Okay I'm gonna talk a little about debates because I think the biggest disservice we are doing to ourselves is in perceiving their purpose wrongly, and part of that is because our understanding of debates needs to move past the concept of a high school competitive sport.

Debating in school is competitive because it is about showing skill. It is also judged based on rules and a scoring rubric-- you actually score points based on what skills you do and do not successfully show. Not always based on whether you're right.

You can't *have* a "winner" of a debate when the purpose of the debate is to explain one's professional record and platform. Trying to confirm a "winner" is pointless unless there's some pre-determined scoring system.

If there WERE a pre-determined scoring system, the person who spoke over the moderator and did not stop or request more time would automatically lose. In fact, there is usually a number of times you can do that before you are ejected from the debate.

Debates also don't work if participants won't talk about their ideas. In an election debate, each candidate presents their idea on how to solve a problem, and then they argue why theirs is better than the other ones. You can't do that if one person won't acknowledge the problem.

If a highschooler on a debate team ever:
--Decided to answer a question other than what they were given
--Decided to keep talking about the last topic
--Insisted the problem they were asked to solve wasn't a problem
--Lied or made up information
They would probably be ejected.

An election debate serves no one if a participant won't be honest about their platform, lies about the other candidate's platform, or does anything other than explaining their plans and explaining why they think they're good.

If someone repeatedly doesn't want to talk about their plans at all, they don't belong in an election debate.