I have before me dozens of examples of intelligent, educated, accomplished individuals who have been fired, cancelled, humiliated or otherwise punished simply for expressing opinions not in line with the “woke” Left. This assault on the Principle of Free Speech is an abomination aggressively pursued or at least tacitly endorsed by those so devoid of self-awareness that they actually consider themselves to be liberals. Their imperviousness to the concept of irony is surpassed only by their appalling compulsion to bully!
In late May evolutionary biologist Dr. Colin Wright, speaking on behalf of the Women’s Liberation Front which was seeking to defend incarcerated females from possible assaults by transgenders, stated that individuals born with penises were unequivocally male and objectively remained so whatever their claims to the contrary. Admonished by PayPal for his assertion, he was banished by Etsy, a platform of which I know little, for “glorifying hatred or violence towards protected groups.” Ironically, The N.Y. Post reported just a couple of days ago that a transgender, Demi Minor, had impregnated two females at a New Jersey prison. Apparently issues of Gender Identity are far more complicated than the “woke” Left would ever admit, yet it has no qualms whatsoever about cancelling anyone of a contrary opinion!
Also in May, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn was chastised by Facebook for posting: “Biological men have no place in women’s sports.” Saying her comment violated its “community standards on hate speech,” Facebook had it removed from its site. Her sin was one of “exclusion,” though the inevitable “exclusion” of women from their right to earn a living in athletics was not apparently an issue for the brain-dead, politically correct zombies at Facebook.
Late last year Frances Widdowson, an associate professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, was fired for speaking out against the “wokeism” that had invaded the institution in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Identity politics, she rightly argued, was inherently unscholarly, as were the rants emerging from the B.L.M. movement which was literally destroying the academic integrity she so deeply cherished. A petition to have her fired garnered over 6,000 signatures! So much for Free Speech; so much for the civilized exchange of Ideas formerly deemed essential to the Democratic process!
Just recently, Charlene Carter, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, was awarded a 5.1 million dollar settlement at the expense of both her employer and union after having been fired for expressing her pro-life views. Enraged when she discovered that the Transportation Workers Union of America was using her money to fund various pro-abortion groups, she was literally fired for being a devout Christian.
Examples of the self-righteous, authoritarian dementia of the Left abound! I have several friends working in the public sector who passionately disagree with the sentimental drivel being spewed upon them yet dare not speak their minds for fear of being fired. Those responsible for this reign of terror love to invoke the McCarthy era when it was the Right that was guilty of quashing all those of a Leftist perspective. But while I in no way endorse the violation of the rights of any individual on the basis of their political views, has not the Socialism which America sought to vanquish in the 50s proven to be the cancer which McCarthy claimed it to be? Did not China and Russia slaughter tens of millions in the 20th Century in their pursuit of “social justice”? Those who consider themselves moderate proponents of that Utopian goal would suggest they have absolutely nothing in common with those two horrid regimes, but they are lying to themselves. What has emerged as contemporary “progressivism” is inherently given to government intrusions into the lives of its citizens, inherently given to stifling those human attributes which lead to “inequality,” inherently given not to a rational commitment to the Rule of Law but to the irrational belief that its cause is holy. The few examples of intolerance cited above are not deviations from the dominant Leftist culture of our day but perfect manifestations of its sanctimonious arrogance.