Speech standards must be applied equally

I was once fired by an employer because they did not like the way that I tweeted. They had no problem with the way that other people at this same enterprise tweeted, they just didn’t like my own flavor of rhetorical panache. They never actually came out and said it was the subject matter of my tweeting, or my style, that got me a date with the guillotine. They simply said we told you to stop tweeting, you wouldn’t, and so we are letting you go.

When that happened, I gained almost 3,000 followers overnight. That’s because most people think that you should be free to say what you want to say, and not be punished for it as long as you are held to the same standards as everyone else. In my case, that was not, ahem, the case.

But that’s wooder under the bridge, as they say in our neck of the woods. I am still tweeting, rarely deleting, and happily engaging with readers and friends I’ve never met.

For the reasons I’ve just explained, I’m always fascinated when somebody else gets into hot water because of her online presence. I have written extensively about Donald Trump’s effective banishment from Twitter, which I reject as a pseudo-totalitarian attempt to silence people we just don’t like (and boy were there a lot of people who just didn’t like him). I’ve talked about the grownups who went after Nick Sandman, the kid who can now go to any college he wants because of that defamation case against the Washington Post, et. al. Heck, he can buy any college he wants, God bless him.

There aren’t enough hours in the day to cover every single instance of cancellation, based upon the anger people feel when sticks and stones haven’t broken their bones but those words, those mean words, have hurt them.

It’s an epidemic, a pandemic really, and it’s scary. My usual point is that we all need to fight back against the silencing, and it doesn’t matter which side is being silenced, although let’s be honest: The left is much more adept at pushing the mute button on people like me and my fellow conservatives than we’ve been at shushing them.

Now, that’s starting to change. President Biden’s choice for Office of Management and Budget (OMB) head, Neera Tanden, has gotten a little taste of what happens when your Twitter history ain’t exactly history. Tanden, who was previously the head of the Center for American Progress, has spent a lot of time on social media hating on conservatives.

For example, when Roy Moore was running for the Senate from Alabama, Tanden referenced accusations of child molestation against him with this tweet: ““The Republican party is gleefully supporting an alleged child molester. And everyone who gives money to the RNC is doing the same.” Regardless of how you feel about Moore, who was never even charged with a crime, calling people who supported his candidacy allies of a pedophile is pretty far over the line.

She also accused Susan Collins, who voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh, “criminally ignorant,” and said that her “terrible treatment of Dr. Ford should haunt Collins for the rest of her days.” That last tweet was sent at a time when Collins was getting death threats phoned into her office, and some suggested she should be raped so she would understand what it’s like not to be believed.

Anyone who adds fuel to that fire does not deserve to be in any position of authority.

So you might be saying, but Christine, I thought your whole point was that people shouldn’t be punished for their comments. And I would reply: Yes, but.

I have no problem saying that people should be held responsible for their words, as long as we are all held to the same standards. And we are so clearly not.

Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. Conservative teachers are fired. Conservative actresses are fired. Conservative writers are fired.

But people on the left keep tweeting along, with very little consequence. Sure, there are some high-profile examples like Kathy Griffin and … give me a minute … um … okay, well there’s Kathy Griffin, who have lost their gigs because of their comments. But the number of liberals who have been held accountable for their words pales in comparison to the number of conservatives, mostly social conservatives, who have been deactivated.

For that reason, I’m not weeping about Neera. She deserves what’s she’s getting, and she knows she deserves it because she deleted over a thousand tweets in anticipation of her confirmation hearing.

So for all of those who were disgusted with the tweets of one Donald J. Orange Man, Karma, apparently, is a female.