The Great “Quote” Debate: Disqualified For Quoting Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson & Sam Harris

Two high school seniors from Utah participated Arizona State's invitational debate tournament. In which they lost the round because they read quotes from Ben Shapiro (lawyer), Dr. Jordan Peterson (clinical psychologist) and Sam Harris (neuroscientist).

During the round in question, they were given the topic of “Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce restrictions on legal immigration.” The team consisting of Michael Moreno and his partner were assigned the negative. In policy debates that means that they were to argue against the plan of their opponents who were assigned the affirmative.

In a YouTube video showing some of what transpired, Moreno explained, "My partner and I are assigned the negative position but our opponents instead of proposing a plan stood up and perform a slam poem. We respond by arguing that they need to actually advocate a plan to count as an affirmative and that if there's no affirmative we have nothing to negate. If there's no policy we have nothing to reject. We lose automatically and that's unfair."

According to Moreno, during cross-examination, their opponents asked them how they can talk about fairness when they're white males. Then going on to say that "caucasity" is a voting issue in the round that white people need to take responsibility for what they've done throughout history and the power they hold.

At that point, they began recording and reading a prepared critique of identity politics (because anyone who has had these conversations knows exactly where these arguments end up). Affirming that their identity as white males should not matter as the debate had nothing to do with neither race nor gender and doesn't affect what’s right and wrong. To aid the discussion he used quotes from the aforementioned Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson & Sam Harris such as:

"[E]vil things are still evil even if I’m a white well-off religious man and good things are still good even if I’m a white well-off religious man.", "My identity has nothing to do with what is right or wrong.” and "[Y]ou and I can have a conversation about what’s right and wrong because this is the nature of human reason." —Shapiro

“It goes along with this idea of class guilt; Because your group membership is the most important thing, if your group at some point in the past did something reprehensible – which of course every group has done, that's for sure – then you’re de facto responsible in the present for that.” —Dr. Peterson

The judge then ends the round, disqualifying them on the basis of "racist" and "violent" arguments endorsed by “white supremacists” even though both Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris' mother are Jewish.

The judge claimed that “saying things like ‘your identity doesn’t matter'” was actually racist and somehow saw no problem with the other said saying that they can't even debate the issue because of your race and gender, "What's wrong with making you feel guilty?" in regards to him pushing back against their use of white guilt and much more and much worse. The judge, however, then goes on to say, "Do not read the actual evidence is racists." and "Do not read evidence that can even, in the slightest, be misconstrued as racists."

Moreno later spoke to the tournament directors who agreed that they had a “legitimate gripe about the nature of him ending the debate in the middle” but no reason to overturn the decision as, "because it is a question of persuasive argument in front of that judge", but their arguments failed to persuade him, whether he was impartial or not. A tournament directors went on to say, “I think you were totally right that [the judge] overstepped a little bit by stopping the debate and deciding, but I also think it’s incredibly obvious that – regardless of how many ways you try to couch this argument in front of that judge – the bar for the other team to respond to it was going to be so low that the argumentative content that you chose, the strategy that you chose, for that judge and for his stated philosophy, was a poor choice on your part that was going to lose you that debate either way.”

So, as sad as it is, it seems that now even official high school debates are following the rules of social justice warriors, in which those who claim to identify as the most oppressed and offended are those who win the argument.

Thank God for people like Michael Moreno who willing to take the inevitable backlash for the sake of exposing and standing up to intentional ignorance.

Watch it for yourself: *Trigger Warning*

Or read the full case document in the link provided by Michael Moreno:
http://bit.ly/2Sabfdh

UPDATE:

Michael Moreno said in a response video that the debate subreddit deleted his post on the issue for violating the second rule concerning disrespect and hate speech and then later apparently for the first rule, no arguing, and has now temporarily banned him.

He went on to say, “I’ve already been told personally by many that I'm now nationally hated within the debate community, supposed friends have turned against me and my future in academic debate, especially at the college level, is now uncertain. All that said, I knew the risk when I posted the video and I will not back down.”

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