Short Review: The New York Times Editorial On Threats to Free Speech

Be warned, free speech will be deployed in this review

In case you have not seen it, here it is:

(honestly, the link came up messed up and I don’t even care enough to try to fix it because it’s so fucking stupid)

The review as follows:

This editorial is the dumbest piece of shit ever published in the New York Times.

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About Clever Name Here dba "Black Rod" 106 Articles
Vell, Clever Name Here just zis guy, you know? Sometimes funny. Often annoyed. Once I saw a blimp.

15 Comments

  1. …if you feel like finding out how accurate a summation that is I’m fairly certain this is the piece in question

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html

    …&…I dunno…it’s kind of surreal?

    …like…I’m pretty sure there is some stuff in that ballpark that’s worthy of discussion…not least the shifts in how the online stuff has altered who people can say stuff to, the context in which they do & the response that can get…be that feedback or blowback…but…like the man says…this article ain’t it?

    • Thanks for the link — it does work if you’re on a desktop and open it in a new tab, but fuck, don’t give it clicks, it’ll just encourage them.

      The reason none of this nonsense around “cancel culture” works is because everyone who has any name recognition whatsoever is saying it to either a) avoid consequences for being an asshole or worse b) staunch their feelings because non-famous people on social media are calling them out for being clueless or c) trying to side-step the controversy of what they’re saying by making it about free speech rather than defending the their actual argument (i.e. wanting the fascist to get air time is about free speech and not about, y’know, fascism).

      There are free-speech arguments worth making but it’s fucking insane that not being the giantest asshole possible in any given situation is a threat to free speech. Good God, I repeat, the dumbest piece of shit I’ve ever read.

        • Sorry, this is bullying and intolerance and shaming me by posting that comic, I will be suing you under anti-shunning law … as soon as it’s written.

          • One comment I saw somewhere with regard to that comic panel was, “Maybe we stop showing them the door and start showing them a window?”

             

    • I think the proper framework for understanding this at a rhetorical level is propaganda.

      One of the critical things about propaganda is that it’s always, always trying to cloak itself with truth. Propaganda isn’t about pure lies or fantasy — that’s for the true believers.

      Propaganda is about misdirection, about confusion, and about destroying discourse from the inside.

      Propaganda includes plenty of lies, of course; but it aims at sneaking them through lines of defense with a thin shell of truth and appeals to reason much the way a virus might hide itself in a valid cell to avoid attack by antibodies.

      This editorial can’t be treated as a serious argument because logic and evidence have nothing to do with it except as ways of furthering the infection. It makes as much sense as letting a virus run rampant through your system and then trying to sort out the valid from the fake.

      The critical response has to be to stop the virus from attaching to the host, alert antibodies to ways to destroy the virus, and maintain valid cellular activity in the meantime.

      In other words, screw the Times, empower its critics, and promote good faith debate instead.

      • …a thing I think is less remarked upon that perhaps it ought to be is that modern (in the sense of post-WWII) advertising basically used (in some cases fairly explicitly) the same playbook as the goebbels school of propaganda…because that shit works at a functional level to get people to buy into whatever narrative you’re trying to peddle

        …for some reason we generally only call it propaganda when there’s a war &/or state context involved…but I don’t think there’s anything in that comment, for example, that wouldn’t hold true if you’d been talking about advertising instead?

  2. Cancel Culture is real if you’re a self important asshole who thinks the whole world hangs on whatever stupid fucking shit you utter and that your words/actions SHOULD HAVE NO CONSEQUENCES.

    For Example:

    Like Louis CK wanking it front of women without consent and losing everything he built.

    Or Harvey Weinstein going to jail for raping women.

    Or JK Rowling for screaming about trans women and getting shit on by her fans for it.

    Or James Woods screaming about liebruls and blaming that as the reason young women don’t want to fuck him anymore.  (Hint James, you might have BDE, but you’re old and gross so pretty young things don’t give a shit about hearing you worked with DeNiro (who?  Dirty Grampa?))

    The common theme is the punching down.

    Having been on the receiving end and a loathing of narcissists, I don’t give a shit if cancel culture is real or not. Personally, I think I’ve suffered a tiny bit of cancel culture myself because I worked for a company that fucked a lot of people out of their investment/retirement money so some people don’t want to hire me because it is on my resume but I didn’t scream about it in the NYT.  I can’t blame them so I (painfully) moved on.

    The fucks moaning about cancel culture just want to go back to doing the same degrading lousy shit they’ve always done without that painful “feedback” from people calling them out on their shit.

    As for the right?  They’ve always been about cancel culture. ALWAYS.

    Point out the system crapping on minorities (especially black people). Cancel CRT.

    Ooh rap lyrics make me angry. Ban rap.

    Ooh rock lyrics make me angry. Ban rock.

    Point out that Iraq didn’t perpetrate 9/11.  Remember the Dixie Chicks?

    Yeah. Fuck the right on this one.

  3. The attempt to both sides this issue is propaganda, pure and simple.

    The coplete and utter failure to mention the ruinous defamation suits that have succeeded and are still looming and the right wing judges who are pushing to fast track them is astounding.

    The attempt to claim there is a “fundamental right” to say things AND not allow criticism is nuts.

    This is the work of a top level of management that has completely lost their minds at a critical juncture in history.

    • Remember, when right wingers talk about “rights”, what they’re really talking about is their right to do as they please without any consequences of any kind.

      • And it’s a mindset about “rights” the editorial board of the NY Times has swallowed whole. Because, at their heart, they are conservative.

    • I would even argue that calling this propaganda is giving it too much credit!

      There are probably some people on the board who like the issue because it’s not total Trump-right fascism so they can pretend that they can both-sides it. But honestly? I don’t think their worldview is that coherent beyond “please make the mean people stop being mean to us when we write fucking stupid shit.”

      • I am only reading tea leaves, but I am getting more convinced that the top management there is going full Wall Street Journal post-Murdoch takeover. 2016 is going to seem mild in comparison to where they’re going.

  4. I won’t read it, because the other commenters have already summed it up for me, and I try not to use my NYT account ever, because, as someone already said, why give them clicks?

    But yeah, the people who scream the loudest about freedom of speech are the ones who 1. don’t fully understand it, and 2. are likely trying to abuse it and deny others their rights. AKA: “Don’t Say Gay”. 

    Fuck those guys.

  5. HEY MORE PEOPLE SHOULD BE LIKING THIS POST!!!!!!!!!!

    IF YOU DON’T YOU’RE SHUNNING ME AND THAT’S WRONG ACCORDING TO THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD

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