Why are leftist trying to silent speech they disagree with?
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To be sure, Joe Rogan has no absolute right to share his thoughts in a podcast on Spotify or anywhere else — though it would be silly and spineless for the platform to silence him over “misinformation.” The worst thing about left-wing demands for his removal isn’t what it would do to him; it’s what it says about how the people demanding his cancellation view his listeners.
Calls for silencing someone’s “dangerous” speech are far less about the speaker than they are about those who hear him. The impulse to cancel Rogan on the basis that he makes people feel unsafe stems from the insulting premise that his listeners are too foolish to think for themselves and must uncritically adopt whatever beliefs the podcast host tells them to. The people pushing to cancel Rogan are operating from the premise that most Americans are stupid sheep, dimwitted blank canvases onto which the intelligentsia — be it Rogan or Anthony Fauci — can project their own opinions. And the purveyors of cancel culture want their opinions to be the ones proclaimed as absolute truth.
The impulse to shut down Rogan isn’t ultimately about making him go away; it’s about controlling what his listeners believe and what they do as a result. It seems not to occur to Neil Young and his admirers that half of Rogan’s listeners might well be tuning in because they want to mock him, or because he’s entertaining, or because they want to understand how their opponents think. The assumption appears to be that every Rogan listener will necessarily adopt his every opinion and adapt their behavior accordingly, even if it means marching to their untimely death.
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Liberals are constantly saying things I disagree with, but I have never tried to keep others from hearing it. I just don't listen to CNN anymore or most of the major network news shows. While I have never listened to a Rogan podcast, I have read some of the things he has said and don't view him as a threat of any sort. I will probably be more likely to tune into Rogan now.
See, also:
How Joe Rogan became Public Enemy No. 1 to media liberals in the battle over COVID 'misinformation'
'The biggest difference between Rogan and the consensus pushers in the legacy media is that he's curious,' Steve Krakauer said
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