There Is No Debate

For eleven years I coached high school debate. I took the job to get my position in the history department. I knew nothing about it. It was a long slow learning process, but I feel I reached some small level of mastery before I passed the “torch” to a colleague who was also desperate for a job. Oration and Value Debate, (called Lincoln Douglas) were my favorites. At first I was excited about Policy, (called CX debate); it seemed to be what “debate” should be. It wasn’t. I soon learned that skills in thinking, speaking, research, and reason, were completely superfluous to CX debate.

For those of you who are uninitiated let me explain. Policy debate teams are made up of two speakers, called first and second. Two teams meet to present and debate a policy. Each year the National Forensic League comes up with a topic to be debated in all high schools all year long. I read a lot of books about CX debate, attended seminars and State Training conferences; I talked to some excellent teachers, Kim Birmingham, at Bountiful High, Dave Smith from Hill Crest, and Dennis Hadley from Weber High were among many who were helpful and supportive. I learned that the basic format required each team to prepare a Plan or policy to solve the problem presented in the “resolution” (known as the Affirmative Case), and then Negative briefs and arguments to counter all possible plans that other schools or teams might present, (know as the Negative Case). The Affirmative case was to revolve around such things as Needs and Harms, Workability and Solvency, and such mundane items as funding, and implementation. The Negative case was to attack the above positions and present disadvantages that might outweigh the advantages, there were also legitimate challenges of topicality to prevent the Affirmative from creating far-out plans that had nothing really to do with the resolution and therefore would not be legitimate. In spite of all the possibilities for teaching learning skills, research mastery, and reasoning and speaking skills, I soon found that CX debate was a fraudulent game that revolved around tricks and a bizarre speaking style called spew that had nothing to do with speech or debate. Here is how a typical “round” would go.

The first Affirmative speaker delivers the plan. He drops all the proper words and established topicality; but the truth is it mattered little what he says, neither his opponents, his partner, nor the judges are at all interested in the plan. Once the 8 minute “Plan” speech was presented one of the Negative team stands to ask questions. Most are pointless and redundant, but there was always one killer question, which no matter what answer the unfortunate Affirmative Speaker gives sets off an avalanche of events that become the entire performance. The question is so crafted that it would elicit a yes or no answer, and which ever answer the hapless One Aff. Speaker spoke the entire plan would be forgotten and the rest of the round would be totally devoted to that question and its answer. Let me give an example:

Let’s say the topic is on Global Warming (It doesn’t really matter, the arguments against the Plan has been crafted years ago, most likely at Baylor University, and are generic to be affective in all cases)

Neg. CX question: Will your Plan improve the U. S. economy?

Aff answer: Yes or No – it doesn’t matter, but the second he says it the First Negative Speaker begins frantically digging through his brief boxes pulling pre-written arguments, and piling up an avalanche of attacks, goal – to put out so many that the Second Aff speaker can not possibly answer all of them in his eight minutes.

If the Aff. Speaker says yes, the Neg. response is to read a card by some professor or erstwhile expert to say that an improved U. S, economy will lead to trade war. A shouted tag line is then followed by a “card” claiming that trade war leads to real war then a final card which has an expert claiming that all war’s eventually lead to nuclear war. Then, with a straight face the impassioned negative speaker explains to the judge that such a disadvantage (world destroying atomic war) will outweigh any advantage the Affirmative can present.

If the Aff. Speaker says no, the negative response is to read an “expert” card that “proves” that without substantial improvement the U. S. economy is headed for a recession. Card 2 – recession leads to depression. Card 3 – depression leads to war. Card 4 – all war leads to nuclear war = mutual mass destruction.

I have judged this debate hundreds of times, even after the end of the Cold War unplugged the “nuclear clock”. I always dropped (gave a losing ballot) this ridiculous DA, unless the Aff accepted it and spent the rest of the debate arguing nuclear war. Sometimes I was a member of a three judge panel, in which case I often squired. That means the silly war D.A. actually picked up the two other ballots. I found that college debaters acting as judges always picked up this case. I have come to understand that it was the only one they understood.

President Bush is dealing with a generation of such “debate” trained opponents. They could care less what “plan” the President puts forth, what actions steps he takes, or on what issue he acts. They always have two briefs prepared. Examples:

Let’s say the president takes a stand against terror and brings U. S. military might to bear against terrorists and all who support, shelter, or sucker them. Then the Democrats read the card that has some “expert” claim that America is a bully, invading “innocent” countries, and terrorizing women and children in their homes. Had the president failed to invade Afghanistan the Democrats had their briefs ready. They would have accused him of inaction and cowardice while blaming every Taliban-directed murder, every woman buried alive for wearing fingernail polish, on the President.

Let’s say the President takes the route of diplomacy and international cooperation to stem the development of WMD in Iraq. Then the democrats pull the brief that calls Bush a coward and points to the ever rising threat of developing nuclear weapons. (By the way, they are using this brief right now concerning Iran.) And they blame the rape rooms and the mass murders of the tyrant on Presidential inaction. Let’s say that instead of waiting for Saddam to develop an a-bomb and hand it over to al-Qaeda, Bush sends in an army and frees Iraq from Saddam and puts the mass murdering monster in prison. Then the cards used, read – unjust war without a purpose, lies and miss-calculations, not enough troops. (They have already used the card that he was sending too many.)

Let’s say that the President authorizes NSA wiretapping of known al-Qaeda operatives to prevent a repeat of 9/11, then the card reads – the President is spying on innocent Americans, on his way to becoming a dictator with monarchical power to assassinate any American at will. Let’s say that the President decides not to listen in on known al-Qaeda operatives so he can protect the “civil rights” of American’s who might be plotting with them. Instead he relegates the surveillance to time consuming judicial review process. Then the Democrats read the “just like 9/11” card.

It doesn’t even matter if the cards that are spewed by the Democrat politicos are true or that they are understood by the spectators. It is only the shouted taglines noted by the nightly news shows that matter. Nothing of any value can ever be generated by this “debate game”, but it does weaken the ability of any who try to truly act against the real harms that face the world. The Democrats are not interested in finding solutions to the problems that face the world or our nation. They are not even interested in what is best for America. All they want is a win at the game they mastered in high school, desperate for a ballot from the biased and misguided judges who have been trained in gamesmanship but can’t be expected to put forth the effort necessary to reason or to recognize the truth.