The thing for which Williamson is most famous is his (since deleted) tweet advocating the execution by hanging of every woman who has an abortion. [Jessica] Valenti notes that this would encompass approximately 25 percent of U.S. women.So Williamson got the boot.
Williamson’s second-most famous comment is in his contemptuous depiction of a nine-year-old African American boy, which is basically a litany of racist stereotypes strung together, complete with a description of the boy making a gesture Williamson describes as “the universal gesture of primate territorial challenge.”...
Here's "By Firing Kevin Williamson,The Atlantic Shows It Can't Handle Real Ideological Diversity/Williamson's rhetoric is inflammatory, but his views on abortion are not beyond the pale" by Katherine Mangu-Ward (Reason). Excerpt:
But the thing that cost him the gig was a remark he made on a podcast well before his firing and in a tweet (since deleted):The Atlantic is obviously caving to pressure. They had to know when they hired Williamson that he maintains that abortion is murder, and the fact that he would treat it the way he'd treat any murder is just standard, mundane adherence to principle and resistance to pragmatism. There's nothing to be shocked about. Why hire him if that wasn't what you wanted?
And someone challenged me on my views on abortion, saying, "If you really thought it was a crime, you would support things like life in prison, no parole, for treating it as a homicide." And I do support that. In fact, as I wrote, what I had in mind was hanging.
But what about that "the universal gesture of primate territorial challenge"? I agree with anyone who wants to advise writers to avoid references to monkeys and apes when talking about black people. But: 1. Human beings are primates! and 2. Williamson noted Donald Trump's entry into the 2016 presidential race with a column titled "Witless Ape Rides Escalator." Well, that attitude probably helped him get the job at The Atlantic. He'd throw feces at Trump! And he's conservative!
Donald Trump, being Donald Trump, announced his candidacy at Trump Tower, making a weird grand entrance via escalator — going down, of course, the symbolism of which is lost on that witless ape...Now, I blogged that at the time:
On the substance, Trump is — how to put it gently? Oh, why bother! — an ass. Not just an ass, but an ass of exceptionally intense asininity... The one thing worse than Trump’s vague horsepucky is his specific horsepucky...
"We’ve been to this corner of Crazytown before. If we’re going to have a billionaire dope running for the presidency, I prefer Ross Perot and his cracked tales of Vietnamese hit squads dispatched to take him out while Lee Atwater plotted to crash his daughter’s wedding with phonied-up lesbian sex pictures."That post had only one tag: nothing.
From "Witless Ape Rides Escalator," by Kevin D. Williamson, and that's more than I want to have to say about the person whose name I'm again declining to blog... which is what last night's post meant. I'm not saying his name. I'm not giving him the attention he wants. As my mother used to say: You'll only encourage him.
Anyway, here's the one column Williamson managed to get published in his mini-stint at The Atlantic: "The Passing of the Libertarian Moment/The end of the Cold War and the rise of Donald Trump have left classical liberals without a political home." Ha. He gave them the anti-Trumpism they wanted. But it was not enough. Because the ladies rebelled.
From that lone Atlantic column:
The Christian right was able to make its peace with Trump with relative ease, because it is moved almost exclusively by reactionary kulturkampf considerations.... The Chamber of Commerce made peace, being as it is one of the conservative constituencies getting what it wants out of the Trump administration: tax cuts and regulatory reform. The hawks are getting what they want, too, lately: John Bolton in the White House and an extra $61 billion in military spending in the latest budget bill.Sad... but not really that sad. Williamson hurls harsh words, gets harsh words hurled at him, and The Atlantic decides he wasn't as useful to its purposes as it had previously calculated.
What are the libertarians getting? A man with Richard Nixon’s character but not his patriotism, an advocate of Reagan’s drug war and Mussolini’s economics who dreams of using the FCC to shut down media critics—and possibly a global trade war to boot....
Because the women had the audacity to say we don't like your threatening to string up those of us who see fit to exercise a constitutional right.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 204 of 204@gq: Here’s where you’re confused: The Atlantic does have the power to hire and fire - it’s called freedom of association. A news organization is not subject to the 1st Amendment in the same way governments entity is. Here’s how it works: If a federal government entity fired Williamson, he’d be SOL working in this whole country. If The Atlantic fires him, another publication can and will hire him, especially if Williamson’s opinions are as riteous as you seem to contend. Moreover, The Atlantic’s readership can protest the firing by dropping subscriptions.
@chickelit: Here’s where you’re confused: The Atlantic does have the power to hire and fire - it’s called freedom of association.
But you don't have the legitimate power to demand that they fire someone for thought crime.
This isn't about the Atlantic firing him (although let's be clear: you can have freedom of association, or you can have civil rights laws, you can't have both).
This is about left wing fascists like you demanding that the Atlantic fire KW for being a thought criminal.
This isn't about legal rights, it's about social conventions. The Left demands that the social convention be "we can destroy anyone's life if they say anything we don't like." Fine, just understand, we're going to return the favor.
and we won't necessarily return it legally, or with mere social sanction
“This is about left wing fascists like you demanding that the Atlantic fire KW for being a thought criminal.”
You are one confused little man, gq. I propose you read the blog a bit longer before jumping to conclusions.
Once upon a time @chickelit, there was this concept called "tolerance". This meant you didn't have to approve of someone, but you left him / her alone, and didn't try to destroy his / her life, even though you didn't like, and didn't approve of, that person.
The Left was a big fan of tolerance, when they didn't have power. Now that they do, we see it was all a lie.
And we'll remember that, once we're back on top
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