***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[gry60]

I am nostalgic for a time where the left was more strongly committed to the values free expression and anti censorship than I believe they are today.

that's it, stop adding all this sauce on it

Yeah, that assumes that those values can't be weaponized in order to shape society in such a way that those values become taboo.

See how conservatives are using the civil rights movement to argue against the ideals of the CRM.

That's the whole point of the paradox of tolerance.

 

[IATT]

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Yeah, that assumes that those values can't be weaponized in order to shape society in such a way that those values become taboo.

See how conservatives are using the civil rights movement to argue against the ideals of the CRM.

That's the whole point of the paradox of tolerance.

sure, but unfortunately principles only work if they are consistently applied.
the more exceptions you make, the weaker they become.

so for me it's pretty high bar before I start making carve outs when it comes to censorship
or suppression of ideas.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I didn't say it was equivalent, in fact I said


my point is
The left is anti censorship when it comes to government book bans
and I wish they kept that same energy when it came to cultural conflicts.
as it looks hypocritical when they don't.

not the "left is pretty much equivalent to the right"

I'm in a busy airport traveling back to the states, trying to duck omicron and probably have already failed. Not interested in having this conversation again.

Have a Happy and Healthy New Years.

 

[gry60]

sure, but unfortunately principles only work if they are consistently applied.
the more exceptions you make, the weaker they become.

so for me it's pretty high bar before I start making carve outs when it comes to censorship
or suppression of ideas.

Principles don't exist in a vacuum.

I mean, how far are you from defending the right to free speech of somebody who yells fire in a theater?

Free speech is not limitless, was never intended to be limitless, and the Right has reached the point where it can be argued that they are using the free speech in violation of its original intent (keeping the government from punishing people for their opinions).

Marjorie Taylor Greene is suggesting that people who move from blue states to red states should be barred from voting in their new location. How is that remotely comparable to someone saying that they won't buy a Dave Chappelle's ticket because they don't support his views on transgenders?

You want to avoid that comparison because the acknowledgment of the degrees of speech invalidates the argument that the Left should defend free speech regardless of what is being said.

That's not how things are supposed to work.

 

[RustyShackleford]

In fact I hope everyone have a Happy and Healthy New Years

Except Delk

I hope his is healthy, but otherwise just slightly above mediocre

 

[1995]

Happy New Year everyone

Please get vaccinated and/or boostered

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Principles don't exist in a vacuum.

I mean, how far are you from defending the right to free speech of somebody who yells fire in a theater?

"distribution of a book I disagree with is not a violent incident" i think is pretty far from
yelling fire in a theater.

Free speech is not limitless, was never intended to be limitless, and the Right has reached the point where it can be argued that they are using the free speech in violation of its original intent (keeping the government from punishing people for their opinions).

I didn't say it was limitless, I said the bar for me is very high.
and it remains very high and I wish that more progressives agreed.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is suggesting that people who move from blue states to red states should be barred from voting in their new location. How is that remotely comparable to someone saying that they won't buy a Dave Chappelle's ticket because they don't support his views on transgenders?

you want to put the most charitable spin on some specific incident and contrasting it with some widley inflammatory thing right wing people do, and then sit back like it some incisive point.

and saying "well the other side is worse" is not a rebuttal to anything
do you think the distribution of a book is violence? I don't think you do.
so I don't even know what we are disagreeing about other than "well you should talk about how conservatives are worse"

You want to avoid that comparison because the acknowledgment of the degrees of speech invalidates the argument that the Left should defend free speech regardless of what is being said.

well luckily for me i didn't say they should defend whatever is being said,

I said the bar should extremely high before people resort to censorship or suppression.

and so offensive comedian, or offensive book, do not reach that bar for me, and I wish the more progressives agreed.

 

[IATT]

 

[maq25060]

Would be great for the G.O.P. to pick him as their next candidate.

Then again, they'll probably just toss out the results when he loses anyway.

 

[gry60]

"distribution of a book I disagree with is not a violent incident" i think is pretty far from
yelling fire in a theater.



I didn't say it was limitless, I said the bar for me is very high.
and it remains very high and I wish that more progressives agreed.




you want to put the most charitable spin on some specific incident and contrasting it with some widley inflammatory thing right wing people do, and then sit back like it some incisive point.

and saying "well the other side is worse" is not a rebuttal to anything
do you think the distribution of a book is violence? I don't think you do.
so I don't even know what we are disagreeing about other than "well you should talk about how conservatives are worse"



well luckily for me i didn't say they should defend whatever is being said,

I said the bar should extremely high before people resort to censorship or suppression.

and so offensive comedian, or offensive book, do not reach that bar for me, and I wish the more progressives agreed.

So, how high is that bar exactly? Others can't agree/disagree if they don't know where you stand on the limits of free speech.

Also, I'm not just saying that conservatives are worse; I'm saying that they are using this inability/refusal to define the limits of free speech in order to eliminate the main manifestation of free speech in a democratic society: dissent.

They know that by sticking to the nebulous concept of the "high bar," they are able to violate other people's ability to criticize them and raise that bar when they are called out about the impact of their speech. Their leaders are using stochastic terrorism to inspire others to commit violent acts against the people who oppose them with the intent to deny the effect that their words have on their followers ("it's just words, they don't hurt anybody").
That's exactly how January 6th happened. That's how Saudi Arabia funds fundamentalist madrasas in foreign countries and when some of their students commit terrorist attacks, they say "we have nothing to do with this". So when you ask whether the distribution of a book can be violent, I'd ask what you think of the impact of the promotion of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and "Mein Kampf" by the Nazi leadership on the general public's perception of the Jewish minority in Germany.

Finally, you can't accuse progressives of hypocrisy for choosing to speak up against laws that will restrict their behavior and consumption patterns to suit what conservatives think they ought to believe, and for choosing to stay silent because a no-name, self-described ideological brother decided to burn books he disagreed with (and probably spent money on). The harm is much greater in the first scenario than in the second. Had the guy burned a bookstore that sold the offending materials, you'd have a point.

 

[Methodical Management]

There's a special sort of irony in the Joe Rogan "independent thinker" club's perpetual obsession with opposing progressive orthodoxy producing such profoundly specious and unoriginal "thought."
They're constantly in over their heads, making it up as they go, and yet, for all their spastic, aggro flailing, they only succeed in sounding like grouchy old White men - much like their frumpy edgelord anti-hero. How novel.

Since the most meaningful test of their opinions is contrast, not ethical rectitude or logic, they can only be evaluated through interpersonal instigation.

Even Bitcoin zealots have nothing on nihilists when it comes to incessant, needy evangelism. It becomes their life's mission to validate and spread their own cynical, self-obsessed misery - a task that they, for all their affected contempt of humanity, cannot manage alone.


I've wasted far too much of my time over the years leveling arguments that could never stand on their own to begin with.
Don't gift oxygen to an arsonist.

Save your precious time for those who act in good faith.

Would be great for the G.O.P. to pick him as their next candidate.

I know a lot of progressives who were ironically pulling for Trump, the clear "joke candidate," to win the GOP nomination in 2016, believing that this would create a clear path and expose the party as a self-defeating mockery that lost control of the mob they'd fed nothing but red meat, ignorance, and seething resentment for an entire generation.

This is the problem with rooting for chaos: you sometimes get exactly what you ask for.

Oz reminds me of him…

For me, it has to be

 

[osh kosh bosh]

There's a special sort of irony in the Joe Rogan "independent thinker" club's perpetual obsession with opposing progressive orthodoxy producing such profoundly specious and unoriginal "thought."
They're constantly in over their heads, making it up as they go, and yet, for all their spastic, aggro flailing, they only succeed in sounding like grouchy old White men - much like their frumpy edgelord anti-hero. How novel.

Since the most meaningful test of their opinions is contrast, not ethical rectitude or logic, they can only be evaluated through interpersonal instigation.

Even Bitcoin zealots have nothing on nihilists when it comes to incessant, needy evangelism. It becomes their life's mission to validate and spread their own cynical, self-obsessed misery - a task that they, for all their affected contempt of humanity, cannot manage alone.


I've wasted far too much of my time over the years leveling arguments that could never stand on their own to begin with.
Don't gift oxygen to an arsonist.

Save your precious time for those who act in good faith.


I know a lot of progressives who were ironically pulling for Trump, the clear "joke candidate," to win the GOP nomination in 2016, believing that this would create a clear path and expose the party as a self-defeating mockery that lost control of the mob they'd fed nothing but red meat, ignorance, and seething resentment for an entire generation.

This is the problem with rooting for chaos: you sometimes get exactly what you ask for.



For me, it has to be

again coming from someone who has spent paragraphs and paragraphs having the most inane arguments with the likes of Ninjahood or Delk

is sitting here passing judgment on who is ineligible for reasonable disagreement
is totally absurd.

leveling arguments?
you essentially wait in the shadows and apparate when someone makes a point that can be contradicted by a simple regurgitation of Vox approved talking points.

and if it can't, it descends into animated gif's, puerile mockery and attempts to demean disagreement.

and really you of all people are calling someone unoriginal?

do you have a single opinion that I can't find under the byline of lightly read vox article
"why the wrong people you don't like are wrong explained"?
is there a single thought that doesn't line up neatly with whatever the correctopinion is on a subject?

and again if this troll comment implying im some right wing joe rogan-ite for the 15th millionth time
I am not.

 

[Methodical Management]

“Twitter isn't the real world! Spend all day arguing with me about it on the Internet!”

 

[gry60]

How could a coup play out in 2024?​

The real question is, does everybody understand who the duly elected president is? If that is not a clear cut understanding, that can infect the rank and file or at any level in the US military.
And we saw it when 124 retired generals and admirals signed a letter contesting the 2020 election. We're concerned about that. And we're interested in seeing mitigating measures applied to make sure that our military is better prepared for a contested election, should that happen in 2024

Didn't know that...

What should the military do?​

I had a conversation with somebody about my age and we were talking about civics lessons, liberal arts education, and the development of the philosophical underpinnings of the U.S. Constitution. And I believe that bears a re-teach to make sure that each and every 18-year-old American truly understands the Constitution of the United States, how we got there, how we developed it and what our forefathers wanted us to understand years down the road. That's an important bit of education that I think that we need to re-address.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

So, how high is that bar exactly? Others can't agree/disagree if they don't know where you stand on the limits of free speech.

I think i've been pretty clear on this over like 50 different versions of this argument
barring some extraordinary like explicit calls to violence I am anti censorship.

Also, I'm not just saying that conservatives are worse; I'm saying that they are using this inability/refusal to define the limits of free speech in order to eliminate the main manifestation of free speech in a democratic society: dissent.

and as i've argued in the past some progressives use escalation of harms to stifle dissent in cultural spaces.

now am I saying is it exactly as bad as what conservatives are doing? no.
Im saying I hope progressives defend the principle when they have the power.
as it looks hypocritical when they don't.

They know that by sticking to the nebulous concept of the "high bar," they are able to violate other people's ability to criticize them and raise that bar when they are called out about the impact of their speech. Their leaders are using stochastic terrorism to inspire others to commit violent acts against the people who oppose them with the intent to deny the effect that their words have on their followers ("it's just words, they don't hurt anybody").
That's exactly how January 6th happened. That's how Saudi Arabia funds fundamentalist madrasas in foreign countries and when some of their students commit terrorist attacks, they say "we have nothing to do with this". So when you ask whether the distribution of a book can be violent, I'd ask what you think of the impact of the promotion of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and "Mein Kampf" by the Nazi leadership on the general public's perception of the Jewish minority in Germany.

i think our disagreement on this front is irreconcilable.
If you think the book i described is comparable to the protocols of the elders of zion or mein kampf I don't really know what to say. you want to escalate it to naziism to make the zeal for censorship justifiable.
and even then, so what?
you can still sell those books in america and I would oppose a law banning their sale.

Finally, you can't accuse progressives of hypocrisy for choosing to speak up against laws that will restrict their behavior and consumption patterns to suit what conservatives think they ought to believe, and for choosing to stay silent because a no-name, self-described ideological brother decided to burn books he disagreed with (and probably spent money on). The harm is much greater in the first scenario than in the second. Had the guy burned a bookstore that sold the offending materials, you'd have a point.

saying one is worse than the other is not a rebuttal.

im not going to argue with you about harms,
those can be subjective and often hard to pin down, im arguing about the principle.

personally I think arts and culture being captured by a new culture of censorship is bad,
it doesn't matter if it isn't exactly as bad as some other bad thing.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

 

[1995]

and really you of all people are calling someone unoriginal?

do you have a single opinion that I can't find under the byline of lightly read vox article
"why the wrong people you don't like are wrong explained"?
is there a single thought that doesn't line up neatly with whatever the correctopinion is on a subject?

Using this as a criticism kind of reads to me as an admission that the motivation for the points you make are based, at least partly, on being contrarian

Not a shot, just an observation

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Using this as a criticism kind of reads to me as an admission that the motivation for the points you make are based, at least partly, on being contrarian

Not a shot, just an observation

contrarian implies reflexive disingenuous disagreement
im a progressive, I agree with like 98% of what said in this thread.

but personally I do not see the point of posting stuff,
that everyone in here has said a million times, or has has been expressed more succinctly than i could express it.

so yes im more likely to post if I have a thought that is a bit different than the consensus
or if i can express something maybe in a way that hasn't been expressed.

I don't think that makes me a "contrarian"
unless im wrong about the definition of contrarian?

 

[sonoftony]

DeSantis hiding like the ***** that he is and his peoples too focused on AOC and her man's Birkenstocks in South Beach

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[Sharpshoeter13]

Steve Cortes should NEVER criticize anyone based on looks… especially about another dude.

****ing weirdo

 

[Mark Antony]

GOP dudes don't think he's good enough for their queen.

 

[dwalk31]

It’s really not that hard to just write dwalk

 

[Mark Antony]

Delk is such a great black Republican name though.