Jackson,+Garrett

I did LD for four years for Battle Ground Academy. I go to Tulane.

UPDATE: 1/27/12 I haven't changed my paradigm since I started judging, so I figured I needed to overhaul my paradigm given how debate has changed over the years. I made my paradigm relatively detailed because I'll inevitably leave out something if I just give you a brief version before the round.

SHORT VERSION: Speed is good. Theory is good. Try to be topical. I have high standards for what constitutes a warrant. 27 is average. 28 means I think you may clear. 28.5 means I think you should clear. Anything more than that means I think you will clear and win multiple outrounds. If you did something particularly annoying or boring, your speaker points might be low even if I think you'll win the tournament.

DEFAULTS: You can persuade me to change my default views of debate (hint: any warranted argument is sufficient to make me change my default view), but I default to these views. I view theory as a question of reasonability. I don't think a counter-interpretation is offensive without an RVI. I think the aff has the burden to prove the resolution true. I presume neg (I never have to do this in good debates because people always make presumption arguments). Fairness is a reason to drop the debater (it's always at least a reason to drop the argument - don't try to change my mind here). Out of round impacts are not sufficient to vote for or against a debater.

FRAMEWORK: Framework debates are my favorite debates to watch. I enjoy frameworks that have an interesting interpretation of the resolution that are justified by theoretical reasons to prefer that interpretation. I also prefer philosophical debate at the meta-ethical level over generic dumps. You should not justify your framework with impacts. For instance, you should not say "the standard is protecting liberty because a world without liberty justifies slavery." That kind of argument does not answer the question of why slavery is bad in the first place. Also, if no framework is read and no presumption/permissibility argument is made, I will tenuously adopt a utility calculus. However, I don't think new warrants for the standard are justified in the second speech, so if you want a util debate, you should probably warrant your standard in your first speech.

THEORY: I used theory as a strategic tool when I debated. However, I also never ran arguments that I would have run theory against as a debater. I think people have taken theory too far in recent years - disclosure theory and "you can't say I have to ask about theory violations in cross-x" theory are two examples. Even though I think the above examples are silly theory arguments, I will vote for them if won, and I'm generally down to listen to a theory debate. Before running theory, you should ask yourself what kind of arguments the other debater has excluded (ground) and compare the amount of arguments you must win to the amount of arguments your opponent must win (reciprocity). I'm not convinced education should matter in theory debates, so feel free to make education isn't a voter arguments.

POLICY ARGUMENTS: I like policy arguments. I just require them to have impacts - this means running your Zizek K about capitalism being imperialistic doesn't have an impact unless you warrant why imperialism is bad. Feel free to use policy arguments like uniqueness overwhelming the link, clever permutations, multiple counter-interpretations, agent counterplans, PICs, advantage counterplans, and any other arguments you may find clever.

STRATEGY: I used to believe that debate was only a strategy game. However, I don't like where the strategy game is going. I think the most strategic debaters are the debaters who make clearly false, blippy arguments with no depth because time constraints make dealing with 8 bad arguments more difficult than weighing against 2 quality arguments. I don't like watching debates with a ton of blippy arguments. Yes, I will vote for these strategies, but I don't like watching them.

CRAZY ARGUMENTS: I'm receptive to almost anything but I draw the line here. I'm cool with arguments like extinction good, determinism, and skepticism. However, I do not think running things like a consult our alien overlords counterplan should be accepted in debate. These arguments rest on empirical claims that cannot be "proven" false without evidence that asserts the opposite. However, coming up with that evidence in a debate round is problematic because crazy arguments are totally unpredictable.

RANDOM NOTE: There are some authors I just don't understand. I don't understand Deleuze, Heidegger, Habermas, and probably other postmodern people. If you can explain their arguments in the form of a syllogism, I'll get it, but whenever I hear cards written by these guys, I can't comprehend what's going on.