Langel,+Jon

I debated 2 years at Valley, 2 years at Dowling, 1 year at Oklahoma.


 * An argument is a claim, a warrant, and an impact. Anything not meeting this standard will not be weighed.
 * Warranted arguments will always outweigh these defaults.
 * If I have reason to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that you're clipping, you will automatically lose and get zero speaker points.

__**Framework**__ I figure this is what people care about most so I'll put it at the top. I am absolutely willing to vote neg on framework; however, I find framework much more persuasive as an argument for why a type of debate is methodologically superior rather than an argument for why the aff is cheating. I'm willing to vote on fairness arguments; I just think they're much easier to beat, and they're also likely to make you link harder to the aff's offense. Your framework internal links must have impacts for me to weigh them. This is important because fairness and education aren't actually impacts; they're internal links to a certain model of debate which is good or bad. Put more bluntly, they beg the question of the value of your type of debate. I see no reason why a debate being fair matters if the aff wins your type of debate is violent / pedagogically bankrupt; that would just mean you make a fair and more conducive space for bad pedagogy. Similarly for the aff, saying your framework is "best for education" begs the question of the value of that education. Thus, tell my why your specific form of fairness/education is conducive to a good debate space. Finally, if you're neg and don't answer the aff's impact turns to framework, you're most likely going to lose. Going for the classic "without a point of stasis we did not have a chance to sufficiently respond to their arguments so don't weigh them" is by no means sufficient.

__**DAs**__ I like DAs. I think good DA impact weighing is a lost art. One thing I have become somewhat annoyed with are the automatic assumptions that 1) the word "conflict" in a card automatically means nuclear war 2) nuclear war automatically means extinction. If you're reading a DA or aff advantage that wins an extinction risk while also winning a reason nuclear war doesn't cause extinction (or even just pointing out your opponent's evidence doesn't say nuclear war / there's no warrant why nuclear war causes extinction), there's a good chance you'll win if you do good analysis of why extinction is more important than lesser losses, even if your impact has mitigated probability. If you haven't made arguments why your war scenario goes nuclear, as well as why that causes extinction, I see no reason that should be my default assumption. However, if in explaining your impact you provide warrants that would equally apply to your opponent's impact (i.e., "our war goes nuclear because in a world of nuclear weapons any conflict has a chance of going nuclear") that warrant will logically also be applied to your opponent's impacts, and it will not get you any net weight. Finally, uniqueness cannot control the direction of the link. See Calum Matheson's wiki for explanation.

__**CPs**__ Without an argument from the negative to the contrary, a CP in the 2NR means my decision is between the CP and the aff. Procedural CPs are almost always noncompetitive; I do not enjoy judging these CPs meant to outtech the aff with a Politics NB (this does not mean I won't vote for you if you win; I just won't be happy about it). A single argument such as a CP that does not affect other flows is almost never a reason to reject the team. I enjoy well-constructed CPs.

__**Topicality**__ I have not judged much on this topic, so you must explain what the things are in your interpretation/counter-interpretation. I will be LOST if you just start listing off abbreviations of various ocean affs (haha). I will almost always default to competing interpretations over reasonability, as I've never really understood reasonability as an actual logical argument, but more of just something thrown out there hoping the neg will drop it. Even if dropped, I feel like I would have a hard time voting on it. I think one of the most consistently undeveloped recurring debates is the Limits DA on topicality. How many affs are ideal for this topic? How big are those affs / how much advantage ground is there to justify that number? At what point does an interpretation become overlimiting? etc. The point here being that if you go for topicality and actually explain what your topic looks like and why it's good, rather than just going down your list of standards, you will get huge points from me, even if you lose. Not really necessary for a topicality debate; I just think it's an interesting conversation I don't see very often.

__**Critiques**__ I like critiques; I don't like critiques that are explained poorly. Important weighing mechanisms (i.e., impact weighing, link analysis, turning the aff) will be given less weight with a shitty job of explaining the thesis of your argument. I do not think making specific links to the aff is especially important. If your argument is a grand unifying theory for violence / whatever else, I don't see a reason you need an extremely specific link. This is not to say that they don't help; they do. Roles of the ballot are almost always arbitrary and self-serving; your time in front of me would be better spent just explaining why your impacts are more important rather than trying to frame it as a role of the ballot. Floating PIKs are cheating. I cannot imagine myself voting aff on "reading critiques is cheating."

__**Points**__ Jokes get points; good analytic arguments get points; good impact analysis gets points; framing my ballot gets points Being disrespectful to your opponent loses points (unless you have well-warranted arguments for why such behavior is a valid component of your strategy); repeating the same CX question over and over expecting a different answer loses points