By Ranting Panda, 8 August 2020
If one listens to conservatives, it would seem that lefties, or progressives at least, are waging a war on freedom and free-speech. Conservatives frame this non-existent war as a product of 'political correctness', or 'virtue-signalling', because of left-wing do-gooders, who are supposedly being overly sensitive snowflakes who manufacture offence and then meltdown in the face of this 'contrived' offence.
There is some truth in conservatives claims. There are times that progressives 'cancel' those who are perceived as having some moral failing, such as being racist or sexist.
Many conservatives see themselves as thick-skinned heroes defending freedom ... they see themselves as victims of the Snowflake War.
Anyone would think that conservatives are resilient people who would never indulge in 'cancel culture' or 'political correctness'. However, they have been guilty of these very issues themselves. The difference is that when progressives do it, it is because of abuse perpetrated by systemic discrimination or in response to someone harming others. When conservatives do it, it is usually because they are upset that someone thinks, acts or looks different to them.
Yes, believe it or not ... Conservatives are epic snowflakes, waging war on freedoms using their own brand of self-centred political correctness and virtue-signalling that dog-whistles to other conservative snowflakes.
'Conservative political correctness?', I hear you ask! Yep. Conservative political correctness usually revolves around respecting flags and statues, rather than people. For instance, patriotism is sacrosanct.
One such example occurred in Australia in 2017, when a Muslim feminist writer named Yassmin Abdel-Magied, posted a tweet on Anzac Day which stated: 'LEST. WE. FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine...)'. Conservatives were so affronted by this innocuous tweet, that Yassmin was hounded out of the country. She received rape and death threats because of it and ended up leaving Australia to live in England. Many of the threats targeted Yassmin's religion and gender. I mean, being a Muslim and a feminist was never going to sit well with conservative snowflakes. Conservative commentator, Prue McSween, called Abdel-Magied a flea and stated that it was acceptable for her to feel unsafe in Australia, then compounded this disgusting tirade by stating that if she saw her, she would be tempted to run her over (BBC 2017). Ironically, many of the people who were offended by her tweet, claimed that Anzac Day commemorates those who fought and died for Australia's freedoms. Apparently, those freedoms don't include freedom of speech for young, feminist Muslim women, even though these same conservatives will claim that it's Muslims who hate Australia's freedoms ...
In 2017, not long after the disgustingly racist and sexist abuse of Yassmin Abdel-Magied, the Australian Human Rights Commission made a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into multiculturalism, regarding the lack of non-Anglo-Celtic people represented in the public sphere. This may seem innocuous enough, however it triggered Rowan Dean, editor of The Spectator Australia, into racially attacking the federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane. This racist abuse was given a platform on Sky News, were Dean defiantly declared that Mr Soutphommasane should 'hop on a plane and go back to Laos'. It should be noted that Mr Soutphommasane isn't from Laos; he was born in France to Laotian parents. (BBC 2017).
Then there was Scott McIntyre, a former SBS journalist, who tired of the drunken nationalism that has taken over Anzac Day. McIntyre believed that Anzac Day had taken on a cult-like following, in which people glorified war and dehumanised the 'enemy'. McIntyre decided to remind Australia that some of our diggers were involved in horrendous crimes in the fog of war, such as rape and murder (Davidson 2016). These snippets of truth went down like a lead-balloon with conservatives, leading to McIntyre being sacked by SBS in response to howls of conservative rage.
The problem with this unquestioning nationalism is that it condones and perpetuates war crimes and other criminal behaviour by defence force personnel. For instance, when the ABC reported on the abuse of asylum seekers by Australian military personnel (Roberts 2014), then Prime Minister Tony Abbott accused it of being unpatriotic (Bourke 2014). Apparently waving the Aussie flag was more important that stopping the abuse of innocent people by the military. When the ABC reported on alleged war crimes by the SAS in Afghanistan (Willacy 2020), conservatives were angry with the ABC for reporting it, not because there may have been war crimes committed by Australian troops.
Still don't believe that conservatives can be snowflakes? Tell them that their food is Halal. In their apoplectic rage, they will boycott the product, write angry letters to the company, to their local politicians, to the newspaper, and fire off incoherent tweets and social media posts. Yep, cancel culture, right there!
More fun can be had if one dares say 'Happy Holidays' at Christmas time. They will become proudly indignant and declare that it is 'Merry CHRISTMAS'! Even though many of these conservatives only look forward to Christmas for the presents, food, decorations and holidays. Most of them couldn't care less about it being the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Most of them have never set foot in a church. And those who have? Clearly, they love their dogma more than they love people. I mean, seriously, if someone wishes you well, then be thankful. It takes a special kind of spitefulness to complain that a season's greeting didn't meet the expected standard. As Benjamin Franklin astutely observed, 'How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments'.
There was a call to boycott Starbucks because their coffee cups were deemed 'anti-Christmas'. How can a coffee cup be anti-Christmas? When it is red. Well, when it is red only and does not feature Christmas trees, grimacing Santa Claus faces or (most appropriately) snowflakes ... because nothing screams 'Jesus is the reason for the Season' than a coffee cup covered in European winter symbols (Dvorak 2015).
Conservatives can continue the rage and wallow in their victimhood straight after Christmas, when Easter Eggs appear on the shelves. Well, there will be rage if said egg dares not mention the word 'Easter'. God forbid selling a chocolate egg that doesn't say Easter. I mean seriously, What Would Jesus Do? We all know how that Jesus smashed down a big helping of Easter Eggs during the Last Supper. Over the years, conservatives have boycotted Nestle and Cadbury for both daring to produce Easter Eggs that don't meet the high moral standard set by privileged conservatives who clearly have nothing better to be offended at. Ironically, these symbols of Easter that they lose their collective minds over, have nothing to do with Jesus, but are pagan symbols of fertility. Easter has links to several pagan fertility religions, including Ishtar, the Mesopotamian 'Queen of Heaven' and goddess of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Although Easter was likely named after the German 'Eostre', it was a northern hemisphere celebration of fertility, that Christians appropriated to make their message more palatable to the locals (D'Costa 2013). Compromise, anyone? It seems that the early Christians weren't quite the snowflakes that today's conservative Christians are.
Speaking of drugs, sex and rock'n'roll, how can we forget when conservatives waged all-out war on rock music: the 'Devil's Music'! This reached peak silliness when John Lennon made the astute observation that The Beatles were 'more popular than Jesus now'. People melted down, believing that The Beatles thought they were greater than God. Lennon clarified later that he was referring to how their fans saw them, not that he was anti-God or anti-Jesus. In response to this perceived insult, Christians bought Beatles albums and then burned them (think about that, take all the time you need ... cancelling a band by buying their stuff ... riiiiight). Tragically, this attempt to cancel The Beatles culminated in Mark David Chapman shooting and killing John Lennon in 1980. Chapman was a 'born-again' Christian, who stated that part of the reason he did it was because of Lennon's comment about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus (Jones 1992, pp 117-118). Chapman had also been upset with the songs 'God' and 'Imagine'. Chapman believed that Imagine was a Communist song, and subsequently wrote his own lyrics to it, which included 'Imagine John Lennon dead' (Jones 1992, pp 117, 189).
Chapman's hatred of Communism wasn't his own invention. The last time Christians got so upset about Communism, they unleashed they sang the praises of Adolf Hitler ... and we know how that ended.
Conservatives are currently melting down over cheese. Yep, believe it or not, they are more interested in cheese than in ending racism. In fact, many of them don't believe in either systemic racism or casual racism. Systemic racism is evidenced by significantly higher incarceration rates of indigenous people or people of colour, higher suicide rates, poorer educational and health outcomes, and increased poverty. Casual racism is much more insidious, but just as harmful. It may include jokes or snide comments based on racial stereotypes, but it presupposes white superiority and the subjugation of people of colour.
So, cheese. Australia's Coon Cheese was named after the man who invented the ripening process for cheese, Edward William Coon. The ripening process is also named after him and is known as cooning. Unfortunately, Edward Coon's surname is also a racial slur. For decades there were requests to change the name of the cheese. Keep in mind, that Edward Coon did not found or own Australia's Coon Cheese; it was merely named after him. It was created by the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter company, and launched by Fred Walker. In July 2020, it was under the ownership of Canadian company, Saputo Inc, who decided to change the name based on its association with the racial slur.
And didn't the conservatives cut their collective cheeses over it! Now, the cheese could just as easily have been called Walker Cheese, WCB Cheese, or any other variant of its original or current owners. It's just a name. Saputo recognised that while Coon was the surname of the man who invented the maturation process, it can cause significant offence, so they changed the name. They didn't shoot Bambi. But conservatives carried on as if their first-born was being torn from their arms, and promised to boycott the cheese. Not that the boycott will do much, because some had already boycotted the cheese when it became Halal certified. Yep, conservative cancel culture: cancel cheese. Conservatives tackling the big issues. After all, cheese is more important than addressing racism.
The man who drove the name-change is Dr Stephen Hagan. In retaliation for Dr Hagan daring to challenge the name of a cheese, One Nation member, Mark Latham, mocked him and suggested that 'evil snowflakes' would start targeting products that included the word 'white'. He included a photo of Paul's 'Smarter White Milk' product. Not surprisingly, several media outlets ran this as a factual story. So incensed were the racists who actually believed this puerile drivel, that Hagan received more than 30,000 abusive comments, hate mail and several death threats (Roe 2020). Yeah ... death threats over a fake story about the name of a milk product. Latham is leader of One Nation in New South Wales and a member of the NSW Legislative Council, the Upper House in the NSW Parliament. This is the standard of politics and media in Australia. It also shows just how sensitive racist snowflakes are in Australia: they will cry over milk and cheese.
Speaking of racism, there was the matter of an NFL player, Colin Kaepernick, who kneeled during the national anthem prior to a football match in 2016. He was protesting against police brutality. Small-minded conservatives took this as a affront to US sovereignty. Yeah, I know ... how freaking sensitive does one have to be to interpret an anti-racism protest as an attack on US sovereignty? But such is the depths of nationalism that permeates right-wing media and group-think. In protest, many conservatives burned their own NFL jerseys and Nike shoes. Again ... take all the time you need to think about this ... protesting by burning something they've already bought. That's really going to hit the NFL or Nike's bottom line. The sad thing, when asked, many of these people had no idea what Kaepernick was protesting. Many thought he was opposing the flag, the anthem, or US troops, because of bigoted group-think manipulated by racist politicians and media.
The anti-Kaepernick brigade were already so emboldened with nationalistic fervour and racism, that it didn't take much to push them over the edge ... and we ask how Germans could be so duped by Hitler? Indeed.
Speaking of football players, in Australia many indigenous people played in the rugby league and Australian Rules football codes. Throughout the years, many reported receiving racist abuse, including former Brisbane Broncos player, Steve Renouf (Pengilly 2020), and former St Kilda player, Nicky Winmar (NMA 2020). Adam Goodes had a stellar AFL career, playing more games than any other indigenous player, twice winning the coveted Brownlow Medal for being the best and fairest player in the competition, and in 2014, he won Australian of the Year. Despite his achievements, Goodes was subject to years of racist abuse. During the Indigenous Round in 2013, Goodes was racially vilified by a spectator. Goodes called her out for it during the game (McRae 2020). It transpired the spectator was 13 years old. The conservative response? Well, rather than agreeing that Goodes had every right to challenge racist abuse from a 13 year old brat, they attacked him, doubled down on the vilification and drove him from the game.
Conservatives have a track record of prioritising racism over respect. Although, they also have a track record of claiming that 'kids of today have no respect for their elders'. Well, why should they, when their elders glorify such disrespectful behaviour.
Don't get conservatives started on statues. During the Black Lives Matter protests, there were calls to tear down statues of confederate soldiers because they had defended slavery. Conservatives, in their rather simplistic rationale, equated this to changing or erasing history. Hello ... there are things called books! These books actually record history. Ditching a statue of some slave-owning racist white supremacist is not erasing history, it is acknowledging history and raising awareness of the person's vile behaviour. Interestingly, many of the confederate statues were not erected during or immediately following the American Civil War, but were erected specifically in defence of racism (Robinson 2020). Many were put up during the early 1900s to defend the Jim Crow laws which legalised the disenfranchisement and segregation of black people. In the 1960s, many of these statues were erected in response to the Civil Rights movement which was calling for the dismantling of the racist systems established by the Jim Crow laws, and the attitudes and systems that had existed in America before, during and since slavery (Williams, Armitage & Stein 2020; Gunter & Kizzir n.d., p 11).
Speaking of Black Lives Matter ... not surprisingly, many conservatives piously claimed 'ALL lives matter', not just black ones. This little act of defiance represented an incredible level of hypocrisy because these same ALM advocates have actively campaigned against, or voted for politicians who oppose, refugees and asylum seekers, LGBTIQ+ rights, same sex marriage, Islam, migrants, and the list goes on. Perhaps, the ALM brigade should look up the meaning of 'All' in the dictionary. Just to be clear, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'all' as meaning, 'every member or individual component'. Everyone! Not everyone except for black people or gay people or Muslims or refugees! Funnily enough, those marching for BLM are also most likely to also march in defence of the rights of other persecuted groups; its BLM activists who actually believe that all lives matter, rather than the pious ALM proponents.
Nothing triggers some conservatives like suggesting that others have equal rights. Recent campaigns for same sex marriage resulted in conservatives boycotting numerous companies who expressed solidarity with the cause, such as Qantas, Virgin and Hallmark.
Sadly, many conservatives see social justice and human rights as being an affront to their own rights. This is typical of the selfishnessness of conservatives who only sympathise with issues that impact them specifically. They couldn't care less about issues that impact others. This is why they oppose anti-racism campaigns, they oppose same sex marriage, they oppose other religions. Meanwhile, they will hurl insults at those who dare to stand up for these rights, labelling them 'do-gooders', 'social justice warriors', 'bleeding hearts', or accusing them of 'virtue-signalling', just because they want to help others. If you're not a do-gooder, then what are you? A no-gooder? A do-nothing? Seriously, if you're not wanting everyone to have the same rights as you, then you can't say 'ALL lives matter'. At best, you're a do-nothing ... at worst, well you're doing no good and maybe those words like bigot, racist, white-supremacist, may appropriately describe you.
These conservatives label human rights and social justice as 'cultural Marxism'. Conservatives have been responsible for a lot of fear-mongering: fear of black people, fear of Islam, fear of a gay agenda, fear of communism. During the 1940s and 1950s, the 'reds under the bed' paranoia was cancel culture writ large. It culminated with witch-hunts led by Senator Joe McCarthy and a Congressional committee known as the House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC). These witch-hunts resulted in the destruction of many people's lives and careers. Dozens of singers and actors suffered through this paranoia, including Charlie Chaplin, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger and Orson Welles. There were some who managed to rebuild their careers, others disappeared into obscurity, reputations destroyed by anti-Communist paranoia.
The new focus on 'cultural Marxism', or neo-Marxism, is just rebranding of McCarthyism, playing on the fears of gullible conservatives. Their fears are unfounded. President Donald Trump exploits these fears by accusing the far-left and Antifa of inciting violence during BLM protests. However, in the last 25 years, no-one has been killed by the far-left in the USA. Contrast this to the 329 people who have so far been killed by right-wing extremists in the United States (Pasley 2020). This indicates the danger of fear-mongering and demonisation is that people will focus on the wrong things. Racism continues and hate-crimes escalate, while conservatives wring their hands claiming 'All lives matter'. Some claim that they oppose racism, but will then boycott a business that supports Black Lives Matter ... nothing says anti-racism like boycotting a business that is actively anti-racist ...
Conservatives love to play the victim, even though they are often the perpetrator. Their claim of 'Cultural Marxism' is ingrained in them by opinionated conservative commentators dog-whistling to their xenophobia and bigotry, which reinforces their feelings of victimhood (Wilson 2015). They will claim that free speech is under attack because of left-wing do-gooders. What they don't seem to understand is that free speech means that everyone is entitled to speak their mind. Just because a conservative is called out for their racist, bigoted or false claims, doesn't mean that their freedom of speech is being threatened; it means that someone else is exercising their freedom of speech in retort.
I saw a statement recently, which said, 'Racism asks for your silence. Anti-racism asks for your voice'.
It is important to speak up and challenge racism. Speaking up is not the silencing of others.
While there are some examples of left-wing cancel culture, it is blown well and truly out of proportion by conservatives who struggle with changing social norms, so react by manufacturing their inability to adapt into a national crisis (Hobbes 2020).
We share the world with billions of people, which means that there will be billions of disparate views and values. Rather than trying to ban everyone or everything that we disagree with or don't understand, we would be much better off trying to understand others and learning to disagree without taking offence. Having said that, there are times when behaviours and systems need to be addressed. Racism, sexism and bigotry are harmful and should not be tolerated. This is not just a matter of agreeing to disagree. We need to reach a point where these behaviours and values are not acceptable.
Why do conservatives feel led to defend racism, sexism and bigotry? Why do conservatives defend exploitative labour conditions and environmental degradation? Why do conservatives feel it is acceptable to condone violence against black people, women, Muslims, refugees, leftists and anyone else they don't understand? Why do conservatives deny science, but take the word of uneducated, unqualified shock jocks as gospel? They claim they are the victims, when they have no idea what being a victim of racism, sexism and bigotry means.
Most conservative protests are to enforce their views on others, rather than defending the rights of others. They think their opinions and values are superior to the rights of others.
Many conservatives value symbols over humanity. Their idea of morality is symbolic. Their idea of equality is that everyone should think, look and act the same as them; they do not value diversity, whether it be in culture, art or ideas.
Until conservatives empathise with those who suffer discrimination, they won't change their behaviours. As the old adage says, 'Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are'.
References
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Updated 19 August 2020
