There were a lot of morally reprehensible takes given in the immediate aftermath of Hamas' deadly invasion of Israel. As videos were being shared showing women and children being brutalized and murdered, including being set on fire, you saw many of the usual suspects looking for equivocation or outright denying the atrocities. 

Then there was influencer and porn star Mia Khalifa, who boasts 5.7 million followers on X. Her bloodthirstiness took things to another level. 

If you can look at the situation in Palestine and not be on the side of Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid and history will show that in time

— Mia K. (@miakhalifa) October 7, 2023

I just wanna make sure there’s 4k footage of my people breaking down the walls of the open air prison they’ve been forced out of their homes and into so we have good options for the history books that write about how how they freed themselves from apartheid. Please worry about… https://t.co/sgx8kzAHnL

— Mia K. (@miakhalifa) October 8, 2023

In other since-deleted posts, Khalifa called pictures of Hamas fighters storming Israel a "renaissance painting" and she asked the terrorists, whom she described as "freedom fighters," to turn their phones to landscape mode so she could enjoy the sight of their atrocities more clearly. 

Sorry Mia, they didn't film this one in landscape mode. Guess you'll have to watch them murdering babies in portrait mode. pic.twitter.com/ohUXcLadUb

— Shoigu's Shoi-coup (@PutinNGMI) October 10, 2023

Perhaps unexpectedly, those psychotic posts actually got her fired. Playboy severed their relationship with Khalifa on Tuesday, calling what she said "disgusting and reprehensible." That's when the libertarians showed up suggesting this was an example of "cancel culture."

I think what Mia Khalifa tweeted was absolutely vile, but I'm struggling to understand how firing her for her controversial views is not an example of cancel culture. pic.twitter.com/BQ1UpBJJed

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) October 10, 2023

To clear things up, no, this was not cancel culture. To suggest it was is to suggest that no one can ever be fired for anything they say while representing the company they work for. That's a ludicrous standard that essentially no one on the right has ever suggested. 

Rather, cancel culture revolves around unfairness. Is it fair to dig up someone's 10-year-old posts to get them canceled over something completely unrelated? An example of that would be Kyle Kashuv, who lost his bid to Harvard because people who disagreed with him politically released some private Google group messages he sent while he was still in high school. It would also be unfair to get someone fired over an out-of-context video in which what they said was misconstrued. That has also happened multiple times over the last several years. 

None of that describes the situation with Khalifa. We are talking about a person who literally praised terrorists, not just when it wasn't clear what was happening, but after videos of the massacres had already gone viral. Khalifa's comments would be the equivalent of an employee praising the Holocaust and calling pictures of the dead bodies a "renaissance painting." If that's not a justification to fire someone, then nothing is. 

To be frank, I don't care at all about what happened to Khalifa. I am under no obligation as a conservative to defend abhorrent, grotesque people out of some misguided notion of principle. I hold no principle that demands the praising of the murder of women and children be ignored.