In Kirk's defence he was a relatively calm and solid debater, he didn't rant and rave as others did/do.
Having said that he targeted the young at schools and colleges. He was a groomer, not in the accepted meaning, but he worked to shape uneducated minds to align with his values.
That's what raised the alarm bells for me with him.
His opinions on gun control, DEI, race and Trump / the republican party aren't things that I agree with but life in America clearly distorts issues like that vs what a European sees in any case. I'm generally happy enough to listen to these arguments and give them some consideration even though I won't agree.
Actively discouraging furthering education is ropey to me. I don't think third level education is essential and it absolutely isn't for everyone but universities have always been spaces for learning, progression, creation and enlightenment going back to ancient times.
Pol Pot, penal laws, the Catholic church etc... are what comes to my mind when I hear someone disparage, discourage or try to oppress education, it's all oppressive. In comparison, and unfortunately examples of this are rarer, the 11+ is what comes to my mind when I think of equitable education and it was unintentionally the single most important change that resulted in the end of the two tier class system in the North of Ireland and the ending divide up there.
So yeah, I don't really think he was trying to help people, he was trying to control them and that's what I see across the current US government and it's strong supporters. I don't really care for the semantics of whether or not that's fascist, I don't think that rhetoric is too helpful because you're not going to enamoured anyone by comparing who they support to Hitler.
My view of American politics right now is that the Democrats have the far better hand but keep trying to win only using half their cards. They're currently so inept and in such a divisive country that their supporters are taking rash and poorly thought out actions themselves and it doesn't help at all. When right aligned people do the same thing it doesn't have the same effect because they've been branded in such a way that they're expected to do that.
Neither party are gaining as much as China are from it all anyway, Get your kids into mandarin classes because the US empire is on its last legs.
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