Barkley won't be the last whose frustration over cancel culture leads them to walk out the door
By Gary Abernathy
Barkley’s ‘cancel culture’ complaints ring true
I don’t always agree with him, but I appreciated Charles Barkley’s comments on “cancel culture.”
"If you crack a joke the wrong way, they’re like, 'Oh, no, no, no, you crossed the line,' " Barkley said recently. "I mean, they won’t even let me talk about San Antonio anymore when I’m always talking about their big ol' women down in San Antonio. They’re like, 'Charles, we got one lady (who) wrote an article.' I’m like, 'First of all, I didn’t call anybody personally fat in San Antonio. I was just joking around.'"
Barkley should have realized long ago that our society has no sense of humor. In fact, a sense of humor is discouraged. We particularly have lost the ability to laugh at ourselves. We must be offended instead. It’s practically a rule.
Barkley said he’s grown weary of being constantly warned to parse every word he says. "That’s all we ever talk about behind the scenes like, 'Yo, man, be careful going in this direction.' I’m like, 'Yo, man, we can’t even have fun anymore.' " Barkley said.
No, you can’t. Barkley said he plans to retire in a couple of years when he turns 60. Here’s betting he won’t last that long before crossing the cancel culture line. And Barkley won’t be the last to throw up their hands and say goodbye. Being aware of people’s feelings is good. But we need to take ourselves less seriously. The hyper-sensitivity driving our culture has reached ridiculous proportions.
Hashing over ranked choice voting on ‘Talkline’
Good to be back on today with Hoppy Kercheval on Metro News “Talkline,” discussing the ranked choice voting system being used today in the New York City mayor’s race, and recently considered for the West Virginia Supreme Court race. Check it out above.
Our elections should never be ripped from state control
Most media observers are up in arms that congressional Republicans uniformly oppose the Democrats’ effort to nationalize our elections, and they’re equally upset because West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin won’t capitulate to party leaders and support ending the filibuster.
Everyone should be grateful that there are still lawmakers who believe that votes should be cast by eligible, legal voters, and those voters should be required to prove they are indeed eligible. GOP efforts in the states are typically described as “restrictive laws,” but there’s nothing wrong with requiring people to make an effort to vote. The main reason for low turnout is not voter suppression. It’s old-fashioned apathy, as I noted in a Washington Post column not long ago:
Acknowledging the role of apathy is to understand why (Kenneth) Chenault’s “either-or” declaration is off base. Whether suppression has occurred should not be gauged by the level of participation, but rather by whether eligible voters were denied a reasonable and equitable means to exercise their franchise when they wanted to. Total voters are mostly determined by the level of enthusiasm for the issues or candidates in any given election. We cannot, and should not, require people to care, nor devise too-clever legislation designed to overcome apathy when the privilege of determining the makeup of our government is not inspiration enough.
Sign up or share this newsletter
Please sign up to receive this newsletter directly into your inbox Monday through Friday (except holidays or other occasional interruptions) or, if you are already a subscriber and reading this by email, share with a friend using the convenient button below. Thank you!