"Why are you only protesting one side?"

A reminder that this question is dumb.

There’s a Russian joke at least as old as me, probably much older. An American and a Russian are arguing.

“America’s freedoms are what make us strong. An American is free to march in front of the White House protesting American involvement in the Vietnam War. Not so in Russia.”

“Wrong!” replies the Russian. “In Russia we are equally free to march in front of the Kremlin protesting American involvement in the Vietnam War.”

I’ve seen it claimed that this is no longer true at the Kremlin. Police will sometimes arrest protesters without bothering to read the sign they’re waving, and good luck proving afterwards that it was anti-American.

With Russia in such a condition, how come I’ve been spending any time at all lately talking about freedom of speech in the U.S.? Why am I not talking about the countries that have weaker freedom of speech than my own (i.e. basically all other countries)?

Well, for one thing, I don’t speak Russian. When I say “I’ve seen it claimed” above I mean some stranger wrote that in English on Reddit. I could foux-de-fafa my way through it (“Dasvidaniya, glasnost!”), but I’m very not qualified.

For another, Americans are more likely to read my posts. My remote chance of having any significant impact gets even more remote if I’m trying to impact Russian policy.

So I focus on America. This is permissible because, like most people, I’m not a judge in a pageant picking the most congenial country. “Unbiased” or “even-handed” are incoherent concepts to apply to an opinion piece about anything other than “which is best?” Comparisons are good, context is good, avoiding focusing entirely on the negative is good. But calling a piece or an attitude “biased” encodes the assumption that the issue in question is a zero-sum game. Some are, most aren’t.

“Why Are These Students Protesting Israel and not Hamas?”

Because their universities are already divested, or trying to divest, from Hamas. So what would be the point?

Because more of the protesters are Jewish than Arabic or Muslim.

Because they’re in the United States, an ally of Israel.

Because chanted slogans are low-bandwidth, so they don’t have room for qualifiers and provisos.

Because they’re trying to accomplish something, so they’re not negotiating against themselves in the position they stake out.

Because the question of which side is worse is irrelevant and toxic.

If you want to argue against them, argue against them. Don’t argue against the people they’re not arguing against. That’s not the same thing! Double negatives do not work that way!

All Of This Has Happened Before

I called this post a “reminder” for a reason. We have some variant of this dumb, dumb conversation every time there’s a divisive foreign policy issue. The virus spreads further if it mutates to avoid triggering our antibodies from the last time. So you’ll see people trying to cloak it this time round in concern trolling about anti-Semitism, or Bulverism about the “student protester mindset.” (Links are to explanations of terms, not examples.) But the original strain is still very much alive, as evidenced by a recent New York Times op-ed I decline to link. In it, Friedman frets about students “giving Hamas a pass.” He uses this phrase twice, and once calls it a “free pass” instead (did the other ones cost money?). Students are not authorized to give out passes! He claims that this oversight somehow shows that their “exclusionary” mindset is misguided, and that thus we should continue with our “inclusionary” policy of investing in an apartheid state.

He also says that a healthier student culture would’ve had an event about Hamas atrocities instead. One, does he really think those events aren’t happening? Two…that’s just marching in front of the Kremlin, protesting U.S. foreign policy. It might educate some people, it might improve your standing in the Party. But it’s not going to do a damn thing to stop the violence.