5 ms·

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/whe

by astine 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - justin66 8y 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 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - watwut 8y ago
    Ta-Nehisi Coates is not trolling. I cant recall a single trolling article from him. He is serious. And also, there was nothing that striked me as extreme in his articles. He is also remarkably not emotional in his writing - he does not go out of his way to elicit emotional response the way Williamson does. Nor he is having serious argument, pardon joking, pardon serious, oh really just a joke but I kinda mean it in his writing.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  He didn't say it was funny. He said it was ridicule. Getting people all worked up in their ignorance was the goal. His error was being too effective in practice.

by astine 8y ago

justin66 8y 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 8y 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 8y ago
  [deleted]
- justin66 8y 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 8y ago
    [deleted]
- watwut 8y ago
  Ta-Nehisi Coates is not trolling. I cant recall a single trolling article from him. He is serious. And also, there was nothing that striked me as extreme in his articles. He is also remarkably not emotional in his writing - he does not go out of his way to elicit emotional response the way Williamson does. Nor he is having serious argument, pardon joking, pardon serious, oh really just a joke but I kinda mean it in his writing.
humanrebar 8y ago
He didn't say it was funny. He said it was ridicule. Getting people all worked up in their ignorance was the goal. His error was being too effective in practice.