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Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by cma on Thursday July 02, 2020 @08:48PM (#23719836)
> Telling people which causes they must publicly support or else be assumed an enemy? Does that ring any bells?

Are you talking about Kapernick being cancelled from the NFL by conservative cancel culture and the Vice President's staged NFL walkout to support conservative cancel culture?

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by Thorentis on Thursday July 02, 2020 @08:56PM (#23719908)
No, I was making a point with a bit more depth to it than that. If the point you're trying to make is that both sides are guilty of mob cancel culture, then you don't need to. Nobody here is pretending or claiming otherwise. Your comment is just another example of jumping into partisan politics for absolutely no reason.
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by buboard on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:02PM (#23719954)
sorry i would claim otherwise. Nobody has been cancelled for expressing leftwing-or extreme leftwing- ideas

it may detract from your central point, but it also explanis why one side of the spectrum won't be willing to contribute to an armistice

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by Thorentis on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:10PM (#23720017)
Well yes, if you did some analysis of which opinions people have lost their jobs over, and which causes must you support openly if you don't want to be seen as backwards, or which things have people apologised for saying after posting a Tweet, then I'm sure it would be clear that one side dominates societal discourse far more than the other.
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by MagnumOpus on Friday July 03, 2020 @05:30AM (#23722478)
It is super obvious that far more people have been fired for championing leftist opinions and causes (living wages, workers' safety, unions) than for being republican/racist/islamophobic.

(Though I am not sure that the right wing dominates societal discourse like you say.)

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by gguevaraa on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:13PM (#23720038)
Not sure if this fits the bill but here's a story[0].

[0]: https://nypost.com/2020/07/02/harvard-grad-claira-janover-fi...

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by donw on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:34PM (#23720202)
I'm not sure that really fits.

Her anger is the problem.

She was going to work with Deloitte, where she will represent her organization in front of clients that regularly sign off on invoices that resemble less a major purchase and more the GDP of a small country.

Imagine that you have a business.

Would you hire such an angry, callous, and impulsive person to represent you in front of clients?

Unless the name of your business starts with "B" and ends with "ank of America", the answer is probably "no".

Folks on the right are saying that she called for stabbing conservatives.

I don't think that's true.

She was using metaphor -- comparing being stabbed to having a paper cut -- and just did it exceedingly poorly.

The metaphor doesn't become clear unless you watch until the end of the video, and I don't know a lot of people, conservative or liberal, that are all that interested in watching the entirety of a video where they are being offered a complementary stabbing, just so that they can get the punchline.

If you post a video of you start off by repeating, over and over, "I am going to $VERB you", then don't be surprised when people interpret your message as, "I am going to $VERB you".

Finally: imagine that we flip her political orientation, and that she recored an angry video where she used a metaphor in which she talks about shooting BLM supporters.

She would likely be in jail.

There is a political difference in how both threats and actual violence are treated in the United States, and it favors the Left.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by buboard on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:22PM (#23720105)
thats not even an extreme leftist opinion, that's terrorism.
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by cma on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:44PM (#23720284)
Here's an example: Kapernick.
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by prepend on Thursday July 02, 2020 @10:58PM (#23720645)
Isn’t he making more from his ads and speaking and board seats?
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by ThrowawayR2 on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:26PM (#23720130)
> "Nobody has been cancelled for expressing leftwing-or extreme leftwing- ideas"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism seem like the obvious counterexamples.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by SpicyLemonZest on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:13PM (#23720037)
Sure they have. There was a story making the rounds just today about a girl losing a Deloitte offer for a pro-BLM post, and FIRE can tell you that even on campus left-wing cancellations aren't unheard of.
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by jlos on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:29PM (#23720166)
Kapernick made a political statement as his place of work. He made a calculated risk to his career for the sake of his convictions. Choosing to take a stand strikes me as different than being pressured and judged for not taking one. As a non-fan of football, I read the distate for Kapernick's statement as foisting another political binary on fans (mostly by the media, not so much by kapernick). Should you kneel or not kneel? Now you have to have an opinion.

I think the progression is:

1. Make a political statement against an injustice (hashtags, kneeling, etc)

2. Making a lack of support a form of complicity with injustice.

3. Narrowly define what support looks like.

Exact quote from #ShutDownStem website: >> Unless you engage directly with eliminating racism, you are perpetuating it. [0]

https://www.shutdownstem.com/

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by masonic on Friday July 03, 2020 @05:21AM (#23722433)

  Kapernick made a political statement as his place of work
... and only after being benched for incompetence. (For example, he cost the 49ers hosting the NFC Championship because he blew a game by running out of bounds instead of staying in bounds to keep the clock running. That extra play cost them that game, which cost them #1 seed.) Just basic, stupid shit like that and throwing interceptions instead of eating the ball, game after game.

He ruined that 2010-14 dynasty and got his coaching staff and front office sacked. And then he goes for petty provocational crap like representing police as pigs on his socks. This is a guy who grew up in the lap of upper middle class luxury and wanted for nothing.

You can be a reprehensible human being and still have NFL success if you are top-level talent, but not if you are reprehensible and you suck.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by Thorentis on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:36PM (#23720226)
> Choosing to take a stand strikes me as different than being pressured and judged for not taking one

Fantastic point. And I would hope those in favor of democracy can accept it. If you choose to support a political party publicly, you can reasonably expect people to engage with you about it. But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

What we are seeing now, is not the freedom to choose a particular stance or cause. We are seeing the mob react with force to a lack of opinion.

You must have an opinion. And it must be the right one.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by Barrin92 on Thursday July 02, 2020 @11:30PM (#23720786)
>But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

well, nobody is able to coerce you for not doing anything, but people can still judge you for it, and that may be perfectly reasonable.

Inaction can be as devastating as action. Withdrawing in the face of some injustice is as much of a choice as participating on either front.

It's an overused quote but really all that is necessary for evil to triumph is good people doing nothing. Of course today sometimes the causes are hyperbolic, but nothing is wrong with the principle. If someone is the victim of racism say, and people look away rather than stepping up, that's a failure.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by parineum on Friday July 03, 2020 @05:03AM (#23722340)
>Inaction can be as devastating as action.

It can be but rarely is.

In the case racism, it isn't. Sitting in my house doing nothing isn't as bad as attacking blacklivesmatter protesters.

The call against inaction is an exaggeration to shame people into action for their side. It's the "if you aren't with us, you're against us" repackaged for the woke.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by spangry on Friday July 03, 2020 @06:32AM (#23722802)
To take it another step further, a bias towards action can be harmful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere . I have often wondered if Google/Alphabet erred in switching from "don't be evil" to "do the right thing".
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by dcow on Saturday July 04, 2020 @06:25PM (#23735345)
Indeed. Only a sith deals in absolutes.
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by radford-neal on Friday July 03, 2020 @10:52AM (#23724522)
However, ill-considered action can be very bad, regardless of intentions. And most calls to action by activists are ill-considered. See http://studiahumana.com/pliki/wydania/In%20Praise%20of%20Pas...
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by cma on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:40PM (#23720254)
He simply refused to stand for the anthem and respectfully knelt (at first sat but then started kneeling after talking with veterans and asking what would be more respectful or something like that).
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by masonic on Friday July 03, 2020 @05:27AM (#23722462)
It's not that "simple" at all.

Just one example:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colin-kaepernick-socks/

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by cma on Friday July 03, 2020 @03:43PM (#23726858)
Those were worn during practice before he began kneeling:

"I wore these socks, in the past, because the rogue cops that are allowed to hold positions in police departments, not only put the community in danger, but also put the cops that have the right intentions in danger by creating an environment of tension and mistrust. I have two uncles and friends who are police officers and work to protect and serve ALL people. So before these socks, which were worn before I took my public stance, are used to distract from the real issues, I wanted to address this immediately."

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by bargl on Thursday July 02, 2020 @08:57PM (#23719915)
This is a valid point. Cancel culture cuts both ways, and I find it unacceptable in either direction. The one claim I'll give conservatives is that they did not say they fired him over this it was a lack of performance. I don't buy that story, but there are nuances that show the different tactics conservatives use for canceling things.

I do not support what happened to Kapernick, I don't think cancel culture is any better when disguised as something else. But the scale at which things are happening now is insane.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by ghufran_syed on Sunday July 05, 2020 @11:27PM (#23744407)
I'm not a football expert, but the fact his throwing accuracy was poor and getting worse seems relevant here: https://www.espn.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/234081/colin-k...
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by donw on Thursday July 02, 2020 @10:58PM (#23720648)
I don't know the full details on Kapernick, so I'm going to speak in generalizations.

He does not deserve to be fired for making a political statement. Full stop.

At the same time, he did leverage his employer's platform (the NFL) to make a political statement.

Some sort of disciplinary action in response to that behavior is a legitimate course of action for an employer.

Imagine Kapernick as an engineer working for, say, Instagram.

Imagine that he Tweeted a bunch of pro-Biden memes on his personal Twitter. That seems fine to me.

Now imagine that he wrote, without consulting management, a feature which put a Biden banner at the top of the Instagram website.

That'd be a huge problem, and would merit disciplinary action. Not because he supported Biden, but because he leveraged the company brand and resources to do so, without the support of management.

I think this is where we draw the line, but am also open to other ideas.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by cma on Thursday July 02, 2020 @11:44PM (#23720837)
Isn't standing for the national anthem or playing it at games also an, obvious to anyone, literal political statement?
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by donw on Friday July 03, 2020 @02:03AM (#23721415)
The issue is not about making a political statement.

As an individual, you should always have that right.

Both the New York Times and Breitbart are purveyors of propaganda for their respective political parties. They literally do nothing but make massively biased political statements, all day long.

Imagine you work there, and you disagree.

You can totally try to change that from within. Fight the system.

Work your way up. And once you have sufficient stature within the organization, you can run, say, an article praising George Washington on the front of the NYT, or a piece condemning him on Breitbart.

But, you, as a journalist, are a public face for your respective brand, and as such, you will likely face disciplinary action for going against the brand image.

It doesn't mean you can't make a statement.

But when you leverage your employer's platform to do so, there are going to be consequences.

Now, if you use your own megaphone, you absolutely deserve protection from being fired!

Build your Twitter/Instagram/Facebook following, and preach as much as you'd like. You built it. It's yours.

That's the reality of being a public figure. You are paid to be part of a brand image.

Tell me where I'm wrong on this. Or where you think we should draw the line. I'm happy to hear other opinions.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by cma on Friday July 03, 2020 @04:17AM (#23722087)
> At the same time, he did leverage his employer's platform (the NFL) to make a political statement.

Every player standing and holding heart over hand during the anthem is doing the same.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by parineum on Friday July 03, 2020 @05:08AM (#23722359)
Are they? What's the statement?
[dead]
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by dang on Thursday July 02, 2020 @08:59PM (#23719932)
Please read and follow the site guidelines when commenting here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by waheoo on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:03PM (#23719960)
K fixed.
Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by dang on Thursday July 02, 2020 @09:18PM (#23720079)
Replacing the word "fucking" with "really" has nothing to do with it. There's no guideline against profanity on HN.

Please read the guidelines and take the spirit of the site more to heart.

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by waheoo on Thursday July 02, 2020 @10:16PM (#23720439)
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

The post I was replying to was shallow.

Asking if people have rtfa is also against the guidelines. So its a bit rich to assume I havent read the guidelines.

And no, there isnt a guideline agaisnt profanity but its what bought you to my comment isn't it?

Re:Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech by dang on Friday July 03, 2020 @01:02AM (#23721157)
Not really. I was reacting to "cherry picked whataboutism" and the putdown aspect. Both of those remain. In fact that's all the comment consists of.

It doesn't matter what you were replying to.