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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Was no one else alive and remembering what the 2000-2010 decade was like?

If you go by my comments on the topic you'll see I'm pro-truce, but this is insane. I was very much alive back then, and on the side that was supposedly getting cancelled, and it was not in any way comparable. "Muh Dixie Chicks" is the best people can come up with from that era. Show me someone who got fired for cracking their knuckles, then we'll talk.

Ward Churchill comes to mind. He was fired for research misconduct in the same way Al Capone was arrested for tax fraud.

There was widespread low level harassment of gays, arabs, and anti-war people. If the dixie chiks is all you remember then I don't think you really remember. Even as late as 2007 people were freaking out that Ron Paul could say something like "they don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us for our interventions in the middle east", the failure to cancel him was a turning point as well as the general 2008 financial and housing crisis. Bill Mahr got kicked off a TV show for saying that people who committed suicidal terror attacks probably weren't "cowards". Comedians were mostly immune to being cancelled back then, but they loved to be "edgy" by picking at the fanaticism of the right.

Social media wasn't a thing so cancellations weren't as visible and weren't as easily documented. But anyone who grew up in a small town and paid enough attention probably has stories.

If the dixie chiks is all you remember then I don't think you really remember.

It's not all I remember, it's the most egregious example of what I remember, and you haven't brought up anything worse, while I can bring up several worse instances for any one you mention.

Social media wasn't a thing so cancellations weren't as visible and weren't as easily documented. But anyone who grew up in a small town and paid enough attention probably has stories.

Yeah, and on top of the things that are public, people now also have stories that never make it to the media.

Only other egregious example I can think of is Rage Against the Machine essentially being blacklisted by any radio stations owned by Clear Channel. But yeah that's nothing compared to a lot of the crap the left has done in the last 14 years or so.

My experience in both cancellation waves was only to be booted off a few forums that I didn't like much anyways. I'm not gonna claim I know which one was worse. I find it plausible that one cancellation waves could have been ten times worse than the other one and we wouldn't really be able to notice.

I am only certain that there was a cancellation wave, not how bad it was.

If there has been massive escalation by one side that is only an additional reason for me to worry.

Yeah, fair enough. I do agree with your broader point, I was just unreasonably outraged at the idea it's all the same, and to be fair I'm not exactly an impartial observer.