Wake Up From the Dream

Research Area: Hate Crimes

2006-09-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

Granted, this is very sketch and leaves much up to you, but it's such a great start.

In my Capital Punishment Litigation course, were were talking about hate crimes when my professor said the following.

Hate crime statutes have resulted in more prosecutions of colored people who have harmed white people! Those who are in power always get to decide what is hate or not. Frequently, the hate crime statutes have been applied as courts interpret the violence as "hated motivated."

Congresspeople don’t include gay and lesbians in these statutes because “we hate them!” This actually victimizes them more because this points out that we DO hate them and they don't deserve to be in the statute at all. Now there is a movement in state legislatures to remove Arab people from those statutes ... violence against them is legitimate because we hate them!

Responding to "Any Risk"

2006-07-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

There is a compelling critique of the familiar "any risk of Disad Z means you vote for us" argument, located in the bowels of the new Ron Suskind book "The One Percent Doctrine." Essentially, the book details the Cheney argument that if there is even a 1% risk that terrorists have WMD, we have to act as if it's a certainty--because the impact of a terrorist WMD attack would be so disastrous.

Does this sound familiar? Now think where it led. Are you getting the idea?

Position: Third Parties Good

2006-06-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

People frequently make the argument in debate and life that your vote is "wasted" if you use it on a third-party. It makes sense because really, is the People's Movement for Tax Reform Party really going to get any elected positions? To combat this position people often argue, "well, they need my vote to raise money or to get on future ballots." While probably true that isn't a very convincing contention. I offer you an alternative.

The transaction costs of voting outweigh any potential benefits of casting a vote -- for anyone. Observe. To assess the expected utility of voting (R) we would multipily the likely benefit of having one's preferred candidate win (B) by the likelihood of the vote making a difference (P) and substract the time and effort it takes for someone to vote (C).

R = BP - C

R will almost always be negative because P is infitesimal in any sizeable voting district, even in an extremely close election. This is because an individual vote is outcome-determinative in a precise sense only if it actually swings the election to a particular candidate, which virtually never happens. No presidential election has even been decided by one vote. The probablity of your vote electing any candidate isn't appreciably greater than zero -- it doesn't matter if you vote for a major party or a third party.

Woah. I just blew your damn mind. So what does this mean exactly? Should you stop voting altogether? No and here's why.

Because the probablity that your vote will change the election is very nearly zero, one's utility of voting is maximized (and great enough to overcome the transasction costs) only if the psychic rewards felt from the act of voting itself outweigh the costs. What rewards are greater than knowing you voted for a candidate who stands for principles you really believe in?

BAM. Vote 3d party arguments win in life and debate.

Go Slow And Win; All-Offense in the MG

2006-03-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

The typical high-level parliamentary debate now look something like this.

After 20-25 minutes, the government and opposition teams return from their caves where they have been armed by their teammates and coaches with the weapons to conquer. The government has a plan text that was written, it seems, by an army of talented scientists and researchers; the opposition has used their magic lamp and all three wishes on an array of generic positions consuming many reams of paper. I think this is all excellent: it displays hard work and attention to detail and research, all of which I think are great.

The government says their case. There's less and less "resolutional analysis," which is good, because there is no point to doing this until you get into the topicality debate. (If you're going to define terms, you should be giving standards too; at least then you have some readymade counterstandards in the T debate. More on that another day.) The PMC is usually a pretty leisurely affair, and if it is quickly-spoken, it's just so the PMC can be four minutes long. Again, I have no problem with anything that has yet occurred.

The LOC announces the number of off-case positions. Average seems to be 3-4, but the numbers can get up as high as 6 or 7, depending on 1) the speed of the LOC, 2) what the panel will tolerate, 3) how many internal warrants are to be provided, etc. Then all of these positions are said, and then there is usually some case offense/defense (simple case turns, basic internal link attacks, whatever).

The MG is, of course, going to have to answer everythiing. Issue selection in debates starts in the block, basically, so the MG has no chance to "narrow." Forced to go for everything, she will make tons of arguments on every position, balancing offense and defense, and keeping time allocation basically the same as the LOC in a vain attempt to stop what happens next.

The MO stands up and extends (in keeping with advice given here previously) several defensive arguments on the worst positions and then goes exclusively for the best ones. Weak procedurals are gone; bad disads are gone; only strength is left. A disad that took two minutes to say and two minutes to answer is reduced to three seconds in the block ("extend their #7, the no-impact; we're not going for it") and then is never heard from again.

Using this, the MO wins an enormous time tradeoff and can cover in massive detail all of the MG responses on the good argument. In the context of that argument, onto which 5-6 minutes of analysis are placed to answer around 2 minutes of MG time, the gov looks lazy, slipshod, careless, uninformed. Slow. The LOR does some easy impact analysis and the PMR drowns in the sea of what has come before. This is how the best teams in the activity are currently winning debates.

So how do you compete? The dominant strategy is for the MG to just speed up to get more out there. By being faster than the other team, your 2 minutes can be worth more than the 5 minutes the MO will put out. But this isn't sustainable in the long term; competitive pressures will eventually make everyone of roughl equal speed, besides which, it's hard to go twice as fast as the other side at any rate.

Gov teams are understandably frustrated at this turn of events. The arguments in the LOC are frequently badly-warranted blip wars and yet judges who swear they never vote on that stuff pull the trigger on disads with "internal links" that are nothing but tags. Because the problem is, they were nothing but tags in the LOC, but the MO adds all the internal analysis. Sure, the PMR might be able to get away with answering it since it's new; but that's a losing game, since PMR time is so precious, and besides which many people will be tricked into believing the analysis had been present the entire time.

Now I will solve the problem for you.

The LOC has turned the game into one of "all offense." Like Doyle Brunson might debate, they have forced you into a decision for all your chips. While elegant case attacks and beautifully-crafted counterplans are nice when they happen, it's tough to force; victory via overwhelming force is a much surer way to victory, and that's what the LOC is attempting. But notice something. The only way the MOC/LOR can get their time tradeoff is if they have defense to extend to make the position go away.

The best MGs in debate should be pursuing the following strategy: the shorter the position is, the less likely you should be to put any defense at all on it. Not a non-unique, not a no-link, not a no-impact. There are two acceptable arguments to make on a blippy, unwarranted, piece-of-shit disad:

1) Turns; (or "net turns" like a non-unique + a turn)
2) "______ outweighs" (but ONLY if the blank that is outweighing has no LOC offense on it, like turns; case advantages that are uncontested or subject only to defense are acceptable. otherwise they can just concede this argument and go for the offense on the other position which you have said outweighs, which is what they will do if they are good)

You can't kick a position in this situation. "Kicking" a position requires first answering all the live offense after you've extended all the defense; but there's no defense to extend here, and every single answer is offense so "kicking" it is the same as "answering" it, which means no time tradeoff for the opposition.

We're not done yet.

The turns need to go in a specific place. Find the place in the disad that's the least well-warranted (this is frequently the internal link level) and start with an overview. "This argument came out with no warrants," you will say; "they simply assert that the growth of U.S. soft power generates U.S. hard power and then move on." Point out this means that you get to answer all the warrants new in the PMR if they add the warrants later and say it in a manner that makes it onto the flow. "My first argument: this internal link has no warrant, and if warrants are added in the MO, we will answer them new in the PMR." (This seems like defense but isn't; it will combine with your turns to still be a "net turn," in that they can't extend a "no warrant" in order to get out of the position.)

When this is done, turn the hell out of the argument. Keeping with the soft power->hard power internal link metaphor, you can:

1) Argue the internal link is actually the opposite of what will happen from the initial link. If they say that use of soft power (the link) causes an increase in hard power (the internal link), argue it's the other way around. Remember, because you picked the weakest point in the position, you shouldn't have to exert very much effort doing this. If you can think of great reasons, cool; but if your reasons are bad, it's not that bad, because they probably didn't have any reasons or alternatively their reasons were also bad.

2) Argue the plan will directly cause the opposite of the internal link. If the internal link is "the use of soft power generates hard power," argue the plan will directly cause a decrease in hard power. This is called a "parallel turn," for reasons that should make sense. They've articulated a two-step relationship between the plan and hard power; you articulate a one-step relationship in the opposite direction. Follow this up with an argument that even if there is some small relationship between plan and soft power and consequently hard power, the more direct relationship of "plan = decreased hard power" is a "net internal link turn," if you want to get that jargony about it.

3) Argue one of the other internal links or the initial link will do the same as #2. (If their first link wasn't "you use soft power," but instead "you cut budget deficits; U.S. financial security is key to soft power projection" then argue cutting budget deficits will lead to decreased hard power.) This is just like before and "parallel turns" the disad.

Now, you may be asking: how the hell am I going to have time for this? Easy, silly. You don't have to answer the link or the impacts or any of the uniqueness. Do this for as long as they spent on the position and then move on. If they spent 1.5 minutes on the whole disad, surely in 90 seconds you can put out a shitload of turns on the ONE internal link you're attacking. At fifteen seconds per turn, which is actually a really long time when you think about it, that's six turns on one position. At ten seconds, assuming some will be shorter and sorta blippy, that's nine turns!

The MO is now, in the parlance, fucked. If they concede even a single one of these arguments (and assuming nine turns on four positions each, that's 36 arguments--an awful lot of pressure) they will probably lose the debate, because all of these arguments operate independently from one another. Losing one is fatal and will cause you to lose the whole disad because the rest of the scenario is "clean"--the link, uniqueness, etc. is all undisputed, so all it needs is one internal link to operate. If there's seven turns on the internal link and the MO answers six very well but concedes or misunderstands the seventh, they will lose; that seventh argument, on its own, forges an independent scenario from link to impact such that conceding it is like conceding an entire disad.

If the MO drops even one, the PMR can extend it and win the whole position quite cleanly. If the MO's answers on one are bad, same. It's very tough to be in that situation. Best part is, you can put the opp in that position more easily if their arguments are short and unwarranted. Answer those new warrants in the PMR just like you said you would, and your answers are "gold" (right by default because, no second rebuttals).

Try this. You will like it.

Six Quick Tips For Persuasion

2006-02-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

How many ballots have you lost because "the other team was more persuasive?" What does persuasive mean? If you answered "one or more" and "I don't know," then this post is for you.

After my first oral argument concluded, I scribbled the following reasons on how to be more persuasive. They are all pretty easy fixes and I guarantee will give you more of that magical power.

1. Avoid speaking in first person: There is no reason to say "we think the government team should win because," or "it is our argument that Russia has nuclear weapons." Just say the argument. It's more persuasive if you say your arguments as an argument instead of something with a qualifer, "I believe it." This is a subtle change but it makes you all the more powerful as a speaker. This will also have the added bonus of giving you better word economy so you can fit in more arguments.

2. Make eye contact: This is essential to make the judge believe you. I never really understood why you make eye contact when you speak until I started watching other speakers. If someone didn't look at you when they said they loved you, would you believe them? (I should hope not). If someone has the guts to look at you when they speak you naturally believe them more.

3. Roadmap all the time: You should be doing a roadmap at the top of every speech AND at the top of every position. You may say, but "this is a waste of my time, I will be making those arguments anyway." However, telling a story is much more persuasive because at the end of the round, most judges will only remember those stories. They are going to hear exactly what you said in those roadmaps in their head and hopefully even write that as their RFD for you.

4. Speak with confidence: This seems like a no brainer but there is an easy way to do this. Only say things you are sure are true and speak with authority. If you are not sure something is true, then just don't say it! This means that everything you are saying you are positive about and that confidence will shine thru whether you try to or not. This is really important because judges don't know everything -- especially the facts or history neccessary to prove an argument. If you aren't convinced what you are saying is true (and it's really obvious to a listener), why do you think a judge would be?

5. Pre-empt the obvious answers: Premption is neccessary for strategy too (in another post) but it is also great to build credibility into your speech. If there is something that seems to completely negate your position, answer it before the argument is even made. This shows that you know there is another side but it's not important. Concede arguments when neccessary too. For example, if you run a political DA that says that Bush's popularity will decline (but currently it's really low), then you should say, yes, Bush's popularity is already low, but that just means that any more decline will be tragic (or whatever) when you first make the argument. It is much more persasusive to admit your weaknesses but overcome then rather than to pretend they don't exist.

6. Don't say clearly, obviously, etc.: If it's clear or obvious then you wouldn't need to say so, would you? You should build up the strength of your argument that the judge thinks it's clear you are winning. Again, this also is good for your word economy but it really makes you sound more persuasive when you don't have to result to such language to fill in where your argument is lacking.

Don't Leave Home Without It

2006-02-21T18:37:00.000-08:00

Winning the NPTE starts at home, moreso than any other tournament. Marie and I were at the tournament three times, and each time we refined our prep approach. Every year we did better, from not breaking, to 5th, to 1st. I will now tell you the research secrets.

There is a toolkit, a baseline set of arguments that you must never be caught without on any topic. Teams are more prepared for the NPTE, and you need to be able to sit down for any topic and begin preparing, instantly, with little discussion. Here are the elements of your toolkit. (in upcoming posts, I will detail more about what each part needs to have ready, but this is just an overview)

For each topic area, prepare the following.

1. A really good actor CP.

I'm looking through my NPTE folder from last year, and the one that jumps out at me is "OCC Counterplan," from the "Personal Finance" topic folder. That topic involved a lot of cases and literature about credit cards, bank lending rates, payday loans, and so forth. All of them had something in common: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had exclusive regulatory jurisdiction over them, pre-empting both states and other agencies of the federal government.

The idea here is that in every topic area, you should find an actor which is just the best actor for most/all cases on the topic. Maybe they have expertise. Maybe they have legal jurisdiction that's better than everyone else. Maybe there's some kind of net benefit to that actor gaining legitimacy or something. Who knows? The idea is, you want an actor you can wield like a broadsword. The other team is going to be great at debating their mandates--so you be better at debating the actor.

These need to be topic specific, with topic specific advantages and stuff. Don't just pull your old "SCOTUS CP" and think you're done. At a minimum, rewrite the net benefit to be about the topic, so you can claim to solve better in a more specific persuasive way or something.

2. Topic-specific politics scenarios.

For international topics, this means international political disads! If you don't have an Obasanjo disad ready for your Africa topic, you aren't done prepping. If you don't have a NASA Chief Cred DA ready for the space topic, maybe you should get on that! Do your research so that the politics impacts and internals are all "in the topic area," because it's better to have a Water Politics DA in a water debate because, first, the links are better; second, the impacts have a decent chance of turning case or being able to piggyback on their advantages or something.

These can often pair up with an actor CP or something.

3. Aff cases on, at minimum, both "directions" of the topic.

In general, you should have plenty of cases period. You need lots and lots that you like. But if, for example, the topic is about "intellectual property rights," whatever that means, you should have one really good aff expanding those rights and one aff contracting them. For a South America topic, you need a topic that engages the US more there, and one that engages us less; or maybe a case that repeals an existing program there, and a case that expands an existing program. Something like that.

This is imprecise, but the point is that you need to be able to "go either way," because NPTE topics are generally unidirectional (to their credit).

4. A conceptual critique that is topic-specific.

Don't just trot out your stupid statism or Marxism K and decide you're done. Find out what the major conceptual malfunctions in the topic are and then write critiques about them. Anyone who walked into NPTE last year with a critique of the term/concept "intellectual property" wasn't working hard enough, and anyone who walks in this year without similar critiques for all major topic areas isn't either.

The idea is that you need some concept that is badly misunderstood by almost all major policy actions in the area such that you can't discuss the topic for seven minutes without mentioning the concept critiqued. This is another thing you can be sure is in your holster every debate which will calm you and make you feel better in prep.

5. An exclusion CP for all the likely, popular affs on the topic.

On the South America topic last year, it seemed likely a Plan Colombia debate could occur. Many probably did, although I don't think we had any. The point is, you could see that debate coming a zillion miles away. If "American Indian Rights" is a topic this year, you can anticipate debating Yucca Mountain. And so forth. Figure out what the obvious affs are.

Then, write an exclusion CP for those. For Plan Colombia, we excluded certain little-known but helpful parts of the program (like school building money). The idea is, you want to be ready with a really nitpicky distinction you can debate so the aff is off their game. For bonus points, then change your affs to reflect this exclusion CP and immunize yourself against it.

6. A consult CP for relevant topic specific actors.

Last year, our semifinal round was won (for at least a couple of judges) on a garden variety "consult AU" counterplan. Figure out who the actors are in each topic and then write consultation counterplans for them. Figure out who has expertise or will be pissed if the US or UN or other world actors take actions without consulting them, then consult them. For the water topic last year, we had a cool "consult TVA" counterplan that we didn't get to run.

This is like an agent CP, but you have more flexibility--sometimes you want to consult people who can't implement on their own. As a bonus, you get auto-competition with consult CPs, so long as you don't lose to silly theory arguments. (Agent CPs frequently suffer from "cooperate" permutations of a sort.) Basically, you'll be better-armed than the other side to debate the specifics of your consultation agent, and to win the debate, they need to win offense of a sort: either that the consulted actor will say no (have reasons they won't), or that consulting them and having them say yes is actually bad.

7. Proto-topicality shells for terms in the topic you expect to come up ("terms of art").

Start with the words of the topic. (What's "Africa?") Then figure out other important words. (What's a "patent?" What's a "water right?") Then write great standards for these that you can explain quickly and persuasively, and then just leave the violation blank. You're good to go. Take advantage of the topic area knowledge and dig up real field-contextual definitions, and examples of where the term is used the way it is and how.

Make a LOT of hay in your standards about the function of topic areas being mooted if people play too fast and loose with terms.

8. And as many other affs as you have time to write or think about.

You can never have too many.

Next time: how to pre-prep in outrounds!

Debate Secrets: Beat the Pride

2006-02-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

But Icarus, in his foolish pride,
Rose up high to reach the sun.
Pride, they say always hath a fall,
And so it was, Icarus fell.

There are many great debaters who will never win nationals for one simple reason -- they are too prideful. I don't mean outside of the round (kettle: hey pot, you're black) -- but in the round when they make argument choices. Here are some examples of what I mean.

1) Playing Your Roles: Debaters must listen to their partners. The LO/MG should be willing to make argument that their partner wants in the round. Many debaters are too proud to run thier partner's arguments instead of making their own. This is ridiculous because it takes two to win. I was always willing to run Ian's argments, like the Obasanjo DA he handed me once, even though I did not even know how to pronounce that name (I kicked it in the LOR like a fool, but that is for another post). Sometimes, the MO will have better arguments than you and you should put your pride away and make them.

Additionally, very importanly, no matter how great the MO's argument ideas may be, if the LO does not run them, neither should the MO. When the MO runs new arguments in the second constructive, she might as well ask the judge to sign the ballot for the government right then.

2) Make arguments that you don't believe in: This does not mean arguments that you morally disagree with. I mean strategic arguments that you think are stupid. Once in a round I made the pathetic argument that "counterplan was not philosophically competitive" in one of the 20+ answers I put on the CP. The other team knew how stupid it was but somehow missed it on the flow. 2/3 of the panel voted for us on that argument. I was very embarrassed when people teased me later, but it worked! There is nothing shameful about covering your bases and putting out arguments that you know you could easily beat. I have argued that CPs must be non-topical (ridiculous) with a straight face. You shouldn't obviously make only crap arguments but you want to put as much on the flow as you can. Especially in light of reason #3.

3) Play on your opponents pride: A LOT of debaters hook on an argument that you've made and beat it to a pulp. They want to show off their powers like giving 30 reasons why they are topical (even though you never cared about topicality and frankly it was a stupid argument, see #2 above). When you know your opponent, you learn what things they will get hung up on. You make those arguments not because you think you will win them but you know your opponent will cling to them. Don't run arguments you know they will turn and win on, but feel free to run arguments you know are bad but your opponent loves to argue. Debaters spend a lot of time on the arguments they are comfortable with and can easily beat -- intead of spending their time in the places they are going to lose. Make a list of the arguments that your various opponents enjoy and make them. Does X team love to argue about a politics DA's uniqueness? Does Y team like to show off their T theory? Make these arguments because you never intended to win on them but because you will win the time skew.

4) Be willing to kick arguments: even ones you could win! This will give you a HUGE advantage in the time division. In the end of the round, the person that wins the most arguments doesn't neccessarily win the debate. The winner is the team that wins the RIGHT arguments. Therefore, as the MO/PMR, kick things that don't matter. I don't care if you could spend a few minutes on them to win that argument. If you don't think that the judge will vote on it or that it matters in the impact analysis, don't waste your time there. Plenty of teams are afraid to kick something because they don't want to admit that your opponent made some good arguments. Heck, maybe your opponent made shit arguments too but it will take you more time to answer. Bow out and win the debate elsewhere.

5) Adapt to your judge: You know your judge will vote on T like it's his job? But you think their case is topical? WHO CARES! Run what you know they are going to listen to. Your judge is old skool and hates Ks? Don't run a K even if they said your exact link text to your gender K. I remember a friend on the circuit who wouldn't stop complaining about how he smacked down his opponent on a complex procedural argument but his judge -- who had a reputation for hating procedural arguments -- didn't vote for it. He ran that argument only because he was motivated by his own pride. Every minute he spent beating his opponent on the argment was completely wasted.

I know of another debater who dropped a topicality argument in a deep NPDA outround on PURPOSE! Why? Because he knew that his judges weren't buying it (be careful when doing that unless you can read the judge well, more in another post). Was he a bad debater because he dropped a whole position or a great one because he put his pride away and did it for the ballot? He made it further than his opponent that year, I think that speaks for itself.

In conclusion, you have to decide what is most important to you. The pride of intellectually winning a debate round -- making only your own arguments, making only the smartest, best arguments, chasing arguments until you prove everyone (even your opponents!) that you are right, and debating to some "perfect" standard of debate despite the judges' desires -- or getting the ballot?

Impact Comparison

2006-02-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

Weighing and comparison of impacts is very easy but people ignore it all the time. It is impossible to graduate to high-level debate without doing this in every rebuttal and probably most constructives.

At the end of most debates, you will be winning some arguments and so will they. The job of the rebuttalists is to sort out which should come first and why. If the rebuttalists don't do it, the judge has to, and this is going to unavoidably result in intervention. I tell every team I judge to do this for me and almost none of them do; when only one team does it that team wins 100% of the time because who am I to wade in and sort through impacts when one of the teams is doing it for me?

Here are some common and easy-to-apply ways to weigh impacts. There are more but these are the incredibly easy-to-grasp ones. The best rebuttalists can think of situationally-specific reasons some impacts are better than others, but some of these are bound to apply in every debate. Use them.

Magnitude (People Affected)

This is the "body count" impact. It is the simplest because you just count up the number of people that your impact has some effect on, and that's your magnitude impact. A gay rights case affects about 3-5% of the target population directly, and perhaps many more if you can make and win the argument that an unequal society harms everyone. "A million people get the flu" is a million people of magnitude, plus whoever has to care for those people and stuff. easy!

Magnitude (Severity of Effect)

Adding a level of subtlety is severity of effect. Being killed is worse than being hungry, but being hungry is worse than being inconvenienced. Whether being hungry is worse than being discriminated against is a subject of genuine debate and disagreement. The point here is that even if they affect a ton of people, if all of those people are affected in only a very small way, it's not really the case that their impact matters more.

This type of comparison depends heavily on details. Unemployment and war can both have severe effects. Here it will be necessary to apply the internal warrants of your impacts, explain your scenario more, and so forth. In other words, use your arguments to win the impact comparison debate rather than just trying to win every argument in the debate. See the diff?

Timeframe

How long does an impact occur over? Other things being equal, an impact that lasts one day is less important than an impact which lasts for a year. This is an extremely neglected area of impact debate, because people become obsessed with magnitude, which is a blunt instrument. In particular, many impacts function on a timeframe longer than a single human life which means that they can outweigh death.

Think about works of art. Shakespeare's works outlasted his life. Everyone will die eventually, but some things last beyond life and death. Given the choice between avoiding the French-English war or wiping out the works of Shakespeare from history, what would you choose? Everyone who died in that war is dead now anyway. See? You can even outweigh war with a play. Just gotta use your brain!

Reversibility

Impacts which can be reversed are less important than those which cannot be reversed. Species extinction is the archetypical example of irreversible impacts: once a species is gone, nothing short of a Michael Crichton novel can bring them back. On the other hand, jobs can always be regained. In environmental debates especially, you should use this axis of comparison to your advantage if at all possible, since many of them turn on "damage to environment vs. damage to the economy."

Death is irreversible. Discrimination is reversible though some of its effects may not be. Disease is reversible if it's treatable. Economic downturn is always reversible. Grey goo is only reversible with blue goo. And so forth. Explain that in a choice between doing a bad thing forever and doing a bad thing temporarily, you would always choose the temporary bad thing and you will win a lot of debates!

Certainty

Also known as "the sum of the link and internal link debates." More certain impacts matter more than less certain ones. Sure their impact may be war and genocide, but to get there, you have to march through a thousand layers of internal links and uniqueness problems; our impact is guaranteed. In this way, you can fold in the other parts of the debate (link, uniqueness, any brink concerns you may have) into the impact comparison, so you can stay in that mode. The impact is what matters; everything before that is just a vehicle to get to the round-winning arguments.

"Especially Wrong"

Impacts that are discriminatory in the invidious sense are worse than those that aren't. Imagine that their impact is that 100 people will die from disease, but your impact is that 100 people will die from anti-Semitic violence. You both have 100 people, you both have irreversible impacts, you both have (assume) equal certainty, etc. I think in that position you're ahead in the debate, because it's worse to target specific protected classes of people and put your impact on them. Admittedly, this is the most "hand-wavey" of the impact comparison axes, but no one's really going to challenge you on it: just explain that "all other things being equal, a discriminatory impact is worse than an equitable impact" and you will be fine.

This can mean that you really get a lot of mileage out of cases that reverse specific kinds of discriminatory impacts, like "repeal DOMA" or "ban Yucca" because all of your impacts are "especially wrong," meaning you start with a gigantic advantage in the debate. But you need to use it, and that means pulling out the weapons.

Hope this helps. It sure will help you get my ballot, and I don't think I'm the only judge out there who wants to hear why your arguments are the best ones in the debate--not just that you're winning every argument in the debate.

Reading List: Team Names and Mascots

2006-02-15T09:22:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you've heard of the opposition to sports teams/mascots such as Redskins. I'd also be willing to bet that you have not read an academic article on it and the debates you've had are not as in depth as they should be.

Fix this problem by reading the following article: A Public Accomodations Challenge to the Use of Indian Team Names and Mascots in Professional Sports, 112 Harv. L. Rev. 904 (1999)

Answers To: Supreme Court Actor Plan

2006-01-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

I am not going to go into too much detail because I 1) don't have the time and 2) you'll understand the argument if you read the primary material. But here's the two main generic arguments to make against SC actor plans.

The Court is reluctant to make decisions that depart too sharply from what it percieves as a political consensus. As some have suggested, the Court has, or percieves itself as having, a limited amount of "political capital," and it tends to budget its expenditure of that capital in the number and kinds of controversial decisions it renders. The Court's perception of its limited political capital may sometimes manifest itself in sensitivty to the views of elected officials and private citizens.

See J. Choper, Judicial Review and the National Political Process (1981)
A. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch (1962)

Thus, you argue that the Court can use it's influence here because of fiat but now it can make no more controversial decisions.

Second, read G. Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope. It's a great book that discusses the suprisingly limited effectiveness of the Court in producing social change, even in the area of race relations (thru emperical data).

Position: Horizontal Proliferation Good

2006-01-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you are presented with an argument from your opponent such as the following?

"Iran needs to stop being a little kid trying to sit at the adult table. It scares me to imagine a world where yet another country has nuclear weapons. We’re supposed to be decreasing the amount of weapons (of which the U.S. still has an excessive amount of, but I digress), not increasing the number of countries that have them.

Never mind that Bush calls Iran a “grave threat,” there still shouldn’t be another country with nuclear weapons. Even if it’s a tiny island that couldn’t even launch them at its closest neighbor and wouldn’t be able to sell them to anyone (in other words, not a threat at all), they still shouldn’t have them."

You run the following position, Horizontal Proliferation Good (or turns to a nuke disad).

First, there are two framework arguments you must establish. They are vital to the rest of the position but they are true so it’s not too hard.

(1) The probability of large-scale nuclear weapons ever being used is so small as to be non-existent.

No country's government will ever use a nuclear weapon because:
(a) most countries in conflict are located geographically nearer enough each other so that a nuclear attack would cause fallback and destruction to their own country (scientists now even believe that a nuclear winter caused by a large nuclear attack would cause the entire earth to fall into destruction)
(b) governmental leaders are all about self-preservation and setting the world in such turmoil as would occur after a nuclear weapon was used would be too threatening to their position as a leader for them to take that risk and
(c) the entire world would backlash so strongly that whatever goals that country thought it could accomplish with a nuclear weapon would be so dwarfed by the response as to prevent the usage at all (think of how many nations joined the coalition against Iraq because "maybe they have some WMD," EVERYONE would join a coalition against a government that actually used a nuclear weapon on another country).

No rogue groups will ever use a large-scale nuclear weapon because:
(a) they are just too difficult too use, nuclear weapons being fired require access codes and clearance that militant groups can't posses, and
(b) completed nuclear weapons (as opposed to the materials) are much too difficult to transport; they cannot just be tossed into the back of a truck and smuggled out of a country.

(2) The idea that any action could "increase the risk of a nuclear attack" is completely non-sense. The world's stockpile of nuclear weapons is unfathomable. In 1985, there were 65,000 active nuclear weapons in the world (now there are 20,000 known). That's right. Humans possessed the ability to destroy the entire earth 1,500 times over. Since the world has this much destruction power, we can't comprehend it -- it is infinite. Therefore, infinity plus any number is still infinity. It's like dropping a handful of sand into the Sahara and claiming that you've increased the size of the desert.

Therefore, more nuclear weapons in the world will not increase the risk of a nuclear attack (since the chances are already so small and if one chance exists then it doesn’t matter “how many chances there are.”)

The Specific Turns/Answers

(1) MAD but better: When more countries have second-strike status (that is the ability to respond to a nuclear attack against your country with a nuclear attack of your own) that makes it even less likely that anyone will attack that nation. There is no reason that a nuclear attack should be prevented only against the Big 5 nuclear nations. If more nations have nuclear weapons, that means more nations will not be attacked because they posses the ability to maintain an effective deterrence position. Certainly, there are no world allies in the world so close with the Big 5 that those nations would use their status as a nuclear nation to second-strike protect a non-nuclear state (since then they would be at risk for total destruction).

(2) If Iran has nuclear weapons it will stabilize the region because it decreases the risk not only of nuclear war but also conventional war. Nations will not want to send their soldiers into Iran when the possibility of nuclear war exists. So nuclear weapons can actually bring peace to the middle east because it deters an invasion.

(3) When countries have nuclear weapons, it forces them to develop command and control infrastructure to secure a lot of their munitions, arms, etc. which is actually good, because then less conventional weapons get stolen (which rogue groups do actually use to kill people).

(4) Nuclear weapons are expensive. This drains much of the military resources that a country has so that they will have less to invest in conventional warfare -- guns, tanks, etc. things that they might actually use in a hostile situation.

(5) Why not? If US, Britain, China, Russia and France can all possess nuclear weapons, who are we to tell others that they can't? There is nothing morally superior to us building death-machines than anyone else in the world. We put the rest of the world at risk for instant destruction (and have even used them) so other nations should be afforded the same opportunity to do the same. Iran is just as “big of a kid” as we.

(6) More stability in the region as well because Israel, India and Pakistan may already have nuclear weapons. If more nations have weapons then their advantage over one another is destroyed. In the current climate, countries with nuclear weapons can use that as a pass to control other nations. Can you think of any other place that the big 5 reign? That's right -- they are the five permanent members of the Security Council. Having nuclear weapons affords nations political clout for self-determination. Other nations that want the same for themselves should be given that opportunity.

(7) As a response to the argument, but “terrorists are just going to steal it”, this is 100% non-unique. Russian satellite nations have completely unsecured nuclear weapons stockpiled and hundreds of them are already unaccounted for. If a terrorist wants to steal a nuclear weapon, there are plenty to be had in Russia. This too is a zero sum risk because the chance of a terrorist group stealing a nuclear weapon is already infinity. I'd contend there are probably groups that already have located and claimed some. *Note, you’d also run t-talk K to be posted at a later date.

(8) Additionally, you could always run a spark it argument that a small-scale nuclear attack would be good.

(9) The more nuclear weapons there are, the more we "get ready," with things like extremely sensitive radiation detectors in big cities, escape routes, etc. If we are reminded that we do live in a nuclear world more acutely, we can better prepare for the chance it may happen. We are currently lulled into believing the Big 5 will never launch a nuclear attack which has led to stalled prevention and detection research.

(10) Finally, you can't really stop the spread of technology, you can only deal with it. so hoping the Iran will never figure out how to build a nuclear bomb, when US scientists managed to do that in the '40s, is hopeless. They will learn as well most of the world. We might as well embrace this growth.

Gut Check

2006-01-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

Critique Debate and the "Gut Check"
---

For whatever reason, some people are stymied by critique debates. I'm referring to the ordinary, run-of-the-mill stuff here, like "paternalism is bad and your mode of thought is paternalistic." They simply cannot respond to these argument effectively and as such tend to lose to them over and over.

One strategy for improvement is surviving the post-MG "gut check" on your answers. I will explain.

In many cases, you will unambiguously link to the critique. That's the virtue of these arguments: their link stories are quite broad, sometimes approaching universal. While it's often possible and desirable to dispute that link level, let's set aside that tactic, and assume that many high-level teams will not run easily-link-turned critiques very often. As the goal of this blog is to guide you on your way to being a high-level debater, we can't assume those novice mistakes of your opponents.

Thus, given the link level is uncontested, your only real opportunity for conventional offense is impact turns. This is simple in theory: oh, you have a paternalism critique to answer. So you think of reasons that paternalism is not bad, but good. Then you explain and reason these arguments, and fine. (For one possible substantive answer to "paternalism," see D. Kahneman, New Challenges to the Rationality Assumption, in The Rational Foundations of Economic Behavior).

The MO answer to these arguments will be to re-assert that you are simply falling into the dominant mode of thought they are indicting, re-entrenching the offense the critique sought to criticize in the first place, etc. This is the "gut check." Its difficulty depends on large part on several factors out of your control: the skill of the MO, the components of the LOC shell, the audience, etc.

What you can control is how you respond. If you survive the gut-check, you will win the critique debate. The critical argument to do so is: you are not "re-linking," but answering. They have continued to assume that paternalism is bad, while you have demonstrated it is good, and absent a mere parroting of the LOC warrants (which the MO may or may not go beyond), they cannot win the argument.

You need to make this point over a series of POIs, the PMR, etc. As long as you are clear that you have engaged the substance of the critique head-on and judged it lacking, you should be okay.

Secrets of Judging Revealed

2006-01-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

Many competitors have never judged a parli tournament, yet they compete in them all the time. This leads to questions about the mysteries of judging. I will now reveal them.

What Goes On In Outrounds While They're Deciding? The most nerve-wracking time in debate, the time that can fray your senses and drive a good woman mad, is the time after the debate ends but before the decision is announced. This takes, it seems like, ten thousand years. You may wonder: what the heck are the judges doing in there?

I always feared that they were conspiring to advance the nicer team or informing the swing judge of their status as such or flipping coins or something. In fact, none of those things are true. After an outround ends, the judges... don't say anything to each other at all. I just wrote my ballot and then they called everyone in, and whoever announced announced by looking at all of the ballots together. And then we gave our decisions and left.

What Do Judges Really Want? Judges see debates at a much more macro level than competitors. This is because while competitors are concerned with winning individual arguments, the judge's only task is to decide (in a binary fashion) the winner of the debate. Hence they spend no time thinking about arguments that are not part of either side's "victory conditions" because there is no point.

Model this approach. I would encourage competitors, before each rebuttal, to envision the set of circumstances that means victory for them and explain why the round is in that state; alternatively, how the set of circumstances that means the other side wins is nowhere close to how the debate has actually unfolded.

Judges "want," in a big sense, to make decisions that are correct and fair. To do this, I felt myself generally looking at easy outs first. Unanswered turns on big positions with big impacts are damning, because they're so simple--it's an easy, fast way out of the debate that no one can really argue with. (It immediately becomes more complicated when the rebuttalists admit the concession and then argue that despite these conceded arguments, victory is still possible for them. This is good, if you're the team that fucked up.)

Do Judges Just Vote For People They Like? To a certain extent, subconscious psychological bias is unavoidable. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. The mark of a good critic is whether they acknowledge that and consciously check it with their own behavior or insist they are completely impartial. I'm still betting that being nice to everyone is your utility-maximizing strategy, though.

Fractals and Resolutions

2005-11-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

You often hear this claim: "words have many meanings." Sometimes you will even hear, as I believe is true, "words have infinite meanings." Mathematically, that is accurate; the meaning of any symbol, of which there are an infinite number, is influenced by the meaning of other symbols, of which there are infinite possibilities. Seriously, a word can mean uncountably infinite things.

That does not suggest it can mean anything.

This distinction is very important so I am going to illustrate it a few times:

There are an infinite number of "real numbers" between 0 and 1; there are, in fact, uncountably many. "50," though, is not a real number between 0 and 1. Despite the fact that a set is infinite, there may be items it does not contain.

The Mandelbrot set is a fractal; you can zoom in on it forever and always see new and cool things. There are parts of the Mandelbrot set, though, that are just black, and always will be; there is no "there" there, no matter what. Though the Mandelbrot set contains infinite geography, there are parts of it with no geography (no "meaning").

The purpose of a good resolution is not to constrain the possible meanings people will give to words, but rather, to constrain the boundaries that they might explore and to put them in meaningful places. Often, tournament directors and government teams will make the argument that the resolution does not matter much because after all, words have many meanings. Infinite meanings. But the truth of that statement does not remove from us our responsibility to draw the boundaries in a good place.

Because while "all real numbers between 0 and 1" is an infinite set, "all real numbers" is also infinite, and larger; I hope you can intuitively see why. Resolutions should look more like "all real numbers between 0 and 1" (or, dare I say it, "all integers between 1 and 10?") and less like "all numbers."

A Better Ranking System

2005-11-05T21:32:00.000-08:00

The NPTE should alter its ranking system in the following way.

A. Prologue: The Path of Least Resistance

A long time ago, I got into trouble for suggesting that a certain team atop the NPTE rankings was there because they had taken the "path of least resistance;" that is, they had gone to easier tournaments in hopes of scoring more guaranteed points. This comment was universally perceived as an insult; it was not. Almost every year, a team will do the same thing. Marie and I also did this at one point. Everyone, whether they admit it or not, contemplates doing the same. It is the result, not of lack of courage, but of a perverse set of incentives created by the NPTE itself.

In the present system, a point-maximizing team with the choice of two equal point-value tournaments, one easier and one harder, will choose the easier one. This is not bad. This is just what a point-maximizing team will do. Not every team is point-maximizing and the choice will not always be very clear-cut, but it is undeniable that this tension exists.

Various attempts have been made by the NPTE to incorporate a "difficulty" rubric. Size of the field, national diversity, number of outrounds: all of these things influence the points. But none directly correlate to strength of opponent, and it is not clear that any of them count for enough to change the behavior of point-maximizing teams.

So what should be done? Adjust the point values again? Add another rubric? Tinker again and again each season until the point system becomes completely impossible to divine? No.

B. The ELO Ranking System: Chess, Volleyball, Xbox, and Debate

There is a way to create rankings that has already been divised: it is called the ELO ranking. You are probably familiar with it from chess, where grandmasters are rated 2500, or even higher; but it is used by volleyball teams, Microsoft's Xbox Live! game services, and hundreds upon hundreds of other groups.

Here's how it works. There is more information in the Wikipedia entry for ELO rankings.

Attention: If you do not like math, you can skip the rest! Just know that the ELO system is a pure strength-of-schedule matchup.

Going into a debate, each team has a ranking (based on previous matches). Here, let's say that it is:

Team A: 1000
Team B: 1000

It's traditional to "start" at 1000 in ELO; anyone who isn't in the system gets that score. When teams have the same score, the statistical prediction is that it's a cointoss. Here each team has a 50-50 shot of winning.

To calculate your new ranking in ELO, you take your old score, and add 32 times how much you beat or lost to the odds. If you had a 50-50 chance of winning, and did win, you beat the odds by +.0.50; so you get 32 * .50 = 16 points. Your new ranking is 1016.

If you lost, and had a fifty percent chance to win, then you were behind the odds by 0.50 also; so you take 32 * -0.50 = -16. Your new ranking is 984.

Pretty simple, right? Let's do another example.

Team A: 1120
Team B: 1540

Here, it is clear that Team B is better than Team A; quite a bit better, actually. Given the ELO ranking system, Team B is statistically predicted to win 92% of the time against Team A. (The formula for calculating that is in the Wiki article; it's not too tough, but don't bother yourself with it, because it's not important.)

Thus, if team B does win, they get a relatively modest boost: they beat a bad team. Congrats. They would gain 32 * 0.08 = 2.56 points, so would be ranked 1543 now, barely anything. Similarly, Team B lost to a far better team, so it's not a big deal for their ranking; their new rating is 1117.

By a little hand-waving, trust me when I say that you can calculate ELO ratings after an entire tournament is over knowing only a list of opponents and outcomes of each round; that is, it does not require round-by-round updating to stay accurate. You can calculate good ELO ratings with just the standard printouts from a tournament. ELO is not, in any way, a drastic increase in work; it is actually a drastic decrease in work from the current NPTE model, which counts all sorts of bizarre things.

C. A True Debate Career

The best part of ELO ratings is you can, of course, do them per-partner; there are four participants in the round, two of them win and two lose, and all four have individual ratings. To calculate a "team's" rating, all you need to do is average the score of the debaters.

This allows for a much more realistic assessment of a team's strength. Given four years to rise in the ELO ratings, a truly exceptional debater should enjoy a presumption of attending the NPTE, if its true purpose is to collect the best teams in the country. Nor is it impossible to "break in" in such a system; it might mean fewer novices at NPTE, but that is probably better anyway.

ELO ratings stay stable over an entire season, two seasons, four seasons; you don't need to "reset" the points every summer, just keep the tally running. (Obviously, a useful filter on the data would be "display only players with remaining eligibility," but that is a trivial modification.) This would also allow for a meaningful comparison of debaters from today and five years from today, the way we can look at Kasparov's ratings and conclude he is truly a historically outstanding chess player--not simply better than his current peers.

Does this result in a bias toward people who have been in the system longer? Yes, absolutely--and that is good. We call that "experience." It's hardly insurmountable, but if you have won enough debates to be ranked 2200, the system probably should favor you over the plucky newcomer who has debated four rounds in their lives. Besides, beating you will earn them plenty of points to get going with! Favoring experienced debaters with a record of success is a benefit to this system, not a flaw.

D. The problem of cherry-picking

Under such a rating system, cherry-picking incentives are actually reversed: a bold team will seek out the strongest competitors in order to beat them and gain rating points, knowing that there is little to gain in beating up lesser teams.

Outrounds do not need to be weighted any differently than normal rounds, or alternatively, assign a "score" of not 0 or 1 but the division of the panel. Thus a 3-2 win is a score of 0.60 for the victor, whereas a 9-0 win is a score of 1.00. This eliminates the strange problem of a great team having a bad set of prelims, getting seeded 16th, and upsetting the 1 seed, who really had a much more difficult job than the 2 seed debating the 15th seed. Strength of opponent is everything.

E. Conclusion

The bottom line is that all NPTE ranking is an attempt to proxy difficulty of accomplishment. But the only true accomplishments in debate are winning debate rounds against skilled teams. The ELO rating system could be effectively and simply implemented, and it would lead to a much clearer picture of who the best teams in debate actually are.

Oddsmaking, Strategy, and You

2005-10-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

I will begin with a simple concept:

When you believe you are in the superior position, do everything in your power to keep a round "normal." Conversely, if you are in a tight spot, do something unusual.

Very often, I see teams fighting uphill battles by staying within their comfort zone in rounds against "bigger" teams. This is a mistake.

Recognize this: going into a debate against a much better, much more well-known, much more experienced team than you, you are underdogs. If you simply debate "normally," you are massively disfavored to win. Why? Because good teams are "good" precisely because they are great at normal debates. To get anywhere, you have to master the fundamentals. I guarantee, you plucky freshmen, that you are not going to surprise a pair of eighth-year returning debaters with your politics shell that you prepped with your coach 20 minutes ago. They have debated politics more times than you have debated.

That is to say, the natural odds of the round are against you.

You should also realize that there are things which convert rounds into "coin tosses." Arguments and strategies which are so unusual, and so unpredictable, that to put them in play magnifies the power of randomness. If you are debating a much better team in front of a panel you don't know on a resolution you're not experts on, fellas, this is the round to go for 8 minutes of something totally insane ("the opposition does not get fiat;" some wacko kritik that no one's ever heard of (objectivism!); suicide A-Spec;) because that at least gives you a chance.

In fact, beyond giving you a chance, it does another thing: it "advertises the bluff." Professional cardplayers will tell you that when you sit down at a table and intend to be there for a while, it's not such a bad thing early on to bluff, get called, and lose. It's going to cost you some money, but it's also going to let everyone know that you're going to do it sometimes. In debate, what it means is that you will begin to establish a reputation as a team that can go far afield of the norm. It will establish range. Which, as a post we will write later will discuss, basically slashes your opponents'--all of your opponents'--prep time to a fraction. And so while you may lose this one, you get a better chance to win the next one. Winning big debates takes work years in advance, and this is one way of doing that work.

So it's rational to be weird for two reasons. It magnifies your chance of random success (and allows for those factors that we talked about on the "luck" post--looking like you're winning--to take over and seal the deal), and it keeps people off balance for next time.

Most of the time, when you see teams pursuing totally weird strategies, it's because they do think the odds don't favor them. (This isn't always true, but a lot!) Marie and I, toward the end, started to see some truly bizarre stuff out of teams that were basically just trying anything. (This isn't ego, I'm recounting facts here.) Will of the People Counterplans, "perms bad" for the entire opp block, "worms and bees" affirmatives, that sort of thing. Each time, a team was trying an unorthodox strategy in order to put themselves in the driver's seat and make it so that the odds could help them.

Were these bad teams because they were running weird arguments? No. These were the best teams. These were the teams who had a realistic assessment of odds, and knew that they had to introduce some better odds for themselves.

Granted, your chance of winning on "death fear bad" is low. Probably 10:1 against. But if your chance of winning a "normal" debate is 20:1 or 50:1 against, you've upgraded your expectations by going for something unconventional.

This has a converse, though:

When you feel like you are the better team (or simply in the better situation, as dictated by the resolution/judges, and so forth), do everything in your power to keep the debate "normal." I know it can feel fun to do wacky stuff to teams just because you know you can get away with it, but honestly, you're just helping them out. If you genuinely believe yourself to be the better debaters going into the round, keep the odds on your side: debate arguments everyone's familiar with and debate them well.

One last story, and I'll end this post: when Marie and I were young, just starting our junior year, we were debating a very well-known and well-loved team, in that team's home region, as the opp, on a topic that was wide-open. Bad, bad odds. The strategy we went for ("abolish immigration; open all borders unconditionally" CP) was a little crazy, and it didn't work. We lost on a 2-1. I don't regret the decision, however, for the reasons I've laid out in the post. Sometimes when you're oddsmaking you lose. But at least you have a chance to win.

Technorati Tags: debate, odds

Fact Debates Are Stupid

2005-09-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about parli debate in the past few years has been the move away from "fact debates." At their height in 2001 and 2002, it was not uncommon to see one of these beasts at every tournament, sometimes multiple times per tournament; the practice expanded into local circuits to a degree where even resolutions that clearly did not call for it were interpreted as "facts."

This practice still persists in some corners. Marie and I saw a team voluntarily engage in a fact debate at the Pt. Loma tournament last year. Here are some great reasons that fact debates are a huge no-no. You can structure these into a theory block pretty easily, and go for it.

Universal decisions of fact are extremely difficult to make.

Ultimately, a fact debate comes down to deciding something is either "true" or it is not "true." To say that 45 minutes is an insufficient amount of time to analyze an issue of "truth" (rather than of simple "desirability," which is what a standard policy debate does) is understating it.

Every day, in their daily lives, people make decisions about what to do, but very few people decide definitively what is true. To the extent that people decide what is "true" or not, they are mostly deciding that instrumentally, to help them in a decision about what to do. Very few fact questions are pondered in the abstract. If you don't believe me, try this experiment: try to start an argument with someone who doesn't know about what the capital of Sudan is. Very, very quickly, you will get the question, "Why do you care?"

Knowledge, to the human brain, is basically instrumental. That is how a policy debate treats questions of fact: they can be disputed, and remain fuzzy, and still render a decision possible.

Fact debates are more paralyzing than usual.

To a certain extent, debate is always "paralyzing," by which I mean it presents us with the constant problem of inaction. We hear about many problems and little we can personally do to effect change. However, fact debates present literally nothing that can be done to effect change. (At the very least, I could run for Congress and try to pass many of the plans you hear in debate rounds.)

In general, a certain amount of this is inescapable. But we should shy away from a practice that literally amounts to nothing more than "check it out, I thought of a problem."

Questions of fact are intermingled with questions of action.

Most value judgments have comparison implicit. "Killing is wrong" presumes that not-killing is possible and better. "Gravity is wrong" is a statement that makes no sense, because there is no alternative to gravity; even though it creates many scraped knees and deadly falls, gravity cannot be "bad" or "wrong" in any meaningful sense because there is no way to compare it to anything else. Any value or quality judgment must implicitly be made against another thing.

But that is all that a policy debate does: compare one world (the present one) against another selected world, to test the desirability of both. "Killing is wrong" is a testable proposition in many forms in a policy debate, but "gravity is wrong" is not. There is no instance in which a policy debate cannot resolve a claim of value or quality better than a "fact" debate.

In many cases, also, a determination of fact will turn on what action that might endorse. Many people might feel comfortable saying a person is "guilty of murder" if that means they would be put in prison forever, but if it means they would be executed, they might be unwilling to make that statement. Facts never exist in a vacuum and examining the consequences of fact is essential.

Most fact debates devolve into questions that are either tautologies or impossible to prove.

Once we had to debate a team whose central claim was "doesn't it suck when you're late in the morning and have to rush and don't have time to eat breakfast? Haste makes waste, see!" This is ridiculous and not enriching.

On the other hand, any claim more complex than that which is based purely on "fact" is nearly impossible to resolve. "Resolved: O.J. Simpson is guilty of murdering his wife." Who the $@*! knows, honestly? And how are you ever going to prove it without evidence? (Some, in fact many, claims in fact debates could not even be proven adequately with quoted evidence.)

This leads us into the next problem:

Weighing and contingency analysis is virtually impossible.

One of the best parts about a policy debate is that debaters themselves can do contingency analysis, and explain the consequences of winning and losing various arguments. A team may prevail even though a question of fact does not go their way; multiple claims about the same subject may be accepted as true and weighed by the decisionmaker, or even better, by the debaters themselves.

This is not possible in fact debates. By their nature, they are resolving single questions of fact. Whoever wins that question wins. And it is very difficult to break down most claims of "fact" into sub-claims, the way policy debates can be devolved to advantages, disadvantages, procedural questions, and so forth. A fact is either true or it isn't, so every team has to try and win everything because the "components" of a fact are not well-defined, by epistemology or debate theory.

The result is a mess, where no one knows what to prioritize and just ends up repeating themselves. This happens in policy debates too, but there is at least an ideal to strive for there.

They produce uncertainty in decisions.

Partly for all of the reasons stated above, but also partly because of practice. Adjudication is a skill, one that gets better when it is used frequently. Fact debates, by nature of their infrequency, are not something that people have a lot of skill deciding. There is not really an equivalent in high school debate, where many people learn to judge for the first time; and in college, the most "seasoned" critics have been judging policy debates for decades.

Uncertainty in decisions is almost always bad, if you believe that the purpose of a tournament is to get out of the way so the good teams can win. Uncertainty in decisions is how one team lucks out and upsets a far better team due to nothing related to either team's skill, and it should be avoided.

They poorly mirror the reality that most truths are "fuzzy."

The truth is, almost nothing is true or false completely. Everyone admits this. But the nature of the ballot is to be absolute. Deciding a question of fact in the absolute is far more troublesome than deciding a question of action in the absolute; while we do have to decide how to act, it is unnecessary to pretend that thinking people must decide what is "true" or not.

Some people reject any supposition that things can be called "true" or "false" in a vacuum, and there is no reason those people should be unable to access entire debates simply due to their intellectual maturity.

Fact debates have no advantages and many disadvantages. (See what I did there?)

Technorati Tags: debate

The Vegetarian Counterplan

2005-08-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

Here's something we never got to use, but always wanted to. It's a great strategy against cases involving food, food aid, stuff like that. You'll have to get a sense for when it could work--but when it does, you are made in the shade with pink-lemonade. You can run this as your one and only position in the LOC, fill your time, make a killer argument, and win the debate. I am jealous of anyone who gets to attempt this; we never were in a situation where it linked.

The counterplan is a plan-exclusive counterplan, to exclude meat products from whatever food the plan uses. Oh and in case you're curious, the overview is absolutely true, we are both vegetarians; if you aren't, I'd recommend leaving that out.

VEGETARIAN CP: LOC SHELL

LOC OVERVIEW: Both Ian and myself are vegetarians; we believe the consumption of meat products to be irresponsible given the environmental impacts of animal agriculture, and cannot quiet our conscience in the face of the world hunger it perpetuates. For these reasons we offer the following counterplan, which we will advocate throughout the round.

MO OVERVIEW: All of their answers are defensive at best; they have never offensively justified meat versus soy and lentils. The delusions of the government team where meat is necessary for life are at odds with the lifestyle of tens of millions of vegetarians worldwide, including the one speaking to you now. Any chance of the meat-bad advantages is a reason to vote opp RIGHT NOW!

Text: (Agent) shall implement the proposed food-aid mandates, but exclude all meat products, substituting soy, lentils, and other protein sources instead.

Observation One: Competition

A. Mutual exclusivity: it is impossible to do both at once, logically; any combination would just BE the plan. (Normal means for food aid is to include meat; we included lamb in food aid to Afghanistan, we offered beef to Zimbabwe, etc. It’s usually canned and pre-cooked so as not to spoil.) 
B. Net benefits: no permutation can possibly capture the “meat is bad” advantage we are about to run.

Observation Two: Solvency

A. Vegetarian substitutes can provide exactly the same nutrition as meat. Of course everyone needs protein; you can replace it however with soy and lentils (beans) just as easily. Moreover, the reality is that Americans eat far too much protein anyway. 
B. Thus we capture all of case solvency, at minimum. There is no reason NOT to implement plan, as long as we can show you any chance of an advantage.

Advantage One: The Environment 
A. Uniqueness: the proliferation of meat-based diets has caused an immense number of problems for the world. 
1. Meat-based agriculture is unsustainable. Because of population growth, meat-based diets are consuming more and more land and resources, changing ecosystems faster than they can adapt. A solution will eventually have to be found, sooner or later, or the ecosystem will collapse and everything will die. 
2. Animal agriculture destroys land and rainforests. Because animals require so much space for grazing, forests are clear-cut and the biodiversity there is lost, with increased rate of species extinction. According to Cornell University, one person refraining from animal products saves one acre of forest—four thousand square meters—per year. 
3. Animal waste. In the U.S.—the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases--livestock account for 20% of total methane emissions. Manure also tends to get into water and poison people. 
4. Water shortages. In many areas of the world there is a very serious shortage of clean water; this is worsened by animal agriculture. It takes 25 gallons of water to grow 1lb of vegetables; it takes 5,214 gallons to grow 1lb of beef. 
B. Counterplan takes an ethical, responsible action against these environmentally destructive actions. By not including meat products, you avoid ethical responsibility for all of the impacts we just discussed by decreasing demand for them.  
C. MPX 
1. Biodiversity and global life. With the destruction of the environment comes the inevitable destruction of species; each of these species not only has intrinsic worth, but also worth as a component of the greater biological web. The destruction of keystone species could kill everything. 
2. Resource wars. If animal agriculture is not stopped, the inevitable demand for more land on which to graze and more water with which to pour on cattle will force nation-states into contention with one another. An example of this is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: it is driven heavily by contests over water. Given that people are being killed over the fresh water we do have, why waste it on grazing? 
3. Global warming and global famine. The elimination of methane would slow global warming which will eventually threaten the world’s rice supply; rice has a 2˚ window in which is can grow. If methane production remains high, it will eventually raise global temperatures and kill billions of people who depend on rice for their daily food.

Advantage Two: World Hunger

A. Uniqueness: animal agriculture materially contributes to the problem of global starvation.
1. A meat-based diet could never feed the world’s population. Crispin Tickell, a British ecologist, is our source for this. There is not enough physical land on the face of the planet to produce enough meat to feed more than one-third of the world’s population. Never. Never! 
2. Animal agriculture consumes ten times as much food as it produces. According to statistics gathered by the UN and WHO, it takes about ten kilograms of quality plant protein—such as wheat and soy—to produce one kilogram of meat protein. TEN TO ONE!!!! 
3. The grain that we feed cows comes disproportionately from starving nations. The UK buys ninety percent of its vegetable protein from poor nations—often those with children who are DYING FROM STARVATION. That means every goddamn hamburger we eat or whatever means ten pouds of food out of a starving kid’s mouth. 
B. Counterplan takes immediate action to solve the problem of global starvation. Every pound of meat saved by the counterplan is ten pounds of grain available for the world’s hungry. And it is a meaningful step away  
C. MPX 
1. Famine and death. Twenty five thousand people die of starvation every day; 800 million people in the world, nearly one in seven, are chronically undernourished. One in seven. During the government’s PMC, when they advocated giving wasteful meat products as food aid, 120 people starved to death from lack of the grain the gov is feeding to cows. 
2. Root priorities. It makes no goddamned sense to take grain from poor nations, feed that grain to cows, and then send the meat to those nations!!!!!

Advantage Three: Health and Wellness

A. Meat based diets create substantial health problems. 
1. Heart problems. Meat products create health problems; vegetarians as a group have lower levels of cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and less incidence of heart disease; the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) concluded that vegetarians have HALF the risk of heart disease.  
2. Poisoning. The British Medical Association states that 95% of all food poisoning comes from meat and animal products. That’s pretty bad because that can kill you. 
3. Disease. Diabetes, according to the AMA, is less likely to be a cause of death amongst vegetarians; the ADA says vegetarians have a lower incidence of virtually all chronic diseases. 
B. The counterplan prevents the poisoning of the recipients of food aid. We can guarantee you 100% that no one will eat spoiled meat and die because of meat you sent with the counterplan, because you aren’t sending any. 
C. MPX 
1. Death: cardiac problems and poisoning and disease all kill you. 
2. Lower quality of life: even if you survive the government’s diet, you may incur lifelong diseases which require treatment and sap your resources. Why? Just eat our way.

Technorati Tags: debate, food aid, vegetarianism

The Bare Minimums

2005-08-19T04:18:00.000-07:00

The most common cause of death in plan texts is being overweight. (The second most common cause is malnourishment; many are missing essential vitamin-specifications, such as A, F, E, and others. Another time for that one!) But by and large, plans die because they are too fat. They contain too much, unnecessary actions, words, phrases, and things that just seem to be hanging around for no reason.

Consider the following plan:

"The USFG, through Congress, will end the School of the Americas program. In its place, the USFG, through Congress, shall create a school of diplomacy with which to foster peaceful interactions with the world."

If you think about this plan as a concept, it doesn't seem so terrible. Force is bad and diplomacy is good. Fine! Maybe you agree, and maybe you disagree--there are plenty of substantive arguments to be made about those things, but that's not the point. Just thing about the things the plan does.

1. It ends the School of the Americas program, which is probably composed of separate subactions like de-funding it, firing all the people involved, maybe selling the land or repurposing the building.

2. It creates a new, unnamed school. This involves hiring, funding, etc.

3. It establishes a mission and rough curriculum for that school.

In short, this plan is doing at least two or three major things, and dozens of little unspecified things. It is extraordinarily vulnerable to an exclusion counterplan: one that doesn't create the school of diplomacy, for example (arguing that current US administration officials are ill-equipped to choose good educators on diplomacy, or just that it's a silly idea, and we should just end the School of the Americas alone).

A slightly better version:

"The USFG, through Congress, will end the School of the Americas program."

Trimmer. This plan text has been doing laps and is ready for outround season. Unfortunately, it is still packing a few extra pounds, though in a place that's hard to notice. It's got no extra words anymore and is taking only a single major action. Strategically, this may be the place you decide to end up at--and that's fine. Just be aware that even at this stage, there are multiple counterplan options:

1. For example, the School of the Americas contains a library of tens of thousands of very important documents, many in indigenous languages, that should arguably be preserved. the counterplan: the USFG, through Congress, will end the school of the americas program, except its library, which will continue to be funded and staffed.

2. Moreover, what if someone just wanted to change the School of the Americas curriculum so that it was better? For example, Marie and I had a standing CP idea to simply repurpose the School of the Americas as a museum to its own atrocities. It would still be a school, but it would serve to educate the general public (through museum exhibits, slide shows, etc) about the horrible things that US-trained troops had done. Totally competitive, totally kills the aff net benefit.

3. Still a ton of politics ground. Congressional action links to a lot of politics disads. All of them, usually.

It is clear that this plan text has not been reduced to its most fundamental parts yet. Here is the final version.

"The Department of Defense shall prohibit the School of the Americas from teaching the use of military tactics or force."

(Note: this might need refining to actually be run, depending on the case it fits into. But conceptually, it illustrates the point.)

The key differences: the actor has been changed to a more specific actor, ideally an executive agency. (Executive agencies don't always have the jurisdiction or legal authority to do every plan, so it's worth checking, but they often do. I have no idea if they do in this case or not. Again this is just illustrative.) Executive agencies are good because they are much more difficult to get process disadvantages on, since they enjoy a degree of political autonomy. That is, they present a smaller target for your opponents to hit.

Moreover, instead of broadly ending an entire school or program (the details of which you may not be fully aware of--did you know about the library?), the plan targets the SPECIFIC problem-causing area and NOTHING else. All of your advantages are about the use of force by the School of Americas graduates. So why not end JUST that?

The best part is, if anyone complains or (better) tries to totally end the School of the Americas, the permutation writes itself. Moreover, the complaint that there may be other terrible things the School does is irrelevant to you--you are solving for a major problem and garnering huge advantages. That's all you need to win a debate.

If you do this, you will also make it very difficult for opponents to generate counterplans. How do you counterplan the above text? You could change the actor, but to what? Any actor will be "larger," and hence the MG will have an easy time generating process-based disadvantages. There really isn't anything left to exclude. The only thing to do is perhaps consultation, which no plan text can rid itself of, anyway.

Without counterplans or most process disadvantages, and faced with a very good case with large impacts, the opposition will find themselves in a serious bind. You want this.

Another example of a "tight" plan text:

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will issue a regulation prohibiting the relocation of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain."

Try to find a part of that to strip away in an exclusionary counterplan; you can't. Try to change the agent; you can't (the NRC has exclusive jurisdiction over this kind of thing and would necessarily implement any Congressional legislation to the same effect anyway).

So to sum up, a few principles.

1. A plan should stay light: do one thing and do it well. Don't read this post as a call for "tiny" plans, necessarily; Yucca Mountain and School of the Americas are both "big-stick" cases with plenty of room for debate. But the plan texts should serve as a government focusing weapon, defining the terms of the debate incredibly carefully so there is nothing hanging over the edge. A plan should logically and immediately lead to the solvency story and very little else.

2. Find the smallest subset of whatever your original plan is that still gains your advantage; that is your new plan. Think about what it is you're going to be claiming as your advantages in the debate, and then write the plan text from those. After all, you'll be judged in the end not by the contents of your plan, but the quality of your impacts.

There's an art to this. But with a little practice, this will become second nature, and you'll never lose to an exclusionary CP again.

Obsolete?

2005-08-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

The NPDA is in serious danger of losing legitimacy as a national tournament in the elite, opinion-making circles that ultimately drive parli forward as an activity.

How's that for a discussion starter?

Parli is an increasingly complicated activity. The complexity of the arguments has been increasing with each passing year, and the volume of those arguments are increasing as well--both natural outgrowths of the competitive drive and so-called "expert judges"--that is, judges who have debate experience of some form. This trend will only continue in the future, and there is nothing wrong with that.

In the face of this complicated activity, however, the NPDA Championship Tournament has proven itself reticent to change, even in areas that are clearly deficient. Let's take a survey of some topics from recent NPDAs:

"A market-based approach to environmental protection is superior to a legislative-based approach."

"U.S. Constitution should prohibit deficit spending."

"2002 = 1984"

These topics are all terrible. Some contain outright grammatical errors, and none of them seem to be designed to fairly divide ground. On each of them, a massive opp bias should be expected (and was achieved). All of these topics, aside from being bad, share something else in common: they were triple-octafinal topics in recent years at the NPDA Champs tournament.

The NPTE has much better resolutions. While they are not available on the website at this time, trust me. Moreover, even if they don't, there is a widely-held belief amongst the elite circles of parliamentary debate that this is true, which is really the same thing as far as my argument is concerned. The same belief of superiority is held with regard to judging (NPTE employs MPJ; NPDA has judge strikes which are not even always honored), wellness (there is no contest who is feeding competitors better), and so forth.

If this trend continues, the NPDA is in very serious danger of becoming obsolete. Why?

By the "elite" circles of parliamentary debate, I mean primarily:

1. highly-successful competitors who compete at and win nationally prestigious tournaments;
2. experienced coaches of well-funded programs who thus accumulate influence over time;
3. "community elders" who re-appear in various forms at various programs, generally former members of list item #1, and exert influence primarily through accumulated respect

It is worth noting that the opinions of the "elite" are not definitionally correct, and moreover that this is a group whose membership is subject to rapid change. Debate is, after all, basically meritocratic; but there is also a certain self-preservation instinct among this group, worth discussing another time. Whether the world likes it or not, the beliefs of these opinion-makers are highly important for several reasons.

1. highly-successful competitors are emulated by their peers, in argumentative practice but also frequently in strongly held opinions. This is partly due to the social structure of debate, the mysterious nature of GDS, and the general insecurities of human beings--but one way or another, if you win a lot and then walk around saying MPJ is the best thing since sliced bread, you are going to get more converts than you would going 0-6 at MTSU and saying the same thing

2. the heads of well-funded programs can make political decisions about where to invest resources. Placing tournaments on or off the travel schedule, for example, can trigger domino effects, as if one well-respected program declines to attend a tournament in favor of a different one near on the calendar, other teams seeking to compete against that program may make the same decision. This has the effect of creating incentives amongst tournament directors to structure their tournaments in a way that is desirable to these elite, well-funded programs

An example of elite opinion driving popular practice is the widespread adoption of "warm rooms" that occurred beginning in 2001. Virtually overnight, entire regions of the country went from strict "no disclosure" rules to the exact opposite, primarily driven by listserv discussions, tournament selection, competitor and coach pressure, and so forth--but it is worth noting that the drive for warm rooms existed primarily in the upper echelons of the activity, amongst the "elite." It is also worth noting that the NPDA Champs tournament was "out in front" of that one--an amendment to the bylaws was proposed and passed, and the NPDA thus served to legitimize the practice in the community at large.

A similar phenomenon is now at work with several NPTE-standard practices, which leads back to my basic argument: that the NPDA is in danger of sharp decline in the near future if steps are not taken to get back out ahead of the curve. Topic areas, for example, are standard at the NPTE, and last year saw two regular-season tournaments adopt them as well. There is an "elite" consensus that topic areas are generally good and foster better debate; it is not unanimous, but it is overwhelmingly held. As a result, those two tournaments will no doubt expand to more this season, and more after that, until topic areas become an expected part of parliamentary debate. NPDA does not have them. This is also happening with mutually-preferred judging, albeit more slowly because there is more disagreement in the upper echelons about its utility.

These factors combine with the fact that the NPDA is not solving the problems everyone knows it has. The topics are terrible and the judging is terrible. As the community at large improves topics and improves judging, the NPDA is at a standstill, and eventually will begin to seem positively backwater. (Imagine today if the tournament still forbade disclosure.) Excacerbating this problem is the NPTE ranking system, a highly visible symbol of the tournament that provides the only season-long concrete measurement of teams' performance. The NPDA has no analogue.

Already, some high-profile departures from the NPDA have occurred, with teams electing not to attend the tournament at all. (The University of Puget Sound is one such team; the University of South Carolina also considered it and reversed the decision midway through 2004-2005.) This trend has not yet picked up steam, but it will accelerate if serious changes to the NPDA Champs tournament aren't made. It would be a pity if they didn't; the NPDA can be a truly excellent tournament at its best, but "its best" is achieved far too infrequently, especially in comparison with the Swiss-watch reliability of the NPTE. NPDA attendence declined from 2004 to 2005, a trend that can be reversed only by taking the steps forward the tournament needs.

Kritik: Rights Talk

2005-08-05T15:43:00.000-07:00

This kritik is a criticism of the language choice of your opponent but has policy implications for their plans and future policies. It can be run anytime that your opponent justifies their plan because people have a “right” to the benefits, etc. (see the links below). It is stronger, however, when the rights have no formal ties to the constitution (such as the “right to employment,” the “right to marry,” or “the right to health care.”) These can be good things but are not “rights” under any legal standard. Your opponent must repeatedly refer to their plan as “a right” for the link to be strong enough. Of course, you can never refer to anything – and I mean anything – as a right during the round.

[Quick note about this format: Kritiks posted in wakeupdebate will be meant to give you solid impacts; it is your duty to fill in the rest. We will do a post explaining the best implications and why you should have multiple links some time in the future. Finally, the better links and impacts are always listed last in positions.]

RIGHTS TALK KRITIK
A: LINKS (or what they do that we find objectionable)

A1: THE TEAM USES THE TERM “RIGHT”: They advocate giving “rights” back to a certain group of people and/or creates rights for people and/or refers to their plan or advantages as a “right”

A2: THE TEAM DEFINES “RIGHT” CIRCULARLY: The team does not define the term “right” but rather uses it circularly to define their policy. That is, the justification for their plan is that it is a “right” (such as “gays have a right to marry”) but they do not define why or how it is such.

B: INTERNAL LINKS –

B1: RIGHTS TALK HURTS PUBLIC DISCOURSE: This individual rights-based policy language hurts discourse because it pushes out the opposition. Their policy is presented as an absolute requirement independent of responsibilities or the needs of others. The opposition’s arguments can easily be trumped, therefore, by the status of the policy as a “right.”

B2: RIGHTS TALK ENTRENCHES POWER STRUCTURES: Referring to a policy action as a “right” enables the powerful elite because they have given you a “right.” Indeed, the policymakers are elevated to God-status because they are kindly giving you, the lowly citizen, a right to something (such as marriage or health care). “You have rights because WE (the powerful legislators) gave them to you.” This lulls a population into mindless adherence with their policymakers because “they gave us rights.”

C: IMPACTS – Why we find this objectionable?

C1: “RIGHTS TALK” UNDERMINES SOCIAL CHANGE: This is because “rights” talk creates an enumeration effect. When you start saying things like “you have a right to do X” that implies that you do not have a right to do X. This results in courts/legislators preventing good laws from existing. Such was the case in the Bowers decision in 1986 when the Supreme Court ruled that because the constitution does not say “you have a right to be gay,” it was okay for congress to discriminate against them.

C2: RIGHTS TALK PROPS UP POWER STRUCTURES: The elite policymakers who choose what should and shouldn’t be “rights” maintain this power system by “rights.” Even if you like this particular policy, you should not let the legislators pass it as a “right.” It can easily be taken away by the leaders who’s opinion determines which things we do and do not deserve. Instead of giving our legislators the chance to make absolute policies (which the term “right” means), the power should continue to lie within the people. This is necessary to prevent more rampant forms of oppression.

C3: RIGHT TALK INCREASES CONFLICT: We live in a social welfare state which means that we make tradeoffs for the things we can do. “Rights” talk, however, ignores this reality. The government portrays the mentality that “rights” are whatever you can get. These “rights” once deemed trump all other policy considerations. This encourages groups to fight with one another for their interests to be named “rights.” And guess who wins in the rich poor showdown. This means that more people are left behind with the lowest quality of life.

C4: RIGHTS TALK ENTRENCHES INEQUALITY: “Rights” advance the agenda of both their creators and interpreters. Powerful groups use the rhetoric of “rights” then to maintain their position in society. Rights entrench the dominance of the rich/white/man. A perfect example of this was the Supreme Court decision in Regents v. Bakke which ruled that the fourteenth amendment -- which was created to protect the “right of equality” for blacks -- PREVENTED universities from using affirmative action policies to try to remedy the serious under representation of blacks in higher education as a result of a multitude of societal influences. “The right of equality” then was manipulated to deny blacks policy remedies to centuries of discrimination.

D: IMPLICATIONS – Why you are voting for us based on these impacts
(insert your favorites here)

MO: Lose an Argument, Now and Then

2005-07-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

Very often, the best favor the MO can do her partner is to lose an argument.

Consider this: debate is not baseball. You aren't trying to run up the score by getting every runner across home plate. Sometimes, it's really important to just go ahead and let a guy get thrown out at second.

The MO is the speech where most "issue selection" happens. Here's what I mean by this. Your partner, the LOC, made several arguments in the first speech: a couple of T shells, a bunch of case arguments, and a counterplan, let's say. These are detailed arguments with good analysis. In response, a thorough MG has given them all the time they deserve, and has given plenty of good answers. It's your speech now. What do you talk about?

Too often--way, way, way too often--the answer to that question is "everything." Most MOs, in that situation, would go for all the arguments the LO went for. Why?! Why not just admit that one of the topicality violations is better than the other one, and spend all of your time talking about the good one? Why not admit that the case arguments were a waste of time, and spend all of your time talking about the counterplan? One T violation and one counterplan; now we've got a strategy on our hands.

Here's why this is good:

1. You almost always win a time tradeoff. Let's say you have a disad, a procedural, and a critique in the first speech; each get 2:30 on the clock or so. The MG keeps her time allocation even, so 2:30 for each as well. Then, in the block, you talk about nothing but the critique; 12 minutes of terror talk (or whatever). Your twelve minutes is covering two-and-a-half of answers, and is going to be responded to by five minutes of PMR. Doesn't that sound good to you? Maximize that advantage.

2. Judges like it. Judges hate hearing shitty arguments once, much less repeated a million times. The goodwill that conceding out a terrible argument will buy you is priceless. It also demonstrates maturity and judgment, two qualities it's nice to fool people into thinking you have. It gives you the aura of a seasoned debater who knows which arguments are good and which to let go of. Which is good, since that's just what you are!

3. It gives depth and quality to the parts of the debate that are kept. This increases odds of victory. Very, very often, giving two arguments two minutes each will not be sufficient to win either one; but four minutes on just one could have. More time equals more work done explaining and extending, more examples given, and more chance to win the argument (and thus the debate).

4. Kicking positions gives clarity and meaning to the LOR. Whenever we used to debate Colorado State and they were opp, they generally went for one, and only one, argument in the LOR. I liked that. There was a single, developed story, one clearly articulated reason to vote. Maybe that's not for you--that's fine. Just consider that the less the LOR has to talk about, the more time they can spend weighing and comparing impacts, which is good. Very good.

So here's a question: how do you do it? It's all well and good to say "Yeah MO, kick a position!" but how do you actually do it? The recipe is as follows:

First, find a defensive argument. On a disad, this is a no-link answer, a non-unique answer, or a no-impact answer. Identify that argument and explicitly grant it and tell the judge(s) to extend it. On T, that's a we-meet or a no-voter or something like that; on a counterplan, generally it's the perm. (Counterplans are dangerous to kick. Do this only if you are a pro.) You may want to take the time to say at this point, "we're not going for this argument." This makes it clear you're not an idiot and you understand what you're doing.

Second, find the offensive arguments and decide what you need to do with them. It depends. If, for example, they are arguing no-link but turning the impact of the disad, you don't need to answer the turn; just grant that they don't link, and it doesn't matter. They're basically arguing they don't cause a good thing. That's fine, just let them have it. But, if they have (for example) multiple link-level answers, some of which are defensive and some of which are offensive, you need to answer those turns. Got it?

Then you're done! Get this all done as fast as possible, and do it at the start of your speech so you don't forget and there are no useless interruptions.

This begs a question, of course: should you put things in the LOC with the intent of kicking them later? Answer: definitely. Knowing your opponent, and what they like to ramble about endlessly, can play a role here. If you can spend one minute making an argument that they'll spend 3 minutes responding to, and which you will kick in the MO/LOR, then you have got a good idea on your hands. It's like reducing your LOC to 7 minutes in exchange for a 5 minute MG. Isn't that a good deal?

Try it. You'll like it! But try to keep the good arguments around. After all, you still need stuff to win on.

Perms: Still Preoccupied With 1985

2005-06-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

How To Beat 95% Of Permutations

When you and your partner are opposition, maybe you enjoy running counterplans. I know Marie and I did; especially towards the end, one of our favorite strategies was some slick counterplan/disad combo, combined with a procedural I'd usually kick in the block.

Obviously, the mortal enemy of your counterplan is the permutation. Functionally, a winning permutation almost always means you're losing the net benefits debate and you'd better not kick T after all. So the question becomes: how do you beat a permutation, most of the time?

There are a few strategies that can help you do this.

1. Begin theoretical legwork in the LOC.

Parli has, for now, an abbreviated rebuttal system; rather than a "balanced" rebuttal system, where the number of rebuttals is equal to the number of constructives, parli has 4 constructives and 2 rebuttals. Hopefully, you knew this already. (It could be worse: NFA-LD has 1 affirmative constructive, 2 affirmative rebuttals, and one of each for the neg. It's total schizophrenia.)

What that means is that you need to pre-empt a lot. Because the debate ends two speeches shorter than its natural conclusion, you need to start everything two speeches earlier than feels right, which means pre-empting things you'd normally just answer. What the hell does any of this mean for beating perms?

I recommend that, in the LOC, you lay out the groundwork for what a permutation must have and must be. A good place for this is the "competition" section of your counterplan shell, however you structure those. If you wait until the MO to do this (after they run one of the crappy arguments we're about to identify) then all of your objections to what they are doing will be brand-new in the MOC. This means that the PMR gets brand-new, solid-gold answers. Not a good place for you to be.

So whatever you take from this post, put it in the SHELL. Don't wait until later, or it will be too late. An ancillary benefit of this is that people very frequently concede all of these things if they're in the shell, since people over-group (i.e. "on the counterplan, I've got 9"). If this happens then you are pretty much gold, obviously.

A question: should these demands include voting implications? (As in: "Any permutations which lack characteristics X, Y, and Z constitute an unfair argumentation practice. Any such practice should be discouraged by awarding the ballot the the government.") I think that's a bit of an overreach. Marie and I didn't do it that way. It also might backfire: even the most dim-witted MG is probably going to perk up their ears when you start talking about auto-win conditions, and you'd actually like them to ignore this section until it's too late. But experiment for yourself. It's little edges in big rounds that win debates.

2. Permutations need a text. Say so!

I had a friend, a debater who competed in Southern California up until 2002, tease me mightily once for saying this. The requirement of a permutation text isn't some hypertechnical checkbox; it makes a lot of intuitive sense.

Most of the time, permutations are along these lines: "Perm, do both! Next..." This is a claim. It has no warrant. The text of a permutation is the warrant that both can theoretically be done, which the opens up the debate over whether or not both should be done. The only response anyone ever needs to "perm, do both!" is "you can't" (or "you shouldn't").

Without a permutation text, how are you, the opposition, supposed to debate it? How are you going to argue that the permutation isn't as good as doing the counterplan alone--or might introduce unforeseen problems or conflicts? Without specifics, such a discussion will inevitably devolve into "doing both would be bad," and "doing both would be good." Put this demand, of course, in the counterplan shell, along with a brief warrant as to its necessity.

This, alone, will submarine better than a third of the permutations out there. MGs, without any prep, do not write permutation texts, usually. They should be trusting their partner to do this; they frequently don't, though. And if they do include a text, try and get it down word for word. Then ask them to repeat it. If a single word changes, your MO should be pointing this apparent inability to write a stable permutation. And you can bet any MG who isn't smart enough to write a permutation text isn't smart enough to explain why they shouldn't have to, and since this is in your shell (right?) once they drop it, that's game.

3. All permutations must contain all of the plan.

If there is one thing every thinking person agrees on, it's that once you read the plan text, you are mortally bound to that advocacy until the debate ends. Nothing can or should change it.

A counterplan's competition is premised on the plan they read. Ergo, any permutation, to test the competition of your counterplan, needs to contain all of the plan. If they can choose little bits and pieces of the plan to include and exclude, they're no longer defending their original advocacy--and it's no different than cutting out parts of the plan to avoid a disadvantage.

Moreover, any such reductions are infinitely regressive. How much of plan do they have to keep? How are we supposed to know what parts of plan you really meant and which were just there for show? It's ridiculous. Any permutation to even approach validity must contain one hundred percent of the original plan.

Anything else is a severance permutation, and you should call it that. It's an intuitively named thing, no? This will also help experienced critics fill in the theory for you, which is nice, and the less experienced critics aren't likely to be too grumpy about the jargon.

How many permutations does this requirement help you eliminate? Ten or fifteen percent, I'd say. But those ten or fifteen percent get used a lot. Consider this frequent combination:

Plan: The Federal Goverment will do .

Counterplan: The 50 state governments shall act to independently do .

This is a states CP. Welcome to sophomore year of high school, right? And back then, almost everyone must have heard the following permutation:

Permutation: The Federal Government shall implement and fund it, but the state governments shall control enforcement.

(Or some combination: maybe the states fund it if their net benefit is a deficits position, or something like that. In some way, the duties are split.) On its face, this is a blatant severance permutation.

4. No permutation may contain elements not found in either the plan nor counterplan.

You should think carefully about what this means.

A permutation that contains things that the gov just threw in to make the perm work--but weren't in the plan or the counterplan--is called an intrinsicness permutation. It sucks for you. A little thought will reveal lots of reasons why; here are some I like to think about.

If the gov is allowed to introduce whatever they want into the permutation, how can you ever beat it? Since the job of the counterplan is to be net beneficial to the permutation, it's pretty unfair if the Gov can toss in planks to the perm until they outweigh your net benefit. I realize that was pretty jargony, so here's a plainer-spoken example.

You and a friend are deciding what to have for lunch. She wants to get pizza; you want sandwiches. Going to both places, while possible, will take more time than you have for lunch. It's time to decide, and you say that sandwiches are better. "Ah," she says, "but if we went to both places and we also visited the falafel house, we could bring our boss falafel, and she loves falafel so much that she wouldn't mind that we're late." But implicitly, your friend is now changing the terms of the discussion, no? It's no longer sandwiches versus pizza; it's now falafel or no falafel.

In a normal discussion, this is okay, but in a debate round where it's frowned upon to have what your advocacy is shift around a lot, it's not. Make the sense?

Here are some common permutations that are intrinsicness permutations.

Any permutation that is some form of "delay," like "do the plan, and then do the counterplan," is intrinsicness; the element of delay is not found in either the plan or the counterplan. In particular, the many permutations which rely on doing the counterplan first are obviously intrinsicness. (Some would say they are severance, as they sever out of the immediacy of plan. In a technical sense, I like my explanation better, but both are good. Why not make both arguments?)

Any permutation (these are commonly run against consultation counterplans) which "lie"--that is, "do the consultation, but do the plan regardless of the result, and conceal this intent from the bargaining process"--are intrinsicness permutations. The element of deception is not in the plan or counterplan.

Using and deploying these concepts will help you a lot as a debater. It's a poorly-understood area of theory at the moment, and though I have no doubt that is going to rapidly change, it doesn't hurt to stay ahead of the curve.

Neg: Gay Marriage

2005-06-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

I am sure this subject will be covered more extensively, but opposing gay marriage without denying the need for equality is tricky indeed. The most common opposition strategy is ban marriage because it's a heterosexual/sexist/bad institution and replace it with civil unions.

Laura Kippins, the author of the incredible book, Against Love, had an alternative idea:

"Why should the state license marriages, by the way? Don't ask, just play along because if you do, the state will show its gratitude by conferring numerous special privileges on you: there are reportedly over a thousand places in federal law where marriage confers benefits not allotted to the nonmarried. (And arguably why the fight for gay marriage takes up the wrong battle: rather than marriage as a prerequisite to access government privileges, shouldn't the fight be to uncouple resource distribution from marital status?) In exchange for its munificence, the state asks just a teensy courtesy from you in return: fidelity to its particular vision of marriage."

This books is very interesting. Kipnis urges you to rethink some of our most deeply held American notions about love, romance, and fidelity. The second half of the book draws interesting parallels between love and politics. I highly suggest the book for anyone that wants to rethink and open their mind.

We're still here

2005-05-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

As a heads-up, we plan to keep posting thru out the summer. We just have lives that don't revolve around the internet so we may be slow.

Mutual Preference, the NPTE, and You

2005-05-07T02:02:00.000-07:00

Although I am a huge fan of Mutually Preferred Judging (herein, MPJ), this post is not the time when I will defend it. That will come; but later. Suffice it to say for now that while I feel all tournaments should implement MPJ, only one has done so with regularity: the NPTE. This feature is one of the things that makes NPTE such a fantastic tournament.

But the fact that the NPTE is the only time during the year when most people will fill out a preference sheet also carries with it some intrinsic dangers. There is an art and a science to preferences, one that it takes a little bit of time to learn. Marie and I went to the NPTE three times; every year we refined our preference sheet strategy, and every year we did better than the last time. The last round I ever debated in front of an MPJ-selected panel, we won on a 5-0.

Here are some strategies.

Game Theory and Pref Sheets

From a purely game-theoretic perspective where we define the objective of the debate as "to win the ballot," it is easy to state a sub-goal for our preference sheet: The goal of a preference sheet is to end up debating in front of critics who are more likely, all other things being equal, to vote for you than to vote for your opponent.

Keep in mind this goal as we continue.

How do I pick my "A" critics?

Unlike when you're filling out an old-school strike sheet, the first thing you should do on a preference sheet is think about who you do want. Who are those judges that have reliably voted for you, all year long? Who are the ones you are always happy to see on the pairings, regardless of your opponent? Who is it that just seems to "get" you and your partner?

Make your list of these people, yes. But sadly, this is where many teams stop. They calculate only one half of the mutual preference equation; who do I want? They never stop to think: who do my opponents want?

Remember. When you get an A critic, your opponents have also rated them an A, in almost all circumstances. Ideally, in concert with our goal above, we want them to be a stronger A for you. This means you are going to need to sit down and be honest with yourself about a few things. Who is your competition? Who are the teams that you think have a chance at beating you? Okay, now who do they like?

Think about who their favorite judges are.

If you can identify a team that you are likely to debate at the NPTE, and judges that are likely to prefer them to you, you are two steps ahead of this game. The more confident you are of both of those assessments, the more likely you should be to move those judges down to B and find someone else to move up.

Never, ever, ever A a critic you haven't had at least twice

At Marie and I's first NPTE, we got pretty soundly waxed. We just didn't have a lot of real-world exposure to the critics in the pool, and consequently, all of our preferences played directly into our opponents' hands. Let me tell you, there is no more frustrating experience.

If you read a judging philosophy and it sounds great, like the best thing you've ever heard, then congratulations: you have found a person to whom you should give a B. (Or whatever the middle ranking is.) If you had a judge once before and they were cool and seemed to make a really solid decision, that's great for you. Another strong B candidate. But until you've had a judge a couple of times to see how they perform in different circumstances, I'd be wary.

This isn't always possible. But I would sure try. Because your opponents, more than likely, will be doing this. When Marie and I gave an "A" to (for example) Matt Stannard at the 2005 NPTE, this was not a hasty decision. It was borne out of many judged rounds, many conversations about those rounds, and many observations upon which we could build our strategies.

To state it succintly: when you A someone out of ignorance, chances are, you will debate against a team that did not A them out of ignorance. And now you're two strikes down before the debate even starts.

Have as few A's as they will allow you

This should be obvious, but to many people, it isn't. Preference sheets always require that you give an A to at least this many people. If I were you, I would give A's to exactly that many people and not one single one more. Quite frankly, you should be having difficulty finding enough people to A if you are paying attention to the guidelines we've been talking about.

Here is the reason. Let's say they require 17 A's and you A 20. Among those 20, there must be 17 best ones. There must be three who, when it comes right down to it, are not your very favorites. Eliminate those people. Slide them down to B's. If you're not on the fence and you trust everyone, re-read what I wrote above until it sinks in that a larger number of A's is a weapon that is going to be used against you.

Same goes for the lower rankings as well.

Also, here's something I often thought about but never did: by the end, Marie and I knew a lot of judges were constrained against us. Not for nefarious reasons, it's just the natural order of things. We knew, in fact, that they would mark themselves as constrained against us whether we did it or not. So, we pondered, why not give those people an "A," effectively reducing the size of our "A" pool to make it even more lean and mean?

For fear of the NPTE getting mad at us, we never did it. But you might want to. Let me know how it works out.

The Phantom "A"

Here's a risky maneuver, but one that could pay off big time. There are always certain critics in the pool that no one likes. I'm not going to name names here, because it's not necessary: everyone already knows. You read the judging philosophy or know the person, and just think "wow, they're not going to get any ballots." And it's true! At every NPTE, there is always someone who just doesn't judge at all. They show up, they eat the food, they leave.

Under certain circumstances, I would recommend giving those people an "A." Here, I am imagining a more "traditional" judge who while they may be reasonable, is not ideal for the kind of debates that tend to happen at the NPTE. If you think you could, if you actually got this judge, adapt and win their ballot, then sure. Give them an A.

Why? Because in all likelihood, you will never get this judge and it functions as a free A.

Keep in mind that what I said above still applies, of course. This is risky. Marie and I did this on a couple of rare occasions. We never had the judge, but if we had, I think we would have been fine.

The Bottom Line

Here's how I eventually boiled it down in my mind. Note that this is based on the A/B/C/strike system, which is the older system, but I think it is adaptable.

Give the judges you want in outrounds an "A." Give the judges you wouldn't mind having in prelims a "B." Give everyone else a C or a strike.

MG Answers: AIDS in Africa

2005-05-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

You should always have a full set of MG answers to the cases you run more than once. I will give a more detailed explanation of why/how later. But for now, here's a sample set for the govt case: AIDS in Africa. You list all the key arguments you hear regularly and your answers to them. Note: I like to write the neg arguments funny style, I'm not making fun of neg teams that run these, just making my briefs more interesting to read.

A2: “Superstrain is gonna happen because blackies don’t have watches”
1) NO LINK: Medical studies show increased compliance rate vs. Americans. Studies in 2003, found that the compliance rate of African AIDs patients was 91%, while American’s compliance rate was 70%
2) This is offensive and racist: The USAID admin who argued this in 2001 took a ton of flack for this ridiculous argument
3) N/U: European’s compliance rate is low; 10% of all new European infections are resistant to at least one drug.
4) NO IMPACT: That new strain can be treated too.
5) NO LINK: Cultural/familial pressure is high in Africa for compliance because parents are needed to work and they’ve all had friends die of the disease
6) T/We create a steady stream of treatment which means that it’s easier to follow the regiment. In the status quo, drugs are expensive and unavailable which would lead to more sporadic taking them.
7) N/U: Drugs have existed in Europe/America for a few years which has given AIDS the ability to develop resistance if this was going to happen

A2: Malaria/TB is worse; don’t ignore it! You cure mything asshole!
1) T/ With AIDs drugs available, Africans are more likely to go to the doctor where they can get treated for both
2) WHO CARES?: There are lots of diseases in the world, this is not a reason to ignore one of them
3) T/ Malaria/TB are more likely to kill you if you have untreated AIDS
4) NO LINK: There is no trade-off, we fund thru ___
5) NO IMPACT: Without a counter advocacy, there is no way to solve for malaria/TB anyway
6) T/Plan increases awareness of African health issues and the rest of the world’s role to help. This means treatment for malaria/TB becomes more likely

A2: Africa lacks infrastructure to disperse drugs. You know, they just have huts
1) NO LINK: WHO has built medical infrastructure over the past five years
2) NO LINK: Many African cities are large and modern with hospitals
3) NO IMPACT: This is defensive at best. Plan will get drugs to the most amount of Africans it can reach.
4) T/Plan creates an incentive to build more infrastructure which will make it possible to offer more health care to Africans.

A2: But dictators will steal the drugs/money and eat them.
1) NO LINK: Money has strings attached, this isn’t just going to go free to be stolen
2) NO SCENARIO: What are the dictators going to do with the drugs/money? Dictators are crazy! is not a reason to vote opp.
3) T/We weaken the power of the dictatorship by empowering the people by improving their health.
4) NO SCENARIO: Which dictators? Africa is not just one wild dictatorship.
5) NO IMPACT: Dictators are already dictating at maximum efficiency. There is nothing worse they can do; they already control the government.

A2: R&D money will go away and then like people will die. Yeah.
1) T/More R&D money will be generated since more drugs are being purchased
2) NO LINK: There is always a market for R&D because drugs are expensive. Plan won’t stop that.
3) NO LINK: Drugs companies have already made their money back in the American and European markets
4) T/Drug companies will get more private donations because they’re seen as charitable organizations that are improving the world, not just hoarding money with no concern for humanity

A2: Bush already has an AIDS program, He's a grrrreat guy.
1) NO IMPACT: This is just defensive. So what? Now he has TWO programs.
2) NO IMPACT: Bush hasn’t been funding his current programs anyway so people still need our help.
3) T/Bush is more likely to fund his current program when his efforts are applauded internationally and he starts to see results

Partners: Love but don’t Looooove your partner (Part 2 of 2)

2005-04-29T01:43:00.000-07:00

[continued from part 1]

What's it like to debate with/date the same person?

Cons:

1) Slanted teams leads to really wounded egos.

Debaters by their own competitive nature are obsessed with ranking not only teams but the members of each time by skill. This hurts anyone when it gets back to them that the circuit believes their partner carries them. However, this can be particularly harmful in a romantic partnership because it can breed resentment. It is harder to be proud of your lover’s accomplishments when you feel that your community believes she is better than you. These feelings make it difficult to debate with your partner and put you on edge because you feel you have something to prove to the world.

2) A fight has much bigger consequences than you bargained for.

This one is sort of a no-brainer, but really important to consider. If you fight over something completely non-debate related, it is very difficult to keep it out of the debate round. Raising emotions and hurt feelings translate to checking out of the debate round before it begins, refusing to work together, and making critical errors because your emotions aren’t focused on the debate at hand. I can’t even count the number of times Ian and I fought during prep time about a personal matter then were forced to put on a professional face a few minutes later. And don’t even get me started on a breakup. Ending your romance could also mean the end of your debate partnership as well. This is a serious risk to consider even if you are one of those sappy couples that never fights. The stress of debate will pit even the Beavers against one another on occasion.

3) Forget personal issues. Everything is public.

When you decompress with a few sharp words after debate rounds, you’re team is probably going to be around. When you’re fighting about whose fault it was about the last round, your coach is probably going to know. If you are a high profile team, the circuit will probably also know all your romantic business. If you were dating someone outside of the debate circuit, people would probably care less and never know anything about her. However, when you bring that relationship into public scrutiny it occurs. A lot. Every disagreement becomes magnified because people are eager to see your partnership fail and your coach is extra-sensitive because she’s afraid your partnership won’t remain stable. You can’t have little fights anymore without the rumor becoming OMG they broke up?! And your coach wanting to have a mediation talk.

So?

So what do I really think? Would I advise others to do debate with their lover? I think that Ian and I were a special case. We were able to gain the most benefits from the pros by minimizing the impacts of the cons. If you feel that your lover is the best partner for you on your team based on their skills, then I would say go for it.

However, I would definitely not suggest turning down a different partnership just for the novelty of debating with your lover. I think you have to be particularly strong mentally to get through the rough times that are guaranteed to come. If you are both equally dedicated to success, it will be easier to put the cons aside and debate. But if you are more prone to emotional hurt or care less about the results of the round, then it is probably not for you. The bottom line is that I’d advise that you try it out if there aren’t better options as long as you aren’t afraid to quit if it isn’t working for you.

Partners: Love but don’t Looooove your partner (Part 1 of 2)

2005-04-27T03:43:00.000-07:00

Many coaches believe that you should not debate with your roommate, best friend, or especially your lover. Conventional wisdom is that debaters shouldn’t mix their emotions with their professional partnerships. Ian and I dated for three years – a year before we debated together --- and then debated together for a year after we broke up. Here’s the nitty gritty on what it’s like to debate with someone you share a bed with.

Pros:

1) You know your partner’s emotions well.

Despite our best attempts, our emotions do creep into debate. We get upset after a close round or get down on ourselves after we mishandled an argument. When anyone in a relationship is distressed, they turn to their romantic partner for comfort. This makes for a particularly convenient coupling when you are upset about debate. You can seek the solace in your lover who was there during the rough situation. This support is crucial during stressful rounds or frustrating situations.

2) You are comfortable criticizing your partner.

In order for a debate team to grow, you must be willing to tell each other what you can do to improve. In a close romantic relationship, you are most likely used to doing this already on a regular basis for things like forgetting to hang up the wet towel or spitting backwash into your drink. This open dialogue is priceless to your growth and is difficult to achieve with a partner you do not already feel that connection with.

3) You spend a lot of time together.

For a team to develop the sense of camaraderie and connection that gives them the edge, they need to spend a lot of time together. Every minute that is spent discussing debate and team strategy is one less needed to explain arguments during prep time. It is very valuable to be able to trust that your partner will always be on the same page as you. While this is possible in non-romantically involved couples, it is a natural consequence of those that are dating to spend a lot of time together. Their conversation is bound to be about debate a lot of the time and this will only strengthen the quality of the team.

[continued in part 2]

Reform: Hit Me Baby One More Time (Part 2 of 2)

2005-04-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

[continued from part 1]

4) The opp block can be abused.

The combination of the MO/LOR has the opportunity to split the block. That is, the MO and the LOR can talk about completely different things. This is good strategy for the opp because they can develop much deeper second-line analysis to all the MG responses. The PMR, then, has five minutes to answer 12 minutes of new opp argumentation.

The reason that this is possible is because they are not “new” arguments in the rebuttal; the LOR is answering arguments that have already been in the constructives. Some judges will not allow splitting of the opp block, so you should probably call POO to be safe if a team uses this strategy on you. However, most judges are supportive of this practice. A four-rebuttal structure would help alleviate this problem because the PMR could quickly cover the opp block, the MOR would then have to summarize the opp’s best arguments, and finally the MGR could be used to crystallize the reasons the govt team is winning.

5) PMR must both weigh impacts and answer the MO.

Even if the opp does not split the block, the PMR still has too many responsibilities. It is the job of the last govt speaker to address all of the arguments before her in the debate – anything new in the MO and everything summarized in the LOR – while she also boils down the reasons the govt team is winning the debate. This leads to an often very sloppy PMR. Nearly every judge complains that at the end of the debate not enough comparisons have been made. What is the judge to do if the aff wins all their advantages and loses all the DAs?

If the final govt rebuttal (and opp one too for that matter) could be concentrated solely on summarization then it would provide for a much tighter debate. We’d see more predictable judge ballots because the teams would not be leaving the impact analysis up to the judge to do.

6) Debaters can coast thru the debate without learning all the skills necessary to be good.

And I quote Ian on this one, “two rebuttal structure allows debaters to coast by without doing anything hard--the PM/MO can really be a twink position because they don't have any REALLY tough speeches, other than the PMR.” If someone is bad at something, say rebuttals, they can be placed in both member positions and never have to give them. Or if they are bad at coming up with unique responses to new positions on the fly, they can be in the PM/MO.

Requiring both team members to give a constructive and a rebuttal means that everyone will learn both skill sets. The PM would also have to be technically good and the MO would need to be a good rebuttalist.

This is an end in itself for pedagogical reasons – encouraging everyone to extend their learning. It is also good, however, for a competitive reason. See the next.

7) Uneven skill teams can dominate.

Everyone knows a team in which one of the debaters is much better than their partner. In the current parli world, this is okay. If the skills of one of the members are strong enough, she can easily carry her partner. She can put her partner in the easier positions (usually thought to be the PM/MO, but that will be discussed in a later article) and direct the team from her speeches.

If both team members were required to give both sets of speeches this would balance out this distribution some. How many teams with two solid debaters have you seen lose to a team with a stellar debater carrying an average one? Adding those rebuttals would make each speaker vitally important to the debate and essentially level the playing field. The LOR can save a debate after a poor MO (by splitting the block for example), but with a four-rebuttal strategy, the MOR would be the last opposition speech which is critical to the success of the opp team.

MG: Stay in the Game

2005-04-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

You give an awesome MG. You sit down. Your energy level is high and you want to win. But your part of the debate is over, right? Wrong. The MG has an opportunity to make the PMR's job much easier. Here’s how.

During the MO speech, the MG doesn't need to flow. The PM is already furiously doing so and she'll be the one to answer the arguments anyway. However, during the LOR, the PMR needs to spend the time collecting her thoughts to choose her voting issues and decide which dropped MG arguments to extend. During this time, the MG plays an important role: interpreter.

She gets a clean sheet of paper and writes a heading for each opp voting issue. Then, she writes the main and best argument the opp has under that issue. Alternatively, she could also just write the analysis that is key to the position. For example, if the argument is a politics DA, she could write “Gov gives Bush capital because it’s popular with the democrats.” This is essentially the thesis that the LOR will repeat more than once when clarifying her voting issues. She also writes down how much time the LOR spends on each issue.

At the end of the LOR, the MG gives this paper to the PMR. It includes each of the voting issues by title (to be sure the PMR doesn’t miss any of the main arguments), the thesis of each position (so that the PMR can directly address their best arguments and make “even if” statements), and the time spent on each position (so the PMR can do so similarly). The last element is particularly important because the time dedicated to each position is usually indicative of the significance of that argument to the opp team. If the LOR spends only 30 seconds on the topicality argument, but 3:30 on the kritik, then it is clear to the PMR where the opp thinks they are winning.

This is also good as a strategy because it keeps the MG out of the PMR’s hair. Constantly whispering “good” arguments in the ear of the PMR during the LOR is detrimental because it shows the MG doesn’t trust her partner and disrupts the thoughts of the PMR who should be organizing her next speech.

I guarantee you she will look much less disorientated and fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants if she gets an entire speech to think about what she's going to say and can trust you, the MG, to pay attention to the LOR. Your "cheat sheet" will provide the direction necessary for her to not just cover the opp arguments, but beat them.

MO: Stop Flowing

2005-04-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

The dumbest thing you can do as the Member of Opposition is flow the PMC.

Almost invariably, I used to see and still do see many people doing this. They know they're the MO. They know they aren't speaking next. They know, in fact, that they will not speak (excepting Points of Information) for 23 minutes, almost enough time to watch an episode of Joey, and yet there they are, writing.

Why do MOs do this? Mostly, I think, because they can't think of anything else to do. I mean, someone's speaking, you should be writing--it's an instinct bred into us as debaters from the very first day. It's a good one. You should be doing something, at the very least. But passively writing down what your opponent is saying is not a good idea.

Consider: the flow has no intrinsic worth. After a debate round, the judge does not ask to see yours and then reference it. The only time it is important to flow something is if you feel there is a chance you'll be refering to it later. Even setting aside the question of the other valuable things you could be doing with your time as the MO during the PMC (which we'll get to), I want to take a moment to address that.

Imagine you, as the MO, sat motionless through the PMC. You listened, so you got the idea of what was going on, but you didn't write anything. Consequently, you were rendered totally unable to reference by specific subpoint any part of the government case. You could refer to to your partner (the LOC) in detail, and the MG's responses, but the case could only be vaguely addressed by you.

How would this change your speeches? At all? If anything, it would tend to make you emphasize your arguments (since you had them written in detail to consult and extend) and de-emphasize your opponents' best arguments (their case). Isn't this exactly what you want to be doing? You will spend more time talking about your issues, your concerns, your arguments, and less about theirs.

Even better: to the extent that you are debating on case, you will only be refering to their case in the LO's framings. The case debate, for you, will have started with the LOC, and that is almost always a good place to be.

If it wouldn't change your speeches at all--then why are you wasting your time? Honestly, even if you have nothing better to do, I think flowing the case as the MO is a bad idea unless your partner is incompetent or something, which is not an issue I'm ready to address here. There was a round at the 2005 NPTE where, as I was trying to suggest some case argument to Marie, she turned to me and said (nicely) "sit still and be quiet." So I did. I stopped writing, gazed off into space, and listened, sort of, but also let my mind wander. I asked a question or two to give Marie "pen time." I watched the judges for things they seemed to like and how they were reacting nonverbally. It relaxed the hell out of me, Marie deployed our strategy flawlessly, and then I listened intently to the MG. We won both ballots that round.

But consider this: not flowing frees you up to do other, more important things. In the round I just referenced, our strategy had been set during prep time, and the minimal filling in of the gaps was easily accomplished by Marie on her own. Frequently, though, that is not the case. Everyone gets blindsided sometimes. Most Gov teams spend a lot of time and energy trying to blindside you, in fact, to run a case that is not what you were expecting, not what you prepped for, and renders your prep time strategy totally useless.

Every LO knows the feeling of getting blindsided. There is so much to do, and so little time. The task you had 20 or 25 minutes for in prep--writing disads, shelling out counterplans, figuring out how they're being procedurally unfair--must now be done in only 7 minutes. Moreover, the LO does need to be flowing the case, since there might be important traps or arguments hidden there to which she needs to respond.

This is a perfect time for the MO to think quickly, and figure out what needs to get done. Is there a good disadvantage to this unexpected water rights case? Yes? Then (in a sentence or two) run it by your LO, and if she likes it, write it out. Ignore the PMC and just write a really, really solid disadvantage. Then your LO can focus one hundred percent of her effort onto something else, knowing that no matter what, when she stands up, she'll have solid case arguments, a case-specific disad, and probably still a generic or two to run. Moreover, she will be able to get through your argument (whatever it is) pretty fast, since she'll essentially be reading it off of a piece of paper. Write neatly and large.

Let me put it another way: how many times have you been watching a debate as an audience member, and the killer, round-winning argument seems clear to you after listening to the PMC? You can't believe the opp didn't think of the obvious exclusion counterplan (or whatever) and as a consequence, they lose. Why can you do this? Because it's much easier to think clearly when you don't have an obligation to keep a tight flow, and you can just listen and think.

Well guess what? The MO doesn't have that obligation, and is permitted to just listen and think. Try it. You will like it.

On Being "Lucky"

2005-04-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

As much as we might like to pretend otherwise, debate is an activity judged by human beings. Human beings make mistakes. Moreover, human beings are creatures of their preconceptions, biases, desires, and doctrines. Why should judging debate be any different? Frequently, it isn't.

Compounding this problem is the indeterminacy of "the flow." Critical legal theorists make the same argument about the law that I am about to make about debate: the flow is indeterminate. Even a well-maintained written record of a round often justifies many outcomes, a range of possible decisions and reasons for that decision, rather than a single decision. (What if one team wins a procedural argument and the other team wins a critical argument? And they are both making arguments about why their argument should come before the other--or neither of them are?)

This fact should be evident from the use of panels in debate. Splits happen. Judges disagree about the outcome of a debate. The question that arises from this is a pragmatic one:

When the outcome is ambiguous, how can I make sure it goes my way?

There are teams that always seem to have this luck. Every time you think you've finally got them, they skate away on some argument that you didn't think mattered at all, but the judge made the entirety of their RFD. The truth is, it isn't luck; it derives from what I will term "the air of inevitability." Judges want to make the right decision. This is even more true for "lay judges," as seasoned critics tend to have fewer reservations about bucking community norms to make a point. A lay judge on a panel in a late elim has, basically, one desire: "I just don't want to fuck up." Making the "wrong" decision carries social consequences. Ask Jacob Stutzman about that sometime, who was turned into a pariah after he voted against a popular team in quarterfinals of NPDA in 2002.

You must appear to be winning. In your mannerisms, in your tone, and especially when it is not your turn to speak, you must affect all the airs of a person who is very far ahead in the debate and to whom this is obvious. The decision in your favor must seem like an inevitability.

Of course, it's easy to mess that up. Many teams, in trying to project confidence, project arrogance instead. That doesn't make you look like you're winning; it makes you look like you're trying to look like you're winning. The best way to get this behavior down is to think back to rounds you have, clearly, been winning. How did you act then?

People who are winning debate rounds tend to be smiling a lot. (Because--wait for it--they are happy. Because they're winning!) They tend to be calm, in good spirits, and easygoing. I mean, that's how I felt, anyway. When we were ahead in debates and I knew we were, I felt like the master of the universe. All the bluster and chest-thumping I displayed in so many other occasions melted away, and I was just left feeling happy, because hey. Winning feels good.

Judges notice this.

Konrad Hack has said that you could determine the winner of most debate rounds on mute. I would amend this slightly: you could determine who is probably going to win on mute. Watching through the window, I think I could call the outcome of 90% of debates correctly. Who looks in control? Who looks like the own the room? Who's in a good mood, and who's pissed at their partner?

The next time you are locked in a very tight round with your arch-nemesis, take my advice. The round is likely going to come down to the judge making a subjective determination about which arguments they "buy" or who's telling a "better story." The flow can't save you now. When they are making that subjective determination, give them the image of you as the team that is obviously winning, so their natural, socially-bred instinct to vote for "the winner" kicks in. You will become one of those teams with fantastic luck, and begin winning all of your close rounds; and when you do, consider that more time to observe what it looks like to win.

Reform: Hit Me Baby One More Time (Part 1 of 2)

2005-04-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

The current two-rebuttal structure as a debate format has some serious loopholes. Adding two more rebuttals – a MOR and MGR – would solve some of these problems.

1) New offensive arguments in the MG are currently too powerful

Because the MG is still a constructive, she has the opportunity to shell out new arguments that were not in the PMR. These arguments can certainly be new offensive reasons why the govt should win the round. Most commonly the MG runs new kritik positions against the rhetoric or arguments of the LOC or new disadvantages stemming from LOC counterplans. This leaves the opposition with one speech of new responses.

This is unfair for a few reasons. First, they opp can’t know if the govt is planning on going for it or not which could result in a giant time skew if the PMR doesn’t choose to argue the position. This is uniquely a problem in this situation because the LOR is the last time for the opposition to clarify why they are winning and none of that time should be tricked into being wasted. Second, they do not know how the govt is going to handle their answers. The govt could be predicting the permutation on the kritik for example, to which the PMR is planning on making independent reasons why the govt should win if opps run permutations. This gives the govt an unfair advantage because they have the only information about how arguments are going to function after analysis. Adding two more rebuttals would mean that the opp has second-line answers to all of the new MG offense which is not only more fair but more educational because the issues are examined more in-depth.

2) With only two rebuttals, the MO is very limited in her argumentative freedom

All of the opposition arguments must come out in the LOC so that govt turns can be answered back with additional opposition argument. If the MO runs new DA or CPS, the job for the PMR is quite easy – she just has to turn the new MO arguments, even a weak turn, because the opp does not have another opportunity to respond. This limits the ability of the MO to contribute to the round because they must essentially parrot the LOC arguments or risking creating independent reasons to lose the round.

This is also harmful because this means the opposition strategy must be set after a mere seven minutes of debate without prep-time or real consultation with her partner to set the oppositional framework. If the MO could add new arguments to the round, the opp could have a stronger, more cohesive strategy as new ideas are developed over the course of the constructives. The MO could run new arguments, however, because the MOR has a chance to respond to the government’s first line responses, which would occur in the PMR.

3) Theory arguments are not given enough lines of argumentation to develop the necessary depth.

Most of the theory argumentation occurs after the MG. For example, when the MG permutes a CP, the MO is the first chance to argue about the legitimacy of the permutation. Then the PMR has the final response to that theory clash. Or as another example, if the MG argues that a CP should be rejected because it is topical, the opp only has one opportunity to respond. In order to encourage more technical in-depth argumentation, rebuttals would encourage debaters to understand the theoretical principles that drive our activity and develop their own arguments about how items function in debate.

[continued in part 2]

Judges: Polly Pocket Judges

2005-04-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

What is a pocket judge? A pocket judge is one that votes for you consistently. Usually, a judge will have voted for you at least three times before she is considered a pocket judge. They are also not coincidental – that is, the judge and competitors are all aware of this pattern. They are also more likely among tight regional communities in which debaters frequently have the same judges. Pocket judges could communicate their status with the debaters, “I will never drop you,” or it can just be a silent but shared kinship between the judge and debaters.

How do I get a pocket judge? There are two ways to earn a pocket judge. The first is accidental. A debater may just happen to appeal to the stylistic or argumentative preferences of a specific judge. For example, if a judge really digs argumentation about political socialism and you advocate that in front of her, the judge may be loyal in the future. She will remember judging you when you ran her favorite position and be more likely to continue to pick you up later. This means there is no guarantee that a certain judge will become your pocket judge but you are bound to earn at least one without any extra effort.

The second way to gain a pocket judge is through out-of-round relationships. These can be achieved with ex-competitors or local coaches. If you befriend a competitor who later judges you, it will be much harder for her to vote against you. This gives an extra incentive to be kind to your opponents because it is possible you are earning future ballots. You can also build relationships with coaches at bars, summer camps, historically friendly squads, etc. These pocket judges tend to be more loyal than accidental ones because more is at stake – your friendship.

Why are pocket judges useful? Most obviously, they vote for you. However, more specifically, if you have them in an out-round panel, you can concentrate your efforts on the other judges because you know you have already won your pocket judge’s ballot. This means you do not have to split your attention and you also have the extra confidence boost that often plays a key role in out-round performances.

Why haven’t I heard of pocket judges before? It is very impolite to talk about them. You do not want the judge to feel like she has no control over your rounds because you have already won. It’s just arrogant and degrading to her intelligence. Second, you do not want your opponents to know because they might use that as a reason to strike the judge. Finally, the pocket judge phenomenon is the dirty stepchild of debate. If people understood the real impact of pocket judges it could threaten to unravel the important social myth that binds us together. If judges aren’t impartial but can be “owned in a team’s pocket,” the activity loses the objectivity that makes debate worthwhile. For every one of your pocket judges, your opponents probably have their own too. This is debate at its worst because the round is decided not based on merit but relationships among the participants.

What does this mean for debate? Pocket judges are going to exist forever. As social creatures it is impossible for humans to separate their feelings about people from their performance. The first step is to recognize this and be accepting of this foible. Realize judges are not infallible even if they have good intentions. However, judges especially should take it upon themselves to limit this effect. They should make it clear that how they feel about their friends outside of debate rounds is separate from their ballot decisions.

Judges should take this a step further by constraining themselves against any teams that they feel they cannot judge fairly because of their relationship. They don’t even have to tell the teams they are doing it! They can protect themselves from eroding what debate means without sacrificing the relationships they value too. Furthermore, she can make careful decisions to ensure she is not voting for a team because that team ran her favorite argument but instead legitimately won the debate round. Judges and debaters should actively try to preserve the integrity of our activity.

The Project

2005-04-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

As per the suggestion of Dr. Berube, we're starting an online blog to discuss parliamentary debate. We plan to cover a wide range of topics including: strategies against popular cases, political movements within the communities, tips for all of the specific speeches, mainstream arguments, and suggestions for improvement of the activity. Don't worry, we'll be consulting our respected peers and coaches for input too. We hope to provide an educational tool for all of those that read. We feel this blog provides us a unique opportunity to give back at least a part of all that we have learned in the last four years.