Pretty much anyone would feel a bit touchy if it were suggested they were the scum of human society. Nobody likes being called that. When we’re talking about the alt right, a cluster of beliefs exhibiting anything from White Supremacy to anti-suffragist sentiments, it’s hard not to point out that they advocate for a lot of harm. Except a detailed description of the harm in question is a feature, and not a bug. They want to hurt you.

However, the alt right is uniquely predictable in that calling out alt right beliefs as being dangerous will inevitably result in you being doxxed and swarmed by rape and death threats, as if this proves how reasonable advocacy for the alt right cluster of beliefs is.

Cue a Canadian university where this is exactly what happened.

In the event, Ms. Slusar and her loved ones have received more than 200 ugly and threatening messages in the short time since reprints of the Sun’s stories began appearing prominently in other like-minded publications like the National Post. Some of these late-night phone calls and social media messages have called for her to be murdered, others suggest she take her own life, still others urge degrading violence upon her.

So if Ms. Slusar said she found the implications of someone wearing that particular hat on the Calgary university’s campus threatening, subsequent events confirm her fears were completely justified.

Dear alt right,

Allow me to repeat Mr. Climenhaga’s words here:

So if Ms. Slusar said she found the implications of someone wearing that particular hat on the Calgary university’s campus threatening, subsequent events confirm her fears were completely justified.

In case that was too many big words, I’ll say it more slowly: You cannot expect your movement to be treated as a respectable expression of values if you do so by doxxing and then issuing threats of rape and death. If you freely acknowledge that you issue threats of rape and death, but don’t think this is a problem, you are a fucking criminal–one might say, a deplorable, and have absolutely no moral traction from which to stand. This is of course without even acknowledging the substance of Trump’s policy, which is where we get these conclusions that anyone supporting Trump is a fascist and a White Supremacist. It’s violence all around, and I have no fucking idea where Trump supporters have the temerity to claim moral righteousness at any point.

But in a “marketplace of ideas,” we can’t marginalize offensive speech without criticizing it. So recognizing this fundamental right sure as hell doesn’t mean – as mainstream media’s professional political correctness scolds clearly want us to believe – that we’re obligated to keep our lips zipped when we hear hateful, threatening or abusive speech. And it doesn’t mean that people courageous enough to speak up are “ultra-sensitive” or “politically correct.”

Isn’t it curious how right-wing “free-speech advocates” instinctively use all the legal and political weapons available to them, from their exclusive media franchise to the law of defamation, to suppress legitimate democratic criticism when it comes their way?

You know, it almost sounds like you’re criticizing this cluster of beliefs as being hypocritical, unprincipled, and inconsistent.

Imagine that.

Meanwhile, I’m sure many people persuaded by the alt right will continue doing what they’re doing, acting as if people secede to gunboat diplomacy because the gunboat has good ideas.

-Shiv