But they are (attempting to) use ballot initiatives to deny civil rights to certain people, which if anything is worse than getting people fired.
Bottom line: if you contributed to Proposition 8, you did a bad thing, and it needs to hurt. Without a feedback mechanism of some sort, the original 'cancel culture' -- the one that brought us the Dark Ages -- will prevail.
As a straight white cis-male, I have no dog in the fight. But I know right from wrong, and Proposition 8 was wrong.
Proposition 8 did not go through because our legal system was doing its job. That’s the feedback mechanism right there.
Now if you set up a ballot initiative to fire anyone who contributed to it, then that’s fair game, but obviously any remotely sane judge will deny it. (Which is also the feedback mechanism telling you you’re proposing something extremist here.) Now, circumventing the law to serve your own arbitrary version of justice? Who the hell do you even think you are? Fucking Batman?
But nobody suggested a ballot initiative to fire anybody. Not everything requires an act of government. Sometimes social pressures are, and should be, sufficient.
I suggested it, because it would be the correct way to do it, and a good way to realize you’re asking for something extreme.
The social pressures you’re advocating are not a weaker form of serving justice. They are stronger. They circumvent our legal system, they’re arbitrary, they’re simply mob justice. No one can keep them in check and indeed they frequently go too far. This is not ok.
That's rich, considering the "mob" is only asking for the same rights you and I have.
It sounds like you've made up your mind on this issue (or, more likely, had it made up for you as a child), so we'll probably have to agree to disagree.
The mob ultimately has no power, while the government does. Whoever uses force first -- or in the case of Proposition 8, attempts to -- is the bad guy.
It really is that simple. Don't want a culture war? Don't start one.
There's a difference between using force within a legal framework (Proposition 8), and using extrajudicial force (cancel culture).
And that difference is that a sane instance (the law) can reject you if you're being insane, which did happen in the case of Proposition 8, but can't happen with cancel culture.
So you're justifying the usage of extrajudicial force with an already rejected attempt to use judicial force.
And you think that's fair, and you're the good guy.
'Cancel culture' isn't force, it's culture. That's why they call it 'cancel culture', and not 'cancel force.' Funny, it turns out a lot of people would rather not do business with racists, misogynists, homophobes, neo-Nazis, and assorted religious bigots, whodathunkit.
Someone from the government showing up with a gun and telling me I can't marry a consenting adult of my choice is a much better example of the use of force.
> 'Cancel culture' isn't force, it's culture. That's why they call it 'cancel culture', and not 'cancel force.' Funny, it turns out a lot of people would rather not do business with racists, misogynists, homophobes, neo-Nazis, and assorted religious bigots, whodathunkit.
Don't do business, sure, but harassing your political opponent's family and getting them fired still is culture and not force? And it can't even be both? And the best argument you can come up with is that it's not literally called "cancel force"? That seems reasonable.
> Someone from the government showing up with a gun and telling me I can't marry a consenting adult of my choice
Show me just one example of this happening today. Just one.
You're grasping at straws here arguing based on arbitrarily defined semantics, things that never happened and randomly accusing me of trolling (that one's especially low), while ignoring the central point.
To quote you, sounds like you've made up your mind on this issue.
Show me just one example of this happening today. Just one.
See https://www.claerygreen.com/Family-Law-Blog/2015/April/Filin... . If Proposition 8 had been allowed to stand, and if a gay couple had claimed the state tax break reserved for heterosexual married couples, the state revenue agency would have rejected their return and demanded payment of the additional tax they owed, plus interest and penalties.
Then, if the couple refused to pay, eventually someone with a gun would have come to their door. Try it yourself, if you don't believe me. It happens every day to people who refuse to pay their taxes.
That's the very definition of "force." It's the only power a government ultimately has. And it's a much bigger deal than being harassed on Facebook.
With Brendan Eich's help, a mob of seven million people attemped to bring this hypothetical scenario to life. Since then, the Trump administration has stocked the Federal courts with hundreds of far-right judges, including several rated 'unqualified' by the ABA, whom I suspect would have let the law stand. Hopefully we won't have to find out. If the next Brendan Eich refrains from trying to incorporate the Bible into state and Federal law because he's terrified of what might happen to his career, I'm OK with that.
To quote you, sounds like you've made up your mind on this issue.
If you need to preface it with "If X had happened" then it's not an example of something happening.
> Since then, the Trump administration has stocked the Federal courts with hundreds of far-right judges, including several rated 'unqualified' by the ABA, whom I suspect would have let the law stand.
Do you even realize how big of an assumption this is? "I suspect" is definitely not sufficient to justify ruining people's careers. To the contrary, it's emblematic of mob justice.
> If the next Brendan Eich refrains from trying to incorporate the Bible into state and Federal law because he's terrified of what might happen to his career, I'm OK with that.
First off, that's a really grandiose way to say "he donated $1000 to an unfashionable cause".
Secondly, canceling is a pretty shitty way to fix this problem, don't you think? So shitty you might even call it counterproductive? You don't think this is going to lead to more bottled up hate down the road? You don't think this kind of thing is exactly what got Trump elected in the first place?
Thirdly, and most importantly, cancel culture doesn't stop at Eich. People are getting canceled for far more harmless offenses than his. Because, same as Proposition 8, cancelers are nothing but a hate mob ascribing themselves moral superiority in order to justify their morally reprehensible actions, but unlike Proposition 8 no one even has the power to keep the mob in check.
Regarding your last sentence - you obviously support gay marriage, do you think you're open minded?
If you need to preface it with "If X had happened" then it's not an example of something happening.
I think that's the core of our disagreement. I'm not in favor of harassing Eich with 2 AM phone calls or flaming bags of dogshit on his front porch or whatever it was that people were doing to his family. But I'd like to think that if I worked for Mozilla, I'd do whatever I could to get him ejected from the company, or at least from my part of the org chart. He doesn't need my sympathy, after all, with over half the voting population of California on his side. I'm sure he'll land on his feet.
Do you even realize how big of an assumption this is? "I suspect" is definitely not sufficient to justify ruining people's careers. To the contrary, it's emblematic of mob justice.
Specifically demanding that I provide proof that the events I'm concerned about have in fact happened is a great example of sealioning. It's a DoS attack against the conversation. You'll either move the goalposts as soon as I cite anything concrete, or dismiss highly-plausible predictions as merely hypothetical, as you've done here.
I could have cited the story behind Loving v. Virginia or any number of similar cases, but in past debates, people on the other side of the fence have answered that by saying that unlike race, sexual orientation is a choice and consequently shouldn't be protected by law. So then, all of a sudden, I have to defend that proposition.
The general rhetorical strategy you've employed here is to force your opponent to think multiple moves ahead, as in a chess game. That's fine in a classical game where there's a well-defined victory condition that we can both strive to reach, but in the game of direct democracy we're literally making up the rules as we go along. Eich's side fights dirty, so is it surprising that the other side thinks it has to as well?
Secondly, canceling is a pretty shitty way to fix this problem, don't you think? So shitty you might even call it counterproductive? You don't think this is going to lead to more bottled up hate down the road? You don't think this kind of thing is exactly what got Trump elected in the first place?
That's certainly a valid threat. We'll see how it plays out this time around. Fox News is a helluva drug, and it's entirely possible that we're beyond redemption as a society. Re-electing Trump will certainly reinforce that notion, but I don't think it's going to happen. Americans are good at taking down cardboard heroes once we catch on.
Still, I won't lie -- when I looked up the voting statistics on Prop 8 for the earlier reply, I was pretty bummed. The proposition received an order of magnitude more 'yes' votes, in California of all places, than I thought it did. Eich's position is a strong one.
Regarding your last sentence - you obviously support gay marriage, do you think you're open minded? Are you really?
A few years ago I'd have agreed with you in principle here, but recent events have convinced me that Karl Popper's 'paradox of tolerance' is a valid concern.
https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/paradox-tolerance supports your position by quoting Popper himself: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." The trouble is that religion trumps rational argument. Seven million people voted for Proposition 8 because people like Eich told them they would go to hell if they didn't. Being "open-minded" enough to tolerate this point of view appears to be suicidal, because any sort of atrocity can be justified the same way.
(Note that nothing I've written requires me to support gay marriage, any more than what you've written requires you to be against it. But when you're making up the rules for either a game or a government, it's best to think abstractly.)
Thanks for the civil tone, and I'm sorry for phrasing certain things so strongly previously.
> Specifically demanding that I provide proof that the events I'm concerned about have in fact happened is a great example of sealioning.
Ok, I get your point about sealioning now, but I wasn't trying to say you need to prove this or else your opinion is invalid. I know it's impossible to prove right now, and it doesn't invalidate your opinion. I'm only saying you need to prove this or else it's not a justification for enacting real world consequences for people. Because that's very different from an opinion, and it also works that way in a sane legal system.
> Eich's side fights dirty, so is it surprising that the other side thinks it has to as well?
I think here is the core of our disagreement. I think the other side is fighting even more dirty because they're circumventing the legal system. No one can shut them down, or even keep them in check. You don't know what minor things people are going to get lynched for if this trend continues. And the whole fight is pointless in the first place, because so far our legal system isn't corrupt enough to not reject something like Proposition 8. Now if Prop 8 went through, you could make a case for cancel culture. But as a preemptive strike? Pointless, insane, and sure to worsen the situation.
Not to mention people lose their careers. They're still people after all, and if you had grown up in a different environment you might even think like them.
> Being "open-minded" enough to tolerate this point of view appears to be suicidal, because any sort of atrocity can be justified the same way.
As soon as you start saying "we're so morally superior and the other side is so hateful that they cannot ever be talked to and extreme measures are appropriate" you can also justify any sort of atrocity.
When you try to have a dialogue, you at least have a chance for everyone to find and agree on the truth. It's fucked up that we are no longer having that. Seeing my fellow college students walking into panel discussions with megaphones and just chanting everyone and everything down makes my stomach turn, and cancel culture rests on similar principles. I don't know how to fix politics, and I hate to sound like some hippie, but more hate towards each other is obviously not the answer.
The point is that the means used to get those rights are harassing the family members of the opposition and getting them fired.
No matter how noble your goal, this is just not how politics is supposed to work in a healthy nation. At all. Quite the opposite, this is analogous to how politics worked when the Soviets killed millions and millions of their own people in order to attain a communist utopia. Do you not see that?
> or, more likely, had it made up for you as a child
I think I've articulated quite precisely why I have my opinions.
Quite the opposite, this is analogous to how politics worked when the Soviets killed millions and millions of their own people in order to attain a communist utopia. Do you not see that?
Yes, I see that misusing government power to enforce unequal treatment for a disfavored subgroup is exactly like what the Soviets did.
Now that you've steamrolled your own position more effectively than I managed to, we're done here.
> misusing government power to enforce unequal treatment for a disfavored subgroup is exactly like what the Soviets did.
It is, which is why Proposition 8 was rejected.
> Now that you've steamrolled your own position more effectively than I managed to, we're done here.
Dude, are you seriously going to be that snide while poorly strawmanning my argument? I’m not at all saying we need to stop gay marriage via govt. I’m saying cancel culture sucks.
