Mahoney,+Kevin

El Cerrito '15 UC Berkeley '19

Hi all,

I did policy debate for four years at El Cerrito, and I am not too acquainted with the surveillance lit since I have judged a limited number of rounds this year. This means that you should slow down, and contextualize/explain acronyms. A good, safe strategy is start off a bit slower in your 1ac and 1nc if you have a lot of args that are very specific to surveillance. I was mainly on the policy side of things, many of our 2nrs against policy affs were ptx and CPs. I like most CPs except for delay and exclusionary ones. Most DAs are fine but please make sure that your links are specific. We went for a couple of Ks earlier in high school (just the standard stuff you try out for curiosity) but mainly went for ptx and CPs later on. Good condo and dispo debates with lots of substance are my cup of tea. The only thing I wasn't too crazy for is T. Although it is necessary for certain contexts; it shouldn't be generic or a timesuck. I absolutely despise the generic blocks that people read.

For K-Affs, many of our 2nrs were FW and pretty standard Ks, depending on the type of K-aff we hit.

That said, I didn't have much of a chance to run critical arguments as I would have liked so you can run your standard Marx, Nietzche, Foucault, etc. related Ks. If you do choose to run something that is out of the blue in the conventional critical debate world, either speak slower, delineate more, or just don't go for those arguments. If you have questions about this, you can e-mail me. Hopefully, it won't be too much of a problem. If you do this, your alt must be feasible and competitive. Alts that only say "reject the aff" or "sign your ballet, neg" don't cut it. You need to have compelling and competitive reasons why the world of the alt is better than the aff's solvency.

This is the same on the policy side as well. Your FW needs to be better than a fairness, education, brightline type of block. One great example is that of state engagement. Just don't make it as a T block, it needs much more critical depth for there to be clash with K-Affs.

In general, please make sure that explain your aff well, especially for those with no plan text. This goes the same for obscure alts. Not as well acquainted with performance debate. Try it if you wish, but you may not get favorable results. Basic thing from all of this is that delineation and clash are key.

For LD, the theory-heavy debates that are so common nowadays are not terribly educational, sorry. Leo Kim's philosophy on theory in LD is pretty similar to mine; this is his page: https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Kim,+Leonardo. So please make sure that you have substantial arguments. Unless it is relevant and very well-done, theory alone warrants very little reason for me to vote for you. Some of the developments going on within this realm are a bit different from what I am used to so please use these args only when you feel that it is necessary to the round as a whole (instead of doing it out of convention). I am less acquainted with circuit LD in general, so please explain arguments clearly in the later speeches within the round.

Also, I don't tolerate rude behavior along with racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic/etc. remarks and args. The point of debate is to have fun, learn something, and to attack the other team's interpretations and arguments, not them themselves. You get the idea.

I am pretty lax on when prep and speech times start and end (I am not too picky about "prep stops when your flash leaves the computer" type of thing), I trust you both to regulate and to be on the honor code when timing yourselves. This shouldn't ever have to be a problem. I may also have occasional questions in the round; it would be great if you can answer them. If your spreading is unclear, I will yell "clear" the first time and if continues to be a problem, I will offer a second warning. The third time it becomes a problem, I will start to deduct speaker points to a maximum of two points lost. I also reserve the right to not catch what you say at that point of unintelligibility on my flow. I may ask for cards at the end if I am not as familiar with some of the arguments in a round, so please be prepared for that.

If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail me at kmahoney@berkeley.edu. Thanks! https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Kim,+Leonardo