About the HVDU
By PATRICK McGRATH
Founder of the Hudson Valley Debate Union
The Hudson Valley Debate Union (HVDU) brings the passion of face-to-face “Oxford” style debating to Rockland County, New York, the Hudson Valley, and beyond.
For our new friends, and for those who’ve just discovered the HVDU, here’s an introduction and a brief backgrounder on this project.
What happens at a Hudson Valley Debate Union event?
Maybe you were on the debate team in high school. Maybe you’re used to the Presidential “debates” in past years-divisible-by-four, where you just sat back and listened.
You may be thinking that that’s what’s going to happen at the Hudson Valley Debate Union. If so, I have a one-word answer for you — a word in a foreign language: Fuggedabbowdit. (Brooklynese, of course.)
No, dear visitors, HVDU debates are participatory debates, and you are the participants. How?
The debate format at the HVDU is a modified version of the format used at the famous Debate Unions of Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England, and also used at many other debate societies in the English-speaking world, such as the Literary and Historical Society of University College, Dublin, Ireland.
On the Points
At the heart of the format is Point of Information. When a Principal Speaker is speaking, during his “unprotected time” — more on this in a moment — any Voting Guest in the hall can stand up, raise his or her hand in prescribed manner (arm high, palm flat) and shout out, “Point of information!“
Now you’d better have a short and snappy question ready when you make a Point of Information. And keep in mind that a Principal Speaker has the right to refuse any and all Points of Information. Nevertheless, at that Point, there’s nothing between You the Voting Guest, and the Principal Speaker — who may be a very large Principal indeed.
“You the Voting Guest” means You the Onion Farmer from Pine Island and You the Hip-Hopper from Mount Vernon and You the Scarsdale Socialite and You the Sixties Refugee in Woodstock and Bethel and You the Condo-Dweller in Piermont and You the Bodega Owner from Haverstraw Village and You the Housewife from Poughkeepsie. You get the point.
Points of Information are made right from where you’re sitting. You just stand up and rip it. Phil Donahue is not going to be coming down the aisle with a wireless microphone waiting for you. Your Point of Information is powered by your lips, teeth, tongue, and lungs.
Will you be afraid? Sure. But it’s the most delicious fear in the world.
Your vote counts
And if you don’t speak through a Point of Information, you’ll speak through the ballot box. Quite literally. You’re a Voting Guest, after all. And we do this low-tech — each Voting Guest has a Green Poker Chip that means “Yes” and a Red Poker Chip that means “No.” When the question is called, you’ll drop your Yes or No chip in the ballot boxes that we’ll pass through the aisles. We’ll count them, and you’ll find out who’s won the day.
In-your-face democracy, you might call it.
Here’s the rundown
Let’s go through the drill step by step:
- At the appointed time, the Sergeant-at-Arms will lead in the Moderator’s Procession. All rise.
- The Moderator will welcome you all, and a Chaplain will give a Moment of Reflection.
- The Moderator will then introduce the motion for the day, and the six Principal Speakers. He will then remind everyone of the “simple rules” of the debate.
- The “simple rules” are this: Each Principal Speaker has exactly ten (10) minutes. The first two and the last two of those ten minutes are “protected” — no Points of Information are allowed. But during the middle six “unprotected” minutes, Points of Information are allowed — in the correct format, of course.
- A bell will ring at — a) two minutes, to open “unprotected” time; b) at eight minutes, to close “unprotected time; and c) at ten minutes, when “the time of the honorable gentleman has expired,” as they say at the Capitol.
- The First Proponent of the Motion goes first, then the First Opponent of Motion follows, then back, forth, back, forth, until the six Principal Speakers are finished. All of them are subject to Points of Information at the appropriate times.
- Then a lucky Voting Guest — picked out beforehand — gets called on by the Moderator to say just one thing. “Mr. Chairman, I call the question.” That’s all. Nothing elaborate. The Voting Guest can read it off a card if need be.
- The Moderator then declares that the Question has been called, and asks the Ushers to pass the ballot boxes among You the Voting Guests. Remember — only one vote per Guest; if you put both chips in, you’ve just wasted your vote.
- The Ushers count the ballots, the Chief Usher announces the tally, and the Moderator announces whether the motion has been carried or defeated.
- That’s it. You’ve just had a life-changing experience at the Hudson Valley Debate Union.
Each Debate will have an Order Paper, which lists the names and affiliations of the Principal Speakers, the motion to be debated, and the rundown as I’ve just described it. You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, and you can’t tell the Principal Speakers without an Order Paper.
So. Are you ready to rumble?
Why the Hudson Valley needs a Debate Union
In Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards’s musical 1776, the Second Continental Congress has reached an impasse. Massachusetts, led by John Adams, has made a motion that the Congress debate the question of Independence. But the delegations are split down the middle — “five for debate, five for postponement, one abstention, and one absence.” The decision rests with the sole delegate from the thirteenth colony, Rhode Island, the curmudgeonly Quaker Stephen Hopkins. He has been imbibing too much of the rum stores. When he is reminded of the motion at hand, and its importance, he growls, “So it’s up to me, is it? Well, I’ll tell y’ — in all my years I never heard, seen, nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be TALKED about! Hell yes, I’m for debatin’ anything — Rhode Island says Yea!” The delegates cheer — and John Hancock tells the custodian McNair, “Get Mr. Hopkins a rum! Get him the whole damn barrel if he wants!”
From Independence Hall in 1776, to the conventions in the new states arguing over the new Constitution in 1788, to the Federalist Papers, to the demand by the states for a Bill of Rights, to the discussions in the new Senate and House of Representatives, American political history has been centered around hard, vigorous, impassioned, no-holds-barred debate. Our country seen great debaters — Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan — and great debates: Missouri Compromise — Fugitive Slave Bill — Lincoln-Douglas, and many others.
Today, the politics of personality, the shrinking sound bite, and “political correctness” have created a glaring and growing void in political discussion. This void has created an attitude of confusion, contempt, and choler in the American people towards their democracy.
Is there a way past this blockage? I believe there is. Let me tell you how I came to this conclusion.
A shout in Dublin
In the year 2000, I was working at a small non-profit advocacy organization, when we were approached by the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. The “L&H” was started in 1854 by Father John Henry Newman, later Cardinal Newman, as the debating society of the University he had just founded.
The Auditor (student president) of the Society had found out about our organization, and thought our organization should be represented as a principal speaker at the opening debate of its season. We accepted. One of our principals was the speaker, and I attended to cover the debate for our in-house publications. So, on a Friday night in Dublin, more than four hundred UCD students passed up an evening at one of the Fair City’s many pubs to listen to, and participate in, the debate at the “L and Haitch.”
“Participate” is the correct verb. Many of the students took advantage of the rules to make “Points of Information.” A student would stand up and shout out, “Point of Information!” The speaker on the floor would either refuse — “No thank you, sir!” or accept — “I’ll take your point.” The speaker on the floor had the right to refuse any and all Points, but were encouraged to take at least one or two.
When the going got heavy, shouts of “Point of Information!” were raining down like mortar shells.
Needless to say, I was impressed.
One month later, in the middle of the Presidential election campaign of that year, I decided to listen to one of the nationally broadcast debates by the two principals. I had a work assignment to complete, so I couldn’t watch it on television, so I listened to it on radio. After about twenty minutes, I switched off the radio. This was not debate, as far as I was concerned. My evening at the L&H had, for me, pushed the bar much higher. The “parallel press conference” I had just heard just did not meet the standard for debate that the kids at the L&H had taught me.
Thereupon followed the election events of 2000. While reflecting on those momentous events, and my visit to the “L and Haitch,” a thought occurred to me: Wouldn’t it be great to have something like the Literary & Historical Society on this side of the ocean?
At first, my plan was to bring this idea down to Washington. My story about our visit to Dublin made its way to contact in a D.C. think tank who was also a UCD graduate and an L&H alum. I broached my idea to him, and he encouraged me to write out a plan. I showed this plan to a few contacts — all persons of long Washington experience — and they all told me (in so many words): This is doable.
Well, after some years and a lot of setbacks, my plans for a Washington did not pan out — at least, not yet. Then I said, “If I’m going to start this, I might as well start this at home. So at home I have started.
The Charters lead to the treasure
We in the United States are governed by the Charters of Freedom. You know them: the Declaration of Independence,the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and if you’ve ever been to Washington, you should have visited the main building of the National Archives on Constitution Avenue in Washington, the permanent home of the Charters of Freedom. (And the next time you go to Washington, go there — or go there again) When Americans come to Washington, from all over the fifty states, the Charters draw them there.
Nevertheless, the Charters rule everywhere the Stars and Stripes fly — and that includes the Hudson Valley. The Constitution and the Declaration and the Bill of Rights are the heritage of everyone in the Union — the Union of the fifty States, that is — and everyone needs to get in on the debate. Until now, “moderators” interposed themselves between the people and ideas. At the Hudson Valley Debate Union, the ideas are in your face, and you can come up and grab them.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason that we need the Hudson Valley Debate Union.
Many people visited the National Archives headquarters because Nicholas Cage made it cool during the movie National Treasure. And that’s ok, for 131 minutes of entertainment. I say: the real National Treasure are those documents and the ideals they inspired, and when you debate at the Hudson Valley Debate Union, you become part of those ideals.
