don't go away mad

[Matt McIntosh]

At 11:23 PM 10/20/97 -0400, you wrote:
>just go away.
>
>your self-professed "passion" for debate is absurd.
>passion in debate is measurable and the units are:
>tears, hours, miles, memories, pages,
>rounds, moments, trophies, and years.
>
>you seem to know as little about
>and have as little regard for
>truth and persons and history
>as for debate.
>
>the fullness, complexity, richness, and worth
>of what thousands of us think about and believe and do
>reduced to a teenager's petulant rationalizations.
>
>just one question before you go:
>would you care to defend any of these claims?
>
>michael korcok
>p.s. --  an easy, easy, easy one: why is selfishness bad?

Hello Michael,

I feel I must throw in my proverbial two cents on this issue.  I find your
statement embarassing of the debate community and extremely
misrepresentative.  Opinions such as the one you spout above aren't worth
the virtual paper they're printed on.  I have a passion for this event, and
I am in agreement that it has veered off on a less than desirable path.
Allow me to explain.

I debated for three years in high school in LD, and one year in college in
1990 in CEDA. Of course, CEDA was very much different then than it is now.
Over the years, I judged many tournaments and helped many high school
students.  Now, I am back in college and competing once again.  I am
dismayed at what CEDA has become.  Basically, it is NDT under another name.
 How did this happen?  Is there no room for value debate anymore?  Has
speed and malice moved in where communication and critical thinking once
were?  It seems to me that they have.

Do I speed? Yes.  Am I guilty of now contributing to that which I speak out
against? Yes.  It is either sink or swim.  I cannot understand how critics
of this event have allowed it to devolve into what it has.

I won't write a novel here, although I probably could.  Just wanted to
register my opinion on the issue.  Please make sure that you keep your
opinions just that --- yours.  I say this because it seems to me that you
have no right to tell someone to leave this mailing list.  Did you create
it?  I have enjoyed this list thus far, being new to it.  Statements such
as yours disgust me, and I certainly will not associate myself with them,
being part of the community you claim to speak for.

Regards,
Matt McIntosh