Letter in Harpers: Some liberars "get" it

[WillBrink]

An important letter from a long list of liberal names of note. There's a rift happening among liberals and progressives, which is not the same thing. One and all, dislike Trump and the ilk, but understand the threat to free speech taking place as an even larger threat:

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

July 7, 2020
The below letter will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at letters@harpers.org

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters.

Cont:

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-just...d-open-debate/

[Averageman]

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters.

I appreciate that they appear to "get it", but the nature of some of those statements is grossly oversimplified.
BLM doesn't want equality, because they are already greater than equal when it comes to opportunity in the United States. Opportunity for education and employment already have the scales tilted in their favor.
I see this totally different, they are living in a delusion, they want the cheese, they just don't want to put in the work to get the cheese, they want it handed to them.
The idea that when Law Enforcement engages them in conversation that it has already become a race issue is ridiculous. That physical resistance to arrest isn't a contact sport that often involves physical injuries and death is the same regardless of your melanin content.
African Americans are angry, but they should be angry that they allowed their culture to fail. When Fathers left the home never to return because Johnson's "Great Society" allowed the Democratic Party to hold them forever on a totally new Plantation.

[BoringGuy45]

I don't know if they "get it" or if it's just them demanding that THEY should keep their free speech, but the right should still be subject to censorship.

[THCDDM4]

I don't know if they "get it" or if it's just them demanding that THEY should keep their free speech, but the right should still be subject to censorship.

Yep, that's the gist of the article from my perception-

"Don't lump us in with those terrible right wing extremists, they are bad, we are good, don't take away our ability to have an opinion...by the way did I mention that the right wing is evil, how about one more time, those right wingers are bad, but not us liberals so, yeah..."

[sgtrock82]

The writer still is doing everything he can to degredate those on the opposite side of the issue. Statements like "....of course we expect this intolerance on the right...." is plainly dishonest, convenient for their already over taxed brain.

Eff their supposed understanding, I look foward to hear about the writer being devoured by his friends in a virtue signal feeding frenzy



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[WillBrink]

I appreciate that they appear to "get it", but the nature of some of those statements is grossly oversimplified.
BLM doesn't want equality, because they are already greater than equal when it comes to opportunity in the United States. Opportunity for education and employment already have the scales tilted in their favor.
I see this totally different, they are living in a delusion, they want the cheese, they just don't want to put in the work to get the cheese, they want it handed to them.
The idea that when Law Enforcement engages them in conversation that it has already become a race issue is ridiculous. That physical resistance to arrest isn't a contact sport that often involves physical injuries and death is the same regardless of your melanin content.
African Americans are angry, but they should be angry that they allowed their culture to fail. When Fathers left the home never to return because Johnson's "Great Society" allowed the Democratic Party to hold them forever on a totally new Plantation.

All good points. I guess I mean they "get it" compared the raving loons from the progressives who are now dominating the narrative and now that they're being censored by those progressives, they're waking up a bit. I think we have to read between the lines a bit, but it does suggest per my prior post, there's rift getting larger between the more classic old school liberal types and the modern progressives.

[Averageman]

All good points. I guess I mean they "get it" compared the raving loons from the progressives who are now dominating the narrative and now that they're being censored by those progressives, they're waking up a bit. I think we have to read between the lines a bit, but it does suggest per my prior post, there's rift getting larger between the more classic old school liberal types and the modern progressives.

The rift is violence and destruction.
They've come to the realization that they have, for all their good intentions, turned loose a monster that intends to destroy them.
Imagine the audacity of the realization when these folks break down your gate, threaten you, your home and your dog, etc. That's quite a moment of clarity for some Liberals who have spent no small amount of time keeping these same folks out of jail.
I guess they got "Woke" on the other side of the bed that day.

Outside of the Military, the above pretty much sums up my experience with race relations in America.
I don't hate Black People, hell I was married to a Black Woman and our Son who is caught up in the Covid/College/Quarantine drama right now and he's living at home again.
I do however hate certain segments of Black Culture and I am pretty sure, these folks hate me on sight. That's okay, I don't care.

[Hank6046]

I don't know if they "get it" or if it's just them demanding that THEY should keep their free speech, but the right should still be subject to censorship.

Agreed. They want to have their cake and eat it to. They point to the rationality of their argument however, they point to the right with the same rationality and tell us that they've set the morality benchmark, and that the right has passed this somehow.

[Averageman]

Agreed. They want to have their cake and eat it to. They point to the rationality of their argument however, they point to the right with the same rationality and tell us that they've set the morality benchmark, and that the right has passed this somehow.

I hope you watched the video.
The liberals don't want to have "Their Cake and eat it too", they want the cake from the Conservative Middle Class and divide it up among others they deserve to be more deserving of Your property, rights and well being.
They are pretty quick to judge you based open where you were born, your age and the color of your skin, pretty much just the opposite of everything MLK ever said.
That their isn't systemic racism among Black people is an outright lie and it is a lie the Socialist/Progressive movement wants you to believe.

[Hank6046]

They are pretty quick to judge you based open where you were born, your age and the color of your skin, pretty much just the opposite of everything MLK ever said.
That their isn't systemic racism among Black people is an outright lie and it is a lie the Socialist/Progressive movement wants you to believe.

I didn't watch the video, I'm at work and I can't play youtube on the network. I completely agree, MLK actually fought to build a better nation, a better republic, and a better America. The movements we've seen want communism, and want equal outcome, not equal opportunity.