Dangerous times

For some time now, supporters of the two main US political parties have seemed to hate each other with an almost theological hatred - I've joked that Americans believe half of them are the sons and daughters of Satan, they just can't agree which half.

But it's also a violent hatred. 'On 20 January [2017], Richard Spencer, a prominent figure in the “alt-right” movement, was punched in the face while giving an interview in Washington. The punch spawned a number of “punch a Nazi” memes,' said Tauriq Moosa in the UK's Guardian newspaper a few days later, before going on, perhaps naturally for that Left-leaning publication, to defend the use of violence ('A punch may be uncivil, but racism is worse.')

I first came across the meme he mentions, on Facebook, that wing of Bedlam, though I think 'How To Punch A Nazi' first spread as a series of Tweets, another wing of barminess. Since Nazi is not defined, it is easily interpreted as 'Someone who thinks differently from you? Punch; expertly, with possibly neck-breaking force.' How this doesn't qualify for arrest on a charge of incitement to violence, I'm not sure.

Fox News is what Americans call a 'conservative' TV channel, though I think my British friends may not understand the American political spectrum - the British Conservative Party would be more at home in the US Democratic Party, possibly even in the left side of it. Be that as it may, some of America cheers Fox while some gibbers in fury at it. Now, allegedly, and most dangerously in these times of political riot, property destruction, looting, assault and murder, one of Fox's presenters, Tucker Carlson, has been threatened by a major newspaper with the publication of his family's home address:




My American family tells me Carlson is a habitual liar and I emailed his show with the following:

(1) Can you confirm that the NYT did indeed do this previously, causing your family to have to move to escape persecution ny Antifa et al.?

(2) The NYT has now said it has no plans to publish your current address, but this denail does not necessarily mean that they had not planned or threatened to do so before you went public this time. So did they in fact say they were going to?

(3) Do you have any evidence to corroborate what you have said? If so, can you supply it?

I got the first bit wrong, sadly (quite apart from typos) - Carlson doesn't actually say the NYT published his address last time, in the clip above he says it was a 'left-wing journalist' - but although the NYT has said in response that it 'has no plans' to do so, that could be read as a kind of Watergate 'non-denial denial', in that the paper has not said that it did not previously intend to do so.

In the clip above, Carlson points out that two could play at that game, and names one or two people; already perhaps there are supporters working on discovering where those NYT people themselves live.

Cartoonist Scott Adams, a Republican supporter who identified Trump as a likely winning Presidential candidate long before other commentators thought it credible, says that this 'setting the dogs on' political opponents crosses a line and things could get very nasty - listen to his podcast from 13:20 on:

https://www.scottadamssays.com/?powerpress_pinw=20632-podcast

This raises a fundamental issue: is American society - is ours? - sufficiently mature to be governed by democratic representatives, rather than despots? Are we generally capable of rational discussion, of a liberal suspension of judgment, of agreeing to disagree?

J.S. Mills addresses this early on in his Essay on Liberty (1859) [page 19 here]:

'Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others.'

Is the public - can it be? - sufficiently rational, well-informed and self-restrained to operate a democracy? Or will we let mobs - and certain powerfully-placed individuals - destroy our institutions and let in rule by tyrants?