Hanssens,+Nicholas

Policy Debate Background

 * Debated for Calabasas High School, 1994 - 1997
 * Debated for Harvard, 1997-1998
 * Assistant Coach, Lexington High School, 1998-2002
 * Sporatic Judging, 2002-current

=Personal Overview=

I love policy debate. The crafting of arguments. The strategy. The focused aggression. The clash. The wielding of evidence and information. From a skills development perspective, I also feel it is uniquely relevant to the modern world. Done well, it's beautiful to behold. As a judge, I love appreciating the skill of the competitors. I do view the moment after the round as the essential teaching moment and aim to give both my reasoning for the decision as well as offering constructive oral criticism where I can. I will disclose unless there is a damn good reason for me not to.

Judging Philosophy
I aim to vote based solely on what is said during the debate and makes it onto my flow. Whomever presents me with the simplest, well-defended voting story will generally win my ballot. I love a well-crafted 2R that balances out all of the live arguments and presents me with a clean, coherent story backed up by the flow and the evidence.

Generally speaking, I default to viewing myself as a policymaker evaluating wether or not the specific plan presented by the affirmative is a good idea.

I have been known to interveine -- both in vote and speaker points -- for in-round behavior I consider to be bullying, sexist, racist, or heterosexist...but only in cases that are relatively extreme (e.g. I once saw a male debater call an opponent as a 'silly little girl who didn't know what she was talking about' during cx. That did not sit well.)

Kritiking
I love critical theory and it's applications. I talk about it with my friends. It plays a role in my life. I believe that critical examination of policy decisions is of high value. That said: more often than not, I find kritik debaters get off into their own world, talking about things with little relevance to the plan being discussed and falling back on empty buzz-phrases they do not or cannot explain and connect to either the plan being discussed or the specifics of the rhetoric being criticized. With kritiking, my standards for germaneness and voting warrant tend to be pretty high. Teams facing a kritik will do well to leverage that.

Speech Acts
I believe speech acts are valid and important. That said, I question their value in a forum where the highest education value (in my opinion) comes from clash and analysis. While I have, on occasion, voted to reject certain speech (e.g. reading the word 'he' in a card), I am unlikely to find claims that I should reject a policy calculus in favor of whoever yells the loudest about racism being bad persuasive. Then again...it's your round. If you can defend the argument that I should do so, I will happily comply.

Quals Debates
I believe author qualification and bais is a major determiner of the validity and weightiness of a piece of evidence, and it saddens me that I rarely see that examined during a round.

Personal Politics
While I aim to leave them at the door in how I vote, a bias from political beliefs is inevitable. Here are mine:

I'm a federalist, with leanings into both socialist and libertarian thinking. I believe the federal government, in it's current form, is a massive perversion of the intention of the constitution, and that said perversion is significantly stifling the nation. I believe in the primacy of individual choice, individual responsibility, and individual liberty. In particular, I believe that collective action by society need to be undertaking by willing individuals -- not coerced individuals, as we see in the current system. By concentrating the nation's wealth and power in the federal government, individual responsibility has been abdicated to daddy government -- a government which is too massive to be influenced by anyone but entrenched forces. I believe I have the right and responsibility to say, for example, "I believe in socialized medicine" (which I do), but I do not believe I have the right to say "socialized medicine is THE right answer for everybody everywhere in this country." I exercise that right by living in San Francisco, where I pay higher taxes and there is a degree of universal health coverage. By concentrating power in the federal government, which I cannot meaningfully influence, my ability to choose my politics and uphold my responsibilities is cut off.

Lack of Clarity
Unless you are other-worldly-fast, I can handle your speed. But if I can't make out your words, it is a problem. I consider it an unfair advantage to tell you if I cannot make out your words. I will simply stop flowing. This is particularly likely to happen if you get into 'blip war' mode...I see it happen most often on T debates. If it isn't on my flow, you didn't say it.

Going for too much in the 2R
I really appreciate a good 2R. One that collapses a crazy debate into a few coherent points that are extremely well-defended and spell out how I vote. I find the "extend every single argument and say nothing else" style of 2R extremely grating.

Tag Team Cross-Ex
More often than not, this seems to turn into either four people shouting or one member of each team taking over all 4 cxs. I think both of these are bad. I acknowledge that there are times when the non-questioning partner just needs a question answered, and when the non-answering partner just happens to be the one who has the answer handy, and that's fine. In more junior rounds, I will say no to tag-team cx. In more senior rounds, I will dock speaker points for excessive tag-teaming.

Quoting my Judging Preferences Back At Me
It's just annoying. I know what I think and like. My philosophy is not evidence. Tailoring to: good. Quoting from: bad.

Being an Asshole
You're all here to learn, grow, practice, and play. Controlled aggression is great, but there is just no reason to be uncooperative, unfriendly, or disrespectful towards your opponents.