The Beginning of the End of Quality Debating

First off, an introduction. I am the former CUSID East debater most commonly known as "Wilson". I also have the dubious distinction of being on the team that won a tournament with what was, until reccently, the Worst Case... Ever. But after three years of obsurity and seclusion I decided to come back for one round as a long forgotten Dino upon the invitation of my old partner, McNutt the Elder. After attending the SoDales Mini Invitational I found my crown of Worst Case Ever had passed to a new generation (though I still hold the Worst Case that has ever won). In fact, there were two cases that day people seriously proposed were worst than the UNB 2003 all Acadia Final Disaster. I maintain that only one of them was worse, but regardless, if the quality of cases, particularly the quality of BAD cases, has fallen so far, perhaps it is time to come back and impart some of experience on running stinking, awful, rotten cases.

So, what makes a case bad? Generally it must have a bad premise or bad arguments. A premise is usually bad by being so offensive, foolish or incoherant that the goverment has everyone asking "What the hell were they thinking?" about 1 minute into the PM's first speach. This alone does not automatically spell defeat. Sometimes dumb ideas can be argued well and can even be a lot of fun for everyone involved. Bad arguments are a little trickier to pidgeon hole, but generally they are points that are either poorly delivered, irrelivant, counter productive or non-sensical. A perfectly good idea can have bad arguments and become a bad case and this is usually worse than have a bad premise with good arguments. However, to be the Worst Case Ever, you need both. On top of that, it needs to become painful for anyone in the room to even watch. This level of uncomfortableness is what truely makes a case notoriously terrible.

So, what can you expect here? I plan on outlining cases from the past, both my own and those of others, explaining what made them bad, why they worked or didn't work, and in some cases how to run them better (or at least successfully). In that same note, I'll sometimes look at things from the OPP point of view, both cases that were painfully hard to argue against and others we merely turned into mockeries. I'll also post some ideas for cases I've had but will probably never use as I'm retired. If you think you've got a shot using any of these stinkers, go ahead. Most will be fun, and the ones that are merely terrible for terrible's sake I'll put disclaimers on. I accept no responsability for the results, though. Ultimately, my goal is to pass on how to run interesting cases, because boring debates are the worse, thank you very much every law student ever. Stupid ideas argued well are usually the most fun, I believe, but there's an art to it, one that I've not seen carry one past my time. Also, if I can avoid even one disaster like UNB 2003 or Green Eggs and No Ham's semi final, I'll consider my debt to society repaid.