THE CANCEL REVOLUTION

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, we are having a new national conversation. Or maybe “new” is the wrong word. This is more like the second iteration of a conversation we’ve been having for a decade.

After his assassination, a growing number of people were found to have not only celebrated and mocked Kirk’s murder, but to have advocated for more assassinations. In some cases, these people were calling for specific murders, including Kirk’s wife and children, as well as public figures such as Benny Johnson, Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh. The sentiment isn’t limited to public figures though. Many of them have called for the slaughter of anyone that they personally (and make no mistake- falsely) deem to be Nazis.

The Right has responded by exposing as many of these people who support murder as possible, holding them accountable for their actions and words. There’s even a database listing many of these accounts. The results have been swift and merciless. People are seeing their livelihoods destroyed. In some cases, whole businesses are being wiped out; collateral damage.

The Left is now accusing the Right of being hypocrites; embracing the very Cancel Culture that they’ve decried for years.

On the surface, it isn’t an unfair criticism.

But context matters.

Cancel Culture 1.0 revolved around people losing their jobs and being publicly excommunicated from society for saying or posting things that some people found offensive. In some cases this included people going through years of old social media posts in order to target individuals for cancelation. There have been repeated and very public attempts to cancel Far Leftist Feminist and acclaimed Harry Potter author for the “crime” of saying that biology determines womanhood. She’s been labeled Transphobic, despite asserting that she supports the rights of Trans people.

Note that the basis of Left Wing Cancel Culture is the idea that someone’s feelings have been hurt by speech and that words equal violence.

The people who are being rooted out and cancelled now aren’t being targeted because of hurt feelings, though the media is trying to paint the picture that way. The impetus for these oustings is an open support for political violence and terrorism.

That is a fairly clear distinction. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t Right Wingers exhibiting feelings of schadenfreude now that the shoe is on the other foot. There are clearly some that are relishing this.

Justified or not, I’m personally of the opinion that this is an ugly emotion that benefits no one.

But is it justified? Should someone lose their livelihood for saying they support the murder of others because of how they vote and what they believe?

In some cases, yes. Without a doubt. Some jobs require public trust. If a doctor, judge or teacher supports murder and political violence, that calls into question their judgment and how they treat those under their influence. You shouldn’t need to worry about whether a doctor would let you die because you voted for Donald Trump. But if that doctor openly states he wants Conservatives dead, you would be a fool not to believe him. You shouldn’t have to worry about what will be said or done to your child when you leave them with their teachers. The lockdowns of 2020 taught us that this is a very real concern. In the past, this concern was over forcing ideology onto your children. Now we have to wonder if these people would be physically abusive in addition to mentally.

But what about people with less consequential jobs? I don’t have an easy answer for this. Is it justified? Yes. And I suppose we need to have a base standard, regardless of what your job is. Support of murder of innocent people and terrorism of any kind should never be tolerated by any society.

In the end, I think it comes to this.

If “Joe” goes on Facebook and posts a rant that involved racial slurs, would you expect his employer to terminate him immediately? I think it’s fair to say most decent people would say “yes”. No company wants to be associated with that behavior.

So why wouldn’t advocating for slaughter and terrorism make you radioactive to employers?

Whether you are laughing about a husband and a father being murdered in front of his family, or you are posting about how you want more dead bodies; you are not expressing an opinion. You are openly declaring that you are evil and a danger to society. There should be consequences to that.

That said; I’m not sure much thought is being given to the long term consequences of this line of action.

There’s a tendency on both sides to behave as if your team will always be in power, but that is never the case. Eventually the other team takes over and uses your actions against you. Everything that’s happening is literal proof of that. The Left set the terms of battle. The Right now has the ball.

So what happens next? None of these people have done anything to merit jail sentences. You’ve ostracized them from civilized society. Sadly, I think very few of them will have the self-awareness to realize they were wrong and repent. In fact, there are many videos of these degenerates now crying because they lost their jobs, saying “I didn’t do anythign wrong”.

These people will likely retreat further down the rabbit hole, increasing their radicalization. And for those that do accept the consequences of their actions and beliefs, what is the path forward towards forgiveness?

Their literal bloodlust has created a metaphorical one. There doesn’t seem to be much desire for forgiveness… but then, the offending parties aren’t asking for it.

In a previous post, I talked about the rot at the moral center of the United States of America.

This is the true, underlying issue. It isn’t just mainstream media manipulation and social media algorithms causing increasing personal polarization. There is an increasing trend towards self-victimization and the dehumanization of others.

I truly hope this is an inflection point for us all.

There are some signs of that. We’ve seen an outpouring of liberals (non-Marxist) condemning the assassin and expressing sympathy for those involved. One of those people was Hunter Kozak, the last man to ask Kirk a question. Hunter is a far Left leaning TikTok content maker who has been vocal about his disdain for Charlie Kirk’s positions. Hunter was less than a stone’s throw away from Charlie as the bullet blew past him and into it’s victim. When he addressed the situation on his TikTok account, he was visibly upset and horrified by what he’d seen. His statement addressed Charlie’s humanity. Thinking about Charlie’s children suffering from the death of their father served to make him think of his own kids and what would happen if it were him in those crosshairs.

The person you hate most is just a person like you. They have opinions just as you do. They have family, friends and dreams of their own, just like you do. And they just want to protect those things, just like you do.

We need to remember that. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the person tweeting about wanting to kill your imaginary Nazis or you’re celebrating people losing everything they have for spewing evil.

We all need to do a lot of self-reflection if we want the world to get better.

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