The hullabaloo among the liberal cohort over Carlson’s interview with Putin unveils that those who label communists as tankies and authoritarians are well-aware of the necessity to suppress divergent viewpoints.
It emerges that freedom of expression is limited to ideas that align with the liberal narrative; when faced with opinions they deem detrimental, liberals demand cancellation, imprisonment, or even death for the proponents.
The real disagreement liberals have with communists is over what set of ideas has merit. When liberals screech about authoritarianism what they’re really saying is that it’s their ideology that’s being suppressed.
Genuine question: will Carlson be sanctioned or face legal repercussions for this interview? I remember reading about how a Canadian professor, Radhika Desai, was at Sochi and asked Putin about the Nazi parliament situation and people went fucking insane on her. I guess because of her being there she herself could face legal consequences due to Russia being sanctioned by Canada. If you buy certain things or interact with Russia in a certain way you could get in big trouble!
Dr. Desai doesn’t seem to be facing dismissal over this yet, but I do worry about if they will try to get her with anything…
I don’t think they will sanction him in US because he’s too much of a celebrity at this point, and this would raise a lot of questions with the public. Specifically, the west keeps insisting that it’s not at war with Russia. And if that’s the case, then it’s going to be a bit difficult to explain why a journalist going to Russia to interview the president is being sanctioned. Carlson would obviously jump on that too, since it plays into his narrative.
So far, all the controversy they created over this seems to just act as free promotion for the interview. Cynically, you could almost think US wanted it to happen and is now promoting it in a backhanded way. If US is trying to get out of the war, this will likely go a long way shifting public opinion in that direction. The dems can blame the republicans for ending funding for the war, and extricate themselves from the whole thing.
Dr. Desai will likely get pressure in Canada over going to Sochi, hoping it’s not going to end up being too much hassle for her.
So far she’s standing by what she did/said (it wasn’t even bad but people here freak out over everything) and doesn’t seem to be deterred. The university also has made comments about not firing her so that’s good. Another professor in another university came at her pretty aggressively but we’ll have to see if he tries anything. I hope nothing bad happens, it’d be an honour to study under Dr. Desai one day.
I imagine she has a tenure, so it’s likely pretty hard to fire her. There’s nothing illegal about travelling to Russia at the end of the day. I’m also expecting that the hysteria will start dying down as the war winds up.