He said if people are not allowed to voice their opinions, violence will follow. Sarcastically, he was shot dead while voicing his opinion in a speech. May we wonder that if he were not as rhetorical as he had all along been in voicing his opinions, might he still be alive today?

Debate is not a thing of voicing one’s opinion to do people or circumstances good in the spectrum of human welfare; debate is a contest testing one’s rhetoric to win against the opposite side. Debate can only be a game held in a school with teachers to score with regulations; students practice speaking skills, examining if they have prepared enough to equip the debate, and finally, to see which side can win logically or illogically. The outcome of a debate is not a triumph of telling the truth, for debate must have two sides opposing each other, with them choosing one to proceed. Sometimes, many topics must have one side with a ridiculous sense or insane rhetoric to come out.

When debate is used as a political tool to win supporters or voters in a party, it will trigger a serious effect and create a disaster. Charles Kirk, known for holding debates with college students, employed not a few sophistries and the inflammatory analogy in the debate to kick off the students who debated with him. As a heavyweight political KOL, he must grab attention so that he can successfully stand out, helping the party he is in to grab more supporters and voters in elections.

I have heard he lumped together abortion and the Holocaust in a debate when he talked about abortion with a woman. Obviously, he deliberately employed such an analogy with the aim of shutting that woman up. I could only hear her pathetically say to him that she didn’t agree. Without addressing her disagreement and feelings, he appeared to have won and felt complacent.

The Holocaust was a state-orchestrated genocide rooted in hatred, aimed at wiping out an entire people. Abortion, by contrast, is a deeply personal decision, often made in painful or complex circumstances. Many women face it with grief or necessity, not malice. Abortion is a profound and deeply personal female issue. However significant a man may be, he cannot reduce it to a few words to agree or disagree. This is not feminism—it is a matter of basic respect for women’s right to speak about an experience that belongs to them.

Most profoundly, equating abortion to the Holocaust amounts to trivializing one of history’s greatest atrocities and misrepresents the harsh reality of women’s experiences. Charles Kirk must know abortion and the Holocaust were incomparable; nevertheless, he resorted to abandoning saying the truth, but the sophistry to make a shock.

Extreme words and deeds can only shock people rather than convince them, making them genuinely believe you. Real power exists in real facts and real circumstances instead of shocking speech. We can see he always uses his rhetoric to silence his opponents in his debates. Analysing from his acts, we have reasons to believe that he adamantly advocated freedom of speech – but only on his own terms.

Politics is more complex than we can imagine. People involved in politics are forced to be aggressive and even extreme, for the framework of politics is rival; different parties compete for limited political power and interests, and the worst is, they don’t adopt a culture of negotiation and coalition-building, even when some issues can be solved under it.  I can say Charles Kirk died of today’s political system’s dysfunction, especially when he was elaborately made an icon of a party’s so-called “daring to say the truth” politically.

When we pay our last tribute to Mr. Charles James Kirk, we must earnestly make a reflection on how politics has made our possible dialogues into a ferocious debate that boasts rhetoric to win.

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