Just watched about 15 minutes and Kirk seems to be holding his own. Either way if you feel Kirk lost in the debates can you at least acknowledge his promoting the session as productive for open dialog?
In all the debates I've watch with Kirk, he doesn't edit clips to misrepresent the questioner.
In the very beginning, he attempts to deflect criticism and attack. It is his style, and Southpark, those guys are genius, seized on that and lampooned it. What was noticeable about the Colombian students, they saw through that. And Kirk was kind of disoriented.
Look, I haven't seen a real debate in ******* years. First of all, a real debate requires a resolution. A statement, concerning an issue. It always starts with "Resolved", like "Resolved", immigrants take more from this nation than they give". That would be a great place to start.
So, you have two sides. The affirmative and the negative. The affirmative supports the resolution, agrees with the resolution. But, that is not enough. They have to propose a plan to fix the damn problem. I was a great affirmative. You got to think outside of the box.
But the negative. They got it easy. They can claim there is no problem, that is the responsibility of the first negative. They can claim that the affirmative side does not address the problem, that is called non-topical. They can even agree, there is a problem, and propose an alternative plan. Boy howdy, do that shit and watch the affirmative team look like a deer in headlights.
The point here is simple. You can't complain about problems without proposing solutions. And you damn well better be prepared to defend those solutions. Not seeing it under the status quo.