Cancel culture has gone too far

[Cuddles]

GOP cancelling the 1st amendment again:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1367682676417773571

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kentucky-bill-insult-police-officer-crime/
Kentucky bill would make it a crime to insult a police officer

A bill moving through Kentucky's Senate would make it a crime to insult or taunt a police officer during a riot. Supporters say the bill targets people who unlawfully "cross the line" but opponents call it a blatant attempt to crush protests and a violation of First Amendment rights.

Senate Bill 211 mandates up to three months' imprisonment for a person who "accosts, insults, taunts, or challenges a law enforcement officer with offensive or derisive words," or makes "gestures or other physical contact that would have a direct tendency to provoke a violent response from the perspective of a reasonable and prudent person."

A person convicted of this misdemeanor charge could also face a $250 fine and be disqualified from public assistance benefits for three months.

The bill also has a provision pushing back on the "defund the police" movement, stating that government entities that fund law enforcement agencies must "maintain and improve their respective financial support."

The bill advanced through the Senate's Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection committee on Thursday in a 7-3 vote, with only Republicans supporting it. It now moves to the full Senate and could be passed there as early as next week, and would then need to be passed in the House. Republicans control both chambers of Kentucky's legislature.

CBS News requested comment from state Senator David Carroll, a Republican and retired police officer who is the bill's lead sponsor. Following publication of this story, he wrote in an email, "After looking at you're headline, I don't think I have anything to say to you. I miss the time when we actually had unbiased journalists!!" [SIC]

CBS News also reached out to the staff of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat.

Carroll told the Louisville Courier-Journal that the bill is a response to riots that broke out in many cities across the country last summer. Louisville was an epicenter for racial justice protests due to the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed in March 2020 during a raid of her home by Louisville police officers.

"This country was built on lawful protest, and it's something that we must maintain — our citizens' right to do so," Carroll told the Courier-Journal. "What this deals with are those who cross the line and commit criminal acts."

The ACLU of Kentucky called the legislation "an extreme bill to stifle dissent" and said it would criminalize free speech.

Kentucky cons cancel 1st amendment in search of safe space over words that trigger them:

https://www.courier-journal.com/sto...ll-criminalizing-insulting-police/4655757001/

'How dare you': Democrats lash out over bill criminalizing police insults, but bill passes

FRANKFORT — The Senate passed a bill Thursday evening to enhance penalties for crimes related to rioting after more than an hour of heated debate, including criticism that it would criminalize insulting police officers and chill protected free speech.

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, a retired police officer, said his Senate Bill 211 would crack down on and send a message to those who "tried to destroy the city of Louisville" in the civil unrest last year.

In addition to raising punishments on crimes related to rioting and prohibiting early release on such offenses, SB 211 would make it a crime to provoke an officer verbally to the point it could provoke a violent response.

Though Carroll said "insulting an officer is not going to cause anyone to go to jail," his bill states a person is guilty of disorderly conduct — a Class B misdemeanor with a penalty of up to 90 days' imprisonment — if he or she "accosts, insults, taunts, or challenges a law enforcement officer with offensive or derisive words, or by gestures or other physical contact, that would have a direct tendency to provoke a violent response from the perspective of a reasonable and prudent person."

The bill passed by a 22-11 vote, with six Republicans joining Democrats to vote 'no.'

Sen. Gerald Neal, a Democrat who represents a majority-Black district in west Louisville, said he was insulted by Carroll's bill, which he viewed as a direct attack on his constituents who protest for and demand racial justice.

A crowd gathers on Bardstown Road in the Highlands to protest the killing of Breonna Taylor on May 30, 2020 in Louisville, Ky. Police in riot gear block them from moving further south on Bardstown Road.
"This is another hammer on my district," Neal said. "This is a backhand slap. And I resent it. I personally resent it."

An angered Neal twice said "how dare you," calling the bill "beneath this body. It's unwise. It's provocative. It's unnecessary. It's unreasonable."

Neal added he was "befuddled" by the legislation, as laws are already on the books to deal with violent rioters, saying it could harm efforts toward the city to coming together and healing after the tumultuous months of protests kicked off by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor.

Carroll stood by his bill amid the criticism by Neal and other Democrats, saying the legislature would take the steps necessary to protect police officers and property in Louisville that Mayor Greg Fischer failed to take last year.

"The silent majority in this state supports this legislation," Carroll said. "They are as troubled by what has happened in this country, by what happened in Louisville, as I am. I will not apologize for this bill."

According to a Courier Journal review of data, Louisville Metro Police recorded 871 protest-related arrests — including 252 with at least one felony charge — between May 29 and Sept. 28. Black people made up 53% of the total arrests and 69% of arrests with a felony.

Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, said the passage of a bill like SB 211 could overshadow the goodwill and positive racial justice work of the session to advance legislation banning certain no-knock warrants, giving subpoena power to Louisville's police civilian review board and creating a new TIF district in west Louisville.

Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, criticized the section criminalizing taunting police, noting those arrested on such a charge must be held in jail for at least 48 hours — a penalty that does not automatically extend to those arrested on murder, rape and arson in Kentucky.

"This bill shatters what we're working toward healing," McGarvey said. "This furthers the divide and it puts us legally down a road where I cannot believe this body wants us to go."

Several of the Republican members to vote against the bill — including Sen. Julie Raque Adams of Louisville — explained their opposition to the mandatory 48-hour holds and the provision on insulting or taunting police, hoping the House sends back an amended bill striking those sections.

 

[userque]

Kentucky cons cancel 1st amendment in search of safe space over words that trigger them:

Are these the same Kentucky cons that like to use the N word?

 

[gwb-trading]

Cancel culture is a threat to all great culture
https://www.powelltribune.com/stories/cancel-culture-is-a-threat-to-all-great-culture,30100
By Kevin Killough

Cancel culture reached new levels of absurdity in the past couple weeks when Dr. Seuss became the newest piece of beloved culture deemed racist. Responding to a growing controversy, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the organization that owns the right to the Seuss empire, decided it would remove six of Seuss’ titles from publication.

Some of those defending the move point out this isn’t censorship, as the company rightfully owns the books and has every right to make marketing decisions based on shifting consumer demands. If this were just a private company’s decision, they would have a valid point. This went far behind that, however, and it’s why people should be concerned about the way cancel culture creates a de facto censorship.

Even if it’s not a product of government action, it is quite political: President Joe Biden removed any mention of Dr. Seuss from Read Across America Day; some public libraries are removing Seuss’ works from their shelves; and eBay prohibited any listing of the books in question after sales of the offending books skyrocketed. (Interestingly, you can still use eBay to bid on copies of Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf.)

Facebook posted fact checkers’ warning on memes suggesting the Cat in the Hat had been canceled. While it’s true that title was not among those no longer being published, much of what led to the rebranding of Dr. Seuss as a racist was a misleading 2019 study, “The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’s Children’s Books.” This study argues that the Cat in the Hat embodies “racist tradition” and Horton Hears a Who! “reinforces themes of white supremacy.” Don’t be surprised if the mob soon comes for the rest of Dr. Seuss’ titles.

Dr. Seuss instilled values that should be welcomed by any progressive liberal. The Lorax contains a parable about saving the environment. The Butter Battle Book is a satire about the Cold War. The villain in Yertle the Turtle mirrors the rise and fall of Hitler. In The Sneetches, two groups of birds — some with stars on their bellies and some without — come to realize these superficial differences don’t really matter.

To be sure, the way Dr. Seuss drew some of his characters display racist caricatures, and some of his work can be seen as a defense of Japanese internment during World War II. It’s true that this man, whose brilliance birthed a love of reading for generations of children, probably had more than a few flaws. But by the standards of the cancel culture mob, any artist whose work is more than a few years old won’t be able to pass their rigid moral purity tests and will certainly become the target of its wrath.

The cancel culture mob’s intolerance is not only diminishing our ability to appreciate large swaths of great art, literature, and movies, it’s ruining our sense of humor. In a New York Times column defending the canceling of Dr. Seuss, Charles M. Blow called out the Warner Bros. cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew as furthering “rape culture.” For those of us who grew up laughing with these cartoons, we know Pepe Le Pew as the guy you don’t want to be. This overly confident fool never got the girl precisely because he was too proud to recognize his own flaws. That’s the joke, and like any joke, it’s not going to be funny to anyone who has to have it explained to them.

The pervasiveness of this censorious mob is what makes it such a toxic threat. It can easily turn so many against the wonderful works Americans have produced throughout our history, leaving us with a pool of ever-shrinking content deemed acceptable.

America’s legacy, like all great civilizations, contains some huge imperfections, but this nation also gave its citizens the liberty to create some of the best works of music, art, literature, theater, and cinema the world has known. It’s all now being reviewed under impossible standards. When cancel culture isn’t limiting our access, it is teaching a new generation that these works have no value to appreciate.

There really aren’t any easy solutions to this problem. We can’t legislate cancel culture away. The best way to counter this toxic culture is to not cancel it. Read Dr. Seuss to your kids. Teach them about the shortcomings of his works — and that their flaws are no reason to dismiss entirely the value they have. Those who ban books have never been the good guys, and with the right guidance, kids today will leave cancel culture to the dustbins of the history where it belongs.

 

[userque]

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
‘Cancel Culture’ Was Always A Term Without Meaning
It is difficult, if not impossible, to find greater hypocrisy on any issue than the kind exhibited by cancel culture alarmists.
By TYLER BROKER
on March 1, 2021 at 1:48 PM

have tried to define it, but even these attempts suffer from total reliance on subjective, nondefinable, and unprincipled terms.

Despite not being able to come up with a principled definition, many serious people still persist in claiming that cancel culture is somehow a big problem for the country and the culture of free speech or open debate. But these cancel culture alarmists suffer from a number of blatantly obvious factual realities that discredit their claims.

Let’s begin with the oft repeated cancel culture alarmists claim that free speech or open debate is somehow being stifled because “[e]veryone else lives in fear of the digital Thunderdome.” The glaring problem with this claim is that more people than ever before are participating in open debate. In other words, there is no evidence to suggest that open debate is being threatened. What all evidence does show is that when prominent people speak, they are being confronted with more criticism from the masses who, until the age of social media, did not have the technological capability to voice their dissent so directly. So, when cancel culture alarmists claim that what they are worried about is maintaining an environment where people can speak their minds more freely, it becomes absurd when they get upset when people do just that. Nothing whatsoever about the legal or even cultural aspect of free speech suggests that anyone should be insulated from a Thunderdome of criticism. Indeed, I submit the marketplace of ideas was always meant to be a Thunderdome.

Another problem with cancel culture alarmists is their arguments suffer from what First Amendment attorney Ken White (Popehat) calls a “motte-and-bailey problem.” For any who are not aware, a motte-and-bailey is a fallacy whereby an arguer conflates two positions that are vastly different. For an illustration of how cancel culture alarmists use the motte-and-bailey let’s use an example whereby an institution or company fires someone because a vast amount of people outside of the institution or company demand it on Twitter or by threat of boycott. According to cancel culture alarmists the fact that somebody can be fired because a “Twitter mob” demands it is a horrible development for our culture. But is it?

To be sure, there are undeniable examples where mass demands to fire someone has created victims which no one, including myself, can or should deny.

Equally certain, however, is that in many, many, many, many, instances it can be reasonably argued that the firing was morally justified given the behavior at issue. Indeed, threat of the digital Thunderdome represents the only type of pressure the otherwise powerless people can bring against such grotesque, racist behavior. The problem with cancel culture alarmists is that they do not take any time to distinguish the bad examples with the good. But as Ken White observed is this wonderful debate, cancel culture alarmists also refuse to acknowledge “the fact that boycotts, group public condemnation, and even demands for firing are the sort of speech that comparatively obscure and powerless people have available to them.”

A light must also be shed on the amount of organized hypocrisy you see surrounding cancel culture alarmists. As a San Francisco 49ers fan, I remember quite clearly the reaction by one leader in particular, who conservatives are now literally worshipping with golden statues, toward NFL players who knelt during the national anthem. Conservatives cheered when the orange-painted loser of 2020 demanded peacefully protesting players should be fired or physically dragged off the field. But wait, wouldn’t that make the orange man and his cult following proponents of cancel culture? Not according to them of course. Even when they (I would argue rightfully in this case), “cancel” a speaker at their uncancelling America party they don’t seem to grasp the irony of it all. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to find greater hypocrisy on any issue than the kind exhibited by cancel culture alarmists.

As I am sure that many serious folks will continue to maintain there is something alarming about cancel culture by pointing out the legitimate harm that has happened to innocent people I will end with this point: the solution or remedying to actual injustices can’t be that we focus our attention on an undefinable, unprincipled, hypocritical term. And by focusing on this term, you are in fact giving legitimacy to countless shameless hacks who invoke the term to label any opinion that is critical of their side as CaNcEl CuLtUrE. At a minimum, if folks are going to keep using this worthless term they should have to focus as much, if not more on the terms misuse as the misuse happens far more frequently and presents greater danger of stifling open debate. Moreover, call it cliché to say but to embrace First Amendment freedoms like free speech or free association means having to take the good with the bad. Hate speech causes harm. The orange man’s words have caused death and literally threatened democracy. But I remain opposed to anyone who says we should abandon free speech protections as they represent our greatest bulwark against any threat. And labelling the orange man as a proponent of cancel culture does absolutely nothing to address any of the problems his speech generates.

https://abovethelaw.com/2021/03/cancel-culture-was-always-a-term-without-meaning/

 

[gwb-trading]

 

[gwb-trading]

 

[smallfil]

The Brits are stupid? Your last two presidents have been Trump and Biden No wonder China is eating your lunch..

President Donald Trump is a genius but, Joe Biden is an idiot x 100,000%. Other world leaders hate President Donald Trump because he stood for US interests as opposed to the globalists back slapping each other's backs. The US was taken advantage of in trade agreements courtesy of the RINO liberals and Democrat extreme liberal hacks. Remember, Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law and had the gall to say, it would bring forth more American jobs? Citizens of other countries actually, like President Donald Trump. Hongkong demonstrators carried American flags and praised the US. Other Europeans too would rather have President Donald Trump rather than soyboys Macron or Trudeau. That speak volumes there.

 

[Cuddles]

you're falling for the latest FOX fear mongering yet again. I want to screen potential employees by voting record.

 

[Tony Stark]

I want to screen potential employees by voting record.

That would be a great idea.

 

[userque]

Trump Goes Full Cancel Culture As He Angrily Demands Fox News Fire Karl Rove
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fox-news-fire-karl-rove_n_6041c6cfc5b6429d0832553e

GOP's Thune says Trump allies engaging in 'cancel culture'
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/19/john-thune-trump-cancel-culture-470137

Trump lists GOP politicians he wants voted out for criticising him – minutes after condemning ‘cancel culture’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ac-speech-republicans-cancelled-b1808986.html

So on and so forth.

Hypocrites gonna hypocrisy.