What the heck is this?

Just watched the VBI video on a TOC outround. I personally LOVE VBI and everything it does for the debate community. And have watched their video feeds from TOC for years. But this outround in LD just blew my mind. You really can't tell the difference between this LD Round and a CX round... unless, of course, you realize that it is only half the time, there are no partners, and people are wearing ties and not Anarchy t-shirts.

Now, I know that speed wins in LD because it allows you to cover the spread. And I know that so many judges vote on dropped contentions. And I know that winners go fast and the debate community follows the winners.

But I am just taken aback that the speed for cases has so increased to even rival Policy Debaters (unless, of course, you go to the Rebuttals that are more understandable because there are no tubs with preprepared rebuttal cards). Call me an old-timey fuddy duddy, but when LD at the circuit level exceeds the speed I saw in Resolved... then we are at a point in LD debate when this event will become strangled by its own speed. This means fewer coaches can coach it, fewer judges can judge it, and we are looking at the slow dwindling of LD that we are seeing in CX.

Perhaps this is one of the serious reasons why Public Forum is growing by leaps and bounds on all levels. Sad, because LD really exposed some great philosophical structures to high school students. Also sad, because we are seeing more and more tubs start coming into play in Public Forum.

An intriguing issue comes out when we examine the reason why LD Debate came into being -- to allow the suits and the general public to be able to watch a debate. Public Forum created for the same reasons. Now is the time that safeguards need to be put in place to protect PF from the same excesses that have taken over LD. I would propose:
1) Making darn sure that we get lay judges in rounds. I would like to see either speech judges pulled into PF or make sure that you have 2-judge panels with a debate judge and a lay judge for each round.
2) Stop the "Do you have a card" questions on all CrossFires... it just slows and strangles the clash. Yes, debaters should not fabricate evidence. But, hey, studies always conflict and there is always some evidence out there that contradicts yours. Whenever we challenge a piece of evidence, we need to have that piece of evidence on-hand from which the warrant is being challenged.
3) Debaters can only bring up their cases and a flowpad to be used in the round. Public Forum requires the Public to watch... think Presidential Debate, but with straighter answers. Nowhere in any public debate would you see a speaker stop, pull out a series of cards in the middle of a round, and go from there. NFL requires that extemp speeches be memorized; I am not advocating memorization, but am drawing the parallel that we can ask that only cases and flow pads be brought up in the round. Leave the evidence and tubs at the door.

Can we stop the rush to dissolution in Public Forum? Yes, NFL is forming a Committee for next summer and we have the District Chair Conference next summer. My voice will be hard and firm that we need to keep Public Forum ... well, Public.