Law Professor Suspended On Twitter -- Cue The Crybaby Tour Of His Supporters
What would happen if conservatives faced real adversity?
Tennessee Law Professor Glenn Reynolds — a.k.a. @instapundit — is a staple of the Twitterverse. In fact, he’s a regular retweeter of Above the Law stories and we are a regular retweeter of his work. He’s more right wing than my personal taste, but he’s a great outlet for conservative legal insights.
Last night though, he wrote a Tweet that seemed very “off-the-cuff” that got his account suspended this morning. That an outspoken law professor made an inappropriate remark in a public forum isn’t the story — that’s what good provocateurs do — but the whining and complaining about “censorship” coming from these conservative tools is just too rich.
He’s back up now, having deleted the Tweet in question. But here’s what caused the kerfuffle, as captured by Twitchy:
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Advocating vehicular homicide was probably not the ideal response.
Obviously there’s some ferocious backpedaling being done here:
Apparently in response to the riots… err… protests in Charlotte, Reynolds suggested motorists not sit in their cars waiting to be beaten to death. Sure, he was far more direct in his tweet but the intent was defense, not murder.
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This, of course, misses the point. Certainly the Tweet was intended as a “defense,” but the defense tactic in question was running over people who inconvenience you based on a bundle of stereotypes and generalizations. The message only feeds the narrative that all the protesters are violent psychopaths to be exterminated even if that can only remotely characterize a small percentage of the people on the street. “Stay off the streets” or “Be safe” or “Pleading for calm” are all messages that could have been put out there, but instead we got “cause grievous personal injury.”
Personally, I’d prefer to have this debate hashed out in public. There’s something beautiful to showing the world something ugly.
Twitter, on the other hand, felt the Tweet was inflammatory — not an indefensible position in a world where Trump rallies show that deranged hot heads will go out and act on a scrap of red meat — and shut down the Instapundit account until the Tweet was taken down. That’s their right as a private entity.
But apparently the rights of private companies fall by the wayside when they don’t kowtow to the impulses of right-wingers popping off. As a reminder: sexually harassing interns = none of the government’s goddamned business, moderating a private forum = mortal sin. Seriously, the right wing Twittersphere feels that this is the most egregious injustice in the world. At least ten times more egregious than the killing of the black guy that sparked this whole thing!
Some Tweets from supporters:
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To quote The Dude, “Walter, this is not a First Amendment thing, man.” Go ahead and advocate running over people on your own dime. And that seems to be the plan for Reynolds, who states that he’s leaving Twitter in the wake of this — though after he posts some parting thoughts. That would be a shame. Don’t let getting scolded over one boneheaded Tweet bring an end to an otherwise solid feed. In these times conservatives with academic leanings are few and far between.
These supporters, though! Man, coupled with the kvetching over Facebook’s news feature, conservatives just can’t get enough of playing the victim card every time a private entity says, “Yeah, we don’t really need to provide you a forum when you say dumb, offensive stuff.” The persecution complex is real, folks. There’s a war on Christmas and everything. Look, Twitter’s never had a problem with the other 580K+ politically charged Tweets Reynolds put out over the years.
DONALD TRUMP LITERALLY LIVES ON TWITTER. That’s more than enough proof that Twitter isn’t trying to build a liberal haven. If conservatives can just put a lid on their inner Grand Theft Auto fantasies, Twitter isn’t going to stifle whatever Obamacare night terrors someone wants to put up.
Which brings us to the most bizarre aspect of the drive to cast this as a politically motivated silencing: are none of these people skeeved out to be saying, “Killing black people is a conservative political message”? Like… that’s really the wagon y’all want to hitch on? I’m not disagreeing with the sentiment that free speech is meant for the most offensive speech, but, optically, this is where you want to go ahead and position your movement?
Well, good luck with all that.
