Weiss,+Ben

Weiss, Ben

Background: I graduated from Newburgh Free Academy (NY) in 2009 after debating for 5 years: 2 in policy and 3 in LD. My last 3 years were spent in LD. I debated over 120 rounds my senior year at both the local and national levels and had a reasonably successful career. I am familiar with most types of arguments and I will have a completely open ear to anything new. I was primarily a thoery and k debater, specifically identity politics and power relations. I've read authors like Zizek, Agamben, Foucoult, Nayer, Said, Ehrenfeld, George, Parenti, Singer, etc. Therefore, I'm pretty well read in topics like biopower, realism, and otherization. That said, the time spent reading power relations literature came at the cost of other critical theory. I have not had much exposure to authors like Lacan, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, or Freire. I am currently at The University of Texas at Austin studying humanitarian intervention and government.  Affiliations: I debated for Newburgh Free Academy (NFA). I help them out and judge for them when I am in New York. When I am at my college in Texas, I coach and judge for Westlake High School's LD team. Expectations:

Ks: In my experience, ks are frequently run as a complicated way to confuse other debaters. If you do this with an author like Lacan, you are going to completely lose me. If you are running any of the authors I have little exposure to, please be as concise as possible. I will probably be extremely happy if you can present these authors in an understandable fashion because what I do understand of these authors is fascinating once you get past the rhetorical complexity. I've also taken 2 semesters of epistemology in college so, while theory of knowledge is not my favorite subject, I am familiar with it. (Skepticism is an area of epistemology, so I’m fine with that.) I generally expect Ks to be run one of two ways: 1. In the policy format. (Link, Implication, Alternative) This will make rhetorically complex or nuanced ks much easier to understand because they are broken down. 2. You can tell a story. Keep the link, implication, and alternative in mind but twine them together into a compelling analysis of how the affirmative endorses the nation state centered ideal, why thats bad, and how voting negative creates a comparatively better world without realism, or whatever your "k"ing.

A couple of notes: 1. Counter Ks are always good. I'll buy them in the 1AR if they are legit. 2. Point out specific links on the AC/NC if possible. 3. I'd like to see more perms in answering the K. Very few people actually do it. 4. Depending on the case, the alternative is not necessarily a need to win aspect of the K. If their is a "unique link," a way in which the aff specifically increases capitalist pedagogy or whatever, the k can function independent of the alt as a disad to the aff. It would be nice if the opponent clarified the status of the alt (Conditional, Unconditional, Functional, Dispositional, Etc) because it implicates that debate. 5. Ks can be framework in and of themselves. If your opponent doesn't explicitly label their ethics of care k with a standard of "minimizing rule-based moral judgements," that doesn't mean that the K has to be weighed through your deontological framework and standard. It is a k of that standard and therefore has an implicit standard that says that we should weigh impacts through who uses less rule-based ideology. The K competes with your framework, not through it.

Theory: As a person with policy experience, I have very strict notions of theory. 1. It must be formatted like in policy. (A. Definition/Interpretation, B. Violation, C. Standards, D. Voters) I won't write you off if you run some paragraph blob on a definition but I will be extremely unhappy and your speaks will probably suffer. Structure is critical. 2. I hate education voters. Once again, I won't write you off but if your opponent is making reasonable answers to education, I'll probably be more compelled to buy them. 3. I like fiat debates. I have seen so many cases that are just blatantly abusing object fiat. For once, I'd like to see someone be called out on it. The same goes for performative contradictions. 4. RVI's are fine. Theory should have reciprocal weight. If one debater can lose everything, why can't the other? I'm open to arguments to the contrary though. However, I do think there is some strategic value to either side saying that the theory should function as a defensive takeout of a portion of the case. 5. Textual definitions on topicality are awesome. I'm sick of hearing common usage as a reason why your definition is better. Saying I should buy a medical definition on a medical topic is a lot more compelling. 6. In comparison to other judges, I probably have a lower threshold for voting on theory. 7. Basically, good theory is good and bad theory is bad.

DAs: 1. Kick it if your losing and have alternative offense. If you show me that you can gracefully retreat and go for a better option, I'll think your strategic. If you go down with your ship, I'll think your stubborn. 2. Unique links can substitute for uniqueness so if the negative increases imperialism that is still a harm to be avoided. However, not having full uniqueness can undermine the legitimacy of your terminal impact of nuclear war due to imperialism but you still have the unique increase in imperialism from the resolution or the affirmative. 3. Probability weighing is a lot more compelling to me than magnitude. If yours is the 15th nuclear war scenario in the round, who cares because yours is the same magnitude as all the others.

C/Ps: 1. Counterplans should be strategic. Don't run them if you have terrible solvency evidence because that destroys they're strategic value. Solvency deficits are bad. 2. Let me introduce you to the perm. It's a great answer. 3. If you run an artificially competitive cp like a consult cp, I will hate you. If your opponent doesn't point out that it is artificially competitive, I will hate them more. 4. A cp is conditional (policy drop any time conditional, not LD parametrics conditional) until otherwise clarified by cx. If your opponent doesn't have the foresight to clarify the status of the cp, then they deserve what they get when the neg kicks the counterplan in the NR. 5. I have no particular format requirements for counterplans. I just want them to have good solvency advocates and be competitive.

General: 1. Make freaking intuitive responses. Just because you don't have a card, doesn't mean that your analytics are worthless. I'll respect you more knowing that you have a brain and not just a mouth. (I'll give you an example. On the compulsory immunization topic, I saw this case about 5 times. The argument was that we needed to vaccinate against AIDS because it kills millions every year. These millions contributed to environmental apocalypse via the deforestation required to build coffins for the dead. My first couple of responses would be: 1. No solvency: people die AIDS or not. 2. Alt causality: people deforest for farmland. 3. No solvency: other thing contribute to environmental destruction like industry and chemical dumping. 4. Alternative: just cremate the dead.) Needless to say, not a single one of the negatives in these 5 rounds made any of these arguments. Don't freak out when you hear these types of cases because they are almost always based on logically weak concepts and I want you to point that out. 2. Speaks: In an ideal world, I would be averaging a 27. However, I recognize that a lot of judges frequently give out 28-30. I don't want to be the one judge that gives a 28.5 to an extremely good debater, when other debaters are getting 30s for a lower quality of debating. That said, my speaking scale usually goes from 27.5-30 to accommodate the general point trend. 3. Speed: I did policy. Go as fast as you want, just be clear and be wary of speed k's. Remember, I'm open to just about any type of argument. 4. Layer your argumentation. It makes the round more interesting because arguments interact beyond magnitude. 5. If the argument is made, I think procedural arguments against the standard are the strongest. If a standard is incredibly moral or desirable, it can still be undermined if it is not procedurally usable to weigh arguments with. 6. I hate values unless your using it to set up an entire framework. If your value is morality and your standard is minimizing harm to innocents, I could care less about morality and will be using a consequentialist lens to view minimizing harm to innocents. Unless there are 3 Kant cards justifying deonotological morality under the value, all I really need is the standard. To me, value debate in the 1AR is especially wasteful. 7. I absolutely need warrants. It is not true because you said so. There has to be a justification for your claim otherwise its as meaningless to me as astrology. I don't care if your impact is extended if I don't know why it is going to occur. 8. I'm open to alternative forms of debate like narratives or satire but there needs to be some analysis at the top about how I evaluate the performance and if I should be flowing you/your arguments (if you are making them) or listening to your every word and watching the performance intently. I also need to know how I should perceive a theory debate because I'd almost expect you to hit theory.

Evaluating the Round: 1. I tend to evaluate things based on offense and defense within the standard meaning I will take everything that links to the standard and look at the offense on the flow to see if there are defensive mitigations. Once I have unmitigated offense, I will look to weighing and comparative analysis to the standard. 2. Calculative hierarchies are awesome. The last 10 seconds of your last speech should be spent telling me that I evaluate T first, then the NC through the won negative framework, then the turns on the AC that link into the neg framework, and even if I think your losing those three levels, that I should vote on the turns to the AC that link into the aff framework. (or something like that) 3. If you do comparative analysis on the impacts, that stops me from having to intervene. Extending your impact doesn't mean you've won. If you can extend your impact, explain why the solvency mitigators on it don't matter, use your own defensive answers to attack the opponents offense, and then explain why that all means your offense wins you the round, then thats four places I don't have to do work for you, and four places where my having to intervene wouldn't go in your opponent's favor. 4. I absolutely hate power tagging. If I call your card and it does not say what the tag says it does, I will not give you the weight of the tag. 5. I will try to be constructive as possible in my oral. I may seem to be nitpicking, but I am just trying to help you improve your debating and argumentation. I will always tell the losing debater what he or she should have done to win and where they went wrong. Often, I will list some responses to the case if the losing debater mishandled it.

Debate Well!