Tag Archives: Cancel-culture

Self-censorship in the US, by Judith Bergman

Posted on September 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

Remember different opinions, public expression, and arguments, sometimes heated? Those are fading remnants of the US that once was, replaced by “wokeness,” cancel, and self-censorship. From Judith Bergman at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • The US nominally enshrines the most far-reaching freedom of speech, thanks to the First Amendment of the Constitution. Yet the average number of Americans who self-censor is slowly beginning to approximate that of Germany, where… “Nearly two-thirds of citizens are convinced that ‘today one has to be very careful on which topics one expresses oneself’, because there are many unwritten laws about what opinions are acceptable and admissible”.
  • It is, however, not surprising. American campuses have steered a “leftist” course for decades. The tilt has had familiar consequences: the proliferation on campus of “safe spaces”, trigger warnings, de-platforming of conservative voices and a “cancel culture” aimed at professors and students who do not conform to an on-campus political orthodoxy that has become increasingly totalitarian. Most recently, the dean of University of Massachusetts Lowell’s School of Nursing, Leslie Neal-Boylan, was fired by the school after writing “Black lives matter, but also everyone’s life matters” in an email to students and faculty.
  • When citizens stop voicing their concerns in public about current events, policies and ideas out of fear that they will lose their livelihoods and social standing, it is — or should be — a huge problem in a democracy.
  • A democratic society of fearful citizens who dare not speak about what is on their minds — often important issues of their time — is doomed to succumb to the will of those who bully the hardest and shout the loudest.
A democratic society of fearful citizens who dare not speak about what is on their minds — often important issues of their time — is doomed to succumb to the will of those who bully the hardest and shout the loudest. (Image source: iStock)

A recent survey of 2,000 Americans by Cato Institute/YouGov found that 62% of Americans say “the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive”. This is up from 2017, when 58% agreed with this statement. “Majorities of Democrats (52%), independents (59%) and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share”.

Continue reading→

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Media, Politics

Tagged , ,

I went to Mount Rushmore… before the Bolsheviks cancel it, by Simon Black

Posted on September 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

If Mt. Rushmore is on your bucket list, better visit soon. From Simon Black at sovereignman.com:

After having visited 120+ countries on all seven continents, and dozens of states across the US, it’s a pretty rare event these days that I travel somewhere I’ve never been before.

I’m pretty weak in the South Pacific—I’ve never been to Tahiti or Bora Bora… nor central Africa, like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But most of the rest of the world I have covered.

One blank spot on my US travel map was South Dakota… until yesterday afternoon.

I knew back in July that I would have to make a trip… primarily to see Mount Rushmore before the Bolsheviks cancel it.

Sadly I’m only half-kidding.

I almost never watch TV anymore. But I happened to be flipping through channels on the afternoon of Friday, July 3rd and saw a reporter from the Communist News Network describing Mount Rushmore as “a monument of two slave owners on land wrestled away from Native Americans.”

And that pretty well sums up the national hysteria right now.

(Meanwhile, on the right side of the screen, CNN had its real-time Covid statistics to continue stoking fear and paranoia. And that single clip tells you everything you need to know about mainstream media.)

Then, just this week in Washington DC, the local government released a report of 153 properties across the city—schools, parks, monuments– that should be renamed because they’re presently named after a “person of concern.”

The report was authored by a special committee established by Washington DC’s mayor, which was tasked with identifying monuments that have “disqualifying histories”.

This includes people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and dozens of others.

The findings are so absurd that the DC committee even recommended to “remove, relocate, or contextualize” the Washington Monument.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Governments, History, Propaganda, race relations

Tagged ,

The Aim of Social Justice Movement is Subversion of Core Western Values, by Vasko Kohlmayer

Posted on August 31, 2020 | Leave a comment

Beware a movement that refuses to even define its name. What is social justice? From Vasko Kohlmayer at lewrockwell.com:

We have spoken previously about what the attacks on statues and churches that have been taking place as part of the so-called “anti-racism” protests reveal about the true nature of this movement. They show that these protests are not actuated by a desire to bring about racial justice, but by an aversion toward Western culture. It is not the elimination of non-existent racism that is the objective of this crusade. Its real goal is the destruction of liberal democracy.

Beneath the crass attacks on the physical artifacts of Western tradition, however, a less obvious but far more destructive assault is being launched: It is an assault on the core values and principles of Western civilization. It is an onslaught on the very values that have made its accomplishments possible. The Western miracle came about because certain ideas and principles gained hold in the occidental psyche, and it was these ideas and principles that enabled the Western mind to create a civilization that has advanced, flourished and excelled in ways unmatched by any other.

One of the quintessential, and arguably the most important, among these values is freedom of expression. The Western achievement could not have taken place without it. Conversely, it is the lack of this freedom that is the main reason for why other civilizations lag behind in almost every metric. It is not difficult to see why, since it is through an open exchange of ideas and sympathetic consideration of differing points of view that true learning and progress take place. Similarly, by giving room to creative individuals to express the innermost stirrings of their souls, great works of art are created.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Culture, Governments, History, Insurrection, Media, Morality, Propaganda, Society

Tagged , ,

The tyranny of cancel culture, by Brendan O’Neill

Posted on July 7, 2020 | 1 comment

It’s tyranny any time anyone uses force or intimidation to shut somebody up and there is no legal redress. From Brendan O’Neill at spiked-online.com:

Trump is right: cancel culture is destroying freedom of thought.

Trump is right. Cancel culture is the key weapon in the armoury of the intolerant. In his 4 July speech at Mount Rushmore, Trump talked about the ‘political weapon’ of ‘cancel culture’ – the totalitarian thirst for ‘driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees’.

On the cult of wokeness, the ideology of PC that says there is only one way to think about history, race, gender and myriad other issues, Trump declared: ‘If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished.’

Anyone who has been awake at any time over the past four weeks will know that Trump is right. They will have witnessed the furious, misogynistic rage against JK Rowling for refusing to ‘speak the language’ of the new woke elites – in this case the eccentric, science-denying language of ‘genderfluidity’. They will have seen Britain’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab being mauled for days for refusing to ‘perform the rituals’ of the correct-think mob – in this case by taking the knee (that is, bowing down) to the slogan of Black Lives Matter and all the identitarian nonsense that lurks behind it.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Politics, race relations, Uncategorized

Tagged ,

Think the ‘Cancel’ Mobs Can’t Get Any Worse? Think Again, by Harlan Hill

Posted on July 1, 2020 | 1 comment

Of course it can get worse, and it will, because violent insanity that’s unchecked doesn’t get better. From Harlan Hill at realclearpolitics.com:

America is in the midst of one of the great moral panics in our nation’s history. If we don’t stand up for our nation’s core values, the situation could get even worse – and soon. If you’ve spent any time on social media in the last three weeks, you’ve probably noticed the organized campaigns to get college and even high school students expelled or denied admission based on their political views. You’ve also seen gleeful mobs celebrating as Americans lose their jobs for running afoul of someone’s momentary political obsessions.

In every sector of American society, people are having their careers destroyed to the pitiless baying of the “woke” masses. It’s happening in business. CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman spent 20 years building the fitness brand into a multi-billion dollar company, only to be thrown out of the empire he built for declining to go along with the “racism is a public health crisis”  dogma.

It’s happening in journalism. New York Times editor James Bennet, a liberal, was fired for publishing an op-ed by a sitting Republican senator advocating for a military response to nationwide rioting — a position the majority of Americans agreed with. The same fate befell Philadelphia Inquirer editor Stan Wischowski, who was terminated for approving an article that condemned looting and arson.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Law, Media, Philosophy, Politics, race relations

Tagged , ,

Cancelling America, by Paul Craig Roberts

Posted on June 22, 2020 | 1 comment

Many white people are apologizing for being white and for the latest alleged atrocity, the death of George Floyd, which may not have been caused by the policeman charged with the crime. From Paul Craig Roberts at paulcraigroberts.org:

The presstitutes’ story is that George Floyd died from asphyxiation—“I can’t breathe”—from a police officer’s knee on his neck.  This story is not supported by the autopsy and toxicology reports.  

The autopsy report says Floyd died of a heart attack and that no life-threatening injuries were inflicted by police restraint.  The medical examiner found no physical evidence to “support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” The toxicology report says that the concentration of Fentanyl in Floyd’s blood was more than three times the fatal dose. Fentanyl is a dangerous opioid.  Reports that the coroner ruled Floyd’s death a homicide are incorrect. The word “homicide” does not appear in the report.  https://www.scribd.com/document/464269559/George-Floyd-Autopsy-FULL-REPORT#from_embed?campaign=VigLink&ad_group=xxc1xx&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate  

As for Floyd’s neck, the autopsy report states there are “no areas of contusion or hemorrhage . . . The cervical spinal column is palpably stable and free of hemorrhage.” 

Excited Delirium Syndrome (EXD) typically results from fatal drug overdose. The condition results in breathing problems and cardiopulmonary arrest. These were the symptoms that Floyd showed.

John-Paul Leonard provides an analysis here:  https://www.unz.com/article/or-did-george-floyd-die-of-a-drug-overdose/

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Governments, History, Insurrection, Law, Politics, Propaganda, race relations

Tagged ,

On toxic virtue and the new digital samizdat, by Mark E. Jeftovic

Posted on June 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

Now, more than ever, real virtue is its own and only reward, but faux virtue is a bludgeon. From Mark E. Jeftovic at guerrilla-capitalism.com:

Despite the nobility of the underlying cause, eras of mass statue-tipping sometimes portend excessive mob justice.

“Few trials have been more ludicrous both as regarded the charges and the kind of evidence admitted. Convictions and impressions were solemnly listened to, real arguments accorded no weight whatsoever.

Brissot interrupted a witness by declaring that he had never uttered any such calumnies against Paris as were imputed to him.

‘But did your ever deny those calumnies?’ asked the president of the tribunal, as if that settled the question.”

— Ernest F. Henderson, Symbol and Satire in the French Revolution, 1922

There’s never been a more dangerous time to take issue with the mob. I thought we’d hit peak outrage sometime in 2019 and that it would taper off from there. I actually thought that by the time I’d put out my book, Unassailable, in January that I had missed the crescendo. But then coronavirus hit, and deplatformings were back with a vengeance and by April I thought it had gotten so bad I decided to make my book available for free in order to help heterodox voices get their messages out.

But I was remiss in not anticipating how much cancel-culture would ramp back up ahead of the 2020 election, fuelled by widespread angst over the lockdowns and then detonated by the murder of George Floyd. All hell is breaking loose and while there are much needed reforms occurring rapidly, at least amongst policing (mandatory body cam recordings banning of choke holds, a Senate bill to end no-knock warrants, pressure to end Qualified Immunity, and if we’re lucky, a final abolition of civil asset forfeiture), there is also a vast ideological overshoot which somehow reminds me of an intellectual analog of The Terrors phase of the French Revolution.

Continue reading→

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Culture, Government, Morality, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged ,

%d bloggers like this: