Since we are bashing the NYT editorial section, I thought this was a very thoughtful and balanced op-ed by Michelle Goldberg, who is someone that has been unabashed in her support for the #metoo movement to be punitive in nature. Still a staunch defender of free speech and she also sees the problems of what she calls "the illiberal left".
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/o...gtype=Homepage
Wrapping up, she says this:
Quote:
The same is happening today; the president throws tantrums about “cancel culture” while regularly trying to use the power of the state to quash speech he dislikes. Because Trump poisons everything he touches, his movement’s hypocritical embrace of the mantle of free speech threatens to devalue it, turning it into the rhetorical equivalent of “All Lives Matter.”
But to let this occur is to surrender what has historically been a sacred left-wing value. One reason many on the right want to be seen as free speech defenders is that they understand that the power to break taboos can be even more potent than the power to create them. Even sympathetic people will come to resent a left that refuses to make distinctions between deliberate slurs, awkward mistakes and legitimate disagreements. Cowing people is not the same as converting them.
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couldn't agree more.