Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

“The Debate Is Over”

15 Comments

The syndrome seems to be spreading:

Let’s call it “the debate is over” syndrome, referring to a term used most often in relationship with climate change but also by President Barack Obama last week in reference to what remains his contentious, and theoretically reformable, health care plan. Ironically, this shift to certainty now comes increasingly from what passes for the Left in America.
These are the same people who historically have identified themselves with open-mindedness and the defense of free speech, while conservatives, with some justification, were associated more often with such traits as criminalizing unpopular views – as seen in the 1950s McCarthy era – and embracing canonical bans on all sorts of personal behavior, a tendency still more evident than necessary among some socially minded conservatives.

But when it comes to authoritarian expression of “true” beliefs, it’s the progressive Left that increasingly seeks to impose orthodoxy. In this rising intellectual order, those who dissent on everything from climate change, the causes of poverty and the definition of marriage, to opposition to abortion are increasingly marginalized and, in some cases, as in the Steyn trial, legally attacked.

When people say “the debate is over,” it generally really means they’re losing the debate.

[Update a few minutes later]

“Thank goodness we are nothing like intolerant societies that are ruled by mobs. We have evolved.”

[Update a couple minutes later]

“Begun, the Cold Civil War has.”

Yes, the culture was has been raging for a long time, except people didn’t notice it because it seemed to take place on the edges or in fringe settings. All the Eich affair did was make it obvious.

Ironically many people, even in the homosexual community, don’t want this culture war and are dismayed by the Eich witchunt. They don’t want it not only because … but I’ll get to that in a moment … especially since the Eich affair is not about gay marriage, except incidentally, any more than the Summers affair was about racism or feminism; or that Steyn’s suit has anything to do with warmism or denialism or the gunowners map was about school safety; or still less that the 2013 IRS persecution of Tea Party groups was to do with Citizen’s United.

The removal of Eich is about fascism. It’s about one group of people forcing everyone else to bow to their hat on a pole; it s about book burning, compelling obeisance to, as Jame Surowiecki put it, “a universal ideology” in a manner so bald that even those who might gain politically in the short term from it are horrified by its crudity.

Perceptive gays understand now, if they hadn’t noticed before, that a whole mechanism now exists for persecuting people whose views are deemed unacceptable. Today it is directed against Eich; once it was directed against Summers; on other occasions it was employed against Clarence Thomas. But sooner or later, probably sooner, they understand it will be directed against them — or us — or someone. And if it can get a corporate CEO who is widely regarded as the father of Javascript it can get pretty darned anyone.

They’ve sown the wind.

15 thoughts on ““The Debate Is Over””

  1. The removal of Eich is about fascism.

    Remember back in 2011 when NPR radio host Lisa Simeone was fired because she was one of about 50 people on a steering committee for an Occupy protest?

    Simeone’s alleged firing comes just one day after conservative websites The Daily Caller and Fox News suggested that she had broken NPR’s ethics rules by becoming an activist.

    She’s not a political reporter, she was the host of “World of Opera”. Are the Daily Caller and Fox News fascist organizations?

    Here’s another one. Remember when Breitbart published a video with selectively edited outtakes of a speech by Shirley Sherrod, solely for the purpose of embarrassing a government employee and getting her fired? Was Andrew Breitbart a fascist?

    1. solely for the purpose of embarrassing a government employee and getting her fired?

      What horseshit. It was for the purpose of pointing out the approval of racism by her audience.

      1. You’re right, I don’t know Breitbart’s motivation, so I’ll retract that. But Sherrod was forced to resign because conservative media was climbing all over the story. Nobody forced the department she worked for to make her resign, yet they felt enough pressure to react strongly. I don’t see how this isn’t analogous to Eich’s situation.

          1. Not only that, but what are “outtakes” of a speech? It was PART of her speech. And when the full speech was released, it was every bit as bad as the original edited version.

          2. Not true: Foxnews.com ran the story right after Breitbart posted the video, followed shortly Fox Nation, Jim Hoft, Drudge, and others. Her boss told her she should resign because he thought the story was going to be on Glen Beck’s show (which ultimately did not happen). That’s the conservative media I’m talking about.

            But let’s take the example of the NPR radio host. Are you outraged that she was fired after conservative media called for her resignation?

          3. I have to confess to not being particularly upset when a leftist is fired for conspiring with lunatic socialist anarchists (I use that phrase because the Occumorons never seemed to have a coherent ideology). And I think that a radio host is a different job category when it comes to political beliefs than the CEO of a tech company, whose campaign donations have no effect on the business per se (or at least shouldn’t).

          4. I have to confess to not being particularly upset when a leftist is fired for conspiring with lunatic socialist anarchists…And I think that a radio host is a different job category when it comes to political beliefs than the CEO of a tech company, whose campaign donations have no effect on the business per se (or at least shouldn’t).

            Interesting perspective, and exactly opposite of the way I would frame it. A CEO is the principal public face of the company, much as a celebrity, politician, or general in other walks of life. They will be and should be under more scrutiny than a lowly radio host: conservative, progressive, or anywhere in between. If you were really concerned about the impending “fascism” persecuting innocent people, you would be more concerned about the average worker than someone who is paid to publicly represent the values and policies of the corporation. Those people are in the spotlight and they’re well-compensated for taking on that role.

            I suspect that the principle is not your concern, what matters to you is the degree to which you identify with the politics of the target under scrutiny.

        2. Dave, Sherrod was not forced to resign by conservative media coverage, but by an administration which couldn’t be bothered to investigate her accusations first. It puzzles me that you even bring up this case, because a) it’s an example backing Eich, and b) the employer made the wrong choice.

      2. Hopefully the judge in the Sherrod case will slap the Administration with contempt for their stonewalling, trying to pretend they had nothing to do with their very own firing of her, and acting like they don’t really have any records related to it.

        more

        I’ll also point out that there aren’t any clips of Eich going on some bizarre homophobic rant, and that he was canned for having the same opinion on gay marriage that Clinton, Obama, and Barney Frank had. And of course his little donation had done nothing to tarnish the reputation of the company he served.

    3. What part of “broken…ethics rules” doesn’t make sense?

      When you break the rules of employment, there should be consequences (in any rational world, that is).

  3. “When people say “the debate is over,” it generally really means they’re losing the debate.”

    Is the Debate over on Evolution, or the age of the Universe?

    Is the Debate over on the Helio-centric solar system?

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