Allen,Joe

As a general principle, I would rather adapt to you than ask you to change the way that you debate around me. I am not narcissistic enough to think that how I think you should debate is the only way of debating. My assumptions are mine alone, and I’ll do my best not to let my predispositions effect the outcome of the decision if otherwise I would’ve voted differently. That being said, a few specific things could probably prevent you from fighting an uphill battle with me.

LD specific info Standards/criteria debate--I tend to find myself determining LD debates largely based on who controls the standards debate. You can either concede theirs and focus on internal link turning everything, or win the priority question and control offense that is filtered through your own standard/criteria. The important part is that you win offense which can be channeled through the standard which is more effectively impacted. This makes the criteria particularly important to my decision making as a judge. Criterial comparison can be very dynamic and sophisticated, and I find when this occurs I'm happy with how the round occurs.

Pre-standard arguments--The only condition where I would decide a round outside of impact calculus pertaining to the standards (outside of theory) would be if someone incorrectly answered or significantly mishandled a pre-standard argument. I can be persuaded that some arguments function outside of the traditional criterial framework, and that these arguments are stand-alone issues. I do, however, tend to think that the proliferation of "pre-standard" arguments sometimes exhibits an excuse not to engage in meaningful impact calculus. If I wouldn't vote for your argument if it wasn't pre-standard, there's little chance that simply calling it pre-standard will magically remove the obligation to provide impact calculus. That being said, pre-standard arguments serve a purpose, and if you're behind on the standards debate feel free to take some risks here.

Theory--I am more likely than most judges to be considered a theory hack. I suppose this is because I think that reducing theory to a question of whether or not abuse was performed ultimately misunderstands the purpose of theory: which is to negotiate competing views of debate. As such, I think theory would be more effectively resolved by defending the effect of what different interpretations would justify. Competing interpretations is the lens I adopt unless told otherwise--and I expect theory debaters to be able to effectively enumerate the specific vision of debate that would be provided by their interpretation. You're fighting an uphill battle against my predispositions if it's necessary that go for the argument that theory isn't a voting issue. That would essentially have to be completely conceded. Just being honest. It's fair to ask questions concerning the theoretical credibility of different strategies, and it's necessary for debate to evolve.

Critical arguments--I am a fan of critical arguments. Well developed criticism can be a very effective strategy. I think that critical debate is necessary to ensure that the calculative logic we play around with in debate doesn't calculate the permissibility of unethical things. That being said, I expect a kritik to have a well developed framework, link explanation, impact, and alternative. I often find that the best kritiks in LD spend all 7 minutes of the NC reading a single kritik, which enough links to avoid the need to line by line answer the AC. It's generally strategic to force the 1AR back to square one, and this is one way to do that. I'm also fine with critical aff strategies, as long as you can defend them.

Policy specific info Topicality—I do not think it’s genocide. I do think it’s a voting issue. You do the math. I believe in competing interpretations, and believe in round abuse to be a poor and unsophisticated method of evaluating the benefits of different interpretations. Not performing abuse does not automatically mean that the way your strategy is positioned is fair.

Counterplans—I tend to be especially suspicious of counterplans which do not compete textually, and am predisposed to be easily persuaded by the permutation: do the counterplan in some of these instances if the permutation is coupled with an adequate defense of textual competition. Essentially, if you’re deciding between your favorite agent counterplan and your favorite conditioning pic go with the agent pic if you want your strategy to align with my assumptions of theoretical legitimacy from the 1NC on. That being said, it’s certainly at least possible to defend counterplans which do not compete textually, and if you’d rather go that route if your theory arguments are better consider your bases covered.

Disads—I’m fine with politics disads. In fact, I consider this one of the best strategic options for negative teams because it enables you to have a research edge over teams with solid affirmatives. As an aside (if this is any insight to my views on negative strategy) the best way to make politics optimally strategic is to read it with a counterplan that solves all of the aff but which politics could never link to. This prevents the aff from comparing their advantages against the disad and puts the burden on the 2AC and 1AR to read adequate offense against your hopefully well researched disad. Despite my love of politics, I am still somewhat skeptical of politics disads in which the link relies on the process of the plan as opposed to the outcome of the plan. A good example of links which this perspective would exclude are link arguments like “the plan would be held hostage to ensure horse-trading on X item of legislation.” A more credible link argument would only assume the consequences of the plan after its passage.

Impact calculus—You likely cannot win my ballot without some degree of impact calculus if the other team does some. This is the most important element of debate because it enables teams to prioritize arguments which they’re winning at the expense of arguments they’re behind on. Good impact calculus compares the relevance of competing terminal impacts, and assesses their importance. If no impact calculus existed, and one team had a disad impact of nuclear war, and this was compared to a genocide advantage, if left to my own devices I’ll likely choose to prevent nuclear war. Impact calculus could easily prevent me from deciding this.

The K—This always seems to be the most contentious issue in debate so I’ll be as specific as possible here. I have no problem with criticism arguments, if your framework is couched fairly. I do, however, think that they ought to be topic specific with a link explanation that assumes the action of the plan. Statism probably should not be a round winner for me, unless the other team screwed up fairly badly. On this topic, a sophisticated Marxism criticism would be a good choice. A good way to summarize my views of the kritik is that ideally it ought to function as an internal link turn to the affirmative. For example, an affirmative with 3 advantages which all terminalize in nuclear war would be easily susceptible to criticisms which indicate why the methodology deployed by the affirmative makes the international system more chaotic and unstable—because the implicit internal link turn is that the aff method makes nuclear war more likely. You should theoretically be able to beat the aff without cheap shot frameworks that prevent the aff from accessing the 1AC. This perspective should exclude most generic criticisms which don’t adequately deliberate the outcome of the affirmative, but encourages k’s to be as well researched as any other argument and to authentically respond to the aff. I feel the same way about critical affirmatives. Ideally, the aff would still defend the resolution, unless coupled with a good defense of why that perspective is bad. Good critical affirmatives defend the topic, and use the veins of critical literature available to them from research on the topic to essentially control every internal link argument. Critical affirmatives should include at a bare minimum some sort of statement of advocacy coupled with a framework. Please don’t hold out on 100% of your framework evidence for the 2AC/1AR. Give me some concept of how your positions operates in terms of the role of the ballot early and often. I know this view is probably somewhat restrictive to some K teams, but if it’s any consolation I think most teams are horrible at answering critical arguments and even silly generic k’s that I think are unstrategic can be round winners against plenty of teams.