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Introduction to Policy Debate

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Sometimes during a debate you will want to “kick” – not go for – one of your disadvantages.  To do this, you need to effectively “kick” it. 

It is very important that your properly kick a disadvantage.  If you do not, the affirmative team may easily extend a turn.

For example, imagine that you present that initial spending disadvantage that I have been discussing and that the affirmative responds with the following five arguments:

1. No link – we don’t spend money

2. Turn – we save money

3. Non-unique – the government will spend more money in the future

4. No internal link --  economic recession doesn’t cause depression

5. No impact – Economic depression doesn’t cause war

You can easily kick this disadvantage by conceding either number 4 or 5 (or both).  It wouldn’t matter if the affirmative saved money if a recession doesn’t cause a depression or if a depression doesn’t cause a war.

If you do not kick the disadvantage in the 2NC or the 1NR and you do not go for it, the 1AR can simply extend numbers 1-3 to then straight-turn the disadvantage.  In the 1AR they do not have to extend all of their original 2AC arguments and in the 2NR it is too late to go back and do that for them.  Similarly, if you do not kick the disadvantage in the 2NR, the 2AR could make the same choice to only extend numbers 1-3.

It is also important to note that the affirmative is not limited to straight-turning the disadvantage in the 2AC.  If the negative goes for the spending disadvantage after the affirmative makes these five arguments, the 1AR could choose to only extend numbers one through three in the 1AR. At that point, the 2NR has to go for the disadvantage.

Kicking a disadvantage is not something that you will want to try when you first start debating for a number of reasons.  First, you may only have one disadvantage to start with. If you kick it, you will not have any disadvantages left. Second, in novice debate, even if the 2AC does a good job answering the disadvantage, the affirmative may not extend any of the arguments in subsequent speeches.  Third, as a novice, you will want to practice extending your arguments, not kicking them.  Fourth, it will be too difficult for you to discern what arguments you are doing well with in the debate and what arguments you are struggling with. As a novice, you should intially focus on extending all of the arguments that you start the debate with. You will likely have extra tiime in your speeches anyhow.

As you progress in debate, however, you will need to develop the skills to kick disadvantages for a number of reasons.  First, you will not have time in the debate to answer all of the answers the 2AC makes to the disadvantages the you run and do a goo job individually extending the disadvantages. Second, you want to be sure you are thorough in your coverage of 2AC disadvantage answers so it is difficult for the 1AR to answer all of your answers to the 2AC responses.  And, if you present more disadvantages in the 1NC than you plan on extending, the 2AC will have to make fewer arguments to each due to time pressures, leaving you with fewer arguments to answer in the 2NR.

Negatives will usually kick a disadvantage (or another off-case position) in the 2NC or the 1NR (it doesn't matter which speech you do it in).  If two disadvantages are extended in the block, you should also be sure to kick one of the disadvantages in the 2NR.  In the 2NR, you wont have time to win more than one disadvantage, explain why it outweighs the case, and make defensive case arguments (which you will need to do both to put time pressur on the 1AR and to ensure your disadvantage outweighs).

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