That is a remarkable thing to be able to say about someone. He wasn’t giving a speech to a passive audience. He was debating. And not just one opponent, but all comers. On university campuses everywhere, people approached to pose challenges to him, often hard and direct ones. These weren’t softball questions and his replies, while respectful, were not soft either. Today I saw a one-on-one debate he had in England with a young man about abortion. At one point, Kirk needled his fumbling opponent with something like, “You can check your notes again if you want.” You felt bad for the opponent, but you also couldn’t help but laugh.
Kirk’s most memorable appearance were not speeches, but debates. If Discovery Institute is pro-anything across the board, we are pro-debate. It’s something that founder Bruce Chapman has talked about many times.
When Kirk was murdered, someone in the crowd (sounding hostile) had just asked something about the number of mass shootings in the U.S. I saw it on X but I have lost it now. Kirk’s last words were a question in response along the lines of, “Including gang violence?” At that moment the shot to the neck came, which, though I’m no expert, did not look like an amateur’s work.
An “Invisible Line”?
What does this horrific assassination mean for the culture? On X, the perceptive Konstantin Kisin compares the event to 9/11:
[T]onight feels like some sort of invisible line has been crossed that we didn’t even know was there. The last time I felt like this was 9/11 when it was clear, without knowing the how and the what, that the world was about to change forever….
I didn’t feel like this when an attempt was made on President Trump’s life. If I had to rationalise why I didn’t, I guess it’s because several US Presidents have been shot at and even assassinated. Somehow it was within the realms of the possible, no matter how awful.
But to murder a young father simply for doing debates and mobilising young people to vote for a party that represents half of America? This is something else. [Emphasis added.]
Kisin hopes that he’s wrong about that “invisible line.” I do, too.
See also: