Chang,+Ben

__**Personal Background**__ I debated for Edgemont High School for five years (attending the TOC twice), officially helped coach them for one year, and still help out occasionally. I am a prospective public policy major at Princeton University.

(1) I lack intimate familiarity with the topic. This means you should say out your acronyms and be careful with T, as I'm unembedded in community norms regarding what's "core ground" or consensus-wise a good/bad T violation.
 * __Strategic Notes:__**

(2) For me, better comparative argument resolution outweighs better argument content. The word "comparative" is important. I refer to argument resolution at all levels; explaining why magnitude outweighs timeframe in top-level impact calculus, or why link direction outweighs the uniqueness debate in filtering probability of a disad, or why post-dating outweighs qualifications in determining politics uniqueness, are good examples of ways to warm my heart.

As a corollary, better spin outweighs better evidence, although obviously there are limits at extreme bounds.

There are no arguments I won't vote for, except maybe, like, double loss. If you can't answer Ashtar decently, you deserved to lose.
 * __Arguments:__**

All views are default settings which I will only resort to if nobody tells me to do otherwise. For example, I don't like offense/defense, but if the other team's mute you can make me frame the round in that way with a single line of ink. If there's a debate over them, I will do my best to resolve it objectively, but of course all judges have uncertain quasi-unconscious heuristics for deciding certain parts of debates.

__Theoretical Arguments__. Comparative impact calculus is still important - why does limits outweigh ground, for example? Terminally impacting standards is even more important - impacts on the portable benefits of the activity, for example, are a favorite of mine.

__Critical Arguments__. (a) I have a somewhat higher threshold of explanation for K jargon than some. If you tell me that X is the root cause of all violence, there should be a reason for that. Turns case arguments should be contextualized to the concrete details of the aff and warranted, and the same goes for alternatives; for example, "if we rejected security there would no longer be war because no one would be insecure" is not an adequate explanation for solving country-specific scenarios of proliferation. Be specific; explain things.

(b) Methodological (how should we determine truth?) and theoretical (what's the role of the ballot? how should arguments be weighed?) frameworking are really important. I think affs are in much better shape against many Ks when they defend their social science methodologies, such as by reading cards about why experts / positivism / empiricism are good. The aff often loses when it fails to win the role of the ballot.

(c) I have problems with the "reality" of how many people read Ks. It's many times unclear whether my ballot operates to endorse the alternative in a vague manner akin to fiat, or whether I'm to activate my "judge space," or whatnot, and if that's so then in what space the impact occurs (for example, who was ontologically damned as a result of the reading of the 1AC?). I think negatives are most successful when they phrase things in terms of the role of the ballot or relate to the activity itself (for example, that students have an ethical responsibility to decide how to align themselves toward capitalism, or that debate is a symbolic economy where ballots represent disciplinary power and we should perform as specific intellectuals, would be ways to avoid these problems).

This all might dissuade you from reading the K; you shouldn't let it do that. Basically, I just think K debaters do - and should - cheat a lot in various ways, and affs should call them out on that. If you don't, you'll probably lose.

__Policy Arguments__. I think this has much less room for idiosyncrasy than K debates, so this is short. Basically, high technical skill is good, make comparisons and resolve mini-debates, et cetera. (a) I will reward specificity of effort in research. Generic PICs bad will be difficult to stick versus an obviously well-researched case-specific argument, for example. (b) Aff should answer disad turns the case. The warrant is usually really stupid and contrived. (c) Again, everything has frames. Is competition a distinct threshold question or offense/defense? Is qualifications or date more important for filtering probability?

You can insult your opponents' arguments, but not your opponents. Being mean will hurt your speaker points.
 * __Other:__**

New args to some extent are inevitable, but I won't vote for obviously new things.