The following limits will be used for the 2011-2012 Novice Policy:
- The United States Federal Government should implement the Constellation Program
- The United States Federal Government should implement a passive SETI program
- The United States Federal Government should implement a human mission directly to Mars.
- The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its capability to detect and deflect near earth objects. (The MDTA Committee recommendation does not allow the use of Ballistic Missile Defense advantages in the 1AC.)
The following K’s are allowed to run against any of the above Affirmative positions:
- Anthropocentrism – ALT: reject the affirmative and embrace a non-anthropocentric ethical framework
- Frontierism – ALT: reject the affirmative and the frontier mindset
The following counter-plans are allowed to be run against all affirmative positions at the start of the year:
- Peoples Republic of China agent counter-plan
Purpose of the novice case limits: The MDTA sets up limits for the novice division of debate in order to increase education for novices by encouraging depth in their argumentation and predictability for them in the rounds they will debate. All novices must adhere to the case limits. If a novice team encounters a team running arguments outside of these parameters, they may advance a topicality violation based on the fact that the team is debating outside of the acceptable limits and argue that violation of the limits is grounds for a loss in the round. Since the 2011-2012 limits impose restrictions on both affirmative and negative teams, either team may advance a claim that the other side is in violation of the novice limits. We discourage judges from deciding a round on topicality if neither team advances a topicality argument, however, as we believe it is an important skill for debaters to learn what arguments should be made in the round.
All of these novice affirmative cases are still subject to the national resolution listed below and can be challenged based on topicality. The fact that they are included in the novice case limits does not deem them automatically topical. It is still the obligation of the affirmative team to show that their plan falls under the larger resolution.
Novices may run any advantages or disadvantages to the cases listed, but are limited to the counterplans, kritiks, and alternative texts as stated.Negative team always has the option of defending the status quo.