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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
Actually, a very strong moral case can be made for de-platforming Alex Jones from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube…so you may not want to go there. In one of his latest conspiracy theory tirades, he’s accused Robert Mueller of being part of a child sex ring – which if baseless…(I mean what are the odds?) is essentially a defamation lawsuit in the offing – and then Jones followed up that accusation with a threatening statement:
Or to say it conversely, one might even say that it’s immoral and unethical to keep Jones on these particular social media platforms. Personally, I think FB, YT, and Twitter did the right thing in Mr. Jones’ case. I also think we have to be careful and thoughtful about for whom we choose to die on a hill. I think Dennis Prager and James Woods and others are right to complain and push back with whatever public support they can muster. That said, they don’t have a constitutional right to be on these sites. And please don’t trot out 47 U.S.C. § 230, a Provision of the Communication Decency Act because there’s absolutely nothing in it that restricts these social media sites from de-platforming any subscriber for any reason. Read my Comments #47, #50, #58, #61, and #67 on my brother Doug’s post earlier this month.
I keep hoping that on Thursday regarding Kavanaugh’s attackers, someone in the Senate will be able to summon the courage to state: “Have you no shame!”
I was thinking exactly the same thing. And see how many lefties are willing to acknowledge the reference.
That’s a bit of a straw man. Most people who disliked Moore had lots of reasons. Again, pretty easy to answer EJ’s question about why he wasn’t “a hill to die on.“
FIFY
Y’all aren’t willing to get bloody.
In fairness to Drew, I did, in several comments prior to this one. So Drew isn’t moving the goalposts.
I stand by my claim that a private group disinviting somebody from their party is not censorship. But in the end that’s arguing about semantics. The real question is: what do we intend to do about it? We all agree, including Drew, that we (and/or the government) shouldn’t force Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites to host members they don’t want to have.
But then what options are left to keep this “censorship” at bay? Boycott Facebook and Twitter? Sounds great. In fact, I’ve been doing that since they first came out. But that’s the type of libertarian response that a lot of people here seem to find too limp-wristed. But what other options are available other than writing strongly-worded comments on a website almost nobody reads?
I’m genuinely curious about how you define “getting bloody” in practical terms.
I truly don’t know what that means in this day and age. But it seems like many people define “getting bloody” as “taking a hard stance on an issue on social media”, which to me seems to be the exact opposite of getting bloody.
They claim to be platforms, not publishers. The model typically used is the phone company. But the phone company doesn’t refuse you a phone if you’re a conspiracy nut, and doesn’t shut off phone calls if you talk about them. These sites are exercising editorial control over every word published on their sites. They are clearing acting as publishers.
My suggestion is to require them to live by publisher rules, or stop exercising the control. That would mean they were legally liable for every word on the site, and would probably be looking at millions of nuisance lawsuits per year.
People have the right and ability to block people they find offensive, so I say the solution is to actually be a platform, Wild West style.
In 1832, Carl von Clausewitz noted an uncomfortable but undeniable truth: “We see, therefore, that war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means. What remains peculiar to war is simply the peculiar nature of its means.” Ignore him at your peril.
The left’s tactics of personal destruction and violent confrontation (as recently seen with their hounding of Ted Cruz out of a restaurant) are establishing a dangerous precedent. If the GOP gives in to the assault on Kavanaugh, expect more of that.
I expect we’ll get more either way. If it works, because it works, and if not, because they didn’t go far enough.
Good point. The Rubicon may have already been crossed.
Willing to take some hits. That is literally what being an “umpire” is about. Being outside the fight and making judgements about the actions of opposing sides. It’s a form of pacifism I find, um…unattractve (actually, I find all pacifism unattractive), if not unmanly.
The Left is willing to do anything for their cause, up to and including violence. Many of our politicians won’t even say, “I believe Kavanaugh and not the Democrats’ political operative, and I wouldn’t consider drunken high school sexploits disqualifying even if there was a scintilla of truth to the allegations.”
Someone might say something mean and untrue about them in the NYTs. Duh, like that won’t happen anyway. Wouldn’t want to risk reelection chances.
Right. But those allegations fit into a pattern of known behavior and statements, which lends them credence.
As far as political bias … sure. I mean that’s one of those things conservative always fall back on to cry about when a source is inconvenient, so the claim kinda falls flat for me.
For what it’s worth the Wikipedia strives against political bias and shading. It’s intended to be written in a neutral way. There are extensive discussions that you can look at about the edits that are made to articles.
And it’s not like there isn’t a similar page of sexual misconduct allegations against Bill Clinton, because there totally is.
They say the same thing about conservatives, by the way. Considering the number of conservatives who have twisted themselves into knots in the last two years to rationalize supporting Donald Trump, their case seems stronger at the moment.
I mean, it was less than a year ago that Democrats brought down one of their own, Al Franken, for what in comparison seems like mild allegations.
For the umpteenth time. Locker room talk that was true. He didn’t say he grabbed women by their pussy, he said there are women who will let the rich and famous grab them by the pussy. Unlike say Clinton who actually raped. Or Kennedy who killed one, and made “waitress sandwiches” with another drunken Senator.
We finally have a Potus who puts America first and foremost, who will fight for us, who isn’t cowed by the media. He ain’t perfect, but i’ll take him.
You go back to playing patty cake while the Progressives destroy us.
BTW, the left is noticing that fighting dirty may work.
I see, so when he said “I did try and f*** her. She was married,” was that also hypothetical?
When he said “I moved on her like a b****. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” that also wasn’t an admission?
unfortunately, the law is poorly written. there is no clear requirement that it be an all or nothing proposition. Thus Facebook and Twitter take the position that they can choose to censor certain publications while still enjoying the law’s protections regarding those they do not censor.
Post a link.
That’s a mischaracterization and highlights the situation we face. Violence against whom? At the time there had been a series of violent leftist attacks outside Trump events and disruptions inside. State and local authorities utterly failed to respond to these with any deterrent effect. In fact in many cases they encouraged these. Trump’s free-speech rights and his supporters’ safety were not hills that domesticated Republicans were willing to die on.
That failure has brought us to this:
https://dailycaller.com/2018/09/24/ted-cruz-protested-dc-restaurant/
Neither of those statements say or imply “against her will”.
Trial by Combat. It has been the method since the days of Gingrich, at least.
They brought down Franken because it was in the midst of the Alabama senate race and they had bigger targets in mind. They knew Franken would be replaced with another D, while they had a chance to flip the Alabama seat if they got Moore. Al was collateral damage.
I’m thrilled that, at age 64, I can still be considered “middle-aged.”
That’s the long way ‘round saying “No. There are no principles I will fight for at stake here. As long as it’s done by private citizens, they can burn him at the stake.“
That might make sense as a conspiracy theory if senate seniority rules didn’t exist.
Sounds good to me.
Sure.
Here’s the transcript (um, language warning, obviously). And here’s the video.
So when he said “I did try and f*** her. She was married,” was that also hypothetical?
When he said “I moved on her like a b****. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” that also wasn’t an admission?
Good to know I am part of the Republican elite cause I’m not defending Roy Moore and definitely not defending Alex Jones from being kicked off a private platform. The link to those two guys and the slanderous attacks on Kavanaugh is reeeeeaaaaallly a stretch.