Well the culture wars and cancel culture just grows and grows and grows.

All Black captain Sam Cane was criticised by some, including himself, when he tripped a pitch invader after the All Black game in Agentina.

The invader was one of about 15 that took to the pitch, generally making a nuisance of themselves. The invader ran past Sam who swung a foot and tripped the invader, who then scampered off while security staff ambled along in his wake.

Promptly the All Black captain apologised in front of the media, All Black management sought the invader out and apologised and members of New Zealand media including Andrew Gourdie from Newshub castigated the captain for actions.

And yet a poll soon after showed that nearly 80% of New Zealanders had no problem with Sam's actions at all.

So why did Sam do his mea culpa?

Fear of a backlash from the minority who thought his actions were unworthy of an All Black captain. Fear of a media firestorm.

Because that's the way the world operates today.

There's always someone offended somewhere and these days if they announce their offence it gets publicity. Yes from the mainstream media, but then that's always happened. The difference these days is the citizen channels. The whole world is a media outlet with the invention of social media and these controversies can lose all sense of perspective rapidly.

Another culture war swept a small but vocal part of New Zealand this weekend.

A Spark social media editor supported a Threads post that hoped that anti-transgender comments would be banned from the social media network.

The social media editor is herself lesbian and married with a wife, and Spark supported her taking the stance through their official channels.

This got up the nose of some who believe that trans-activism is preventing free speech by women. Let Women Speak is the name of their campaign.

It's all a bit over the top to be fair

But they've started a campaign to get clients of Spark to leave the telecommunication company. Cancel culture.

Which used to be the weapon of choice of the left and liberals, remember Lauren Southern and Phil Goff. And conservatives and right wingers would moan about cancel culture and the death of free speech.

But now Conservatives and the right seem to have adopted the exact same tactic.  

The most extreme example has been the Budweiser go woke got broke boycott over a transgender marketing campaign which has seen the stock lose billions and Bud Light selling for less than water in many states. Which is killing the jobs of many innocent employees and investors who want nothing to do with this culture war.

It appears to me that too many on the more extreme sides of our political spectrum have lost the plot when it comes to expressing their ideology and the politics of division is rife in both the left and right.  Both sides are determined not just to argue with their opponents but to silence them and it feels like free speech is now under attack more than ever before.