Necessary But Insufficient Burden Theory Shell

A: Interpretation
Debaters shouldn't be allowed to impose necessary but insufficient
burdens (NIBs).
B: Violation
The negative placed a NIB upon me to respond to.
C: Standards
1. Reciprocity.
Our burdens are not equal. I effectively have 2 because I have to
prove the resolution true and while effectively warding off his
NIB, whereas my opponent only has to prove disprove the
affirmative. This violates fair ground due to my opponent having
less to respond to and easier ballot access, making it harder for
me to win. Reciprocal burdens must be adhered to for both sides
to engage in a fair and enjoyable debate.
2. Time Skew.
I am forced to spend time answering the NIB because it's a
voting issue while my opponent can just drop it at his discretion.
The time spent on my arguments are useless as he can just
ignore it and go for the NIB. This adds to the negative time skew,
for the negative has a vast amount of time to make responses to
my case, whereas I only have a mere 4 minutes to make
responses. The NIB is stretching my time constraints.
3. Ground Skew.
I have to prove the whole of the resolution true while he can just
go for small assumptions to win, vastly skewing ground. Having
unequal ground takes away from fairness by allowing my
opponent easier ballot access and making it harder for me to
win. Equal offensive ground must be adhered to for both sides to
engage in a fair and enjoyable debate.
D: Voters
Fairness.
Debate as an activity is designed to find out who the better debater is
regardless of external factors, and structural inequalities that NIBs
impose prevent that from happening.

1. Levels the playing field.

Imposing abusive burdens eliminate an equal ability to win. A fair playing
field is necessary to
adjudicate the round in terms of which side did the
better debating, and not who used
the most abusive strategies.
2. Reduces participation (and outweighs education)
Further, this will drive competitors from the activity because debaters
will simply be
subject to the abuse of others. If debaters lose rounds
in which they clearly did the better
debating, they wont have any
incentive to debate, meaning that we cant access the
benefits of
education or any other standards.
Saunders:
Competitions are fair when and because they test some
attribute that is agreed to be relevant.12 Moreover, though
parties need not have equal expectations of victory, they
enter on level terms. That is, they all start from the same
starting line and race to the same finish line (or the scores start at 00, or
whatever). Irrelevant influences are, as far as possible, excluded so that it is only the relevant criterion of merit that matters.
Those that cannot be excluded (such as home advantage or who serves first) may be settled either randomly (employing a lottery;

This
gives all parties, in some sense, an equal opportunity to
display or acquire those criteria deemed meritorious. Obviously,
Broome 19901991, p. 90) or as the result of past performances (as in the case where competitors are seeded).

the notion of equality of opportunity is itself a complex and contested one (Williams 1973; Radcliffe Richards 1997). Nonetheless, it
should be clear that a competition differs from a lottery because it is supposed to test some attribute deemed relevant to success,
rather than making victory depend on chance alone.

This means that fairness is important because without it, debate is

unable to achieve its ultimate objective.
Look towards theory first because it sets rules for the game. In order
to play a game, one must know the rules to abide by. Theory also
checks for abuse in arguments; we can't argue against each other's
cases until we know that they're fair.