...and YIKES, it was bad! Okay, so, I'm gonna be honest. i never paid much attention to Charlie Kirk when alive. I've heard of him, knew he was a conservative debater, and knew he was known for beating up on college students in a hacky way, and in this video, we see those skills on full display. Really. His whole schtick is talking fast, defining debates on his terms, and not giving his opponents another breathing room to actually coherently articulate their points. This guy is an example of why I always say that who wins debates often isn't who is right, but who can argue better. Charlie Kirk is a "master debater" (much like his south park persona), but honestly, he doesn't really make good points. it's just a cheap show for his conservative fanbase to be like "bruh, he just OWNED that lib, bruh!" Yeah. Anyway. Let's react to each point.
Claim #1: Abortion is murder and should be illegal
His whole argument is the same old "a life is a life" argument as I call it. Fetuses are human lives, killing a human life is murder, therefore, abortion is murder. It's a bit of a sloppy argument that sounds good on the surface, but I've dealt with this one before. And here's the thing. With me, if we go into questions of personhood and morality, I tend to separate the concept of morality from "human life" in such blunt ways. Like, he just assumes all human life is morally relevant, which is nice, until we realize that zygotes are literally about as moral as bacteria in my view. Why? because they're the size of bacteria give or take (maybe a bit bigger but you get the point). They're not conscious, and, here's my big thing, if killed, no moral harm is done. you have to ask "to whom is harm done", and youre dying on the hill that this early stage human, which is "alive" technically, I don't deny that, is as morally relevant as a born human, or even a baby.
Quite frankly, my own moral framework focuses on the stage of development. Zygote, not morally relevant. Baby. Morally relevant. At what stage between these should we have a cutoff? Admittedly, it's a bit morally vague. People might come to different conclusions, but that's the point the "life begins at conception" people are pushing a radical, extreme view on the matter, whereas I see the issue of abortion as greyer than that. Not only are we talking a sliding scale from conception to birth in moral relevance, but also dealing with a competing right, which is bodily autonomy. The abortion debate doesnt even exist in a vacuum alone. it also competes with the wishes of the parents, their bodily autonomy, etc.
And I'm going to be blunt. i dont believe that fetuses are morally relevant to maybe 22-28 weeks or thereabouts. One person mentioned viability. Kirk insisted that was 20 weeks because a fetus survived that early once, but generally speaking, viability is itself a sliding scale between 22 weeks and 28. Fetuses below 22 weeks don't survive very often, whereas 26-28 week ones survive most of the time. 24 weeks is the 50/50 mark IIRC.
And then I look at things like consciousness and ability to feel pain. The nervous system and brain development around those things happen around 24-28 weeks. And those are what IMO define a human or really, any high functioning living creature from say, a ROCK. If you harm a rock, who is harmed by it? No one. A rock isnt a person. It isnt alive. It cant feel. A fetus is alive technically, but if it cant feel, can't experience, then it's not morally relevant.
Of course, you cant express all of this in a debate with charlie. he talks too fast and doesnt give you enough room to respond, and would constantly cut in if you tried. He's just pushing his worldview. And it is a worldview. There were moments where he'd just switch to debating religion when it came up and yeah, he has this religious worldview based on christianity which he sees as factually true. And to really debunk his nonsense, you gotta get into the trenches of debating worldview, since his arguments fall flat otherwise. And while he'd briefly defend his worldview, he tried to keep debates away from that and on the issues at hand. Which gave him the upper hand in pushing his BS.
To be fair, his opponents werent particularly smart. They failed to really rebut him. One of them tried the moderate Christian route of being like "abortion is bad but it should still be moral", only to get fricking owned by the guy. Seriously, there's a reason I dont like that moderate talking point. You're giving into your opponent's framing of the issue, debating on their terms, and then they wreck you. This is why i hated clinton's stance in 2016. If you have that christian worldview, the logical end to that, if you adopt the evangelical line on abortion morally, is that youre basically like "yeah it's murder but shouldnt murder be okay here?" It doesn't work. Dont try this. Maybe it's a centrist lib perspective to win over self described moderates, but it's SO CRINGE to me. The left should offer CONTRAST. An opposing worldview, not just a weaker version of the right's view. Which is why i look at many moderate libs with disdain. They just give into their opponent's framing and get destroyed.
Anyway, next question.
Claim #2: College is a scam
Now, before we begin this, why is Kirk arguing this? because it's low hanging culture war BS. The right loves to split up the working class between blue collar trades bros and college grads. Honestly, the working class should be the working class, all workers, and even non workers should be valued and seen as a cohesive bloc mostly. Quite frankly, I seek a divide more around socioeconomic status than education level. But the right loves to do their BS culture war schtick, so...we end up seeing this.
Sadly, I gotta admit Kirk has a point. College was heavily pushed with us millennials as this big thing we needed to get jobs in the job market, and then we end up overqualified and unable to get jobs available. Something like half of all college grads don't even use their degrees. And I myself feel burned on that one.
Of course, this isn't to say college isnt valuable. So often, we look at college in purely economic terms. College should be an essential part of our curriculum. it should be free for all, and honestly, the more college educated you are, the more you seek through kirk's nonsense. Kirk reflects this economics paradigm, which is what leans into this blue collar working class crap the right tries to lean into, appealing to people who went to trades and going on about how they got these big incomes doing hard work (which is quite crappy work that breaks your body over time), and laughing at "hahaha look at these libs with their gender studies degrees who cant get jobs." Quite frankly, those gender studies grads are way more intelligent than your typical conservative, and way more informed about the world. But yeah, again, the right loves the uneducated, they've demonized college, and they conflate economic value with all value.
Props to the one guy who pointed out religion is also a scam. He really went for the jugular with kirk and kirk's whole "but but church gives you eternal life" argument was such crap. There's no proof that religion is true, and while people often arent required to pay up front for church like colleges do, try going to church for an extended period of time and not giving to the offering. Youre either gonna be looked down upon, and maybe even kicked out. And of course, they do want you to give 10% of your income or more. I remember sitting in church listening to lectures about how tithing is just the minimum and you should be giving more. But yeah, they got these guys convinced they gotta go to church, pay the church money, and listen to the church or they go to the special burny place when they die. And that isn't a fricking scam? Come the heck on...
Again, of course, kirk is never gonna let you talk enough to fully articulate that, but props to the guy who tried to go after kirk for that. That one college kid really went after him and I LOVED it.
Claim #3: Trans women are not women
So...sadly, the left fell into the trap on this one and looked bad. As a leftie who is pro trans, but doesnt argue like an SJW on the matter, NEVER, NEVER push this argument. In a pure debate where terms are defined like Kirk did (XX chromosome, etc.), never push this. SJWs tend to rely on reals over feels, and using cancel culture to bully people who dont agree with them. And it works poorly. But yeah, let's be blunt. Biologically, the right has a point. Trans women might seek to become women, and we might love to affirm their identities on the left, as it's the morally right thing to do, but honestly? There are differences. And trans women will never be full women BIOLOGICALLY.
HOWEVER, before the left gets their torches and pitchforks out, I would like to offer a different approach. First of all, theres a difference between the biological reality of sex, and gender, which is more subjective. TransGENDER is....changing genders. "Sex" wise, yeah, trans women are still, to some degree, men. BUT....that doesn't mean that we shouldnt try to let transgender individuals pursue their own gender identity, or affirm it to the greatest extent that is reasonable in society. It's the right thing to do. And again, let's argue this on moral and worldview terms, not on the biological facts.
Here's why the right cares about this. because they're christian fundamentalists who believe in traditional gender norms. They want their men to be strong, tough, masculine, and macho. They want them to be hard workers and providers for children. They want women to be effeminate, weak, caring, nurturing, because, let's face it, to them, women between say, 18 (and sometimes younger, but let's not go there, although the topic did come up with the abortion issue somewhat) and 40ish as baby factories and caretakers. And that's how life works. The bible said men do this, then women do that. And anything that violates their idea of what life should be is bad. Which is why they hate progressives. Because since the 1960s, they've been challenging the conservative idea of what life is. They push for equal rights for women. They push for the legalization of homosexuality. They push for the legitimation of trans identity. And for us it isn't a big deal. Why? because for us, it's a FREEDOM issue. We want people to be equal, and we want them to pursue the lives they want. And yes, we SHOULD allow trans people to pursue their gender identities and affirm them to make them feel better for the most part. Again, it's all worldview. It's the religious right and their authoritarianism and them wanting to push their religious worldview on people (and yes, religion came up here again at times). And if you want to effectively challenge the right, you gotta hit them on WORLDVIEW.
Instead, we get the SJW left over the "trans women arent real women" line, and then them engaging in circular logic when they define the terms, which just gave kirk the upper hand and made our side look stupid. Ya know? Stop this, fellow lefties. I know you mean well, but you guys just come off as loud obnoxious people who scream your opponents down and bully them into agreeing with your little doctrines. Which just alienates people, and pisses them off.
Gay rights were won on the freedom issue. They were won on "this doesnt affect me and this is none of my business so the government shouldnt regulate it." Trans issues must follow the same path to legitimization. SJWs lean into the exact framing the right wants to argue on, and then they demolish us. Stop it. if you really care about trans people, shift the debate to freedom and why the issue is morally relevant and why they CARE so much. And when they expose themselves as christian nationalists, attack them for THAT.
Really, the left needs to realize when you're debating the right, you're debating an entirely different worldview. And at the center of that worldview is religious fundamentalism. You're dealing with religious nuts. And if you want to win a debate, you gotta counter them on those terms. Most conservative ideas come down to "because god said so according to the bible", "because we've always done things that way", and other nonsense. It's a rather boring perspective that doesnt have much intellectual value. Which...is why, to go back to #2, conservatives dont want people to go to college. Because as someone who was a conservative back then, yeah, college does counter conservatism, because it encourages you to think critically and that makes it easier to see through the nonsense they're pushing. I know some people including lefties might not like my perspective at times, but as an ex conservative who actually understands the right more than you guys do, trust me, you need me more than you realize, and this debate is proof of that.
Claim #4: Kamala Harris is a DEI candidate
So...first of all, Kirk is right on this one, at least conceptually. She is. She was chosen by Biden specifically because she was a black woman, because she balanced the ticket and because it was thought she would bring in the all coveted black vote. She wasnt necessarily the smartest candidate, or the best one, although one could argue bringing in black voters in what amounts to a popularity contest could make her position as a black woman a qualification in and of itself, but let's be blunt. We all know that's why she was chosen. And if kirk stuck to that, he would've done fine here. But he really showed his ### and ended up coming off as a raging racist.
First of all, let's be blunt. DEI doesnt mean unqualified. Just because someone is chosen in part, or even primarily because they're black doesnt mean they're not qualified. Harris was perfectly qualified. Like, she was a successful politician before her 2020 run. She had a resume. And I think she did a decent job as VP. Is she everything i wanted? No. Quite frankly I view her as too moderate at times. But hey, that's just the democrats. But to be blunt, yes, she was chosen in part because she was a black woman, let's be real.
And yeah, the more kirk talked, the worse he got. He started going on about DEI and comments he previously made about airlines hiring black pilots not being qualified. Again, he really thinks that DEI focuses JUST on race, and ignores all qualifications, it doesnt. It's more, if you got a white man and a black woman who are equally qualified, you choose the black women. hell, you might even choose the black woman if she's only 80-90% qualified. But the point is, she's gonna at least be baseline qualified for the job. They're not gonna just put untrained people in pilots seats, or as VP. It is a factor, but it isnt the only one. But it does disrupt meritocracy and act as a bias against so called privileged groups.
Which brings us to the last discussion:
Affirmative action is constitutional
Now, I dont have an opinion on this one, and I aint even a fan of affirmative action or DEI. But yeah...this got really racist really fast. Kirk couldn't stop showing his ### on this issue. 13/50 crime statistics, claims the welfare state destroyed black families (i mean, it did, but that's the problem with conditional welfare and why I'm a UBI stan), and just all this ranting about how much california and inner cities suck. Like, it was just the same nonsense conservatives have pushed since reagan era, and kirk's talking points are proof that dog whistle politics never really died in the GOP.
Also, am I correct in interpreting the one point about how back before the 1960s that black people were too scared to commit crimes because they'd be lynched as basically implicit support for jim crow? I mean, wtf?
Okay, so...here's the deal. Slavery happened, jim crow happened. Black people are poor. The system doesnt work in their favor. There's a cycle of poverty, and poor desperate people commit crimes. And yeah, as someone who studied criminology, maybe if we had a UBI and other robust safety nets, people wouldn't. The answer isnt more policing or tough on crime policies. It's addressing the root causes of poverty and oppression and trying to improve things. If they still commit crimes after that, yeah, we do need police, but what we also wanna do is address the root causes.
This is, btw, why libs lean into affirmative action. They dont really believe in "free stuff" or "handouts" but have this religion of work about them too, so their idea is that we make it easier for minorities to get jobs to make them more upwardly mobile. it's how they attempt to solve the issue. More upwardly mobile minorities = solving systemic racism for them. Of course, it doesnt solve poverty as a whole. Which is my problem for it. And that's where the (legitimate) resentment from whites comes in. Because they have this "I work so hard why should i be passed over for a promotion" only to get some pink haired college student with tattoos and a nose piercing telling them to check their privilege. It doesn't resonate, guys. Stop doing this.
Seriously. This is, once again, why I lean into universal safety nets. While the work worshippers would still lose their crap, at least this is a battle i feel more comfortable fighting and trying to win. Because even this comes back to culture. The right has this set in stone idea of "this is the way things are and this is how you should live your life" and I have a humanistic perspective that doesn't lean into that. And quite frankly, i think the religion of work in society is nonsense, and its moral origins come from this same christian worldview, that we gotta stop leaning into, but instead create an alternative to. So instead of arguing about redistributing "opportunity" in terms of race, I focus on trying to give everyone a good life regardless of employment. Because from a secular perspective, why should we wanna spend all our time working anyway? Ya know?
Again, different moral perspective. And that's where I'll end this. If the left wants to truly beat the right, again, WORLDVIEW, WORLDVIEW, WORLDVIEW. Which...to be fair, no one is gonna do a good job against kirk. To discuss worldview means being allowed to talk and explain things for more than 5 seconds, to be able to discuss the issues BEHIND the issues, and to be able to reframe the arguments in a more favorable light. Kirk's debate schtick doesnt allow that. He talks fast, he defines the debate on his terms, and he doesnt allow his opponents any breathing room to develop a counter narrative. That's how he won debates. It doesnt mean he's right. But it does make him an effective and persuasive debater. Winning a debate isnt always about who is right. It's about who is most effective at getting their points across. Republicans often win specifically BECAUSE they don't let their opponents talk or articulate their points. Remember pence vs harris in 2020? Or why debate moderators added a mute button to trump after his first presidential debate? Republicans won't shut the F up and let their opposition talk. And that's the magic behind kirk's debating as well. It's easy to win debates when you dominate the discussion and dont let your opponents talk properly.
That isnt to say when the opposition did talk they were effective at it, quite frankly, many debaters just ended up falling into the same bad talking points the left often makes and get destroyed. Don't do that. Watch it for yourself, and then read the above. If you wanna beat the right, that's the way.
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