/2 I mean most of these people like to imagine that they’re fuckin Galileo tugging at the hem of my robe asking me to consider their alternative to geocentricity in the name of Science. Guys, that’s just not you. I’ve got plenty of people already yelling at me about how I’m a cuck or wanting to lecture me about whether or not women have penises or about how the incorporation doctrine is wrong. If I need input on those subjects I’m all set, thanks.

/3 Sometimes it seems like some sort of stylized cult of manhood, where to be a Real Man you have to constantly surround yourself with people you find completely insufferable. Leave me out of that one Charles Atlas. And it’s not like they really mean it. The dudes wanting me to sit through their right-wing bullshit are not seeking out dialogue with purple-haired Che-shirt wearers screaming at them that meat is murder. Spare me the pretense.

/4 This kind of goes to my whole quarrel with the “complain to kids about cancel culture” approach. The free speech bargain — leave the government out of your beefs and solve them yourselves with speech and association — relies on me feeling free to say when I think people are assholes and shun them. A society that tries to sell me on “oh assholes have a maximum right to speak but we are going to enact a quasi-Victorian set of social rules about how you react” is unappealing to me.

/5 As long as I’ve been writing in public about “wow this guy’s an asshole but his speech is protected,” I’ve been pestered by people saying “oh but why did you have to say he’s an asshole, you didn’t have to say that.” Yeah, you didn’t have to be a tedious nag, but here we fuckin are. Robustly calling out assholes while accurately limning their rights is supposed to model how the free speech bargain works.

@Popehat If you don’t point out that you think they’re an asshole, you get people using the logic that because you supported someone’s right to say something, you agree with the content. So damned if you do, damned if you don’t, might as well get criticized for something true.

@johninfante Absolutely! And I routinely also get people who say I didn’t criticize the person ENOUGH.

@Popehat @johninfante I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are RWers who even know what the incorporation doctrine is.

@msbellows @johninfante That one tends to me more weirdo niche belief systems often very concerned with the Federal Reserve