Olney,+Charles

Charles Olney

Short version: you should do whatever you want to do. Going for arguments you are good at, enjoy debating, and know well will almost always be better for you than trying to figure out what I want.

A few relevant issues:

- I find myself becoming more of a 'truth' judge as time goes on. Which is to say: I aspire to judge like Ross Smith. That does not mean that I reject arguments I consider untrue out of hand; it just means that my presumption is tilted in favor of the team who is making more sense. I care about evidence a lot, but that cuts both ways. Basically: bad evidence to establish a shaky internal link claim is very susceptible to being demolished by a smart analytic argument. But good evidence will take you very far. - I judge lots of clash of civilization debates, which I actually enjoy for the most part. The framework debate has gotten pretty stale, but I understand the utility of it. If you are going to talk about framework please play defense. I see far too many debates where the policy team wins that the other side kills debate, but the K team wins that policy debate is bankrupt. If either side did just a bit to disprove the totality of these claims, they would likely win. I really wish teams in these debates would talk about the value of DEBATE itself - since it's often the only thing both teams can agree on. I think policy affs would do far better to deploy their 'framework' arguments more as objections to the political implications of the K (it disrupts the capacity for decision-making, it produces irreconcilable demands for action, etc.) than as fairness VIs. - Supplemental on framework: I am one of the few people who really values aff choice - which means I care about the burden of rejoinder. You can clearly win on the neg by going for T against the K aff or going for a K against the policy aff, but on the whole I'd rather hear a negative engaging the aff on its own terms--as long as the aff has a somewhat reasonable interpretation of their role in debate. What counts as 'reasonable' is obviously debatable, but generally if you've got a topical plan that is integrally tied to the reason why I should vote aff you're in good shape. - Supplemental on Ks: negative K teams are pretty terrible at reconciling the defense of the alternative with their answers to the permutation. That is: the answers to the perm almost always link to the alt. Smart affirmatives capitalizes on this, neutralize massive chunks of the debate, and use the permutation to isolate the core elements of disagreement - and then win that there is value in the particular application of security or the state or democracy or whatever. I increasingly care less about 'impacts' and 'alternatives' to Ks. I care a lot more about what the ARGUMENT is than whether you can cobble together an alternative text. - Conditionality has gotten a little bit out of hand. The evolving norm of 1 CP, 1 K, and the status quo seems eminently fair to me, but it's hard for me to root for the team with 2 (or more) counterplans, a K, and the status quo. - I did four weeks of camp over the summer but haven't really thought about the topic since then. - Please be nice. If your schtick in the debate involves a lot of yelling, being rude to your opponents, etc. then I'm probably not the judge for you. I love intensity in debates, but there is a pretty clear line between intensity and disrespect.