Heroic: Sophomore Wins Political Argument by Shouting "Free Speech" at Opponent

Not all heroes wear capes.

College sophomore Harry Cooper has been scoring victory after victory after implementing a new debate strategy that allows him to simply negate his opponent's argument by yelling "free speech" at them. The discovery came last week when he was in a heated discussion with one of his peers on Locust.

Cooper was making an argument that many find to not only be logically problematic, but also highly offensive. "My friend kept debating me, besting me at every turn by using basic logic and appealing to common ethical values," Cooper explained. "But then I had a stroke of genius and decided to use the nuclear option."

That's when Cooper stopped defending his point of view and just started berating his friend for "infringing on his free speech." His friend, dumbfounded and speechless, capitulated. Cooper had won the day. His friend told UTB that, "I have no real idea what 'free speech' entails or what protections it offers, but I'm sure that because someone shouted it at me it must be a legitimate and airtight counterargument."

Cooper has since used this technique to combat multiple opponents, and even silence one of his professors that tried to counter him with empirical evidence to the contrary. Perhaps his greatest achievement came this past Sunday, on Locust Walk.

Cooper had gone out early in the morning to chalk Locust with various controversial, and often inaccurate, conjectures about an issue that deeply affects many Penn students. Much to his dismay, he found that people had written responses to his political stance on the bricks surrounding his inscriptions. Cooper was furious.

"When I had made my position known in a public forum, I had no idea that people would also respond publicly! It just isn't fair," Cooper whined to UTB. He never expected that, by opening up public discourse, someone would actually engage with him— let alone contradict him. Cooper sought vengeance, so he tracked down those who dared disagree with him. 

"I found them and I just yelled 'free speech' as loud as I could," Cooper recalled, smiling. "They immediately apologized, told me that I was 100% correct, and said that to disagree with my worldview is both un-American and literally the same as being a communist."

Cooper had again prevailed, establishing himself once and for all as a champion of American democracy and political discourse.