374 Comments

We are doomed!

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It surprises me that even Catholic schools have such woke teacher's.

Alternative organizations are the only way to fight this. Being small, I wonder how you plan to focus your marketing effort? Start with certain types of students, certain types of schools, certain cities/counties.

If you succeed though, will colleges start dinging prospective students who mention participating in your debates.

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I participated on the "speech" side of the National Forensics League (as it was known not long ago), particularly humorous interpretation in which we would act out funny scenes and play different characters with accents, physical ticks, etc. I wonder if the norms surrounding what pieces are allowed to be performed have changed in our little unfunny, sanctimonious culture we've got now.

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I debated in high school in the 90s and often had to show up not knowing which side I’d have to debate until minutes before. It demanded a deep understanding of BOTH sides. We just don’t appear to have anything close to that capacity any longer, and the fact that we’re teaching kids that they can and can’t say certain things makes it clear that the only thing happening in debates is performance, not debate. Scary.

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Isn’t the issue that organizations don’t police enough? If the Free Press hires a Harvard graduate who doesn’t believe in freedom of speech rather than the true believer who graduated from state University, eventually the Free Press will become compromised. Rather than criticizing, it seems emulation is the order of the day.

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Just another organization hijacked by Marxists and allowed to punish true liberal Western values rooted in freedom of speech, expression and thought. The light needs to be shone on these thugs. Why am I not surprised that the mainstream media hasn't picked up on this. Parents need to rise up and push back on this and all the other leftist attempts to indoctrinate if not outright bludgeon our children into submission to their amoral, godless world view.

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"A few critics have pointed out that my piece was written out of self-interest."

I bet these people have no problem when major media outlets openly admit that their "journalism" is meant to serve a particular agenda. Somehow, though, it's a problem if you might have a motivation to write a piece in addition to a desire to tell the truth, even if there is zero conflict between those motivations, or suggestion that you've failed in the latter.

Hypocrites aside, protocol is clear in these situations. You just state outright if you have a special interest in the subject, which you have done.

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If I had any doubt that the intent of the Left is to instigate an American Maoist Cultural Revolution, these two articles removed all doubt. The NSDA has become just another outpost of the American version of Mao's Red Guard.

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I debated in 2002-2003 in high school (policy debate). I did well- I was a quarter finalist and #1 speaker award. Thank God back then we didn’t have any way to know anything about the judges before the debate. There was no “looking up online”. No one has phones and there was no database. It’s better that way. They should get rid of this judge paradigm database. It’s BS. Judges should all judge equally and not based on personal nonsense.

I spread and did it well. Everyone did. The faster you talk the more arguments and evidence you can present, the More pages you can read before times up. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I did it back then before the internet.

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I hope Incubate Debate continues to grow and is hugely successful! It is wonderful that you are providing a place for debaters and judges to actually debate with free speech. for students this is so important and much needed. Free speech should be guaranteed by the Bill of Rights! But isn’t anymore.

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Progressivism is an infestation that destroys classically liberal organizations from the inside out--leaving behind a dead shell. There really is no alternative except to create new institutions for people to turn to instead.

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I have read both of these essays with a combination of sadness, dismay and gratitude. Sadness, because an extra curricular activity that was most formative in my, and other high school debaters' careers seems gone. Dismay that an organization like NSDA--National Forensic League when I was debating--would allow--never mind encourage--judges to decide debates based on individually designed, poorly defined, subjective and arbitrary criteria and not on the logic, skill, research ability and merit of the individual debaters. The only important role of the NSDA is to sponsor debate meets where aspiring speakers are encouraged to openly, freely and honestly debate both sides of a topic. Now, NSDA's conduct plainly discourages competitive debate.

And I am grateful that my high school and college debate career was in the late 1960's and 1970's is well behind me. In those years we had plenty of social unrest and upheaval related to civil rights, inflation and the Vietnam War. While those subjects became our debate topics, nobody was required to self-police their speech so as not to disturb the fragile sensitivities of the debate judge--literally the only "adult" in the room. For that I am grateful and for the fact that competitive debate taught me skills I continue to use every day, more than 50 years later.

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If a debater was found guilty of shoplifting in the past, should that have an effect on the current debate? Does a wrong, or a mistake, stay with you for life?

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Nah, shoplifting is fine. Just NEVER misgender someone.

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Yup, nothing even remotely surprising here other than some still finding this type of offensive, subjective, progressive, atrocity surprising.

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Reasonable people should stop participating and let the progressives eat each other in the debates.

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Please keep digging on this topic! For our young peoples' sake, we MUST preserve the ability to disagree in a civil setting using language with defined meaning and arguments that are based in rational thinking.

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