Every time I see people proclaiming that there’s no such thing as cancel culture I feel like losing my shit quite loudly at them. But I don’t. I self-censor, and then I retweet the cartoon below.

I find myself self-censoring quite a lot these days, and end up being so anodyne that I bore even myself and I’m hard to bore, I am extremely easily entertained.

I keep schtum about several topics because, every day, I see what happens to people, especially women, who say… well, it could be anything these days.

The thing about important ideas (such as the concept of freedom of speech itself) is that we can’t take them for granted, and we have to keep discussing them, as society changes, as history changes, as the world staggers from one crisis to another, and we have to keep being ABLE to discuss them.

If we don’t, if people can scare us out of discussing important ideas and facts, then those important ideas and facts can and will be taken from us. Even mentioning that one is fiercely pro freedom of expression these days can lead to finger pointing and shaming.

And, I’m ashamed to admit it, they scare me out of discussing many subjects.

It doesn’t take too much of a stretch of imagination to see the policing of speech this decade becoming law in the next, and then it takes just one actually evil, narcissist, sociopathic leader with more than Eton Mess for brains to use that to their advantage.

Stop shutting people down, people.