Mark Steyn:
Julie Burchill, my old boss at The Modern Review many years ago, has a bracing column in this week’sSpeccie on the difference between the left she grew up with and the left today:
While working-class left-wing political activism was always about fighting the powerful, treating people how you would wish to be treated and believing that we’re all basically the same, modern, non-working-class left-wing politics is about… other stuff. Class guilt, sexual kinks, personal prejudice and repressed lust for power.
That’s why, as Kathy Shaidle observes here, the concept of free speech is no longer widely accepted. If you believe in “treating people how you would wish to be treated”, then it’s natural to accord them the same rights of freedom of expression that you yourself wish to exercise. But, if you believe (as I discussed with Steve Madely on the radio yesterday) that what matters is what identity group you belong to (the New Tribalism), then it’s natural to demand that members of non-approved groups should not be permitted to make their case.
Consider, for example, Brad Johnson – “Climate Brad”, who’s something to do with that group that wanted you to send Valentine cards and “carbon-offset roses” to Michael Mann. Yesterday, Climate Brad Tweeted:
Today, 110,000 citizens told
@washingtonpost to stop publishing climate lies like today’s@krauthammer oped pic.twitter.com/iM2ZO9cRVZI’m so bored by people whose only reaction to a difference of opinion is to demand you be banned. Do please click over to Brad Johnson’s accompanying photograph. It shows a fetching young pajama boy* clutching what appears to be a giant eco-condom made for First Grade Show-&-Tell using only eight cereal boxes, some Scotch tape and a bright red marker. Look, it’s even got a hashtag! Even though it’s not a Tweet but a prop he made to stand outside his office and be photographed with!
Washington Post: #Don’tPublishLies
Because everyone knows The Washington Post is just another right-wing Koch-funded denialist operation.
Wouldn’t it be easier just to sit down and demolish Krauthammer’s “lies”? An ideology that can only scream “Shut up!” sounds a wee bit insecure, don’t you think? That’s true for firebreathing mullahs whose reaction to a cartoon is to demand your beheading as it is for firebreathing climate mullahs whose reaction to a column is to demand your lifetime publication ban.