About a month ago, cancel culture came for country music singer Morgan Wallen.
Supposedly Morgan Wallen was caught using the n-word and those on the left thought he should be cancelled. Wallen apologized, but then something remarkable happened.
He got more popular.
I hate country music. I had never heard of Morgan Wallen and if it wasn't for his n-word controversy, I certainly wouldn't be writing about him. Today, I listened to some of his top hits.
Terrible.
I don't care if you listen to Wallen, because he sucks. But America is a big tent and there are lots of different people out there with different musical tastes. Here's the problem, if I don't defend Morgan Wallen, who's going to defend the artists that I enjoy that may not be accessible to the mainstream? It's really a very simple concept.
Example of an artist that I like
But Fred Hunt, Wallen said the n-word. Yeah about that.....
Noted New York Post curmudgeon Phil Mushnick came out a few weeks back and attacked the NFL for mixed messages pertaining to race relations. Mushnick channeled his inner Charlton Heston and cited the popular artist The Weeknd, printing the lyrics to one of his hit songs, including the n-word. A heavily censored version of one of his hit songs. Mushnick's argument was that someone like the Weeknd shouldn't have been performing at the Super Bowl halftime show.
And residents in nursing homes across America all shook their canes in the air in agreement.
In real life though, I am pretty confident that Mushnick's stunt didn't cause The Weeknd to lose one single fan.
Which circles us back around to Morgan Wallen. You could argue that Wallen can't say the n-word because he is white. Listen, here's the problem. Radio stations pulled Wallen's songs from the radio, but if you watch the video at the top of the page, there is no explicit content. You can't ban it from YouTube. If you want to buy his album, there is no content that prevents its interstate commerce. Wallen shouldn't have said what he said, but at the end of the day, just because you don't like his speech in his personal life, doesn't mean you can ban his speech in his professional life. Wallen is simply the victim of the left's near constant attack on middle America. What is the correct penalty for Wallen's verbal transgressions?
Just when all of the brouhaha surrounding Wallen started to dissipate, The Atlantic rolled out with an article that should send shivers down the collective spines of free speech loving Americans.
THE BIGGEST COUNTRY MUSICIAN IN AMERICA IS A DISGRACE: After saying a racial slur and being exiled from radio, Morgan Wallen has only become more popular. WHAT IS GOING ON? -The Atlantic
The gist of the article is that the liberal media in America cancelled Wallen, but he's not cancelled. The article also goes on to cite the stupidity of middle America.
We are now treading on some dangerous ground here. Lots of artists have said and done really bad things in their personal life, what is the line where YOU can prevent someone from making a livelihood?
The Atlantic and their ilk have decided that they are the arbiters of speech in America. The Atlantic is lamenting their inability to cancel someone they consider dangerous.
Liberals tried to cancel Rush Limbaugh himself. That didn't work. When that didn't work, liberals tried to cancel Rush's advertisers. That didn't work. When Rush Limbaugh died, you were a racist, homophobic bigot if you listened. And that's the method of operations, name calling.
How about this? We all have free speech in America. If the Atlantic wants to cancel Wallen, middle America should be able to take to the airwaves to ask people to cancel their Atlantic subscriptions. I should see the head of the Wallen Fanclub on CNN asking people not to give their money to the company that once gave voices to Emerson and Longfellow.
But CNN won't do that because they are on the same team as the Atlantic. If you're the head of the Wallen Fanclub on FoxNews or Newsmax, then you're on channels that supposedly promote hate speech.
The left has defined hate speech as speech that disagrees with their perspective. The Wallen Case is the perfect analogy because even crappy Country Music artists have free speech in America. If you can accept that people that you don't like have free speech too, you are part of the solution in this country.