If You Disagree With This Post, You're Joining A Bullying Lynch Mob

"If all this talk of bullying meant that we cared more about weak kids being shoved around by strong kids, I'd applaud it. But it doesn't. It just means that we've picked a new word to dismiss arguments and criticisms, without caring about its actual meaning. "Bullying" is the "literally" of political discourse. The term has an emotional impact. Bullies are people who use power and force to get their way, and our gut tells us that it's just to respond with power and force. It's seductive and insidious. Should the law and our institutions protect us from opposing views? Of course not! But should the law and our institutions protect us from bullies! Why, yes! That sounds very reasonable. Conventional wisdom would blame the Left for misclassifying speech as violent action to be regulated. Speech codes and trigger warnings and "microaggression" lectures and the like are a product of the academic Left, after all. People on the Right (and principled people on all sides of the political spectrum) are pushing back against these fatuities. But at the very same time, the Right is increasingly indulging in rhetoric that promotes the same values. "Lynch mob" and "witch hunt" are omnipresent cliches, used as meritriciously as clickbaity "watch Jon Stewart eviscerate [political figure]" headlines. Those terms are nominally invoked to protect speech, but their message is subtly pro-regulation. Should the law protect us from criticism? No! Should the law protect us from lynch mobs and witch hunts? Why, that sounds perfectly reasonable."
If You Disagree With This Post, You're Joining A Bullying Lynch Mob
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