Why Debate This?

Over the weekend, my daughter accused me of being a troll, so this makes me think two things: She has never really encountered a troll and she stalks my twitter account. At the bottom is an exchange from last Friday about The Atlantic/ Kevin Williamson hire/fire event.

what that whole argument brought to mind is the concept of when or if ideas should ever be suppressed. It seemed to be the consensus of the mob who brayed until they got Mr. Williamson fired, that his ideas are so repugnant that they should not appear in The Atlantic. Please keep in mind that this is not a officially The proximate issue was his view (not published in any journal, but given in a debate) that women who have abortions should be hung. How outrageous is this? Something like 40% of Americans would like to ban abortion either completely or in almost all circumstances. Further, the death penalty is the majority opinion as the penalty for 1st degree murder. I think, by definition, if an opinion is held by a substantial part of the population, it is not fringe and should be debatable in a public space.

What about other issues which elicit strong emotional response? Should we debate people who think the Holocaust was fake? Depends on how many think this way: If it is a percent or two, that is a very different thing from 40% believing this way. In such a latter case, I think it gets toward mandatory. This would be even more so for people who think vaccines should not be given--large numbers of people who refuse vaccines could result in serious public health issues. How about really fringe ideas like Moon landing truthers or flat Earth types? I say, "debate them if you feel like it". But really, what significance does it have? These seem like relatively harmless delusions with no real significance.
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I don’t think people who own guns should be hanged, but I also think National Review and Fox and Heritage are unlikely to ever extend me job offers based on my well-documented political views, and if I whined about that as if it were some kind of oppression, everyone would laugh.

David Pecchia

One of these things is unlike the others: Heritage and National Review are openly conservative--they publicly call themselves conservative. Fox is news and does hire liberals. Does The Atlantic call itself a journal of leftist opinion?

aislinn
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Is the position that executing women is acceptable a mainstream conservative view?

David Pecchia
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I don't think there is such a thing as an unacceptable position: There are positions I agree with and those I don't agree with.
One position I disagree with is suppressing obnoxious ideas rather than defeating them on the battlefield of reasoned debate.
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No Pardons

Is that what you think is happening on the battlefield? Half the population can barely read, let alone debate ideas

David Pecchia
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Not sure if I agree with that, but it doesn't change my opinion: Debate ideas or don't. Suppression of ideas is abuse of power--terms like "acceptable position" are just a way to feel virtuous when one is too lazy to fight for what they believe in.

No Pardons
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No one is suppressing his ideas. This isn't some beat reporter who was thrown out of the newsroom for reporting on the boss's friends; it's a national pundit with decades of experience and 300K Twitter followers losing one writing gig for publishing some putrid opinions

David Pecchia
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Well, he published those "putrid" opinions, BEFORE HE WAS HIRED! My "The mob won" template is looking closer to reality. Or, what? The Atlantic hired him while entirely ignorant of his past output? Then how did they know he existed?