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Where’s Your Hill?
When Roy Moore was in the process of being brought down in the Alabama Senate race last December, the standard response from the establishment side of the GOP was, “Look, Moore is a nutcase. This is not a court of law. There is no due process or presumption of innocence. He’s not the hill you want to die on.”
When Alex Jones was purged off of social media the response was, “This is not a government action, but the actions of private individuals. Besides, he’s a nutcase and this is not the hill you want to die on.”
Enter Brett Kavanaugh. As his reputation is destroyed by the minority party suddenly the establishment is appalled. Why? Well, primarily because even though he was nominated to SCOTUS by Donald Trump, Kavanaugh is seen as “one of us,” one of the good chaps whose pedigree of private high schools, Yale and all the right government clerkships and appointments was beyond question.
Is this the hill now? When you surrendered all of that territory before, when you tucked your collective tails between your legs and ran like scalded dogs, now you want to turn and fight? Look what you gave up before. Like the Alabama race, proceedings in the Senate Judiciary Committee are not the equivalent of a court of law. The ideas of due process and presumed innocence you gave away in December are a little hard to reclaim now. When you look at all of the private, non-government entities behind this smear job, how can you rebuke them?
Principles are funny things. If you don’t apply them to the people you dislike then they are unlikely to be of any use when you really need them.
Published in Politics
That doesn’t make any sense. Facebook is free to deny business just as masterpiece bakery is. If you want to argue with them for being liberal, that’s fine, but it’s not about speech. You have no natural right to that platform. Go find a different baker…
Yes, it does. But I think your mind is made up.
Who is pretending that Jones is a conservative? I thought conservatives believed in applying the same principles to everyone regardless of whether they are conservative or not. Are you suggesting that only other conservatives are worthy of being defended? Waiting with baited breath to find out what most intelligent people think about this.
SPLC can be sued for their comments. Fox, NPR and the rest can be sued for what they put on their platforms. They can claim to be neutral or fair and balanced or what ever catch phrase that they want to use. They do not have the legal protections that the social media companies use.
I am not stating the Jones is a conservative. I am stating that Denis Prager, Candice Owens and Steven Crowder are conservative. My problem with this situation exists independent of Alex Jones and his crazy ideas.
Doesn’t that ignore what the court actually said.
The baker can’t be forced to create a cake.
Facebook has already made the “cake” they created a single platform for everyone to use, they did not create a special program just for Alex Jones.
Pretending to be neutral (or being so delusional that you think you are neutral) is incredibly damaging to both yourself and the world around you. It’s not OK. There is a decent argument that government intervention would make everything worse but believing that you are a perfect judge of everything always leads to hubris and hubris always leads to ruination.
Whoa… if you want this as your standard for court interference, be careful what you wish for.
Hammer, you are either misreading Section 230 or engaging in rhetorical sleight. The SPLC, Fox, NPR etc. are all subject to libel actions. They are publishers, not platforms. If Facebook, Twitter et al. want to police their content, exclude viewpoints, fact check and curate they become publishers and are subject to libel for libelous matter in the publications. They have the same right not to publish Prager that The Nation possesses. They don’t (or shouldn’t) be permitted to claim their publications are free from libel laws.
This could be a very strong incentive towards a free speech culture. Platforms which function like true free speech platforms will gain an advantage. Maybe a decisive one.
Jager is making the central argument and you are missing it.
I don’t know what they think. I know what I think. Alex Jones, or anyone else, has the First Amendment right to claim (say) that Ricochet’s membership is made up of mean, right wing people. Neither Jones, nor anyone else, has a First Amendment right to libel or slander anyone by claiming the Ricochet membership imprisons 599 Cambodian orphans in a torture chamber in the basement of Hillsdale College. I do not understand why some people on Ricochet can’t grasp that difference, unless they really, really don’t want to.
Ricochet has already built this “cake”. I believe there is a code of conduct and why a lot of us are members. They can exclude who they want to.
If you want to bring down Kavanaugh, then utter his name in the same breath as Moore and Jones. The problem with making an alliance of the moment with populists is not only do some of their causes become yours but the inverse happens as well. Judge Kavanagh doesn’t need friends like these.
By which you mean consistently dishonest? I think it is clear from his conversation the kinds of things he has gotten up to. And numerous women came forward accusing him of sexual harassment and unwanted touching. But I guess if you only get your news from Trump propaganda sources I can see why you would be ignorant of these. There is a whole wikipedia page devoted to cataloging allegations of Trump’s misconduct in this area. He wasn’t Bill Cosby bad but he ain’t no Bret Kavanugh either.
Wikipedia, which can be edited by anyone, is totes legit.
That’s the argument for “common carrier” status such as telephone service.
I’m not suggesting legal remedies (although I’m sure the social media companies would embrace the indemnification that comes with it.) What I’m saying, and many don’t seem to grasp the point, is that you condemn his message but you don’t cheer the mob on.
Do you acknowledge the quackery? Yes. Do you cheer the ban? No. It’s a Voltairian stance.
This post is complete nonsense. My principles are well intact, irrespective of whether I agree with EJ Hill on this or that.
ok? So what, then? The OP doesn’t say anything about Prager or Owens or Crowder. Maybe those people are worth being outraged over, and maybe those people would be worth canceling your facebook account… But the OP specifically mentioned Alex Jones and Roy Moore. You’ve presented alternatives – sounds to me like you’re disagreeing with the OP along the same lines I am.
I get the sense many people here view the evidence behind the accusations against Roy Moore quite differently.
The OP and several comments seem to imply that the case against Moore was every bit as unsubstantiated as that against Kavanaugh.
I take the opposite view: the evidence against Moore, while also limited to oral evidence, was much deeper and more consistent than that against Kavanaugh. And Moore’s own response essentially telegraphed his guilt. Remember how even Hannity had difficulty defending Moore after their cringeworthy interview?
But it makes sense that if you think the cases against both men are equally flimsy, then you would view somebody like myself as an unprincipled opportunist.
I have a strong suspicion that even if GOP take the vote and fall short of 51 (including Pence), they will fare much better in midterms than if they fold and don’t hold a vote on Kavanaugh.
It’s Democrats, not Republicans, who’ve taken a huge risk with the naked power plays they’re running. How I wish GOP in Congress realized that and took risks of their own to address things only they can (immigration, Obamacare, etc.)
Not at all. Ricochet is in a similar boat – they reserve the right to take someone like Zubrin, for example, and remove his contributor status if they find that he is not following the CoC.
Regardless, what we are talking about is “who to defend.” EJ is somehow implying that we ought to have aligned ourselves with Alex Jones and Roy Moore, and that by not doing so en bloc we have now somehow eliminated our ability to do so with respect to Judge Kavanaugh. Leaving aside the obvious fact that these 3 men have absolutely nothing in common, the simple fact that we are defending Kavanaugh is proof agains this point.
Furthermore, it is also easy to see how, because of the fact that we did not defend those individuals whose conduct was beyond defense, we’ve reserved some credibility when it comes to defending someone like Kavanaugh, who is truly being smeared. Again, reality disproves EJ’s point. Of course we don’t go around defending every perceived hill to the death, especially those hills (such as Jones and Moore) which are not our own, and which possess no merits worth defending.
I know next to nothing about Alex Jones, except that as far as I know, he has not been found guilty in a court of law. You stated earlier, @garymcvey, that you will only fight for your friends; I do not expect you to stand up for the rights of people who are not your friends, and perhaps you don’t understand why anyone would. I believe in defending the rights of everyone, whether they are my friends or not, because if we do not defend equal treatment for everyone, then we are all in peril and at the mercy of whoever is in charge at any given time.
My biggest beef with the OP is: what does it mean to “die” on a given hill in the digital age? You’re addressing this to a forum of middle aged guys sitting at their computers.
How was I supposed to take a stand for Roy Moore? By defending him on Ricochet? By going on a Twitter tirade to my zero followers?
Do you really think Dianne Feimstein would have said “you know, I was going to release this letter accusing Kavanaugh of attempted rape, but that anonymous guy with the obscure user name on that web forum that’s financially unviable made a really passionate defense of Roy Moore last year, so I guess the conservatives really are united on this stuff”?
The notion that our insufficient vehemence and solidarity in obscure social media platforms is somehow driving outcomes in DC is absurd.
Thanks for the reminder…
I am not aligning myself with anyone; I support freedom of speech for everyone, whether I like them or not. Is this really so difficult to understand?
We don’t support it here. That’s why we have a CoC. Alex Jones would have been banned here for his delusional Sandy Hook conspiracy theory.
Do you not also support freedom of association? Is that a less important right to you than freedom of speech?
If that is what you’re actually saying, you’re still not entirely correct … but that’s also not what you’ve actually said. You don’t cheer mobs? Who is cheering mobs? You don’t have to actively defend Moore or Jones in order to “not cheer” mobs. In fact, you can pretty easily ignore those mobs.
But you’ve said nothing about mobs, and you’ve said nothing about condemning the message. What you said was:
“first they came for Jones, then they came for Moore…”
You are not just implying, you are openly stating that we ought to be defending these guys. Why, exactly? Because liberals are out to get them? Next they came for Al Franken, then they came for Harvey Weinstein? You defending these guys, too?
What you seem to be implying is that we define our values by aligning ourselves with whoever the left is out to get. That is a foolish policy. Define your principles first, understand your values first. You defend those principles, even when it means you’re not opposing the left at every turn. It used to be that we could argue with the left by saying “we all want the same basic things, we just disagree on how to get there.” That means we don’t hate the poor, we just think liberal policies hurt the poor more. We don’t dislike minorities, we just think liberal policies harm minorities more. We don’t detest gays or trans or muslims or anyone else – we just value religious liberty and we believe that liberal policies do more harm than good.
But what does that mean? It means we actually sometimes agree with the left.
I agree with many friends on the left on a lot of things. I agree that poverty sucks; I agree that people should be equal under the law; I agree that people should generally be good… I don’t like crassness, and I certainly don’t support rape or assault anything like them.
So I don’t defend Moore, but I do defend Kavanaugh. That both are attacked by the left is not my guiding principle. I don’t defend Jones, but I do defend Pager. That both are attacked by the left is not my guiding principle.
And Trump? I wish he did fewer things for the left to rightly condemn – it makes it a lot harder to defend him when he’s right.
Does Facebook have a detailed and well explained Coc? Serious question, I don’t do Facebook, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that Alex Jones is the only one on Facebook putting forward delusional conspiracy theories. If they want to be considered neutral and fair, then they need to be neutral and fair.l
No, you don’t.
If I were to say “Judithann Campbell is a *&%$&ing &%$#*rag piece of &$*%&,” and I was redacted by Ricochet, chances are, you would not be the first one jumping up to defend my freedom of speech. You might rightly acknowledge that “freedom of speech” is a legal term with an actual definition. You would first observe that Ricochet is not the government, and that I am no more free to come here and insult you than I am to walk into your house and say the same things. Speech is free, but it is not absolute. When someone like Alex Jones tells his misguided fans that Sandy Hook was faked, and those misguided fans go out and harass the parents of murdered children, you might rightly object if the state arrested Jones for that speech… and if you believed so strongly in the freedom of speech, you would defend Facebook’s right to disassociate its platform from the despicable character of Jones, regardless of whatever nice things he might say about Trump, or whatever bad things he might say about people who you don’t like.
But this post isn’t about freedom of speech. In what way is speech implicated in the case of Moore? In what way is anything implicated in the case of moore? Why did EJ bring up Moore at all? Presumably, because his case is in some way relevant – he must have something in common with both Kavanaugh and Jones. Well, certainly not speech. Not even sexual allegations, as the case against him was far stronger. Not even democrat shenanigans. So what? The only thing I can think of is that the left attacked all 3 of these people.
So… what? We’re literally at war with the left, now? We define ourselves by being opposed to everything they stand for and defending everything they oppose? Boy, that would put us in some pretty goddamned awkward positions, would it not? Do we get to agree on anything? What about when they contradict themselves? Do we have to support Franken because they attacked him? Weinstein? What if they turn on Hillary? Do we defend Sanders because they cheated him?
No, there is no “first they came for Jones, then they came for Moore.” Why do we limit ourselves to those? If we’re at war… they came for Sanders, they abandoned Al Franken, they may soon turn on Bill Clinton …
The lesson to be learned here is that Conservatism must stand for something beyond simply opposition to the left. If that’s your standard, then they determine your every action.
EJ Hill asked the question about dying on hills. They were not neutral and fair with respect to Bernie Sanders. Would you like to die on that hill?
Also – this isn’t about Facebook. Facebook has nothing to do with Roy Moore or Brett Kavanaugh. Above, I’ve tried to understand just what exactly EJ is suggesting the connection is, and I’ll admit it is not readily apparent. He inadvertently makes an excellent point with respect to Roy Moore. The election didn’t really matter all that much, and the man was an extremely unsavory character – in addition to the election not being one that mattered, it was one that virtually none of us even had the ability to vote in. So why defend the man? Why choose that hill to die on? Presumably because he’s the republican?
That’s where the boy who cried wolf comes in. If you defend Alex Jones, saying that facebook is being unfair and that they should not be allowed to ban a guy who incited violence against the parents of murdered school children… why would anyone listen to you when you defend Dennis Prager if facebook treats him unfairly?
The whole flipping notion of finding a hill to die on is that there is a strong possibility that you could die!! So you pick the most important, most emblematic of your side. EJ is suggesting that we should die on every hill, then? Or is he saying that we’re the party of Alex Jones? Honestly, I can’t really tell… perhaps he’d like to elaborate.
I have no idea what Alex Jones says about anyone; for you to insinuate that I am defending him because he says nice things about Trump is despicable, you are not arguing in good faith, I am not wasting any more time on this, or on you. Goodbye.