fairly slim. The whole argument is based around the assumption that education solves for all the Affirmative's harms. This can be backed up using a number of different sources that claim that education is key to solving any problem. The shell begins with a variation of the Plan Text: "The United States Federal Government should educate about the risks of continuing to rely on foreign aid. The USFG can then ." Then the shell can include various arguments and evidence in regards to net financial benefits, sustainability, and overall education. Education is cheaper than solving the problem, and with the region contributing as much as possible to its own well-being, the ultimate cost of the Plan would be reduced. Also, the region would be increasingly motivated to sustain its wellbeing longer if it is effectively educated on the risks of not doing so.
This counterplan is not designed or intended to be run solo. While reports of it being run for the entire Negative Block have surfaced occasionally, these are usually debunked shortly after. It can easily be run in conjunction with a generic spending disadvantage, and has often been successfully run with Malthusian ethics advocated in a separate world.
Advantages
As mentioned earlier, the Kacey Counterplan is very obscure, so most teams will not have sufficient resources to defend against it. However, the counterplan is not an international actor counterplan, and does not involve removing the Affirmative’s right to Fiat, because the Plan is eventually passed.
Affirmative Answers To
Most judges do not accept the Kacey Counterplan as legitimate because of its lack of documentation. For that reason, the Affirmative can usually win a well thought-out defense. Unfortunately, there are very few offensive arguments to run against the Kacey Counterplan, and virtually none that the Affirmative stands any chance of winning. However, a well put-together defense block containing cards about how education would not solve, or would make the problem worse, or would be a waste of time, are the Affirmative’s best bet. The only way the Kacey Counterplan competes is through net benefits, of which it has three (education, spending, and sustainability). If the Affirmative can strip each one away, the counterplan is reduced to a meaningless waste of time that would be better spent enacting the Plan before the Status Quo worsens. A good debater should be able to defend those answers, but the Affirmtive generally has the upper hand if it is well prepared. However, since the Kacey Counterplan is widely unexpected, most teams have very little if not no documentation to defend it, and often lose it on the flow, because they did not have adequate defensive cards.
History
The Kacey Counterplan is of unknown origin, but it first was reportedly used in 1994, in response to ASPEC. The organization specified to enact the Plan was a non-governmental organization that specialized in risk education. The general idea was that it would send education to any geographic or political region currently risking its health or prosperity, by demonstrating the similar plight of others. This would then spur the victimized countries into acting as much as possible on their own, reducing the need for foreign aid. The shell has changed a bit in the 14 years since its reported conception to encompass more inherent international and political Status Quo observations, as well as the current Resolution.
The counterplan has varied theories as to its namesake. One is that it was named after its creator, but that is unverifiable because its original source has never been found. Another theory is that it is simply an acronym for "Kritiking Affirmative Case through Enterprising Yonder". A more widely accepted theory is that it was named for someone who was often criticized as being somewhat an apparent example of what one doesn't want to be. Again, like any Kacey Counterplan origin theory, it lacks any proof or validation, however, this last theory makes the most sense, since it could have been named after the person who inspired it.
Structure
The 1NC Kacey Counterplan shell is fairly slim. The whole argument is based around the assumption that education solves for all the Affirmative's harms. This can be backed up using a number of different sources that claim that education is key to solving any problem. The shell begins with a variation of the Plan Text: "The United States Federal Government should educate about the risks of continuing to rely on foreign aid. The USFG can then ." Then the shell can include various arguments and evidence in regards to net financial benefits, sustainability, and overall education. Education is cheaper than solving the problem, and with the region contributing as much as possible to its own well-being, the ultimate cost of the Plan would be reduced. Also, the region would be increasingly motivated to sustain its wellbeing longer if it is effectively educated on the risks of not doing so.
This counterplan is not designed or intended to be run solo. While reports of it being run for the entire Negative Block have surfaced occasionally, these are usually debunked shortly after. It can easily be run in conjunction with a generic spending disadvantage, and has often been successfully run with Malthusian ethics advocated in a separate world.
Advantages
As mentioned earlier, the Kacey Counterplan is very obscure, so most teams will not have sufficient resources to defend against it. However, the counterplan is not an international actor counterplan, and does not involve removing the Affirmative’s right to Fiat, because the Plan is eventually passed.
Affirmative Answers To
Most judges do not accept the Kacey Counterplan as legitimate because of its lack of documentation. For that reason, the Affirmative can usually win a well thought-out defense. Unfortunately, there are very few offensive arguments to run against the Kacey Counterplan, and virtually none that the Affirmative stands any chance of winning. However, a well put-together defense block containing cards about how education would not solve, or would make the problem worse, or would be a waste of time, are the Affirmative’s best bet. The only way the Kacey Counterplan competes is through net benefits, of which it has three (education, spending, and sustainability). If the Affirmative can strip each one away, the counterplan is reduced to a meaningless waste of time that would be better spent enacting the Plan before the Status Quo worsens. A good debater should be able to defend those answers, but the Affirmtive generally has the upper hand if it is well prepared. However, since the Kacey Counterplan is widely unexpected, most teams have very little if not no documentation to defend it, and often lose it on the flow, because they did not have adequate defensive cards.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has been accused of many things including political and cultural bias.
Historically, there has been criticism of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for various policies or perceived biases in politics and news coverage since its inception and more recently over its coverage of events in the Middle East.
Political bias
Numerous members of the Canadian Alliance Party complained of biased CBC reporting against their party in the 2000 Canadian federal election. Friends of Canadian Broadcasting is often critical of the CBC, but rarely over matters of bias.
Critics, often led by private media, sometimes accuse the network of cultural elitism, liberal bias, or bias in favour of the Liberal or New Democratic Parties of Canada.
Advertising Dollars
The CBC is also sometimes thought to have an unfair economic advantage in the Canadian television marketplace because it competes with private broadcasters for advertising dollars while receiving government funding. Conservative think tanks such as the Fraser Institute have frequently criticized this arrangement, and say it results in journalism that favours the political party willing to allocate it the most funds.
Public versus private ownership
Controversies within the broadcast industry will often ensue when the CBC launches new services in areas where private broadcasters already do business or wish to do business. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which decides which new broadcast licenses will be granted, is, like the CBC, a government body. The head of the CBC and the commissioners of the CRTC are all selected by the Prime Minister, causing some private broadcasters to suspect favouritism for the CBC.
Many believe the CBC acts as a necessary left-wing counterbalance to what they perceive to be the big business right-wing bias of private networks, or that it preserves Canadian culture against the homogenizing influence of rebroadcast American programming. Canadians continue to poll in favour of maintaining public funding to the CBC, with 89% of those polled in a May 2004 survey supporting continued funding at or above current levels. As it was initially conceived, the CBC ensures that Canadian stations act as more than just affiliates broadcasting foreign content. The Canadian government attempts to balance funding inequities between private and public networks by providing large subsidies for private production of Canadian content.
For instance, the CBC was given the first license for an all-news specialty service, CBC Newsworld. As with other specialty services, that decision automatically precluded any other new service, with a similar format of news and analysis, from launching. When the privately owned headline news service CTV Newsnet launched in 1997, it was restricted by condition of licence to using a constant 15-minute news cycle. Critics of the CBC contend CRTC favouritism is shown by the fact that CBC Newsworld has not faced equal threats of sanctions over its airing of programs outside the “all-news” format, such as the BBC version of Antiques Roadshow. In fact, Roadshow, which may be classified as a documentary series, does technically fall within Newsworld’s permitted range, while comedy series such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce were removed from the Newsworld schedule in 1997 after complaints from private broadcasters, despite both programs’ focus on current events.
The CBC had directly intervened in every application by CTV to change the restrictions on Newsnet up to the , which largely removed the restrictions in 2005. However, the CBC is not unique in this, as it is common for broadcasters to intervene against one another in licensing decisions. The Canadian market is relatively small and some broadcasters feel it cannot support the free-market approach of the U.S. They argue it is better to favour a specific broadcaster in certain areas, so at least one Canadian channel will be able to prosper.
Other allegations of favouritism have centred on, for instance, the awarding of prized radio frequencies (i.e. for CBLA-FM in Toronto). By the same token, though, not all of the CBC’s applications are automatically approved; at one point the CBC asked for use of a similarly prized Montreal frequency in order to begin a third French radio network, but was denied in favour of a private broadcaster. Many groups that receive favourable decisions by the CRTC have been accused at some point of having secured favouritism from the commission.
Historically, there has been criticism of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for various policies or perceived biases in politics and news coverage since its inception and more recently over its coverage of events in the Middle East.
Political bias
Numerous members of the Canadian Alliance Party complained of biased CBC reporting against their party in the 2000 Canadian federal election. Friends of Canadian Broadcasting is often critical of the CBC, but rarely over matters of bias.
Critics, often led by private media, sometimes accuse the network of cultural elitism, liberal bias, or bias in favour of the Liberal or New Democratic Parties of Canada.
Advertising Dollars
The CBC is also sometimes thought to have an unfair economic advantage in the Canadian television marketplace because it competes with private broadcasters for advertising dollars while receiving government funding. Conservative think tanks such as the Fraser Institute have frequently criticized this arrangement, and say it results in journalism that favours the political party willing to allocate it the most funds.
Public versus private ownership
Controversies within the broadcast industry will often ensue when the CBC launches new services in areas where private broadcasters already do business or wish to do business. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which decides which new broadcast licenses will be granted, is, like the CBC, a government body. The head of the CBC and the commissioners of the CRTC are all selected by the Prime Minister, causing some private broadcasters to suspect favouritism for the CBC.
Many believe the CBC acts as a necessary left-wing counterbalance to what they perceive to be the big business right-wing bias of private networks, or that it preserves Canadian culture against the homogenizing influence of rebroadcast American programming. Canadians continue to poll in favour of maintaining public funding to the CBC, with 89% of those polled in a May 2004 survey supporting continued funding at or above current levels. As it was initially conceived, the CBC ensures that Canadian stations act as more than just affiliates broadcasting foreign content. The Canadian government attempts to balance funding inequities between private and public networks by providing large subsidies for private production of Canadian content.
For instance, the CBC was given the first license for an all-news specialty service, CBC Newsworld. As with other specialty services, that decision automatically precluded any other new service, with a similar format of news and analysis, from launching. When the privately owned headline news service CTV Newsnet launched in 1997, it was restricted by condition of licence to using a constant 15-minute news cycle. Critics of the CBC contend CRTC favouritism is shown by the fact that CBC Newsworld has not faced equal threats of sanctions over its airing of programs outside the “all-news” format, such as the BBC version of Antiques Roadshow. In fact, Roadshow, which may be classified as a documentary series, does technically fall within Newsworld’s permitted range, while comedy series such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce were removed from the Newsworld schedule in 1997 after complaints from private broadcasters, despite both programs’ focus on current events.
The CBC had directly intervened in every application by CTV to change the restrictions on Newsnet up to the , which largely removed the restrictions in 2005. However, the CBC is not unique in this, as it is common for broadcasters to intervene against one another in licensing decisions. The Canadian market is relatively small and some broadcasters feel it cannot support the free-market approach of the U.S. They argue it is better to favour a specific broadcaster in certain areas, so at least one Canadian channel will be able to prosper.
Other allegations of favouritism have centred on, for instance, the awarding of prized radio frequencies (i.e. for CBLA-FM in Toronto). By the same token, though, not all of the CBC’s applications are automatically approved; at one point the CBC asked for use of a similarly prized Montreal frequency in order to begin a third French radio network, but was denied in favour of a private broadcaster. Many groups that receive favourable decisions by the CRTC have been accused at some point of having secured favouritism from the commission.
Norma Lehmeier Hartie (Born on December 16 1961 in New York, New York) is an American writer and creator of the practice Harmonious Adjustments. Her first book is Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet (2007)The book is a Finalist in ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award and Nautilus Book Awards.
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The guidelines for the use of the icon, a frequently asked questions document, a set of png images of the icon rendered in a range of sizes, and the original artwork in Illustrator format are all available together in a download package.