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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
Now, now, I think the brand makes them from pigs or cows or some such.
Being funny.
Insist that Julia in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” has to be played by a female-to-male trans because Julia dresses as Sebastian for most of the play. Charging up on set to issue a proclamation isn’t funny. A kazoo band breaking out into “Hooray for Captain Spaulding” is.
Well, so long as Captain Spaulding is included, it’s just part of the act.
The reason why you don’t start at z is because A and B might be all you need. The Left isn’t particularly overflowing in courage, either. Just look at what a few people not willing to apologize or back down has accomplished among the left.
The left runs when you show backbone. You don’t need to wave the stick, just use it to walk with.
Life is lived on a slippery slope.
There are many limiting principles. One limiting principle is respect for free speech and other first amendment freedoms. One is just practical: engaging in violence would be a surefire way to allow the lefts to portray themselves as martyrs. Remember, I’m the guy who is not even in favor of sending in the gendarmes to crack down on the illegal protests of the left, except to protect lives and property.
These conflicts are messy, and I suppose for people who have all the pens and papers arranged neatly on their desks, it’s hard to accept. But I have no sympathy for those who want to restrict protests on either side on aesthetic grounds.
What completely baffles me about all of this is that these two people should be exactly the kind of protest the right is all about. They were civil in their protest. And yes, I think it was civil disobedience. There was no violence. There was censure, speaking up, and standing up.
Yet we are throwing them under the bus. Why? They didn’t threaten violence. Nothing they did could be remotely classified as inciting violence. It was a far more civil example of what the Left does. They did what the left does only better.
Remember when Karl Rove and other Republican Consultant-Americans were complaining about “The Politics of Purity”? They were frustrated with conservative voters who (they claimed) demanded purity in their candidates? Well, here you have it: Donald Trump is not a purity president. The theater protesters are not engaging in purity in political action. Rove and the others should be pleased.
For some, the slope is steeper and slipperier than for others. I have heard that George Washington was terrible in his anger in his youth, so he learned to discipline himself. Some of us may believe that it is better to stay within the full bonds of civilization, because we know how thin the veneer is.
Wow, so much to chew on.
I have felt the outrage that many in this thread feel. I think mostly it comes from the treachery of our own representatives. Most of them are bought and paid for. They really are not representing us. They work for the same people who finance the Left. The money changers do not care about our liberty,only power. As we live in more tyranny they get more liberty and power (hooray for us and screw them). Our liberty is really their enemy, though it will never be uttered.
Liberty loving constitutional conservatives have no friends or representation in places of power, only agnostics and enemies.
In 1798, John Adams pointed out that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
I think most won’t argue the nation is still ” a moral and religious people”. Those kinds of people are the minority and are demonized.
This is the conundrum we find ourselves in. There is no common ground between the left and right and the right is disenfranchised. Funny (not ha ha), the foot solders on the left are disenfranchised also. They just don’t know it.
Oy Vey !
After reading every post to this point. I have come to the conclusion reluctantly, that I will not disparage those on the right who choose to protest like the left, so long as they are not the instigators of, or supporters of violence. If they cross that line, then arrest them and prosecute. They do have the right to defend themselves if violence is brought upon them. However, this does not mean that they come to the protest with protective armor, black masks and bike locks or the like.
A virtuous people are at a distinct disadvantage when the opposition is willing to win at any and all cost. We must be wise as serpents but innocent as doves. This in the end will persuade. What this looks like in the current environment I am unsure.
It’s been an interesting conversation. Thanks to all.
In closing*: I stand by my point. I value freedom of expression, and I oppose its suppression. People who break the law — violently or non-violently — to prevent others from expressing ideas which they happen to find objectionable are making the wrong choice, in my opinion. I condemn it from both the left and the right.
Engage, criticize, confront, offend. Speak boldly and bluntly, if you like. And remember that the audience — all those people who don’t care as much as you do about whatever you’re debating — will be more persuaded by decency, honesty, and self-control than by outrage and antics.
(* I don’t know why I even say In closing. There is no closing.)
True or false: When America was socially and politically conservative after the Second World War (the Age of Conformity, the Eisenhower Years, a time when “communist” had the same power to condemn that “racist” has today) – the universities of America were home to, among others, Herbert Marcuse, Paul Goodman and Eugene Genovese, each a far Leftist. Are far Rightists equally at home today on America’s universities? (Name the far Rightists.)
If you answer “False,” then please rethink your contention that if American conservatives achieve power they won’t be any better than liberals.
The lunch-counter sit-ins in the south in the 1960s got all sorts of criticism, and I’m pretty sure that some people said those were the wrong methods. Yet they were effective. There is no division between outrage and antics on one hand, and decency, honesty, and self-control on the other. They can all be one and the same thing. The lunch-counter sit-ins were antics and expressions of outrage; they were also expressions of decency and honesty and conducted with self-control. I think all of those terms also describe this week’s theater protesters — the actions you said you didn’t want.
I said somewhere way back in one of these threads that I disagree with civil disobedience — except when it is intended to prevent a grave and imminent injustice from occurring. I would characterize the peaceful push-back against institutional racism — a grave and ongoing injustice — as a beautiful example of civil disobedience done right.
Well, I’d dispute outrage and self-control being comparable. But the broader point is that there are plenty of expressions of outrage and antics (perhaps I should have used a better word) that are not compatible with those good things I mentioned. Breaking windows and burning other people’s stuff, for example. Also, shutting down public speeches or, in this case, plays. I’m sorry, but suppressing free speech simply because it offends you doesn’t reach my standard of decency.
The theater protesters decided that they would prevent others from expressing views that they personally found objectionable. I condemn that.
On the right, there seems to be some sense that all the Trump hatred and vitriol is somehow an illegitimate expression of political opinion, simply because it’s irrational, ill-informed, stupid, vulgar, hateful, dishonest, and mean-spirited. It is all those things, but it is also protected political expression — right up until one can make a legally plausible case for incitement. That’s a high standard, as it should be: we don’t want disagreeable expression being shut down casually.
I condemn the behavior of the juvenile delinquents who violently disrupted Charles Murray’s speech at Middlebury, and I am also compelled, sadly, to condemn the non-violent but still illegal disruption of the contemptible anti-Trump performance. On the one hand, the latter disruptors are my political allies and have my sympathy. On the other, they do more harm to my cause than do the spoiled children of Middlebury.
Are you seriously claiming that it’s ok for conservatives to attack free speech because Eisenhower was a good guy? The fact that conservatives ran things 70 years ago and did pretty well at it is not an argument for contemporary conservatives to violate free speech. A lot can change in 70 years, and a lot about the conservative movement has changed in the past 70 years: sorry, you don’t get a free pass because Eisenhower.
H/t to the CloakedGaijin,
Here is your Free Speech:
No, of course that isn’t free speech. That’s the left suppressing free speech.
I admit that I’m a little confused by conservatives who seem to think that the answer to the left suppressing free speech is for the right to further suppress free speech.
Free speech for everyone. And don’t be afraid to use it.
Did someone check to make sure the people who did this aren’t leftists posing as being on the right or alt-right? I ask because I’ve heard something like that used to happen at Tea Party rallies.
Jimmy Malone had the right idea:
I think that, had the left staged it, they’d have made it sound racist and, I don’t know, anti-LGBT, rather than a simple and peaceful, if illegal, objection to leftist hate-mongering.
Given the responses I’ve had to this post from my friends on the right, I have no trouble believing that quite a few conservatives are okay with disrupting free speech when they find it offensive. I am sympathetic, in that I understand their frustration, but I still can’t agree with their justifications.
This is a reasonable point of view. Leftists do not seemed to be concerned about the disruption of free speech when the disruptions are going in one direction. If their own ox is getting gored, it’s a much better chance that they will stand up for the free speech of everybody.
Honest question on this.
There are those who think our republic is in peril (I am one). That it is under attack from those with malice in their heart. Those who have utter contempt for the Constitution. Who would silence the pulpit if they could. That uses lawfare against us. The list is endless, you get the point.
It seems to me, with the above so evident. That it fits your definition of when disruption is appropriate.
?
It’s a reasonable point of view if you think it’s okay to suppress speech with which you disagree.
Doing the wrong thing, in hopes that it will prompt others to do the right thing, seems to me a poor position for people of principle to embrace. Sorry, I’ll continue to oppose that.
Honest
and respectfulresponse here: I think that’s high-falutin rhetoric to justify shutting down speech with which we disagree. No, I don’t buy it.Here’s how I see it. Few seem willing to call out the left bluntly and openly, as I advocated doing in the original post. People are afraid for their jobs, or afraid of offending their children or their friends, or sounding like a jerk. Or they just don’t want to be political. Until we’re willing to do that, and to stop making excuses about the social cost of taking an upopular position, I can’t possibly defend going out and taking away the rights of people who are using their freedom of expression to say things I happen to dislike.
We are very far from having exhausted our means of expressing ourselves. Until that happens, until we’re no longer able to say what needs saying, we should go on saying it — and not trying to punish those with whom we disagree by trying to deprive them of their right to utter nonsense.
I would condemn that too, if it was true. Maybe some talking head said that’s what they were doing, but that doesn’t make it so.
Perhaps I’m misinformed, and you can enlighten me. Do you have information to suggest that a woman did not climb up on stage, loudly denounce the performance, and refuse to leave until she was hauled away?
Because, if not, I think I’m sensing a rationalization for excusing bad behavior, on the grounds that The Cause Is Just! And, again, that’s the left’s shtick.
Henry, I don’t have time to read all the comments but where has your idea worked? I hope others have asked this. Have they? What’s the answer?
Did you vote for Trump?
High- faluton is not respectful . One can argue the threat is not that great and I guess you did that some what. I would accept that as a reasonable position but would disagree. I am not in the shut them down camp. I am on the fence as to what is appropriate given the threat.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisconsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/breyer-says-understanding-foreign-law-is-critical-to-supreme-courts-work/2015/09/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/irs-reveals-list-of-tea-party-groups-targeted-for-/
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/14/city-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons.html
This is just a quick search example.
No, but I thought it was both amusing and apt.
Larry, my idea is to allow free speech, even when we disagree with it, and to encourage civil dialogue.
That doesn’t seem either radical or particularly daring, to me. Nor cutting edge, for that matter.
I would call it arrogant and pompous. Your response confirms it.