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As someone who occasionally reads Bari Weiss, I'm a little confused with your comment. Was your intent here just a straight up ad hominem/name-calling approach

As someone who occasionally reads Bari Weiss, I'm a little confused with your comment. Was your intent here just a straight up ad hominem/name-calling approach, while not addressing any substance of anything? She's 'weak, pathetic, controlled opposition' and a 'greedy journalist' and 'suddenly adopted all the talking points of the right'? Can you substantiate any of those claims? Is every journalist a 'greedy' journalist? Is she greedy because she's doing well for herself outside of a large traditional for-profit american media company? Or is she greedy or disingenuous because all of her views don't perfectly align with the prevailing opinion of those large traditional for-profit american media companies and their subscriber base? (or is she greedy because of her intersectional identity as a jewish lesbian?) Why is what she writes pointless? What writing does have a point? Does anything have a point? What are you even talking about? This ad hominem argument is so typical of American online discourse today. Everything gets the ad hominem attack if it falls outside of the prevailing opinion of the tribe in that particular moment. Labeling someone as 'the right' when they are not in fact on 'the right' is one of the stupid tactics of the day to try to keep people flowing with the prevailing opinions on random topics. There are many american liberals who are not 'the right' who are not on board with the illiberal direction that many institutions & people flying under the 'Progressive' banner have been advocating for. There is a growing population of these disenchanted liberals (who also have a strong distaste for 'the right'), and that is where I see Bari coming from. This population isn't motivated by 'greed', but will be attracted to liberal voices who are willing to speak against these illiberal trends.

uejfiweun 5y ago
My point is that Weiss and all these journalists who have suddenly adopted the "free speech" cause are doing nothing but loudly complaining. They're throwing pieces of meat to their base. I honestly doubt that many liberals pay attention to her, after she was dragged through the mud when leaving the NYT. I feel like Weiss and the rest don't actually care about boosters, or free speech, or any of the things they so often complain about. They just say these things, and right wing media proclaims "oh look at these former left wing journalists agreeing with us, we're awesome", and then they use their newfound attention to sell books. At the end of the day these people would rather complain than actually do something. In fact, if the issues they complain about were solved, they probably wouldn't make nearly as much money. If Weiss is indeed widely read by center left folks, then that makes me very happy. It would indicate that maybe, just maybe, we do indeed have a chance of defeating the plague of "progressive" lunacy infecting the West. But there aren't really many signs of that yet. If it seems like I'm trolling I apologize, I'm just getting very disillusioned and cynical about the future of freedom in this country.
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uejfiweun 5y ago

My point is that Weiss and all these journalists who have suddenly adopted the "free speech" cause are doing nothing but loudly complaining. They're throwing pieces of meat to their base. I honestly doubt that many liberals pay attention to her, after she was dragged through the mud when leaving the NYT. I feel like Weiss and the rest don't actually care about boosters, or free speech, or any of the things they so often complain about. They just say these things, and right wing media proclaims "oh look at these former left wing journalists agreeing with us, we're awesome", and then they use their newfound attention to sell books. At the end of the day these people would rather complain than actually do something. In fact, if the issues they complain about were solved, they probably wouldn't make nearly as much money. If Weiss is indeed widely read by center left folks, then that makes me very happy. It would indicate that maybe, just maybe, we do indeed have a chance of defeating the plague of "progressive" lunacy infecting the West. But there aren't really many signs of that yet. If it seems like I'm trolling I apologize, I'm just getting very disillusioned and cynical about the future of freedom in this country.

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