Fatuous. Based on a fallacy. Indefensible. David Brooks once again complains from his protected perch at the NYT that right-wingers like him have been silenced...then lists ways in which they have not. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/opinion/substack-newsletters-writers.html?smid=tw-share

Today we have right wing media...in ways we did not before the Fairness Doctrine was killed & Murdoch and Ailes did their nasty alchemy. We have talk radio. We have the Internet. See right wing domination of Facebook.This is the golden age of right wing access to American minds.

Of course, not all publications are right wing and the voices of the right hate that and will not be content until their messages of intolerance and exclusion dominate everywhere. This is of course, the bitter irony.

Brooks seems particularly aggrieved that academic institutions don't automatically ratify conservative views without considering that in academia their must be standards for inclusion of perspectives that often conservatives who have wailed about exclusion do not meet.

Our system guarantees free speech. It does not guarantee everyone access to the platforms they covet. The guarantee of free speech is also a guarantee that those who create platforms can set standards. In academia issues like rigor and being based in facts come into play.

Some of the most prominent conservatives denied access to academic podiums have promoted racism or denied science or rejected rigor. When you violate academic standards you are not promoting an "alternative view." You are disqualifying yourself.

We have a right wing president, a right wing senate, more right wing media than ever, a right wing information ecosystem that is--objectively--as dangerous a purveyor of hate and contempt for science, free speech, tolerance and our true values of openness as we've ever seen.

Deny it though they will, the "respectable right" has cleared the path for Trump, McConnell, Barr, the rise of the primacy of hypocritical evangelicals in right wing politics, the rise of white supremacy (yes...with their code words about "American values" for decades).

We, who cherish free speech, should celebrate the new and unprecedented access to platforms and audiences they have. That does not mean we should lower the standards of our academic institutions or of media that embraces a view different from theirs.

But then again, it's an old familiar story. Their plea for openness is just another effort to promote a society that contains the exclusions and prerogatives for the already empowered for which they have long fought. It is a deception founded in hypocrisy based on lies.