Green,+Lexy

SPEED Perhaps we should start with this: I am OLD. I am not anti speed, but you should know several things about me related to speed. First, I have carpal tunnel, which makes for a REALLY CRAPPY FLOW. I'll hear you, but I may not be fast enough to write it down. If you see me shaking my hand or rubbing it, it's gone numb. Adjust accordingly. Second, I'll have a lot of trouble keeping up with, and be annoyed by, fast, blippy theory debates. Third, I should not have to say this, but saying that speed is okay does not mean that being unintelligible is okay. If you cannot enunciate clearly, don't make it worse by going faster than you can. I should note that I think an awful lot of circuit LDers are pretty near unlistenable. And regardless of how clear you are, please slow down for tags.

THEORY I think LD is suffering from a terrible theoretical confusion, stemming from the fact that there is no agreement regarding the role of the resolution in the debate. The event is crying out for some real, thoughtful debates about theory. I am not, therefore, against theory debates. That said, I will be annoyed by theory arguments used as low risk time sucks, especially by the time rich negative. Please also understand that much of my understanding of debate theory comes from years of policy debate. I will be annoyed both by wholesale transplantation of policy theory to LD, without regard to differences between the events, and by applications of policy theory that are based on a misunderstanding of policy.

TOPICALITY I have great sympathy for the affirmative. I will, therefore, be sympathetic to T arguments that focus on fair division of ground. Just be sure you can explain why your interpretation gives us a better debate. Given that LD topics are generally narrow, and that the debate is generally resolution focused, "most limiting = best" will not be very persuasive, except in very rare cases where the topic is unusually broad and affirmatives are unusually unpredictable. For me, T is about protecting our ability to debate by compensating for unbalanced topics.

BURDENS This is tough. I strongly believe that it is not the burden of the affirmative to prove the resolution true in every case or in an absolute sense. That's just not a reasonable burden in such a time limited activity. At the same time, it's unclear what the alternative is. Generally true? True in most cases? True in typical cases? And how do we differentiate the rule from the exception? This confusion is at the root of LD's current theoretical vacuum. My advice for both debaters is to be clear about the burdens for both sides and be able to explain both how they arise from the resolution, and how this division is good for debate.

PLANS I have no problem with affirmatives offering plans when the wording of the resolution supports doing so. They should still be able to justify this choice in terms of fair division of ground.

GENERIC NEGATIVE ARGUMENTS I will listen to them and vote on them, but I will be pleasantly surprised by negatives who choose to talk about the topic. Speaker points will reflect this.