In a free market, ideas - just like commodities - are freely exchanged. Don't agree with someone else's ideas? Then don't buy into them. Censorship - imposing a monopoly on any given topic - is not a free market practice.
So, what happens when we shut down everyone who voices an opinion or idea with which we disagree?
So, what happens when we shut down everyone who voices an opinion or idea with which we disagree?
"Huge ratings weren't enough to save the rebooted Roseanne, which was formally cancelled by ABC on Tuesday after star Roseanne Barr described former Obama administration aide Valerie Jarrett as if "the Muslim brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby" on Twitter.It was a vile thing to say, though no one has any right to be surprised that Barr said it. The notoriously pro-Trump comedian—who is otherwise something of an ardent leftist—has a long history of offensive, nonsensical utterances. She once said Wall Street bankers should be executed via guillotine, has flirted with 9/11 trutherism, and claimed the Boston Marathon bombing was a false flag operation. She doxed George Zimmerman's parents, and suggested people should go to their homes unless Zimmerman was arrested for killing Trayvon Martin. In March 2018, she falsely accused Parkland survivor and activist David Hogg of making a Nazi salute; it was Roseanne herself, of course, who posed as Adolph Hitler for a satirical magazine in 2009, holding a tray of overbaked gingerbread men labelled "burnt Jew cookies."
Roseanne is crazy, and her disgusting remark about Jarrett is perfectly in character. No one is allowed to pretend that Roseanne finally went too far, or some such nonsense: the Jarrett comment—for which she swiftly apologized, to no avail—is hardly more offensive than any number of things she has said over the years. If people who say very bad things do not deserve to work in television, then Roseanne should never have been rebooted in the first place.
The only thing that's different this time is this: social media turns up the volume on offensive statements, and provides a perfect platform to pillory the perpetrator into submission. The network executives at ABC had to watch the Twitter villagers reaching for their pitchforks in real time, and feel the pressure to respond."