In case you don’t know, The New Republic (TNR) has been around forever (since 1914, to be exact). Recently, there was a huge uproar over there, because their owner, Chris Hughes, decided that he didn’t like long-form journalism, and that he wanted to be more like Yahoo, Salon, Slate, Gawker, etc. So, he fired immensely respected editor Franklin Foer, and replaced him with Gabriel Synder. Guess what he used to be? The editor-in-chief of Gawker. Hopefully I have your attention now.
So, Synder has been trying to take The New Republic into a new space. Instead of being more along the lines of liberal establishment site/magazine, they now want to compete with the likes of Mother Jones, The Nation, Harper’s, etc. In other words, they want to be “progressive” and not liberal. Jonathan Chait explained the difference between the two pretty well in his column. I consider myself a liberal and not a progressive because I reject SJW dogma. I’m a free speech absolutist, for one. I’m also a huge supporter of strong protections for the accused. The whole innocent until proven guilty thing? That actually means something to me.
It doesn’t mean anything to ideologues like Jessica Valenti, though. In fact, it’s a major impediment to their Listen & Believe agenda. As Cathy Young pointed out, this is the same Jessica Valenti who was all about #IStandWithJackie last fall. Who’s Jackie, you ask? That was the woman at the center of the Rolling Stone rape hoax. This isn’t the first time Valenti has done something like this, and it will not be the last. She’s a radical feminist zealot. The rights of the accused are not a factor for her.
Don’t believe me? Well, take a look at some of the tweets I’ve been sending out as a promo for this article:
"It seems odd that we continue to worry about the reputations of men who are accused of sexual wrong-doings." – Jessica Valenti
— Ethan Ralph (@TheRalphRetort) February 21, 2015
— Ethan Ralph (@TheRalphRetort) February 21, 2015
Valenti was pushing this in 2010… pic.twitter.com/w4pdadXHVD
— Ethan Ralph (@TheRalphRetort) February 21, 2015
This is the person The New New Republic decides to quote in an article about rape on college campuses. This phony “epidemic” was cooked up by feminists as a way to usher in new rules for university disciplinary hearings. In short, they want to make it a lot easier for the accuser to prevail. They want to institutionalize Listen & Believe, basically. So when someone starts talking about using the “reasonable person” standard, it’s an affront to their radical feminist sensibilities (full article here):
Feminist author and journalist Jessica Valenti, who parried Shulevitz’s concerns about due process in her Guardian column, was similarly incredulous when I spoke with her. “We’re not very reasonable when it comes to rape,” she told me. “As a society, we don’t have a reasonable understanding of what rape is, we don’t have reasonable responses—we’re still a culture that overwhelmingly victim-blames.
Thankfully, we have advocates like Based Aunt Cathy Young to fight for reason and rationality:
The new New Republic, racing @Salon to the bottom, seriously quotes @JessicaValenti on campus rape http://t.co/Qwz6WDamso @tnr
— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) February 19, 2015
Also snarkily refers to law profs "bemoaning" lack of rights for accused. So much for @tnr's 100-year-old history of liberalism
— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) February 19, 2015
.@PeterPois @tnr @JudithShulevitz Yes, the fact that this piece attacks a veteran writer from the old TNR just makes is all the worse.
— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) February 19, 2015
What passes for debate at the new @tnr. pic.twitter.com/Tp9fpnRz1O
— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) February 19, 2015
She’s not the only one standing up, though. Some law professors, along with Judith Shulevitz, a former TNR writer who resigned after the recent shakeup, (and who wrote the “reasonable person” op-ed TNR is shitting on) are as well. As it turns out, some people still value due process:
https://twitter.com/JudithShulevitz/status/568053434777255936
https://twitter.com/JudithShulevitz/status/568076730000384000
https://twitter.com/JudithShulevitz/status/568076775852548096
We have a lot of work to do to fight these bastards on college campuses around the country. The SJWs have had some big successes there recent years. Their agenda is now in place at many universities, Harvard among them. They will continue to push disrespect for due process. If the radfems had their way, it would be up to the accused to prove his innocence. We simply cannot allow that sort of ideology to go unchecked. Young, Shulevitz, and the law professors have it exactly right. Join the fight and help them beat back this disconcerting tide. Don’t sit back on this one. If you do, the nutters like Valenti are going to prevail.