Thougths on the Cancel Culture

In the US the cancel culture on Twitter or what have you is an obvious huge red flag of cultural idiocy.

Now, some of it is relatively minor to me........no one is owed a career after all and people can boycott who they like, companies can fire who they like too.......  but it speaks to deeper foundational issues in the US - a loss of God for one thing......... The desire to play God too.......in some ways I'm oblivious to it and don't live my life that way. I am not on Twitter...........I personally don't cancel anyone.........

But the toppling of US leaders statues is actually to me far worse - it is the mob emboldened and completely unchecked - statues of Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson being defaced/torn down represents nothing so much as an attempt to rewrite our shared cultural history. 

To tear down a symbol of those 3 (or Churchill in the UK etc) is to have the height of arrogance......to believe that you are a better person than they were or will ever accomplish one iota of what they did. 

That behavior is tacitly endorsed by the Democratic party as much as Trump tacitly encourages racism  - for the first time in my life the Democratic Party won't get my presidential vote in 2020 (neither will Trump)............. Not solely on this issue but it is a part of it to me.    

This is grotesqueness personified - and dodging the question personified too : "People do what they do” she says .............an utter coward.
Watch as she calls those 3 heroes while virtue signaling her support to the imbecilic mob to  "do what you do"    .
 

Gandhi is already looked down upon in India. The majority of right wing and some in ruling party sees Gandhi and Nehru as traitors who let Kashmir go away.   

The problem with this stuff, and ultimately censorship in general, is that although people always try to dress it up as being justified some kind of external moral standard it boils down to just selfishness and wanting to impose your own views on others. No one ever argues for their own views or views that they personally find nonoffensive to be censored, even if others find them offensive. To actually have moral credibility you would have to say in some circumstances "I am personally 100% fine with this, but other people are offended so it should be banned". If you don't say that then the standard is not offensiveness or "basic respect" as it is sometimes described but just your personal whim which you are trying to impose on everyone else.

Religion is one of the areas where this comes through clearest. You'd likely get "cancelled" and called a bigot if you joked about Islam/Muhammad but if you were to cancel every comedian who made a joke about Jesus there wouldn't be a single one left in the Western world. Then no one is ever going to get in trouble for making fun of a religion that is controversial or disliked like Mormons or Scientology. The standard should either be that everyone has to be 100% respectful of all religions or that no one has to show any particular religion any respect and people in those religions should be tolerant. Everyone being tolerant of each other is clearly the preferable option. That's the case for everything.

Oh honey, I don't like it. It conjures up a mob with pitchforks and torches.

It frightens me. Have we forgotten so quickly how the Nazis cancelled the Jews? And everyone at that time in Germany thought it was right. It's very dangerous.

If there is one thing that history has taught us is that mistakes get made. Who decides what gets cancelled?

I mean I wouldn't even cancel Nicole... I'd be out of a job!

If you don't like something. Don't support it. People have the freedom of choice to do that.

The whole thing with Al Franken is when I checked out of this whole thing. It made no sense at all. 

I was side-eyeing them so hard, I was scared my eye would get stuck.