To the Pain

Even when we retaliate in kind, we’re still better than them

Here’s a piece I submitted to a Respectable Mainstream Publication™️ a short while ago. Hearing no response from them, I’m reproducing it in full here, slightly modified. UPDATE: I also want to add that I’m neither a leftist nor a Trump guy. I’m also not a Republican. I’m just tired of the discourse.

When can an enemy’s tactics be used against it? What happens when one side to a conflict deviates from the acceptable rules of engagement? Is it okay to retaliate in kind? Under international law, the answer is yes, in the form of reprisals. Reprisals areconsidered an acceptable response if the goal of the reprisals is to bring the other belligerent back into compliance with the acceptable rules of engagement. To be considered acceptable, reprisals must be (1) in response to a previous attack, (2) proportionate to the previous attack, and (3) directed only at combatants and legitimate military targets. In other words, one doesn’t conduct a reprisal for no reason, one doesn’t respond to a thrown rock with a nuclear bomb, and one doesn’t indiscriminately attack civilians.

I’m sure you’ve seen the stories of the right calling for the firing of people lamenting that Donald Trump’s would-be assassin missed.¹ Popular conservative account Libs of TikTok recently helped get a Home Depot employee fired under this pretext.  This has been decried as hypocrisy by people on the left, who claim to be the victims of “right-wing cancel culture.”

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1813320436702400568

Is such a firing proportional? Is this conducted against an enemy combatant or military target? These questions are muddier in the realm of electoral politics than in war. Politics is supposed to be a proxy for armed conflict, resolving questions without resorting to violence. Disagreements between political factions are settled at the ballot box. It’s American civics 101. But what happens when one side, the side with cultural and institutional power, takes extraordinary measures to punish people with differing viewpoints? What happens when these tactics, once considered beyond the pale, are deployed to, in the words of Barack Obama, punish enemies and reward friends? What then?

Should the victims of such treatment sit and take it? Or should they respond in kind? If conservative Christian bakers and soccer moms can be singled out for personal and professional ruin, aren’t left-wing cashiers and congressional staffers fair game as well? Who is a combatant and who is a civilian?

This question highlights a problem with democracy: those actually responsible for our misery can act with impunity, via the diffusion of responsibility and the excuse that 50-percent-plus-one is the population voted for them, which makes the populace start blaming its neighbors instead of the people in charge. This is power without consequences, action without responsibility, a win-win for the establishment: half of the voting public bears the brunt of any blame that does get thrown around, while the powers-that-be skate. This is not an ideal state of affairs, but until the fractious citizenry can stop fighting itself, it will continue.

What we need is to find a way to reset the rules of engagement. The left’s response to Trump’s attempted assassination has given the right, and normal people of all persuasions, who wish to get back to some level of civility, a golden opportunity.

We’ve come a long way from “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It feels wrong for those raised to believe in the sanctity of free speech to cancel people for expressing their opinions. But all too often, your neighbor with the “Biden-Harris” sign on their lawn² thinks it's funny when you lose your job based on your political opinions, when their political opposition dies—both things which were, a generation ago, uncrossable lines in American politics. Reprisals are the opportunity to bring all sides back into compliance with American norms. And given our voting system, everyone is a target. Until all sides feel the pain of cancellation, we can never get back to discussing how to solve problems in the best interests of all Americans, instead of only the percentage of the electorate that voted for the current regime. Tit-for-tat is an effective game theory strategy for a reason: when there is a game with multiple rounds where both sides win when they cooperate, one side wins less when they defect but the other side loses, and where both lose when both defect, it pays to cooperate until the other side defects. Once they do, the only winning play is to also defect until the other side agrees to cooperate. Lastly, without forgiveness, the gains made employing this strategy will quickly be lost.  

It echoes Matthew 7:1-3, after all:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

We have a chance to make the cancellers aware of their own plank.

This is a different spin on the doctrine of mutually assured destruction that helped keep the U.S. and the USSR from turning the entire world into an uninhabitable nuclear slagheap. Imagine if the U.S. had declared to the Soviet Union that the use of nuclear weapons was off the table, and that the U.S. would never retaliate in kind. The outcome of the Cold War would have been quite different. Why then does the right insist that it has to be the so-called better person and let the left destroy them with impunity? It makes zero sense.

Unfortunately, too many on the right worry about what will happen if the roles are reversed. “We can’t fight back!” they cringe. “What will our opponents do to us when they have power?”

It’s hard to imagine a more demoralized attitude. There was a brief moment during the George W. Bush presidency where rabid hateful left-wingers got mildly “canceled” for opposing the war in Iraq aside.³ Other than that, the left has had the power to penalize disagreement, and has used it liberally. We know exactly what it looks like when the right doesn’t fight back: leftist seek to destroy them anyway. For a snapshot of left-wing cancellation campaigns since 2020, lest any gaslighting interlocutors accuse you of making stuff up, here’s a greatest hits compilation. Any time you hear about conservative “overreach,” keep this in mind.

This moment has finally given us normal people a chance to reassert American societal norms. It’s impossible to coexist with people who refuse to play by the same set of rules. Enough with the Marquess of Queensbury nonsense. Are we sick of being the Washington Generals or not? Isn’t 30-plus years of humiliation and defeat enough? Stop snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.⁴ And when it’s over, when the left decides that tit-for-tat isn’t fun anymore, we need to be magnanimous in victory . . . until and unless the left defects yet again.

We don’t want to fight to the death, but to the pain.⁵ And then maybe we can stop tearing ourselves apart and refocus our ire on those actually ruining our lives.

- Alexander

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Thank you for reading. This is a distasteful topic it feels gauche to even write scout, but I don’t see any other way to reset things until all sides agree not to do it. Anyway, if you enjoy my writing, check out my books on Amazon, and toss a few drachmas into the tip jar over at Buy Me A Coffee. Thank you and God bless.

1. We shouldn’t root for any political assassinations. It’s disgusting.

2. I’m 100 percent sure some people with Trump signs on their lawns feel the same way in reverse. However, cancellation and actual political violence skews one way in this country. This is undeniable.

3. This brings up a tricky issue with the first amendment that many miss: it generally prevents the government from censoring and stifling speech, not private citizens. That’s mostly what we saw in the early 2000s when the Dixie Chicks lost popularity by going against their mostly conservative audience, and what we’re seeing now when people go against left-wing pieties. “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of consequences,” we’re often told. I guess the shoe is on the other foot now.

4. Edited out “and fight, fight, fight,” because it’s too topical. I had added that in thinking the respectable mainstream publication might get a kick out of it. I guess not.

5. “To the pain means this: if we duel and you win, death for me. If we duel and I win, life for you. But life on my terms. The first thing you lose will be your feet. Below the ankle. You will have stumps available to use within six months. Then your hands, at the wrists. They heal somewhat quicker. Five months is a fair average. Next your nose. No smell of dawn for you. Followed by your tongue. Deeply cut away. Not even a stump left. And then your left eye—”

“And then my right eye, and then my ears, and shall we get on with it?” the Prince said.

“Wrong!” Westley’s voice rang across the room. “Your ears you keep, so that every shriek of every child shall be yours to cherish—every babe that weeps in fear at your approach, every woman that cries ‘Dear God, what is that thing?’ will reverberate forever with your perfect ears.”