Tuesday, August 08, 2017

In which, at the end, we marvel

For the record, I’ve been swamped at the DJ, and it is summer and everything, so I have my excuses for not posting. So, we’ll catch up a bit.

I updated the Toolkit judge-conflict material, and also posted some commentary on the Toolkit FB page, if you’re interested. Conflicts went through a brief moment of controversy, but I think that’s been settled now.

I saw in one of my feeds that the Fall topics were released, so I sashayed over to the NSDA site. LD is arguing compulsory conscription, with vague enough wording that it’s not just about being cannon fodder (or IED fodder nowadays). As always, I have no idea how it will debate, but it’s certainly a valid subject area for LD. What personal responsibility does one have to society? Interesting question.

On the PF side, voters overwhelmingly approved the topic about South Korea deploying antimissile systems as being in their best interests. Okay. Who wants to go con on that one? An aggressive border state that questions its sovereignty is actively testing missiles against SK. Why would they want to protect themselves? Given the audience judging these rounds, what arguments against self-defense are going to work? Good luck Charlie. Bring your one-sided coin, is my advice. Still, overwhelming support in the voting, as I said. Was the alternative that bad?

Nevertheless, it’s the BBQ topic that makes you believe that some day even Donald Trump could be President: Resolved: Humans are fundamentally different from other animals. Could there possibly be a meaningful debate on this topic? In my experience, the only thing that separates humans from other animals is their ability to ask themselves stupid Big Questions. My big question: How much are people paying for this one?



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