Just to note that he was arrested for preaching against gay marriage in a public square. Which changes the narrative a little, because it involves haranguing passersby - some of whom were undoubtedly gay - with hateful language in a public place. Preaching homophobic messages in a church is one thing, as your audience is there by choice and can leave if offended. Doing it at strangers just trying to get their shopping done is a different thing.
In messageboard terms, he was being a jerk in the wrong forum.
You’ll have to ask ZS. I don’t think GIGO was doing what ZS said, but his posts don’t make much sense, even in context.
Which is exactly how it should be in tolerant society. They shouldn’t refuse to employ you, or serve you, or be polite to you. They should be able to say they believe X people are going to hell, but there’s no need to get in anyone’s face about it.
That’s not what I’m talking about, though. I’m talking about trying to get someone fired, or shunning them just because you found out they hold a certain opinion.
I admit I expressed that badly, but I’m sure you’re smart enough to work out that I meant the debates with progressives are not respectful, and they are happy to sling the insults. Besides, I don’t believe in hell so that wouldn’t particularly bother me. If they called me a baby killer or something then it would hit harder. YMMV
Yeah, if someone specifically says to you that you deserve to be tortured eternally, then I think it’s pretty damn reasonable to call them a bigot. I’m thinking more of a situation where you’re having a discussion about religion, and someone says that yes, according to their religion anyone who doesn’t believe X, Y, and Z will go to hell. Not directed at someone in particular. Is it reasonable for people to call them a bigot in your opinion? Is it reasonable to contact their employer and try to get them fired?
Or say you’re having a discussion on abortion. We could have one side calling the other murderers, and the other side calling the first side misogynists. Or we could have a polite debate with none of the name-calling. Personally, I think the second option is a lot more desirable.
Well, I’m not a fucking liberal, so I do not give two wet shits for what you consider illiberal.
“Abusers”? You sound like your fellow transphobe YWTF with that one. “Respond with violence”? Richly ironic, given you’re speaking to one of the few actual pacifists here.
Repressive governments do consider speaking = acting. You know who else does? Every other fucking government with slander and libel laws on the books. And every one with fraud laws on the books, for that matter.
I know. Yours is exactly the sort of intolerance we ought not tolerate, because you don’t believe in liberal values. You’d have no qualms at censoring the press and imposing your ideas by force if you could.
What else is the object of saying that words can hurt and harm people, and calling words (or even silence!) violence? It’s to justify responding to words with violence. Either directly or via the state. And this intolerance and authoritarianism is what so many on the left endorse now.
Liberal governments don’t consider criticising the government to be the same thing as trying to overthrow it. And they don’t consider advocating to change a law to be the same thing as breaking it.
We don’t need to try to persuade the die hards, then? If you could make, say, Hannity drop some of the bullshit, that wouldn’t be a victory with ripple effects?
My values, where they differ, are better. And “we” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there…
Everyone censors the press, you just differ in what you’re happy to see censored.
And the only force I support is that used to prevent violence by the intolerant.
No, it’s also to call for a social response - good old cancellation and shunning.
Asking the state to do its damn self-appointed job of protecting its citizens is not “abuse”.
Not that I favour the existence of the state, either. But you work with what you’re given.
Yes, and…? Those aren’t the only kind of speech, and there’s plenty of it that they do consider to be acts.
I know what this clown was doing. I really do. He was some hateful ranter, probably looking to start a fight. But as far as I can tell, he was only speaking (but correct me if I’m wrong).
But is that the path we want to go down? Arresting, actually handcuffing (yes, I know he was turned loose the next day) people for the content of their speech?
Some time ago, I posted (started a thread, in fact) about the Westboro Baptist crew (the “God hates f**s” people) doing their thing. In front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, on the day of the annual Pride March. I guess they were killing two birds with one stone, since apparently they hate the Catholic Church almost as much as they hate gay people.
New Yorkers being New Yorkers, everyone was pretty much ignoring them. There were a few bored-looking cops keeping an eye on everything, but they weren’t really necessary.
That seems like an infinitely better way of dealing with hate-filled street preachers than instantly giving them credibility (among their followers, if they have any) and confirming every delusional belief they have about being repressed and this being the end times and them being persecuted Christians in the catacombs and all that.
Have they ever been tested to see whether the produce a better society? You are an anarchist, yes?
Libertarians would not censor the press at all.
I suppose you will say libel and false advertising are censored, but they are censored because they are false. You already told me you would prevent publishing the truth if you thought it would harm someone - as if anyone could be trusted to decide in secrecy, as if that course would not result in much greater harm in general.
“Also”. So you admit one reason is to legitimise violence in response to political speech?
That was the kind we were talking about, not libel or slander.
“People like that on both sides”? Sure, but not today.
The point that you are grossly missing is that nowadays the idiot ball is embraced (in a mess of very important subjects and already cited) by the current conservative movement.
That there are smart, good faith and not anti-intellectual conservatives should be encouraged, but then again, in this tread and other recent ones there is a lot of self declared ‘not anti-intelectual’ conservatives (and curiouser and curiouser “liberals”) that should know better than continue to tacitly support those anti-intelectual conservative movements.
Are there a lot of ‘self declared not anti-intellectual conservatives’ in this thread? Who?
But more importantly, you are mistaking criticising excesses on the left for supporting a conservative movement. They are not the same thing. That is why your posts about anti-vaxxers make no sense. No one is supporting anti-vaxxers, no one is supporting any kind of movement that encourages anti-vaxxers.
Anarchism is just my attitude towards government, not morality or social justice. It’s a big umbrella that incorporates lots of political leanings, some of them personally abhorrent to me.
And anarchism has been tested, it’s worked pretty well where it’s been allowed to.
Rubbish. Each owner of a press would be free to censor it exactly as much as they wished, in Libertaria.
Did I? I can’t seem to recall saying that, perhaps you could refresh my memory with a quote…
Only in as much as you seem to consider lawful state response to be “violence”, do I admit that. Did you think this was some sort of gotcha, and that the “also” wasn’t deliberately placed there? What a thicko.
You were not talking about repressive governments when you posted your bullshit, it was private speech, and private reactions to it, that was being discussed.
Where has it been tested? Where has it worked pretty well?
You’re right. There’d be no government censorship, but there’d be plenty of private.
Here, where you said harm prevention and reduction of violence are more important than telling the truth:
Of course I didn’t. I wanted you to clarify.
I was talking about the difference between giving an opinion, and actually discriminating against someone. Like a Christian saying publicly they believe atheists are going to hell, and a Christian firing their employee because the employee said they were an atheist on social media.
How about a Christian preaching to an atheist subordinate?
What if is happens when they are both eating lunch in the office?
How about an anti-abortionist referring to a pro-abortion-rights co-worker as “the baby killer” during a team huddle?
What if the men just choose not to listen or respond to any women on the team?
Or hey, to bring it back to this board, what if a person uses insulting language on a message board talking to another person with different political opinions?
The original kibbutzes and moshavim, various communes.
That’s a take on what that quote means, I’ll grant you. A dumb take, disagreeing with you on what the higher calling of the media should be is not the same thing as saying “I would prevent publishing the truth if I thought it would harm someone”.
As it happens, I would - for instance, I would certainly prevent publishing the phone number and address of a recent crime victim or celebrity - but that wasn’t what I was saying there.
What part of “I’m a pacifist” wasn’t clear to you?
The bigot who only keeps their bigotry inside is as mythical as the cockatrice.
I admit I expressed that badly, but I’m sure you’re smart enough to work out that I meant the debates with progressives are not respectful, and they are happy to sling the insults. Besides, I don’t believe in hell so that wouldn’t particularly bother me. If they called me a baby killer or something then it would hit harder. YMMV