Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I’ve actually been arguing for two weeks with a buddy who thinks this stuff is fine. I see a split among supporters of Israel here. Half think this stuff is acceptable, great even (caveat emptor). Half think this is de facto squelching freedom of speech, and if we embrace this, we shit on the most cherished rights of free expression which liberal democracies, like Israel, seek to uphold.
I’m with the latter. In fact, I go one step further. I think the cancellation of Tlaib’s college campus speech, and the efforts of those outside her district to donate money to a challenger to knock her out of office are problematic.
Tlaib, and the rest of the Squad, are idiots. But nothing - nothing even conceptually - is gained by shutting them up. One has a right to be an idiot. And if one’s constituents want idiots to speak for them (See also, Gaetz, MTG, Boebert) they have that right.
And we should keep these idiots in the public sphere. Because they remind us all that this country is filled with idiots, and what idiots think (say, biological men should be allowed to swim against women, the election was stolen, etc.) does not disappear because the voices of idiots are silenced.
Cancellation of anyone for his or her decision to support either side here offends every principle on which this country is based. If you think it’s okay, you violate the axiom that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that weakens a pillar of liberal democracies, like Israel and the U.S.
I’ll laugh at Tlaib, who is a goddamned fool, all day. But I’m an enemy of anyone who seeks to shut her up.
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A schoolmate of my son, a Palestinian, and two of his friends, also Palestinian, were shot yesterday in Brattleboro Vermont, on the edge of the UVM campus.
I think it's obvious that calling everyone you disagree with an antisemite, a Hamas supporter, etc. enables this kind of terrorism. Regardless of whether we learn the shooting was done by a MAGA terrorist who hates everyone or by a Zionist terrorist whose hatred is focused on Palestinians and their supporters, the cancel culture encourages this. And Palestinians aren't safe at schools and elsewhere because of it.
