An argument for blacklisting
People and companies can choose whom they do business with - and that's a double-edged sword.
Happy “Thank God He’s Finally Gone” day to all of my readers. I’ll be watching FlightRadar24 to see if the Boeing 757 registered as N757AF is headed toward any Moscow airports.
To anyone who doesn’t get a pardon, I hope you have better luck with President Angeli in 2028.
There’s been a lot of talk about “freedom of speech,” “cancel culture” and “blacklisting” lately, and I’m here to set you straight about what it all means.
Suppression of speech by the state is one thing. Private companies and organizations deciding that they do not want to do business with certain people because of their controversial views is something very different.
There are, of course, prohibited grounds for discrimination, like race and gender. Political views, however, are not immutable characteristics you’re born with but choices that you make. And if you choose to take positions that the vast majority of people disagree with, you should be prepared to accept the consequences.
That’s the market at work. That’s freedom at work.
Some people will whine about “censorship,” but I strongly believe that no one is entitled to a platform to express their views. They are free to take their business elsewhere.
And, by God, that’s why I stand with those movie studios that don’t want to work with Communists, radio stations that won’t play Dixie Chicks music, and NFL teams that think having Colin Kaepernick on their roster isn’t worth the hassle.
Sorry, you thought I was referring to something else?
Oh, yeah. This asshole.
Let me be extremely clear: I would not spend a penny to read Josh Hawley’s book. I would not accept money to read Josh Hawley’s book. If I saw Josh Hawley crossing the street in front of me, I’d hesitate before hitting the brakes.
And I am perfectly fine with Simon & Schuster deciding not to publish his undeniably ghostwritten book. He was free to take it to another company, and not surprisingly, the conservative publisher Regnery has picked it up:
Sen. Josh Hawley’s upcoming book has been picked up by conservative publishing house Regnery Publishing after it was dropped by Simon & Schuster in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
Regnery announced on Twitter that it was moving ahead with publishing Hawley's “The Tyranny of Big Tech.” The book is scheduled to be published on May 4, according to a pre-order page for the book on Barnes and Noble’s website.
Simon & Schuster announced that it wouldn't publish the book one day after the riots at the U.S. Capitol that forced Congress to delay its certification of the Electoral College vote affirming President-elect Joe Biden as the winner.
[…]
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal published Monday, Regnery president Thomas Spence defended Hawley’s decision to still object to the Electoral Vote, saying the senator invoked his “legal right” in doing so.
“Reasonable people can disagree whether his act was noble or cynical, courageous or rash, but no one can reasonably argue that he intended to incite that afternoon’s invasion of the Capitol by a lawless mob. He immediately and forcefully condemned the attack,” Spence wrote.
Good luck, Regnery! I hope Dollar Tree racks up a lot of sales for it!
Like I said, I will not buy Hawley’s book unless we have another toilet paper shortage. I’d agree that he and his fellow beer gut putschists are orders of magnitude worse than Kaepernick or the Chicks. (Stalin-era Communists? I’ll have to get back to you on that one.) For all of his whining about censorship, he is no friend of free speech in his own right.
And yet…there is something extremely creepy about seeing authors and publishing executives calling for blacklisting of books and authors:
And journalists demanding that the government shut down particular media outlets:
…There is a whole infrastructure of incitement that will remain intact even after Trump leaves office. Just as we do with foreign terrorist groups, so with domestic terrorists: We need to shut down the influencers who radicalize people and set them on the path toward violence and sedition.
[…]
James and Kathryn Murdoch, part of the family that controls Fox News, just called on “media property owners” to stop propagating “lies” that “have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces.” If James’s brother, Lachlan (co-chairman of News Corp and chief executive of Fox Corporation), and father, Rupert (executive chairman of News Corp and co-chairman of Fox Corporation), won’t listen, then large cable companies such as Comcast and Charter Spectrum, which carry Fox News and provide much of its revenue in the form of user fees, need to step in and kick Fox News off. And if smaller competitors such as One America News and Newsmax continue to incite viewers, they, too, should be booted off.
But while we should expect better behavior from media executives, we shouldn’t count on it. CNN (where I’m a global affairs analyst) notes that the United Kingdom doesn’t have its own version of Fox News, because it has a government regulator that metes out hefty fines to broadcasters that violate minimal standards of impartiality and accuracy. The United States hasn’t had that since the Federal Communications Commission stopped enforcing the “fairness” doctrine in the 1980s. As president, Biden needs to reinvigorate the FCC. Or else the terrorism we saw on Jan. 6 may be only the beginning, rather than the end, of the plot against America.
(And thanks to robust regulation of broadcast media, the British never ever voted for ill-advised lying populists or let unhinged radicals lead their political parties ever again!)
Boycotts, pressure campaigns and corporate deplatforming don’t violate the First Amendment (nor its more constrained, but still robust by global standards, equivalent in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). In some cases, they are probably justified. It is a morally complicated issue.
However, I am old enough to remember the atmosphere after 9/11, when many of us - myself included - were all set to trade some of our liberty in exchange for security. That didn’t just involve activities by the government, but by private citizens and corporations. And none of it aged well.
The Dixie Chicks kerfuffle has aged especially poorly in hindsight. And yet…these radio stations that stopped playing their songs after they criticised the Iraq War were private businesses. People who stopped buying their compact discs (remember those?) had every right to do so.
What is the solution for all of this? Honestly, there probably isn’t one. I wouldn’t want the government telling people you’re not allowed to boycott companies or turn down the business of some particularly despicable people. (That’s why, even as a supporter of Israel, I strongly oppose anti-BDS laws.)
But I do think freedom of expression is about culture as much as the power of the state. Just remember two things:
the standards you set for dealing with your opponents can quickly rebound against your team; and,
any power you give the state can and probably will be wielded by the bad guys.
Another one for the “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” file:
London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) says they have fired a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse “with cause” following an internal investigation.
The hospital launched an internal investigation into Kristen Nagle, back in November after she and two other women were charged under the Reopening Ontario Act with organizing an anti-lockdown rally at Victoria Park in London, Ont.
In January she again made headlines when she attended an anti-lockdown event in Washington D.C.
In a video Nagle is seen speaking to a crowd suggesting the number of COVID-19 deaths compared to Canada’s overall population is evidence that the health restrictions are “crazy.”
Nagle also speaks out against the use of masks, gloves and “synthetic drugs” in the video.
Nagle is listed as a founder of “Global Frontline Nurses,” an legitimate-sounding organization whose website looks like that of a legitimate health care group for about two seconds:
One of the most unsettling things about the internet is the number of dubious websites that initially look mainstream and authoritative until you start digging into the content.
Like the Canada-based “Centre for Research on Globalization,” which looks like a real think tank but actually promotes conspiracy theories about everything from 9/11 to COVID to the Syrian Civil War. And “Press TV,” which looks like a real news outlet but is actually backed by the Iranian government and features Holocaust-denial stories. And “New York Jets,” which looks like a real professional football team.
What’s even more unsettling is that people working in the health care system are actively trying to undermine efforts to contain the COVID-19 virus. Not many, I presume. But only a few can still do a lot of damage.
I think it's fair and square for Simon and Schuster, for example, to refuse to publish Hawley's book. And equally fair for him to take it to the type of publisher that serves the type of market he fits into. It's like reading the Washington Post vs. the supermarket rag: there's a place for both. One is for the folks who like reality, and the other for those who prefer...other types of reading.
I agree that it is a little bit creepy to see a country-wide declaration by publishers as you have shown above, and the same goes for Amazon taking control of closing down Parler - and Twitter shutting down Trump. But I would argue that it only goes beyond the point of what's reasonable if Parler and Trump - as examples - were permanently prevented or prohibited from going elsewhere. A quick read of Amazon's court papers clarifies beyond any doubt why they had to do something. To my mind, the real question is, should this be left up to companies and businesses to decide?
If the alternative is government regulation of what people can and cannot say on the web or in books, then it's probably just as well to let nature take its course. As long as people with differing opinions can still find an outlet and therefore an audience, we should be safe from turning into, say, China. Their citizens cannot speak freely even on the other side of the globe.
Now THAT's oppression.
As to how to get people to think critically and analyze their sources of information more effectively...um, I'm stumped on that one. Why do some people seem to learn this naturally, and others...not so much...?
It doesn't help that online media in particular seem to push sensational content to gain traffic. That is something that I believe should be corrected, because it actively selects for misleading content and produces an imbalanced picture of what people in general think and do in the world.