How can we make it stop?!

She says she wrote this piece on her own, and then SHOPPED IT AROUND and the f-ing WaPo picked it up I’m sure because they thought – - rightly – - that it would “generate controversy” and get them read.

I say let’s go Anonymous on their asses. WaPo could use some black pages faxed over.

She means more white people.

ejected like a twenty year old Motorhead cassette that is all stretched and warbly, and thrown out the window.

But, but, the warbly part is the only thing that makes Wurtzel’s interminable solos bearable…

Susan. my reading of the post above is that it argues the WaPo was wrong to publish the Allen piece because the post writer doesn’t agree with it. Well, I don’t agree with the Allen piece, either, but I do not think my opinion has any bearing on whether or not the WaPo has a right to print it.

Should they have printed it? Who knows?

For Christ’s sake.

1) The post isn’t about the writer disagreeing with Allen’s piece. It’s about Allen’s defence of her piece being utterly incoherent, and undermining the very arguments (I hesitate to dignify them with the term) she was using.

2) Of course the WaPo has a right to print it. Nobody here would disagree with that. But having a right to do something doesn’t mean you should do it. I have the right to call my best friend a lying cocksucker, but it’s probably best if I don’t, and he would be justified in calling me out on it.

But “should” has nothing to do with their right to print it.

Indeed. This is the very point we’ve been trying to get through your thick skull. You’re the one conflating them. The Post is a serious newspaper which fancies itself as a leader of intellectual opinion. As such it purports to have higher editorial standards than, say, Ann Coulter’s publisher. Yet it went ahead and published an incoherent, self-negating and bigoted article, which rightly pissed off a significant section of its readership and greatly reduced the paper’s credibility. It then went on to defend the piece as a joke, when in fact the author meant it perfectly seriously. That’s the sort of editorial misstep that does and should get people fired.

That said, Allen can go lehizdayen herself.

For what it’s worth the feminist equivalent of “house Negro” is “tool of the patriarchy.” Me, I’d just omit the second through fourth words in this case…

Now that’s racketeering!

Of course he does. And if this had been an opinion piece explaining how black people are too stupid to vote, I’m sure he would have defended its publication just as vociferously.

Ow! I hurt myself rolling my eyes too hard.

The Post chose to publish an insulting and poorly-reasoned opinion piece, and readers chose to voice their disapproval. That’s the First Amendment flowing both ways.

Many of these readers are also subscribers, some of whch have stated that they will rescind their support of the Post if they continue to publish opinions of this nature in the future. This is the free market at play; the final decision remains with the Post.

The Post has the right to publish whatever opinions they choose. They only need weigh the potential consequences of their actions if they are to remain a viable business and a credible source of information.

Readers do not have the direct power to “censor”. Editors do, but (as has been stated here many times) this is not at all the same thing as government censorship. It is merely a matter of the Post deciding what content is appropriate for their own publication. And yes, it is entirely fair to compare an opinion journal with the opinion page of a newspaper.

Okay, but remember – you also owe me $10.

There is a difference between saying “nobody should have to read this crap” and “I have declared nobody is allowed to read this crap.” This means that saying nobody would want to read crap is not the same as saying nobody is allowed to read certain things, for whatever reason.

Which means:

I don’t like your article. It’s crap.

is not the same as

You can’t write your article.

See, “want” is not the same thing as “allow.”

Saying “I want you to stop talking” is not the same thing as saying “You are forbidden to talk.”

“Want” is not the same thing as “demand” (and able to enforce that demand.)

Okey-dokey?

Attention dumbass:

contending that Allen’s article shoud have been rejected because you disagree with her assertions is, in fact, censorship.

jim: the sources you mention are, first, not newspapers, and, two, you’ve reversed the logic of my argument. Nothing is wrong when a journal of opinion chooses not to run pieces it doesn’t agree with. That’s not what I’ve been talking about.

Susan: Of couorse it was a bad business move. It will drive readers away. That’s not my point. Some posts here wren’t talking about the business angle. Rather, they don’t want anyone reading something they think is offensive. They apparently think protecting people from whatever they decide is “bad” is more important that protecting our right to read whatver we want and to print whatever we want.

Name one. Besides El Cid, whom I suspect of sarcasm. And censorship.

A belief in an assertion just exploded outside of my building!

Sadly, No! is a sterling example of allowing everyone to publish everything and letting the Goddess sort it out. I believe that with the publication of Allen’s op-ed in the Wa Po and the hiring of Bill Kristol as an NY Times columnist, the big newspapers are beginning to come around to my point of view.