by zahlman | 2025-09-16 18:15:10+00:00
> You call for gun violence, thinking you're untouchable (because of your skin color and political ties)

Neither part of this is true. Being willing to accept that guns kill people is not the same thing as calling for gun violence. And this happened in the aftermath of the Trump assassination attempt.

> A poor, brown skinned Jewish guy from Israel born out of wedlock

It's abundantly clear from any translation that Joseph and Mary were at least engaged. Here's a detailed argument that they were in fact married per the customs of their people: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bi... Regardless, the entire point of the story is that Jesus did not result from extramarital sex.

The quotes that people are using now to try to paint Kirk as "anti-Semitic" are clearly criticisms of current-day Israeli government, not of Judaism as a religion.

> who worked as a carpenter and preached love, compassion, and understanding, whose supposed miracles included healing the sick and disfigured. He worked to feed the needy, clothe the naked, advocated for paying taxes

Yes, and Kirk would have said all of those things are virtuous.

> and treating one's enemies with compassion as if they were their own kin. This person was executed by being nailed to a cross and in his final moments, still asked his followers to forgive his executioners.

Kirk clearly had compassion for the people he disagreed with. This is abundantly clear from any of the video footage. Disapproving of someone else's life choices does not represent a lack of compassion.

Jesus, per the Bible, went through days of ceremony and was well aware that he would be executed as part of a religious persecution. He made this petition because he knew who would kill him and supposed they were misinformed and could still be redeemed. Kirk had no such opportunity (it's still amazing to me that there were people proposing that we should hold off on declaring his "last words" in case it later came out that he somehow said more, after having been shot in the neck). But he did commonly say that he (and TPUSA) would "pray for" people whom he thought misguided.

> We have a rich white dude, raised in a wealthy first world major city suburb... "asking tough questions"

This is the true part of that sentence.

> This dude would go around and "debate" young adults (and children) half his age

The most popular video on Kirk's channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk4Nkmfgxzk) directly addresses this, at the beginning. In short: there is obviously and clearly nothing wrong with an adult speaking to adults at a college campus (college age people cannot reasonably be called "children") to espouse his beliefs, encourage and respond to critique etc. This is in fact the purpose of an institute of higher education.

Kirk died age 31; this is much younger than most college professors, younger than most leftists invited to speak on campus, younger than Hasan Piker, and younger than Cenk Ugyur was when he started The Young Turks. People "half his age" do not generally attend college. And this is at the end. When he started — when he co-founded TPUSA — he was one of these "kids", aged 18.

> and use "gotcha" tactics and quick speaking to overwhelm and gish gallop his opposition into giving up.

Watching any of the video footage available makes it abundantly clear that this is not true. The only "gotcha" here is supposing that there's something wrong with Kirk being older than his interlocutors.

Another common part of this narrative (which is mentioned by the student in that video) is that Kirk somehow exploited students being "unprepared". This is entirely their own fault. The footage makes it clear that people (including that student) would come to the mic with very little idea what they wanted to say beyond a general topic, and no idea of how to defend their position even to a neutral party. They all had ample time to prepare. These debate events are announced in advance; and modern technology allows people to access unfathomable amounts of information via the "Internet", even while walking around in a crowd of people outdoors.

> He would then selectively edit the "debates" and post them online to create a strawman for his political allies to punch.

Curiously enough, the most popular video on the channel also directly addresses this. The only selection that went on was choosing which students to showcase. The only editing is to mute words that would potentially cause problems on YouTube. Any of these videos of individual students clearly illustrates that.

> Religious beliefs, eh? Come on.

Proselytism is in fact completely consistent with Christian faith.