[eDebate] Judging Consult CP's

[Josh]

For the most part Consultation CPs serve the function of a generic argument
teams run at the beginning of the year when they arent entirely sure how
judges will allow affirmatives to interpret the topic AND/OR against new
cases.  Aside from Scotty P, I dont know many people who had/have
consultation as a long term A Strat.

In other words - while consult might be stupid (it is), its a convention
used to help the negative at the beginning of a topic year.....I don't think
most/many people use it to replace "topic education" as Hardy states.  I
guess I dont think its that much to ask the affirmative to balance the
advantage of having the ability to roll out new affs with the disadvantage
of having to cut a few "say no" cards.

Josh


On 10/4/07, Aaron Hardy <spoon_22 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>

> I'm encouraged that I've received a fair amount of feedback so quickly.

> Thanks to all that took the time out of pre-Kentucky prep.  Answering

> every

> email line by line would be time-consuming, but here's my attempt to

> quickly

> consolidate.  Several people backchanneled me rather than post to edebate

> –

> I won't repost their answers or names here, but I will try and deal with

> their comments in a general way.

>

> 1)  "Consult CP's are just like stupid critiques and performance

> arguments."

> (Multiple Backchannels)

>

> I'm not a fan of those arguments either…but I'm not ready to start

> throwing

> around 25's to every argument I dislike.  I'm not on some ideological

> crusade to impose all of my views on every debate – I just want to know if

> there's *anything* we can collectively do as a judging and coaching pool

> to

> push us in a more positive and educational direction.  I also think that

> while I wouldn't shed a tear if I never judged another debate on a

> hyper-generic backfile K, that those arguments are somewhat less

> egregious.

> They're stupid – but less structurally unfair than the consultation CP.

>

> 2)  "Sometimes consult makes sense/you have to consider the views of other

> countries" (Scott and others)

>

> This reasoning is logically defunct.  Just because the U.S. should

> "consider

> the views of others" doesn't mean that there's literature defending

> literally giving another country a veto over U.S. policy.  Even if that

> evidence exists in SOME context, it never, ever, exists in the context of

> the PLAN.  "Unilateralism vs Multilateralism" is entirely distinct from

> letting Japan dictate U.S. policy on Iran.

>

> There's another obvious problem with this.  Disadvantages alone ensure

> these

> issues get discussed, but in a fair way.  If Japan cares whether we do

> Opium

> Licensing in Afghanistan, then the neg should be able to run the US-Japan

> relations DA and say that failure to consult them angers them.  That is

> NOT

> a justification for why the negative gets the right to run a CP which does

> the entirety of the affirmative.  The whole premise of the consult CP is

> that everyone gets that the relations DA alone is incredibly stupid –

> precisely because Japan doesn't really care about the plan.  Ergo, there's

> no literature on it, and it makes for terrible debates.

>

> 3)  "Prejudging arguments means debaters don't learn" (Paul and Russell)

>

> Andrew already dealt with this – this argument would mean we should

> encourage a return to hypo-testing and counterwarrants so that debaters

> can

> learn to beat bad arguments.  The idea that we should consciously choose

> to

> let debate be stupider than it could be solely to teach people to beat

> things makes little sense to me.

>

> Even if they're not run, it doesn't mean debaters won't learn about them –

> I

> think I still have a responsibility as a coach to teach my students about

> what counterwarrants are, even though the odds of my team debating them

> are

> low.

>

> Even if the debaters do learn something valuable through this process, I

> think there's still an inherent tradeoff.  Perhaps there is some value in

> my

> students researching Consult Turkey answers two days before Gonzaga – but

> I

> think it's hard to say they wouldn't have been better off cutting more

> cards

> about Iran.

>

> 4)  "Debaters should be able to beat them" (Scott and Paul)

>

> This sets the bar way too high for the aff.  Yes, these arguments are

> beatable – but that doesn't make them fair, and it certainly doesn't make

> them educational, especially in terms of pre-tournament prep.  Going for

> theory is a hard call in ANY debate.  I can't even remember the last 2AR I

> saw entirely on theory, precisely because most debaters know it's a losing

> strategy.  It's just not how the modern judge pool judges.  "Arg not team"

> is a mantra, "This CP isn't so bad" is a gut-check response, and "neg

> flex"

> is basically a cult.  Beating them substantively is even more ridiculous –

> the logical ground for the aff is that every country in the world hates

> the

> aff, or that the US should have poor relations with all those countries.

> The aff shouldn't have to do that.  It's just more ridiculous when the neg

> gets the right to Consult Bhutan with nothing but a card that passingly

> uses

> the word consult.  I could say more here – but I think it's apparent that

> neg teams get that they unfair to the aff – it's the whole reason they run

> them.

>

> 5)  "Judges should hold consult to the same standard" (Paul)

>

> They should, but the bottom line is that they don't.  What qualifies as

> "evidence" on these questions is laughable.  I challenge anyone to

> publicly

> post a piece of consultation solvency evidence that is actually about

> BINDING consultation over U.S. policy on any plan on this topic.  The word

> "genuine" being used in a different context than it means in debate

> doesn't

> cut it.  Again – even if someone comes up with this magic card, it seems

> like a good justification for a really good relations DA.  Not a shortcut

> CP.

>

> 6)  "Punishing is stupid" (Scott)

>

> I think others have also responded to this.  I don't think it's stupid if

> you value the educational content of debates.  When the focus is

> EXCLUSIVELY

> on "what can I use to administer a beat-down," then I think we're

> abdicating

> a larger responsibility as coaches, judges, and educators.

>

> Rewarding people who beat these arguments are not a deterrent to running

> them – which means it would be a complete failure at limiting out those

> debates in the first place.  Punishing people for losing to it is even

> worse

> – it would incentivize people to run it, on the hope that they'd win AND

> tank someone elses points.

>

> 7)  "Consultation can be 'tight'" (Scott)

>

> I cut the Koizumi DA too – I wish that I'd been cutting something else or

> something that was actually about the aff.  There was a direct tradeoff.

> Finding cards on Koizumi's political capital and looking for reasons why

> Japanese tractor companies would oppose our ag aff was not an educational

> or

> productive use of my time.  It certainly wasn't about the topic I was

> ostensibly supposed to be debating.

>

> You then make my argument for me – Consult teams rely on the same bad

> blocks

> every year.  While that might create a few very isolated worlds where the

> aff can find something new, the simple fact is that there's usually NOT a

> DA

> like Koizumi to cut.  I challenge you to publicly post a piece of evidence

> that actually says the words "Egypt w/50 veto w/50 Israel" in the context

> of

> ANY plan being read on the topic.  There are no serious suggestions that

> we

> should conduct U.S. foreign policy in that manner.

>

> 8)  "1 piece of paper is nonsense" (Scott)

>

> Case specific DA's and PIC's are qualitatively different, regardless of

> how

> they're flowed – they encourage an assessment of argument interaction and

> topic-specific clash.  Consult encourages the negative to ignore the aff

> in

> its entirety, both before and during the tournament.

>

> 9)  "Experiments are bad" (Scott)

>

> Instead, we should fail to innovate, adapt, and push the community

> forward?

> Seriously?    I welcome judges being willing to try things with an open

> mind

> and evaluate successes and failures.  That's the literal opposite of the

> judge you describe from NFL who never got out of the 60s.  His precise

> problem was that he wasn't willing to "experiment" with running a CP or

> listening to T.

>

> The rest of what you say is largely my argument – I try to the greatest

> degree possible to limit my intervention in debates.  The one time I've

> been

> forced to adjudicate consult after I instituted my policy, I still voted

> for

> it.  Precisely because it was a "technical" win.  That's the whole point

> of

> questioning the value of using speaker points as an educative tool – that

> negative's have zero incentive in the status quo to do anything other than

> continue with business as usual – ignoring the topic and picking up just

> enough easy wins to never bother with another strategy.

>

> 10)  "Just vote against it" (Greg Thomas)

>

> I'm very uncomfortable with this – I definitely toyed with the idea of

> just

> publicly saying I wouldn't vote on these argument – but I think that would

> be irresponsible of me as a judge.  It's just not my place to sacrifice a

> drive towards (imperfect) objectivity just because I'm grumpy.  To me,

> speaker points are a middle ground between doing nothing and stepping

> outside of my role.

>

> Like I said at the get-go, I'm not convinced that it's the best strategy

> for

> change – but I'm still not convinced it's worse than nothing.

>

> aaron

>

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