Don't give them the attention...

Give me a break. I understand the ADL's mission, and Cernovich is... well, if you don't  have anything nice to say.....  

My point is, it's called an "OK" sign. This hypersensitivity and speech policing is insane, and plays right into the hands of fringe-types:

Step 1: Be racist/sexist jerks.
Step 2: Frequently use some otherwise benign symbol.
Step 3: Wait for folks on the other end of the spectrum to react to what appears to 85% of people to be completely harmless.
Step 4: Watch the media pick it up as a "story".
Step 5: Enjoy the backlash created as those who value free speech point out the absurdity of the symbol interpretation and the danger posed by policing speech.

Free publicity is free publicity.  I thought last year's election cycle (in which the loser spent a quarter of a billion dollars more than the winners) taught all of us that lesson.

And yes, I realize blogging about it sort of undermines my point of not giving these people attention, but only to the extent my blog is actually read.  :)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/white-power-hand-symbol-cassandra-fairbanks-mike-cernovich-alt-right-white-house-a7709446.html

Freedom and Virtue

Good article from First Things.  Beyond believing the snippet below succinctly captures the results of the Talk-radio-ification of the Conservative movement, I also found the article convicting.  Not because I have any, uh, "tastes" similar to the Drupal guy who was fired, but because it exposes my tendency to value personal liberty over the virtuous or good.  This usually takes the form of my saying/posting/IMing something I find hilarious, though base or crass, or saying something not because I truly feel/believe a particular thing but because my speech represents a sort of rebellion or exercise-of-freedom-for-freedom's-sake.   "Ha! I'm going to say this just because I know it's politically incorrect!". 

Anyway - here's the snippet I mentioned and a link to the article.

"If third-wave feminists and social media leftists announce the sky is blue, then we know it must be green. This kind of pathetic pseudo-solidarity amongst some conservatives is precisely why the movement finds itself ruthlessly hijacked by blowhards and hucksters, some of whom are valorized on the right even as they reject principles like the personhood of the unborn. Why? Because they’re good at ridiculing the enemy. This is not conservatism; it’s right-wing identity politics."

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/04/kink-is-not-conscience

Friendship

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

- C. S. Lewis

Tyranny

I used to think the primary driver of tyranny was deliberate malice.  While that's a factor, it occurred to me that a better predictor of tyranny is the gap between an individual's lust for power and their competency to wield power, multiplied by their access to power. T=(L-C)*A

Especially on Mondays...

"Each day new widows howl, new orphans cry, and new sorrows slap heaven in the face..."

Macbeth, Act 4 Scene 3