Fahrenheit211 with a salient warning for the Right:
"It is pointless and will be called hypocrisy, if we blast apart the bullshit of for example critical race theory whilst turning a blind eye to the Qanon types, the anti-vaxxers, the flat earthers, the Rothschild obsessives, the people who believe that space isn’t real, the people who believe that they are fighting Lucifer from their keyboards or the absolute lunatics who believe that Bill Gates invented multiple sclerosis (Fact he did not. MS type symptoms have been known about since 1300 and the disease was identified and named in 1868). We need as rightists to gain some gravitas and be seen as people to be trusted, which is difficult as the Left own or control nearly all MSM. But, we can’t do that until we expend the same energy as we put into countering leftist conspiracy theories on dealing with the knobwittery on our own side."
Yep fight amongst yourselves. The left does not restrain it's loons. The left is winning easily. There is no right left.
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much 'fight among ourselves' but let's deal with the loons that do the rest of us harm. I completely agree that the Left does not restrain its loons and we can see the destruction that this has wrought, but does that mean that we should not deal with the destroyers in our own midst? There's little point in making good rightist arguments about culture, society and economics only to ruin these arguments by also quoting David Icke's wibble about 5G or giving credence to the QAnon fanatics claims that we shold 'trust the plan' and that Trump will be back in the White House next month. Aligning with such people just makes people with otherwise decent ideas look stupid.
ReplyDeleteNope. Not the job of the Right. As has been pointed out many times before, you need to make the enemy play by their rules. The Left will maybe disavow, but they do not police. The Right will not persuade anyone by acting as shock troops for the Left, they will only be shown to capitulate. Disavow and leave it at that. Play by the existing rules, don't try to invent more "noble" ones.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for disavowing the nutcases, it's something that I do on a regular basis. But my issue is with the nutters who are ostensibly on 'our' side, the side of personal liberty and responsibility, who do great harm.
ReplyDeleteTake the anti vaxxers for instance: They are identifiably on the political right with their espousing of things like personal choice and liberty, but they are also demonstrably wrong. The rise in Measles cases, a disease that can and does kill infants, in communities that buy into their BS either because these communities are right aligned or, as in the case of Haredi Jews, who have a lack of secular education, can be readily and provably linked to the targeting of these communities and liberty minded individuals by anti vaccination activists and similar quacks. Should we just leave these quacks and nutcases to do harm to these communities and by extension to right wing causes by saying nothing about them or not subjecting them to some form of challenge? I don't think that's a valid option. It's not acting in the interests of the Left to criticise wrong thinking or psueudo-science,it's acting in the interests of truth.
I'm more than willing to disavow antivaxxers. But I also believe that they need to be countered. I'm all for letting these and similar lunatics have their free speech and to say what they want to say but that also should come at the price of having their ideas challenged.
Can you think of any positive gain for the right that can be gained by not challenging and laughing at the 'Space is fake' or Flat earth types who self identify with the political Right? I can't. There are a whole load of apolitical people out there and I don't think that by merely disavowing nutters helps to convince apolitical types to believe in a right leaning cause, they should I believe be actively called out. With the vast majority of the media in the hands of the centre Left and the Left any implied positive association with the mad will make all of us look mad. That's not something that I want to see.
"The left does not restrain it's loons. The left is winning easily."
ReplyDeleteSometimes I fear you're right...
"There's little point in making good rightist arguments about culture, society and economics only to ruin these arguments by also quoting David Icke's wibble about 5G or giving credence to the QAnon fanatics claims that we shold 'trust the plan' and that Trump will be back in the White House next month."
Good point. But these aren't tolerated as much as the barmiest theories on the left are, are they?
"Play by the existing rules, don't try to invent more "noble" ones."
Is that getting us anywhere, though?
"There are a whole load of apolitical people out there..."
Capturing them is going to be hard. We need to appeal to self-interest, not 'liberal values'.