Experience: 2 years college policy, 5 years parli, 5 years NFA-LD, I've been coaching a combination of HS policy, CEDA/NDT, NFA-LD and Parli for 9 years.

Email for the chain: bowersd@moval.edu

Online Debate: A couple of things I think are important before starting. Please make sure that your computer is plugged in before starting, your mic is muted while the other person is speaking. Also, there will be tech problems throughout the year, please be cool about it. If there is a disconnect during a speech time will stop and the speaker will be responsible for picking up where they left off when they reconnect.

General: I very much believe that I am here for you, so whatever style of debate you enjoy doing you should do that. I think that I probably will hold the line on cheap shot arguments more often than not, typically one line arguments on a theory shell/solvency flow will not get my ballot. Generally the team that does the better link/impact analysis/comparison will win my ballot.

I'll talk about some things here to maybe clear some questions you may have but genuinely whatever you want to do. If you have questions please feel free to ask.

Impact framing: Sans an alternative I think that death is the worst impact in the debate, but I'm very willing and happy to listen to other impact framing arguments.

Theory: I think that absent another framing mechanism I would evaluate T via competing interps, that being said I'm open to whatever method you want in terms of evaluating the argument. I think that my threshold for voting on T is low IE it's just another argument that if you win I will vote on. I don't have a preference on whether or not condo is good or bad. Most if not all questions like that can be resolved in round. I do not need proven abuse to vote on Topicality.

CP: Awesome, fun, I don't think I've met a counterplan I wasn't in some way a fan of from a strategic standpoint. That being said I think that overly complicated texts need to be explained. If I don't know what the counterplan does or how it functionally solves the aff it is harder to win me.

K: I don't have a preference for any type of alternative, I will say that it would be easier for me to vote for a K if I understand what the alternative does. I won't vote against a K if I don't understand what the alt does it just definitely makes it an easier ballot for you.

I coach at a 4A school in southeast Kansas. I did debate & forensics in high school, but not in college.

-Topicality is important to me, but actually make a point with it. Don't just run T to run T and then drop it later.

-DAs are great, generic DAs are fine as long as links are clearly analyzed.

-CPs are fine as well, but again don't just run it to kill time only to drop it later.

-I judge pretty big on speaking - speak "pretty". Be organized, concise, have good speed (as long as I can understand your words I have no issue with speed), make me apart of the round. Advocate for your viewpoint and why I should prefer it.

-Make me whatever kind of judge you want me to be - policy maker, real world, but if all else fails I'll fall back on stock issues and aff burden of proof as a guide for my RFD.

I was a high school debater for 4 years, and competed in 4-speak regional and state tournaments both my junior and senior years. I judged three rounds of the Bishop Miege open tournament this year, and have tried to judge once a year since I graduated (which was, admittedly, 10+ years ago).

Though I didn't debate in college, I have a Masters in Theatre and worked for a number of years in the professional theatre community. I say that in preface to: I am appreciative of clear communicative skills, as long as they are in service to the resolution of substantive issues. Both hold weight for me.

I was a stocks-centric debater, and am now a stock issues judge.

Fairly rapid delivery is acceptable so long as presentation is clearly enunciated. Very rapid speed is discouraged, as I will be flowing your round.

Counterplans are rarely acceptable, and only if specifically justified by substantive plan mandates. If you're the Negative, I would rather you focus on dismantling the Affirmative rather than turning it into an affirmative vs. affirmative round.

As Topicality is a stocks issue, it's fairly important. Winning Topicality doesn't necessarily win you the round though, as I will take all stock issues into consideration.

Generic disadvantages are acceptable if specific links are clearly analyzed. My squad ran disads in the 2NC often, so I will consider them if brought up in this speech.

Kritiks are reprehensible. Ground your arguments in the real world.

I retired from Coffeyville, KS - Field Kindley Memorial HS in 2012 after coaching debate and forensics for 36 years. I continue to judge when possible. I consider myself a policy maker and prefer to weigh the impacts of the disads and advantages. Obviously, topicality and solvency will be considered, but without a reasonable and compelling DA the negative has to work harder. Additionally, I expect the Aff. to meet its prima facia burdens. I expect both sides to provide clash. Not a fan of Kritiks, but I will listen to most any argument that is relevant to the debate and expect rebuttals to narrow down to the most compelling arguments. I prefer that the round not be fast and incoherent. Clarity is key. If debaters are not clear and arguments do not link to the opponent's positions, then you leave the decision totally in my hands and I have to search for reasons to justify my decision. Not a wise choice. I have not coached for 12 years and will be out of the loop with "new debate practices". In other words, I'm old school. I can flow a round, but if a so-called argument gets by me, it won't impact my decision. Basically, "don't be stupid" and we will have fun.

As for LD and PF, I have coached both. Each have their own purpose, LD debates should establish a value. While both sides will present real world examples that support their value positions, this is not a policy debate. LD is value debate and the decision will be made for whomever wins the value debate. PF was originally intended to debate current events. Not sure that’s the case anymore, but as I rarely hear PF debates, I expect each team to present evidence and arguments that support their side best. Both LD and PFD were developed as an answer to bad, fast, incoherent policy debates. I expect LD and PF to be slow, conversational and persuasive.

Background

I am a 2nd year law student at Emory University School of Law and an experienced NSDA oralist. During my high school career I participated in varsity policy debate, international extemporaneous speaking, and congressional debate. I am a two time NSDA national congressional debate competitor for the 2014 and 2015 competitions. I have returned to judge rounds in debate and forensics multiple times in person and virtually since I graduated high school.

Since my time being a NSDA high school competitor I have participated in Model UN at Coe College during my undergrad, I am a member of Emory Law's competitive arbitration team, I am a member of Emory Law International Criminal Court moot court team, and I am the new Director in Chief of Emory Law Moot Court Society 2021-2022. This year, 2021, my ICC team competed at the Pace University Americas regional ICC competition. We qualified for international rounds hosted by the Hague in June and I received awards for best government oralist and best overall oralist.

I am familiar with the process of judging and I enjoy paying it forward to an activity which sparked a career.

Paradigms specifics: Debate

I am a flow judge, help me out and keep your organization clear about where you are in your argument.

I prefer policy arguments over K's.

I have voted on T before however this is not a stand out argument for my decision making.

I can keep up with just about any speed but I won't hesitate to stop you lose me.

Paradigm specifics: Forensics

I have seen a plethora of speaking and presentations styles on my journey to become a lawyer. What I have noticed is the more concise, clean, and clear your message is the more effective you are as an oralist. As a judge I assume you know what you are talking about. I am open to as many citations and references as you want me to hear but do not lose the point you are trying to make for the sake of sounding well researched.

Forensics encompasses so many events that it is hard to provide too many specifics so please just ask me before the round and I would be more than happy to elaborate on my preferences.

Please include me on the evidence chain at: mcdubs06@gmail.com

My Background and Experience

I debated in high school from 1991-95 at Shawnee Mission East, in one of the states that has a Kansas City. I was a sponsor and assistant coach at East from 1996-2008 and 2019-20. I judged policy at NFL / NDSA Nationals in 1999, 2000, 2006, and 2008; and at NCFL Grand Nationals in 2006, 2011, 2012, and 2013. I judged PFD at NCFL Nationals in 2018. I’ve judged policy debate, LD, PFD, extemp, informative, and original oratory at invitational, state, and national qualifying tournaments for over twenty-five years.

For additional insight on my perspective, I have judged for several years the high school moot court (mock Supreme Court argument) competition held by American University School of Law as part of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project. I also judge high school and undergraduate mock trial and undergraduate and law school moot court competitions.

I am an attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; I am literally a policy-maker well versed in navigating the challenges of making policy under frequently conflicting congressional mandates. The first thing you learn in law school is that the answer to every question is "it depends." Justice Breyer recently answered the question "is a hot dog a sandwich?" by responding "sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't."

Policy Debate, Generally

Speed: I am handling speed better now we have evidence chains (in legal oral argument, you always submit written briefs to the judge). That said, the responsibility is on you to ensure you are intelligible, especially when using virtual platforms. I am also of the view that all things being equal, rebuttals should be presented at a slower pace than constructive.

Strategy versus Tactics: “Seven Off-Case” is not a strategy. Negatives would benefit immensely from having a bigger picture strategy that frames the story you want to be telling at the end of the round. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run multiple alternative arguments – you should, however, be thinking three moves ahead. Also, time-suck arguments have strong tradeoffs. Both teams get equal time allotment so if the opposing team is wasting time on it that means you’ve wasted time you could have used making winning arguments.

Topicality: T is a jurisdictional issue and nothing more. As a lawyer, I believe in precision, but I am also of the view that high school policy debate affirmatives are not capable of being drafted with the precision of congressional legislation (nor should they be). So I’m willing consider reasonable interpretations. I also am willing to entertain arguments that the Aff is effects topical. I don’t get as excited about extra-topicality because Aff can always drop the offending advantage (by analogy to severability provisions in legislation where only offending provisions are thrown out by the courts, not the entire legislation).

Conditional Counterplans: I an attorney, the concept of burden of proof is fundamental. In my view, when the Neg runs a counterplan, it shifts the burden of proof from Aff to Neg. I liken it to an “affirmative defense” in a criminal trial. Neg can argue inconsistent alternatives because it does not have the burden of proof. If I am the defendant, I can argue that you failed to prove I did it, or that maybe Graham and Maddie did it. I cannot argue that I did it in self-defense, but if you don’t believe that, then Graham and Maddie did it.

There is no rational justification for allowing Neg, which starts the round with the benefit of presumption, to “take back” a bad strategic decision to run a counterplan solely because they are losing. If conditionality were sound debate theory, we wouldn’t spend seventy percent of the last two rebuttals arguing about it. If we view conditionality as a “rules” modification to enhance competition, there ought to be a mechanism for settling that before the round. We don’t change the rules of basketball with five minutes left in the game to benefit the team that’s losing.

Critical Argument: I have never voted for a Kritik. Over the years, I have developed a much better understanding of the various philosophies underlying most critical theory. My legal training also allows me to better evaluate and apply your arguments to the Aff case. Someday I will get there on Ks, but for the time being you run them at your own peril.

My biggest hangups: (1) the lack of a meaningful alternative; (2) related, as a policymaker I do not like being in a “why bother” position – if there is a harm that can be solved, why not do something? (3) Many philosophies underlying critical arguments are extremely complex; most high school debaters (and many college judges) don’t understand what they are arguing or hearing, apply extremely broad theories to extremely narrow policy questions; or just flat out misapply the theories to affs; and (4) As a policymaker I am predisposed to utilitarianism and economically rational decision making. The limitation of Kantian ethics is that the moral compass always points true north, but it tells you nothing about all the obstacles and dangers between you and where you’re trying to get. All along the way you have to make decisions that deontology is, in my view, ill-equipped to guide.

“Performance Affs”: I rarely vote for critical affs. I have never voted for a performance aff. My views on performance affs are evolving and transitioning, but I am still working on a coherent paradigm so you assume the risk if you run one. Hang ups include: (1) I don’t like “why bother?” debates; (2) I don’t like to be guilted into voting for one team or the other; and (3) I am not a fan of dismissing the conventions of policy debate as a meaningless academic simulation. The high school moot court competition I judge is tailored to inner city students in the DC area. The problems involve first and fourth amendment issues. Even though the competition is an academic exercise, participating students are better equipped to advocate for themselves, their peers, and their families, and these students are significantly more likely to have encounters with police and other authority figures implicating free speech, illegal detention, and improper searches.

Policy Debate – Kansas Novice and Open

Please be respectful to one another. Also, a “brief off-time roadmap” should take less than ten seconds. Just state the title of the position so we can organize our flows: “T, counterplan, politics da, advantage 2, solvency” Lastly, I am a policymaker. I view the stock issues not so much as a paradigm but as the elements of a prima facie case. If the aff doesn’t solve at all, it’s pretty straightforward. On the other hand, if the affirmative has a propensity to solve, neg needs a disadvantage to outweigh. Lastly, view every round as a free learning opportunity. At work, we joke that we always reserve the right to get smarter.

Public Forum Debate

My only specific observations are that PFD is not intended to be a college style policy round in a faster amount of time. Also, in online debate only one person can talk at a time. It takes a bit of fun out of the Grand Crossfire, but online when multiple people talk over one another no one is intelligible.

Lincoln-Douglas

[To be provided.]

Put me on the email chain: dustinrimmey@gmail.com

I think you should have content warnings if your arguments may push this debate into uncomfortable territory.

Quick Background:

I debated for four years in High School (Lansing HS, KS) from 1998-2002, I debated for four years in college (Emporia State University, KS) from 2002-2006, Coached one year at Emporia State from 2006-2007, and from 2007 to present I have been a coach at Topeka High School (KS) where I have been the director of Speech and Debate since 2014. In terms of my argument preference while I was actively debating, I dabbled in a little bit of everything from straight up policy affirmatives, to affirmatives that advocated individual protests against the war in Iraq, to the US and China holding a press conference to out themselves as members of the illuminati. In terms of negative arguments, I read a lot of bad theory arguments (A/I spec anyone?), found ways to link every debate to space, read a lot of spark/wipeout and read criticisms of Language and Capitalism.

In terms of teams I have coached, most of my teams have been traditionally policy oriented, however over the last 2-3 years I have had some successful critical teams on both sides of the ball (like no plan texts, or slamming this activity....). For the past 2-3 years, I have been working with teams who read mostly soft left affirmatives and go more critical on the negative.

My Philosophy in Approaching Debate:

I understand we are living in a time of questioning whether debate is a game or an outreach of our own individual advocacies for change, and I don't know fully where I am at in terms of how I view how the debate space should be used. I guess as a high school educator for the past decade, my approach to debate has been to look for the pedagalogical benefit of what you say/do. If you can justify your method of debating as meaningful and educational, I will probably temporarially be on board until persuaded otherwise. That being said, the onus is on you to tell me how I should evaluate the round/what is the role of the ballot.

This is not me being fully naive and claiming to be a fully clean slate, if you do not tell me how to judge the round, more often than not I will default to an offense/defense paradigm.

Topicality

I tend to default to competing interpretations, but am not too engrained in that belief system. To win a T debate in front of me, you should go for T like a disad. If you don't impact out your standards/voters, or you don't answer crucial defense (lit checks, PA not a voter, reasonability etc.) I'm probably not going to vote neg on T. Also, if you are going for T for less than all 5 minutes of the 2NR, I'm probably not voting for you (unless the aff really messes something up). I am more likely to vote on T earlier in the year than later, but if you win the sheet of paper, you tend to win.

I do think there is a burden on the negative to either provide a TVA, or justify why the aff should be in no shape-or-form topical whatsoever.

In approaching T and critical affirmatives. I do believe that affirmatives should be in the direction of the resolution to give the negative the basis for some predictable ground, however in these debates where the aff will be super critical of T/Framework, I have found myself quite often voting affirmative on dropped impact turns to T/Framing arguments on why the pedagogical model forwarded by the negative is bad.

Hack-Theory Arguments

Look, I believe your plan text should not be terrible if you are aff. That means, acronyms, as-pers, excessive vagueness etc. are all reasons why you could/should lose a debate to a crafty negative team. I probably love and vote on these arguments more than I should.....but....I loved those arguments when I debated, and I can't kick my love for them.....I also am down to vote on just about any theory argument as a "reject the team" reason if the warrants are right. If you just read blocks at me and don't engage in a line-by-line of analysis....I'm probably not voting for you...

I am on the losing side of "condo is evil" so a single conditional world is probably OK in front of me, but I'm open to/have voted on multiple conditional worlds and/or multiple CPs bad. I'm not absolutely set in those latter worlds, but its a debate that needs hashed out.

I also think in a debate of multiple conditional worlds, its probably acceptable for the aff to advocate permutations as screens out of other arguments.

The K

Eh.......the more devoted and knowledgable to your literature base, the easier it is to pick up a ballot on the K. Even if you "beat" someone on the flow, but you can't explain anything coherently to me (especially how your alt functions), you may be fighting an uphill battle. I am not 100% compelled by links of omission, but if you win a reason why we should have discussed the neglected issue, I may be open to listen. The biggest mistake that critical debaters make, is to neglect the aff and just go for "fiat is an illusion" or "we solve the root cause" but....if you concede the aff and just go for some of your tek, you may not give me enough reason to not evaluate the aff...

I am the most familiar with anti-capitalist literature, biopolitics, a small variety of racial perspective arguments, and a growing understanding of psychoanalysis. In terms of heart of the topic critical arguments, I've been reading and listening to more abolitionist theory, and if it is your go-to argument, you may need to treat me like a c+ level student in your literature base at the moment.

Case Debates

I like them.....the more in depth they go, the better. The more you criticize evidence, the better...

Impact turns

Yes please......

Counterplans

Defend your theoretical base for the CP, and you'll be fine. I like clever PICs, process PICs, or really, just about any kind of counterplan. You should nail down why the CP solves the aff (the more warrants/evidence the better) and your net benefit, and defense to perms, and I will buy it. Aff, read disads to the CP, theory nit-picking (like the text, does the neg get fiat, etc.) make clear perms, and make sure you extend them properly, and you'll be ok. If you are not generating solvency deficits, danger Will Robinson.

I think delay is cheating, but its an acceptable form in front of me...but I will vote on delay bad if you don't cover your backside.

Misc

I think I'm too dumb to understand judge kicking, so its safe to say, its not a smart idea to go for it in front of me.

Don'ts

Be a jerk, be sexist/transphobic/racist/ableist etc, steal prep, prep during flash time, or dominate cx that's not yours (I get mad during really bad open CX). Don't clip, misrepresent what you read, just say "mark the card" (push your tilde key and actually mark it...) or anything else socially unacceptable....

If you have questions, ask, but if I know you read the paradigm, and you just want me to just explain what I typed out.....I'll be grumpier than I normally am.

Employment: 7 years as an attorney and 7 years as an assistant debate and forensics judge.

Experience: 2 years high school debate, 1 semester college debate at KU, over 10 years of judging including judging policy at EKNSDA and KCKNCFL and judging PFD at NSDA and NCFL, including PFD finals at NCFL 2019.

Arg Prefs:

Topicality is rarely an acceptable argument, unless in extreme cases. When it is run, it should be at the top of the flow and is an a priori issue for me.

Generic disads are always acceptable. Just don't expect them to be super important to my flow if the impacts are outrageous or the link story is weak. Regardless, if they are on the flow, aff must respond.

Topical counterplans are almost never acceptable to me, but if you can make an argument why it would be necessary in this round, tell me.

Open to any K, just make sure you know the material. Misrepresentations of the philosophy presented in the cards, or cards that don't actually make or support the argument made by the neg team will be discounted.

Big impacts are disfavored but not terminal to an arg. They simply don't carry a lot of weight with me.

Give me voters! Tell me why to vote on any argument, weigh it against other arguments in the round, and do the work for me. Leave as little as possible up to my discretion/analysis so that you remain in as much control of the round as possible.

While I will not do a team's work for them on arguments, if a team misrepresents what a card actually says, the persuasive power of that argument is heavily discounted. The other team still needs to challenge the argument, but the misrepresented argument will not weigh heavily in the round.

Style Prefs:

Speed is fine, provided there is competent analysis and your enunciation is clear. Speed does not work for me if your enunciation/volume is poor, or if you are just burning through cards without considering what the cards are actually saying/doing any analysis.

On-case in the two is fine with me, though I would like a preview of it in the 1N.

Give me more detailed roadmaps than "everything on the flow."