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I think most of us who considered the original metaphor have realized that, whatever label we might prefer to apply to ourselves, we are in fact witches by the lights of the other side of the culture war; that is, we are not at risk of being targeted because of a mistake or a misunderstanding, but because those doing the targeting wish to target people with our actual views. We are not temporarily embarrassed members of "polite society". We left "polite society" behind a long, long time ago.
I've argued at length against the HBDrs and race-essentialists and white-identitarians here. All the same, here at least, I've long ago bothered arguing over the label "racist"; the people using it know what they mean, and I know what they mean. We both agree the Progressive definition of Racist applies to me, and there's no amount of MLK quotes that will change their mind.
The whole concept was a transparent ploy to build an unprincipled exception.
"We're so committed to free speech, but there's these yucky witches taking advantage of how nice us quokkas are. Boy if only there was a firm leader who could purge the witches in a reign of terror. BTW everyone who isn't a bay area leftist is now defined as a witch"
It was just a disgusting mix of self-flattery, catty backbiting, and rationalization. And Ben Garrison, 4bpp, Chrisprattalpharaptr, netstack, and amadan are doing it all over again here.
Do you believe principled support for free speech is a thing that can exist? Do you believe it currently or ever has had a significant constituency?
The argument when I was a kid was that there were people we very definitely did not like saying things that we very definitely did not like, but we should let them speak anyway because protecting them protects everyone else. That consensus collapsed. The "witches" metaphor was, in my view, an attempt to analyze the collapse and salvage something from it. I'd argue that effort is various flavors of doomed wherever it is made; words are powerful, hence dangerous, hence defended against. That being said, I am committed to making the best attempt of it possible, and I am confident the other mods here are as well.
I've watched all the people who talked about being principled free speech defenders realize they have higher principles they answer to (not getting canceled, keeping BPD side-chick #3's antifa BF from causing drama, losing a job or medical license, etc.)
You've talked about the same thing. I just think that nobody actually has free speech as their highest value, and free speech is unique in that any higher-priority value will eventually come into conflict with it.
It doesn't matter how dispassionate a moderator you are, there's something that you care more about. Eventually the neoclassical-mime vs retropostmodern-mime war will come to your comments section, and you'll prioritize shoving those lazy formulaic neoclassic hacks into an invisible locker over your commitment to rational argument.
Some people are just more honest with themselves about it, give up caring about "freeze peach" entirely, and use their lack of cognitive dissonance to cunningly exploit the Principled Defenders: "don't you at least care about basic human decency?" "if you don't punch Nazis whenever we tell you to, nobody else will come to your Nazi bar and you'll have less free speech overall!"
You've seen it all before, I know.
Speaking for myself, free speech is one of my highest principles. I don't know if it's literally my highest principle - no, I probably wouldn't die for it or give up my career to defend Holocaust deniers - but I have been as principled as I can be for much longer than I've been a mod.
That you keep accusing me and netstack and other people of doing things we clearly and objectively have not done says quite a bit about your principled commitment to truth or lack thereof.
It may interest you to know that @netstack recently chided me for being too aggressive towards you, so I have been trying to go easier on you, but when every time you jump into a thread it's yet another round of "You mods (and especially Amadan) are secretly trying to purge all the witches and get rid of everyone whose values don't align with yours" - well, this is so obviously false, it's hard not to see this as anything other than you making shit up because you want to pick a fight.
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