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6.2 Outline of a Prime Minister Speech Supporting a Value Motion
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6.3 Outline of a Prime Minister Speech Supporting a Policy Motion
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6.4 Role of the Deputy Prime Minister
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6.5 Summary
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6.6 Terms and Concepts from Chapter 6
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6.7 Discussion Questions for Chapter 6
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6.8 Exercises for Chapter 6
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All speakers in the debate must construct arguments to support their side of the motion. With the exception of the Prime Minister, all debaters must refute arguments made by the other side, and rebuild arguments made by their own side. Previous chapters focused on general principles for constructing arguments—principles that can be used by anyone supporting or opposing a motion. Upcoming chapters will focus on how the different speakers engage in the process of constructing, refuting, and rebuilding arguments. The particular kinds of arguments that speakers will make vary depending on their speaking positions. The focus here is on the First Government Team—the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister—and how they construct, refute, and rebuild arguments in support of the motion.
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6.1 Role of the Prime Minister
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The construction of the speech ordinarily is a joint effort of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, who cooperate to outline the case during their preparation time. That speech is particularly important because it sets the direction and focus for the entire debate. Other debaters supporting the motion (the Second Government Team) are obliged to advocate the same position taken by the First Government Team, although they may use different arguments to do so. If the Prime Minister’s speech is poorly constructed, or if the position taken by the Prime Minister is unclear, the remainder of the debate will likely be unclear, as well. Although a good speech by the Prime Minister does not assure that the rest of the debate will be a good one, a good Prime Minister speech is essential to starting the debate on the right track. To get the debate started in a positive manner, the First Government Team, in both its preparation and briefly in the Prime Minister’s constructive speech, needs to give some attention to the analysis of the motion.
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6.1.1 Analyze the Motion
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Methods of analyzing a motion were covered in Chapter 4. Analysis of the motion is an important prerequisite to creating the Prime Minister’s speech, even though the speech will not include all of the elements of analysis. The background of the topic, the type of motion to be debated, the definition and interpretation of that motion, and a catalog of the potential issues will help the Prime Minister construct the speech, but will not become the speech itself.
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All of the work that the First Government Team did when they analyzed the motion need not be presented in the Prime Minister’s speech. Sometimes, statements about the background of the controversy will be important to clarify for the judges and audience the focus of the arguments presented by the Prime Minister. Sometimes, the controversy will be so clear to everyone that stating its background would be redundant. Usually the Prime Minister need not state what kind of topic, value or policy, is being debated. However, the kind of topic is implicit in the Prime Minister’s advocacy. If the motion is about policy, the Prime Minister will ordinarily advocate some policy proposal. If the motion is about value, the Prime Minister will not advocate a policy proposal but will clearly state how a certain object does or does not possess a certain value.
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The part of the analysis of the motion that is perhaps most important to the Prime Minister’s speech is the definition of ambiguous terms and interpretation of the motion. The Prime Minister needs to include in his or her speech ideas about definition and interpretation of the motion and, must clearly state what will be the primary focus of the debate. The purpose of this part of the Prime Minister’s speech is to ensure that the other debaters and the audience will clearly understand the focus and direction of the debate.
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The final part of analysis, discovering potential issues, will not specifically be a part of the speech, however, the most important of those issues will constitute the substance of the Prime Minister’s speech.
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Analyzing the motion is a very important precursor to supporting it. Taking the time to think about the ways they want to focus the debate, the direction they believe the debate should take, which arguments are central and which are peripheral, will help debaters construct a persuasive and sound case for the motion. By clearly analyzing the motion, the debaters come to see exactly what that they need to be prepared to support.
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6.1.2 Create a Case for the Motion
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Creating a case for the motion can be considered in three steps: 1) defining and interpreting the motion, 2) describing the approach the First Government Team will take, and 3) creating one or more arguments to support that approach.
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Step one: defining and interpreting the motion. Because they speak first, as noted in Chapter 4, the First Government Team has the right and responsibility to define and interpret the motion. That means that they are the team who will decide the ultimate direction and focus of the debate. As discussed earlier, some motions can be debated in a number of legitimate yet different ways. In cases like those, the First Government Team has the right to decide which of those legitimate areas will be the focus of the particular debate. The decision they make is one that the other three teams are obliged to follow. If the motion is “Nations of the world should take greater responsibility to curb pollution,” the First Government Team might decide to focus on countries of the developing world and on air pollution. If they do, that focus will guide the entire debate.
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The other teams cannot elect to change the focus from the developing world to, say, the developed world, or from air pollution to water pollution, for example. The convention of allowing the First Government Team to decide about defining and interpreting the motion is a good way to ensure that a debate begins and ends with a particular focus rather than wandering from topic to topic.
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The right to define and interpret the motion gives the First Government Team a certain advantage in the debate. For this reason, the right to define and interpret the motion carries a responsibility to do so in a reasonable fashion. That responsibility to define and interpret the motion in a reasonable way helps to ensure a good debate for all participants rather than being a self-serving method of helping the First Government Team “win” the debate. The criterion that should be employed to determine if the definition and interpretation is appropriate is what might be called a “reasonable person” standard. Would a reasonable person agree that the definitions and interpretations are legitimate? Would a reasonable person agree that the definitions and interpretations are such that they have the potential to lead to a good debate on the topic? If the answer to each of those questions is “yes,” the First Government Team has fulfilled its responsibility with regard to defining and interpreting the motion, and the other teams are, therefore, obliged to follow these definitions and interpretations for the remainder of the debate.
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Some motions are relatively clear from the beginning and others are somewhat ambiguous. The more clear and concrete the motion, the less defining and interpreting will be needed. The dual processes of defining and interpreting are related to each other, yet are conceptually distinct. Defining the motion simply refers to providing clear meanings for any words or phrases that might not be understood by the audience, or that might have multiple meanings. Interpreting the motion ordinarily involves narrowing and focusing the motion for debate. Defining and interpreting the motion are two processes used to set the focus and direction of the debate.
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Consider, for example, the motion that “The United States should abolish capital punishment.” This motion is so clear that it likely requires little, if any, definition. The important phrases, “United States” and “capital punishment,” are likely to be understood by audience members and do not seem to have more than one important meaning. Furthermore, the motion is concrete in terms of both the suggested actor and the proposed action so that it needs little interpretation in order to have a clear and focused debate. The actor is clearly specified in the motion as the United States. Had the motion stated, “Nations of the world should abolish capital punishment,” the debate might reasonably be about policies in the People’s Republic of China, the Arab world, or parts of Asia. In that case, further interpretation might be required to focus the debate. In addition to the actor being clearly specified, the statement of the motion is also clear and requires little interpretation of the action to be undertaken. Had the motion used the words “reform capital punishment” rather than the words “abolish capital punishment,” the motion would have been more abstract and open to interpretation. One could envision reform of capital punishment as involving a range of possible actions such as limiting the kinds of crimes for which capital punishment is used, limiting the age of persons who might be executed, specifying the methods of execution, specifying the conditions under which capital punishment is called for, etc. But this motion, by using the word “abolish” clearly calls for an end to rather than a reform of capital punishment and, thus, very little interpretation is needed beyond the direct statement of the motion.
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