Lubeyboobyalt
My concern about censorship like that is always how it concentrates power.
How do you tell the difference between a bot and someone like me? (fwiw MNHQ know im real and have send me a mug to my home address before)
What i find most alarming is how young people don't understand the underpinning principles of human rights and the whole systematic need for checks and balances to prevent too much power concerntrated in one person / group (potential for abuse of power). Cancel culture is only possible because of too much power concerntrated and that enables abuses to be missed and outright disregarded.
Its a failure to properly teach these principles and the skills to think critically and source check that leave us most vulnerable. Its not an issue confinded to 'the uneducated' either. Indeed cancel culture is most rife at universities.
We have had a period where media studies was scoffed at and dismissed as a mickey mouse subject. Thousands did it at university (and then learnt tools of manipulation for marketing, advertising and pr) but the lack of basics on this at lower levels of education remains very stark. We have some minimal stuff about safety online but not really examining principles of accountability and truthtelling with it. It should be core learning not an afterthought cos its relevant to every day life in a way that so much we learn isn't.
In terms of this particular issue, one of things thats niggling away at me, is so much discussion about war crimes. Im not convinced its helpful at this stage because it also shines a light on western abuses. Thats fuelling a whole narrative which isn't helpful in terms of stopping more problems.
If this eventually does end up going to the Hague (and i have my doubts), the focus has to be in the very worst if this war (which is probably still to come) and there will need to be some kind of reckoning over western hypocrisy. But that time isn't now. There's too much more at stake in terms of humanity. Thats going to be a hugely unpopular position to take but i think its the pragmatic one.
Ultimately war crime trials are something that victors deal with. And you have to comprehensively win.
Thats a long long way off and shouldnt be taken for granted.
I think the huge complacency and erosion of material reality and truth has festered for decades. It needs massively addressing because its the thing that protects us.
There is a bitter irony and a very old quote that springs to mind for me
Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
And we have cycles where we forget that our freedom is not guaranteed nor indefinite. We have to recognise it, appreciate it and value it. We are very much in a late stage of a cycle and thats scary.
We've been the unwitting tyrants at times because we've failed to apply checks and balances to all. And that substantially weakens us. Its a leaning towards moral superiority rather than a proper willingness for self criticalness and a space discussion and debate. Shutting down debate closes our minds and our ability to check ourselves.
The whatabouttery we see on threads like this doesn't focus on the issue at hand. It seeks gotchas to undermine. Its not constructive but destructive. It festers and grows on the seeds of perceived injustices.
Ultimately I don't believe in good guys and bad guys. I believe in less worse guys and really dreadful guys. There are no real good guys. And thats ultimately the lens you have to see the world through. Thats difficult to convey and to tackle when faced with black and white whatabboutery.
I've been saying this a long time now, but this is what has been missing from American and British politics for a long time now. And i think its actually what most people are seeking instinctively. Its the injustice that's been allowed to arise thats our achilles heel now. We need to see this to put it right, but we also need to see the danger in villifing those with misguided notions of bettering the world because their naivety misses the bigger true threat to freedom and safety.
We've definitely missed the mark and done awful things. But I'd still take that over living in a totalitarian regime because I understand the difference. I don't think enough people do.