Stephen Babb Reviews the Final Round of Nationals

GRAPEVINE/COLLEYVILLE, TX – [Editor's note: a technical problem prevented us from posting Stephen Babb's review of the final round of Lincoln-Douglas debate immediately after it occurred. I'm posting it now in the spirit of 'better late than never!']

The LD final round was preceded by a witty and charming Abe Lincoln impersonator. He included a story (joke?) about a “feller” and his enormous hog. It was amazing. Lincoln went on to encourage speakers to believe in something larger than themselves, and made a couple of observations regarding public speaking: first, that ideas should be put to paper that they might be spread and reach a broader audience; and second, that, “it is persistence that wins the race.” Having espoused the value of conviction and tenacity, he reminded the nation’s young debaters that the cause of justice was essential to a free society.

Pauline Carocci from Colorado went on to thank a bunch of people.

Affirming: 312 Sacred Heart LM (Liz Mullins)
Negating: 110 Dulles DJ (Doug Jeffers)

Liz prefaced the AC with some brief comment, including thanking her parents and coaches for all their support, and showing appreciation to NFL’s sponsors. Her comments were pretty funny

Liz suggests in the AC that for something to be justified, it must simply be acceptable. She further observes that intelligence collection should be evaluated in and of itself, rather than according to the agent doing it. Her standard was the minimization of risk to individuals. This was interpreted as a global obligation, being that all people deserve to be safe from risks.

Her first contention was that the most important intelligence is typically the most difficult to find. Threatening nations tend to keep their actions highly secret. She reads a card by James Gosler that details the various ways information can be kept secret, illustrating the need for thorough collection methods. Her second contention is clarified through a card by Daniel that argues information may be deliberately misleading and that intelligence is an extremely difficult business. False intelligence causes devastating misestimating of threats, leading to disastrous decisions and consequences.

Liz’s AC reflected excellent adaptation skills. She slowed down for the panel and made two pretty basic and persuasive arguments. It is no wonder she has gotten to finals with this ability to read judges and react appropriately.

In cross-examination, Doug initially focuses on the premise of reducing risks, noting that risks come even with driving cars. He asks Liz if she’s at any risk when driving her car, to which she responded, “I don’t have a car.” The audience was cracking up—Liz has thus far maintained excellent composure and shown a nice sense of humor.

Doug stands up for the NC and makes his own thanks known, especially to his little sister Amy-Beth who has apparently been picking out his ties all these years! Doug is pretty funny too.

Doug begins his position by indicting the possibility of an objective and disinterested point of view, claiming that assessments of ends are speculative and subjective.

His contention is that no one is sufficiently free of bias to violate rights in the interests of perceived advantages. His evidence points out the implicit psychological comparison of rights that prefers near rights to those of strangers and so on. A second card acknowledges that terrorist attacks are of low probability and that preventative actions often have little effect reducing that probability.

He responds to the AC’s standard analysis by demonstrating something’s created function cannot confer justifiability on the actions premised thereon. Doug points out the distinction between security and being alive—one may need to be alive to have rights protected, but they need not be secure. Doug also questions the link between military intelligence and security. Finally, he argues that the AC fails to specify how much intelligence is actually needed to prevent risk and why alternative methods aren’t sufficient.

Doug’s NC was analytically impressive—he showed a masterful understanding of the logic with which one must engage the debate. As an added note, he really set the bar for precision and lucidity when articulating arguments in debate. The audience was undoubtedly blown away.

Liz uses her CX time to problematize Doug’s philosophical framework with some very intuitive and compelling questions. To this point, neither CX period has been especially decisive, but Liz does do an excellent job of taking some wind from Doug’s sails.

Liz begins the AR by capitalizing a concession made in CX, demonstrating that neither side can meet Doug’s standard of objectivity. She returns to the AC arguments that the mistakes made due to bad intelligence end up violating lots and lots of rights. She maintains that government accountability is a superior standard as it is required to protect rights and security.

She also responds to an overview made against the AC, but I’m not really sure what the arguments are, because I’m writing this as they speak. It’s probably something really important though.

Liz concludes by emphasizing the extension of her contention two, claiming that the AC better protects rights by preventing risk.

Doug starts at the bottom of the AC, reminding judges of his argument that the topic is actually questions whether or not security is important enough to violate rights (not simply whether or not security is important). He attempts to reassert the comparative dimension of the topic. OK, so apparently Doug’s overview was saying there is no guarantee the ends pursued by the state are actually legitimate. He says he’s winning that argument. Then he goes to another voting issue, pointing out that preexisting obligations override the purpose of the state (because a thing’s purpose isn’t always a good purpose). Doug also reiterates the argument that the AC provides no threshold for how much security is enough.

Thus far, I would interject by saying this is truly the perfect NFL Nationals round. Both debaters are extremely persuasive, articulate, well-reasoned, and strategic. This would be an ideal round to model for young debaters, and it is surely what the creators of LD had in mind when creating the event.

The 2AR begins with standards analysis that asserts no obligation to charity. Her first voting issue is that Doug’s objectivity analysis doesn’t matter as it essentially mishandles her link story. The AC is more likely to prevent attacks, and this is the only argument that matters to the round. She ends with a persuasive plea to the judges that the choice between a safe and unsafe nation is, “in their hands.”

Both debaters did an excellent job and deserve many congratulations! We await the results eagerly….

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 26th, 2006 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Nationals 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.