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I read something today which I have long thought deep down, but hadn’t really seen spelled out elsewhere.
Namely, the censoring done by the liberal left, while there, is rather mild in the scheme of things and is probably much less than the same left would be censored by the people it currently censors if that group was in power.
The quote that brought it to my mind was from here, on Richard Hannania’s substack. After a post discussing being banned by Twitter, he drops this at the end of the article.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/saying-goodbye-to-twitter
The attitude of censoring opponents seemed to have crystallized for the left around 2016, where I distinctly remember the conversation centering around the limits of tolerating intolerant ideologies. (Which seems to have become fully settled by now, interesting to observe an ideological movement update in real time in that way).
Does Hannania have a point here? Is the issue that the right takes offense with censorship itself, or would the right if it actually gained back power censor in a much more strict and comprehensive way?
He's mostly correct. It annoys me to see tech leaders hauled before Congress to get lectured about what a nice platform they have except for all that excessive free speech, and how bad it would be for something to happen to it if they don't fix the excesses themselves ... but isn't essentially the story behind the Hays Code? The Comics Code? The Hollywood Blacklist?? I suspect that most current "supporters" of free speech are just fair-weather friends who would be more than happy to reverse their support and double their zeal, if only they were the ones in charge.
But the other reason I have that sad suspicion about much of the right is simple induction from the sad certainty about the reversal much of the left has already made. It was so much nicer when I innocently assumed that everybody opposed the Hollywood Blacklist because we were all actually pro-free-speech and anti-blacklist, not pro-Communist. To be fair to the right, their future betrayal is still merely hypothetical. Maybe it's not just wishful thinking to imagine that some actually learned something.
Isaac Asimov character, "Robots and Empire"
I think the problem is it comes down to the amount of people being censored. The lefts desire seems to be to want to censor 50% of the population maybe more. I don’t believe this is the same as communists which was a small part of the population. We were also at war with communists at the time. Actual shooting war almost the entire time. And it’s an I’ll ideology that’s has proven itself to be disastrous to mankind.
The problem today is now 50% of the population wants to censor the other 50% of the population and now EVERYTHING is literally fighting Nazis. I think the difference is sometimes you are actually literally fighting Nazis (and I include communists in this too) and sometimes you are fighting people debating scientific papers (masks, vaccine studies) and equating these people as being the equivalent of literally Hitler. We all agree with murdering and censoring Hitler. The difference today is everyone who disagrees with you literally Hitler because they looked at some studies and don’t think there is a reason for them to wear a masks?
Consensus-building?
For actual Hitler, deposing (or assassinating maybe) before he starts the war, certainly a targeted strike after he starts it, and strong and vigorous argumentation against as soon as his strugglefesto gets published?
Sure that’s consensus building. Point I was making similar to Hannania is everyone (almost everyone believes) in some repression of a great bad. Hitler I’m assuming to 98% of Americans is that great bad. The comic book villain whose sole pleasure of tormenting humans. And the closest real example of someone with near universal support as the great bad.
Sure most great bads actually have large support basis. Darth Maul ended up being the defender of planets being abused by the Capitol and the Star Wars cartoons and sort of a good guy.
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