Gettin' cancelled

In the summer of 2020, Americans took to the streets in droves to express their anger at a criminal legal system that makes perpetual victims of the poor and allows police to brutalize and murder people, especially black people, with total impunity.  In response to this massive national wave of protest, police everywhere took the streets and punched people until they went home. This resulted in mayors, councilmembers, congresspeople, and the President all demanding that those police be given more money.  

Somehow all of this gets filtered through our political media discourse to read as "The tyranny of Cancel Culture has come for our beloved cops and institutions!"  I thought Atrios, as is often the case, had a nice succinct way of explaining where that comes from.   

Lots of things can be said about the "cancel culture" nonsense from the most privileged people with giant microphone sinecures, but one simple way to see it is as a contest between those who think normal people having some freedom to engage in "punching up" is the important part of any concept of "free speech" (very broadly defined, not just 1A), and those who think that, ACTUALLY, it's punching down (by them) that's important.   

Journalists who think their role is to hold the powerful to account versus those who see their role as holding the public to account.

There's nothing I love more than journalists holding the public account when it "goes too far" in criticizing the powerful for doing things like, say, sending a bunch of cops into the streets to punch people. Or maybe I love it more when the courts do that.  

A ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday adds to a string of developments following 2020’s George Floyd protests that threaten demonstrators with harsh penalties for the actions of others.

The court ruled that an advocate who helped organize a Black Lives Matter rally could be sued for events that took place during that rally, even though he was not involved. The case arose after a police officer was injured during a protest in Baton Rouge in 2016 and filed a lawsuit against DeRay Mckesson, a national advocate who had amplified and joined the demonstration. Mckesson rejected liability, saying his actions were protected by the First Amendment, but the court ruled against him in Friday’s 6-1 opinion. 

Of course it might be too early to decide which of these we love most. Probably need check back on this once we've been held accountable by vigilantes with the tacit approval of the state legislature. That's a whole new level. 

HB 101, filed by Republican Danny McCormick, would justify homicides committed by people under the guise of protecting property from being damaged “during a riot,” and critics stress that this is a term with a low threshold. “A riot is three people under Louisiana law,” Landry said. “That’s a wide open hole for someone to kill people, like teenagers and children who might be just trespassing or breaking into a car.” McCormick did not reply to a request for comment on the bill, which echoes laws passed in recent years that grant immunity to drivers who run over protesters who were blocking a public street.

So there's all sorts of new and exciting ways to get cancelled. We've really barely scratched the surface.