My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:
I am reminded of a comment by Jim Croce: “I don’t care, as long as they don’t be putting their hands on me. I don’t mind people talking and saying different things. Everybody gotta say something.” That pretty well sums up what our attitude used to be about people speaking their minds. Now we are seeing the onset of outrage mobs that seek out people who express opinions with which they disagree and try to destroy them personally and professionally. This is the so-called “cancel culture” where we no longer meet objectionable speech with more speech. Instead, these mobs consider contrary opinions to be so fundamentally immoral that they must not be spoken, and the people speaking them must be ruined to force adherence to the current, if fluid, orthodoxy.
What is even more chilling is that the opinions being canceled are views that were mainstream as recently as a few months ago. Support for law enforcement, standing for the National Anthem, celebrating Independence Day, honoring George Washington, etc. are things that were commonplace and integral parts of the national psyche. Now such views are just as likely to attract an online or physical mob to your doorstep. There has been a very rapid and scary retreat of our collective support for free speech.
Meanwhile, support for the right to keep and bear arms is exploding. I recently witnessed a couple of protest marches in suburban communities. In both cases, firearms were plentiful and visible in the hands of both protesters and counter-protesters. Furthermore, as the mobs and the elected Democrats who support them defund the police and force law enforcement into a defensive crouch, The People are taking the hint and arming themselves for personal protection.
How about when you see “cancel culture” instead you just think “consequences”?
In today’s Second Amendment news, another gun fail. No word yet on whether he was an A&M grad.
Foust, It is such an open window into your base fears and ignorance that you labeled your link to that story as “gun failure”. You really are a tiny man.
Well, Jiffy, since you share “most objectionable commenter” status with ol’ LeeeeeeeeeeeeRoy here, how about “consequences” for you, too??
Jjf,
So should there be consequence to simply stating absolute truth that a man is man and a woman is a woman?
Should JK Rowling be threatened, her publisher, and other authors at that publisher???
That is legitimate civility and decency?
Dad29, so now you’re a fan of “cancel culture”?
Kevin, you’re not even trying to understand. You seem to spend more time bending your neck to avoid what you might learn by reading.
And yet jjf is totally ignorant when gun save lives.
Too bad the guy missed you, jjf.
There goes Mar, jumping to conclusions again. Show me where I said that. And now your civility suggests that people should shoot at me?
Obviously Rat jjf, you don’t understand humor.
We must also consider the possibility that you weren’t telling as many funnies as you thought you were.
That pretty well sums up what our attitude used to be about people speaking their minds.
HA!
Let’s not pretend cancel culture is anything new. It has been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years. For example in the 1600’s the church imprisoned Galileo and banned his books to silence him.
Countless books have been banned from libraries and classrooms across the U.S. People have even burned them. Same with music, art…..
Performers have been pulled offstage and arrested because people didn’t like what they said.
People have even been assassinated to cancel them and the culture they were creating (for example MLK)
So yes, let’s have a conversation on cancel culture, but acknowledge it has a long, rich history, and that it is practiced by the left AND the right.
I do agree with you, Randall, remember Anita Bryant?
But I don’t think we have seen at this level, where extreme liberals are going after liberals. This is mostly a fight between extreme liberals and liberals.
And the moronic extreme liberals, like those in Madison who tore down statues that have nothing to with racism, showing that they just want attention, like a spoiled child.
I had heard of Anita Bryant Mar but did not know the connection. However I did google it.
As far as levels, I would say killing people to stop it is a higher level than tweets and or tearing down statues. But I get what you are saying. Liberals are now using a tactics almost exclusively used by conservatives in the past.
That is why I find conservatives posting about this “cancel culture” (without acknowledging the past of conservatives doing the same thing) laughable.
But, maybe a fictional book did hit on a nugget when it said:
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
I was on stage (backstage) when that happened. The “security ” fence was a snow-fence; there were ~10,000 very unhappy people, and behind us was Lake Michigan.
Hmmmm.
It’s not. But today’s application is very new. Used to be that “truth” was NOT cancel-able. But now, what is true is a target. That’s not a good sign.
You can find this all over, even in math, where it’s argued (seriously!!) that 2+2=5. It’s closely related to the dictatorship of relativism, which still is in play, but is ceding space to this new phenom.
Society can survive book-burning–even burning Bibles, which is going on in Seattle (?) or Portland. It will survive arrests for potty-mouthing around children. But it cannot survive the torching of truth.
When did Trump say that?
Which “truth” caused someone to be cancelled?
– But now, what is true is a target.
When the Church arrested Galileo, they did so because he was professing the truth that the earth revolved around the sun. So what’s true has been the target for long, long time.
Wrong.
Prison? Wrong again.
He was also given a servant. The story is far more complicated than what I excerpted here. G. was right about helio-cent, but wrong about theology–which is why he was detained. And–by the way–G. wasn’t entirely correct, as he wrote that the sun was the center of the universe, not just the solar system.
See: https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-galileo-controversy
Jjf,
So what cancel culture liberals are doing to JK Rowling is acceptable behavior?
You can’t even denounce the most obscenely evil behavior of cancel culture liberals?
That makes you a coward.
How about the new “truth” of tranny-ism? Gay “marriage”? Got some smart-assed remark about that?
dad29:
You crack me up.
No, you really do.
Using a catholic site as a source on how Galielo was treated and why he was arrested. Hilarious.
We all know how truthful the Catholic Church is as witnessed by them exposing all of the pedophile priests as soon as they knew :)
How about the new “truth” of tranny-ism? Gay “marriage”? Got some smart-assed remark about that?
If they bother you, they must be a good thing.
You could also apply “cancel culture “ in the extreme to such christian activities as the crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.
Nord,
By that logic then you can say the U.S. conducted “cancel culture” on Nazis and other evil leftist socialist ilk during the cold war.
It is not “cancel culture” when you defeat evil threatening you.
Since you have a systemic problem defining basic evil, I can see where you have a lot of issues.
jjf,
No comment of what these awful liberals have been doing to JK Rowling, her publisher, AND OTHER AUTHORS, WITH NOTHING TO DO WITH ROWLING, AT THAT PUISHER????
Your nothing to see here, silence, attitude about this shows how invested you are into the aeful liberal cultural cancer and gross evil.
How much mental energy did you expend on J.K. Rowling before this came along? I’m probably spending about that much energy on it right now.
Jjf,
I keep an eye on awful cancel culture and this is one of the worst.
Your lack of denouncement of this liberal PC evil is just disgusting.
You didn’t answer my question.
k:
What threat did the Jews (or other minorities ) pose to the nazis? You just can’t help but create your own fictional historical narrative.
Pflug told us that he was not human before his birth. ‘Nuff said on ‘truth’ matters for Pflug. (But he is monomaniacal about one topic.)
And yes, you can count on LeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRoy to be a model of obtuse ‘thought’ (and I’m being complimentary here) again.
Dad29, where were you before your birth?
You think the crusades or the Spanish Inquisition were about being against ‘evil’? I think you just broke your own glass house with that rock…
Prove it wrong or shut up your face.
Three of the Crusades were wars against Mohammedans committing theft, rape, and murder. IOW, Muslims doing what Muslims do. The Fourth, well, see below.
As to the Inquisition: if you’re attempting to say that all men are sinners, you are correct. Did the Spanish Inquisition kill 95 million people as the Catharists say? ……..well…….
Did the Old Testament command the death-penalty for idolaters? Yup.
Now then, Tuerqas, will you be the one to cast the first stone?
Nord loves siding with Islamic rapists.
No k, I don’t side with rapists of any religion, lutheran, muslim, pastafarian, none of them. You are lying again…
Well,Le Roi The Liar Hater has made himself irrelevant here.
Cannot tell the truth and babbling past his bed time will do that.
Nord,
You have shown time and time again, your unwillingness to side against basic evil.
So you really approve of the Crusades because it stopped Islamic thugs, murderers and rapists?
Jjf,
You tried to deny cancel culture.
I brought up JK Rowling case where she simply stated biological gender is not maleable.
Evil, sick, sadistic liberals are trying to shut her down, her publisher, AND OTHER AUTHORS AT THE PUBLISHER…WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH Rowling!
I am not answering any of your deflecting questions until you honestly deal with this monstrous case of evil cancel culture.
But like anything you deny awful, evil, liberalism and embrace it.
That makes you a coward.
One last chance to side with good. Will you denounce cancel culture in this case? Jk Rowling is largely very liberal, so I am not even defending a conservative here.
Or does your liberal cult eat its own for stepping out of line on any totalitarian idea in liberal cult?
Oh, Kev, again with the denouncing. Your poor employees, what they must suffer every day.
If some fraction of the billions of JK’s fans have a problem with things she’s said, I think those people should be free to speak out. Just like anyone else. And if with their words or purchasing power or bad PR they can convince her publisher to change whatever, too, then so be it. From a free speech and free market perspective (in the ideal sense, as this is multi-national) why would you oppose this?
There’s no such thing as “cancel culture.” It’s just “consequences.” JK thinks it’s nifty to spout her personal opinions on the Twitter, and presto, there are people who disagree with what she said.
Boss, can we just go back to making Dilly Bars now?
Shorter Dad29: We’ve Had Centuries To Cover Up This Galileo Stuff, Too.
Where were you before your birth?
Jjf
So you want people to be overtly punished for speaking the truth?
That just makes you gross and evil.
I don’t own a copy of Kevin’s Flexible Dictionary, so I have no idea how you might define “punishment.”
Or overtly. for example, would he consider killing abortion doctors an “overt punishment”?
Jjf,
You facilitate and approve of awful social indecency and disgust.
Awful. Just awful.
I translated for you.
Randall,
Let’s use the jjf liberal approach it is just “consequence” to being a baby murderer. At least in that case, the “consequence” at least saves lives of innocents, even though the action is gross and wrong.
It’s when gross libs like jjf cannot bring themselves to say what is going on in JK Rowling case is wrong. Worse, people that have nothing to do with Rowking are being pressured abd punished. At some point liberals need to admit this cancel culture us gross and evil or civil society is just dead.
k:
Again with the aggressive ignorance, “So you really approve of the Crusades because it stopped Islamic thugs, murderers and rapists?”. Can’t you read, or is reading for comprehension prohibited in your religion?
Did you tell me your definition for “punishment?” I don’t see it there.
I see a pivot to abortion. What’s next, evolution?
Oh noes! JK is pressured! Because she said something! It’s not fair that there are consequences for saying offensive things!
Le Roi:
Kevin only objects to Islamic thugs, murderers and rapists. He is OK with Christian ones.
JJF:
You mean freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism?
Three of the Crusades were wars against Mohammedans committing theft, rape, and murder. IOW, Muslims doing what Muslims do.
Yeah! Those Mohammedans were sitting on our oil!
Oh, wait, wrong century.
Yeah! Those Mohammedans weren’t tithing to the correct religion and they’d surrounded our religious tourism destinations!
Randall: Kevin will pivot to how Christians are being oppressed any second now…
And still, jjf has nothing to add.
How uncivil of you jjf.
Randall: Kevin will pivot to how Christians are being oppressed any second now…
He is right. I mean look at how much harder it has become for priests and pastors to get their chosen “entertainment.”
The crusades were about loot and power. If you believe it was about evil, then I would not call you an historian, but I would agree to call you a theologian.
If you are defending the members of the Spanish Inquisition as holy men, doing the blessed work of God, there will be no common ground to have a discussion upon it. Are you saying if they only killed 9.5 million, for instance, that they did a good job or 1/10th as good of a job?
I did not know that Catholics followed the laws of the Old Testament? Were the Spanish Inquisition members Jewish? Tell me more.
If ‘casting stones’ (also from the old testament) includes denouncing what the the Spanish Inquisition did or looking up factual information on the Crusades or not accepting all the laws of the Old Testament as Christian doctrine or duty, yup, sure, absolutely! I have a pile of stones for any of those topics.
The crusades were about loot and power.
Religion is about loot and power. That is why the Catholic Church let the pedophiles prey unchecked. They would have lost money and power had they exposed them.
Jjf,
Saying that biological sex cannot be changed deserves punishment?
Wow.
Really?
How crazy are you?
Kevin, what’s circumcision all about?
jjf,
Do people deserve to be punished for stating truth of biological sex?
Oh, first I suppose I should ask you what “truth” means in your dictionary, Kev.
And what’s with the Bible and the foreskins? Have they covered that one in bible class yet, or do you skip a bit?
Jjf,
So you deny truth of biological sex?
You look like a science denier to me.
Kev, you’re purposefully obtuse. Do I deny your truth, especially when you won’t tell me what your truth is when I ask, and last time I asked your truth didn’t seem to agree with observed science? This is my surprised face.
Truth is absolute and objective.
Rest is your opinion.
Still will not denounce savage attacks on Rowling her publisher, and writers that have nothing to do with Rowling?
I guess decency, for the truth, is not in your worldview.
Awful. Just awful.
Certainly you have a citation for that …..ass ertion, right?
They were men. Some good, some not-so-good. But I don’t mind NOT having anything in common with you on the question.
First off, my “casting stones” reference is to the New Testament–which you ought to know, based on your supercilious self-affirmations of holiness. Let me help you with a hint: “……..drawing in the dust………” Look it up if you’re not sure. Don’t report back.
I have no idea what the Hell you mean by that but it’s clear that you cannot read for meaning very well.
As to “following the laws of the OT,” please consult the 10 Commandments. It would be a good refresher for you.
Try reading:
Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades by Paul Cobb
The Mosaic of Islam by Suleiman A. Mourad
Per Historian J Riley Smith, the primary reasons were separate to each group that participated. His list:
The Byzantine Emperor – to regain lost territory and defeat a threatening rival state.
The Pope – to strengthen the papacy in Italy and achieve ascendancy as head of the Christian church.
Merchants – to monopolise important trading centres currently under Muslim control and earn money shipping crusaders to the Middle East.
Knights – to defend Christianity (its believers and holy places), follow the principles of chivalry and gain material wealth in this life and special favour in the next one.
Outside the Pope’s reason being purely about power, money enters into everyone’s short list. And since the Papacy was significantly enriched during those years, I am not above adding it to his list as well. I could go on and on with other references. You certainly have the right to not believe the vast wealth of written words that corroborate that the great majority of people that went to the holy lands during the crusades were promised lands and wealth for going there, but to question whether it has been written about? That is, well, I’ll stick with narrow minded.
Three of the Crusades were wars against Mohammedans committing theft, rape, and murder. IOW, Muslims doing what Muslims do.
You don’t actually find much to corroborate that story outside a Catholic theologian point of view. The first crusade took place because the Byzantine Emperor begged help from the Pope to defeat his Seljuk enemies, not from some wish to free holy lands. The Pope sold it to the European Kings that way along with his blessings, but lands and treasure from the fat lands to the east were the promise that those Kings bought.
I have no idea what the Hell you mean by that but it’s clear that you cannot read for meaning very well.
Then perhaps you should be more clear. The way you wrote that the SI was responsible for 95 million deaths implied that those numbers were (clearly) overblown. What was your meaning other than that they ‘killed less’. So I asked if it was only 1/10th the number would that have been okay with you. Would the SI have been a poster child for Catholicism then? But hey, maybe you meant that 95 million was too low a number, how should I know? The more deaths attributed to the SI, the better? Is that your stance, the victims deserved it?
As to “following the laws of the OT,” please consult the 10 Commandments. It would be a good refresher for you.
No no, if your religion believes in death to idolaters, more power to you. I can guarantee that your religion is not mainstream Catholicism, though. On the 10 Commandments, when was the last time you remembered the Sabbath day? And the OT has a few thousand more laws you’ll need to go over before you start getting back to ‘in’ with your religion. Oh, are you talking about the ‘Catholic’ 10 commandments? Cuz they are quite a bit different, being a bit more Jesus-centric and modern. But no, you are specifically stating you are an old testament follower because you advocate death to idolators which is not Catholic doctrine, you Orthodox Jewish heretic. Catholics have vastly changed the meanings and penalties for the 10 Commandments and their violations.
Read the NT in the Bible, it will be a good refresher for you.