The episode, it’s a Good Life, examines the terror inflicted on people when they live with the fear of their life being immediately canceled by an irrational power. The irrational power is wielded by a six-year-old boy named Anthony. He can wish people and things out of existence, usually sending them into the cornfield. He created his own world by wishing away machines, electricity, and modern conveniences because they displease him. The adults, knowing this monster could wish them away at any time, for any reason, constantly try to please him. They constantly tell him he does “good” and think only thoughts acceptable to Anthony.

One night during a birthday celebration for their neighbor Dan Hollis, Dan has a few too many drinks and starts singing. Anthony hates singing. Fear fills the adults in the room, they can’t move. Anthony gets angrier; telling Dan he is a “bad man, a very bad man.”  Dan, no longer able to restrain himself confronts Anthony calling him a “dirty little monster” and a “murderer.” Dan challenges Anthony to do what he is thinking about doing to him. As Dan and Anthony are face to face, the other adults are standing in the back of Anthony. Dan states he is sick of living in fear. While Anthony is focused on Dan, Dan frantically begs the adults to hit Anthony on his skull with one of the hard objects near the fireplace and “end this (terror) now.”

Everyone is too afraid to move. They all stand and watch as Anthony turns Dan into a Jack-in-the-box with a human head to enhance the horror. Dan’s wife screams hysterically. Anthony warns her she could be next. Anthony’s father begs him to send Dan to the cornfield (to remove the horror). Anthony agrees; all the adults go about their business telling Anthony he “did swell” and “everything is great.”

Cancel culture is today’s irrational monster. Cancel culture removes people and brands from their speech, work, or school platforms for what is asserted to be objectionable conduct. The canceling usually occurs by accusation and the canceled accused has little ability to respond.

While thankfully cancel culture doesn’t have the supernatural power to send objectionable people to the cornfield, it has the power to irredeemably assign guilt, and to banish people and products as punishment. Cancellations have occurred with hosts of television programs, authors have had their books removed from sales platforms, opinion editors fired from national newspapers, movie stars had contracts terminated, advertisers drop advertising if they dislike any comment from a show’s host, teachers are fired for expressing ideas, manufacturers of beans and mattresses are boycotted for supporting unpopular candidates, a U.S. Senator loses a book contract for exercising constitutional rights, and the names of historical figures are removed from schools because hundreds of years ago they had what is now considered a “dishonorable legacy.” George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Suess, and Aunt Jemima syrup were canceled. Even a prospective college student was nearly expelled before starting school for objectionable political speech.

The liberal media dismisses cancel culture as old news, asserting for centuries, societies stigmatized that thought to exhibit moral deficiencies. Those canceling believe the people canceled “really deserve it.” Examples include Scarlet letters, the use of the guillotine in the French Revolution, and torture in the Spanish Inquisition. So, today’s cancel culture is mild by historical standards; it is, merely a consumerist verb, noting someone or something is unneeded or unwanted.

Liberal media, however, misses the point. Historically, canceling was inflicted by despotic governments or mob rule. Today, canceling is being inflicted by a combination of self-righteous people, lap-dog corporations, and Big Tech to control the speech and thoughts of people in a constitutional Republic. Canceling is a tool that allows one side to claim a monopoly on virtue and to label other citizens as perpetually evil merely through accusations. Recently Andrew Michta noted, “Democracy cannot survive in a society in which winners and losers are adjudicated arbitrarily according to criteria beyond individual control.” If cancel culture continues to grow, it will morph into despotic rule.

The radical Left wants more than to silence opposing views. It seeks absolute control over “We the people.” In “Public Shaming Has Only Just Begun,” the author writes: “And if we deploy shame strategically – to single out the most egregious offenses and neglect – we might even send some people to prison.” The true goal of the Left and its friends in Big Business and Big Tech is to meld mob rule with government power to subject individuals to the all-powerful state. The Left firmly believes no individual has a right to oppose the state which they will control.

Read the actual words of the radical Left. It hates humans, capitalism, and freedom. Read the 1619 project that rewrites the history of America. Compare the TASS (Russian news service) depiction of the U.S. with the leading books written by the Left which characterize the U.S. as a racist, crime-ridden, poverty-stricken country.

Except for some commentators on conservative news channels and a handful of politicians, the citizens of the U.S., like the characters in It’s a Good Life watch silently as the cancel culture monster threatens to send any of us to the cornfield if we don’t obey and think “good thoughts” about it.

America, the signposts up ahead indicate the next stop is the Twilight Zone. If we go there, every democratic belief the U.S. holds true will be turned upside down. Dogma, punishment, and the lack of individual rights will prevail. Out of fear, falsehoods will be gladly accepted. America does not need to enter the Twilight Zone. We do not have to lie to ourselves just to live. We do not have to tell the cancel culture monster “it did well.” Since silence will ensure we are sent to the cornfield, each of us must confront the cancel culture monster at every opportunity. The repetition of free speech in defense of the speech of others will slay the monster.

Image: screen capture, YouTube

The post The Twilight Zone of Cancel Culture appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

After we finish one of these banned classics, someone inevitably asks, “Why was this banned in the first place?”

Years ago, when I first began teaching, books might be banned because they showed characters having sex, swearing, committing suicide, or advocating for communism. Today, those things barely cause a ripple and, instead, books are most often canceled for reasons related to ‘presentism‘—judging the past by the standards of the present.

It’s funny how literature written hundreds or thousands of years ago tends to represent the ideas, views, values, and social structures prevalent at the time.

For instance, Homer lived around the 8th or 9th century BCE, but the “Iliad” immortalized people from the earlier Bronze Age. Whether or not the events of the Trojan War actually happened, the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean was a violent time. Is it shocking that Homer’s Bronze Age characters see violence as a practical way to solve problems? Why are we surprised that Agamemnon and his troops engaged in pillaging and plundering? It’s not like the Argive army had signed on to the Geneva Convention.

When Shakespeare wrote the “Merchant of Venice” in the late 1500s, anti-Semitism was commonplace across Europe. Venetian Jews were forced into segregated neighborhoods from 1516–1797. If Shakespeare set his play in Venice, doesn’t it stand to reason anti-Semitism might be an issue for one of his characters, who just happens to be a Jewish moneylender residing in the city?

Characters who come to life through historic works of literature show the world as it was—not as we’d like it to be. 

In Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (another oft-banned book), Atticus Finch tells Scout, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” 

Historians and archaeologists may give us hints about what life was like during the Bronze Age or Renaissance Venice, but outside the realm of speculative fiction it is not possible to visit the past in a time machine as H.G. Wells imagined. 

But we can dive into books, plays, and poems that have stood the test of time, and help us understand what life was like.

There’s no way to know what it would have felt like to be part of a Bronze Age army laying siege to another city unless we turn a page of the “Iliad” and climb inside Achilles’ skin for a moment. 

There’s no way to pop into a Renaissance Venetian market for the afternoon, so instead we read “The Merchant of Venice” and crawl inside Shylock’s head. By doing so, we begin to see the world from Shylock’s point of view; to understand why he asked for a pound of flesh.

Today’s trend of banning or ‘canceling’ authors and their books simply because those books don’t represent modern day values condemns us to know even less about the past than we already do. 

Classic literature gives us the opportunity to gain an understanding of the constants of the human condition. Readers of the “Iliad” come to understand there were wars during the Bronze Age, just as there are wars today that cause immeasurable suffering. Readers of “The Merchant of Venice” learn that anti-Semitism was a problem in Europe long before Hitler’s Germany. 

When we read great books written long ago, we heed Atticus Finch’s advice and it makes a difference. I’ve seen firsthand how reading classics increases my students’ level of empathy. They gain an understanding of the unchanging nature of the human condition. My students also come to see how much progress we as human beings have made because, having read about a Bronze Age battlefield or a segregated Venetian neighborhood, they understand where we started.

We should embrace history—not cancel it—so that we are not doomed to repeat it.

Gina Prosch educates her children at home in Mid-Missouri. She is also a homeschool life coach (and parent) who blogs and shares homeschool resources at www.TheHomeschoolWay.com. She is also the co-host of The OnlySchoolers Podcast. 

The post Canceling Lessons Learned from Classic Literature appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

What essentially happened here? Hawley was canceled by proxy. Although he arguably played no role in what happened on Capitol Hill on January 6, his intentions to object to the Electoral College results certifying Joe Biden’s win over President Trump, and more importantly Hawley’s association with Trump, was used to paint him as a key figure in what the Left refers to as an act of sedition. Guilt by association.

I find it ironic that the Senator’s political career could come skidding to a halt in the same fashion that his time in the US Senate started. You see, in my opinion, Josh Hawley was ELECTED by proxy as well.

During his senatorial campaign in 2017-18 (launched less than a year after becoming Missouri Attorney General), Hawley was criticized by his fellow Republicans for his lackadaisical approach to the campaign, sluggish fundraising numbers, and even called out by US Rep. Ann Wagner for failing to appear at a primary debate event.

By July of 2018, the State GOP took matters into their own hands and authorized the party to begin spending fundraiser monies on Hawley’s campaign before the conclusion of the state primary, in which 10 other Republicans were vying for the seat. The party had previously authorized this action only two other times in 12 years. President Trump had already endorsed Hawley in the election at this point, and the state GOP was just responding in kind. Grassroots opinions be damned, the establishment had already made their choice, and their “Golden Boy” was it.

Hawley didn’t even make it to a Lincoln Days campaigning dinner event in his own hometown of Columbia, despite his campaign knowing ahead of time that campaign staffers wouldn’t be allowed to speak on his behalf. That’s when then Lt. Governor Mike Parson, a keynote speaker at the event, used up some of his speech time stumping in Hawley’s stead.

But amazingly, it worked for Hawley. Most conservative voters in Missouri were won over with nothing more than President Trump’s endorsement. Some didn’t even know there were other Republican candidates in the primary. Trump endorsed Hawley and that was all they needed to know. Score one for populism.

Josh Hawley mailed it in for political gain. Now his detractors are doing the same. What goes around comes around, I guess.

Image: Hawley campaign ad, YouTube

The post Josh Hawley: Elected By Proxy, Canceled By Proxy appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The things we have said in the past may not have been outrageously offensive, but we have all made comments, or held opinions, we later regret. We are, after all, inherently flawed creatures.

But imagine if one instance of poor judgment or one “fringe” opinion stuck with you forever. This is the problem our society is now facing with the prevalence of cancel culture.

In 2016, then-high school freshman Mimi Groves posted a video to Snapchat in which she used a racial slur. The video later circulated around her school, though it wasn’t met with controversy at the time.

Fellow classmate Jimmy Galligan hadn’t seen the footage until last year when the two were seniors—four years after it first made the rounds at Heritage High School. By this time, Groves had moved on to focus on her role as varsity cheer captain with big dreams of attending the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a school known for its nationally ranked cheer squad.

For Groves, summer 2020 had been a time of celebration as she found out she had been accepted to the university’s cheer team. But her joy was short-lived when the death of George Floyd rightly outraged the nation, sparking a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Like many teens, Groves used her social media platforms to urge people to protest, donate, and sign petitions in support of ending police brutality. It was then that her unfortunate video came back to haunt her.

“You have the audacity to post this, after saying the N-word,” one commenter, unknown to the teen, posted on her Instagram.

That’s when her phone began ringing nonstop.

Galligan had held onto the video made four years earlier and had chosen to celebrate Groves’ admission to UT by blasting the footage to every major social media platform.

As the video began going viral, public outrage ensued, calling for the university to rescind her acceptance.

Capitulating to the mob, UT removed her from their cheer team, a decision that resulted in Groves withdrawing from the school because of what she perceived as pressure from the school’s admissions office.

Make no mistake, making racial slurs of any kind is demeaning and inappropriate behavior. But is one comment made four years prior enough to ruin the future of a teen who hadn’t even entered adulthood yet?

The court of public opinion said yes, without giving Groves any chance at redemption.

Why People ‘Cancel’

Groves’ story is just one of many.

Cancel culture has become more widespread over the last several years than anyone could have imagined. When I penned this article on the topic two years ago, I had no idea the problem would escalate to the level it has reached today.

But cancel culture isn’t reserved only for those who have made distasteful comments in the past.

Today, those espousing any opinion that goes against “woke” rhetoric are ridiculed online, fired from their jobs, and some are banned from using popular social media platforms altogether.

One University of North Carolina Wilmington professor, Mike Adams, even took his own life after tweets construed as offensive pushed him into early retirement after years of service to the institution.

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, has been an outspoken critic of the cancel culture phenomenon for some time.

“Part of a call-out culture is you get credit based on what someone else said if you ‘call it out,'” he said in a 2018 interview.

This virtue signaling, which is really just a means of proving to society how “good” and “moral” your views are, is only half of the equation, however. Cancel culture is also about personal destruction, which is obvious in Groves’ situation, since Galligan didn’t use this ammunition against her until the time was ripe for maximum harm.

“It(cancel culture) has reached a level of personal vindictiveness, where people go out of their way to find ways the things other people say could be construed as insensitive,” Haidt said.

Slurs and inappropriate comments aside, cancel culture has made people scared to share their opinions lest they be condemned for thinking “incorrectly” about any given issue.

The Costs Cancel Culture

We now live in an era where people are constantly looking over their shoulders, or computer screens, worried that whatever opinion they post might make them victims of cancel culture.

There is no opportunity to change one’s mind, nor is there room to defend opinions you genuinely believe. And this is a huge problem for any civil society.

Haidt spoke of the importance of protecting open dialogue so that we may live in a society filled with varying opinions from which to choose.

“One of the most important [aspects] is that people are not afraid to share their opinions – they’re not afraid that they’re going to be shamed socially for disagreeing with the dominant opinion,” Haidt said.

The odds are high that your opinions about certain issues will change over time. However, some may not, and you shouldn’t live in fear that your beliefs will be met with social condemnation and isolation.

We are no longer given the room to share our opinions today because we are no longer able to disagree with each other respectfully.

You’re not always going to agree with everything other people say — not your professors, your classmates, or your parents. In fact, you might even find that your own views change as you learn new things and grow as a person and adult.

But having the freedom to consider all opinions and decide what you genuinely believe is vital to the human experience and civil discourse.

There is a market of choice in all things, from what clothes you wear, products you buy, and what ideas you subscribe to.

When you go shopping, you might not like the first outfit you try. You might not even like the second or third. But trying on different looks, or opinions, allows you to think for yourself and figure out what it is you want, or believe.

To be truly open-minded, you must be able to consider all opinions, instead of condemning any thought contrary to your own. The free exchange of ideas pushes individuals to share unique ideas and allows for opinions to evolve.

Dissent is what makes democracy strong. Our Constitution has outlasted so many others because the Founders disagreed and debated with each other until they crafted a document that fostered “a more perfect union” than had ever been seen before. We would be wise not to forget the example they set.

Put simply, shaming others doesn’t work. It’s purely punitive, and self-aggrandizing. It also rarely changes a person’s mind and often further radicalizes their beliefs, widening the divide already growing in our country.

To foster a world where ideas can be freely expressed, Pacific Legal Foundation will be hosting an event this Friday featuring Haidt that will examine the many ways free speech serves as a central tenet of innovation, community, and civil society, and how we can preserve and protect this fundamental value that makes our society so extraordinary.

Without the ability to speak freely and consider all opinions, civil discourse cannot occur. In its absence, society as we know it will cease to exist and the divides between us will continue to grow.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The post Psychologist Explains the Unhealthy Incentives Behind ‘Cancel Culture’ appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Cannon argued that people with more melanin in their skin were more compassionate due to more sun exposure, and that both white people and Jews were barbaric and animals due to the lack of melanin in their skin.

“When we talk about the power of melanated people,” he said on the program. “Melanin is so powerful, connects us in a way, that the reason why they fear blacks is because of the lack that they have of it.”, Cannon said on his “Cannon’s Class Podcast.”

“When you see a person that has a lack of pigment, a lack of melanin, they fear that they will be annihilated,” he said. “So, therefore, however, they got the power, they had a lack of compassion. Melanin comes with compassion, melanin comes with soul. We call it soul. You know soul brothers and sisters. That’s the melanin that connects us. So the people that don’t have it, and I’m going to say this carefully, are a little less. They didn’t have the power of the sun, the sun then started to deteriorate their skin, so then they’re acting out of fear, they’re acting out of low self-esteem, they’re acting out of a deficiency,” he said. “So, therefore, the only way that they can act is evil. They have to rob, steal, rape, kill in order to survive. “They had to be savages, they had to be barbaric, because they’re in these Nordic mountains, they’re in these rough environments, so they’re acting as animals,” he said. “So they are the ones that are actually closer to animals, they are the ones that are actually the true savages.”, Nick continued, according to The Daily Wire.

So hold on a minute, Nick… you’re telling me that because my pigment is lighter than yours, I am an animal? If that isn’t racist, I don’t know what is, sir. I will not sit back and be silent while you accuse innocent Americans of being rapists and murderers just because their skin is lighter than yours.

What do you think the Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have to say about your statements? The same man who said, “I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.”

That doesn’t sound like judging people by the content of their character, Mr. Cannon. Racism is an evil and backward idea. It doesn’t matter what color the person is who believes he or she is superior to another based on the color of their skin. I will always stand against racism because it is antithetical to the ideas of a free society.

Dr. Ron Paul said it well when he said; Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist because it views individuals only as members of racial groups.”

While I think Nick Cannon’s views are abhorrent, to say the least, I am personally glad that free speech is still protected in this country so that he can feel the consequences of spewing his hate as Viacom has now made the decision to drop Nick over his racist rant.

Free speech is a double-edged sword. I have a firm belief that an individual must be free to say whatever they choose, but that doesn’t protect the consequences of spewing hate. While I have no hatred toward Nick, I pray he will learn that God made all men equal, and that being racist toward another individual while claiming to fight racism is hypocritical and does nothing but perpetuating the same hate practiced against you.

The words of a quote commonly misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi still ring true, “An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.”

Image: Loren Javier

The post What Would Dr. King Say, Nick? Racism Isn’t Consistent With Equality appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Shamelessly, wild narratives in Opinion Editorials being peddled as fact or universal truth have long existed. Legendary Progressive Rock Band RUSH learned this the hard way when a journalist attempted to sabotage their rise to fame following the release of their album 2112.

RUSH members included Geddy Lee (Vocals, Bass, Synthesizer), Alex Lifeson (Guitar, Backup Vocals), and Neil Peart (Legendary Drummer).

RUSH was attempting to rebound from their album Caress of Steel—an album that was ahead of its time but was a flop to audiences at the current time. Mercury Records was considering dropping RUSH from their label, but agreed to sign for one more album, given it would be more commercially friendly. 

The members of RUSH were angry and had other plans. And so 2112 was born. A grand experiment in Prog Rock that was a hit, with anger that fans could identify with.

Neil Peart, who was RUSH’s main lyricist, would write the lyrics to 2112. Peart credited the author and Individualist thinker Ayn Rand for the inspiration. That would be a No Fly Zone, where journalism was concerned.

A journalist turned a routine interview into a twisted Op-Ed, and labeled the members of RUSH as Proto Fascists.

The band recounted the incident in the documentary 2112/Moving Pictures

Geddy: Well he [Neil Peart] was a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s writing, and he introduced her writing to us.

Alex: Not exclusively that, he was a very very broad reader.

Neil: I had read certainly a lot of science fiction at that time and Samuel R. Delany was a big influence on me. And there around the same time I found a copy of The Fountainhead. I said, “Oh, all the smart kids at school used to carry that around.”

Geddy: We all liked the book Anthem, which is the thing that kind of inspired 2112.

Associate Professor of Intellectual History John Ridpath: Anthem wasn’t all that Ayn Rand wrote. I’d say 1939 to 1940 when she was in the middle of writing Fountainhead. And so Anthem is basically the story of a society taken over by a priesthood of totalitarian dictators who use mysticism to try and subdue all the people in a society, which is so collectivistic and so totalitarian that the concept “I” has been eliminated from people’s minds. They don’t even have the concept of “I” which means they can’t conceive of themselves as individuals.

Alex: That whole idea of the individual, and sort of Libertarian values played a big role in the way that album shaped up.

Neil: I dreamed up this story of music being invented against a dystopian, totalitarian society. I felt this great sense of injustice that this mass was coming down on us and telling us to compromise. And compromise was the word I couldn’t deal with. I grew up a child of the 60’s and I was a strong individualist and believed in the sanctity of “You should be able to do what you want to do,” you know, without hurting anyone. When I realized that the story was parallel in Anthem, I felt like I had to say something about the association with 2112, so at the bottom of the lyrics I just put ‘with acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand.’ Well how that came back onto us afterwards…

Alex: Yeah we got in trouble with the NME in Britain around that time. We did an interview, and this journalist wrote it up like we were Nazis, ultra right wing maniacs.

[The article in NME (New Musical Express) written by Miles on March 4th, 1978 was republished in The Guardian on May 13th 2015. This republishing by The Guardian was right at the beginning of RUSH’s R40 tour, which would be their final tour. Strange timing. Definitely not on purpose.]

Miles, after guiding the interview from music to politics himself, offers the following narrative in print following their conversation:

“To me this is getting too absurd to answer, because the whole extreme-right position is so illogical and irrational.

The thing is, these guys are advocating this stuff on stage and on record, and no one even questions it. No one is on their case. All the classic hallmarks of the right-wing are there: the pseudo-religious language (compare their lyrics to the Ayn Rand quote at the head of this article), which extends right down to calling the touring crew – road masters instead of road managers. The use of a quasi-mystical symbol – the naked man confronting the red star of socialism (at least I suppose that’s what it’s supposed to be). It’s all there.

They are actually very nice guys. They don’t sit there in jackboots pulling the wings off flies. They are polite, charming even, naïve – roaming the concert circuits preaching what to me seems like proto-fascism like a leper without a bell.”

Geddy: Growing up as a son of Holocaust survivors, I found that… just… you know, so offensive.

Cliff Burnstein with Mercury Records: The connection with Ayn Rand was definitely a media turn off. There was certainly a, kind of an association with the 50’s, conservatism, the McCarthy years… All this stuff probably made the media think “Well, this is just not my kind of band.” 

Geddy: It’s about creative freedom. It’s about believing in yourself.

Neil: I did not think of politics and I did not think of global oppression. I was thinking, these people are messing with me.

Geddy: You can say what you want about Ayn Rand and all the other implications of her work, but her artistic manifesto, for lack of a better term, was the one that struck home with the three of us.

Where RUSH succeeded by refusing to sell themselves out is ultimately where Punk Rock failed after selling themselves out.

Punk Rock began to abandon their message of anarchy during the W Bush Administration. While the movement was correct in their anti-war sentiments, they embraced the Left Wing of the Duopoly. They sold their dreams for small desires and lost the race. No longer did Punk Rock have the unique brand that was pioneered by The Sex Pistols. The genre extinguished its own fire and suffocated itself into obscurity.

Ayn Rand’s literature was certainly one of the catalysts to the western Libertarian movement. However, fast forward to current day Libertarianism, and you’ll much more commonly see names like Hayek, Bastiat, Friedman, Mises and Sowell being discussed. I actually couldn’t tell you the last time Ayn Rand’s name came up in a discussion or was cited for anything.

Say what you will about Rand, like anyone whose work is fallible, but the ideas of individualism are a Far Cry from that of a Fascist totalitarian regime. In fact, the entire concept of 2112 is specifically bucking that concept of totalitarianism.

But no army can stop an idea whose time has come. 2112 was a success, and RUSH earned the right to write their own ticket, free from corporate influence. Their next album, Moving Pictures, would be their best selling album of all time.

Listen to 2112 below:

The post Flashback: Media Tried to #Cancel RUSH When They Were Rising Stars appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

It’s a modern internet phenomenon where a person is ejected from influence or fame by questionable actions, according to the most popular definition on Urban Dictionary.

We have seen many conservative or MAGA supporting entertainment stars, businesses, and pundits affected, such as Roseanne, Chick-fil-A, Covington Catholic High School, Milo Yiannopoulos, Kyle Kashuv, Alex Jones, and Infowars.

In August, the art of cancel culture, created by the left, took a 180 degree turn when some on the right decided to act outraged and succeeded in cancelling the movie The Hunt by Warner Bros following the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.

Donald Trump tweeted:

Guy Benson: “To have a movie, even though it’s satire, that depicts Americans hunting and killing Americans, I think that’s maybe not an image people want to see at the moment.” In which he also said that the movie shouldn’t be cancelled completely but the studio should see the sensitive moment we are in right now and they should pull back their marketing.

Even Tim Pool: “One character says, ‘Did anyone see what our [expletive] in chief just did?’ A second responds, ‘At least the Hunt’s coming up. Nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables.’” He says, “this is one of the lines they thought it was appropriate to come out right now, especially with everything that happened, pull the movie”.  He then goes back on his stance and states, “I’m not saying the movie should be pulled necessarily. I’m not saying that because offended by it. I’m saying it because I think it’s gonna make people, it’s going to escalate everything. You know what, don’t pull the movie. I have no idea, I have no idea. Let the movie happen, I feel like it’s dominoes falling over everything we’re seeing, just can’t be stopped… crazy people take this seriously.”

And as always, the entertainment industry caves:

“While Universal Pictures had already paused the marketing campaign for ‘The Hunt,’ after thoughtful consideration, the studio has decided to cancel our plans to release the film… We stand by our filmmakers and will continue to distribute films in partnership with bold and visionary creators, like those associated with this satirical social thriller, but we understand that now is not the right time to release this film.” 

However, finally the director, Craig Zobel, stood for his work and argued, “My hope would be that people will reflect on why we are in this moment, where we don’t have any desire to listen to each other… And if I’m lucky, some of us will ask each other: How did we get here? And where do we want to go moving forward?”

I proudly agree with the director. Not only does a movie like this get us to talk about today’s issues, but the fact is that crazy people will act how they act no matter what they see. The “person” who killed John Lennon and “person” who attempted to kill Ronald Reagan both were inspired by Catcher in The Rye.

In calling for the cancellation of The Hunt, conservatives did the very thing they criticize the left for. Both sides are guilty of practicing “cancel culture” when it serves their purposes.

[RELATED: TRIGGERED AMERICA: Dave Chappelle’s ‘Offensive’ Comedy Is Just What the Doctor Ordered]

Image: screenshot of “The Hunt” trailer, YouTube

The post Conservatives Are Guilty of ‘Cancel Culture’, Too appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.