[0xDEAFBEAD]

Yep. Imagine I punch you. You say: "Don't punch me". I punch you again. Then you punch me back. I say: "Aren't you being hypocritical? I thought you were against punching."

The path forward at this point is for the left to admit they made a mistake, apologize, and work to negotiate a new set of ground rules.

[ceejayoz]

Punch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

Punch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletubbies#Tinky_Winky_contro...

Punch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_comments_on_Georg...

Punch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_fries

Punch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._national_anthem_kneeling_...

Punch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O%27Connor_on_Satu...

But sure, the left invented it.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

It's not about who "invented" it. It's about who started the most recent round.

We had a big discussion about cancel culture just a few years ago, where the left responded to complaints about it by saying: "cancel culture doesn't exist", "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", "free speech isn't hate speech", "you're just saying that because you're a racist/sexist/etc."

In other words: "Our ideology justifies large-scale, systematic application of public shaming for mild noncompliance with our ideology. We aren't going to stop doing this."

A lot of prominent left-wingers simply lack the moral authority to complain. What goes around comes around.

If you, specifically, were complaining about left-wing cancel culture, I'll grant you have the moral authority to complain about right-wing cancel culture as well.

[ceejayoz]

> It's not about who "invented" it. It's about who started the most recent round.

Starting when? Several of the examples are quite recent; there's no point in my life where people of both political persuasions weren't boycotting or criticizing things.

> freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences

This remains entirely true. The First Amendment protects us from government-applied consequences. Being fired for being an asshole by a private employer has always been kosher. Being fired because the FCC threatens your employer with revocation of their broadcast licenses over protected speech has not.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>Several of the examples are quite recent

The only one I'd consider recent is US national anthem kneeling.

I'm in my mid-30s. I only have the vaguest memories of cancel culture around 9/11. I have very vivid memories of progressive cancel culture during the late Obama administration and onwards. It very much was not a one-off sort of thing. It was a systematic practice which was systematically justified. The 9/11 stuff died down as 9/11 receded into the past. Progressive cancel culture only started dying down when Elon Musk bought Twitter.

I agree that progressive cancel culture was mostly not implemented with the help of the government. I agree that Brendan Carr overstepped in a way that wasn't a simple case of "tit for tat", and I think he should be fired.

On the other hand, consider Karen Attiah. If you took what she said, but replace "white men" in her statement with "black women", and imagine a white man saying it, he absolutely would've been risking his job just a few years ago. People were fired for far less.

[ceejayoz]

> I only have the vaguest memories of cancel culture around 9/11.

Maybe you agreed with the canceling enough it wasn't noticeable; I cited two specific examples directly related to that day. It was… not a fun time to be anti-war.

Go back a few years and you'll find further prominent examples, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppy_Episode

> On the other hand, consider Karen Attiah.

I disagree with her firing, but there are no First Amendment concerns here. The Washington Post is free, under the First Amendment, to be shitty, even with regards to employment. They canceled her, as is their right, and as our ape evolutionary cousins do despite a lack of language, social media, or political parties. "I don't like you, so I won't associate with you" is deeply ingrained in us.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>Maybe you agreed with the canceling enough it wasn't noticeable; I cited two specific examples directly related to that day. It was… not a fun time to be anti-war.

I was roughly 12 years old when Iraq was invaded. I was sitting in class staring at the clock and waiting for recess. It was a different political era from my perspective, and it feels a little disingenuous that you keep harping on it. It seems to me that there's been significant turnover in the US political power players since that time, so the hypocrisy accusations don't seem to land very well. Remember that Trump gained popularity with the GOP electorate in part due to his willingness to unequivocally condemn Bush & friends for their middle east misadventures.

>"I don't like you, so I won't associate with you" is deeply ingrained in us.

Sure. But when explaining why they fired Attiah, the Post wrote: "the Company-wide social media policy mandates that all employee social media postings be respectful and prohibits postings that disparage people based on their race, gender, or other protected characteristics".

They're applying the exact standard that progressives requested. It appears to me that they are actually applying it in an even-handed way. If I was a journalist circa 2017, and I made a post suggesting that America was violent because of people caring too much about "black women who espouse hatred and violence", in the wake of a black women recently being murdered, then the risk of progressive dogpiling, and my subsequent termination, would've been extremely high. It's not respectful, and it disparages on the basis of protected characteristics. Remember, Al Franken lost his job (even after he apologized!) for things like squeezing a woman's waist at a party.

I think you're a little fixated on the government thing, as cancel culture is generally speaking a non-governmental phenomenon, regardless of who is doing it to who. At least recently in the US.

[southernplaces7]

As I said in another reply above,

where's the room for a firm set of beliefs and moral framework, or perhaps a principled stand against or for something by this dogshit logic of yours?

The only important thing is to get them votes and followers then? The conservatives can fuck off just as hard as the radical left if that's all that matters.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>moral framework

Tit-for-tat is a moral framework.

[southernplaces7]

So is Nazism, that doesn't mean all moral frameworks are created equal. Also, tit for tat is a type of cynical pragmatism, not a thing based on some principle (misguided or not) which is a basic requirement of a moral framework; the notion of doing something or not doing it because you feel it to be right, regardless of benefit.