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Liberty / Tyranny AC
You are no longer in the United States of America. You are now in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Here, you have
no right to equality, no right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness: your human rights can be
violated on a whim and without consequence. Your government is corrupt. You cannot fix it because
you do not get a say in what goes on in the government; at least, you have what appears to be a say, but
the elections are all rigged anyway. There are no checks and balances in the federal government; power
rests with a single dictator. How did this happen? This happened because your government turned into a
cooperative beast. This happened because we did not have competition. Thus, I stand Resolved: That
competition is superior to cooperation as a means of achieving excellence.
I’ll be introducing you to two main elements today, elements that prevent said example of Fidel Castro’s
Cuba. Both of these two elements will require competition in order to survive. But let’s start off with
some definitions.
I will define competition and cooperation from a common-man point of view: how we use them in
everyday life.
Competition: “The act of seeking, or endeavoring to gain, what another is endeavoring to gain, at the
same time”- Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Cooperation: “The act of working, or operating together, to one end; joint operation;” - Noah Webster’s
1828 Dictionary
Next is my Value: My value is two-fold. I value liberty, & I also value a system that prevents tyranny.
How does competition uphold liberty? Let’s break it down into three main points and analyze it.
Now that we can see competition upholds liberty, we must look at the opposite side of the coin: does
competition prevent tyranny, or merely uphold liberty? This leads us to:
Will Malson Liberty / Tyranny AC Page 3 of 4
Just like before, let’s break it apart into three main pieces and analyze it.
motives of public officials to the interests of their branches. By giving “those who administer each
department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the
others,” the Framers hoped to create a system in which competition for power among the branches
would constrain each safely within its bounds.12 With multiple government departments pitted
against each other in a competition for power, an invisible-hand dynamic might prevail in which
“[a]mbition [would] be made to counteract ambition.”13
In conclusion, what we see are striking opposites choices. With competition, we uphold liberty and we
prevent tyranny. We can see this as empirically true, when our own government is in a state of
competition. However, when our government is not in a state of competition, when it is cooperative, the
conditions exist in which tyranny can arise very easily. Do you have a gun in your home? Do you want
your child to have access to that gun at all? No. In the same way, we do not want our government to
have access to tyranny. How do we prevent tyranny? By using competition in the government and
individually, which upholds liberty and prevents tyranny. It is for these reasons that I stand Resolved:
that competition is superior to cooperation as a means of achieving excellence.