Among the many things the “Right” still doesn’t understand is that the Left has concluded that this particular show need no longer go on. They don’t think they need a foil anymore and would rather dispense with the whole bother of staging these phony contests in which each side ostensibly has a shot.

Publius Decius Mus
September 5, 2016
The Flight 93 Election
[H/T Oppo.

This was clearly visible in September 2016 and it is now arc light illuminated three years later.—Joe]

Now that lifestyle and political affiliation correlate so closely, it’s awfully easy to taunt the “enemy” by waving a few cultural banners in their faces—or by putting legislation to partisan use. Why run afoul of protections for free speech, thought, and assembly when you can just torment people by piling restrictions on the things they enjoy in life? You can camouflage the targeting as a policy dispute, even though your teammates nudge-and-wink understand that it’s all about sticking it to the latte-sippers or bitter clingers.

Weaponized law. How can that go wrong?—except in every conceivable way.

…

A little cultural flag-waving is just fine, but it emphasizes very real tribal divisions that raise the stakes in policy disagreements. Law is too dangerous a tool to leave in the hands of opposing tribes who just want to use it to bludgeon one another.

J.D. Tuccile
April 25, 2017
When Laws Become Partisan Weapons
[It’s an escalating process. Each side wanting revenge for the wrongs they have suffered at the hands of their political opponents. This is another justification for strictly limiting the powers of government to the essential services which cannot be practicably supplied by private enterprise.—Joe]

Enough with “speech is violence.” Restoring the ability to disagree without becoming mortal enemies is a new and urgent civic imperative.

Michael Bloomberg
September 15, 2019
Rage has free speech under siege on the American campus
[Via Sebastian.—Joe]

No university student has the right to be safe from uncomfortable ideas, only from physical threats, and any student who claims to be in physical fear of politically incorrect ideas does not belong at a university. The most extreme example of this distortion of the role of higher education took place at my own university when a distinguished dean of a Harvard residential college was fired from his deanship because some “woke” students claimed to feel unsafe in his presence because he was representing, as a defense lawyer, a man accused of rape.

Alan  M. Dershowitz
August 31, 2019
The Dangerous Stalinism of the “Woke” Hard-Left
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

The battle for freedom has been fought and won. Your speech may be free, but that doesn’t mean it is easy. Truly confronting illiberal political correctness requires personal courage. Without it, the battle for the First Amendment will have been fought in vain.

David French
August 20, 2019
Courage Is the Cure for Political Correctness
[Via email from Chet who adds, “I would add for rights in general.”

He has some good points. But a case can be made that the battle isn’t over until the culture has been changed and is accepting of diverse speech and thought without a lawsuit to back up your coming out of the closet.—Joe]

At what point does “they are saying I am by definition worse than Hitler and need to be in a camp” cross over from “a stupid narrative they believe” to a “clear and present danger to me and mine I must actively respond to.” I’m already passively preparing, but at some point I have to choose, and choose wisely, to move to active interference.

That is what worries me. Both the need to make that call and making it wrong.

herbn
August 8, 2019
Comment to But Then That Must Mean
[Many years ago John Clifford., the owner of a gun range I frequented, told me, “When you draw your gun is far more important than how fast you draw your gun.” It took a while for me to really understand what he was saying. See this post for elaboration on that point.

herbn’s dilemma captures the essence of what John was telling me.—Joe]