[CX-L] Kentucky Fellows Debate

[JW Patterson]

THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER AND INSTITUTES NEVER END
 
Lexington, KY, July 4, 2005

GOOD EVENING MR. AND MRS. NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA AND ALL SHIPS AT
SEA, LET'S GO TO PRESS.

In the second Fellows debate of the 2005 Kentucky National High School
Debate Institute, Fellows Karen Harrison, Celebration HS, Orlando, and Josh
McLaurin, Westminster, Atlanta, defended the affirmative and Fellows Rajat
Dhir, Chattahoochee HS, Atlanta and Sam Crichton, Caddo Magnet, Shreveport,
defended the negative.   Following the debate instructor Cyrus Ghavi, Emory
University, filed this report:

³In the second Fellows debate of the 2005 Kentucky National Debate Institute
the students and staff were witness to a debate in which more than cards
flew in this debate that was punctuated by witty one-liners and references
to extra-curricular activities.
 
The 1AC, presented by the swift Karen ³CJ² Harrison, argued that the United
States federal government should give up its authority to detain members of
the armed services. There were two advantages outlined in the speech.
Advantage one was hegemony‹the affirmative claimed that morale was low and
that thousands of desertions from the military were inevitable, but forcing
the deserters back into the military would destroy unit cohesion, collapsing
readiness. The second advantage argued that the plan was critical to
US-Canada relations because it prevented arguments that arise when the U.S.
wants soldiers that have fled to Canada back.
 
Rajat ³the pocket rocket² Dahir delivered a case-heavy 1NC at a pace
slightly quicker than a housecat.  He emphatically insisted that the
affirmative must specify what branch of the federal government does the plan
in their text because it is critical to negative ground.  The only disad was
a Fannie Mae Reform politics argument claiming that the plan caused a GOP
backlash that would detail the bill and therefore collapse our economy. The
third offcase argument was a Counterplan that had the executive do the plan
only to have it struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of the War
Powers Act and then Congress passed the plan. The negative also presented a
kritik arguing the affirmative ignores that even though they outline a lot
of problems in the 1AC, the affirmative is trapped in mandatory fun with
regards to solving those problems ­ they can look but not touch.  The
alternative to the critique was to embrace our powerlessness as individuals
to cause change. It is also worth noting that Mr. Dahir refused to answer
any cross-ex questions that were not about politics, once again revealing
his devotion to a strong Fannie.
 
Unphased by the 1NC¹s systematic search and destroy strategy, the mighty
Josh McLaurin declared that in the 2AC that there will be no witch-hunts,
deftly defending his ship and insisting that the negatives Counterplan was
not competitive with the plan.  He spent a significant amount of the speech
tearing the Fannie [DA] up, leading him to only make four answers to the K.
The staff is unsure why he refuses to this day to read his
Chinese-Australian relations add-on.
 
Sam ³80 reason to be a Fellow² Crichton opened up the negative block by
kicking the Counterplan, conceding that it was in fact not a competitive
policy option with the affirmative. He then extended several arguments
against the hegemony advantage and read a 12 minute K overview that
prevented him from answering 2 of the whopping 4 2AC answers. However, he
did do an exemplary job answering the two arguments he did get to. Rajat
reappeared for the 1NR only after spending the 2NC conditioning his hair.
After  covering for mighty mouse, Rajat shockingly extended politics and the
answers to Canada. 
 
Delivering her first 1AR in almost 2 years, Karen took time to break the
negative¹s spirit, as well as their arguments.  While she chose not to
answer the impact add-on or the carded DA turns the case overview Rajat
read, her speech left young Samuel searching for his way out.
 
After losing a minute of the 2NR to a hysterically laughing audience, Sam
decided to go for the K, focusing not on the geopolitics component of the
argument but instead making like P. Diddy and arguing that there is No Way
Out of the 1AC harms because we are not in a position to make any type of
change. Josh folded in the joke war, but spent the bulk of the 2AR defending
fiat in terms of ground, education, and fairness.
 
Unfortunately the ballot count is not a fair expression of how close this
debate actually was. The Affirmative delivered a Klinger/Ghavi style
lopsided victory by winning the Fellows 7-1 and the rest of the camp 50-8. ³
 
 
 
Sincerely, 
JW Patterson
Kentucky Institute Director
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