Last week, I shared with you how there are three main viewpoints on foreign aid. (If you haven't read that post, be sure to check it out so you fully understand what I'm talking about.) Everyone, whether they think so or not, comes to the table with preconceived notions on what foreign aid is and what it should accomplish.
With those varying philosophies come differing goals, as you may have noticed last week. Those who hold to a liberal view (classical liberal in this context... think liberality, i.e. generous) believe the objective of foreign aid should be helping the most people with the most need, regardless of any benefit we receive in return. Think of this as the most charitable view.
The reciprocal approach measures all foreign aid in comparison to what we get out of it. The end game for those of this persuasion is advancing the interests of their native country. It's easy to consider this the "return on investment" strategy.
Last, but not to be dismissed, is the libertarian stand that believes foreign aid to be, at best, a necessary evil. The less foreign entanglements our country is involved in, the better, as far as they are concerned. We should be focused domestically. You can remember this as "live and let live."
So why is this important for debaters to understand? I'm glad I asked! (I'm hoping you were asking too, but I assume a number of you are picking up my drift by now.)
Goals are important. In this situation, it is vital to understand what your opponents recognize as the target in a debate on foreign aid.
Let's take, for example, an affirmative team that is arguing the U.S. should adopt a policy that provides hurricane relief aid to a poor, island country. The plan is to pour a few hundred million into the relief effort to provide shelter and food. Sounds pretty cool, right? Now what if the negative team gets up and argues that providing aid makes the third world country dependent on the U.S. and that our country will be no better off for helping them. The affirmative responds by demonstrating how many lives the plan can save and how many children it will feed. In rebuttal, the negative claims that giving the money to a foreign country diminishes our domestic welfare programs and could cost lives at home.
In this back and forth, the two teams are missing each other, like two ships in the night. As you can tell, the affirmative has the liberal goal of helping the most people in distress while the negative wants to keep the focus on American interests at home (a libertarian view... though it could be shared by a reciprocal philosophy in this situation).
The problem is, the judge is left to pick between these two, unspoken goals with no commentary or reasoning provided to them on why one objective is superior. An effective debater will recognize the differing philosophies and move to address the underlying issue.
How do you successfully persuade a judge why one goal is more worthy pursuing than the other? Be sure to read part three next week as I continue this example and introduce some general strategies to apply. If you do, I promise the IMPACT of what you read and learn will be Excellent!