Back when I was working at a news publication in Birmingham, I had the opportunity to work with a college debate champion.
This young man, who had practiced the sport of debate at the University of Alabama, was rather liberal by nature. We were close friends, although we both were aware that our views diverged in a lot of places.
Dan taught me a lot about debate clubs.
We sometimes think of debates only in the context of political forums where competing candidates clamour for votes.
There is much more to the art of debate. For instance, Dan told me that for most issues, he was made to debate in favor of multiple sides.
This meant that at times he was forced to abandon his true left-leaning ideology to argue conservative, libertarian or even anarchist points of view.
These exercises helped to hone his debate skills.
Over the years, social media platforms have fed me videos of Charlie Kirk, the conservative political activist who was assassinated this week on a college campus, debating with mostly liberal university students about a myriad of political topics.
Kirk has been reviled by the left for years, perhaps for his stances on things like gun control and gay rights, but maybe more for his ability to frustrate the opposing side and easily win debates.
Kirk was an intellectual, and like my friend Dan, he was a skilled debater.
His debating skills were so close in fact to that of my friend’s that I often wondered if he was as “far-right” as he had been labeled.
The goal of a debate, after all, is to win the debate.
And if you are a professional debater, you win at all costs.
Kirk had rigid views. That’s for sure, but so did my friend, Dan. And although Dan disagreed with me on many occasions, he always had a great deal of empathy, having argued my very points at times.
That’s what healthy debate fosters.
It allows participants to put themselves in others’ shoes for a moment. People with courage do this every day.
Cowards resort to bullets.
Let’s hope that the spirit of debate will live on in our society and foster consensus out of the current political chaos that we have grown accustomed to.
And kudos to Indianola Mayor Ken Featherstone for holding a moment of silence for Kirk at the start of Wednesday night’s city budget meeting. The two men likely would have disagreed on a lot of issues if they had met, but they have some things in common that are above politics, namely their faith and love for their fellow man.
