Kalman J. Kaplan "That the political dialogue in America has become toxic is not a new insight, unfortunately, much if not most of it coming from the so-called “progressive elite.” However, for the most part, it has not centered on artistic work, which we would hope would be judged on its own terms. However, the recent release of Dinesh D’Souza’s current film Death of a Nation has released a torrent of hate and attempts to poison people’s minds against it.
"On the face of it, the attempt is ridiculous. D’Souza, while quite intelligent, is controversial. So what? we may ask. People are free to see controversial material and judge for themselves without the creators being shunned and even defamed. D’Souza is a polemicist, and a quite intelligent one. He is an intelligent Republican who argues that the Democratic Party has falsified history in ways we will outline below. If his ideas do not stand the test of scrutiny, they will fall by themselves, but if not, they will slowly enter the main stream of opinion. Is this not the way debate should work in a free society?
"However, the hysteric reaction on the left to D’Souza’s movie is really beyond the pale. Critics do not want people to see the movie and judge D’Souza’s ideas on their merit. Rather they want to quarantine the movie and D’Souza himself as if he were a virulent toxic disease. This of course is nothing but fascism, which is the point of D’Souza’s movie itself -- that fascism is a disease of the left. The over the top attempt to quarantine and silence D’Souza’s movie only serves to support his point: that fascism emerged on the left.
"What does D’Souza say in the movie. Let me list a few points I took from it, all of which can be discussed rationally and calmly between people of good will." . . .
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