free speech and free association

assessing the accusations of cancel culture

the story of the last week has been one of a worm turning and a society as one standing up to express that which has long inhabited hearts but, for reasons of fear and intimidation, has been absent from voices and actions:

we are deeply, astonishingly, utterly and bone deep fatigued with having to cohabit with crybully cadres of smug, nasty, awful people who mistake such traits for virtue and hector others relentlessly, drunk on self-entitled zeal.

and it has suddenly become OK to tell these people off again.

it has become OK to separate from them, fire them for having low character, and require that they leave the civilized company of others.

this is becoming a full blown “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” moment where an avatar rises as a form of societal acid test confluencing with a societal permission structure and it becomes OK to become angry and it becomes OK to defend oneself from the endless punch no punchbacks predation of these “protected” classes of hallucination peddlers endlessly demanding that you call men women, the morbidly obese healthy, and anyone not exactly like these obstreperously assaultive karentopian conmen (and women, and them/thems) fascists.

you can never really guess what the avatar is going to be. it emerges unexpected from the social current and galvanizes a zeitgeist making that which could not be said at once into common currency.

and here we are.

the omerta is over and once more, speech has consequences.

(dust appears ot have more calories than i would have suspected)

they are coming for them in droves.

and i would be lying to say that i am not pleased.

this has the sense of a real housecleaning, a chance to let the people who so many had for so long been so sick of hoist themselves by their own petards and give the rest of us an excuse to show them the door.

it's amazing just how many people who were so convinced that they were both moral and a majority had no idea how unpopular and abhorrent they actually were.

they were so sure that they were perfectly safe to spew truly venomous sentiment and have it called virtue.

they had no idea how rapidly the tune can change when a preference falsification bubble bursts.

it’s a brand new day.

many of the more allegedly intellectually inclined among the cancel culture leftists who were so long in power are taking issue with this and proclaiming things like “oh, so now you guys like cancel culture! hypocrites! liars!”

this is a midwit conceit and easily disassembled in straightforward fashion.

here, simple rule:

it’s hard to imagine how to propose a simpler or more obvious construction.

this is an issue of social contract.

if you advocate violence toward people based on their views, you have stepped outside the contract of granting peaceful agency in exchange for your own.

you no longer get to whine about "cancel culture."

you lost that right when you engaged in it yourself and cheered violence in response to speech.

if you refuse to be bound by the rules, you forfeit their protection.

and that is all.

there is no more to say.

calling for the death of people for their peaceful views is the ultimate expression of cancel culture.

it’s a 100% perfect marker for “i have stepped into the arena unprotected and unbound.”

no more whining.

not after that.

once you see this framing, all these arguments fall apart.

the right to self-defense is fundamental and retaliation is not the same as initiating aggression. they are fundamentally different acts.

if you punch me in the face, you do not get to say “but i thought you said you oppose punching people in the face!” when i punch you back.

that’s not how that works.

i do oppose punching peaceful people in the face, but you are not a peaceful person and mistaking my peaceability for the incapacity to engage in great violence is a great error. i just chose not to until it was needed.

you also do not get to say “ok, i stopped punching you, you have to stop punching me now!”

that’s not how that works either.

once you are shown to be a real and committed threat who has crossed the line and aggressed upon peaceful people, you’re in a new category and self-defense extends to removing the threat, not just fighting until the threat starts to snivel and whine and cry “no fair.”

and the constitution does not oppose this, it defends it.

it guarantees free speech, not speech free from consequence.

it also guarantees free association neither proscribed nor mandated by the state.

firing someone is a simple matter of free association.

you are not stopping their speech, there is no violation or limitation, merely consequence in the form of others basing their views on whether or not to associate with you upon their perception of your character.

that’s about as moral and constitutional as it gets.

and that’s what makes all this sub-midwit tactical babble so tiresome.

it’s just nonsense.

this is the same crowd that would howl to fire you if you said things about vaccines or gender or climate change or immigration or if you opposed DEI.

listen to them now.

and all they do is lie. her views from 2022 are (oddly) exactly correct. couldn’t have said it better myself. she knows damn well that what she’s saying now is untrue and unjust. she just does not care. her morality is tactical:

consequences from speech are for when i punish you, they should certainly never apply to me!

contrast this to the folks trying to dunk on laura loomer (of who i am no fan but who happens to be right here)

see the difference?

one can, with consistency, be against state censorship but pro “consequences from the content of your speech” as people exercise their free association accordingly.

i would describe that as the moral position.

you want to know why i am a free speech absolutist?

because the free speech of odious people is the greatest boon that they could ever give to the rest of us.

the cure for awful speech is a soap box and an audience.

this parody musk account was asking the question i think many wrongheadedly advocated answering in the affirmative.

my answer is a most emphatic “no.”

i don't think there's ever been a time in human history when reprehensible people were so keen to make their moral failings known.

they might as well be dousing themselves in fluorescent paint and dancing under blacklights.

let them.

it's better to know who they are.

oxford will not expel the head of their debating society who cheered charlie’s death (after having debated him)

and i support their right to make this choice.

they also threaten to expel students who misgender gender confused students.

and i also support their right to make that choice.

it’s a private institution. free accociation is for everyone even when they use it in ways you do not like.

but we get to make up our minds about what we think about them on the basis of what they say and how they associate.

and we will.

and they may not like it.

tough noogies.

if they want to be hateful? let them be hateful.

give them megaphones; make sure that everyone hears them.

they are doing us a service.

they are showing us who they are.

this would be a great title for her autobiography

charlie had this one right.

and this is true. but this does NOT obviate the idea of free association or cancelling the cancellers.

and if the perfect acid test of “should we shun you because you are not bound by decency or social contract” is “expressing desires for violence and death of those with whom you disagree” this hardly seems an over-exacting standard.

these crybullies are so incredibly aggressive because they have for decades been untouchable. now comes the “find out” part.

those we surround ourselves with shape our lives, our experiences, and reflect upon us.

i think free association should be absolute.

it’s OK to want to be away from awful, smug, nasty people.

most of the country has long wanted this and simply felt unable to do anything about it.

if this is the excuse that clears such unpleasant and unbound folks out of our companies and congresses and schools like some sort of institutional drano, so be it.

their right to speak and our right to refuse to associate with them if they say odious things are both constitutional and moral.

they are the essence of a free society.

roadhouse rules: