Timmons,+Colten

Name: Timmons, Colten School Affiliation: Joshua High School Years in Debate: 3

Style: I have no problem with speed unless you are spewing theory arguments at me a mile a minute. As fast as I can write, my hand still needs some pen time when arguments are coming fast back-to-back such as in theory and T debates, or when there are many analytics without cards to break them up. Also, do not sacrifice clarity to go faster. If I can't understand you, I will shout clear once. If you don't help me out after that, I can't be held responsible when I don't get the perm that you think should win you the round.

Impact Calculus: Believe it or not, nuclear war doesn't always outweigh. A whole wealth of additional considerations should go into any good impact debate. I make this a separate section of my philosophy because I feel the art of good impact debate has been lost. You will not win the impact debate just because you have eight nuclear wars and the other team has seven. Timeframe and probability matter. However, I tend to err on the side of greater risks of extinction over the two-thousand people a year you keep from dying of cancer unless there are reasons I should ignore extinction. Finally, impact debate, especially when these involve "turns case" kinds of arguments, should be contextualized in terms of the other team's impacts. Saying "we solve nuclear war in three weeks" is very compelling, but also mention why that might destroy the environment, the other team's impact, as well. I will sometimes vote on new arguments in the 1AR if they make sense.

Topicality: I consistently tell any team that asks that I have a very high threshold for voting on T, but teams still seem daring enough to go for it. In round abuse makes topicality more convincing, though is not always necessary. You can decide which framework is best for evaluating T, but if you tell me competiting interpretations should be the framework, you should also know that this has a few implications for how I will evaluate the argument. First, limits debate should never be about who allows the most or the fewest cases. Limits for me is about what interpretation allows the best cases, and why these cases should be prefered over the other team's cases. Second, though you may allow the other team ground, predictability is an important dimension to how useful that ground is to strategy. Finally, while fairness is highly important, education also matters, and fairness is not always the only internal link to education. Also, I don't vote on reverse voting issues for T, though it seems teams have finally stopped making this atrocious argument.

Politics: I will be the first to admit that politics debates can be very messy for me, and I may have a difficult time wading through your mess of uniqueness debate. Comparisons of evidence on all levels will make this debate easier for me to resolve. While I think the offense/defense paradigm is often applicable, in areas where significant amounts of de fense are being played on the link, where internal links seem to be weak or missing, and where non-uniques seem to make the link stories or the overall disad untrue, I have no problem voting against politics despite a lack of offense. If your link is a lie, why vote for your disad? Affirmatives don't necessarily need offense to prove this is true.

Disads: There really isn't much to say about a good ole fashioned disadvantage. Everything I said about offense/defense in the discussion of politics above also applies here. Don't bother explaining the warrants in your evidence, I'll call it after round anyway.  The things I mentioned about impact debate are also relevant. Specificity makes disad debates more interesting, but there is nothing wrong with running generic disads either.

Counterplans: This is a debate you can have in front of me. I am fine with most counterplans, barring the extremes such as "fiat away the aff's impacts" or "world government." Specific solvency debate makes it easy to win the counterplan when you're neg or beat the counterplan when you're aff. This means you should not just tell me that the counterplan takes an extra seven months to solve the aff. You should tell me why taking an extra seven months to solve the aff will fail to solve some aspect of your impacts and why that matters.

Theory: I really dislike when a blippy, four second voting issue on some aspect of theory debates becomes the reason I should vote for you in the last rebuttals. I have no problem ignoring these arguments even if they were dropped. I will tend to err negative on counterplan theory. Conditionality is often good unless the negative abuses this right and runs multiple conditional counterplans. I think the counterplan, the status quo, and whatever criticism framework you want to run is sufficient negative flexibility. Anything beyond this is likely abusive.

Criticism: Many of my friends in debate have told me that they've noticed that my view on these arguments has gotten much more conservative since I've graduated. There are many reasons for this. For one, we may agree that the affirmative is just a performative act/a speech act/a performative utterance, or whatever it is your critical authors want to call it, but an aspect of that performance is still a reasoned way that we can imagine a solution to a problem (maybe problematic also, you decide). I don't see in any reasoning about what the 1AC actually is why I should ignore their impacts or deny them their offense. This doesn't mean I won't ignore affirmative impacts if the negative is winning a reason I should, but more often than not I'll find myself in a K debate weighing the aff's impacts and its solvency against the neg's criticism and its solvency, and when this happens critique debaters seem to often find that they lose. Trust me, I've been there. That being said, I really very much enjoy framework debates that are critique specific. The example I always use when people ask is that I'd prefer to see an ontology versus action or ethics debate over a prefiat versus postfiat debate, which I find trite and irrelevant. On critique impact debate, value to life is an ok argument, but don't put all your eggs in that basket like many debaters have seemed to begun doing. There is value in not giving up on the idea that you can apply the generic theories in your K impact evidence to make specific arguments against affirmative impacts. These can even become mini linear disads against the affirmative in your block and your 2nr. Alternative debate is important, though in many cases, especially in debates concerning authors such as Baudrillard, Heidegger, Foucault, etc., alternatives are not necessary to win the K. What do I mean when I say that? For example, if you win that questions of ontology are good, and you have some links and impacts that question the aff's ontology, isn't that enough to vote neg?

I hope this page was helpful. I look forward to seeing your debate.