Liberal Bias in Debating 1: Is there bias?

(Short Version)

(Short Version Ends)

As of now, I believe that there is a strong liberal/left-wing/progressive bias in debating. Let's break this down into three chunks:

In this article I won't touch on whether this bias is good or bad. That comes later. What we can do to correct bias also comes later.

How can a motion be left or right wing? One answer is that the right and left have different areas of concern. Equal treatment for those outside of the traditional gender binary, hateful/offensive/triggering speech and the like compared to the right to bear arms, crime/terrorism or cultural genocide. Setting motions on one sides issues while ignoring the others is bias. Another answer is that bias comes from the perspective from which a motion is set. Actor motions force debaters to assume the values of the actor in question.  Debates in which the actor is a left-wing group, i.e: the feminist movement, force debaters to assume that actors worldview and thus move the debate into a left-wing bubble.

My gut feeling is that motions are more likely to revolve around left issues and 

Most debaters are young, highly educated and from middle/upper class backgrounds. Most debaters are left of center. Most debaters, being left of center, tend more towards reading, hearing and learning leftist arguments. Most people also tend towards generating original arguments which are in line with their existing worldviews. This, alongside some experience in the British circuit, is why it should be plausible to believe that arguments deployed in debates are generally left of center, even in motions which are not particularly slanted towards either side of the spectrum.

This is likely a self-perpetuating phenomenon. Many of  the argument we use in debating are not ones we conceived of ourselves, but rather ones we heard other debaters use and then adopted. If most arguments are left-wing, new debaters will learn mostly left-wing arguments. If most arguments are left-wing, then good arguments will also tend to be left-wing and bad arguments, on account of being more likely to be original and thus awful, will tend to be worse. This could mean that judges, especially worse judges,  begin to associate right-wing arguments with bad argumentation and judge accordingly, further locking in the cycle.

I'm not sure how far or if at all judging in the British BP circuit has a liberal slant. Maybe judges value arguments which correspond to their own beliefs more. Maybe judges value novel right-wing arguments more. Maybe there are a variety of other influences at work or maybe judges are more capable of letting go of their own views and entering the average informed voters mind than I imagine. Either way, I'm unsure.

Reasons I could be wrong:

• My experience is mostly with the Dutch circuit. The British circuit may be different/I may be projecting my observations of the Dutch circuit onto my more limited experience with the UK.
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