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Resolved: Placing political conditions on humanitarian aid to foreign countries is unjust.

(PRO)
0 points
(CON)
WINNER!
8 points
Cross-Examination
admin: Note: as per the rules, only my opponent asks questions in this round
Nerd Politico: Can you clarify what your value and criterion are for this debate?
Nerd Politico: What grounds do you have to claim that things like food and shelter are rights?
Nerd Politico: If political conditions lead to a situation where the governments have more respect for the basic human rights of its people, would you still consider the political conditions unjust?
Nerd Politico: In regards to your third contention, how exactly do political conditions lead to more conflict and more humanitarian aid being needed?
Nerd Politico: I'll wait for your answers for these questions before continuing questioning.
admin: I'm deliberately not following the value/criterion framework, but ultimately the value in this debate is justice, and my criterion is humanitarian aid without political conditions.
admin: Things like food and shelter are rights because they are required to live, and we have a right to life. I mentioned that in my round.
admin: In my third point, I showed that even if governments do make positive political changes, these are doomed to be short lived and lead to ultimately worse long-run outcomes.
admin: This results from those governments feeling forced, blackmailed and bribed, making them hostile in the future. If good politics is good for the people, then the people will suffer the consequences...
admin: ... of this hostility.
admin: As an extreme example of that, they may reverse back to previous policy at the next opportunity and kill anyone deemed to be a foreign sympathizer.
Nerd Politico: Does the potential for future harm outweigh current and likely long-term positive benefits?
admin: I don't accept your premise. There are no likely long-term positive benefits.
Nerd Politico: Well, assume that the political conditions worked to get better conditions for the people from the government. In that case, would that not outweigh the potential for future harm?
admin: It might, depending on a benefit, but I also don't accept that just because there's a greater good it justifies a clear harm.
admin: For example, if you think flying an aircraft into the Empire State Building is going to damage an evil, corrupt nation and bring victory to your soldiers, that would not be justified.
admin: In short, ends do not justify means
Nerd Politico: What justification do you have for the existence of justice?
Nerd Politico: Would you say that humanitarian aid is, in itself, moral?
admin: Justice and humanitarian aid are both presupposed by the resolution
admin: For the record, I don't believe that all humanitarian aid is moral, but I would say one of the two reasons it is given is the principle of justice (human rights)
Nerd Politico: In the interest of fairness, I am done asking questions, and I await the next round.
admin: Thanks, looking forward to your case

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Cross-Examination
admin: Thanks for your round.
admin: You claim that political conditions have only been attached to humanitarian aid in times of war. What war is Fiji currently engaged in?
admin: You also claim that Tanzania lost their clothing industry due to Canadian clothing aid. Are you sure that was aid and not trade?
admin: What's worse - dying of malnutrition because your dictator won't give in, or losing your job?
admin: You mention how war-torn countries trade humanitarian aid, like food or medicine, for weapons. Wouldn't arms embargos be more effective?
admin: Final initial question - your criterion is maximizing utility. How does inadequate medicine, starvation, no clean drinking water, no shelter etc maximize utility?
Nerd Politico: Fiji is not currently engaged in a war, so I admit, that can go against my definition, to an extent. However, this harkens back to my burden of proof observation- you have the burden of proof to show
Nerd Politico: that political conditionality is always unjust, but I only need to show that it can be just, so I am focusing on conflict humanitarian aid.
Nerd Politico: This was not due to just Canadian clothing aid- that was just an example to illustrate volume. However, this is also a problem that comes with free trade that is forced onto countries by the
Nerd Politico: donor nations, which I can elaborate further upon in my next round. That being said, massive amounts of donated clothing go to Tanzania and Africa in general.
Nerd Politico: I don't accept the premise of your third question. That question assumes that humanitarian aid works to alleviate suffering- however, I've already shown in my first contention that it makes people
Nerd Politico: into targets for violence, and in my second contention that it destroys economies. People losing their jobs in countries that are already so high in poverty is clearly bad because it means even more
Nerd Politico: poverty, which leads to even more malnutrition.
Nerd Politico: No, because they can still get the weapons from other countries or their own. That being said, arms embargos are irrelevant to today's debate. We're talking about political conditionality and
Nerd Politico: humanitarian aid, not potential policy ideas.
Nerd Politico: Final initial answer- once again, this assumes that the humanitarian aid works. Those in need become targets for violence and theft, and the length of the conflict is increased, putting more in need
Nerd Politico: as a result of donor nation actions. Increasing violence so even more can die as a result of a donor nation's actions is clearly not a maximization of utility.
admin: Why would a dictator accept political conditions if the dictator is not just?
admin: Why do you assume political conditions always improve human rights? Can political conditions not be negative?
admin: You said in your last CX that there were positive long-term benefits. Can you describe why any benefits that might arise from the model would be long term?
admin: Is your assumption in this debate that humanitarian aid does not work? If that is the case, would you not agree that it's immoral to entice people to something that isn't going to help their country?
admin: Can you give any evidence that any of the clothing crisis in Tanzania was not a direct consequence of the trade liberalisation program fostered in that country during the late 90s?
admin: Since I can show examples of countries that do not meet your definition, doesn't that meet my burden of proof to show that your definition is inadequate?
admin: And final question from this lot - are you trying to prove an exception or a rule?
admin: 12 hours later...
Nerd Politico: I apologize for the time difference, I am competing in an irl debate tournament, and I have school. I'll answer the remaining q's before going to bed.
Nerd Politico: So a dictator might accept political conditions, or he might not accept the political conditions. This still falls under my win/win scenario, where people are spared from the negative effects of
Nerd Politico: countries who receive aid tied to political conditions accept and implement those changes in the next 5 or so years
Nerd Politico: *within the next 5 or so years
Nerd Politico: My contention (which I have proved) is that humanitarian aid on its own does not work. However, political conditionality solves for many of the problems created by humanitarian aid, and is more just
Nerd Politico: than the alternative of humanitarian aid.
Nerd Politico: Yes- because donated clothing (which has nothing to do with trade liberalisation) floods the markets with free goods, which I've shown can destroy economies.
Nerd Politico: My definition of what? I'm assuming you mean humanitarian aid. Anyway, humanitarian aid can be used in response to natural disasters- however, my burden of proof is not to show that placing
Nerd Politico: political conditions on humanitarian aid is always just, only that it can be just. My definition of humanitarian aid is only intended to narrow the focus for sake of my proof that political
Nerd Politico: conditions on humanitarian aid to conflict zones is just. In proving that, I have negated the resolution.
Nerd Politico: I am under no obligation to prove a rule.
Nerd Politico: My part of the burden of proof does not demand it.
admin: If a dictator does not accept political conditions and many of the people die of starvation, how is that a win?
admin: For example, in the wake of the recent floods in North Korea, were they better off without aid, or did they just hate the west more?
admin: Can you please answer my questions about negative political conditions, such as only offering aid in return for committing genocide on some of your people?
admin: Can you please answer my question on how benefits from your model would be long term?
admin: How does political constitutionality solve for humanitarian aid's economic problems you affirm?
admin: If arms can be acquired through other sources as you admitted in the CX, then how does political conditionality solve for those?
admin: Can you show records for any charitable aid of clothing at all given by the government of Canada to the government of Tanzania for humanitarian causes?
admin: And finally, doesn't your case therefore concede that outside of a war in a country with full employment and a benevolent dictator?
admin: (sorry, should clarify - by "that" I mean "my case")
Nerd Politico: were stolen. In the Biafran War, some estimates show that the war continued on for 12 to 16 months longer than otherwise due to
Nerd Politico: the stolen food aid being used to buy weapons, so having that humanitarian aid was clearly not a win for either case. The length of the conflict being exacerbated or the country falling to anarchy.
Nerd Politico: If it the leader of the country says no to the conditions, the people are spared from those effects.
admin: NP stated things aren't posting for him anymore. This post exists to check.

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adminadmin
Quick note: I thought the conditions for victory were the rules for Lincoln-Douglas style.
Posted 2014-04-05 23:53:23
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
Answer it in round if you feel it necessary.
Posted 2014-04-01 14:15:31
JV-StalinJV-Stalin
Wow, never saw a debate with cross-examination on here.
Posted 2014-04-01 08:50:55
adminadmin
Your first Tanzania source is very clear that donated items are sold to exporters, and then imported under a free trade program. This is accurate but not what you said. The government of Canada do not sell, exporters do. The government of Tanzania actually pays for that clothing, much like governments in western countries provide stuff like free housing for the poor. The Finance ministry describes the situation of people like the guy in your video like this: "The industrial sector in Tanzania includes industries manufacturing import substitutes... in general, growth has been slow as a result of insufficient capital and increasing competition as trade is liberalised." (http://www.mof.go.tz/mofdocs/overarch/strategicplan.doc). Worth noting that these importers are now being outcompeted by the locals as that investment has actually come in (http://allafrica.com/stories/201208290076.html) so both are actually out of date.

I'll answer some of the others later.
Posted 2014-04-01 07:49:35
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
Conflict length and duration is exacerbated:

http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jpcj.htm

Tanzania:

http://www.whydev.org/dont-be-clothes-minded-understanding-the-impact-of-donated-clothes/
(1:40)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNh4Vo7hHIs&list=HL1396374389

Biafran war:

The Crisis Caravan, by Journalist Linda Polman

North Korea:

Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute

All other sources were cited in round. This is all accurate information.

And I guess not necessarily. LD tends to be a very logic and philosophy based thing, but it's just my style to use evidence to support. I tend to view philosophies as bare assertions without evidence to support.
Posted 2014-04-01 04:53:59
adminadmin
Bit of a thing I've been thinking about: LD is a lot more evidence focused than most other styles, so I've deliberately avoided using evidence because I knew I'd be caught out on some rule or other. On the other hand, I'm absolutely convinced at least some of your sources are inaccurate and not properly cited. I'm a bit wary of bringing up an ethics thing though because I think in an actual LD debate my lack of evidence would have been called out before I could call out bad evidence from the other team.

LD is so weird...
Posted 2014-03-31 15:50:32
adminadmin
Interesting that at least one approach seemed to have worked but several others didn't. If only there was a way to work out what you did differently on the three that did post...

In other fun news, my usual desktop is now fully broken. Hope that this laptop stays alive.
Posted 2014-03-31 09:35:29
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
I tried multiple approaches. I'll try using a different browser next time. I'm using Chrome at the moment.
Posted 2014-03-31 06:11:16
adminadmin
Browser? Also, I take it you weren't refreshing immediately after posting, right??
Posted 2014-03-30 08:58:14
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
I refreshed the page at least a dozen times and reposted each time, and it did not add on to the string. I don't know why that happened, but it is a bug that happened. If it was fixed afterwards, I was unable to get to it because I was at a debate tournament, and I apologize, as this morning was the last chance I had to work on this debate.
Posted 2014-03-29 12:42:21
adminadmin
I can see at least 3 of your answer posts
Posted 2014-03-29 00:24:52
adminadmin
In general - if something stops working, try refreshing the page.
Posted 2014-03-29 00:24:20
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
I'm trying to answer your questions, but it's not posting when I press enter.
Posted 2014-03-28 22:03:40
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
It's not posting what I'm writing into the shoutbox anymore
Posted 2014-03-28 22:00:00
adminadmin
and my third lot
Posted 2014-03-28 15:42:20
adminadmin
asked my second lot of cx questions
Posted 2014-03-28 00:49:07
adminadmin
asked my first lot of cx questions :)
Posted 2014-03-27 13:35:22
nzlockienzlockie
Hmmmm, I like CX Rounds. Nice work!
Posted 2014-03-25 18:27:59
adminadmin
See, there we go. Sorry about that. Silly how things like putting a ":" in the resolution can cause errors like that.
Posted 2014-03-25 15:47:12
adminadmin
Bug. Fixed. Should come up in just a moment.
Posted 2014-03-25 15:32:31
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
Can we see the cross x again?
Posted 2014-03-25 15:20:31
adminadmin
Answered your questions, con :)
Posted 2014-03-24 13:02:17
adminadmin
Huh. Seems like my opponent has nothing to ask for the first 12 hours. Hope the next 12 can be as exciting :)
Posted 2014-03-24 02:09:43
adminadmin
Can't wait to see you in the cross-examination box :)
Posted 2014-03-23 15:41:45
adminadmin
By the way, remember not to forfeit, as that's an instant loss for you. You actually have to post some sort of blank video. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14WBOP5h-JY
Posted 2014-03-23 10:42:44
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
We're both unfamiliar with the format- that's why I needed to do this to prep for natquals.
Posted 2014-03-22 00:23:16
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
haha don't be prepared to lose, you're one of the best debaters I know
Posted 2014-03-22 00:22:19
adminadmin
I'm so prepared for losing this debate, I'm even motivated to push through some site updates right now...
Posted 2014-03-21 23:04:48
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
Thank you, and good luck to you too! And just for clarification, the first crossfire is just me asking you questions and you answering them. Second crossfire is just you asking questions and me answering them.
Posted 2014-03-20 14:53:51
adminadmin
Usually you'd resend it, but since I'm the site admin I can go into the site database and change stuff like that. I'll accept this when I've updated it. Good luck!
Posted 2014-03-20 14:39:00
Nerd PoliticoNerd Politico
That could work better. Can you change that, or do I have to resend the challenge?
Posted 2014-03-20 14:29:41
adminadmin
To let me get this clear how you intend to do this

Round 1 - I speak for 6 mins and you post a blank video. A CX round then happens as normal.
Round 2 - I post a blank video and you speak for 7 mins. A CX round then happens as normal
Round 3 - I speak for 4 mins and you speak for 6 mins. We post nothing in our CX.
Round 4 - I speak for 3 mins and you post a blank video.

If I've got that right, shouldn't this be 4 rounds, not 3?
Posted 2014-03-20 14:24:46
nzlockienzlockie
First completed video debate AND CX round debate?
exciting!
Posted 2014-03-20 11:46:10
adminadmin
So the aff gets 3 speeches and the neg gets 2?
Posted 2014-03-20 09:17:23
The judging period on this debate is over

Previous Judgments

2014-04-05 20:10:11
ADreamOfLibertyJudge: ADreamOfLiberty
Win awarded to: Nerd Politico
Reasoning:
To be honest I find a lot of problems with both side's arguments.

First off Nerd Politco is correct about the BoP. He only needs to find one exception to break the rule. In round 3 admin said it was a total outlier, but that does not matter. If it is possible that justice is best served by placing political conditions on humanitarian aid in any circumstance the resolution is negated.

However, he appears to forget this point (again in round 3) as he says "The only way to make it better and more humanitarian."

He needs only one instance, but seems to want to grab the entire set. As a rule the idea that giving people food, medicine, and clothing is going to hurt them (lower utility) is absurd.

The only scenario where this is plausible would be if they don't really get the food, medicine, and clothing. Some corrupt thieves (private or public) in the country get them instead.

In which case the political conditions and the humanitarian aid may become the one and only solution to either problem, since saying "You better give this to your people" or "You better stop guerrillas from taking this from the starving masses" are in fact political conditions that must be met in order for that aid to reach the people and do more good than harm.

Since NP's third round speech touches on most everything I will make some further observations from it:

1. Nerd Politco also says in round three that people will be more likely to get out of poverty if they have the framework to do so. I am an extremist capitalist so this sits well with me, but I deny the implication that aid in any way inhibits the formation of productive economic structures.
Only a Keynesian style mindset could go from free stuff to economic harm. Any nation that is starving is going to have huge demand for food, unless you're setting a banquet every night the demand will be sufficient to make farming profitable. These people wouldn't be starving if there wasn't something else standing in the way of effective local food production.
More importantly, you can't invest in anything if you're nothing but skin and bones sitting on the floor of your hovel, or dead....

Now if the things standing in the way of productive frameworks are political, then placing political conditions could solve those problems (at least in theory). However I don't think Nerd Politico makes this point effectively. As with the rest of the debate, scope is barely mentioned making it almost impossible for me to determine whether he is referring to a singular hypothetical (or real world) scenario or making categorical statements.

2. Nerd Politco mentions admin's about slave owner arguments, I did not understand that and disregarded it. If it meant what NP seems to think it meant, it is especially incorrect given that admin made a point about how the people are not asked. If a government does not ask it's people you cannot do anything about that while respecting the sovereignty of the government.

3. Nerd Politco says the fact that political conditions are accepted out of fear but this doesn't matter. It seems similar to admin's contention that any possible negative effects of aid don't matter because of a right to life.

Here especially is where I find another area of conflation and confusion in the debate. There is insufficient distinction between a government and its people.

A government may accept only out of fear, but the people as admin pointed out are not given the choice. They do not act out of fear or friendship but merely hope that the collective persons who have the power to feed them will do so.

Fear in a government can be a bad thing but it does not necessarily reflect a subsequent resentment on the part of the populace, indeed the thing the government fears most often is that the starving people will tire of that government very quickly.

I had a very difficult time choosing a winner because the conditions for victory were never defined and agreed upon. Con refers to utility, and Pro refers to a natural human right to life and both try to link this to justice. In my opinion rights and justice are by definition related where utility is not, but the way Pro presents a right to life seems to agree with the definition of utility as 'most happiness' so far as it is understood that compassion or whatever is to alleviate suffering and death is the worse loss to both utility and empathy.

Although it was far more vague than I would have liked, I believe Con did allude to the fact that political conditions could also be the conditions necessary for humanitarian aid to actually have their intended effect on the suffering population.

P.S. I really don't care about the actual facts about Tanzania or what not. In matters of justice and morality (that is matters of rights and utility if you believe in such things) you establish the principle and then you judge particular cases, you cannot work in reverse because there is no empirical justice-o-meter to refer to.

Feedback:
I alluded to some of the problems in my reasons for decision. To state the three big ones explicitly:

1. Justice, the very core of the resolution is not given a mutually agreed on precise objective definition.

2. Scope is confused and ignored by both sides.

3. Distinctions between a government and its people are confused.

The solution to number one would probably be to agree on such a thing before the debate, or make it a condition to accepting.

As for the scope problems. Sometimes scope is implicit and clear enough. This was not one of those times. Using phrases like "in that case" or "in all cases", quantifiers like "all", "some", and "none" are something you should be doing naturally in your thinking.

In a debate like this which is easily subject to confusion I would take it even farther, and give proper names like "Case A" or "Scenario 1" when speaking of a hypothetical or real world limited scope. Especially Nerd Politico should have done this when examining his postulation that humanitarian aid (as sent) could be detrimental.

I would also advise admin to be careful not to project arguments onto his opponent that were not made. Nothing in Cons speech suggested he did not believe people had rights in these distressed nations (something that your final video and the comment about slave owners indicated). Rather it seemed he was claiming using that as justification does not work if your aid isn't actually protecting their rights but leading to further violation.
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2014-04-06 09:58:24
nzlockieJudge: nzlockie    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: Nerd Politico
Reasoning:
I'm ultimately awarding the win to CON because I agree that his role was to provide one scenario where imposing political conditions on aid made the aid more just.

I feel that he met his "maximisation of utility" criteria that [in some scenarios] imposing political conditions on the aid leaves the people better off than they would have been without those conditions imposed.

I looked at PRO's ethics violation accusation and while I agree that the Tanzania example was not what CON had made it out to be, I didn't see that there was enough in it to discard the rest of his case.

Feedback:
On the positives - good debate guys. These video debates are little trickier to score because I had to keep pausing and rewinding bits to make sure I was following you correctly. But it was pretty cool anyway.

PRO: I have a few bits of feedback for you, which I hope will clarify where and why you lost me in this debate...
1) Your first round was solid but I felt that you could have been clearer on some of your points. I had to rewind your third reasons several times until I realised that the concept you were explaining was basically blackmail. Given that it's a video format and most people won't take the time to rewind, I'd encourage you to choose your words to make the concepts as clear as possible. (I know you know this, so I guess I'm saying that, for me, this time it didn't work.)

2) I get that you were trying to avoid using Values and Criterions but once you put one out there, I'd have appreciated some clarification on it. CON explained his ones and I found that helpful. I still don't KNOW that I have the right idea of what you mean by, "Humanitarian aid without Political Conditions".

3) Phrasing. I read some stuff on LD Debate judging and it said that in this style you don't score on the speaking style - although it made the point that this might affect how clearly the judges understand or follow the case. In this instance I felt that although you had the better speaking style, you could have used pauses and emphasis to better highlight your main points. (Didn't take marks off for this though!)

4) Attacking the other side's examples. The last minute Tanzania thing was a bit of an eye opener for me. If you'd brought that up earlier, and attacked it harder I think I might have been more swayed. Due to the fact that CON only had to bring one scenario up where political conditions are just, your side was the hardest to argue. If you had shot down CON's Tanzania thing really early, I wouldn't have had as much time to picture the scene he was painting.

CON:
1) Your speaking style was REALLY hard for me to follow. You spoke SO fast and were clearly reading from some paper. This meant that I lost almost ALL audio queues as to which parts were more important to listen to - the impact statements, headings and elaborations all kind of blurred into one.
As mentioned above, I didn't score you on that, but I have to say it REALLY impacted my ability to follow your case. I would highly recommend memorising at least most of your points and concentrating on the delivery to make sure that the judges are getting the full impact of your points.
On the positive, it DID make your side sound more confident and assured as when I flicked over to PRO's videos, the speed difference was so dramatic. So I think you need to probably just slow it down a little and bring more of that emphasis in there. And look at me at least 50% of the time!

2) If you're going to quote evidence from a specific source, I really want that source to be given at the same time. Just throwing a name at me without any context is no good, I'm automatically going to assume that that evidence is less credible because it seems to sceptical old me that you're hiding something.

3) In your second rebuttal of PRO's first round points, I only had you successful on the first one. Your insistence that ALL the countries who receive aid are non-democratic and assumption that all the countries that give aid ARE democratic was risky. PRO never pulled you up on this so you got away with it, but I have to say it bugged me every time you brought it up.

4) I had you losing both CX rounds. The first round was purely down to the fact that I felt PRO did an exceptionally good job answering your questions but the second one I found it really hard to follow which question you were responding to. I haven't scored you off for that because I think a big part of it might be the way CX rounds are done here, (it's the first time after all!) but maybe you could look at that for future online CX rounds, making it more clear which question you're responding to?
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Rules of the debate

  • Video debate
  • Individual debate
  • 4 rounds
  • 7 minutes per round
  • No reply speeches
  • Uses cross-examination
  • Community Judging Standard (notes)
  • Forfeiting rounds means forfeiting the debate
  • Rated debate
  • Time to post: 2 days
  • Time to vote: 2 weeks
  • Time to prepare: None
This will be traditional Lincoln-Douglas format.
6 minute affirmative constructive
CX
7 minute negative constructive and negative rebuttal
cx
4 minute affirmative rebuttal
6 minute negative rebuttal
3 minute affirmative rebuttal