Juárez,+Nicolás

Hello, quick facts about me -Debated 4 years at Lafayette High, 2 in LD, 2 in CX -I was a "K debater." -I am a 2N. -I debate at Oklahoma, which probably means a lot. -Strikes: Lafayette High, Caddo High


 * General Philosophy (or TL;DR)** I'm a big believer in debate and love it in every incarnation. I think debate's ability to range from performance to critical theory to policy analysis is a testament to its unique pedagogical value. I attempt to be as tabla rasa as possible, but, as is always true, I do have my biases/things I am more quick to understand ("do work for you for") like any judge and I'll describe those in each of the general section below. I prefer that teams only advocate one world (CP, CP+DA, K or DA+DA) but I won't hold it against you for running 15 off. I was a K debater in high school, particularly in critical race theory, I am a big Wilderson fan. That being said, I really love a good T debate and believe that debaters should run whatever they are most comfortable with. I am incredibly low tolerance for cheating, being oppressive (saying racist/sexist/homophobic/etc things) or debaters being unnecessarily rude (small jabs or quips are fine, but no need to drag someone). Things like "racism good" or "sexism good" will never get my ballot and will result in an immediate loss and the lowest possible speaker points. I'm real flexible on prep and I think it's each teams responsibility to call each other out on prep stealing. I default Negative, but I also don't believe that defense alone can win a debate (given that you don't have the most fire defense card ever). **If the affirmative is racist/sexist/etc I will not vote for it.** More details about specific things below.


 * Speaking** Clarity over speed every time. I want you to slow down on tags and authors and should be able to tell the difference between tags/authors and warrants. I will yell "clear" twice and after that when I can't understand, I will just stop flowing. So if you get that far, watch my pen.


 * Cross-Ex** I don't flow cross-ex, but I do listen and will flow it if it's brought up in later speeches. I also believe cross-ex is binding and I consider lying in cross-ex a valid theoretical reason to vote you down. Also, please don't feel the need to fill all of CX. If you don't have anymore questions, then either take the rest as prep (if both you and your opponent agree to flex prep) or just sit down.


 * Evidence Evaluation** If you want me to look at a piece of evidence, mention it by name a few times and if it seems like you're hedging the round on this evidence being THAT good, then I'll probably call for it, but I won't do any work for you that you didn't do yourself. If your evidence is fire, that's great, but you still need to explain and apply the argument it's making to the debate.


 * Role of the Ballot** My default role of the ballot is to endorse the most ethical action. What is "ethical?" That is up to debaters to determine. If debaters refuse (or fail to) provide me with a frame for that, you're left hoping that I think your advocacy is ethical. Please don't do that to me. Whether you are a policy or K debater, this isn't that hard. All "extinction outweighs" cards are just arguments for why I should prefer body counts over any other matrix of evaluation and every K author has some framework I should work under. I think role of the ballot arguments are incredibly important and are due their own impact calculus (Why should I prefer your ROB over your opponent's?). That being said, I **will not** consider ROB's along the lines of "the ROB is to vote for the team who best methodologically and ethical rejects capitalism (or whatever)." I think those ROBs are incredibly self-serving and produce no good framework for debate as a whole. If you think capitalism/racism/etc is the focal point of debate, then advocate for an ethics-centered ROB and explain to me why ableism/heteropatriachy has to be our ethical starting point.


 * Role of the Judge** I both evaluate and endorse ROJ arguments. My default role of the judge is that I am a debate judge. ROJ arguments are important and there ARE important differences between me evaluating the most ethical action for a policy maker verse the most ethical action of an activist verse the most ethical action of an educator. I will also not consider obviously self-serving ROJ arguments ("The role of the judge is to vote for the team who best..."). For more on that, see the bottom part of my ROB philosophy.


 * Drops/Flowing/etc** I will not extend drops for you. If you want me to evaluate that your opponent "dropped" your argument, then point it out in your speech. Also, I will not address arguments that are brought up after the 2AC/Neg block. On the other hand, please don't be one of the teams who claims their opponents dropped things they clearly didn't. I promise you I flow pretty well and won't be fooled. You should consider drops as opportunities, not automatic wins. The fact that your opponent dropped the impact of your politics DA isn't very important if they spent a minute explaining why their impact solves yours and outweighs.

__**Below are my general beliefs/preferences concerning each type of argument. These are not set in stone and can change given the nature of the debate.**__


 * Policy Affirmative -** Okay, so let me be straight in saying that in my entire debate career I have never ran a policy affirmative. With that in mind, I think the general purpose of the affirmative is to outweigh the negative's reasons on why the affirmative is bad. I also hold these affs to a stricter topicality than I might obvious K affs. At the moment you are advocating the USFG, I think you need to be within the bounds of the resolution. I think policy affs are best when they advocate a very real problem and don't attempt to convince me that building wind turbines in the ocean will uniquely solve global warming. The best (policy) affs convince me of a policy that needs to be done NOW and is essential to solving some larger, existential threat (warming, the economy, etc). I don't think the aff needs to necessarily prove that it, and it alone, will solve the whole problem (economic recession, global warming, etc) if it can prove that it will prevent the extinction level aspect of the impact.


 * K Affirmative -** This was the only type of aff I ran in high school. That being said, I think K aff's should have a topic link (or else I'm very keen on voting on framework). While I don't think these affs have to advocate the USFG, I think it's important for the aff to explain larger reasons why their scholarship/ethics are key in/out of the debate round. Whether or not this is a K I have a lot of experience with (see the list in the K section), you will need to spend a lot of time in the 1AC explaining your thesis argument and its larger implications. I find that while most K aff's are good at answering framework, they are terrible at answering T (there is a difference) and usually aren't prepared for in-depth debates about K's of their K. So watch out.


 * Performance Affirmative** - I haven't seen too many of these done well, but when they are I really like them. Most of my notes on the K aff above apply here. I think this aff should also hedge why their form of scholarship (say Hip Hop, for example) is good and I should attempt to frame my ballot in terms of endorsing the best form of scholarship. I don't have too much to say on this, but good luck!


 * Permutations -** I evaluate permutations as changes to the plan and am open to theory/arguments about why the other team should not get a permutation; though, I have never understood why there are no perms in a method debate, but maybe you'll show me the light. That being said, I still will evaluate any number of strange perms (e.g. "Perm do the plan as part of the alternative") and am prone to accepting that permutations, if dropped, are a legitimate reason to vote affirmative. I think negatives' best bet is to quickly address each permutation or, given that the affirmative runs 4 perms, read theory on why you should only have to answer "perm do both." I am also a lot more likely to vote for the permutation if the affirmative spends a good bit of time explaining how the perm functions and its net benefit over just the negative advocacy. The inverse to this rule is I will consider a quick, 5-second negative perm DA (e.g. "coalitional politics like the perm dilutes the movement and allows co-option") a sufficient answer if the affirmative just sticks a "perm do both" (or any perm for that matter) with no explanation in the 2AC.


 * Disadvantage** - Okay, so, to be real, this is my least favorite argument and it is that because of the way debaters tend to read DAs. I'm really unconvinced that the cost of the plan will uniquely cause economic collapse unless your uniqueness/link evidence is REALLY good and specific. That being said, arguments like building a high speed rail will cause (and not prevent) global warming because of construction-based pollution is really convincing and I like link turns as DAs. I am also really convinced by the "unknown side effects" based DAs like "Wind Turbines will collapse ecosystems" because I think they are important to policy making and the link chain is usually specific. If you are going to read a DA, please make sure your link change is contextualized among all your cards and to the affirmative or that you do really good analysis on your cards. My favorite DAs include: Diplomatic Capital, Link Turns and [Country] DA.


 * Counterplan** - I will accept all counterplans and will only vote down on/dismiss a counterplan if the negative loses the theory debate. So if you've always wanted to run a delay counterplan or something wild like that, go ahead, just have your theory blocks ready. Generally, I think counterplans are strongest when they convince me that they solve the entirety of the affirmative plus a net-benefit or the good ol' advantage CP+advantage DA combo. I am prone to accepting "perm do the CP" for what I call plan-plus counterplans (e.g. "the USFG should redistrict california then do the aff" or "the USFG should pass bill 5883 and do the aff") given that I don't see them as actual reasons to not do the affirmative and the "perm do the CP" is essentially a claim that the aff and the added component are not mutually exclusive.


 * Kritiks (Intro) -** Before I get into my theory on kritiks, here is a list of K's I know and vaguely know. If you don't see your K on there, assume that I am unable to do any work at all for you (like know what deterritorialization is):
 * Kritiks I know**: Afropessimism/Wilderson/Blackness, Give Back the Land/Redness, Colonialism, (Lacanian) Psychoanalysis, Deleuze and Guattari (most familiar with schizoanalysis and their critique of psychoanalysis and capitalism), Bataille, Baudrillard (mostly his post-marxist critiques), Queer Theory, Nietzsche, Anarcho-primativism, Anthropocentrism (this includes speciesism, deep ecology and OOO/MOO), Nietzsche Security, Predictions/Complexity, Capitalism, Friere and apoc rhetoric.
 * Kritiks I have heard of** - Feminism (I know a lot of feminist theory, but I've never studied in depth), Virilio, Heidegger, Agamben, Foucault and Zizek.
 * Kritiks (Proper)** - If you go for a K with me, I am more open to voting for very good, in-depth K debate. This means I suggest you go one off, but, of course, I'd rather you debate well than try to suit my preference. When kritik's are done well, I am almost always going to vote for them, but the bar "well" is high. A "good" K debate will have the following: More than one link in the 1NC, a good impact, a solid alternative, lots of link, impact and alternative analysis in the 2NC/1NR, contextualization to the affirmative, a reason why I should frame my ballot towards your ethics/scholarship/epistemology/ontology/other-K-words and **will answer the permutation**. Make sure that your 2NC is strong and you answer all the affirmative's arguments against the K while also explaining to me the thesis of your kritik along the way. I would prefer that the negative also not have a 4+ extension, just do the work where it belongs on the flow. As for the affirmative, I find affirmative's answer K's best when they attack the alternative and give me reasons why the aff is preferable (a good environment impact is a reason to build wind turbines but also reject capitalism). I think that shoddy K debate is probably the easiest affirmative debate because I'm usually left with half-baked link analysis and no real extension/explanation of the alternative. If you do not extend your alternative in the 2NR, then I will only evaluate the K as a DA to the affirmative.


 * Topicality -** I love a good T debate, but hate it when teams read it as a time skew. That being said, Topicality is **NEVER** a RVI. I default to competing interpretations and recommend spending a good 3 minutes in the block doing impact analysis because I find more often than not 2ACs will not do enough work on T. Even if you win that I should evaluate under reasonability, you leave a lot of the debate now in my hands because I lean towards a stricter policy-affirmative interpretation of topic (e.g. I have and forever will believe that the wind turbines aff for the oceans topic is not topical) and can still lose. Competing interpretations means that all you have to do is convince me that EVEN IF your aff isn't topical, it's inclusion in the resolution is good. I also believe that potential abuse is a voting issue unless the aff is gonna do some real good work on why I shouldn't evaluate it. K aff's faced with topicality (does your aff curtail surveillance?) can hedge their aff's education/ethics/scholarship against this potential abuse and other aff impacts. I think "run it on the neg" and "T-version of the aff" arguments against both K and policy aff's can be very persuasive.


 * Framework** - I essentially see most framework debates as debates over whether or not the affirmative should have to advocate the USFG. I think negative's are most convincing here when they provide me with a topical version of the affirmative that incorporates the aff's educational/ethical benefits. I think affirmative's who can either prove some inherent problem of thinking solutions through policy-making or prove why their unique affirmative has to be thought outside of the USFG are best suited to win these debates. I don't consider jurisdiction a legitimate reason to vote against the negative given that we are not lawyers. Though I suppose you could win that the ROJ is to be a lawyer.


 * Theory** - If you win the line by line, I'll vote for you. Enough said.

__**All in all, good luck, debate well. If you win the line-by-line, there is a 99% chance I'll be voting for you, so don't sweat over my preferences too much.**__