Hardy,+Aaron

Aaron Hardy Whitman College Gonzaga 2010

Clarification of my stance on reverting to the SQ. If the 2NR extends a CP, I am willing to revert to the status quo if the CP isn’t competitive or doesn’t solve – but ONLY if the 2NR explicitly flags this as an option and explains why I should do so. And, the 2AR can obviously make arguments about why I shouldn’t. It is not sufficient for the neg to only say “the CP is conditional” or “SQ is a logical option” earlier in the debate and expect me to do the reversion on my own. I have found that this would lead me to vote negative too often. Basically, I’m willing to revert – but there’s a high threshold for the 2NR to set it up.

Important Stuff 1) I believe that debate is about hard work. 2) Technique over truth, but truth makes me happy. 3) Offense/Defense – I try hard to be as consistent in my approach with this as possible. Sometimes, conceded arguments by both teams make it more subjective than I’d like. It’s to your benefit to guide my decision with explicit evaluation frameworks. 4) Alternate use time if debaters ask unanimously 5) Impact defense is severely underrated, especially against particularly silly impacts. I’m also sympathetic to arguments related to relative impact evidence quality – a 6 word Mead card doesn’t constitute an argument. 6) CP competition – As a general guideline, I think CP’s shouldn’t contain a world where the entire plan could happen. I don’t think the affirmative is bound to defend either “immediacy” or “certainty” unless spoken to explicitly by the plan.

Critiques 1) I prefer when they’re not used as a shortcut to avoid topic-specific education. I don’t think winning the affirmative is “flawed” means the neg wins – I think you need offense for why voting aff is bad in order for the critique to be a “voting issue.” And, the offense needs to outweigh the aff… 2) In general, I am unpersuaded by the (usually analytic) argument that the existence of a net benefit for a CP means it must link to the aff’s K.

Stupid arguments 1) Aspec and all derivatives are stupid and should be dismissed by 2AC’s with maximum flippancy. Going for one of these arguments in the 2NR will result in low speaker points. 2) Reading Consult CP’s will result in (very) bad speaker points. Details on request.