Monday, August 15, 2016

In which we go nuclear

I have to admit that I don’t give LD topics much thought these days, if for no other reason than I’m pretty sure that no one ever really argues them anymore, at least in the places where I tend to hang out. And no one in their right mind is going to drag me in to judge a round no matter what the emergency, or more to the point, no emergency is so grave as to warrant my presence in the back of the room. On the other hand, I’m happy to judge the odd PF round, if there is such an emergency. Needless to say, the emergency has to be, at the minimum, a severed limb, but things like that have been known to happen, at least at $ircuit tournaments. At regional tournaments, the worst seems to be mostly heavy bruising and battered egos. Then again, I was just another rubber duckie in the PF pool at NDCA, and judged my fair share with great enthusiasm and enjoyment. I mean, I did get into this in the first place because I enjoyed it. And I can still enjoy a good round, but my personal definition of rounds probably excludes anything LDish beyond the odd novice bout as actually being a round, much less enjoyable.

Anyhow, countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power. When this first hit the shelves, it said states instead of countries, which was obviously enough of a non-starter that they changed it in the womb. My initial comment on it, back when I was making such comments, was that the word states rendered it impossible, and I thought it through no further. But as countries, it got the votes for September-October. Which makes you wonder. I read some commentary from Stefan B over the weekend that drove home the obvious: Go negative, young padowan.

Let’s see. Are we talking about nuclear weapons? Nuclear-powered submarines? Nuclear power? Fusion? Fission? All countries?

Wow. When it’s time to vote, there ought to be a rule that you actually have to think through the ramifications of the topic before you’re allowed to vote on it. Granted, this is more than we expect of people voting in, say, presidential primaries, but it might make a more balanced couple of months for the poor debaters out there in DebateLand. Then again, since they won’t be debating the resolution anyhow, it probably doesn’t matter.


It makes me happy to stay in the tab room. Unless, of course, there’s the odd surprise severed limb. I’ll be bringing Band-Aids, just in case.

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