Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Relevant!

Matthew Yglesias, on Ezra Levant Jonah Goldberg:
He's a steadfast supporter of the political party representing the dominant ethnocultural group in the United States, the party that supports torture and unlimited surveillance, the party that supports a larger and more aggressively employed military, the party that supports a more punitive criminal justice system at home, the party whose backers are prone to fretting about low birthrates, the need to police gender roles more rigidly, etc.
Not-very-much-shorter Conservative Blogosphere: Respecting religious traditions is so important that gays cannot possibly be allowed important legal rights like marriage, nor can women be allowed to choose the fates of their bodies, but religious respect is so unimportant that Ezra Levant cannot possibly be asked to spend an afternoon answering questions in a meeting room after deliberately seeking to offend the religion of hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

Oh wait. It's wrong to offend Christians, but practically required to offend Muslims at this point, isn't it?

And this comment from Ron kind of summed up the problem:
Would you be so willing to accept this sort of tribunal if it was establised to ensure right-wing ideology was imposed on the unwilling?
Is the right now openly calling basic respect "left wing ideology"? Sure seems like it.

5 comments:

rabbit said...

The irony here is that you accuse "right wingers" of being selective about whose rights they defend.

Why don't you show them how it's done and actually defend the rights of right-wingers, instead of just mimicing them?

John McGrath said...

I've never recognized the right to be a dick on a public scale without the risk of someone resorting to non-violent, legal recourse. Because, uh, that right doesn't exist.

rabbit said...

The right to "be a dick" is precisely what freedom of speech is about. Inoffensive speech doesn't need protection.

john said...

Yes, and when you do it in a public place you put yourself in the position of being sued, or if you do it sufficiently egregiously, charged with a crime (depending on the dickery.)

There's no such thing, and never has been, as total and complete freedom of the press. Whingeing for a day that never was just makes you look pathetic.

rabbit said...

There never has been complete freedom, but what egregious crime did Ezra commit? He ran some cartoons which critized radical Islam.

I will never understand people who take such joy in shutting others up. The freedom to speak one's mind is life itself.