Damien Middle School Debate Tournament
2019 — La Verne, CA/US
Policy Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HideFreshman at lmu
did debate for Damien hs
email for chain -> josephblmu@gmail.com
you can read whatever you want just be clear
make me laugh and ur speaks will be nice
I have 5 years of debate experience. I did two years of policy and two years of public forum, and I now do British parliamentary at the University of Laverne. If you make me laugh or smile, I'll be more willing to give you better speaks, but don't fish for votes, make it natural.
I'm good with speed
If you're debating policy try to have some original thoughts, I think the activity becomes boring when all you do is read other people's stuff.
If you have any questions, my email is: colin.coppock@laverne.edu
baylor’26
from the river to the sea...
tldr - i am a sophomore at baylor university studying data science and computational biology -- second round qualified to the NDT -- my senior year of high school, i had 5 bids to the tournament of champions, was consistently a top 10 speaker as well as consistent appearances in late elims of national circuit tournaments if background/success matters at all to yall.
email chain -- odarwish22@damien-hs.edu
- Tech > truth, BUT my inclination to vote on certain positions will increase/decrease depending on the level of extrapolation present i.e. arguments must be fully flushed out in order to be given any semblance of weight in my decision.
- The first 30 seconds of your rebuttal speeches should crystalize the debate and ideally mirror my potential RFD.
- My decision calculus first and foremost usually comes down to what arguments are tailored to the casting of my ballot.
- Presumption goes to the team that deviates from the squo the least.
- I am a performance debater -- I like cx sass and assertiveness but just make sure you dont confuse those things with disrespect and aggressiveness
- I default to judge kick absent being instructed no judge kick
- Link specificity is very important to me.
- Do not insert evidence.
- Speaker points rate individual performance, strategic/bold pivots, general rhetorical appeal etc. because of this I generally give out a lot of low point wins.
- My camera is usually on, if its off seek confirmation prior to starting your speech.
Arguments --- I am accustomed to and have taken exclusively left leaning critical positions throughout the second half of my career, despite this I have no biases and will strictly defer to my flow for any argumentative inconsistencies. I will not fill in holes for you and you should act as if I don't know what the literature says while showcasing a superior explanation of your arguments.
- Theory --- Condo is generally good but I've voted otherwise in the past. Dropping utopian alts bad isnt an auto dub same goes for most theory arguments. Rejecting the arg generally remedies any harms created, you're going to have to do some work to make me vote otherwise.
- Framework --- I have no biases here. Procedural fairness is both an internal link and an impact just depends on how you deploy it in round. Things you should do that should seem obvious but dont happen: Go for only one impact in the 2nr, do impact calculus/comparison, articulate solvency deficits to their model of debate, explain how your model solves and interacts with said deficits visa vie tva/ssd, link analysis (most of their offense probably just assumes debate or the state), actually answering the 2ac and getting off your blocks, predict/preempt 2ar shifts and compensate by doing judge instruction, ballot framing, and model comparison, answering the affirmative in the 2nr. I think that debate is a game but I also think it has the potential to influence different material outcomes. I view Tvas as impact filters that don't need to solve the affirmative but should include aff literature. SSD becomes very convincing to me if the affirmative answers to T devolve into state/state education bad. I am a sucker for smart presumption arguments and have a higher threshold for aff solvency explanation. Although I do not go for framework in college, as a 2a, I am constantly responding to the argument as well as coaching my debaters to go for it. I really enjoy good framework debates but the opposite is true as well. If the level of framework debating described above seems synonymous with your style of debating you should probs prefer me highly.
- The K --- Try not to go for a k that you are unfamiliar with; not to say I wont vote for you if you win, but rounds where you constantly evade questions during cx and provide me with shoddy explanations that dont do your literature base justice are agonizing. I strongly prefer substantive critical debating and am not a fan of spamming contradictory critical positions derived from different schools of thought. I don't care about how you go for the k or what you read just make sure you are telling me a story that I can retell to the affirmative in the rfd. I dont like implicit clash, you should be doing the line by line on the k proper. Link contextualization and drawing aff/topic specific historical examples separate good and great k debaters. I think framework is the most important part of the K but it can become ultimately irrelevant if the rest of the critique is winning that either the plan exacerbates the harms you've impacted out or the critique is winning an impact turn to the aff. I will default to judge kicking the alt if it was conditional but you need a reason why I should if the other team makes a judge kick argument. I am most comfortable with language/post-structuralist criticisms but am still somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to identity critiques.
- K Affs --- I have experience defending and debating these types of affs and I think that the closer you are to answering the resolutional question, the better. I think that uniqueness is extremely underutilized in these debates and usually helps me weigh a lot of these ballot and impact comparison questions in your favor. When answering topicality YOU WILL LOSE if you dont have a competing interpretation of debate that you can solve your impact turns through because then they're just non-unique. Thats why I stress the importance of ballot and impact uniqueness in these debates. You should probably have some sort of advocacy text/statement or at least make the solvency portion of the 1ac clear. If I am left without understanding what the role of the negative is under your model thats probably a disad to it. When debating framework leverage your case as much as possible - I see a lot of teams struggling to decide on whether to defend a middle ground or the impact turn, just make sure you pick one so that the story of the affirmative remains constant, inconsistency in the different affirmative speeches both argumentatively and strategically warrant my neg ballot a lot of the time. I think explaining how the affirmative solves the individual pieces of offense you are going for not only clarifies the messy portions of the round but also just makes it easier for you to cross apply/group arguments in the rebuttals. I also won’t vote on an impact turn your model can't resolve so you need to explain how you solve the offense you consolidated down to. The best 2a's pick and choose a few things to go for in the final speech and talk about how these arguments interact with both what the 2nr is going for and most importantly how that influences the casting of my ballot. I default to giving the affirmative the permutation but I can be convinced otherwise.
If you have any questions about anything that was/wasn’t mentioned above you can email me.
@dylan barsoumian -- my guy
email - nolanrenedejesus@berkeley.edu
Damien '21
UC Berkeley Haas '25
TOC '20 '21
he/him/his
I haven't been active in debate for a min, so I'm not too familiar with the topic
Affs: read a plan
Negs: fine with anything, but be cognizant of my limited understanding of the topic and various literature bases
people whose views on debate are most like mine:
Chris Paredes, Donny Peters, Tim Lewis, Brendan Tremblay, Noah Bartholio, Joe Barragan
email (yes, include both): lpgarcia19@damien-hs.edu; damiendebate47@gmail.com
LD: policy pls (below should still be applicable)
If you have any questions feel free to ask me before the round starts.
TL;DR Go for what you're most prepared for and can execute the best because that's what really makes debate fun and productive. I'm not very familiar with the topic.
My Beliefs:
Debate is good
Tech > Truth
Clarity above all else
Clipping is bad
My leanings:
Util good
I, as the judge, am a policymaker
Fiat is a good thing
A couple Great cards + explanation always beats 10 pieces of mediocre ev
There's not an excuse to avoid line by line
Topicality
I don't think fairness isn't an intrinsic impact, same as education. It can be an internal link to other things but simply ending your impact calculus with "They KILLED FAIRNESS" won't do it for me. Just treat your extensions and impact work like you would any DA. (I WON'T EVALUATE T AS A DA. TOPICALITY IS A YES OR NO QUESTION. RISK ANALYSIS FOR T IS ABSURD). I also lean heavily towards competing interpretations; the quality of your ev does matter.
Kritiks
If your entire strategy solely centers around the K, I'm not a great judge for you. I can certainly understand your generic Cap and Security K but any high theory requires a whole lot of explanation for me. Just because I might understand what you're saying doesn't mean you can weasel your way around with generic links if it's even somewhat contested. If you're aff I'd down to see an impact turn (obvious exceptions, of course, are: racism good, sexism good, homophobia good, etc.) I really do not want to hear Death Good, please do not do that in front of me.
K-Affs (Includes Framework)
I have written my disdain for K-Affs before. I am not going to just dismiss it; even as I maintain a reluctance to vote on them, I am not one you should just breeze through your blocks and force me to do work for you. I will be the first to admit that I need a lot of explanation as noted above in "Kritiks". Given all this said, framework is an uphill battle for the aff. I am not very sympathetic to generic "fairness bad/your education bad" impact turns; I think policy education is generally a good thing.
Theory
The only theory I feel even remotely comfortable voting aff (TO REJECT THE ARGUMENT) on are utopian fiat bad, object fiat bad, riders DA bad, delay cps bad, and floating piks bad. Condo is generally a good thing and I personally think you're better off not reading that 30 second shell if the neg is running just a single conditional advocacy but I understand time skew. Also, in principle, I judge-kick. I think that as I default to Condo being a good thing, and the status quo always being a logical option, it would be illogical for me to choose a plan of action when doing nothing would be better.
Also, I doubt I'll ever vote for Word Piks. This certainly doesn't excuse excessively disrespectful behavior.
Disads
I like politics a lot and I like engagement and clash at the link level even more so. Turns case analysis (vice versa for the aff) is always a good thing and should be a must have. Straight turns are fun.
Impacts
I love impact turns and my personal favorites are: Heg Good, Warming Good, Cap Good, Dedev, and CWG. It will take a lot for me to evaluate 0 risk of an impact. It can happen but your cards need to be far better.
Here is my email: Rghibaudo23@damien-hs.edu
Debated Policy in Highschool for 3ish years
comfortable with anything -- don't be mean to the other team....