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?

It's easy to should about cancelling people right up until it's what you want to say that is being cancelled.

I must admit, I was all "stop finding hate" and would have probably been full into cancelling people before talking about biological sex became cancellable

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8500911/JK-Rowling-joins-150-authors-academics-calling-end-cancel-culture.html

The DM article on it.

Ben and Jerry’s ice cream withdrew advertising from Facebook (Due to stop funding hate) because they allowed Trump to post - they said they thought Trump posting harmed democracy. Obviously censoring the major candidate in an upcoming presidential election is the best way to uphold democracy....

(Just to be clear I despise Trump)

I remember when The Satanic Verses was published and the fatwa issued against Rushdie. At the time, it clearly demarcated Muslim ideology from Western values of freedom of expression. Now the ones issuing modern day fatwas are the “progressive” Left in Western so-called democracies.

@BentBastar this is where I am this morning. Do I believe in free speech in principle, or only when free speech includes things I agree with? The great bit about tansactivism is that is has opened my eyes to this conflict. I have to decide: am I in favour of free speech, even if it means people like Starkey continue their spiel. Remember when Coca cola threatened to pull out of some US states because of their stance on gay rights? I was all in favour of that. Now when I think about it, what if it were about TWAW laws? What is a private business doing overruling state laws? This is all hugely uncomfortable thinking for me.

I see the Sky News app reporting the story uses the word cisgender with no explanation.

[quote AllWashedOut]@BentBastar this is where I am this morning. Do I believe in free speech in principle, or only when free speech includes things I agree with? The great bit about tansactivism is that is has opened my eyes to this conflict. I have to decide: am I in favour of free speech, even if it means people like Starkey continue their spiel. Remember when Coca cola threatened to pull out of some US states because of their stance on gay rights? I was all in favour of that. Now when I think about it, what if it were about TWAW laws? What is a private business doing overruling state laws? This is all hugely uncomfortable thinking for me.[/quote]
But it's vital we think and talk about this very issue. Being aware it's often uncomfortable. And complex. And explore the dichotomy. Where do we draw the line? Do we draw the line?

Not just reflexively spout what's the current "correct way of thinking".

[quote AllWashedOut]@BentBastar this is where I am this morning. Do I believe in free speech in principle, or only when free speech includes things I agree with? The great bit about tansactivism is that is has opened my eyes to this conflict. I have to decide: am I in favour of free speech, even if it means people like Starkey continue their spiel. Remember when Coca cola threatened to pull out of some US states because of their stance on gay rights? I was all in favour of that. Now when I think about it, what if it were about TWAW laws? What is a private business doing overruling state laws? This is all hugely uncomfortable thinking for me.[/quote]
But it's vital we think and talk about this very issue. Being aware it's often uncomfortable. And complex. And explore the dichotomy. Where do we draw the line? Do we draw the line?

Not just reflexively spout what's the current "correct way of thinking".

I remember when The Satanic Verses was published and the fatwa issued against Rushdie.

This is what makes the TRA bleating about this letter so shamefully and embarrassingly self-indulgent.

Rushdie was subject to one of the most extreme instances of free-speech sanctioning in living memory, and one which carried an actual threat of death.

Hey, idiotic VanDerWerff, talk to Salman Rushdie about not feeling safe, you shallow, self-obsessed halfwit.

[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]
Good lord. I clicked on that and enlarged it wondering what on earth it could say.

Nothing prepared me for what it actually did say.

"Me! Me! Me!"

That's all it said, Datun. Why expect anything else from a narcissistic ideologue?

@JellySlice

"Me! Me! Me!"

That's all it said, Datun. Why expect anything else from a narcissistic ideologue?

Very disturbing.

@GCAcademic

I remember when The Satanic Verses was published and the fatwa issued against Rushdie. At the time, it clearly demarcated Muslim ideology from Western values of freedom of expression. Now the ones issuing modern day fatwas are the “progressive” Left in Western so-called democracies.

It seems to happened so quickly.

@SunsetBeetch

This might explain it, Flo. It might have triggered some more uncontrollable sobbing.

"20 somethings"? 20 months old? 20 days old? No? ~Grasps desperately for straw fibre~

@JemimaShore

Wonderful!

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.

It's partly hilarious but also despair-inducing.

Now when I think about it, what if it were about TWAW laws? What is a private business doing overruling state laws?

Like Google quite openly tweeting the Gendered Intelligence TRA form letter to protest to Liz Truss about changes to the GRA.

They are after Frida Kahlo now on twitter...there won’t be anyone left. Well just the men.

@SerenityNowwwww

They are after Frida Kahlo now on twitter...there won’t be anyone left. Well just the men.

Gosh, what did she do?

Do I believe in free speech in principle, or only when free speech includes things I agree with? The great bit about tansactivism is that is has opened my eyes to this conflict. I have to decide: am I in favour of free speech, even if it means people like Starkey continue their spiel. Remember when Coca cola threatened to pull out of some US states because of their stance on gay rights? I was all in favour of that. Now when I think about it, what if it were about TWAW laws? What is a private business doing overruling state laws? This is all hugely uncomfortable thinking for me.

It's interesting to think back to all those cake bakery scandals. They look a little different in hindsight.

She ‘stole’ stuff apparently. I’m not sure if it was walkers it ideas and I’m not certain the twitter I now know either. I thought they were busy trying to trans her recently? I can’t keep up.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Now when I think about it, what if it were about TWAW laws? What is a private business doing overruling state laws?

Like Google quite openly tweeting the Gendered Intelligence TRA form letter to protest to Liz Truss about changes to the GRA.

Difficult issue. If, in the sixties, big private businesses had called for the southern states of the US to end racial segregation, would that have been justified (if so, where do you draw the line between when businesses are and aren't allowed to get involved - presumably it is subjective and the business owner might have different views from people here), or should businesses, on principle, absolutely keep out of politics altogether (and if so does that mean they shouldn't care about human rights abuses and should under no circumstances withdraw cooperation from China, Saudi Arabia, Burma, or Israel)? I mean I absolutely disagree with Google's lobbying here but I still don't know whether the general principle should be that private companies should never lobby anyone or they can but only in certain cases, or if they can but I just disagree with the particular decision they've made.

It's interesting to think back to all those cake bakery scandals. They look a little different in hindsight.

I think that a cake maker shouldn't be allowed to refuse to sell a cake on the grounds that they don't like the sex, colour, or orientation of the buyer.

However, they should be allowed to refuse to ice the cake with a political or religious message that they disagree with (be it pro-gay-rights, anti-gay-rights, pro-TRA, pro-GC, pro-BLM, anti-BLM).

So then the grey area in my mind is whether they should be allowed to refuse to ice it with "congratulations on your wedding, James and Michael" - does it fall more into the first category or the second one?

Vox critic at large Emily VanDerWerff, a trans woman, tweeted that she had written a letter to the publication's editors to say that Yglesias signing the letter "makes me feel less safe at Vox".

But VanDerWerff said she did not want Yglesias to be fired or apologise because it would only convince him he was being "martyred".

This is like the rebellion at Rowling's agency. They can't fire him, love, he's the founder and that's just not how things work in grown up land.

This is missing the point by miles. The letter idea is to make everybody feel safe.

It's not pro or anti any specific cause, it's defending freedom of speech, a basic right.