Daniel Montalvo - Ronald Reagan HS head coach

AFF/NEG split - 2/12

Quick Facts:

• Speed is fine, just be clear and enunciate (I’ll only allot 2 “clears” before I stop flowing)

• No such thing as a tabs judge, you know this, but I will keep it close

• Do what you do best. I’ll vote on anything just tell me why (impact calc, analysis, what outweighs what, etc.)

• Most of my background is in policy until recently. Fairly newer to LD but still pretty progressive and can appreciate a clash heavy and meaningful debate

Long Version

Background: I debated policy for Ronald Reagan all four years at the city/state/national level. Currently studying hospitality + revenue management at Cornell and head coach for Ronald Reagan HS. I’ve seen all sorts of arguments and am pretty well-versed with policy strats and arguments all around.

P O L I C Y

Case: “What is left on both sides? Is there enough to move on to off case positions if the case is held?” is usually my line of thinking.

DA’s: Go for it. Not a fan of base/politics disads but I’ll vote on them.

CP’s: Make sure they are competitive. Don’t be abusive. Consult CP’s are not my favorite...

Topicality: I like T. Author debates, counter-interps, reasonability, K-T, and framing all play their roles and can make great argumentation if executed well. Ensure there is in-round abuse and do the work to get me to vote on it. If you aren't going 5 minutes of T in the 2nr that means it was probably a time suck and not well developed enough for the ballot.

K’s: My personal favorite, go for it. I’m well versed in cap, abolition, and race/identity K’s, but I will not do the work for you. I love the idea of epistemological dangers the aff may overlook or perpetuate. Don't assume I know what you're talking about, though. I will be as objective as possible and still expect decent analysis and contextualization of your arguments.

K Affs/Performance: K affs/performance have been dying down on the Wisconsin circuits but I have seen them at nat circuit tournaments. Not my area of expertise so do enough work on the aff and display why your advocacy, performance, and/or negation of the resolution effectively challenges the implications you argue for.

Theory: Blow it up. If the other team does something inherently damaging or abusive in the round, you have every right to point it out for the ballot. I can handle high level theory, though these debates can get muddy in their development so please keep them as organized as possible. I won’t vote your way just because you shout “that was abusive!”

L D

** most of my judging philosophies from policy apply to LD. some key things to note:

FWK/VC: I understand a ton of framework shells get reused as topics change but there can be dozens of the same ideology/epistemology shells with key nuances that differentiate between sides and can make for a very intricate flow. Always evaluate these differences before collapsing into your opponent's framework to maintain clash on the flow.

M I S C

• Keep the round clean and organized. Poor/sloppy structure that impacts my flow will be reflected on your speaker points

• Loud/gaspy spreading gets really annoying, especially in smaller classrooms and through computer audio so be cautious before you do it

• Any -isms or -phobias “good” arguments and I’ll drop you

• You know the drill -- have fun and don’t stop learning!

• Also, put me on the email chain and feel free to contact me if you have any questions montalvodaniel51@gmail.com

Benjamin Hamburger 10/2022

Sure, you can add me to an email chain. benjamin dot hamburger at gmail. So you know, I probably will NOT follow along on your speech doc, though.
For Wisconsin legal purposes, you should consider me tabula rasa. don't make me talk about it too much though because there's no such thing as that.

Information about me:
*I have judged and coached in what would be considered "national-circuit" style Midwestern high school debate since about 1998 as a card-cutting coach, as the primary policy coach, as a head coach, and now as a head coach at Central High School in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I am also a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in the History Department. I am now getting old in debate terms--42 at the time of writing--which means I have old ideas and am grumpy about certain things.

*A Debate History:
1993-1998 Policy debater at Hastings High School, Hastings, NE
1998-1999 Judge/minor card cutter, Hastings Senior High School
1999-2005 Assistant Coach for Policy Debate at Fremont High School, Fremont, NE
2005-2007 Director of Forensics, Iowa City High School, Iowa City, IA
2007-2016 Assistant Varsity Coach, Cedar Rapids Washington High School, Cedar Rapids, IA
2016-Present Director of Debate, La Crosse Central High School, La Crosse, WI

*Academic Info that Might Be Relevant:
B.A. in Political Science (emphases in international relations and political theory) and History, a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
M.A. in Secondary Social Studies Education and History from the University of Iowa.

Argument choice issues:
*Choose your arguments. I try to avoid evaluating rounds based on what I like to hear. Even if I don’t like your argument, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost it, etc. My self-estimation is that I am fairly even on the K vs. Policy question. I believe that both are very interesting and useful styles of debate. Most of the time framework debates aren’t particularly productive, the aff will win that they get to weigh the case, the neg will win that they get some form of an alternative, etc. (hint: if you are serious about winning framework, don’t waste your time on the rest of the debate—prove that you’re serious about it and go for it.)

Disad thoughts:
*One of the areas I am slightly old school. Left to my own devices, I am more likely than many judges to evaluate the risk of a disad as zero if there is a step which has been substantially defeated. I do not particularly prefer offense-defense paradigms, it is my feeling that it is necessary to win your arguments to get a DA. Similarly, I think you need to win a link to generate offense, so without justification I do not default to a uniqueness-focused decision-making process. In spite of these warnings, a justified argument can change those decision-making processes. Generally, though, a good politics debate with developed turns-case analysis is a thing of beauty. Quality of evidence comparison/warrants will always beat number of cards.

*I have increasingly found myself somewhat lost in fast debates about security policy which include multiple interacting internal links--not because I am incapable of understanding them, but because I am not as familiar with these arguments as you all are. On occasion debaters need to slow down and explain some arguments.

K Thoughts:
*My favorite negative strategies are about criticisms that isolate and condemn social injustice or reveal power relations and debate epistemology smartly. I have no problem with generic criticisms like security and the cap k, but to win them or to get decent points requires specific discussion of the 1ac—isolating the links and their implications for evaluating the aff is what makes it awesome. Affs lose lots of K debates largely because they pile up cards rather than planning what the 2ar endgame looks like. Often affs are better served defending their own assumptions than reading argument-specific cards that are not part of a specific strategy. To wit, affs regularly go for permutations or no link arguments when they claim an advantage which impact turns the k while conceding a utopian alternative. Because I am a sucker for well-developed analysis about epistemology/ontology, I don't think as a rule the 2nr needs to go for external case defense, at least if you can give examples of how aff authors have specific problems or biases. Wisconsin teams have proven to think that mindless tech can win you a permutation, this is not generally true--most neg args against one permutation work against all of them.

*I consider myself generally well-read on critical arguments, but that reading maybe stopped being so robust in like 2007 or 2008, and so I'm not as up-to-date on the more recent turns in that literature. I can observe some additional relevant tendencies: I often find myself frustrated in rounds that involve a lot of psychoanalytic arguments (I get the cap bad part of Zizek. That may be about it). I dislike the Nietzsche alternative viscerally. In each of these cases, if this is your only game, I am probably not a good judge for you. I will also explicitly note some critical arguments with which I am well acquainted: I’m fairly well read in Foucault, Heidegger, lots of feminisms, critical international relations business, cap bad, etc. Lots of experience now with Afro-pessimism, Orientalism, at least some entré into queer theory args. I still need someone to convince me that Bataille and Baudrilliard are more smart than confusing.

*I’m probably a decent judge for a T debate. Most of the theoretical issues are up in the air—competing interpretations vs. abuse as a standard, etc. If you concede a competing interpretations arg, though, be aware that you’ll need offense on your interp.

*I can enjoy a good theory debate, but if you actually want to win it you probably need to convince me early on in a debate that you are going to do something other than just read your block at full speed. i have a natural dislike towards theory debates that i see as unnecessary. I'm not the ideal judge if you *plan* on going for theory a lot, but again, i try to evaluate those debates fairly. I will note that I do not have a neg side bias when it comes to counterplan debates--be it issues of conditionality, fiat, or competition issues. Some people see that fact in and of itself as an aff side bias on those theoretical issues, but what it means is that i am more than willing to vote aff because a counterplan is cheating, if you win that debate.
*I have found that I am getting older and more dinosaur-like on counterplan theory: I think I have an aff bias on these issues: multiple counterplans, consult counterplans, and conditionality.

*Non-traditional affs: it seems that I am going to judge my share of clash-of-civs rounds, which is fine. I generally think that negative teams do not work hard enough to generate smart arguments against non-traditional affs, so I start with a slight lean against framework arguments, but a sophisticated execution of those debates are often successful. I will also say that aff teams that make efforts to meet some standard of topicality also will find me more forgiving than teams that do not; I think negs do deserve some degree of a starting point.

Decision-making Process:
*I believe my job as a critic is to evaluate a debate as it occurred, rather than retroactively applying my standards of what debate should look like to your round. I try as hard as I can to stay to this standard, but some intervention is inevitable. Read below in the “self-observed biases” section. I try to remain agnostic about the various frameworks for evaluating debates, so that means that if there is a difference in the round as to how I should evaluate it, you should propose your framework explicitly and defend it. My presumption is that debate should be an educational activity, and it would be hard to shake me of that idea, as I am an educator by trade. However, I am open to debates about what kinds of education debate should bring, and how it does so.

*My decisions are nearly always decided by a close review of the 1AR, 2NR, and 2AR, with references to the negative block as necessary. I am not, however, a perfect flow, and you should be aware of that and flag important arguments as such. I believe a part of persuasion is correct emphasis.

*It is fairly uncommon for me to read evidence after a debate--use the evidence yourself, refer to warrants, etc. If you think you have good evidence, you need to show it off. The "in" thing to say is that I reward a team for good research, but the most important part of good research is understanding why your evidence is good, and exercising your ability to explain and use the evidence. I do not plan to do evidence comparison for anyone.

*As regards "offense/defense" distinctions: I understand the importance of offense, but I do not discount the art of defensive argumentation. The fact that the other team does not have a turn does not mean you are winning. I have probably evaluated the risk of a disad or other impact as zero (or close enough to not matter) more than the average judge.

*I generally speaking will not seriously consider any independent issue that is not in your final rebuttal for at least 2 minutes--I do not reward a refusal to put all eggs in one basket. This is particularly true for theory arguments. If you feel that a theoretical issue is strong enough to justify a vote, plan to spend the better part of your final rebuttal on it, or don't expect my ballot on it.

In Round Decorum:
*Not much here--but I absolutely cannot stand when debaters talk audibly during an opponent's speech. Increasingly it is hard for me to follow what a fast speaker is saying anyhow--when you're talking too, I am liable to get angry at you.
*I think most of the time you will tend to get better speaker points if you stand up when you speak. Also, pay attention to where your opponent is and where you are when you cross-ex--it is a speech. Cross-ex's where all the debaters are sitting across the room from one another and staring at their computers is not a good persuasive strategy.
*I will also likely get grumpy at you about your paperless crap, especially when it makes a debate round last 20 minutes longer than it should. Don't worry about that too much. Unless it gets out of hand. If you don't know the difference, watch me, and you'll be able to tell.

I'm a tabula rasa judge which means blank slate. What this means is that I don't have any biases to arguments (unless they are ontologically violent), and it also means that you need to tell me how to vote by the end of the round. If neither teams give me a role of the ballot/how to vote then I will default to one of my choosing, and it may not be to your preference. This means I will probably end up doing work for one or both teams... which will make me upset.

Speed- this is fine under one condition- be CLEAR. I will cue for you to be clear only twice. After that whatever I don't get isn't my fault. I will always try my best but... eh...

Topicality- there needs to be voters here if I'm going to vote T. If potential abuse is your voter then you will need to do a really good job on why that's an effective voter. All in all, even after the affirmative team is found to be untopical, there must be a reason for me to vote negative. Topicality is one of those things that teams need to be doing work on. For example, if both teams have opposite interpretations, it's up to each team to do the work and evidence analysis on why one definition is better than the other.

Kritiks- these are fine, but please do not just assume that I know what you're talking about. That being said, the following things need to be crystal clear: the link, impact and alternative. Not only do these need to be clear, but the negs need to explain how the alternative functions with the aff and why I should vote for it in context of the round. For example, don't just tell me the alternative works because it can solve capitalism, but explain how solving capitalism is the best decision in the round. That being said, even IF I know what you're talking about I'm not going to do the work for you on the flow - this is your job.

Counterplans- negs need to be able to prove solvency and must explain why the counterplan is a better option than the aff. The net benefit must also be very apparent.

Affirmative Case- I did not think that I needed to mention this, but after judging a lot I think this does need to be said: the affs need to win their case in order to win the debate. For example, if the affs lose all their advantages but beat the negative's DA, that just means that the impact of the DA won't happen. However you still do not have an affirmative case, and all the negatives have to do is prove that the aff is a bad idea.

NCFL update 5/24/2024

Hey, I'm Nathanael. I did CX decently for 4 years in HS, ok with most things (incl. speed), will vote for anything comprehensible and logical (and will vote path of least resistance / requires least intervention). Just make sure to explain well Ks that aren't stock. Also don't try to adapt too much to me. I hold some opinions, but those will only matter if the debate is incredibly unclear / I need to intervene -- I prefer to be as tabula rasa as possible.

Now for the longer version.

Bio:

I debated Policy for Brookfield East (WI) for 4 years, and won state 2 of those years. I've also had some success in outrounds at some natcir tournaments (including at NCFLs). I also did Congress and Extemp and got 2nd and 3rd in state, respectively, but who cares.

I currently am a student at Duke majoring in CS/ECE/Math. I'm on the Duke debate team (it's BP / British parliamentary format).

I haven't judged at all this season, so please (at least the first time) fully say out or include in speech doc what acronyms are etc.

Conflicts: Brookfield East (until 2027), Marquette EZ (LD).

Email is 0.char_pen@icloud.com, feel free to email for questions, clarifications, etc. or for the email chain, but I much prefer Speechdrop.

Overarching phil:

The primary point of high school CX debate is to gain skills that you will use beyond debate, and it takes the form of / secondarily is a game. If, to win the game, you "convince" me (i.e., win on the flow in the debate) that debate is not a game / whatever, totally cool, I'll buy it.

To that extent, that means that any norms that I think facilitate skill-development, I'll like (e.g., disclosure). Also, if it means our debate is less accessible to the public, so be it (that's the point of PF). I.e., I'm ok with spreading and all that stuff, but ofc make sure you're clear -- a bright line needs to be drawn somewhere -- and don't spread analytics without a speech doc. If I miss it, that's your problem, not mine. I'll clear you at least a few times before you can probably tell I stop flowing.

At the same time, I believe that the process of gaining skills or playing the game must respect basic principles, i.e., be respectful, be a good person -- these are important irl skills too! (and perhaps more so than any skills you'll gain from debate.) Sure, there are things you could do to increase your chances of winning the game that isn't the "right" thing to do, and please don't do those things -- debate should be respectful and civil, not cutthroat and trying to get every advantage one can get. E.g., don't spread against some novice team registered in a varsity division for some reason -- they're not getting anything out of the debate, you're not either (if you play more "fairly" you'll still get the W and probably higher speaks, and practice with lays?). But this doesn't mean play ultraconservative or don't introduce arguments the other team has never heard of -- learning new things is good (obviously)! This also means obviously no card clipping, etc. Don't read too much into this paragraph -- just basically so long as you're not overly pretentious or anything in a debate you're obviously winning you'll be ok in front of me.

I find I give pretty high speaks -- and I reward niceness / attitude / not-being-a-jerk.

Thoughts on specific args (the "I like" etc. are obviously outweighed by the flow -- read what you want, try not to read into this stuff too much, these are just FYI):

DAs: I'm always down for a trad DA-Adv debate, and imo (as long as they don't become messy) these are the easiest debates to judge. Just make sure to do some weighing in the 2NR/AR. Ptix / tradeoff DAs in particular I'm good with, elections DAs tho are iffy (not like completely opposed to them tho). I'm also not the hottest on "[insert "authoritarian" country here]" bad DAs -- I find the link chains here to be particularly weak. I find any case turns coming from the DA should be a larger part of the debate.

CPs: I like CPs, especially those similar to the Aff, it tests the Aff team and makes sure they can adequately defend their own Affs, e.g., actor CPs. However, I less prefer more blatantly squirrelly CPs / things the Aff are fully locked into, e.g., consult CPs or delay CPs (these feel mostly the same year-to-year and I'm more partial towards Aff args). Not a fan of 2NC CPs, though. To win the perm (on the aff), just "perm do both" or whatever isn't enough -- explain the lack of mutual exclusivity and how the perm could be an aff, i.e., describe how the perm would work.

Ks: I rather enjoy generic Ks, e.g., cap / set col / etc (perhaps this is a function of where I stand politically). I'm also ok with performance Ks. For anything beyond generics, though, I'd appreciate a decent O/V. I don't think kicking the alt and taking the K as a DA is utilized enough by negs (my thoughts on condo later). Alt debates, though, are important imo and the aff shouldn't assume alt solvency -- e.g., in a cap K, will revolution actually solve capitalism? Specific links are ofc good / preferable as well, I dislike generic topic links.

CP/K theory: I think the neg should probably get at least some condo, but not infinite (a middle ground of 1 or 2 seems reasonable to me). Generally don't like floating PIC/Ks as well. Also I entertain a lot more / have a lower threshold to buy reject the arg etc. instead of reject the team. I also generally do err towards protecting the 1AR against the neg block. Ifiat seems abusive, but idk convince me otherwise.

Theory in general: If the neg asks something, you better be able to clarify in cross or I'll probably buy some spec argument (as long as the neg is within reason, ofc -- they can't ask exactly how many house members will vote for, against, and abstain for example. Otherwise I think in-round violations are totally legit and important to address to ensure accountability and to improve the debate space. In general I'm willing to listen to / buy theory -- it's how we improve debate.

T: I'm cool with T, but it ofc will be harder to win against core affs. That being said, I've found myself to be more partial than most towards extra T (or something of the sort). I've seen T run best where it's run kinda like other stock issues -- i.e., place more emphasis on how they don't meet the definition / the violation, and the impacts are pretty easy to win.

Affs: I'm alright with K affs -- but K affs must be willing to defend against T-USFG, etc. I see too many soft-left Affs. Either make it a K aff (whoah so scary) or run a normal aff please. Imo good soft-left affs are few and far between (I've definitely seen them, though). Tips for beating soft-left affs for the neg -- they almost always involve the state and there is a lot of theory saying how any revolution can't engage the state, and also in general the state is incredibly ineffective. Also they're usually incredibly weak to traditional arguments, e.g,, DAs/CPs, and probably aren't topical.

Ethics violations: A team should be willing to stake the debate on this -- i.e., the debate will boil down to this. If this does happen, then I'll stop the debate, evaluate the complaint, and decide the debate there. Any tournament regulations that may be in place ofc supersede this.

Now that you've read to the end of my paradigm, please go touch some grass. You probably need to :)

About me:

I am currently a student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, majoring in Information Science and Technology.

I debated Policy Debate for Ronald Reagan High School for 4 years (2017-2021).

Current Assistant Director for Ronald Reagan Debate Team (2021-present)

Please put me on the e-mail chain<3 : nickdebate12@gmail.com

Paradigm:

I believe in tech over truth, making sure that you respond to all arguments on the table. Typically, I am more K sided in understanding than policy. I think policy args when done in large successions can get draining and uneducational. I LOVE to see a good k debate round with an interesting alt and clash coming from the aff team. Though, when it comes to technicality, I often vote on policy args (DAs, Ts, CPs) when they are not responded well enough.

Make sure you are respectful toward your partner, the debaters you are competing against and the judge. More importantly, please be respectful towards the topics and concepts you bring up/go against. The beauty of Policy Debate is the opportunity teams get to address current social issues and personal experiences. Please maintain a level of respect when addressing them. Disrespect can and WILL negatively affect your speaker points.