A man in Jeremy Peters’s position can afford to be made to look ridiculous

ONE DAY after Peters uncritically cited Musk’s claim that he is “very socially liberal”:

This is just an amazing, and telling, sequence of words. Putting your pronouns in your email signature is not only “forcing your pronouns upon others” but “implicitly ostracizing those who don’t.” Hence, as a social liberal and free speech absolutist, it is wrong of you to politely request that people refer to you by your preferred pronouns. This ups the ante on the Sarah Palin school of free speech (“it violates my right of free speech for you to criticize me”); even saying something that makes me feel bad violates my free speech rights, and indeed is coercive.

It is astoundingly stupid, but it’s what Musk and his lickspittles believe. The core of the Musk/Greenwald/Taibbi/Weiss position, quite simply, is that nobody should ever have to feel bad — let alone face any social consequences — for having abhorrent opinions if those opinions are reactionary. That’s it.

And I assume almost everyone here has already figured this out, but for rich dudes who claim to be “socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” the former is almost always either an outright lie, or abandoned if there’s the slightest conflict with the latter. But people like Peters will always be fooled, because they don’t give a shit either.

…as a commenter observes, it’s even more disgusting in context:

This is… wtf

Scott Kelly: Please don't mock and promote hate toward already marginalized and at-risk-of-violence members of the LGBTQ+ community. They are real people with real feelings.

Elon Musk: I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others, yadda, yadda pic.twitter.com/NvI2Qf0PwK— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) December 12, 2022