Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 1 | Opponent: Meadows AT | Judge: Clay Spense
The affirmative’s discourse about law creates a reality in which law is supreme and unquestionable – by repeating that law is the source of solution and criminality and violations of law are bad, we submit ourselves to the oppression of the sovereign without hope for reform. The law itself is indeterminate and the rationalizing criteria the affirmative uses to make their legal argument is an excuse to freeze existing social relations and systems of oppression.  Gordon  explains,
Robert W. Gordon, Professor of Law at Stanford University, 1987 “Unfreezing Legal Reality: Critical Approaches To Law,” Florida State University Law Review (15 Fla. St. U.L. Rev. 195), Summer, http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2366andcontext=fss_papers
Now a central tenet of CLS ... traditions of the community.

And, judicial decisions only legitimize the existing legal order by reifying our alienated social roles. Schegel writes:
Henry Schegel, Professor of Law, State University of New York at Buffalo, 2001 (CARDOZO LAW REVIEW, March, pp. 1067-8)

From the judge's perspective ... as a part of political theory.

Part 2 is the Impact: 

The law and legal interpretation are unquestionably violent, ensuing the dominance of existing powerful interests and killing off alternative visions of justice.  Henderson writes:
Lynne Henderson, Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law at Bloomington, 1991 “Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law,” Indiana Law Journal (66 Ind. L.J. 379), Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Lexis-Nexis

The lack of scholarly acknowledgment ... common meaning and law.

And, dependence on the legal system kills any possibility of change. Boyle continues:
James Boyle, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, April, 1985, THE POLITICS OF REASON: CRITICAL LEGAL THEORY AND LOCAL SOCIAL THOUGHT SP

The best way to get a sense ... it contains a dormitive principle.(20)

Part 3 is the Alternative and the Role of the Ballot:

The alternative is to disengage ourselves from the legal system. The aff’s desire to seek truth through the criminal justice system causes the state to perpetuate a legal system dominated by the elite, entrenching biased interpretations of justice.  

And, freeing us from the shackles of legal tradition is the only way for each of us to assume individual responsibility for the way we live our lives. Singer  writes,
“The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory,” Yale Law Journal (94 Yale L.J. 1), November, http://www.jstor.org/stable/796315
What shall we do then ... to answer that question ourselves.

The judge should assume the position of a critical intellectual, interrogating the discourses and unnoticed assumptions behind arguments. The signal sent intellectually outweighs any specific policy proposal. Change occurs at molecular levels and intellectuals have the obligation of injecting that into whatever intellectual and political sphere they occupy. The only way to create change in the real world is to interrogate those unquestioned assumptions and reject them. Jones  continues,
Richard Wyn Jones, 1999, Professor International Politics at Aberystwyth University, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory, p. 155-163

The central political task ...  is necessarily a pedagogic relationship”

And, debate should be a process through which young people learn the value of social criticism, not a game where our assumptions go unquestioned.  Giroux writes:
Giroux, Henry – 2011. “Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for Democracy.” Truthout http://www.truth-out.org/left-behind-american-youth-and-global-fight-democracy68042#2

At the heart of such public ... corporate dominated and authoritarian regimes.

Finally, discourse comes first since it precedes normative or political discussion. Bleiker writes:
Bleiker, Roland. professor of IR @ U of Queensland “Discourse and Human Agency.” Contemporary Political Theory, 2003

‘It is within discourse,’ ... of unreason thereby becomes improbable.’