Last week, the political science society held their State of the Union debate. This debate brought in students of all majors to listen to the college republicans and college democrats discuss key issues within the media today.

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The topics held at this debate included free speech, elections and the environment. Representatives started the meeting off by laying out rules for the audience, much like a presidential debate on tv. The representatives debating were allowed two minutes to debate their topic with one minute rebuttals. The audience was allowed to ask questions after the rebuttals to either representative and start more discussion.

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The first question dealt with free speech and the recent events in Charlottesville. The question stated was, “The ‘United the Right’ march in Charlottesville, Virginia saw many ‘hate groups’, including white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan, opening spew ‘hate speech’. Is ‘hate speech’ compatible with ‘free speech’? Should it be legal?” The main question was if hate speech should be legal or not. Many may not believe that hate speech should be legal even though it is. There is no law forbidding hate speech and it falls under the first amendment. In short, you cannot be stopped from speaking, even hate, because you are expected to incite violence. Local officials cannot ban neo-Nazis or white supremacists from rallying only because their speech is offensive. Hate speech only becomes illegal when there is direct threat of a particular group and an act of violence. This debate talked about whether hate speech should be legal or not, but never talked about how it is already legal. The democratic representative was against hate speech and believed that more time should be put into education so that we are not taught to hate. He also brought up the monuments which turned the discussion for the republican representative. He brought up, “people that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” He believed that people that believe the monuments should be taken down are only allowing for the hatred history to repeat itself.

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Another popular topic was the NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. The question was, “Given the recent controversy that ensued when NFL players knelt during the national anthem, is ‘disrespecting’ the Flag protected under the First Amendment's freedom of speech? Should it be?” The democratic representative started her debate discussing how people are not allowed to wear the American Flag, yet people still do although it is a form of disrespect. She then talked about how the players do not agree with America today, they are not proud of what America is right now, and feel like they must peacefully protest to get this message across. The republican representative agreed about what was happening and understand why it is happening. He stated that there is no law saying they cannot kneel although he does not agree with it.

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A big topic that the two representatives did not agree on was the electoral college. The question was, “The process that elects the President of the United States, the Electoral College, has four times elected the candidate who did not receive a plurality of the popular vote. This has occurred twice in the last two decades. Is this an acceptable electoral system for a 21st century democracy?” The democratic representative wants to get rid of the electoral college and believes that the election comes down to campaigning battleground states. He believed that the United States should rely on the popular vote and other forms for election for the president. The republican representative was against this idea and believed that the popular vote would ignore smaller areas in the country and their voice would not be heard. He stated that voting should include as many people as possible and spoke directly to the democratic audience when stating in reference to getting rid of the electoral college, “kiss that dream goodbye.”

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When talking about the environment, the republican representative did believe that climate change is happening. He said that they we are not ready to eliminate fossil fuels though. The democratic representative said that everyone is to blame and that nothing will happen if it's not a global effort, at least a national effort. This is because rivers flow through multiple states, all countries use all of the oceans, and he gave more examples to explain this problem.

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Many other issues were discussed at this debate. They plan on putting on a debate once a month to evaluate what is happening in the media. The political science society on campus meets at 7:30 pm on Thursdays in Kochel 55 if you would like to join or learn more about the group.