Persuasion

When I was in highschool, I was in the Model United Nations program and the Mock Jury program. Both of these give students a chance to brush up on their powers of persuasion. Unlike the Debate Club, or the Icelandic style school quiz shows, these were not so much about demonstrating knowledge and individual brilliance as they were about knowing how to work the system. You "won" at a Model UN conference by your school sponsoring the most resolutions to get ratified, so that although it was competitive, the focus was much more on the quality of the legislation itself, than on any turn of phrase of rhetorical flourish. (We followed the actual U.N. floor rules, and those are pretty formal).

I was thinking about all that this morning, after noting just how much Palmer's powers of persuasion have improved in just a few short weeks.

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