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The fastest woman swimmer is a man. And no one who makes a living in the public eye can say out loud “Goddamn that’s fucked up”. That’s where we are.

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I find it amusing that the NYT has an official op-ed section. Isn’t all their stuff op-ed?!

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The past 5 years have been such a redpill moment for non-democrats regarding the media and the deep state. I truly don't trust the MSM to get the sports scores right any more, and if there is a political angle to any story my fake news antennae go up if the story sounds too good to be true.

I would also echo Glen Greenwald's point that if Big Tech is ideologically censoring content based on threats of regulatory reprisal, then it truly is a free speech issue and the government can't be let off the hook just because they managed to launder it by using the private sector.

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I don’t know why but I continue to be flabbergasted that people who claim to be on the Left, the idiots like Froomkin shrieking about this tepid Times editorial, don’t seem to be aware that what they are calling for is the replacement of journalism with propaganda. They don’t oppose authoritarianism; they’re drunk on the idea. They just want to be the ones with the authority.

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If only the Left had taken Camus' suggestion to heart 60-some years ago: "We must admit that today conformity is on the Left. To be sure, the Right is not brilliant. But the Left is in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable merely of stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with truth, from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws. The Left is schizophrenic and needs doctoring through pitiless self-criticism, exercise of the heart, close reasoning, and a little modesty."

— Albert Camus, "Socialism of the Gallows"

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The left is falling all over itself to see who can be the most ludicrous cancel maven in the land--every day the list of the canceled becomes longer, now stretching back centuries to include perfectly innocent Russian composers.

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Mar 22, 2022·edited Mar 22, 2022

The moment I hear them all squawking, hooting, and hollering is the moment I know someone hit the "Truth" button. The only logical reaction is to bury my head in the sand until all the gobbledeegook settles down. I wonder how many of those turkeys read past the headline ... or maybe they just like reading at their own pace?

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The Brooklyn Orthodox keep throwing this tantrum because one of their foundational beliefs (both on the political and personal level) is that THEY are the cool ones--they watch Drag Race and listen to Cardi B and are open to exotic cuisine, etc.--there's no possible way that they could have become dreary puritanical opponents of free speech, free thought, freedom of expression and association--that's for rednecks and Republicans. Cmon, they're LIBERALS, it says so in the name.

Their refusal to face the truth reminds me of when a junkie or drunk first sits down at his intervention--"It's not that bad! I only did that a few times! I'm gonna quit, I swear!" Nothing makes people angrier than when you hold a mirror up to their face, or when you try to make them take responsibility for their actions.

The truth hurts because it destroys a belief: not in itself. (Nietzsche)

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Oh yay, the NYT speaks up - pass the beer nuts, my ecstasy cannot be contained - joy abounds (sigh).

The NYT has about as much authority as "Dick" Vernon from the Breakfast Club - somewhere in the depths of the editorial board room some scribe is saying "you mess with bullshit, you get the horns."

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There's the "free speech" right enshrined in the US Constitution, and then there's the more cultural notion of "free speech" – the ideal that we live among people who are content with arguing with you about what you have said rather than trying to ruin you for saying it.

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These people remind me of Victorian aristocrats, the "reformers" who assumed the mantle of edifying proles without having the slightest clue of what reality looked like at ground level.

Now it's self-appointed moral gatekeepers like our dear Mr. Watson here who believe we plebians must be punished and anathematized if we dare to dissent.

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As long as they're making sure nobody is talking about who's on the take and where all the wealth is going, no amount of sanctimony is too much

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"The underlying premise of all these formats is the conviction that the ordinary schlub media consumer will make the wrong decision if the correct message isn’t hammered out everywhere for him or her in all caps by mental superiors. This idea isn’t just insulting but usually incorrect, like thinking Lord Haw Haw broadcasts would make English soldiers bayonet each other rather than laugh or fight harder. Even just on the level of commercial self-preservation, one would think media people would eventually realize there’s a limit to how many times you can tell people they’re too dumb to be trusted with controversial ideas, and still keep any audience. But they never do."

I think what's missing here is the actual intended audience for these "contextualizations" and anxieties over allowing people to be misled. Ostensibly, the audience is as you say: the poor everymen and -women out there who will read something out there and might draw a conclusion other than the one the elite gatekeepers, tastemakers, and rightthinkers agree is the correct one.

However, that's not really what's going on. These are performances by these elites for *each other*. They're not thinking "if I just condescend a *little* bit more, I'll win some extra support from the middle or the right as they now clearly understand the rightness of my position." They are thinking "I need to make sure none of my fellow progressives pillory me for being insufficiently explicit in my awareness of and obeisance to the orthodoxy."

Is it any wonder, then, that they are persuading no one but themselves? They're not even trying to persuade anyone else of anything else. The idea that they are is window dressing.

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My God, I had no idea who Adam Davidson was until now...writer for New Yorker.

What a drama queen! He also tweeted in recent days for examples of cancel culture because, no, he doesn't think it exists...talk about epistemic closure.

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We're not talking about shamming or shunning only, we're talking about people losing their jobs/careers for having an opinion that is not liberal orthodoxy. When did we start demanding an end to your career for having an offensive opinion? And where does it end?

Expelling heterodox views, even jf unsavory, is fascist and un-american. I don't want to live in a country where liberal orthodoxy is enforced militantly. Whenever I hear a liberal say the word diversity, I automatically ask myself if they would accept someone with a maga hat into the fold under the guise of diversity. It's a good barometer.

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When was the last time people advocating censorship, non-personing, mandatory injections, and/or compulsory symbolic gestures were the "good guys?"

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