BUT THE HANGMAN ISN'T HANGING AND THEY PUT YOU IN THE STREET
BUT THE HANGMAN ISN’T HANGING AND THEY PUT YOU ON THE STREET: A conservative writer named Kevin Williamson has been in the news lately. He was a columnist for The National Review, where his opinions were apparently pretty much par for the course. On March 22, he was hired by The Atlantic, a center-left publication, ostensibly to offer their readership a sane conservative perspective on the events of the day.
Unfortunately, no one at The Atlantic bothered to confirm that Williamson was sane. “Sane,” not in the sense of hearing voices no one else hears, or seeing things no one else sees, but “sane” in the sense of being someone whose arguments, while perhaps unorthodox, would interest rather than outrage The Atlantic’s center-left readers.
Alas for the Williamson-Atlantic alliance, it soon developed that Williamson had some intemperate views. He argued that women who had abortions were murderers.
Outrage ensued. Williamson’s position was a wee bit uncomfortable even for most conservatives, who typically reserve the term “murderer” for the doctors who perform abortions. They’d rather stay silent on the status of the patients who solicit those abortions.
Still, while Williamson’s position was harsh, in my view it had the virtue of being logically consistent with conventional conservative rhetoric. Where Williamson crossed the line was that he didn’t stop with the label. He took his position to its logical conclusion. “I would totally go with treating it like any other crime, up to and including hanging.” That’s a position that quite a few conservatives may support, but don’t really want to say out loud.
Why? Because according to a 2017 report by the Guttmacher Institute (link below), 23.7% of American women 45 and younger have had abortions. Whether he was aware of the numbers of not, Williamson was advocating the hanging of over 15 million American women. And he made that point not just once, in a tweet, but in a podcast interview as well. It was a position he’d considered and was willing to defend. That was too much for The Atlantic, who fired him a couple of weeks after hiring him.
Controversy ensued. People on the Left said it was about time, that Williamson shouldn’t have been hired in the first place. People on the Right used it as fodder for their unquenchable persecution complex: People on the Left are snowflakes who can’t stand to have their world view questioned. White people are the real victims. White men, especially, who have been so persecuted that they’ve only been elected president 44 out of 45 times in American history.
I don’t have much more to say about Williamson. He hates abortion, which among his crowd makes him “pro-life.” But he wants to hang 15 million people, which would put him in the company of people like Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Executing 15 million people doesn’t seem like a “pro-life” position to me. Williamson also hates contraception, the one proven method of reducing abortions. Pretty clearly, what he really hates is female sexual autonomy. Screw him. Or rather, don’t screw him.
The controversy I want to talk about here is the one about the value of opinionizing. Press outlets like The National Review and The Atlantic have subscribers, who pay their money for a certain product. Paying customers have a right to an opinion about the content they spend their money on.
But what about mere bloviators like yours truly? I have opinions, and I hope they have some value, over and above blowing off steam. Even though I don’t charge for them, I wonder why anyone reads what I write. Which begs the question of why anyone reads a New York Times/Washington Post op-ed.
Do people read the Big Media editorial page (or my minor league Facebook posts) for new information? Or for help in making sense of the information they’ve already heard about? Or for an analysis of the new information that reinforces their particular view of the world? Or maybe just for someone who can talk about this new information in a way that amuses them?
I try to touch all those bases in my posts. If I got paid for my work, I’d feel an obligation to my corporate overlords to write more often, and to make sure my posts always contained click-worthy hooks. But since what I write is free (albeit worth every penny), I don’t have to worry about pleasing an editor or a publisher. But I’m not just writing to please myself. I want to give my readers value for their time. I know all of you have other things you could be doing.
I don’t really know how many people read what I write. My guess is that my readership may reach a couple dozen people, give or take, on a good day. And I’m fine with that. I’m not trolling for more Likes or Shares.
If I have a point, it’s this. I’ve been writing about politics for two years now. No one is more surprised about that than I am. If you read what I write regularly, or even occasionally – thanks. I appreciate it.
I’m basically preaching to the choir, but the choir does good work and deserves to be acknowledged. I hear you, friends, whether or not you hear me. If I had wings, you’d be the wind beneath them. Keep up the good work, and thanks to everyone/anyone who’s made it to the end of this post.