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A neighbor of mine, Mary, is a devout Republican conservative who
admires Bush and Cheyney.

She would like to find a place to learn and practice the art of
debate, so that she may better defend her views in arguments with
liberal Democrats.

I have offered to help find debating resources.

Here is what she writes to me:

I would like to defend Bush on the War! Why he is blamed by the left
wing and hated so much. This man is sincere and his only concern was
to protect his country regardless of the polls.  He inherited
Clinton's recession and 9/11 same along....After all it was with the
vote of both houses that we went into Irag...so why do they blame him
and Cheney, etc. - and of course, they automatically connect Cheney
with Haliburton and Bush with oil?

If any of you have ideas for arguments which defend her position, or
arguments against her views, please let me know.


Here is one resource for debating societies that I have found so far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Parliamentary_Debate_Association

APDA members stage weekly debating tournaments, each at a different
university and occurring throughout the academic year. Some weekends
have two debating tournaments, one north of New York City and one
south of New York City, in order to shorten transport time. However,
centrally located tournaments or particularly prestigious tournaments,
such as those at Columbia, Fordham, NYU, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,
will frequently be "unopposed", meaning that they will be the only
tournament on that particular weekend. While APDA does play a role in
creating a tournament schedule, the tournaments themselves are only
loosely coordinated by the APDA body. Individual schools must ensure
that their tournaments meet a broad set of APDA guidelines, but are
free to tinker with their tournament formats.
...
Debates at APDA tournaments follow a debating style known as American
Parliamentary Debate, which is modeled loosely on the procedure and
decorum of the UK Parliament. This style emphasizes argumentation and
rhetoric, rather than research and detailed factual knowledge.




Mary has presented some arguments to me in support of Pres. Bush.  She
makes the good point that Bush is sincere in his beliefs, and has
persevered even at the cost of popularity in public opinion.

She is reading books about Obama, and books by Obama, in order to
build her arguments against Obama.

She loves McCain and Palin.

Mary is very pro-life. She admires McCain for immediately stating that
the beginning of personhood is the moment of conception. She feels
that Obama gave more vague and evasive answers regarding the status of
the embryo.

It is quite true that my personal views lean in favor of people like
Obama and the Democrats.  But I do value the opportunity to explore
the arguments of the opposition, and exercise my own judgment and
understanding.

Mary's difficulty arises when she becomes so emotional during
arguments that she loses focus and concentration and focus, and forget
which points she want to make and how she wants to make them.  She
feels that practice in the art of debate will remedy this weakness.

I do think one is strengthened by the exercise of arguing both sides
of an issue, pro and con.

Flow of the round

A round of debate features two teams of two debaters each: the
Government team, including the Prime Minister and the Member of
Government, and the Opposition team, including the Leader of the
Opposition and the Member of the Opposition.

Six speeches in all are delivered, varying in length:

     * Prime Minister's Constructive: 7 minutes
     * Leader of the Opposition's Constructive: 8 minutes
     * Member of Government: 8 minutes
     * Member of the Opposition: 8 minutes
     * Leader of the Opposition's Rebuttal: 4 minutes
     * Prime Minister's Rebuttal: 5 minutes

Points of information

A debater may rise to ask a point of information (POI) of an opponent
during the opponent's speech. POIs are only permitted during the first
four speeches, except in the first and final minutes of the speech.
The speaking debater can choose to hear the POI or to dismiss it
politely. Traditionally when standing on a point of information some
debaters extend one hand palm up, holding the back of the head with
the other. This pose originated in old British Parliamentary
etiquette: an MP would adopt the position to secure his wig and show
that he was not carrying a weapon.[1] It is generally considered good
form to accept at least two POIs during a speech.

  The resolution

In most rounds, the resolution is squirrelable, meaning that the
Government team can propose any topic it wants for debate. (Certain
tournaments provide both teams with the topic of debate 15 minutes
before the round.)

Since the Opposition team arrives at the round with no prior knowledge
of the case, some kinds of resolutions are not permitted to ensure a
fair debate. If Opposition feels that the round fits any one of these
categories, they may point this out during the Leader's speech. If the
judge agrees, Opposition wins. There are five kinds of disallowed
resolutions:

     * tight resolutions, which are deemed too one-sided ("racism is
bad", for example);
     * truisms ("Bill Clinton is the greatest Democratic president of
the U.S. since Jimmy Carter");
     * tautologies ("Good citizens should help the poor," with goodness
defined as "a willingness to do charitable acts");
     * status quo resolutions ("The United States should have jury
trials");
     * specific-knowledge cases, i.e., cases which are unfair toward
the Opposition team because they require highly obscure knowledge to
oppose effectively ("NASA should replace the current sealant used on
the space shuttle with hypoxynucleotide-C4598")

Aside from these five limitations, virtually any topic for debate is
fair game, as long as there are two coherent and debatable sides.
Debaters may also present opp-choice cases, in which the government
team offers the opposition team the chance to choose which side of a
topic the government team will defend in the round.

I suppose such debate, and parliamentary procedure is at the fabric of
a constitutional democratic republic.

Time-space

One type of case, common on APDA but rare on other circuits, is the
time-space case. This places the speaker in the position of some
real-life, fictional, or historical figure. Only information
accessible to a person in that position is legal in this type of
round. For instance, "You are Socrates. Don't commit suicide" could
not reference events that took place after Socrates' death. The
speaker can be a fictional character ("You are Homer Simpson. Do not
sell your soul"), a historical character ("You are Abraham Lincoln. Do
not sign the emancipation proclamation") or virtually any other
sentient individual.

One notable type of time-space case is the historical hypothetical
case, in which decisions made by particular historical figures are
debated from their historical context. Debates surrounding, for
instance, Civil War strategy or World War I alliances are commonplace.
These types of debates often require a detailed knowledge of history.

Time-space cases are a particularly sensitive type of case for the
government, because their setting must leave room for the opposition
to defeat the case even if that would go against the historical
outcome already known to everyone in the room.