Mills,+Ryan

Ryan Mills - Archbishop Mitty High School, CA

I'll start with a summary of my background for those who don't know me. In the '80s I debated at Damien High School and LMU. I then coached for 12 years, the last 5 of which I had the honor of working with the incomparable Lexy Green at College Prep. I'm now privileged to work with the Mitty team.

Below I describe the preferences that I think it's important for teams to know -- these are my default if a different framework/framing is not articulated but I won't make my preferences as arguments for the other team. If you have questions, please ask.

In no particular order:

Topicality: In order to vote for a negative interpretation, I need to understand what specific ground the negative is rightfully entitled to is excluded by the affirmative interpretation.

Counterplans: Net benefits. 'Perm: do both' is not a permutation -- specifics need to be articulated.

Disads: No link means no link. Whereas it's always good to have offense, I'm not inclined to buy 'there's always the risk of a link.' A clearly articulated link take out beats the disad for me unless argued otherwise. This is an argument where, unless strongly argued otherwise, I'll definitely vote on solid defense.

Critiques:
 * Left to my own devices I will evaluate the argument much like a disad in that I prefer specific links and impact assessment. At the link level, I'm not generally persuaded by a generic indictment of a particular normative framework. I need to understand in what specific ways this particular affirmative reproduces the evil which is being critiqued.
 * Similarly, I'd prefer a specific debate around the impact of the critique vis a vis the impact of the aff. Side-stepping this evaluation by arguing that they operate on two separate planes strikes me as avoidance. The aff begins the debate and establishes the presumptive framework (whether that be a 'policy' oriented or K aff) so I need to understand the specific indictment of that framework and what I'm gaining/rejecting in the world of either side.
 * A clearly articulated alternative. How does my ballot function? Is it a rejection of the prevailing narrative in the world of fiat? Is it an endorsement or rejection of the discourse/framework espoused by the 5 of us in the room (or at least the affirmative)? I've found that not defining this at the get-go (and it could be both) makes for a very muddy debate that isn't easily resolved to either team's satisfaction.

General

I approach debate first and foremost as an educator, so for me the pedagogical value of the activity is its ability to improve our critical thinking capability and our ability to articulate complex concepts in a logical and persuasive way. To that end:


 * I believe it is the job of the debaters to not only cover the line-by-line but to tell the story. I won't spend a lot of time building the story for one team or the other.
 * I will read cards only if I miss something that's important. If debate centers around whose evidence is better on a particular argument, I'd recommend rereading key lines of the cards in rebuttals to make the comparison. Please don't expect that I'll spend an hour reconstructing the narrative of the debate by reading dozens of cards. I've always found that when that happens, the judge ends up making the debaters irrelevant and might as well have spent two hours just reading the cards and constructing the debate without any team having spoken. For me, that is the antithesis of the activity's value.
 * Speed is fine as long as you're comprehensible. I'll shout 'Clear!' a couple of times but then will simply flow what I'm able to understand after that.
 * Rudeness or personal insult results in a significant loss of speaker points. Especially in these times, the value of our activity is that it encourages assertive but always civil discourse, even where points of view are diametrically opposed.

Again, if you have questions regarding specific arguments please ask and I'll happily provide more detail.