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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 entire post is about an alternative. You don’t like the alternative? Fine. But its worked for us for over 200 years so I see no reason to stop now.
I say it will, and if you believe otherwise you are giving yourself an unnecessary ulcer :) We don’t have “an entire generation steeped in feelings”. The younger people I know are actually more conservative than their parents, definitely more conservative than their parents were at their age; I don’t agree at all with your dismissal of all young people. But even if you were right, you are saying that we should address their feelings with our feelings, and that when they show us how angry they are, we should show them that we are angry too, and hopefully, in the end, we will be on the winning side and will have shown our children that might makes right? I am sorry, but I don’t see that working.
If you believe today’s society is the same as it was in 1980 or even 1945, then good for you. If you really and truly believe your political opponents share the same base of beliefs that you do, I’m happy for you. It’s your fantasy, you enjoy it.
I can’t make you see what is happening in front of your own eyes. The opposition is no longer of a mind to accept election losses and duel in the arena in another four years. This group has been plotting to overturn last year’s election by any and all means necessary from the 9th of November forward.
And if it does all fall apart, dear Brutus, shall not be in the stars, but in ourselves.
I agree with you about this. I just don’t see how shutting down free speech solves the problem.
Oh, I know it wasn’t a terrible abridgement of anyone’s right of free expension. Just a little, temporary abridgement. It galvanized the left and made us look bad, but perhaps the folks who pulled it off feel good about it. I guess that’s something.
No, I’ll stand for free speech, and hope my fellow conservatives do likewise.
What I don’t believe is that the right thing for conservatives to do is abandon what we hold most dear, just because liberals do.
The thesis of the paragraph above is that free speech is an outmoded concept. Clearly, we disagree.
I didn’t read all the comments, but I’m going to stick with this comment above. Things aren’t like they used to be. I’m concerned that the right has been neutered. It’s getting to the point where we need might, not manners.
Shall we dispense with all of the Constitution, or merely the first Amendment? What do you advocate?
Good God.
These alt-righters who decided to suppress the free speech of a theater company and the people who paid to see it, are just like the lunch counter sit-ins of the 60’s?
The right is lost. If this is the new Republican Party, it needs to fracture and another party should be formed. If this is the party’s future, it has won it’s last election.
I could care less about manners and civility. I am not be advocating that we be polite, I am saying that we cannot abandon the values America was founded on. Apparently, some seem to think that those of us who share the principles of the Founding Fathers are just a bunch of ninnies. If maintaining the principles that our forefathers fought and died for is not your main priority, then what is?
Because I don’t subscribe to your particular treatment I don’t recognize the diagnosis?
You act like we haven’t been through these sorts of things before. The 1960s immediately come to mind.
No? The Declaration of Independence may stir your soul but the thing that did the trick was the willingness to back it up with blood and bullets. We didn’t talk the British into giving us our own country, we had to take it. The Gettysburg Address, as eloquent as any speech man could ponder, wasn’t quite as effective as Sherman’s march through Georgia. Somehow neither Hitler or Hirohito were impressed by the oratory skills of Mssrs. Churchill and Roosevelt.
You can deal with this now with a little aggressiveness or deal with it later with a cost higher than you may be willing to pay.
I’m unclear. Are you saying we should start shooting people now? Or should we merely rough them up?
Or are you saying we should simply start depriving people of their constitutional liberties, as a sign of how serious we are about … constitutional liberties?
I completely reject what I think is the thrust of your comments.
@ejhill: we just won an election, big league. We have the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and the democrats are decimated at every level. Why are you so pessimistic? Because a bunch of spoiled brat losers in Berkley and NYC are toying with violence? They are losers. We should not be taking up their tactics.
Amen. I want to quote you.
Why, look. I just did.
And let me add that one can easily see in their lawlessness a desperation. It would be foolish and counter-productive — not to mention simply wrong — for us to sanction their lawlessness by echoing it. Rather, now is precisely the time to shine a light on it, and to demonstrate, by contrast, how unworthy the far left is to govern.
Happy Father’s Day, my fellow responsible conservatives (and the rest of you as well). I’ll see you tomorrow.
;)
You can not maintain these precious principles without having the will to fight for them. The progressive Marxists are not interested in your principles but are more than happy to let you live the live the life of a quiet, well mannered slave.
And don’t kid yourself that your political enemies are too small in number not to be a threat. To these people Bill Clinton is a squish!
Most of us hope not to live to see the day when we will no longer “look bad” to the left.
Well, thank you. That is progress. And when you do decide to take that stand, we’ll have your back.
Haha! Is your flavor of constitutional monarchy an idealization of the commonwealth realms? Then you’re allowed! And even if it isn’t, you’re allowed!
Now, if we had someone willing to defend variations on the Prussian style of monarchy, that would be even interestinger… Ah:
I thought the shooting was in Washington D.C.
We know this; the willingness to fight is not what is in dispute here. Whether we should be showing up at riots in Berkley with sticks is in dispute; also, whether we should be shutting down free speech.
Do you plan on showing up in Berkley with a stick, or will you leave that to others?
And what the hell are “we” doing with it? Entertaining their witch hunt in Congress to the detriment of passing legislation, reforming the tax code and eliminating Obamacare. Why? Because too many of “us” are cowering under our desks, bending over backwards to show our enemies how “reasonable” we are by actively helping them undermine the president and propping up the biggest government power grab in a generation because if we don’t the media will call us “meanies.”
One liberal shoots people and you want to shut down free speech? How are you different from those who want to take away our guns?
No, but if they show up on my street my .9mm will be my stick.
Did you notice that there was no lawlessness at the assassination theater, except after Laura Loomer was evicted and refused to leave the area? Then she was arrested.
Ok, I get it, but how does going to war with thugs in Berkley solve this? How does shutting down free speech solve this? We should be screaming bloody murder at Republican politicians: forget about the actors and the thugs. They have no real power.
You keep saying that I want to shut down free speech. While you’re making false claims why don’t you say I want to take away your guns, too? And also kill all kittens and puppies?
You seem to know a lot about what the rest of us believe and want. I’m over your lectures. I await news reports of you putting your money where your mouth is. I hear there will be a another ballgame next year, the Democrats practice one field over from the Republicans.
Sure we did. How is that working out for you? A President that is going to be impeached as soon as the multiple investigations can trump up enough to hang him with. The President’s people are going to be investigated to they are impoverished and some jailed for process crimes. No legislation of note in the works nor likely to be. A Middle East in flames and a Korean Peninsula about to go back to a hot war after decades of peace. A President that can not even get the same Executive Orders as his predecessor enacted or fire one government bureaucrat without a scandal. The Presidents mere existence cause riots in the streets and thespians to perform assassinations. If this is winning big league I would hate to see winning little league or even losing.