Censorship in Ultimate

Censorship un-American

Most people don’t realize or appreciate this, but the US Constitution’s First Amendment not only provides individuals’ rights to freedom of expression and speech, but equally importantly (if not more ) the First Amendment is also designed to protect the rights of the people who want to hear those ideas, opposition rhetoric or counter arguments.

Over the past 10 years or so, I’ve been accused by members of the Ultimate Frisbee community of being:

• Sexist

• Racist

• Antisemitic

• Xenophobic

• Homophobic

• Misogynistic

• Islamophobic

• Intolerant

• Transphobic

• guilty of Hate Speech

• a bigot

• a White Supremacist

• a Neo Nazi

These labels are potentially caustic should have a clearly delineated meaning and should not be words that are casually thrown around just because you intensely dislike a person.

These words used to have specific definitions, until liberals and progressives started using them to smear and discredit various people who think differently than they do (the true meaning of the word bigot, by the way).

I’ve been censored from the Ultimate Frisbee sub-reddit, prematurely (not to mention immaturely) pulled from @Being_Ulti by Brian Sherry, censored from Twitter by the AUDL/UFA, censored on YouTube by the USAU and UltiWorld piled on by falsely accusing me of hate speech. Who does this hurt most? It hurts the people who have a right to hear what I’m saying the most.

We all know what it is, it’s Cancel Culture, the most insidious form of censorship.

Not only does Cancel Culture silence the dissenting opinion, the weight it brings to bear on anyone who happens to agree with the person in terms of silencing them is beyond considerable. We all remember this story from the Bible, it’s not new:

Jesus told Peter, "Before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me"

This is not a new phenomena, it’s been around thousands of years. Even the people who know better and know that the accusations are not true, don’t want to be affiliated or associated with the person who is outcast by their community. This only serves to embolden and empower the reprobates who are making the false accusations that much more. The louder the reprobates become, the less resistance they meet.

Ultimate’s Spirit of The Game was always going to culminate with this ostracization process. It was inevitable. All ideologies end up doing this.

The fact of the matter is that ten years ago, I was silenced in an identical way, the only thing different now is all the name calling. Twenty and Thirty years ago Ultimate players sought to issue me with a gag order, they just didn’t have the tools they have today, so I was labeled as ‘poor spirited’ (which is ironic as there’s nobody who has ever adhered to the rules more rigorously and principled than I do)

Labeling people you disagree with as sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, etc. is just easier this way to quash an outlier by ‘othering’ them, it’s very dehumanizing, and it’s hypocritical.

It’s also extremely weak and cowardly.

Shredding destroys everything Ultimate Frisbee players hold to be true. They can either face their delusions and accept the fact that they are living a lie, or attack the messenger. The choice is yours, but don’t falsely accuse me of things that I am not, just because I broke your stupid little game.

So please, explain to me like I’m 5 years old, including citing specific examples, of anything I’ve ever said that qualifies as any of these above accusations against me.

As I’m banned from engaging on /r/ultimate, please leave your evidence and proof of my abhorrent transgressions below.

You won’t. Because you can’t. Because they don’t exist.

Just because you hate my speech, doesn’t make it hate speech.

If you’re passionate about this, I would love to have a conversation with you about it.

I seriously doubt that a single liberal or progressive Ultimate Frisbee player will have the courage to have a fact based, long form, intellectual conversation about any of this with me and be willing to have that conversation aired on-line.

Anytime a person lacks the substance to engage in a meaningful conversation, they just resort to name calling. I’m a human being. I did nothing to deserve this crap.