The ideas expressed in City Club forums are those of the speakers and not of the City Club of Cleveland.

IdeaStream public media or their sponsors.

Production and distribution of City Club forums and ideastream Public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black fund of Greater Cleveland incorporated.

Welcome, welcome.

We are at the City Club of Cleveland, and we are here for the high school championship debate.

And my firm, Baker and Hostetler, sponsors every year in honor of our late partner, Pat Jordan.

This is actually the 30th anniversary of Pat's death.

Which doesn't seem like a real long time to me.

None of you kids were born when Pat died, and he was a larger than life figure.

We're joined here today by Pat's brother.

Pat's best friend and Pat's wife, Sharon.

So this is really in honor of Pat, who himself was a championship debater.

And my firm is just pleased to remember Pat in this way.

That was an awesome individual.

Question for you.

And you.

If you've heard this, don't shout out the answer.

Why couldn't the fish get into a good college?

Because he didn't take the bait.

Oh.

All right.

I got I got more.

Debate.

Debate.

Okay.

Debate is is not just a great thing for your resume to get into college, but as as you guys know better than I, I never was a debater.

Debate is a team sport.

Despite the fact that these people are up here by themselves.

Debate is a team sport, and it teaches you the benefits of being on a team, working with others, listening to others, getting diverse opinions and arguing on the merits, arguing about the issues rather than calling everybody names.

And we I'm not going to get into politics, but the world is a mess right now, and it's my generation's fault.

I don't personally take any of the blame, but it's my generation's fault for how the world is.

And you guys are the future.

And I think the debate will serve you well as you go forward, because you value debating on the merits, not calling people names, getting diverse opinions.

And that's all really critical to the future of our democracy, which is what the city Club is all about.

So today's competitors will square off on a Lincoln-Douglas style debate which emphasizes logic, ethical values and philosophy, and no name calling.

And this is, as you all know, better than I, this all comes from the Lincoln-Douglas debates from 1858.

So this goes back literally hundreds of years.

I've already mentioned Mike McIntyre, the executive editor for IdeaStream Public Media.

He's going to be broadcasting live, and he's going to be able to be assisted color commentator by Rory Roady.

And I'm going to turn this over to Rory now, and So, Rory.

Hello, everyone.

Thank you so much for having me here today.

My bad.

So today you will be watching a Lincoln-Douglas debate round.

This is a one on one values based debate as he just mentioned.

And it will be between Charlotte Clyde and Anshul Sharma.

They are both seniors.

Angela attends University School and Charlotte attends Hathaway Brown.

Today they will be debating on the resolution.

The United States military ought to abide by the principle of nonintervention.

Unsure.

We'll be taking the negative side of this round and Charlotte will be on the affirmative.

So the way the round works is that Charlotte will go first, and she will present a six minute pre-written speech, and then she will have the opportunity to ask her questions about it.

And then he will present his own speech, along with a rebuttal on Charlotte's case.

Then Charlotte has the opportunity to ask him questions and has the opportunity to give her own rebuttal.

After the round is over, we have three judges here in the front row to decide the winner.

And at the end of the day, they just want to make sure they uphold their core moral values.

You'll hear them talked about throughout the round, specifically with way.

So I will turn it over to the debaters.

Now.

Actually, before we get started with the debate and you can continue to prepare.

Welcome, everybody.

I'm Mike McIntyre from Industry and Public Media, and we're broadcasting live right now on the radio.

And if you're going to be watching on television Sunday, we'll have it on television as well.

So with that, we're going to start with the affirmative and Charlotte Clyde.

if everyone is ready, Then I'll begin my time on my first word.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

Because I agree with the saying, I am proud to affirm results.

The United States military ought to abide by the principle of nonintervention.

The value of this debate is justice defined as giving each their due.

The value criterion is upholding sovereignty, Prefer this value criterion for two reasons.

First, rights come from sovereignty.

If a state doesn't have sovereignty, it can't protect the rights of its citizens.

And second, sovereignty is a prerequisite for societal stability and welfare contention.

One is America at home?

Stevens Sin 23, finds that since 1945, the United States military has been involved in 200 interventions in other countries.

There are three key ways in which U.S.

military intervention undermines American sovereignty.

First, it dangerously expands executive power.

Ingber, 24, a national security law scholar, explains that presidents have repeatedly found ways to deploy military force abroad, unilaterally bringing the country to war or near war situations based solely on executive decision.

Andrews, 26 elaborates that the founders knew that concentrating all war making power in one person would endanger our collective safety and liberty.

In today's world, the president has the unchecked ability to enter into conflicts, even when the people who put them in office oppose it.

The second way is through distraction from domestic issues.

Segev, 22, describes the diversionary theory of war where democratic leaders attempt to divert public attention away from domestic issues, specifically a mere 22 points to 1998 U.S.

air strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan as a strategic tool of distraction that occurred during a period of significant domestic political controversy when leaders use military intervention in this way, the weakened democratic accountability and undermine the sovereignty of the people.

Finally, military intervention represses public dissent.

The Sedition Act, the Red scare in the CIA's domestic espionage program that targeted anti-Vietnam War American citizens, all serve as historical examples.

Obscene oh five and empirical analysis of over 4000 Supreme Court decisions finds that when the U.S.

military intervenes abroad, the Supreme Court is more likely to curtail rights and liberties at home.

When Americans lose the ability to criticize our government, the people lose their sovereignty.

Contention two Is America abroad sub point A trapped in the cycle.

American military interventions have repeatedly caused high civilian death tolls and humanitarian crises.

A Brown University study finds that as a result of U.S.

military operations, over 940,000 people were killed by direct post 911 war violence.

Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians.

Contrary ten examines empirical data, concluding that civilian casualties from U.S.

military intervention caused future violence through increased recruitment into insurgent groups.

SDS 16 highlights that 95% of all suicide terrorist attacks are conducted to end occupying military interventions.

Hurst, 23, adds that since the United States ramped up its counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75,000%.

Military intervention traps the U.S.

and affected countries in a self-perpetuating cycle of violence.

Intervention harms civilians, which fuels the same insurgency that's used as a justification for more intervention.

Sub point B diplomacy breaks the cycle.

Historically, diplomacy has proven to be the most effective foreign policy tool when it comes to de-escalation.

However, Rana 12 explains that military intervention uniquely destroys the trust and credibility necessary for successful negotiation.

The USC Center on Public Diplomacy adds that U.S.

military intervention alienates our allies, creating relations based on coercion rather than attraction.

Look to negotiations with Iran to illustrate this phenomenon.

Talk 23 explains that in 2015, the U.S.

negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPoA, with Iran.

Under its terms, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections.

The US was able to successfully engage in diplomacy because of a lack of military intervention.

After the Trump administration withdrew from the treaty in 2018, President Biden initiated talks with Iran to reinstate it.

However, after four years, the countries got nowhere near a compromise.

The primary reason for that was the US military killing of elite Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

Without the JCPoA, Iran resumed all nuclear activities.

Poll 26 adds that Iranian and U.S.

negotiators held talks just two weeks ago in Geneva, which their mediator said had produced promising progress toward a peace agreement.

Yet since the U.S.

led airstrikes in Iran just two days later, all peace talks have been halted, and Iran said on Monday there was no room to discuss a ceasefire.

Peres, 26, notes that the conflict has expanded throughout the entire Middle East and couldn't reach other great powers like Russia or China.

Essentially, military intervention is the one fear factor that differentiates successful from unsuccessful diplomacy.

Frederick, 21, conducted a meta analysis of 286 complex, concluding that forgoing an intervention is preferable when alternative foreign policy tools are available.

Study finds that because of this, historically more non intervention cases resulted in improved outcomes than deteriorated ones.

The pattern is simple when intervention rises, diplomacy collapses.

When intervention stops, diplomacy succeeds because military intervention violates sovereignty at home and abroad.

I proudly affirm and stand ready for cross-examination.

All my judges ready for cross-sex, I put it.

Yes.

Good time.

Live again on my first word.

Okay, first, let's talk about your value criterion about preserving upholding sovereignty.

What do we do when the sovereignty of a nation comes into conflict with the sovereignty of the people in that nation?

We would tell you that the sovereignty of the people should be valued first and foremost.

That's because when people don't have sovereignty, their rights aren't protected.

Got it?

So our first and foremost duty in today's round, even under your framework of upholding sovereignty, is looking to the sovereignty of people.

We tell you that the sovereignty of the people is violated at home and abroad when we intervene militarily.

Thank you.

Let's talk.

I'm going to jump down to specifically your stuff might be about diplomacy.

Sure.

Can you name me any foreign policy tool that does not have some level of flaws?

Every foreign policy tool is going to have some flaws, but we will tell you that military intervention uniquely undermines diplomacy.

Sure.

So let's talk about that.

Right.

Like you give us examples.

How about can you give me one example of where diplomacy has been successful?

We give you that example.

In 2015, what was entered into the JCPoA did away with Iran.

Did the United States have a military in 2015?

Well, of course we had a military Iran team and we weren't intervening in Iran.

That's why that diplomacy worked.

Can you name one example of a successful diplomatic negotiation that happened with a country that wasn't aware of the United States military might wait?

We would tell you that there's not going to be a country that is not aware of the military.

Okay, might God United States, thank you.

Let's talk about diplomatic treaties.

What happens when a nation doesn't listen to a diplomatic treaty?

Well, when diplomatic treaties collapse, tell you the root cause of that is from military intervention.

No, no, that's not my question.

I'm asking in your world, right?

In a world where we no longer have our military to have intervene, what happens when countries don't abide by our diplomatic treaties?

Well, of course not.

Abiding by a treaty is not going to lead to great outcomes.

But we tell you that the way to ensure that, okay, these are the arts is to not alienate our allies intervening into their countries.

What do countries, even the United States, always abide by diplomatic treaties?

We would tell you that the only way to ensure that we have strong treaties, that's not my question.

To abide by, is to engage in international.

I'm asking based on a track I just asked you, do countries, including the United States, always abide by diplomatic treaties?

We'll never tell you that every single treaty is perfect.

We just tell you they're the strongest when we're not intervening militarily.

Got it?

Let's talk about your point, A, specifically about how you talk about this cycle of violence.

Do you have any evidence that compares how violence occurs in a sea, in a nation, when the U.S.

intervenes, compared to the oppressive regimes that was there beforehand?

Well, our Brown University study specifically tells you that we killed 940,000 people in our post 9/11.

Sure.

That's just telling you that there was 940,000 people that died after the US intervened.

That's not the comparative study.

I'm asking for a comparative study between when the U.S intervened and the oppression that existed beforehand.

In terms of the post 911 war violence, we don't have that specific number.

I'm sure you can give that for us.

But we would tell you that intervention always increases the civilian death toll.

Always.

Yes.

Got it.

Okay.

We're going to take a quick break here, and I'm sure I'll get some time now to prepare for his part.

Now, the negative, constructed, constructive and the first negative rebuttal.

I'm Mike McIntyre along with Rory Rohde, and we're on live on the radio on Ideastream.

And Rory, this kind of debate, Lincoln-Douglas debate is different than other kinds, and you've done pretty much all of them.

Let's talk a little bit about the differences.

And by the way, those in the audience, we're going to be live on the radio.

So if you can please maintain your silence even in between the debating.

Rory, can you tell me a little bit about a public forum debate on how a different how it's different from Lincoln Douglas.

Right.

So as you heard at the top of Charlotte's case, as well as at the beginning of cross-examination from onshore, there's a lot of talk about this core value.

What that means is it's how we weigh between different impacts.

A comparison of this to Lincoln Douglas would be that Lincoln Douglas doesn't have core values.

And it's not really a value space to be.

Instead, when you weigh impacts in public forum, they look towards quantitative impacts.

And who has the largest number regardless of values.

They're kind of all weighed the same.

However, in Lincoln Douglas, if Charlotte and Angel present different values, then it's going to be a drastically different weighing between different impacts, even if they both have significant numbers in them.

So what this is all about is, is a moral argument.

And that's different because it's not just evidence versus evidence.

Sometimes we'll see people talking very quickly.

It isn't really about style points necessarily.

It's about getting the information in right.

You'll notice that a lot of people around the room and the judges are frantically writing on pieces of paper what they're doing is flowing the and that's how they're going to evaluate who wins based on who has the most evidence and impact.

Still standing at the end.

And I want to note actual, whenever you're ready, just go ahead and get up, give me the high sign, and we'll stop talking in mid-sentence and continue this.

You mentioned flowing.

So what does that term mean?

So that term is when you basically write down everything they're saying, specifically the evidence and impacts.

They give all of their contentions.

And then throughout the round you write down all the responses to the contentions.

And any time a debater would front line, which is basically defending your own case.

And that's really important because it shows the judges and the debaters what they have responded to and what they haven't responded to.

And so if you notice, an argument goes on, responded, it makes it really easy to evaluate.

And when you're doing it and you're flowing, an affirmative like that, and you're going to be coming up to cross-examine, are you keying in on certain points?

You're like, yep, that's one I know about.

And I want to I want to challenge.

Yes, definitely.

Especially once you've been doing a topic for so long or even just had one tournament on it, such as this topic, you really know all the popular contentions and arguments, and so then you have pre-written responses to them.

And so cross-examination is a great opportunity to get your opponent to concede to something that will work really well for your rebuttal, with your written responses and how much.

When you think about when you paint a house, it's mostly about the sanding and the scraping before the painting.

So how important is the preparation as opposed to what these debaters are able to do in real time?

I think the preparation is really important.

It gives you a lot of confidence in year round.

However, I would say that you can have amazing prep and not do well in a round.

What you do under pressure when you're up there and you only have four minutes to get your point across, is really going to be the most important.

Okay, I see that onshore is coming up to the podium, to the lectern, and so I'm going to turn it over to him and we will move.

With which part of the debate is this.

Now this will be his constructive and rebuttal.

Thank you.

I'm sure.

Okay.

Are my judges ready for the seven minute negative construct rebuttal opponent?

Okay.

Time will begin.

On my first word.

British philosopher Edmund Burke once said, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Because I agree that action is necessary in the face of oppression, I negate resolved.

I agree with my opponent's value of justice, but my value criterion is mitigating structural oppression, defined as the tendency of institutions to promote hierarchies, creating power disparities in which those with power are left to abuse those without it unimpeded.

This requires firstly rejecting the institutions, entrenching harmful structures irrespective of consequences.

Prefer this framework for two reasons.

First, it precedes all other paths to justice, according to Winton Lane 99 until we mitigate the structures oppressing individuals, any action taken to improve collective society or even sovereignty will always be done at the expense of the marginalized.

And second, it's the most directly applicable value criterion because governments can only change large scale structures, not individual people.

To clarify two definitions, first, Princeton professor Michael Wood defines nonintervention as the prohibition of the threat or use of force against any state.

And second, Todd defines a principle as a primary concept that is held to be true and fundamental.

Thus, I offer one observation the firm de must defend a world where we comprehensively abide by nonintervention.

If there ought to be exceptions, you should vote.

NEC preferred this because they didn't give you any definitions.

The only definition in this round come from the negative.

My sole contention is enabling evil.

Sub point A is genocide from Burkina Faso to South Sudan, OPA 25 explained.

There currently exist ten active genocides worldwide and the US cannot afford to sit in silence.

Pique, 23, empirically explained since 1900, genocidal killing ends only in one of two ways by perpetrators successfully completing their objectives or military defeat.

Ultimately, nonmilitary mechanisms to halt genocide are not effective.

Moreover, the US is key has the greatest credibility and influence to stop mass atrocities.

Albright and Cohen Kono eight state US capabilities have been decisive.

The international community responds to atrocities most effectively when the US is actively engaged.

Regional organizations have been hampered by inadequate capacity.

The US fills these capacity gaps and past history reflects the US's successes in 1991.

If details how the US executed operation provide comfort for Kurdish civilians, establishing a safe zone, deterring Iraqi aircraft, airdrop humanitarian aid and moving 7000 refugees to Guam.

And when the US doesn't act, the consequences are disastrous.

RAK, 19, finds the US pursued Nonintervention with Rwanda even after warnings of a genocide, a decision that continues led to the death of 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis.

Tragically, Dawn, 24, discovers just 400 troops could have prevented it all.

In times of genocide, Nonintervention is surrender.

Some point.

B is moral complicity even beyond the consequences of preventing intervention.

Nonintervention is principally immoral.

McGough, 24, explains.

When faced with systemic oppression or dehumanization, tolerance is not neutral.

Tolerating.

It's to turn a blind eye to the suffering of millions.

The unwillingness to intervene is equated to an allowance for its continuation.

IEP 20 explains.

When rights violations are so severe that suffering is widespread, and systematic intervention is justifiably a force for change.

There are times where diplomacy or sanctions won't work, and we agree the U.S.

military isn't perfect.

But when everything else fails, barring the US from intervening makes us a morally culpable bystander.

This legitimizes prejudice, coercion, and despotism as morally permissible and burning their ideological structures for centuries.

Thus I negate.

Now let's move on to the firm.

Decide the flow first on their value chain about upholding sovereignty.

Remember, they've conceded in cross six that our first and foremost duty is to individual sovereignty.

That means they're always going to look to ways that we can dismantle that.

And we've proven to you that structural oppression is the best way to do so.

But then under contingent one, we have a few responses.

First, we will tell you that when the United States is no longer able to do things like apply the threat of force, the alternative is always going to be worse.

For two reasons.

First is because you have worse actors coming into power instead of the United States, specifically of actors like Russia and China, that now can embolden authoritarianism and decrease democracy around the world.

Sure, even a military intervention decrease democracy at home.

You prefer something that doesn't do it worldwide, but then second, even they're not going to stop any of these.

Like bad actions for diplomacy either way, because the United States can still use things like private military contractors.

Wheeler, 21, explains that the only alternative to military intervention in the firmly world would be individual contractors that would then go in, and they're known to commit more human rights violations, more executions, more killings.

Realize that every single impact on their firm, the world at this point is going to get worse.

So then third, we tell you, remember, the duty is still to individuals.

That comes first.

So all the impacts in our case come before we look to any of these democratic structures that they talk about.

But fourth, even if we want to look, even if we want to think that like it's not going to go to these any like military contractors, at the end of the day, military funding will still go to other places.

We are still allowed to support allies that people might disagree with supporting.

For example, there's a lot of controversy over like Israel and all our conflicts there, and we're still supporting them.

And that's not going to change in the affirmative world, because that's not what military intervention is.

There's always going to be some level of dissent.

But then top 23 and 2020 tells you that the actual way that we're intervening has been changing in recent years.

Specifically, we're now trying to intervene more for democracy and humanitarian purposes, which means that continuing in the future, all of this public perception, dissent is going to decrease.

And finally, sixth, we tell you that they talk about how the Supreme Court's rights are restricted.

But remember, we tell you one end times where we intervene.

There's an increase in rise like terrorism to democracy at home.

That means we have to have some level of restriction.

And to the whole purpose of governments is to restrict some rights in order to preserve others.

That's why we have democracy in the first place, then under contention to first.

On supporting a first, we tell you that holistically.

They tell you that whenever we intervene, we're going to cause violence.

That's not true.

There's so many examples you can look to genocide in our case, but also look to Panama.

We went in six weeks, got rid of their dictator, and now we left them to establish democracy for themselves.

And they're still democratic to this day.

Second, you can cross apply our power vacuums and private military contractors argument.

Remember that both for conflict it's always going to get worse.

But three you can look to right 20 remember they don't have any comparative evidence, as they said, and prospects for what's going to be the reality when the United States leaves.

Right.

20 tells you then when regional actors come in specifically, we saw when the US decreased presence in Yemen, Saudi Arabia came in and made human rights worse.

That's going to be their reality.

But fourth, we tell you that actually the United States has been able to empirically decrease conflict and many of the regions holistically.

You prefer that over there.

One region, Africa under sub point B about diplomacy one Krieger 25, tells you that diplomacy has failed not because of military intervention, but rather because of increased globalization and media presence.

In recent years, it's been decreasing internationally to diplomacy without military backing is like giving a child a warning without any real consequences, we tell you.

Look to Weschler, 21, which tells you that we always need the threat of military force because when people know that we don't, we can't actually act on their words.

Then they're never going to follow them.

But even still, military gives us a seat at the table for diplomatic agreements and third veto.

There are situations where diplomacy doesn't work in the first place, situations like genocide, those countries aren't willing to negotiate with us, and we don't have the time to do diplomatic agreements.

And finally, on Iran, you can look to craft 25, which tells you that the reason Iran diplomacy failed is because our diplomatic talks are fundamentally mischaracterized and more overt than that, they were never going to succeed because of all we had contradictory objectives.

If everyone is ready for the three minute cross-examination, great, then I'll begin my time now.

So just to establish this, the United States federal government doesn't abide by the principle of nonintervention currently.

Correct.

So the negative is defending the status quo.

I mean, we tell you so we tell you that the United States responds differently to different situations like sometimes like it's not comprehensively abiding by nonintervention meaning that's not the only thing we do, but we do use things like diplomacy occasionally.

We're just telling you on the negative side that there are situations which uniquely we need military intervention.

We can't always look to not okay, wait.

But insofar as just two weeks ago we saw military intervention in Iran, and in January we saw intervention in Venezuela.

What do you say that we're currently intervening abroad.

Okay.

Just because you give us two examples of military intervention doesn't mean that in America's century long history, we've never done noninterventionist strategies.

That's obviously a really broad generalized.

But if you're not defending the status quo, then what world are you defending?

Okay, first of all, the burden of the negative is simply just to defend the world that we at least have access to military intervention as a tool.

We don't have to defend that military invention is always going to be used, but it should be a tool in our foreign policy toolbox.

That's the world we're defending.

Let's talk about the framework.

So what about the negative world does something to mitigate structural oppression?

Sure.

So we give you two ways that it does that.

First of all, we tell you we're not being morally complicit, right.

On a princely level.

If we're allowing ourselves to by to sit and be complicit in other atrocities around the world, that's fundamentally perpetuating structured oppression like despotism abroad.

But second, we tell you, we're actually taking an active step to specifically combat things like genocide, which we would tell you are the biggest perpetrators of human rights around the world.

But if you're defending our current military intervention as policy, how is that making any change to mitigate the oppression that's already occurring right now in our world?

Okay, I think you're misconstruing the argument for a little bit.

First of all, our some point B is talking about your world, affirmative world, a world where we're not allowed to act at all.

Our second, our first sub point about genocide is talking about how empirically, the United States has used its military as a force for good.

That's what we're dismantling structures of oppression, specifically genocide.

Let's talk about this genocide.

Sure.

So to international institutions like the U.N.

play a role in providing this atrocity.

I'm really glad you asked that question, because specifically, if you looked at instances like Bosnia, the United States had to intervene because the UN was unsuccessful.

The UN also has problems with veto power between China and Russia, which makes intervening a big problem for them.

And it stalls action.

That's why we need the US.

So in the context of genocide, what military strikes generally make those negotiations and genocide easier or harder?

So we're not talking about negotiations to end genocide.

I don't think Rwanda would have been opened in negotiations in the first place.

And we tried that.

Remember, that's when 800,000 people died.

Okay.

On this idea of the power vacuum with Russia and China filling in, have we ever seen this happen when the US didn't intervene in a conflict?

Yeah.

So we specifically saw that when we drew back troops from Afghanistan, we saw that China expand economic exploitation in Afghanistan.

So there was economic exploitation.

I mean, I see that.

So the way that they do that is that through their Belt and Road Initiative, they're able to expand authoritarianism by supplying and supporting authoritarian regimes.

I'd say that's still a bad thing in terms of human rights and oppressive structures in democracy around the world.

That's time for growth.

All right.

I would I would say it's on.

This is getting real right here.

I would definitely agree.

Yeah.

And we'll get real close to that microphone.

This is Rory Rody.

She's from Chagrin Falls High School, and we're going to talk a little bit here.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

We're going to fill a little bit of the time for the radio audience while, Charlotte gets ready and she has her preparation time.

Let me ask you, do you like the affirmative or the negative better when you're debating?

Typically I prefer the negative.

I think you have more time to respond to arguments, which is really valuable in debate.

However, there's definitely an argument that the affirmative gives you an advantage because the affirmative gets the last word.

That's especially important when I mean all judges in debate are volunteers.

A majority of them are parents, and the ability to have the last word in last impression is really valuable.

And so when you, is it a coin flip, and Lincoln-Douglas, the like sides of the topic are decided before you go into the round.

Okay?

So you have time to prepare.

And when they tell you which side you are, do you go, I wish I was the other or do you just take it and say, whatever it is, I can prevail.

Typically a typical tournament, there's about four rounds, and you can usually expect to have two rounds on the affirmative and two on the negative.

So you kind of know what's going to happen.

But it's more so who you're hitting on which side.

In this case, we're in front of a whole crowd of people on television and on radio.

What does that do to the nerves?

Because back when I did debate and it was, it was policy debate.

It was, two people, a judge and pretty much no one else.

Maybe a coach was in the room.

Yes.

I cannot imagine how Angel and Charlotte must be feeling right now, especially with everybody around the room flowing to.

I could imagine this is extremely stressful, but they're both doing amazing, very calm and collected as we've seen.

We talked a little bit earlier about research and how important that is, and then also how being in the moment is important.

But tell me about your process for research.

You still call it cards.

And the reason for that, we did it back in the day.

You cut out little newspaper or magazine articles and literally glued it to a card, and we'd carry these boxes all around with us.

You don't have that now.

I see the laptops up there, but they're still called cards.

Yes.

What?

What is the research process for you?

For me, when I get the topic, I just start by googling everything about it.

Why is this good?

Why is this bad history of anything related to the topic like history of U.S.

intervention?

And from there you can kind of get a feel of what's going on.

What do people think about it, and it gives you a clear place to start your cases and your contentions.

And then the topics always seem timely.

Last year it was about the morality of AI, generative AI, and this year, I don't know if we could have timing that's better in the middle of an intervention.

That's that's happening now with the U.S.

and you hear it referenced in the debate as well?

Yes, absolutely.

Especially considering that we got this topic back on February 1st, it could not be more like current as it continuously gets developed.

And because of that, is your research involving more so because of a topic like this, current events, whereas maybe others would be looking more at history.

Yeah, there's definitely an advantage to this being a current event.

I watch our talk now.

That's right.

You can finish that.

Oh, she's well, as you heard Charlotte mentioned in her speech, she cites sources from Monday, which gives a new perspective that you might not be able to respond to.

But we did see his rebuttal.

We shall see.

Yeah.

All right.

And Charlotte is now coming.

With which part of the debate is this now, Rory, this is the four minute affirmative rebuttal.

Okay, Charlie, just as a brief off time roadmap, the order of the speech is going to be responding to the opponents case and then responding to his attacks on my case.

So if everyone's ready, great.

Then I'll begin my time.

Now, let's sort of the framework, we both do justice, but we differ when it comes to the value criterion.

We would give you three key responses as to why you're always going to prefer our framework.

First, there's nothing about the negative role that actually does anything to address structural oppression.

They're simply telling us to stick to the status quo.

And in the status quo, we see civilian casualties, terrorism, war that is the height of structural oppression.

But second, sovereignty is a prerequisite because rights are derived from the state.

And when people don't have rights, they're oppressed.

And third, we still win under this framework because first, the best way to solve oppressive conflicts is with diplomacy.

And second, we also minimize human rights violations and terrorism, which often harm the least well off the most.

Now let's talk about this observation my opponent gives.

When we look at today's resolution, we see that we are debating a principle.

And that's really important because the negative has to argue for a world without the principle that's the status quo.

We can't just pretend that in the status quo, we reserve our military for only some kinds of interventions.

We have to look around and see that our current policy is interventionist.

Now, on this contention one let's start with the support of genocide UK responses here.

First created 19 finds and one of the root causes of genocide.

It's actually military intervention.

And they point to a 1954 U.S.

Pat coup in Guatemala that helped create the conditions for the later genocide.

But second, military intervention is not the best way to stop genocide.

USA explains that in response to genocide, the U.S.

should actually seek to halt and reverse escalation as quickly as possible, and they see that the best way to address it is through collective action.

But third, look to Kosovo, where military intervention made genocide worse.

That's Human Rights Watch, which explains that when the U.S.

led a 1999 bombing, Serbian forces escalated their campaign, expelling over 150,000 people in an ethnic cleansing.

And lastly, in the affirmative world, we can still look to UN frameworks to stop genocide and get in, 25 tells us those are the most stable and established mechanisms to look at.

Now, on the subject of moral complicity, he tells you that tolerance is to turn a blind eye to atrocities that are happening.

We would tell you that we're not turning a blind eye.

We're just looking to soft power, to economic sanctions, to diplomacy.

And remember, with that run a 12 evidence we give you in our case that diplomacy is going to be better and more efficient every single time.

But we'll get to that on the side of our case.

Now, let's start with my contention.

One of America at home and my opponent's response is here.

First, he tells you that worse actors come into power in foreign countries.

And he says that even if military intervention threatens democracy at home, it doesn't do so worldwide.

But the problem with that response is that he doesn't actually respond to our argument or contention.

One is specifically about sovereignty at home.

He doesn't give you one response to tell you that intervention doesn't expand executive power dangerously, that it doesn't distract us and that it doesn't repress dissent, force him to actually respond to this argument.

Then he says, when these private military companies are going to fill in, but first, private military companies are contracted by the federal government, that means that under nonintervention they would be prohibited.

Second, when the private military companies were active in the past, empirically, they were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They were always alongside us and that means that this argument, it's completely hypothetical, because his evidence shows that the only act with the U.S.

government, they've never acted independently, but that he tells you that we intervene for democracy and humanitarian purposes.

Remember, we can't just choose one kind of intervention on this contention.

Two, he first tells you that we looked at these regime changes where we put a democracy in place.

Dennison, 20, tells you that military intervention is not successful in changing regimes, but it actually sparked civil wars and further conflicts.

We can look to what happened in Iran just two weeks ago.

We just see even more instability there.

And we actually see a war in the Middle East when we try to implement this regime change.

But then he tells you that diplomacy doesn't work.

But first, the reason U.S.

diplomacy isn't currently reaching its full potential is because the U.S.

doesn't abide by the principle of military nonintervention that's run at 12 and CPD 17.

And you can think of a wrong example there, too.

But another reason why diplomacy is currently flawed is because of the human rights violations that the U.S.

is committing abroad through our military intervention.

Those actions and violations of international law undermine our credibility to negotiate and like are us.

See evidence points out, alienate our allies.

Okay.

We've got another quick, break here before the, second negative rebuttal.

Is that right?

I'm with Rory, Rohde Mike McIntyre here to talk about what's going on here and about the process of these debates.

So let me ask you, Rory, you've done a lot of these.

Does it matter who your opponent is?

I think it definitely does.

You'll notice that even Charlotte and George will have very different speaking styles.

But sometimes when you and your opponent both debate differently, it's best to contrast them.

It gives the judges two completely different approaches that they get to evaluate between and as a competitor, are you looking at somebody and saying, I lost to them before or I beat them before, or is it is the personality out of it?

That definitely is a thought that will be in your mind.

However, it's always best to take it one round at a time and not let that phase you.

Fair enough.

Unsure is getting ready.

Almost ready.

Bringing his laptop up to the lectern and we're going to let him take it away.

Here.

As a brief off ten roadmap, I'm going to be starting on framework and going down the affirmative case and then going over the negative case and key voting issues in today's round.

All my judges ready.

Put it right.

Time will begin.

On my first word.

First starting on framework.

Remember their analysis their own analysis from Cossacks to preserve sovereignty.

Our first and foremost duty is to look to individual rights.

They themselves said, both here and abroad.

They dropped our analysis that we made in our last speech, that the best way to preserve individual rights is by rejecting the structures of oppression.

That is their own analysis in today's round.

But still, let's go over their responses that they made.

First, they tell us that there's nothing that in our case that reject structural oppression.

Well, the whole point of framework is that's independent the resolution.

So I'm not sure how that's applicable.

But even still, remember we told you in crosscheck that we're deterring things like genocide.

We're not being complicit and allowing these other bad actors to be emboldened in actions like despotism or prejudice by not actually acting against them.

But second, they tell you that in sovereignty, rights are denied from the state.

But remember, that's our entire point.

We have to look to preserve individual rights.

Before we looked at collective rights, they have dropped and conceded that analysis, and then they just tell you that the best way to win is through the net.

Affirmative.

But we'll prove to you why that's not true.

With that, let's go down the affirmative side of the flow first.

Under contention one, we're going to go over a few clearly conceded arguments.

First, we would tell you, remember, the purpose of a government in the first place is to restrict some liberties to promote others.

We're always going to have some restriction of liberties.

We're always going to have some things that don't go the way of public opinion.

And the whole purpose of executive power in the first place is that we vote on the president.

We give them the ability to make those decisions in the first place.

They've conceded that because those are fundamental democratic procedures.

But second, we can look to our top 23 and Choi 20 evidence, which tells you that the way that the United States is conducting military interventions has been changing in recent years, specifically, they're not just recklessly doing it anymore, but rather specifically for point A democracy and humanitarian intervention.

That means that even if things have been wrong in the past, we're looking to fix our mistakes going into the future.

But then third, remember, we tell you that this public dissent, distraction, all of these executive procedures still continue in other ways in the affirmative world.

Look to our support of allies like Iran or are supportive allies like Israel.

There's a lot of people who disagree with that, but that's still going to continue, even though affirmative world, they're not fundamentally getting rid of whatever's causing that in the first place.

But then let's go over the few responses that they did respond to.

First, on power vacuums.

They tell you that this doesn't respond to our arguments.

Well, remember, judge, they're looking to preserving our sovereignty.

That means that we also have to deter our adversaries.

That could threaten it, insofar as we're allowing Russia and China to get more power.

In reality, where we're drawing out of regions in the Middle East, then fundamentally we're decreasing our ability to protect our individuals, we're decreasing our ability to preserve sovereignty all around the world because we're allowing these threatening adversaries to get more power.

But then second, on private military contractors, one, the Department of Defense themselves don't agree that private military contractors are part of the military.

They're not the US Army, they're not the US Navy.

You agree with that?

Because that's literally the actor in today's resolution.

But then second, they tell you that private military contractors fight alongside the US.

That's exactly the point.

They're going to keep filling in the United States is roles.

That means executive power is still going to continue just to alternate forces.

They don't even win this old argument.

But then let's go on to the contention to first undercut point A. They've conceded every single response we gave you.

First, they tell you that military intervention sparked civil wars.

But remember, this isn't a fundamental issue.

This isn't a fundamental characteristic of military intervention.

We've given you examples of Panama where the United States didn't spark a civil war.

All it did was get rid of its dictatorship, establish democracy and leave the region.

They haven't shown you why this is inherent.

All they do is give you cherry picked examples.

But then there's other three other responses that have gone conceded.

The first is that power vacuums and private military contractors are always going to go.

Things can make things worse.

They just tell you that Russia and China doesn't respond to their sovereignty argument, but they never actually responded to the argument itself.

You're going to flow that through because that means that every one of their impacts gets worse.

But second, remember these regional actors, we gave you the example when the US withdrew from Yemen and we saw Saudi Arabia start civil conflict there.

That's just going to make it worse.

But remember, we also give you a fourth argument that outside of Africa, the United States has empirically decreased conflict abroad.

You're going to prefer that over there.

One regional analysis then on some point be about diplomacy.

The biggest mistake that they made in their last speech is not responding to the fact that diplomacy is always emboldened with military presence.

We gave you our website there, 21 evidence which says that we need diplomacy.

We need military backing for any diplomatic agreement, because otherwise people won't realize that we can act on their words, and they just won't follow any treaties in the first place.

And then on Iran example, remember we told you that Iran in the US has contradictory objectives.

They were never going to come to a diplomatic agreement in the first place.

And on top of that, we told you that diplomacy only been failing because of more globalization and media presence.

It has nothing to do with military presence at this point.

They have no offense coming out of their entire speech.

Don't let them get up and talk about it next, because obviously I don't have a third negative rebuttal with that.

Let's go on to key voting issues in today's route.

Your first and most important key voting issue is going to be some point B about moral complicity.

All they tell you is that we're looking to soft power.

We're looking at sanctions.

That's how we're not going to be complicit.

Judge.

They're basically saying that if we play is we spray tepid water on a burning house.

That's enough to solve the problem.

Obviously, we can't just say words.

We need to actually act on those words.

It's stuck to Rwanda.

Diplomacy obviously is not going to work in Rwanda, and we need to act now.

We don't have time to wait weeks by saying that is okay for us to sit idly by when people are being persecuted, oppressed and genocide.

Remember our fundamental duty in this round for Lincoln-Douglas debate is to address the principal moral concern.

Insofar as something is principally immoral, you can never vote on it, no matter how bad the consequences are.

But your second key voting issue is going to be on the point about genocide.

They try and tell you that we're defending the status quo.

Nowhere does it say that's a burden, the negative.

We just have to defend a world where intervention can be a tool in the toolbox.

That doesn't necessarily have to be the status quo, but insofar as they're true, they tell you that genocide is caused by the United States.

Obviously, when genocide is already like existing, it's not the United States is fault.

You can look to examples with the Kurdish, but then under Kosovo example, the United States actually stepped in to help with that, specifically the United steps in when the U.N.

couldn't remember.

Look back across the U.N., failed in Bosnia, failed to protect the Bosnian Muslims from the Serbians, but the U.S.

actually solved it.

At the end of the day, we agree that Nonintervention should be standard, but never the rule.

It's a clear neck ballot.

Okay.

I would I would hate to be the parents of Anshul and Charlotte who have to tell them they can't have the car or something.

Would never win that one.

Let me ask you a question.

Right at this point, there's one more, rebuttal that's going to happen.

But when you're at this point in the debate, do you kind of know that you've won or not?

Yeah.

So you hear you'll talk a lot about like, don't let Charlotte respond to this argument or extend arguments through.

And that's because in the second affirmative rebuttal, there are no new arguments you can bring up, no new pieces of information.

And so what that means is that Charlotte's basically going to summarize what has already happened in the round.

And that can be really valuable for people listening.

However, if you have a flow in front of you, it's usually pretty easy to see what's going on since nothing new is really going to get brought up.

Besides weighing mechanisms, I'm sure everyone at home is flowing this debate, so we've all got that.

I do want to call out, the coaches, Charlotte's coach, Jason.

Hey, big and Angels coach James Lewis.

Great job guys.

Terrific.

And let's hear it for them.

And now we're going to go to Charlotte.

Okay.

If everyone is ready, the order of the speech is going to be framework and then key voting issues for today's rounds.

I'll begin my time.

Now starting on the framework.

Sovereignty is always a prerequisite to mitigating structural oppression.

Where do we get our rights?

We get them from the state.

If there's no state to distribute those rights, people suffer.

But we win under both frameworks because diplomacy is the best way to solve oppressive conflicts.

And oppression only increases when we see civilian deaths, terrorism, and prolonged conflict.

We uphold sovereignty and mitigate structural oppression.

At best.

In my opponent's world, they only do one.

The first key voting issue in today's round is on sovereignty at home.

In a democracy, sovereignty is honoring the will of the people and protecting the rights.

But throughout our 200 military interventions abroad, we've seen the exact violation of that.

These interventions have allowed presidents to seek dangerous expansion of executive power, distract from domestic issues, and repress public dissent at home, infringing on our civil rights and liberties.

And here at the City Club, is there anything more important than free speech and our constitutional rights?

The problem is that my opponent has failed to give you one response that tells you how military intervention doesn't violate sovereignty at home.

His main response here is that, oh, because we vote for the president, then the president's acts are suddenly moral.

But what he's missing here is that our Constitution specifically gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the president.

And that expansion of executive power is a direct violation of that.

That's really important, because the easiest place to vote is to acknowledge that intervention has these disastrous impacts abroad.

And right here in the United States, the second key voting issue in today's round is on breaking the cycle.

The burden of the negative to defend the status quo, even though he tries to reject that, we can't just magically imagine that will only intervene in these very specific scenarios.

We have to look to what's happening right now, and that's interventionist policy.

As we look at history and the world around us, it's abundantly clear that our current intervention is policies aren't working.

Remember our Brown study that showed you how U.S.

intervention leads to mass civilian casualties?

Then Condra showed you that in response, terrorist activity skyrockets the same terrorist activity that's used to justify our intervention.

And when that next counterterrorism intervention comes, more civilians are killed and that terrorism spiked by 75,000%.

If we continue this way, the cycle keeps spinning, innocent civilians are killed and conflicts prolonged.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

Affirming a resolution allows us to break the cycle through diplomacy.

He tells you that diplomacy doesn't work and that it's too slow, but one, it doesn't work perfectly because of our military intervention.

That's why we affirm.

And second, ask yourself, is it better to slowly approach a peace agreement or impulsively engage in a war?

Then he also says that we cherry pick examples.

But recall Frederick, 21.

That was a meta analysis of 286 conflicts.

That's 286 examples more than he can give you that tells you for going.

Intervention leads to better outcomes because we shift to foreign policy tools.

But most importantly, remember our talk 23 evidence of the Iran example.

In 2015, we saw diplomacy with the JCPoA without intervention.

In 2020, we saw the Uyghur negotiating because of the U.S.

attacks on Iran.

And just two weeks ago, the US was getting close to a peace deal with Iran, right when air strikes halted, all talks and a full scale war broke out in the Middle East.

That's what happens when we do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome.

That's insanity.

I couldn't be prouder to affirm.

Thank you Charlotte.

What a terrific debate.

I'm Mike McIntyre, along with Rory Brody, and I want to say thank you to you as well for all of your insights.

Today as well, you've won 113 rounds of debate in your high school career.

In addition to debate, you can cloud a softball.

And you won the 2022 state championship in extemporaneous debate, qualified for the state tournament in Lincoln Douglas three times.

What a great, co-host we've had here tonight.

And now I would like to welcome Dan Mullen to the stage, as the judges are taking some time to make their tallies.

Hopefully you folks on the radio audience will get the results before we're done with today's broadcast.

And Dan is going to talk with our contestants about Mike McIntyre.

Roy Brody, thank you so much.

Please join me in thanking them.

Those are some very impressive numbers.

Rory.

It's it's very impressive.

So.

And now can we can everybody, everybody join me in thanking Charlotte announced for our competitors today.

You guys stand up.

Stand up.

Come on.

Great job.

Really fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic.

So, while the judges are tabulating and they are furiously tabulating, I'd like to just recognize them.

They are.

Corinne Lashley from Chagrin Falls High School, Devin Snoke from Vermillion High School, and Marty Flax is our chosen city Club representative.

Marty took over at the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and, happens to have been a Lincoln-Douglas debater herself, some years ago.

And so it's all in high school is all right.

So please join me in thanking our judges today.

And for the radio audience, if you're interested, if you've been listening, you want to, like, just hop over to City club.org or to our YouTube channel.

So you can see in in see live who is going to be crowned the victor today.

This was intense, you guys.

I have a watch that tells me what my heart rate is and it was spiking a lot.

Just sort of empathetically, with both of you.

And so I want to ask you a question.

You guys faced off in this debate with this topic, this resolution previously.

But on the other side, did you anticipate the, the affirmative evidence that that Charlotte put forward?

You got a mic?

Oh, you are Mike.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've obviously this topic is kind of new, but I mean, the amount of research that both of us have to do to even just be prepared for any tournament like we've probably seen, like the same source many times before we come to a debate round.

So I've definitely heard and expected arguments like that before.

And, and the way that that on she'll try to take apart your affirmative argument.

Did you did you anticipate a lot of that?

Charlotte.

So sometimes some of the responses are pretty common and so they can be anticipated.

Some of the responses are also new.

And that's when you really have to to think on your feet.

So it's really a balance between using the evidence that you have prepared, but also just being able to react in that moment.

Did he say anything that surprised you?

Nothing I can think of particularly.

Right.

I'm sure something and I'm sure.

Were there any arguments that that caught you by surprise?

Honestly, I think I think just, like, it's probably, like, more surprising.

Just like the different paths we take later in the round.

I think that surprised me more than the original cases.

I think in any round, honestly, it's like a choose your own adventure.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So, switching topics now, both of you are seniors set to graduate?

I assume that all that's all in order, right?

You're not about to like not.

No, not Fran.

No, she's got she's good until you're set.

But I understand neither of you have plans, set for next year.

You're both sort of waiting to hear, putting aside where you'll be in September, where do you hope to be after college?

Charlotte.

So I want to study public policy in college and then hopefully attend law school.

And then I see a career for myself in law or public service.

Okay, now we have a law firm in the house, Baker Hostetler.

So take note.

Archer, what about you?

I hopefully I want to major in public health and environmental science in college and then become a physician, environmentalist, a physician, environmentalist.

Yeah.

Excellent.

All right.

Well, great.

There's a number of hospitals that I think, I think will be delighted to help you on your path.

Yeah.

Do we have Mr.

Lucas?

You sure do.

We have a winner.

We do.

Come on up.

Let's go.

Please welcome Tom Mackenzie.

It is Baker Hostetler.

Privilege and honor to crown the champions.

So, Tom, who do we have?

Well, I think we can agree both debaters did a wonderful job.

There has to be a Victor.

Right.

And the judges have determined Anshul Sharma is the winner of this debate.

Okay, so.

Well, congratulations to you.

Here.

We got, congratulations to both of our competitors on shall Sharma and Sharda Clyde.

Really just an incredible, incredible performance by both.

And, I want to thank all of you for joining us for this Friday forum featuring our 2026 high School debate Lincoln-Douglas Championship, presented in memory of Patrick Jordan.

And in partnership with Baker Hostetler.

Forms like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals throughout our community.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian.

A free speech at City club.org.

And again, well done to all of our competitors and our judges.

Thank you so much for your time.

Of course.

Also gratitude to our color commentary duo, Rory and Mike.

Thank you so much.

We don't.

Our form is full of students today.

They join us from Chagrin Falls High School, Cleveland Heights, University, Heights High School, Davis Aerospace, Maritime High School, Garfield Heights Middle School, Hathaway Brown School, Lutheran West High School, MC squared, Stem, Shaw High School, University School, and Vermillion High School.

Thank you all so much for being here today.

Coming up next week, Friday, March 20th at the City Club, we will welcome CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams.

He's author of the latest book, Five Bullets, which digs into the 19 1980s New York and the story of Bernie gets the so-called subway vigilante.

That brings us to the end of our forum today.

Members and friends of the City Club.

Thank you so much for being with us.

We'll see you a year from now or sooner.

I'm Dan Moulthrop of our forums now adjourn.

Thank you.