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Britannia Invitational Debate Tournament - Vancouver Secondary School District

I participated in the first Britannia Invitational Debate Tournament yesterday. This marked the beginning of the return of debate into Vancouver secondary schools.

If I learned anything from this experience, is that before debates, prepare, prepare, and - guess what? - prepare some more!

We, Lord Byng, were given a topic a week before the actual debates. The resolution was “this house believes that force should be used to protect human rights”.

Now when you relate force and human rights in the current context, in our current society, a lot of issues could arise. How do you define force? Can different actions be taken and considered force? What are human rights? Are human rights universal? What about different ethnic practices, religions, and cultures?

A lot of thoughts and arguments came into consideration.

Round 1: Byng Vs. Byng - position: opposition

What?! Byng Vs. Byng? Did I hear this correctly? Apparently, Britannia had some organizational issues (I can’t blame them, it’s an enormous amount of work), and placed my team (Jack Xu and I, Eastwood Zhao), against another fierce, determined Byng team composed of Aberdeen Berry and Emily Cramer. Round 1 begins. With my opponents blasting their arguments at the speed of machine gun fire, I had a hard time following. But, never the less, we addressed our points and survived.

Opp. arguments:

1. Human rights is not universal.
2. Only rich and powerful countries can afford to use force. Weaker nations are not in an equal, balanced situation.
3. Force against force causes an escalation of more violence.
4. Using force infringes one’s human rights by putting one’s life at risk (thus not guaranteeing one’s freedom to live).

Round 2: Byng Vs. Churchill - position: government

Now, we’re supporting the usage of force in the name of protecting human rights. Frankly, Jack and I prepared very little for this debate. The only preparations that were done were quickly constructed on the bus there. Now, left with very little, if any, government arguments, we results to our previous opponents’ notes for points.

Pressured by time, I found myself standing in front of the Parliament, as the Right Honourable Prime Minister, addressing my opponents and the judges with my opening statement.

Things were well as I referred to the first page of the borrowed notes. Then, all of I sudden, I flipped the page and could not read a thing! Left helplessly with only one argument at hand, I referred to the usual tactics of debates. That is, reinforcing my thoughts and arguments, asking the opposition to repeat their point of interests (POIs aka questions). I don’t really know how I manged to survive 8 whole minutes.

At long last, my opponents made a huge mistake by relating to Iraq. They pointed our that force does not work and used Iraq as an example. I got up to my feet and reminded them kindly to stay on topic, by questioning them whether or not the invasion of Iraq is really defending human rights. My opponents again tried to defend their point, but erroneously claimed that Canadians are also is Iraq and that the U.S. was there to root out the Taliban.

Gov’t. arguments:

1. Human rights is universal, and that every human being deserves the fundamental rights to: live, be free of slavery, not be punished under uncreated laws, and [argh! what was that other one?]

2. Examples: a kidnapped child’s human rights can only be rescued by using force.

Yup… I know, our points for gov’t. were that great.

Round 3: Byng Vs. Churchill - position: opposition

An impromptu topic. Yes, an impromptu topic was given 30 minutes before the debate. The topic? “This house believes that Canada should have a two-tier health care system”.

Being the opposition, I thought to myself that I should take the role of the NDP and protect the interests of the poor and weak.

I felt that I performed the best in this debate. Our points were strong and we had good exchanges of POIs between the two sides.

Opp. arguments:

1. All people should be equal. The rich and weak should get the same opportunities and treatments as those who can afford to pay.

The gov’t may say, “but the privatized system offers a faster treatment time, ” and refer to real-life examples where cancer treatment by the public health care has a three-month waiting list, where privatized health care (by flying to the States) has a much quicker treatment period.

I can then argue, “so are you saying that the lives of the poor and weak, who cannot afford to pay for a faster treatment, are worth less than those who are rich”?

2. In Canada, a society of acceptance and tolerance, a society known and looked up onto for its unique Canadian Identity and its well-preserved image as a welfare society, must maintain its image and stay strong to its commitments.

My thoughts?

This debate tournament was an excellent opportunity to practice my public-speaking skills and my thinking and argumentative abilities.

I would definitely jump at the next debating opportunity.

The Lord Byng Debate Club will continue to strive for excellence and potentials (did I mention that one of our teams, Juan Jang and Steven Karp, won first place overall?!), and hopefully even run our own tournament next year.

Ciao for now!