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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Yes, it’s actually much harder to fire people for speech in France and Germany. Even if you’re arrested for speech in these countries, they make it more difficult for companies to fire you and it’s a hugely drawn-out process (it took years for the left to prevent Bjorn Hocke from retaining his teaching job for example, even after he faced repeated police/state action for his comments). Even in the UK there has to be an internal investigation and you’re put on leave for a long long time, and then it can all be challenged extensively (and is often overturned as in the case of the TERF who was fired) by and at employment tribunals.

That corporate comms in Manhattan can immediately fire any employee if there’s public heat after 1 hour of media attention at 4am is pretty unique to the US.

I mean, it's pretty unique to corporate positions too. Or at least was pretty unique to corporate positions. I think that's why this round of cancellations is so shocking to some- there's a sense of home depot cashiers being so far down the totem poll that they're treated as random civilians not subject to reprisals. I don't think getting the bud light marketing VP fired would have been controversial. I don't think LoTT getting teachers fired is controversial.

And when I notice who's getting upset about the cancellations, I think it's related to the red/blue violence as an offswitch/violence as a ratchet. In a real sense a lot of the people upset about getting a home depot cashier fired are the types who, let's be real, are probably a bit uncomfortable with Trump- even as they're more uncomfortable with wokeness. Conversely the people shrugging their shoulders with 'they hit us, why can't we hit them' aren't.

I think that's why this round of cancellations is so shocking to some- there's a sense of home depot cashiers being so far down the totem poll that they're treated as random civilians not subject to reprisals

As Nybbler pointed out, there's nothing shocking about it, I've seen worse from progressives (there was a guy who got fired for cracking his knuckles, because someone decided that's the OK handsign, and that in turn must be a dogwhistle. The dude in question was Mexican, or something, by the way). I'm also not against "if they hit us, we hit them" (nor am I against Trump), I just don't think we should go after "civilians", as you describe them.

Again feel free to go "it's not like we didn't warn you guys", but celebrating/defending the cancellation is a step too far.

I think that's why this round of cancellations is so shocking to some- there's a sense of home depot cashiers being so far down the totem poll that they're treated as random civilians not subject to reprisals.

It shouldn't be; the left did a LOT of cancellations of random civilians. Say the n-word on Twitbook on Sunday, lose your shitty retail job on Monday.

There was a high-profile tumblr called racistsgettingfired whose raison d'etre was precisely this.