November 16, 2003

Before our last round of debating at McMaster, my partner Brian and I were talking with the judge about a frivolous equity complain made earlier in the day. “People need to lighten up,” our judge said. He regretted his words as soon as Brian went up to speak.

Our opponents decided to bring forward an asinine argument about the age of consent in Kansas. Kansas, like other US states, is an extremely repressive jurisdiction that forbids anyone under 16 from having sex and doesn’t look too kindly on homosexual encounters either (regardless of the age of the participants). Even though the debate was situated in Kansas, part of the Bible-belt, our opponents brought forward liberal arguments that made no sense in the ultra-conservative social context of this case.

Because the whole case presented to us was a terrible joke, we chose to respond with savage satire in a brave attempt to demolished their entire argument.

Trolling is what Brian does best, and in this case he certainly didn’t disappoint. He went up and gave a beautifully offensive speech, full of passion and spite. Among other things, Brian suggested that by using a coat hanger a girl can hide the evidence that she had sex. Furthermore, young kids who have sex should confess to a priest, and since priests know all about having sex with kids, the infractors would receive a high-five after their confession. Lastly, kids don’t need to be thought about condoms and safe sex: it feels much better to do it without a condom anyways.

I was laughing and slapping my desk so hard during his entire speech that the other people in the room probably thought there was something seriously wrong with me. The opposition and the judge were mortified and didn’t know how to respond to us. The judge was red in the face and simply shook his head as we gave our speeches. Our argument consisted of showing the judge that in Kansas people are racist, misogynist, and homophobic, and thus the liberal values our opponents tried to uphold simply didn’t apply.

“People need to lighten up,” Brian told the judge after the debate was over.

The judge wasn’t amused, and he gave Brian a score of 34 (a score that’s virtually unheard of in CUSID’s history). The lowest possible score is 35, and a person receives this score only if the “speech is purely offensive, ill-considered, and in bad taste.” The fact that Brian went lower than that says a lot.

Our performance in the last round ensured that our team threw away the last chance of winning a match. Having won no matches, we got the Dead Fucking Last (DFL) position. The DFL position is quite infamous, and quite difficult to achieve because there is a lot of competition for being dead last. Somehow we did it.