Arnav Mahendra is a Public Forum debater in his sophomore year at Mira Loma High School in Sacramento, CA. He recently reached semifinals of the University of Kentucky Season Opener, gaining a Gold Bid there. He and his partner are currently ranked as the 11th best team in the nation.

2022 Septober Public Forum: An Introduction to the world of High Speed Rail

Every year, 6 topics are chosen for debate in the regular season of Public Forum debate by the National Speech and Debate Association’s Topic Wording Committee. The current topic is September/October, and is as follows:

Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its investment in high-speed rail.

Before we get into analyzing the specific wording, let’s talk about the topic as a whole, and some things that will influence your debates on this topic heavily.

What is High Speed Rail and where is it?

First, let’s dive into what the topic is actually about. This topic is about high speed rail, defined as any train that goes more than 125 mph . Some prominent examples around the world are the Japanese Shinkansen, Shanghai Maglev, Italian Freccarossa, and the Moroccan Al Boraq . These examples range from Africa to Europe, but none are in the United States. This provides the most important basis of the topic: if all of these countries have done it, why can’t we? The negation’s job in this topic is to argue reasons that investing into High Speed Rail would be unfeasible and that parallels cannot be drawn to other countries, while the affirmation’s job is to argue that based on the results from all of these countries, high speed rail should be implemented. In other words, empirics are going to be one of the most important parts of this topic. High speed rail is very prominent in countries all around the world, which means that its effects in other countries can be debated and utilized by both sides to prove their points.

The Empiric Debate

Speaking of empirics, teams will try to combat them by taking into account the uniqueness of the United States in terms of urban planning. The United States is an outlier from most countries with high speed rail in its strong car culture. Compared to residents of other countries, people in the United States love their cars, with around three-quarters of Americans claiming to love their car a lot . This love is very evident: anywhere you go, you will most likely see a road and plenty of cars. This is because America’s transportation system has been built around the automobile, with all other forms of transportation being forced onto the back burner. Things like biking, public transit, and intercity rail range from inconvenient to dangerous as a result . The reason is oil company lobbying dating back to the 1940’s: Car and oil companies banded together to create a vision for America in which no one had a choice in whether to drive or not. As a result, rail and other forms of transportation severely declined . This manifests itself in terms of the topic because we aren’t at the same starting point as other countries were when they underwent their high speed transformation, casting some doubt on our country’s ability to catch up to the likes of Japan and China.

Another differentiating factor in America is population density: America is much less dense than any country with successful HSR . This essentially means that the people living in America aren’t close enough together for High Speed Rail to sufficiently work.

Along with providing their own counter-empirics, teams debating the negation position will try to use both of these facts to combat empirics from countries where high speed rail has been successful. All in all, the empiric debate on this topic is set to be very key to the debates as a whole.

With that, we can go onto analyzing the specific words utilized in this topic and their implications for how the topic should be debated.

Key Definitions

The United States Federal Government: These words are referring to the person that will be carrying out the key action that is given in the topic. The United States Federal Government will be the actor in this topic, which means that the topic should be viewed through the lens of their actions. This manifests itself in some key negation arguments, which we will talk about later.

Substantially increase: These two words mean that a large increase will be seen, rather than an incremental or minor change. It also implies that there is already some high speed rail funding by the federal government, and the topic relies on exponentially increasing it, not creating it.

High Speed Rail: As defined above, this is any train running at 125 mph or higher.

Overall, this topic provides multiple potential points of clash on multiple different layers of the debate. The breadth and depth of argumentation and literature on this topic is large, allowing the freedom for debaters to run almost any argument they can think of. However, there are some arguments that are universally preferable to others. Let’s dive into what those are on either side of the topic.

The Affirmation: Everything From Housing to Healthcare

The affirmative in this topic is arguing for high speed rail, which would be a near total overhaul of the United States transportation system, bringing with it a lot of consequences. As a result, there are a lot of different arguments that can be made for the affirmative side of this debate.

1. High Speed Rail Improves the Economy

This is one of the most common arguments on the topic. There is a very high chance that you will compete against this argument multiple times per tournament that you attend on this topic. The essence of the argument is as follows:

• Uniqueness: The economy is bad right now because of COVID/Inflation/other macroeconomic headwind

• Link 1: Because HSR connects regions and allows for better flow of the workforce, it creates x number of jobs.

• Link 2: HSR being built means that manufacturing companies will be paid with the government funds, which overall revitalizes the American economy.

• Internal Link: Good job creation leads to a good economy

• Internal Link: Good manufacturing leads to good recession recovery

• Impact: No recession, so x number of people don’t go into poverty

This argument is very good on any type of judge, since it is intuitive and linked together very well. There is a reason this argument is common. Teams running this well on affirmative are hard to beat, but there are a lot of responses to every part of the contention that the negation can bring up. Overall, the economy contention is something both sides need to be aware of, and sets up the debate for a good amount of clash.

2. High Speed Rail Improves Access to Healthcare for People Living in Rural Areas

This is a less common argument. While it is less common, it is by no means rare on this topic.

• Uniqueness: The gap between rural residents and urban residents in healthcare is large.

• Link: High Speed Rail would increase connectivity between rural and urban areas, and thus allow people in rural areas who need care to get it.

• Internal Link: People in rural areas get access to the life-saving healthcare that they need.

• Impact: Preventing X number of people die in rural areas every year because of y disease/condition.

This argument is a good argument regardless of the judge that you read it on. Similar to the economy argument it is a very clear argument that can be understood by anyone. However, the impacts are not too large in terms of quantitative numbers compared to some other contentions. This argument can be refuted quite easily by the negation team by saying things along the lines of “high speed rail won’t connect rural areas”, which pretty cleanly takes out the argument. Affirmative teams running this need to be able to adequately frontline such a response.

3. High Speed Rail helps the Environment

This contention and the economy make up the most “stock”, or common, affirmative arguments on this topic. This argument, similar to the economy, is something you are guaranteed to hit.

• Uniqueness: The environment is in a terrible condition right now, and we are almost to the point of no return.

• Link: High Speed Rail takes cars off of the roads, and thus massively decreases the amount of emissions in the United States.

• Link: High speed rail removes reliance on fossil fuels, and thus decreases emissions.

• Internal Link: A decreased use in emissions brings us off the brink of the climate crisis

• Impact: x number of people die from air pollution/year.

• Impact: The human race gets saved from extinction from climate change.

This is another great argument to run on any type of judge. Winning this argument basically guarantees winning the round because of the impact of extinction. However, this is an argument that most negation teams will have prepared responses to. Since it is the main argument on the affirmative, teams running this will have to be prepared to defend it strongly, as the negation teams will make convincing arguments why this argument is not true. If you defeat these arguments, the round is yours. This is an argument that I recommend running, as most judges will lean towards you in a muddled round because of the uniqueness that the environment is almost to a point of no return.

4. High Speed Rail would be built in Africa

This is less of a common argument on the topic, but is still something that affirmative teams may run.

• Uniqueness: Right now, China is taking control of Africa through investments such as High Speed Rail

• Link: The United States would build High Speed Rail in Africa and thus provide a counterbalance to China

• Internal Link: China’s hegemony would decrease while that of the US increased.

• Impact: US hegemony prevents authoritarianism which kills x people per year.

This argument is not something I recommend anyone run, but if they do, they should run it on a flow judge. Since the resolution notably does not clarify the location in which the rail lines would be built, the affirmation team carries the burden of proving that High Speed Rail be built in Africa rather than anywhere else. Even assuming that this enormous hoop is jumped through, the link is not incredibly strong between a high speed rail line and US hegemony. However, running the argument does provide access to weighing of the developing world vs the developed world, which can be good on a tech judge.

5. High Speed Rail would create Megaregions

This is a pretty common argument on the topic, and is about the creation of huge clusters of people and cities.

• Uniqueness: US infrastructure is preventing the economy from growing.

• Link: By building high speed rail and linking up cities, we can create megaregions of cities and population hubs.

• Internal Link: Megaregions are good for economic development, and thus stop recessions

• Impact: Stopping Recessions stops x number of people from going into poverty

This argument should mostly be run on flow judges, as it can become hard for lay judges to comprehend. That being said, on the tech, this is a great argument. The links are very strong and the impact is a general econ impact which can give you access to some neat weighing. The responses to this argument can be strong, but mostly will not be. I recommend reading this argument whenever you get a flow judge.

6. High Speed Rail Helps The Housing Crisis

This is not too common as an argument, but is not bad to run.

• Uniqueness: Because of inflation and other factors, the cost of housing is very high

• Link: High Speed Rail would help people live further out, thus decreasing the cost that they have to pay for housing

• Internal Link: People don’t get evicted from their houses

• Impact: x people are saved from poverty and homelessness

This argument is a good argument, but the responses are equally good. A side effect of people moving further out from urban hubs is gentrification, which is one of the arguments on the negation that clashes directly with this argument. The clash of housing vs gentrification can muddle up the debate for a lay judge, but if you win it on the tech, the tech judge will most likely vote for you. If you can respond to gentrification well, this argument is a good fit for you. However, running this without frontlines to gentrification can create round-ending issues. More on gentrification on the negation part of the analysis.

That concludes the most common arguments on the affirmative. Overall, the affirmative has a lot of ground and can brainstorm different arguments. These are by no means all of the arguments that the affirmative can run, but I believe this is a comprehensive list of the most common.

The Negation: From Car Culture to Cost

The negation in this topic is arguing for keeping the status quo, which means that by definition they cannot have as much, or as high quality, ground for argumentation. The affirmative, changing everything, fundamentally will have access to a higher breadth of argumentation. This does not mean that the negation is fundamentally disadvantaged on the topic; rather, it means that the strategies for the negation on the topic should be shifted.

Here, the utilization of the overview becomes a great tool in the negation debater’s arsenal. The best function of the overview in this topic is to argue that high speed rail would be ineffective, and would thus be cancelled/heavily mitigated. There are many different reasons that can be given for this:

• Car Culture: Remember the information given in the Empiric Debate section about Americans’ opinion of cars. Given this information, it is clear that Americans would not take too kindly to HSR if it was made available.

• Ridership: Following up on the previous point, because of car dependency, bad opinions of public transit, government mismanagement, and a host of other warrants, Americans are not likely to ride HSR, which makes investing such a huge amount of money for a small subset of the population unfeasible.

• The Rise of Telework: Most workers are working from home because of the COVID pandemic, and there are indications that this is a long term shift in the workplace. This decreases the demand for HSR because of commuters, further shrinking the potential rider pool of this expensive experiment.

These reasons(and many more), all culminate in the argument that HSR service would be canceled very shortly after completion, or would not create enough of a change to manifest substantial economic, environmental, or other impacts from the affirmative contentions listed above. This overview is a great tool for the negation debater, as nearly every affirmative argument relies on people wanting to ride HSR. Winning this overview in a round guarantees you the round in most scenarios. On the contrary, affirmative teams must know how to frontline this effectively in order to consistently win.

With that, we can continue on to the actual case argumentation that is present on this side of the topic.

1. High Speed Rail Would Cost too Much

This is the most common argument on the negation side of the topic, and for good reason.

• Link: High Speed Rail would cost a lot of money, forcing the government to fund it through debt

• Link: This debt would be funded through treasury bonds, whose rates would be made higher to make them more attractive to investors, thus allowing the government to raise capital.

• Link: The government making the treasury bonds more attractive makes investors pull out of bonds in developing countries, which has empirically occurred.

• Internal Link: Since developing countries entire social safety net is funded through investor bonds, all of them pulling out at once would cause this net to crash.

• Impact: A recession would be caused in the dev world, putting x number of people into poverty.

The first comment to make on this argument is that it directly clashes with the affirmative economy argument. In a round where both teams collapse on economic impacts, the negation should go for weighing that a recession in the developing world is fundamentally worse than a recession in the US, especially when the social safety net that protects people from poverty or death in times of recession is disintegrated. The second comment is that this is a great argument. The links are true and confirmed by empirics. The only problem with this argument is the fact that President Biden has passed a lot of big spending bills in the trillions, like the American Rescue Plan and the 2021 Infrastructure Bill. These big spending initiatives are similar in size to HSR, so teams running this on the negation will need warrants for why HSR specifically is different compared to these other trillion dollar bills. Without such defense, affirmative teams will easily be able to wipe this argument.

2. High Speed Rail Destroys Agriculture

This is another fairly common argument the negation can make against the implementation of High Speed Rail.

• Uniqueness: Farms in America are doing great.

• Link 1: The construction of HSR would plow through farmland and decrease the amount of farmland, both plunging farmers into poverty and decreasing America’s food production capacity.

• Link 2: Building High Speed Rail in rural areas will entice farmers to leave their jobs for the better paying jobs available in the city, decreasing the food supply.

• Internal Link: The food supply is decreased, and food scarcity becomes an issue.

• Impact: Food scarcity causes wars, which can kill x amount of people.

• Impact: Food scarcity causes famines, which can kill x amount of people.

This argument is a good argument on the topic, because of the impacts, which are phenomenal. The access to wars and famines gives you access to good weighing to potential affirmative cases. I would recommend that most people run this argument on flow judges, and potentially on lay judges as well. The argument is fairly easy to comprehend and does fit in quite well into a lay neg case.

3. High Speed Rail causes gentrification of low-income communities

This argument is probably not the first thing debaters thought of when they saw the resolution, but can be a promising argument regardless.

• Uniqueness: The housing market is doing good right now, and the prices have dropped.

• Link: High speed rail is accompanied by the development of things like housing and apartments specifically targeted towards higher income individuals.

• Link: These developments increase costs to an extent that the people living there cannot afford it anymore.

• Internal Link: The people living there become homeless/enter poverty.

• Impact: classic poverty impact

Similar to the cost argument, this argument goes head to head with an argument that the affirmative is running. That argument is the housing argument. With gentrification, you can fundamentally turn the argument that the affirmative is making and claim that rather than solving the housing crisis, the affirmative worsens it terribly. This debate can get muddled, so gentrification is something that should be run mainly on techs, as mentioned in the section on the housing argument above. That concludes the most important arguments on the negation. It is important to note that there are only three highlighted in the negation, while six are highlighted in the affirmation. This is because the negation does not need to rely on the usage of case argumentation as much as they need to rely on the premise that high speed rail does not work or gets canceled. If they can win that high speed rail gets canceled, the round is over. I would urge negation teams to run overviews whenever possible.

Conclusion

The high speed rail topic presents a great opportunity for debaters to learn and debate the ins and outs of transport infrastructure in the United States. The topic has a huge amount of literature, potential arguments, and impacts, making for an interesting topic cycle. While the arguments highlighted are the most common, they are by no means the only good arguments on the topic. As the topic progresses, more and more arguments will come to light. I wholly encourage all debaters to continue to look into the topic and continue to prepare for tournaments. I hope that you found this topic analysis helpful, and please follow my Medium for more from me.

References

High Speed Rail Alliance(June 9, 2017), "What Is High-Speed Rail?", High Speed Rail Alliance, https://hsrail.org/what-high-speed-rail. Accessed on June 21, 2022. 1 2022 Septober Public Forum: An Introduction to the world of High Speed Rail 12

Drescher, Cynthia (May 18, 2016), "The 10 Fastest Trains In The World", Condé Nast Traveler, Condé Nast, https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-05-18/the-10-fastest-trains-in-the-world. Accessed on September 17, 2022.

Release, Press (August 30, 2019), "Americans Put Their Cars First: Two-Thirds Service Their Vehicle More Often Than They Go To The Dentist, Cars.", Cars, https://www.cars.com/articles/americans-put-their-cars-first-two-thirds-service-theirvehicle-more-often-than-they-go-to-the-dentist-cars-com-survey-reveals-408709/. Accessed on September 18, 2022.

Horrox, James (April 16, 2021), "The Problems Of America’s Car Dependency Are Staring Us In The Face. So Are The Solutions. - Frontier Group", Frontier Group, https://frontiergroup.org/articles/problems-americas-car-dependency-are-staring-usface-so-are-solutions/. Accessed on September 18, 2022.

Carlson, Eric (June 16, 2020), "How The United States Ended Up With No High-Speed Rail", The Urbanist, , https://medium.com/modern-city/how-the-united-states-ended-up-with-no-high-speedrail-476c6209ce16. Accessed on July 19, 2022.

Millsap, Adam A. (April 15, 2021), "Biden’s High-Speed Rail To Nowhere", Forbes, Forbes Media, https://www.forbes.com/sites/gradsoflife/2021/12/03/4-effective-dei-strategies-businessleaders-should-measure/?sh=15853ba4578b. Accessed on June 23, 2022.

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