Hiland,+Al

Hiland, Al I did LD for 4 years at Iowa City West. I debated for UNI (Mideast Through Immigration) and I also coached at Waterloo East High School for 2 years. I'm entering my second year as a debate coach/MA student at the University of Minnesota.

General Thoughts -I view myself as an educator (and student), as such I emphasize that debate should be a safe space for discussion with the goal of educating the participants and the judge. Toward that end, verbal violence is not appreciated. -Clarity comes first. While I can flow most speeds I will admit that I am not the fastest around. This is made worse by a lack of clarity. When in doubt read my body language. -While debate isn't about "finding truth", the activity seems to require some correspondence between what we say in the debate space and the real world. Read: I will not reject your argument out of hand, but if your argument seems to be a bit of a stretch that lowers the threshold for responses to it. -I tend to prefer watching debates where debaters are willing to take chances. While you should do what seems to be the most strategic option, I appreciate when debaters show a little panache. -I have a minimum threshold for argument explanation. Meaning, even if an argument is dropped I expect the debater to be able to explain the argument and how it influences my decision (although they will certainly be given the benefit of the doubt in their explanation and will similarly be defended against new responses). -I will not kick a counterplan for a team unless instructed that this is an option and under which conditions it should be done in the 2NR (or earlier). I can be persuaded by 2ARs that I should not kick counterplans for a team If this scenario occurs I will limit the negative to the counterplan advocated in the final speech (absent argumentation from either side).

Specific Arguments -Topicality: It's a voting issue until proven otherwise. I view T as an evidentiary issue (what does the literature indicate should be included in the topic?) which should influence how you impact your topicality arguments. I will listen to reasons why T is not a voting issue (This is described in more detail under critical affirmatives). -DAs: They are good. I like them. Politics is a lie, but a very winnable lie. I will entertain (but am predisposed against) the intrinsicness perm of politics more because I think politics is a silly argument than I think the perm is a good argument. I do believe the risk of a disadvantage can be reduced to zero. I also find that both a link and link turn argument can be "won" in the same debate. Comparing the strength of the link against the link turn (and vice versa) is clutch. I often times am left with questions regarding how the link interacts with the uniqueness story. I tend to vote most consistently for teams who can explain the interaction between the link and uniqueness claims made. -CPs: They are good if they can compete. On theory debates I place the burden on the team rejoining the argument/position to prove that it is illegitimate. In other words, the affirmative has the burden of proof on arguments regarding the legitimacy of the CP. The negative has the burden of proof to show the CP is competitive with the affirmative. All things considered, I would rather see the affirmative use the standard set by the offending argument as a justification for their own practices. I think the threshold for rejecting the argument is lower than the threshold for rejecting the team, but if the argument that I should reject the team is defended and won then I will do just that. -Kritiks: I have more experience in these debates than CP/DA/Case debates. I am somewhat unique in that I am less concerned about the specificity of the K to the affirmative than I am about the ability of the K to rejoin the affirmative. In other words, I am less concerned about whether the K is in the topic literature. That being said, I see K's that don't link to affs rather frequently. I think that affirmatives are often better served to go for no link arguments than they are trying to engage an impact turn debate. I also do not think that an alternative is necessary for the kritik to be a reason to vote neg (although this is open to debate). -Critical affs: I do not presume that the affirmative must have a plan text per say. I do presume that the resolution must be affirmed in some manner, although there are conditions under which I would vote for an aff that did not. One example of that scenario would be teams winning that T is not a voting issue while losing the interpretations debate. While I am not intuitively inclined to believe T is genocide, I am inclined to believe that there are times when limits serve a negative function for debate and easing restrictions on the affirmative are desirable. I am undecided on -Framework: I have historically voted both directions on framework. I think that many teams play too fast and loose with how the interpretation/violation is worded. I think many critical affs actually meet the framework interpretations that policy teams read. I also think that many critical teams make arguments that are more difficult for policy teams to answer than what the standard violations would lead a judge to believe. In other words, you would benefit from making these interpretation type arguments more responsive to the specific aff in front of me. I may be unique in that I think a team can win that reading an argument outside of the framework provided could be a voting issue.