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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I didn't say it offended you. I said it offended crazy left wing cranks. If those cranks hadn't flipped out, we'd have all just thought Cotton's ideas were bad and ignored it.

I think you are missing an essential part of what happened, which was the outrage within the New York Times, especially on the part of black reporters and staff. That was what was really different. And the reason that they were upset was not because they were "crazy" but because Cotton was calling for military troops to suppress protests about racial inequality and police brutality, at a time when there is more than ample evidence that the police have been targeting journalists and acting lawlessly towards protesters in general but in particular blacks.

When you flippantly dismiss those concerns as "crazy", is that the sort of debate you have in mind?

Like one thousand other editorials farted onto that debased page every year.

It's a neat trick to be so dismissive of the op-ed page while similtaneously so scornful of the idea that it ought to be better.

Brietbart and Fox are not the NYTimes. They are echo chambers for fellow travelers. Crappy as it's become, the Times' oped page is supposed to be home to differing opinions read by literate sorts, thinkers, who would never watch Fox or read Breitbart.

Well, sure. So the real question is not whether Cotton has a platform, since he obviously does. The question is whether a "home to different opinions read by literate sorts" ought to publish crap like Cotton's, crap that would not get run if it were written by someone on the left -- crap that is "different" but not "literate."

Why do you think I think people on the right should not be exposed to what the left is saying? I absolutely think they should be exposed to it. I think the problem is that people on the right and left cocoon themselves and refuse to hear other voices. Siloing is rampant on both sides.

I'm going to go back and re-read your posts where you have attacked Fox and Breitbart for not giving space to the left to share their views with their readers.

OK, I'm back. That was exhausting!

Do you think the left writes good opeds? It doesn't. They're more open to facts and they tend in aggregate to be structurally and grammatically of better quality, but their ultimate statements are often childish, naive, and lately, scolding.

I think that's a stupid question. The left is too busy plotting the homosexual takeover of the Boy Scouts and binge-watching Ozark again to have time to write anything.

You simply say, "That is untrue, and here is why." Then you provide facts.

I see that you are unfamiliar with the way that the NYT op-ed page works. It famously doesn't even let its columnists respond to each other, and it certainly doesn't given room on its pages for someone who thinks Cotton is wrong to say, "That is untrue, and here is why."

The point is, the NYT op-ed page is curated, and they didn't bother with Cotton.

And if you think the left is open to debate, you're deluded. The left is a bag of orthodoxies. More rigid than the right. #Metoo, Cancel culture, BLM, Trump is a facsist and the source of all evil in the world, Russiagate... If you even question some of the motives behind these things, or the methods of those pushing these ideas, you are treated like a heretic. The left immediately seeks to silence you. And they don't hide these efforts. They admit, "We think allowing debate is dangerous." They say their ideals are so important, that to allow them to be questioned is a form of violence. You've seen it. They actually argue speech = violence.

Where do you get your information about the left? MSNBC? Breitbart? USA Today?

Granted, that's not the entire left. But it's a lot of the left today, and its the loudest of the left.

Turn the volume on your TV down, and follow different people on Twitter.

Identically, you cannot argue that the entire right is refusing to debate. A lot of the right will debate. I think Cotton would even be open to it. But a lot of the right will not, and sadly, those are the loudest voices on the right.

I'm not saying no one will, but conservatives know that Trump lies all the time, and they like it. You can't have a debate about what just happened in Lafayette Square because the White House keeps lying about the basic facts -- for example, that tear gas wasn't used, or that protesters were violent, or that the operation was planned in concert with Trump's public statement. The point of those lies is to make debate pointless. Is there any conservative who has objected to those lies, or who has criticized Trump for using law enforcement and the military to suppress peaceful protest?

I think you are biased.

I am biased, and so are you.

One can easily find tons of sensible conservative voices.

If that were true, the NYT should have had no problem finding another conservative to run instead of Cotton. They can't, because being intellectually open to competing ideas is the antithesis of how conservatism and this Administration work.

The Never Trump Camp is loaded with them.

Never Trumpers are not conservatives. They reject what conservatism has become, and are hoping they can reclaim the mantle. But conservatives will not accept them if they reject Trump.

You avoid that and selectively pit the Ezra Kleins of the world against knuckledraggers to create a false dichotomy.

You keep mentioning Ezra Klein. I haven't. Not sure who you're arguing with here.

It's just another framing of the sphere of deviancy to place ideas like Cotton's beyond the scope of debate:

Here’s the thing, though. While Cotton very deftly exploited the liberal tolerance that Sulzberger and Bennet are so proud of to get his piece published, he does not share that tolerance. The movement he represents — he is often identified as the “future of Trumpism” — is ethnocentric and authoritarian. It is about maintaining the power and status of rural and suburban white people, even as they dwindle demographically, by allying with large corporate interests and using the levers of government to entrench minority rule.

Such a movement is incommensurate with the shared premises that small-l liberals take for granted. Minority rule is incompatible with full democratic participation. A revanchist movement meant to restore power to a privileged herrenvolk cannot abide shared standards of accuracy or conduct. Will to power takes precedent over any principle.

This is the author's wholly subjective assessment about what can and cannot be tolerated as debate in the country based on his also subjective view of the country's founding ideals. He's going to herculean lengths to defend the argument, "Some things simply cannot be debated, and I and those who think as I do am able to judge and should judge that."

More or less. It's his opinion. You have one too, and yours is subjective as well. We all agree that there are some ideas that are beyond the pale, that there's a line to be drawn. There's nothing objective about those lines.

But I don't think he's saying Cotton's ideas shouldn't be debated. I think he's saying that we need more honesty about what Cotton's ideas are.