It’s her right to express herself
People say (and apparently think) the most ridiculous things about “rights.”
Case in point:
— Deborah C (@deborahmacnz) March 9, 2019
I don’t agree with the t-shirt but I understand how someone could be driven to wear it. I wouldn’t wear it, but it’s her right to express herself. Just like it’s your right to disagree.
— Deborah C (@deborahmacnz) March 10, 2019
There’s no such thing as a “right” to express oneself by carrying banners or wearing T shirts that say “KILL THE ___”.
There may be a legal right in some jurisdictions to do that, but it’s thin ice. But more to the point, legal rights aren’t the only kind, and it’s pretty clear the tweeter was talking about the broader kind of right, the moral right – and the tweeter is full of shit. No there isn’t a moral right to advocate murder. Advocating murder isn’t a form of self-expression, it’s a call for murder.
Isn’t it interesting that preceding struggles of the oppressed haven’t generally called for murder? The Civil Rights movement was divided on the issue of non-violence, but the factions opposed to absolute and total non-violence weren’t advocating murder, they were advocating self-defense. I think there was some “Kill the Bosses” rhetoric in some labor struggles in the IWW days, but I can’t swear to it. It’s not normal, it’s not “self expression,” it’s not a “right,” and it’s not ok.
Also I wonder why she uses “her” in reference to the wearer of the shirt. Because of the hair? But plenty of men have hair that long. The sun glasses? Unclear. The face? I can’t tell, myself. Oh maybe it’s the T shirt. I’m used to T shirts that are just T shirts, generic, either sex can wear them. I don’t wear the Special for Laydeez Only ones with low necks and shorter, tilted sleeves, so I forget that they’re a thing.
At any rate – nah. A “social justice” movement that advocates for killing feminist women has nothing to do with social justice.
Driven to it by what? By people telling them they don’t agree that males are “women” if they say so? By propagandists claiming, erroneously, that they’re at disproportionate risk of being murdered? By the words of feminists?
Do let us know, Deborah Callahan, what exactly it is you think has “driven” this person to wear this t-shirt, so that we may all appreciate your understanding.
This likely middle class white male is not oppressed. He has not been “driven to” anything. He is doing exactly what he wants to do, and he has no dearth of support for his murderous little fantasy.
Well you see it’s like this: we know s/he must have been driven to it, because look, s/he did it, so s/he must have been driven to it. Therefore, it’s the TERFs’ fault. Bam! Can’t argue with that, now can you.
Hmm. I wonder if that was supposed to read, “Support your sisters, Just not your Cisters.”
The ‘driven to it’ argument HAS to be retired. It’s the same mind-dreck the media trucked out about Trump voters. For that matter its the same argument that rationalizes the rise of the Klan, or the Nazis. Any time one sees despicable behavior justified by this ‘the poor widdle dears couldn’t help it,’ one should reach for a brick.
Yes, it’s the same argument I see about Islamists, too. They were driven to violence by the decadence of the west. And people are sympathetic. But when you read the history, it appears that what “drove him” to it was seeing women walking around without being in sacks, seeing single men and women dancing together at a church dance (and I have seen exactly zero church dances that most of these people who are sympathetic would call decadent – especially in the earlier part of the last century).
In short, what ‘drives him to it’ always seems to be hatred of women (or other marginalized cultures).