Rage Against the Outrage Machine

From Conor Friedersdorf of Atlantic Magazine via Instapundit:

To sum up, the flaws in Will's column are real enough, or so it seems to me. But they're well within the normal range of wrongheaded things that newspaper columnists inevitably write if they do the job twice a week for years. What distinguishes Will's column is the fact that he addresses a sensitive, fraught topic. His critics' unstated belief is that because he dared to do so with inadequate sensitivity, they're justified in twisting his words in the most provocative way possible, all the while striking an exaggerated pose of righteous outrage. (Could it be that a curmudgeonly septuagenarian is both offensive to the sensibilities of his ideological opposites and has something valuable to contribute?) The perverse effect will be a broadened subset of cautious pundits who are less likely to write about rape or sexual assault at all (especially at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch!). Totally ignoring rape won't ever get a person fired. Writing about it might, especially if one's words aren't reliably conveyed. Public discourse is undermined by people whose focus is drawing red cards on their opponents.

But let’s be clear. People aren’t “misunderstanding” what Will wrote. They deliberately misrepresented what Will said, and they did it to chill debate. That’s who they are, that’s what they do.

All dissenting opinion will be eliminated, from the members of the party that demand "diversity" and "tolerance."