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This Is What We Should Not Do
This is an example of what I don’t want.
Protesters disrupted a Shakespeare production in Central Park on Friday night shouting, “The blood of Steve Scalise is on your hands!” and “Stop leftist violence,” according to reports.
A woman identifying herself on social media as Laura Loomer jumped on stage shouting, “Stop the normalization of political violence against the right,” and, “This is violence against Donald Trump.”
Fellow protestor Jack Posobiec, who taped her from the audience, then shouted, “You are all Goebbles,” referring to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Loomer was arrested following the incident when she refused to leave the scene, The New York Times reported. She posted video of her protest on Twitter.
We on the right should not be breaking the law in order to shut down what we consider to be offensive speech. That’s the left’s shtick. We need to be respecting the right of free expression, even when it offends us — and then using that right to push back against the left.
Rather than trying to shut down the juvenile assassination-porn the left enjoys, let’s say some things that we believe, but that we know offend the left.
In my case, that means saying things like “the trans movement is nonsense, an unhealthy pandering to emotionally challenged individuals who need counseling, not surgery.” Or “men and women are different, and feminism has tried to fool women into believing that that isn’t true, depriving them of their uniqueness in its efforts to persuade them to be ersatz males, men-lite.” Or “the Black Lives Matter movement is ugly racism founded on a lie about the nature of anti-black violence in America, directing attention away from the real crisis of violence in the black community by scapegoating police instead of acknowledging the disintegration of the black family.” Or “same-sex marriage is legal, but it isn’t normal and it isn’t ideal. Children benefit from having good role models of, and the support from, both a father and a mother.” Or “the Russia story is a nothingburger, a desperate effort to deprive the people of the choice they made in a fair election because that choice offends the leftist establishment.”
Etc.
Don’t suppress speech. Use it.
Published in General
And I wouldn’t argue. G-d knows I’ve got my faults.
But consider the context. I’m replying to a fellow who says that the threat against the republic justifies suppressing the freedom of speech of our opponents. I don’t agree. In fact, that’s precisely the argument his opponents are using to justify their lawlessness.
We should be better.
It’s just a theory right now, then? We need something that works — it’s late in the day to have new experiment.
It worked pretty well from 1787 to now. We’ve been through much worse than this.
I’m sorry, Larry. I have no idea what you mean by that.
Free speech and rational discourse is a time-honored tradition. I think it works better than anything else, when the goal is a civil and reasonably well-functioning society. Let’s aspire to that.
A theory?!? The basis for American civil and political discourse for over 200 years is a theory? Give me a break.
Re: 139
Do tax dollars go to this ?
Are you asking if the performance is tax-funded? I don’t know.
I won’t presume to know the point of your question. But, in the event that you’re thinking that public funds should not go to support assassination pornography featuring the sitting President, I quite agree. However, there’s a way to address that that doesn’t include unlawful conduct and suppression of free speech, and that would be my response, should your argument run along those lines.
Well, then what are we worried about? What is your theory a prescription for? I mean: I’m aspiring for it and lots of people are also — what’s weird is that a large minority of powerful people don’t believe in your theory. What theory do you have for those people?
We’re just going to out-think them, I guess — and show them a good example and then they’ll get it and come over to our side. We just need to explain things better. Genius ideas, alright.
Larry, I’m afraid I don’t understand the gist of your remarks — or to what “your theory” is supposed to refer.
I’m simply saying that we conservatives, who love the constitution and our civil society, should continue to respect and support the first amendment — even when we don’t enjoy its application. If you think otherwise, perhaps you could say so plainly and we could have a conversation.
What you are talking about doesnt actually exist. How many people do you see on Ricochet discussing the 16 points of alt right?
none? why?
Probably because their free speech would be inhibited here.
That has been one of my points here – what you describe does not exist on the right unless we are talking about the left. It is the same hypocrisy, only closer to my position than the left’s Tim-Buk-To.
I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, with the alt-right bit.
Are you saying that here are opinions that can not be expressed on Ricochet without censorship? Fine: Ricochete is a private enterprise, and they have a legal right to control the content of their site as they see fit.
Are you saying that there are ideas you can’t express anywhere? I guess I’d need an example of that.
Are you saying something else? If so, help me understand your point.
Actually someone once posted a piece explaining the alt-right. It was thoroughly discussed.
i already made my point and midge was the only one who engaged.
I’m sorry, but that doesn’t help me understand the comment you made to me. Can you expand on it for me?
Security was called and she was led away and didn’t need to be dragged. Then Jack Posobiec (who I now follow on Twitter) started in, calling the audience Goebbels, until he was led away, too. He went slightly more easily than she did. Then the play went on. It was not shut down.
The worst thing that Posobiec did was pronounce Goebbels as Gerbbels, the way people with a certain musical/artsy background do. He did not pronounce it as Goebbels with an umlaut, or anything approximating it. I can forgive that, barely.
It was a tactic that seemed proportionate to the seriousness of the problem, given last week’s events. Maybe if it wasn’t for the events of the week it might seem slightly out of bounds. I thought it was about the right amount of disruption. Bringing a crowd of people in to make the actors fear for their safety would be a step too far. The people on our side definitely shouldn’t follow in the violent footsteps of the left, and these two protesters didn’t do that.
Moderator Note:
Abbreviated vulgarity is still vulgarity. Ricochet style is to use bold, not caps, for emphasis.I disagree. The audience cheers when Trump is slain. This is a sickening scandalous NYC NYT Leftist Elitist you name it slanderous [redacted] insult. There are those of us who are sick of it and tired of this bending over. ‘Being’ higher. Right.
I hope every performance is interrupted until this slop stops.
No. I’m not thinking disrupting the show is justified if tax dollars go to pay for it. I’m only thinking I shouldn’t have to pay for it.
If people who attack non-leftists and stop them from speaking or sometimes even living without our government arresting them and punishing them, then what is there left to do?
Those people clearly don’t understand the play if they think killing Caesar is a good thing. The Bard was pretty clear on this.
That would be true regardless of the content.
Too often partisans on both sides substitute bromides and slogans for strategic political thought.
Case in point: When Ann Coulter is prevented from speaking, or when Charles Murray is throttled, or any conservative is met with censorship, the favorite phrase of the elite political punditry class is to say, “The cure for speech you hate is not censorship, but more free speech!” This sounds wonderfully deep and profound… right up to the point where someone on the right actually tries it. Then there’s a lot of handwringing and kvetching and eye rolling and deep sighs and laments about how we don’t want to “be like them.”
Well, hell, make up your mind. Do we meet their free speech with more free speech or not? I feel like borrowing a certain term from Bill Maher because somebody just told me not to get “uppity.”
And here’s another conveniently ignored fact. This abomination is a taxpayer funded abomination held in a public park. The New York Shakespeare Festival has received $4.1 million in the last three years and $30 million since 2009. We are all paying for this assassination porn fantasy but protesting that fact is deemed just too damned impolite. Horse pucky.
The left has descended into mob mentality. You have a limited amount of options here. You can:
I say push back now.
This. A thousand times this.
Yes, it’s Bill Kristol who recommends this, but I’ve just started watching and it seems pretty good. Don’t know when I’ll have time to listen to all of them, but I’ll try.
This is a false choice. One is not required to agree with everything spoken to believe that the cure to censorship is more speech.
People really need to read more Shakespeare if they think assassinating Ceasar is the high-point of the play. Sheesh.
What these two protestors did is not a big deal, and in my opinion, they should be slapped on the wrist for it. But I don’t endorse what they did.
One person on this thread has said that he wants to give liberals “a taste of their own medicine”: another person has endorsed the idea of conservatives showing up at riots in Berkley with sticks. What these two protestors did was harmless, but there are too many people who either can’t or won’t make the distinction between peaceful protest and something else.
I have been an enthusiastic Trump supporter since early on. Trump is a great example of someone who refuses to play by leftist rules, and says what he thinks is true, political correctness be damned. I love him for that. We should be following his example, not showing at Berkley with sticks.
Why wait?
Indeed it was.
If those sixteen points were discussed “freely” in the sense of “using the same rhetorical style as on VoxDay or /pol/”, that rhetorical style would likely fall afoul of the CoC. They could, however, be discussed Ricochet-style. Indeed I’ve had discussions about them here before, in the comments.
The alt-right may not be primarily known for the content of its ideas (which kind of makes sense – there are a constellation of ideas, not all mutually compatible, on the alt-right). It may be primarily known for its style, which tends toward abrasive, and, honestly, trolling. Evidently, some see this abrasive style as vital to defeating the left, and that’s fine: there are plenty of other forums where that style is welcome. Ricochet, however, is what it is.
Now, if you know a well-spoken monarchist or two, for example, by all means encourage them to write an OP here!
Really? You can’t claim a “false choice” unless you point out alternatives. Otherwise it’s just another empty bromide.
For it to be a “false” choice you truly, deep in your heart have to believe that the center will hold. I say it will not and if you believe otherwise you’re only fooling yourself.
We now have an entire generation of young people steeped in Marxist philosophy and whose critical thinking skills has been replaced by “feelings.” Half of our judiciary cannot even apply the law correctly and “justice” is whatever makes them and the privileged and protected classes feel good about themselves.
People like David French brag about how much they’ve “accomplished” for free speech in the courts but we’re worse off than we were twenty years ago. Don’t tell me your way works when civility and the rule of law continues to erode at a rapid pace.
Are constitutional monarchists allowed?