# Make Social Justice Great Again **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 12, 2020, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081 "2020-07-12T02:07:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/181 "2020-07-14T08:43:16Z")
> [@Roland\_Orzabal](#): > > Point about making sure we are not pissing positive energy into wind. Point clearly not received that pulling down statues creates more positive energy where it counts. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/182 "2020-07-15T02:46:02Z")
[quote=Roland\_Orzabal]Point. Not. About. Statues. Point about making sure we are not pissing positive energy into wind.[/quote] How much “positive energy” did this stupid whiny concern-trolling Pit thread end up “pissing into wind” that you and all the other participants could better have spent on more effective actions? Wasting people’s time and energy with multiple extended pompous self-regarding lectures on why you think they are not using their time and energy in an optimal manner is, to say the very least, counterproductive. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/183 "2020-07-15T03:30:51Z")
kettle meet pot ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/184 "2020-07-15T03:43:43Z")
Hey, I’m not the one who spent three days in self-congratulatory handwringing about how terrible it is for other people not to have exactly the same activism priorities as I do during a time when “PEOPLE ARE DYING!!”. I personally don’t care if other people like to engage in activities that I consider a (comparative or absolute) waste of time, international health crisis or not. But if somebody persists in wasting their and others’ time with extended idiosyncratic diatribes about how irresponsible it is to be squandering their “positive energy” on aims that the idiosyncratist considers nonessential, I’m going to notice the hypocrisy and/or self-delusion inherent in that. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/185 "2020-07-15T17:18:54Z")
> [@Roland\_Orzabal](#): > > Point. Not. About. Statues. If it makes you feel better, your other, non-statue-related posts were equally stupid, it was just easiest to illustrate it using the statue thing. Changing the names of institutions is of a piece with bringing down statutes. If you think taking down statutes is, on average, a good thing, then you ought to feel the way about renaming buildings. And if you support protests against structural racism, you should support both taking down statues and renaming buildings, because those are protests against structural racism. The third thing you mentioned was people getting dragged on Twitter. Twittter drama is Twitter drama. It’s shit that happens when people are sitting on their couch already. It’s not pulling any effort away from anything except re-watching _The Office_ re-runs. Your OP was a nothingberger of tone policing and respectability politics, and fundamentally failed at even the most casual analysis of the events you were railing against. It’s probably a good idea for you to stop talking. Pity you didn’t figure that out before you posted your OP. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/186 "2020-07-16T18:11:20Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > I think its perfectly valid to think “I wish they didn’t take down the statues.” But it’s out of your hands now. They aren’t going to listen to you. Because (whether you like it or not) you are siding with the oppressors. I’m pretty much on board with what you say in this post, but I’m not sure about this part. Do you really mean to say that we have to acquiesce to or accept everything done in the name of fighting against oppression, or else, be counted among the oppressors? Because shitty things can absolutely be done in the name of even the greatest cause, and if they are, then it needs to be permissible to criticize this. Everything else is just ‘the ends justify the means’-type reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/187 "2020-07-16T18:17:36Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Because shitty things can absolutely be done in the name of even the greatest cause, This is really the whole Crux of the blowback to the op. Just because you think it’s shitty doesn’t make it so. It’s your opinion. It’s not any less valid than any other opinion, but it’s still just an opinion. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > you really mean to say that we have to acquiesce to or accept everything done in the name of fighting against oppression, or else, be counted among the oppressors? You don’t have to agree with everything as long as you don’t actively prevent them from doing it. In which case you would be on the oppressors side ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2020, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/188 "2020-07-21T08:58:05Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > > > I think its perfectly valid to think “I wish they didn’t take down the statues.” But it’s out of your hands now. They aren’t going to listen to you. Because (whether you like it or not) you are siding with the oppressors. > > I’m pretty much on board with what you say in this post, but I’m not sure about this part. Do you really mean to say that we have to acquiesce to or accept everything done in the name of fighting against oppression, or else, be counted among the oppressors? Because shitty things can absolutely be done in the name of even the greatest cause, and if they are, then it needs to be permissible to criticize this. Everything else is just ‘the ends justify the means’-type reasoning. No. He was being specific, not general. By all means, shout out loud when the mob gets guillotine-happy, or sends your mildly-conservative neighbour to the gulag. But this is not that. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2020, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/189 "2020-07-21T10:25:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No. He was being specific, not general. By all means, shout out loud when the mob gets guillotine-happy, or sends your mildly-conservative neighbour to the gulag. But this is not that. At that point, it’s of course long too late. So, you have to be able to voice dissent, disagree, and debate long before it gets to that point; and in doing so, you may be in error. In which case, as has happened here, at least by some, you’re hopefully set straight. But it has to be permissible to voice dissent long before the gulag without thereby being branded ‘the enemy’. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2020, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/190 "2020-07-21T11:20:04Z")
Sure, but the “too late” for discussing taking down statues without being in the way is _not_ now, is the point. That window ran out in 2017. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081/191 "2020-07-21T15:11:56Z")
I’m not sure I’m totally on board with the notion of there being a ‘speak up now, or remain silent forever’ sort of deadline to such issues, but I can see the point that it becomes effectively useless eventually. It’s also sort of academic, since in the concrete instance, I’m all in favor of knocking over statues commemorating slavers and the like, so I’m not sure I really want to belabor a point that’s basically all in the subjunctive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-social-justice-great-again/915081.md?page=9)