"Of course Trump fucking won! What's everyone so fucking shocked about?" - Jonathan Pie

[iiandyiiii]

@octopus

No. That’s not the complaint. The complaint is beatings, calling for the rape of the first lady, arson, and vandalism are a threat to free speech. And these are events the left uses to silence and intimidate those they disagree with. All the imaginary violence the left is worried about the left engages in. Sad.

All of these things happen from assholes on the right as well (notice how I don’t generalize about “the right” as a whole, as you do about “the left”) – Michelle Obama was subject to some of the most disgusting threats and bigoted dreck that I’ve ever heard.

All this stuff is bad. None of this stuff is unique to one side – it’s a small minority of assholes who happen to hate one side or the other.

Why focus on it? What’s the point in focusing on something engaged in by assholes on either side, that’s always existed (from those assholes on either side), and that is only from a tiny portion of either side?

[Evil_Economist]

@iiandyiiii

All of these things happen from assholes on the right as well (notice how I don’t generalize about “the right” as a whole, as you do about “the left”) – Michelle Obama was subject to some of the most disgusting threats and bigoted dreck that I’ve ever heard.

Yeah. The Secret Service was overloaded when Obama took office–threats against him went up 400% compared to Bush. That wasn’t the crazy left threatening Obama, it was the crazy right. Right there we have a metric that the crazy wing of the right is 400% as threatening as the crazy branch of the left. But, you know what, ignore that–it doesn’t fit your narrative. [Edit <— addressed to octopus]

[Omg_a_Black_Conservative]

I remember when people here declared “yeah, well, both sides do it!” a meaningless non-rebuttal.

Yeah, both sides have their extremists, but the extremists on the left are more violent, both online and offline, and are more apt to call for violence. The last three months, if nothing else, should have shown you this.

[Evil_Economist]

@Omg_a_Black_Conservative

I remember when people here declared “yeah, well, both sides do it!” a meaningless non-rebuttal.

Yeah, both sides have their extremists, but the extremists on the left are more violent, both online and offline, and are more apt to call for violence. The last three months, if nothing else, should have shown you this.

Wrong. The right wing is much more violent and much more likely to call for violence, as the number of threats on Obama v. Bush showed.

[Omg_a_Black_Conservative]

@Evil_Economist

Wrong. The right wing is much more violent and much more likely to call for violence, as the number of threats on Obama v. Bush showed.

I don’t recall the right staging mass protests (riots, would be the more apt term), destroying property, beating up people who disagree with them or sending death threats to electors, among other things (whether you dismiss it or not, #rapemelania was a real thing).

Yes, there are idiots online from both the left and the right, but you’re not being honest if you’re going to argue that right leaning folks are more violent than their left leaning counterparts, especially given what’s transpired since the election, and that this doesn’t play into people’s voting decisions.

[octopus]

@Evil_Economist

Yeah. The Secret Service was overloaded when Obama took office–threats against him went up 400% compared to Bush. That wasn’t the crazy left threatening Obama, it was the crazy right. Right there we have a metric that the crazy wing of the right is 400% as threatening as the crazy branch of the left. But, you know what, ignore that–it doesn’t fit your narrative. [Edit <— addressed to octopus]

Right. Let me know when mobs of right wing hooligans and thugs attack people at an airport.

[Evil_Economist]

@Omg_a_Black_Conservative

I don’t recall the right staging mass protests (riots, would be the more apt term), destroying property, beating up people who disagree with them or sending death threats to electors, among other things (whether you dismiss it or not, #rapemelania was a real thing).

And rightwingers threatened to rape Michelle. In fact 400% more of them did. Sorry that the facts don’t fit your opinions.

While the left wing peacefully protests, right wing crazies were forming militias and plotting to overthrow the US government. In fact, I seem to remember a right wing terrorist plotting to build and detonate a dirty bomb.

In fact, the only domestic terroristic act in my lifetime was perpetrated by the right wing.

Again, sorry the facts don’t fit your narrative; please feel free to ignore them.

[Evil_Economist]

@octopus

Right. Let me know when mobs of right wing hooligans and thugs attack people at an airport.

Should I let you know when right wing terrorists murder, maim, and injure hundreds of people? Or isn’t that violent enough compared to left wing drum circles?

[Kimstu]

@octopus

Right. Let me know when mobs of right wing hooligans and thugs attack people at an airport.

I guess plotting to blow up mosques and apartments doesn’t count?

[Evil_Economist]

@Kimstu

I guess plotting to blow up mosques and apartments doesn’t count?

No, if you count the attempted domestic terrorist attacks then the right wing nutters are out so far ahead that the left wing can never catch up. The only fair way to do this is to exclude right wing terror attacks, murders, and treason plots. If you exclude all those…then there are still the 400% more death threats on the President to account for. OK, so we’ll ignore those too. NOW look how violent the left wing looks!

[bump]

@iiandyiiii

Horrible? What hyperbolic nonsense. He was criticized and apologized. What’s horrible about that? I’m not familiar with this other instance – if it occurred as you characterized, then it is unjust. But it doesn’t sound very similar to someone who took the time to compose a reasoned criticism of a public figure for the imagery on their t-shirt.

Thing is, he didn’t have a damn thing to apologize about in the first place. He didn’t intend to insult anyone, he was just a well-meaning dork wearing a shirt to promote a friend’s cottage industry.

Yet the internet harpies essentially browbeat the guy into an apology. I’d call that pretty horrible, especially when the focus *should *have been on Taylor and the ESA’s accomplishments with Rosetta/Philae, not with some mind-bogglingly inconsequential anus-pain about whether his shirt had sci-fi women on it or not.

Are these women really that thin-skinned, or are they just parroting the PC line about sexism to signify how on-board with that agenda they are? Methinks it’s probably about 7 of the latter, and 3 of the former.

[Evil_Economist]

@bump

Thing is, he didn’t have a damn thing to apologize about in the first place. He didn’t intend to insult anyone, he was just a well-meaning dork wearing a shirt to promote a friend’s cottage industry.

He wore a shirt that most 10-year-olds would know wasn’t work appropriate, he got called out on it, he apologized, the end.

Well, that’s where the story should end. Instead a certain subset of maladjusted teenage boys decided this story was the greatest injustice in the history of the world.

“Hey what do you think of the weather” “Forget the weather have I told you about the time some guy whose name I can’t remember wore an inappropriate shirt to work?” “Yes, repeatedly, please shut the fuck up about it.”

[Kimstu]

@bump

Yet the internet harpies essentially browbeat the guy into an apology.

:rolleyes: Again with the fragile snowflakery. Nobody “browbeat” him; some people expressed criticisms of his clothing choice, and other people expressed criticisms of those criticisms. Everyone on the internet had an opinion about it. So what?

[QUOTE=bump]
I’d call that pretty horrible
[/quote]

No, getting death threats or physical attacks over a shirt choice would be “pretty horrible”. A bunch of people on the internet saying that they think you made a poor choice of shirt is not.

I’m not saying that the “shirtstorm” debate wasn’t overblown, because all hot topics on the internet get overblown, from TheDress to Facebook’s privacy settings. But the mere fact that some folks on the internet said that they didn’t like a guy’s shirt does not constitute “browbeating”.

[QUOTE=bump]
especially when the focus *should *have been on Taylor and the ESA’s accomplishments with Rosetta/Philae
[/quote]

I completely agree that a science agency’s announcement of an important achievement should have focused attention on the science. This is why scientists don’t usually wear sexy-themed clothing when making televised announcements of important science agency achievements. (It’s also why scientists don’t usually employ sex-themed gendered metaphors in publicly describing those achievements, as Dr Taylor did when he said about the Rosetta mission in the same interview “She’s sexy, but I never said she was easy”.)

In other words, Dr Taylor went on TV with some sartorial self-expression and some figures of speech that struck many people as rather inappropriate to his role as science agency spokesman. And many of those people used their own freedom of speech to criticize Taylor’s choices on the internet. Taylor used his own freedom of speech to acknowledge the objections and apologize for the choices. Freedom of speech is good.

@bump

he didn’t have a damn thing to apologize about in the first place. He didn’t intend to insult anyone

:dubious: If you accidentally step on someone’s foot and they say “Ouch, you’re standing on my foot”, do you tell them that you don’t have a damn thing to apologize for because you didn’t intend to step on anyone? Probably not.

There’s nothing unmanly or shameful or degrading about apologizing for having unintentionally annoyed somebody, even if what you’re apologizing for is really no big deal.

What’s degrading is the narrative that the perpetual offended victims in the “anti-PC” right wing are trying to spin this into, where a hapless powerless man is shamed and browbeaten into a dishonorable false apology by all-powerful and vindictive PC “harpies”.

I suspect that Dr Taylor is way more annoyed with you guys for trying to make him out such a pathetic nebbish, in order to portray him as a wounded martyr for your “anti-PC” cause, than he is with the women who just mildly criticized his choice of shirt to wear at a science agency press conference.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@Stanislaus

At this point, it’s worth noting that “Leave voters are all racist idiots” stands as the hallmark of the death of respectful debate, whereas “Remain voters are patronising, arrogant ivory tower liberals” is just a plain statement of obvious fact.

Given that each of those accusations were thrown around by both sides liberally (no pun intended) during the referendum debate, do you think those accusations carry equal impact?

Which would you prefer to be accused of…racism or arrogance?

Which accusation is more likely to get you sacked or ruin your career?

[AK84]

Depends on where you work and who the racism is directed to.

[Stanislaus]

@Novelty_Bobble

Given that each of those accusations were thrown around by both sides liberally (no pun intended) during the referendum debate, do you think those accusations carry equal impact?

Which would you prefer to be accused of…racism or arrogance?

Which accusation is more likely to get you sacked or ruin your career?

Ah, so demonising your opponents is OK as long as it’s not *too *bad.

My point isn’t that one is better or worse. My point is that if you’re going to argue that blanket demonisation of ones opponents is a poor tactic, it’s probably counter-productive to blithely accept just such a blanket demonisation at face value. 48% of the country - 16 million people - voted Remain - are you claiming that they are *all *fairly characterised as patronising out of touch elitists? Because if not, the approach of saying that they all are might put off the reasonable people in the centre that you want to convince.

Just as Remain voters should acknowledge that the concerns of Leave voters about democratic accountability and the impact of EU regulations on industry were important and valid, so it would be good if, in an argument about the tendency of Remainers to focus on racism we could acknowledge that there was in fact a very strong racist element to the Leave campaign as propagated not just by Farage but also Gove and Johnson and that if Remainers had concerns about the corrosive racism inherent in, e.g. the scare-mongering nonsense of claims about 75 million Turks flooding the NHS before forming into rape gangs, then those concerns too were valid. And that given that we all agree that real, actual, proper racism should be vigorously confronted and not allowed to pass by unremarked, maybe *some *Remainers could be cut *some *slack for trying to do the right thing?

[Fuzzy_wuzzy]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

So… how often does this happen? The only example I can think of is Tim Hunt, and in that case, while there was seemingly an overreaction, the basic principle made a lot of sense - if you’re in a position to shape young minds, particularly in STEM fields, which suffer greatly from a lack of female participation, you shouldn’t make jokes that make you look like you’re incredibly sexist! Since then, how many cases could you name that “PC” cost someone their job?

I have no idea how often it happens and have little interest in finding out numbers. I simply know it happens. You can bet your bottom dollar that a Nobel winning scientist isn’t the only person who has suffered this fate. He is simply the most high profile victim. If a Nobel Prize winning scientist has gone through this I hate to think of the numbers of mid-level men & women sitting in cubicles who have also suffered.

Note; I didn’t limit it to people losing their jobs. I also mentioned people who have seen their promotion prospects unfairly suffer.

[Johnny_Ace]

@iiandyiiii

All of these things happen from assholes on the right as well (notice how I don’t generalize about “the right” as a whole, as you do about “the left”) – Michelle Obama was subject to some of the most disgusting threats and bigoted dreck that I’ve ever heard.

Problem is, the percentage of assholes is a lot higher on the Republican side. You know the ones…they know how you should live and will do their utmost to make you do it the way they find acceptable.

[Johnny_Ace]

@Omg_a_Black_Conservative

I remember when people here declared “yeah, well, both sides do it!” a meaningless non-rebuttal.

Yeah, both sides have their extremists, but the extremists on the left are more violent, both online and offline, and are more apt to call for violence. The last three months, if nothing else, should have shown you this.

Oh really? That right, Mr. Dukes?

I keep saying this, but it never seems to take. Give me a fucking break.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@AK84

Depends on where you work and who the racism is directed to.

I’m struggling to think of any workplace I encounter where an accusation of arrogance would lead to the same consequences as an accusation of racism.

It may be true of some small subset but I’ve yet to encounter that.