Tinsley,+Jordan

Jordan Tinsley Affiliation: Little Rock Central High School Debate Experience: 3 years at Little Rock Central (1997-2000); 5 years at the University of Kansas (2000-2005) Number of rounds on topic: Less than 10 Number of years judging: 2 __ General __ : First, I prefer good debates. Of course, I have biases and predispositions just like any other person, but I will do my best to adjudicate rounds on the basis of what both teams argue. I like to think I was a pretty versatile debater and I imagine that makes me a pretty versatile judge. I’m equally comfortable in both “policy” and “critical” debates, and I think debaters should be as well.

Second, I believe there can be “zero risk” of an argument, so the distinction between offense and defense may not be as compelling to me as it is to some other judges.

Third, I have not really been that involved in debate for the past four years, so I assume my flowing skills are a bit rusty, although I think I kept a pretty good flow when I debated. I will yell “clear” at you two or three times before I put down my pen and tune you out. If you hear me yell “clear,” it is definitely in your interest to either slow down a bit or begin to enunciate a lot better. Also, if you are in a blippy theory debate, you need to give me “pen time.” If you don’t, I will miss some of your arguments and you will probably lose.

Fourth, I think policy debate should be evidence-intensive, but I will vote for an un-evidenced analytical argument if it’s real smart, too.

Finally, please explain your arguments. I’m not going to vote for an argument I don’t understand. If I don’t understand an argument, that is most likely your own fault and I will not be afraid to tell you I voted against you on an argument because you failed to make me understand it. __ Topicality __ : I don’t dislike topicality debates, but they are not my favorite thing either. That being said, I understand the predicament in which teams with less resources find themselves and the kind of weapon T provides for those teams, so please don’t hesitate to go for T if you think you can win it. While I’m a lot more likely to vote on T if there is in-round abuse, I will evaluate potential abuse.

Also, I can be persuaded by a lot of arguments about topicality, but I am probably not going to vote on any “reverse voting issues.” __ Critiques/Performance __ : First, I am relatively familiar with most of this literature. I’ve read a lot of continental philosophy, etc. However, I think these things can be said a lot more simply than the evidence often puts them. You will impress me if you make a complex philosophical concept into a coherent debate argument.

Second, I like both these things (and ran them often when I debated), especially if they are topic specific. I think affirmative debaters should be creative enough to tie their critical orientation to the topic somehow, although I’m not going to reject a team just because their performance was non-topical; these things have to be argued.

Third, you may not need to win an alternative to win on the negative, but I definitely think affirmatives should be willing to turn critical alternatives more often.

Finally, I’m not a big “framework”/“wrong forum” person; I think you should be prepared to defend the ideology underlying whatever policy option you’ve proposed. You should know, however, that this particular predisposition is distinct from my feelings about critical affirmatives needing to relate to the topic. __ Counterplan theory __ : I understand all these arguments pretty well, but I’m not a big fan of them; I prefer substance over procedure.

Also, I think the negative should be able to attack the affirmative in a diverse fashion early in the debate, so I’m really not sympathetic to conditionality/dispositionality bad arguments, unless you are making some pretty good distinctions. Also, since I debated for Scott Harris at KU, I really enjoy creative PICs. These are probably the most devastating arguments in the negative arsenal. __ Cheap shots __ : I will vote on them, but I’m very sympathetic to cross applications from other theory flows. Also, my standards for evaluating these arguments have grown more stringent since I stopped debating; I’m not going to say the affirmative has to define all the words in the resolution just because that was a dropped line of the 1NC. There has to be some warrant for these arguments and they will have to be developed in the debate.

Also, there is a major distinction between a devastating plan flaw argument and a cheap shot. Some of the sweetest negative strategies ever revolve around devastating plan flaw arguments. __ Things I don’t like to hear __ : I really like funny debaters, and if you make me laugh that will enhance your speaker points, assuming you can debate effectively while being funny. It is sometimes really funny to ridicule other people’s arguments; however, you definitely cross the line if you make personal attacks on another debater or team, i.e. you can say, “This plan text flaw is ridiculous because it requires the United States to invade Russia and disarm their tactical nuclear weapons,” but you cannot say, “This team must be retarded because they wrote their plan in such a dumb way.” By all means, though, feel free to make fun of yourself, your partner, your school, me, people I know, or the other team...as long as it's all in good fun and nobody gets uncomfortable.

Also, I’m not a fan of debaters who like to run critiques of hetero-normative language when the other team says something “sucks” or whatever. If you choose to run such an argument in front of me, the other team should be guilty of something relatively egregious or you will have a hard time winning your argument. That being said, I think PICs based on the ideological baggage underlying particular language in the plan can be pretty sweet.

If a team is dishonest in pre-round disclosure I would be willing to make it a voting issue.

__ Arguments I went for in my debate career __ : I was always a 1A/2N. On the negative, my partner and I went for Heideggerian and Foucaldian critiques like Spanos, Security, or Agamben/Biopower relatively often. We used to read a section of //Oedipus// as the 1NC and then go for the Security K. We also ran Kato a lot. We also used to like going for “crazy” arguments like Spark/Wipeout or “global warming leads to hyperspace," as well. As a point of reference, my partner and I once won a Spark debate on the argument that the moon landing was fake. We liked to talk about aliens, too.

However, we also went for politics disads or relations disads or oil disads or whatever and counterplans a lot, too. And we would get in big case throw downs if we had the cards for it.

My partner and I did some crazy business on the aff back in the day, too. We affirmed the resolution as a short story on the Africa topic; we read poetry by survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a defense of CTBT; we demanded that the USFG withdraw its GMO complaint from the WTO as a critique of starvation rhetoric; we told the story of Shell Oil exploiting an African tribal people and affirmed the resolution as a differend, etc.

Now, I don't think you should run particular arguments in front of me just because I used to run those arguments back when I debated; I offered the above recitation of arguments to illustrate to you that I believe there is enough room in this activity for a whole mess of diversity and I can't really think of any argument that should not be up for debate.