Bravo! Michael Bloomberg Takes on the Cancel Culture

By: Charlotte Hays

We’ve often been critical of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s love of nanny state rules and regulations, but today Bloomberg has a piece in the New York Post that everybody should read.

It’s on the growing trend in some quarters of not doing business with, or even talking to, people because of their political opinions. Yeah, it’s our right to do this, but Bloomberg recognizes the dangers. He writes:

Take recent demands to boycott businesses whose investors have voiced support for the president. Consumers are absolutely within their rights to withhold their patronage from any business as they see fit. It’s their money, after all.

The question is not whether business boycotts are legitimate. The question is whether Americans can live and work together without being so absolutist about politics and intolerant of viewpoint diversity.

The essence of American democracy is that people who disagree, however profoundly, can set forth their views, let the democratic system under the Constitution settle matters for the moment, accept the outcome until the next election, and continue to engage with one another productively in the ordinary course of their lives.

To put it simply, healthy democracy is about living with disagreement, not eliminating it.

Bloomberg also addresses what he calls the “retreat from liberal political discourse” on college campuses, particularly with regard to a piece published last week by Bloomberg Opinion by Williams professor Steven Gerrard. Gerrard presented an alarming picture of the state of free speech on campus.

Read the entire article.

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