
My four years on a high school debate team in Broward County, Florida, taught me to challenge ideas, question assumptions, and think outside the box. It also helped me overcome a terrible childhood stutter. And I wasn't half-bad: I placed ninth my first time at the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) nationals, sixth at the Harvard national, and was runner-up at the Emory national.
After college, between 2017 and 2019, I coached a debate team at an underprivileged high school in Miami. There, I witnessed the pillars of high school debate start to crumble. Since then, the decline has continued, from a competition that rewards evidence and reasoning to one that punishes students for what they say and how they say it.
First, some background. Imagine a high school sophomore on the debate team. She's been given her topic about a month in advance, but she won't know who her judge is until hours before her debate round. During that time squeeze — perhaps she'll pace the halls as I did at the 2012 national tournament in Indianapolis — she'll scroll on her phone to look up her judge's name on Tabroom, a public database maintained by the NSDA. That's where judges post "paradigms," which explain what they look for during a debate. If a judge prefers competitors not "spread" — speak a mile a minute — debaters will moderate their pace. If a judge emphasizes "impacts" — the reasons why an argument matters — debaters adjust accordingly.
But let's say when the high school sophomore clicks Tabroom she sees that her judge is Lila Lavender, the 2019 national debate champion, whose paradigm reads:
"Before anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. . . . I cannot check the revolutionary proletarian science at the door when I'm judging. . . . I will no longer evaluate and thus never vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions/arguments. . . . Examples of arguments of this nature are as follows: fascism good, capitalism good, imperialist war good, neoliberalism good, defenses of US or otherwise bourgeois nationalism, Zionism or normalizing Israel, colonialism good, US white fascist policing good, etc."How does that sophomore feel as she walks into her debate round? How will knowing that information about the judge change the way she makes her case?
Traditionally, high school students would have encountered a judge like former West Point debater Henry Smith, whose paradigm asks students to "focus on clarity over speed" and reminds them that "every argument should explain exactly how [they] win the debate."
In the past few years, however, judges with paradigms tainted by politics and ideology are becoming common. Debate judge Shubham Gupta's paradigm reads:
"If you are discussing immigrants in a round and describe the person as 'illegal,' I will immediately stop the round, give you the loss with low speaks" — low speaker points — "give you a stern lecture, and then talk to your coach. . . . I will not have you making the debate space unsafe."Debate Judge Kriti Sharma concurs: under her list of "Things That Will Cause You To Automatically Lose," number three is "Referring to immigrants as 'illegal.' "
Should a high school student automatically lose and be publicly humiliated for using a term that's not only ubiquitous in media and politics, but accurate?
Once students have been exposed to enough of these partisan paradigms, they internalize that point of view and adjust their arguments going forward. That's why you rarely see students present arguments in favor of capitalism, defending Israel, or challenging affirmative action. Most students choose not to fight this coercion. They see it as a necessary evil that's required to win debates and secure the accolades, scholarships, and college acceptance letters that can come with winning.
On paper, the NSDA rejects what Lavender, Gupta, and Sharma are doing. Its rules state, "Judges should decide the round as it is debated, not based on their personal beliefs." Founded in 1925, the NSDA chooses the debate topics and facilitates hundreds of tournaments, including the annual national tournament, starting June 11 in Arizona, where six thousand students from across the country will compete. (The NSDA did not respond to emails and phone calls asking for comment before this story went to press.)
A random scroll through Tabroom reveals there are still sane judges out there.
Amanda Marshall's paradigm reads:
"I have been a trial lawyer for 25 years. I like clash, quality evidence from qualified sources, comparative analysis, and crystallization in last rebuttals. Don't take anything for granted. You have to explain your arguments, why your evidence is compelling, and how the arguments weigh in the round. It's your job to persuade me and communicate your positions in a way that is effective — that is how you will win my ballot. I don't like whining, personal attacks, dominance, aggression, and disrespect. I do appreciate professionalism, kindness, and integrity."Or this paradigm, from debate judge Steven Macartney:
"My favorite debates are rigorous, but friendly. I actually appreciate when one debater accepts one of their opponent's arguments as valid, but still persuades me that they should win the round. I will make my decision based on who is the most persuasive, but persuading me will be done by showing with evidence that one side upholds their value and criterion better than the other side. In order to do this, a debater must speak slowly and clearly enough for me to hear and understand the arguments."Unfortunately for students and their parents, there are countless judges at tournaments across the country whose biased paradigms disqualify them from being impartial adjudicators of debate. From "I will drop America First framing in a heartbeat," to "I will listen to conservative-leaning arguments, but be careful," judges are making it clear they are not only tilting the debate in a left-wing direction, they will also penalize students who don't adhere to their ideology.
In the past year, Lindsey Shrodek has judged over 120 students at tournaments in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. The NSDA has certified her with its "Cultural Competency" badge, which indicates she has completed a brief online training module in evaluating students with consideration for their identity and cultural background. Until last month, Shrodek's paradigm told debaters:
"[I]f you are white, don't run arguments with impacts that primarily affect POC [people of color]. These arguments should belong to the communities they affect."Recently, her paradigm was updated to eliminate that quote. When I asked Shrodek why, she told me:
"I didn't eliminate the idea itself. I don't know if it's exactly my place to say what arguments will or won't make marginalized communities feel unsafe in the debate space."I disagree. In debate, "unsafe" conversations should be encouraged, even celebrated. How better for young people from all backgrounds to bridge the divides that tear us apart, and to discover what unites them? The debate I knew taught me to think and learn and care about issues that affected people different from me.
We've come a long way from the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when an obscure state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama said:
"If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. . . . If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without the benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family."Twenty years ago, the NSDA I knew encouraged me to think and speak about how policies and issues impacted different communities. Not anymore.
One judge gives people of color priority in her debates. In general, students voluntarily, and mutually, disclose their evidence to their opponents before the debate round, as both teams benefit from spending more time with the other team's evidence. But X Braithwaite, who's judged 169 debate rounds with 340 students, has her own disclosure policy in her paradigm, which uses a racial epithet: "1. N****s don't have to disclose to you. 2. Disclose to n****s."
This is racial discrimination, of course: If you're black, you get to keep your evidence to yourself and have a competitive advantage. If you're not black, you must disclose all of your evidence to your opponent and accept a competitive disadvantage. Students who win under this rubric may view their victory as flawed, as if their win isn't a reflection of their hard work. Those who lose may view this as the singular reason for their loss, even if it wasn't. Students suffer and so do the sportsmanship and camaraderie that high school debate was once known for.
It's not just that certain arguments are no longer welcome; it's also the students who make those arguments. At the 2018 NSDA National Tournament in Fort Lauderdale, a student was publicly ridiculed by peers for making conservative arguments. She later posted an "Open Letter From A Deplorable Shitbag" on Reddit, which read:
"To the judge(s) and student(s) wearing the "fuck trump" shirt(s), Tears stream down my face as I write this. I have never felt so hurt in my entire life. I really did not appreciate your words towards me after the round. I did not appreciate the spectators/competitors wearing shirts with matching sentiment with you following me to my next rounds. . . . I understand I speak fast sometimes, and that I often unknowingly use words that offend certain groups of people. . . . Also, I am sorry that my attire did not fit your standards. I know about the stain on my shirt, but it really is all I had."During my time as a coach, I saw many students lose interest and quit. They'd had enough of being told what they could and couldn't say. A black student I coached was told by the debate judge that he would have won his round if he hadn't condemned Black Lives Matter.
In 2019, I gave up on the NSDA and formed a new debate league, Incubate Debate. To judge debates, we recruit elected officials, members of the armed forces, business executives, faith-based leaders, and others. At the eighteen no-cost tournaments we've hosted this year, thousands of students have come together to debate, have fun, and learn from each other.
Think back to that high school sophomore who's nervously pacing before an NSDA debate. Before she enters her round, she reads her judge's paradigm and says to herself, "I'm going to lose." Her loss won't be because her argument lacked evidence or support. Her argument simply doesn't conform to her judge's ideology. Imagine her disappointment and hopelessness, imagine her weeks of research and rehearsal. She never had a shot.
EDITOR'S NOTE: One day after this story published, the NSDA released a statement on Twitter, stating in part:
"Our judge training materials in partnership with the National Federation of State High School Associations provide best practices for adjudicating speech and debate, such as 'Judges should decide the round as it is debated, not based on their personal beliefs.'...Tabroom.com is a project of the National Speech & Debate Association, and its purpose is to provide a tournament management system for debate and speech tournaments worldwide. The 47,000 judge paradigms housed therein represent the opinions and viewpoints of the individual paradigm authors. Schools or other organizations that use Tabroom.com to hire judges are free to evaluate those paradigms before engaging their services."
Reader Comments
Debate=Freedom of Speech
Please forgive me if the next sentence offends you, I assure you, it is not my intention.
May Allah/God/YHVH (whichever name you prefer for The Most High) bless you eternally, forgive all your sins, and grant you the highest level of paradise for your efforts.
Salaam/Peace/Shalom
SubhanAllahiwabihamdihi.
God has either no name or all of them.
"The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery."
Tao Te Ching
This is clearly an inaccurate statement. No matter how many thumbs up are given, anybody who is of sound mind and spirit, would never refer to God/Allah/YHVH as “satan”, “lucifer”, “lilith”, or “baphomet” (among many other “names”).
If the statement had been “we are all One or of One source, then I could definitely get behind that extrapolation.
Tao Te Ching (400 BC alleged publication) could have benefitted from the teachings of the prophets. Peace and blessings be upon them all. Reasoning like this is why we are stuck under spells today. Lack of faith, and application of faith.
Salaam/Peace/Shalom.
SubhanAllahiwabihamdihi.
At least you clarified your position. The Prophet = Good. All other views = not good. You started with trying to be nice, but really you are a proselytizer. That's fine. God goes on whether or you and I can agree or not.
Read something other than The Koran (which I have partially read, but found it extremely wanting in it's epistemology, which I can say the same for most of the Bible) with an open mind, then get back to us.
No need to re- iterate what I have or have not read. Truly a redundant exercise. God is God. SubhanAllahiwabihamdihi.
Again, my sincere apologies to you. Astaghfirullah. I can definitely see the potential for tone to be improperly interpreted and/or utilized. This is on me, and only me. Thank you for the moment of reflection. Alhamdulilah.
God goes on whether or you and I can agree or not.
Beautifully stated. Alhamdulilah. God bless you. Thanks again.
Salaam/Peace/Shalom
So, the act of naming something is sort of equivalent to the act of observing or measuring something - it changes the thing being observed or measured....who amongst us can change that which is eternal? If we could it would no longer be as such. So, not trying to speak in circles, but we are in the land of "absolute presupposition", and frankly I think it is time to stop arguing over such things (if argument is what it is) and rather follow the principles that I think most religions when true ascribe to that any women or man is capable of putting into practice in the real world.
Like - Do no harm seems so simple, and really it is simple. And nowadays, with all that has been learned, the sky is the limit if we want that to be the case. But it is going to take a quantum leap so to speak in awareness for that to manifest and I think the time is now or never.
With Respect,
BK
Happy Friday
In Middle Eastern (aka Islamic) mythology, when god created Adam, he expected all the angels to bow down before Adam. The angel, Iblis, refused to do so. Therefore, Iblis was cast out of paradise. He became the Devil, or Shaitan , who was determined to tempt humankind and make their life miserable on earth. His aim was to prove to god that his creation was faulty and that god’s anger on him was misplaced.Two other angels, known as Harut and Marut, saw the follies of man. They kept asking god how he could place a creature of clay over angels, who are creatures of light. God challenged them to go down upon earth and do better and not succumb to temptations. The two angels took up the challenge and descended upon earth. They roamed around and resisted all forms of temptations, whether it was alcohol or womanising, until they met a woman called Zohra, who they fell in love with. They wanted to be intimate with her, but she refused, unless they consumed alcohol. In a state of inebriation, they also revealed to her the sacred name of god, and she became intimate with them. Using the secret name of god, Zohra rose to the heavens and became the planet, Venus . When they came to their senses, Harut and Marut realized they were no better than humans and apologized to God for their mistake. God offered them a choice: eternal damnation or life on earth, suffering separation from God until the world ended. They chose the second punishment and they were hung upside down, in the city of Babylon. Since they had access to the occult arts, many people who travelled to Babylon , met these two angels and asked them to teach black magic. The angels would always warn of the knowledge of magic as a temptation, which should be rejected in favour of faith in God. If one persisted, they revealed to him the black magic.In other Middle Eastern mythology, the many angels who followed Iblis to tempt humankind were known as the shaitans. They would hear the whispers of angels in their own realm that gave them access to secret, unseen knowledge about the future, which they would share with humans. Finally, God gave Suleiman, the king of Israel, the power to control and enslave these shaitans, making use of their magic to build his temple. All their knowledge and prophecies, Suleiman wrote down in a book and hid under his throne.After Suleiman’s passing, the demons figured out where the book was hidden. They found it and spread its knowledge around the world. However, it was in a garbled language, tough to decipher.
In another story, a sorcerer disguised himself as Suleiman and managed to get access to Suleiman’s library. He took away the knowledge related to the mystical and occult arts and shared it with humans, but they could not understand it completely. Therefore, all their magic remains faulty and not as accurate as Suleiman’s.
Interesting, but I was just reading an article on psychopathy here:
Woke Social Status: Fake But Deadly
A month ago, Richard Hanania responded on his Substack to a tweet by Rob Henderson. Here's the tweet in question: Hanania's main point, expanded upon in his article: in practice, people don't...And particularly this (quite long but worth the whole read) hyper[Link] "pushed off the ice" within the article. In that 2008 article from New Yorker titled, "Suffering Souls: The Search for the Roots of Psychopathy," there is a discussion of how psychopaths process words like
love and hate . (bold text emphasis by me) So, in other words, psychopaths are name-stealers . Apparently, there's reports of a whole tribe of ponerized name-stealers out there somewhere, from Khazaria or some such fantastical place.
The angels would always warn of the knowledge of magic as a temptation(test), which should be rejected in favour of faith in God.
Thank you for posting, brother. I am attempting to implement kindness over correctness, as the prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) used to practice. Astaghfirullah, for always being a work in progress, and when I fail in this regard.
May Allah/God/YHVH (whichever name you prefer for The Most High), bless you eternally, forgive all your sins, and grant you the highest level of paradise for your efforts.
Salaam/Peace/Shalom
SubhanAllahiwabihamdihi.
The term, the name - "right" ought be directional in my mind and nothing more than that - that is why I prefer the term correct.
Do you have an opinion on this - if so, it is a debate, and I'm all ears.
Ken
Gnostics also hold this perspective of theology & belief’s.
A Gnostic is one who has gnosis (a Greek word for “knowledge”) — a visionary or mystical “secret knowledge” capable of joining the human being to the divine mystery. Gnostics, the Pope remarked, distort God's word “in the name of a profound knowledge of God.” What is this “knowledge” they claim to have?The Gnostic worldview is dualistic. Reality consists of two irreducible elements: one good, the spiritual world (the realm of light); and the other evil, matter (the realm of darkness). Two supreme powers or gods oppose each other — the unknowable and inef-fable god, from whom a series of lesser divinities emanated, and the evil god, or demiurge, who produced the universe from foul matter and possesses it with his evil demons.Man is composed of body, soul and spirit. The spirit is man's true self, a “divine spark,” a portion of the godhead. In a tragic fall, man's true self, or spirit, was thrown into this dark world and imprisoned in each individual's body and soul. The demiurge and the demons keep man's spirit as a slave of the material world, ignorant of his “divine” condition. Hence the need for a spiritual savior, a messiah or “Christ,” to offer redeeming gnosis. This savior is a guide, a master who teaches a few “spiritual” people — the Gnostics — about their true spiritual selves and helps them to wake up from the dream world they live in. The Gnostics would be released from the material world, the non-Gnostics doomed to reincarnation.
Namaste’
For the past 3 or 4 years I have been attempting to debate with believers about the signs of judgement happening all around us, and have routinely been dismissed by the supposed scholars and faithful.
In other words, please forgive me for bowing out of this debate before it begins. I concede. I am a father of a young toddler, who takes care of her full time, due to not taking the kill shots. Alhamdulilah. I am patiently waiting for the spiritual awakening necessary, in order to foster the conversations that are integral to ALL believers, and their journey home.
My sincere apologies BK. God willing, I will circle back around to this concept when I am permitted more time, and feel compelled to argue for the sake of argument. I assure you, all respect and sincerity from my heart and soul to yours. Zero sarcasm, or attempt at dismissing you. Just an honest statement, amidst a very dishonest time in His(SubhanAllahiwabihamdihi) story.
May Allah/God/YHVH bless you eternally, forgive all of your sins, and grant you the highest level of paradise for your efforts.
P.s. same way I apologize to you on my delayed response, and the gentleman directly above as well. Just trying to chip away at the madness, whenever and wherever I can.
Always with love and respect.
I'm not kidding around.
Not so much different than the DemonRats DOJ -- DAs and judges letting colored people out of jail on a free pass, but prosecuting white people to the hilt for the same crimes or prosecute P. Trump for treason charges that were a nothing burger and not charge the Bribem family with all the evidence that says they are guilty of crimes but get out of prison free card too.... It all makes sense now.
It makes me wonder, how long Canada as a Nation can survive, in this decade, given the indoctrination of it's young people.
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory."
Hopefully Canada has a few years left but they do seem to be in a race with Australia.
It all depends I suppose on who made the rule that debate is no longer allowed - they will be alone soon enough, but there are other forums and good debate has no price - it is priceless.
Well - introduce yourself - tell us what matters to you!
Good idea, Ken. I suggest pistols at twenty paces.
As mentioned occasionally, I grew up in the Eastern Bloc. During such school "discussions", we were expected to repeat and exchange the official talking points we pupils were indoctrinated before. Not being much of a verbal rebel, I just refused to participate, and rather said nothing.
And at an age of about 15, I first witnessed a girl thrown from school (extended secondary), for talking back and pointing out the teacher's hypocrisy.
The methods remain the same. Which suggests the systems are basically the same ...
― J.R.R. Tolkien
[Link]
"whiskered men with bombs"
Thanks for your comment, I also have witnessed, on reflection in my senior years, I should have intervened. But, we never knew, the level of deception, that at the time, we blindly trusted, our leaders and governments to do "The Right Thing'
Little, did we know, on reflection, it was a ruse for things to come.
In pre-internet times with tightly controlled media, I had very little rational arguments - but instinctively knew something was wrong with this society. And I felt that people were lying to each other most of the times.
Arguing is pointless if the other side is in control of the narrative. But as I found out, silent refusal drives them crazy ... I thought about that incedent in a similiar way. Though I would have met the same fate.
In retrospect, it would not have been a great loss, about 5 years before the end of that regime.
Now try debating an angel and see how far you get!
Can you send me one ? : [Link]
ha, ha.
Now - this is on a whim and truly this is a guess, but I'm guessing the song there on the link I have not clicked is: "My Angel is the Centerfold" - can somebody tell me if I got that correct or not?
Ken
~
Just in case you don't know....
I was curious as to your prediction….send me an angel ‘89.
... well, not really