LD Workshop

I'm workin on getting my stuff together for this one... coming soon.

The March-April topic (for quals, state, and national) is:

Resolved: hate crime enhancements (HCE'S) are unjust in the United States.

Hey, they heard my prayer for a good topic. Cool. Start with some definitions:

The definition of "Hate Crime" in the United States, according to the Department of Justice, says:

Hate Crime: A criminal offense against a person, property, or society that is motivated by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.

Black's Law Dictionary defines justice as:

Legally right; lawful; equitable.

Analysis and Evidence for Affirmative

The value in this debate is fairly straightforward for most people - justice - but if you can build a case on something else, go right ahead. Even if you don't come right out and value justice, you will end up talking about it anyway. The value criterion will be much more interesting - do we adhere to the Constitution? Or is justice fulfilled through something greater than law? My value criterion will be Egalitarianism. Here's why:

The aff case will likely focus on how HCE's violate the principle of justice. First of all, justice is easier to argue in this topic than it usually is, because the topic narrows the meaning. It tells you that we are talking about the legal system of the United States. Since we are focusing only on this country, look to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. If the law gives you what is due to you, what exactly are you getting? Ignore rights and such for now; legally speaking, all citizens are to be equally protected under the law. The engravement on the front of the Supreme Court building even says so.

Think of a criminal punishment as a price. The criminal commits a crime, he pays that price. We know that price and value are related; e.g. if something has a high value, it has a higher price.

Now think of how this applies - two crimes with identical circumstances, perpetrators, a modus operandi could carry different prices depending on who the victim is. If one victim warrants harsher punishment and therefore higher price than another, the court has failed to maintain equal protection of equal citizens.

The second main point of the affirmative should be to critique the Department of Justice's definition of hate crime. Once again, the defintion is:

A criminal offense against a person, property, or society that is motivated by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.

There are a number of problems with the law:

1. It does not establish adequate criteria for determining hate.

(more stuff coming soon)