Nothing has provoked more mockery and scorn from the American Right than grievances from college students and journalists of feeling "unsafe" due to others' views.
And there's nothing that parts of the Right have done more in the last 3 weeks than express such grievances.
The Right when black NYT reporters said they feel unsafe due to an op-ed calling for the military to crush George Floyd protests:
"Journalism is not about creating safe spaces."
Bari Weiss' site today: A jewish Guardian staffer feels "unsafe" due to anti-Israel reporting.
Conservatives pushing this "safety" rhetoric -- which isn't due to violence but words -- should either apologize to the minority groups they mocked all these years, or realize they're suddenly endorsing such flamboyant victim narratives because a group they like is claiming it.
And yes, yes, I know: you think the difference is the views you want censored and people cancelled for are genuinely bigoted, while your views aren't.
All censors think this.
Claiming the only marginalized and vulnerable group in the US are American Jews is ... untenable.
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Absolutely pathetic that frauds like this one spent years parading as free speech warriors -- mocking college students who urged protection from views they find threatening -- only to now exploit this war, that is not even an American war! (😲), to seize broad censorship powers:
One thing that has provoked intense mockery and scorn from the right are victim narratives:
Students weeping, claiming mental trauma from feeling unsafe by bigoted views; depicting college students as children who can't hear upsetting views rather than as adults who must....
Those victim narratives have seen a huge boost in popularity recently, now defended most vocally by exactly the same people who led the mockery and derision when these victimhood claims, and demands for censorship, were invoked by other minority groups:
I'd like to note again that the theory advanced here - that there's no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, or no difference between Palestinians and Hamas, because they elected Hamas (back in 2007) - was bin Laden's view for why all Americans are legitimate military targets:
This was also Hamas' rotted view on Oct. 7: that because Israelis voted for Netanyahu, they are all equally responsible and legitimate targets.
It seems that Americans should be the last people wanting such a theory to take root, given how many countries we bomb and invade.
One last point: there are many arguing that pro-Palestinian protests and petitions can and should be censored and outlawed because some entail calls for violence against Israelis.
Isn't the same true of a theory that says all Palestinians should be treated as Hamas?
The attempt to destroy the concept of "civilian" with this rotted rationale -- all citizens are responsible for their leaders' violence -- is dangerous and vile.
This was bin Laden's defense of 9/11 (and Hamas' on Saturday).
Are Americans really ready to endorse the idea that every American, including civilians, is responsible for the aggression and violence of US leaders? That would make all Americans, and civilian infrastructure, legitimate targets for reprisals.
After bin Laden invoked this rationale to deny the validity of the "civilian" category for Americans, the first time I heard someone adopt this view was when Alan Dershowitz argued in 2006 that many "civilians" weren't really civilians in Lebanon.
The EU hired an Omidyar-funded firm ("Reset") that claims to be "disinformation experts". It issued a study accusing Big Tech platforms - especially X - of insufficiently censoring "pro-Russia propaganda."
The EU has a new censorship law and intends to use it to punish X:
The fraudulent "disinformation industry" was invented after Brexit and Trump's 2016 win because Western elites concluded online free speech is too dangerous.
This EU study -- designed to legally force X to censor more -- is supremely fraudulent:
I've repeatedly documented that the Dem Party is now the party of the US Security State. They revere CIA, FBI, and DHS. It's one reason neocons are Dems.
The reason is that they understand that these agencies are now their political allies against their political opponents.
CIA and FBI have repeatedly interfered in domestic politics to help elect Dems.
The bullshit 2016 Russiagate/collusion scandal came from CIA and FBI straight to NYT and WPost.
They're the ones who lied about Hunter laptop being "Russian disinformation" to shield Biden in 2020.
The EU has enacted one of the world's most repressive online censorship laws. They're already citing their loss in the Slovak elections as proof they need more censorship.
Note that the NYT says their plan is to force social media sites to censor more - including for the US:👇
What the EU is doing is exactly what neoliberals did in the US and UK after 2016: looked at the 2 election losses they suffered (Brexit and Trump) and concluded they can't allow a free internet any more: too dangerous.