I'm sure it improves my appearance. That too is being done to protect others.

As I said, I think that our disagreement stemmed largely from the fact that we were defining polarization differently.

I agree with what you wrote above. In fact, it doesn't even seem particularly controversial.

I never thought it was at all controversial until P. I still don't get it apart from with a few who actually seem to think democracy needs to break down before the problems can be fixed - I can understand that even though I'm deeply unconvinced.

Have you come up with an answer for me yet, Chez?

Yes, there are a few people who think the story ends with "our best hope is that a utopia will bloom from the ashes."

The problems are that a utopia almost certainly won't bloom from the ashes, and in the immediate term, the pain of a burn it down strategy will be felt most acutely by those least able to bear the burden.

Indeed. True also for something more realistic than Utopia.

Not really.

I went to Uni in the 90s. Every time anyone spoke or appeared their was a protest. Meme's about lefty political correctness gone to far were regular in the right wing press.

You do realise that comedy has been "changing" since the 70s?

Look at mainstream 70s comedy that would have aired at peak viewing times. Full of jokes based on lazy racial and sexual stereotypes.

Their was cultural drift away from this type of comedy, but their was also massive push back against this drift, the usual its just a joke defence was applied ad nauseam.

This drift and push back has been part of everyday discourse since the 70s.

The only difference is thanks to the interwebs and russian agit prop, the push back element has been able to solidify into the derp collective that aggregates similar derp topics into a derp movement.

If you think its different this time, you are a derp.

Multi millionaire comedians complaining they are being censored is standard.

ditto for the 80s when I was at college.

Probably even more so as there was a real struggle between left and right going on.

That's also when comedy such as 'The young ones' were ploughing the path.

- don't go trying to create issues to enflame things where you are not facing harm but do have a right to.

Example would be searching out a bakery in a rural State who will not make a 'gay' cake and then deliberately ordering there so you can then be turned down, whip this up into an issue and try to get them cancelled.

- stick to facts and truth and drop the use of smear tactics and trying to bury the 'perceived offender' under the weight of accusations.

This is one of the main tactics used by the cancelling left and one of the most deplorable. A person commits what is perceived to be a cancellable offense and that is seen as reason to allow any accusation, true or not, to be thrown at them. There is not only no requirement to establish the accusation but it is considered 'right' to do it as they are already judged a bad person. The goal of this tactic is to add so much volume to this discussion that most people will find it impossible to fact check it and thus just 'take a side', which denies the accused the ability to use facts to establish their position.

Example was the recent Joe Rogan thread on this site. Those wanting Rogan cancelled started to pile on every single thing anyone would ever say about the extreme right. He was not just a Vax Denier per the opening accusation, but he was soon charged with being a 'racist' and 'war monger' and so many other things.

It did not matter that video after video could be posted where he is nothing but adamantly anti war and a peacenik hippie type. Nope, just kept repeating it, without offering a shred of evidence because...

What this tactic does is two fold. We saw with one poster, I consider very reasonable in Rococo, who basically said he is not aware, nr interested enough to review the source complaints and material and as such has no strong view on the accusations so he is instead inclined to believe the truth lies somewhere in between. That is exactly what the radical left wants. Few, innocent or not can survive the view they are somewhere in between contemptable and innocent. They should still step down (as Al Frankken did) and thus the cancelling has succeeded, even if the accusations were not even remotely trust.

The second thing this tactic does is allow people on the deplorable right to cherry pick clear instances of exaggeration or lies (Rogan is a war monger) and use that to discredit, to their side, the entirety of the complaints against the individuals. So even if you get it 90% correct and the person should go, the other side will now doubt that 90%, rightly, when they can see you are clearly willing to use lies to bury the person as in the 10%.

Separate to this cancelling is to understand the world is not twitter and some battles have real consequences on the people you purport to want to protect.

I've spoken about my friend in Edmonton who is a gay man who was often sought out to mediate situations that had the potential to blow up into bigger issues. Edmonton Alberta is an oasis of diversity for LBGTQ+ and POC in a Province that otherwise has the ability to be very conservative Texas like.

The goal is to try and find compromise settlements that people in the community LBGTQ+ and other can all live with while making as little news as possible. Everyone recognized these issues could very easily be used by those seeking a polarizing agenda on the right, to wake up deplorable voters and to then enact much of the types of draconian legislation and measures we see happening in US States.

He does a masterful job as getting these compromises and if you look at the beginnings of the Trans thread, I pointed out almost everyone of his type compromises would be labeled wrong, bad, other, because in online wars compromise, when you are in the position of right, is seen as a betrayal and terrible thing. You push, you push and you push, and when the bad people awaken and push back with Bills like 'don't say gay' etc you then label them as deplorable. Checkmate you got the deplorables to play their hand and now people like uke can truly point out 'look how deplorable they are'.

If that is your win, then great. But there are real victims in your win. My win, is seeing them avoid that and to still have the services in place and if that means quiet compromises in areas where deplorable push back will have real impact and real victims so be it.

And i understand why compromise is seen by some as bad/wrong when a person has a right and via compromise they do not assert it strongly. That should not be the case. Sometime pragmatism and avoiding the conflict is the better path. Extremists never see it that way.

I am not so sure. I think that one thing that can endure is the provocations of polarization. I think history may prove it to be something that can be maintained far easier than the co-existence state which i think is something societies have to work much harder to maintain. But I guess we will see.


I agree but I think we have to be careful not to conflate things.

There is certainly the bigger threat and it is always at the fore. The GOP using legislation to try and cancel everything they do not agree with, ...subversion of legit protests, etc.

And yes, these type of 'left' cancel culture things of smearing, ...shouting down, ...burying and canceling people on the left, right and centre who do not meet the various purity tests under the weight of accusations, is smaller and less important, true. But I believe it is used often as a catalyst and justification for the even worse actions by the right.

As i posted in my prior post, there is a view that any compromise is wrong and to be attacked, far too often, if 'we are on the side of right'. It is very misguided and short sighted imo.

How do you propose curtailing any of this behavior? It's not possible to police the actions of everyone who identifies as liberal and the right is always going to cherry pick or misrepresent things liberals do to further their own ends. I'm not aware of serious voices on the left engaging in stuff like this.

He did not decline. This is factually inaccurate. He apologized over and over and over in what many deemed an apology tour, but there was always one more being demanded.

What Kevin Hart rightly objected to, was being forced over and over and over again by the left and media to sit AGAIN and listen to his past comments and apologize yet AGAIN for them. That is what he declined. He would state instead he 'had already apologized on the record many times and was not going to do so again for the umpteenth time'.

That is the tactic of the far left. Apology or not. Ancient history or not. Just keep burying the guy until he has no choice but to step aside because there is no path forward that does not involve having to continue to deal with mounting accusations.

Then we can agree to disagree.

Only the complaints of multimillionaire comedians make the news typically but it is the small time, average joe comedian who are being targeted more or the small author trying to do a book signing.

Here is an example of an unknown comedian who faced the a group of left leaning lesbians who, it appears went to his performance, intending to heckle and him and when he fired back, they had the ammo to file a human rights complaint and won. The comedian there trying to earn hundreds of dollars was fined thousands of dollars for jokes that were deemed 'offensive' because the standard is 'the other persons view of offense' is the defining factor.

Comedians just do not want to face this type of thing as offense, can be a very personal thing. 100 people might laugh while one person in the corner takes offense. How can you ask the comedian to know that in advance?

One of the last big comedy shows I went to before covid shut the world down was to see Jimmy Carr in Edmonton. Believe me when I say that form of comedy you think the world may have evolved beyond is still alive and well. AND IT NEEDS TO BE, even as the audience for it does get smaller.

So lefties are responsible for all the bad behavior of righties and also of the collapse of the comedy industry? Anything else? Perhaps you should start a new thread about the ill behavior of lesbians, and share your insights, as that seems to be a genuine concern for you. Might you have a more recent instance of lesbian vs comedian behavior than a single small one that happened 15 years ago that still apparently haunts you?

All the best.

Oh noes! Our comedians!

I'm going by what he says in that instagram post where he says he declined at that moment to apologize. His justification like you say, is because he felt he had apologized often enough in the past. That's fair, but if the Academy was asking him to publicly apologize (again) in order to host and he declined, that's not getting canceled in my understanding of the word. I'm not too familiar with his career but I would guess that this would have been the biggest and broadest public stage he'd ever been on. I and I'm sure many others had never heard of his previous comments or previous apologies before this event so it seems reasonable that the Academy would ask him to clear the air for them. It's also reasonable that he would feel it unnecessary, but he was given an option. Would some people who helped this go viral have had the intention of canceling him? Absolutely.

The cancel people on the left have become the bullies in the leftist room.

It is well known and accepted that the bulk of the left and centre/left do not generally agree with the more aggressive tactics, smears, etc but they tend to remain silent lest they also be labeled with smears and buried under heaps of accusations and forced into that 'no win, defend yourself' mode.

It has been said 'when you have to open a sentence with "it is not true I am racist (sexist, transphobe)..." you have already lost.

The extreme left knows that all too well. It is common on this forum by some to use those accusations as smears in an attempt to silence, when topics are broached, that they feel everyone needs to be on the same side on, or they are fair game then for lies and smears.

If the non extreme left does not point out and say those tactics and accusations are not acceptable and proof MUST be provided if you are going to level them, then not much can be done. Because the tactic is the goal and end game. It does not require proof, just volume.

So for example, if i was to say 'Obama made statements that were anti white racism' you would see many posters here, rightly say 'cite or ban'. Maybe even a mod. That is a way to say 'we will not tolerate that type of blatant misrepresentation so you better have proof'.

GOOD. That type of response will quiet the lies. Obama is a sympathetic poster here or perceived to be on the proper 'side' and as such he gets that defense. In the BFI that same slur would go unquestioned and unchallenged, because again, 'sides'.

On the flip side, if the person is not sympathetic, again the Joe Rogan example, a person can just make something up (he is pro war, a war monger) and not have to establish anything. Quite the opposite that even in the face of video proof the opposite is true, the person can maintain they will provide no proof and still say they are right.

Take that same accusation to the BFI and don't substantiate it and in the face of facts, you might get the 'cite or ban' there. Joe is more sympathetic there.


It is human nature to take sides and that is what is being played by the extremists on both sides. They understand that dynamic and use it to great effect.

So what can be done? People need to be aware of it and rise above. People on the left, centre/left need to be the one challenging the extreme left and people on the centre/right need to challenge the extreme right. But that does not happen. And you need only look at this forum to see that.

Again this sort of thing has been going on for decades.

He did not 'feel'... he 'did' apologize, over and over and over in various forums and very publicly. He gave a detailed apology again after the entire Oscar debacle directly to the LGTBQ+ community.

Do you believe for one moment, that if tomorrow he is announced for the Oscars that the exact same tactic would not be used? Because it is a tactic. A cancellation tactic. It is not meant to get to an apology otherwise as has been pointed out when those 'Offended' cut and paste his past tweets, they could also then post his 'past apologies'. But they do not.

And i am fine with a society that says 'we read your comments' and 'we read your apology' and we find the latter is not sufficient to us to allow you to host the Oscars ('stay in your job', etc) but that is not what is being done as they far left many times KNOWS that if they address that the person did apologize and did so many times, their tactic will not be as successful.

They need people like you to say 'he did not apologize' so others who may not have followed this as closely and do not want to wade into the volume will just take 'sides'. Oh the truth 'must be somewhere in between' when IT IS NOT. He has apologized over and over and very publicly.

The radical left has learned the 'apology' can be the biggest weapon in cancelling someone and that is why you see so many on the right now say (rightly) that you should never apologize, ever. Sadly they are correct on that, even though they are using it in a dastardly way too, to not apologize for true offenses.

Again an example here was Trolly lying about what Joe Rogan's apology meant as a way not to accept the apology (which is what the extreme left pretends they want) but rather to then say it is further proof of the offense. So when a person says something like 'I am sorry if my words were perceived in a way that caused offense. That is not how they were intended', Trolly or those on the left later characterize by saying 'he admitted and apologized to being racist (sexist, etc)' which he DID not.

but that then gets buried under the weight of repeated accusations that 'he admitted it... he apologized for it...' which is a gross distortion but does the job in cancel culture.

You seemed confused why people might focus on the right and not be calling out the left all the time. Now you have had a clear explanation. When the inequality is so outrageous that you are comparing some college kids being overzealous in their attempts to combat say transphobia and homophobia to actual elected officials winning majorities and passing "don't say gay" laws, you can hopefully understand why one would focus more on critiquing one side. Hope that helps.

He made his position clear. The bad behavior that you describe from people on the right is a direct result of behavior from lefties, lesbians etc. Apparently if the lefties never protested anything then the righties would walk around confused and would never do bad behavior on their own. Also, comedians are subject to great inequities in this world.

cite? Not saying you don't have examples. I would just like to see some.

Show me a random low level comedian facing such back lash, (targeting, fines, jail) for replying back to hecklers, in kind and who then can use their 'offense' to push such charges across decades?

I am an avid consumer of comedy shows of the small and grungy kind. Same with live music. I have not seen it. I mean, I have seen people 'in the moment' offended and who heckle and the back and forth. That was, while not the norm, common enough not to shock. Sometimes the comedian got the best of the heckler but sometimes the heckler was the perceived winner and the comedian looked like an ass. those were the battle lines though. Very different than today.

If a Jimmy Carr type comedian was to be known today to be touring university campus pubs or other venues, they would not even reach the gates, i would bet. If 90% of the population was ok with them the 10% on the more radical left would still shut them out.

This activism, unless i read it wrong, has grown out of the Twitter mobs, finding their legs and realizing their power. I do not think it was really much of anything like this prior to that.

It has been going on for decades. The big difference, as with pretty much everything, is social media. When there was a protest in the 80s - no-one knew about it except a tiny circle. To make the news you had to throw paint over Heseltine (a tory MP) or have a riot.

Social media means that things have changed even though they have stayed the same. For better and worse.

Nope. No help. Not confused at all. Just silly whataboutism by you.

You are saying 'the right is worse'(and they are) so no talk about the left offenses should be done as we will keep calling you out and saying 'the right is worse'.


you are positing a world where it is impossible to discuss left leaning cancel culture and what the impact or problems of it are BECAUSE THE RIGHT IS WORSE and using legislation, etc.

I reject such wahtaboutisms as any sensible person would. Talking about the former does not mean I do not recognize the latter is worse and i have said as much repeatedly as part of my core thesis.

So again you are speaking nonsense. Hope that helps.