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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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I think it would be just for every person cheering this on to get a visit at their own workplace from someone with a camera harassing them over their own internet posts.

You mean like that side did and cheered on for years? In addition to the various examples SteveKirk presented, there was the tumblr described here. The example given there is a truck driver who got fired for posting the N-word on Facebook.

For years, the right pleaded for justice, mercy, or sometimes (as with the "OK" sign nonsense) just sanity. The response from the left, and from the so-called neutral institutions that duly fired people when the left complained about them, was "No". It is no surprise, nor in any way unwarranted, when no sympathy is provided when the shoe is momentarily on the other foot.

Yes, they all deserve each other. Eventually they'll end up in Hell and spend eternity applying arbitrary tortures to members of the other 'side', not even remembering why there are sides in the first place.

More seriously. Neither really accomplish anything. You note that the shoe is 'momentarily' on the other foot, it's not like this little outburst will make future cancellations less likely! It might if one targeted people with cultural power on the left, but they aren't!

Semi-relatedly, I think a post thinking how the attitude towards the 'racial reckoning' has significantly soured on the center-left, putting it in the context of history. 2020 was hardly the first progressive "excess" that was later disavowed as too exuberant. What comes next?

You note that the shoe is 'momentarily' on the other foot, it's not like this little outburst will make future cancellations less likely!

That's no longer a possibility.

It might if one targeted people with cultural power on the left, but they aren't!

They're not reachable. The right doesn't have anything like the arbitrary cancel power of the left. They're just taking advantage of the fact that the assassination shifted calling for Trump's death out of the Overton window for a little while.

The people who could have stopped cancellation are those who carried them out while claiming not to be partisan. Employers, talent agents, advertisers, book publishers, venues, etc. They did not, and it's too late now; if they stop cancellations by the right they are only proving themselves partisan, not cooling the temperature.

That happened. For years. They fired a man because his father said the "N word" before he was born. They hunted down an electrician because someone took a creepshot of him cracking his knuckles in a way that looked vaguely like the "ok" gesture. CNN doxxed a random guy who made a meme mocking Biden, nothing to do with death threats. They went after kids for riding scooters on gay crosswalks. The New York Times published a fawning article about doxxing high schoolers to "hold them accountable" for singing along to rap music by getting them expelled from colleges they'd gotten into.
A school principal was fired for saying "I firmly believe black lives matter, but I do not agree with the coercive measures taken to get this point across.". A football player got fired because his wife called rioters disgusting.

And nobody had a problem with this insane ideological frenzy. They did nothing but cheer it on triumphantly for years. And now they're vaguely embarrassed about it they want us to forget about it without so much as an apology. Without even giving that electrician his job back.
Anyone freaking out now should be ashamed of themselves.

When leftists have to hide under pseudonyms just to support Biden, we can talk. I think that would be pretty just. Maybe do that for 50 years and see what the score is.

To quote a poster who for some reason hasn't weighed in on this particular issue: "it would be vastly preferable if this could be dealt with voluntarily with no coercion by state or society. Yet that does not seem to be the position we are in"

I have no interest in talk of "sides". You have no evidence that this lady specifically was in any way involved in any of those events. She is not an avatar of leftism, she's not an organizer of online mobs, she's just some cashier at home depot. Punishing her for what some people she doesn't know did to someone else she doesn't know is grotesque.

I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about the people upset at her being fired who supported doing far worse to people in 2020.
And what you, specifically, supported doing to anti-lockdown protesters.

If "justice" means becoming a victim of something you cheered for to happen to others, does that mean someone who cheers for Trump to get murdered, deserves to get murdered?

No. Rules are different for politicians. You're asking for an incredible amount of power over people's lives, the flip side of that is those people get to say mean things about you.

If that person campaigns for President, yes.