Harper's: Open Letter "On Justice And Open Debate"

This is surprisingly good...except for the part about how PC lunacy is Trump's fault...

   Anyway, three cheers for the signatories, though I don't have a particularly high opinion of many of them. (And note: though I think several of them are as wrong as wrong can be, I have no desire to shriek at them nor ruin their careers...)

   My view on this, though, FWIW, is that you basically can't reason with the totalitarian left. Trying to explain to them why they shouldn't be attempting to shout down and harm people they disagree with probably isn't going to do much good. My view is that the only thing likely to work is hitting back--preferably twice as hard. If Smith is attacked by the e-mob, the rest of us need, first, to defend Smith, and, second, to go at the mob. Blowback is the only thing they'll understand. Their goal is to turn a conversation into a fistfight. My inclination is to think that, at that point, winning the fistfight is the only way to survive. Witness the revolting spectacle of people begging the mob for forgiveness. They have no reason and no mercy--they're going to shred your career and lie about your character no matter what you do. Why give up your dignity, too?

   Anyway: props again to the signatories. But I think they'd do better to use their firepower to defend those without much. 

   I suppose one is always also talking to the non-crazies roughly in the middle. Obviously the crazies would lose most of their power if the center-left weren't tolerating their antics--they don't even have to defend the innocent. They just have to stop giving tacit support to the loons. If they want also to fight back a bit, so much the better.

   Oh yeah, and: apparently the crazies are now going after the signatories. Of course many of the signatories are already hated on the left--so they seem to be going after the ones who weren't previously hated...because what's worse, really, than endorsing politically incorrect thoughts alongside politically incorrect people?

   Which was entirely predictable, and in line with my view expressed above. 

   You just cannot reason with people who have, more-or-less as a matter of principle, more-or-less given up on reason.