Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 21:35:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: PadrinoMTM@aol.com
Subject: Re: FW: nationals
Shuja Khan Stuyvesant High School
From Guam to Detroit : A Journey to Remember
The following is a story meant to relate the very real exploits of
a swing debater at Catholic Nationals in Detroit. The topic was resolve:
That Individuals ought to sacrifice their ideals for the sake of
compromise.
It was about 11:00 on Friday night when the telephone rang in my hotel
room. My roommate, Ian, answered it and after listening briefly to the
voice on the other end, he turned and asked me if I wanted to debate at
nationals as the swing debater. Of course I wouldn't be allowed to break,
but, even so, I figured why not? Truthfully, the humorous possibilities
that this opened up hadn't even occurred to me.
The next morning we all arrived at the tournament site and my
coach informed me that since I would not be allowed to break I had carte
blanche to do as I wished in my rounds. At this point, the possibilities
began to sink in. Explaining the situation to my friends, we sat down and
came up with a list of insane things that I could do in my rounds. While
it was not possible for me to do all of them because I only had five
rounds to work with, the majority of them were done.
My first round: It was decided before this round that rather then
tell people that I was the swing debater, I would tell all my opponents
that I was representing the dioceses of Guam. Of course this would have
been funnier had people actually questioned me on it. In the round itself,
I began by quietly reading my case and waiting to be cross-examined. When
my opponent asked me his first question, I assumed a thick Indian accent
that I retained all throughout cross-x but lost in my speeches. As he was
asking his questions, I began to take notes on my pad on what he was
asking me. Then when I got up to ask him questions, I ran down the exact
same list of questions that he had asked me. At this point, my brilliant
adversary began to question the relevance of my query. When I pointed out
that this was the same list of questions that he had earlier obligated me
to answer, he turned bright red and the judges began to laugh at him. I
then went on to ask him if he was familiar with Lorenzo Stewart's Theory
of Justice (for those of you wondering, Lorenzo Stewart does not actually
exist). He responded with a firm yes and, when I asked him to explain this
theory he began to bullshit about the definition of justice. I cut him off
and asked about Lorenzo Stewart's specific Theory of Justice and when he
asked to be "refreshed" I yelled NO! and began to flail my arms like a
maniac. I then went on to ask him about the feminist movement. He asked if
I meant the organization NOW. I said no, it's a historical example so I
meant the organization before. He proceeded to get really frustrated and
began to lecture me on my stupidity for about thirty seconds. In response
to this, I got up for my 2AR, turned to face him and just ridiculed him
for another thirty seconds, calling him "retarded" and "possibly the worst
debater I have ever seen". The judges, of course, did not take too kindly
to any of this.
My second round: Being that the resolution dealt specifically with
compromising ideals, I asked my opponent if ideals were the same as
values. After a little prodding, he agreed. I then asked, "Didn't the
Nazis ask people to sacrifice their ideals?". He began to defend himself,
but after each one of his sentences I turned to the judges and asked
"Doesn't that sound like something Hitler would say?!?!?!". Further along
in cross-x, I asked that my opponent be sworn in on a stack of NCFL
by-laws. After this had been done, I began to pace up and down the front
of the room, taking notes on my legal pad and starting all my questions
with a booming "For the record". Every time my opponent refused to answer
a question, I asked that he be treated as a hostile witness and that we
take a recess into chambers until he had cooled down. Without even
waiting for a response, I sat down. At this point, I began to request prep
time at odd intervals in the round, citing NCFL by-laws which clearly
stated that I could take prep whenever I wanted. First, I took prep
before my opponent's speeches and told the judges to not allow my opponent
to write anything during MY prep time. I also took prep at the end of the
round, forcing my opponent and the judges to wait in the room an extra
minute while I sat there and scratched my armpits. Finally, during my
opponents cross-x, I asked that he stand two feet away from me, claiming
that the only way I could be allowed into this country is if I stood two
feet away from my opponents, thus creating a "human bubble" that would
prevent them from contracting any of my diseases.
My third round: In this round, I was unable to do anything funny.
After starting cross-x in a ridicules manner, the judges began to give me
looks of death and so I was frightened into debating the round for real.
My fourth round: Following my opponents speech, I got up for
cross-x and told my opponent that I had taken his case to heart and was
requesting that we both compromise and form a new resolution. I explained
that this resolution sucked and that we could have a much better round if
we debated something else. He bullshitted about the educational value of
debate, to which I responded "This resolution has no educational value
because it just SUCKS!!!". He said that he had prepped this resolution and
it was unfair to ask him to debate something else. I told him he could
pick an old resolution that we had already debated and debate that. He
said that would be repetitive. I said "Oh, like debate rounds are never
repetitive, right?". We ran out of time in cross-x before he would agree
to my plan. I then got up to give my NC. I started this speech with a
quote read in a demonic voice. " 'I AM THE LAW!!' It is because of this
quote from Judge Dredd that I am compelled to say that I have the power to
create my own resolution and that the forensic league can not stop me from
doing such!" I proceeded to present a very real case about why the
resolution sucked, claiming that, empirically, it led to bad rounds. For
the next forty minutes, my opponent and I debated the worth of the
resolution. One of the judges looked perfectly normal, another sat there
clutching her head, and a final judge had the biggest smile you'll ever
see in a debate round on his face!
Now comes the truly sad part. After I had done all this, I ended
up with a 4-1 record and 11 ballots, making me high enough to clear had I
actually been debating!
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