Former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard laid into cancel culture during a Tuesday evening appearance on “Fox News Primetime.”
Gabbard spoke with former Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, once her congressional colleague, about what cancel culture really was and where it could be going. (RELATED: ‘We Don’t Have To Guess About Where This Goes’: Tulsi Gabbard Issues Warning About Domestic Terrorism Bill)
WATCH:
Gabbard began by pointing to freedom of speech — and a free and open marketplace of ideas — as the basis of American democracy.
“Freedom for every single one of us to be able to share our ideas and debate them, to argue them, to agree or to disagree, to pick and choose in this marketplace of ideas, those that we deem to be right or wrong, to be superior or inferior, and even for those ideas that may be misleading or dangerous, that in this free marketplace, we have a right to then defeat those ideas with superior ones,” Gabbard said. “And others have the freedom to choose what they want to believe or not believe or what they want to adhere to.”
Gabbard went on to argue cancel culture was the antithesis of that freedom because it involved some people believing they had the right to shut down the ideas they felt were wrong or dangerous, leaving the ideas they had approved to be the only path that remained available. (RELATED: ‘I Don’t Know Why You Gotta Erase Everything’: Whoopi Goldberg Slams Decision To Cancel Pepe Le Pew)
“The main issue with this is when you look at our rights and freedoms, and our ability to debate them, and respectfully came out the other end agreeing or disagreeing as you and I have over the years, it is based on the fact that we are all children of God. And recognizing that, we then treat each other with respect and respect this freedom that we have,” Gabbard continued, pivoting then to address the direction that cancel culture was likely to lead.
“Let’s look down the path and say where does this cancel culture lead us?” she asked. “You see the final expression of cancel culture in Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaida, who basically go and behead those that who are — they deem to be infidels or heretics in order to silence them, in order to protect others from being misled by those heretical ideas.”
“This is the danger of where this path leads us unless we as individuals stand up against it,” Gabbard concluded, encouraging people to stand up to it by evaluating who they truly wanted to please. “This is something for me at a really young age, I recognized that life is short. Death can come at any time and I was happiest and am happiest when I was trying to live my life to be pleasing to God, to my best friend.”
