Disagreement by Death Threat

Yesterday's post made the point that a secular society can offer no convincing argument against the claim that political assassination of those deemed to be harming others or democracy is morally wrong.

An irony of this is that a sure way to harm or even snuff out democracy is to be willing to resort to murder in order to try to save it.

Today's post presents an example of people using the threat of violence to intimidate those with whom they disagree: The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh has been receiving death threats for having made what is, by all accounts, a devastating documentary on today's transgender movement.

The film is titled "What Is a Woman" and is available at the Daily Wire but requires a subscription. Here's the trailer:

Matt Walsh describes Scott Newgent as the hero of the film. Newgent is a biological woman who at 42 transitioned to male. Her experience was horrific. Here's part of her interview with Walsh:

During my own transition, I had seven surgeries.

I also had a massive pulmonary embolism, a helicopter life-flight ride, an emergency ambulance ride, a stress-induced heart attack, sepsis, a 17-month recurring infection due to using the wrong skin during a (failed) phalloplasty, 16 rounds of antibiotics, three weeks of daily IV antibiotics, the loss of all my hair, (only partially successful) arm reconstructive surgery, permanent lung and heart damage, a cut bladder, insomnia-induced hallucinations—oh, and frequent loss of consciousness due to pain from the hair on the inside of my urethra.

All this led to a form of PTSD that made me a prisoner in my apartment for a year. Between me and my insurance company, medical expenses exceeded $900,000.

Here's the video excerpt:

You can read more about Newgent and "What Is a Woman" in a column by Rod Dreher at The American Conservative.

For some reason we don't hear much about cases like Newgent's or these potential consequences of transition surgery from our media, yet it wasn't too long ago that we were inundated with public service announcements about the risks of tobacco usage. If it was proper to warn the public about the potential evils of tobacco why the silence concerning transition surgery?

Perhaps it's because anyone who points them out is often threatened with death by odious individuals who believe that any behavior is justified, no matter how heinous, as long as it produces a "win" for their side.

One litmus test for determining which side of a debate has the best arguments is to look at which side feels it necessary to resort to threats. Threats of violence are a tacit admission that facts and reason are not on one's side.