Fitting the battle of life

Well, I heard about debatewise earlier last term when the guy running it came to one of our debates to talk briefly about it, but it’s only now (when I remembered about it and dug out his card from a pocket) that I’ve had a good look and signed up, and started to contribute.

Today I came across a debate titled ‘Macs are better than PC’s‘, which, aside from its flagrant misuse of the apostrophe, is just a silly thing to `debate’. I will keep half an eye on it, but we all know what happens when an argument (yes, argument, not debate) like this starts up. Rule #2 of the internet: Reason holds no sway over the fanboy.

I’ll admit I did step in to offer a counter-argument, but that was only to point out the futility of the topic. I’ll blog about the actual concept and the site itself later this weekend; I just needed to get that off my chest.

In other news, I think I had better sort out my categorization and tagging.

Well, it has been a great year for the Debating Society, culminating in a rather fun Foundation Dinner. With MPs from all three major parties speaking over the year, academics and seasoned debaters, I think we’ve managed to provide and entertaining and informative range of debates for all to enjoy. Once again we grew in size, with both membership and regular audience numbers growing from last year - growth we plan to continue next year. We broke at many more competitions this year, and got a team to the final at Nottingham - well done to everyone who debated so well!

Foundation Dinner was a brilliant success, with not only a great dinner but a great debate afterwards, featuring three Tory MPs attacking the government, and two Labour MPs and Dr Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, successfully defending it (for the first time in several years).

Many thanks to everyone who came this year, and here’s looking forward to September!

I won’t be around for the weekend - I’m up in Manchester debating from tonight til Sunday night, so I won’t be able to moderate comments until I get back (I’m not leaving it unmoderated - Askimet is good, but not perfect!).

Have a good weekend everyone!

Well it was a great debate this week, with Mark Clarke of Conservative Future and one of our ex-Presidents, Tarit Mukherjee, proposing the motion against Jo Shaw (the Lib Dem candidate for Holborn and St Pancras in the next election) and Lembit Opik MP (yes, the cheeky girl one; it actually took about an hour for anyone to mention it, surprisingly).

The following notes are my own, from what I managed to scribble down. I did not make notes on floor speeches or closing summary speeches; the port was taking its toll.

Prop Arguments

• Prop’s case was based on statistical evidence that the UK is overcrowded, with a population density twice that of Germany and 4x that of France, and a population that’s growing.
• Immigration is the only factor that we can control - fertility and higher life expectancy aren’t something we can deal with!
• Returning ex-pats, refugees and EU citizens can’t be controlled for various reasons, so we must look at those from the rest of the world, economic migrants.
• Immigration takes a toll on public services as it is happens faster at the moment that we have time to plan for (e.g. a new hospital to cope with increased population takes 5 years, a new tube line 10 years)
• It was pointed out that the Tories aren’t racist.
• Having quotas means that migrants know that there is a job waiting for them, public services they can use, and education for their children.
• The worst case scenario, as we have now, is that people turn up not knowing if they have a sustainable job or not, and so put a great burden on us.
• Quotas permit planning ahead effectively.
• Quotas are also a tool of integration, as they demonstrate that we do want those immigrating under a quota scheme in the country, increasing their self-worth and sending a message to the wider community that they should be made welcome because there is a demonstrable need for them.
• The Lib Dems’ own policy on immigration was rubbished.

Opp

•  Prop offered no details: what jobs, in what numbers, what about those who need to come to the UK for other reasons (family reasons were mentioned), and how would it be enforced?
• There must be a cut-off point and that is unfair; harms will result to someone as a result of turning them away.
• The Home Office is already rubbish at keeping track of numbers.
• Targets and numbers are the wrong way to deal with the problems associated with immigration.
• The history of Britain has set up a proudly liberal tradition in this area.
• The net benefit of immigration is £2.5billion per annum, and there are far more diverse benefits to be had as well.
• The country isn’t really overpopulated at all; statistics mean nothing.
• Population shouldn’t be controlled artificially; money is the best control as rich people have fewer children.
• This Tory policy is an unnecessary intervention in the free market: are they really Socialists posing as Tories or what?!
• It is impossible to work out how many people it will be necessary to let in; you cannot predict the future.
• Immigrants don’t come if they don’t think they’ll have a job at the moment anyway.
• If you support quotas as proposed you must support the forced removal of economic migrants when they’re no longer needed as well.

The vote was won by the Opposition by a large margin.

The floor prize was jointly awarded to Cormac and to Ruth.

Following on from a successful term last term, where we had three teams break to semi-finals in two separate competitions, after just one week of competition this term, we have already had two teams break to semi-finals in two separate competitions: Anuj and Jon at the London IV, and Simon and Cormac at Warwick IV.

We await news as to how Simon and Cormac are faring in their semi; if they break to the final it will be one of our best performances for a long time.

Prep time, boys and girls. What did we learn? (This really does sound like school. I’ll stop it now.)

[I had to pop out for a bit while Dim was talking, and I spent too much money at the bar afterwards so my memory is a bit hazy as to some of the specifics, for which I apologise.]

The five-minute rule

Think of your fifteen minutes as split into three five-minute chunks in order to structure your preparation and force yourself to think –don’t leave all the hard work to the last two seconds before the judge calls you in. Keep an eye on the time.

{The first five minutes}
Make your way quietly to the room, thinking over the motion \emph{to yourselves}. During this time, make sure you know where you’re debating and go to the toilet if you need to. Use a sheet of paper for getting these starting ideas down before you forget them.

{The second five minutes}
Start talking to each other. The arguments you both come up with are probably the basic ones that you need to include; explain to each other your individual ideas. Pooling knowledge is important in this stage. Listen to each other and argue back–make sure the arguments are defensible enough to stand up for a few minutes on the debating table. Decide on a `line’ you will be following–usually something like `let’s take it right-wing’. This way arguments across your two speeches, and your PoIs, will be consistent.

{The final five minutes}
Keep talking to each other, but scribble everything down now. Decide who is taking which points, or what the extension is going to be. You must both understand each other’s arguments so the second speaker can defend them in his speech, or either speaker can defend them in PoIs.

We then went over the four main areas you need to be thinking about: actors, principles, mechanism(s) and examples.

Just a gentle reminder that the debate on Thursday will centre around democracy in Africa; it will be a good idea to read up on the Kenyan situation, and probably other elections around the continent. What’s at stake, what are the problems and why? Good material can help you win a debate (it can’t win you a debate, of course - only help you win it).

See you all on Thursday, 2nd floor Bloomsbury (the CSC).

This is just to point out a few general things where I thought teams/sides went wrong or hit things on the head, and what I think was missing from the debate we had (not the debate as it should have happened, if that makes sense).

THW conduct medical experiments on prisoners

Prop

• Defining as excluding the public from a risk was a bit dodgy; what about cancer drugs that need to be tested on patients with cancer? Some better knowledge about phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials would have come in handy here. The argument that you’re taking a risk away from the public is alright but was easily taken down by the ‘controlled experiments’ point; they do tend to be ’safe’ (for a given value of ’safe’).
• Atonement/paying back a debt to society should have been the major point here; if it had been set up as the main reason to do this, with an additional benefit that it would help society in general, would possibly be harder to argue against as Opp would have to defend the penal system and prisoners’ rights, not the existing medical testing regime.
• The extension about why we conduct medical experiments didn’t serve a great purpose; the second point about rights should have been the major argument here: first prop didn’t do a great deal of analysis as to why prisoners shouldn’t have rights, so that would have been great from 2nd prop. It didn’t help that the summary didn’t mention this, either.
• Rebuttal concerning the ‘fiscally insecure’ who need to be protected from medical testing was ok but slightly unnecessary. In 2nd Prop I would have had no problems with you saying ‘even if we don’t stop the public getting involved with medical testing, here’s why this is still a good idea.’ It’s slightly a knife but I think not one that would lose you the debate automatically.

Opp

• Points about the small sample size are fine, but don’t need to be dwelt on for very long; I think everyone seemed to bring it up as rebuttal when it had already been fully dealt with in the first opp speech. The informed risk that the public take is also a good point, but should have been developed more into why it’s then wrong to force prisoners into this, and not give them a choice. Some material was made out of this (’they won’t co-operate as much as volunteers’), but really that didn’t go far enough.
• The rebuttal that ‘forced atonement isn’t atonement’ was good; I’d have liked to have seen it in a discussion about the role of prisons and of punishment rather than as a stand-alone point though. Still, kudos on it.
• Nazi comparisons should never be made. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. Not once. Ok? Good.
• Extension was again on this side somewhat non-existent. The best line I got was ‘we remove their liberty but they still have rights’, and that came up in rebuttal, not as constructive material. Just as on Prop we should have seen a detailed analysis of prisoners’ rights, tell me why prisoners do and should still have rights. How do prison and punishment fit into society, our principles etc. Analysis!
• Summay was good, but was the first mention of the word ‘rehabilitation’. Why was this a) not mentioned before and b) not given to your partner to say? The function of prisons (i.e. what punishment is) is a key topic: do we make the punishment worse by imposing these tests? Yes we do. Why should we therefore not do it?
• One massive point that still stood for Prop was that we pay for prisoners to sit around doing nothing all day. The rebuttal was that they ‘could’ do something you guessed. Why not defend the fact that we pay not for them to do nothing but for them to be kept off our streets? There are sometimes costs we are prepared to pay, and prison is one of these things (especially for the kinds of criminals that were being discussed in this debate).

General

• Timings were all (with one exception) dodgy.
• Don’t giggle. I begin to wonder what was really in that cake…
• PoIs: Never take them during rebuttal; don’t give them a chance to answer back. They’ve made their mistakes and it’s your chance to point them out, not to let them recover their asses.
• Structure could be a bit tighter. Personally as a judge I find it a lot more helpful if you tell me what your three points are before you do any rebuttal.

Ok, hopefully that all makes sense and no one has any complaints. I shan’t at the moment give positions, unless you really bug me. See you guys Monday.

(For those who came to the debating workshop on Thurs 10/1 and wanted a refresh.)

We talked about the fact that most debates can be reduced to a broader topic, and went over what the main issues in some of those debates are. I’ve added a little more here since we were running out of time. This should serve as a reminder of what we said, rather than being exactly what we said (my memory serves me only poorly, even if I can remember 52).

Democracy
    THW give the vote to <group>
THW limit Prime Ministers to one five-year term of office.
These debates are about what’s best for democracy, not whether you can be ‘too old’ to be PM.

Security vs Liberty
    THW allow the use of torture/evidence gained by torture etc
Human rights of a few individuals ([suspected] terrorists) versus the liberties of the majority (the innocent public).

International Relations (IR)
    THW invade Zimbabwe
Best route to ’stability’; sovereignty vs internationalism; the moral duty to intervene or not.

Rights generally/benefits, harms
    THW conduct medical experiments on prisoners
THW ban music that promotes criminality
Balance of rights and harms, e.g.freedom of speech vs the harms it might cause; discussion of rights generally (how do you get them, can you lose them?).

We debated THW conduct medical experiments on prisoners. I’ll get some of the feedback about arguments etc up about that over the weekend.

My thanks especially to Stanzie for the cake, and to you all for coming. Until next Thursday, goodnight.

For some reason the new year is the time to make resolutions for the 12 months ahead. Over the next couple of days I’ll be posting my resolutions and aims in various categories. Today it’s debating.

1. Break again. My first semi-final at Kings was a good moment, and obviously one I ought to be repeating. If I can do it once I can do it again (assuming it wasn’t a lucky fluke). All it requires is some good, solid performances, starting at Warwick on the 26th.
2. This leads neatly onto number 2: make it to Euros in the summer. We haven’t sent teams for a while, and I want to be there. Debating well in tournaments this term will get me a place in Tallinn.
3. Sort out the debating guide for the Society. This is a project I’ve wanted to get done for some time, and really want to get it written and improved by our best debaters this term. I’d hoped to get it done for the start of this term, but it actually involves quite a lot of work, so I will be happy for it to be done this term ready for the incoming debaters in September - so we can perform better at President’s Cup!
4. Some other minor goals include running UCL IV to be really enjoyable by everyone who comes, making a few good floor speeches, and so on.

I’ll report back on these at the end of term, and see how well I’ve done.