Check out this tweet:
How did Miller know Statue of Liberty poem was added later? Happens to be popular white nationalist talking point… https://t.co/K2hiTZCFUh
— Sarah Ryley (@MissRyley) August 2, 2017
Knowledge of a fact which is conceded as true is being used to delegitimize someone’s views. I think this is extraordinary and scary.
Normally, debate over facts involves things like discussion over whether a factual claim is true, or an argument that the fact isn’t really that important, or a claim that there’s additional context which you need to understand the fact.
Those are all fine.
But here we see someone conceding a factual claim and then being like “Ah ha! The fact that you know that puts you on the side of the White Nationalists!”
Honestly, wtf do you do with that?
There’s already so many nasty ways the left delegitimizes disagreement.
It attacks people as not having the right sort of experience to have a valid opinion because they are white/male/etc.
It attacks people as insufficiently educated and elite to understand complex topics.
It attacks people for being religious.
It attacks people as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, etc., for having the wrong opinions on certain topics.
These are all evil and destructive.
We shouldn’t allow them to add factual knowledge to the list.