Perretta,+Joe

Coach high school speech events for the Harker school and policy at Charlotte Latin. First language is English. Did individual events in high school, parliamentary debate at college in Canada; policy debate at Wake Forest. This is a policy debate philosophy, but I've been asked to judge LD lately so I'll say a few words

Quick run down: Policy--if there's no answer to "fiat is illusory", you lose, even if they don't extend it. i walk into the room assuming USFG fiat and if someone pops that bubble, it's been popped, and you've got to restore your house in order for me to believe that role playing or whatever you're doing is worthwhile.

LD--moral skepticism is not a real thing to me, if that's going to be your argument you need to explain it by analogy because it's just some words that happen to be in english, to me. saying the word "weigh" is not sufficient for actually weighing arguments, you need to use some active words like "faster" "bigger" "more important because" in order for me to agree that you've weighed anything.

I most prefer judging kritikal/performance debates; however, I am comfortable with a politics/cp debate. That said, i'm quicker to empathize with arguments that don't defend government action so tell me why empathy is bad or why government action is good if you're making those types of argument. I enjoy competition and I expect you to compete to win to the utmost of your ability. Speaker points are given out for good speeches, don't care what you're wearing or if you're nice. Anything is debatable. THERE ARE NO RULES.

The Topic: I generally think that the topic is a good thing, if only for purposes of general education—I think the topic is something that should inform our discussion. That said, I'm not willing to pull the trigger on "they're not topical" without sufficient impact justification as to why your version of topical is better than theirs, and whether there's proof of in-round abuse. I am interested in arguments about whether/why the topic is bad for the college debate community, and I will examine those arguments with a different set of criteria than macro social/political change arguments. In sum: give me a very clear cut vision of your stance on topicality and be sure to underscore why it's important for education.

Kritiks: I'm partial to the 'street test' argument: if what you're saying would sound like absolute nonsense to someone you met randomly walking down the street, it's probably nonsense. That said, and obviously, not everyone you meet on the street (or anywhere) is voluntarily engaging in academic debates about kritikal literature, and so I am willing and eager to hear any kritik. Thing is, just because someone is a famous philosopher doesn't mean diddly squat to me: most of the time the authors you cite would totally disagree with how you're using them/exploiting their arguments. Give me a clear alternative and give me impacts. I won't pull the trigger on 'vague alts bad' as a stand-alone, you have to tell me why that specific alt is too vague/bad for debate. Your link ground should be something you're on-top of at all times. I'll pull the trigger on 'no-link' pretty quickly if there's sufficient warrant to do so. The permutation is the debate you've got to win on either side. Neg, you gotta give me more than "epistemology comes first", and not much more if you have legitimate impacts/reasons the permutation fails/is harmful/is error replication. Aff, Use the permutation as a shield against irrelevant or superfluous links that the alt doesn’t solve, and have fantastic defenses of the 1ac method. Affs often lose these debates because they retreat from using the 1ac as a tool.

CP+DA: Presumption is toward less change. I won’t kick a CP for you unless the debate concludes it is a legitimate option. For counterplans, the risk of the net benefit must be greater than the risk of the advantage that the CP doesn’t solve for. If the CP links to the NB- which is a yes no question- I vote aff on presumption. If neither the aff nor the permutation link to the NB then the permutation accesses double solvency. Just make sure you clearly identify your structure when crafting arguments, such as pointing out your IL or a (L) Turn. Don't assume you've made a turn, when you haven't explained. If you bring up a CP, make sure you clearly show me how you outweigh. DA turns case arguments become more persuasive as they move up the link/internal link chain- “Russian relations solve coop on warming” is fundamentally a better arg than “Russian relations cause nuclear war, which turns warming”

Condo: do your thing.

Other stuff: Prep time ends when the flash drive leaves your laptop. If an argument is conceded it still needs to be extended in each speech, don't expect me to do cross applications from one area of the flow to another for you (except "fiat is illusory", if it's not answered and not extended, i don't care). Compare evidence, but don't just tell me their author sucks, tell me why the argument sucks. Debaters should not be afraid to think and make common sense, "real world" arguments—in fact, do this often. I'm a thinking dude, and if something makes sense even without evidence I'll be willing to evaluate the argument.