Response to "Cynical Libertarian Society": Stating the Obviouis

 
The following includes an unsolicited tirade from anonymous "Cynical Libertarian Society" (CLS) ostensibly in response to my recently published book, Eco-Nihilism: The Philosophical Geopolitics of the Climate Change Apocalypse. But, honestly, it's hard to tell. 

You can find the complete CLS post here:

 http://www.cynlibsoc.com/CLS/2017/05/stating-obvious-0429-mother-single-fathers-no-better-single-mothers/

I have quoted the opening segment in total--but warning, it is graphic:

Wendy Lynne Lee is opposed to free speech zones. Who the fuck is Wendy Lynne Lee? She’s an unattractive cookie-cutter femistatist cunt.

I am a writer. I chose philosophy as the best possible tool with which to wrench into being what I saw to be true, beautiful, and knowable–often uncomfortable compatriots.
I have been intimately involved in the feminist movement, the queer identity movement, animal rescue, and the movement for an ecologically desirable future for many years.
I am a mother, a daughter, and an ally.
I’m a union member. I tattoo my experience and my commitments on my arms. I am a vegetarian. I have worked very hard for the movement to end industrialized fossil fuel extraction.
If I must sum up some semblance of my commitments and values, I might say this:

Beauty–over mere survival.
Wisdom–over willful ignorance.
Compassion–over smarmy indolence.
Wit–over mendacity.

Laughter–over every fucking evil thing.
https://www.blogger.com/profile/17591185266607991768

She has published three books. No surprises here.

Eco-Nihilism: The Philosophical Geopolitics of the Climate Change Apocalypse
On Marx
Contemporary Feminist Theory and Activism: Six Global Issues
https://bloomu.academia.edu/WendyLee

She is very confused about what violence is.

The denial of healthcare is an act of violence.
Bombing Yemeni children is an act of violence.
Vomiting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is an act of violence.
https://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2017/04/

When Hussein Obama murders Muslims with missiles launched from flying robots that is not violence. That is enlightenment for Hussein Obama is The Messiah, The Lightbringer, The Source Of The Cum Wendy Swallowed For Eight Years. All Hail The Messiah!

I tried to post a response to CLS at the website--but while he/she solicits comments, there's actually no mechanism for posting.

So I'll post my comment here, and then say a bit why I think it's important--sometimes--to confront folks like this.

Dear Cynical Libertarian Society:

It is most unfortunate that you're neither cynical nor a libertarian. First, mere name-calling isn't cynical; it's cowardly. It's the first indication that you have no argument to make. And you certainly don't disappoint!

Second, libertarians are among the most vocal opponents of free speech zones. They argue that cordoning off speech into safety zones is a violation of the first amendment--and they're right.

What's just laughable here, however, is that you call me a cunt, but then go on to make abundantly clear that you have absolutely no idea at all what I write about or why. In fact, you jump ship to another indecipherable topic altogether.

I do have to thank you. Posting your incoherent rant has generated even more interest in my new book, Eco:Nihilism: The Philosophical Geopolitics of the Climate Change Apocalypse.

It will also make an excellent example of the fallacy "ad hominem" for my students this Fall term.

If I'm irritating self-proclaimed Nazis like yourself, I must be doing something right.

But, hey, that's stating the obvious.

Cheers,

Wendy Lynne Lee 

I think it's tempting to hold the view that the best response to self-avowed misogynist bigots like this (presumably) gentleman is to just ignore them. Sometimes that's the case. But since the election of Donald Trump as president, I think we have a responsibility to get much braver than we've been in the past. I think, in fact, that we must confront bigots like this one for the following reasons:

1. They're in charge. Anyone who thinks that these plainly hate-filled rants are not mirrored--however much more gentile the language--in the worldview of people like Steve Bannon, or in ideologies like "economic nationalism" and "Make America Great, Again!" just isn't paying attention.

2. When we don't take a stand we allow for this kind of rhetoric to become normalized. Perhaps we think these are "just words." Absolutely not. Words like "I think the Muslims hate us," "grab them by the pussy,"  and "I don't want poor people in my cabinet" helped to get the willfully ignorant in chief elected to the presidency.

3. Our silence makes us complicit. You don't have to be a member of the Progressive Left to see what's wrong in this fellow's characterization of women, of Obama. And even a cursory scan of his website makes clear that the only people he thinks should get to speak, to act, and to rule are white men who share his dark worldview. We let that go at the peril of far more than mere hypocrisy.

4. Screeds like this are opportunities. CLS is neither unusual nor particularly more obscene than many of the blogs that litter the alt-right blogosphere. They offer us the chance to show thinking people just how violent and tyrannical is the far right--and how close it is. It is a pristine opportunity to exercise the right to free speech by showing through reason and evidence just how malignant and dangerous is the worldview at least some of those who support the Trump regime.


There is no cordoned off "free speech zone" in cyberspace--at least not here, not yet.

So my hope is that CLS will see this and respond. To him I say: bring it on. 

My greater hope is that my readers will take that opportunity as well. 

Burn the Flag

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

As he just can't seem to help himself, the Trumpster twitters: "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!"

Here's my response: There is no right more fundamental to freedom of expression than flag-burning. 

Burn the flag.

It is the symbol of refusal to bow before this infant who would be king.

It is the rejection of Trumps racist, misogynist, money-soaked worldview.

It is the rejection of his terrifying cabinet appointments. 

It is the repudiation of his corporatist fascism.

It is the single most powerful recognition that America has become America, Inc.

It is an action in defense of the country.

That Trump is already wondering aloud--on Twitter--about whether he can criminalize this most essential right tells us everything we need to know about his character, his motives, his assault on the Bill of Rights.

And it's irrelevant whether or not he can outlaw flag-burning.

He can't. At least not alone.

That we should be burdened with a president so completely cavalier about the protections of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is precisely why we must burn the flag.

The first amendment doesn't exist merely to protect safe, conciliatory, or banal speech. 

As John Stewart Mill rightly argues, it exists to protect unpopular, offensive, vulgar, and woefully wrong speech.

It protects Trump's insane climate change denial.

It protects his references to Mexicans as "drug-dealers and rapists."

It protects Trump's vulgar references to women as pigs and pussies.

It protects Attorney General Nominee, and "career racist" Jeff Sessions' reference to black men as "boys." (https://theintercept.com/2016/11/18/career-racist-jeff-sessions-is-donald-trumps-pick-for-attorney-general/).

It protects Chief Council Steve Bannon's antisemitic sentiments, and his "alt-right, "fake news, conspiracy theory driven, white suppremacist website, Brietbart.

The first amendment protects all kinds of speech that is false, brutal, and divisive--even the completely off the rails ranting of Alex Jones' "Info-Wars," (http://www.infowars.com/).

Burning the flag--that is an act that can and should bring us together against a fear-mongering white nationalist regime who will dispatch soldiers to die for a country that represents nothing more than Trump's latest scheme to fill his own coffers.

Burn the flag.

And let's be very clear: we have every right to be protected from harm. There are important questions to be considered about whether hate speech constitutes harm. But these are far too sophisticated for either Trump or his entourage of sycophants to contemplate--especially as they jockey for greatest advantage to see out the narrow gauge that is the president's arse.

We do not have the right to be protected from being offended, even disgusted.

Burning the Americans flag is thus radically unlike the commission of hate speech.

In fact, it's among the most important acts we can perform in the defense of the country. 

Burn the flag.

That Trump has no comprehension of this fact bespeaks a willful ignorance so profound that we should all shudder at the very idea that he could be president. 

He personifies not merely hate speech but a repugnant worldview now celebrated by the likes of the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists, sexual assailants, and the willfully ignorant everywhere.

That Trump apparently thinks he has the power to expel citizens from the country on the grounds of his infantile rants should leave us embarrassed and ashamed for our horn-swaggled neighbors who voted for him.

They have no excuse.

Possibly the only thing more frightening than a Trump presidency are the emboldened bigots for whom hate speech has now been given a new lease on life, but who'd condemn the real patriot--the one who burns the flag in mourning over the death of the promise of democracy.

What besides setting the flag to flames could more eloquently express this catastrophic threat to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

What better way to recognize the preeminent importance of free speech?

Burn the flag.