In my last post about the killing of Charlie Kirk I said I’d written as much as I wanted to about him and he would now take up zero amounts of my emotional energy going forward.
Yes, yes, yes, Nate. I have said in several of my own community’s rather unsettling posts that some call the topics that Kirk spoke about “controversial” - when we not so long ago would mostly have agreed these topics are simply racist, homophobic or misogynistic, for example.
Adding to this overall issue, of course, is the push of “both-sidesism” in discourse, media reporting, etc. There was a time when we understood that just because someone had an opinion that was socially understood to be hateful, harmful, unsupported, and so on, it didn’t mean it needed to be heard or explored and definitely not invited in on large platforms just to try to show we were “fair and open-minded”. Some boundaries and some standards are worthy of holding on to.
Speaking of normative values, the Federal Communications Commission used to have a Fairness Doctrine that dictated balanced reporting by the broadcasters they regulated. Ronald Reagan gutted that dictate. Large media concentration has now left us wallowing in self serving right wing diatribes about anything other than the essential fact that billionaires are opening screwing our prospects 24/7.
So pervasive is the sour discourse that in the Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union address, the speaker spoke admirably of, get this, Ronald Reagan.
I bring this up because charlatans and their crusades have multiplied like invasive weeds ever since the abandonment of any regulation protecting fairness.
Don't you know, when We do it, it's only self-defense, a response to outrageous provocation, or at worst a measured and justified preemptive strike.
When they do it, it's pure hate and aggression.
That applies, regardless of your tribe. Less than a year ago, the right were bewailing cancel culture and championing freedom of speech. Now they are demanding censorship and that anyone not sufficiently reverent towards St. Charlie be fired. Were the left to have the whip hand, they'd be doing the same, but with a different friend/victim - enemy/oppressor distinction.
Anyway, start liking it. As the middle class is picked clean and discarded like the poors were, as every would be savior proves to be a self-serving fraud, as the United States starts to resemble Brazil (albeit with less attractive women and a more hyperbellgerent foreign policy), we will only see more and more young men lashing out in all kinds of wild ways.
Yes, yes, yes, Nate. I have said in several of my own community’s rather unsettling posts that some call the topics that Kirk spoke about “controversial” - when we not so long ago would mostly have agreed these topics are simply racist, homophobic or misogynistic, for example.
Adding to this overall issue, of course, is the push of “both-sidesism” in discourse, media reporting, etc. There was a time when we understood that just because someone had an opinion that was socially understood to be hateful, harmful, unsupported, and so on, it didn’t mean it needed to be heard or explored and definitely not invited in on large platforms just to try to show we were “fair and open-minded”. Some boundaries and some standards are worthy of holding on to.
Thanks. Absolutely right
Speaking of normative values, the Federal Communications Commission used to have a Fairness Doctrine that dictated balanced reporting by the broadcasters they regulated. Ronald Reagan gutted that dictate. Large media concentration has now left us wallowing in self serving right wing diatribes about anything other than the essential fact that billionaires are opening screwing our prospects 24/7.
So pervasive is the sour discourse that in the Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union address, the speaker spoke admirably of, get this, Ronald Reagan.
I bring this up because charlatans and their crusades have multiplied like invasive weeds ever since the abandonment of any regulation protecting fairness.
Don't you know, when We do it, it's only self-defense, a response to outrageous provocation, or at worst a measured and justified preemptive strike.
When they do it, it's pure hate and aggression.
That applies, regardless of your tribe. Less than a year ago, the right were bewailing cancel culture and championing freedom of speech. Now they are demanding censorship and that anyone not sufficiently reverent towards St. Charlie be fired. Were the left to have the whip hand, they'd be doing the same, but with a different friend/victim - enemy/oppressor distinction.
Anyway, start liking it. As the middle class is picked clean and discarded like the poors were, as every would be savior proves to be a self-serving fraud, as the United States starts to resemble Brazil (albeit with less attractive women and a more hyperbellgerent foreign policy), we will only see more and more young men lashing out in all kinds of wild ways.
Hear what you're saying but personally never been convinced that cancelling a fascist is the same as cancelling an anti fascist
friend/victim - enemy/oppressor