Severance(Perms)

A severence perm is a permutation which fails to include 100% of the mandates of plan. For example, if the affirmative plan is "Congress shall mandate that all states institute school vouchers for poor students, to be usable at any school of their choice", and the counterplan is "All states and the District of Columbia will institute voucher programs for poor students. The vouchers will be usable only at non-sectarian schools.", and the perm is "Congress shall mandate that all states and the District of Columbia shall institute voucher programs for poor students. The vouchers will be usable only at non-sectarian schools.", the permutation is severance because it fails to defend vouchers to sectarian schools (which are affected by the initial plan text).

Severence perms are widely considered to be illegitimate. Following are several reasons which can be used efficiently in a debate round to explain why severence perms are illegitimate


 * Severence perms do not test the desireability of the counterplan -- they test the desireability of the severed planks of plan, which is non-responsive to the claim that the counterplan is superior to plan (and, to the extent that it is responsive, tends to confirm rather than refute it).
 * Severence perms are an advocacy shift, and advocacy shifts should be rejected because a stable advocacy is the very first argumentative burden affirmative teams have.
 * Severence perms moot the LOC by allowing the affirmative to shift out of any links to disadvantages or repair flaws exposed in the case debate.
 * Severence perms are abusive because they devastate the ability of the negative to plan strategically by allowing the affirmative to pick and choose which negative arguments will actually have weight in the round, after seeing those arguments.