Shrieking, histrionic stuff like this is what gets coveted Sunday edition, contributing op-ed slots in the NYT these days. “Save Free Speech From Trolls” is by a real gem: Lindy West, author of “Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman” and a self-described ‘prison abolitionist’ (among other things.)
[T]he anti-free-speech charge, applied broadly to cultural criticism and especially to feminist discourse, has proliferated. It is nurtured largely by men on the internet who used to nurse their grievances alone, in disparate, insular communities around the web — men’s rights forums, video game blogs. Gradually, these communities have drifted together into one great aggrieved, misogynist gyre and bonded over a common interest: pretending to care about freedom of speech so they can feel self-righteous while harassing marginalized people for having opinions.
As I’ve noted several times in the past, the Left are attempting to normalize the shutdown of conservative speech vis-à-vis codifying Political Correctness. The first sentence of West’s column is:
The first thousand times I was accused of being a politically correct, anti-free-speech censor…
A future cat lady in the making.
In totalitarian antifa style, she gives a wink and a nod to her liberal elite audience with passages like:
You can find disingenuous rhetoric about protecting free speech in the engine room of pretty much every digital-age culture war. The refrain has become so ubiquitous that it’s earned its own sarcastic homophone in progressive circles: “freeze peach!” Nothing is more important than the First Amendment, the internet men say, provided you interpret the First Amendment exactly the same way they do: as a magic spell that means no one you don’t like is allowed to criticize you…
It’s not hard to draw a straight line from internet culture warriors’ misappropriation of free speech to our current mass delusions over climate change, the Hyde Amendment, abstinence-only education, health care as a luxury and class as a meritocracy. “Free speech” rhetoric begot “fake news,” which begot “alternative facts.”
That last paragraph is particularly terrifying. You see, there’s a direct causal link between ‘free speech’ and false consciousness, and, if we are to get to the root of our modern problems, we simply have to stop the speech of all those nasty fascists who oppose transgenderism in 5 year olds.
And, of course, that favorite word of the Left these days: “weaponize”. Everything is ‘weaponized’ these days. Notes a likeminded feminazi in the piece:
“Freedom of speech is such a buzzword that people can rally around,” Ms. Sarkeesian said, “and that works really well in their favor. They’re weaponizing free speech to maintain their cultural dominance.”
Weaponizing free speech to maintain their cultural dominance.
Wow.
Again, this isn’t a piece in Jezebel, but in the NYT.
