Stop calling them liberals. They are leftists. Totalitarians. A true liberal does not wet his pants over someone else’s point of view. In fact, that’s one of the hallmarks of classical liberalism, something out of style within the American left around the time of JFK. They don’t call themselves ‘progressives’ just for fun; it’s because even subconsciously, leftists know that they are wholly illiberal.

Look at the examples cited in this piece. This is the work of totalitarians, people who have more in common with radical jihadis than with members of a free society. I have no doubt that some of the wokerati would be just fine with executing the heretics in their ranks, and they would certainly have no qualms about lining conservatives against walls. It’s one reason why they have such a fetish about guns; disarming the citizenry is always on the authoritarian to-do list.

“Cancel culture,” and its conduits (twitter and FaceBook), are being used as tools to avoid democratic accountability – for now by the childish wing of the left.

Bannon, of whom I am no great admirer, made an analogous point when he said he was proud to be called a racist – because mere labeling is usually a tacit admission of absence of argument. (Notably, Stella Creasey, through either ignorance or dishonesty, claimed he’d said he was proud to be racist – he did not.) Labeling someone racist means there is no need to attend to their arguments.

This avoidance of debate is an avoidance of democratic process, and it is dangerous. The same motivation – to hamstring democratic process – underlined the left’s insistence that we stay in the EU (where democratic process matters less). It is dangerous there too.

The lesson the idiots involved in “cancel culture” have failed to learn is that all political tools will be used eventually by one’s opponents. Cancel culture may be turned on you next.

Okay I will make some comments on the whole issue. An important point about freedom of speech is it only applies vis-a-vis the government. This means that the government cannot punish you for your speech, especially when it´s critical of the government. It also means you have a right to protest and any restrictions cannot be for the purpose of silencing protest against the government. It also must be applied neutrally, i.e. supporters of the government cannot get an exemption when critics cannot get it. But it only applies to government, not to private entites. Good example here is Twitter. A lot of the cancel culture controversies start here. And you know what? I think that in some cases, they probably were wrong (Example David Shor´s firing). But free speech doesn´t apply to private entities, and for good reason. We don´t expect physical businesses to allow all people in, so why not digital entities? Once we understand that free speech doesn´t apply to private entities, a lot of the cancel culture complaints are mooted, including this article. And no, cancel culture is not Mao´s revolutionary guards or the Khmer Rouge, they have actually killed millions to do it. Nor do they even have a resemblance. Most cancel culture people are not too political here, so my point is cancel culture leading to negative consequences socially is not a free speech issue.

The totalitarian overtones of “overwokeness” are clearly stated, and the examples are terrifying. Yet the events that have precipitated these overreactions (euphemistically), are also terrifying. The murder of George Floyd now symbolizes the reality of being black in America, and the symbol has become international for a reason.
Yet, when do the ideas I hold make me immoral? When do my expressed thoughts give others the right to suppress or exile me? There is a line, of course, but who gets to define it and how?

A core tenet of liberalism is the freedom of association. This means that communities intolerant of dissent regarding their foundational principles need to be tolerated, regardless of whether those foundational principles are fascism or critical theory. Banishment from a community for ideological impurity or wrongthink is certainly illiberal, but it is not illiberal enough to itself be banished.

No one owes anyone else a livelihood or respect. Unhappy with Twitter or YouTube? Set up a server to host your own content. Fired from a now-illiberal organization (newspaper, university)? Go somewhere else. If too many people start to disagree with your opinion columns, go off and become a plumber. Until people are showing up to torch your alternative endeavors, there is little a liberal ought to say.

Did progressivism become more puritan as it grew mainstream? Of course it did, and this was to be expected. A dedicated commitment to ideological pluralism – a commitment to process rather than outcome – tends to be a difficult sell at scale and pretty much every movement preaching pluralism abandoned it as it became more popular. “Here be villains and monsters to say” is far more motivating than abstract philosophising. Punitive self-righteousness is too appealing a stance.

So yes – wokesterism is being “unfair” to conservative and pluralist opinions. Boo hoo. Today’s cancel culture is certainly no worse, and is arguably noticeably less bad, to how those outside of the mainstream have always been treated. It certainly is nothing new and no sign of society becoming soft totalitarian or even less free. The only thing that is new, is that opinions that were mainstream 10 years ago have quickly lost this position within certain institutions, and people who were just as fire-breathingly self-righteous as the worst of the wokesters are now finding themselves on the receiving end of the stick. Welcome to the other side.