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Whilst I can identify with the sentiment in your post it's also a weird position to be in.
I don't have anything in common with Brand. He seems like an extroverted weirdo with enough self awareness and sociopathy to do some real damage on those who are more earnest and innocent in their social life. At the same time I probably have very little in common with the kinds of people Brand hangs out with. Given a lot of them are probably no sheep when it comes to malicious social games. For some reason, however, I find myself siding with the guy just because enough journalists don't like him.
I have no dog in the fight. I don't even seen much utility in guys like him espousing their rhetoric. Why do I feel like his fight is being foisted on me?
As much as I want some sort of signal out there that goes against the mainstream lunacy, I don't want to become a golem that gets animated into the opposite direction of the mainstream just because. Opposition for the sake of opposition just isn't enough. It turns you into the mirror image of a progressive like Vaush or similar where nothing matters except surfing the wave of the current media hype. I can see how obviously ridiculous people who do that look. I'd prefer not becoming one even if I feel the emotional pull to side with Brand because of who seems to be gunning for him.
The thing is that everyone has a dog in the hunt when it comes down to political persecutions, simply because it makes everyone that much less free. Letting then get away with silencing dissent simply means more and bolder suppression of dissent.
I have really come to dislike this particular framing/phrasing. If someone were to, for example, talk about how the ordinary people of North Korea "let the Kims get away with oppressing them," I imagine most people would see the problem with that. To say that Alice is "letting Bob get away with X" implies that Alice has a meaningful ability to stop Bob from doing X. But that is not always so, and is, IMO, the sort of thing that needs established first. Otherwise, it results in shifting some of the blame for a thing onto those powerless to do anything about it.
So when you talk about "[l]etting the[m] get away with silencing dissent," just who is it that you think has the power to stop "them," but isn't exercising it?
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Yep. There are tons of people I don’t like (rather agnostic about Brand — I did like him in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) that seemed to have a coordinated media smear. I hate the coordination because it suggests when the eye of Sauron turns on you (for political reasons) none can withstand. I would give the devil the benefit of the law for my own sake.
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It's a bit of a first they came for Russel Brand feeling situation I guess? Though we're well past 1st.
I think pushing back against power is just a constant. Everyone has their grand solutions for the perfect political system, but none of them actually are perfect. Eventually loopholes are found and power begins to accumulate. I don't think it's wrong to always be opposed to that and it's different from just always being contrarian. It's why people like Tucker and Brand can find common ground despite having very little in common ideologically.
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