I understand your perspective, and it may be the case that someone who was fired for a 20-year old statement has moved beyond that view. It would seem fair that the employer would give the “defendant” a chance to prove so. But if the employer doesn’t provide the employee with such an opportunity, or doesn’t have a clearly articulated policy on employee speech (past or present), then that’s a problem to bring up with the employer.

What if the statement was made 10 years ago? Or one year? What’s the statute of limitations for offensive speech?

It would seem to me that anyone judging the speech should look at the harmfulness of the speech, especially when it was made. If politician X used the term “Oriental” instead of “Asian” ten years ago, I personally don’t see the need to chastise X.

The fact that no one is clamoring for a boycott of Obama’s books or picketing his library over his early stance on gay marriage shows that the system works fairly well. (Nor is anyone as far as I know is objecting to conservatives who expressed similar viewpoints at the same time.) Every now and then, you’ll see a self-styled progressive gripe about some “regressive” stance of Obama, but in my experience, they’re just doing so to show how cool they are, not to cancel Obama or his reputation.

But if a prominent person said 20 years ago that rape should not be considered a crime unless the woman fought back (I’m being hypothetical here, but I could probably find an example or two), then I see nothing wrong with people expecting some sort of appropriate action to be taken today, particularly if the offender is now a judge or elected official.

You may remember that the Black birdwatcher reported to police by the Central Park Karen refused to help the inquiry into her illegal call. He said she’d been punished enough. As far as I know, nobody from the Cancel Culture complained about his forgiveness.