Excellent letter on Freedom of speech to appear in Harper's Mag

[Imnobody4]

harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Signed by JKR, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie among many others.
Are more people starting to say enough?

Jennifer Finley Boylan has apologised for signing it, saying she wasn't aware of some of the other names signing it hmm

Hmm indeed - Jennifer has kind of missed the point of the letter I think? Is calling for Free Speech transphobic now??

Is she? Oh, right. I didn't know. Love that quote from Mayor Watermelon, Xanthan.

Is calling for Free Speech transphobic now??

It seems so. As is 'feminism' or 'woman' or 'woman's rights'. Odd, really.

Oh, that's brilliant summary from Mayor of Watermelon.

SunsetBeetch

"It might have triggered some more uncontrollable sobbing."

The feigned hysteria levels are only to be expected. It is just so embarrasing that adults (supposedly) act in this fashion.

... More than 150 academics and writers including the likes of Harry Potter..

Eh?

Is Harry an academic or a writer? I suppose he's all grown up now...

Is calling for Free Speech transphobic now??

I don't know if it's to be added to the long and ever growing list of things deemed transphobic but it is apparently an "alt-right dog whistle" ....

Someone has ‘helpfully’ (and seemingly in ironically ) annotated the original letter to show all the ways in which it is covertly transphobic.

This shit is beyond reason, and beyond parody. It truly is.

mobile.twitter.com/LLW902/status/1280547024014905346

[quote BigBadVoodooHat]Someone has ‘helpfully’ (and seemingly in ironically ) annotated the original letter to show all the ways in which it is covertly transphobic.

This shit is beyond reason, and beyond parody. It truly is.

mobile.twitter.com/LLW902/status/1280547024014905346[/quote]
Excuse the typo: should have said ‘unironically’

Holy moly. That annotated letter is a really very useful illustration of someone's inner monologue.

Talk about seeing everything through a lens.

"Look, if I add extra words to a letter that someone else wrote it says what I want it to say instead of what they actually said".

People are nuts

Aren't they? I've now seen someone on Twitter claim that JKR is 'suppressing [her own] trans feelings'.

writers including the likes of Harry Potter, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie

Harry Potter?

@BigBadVoodooHat

One signatory recanted within hours of the letter being published. Jennifer Finney Boylan, a US author and transgender activist, tweeted: "I did not know who else had signed that letter. "I thought I was endorsing a well-meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming." She added: "I am so sorry."

Oh, the irony! 🤣

“I thought I was signing something about the stupidity of virtue-signally internet sanctions on free speech, although I actually didn’t understand what it said, but I’ve now noticed that some very successful people with different opinions to me have signed it, so I’m cancelling my own signature and issuing a virtue-signalling apology,” said someone that nobody has ever heard of.

🤣🤣🤣

Never mind this thread - simply the BBC report had me in stitches because of this person's contribution.

"OMG, I'm going to have to cancel myself !!1!1!!"

Harry Potter?

Wasn't there an attempt to get JKR 'cancelled' by claiming that Daniel Radcliffe was the true 'author' of HP? Maybe this is an extension of that.

It's an excellent strategy. You can make anything mean anything, and make anything be true, as long as you believe it hard enough and say it enough times

That Vox columnist is something else. 'I don't want him fired, or reprimanded, or even told to make an apology'. LOL, right, that's why you mentioned those things. In a public letter.

There are people signing who are already canceled, who they agree should be canceled, and so they have to cancel their anti-cancelation aberration because they were pro cancelation all along.

OK then.

The Cancel Culture and the public shaming really bothers me. I grew up in a communist country where you could only have one opinion and someone decided for you what's the right one.

People I knew lost jobs and worse for daring to have an opinion and sharing it.

The current climate seems sadly too familiar to me.

And hot on the heels of this letter Jodie a Comer is "cancelled" for........

allegedly having a Trump supporting boyfriend

Xan it's like that scene in Blackadder the Third, where Prince George has drafted a letter to a woman, and Blackadder says
'It's wonderful Your Highness, but do you mind if I change one tiny aspect?'
Prince George 'Which one?'
Blackadder 'The words?'

@BentBastard

And hot on the heels of this letter Jodie a Comer is "cancelled" for........

allegedly having a Trump supporting boyfriend

Oh ffs!!

Who will be left to call out and do the cancelling once everyone is cancelled...🤔

www.newsweek.com/jodie-comer-canceled-boyfriend-trump-supporter-twitter-1516174

I am pretty sure that if I emailed an HR department, complaining about a colleague and then published the contents of the email on social media, I would find myself out of a job.
That is how life normally works.

Who will be left tocall outand do the cancelling once everyone is cancelled

Presumably everyone who votes for the Republicans is automatically cancelled.