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Comment by xyzelement | Hacker News Reader

I love my liberal principles but this is totally expected.

Ideally we live in a world where Kimmel isn't canceled but neither is someone like Roseanne Barr. But that world hasn't existed for a while.

In a prisoners dilemma both sides win by cooperation. Once a side "defects" - the other side is a sucker not to. The ship on lamenting this stuff has sailed.

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Barr wasn’t cancelled by threats from the Government.

Neither was Kimmel - the real threats came from the ABC affiliates who threatened to not air his content.

Kimmel was canceled explicitly because of a threat by the government. Carr has made that clear.

Why are people playing dumb and ignoring this detail?

Because the political playbook is to argue in bad faith and conservatives are much better convincing their base of that than democrats. Why are many of them convinced that left wing violence is a scourge when right wing violence outweighs it by an overwhelming majority [0] unless you do mental gymnastics after tons of mass shootings (as Kash Patel, who one would think would be aware of related trends to domestic terrorism, so eloquently put it: “I’m sorry. Dylann Roof?”[1])

[0]https://theconversation.com/right-wing-extremist-violence-is... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrkgM9_xOj4

It's not being ignored. It's being judged to be incorrect.

Carr spoke about a potential investigation by the FCC on a podcast and the affiliates and Disney bowed to that.

> Carr spoke about a potential investigation by the FCC on a podcast and the affiliates and Disney bowed to that.

Kind of like a mob member talks about a potential fire at a local establishment.

Is there a judiciary that determines whether the mob was within their rights to light your restaurant on fire, and can stop the mob from lighting the restaurant on fire?

Even if you think the FCC is just an extension of trump(fair) at this moment, their rulings aren't the final word. They still need to follow the law. If the FCC improperly attempts to withhold a license from the affiliate, the affiliate can sue and let federal judges, who are not an extension of trump, decide on the matter.

> If the FCC improperly attempts to withhold a license from the affiliate, the affiliate can sue and let federal judges, who are not an extension of trump, decide on the matter.

Which will take years to settle and you're paying fees upon fees. Or you can kiss ass and get it rubber stamped.

That's why corruption can be so corrosive: it's the "easy" way through the problem.

The FCC, like other federal agencies, is independent. There's nothing in the article to suggest that Carr's decision to do this has anything to do with Trump, who doesn't actually have authority here. Per the article, Carr apparently doesn't think he did anything coercive either. He's just making public statements. The supposed "threat" doesn't seem to me like much of one.

And Carr is also irrelevant to the Kimmel firing. ABC faced pressure from affiliates and his ratings had been declining for a long time.

> The FCC, like other federal agencies, is independent.

That's not what Trump thinks [1].

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensu...

Trump does not share your view that they are an independent agency.

Carr also does not appear share your extremely charitable interpretation of his actions. He has subsequently confirmed that he sees this in line with the administration's larger political mission and is being about as subtle as a fog horn about his status as a political hatchet man:

https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1968521297974923696

That's a nuance without consequence. Barr is a random example that came to mind.

The larger point is that it's been very difficult for a while to be a conservative in media, or academia or in the workplace, due to the ease with which you were canceled. The reason people stick with principles because it helps them and the other side - it's a high ground maneuver.

But once you feel like you are consistently deprived of all the benefits of that principle, you are no longer inclined to uphold it.

So in general I would expect conservatives to now attack via pathways they were previously above. The fact that people are surprised they are getting fired for celebrating Kirk's murder is one sign of how benign the conservatives had been about that stuff. I think that's over now.

Absolutely not, I will not concede this point at all. People deciding you are intolerable is not the same as the government putting pressure on your employer.

You don't have to conceded anything. You think conservatives can't point to examples of the government squeezing them, under the guise of COVID stuff, DEI requirements and the like? Or they don't think there was pressure from the government to shape the news?

I want to agree with you, I am just saying it doesn't matter what you and I agree on. Conservatives have clearly seen and felt the principles not applying to their benefits and they are over it. Whether you or I can agonize about a particular misapplication of a particular principle doesn't matter.

There's also a false equivalence, because when the government is on the same team as all the big tech and media companies, it doesn't have to threaten anyone into silencing speech the team doesn't like. It just happens, and then everyone pretends it's organic.

I'd be glad to have a free speech conversation about this with anyone who actually cares about free speech, but that doesn't include anyone who spent the last decade cheering every time someone they disagreed with got his livelihood taken away. One TV network dumping one "comedian" who was well past his sell-by date is a tiny, tiny counter-trend to what's been going on for years.

tens of thousands were

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/weaponizatio...

Jimmy Kimmel being "cancelled" has nothing to do with Jimmy. He is the canary in the coal mine. The real issue is that the federal government is using their power and might to withhold FCC licensing from groups that they do not agree with. The FCC->ABC situation is what is alarming, has nothing to do with Jimmy.

Same shit happened with CBS/Paramount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07JQr5W3970

Who was the president when Barr's show was cancelled in 2018? Some woke guy?

The government didn't step in to threaten ABC over Barr spouting off derogatory racist trash. They weren't jawboned into doing it. They just didn't want to be associated with a trash person.

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