Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Ken and John both identify problems with the Harper's letter, which is fine, but I think that John does a better job of identifying the problems caused by people arguing in bad faith than Ken does, perhaps because he is a philosopher and Ken is a lawyer. Focusing on the First Amendment gets in the way when you are thinking about how the marketplace of ideas is working when the government is not involved.
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I actually like the thread Adder offered. I have no problem with flagging the liars who call for an end to cancel culture while also trying to ban flag burning or have BLM protestors jailed as terrorists.
But I wouldn’t cancel them. I’d expose their hypocrisies. As loads of media outlets do every day!
But here’s where the thread is weak. The authors of the Harper’s piece are not such hypocrites. They are largely liberals who agree with me in the assessment that a person crying for a flag burning amendment while decrying cancel culture is demented and dangerous.
The problem is, those people cannot be cancelled. Their audience likes their hypocrisy. When the Twitter mob demands blood, in the absence of an ability to harm that enemy it instead satisfies itself with the sacrifice of some poor liberal or moderate editor or writer.
In other words, the thread makes a good point, but one of little practical application.
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