Once upon a time there was a dude with such an attitude and he became a president. Edit: And his story is not over yet. Apparently.

The difference is, in American politics there are two very distinct polarized sides, and the one he was running for doesn't really care about this kind of thing very much. It's much worse when your own side is the one "cancelling" you.

Yeah, being rich is a great insulator. But RMS isn't rich.

I think that's true and it definitely shows how cancel culture only hurts some people but doesn't hurt others that much depending on their wealth and their influence. That said, really add to the discussion for others who aren't that powerful relatively.

Trump? Clinton? Kennedy? Johnson? I suspect that the shorter list would be the list of non-womanizing presidents.

They tried to impeach him twice!

They did impeach him twice.

It goes to show that it's not regular people who create 'cancel culture'. It's the financial elite. They do it as means to push forward a financial agenda. If those who orchestrate the cancellations were who they portray themselves to be, the hypocrisy would be brain-splitting.

The only reason their brain lobes are still attached together is because they know that they're being deceptive and it's part of an agenda.

It's not possible for a rational, cohesive mind to believe that a person who dedicated his whole life to free software is a bad person just because he once said something without thinking through it.

    It's not possible for a rational, cohesive mind to
    believe that a person who dedicated his whole life 
    to free software is a bad person just because he once 
    said something without thinking through it. 

Multiple strawman arguments in the same sentence.

1. Few if any are claiming RMS is "a bad person" in totality. While I realize the internet is no place for nuance, please understand the question is about whether somebody who's said these things is fit to lead or represent an institution. You can disagree or disagree with that. But please understand that is the question, not "is Richard Stallman a bad person." I certainly don't think he is.

2. "once said something without thinking through it" -- unfortunately this displays a spectacular misunderstanding. These are multiple things said over multiple years on mailing lists, his site, and so forth. Additionally, RMS's communiques are... well, they are not off-the-cuff. I've read reams of his statements over the years. They are the writings of somebody speaking very very deliberately about things he has reasoned through in very deliberate ways according to his beliefs.

>> Few if any are claiming RMS is "a bad person" in totality

I used the word 'believe' for a reason, it's people's beliefs who drove him out in the first place. Besides, the term 'stawman argument' makes no sense when discussing ethics or human behavior. This is not math or engineering. These kinds of statements are necessarily axiomatic; either you understand it or you don't. Either it neatly fits into your logical understanding of the world or it doesn't.

I wouldn't write off someone who has done such great things for so many decades when I know for a fact that most people in positions of power today are hypocritical monsters (only difference is that they have good PR teams to manage their public images); you need to put it in perspective.

I think some cancellations are driven by powerful people but I'd say most are definitely organic.

Enter the cartoon with a banker with the mob outside all "occupy wall street" on the phone with his PR firm, instructing them to the tell the mob "what identity politics is".