NOT GIVING VOICE TO IGNORANCE AND HATRED ISN'T CANCELING ANYTHING

The Constitution is a sacred document, a straightforward document that provides simple to understand protections; and yet, a fullness of appreciation requires the active oversight, maintenance and interpretation of the country's greatest Constitutional scholars. 

Some would call this paradoxical and yet most Americans possessed of common sense have negotiated the waters of Constitutional understanding since its inception. It is not beyond changing, but by very design, change is difficult. Change tends to occur incrementally. Even when some insist that change occurs too quickly, it is very rare for lasting change to occur with anything approaching alacrity. As a result, we have a stable country. Not always a country in agreement or consensus, but stable, i.e., not constantly on the verge of collapsing. 

In recent times, a new accusation has been laid at the feet of those private institutions controlling the written and spoken word, cancel culture. If someone or some private concern disallows voices of ignorance and hatred a platform, they are accused of violating the First Amendment's protections of free speech, but as anyone interested in the Constitution already knows, no right is absolute. There are practical limits and one of those limits generally regarded is the right of private institutions to control what will and will not be expressed on their platforms. 

The putrescence and gut-wrenchingly repugnant nature of some opinions is such that no sensible person would write or say certain things out loud. We know that in the hearts of darkness of those who hold such opinions, the world is a sick and twisted place, but the rest of us don't need to hear or read about it. Moreover, to the extent that television, radio, movies, and written material can fall into the hands of innocents, we do not want such opinions to corrupt the minds of those incapable of yet discerning fact from plausible fiction. 

As parents and concerned citizens, we expect that what is made available in public forums meets certain minimum standards of decency, sanity and common sense, but just beyond the safe confines of reason and morality is a nightmare world of conspiracy, bigotry, prejudice and violence. Silencing such perspectives or limiting them to their own dark and worrisome corners is the responsible thing to do and it manifestly does not violate either the letter or the spirit of the First Amendment. Simply put, cancel culture is a made up thing, a phony, purely artificial construct designed of, by and for those who want to mainstream ignorance, hatred, violence and baseless propaganda.