So yeah, I think that medhi hasan thing awakened something in me. And not just me, Kyle Kulinski had a similar discussion on his program. The fact is, there are all of these weirdos coming out of the woodwork since trump won saying all of these awful and profane things, and it's disturbing me greatly. And it's one thing if it's a joke. Like....conservatives have this dark humor sometimes where they say F-ed up things just to trigger the libs. I get it, but here's the thing. I get the impression these guys arent joking any more.
Take, for example, Alligator Alcatraz. I know that right wingers make jokes about alligator moats on the southern border and stuff. And when I first heard of trump building a concentration camp in the florida everglades, I thought it was a joke. But here we are, with a LITERAL CONCENTRATION CAMP in the florida everglades, with actual human rights abuses, and actual people in them, many relatively innocent. This is messed up, and this crap aint a joke any more, it's not funny. Quite frankly, Trumpism has been this accelerating over the past decade. Trump provoked people in 2016 by saying he wont accept the results of the election if he lost. And the liberals lost their minds, and it was all fun and games until this guy decides to BASICALLY INCITE AN INSURRECTION as a result of losing the election. Like, that's the thing. These people say they're gonna do stuff, AND THEN THEY DO IT! At that point, we're no longer joking, these "jokes" are inciting violence and oppression in the real world. We got the "your body my choice" people. Again, provocative, but again, are they even joking at this point? I dont think they are.
Heck, and this is actually what triggered this thought process before Kyle brought it up, I won't post it, but there's this one guy running for governor of california as republican. He's known to be very provocative. He's previously said things like "illegal immigrants can stay if they marry an incel" and stuff like that. And recently, and this is how I found out about this guy, he posted a picture of himself in front of auschwitz with a tweet saying that this is his "zero percent unemployment plan." So...now we're talking about rounding up the homeless and unemployed and throwing them in concentration camps. And keep in mind, trump just signed an executive order to make it easier to remove homeless people from the streets. Uh....are the homeless next? The unemployed next? Are they gonna throw those kinds of "undesirables" in their camps like the nazis did? Looks like it!
And that's the thing, we don't know if these people are joking or not. If anything, the modern direction of the alt right and trumpism seems to be that they say crazy provocative things, and then they do that stuff if they get a positive reaction, although if they dont they'll just back off while saying "it was a joke."
I said in 2016, we shouldnt feed the trolls. But at this point, it's beyond mere trolling. These guys are radicalizing into fascism really quick, and then implementing these ideas FOR REAL. And again, that's very scary and very concerning. Again, it's not a joke any more when the camps are being built and the insurrections are happening.
So...now we gotta wonder, when should free speech carry consequences? Legally, I'm still not sure about charging people unless the behavior is clear incitement of something. I like to be as lax on free speech as i can, I used to consider myself an absolutist, but now I'm like...uh...maybe there should be consequences? I think at the very least if youre RUNNING FOR OFFICE you shouldnt be inciting this stuff. Uncle jim bob on facebook, whatever, he wants to talk about whatever deranged crap he does, okay. But if you're running for public office and making literal holocaust jokes like mr california guy, uh...maybe there should be penalties tied to that. I mean, thats what made things different pre trump. The whackjobs in the party would say whatever foul provocative thing that came to mind, but politicians like george bush or john mccain or mitt romney would be like "what? no, that's insane" for the most part. There was a diifference between the crazy crap the base was for, and what the politicians were. In the trump era, the people running for public office and have public positions of power are the ones saying insane crap themselves. So if we focus on stuff legally, maybe politicians should be fined if they say things that imply or incite real world violence. I do believe they should be held to a different standard.
For the rest of us, eh, let's revisit cancel culture a bit. I'm very mixed on cancel culture. I believe the left gets way too self righteous and trigger happy with their cancelling behavior where theyll cancel just about everyone over minor sleights against their dogma. They are lambasting AOC for voting yes on iron dome funding for israel. They attack cenk uygur for not being pro trans people in sports. They ban people from subreddits for buying the new harry potter video game because jk rowling is a transphobe. And I've been moderated before just for putting my foot down with these people before. The problem with cancel culture is its mob justice. The problem with mob justice is the mob gets out of hand. Which is btw, what's also happening on the right, with these insane suggestions being turned into actual policy.
At the same time, take mr fascist from the medhi hassan thing. He called for a dictatorship, thought franco in spain was based, wants a catholic theocracy, and struggled on the idea of admitting that the nazis were bad, despite them killing catholics! Should that guy be cancelled? YES! Should some motherfricker calling for putting people in concentration camps be cancelled? YES! At some point, yes, when your words are so vile and vulgar, you should face social consequences for them. I admit, my own opinion on this is still being formulated and the kinds of behaviors i find cancellable is far smaller than most cancel culture happy lefties are. I mean, I'm not just talking minor offenses. I'm talking the people who are out in out fascists, calling for the end of democracy, putting people into camps, that sort of thing. THOSE PEOPLE, THOSE WITH ACTUAL NAZI AND FASCIST VIEWS, yeah, they should be cancelled. Society should thumb their nose at those people to the greatest extent possible, and they should face society wide shunning for their actions IMO. We need to make people scared to be open nazis again to some extent. There should be social consequences for that.
Again, I'm not sure what this kind of framework this should take place in. Legally, i dont want the government to step in more than necessary because government crackdowns on speech are dangerous. Look at trump weaponizing arcane laws clearly intended for other purposes in order to push his authoritarianism. You dont wanna give him more tools. But, yeah, I do think fining and maybe even disqualifying candidates for repeat offenses involving advocating for really dangerous policies should be on the table.
For cancel culture, that's the double edged sword with it. Clearly lefties get too trigger happy over that stuff, but at the same time, there should be some line somewhere. We can't just have people openly calling for throwing the unemployed in concentration camps or having a catholic dictatorship becoming common opinions. Once these opinions were fringe weirdos but since trump won in 2024, these guys are getting too comfortable just letting it all hang out and being like "yeah im a fascist." So....I can get behind SOME level of cancel culture if it reaches that level of moral depravity. Either way, we need to stop platforming these guys or making them feel comfortable giving such opinions. The fact that these ideas have entered the commonplace so easily is greatly disturbing and yeah...maybe we really shouldn't, because these guys are inciting real world violence and oppression with their speech. One day they're talking about it, the next they're actually doing it. It's fine to have an abstract political conversation about something. But when we got people "joking" about throwing people in camps and as it turns out they're not actually joking...uh yeah, maybe those guys should be held responsible for their speech somehow.
Again, this is an opinion im developing. We'll see where it goes, but Im kinda on the same page as kyle here.
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