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The Cotton op-ed was essentially advocating fascism. He was positively tumescent about the thought of using the army to kill American civilians. Regardless that
by throwawayjourno 6y ago
The Cotton op-ed was essentially advocating fascism. He was positively tumescent about the thought of using the army to kill American civilians. Regardless that it was published in bad faith (see: Cotton laughing on Twitter about it), the NYT op-ed was published without context, for an audience where over half are incapable of telling the difference between news and opinion (source: https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/confusion-about-whats-news-and-whats-opinion-is-a-big-problem-but-journalists-can-help-solve-it/ https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/confusio...). It was irresponsible and dangerous to publish it in the way it was published. The NYT admits it was a mistake to publish it and there were editorial failings in the process.
The old detached civil-libertarian 1000ft view, where "all opinions, however vile, deserve a platform from which they can be debated" is for an older time when these arguments were held in good faith.
Far from "a woke revolution suppressing speech", if we wish to keep free speech intact we each must work to deny a platform to fascist ideas (and the right in America is hurtling towards fascism if it is not there already) or there will not be free platforms for much longer.
Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. We are at that point with the American far right.
- wait_a_minute 6y agoWhy no mention of the far left descending into its own brand of authoritarianism? It makes it hard to take your criticisms of the right seriously if you are not willing to acknowledge what the far left is becoming and encouraging.
- non-entity 6y agoThe far left is a fringe group in America and has next to no political power.
- wait_a_minute 6y agoThat is not true at all, considering the recent chaos caused by people who are far left (and far right pretending to be far left, to be clear). BLM has been co-opted by far left people. Not hard to find leaders in that movement who are using it as a means for that. Left anarchists have taken over a section of Seattle and are calling it the "autonomous zone." And mainstream media supports all of this and more. The entire Democrat party has taken a massive step to the left and shows no signs of stopping that shift. If you don't see the authoritarian tones there then you can't really be looking.
- non-entity 6y ago> The entire Democrat party has taken a massive step to the left and shows no signs of stopping that shift. The democrats just rejected the closest thing they had to a far left candidate for a pretty standard liberal and there are maybe a handful of elected officials who even flirt with far left ideas. And anarchist show their face whenever these chaotic events happen. Once things die down and the autonomous zone is dissolved you wont see or hear from them in mainstream media tillthe next mass protests.
- anoncake 6y agoAnarchists are descending into authoritarianism? Certainly not.
- wait_a_minute 6y agoI was giving examples of far left people not being a fringe, not saying that the specific flavor of leftism at play there is authoritarian. Although it can be construed as authoritarian if you look at the actions of the so-called anarchists there. IDs required to get in/out, checkpoints where armed hooligans demand to know where you are going and why, forceful seizure of private property...not really anarchy.
- JohnClark1337 6y agoAnarchists of today are the tyrants of tomorrow