If this is Wednesday it must be insane debate resolutions, or, Nostrum was never quite this bizarre

Wait a minute. What?

I have to admit that there are times when I am really happy not to be coaching anymore, as compared to those times when I might even miss it a little bit. As often as not, those really happy times are when new topics are released. This December 1 ranked highly among those times.

First of all, in LD, we have a topic that is, for most people, an article of faith, one way or the other. You either believe people should have handguns or you don’t, and more to the point, you believe it at a core level. You believe that the founders of this country absolutely wanted you to be armed, or you believe that they wanted no such thing. An article of faith. I am probably not going to change your mind in a debate round, so arguing the resolution here, unless you know your various judges’ position on gun control, is a mug’s game. The good news, of course, is that no one around here ever argues the resolutions anymore, but starting off with a question of potential violence will mean that, for the next four months, judges will be listening to radical arguments marginally related to gun violence that will make their heads spin. I honestly can’t understand why people voted in great numbers for this topic as the TOC resolution, except that it does provide such a perfect launching pad for arguing about whatever you damn well please.

On the other hand, the PF topic totally baffles me. We are asked to evaluate a dubious double hypothesis as fact, that sanctions against Russia (quick: name three) are having an effect, and that the effect is good/bad on unspecified Russian threats to unspecified “Western” “interests.” Talk about judges’ heads spinning. I would not begin to know where to coach on this topic, beyond looking for historical precedents and, maybe, calling up Putin and asking him if he’s feeling more or less aggressively threatening to Western interests these days. Maybe he can tell us exactly which Western interests those might be. I can see our young researchers never getting past the NATO website. Into the Valley of Death ride the bazillion PFers…

At least the PF topic has the dubious distinction of edging in on only 51% of the votes. I’m curious who voted for the LD topic, especially for this month, and why. Am I missing something? Then again, maybe I’m just being hyper cynical. As I said, thanks to topics like these, I’m really happy not to be coaching anymore. Enjoy your January (or, in LD, your January, February, March and April).