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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