Brown,+Alex

Sophomore at Michigan State Debated for four years at Niles West Put me on the email chain: abrown123564@gmail.com Hi! At the top, the most important thing in a debate is that everyone feels comfortable and has fun. I don’t want to see debaters acting malicious to other debaters. Quick notes: 1. I don't know a ton about the high school topic. 2. Dropped arguments are true. 3. Presumption goes neg if the neg goes for the status quo, aff if going for a CP/K. 4. I'd prefer to not have to have a debate about non-falsifiable things that happened outside of the round. 5. I’ll kick a CP for you in the 2NR only if you explicitly tell me to. If you don’t give a warrant why I should kick it for you and the 2AR comes up, says I shouldn’t do it, and gives a warrant, then I won’t. Generally, I think that the logic of conditionality means judge-kick is okay, so the 2AR may have to do work here against a 2NR which makes these arguments. 6. I’ll vote on almost any arguments if they’re warranted well. Obviously, offensive language/arguments will result in a very poor reaction from me, as will reading unfunny “joke” arguments. 7. Emailing/flashing is not prep, but if you take a long time to get your speech out there (presuming there's no large tech issue) I will be sad and then start prep time again. 8. Don't call me "judge". Don't call me by my name (especially if I don't know you). Don't call me anything, honestly. On arguments… **KRITIKAL AFFS** If the fact that I go to MSU didn't signal it enough already, I would prefer it if the affirmative read a plan text. If, however, I'm judging you and you don't read a plan, I will evaluate the debate as objectively as possible. An easy way for me to do this is to make these debates as neat and organized as possible, so I don’t have to make gut choices. I think that K Affs need to prove some type of burden of solvency. I can imagine myself voting neg on presumption against a K Aff because even though it is able to point out a large problem, it cannot diagnose anything close to a solution. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Neg teams going for T/F.W – Stasis is a good thing. I'm also very sympathetic towards negative claims that the aff can/will morph itself to spike out of links because it's not tied to a stable advocacy: whether you use this to justify no permutations for a K or as an argument on F/W is your choice. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I think things like fairness, decision-making, truth-testing, etc. can be/are real impacts. I don't think the aff can just laugh these off as not being good impacts, but the neg certainly needs to give reasoning as to why they should be preferred over the aff's arguments. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I say this for all arguments, but especially for this: use examples. A well placed one can be a game changer. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**KRITIKS** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I would prefer not to judge high theory or identity pessimism kritiks. I don't know a lot about high theory arguments and while I know more about identity pessimism, I just don't like them very much. If you want to go for the K in front of me, I am okay with judging arguments like neolib, security, gender IR, managerialism, etc. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Lack of clash, specificity, line by line, and over-reliance on blippy and poor arguments all make me very sad. Please don't just read your pre-written blocks and have your entire strategy revolve around praying the aff drops one of the seventeen tricks you put in the 2NCs overview - I give a lot of aff credence in these debates and it’ll make me frustrated. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">If you read suffering good/death good arguments in front of me, it's extremely unlikely that I am going to vote for you. Sorry not sorry. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**COUNTERPLANS** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Love em. Neg teams don't add planks to their CPs to buff out their solvency or pre-empt solvency deficits nearly as much as they should. My gut tells me that 2NC CPs are theoretically legitimate. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">If you’re going for a shitty counterplan, then have a robust theoretical and technical defense of it. If you’re aff against a shitty counterplan, yelling “delay disad!!!” at me for five minutes in the 2AR doesn’t count as a solvency deficit. Impact them out, and do it well, because solvency deficits are usually hot garbage. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">If your CP competes only on certainty and/or immediacy, it's probably shitty. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**DISADS** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">DAs are great. Explain the thesis well and back it up with solid turns case analysis and I'll be very happy, but don't think that because the 1AR didn't answer all of turns case that you've automatically won, because t/c is reduced by the overall risk of the DA. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">My 2NRs in college are nearly all DAs in some way, and that DA is almost always politics or a topic DA. Make of that what you will. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**TOPICALITY** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I default to competing interpretations, but can be easily persuaded of reasonability. The more you contextualize it to this round, the better. I also probably won’t know tons about the topic, keep this in mind. As a result, I don't really like/care for case lists. Go ahead and list potential affs which they justify, but explain why they're bad, unless the affs are ridiculous enough to where no explanation is necessary. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**THEORY** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">These are so frequently really new in the 2NR or 2AR. Most violations are reasons to reject the arg, but I can be convinced otherwise. Please slow down as you go through these arguments in your speeches, so I can easily flow and understand what arguments are or aren’t new. Please contextualize to the round as much as possible. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Oh, and I think that conditionality is good. Obviously I can be convinced otherwise, but that's just my gut opinion. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**SPEAKING** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Buzzwords really, really annoy me. I'm sorry, I know it's super difficult to avoid them, but if I notice you saying a word or phrase way too often over the course of a debate I'll probably drop your speaks a tad. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I like it when debaters have catchy labels for arguments. Like, if you have five different links to the DA, or four reasons why a certain war won't happen, etc., it's way easier for me to flow and understand if each one has a different title or label behind it. As an example -- "No War, three reasons! First - Empirics (explain/card), Second - Deterrence (explain/card), Third - Resources (explain/card)" -- you get it? <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**SPEAKER POINTS** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I can't guarantee I'll stick to it, but here we go. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><27 - Something really bad happened. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">27.0-28.0 - Still struggling with the basics. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">28.1-28.5 - Not bad, clearly trying, but needs work. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">28.5-28.9 - Good work, but not perfect. I can envision you clearing. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">29.0-29.3 - Should get a speaker award. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">29.4-29.9 - Should get a top five speaker award, or I can imagine you in late elims. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">30 - Not happening. Sorry. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Have fun! If I judged you and you have any questions about the round (or if you have something to tell me for whatever reason), please email me at abrown123564@gmail.com, I will respond to you as soon as possible!