Is Sunlight the Best Disinfectant for Hate Speech?

Let's do away with this phrase: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

It's a great disinfectant, but you know what else does a great job even faster? Caustic chemicals.

But what if you aren't combating bacteria? What if the thing you're trying to disinfect is actually Poison Oak. Then sunlight is exactly what it wants.

I bring this up because throughout all of this bullshit with Milo people keep saying that he should be given a platform to spew his hateful bullshit because once people see his horrible ideas then he'll be destroyed... i.e. put him in the sunlight and he'll die.

But he didn't. Putting him in the sunlight gave him the energy he needed to grow. What killed him (or at least is killing him) was removing his platform and directly combating him... i.e. removing him the sunlight and pouring caustic chemicals on him.

If you understand that his hateful rhetoric is a weed and not a bacteria, then you'll suddenly understand why giving it sunlight works against you.

If we encounter someone supporting hate speech by saying "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" we should respond with "Sunlight is also fuel to poisonous plants."

Header image from Poison Oak, the asshole of the plant world.