Learn to listen, listen to learn      

Some of the most instructive and entertaining videos accessible online are slightly dated ones that present late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's campus travels. 

Students lined up to challenge the esteemed Christian conservative thinker. At times seeming nearly bored, he batted aside inferior arguments he'd probably encountered innumerable times.

It was not uncommon for wet-eared radicals to interrupt Kirk and shout over him. Of course, students striving to make theirs the only postures evident were denying others' free speech rights. Fear that listeners exposed to contrasting views might be swayed bespeaks weakness.

(Anyone thinking it was unfair of adult Kirk to debate college kids should consider his reasoning that, as he and they were all voters with equal influence, comparing stances was legitimate.)

In any nation where citizens exercise control (at least, theoretically), conversation about issues, candidates, and elected officials is crucial to richer understanding and, hence, more responsible voting. Even heated debate between ideological partisans can prove beneficial. 

But to be productive, such exchanges must be respectful. All speakers should be allowed to articulate positions fully. Then, both participants and observers can weigh divergent perspectives - considering each for strengths and flaws - and arrive at informed conclusions. 

Admittedly, in intense debate moments, I've interrupted adversaries.  Erroneous claims and personal smears deployed in rapid succession warrant examination and rejoinder. But blocking others' speech as a tactical device is illegitimate. 

Ad Hominem broadsides, feigned guffawing, shouting over opponents in order to prevent them from being heard - those are strategies of the playground (or cable news panelists' food fights). They hint strongly at agitators' likely self-awareness of position frailty. If they were able to mount sound arguments, if they had firm evidentiary support, they wouldn't resort to misbehavior.

Debates are never won by bratty carryings-on. Not in the estimation of intelligent witnesses. Victory belongs to those who present superior reasoning and facts. For some, though, objective facts simply are not allies. 

Too, there is the fascistic attitude that opponents' contentions do not deserve fair treatment. ("Wrong has no rights.") Cuban dictator Fidel Castro executed citizens who'd inveighed against that country's communism. His rationale was that national self-defense interest justified killing speakers who threatened repressive orthodoxy.

Untrammeled American political speech is now reviled as a threat to be quashed (even violently) in intolerant, woke circles. Tactics employed include denying platforms to voices, blowing whistles to drown out speakers, and campaigns to pressure advertisers into dropping support for contrary radio and television programs.

Often, participants in progressive events are instructed by organizers to ignore investigating questioners. One is struck by their inclination to hide ideas and activities from outside attention.

A blood relative of those is the blocking of independent cameras to prevent the recording and transmission of illicit demonstrator activities - including incitement, vandalism, arson, and attacks on law enforcement. 

Liberals once championed fair debate in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' "marketplace of ideas." Then, Marxists took the wheel. Having now traveled three stop-lights past crazy, they seem convinced yesterday's wrong is the new correct.

Perhaps Charlie Kirk could turn them around. But they'd have to listen to learn.

(A shorter version of this ran in the Cedar Rapids [IA] Gazette, last August.)