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Show Santa Barbara team cops debate honors By TIM WEILER Chronicle Staff The best debate team in the country is University of California at Santa Barbara's Mike Clough and Mike Fernandez. On a 4-3 4-3 decision from the seven judges of the final round, Santa Barbara defeated Dennis Winston and Ron Palmieri of the University of Southern California. Clough and Fernandez competed with fifty-four of the best debate teams in the country, and finished on top of the 26th annual National Debate Tournament. Santa Barbara took the affirmative in the final round, and based their case for the resolution on ending the draft. Mike Clough, the first affirmative speaker, argued in favor of a volunteer army over the present conscription system, because it was morally unjust to the draftee, and because "a volunteer army was the only necessary system to insure defense. He said that military conscription ruined the personality of he draftee, and distorted U.S. foreign policy. Dennis Winston was the first negative speaker, and he argued initially on a philosophical level. "The individual citizen has a responsibility for collective defense of the nation," he said. He went on to indict the affirmative case on grounds that a volunteer army was already on the way, and the affirmative plan was not needed, and also pointed out that the flexibility of conscription was necessary. Mike Fernandez responded to Mr. Winston's Win-ston's arguments by saying that there was no threat to the nation that justified having the draft, and if the threat ever came, citizens would volunteer and raise an army that way. He went on to balance the harms to the draftee, and the advantages ad-vantages of a draft system, and concluded that the draft should be ended. Ron Palmieri attacked the affirmative plan in his speech. He said that a volunteer army could not raise the forces needed in other countries or at home. He cited the fact that 90 percent of the men in the national guard were there in order to get out of the draft. "That means that when a volunteer army comes into being, there will be no pressure to avoid the draft by entering the guard, and we will have no national guard to bring into play in a riot situation." Mr. Palmieri went on to say that just raising the pay would not attract volunteers, because "death has no price." In the semi-final rounds, Southern California had also provided some of the drama of the tournament. Santa Barbara defeated Brown University to qualify for the finals, but due to the nature of the bracket pairings, Winston and Palmieri were matched against the second Southern California team, Geoff Goodman and King Schofield. The rules held that the teams were required to debate, but Goodman and Schofield decided they couldn't go through with it. In his first affirmative speech, Mr! Goodman said, "There are some things which supercede debate, and for that reason we agree with the negative that this resolution should be rejected." The University of Utah entered Mike Weiler and Carolyn Young, but they were eliminated with a 4-4 record over eight rounds. The Utah team can claim, however, to be one of two teams in the tournament to beat USC. They gave USC their only loss in the preliminary rounds. Utah's hosting of the tournament was a complete success in the eyes of the participants and to have Utah chosen as the host school in the first place signifies Utah's growing reputation in intercollegiate inter-collegiate forensics. |