Building Ideology: Popehat

The "eye for an eye" theory of respecting free speech is particularly pernicious because it represents the worst sort of collectivism, something the principled Right ought reject. Note that people who say "apply the Liberals' own rules to the Liberals" aren't disrupting, say, an Antifa rally or the meeting of some Berkeley student group that advocated shutting down a conservative speaker. They're disrupting other people entirely, on the theory that everyone they deem part of the nebulous collective "Liberal" deserves to be silenced because someone else in that nebulous collective engaged in silencing behavior. The actors and playgoers in New York, under this theory, deserve to be shut down because they stand responsible for the acts of all "liberals" everywhere. (The suggestion that anyone going to see Julius Ceasar must be a liberal does not reflect a very healthy self-image amongst the Right.) This closely resembles the logic of hecklers on college campuses, who argue that nearly any conservative speaker stands responsible for Klansmen and neo-Nazis and overt bigots everywhere. It's contemptible and can be used to justify doing nearly anything to nearly anyone. It's the sentiment behind saying American Muslims may fairly be oppressed because Christians are oppressed in Saudi Arabia — even while celebrating our nation having greater freedoms than Saudi Arabia.

And yet, the "we're just applying their rules to them" theory has some heft. It's not because of the nasty, disruptive little totalitarians themselves.

Antifa scum and pseudo-educated campus thugs are not legitimate foundation for any adult's philosophy. No, the bit of plausibility comes from the reaction of people in authority, people who ought to know better, people whose conduct is somewhat more fairly attributed to a larger political groups. A few hysterically censorious kids screaming for a professor's termination for crimethink do not threaten the foundations of free speech, but Yale lauding them does. Relatively few thugs disrupting a speech and even physically assaulting a professor don't call into question the culture's support for free speech, but Middlebury offering weak slaps on the wrist and shrugs for that violent behavior does. A violent mob in Berkeley does not undermine the legitimacy of free speech doctrine — a mob is a mob — but Berkeley's timorousness or indifference in the face of violent censorship does. Students furious at a professor disagreeing with them don't call into question the nation's commitment to freedom, but state officials refusing to guarantee a professor's safety do. In short: the regrettable behavior of officials who have failed to stand up to disruption of speech are the people most responsible for legitimizing further disruptions of speech, whoever commits them.

But we can, and should, do better. Commitment to free speech as an American value — as an element of American exceptionalism — has always required tolerating evil and injustice and idiocy. We don't refrain from disrupting speech because the speakers deserve it, or because we've been treated fairly by the speakers or their allies. We refrain from disruption — and ought to punish those who disrupt — because free speech is the necessary prerequisite of a society based on individual rights and freedoms. It's the right that's the gateway to all other rights. Shrugging and abandoning it as a value is an abandonment of our commitment to all rights.

Counterpoint: the only way low-IQ sub-humans are going to learn the consequences of their actions is by turnabout.

We can pretend to take the high road all we like but that is not going to change the nature of r-strategists who need instant amygdala relief.

It's like dealing with a yappy dog: you don't try to reason with it, you don't tolerate it, when it acts out you smack it on the nose until it learns to stop.

>>130469774
/thread

>>130469774
Counter point: Have you seen most people? They're pretty dumb. If we could do that to their numbers, they're probably capable of doing the same in turn. So maybe we should act in according to good moral principles and example: Doing what we know is right, and adopting a code of behavior that reflects that and that incentivizes our way.

>>130471408

>If we could do that to their numbers, they're probably capable of doing the same in turn.

Have you seen the average r-strategist when the object of their hatred fights back? They don't want confrontation, they are only emboldened to act when they know there will be no consequences.

Fuck Popehat. For straight legal analysis, he's okay; not the greatest, but okay. But on anything that touches politics, he's a straight-ticket, POS liberal, no deviation from the party line; rather, much glee in enforcing the party line with snark and high sarcasm. While pretending to be evenhanded (and probably fancying, in his own mind, that he really *is* evenhanded) (much like he pretends his nom de guerre, Popehat, is not anti-Catholic; right, Popehat; I'm *sure* you'd be okay with a blogger who called himself "Kikehat" and said "Oh, me, of course I'm not anti-semitic!").

If the shoe were on the other foot in the Julius Caesar case - if there were multiple performances of a play that showed an Obama lookalike being assassinated night after night in NYC - I promise you that "Popehat" would find a way to apply his "rule" differently. (Note that his commentary about the rodeo rider who wore an Obama mask does *not* present an analogous case; nobody on the right has tried to shut down mockery per se of Trump; we give as good as we get on that front; it's the liberals who shut-the-fuck-down the harmless mockery of the rodeo guy, and got him fired; and I didn't see Popehat offering to defend him pro bono, either.)

>>130473698
How is Popehat anti-Catholic?

Also, reminders that 4-chan is a Protestant board.