Freedman,+Michael

I debated for 4 years in High School for Wilde Lake (MD) and 4 years in college for Macalester (MN). I am now the head coach at Highland Park High School in MN. Judge adaptation is dead...good riddance...I'll adapt to you. Every debate round should supposedly have an objective winner, I try and be as good as I can at finding who that is. That means just do what you think, all things being equal, will give you the best chance of winning. Below is my best attempt to spell out my observations about my own decision making process. Debate is fun, in part, because every round is different and so the questions that have to be answered in order to find out who wins are different. After the 2AR, I generally start by trying to figure out what these questions are. It is in your interest to tell me explicitly what they should be. An argument has a claim and a warrant. If I have a claim but not a warrant on my flow I’m not going to think about it after the round even if the other teams drops the claim. Contrary to popular belief, I actually think these discussions are important. Where is the line between a good CP and a cheating one? What is normal means (seriously have this debate,)? How does a perm work? All of these are important questions I am more than happy to see debated. That all being said-I default to reject the arg pretty hard. I will reject the team pretty much only if you can convince me that it would be a really unfair burden on you to win substantively. Don’t take that to mean never go for theory though, just pick your spots. In a tradeoff between truth and tech, truth wins here. ASPEC and Condo are a hard sell for me. I like topicality. Especially on the transportation topic where I feel like community norms have really not crystallized around any one understanding of the resolution. I think three things are key to winning T in front of me. (1) Make impact comparisons. (2) Defend your interpretation, not your case. Even if the AFF was educational you need to defend the implications of the interpretation that got you there. (3) Actually invest time in the competing interp. vs reasonability debate. There is nothing more frustrating than having to resolve this debate when it is undercovered in the last two speeches. (1) Uniqueness Stuff: (2) Link Stuff: (3) A note on internal link. Honestly, the less of these the better. I’m not a probability master but I took AP Stats in high school, I know what happens to the probability of an event when the number of other events it is conditioned off of grows. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(4) Impact stuff. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Nothing like a good old counterplan debate. The mores specific solvency evidence the better. If the AFF has really good solvency cards and the CP has bad and generic ones, that seems like a risk of a solvency deficit to me. Also, I love a good internal net benefit. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">All of that said, I am put off by the proliferation of counterplans that basically agree that the plan is a good idea, but still expect to win based on competition generated by some insignificant and contrived distinction. In the interest of time, here are two things I think a CP needs to do in order to not be cheating. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(1) The counterplan has to have a solvency advocate. Generic ones are okay sometimes (like if the card says transportation but not HSR) but lack of one is pretty unacceptable. . <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(2) The counterplan can’t claims solvency based on the fact that the AFF plan in its entirety can happen in a world of the CP (this is you teams that say you compete off of “resolved”). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Two more things <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(1) The “status quo is always an option” is not a status of a counterplan. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(2) I will not kick anything for you absent a solid explanation of how and why. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Based on the teams that I coach, it seems like most of my work has gone here the last two years. Like I said, I am a good judge for good K debate. The reason I gave above is that I read philosophy a lot and will maybe/hopefully have some background in your stuff. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">I’ll give one more reason here. I am profoundly outside of the school of thought that the plan text is the only truly relevant part of the 1AC. The idea that the justifications the AFF gave for doing the plan are not relevant considerations in who I vote for is mindboggling to me, mostly in that I have no idea what are the relevant considerations absent the justifications. On the rare occasion the AFF invests time in reading new justifications and presents nuance reasons why the shift is okay, then we have something to talk about, but the suggestion that because other justifications could exist the discourse of the 1AC is not relevant juts seems crazy to me. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Here is a random list of other thoughts about the K. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(1) Use the Framework debate to create the lenses through which I should evaluate questions of impact and solvency. Like I said above, Framework is not a voting issue, but it could be a reason the K doesn’t get the alt. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(2) Talk about the 1AC. You don’t need link evidence that is specific to the plan but if you can’t make applications of that link evidence specific to the plan then you will lose. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(3) On the alt debate- a thing I see teams doing a lot is having no alt solvency and just claiming “moral obligation to reject X”. That’s fine, but if half your cards then presume an action that “solves for X” the debate becomes really confusing in a way that makes it hard to vote for the K. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(4) The util/consequentialism throwdown has become a pretty standard part of the K debate. Please understand that (A) util and consequentialism are different things (you can look at consequences in non until ways) and (B) winning either of these is not akin to winning the plan comes first, you have to do that work separately once you feel you have won the framing debate. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(5) “No alt solvency” is not alone a reason the AFF wins since the link and impact still constitute reasons the AFF is a bad idea. The AFF has to frame the implications of no alt solvency in order to make it a complete takeout to the K. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(6) A good impact turn debate on the K makes me happy. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">(7) The framework “you can have your alt if we can weigh our impacts” mean that the alt has to assume the opportunity cost of not doing the plan. It does not mean that the neg is now forbidden from arguing against either the AFFs understanding of causality or that other considerations such as ethics come before consequentialist impacts. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Okay yea, I’m probably a decent judge for this, but let me very clear about one thing- I am set in my understanding that education in debate stems from the ability of both teams to challenge the others ideas. What types of affirmation are predictable now is a function of community norms, and if your thing is challenging those norms then do that, but you have to win (A) that I would not be screwing the other team by expecting them to challenge your arguments substantively and (B)that your vision for how debates allows debate to continue as a forum where in depth clash of ideas is possible. There is no AFF in the world so educational I’ll vote for it even if it doesn’t put itself out there to e challenged. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">My advice is go with a substantive start if you can, makes for way better debates. That said I know that some AFFs defend so little this is basically not possible so if it has to be T/framework then it has to be T/framework. And if that’s the case, it helps to take extra time to make your interpretation clear to me. What is and is not allowed globally if I were to affirm your understanding of the resolution? Also impact analysis is absolutely key (man I write that phrase a lot). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">The 2AR is the only speech where I will ignore a new argument unprompted. If the 2NR wants me to disregard a 1ar argument on the grounds of newness, they need to say why. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">A dropped argument is a true argument, but I am conservative about this, which is to say the implications of such a dropped argument need to be flushed out by the team extending the arg because I will not do that for you. The team that doped the argument is allowed to respond to arguments about the implication of the drop.
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">The most important thing (read this before anything else) __**
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Have fun and be nice.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">World War Two is probably a terrible example for whatever it is you are trying to explain. Please use a different one.
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Quick Hits (or its 10 minutes before the round) __**
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">I like to think I have no bias between critical or policy starts. I think my voting record reflects this.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">I am a good judge for the K, but its because philosophy is my academic interest so I read a lot of it and can hopefully keep up, not because I think it’s like a superior strat or anything.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">It’s hard to convince me to reject the team without a compelling in round abuse story. Reject the arg has a considerably lower burden.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Framework debates are important for setting up impact comparisons and telling me how the plan functions vis a vis the alternative. Framework is not a reason to reject t <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">h <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">e team.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">I am not a fan of cheating counterplans…I will go into more detail on this bellow but I think you know what I mean.
 * 6) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Competing interpretations means I vote for who has the best interpretation. Reasonability means if an interpretation is good enough that’s fine even if there is an offensively better interpretation presented. Reasonability and potential abuse are not the same thing.
 * 7) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">I don’t take time for flashing, just please don’t steel prep.
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Everything Else __**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">How I Make Decisions. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Making arguments. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Theory **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Topicality. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Dissads **
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Of all debates, I always feel like I intervene here the most because debaters do not do enough comparisons between their uniqueness args/evidence and their opponents. Please talk about your opponents args here as much as you extend your own.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">I very rarely award 0% risk of uniqueness (this is not an ideological thing, it’s just no evidence ever seems to support this claim) so please tell me what to do with relative risk of uniqueness.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">To me, the question of link is a question of probability. Specificity of evidence and strength of analytics increase the chances that a given AFF will or will not result in a given impact. There is a qualitative thresholds of “risk of a link” bellow which I will disregard the DA. Even if the risk of a link being 0% is not analytically possible (due to chaos theory and what not), there is certainly a point at which it is no longer a relevant consideration.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Except maybe perm solvency evidence on the kritik, this seems like the place where you get the most mileage out of good cards.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Impact comparisons are so very key, you should be talking about 1AC impacts a lot in the 2nr if you want to win this portion of the debate.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">The above is specifically true for the DA turns case strategy. A lot of teams automatically assume that if they win an economic collapse impact to their DA, they turn an AFF with an econ advantage. Not true. Either the AFF or the DA has a more robust link the economy, and teams should do more to discuss this.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">When a counterplan is in play and the DA is serving as a net benefit, I tend to think the impact debate is not DA vs. Case but DA vs. solvency deficit. It would be good to put your impact analysis in this frame.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Counterplans **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">The Kritik **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Nontraditional debate (no one says “performance” anymore) **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">T/Framework against critical/nontraditional AFFs **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Dropped arguments and new arguments. **