As a long-time high school debate coach I still like to be useful to students, so I'm posting this study guide to suggest a negative case for the National Speech and Debate Association's Lincoln-Douglas Debate (LD) topic for September/October, 2023:
Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing.
I pick the negation because it is less intuitive. If, out of nowhere, I asked you, "Why do people have a right to housing?", your first response might be, "People will freeze to death if they don't have somewhere to sleep." If I asked you, on the other hand, "Why do people not have a right to housing?", you might need to ponder. If you are a debate competitor, you'll need to respond in a timely fashion because debate requires each competitor to argue both sides. The suggestions below are designed to help you ponder the resolution's negation.
First a brief look at LD. It is named for the famous series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas in 1858, part of the campaign in which Lincoln tried to take the seat of the Illinois state senate incumbent, Douglas. Lincoln lost that election, but the debates, seen as presaging today's mass media driven politics, made Lincoln famous across the nation and boosted his successful bid for the presidency in 1860.
Lincoln-Douglas high school debate is also called "values debate" because its argumentation emulates the 1858 debates, which addressed the morality of slavery using values based arguments, as opposed to policy. It is a one-on-one debate. The topics are released two months in advance, so hundreds of students are now working on this topic. I hope my study suggestions are useful to you!
Outline for suggested negation case for the Sept./Oct. NSDA LD topic, Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing.
1. By using the article "the" in "the right to housing," the wording of the resolution asserts that there is a right to housing (Using "a" instead of "the" would perhaps have been a wiser choice by the resolution authors, lending ambiguity, and so defensibility to the claim of a "right").
2. What is a "right"?
3. My source for all definitions is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. A "right" is "something to which someone has a just claim."
4. What is a "just claim"?
5. The nature of the subsequent argument will hinge on the definition of "just claim." Depending on which definition you choose, you could have either an affirmative (Aff) or a negative (Neg) argument.
6. If you choose, "legally correct: Lawful," then you have demolished the Aff case, since there is no law requiring that people be housed. This is probably all you need for a Neg case.
7. If the Aff defines "just claim" as one "having a basis in or conforming to reason: reasonable", here's a possible response:
8. What is "reason"?
9. Reason is "the power of comprehending, inferring, thinking."
10. Thus, an assertion that universal housing is a "just claim" indicates a contention that this opinion stems from thinking and analyzing information.
11. If the Aff uses the "thinking" argument, point out that the Neg thought about it too and came to a different conclusion, rendering the Aff argument meaningless. QED, You win.
12. More ammunition if needed: The Aff case is further vulnerable because of the resolution's use of the term "ought" in "ought to support the right to housing." "Ought" is commonly defined by LD'ers as denoting moral obligation. In normal thought and conversation, it is acceptable just to "feel" a moral obligation, and the idea that people should be housed comes naturally with such a feeling, but in debate, contentions must be proven. Moral rightness cannot be a feeling, or a given; its nature must be demonstrated as part of a convincing "proof." Etymology is helpful here, but not definitively: "moral" comes from Latin, "mos," meaning "custom." So moral behavior, as originally conceived, is behavior that conforms to local custom. To conjur up the modern definitions, the dictionary gives us, not an explanation of what "moral behavior" is, but a string of synonyms, e.g. "good," "right," "ethical," etc, going in circles and leaving us with only a word history indicating that a "moral" behavior is one that is sanctioned by a particular society. But societies differ. One society might value death in battle. Another might not. Determination of morality is subjective; ipso facto a morality code cannot prove that a particular action is the only morally correct one. Thus Neg wins.
Of course none of these considerations is intended to "prove" that everyone should not have housing. In fact I think they should. But it's remarkably difficult to prove they have a right to it, or that they don't.
