Dempsey,+Nathaniel

Hi! I'll try to keep this organized in a background on me, a short judging philosophy, and a rambling judging philosophy. The judging philosophy is designed for high school policy debate.


 * About Me**: I did policy debate and foreign extemp (international extemp) at Liberty High School (KC, MO area) for four years, a tiny bit of policy debate at Washington University (St. Louis, MO area), and a little bit of parliamentary debate at Washington University. My high school debate partner and I qualified to nationals twice, St. Louis (renewable energy) and Portland (academic achievement). Unfortunately, we didn't break either trip; the first time, we were sophomores, and the second time, well, let's say I still have some issues with those four ballots we lost to the GLBT case. (FYI, if you run something about GLBT issues when I'm judging, you better be darn sure that you actually solve the problem you present). The year I did parli in college, nationals was also in Portland. We lost in the first out round.

I've also been helping out a little bit at Clayton High School (St. Louis, MO area) since sophomore year in college. I'm not a teacher or academic, though. My training is in business, and I'm interested in getting things done. Debate is an empty activity if we merely explore difficult issues. The point is to resolve them.

As far as public health in SSA, I've judged roughly 5 tournaments in St. Louis and Kansas City this year, so maybe 20 of those rounds were policy debate. I'll be Clayton's debate judge for NFL nats in Henderson (2008).


 * Short Judging Philosophy**: Tell Me What To Do. Taking basic civility and following the rules for granted, tell me in the round why I should vote for you. Answer the other team when you disagree, present an organized strategy, and implicate things for me. Absent such direction, I tend to default to doing a little back of the envelope, cost-benefit analysis. If plan's net beneficial, I'll go Aff. If not, I'll go Neg. If it's a wash, tie goes to the runner: Neg wins by presumption (unless there's a counterplan, which in my mind switches presumption to the Aff).


 * Longer Judging Philosophy**: I like the image that tabula rasa conjures up. What I emphasize is that it's not me that has a blank slate; of course, I have biases and preferences and experiences. It means the round starts as a clean slate. Lots of people influence what happens in a debate round, but only the four of you who actually speak during the round contribute to that particular round's slate.

__Things That Impress Me__: Strategy, organization, clarity of thought, word economy, clash, team work, effective usage of cross examination time, articulation at 400+ words per minute. These are ways you can show me that you are better than the other team.

__Things That Don't Impress Me__: Speaking 200-300 words per minute, fancy words, excessive jargon, excessively detailed theory arguments, intrinsic perms. I'm not going to intervene in the round to vote you down on these things. Just know they do not impress me. Yes, we've all been to camp. I have no doubt you have a whole expando of 2NC blocks for that critique. Bravo. Unless you're writing your dissertation on it, what's the point? What I like about policy debate is the attempt to craft and evaluate policy, not to get your Ph.D. If an experienced trial judge or a US Senator couldn't follow your speech, it's not a debate competition. It's a highly technical speech competition for which I have little interest in serving as a critic.

__Things That Make Me Doubt Your Debate Experience__: Repeating arguments in the negative block, making substantively new arguments in rebuttals, not using your full speaking times (including cross examination, but I don't care how much prep time you use), disrespecting the other team or the tournament, making inappropriate comments in the round (either specific bad language or the substance of what you're saying), physical altercations. I reserve the right to completely abandon the flow in the event something egregious happens.

//Specific Debate Stuff//


 * Topicality**: I view T as largely about fairness. In order to have a competitive activity, there have to be some guidelines. If the Aff plan has nothing to do with the resolution, or if the Aff plan purposefully twists the resolution, I'm certainly willing to vote on T. I don't particularly 'enjoy' T debate, but I do recognize it's important. Basically, if I have jurisdiction over just about anything, then Aff cases will essentially rewrite the resolution to a less controversial position. We should be debating the most contentious parts. That's where there's a need for dialogue, and it's how the real world works. Courts and Congressional committees have specific jurisdiction, school districts have boundaries, companies have mission statements, employees have job descriptions, etc, etc.


 * Solvency**: Call me old-school, or traditional, or Missourian, but if the Aff plan doesn't solve the harms you present, I get agitated. Anybody can complain about the status quo. The burden of the Aff is to show me how they make the status quo noticeably better.


 * Generic Disadvantages**: I've never quite understood why some people do not like generic positions. If it links to the Aff case, it doesn't matter how many other cases it also links to. Some of the best reasons to not do something apply to many situations.


 * Counterplans**: I don't really enjoy counterplan debates, mostly because Neg teams frequently don't actually run a competitive counterplan. I generally find Aff perms of counterplans quite persuasive. So, if you're actually running a counterplan that rejects the resolution (and creates a better world than the Aff), by all means, go for it, just know that I start out a little skeptical. Also, if you don't intend on advocating your counterplan through the whole round, you run a serious risk that the Aff team might tell me to make that an independent voter and I agree to do so.


 * Critiques**: To some extent, these can be pretty enjoyable. But Neg teams basically run the risk that they will entertain me for an hour and a half rather than convincing me to vote Neg. Here's the basic problem. Either I'm familiar with the argumentation behind your critique, or I'm not. If I am familiar, I will be quite receptive to Aff args about why it's non-unique, why, even if I sympathize with the critique, it's not a reason to reject the Aff, and what alternatives I have, even if I agree with the critique. Basically, if your critique really is unique to the Aff case, and you have an alternative world you are presenting to me, why not run it as a counterplan and actually advocate something? Conversely, if you manage to run a critique I'm totally lost on, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do while the Aff is standing up there speech after speech saying that people are dying. A little bit of philosophy is necessary to guide public policy. But a lot turns policy debate into a book club that doesn't actually accomplish anything other than hearing ourselves talk. After all, none of us understand the positions as well as the actual authors themselves. I warn you that my dad was a philosophy major in college not because I am intimately familiar with every crtique, but rather as an acknowledgment that I know how little I know. The Neg better meet the standard they ask me to apply to the Aff.


 * The Flow**: Flowing is my guide. I say that as both a good thing and a bad thing. I cannot flow 400 words a minute. Sorry, I just can't do it, and I don't like flowing on a laptop. To me, debate involves both dictation and critical thinking. If I don't spend any of your speech writing stuff down, that's a problem for you. But conversely, if my entire brain function is devoted simply to note-taking, you're not engaging any higher level thinking; you're not persuading me of anything. My flow helps me weigh things and see how the round has transpired; it is not a word for word deposition with the winner being decided by who said the most. If the other team undercovers or drops an argument, point it out to me, and tell my why it's important. If there's no implication to a dropped argument, I don't really care. On the other hand, if a team drops an important argument, and you explain the implication of the drop, that could decide the round right there, especially if the round otherwise is close.


 * Speed**: The contest in debate is not how fast you can talk, but how well you can analyze an issue and persuade the critic (in this case, me) to agree with you. It's not that it's bad in and of itself if you talk fast. Rather, it's just not that important. Word economy is far more valuable. Two unrealistic pieces of evidence are obviously better than one, but one realistic card is vastly superior to two unrealistic cards. Speed in debate is just like speed in cars. Nobody likes that slow-poke in the left lane, but at the same time, you almost never see people going as fast as they can. There are some specific circumstances where that extra speed can be useful. But in the vast majority of cases, cars are not pushed to their limit. It's not because they can't go faster.


 * Evidence and Analysis**: My basic hierarchy is this. Something that is uncontested I will accept to almost no limit. When there is clash, I tend to prefer more realistic evidence and analysis. A few good arguments are better than several bad arguments (unless you're explicitly running a paradigm that says the team with the most arguments should win). Arguments with evidence are better than arguments without evidence. Generally, the more specific the evidence, the newer the evidence, the better the source, and the more variety of sources, the better.


 * Paradigms**: You don't have to say a magic word or anything, but do tell me how you want me to vote. Is there an independent voter you want me to address first? Should I vote on the significance of some dropped arguments? Should I vote to save one life, no matter what the cost? There are lots of ways I could evaluate the round. Give me some (brief) guidance on your preference. When there are clashing positions, I'm more inclined to favor perspectives that allow me to decide on implementing good policy (or, conversely, rejecting bad policy), but there are certainly some independent voters I'm willing to jump ahead of the policy discussion should the particular round warrant them. One other comment I would make is that if you completely ignore me, I'm not going to be offended. This guide is intended to help you win my ballot (and hopefully, other judges like me). There may be some situations where you decide on a strategy that you know I will reject. I won't take it personally as long as you don't take my ballot personally.


 * For You Non-Missourians**: The main obstacle you run into is simply that I don't have a lot of debate experience outside of Missouri. My high school never traveled, except for NFL nationals. I'm not in the camp that runs crying from the round at the mention of the word critique. But I'm also not in the camp that runs screaming from Missouri, complaining that omg, db8 sucks in Misery!!!! I value substance over technicalities, strategy over tactics, but also as much non-intervention by the judge as possible.

I'm not going to reject your EU CP just because Aff ran some international fiat illegit argument. But if you don't show me you can defend the legitimacy of international fiat, I will certainly entertain the Aff's position. To emphasize my CP and K statements above, my biggest gripe about counterplans is when they're just not that competitive, and my biggest gripe about critiques is when they're just not that relevant. If US aid is racist, just run the CP eliminating US aid. To run a K that says I should reject the Aff plan because it specifically is racist and I have to change the mindset somewhere, seems largely a cop out to me. If you're going that route, go for the gold. Also, as debate is no longer something I spend every day contemplating, you should consider me as much a 'former' debater as a current one when it comes to being familiar with particular lingo or theory blocks. Debate, alas, is not my day job.

My partner and I attended JDI (KU) together our first year, and then we split up for camp, me going to SDI (Michigan State) and he going to Emory and Baylor. Knock the Spartans in a round at your peril; those speaker tubs from camp are some of my favorite trophies. Those practice rounds at camp and NFL nats in St. Louis and Portland are the only rounds we competed in outside of the normal Missouri scene. At NFL nats, we picked up substantially more Aff ballots than Neg ballots (something like 9 Aff ballots to 4 Neg ballots). In general, we had coaches who were pretty hands off about specific debate prep. If we ran a frontline against you, we wrote it ourselves.

If I have to decide whether or not something is abusive, here's a rough guide to my thoughts, all else being equal:

1) International and local fiat is not ok on the Aff. We're here specifically talking about USFG actions. Policy debate is interesting not just because of the action taken, but also whether the US is the appropriate actor to be taking it. 2) International fiat is generally ok on the Neg, although I leave plenty of room to reject counterplans that push the envelope too far. New Zealand, for example, cannot convince Russia and China to dismantle all of their nuclear weapons. 3) Object fiat is a good way to agitate me. Plans/CPs/Ks better take actions to address problems. You can't fiat the problem directly. 4) New in the 2AC is ok to the extent that it continues something from the 1AC or responds to something in the 1NC. In other words, feel free to read a frontline extending an advantage scenario, or link-turning a DA, or answering a CP or K in offensive ways. But don't read a new advantage (or even worse, a new case). 5) New in the 2NC is ok with me to the extent that the 1NC wasn't designed to have wasted the 2AC. T, CP, K, and other items like that which you want to argue are important in and of themselves, I will not find very persuasive in the 2NC. But things that weigh the Aff plan, DAs, Solvency, Harms, etc, are fine from a fairness perspective. I would rather an Aff beat those arguments 'in the round' than argue that the new in the 2 is abusive. In fact, I would go further, and suggest that good Aff teams should treat new in the 2 as an opportunity. It means the 1AR can now make new arguments, dictating through offensive responses what the 2NR has to cover. 6) Conditional arguments are never ok by the Aff. It's your job to advocate something. If you even look like a moving target, I will be deeply concerned and will be on the lookout for anything the Neg says that remotely gives me justification to act on my distaste. I'm not talking about weighing impacts (even if you don't buy our Adv I, judge, look at our Adv II...), I'm talking about kicking out of parts of plan or altering parts of plan (no judge, the Neg didn't understand our answer in C-X; we don't send female doctors to Zaire, we send male doctors to Kenya...). 7) Conditional arguments are generally ok by the Neg. If you want to kick something, just tell me how you're kicking it. Of course, if the Aff has answers on here that you cold drop, look out. But generally speaking, I'm not going to buy reverse voters on most Neg positions. It's your job to give me lots of reasons to reject the Aff, any one or combo thereof might be enough to vote Neg. Generally, Neg teams that go for everything in the 2NR look inexperienced. 8) However, I strongly prefer that CPs and Ks be run unconditionally. I don't really understand the purpose of these positions if the Neg doesn't advocate them. So, if you plan on running a CP or K conditionally/dispositionally/whatever, it would be to your benefit to explain that up front and give me lots of justification for doing so. And, when you do kick it, it better make sense and not seem grossly unfair. 9) Perms are quite effective. Use them. But remember, they're just tests of competitiveness, not something you're actually advocating.