Schultz,+Jim

James Schultz
April, 2008. I just finished debating my 2nd year at West Georgia. Before that I spent a lot of time in Florida at schools, like Celebration, St. Andrews, and Jupiter. This is the 6th toc I will have judged at.

I think judge philosophies have a pretty limited value. Debaters are going to make the arguments they are best at, and I'm going to listen to them and flow them and read as few cards as possible. Then I try to put aside all of the reasons I think an argument is stupid, and vote on the arguments debaters make in a given round. The most useful thing I've found when reading judge philosophies is to find judges that seemed either really random, really stupid, or idealogues that weren't going to listen to a type of argument openly. So if you are looking for a judge to strike, I'm your guy. Strike me. Need more convincing? I'm a jerk - seriously. I love debate, but I'd almost surely be doing anything else besides judging your round. I'd rather be scouting, cutting cards, writing blocks, eating at the Tolly Ho, taking a nap in the hallway, playing n_game or civ2, or enjoying the local hospitality. If you start making the thing I love painful for me to watch, I can't help but look displeased and give you low points to boot. I'm closed minded - I have never been persuaded to vote aff because the neg ran a K, one of the infinite possible frameworks that steal all of the aff ground and could never be predicted. lol. I have never been persuaded to vote aff despite the aff being non-topical because of some theoritical objection to part of a 1nc strategy. I have never voted neg because of a permutation the aff made making it too difficult for the neg to win. I'm really stupid - I'm old enough to have gray hairs and I haven't graduated from college. No matter how many times I read cards by Spanos, Lacan, and other people that I'm not smart enough to remember their names, I can't understand them. I'm totally random - I have voted for Spanos, Lacan, and other author's arguments that I don't fully understand because a team did a good enough job of explaining their argument, and the other team was way behind on answering that argument. Even though I think the politics disad is totally dumb, I vote neg for it all the time. I think offense/defense is lame - if the neg has a canada cp, and the aff wasn't able to make any meaningful solvency deficit, i'll still vote aff on defense. I think there is such a thing as zero percent risk of a link. Still not convinced? isn't that just evidence at how bad I am at making convincing arguments, and probably identifying quality arguments. All the more reason to strike me. Or put me really low. Oh, if you don't strike me, and I happen to drop you. Please please please post-round me. Yell - don't wait for me to finish saying anything. Get personal - use ad homs, call me stupid, lazy, ugly, etc. Explain your argument way better after the debate - after all, you don't have those pesky time limits that convinced you to speak for 10 seconds at top speed abot the thing you want to talk about for 20 minutes now. Actually, don't even stick to the arguments you made in the round - why limit yourself, you probably realized other good arguments in the mean time. If your coach wants to yell, get them too, especially if they did not watch the round!