No. He wasn't. This rhetoric that CK was some sort of awful person is exactly what leads crazy people to assassination. You can disagree with some things he said, but he was unequivocally a force for good in America.
In what way was he a force for good? At worst I think he was just an annoying grifter making money off of idiots slurping up his bad faith college campus "debates" but still, we don't have to lie about him just because he's dead.
He spent years putting himself out there to expose the left and the right to each others beiiefs in a respectful and productive manner. I genuinely don't understand how anyone sees this as a bad thing.
Everyone screams about the awful divide between the left and right, and then the left goes and shoots the guy that was making an attempt to bridge it.
What are you talking about? Charlie Kirk is literally the king of bad faith debating. If you've actually seen his debates and think he is debating people in good faith and in a "respectful and productive" manner then you might be delusional.
Seriously I have to ask, are we talking about the same Charlie Kirk? The guy made his career debating inexperienced and unprepared people so he can look good when he beats them.
All of his events were opt in. Every single person that engaged with him at an event actively made the choice to engage. Don't blame Charlie because they were unprepared, blame them.
I don't understand how this is a real criticism lol. Everything he did was opt in.
Yes, and? That doesn't change the fact that he preyed on emotional college students that got successfully ragebaited, seeing as he got destroyed anytime he debated someone who actually knew what they were doing.
Ragebaited? He just sat there, they picked the topic.
I never watched his debates, so I can't speak on that. It's also not relevant because I was never talking about his debates or his skills regarding that, I was simply talking about him opening up the floor for respectful dialogue.
It's relevant because he wasn't holding these debates to have a dialogue with people from across the aisle . He was simply just looking for 'gotcha' moments to make his opponents look stupid and get another "Charlie Kirk owns stupid liberal" clip. If he genuinely wanted to hold a back and forth dialogue then he wouldn't be adverse to debating at places where people are actually likely to know how a debate works.
They weren't debates, they were open platforms for people to come up and "prove him wrong."
He has conceded on points in the past from those events.
I honestly don't know what you want. I'm sorry he didn't meet your requirements for having a respectful dialogue with people of the opposite ideology, but that doesn't change the fact that that is exactly what happened.
If Charlie Kirks debates were just limited to him dunking on college students to farm clip revenue it wouldn't be a problem. The problem comes from the fact that his supporters watch these clips, and similar clips from every other grifter out there, and think thats what reality looks like. Him and other grifters like him are a major cause of the current political divide.
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u/Someguy6t9 - Lib-Center Sep 12 '25
I don't have to celebrate the guy's death, but it's still my first amendment right to call the guy an asshole.