Military Conscription

On July 27 2008 09:16 DamageControL wrote:
Basically by social contract I mean we as people limit our rights in order to recieve the protection of society. In a state of nature we have unlimited freedoms but only the protection we provide ourselves.
Mindcrime, most people probably wont as they probably have more pressing issues. I mean they would probably stalemate me at best, and waste time they could have used to attack me elsewhere. But I am prepared to argue it. I need to know if there are better ways

On July 27 2008 09:20 micronesia wrote:

When did I waive those rights? :-/

This is a topic I don't like discussing to be honest.

On July 27 2008 09:23 DamageControL wrote:

Simply by continuing to be in the society. Sorry, its just something I'm using to try to prove conscription, when done PROPERLY is justified.

On July 27 2008 09:29 micronesia wrote:

I'm not sure how much you've researched different possible counters and rebuttals to that concept, but I'll just mention a couple of things that come to mind. If 'continuing to be in society' means I've waived the right to have certain freedoms (such as not getting drafted) then society needs to provide a means for me to remove myself from society (which it does not). How can you tell someone 'you have waived your rights because you exist and there is nothing you can do about it'?

On July 27 2008 08:09 DamageControL wrote:
I am a huge debate nerd. Well not HUGE, but I like debate, and I was pretty mad when I did not make states last year. For those of you who are good at debate I am sure your thinking "What kind of loser doesn't make states" Well...my kind of loser. Er...that is if anyone does debate.
Anyways I do Lincoln Douglas, and a friend of mine wants to debate over the summer. We are debating over one of the ten possible topics for next year, "Resolved: Military conscription is unjust" I am the negative. Basically I am trying to prove that military conscription is just. So far I'm trying to use a "Social Contract" argument to show that people have an obligation to protect their society. What I want to know is
1. Are there other ways to show that conscription is just other than by showing that people have an obligation to protect society?
2. Are there more effective ways to prove a persons obligation than the social contract?

That said, I think debate is retarded (school or otherwise). You put two people who have to argue extremely biased points to their wits end, you don't get compromise, and you get lousy solutions. It's better to have a healthy conversation with an open mind than to have your mind made up before you start talking and be forced to continue arguing a point that halfway thru you might admittedly realise is starting to sound pretty stupid, because your goal isn't a search for the truth, it's to win some dumb argument.

On July 27 2008 10:30 CrimsonLotus wrote:
I think common good is a nice argument. Conscription is a neccesary evil to assure the safety of an entire nation, in my country of about 40.000.000 people we have conscription to support a 400.000 men military, and nobody complains because we all know that is needed to fight guerrillas and other terrorist to secure safety for all the nation.

6. Military experience enhances a nation's health. Obvious reasons.

I've seen die hard liberals turn moderate and conservative from doing debate (and vice versa).

I would argue that you shouldn't need a desire to win to have a thirst for knowledge, and that if you need a debate club to do that, it's a crutch you should learn to overcome.

How old were they? How could they be so 'diehard' if a little research makes them think "oh fuck, I guess that was retarded after all?" It would seem to suggest they had never done research before, and thus... How could they really be labeled as liberal or conservative on any subject, except for their own personal desire to be called one of the other because of stigmas attached to either?

19-20. Which is exactly the age when people are best capable of forming well backed political opinions.

No teacher could give two shits really whether you think winning is an immoral way to encourage kids to learn, as long they're learning.

2. Military experience is beneficial for citizens. Builds character, etc. etc. Could also be beneficial for education?

On July 27 2008 11:03 ahrara_ wrote:
As for the issue of consent: You're consenting to the social contract every time you take advantage of public goods, because these are only possible because everyone has consented.

On matters of national security, you can't just take yourself outside of society, because when the eastern seaboard gets nuked, so does Walden pond. Get my drift? Unless you live on a desert island, you are a part of that social contract.

LOL

Instead of being a condescending prick, do you wanna show a little respect?

On July 27 2008 11:35 Mindcrime wrote:


Consenting to what?



The use of nuclear weapons is itself an unjust conscription of civilians.

On July 27 2008 11:37 PsycHOTemplar wrote:

Because everything you say is a string argument. Your conclusions are all based on premises the person you're trying to convince obviously doesn't already agree with. It's retarded, and really shows your maturity.

On July 27 2008 11:40 ahrara_ wrote:

Consenting to the social contract. Which is exactly what I said :\. Because everybody has consented to give up some of their rights to participate in society, ie they have to pay taxes, public goods like roads and police are possible.

I'm not sure I understand your second point? I was arguing that as long as you live in any nation, take FOR EXAMPLE the united states, you MUST consent to the social contract, because no matter where you go in the country, your security and safety is still being guaranteed by the government. If someone robs you, or rapes you, or intends to nuke the area where you live, your government will defend you. that's why if you live in the US, you must give up the rights society & government demands of you -- because you are reaping the benefits of everybody else having agreed to give up THEIR rights.

If you must consent then the the contract is not free of coercion. If the contract only exists because of coercion, then it is not a valid contract.

On July 27 2008 10:43 PsycHOTemplar wrote:
Don't bring up social contract in an argument about conscription. That's actually retarded. Social theorists who consider the social contract to be real say that the only thing you can't ask a citizen to do, is kill themselves. War isn't a joke, and anyone who is aware of that fact knows that they are putting themselves in harms way. The only reason people go to war is because they believe that if they don't, life as they know it will perish anyway. Conscription has nothing to do with that.

Conscription happens when a population generally agrees that the country needs to go to war, so everyone puts their names in a hat and the unlucky people hold true to their word (or if it's mandatory military service like in South Korea, they know it's only for a few years, and also that the war isn't THAT hot right now, so they're not so worried about their lives). Otherwise you get people deserting, like in Russia during the World War.

That said, I think debate is retarded (school or otherwise). You put two people who have to argue extremely biased points to their wits end, you don't get compromise, and you get lousy solutions. It's better to have a healthy conversation with an open mind than to have your mind made up before you start talking and be forced to continue arguing a point that halfway thru you might admittedly realise is starting to sound pretty stupid, because your goal isn't a search for the truth, it's to win some dumb argument.

On July 27 2008 11:35 Mindcrime wrote:


Consenting to what?



The use of nuclear weapons is itself an unjust conscription of civilians.

On July 27 2008 11:49 PsycHOTemplar wrote:
It's a logical fallacy... I defined it right after I brought it up, so it doesn't matter if you've heard that specific term or not before. That's what I learned it was called in school.

There's only one response to the rest of what you said...



Right or wrong, this is going no where so I'm happy to leave it here. Hope that's satisfactory for you

On July 27 2008 11:48 ahrara_ wrote:

According to your definition of a contract. Most people are happy to obey laws and pay taxes in return for being a part of society and reaping its benefits. Of course it's not a "real" contract. It's strictly an abstract idea. I'm not arguing that we are all bound to some metaphysical contract, I'm just using the "idea" of the social contract as a way of justifying why we ought to obey laws like military conscription.

On July 27 2008 11:48 ahrara_ wrote:

According to your definition of a contract. Most people are happy to obey laws and pay taxes in return for being a part of society and reaping its benefits. Of course it's not a "real" contract. It's strictly an abstract idea. I'm not arguing that we are all bound to some metaphysical contract, I'm just using the "idea" of the social contract as a way of justifying why we ought to obey laws like military conscription.

you decided to go the asshole route.

On July 27 2008 10:43 PsycHOTemplar wrote:
Don't bring up social contract in an argument about conscription. That's actually retarded. Social theorists who consider the social contract to be real say that the only thing you can't ask a citizen to do, is kill themselves. War isn't a joke, and anyone who is aware of that fact knows that they are putting themselves in harms way. The only reason people go to war is because they believe that if they don't, life as they know it will perish anyway. Conscription has nothing to do with that.

Conscription happens when a population generally agrees that the country needs to go to war, so everyone puts their names in a hat and the unlucky people hold true to their word (or if it's mandatory military service like in South Korea, they know it's only for a few years, and also that the war isn't THAT hot right now, so they're not so worried about their lives). Otherwise you get people deserting, like in Russia during the World War.

On July 27 2008 12:17 PsycHOTemplar wrote:
I don't think anyone is contracted by birth in society to go to war for their country. In WWII Germans went to war because they believed they're the superior race destined to bring justice upon the world. That's not social contract, that's of their own free will and desire. Conscription is used when people don't particularly want to go to war, but thru propaganda and threats of imprisonment, they decide it's worth it... I don't see how social contract (a group of people deciding to live with each other in harmony) has anything to do with that.

The distinction I'm trying to make, is that social contract is the sacrifice of some freedoms in agreement that other people will sacrifice the same freedoms and live in harmony. Don't steal, don't kill, respect private property, etc. It's certainly an argument for war, but I don't see how it is for conscription... It's no one's natural duty to fight a war, it's their natural inclination to want to fight for their way of life in a war. IE: If it were social contract, you wouldn't need conscription. You'll go to jail for stealing and killing too, but it's not social contract. Social contract are the things you do without coercion because of a mutual understanding that you want to live in harmony. That is... it's separate from written law. Anything you have to force someone to do, is flowing away from social contract and towards "Do it, or I'll take away your life."

On July 27 2008 12:17 PsycHOTemplar wrote:

EDIT: To be honest, it's actually becoming more and more grey that I think about it... I was just immediately offended and shocked when I first saw something pro-conscription using the social contract as a basis of reasoning... I guess in reality it makes sense in the sense that if a lifestyle is in danger, a citizen is essentially responsible to fight for it if they want to keep it, but this only applies if the citizen already believes in war. If the citizen is a pacifist (which is a whole other argument), then they don't believe a war protects their lifestyle in the first place, and thus are not contracted (and of course, would be offended by the idea of conscription, and governments know they would make ineffective soldiers, and couldn't properly conscript them.

EDIT 2: Yeah, I think because initially I thought conscription = getting people who don't want to go to war to go to way anyway, applying social contract to that seemed ludicrous. But of course there are a lot of nations where they just consider it a constant requirement for defence of the country, and everyone generally agrees with that... However, in America, you've got the volunteers who want to help out, and applying conscription would not have the same meaning it does in other countries, which is what I was thinking of when I first commented... Conscription in America would mean "we don't have enough soldiers right now... so let's force a bunch of people arbitrarily out of no where to go to war.." which as it hasn't been tradition for a long time, I think collectively people would feel like they didn't agree to this when they started living in America... How confusing, but yeah... If you can make some sense of that mess, I'm basically saying conscription has different meaning in different places. You're obligated to protect your country from danger, but not obligated to fight wars for the wealth of a few in your country, which is how a lot of people feel about America's wars today. There's a lot of ways to look at it, and I would suggest in your debate, you very rigidly describe your example, and avoid America in that sample.

On July 27 2008 12:43 BottleAbuser wrote:
The idea of justice must first be defined. Trivial? I don't think so. I don't know what the term means, myself. But it's pretty strongly tied to the idea of "fairness" which somehow involves the concept of "equality" and "reciprocation." How? Define it very clearly. Or completely ignore the definition if doing so ends up hurting your argument, and hope that the affirmative team doesn't bring it up.

Social contracts aren't the only way to justify conscription, as mentioned before. The utility of a larger military may, depending on what "just" is, justify a draft.

Your second paragraph is interesting. When can a country no longer ask a person to do something?

On July 27 2008 12:52 PsycHOTemplar wrote:

Well let's just say if I woke up tomorrow, and I got a letter saying Harper demanded I back my boots and go to Afghanistan, I'd tell him fuck off, I don't think we really need to be there. Canada isn't really in danger if we're not in Afghanistan... don't get me wrong, the work we're doing there is good but it's work done by volunteers. People who aren't there because of a social contract, people who are there because they couldn't afford schooling or didn't do well in school, so they decided the military was better than working at McD's and the honour and respect soldiers receive was enticing.

If I woke up tomorrow and I got a letter saying my country needed me to defend because we were being invaded by some crazy country that we could actually take... Maybe I would feel obliged to join the effort because I like Canada how it is. That would be social contract.

The thing is... most wars today are being fought without specific interest in the nation's defence of livelihood... they're being fought in the name of trying to be world police... Which I don't think social contract can be applied to with any seriousness.

On July 27 2008 09:41 DamageControL wrote:

I've somewhat researched the topic. Let's use the US as an example. The moment you turn 18 you are an adult. Society does not have to say: All right if you want to leave we'll pay for a ticked and you can go.
You leave, and admit that a state of nature is better than society.

On July 27 2008 12:55 BottleAbuser wrote:
We're not really talking about the hard realities here, we're just "theorycrafting," so let's go back to some of the stuff everyone seems to be taking for granted.

As mentioned in my previous post, must define "justice." You can base the rest of moral "rightness" or "wrongness" and how to tell them apart on this. Alternatively, define those other terms and get the meaning of "justice" from them. Anyways, must define first.

Also must lay down the theory behind what government is for. Personally, I think it's for utility, in the sense that a collective resource can be more efficiently used when directed by a smaller entity than the entire population. "Government by the people, for the people." Which is why when enough of the people are unhappy with the government, the idea is that they'll change it so it suits them. Hence the methods instated to change the damn Constitution itself.

Above paragraph was mostly an example. Your own idea of what government is for may vary; be sure to justify it (in a logical sense - do not confuse with idea of moral justness).

On July 27 2008 12:58 micronesia wrote:

The USA isn't an isolated society... if you are talking about society, you can do so generally. In which case, you are justifying drafts etc. for all countries. If you are talking in the case of one country, then you should say that you have the protection of your country, and in exchange give up some of your rights. I'll continue as though this is what you meant.

You claim that society does not have to say 'all right if you want to leave we'll pay for a ticket and you can go' but you do not provide any rebuttal for my claim in the prior post. How can you be responsible for having agreed to give up your freedoms by doing nothing? We aren't talking about a special situation you were placed in, such as when you get arrested. We are talking about being born and surviving in a specific place, which you have no control over. The most they can reasonably expect of you is to make a choice as to whether or not to give up your additional freedoms (and the government telling you 'feel free to figure out some way to leave the country' isn't an acceptable means of offering you a choice). I'm not saying the government has to do that though, so long as they don't force you to do things like serve in the military.

On July 27 2008 13:02 PsycHOTemplar wrote:
Depends if the countries consider each other part of the same society (even if they have different laws). They might be contractually obligated to protect each other, but really, that's how WWI got started, and I'd hoped we learned a lesson from that.

You're right, it's only a abuse of conscription I'm talking about. But when you bring of the topic, it's too easy to immediately assume the topic is about one's own country... It's perhaps wise to clarify that issue when you begin (and if you're debating, your opponents should know so they don't prepare arguments for something you don't intend to discuss).

On July 27 2008 13:13 BottleAbuser wrote:
I looked at the OP again. "Military conscription is unjust." That's the statement that the affirmative team is trying to prove, a blanket statement with no qualifiers. If you could show just one case where military conscription is "just," then you'd break their thesis and force them to modify their position or capitulate.

For utilitarians, a simple case of "No one wants to fight but then everyone will die; if 1% of the population is drafted then half of the drafted die in combat and everyone else survives" will work.

Maybe more tricky for deontologists.

On July 27 2008 13:07 DamageControL wrote:
They don't have to do anything FOR you, however you may leave the society, when you come of age.

Your getting into the specific social idea of government which is quite different from the general societ so...
The government has to provide you with your general freedoms, but in return for the ones you give up it offers you a society that is more or less preferable than not having a society at all. Feel free to disagree, but if its not then you may leave the society. Military conscription is actually one of the few things that are justifiable, so i dont know what you mean by "things like serve in the military" Even that is only justifiable when the society ITSELF is in danger. At this point in time, if we need troops to protect our very way of life, the life you have been enjoying you are obligated to protect it.

On July 27 2008 13:24 micronesia wrote:

"Things like serve in the military" meaning responsibilities you are assigned without agreeing to, other than passive ones that specifically protect those around you (such as you can't kill your neighbor for a dumb reason, or you can't rape him/her, but what you do in your house by yourself is your business). Your justification for the claim that we are obligated to protect the lives we enjoy (which the government helps provide) is that we are enjoying (benefiting from) them. I don't see that as fair. If I go to your house and capture the criminal that was in there without you asking me to, can I rightfully expect you to owe me service? I helped protect the society around you, and you benefited. But it's your call whether or not to owe me. The weakness in this example as I see it, is that you should reasonably expect the government to be protecting you in this manner all the time, whereas you didn't expect me to come to your aid. But you did nothing to prompt that knowledge, so you should be no more 'responsible' to the party that benefited you in one case than the other.

On July 27 2008 13:31 BottleAbuser wrote:
Deontology defines "good" as some sort of a fixed idea that's "out there." Kind of like the number 2. It's not in the actual universe, although it's embodied in things that do exist. (They call this the non-natural realm.)

How do we know this thing if it isn't actually present in the world? Deontologists propose a mental faculty available to humans known as "intuition." Which is why deontologists are also known as "intuitionists." Through this mental faculty (some laymen call it "common sense"), we inherently have a grasp of what "good" and "evil" are. But I call something good which you call evil. Who's right? NO CLUE. Which is why I prefer naturalism myself.

Alternatively, you can have religious ethics in which right and wrong (and the methods to tell them apart) are described in some sort of religious text such as the Koran, or designated by some other religious authority such as the Pope. Blech.

On July 27 2008 13:40 BottleAbuser wrote:
The social contract is somewhat weak, I think. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding it...

In a non-democratic society (which arguably the US is becoming, but that's another topic), one might have absolutely no say. The social contract argument just doesn't apply.

In a democratic-like society, well.... no one's ever told me anything about that. Certainly not before I was 18. I never signed anything or otherwise showed my consent. An unaware and unwilling population presents a problem for social contracts. Eduficating the population should probably be part of the obligation of a government that wants to use the logic of a social contract to get something from the populace.

On July 27 2008 13:54 BottleAbuser wrote:
Okay: Ethics 101 in 30 seconds time! Hopefully I won't misrepresent anything here.

Ethics is the process of determining what is "good" and what is "not good" (alternatively, "evil), and promoting this "good." Clear enough, but we don't know what "good" is.

Non-cognitivists assert that the term "good" has no actual meaning, that it is used to morally justify actions or condemn others (the meaning is what you make it out to be; anything can be good if you just call it good). Critics claim that such a definition would result in moral anarchy and chaos. Proponents claim that it is a resilient definition, and has no problems with explaining ethics historically. I must agree that non-cognitivism is impossible to break.

Cognitivists, on the other hand, assert that the term "good" has some actual meaning. Now, cognitivists are divided further into...

Naturalists, who claim that "good" is a natural property. This means that good can be characterized by things that we can see or do or touch -- things within our "known universe." "Pleasure" might be equated with "goodness." We can know what "good" is then, by sensory experience. Because we can sense and experience pleasure. (Not my definition, but it gives you an idea of what naturalism is.) Critics object that naturalism then reduces ethics to a science, as you can then quantify and measure goodness. Proponents assert that this introduces objectiveness and is conducive to the idea of "fairness," and also is less susceptible to deviants.

Naturalists then have a problem with how to characterize good. Because many proposed definitions yield scenarios that are labeled "good" but most people reject as a moral situation.

Non-naturalists, or deontologists, or intuitionists, on the other hand, believe that "goodness" is a transcendental property. Mathematical concepts are pretty much the only other thing that is also in the "non-natural realm," so you'll see a lot of explanations about "you can't see the number 2 or the idea of logical 'truth,' but you'll agree that it exists... somewhere. That's where 'goodness' is." So goodness is more of an idea. Problem: how to tell who's actually right? If we accept the deontologist's view, we still only know some part of what goodness is, we don't know what exactly is good and how to tell it apart from something that isn't good.

Deontologists understandably have to make a few more assumptions, such as "good is logical" and "altruism is good." From there, you can use logical arguments to build whole ethical frameworks. But you still need some more postulates for non-naturalism to be useful.

On July 27 2008 11:57 Mindcrime wrote:
You're failing miserably at it.

ahrara LD is a debate that is based in philosophy. I don't agree with all of your arguments, but I could use some I suppose. The point of the debate is to show whether the concept of military conscription is morally correct or not.

On July 27 2008 12:58 micronesia wrote:
You claim that society does not have to say 'all right if you want to leave we'll pay for a ticket and you can go' but you do not provide any rebuttal for my claim in the prior post. How can you be responsible for having agreed to give up your freedoms by doing nothing? We aren't talking about a special situation you were placed in, such as when you get arrested. We are talking about being born and surviving in a specific place, which you have no control over. The most they can reasonably expect of you is to make a choice as to whether or not to give up your additional freedoms (and the government telling you 'feel free to figure out some way to leave the country' isn't an acceptable means of offering you a choice). I'm not saying the government has to do that though, so long as they don't force you to do things like serve in the military.

In a non-democratic society (which arguably the US is becoming, but that's another topic), one might have absolutely no say. The social contract argument just doesn't apply.

On July 27 2008 18:35 BottleAbuser wrote:
ahrara, you're making an appeal to "common sense" when you say

As long as your definition of justice is reasonable (ie it's not "murder is just!") ....

Common sense does not apply when one is questioning the foundations of ethics. As time and location changes, you get a whole spectrum of "reasonable" definitions of justice, many of them contradictory. For example, although the term "murder" has a moral implication that the killing is not just, if one ignores that and says "killing is just," I'm sure there are situations in which even you will agree with that statement.

If you support the social contract argument, you better read up on Foucault. His views on power relations and bio-politics will really deconstruct that argument and it probably won't be rare to see a bio-power argument in an LD round on this topic.

On July 27 2008 14:30 Caller wrote:
You don't have to say that military conscription is "good"

you just have to say that it's just, in the sense that people of all races, backgrounds, etc. all serve in the military in the event of so-and-so. As such, it's really just a sampling of American society, as all things should be, therefore it is just. although tbh its a pretty shitty topic.

On July 27 2008 17:47 ahrara_ wrote:

best argument in this thread. read my post above yours.


A lot of my points can be used as value contentions depending on how you interpret justice. As long as your definition of justice is reasonable (ie it's not "murder is just!"), people will accept your definition and argue the opposite. I mean this is how it's done in a policy round, but I'm sure value has somethign similar.

If you're going by justice=utilitarianism, "policy" advantages can be very useful. Also, I do parliamentary debate but 90% of our resolutions are interpreted as policy, to the point where a lot of teams (myself included) never really learn value structure. I talk moderately fast, although spreading happens sometimes in parli, because we don't use evidence there's not as much of it.

Hey I could use some help with value tho, mind if I pm you some questions later?

Another thing, I think you have to be careful how you define the scope of conscription. Are we talking about conscription for every country on earth, or conscription in general? Because conscription for one country may not be just, but it may be just for a disadvantaged country, or for all countries in a region in order to acquire mutual security. You seem stuck in this mindset that we're talking about conscription for just one country, particularly a western country. This could easily be construed by aff or the judge as referring to all countries. I've seen it happen a lot in parli rounds. A newbie gov team will be going along happily arguing how policy x is so beneficial to the US, and opp will tear apart their case entirely by contesting their criterion and turning their solvency entirely.


Micronesia's point is very good. In my mind he's arguing that the social contract itself is not just, so you can't justify something using the social contract. It is injust to impose the social contract on people if the cost of opting out is restrictively high. However, when Locke wrote about the social contract, he argued that it was only valid when it is not being abused. When the sovereign entity violates the contract, the signees have an obligation to replace it with another sovereign. Thus the social contract guarantees a positive outcome. The social contract, when correctly observed, is naturally just. It is just to ask of all to sacrifice if the outcome for everyone is positive.

Micronesia's story is a perfect example of why this is true. He may have a different take on it, but I don't see why I shouldn't expect some kind of small sacrifice on your part if I just kept your house from being robbed. It is just intuitively, but also from a utilitarian perspective: rewarding positive behavior reinforces it in the future.

I know you guys have talked about this already, but I just wanted to iterate my take on it. Anyway, it is possible to argue that conscription is injust simply because it allows for the possibility of abuse. You'll have to be able to respond to that as well.


Hobbes' "The Leviathan" actually argues for a social contract granting power to a non-elected sovereign. Namely, a monarchy. He argues that such rule still requires the consent of the governed (iirc...) So the social contract does apply to a nondemocratic government.

On July 28 2008 02:47 ahrara_ wrote:

I wasn't talking about ethics there. I was saying that in debate, the other team will not likely contest the definition of justice if it allows for reasonably fair debate.


Ya, I've had biopower run on me, but I never really got it. We didn't get to Foucault in my last poli-theory class. Would you mind explaining it some?

On July 28 2008 06:20 7c.nEptuNe wrote:
Bare-bone outline of biopower is that the government controls every aspect of our lives. We can see this in our education system (government run), our health system (once again, government run), our safety (yay once again..), etc. It is this power relation between the governed and the government that is completely out of hand; not only do the governed BELIEVE that the government is a necessity (due to complete control of the education system), but the government is allowed to subjugate its victims without having any blame placed on it. You can see why this would severely undermine the social contract because it completely changes the relationship between the government and its subjects; instead of a mutual agreement to conform to society and to relinquish some rights, the governed are instead under the complete dominance of the government without even thinking about it. The reason that a biopower argument would outweigh the social contract is because it not only has a competing framework for the definition of the government-governed relationship, but Foucault also offers various impact cards that link to nuke war, genocide, etc. etc. that can be described as "unjust" (this is generally evidenced by the government's power over LIFE, which justifies the government eradicating anything that opposes life). I actually have never run a biopower K or any biopower argument in policy debate so you might not want to trust my judgement, but I have seen it run on many of my LD teamates =b. For a better background, wikipedia biopower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopower

On July 28 2008 07:27 7c.nEptuNe wrote:
Do all governments have biopower? Foucault would probably argue that many governments today do exert biopower in some sense or another. It really depends on how the government runs. In Autocracies, governments are just more powerful in that they can kill you at any time if you don't obey, so you are threatened into obedience; this is very different from biopower because biopower is an influence apparatus, not a threat. The central focus isn't really about school, but it's more like the control the government exerts on ALL aspects of life. For example, why do you look at a stop sign and immediately know what it is? Government implementation. Even if school wasn't a government apparatus, the Federal Government still owns the essentials you need to survive i.e. economy, protection, medicare, etc. Changing the education system won't necessarily solve the biopolitical control of the government on its subjects.

You can look up a biopower file probably... although I know my friend made his own because he cut cards directly from Foucault's books. You should try to find a biopower shell to give you an understanding of how Foucault is used in debate. I do policy debate, and have only done it for one year xP so i'm not too experienced, but I take stabs at K's a lot because I'm interested in Philosophy (I'm really only experienced with Nietzsche Kant and Marx; my friend's a Foucault hack though =D). Don't trust my judgement on Foucault, that's just how I interpreted it from watching LD rounds.

EDIT: I know Incontrol debates, so maybe pm him for clarification? He should probably know more about Foucault than I do and can clear up any misconstrued views that I have.