Nothing said by any of the people I'm talking about justified the consequences they suffered.

Nothing said by any of the people I'm talking about justified any negative consequences at all, in my personal opinion.

Of course, people are equally entitled to speak their own opinions. But laws against defamation are compatible with freedom of speech. And on the flip side, freedom of speech is a philosophical concept which stands independently from the First Amendment or any other law or constitutional provision in any country. Threatening people with the kinds of consequences observed is threatening their ability to speak freely.

The natural consequences of speech are a) change in others' opinion; b) more speech from others. If saying X could ruin my life, then it cannot plausibly be argued that I am actually "free" to say X.

James Damore should not have lost his job, because he said nothing wrong. Where people claimed he said something wrong, even on the occasions where they could point at something relevant, it simply did not make the argument that they claimed it did.

Again: I know, because I have read it (and the media coverage). It's also still available on his personal website, along with numerous archives.

> The "mr-hank" python convention example frankly seems incredibly minor. Someone got offended and complained and someone else apologized and then a whole bunch of people argued about how offended any person actually should be.

And people lost their jobs when they should not have lost their jobs. People were subjected to firestorms of social media "criticism", and had their names dragged through the mud, for no good reason.

> his speech was stupid and offensive enough that I wouldn't want to work with the dude.

There was nothing wrong with what he said. It was objectively correct, and it was objectively completely different from how others characterized it. They were objectively lying about what he said. I know this, because I read what he said, and I read what others said about what he said. Their characterizations were incorrect and they had no real justification for making those characterizations, except for ideological blindness.

There was nothing that merited him losing his job. If you don't want to work with him, that does not merit him losing his job. If you don't want to work with me, that does not merit me losing my job. If I don't want to work with you, that does not merit you losing your job.

> And more to the point, you shouldn't be allowed to silence my response to his speech.

Nobody did so, and nobody proposed to do so. If by some chance you are his former employer, terminating him was not a "response" that could be "silenced". In every other case, nobody is supposing that you shouldn't be able to think he's an idiot, or call him an idiot (since that wouldn't meet any reasonable standard of defamation, at least in the US). But they are supposing that he should not have lost his job.

> This is a good thing

No, it is not. It was fundamentally unjust. Being fired — and having everyone know why it happened — is a serious consequence that was not merited.

> and I vehemently disagree with this idea that people's responses should be censored.

This is irrelevant. Nobody's response was censored, and nobody proposed to censor responses.

Termination of employment is not speech. It cannot be "censored". It can, however, be called out as unjust, and cited as evidence of a trend of unjust extrajudicial punishment.

> Do you think any part of this was unjust in some way?

Yes; the part where his name was dragged through the mud and he lost business by the fiat of people more powerful than him (the agency etc., not by letting the market decide) even though his "misconduct" was nothing illegal and did not even result in any civil action that I'm aware of, although it did result in protests at his comeback tour (per the Wikipedia source). From what I recall, he proposed some sexual acts in an entirely reasonable context for doing so, in a highly self-deprecating manner, that his partners were not interested in, and he took "no" for an answer without a problem.

> The term "cancel culture" was always intended to be a pejorative,

Yes, because pejoration is merited. But they are the ones who decided to call it "cancelling" and to refer to its targets as "cancelled" (also "over") in the first place.

> intended to shame and disparage the people involved in speaking out against those in power.

They should be critiqued. The people they speak out against overwhelmingly are not "in power", as demonstrated by the fact that they commonly lose their jobs.

If the mere existence of an epithet to describe their unjust conduct, is "shaming and disparaging", then so is that conduct.

> Did it occasionally apply out side of that? Sure, but very rarely to any serious degree.

It happens constantly. I know because I have friends who would happily constantly show me new examples if I decided to spend the time listening.

> the whole "gamergate" thing where some dude

His name is Eron Gjoni.

Somehow, I can remember this despite not having had to think about it for years; yet eleven years later out of countless exchanges I've had to get dragged into, I cannot recall a single instance where someone on your side of the argument mentioned the name voluntarily or otherwise demonstrated awareness of it. I can recall numerous instances where I asked them if they know his name, and they all sidestepped the question.

Eleven years later it is consistently people on your side of the argument bringing up the topic, while proudly demonstrating ignorance of even the most basic facts of the matter. It is not Gjoni's original supporters having some "remember the Alamo" moment. They don't need to.

The "some dude" rhetoric is demeaning. So was the treatment of his allegations, which were a) severe; b) credible and reasonably evidenced; and c) not even remotely like the misogynistic nonsense maliciously and falsely attributed to him. I know this because I have read them. They are still publicly available, by the way. (Also, Zoe Quinn is not a "journalist", and never was.)

Gjoni was known at the time to have strong progressive values, and expressed those values before, during and after his post with the allegations. In fact, a significant portion of the claim depends on attempting to apply those progressive values fairly, and holding Quinn to her own standards. He shows more kindness and charity than I could imagine most people being capable of in the same situation.

His case is by any reasonable measure far stronger than that of any of the women who complained about Louis C.K. At least if we're presuming that men have equal rights, that their sexual consent is important, that people should generally be expected to meet the standards they apply to their sexual partners... again, the actual words are public information; you don't have to take my word for it. I am not linking them because I assume it will get my post automatically filtered. I have seen that happen elsewhere on the Internet. I suppose I take a risk simply by writing both names.

> Instead it took people complaining about powerful people being sexist/racist

This is not what happens. The targets are broadly speaking not powerful, and the allegations of sexism and racism (or anything else) are broadly speaking unfounded.