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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
This is what the right has been doing for my entire life. History has shown that it doesn’t work. Why do you think it’ll work, now?
Boy ain’t that the damned truth. No one hits back harder when a “Conservative” starts attacking the Left than other “Conservatives.” Just ask the Tea Party who their biggest enemy was and who wanted to “bloody their nose.”
As I said, most people are in the middle of the bell curve. There’s nothing shameful about that.
Tip of the hat, ma’am.
The only argument I am really hearing in favor of conservatives trying to shut down or shout down liberals is that they started doing it first, and we need to “fight back”, and anyone who doesn’t favor trying to shut down liberal speech is guilty of not being willing to fight back.
When Palestine terrorists blow up Jewish children, we don’t encourage the Israelis to “fight back” by blowing up Muslim children. There are certain things our enemies do to us that we don’t purposely do to them because we aren’t them. Some will call this weakness, others call it being civilized. When it gets to the point where some conservatives want to shut down people they disagree with, it has become clear that such conservatives have become what they hate.
Thank you, sir, all of the credit goes to my parents. They are amazing people, and I am incredibly lucky to have them.
I was a TEA Party activist, and I was always impressed by the civility and sensibility of the movement — and the stark contrast between that and the leftist nonsense.
I never thought our biggest enemy was on the right. I thought it was the leftstream media — same as it is today. Sure, I was frustrated by Republicans — including my own congressman in Missouri — who thought the TEA Party just had to come around to the establishment way of thinking. He was wrong.
I wonder, as I read the comments, how many folks here are parents who try to out-shout their children. Not many, I hope.
No, I’m not going to surrender sense and civility, either for the satisfaction of it (which I can’t deny), nor for its supposed greater efficacy (which I happily challenge).
I would if I thought it would work. But the Muslim cult of death do not value their children and basically raise them to die so us killing them would accomplish nothing except maybe ridding the world of a future suicide bomber, jihadist or human shield. The Israelis are smart enough to know this and so are most people.
Why do you think that shutting down and shouting down liberals will work? How do you envision that working?
History has shown that the people in the middle will give in to anyone who throws a big enough fit. This is why we are where we are.
How do you propose we fight back, that will be effective? Shutting down the opposition has been effective for the left oh these many decades, while the right has mostly stayed above the fray, refusing to do anything but tut-tut. I’m sorry, but “tut-tut” isn’t fighting back.
What do you propose?
It has worked for the left, over and over again. Why do you think it wouldn’t work for the right?
Understand, I’m not making an ethical argument here, just a tactical one. I hate that we’ve come to this place.
Actually, not.
I’m pretty sure that most of my conservative friends would refer to Mr. Jenner as she. That’s nonsense: he’s still a man, whatever surgery he undergoes.
I’m pretty sure that most of my conservative friends would blanch if I say that men and women are different, that men are better at some things than women are, and that feminism has duped women into surrendering what makes them unique and wonderful.
And I’m almost certain that most of my conservative friends think that, since we’ve lost the same-sex marriage legal battle, we should call same-sex unions “marriage.”
And I know for a fact that most of my conservative friends are still willing to send their children to colleges that are going to give them a poor education at great expense, and try to turn them into sniveling brats in the process.
I think the right has been dormant for far too long.
Has it really worked for the left? They lost the Presidency, they lost both Houses of Congress, they are decimated at the state level, and according to @katebraestrup who is a former progressive, many of her religious brethren who were also progressive are having serious doubts about where the progressive agenda is leading. Is that your idea of a tactic working?
Um, my parents and their friends in the pro-life movement have done far more than just “tut-tut”. Some of my earliest memories are of picketing in front of abortion clinics. The conservatives I know do a lot more than hang around tut tutting people, and all of my life we have been fighting for our right to free speech, and mostly winning. After decades of fending off liberal attacks on free speech, hell will freeze over before I support a conservative attack on free speech.
Does everyone reading this thread see the flaw in our friends’ analogies as they try to justify their position? Let me help you: parents in families and the Israelis in Israel are in charge. They are the authorities.
That is clearly not the case in the US. The Right is not in charge; the Left is.
As I said earlier, a lot of people still do not understand the reality of the situation; therefore, it should not be surprising that their advice, while well-intentioned, smacks of fantasy and idealism, and is utterly ineffectual.
Demonstrate! Agitate! Disrupt!
Don’t allow the Left to be held harmless for their words and deeds. Take the battle to their safe spaces.
Can you translate this into tangible actions?
I agree with you it’s the latter. You do mean that the screaming and breaking side is going to get their way, right?
Well that might suit you but I prefer letting them taste their own medicine for a change and I don’t care what a bunch of [redacted] think about the matter.
It posted twice.
Oh forgive me I guess that was just my imagination when the GOP flipped their lids when Christine O’Donnell won the Delaware primary, the Senate GOP backed the write in candidacy of what’s her name in Alaska, and the Indiana GOP worked against Murdouch, just to name a few examples. No the Tea Party was welcomed with open arms by the GOP Establishment. I completely forgot.
It seems that some conservatives are willing to compromise certain ideas about freedom, at least other people’s freedom, in order to gain power. Which tells me that if these conservatives ever achieve power, they won’t be any better than liberals. In which case, maybe I should just stick with the devil I know.
That is a thought that goes through my head as I read this, and I am not the only one who will think that. We are a country founded by men who said things like, “I may disagree with what a man says, but I will defend to the death his right to say it.” That is the conservative tradition I am fighting for. Call me a gelding if you want, but if you abandon the principles this country was founded on because you think doing so will be an effective tactic, then you are killing the patient in order to save him. It won’t work.
But we CAN’T say it. Oh, we can in our cocooned websites, but we can’t say it in public because we will get shouted down and violence will be used against us. There are rules for them and rules for us.
I speak in public about my opinions all the time, and I always have. I live in Massachusetts. I am sorry if the environment in Tennessee is too hostile for you to speak out. Maybe moving north is something you should consider.
Don’t look now but picketing in front of the places of business for political change is what the Left does according to the [redacted] here on the Right.
I am not sure what this means. So what if the left pickets on a public sidewalk in front of a business? Pro-lifers have always done that. It’s called freedom of speech.
Are you saying that pro-lifers shouldn’t picket abortion clinics? I am not sure what you are saying here. Are you being sarcastic, and trying to point out that pro-lifers are usually peaceful, whereas leftists aren’t? Sorry for being dense, but I don’t get what you are saying.
Ha- I would be applauded for saying these things where I live. But not at a major college campus ANYWHERE. Not if they knew what I was about to say!
Interesting discussion- give it some likes so it can be promoted!
So what? Unless they really want to go into medicine or engineering or something like that, I would advise most young people to stay away from college, although, my younger cousins who have been through the college ringer seem to have emerged with their conservative values intact. So what if your college professors don’t applaud you? There are people in the world who go to prison and are executed for speaking out: so what if your college professors don’t applaud you?
Moderator Note:
Repeated use of castrated farm animal terminology to insult opponents. Please engage on the issues and not at the level of personal insults.It means that we shouldn’t use the Left’s tactics because that is uncivil, according to the [redacted] on the Right.
I thought I accurately described them. I didn’t think being honest was insulting.