Conversation

Forming mobs hunting people down to get them fired for legally protected speech is wrong. In my opinion, there should be stronger labor protections for speech across the board because of nonsense like this.

Despite the recent rise of people on the right going after people for wishing the assassination succeeded, the left absolutely has to own that they've spent over a decade normalizing and defending this nonsense. It is no surprize at all, and was predicted from the very beginning that it would eventually lead to this.

My standard for culture war bullshit is that target selection matters. I'm sorry, but I don't think somebody wishing the president died is actually that big a deal. I'm pretty sure a majority of people are guilty of this for at least one head of state in their lives. If these were people advocating for criminal behavior (or behavior that should be criminal) I would feel differently, but it never has been.

The truth is, I also blame employers for this. It's all too easy to throw the employee under the bus to avoid a tiny bit of bad PR. I think if there was ever a purpose for 'sensitivity training' it should be used for situations like this. I think it shows a lack of respect for your workers if you'll let them go over such a tiny thing without even attempting to address the root issue.

If people actually want free speech and meritocracy, we're going to need institutions that are actually more resilient to human failings, rather than pretending we can purge them in totality. Again, this is something I blame the left for a great deal because progressives were perfectly fine with shaping institutions to their values when it suited them. Now the shoe is on the other foot and ordinary people are yet again being torched to establish a new order of political correctness.

This is the bed that was made, I'd like us to build a different one but for now this seems to be the one we're lying in for the time being.