As was done for the Catholic Forensic League (CFL) national tournament, Extemp Central provides you with this topic area analysis for the United States extemp portion of next week’s NFL national tournament in Kansas City, Missouri.
In the second of our four-part series, we explore three of the thirteen topic areas at the 2010 NFL National Tournament in United States Extemp.
Topic Area #4: America: The Path from 2000 to 2010
Topic Area #5: The American Judiciary: Nominations, Recent Cases, and Theoretical Approaches
Topic Area #6: The Banking Crisis and American Business
Keep reading to explore these areas in further depth.
Topic Area #4: America: The Path from 2000 to 2010
I have received several e-mails from extempers asking my opinion on this topic area and they make me feel old. I started extemp in the 2000-2001 season, so this topic area covers almost all of my extemporaneous speaking career as a competitor and as a coach. Honestly, I’m not sure where this topic area is going and your guess is as good as mine. This topic area could ask you to compare events happening right now with events over the last decade or it could be an “NFL retrospective” round like the Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin utilized in its Exhibition Round this year. This “NFL retrospective” round saw extempers speak on questions that came from past NFL final rounds that are still relevant today. For this topic analysis, I’m going to lean towards my first inclination and argue that this round is going to ask you to compare events of the past with events of the present. Although the extempers competing at this year’s national tournament were less than ten years old when the 21st century began, this round will not be as hard as it seems because most of the articles that you have to read on a daily basis break down past events and policies. You might not have been extemping when President Bush was handling Katrina, but if you read about some of the rebuilding taking place in New Orleans of the current Gulf oil spill you will notice that reporters discuss some details of the administration’s response to that disaster. Similarly, articles on President Obama’s national security strategy have drawn parallels between his actions and those of President Bush. Keep in mind that if this round does have a lot of comparison questions that you will need to give equal time to the items that you need to compare. For example, if you get a question that asks you to explain how the Supreme Court has shifted over the last ten years, you need to give equal time to the Rehnquist Court that started the century and the Roberts Court of today. If you don’t then you are not fully answering the question and you open yourself up to get dropped in prelims or elimination rounds.
Issues you might face in this round include:
- How the Supreme Court has changed over the last ten years
- If America’s environmental protections standards have improved over the last ten years
- If America’s commitment to space is deteriorating
- How America’s national security strategy and foreign policy have evolved over the last ten years
- Parallels between the federal response to Katrina and the Gulf oil spill
- America’s attitude towards racial categories and the election of Barack Obama
- What has caused the American political climate to grow more partisan
- The growth of America’s public sector and if it has become too large
Topic Area #5: The American Judiciary: Nominations, Recent Cases, and Theoretical Approaches
Much of this round will center on the actions of the United States Supreme Court, but extempers should not turn on their blinders to lower courts and state courts in this round. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the West Coast is known to make some controversial rulings, such as its ruling that saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school was unconstitutional. Also, based on recent history, most of our Supreme Court nominees have come from lower courts so presidential appointments to those courts are becoming more crucial and have triggered a firestorm between both political parties. Remember that President Bush had some of his judicial picks for lower courts like Miguel Estrada and Charles Pickering filibustered by Democratic members of Congress during his presidency. Near the end of last year, President Obama complained that less than thirty of his lower court nominees had been confirmed by Congress so lower court nominations might emerge in this round. As I’ve recommended for previous rounds, knowing your history of Supreme Court confirmations is critical here, especially if you get a question about Elena Kagan. A great speech will draw parallels to easy confirmation fights like Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s and bitter ones like Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. Also, having a good knowledge of the U.S. Constitution is essential for these rounds. I would recommend that you print off a copy of the U.S. Constitution or get a pocket copy of the Constitution and place it in your files. After all, how can you give a speech on the eighth amendment if you don’t understand what the eighth amendment says? Knowing major Supreme Court decisions of the past like Griswold v. CT, Roe v. Wade, Simmons v. Roper, etc. will help because you can draw parallels between those cases and how the Supreme Court should react to future cases. You can also use these prior cases to explain why the Supreme Court made the decisions that it made on some controversial issues recently like Miranda rights, freedom of religion, and political speech. The “theoretical approaches” part of this round might present you with a sample case or a case that the Supreme Court may have to decide on in the future, such as the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), so knowing your Supreme Court precedents would greatly help you in this round.
Issues you might face in this round include:
- The pace of confirmation for Obama’s lower court judicial picks
- Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court (impact, if she will be confirmed, if she was a good choice, and why the public does not strongly support the pick)
- Recent Supreme Court decisions on Miranda rights, the Mojave cross case, juvenile life sentences, and its controversial decision in FEC v. United
- How the Supreme Court will rule on Chicago’s hand gun ban
- How the Supreme Court might rule on a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
- Whether Obama will get another Supreme Court pick and who it might be
- Who the next Supreme Court justice to step down might be
- If growing state challenges to abortion rights will lead to an overturning of Roe v. Wade
Topic Area #6: The Banking Crisis and American Business
This is the second economic topic area of the tournament and as I previously explained, I see this as more of a microeconomic topic area. It is still important that you know the vital economic statistics that I mentioned for the second topic area but for this one you will also need to know about the health of several sectors of the economy. You need to know about the performance of small businesses, the commercial sector, the automotive sector, the health of America’s banks, etc. An easy place to find this information is in the “business” sections of major papers like The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Business Week is also not a bad source of information about this. Extempers will also want to know their history of the banking and subprime mortgage crises because those will be questions in this round. Putting those crises in layman’s terms will be no easy task, but if you are going to win over your judges then you have to if you want to win this round. With unemployment being as high as it is, it might be a good assumption that all of the judges that you are going to run into at this tournament will know someone who has been negatively affected by the economic downturn. If you have an example of an individual who has been impacted by the financial crisis (but not a personal example) and/or can make your economic statistics and explanation of the crisis encompass individual anxieties and concerns you are going to have a powerful speech in this round. The economic crisis is real and impacts millions of Americans so make sure that comes through in your speech.
Issues that you might face in this round include:
- Who was most responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis
- If more reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are needed
- If the federal government should have bailed out General Motors and Chrysler
- The current state of the automotive sector
- Toyota’s sudden acceleration problems
- The current state of unionization in the private sector and the use of “card check” to enhance union membership
- Craig Becker’s controversial appointment to the National Labor Relations Board
- If the recent financial regulation bill in Washington will prevent a future economic crisis
- How the newspaper industry can save itself
- How the U.S. can persuade China to take a firmer stance towards North Korea
- If America should let Russia into the WTO
- How America’s withdrawal from Iraq will impact the balance of power in the Middle East