Sobek,+Mike

I am a policy judge. I debated 3 years in high school, and 4 years in college. I will vote on the K, or a CP, or theory, and the last few years I have come to the conclusion that 90% of all cases are not Topical, yet noone ever goes for T, because they are scared of actually making a decision in debate. For shame. I don't read a lot of critical literature anymore, but I still probably understand it better than most. However, if you don't explain it, there is no way I will understand it, and will have to read cards, which I do not enjoy doing after a round, unless it's actually a good round, where there is debating, with warrants, and I have to see which arguments are actually better, or fill in the gaps to help understand the debater's analysis. If you don't refer to specific evidence, I won't read it. I'm generally a Tabula Rasa judge, however, if you tell me that this round is critical for changing the mindset of the world, and I have to take a stand by signing my ballot, you should be aware that if I disagree with the argument, such as if you say Cap bad, I will probably vote against you, for the exact reason that you tell me I should vote for you. In other words, think before you speak, and debate smart and strategically. Nuff said.

In LD, the values end of the debate is important, I view the value and criterion as mechanisms to weigh the round. If you and your opponent agree on the value, then I will view the round as such, however, if you have competing ideals, then I expect clash to determine who wins. I would also expect a good speaker to breakdown the warrants of any evidence they present and use analysis to explain his or her args. If you make me do work at the end of the round, don't expect to be happy with the decision. I will do the least work possible, meaning, if I see an argument on the flow that sounds like some interior bias I have I will probably extrapolate the logical conclusion from that, which means, even if you don't get the argument, my interpretation of the argument is still valid. In other words, if you don't provide clash or warrants, at the end of the round, I may have to do that for you, and then nobody wins. I would much rather you debated the round and I kept my opinions out of it. If you choose to attempt to debate policy in an LD round, you will most likely lose, because LD is not policy. LD is a VALUES debate. I am not here to make a policy, I am here to determine some sort of moral standard or value. Also, the time constraints in LD make it difficult to debate policy. If you want to be a real debater, man up, and do policy, quit debating on the JV policy circuit. I will inevitably end up weighing the round at that point like a policy round, and since this is LD, the way I weigh the round, will probably be on the value and criterion, which I view as the weighing mechanisms, since a good LD case has set up that paradigm at the beginning of the round, and thus, as my fallback paradigm, I listen to what was said in the round to determine how I vote. As such, I take more into account on what you say, rather than what you think you say, or what you meant to say, or even what your cards say for you. Just do work and you will win.