Category: Current Events

There is no such thing as “cancel culture.”

Oh, sure, the phrase exists. And the alliteration makes it memorable. But I’m putting it in quotes because it describes a fictitious concept that is intellectually dishonest.

“Cancel culture” is deceiving because it attempts to recast the villain in a situation as a victim. The people who claim to be “canceled” are not victims. They are paying the price for reprehensible actions.

I agree with the alternative term that many people smarter than I have proposed: consequence culture. It is appropriate, important, necessary — in fact, morally imperative — to hold people accountable for what they have done.

The term “cancel culture” comes up a lot these days because some people¹ are being taken to task for their participation in the violent Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.

If you rose up to overturn democracy, you should not get off scot-free. You are not immune from the consequences. You are responsible for what you say and do. 

The type and severity of offense may mitigate accountability, but it doesn’t eliminate it. Someone who plagiarizes a paragraph in a book shouldn’t face the same consequences as someone who plagiarizes an entire book. Even though the first infraction is smaller, it doesn’t let the perpetrator off the hook.²

No one who stormed the Capitol last month can be excused for their actions, even if they were a bit player in the act of sedition and domestic terrorism.³

Allegations of “cancel culture” extend way beyond the Capitol attack. I’m not even going to list all the recent examples; there are just too many. In all these instances, the story is the same: People claim they’re victims when they’re not.

I can’t help but notice that the people claiming “cancel culture” today were quiet when cultural elites (i.e., Harvey Weinstein) and liberal politicians (i.e., Al Franken) were held accountable for their abusive behavior against women.⁴

Let’s eliminate the phrase “cancel culture” from the national discourse. It’s a false narrative that shifts blame away from those who should be ostracized and onto those who are rightfully holding them accountable for what they’ve done.  

¹ In my opinion, not nearly enough people yet.
² A bloodier example: Someone who stabs another person shouldn’t be excused because they didn’t actually kill the person. The punishment might be less, but punishment is still deserved.
³ A separate, but related issue, is the consequences people should face if they continue to believe in the flat-out lie that the election was stolen. They shouldn’t be penalized for being conservative, but I have no problem with society recognizing that they are incapable of making fact-based decisions and treating them accordingly.
⁴ One might argue that Franken’s ogling photo was much less egregious than Weinstein’s long history of sexual abuse, but both men still faced harsh consequences, including the loss of their jobs and the destruction of their reputations. 

Yesterday was a momentous day for the United States, and I’ve been reading all the news and analysis I can about it. Here are a few articles that stand out.

Heather Cox Richardson: “Letters From an American: January 20, 2021”

Richardson is an amazing and perceptive writer. Her daily emails aren’t really articles — they’re more like timely, thoughtfully written recaps. Her piece about yesterday’s inauguration was one of her best so far, using Amanda Gorman’s poem to frame Biden’s inaugural speech and first actions in office.

In these terrible years, our politicians often failed us… but the American people did not. Our national guardrails often failed us… but the American people did not. Many of our neighbors often failed us, but the American people did not.

The Washington Post Editorial Board: “Yes, This Time Could Be Different. Biden Really Could Unite the Country.”

Who would blame editorial boards for being a little cautious at a time like this? Democracy reached its straining point under Trump, and no one can predict how long or hard it will take to repair the damage. But the Post’s writers find reasons for optimism — and, reading the piece, I found myself agreeing with them. It is a time for hopefulness.

There are many reasons to hope Mr. Biden’s message, delivered with evident passion and no little eloquence, could have real effect. One reason is that, unlike Mr. Trump, he did not contaminate it with rancor about “carnage” and “stolen” jobs, or pit a “righteous” public against an exploitative “establishment.” He instead urged “humility” and asked “those who did not support us” to “hear me out.”

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate: “Words Mean Something Again”

I have a passion for language and appreciate anyone that can master the difficult balance between meaning, tone, precision, and artistry. This article looks at how Biden and Gorman accomplished that balancing act yesterday — and celebrates the return of honest language to our national discourse

There has been so much lying over these past four years. So much violence done to language, which is then cast as jokes or irony or merely what “other people” are saying. So much of our work of the past four years has been to find the bits of truth in the ash heap. That’s why it matters that Biden’s words today came from a tongue that used to fail him. He knows their power. They aren’t easy trinkets for him. 

Maura Judkis, Washington Post: “Inside the Stretch Limo Where ‘Tiger King’ Star Joe Exotic’s Team Waited for a Pardon That Never Came”

This one is so bizarre that I don’t need to write my own commentary. Here’s just a taste.

So confident was Team Tiger of Exotic’s imminent release that it also hired a hairdresser, who was waiting in Debose’s limo to coif Exotic’s signature platinum-blonde mullet. 

I’m struggling to find the words to describe how happy I am to be an American today. This passionate rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner reflects my newly restored pride.

My mom texted me to say she loved Lady Gaga’s performance but “her dress was over the top.” My response: “What did you expect from Lady Gaga? A dress from Kohl’s?”

The quote in the headline is from Hans Christian Anderson. The inauguration logo is from bideninaugural.org.

You won’t find many people more outspoken about free speech than me. And that’s why I’m going to call bullshit on everybody who’s crying foul over Parler’s removal from Google Play, the Apple App Store, and Amazon Web Services.

The First Amendment is very specific. It says the government can not restrict “the freedom of speech, or of the press.” It doesn’t say that organizations cannot moderate what they publish or distribute. In fact, the First Amendment makes a very compelling argument that Google, Apple, and Amazon have the right to decide what apps, data, and information can be shared on their platforms. 

Think about it this way: If organizations were beholden to the same First Amendment rules as the government, then any company would be obligated to publish or distribute anything that anyone submits. In that case, look for my weekly recaps of RuPaul’s Drag Race in The Daily Stormer. (Even better, let’s ask PornHub to run ads in Highlights for Children.)

The Supreme Court has set something of a precedent with Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston in 1995. It said that the organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston had the right to exclude groups that didn’t align with their mission or message.

Curation, I submit, is a First Amendment right.

Since this clearly isn’t a First Amendment issue, let me state incontrovertibly what’s happening here. Parler is facing the consequences of violating the terms and conditions it agreed to with Google, Apple, and Amazon. I haven’t read any of these contracts, but I can guarantee that these three tech companies have said their app stores and web hosting services cannot be used to promote violence. Since this is exactly what happened, and Parler appears to make no effort to monitor its content and remove offending posts, they are merely facing the consequences.

Parler is certainly not the first example of a company getting booted like this. In 2018, Tumblr’s app was kicked off Apple’s App Store because the company did not filter out pornography. This violated the terms and conditions. Goodbye, Tumblr.

Let me make a few more points:

• These decisions do not put Parler out of business. They just mean Parler isn’t welcome at Google, Apple, and Amazon. There is absolutely nothing restricting them from continuing operations with another web hosting service.
• Anyone who compares this to Nineteen Eighty-Four clearly hasn’t read the book. That’s double-plus ignorant.
• The gay wedding cake comparisons I’ve heard are specious at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst. Google, Apple, and Amazon are kicking Parler to the curb because of what it has done. Bigot bakers are refusing service because of who the customers are. The better analogy (which I’ve seen on Twitter) is that this is akin to a bar kicking out customers because they started a fight.