Individual Rights are subjective. We don’t know what they are! Anybody can define anything to be individual rights!
Popular Sovereignty is subjective! We don’t know what it is! People can make any government fit “Popular Sovereignty!”
Thus far in the debate season, I’ve seen my share of arguments that ‘X’ is subjective and is either bad or should be voted down as a result. That’s not an argument you want to make.
Here are several reasons you shouldn’t make those arguments, which are also several arguments you can make against anybody who runs this type of argument.
1. Consensus is impossible.
Everyone has different views and opinions on everything. Type of chocolate, cell phone, religion, politics, style, and yes, even popular sovereignty and individual rights. So why is it a surprise that people have differing definitions of the terms in the resolution? It’s not.
Consensus is impossible, and their standard thus impossible to meet.
2. Debaters must define.
Because consensus is impossible, it is written in the rulebooks (NCFCA, pages 2-3; STOA, page 1) that definitions by the debaters are not only acceptable (STOA), but also required (NCFCA).
As long as the debaters in the round agree on the definitions, it doesn’t matter what other people think. That is the basis of debate: if the debaters don’t agree on the definitions for a debate, no debate can happen. Most of the time, that agreement isn’t too hard to get. But if we have to consider the opinions of the billions of other people in the world, no debate will ever happen.
(By the way, if you want to quote the NCFCA/STOA rules when arguing in a debate, it’s a good idea to print a copy out and point to the section you’re referring to as you make the argument. It’s also useful for refuting blatantly false claims of “it’s in the rules” by your opponents.)
3. Debating about consensus is bad.
a. it’s against the rules.
If the only thing we are arguing about in the debate is whether other people have formed a consensus on the subject, we are debating a question of fact. Problem is, both NCFCA and STOA rules require that Lincoln Douglas debate be a value debate, not a fact debate. (NCFCA, page 1; STOA, page 1)
b. it’s a boring and superlame debate.
Seriously people. Facts are facts. They’re dead. Values are living. They’re debatable. They’re fluid. It impacts our worldview and general philosophy and daily life. A fact debate turns debaters into number-crunching automatons, not recognizing that we are living, thinking beings.
4. Not a reason to reject.
If both sides are just as subjective, it’s not a reason my arguments are wrong, and much less a reason I lose.
5. Reciprocity.
If this standard of having a consensus applies to me, it should apply to my opponent as well. We see that s/he hasn’t met that either. Since s/he brought it up in the first place, my opponent is more guilty of it because s/he had prior knowledge that subjectivity is a bad thing.
6. I get to define.
It’s totally fine that my opponent couldn’t come up with a good definition for X. It’s hard to find good definitions. I’ll provide one. (make it slightly unfair!)
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The "rules" you cite are not rules at all– they are a suggested judging paradigm explaining the 2003 topic. You're gonna need something a little more recent than 2003 and something much less ambiguous to convince me that the rules require definitions.
Secondly, though the NCFCA rules *do* state that the 2003 LD resolution is a value debate, not only could one make the case fairly well that the resolution this year is a fact resolution, but also that the rules hardly preclude the resolution from being interpreted as a question of fact.
In sum, your point on subjectivity overall is correct, but the idea the rules require definitions or value debate does not seem to be supported by the document you cite.
Nowhere does it say it is a suggested judging paradigm. Nor does it say it applies only to the 2003 topic. It was produced in 2003 and hasn't been updated since, because the NCFCA is that lazy. If it were topic specific, they would've updated it. The "NCFCA Lincoln Douglas Value Paradigm," to me, is what the NCFCA believes value debate should be and what should happen in LD debates. From the document, apparently, the NCFCA thinks definitions are a stock issue. I think that explains their intent pretty clearly, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. This is the closest any NCFCA document comes to providing any sort of guideline on how the debate round is supposed to function, apart from the judge orientation powerpoint, which also lists definitions as a stock issue.
You could take your chances with fact, but given it's called Lincoln Douglas Value Debate, I think it's pretty clear what the intentions of the NCFCA were. If you had a choice, you'd rather pick the one that matches their stated paradigm. Also, if they wanted it to be a fact this year, they would have put out a new document stating so.
You could also take your chances by saying there are no rules at all—nothing labeled "Debate Rules"—but I don't know how far that would go with parents or community judges fresh out of orientation. For example, the only document presenting time limits is "LD Time Schedule," which isn't even in the rules. Unless you're proposing that we shouldn’t even follow the speech times, I suggest we should take all the documents on the NCFCA debate page as seriously as rules.