Friday, February 12, 2021

the whataboutism comes for Pedro Pascal

I like Pedro Pascal the actor.  He was hilarious and awesome in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"; he made a name for himself as the ill-fated Oberyn Martell in "Game of Thrones" (rather memorably, the character's head gets crushed by Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane), and he's now the star of "The Mandalorian," a Disney Plus streaming-TV show that I've had occasion to mention several times in reference to the summary firing of actress Gina Carano.

Unlike Carano, Pascal leans heavily left, and he's made some choice tweets himself from even before his time as the Mandalorian.  One tweet in particular is coming out thanks to the angry discussion surrounding Gina Carano.  Rightie commentator Ben Shapiro retweeted it:


A couple things to consider:  (1) the tweet was made in 2018, in the middle of Trump's term; (2) none of this proves that Pedro Pascal himself is being hypocritical in making such a tweet, but it does demonstrate the sick double standard of the woke left when it comes to who gets fired for what.  I take Pascal's tweet to be perfectly consistent with his beliefs and political convictions, but the question remains:  if Disney is going to fire Gina Carano for calling woke culture Nazi-like by evoking that unpleasant history in a potentially exaggerated way, then why hasn't Pedro Pascal suffered the same fate?

The answer should be obvious:  using the Nazi comparison is badthink; comparing Trump to Nazis is goodthink.  Leftism can't survive, as an ideology, without its hypocritical asymmetricality.  Or, as Glenn Reynolds likes to put it:  "That's different because shut up."  This is why, according to the woke left, racism only flows outward from whites; sexist/sexual harassment, assault, and oppression come only from men; and crime is something done only by the rich and privileged against the poor and underprivileged.  For this reason, we can't have a rational discussion about the sources of violent crime (i.e., black-on-black violence and interracial black-on-nonblack violence), nor can we talk about why the mere enforcement of the law isn't a racist act in itself, nor can we rationally propose effective educational reforms.  Everything gets sucked into the vortex of asymmetricality, from which there is no return.

So here's where I stand:  while I abhor Pedro Pascal's viewpoint (his kids-in-cages metaphor was debunked even before he'd made that tweet:  Obama had been doing the same thing, but bigger, during his administration without a single fucking peep from the left), the man has a right to his opinion, however misguided.  My ire is focused on the woke hypocrites at Disney—those bastards and others like them in different corporations—who perpetuate the asymmetrical dynamic, stifling rightie opinion while condoning leftist nonsense.  Should Pedro Pascal be fired?  No; I like him as an actor even if I can't stand his political positions.  Ideally, Gina Carano should be rehired.  If this doesn't happen, Disney can expect to keep losing subscribers.  Will the loss of revenue be enough to deter the Mouse from its woke-ful path?  I doubt it, but I can hope that the Mouse feels at least a little pinch.

Tim Pool says:  unsubscribe from Disney Plus now.



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