OH, How the Turn...tables

To Counter-Cancel or Not to Counter-Cancel

I. Background

There is a lot of sturm und drang among the New Right here in Substackistan over what appears to be a turning of the tides in popular sentiment. The shot heard ‘round the world, with the sniper just barely missing Cheeto Hitler - miraculously, in my opinion - led some on the Left to come out and say the kinds of things that you would expect in the aftermath: “Make Aiming Great Again” - which I think is pretty good, honestly - along with a number of other, similarly snide remarks.

From Jack Black’s bloated partner to the chubby chick at Home Depot, Lefties did their public snark-fest only to realize too late that their Masters in the Media and Political Establishment would no longer protect them. The political zeitgeist in the aftermath of Trump’s emergence from the event as a genuine hero changed everything. The District, despite its equally fervent wish that the sniper hadn’t missed, can’t say that - it has to maintain some semblance of sanity lest this thing quickly become open season on all politicians. The Establishment therefore says we have to “turn the temperature down,” but the NPCs on the Left didn’t read the room.

So NOW the Right has the cultural whip in its hand.

Home Depot chick was “let go” after some normie decided to confront her (with a phone camera, ‘cuz of course) about her Facebook comments. Jack Black cancelled his tour, issued a lie an apology, and his partner is now officially NOT in “the band.”

Here in our little corner of the ‘Net, there have been calls for civility from “Our” side, and calls for gettin’ the Left while the gettin’s good. And some folks - like the lovely

Holly MathNerd

- feel they’ve got to leave the field entirely because of how vituperative even the “good guys” have become.

II. Nemesis is Implacable.

As it turns out, I have a significant amount of experience with revenge, and vengeance as a political tool. Oh, do tell, you say? Well, Clausewitz famously said that “war is the continuation of politics by other means” and my 27 years in the Marine Corps in combat arms and as an attorney has given me numerous opportunities to engage with righteous indignation.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit was just a month into our deployment in April 1995 when the Murrah building in Oklahoma City was obliterated. This was pre-internet so we would get our news from a daily read-board of message traffic. I’ve never been a part of anything like it, but word went through the MEU like wildfire and in the days that followed, we fully expected to be the Sword of Rightful Vengeance against whatever foreign adversary had done that. I am not joking when I say that all of us - down to the last man (and woman) - were ready to fuck. shit. up. Badly. Take human lives, level cities, seize a port and invade, you name it. This may sound funny to some, but a MEU unleashed - part of a larger carrier battle group - could bring death and destruction to the unsuspecting on a level that’s hard to understand if you’ve not seen it. I always thought in retrospect that it was probably a good thing that it turned out to be an own-goal because I do not like to think about what I would have done if we had been given the green-light to do it. I give you my word I would have killed people gleefully.

Six years later, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I volunteered and was selected to go to Afghanistan. Talk about righteous indignation and moral dispensation. Some people can handle that, most cannot.¹

As a criminal defense attorney, I’ve spent a lot of my professional career on the other side of that coin: as a shit-shield trying to protect my clients and deflect the righteous indignation of real victims (and the Justice system wielding it). I’ve spent untold amounts of energy trying to humanize men who have done terrible things - mitigate their harms, or convince a jury they’re not actually guilty. (“Terrible thing, this, but not my guy!’) Once I had a client who was charged with raping an Okinawan national in base housing while she was unconscious. The first day of trial I was driving to court and there was a human chain - protestors with linked arms outside the entrance to the base - there to ask the US government to leave Okinawa. Eww.

Now with at least some bona fides established, I’d like to offer something on this subject for The Right to consider.

III. It’s Not About Them; It’s About You.

In my law practice, I generally represent members of the military who have been “put upon” by the government’s actions. I currently have multiple class actions in a variety of courts against the DoD over its now-rescinded “vaccine” mandate. I don’t have enough space to tell you how badly the military treated its own - good people, volunteers - who risked their lives over the course of a career for their refusal to take the government’s preferred mRNA gene-transfection product. Members of the Coast Guard who refused to get the shot were treated horrifically as a matter of policy.

They were forced to wear masks outside, not for any purpose, but so that everyone could ID them as being “unvaxxed.” They were removed from command, schools, flight orders, had promotions stopped, not allowed to PCS (i.e. change stations at all or move), not allowed to go outside of a 50 mile radius of their base - for births, deaths, weddings, you name it - and then discharged with no separations pay, health insurance, nothing. I could go on and on, but you get the point: these people have been as cancelled as it is possible to be and more, and if anyone has a righteous cause for retribution - to invoke Nemesis against their abusers - it is them. As their lawyer, I frequently get requests for “justice” - and these folks aren’t talking about just backpay - they have names and they want asses. What follows is (mostly) word-for-word what I posted for my clients on the subject of Justice this past Christmas. Submitted for your consideration in the Culture War.

---

I know many of you are looking for answers, especially from your lawyer, in the wake of the passage of the NDAA and the (alleged) repeal of The Mandate.

What does it mean, D?

I could give you a Pharisee’s answer, filled with jot and tittle of “the law,” but I thought for a moment we might let that settle and instead I would share with you some inspiration I got from a… slightly Higher Authority. I hope you will forgive the familiar tone of this message, but we all share common station, and Noble Purpose. You now Stand the Watch – West Pointers call it the Long, Gray Line, and George Martin had his Jon Snow and the Men on the Wall, the Men of the Night’s Watch.

It’s all the same. I don’t need to lecture you about it. You’re there and I’m retired; nonetheless, we share the Soldier’s Remit. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Some days… ack-chu-ally, it’s usually nights – nights are where the burdens seem heaviest, the darkness deepest, and my fears of inadequacy greatest… but one recent night in particular I was feeling the weight of your collective suffering – your families’ prayers, your own hopes and entreaties for relief, for surcease of sorrow, for that ephemeral, yet eternal clarion, Justice, mixed with my own prideful need for victory, glory… when a hand upon my soul reminded me that I asked for this… just like you all, individually and collectively, did.

Yes, my friends and fellow travelers, you, me, Rachel, Maddy, Pete, Brandon, Andy, the whole lot of us – and many others, more than you think or know – we volunteered for this fight. And for this last year, or two, or twenty, it doesn’t really matter when you got in the Boat, ‘cuz here you are now in the same seas as the rest of us. And I mean this in a very literal, physical AND metaphysical, sense. (The two are never separate). You all could just as easily have bowed your heads and rolled up your sleeves…

…But you didn’t – knowing full well that the lash could, and almost certainly would, be at the end of that decision.

Now, we’ve finally gotten a measure of respite from the storm, a pause from the lashing, and people are rightfully picking their heads up and wondering, “Is there land yet in sight?” And, perhaps more pointedly for me, “Does the cap’n even know where he’s going? Does this guy have a compass?”

Of course, we will do all that temporal matters, and masters, demand, all that our Pharasaical natures can concoct, to bring you some small measure of Earthy justice, but… the Truth I feel compelled to offer you – the Soldier’s Remit – is something far more important. It is not enough to bear the lash begrudgingly, with a desire for the chance to have the whip in your own hand to return the favor. Aye, that’s where the dark part of our heart goes, even draws strength, but…

“…Forgive us Our Trespasses, as We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us…”

Not from a place of superiority, my friends, not like those who prostrate and lash themselves publicly, who bemoan their Fate, and parade their victimhood. When you are broken on the rocks, and have crawled with your penultimate breath to lie at the feet of your oppressors, the real Majesty, The Heart of the Mystery, is to realize that you asked for this – and to accept the burden willingly, knowingly, and with a smile – because it is a Blessed Gift to each of you. It is the Key to something Eternal and it cannot be gotten by any Earthly Recompense.

“Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.”

That’s the Message I needed to share with you this season. Peace and Blessings to you all, and the ones you love, however you celebrate your Divine Spark.

~ D

P.S. There’s a Zoom chat on Monday to discuss more temporal matters, particularly what the NDAA means; while originally intended for Coasties, everyone “in the boat” is welcome. It has as much applicability to Wilson plaintiffs as it does to Bazzrea. I’ll have Rachel make sure we have enough Zoom seats to handle everyone and we’ll send out an invite. Share with your shipmates in litigation and I’ll phari-see you there. 😉

I offer these words for the would-be Cancellers on our side: this will not help you, nor the Cause, nor whatever other Justification you think you can bring to it. It will not bring you peace, happiness, or satisfaction. Getting some nunce cancelled because of something they said about Trump’s attempted assassination does not make you a Holy Warrior in a Just Cause. Nemesis is implacable and insatiable.

1. I think that Tolkien has explored this - and been pretty heavy-handed with the “Ring of POWER”(!), but people continue to treat it as simply a good story, rather than an important allegory about Man.