"Disagree better?"

In the wake of the horrific Charlie Kirk murder.

   

DisagreeBetter.us

  

KHIT priors: "Civility?" "Influence?" "Deliberation?" "Conflict?" "Evidence?"

 

They cut to the chase fairly nicely.

Disagree Better by How You Speak

• Write down three things you admire about someone you disagree with.
• Identify an opinion or perspective you hold and research the opposing perspective.
• Invite someone with a different viewpoint to coffee or lunch.
• Share a positive story about someone you disagree with on social media.
• Share a book or article that helped you understand a different perspective.
• Send a text to someone you’ve had a disagreement with, expressing appreciation for their perspective.
• Write a thank-you note to a community leader of a different political party.
• Attend a cultural or religious event outside your own tradition.
• Avoid sharing inflammatory or divisive content online.
• Help a neighbor with a task, regardless of their political or social views.
• Organize a neighborhood cleanup or potluck.

Disagree Better by What You Say

• "I respect your opinion, even though I don’t share it. Let’s keep talking.”
• "I see your point, and I’d like to share my perspective as well."
• "That’s an interesting perspective—can you tell me how you arrived at that view?"
• "Thank you for sharing that with me. I learned something from you today.”
• "I appreciate your passion on this topic—it’s clear you care deeply."
• "I hear what you’re saying, and I’d like to offer another way of looking at it."
• "I could be wrong."
• "I respect your opinion, even though I don’t share it. Let’s keep talking."
• "I hadn’t considered that angle—thank you for bringing it up."
• "Let’s agree to disagree on this, but I value the conversation we’re having."

Disagree Better by How You Think

• Avoid making assumptions about someone’s motives.

• Ask about the why behind the opinion or belief. What led someone to believe what they believe?
Be curious.
• 
Look for values you have in common.

• Consider that someone else might be able to teach you something (you might be wrong).

• Your opinions are what you think, not who you are—same for the person across from you.

• See disagreement as an opportunity to expand your thinking, not a threat to your identity.
• 
Respect opinions.
Focus on finding some common ground in a disagreement – what can you agree on?

Disagree Better by How You Listen

• Listen to understand.
• Commit to listening more than speaking in your next conversation.
• Challenge yourself to avoid interrupting during a discussion.
• Practice active listening by summarizing what the other person said before responding.
• Learn about how to increase your listening and conversational skills through partner resources and courses.

Disagree Better by What You Do

• Avoid making assumptions about someone’s motives.
• 
Ask about the why behind the opinion or belief. What led someone to believe what they believe?
Be curious.
• Look for values you have in common.

• Consider that someone else might be able to teach you something (you might be wrong).

• Your opinions are what you think, not who you are—same for the person across from you.
• 
See disagreement as an opportunity to expand your thinking, not a threat to your identity.
• 
Respect opinions.
Focus on finding some common ground in a disagreement – what can you agree on? 

PROBLEM #1:

THERE IS NO 1ST-PERSON SINGULAR PRESENT-TENSE USAGE OF THE WORD "WRONG"

 

No one ever says "I AM wrong."

 

And, how about this?

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT the individual genetic and developmental differences that impact the sensory portions of our nervous systems, it’s remarkable that we can agree on a shared reality at all. You’ll recall that 30 percent of the four hundred or so olfactory receptor genes are functionally different when comparing two random individuals. That’s the first step of the sense of smell, before we even consider individual differences in the brain circuits that process that information or the ways in which those brain circuits are changed by experience. Due to these innate and learned differences in smell and taste perception, my integrated flavor experience of Barolo wine or Cheez Whiz is not exactly the same as yours.

Crucially, these individual differences in perception are present for all sensory systems, not just smell and taste. My red is not necessarily your red, my G-minor chord is not your G-minor chord, and my chilly bedroom is not your chilly bedroom. This individual variation doesn’t hold just for those senses that point outward, but also for those that point inward and inform us about the state of our bodies. In this spirit, my sensation of a full stomach is not your sensation of a full stomach and my ten-degree leftward tilt of the head is not your ten-degree leftward tilt of the head. Each of us operates from a different perception of the world and a different perception of ourselves.

A portion of the individual variation in sensory systems is innate. But those innate effects are elaborated and magnified with time as we accumulate experiences, expectations, and memories, filtered through and in turn modifying those very same sensory systems. In this way, the interacting forces of heredity, experience, plasticity, and development resonate to make us unique. Unique: the new science of human individuality / David J. Linden. New York: Basic Books, 2020. Pg 253.

ONE MORE FOR NOW

Because of livewiring, we are each a vessel of space and time. We drop into a particular spot on the world and vacuum in the details of that spot. We become, in essence, a recording device for our moment in the world. 

When you meet an older person and feel shocked by the opinions or worldview she holds, you can try to empathize with her as a recording device for her window of time and her set of experiences. Someday your brain will be that time-ossified snapshot that frustrates the next generation. 

Here’s a nugget from my vessel: I remember a song produced in 1985 called “We Are the World.” Dozens of superstar musicians performed it to raise money for impoverished children in Africa. The theme was that each of us shares responsibility for the well-being of everyone. 

Looking back on the song now, I can’t help but see another interpretation through my lens as a neuroscientist. We generally go through life thinking there’s me and there’s the world. But as we’ve seen in this book, who you are emerges from everything you’ve interacted with: your environment, all of your experiences, your friends, your enemies, your culture, your belief system, your era—all of it. Although we value statements such as “he’s his own man” or “she’s an independent thinker,” there is in fact no way to separate yourself from the rich context in which you’re embedded. There is no you without the external. Your beliefs and dogmas and aspirations are shaped by it, inside and out, like a sculpture from a block of marble. Thanks to livewiring, each of us is the world.  Eagleman, David. Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain (p. 245). (Function). Kindle EditioN,

More in a bit...

Something uplifting for a change.

A Facebook friend of mine posted this.

 

Meet Blue and Rusty, two fragile little souls left behind in an empty field, shivering and clinging to each other for days as they tried to survive. They couldn't understand why they were cold, hungry, and so very alone.

When I found them, they were curled up inside a broken crate, soaked and silent. 

Their eyes said everything, confusion, fear, and a quiet plea for help. Now they sit side by side in my car, still tense, still uncertain. What they don't yet realize is that we're driving toward something they've never truly had before: home.

Home means safety. A warm bed. Sunshine in the backyard.

Brothers and sisters to play with. Food, water, gentleness, and love. The fear in their eyes will take time to fade, but that's alright.

Because this time, they're not abandoned. 

This time, they're safe.

This time, they're home.

—Nancy Marlow

My wife and I have been stray rescue magnets for a half-century.

"A CALL FOR VIOLENCE?"

Today, I choose violence. Literally.
GEOFFREY INGERSOLL
EDITOR AT LARGE Daily Caller

I know calls for violence are generally frowned upon. The issue is … I simply don’t care.

Part of the social compact in this country going all the way back to its founding there are simply some things you do not do. When you do those things, well, you might just end up with a few extra knots in your head.

Thus, the title of today’s newsletter … 
 
A CALL FOR VIOLENCE

It’s all about cost, and the cost is not high enough.

In some places, the cost is nonexistent. We need to reinstitute a public debt for anti-social and subversive behavior. In my opinion, some of this cost needs to be summary and ultra-violent.

Is this a call for violence? Yes. Explicitly it is.

The law is not enough. Or, it’s non-existent. Somewhere deep down inside we’ve always known no one is coming to help us. We need to help ourselves.q 

It reminds me a bit of this old bar fight story from good ol’ Teddy. Sometimes bullies require immediate and overwhelming force.

"It was late in the evening when I reached the place. I heard one or two shots in the bar-room as I came up, and I disliked going in. But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night. Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like what they don't like. A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident profanity. He had evidently been shooting at the clock, which had two or three holes in its face. ...As soon as he saw me he hailed me as 'Four Eyes,' in reference to my spectacles, and said, 'Four Eyes is going to treat.' I joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down, thinking to escape notice. He followed me, however, and though I tried to pass it off as a jest this merely made him more offensive, and he stood leaning over me, a gun in each hand, using very foul language... In response to his reiterated command that I should set up the drinks, I said, 'Well, if I've got to, I've got to,' and rose, looking past him. As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands, or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head... if he had moved I was about to drop on my knees; but he was senseless. I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled him out and put him in the shed." [Text excerpt describing Theodore Roosevelt’s barroom confrontation in Mingusville, Montana Territory, from An Autobiography (1913).]

They “hustled him out and put him in the shed.” Ah yes, Teddy knew how to deal with bullies.

Thursday bothered me a bit, on two fronts. One is that Comey got indicted, and the reaction was predictably unhinged. I’m not going to unpack the case, it seems clear he lied to Congress. An Eastern District of Virginia grand jury, hardly a bastion of conservatism, returned an indictment. Just like they did over censorship and Kimmel’s firing, amnesiac liberals squealed about political perversion of the Department of Justice.

Steven Bannon went to prison for four months. It wasn’t even that long ago and he wasn’t even the only one. All he did was defy a congressional subpoena. Democracy will survive if James Comey spends time in jail for lying to Congress to cover up a subversive conspiracy to undermine Trump. 

Let’s do Fauci next, how about that? He definitely lied to Congress too. Then let’s investigate Ilhan Omar, AOC, Barack Obama, and everyone in Clinton world. Let’s put Biden world through the wringer. I’m freshly out of shits.

Truth be told I don’t even care if Comey or Fauci end up in jail. As long as the arrest and adjudication process absolutely ruins them.

I also don’t care if Democrats turn around and do the same thing to Republicans. The GOP is full of morally bankrupt, lying elites too. Swamp creatures, profiteers, unpatriotic turncoats, transactional voters in the Senate. 

Let’s purge them.

If this is the new normal, I’ll take it. Your squeals are music to me. They are the soundtrack of nature healing.

There should be a cost. For the lies, for taking the American people for granted, for selling them out at every end. For bullying them nonstop. Let’s reinstitute the cost.

Moving past the legal “violence,” let’s get to the actual violence, shall we?
Alvin Bragg’s office dismissed a felony assault charge yesterday. That shouldn’t be a shock to anyone — nobody is more renowned for soft on violent crime prosecutions than Bragg. What is shocking though is in this particular case the act was caught on film. What’s more, the assailant then went on social media and bragged about doing it.

Pro-life advocate Savannah Craven Antao was doing a man-on-the-street video in Harlem, New York, when she was abruptly and viciously assaulted by a woman she was interviewing.

Brianna J. Rivers, a brutish, hulking woman, socked Antao in the face twice the moment she was distracted.

This is dead-to-rights felony aggravated assault. It should result in prison time and probation.

Prosecutors initially downgraded the charge to a misdemeanor, then dismissed the charges altogether.

And the message couldn’t be clearer.

The message is clear: In liberal jurisdictions, it’s open season on assaulting conservatives. https://t.co/VfSHQV1l3h

— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) September 26, 2025

How do we fix this? In corrupt legal scenarios, where the judges, prosecutors and even police are all a part of a rigged system, what do we do?

Choose violence.

We all know the government is not going to help you in your time of need. Especially a Soros-sponsored government.

Conservatives looking to peacefully assemble and publicly debate need to be realistic. Nobody is going to help you. In fact, they’re going to encourage violence. They’re going to excuse, justify and encourage it.

We saw as much with Charlie Kirk. They were practically begging someone to go after him, and when someone did, they quickly justified it.

Well, I think now that we know the extent of it, the time to go as lambs to the slaughter is OVER.

In real terms, this means: Bring security with you that’s dying to dole out drubbings. I’m sure a fair amount of ex-cons who found Jesus loved Charlie Kirk. Maybe they need work?

Whatever works. We need to reinstitute the cost. 

So some activist takes the sign next to your table at a public debate, like what happened here? She gets instantly clotheslined. I don’t care if police are present. Do it anyway. In fact, be wildly disproportionate.

A fat black lady assaults your on-camera talent? Book the kind of security that has no qualms hospitalizing her and people like her.

Dudes rope up your car and start vandalizing it? Bros dismounting with cudgels will fix that real quick. Turn it into an instant brawl. Break bones.
Force corrupt police to intervene. I want blood in the streets.

Speaking of costs, such a posture is indeed costly. It’ll cost money, firstly. Security isn’t cheap. It’d likely cost about $1,000 a day for just two guys. It’ll also come at a social cost, and a legal cost. Bragg might not prosecute militant liberals, but he’ll certainly take a conservative organization to court if his street brutes are harmed.

But you know what else isn’t cheap? The social compact in America. It comes at a cost. If patriots aren’t willing to step up and bear the burden, our people will continue to be harassed, assaulted, even killed with impunity.

What’s clear to me in these two examples is that liberals believe they have a monopoly on both legal and extra-legal acts of violence. They don’t. We need to show them they don’t.

We must stop clutching our principles and shouting “stop.” They own the legal system. That will achieve nothing. We need action. Disproportionate. Violent. Action.

Pain and suffering.

We need to raise the cost of obviating the social contract. Measure it in blood if necessary. Change requires pain, and you’re either taking it or inflicting it.

I know which side I’m on, and I’m more than ready to start putting people in the shed.

Another faux Tough Guy MAGA cosplay militia poseur? Nothing new, really.

 

Dawg, your clinical delusions of grandeur remain covered under Obamacare. 

 

____ 

Let’s do Fauci next, how about that?

 

At times, I am deeply disturbed about the state of our society. But it is not so much about an impending public health disaster. It is about the crisis of truth in my country and to some extent throughout the world, which has the potential to make these disasters so much worse. We are living in an era in which information that is patently untrue gets repeated enough times that it becomes part of our everyday dialogue and starts to sound true and in a time in which lies are normalized and people invent their own set of facts. We have seen complete fabrications become some people’s accepted reality.

This is not a new paradigm. Propaganda—turning words and ideas into weapons—no doubt started thousands of years ago, and we have seen it used to devastating effect many times within the life span of this country as well as over the course of world history. We have seen how easy it is to undermine the foundations of our democracy and of the social order. What is new is the dizzying pace at which information gets disseminated and amplified on the internet and through social media, disorienting and dividing us as a nation.

These divisions did not come out of nowhere, and they will not go away overnight, because they are set in the minds of so many people. It is why I am putting my hope in the young people I encounter around the country and the world.

Which brings me to the next chapter in my life. When I decided to step down from my position as director of NIAID, I asked myself what I could do over the next few years while I am still filled with passion and energy and blessed with good health. The answer came to me quickly and clearly: to share my experiences with the world and particularly the younger generation where I might serve as an example and hopefully an inspiration for some to pursue a life serving others not only in the field of medicine and science but in any of a number of career paths that one might choose. This was my main motivation in writing this memoir.

It was also the reason I was delighted to accept the offer of Georgetown’s president, Jack DeGioia, to become a Distinguished University Professor at the School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy, where I can have daily contact with the bright and inquisitive minds on the Georgetown campus.

In the year since I stepped down as NIAID director, I have had the opportunity to lecture and engage in fireside chats and moderated discussions throughout the country. What became even more clear to me was something I already knew: that the diversity in our country in its myriad forms—geographic, economic, cultural, racial, ethnic, and political—makes us an attractive and great country. It is when this diversity gives way to divisiveness that society suffers. I have always been a cautious optimist, and I hope that the better angels in all of us, who tell us that we are more alike than different, will prevail and lead to a spirit of civility and respect for each other... [from the Epilogue]

Jeffery Ingersoll, son, we are not impressed.

____

 

OUR SECRETARY OF WAR

 

 

What is he planning for the 30th?

 

OH, YEAH, PORTLAND?

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci

This begins our 3rd season of attendance. Cheryl got an email apprising us of potential lengthy admission delays owing to enhanced security measures in the wake of myriad ongoing death threats aimed at Dr. Fauci.

 

We arrived well in advance of our usual time. The long line was already shuffling around the entire opera house property. Rain ensued.

 

When we finally got to the entrance, TSA airport-style measures were in place: your pockets emptied and placed on tables aside full-body scanners, with additional wanding for those who set off the scanners.

 

Inside, groups of armed Baltimore County Sheriffs Deparment tactical officers stood about, Kevlar'ed up.

 

All pretty surreal.

 

 

Start time was delayed. Sold out crowd.

 

Dr. Fauci was magnificent. You owe it to yourself to read his memoir.

 

 

"Public Health" expenditures comprise less than 3% of the total U.S. healthcare spend. The bang for the buck is in fact dispositive. Yet...

 

THEN, FRIDAY MORNING, I ARISE TO THIS STUPID STUFF

 

 

 

WTF? “TAKE HEPATITAS B SHOT AT 12 YEARS OLD, OR OLDER”

 

My late elder daughter, Sissy, was born in 1968 with undetected congenital Hepatitis-B. Her birth mother turned out to be an asymptomatic Hep-B carrier. I noted in 1997 at the outset of Sissy’s fatal cancer illness:

...Dr. Wren informed us that Sissy was positive for hepatitis-B (HBV), that it was likely congenital—passed on to her by her mother (my ex-wife)—and that it had surely caused her cancer. Given the HCC latency period of 20-30 years, any other explanation—such as picking up HBV during adolescence that could lead to cancer a mere decade hence—was highly unlikely.

This was baffling. Wouldn't it also have been passed on to others in the family, as it had not been? No, Dr. Wren insisted, sexual and/or in-utero transmission, while frequent, would not be inevitable. Sissy, however, had to have been born with hepatitis-B. Nothing else fit.

Subsequent family blood tests would provide both relief and agonizing confirmation. Sissy's stepmother, my partner of two decades, tested negative—as expected, given her years-long ongoing participation in thoroughly screened blood and platelet donation drives. Our son (Sissy's half-brother) also tested negative. Danielle—Sissy's direct sibling—on the other hand, tested positive for HBV antibody (indicating exposure to hepatitis-B), supporting Dr. Wren's assessment of congenital transmission. Finally, my assay; it would throw me into a black funk from which I have yet to recover.

While in Baltimore in early June of 1967, a year before Sissy was born, I retired one night feeling ill and awoke to acute flu-like aches and nausea accompanied by flaming orange eyeballs, yellow skin, and a rash not unlike that generated by poison ivy. Doctors at John Hopkins University Medical Center diagnosed my condition as "acute infectious hepatitis-A." Probably contracted, they mused, during my stay the prior month in Sacramento, California, where U.S. soldiers returning from Vietnam were found to be rapidly spreading the readily-transmitted disease.

I recovered quickly, and thought little more of it, except for the recurrent mild discomfort of always having to reveal my 1967 bout of hepatitis"A" during subsequent medical, dental, or insurance exams. Providers and underwriters obviously paid the matter equally little heed, for no adverse findings ever emerged. My hepatic and serological data during twenty-odd years of ensuing physicals were uniformly stellar.

"No, you had it, but got over it" my physician explained. It had indeed been hepatitis-B, not "A" that I'd experienced nearly three decades earlier. The assays weren't all that precise back then, she observed. Nowadays we can discriminate between viral strains  "A" through "G."

Oh, dear God. Was it me? But...

My therapist would hence recommend that perhaps a grant of self "absolution" was in order: that who "gave" HBV to whom prior to Sissy's conception was probably unanswerable—and was undeniably irrelevant to the task at hand. Yes, but there is somehow scant solace in such counsel...

Had Sissy gotten an HBV vaccination at birth she would likely still be alive today. Donald Trump, go to Hell.

____ 

 

AND, OH, YEAH,  DIFFERENT BOZO TOPIC:
HOW ABOUT THIS BEAUT?

 

 

Next Tuesday? Isn't that Federal Govt Shutdown day?

 

CODA 

I guess we'll see. 

#TheFatherTheSonAndTheHolyKirk update

… “I’m really hoping that the right will stay united for as long as it takes because we’ve identified that enemy. That enemy is the left and the left wants to destroy everything that’s good, true and beautiful. It is a deranged movement. It’s, as people say, it’s filled with people who are disgusting freaks who through their resentment want to pretty much recreate their resentment and their own self-hatred in the world. They’d rather live in filth and see their enemies oppressed and suppressed; that is the right or anything that is true and beautiful.”

“This is a moment where you can communicate to your kind of normie evangelical friends that the left actually is an evil presence and that through the force of law and through the Constitution, these things can be suppressed. Public universities receive public funding and so it should be dictated what [benefits the] public. ... If it’s a public university, you ought to support the virtues that the nation recognizes; virtues and not evil. So, there’s things that by law you ought to suppress. The left dominates the universities. They not only do not educate—they do not teach people what’s good, true, and beautiful—they actually inculcate the sort of thinking that would lead to the sort of people who would support the murdering of Charlie Kirk.”

“God is a god of justice, and he’s ordained powers such that justice would be enacted in society. And, more than that, wickedness and unrighteousness would be suppressed, that the civil sword would be a terror to wickedness. That’s why God ordained civil power. And we have to kind of communicate that we can do that through our own heritage and traditions and constitutional order to suppress what is evil. That’s the whole purpose of government. That’s the purpose even of our government, even constitutionally; it is to suppress what is evil and to reward what is good. And so I think there’s a moment where we can communicate that.”

“This is not exploiting a moment. People are jarred and there’s a call to conscience where you’re taken out and sort of transcending from the moment, from your immediate concerns and you begin to reflect on what we’ve become, where we’re at and what we need to do. And this is where you can say, ‘Look, justice, righteousness. We need to be a nation under God. We need to return to what we were at the founding and really [for] a century and a half throughout this country, which was to be a Christian republic.’ We need to return to that and restore the Christian politics that is to suppress evil. So, it’s a moment that we have that we can really try to communicate that to people.” [First reported on Right Wing Watch.]

A real piece of work, this guy.
 

See my prior posts on "Christian Nationalism."

 

Let us also recall our pal Stephen Miller recently. 

 

And, of course there's the theocratic-wannabee Project 2025. 

 

UPDATE

Trump nominee to be assistant secretary of state for international organizations

President Donald Trump's nominee to be assistant secretary of state for international organizations reportedly deleted thousands of inflammatory posts that praised Jan. 6 rioters and called for the execution of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

In a report on Thursday, CNN said that Jeremy Carl's posts were uncovered even though he deleted them from X and asked for them to be removed from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Carl wrote in 2023 that Jan. 6 defendants were more oppressed than Black Americans under Jim Crow. He later said that American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten should be "tried for crimes against America's children and would get the death penalty."

Only two days after the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Carl accused then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of a "military coup" and said that she "must be prosecuted."

Carl repeatedly used heated rhetoric against Democrats, calling them "evil" and "the real fascists."

"There is no 'peaceful coexistence' we are going to have when our opposition is led by people like this. We either win or die," he wrote in 2021.

According to Carl, white people who celebrated Juneteenth had "already surrendered."

"Imagine thinking the Great replacement is a conspiracy theory," he wrote in 2021, referring to a racist theory that white people were being replaced in the U.S.

"I would rather be a Black man on trial for the assault of a white man in 1930s rural Mississippi than I would be a right-winger in DC today on trial for political crimes," one post said after members of the Proud Boys were found guilty of seditious conspiracy for the Jan. 6 attack.

The revelation about Carl's social media activity came as conservatives blamed Democrats for extremist rhetoric in the wake of the murder of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.

Okeee Dokeee, then...

 

And, then, there's this dude.

 

 

Ryan Walters recently forced on Oklahoma public schools a multimillion dollar sole-source no-bid purchase order contract for copies of the $60 Donald Trump / Lee Greenwood bible. 

 

 

Now he's ordered every high school in the state to have an active Charlie Kirk TPUSA chapter or lose accreditation.

 

Is this a great country, or what?

Jimmy Kimmel Live

SMH...

"PROVE ME WRONG." Follow-up

 "Debate?"

 

 

Saw this (below) on Facebook today.

The misinformation surrounding Charlie Kirk is astounding—and I’m not talking about average people sounding off on social media—I’m talking about the BS being spread by major news outlets.

While Kirk’s shooter was obviously overly steeped in internet whackadoo memelord culture—the “normies” don’t have a clue about how internet culture works at all.

Charlie Kirk wasn’t someone who was looking for honest debate. He was a political operative spreading hate and divisiveness. When you show his fans his racist, sexist or bigoted rhetoric—they defend it by saying “That’s not (racist, sexist, bigoted)—it’s true.” And that was his goal.

The whole “Prove Me Wrong” setup that made Kirk famous wasn’t really about proving anyone wrong. It was about creating content. Kirk mastered a specific type of performance that looked like debate but functioned more like a carefully orchestrated show designed to make his opponents look foolish and his positions seem unassailable.

The basic formula was simple—set up a table on a college campus, invite students to challenge conservative talking points, then use a combination of rhetorical tricks and editing magic to create viral moments. What looked like open discourse was actually a rigged game where Kirk held all the advantages.

First, there’s the obvious setup problem.

Kirk was a professional political operative who spent years honing his arguments and memorizing statistics. He knew exactly which topics would come up and had practiced responses ready.

Meanwhile, his opponents were typically 19-year-old students who wandered over between classes. It’s like watching a professional boxer fight random people at the gym—the outcome was predetermined.

Kirk used what debate experts call a corrupted version of the Socratic method. Instead of asking genuine questions to explore ideas, he’d ask leading questions designed to trap students in contradictions or force them into uncomfortable positions. He’d start with seemingly reasonable premises, then quickly pivot to more extreme conclusions, leaving his opponents scrambling to keep up.

The classic example was his approach to gender identity discussions. Kirk would begin by asking seemingly straightforward definitional questions—“What is a woman?”—then use whatever answer he received as a launching pad for increasingly aggressive follow-ups. If someone mentioned social roles, he’d demand biological definitions. If they provided biological definitions, he’d find edge cases or exceptions to exploit.

The goal wasn’t understanding or genuine dialogue—it was creating moments where students appeared confused or contradictory.

Kirk also employed rapid-fire questioning techniques that made it nearly impossible for opponents to fully develop their thoughts. He’d interrupt, reframe, and redirect before anyone could establish a coherent argument. This created the illusion that his opponents couldn’t defend their positions when really they just couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

The editing process was equally important. Kirk’s team would film hours of interactions, then cut together the moments that made him look brilliant and his opponents look unprepared. Nuanced discussions got reduced to gotcha moments. Students who made good points found those parts mysteriously absent from the final videos.

What’s particularly insidious about this approach is how it masquerades as good-faith debate while undermining the very principles that make real discourse valuable. Kirk wasn’t interested in having his mind changed or learning from others—he was performing certainty for an audience that craved validation of their existing beliefs.

The “Prove Me Wrong” framing itself was misleading. It suggested Kirk was open to being persuaded when the entire setup was designed to prevent that possibility. Real intellectual humility requires admitting uncertainty, acknowledging complexity, and engaging with the strongest versions of opposing arguments. Kirk’s format did the opposite.

This style of debate-as-performance has become incredibly popular because it feeds into our current political moment’s hunger for easy victories and clear villains. People want to see their side “destroying” the opposition with “facts and logic.” Kirk provided that satisfaction without the messy reality of actual intellectual engagement.

The broader damage extends beyond individual interactions. When debate becomes about humiliating opponents rather than exploring ideas, it corrupts the entire enterprise of democratic discourse. Students who got embarrassed in these exchanges weren’t just losing arguments—they were being taught that engaging with different viewpoints was dangerous and futile.

Kirk’s approach also contributed to the broader polarization problem by making political identity feel like a zero-sum game where any concession to the other side represented total defeat. His debates reinforced the idea that political opponents weren’t just wrong but ridiculous—a perspective that makes compromise and collaboration nearly impossible.

The most troubling aspect might be how this style of engagement spreads. Kirk inspired countless imitators who use similar tactics in their own contexts. The model of setting up situations where you can’t lose, then claiming victory when your rigged game produces the expected results, has become a template for political engagement across the spectrum.

Real debate requires vulnerability—the possibility that you might be wrong and need to change your mind. Kirk’s format eliminated that possibility by design. His certainty was performative rather than earned, and his victories were manufactured rather than genuine.

The tragedy of this approach is that college campuses actually need more genuine dialogue about difficult political questions. Students are forming their worldviews and wrestling with complex issues. They deserve engagement that helps them think more clearly, not performances designed to make them look stupid.

Kirk’s assassination represents a horrific escalation of political violence that has no place in democratic society. But it’s worth remembering that his debate tactics, while not violent, were themselves a form of intellectual violence that treated political opponents as objects to be humiliated rather than fellow citizens to be engaged.

 From an earlier post of mine.

SEPT 17th UPDATE 

In the wake of reviewing a number of Charlie Kirk's "Prove Me Wrong" Step-Up-To-The-Mic ad hoc micro "debates," I have to conclude that trying to critically, factually question his positions would be a waste of time.

 

"Charlie SAID it. I BELIEVE it. That SETTLES it!" 

I watched Charlie Kirk "debate" a questioner on a YouTube video, a fellow who asked him about "Universal Healthcare." Mr. Kirk dismissively replied that "it's never worked anywhere it's ever been tried."

 

Well, I worked in health care analytics for a long time, delving into the broad gamut of issues ranging from clinical workflow process, outcomes research, and economic factors. I wrote my first grad school semester paper in 1994, wherein I composed a 51-pg "argument analysis" of the JAMA 1994 "Single Payer" proposal (pdf). I flowcharted the "truth claims" logic of every declarative assertion ("seek first to understand"), followed up by point-by-point evidence-based pro & con evaluations of every claim ("seek only then to be understood"). I have more than 100 hours in that one paper.

 

I subsequently spent years as a next-of-kin caregiver, beginning with my now-late elder daughter, followed by serving for years as POA and legal guardian for both of my now-late, then progressively ailing, nursing home-bound parents. Finally I finished up that journey by seeing my younger daughter out of this life in 2018, a victim of crushing stage IV pancreatic cancer. My knowledge of the health care system is at once broad and deep. And, oh, yeah, done my share of acute care patient time. See my "Shards of Healthcare" writings.

 

But, Charlie Kirk some months back simply told his questioner--and would surely condescend to me--that "90% of our heath care problem is a matter of lifestyle: exercise, diet, vitamin-D, and supplements."

 

Decide for yourselves.

I never took a "debate" course nor took part in any formal "debates." I did, however, intensely study and subsequently teach collegiate "Critical Thinking" and "Argument Analysis." Which, I'm sure, would simply be shrugged off by TPUSA/Kirkist devotees as merely confirming my dismissable status as one of those "leftist secular elites" whose views are summarily blown off.

 

PROVE ME WRONG. 

Charlie Kirk

 

From his speech:

"Please welcome to the stage Stephen Miller…"

Hello Turning Point. Hello Patriots. Hello to our fearless President, Donald J. Trump. And hello to millions of Americans all across this land who are gathered in sadness and sorrow to mourn Charlie Kirk, but also to dedicate ourselves to finishing his mission and achieving victory in his name.

The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.

When I see Erica and her strength and her courage, I am reminded of a famous expression. The storm whispers to the warrior that “you cannot withstand my strength.” And the warrior whispers back, "I am the storm."

Erica is the storm. We are the storm, and our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion. Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello. Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry.

Erica stands on the shoulders of thousands of years of warriors, of women who raised up families, raised up cities, raised up industry, raised up civilization, who pulled us out of the caves and the darkness into the light. The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil.

They cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us. Because we stand for what is good, is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.

You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk. You have made him immortal. You have immortalized Charlie Kirk. And now millions will carry on his legacy. And we will devote the rest of our lives to finishing the causes for which Charlie gave his last measure of devotion.

You cannot defeat us. You cannot slow us. You cannot stop us. You cannot deter us. We will carry Charlie and Erica in our hearts every single day and fight that much harder because of what you did to us.

You have no idea the dragon you have awakened. You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic. Because our children are strong and our grandchildren will be strong and our childrens’ childrens’ children will be strong.

And what will you leave behind? Nothing. Nothing. To our enemies, you have nothing to give. You have nothing to offer. You have nothing to share but bitterness. We have beauty. We have light. We have goodness. We have determination. We have vision. We have strength. We built the world that we inhabit now, generation by generation. And we will defend this world. We will defend goodness. We will defend light. We will defend virtue. You cannot terrify us. You cannot frighten us. You cannot threaten us. Because we are on the side of goodness. We are on the side of God.

And to my friend Charlie, to my brother Charlie, I know you are looking at us right now. I know you're watching Erica right now. I know you're watching your children right now. And I promise you, my friend, I promise you, my brother, we will prove worthy of your sacrifice. We will prove worthy of your time on earth. We will make you proud.

We will finish the job. We will defeat the forces of darkness and evil. And we will stand every day for what is true, what is beautiful, what is good. And we will achieve victory for our children, for our families, for our civilization, and for every patriot who stands with us.

God bless you. God bless Turning Point. God bless Erica. God bless the Kirk family. God bless our heroes. And God bless the United States of America.

—Stephen Miller, Sept 21st, 2025, Charlie Kirk Memorial. From the full live video transcript, 07:31.

"I never lose sight of the many things for which I must stay grateful. Chief among them of late is that I am NOT Stephen Miller. It must be exhausting to be that venomously angry with nearly everyone every day."
—@BobbyGvegas

"A Beautiful Day for Saying Nothing."

"That chill in the air isn’t Jimmy Kimmel’s show being suspended. It’s just autumn!"
   

 

It would be awful to live in interesting times, but, fortunately, we don’t.

What a beautiful fall day it is. A beautiful day for saying nothing! That chill you feel in the air isn’t Pam Bondi saying she’s going to go after free speech, then clumsily backtracking. It’s not Jimmy Kimmel’s show being suspended indefinitely after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened ABC. It’s just autumn: The perfect time to discuss approved subjects.

Let’s not get political. Let’s avoid hate speech. (That’s when Jonathan Karl asks the president questions. You might almost mistake it for journalism, but, remember, he has hate in his heart.) Let’s avoid antifa. (That’s when the president has a bad feeling about you. Or maybe you even did an act of terror, like protesting the president while he ate dinner, hurling words at his head, harming him.)

Let’s just stand here, silently. Isn’t it nice here? So quiet. Just stand here and savor the freedom. And, of course, the bravery. And, of course, the corporate mergers. You can tell the country is free because everywhere you look, there is less and less evidence that slavery ever happened.

Save your voice until it grows rusty from disuse. Think of all the free time you’ll get back once you no longer have to spend an hour every night watching comedians criticize the regime. You will be amazed at how many other things there are to talk about. The nice smell of the leaves, pumpkin-spice season come ’round again, the smell of the top of your baby’s head. Travis and Taylor are getting married—to each other, even!

It’s not a chilling effect. It would only be chilling if you had something horrid to say, and you don’t, do you? Certainly nothing critical of the regime, and absolutely no paraphrasing, not of anyone, not at this time! So it’s not chilling. You can say whatever you would like. You can say, “Kill ’em,” about mentally ill homeless people, and keep your job with a simple apology. Just make certain, first, that you are one of those whose speech is never considered a threat. You’ll know.

Silence will certainly save us. Authoritarianism is like measles: Ignore it and it will go away. I have this guidance straight from Secretary Kennedy.

I If we are quiet enough, they are sure to forget we are here. They’re not just looking for pretexts at this point, to do what they were always going to do. Don’t say the word pretext so loud. There has never been a pretext even once. We certainly don’t know what you mean. Just be quiet. Don’t say We have to speak up now, because there will always be an excuse when the troops descend on the city or the strike hits the boat or the vans roll up and start shoving people inside. I’m sorry I said excuse. I’m sorry I said pretext. I should have said reason. I should have said nothing.

Let’s all just sit here motionless for the next four years and hope things work out! Then the merger can go through; then the shareholders can breathe a sigh of relief. Surely someone else will say something before it’s too late. It’s a beautiful fall day. Look at the fall.

By Alexandra Petri

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CODA