Live and Let Live

I have written on this before but the more I think of it the more insidious it seems to be.  Cancel culture.  The denial of someone’s right to exist because their opinion differs from the prevailing one.
I hear so much about everyone having the right to express a view, but I see having a right as long as it agrees with the view that prevails at the time.  I do not think genuine hate speech should be promoted.  And I do think there are cases where what is expressed causes unnecessary divisions.
Yet to me there are other cases where what is expressed is deliberately manipulated to say something that was not said.  I have seen this firsthand.  I was not looking for it.  It took me by total surprise.
What is being expressed through Cancel culture is powerful but seems to me to be diametrically opposed to the way I try to live my life, which is to do to others as I would like done to me.
I know I make mistakes.  I know it is all too possible for me to have views that are not correct.  I try to minimize them, acknowledge them when I see them and move on.  Yet the way I see it my views can be deliberately misinterpreted to mean what I never meant.
The trouble is when someone has it in for me they will troll back through everything I may have said looking for a way to justify what they want.
I may be exonerated but the cost is huge.  Unfortunately so often these days there is a huge cost in clearing a name.  I know of someone who did clear their name, but they could no longer work doing what they did and it cost them big bucks.
I know what I think and say may not be the prevailing view.  That is my choice and I live with the consequences.  But I do think it is an injustice for anyone to have what they say deliberately misrepresented.