Rocket Science
Testing, testing.
Significance, harms,
inherency, topicality, solvency.
Quiet, please.
Cell phones off, please.
Judges ready?
Timer ready?
The Affirmative
will please begin.
It will come as no
surprise to the judges,
our esteemed opponents from
Townsend Prep,
in the audience that we,
the Affirmative from Plainsboro High,
do hereby support this year's
National Policy Debate Resolution,
which I am supposed to recite now,
as if after an entire school year
it could still somehow
be unknown to any of us.
That is ridiculous. Therefore,
instead of senselessly repeating it,
I will offer up a moment of silence
during which I'd like every one of you
to say the resolution aloud. It will be
a final communal act for all of us,
the High School Policy Debaters
of New Jersey. Ready, set, go.
Resolved...
For those of you who aren't
done, I apologize,
but there's a reason why
I'm up here and you're down there,
and if you please, right now,
we're going to go at my pace.
Hang on if you can.
Our plan today is succinct.
Only by becoming a
fully socialist regime,
will the United States government
ever emerge as the true moral leader
of the free world, and thus
create a lasting peace.
Therefore we support an amendment
to the Constitution of the United States
to outlaw all political parties
that do not embrace socialism
as their core philosophy.
On the stage of
the New Jersey State
High School Policy
Debate Championships
that spring night
stood Ben Wekselbaum
of Plainsboro High.
To anyone
who ever heard Ben debate
there was one thing
that was undeniable:
He had a voice.
Even then,
on that May night,
a real voice.
You're all wondering,
"When on earth
is he going to get to
farming subsidies?"
At long last the link to farming,
which is no doubt obvious by now,
agricultural societies collapse under
capitalism and thrive under socialism.
And agriculture has always
been a necessary industry.
- Without agriculture...
- As Ben Wekselbaum
set out the complexities
of their plan,
his partner
was biding her time,
picturing how
it would look up there...
the only trophy missing from her
crowded, gleaming shelf.
One team on the Affirmative,
arguing for the resolution.
The other on the Negative,
tearing it down.
This year's national resolution
is specifically about farming
subsidies, not socialism.
By overstepping the resolution,
they haven't met their
prima fascie burden
to defend said resolution and
should be considered untopical.
Subsidies are at their heart an
extension of socialism...
that's from Gutierrez, '03.
That the negative team
has no legitimate arguments
against socialism isn't our fault.
They didn't penetrate the subject
as deeply as they should have.
To suggest that we haven't
refuted the very basis of socialism
is fallacious and specious.
I refer you again to the quotes
my partner read regarding...
And so it goes.
The high school debate,
like the war that rips
through your city
and ravages everything in its path;
Kids wielding words like weapons
and brandishing ideas like axes.
Nothing else mattered
in that final round.
There was no world
beyond it.
Except that 46 miles away
Hal Hefner was at home...
just sitting at home
like nothing
or none of New Jersey
was burning around him.
We're gonna have to
break up the set.
What am I gonna do?
Put it all in a garbage bag?
My stuff's not gonna
fit in a garbage bag.
- Yeah, put it in a garbage bag!
- Here, keep the deodorant.
Why don't you go down to the basement?
There's another set down there.
Quit slamming the drawers.
- Oh, come on!
- You're gonna break the drawers.
Give me a break. I'm taking this.
I hope you don't mind,
because you took
everything else of mine.
On that May night Hal Hefner
had hardly a voice at all.
Charlotte.
...could you not do that?
Because I may have to come
back and get some stuff.
- See ya.
- No, no.
Don't take that bag.
Hey, Hal.
Earl, I'm...
I'm taking these. I'm not
going to be living here anymore
and that's why I'm
taking the suitcases.
Just leave the big
bag with the rest of the set.
Lord, this is so you!
Here's your suitcase.
You guys are going
to be all right.
And I'll...
I'll see you
sometime soon.
I don't know
what else to say.
I can't put it into words.
Back on the stage of
the State Championships
the night at last
revealed itself
as not just any night,
but as the night,
the night when it all began.
Ben Wekselbaum, the best
voice to ever debate for PHS,
Plainsboro High,
according to anyone
who ever heard him...
that Ben Wekselbaum,
he just went quiet.
Our next advantage basically says
that human relations can only thrive
in an atmosphere
of total equality.
That human relations
can only exist...
Sorry, I just said that.
Wait, wait, wait.
Ben?
at the very same moment,
all the arguments
stopped.
So there was this bridge
of silence spanning New Jersey.
No shouting
from Hal's parents,
no debating, no voice.
No one's voice at all.
That year's National Debate
topic was farming subsidies.
And if you don't know
how farming subsidies
could inspire all this commotion,
then you don't know life
and there's nothing
that can be said about it.
Suitcases end marriages and
farming subsidies launch cataclysms.
Can a voice travel
from one person to another,
like yawning or mono?
Sure it can.
That's our position:
That the will to speak
traveled that night
across the dark
New Jersey highways
until it arrived
on this very block,
where it would
take up residence,
or try to,
in someone new.
Gladys, let's go!
Timeliness is
an important part of it.
- Heston.
- Earl.
I'll just have the...
just the...
just the...
just the...
just the pizza,
thanks.
Thank you.
What kind of a name
is O. Henry?
Not a pseudonym,
that we all know;
but...?
How about
nom de plume?
Does nom de plume
sound right?
It sounds right to me.
It was toward the end of the reading
that no one seems
to have completed.
Open your books
to page 248.
Let's do the reading that should
have been done last night.
Fish or pizza?
Yeah, I'll have the pizza.
Fish or pizza?
I'll have the...
The pizza's plain or pep.
Fish is... not sure.
Like general fish.
Yeah, I'll have the...
the... the...
the, uh...
the... not...
not the...
I'll just... just...
- just...
- The fish?
The general fish...
please.
Come back for seconds.
Plenty left.
Thank you, ma'am.
- Fish or pizza?
- Pizza.
Do you want to keep on
trying the breathing exercises,
or something new?
Is it all right
if I... if I
don't have an opinion?
Let's try this.
I read in this journal,
"Clinical Pathways
to Speech Pathology,"
that it's hard
to be anything but fluent
when you whisper
or sing.
I sent away for a videotape
of some people trying that out.
Not a solution,
obviously,
but wanna give it
a shot?
I can't... I can't...
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