Yep, I’m jumping on this bandwagon. Talking about Roseanne. Or rather what others have been saying in the wake of her recent firing that boils down to this: Roseanne had every right to tweet, but she isn’t immune to the consequences of that speech.
It’s a notion that is not unfamiliar to me. Several years ago I said just that with regard to Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson. And back at the tail-end of 2013 it was an easy sentiment to hold. Since it wasn’t my political ideology on the chopping block. It wasn’t my political ideology being targeted. And it’s rather interesting today how those who most scream about “consequences” are the ones least likely to, in today’s political climate, experience said “consequences”.
Who is more likely to lose their job and livelihood due to something said on Twitter, someone who leans left, or someone who leans right? Given some of the vile, racist garbage that’s come out of the left, I think the answer is clear. Indeed my article about Duck Dynasty shows this isn’t a recent development.
The swiftness by which Roseanne was “scrubbed” from current entertainment options shows this. Lightning-quick virtue signalling. And not just from ABC either. Because ABC, and the parent company Disney, and everyone connected to the show likely would’ve faced swift backlash from leftists if they didn’t swiftly remove her show and denounce her. Not what she tweeted. But her personally.
And they didn’t just remove her new season, both from the air and their website – the link to the Roseanne show now redirects to the ABC Go homepage. They went so far as to pull reruns of the original series. Hulu did the same. So far, as of this article, Amazon hasn’t capitulated, but they likely will as well – Season 10 is not available through Prime video streaming, but the original seasons are. And YouTube also still has the reboot as of this writing.
At the close of 2017, I wrote this:
RIGHTS limit how the government interacts with the People, PRINCIPLES limit how you interact with everyone else. That is why I’ve spent much of the last several years continually defending PRINCIPLES over rights.
Without the underlying principles of free speech and the presumption of innocence, for example, there is no foundation for the RIGHTS derived from those principles. Yet more and more I see those principles continually violated by people who claim to stand up for the rights derived from those principles.
That is largely the lesson I’ve learned over the last few years as I’ve seen people continuously disparaging the concept and principle of free speech. On the question of consequences, we must always ask ourselves what consequences are fair and legitimate.
And this consequence against Roseanne is hardly fair given the totality of the circumstance. Just as the temporary suspension Phil Robertson suffered in 2013 was also not fair to him, contrary to whatever statements I may have said at the time.
And I would say the same about any leftists who suffer similar fates due to their statements. Except at this point leftists largely know they are immune to those consequences. They don’t have to worry about losing their jobs and careers – those that have them, at least – for saying some rather vile shit. Which is why they have no problem screaming about consequences. Since they’ll likely never suffer them personally.
And yet they call me and people like me “privileged”.
