~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~
Back on April 29th, I participated in Ringgold’s Fall Debate
on the topic of Marijuana Legalization. The proposition was “Marijuana should
be legalized in Pennsylvania ,”
and I was on the affirmative side of that proposition alongside team-members Adam
Martin (11), Marissa Miller (11), and Sam Allman (11). In the preliminary
rounds (which we didn’t end up getting past), we faced a negative team of Sam
Kainz (12), Cassie Lignelli (11), Conner Dudas (11), and Nathaniel Patton (11).
I did… um… I did well. I honestly don’t feel comfortable labeling my
performance any more specifically than that. After the debate, I not only
received the award for the most worthy adversary from the team we faced, but I
received myriad compliments from my peers. But personally, that whole day, I
felt rather badly about my performance.
I was what’s called a “constructive speaker” for my team,
which entails giving a three-minute, pre-written speech building up the position
of your team, a two-minute cross-examination of one of your opposing
constructive speakers, and handling a
two-minute cross-examination from one
of your opponents. My speech was well-written, working up a logical and
emotionally-invigorating case for getting the Man off of citizens’ pot. When I
sparred against one of my opponents in my cross-examination, I think I did a
pretty good job of pointing out a bit of a fallacy in a statistic the other
team brought up. But when I was cross-examined by an opponent, which was the
first cross-examination of the debate, I fumbled over my words, didn’t have
much to add on some talking points, and overall allowed the opposition to poke
holes in our team’s argument.
Now, that’s two out of three successes, and if I look at the
situation more objectively than I’ve been willing to allow myself, it’s easy to
see that I didn’t exactly tank when I
was cross-examined. But, well, you see, I have pretty specific skills, I think,
so I take pride in them and hold myself to a high standard for those skills.
I’m inclined to do well with English-type things: I think I write well, speak
well, think analytically well, understand grammar well, etc. My weakness, while
not crippling, was glaring, so I felt a bit, well, awful, afterwards.
I do admire the team that I faced, which went on from their
victory against my team (from both the judges and audience) to an overall
victory in the championship. One of the reasons I admire them is that – if I
understand correctly, which I’m nearly certain I do – everybody on that team is
actually in favor of legalizing marijuana. In a broad sense, they don’t really
support the case that they were making, but they still defeated all opposition.
I hunted down Sam Kainz, the oldest and perhaps best of the team, for an
interview.
“So how does it feel to be on the winning debate team?” I
asked. “Good I suppose,” he replied. “Are you proud of your team?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied.
Before this debate, Sam said that he participated in “every
single debate,” besides “only miss[ing] one or two.” He’s also been involved in
things like Youth and Government: The take-away is that he has involved himself
in quite a bit of public speaking. According to Sam, his team’s biggest
weaknesses were clinging too hard to certain points and an “extreme apathy”
from their team as a whole, which is amusing coming from the
championship-winning team.
In RHS, the general consensus seems to be overwhelmingly that
marijuana should indeed be legalized and regulated like alcohol, which is why I
thought it would have been smarter to do a topic like, say, the assault rifle
ban, which seems more split. I asked Sam about this and he said that he feels
the topic of marijuana legalization was “long overdue,” and he seemed positive
about the decision to choose that topic. Sam “absolutely” supports the
legalization of marijuana outside of the debate, but said he found debating a
position he disagrees with to be “enlightening” and “easier.” In defiance of
his team’s arguments, he believes that legalizing marijuana would indeed bring
money in rather than lose it, and that “marijuana being addictive is a bit of a
reach.” He does say, however, that marijuana “would be made less safe if
legalized,” citing the increased unhealthiness of legal cigarettes over the
years.
The most important thing to take away from my interview with
Sam is that Matt Petras was “absolutely” the most valuable opponent he faced in
all of the marijuana debating he participated in.
See, Matt, you didn’t
do so poorly…
Next year Sam will be out of high school pursuing education
at the “only school he wanted to go to”: The prestigious and “extremely
difficult to get into” West Point . Next year I’ll
be preparing for the next debate, and probably also reading comic books and
writing for this paper as per usual.
Oh, and also, Sam found it important to note that “The goal
is always to crush your opponent.” And that his friend Jessie Pry was a “great
scorekeeper.”
No comments:
Post a Comment