USA Politics

[Jer]

I’ll take your word for it being a local Minnesotan, although there is evidence suggesting that the state is trending red: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-minnesota-could-be-the-next-midwestern-state-to-go-red/

There’s some truth in that article and some misinterpretation. I think they’re viewing 2016 as the accelerated continuation of a trend, rather than a local aberration.

Minnesotans have an independent streak, which occasionally gets you things like Jesse Ventura as governor. Hell, I voted for Jesse Ventura, and while I didn’t agree with everything he did, he was a preferable alternative to the cookie cutter party loyalists he was running against, and he wasn’t afraid to challenge status quo ideas (e.g. why does MN have a two-house state legislature when both houses are allocated based on population? It costs more time and money and literally adds no value, so why not move to a unicameral state legislature?). I think 2016 Trump had that same sort of maverick independent appeal to people who weren’t paying close attention, especially when held up against Hillary Clinton. But 2020 Trump is a different story.

It’s also true that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is pushing positions that don’t go down well in the heartland. Cancel culture is inherently rude and offensive. Aggressive efforts to rename illegal immigrants as “undocumented workers” and watching candidates fall over themselves to pander to the illegal community is appalling to people who traditionally believe in our system of laws. I think Minnesotans are open to immigration reform to address the issues that lead to so much illegal immigration, but trying to pretend that these people didn’t break the law, and trying to reward them for flouting our laws by giving them a pathway to citizenship, doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. It looks like a lack of respect for the law, and race-based pandering. Also, lots of Minnesotans are religious, and rather than giving the country a few years to digest the legalization of same-sex marriage, the left instantly switched gears to trans issues, which are a much, much harder sell than gay rights. Pretty much everyone knows a gay person (~1/10), but much fewer know a trans person (~1/100), and that makes it seem like a bizarre, boutique issue to a lot of folks. If the Democrats keep taking these stances, and tolerating the purity tests of the rising anti-intellectual far left wing, they will continue to lose support in the Midwest, and that could eventually flip Minnesota — but not in the very near future.

Also take note of the 2018 midterm results in Minnesota. Major leftward swing vs. 2016, including flipping my congressional district to the Democrats, when it’s been solidly Republican since early 2001. We now have a Democratic governor, 2 Democratic senators, and 5 Democratic house reps vs. 3 Republicans. Definitely not trending red in the short term.

 

[LooseCannon]

Cancel culture is inherently rude and offensive.

I have never understood the backlash against "cancel culture". It's the 1st Amendment. You say something using your freedom of speech, I decide not to associate with you because you said something I don't like. It's pretty straight forward, even if "cancel culture" has a fancy name. Plus, the people screaming about "cancel culture" will turn around and yell "boycott" out of the other side of their mouth, which is the same thing.

trans issues, which are a much, much harder sell than gay rights.

Shouldn't be, but there you have it. Then again, in 2004 GWB weaponized gay marriage to win, and it became legal across the USA what, 11 years later?

 

[Brigantium]

Probably changed emphasis because gay rights has a much firmer foothold today and doesn't have as many people to win over. Trans rights still has a very long way to go. Are you absolutely sure trans people are so rare? Trans doesn't only apply to people who have gone through a medical or legal transition process (or even want to for that matter) and without asking to see someone's original documents or anatomy, can you even tell?

I still find both issues very relevant, they're not just fanciful 'boutique' issues people turn to because they've exhausted other things to campaign for. And the right of people to live how they wish may well appeal more to many individuals than tackling the dark side of capitalism.

 

[Mosh]

Why wouldn’t you immediately pivot to trans rights? To achieve a civil rights win and then immediately turn around and say “well that’s all the country can handle right now, done with that!” seems ridiculous. It’s always an ongoing process, that’s the point of civil rights advocacy.

 

[Jer]

I have never understood the backlash against "cancel culture". It's the 1st Amendment. You say something using your freedom of speech, I decide not to associate with you because you said something I don't like.

The effect is quite the opposite, though. If you say something that doesn’t pass the purity test of the self-appointed arbiters of morality, who apply their standards retroactively to decades-old material, they will verbally assault you and everyone who associates with you in a business capacity, dox you so you can feel threatened by wack jobs, and do their best to insure that you can’t make money ever again unless you kiss the ring and bend your behavior to match their standards. And by attacking your business relationships, they know that companies will most likely follow their short-term business interests and cut off their relationship with the target, so it’s an easy blackmail tactic.

And let’s not kid ourselves, blackmail is exactly what it is. Apologize and kiss the ring or your ability to earn a living is gone. Sorry, but that’s about as anti-first-amendment an outcome as I can imagine — curtail your speech to appease the mob if you want to keep your job.

Bad ideas should be challenged with better ideas, not with censorship. The anti-intellectual crowd on the far left doesn’t want to debate your argument and defeat it, they just want you to shut the fuck up, and will use any means necessary to achieve that goal. Well, fuck them.

Shouldn't be, but there you have it. Then again, in 2004 GWB weaponized gay marriage to win, and it became legal across the USA what, 11 years later?

Yes, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. The reality of short-term politics is different. Trans people understandably want fair treatment immediately, but if you keep plowing ahead full steam when society as a whole is still trying to catch up to the last social milestone that was just met, you run the risk of a major backlash that sets back the timetable of your long-term goals.

If you take a standard religious rural citizen who’s never met a trans person and try to explain that there are people born biologically male who want to live as female and use the womens’ bathroom, they’re going to think you’re out of your mind. They’re still trying to parse the fact that same-sex marriage was made legal — still trying to separate the civil and religious definitions of marriage in their minds, and maybe understanding that the one coworker or friend of a friend that they know who’s probably gay maybe deserves to have survivorship rights and the same benefits as any other American. It’s going to take them a few years to swallow that and learn to accept it. They’re not ready to think about cross-dressing and bathroom etiquette for people they don’t know who they would consider bizarre aberrations. You have to expose them to these ideas for a while, give them real people as examples, and help them understand why this is an issue that needs attention.

Trans issues also carry some problematic baggage, because many people advocate for the idea of putting factually incorrect information on official documents, retroactively changing birth certificates, etc., and mandating that the government be complicit in that falsehood, while also demanding that everyone refer to them as their chosen gender, even if they look like a dude in a wig. Again, attempting to force specific behavior and compliance from others whether they agree with it or not. The shrill voices on the left who are pursuing this the most militantly aren’t doing their cause any favors. This needs to be pursued as an equal rights / freedom argument, not a “thou shalt treat me the way I insist that you treat me” argument.

 

[Onhell]

Why wouldn’t you immediately pivot to trans rights?

Homosexuality is easier to understand and digest. A gay man is still a man and a gay woman is still a woman, they just prefer the same sex. But a TRANS man who is still physically female just throws people for a loop. Not to mention a trans man who prefers men making him a GAY TRANS man just makes some people's brain melt.

I think in the grand scheme of things all of that is irrelevant and as you and others have pointed out, the state has the obligation to provide protection and services to ALL its citizens.

 

[LooseCannon]

The effect is quite the opposite, though. If you say something that doesn’t pass the purity test of the self-appointed arbiters of morality, who apply their standards retroactively to decades-old material, they will verbally assault you and everyone who associates with you in a business capacity, dox you so you can feel threatened by wack jobs, and do their best to insure that you can’t make money ever again unless you kiss the ring and bend your behavior to match their standards. And by attacking your business relationships, they know that companies will most likely follow their short-term business interests and cut off their relationship with the target, so it’s an easy blackmail tactic.

And let’s not kid ourselves, blackmail is exactly what it is. Apologize and kiss the ring or your ability to earn a living is gone. Sorry, but that’s about as anti-first-amendment an outcome as I can imagine — curtail your speech to appease the mob if you want to keep your job.

Bad ideas should be challenged with better ideas, not with censorship. The anti-intellectual crowd on the far left doesn’t want to debate your argument and defeat it, they just want you to shut the fuck up, and will use any means necessary to achieve that goal. Well, fuck them.

I certainly don't condone the deployment of targeted hate, harassment, etc. Let's just get that out of the way. "doxxing" followed by a flood of harassment, hate claims, rape threats, suggestions someone should perform self-harm, etc - that's bad and evil and illegal and it shouldn't be part of any part of speech. I completely agree with that. But that's not "cancel culture". That occurs regarding every single piece of disagreement on the internet. People dox/harass/hate each other based on political choice, movie choice, comic choice, saying "yeah I'm a feminist", and taking a job in a Star Wars movie in which you happen to be an Asian woman playing an Asian-looking character. Any sort of oppositional stance on the Internet that gets to any level of notice goes down the hate train. The hate train is not a "Cancel Culture" feature. It occurs in every major internet movement regardless of political alignment. So let's separate that out from "Cancel Culture". Is it a part of the process of opposing people? Sadly, yes. Is it caused by or intentionally utilized by those calling out poor speech? In most cases, no (of course there are some people who want that to happen, but generally, no).

You say that threatening someone's financial livelihood is blackmail for the purpose of censorship. Let's get into that a little deeper, but let's be 100% clear: it isn't blackmail. When someone is "cancelled" it is almost certainly because they have said or done something that is racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic etc. Of their own free will, they have made a choice, and people are holding up that choice. "Cancelling" doesn't start with a threat of "pay up or else", it starts with "holy shit look what X has said". X is almost always a public figure already, or participating in an extremely public event, and should be well aware that their actions are fully visible. There's no hidden behaviour here to blackmail. It's already public. The person who threatened their financial livelihood was the person who made a transgression. They committed an action that was not likely to make people happy, and are now being called out for it.

Furthermore, you call it censorship. It's not censorship. Nobody is forbidden from continuing their speech. And I am free to not associate with the people/companies that associate with that person. I am free to use my freedom of speech to talk to those companies and say, "Hey, this guy sucks, he's a big homophobe, you need to fuck off sponsoring this guy". In fact, depending on the form of "cancellation", there are large industries that celebrate and reward people "cancelled".

It is extremely rare that a decades-old thing is dug up and used to fully justify the "cancellation" of people. It happens - like the James Gunn attack (which was an orchestrated right-wing attack designed to remove him for being supportive of left wing causes by showcasing old content that he had already apologized for with the intent of discrediting him among the audience he was recently supporting, which is why he has been reinstated to all the stuff that he was "cancelled" from). In the vast majority of cases, a current public figure says/does something racist/sexist etc OR someone gets up on TV supporting a cause in the same vein. One that I recall vividly was a man in Ontario going up behind a reporter, who was a woman, and yelling "fuck her right in the pussy!" into the camera. Someone figured out who he was and he was fired from his job. Was he "canceled" by the current definition? Absolutely. Whose fault was it? I'd say it was the fault of the man who decided to put his face on live tv and scream something sexist at a woman.

Let's talk about someone else who was "cancelled". Let's talk about Bill O'Reilly. This was a guy who repeatedly said ridiculously sexist and vile things on his tv show. People stopped buying brands that sponsored him, which led to his status on Fox News slowly getting less and less stable. He was still a star, but some brands withdrew slowly. I mean, if you go to, say, 2009, you'd think he was bulletproof at Fox. But when it came out that he'd settled $50 million in sexual harassment lawsuits, he was done. Because Fox decided that it wasn't worth keeping him around - because his sponsors bailed en masse after that. They didn't want to be "the company that runs ads on known sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly's show". According to your theory, they shouldn't have threatened his financial livelihood? Or should they have followed through on the logical need to protect their brand from the association with O'Reilly? Not sure what the line here is.

In the end, what you see as "cancelling", I see as "consequences". A person has done something that is specifically not illegal nor punishable by law. In addition, I see this: freedom of speech does not make you free from the consequences of that speech. But a surprising amount of people seem to believe that free speech means that you can say whatever you want and nobody can do anything about it. Taken to the logical conclusion, it goes: "Oh, well, my local KFC is run by a member of the KKK. Too bad I love fried chicken so much, I have to keep giving him my money because to do otherwise would be wrong." Alternately, "Too bad Bill O'Reilly likes sexually harassing women to the point where millions of dollars are still paid out to him. But I started advertising on his show so I gotta keep doing it until he retires!"

I don't see one specific person who opposes "cancel culture". There are certainly some people who oppose it because they don't want the consequences of their speech to occur to them. Your Ben Shapiros and Tucker Carlsons and Anne Coulters of the world, for example. But there's a lot of people who look at their past and think to themselves, that could be me. I've said some dumb shit in the past. I've called things "gay". I may even have said something stereotypical about black people or women etc. And they're naturally afraid that their job could be called into question any time. Or even people who say, I don't know that my speech would be considered "correct" and I am afraid of the consequences of misstepping. All of which are understandable, especially with the hate train rumbling under the surface any time someone is laser targeted by any movement online.

The right has been "cancelling" people and corporations for years. Groups like Focus on the Family made massive careers out of it. Boycotting stores for saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", etc. It's all the exact same thing, and the far right is far more guilty of it than the far left. And they'll do exactly that, talk about how horrible "cancel culture" is then talk about why we need to boycott NASCAR because they banned the Confederate flag. But again, I don't personally think this is wrong, either. If someone feels that strongly about flying their homegrown American Nazi flag that they don't go watch guys drive real fast and turn to the left, so be it. And if they want to write an angry letter to NASCAR about it, all the power to them. And if they want to have a demonstration, hey, go ahead. That's freedom in action. But if people think that person is wrong and quite possibly racist for posting these things online, and point it out to their employer, and the employer goes, "Hmm, maybe I don't want a neo-Confederate on staff", then that's also freedom in action.

You also talk about the marketplace of ideas. Leaving aside that I've come to think of the marketplace of ideas concept as a deeply flawed portion of the supposed exercise of freedom, the marketplace of ideas is central to the concept of "cancel culture" and "boycotts". Indeed, "cancel culture" can only occur if there is an exchange of ideas! It goes like this:
Person A: Says something racist.
Person B: Hey, Person A said something racist! People should do something about it.
Person C: Compares what Person A said to their own ideas. Decides it was indeed racist and is indeed actionable. Decides to write to the person's employer to say, hey, I think Person A said something really racist.
Person D: Hmm, Person A has said something racist and it's going to get out there and hurt us. I need to make a decision on whether or not we want to associate with Person A anymore. This decision is both based on my corporate morals and my personal morals, as well as the likelihood of harm to my financial stability.

Speech & actions have consequences. Speech, by definition, is not regulated by government so the only consequences that can be expected are by those of other people using their morals to guide their decisions within their freedoms. You might not like it, and that's fine, but that's the system intended by the interconnected set of freedoms that we have. Hypercharged somewhat by the internet, sure. But also really good at combating entrenched ideas of hatred.

 

[Mosh]

@Onhell Sure, not disagreeing that it’s hard to digest, but that’s besides my point. If you’re a civil rights advocate, your job is to make an effort to normalize those things as soon as possible.

 

[Onhell]

@Onhell Sure, not disagreeing that it’s hard to digest, but that’s besides my point. If you’re a civil rights advocate, your job is to make an effort to normalize those things as soon as possible.

Agreed, my point was that even some "allies" activitsts or not, are not tolerant, open-minded or reasonable enough to see that, which is sad.

 

[bearfan]

@LooseCannon I generally agree with what you are saying, I find the "cancelling/consequences" as somewhat disgusting, particularly in minor cases of this.

But when you extend this to universities (particularly public ones) .. it is a 1st Amendment issue

 

[LooseCannon]

But when you extend this to universities (particularly public ones) .. it is a 1st Amendment issue

Universities that are publicly funded have an onus to protect the 1st Amendment to certain extents. Those that aren't, don't.

I personally don't see an issue with a professor saying something stupid or hosting a shitty talk from a shitty person like Ben Shapiro. I also don't see a problem with 5000 students standing outside and protesting. I think if someone is being actively vile (IE, a tenured professor who participates in Holocaust denial) then there's an onus to move that person on, too, which is where things like school governors come into play.

 

[bearfan]

Universities that are publicly funded have an onus to protect the 1st Amendment to certain extents. Those that aren't, don't.

I personally don't see an issue with a professor saying something stupid or hosting a shitty talk from a shitty person like Ben Shapiro. I also don't see a problem with 5000 students standing outside and protesting. I think if someone is being actively vile (IE, a tenured professor who participates in Holocaust denial) then there's an onus to move that person on, too, which is where things like school governors come into play.

There was a ruling that private schools play by the same rules if they accept Pell grants.

 

[LooseCannon]

There was a ruling that private schools play by the same rules if they accept Pell grants.

Counts as public funding.

 

[bearfan]

Counts as public funding.

Yup. So every school essentially

 

[Jer]

You say that threatening someone's financial livelihood is blackmail for the purpose of censorship. Let's get into that a little deeper, but let's be 100% clear: it isn't blackmail. When someone is "cancelled" it is almost certainly because they have said or done something that is racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic etc. Of their own free will, they have made a choice, and people are holding up that choice.

The blackmail comes in when people threaten to assault the person’s business relationships unless the person prostrates themselves in a manner the mob deems sufficiently humiliating. If the response isn’t quick enough, deep enough, and self-deprecating enough, then it’s off to the races trying to end the person’s career. And other people who see this going on are then compelled to join the mob for fear of becoming one of its targets.

Should C. Thomas Howell have his direct-to-video career derailed because he once did Soul Man? Should Mickey Rooney have been blacklisted later in life because of the Asian character he played in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, which is horribly racist by modern standards but was par for the course at the time? Should Richard Dean Anderson be canceled because in an episode of MacGyver he put on face makeup and pretended to be one of the participants in a voodoo ceremony to escape the bind he was in? (Granted, that was mostly whiteface, but the parts outside the whiteface were dark skin tone so he would be mistaken for the person he was impersonating.) Should people be forced to apologize for doing things that were not considered insensitive at the time, but are now retroactively considered insensitive today? Often times people aren’t even allowed to explain that nuance before the hammer comes down and the mob decides it’s off with their heads.

Furthermore, you call it censorship. It's not censorship. Nobody is forbidden from continuing their speech. And I am free to not associate with the people/companies that associate with that person.

It’s de facto censorship if people are prevented from saying anything outside the mob-determined acceptable lexicon for fear of reprisal. Yes, someone could try to explain why they did what they did or said what they said in the past, and try to put it in historical context, but if they’ve already seen examples of people attempting to do that and having their careers ended as a result, they’re going to jump straight to the scripted hostage video response instead.

Let's talk about someone else who was "cancelled". Let's talk about Bill O'Reilly. This was a guy who repeatedly said ridiculously sexist and vile things on his tv show. People stopped buying brands that sponsored him, which led to his status on Fox News slowly getting less and less stable. He was still a star, but some brands withdrew slowly. I mean, if you go to, say, 2009, you'd think he was bulletproof at Fox. But when it came out that he'd settled $50 million in sexual harassment lawsuits, he was done. Because Fox decided that it wasn't worth keeping him around - because his sponsors bailed en masse after that. They didn't want to be "the company that runs ads on known sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly's show".

This is a better example of how things should work. A steady stream of information was revealed showing what an awful human being this guy was, and that his attitudes didn’t improve over time. There was the infamous “felafel” tape, and there were a number of harassment allegations spanning years. The guy was an ongoing liability, and ultimately the sponsors and his employer reached the conclusion that it wasn’t a good idea to keep him around. It wasn’t felafel tape -> doxxing -> insta-boycott -> fired!, he actually had an opportunity to speak to the allegations and get his shit together, but he ultimately didn’t.

I’m not saying that businesses shouldn’t choose to disassociate from disgusting people. I’m not saying that boycotts are always bad, or an unacceptable tactic. I’m saying that career permadeath hinging on your immediate response to mob demands related to things you did or said, often many years earlier, is not a reasonable punishment, and no one deputized the mob to give them the official power to impose such a punishment.

In the end, what you see as "cancelling", I see as "consequences". A person has done something that is specifically not illegal nor punishable by law. In addition, I see this: freedom of speech does not make you free from the consequences of that speech.

It’s easy to see it this way when you agree with the mob. But what if you disagree with them? What if the mob is the local community in rural Mississippi who found out that you serve black people at your restaurant, and in response they call you horrible names and boycott your place? Or what if they keep showing up, but treat your black customers so badly that the black customers stop showing up? No laws have been broken, free speech has been exercised, technically black people can still come to the restaurant, but they never do anymore. Isn’t that a de facto ban on black people eating there?

What if Focus On The Family successfully convinced all major music retailers, including Spotify and Amazon, that the evil, satanic Iron Maiden shouldn’t have their devil music sold by upstanding establishments because they were contributing to the decay of western civilization? No laws are broken, but the music gets a de facto ban when no major music distributors carry it anymore. Victory for the first amendment?

What if someone angry about my expressed opinions on Janick Gers’s guitar playing style found out that one of my bosses was super religious, and decided to start a campaign to fully inform that boss of my atheism and things I’ve said coinciding with those beliefs over the years, and in doing so managed to get me fired, because that’s obviously what I would deserve for daring to hold a minority opinion on both fronts. Is that merely social consequence in action, or would my rights be being violated?

Taken to the logical conclusion, it goes: "Oh, well, my local KFC is run by a member of the KKK. Too bad I love fried chicken so much, I have to keep giving him my money because to do otherwise would be wrong."

No, that’s not a logical conclusion at all. If you know this about the KFC guy, feel free to take your business elsewhere and tell your friends. Inform the local paper or stage a demonstration that doesn’t prevent people from entering the restaurant if you like. Let KFC know, and they can decide whether to allow the guy to keep franchising from them. All of that is reasonable. But demanding that he prostrate himself in a very specific way in a very specific amount of time or you’re going to have a coordinated PR assault on everyone who supplies him with ingredients and utilities and anyone who dares to eat there is blackmail.

The right has been "cancelling" people and corporations for years. Groups like Focus on the Family made massive careers out of it.

This is true, and it’s equally shitty. I just didn’t bring it up at the time because the conversation was sparked from discussion of what the left is currently doing that is alienating midwesterners. These tactics are bad no matter who uses them.

You also talk about the marketplace of ideas. Leaving aside that I've come to think of the marketplace of ideas concept as a deeply flawed portion of the supposed exercise of freedom, the marketplace of ideas is central to the concept of "cancel culture" and "boycotts". Indeed, "cancel culture" can only occur if there is an exchange of ideas!

The only idea being “exchanged” is the mob stating that the target’s idea or action is unacceptable and must be immediately and completely disavowed without any nuance or other considerations, or there will be extreme consequences.

The core of the problem here is that the far left is abandoning the principles of free speech, because they’ve apparently decided that it’s a core human right to not have to be offended by anyone. Unfortunately, free speech only works when we all accept the fact that everyone has a right to offend us. And the only way unpopular ideas gain widespread acceptance is by allowing them to be heard, vetted, and debated in the public square.

No one is qualified to dictate for everyone which ideas have merit and which do not, and that’s why the expression of all ideas has to be protected, even ones that most people would agree are repugnant. Many core tenets of modern thought, especially progressive liberal thought, would have been filed in that repugnant category by the masses not all that long ago, and free speech is the engine that’s allowed them to blossom. Let’s keep that in mind before we start condoning the censorship of “obviously wrong” ideas.

 

[srfc]

I certainly don't condone the deployment of targeted hate, harassment, etc. Let's just get that out of the way. "doxxing" followed by a flood of harassment, hate claims, rape threats, suggestions someone should perform self-harm, etc - that's bad and evil and illegal and it shouldn't be part of any part of speech. I completely agree with that. But that's not "cancel culture". That occurs regarding every single piece of disagreement on the internet. People dox/harass/hate each other based on political choice, movie choice, comic choice, saying "yeah I'm a feminist", and taking a job in a Star Wars movie in which you happen to be an Asian woman playing an Asian-looking character. Any sort of oppositional stance on the Internet that gets to any level of notice goes down the hate train. The hate train is not a "Cancel Culture" feature. It occurs in every major internet movement regardless of political alignment. So let's separate that out from "Cancel Culture". Is it a part of the process of opposing people? Sadly, yes. Is it caused by or intentionally utilized by those calling out poor speech? In most cases, no (of course there are some people who want that to happen, but generally, no).

You say that threatening someone's financial livelihood is blackmail for the purpose of censorship. Let's get into that a little deeper, but let's be 100% clear: it isn't blackmail. When someone is "cancelled" it is almost certainly because they have said or done something that is racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic etc. Of their own free will, they have made a choice, and people are holding up that choice. "Cancelling" doesn't start with a threat of "pay up or else", it starts with "holy shit look what X has said". X is almost always a public figure already, or participating in an extremely public event, and should be well aware that their actions are fully visible. There's no hidden behaviour here to blackmail. It's already public. The person who threatened their financial livelihood was the person who made a transgression. They committed an action that was not likely to make people happy, and are now being called out for it.

Furthermore, you call it censorship. It's not censorship. Nobody is forbidden from continuing their speech. And I am free to not associate with the people/companies that associate with that person. I am free to use my freedom of speech to talk to those companies and say, "Hey, this guy sucks, he's a big homophobe, you need to fuck off sponsoring this guy". In fact, depending on the form of "cancellation", there are large industries that celebrate and reward people "cancelled".

It is extremely rare that a decades-old thing is dug up and used to fully justify the "cancellation" of people. It happens - like the James Gunn attack (which was an orchestrated right-wing attack designed to remove him for being supportive of left wing causes by showcasing old content that he had already apologized for with the intent of discrediting him among the audience he was recently supporting, which is why he has been reinstated to all the stuff that he was "cancelled" from). In the vast majority of cases, a current public figure says/does something racist/sexist etc OR someone gets up on TV supporting a cause in the same vein. One that I recall vividly was a man in Ontario going up behind a reporter, who was a woman, and yelling "fuck her right in the pussy!" into the camera. Someone figured out who he was and he was fired from his job. Was he "canceled" by the current definition? Absolutely. Whose fault was it? I'd say it was the fault of the man who decided to put his face on live tv and scream something sexist at a woman.

Let's talk about someone else who was "cancelled". Let's talk about Bill O'Reilly. This was a guy who repeatedly said ridiculously sexist and vile things on his tv show. People stopped buying brands that sponsored him, which led to his status on Fox News slowly getting less and less stable. He was still a star, but some brands withdrew slowly. I mean, if you go to, say, 2009, you'd think he was bulletproof at Fox. But when it came out that he'd settled $50 million in sexual harassment lawsuits, he was done. Because Fox decided that it wasn't worth keeping him around - because his sponsors bailed en masse after that. They didn't want to be "the company that runs ads on known sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly's show". According to your theory, they shouldn't have threatened his financial livelihood? Or should they have followed through on the logical need to protect their brand from the association with O'Reilly? Not sure what the line here is.

In the end, what you see as "cancelling", I see as "consequences". A person has done something that is specifically not illegal nor punishable by law. In addition, I see this: freedom of speech does not make you free from the consequences of that speech. But a surprising amount of people seem to believe that free speech means that you can say whatever you want and nobody can do anything about it. Taken to the logical conclusion, it goes: "Oh, well, my local KFC is run by a member of the KKK. Too bad I love fried chicken so much, I have to keep giving him my money because to do otherwise would be wrong." Alternately, "Too bad Bill O'Reilly likes sexually harassing women to the point where millions of dollars are still paid out to him. But I started advertising on his show so I gotta keep doing it until he retires!"

I don't see one specific person who opposes "cancel culture". There are certainly some people who oppose it because they don't want the consequences of their speech to occur to them. Your Ben Shapiros and Tucker Carlsons and Anne Coulters of the world, for example. But there's a lot of people who look at their past and think to themselves, that could be me. I've said some dumb shit in the past. I've called things "gay". I may even have said something stereotypical about black people or women etc. And they're naturally afraid that their job could be called into question any time. Or even people who say, I don't know that my speech would be considered "correct" and I am afraid of the consequences of misstepping. All of which are understandable, especially with the hate train rumbling under the surface any time someone is laser targeted by any movement online.

The right has been "cancelling" people and corporations for years. Groups like Focus on the Family made massive careers out of it. Boycotting stores for saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", etc. It's all the exact same thing, and the far right is far more guilty of it than the far left. And they'll do exactly that, talk about how horrible "cancel culture" is then talk about why we need to boycott NASCAR because they banned the Confederate flag. But again, I don't personally think this is wrong, either. If someone feels that strongly about flying their homegrown American Nazi flag that they don't go watch guys drive real fast and turn to the left, so be it. And if they want to write an angry letter to NASCAR about it, all the power to them. And if they want to have a demonstration, hey, go ahead. That's freedom in action. But if people think that person is wrong and quite possibly racist for posting these things online, and point it out to their employer, and the employer goes, "Hmm, maybe I don't want a neo-Confederate on staff", then that's also freedom in action.

You also talk about the marketplace of ideas. Leaving aside that I've come to think of the marketplace of ideas concept as a deeply flawed portion of the supposed exercise of freedom, the marketplace of ideas is central to the concept of "cancel culture" and "boycotts". Indeed, "cancel culture" can only occur if there is an exchange of ideas! It goes like this:
Person A: Says something racist.
Person B: Hey, Person A said something racist! People should do something about it.
Person C: Compares what Person A said to their own ideas. Decides it was indeed racist and is indeed actionable. Decides to write to the person's employer to say, hey, I think Person A said something really racist.
Person D: Hmm, Person A has said something racist and it's going to get out there and hurt us. I need to make a decision on whether or not we want to associate with Person A anymore. This decision is both based on my corporate morals and my personal morals, as well as the likelihood of harm to my financial stability.

Speech & actions have consequences. Speech, by definition, is not regulated by government so the only consequences that can be expected are by those of other people using their morals to guide their decisions within their freedoms. You might not like it, and that's fine, but that's the system intended by the interconnected set of freedoms that we have. Hypercharged somewhat by the internet, sure. But also really good at combating entrenched ideas of hatred.

Superb

EDIT: I also see Jer's point that a lot of the "holier than thou" people doing the canceling aren't too far removed from people who wanted pinkos blacklisted in the 50's or stickers put on heavy metal albums in the 80's. But as long as someone has done something that actually deserves the consequences that they receive then I'm quite happy for them to reap what they've sowed.

 

[Deleted member 7164]

Also the people that could be supposedly cancelled by some sort of SJW movement harassment should get a real job.

If you have a car repair shop owner that was caught on camera years ago saying anti-racial slur and doing some drunk amateur hate speech, but you, as a black man have visited the shop X times since, and saw that he has minorities working for him at all levels + the techincians, the service, the price is excellent no SJW is going to cancel that. The owner is probably going to retreat from any public exposure, with or without prior statement of apology.

If you chose to earn your living by being a public man, you deal with the consequences. And if you've been at or above the political correctness standard of the age you'll be fine.

 

[Perun]

I just want to throw in a story in hope it can contribute something to this debate. When I was an undergrad, I once sat in a lecture where the professor used the word "negro" to describe people in Africa. This caused a massive uproar because there was a leftist sitting in the lecture, and the next class, this girl and some of her associates occupied the hall and did a mock tribunal which they labelled a "discussion". I thought this was a massive overreaction - the professor was quite old and used to using this word objectively and simply didn't know there was anything wrong with it. At the same time, I think he should have been informed that you shouldn't use this word anymore; just not in the way it was done. The girl and her friends clearly weren't prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, she was maybe 20 tops and was just being confronted with new ideals, so I think it would be wrong to paint her as evil and an enemy of the west either. She clearly didn't have the experience to know the right measure of things either. In any case, there was a bit of fuss made about it for that semester, but I never heard of that girl again and the professor is still at the institute some twelve years later as an emeritus and he still works with Arab colleagues every day.

EDIT: For comparison, some semesters prior I was in a class where the professor called territories now in Poland "East Germany". When I pointed that out to a guy sitting next to me, we started laughing and the prof asked what was going on. When I told him, he tried to get out of that by arguing it's not a political but a geographical term. That kind of made it worse, but we let it go. He wanted to talk to us about that after class (kudos), but two old people also in class got really worked up about that and said how bad political correctness has become and all that shit. That was in 2006, mind, 60 years after the war ended and now I'm just rambling.

 

[LooseCannon]

Should C. Thomas Howell have his direct-to-video career derailed because he once did Soul Man?

He wasn't. Pieces have been published on the movie as recently as 2019 without provoking a "cancellation" backlash.

Should Mickey Rooney have been blacklisted later in life because of the Asian character he played in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, which is horribly racist by modern standards but was par for the course at the time?

Despite major discussions about the role starting circa 2008, he wasn't. He was in movies until his death. And while the role itself is definitely racist today, and was pretty borderline in the 60s when it happened, the movie remains popular. In fact, it will probably become more notable over time due to it. It just likely won't be rebroadcast as much due to sensibilities.

Should Richard Dean Anderson be canceled because in an episode of MacGyver he put on face makeup and pretended to be one of the participants in a voodoo ceremony to escape the bind he was in?

He, also, wasn't, and hasn't been.

Who has been notably "cancelled"? CNN has provided a neat list. Most people on that list deserve to be removed from public discourse. I'll talk a little bit more about the example I am most familiar with: Mr. Don Cherry. Don Cherry has been rightfully described as an icon in Canada. Since circa 1980 he had been on TV as a broadcaster of hockey, and since 1984, one half of the Hockey Night in Canada segment "Coach's Corner" where he discussed various hockey related plays, issues, and concerns. He was like Canada's hockey loving uncle.

The problem is he was that uncle. The one who is quietly (and often not so quietly) racist, sexist, and homophobic. Over the years, his behaviour was called out repeatedly, but he refused to change (literally saying things like "I refuse to change" or "I am who I am") when confronted for his stigma against Europeans in hockey, Francophone Canadians, calling players things like "sissies" and "pansies" when they fail to live up to his expectations of toughness, etc. After he insinuated that people not wearing poppies during the run up to Remembrance Day were visibly not from Canada (IE, brown), he was removed during a huge backlash. Canada changed that day, and for the better.

Is this "cancel culture"? Or is this the appropriate build of a movement?

But sure, sure, "cancelling" can happen to anyone, at any time. Except it doesn't. "Cancelling" happens when someone deserves it. I found a right wing article (won't link, but reliably from a source run by lots of fuckwits like Jonathan Kay in Canada) defining cancelling as such:

Let us take a moment to consider what is meant by “cancel culture.” The best definition I can come up with is “the practice of pressuring an institution into sanctioning someone because others perceived that they were psychologically or emotionally harmed by something the individual said, or something he did a long time ago in history.”

The key elements of cancel culture, therefore, are that: the individual or group calling for the cancellation puts pressure on some third party to impose sanctions on the putative transgressor; and that he or she does so because others perceived that they were psychologically or emotionally harmed by the transgressor’s speech (or historical actions)."

Leaving aside the patheticness of the italics "oh someone THOUGHT they was hurt in the fee fees", I think this is a pretty fair definition. Backlash occurs when someone says/does something really shitty, or when something egregious is brought up from the person's past. Let's pick another example of this, specifically the second one, and probably the most famous revelation of its type in the past few years. Yes, I'm talking about Justin Trudeau's blackface scandal.

Justin dressed in blackface multiple times (fucking SOMEHOW) during the 2000s and why isn't this a standalone wikipedia article anymore? He got caught out for it in the worst time politically: during an election campaign. It wasn't even that he did it, he also took great pains to hide it during his 2014 leadership race and the 2015 election, hiding it even from party vetters whose job it was to analyze that stuff. He knew it was wrong and hid it. But he wasn't cancelled. Why? Because his actions and policies during his time in public office showed that the person who thought it was OK to wear blackface had also grown. It was a dumb, idiotic mistake. And Canadians forgave him, in the end, in the most public way possible: re-electing him.

You're right, apologies are part of it. But I don't understand this "prostrate" comment. There's no prostrating necessary. As I noted earlier, someone attacked by "cancel culture" can go on to become a right wing cause d'fete quite easily, ramping up the right wing fever swamps and making quite a nice payday from it. If people want to continue being meaningful to the people that they currently are meaningful for, absolutely, an apology is necessary. But come the fuck on. There was a comparison somewhere to the Red Scare. The difference with the Red Scare was that the state was involved in it, and it was over very minor stuff. Today's "cancel culture" forgives the minor stuff, and even medium stuff (like, nobody has cancelled C. Thomas Howell over Soul Man, for example).

Also, and let's just be frigging clear here: the important word in the phrase "psychological or emotional harm" is harm. Right-wingers love to denigrate the concept of psychological and emotional harm as less or not real because it's not a punch in the mouth. This sort of harm is insidious and real and there's a huge problem with mental health in this world. If someone bullies a kid, without striking them, to the point of the kid putting a gun in their mouths, is the bully not at fault? If someone calls someone a racial slur and suggests that their innate worth as a human is lesser based on the colour of their skin, have they not wronged them? Yes, it's not visible like a slug to the mouth is, but it's also real and there are thousand of studies that show the harm for this type of damage is as big (or greater) than even a savage beating.

No, that’s not a logical conclusion at all. If you know this about the KFC guy, feel free to take your business elsewhere and tell your friends. Inform the local paper or stage a demonstration that doesn’t prevent people from entering the restaurant if you like. Let KFC know, and they can decide whether to allow the guy to keep franchising from them. All of that is reasonable. But demanding that he prostrate himself in a very specific way in a very specific amount of time or you’re going to have a coordinated PR assault on everyone who supplies him with ingredients and utilities and anyone who dares to eat there is blackmail.

I can guarantee if my local KFC was run by a member of the KKK, I would be talking to the fucking news within a heartbeat, because that's a goddamn public service to out members of the KKK. Same as if a member of the military was also in the Soldiers of Odin. Or was a member of a known right wing militia. I'd certainly expect that others take the same set of actions. And if he wanted to recover, he'd have to quit the KKK and apologize. Yeah, that's fine. I'd expect there to be protests and stuff outside too. Because...that's freedom of speech in action. I guess I don't get the whole "demand he prostrate himself in a very specific way or I am going to write angry letters to people who work with him" thing.

It’s easy to see it this way when you agree with the mob. But what if you disagree with them? What if the mob is the local community in rural Mississippi who found out that you serve black people at your restaurant, and in response they call you horrible names and boycott your place? Or what if they keep showing up, but treat your black customers so badly that the black customers stop showing up? No laws have been broken, free speech has been exercised, technically black people can still come to the restaurant, but they never do anymore. Isn’t that a de facto ban on black people eating there?

This. Happened. For. Centuries. Both ways. Laws were changed as a result. You might have heard of the Civil Rights Act in the USA. However, if it wasn't for the push of civil rights leaders in the US to create public change and to bring negative press down on those places in Mississippi that mistreated blacks, it wouldn't have happened. Spoiler alert: people wrote letters to the suppliers and stuff of those business too! It was "cancel culture" at slower, pre-Internet speeds.

Sometimes I do disagree with what people are "cancelling" today. For example, I'm against hauling down statues of Sir John A. MacDonald for his racism against indigenous persons. And do you know what I do when I'm against it? I say so. I go, "hey, you know, I hear you, but I'm not yet convinced we need to remove this figure from our history books/public memories." And then I have conversations with people who are in favour of it. Some of them wanna yell and scream, but that's OK, I don't have to talk to those people. And maybe they convince me, maybe they don't. I'm alright with that. That's freedom of speech.

What if Focus On The Family successfully convinced all major music retailers, including Spotify and Amazon, that the evil, satanic Iron Maiden shouldn’t have their devil music sold by upstanding establishments because they were contributing to the decay of western civilization? No laws are broken, but the music gets a de facto ban when no major music distributors carry it anymore. Victory for the first amendment?

This happened. Not specifically for Iron Maiden, but bans on music because of taste absolutely happened. Jazz, for example, was functionally banned in many regions of the world because of its inherent blackness. And do you know what? That was the reading of companies at the time. So what did those people do? They made their own company. Many of them. Jazz was banned by major theatres, and then made the Apollo famous. That was the system working at the time, despite the significant power & economic disadvantage of black people. The difference here is that you're talking about stuff that white people (like you and me) like. The system was built this way, it's worked this way for a long time, but it's only a problem now that white people are in the crosshairs.

The core of the problem here is that the far left is abandoning the principles of free speech, because they’ve apparently decided that it’s a core human right to not have to be offended by anyone.

They haven't, and this absolute, total, and complete falsehood is the core of the hypocrisy that is the concern over "cancel culture". There is no concern over the permission of offense. It's not considered a human right to be free of offense. People on the left offend each other all the time. This is a deliberate and dishonest reframing of what's happening by the right in order to make it seem like this isn't supposed to happen. When functionally, it is.

That's because "CaNcEL cULtUrE" is the absolute expression of free speech, unfettered, moving at the speed of thought. If you piss me off, and I tell you that, and I tell my friends, and they agree with me, and the people you work for or who deal with you agree with me? That's people exchanging ideas that they agree with. Nobody is being forced. No government entity is coming down and saying this is right or wrong. It's people making decisions, sometimes for the wrong reasons because people, and acting on them.

If Twitter pulls down your account after thousands of people report it, then that's fine. That's freedom, baby. Twitter isn't run by the government. They're free to do as they want, to associate with the people they want to associate with. You aren't entitled to Twitter, or Facebook, or to TV time. The whining of right wingers who have lost that access because of "CaNcEL cULtUrE" are blind to it.

If a business decides that they can't do business with someone anymore because it hurts their brand, that's freedom, baby.

Nobody is entitled to be protected from the consequences of their speech. Nobody.

That's how it's supposed to work.

And the only way unpopular ideas gain widespread acceptance is by allowing them to be heard, vetted, and debated in the public square.

Absolutely. The difference is that these ideas are either a) already considered and relegated to the ash heap, or b) considered and then relegated to the ash heap. For example, the absolutely despicable Jordan Peterson had a sizable platform for his hate, and he was talking about his really shitty ideas, and they were being considered and tossed aside, as they should be. This guy had a huge Twitter following, Facebook, attended lectures, was a sitting professor, and published book after book. His works haven't been scrubbed, they're still out there. But they aren't being adopted.

No government entity has come along to put him away. Webpages haven't been forced to remove him. That's what censorship. Censorship is not me not doing business with you. These people aren't censored. They're being told that their attitudes don't fit with the values of people today. If they want to keep going, they can! The consequences are non-governmental, they are entirely based on freedom.

Keep in mind that many of the previous progressive movements were against government as much as the private person/company. Which is to say, when progressive forces need to use free speech to their advantage, they were often not just fighting the private shop owner who has a "No Coloreds Allowed" sign, but they were also fighting the laws that allowed that person to post that sign. They were fighting the police and government forces that enforced the status quo. When gay people rose up, they were rising up against social movements that repressed them and the blatantly unconstitutional laws created by those people. For example, gay people pushed for the repeal of unconstitutional sodomy laws first, and then went after DOMA/Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and then finally pushed for marriage.

"Cancel culture" isn't attacking any laws. It's not attacking unconstitutional entities. The concept of someone getting their just desserts for acts of racism/sexism/etc is entirely within the bound of existing constitutional principles. It is the apex of freedom. I have the ability to get more information about you, to judge that information, and make my own financial and social decisions based on it.

If someone is getting arrested for non-crimes, then I have an issue with it. If "cancelling" leads to someone being arrested for being racist or for having worn blackface 10 years ago, I have a problem with it. But if someone is found out as being a racist, if their actions are shared around or are on tv or whatever, and they lose their job because that company doesn't want to be "the company who employs the known racist", then so be it. Thems the breaks.

You warn us that "cancel culture" could have stopped the great progressive movements of the past. As if "cancel culture" didn't exist in the Deep South or against gay people. It isn't some beautiful magical interpretation of free speech that allowed these movements flourish. Hell, speech wasn't free in the Deep South. The price of publishing a newspaper in the South that didn't walk the government line was, bare minimum, burning, maximum, death by lynching. "Cancel culture" involved shooting, stabbing, dragging black people behind cars, hanging them from trees, lighting them on fire and then selling burnt bits of their bodies as fucking souvenirs.

It was sacrifice. The Civil Rights movement flourished because of sacrifice. Because good men and women were willing to give their livelihood and lives - and often did - to fight the injustices that opposed them. Because John Lewis was willing to walk across a bridge, knowing someone at the end was going to try and damn near succeed at caving his skull in with a billy club. Because Rosa Parks was willing to not move on a bus, knowing that there was a chance a cop just fucking shoots her for it. And a hundred thousand other stories, just as brave. Those stories got out, and despite the work of government entities to suppress it, gained popular support over time. Freedom of speech in the non-Southern states helped, sure, but it was when it got out internationally and the USA looked like a bunch of boobs that the issue really got moved upon. It wasn't a beautiful discussion of ideas that led to this change, for sure.

The only reason people are freaking out about it now is because the narrative is pointed at them. Because it goes after primarily (but not always) white, rich, cishet males who have made mistakes, and their money can't save them. And that has to be the scariest thing of all for those people, the slow loss of power to the other.

 

[Jer]

But sure, sure, "cancelling" can happen to anyone, at any time. Except it doesn't. "Cancelling" happens when someone deserves it.

Tell that to Greg Patton, or the various people who used the word “niggardly” and were accused of being racist. Even in cases where someone has objectively done nothing wrong, but someone else’s ignorance has led them to feel offense, that’s apparently all that matters in the end. To quote one of the offendees, “I was in tears, shaking [...] It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid."

You're right, apologies are part of it. But I don't understand this "prostrate" comment. There's no prostrating necessary.

I think if you look at cases like Roseanne Barr and Megyn Kelly, for example, you could easily argue that their apologies were not deemed deep or humiliating enough to save their jobs. Although Kelly spending a full hour of her show being scolded for racial insensitivity over her comments sure seemed like prostration to me.

Kelly made her comments in a dumb way, but she was alluding to the idea that white kids in the 80s who dressed up like Michael Jackson for Halloween because they admired him weren’t racists if they used makeup or some other device to make their skin look more like his (pre-vitiligo). They were just kids trying to look like their idol. That’s a true statement, and one that should be fair game to discuss without fear of losing your job. But people have gotten themselves so whipped up into a frenzy that any discussion near that topic will just get twisted into “so-and-so condones blackface!”, and then it’s game over. Again, shutting down conversation rather than encouraging it.

Also, and let's just be frigging clear here: the important word in the phrase "psychological or emotional harm" is harm. Right-wingers love to denigrate the concept of psychological and emotional harm as less or not real because it's not a punch in the mouth. This sort of harm is insidious and real and there's a huge problem with mental health in this world.

I’m sorry, but mean words and mean actions are not on the same level, and you don’t need to be a right winger to believe that. In fact, most of your responses seem to try to paint me as some right-wing nut because I’m not regurgitating the progressive talking points, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am generally a very liberal person who is still appalled by some of the positions espoused by the far left, especially on issues like this.

The world is tough. People will say and do things you don’t like. But for some reason an entire generation of parents decided that things like certain kids earning trophies while others didn’t was cruel and excluding, and that no child should ever have to hear anything that might rattle their fragile ego. It’s pathetic and absurd, and these kids need to grow the fuck up and learn to tolerate situations and points of view that are uncomfortable to them. That’s real life, get used to it.

If someone bullies a kid, without striking them, to the point of the kid putting a gun in their mouths, is the bully not at fault?

No, of course the bully isn’t at fault. That’s patently absurd. The bully was an asshole, but the fragile child who decided to seek out a gun and end their life rather than hear one more mean thing said to them is the one who’s at fault. They grabbed the gun, they pulled the trigger. If they weren’t mentally ill then they at least had some serious problems with perspective and critical reasoning if they concluded that shooting themselves in the head was preferable. Shame on the parents for not toughening the kid up or failing to recognize that they were so fragile that they couldn’t safely interact with a normal cross section of children, so they needed to be given special care instead.

If someone calls someone a racial slur and suggests that their innate worth as a human is lesser based on the colour of their skin, have they not wronged them?

Yes, they have wronged them. But should the punishment be worse than if they’d punched the person in the face instead? Today it is.

This. Happened. For. Centuries. Both ways. Laws were changed as a result.

Yes, that was my whole point. Laws were changed to overrule the mob “justice” imposed by people in the south. The same type of “justice” that you apparently applaud when it aligns with your values. My point is that mob tyranny is always bad, even when its intentions are good. Sure, stoke awareness and vote with your wallet and lobby your representatives where appropriate, but leave the virtual pitchforks at home.

The difference here is that you're talking about stuff that white people (like you and me) like. The system was built this way, it's worked this way for a long time, but it's only a problem now that white people are in the crosshairs.

I don’t get your point. It was bad then and it’s bad now, regardless of the races of the people affected. It’s bad in principle and should be opposed on principle.

They haven't, and this absolute, total, and complete falsehood is the core of the hypocrisy that is the concern over "cancel culture". There is no concern over the permission of offense. It's not considered a human right to be free of offense. People on the left offend each other all the time. This is a deliberate and dishonest reframing of what's happening by the right in order to make it seem like this isn't supposed to happen.

Bullshit. What do you think the whole “safe space” argument is about on college campuses? It’s about people being butthurt over being exposed to contrary ideas, which is, you know, kind of the entire fucking point of going to college.

The far left demands that you use their approved words and never use their blacklisted words to talk about certain issues, and they will paint you with the most horrible names in the book if you don’t comply. It’s militant groupthink, and it’s antithetical to the core principles of free speech. This is the “woke” crowd that moderate liberals can’t stand, and which outright scare people on the right.

To remind you of the words of the “victim” of the professor’s use of the word “niggardly”: “It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid.” In other words, she was offended, so the professor’s behavior was by definition “wrong“. Other opinions are irrelevant. This is the kind of batshit anti-intellectual perspective that’s being normalized by the far left, and it makes our children weak and pathetic while scaring off more moderate voters.

Absolutely. The difference is that these ideas are either a) already considered and relegated to the ash heap, or b) considered and then relegated to the ash heap.

And who gets to decide when an idea has been fully considered, and when it belongs on the ash heap? I’m sure that many well-intentioned people thought that atheism and the heliocentric solar system were fully considered and discarded as options centuries ago, but they were wrong.

Sure, there are ideas that just about anyone with a functioning brain would reject as obviously stupid and not worthy of further consideration. But the moment you start trying to make formal distinctions, you risk throwing babies out with the bath water. The only truly safe and fair course is to allow all expression.

The only reason people are freaking out about it now is because the narrative is pointed at them. Because it goes after primarily (but not always) white, rich, cishet males who have made mistakes, and their money can't save them. And that has to be the scariest thing of all for those people, the slow loss of power to the other.

That may be true for right-wing propagandists, but that’s one hell of a brush you’re trying to use to paint everyone who doesn’t agree with you on this subject. For me it’s a matter of principle — mob “justice” is always wrong, no matter who it’s directed at.