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Cont: Cancel culture IRL Part 2

Hard agree on the highlighted bit.

Speaking of "Cancel Culture" (which totally isn't a thing according to some folks) there is a new book out on the subject, from one of the guys at FIRE.

As president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Lukianoff has been either in front of the camera or behind the scenes of almost every major free speech controversy over the past 25 years. A near sui generis figure in American legal history, he’s the rarest of creatures in modern public life: someone dedicated to elevating principle over tribalism, a progressive who’s willing to ally himself with anyone — even the Koch brothers — who supports his larger cause.

That cause is a near absolute commitment to the First Amendment and civil liberties. It’s premised upon a faith in the human capacity to tolerate complexity, hearkening to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” That Americans can recognize the importance of the due process rights of a likely criminal or the speech rights of someone with extreme or loathsome views.

Read more here.

This passage neatly encapsulates the contradiction inherent in the mindsets of “cancel culture” hand-wringers:
An essential premise of civil libertarianism has always been that one could defend the rights of a speaker without agreeing with their message, even in the most extreme cases. Today, it’s no longer clear whether one can defend a racist’s right to speech without being considered a racist.

Nothing funnier than self-styled free speech warriors framing what other people might say about them as a threat to free speech.
 
Why hasn't this thread been bumped for what seems like a very clear cut case of 'cancel culture' as those who claim to be concerned about it formulate it?

Education officials stood up for some very extreme versions of free speech, saying essentially that even Nazis should be able to speak without it being a violation of school rules as long as it doesn't move into action. They were then pressured, by government officials no less, into resigning.

I have no illusion that anyone doesn't understand what I'm talking about or that it's a 'gotcha' but I'm of course talking about U-Penn's President and the Congressional hearings.

If we hold that people losing their jobs for defending 'free speech', including that of right wing authoritarians up to and including literal Nazis, is 'cancel culture', what about this is not of concern? If silencing free speech especially in an academic setting is a problem of grave import, where are all the people who claim to be worried about it?

My thesis is the vast majority of people who claim such concerns don't actually have them, whether or not that is clear even to themselves. It's easy to attack the people being critical of others, but when it comes to time actually defend the Nazis' 'free speech principles', opps! All out of *****!

I look forward to all the Enlightened Centrists to claim they really do care.
 
it mostly revolved around comedians boosting ticket sales and celebrities with skeletons in their closets prepping their audiences for when the truth came out. elon musk bought a free speech platform to call for the firing of advertiser that cut ties and kid rock and the ufc is back drinking bud light. actual infringement on free speech was never really a concern at any point if we're being honest

of course i do find it funny that to them antisemitism was awesome and something we need more of until arabs starting doing it.
 
"Stop Demanding Dumb Answers to Hard Questions"

Commentary about the congressional hearings from FIRE here, here, and elsewhere. Commentary at Popehat from attorney Ken White here. 'nuff said.
 
Commentary about the congressional hearings from FIRE here, here, and elsewhere. Commentary at Popehat from attorney Ken White here. 'nuff said.

Is it enough said?

Regardless, I was talking about people who either argued for in effect unilateral disarmament from 'woke' people; right wingers and 'centrists' (and the Performatively ReasonableTM). People like Stefanik herself, who has often railed against the same kind of actions she's leading here.
 
Performance cancelled

Pensacola College (a private school in Florida, USA) canceled a performance by the King's Singers, a British vocal ensemble. Whether or not this fits one's definition of cancel culture is an interesting question. CNN reported, “PCC canceled a concert with The King’s Singers upon learning that one of the artists openly maintained a lifestyle that contradicts Scripture,” the statement reads.

A section referring to sexuality in the school’s articles of faith notes: “We believe that God has commanded that sexual activity be exclusively reserved to a man and a woman who are legally married to each other.” It goes on to say that scripture forbids “sexual immorality including adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bestiality, incest, and use of pornography.”"

If you are unfamiliar with the King's Singers, here is a video of them taking a bulldozer to the foundations of Judeo-Christian civilization.
 
Pensacola College (a private school in Florida, USA) canceled a performance by the King's Singers, a British vocal ensemble. Whether or not this fits one's definition of cancel culture is an interesting question. CNN reported, “PCC canceled a concert with The King’s Singers upon learning that one of the artists openly maintained a lifestyle that contradicts Scripture,” the statement reads.

A section referring to sexuality in the school’s articles of faith notes: “We believe that God has commanded that sexual activity be exclusively reserved to a man and a woman who are legally married to each other.” It goes on to say that scripture forbids “sexual immorality including adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bestiality, incest, and use of pornography.”"

If you are unfamiliar with the King's Singers, here is a video of them taking a bulldozer to the foundations of Judeo-Christian civilization.

Well considering that the definition of cancel culture is "anything the right accuse the left of doing but that on thorough investigation only the right are found to do", I would like to ask for the lefty wokeist credentials of the "school" before making a decision.
 
Deck the Halls but not in a hyper-Calvin sort of way

Well considering that the definition of cancel culture is "anything the right accuse the left of doing but that on thorough investigation only the right are found to do", I would like to ask for the lefty wokeist credentials of the "school" before making a decision.
It is tempting to suggest that I provided the "ancient Yuletide carol" and you provided the rest, but perhaps it would not be accurate. In comment #2021 I suggested Scott Greenfield's definition: Scott Greenfield’s definition was “Cancel culture is the breakdown of social norms that allow for the free speech of criticism but inhibit people from joining together with like-minded people to not merely disagree with words or ideas they find unacceptable (or perceive to be unacceptable on behalf of others), but then act upon them for the purpose of inflicting secondary punishment to their antagonists, whether based on fact, opinion or false accusation, without need for proof or due process and disconnected from the nature of the original ‘offense.’” Neither Mr. Greenfield nor myself qualify as "the right."

I have not been able to find evidence that Pensacola College was affiliated with any particular denomination. I did learn that they reject evolution. Their website also states, "Without meaning to be unfriendly or unkind, we feel it only fair to say that Pensacola Christian is not a part of the “tongues movement” and does not allow students to participate in or promote any charismatic activities, nor do we permit students to promote hyper-Calvinism." I was relieved to learn that last bit of information. I hope that this information is of some use to you.
 
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It is tempting to suggest that I provided the "ancient Yuletide carol" and you provided the rest, but perhaps it would not be accurate. In comment #2021 I suggested Scott Greenfield's definition: Scott Greenfield’s definition was “Cancel culture is the breakdown of social norms that allow for the free speech of criticism but inhibit people from joining together with like-minded people to not merely disagree with words or ideas they find unacceptable (or perceive to be unacceptable on behalf of others), but then act upon them for the purpose of inflicting secondary punishment to their antagonists, whether based on fact, opinion or false accusation, without need for proof or due process and disconnected from the nature of the original ‘offense.’” Neither Mr. Greenfield nor myself qualify as "the right."

I have not been able to find evidence that Pensacola College was affiliated with any particular denomination. I did learn that they reject evolution. Their website also states, "Without meaning to be unfriendly or unkind, we feel it only fair to say that Pensacola Christian is not a part of the “tongues movement” and does not allow students to participate in or promote any charismatic activities, nor do we permit students to promote hyper-Calvinism." I was relieved to learn that last bit of information. I hope that this information is of some use to you.

Why would it? They're still an organisation whose sole purpose is to indoctrinate children into their far right christian ideology.
 
Food Network is very protective of its reputation. Bobby Flay once told a competitor on "The Next Food Network Star" that if he cursed on live TV it would embarrass the network and his career would be over.
Professional chef Darnell Ferguson is the host of the show "Super Chef Grudge Match", which began its second season on December 26th. He was arrested on domestic violence charges on January 9th and his show was instantly gone from the air and all streaming services.
 
Food Network is very protective of its reputation. Bobby Flay once told a competitor on "The Next Food Network Star" that if he cursed on live TV it would embarrass the network and his career would be over.
Professional chef Darnell Ferguson is the host of the show "Super Chef Grudge Match", which began its second season on December 26th. He was arrested on domestic violence charges on January 9th and his show was instantly gone from the air and all streaming services.
One wonders if, now that Fox the Failure, has lost his legal actions, will we see the end of the unending Lewis repeats.
 
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-disney-gina-carano-lawsuit-first-amendment-rights/

disney says it had a free speech right to fire carano, cites arguments from her lawyer

"Requiring an artistic organization to hire as its speakers people who are associated with [a controversial political] position will undermine its ability to send the particular aesthetic or artistic message that it wants to send [because] hearing even neutral artistic material from someone who has become well-known for political views may make that material seem ideologically laden, or at least may significantly distract from the artistic message."
 
while i agree it’s a foolish lawsuit brought by an even more foolish person and likely doomed to fail, i also think stuff like this degrades the already pretty flimsy basis for cancel culture being a problem. so in that way i think it’s notable.

but, hey, what if she wins? that’s not a statement against cancel culture? telling a company they can’t do that. of course it is.
 
...i also think stuff like this degrades the already pretty flimsy basis for cancel culture being a problem.
It's only a problem (in this particular case) if you would've enjoyed Rangers Of The New Republic, which was definitely cancelled. Personally, I think it would've been awesome to have a masculine heroine busting balls across a galaxy far far away, but hey I still have Netflix.

The idea that cultural problems need to be solved in the courts is misguided at best. There are plenty of things which we ought to be legally allowed to say (e.g. vaccines do more harm than good) which would still be morally wrong to say.
 
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except that i'm pretty over star wars and would be glad to see it go, i agree. but i would stipulate that if you've been wrong and you're looking for some remediation, outside of the courts there's not much else you can do. besides that i guess you could try and get a group of people that agree with you to also talk about it, maybe boycott a company or two. but you're getting into some pretty murky territory there.
 
The war against Woke reaches new lows.
SOme people are bitching that the Apple TV miniseries"Masters of the Air" the sucessor to Band of Brothers and The Pacific dealine with the USAAF's bombing campaign against Nazi Germany...features the Tuskegee Airman. I am not joking.
 
The war against Woke reaches new lows.
SOme people are bitching that the Apple TV miniseries"Masters of the Air" the sucessor to Band of Brothers and The Pacific dealine with the USAAF's bombing campaign against Nazi Germany...features the Tuskegee Airman. I am not joking.

I'm not seeing anything that would qualify as cancel culture WRT Masters of the Air but if you're not fawning over season 4 of True Detective then you might just be a misogynistic racist incel.
 
The war against Woke reaches new lows.
SOme people are bitching that the Apple TV miniseries"Masters of the Air" the sucessor to Band of Brothers and The Pacific dealine with the USAAF's bombing campaign against Nazi Germany...features the Tuskegee Airman. I am not joking.

But why though?

There's a lot of the "war on woke" stuff that I think is dumb, but I can usually understand where they're coming from. There's also a lot of "wokeness" that I think is straight up idiotic, just knocking over Chesterton's Fence left and right without a thought in their heads.

But this? I can't even conceive of why anyone would object to a series featuring the Tuskegee Airmen. What reason do they give?
 
I can't even conceive of why anyone would object to a series featuring the Tuskegee Airmen. What reason do they give?
The most charitable interpretation would be that the Tuskegee Airman didn't overlap enough with the 100th Bomb Group to avoid giving them both short shrift in the allotted runtime.

(That said, Masters of the Air was a ******* masterpiece and I'll go three rounds of Punch Out with anyone who disagrees.)
 
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The war against Woke reaches new lows.
SOme people are bitching that the Apple TV miniseries"Masters of the Air" the sucessor to Band of Brothers and The Pacific dealine with the USAAF's bombing campaign against Nazi Germany...features the Tuskegee Airman. I am not joking.

Is the criticism that the Tuskegee Airmen weren't even introduced until episode 8 (IIRC) and felt like an odd artificially tacked on plot point to check a box? Cause I'd agree. Same as Rosie Rosenthal just happening to stumble unto a concentration camp while being escorted about by a Soviet general. (what is ******* nuts is he parachuted and escaped capture TWICE in real life)

The most charitable interpretation would be that the Tuskegee Airman didn't overlap enough with the 100th Bomb Group to avoid giving them both short shrift in the allotted runtime.

(That said, Masters of the Air was a ******* masterpiece and I'll go three rounds of Punch Out with anyone who disagrees.)

It just felt... strange that we go from the 100th Bomb Group in England to a fighter group flying out of Italy, and not escorting the bombers of the 100th BG. It seems the interaction between a Tuskegee airman and Buck/Bucky in the POW camps was made up.

"Everything we found [suggested] there was not the kind of racial tension that I had assumed. Everyone cooperated because they had to," co-producer Kirk Saduski told Smithsonian Magazine. The interaction between the two groups of men in Masters of the Air does not appear in Donald L. Miller's 2006 book on which the series is based and seems to be mostly speculative.

https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/masters-of-the-air/

IF it had actually happened and it was documented that some Tuskegee airman and some crewman from the 100th BG made escape plans from POW camps then I would change my tune.

ETA: BTW while it wasn't quite up to BoB standards (still the best TV show ever made) I absolutely loved MotA. I've read both books in which the series is based on. Tacking on the Tuskegee Airman in a show about the 8thAF just didn't fit since their interaction was fictionalized. I think I've caught the 1990's HBO movie about them 6 or 8 times.
 
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I just saw the footage of what Happend on UCLA last night.
We are in trouble , folks.
If the stories that this happened because of the beating of a Jewish Student by SOme Pro Hamas demonstrators, my sympathies are with the Jewish students. And where the hell were the police in all of this.?
But then it in the LAPD jusidiciton, what to dyou expect, competence.
 
i mean, it’s not too surprising to me. there was a huge hypocritical element to it a few years back. i also don’t particularly have a problem with people calling each other out now. you should be allowed to not like charlie kirk and you should be allowed to be mad at people making fun of him. if you tie it to your real name and job, well that’s kind of on you. you have no employee protections about being fired over it unfortunately, labor laws aren’t on your side. all lessons learned years ago.

i think the big distinction here is the force of the federal government is behind them this time. and trump and other government threats to the media and other public figures for political reasons are beyond what i think is fair.

but as you can see, the free speechers never had any principles, the cancel culture debate was was just a weapon
 
DC Comics recently cancelled a title that just premiered after the creator made public comments about Charlie Kirk.
DC is owned by Warner Bros., Paramount is looking at buying Warner Bros., and Paramount has already submitted to Trump.
 
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the free speechers never had any principles, the cancel culture debate was was just a weapon
Foundation for Individual Rights and ExpressionWP has been on the side of free speech this entire time, regardless of whether the would-be cancelers were coming from left, right, or center.

Now that the cancel mobs are being stoked by people in power on the right, FIRE are publishing articles like this one:
 
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Foundation for Individual Rights and ExpressionWP has been on the side of free speech this entire time, regardless of whether the would-be cancelers were coming from left, right, or center.

Now that the cancel mobs are being stoked by people in power on the right, FIRE are publishing articles like this one:

fair enough, that was too broad of a statement on my part

but i think you know what i meant
 
An assistant dean was fired from Middle Tennessee State University for being unsympathetic to Charlie Kirk. I do not believe that she called for violence, as reported by USA Today and other organizations. With a few exceptions, one does not lose one's first amendment protections at the public college or university. There is some evidence of pressure from a United States Senator. Whether this falls under jawboning (see FIRE article here) I will leave to those better versed in 1A law than I am.
 

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