1A MARKOV 2A KEJRIWAL V. 1N DAY 2N THIBEAU
This was a fantastic round, really, with a level of depth and sophistication on the technical details of broadband policy that I’d find impressive in December – and it’s July. Each speaker should be proud of the effort and scholarship that went into this debate. I have some technical comments and some substantive ones, working backwards from the 2AR and going through the rebuttals:
2AR: You need to project confidence or you’ll be consistently frustrated by middle-weak panels. You’re intellectually impressive, but a less experienced critic might have received the impression that you’re losing during the 2AR. Debate is partially an exercise in projecting a persona, and I think that’s haunting you more than any specific technical or substantive deficiency. For real - this is a +/1 1 win/tournament question.
Specific ways to correct this:
a. Volume. Be louder. We’ve been over this before.
b. You overuse “even if” formulas. I think it’s useful and good to employ this sort of reasoning, of course, but you need to avoid the appearance that your 2AR is a desperation halfcourt heave. You say, at one point, that “even though their evidence may seem better and more predictive…” Ugh. Sounds desperate – rephrase.
c. Don’t tell the judge that s/he *could* evaluate an issue a given way. Judges are passive creatures – tell us what to do in strongly worded imperatives.
d. You ask your partner “is that OK?” at one point. Don’t do that.
Substantively, you do need to bear down harder on this double solvency question. The relative benefits of the perm will probably determine this debate if they fall behind on politics uniqueness, so you should be drawing out the individual warrants for double solvency and explaining the actual function of the perm. This merits 30 seconds, and potentially more, given its status as a potential nexus point.
2NR: In both of the Thibeau 2NRs I’ve seen, you were technically excellent, and demonstrate a rare command of both debate-technical and substantive details, as well as strategic vision re: case-disad relationships. You’ve been hampered by the evidence set, though. This takes one primary form: you have a single point of offense (politics) in both the block and the 2NR. This lack of diversity ends up making your 2NRs really big. You never drop, and always engage excellent clash. Still, you have very uniform emphasis as a result. You can’t afford to identify a nexus point or slow down slightly on crucial arguments because your strategy makes most every argument crucial.
Fix the 2NR by fixing the 1NC. Y’all need an internal net benefit to your counterplan that makes it a stand-alone win strategy. It’s worth developing this in this instance because of the early memetic penetration of this aff.
I'm impressed with all the weighing arguments, but felt that you should have devleoiped a reason that health care solves their intenral link chain. IT certainly might, by delineating more disposable income, for instance, that allows free market broadband purchases. It would be easy to get some cards on this, and it would be incredibly high yield.
We speculated on this briefly in the round. It sounds like the counterplan will probably pass costs off onto municipalities, which might trade off with municipal wi-fi; that’s promising as a DA to the CP, despite uniqueness problems. I am SURE there is some way that we can incorporate the reactions of the telcos or cable providers to construct a net neutrality disad. (That’s just such a huge debate; there must be a link.) I think we need to devote some more thought, though, to better specific disads or internal net benefits to make this 1nc more dangerous and this 2NR less diffuse.
1AR: Great speech - impressive efficiency, and generation of new arguments. Great efficiency on the theory debate as well. You invest heavily in a geographic distinction between urban and rural broadband access – is this carded? It should be.
I’d consider carding this further with rural-specific internal links to the aff, and impacting it as a distinct add-on somewhere in this debate. The CO2 add-on – or other telecommuting good addons – would probably be a wise choice.
Consider a refinement of your embedded clash system. Instead of labeling your argument sections as “link” or “impact”, you could label them according to YOUR argument – “telcos love the plan” or “health care isn’t crucial to the economy.” I’d experiment with this for a 1AR or two to see if it helps you.
1NR: excellent. Your mastery of details leads me to believe that you’ve read a good deal on this subject, and I’m either impressed with your research or your ability to fake it – probably your research.
My major criticism revolves around strategy, not tactics - the 1NC position forces you to violate the cardinal rule of standalone relevance - could the speech win without the 1NC? It can’t, and I think that’s a shame. This is an evidence failure. You simply need more offense – either on the case or on a distinct net benefit. You could collapse to a smaller fraction of 1NC case defense arguments and potentially go for T? I don’t like that stylistically – I want you to exploit your knowledge of the intricacies of this debate, but I think that the kluge move might have more tactical utility.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Georgetown Debate Seminar Practice Round Three
Aff: 1a Kirshon/ 2a Bernick v. 1n Kejriwal/ 2n Thibeau
1ac: Good clarity. Try to breathe at punctuation marks. This isn’t mandatory, but it will make your speech much smoother. Interrupting sentences with gasping breaths distracts from the text of your speech.
CX of 1AC:
Question one doesn't seem like the strongest start. It's an inherency question; that isn’t really a pressure point unless you have incredibly specific politics links. As it stands, this inherency argument probably compromises politics uniqueness, so it’s unlikely to make it into the 2NR.
Start off with your strongest argument, such as a genuinely glaring internal link hole that’s difficult to paper over, or a source credibility argument that makes them look bad.
This reverse causation question IS a serious pressure point for the 1AC. They don’t repeal reporting requirements, which probably compromises solvency severely. Start off with this line, and keep your foot on his neck for a question or two.
You conclude lines of questioning by saying “fair enough.” This sounds reasonable and gentlemanly, which I appreciate, but it vitiates the impact of a particular line of questioning. I do prefer CX-ers who restate their argument (“So you actually can’t solve your aff because you don’t affect reporting requirements”) and move on. It may manipulate the format, and some amy see it as too aggressive, but I’d at least like to know what you THOUGHT you got out of a particular line of questiong.
1NC:
LOUDER!
If you are just LOUDER you would likely gain 1-2 speaker points over the course of prelims.
Your arg: “low volume makes me faster.” A few responses.
1. Comprehension outweighs. “Fast” means “maximizing arguments that the judge writes down” not “maximizing the arguments that I speak.”
2. Empirically disproven. The fastest debaters are quite loud, in my experience.
This violation needs to be compressed. I wrote it too long.
I don't know if your health care link is good enough to safely make partial inherency arguments. Won't this just non-unique your disad? I’m sure you have answers, but they can also distinguish their aff from the status quo even more easily. This is not worth the trouble.
“No internal link = voter” isn't worth your breath. I often have a low threshold for voting on theory compared to some, but I can’t imagine voting on this even if dropped.
I think generally you need to consolidate anayltic defense into categories of risk reduction. 2-3 good, longer analytics instead of 7-8 threshold presses.
You need more disads to this aff. Limited 1NC offense makes the 2NR difficult, to say the least.
2AC: Apply inherency args to uniqueness.
FASTER! FASTER! FASTER! ENERGY! ENERGY! ENERGY! You are clear. You can read fast. I have seen it happen. No barrier stops you from being one of the fastest debaters in the nation; some behavior mod is all it should take.
Where is this racism stuff going? Are you working your way toward a moral imperative? I generally think that “moral” arguments are best couched in terms of role of the ballot. It’s difficult for me to accept that I should extinguish the species to take a stand; it’s easy for me to accept that I should modify the function of my ballot to express solidarity with anti-racist sentiments.
More carded offense on politics! Trust me, I love analytic politics defense more than most, but
a. I’m not every judge
b. even I need a card for some of this stuff. Extrapolating winners win from their evidence is clever, but dicey.
More add-ons! You should have several “signal” addons prepared vs. states counterplans. This is almost mandatory. Negs prepare counterplans against the advantages you do run, not the advantages you might run, making 2AC adjustments a crucial component of many aff ballots.
2AC CX:
Arnav – you need to have a game plan. Cross-xing the 2AC is, admittedly, the lamest cross-x, identify a few things you might get out of this.
2NC: Very good – great articulation, speed, and a superb effort to engage in early and aggressive risk comparison.
The politics coverage needs more vertical depth, though. I think you should be reading more evidence. Not a huge adjustment, but 6 instead of 5:30 would have been better.
It’s useless to give people access to a health care that’s completely broken. Overall system functioning trumps universal access for all their internal links – that means you uniquely turn all the advantages. You do say something along these lines, but I see this as a potential round winner that merits another sentence (maybe even two?) of explanation.
Pretty sketchy on intrinsicness, akshually; this is a vulnerable point. More on this in the 2NR explanation.
1AR: You took prep – that’s good.
I wish you had made some theory cross-applications. Their defenses of both 50 state fiat and conditionality probably justify the intrinsicness arguments that you invested in heavily. Get in the habit of partial concessions that generate new arguments very quickly, based on U ev they read & theory especially.
Good job at generating new-ish politics arguments. You need more cards here, though.
While I’m not a huge aesthetic fan of going for every advantage, I understand and agree with your tactics in this situation.
2NR: This 2NR is great on the micro-level. I also think you probably go for the right thing. A lack of diverse 1NC offense comes back to haunt you, though – this ends up being bigger than it should be.
Two major risks hurt you. First, if your defensive evidence isn’t excellent, you might be faced with a number of extinction level risk. You articulate some ways that the aff can’t sovle your impact, but unless you solve their impact, you might face a valid case for try-or-die in the 2AR. (Even if you turn the case, the status quo still leads inexorably toward extinction if they win a huge risk of their advantage uniqueness claim.)
Secondly, you're really banking on me bailing you out on intrinsicness. I feel that this is sort of a Dwayne Wade approach – wade into traffic and wait for a whistle to bail you out. Sometimes, you can count on a whistle – if you’re neg and running a single reasonable counterplan, you’re unlikely to get whistled on condo bad in a good debate. Don’t count on the refs here, though – I’m less likely to dismiss intrinsicness than many. In general, intrinsicness is a little dangerous for the neg, because the aff is just defending “logic” or a decision-making model, instead of crying like a hurt child.
2AR: Good argument choice on politics. You really locked down on two potentially winning arguments. I kind of wish you had been able to put up a fight on uniqueness as well
Reference evidence for your claim that “xenophobia is the crucial/ONLY internal link to racism.” I can imagine a card that substantiates such an argument, but you leave this entirely to my imagination
They have a rhetorical K, but they’ve never made a role of the ballot argument. I’m not sure why the rhetoric of your advantage should influence my ballot. They don’t link this argument to the plan. Although the 2AR is a little late for this, I think it’s a quick shot, given how obvious this problem seems.
I always have difficulty filtering a “moral obligation” claim against an extinction impact. I find it difficult to accept extinguishing humanity for the sake of a principle. I almost universally prefer that teams cast their moral obligation arguments as role of the ballot argument. I mentioned this above.
Discuss terminal UNIQUENESS on their internal links. Failure to treat immigrants breaks the health care system in ways that they can’t compensate for. You make the clever argument that swine flu proves that the system works now, but it might not be able to work for immigrants. However, you refer to this very briefly at least.
1ac: Good clarity. Try to breathe at punctuation marks. This isn’t mandatory, but it will make your speech much smoother. Interrupting sentences with gasping breaths distracts from the text of your speech.
CX of 1AC:
Question one doesn't seem like the strongest start. It's an inherency question; that isn’t really a pressure point unless you have incredibly specific politics links. As it stands, this inherency argument probably compromises politics uniqueness, so it’s unlikely to make it into the 2NR.
Start off with your strongest argument, such as a genuinely glaring internal link hole that’s difficult to paper over, or a source credibility argument that makes them look bad.
This reverse causation question IS a serious pressure point for the 1AC. They don’t repeal reporting requirements, which probably compromises solvency severely. Start off with this line, and keep your foot on his neck for a question or two.
You conclude lines of questioning by saying “fair enough.” This sounds reasonable and gentlemanly, which I appreciate, but it vitiates the impact of a particular line of questioning. I do prefer CX-ers who restate their argument (“So you actually can’t solve your aff because you don’t affect reporting requirements”) and move on. It may manipulate the format, and some amy see it as too aggressive, but I’d at least like to know what you THOUGHT you got out of a particular line of questiong.
1NC:
LOUDER!
If you are just LOUDER you would likely gain 1-2 speaker points over the course of prelims.
Your arg: “low volume makes me faster.” A few responses.
1. Comprehension outweighs. “Fast” means “maximizing arguments that the judge writes down” not “maximizing the arguments that I speak.”
2. Empirically disproven. The fastest debaters are quite loud, in my experience.
This violation needs to be compressed. I wrote it too long.
I don't know if your health care link is good enough to safely make partial inherency arguments. Won't this just non-unique your disad? I’m sure you have answers, but they can also distinguish their aff from the status quo even more easily. This is not worth the trouble.
“No internal link = voter” isn't worth your breath. I often have a low threshold for voting on theory compared to some, but I can’t imagine voting on this even if dropped.
I think generally you need to consolidate anayltic defense into categories of risk reduction. 2-3 good, longer analytics instead of 7-8 threshold presses.
You need more disads to this aff. Limited 1NC offense makes the 2NR difficult, to say the least.
2AC: Apply inherency args to uniqueness.
FASTER! FASTER! FASTER! ENERGY! ENERGY! ENERGY! You are clear. You can read fast. I have seen it happen. No barrier stops you from being one of the fastest debaters in the nation; some behavior mod is all it should take.
Where is this racism stuff going? Are you working your way toward a moral imperative? I generally think that “moral” arguments are best couched in terms of role of the ballot. It’s difficult for me to accept that I should extinguish the species to take a stand; it’s easy for me to accept that I should modify the function of my ballot to express solidarity with anti-racist sentiments.
More carded offense on politics! Trust me, I love analytic politics defense more than most, but
a. I’m not every judge
b. even I need a card for some of this stuff. Extrapolating winners win from their evidence is clever, but dicey.
More add-ons! You should have several “signal” addons prepared vs. states counterplans. This is almost mandatory. Negs prepare counterplans against the advantages you do run, not the advantages you might run, making 2AC adjustments a crucial component of many aff ballots.
2AC CX:
Arnav – you need to have a game plan. Cross-xing the 2AC is, admittedly, the lamest cross-x, identify a few things you might get out of this.
2NC: Very good – great articulation, speed, and a superb effort to engage in early and aggressive risk comparison.
The politics coverage needs more vertical depth, though. I think you should be reading more evidence. Not a huge adjustment, but 6 instead of 5:30 would have been better.
It’s useless to give people access to a health care that’s completely broken. Overall system functioning trumps universal access for all their internal links – that means you uniquely turn all the advantages. You do say something along these lines, but I see this as a potential round winner that merits another sentence (maybe even two?) of explanation.
Pretty sketchy on intrinsicness, akshually; this is a vulnerable point. More on this in the 2NR explanation.
1AR: You took prep – that’s good.
I wish you had made some theory cross-applications. Their defenses of both 50 state fiat and conditionality probably justify the intrinsicness arguments that you invested in heavily. Get in the habit of partial concessions that generate new arguments very quickly, based on U ev they read & theory especially.
Good job at generating new-ish politics arguments. You need more cards here, though.
While I’m not a huge aesthetic fan of going for every advantage, I understand and agree with your tactics in this situation.
2NR: This 2NR is great on the micro-level. I also think you probably go for the right thing. A lack of diverse 1NC offense comes back to haunt you, though – this ends up being bigger than it should be.
Two major risks hurt you. First, if your defensive evidence isn’t excellent, you might be faced with a number of extinction level risk. You articulate some ways that the aff can’t sovle your impact, but unless you solve their impact, you might face a valid case for try-or-die in the 2AR. (Even if you turn the case, the status quo still leads inexorably toward extinction if they win a huge risk of their advantage uniqueness claim.)
Secondly, you're really banking on me bailing you out on intrinsicness. I feel that this is sort of a Dwayne Wade approach – wade into traffic and wait for a whistle to bail you out. Sometimes, you can count on a whistle – if you’re neg and running a single reasonable counterplan, you’re unlikely to get whistled on condo bad in a good debate. Don’t count on the refs here, though – I’m less likely to dismiss intrinsicness than many. In general, intrinsicness is a little dangerous for the neg, because the aff is just defending “logic” or a decision-making model, instead of crying like a hurt child.
2AR: Good argument choice on politics. You really locked down on two potentially winning arguments. I kind of wish you had been able to put up a fight on uniqueness as well
Reference evidence for your claim that “xenophobia is the crucial/ONLY internal link to racism.” I can imagine a card that substantiates such an argument, but you leave this entirely to my imagination
They have a rhetorical K, but they’ve never made a role of the ballot argument. I’m not sure why the rhetoric of your advantage should influence my ballot. They don’t link this argument to the plan. Although the 2AR is a little late for this, I think it’s a quick shot, given how obvious this problem seems.
I always have difficulty filtering a “moral obligation” claim against an extinction impact. I find it difficult to accept extinguishing humanity for the sake of a principle. I almost universally prefer that teams cast their moral obligation arguments as role of the ballot argument. I mentioned this above.
Discuss terminal UNIQUENESS on their internal links. Failure to treat immigrants breaks the health care system in ways that they can’t compensate for. You make the clever argument that swine flu proves that the system works now, but it might not be able to work for immigrants. However, you refer to this very briefly at least.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Georgetown Debate Practice Round: Mindy/Daimyr vs. Katzoff/Herman
GEORGETOWN DEBATE SEMINAR PRACTICE ROUND ONE:
Aff: Mindy/Daimyr vs. Neg: Katzoff/Herman
Antonucci
1ac: good clarity. When I listen carefully, I can distinguish every word, which is my basic litmus test.
1AC CX: 1. Ask short questions with a minimum of introduction. Your elaborate prefaces don’t help you.
2. Argue don't ask. You want to score points in the C-X, not achieve clarification. You work your way toward an argument, but it's a little slow and tentative.
3. Remember, when explaining part of the immigrant's symbolic status, you need to refer to their status as OUTSIDERS. Our treatment of immigrants really determine our stand toward the Other.
1nc: This T violation, while clearly the product of a razor sharp mind, demands careful highlighting if it’s to be at all strategic. This runs over a minute.
You should be faster. Aim to up your rate of delivery by at least 25 words a minute using the spreeder.
Your voice wavers on the last word, in a way that denotes a lack of confidence. Debaters must project the impression that they expect to win. If you don’t feel naturally confident, you should probably fake it. It’s a function of vocal technique; if you waver, trail off, or using rising intonation to make sentences into question, you essentially say that you don’t expect to win. That rapidly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Don't transition between cards with "and". Transitions ideally employ very short pauses, instead of "uh" or "um."
CX: I'm not totally sure what you're driving at. If you're aiming to debate the theoretical problems with the state CP, I'd engage the unprecedented nature of this action. Also, the CP involves simultaneous and uniform state action, but it doesn't mandate cooperation.
Also, you should likely ask about the status of the CP.
2ac: Use immigration to K T - I've seen you do this before, and you should always do some of your best moves. Immigration issues are uniquely conducive to Kritiks of topicality, because attempts to carefully circumscribe the language to prevent unlimited meaning are a pretty tight analogy to English-only xenophobia.
Good indicts on their case evidence – try to place these indicts in the context of a comparison. In other words, don’t just say their ev is bad; quickly cite better ev as well.
Efficiency: you are eloquent. In many places, though, you should reserve some of this eloquence for the 2AR. Case is a good example – the quick application of evidence here could save you a lot of time. It’s unlikely they’ll go for their case defense, and, if they do, I think you have the ability to do a lot of extrapolating in the 2AR.
2NC: Don’t say “scratch that” if you feel that your argument is inadequate. It creates a lot of confusion. Save the phrase “scratch that” for strategically problematic arguments. If you read politics links the wrong way, you want to scratch them.
Good job on T. Try to make the impacts more specific. A general “limit” argument isn’t that compelling; you should instead delineate what would actually happen in this instance. You’d be forced to debate health care, which is an enormous topic in and of itself.
You should start the disad by explaining why it outweighs the case.
You gravitate away from the line by line in favor of just reading cards. It's best for you to stick to the line by line, and reference their arguments more carefully.
1NR:
1nr: As a block, y’all take too much. The real tradeoff here comes in impact comparison. I think the 2NC emphasis on case defense isn't that good.
Don’t apologize! Debate means never having to say you’re sorry. This fits in with my earlier comments about confidence. You are debating well – you just need to communicate that you believe you’re debating well.
This stylistic modification alone will produce 1-3 expected wins per tournament.
1AR:
Well done.
T’s their best offense, by far. The 2NR clearly wants to go for this issue. When you can predict their best 2NR, react by dumping time and arguments from other flows there. Look for theoretical cross-applications – issues that might either interact with T or provide you with an additional out.
2NR:
A cardinal rule of debate:
YOU MUST CHOOSE. Debate is, in large part, about choice. The 2NR has issue choice – the 2AR has argument choice. Exercise this choice! In this instance, this means that you should spend all five minutes going for T and locking it down, instead of wasting two minutes on a substantive debate that you certainly cannot win.
You’re doing a good job on T, too. You just needed more time for impact comparison and explanation. Many judges’ high subjective thresholds on T really demand a five minute investment.
2AR:
Good.
You need to take what the neg gives you though. In other words, don’t just look at where the clash is. See what arguments they’re conceding – any major concessions should be a centerpiece of the 2AR.
Examples: He doesn’t cover states theory, which potentially relates to T.
Also, he's dropping CTBT turns.
Ideally, this speech should dispense with the substantive debate in a minute or two, then make some cross-apps, then put T on the bottom for ~3:30 of coverage.
Aff: Mindy/Daimyr vs. Neg: Katzoff/Herman
Antonucci
1ac: good clarity. When I listen carefully, I can distinguish every word, which is my basic litmus test.
1AC CX: 1. Ask short questions with a minimum of introduction. Your elaborate prefaces don’t help you.
2. Argue don't ask. You want to score points in the C-X, not achieve clarification. You work your way toward an argument, but it's a little slow and tentative.
3. Remember, when explaining part of the immigrant's symbolic status, you need to refer to their status as OUTSIDERS. Our treatment of immigrants really determine our stand toward the Other.
1nc: This T violation, while clearly the product of a razor sharp mind, demands careful highlighting if it’s to be at all strategic. This runs over a minute.
You should be faster. Aim to up your rate of delivery by at least 25 words a minute using the spreeder.
Your voice wavers on the last word, in a way that denotes a lack of confidence. Debaters must project the impression that they expect to win. If you don’t feel naturally confident, you should probably fake it. It’s a function of vocal technique; if you waver, trail off, or using rising intonation to make sentences into question, you essentially say that you don’t expect to win. That rapidly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Don't transition between cards with "and". Transitions ideally employ very short pauses, instead of "uh" or "um."
CX: I'm not totally sure what you're driving at. If you're aiming to debate the theoretical problems with the state CP, I'd engage the unprecedented nature of this action. Also, the CP involves simultaneous and uniform state action, but it doesn't mandate cooperation.
Also, you should likely ask about the status of the CP.
2ac: Use immigration to K T - I've seen you do this before, and you should always do some of your best moves. Immigration issues are uniquely conducive to Kritiks of topicality, because attempts to carefully circumscribe the language to prevent unlimited meaning are a pretty tight analogy to English-only xenophobia.
Good indicts on their case evidence – try to place these indicts in the context of a comparison. In other words, don’t just say their ev is bad; quickly cite better ev as well.
Efficiency: you are eloquent. In many places, though, you should reserve some of this eloquence for the 2AR. Case is a good example – the quick application of evidence here could save you a lot of time. It’s unlikely they’ll go for their case defense, and, if they do, I think you have the ability to do a lot of extrapolating in the 2AR.
2NC: Don’t say “scratch that” if you feel that your argument is inadequate. It creates a lot of confusion. Save the phrase “scratch that” for strategically problematic arguments. If you read politics links the wrong way, you want to scratch them.
Good job on T. Try to make the impacts more specific. A general “limit” argument isn’t that compelling; you should instead delineate what would actually happen in this instance. You’d be forced to debate health care, which is an enormous topic in and of itself.
You should start the disad by explaining why it outweighs the case.
You gravitate away from the line by line in favor of just reading cards. It's best for you to stick to the line by line, and reference their arguments more carefully.
1NR:
1nr: As a block, y’all take too much. The real tradeoff here comes in impact comparison. I think the 2NC emphasis on case defense isn't that good.
Don’t apologize! Debate means never having to say you’re sorry. This fits in with my earlier comments about confidence. You are debating well – you just need to communicate that you believe you’re debating well.
This stylistic modification alone will produce 1-3 expected wins per tournament.
1AR:
Well done.
T’s their best offense, by far. The 2NR clearly wants to go for this issue. When you can predict their best 2NR, react by dumping time and arguments from other flows there. Look for theoretical cross-applications – issues that might either interact with T or provide you with an additional out.
2NR:
A cardinal rule of debate:
YOU MUST CHOOSE. Debate is, in large part, about choice. The 2NR has issue choice – the 2AR has argument choice. Exercise this choice! In this instance, this means that you should spend all five minutes going for T and locking it down, instead of wasting two minutes on a substantive debate that you certainly cannot win.
You’re doing a good job on T, too. You just needed more time for impact comparison and explanation. Many judges’ high subjective thresholds on T really demand a five minute investment.
2AR:
Good.
You need to take what the neg gives you though. In other words, don’t just look at where the clash is. See what arguments they’re conceding – any major concessions should be a centerpiece of the 2AR.
Examples: He doesn’t cover states theory, which potentially relates to T.
Also, he's dropping CTBT turns.
Ideally, this speech should dispense with the substantive debate in a minute or two, then make some cross-apps, then put T on the bottom for ~3:30 of coverage.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Georgetown Debate Practice Round: Kirshon/Bernick Aff v. Thomas/Mittal Neg
1a: Kirshon
2a: Bernick
1n: Thomas
2n: Mittal
1ac: Great clarity and spacing. I can understand every word, which is the litmus test for clarity.
Substantively, I’d consider axing this disease advantage entirely. It doesn’t get you very far strategically – the internal link probably can’t survive a cross-ex, whereas you open yourself up to tactically nasty “intersection” critiques of disease and immigration (we can represent immigration and can represent disease, but the two sets of fears together is a politically volatile combination.
That’s especially true given the dubious quality of the immigration impact. Put simply, the juice is just not worth the squeeze.
Bearden – not my favorite impact for economy.
I’d consider reading qualifications in the 1ac. While this is a controversial proposition, I feel that the process can at least get mileage for the affirmative. I’ll be posting some of my own thoughts on that discussion shortly.
1AC CX: EFFICIENCY! EFFICIENCY! EFFICIENCY! These questions last a really long time and involve multiple subordinate clauses. The 1A should respond to this meandering first question with “what?”
There’s a factual dispute over whether the states can deficit spend. While there’s some variation, they generally can’t.
1NC: Your clarity is good, although some overenunciation drills certainly wouldn’t hurt. I think your transitions between inssues follow the correct template – [short pause – name of new issue – short pause].
You bounce up and down in a strange way. You put your head down – literally – into evidence, creating the impression that you’re about to literally dive into your laptop. While that would be a cool Matrix-y trick if you could actually pull it off, it really only serves to muffle your voice. Work on maintaining some physical distance from your blocks.
You need more net benefits to the states CP, like a spending disad. A diverse 1NC should have at least 3 viable win strats, and I don’t think that [status quo+DA] seems viable in this case.
2AC: Good. Faster. Really. You have a great 2AC, but it’s at about 2/3 or the necessary speed. We’ll work on this outside lab, using some electronic tools. I could have some additional advice, but I want to keep a focus on what we can improve.
2AC C-X: Weird quiz bowl effect here. You start off with this weird question about number of pieces of pizza, or like a train leaving the station at 60 mph or something. In general, I think you can skip the clever analogies in C-X – they’re less illustrative than you think. Just ask your questiona s clearly as possible.
2NC: You allocate a bunch of time to disease defense. I don’t see how this fits into a winning 2NR. You’re dropping three out of four advantages, and they all have extinction level impacts. You’re thus compelled to go for the counterplan. There’s nothing about the disease advantage that’s uniquely insulated from states solvency; health care sector collapse is likely more relevant in a states 2NR. While you’re decent on this advantage on a micro level, I question your macro vision here.
They don’t have a lot of defense on T. I don’t see a great offensive reason to prefer their interpretation. I don’t think that you make enough explicit reference to this, though. It’s mentioned, but it deserves more “airplay” – their lack of offense bears mention in the overview, and potentially on some other places in the debate as well.
Permute this broad interpretation! Social services should be distinguished from BOTH highway spending AND primary care.
2NC CX: Efficiency. Time allocation. You make about 3 arguments in this C-x> Look at JPs cross-x of Nick again; he makes about 6 arguments, which seems ideal, by controlling the pacing and knowing precisely what he wants to extract before moving on.
1NR: Narrow your focus. This 1NR should be all CTBT all the time – you initially declare that you’re going for immigration. You don’t get to it. There are turns on it. This is problematic. It seems, upon further postround discussion, that these turns might just refer back to the case impacts. At a minimum, however, this is a huge perceptual gaffe.
Your overview needs to be clearer. Don’t read overviews, including impact comparison overviews, as if they are cards. It defeats the purpose. You need to look up from the laptop periodically, and also use slight pauses between different components of the overview to effectively chunk information.
1AR: 1. Avoid stand up 1ARs, especially when you aren’t pressed for prep. I understand that you want to create an immediate impression of studliness. Really, though, that extra time checking, thinking, and looking for relationships between arguments is ultimately far more valuable than a minor style point.
2. I’d make an argument for putting T at the bottom. You aren’t particularly top heavy, and the block led me to believe that the 2NR really wants to go for T. It’s their best argument. Putting it at the bottom lets you dump the most time there, and also skews 2NR prep.
3. Kick disease. Come on. These 20 seconds are better spent on T. If it’s case v. disad, you’re going to win, and, as I mentioned previously, disease isn’t especially insulated from states. You’re being reactive here.
4. Try to relate seemingly distinct theory debates to your advantage. If states limits the topic, then there’s no impact to T, setting up a potentially useful 2AR cross-app. The 2AR actually does this, but it’s too new because you didn’t set him in the 1AR.
2NR: You are good on your issue. You need some more rhetorical power, though. Specifically, you open with “um um” and close with “so…yeah.” Starting and finishing strong is crucial to conveying confidence.
I also want a limits endpoint – a concrete impact. Why will their interpretation make the topic terrible? What is the bogeyman or reductio ad absurdum? Compelling last rebuttals on T or theory ground their abstractions in concrete examples of how terrible their opponents’ interpretation will make debate.
I think you need to impact extra-T better because you’re on the wrong side of the link debate. Your definition establishes that there are some medical social services; some portion of the aff would affect these, presumably, even if you severed the non-topical portions.
2AR: I think you’re a bit too talky and a bit slow. I’m often loath to give this advice, because I think your 2AR is GOOD and I also understand that the round’s pretty narrow in scope. I agree with your basic instinct to sit on a few arguments and paragraph; I just think you need to tighten up the pacing just a touch.
Does this ""no med soc services"" come from the 1AR? Either way, you should refer to the 1AR at more points in order to avoid the appearance of newness." A few explicit references or quotes allow you to justify some ambitious extrapolations. Most judges have trouble tracking down new 2AR responses, but T 2ARs – which often extrapolate 5 minutes of analysis from 45 seconds of 1AR extension – are often held to a higher standard.
Deeper discussion of Extra-T. This seems like a really easy way out.
Excellent early debate! Keep up the good work, all.
2a: Bernick
1n: Thomas
2n: Mittal
1ac: Great clarity and spacing. I can understand every word, which is the litmus test for clarity.
Substantively, I’d consider axing this disease advantage entirely. It doesn’t get you very far strategically – the internal link probably can’t survive a cross-ex, whereas you open yourself up to tactically nasty “intersection” critiques of disease and immigration (we can represent immigration and can represent disease, but the two sets of fears together is a politically volatile combination.
That’s especially true given the dubious quality of the immigration impact. Put simply, the juice is just not worth the squeeze.
Bearden – not my favorite impact for economy.
I’d consider reading qualifications in the 1ac. While this is a controversial proposition, I feel that the process can at least get mileage for the affirmative. I’ll be posting some of my own thoughts on that discussion shortly.
1AC CX: EFFICIENCY! EFFICIENCY! EFFICIENCY! These questions last a really long time and involve multiple subordinate clauses. The 1A should respond to this meandering first question with “what?”
There’s a factual dispute over whether the states can deficit spend. While there’s some variation, they generally can’t.
1NC: Your clarity is good, although some overenunciation drills certainly wouldn’t hurt. I think your transitions between inssues follow the correct template – [short pause – name of new issue – short pause].
You bounce up and down in a strange way. You put your head down – literally – into evidence, creating the impression that you’re about to literally dive into your laptop. While that would be a cool Matrix-y trick if you could actually pull it off, it really only serves to muffle your voice. Work on maintaining some physical distance from your blocks.
You need more net benefits to the states CP, like a spending disad. A diverse 1NC should have at least 3 viable win strats, and I don’t think that [status quo+DA] seems viable in this case.
2AC: Good. Faster. Really. You have a great 2AC, but it’s at about 2/3 or the necessary speed. We’ll work on this outside lab, using some electronic tools. I could have some additional advice, but I want to keep a focus on what we can improve.
2AC C-X: Weird quiz bowl effect here. You start off with this weird question about number of pieces of pizza, or like a train leaving the station at 60 mph or something. In general, I think you can skip the clever analogies in C-X – they’re less illustrative than you think. Just ask your questiona s clearly as possible.
2NC: You allocate a bunch of time to disease defense. I don’t see how this fits into a winning 2NR. You’re dropping three out of four advantages, and they all have extinction level impacts. You’re thus compelled to go for the counterplan. There’s nothing about the disease advantage that’s uniquely insulated from states solvency; health care sector collapse is likely more relevant in a states 2NR. While you’re decent on this advantage on a micro level, I question your macro vision here.
They don’t have a lot of defense on T. I don’t see a great offensive reason to prefer their interpretation. I don’t think that you make enough explicit reference to this, though. It’s mentioned, but it deserves more “airplay” – their lack of offense bears mention in the overview, and potentially on some other places in the debate as well.
Permute this broad interpretation! Social services should be distinguished from BOTH highway spending AND primary care.
2NC CX: Efficiency. Time allocation. You make about 3 arguments in this C-x> Look at JPs cross-x of Nick again; he makes about 6 arguments, which seems ideal, by controlling the pacing and knowing precisely what he wants to extract before moving on.
1NR: Narrow your focus. This 1NR should be all CTBT all the time – you initially declare that you’re going for immigration. You don’t get to it. There are turns on it. This is problematic. It seems, upon further postround discussion, that these turns might just refer back to the case impacts. At a minimum, however, this is a huge perceptual gaffe.
Your overview needs to be clearer. Don’t read overviews, including impact comparison overviews, as if they are cards. It defeats the purpose. You need to look up from the laptop periodically, and also use slight pauses between different components of the overview to effectively chunk information.
1AR: 1. Avoid stand up 1ARs, especially when you aren’t pressed for prep. I understand that you want to create an immediate impression of studliness. Really, though, that extra time checking, thinking, and looking for relationships between arguments is ultimately far more valuable than a minor style point.
2. I’d make an argument for putting T at the bottom. You aren’t particularly top heavy, and the block led me to believe that the 2NR really wants to go for T. It’s their best argument. Putting it at the bottom lets you dump the most time there, and also skews 2NR prep.
3. Kick disease. Come on. These 20 seconds are better spent on T. If it’s case v. disad, you’re going to win, and, as I mentioned previously, disease isn’t especially insulated from states. You’re being reactive here.
4. Try to relate seemingly distinct theory debates to your advantage. If states limits the topic, then there’s no impact to T, setting up a potentially useful 2AR cross-app. The 2AR actually does this, but it’s too new because you didn’t set him in the 1AR.
2NR: You are good on your issue. You need some more rhetorical power, though. Specifically, you open with “um um” and close with “so…yeah.” Starting and finishing strong is crucial to conveying confidence.
I also want a limits endpoint – a concrete impact. Why will their interpretation make the topic terrible? What is the bogeyman or reductio ad absurdum? Compelling last rebuttals on T or theory ground their abstractions in concrete examples of how terrible their opponents’ interpretation will make debate.
I think you need to impact extra-T better because you’re on the wrong side of the link debate. Your definition establishes that there are some medical social services; some portion of the aff would affect these, presumably, even if you severed the non-topical portions.
2AR: I think you’re a bit too talky and a bit slow. I’m often loath to give this advice, because I think your 2AR is GOOD and I also understand that the round’s pretty narrow in scope. I agree with your basic instinct to sit on a few arguments and paragraph; I just think you need to tighten up the pacing just a touch.
Does this ""no med soc services"" come from the 1AR? Either way, you should refer to the 1AR at more points in order to avoid the appearance of newness." A few explicit references or quotes allow you to justify some ambitious extrapolations. Most judges have trouble tracking down new 2AR responses, but T 2ARs – which often extrapolate 5 minutes of analysis from 45 seconds of 1AR extension – are often held to a higher standard.
Deeper discussion of Extra-T. This seems like a really easy way out.
Excellent early debate! Keep up the good work, all.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Emory HS: Round 3: CR Wash Aff v. Gulliver Prep Neg
Round 3: Cedar Rapids Washington v. Gulliver Prep
NEG: Gulliver Prep.
I really enjoyed this round; it confirmed my intuition that impact turn debates aren’t particularly strategic for the affirmative but make debates better by forcing clash. I consciously elected to award high points to reward intricate line by line clash that provides a useful contrast with robotically scripted and only approximately responsive rebuttals. Every debater in the room did at least one unusually smart thing, although no one was flawless.
CRWashington’s ahead on risk analysis. The 2NR neglects any comparison between the case and the disad at his peril. He escapes peril in this case, however, because there’s simply no appreciable solvency deficit to the feed-in tariff counterplan.
The affirmative assertions of a solvency deficit, generally don’t derive from evidence and have to compete with good, if underhighlighted, negative evidence. I strongly suspect that this Gipe evidence would be much better as one long card instead of several 1-2 line cards – you aren’t billing by the card here, folks. It’s good, though. It makes an explicit comparison between production tax credits and a feed-in tariff.
Paternalism and trust doctrine deficits receive the most airplay in the 2AR. However, I can’t isolate a particular piece of evidence which provides a unique (or, indeed, any) warrant for tying those concepts to a production tax credit. Washington’s evidence here provides a general link to economic self-determination, but no basis for comparison between these two mechanisms. Perhaps I’m missing something, but my reading of all the evidence leads me to believe that Gulliver really has the goods here. Washington solves many of the problems with the previously cyclical character of the production tax credit – but Gulliver’s cards incline me to believe that some of the perceptual problems can’t easily be addressed. It’s better to wipe the slate clean and start with a new mechanism entirely, given the potential sedimentation of negative investor perception. A feed-in tariff would also apparently better distribute resources within Native American communities as well, whereas production tax credits seem to accrue with the most privileged members of that community; only some have already built up enough capital to merit taxation.
This evidence evaluation compels me to two conclusions about the affirmative’s strategic choices. I’ll start from the premise that you sensed trouble here coming out of the 1NC.
First, the choice to straight impact turn in the 2AC was smart. Secondly, the choice to emphasize the case to the exclusion of deep development on the disad in the 2AR, while well executed, was suboptimal. I think you should have ditched the case vs. counterplan debate entirely. It’s served its function – you need to narrow this debate to a winnable point of offense, and the cards are more even on prolif than they are on the solvency deficit debate.
Time pressure resolves most of the impact turn debate on prolif. I don’t have a clear extension of this opaque prolif story in the 1AR. Gulliver doesn’t either. There’s even some internal controversy on this subject among the Wash debaters in the postround. Even if the argument’s in, I default to the specificity of their internal link – the Proliferation Security Initiative’s qualitatively different from the generic “proliferation control” presumed by CR Washington’s creaky old impact turns. Superior time allocation gives the 2NR space for substantive development on bounded rationality and the increased risk of accidents. I ultimately vote negative on risk of accidents outweighs the near-zero risk of a solvency deficit. Militarism might show some promise, but receives half a sentence of development as the timer expires. That explanatory gap compels me to default to the 2NR’s link explanation; proliferation probably increases militarism.
Good round overall. The crucial big-picture decisions come from the 2NR, when he intelligently elects to use the permutation to kick out of one impact turned disad (the 1AR enables this) and the 2AR, when she elects to devote the bulk of her speech to a solvency deficit on which she’s fighting at an evidentiary disadvantage.
NEG: Gulliver Prep.
I really enjoyed this round; it confirmed my intuition that impact turn debates aren’t particularly strategic for the affirmative but make debates better by forcing clash. I consciously elected to award high points to reward intricate line by line clash that provides a useful contrast with robotically scripted and only approximately responsive rebuttals. Every debater in the room did at least one unusually smart thing, although no one was flawless.
CRWashington’s ahead on risk analysis. The 2NR neglects any comparison between the case and the disad at his peril. He escapes peril in this case, however, because there’s simply no appreciable solvency deficit to the feed-in tariff counterplan.
The affirmative assertions of a solvency deficit, generally don’t derive from evidence and have to compete with good, if underhighlighted, negative evidence. I strongly suspect that this Gipe evidence would be much better as one long card instead of several 1-2 line cards – you aren’t billing by the card here, folks. It’s good, though. It makes an explicit comparison between production tax credits and a feed-in tariff.
Paternalism and trust doctrine deficits receive the most airplay in the 2AR. However, I can’t isolate a particular piece of evidence which provides a unique (or, indeed, any) warrant for tying those concepts to a production tax credit. Washington’s evidence here provides a general link to economic self-determination, but no basis for comparison between these two mechanisms. Perhaps I’m missing something, but my reading of all the evidence leads me to believe that Gulliver really has the goods here. Washington solves many of the problems with the previously cyclical character of the production tax credit – but Gulliver’s cards incline me to believe that some of the perceptual problems can’t easily be addressed. It’s better to wipe the slate clean and start with a new mechanism entirely, given the potential sedimentation of negative investor perception. A feed-in tariff would also apparently better distribute resources within Native American communities as well, whereas production tax credits seem to accrue with the most privileged members of that community; only some have already built up enough capital to merit taxation.
This evidence evaluation compels me to two conclusions about the affirmative’s strategic choices. I’ll start from the premise that you sensed trouble here coming out of the 1NC.
First, the choice to straight impact turn in the 2AC was smart. Secondly, the choice to emphasize the case to the exclusion of deep development on the disad in the 2AR, while well executed, was suboptimal. I think you should have ditched the case vs. counterplan debate entirely. It’s served its function – you need to narrow this debate to a winnable point of offense, and the cards are more even on prolif than they are on the solvency deficit debate.
Time pressure resolves most of the impact turn debate on prolif. I don’t have a clear extension of this opaque prolif story in the 1AR. Gulliver doesn’t either. There’s even some internal controversy on this subject among the Wash debaters in the postround. Even if the argument’s in, I default to the specificity of their internal link – the Proliferation Security Initiative’s qualitatively different from the generic “proliferation control” presumed by CR Washington’s creaky old impact turns. Superior time allocation gives the 2NR space for substantive development on bounded rationality and the increased risk of accidents. I ultimately vote negative on risk of accidents outweighs the near-zero risk of a solvency deficit. Militarism might show some promise, but receives half a sentence of development as the timer expires. That explanatory gap compels me to default to the 2NR’s link explanation; proliferation probably increases militarism.
Good round overall. The crucial big-picture decisions come from the 2NR, when he intelligently elects to use the permutation to kick out of one impact turned disad (the 1AR enables this) and the 2AR, when she elects to devote the bulk of her speech to a solvency deficit on which she’s fighting at an evidentiary disadvantage.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Emory HS: Round 5: Mountain Brook v. Whitney Young
Negative: Whitney Young.
I wish that the affirmative would have aggressively pursued some combination of “permutation do the counterplan” and “consultation counterplans shouldn’t be considered textually competitive because they make debate silly.” I will give the affirmative very strong presumption on these arguments. Unfortunately, the affirmative elects to go for other arguments, so I don’t really have the pretext I want to intervene against an argument I despise.
As it stands, the 2NR wins by virtue of superior risk analysis. The affirmative wins a good risk of “say no” and the negative wins an excellent to full risk of their net benefit. The 2NR explicitly accounts for this possibility, and devotes a crucial paragraph on top comparing the case and the net benefit. Last rebuttals often constitute a race to risk comparisons phrased as “even if”. The negatively clearly wins this race.
I don’t think his arguments are intrinsically superior, by any stretch of the imagination. Truthseeking would compel an affirmative ballot here in many circumstances – there’s a much better threshold to the “say no” disad than there is to the cooperation net benefit. Left to my own devices, I’d definitely default aff on the basis of superior defense and superior threshold. The relationship between a single consultation and the net benefit is much weaker than the relationship between a “say no” risk and the case advantages.
I’m not left to my own devices, however. The affirmative has all of the individual arguments in play to weave a compelling risk analysis story, but must put them together for me.
On the micro level:
SAY NO: This is a logical argument, and the affirmative wins a decent risk of it. It certainly gives me pause. The negative evidence doesn’t really support their position – it says that the EU wants to promote their own biofuels. That’s the affirmative warrant. They want to inhibit US development in order to promote their own because they perceive it as a zero-sum situation.
If I assign the affirmative full weight of this argument, the gap in risk analysis is probably irrelevant (although I’d still pause, because there’s no subline on why EU rejection might compromise the internal net benefit.) I refrain from assigning anything above a B- (moderate-high) risk, though, for two reasons.
1. The affirmative doesn’t really articulate my objection to the negative evidence on this point. You do point out that it isn’t very good, and you’re right. You don’t, however, explain why it’s a better affirmative card than your cards.
2. This matters because your internal link to this – Perry – isn’t much better. I think you have a more logical story, but your evidentiary support fails epically. It discusses an instance in which Britain refused an EU attempt to regulate British drilling for gas and oil in the North Sea. This evidence is just entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand, and you’d be better off issuing an analytic on this point and keeping Perry out of my hands entirely.
This deficit’s particularly damaging because the 2NR has a cogent story about how Britain wants to reduce greenhouse gases, so will accept the aff as a good global citizen. The 2AR’s only answer is that the negative has no cards. You are correct, but neither do you – it’s very difficult to thus make clean risk assignments when everyone relies on atrocious cards.
PERMUTATION:
The internal net benefit is a disad to this perm. The Haass evidence clearly distinguishes between binding and non-binding consultation. The 2NR’s especially cogent here, incorporating lines of analysis from the evidence directly into his speech.
I could easily view this permutation as a defensive argument against the net benefit, which would in turn help support macro weighing arguments. The permutation doesn’t solve relations as well as the counterplan, but it’s better than the status quo. That furthers weakens the internal link between the counterplan and the net benefit, so the risk of the “say no” disad is comparatively much higher. I don’t hear anything about this in the 2AR, though.
TAIWAN INTERNAL LINK AND EMBARGO:
The negative does have an independent terrorism scenario which goes largely neglected. 2NR risk analysis, however, revolves around the China scenario, and I’d likely vote affirmative if left to my personal instincts on macro evaluation, so I’m compelled to engage here.
As with the “say no” debate, the affirmative has a comprehensible (if underarticulated) scenario, but they’re doomed by the quality of their evidence. This embargo internal link doesn’t draw any causative connection between relations and the embargo. It does say that we’ve objected to the European stance before, but there isn’t anything approaching either a predictive claim or even a general assessment of a relationship – it’s simply a description of an individual instance. 2AR storytelling here would be adequate for a good card, but it’s wholly inadequate for an argument with near-zero carded support.
I do think that the negative evidence about managing conflicts is good enough, though. It makes general but predictive claims about the importance of our relations for managing all possible flashpoints with China. Taiwan’s certainly one of those flashpoints, even if the internal link doesn’t mention it by name. I’d be more compelled by the affirmative’s internal link attack if it were coupled with at least some mention of other factors that might overwhelm, such as purely internal nationalist dynamics on both sides of the Strait.
Overall, the aff chips away at the risk of the net benefit and gathers a good risk of their own case as offense. They don’t win one argument so utterly decisively, though, that I’d discount superior negative macro evaluation.
Some individual speech comments:
1AC: Good 1AC, you are crystal clear. Substantively, I wonder if it’s a great idea to intersect directly with the college topic. I always feel that’s a slightly dangerous move that takes control over argument development out of your hands.
1AC CX: I think this goes well for the negative. I hope that these points make it into the speeches as well – if this comes down to case vs. politics, say, I think you’ve made a lot of strides here. If you’re planning to go for Heidegger, this is all meaningless. (Note: I wrote this during the speech, but it was eerily prophetic. You were, in fact, going for the CP or Heidegger, rendering this whole CX an exercise in futility. That’s frustrating.)
2NC – You are nearly incomprehensible. You are reading blocks of analysis at card speed. When you go for Heidegger and consultation, however, the debate’s going to revolve around fairly minute theoretical distinctions. You should have replicated your 2AR pacing.
I think you got lucky. If they went for “consult illegitimate” or “permutation - do the counterplan” I think this 2NC would have hosed you. I wouldn’t have flowed half of your answers, and I’d give the 2AR an enormous amount of leeway on new theory as a result.
1NR – Why do you get to read a slew of new defense in the 1nr? Am I missing something? I was under the impression that teams generally introduce all of their arguments in constructives, reserving the rebuttals for argument development.
I know that these comments primarily rail on the negative – but as I vote negative, I think that makes sense. The affirmative can (I hope) extract most of my advice from an RFD that doesn’t go their way.
Good debate!
I wish that the affirmative would have aggressively pursued some combination of “permutation do the counterplan” and “consultation counterplans shouldn’t be considered textually competitive because they make debate silly.” I will give the affirmative very strong presumption on these arguments. Unfortunately, the affirmative elects to go for other arguments, so I don’t really have the pretext I want to intervene against an argument I despise.
As it stands, the 2NR wins by virtue of superior risk analysis. The affirmative wins a good risk of “say no” and the negative wins an excellent to full risk of their net benefit. The 2NR explicitly accounts for this possibility, and devotes a crucial paragraph on top comparing the case and the net benefit. Last rebuttals often constitute a race to risk comparisons phrased as “even if”. The negatively clearly wins this race.
I don’t think his arguments are intrinsically superior, by any stretch of the imagination. Truthseeking would compel an affirmative ballot here in many circumstances – there’s a much better threshold to the “say no” disad than there is to the cooperation net benefit. Left to my own devices, I’d definitely default aff on the basis of superior defense and superior threshold. The relationship between a single consultation and the net benefit is much weaker than the relationship between a “say no” risk and the case advantages.
I’m not left to my own devices, however. The affirmative has all of the individual arguments in play to weave a compelling risk analysis story, but must put them together for me.
On the micro level:
SAY NO: This is a logical argument, and the affirmative wins a decent risk of it. It certainly gives me pause. The negative evidence doesn’t really support their position – it says that the EU wants to promote their own biofuels. That’s the affirmative warrant. They want to inhibit US development in order to promote their own because they perceive it as a zero-sum situation.
If I assign the affirmative full weight of this argument, the gap in risk analysis is probably irrelevant (although I’d still pause, because there’s no subline on why EU rejection might compromise the internal net benefit.) I refrain from assigning anything above a B- (moderate-high) risk, though, for two reasons.
1. The affirmative doesn’t really articulate my objection to the negative evidence on this point. You do point out that it isn’t very good, and you’re right. You don’t, however, explain why it’s a better affirmative card than your cards.
2. This matters because your internal link to this – Perry – isn’t much better. I think you have a more logical story, but your evidentiary support fails epically. It discusses an instance in which Britain refused an EU attempt to regulate British drilling for gas and oil in the North Sea. This evidence is just entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand, and you’d be better off issuing an analytic on this point and keeping Perry out of my hands entirely.
This deficit’s particularly damaging because the 2NR has a cogent story about how Britain wants to reduce greenhouse gases, so will accept the aff as a good global citizen. The 2AR’s only answer is that the negative has no cards. You are correct, but neither do you – it’s very difficult to thus make clean risk assignments when everyone relies on atrocious cards.
PERMUTATION:
The internal net benefit is a disad to this perm. The Haass evidence clearly distinguishes between binding and non-binding consultation. The 2NR’s especially cogent here, incorporating lines of analysis from the evidence directly into his speech.
I could easily view this permutation as a defensive argument against the net benefit, which would in turn help support macro weighing arguments. The permutation doesn’t solve relations as well as the counterplan, but it’s better than the status quo. That furthers weakens the internal link between the counterplan and the net benefit, so the risk of the “say no” disad is comparatively much higher. I don’t hear anything about this in the 2AR, though.
TAIWAN INTERNAL LINK AND EMBARGO:
The negative does have an independent terrorism scenario which goes largely neglected. 2NR risk analysis, however, revolves around the China scenario, and I’d likely vote affirmative if left to my personal instincts on macro evaluation, so I’m compelled to engage here.
As with the “say no” debate, the affirmative has a comprehensible (if underarticulated) scenario, but they’re doomed by the quality of their evidence. This embargo internal link doesn’t draw any causative connection between relations and the embargo. It does say that we’ve objected to the European stance before, but there isn’t anything approaching either a predictive claim or even a general assessment of a relationship – it’s simply a description of an individual instance. 2AR storytelling here would be adequate for a good card, but it’s wholly inadequate for an argument with near-zero carded support.
I do think that the negative evidence about managing conflicts is good enough, though. It makes general but predictive claims about the importance of our relations for managing all possible flashpoints with China. Taiwan’s certainly one of those flashpoints, even if the internal link doesn’t mention it by name. I’d be more compelled by the affirmative’s internal link attack if it were coupled with at least some mention of other factors that might overwhelm, such as purely internal nationalist dynamics on both sides of the Strait.
Overall, the aff chips away at the risk of the net benefit and gathers a good risk of their own case as offense. They don’t win one argument so utterly decisively, though, that I’d discount superior negative macro evaluation.
Some individual speech comments:
1AC: Good 1AC, you are crystal clear. Substantively, I wonder if it’s a great idea to intersect directly with the college topic. I always feel that’s a slightly dangerous move that takes control over argument development out of your hands.
1AC CX: I think this goes well for the negative. I hope that these points make it into the speeches as well – if this comes down to case vs. politics, say, I think you’ve made a lot of strides here. If you’re planning to go for Heidegger, this is all meaningless. (Note: I wrote this during the speech, but it was eerily prophetic. You were, in fact, going for the CP or Heidegger, rendering this whole CX an exercise in futility. That’s frustrating.)
2NC – You are nearly incomprehensible. You are reading blocks of analysis at card speed. When you go for Heidegger and consultation, however, the debate’s going to revolve around fairly minute theoretical distinctions. You should have replicated your 2AR pacing.
I think you got lucky. If they went for “consult illegitimate” or “permutation - do the counterplan” I think this 2NC would have hosed you. I wouldn’t have flowed half of your answers, and I’d give the 2AR an enormous amount of leeway on new theory as a result.
1NR – Why do you get to read a slew of new defense in the 1nr? Am I missing something? I was under the impression that teams generally introduce all of their arguments in constructives, reserving the rebuttals for argument development.
I know that these comments primarily rail on the negative – but as I vote negative, I think that makes sense. The affirmative can (I hope) extract most of my advice from an RFD that doesn’t go their way.
Good debate!
EMORY HS Tournament Round 2: BRONX v. UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE
EMORY HS Tournament Round 2: BRONX v. UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE
Negative: Bronx.
RFD: Politics outweighs the case.
This risk assignation appears clean and technical.
2AR risk analysis, while compelling, is shamelessly new. The 1AR drops the block’s risk comparison. This problem’s compounded by an unresponsive 2AR. For example, the 2AR explains the importance of historical analysis in evaluation of risk, which we’ve never heard before in this debate, while ignoring the 2NR’s moral imperative claim. The 2AR advances very intelligent risk analysis, but it’s just utterly new.
The affirmative can try several strategies avoid this deep hole:
a. Prevention – engage risk analysis early and often. Make sure that the 1AR sketches the arguments that the 2AR needs.
b. Deception – even if the 2AR is new, try to incorporate some actual argument from the 1AR into the new arguments, so they sound old. It’s difficult to ferret out every sub-line of analysis. “Embedded clash,” by minimizing signposting, often enhances rebuttalists’ latitude to make new arguments. You need some process of reference – a 50/50 old/new ratio works much, much better than /100.
c. Engagement – issue at least some justification for new risk analysis. Standard rationalizations might include:
i. Last rebuttals exist to issue new risk analysis – otherwise, they’d just be repetition. Moving that process into the constructives actually damages argument development by accelerating the negative’s block advantage.
ii. The 2NR issues some new risk analysis, which demands new answers on my part – they opened the door. (This is generally more effective than c.i.)
iii. Here’s our risk analysis that’s built into the 1AC – that isn’t really new because the aff doesn’t ever go away.
I think you might do that with the survivability of the toothfish? I don’t get it, though. Toothfish will survive a nuclear war, sure. I don’t think that they’ll re-evolve into humans…is there a reason that I should discount a more likely extinction scenario from Bronx, as long as I know that the biosphere will still have some toothfish around? This isn’t an intuitively appealing position, so it would need to be fleshed out over 3-4 sentences for me to get on board to wherever you want this toothfish train to go.
The aff doesn’t mitigate the disad at all on the micro level either. Risk analysis might not be enough for Bronx if USN won some hot defense. That’s not happening here. The 2AR argues that the aff doesn’t’ affect health care lobbies, which overwhelm. That seems trivial. Some external factors may influence this debate, but they aren’t entirely determinative. The card you reference certainly doesn’t preclude a substantial or outcome-determinative role for political capital. The aff only needs to affect one factor to determine the overall outcome of the debate, despite a plethora of possible alternate causations. I didn’t take enough notes on your uniqueness evidence, but it was short and underexplained as time expired.
You may win a risk of this addon, but you just don’t win enough defense to overwhelm dropped risk comparison.
Comments:
POSTROUND: BRONX, OMG, you are the worst imaginable team in terms of watching the judge. You will both generally wander out of the round at the same time and immediately make several phone calls within minutes of the 2AR’s conclusion. I have seen you do this before, and you really need to stop. The phone calls smack of arrogance; it seems to imply that you’re so convinced you’re ahead that you can catch up on your social life. They’re also just distracting. More importantly, I call for cards over a few minutes, instead of immediately issuing all my card requests. Therefore, when you both leave, it slows down the whole process for no good reason. Just keep one person in the round to look at the judge and file evidence while the other person makes phone calls in the hall. You can flip for it?
Some incidental comments:
1AC: Faster
1AC C-X: The 1AC must be Scripture to you. You must know each piece of evidence. You frequently refer to “some card” – in one embarrassing sequence, neither affirmative speaker can identify a 1AC card by date or citation.
2AC: I know this is a minor pet peeve, but “literally” means “the opposite of metaphorically,” as opposed to “very.”
Example: “My evidence is literally on fire.”
means
“My evidence is actually burning and requires a fire extinguisher.”
as opposed to
“My evidence is so awesome!”
You’ve taken to using “literally” as a filler word, producing several cringeworthy sequences in which you reverse its meaning.
Negative: Bronx.
RFD: Politics outweighs the case.
This risk assignation appears clean and technical.
2AR risk analysis, while compelling, is shamelessly new. The 1AR drops the block’s risk comparison. This problem’s compounded by an unresponsive 2AR. For example, the 2AR explains the importance of historical analysis in evaluation of risk, which we’ve never heard before in this debate, while ignoring the 2NR’s moral imperative claim. The 2AR advances very intelligent risk analysis, but it’s just utterly new.
The affirmative can try several strategies avoid this deep hole:
a. Prevention – engage risk analysis early and often. Make sure that the 1AR sketches the arguments that the 2AR needs.
b. Deception – even if the 2AR is new, try to incorporate some actual argument from the 1AR into the new arguments, so they sound old. It’s difficult to ferret out every sub-line of analysis. “Embedded clash,” by minimizing signposting, often enhances rebuttalists’ latitude to make new arguments. You need some process of reference – a 50/50 old/new ratio works much, much better than /100.
c. Engagement – issue at least some justification for new risk analysis. Standard rationalizations might include:
i. Last rebuttals exist to issue new risk analysis – otherwise, they’d just be repetition. Moving that process into the constructives actually damages argument development by accelerating the negative’s block advantage.
ii. The 2NR issues some new risk analysis, which demands new answers on my part – they opened the door. (This is generally more effective than c.i.)
iii. Here’s our risk analysis that’s built into the 1AC – that isn’t really new because the aff doesn’t ever go away.
I think you might do that with the survivability of the toothfish? I don’t get it, though. Toothfish will survive a nuclear war, sure. I don’t think that they’ll re-evolve into humans…is there a reason that I should discount a more likely extinction scenario from Bronx, as long as I know that the biosphere will still have some toothfish around? This isn’t an intuitively appealing position, so it would need to be fleshed out over 3-4 sentences for me to get on board to wherever you want this toothfish train to go.
The aff doesn’t mitigate the disad at all on the micro level either. Risk analysis might not be enough for Bronx if USN won some hot defense. That’s not happening here. The 2AR argues that the aff doesn’t’ affect health care lobbies, which overwhelm. That seems trivial. Some external factors may influence this debate, but they aren’t entirely determinative. The card you reference certainly doesn’t preclude a substantial or outcome-determinative role for political capital. The aff only needs to affect one factor to determine the overall outcome of the debate, despite a plethora of possible alternate causations. I didn’t take enough notes on your uniqueness evidence, but it was short and underexplained as time expired.
You may win a risk of this addon, but you just don’t win enough defense to overwhelm dropped risk comparison.
Comments:
POSTROUND: BRONX, OMG, you are the worst imaginable team in terms of watching the judge. You will both generally wander out of the round at the same time and immediately make several phone calls within minutes of the 2AR’s conclusion. I have seen you do this before, and you really need to stop. The phone calls smack of arrogance; it seems to imply that you’re so convinced you’re ahead that you can catch up on your social life. They’re also just distracting. More importantly, I call for cards over a few minutes, instead of immediately issuing all my card requests. Therefore, when you both leave, it slows down the whole process for no good reason. Just keep one person in the round to look at the judge and file evidence while the other person makes phone calls in the hall. You can flip for it?
Some incidental comments:
1AC: Faster
1AC C-X: The 1AC must be Scripture to you. You must know each piece of evidence. You frequently refer to “some card” – in one embarrassing sequence, neither affirmative speaker can identify a 1AC card by date or citation.
2AC: I know this is a minor pet peeve, but “literally” means “the opposite of metaphorically,” as opposed to “very.”
Example: “My evidence is literally on fire.”
means
“My evidence is actually burning and requires a fire extinguisher.”
as opposed to
“My evidence is so awesome!”
You’ve taken to using “literally” as a filler word, producing several cringeworthy sequences in which you reverse its meaning.
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