Mullins,+David

David Mullins Westlake High School Trinity University Emory University

I can be convinced of anything and nothing is off-limits, which includes questioning the value of the debate activity itself, or even the value of questioning in general.

I think there are a lot of paradoxes of judging, the most fundamental being that it should be the debaters that decide the debate, but if the judge simply repeats their 'decision' (the sum of their argumentation), there is no such thing as judgment. That said, holding to the words and explanations of the debaters is of paramount importance to me, and I don't feel compelled to resolve this paradox logically.

I primarily if not exclusively went for Kritik arguments, but I think prefing me just because you go for Ks or not prefing me because you don't are both sub-optimal competitive choices, for many reasons, not the least of which that I don't think topicality is conservative or that those critiquing topicality, even for admirable aims, are necessarily 'the good guys' or have a right to self-righteousness.