We have a group of dedicated readers here in the salon. So, before we begin this exercise I’m going to reiterate that what is said in this piece is really not for them. If you are a regular you already know this. This piece is for anyone else that might stumble along and see this.

The point is pretty simple. Cancel culture really isn’t a thing. It is what we call freedom of speech or freedom of expression. I suppose shows get canceled and there are always backlashes against certain people and certain things. It has always been that way. The point can be illustrated through one very straighforward tweet.

Other artists who are deleting Anheuser-Busch products from their hospitality rider might not say so in public for fear of being ridiculed and cancelled. I have no such fear. https://t.co/YgjO9P03tR

— Travis Tritt (@Travistritt) April 6, 2023

Here is the ultimate irony. Travis Tritt is attempting to cancel Anheuser-Busch. Basically, this is a direct plea to his fans that Budweiser isn’t cool with him anymore and shouldn’t be cool with them either. So, in one sentence he manages to attempt canceling Budweiser and then accuses them of doing the same. Some people are just blessed without self-awareness.

So, let me repeat this for those blessed without self-awareness, Freedom of speech means you have the right to say what you want as long as your speech doesn’t incite a riot or is demonstrably false and damaging to a particular individual or business. Yet, that means that people can also react to your speech. They can speak against it or even shun you or your products. That’s always been a thing. It will always be a thing. This new-fangled notion of cancel culture is really a buzzword that means nothing.

I don’t buy Anheuser-Busch products. I don’t buy Coors products. It has nothing to do with wokeness (whatever that is). I don’t buy those beers because they aren’t good. Occasionally, we go to the Spec’s in downtown Houston and it always flabbergasts me when people buy crappy and cheap beer at a store that sells virtually every beer marketed in town. You can buy beer flavored water anywhere.

I don’t own any Travis Tritt albums. I don’t like country music. I know a lot of people do and if they enjoy his music they should avail themselves of it. I know a lot of people like Bud Light and Coors. Great. You buy what you want to buy and listen to the music you want to listen to. This is how freedom works.

The fact is that too many people misunderstand freedom of speech. It protects you from being arrested or silenced by Congress. It doesn’t protect you from the negative impacts of a bad take. It doesn’t protect anyone from their employer reacting badly to their speech.  It doesn’t guarantee you a microphone or platform. You have a right to speak. With that right to speak comes consequences. Some of them may be good or bad. It has always been this way and it will always be that way.

A somewhat well-known progressive commentator sent out a tweet last week that started a firestorm. David Pakman of the David Pakman show sent out a tweet that has since been taken down. Of course, the tweet will live on forever as the far right has receipts. In the meantime, the whole incident is a nice focal point for any number of issues/lines of battle. The tweet and the response are tremendous examples of the lack of nuance in our modern politics as well as the overwhelming effect that social media has on the political debate. Finally, we get to the great hypocrisy machine that is cancel culture. The controversial tweet is below.

I’ve discussed religion and politics before. So, depending on your point of view I am either the perfect guy for this message or the last guy for this message. I have also received slings and arrows for being longwinded. I could throw out excuses for all of that, but this tweet is an example of why. Pakman is attempting to use 280 characters or less to throw out a nuanced argument and fails miserably. Naturally, the failure is not all on him. We can control our intention and we can control our execution, but we cannot control how anything is received. At any rate, I could launch a whole critique of what is wrong or not wrong with this tweet, but that’s really not the point.

As someone that enjoys sarcasm, I can certainly appreciate that here. Pakman certainly isn’t denying the existence of God or the power that God possesses. At least he isn’t doing it in this tweet. He simply is pointing out that thoughts and prayers haven’t done a damn thing to prevent school shootings and that Godlessness had little to no impact on a Christian school becoming the latest in a long line of schools that have suffered this fate.

Perhaps, the overarching point of the whole exercise was the right wing response to this tweet. Fox News and several other television, radio, and online media sources descended on Pakman like a plague of locusts. They pressured advertisers. They made him a household name in conservative circles for all of the worst reasons. In short, they attempted to cancel him. Naturally, they proved a point I have been making repeatedly in this place and others: free speech and expression is a powerful thing and it encompasses far more than simply a back and forth on ideas. Pakman is not the first progressive to suffer the slings and arrows of right wing outrage. In point of fact, one could very credibly claim that the right wing created cancel culture in the first place.

We can certainly go as far back as the Dixie Chicks or even John Lennon when firing up our examples. People have destroyed albums, burned clothes, and smashed televisions in the name of cancel culture. If you want to buy stuff only to destroy it be my guest. That’s your money you’re flushing down the toilet. If you want to try to cancel someone you are free to try. What you cannot do is decry cancel culture and then turn around and use it for your own benefit. Pakman certainly could have worded this better, but he is not wrong. It’s just a message that a lot of people are not ready to hear.

The irony of Conservatives complaining about “cancel culture” and “attacks on free speech” is thick.  They have been banning things other Americans do for decades – everything from being able to access healthcare to banning certain imagery from public grounds while promoting images of white supremacists, Bible verses, and crosses the size of sky scrapers. Ignoring all that, the inventors of bans and boycotts are now offended at measures to stop systemic GOP racism, racist dog whistles, brazen voter suppression, and just outright lying and are passing all kinds of laws outlawing everything from voter registration efforts to protesting police brutality.

So, the next time you are in a conversation with a conservative and they complain about “cancel culture” ask them if they agree with the 28 year ban on YOGA in Alabama schools.  That’s right, folks, since 1993, yoga and meditation have been banned in Alabama schools because The Hindu might rub off on students while exercising.  The effort to lift that ban has been tried the last legislative session and gained traction this session until it was killed by religious conservatives scaredy cat bigots in the Senate judiciary committee.  The blocked bill had even prohibited using the word “namaste” and forbade chanting and mantras, and required all yoga poses be named in English, but that wasn’t good enough.  In testimony, Christian activist religious zealot Becky Gerritson said, “Yoga is a very big part of the Hindu religion.  If this bill passes, then instructors will be able to come into classrooms as young as kindergarten and bring these children through guided imagery, which is a spiritual exercise, and it’s outside their parents’ view. And we just believe that this is not appropriate.”  Hilariously, representatives of Roy Moore’s Foundation for Moral Law, claimed yoga would lead to proselytizing in public schools by followers of Hinduism.  Recall that the weirdo and failed US Senate candidate likes little girls and was banned from the local shopping mall for harassing them.  Connecting the name Roy Moore with the word “moral” can cause whiplash in normal people.

So, when you get “Cancel Culture” from a conservative, just reply “Yoga ban.”  They’ll have no idea what you’re talking about, so you’ll enjoy explaining it to them.