I'm not advocating no-platforming as a blanket policy for anybody I disagree with. I'm just saying if you have a death toll attached to your name, maybe you don't deserve the same respect afforded to somebody who simply has an unpopular opinion.
I was a hippie tree hugger type. I got married at age 19 to another 19 year old. Being a soldier was his dream career, in part because he was very patriotic and loved his country. My twenties were spent being genuinely surprised that some soldiers go to church and they are not all bloodthirsty villains. In fact, most of them fervently want war to not happen because their own lives are at stake.
I am still kind of a hippie tree hugger type. But, I am a pro military hippie these days. "A man of peace must be strong." If you think America would be a kinder gentler nation if we got rid of our military forces entirely, think again. The US would cease to exist. It would be promptly invaded and taken over.
There is a lot of not nice stuff that happens in the world. "Freedom for all" gets paid for in part with the blood of patriots. That is an unfortunate reality.
When hysterics and the worst rhetoric are reserved for a Jewish lawyer (Ben SHAPIRO) who is loud, direct, and otherwise harmless, one begins to recognize that the knives are primarily reserved for those who provide the best opportunity to score political points or for those who present the greatest threat to undermining one's point-of-view.
And that's why I find the moans about "divisiveness" and whatnot to simply be more political theater.
The only strategy I've found to maintain civil discussion is to separate the person from the topic. And I don't do it for the sake of the discussion or the other person, I do it for the sake of my own mental well-being.
Kissenger may not (and does not in my view) 'deserve' any respect. But the concept of debate being a means of dealing with conflict to be preferred over more primitive recourses does.
It looks like we're mostly on the same page then. I understand the value of civil discourse; I come from a conservative family and I had openly fascist friends in university. Me, my parents, and those friends didn't find much to agree on, but I came to a better understanding of my own beliefs through our exchanges. When somebody says "I can't read X" or "I can't listen to Y," it's usually to their detriment.
But liberal high-mindedness has its limits. I personally draw mine at architects of mass murder. I don't think refusing somebody like Kissinger a platform has to indicate a trend towards incivility, since most humans--no matter what they believe--haven't killed thousands of people.
