5 ms·

No idea what he has to say for himself in the wsj since it's behind a paywall, but I did google him. I wasn't familiar with any of this but if this is accurate:

No idea what he has to say for himself in the wsj since it's behind a paywall, but I did google him. I wasn't familiar with any of this but if this is accurate: It was Mr. Williamson’s hard-line stance on abortion — namely, that it should be treated as premeditated homicide and punished accordingly, perhaps by hanging — that generated the initial controversy over his hiring. Well, you know, his time at The Atlantic wasn't destined to end well. Their readers aren't going to allow them to turn into Newsmax. It's mostly distressing that a lunatic like that can get the time of day, let alone a paying job as an opinion writer. Speaking of "tribalism," I don't think his views are likely representative of his own "tribe." It's just that the discourse has degraded to the point where plenty of people get off on hearing something they think will offend the right people.

astine 9y ago
If someone links you to article, you can generally get through the paywall, so here is Williamson's own take on his situation: https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-twitter-mob-came-for-me-1524234850 https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-twitter-mob-came-for-m... The short summary is that he actually does not believe that abortion should be punished by hanging as you suggest. An excerpt: "The purported reason for our “parting ways,” as Mr. Goldberg put it in his announcement, had nothing to do with what I’d written in my inaugural piece. The problem was a six-word, four-year-old tweet on abortion and capital punishment and a discussion of that tweet in a subsequent podcast. I had responded to a familiar pro-abortion argument: that pro-lifers should not be taken seriously in our claim that abortion is the willful taking of an innocent human life unless we are ready to punish women who get abortions with long prison sentences. It’s a silly argument, so I responded with these words: “I have hanging more in mind.” Trollish and hostile? I’ll cop to that, though as the subsequent conversation online and on the podcast indicated—to say nothing of the few million words of my published writing available to the reading public—I am generally opposed to capital punishment. I was making a point about the sloppy rhetoric of the abortion debate, not a public-policy recommendation. Such provocations can sometimes clarify the terms of a debate, but in this case, I obscured the more meaningful questions about abortion and sparked the sort of hysteria I’d meant to point out and mock."
- justin66 9y ago
  > The short summary is that he actually does not believe that abortion should be punished by hanging as you suggest. An excerpt: It wasn't really my suggestion, it was a quote from a larger NYT article. Sorry, I should have sited it, but it hardly seems crucial to what I was saying: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/business/media/kevin-williamson-atlantic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/business/media/kevin-will... Evidently the decision to fire him was informed by more than a single ill-considered statement. (Of course it was.) Let's be honest, from the viewpoint of an Atlantic editor, hiring a guy who thinks it's a funny joke to make would have been as bad as hiring a guy who actually believes it. The problem appears to be that The Atlantic did not do proper due diligence before hiring. That is bad for everyone concerned.
  - zeveb 9y ago
    > Let's be honest, from the viewpoint of an Atlantic editor, hiring a guy who thinks it's a funny joke to make would have been as bad as hiring a guy who actually believes it. The Atlantic hired Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is far more extreme on the other side of things. It wouldn't have hurt to have someone to counterbalance him.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - justin66 9y ago
      Te-Nehasi Coates went from being a nobody to a prominent writer during his tenure at The Atlantic. It's possible their readership would enjoy a conservative "counterbalance" of some kind in addition to the conservative contributors they currently employ, but if there's a group that's likely to be offended in a big way by jokes (or sincere, heartfelt positions) that involve hanging people, this is it. The only anomaly here is that the guy was hired in the first place. > far more extreme on the other side of things If you say so.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
stevenwoo 9y ago
It was an appalling failure to investigate his background by the man who hired him, critics rightly pointed our Williamson's equivalency of murder and abortion - which has led to many not too bright folks to actually murdering abortion providers.
- justin66 9y ago
  Indeed. I don't have the slightest sympathy for his views but hiring an opinion writer and immediately firing him because you've discovered his opinion and his writing is quite ridiculous.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Williamson was making a more pointed and subtle point. You probably missed it. Part of the key is that Williamson is generally against the death penalty. He is regularly tongue in cheek and hyperbolic. He is certainly against ex post facto punishment.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    No I get it and it's not subtle and talk like that leads to actual violence by people who don't care about subtlety. It's no different than joking about saying second amendment people ought to protest this political official we disagree with. Gleaned from Rand Corp statistics - https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/30/us/anti-abortion-violence/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/30/us/anti-abortion-violence/ind...
ModernMech 9y ago
> It's mostly distressing that a lunatic like that can get the time of day, let alone a paying job as an opinion writer. That's who you've got remaining on the right. Take a look at sane conservative writers like Jennifer Rubin at the Post. She wrote as a conservative for years under Obama, and now she's suddenly labeled a leftist traitor now that she's critical of Trump. She didn't change, her party did. Or just look at the economy. Fox News can't find reputable economists to come on air and say a trillion dollar tax cut and increased spending by a trillion is going to balance the budget. No one will say that because it's nonsense, yet that is the policy they have to sell. Or look at the President's legal team. You'd think a billionaire President would have the pick of the biggest DC firms to represent him in the case of the century. But he is left scraping for guys like Sekulow. The only people willing to toe a line like that are extremists, or people who are easily duped. Not people you would label experts or competent. It's what Brennan meant when he called the US a kakistocracy - a government by the shittiest.
- SlapHappy 9y ago
  Have you taken the time to investigate KDW's actual views on abortion or capital punishment? Are you aware that he opposes capital punishment? Have you ever read some of his columns? Do you know that he's the walking, talking definition of a Never-Trumper? Have you ever read some of his brilliant theater reviews for The New Criteron? Have you read his excoriating, searing take down of white identity politics and the populist right (The White-Minstrel Show)? Have you read his heartbreaking and nuanced piece of the opioid epidemic (How Prescription-Drug Abuse Unleashed a Heroin Epidemic)? Edit: removed personal comment.
  - ModernMech 9y ago
    I don't remember attacking you personally, so I'd appreciate if you didn't attack me. I'm not going to engage with this kind of response. I'll just close by saying yes, I have read much of what you mention, and maybe that says something about you that you would immediately assume and then attack based on wrong assumptions. Maybe some time for some introspection?

astine 9y ago

If someone links you to article, you can generally get through the paywall, so here is Williamson's own take on his situation: https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-twitter-mob-came-for-me-1524234850 https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-twitter-mob-came-for-m... The short summary is that he actually does not believe that abortion should be punished by hanging as you suggest. An excerpt: "The purported reason for our “parting ways,” as Mr. Goldberg put it in his announcement, had nothing to do with what I’d written in my inaugural piece. The problem was a six-word, four-year-old tweet on abortion and capital punishment and a discussion of that tweet in a subsequent podcast. I had responded to a familiar pro-abortion argument: that pro-lifers should not be taken seriously in our claim that abortion is the willful taking of an innocent human life unless we are ready to punish women who get abortions with long prison sentences. It’s a silly argument, so I responded with these words: “I have hanging more in mind.” Trollish and hostile? I’ll cop to that, though as the subsequent conversation online and on the podcast indicated—to say nothing of the few million words of my published writing available to the reading public—I am generally opposed to capital punishment. I was making a point about the sloppy rhetoric of the abortion debate, not a public-policy recommendation. Such provocations can sometimes clarify the terms of a debate, but in this case, I obscured the more meaningful questions about abortion and sparked the sort of hysteria I’d meant to point out and mock."

justin66 9y ago
> The short summary is that he actually does not believe that abortion should be punished by hanging as you suggest. An excerpt: It wasn't really my suggestion, it was a quote from a larger NYT article. Sorry, I should have sited it, but it hardly seems crucial to what I was saying: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/business/media/kevin-williamson-atlantic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/business/media/kevin-will... Evidently the decision to fire him was informed by more than a single ill-considered statement. (Of course it was.) Let's be honest, from the viewpoint of an Atlantic editor, hiring a guy who thinks it's a funny joke to make would have been as bad as hiring a guy who actually believes it. The problem appears to be that The Atlantic did not do proper due diligence before hiring. That is bad for everyone concerned.
- zeveb 9y ago
  > Let's be honest, from the viewpoint of an Atlantic editor, hiring a guy who thinks it's a funny joke to make would have been as bad as hiring a guy who actually believes it. The Atlantic hired Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is far more extreme on the other side of things. It wouldn't have hurt to have someone to counterbalance him.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - justin66 9y ago
    Te-Nehasi Coates went from being a nobody to a prominent writer during his tenure at The Atlantic. It's possible their readership would enjoy a conservative "counterbalance" of some kind in addition to the conservative contributors they currently employ, but if there's a group that's likely to be offended in a big way by jokes (or sincere, heartfelt positions) that involve hanging people, this is it. The only anomaly here is that the guy was hired in the first place. > far more extreme on the other side of things If you say so.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

stevenwoo 9y ago

It was an appalling failure to investigate his background by the man who hired him, critics rightly pointed our Williamson's equivalency of murder and abortion - which has led to many not too bright folks to actually murdering abortion providers.

justin66 9y ago
Indeed. I don't have the slightest sympathy for his views but hiring an opinion writer and immediately firing him because you've discovered his opinion and his writing is quite ridiculous.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
humanrebar 9y ago
Williamson was making a more pointed and subtle point. You probably missed it. Part of the key is that Williamson is generally against the death penalty. He is regularly tongue in cheek and hyperbolic. He is certainly against ex post facto punishment.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  No I get it and it's not subtle and talk like that leads to actual violence by people who don't care about subtlety. It's no different than joking about saying second amendment people ought to protest this political official we disagree with. Gleaned from Rand Corp statistics - https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/30/us/anti-abortion-violence/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/30/us/anti-abortion-violence/ind...

ModernMech 9y ago

> It's mostly distressing that a lunatic like that can get the time of day, let alone a paying job as an opinion writer. That's who you've got remaining on the right. Take a look at sane conservative writers like Jennifer Rubin at the Post. She wrote as a conservative for years under Obama, and now she's suddenly labeled a leftist traitor now that she's critical of Trump. She didn't change, her party did. Or just look at the economy. Fox News can't find reputable economists to come on air and say a trillion dollar tax cut and increased spending by a trillion is going to balance the budget. No one will say that because it's nonsense, yet that is the policy they have to sell. Or look at the President's legal team. You'd think a billionaire President would have the pick of the biggest DC firms to represent him in the case of the century. But he is left scraping for guys like Sekulow. The only people willing to toe a line like that are extremists, or people who are easily duped. Not people you would label experts or competent. It's what Brennan meant when he called the US a kakistocracy - a government by the shittiest.

SlapHappy 9y ago
Have you taken the time to investigate KDW's actual views on abortion or capital punishment? Are you aware that he opposes capital punishment? Have you ever read some of his columns? Do you know that he's the walking, talking definition of a Never-Trumper? Have you ever read some of his brilliant theater reviews for The New Criteron? Have you read his excoriating, searing take down of white identity politics and the populist right (The White-Minstrel Show)? Have you read his heartbreaking and nuanced piece of the opioid epidemic (How Prescription-Drug Abuse Unleashed a Heroin Epidemic)? Edit: removed personal comment.
- ModernMech 9y ago
  I don't remember attacking you personally, so I'd appreciate if you didn't attack me. I'm not going to engage with this kind of response. I'll just close by saying yes, I have read much of what you mention, and maybe that says something about you that you would immediately assume and then attack based on wrong assumptions. Maybe some time for some introspection?