kissmycls
11-27-06, 10:55 PM
This is from the 2006 GGI.
Rachel Safran-UPS
I competed in policy for 4 yrs in high school and a semester at UPS, followed by 3.5 yrs of
parliamentary debate. I am now the parli coach at UPS. Style – speed is fine. Absent a discussion
of a framework, I will default to a policymaker paradigm. Although that’s what I prefer, it doesn’t
mean you can’t justify another framework enough for me to vote on it. Topicality - I believe it
can be a debate about competing interpretations, but proving in-round ground loss helps a lot. I
already think T is a voter so you should spend most of your time comparing the standards beyond
tag phrases like ‘predictability is key.’ Theory – I like theory debates, but not if they’re just
blippy blocks of redundant arguments. And, more often than not, if a team wins a theory debate I
end up rejecting the argument not the other team – ie if gov wins PICs are bad then the C/P goes
away, but you have to be explicit if you think your theory warrants voting against the team. On
C/P debates I think textual competition is the most legitimate but feel free to argue otherwise.
Critical stuff – I have to be up front that winning a K or performative advocacy is somewhat of an
uphill battle in front of me, but that doesn’t mean I never ran one or that I won’t vote for them.
The opp should have a clear and defensible alternative and they have to justify their framework.
Just saying fiat is illusory doesn’t mean anything to me. I see no distinction between the pre and
post fiat worlds within the context of a debate round, so you have to provide warrants for why the
K should be evaluated before the case impacts or how it turns/outweighs them. I also have trouble
with the notion that my ballot is tool for political discourse or will somehow affect the “real
world” as it seems to trivialize real discourse by making it contingent on a flow game. That being
said, I do appreciate philosophical arguments and nuanced discussions of how language/our
assumptions function in the debate forum, I just don’t think saying “prefiat” means I ignore the
case. Lastly, the debate should come down to warranted risk analysis. Give me measures of how
your case/disad/K outweighs something with specific evaluative mechanisms like magnitude,
timeframe, probability, reversibility, etc. We all know debate is a game, and last time I checked
games were supposed to be fun…so do that too.
Rachel Safran-UPS
I competed in policy for 4 yrs in high school and a semester at UPS, followed by 3.5 yrs of
parliamentary debate. I am now the parli coach at UPS. Style – speed is fine. Absent a discussion
of a framework, I will default to a policymaker paradigm. Although that’s what I prefer, it doesn’t
mean you can’t justify another framework enough for me to vote on it. Topicality - I believe it
can be a debate about competing interpretations, but proving in-round ground loss helps a lot. I
already think T is a voter so you should spend most of your time comparing the standards beyond
tag phrases like ‘predictability is key.’ Theory – I like theory debates, but not if they’re just
blippy blocks of redundant arguments. And, more often than not, if a team wins a theory debate I
end up rejecting the argument not the other team – ie if gov wins PICs are bad then the C/P goes
away, but you have to be explicit if you think your theory warrants voting against the team. On
C/P debates I think textual competition is the most legitimate but feel free to argue otherwise.
Critical stuff – I have to be up front that winning a K or performative advocacy is somewhat of an
uphill battle in front of me, but that doesn’t mean I never ran one or that I won’t vote for them.
The opp should have a clear and defensible alternative and they have to justify their framework.
Just saying fiat is illusory doesn’t mean anything to me. I see no distinction between the pre and
post fiat worlds within the context of a debate round, so you have to provide warrants for why the
K should be evaluated before the case impacts or how it turns/outweighs them. I also have trouble
with the notion that my ballot is tool for political discourse or will somehow affect the “real
world” as it seems to trivialize real discourse by making it contingent on a flow game. That being
said, I do appreciate philosophical arguments and nuanced discussions of how language/our
assumptions function in the debate forum, I just don’t think saying “prefiat” means I ignore the
case. Lastly, the debate should come down to warranted risk analysis. Give me measures of how
your case/disad/K outweighs something with specific evaluative mechanisms like magnitude,
timeframe, probability, reversibility, etc. We all know debate is a game, and last time I checked
games were supposed to be fun…so do that too.