I believe child pornography is bad. I believe racism is bad. I believe pederasty is bad.OK but that's actually not at all true. The true test is how hard one fights to prevent *prohibition* of ideas or thoughts one opposes.
— Ari Cohn (@AriCohn) November 8, 2021
Free speech/inquiry do not require treating all ideas as equally valid, or "creating space" for them. Some ideas lose; that's not a bad thing. pic.twitter.com/KXsRhr7nUq
Do I need to allow defenses of those evils to be aired? Should there be an open apologia for adults forcing themselves on children, and using that for the entertainment of others? Is there a defense of racism you wish to raise?
I would not try to prohibit those ideas. Ideas cannot be prohibited. They are immortal, invisible, and bulletproof. I have to give them enough space to present my argument for why they are evil, but I don’t have to give them free rein to be considered valid or even validated. If the views of NAMBLA and white supremacists need to be aired, it is only to provide the best evidence for how evil they are.
Greenways, as usual, is straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
The beginning of wisdom may be the fear of God, a good second step is to figure anything Greenwald says is badly reasoned, badly to totally unsupported and said for a totally dishonest and self-serving reason.
ReplyDeleteI think there are ideas so well proven to produce murder, slavery and violence that their suppression, condemnation and marginalization of those who hold them are entirely justified and the only sanely responsible attitude to take toward them. While the ideas may be there like the deluded thinking of the otherwise seriously mentally ill, they can be stripped of their political and social potency by that kind of suppression. White supremacy, racism, antisemitism, class oppression, the misconceieved of "rights" to the lives and labor and living of those targeted by those which the privilege which is the real motive of all of those evils are also as deserving of discreting and suppression.
It's complicated but no more complicated and difficult and dangerous as the mischaracterization of a right to repeat some pretty horrible history and present into all of the future is more dangerous becuase they will find a way to do that and, perhpas, worse.