Readers may not have heard the explosion when the New York Times’ remaining subscribers discovered that their Tree Deathstar had published a columnist who questions global warming hysteria. Publisher Sulzberger has been begging the enraged elitists to quit cancelling their subscriptions ever since.
Possibly, the enraged ex-Times readers are too young to recall the era when newspapers routinely published non-editorial board opinions on the op-ed page. That is why it was called the op-ed page (“opposite” the “editorial”). That oppressive ancient custom predates the war on free speech.
Formerly, Times readers would have felt somewhat foolish if they explained in polite company that an opposing opinion was a “trigger” for their latest emotional meltdown and/or lifelong freakout.
In the 1990s, trust me, snowflakes, such an admission would translate: “Really, I am way too unstable to ever hold down a serious job.”
Not now. From Rafael Salazar at RealClearScience:
When Bret Stephens, former columnist at the Wall Street Journal before joining the New York Times, wrote his inaugural column on April 28th, he broke the Internet. His argument that global warming and the human influence on it are real and undisputable, but that many other facets of the climate change debate are “a matter of probabilities”, did not sit well with opposing pundits. Challenging the accepted orthodoxy on climate change, it seems, is verboten.
The ensuing media storm was scathing. While grudgingly noting that “technically he doesn’t get any facts wrong”, Slate argued the suggestion by Stephens that “reasonable people can be skeptical about the dangers of climate change” is “not actually true.” Only unreasonable people can be, presumably. Going a step further, New Republic contended that the article was merely a further manifestation of the American conservative movement’s ubiquitous attempt to drag any issue inexorably towards the conclusion that the only possible answer is a hands-off, small government.More.
Yes, facts are a bitch. The Most Awful people can get hold of them.
See also: Don’t expect a quick end to the war on free speech The momentum of the campaign will be hard to stop
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