Ahmed,+Agree

Affiliation: Capitol Debate High School Attended: Mount Hebron High School, Ellicott City, MD

Debated on the circuit: 2008-2010. I was very K-oriented during the last half of my high school career but I did a lot of big stick policy stuff in the first half. I'm fairly familiar with both modes of argument. I come in tabula rasa and let the debaters negotiate the framework for the round.

1. Speed is okay, but my expectations for clarity correlate to your speed. If I don't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth, I won't flow your arguments and bad things will happen. If you sound comprehensible, don't worry about slowing down.

2. I'm open to whatever arguments you have but I NEED to know how they relate to your opponents'. I think that this is especially true if your opponents' framework contrasts from yours. Make sure to give this the attention it deserves in the rebuttals.

3. On K's, I find challenging the aff's foundational assumptions more compelling than trying to calculate whether the aff "net increases" capitalism, for example. That being said, don't let this stop you from going for the K in the 2NR if you think you're winning on that flow. I think that keeping multiple K alternatives alive in the block makes conditionality arguments from the aff especially persuasive, just so you know the risks. The alternative needs a worldview imbedded within it. I really don't like the generic Ks with the generic links and generic impacts. I understand if you have a go-to K, but make sure that you make specific link arguments (emphasizing their assumptions more than their actions) and that you can clearly articulate your alternative and why your worldview precludes the affirmative as a plan of action. If you can deliver this on the K debate I'll be a very happy camper.

4. I enjoy debates where the negative develops a strategy specific to the affirmative case. This will help your speaker points considerably.

5. I don't hold all nuclear wars to the same level of magnitude. I would really appreciate weighing the magnitudes of the round's scenarios even if it all leads to nuclear war.

6. Counterplans--I think it's okay for the negative to run multiple counterplans. Since these all fall under the same policy-analyst paradigm, they're not as cumbersome to answer as multiple Ks are.

7. Politics/Other DAs--I think uniqueness is the crucial question for these arguments. Evidence comparison on uniqueness is especially crucial if this is what it comes down to in the rebuttals.

Conditionality--I don't normally vote on this but multiple Ks in the neg block or too many negative positions in general will make me sympathetic to the aff. The negative has a right to run at least one counterplan and K in the 1NC.

Topicality--Yes, it's a voting issue. It's how the community decides the bounds of the affirmative literature and define the scope of the topic.

Side-note: I'm very invested in research on genocide in academia. Don't say stupid things like topicality is genocide.