Turns out we can’t even have a debate about debating. Members of the debate team at James Madison University have decided that “free speech should not extend to requiring us to platform or amplify ideas that are exclusionary, discriminatory, or hostile.” Apparently, debate meets will now resemble a Soviet show trial but without so much suspense over the outcome.
The exquisitely empathetic intellects of the college debate society have realized, quite correctly, that the mere examination of another viewpoint — one that you’d hear from a homunculus demon growing out of Tucker Carlson’s back — can cause a sensitive mind to reel back in pain as if a hot stove had been touched. (A hot gas stove, which is even more morally deplorable.) In debate, though, one must talk to other people who have different ideas. This is hard for many, for two reasons:
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