Not upon the woman who was fired from Home Depot for posting on Facebook that she wished Donald Trump had died and not even upon the University of British Columbia medical school professor Karen Pinder, who did the same on X—lamenting what a “glorious day” it would have been if Trump was shot through the brain, rather than his ear. Ghoulish? Yes. Worthy of cancellation? No.
One could argue (many have) that a medical school professor, unlike a store clerk, deserves the international scrutiny brought about by a cancellation mob for wishing death upon a politician; I’ve seen dozens of incantations of the Hippocratic Oath—do no harm, in particular—used, ironically, to justify a different harm. Because cancellation is harmful. It drives people to misery, madness, and even suicide. And if you’re righteous enough to hold certain people to a standard of harming no one, and to a standard of not harbouring or expressing thoughts of wishing harm upon one’s enemies—then you need to ask why you hold yourself to a lower standard. Is that not an unintended admission of one’s moral inferiority?
Here’s the thing about trying to cancel a person over their speech: What it really comes down to is less a desire to control someone’s speech than it is to control someone else’s thoughts. Because we know that Karen Pinder, for instance, was not cured of her Trump Derangement Syndrome as a result of her international notoriety and a workplace investigation. We also know that Pinder held those thoughts in her head before she posted them for the public to scrutinize. Post mobbing, we should suspect that her online cancellation served only to further entrench her views. A mob never changes someone’s mind.
People wander this earth with all manner of unknown thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. Until someone commits a crime—explicitly inciting violence, let’s say—or allows their views to impact the way they do their job, then their thoughts are immaterial to us. Perhaps others’ thoughts should stay that way—immaterial—even if we gain insight into them and discover that we virulently disagree. Even when others post their thoughts in the most inflammatory manner and for the entire world to see. Yes, even then.
The far left has had a stranglehold on cancel culture for years. They wielded their power to destroy the lives of political opponents for far smaller infractions than keening over a failed assassination attempt. I understand the desire for retribution, perhaps more than most.
As I said, I’ve been cancelled. In my case, it was for saying that there are two biological sexes, for pointing out the harms of gender ideology, and for irreverently challenging gender doctrine. There are people who believe that the thoughts in my head render me such a danger to others that I should never work a day again in my life. They continually expend their energy and time on trying to make that so. They are obviously wrong, simple-minded, and cruel.
These are the people who have—in their delusions of moral superiority—drawn a line in the sand of permissible speech for others that is miles ahead of the line for themselves—their line being the one that permits public salivation over Trump’s murder. Their hypocrisy is sickening.
Regardless, I find it worthwhile to fight my basest impulse to mete out vengeance upon total strangers for the unhinged and cruel behaviour of the mob-inclined left. I don’t know “Home Depot Lady” and I don’t know Karen Pinder, or any of the others being mobbed and cancelled and fired. They did not personally cancel me. (In which case I would consider an argument about justice.) Nor are they elected officials that are directly accountable to me. A month from now, I may never think about either woman ever again—but their lives have been irrevocably changed, probably for the worse.
I’ve spent years railing against cancel culture. I can’t stop now. There can’t be a line in the sand at all. We either accept the mob or say no to it, under all circumstances.
