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Resolved: "When they conflict, respect for cultural sensitivity ought to be valued above commercial use of free speech."
Topic Analysis -- The Second Time Around
Okay...so it's actually the first time I've looked at this topic, but let's get right to business. I find that at this time of the year, most people--except for those few lucky (?) districts that get to debate in September--are preparing for some national tournament like Yale's Invitational, Wake Forest's Early Bird, or UPenn's Liberty Bell Classic. With that in mind, just remember: there's a heck of a lot of competition at those places. Your cases better be really good. Other than that, don't worry too much!
Affirmative
At least in my entire career, I've never seen an affirmative burden so daunting. Not only must you successfully and fairly define all those phrases (what is cultural sensitivity, anyway?), but you must also prove that to value respect over free speech doesn't kill a business by doing so. But always remember, you're looking at the good of the society, and by doing so, there's an automatic priority for this good over the economical success of a business. Therefore, a good value would be something that contains the word "society" in it; i.e. "societal good." After all, if a business is so dumb as to blatantly insult a culture, then the business most likely doesn't have the good sense to survive--you don't make friends by consciously insulting them.
The best way to hit this affirmative side is to find the little things, the specific situations that can work as a foundation for your arguments. For example: let's say that your opponent is going to say "We can't restrict a businesses right to make money, and by forcing them to consider cultural sensitivity first, they worry less about making money, and that is bad." If you can turn this around, you have a reasonably solid contention; that's what I'm here for. Let's consider the converse of what your opponent said: is isn't it worse if a business designs ads with the idea of making money above that of respecting other cultures? That would mean that a business would advertise anything if it could make a profit, even if it insults a culture. And if that culture protests, who cares--the business would value commercial use of free speech. Doesn't that make the negative sound, well, relatively evil? I think so.
Negative
The negative has it really easy due to a slew of major arguments: what would warrant a change? Who's doing the complaining? What is insulting? How many people have to be insulted? My gut feeling is that you will be hearing this often on the affirmative, and you'd be reasonably wise to try it out on the negative. In the most basic sense, where is the line drawn? If your opponent can't etch this proverbial line in the sand, you can write a win down on the ballot for the negative--though the judge might not like that.
You may want to go in even deeper to really rub it in against the affirmative. Look at, once again, specific situations that might catch your opponent off guard. Does it have to be a national ad campaign that is racist? Or can it be one simple word, said in the middle of a fundraiser, that demands the affirmative's attention. This is not simply a case of where is the line drawn, but also how far does the affirmative have to go to present his point. If you can present a specific situation that illustrates your point on the negative that the affirmative hasn't discussed, you're home free. This idea can be used on all resolutions as the concept of topicality, or what should be discussed, but the resolution is so, so vague that you're more likely to do so on this one.
Finally, you can discuss the idea of profit motive. If a business relies on its name so much that if it were to change it, it would lose money or go out of business, is valuing cultural sensitivity first justified? Should a business cease to exist for something that may or may not be racist, but is certainly controversial? A business' first motive is to survive, and it is guided by what the people want; simply put, the business profits first, but must consider cultural sensitivity as a part of that overall motive. Be forewarned, however: your opponent may try to turn it around and use it as their argument; only the best debaters should use this contention.
Conclusion
That's it for now. These were just a few thoughts to get you started if you're doing this topic. I wish you the best of luck, and if you have any questions, ideas, or responses, you can e-mail me.