# Stupid Social Justice Warrior Bullshit O' the Day. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 17, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443 "2017-03-17T22:14:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 39
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/761 "2017-04-19T14:41:41Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Don’t know why you’re making this more difficult than it is. Look at the chants for “shut it down” across American campuses. Can you point to even one incident of the right trying to shut down the speech of the left? Using chants? Nope. Using secretly-recorded videos of professors and trying to get them in trouble? Yup. Professors naming and shaming student activists in ways that they know are going to lead to attacks by Internet trolls? Yup. Are the latter tactics acceptable, but the first one not? If so, why? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/762 "2017-04-19T14:43:40Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Don’t know why you’re making this more difficult than it is. Look at the chants for “shut it down” across American campuses. Can you point to even one incident of the right trying to shut down the speech of the left? Search some you tube videos and compare the number of incidents of the left using violence and intimidation to shut down speech from the right and incidents of the right using violence and intimidation to shut down speech on the left? Let me know what you find. I can think of numerous instances of (some) conservatives trying to prevent the construction of mosques, or the religious expression of Muslims or Satanists or others they found unacceptable, including the use of force and attempted intimidation. There are also numerous instances of individual liberals receiving death threats or other threats of violence in response to things they’ve said. These things are just as easy to find as instances of the few liberal assholes that use force or intimidation against speech they don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/763 "2017-04-19T14:43:51Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > (Bolding mine) > > Um… Buddy, if you think the merit of the idea has mattered in quite some time, I feel the need to remind you that we’re talking about people like Robert Spencer and Milo Yiannopolous. If the merit of the ideas at play mattered, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, because universities (and CPAC) wouldn’t have invited the human embodiment of a cross between 4chan, the youtube comments section, and an slaughterhouse runoff pipe to speak. And wouldn’t that be a nice world to live in. Who gets to determine the merit of an idea? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/764 "2017-04-19T14:44:30Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Don’t know why you’re making this more difficult than it is. Look at the chants for “shut it down” across American campuses. Can you point to even one incident of the right trying to shut down the speech of the left? Search some you tube videos and compare the number of incidents of the left using violence and intimidation to shut down speech from the right and incidents of the right using violence and intimidation to shut down speech on the left? Let me know what you find. [An example of the right using violence to supress speech is does not like.](http://nypost.com/2015/07/02/cops-save-anti-nypd-flag-burners-from-angry-bikers/) ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/765 "2017-04-19T14:47:44Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I can think of numerous instances of (some) conservatives trying to prevent the construction of mosques, or the religious expression of Muslims or Satanists or others they found unacceptable, including the use of force and attempted intimidation. There are also numerous instances of individual liberals receiving death threats or other threats of violence in response to things they’ve said. These things are just as easy to find as instances of the few liberal assholes that use force or intimidation against speech they don’t like. Uh, a building is not speech. If people tried to shut down a speaker arguing for the building of the mosque, that would be what we’re talking about. And you’ll have to point to me these instances of people trying to shut down what is being said inside the Mosque, to people who want to hear it. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/766 "2017-04-19T14:53:09Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > [An example of the right using violence to supress speech is does not like.](http://nypost.com/2015/07/02/cops-save-anti-nypd-flag-burners-from-angry-bikers/) That’s a good example. And they shouldn’t do it. I object to the burning of the flag, but I object more to not allowing people to do it. They have a right to do it. But if we allow that the ACT of burning the flag is free speech, I think we have to allow that putting out the flame is then also free speech—as long as no one is assaulted in the process. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/767 "2017-04-19T14:55:23Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Uh, a building is not speech. If people tried to shut down a speaker arguing for the building of the mosque, that would be what we’re talking about. And you’ll have to point to me these instances of people trying to shut down what is being said inside the Mosque, to people who want to hear it. A religious building IS speech, as far as the first amendment is concerned. Trying to prevent a mosque from being built is the same as preventing others from their freedom of religious expression. In any case, I assume, as you only objected to the first half of a sentence of iiandyiiii’s post that means you concede the rest of his points, that the right tries to shut down religious expression of muslims and satanists, using not just protest, but force and intimidation, that individual liberals receive death threats from those on the right due to their speech, and that you condone all of that? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/768 "2017-04-19T14:57:49Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Uh, a building is not speech. If people tried to shut down a speaker arguing for the building of the mosque, that would be what we’re talking about. And you’ll have to point to me these instances of people trying to shut down what is being said inside the Mosque, to people who want to hear it. This is very selective of you. The first amendment clearly ties freedom of religion to free expression, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to view banning the building of a certain religion’s buildings as consistent with this concept. Here’s a couple of examples of such a physical attack on religious expression: > **[Vandals attack satanic display erected as atheist protest to Nativity scene](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vandals-attack-satanic-pentagram-erected-as-atheist-protest-to-nativity-scene-florida/)** > > A 300-pound metal sculpture of a satanic pentagram, erected as an atheist protest to a Florida public park’s Nativity scene, was severely damaged when it was pulled to the ground > **[Woman arrested in attack on Satanic Temple display](https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2014/12/23/satanic-temple-display-damaged-woman-in-custody/20811197/)** > > Woman arrested in attack on Satanic Temple display Here’s the same sort of intimidation tactics and shouting down you criticize used against Muslims: > **[Protesters outside Toronto mosque call for ban on Islam as Muslims pray inside...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anti-muslim-protest-masjid-toronto-1.3988906)** > > More than a dozen people gathered outside a mosque in the heart of downtown Toronto with loudspeakers and banners in hand, shouting slogans about banning Islam as Muslims gathered to pray inside. Other examples are easy to find. They are limited, of course, to radicals (and idiots). As are the ones from “the left” that you are criticizing. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/769 "2017-04-19T15:01:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Using chants? Nope. Using secretly-recorded videos of professors and trying to get them in trouble? Yup. Professors naming and shaming student activists in ways that they know are going to lead to attacks by Internet trolls? Yup. Are the latter tactics acceptable, but the first one not? If so, why? It depends what the purpose of the chant is. If it is along the lines of, i.e., “Milo is wrong, don’t listen to him!”, that seems fine. If it is, “Don’t let him speak. Shut it down!”, that seems to clearly be an attempt to prevent someone from speaking. Right? Also, there is are the actions of those doing the chanting. If they stay where they are supposed to be and just chant, that’s one thing. If they move beyond barriers and prevent entry to a venue, that’s another. Naturally, any violence is not allowed. Can you give me some examples of the professors shaming students activists? As far as the videos of professors, I think they should be allowed. At least from public universities. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/770 "2017-04-19T15:06:57Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It depends what the purpose of the chant is. If it is along the lines of, i.e., “Milo is wrong, don’t listen to him!”, that seems fine. If it is, “Don’t let him speak. Shut it down!”, that seems to clearly be an attempt to prevent someone from speaking. Right? So, there are forms of speech that you would prohibit? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Sanchez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19adc/32.png) [@Rick\_Sanchez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Sanchez)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/771 "2017-04-19T15:08:46Z")
> [@k9befriender](#): > > When you invite people like Milo, or other people that espouse hatred and intolerance, the listeners, especially the listeners who wanted to hear him in the first place, find their own bigoted views encouraged and legitimised. One of the main views that Milo espouses is that the left is very intolerant of free expression. When protestors assemble peacefully outside his venues, or when they ask him sensible, pointed questions in his Q&A sessions, they undermine that narrative. This is the kind of thing I’m advocating; a fair hearing and pushback within the commonly acknowledged bounds of civil discourse. The end result is that Milo’s narrative is destabilised, and, while many attendees may well leave the talk believing the same things they believed when they went in, others may have had their minds changed. On the other hand, when protestors do shit like [this](https://youtu.be/IawEMxTroBk?t=45) (which, by the way, they do _all the time_), they lend Milo’s narrative enormous support. When universities cancel his talks citing “security concerns” (ie. ‘We dare not let Milo speak because we can’t guarantee the protestors won’t go mental and kill someone’), they also lend the narrative enormous support. The end result of _that_ is that the attendees leave with their beliefs reinforced, Milo’s _“special snowflake campus safe-space culture”_ narrative gains even more credence, and Milo gets to spin the lack of intelligent pushback however he likes. Then, when he goes to his next talk and says _"The left won’t debate me because they **can’t** _" it sounds more believable. Hell, it _is_ more believable. I firmly believe that SJW dickheads did more to propel Milo to infamy than he ever could have done on his own. Let me ask you, do you _honestly_ believe that he would _ever_ have been invited on Real Time if the SJWs and Antifa retards hadn’t laid waste to Berkeley to prevent his lecture? If you shout him down, he wins. If you ban him, he wins. _Only_ if you protest _sensibly_ and meet his claims with sensible counterclaims of your own, only, in other words, if you act like fucking _adults_, do you stand a chance of beating him. And, of course, you can always invite other speakers later to rebut his claims. Ultimately, good ideas will always beat bad ideas. You just have to give the conversation enough space. > [@](#): > > I do think that a person is going to be much more likely to at the very least continue the denigration of the groups that were denigrated by the speaker, as well as more likely to even engage in assault or rape of those groups. Do you have any evidence to support this? > [@](#): > > My point is that inviting people to your campus who encourage hate against certain groups will increase the amount of hate directed towards those groups, completely independent of whether those groups listened to the hate speech or not. And _my_ point is that the kind of shrieking, histrionic, self-righteous, my-way-or-the-highway, frequently violent and often unintentionally hilarious “opposition” the SJWs provide _is the same as no opposition at all_. In fact, it’s worse. It’s a fucking megaphone for everything they purport to be against. Shouting down speakers who encourage hate against certain groups will increase the amount of hate directed towards certain groups. Banning speakers who encourage hate against certain groups will increase the amount of hate directed towards certain groups. At the very least, it will do absolutely nothing to stop it, and it will make _you_ look like an authoritarian bully. But let’s take a counter-example. Some years back, Nick Griffin, then head of the British National Party (a group of _genuine_ fascists) was invited on to the BBC current events program Question Time. For some time, the BNP had been gaining support, particularly in poor areas with badly managed immigration. In fact, things had gotten so bad that the BNP had actually had an MP elected to the House of Commons. Do you know what happened after Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time? Support for the BNP _plummeted_. All it took was for the British public to get a long look at Nick Griffin, in all his sweaty snake-eyed glory, dodging pointed questions from an intelligent audience _once_. His political career ended that night. _That’s_ the kind of thing which can happen if you do things my way. > [@](#): > > But you are the one who says that if your sons want to invite a speaker into your house, you would not tell them no, no matter how much your daughter objected, I was curious to know if that was a principle that you would hold to absolutely, or if there was speech that even you would think is going to far. Yeah, in the context of an _analogy_ in which I represented a University dean and my kids represented the student body. If we were _really_ talking about my house I wouldn’t invite anyone to speak ever about anything because…well, who does that? You seem to have lost sight of this. > [@](#): > > But, if that question comes too close to home, and invites you to give an honest answer, let’s move it out of your house then. Lets say that a fraternity invites this rapist to give a seminar on the best ways to rape women. If you were the university, would you approve this speaker? If you were a person against rape, would you protest against this speaker? Jesus…no. Of course I fucking wouldn’t! I also wouldn’t invite the Green River killer to give a lecture on the best way to strangle a prostitute. I wouldn’t let Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi rock up to soliloquise on the easiest way to brew bathtub dynamite. For the record I also wouldn’t prank call 911, shout “BOMB!” on an airplane just for a laugh, or tell a paranoid schizophrenic that, actually, the government _is_ watching him so he’d better kill the President to teach ‘The Man’ a lesson. I guess that makes me an utter hypocrite and, consequently, any robust defence of free speech on campus is doomed to failure because I can’t extend my principles to accommodate these ludicrous, utterly unrealistic edge cases. This line of argument is a little bit like the kind of thing you sometimes see from torture advocates. “Well, what if a madman had hidden a nuke in a major city?” “Yeah? Well what if he’d hidden a _thousand_ nukes?”, “Yeah? Well what if he’d kidnapped every child in the world and you only had ten minutes to get the location before they were all eaten by bears? Would you torture him _then?!?!?_” Well…yes. I probably would. That doesn’t mean _anything_. The fact of the matter is that in this flawed, frequently imperfect and occasionally ugly society in which we find ourselves, there are some propositions which, however distasteful they may be to you or I, are currently up for debate. That means one side is predominantly right and the other side is at least mostly wrong. If the side of right shows up only to blow airhorns and scream “BIGOT”, that’s the same as not showing up at all, and if the side of right just flat-out bans their opponents from speaking in the first place, _particularly_ if they do it wearing black face masks and throwing molotov cocktails about, they’re actively doing the bigots’ work for them. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/772 "2017-04-19T15:13:19Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This is very selective of you. The first amendment clearly ties freedom of religion to free expression, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to view banning the building of a certain religion’s buildings as consistent with this concept. > > Here’s a couple of examples of such a physical attack on religious expression: > > [Vandals attack satanic pentagram in Florida, erected as an atheist protest to a Nativity scene - CBS News](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vandals-attack-satanic-pentagram-erected-as-atheist-protest-to-nativity-scene-florida/) > > [Woman arrested in attack on Satanic Temple display](http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2014/12/23/satanic-temple-display-damaged-woman-in-custody/20811197/) > > Here’s the same sort of intimidation tactics and shouting down you criticize used against Muslims: > > [Protesters outside Masjid Toronto call for ban on Islam as Muslims pray inside | CBC News](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anti-muslim-protest-masjid-toronto-1.3988906) > > Other examples are easy to find. They are limited, of course, to radicals (and idiots). As are the ones from “the left” that you are criticizing. NO. Vandalism is vandalism. It’s an ugly and illegal commentary on someone’s ideas. Think about the flag. If you burn my flag it is an act of vandalism—it is an illegal act. But if you burn your own flag, you’re on solid legal ground. Let’s say I go buy a Satanic symbol. Am I free to mutilate it any way I want? Of course I am. But I am not allowed to damage your Satanic symbol. Just because a symbol might represent a group of ideas doesn’t mean I’m trying to quash anyone’s speech. It means I’ve chosen an illegal way to comment on it. But you seem to be conflating free speech with freedom of religious expression. Here’s the passage in question: > [@](#): > > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Notice the semicolons. And the difference between them and the commas. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/773 "2017-04-19T15:19:22Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > So, there are forms of speech that you would prohibit? Of course it’s possible to find speech that should not be allowed. The obvious example it yelling “Fire!” in a theater. I offered an example to make a point. Now would I arrest someone for chanting, “Shut it down”? No by itself. There actions matter, the size of the crowd matters. Similarly I wouldn’t arrest someone for yelling “Fire!” in an empty theater. The point I was making had to do with the _intent_ of the protestors. The “Shut it down” were there to easily identify that intent and contrast it with other protests. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/774 "2017-04-19T15:37:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It depends what the purpose of the chant is. If it is along the lines of, i.e., “Milo is wrong, don’t listen to him!”, that seems fine. If it is, “Don’t let him speak. Shut it down!”, that seems to clearly be an attempt to prevent someone from speaking. Right? > > Also, there is are the actions of those doing the chanting. If they stay where they are supposed to be and just chant, that’s one thing. If they move beyond barriers and prevent entry to a venue, that’s another. Naturally, any violence is not allowed. > > Can you give me some examples of the professors shaming students activists? As far as the videos of professors, I think they should be allowed. At least from public universities. [Wilmington NC professor naming and shaming a 17-year-old freshman](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/28/unc-professor-gets-away-with-harassing-lgbtq-students.html). There are three different questions: 1. Should it be allowed legally? 2. Is it an ethical response to speech? 3. Is it a productive response to speech? I’m very hesitant to outlaw speech, even this odious professor’s nastiness toward a teenager. But I think it’s totally unethical, and it’s not a productive response. I have very similar attitudes toward drowning out speakers on campus with chants. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/775 "2017-04-19T15:49:41Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > NO. Vandalism is vandalism. It’s an ugly and illegal commentary on someone’s ideas. Think about the flag. If you burn my flag it is an act of vandalism—it is an illegal act. But if you burn your own flag, you’re on solid legal ground. Let’s say I go buy a Satanic symbol. Am I free to mutilate it any way I want? Of course I am. But I am not allowed to damage your Satanic symbol. Just because a symbol might represent a group of ideas doesn’t mean I’m trying to quash anyone’s speech. It means I’ve chosen an illegal way to comment on it. Then it sounds like we agree – a small number of conservatives assholes have repeatedly attacked freedom of (religious) speech. This is bad, as is when a small number of liberal assholes repeatedly attack freedom of speech. > [@](#): > > But you seem to be conflating free speech with freedom of religious expression. Here’s the passage in question: > > Notice the semicolons. And the difference between them and the commas. I don’t see how this conflicts with what I’ve said. But if all you’re trying to point out is that (some) liberals attack non-religious speech, and (some) conservatives attack religious speech, I’m not sure why or how this condemns liberals to a greater degree. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/776 "2017-04-19T15:56:11Z")
> [@Rick\_Sanchez](#): > > One of the main views that Milo espouses is that the left is very intolerant of free expression. When protestors assemble peacefully outside his venues, or when they ask him sensible, pointed questions in his Q&A sessions, they undermine that narrative. This is the kind of thing I’m advocating; a fair hearing and pushback within the commonly acknowledged bounds of civil discourse. The end result is that Milo’s narrative is destabilised, and, while many attendees may well leave the talk believing the same things they believed when they went in, others may have had their minds changed. And that happens too, at most of the protests. You just don’t hear about them because they aren’t exciting enough to make the news. If you have 100 people peacefully protesting, it will only take 5 or so agitators to make it seem like a violent protest. These agitators could be anti-milo fanatics, they could be stupid college kids with something to prove, they could even be plants by Milo himself. Point is, you cannot judge the entirety of the protest by what a few people in it do. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, when protestors do shit like [this](https://youtu.be/IawEMxTroBk?t=45) (which, by the way, they do _all the time_), all the time, huh? that would mean that Milo has never had a chance to speak anywhere. Or is it possible that conformational bias is kicking in for you, and a few isolated incidents are conflated in your mind to “all the time”? > [@](#): > > they lend Milo’s narrative enormous support. When universities cancel his talks citing “security concerns” (ie. ‘We dare not let Milo speak because we can’t guarantee the protestors won’t go mental and kill someone’), they also lend the narrative enormous support. The end result of _that_ is that the attendees leave with their beliefs reinforced, Milo’s _“special snowflake campus safe-space culture”_ narrative gains even more credence, and Milo gets to spin the lack of intelligent pushback however he likes. Then, when he goes to his next talk and says _"The left won’t debate me because they **can’t** _" it sounds more believable. Hell, it _is_ more believable. And the people that invited him will feel validated either way. They either got a hate speaker to be legitimized at a university sanctioned event, or they get their already negative feelings towards the people they already consider to be “snowflakes” validated. These are the stupid people who don’t understand what a debate is, so when Milo claims that the left won’t debate him, they believe his lies. > [@](#): > > I firmly believe that SJW dickheads did more to propel Milo to infamy than he ever could have done on his own. Let me ask you, do you _honestly_ believe that he would _ever_ have been invited on Real Time if the SJWs and Antifa retards hadn’t laid waste to Berkeley to prevent his lecture? You are probably right. I hadn’t really heard of him until all the protests and stuff, so he did get exposure from it, but at the same time, as you keep saying, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and his exposure ended up leading to his downfall, as he tried to keep topping himself on his hateful rhetoric, until he finally crossed a line that upset people on your side, in which case, suddenly, the right was calling for him to be shut down. So, yeah, the protests worked, ultimately, in removing this particular hate speaker from the public. > [@](#): > > If you shout him down, he wins. If you ban him, he wins. _Only_ if you protest _sensibly_ and meet his claims with sensible counterclaims of your own, only, in other words, if you act like fucking _adults_, do you stand a chance of beating him. And, of course, you can always invite other speakers later to rebut his claims. Ultimately, good ideas will always beat bad ideas. You just have to give the conversation enough space. Once again, you are requiring perfect policing on the part of the protesters. Claiming that if only one person gets out of line, then he wins. I will remind you, again, that ultimately, he has lost, in no small part due to the protests. > [@](#): > > Do you have any evidence to support this? Do I have any evidence that a hate speaker can encourage and validate the hateful views of their audience? If that actually is your question, then I suppose I need to teach you at least the basics of human psychology before I can present evidence that you would understand. > [@](#): > > And _my_ point is that the kind of shrieking, histrionic, self-righteous, my-way-or-the-highway, frequently violent and often unintentionally hilarious “opposition” the SJWs provide _is the same as no opposition at all_. In fact, it’s worse. It’s a fucking megaphone for everything they purport to be against. Shouting down speakers who encourage hate against certain groups will increase the amount of hate directed towards certain groups. Banning speakers who encourage hate against certain groups will increase the amount of hate directed towards certain groups. At the very least, it will do absolutely nothing to stop it, and it will make _you_ look like an authoritarian bully. I disagree strongly with this. Allowing hate speakers to legitimize the hate of their listeners will cause them to have more hate towards groups that the hate speaker is grooming his audience to hate than if the hate speaker is not allowed to spread their speech. I can see how you would disagree, and believe that fearing for the safety of yourself and fellow student on campus who this speaker is planning on denigrating is being a “snowflake”, but I consider it to be relatively prudent not to encourage hate against minorities and other marginalized groups. YMMV. > [@](#): > > But let’s take a counter-example. Some years back, Nick Griffin, then head of the British National Party (a group of _genuine_ fascists) was invited on to the BBC current events program Question Time. For some time, the BNP had been gaining support, particularly in poor areas with badly managed immigration. In fact, things had gotten so bad that the BNP had actually had an MP elected to the House of Commons. Do you know what happened after Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time? Support for the BNP _plummeted_. All it took was for the British public to get a long look at Nick Griffin, in all his sweaty snake-eyed glory, dodging pointed questions from an intelligent audience _once_. His political career ended that night. _That’s_ the kind of thing which can happen if you do things my way. Can happen, but Milo has been on other news programs, and simply flouted off any questions that he didn’t want to answer, and came across well. I have no idea who Nick Griffin is, but he obviously was not as charismatic as Milo was. > [@](#): > > Yeah, in the context of an _analogy_ in which I represented a University dean and my kids represented the student body. If we were _really_ talking about my house I wouldn’t invite anyone to speak ever about anything because…well, who does that? You seem to have lost sight of this. I didn’t start the analogy of it being like in your home. If the analogy has run away, don’t blame me. > [@](#): > > Jesus…no. Of course I fucking wouldn’t! I also wouldn’t invite the Green River killer to give a lecture on the best way to strangle a prostitute. I wouldn’t let Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi rock up to soliloquise on the easiest way to brew bathtub dynamite. For the record I also wouldn’t prank call 911, shout “BOMB!” on an airplane just for a laugh, or tell a paranoid schizophrenic that, actually, the government _is_ watching him so he’d better kill the President to teach ‘The Man’ a lesson. I guess that makes me an utter hypocrite and, consequently, any robust defence of free speech on campus is doomed to failure because I can’t extend my principles to accommodate these ludicrous, utterly unrealistic edge cases. So, you do have limits on the types of speakers that you would allow to be invited? If a serial rapist were invited, and there was a protest against that, you wouldn’t consider them to be snowflakes then, but to be protecting their campus from violence? > [@](#): > > This line of argument is a little bit like the kind of thing you sometimes see from torture advocates. “Well, what if a madman had hidden a nuke in a major city?” “Yeah? Well what if he’d hidden a _thousand_ nukes?”, “Yeah? Well what if he’d kidnapped every child in the world and you only had ten minutes to get the location before they were all eaten by bears? Would you torture him _then?!?!?_” Well…yes. I probably would. That doesn’t mean _anything_. I think your analogy is flawed, and misses the point in more ways than it addresses them. While there are many flaws in this analogy, I will point out the most fatal flaw of it, _ **rapists actually exist** _. > [@](#): > > The fact of the matter is that in this flawed, frequently imperfect and occasionally ugly society in which we find ourselves, there are some propositions which, however distasteful they may be to you or I, are currently up for debate. That means one side is predominantly right and the other side is at least mostly wrong. If the side of right shows up only to blow airhorns and scream “BIGOT”, that’s the same as not showing up at all, and if the side of right just flat-out bans their opponents from speaking in the first place, _particularly_ if they do it wearing black face masks and throwing molotov cocktails about, they’re actively doing the bigots’ work for them. Well, I will start by agreeing that violence is not called for at all in these situations, so I will join you in condemning violent actions to shut down a speaker. As far as peaceful protest goes, I have no problem with it at all. Protests are not a time for reasoned debate, and as hate speakers avoid venues where there will be reasoned debate, that solution does not help at all. And that is not counting in the fact that inviting a hate speaker to a reasoned debate legitimizes their views, by assuming that they are reasonable. Same reason, as has been pointed out upthread, that scientists avoid debating creationists, people who are not hateful bigots should avoid debating hate speakers. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/777 "2017-04-19T15:58:28Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Who gets to determine the merit of an idea? Good luck with that. The pro suppression folks don’t see the contradictions or the circular nature of their own arguments. They also don’t worry about a corrupt political or ruling class that uses “well intentioned” law to control a populace. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/778 "2017-04-19T16:02:29Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Of course it’s possible to find speech that should not be allowed. The obvious example it yelling “Fire!” in a theater. > > I offered an example to make a point. Now would I arrest someone for chanting, “Shut it down”? No by itself. There actions matter, the size of the crowd matters. Similarly I wouldn’t arrest someone for yelling “Fire!” in an empty theater. The point I was making had to do with the _intent_ of the protestors. The “Shut it down” were there to easily identify that intent and contrast it with other protests. So, your analogy leaves you a bit ambiguous in this. You would arrest someone for shouting fire in a crowded theater, right, so are you saying you would advocate for arresting a protester who yelled “Shut it down!” at a crowded protest? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/779 "2017-04-19T16:05:03Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Good luck with that. The pro suppression folks don’t see the contradictions or the circular nature of their own arguments. > > They also don’t worry about a corrupt political or ruling class that uses “well intentioned” law to control a populace. Who are the “pro suppression folks” in this thread, and what sorts of “well intentioned” laws are they proposing? We’ve asked some variation of this over and over again, with no response. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443/780 "2017-04-19T16:22:15Z")
As an impartial observer of this thread, it’s pretty clear that **octopus** is trolling. **magellan01** , on the other hand, acting as a defender of free speech while advocating for suppressing Islam in Western countries is rich. He’s picking and choosing his favorite parts of the 1st Amendment to maximize his right to be a prejudiced dick. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443.md?page=38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-social-justice-warrior-bullshit-o-the-day/782443.md?page=40)