ESU United States Tour 2003 – Tom Hay In the Autumn of 2003, Tom Hay, a recent Oxford graduate, and Tom Hamilton, who had just submitted his PhD Thesis at Durham, set out on a two month tour of the United States. During their ten-week trip they would participate in 45 debates, speaking for roughly seven and a half hours in front of around 0.001% of the US population. They would visit 30 Universities over 73 days and eat around 150 meals, many of them on one of their 30 flights. They would fly into Chicago O’Hare eight times. They would fire 40 rounds of ammunition from three different guns.
Hofstra University New York – Sep 11-13 We were met in New York by Chuck Fleischman of Hofstra University. To help us acclimatise, we weren’t asked to do any debating, and were given the very welcome opportunity to go into New York for the day to do some sightseeing. Ground Zero was a humbling site, especially the day after the second anniversary of 9/11. Thankfully, the emotional power of the scene wasn’t enough to get us to buy any of the slightly dubious souvenirs that were plentifully available. We packed in as many tourist sights as we could, hitting Central Park, the Empire State building, Coney Island, Wall Street, Time Square, and the very impressive Guggenheim. By the end of the day I felt, rather naively, that I had ‘done’ New York. In our shared Taxi on the way home, the driver almost got into a fight with one of the passengers who had
called him ‘homeboy’. Things calmed down when it was explained that this was actually a term of respect.
Washington University St. Louis, Missouri – Sep 13-15 Washington University was our first contact with US students, and we were reassured to be immediately invited to a party in the evening with the opportunity to play Poker and ‘Beer Pong’, an intellectual game that has failed to enter the UK mainstream. Our time at Washington was spent mainly in the company of one of the students, Stephanie, who took us out with her friends and generally made us feel welcome. We also went out with the coach, Jennifer Ridgeon to see the St. Louis art museum and East St. Louis, a severely depressed neighbourhood across the river in Illinois. The gambling and pornography laws are considerably more lenient in Illinois, which only adds to the seedy East St. Louis atmosphere. Thank God for the huge ‘Jesus’ signs by the side of the road. They really helped to keep us away from the Strip clubs and Casinos, and consequently from sin. Our debate was ‘This House believes in the value of a Liberal Arts education in a global economy’ and was scheduled to coincide with the 150 th anniversary celebrations of the University. We were in opposition and in the unenviable position of having to tell an audience of students, parents and alumni, that everything that they had worked for and were celebrating was irrelevant. In lieu of powerful arguments, Tom and I just made fun of poets. The 80 strong audience seemed to enjoy it, but I suspect that we would have heavily lost a vote if one had been called. Thanks to their new executive centre, our accommodation at Washington University was incredible, with a room each and a free pantry on our floor!
Webster University St. Louis, Missouri – Sep 15-17 Webster University has a number of sites across the United States, one of which is, unsurprisingly, in St. Louis. Our hosts were Scott and Gina Jensen, the husband and wife debate coaches. On the first day we went on a tour of the nearby Anheiser-Busch brewery, home of trashy US beers like Budweiser and a truly impressive automated canning line. We were surprised to see a car in the parking lot with ‘just married’ on the back. What an odd place for a honeymoon. Scott was an impressively devoted Baseball fan and took us to see the St Louis Cardinals in action that evening against the Milwaukee Brewers. The atmosphere was extremely pleasant and relaxed as we ate our hot dogs and drank beer. I suspect that if I had been able to understand the rules and Scott’s complex score card, things would have felt a little more tense. The motion for our debate was ‘This House would bring order to the courts’, and Charlotte and Chris, our opponents, had decided to talk about imposing caps on the ‘emotional trauma’ component of medical malpractice suits. Tom and I were slightly apprehensive since US law was not our speciality, and we thought that the status quo litigious culture was insane. We did a little research though and came up with a cynical mix of arguments and emotional manipulation to pull off a victory. Afterwards, the team took us to see the St. Louis arch, an incredibly impressive feat of
engineering, before going out to dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. Scott and Gina’s small children Megan and Eddie were delightful, and ran around the table handing out imaginary coloured balls all evening. I asked Megan where she had them made. She said ‘Mexico’: clearly a young entrepreneur of the future.
University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas – Sep 17-20 Tom and I discovered that a number of key words will make almost all Americans laugh. The two most obvious are ‘George W Bush’ and ‘the French’. Another is Arkansas. We were told to expect both the state and the people to be backward, and our tiny propeller plane to Fayetteville airport didn’t dispel any of our illusions. The Arkansas coach, Keith Peterson, and his students did. We arrived to be greeted by Keith in an ‘elect Tony Blair for President’ T-Shirt and were whisked off to our evening debate on ‘This House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government’ in front of two hundred members of the Arkansas Union society, mainly student run and modelled after the Oxford Union. The crowd was very welcoming and lively, and the debate was great. Our staunch defence of Tony and deference to our own authority as Brits won us the popular vote at the end. Having the debate on the first evening gave us the next couple of days for tourism, and to relax in our beautiful converted plantation era hotel, owned by the University and used to train prospective hoteliers. Tom and I were slightly bemused when we were told that Union President Gary and the student union had arranged a tour of the Universities sports facilities for us. Now don’t get me wrong. I like sport, not American sport obviously, but sport in general. Surely though, I reasoned, there was only so much interest that one could get from dressing rooms and scoreboards. As with so many things in Arkansas, I was to be proved wrong. Arkansas is home to the owners of Wal-Mart, the Walton Family, who were kind enough to pay for a state of the art Basketball stadium to add to the existing 70,000 seat Football stadium, which incidentally has the largest TV in America. The American spirit of local philanthropy seems very strong indeed. The facilities were truly astounding, and College sport in the United States is clearly in a different league to anything in the UK. While I think that our hosts could see how impressed we were, I don’t think they fully appreciated how weird we found it all to be. On our last day, Keith took us into the nearby Ozark Mountains to see a place that we had found in the guidebook called the New Holy Land. The owner was worried about the safety of the holy sites in Israel. As a result, she decided to recreate them in Arkansas! After marvelling at their 6-storey statue of Jesus, we went on a trolley bus tour around the River Jordan (a mountain stream), the Sea of Galilee (a small Lake) and the Dead Sea (a dry creek). Our guides gave us various talks along the way, telling us about the power of Jesus and bursting into tears mid evangelical flow. Our favourite quote of the tour came after perhaps the most emotional of these outpourings; ‘Praise the Lord, Caleb is selling bottled water outside’. It was $2 a bottle. Later we chatted with Dr Steve Smith, who had been the youngest ever Arkansas member of the House of Representatives and chief of staff for a certain Governor Clinton: a very interesting and modest guy. Arkansas was a fabulous experience and we found ourselves chanting the football team chant, ‘Wooooo. Pig Suey’ for weeks afterwards.
Longview Community College Kansas City, Missouri – Sep 20-23 Longview was our first experience of Community college’s, two-year institutions, which are a cheaper option to Americas expensive University system and prepare their students to transfer to a University to complete their degree. Our host, Bill Cue, took us out on the first evening for barbecue, a food on which Kansas City prides itself. We were impressed, especially by the size of the portions. We then went out with his flatmate Casey to drink with her friends. Unfortunately, we managed to get lost, arriving an hour later back where we started. Casey was very apologetic but it was actually a lot of fun; we were assured that everyone gets lost in Kansas City. During our stay we also went out with the team to look around the sights of Kansas City and its very beautiful plaza area, and went with Bill to the Truman Presidential Library. Tom and I were impressed with its even-handed treatment of various controversial issues, particularly the use of the atom bomb in Japan. Our debate was ‘This House supports Bush’s appropriations in Iraq’ and Tom and I were asked to go on opposite sides, each with one of the Longview debaters, Sam and Shakira. Tom opposed the $87bn package and won the audience vote, playing heavily on examples of what else the money could be used for. Both of us were quite saddened by the result, and concerned that some people in the US believed this. The 150 strong audience was mainly composed of high school kids, so may not have been representative of public opinion. After the debate, Tom and I were amazed to be asked for autographs. We apologize unreservedly to the families of the children involved for ruining otherwise useful paper.
Johnson County Community College Kansas City, Kansas – Sep 23-25 Johnson County is in a district with a very high median income and consequently has a very nice and impressive campus. Our host, Jeremy Hutchens, took us to give our first class of the tour on ‘cultural differences’. We had a very interesting question and answer session, which helped both us and, I hope, the class work out more clearly the differences between Britain and the United States. Our second class at Johnson County was a little different and was an experience in and of itself. The Model United Nations coach had asked for us to come and talk to his team. At first it was a little awkward since neither of us knew much about the others activity, but we soon got onto more comfortable question and answer territory. Rather bizarrely, the teacher appeared to have an anti-British agenda, suggesting not only that Britain’s boundary drawing in the early 20th century had caused the problems in Iraq, but also that Britain had actively pushed the US into war both in 1991 and in 2003. This started a rather bizarre dialogue. He claimed that we got all of our oil from Iraq. We mentioned the North Sea. He said that that was Scottish Oil. We pointed out that Scotland was part of the United Kingdom. He said that that wasn’t what the Scots wanted. We pointed out that we consistently had elections and they did. He said that we weren’t asking the right Scots. We said that we were asking the Scots in Scotland. It was a bizarre but extremely interesting experience and I’m happy that we didn’t respond in kind by attacking America. Our debate was ‘This House believes that the United States should be more multilateral’ and we were debating against Jeremy and one of his friends who was a
coach at Kansas Community College. It was a really enjoyable debate and I revelled in the cross-examination element that is part of the policy debate format, and was introduced into the show debate. We opposed the motion and were able to take the populist, anti-UN line, which won us the audience and the vote. After the debate, Jeremy took us out to a nearby Casino. I lost everything on the slots but Tom managed to double his money at Black Jack. For me, it was a lesson well learned!
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas – Sep 25-28 The University of Kansas was our first proper contact with the world of Policy debate, which is radically different in many ways from British Parliamentary style. The practice debate that we saw was completely incomprehensible, thanks to the incredible speaking speed that the format encourages. The debates are extremely well researched though, although this can make them less accessible to audiences. Policy debate is clearly something that takes time to acclimatize to. Our debate was, once again, ‘This House believes that the United States should be more multilateral’, and we won again in front of about 100 people, many of whom we were told had been bribed to come with extra credit, something that would be a common feature of our tour. The coach, Scott Harris, was extremely welcoming and organised some great meals for us, as well as a cook out for us at his house. We also spent a lot of time with Todd Jordan and Jordan Tinsley, one of the policy teams, who took us out drinking and to a football game between the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri. Like Policy debate, the rules of football were at first, completely incomprehensible to us; as were the bands and cheerleaders that entertained everyone during the numerous pauses in play. Despite our incomprehension it was an incredible experience for both of us. As we watched more football on TV we began to understand the rules and appreciate the game a lot more. Jordan was a University of Arkansas fan so, at Kansas, we were confirmed as longterm Arkansas Razorback fans. The US interest in College sports really is very different from anything we have in the UK.
Kenyon College Gambier, Ohio – Sep 28 – Oct 1 Kenyon’s debating society was the only one that we encountered on the tour that was entirely student run, and we spent all of our time with Shannon, the former President, and her very friendly team. We were staying in a very nice cottage on campus and got a welcome chance to relax and walk around the beautiful Kenyon campus. Kenyon was founded in the early 19th century by a Lord and has a lot of buildings with an old English University feel. Whenever an American shows us one to their historic buildings, they usually say something like ‘of course, you have much older buildings in England’. Yes, we do, but that doesn’t make American history any less impressive and interesting! Kenyon has hosted the tour consistently for about four years and has managed to build up an impressive reputation among its students for enjoyable debates, mostly thanks to the enthusiasm of its student debaters. This year, we were also going to be debating the new College President, Georgia Nugent. Both of these factors contributed to our biggest audience of the tour of around 600. The motion was ‘This
House believes that leaders ought to be educated liberally’ and, fairly predictably, Tom and I were on the opposition arguing, once again, against the founding philosophy of our hosts. We put up a brave fight, resorting to comedy whenever we felt that we were losing an argument, and christening the new President ‘The Nuge’ in front of the student body. The judging panel was tied and the decision was turned over to the audience, who overwhelmingly voted for us and our humour, or should I say against their President. It was extremely enjoyable and the President was a great sport. Afterwards we were mobbed by various audience members, most of them girls, and we went out to drink with the team.
Marietta College Marietta, Ohio – Oct 1 – Oct 3 On our way to Marietta we heard about a proposed Ohio policy to feed road kill to inmates. We were in rural America! Our debate at Marietta was soon after we arrived and was ‘This House believes that the United Nations should assist in the United States’ war on terror’ and we were on the opposition. We were beginning to understand what played well with audiences. If we were on the American side, we praised America, and if we were on the anti-American side, we criticized Bush. We did that here and managed a win in front of about 70 people. Our original host at Marietta, Suzanne, was called away because her husband was ill. In her place, Dawn took extremely good care of us, taking us out to drink and encouraging us to call one of the audience who had given me her number. We did, and we spent a great evening with her and her friends drinking and making fun of each other’s accents. That’s what diplomacy is all about and we feel that we did our part for transatlantic relations and understanding.
Muskingum College New Concorde, Ohio – Oct 3-5 One of our stops had fallen through and Muskingum College had stepped into the breach to put us up for a couple of days before we headed out to Indiana. We stayed with Nate, a member of the debate team, and were entertained over the weekend by him and his friends. The first thing that we saw was a Sorority Jello wrestling contest, which was a real eye opener and was certainly preferable to WWF. It was nice to get a chance to relax, without any debating related activities whatsoever. Muskingum is in a very small town indeed, which is proud of its only attraction: the John Glenn Museum. Perhaps it is too proud. One of Nate’s housemates, Dan, worked at the museum and we conspired to play a little trick on the employees. We went in and professed our deep interest in John Glenn, who went into space twice and was a US Senator, and explained that we had come from England purely to see the museum. Dan blew our cover before our planned expression of surprise when we heard that he had gone into space. On our last night we went to a Sorority party with another housemate, Robin, in possibly one of the seediest bars I have ever seen. More alcohol and more drinking games!
Wabash College Crawfordsville, Indiana – Oct 5-7
Wabash College is one of the last all male campuses in the United States, which made Tom and I a little apprehensive. We were put up in a beautiful new Executive centre with fantastic facilities, and got a lot of time to check e-mail and do our laundry. We had breakfast with Joe O’Rourke who had hosted the tour for years and could remember Michael Beloff and Jonathan Aitken, who had apparently written a book about his experience. We also got a tour of the campus, which is extremely beautiful, and of the Fraternity House of one of our opponents, Matt. The Frat was exactly what you might expect from a residential house run exclusively by a seniority based hierarchy of college boys. Once we had got over the smell, we really enjoyed the communal atmosphere and the salute of finger clicks that we received as guests. However, we still haven’t got over our visit to their cold dorm. They share study rooms with one other student but sleep in huge dorms, which are extremely messy indeed. We were told that, when girls come down for parties, some of the guys construct sheet tents around their beds for privacy… nice! Our debate was ‘This House prefers a Cowboy President to a Poodle Prime Minister’. We weren’t completely happy with our performances, but the crowd seemed to like our defence of Blair’s courage and attacks on Bush’s stupidity. I spent a good deal of time attacking his tax cut on the rich, although the heavily conservative student body didn’t seem all that receptive. We won the vote and spent a lot of time talking to audience members afterwards, before going for a drink with Matt and having a great time attacking each other’s political beliefs.
John Carroll University Cleveland, Ohio – Oct 7-9 After a week and a half of rural America is was fantastic to get away from the Beans and Wheat, and Wheat and Beans (they rotate them), and into a big city again. Brent Brossman, the director of debate, picked us up and took us into campus for another question and answer session class, which was, as always, enjoyable and interesting, although focussed on popular culture. The next day, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, apparently located in Cleveland because an Ohioan disc jockey was the first to coin the term. It was a fairly strange collection of music, clothes and instruments paying eternal homage to rock stars and has-beens alike. I spent a lot of time in their devoted Jimi Hendrix auditorium though; they had their priorities right. The John Carroll debate team was extremely friendly and all seemed to get on incredibly well with each other. Getting to know them before hand made the debate really enjoyable. The motion was ‘This House would cede operational control of Iraq to the United Nations’ and we were on the Proposition. I was feeling fairly ill with flu so I gorged myself on Dr Pepper before the debate. The debate was lively and the audience was very receptive. My speech that evening was one of my favourite of the tour. A girl came up to me after the debate and complimented me just by saying ‘you looked really good’; I love this country! After the debate we went out for a big meal with Brent and his charming family, and all of the debaters. Tom and I had an animated conversation with more die-hard Republicans about education and health over dinner.
University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa – Oct 9-13 Our host at the University of Iowa was Paul Bellus, who was extremely eager from the start that we have a fantastic time in Iowa. We weren’t going to get in his way. Our first night was spent at the Amana Colonies, a religious community that sustains itself mainly through tourism, with a restaurant serving fantastic homecooked food and lots of it. Predictably, we had to go into town to drink afterwards, at a student 80s night. Unfortunately, the United States had the eighties too. Paul was very sensitive to our tourist desires, and in the next few days we would visit the future birthplace of James T Kirk, chase the Amish around the countryside for photos and go to an Iowa City strip club. It was my first time in a strip club… really, and it was an incredibly un-erotic experience. Danielle and Scott, our graduate student companions, surreptitiously paid one of the strippers to come and talk to us. She was using stripping to pay her way through college, and emotionally blackmailed us into putting money down when she was on stage. Tom and I felt violated. We debated twice at Iowa. The first was ‘This House believes that American Sports are superior to British Sports’ with us, of course, on the opposition. We had just read an article claiming that the World Series was a truly international event, because the Toronto Blue Jays had won it once; we mercilessly attacked American Football and Baseball, although we were careful to compare them to ‘soccer’ and not to cricket. Arguing in front of American college kids, we were happy with the draw that the audience voted produced. The second debate was ‘This House abhors the denial of rights to prisoners at Camp X-Ray’ and was a considerably more serious but similarly enjoyable affair. We supported US policy and the need to curtail rights to protect the world from terrorism in front of about 70 people.
University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, Iowa – Oct 13-15 At the University of Northern Iowa, we had our first contact with a proper Brit in over a month. One of the graduate students was from Yorkshire and it was great to hear a familiar accent over lunch. We had met a few other people who came from England originally, but over time the accent turns into something that sounds slightly Australian and a little bit Texan… it’s very peculiar. Our time at Cedar Falls was spent in the company of Cate Palceski and her debate team. We went out drinking with them both nights and played a lot of pool. Tom and I were shocked to find out that, in America, you don’t get two shots when someone fouls. It’s like a criminal justice system without punishment; we had discovered the difference between the US and the UK. We took one class, where we were asked to do a debate on ‘the ethics of Persuasion’. Unsure as to exactly what this meant, we decided to talk about the heavily politicised and Republican Fox News, which had been irritating us continuously for the last month. It was interesting to see the class split directly down Democrat and Republican lines when it came to the vote. Our main debate was ‘This House would give control of Iraqi reconstruction to the UN’. It was an enjoyable debate, although the opposition’s argument was a little peculiar. They said that, if the UN helped in Iraq, this would let the US off the hook and stop them from learning the lesson not to engage in similar wars in the future. Apparently, this might lead to the US attacking North Korea and Iran. The
argument was surprisingly difficult to rebut mainly because it was so unexpected. Unsurprisingly, the audience didn’t seem to buy it.
Prince George’s Community College College of Notre Dame Largo and Baltimore, Maryland – Oct 15-19 We hadn’t expected to have a profound experience in an airport, but we did in Baltimore, arriving in at the same time as a contingent of troops returning home from Iraq for two weeks holiday. It was incredibly moving to see families waiting for their fathers and mothers. I wanted to thank some of the troops for the risks they were taking but my British reserve stopped me. During our time in Maryland, we stayed with Marlene Cohen, her husband Michael and her son Alex. They were incredibly hospitable and welcoming, and because their house was in easy commuting distance from Washington DC, Tom and I spent a couple of days indulging our tourist cravings. Perhaps the highlight of the Washington attractions was the extremely well designed Holocaust museum, which Marlene had very kindly given us a pass to. We debated at two different schools in Maryland. Firstly, we went to the College of Notre Dame, which is an all-girls college in Baltimore. After being interviewed on their college radio station, Tom and I debated ‘This House believes that the UN is obsolete’ against each other, resulting in a draw. It was a one on one debate which, in the US parliamentary format, meant that I had to give two speeches back to back. I hadn’t realised this and was surprised at how well I was able to completely ad-lib a summary. In the evening we were taken out for a lovely meal in the beautiful Baltimore harbour area by a teacher, Sister Miriam, and Jonelle, one of the students. Our next debate was at Prince George’s Community College in front of a very interested audience of about 150. The motion was ‘This House believes that the war in Iraq was justified’. We were debating against each other, with Tom on the proposition in front of a strongly anti-war audience. The vote went heavily against the war and an extremely enjoyable Question and Answer session followed, with questions about politics, Britain and the debate, and with discussion among the audience about various issues. It was fantastic to see the audience so interested by the debate and so willing to ask us interesting questions. No write-up of our stay with Marlene and her family would be complete without mentioning their dog, bear. Bear was possibly the friendliest dog I have ever met and, through my willingness to play fetch for seemingly endless periods of time, I soon had a firm friend.
Mary Washington College Fredricksburg, Virginia – Oct 19-23 Mary Washington were debating in a policy tournament in Washington DC, and that’s where we were taken to meet them. This gave us an opportunity both to see some more policy debate, and our new friends from the University of Kansas and the University of Iowa again. We also saw Sabina, who had been on the US tour of Britain last year. The tournament was a lot of fun, but Policy debate was still a culture
shock to us and when offered the opportunity to sleep in the next morning instead of watching the debates, we took it. While we were in DC Tim, the debate coach, also very kindly organised a tour of Congress for us through his wife, who was a member of Senator Mike Dewine’s staff. Having interned in Congress with the ESU last year, it was a chance for me to reminisce and to see the look of boyish excitement when Tom got the chance to ride on the James Bond-esque little train between House offices and the Capitol. We arrived at the very pretty Mary Washington campus to find a lovely little apartment that had been meticulously prepared for us by Jen, with British flags on the door, sweets and snacks, and a laptop with the Internet. In the first few days, we did a number of one on one debates in classes with Q&A sessions afterwards. In the first one, we chose ‘This House hates the French’. The theory was that we would make lots of jokes about the French, get lots of laughs, and then chastise the audience for laughing. Unfortunately I think that the laughter made the greater impression. We had a couple of other debates about the power of the Prime Minister and whether or not it was in Britain’s interest to join the War in Iraq. The rest of our time at Mary Washington was spent drinking and talking to the very friendly debate team. The debate was on the last evening and was ‘This House believes that the war in Iraq was justified’. We were on the proposition and had a really enjoyable debate in front of about 100 people. In the evening we went to a bar to play pool and then to a Truck stop for a post-drinking breakfast. Never have I been to a more fascinatingly depressing place.
Randolph Macon College Virginia – Oct 23-26 Our debate at Randolph Macon was on our first night there and was ‘This House believes that the United States should adopt a more healthful and responsible foreign policy’. We had a lovely pre-debate dinner with the team and a number of donors to the debate programme. Randolph-Macon had a specially built debate room, which was crammed with about 150 people, clutching small US flags that had been acquired by the programmes main donor. He had also wanted a pipe band to play us into the chamber, but was persuaded against it. We decided to argue that the US should adopt the Kyoto protocol and were very happy to win the vote on such an important and divisive issue. Randolph Macon was hosting a tournament that weekend and we were asked to do a another show debate on ‘This House would recall George W Bush’. Tom and I were happy to finally have a chance to mercilessly attack the Bush administration and won the vote in a lively debate. We then judged a number of Parliamentary rounds and some of the ‘Individual events’, which really have no equivalent in Britain. We ended up judging the final of the ‘dramatic duo’ event, about which we knew nothing. Never has a judging decision been more random… at least since my Worlds OctoFinal (!). The rest of the time at Randolph Macon was spent drinking and eating with the team. Eric, one of the debaters, was taking classes in ‘International terrorism’ and wanted to be a spy, which explained his self-enforced dress code of suit, overcoat and sunglasses. On the last night we went ‘Extreme Bowling’, which was bowling with flashing lights and music… extreme!
Texas State University San Marcos, Texas – Oct 26-29 Dispelling all stereotypes, when we arrived in Texas, it was raining heavily. We were concerned that we weren’t going to get the stereotypical Texan experience. That is until Cory and David, debaters from Texas State, took us to their huge truck and then out to drink lots of beer. Wayne Kraemer, the coach, and his team made an incredible effort to entertain us and show us around. We went to the Alamo, scene of a battle between the Texans and the Mexicans, the Texas Congress, the Texas Museum and into San Antonio to drink Margueritas. Also, because Cory was a postgraduate student in Criminology and had a part time job at a police firing range, he very kindly organised for us to go out there and fire guns… in Texas!!! A police firearms instructor taught us to fire a Glock pistol, a shotgun and an M4 Machine Gun. It was awesome and an experience that we were unlikely to get the chance to repeat. We did two debates at Texas State. The first was at a nearby High School on the death penalty, which Tom and I were opposing. The 200 strong audience seemed entertained and mostly interested, especially by the topic, and the vote resulted in a draw. It was very interesting to see a US high school and to speak with the students afterwards about an issue of such importance in Texas. That evening we went out for Barbecue at a place called the Salt Lick, which was better even that Kansas City and was probably my favourite restaurant of the tour. The main debate was ‘This House prefers multilateral intervention to unilateral intervention’, and we defended unilateral intervention in front of about 50 people. It was a slightly confusing debate, and I was quite surprised that the audience voted for us at the end. It was enjoyable though and we had a great evening afterwards at Wayne’s house drinking his moonshine! The Texas State team were off to the Oxford Union IV the next week, so we told them about British Parliamentary style and what was good in Oxford.
Baylor University Waco, Texas – Oct 29 – Nov 1 Unfortunately, I was ill for a second time at Baylor, with a rather nasty sore throat. I was unable to go to some of the primary school visits that had been arranged, although Tom was able to do the Question and Answer sessions that had been arranged alone. I did manage to drug myself up enough for the debate though, and we defended the WTO in front of an audience of around 100 people. The next day, the coach Carla Leiper took us out to Waco’s tourist sites. Our first stop was the Branch Davidian compound, site of a three-month standoff between a religious cult led by David Koresh, and the FBI. It ended in the death of more than 40 of the cults members including many children. It was a very sombre site to visit, especially on Halloween. Then we headed down to Bush’s ranch at Crawford, or at least as close as we could get until we were stopped by the secret service. We did get to take our pictures by some cardboard cutouts of George W in ‘downtown’ Crawford though, and to have one of George Bush’s ‘favourite Cheeseburgers’ and a nearby restaurant. I’m not sure which stop was scarier!
The University of Western Kentucky Bowling Green, Kentucky – Nov 1-4 We had a good mix of activity and relaxation at Kentucky, which really helped me beat my cough. We went out to quite a few dinners with staff members and alumni and saw the sights of Bowling Green: the National Corvette Museum and part of the huge cave network that lurks rather ominously under the town. Our debate at Western Kentucky was one of the best attended of the tour, with an audience of four to five hundred. The motion was ‘This House believes that now is the time for a Palestinian State’ and we were on the opposition. Rather than take the extreme position of arguing that the Palestinians had no right whatsoever to a state, we said that certain conditions needed to be met before a State was viable and that there needed to be a transition period. The debate was extremely lively and was the first and only one on the tour that we ended up losing, on a ballot of 100 student audience members. After the debate, we were mobbed by a group of Egyptian students who were studying journalism at the University and wanted to practise on us. There questions were extremely interesting and we talked to them about the Arab worlds perception of Israel. That evening, we went out to drink with Doug Mory, one of the coaches, and the students.
Northwestern University Chicago, Illinois – Nov 4-6 Northwestern’s debate reputation had preceded it, and we arrived expecting to find a hardcore policy debate team spending all of its time researching and practising. We were told that they brought hoards of researchers to the National Debate Tournament, which they had won for the last two years. While Scott Deatherage, the coach, and the team were clearly very interested in debate; they still knew how to have a good time. One of Scott’s interests was clearly good food, and on our first night, we were taken to one of the best restaurants of the tour. The next day, we were taken into Chicago to have a look at the sites and the very impressive Art institute. Our debate in the evening was ‘This House believes that the Bush/Blair policy on the reconstruction of Iraq is doomed to fail’. It was one of the most interesting and enjoyable debates of the tour and we won from opposition on a close vote. That evening we went out for famous Chicago style deep-dish pizza and regretted that we had so little time there. The one thing that we couldn’t understand at Northwestern was Scott’s nickname among the team. Surely, any sane group of individuals would call him Dr. Death we reasoned. Instead, he was called ‘Duck’, apparently because of the way that he ran.
California State University, Long Beach Long Beach and Northridge, Calfornia – Nov 6-9 Our stop at Cal State Long Beach gave us the opportunity to participate in our first ever US Parliamentary debate tournament. We spent the first night in Long Beach, and then drove down to Northridge with the squad. The US debate format is very different from the UK. I actually preferred some of the structural elements, feeling that a two on two debate makes the teams focus more intently on each other’s
arguments, and enjoying the opportunity to speak twice in the debate and come back on substantive issues. I found other parts of the format less appealing. ‘Topicality’ is a very important issue in US debating, and teams will have whole debates about whether or not the case that was proposed fits the motion, even with abstract motions that British debaters would consider to be ‘open’. Also, opposition teams have a tendency to propose counter cases, which involve taking the Governments plan and making a minor and incompatible change to it. For instance, when we proposed putting a $1 tax on petrol, the opposition said they would do exactly what we were doing, but phase it in over a period of five years. They won. This means that the first proposition speech can be almost redundant (this is clearly why the tactic is employed) and the debate often misses the important issues. Counter-cases tend to be run in the last minute of the first opposition speech after topicality! Then, there are critiques, which usually pick up on language used in the debate and claim that it is in some way offensive. For instance, on a motion ‘This House believes that the Government shouldn’t fund acts of God’, we talked about the Church of England. The opposition claimed that by doing that we had legitimised one God over all others. Very peculiar indeed. Having said all that, we had a number of very good debates at the Northridge tournament, where none of those techniques were employed, usually when we were in opposition. Given the very different formats, we were very pleased to win five and lose one in the preliminary rounds, and disappointed to go out in the Double-Octos on a 2-1 Judging decision to UC Berkeley. We had a lot of fun at the tournament though and it was a fantastic opportunity to see this school, there are a few, of US parliamentary style in action. Jed Link, from the US tour of Britain last year, was actually running the tournament and took us out to see the Matrix Reloaded, which was possibly the worst film I have ever seen. We were also invited to a great house party by a coach who had hosted the British tour a couple of years ago.
University of Southern California Los Angeles, California – Nov 9-11 Our stop at the University of Southern California was our first in a series of short, one-day stops. We stayed in a downtown Los Angeles hotel and, during the day, were taken out to see Hollywood Boulevard and Beverly Hills, necessary visits for any tourist in California. Despite all of the glamour and hype Hollywood Boulevard wasn’t actually all that impressive, lined as it was with the names of ‘stars’ that we had never heard of and out of work actors dressed as Superman and Zorro, bathing in the fraudulent adoration of fans which they craved. Beverly Hills was an extremely affluent area and I suspect that, while we didn’t actually see any stars, we almost certainly saw some of their personal shoppers going in and out of the designer stores. Our debate in the evening was ‘This House believes that the US should withdraw its genetically modified organism objection at the WTO’. The debate was in front of 30 or so members of the debate team, and thanks to a little bit of confusion, our opponents only found out that they were debating us ten minutes before hand. This led to a slightly strange but nonetheless enjoyable debate. Afterwards, we went out for a really great Mexican meal, which challenged Texas’s claim to have the best Mexican food in the Union. Texas seemed to think it had a lot of the best things in the Union. California was more modest, but then it had just elected Arnold Schwarzenneger as Governor.
Mt. San Antonio College Walnut, California – Nov 11-12 At Mount Sacs, Tom and I got a welcome chance to relax and check our emails or write up our journal during the day. We had lunch with some of the team at a great sushi place near to campus and chatted to them for most of the day. The debate in the evening was that ‘This House would not make English the official language of America’, a debate in the United States that is given more importance than it merits. Making English the official language is, of course, in and of itself only a symbolic move, and the important issues associated with it really only derive from accompanying legislation to promote English speaking. The Mount Sacs team proposed and tried to suggest that we wanted English only communication by the government. We denied this and pushed only for more English language teaching in schools and adult education programmes, winning the audience vote. In the evening we went out for dinner and some much needed beer with the team.
Irvine Valley College Irvine, California – Nov 12-13 The coach at Irvine Valley, Gary Rybold, took us for lunch at Laguna Beach, and we finally got to see the golden sands of one of California’s pacific beaches. We were given the chance to wander around the beach area for a couple of hours, and spent a good deal of time writing ESU in large letters on the sand with shells. Passers by were slightly bemused but we were pleased with the resultant photos. The motion for the debate in the evening was ‘This House believes that the war in Iraq is unjustified’ and, continuing a trend, we were on the opposition. We found very few students in the United States who actually wanted to support the war in Iraq. We had a great, responsive audience of about 200 people and the lively and interesting debate that followed led to the audience voting us the winners. Afterwards, I had a fascinating conversation with a student who had actually been in the invasion and wholeheartedly agreed with our arguments. Remembering what I had felt in Baltimore, I thanked him for the risks that he had taken. After the debate, we went out for dinner at the local Cheesecake Factory and, in the spirit of diplomacy, traded dirty jokes with the Irvine Valley team.
Rio Hondo College Whittier, California – Nov 13-14 We had two debates at Rio Hondo College, the first at an elementary school and the second in front of Rio Hondo students. The first debate was one of the most enjoyable of the tour. The motion was ‘This house prefers Thanksgiving to Christmas’, which we opposed in front of about 200 ten year olds. The audience was extremely enthusiastic, especially once we had realised that the two key concepts of presents and time off school could induce hysterical cheers and applause, no matter how many times they were mentioned. My more complex arguments about the dubious history of Thanksgiving were met with stony silence. The enthusiasm of the audience reminded me slightly of the Nuremberg rallies, so I decided to style my
rebuttal speech after a European dictator. I had the kids loudly chanting ‘what do we want? Presents. When do we want them? Now’, making the teachers look visibly uncomfortable with a proto-revolution unfolding in front of them. I finished the speech with ‘we are the party of presents. We are the party of elementary school children everywhere. We are the party of DVDs, toy cars, chocolate, social justice, CDs… We are the party of freedom’. I had to shout the words over the cheers… it was fantastic. Our debate in the evening was ‘This House believes that large armies are necessary’, which we were proposing. We weren’t entirely sure what issue this was supposed to relate to, and we ran that the US government shouldn’t accept the Rumsfeld plan to downsize the army and replace soldiers with technology. The debate went better than we had expected and a panel of judges voted us the winners. After the debate we went out to a lovely restaurant chain called Beni Hana, where the chef prepared our meal at our table.
California State University, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California – Nov 14-16 After four one day stops, California State Los Angeles was our first chance to get two nights in the same place. Our debate was on the first day and was ‘This House believes that Operation Iraqi Freedom was worth it, with us, once again, in proposition. The audience of 160 was very receptive, especially to our jokes, and we had a really enjoyable debate. Rather bizarrely, one guy came up to me after the debate and asked me if I believed in God. He explained that he had just come to the US and had been quite religious in his home country but was now having doubts. I told him that only he could make up his mind… how bizarre! The next day, we went out to Universal studios with the two graduate students that we had debated: Mike and Javon. We had a great time laughing at the re-creation of Notting Hill, getting wet on the Jurassic park ride and seeing the future California Governor blow more people up. As a joke, I had been asking people in California if they conformed to certain stereotypes. ‘Have you ever been in a riot? Have you ever been in a shark attack? Have you ever invented a computer operating system?’ etcetera. One of the questions was ‘Have you ever been in a drive-by?’ and, rather scarily, four people answered yes! We spent the evening scouring the Universal studios shops for souvenirs.
Whitman College Walla Walla, Washington – Nov 16-19 We had a relaxing three days at Walla Walla, a small town in Washington that housed Whitman College and the State Penitentiary. The town was relatively isolated and we had to take a small propeller plane to get to the airport. During our time at Whitman we stayed in the beautiful and spacious house of one of the communications faculty members, Bob, and his wife Nancy, who were extremely hospitable. We had a lot of opportunities to relax, check e-mail and do our laundry. We were also taken to see the local vineyards, a really good film, and the Whitman mission, a museum devoted to the life story of Marcus Whitman, after whom the school is named. The museum was a slightly dubious place, celebrating his life and commemorating his
slaughter by the Cayuse Indians, without paying much attention to the negative aspect of his mission to spread Christianity and establish European settlers on the land. Our debate at Whitman was ‘This House believes that the West is fighting terrorism the wrong way’. Our opposition, Chris and Chandra, were a little too ready to say that US policy is motivated solely by oil, and to denounce its foreign policy as terrorism. We played the pro-American card and supported the Bush and Blair policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. After the debate we went out to drink with Jim, the debate coach, Chris and one of the graduate students. We spent most of the evening arguing with Chris about his slightly bizarre beliefs, including the statement that the Government of the United States is no more legitimate than the Government of North Korea.
Clackamas College Portland, Oregon – Nov 19-21 When we arrived in Portland it was snowing, and it provided an incredible contrast with the sun that we had been enjoying in California only five days before. During our stay in Portland we took a good look around the city centre and were also taken out to a local drag bar. Tom and I were invited on to the stage by the hostess, Miss Chastity Frustration’ and were interviewed in front of the enthusiastic audience. Tom seemed to particularly enjoy it. Our last night in Portland was spent dancing in the drag bars dance cages, fuelled by lots of alcohol. Our debate at Clackamas was ‘This House supports the death penalty’. Our opponents, a 15 year old and a 17 year old who had been home schooled, used Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as examples, setting the impressively high burden for us to prove that no-one should be executed ever. It was a difficult job, and they were very impressive and articulate. The judging panel gave us a 2-1 win, but the audience voted 40-39 against us. We called it a draw.
New York Nov 21-22 We had one day in New York before flying out, although we were staying by the airport so had little opportunity to really see the sights. We did manage to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art though, which was extremely impressive. During our stay in New York and on our last day at Clackamas, we became particularly incensed by the US media, and its coverage of the Al Quaeda bombing of the British Consulate in Istanbul. The story broke at the same time as fresh child abuse allegations against Michael Jackson and, instead of covering the bombing, Fox News in particular continued with its mindless analysis of whether Michael Jackson had left the police station in his car or in his plane. Tom and I had a fantastic time in the United States and will always be indebted to the boundless kindness and hospitality of our hosts. It was an incredible and varied experience and I will remember it fondly for the rest of my life.