Comment by djur
5 days ago
The antiwoke crusaders are just as intent on moralizing and language policing as the worst of their opponents, and in places like Florida they're actively implementing limitations on speech and academic inquiry. To the extent that Graham and his fellow travelers in tech believe in freedom of expression, they've picked dangerous allies.
The past few years has shown us who the tech titans really are. We only had an inkling before, but now they don't have any reason to maintain a facade.
They believe in oligarchy so long as they are the oligarchs. They believe in authoritarianism so long as they are the authorities. They believe in censorship so long as they are the censors.
And now that they've amassed power that will be unopposed for the foreseeable future, there's no reason to pretend their goals are elsewhere. A single party system will cause them issues like Chin has, America has 30-50 years to get to that point and presumably they all plan on emerging as the Supreme Leader when that day comes - or at least landing in the inner circle.
For your average voter, the current two party system is almost materially indistinguishable from one party pretending to be 2 parties, so the issues have already started, perhaps even for decades. Fixes for this include, but are not limited to: campaign finance reform and ranked choice voting.
"The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them."
- Julius Nyerere
> in places like Florida they're actively implementing limitations on speech...
Is this a reference to the law preventing teachers from speaking to young children about sexuality?
> ...and academic inquiry
I assume this is in reference to Florida's rejection of the College Board's AP Black History curriculum, which was rejected for containing "critical race theory" in violation of Florida Law. Surely our democratically elected state governments are better suited to have the final say in what goes into our kids heads than some NGO's Board of Trustees? Anyone who thinks educators make for less political judges than politicians is invited to review the donation history of teachers unions[0].
[0] https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=L1300
> Is This a reference to the law preventing teachers from speaking to young children about sexuality?
To be clear, the law that the person I am replying to is likely referring to is Florida House Bill 1557, which passed in 2022 and originally applied to kindergarten through 3rd grade. In 2023, it was expanded to apply to all grades, K-12. Here is a quote from the rule [0], this is the rule's self-summary:
"The amendment prohibits classroom instruction to students in pre-kindergarten through grade 3 on sexual orientation or gender identity. For grades 4 through 12, instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401, F.A.C., or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student’s parent has the option to have his or her student not attend"
[0] https://flrules.org/Faw/FAWDocuments/FAWVOLUMEFOLDERS2023/49...
Is explaining to children that a man is married to a woman speaking about sexuality? How is that different from saying a man is married to a man?
Per the description provided above, the ban is on "classroom instruction... on sexual orientation or gender identity." It's doubtful that stating "Jim is married to Barbara" could be counted as "classroom instruction on sexual orientation" any more than stating "Jim works at the pentagon" could be counted as "classroom instruction on geometry." Nor would the statement "Jim is married to John" be considered "classroom instruction on sexual orientation". The point of the law is to encourage teachers, when fielding a question like "Why is Jim married to a boy?", to reply "Ask your mom". Parents are wary of these discussions for good reason[0].
It's truly hard to imagine allies more "dangerous" (per the parent) than those who obstruct the vital "freedom of expression" that is... teachers talking to children about sexuality.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/719685/american-adults-w...
Probably this law that erases the concept of climate change https://www.npr.org/2024/05/17/1252012825/florida-gov-desant...
Politicians do not belong in curriculum discussions unless they are content area experts.
According to DHH, the massive tech layoffs were motivated by a desire to rid companies of wokeness: "most major corporations have wound down the woke excesses while pretending it's all just a correction for "over hiring"." He goes so far as to say that's what Basecamp did and (in his opinion) it's a necessity to clean out those with the wrong political views in every tech company. Sure sounds like a politically-motivated purge to me.
https://world.hey.com/dhh/google-s-sad-ideological-capture-w...
Much like "woke" isn't really a single coherent entity, neither is "antiwoke". E.g. Bill Maher is notoriously anti-woke, but I haven't heard him demanding language policing. The part of it that does is the same people who have always done it, i.e. social conservatives - for whom it is literally a part of their platform and has always been that.
> We have embraced freedom. We have maintained law and order. We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers, and we reject woke ideology. We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.
Is that not anti-woke?
No, it isn't. It's just a sentiment that shitty toxic tribalism masquerading as social justice (and whatever the equivalent is for the political right) has no place in legislature/schools/corporations.
It's actively detrimental to good policy/education/business if only by the virtue of drowning out people who are just going about their day to day responsibilities.
Sure. It's also a good example of a social and cultural conservative.
Hard not to interpret this:
"Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it."
as an endorsement of the social conservative elements of "antiwoke".