Freed,+David

I am a varsity debater for St. Margaret’s High School, currently as the captain of the team. I debate on the national circuit, and have won tournaments on the local circuit. I have been in elimination rounds at many national circuit tournaments, including bid rounds.

The “THE ROUND IS IN 5 MINUTES” Paradigm:

I’m okay with speed, I’m not the best flower, so it would be in your best interests not to go at TOC speeds. (If Michael Harris is a 10, then I can flow about an 8 out of 10). Slow down for tags and author names and you should be fine. I’m cool with theory, RVI’s are awesome, slow down for dense philosophy. WEIGH A LOT! Role of the ballot arguments are fine. Basically anything is alright except for things that are blatantly false (e.g. the first amendment doesn’t protect free speech [now, if your opponent doesn’t point this out, I’ll still vote on it, but you won’t really like your speaks…]). If you think what you’re running might be questionable, feel free to ask me about it before the round. If you’re worried about your opponent getting extra prep time if you do this, then come up to me and whisper it so they won’t hear. I don’t care, but it’s in your best interests to make sure I don’t have anything against what you’re running. I presume aff because of the time skew (see below or ask me if you have any questions). I’ll disclose and disclose speaks, I’m willing to talk about the round afterwards. You can try to change my decision, you won’t succeed. The debate is based on what happened during the round, not how well you can weigh after you’ve realized that you’ve lost. Good luck!

The “I actually want to read through this” Paradigm:

1. Theory: I have a pretty low threshold for voting on theory. I believe potential abuse is a voter, but I will accept warranted reasons why it’s not. Fairness is a voter, no questions asked, and believe me, you don’t want to debate this in round, it will develop into a shitstorm. I default to competing interpretations absent a paradigm, and also default to drop the argument, if and only if you don’t tell me otherwise. (That means that if you say “Drop the debater” I default there, even if there’s no warrant, but realize that they can beat it back by just saying “Drop the argument” if you aren’t providing warrants). Now, if you’re running the counter interp, and they don’t make a drop the debater argument, feel free to just get up and be like “He didn’t say to drop the debater, so just drop the argument, drop the couple spikes I have at the top of the AC, moving on…” I think this will save you a bunch of time, and your speaks will likely go up if this actually happens and you make strategic decisions like this. Same goes for competing interps vs reasonability. If they say competing interps, but you clearly meet, give me a couple reasons to look to reasonability, and then make a couple “I meet” arguments. I’ll accept err aff / neg arguments, but absent both of them, if the theory debate is a wash, I’ll just go to substance and evaluate it there. I THINK RVI’S ARE AWESOME!!!! That being said, please run them properly, that means a whole other theory shell saying: A: RVI’s are good. B: I meet. And so on and so forth. I don’t like new arguments in the 2AR WITH THE EXCEPTION OF: the NR runs a new theory shell, the 2AR runs an RVI and goes all in on the RVI. I will vote on the RVI. You’re asking for it by running new theory in the 2N, frankly. Theory is the top level, no questions asked, and it comes before pre-fiat K’s. That means if you’re running the Black Aesthetic, and they run theory, and your only answer to theory is this Dantly card saying “They’re silencing me!!!!,” I will not have a hard time pulling the trigger on theory. If you’re curious further as to why, feel free to ask me before the round! Please weigh standards and voters and provide me with internal links. Weigh between internal links, please warrant the voter well, etc. If there’s no weighing on the theory debate, I will default to whoever is answering it, just say theory is a wash, and evaluate the debate on substance.

2. Speed: Go. Just not TOC speeds. Like I said, I’m not the best flower, but I can follow you pretty well. If I didn’t catch something, I’ll call for the card either after the round or right after the speech if it’s really important. Go slower for tags and author names and you should be fine. If what you’re running is incredibly confusing, PLEASE SLOW DOWN A BIT. That being said, Kant is cool, go as fast as you want if you’re running Velleman and Engstrom, I know most of what those cards say. If you’re unclear, I won’t hesitate to say clear.

3. Weighing: Please layer the debate and weigh each layer. That’s about as simple as I can put it. Just tell me why you’re winning and why they’re losing and you and I will both be very happy. I can only vote on arguments made in the debate round, so understand that if you’re doing weighing analysis and your opponent isn’t, you will be VERY far ahead on the debate. Also, if your 2AR strategy involves going all in on the case, without touching the rest of the substantive debate, please please please give me clear reasons why your framework means that your case is logically the top layer of the debate. If you do that, then if you are winning a risk of offense off your case, I will vote on it.

4. K’s, CP’s, and DA’s: I’m cool with them. Slow down for the K’s, especially the text of the alt, slow down for the text of the counterplan. Please weigh them very well, tell me explicitly why they link to the K/DA. Feel free to suddenly make the counterplan conditional in the 2N if they don’t ask you the status of the counterplan in CX, but if they ask you, you say dispo, and then change it to condo, that’s just not cool, please don’t do that. If you're gonna run some crazy stuff and be in love with Zizek like Monica Amestoy, then please, for the love of God, SLOW DOWN!

5. Be squirrelly (strategic, not cheaty), make me think, I like cool positions that I haven’t seen before.

6. Spikes are cool, but be wary, I hope you’re ready to go on the theory debate if they’re there. Oh, and you’ll want to spend enough time on it to make sure I have it on the flow.

7. I don’t want to intervene, I think this is your debate, not mine, so please weigh. I agree with a lot of people in the community that total intervention is impossible. Both of you will be disagreeing on some level that I will eventually have to resolve. E.g. The aff says “Shue precludes the Derrida analysis.” Neg says “No, Derrida flows through.” It will ultimately have to be decided as to whether or not this thing is actually preclusive. Hopefully both of you will be giving me reasons why you’re winning independent of that layer, so I can say that it becomes a wash and take the PATH OF LEAST INTERVENTION. I promise you that, I will ALWAYS take the path of least intervention. Oh, and “I’m winning the values debate, that’s my first voter,” is not a voting issue. Your speaks won’t get docked, but please don’t waste your time on that.

8. Please make me laugh :D, your speaks will be amazing.

9. If you’re the 1AR and are time pressed, if something is dropped, you don’t need to extend warrants and impacts. If I flowed them the first time, they’re still there. This privilege is only for the 1AR. Do extend the implication though, tell me how it’s interacting in the round and why you’re actually bothering to extend it. Shadow extensions are never cool. That being said, your extensions should be pre-written so you can spread them, that way each extension takes you about five seconds (isn’t reading paradigms awesome!?).

10. Speaks: I’ll start around a 27.5-28 and go up or down from there. Speaks are way inflated these days, why should you get punished because your judge happens to know that? I'm practically a point fairy. Also, as a side note, assuming you didn't do anything offensive, if I think you should be in finals of the tournament, your speaks won't be below a 29.5, sems--29, breaking at the tournament--28.5. You can definitely still get these speaks, this is just a little side benefit.

11. Please, please, please, please signpost. And signpost well.

12. Dense philosophy is cool. I like positions that make me think. Just make sure I know how it functions. If it’s Spinoza, Derrida, or Zizek, PLEASE, for the love of God, SLOW DOWN! Otherwise, it’s probably alright, just slow down for tags and author names.

13. Also, because I think it’s important for debaters to read paradigms, if you say “BOOYAH!!!!” at any time before, during, or after the debate round (before I fill out the ballot), you will get +1 speaks. Holy Speaker-Points Batman!!!!

Things I like:
 * Efficiency
 * Things that make me think
 * Laughing
 * Winning with a 1 minute NR (if you’re pretty clearly winning, and we both know it, you don’t have to keep going. I’ll just be sitting there nodding my head vigorously if you want a visual cue. If you stop there, and let us get out of the round early, then your speaks will go up! Woot!).
 * Well-run theory
 * Good cases
 * Weighing

Things I don’t like:
 * In Cross-X
 * Yelling at your opponent
 * Not answering the question
 * Answering questions with more questions
 * Asking questions when it’s not your CX
 * Playing dumb
 * Wasting time
 * Answering something other than yes or no to a yes or no question
 * Being cocky
 * Being rude
 * Being offensive
 * New arguments in the 2AR (see exception above under Theory)
 * Lying about what your opponent’s philosopher says to try to answer it or prove it contradicts itself. If there is a dispute as to what a card says, I’ll call for it after the round.

Other miscellaneous things:

I’m fine with swearing, whatever you need to do to get your point across. If it makes me laugh, your speaks will go up, but if it’s too much, it just gets annoying.

I’m willing to sign the ballot before the round is over, but this will only happen in a few instances, such as: your opponent dropped theory, and you’ve just extended it. At this point, you’ll see me pull the ballot over and sign it, and you can stop at this point and you’ll get good speaks and win! Yay!

I’m totally open to procedurals such as: We’re both on the bubble, so you should give us double-30’s so that we have a better chance of getting into the elim rounds, unless I legitimately think you shouldn’t make it to elims, in which case I’ll give you the speaks you deserve. Double-win is just not going to happen. The tournament wouldn't be happy...

I presume aff, I think the time skew and neg flex means that if you guys both come out even, the aff did more work to get there. But I’m willing to accept presume neg arguments too.

If I start making faces, it’s not because I’m reacting to your argument, it’s just because I’m trying to get the gist of the argument so I can figure out how best to flow it. I realize that I do this sometimes, I’m not making any sort of judgment about your argument.

Most of all, just have fun in the round, that’s what it’s here for. I’m just here to tell you who won.

Good luck!