The Left Uses Cancellation as a Deflection Technique
Doxing used to Distract from Awareness of Human Trafficking
In a time far removed from “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me,” using a word that has been cancelled can be ruinous. On July 4, 2023, the movie Sound of Freedom was released in theaters raising awareness about child and human trafficking. Miles Klee of Rolling Stone magazine wrote a review of the movie calling it “a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms.” In response to Klee’s article, an Ottawa County resident, Jason, sent an email to Klee.
In the email, Jason told Klee he had “fallen victim to the deadly woke mind virus,” and called him retarded. The word in question is “retarded.” The word retarded has been used as an insult for decades. In fact, it was originally employed in its technical use as a term for someone with an intellectual disability around 1865, because the words used until then had taken on the pejorative use now reserved for the word retard. Before retarded became the clinical word used to describe mentally impaired people, the clinical words used were “moron”, “idiot”, “cretin” and “imbecile” among others. By the 1960s, “retard” had become a pejorative in the same way “moron”, “idiot”, “cretin” and “imbecile” had previously.
Use of the word “retard” as slang or as an insult has pervaded pop culture and modern vernacular since the 1960s. The Black Eyed Peas had a hit song they re-recorded as the single “Let’s Get It Started.” The original version, released in 2003 and still found on their album Elephunk, is titled “Let’s Get Retarded.” Tropic Thunder, released in 2008, drew controversy for the use of the word “retard.” Rahm Emanuel, as Chief of Staff to then President Barack Obama, called liberal activists “f***ing retarded.”
Had Jason used the word “moron” or “idiot” instead, would there have been a backlash? If not, why not? Those words have also been discontinued for describing intellectually disabled people, but are still prevalent as insults in common language.
After sending the email, Jason was subjected to a malicious doxing by a supposed journalist. Klee published the email, which included personal information, on social media. Within two days, Jason had received 86 unsolicited voicemails, and hundreds of hateful emails. Below I show some of the vile nature of these contacts, but I did not jeopardize anyone’s privacy by exposing their email addresses or personal information.
On top of hate mail such as this, Jason was registered for online email subscriptions set-up to harass him. He was subscribed to Scientology, MSNBC, Planned Parenthood, Victoria’s Secret, democrats.org, and other democrat party websites.
Unsolicited texts with hateful speech and threats also poured in:
Now ask yourself, do two wrongs make a right? Does the use of the word “retarded” as a pejorative become acceptable if used in response to the use of that word as a pejorative? Those upset with Jason’s email seem to think so. In response, multiple people used the same word that supposedly had them outraged. If someone uses the n-word, does that justify using it as an insult in return?
In his email to Miles Klee, Jason also wrote, “you seem to have fallen victim to the deadly woke mind virus.” The “woke mind virus” is a phrase often used by Elon Musk. In an interview with Bill Maher, Musk equated the woke mind virus to anything “anti-meritocratic,” suppressive of free speech, and akin to cancel culture. According to Wikipedia, “cancel culture” is “a culture in which those who are deemed to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner are ostracized, boycotted, or shunned.”
In reality, the responses by Klee and others were not really about an email or the use of a cancelled word. Child and human trafficking are much more widespread than most Americans have realized. Sound of Freedom took over five years to reach theaters due to earlier efforts by corporate America to cancel the film. Since July 4, 2023, it has been wildly successful, grossed over $100,000,000 at the box office, and is raising awareness about the horrors of child and human trafficking. Doxing Jason was done to distract the public from the true problem. By doxing Jason, public attention was turned away from the serious topic of human trafficking to the trivial topic of word usage.
In spreading personal contact information to shame Jason for the use of language deemed inappropriate, and turn public attention away from human trafficking awareness, Klee has given us a real-world example of the description of the woke mind virus Elon Musk described. By doxing a private citizen, Mr. Klee has, according to Musk, acted in a manner that fits the “woke mind virus”, which is exactly what Jason accused Klee of in the private email. In April of this year, Rolling Stone wrote about the interview between Musk and Maher that produced that description of the “woke mind virus.” That article, heavily critical of both Elon Musk and Bill Maher, was written by none other than Miles Klee.