Which sadly is partisan politics. Guillotine the rich is too.
You think that’s what the employees of the NYT are trying to do?
Human rights are not partisan. Cotton is a white supremacists who wants to kill young people marching for their human rights.
But, both sides have very fine people, right? /s
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Well done. 
Like some people like their…
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I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised, but wow. Yglesias not showing a good understanding there.
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If the people who approved this OpEd do understand that a free press is among the first targets of a military takeover, they have a very strange way of showing it.
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Maybe cryptkeeperfascist?
It’s not agreeing with the source, as much as the completely non-critical presentation. The idea that slapping “opinion” over a piece like this, and running with that as your only journalistic duty is laughable.
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Do you read The New York Times with any regularity, including the Opinion section? The vast majority of the pieces they’ve been publishing over the past days has not been in any way supportive of Cotton’s stance.
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Right? Human rights violations are not “political opinions” they are an authoritarian wish lists!
It doesn’t MATTER, because violating human rights is NEVER acceptable in a democratic society. Period. Full stop. It’s never acceptable ANYWHERE.
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Or from Kent State
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I disagree with this eloquent sentiment. Opinion or not, a publisher should have to consider their audience, and the effect printing and publishing things has on them. News sources are no place for opinions. Ergo when a “news source” publishes pure garbage like this, they eliminate their credibility as a news source and are demoted to tabloid propaganda. I give no fucks about your opinions about the opinions section, sorry NickyG. I have no respect for the NYT, it’s just not journalism. Sure there might be a good article here and there, entertaining even, but I wouldn’t call it journalism, which I loosely define as fact-checked reporting on current or past events. If it is not that, it’s just another stupid blog dirtying up the internet. Tom whatshisface over there just proves my point, the NYT is just a vehicle for guys like him to drive. If you have friends over at NYT, tell them this. Tell them to work up the courage to quit their job and do real journalism for a change.
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Why are we talking about me now? I don’t remember inviting anybody to do that
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It’s fine… it’s just partisan politics… /s
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Cotton is demonstrably wrong from moral, ethical and legal viewpoints, and a hypocrite (re: China and armed white supremacists in the Michigan statehouse) to boot. That a bunch of hateful ignoramuses agree with him doesn’t excuse the NYT for publishing the piece. Does anyone here think that the paper should be publishing op-eds from anti-vaxxers, 9/11 twoofers, flat-earthers, Nazis, etc. just because lots of people believe their claims?
As others have noted, if the paper indeed believes that Cotton’s views are dangerous and hateful and that they therefore require public scrutiny, they can write a straight piece of reportage about it. And if they think his rubbish ideas require debate, they can open them up to reader comment (something they turned off for this specific op-ed). Lending him their platform and reputation so he can spew his call for illegitimate state violence unopposed is irresponsible and reflects poorly on them.
As for Cotton, if he wants to borrow the credibility of a reputable news masthead to take his ideological dump in favour of fascism, the koo-koo bananas op-ed page of the WSJ is at his (garbage) disposal.
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That still doesn’t make any sense. A republic and a democracy aren’t opposites. A country can be a republic but not a democracy (e.g.GDR), a democracy but not a republic (e.g. Denmark), neither of them (any monarchy in history before the 19th century) or both (any democracy that isn’t also a constitutional monarchy). The US is in the latter category – though its status as a democracy is in peril.
Come to think of it, its status as a republic is as well, if Trump installs a dynasty.
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Agreed. I won’t be drawn into defending Cotton in any way.
Debate means using your words to convince. Peaceful protest is a form of debate.
More than half the population seems to agree with him that military riot control should happen. What tools besides debate do you have to change their minds other than guillotines and Nazi Punching which you seem to find consistent with universal human rights?
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Now there are two sides to that story, you know? Maybe the cops didn’t like the color of the guy’s shirt… sure, that’s it… or maybe he was sitting at the light aggressively. /s
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