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Sunday, April 17, 2016

Alan Dershowitz Calls out the Illiberalism of Bernie Supporters

I do agree there is something illiberal about them-it's not for nothing that for years, Bernie insisted that he is not a liberal Democrat.

I agree with Dershowitz's overriding theme. However, I also think he should be careful. He is sort of conflating a few different groups and ideas. Lack of precision gets you into trouble when touching sensitive ground.

Bernie Sanders’ illiberal supporters: Do they expect safe spaces everywhere?"
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/alan-dershowitz-bernie-sanders-illiberal-supporters-article-1.2603151

I agree with Dershowitz that the very concept of a safe space is illiberal and dangerous.

"Most of those voting for Sanders are decent people who truly deserve to be called “progressives.” But among his most active supporters are hard left elements within organizations such as Black Lives Matter, CodePink and MoveOn who are more appropriately called repressives. Too many of them have too little tolerance for views different than their own."

"I'd be careful in talking about Black Lives Matter for starters. Not all BLM activists are Bernie supporters by any stretch of the imagination. As far as I can gauge the overall sentiment of the activist group-which is tough as they insist on decentralization and are opposed to top down leadership-which is probably somethig both of a blessing and a curse-many BLM activists have a visceral onus against being a partisan in politics."

Deray McKesson has actually been sharply criticized from many of his fellow activists for stooping to run for high public office.

"Mckesson’s relationship with other activists in the movement wascomplicated before he announced his candidacy, and some have criticizedhis run as a bid to enter a system that he should be fighting from without. McKesson’s candidacy isn’t an “act of progress” but “an act of co-optation and repression,” Marissa Jenae Johnson, co-founder of the Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter, told Al Jazeera America right after Mckesson entered the race."


http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-deray-mckesson-turn-330000-twitter-followers-into-20000-votes/

While many BLM activists refuse to accept the apologies of the Clintons regarding the crime bill, they are far from being Berners for the most part. There are some individual activists who feel the Bern but it doesn't look like the majority do.


I do agree with Dershowitz that it's wrong to just stop someone from talking even if you don't like his views.

"Several weeks ago, for example, dozens of Black Lives Matter activists infiltrated a Donald Trump rally and forced the organizers to cancel due to security concerns, after they became involved in heated confrontations with Trump’s supporters. Whatever one may think of Trump’s policies, there is no excuse for preventing the candidate from expressing them at a political rally. They abridged both Trump’s right to free expression and the ability of thousands of their fellow citizens to participate in the political process."

A number of people seem to justify this as 'This is not about free speech, it's about racism.' So in other words, free speech is not a categorical right, just free speech that is not racist. As a liberal I'm not sure how I feel about that. Especially as the list of what makes some people feel 'unsafe' gets bigger and bigger. 

You do sometimes wonder where our country is going based on today's youth. We won't really know for 20 years what this will mean for future American society. 

Seems that we always overcorrect-a word Hillary uses that well sums up the problem. I was never a fan of overheated scare talk of Stalinism. But we seem to have a younger generation now who has many Stalinist tendencies. 

Why it not be so bad:

1. A big part of the problem is the stagnation of incomes. and the legitimate gripe of young students being saddled with six figure college debt before even starting in the work force. Then the jobs they were promised in college aren't there and they are stuck in some crummy service sector job. 

2. Maybe the Life Cycle Theory of the economists will come in play here. As they get older they will become less illiberal. This happened for the Baby Boomers. 



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