The Right Weaponized Social Justice Rules Against the Left
James Gunn was fired based on rules created by the far left. The right, like Mike Cernovich, is wielding moral outrage mobs against the establishment and many people feel it is in bad faith. In many instances the right is actually directing left wing social justice mobs against themselves, its not even just the tactic its actually the left eating its own But regardless of the intention the rules work. The moral outrage mob will consume anyone for any transgression and it has affected people on both sides. Offensive comedy is not allowed anymore and because of it people like Gunn are fired for saying things online. So is this really about James Gunn saying the wrong thing? Or is this right wing personalities like Cernovich and Posobiec wielding the left's own rules against itself? Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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James Gunn, the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, has been fired by Disney after extremely offensive tweets surfaced where he joked about rape and pedophilia.
Some of these things weren't even jokes, they were just him saying shocking things.
And James Gunn has said that he was trying to be provocative, and he's apologized for it.
We really need to talk about what happened because this goes much deeper than just someone posting tweets.
A lot of people are accusing the right, people like Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich, of being disingenuous and operating in bad faith, just trying to dig up past tweets to knock people down in the establishment.
And there is reason to believe this might be the case.
I had a chance to ask Mike Cernovich for a comment on the issue, so let's take a look at exactly what happened.
Why was James Gunn fired?
What other actors are now being implicated?
And will they get fired too?
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Let's take a look at the story first, from Deadline Hollywood.
James Gunn fired from Guardians of the Galaxy franchise over offensive tweets.
James Gunn has been removed as director of Guardians of the Galaxy after a batch of old social media dispatches were unearthed that touched on areas like pedophilia and rape.
In the latest shocking MeToo development in the entertainment industry, Gunn was severed from the Marvel Comics universe after a slew of social media posts he wrote before getting Guardians of the Galaxy surfaced.
According to Fox News, they were posted because Gunn is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, and the effort was to knock him down a few pegs.
I want to stop here and just say, some of these tweets are so egregious, I can't even read them without probably getting some kind of strike on YouTube.
So I'll show what's in the news story, but again, there were many, many very disturbing tweets from James Gunn.
From Deadline Hollywood, among the tweets was, he said that he liked when little boys touched him.
He also said, the best thing about being raped, I don't even want to read these.
I do not want to read these out loud.
Let's just say you can see these on the screen and know exactly what he was saying, but let me be clear, some of these were so offensive and just so extreme, they were not jokes, and I am not going to read these quotes because I do not want to say these sentences.
He talked about a monkey masturbating onto a young child, and he said that it made him extremely happy.
These are not jokes.
These are provocative statements that cross the line.
And yes, he was fired because of it.
Disney responded quickly and decisively.
The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James' Twitter feed Many people have weighed in on the story.
Even Senator Ted Cruz.
values and we have severed our business relationship with him.
Many people have weighed in on the story, even Senator Ted Cruz.
He said, wow, these James Gunn tweets are just horrible.
Child rape is no laughing matter.
And as Texas SG, I handled far too many child sexual assaults.
Truly evil.
I'm glad Disney fired him, but if these tweets are true, he needs to be prosecuted.
Julie Alexander, a writer for Polygon, said, The company can pretend that they just learned.
But the story, we continue to legitimize people like Mike Cernovich, who is someone who shouldn't be legitimized.
That's what just happened.
James Gunn deserved to be fired for his tweets six years ago, not because of a far-right dogpile.
There are many people in the industry rushing to the defense of James Gunn, and that's actually kind of shocking to me.
Because there are some people that you would describe as anti-social justice warrior, anti-SJW, who have also defended James Gunn as just being an edgy boy trying to post provocative statements.
But again, some of these things he was saying, they weren't jokes, and they go well beyond what is socially acceptable.
He was actually talking about horrifying instances of... I don't even want to say it, but things that were making him happy.
So if you want to look at some of these, my main concern is that if I read these, I will get a strike on my YouTube channel.
That's how bad they were, and I'm not being hyperbolic.
I genuinely mean this.
So you'll have to Google search it, but suffice it to say, everyone, you know, is hearing the story, Disney has fired him.
Okay, this isn't just an issue of Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec and other people associated with the right coming after someone.
We've seen similar stories in the past.
For instance, Sam Seder, a commentator on MSNBC, lost his contract because he made a joke about Roman Polanski.
MSNBC thought, ultimately, that it was in bad faith that people were bringing up this tweet and gave him his contract back.
In this instance, it doesn't matter if you think Mike Cernovich is wrong or doing it for political points, because the tweets were so horrifying that literally no one should be defending him, but unsurprisingly, there are people defending him.
Now, James Gunn issued a long statement where he said that he was acting as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo.
He says he has discussed them publicly many times, as he's developed as a person.
But he says that he likes himself better today before ending with, love you to you all.
And this statement was posted before he was fired.
The question I want to ask is whether or not this was in good faith or bad faith.
Did Mike Cernovich do this for political points?
Or is he really concerned about these high profile individuals posting nasty things?
In response to this, we saw a few people come to the defense, namely Patton Oswalt, who is now being called out for the same behavior.
In a tweet yesterday, Patton Oswalt said, This is one of the less disgusting tweets from Mike Cernovich.
The dude who, after running a Gamergate-style smear campaign,
just got James Gunn fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
3.
Okay, have a good weekend.
And he links to this tweet from user Sean Madden, where Cernovich can be seen saying,
Have you guys ever tried raping a girl without using force?
Cernovich then goes on to claim that date rape doesn't exist and we can see that this post from Cernovich is from 2012.
A lot of people are saying that it's important everyone know that Cernovich has said these horrible things and that he's used these tactics before of digging up old tweets and posts and then calling people out for past behavior.
But the thing is, Cernovich doesn't work for anybody.
That means he can't be fired.
Telling people that Cernovich says bad things and he's a bad person won't do anything at all.
Disney is forced to issue a statement.
They're forced to fire this individual because they're a family company and this person said horrifying things.
Mike Cernovich can say whatever he wants because he works for himself and he has supporters.
So by all means, you can go out all day screaming about how bad Mike Cernovich is and it will have almost no impact on what he does.
It will not change the fact that James Gunn said these things and was fired because of it.
It will not change any of the rules and the companies will still have to sever ties with these individuals for doing this.
And sure enough, Patton Oswalt is now facing criticism for the same thing.
This tweet from him, where he calls himself a proud pedo.
This is supposed to be a joke.
Many people are saying he was talking about pedestrians.
But it doesn't matter, because as we've learned over this past year or couple years, Context is totally irrelevant.
If a man can be fired from Netflix for telling people that a racial slur is offensive, not actually calling someone a slur, then certainly making a joke about how you engage in extremely horrifying activities must be a violation of social norms as well.
Context is irrelevant.
Yes, we understand Patton Oswalt is a comedian, But people have been fired for much less than actually stating you are this kind of person.
Oswalt also tweeted more offensive things, saying that his privates love being with children.
I don't even want to read some of these things, because these are not jokes.
They are not funny.
This is why I believe in free speech.
Because then you allow these people to say these things, and you know how they feel, and you know where they stand.
I disagree with the things these people are saying.
And as I've stated on my channel before, I actually totally disagree with hate speech, too.
I just think people have a right to speak, and this is a good example of why.
Because then they say things, we can see what they think, we can see how they feel, and we can know to avoid them.
I don't want to read the tweets and jokes they were making.
I don't think they're funny.
And I don't even think they're jokes.
I think they're just extremely offensive statements.
Again, by all means, they're welcome to say them.
I'm surprised Twitter hasn't suspended their accounts or taken them down because of this, considering they've taken down people for much less.
And I'm surprised the companies that these people are working with haven't actually looked through their Twitter accounts to see that they've posted these things in the past.
Now, I actually believe that a lot of people on the right are doing this in bad faith.
So I reached out to Mike Cernovich and asked him, are you actually doing this because you don't like these tweets, these offensive jokes, or is this more about earning political points?
And here's what he said.
He responded by saying, It depends on context.
The James Gunn stuff involved children.
One story he posted talked about a monkey masturbating on a child that doesn't fall
into the joke category.
Sometimes, on other issues, I don't think people are actually concerned and only want
to see everyone held to the same standards.
And I think that's fair.
I think that in many instances, things that Cernovich is doing, the actions he's taking, are political.
But at the same time, many people know that Cernovich is very, very active on issues surrounding minors, to say the least.
And so, when he uses these tactics against individuals who have made jokes or statements like this, I personally believe that there is some genuine behavior behind what he's doing.
But I also think it would be naive to ignore the fact that people on the right have been trying to hold the left to their own standards.
And this has been talked about by people on the right.
They have talked about Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
The book Rules for Radicals is said to be a pragmatic primer for realistic radicals, and this is by Saul D. Alinsky.
One of the rules, number four, make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
And there are people on the right Who are saying this, and thus we come to my assessment.
I really do feel that the right has weaponized the social justice moral outrage mob against itself.
Against the establishment.
It's very easy to turn the collective on itself because they all rely on each other.
Like I said before, Mike Cernovich can't be fired.
Many of these independent voices on the right can't be fired.
And many right-wing media companies don't care about being offensive and won't fire their staff over making offensive statements.
Thus, the right is able to direct the social justice outrage mob at itself.
And it works.
I reached out to NBC for comment on Patton Oswalt's tweets.
Unfortunately, it's the weekend and they're closed and said there won't be anyone available to comment until Monday.
But that doesn't mean the PR machine isn't already churning a defense.
From Yahoo, white supremacists work to get Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn fired.
Patrick Klepek, a senior reporter at Waypoint, said something interesting.
He said, James Gunn said awful, disgusting things.
We need to give people space to grow and learn from their past.
Mike Cernovich and the alt-right have weaponized the left's morality.
He is not operating in good faith and is a toxic opportunist.
Do your effing homework.
And Nick Monroe responded to the statement by highlighting contradictory statements from the same writer.
He said Patrick Klepek's tweet about James Gunn is about as deep as a puddle of water.
Back when this happened to PewDiePie, Klepek was less lenient.
He highlights a story where he says YouTube Disney distanced themselves from PewDiePie following anti-Semitic videos.
He says his words have power and there are consequences for them.
There's also a tweet where he says the bottom line is that PewDiePie is very intentional about the work he puts out into the world.
He thought these jokes were funny.
But then we can contrast it with the tweets about James Gunn where he said we need to give people space to grow and learn from their past.
And yes, there was a difference.
James Gunn tweeted these things, you know, between 8 and 10 years ago, and PewDiePie was being called out for something he had just done.
But the point is, in my opinion, it's all political.
So many people were quick to jump on Roseanne for saying something offensive, and then jump to the defense of James Gunn, and vice versa.
How many people who ran to the defense of Roseanne are now running to attack James Gunn?
In my opinion, the people on the right are doing it in turn.
I think many people on the right actually don't care about offensive statements.
But they feel that if you attack them, if you take out Roseanne, if you criticize PewDiePie, they will use the same tactic against you.
Saul Alinsky's rule number four, make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
I genuinely believe that is the majority of what's driving people on the right for doing this.
But keep in mind, Disney fired them.
No one else did.
James Gunn wasn't fired because of Mike Cernovich.
Other people were involved in digging up these tweets.
It's not like Mike is actively going and searching everyone's Twitter profiles.
He stated that it's many people showing the tweets to him and him highlighting them, so he does play a huge role in amplifying these messages and these tweets.
But the only one who got James Gunn fired is James Gunn.
Disney should have known about these tweets, they should vet these individuals before hiring them, and James Gunn should have deleted these extremely offensive posts a long time ago if he knew they were offensive and didn't like what he was saying in the past.
But you know what?
I can appreciate that people leave these things up.
I can appreciate free speech.
Because if we told James Gunn he wasn't allowed to speak this way, we wouldn't know how he really felt about these issues, and we wouldn't know that, in certain instances, he's kind of a dick.
The same is true for everyone, and this is one of the reasons I believe in free speech.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
Do you think Mike Cernovich and others on the right are acting in good faith and are genuinely concerned about the behaviors of these people in Hollywood?
Or do you think it's all for taking down the establishment and earning political points?
Do you feel the same way of those on the left?
That they genuinely care about social justice and these issues?
Or are they just trying to earn political points?
In my opinion...
It's probably going to be politics.
But again, comment below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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