Jan
9
2024

Not as Gripping as "Leiningen Versus the Ants"

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Substacker Bryan Caplan is dismayed by calls for Substack to oust Nazis from its ambit: Substack Versus the Slippery Slope.

Specifically:

Caplan quotes both extensively. An excerpt from his response:

On reflection, however, Substack could make a far stronger argument for platforming and monetizing everyone: the woke slippery slope. “Once you censor the blatantly heinous, you’ll start censoring the arguably heinous” has a long history in arguments about toleration and free speech. What we’ve learned since 2010 is that if the slippery slope argument had never existed, wokeness would have inspired us to discover it. This Orwellian movement habitually decries even the mildest criticisms of its dogmas as the vilest forms of oppression. See the absurd yet successful efforts to smear J.K. Rowling as a “transphobe,” Roland Fryer as a “sexual harasser,” and Harald Uhlig as a racist. Indeed, the woke habitually damn even fellow leftists for bizarre neo-offenses like “misgendering” and “brown-voice.” The woke mandate new words for every occasion, yet, like Yahweh in the Old Testament, they forbid us to even pronounce their name.

My point? When faced with a movement this madly censorious, the best response is to say No to everything they ask for. Everything. Why? Because once you censor Nazis for them, they’ll just keep ratcheting up their demands until you — yes, you — live in fear of censorship, too.

A point Caplan doesn't make, but I will: I would imagine (without actually looking) that there are far more Communist substacks, classified under the same criteria that Katz uses for his Nazi-hunting.

And I'm pretty sure the historical body count of Communist regimes easily dwarfs that of the Nazis.

So why are Katz, et. al. only griping about the Nazis? For the same reason university presidents got caught flat-footed on confronting campus anti-semitism: hypocrisy and tacit double standards.

Also of note:

  • Speaking of the New York Times Ann Althouse provides an amusing quote from Bret Stephens on their site:

    I don’t quite understand all of these Democrats who say Trump is an existential threat to decency, democracy and maybe life on the planet and then insist they’re sticking with Biden instead of another candidate. It’s like refusing to seek better medical care for a desperately sick child because the family doctor is a nice old man whose feelings might get hurt if you left his practice.

    This is a conversation between Stephens and Gail Collins, and Gail's aghast.

  • Beware the commie garlic! David B. McGarry is pretty merciless toward Florida's Senator Rick Scott: Senator Floats Garlic As Newest National Security Threat.

    The U.S. faces rapidly changing and increasingly precarious geopolitical conditions. Americans worry that communist China could become the new global polestar, that a revanchist Russia’s ambitions could stretch Ukraine into NATO, and that unrest in the Middle East could once again entangle the U.S. forces. Now, policymakers have identified a new looming threat: imported garlic.

    Last week, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott asked the Commerce Department to investigate the national security risks posed by “Communist Chinese garlic.” Scott demands thoroughness; he wants an inquiry into “all grades of garlic, whole or separated into constituent cloves, whether or not peeled, chilled, fresh, frozen, provisionally preserved or packed in water or other neutral substance.” Should the department rule against China, the agency would likely impose new tariffs to protect “national security.”

    My immediate reaction was: "Well, obviously, Scott is just trying to protect Florida garlic farmers from competition." Oddly, it doesn't seem so. According to this article, Florida doesn't show up even in the top seven states for garlic production.

    So what's his excuse?

  • The general lesson holds, though. And it's expressed in this headline from Rachel Kleinfeld: Right-Wing Populists Are Just as Bad for Business as Left-Wing Ones.

    In the 20th century, economic and political systems could be situated on a simple 2x2 grid. Economic policies ran from left to right, while political systems could be arrayed from authoritarian to democratic.

    Most U.S. business pegged themselves easily on this spectrum: they wanted favorable regulation and management-friendly policies of the sort generally pursued by the right. And while a few opened up shop behind the Iron Curtain, CEOs knew business prospered most under classically liberal democratic systems that upheld the rule of law and inalienable rights—including property rights.

    The rise of populism in the 21st century has overturned this game board. Today, even supposedly right-wing populists exploit distrust, pessimism, and anger to make the case that government should wield a heavy—and often retaliatory—hand in markets. But while such interference by authoritarian leaders could once be portrayed as undemocratic, modern populists often bask in electoral support. Voters cheer as their elected leaders undermine rights and the rule of law.

    It is, unfortunately, a worldwide phenomenon with plenty of examples.