I think giving a platform to someone who is a sitting US Senator, who has an argument supported by the majority of Americans, in the supposed Newspaper of Record, isn't the craziest thing ever decided and should not have led to the editor's firing.
Why the appeal to authority? There are plenty of senators who don't believe in evolution and other basic principles of science. Publishing an anti-science op-ed from any of them would be just as harmful as Tom Cotton's incitement to violence.
The rioters were already burning buildings and looting stores. That is why Tom Cotton proposed sending in the military. It was fighting violence with violence.
Again, I disagree with sending in the military, but preventing the progressive readership of the NYT from hearing about an opinion that 58% of Americans hold is simply coddling them and keeping them away from bad thoughts. We need an informed citizenry, not one that is afraid of ideas. This is why I support publishing such an op-ed despite disagreeing with it. It allows us to debate and attack the idea, without letting it fester and hide. Bad ideas should be argued against this way, not de-platformed entirely.
>This is why I support publishing such an op-ed despite disagreeing with it. It allows us to debate and attack the idea, without letting it fester and hide. Bad ideas should be argued against this way, not de-platformed entirely.
If you're so certain the ideas would be defeated then why not hand out copies of the Turner Diaries to every citizen? Why is racism still around when a true marketplace of ideas would have defeated it centuries ago? Propaganda doesn't fit into your naive model of how ideas spread and function.
Again, it was an opinion held by 58% of America (using military to quell looting and property destruction), by a US Senator. Op-eds are the opinion of the writer - that's why they are in the Opinion page. You are acting like Tom Cotton was advocating for some extreme far-right minority view held by only a tiny fraction of insane people, rather than the majority opinion.
I don't think this is an appeal to authority. if a sitting US senator says something about an event that's already a national news story, isn't that newsworthy?
