Lennon,+Alex

I debated nationally for Harvard and Edgemont HS for 8 years, winning the Copeland Award and NDT along the way in 1990 (and then coached for 3 more including a ToC champion and ToC runner up). After 20 years working professionally in foreign policy (including briefly in government), earning a PhD in international security policy and teaching in the foreign policy field, I came back to the activity in 2014 and am now also the policy debate coach at Thomas Jefferson S&T and a founding Board member of the Washington Urban Debate League (WUDL) while continuing to run the journal, //The Washington Quarterly// (which you probably read cards from on foreign policy issues) as my day job.

I came back because I believe policy debate was invaluable in my education, loved the competition, learned from the research I did and heard (and still do learn from it and you to this day), and want to create opportunities for others to benefit from competing in policy debate over the next few years. I owe my career to this activity, and other members of my family have benefited from it too. It's gonna be kinda obvious to say that I'm old school, and I'm a policy judge. What does that mean?


 * I'm as tabula rasa as I can be and believe debates are won and lost on the flow. If you win an argument and I don't like it, I will still vote for it. Do what you do best...I'm a little uncomfortable with how transparent judging philosophies have become, fearful that they become mandates for judges to force debates to go in a certain direction they do or don't want to hear. I've also seen debates where I assume someone is running an argument for me as a judge that is unfamiliar to them (at least I hope, for their sake, that's what they were trying to do); they aren't fun to watch. Debates are for you (not me) and are a laboratory to compete in front of an audience, not an individual, but if you don't make or clearly impact an argument, you and I both know my own experiences and biases will have to enter into the decision. So...


 * Affirmatives, in my opinion, should try to be a plan-based example of the resolution. I will vote on framework. It's important to learn about different topics (including this year's). Switch-side education is in my experience true (the best way to understand the weakness of an argument you devoutly believe in...is to have to argue against it) and it is particularly important to have to debate both for (in certain circumstances) and against government action so you can develop over your debate career a better understanding of the potential and limits of government action. Then you can decide to go actually do it (or argue against it) because this game made you better at it. The argument that you can/should cut cards against "our Aff because we've been running it for 3+ years" is not persuasive: you can change your Aff as soon as they cut cards and people have enough to do without chasing after nontopical Affs. Nor should you be able to criticize the resolution on the Aff. because you don't like it. Do that on the negative. Run a topical affirmative.


 * I am a walking example of the "portable skills" of switch-side policy debate. I learned a tremendous amount debating and eventually having to do research on different topics--including helping build a career on nonproliferation and global security issues in think tanks, the State Department, teaching at Georgetown, and running The Washington Quarterly--all because I got interested by cutting prolif cards in college. That said, I also assume (and remember) that high school debaters have less time (and skill) at cutting cards than college debaters; you spend too much time in class. You're here to compete, along the way gaining education (research and critical thinking skills) that transcend the activity and will help you for life. But winning good debates is what makes it fun; anyone who believes they are here JUST to learn is kidding themselves.


 * A permutation is a combination of the entire Aff plan and part or all of a neg CP or alt. Why do I say that? Because arguments that permutations are by definition moving targets frustrate me to no end. The ground of the 1AC is defined by the resolution. If the 1NC introduces a K or a CP, the 2AC gets to expand the universe of Affirmative action to a combination of the 1AC plan and part or all of the CP or alt (which the neg introduced into the debate). It's not endless, it's not moving ground. That's the Aff right to test if the CP or K is a reason to reject the affirmative when the neg starts that debate. And the Aff, in my mind, does have the right to adopt the permutation as their preferred solution (what I'm voting for if I vote Aff) at the end of the debate, even if the CP or K was kicked. But that definitely needs to be brought up in the debate, preferably starting as an option in the 2AC.


 * Teams who argue that only in-round education matters because these proposals won't get adopted are typically being too short-sighted. People from this activity have gone into the real world and shaped policy (usually as policy advisers, not Congresspeople, so it's about policy careers not politics. Nobody talks (or typically thinks) this fast in politics). It just takes patience. What you do in this room will help train you to improve government (from inside or outside) and we need that more than ever now, and will continue to need it when you develop the experience and insight from this activity and other endeavors for you to do so yourself (//either// from within the government //or// improving society from outside government).


 * K's without alts (including the alt is to reject the Aff) are, very often in my experience, not unique DAs looking for a way to be run. Ks on the neg, when run properly, have added a very useful strategic tool to help challenge basic assumptions about an Aff. But if there isn't an alt that helps address the problem (and can be tested by permutation/s as a reason to truly reject the Aff, rather than just being an annoyance) then it's most likely just a not unique DA.


 * I prefer debates about how to organize society (through policy) to help solve its problems. K's that ask the judge to look at the world through a particular perspective or set of eyes are extremely valuable and can be persuasive (although the other team can persuasively make the argument that they should have to account for the rest of the world too). Particularly given politics today, it should not be taken for granted what set of eyes or priority by which you're asking me to evaluate the debate. I am indebted to the activity for opening my eyes to the depths of racial tensions and frustration in this country, particularly among today's students, and constantly learn about them from coaches and students running these arguments well. All that said, I do believe the resolution divides ground and is vital for the long-term viability of this activity.


 * I prefer that you err on the side of (at least) briefly explaining a concept (new sheet of paper whether Aff advantage or neg off-case) before jumping into the intricacies of your argument. Don't assume that I have read or remember the nuance of your literature base, even on foreign policy topics. In other words, just say "First advantage is climate" before you start reading cards and tags (and is equally important on the neg--i.e. "first DA is politics"--with each off-case sheet of paper).


 * I believe analytical arguments, including well-reasoned points about source qualifications rather than simply the strength of rhetoric to evaluate evidence, wins arguments. In other words, debaters make arguments and use cards; cards don't make arguments themselves. Cards are good, effectively serving as expert testimony, when the author knows more about the subject than you, but the assumptions a card/author makes or doesn't or the context in which a card is applied is better than a really good rhetorical card.


 * Please remember that you typically read each other's speech docs during debates but I am intentionally not reading it during your speech (argument titles, descriptions, etc). I will NOT look at a speech doc to understand what argument you are running. The only reasons I'll look at a speech doc are to make sure debaters aren't clipping cards or after rounds if I want to see cards. Debating is done on the flow and it's important that I only flow what I understand you say.


 * Well-run Kritiks that truly challenge the assumption of the affirmative or shape the perspective through which the judge should view the round or evaluate impacts are great. I am admittedly less familiar with, and often frustrated by, postmodernist literature (which I find circular and often beyond the scope of most high school debaters to explain (or me to understand) requiring graduate study in philosophy. Using big, multisyllabic words to try to confuse the other team isn't enlightening or debating. Some Ks (i.e. security Ks) I also find more strategically effective if run with DAs (or advantages) which have other impacts (i.e. a security K with a DA with a human rights or structural violence impact is more effective because the K helps impact assessment/calculus and shape the assumption about the way the judge should view the round--rather than just running a stand-alone security K indicting the affirmative's use of apocalyptic rhetoric with no other arguments in the debate). All that said, I enjoy listening to well-run Ks and continue to learn a lot from those debates. Part of the greatness of debate is that it does evolve.


 * Speed is fine, I still talk fast myself, and will tell you if you're not clear (usually when reading cards).


 * If you're not using an e-mail chain, prep time ends when your flash drive LEAVES your computer (or you hit the send button when on an email chain) -- before that, you are compiling your speech doc and that's your prep time.

But, again, you have to make these arguments in a debate for me to vote for them...

Thanks for reading this novel. This is a working philosophy, which I'll update so please feel free to ask me any questions and if I hear the same one/s a couple times, I'll be able to update this. Have fun, be courteous, and compete. There's no better intellectual game. Enjoy...