Assassination as the ultimate cancellation - 12 Sep

Interesting links, news and footnotes for The Ideas That Explain the News

+ One small moment of hope following the shocking murder of Charlie Kirk has been the way many on the left have responded by defending old-fashioned liberal ideas.

I thought Bernie Sanders put it well:

“That is the essence of what freedom is about and what democracy is about. You have a point of view. That's great. I have a point of view that is different than yours. That's great. Let's argue it out. … Political violence in fact is political cowardice. It means that you cannot convince people of the correctness of your ideas and you have to impose them through force.”

I also saw the Daily Show respond to a slimy take about how “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions” with the point: “I don't know, man. The whole idea of free speech in America is you can say what you want and not expect to be shot.”

Well, precisely.

For a long while there, defending free speech was kinda cringe, with many opting instead to talk about “consequences” without distinguishing between acceptable consequences (criticism, condemnation, mockery) and unacceptable (coercion, force, assassination).

The response to bad speech (and Charlie Kirk’s speech was unquestionably awful) should never be an act of power or coercion, it should be more speech.

It’s an old-fashioned idea, but it’s a good one.

+ This welcome change however has been deliberately missed by many conservative commentators determined to hunt through Bluesky and find people being obnoxious. I agreed with this point:

+ What’s worse, while this was going on arguing, Trump was arguing “the radical left” was “directly responsible for the terrorism we are seeing in our country today”. It’s fascinating because the right has appropriated the “your words are violence” argument, and by combining it with state power, made it infinitely more terrifying. For the record: No, calling Charlie Kirk racist or fascist or anything like that does not mean you are responsible for his assassination.

Thankfully, today Trump seemed to backtrack somewhat and talked about the importance of “non-violence”.

The rest of this email’s links and recommendations after the jump.

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