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> In the US right, "free speech" is often code for "the powerful should never experience criticism or accountability". This is just your partisan blinkers talk
by troad 4y ago
> In the US right, "free speech" is often code for "the powerful should never experience criticism or accountability".
This is just your partisan blinkers talking. Someone on the right could equally say “social justice” on the US left is often code for “now I take your stuff”. Both statements are partisan, largely inaccurate, and wholly unconstructive.
There are many people on the right deeply committed to free speech, like David French. There are many non-partisan institutions committed to free speech, like (formerly) the ACLU and (now) FIRE. There are many left wing people deeply committed to free speech, like those people fighting Florida’s “anti-woke” speech laws.
Abolitionism. Civil rights. Gay rights. Liberal triumphs built on free speech, on free criticism, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Don’t cede free speech to petty partisanship. Nothing good will come of it.
- jonny_eh 4y ago> David French He's not a congressperson, senator, or governor and has limited influence on the current base of the US right-wing.
- troad 4y agoThat’s, respectfully, very ignorant of the US right. Contrary to what Twitter would lead one to believe, Congresspeople like MTG wield absolutely no influence over the politics of the right, whereas the 2019 conflict over the future of Fusionism - the basic compromise underlying the coalition of libertarians and conservatives that comprise the modern US right - is defined by the debates between Sohrab Ahmari and David French. David French is a giant figure on the intellectual right. (I don’t identify as a member of the right, to be clear, but these are just very obvious trends for anyone that actually observes the right, rather than just making assumptions guided by partisan antipathy.)
- jonny_eh 4y ago> David French is a giant figure on the intellectual right Sure, but my contention is that at best the intellectual right doesn't matter, and at its worst it's now an oxymoron.
- troad 4y agoAnd mine is that that’s, respectfully, incorrect. There’s no partisan canard more banal than “other side dumb”. If you can’t understand why millions of well-intentioned people make different choices to you, what beliefs lead to those choices and where those beliefs come from; if you don’t understand how things like conservative media and the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute and opinion leaders like David French all interact and intersect to produce the maelstrom of the US right - from the beliefs of the base all the way to Congressional GOP policy - then you simply won’t be able to effectively reach people on the right. You’ll be just as ineffective at political persuasion as some right winger ranting about how all Democrats are just “dumb leftie communists”, or some such.
- wpietri 4y agoI didn't say "always", I said "often". I agree that there are people on the right committed to free speech and who demonstrate it through action, and good for them. But there are also a lot of people who, as with Musk, use it more as a fig leaf. And there are plenty who are openly opposed to it. And I think being honest about that is one of the best to keep it from becoming purely a partisan issue.