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Nationals 2004
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Dear Student,

Congratulations are in order on your obviously superior intelligence. After all, you chose to come to Swat, passing up a bevy of offers from prestigious 2 year Junior Colleges (Harvard, Yale, etc.) and the always lucrative technical schools (Stanford, MIT and Caltech). Indeed, in the face of such heated competition, we here at the Amos J. Peaslee Debate Society truly admire your dedication to THE PATH OF TRUTH and its end-goal, THE GLOWING SCEPTRE OF KNOWLEDGE. Sure, you could have been an ultra-rich dot-com mogul developing life-enhancing technology or maybe even a Washington big-wig using your powers to fight for the good of the common people. But instead, you wisely veered away from these false idols, and have set upon the life of the philosopher king, ruling your Kingdom of Wisdom and its enlightened citizenry (ie, goats) from atop the hill (landfill) where your Royal Palace (little shack thingy) resides. No longer will you have to be concerned with earthly quantifiers like money (you won't have any) or people who listen to you (they won't). Now, you can concentrate on the the only true and righteous thing in life: Complaining about everything you don't have. For only those whose minds are truly miserable, are pure enough to contemplate the emptiness of our materialistic modern world. Like Madonna for instance...

Yes, Sir/Ma'am, debate is the only activity that allows you to gripe about all that is wrong with the world without knowing anything about it and then totally hypocritically, receive trophies and other material reimbursements for pointing out what is largely your fault to begin with. But not only that, you get to do this high-concept complaining with all sorts of likeminded individuals on the Swat team. Which basically means: We Want to Be Your Friends. Scary huh?

Now, for those who were either too illiterate to read the whole of our previous inane ramblings (we know you're out there you future English majors), or too lazy to read it (you too, CompSci folks), or are maybe just scared of letters and numbers (pretty much everybody), I've digested the sum of this email into its parts (props to my homey, Descartes). In other words, another oft-cliched Top 10 list:

TOP 10 REASONS TO DEBATE AT SWAT:

10. You can exact your revenge on the preppy schools back East that didn't give you a generous enough financial aid package.

9. If you ever decide to sell-out to the Corporate Man, being able to BS, by which I mean wax eloquently, of course, will come in handy when it comes time to ask for more stock options printed in the blood of anemic 3rd-World children.

8. A chance to get off campus on the weekends. Not only will this prove be mucho importante when you discover that you hate frat parties (or in rare cases, love frat parties but hate Swatties), but also, and I'm guessing that admissions neglected to tell you this, each weekend, Swat is napalmed by the US Air Force in order to control the rampant squirrel population on campus, and man, does that stuff sting like a mother. Just wanted to let you know.

7. The annual all-expenses-paid debate ski trip to the Swiss Alps.

6. Actually, just the Pennsylvanian Alps, but there's plenty of Swiss Miss, if you know what I mean (wink, wink)...

5. ... By which I mean, the chalky-tasting hot chocolate mix. I can't believe you even thought I meant...

4. ...Babes and Debate Studs. Okay, so we're just a little bit hotter than the average Swat guy or gal. But it's not like we talk about it that much...

3. Damn we're hot.

2. If you are like most Swatties, you will probably think you are intellectually superior to every other person on the face of the earth. Debate will give you a chance to prove it. Of course, it is a moot question anyway since I am the most intellectually superior person on the face of the earth...

1. Your Mom.

There. That is all I can divulge at the moment about this top secret organization known as Swat Debate.

- Jeremy Schifeling '03