Team Policy is Broken, Part 6: Presumption
Suggested Reading
Before going further, catch up on these posts:
Assessing the Terrain
Let’s draw on everything we’ve discussed up to now to make some basic assumptions about a scenario where a negative speaker might want to run a Presumption argument.
You probably only have one Presumption argument. For example, you have a single Topicality press.
It has a few minutes of content. Advanced debaters can significantly expand or contract the time it takes them to present an argument. That said, even a very skilled speaker can only spread their content so thin before cracks begin to form. Topicality typically takes 2-3 minutes to present; it can be stretched to 6-8 minutes with practice. Any more than that is impossible without speaking very slowly or repeating yourself - both of which make the speech painful to listen to.
Team Policy has 16 minutes of neg constructive time. No matter how skilled you are, you can’t be expected to fill all of your constructive time with a single Presumption argument.
So let’s explore the ways the negative might work around this problem.
A) Relinquish Time
Deliver the entire Topicality argument, then sit back down.
A competent affirmative will respond to Topicality in under two minutes, then spend their remaining time pushing their case. The 2NC and 2NR will only be able to draw out the refutation for a few minutes. The 1NR will be empty.
By the end of the round, assuming both sides are operating at an advanced strategic level, the distribution of time will look something like this:
| Aff | Neg | |
|---|---|---|
| 1AC | 8 | |
| 1NC | 8 | |
| 2AC | 6 | 2 |
| 2NC | 3 | |
| 1NR | ||
| 1AR | 4 | 1 |
| 2NR | 3 | |
| 2AR | 4 | 1 |
| Total | 22 | 18 |
That means this approach surrenders the massive strategic advantage that Team Policy gives the negative. Without any help from you, the affirmative is able to simply overpower your argument. An entire affirmative case fills up time much better than a Presumption argument.
Verdict: Not viable.
B) Stretch the Block
You run an 8-minute Topicality press. Affirmative responds to and then repushes their own case for most of the 2AC. You then spend the entire 13-minute negative block responding to 2AC Topicality response.
This won’t change a good affirmative’s behavior; they’ll still spend about 22 minutes on their own case. But since you’re using all your available time, you add 10 minutes to the negative side, giving you a decent 27% strategic edge.
The problem: those ten minutes will be painful for everyone in the room. It will be painfully obvious what you’re doing. You’ll hate having to speak with nothing left to say; the judge will hate you for making them hear you do it. So while this is a strategically and logically sound approach, it should never be attempted.
Verdict: Not viable.
C) Run more Presumption arguments
You run Trichotomy and Specification in the 1NC, followed by Topicality and an Objection in the 2NC.
This is a very appealing approach at first glance. Since there’s more logical information being presented, you can control the affirmative’s behavior better. They’ll be forced to spend more time responding to you. You’ll be able to fill all your speech time without subjecting the judge to verbal torture. In short, you can assemble a full case of complementary (or at least non-contradictory) arguments that work well in the Team Policy format.
| Aff | Neg | |
|---|---|---|
| 1AC | 8 | |
| 1NC | 8 | |
| 2AC | 6 | 2 |
| 2NC | 8 | |
| 1NR | 5 | |
| 1AR | 1 | 4 |
| 2NR | 5 | |
| 2AR | 4 | 1 |
| Total | 19 | 33 |
This creates an excellent 74% strategic edge. So what’s not to like?
Most Presumption arguments are (or at least should be) rare. You can’t plan to run Tricot; you just need it ready in case the affirmative doesn’t run a policy case. It is incredibly unlikely that you can assemble 3-4 strong Presumption arguments. You’ll have to resort to far-fetched assertions and bad-faith misinterpretations of the affirmative case. Obviously, that’s not a good route.
So while this tactic is valid, you can probably go your entire debate career without seeing a round in which it is useful.
Verdict: Rarely viable.
There’s only one option left for running Presumption arguments.
That’s coming in the next post.