The Conservative Need For Safe Spaces Is Laughable, Unconstitutional, And SAD!
This is what white male fragility looks like.
White House Press Secretary Sean ‘Glass Cannon’ Spicer (Getty Images)
If you believe the conservative media, the only people who ask for “safe spaces” are special snowflake millennials who got too many participation trophies and not enough whuppings as children.
But out here in the real world, it is the fragile, conservative white man who is most willing to trample on the Constitution in order to be protected from your ouchy words and conflicting ideals. Unlike kids on college campus, it’s the white man who wants to use the power of the state to stamp out dissent and live in the echo chamber of their own “alternative facts.”
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The Intercept has a great piece out today about the eight states where Republicans are actively trying to come up with laws designed to restrict protests: Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, Virginia, and Washington State. At least. “[I]n North Dakota, conservatives are even pushing a bill that would allow motorists to run over and kill protesters so long as the collision was accidental.” (The North Dakota bill probably still wouldn’t make Glenn Reynolds happy, but still.)
This is what white male fragility looks like. It’s not enough for them to have their own facts, their own news channels, their own Congress, their own courts, and their own president. The appearance of dissent is so troubling to them that Republicans literally want to be able to run you down in the street, for the crime of disagreeing with them.
Colorado wants to make it harder for people to defend the environment, and Michigan wants people to take their poisoned water and shut up about it, and… well, I don’t know what’s up Minnesota’s ass, but it probably has something to do with black lives not mattering to Scott Walker. But it’s even easier to see how desperate white males are to live in their own reality when they actually cry about it.
Exhibit A: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Sean Spicer used his first press conference to straight out lie. He used his second to bitch and moan. From NPR:
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“The default narrative is always negative,” Spicer said Monday during his first briefing in which he took questions. “And that’s demoralizing.”
Spicer lamented what he called a “constant theme to undercut the tremendous support” that Trump has, adding, “I think its just unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told it’s not big enough; it’s not good enough; you can’t win.”
That is the spokesperson for the President of the United States, justifying his previous lies by complaining that people were being too negative when they tell the objective truth about the number of people who showed up for Trump’s installation event. That is a white man sitting on the biggest microphone in the world, complaining that his inability to control the narrative with lies and falsehoods is… “demoralizing.”
If a liberal millennial said that, your Facebook feed would be full of Republicans chestily bemoaning “the kids these days” and offering to “toughen him up” with surprise boxing lessons.
Sean Spicer might be the living embodiment of the crying Jordan meme, and it’d be funny if there weren’t people trying to codify his fragility into laws. But there are, and North Carolina seems to be ground zero for white people who are trying to make the world safe for themselves. From the News & Observer:
After a video was posted on Facebook Friday showing a group of people following [former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory] during a trip to Washington, D.C., for inaugural weekend, chanting “Shame!” and calling him a bigot, Sen. Dan Bishop of Charlotte says he’ll introduce legislation to protect public officials.
The proposed legislation would “make it a crime to threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her duties,” Bishop said.
“Because lines are being crossed,” Bishop, a Republican who represents the 39th District in the North Carolina Senate, wrote in an email from his Senate campaign account.
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Somebody was mean to a former public official, and now there oughtta be a law protecting his safe space.
What should really scare you about this tripe is the phrase “on account of, the performance of his or her duties.” Speaking out against public officials “on account of” their actions in office is THE BEST POSSIBLE REASON to protest them. It SHOULD be about their job performance, and not some kind of personal attack based on an immutable characteristic of their being. Both should be protected speech, of course, but the specific kind of conduct North Carolina seeks to ban is the BETTER speech.
Pat McCrory is a transphobic bigot. That’s not a personal opinion based on his character, that is an educated observation based on his public actions and statements. Trying to restrict speech about the performance of our elected officials is completely antithetical to the cause of freedom and liberty. It was in anticipation of jackboots like the ones they seem to elect in North Carolina that the Founders put the First Amendment, FIRST.
If Pat McCrory doesn’t want to be called a bigot, he’s free to not attempt to legislate bigotry. If Sean Spicer doesn’t want to be demoralized, the truth can always set him free. If North Dakota wants to run over protesters… Jesus Christ no you can’t do that, that’s freaking MURDER.
Nothing can stop conservatives from living in a bubble. Nothing can stop them from living in a completely alternate reality where Santa Claus is white and El Chupacabra commits voting fraud. But they are not allowed to exist without dissent. Even if they repealed the First Amendment — which they’d functionally have to get some of these laws upheld — there are still more than enough people who are willing and ready to violate those proposed laws, in order to make their dissent heard.
Conservatives are so fragile that they’re willing to shoot protesters. Protesters are so committed that they’re willing to die.
Lawmakers in Eight States Have Proposed Laws Criminalizing Peaceful Protest [The Intercept]
Does Pat McCrory need protection? One NC senator thinks so [News & Observer]
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
