Wright,+Jared

Affiliation: The Barstow School/Cornell University Rounds judged on this topic: 3

About me: I am now a freshmen debating policy at Cornell University. I did four years of national-level debating at Barstow in Kansas City, Missouri, and went to the TOC as a junior. I recognize that I am not the most experienced judge. However, that also means I haven't succumbed to the crippling cynicism that seems to afflict many of the older judges I see. I am still excited about this activity and embrace the opportunity to help educate the next generation (plus I'm getting freaking paid now, holy shit) so I will be involved, pay attention, and do my best to make an accurate decision.

For those who are time pressed - the most important thing that you should probably read is the section on topicality. The rest is fairly standard.

General debate things/philosophy:

I HAVE NOT JUDGED OR DEBATED ON THIS TOPIC. I am sorry that this will be annoying for you, but it is simply the case and I can't change it. Please, please, please do not rely on acronyms, ridiculous amounts of technical jargon, or assume that I understand the intricate context of your arguments. That goes along with my next point, which is true in general - clarity is almost always preferable to obfuscation. In CX, in speech time, explaining your argument to the best of your ability and sticking to it is a GOOD THING. It means that the other team can't complain about shiftiness and has little leeway to make new arguments, and it helps me as a judge. If you do this, I will probably give you more speaker points and be happy with you (which can't be a bad thing while I'm deciding). Truth is not better or worse than tech, I don't understand that divide. Obviously if you drop a bunch of important arguments you will lose. However, having true arguments tends to make winning the technicalities of the debate a lot easier because your warrants and explanation will cover all of the crap they throw at you. Everybody will be better off if I don't have to call for cards, because the only reason I will do that is if I don't understand something or it hasn't been adequately addressed. If I call for cards, then somebody fucked up - either you did because you didn't debate well, or I did because I'm just too stupid to understand something you said/too slow to understand you (which I will end up blaming on you anyway. Hah! Being a judge is wonderful). When extending evidence, please do not simply refer to the author name or year. I often have difficulty getting down cites for cards (because most debaters blaze through them and blend them into the text of the evidence itself). If you simply reference a name, unless it has been discussed in cross-x or frequently elsewhere in the debate, it will take me a while before I figure out what you are talking about. I will probably look at you and act confused.

Topicality:

Okay, so I have a weird way of looking at topicality, so I'll do my best to explain my default position. The easiest way I have thought of to explain it is to think of a Supreme Court justice hearing a case. The job of a justice is to look to the Constitution, determine what it means to the best of their ability, and then determine the case based on their reading of the Constitution (disregarding other stuff like precedent, case law, shit I don't know about). So even if they make a determination that the Constitution should be written a different way, their job is only to determine what it says - amending or changing the Constitution is the job of the legislature. This is how I view T, in general. It is not my place to determine what the best resolution would be, or that it should be interpreted to include X aff, but rather to determine to the best of my ability what I believe the resolution means and then decide whether the aff fits. So in terms of what that means for you, it means that an argument about why your aff is educational and awesome, or allowing their aff would be annoying for you to research, are generally not as relevant to me as an argument about the meaning of words in the topic placed in their real-world contexts. If you have a qualified, contextual, and specific interpretation, you are in a good spot in front of me. Some people get scared by this so I want to make several caveats clear. First - this is only my DEFAULT position. If a team argues for a more conventional way of looking at T and you ignore it, I will not place my own notions of T over the arguments in the round. Second - this does not automatically mean that T is a voting issue. While arguments like reasonability or T is not a voter are often used as a crutch and explained terribly, they can be done well and I will listen to them. Third - this does not mean that arguments about limits on the topic or brightlines are bad. It simply means that I tend to prioritize other arguments. If you make a convincing case that including the aff will make literally anything topical, I should probably engage in a bit of "judicial activism". Then again, in these scenarios the right argument is usually an Extra-T or FX-T violation. Finally - I don't think that this favors either the aff or the neg. This favors the team with the most well-researched and understood interpretation. If your aff is "core of the topic" but you can't debate T, you will lose. If the opponents aff is something you've never heard before but they have a good defense, you will lose. This is particularly true because I haven't judged/debated on this topic (transportation infrastructure) so I don't have preconceived notions of what is legit or not.

Theory:

It feels like many judges are outright dismissive or angry when somebody goes for theory. I will not do that. I am happy to listen to any theory debate you wish to have. Does that mean that theory should be your A-strat? No. Does that mean you should go for ASPEC, severance perms are a voter, or something else dumb? No. But if you want to go for condo, PICs bad, vague alts bad, etc.? Feel free. Some things: I am apparently fairly easy to persuade that something is a voting issue, mostly by way of 2AC time/strat skew arguments. Many people say that they will only vote on condo. While this is certainly the easiest voting issue to win and I will likely default to rejecting the argument in other situations, it might be a worthy investment of your time to try to make it a reason to reject the team, particularly in important instances like PICs bad, etc. While I am perfectly willing to hear a theory debate, it is paramount that you are clear and make real arguments. It is worth your time to get out 3 explained arguments in 30 seconds, as opposed to 8 taglines in the same period of time. INTERACT WITH YOUR OPPONENTS ARGUMENTS. It is AMAZING how many people will freak out if you simply read your block, and then go down their block and explicitly answer or cross-apply an argument on everything they said. This doesn’t even require much more time. If you are already reading a 10 point condo answer in the 2NC, you’ve probably already answered everything that the 2AC said in 15 seconds – just make the explicit cross-application and you’ll be fine. Specific arguments – I often extend condo bad and am around a squad which is vehemently against conditionality in all forms, and while I have remained fairly neutral, some of this does rub off. Yes, you can win a condo debate when they only read one off, but it’s probably not a great A-strat. Anything over 2 conditional arguments puts you in the danger zone.

DAs:

I don’t know many people who don’t like DAs. I enjoy them and will certainly vote for them. While there can technically never be zero risk of a DA, there can technically never be zero risk of anything, and if I evaluated any low-risk arguments you could just assert fifty extinction scenarios in the 1NC. As such, I am willing to treat a DA as having no weight based on a strong defensive argument. As far as offense-defense goes, offense is certainly good, but an aff can win a DA with well extended, diverse, and good defensive arguments along with an extension of case and impact calculus. Politics – I used to think I hated this argument because it was contrived, blippy and only for big squads. Then I was blessed with a coach who is a politics genius (CJ), and realized that things don’t have to be this way – politics DAs can be smart, realistic, and intricate, as much as any other argument. As such, if you are running politics, try to lean toward the smart type, rather than the dumb type. Know your argument, analyze warrants of uniqueness evidence, understand internal link theory – if you can do these things, then whatever politics DA you are running will be a joy to watch. Otherwise, I might shank you.

CPs:

Counterplans are good, and my favorite way to win debates. Read them. Hopefully, read case-specific counterplans, but generics are okay too. Theory-wise, I will not flat-out reject anything, but I am skeptical of process, offsets, consult/conditions, delay, and other counterplans. However, if you can explain why one of these counterplans is uniquely alright in the context of the affirmative you are facing, I’m game.

Ks:

Kritiks are like politics. They can be atrocious, and they can be wonderful. Make your kritik wonderful. Do explanation and analysis without relying on obfuscation and trickery. At the same time, take advantage of all of the cheating tricks that the kritik lends itself to – floating PIKs, weird ROBs, epistemology/methodology/ontology whatever. As the affirmative, STAY STRONG – don’t roll over when they assert something dumb (and remember, almost every K is DUMB). Beat their dumb framework, win your aff, and explain why extinction outweighs (which it probably does). As far as being involved in the literature, I am relatively knowledgeable about most common Ks – Heidegger, biopower (all types), security, fem, environment Ks, cap, etc. More complex stuff – I’ll listen to it and am eager to learn, but you must explain, because my bullshit detector is pretty sensitive.

Performance/not defending a plan/something else that isn't "normal":

I am completely willing to listen to any of this stuff. In my experience most performance teams have legitimate arguments or grievances and are completely within their rights to address the large structural issues in the debate community within a round. That said, while I don't believe I have any overt biases against this style of debate, I might not be the best judge for you. I think this is because I have never myself run these types of arguments and consistently struggle when debating against them, and the root of this is that I often have difficulty locating the most important arguments in a more critical debate and figuring out how different arguments interact. So while I don't hate you, when judging I might (despite my best efforts) unintentionally screw you over. If you do have me, to try to rectify this, please be clear about which arguments you consider to be the nexus points of the debate in order to make my evaluation easier (this goes along with my above point about clarity being preferable to obfuscation). Also, if you're deep in some wonky critical literature, be sure to explain the thesis of the author/argument as I probably haven't come across it.

Case:

Always have case debate, preferably specific but at the very least impact defense. IMPACT TURNING IS WONDERFUL AND YOU SHOULD DO IT! Why is democracy good? Or human rights promotion? Why is prolif bad? If you don’t know, there’s a good chance that the aff doesn’t know either. Learn up and rock their world. The best feeling is just getting up in a 1NC and telling an affirmative that they are wrong, and watching them flounder. Do impact calc, DUH

Speaker points:

As a judge with little experience and who tries to be polite, I will probably end up giving higher-than-average speaker points (lucky you). However, I will not hesitate to dock you if you are being dumb or mean.