Disadvantage: Difference between revisions

{{other usesconfused|Disadvantaged|drawback (disambiguation){{!}}drawback}}

A Disadvantagedisadvantage 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#:~:text=With regard to policy debate,the situation gets any worse.%22|status quo]] and the plan's effect on it. A traditional threshold DA, however, has a structure as follows:

Uniqueness shows why the Impactsimpacts haven'thave not occurred yet or to a substantial extent and will ''uniquely'' occur with the adoption of either the Affirmativeaffirmative's plan or the Negativenegative's counterplan.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Kellams |first=James |date=4 September 2017 |title=Elements of Policy Debate: Disadvantages |url=http://everydaydebate.blogspot.com/2017/09/policy-arguments-disads.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240112074041/http://everydaydebate.blogspot.com/2017/09/policy-arguments-disads.html |archive-date=12 January 2024 |access-date=16 March 2024 |website=Everyday Debate}}</ref>

LikeFor an Example: Ifexample, the negative team argues that the affirmative plan will result in nuclear proliferation, it would also argue that the status quo will avoid nuclear proliferation. If the Affirmative claims that nuclear proliferation is already occurring, the negative team could argue that adoption of the plan would result in a ''unique'' increase in nuclear proliferation. If the plan causes no net change in the rate of nuclear proliferation, the disadvantage is not unique to the plan, and therefore not relevant.

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".<ref name=":1" />

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.<ref name=":0" /> The internal link in our example would be that government spending leads to economic collapse.

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),<ref name=":1" /> then continuing along with the example, an impact would be that economic collapse may cause [[nuclear warfare|nuclear war]]. 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.

Internal links are often undesirable things by themselves, and could be considered impacts. However, theThe 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]]''), or uncontrolled undiscovered uncurable disease. Most debate coaches use the nuclear war argument as awaya way of training young policy debaters.{{Who|date=March 2024}}

==Types of disadvantages==

===Politics disadvantagePolitical===

A politicspolitical disadvantage is unique in the way that it links to affirmativean planAffirmative plan. Rather than linking to the specific plan action, it links to the factidea that athe plan passesdoes atnot allexist in a vacuum but is exposed to political costs, measures, tactics, the overall political milieu--with no regard to Fiat and presumes the debate theory of Fiat could be settled anyway. However, Politics disadvantages typically will say that a plan will pass through Congress, thus causing a shift in the "political capital" of either the Presidentpresident, or a political party, which will affect

the ability of the affected group to pass other bills. The Impact is typically referred to as a "Double-Whammy": they are busy not solving something, resources are ineffectively applied, now there is a two-headed hydra problem, viz. once the same money (or resources) is spent frivolously, not only did the government not solve south-of-the-border immigration concerns but now there is less money for solving homelessness of thousands U.S. nationals. An example of a politics disadvantage (typically in high school debate, assuming "politics" is synonymous with the personalities of the leadership) 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. Impact 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 [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]], who would increase their grip on Congress and allow extensive drilling in the [[Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]].

Other debate theorists have recentlyoften createdreshaped a modelmodels of [[fiat (policy debate)|fiat]] that appears to preclude the politics disadvantage; however,. itsIts 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 argues that the debate should be a simulation of the debate before Congress and thus the president has already exerted political capital, meaning there is no disadvantage. Intrinsicness,Argument popularizedfrom byIntrinsicness [[New Trier High School|New Trier]] Coach Michael Greenstein, says thatis there is no reason that Congress can't pass both the plan and the bill, meaning they aren'tare not competitive. The Political DA, as misunderstood as politicians' political capital, has no warrant in traditional Fiat theory.

The "non-unique" argument says that the impact will happen or is happening in the status quo, withregardless or withoutof 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.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Stafford |first=Victoria |date=16 March 2024 |title=Disadvantages |url=https://thedebateguru.weebly.com/disadvantages.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240112022904/https://thedebateguru.weebly.com/disadvantages.html |archive-date=12 January 2024 |access-date=16 March 2024 |website=The Debate Guru}}</ref>

AThe very"no simplelink" argument. The affirmative simply claims that the plan does not cause the impact.<ref name=":2" />

'''NoIn Link:'''this Thecase, the argument that the plan expendsdoes nonot use political capital would be classified as a "no link" argument.

A"No variantinternal onlink" theis Noa Link,similar itargument to "no link." It states that either the link or the previous internal link does not lead to another internal link.<ref name=":0" />

Using the example above, 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.

Arguing the impact'sImpact uniqueness is ana underusedvariant butof effective"non-unique" argumentarguments. 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. Debate coach James Kellam writes that impact uniqueness is an underused but highly effective argument.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kellams |first=James |date=25 October 2011 |title=Uniqueness in Disadvantages |url=http://everydaydebate.blogspot.com/2011/10/uniqueness-in-disadvantages.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240316202232/http://everydaydebate.blogspot.com/2011/10/uniqueness-in-disadvantages.html |archive-date=16 March 2024 |access-date=16 March 2024 |website=Everyday Debate}}</ref>

* '''Uniqueness:''' American oil consumption is high now!.

* '''LinkNot Turnunique:''' PlanThe increasesUS military poweris weak now.

This strategywould turnsmake whatthe was previouslydisadvantage a "disadvantage"reason towhy the plan intois adesirable, benefitas orit advantagewould ofstrengthen the planUS military and prevent a nuclear war. ThisIn this helpscase, the affirmative debaterscould provenot thatread an impact takeout; if they shoulddid, winthe onnegative presumption(thatcould kick the affdisadvantage planby isarguing proventhat toeven beif the betterplan policystrengthens optionthe thanUS military, doing so does not affect the statusprobability of a nuclear quo)war.

====Impact= Straight impact turn =====

* [[Advantage (debate) | Advantage]]