{"id":1414,"date":"2005-03-17T13:37:29","date_gmt":"2005-03-17T21:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/03\/17\/why-do-right-wingers-think-criticism-is-censorship\/"},"modified":"2005-03-17T13:37:29","modified_gmt":"2005-03-17T21:37:29","slug":"why-do-right-wingers-think-criticism-is-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1414","title":{"rendered":"Why do right-wingers think criticism is censorship?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really intended to post on “Alas” today, but I got distracted into posting comments on this Family Scholars Blog thread<\/a> instead. What’s at issue there is the argument that we shouldn’t have marriage equality because that might lead to people being criticized for saying that heterosexual marriage is best.<\/p>\n

Aside from the total lapse of logic there (people will be criticized for saying that regardless <\/i>of if same-sex marriage is legal), I’m struck by what seems to me to be the stunning pettiness of the argument. Who cares <\/i>if people get criticized? What difference does that make?<\/p>\n

A lot of the argument there seems to come down to the mysterious conservative belief that anyone has a right to a life free from criticism, and if they ever are criticized that’s the same as censorship. It’s the ultimate in entitlement politics, I think.<\/p>\n

It reminds me of this exchange<\/a> I had in the “Alas” comments a while back:<\/p>\n

Mark O’Reilly: <\/strong>Women in the workforce are given privilege due to political correctness. IF you as much render a HINT of criticism toward a female you get the old and not so true anymore label of “Misogynist.” So that in itself, the denial of Free Speech for men will trump this entire list no matter how long it is constructed.<\/p>\n

Ampersand:<\/strong> Just to clarify: are you saying that if a man is criticized for alleged misogyny, that means his Free Speech has been denied?
\n
\nMark O’Reilly:<\/strong> Ampersap,<\/p>\n

Yes, absolutely! When you label someone “misogynist” you attempt to silence that person with intimidation and you try to discredit that person so no other person will listen to that person. It’s done all the time and it’s a tactic used by feminists so that nobody can question their credibility or hold them accountable. It’s like a fascist state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wouldn’t worry about this view if it were just one or two crackpots – but I run into variations on this “we conservatives are entitled to not be criticized” argument again and again. Although there were a handful of legitimate complaints having to do with overzelous “hate speech” laws, the majority of the complaints about “PC thought police” a few years back, consisted of conservatives saying it made them uncomfortable to be criticized when other students found their views misogynistic, heterocentrist or racist.<\/p>\n

Did no one ever tell them that it’s not “thought police” when someone is criticized or made uncomfortable?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really intended to post on “Alas” today, but I got distracted into posting comments on this Family Scholars Blog thread instead. What’s at issue there is the argument that we shouldn’t have marriage equality because that might lead to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,91,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-feminists-and-their-pals","category-free-speech-censorship-copyright-law-etc","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}