Guimont,+Lance

Name: Lance Guimont School: Southwestern College Debate: Policy I have been debating Policy for over a year now and I love it. I try to insert myself into the round as little as possible. Because of this, it is to your advantage to clearly articulate and weigh warrants and impacts. Please weigh impacts. If you don’t do this, there’s a better chance that you’re not going to like my decision. I love impact calculus during the final rebuttal speeches. Also don’t be afraid to argue framework and tell me how I should vote. Just a side note I come from a socialist debate team that come up with some crazy arguments. T In general I think Topicality is important for two reasons. One is the general reason that most people think its good, being that we need to be prepared/have set limits and parameters for debate. The second is that I think each year presents an opportunity to gain in depth education on an issue, even if its not a policy perspective of that issue. I feel that competing interpretations is generally the default for T, but I am open to defenses of reasonability and in fact, think that there are cases where this is the best means of evaluation. Standards should be impacted in terms of education and fairness, and the debate should come down to the best internal links between the standards and these terminal values Disads and Advantages These arguments should be stressed in terms of a coherent story of what the world looks like in terms of the status quo, affirmative plan or alternative option. These positions should be attacked from a variety points including the link and internal link chain, impact and uniqueness level. When it comes to link turning, my default thought is that uniqueness determines the direction; if you have an alternative understanding that is particular to a scenario, be sure to explain why it is that the direction of the link should be emphasized or what have you. Impacts should be compared not only in terms of timeframe, probability and magnitude, but in terms of how these issues interact in a world where both impact scenarios take places. Also, keep in mind that I have not kept up with the trends in Disads and such within the topic, so explaining specifics, acronyms and otherwise is useful for me. I prefer hearing topic specific/nuanced scenarios as opposed to generic politics and similar positions. This does not mean I will not vote for it or will dock your speaker points, just a preference. Counterplans Counterplans should be functionally competitive; textual competition doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (see later section on theory). I think that perms can be advocated, but am more than willing to here reasons why they shouldn’t be and why that is bad way to frame debates. When it comes to agent counterplans, I tend to think that topic specific education should trump generic presidential powers or judicial independence debates. Consult and condition cps just make the logician inside my head painfully confused (not sure why X country enjoying being talked to is a reason why the plan is bad). International fiat is suspect to me, and I tend to think that limiting the discussion to US policy (including its international relevance) is a good thing K’s  I will vote on them if they are done right. I dislike alt-less K’s feels like cheating but again I will vote based on the flow.