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[sebastian_dangerfield]

Did you read The Washington Post article? You're like a defense lawyer who walks into the courtroom without having learned anything about the case.

I'm aware of the Taibbi accusations. I read about them when they came out.

I didn't say he has to atone. Why can't you read? Reading is fundamental.

You used the word "repent."

I don't know who is "like" him, and you have invented a moral panic without being able to name a single person involved on the pro-panic side. My view is that each of these cases that are being lumped together as "cancel culture" has different facts, which are important, and that one should look at the actual facts.

Why? On the other side, the #metoo side, they were all lumped together. Recall Aziz Ansari being thrown in with Weinstein and Moonves just for being a shitty, borderline creepy date?

I, as a person posting on the internet, think that Taibbi treated someone poorly and should try to make it right. But if he doesn't want to, that's on him.

Taibbi has been accused of making fun of fellow reporters who were females. He's been accused of running a column called "Fat Ankles" that made fun of a critic. His co-author was accused of writing a tasteless column satirically bragging about sleeping with 15 year olds.

Was he punching down? Sure. But that's just juvenile horseshit better ignored than made the subject of a witch hunt. Journalists are notorious for treating each other terribly.

I haven't tweeted at him about it, or done anything else to "hold him accountable," other than sharing my opinion on a chat board that no one reads. He can say whatever he wants, but the Guardian should be treating him as a bad actor with a history, not as a dispassionate expert. He can talk all he wants, but I don't think people should be listening.

If I edited the Guardian, I wouldn't bring up his past given the weakness and thinness of the alleged transgressions. There's simply not much there there, and I noticed the Post article worked hard to try to make it seem there was a lot more to the story. That's pretty much the Post's calling card these days. It's the biggest abuser of clickbait of the big three papers, as transparent in its slanting of reporting as the WSJ is in its OpEd pages.

The reason I'm posting about him is less about him, and more about what he reveals about "cancel culture." No one is willing to come out and say, "I'm an asshole, I have mistreated people because of their gender/race/ethnicity/etc., and I'm not sorry -- I'd do it again for kicks if I could get away with it and may even if I couldn't but had been drinking." That's how many people feel, I'd bet, but they can't say that so instead they complain about "cancel culture", like Taibbi to the Guardian.

That's a bizarre assessment. You'd think Taibbi would want to avoid having a debate on his past as it could put him at risk. By taking shots at call out and cancel culture he's putting himself in the dock. The more likely conclusion is he truly believes cancel culture is toxic grievance porn that's ruining the public square. And degrading the limited intellect of the public that consumes it (and those that enjoy it have few points to spare). Which it is.

To further discount your point, consider Andrew Sullivan's critiques of cancel culture. He's milqueoast. He's written nothing that could get him cancelled. Why would a person like him take on the subject? (Other than your facile comeback that he's doing it for exposure as part of his new venture with Weiss.) Why would Harper's author that letter? Are a significant number of the signatories people who've done something awful and are seeking to prevent it from being called out? Did Salman Rushdie author a pamphlet of rape fantasies in his youth that he's been hiding? Does Noam Chomsky tell racist jokes to fellow academics behind closed doors?

I've never said that nothing about the complaints about "cancel culture" is true. What I keep saying is that many of the complaints are bogus, and that a lot of people are your bedfellows for the wrong reasons, not out of any kind of principled ideological commitment to free speech. Which destroys the credibility of the whole project.

Your suspicion regarding Taibbi makes no sense.

I'm also still perplexed by your deeply strange moral stance. You also wrote the Taibbi should "own" his past. What does that verb, frequently used by social justice aficionados, mean? Seems to be a desire for some form of justice - that Newton's 3rd law should apply and no person having been mean or bad should escape it being revisiting upon him or her. Cotton Mather would like this idea. It's perfectly Puritan... and perfectly at odds with the randomness of reality, in which people acquire all sorts of things without deserving them and scoundrels get away with being scoundrels far more often than they face adverse circumstances.

We're developing a "fairness" cult in this country. The frustration to be found in this Sisyphean endeavor is going to leave a lot of naive folks highly disillusioned.