Domination
a blog about high school value debate.

Announcing Dominate LD 2012 – Stoa Edition

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Jon

Two new top-notch authors are joining the Stoa Dominate crew for the 2012 season, once again pushing Dominate LD far ahead of competing sourcebooks in both depth of analysis and quality of argumentation.

Patrick Shipsey, NCFCA policy debate champion, brings his intellect and wit to tackle the new Stoa resolution. Shipsey’s style has been described as one of the most innovative and empirically-grounded on the national Stoa Lincoln Douglas circuit. Joshua Mirth, long reputed in the debate community as one of Lincoln Douglas’s top researchers, has been brought on as Dominate LD’s research consultant for the 2012 season. Mirth harnesses his unique skillset from previous years of researching both LD and policy topics to bring debaters a complement of briefs for the upcoming season surpassing even the quality of those from the last.

Shipsey and Mirth join Jon Chi Lou and Joe Laughon, authors of the original Dominate LD, to form an expanded but tight-knit crew, melding value and policy perspectives to form a comprehensive and cohesive view of the forthcoming debate season.

For those debaters planning on competing with the NCFCA, Dominate Debate will be releasing the NCFCA edition of Dominate LD, to be announced after NCFCA nationals.

Dominate LD changed Stoa and NCFCA LD debate when it debuted in 2010 by providing a unique combination of practical advice and advanced argumentation to debaters of every level. Dominate continues to provide resources to promote progress in homeschool Lincoln Douglas debate, including a Lincoln Douglas debate blog and Dominate LD. Get free updates from Dominate Debate delivered to your inbox by joining the mailing list or to your Facebook news feed by liking Dominate Debate.

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Free Response Blip — AT: Individual Rights Are Subjective

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Jon

First off, apologies for the publishing hiatus; I’ve been somewhat busy with school. Now on to the quick post for today. I’m sure you’ve seen this argument before:

“Individual Rights are subjective, and it makes them real bad. Oh wait, why are they subjective? Right, I defined them as subjective in my 1AC.”

In fact, I posted about it before on Domination in December of last year. As a debater, I don’t like that because you’re abusing your ability to define and trying to pull a win out of that.

The 6 responses in that December post would be hard to read in a round, so for everyone else, I’ve written up a simple 30-second parent-judge-friendly blip for you to read in-round:

“My opponent says different people have different opinions on what individual rights is. No kidding. People have different views on everything. I have several responses:

1. I fail to see why the fact that people have different views means I lose.
2. For every different view of what individual rights is, I can bring up three different views of what popular sovereignty is. China calls itself a Republic and so does North Korea and Cuba. If my opponent wants consensus, Popular Sovereignty fails this standard as much, if not more than individual rights.”

Let’s decimate this argument.

Posted in Legitimacy 2011, Lincoln Douglas, Tips and Strategy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

As We Head Into The Tournament Season…

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Jon

As we head into what are the opening tournaments of the season (lookin’ at you, Concordia), it’s probably a good idea to go back and reread five of Domination’s most helpful posts on debating so far:

5. introducing clarity into the round

4. Debating In Front Of Community Judges via WolkenPower

3. introducing structure into the round

2. Don’t Make This Argument: ‘X’ is Subjective and Undefinable

1. Remember 5 Things To Win More Debate Rounds

Go get ‘em.

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