MacDowall,+Luke

Affiliation: Trinity University

I debated for three years at Trinity in open competition, attending the NDT twice.

I am a graduate of Wake Law School and an attorney in Winston-Salem. This will be my first interaction with transportation infrastructure. That means, I won't know short hand references for argument names, the topicality debate, etc. without explanation.

There are only a couple of notes that you will need to keep in mind when debating in front of me. First, after seven years of competition in policy debate, I have noticed that the art of persuasion is being increasingly ignored. Therefore, I would like to see intelligent arguments being deployed fully and persuasively rather than tag-line cross-applications which should be reserved for uncontested portions of an argument only. Even then, the “story” being told by both teams needs to remain compelling.

My general understanding of how the “framework” of debate functions will probably be useful to you as well. When we talk about “frameworks,” usually the critical versus the political, we are probably referencing the old divide between theory and praxis. This divide, in my mind, is unwarranted and arbitrary, resulting in a failure to do one of two things. First, for critical debaters (let me just generalize and place these debaters into the category of those who defend philosophy, critical theory, or the social sciences’ critique of political action), the result is a failure to engage the world as-it-is by getting bogged down in abstraction without sound application. The problem with this approach is that no influential thinker has ever discounted their contingent position in the world and developed an approach which cannot be utilized specifically to approach political considerations. As such, a good debater who defends arguments of this nature will be able to explain how the argument either: disproves a conclusion, attacks a vital premise, or illustrates that regardless of the argument put forward by the opposition, that as a thinker I ought to approach the topic otherwise. The second potential problem happens to those on the other side of this arbitrary divide created in our community over the last decade. Traditional policy-debaters tend to discount critical inquiry because they believe it is irrelevant to the specific proposal or produces some utopian vision that cannot be attacked effectively. Thus, policy debaters should be able to persuade me that the critique does not undermine some essential premise needed to support the position. I am open to critiques of utopian thought, some form of pragmatic reasoning, etc. I just don’t find it persuasive to argue that “the judge is only one person, so changing one’s opinion has no impact.” Since the divide post- and pre-fiat is an illusion, all that matters is how the individual critic is persuaded to adopt or reject a proposed action by the USFG. In short, political, ethical, and theoretical questions are inevitably blended and positions are taken within each of these domains when someone decides to adopt some belief—even in the context of a debate round.

Second, any argument goes. The addition of a variety of new arguments to our activity has produced a more inclusive and interested forum where multiple perspectives can be heard. --I have tended to favor "traditional" affirmative case structures, but they certainly are not required. If you run cases involving music, video, or some sort of other unique presentation, the framework debate must clearly place me as a 3rd party and explain/defend said placement. --Philosophy remains my study of choice after graduation. I suppose that and a little bit of law. However, while in debate I have heard the misapplication and complete misreading of philosophical arguments, which annoys me. --Theory debates are often muddled and messy. Please slow down when using your blocks as flowing them is nearly impossible at full speed. --Marginal net benefit counter plans: I do not know when “a .01% risk of a link” became a net benefit worthy of consideration, but I tend to give an advantage to affirmatives that develop good “no link” arguments or solvency deficits to loosely woven net benefits with low risk.