Kostun,+Alexis


 * I don't find it useful when a judge lists every argument and then explains how they would ideally like to see them debated, so that's not what I'm going to do. Here's my background, how I have generally changed my thinking about debate over the last few years, and a few random asides that you probably want to know before I judge you.*

I debated for four years at Westwood High School here in Austin, and then debated nationally at Gonzaga University before taking a break to work in politics. I went to the NDT, sometimes I gave good speeches, I'm not a moron. I started out as a very all-politics-all-the-time debater with an intense dislike for most critical debate. Working in real-life politics and all of the discussion about the way that debate should look that's happened in the last couple of years has changed how I think about debate a lot. I still love a good Politics DA/Topicality/CP + DA debate; **however** when I was a junior in college I took would you would call my "K turn" and talked about the ladiez all day, every day. I am completely open to K/"Performance" debates and am happy to entertain almost anything that **y'all** want to talk about. **I would rather hear you debate what you like and are good at than what you think I want to hear.**

I have debated as a 2A, a 2N, and double 2s, but I spent more of my career/ my college career as a 2N and identify strongly with that speaker position. Meaning, I'm likely to want to protect the 2NR, I am happy to kick the counterplan at the end of the debate to evaluate DA vs. case (**if the negative has made this argument**), I believe conditional worlds are fine etc.

What I ask is what every judge wants - that you remember that **you're** the person who cut + researched these args - not me. If you're counting on me being an expert on an obscure philosopher or the inner workings of a particular subset of the EPA, you're going to be in bad shape. If you're making solid arguments supported by evidence and doing the work to put your scenarios or impacts in context of this particular debate and what the other team is doing - then you're in much better shape.

Random asides:
 * You are supposed to be debating the arguments read in round - I'm not supposed to be reading a novel. The team that did a better job of in-depth analysis is the team that I will vote for. I do not want to read every card and vote against the team that did a better job of debating with slightly worse evidence. I heard that decision a lot in high school, and I don't believe teams should be rewarded because their evidence makes arguments and nuances that never came out of their mouths.
 * I don't think conditionality by itself is a voting issue. I have never voted for condo bad if the worlds were consistent. Winning that they're running multiple //contradictory// conditional worlds can be a much more persuasive arg. I will certainly never vote on any one-line theory arguments or extensions. On that note, I have a pretty high threshold for reasonability on topicality arguments, intrinsicness/bottom of the docket/fiat solves the link arguments on the politics disad. If y'all don't articulate why and how I should vote, I will default to competing interpretations on topicality and theory is a reason to reject the arg not the team.
 * Racism good, sexism good, rape good, domestic violence good, etc etc are not going to fly in front of me. This is one of the few situations in which I strongly advise you adapt your strategy (by which I mean change it to literally anything else) because I'm in the back of the room. Other than that I'm fine with and enjoy well developed impact turn debates.

Otherwise, please ask me any questions you have before the debate and I'm happy to answer them. December 2014