Weine,+Eric

Background: I graduated in 2015 from Evanston High School and did national circuit debate for four years. This summer I taught at VBI.

Preferences:

Speed is fine, and I'll yell slow or clear as many times as necessary. Instead of imposing my personal views of debate on rounds, I think it's more appropriate to leave it up to the debaters. Ks/Policy arguments, philosophy heavy arguments, theory, and tricks are all fine. In high school I ran mostly Ks and philosophy heavy arguments, but I think that I'm pretty familiar with tricks, theory, and other policy arguments. I don't have a preference for Ks vs Theory, and I'll listen to arguments on both sides. Please ask me any questions before the round, and feel free to challenge me on my decision after the round. People make mistakes, and I think being able to have a dialogue with the judge after the round is very important.

Caveat for tricks:

If you want me to vote on a "trigger" that is being extended from the AC, I need to have caught it in the first speech. If you want me to vote on presumption, you need to truly justify why there is no risk of offense in the round, which is a pretty hard task in my opinion. I think most debaters who run tricks think that their arguments are much more clear than they actually are.

Final Things:

I know debate is super important to a lot of people, and it was to me in high school, but don't let competition get the best of you. Be nice to the person you're debating. Don't make offensive arguments like "racism doesn't matter" (I am open to a debate about wether or not someone has to justify their impacts under a moral framework). If you can tell that someone has sufficiently less experience than, don't go super hard and beat them in a million ways. Be respectful and try to help them have a meaningful experience debating. If you call people "strugs" you probably aren't a very nice person and don't care about other people having a nice experience doing debate. I like passion about arguments, I don't like unnecessary rudeness. You don't need to listen to me out of fear that I will drop you for being rude, because I won't (unless you make a very offensive argument), and I won't drop your speaks unless you are incredibly rude. But you should be nice to other people because debate should be a place where people are nice to each other and respectfully engage in each other's arguments.