Aiming the Chilling Effect by M. C. A. Hogarth

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*I won’t lie. I have a post, maybe two about this whole thing I want to make. But here’s the thing: I’ve been on the Fight! Fight! Fight! team for a long time. M. C. A. Hogarth though? She’s the nicest person I’ve ever known, always trying to find kind reasons for what the other side does. And yet, she’s now here. These are the times we live in – SAH*

Aiming the Chilling Effect by M. C. A. Hogarth

“I thought not fighting was always the moral choice. But it turns out not fighting is only the moral choice among reasonable people who agree with you that violence is not an option. […] When the school bully makes the class poet cry, it’s not virtuous to let them.” –Major Pieces, M.C.A. Hogarth 

Back when I was still an officer in SFWA, there was some talk going around about banning Jerry Pournelle from posting on the forums because of the “chilling effect” he had on younger women and minorities. The possibility that Pournelle might respond was sufficient to deter these people from speaking, and so we were deprived of their viewpoints. “Many people are afraid to post because of him,” I was told. 

 If you were lucky enough to know Pournelle, you could see how a cantankerous, confident, successful gaffer might intimidate some people. But I did not judge that sufficient reason to ban him, and fortunately, enough officers agreed with me that we were able to keep him around. My advice to people was ‘practice courage on this minor battlefield: make a post, and don’t let someone else’s opinion stop you.’ 

 But the people complaining about him were correct about one thing: chilling effects are real, and they shape your local communal cultures. Too many people are worried about what some Big Name Influencer is doing or saying without turning around and noticing that they are keeping silent at work about their beliefs, tucking their religious symbols under their shirts when they go to conventions, or grimacing through another diatribe from one of their children’s teachers, knowing that if they go to the principal they won’t get a sympathetic ear. 

The reason those people can talk about half the country as if they’re evil is because we have ceded those local battlegrounds. We are the ones suffering from the chilling effect. We’ve allowed ourselves to be silenced, because the alternative is frightening, distasteful, or too costly. But each and every one of us is responsible for creating and enforcing the norms of our society. We, by our individual behavior, show one another where the line is, and what behavior will get you shunned. And it is our duty, as people who want to live in a civilized society, to say, ‘That’s enough.’ 

There is a lot of talk lately about not “punishing” the powerless and downtrodden for poor behavior. “Save your ammunition for their leaders! They’re just following the trends!” As if the decapitation of a movement is sufficient to topple it. But society is created at the ground level, in our everyday interactions with one another. That’s where we demonstrate what behavior is acceptable and what behavior must be beyond the pale. It has to start with us saying, ‘Hey, not everyone agrees with you’ at work; with us going to conventions with our ‘Jesus saves; all others take half damage’ shirts; with us telling our children’s teachers, ‘That’s not appropriate behavior, and I won’t support it in someone who teaches children.’ It is in our local communities that we have power, and in our local communities where we see results. When enough normal, everyday people realize ‘If I talk like this, I will get in trouble,’ then it will stop. 

 Many people right now want to take the moral high ground, as if we have already established those norms. But we haven’t. Right now, one side thinks salting the earth for the most minor transgression is appropriate behavior. Until they fear that their neighbor will raze their house in retaliation, there can be no meeting of minds. Both sides need to agree that some behaviors are unacceptable and fear the consequences of embarking on them before they can come to the negotiating table as equals. You don’t call in the diplomats before the fight’s over. 

The thing that always tires me about these discussions, in the end, is that it’s never the Moral High Ground people who pay the price for their principles. When they decide that they should be better than their opponents, it’s the non-combatants, the children, elderly, helpless, sick, or weak, who take the punishment… while they stand back and let it happen. I maintain it is never principled to allow other people to pay the price for your rectitude. Offloading the consequences of your purity onto others and calling their suffering the regrettable cost of being the better person is wrong. 

 I am a non-combatant who’s taken those blows. I’m also the diplomat you call in when the fighting is over. I love people; I care for friends and family and fans who are on both sides of the political spectrum (and some floating beyond it in space). I want us to return to a point where we can enjoy books and pet pictures together because we think of one another as human beings and not faceless evil drones. But to get there, we need to understand that the chilling effect never goes away. Our only choice is where to aim it. I would prefer to aim it at people who want to spit vitriol about assassinating presidential candidates in public, or wishing that more people “on the other side” would die, until they no longer feel comfortable voicing such sentiments among civilized beings. Only when we respect the weapon in one another’s hands can we move on. 

I wish none of this mess had happened. But as Gandalf reminds us, it’s not for us to decide whether we see such times or not, only to decide what to do with the time given us. And this is the time to practice courage. 

277 thoughts on “Aiming the Chilling Effect by M. C. A. Hogarth”

  1. “Only when we respect the weapon in one another’s hands can we move on” –when I read that it reminded me of my grandfather and his comment about Dodge City. He debunkslef the idea that the West was wild and dangerous because of all the guns. He said everyone respected one another because everyone knew that someone else had a gun. It’s when they think they have us unarmed they don’t respect us.

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    1. “…everyone respected one another because everyone knew that someone else had a gun.” And that effect is being demonstrated daily in the US; the difference between gun-hating and gun-owning (one could almost say “encouraging”) jurisdictions is stark. But the left is intent on power, not illusory “unarmed safety”, and so supports victim disarmament to the exclusion of almost all else.

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      1. Being in areas that strongly encourage being un armed by any means possible is proving to be a lesson in “choosing poorly”.

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  2. In reading around the internet, there’s a deep stirring and it’s of those that have reached their limit of tolerance. How this all turns out will be seen, but those that were so willing to toss rocks, destroy character, allow crime, and foment violence for political gain are now facing those they harmed; and those they harmed are angry.

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    2. To be honest, the cancel culture lefties no longer have the worst of my angry over it. A scorpion does what it does by nature.

      No, it is the still raging chorus of “you’re no better than them” people on the right who have the most ire from me anymore.

      Better stabbed in the front than the back.

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  3. Mugged by the realities of human nature and the evil of utopian idealism. Or, as C.S.Lewis put in in The Abolition of Man, the attempt to substitute in new “morality”s which consist of over-attention to certain aspects of morality and the abandonment of the rest.

    Or see Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations work, which shows that today’s conservatives value the full spectrum of reality while today’s so-called liberals don’t even recognize most of that spectrum.

    And, as usual, GKC has something to say:

    By terror and the cruel tales of curse in bone and kin/By weird and weakness winning/Accursed from the beginning/By detail of the sinning/And denial of the sin.

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  4. Honestly, I’m of the same opinion as the author of Postcards from Barsoom – outraged by the viciousness of a cancel culture that only goes one way. I want lib progressives, Hamassholes, lefty media pukes and LBTGWXYZ freaks to be hit and suffer to the same degree, or more as their random victims have been. I want them hit and hurt so badly that so-called cancel culture will be off the table, entirely in future.

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    1. They have sown the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind. To quote from one of their “saints”: “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules:”. The Teachers and NGO folk getting caught up in the whirlwind I have no mercy for, they are causing the problem. The little old lady at the Home Despot is perhaps a bit excessive. I have a set of rules I made up to amuse my daughters and to express my point of view this is one of them

      1. Opinions are like certain bodily orifices. Critically important but not
        something decent people expose in public.

      I stand by that rule :-) . That rule applies doubly when you are working as a sales person, your job is to make the customers task easier so they can purchase stuff from your employer and pay your salary. The old woman chose, poorly.

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      1. I saw the article about Home Desperate “Lady”, and after a bit of thought, decided that she got precisely what she deserved. She’s lucky she didn’t get what she was wishing for the President, or even a graze.

        I feel lucky to live in Flyover Falls. Some of it’s the rural nature, also that we have a common opponent/enemy in the NW corner of Oregon. I needed a disabled parking tag (would have been nice before the procedure, but will be really useful for a few weeks). Went to DMV, was pointed to the checkin. 3 hours. Figured it would hurt to ask, found a clerk with an empty window and asked for help. 30 seconds of “we’re understaffed”, she relented (the cane and knee bandage helped, not sure how my face looked) and spent the two minutes to cut the tag. AFAIK, nobody objected to me cutting in line. I was very appreciative and told the lady so. (And in general to everybody else.)

        I’m out of practice pushing back in public. Thank God I don’t have to do it much right now.

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    2. I want them hit so hard that their great-grandchildren will cringe instinctively in fear of what happened to their ancestors. To be fair, it’s possible that I’m too angry and have lost some sense of proportion.

      But throughout 20 years in the university system, I saw too many people get away with this behavior—which we’re now calling “woke” and “cancel culture”—for far too long. The day I got the job that got me out of that milieu was one of the best days of my life, right behind my wedding and the kids being born.

      The chilling effect is real, and the left has been using it as a weapon against everyone else with impunity for decades now. What we’re seeing now is big, ugly, and dangerous, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

      I’ve been standing by and watching this happen for far too long. I’ve seen enough to know with absolute certainty that they won’t stop until we MAKE them stop. It has to be done.

      So unless someone has a better plan (I’m willing to listen), I’m all-in on aiming the chilling effect right back at them. In my own small spheres of influence, I’m already doing it.

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        2. An understanding of cancel culture has to begin with Krauthammer’s axiom. We think they are stupid (wrong), they think we are evil (simply for disagreeing with them).

          Their cancel culture isn’t about the offense. It’s simply punishment for someone who has been exposed as evil. The baker in Colorado deserves to have his life ruined because he has revealed himself as evil. The act or statement isn’t important. It’s just the excuse.

          We have to stop pretending that the Left is acting in good faith. They cancel for the same reason they steal elections, lie and slander relentlessly, abuse the law and courts, or even shoot an opposing candidate — they KNOW they are the good people who are always morally right in punishing evil. They are morally justified in their actions no matter how heinous because their ends justify any means.

          As long as they continue to “other” us as ‘unpersons’ and consider themselves as more worthy, more deserving, more anointed, there isn’t any basis for negotiation. There is no middle ground.

          We deserve whatever abuse they want to dish out. We are worthless unpersons guilty of wrongthink and thoughtcrime.

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        1. Not my first late night rodeo. All was well for us before anyone was working.

          One wag expressed annoyance that he had to work, unlike many others at other firms….

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            1. Enjoy the cold while it lasts. The die was cast as soon as the bullet hit Trump. That he did not die delayed it but we won’t get past No ember without violence.

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        4. We need to be so … intense that historical epithets need to be recalibrated. So future historians refer to Tamerlane as “Timur the Gentle” and the Russian Tsar as “Ivan the slightly naughty.”

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  5. I genuinely try to be a forgiving person. I believe people deserve second chances. Author knows I’ve made enough mistakes and said enough stupid stuff in my life. Cancel culture has always squicked me out and I’m never comfortable with it.

    My squeamishness about it is RAPIDLY diminishing to zero. It’s not that I no longer think that I’m “better than that.” It’s that I think that THEY are not “better than that.”

    Goose, gander, assembly required.

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  6. I don’t recall ever hearing or reading Jerry try to deter any woman or minority from speaking. He did have an expectation of reasoned, logical arguments from people with a differing opinion. But if that was an overwhelming deterrent, tough beans.

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      1. I haven’t heard that about Jerry Pournelle but I’ve suspected that about Larry Correia. [Grin]

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          1. Larry is a good man. I think he’d just prefer to tell stories, shoot guns, raise his kids, and otherwise just be left alone. Unfortunately, the Statists are fundamentally incapable of leaving anyone alone. Marx forbid they have someone not being told what to do, how to do it, and deprived of any resources to actually succeed at it.

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                1. You don’t need a TwiX account to read a threadreaderapp link. It’s just another website display, just one that happens to coalate a thread into a single page instead of spread out over multiple posts.

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            3. That’s not a rant, it’s a cold statement of fact and of desire. And I agree 100%; I have zero sympathy for what their actions will bring to them.

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          3. Jerry was inexplicably sweet in person. He held me back from some fights with very calm talking-ats. Colonel Kratman is the same.
            Larry, like me, has enough Portuguese that at some point we roll up our sleeves and go a little nuts.

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      2. Yeah. I’m arguing with a small group of people town over political signs. They’re trying to ban signage everywhere in town to no longer than 60 days prior to the election. The problems are: (1) they want to ban them on private property where the owners gave permission to put them, (2) they want to ban them from state property ROWs, and (3) they are targeting political signage, not all signage.

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        1. Permitting political signage everywhere that property owners allow it, and along public roads in easement areas that don’t block signage, is a basic part of American life.

          People who steal or destroy permitted political signs are cheaters who do not understand the way we get along as a country.

          So yeah, other than X many feet from a polling place, nobody has any business banning political signage right before an election. This is serious business, part of our civic duty, and must not bend to HOA-style zoning rules.

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            1. Oh, the rants I could make about signs: Grandpa was a county Republican officer, about the entry level of political organization. He had land near the main road to put up signs. And then steel posts when the signs would get ran over. And then friends with the lawyer when idiots tried to sue for damage to vehicle from steel posts.

              The meet the candidates fundraiser at the state park, week after the Dems had theirs in the same place – trashed it in various ways for us, and left their signs up. I was helping him put up our signs for the day, and the chairman told me not to take the Dem ones down: he got out gloves and tools, because apparently they’d taken to putting razor blades behind their signs.

              In college, the screaming banshees who would destroy your posters and throw them in your face.

              I’ve never really felt the desire to destroy someone else’s signs, no matter how awful the message. It’s valuable intel on numbers and bearing.

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              1. signs inside the electric fenced goat pasture, with signs stating fence was electrified.

                lady comes to gate and confronts me about getting shocked, i said you read English right? She said yes, i said there are at least a dozen warning signs in a 50’ stretch, she said i know but couldnt leave those vile signs in plain sight.

                i just said go Fu_. K yourself and went back to my shop

                your typical west coast democrat wealthy entitled POS

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            2. Got no problem with making them pick up after the election. State law in NH I think gives them one or two weeks to pick all their signs up, at which point they are fair game for anyone. The exceptions being those who win primary elections, they can stay up until after the general election; and those who are choosing to run again in the NEXT election. i.e. they’ll be up all year.

              The thing is elections are only one form of political speech. What about signs that are against any and all abortion bills? Or against illegal immigration? Or for or against anything the government does? Those are all forms of political speech, and are all able to be advertised via roadside signage. Many of those have no set dates. Any assault on free speech is an assault on all free speech.

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      3. They were terrified because they are terrified of having their beliefs challenged, and cannot accept that anyone would disagree. The fact that Jerry not only would disagree, but coherently, logically, and firmly do so, was more than their narrow little leftist minds could stand.

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    2. What I’ve heard (and it’s an exaggeration to say I ever properly met him, alas, even once) of Jerry Pournelle is, “did not suffer fools gladly.”

      But my guess is that it would be even more correct to say he did not ever suffer foolishness gladly, at least on anything important. And had the writing, speaking, and thinking skills to fire back at such, to great and devastating effect (see e.g. his “A Step Farther Out” columns).

      My own background features years in a very old-school college debating society; and our rule (really more a seldom-spoken cultural imperative) was that we could attack ideas and arguments quite as savagely as we pleased, as long as we did not attack the person making them — unless (by explicit rule) we wanted to proceed directly and immediately to a formal disciplinary process for their now-alleged misdeeds.

      This even used to be a common idea, in the “old American culture” of maybe a few decades ago. But of course it’s got pretty shot-up in the meantime, see “leftist dogpile attacks” and all the rest.

      If what you do is “run all the good gunfighters out of town” (and this is just what that “women and minorities” thing sounds like), you end up with a “protected” space full of people who can’t hardly talk or write, or maybe even hardly think… or a whole Squad-mob of them.

      Paging Harrison Bergeron, paging Harrison Bergeron… while the very people like Jerry you most need to listen to (space policy, “Strategy of Technology”) simply get lost in the cold silence you made.

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    3. What I’ve heard of Jerry Pournelle (and it’d be an exaggeration to say I ever properly met him, alas, even once) is, “did not suffer fools gladly.”

      But my guess is that it would be even more correct to say he did not ever suffer foolishness gladly, at least on anything important. And had the writing, speaking, and thinking skills to fire back at such, to great and devastating effect (see e.g. his “A Step Farther Out” columns).

      My own background features years in a very old-school college debating society; and our rule (really more a seldom-spoken cultural imperative) was that we could attack ideas and arguments quite as savagely as we pleased, as long as we did not attack the person making them — unless (by explicit rule) we wanted to proceed directly and immediately to a formal disciplinary process for now-alleged misdeeds.

      This even used to be a common idea, in the “old American culture” of maybe a few decades ago. But of course it’s got pretty shot-up in the meantime, see “leftist dogpile attacks” and all the rest.

      If what you do is “run all the good gunfighters out of town” (and this is just what that “women and minorities” thing sounds like), you end up with a “protected” space full of people who can’t hardly talk or write, or maybe even hardly think… or a whole Squad-mob of them.

      Paging Harrison Bergeron, paging Harrison Bergeron… while the very people like Jerry you most need to listen to (space policy, “Strategy of Technology”) simply get lost in the cold noisy silence you made.

      [[feel free to disregard “awaiting moderation” 1st try… not even WPDE, mis-spelled user name!]]

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      1. What I keep hearing under a lot of this is a frightened voice: “I want to feel SAFE! If all of you just did everything exactly the way I think it should be, I could feel SAFE! Why don’t you want me to feel SAFE? Why are YOU so selfish?”

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        1. And the monstrous level of egotism necessary to handwave away EVERYONE else’s feelings in order to coddle just that ONE….is staggering.

          I want to feel safe too. Being stripped of EVERYTHING BUT MY TEETH AND NAILS that might POSSIBLY be used as a weapon does NOT make me “feel safe”. It makes me feel naked and exposed and vulnerable. (I am remembering one trip to a Social Security office where they absolutely WANDED us and the thing went off over the metal snap on my blouse.)

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          1. Flyover Falls had a Social Security orifice like that. One harpy at the desk (She was furious that my wife wanted to collect on her SS since I wasn’t old enough to do so), and an overly enthusiastic security guard. Complete with a cell-phone ban. I had to wait outside in the truck for some bureaucratic reason while she tried to deal with the @W#$%T^&* person. As it turns out, $SPOUSE had paperwork issues, but managed to sidestep the harpy by talking to the office across the Cascades. They actually wanted to help.

            When Obama came in, the F-Falls office was closed. I don’t think it was missed.

            Never did figure out why the office “needed” a full time security guard. Of course, without him, perhaps Harpy might have received a bit more pushback, but the two were quite the pair.

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        3. I want to feel safe too. A dozen or so firearms, and a thousand rounds for each gives me a warm fuzzy feeling before going to bed at night, and when I wake up in the morning.

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    5. He said what he thought, strongly, and the tactics that work well in person like “make assertion, flip to agree to disagree after being asked to explain it” did not work on him in text.

      Folks trained to interact almost exclusively in voice– especially the ones who do the “oh you must have misunderstood” when you directly quote them– are going to be hesitant to speak up.

      Heck, I was shy about emailing him. But he was kind and gracious, and not fawning to be “nice” which was… wonderful. I always expect that to flip around to an attack almost instantly.

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      1. This is correct. Jerry was a forceful personality, and you don’t have to be leftist to find that intimidating. I loved Jerry the way I would love a crotchety elderly family member I trusted but didn’t always agree with, but sometimes people who don’t suffer fools gladly don’t suffer anyone gladly, and that’s no more virtuous than being faint of heart. People here putting him on a pedestal should keep in mind that plenty of people on our side don’t love conflict, rigorous debate, or being talked over either. :,

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  8. I think the concept of “chilling effect” needs to be explained to a lot of people. I encountered it in college classes (very specifically from a broadcasting standpoint), but many people haven’t heard of it in regards to how it is used as a weapon.

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  9. I’m thinking about Masterpiece Cakeshop of Colorado. They were sued repeatedly and had continual harassment demanding they make satanic and/or sex-themed cakes, the goal being to say, “Down on your knees! Nobody is allowed to politely opt out!” I don’t see that there’s any truce till people like the cake shop owner get compensation and an apology. The shop wasn’t too small a target to get harassed all the way to the Supreme Court.

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  10. I suspect this will be an unpopular opinion, and that I will take flak for it but, responding to cancel culture vileness with our own cancel culture vileness will not restore the open marketplace of ideas. Maybe it is too late to restore a world where people speak their minds. maybe all we can do is make sure the other side has to face the same fear that they have made our side face, but if so recognize that the world on the other side of that is a world where everyone shuts up, not a world where everyone speaks freely. I’m one of the people being described as “Moral High Ground” people, although I don’t think of my position as some smug virtue signal. I am not. I am not particularly moral, and I viscerally want to punish the left for what they have done and are doing. I just hate the idea of the world this will produce, the world the left’s playing with this fire is already producing.

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    1. Who said anything about “vileness” from our side?

      Yes, anything we say will be called “vile” by the Left but as it is “being silent” just encourages the garbage from the Left.

      What is needed IMO is for people like us speaking up (politely and tactfully*) when the Left throws it’s garbage.

      We shouldn’t try to “convince or shut up the Left” but we should attempt to counter what the Left says in order to give the “undecided folks” something to think about.

      Larry Correia has talked about this several times. IE Our speech should be directed toward the “undecided folks” even when we’re apparently responding to the garbage of the Left.

      *Note, being tactful is very hard for me to do. [Wink]

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            1. ‘Subtle”? This word you use, what does it mean? Asking for a friend. :)

              I did make a point to wear my 1911 when I told the neighbor it would have been a good idea to tell me he was going to work on his fence from my side of the fenceline.

              The guy was a piece of work, and that was the last time I had to do major pushback. Lots of bluster: (Trespassing sign: “We don’t call 911. We call the coroner.”) He did start to draw on $SPOUSE when she complained about an illegal fire he was starting on a windy evening. In fire season.

              He died without friends, and his wife got all the help from his relatives you might expect. None. Deservedly. Lots of “Give me this, for free” from him. The prize was when I first met him, he asked for some dirt from an excavation we’d done. I said OK. He told me where to place it with my tractor. I didn’t tell him where to stick it, but the dirt stayed on my property. Probably should have told him off then and there.

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        2. Well, there’s a difference between “being blunt” and “being an assh*le” and sometimes I “cross the line”.

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            1. Normally, confronting assholery in kind isn’t in itself assholery, any more than (in rational venues) responding to an unwarranted punch in the face, which is assault, with a kick in the crotch isn’t assault, but retribution. And what these leftists are asking for.

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    2. “responding to cancel culture vileness with our own cancel culture vileness will not restore the open marketplace of ideas. Maybe it is too late to restore a world where people speak their minds. ”

      “I am not particularly moral, and I viscerally want to punish the left for what they have done and are doing. I just hate the idea of the world this will produce, the world the left’s playing with this fire is already producing.”

      I agree 100%.

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      1. Sure, but your alternative is the world that got us here, where people on our side were afraid to speak, where I policed myself at every con less I …. let me quote Dave Drake who was SOFT LEFT for crying out loud “THey watch when you smile. They watch if you don’t laugh at the right time. And they are ready to punish the slightest slip up.”

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      2. In the not very distant past, I would’ve agreed with you. One thing that I think is getting lost in the shuffle here is the distinction between unjustified aggression and self-defense. The vileness of cancel culture exists not in some inherent quality, but in the fact that it mobilizes mobs to attack and “punish” people who have done nothing wrong. It’s wholly unjustified aggression. If you find it vile, that’s a good thing; it’s a sign that you have a functioning moral compass.

        But I submit that our reaction against it, though honest, is misguided. Maybe not so different from the “liberal” notion that all violence is inherently evil; the difference being that, while (like them) we abhor violence we realize (unlike them) that if the kind and peaceful forswear *all* violence, it will then be applied exclusively by those who revel in unjustified aggression.

        They say violence begets violence. But violence can also *end* violence. And if we’ve denied ourselves the one thing that will most effectively end a violent attack, how are we to keep ourselves, and the innocents who depend on us, safe?

        So…is it possible to apply social pressure — the chilling effect — virtuously? I think so. Fighting back is a virtuous act. It’s not a situation we wanted to be in, it’s dangerous and unsettling, but it’s necessary.

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        1. I don’t remember where I read/heard it, but “It takes two to start a war, but only one to start a massacre.”

          Seems to sum up the rational position: Don’t allow massacres.

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            1. It does indeed take two to make peace, but if war is defined as “armed conflict, usually between nations” it also takes two. I stand by my comment.

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                1. Only if cold-cocking someone from behind with no warning is a “fight”. IOW, I’d say it isn’t; a war, like a fight, requires more than one active participant. OTOH, if the the citizens of the invaded nation start guerrilla operations against the invader it becomes a war.

                  YM, of course, MV; it’s somewhat a subjective thing.

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    3. Maybe you have heard of a concept called deterrence?

      Insisting on following Marquess of Queensberry Rules while your threat has a machete and a baseball bat is a foolhardy prospect that leads to woe. Your “Moral High Ground” becomes the cementary on a hill.

      Observe what happens in blue states when crimes aren’t punished. The left gets away cancel culture because there has been little push back. So they go further until everything breaks down. Or until there are 120 million dead.

      If you look at the actual stats of self defence, most incidents aren’t shootings. Most of the time, displaying equal or superior force like a firearm, stops the crime without a shooting.

      So the threat of consequences in the case of cancel culture may be enough to stop the bullshit. But the pushback has to start sometime.

      You say you aren’t moral. You might just be scared or uncertain of the best way to react. There is a whole spectrum of actions from tiny to huge that you can take, many like boycotting people that hate you don’t require much courage or exposure.

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      1. I did not say I was/was not brave. I said I was not making a moral stance. We are already well on our way to a world where you cannot express your thoughts. I agree that we need to push back. I am not sure that pushing back by doing the same thing in the opposite direction is a good idea. I think directly pushing back by hiring and supporting people who are fired/cancelled, and boycotting or otherwise punishing people or organizations for cancelling would be a better response. Adopting cancel culture doesn’t end cancel culture it just makes it universal. This is not shooting a would be mugger. This is going out and mugging people who are on the same team as the mugger. In the end it doesn’t really matter what I think, people on our side are already doing what I wish they wouldn’t do, and people on the other side have been doing it for a long time, and we are never getting the trust we used to have back, or at least never in my lifetime.

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        1. My ENTIRE LIFE if you were in one of the professions wholly taken over by the left, you couldn’t express your thoughts. I had an entire fake identity for the blogs until I came out of the political closet.
          Look, I know what you’re saying, but your picture of the world is wrong.
          It’s only when they realize they can’t punish us for wrong thought without suffering that people will be able to speak freely.
          You’re claiming the way to peace is unilateral disarmament. And you don’t seem to SEE it.

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          1. I am not. I am claiming that you cannot restore freedom by punishing people for expressing opinions. I am all for punishing them for punishing and stifling our opinions. But this is not that! Boycotts are not what I am objecting to, boycotts are great and can get results. I understand what you are saying very well. I have been ostracized since I was in grade school for being conservative and then for being libertarian and now for being conservative again. I have lived my professional life knowing I could never work in Corporate America or big firm America. I know exactly why you and others are mad. I am just as mad. I just don’t buy the notion that doing this gets us back to liberty of expression.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Please answer the following question with a yes or no.

              We should be silent about the Lefty attacks on us and other conservatives?

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              1. Where did I say that? We should scream to the heavens about them cancelling us. How is publishing the name and phone number of some idiot who made a dark joke related to this?

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                1. IMO you painted with a very large brush with your “High Road” statement.

                  So it was easy for me to ask that question.

                  Yes, there will always be things that we “shouldn’t do” but your statements implied that “we should do nothing”.

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            2. Yes. You actually can. Yes. it will go through a time no one speaks politics. We’re already there some places. But then…. it will come back. And cancelling will be sneered at.
              Yes, “if only everyone” and the left stop pushing their silence at us would be better.
              Spot the flaw.
              What’s actually happening is that those of us without connections/abilityt o defend on the right are HUNG OUT TO DRY in the name of your high mindedness.

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            3. May I ask what your road map is to return to that world where liberty of expression is protected by both sides?

              Liked by 1 person

              1. I have already said it twice, but here it is again. Directly punish ANYONE who tries to drive a person from the public square for expressing an opinion. Mock anyone who calls for someone to be cancelled for expressing an opinion. Refuse to watch the show that fires a conservative. Boycotts are not what I object to. I object to punishing speech not to punishing actions.

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                1. All right. Different question. Have human beings ever lived in a society that did not punish speech in some fashion?

                  Liked by 1 person

              2. Sarah, I hold you in high regard, but this is a strawman, and I grow tired of restating my position to clarify yet again that I am not calling for anyone to be nice and meekly accept anything. I believe that you are advocating lashing out in a blind and ineffective (actually negatively effective) manner. I also believe that you, and to be fair the vast majority on our side, are advocating this because it is viscerally satisfying and rationalizing the argument that it will accomplish anything. My basis for the last is that I also find it satisfying. I enjoy reading that some scumbag who bemoaned the lunatic missing has lost their job.

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                2. The Reader takes no pleasure it it. In fact, it makes him feel dirty. Some dirt on the soul is going to be the price to restore civility. The Reader wishes it wasn’t so.

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            5. In an ideal world, I agree with you. But it’s not an ideal world. How can we punish those on the left who gleefully cancel us? Yeah, we can boycott Disney and Netflix and all those companies who go super-woke but what do we do about the “randos” who do it? What do we do with the thousands of leftoids who dox and cancel and the millions who happily support them? I’m not sure what other leverage we have besides turning their own process back upon them and saying “Doesn’t feel good, does it? NOW do you want to engage in free dialogue? Because if you don’t, we’re going to keep you just as muzzled as we’ve been all these years.” They have to be made to understand that cancel culture will cause THEM pain. I can’t figure out any other way to fix the problem right now. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Important here: one of the things we have to break is their assumption they’re the “majority” and “the young” because I’ve been told I’m old and die already by people 3 years younger than I. There is a massive illusion on hte left that history is on their side, and until that’s broken we don’t stop this.

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            6. Just like no one on the internet knows if you are a dog, no one in big firm america knows if you are a conservative or ISIS. And many do not care as long as you keep your professional life and private life from conflicting.

              The companies want ROI and no drama. If they had to limit their employees to Lefties and DEI, their profits would nosedive. (See Disney, etc…)

              You would shit your pants if you knew who I worked for and what I did for a living. But Sarah and most of the fellow ilk here would not. But basically 30 plus years in and around big corporations.

              While being professional, I’m active in local politics, helped clean up neighborhoods full of junkies, audited state and national elections and helped get a state law passed to limit offical conflict of interest. Since I stay out of the news and don’t do dumb shit, my place of employment doesn’t cares. Nor am I breaking any of their rules.

              And I stood up to them on the clot shot along with others and they decided it wasn’t worth the liability. I also helped friends and family with Ivermectin and other medication and kept them out of the medical kill zone.

              There is a full spectrum of positive things you can do. One is supporting the people that are fighting for you, whether they are dodging bullets or tit-for-tatting cancel culture.

              Do what you can, the best you can. Even if it’s just sharing memes.

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            7. You punish them for abridging your freedoms. Make it cost. It may be like-for-like. It may be hitting their pain point versus ours. It will likely be -over- their level to make the point. Not just call the hand but raise.

              They are training their opposition to be quiet, and if not quiet, ineffective. Don’t play along.

              Be effective. On -your- terms. Sufficient to -deter-. It works on all but the most far-gone-insane, and those it identifies for other methods.

              It works, or they wouldn’t be telling -you- not to do it. They screech loudest when we stop playing along playing stupid. Because they know not-stupid works.

              Liked by 1 person

            8. Once one side starts being hostile, “tit for tat” is the only game theory strategy that works consistently to reduce tensions.

              Now, mind you, this also means rewarding good behavior from the opposing side, as well as punishing bad behavior.

              There is a time for the Golden Rule, but generally it is after one has made it clear that actions have consequences.

              A lot of the Left is in the position of a dog that was never corrected for bad behavior, and thinks it is pack leader of all humans. So they need a lot of training in being humans living in a society, now.

              If they don’t think other people are people with their own thoughts and feelings, they need pushback in order to learn different. It is much kinder than killing them off after they become Brownshirts slaughtering all the untermensch.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Sigh. Suburban is right. Let me be very clear: We are in a cultural cold war.
                You can’t sign a peace treaty UNTIL the other side has been defeated. War is a terrible business. it is not the worst though.

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                  1. Heck, I was swatted in 15. But it’s like the incidents in the cold war. not all out hot. Yet. And the only way to keep it from going all out hot is to fight the cold war HARD.

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                  2. Yup. -Cold-.

                    We wouldn’t be discussing the point if hot. Too busy killing. Too smart to wave a “come smite me” flag.

                    Cold doesn’t mean safe or nonviolent.

                    Currently quite cold. And we are not going hot anytime soon. No need. We are winning handily.

                    Which is why the nincompoops keep trying to get us to go hot.

                    So no. We win, and our way.

                    Frosty.

                    Liked by 1 person

                  3. Yes, this is a cultural cold war. Just exactly as you so accurately and particularly describe. This is indeed what one looks like.

                    A shooting cold war, it clearly is since J 13; and it has been for some time as you say… but NOT a hot cultural war. For one big thing, you can still count up the names, one by one by one. Say their names: Ashli Babbitt. Corey Comperatore. On and on and on.

                    The Cold War with Soviet Russia wasn’t purely ‘cold’ either, but it was surely not full-hot. Count not just the subsidiary ‘wars’ like Korea and Vietnam. But the Prague Spring and Hungary, the Berlin Wall and its slow-fused trail of bodies. The “Iron Hand” missions, U.S. vs. Russia and no proxies interposed. The Russian on the radios in Korea that our airmen were told never to admit.

                    But nobody H-bombed Russia, or America. Nobody mounted a D-Day on two fronts to eradicate the Soviets. The tanks did not drive the Fulda Gap and NATO did not neutron-bomb them as they came.

                    I can’t really paint the picture of a cultural hot war here, which means I do retain some vestiges of innocence. But take the Spanish Civil War, the American Civil War Between the States, the Wars of the Roses and the nastiness in Rwanda, and then add Swalwell’s Nukes for America plan, and maybe some poison gas, and infrastructure strikes by both American and foreign forces… and you might begin to get the least little glimpse of what that could be like.

                    Take a Crips/Bloods gang rumble, times a million. Or a dozen million.

                    When your enemy is either dehumanized, or ‘only’ out to kill every last one of you (because killing off your leader or leaders didn’t do the job), there is not even anything like an existence proof for an off-switch or a credible way out. (One of the miracles of our 1861 war was that we did, together, find a clear off switch and a way out. Or we could still be fighting, uselessly but bloodily, on down till this day.)

                    Music by Richard Strauss, lyrics by Dante Alighieri, illustrations by Hieronymous Bosch. Order of worship by Charles Manson.

                    How do you even surrender, in a cultural war of incompatible cultures? How is it ever possible to say, as we did in 1865 on both sides of the old border, “We’re all Americans and we’re done with that” — when it isn’t possible to find any common meaning of the word?

                    “The only way to win is not to play.” Trite, but true.

                    Our salvation lies in finding a way to keep this shooting cold war as cold as we can, as long as we can; to co-opt the saner parts of the enemy and recruit the fence-sitters; to allow our enemies to let go of their Arrow of History delusions and heresies as gently as they may

                    Or else, to be the Last Men (incl. Women) Standing at the end.

                    And now I’m going to stop contemplating l’Enfer (as the French call it) and go do and think about something else entirely.

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                  4. As others have said, cold war does not mean no casualties. In the cold war between the USSR and USA, plenty of soldiers got killed in proxy conflicts.

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                    1. Yep. I was always aware of that possibility; especially when it became evident that various Rules of Engagement and various Status of Forces Agreements were actually designed to get military members killed. Things like, you have to wear your uniform everywhere, and if you carry a weapon, you aren’t allowed to have any ammunition for it.

                      One of my favorite quotes:

                      America: Invented by geniuses. Run by idiots.

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          2. I cannot speak for anyone else (except the voices in my head) but what I am finding annoying is the … hypocrisy (?) of doing to someone something that we ourselves decried.

            I understand the frustration. I feel it as well. But I try to live by standards set a very long time ago, long before our modern sociopolitical situation: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

            Does that make me a doormat? Yeah, I guess it does. But I’ve been a doormat most of my 59 years. So, I’m use to it.

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            1. I have never decried the use of shame. Shame is necessary for civilization to function. I believe it’s the duty of all people who want to live in a civilized society to respond to outrageous statements by saying, ‘Hey, that’s not okay.’

              You don’t have to chase someone to their house and berate them, or get them fired. All you have to do is respond to something you’ve heard personally by saying, ‘that’s not okay.’

              If we all do this, then we create the society we want to live in.

              Do those standards feel too violent for you? Because we need everyone to do what they can. Even something as minor as saying, “Hey, you know I voted Republican?” to the snide person selling you gear at a convention talking about ‘those people.’ That’s the kind of behavior I mean.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. “Do those standards feel too violent for you?”

                Nope. I’ll speak in defense, if I see or hear something. Sadly, that response may not be very nice, I can’t always keep my temper in check. (heaven have mercy on your if you are going after a loved one … that “do unto others” can go right out the window and my mouth will run away on me.)

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                  1. Let me back up a half step before I answer your question and offer my understanding of the word.

                    In my mind, hypocrisy includes doing exactly what the other person did that angered you. For example, a lot of people hate it when others lie. They will call out someone else, while brushing off when they tell a “fib”. They act outraged, pretending – if only for that moment – that they do not lie. That is hypocritical behavior.

                    With that in mind: When I saw people that I knew had complained about the practice “Cancel Culture” just a few months ago, gleefully using the same tactics against people on the other side of the political spectrum – those who had lamented the missed shot – I saw it as hypocritical.

                    If you see my response to Imaginos1892, you’ll see that is is not something new. I tend to lean towards to “rise above it” mind set. If for no other reason than I remember the anger I felt when I saw the celebrations on 9/11. I remember the pain when we lost a president I was very fond of, and the anger when I saw some people celebrating. I remember and some part of me cannot condone doing that to others.

                    Maybe it is a by product of being the outcast, the one who was mocked and picked on. I don’t know.

                    I hope this makes some sense. It’s getting late on a long day and words are running away on me.

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                    1. With that in mind: When I saw people that I knew had complained about the practice “Cancel Culture” just a few months ago, gleefully using the same tactics against people on the other side of the political spectrum – those who had lamented the missed shot – I saw it as hypocritical.

                      What do you mean by tactic?

                      If you’re conflating responding at all with responding appropriately, then I think we’ve found the issue.

                      I can flatly say that, to use an example from real life, shooting someone because they knocked on your door is A Bad Thing, and absolutely wrong.

                      That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to shoot someone who is trying to break your door down with an axe.

                      Abusus no tollit usum.

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                    2. I never said it was wrong to defend yourself, or loved ones. I never implied that.

                      But going after someone, trying to silence them, cost them their means of income, because someone, at some point in the past, cost another person a job is not right. That is not justice, that is revenge.

                      In my faith, revenge is wrong.

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                    3. Then it looks like we’ve identified the mistake you’re making. You think people are applying the “tit for tat” tactic out of revenge. They aren’t. They’re applying the tactic because when you’re up against someone unconstrained by morality, the only way to make them stop is to make those actions hurt them. It’s the same mentality as self-defense shooting: you’re not trying to get revenge on the guy shooting at you, you’re trying to make him stop threatening your life.

                      This has nothing to do with revenge. Pay attention to what people are saying in this thread. Over and over, they’re saying things like “I wish we didn’t have to use these tactics, but it’s the only way to make the left stop.” These aren’t revenge motivations, they’re self-defense motivations. Yes, some people out there are hypocrites motivated by revenge; there’s always some jerks out there. But the people you’re arguing against here are motivated by self-defense.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    7. I didn’t say anything about who was being defended. Though I will come back to this later.

                      I said asked what do you mean by tactic?

                      You appear to be looking at getting someone fired as the specific tactic.

                      And you imply that is never right.

                      I do not agree that a school teacher should ever be publicly cheering for murder of public officials, to take an example from the current batch.

                      I am on the fence about publicly promoting assassination being worth getting fired over, since it’s actual terrorism promotion.

                      Going back to the question of who you can defend– if you can only defend yourself or ‘loved ones,’ then gee. Thanks. You just painted a nice, big target on all of those who are already alone in the world.
                      In my faith, that’s flatly evil.

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                    8. “Going back to the question of who you can defend– if you can only
                      defend yourself or ‘loved ones,’ then gee. Thanks. You just painted a
                      nice, big target on all of those who are already alone in the world.
                      In my faith, that’s flatly evil.”

                      Not physically (at least it hasn’t come to that, thank goodness) but I’ve been known to defend the “helpless”. Most customer service reps (cashiers) have no defense options. They are NOT allowed to express opinions (other than general “have a nice day”). But can be screamed at with impunity or talked to regarding political “crap” (for lack of something else). Been known to interject “my opinion” on the subject to get said individual to STFU. The cashier can’t respond. I can. I am taking the advantage of perceived short fat old woman (gray/white hair, mom is old, I’m not) as far as it will go. Don’t have the advantage my grandmothers did, when they spoke the auto response from everyone was “Yes, mam”, whether the individual knew them or not. Mom is even worse. She cries, which causes others to step in (she’s 89). I’m happy if the target just STFU. Thank goodness doesn’t happen often because it scares me to step in.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    9. I’ve gotten the “what buisness is it of yours? Butt out!” enough, you probably have, too.

                      They don’t like “if you don’t want someone else to comment, try keeping it down. They can hear you on Venus.”

                      Liked by 2 people

                    10. I’ve gotten that response too. My response to that is “Employees have to put up with your shit. I don’t.” Sometimes don’t even have to do that. Have had (along the lines of pick on someone your own size type person. Given I’m only 5’4″, not hard for someone bigger than me to speak up) someone else chip in with “Employees have to put up with your shit. She doesn’t.” Upon which the offender usually STFU and moves on as quick as possible.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    13. Oh, yeah I got that from idiots shouting from breakfast table next to ours about how there was too much liberty in the US.
                      I pointed out they could ruin my breakfast, but then they had to listen to ME.
                      And I was being kind to their idiocy.

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                    14. “Yes, and among that liberty is the liberty to pick another country and move there. Maybe the first liberty to be taken should be removing your role in that decision.”

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                    16. Exactly.

                      When worker/student C says I cannot work with worker/student W being in my environment, then the correct response from those in charge is “We are sorry to see you” (C) “leave.” C has can stay. They chose the response. But W isn’t forced to leave to kowtow to C.

                      Sometimes the actions have to be more severe. Example the pro-hamas protestors on campus. It is wrong to deny Jewish students and facility access to campus. The protestors should be arrested on the spot, any students censored to expulsion, others jail time. Depending on the severity of the protests occurring. Signs, but not interfering with others? Hurtful to others yes, but not dangerous. Denying access to more severe actions. Incarceration, fines, and expulsion.

                      Same with eco-warriors. I didn’t go into forestry originally just because I wanted to work outdoors. I wanted to be part of the decision making process and move harvests from 80 year rotations to 100+ year rotations. Also diversity planting. Not stop logging period. Although 20/20 hindsight would have been better off with another profession (*accounting) and became a small woodland lot owner (with horses 🐎🐴🐈🐕🐶).

                      (* In mid-’70s, computer programming was right out. In ’83 OTOH, different story, as personal history testifies.)

                      Liked by 1 person

            3. That is false equivalence. As one of my characters puts it:

              “They hit me; I hit them back.”

              No, that does not place her on the same moral level as the masked thugs that attacked her without cause or warning. Self-defense is not the same as assault.

              Of course, the whiners of the Left don’t understand the distinction:

              “You killed three of them! You’re a murderer!”

              “I hit them as hard as I could. Their deaths are a consequence of their own actions. If they didn’t want me to hit them, they shouldn’t have hit me.”

              Liked by 1 person

              1. “They are dead and Cerberus is alive. It doesn’t get any fairer than that.”

                “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”

                Liked by 1 person

              2. I disagree.

                Your example is one that involves direct, physical, harm to the person. No one was personally harmed by those posts. Offended? Yes. But no actual harm was done.

                Words can hurt, and there are times that a punch to the mouth may be warranted, but in cases where the were just directed to the world at large – not at your or a loved one – then I do not the need to retaliate in the manner that we’ve come to expect from the other side.

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                1. No one was personally harmed? What about the ones who lost jobs, were threatened, harassed and intimidated by faceless online stalkers giving out their real-world names and addresses, had the abominably-misnamed ‘Child Protective Services’ harpies set on them, were told ‘We know where your children go to school’? An old friend called Larry Corriea’s wife, convinced that she was being abused, after reading a bunch of vicious online lies.

                  They are legion, they are anonymous, they are shameless. Should nothing be done to stop them?

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                  1. Ed Piskor is dead, because his fellow comics artists and writers made up a libelous story that somebody else’s Internet account was his alt account, that he was therefore an -ist and -phobe.

                    He was also libeled a pedophile, because one woman pointed out that his mentorship of her as an older teenager was occasionally a tad inappropriate, but that nothing happened.

                    Ed Piskor’s gallery show in his hometown was canceled, his local TV news station stood in front of his parents’ house reporting, his fellow YT host told him they could no longer associate in public; and he decided there was nothing for it but suicide.

                    Sure, they didn’t put a gun to his head. He did that.

                    But he was murdered, for all intents and purposes.

                    Liked by 1 person

                  2. Let me clarify …

                    I was referring to the current outrage over the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the lamentations of certain parties that the shooter missed.

                    Were you, or anyone you know, personally harmed by those posts? I mean actually harmed, not just offended. No? They why stoop to their level, or allow it to be done in your presence?

                    For the record, I took the exact same stance when I saw conservatives celebrating Ginsburg’s death. If it is wrong for the one side to celebrate when Limbaugh died, then it is equally as wrong for the other side to celebrate when Ginsburg died.

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                    1. There’s the small matter that wishing assassination on presidential candidates is, by settled law, not a matter of free speech. People have the right to make false claims that Trump is a Russian agent. They do not have the right to post things like “I wish Trump would be shot”. This has been a long-established principle in U.S. law, that the right to free speech does not extend to calling for, or even publicly wishing for, the assassination of a president or candidate for president.

                      So this specific case is not an instance of people pushing back against someone exercising their right to free speech. You chose the wrong example to make a claim of hypocrisy, because this is something that would be right to push back against even if “cancel culture” were not a thing.

                      Liked by 1 person

        2. The left set up a Big Lie about cancel culture, which much of the right is not nearly as clear on as they should be.

          Cancel culture is not deciding that someone is a POS and you refuse to deal with them. That is Freedom of Association.

          Cancel culture is not telling other people that someone is a POS and they shouldn’t deal with them. That too is Freedom of Association, coupled with Freedom of Speech.

          Cancel culture isn’t even getting someone fired, because their personal stance and/or flaws are in direct opposition to their job. For example a teacher who abuses kids.

          Cancel culture is bending the entire society to turn again the newly defined pariah. It is calling their boss and demanding the boss fire them for job-unrelated reasons or you will drag the company through the mud as well. It is calling their bank and asking if the bank wants the world to know that they do business with nazis. It is putting implied pressure on the target’s spouse to divorce or have their life destroyed. It is telling kids that they need to bully the target’s kids if they want to be good people.

          Cancel culture is the utter rejection of Freedom of Association for anyone but the xir on top who is setting the narrative.

          Being a concept and tactic which the left adores, they naturally defend this as “freedom of association”.

          And unfortunately too much of the right never bothers to check the definitions the left gives them.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. Great, if you’re going to hire everyone who has been canceled by the left, can you please drop the link to your job hiring site here? I know we’ve got a lot of folks who are struggling and need work. This has been going on for decades, after all.

          But I bet this is a theoretical statement, and you don’t actually have jobs for all. Which is the problem, isn’t it? The right hasn’t been in control of big businesses’ or governments’ HR in my lifetime, and the left hires for the proper ideology, couched under some fits corporate culture, adds diversity (but never of thought) type reason. We can’t hire right for jobs, because we don’t have jobs to hire for. Most of us are struggling small business owners who go it alone or with family labor, or subject matter experts making with the shutting up so we don’t get fired.

          So yes, now we’re telling companies and governments: “Look, here is this person who has called for death to the former president of the USA, we are going to boycott you until and unless you fire him/her.” And it’s working. Finally, something is working.

          Liked by 1 person

    4. The Reader is in tit for tat mode at the moment. He doesn’t like it but believes examples are necessary for the other side to stop.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. You punish the action you want to deter, you don’t perform that action on other people. If we were ‘cancelling’ Netflix and Disney and Google et al. for cancelling us I’d agree. But what we are doing is responding to their cancelling us by cancelling Bob and Sue Rando. This may make Bob and Sue understand what is evil about cancel culture but I think you are making the same mistake they make. They are not a monolith anymore than we are, and hitting random leftists doesn’t teach the lesson. Hell, they cancel each other for insufficient purity, see JK Rowling.

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            1. Which the Left’s focus on skin color as uniform and justification for criminal behavior will only exacerbate.

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        2. When there is no punishment, and there isn’t, tit for tat retaliation is the only way to get the message across. It is hard and painful and it hurts us to do it. The Reader knows we may trigger the oncoming unpleasantness doing this, but he just doesn’t see an alternative path. It won’t stop unless they pay a price.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. If an enemy army is murdering prisoners, your side had better be prepared to murder far more, and more valuable ones, to deter the misconduct. And if that doesn’t work, you find the atrocity they do avoid.

          Because once it is “war”, reprisal is about all you have left to stop atrocity.

          There are political versions of this. because politics easily becomes war without gunfire (just at the moment, it comes later, bigly).

          I do not see how you get to cancelling “Bob and Sue Rando”. The targets identify themselves via misconduct. That they reap what they sow is the lesson. If they respond promptly to something different, by all means use it. But like-for-like reprisal upon the perpetrators is instructive. Nothing “rando” about it. Targeted.

          If they randomly target someone, you selectively target the perpetrators with their own medicine. Also instructive. Knock it off and you don’t get it. Keep it up and reap what you sow.

          Liked by 1 person

        4. You punish the action you want to deter, you don’t perform that action on other people. 

          How do you propose to punish the action without inflicting that exact action on the people who perpetrated it?

          Members of the Left don’t care that an action hurts, until that action hurts them.

          Then they realize it’s a bad thing to do.

          And when it’s done to them enough, they start to realize it’s a bad thing regardless of who it’s done to or why.

          You’re not dealing with fully functional adults here. You’re dealing with people whose emotional and social development stopped at 5 years old, at best.

          Liked by 1 person

        5. You seem to miss the point that, while the Netflixes and Disneys and Googles (apparently) are self-driven to be the way they are, it’s mostly the “random leftist” foot troops who threaten and blackmail banks and other neutral corporations into doing their bidding on threat of being smeared with publicly-disseminated lies. My take: If they don’t want to be treated as the enemy, they should stop being the enemy. Until then do everything to increase their pain; if it looks like revenge to the unobservant, sobeit.

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    6. Somehow, over centuries, we once got to a world, or we think we did, did we actually? or is that a myth? where we could speak freely. We came from a world where no one dared criticize the government, we achieved a land, at least, where some criticism was allowed.

      We have already returned to a world where some speech is banned. Maybe we have to go long way around to get back to free speech. (If we ever had it, and that isn’t a story-I think more and more it’s an aspirational story.)

      What I know for sure is we don’t get back freedom of speech by letting those who do not want freedom of speech have free reign to silence us. We tried that. For generations. It didn’t work. We didn’t get back freedom of speech.

      Also, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. Remember that. Always remember that. No one is stopping the left from speaking. Now they are facing consequences for what they say. That is new. That is what has changed. That is ALL that has changed. It used to only be our side that faced consequences.

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    7. The Law and Customs of War include the use, even necessity, of reprisals. For darn good reason.

      If you fail to reprise for misconduct, it flourishes. Since the Law is -quite- unable to function in War, reprisal may be all that remains to deter even more egregious conduct.

      Since the Left decided to go to “war rules” of disagreement, we have little choice. Standing around blathering about “normal behavior” and “moral high ground” is a predictable way to get steamrollered by yahoos. You can try it once, but repeated attempts are both stupid and complicit in misconduct. They know it wont work, and you know it hasn’t worked. Repetition expecting difference without evidence is facilitating.

      Sometimes you have no better option than to bust the bully in the mouth. Not wrong to do so. On the contrary, allowing continued bullying is to aid and abet the bully. You know dang well its a bully, and that they don’t give a frell for your moral high ground.

      And is some cases, it is outright cowardice wrapped up in “high ground speech”. Not enough balls to do the needful, so oration over action.

      So until he Left learns that there is unpleasant cost for going to far, they know its a winning strategy to go too far. Thus leaving the passive enablers holding considerable responsibility for standing there looking smug, instead of busting a nose and -ending- the problem.

      And if a demonstrative thump or three -doesn’t- solve it, you sure as f(HONK!) were not going to solve it with disdain and up-snooting and appealing to the demonstrably nonexistent “better nature”.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. If I understand James Flax’s point correctly, he would say he is in favor of punishing the bully when they’re engaging in the incorrect behavior.

        The problem I see is that bullies are emboldened by their social context. If you want to curtail bullying, you need to address that context. That means when someone in your life says something vile and expects to be patted on the back for it, you make it clear that behavior is not acceptable, even if they have not yet risen to the level of worse actions.

        For some reason, this reads as unfair to people who would prefer to address people of higher agency. But those people of higher agency don’t have power if they’re not supported by the masses of less powerful people who nevertheless want to participate in whatever way they can in the zeitgeist.

        Make it clear that the zeitgeist has changed. Then you bring in a diplomat to say ‘now that we’ve all learned our lesson, let’s return to more high-minded ideals.’

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          1. I appreciate your decision to post and defend your diverging viewpoint. I don’t think it diverges by much, though. If, for instance, I said, “I think we should push back on random cashiers who tell us that they’re sorry more of those evil nazis didn’t die when the assassin went on his spree by telling them ‘I don’t agree, and here’s why you’re wrong, let’s debate'” I suspect you would object less than if the entire internet fell down on that person and hounded them into penury?

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          2. As your position was stated, it read like you were saying “When the cashier says openly and to your face that the it’s a pity the shooter’s aim was so poor. and you say ‘That’s a shitty thing to say.” and they respond “Maybe you should have been up there in stead”. It is inappropriate to call their manager because that’s not actually hurting any one.”

            This is the point people are arguing against. Now let’s get into the social purposes of that exchange.

            Cashier: <I am signaling that I hate the correct people and so am part of the strong tribe.>
            Customer: <I am informing you that your behavior is not acceptable in this social setting and your tribe does not protect you from that.>
            Cashier: <I am signaling that my tribe is strong enough we do not have to follow the rules and will not follow them and your tribe is not strong enough to make us so we do what we want.>

            If there is no further response you have confirmed that such behavior actually IS acceptable and not just will not be punished but CANNOT be punished and therefore they are under free to step to the next stage of pushing until the actual limit is found. They are STILL pushing and have only just found that limit.

            And yes, such conversation ARE happening right now. And we have to address what’s going on behind the words as well as the words themselves. We have to address the social bounds being pushed not just the individual incidents. We HAVE to hit the “No, this is not acceptable and your membership in that tribe will not protect you if you cross these lines in these ways.”

            Now the lines will always be fuzzy at the edges because humans usually don’t sit down and go “Here is the line and these are all the different ways this could go.”

            You said elsewhere you hate the world this would create. That world is already coming. The only chance to stop it is to speak in the social terms the other side understands. Yes, that will involve the very muddy term of ‘canceling’ people. No it should not involve rampant indiscriminate responses; however, I have not seen rampant indiscriminate canceling. Just specific, targeted canceling. Yes, of words, but at this point if they’re so confident they can openly wish death on a presidential candidate they need to be taught that even words have consequences. Because words strengthen their ideological tribe and give freedom of action to their side.

            We have to retain the ability to pull back once the correction and new lines are established. The other side has forsaken this ability and needs to be re-taught that it ought to back down rather than keep pushing. These lessons, especially when they must be learned by a group of people not just an individual, do not come without pain and do not come without having to take actions we would prefer not to take.

            All those people online wishing death on Trump are signaling that their tribe is strong enough to kill their enemies and get away with it and no one can stop them. They need to be stepped on in a variety of ways until they realize that no, it doesn’t work that way. They cannot get away with that. They cannot get away with indiscriminately destroying people. They cannot get away with supporting the people who do.

            It is a difficult road to walk, but it CAN Be done. But it won’t be if people keep using the ‘moral high road’ to justify undue restraint and sabotage the people who are trying to restore a polite society. (Which is what is currently happening and has been happening for decades.)

            Liked by 3 people

            2. Magnificent. And magnificently precise.

              Fans of, say, Gordon Dickson’s “Dorsai” series will already be quite familiar with this kind of social, cultural, psychological thinking; and any true introvert likely also, and from the inside out. How looking at “just the words” alone actually misses a lot of the true content, the real nature, of many such interactions.

              And if you don’t see it, don’t hear it, you can’t change it. Though it and its effects might change you and your world, a lot, in ways you can’t see coming and might not understand happening.

              That world is already coming.

              Maybe this point deserves some further emphasis. What we’re talking about here, the “cancel culture juggernaut” and the ideas, beliefs, and culturally-based habits of thought and action that go along, is already in motion now — it already has considerable momentum, which is a very real thing no matter its being non-physical and immaterial.

              And as Newton’s First Law says of material things, an object in motion remains in motion in a straight line at constant speed unless acted on by an unbalanced force. The exact same applies here.

              This thing is already moving to create more of the same and worse. It will, left to itself, simply and inexorably go where it’s going. If we want it to go somewhere else, or to slow it down, we have to apply force to it enough to make that happen instead.

              Liked by 1 person

        2. Mom, the radical, said you throw the foaming mouth maniac into their midst, to make your reasonable-sounding calm radical person seem acceptable. It works.

          Leftism to a T.

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    8. Mr. Flax If the other side were willing to acknowledge my right to exist and to chose not to accept my right to have opinions other than the ones they feel are presentable I would be willing to afford them that privilege. However, since the early 2000’s (and really much longer in some cases) they have decided to assault our reason and morals with utter nonsense, they have made it very difficult verging on impossible for conservatives and even what would have been considered left of center traditional liberals to obtain and maintain employment particularly in fields such as education, medicine and law unless they dissemble. Your view is that we by chosing the higher road maintain a morale superiority and might persuade some to return to the status quo ante. I on the other hand argue that their leaving the hitherto accepted rules of engagement represents a reversion to a more primitive form of the process and deserves to be met with reciprocity. My analysis is that politics often breaks down to the game theory game called “The Prisoners Dilemma” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma for details) in its iterated form. In general the most effective strategy for the iterated form of the prisoner’s dilemma is one called “Tit for Tat” where your strategy in iteration N is exactly that of your opponent in N-1.

      Your attempt to reason with their better nature will fail because they have none. They were never forced to have a better moral nature. The are a mass of spoiled children who were never corrected and never forced to accept that they are not the be all and end all of the universe. Thus what we are doing is akin to training a small child or a recalcitrant animal. The use of negative feedback is not only justified but is the ONLY method that might get results. Admittedly if your opponent persists in stupid behavior in the iterated prisoners dilemma all tend to suffer. However, if you choose the always trust path then just you suffer (and more than you would in the tit for tat strategy) At some point if they don’t learn or can’t be trained then we end up with a choice something like this.

      We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

      I hope that we do not come to that kind of situation. Note well the final sentence I quoted. I believe we’re well down the path to the situation described in that sentence. Perhaps the application of a little pain will cause the amoeba that is our ruling class to flinch. Sometimes the stick works better than the carrot.

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          1. I assumed you had. And I’m sure there are others. I just don’t know about them. Part of the problem is that all the instances of cancelling in hte past were silloed so no one else knew.

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    9. One side wants folks to be fired, and never work in their field again, for supporting one of the two major political parties in the country.

      The other side wants folks to be fired for publicly cheering for the bloody murder of a political candidate.

      They’re not the same thing, at all.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. This, exactly this.

        And can we, therefore, please throw the “false equivalence” between these two very different things overboard and watch it sink to the bottom? (Especially in a well-weighted bag, like an old-school Navy garbage dump.)

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      2. Exactly STOS “Savage Curtain”. At the end the testers ask how Kirk, Spock & company are no different than the villains that were their opposites when both apply the same strategy of destruction and the same methods. Kirk responds with “what were their motivations” (gold, silver, riches). Kirk responds with “We were offered the lives of our crew.”

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    10. Okay, but responding to “cancel culture vileness” with kind words and take-the-high-road tacit acceptance will not restore the marketplace of ideas either.

      That marketplace is gone, destroyed by the fraction of stall owners who decided to go full barbarian. You can’t simply wish those market stalls to stop burning. What is left is to decide what to do now, standing there in the smoke and wreckage.

      You say what you don’t want people to do, respond in kind: Then what should be done instead?

      Liked by 1 person

  11. I suspect this will be an unpopular opinion, and that I will take flak for it but, responding to cancel culture vileness with our own cancel culture vileness will not restore the open marketplace of ideas. Maybe it is too late to restore a world where people speak their minds. maybe all we can do is make sure the other side has to face the same fear that they have made our side face, but if so recognize that the world on the other side of that is a world where everyone shuts up, not a world where everyone speaks freely. I’m one of the people being described as “Moral High Ground” people, although I don’t think of my position as some smug virtue signal. I am not. I am not particularly moral, and I viscerally want to punish the left for what they have done and are doing. I just hate the idea of the world this will produce, the world the left’s playing with this fire is already producing.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The problem is – how do you stop the left from doing it? Someone donates to a “traditional marriage only” organization, and activists on the left dig up that individual’s name on the donation info, and get the person fired. How would *you* stop that?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. They have secrets too. Learn them. Exploit them. Weird them. Sure it’s hard work. But there is a reason Sun Tzu emphasized spying/intel in “The Art of War”.

        If folks haven’t read it, I highly recommend. It’s a short book. Easily digested. James Clavell published a version, if you are a fan.

        -Highly- recommend “Art of War” to understand our current internal and external foes, and their actions.

        And it will definitely up your game, whatever games you play.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. See Pratchett’s character Mr. Trooper’s opinion on whether punishing an individual stops crime generally. It doesn’t. Other individuals will continue to do the bad things. Is it worth it? Well, yes. Stopping the individual offenses stops those offenses.

      Similarly, does tit for tat stop cancel culture as a whole? No, or not immediately. But I bet it stops it in the individual case. It might also make the friends and family think about joining in the next time lest it be their reputations or jobs trashed. Make them ask if the issue will be worth the cost.

      What are we willing to cancel over? Over persons who say they wish that an actual assassination attempt had succeeded which will logically encourage further assassination attempts. Why are we willing to cancel over this? Because if it had succeeded we might be in a hot boog right now. Which is something that will hurt all of us on all the sides in the US. If that’s not worth fighting off via the means available, what is? Sometimes it’s necessary to be “mean” or “cruel” to prevent a worse outcome from happening. And the means we’re talking about are non violent and non criminal. It’s using social tools to correct behavior that will lead to a boog before we get a boog.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Since most crime is committed by repeat offenders, who escalate over time, stopping one criminal tends to have a significant impact on crime. Crime is a profession with levels and promotions. Sure, amateurs. They level up. They eventually turn pro. At points along the way, they attend trade schools full of resources with plenty of time and motivation to teach.

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    3. …responding to cancel culture vileness with our own cancel culture vileness will not restore the open marketplace of ideas.

      They are already doing it, and have been for decades. Just how do you propose to get back to “niceness” without teaching them that there are consequences they Do Not Want for what they have been getting away with? Have you never dealt with a bully in your life? The only thing that works is to make their behavior hurt, and make it keep hurting, until they learn to stop.

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      1. “Have you never dealt with a bully in your life? The only thing that works is to make their behavior hurt, and make it keep hurting, until they learn to stop.”

        100%

        Liked by 1 person

  12. Maybe this is a bit like trying to be the brakeman on a runaway train; but, ONE big thing that seems to be getting lost here is how very different the levels of “expressing an opinion” actually are, between the “old” left-cancel culture and the “new” (by days) right-cancel culture.

    I know of lots of instances (see Chaya Rachik, d/b/a ‘Libs of TickTok’) where people have gotten fired for expressing sorrow or even anger that Donald Trump was not killed, or hoping/asking that someone finish the job. This was tap-dancing on the edge of actual criminal behavior, at least by the “old standards” of a decade or two ago (see “communicating threats” or “inciting homicide” or the special crimes relevant to just the Presidency). It is certainly escalating “cancel culture” to a level far beyond “only” getting people fired from a job, or even black-balled in their careers… and prosecutorial or social tolerance does not erase that distinction.

    Meanwhile, we’re still getting the same old attacks, with that same level of job- or career-ending outcomes, due to nothing more than (say) expressing support or sympathy for that guy who almost got killed last weekend.This is so different in degree, as an “opinion” or as expressed speech, it really is a difference in kind.

    And thus, to use a near-cliche, quite a false equivalence.

    “These two things are not the same” — or anywhere even close.

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  13. <I> Offloading the consequences of your purity onto others and calling their suffering the regrettable cost of being the better person is wrong. </I>

    I’m trying to think of a counter example and I’m coming up with nothing. I can come up with cases where the “regrettable cost” is minimal – for example, Quakers refusing to serve in the military; how much difference does that actually make? – but I can’t dispute the general principle.

    Thank you for the perspective.

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    1. I’d be open to examples (I too tried to think of some after writing the statement and wanting to check it for hyperbole). But in general, I think you should be willing to fall on your sword for your beliefs before you require other people to.

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      1. I was thinking of Israel and the question of drafting certain religious practitioners. Why should they benefit by having a county that protects them, if they wont protect it? In that particular case, they do not refuse -all- government duty and benefit, , just the military duty part of it. They expect the bennies without the bill. And unlike here, there is not a huge population and there are immediate existential threats.

        Moral Mooching

        I dislike drafting soldiers. I much prefer the potential quality and espirit of an all volunteer professional force. But if a society says “draft is necessary duty” it had better be an all-hands one. If it is -needed- it dang well needs -you- too.

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        1. My understanding is that Israel puts them to work in other capacities, but I could be wrong. Kind of shades of Rosie the Riveter freeing up men for the frontlines.

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          1. It sends them to school. Oh poor babies.

            If pacifists, they can combat medic. Or clear mines and do EOD. Or drive water trucks.

            But no free ride. Going to Rabbi School will not defeat their foes.

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            1. Heinlein’s description of Federal Service in “Starship Troopers” covered something like this. For those who never read it (here?!? Riiight…), Federal Service was a prerequisite for voting, and no one who volunteered could be turned down; IIRC the comment was that [paraphrased] “if a blind quadraplegic volunteered something would be found for him to do – counting the hairs on a fuzzy caterpillar by touch, perhaps.”

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        2. Artifact of their parliamentary system, buying the coalition presence of that small group’s seats. I guess the demographics have shifted.

          And on your point about draft width, I agree with people I’ve read, backed up by my experience with my Vietnam draft deferment chasing (three Masters degrees and an ABD PhD) once upon a time boss: Much of the campus opposition to the Vietnam war was from college-deferred fellows who were reacting to their fear from seeing their HS buddies get drafted to combat tours. If everyone had to do two years of service after HS graduation age, the 1960s home front noise would have been a lot different.

          All-volunteer has produced a far better military (until DEI hit it), but if there needs to be a draft it needs to be everyone.

          And that includes the previous definitions of physically not qualified – to take one disqualification from WWII as an example, males with flat feet can sit at a radar console just fine even if they don’t want them for the infantry.

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          1. The problem is, under attack, everyone is ultimately Infantry.

            Envision an overrun or infiltrated HQ.

            Sure, flatfoot can pilot the drones. But the opposition will target them for some 11B mayhem.

            But I am also thinking that no willing but disabled person should be refused. Find scutwork that suits. That eliminates most reasons used to dodge. “Let’s see…. bedwetting, vertigo, boozer, and can’t shoot for beans. You get to empty bedpans and wash asses in hospitals and psych wards. In theater. …. Crying wont help. Here. Have a suck-it-up rag.”

            heh. Really prefer my all volunteer force, but willing to embrace “all hands evolution” where needed.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Oh, yeah. My father in law was an ETO US Army clerk (because he could already type when he was drafted) in a rear area unit in Belgium, and the night the Wehrmacht started punching through the front in the Ardennes the first night of the Bulge, they woke him up, handed him a rifle and a bandolier of 30-06, and with the rest of his unit he sat up on a hillside in the freezing cold all night watching the road for the panzers to start coming through.

              They were far enough back that he never saw any, but they didn’t know that was what would happen sitting up there in the dark that night.

              Everyone in a combat areas is a combat troop.

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              1. And there *were* German troops (disguised as Americans) running through the rear areas during that offensive. So even if the main army elements hadn’t reached them, he still might have had to shoot an enemy soldier.

                Liked by 1 person

    2. IIRC in the past, Quakers were willing to work as support to the fighting men.

      IE Things like serving as medics.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Conscientious objectors used to get the medic bags. Sgt. Alvin York famously was such, but he got better.

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        1. Desmond Doss, pacifist. US Army medic, MOH.

          That man must have been seriously bowlegged.

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      2. It appears that Quakers in the past were pretty straightforward.

        I think the old story goes ‘Friend, I would not hurt thee for the world, but thou art standing where I am about to shoot.’

        Liked by 1 person

  14. A great line I saw on social media recently.

    “Eventually those who wish to live and let live will realize their abusers will never leave them alone.”

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Yep. I realized that a little more than 10 years ago. No experience with direct personal abuse, but I saw that there were a *lot* of people — assorted leftists and “progressives” — who were constitutionally incapable of leaving the rest of us alone and would have to be forcefully kept at bay if anyone was going to have any peace at all. I sometimes say that I got interested in (obsessed with?) politics not because I wanted to, but because I realized I *had* to. It was self-defense.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Ing, pretty much the same for me.

        I remember the assassination attempt on President Reagan. When we found out he’d been shot, a former friend said “yay.” That day started my political consciousness.

        Liked by 1 person

  17. There was an essay a bit back about ‘fractally wrong’, where it was noted that some of what the left says has ideas broken in several places, so that if you make a correction at one point, you still screw up and have an idea that is both evil, and incorrect, the way that the first left statement was evil and incorrect.

    Critical Race Theory scholars, forex have the wrong ideas of ‘CRT speaks for blacks’, ‘there is a permanency of divide between whites and blacks’, ‘this permanency goes back deep into prehistory’, and ‘peace is not possible between whites and blacks’. This is the basis for their stuff of ‘whites should lose’, ‘blacks should win’, and ‘it is necessary for some blacks to symbolically win for all blacks’.

    So imagine a young white man, with nothing to live for, and is no longer trying to appease tertiary instructors to avoid being hurt by them. It is quite obvious that if the CRT types communicate very clearly with the young man that ‘peace is impossible’, he is likely to believe them. A first step could easily be ‘there can only be war between blacks and whites, and I want the whites to win’. The more correct answer is that ‘CRT types are crazy, but they speak only for CRT types, and their ideas are also untrue’. Then you look at collections of individuals, and recent generation peaces, and sanely solve some of the next step problems.

    Even if someone manages to skip tertiary, the primary and secondary instructors were trained at tertiary schools, so it is not very likely that one manages to avoid having ideas heavily shaped by the tertiary environment. Tertiary are very selective in ideas they promote, and discriminatory. Partly, this is congressional and federal factions, and funding. If there is a type F insanity in congressional factions, there will be funding for type F studies departments, and discrimination against scholarship that would dispute the foundation of type F studies. Example, the existence of Women’s studies departments, and the ‘obvious’ understanding that if a man were to make symmetrical statements about women or girls, HR would consider the liability for that to be impossible tolerate in someone holding a supervisory position.

    There are at least two modes for theory work. 1) traces sources, and link ideas to accepted or high status authorities 2) Pull in all the ideas, fit them together, and test.

    1 is easier for people who have been so badly abused by their primary and secondary teachers that they can just about manage rote thinking. 2? Yeah, it looks like the ideas in many academic fields are pretty bad. Mathematics has many ideas that allegedly all fit together, and pass the tests. I’ve not finished with mathematics. Critical theory appears to be directly incompatible with mathematics. Different theories of statements, and a mathematician might conclude that critical theory has been logically disproven by contradiction. Critical theorists seem to have a consensus that math is bad magic, or that logic is specifically evil in the way they object to.

    The other ideas of many academic fields are also bad. They are discriminatory in allowed speech about theory.

    This mess was absolutely foreseeable. Many different echo chambers and silos of academic fields were developing some very angry people, who had spent a great deal of time removing anything like a safeguard on their own behavior. Ancient magic ‘systems of oppression’.

    Forex, the CRT had driven themselves crazy vicious, partly by overweighting some real historical people who were vicious. (I realized this, when I saw my own poorly weighted exposure to such as CRT folks driving me vicious.) But, they also have a carefully curated (and apparently also fraudulent) lack of understanding of the context of those historical vicious people, the other sorts of peopel who were alive at the come.

    That same sorts of ‘missing context’ knowledge actually is really really essential for dealing with the current crop of vicious idiots.

    That said, it is also necessary to say that they can go frustrate themselves.

    “Oh”, they said, “you must not use ‘bad’ words. Think of all the people that you could hurt using those.”

    The fact of the matter is, you can express exactly the same hostile ideas with ‘good’ words and with ‘bad’ words.

    You can very easily use the ‘good’ words to hurt the feelings of the one who requested you use those terms so badly that they will insist that they never told you to use those words.

    The niceness of using ‘good’ words was evil, and opened the way to further evil.

    It was a weapon for religious, ideological, or partisan ends from the beginning.

    It has been relentlessly and ruthlessly applied in a discriminate and selective way.

    Three years ago, within academia, it was applied to the scale of being partisan on the subject of civil war.

    This fundamentally hazarded peace.

    Now, the selective speech manipulation has ensued in a way that people have viscerally understood as important, and weighty.

    We see the damage done now. We are appalled.

    We hesitate, rightfully, at directly proceeding to making the rubble bounce, and unhousing the enemy.

    Still, this was done over many years of word games, many years of selective hiring, many years of one sided discrimination in behavior.

    They have made of themselves savages and barbarians.

    They perceive themselves as having strengthened themselves in ignoring certain acts of persuasion. They’ve actually made it possible to by ignoring pain, destroy their own muscles and strength.

    They can be killed, but that remedy may yet be premature. Some of the ones who have walked with them can be convinced.

    People being fired is not excessive. People who have abused offices may be removed to prevent them from expensively betraying the public in such a way again.

    The ones who can behave themselves given an incentive, may behave themselves if you actually provide them with that incentive. We harm them by refusing to give them an incentive before only the remedy of killing them is fast enough to safeguard lives.

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  18. As a rider or addendum to the post, another part of the problem is that we have allowed sociopaths to take most of the reins of power in society. Such people believe that consequences do not apply to themselves, but must be as scorched earth as they can manage against anyone who crosses them.

    Once you understand this, the constant release of actual criminals and the years-long pre-trial incarceration of political enemies makes even more sense.

    They will never understand proportionate responses, they will perceive this as weakness. Scorched earth, with extra doses of scorched earth, until they beg for mercy, followed by more scorched earth just to make sure the point gets through, will be the only thing that might get them to reconsider, briefly.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Sometimes it’s necessary to be “mean” or “cruel” to prevent a worse outcome from happening.

    Yes.

    Had someone not turned their head at the right moment in time, The Switch would be flipped. The hounds would be unleased.

    Many on the left do not understand the horror of what they are wishing for. Better that they suffer the minor consquences of cancel blowback instead of the eternal one. None of them understands that people that may currently appear to be silent and accepting, are taking notes, collecting information and prepping for the worse.

    The standard unspoken response to what happened on the 13th was to buy more ammo.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. The nation, the soul of the nation, the hopes of mankind, the future of the species… all those were, reasonably and realistically, on the table.

        Despair may be a sin; but it’s also an enormously powerful thing, if it can be aimed in the right direction. Which means it’s extraordinarily dangerous, too, of course.

        And in the strictest sense, we’re never really gonna know for sure. Was this a Fermi Paradox point, or not? But that kind of ignorance, at least, I do find to be a comfort. And not a small one.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Not just the nation. The world. If we crash, the world crashes harder.

        I am writing a book that I hope is not prophetic, it takes place in 2429, Civilization has crashed, no electronics, no electricity, everyone slaves. I had been wondering how to explain how it happened.

        I realized we came within an inch, when we dodged that divinely diverted bullet. We would have had all those who have been saying the ballot box is finished, using the cartridge box. The left overjoyed they had their excuse, and the bloody civil war starts. Civilization ends.

        I now have my alternative history hook. I fear the book is still prophetic. At least what God seems to warn. Good prophecy never happens, because the warning is listened to.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. You see clearly, Sarah. And yet … saved only for the time being. I don’t think we’re fortunate enough for this to have been the last escalation. There will be more coming, and I will not be so ghoulish as to speculate on the shapes it will take. (Except to note that he’s still looking at 136 years in the Crowbar Motel, if Judge Merchan is so inclined.)

        We only have to be unlucky once.

        Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Welcome to history. There is always more trouble heading in, in this vale of soul-making.

          Like

      4. yea,

        for now……..

        we arent there yet and the left is made up of a lot of wackjobs with mush for brains.

        they dont even get that their people are destroying our country.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Actually, they do. And they consider it to be a “Good Thing” (TM). They’re idiot children playing with sweating dynamite.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. Note the crowd. They mostly stood their ground. Sure, got noncombatants out of line of fire. But the folks mostly stuck around. They stood with Trump.

      That is six-sigma unusual. Even by American standards. Almost absurd, until seen. And seen, never forgotten.

      Things are changed, for the better. And the Donks know it.

      Dont doubt it.

      Like

  20. “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” can be recast as, power tends to be used, or mis-used, the more the easier and cheaper it is to do either one.

    So modern “cancel culture” tends to go… because we’ve made it both easy and cheap to mount this kind of attack. And even excused it, as some sort of good, which is even more impressive in a not-good way.

    We’ve concentrated power, like the One Ring, in a very small place.

    And one of the main enablers of this power is willing third parties.

    Yes, it’s possible for a mob to attack someone, physically or virtually. And despite that ‘boycotts are OK’ sentiment expressed above, let’s not forget they were/are a favorite tool of cancel-culturers like good ol’ Saul Alinsky and his modern followers, not only former Bud Light drinkers appalled at the crazy stupid.

    But you can’t fire someone from their job unless you’re the employer; whether it’s for refusing the toxic not-a-vaxx, or asking the world to please bring forth a successful assassin. However, if you can bring a convincing argument or pressure on them… well, there you go then.

    The more easily and cheaply used power you give someone, the more you enable them to use it, and the more you tempt them to mis-use it. That’s as true of sending a tweet (eXpression?) as it is of flipping a light switch, or pulling a trigger.

    People who actually have triggers to pull (usually) have quite a high level of understanding of the consequences of doing that; the power of (literally) life and death tends to teach that fast, and so does years or centuries of culture. But people don’t always ‘make sure of your target before you fire’ — or even much care who’s in front of the sights.

    Mobs both amplify power and diffuse responsibility; remember the old Agatha Christie device of having a bunch of people all fractionally kill someone? When it’s a twit-mob, or a real mob, this is almost easy.

    So what the ever-escalating bang-to-buck ratio of leftist cancel culture naturally tends to do, over time with little or no restraint or opposition or counterpressure, is — corrupt ever more absolutely.

    And as much as (relevant and powerful) third parties turn out to be unethical, clueless, or just-plain-scared enough to fall in line with the ‘loudest throat’ (Kipling) or the largest-mob… they amplify this failure mode or social instability. And the closer to absolute the corruption becomes, the more the punishment (for some) or chilling effect (for others) exceeds any given measure of rationality or proportion.

    And for a lot of us humans, that’s a massively addicting drug, and no matter whether we fall prey to the addiction or not. “I say to this one, go, and he goes; I say to this one, stay, and he stays” — and so forth.

    “I can ruin you with a phone call” for the well-placed few becomes “I can spend five minutes at my keyboard and ruin anyone” — for the everyday X-mob-ster. Not exactly progress.

    The one thing (I can’t think of another) that really cures this is simple personal responsibility and personal and social ethics. Enough of that, and we’re almost immune. But where the disease has taken hold, even a rougher treatment may at least cool the fever.

    And, suddenly, there is one. Maybe people hate we’re not taking ‘the high road’ — but at least we’re moving, and as a society, and in the right direction. Mostly (wholly?) it’s a ‘cancellation’ based on a third party reaction to speech that’s quite literally murderous in its intent and desired effect (see, Chaya Rachik d/b/a ‘Libs of TikTok’); and so it ‘chills’ mostly/only actual ‘homicide speech’ (which would surely be ‘hate speech’ if those words only meant what they said).

    Suddenly, what you send around might come back around, too.

    Suddenly, it’s not almost-free and safe to wish your enemies dead, in a way that might just grant your wish. So the temptation, the ‘hit’ of that drug so many crave so very badly, costs and risks more and more.

    At long-long last, some of the power is in our hands, again.

    It’s not ideal; and the more of it we get, the more dangerous it is, to us.

    But we can, it seems, finally begin to restore the balances again.

    And scheme and plot to throw this One Ring in Mount Doom, later.

    Where it ought to have stayed (like the Rheingold) all along.

    Like

      1. Ah, for the Tarnhelm! And,of course, the Ring (no, not that one; the Ring of the Nibelung! Sheesh…) 😉😁😁

        Like

  21. You can’t respect the weapon in your hand if you don’t understand that it is a weapon in the first place. I can’t wait until those on the left decide that Oxygen is the cause of all ills in the world, because that is coming.

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    1. I mean face it there is only one carbon atom in Co2 and two oxygen atoms. Heavy, very dry and heavy sarcasm.

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      1. But still not obviously outside the grand and expansive scope of their transcontinental stupid. Beerfizz is The Very Devil Himself!

        Future generations, please be kind to ours.

        Like

    2. The Reader has always wondered when the eco nuts would realize that earth’s original atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide. The Reader wants to see them curse the chlorophyll bearing cells that turned it into oxygen and carbon. Especially since that was the origin of fossil fuels.

      Like

        1. I felt like the street guy this afternoon at the DMV. I really couldn’t stay the multiple hours, but the lady bent a rule all to hell to help somebody who needed it.

          I hope the street guy gets to do a post like that in a few years. [smiles]

          Like

  22. The people advocating that the Right NOT cancel the Left are like the women you see holding their husband’s arm back while he’s in the middle of a fight. They may be opposed to violence, but they are NOT HELPING.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. They’re not opposed to violence. They just want to see it meted out on certain people and not others.

      Like

      1. I have that image so vividly in my head from a video I saw of an older couple (Not elderly) being confronted by a homeless man with a knife. The woman thought they could just walk away. The man knew the guy was a threat, but a lazy and intoxicated one and knew he could take him down. And while he was trying to do this, the wife kept grabbing his arm and hauling on it. Halving his defense, mobility and offense. She was NOT going to stop the fight that way. She was going to get her husband stabbed that way. Grounds for divorce, I swear.

        He eventually managed to tear free of his wife, overtake and tackle the man, take his knife and give him a bit of a pounding, and THEN left with his wife. Which probably protected everyone else who would leave the venue they were at.

        Liked by 1 person

  23. I understand both sides of the discussion (here we are, having that “discussion,” people keep saying the country needs to have). Personally, I don’t want to do tit for that, but I will criticize.

    But two other things keep coming to me.

    First, Chiya Raychik of Libs of TikTok has been put through unholy Hell for simply reposting liberal/progressives’ own tweets. i gather there have been a lot of death threats, along with the unfortunately brutal attempted pile-ons. If she’s snapped, she has reason.

    Second, the people being reported are not innocent. They made public statements that at least deserve to be called out. And I just keep remembering how appalled I was when President Trump’s brotber died and people like these quipped, “The wrong brother died.”

    I think we’d all prefer people stop doing this because they decide to, not because the hand of govt falls across their (and our) mouths. Maybe a few will realize just how ugly they’re being. Only time will tell.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. All the above plus I love the white city illustration. Which is being yoinked for use n my nefarious plot to make Zoom meetings frivolous again.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Aside: None of my work online meeting ever go video anymore. If someone needs to share a slide or spreadsheet that happens, but cameras stay off and calls stay on audio. I guess the novelty wore off.

      Like

  26. My beloved had a good day, but got shortness of breath late last night. The local hospital allegedly transported him to Nashville but he may not have arrived.

    Like

  27. “But the people complaining about him were correct about one thing: chilling effects are real, and they shape your local communal cultures.”

    The people complaining about Jerry Pournelle were the ones who later started coming up with “I want an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories!” They knew Dr. Pournelle would demand they back up their schlock, and they knew they couldn’t. Because “its all feeeeelings, man.”

    And also the ones who sold the Hugo Awards to the Chicoms last year, and have been invited not to attend this year. Even Chorfs have limits, it seems.

    It is my humble opinion that we could all benefit from them having their obscene speech chilled, as it were. Let them face the same slings and arrows we do every day. >:(

    In that vein, something that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere yet, a notion. Couple days ago Microsoft shut down one of their DEI units and fired 300~ish Uber-Woke employees. Today, in a “completely unrelated incident,” Microsoft crashed all the airlines and countless government offices. I’m putting “completely unrelated incident” in scare quotes because, you know, is it unrelated? Kind of hard to say, given recent events and the number of completely impossible things all happening at once lately. The fact that one would even consider such a tinfoil hat notion says it all.

    That aside, Dylan Mulvaney does seem to have made the high-water mark for Woke Supremacy. The subsequent destruction of a famous beer brand made some complacent fools sit up and pay attention. Tractor Supply Co. panicked and ditched their whole corporate DEI shtick when it was revealed they had one. John Deere Inc. has posted a “please don’t hurt us” letter regarding their corporate DEI nonesense. Home Depot swiftly fired some random Karen from one of their locations when a video of her saying it was a shame some people can’t shoot straight started going viral. Morning Joe got taken off the air on Monday morning because MSNBC was terrified one of those grotesque apparatchiks would say the same thing. Jack Black just cancelled his own music tour because one of the idiots in his band said that comment on stage.

    They’re frigging terrified. They finally figured out they make up maybe 10% of the USA at most.

    I predict that DEI is going to be over -this- year. By December at the latest every media talking head, TikTok influencer and politician in the USA will be denying they every had anything to do with DEI.

    Because you know why? There is an excellent chance the failed assas1n who the USSS let crawl around on the roof in plain sight for 20 minutes was “nonbinary” and they’re still running his grade-school photo to hide it.

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    1. Phantom, point of order: The actual malefactor was a company called Crowdstrike, which does “security” on multiple OS. The only OS that got BROKE was Windows.

      However, Crowdstrike is the company called in by the DNC to investigate in 2016 when the DNC servers were “hacked by Russians”. This was a key point in the Russia Hoax and the Mueller witch hunt, and Crowdstrike helped. I believe they were also involved in Hildebeeste’s homebrew server.

      Because lots of workstations, including the displays used in airports to show flight schedules, are Windows even when the backend is something else, they created maximum chaos for travellers as the RNC Convention goers were headed home.

      Hmmmmm… 🤔🤔🤔🤔

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Given the amount of economic damage Crowdstrike and Microsoft caused, the Reader suspects that a whole lot of lawyers are studying how to break the software licensing agreement.

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        1. From what I have read Crowdstrike staged a bad driver with their auto-update tool, and when installed and rebooted it bricked every single device it installed on, so every single server compute blade, workstation, and laptop has to have a keyboard and screen plugged physically into it, be booted into local safe mode, and that driver file found and removed before rebooting. Can’t be done remotely or in batch because they are all bricked.

          It’s a Crowdstrike disaster, not really on Microsoft.

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          1. …unless the proposition is Microsoft Windows should trap out bad drivers so they can’t brick the device, which is actually fair.

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      2. Crowdstrike needs to burn. An opinion stated on another forum where IT personnel are eyebrow deep at their various employment (not Crowdstrike) locations.

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  28. BTW, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has apparently just died. I saw a mention of pancreatic cancer but that isn’t confirmed.

    I will simply say, RIP, Ms. Lee, and I hope you were right with the Author when the time came. If it was pancreatic cancer, I don’t care who it is, I don’t wish that on anybody.

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      1. Bile comes from the liver and is dispensed by the gallbladder.

        And yes, it’s too soon.

        OTOH, J.D. Vance bringing up the OSU/UM rivalry, and then chiding Michigan not to engage in political violence (by chanting “Go Blue”) was pretty hilarious. Apparently dark football humor is acceptable to everyone….

        Liked by 1 person

        2. And if it produces a gallstone, that gallstone can travel down the intestine looking for a place to lodge. The pancreatic duct is a particularly interesting place for it to do that. Ask me how I know.

          Hospitals try to kick you out as soon as they can. In 2008, the gallstone blocking my pancreatic duct was good for a 30 day stay.

          Like

  29. Well, that’s timely.

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  31. I’m reminded of a little exchange Harry Dresden has with Michael Carpenter (probably one of the most morally upstanding characters in the entire series) when he’s worrying about karmic fallout for the actions he took in Grave Peril. 

    “I’m not a philosopher, Harry,” [Michael] said. “But here’s something for you to think about, at least. What goes around comes around. And sometimes you get what’s coming around.” He paused for a moment, frowning faintly, pursing his lips. “And sometimes you are what’s coming around.”

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