Linking to podcasts and trying to pass it off as academic support for whatever nonsense you spout has very little to do with how best to build a society. Your rhetoric is divisive. Your thoughts and attitudes are destructive and divisive.
The article I linked to pointed at that Sierra Club item, while it was close early, once the axes to grind that the ones attempting to subvert the Sierra Club were identified, it was no longer close; the fake environmentalists lost big. Another nit there is that I hope that you do understand that environmentalists are indeed clearly united in condemning the murderer. If you had seen the previous discussions you would notice why is that the nativists were not even environmentalists, but racists that told themselves ‘what a neat wedge issue we found’.
Thankfully most did notice the ruse. The fakers in the SDMB were noticed immediately when it was clear that those racists are not interested at all in voting out of office the Republicans in power that willfully ignore issues like climate change, but it is only an issue when immigrants enter the picture.
Dude, you’re on record as to saying you want to lock up your opponents. That’s pretty fucked up.
No what’s fucked up is that Vichy democratic progressives like you are more likely to criticize me than you are the people who massacred 49 Muslims yesterday.
Shut up, Vichy.
When schools get shot up, the GOP talks about arming teachers. Weird that they aren’t vocal about arming mosques for some reason.
Yep. It won’t fit into their narrative.
I like the John Stuart Mill quote. We should all imbibe more and better philosophy if you really want to make America greater.
I think it is just a little bit off point though. Murdoch prints an entire propaganda campaign against Muslims. We observers point at it and name it propaganda, correctly, by the kind of rules of reasoning that make your heater work reliably.
We aren’t stomping out the light and thereby blinding future generations, mentally. We aren’t government agents. We are simply utilizing our own free speech, and calling attention to the superior quality of it by virtue of adhering to ancient standards of reasoning and evidence.
Like what? The list is long, but let’s start with ‘false equivalency’ and ‘straw man’. It would be a false equivalency to say that people using their free speech to disapprove of crappy speech is the same as censorship. And it would be a strawman to portray people who do that as rejecting Mill.
The accused has now fired his first lawyer and is insisting on representing himself. According to the fired lawyer, he seems more than able to understand proceedings and able act on his own behalf.
Yes - with the caveat that I don’t agree they’re “crucial”. especially when they’re presented as “freeze peach, except if you’re an infantile barbarian”. Or what do you think “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians” means? You thing despots are free speech cheerleaders?
And that’s leaving aside the fact that “Free speech” is bunk, anyway. Wait, you thought “Free speech is good” is axiomatic, didn’t you? Hell, no.
In as much as they overlap with what’s actually good, sure.
“A blind squirrel…”
Not really, no. I’d rather hear from slaves and women. No-one who says “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians” has anything useful to say that won’t be said by someone else, better, and with more legitimate authority.
It happened. It’s long in the past, and those ideas have been refined. Hewing to any of the ideas of past paternalists as if they were untainted is what gets you shit like the idiotic US attitude to guns. Sure, there is wisdom in what those past people said - keep the wisdom, kill the messenger. Especially when it’s a colonialist racist.
Well of course the accused did. And the lawyer? If I were assigned to be his lawyer and the killer insisted on representing himself, maybe I could easily convince myself that the guy’s fully competent for that and the judge would cut me loose. I feel sorry for the poor lawyer though. He’s gong to catch living hell for the rest of his career once his name is published.
What’s the over-under on the accused playing the sovereign citizen card?
That’s a heck of a caveat.
In theory or in practice? There are reasonable criminal restrictions on specific threat and civil recourse for defamation.
The speech itself is not necessarily “good” but the ability to freely express ideas and opinions? yes. And that is a difficult thing to accept but I do not trust anybody to prejudge what ideas or opinions I should be able to hear, not even slightly.
It means freedom to express disagreement, dislike, ridicule and hate. The freedom to allow expression of ideas we find distasteful. If it doesn’t expressly cover that then it really doesn’t cover anything important at all and we are only paying lip service to it.
I think “Mein Kampf”, many political manifestos and all of the major monotheistic texts are, to put it mildy, problematic. I’d happily risk prison to ensure they can be freely distributed and the ideas in them expressed and discussed.
To bring it back to the realm of the OP. Yes, it does mean that I find myself having to defend the rights of free speech for people that have views which may overlap those of the Christchurch terrorist. They should be free to express their opinions on immigration and religion. The reality of that is unpalatable but anything other than that is walking too close to totalitarianism for my liking.
And who gets to judge what is “good”? How is the conversation on what is good ever going to take place? The religious and political zealots of the world have some very strong opinions on that and that in itself goes to the heart of what free speech is for.
And what concept directly supports your ability to hear from them?
If what you need is for someone of flawless character (decided by you I assume) to repeat or paraphrase or expand on what he wrote and that makes you more comfortable then great. As long as you support the principle of free speech that is all that matters.
And refined by free expression and the free exchange of ideas.
Treating any idea as unchanging dogma that cannot be challenged is what gets you to that point. The irony being of course that the part of the constitution the gun nuts refer to is an amendment.
And Mill’s ideas on free speech are wise, they stand alone as good advice and we would do well to read them and learn from them. They aren’t tainted in the slightest by anything else he said. Newton’s equations aren’t less worthy because they were generated by a religious bigot and alchemy-loving nutjob.
Important though it is, this is a free-speech hijack so I’ll leave it there. I’m sure the subject will come up in the future.
Oh, now THIS should be entertaining. Why do these idiots always try and act as their own attourneys?
Is it? Is Mills the first or last person to write on free speech?
Yes.
No.Distinction without difference. There’s no idealistic ability to speak that isn’t tied to actual utterances.
I’m OK with it.
No such freedom exists. Anywhere. All that exists is variations on which hates are allowed.
Would you, now?
Oh, Lords, “intolerance of intolerance is totalitarianism”…
Me, of course.
You think the people I’m referring to didn’t have their speech suppressed?
I clearly don’t.
No, often refined by the boots and clubs and worse of the establishment.
The irony is lost on them.
“Free speech, as long as your’e not a barbarian” is not wise.
I wonder if there was some way the philosophy of how human societies should work is different from pure match and physics…but of course, everyone knows humans are pure logic machines so sociology is a pure science…:rolleyes:
Its an exercise of power and control.
Why kill many people with an AR-15? He wanted to exert his power fantasy. He also wanted to see them die, suffer and struggle while he shot them up close (with such an overpowered rifle). Hear their screams. Smell their blood. He wanted to see them run scared. Hide. He wanted a lot of power.
Its also the reason why he mocks his prosecution by flashing his “White Power” gesture. Mocking his situation takes power away from his opponents. Its also why he belittles the existence of his victims by recording their slaughter (livestreaming it so it can never be erased).
He will take any step that will increase his control and use that to project an image of power. These killings were all about his ego and the need to bolster his dangerous insecurities.
Exactly this ^
He doesn’t care about the legal outcome - he knows there’s more than enough evidence to convict him and he doesn’t care. This is his opportunity to bring more attention to himself, and to torment his victims even more. He’s an embittered grievance collector, and he wants to use the court as a platform to communicate with the world.
All of us, every single day, are statistically more likely to die in a car crash than a mass shooting. That’s still true, despite your rhetoric.
In what way is it life or death for you?
You can’t change people, you can only change your reactions. Block him and move on.
You’re somewhat correct, but I think your analysis missus a deeper, fundamental reality. Extremists aren’t into tone policing specific types of policy debates; that’s not even on their radar screen. You’re correct about one thing: terrorists want to polarize. They want people to join tribes, and the tribes in this case are based on cultural identity. Brenton Tarrant, just like his ISIS counterparts, want to create a world in which people live in fear of others.
There are two implicit messages of the ISIS warrior and the white nationalist. One is that “You, as a Muslim, are not safe among non-Muslims,” and “You, as a white person, are not safe among non-whites.” The other message is, “We can give you the protection you need.” “We can give you power.”
There’s no problem with voicing legitimate concerns about immigration and proper acculturation - I don’t think that’s what MrDibble or Banquet Bear are arguing for, either. But let’s examine the context. When people use false claims to justify immigration restrictions, as we’ve seen with the right wing’s repeated false claims of ‘border emergencies’, then that’s not middle ground that needs protection; those are deliberate falsehoods motivated by racism that absolutely must be called out. Banquet Bear’s reactions and comments were presumably in response to the very real racial undertones and overtones expressed by people in positions of real power like Australian Senator Fraser Anning.
There can be no middle ground, and honestly, such speech is the least deserving of protection. There are some slippery slope arguments that are occasionally valid, but far too often concerns over slippery slopes assume that ordinary people can’t distinguish between hate speech that undermines social order without being frivolous. I reject that idea. Germans and other European societies have had restrictions against hate speech for quite some time now, and people still have the freedom to debate immigration without being thrown in jail or intimidated into silence.
In any case, the freedom of speech, like all freedoms, depends on the degree to which society as a whole values freedom and equal rights in the broader sense. When societies devalue the freedoms and rights of minorities, when they begin using the language of social distance, the language of “we” and “they”, then that is the moment at which freedom begins to decay. A responsible freedom and egalitarian-loving society that is based on the value of inclusion and that respects the rights and basic needs of all people must stand up and categorically reject speech that undermines those values. And in some cases, we must do so through the force of law.
That’s missing the point, which is that racially motivated violence is the ultimate manifestation of dehumanization. Violence can have different purposes. In places like South Africa and the American South, violence wasn’t necessarily used to eliminate the black race; it was used to subjugate them, to remind them of their inferiority and of the consequences should they desire to challenge that social hierarchy. In Nazi Germany and the former Yugoslavia, violence was used to erase an entire culture’s existence. If you’re not a member of the ethnic group that is in power, then this is a reality of which you’re forever mindful and aware. Even if you don’t die, who wants to live in a society with that kind of insecurity?
That’s the value of living in a society with strong civil rights protections. In such places, it is understood that violations of civil rights won’t be tolerated, which creates a greater sense of security among those who are ethnic minorities. The added benefit for the ethnic majority is tranquility and not living in fear of reprisals, and also being able to tap into the collective strengths of all people, not just those of the dominant social group.
This is worth stressing.
I said
And you replied
So there really isn’t anything else to say is there? If that is honestly what you believe then you are happily walking down the path to tyranny.
We can only hope that people with your mindset get nowhere near a sniff of executive power.
…I’m not talking about “mass shooting.” I’m talking about the reality of “living while brown” in a world that increasingly has to deal with the reality of militant white supremacy.
I have no intention of trying to change Slacker. I have every intention of shining a light on his bigotry. Slacker is a racist, a misogynist, an Islamophobe and I’m not about to stop reminding everybody exactly what he is. So don’t fucking tell me to block him and don’t fucking tell me to move on because what the fuck would be the point of that?