Would I be out of line for saying that I kinda wish you’d picked one of those?
Apropos of nothing in particular, I’d be kind of happy to see fewer examples of people implying that when two different things are mentioned in the context of an analogy, it means that they’re being equated. One can find an analogy regrettably flawed without accusing the analogy-crafter of equating monstrous behavior with innocuous behavior.
:eek::eek::eek:
:mad::mad::mad:
:eek::eek::eek:
That was a HORRIBLE announcement.
Honestly, using the term “free reign” where “free rein” is the acceptable one? C’mon, what are we, barbarians?
I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it. But you do realize that the semantic content of words is an objective empirical question, right? You don’t just get to choose your own meanings for words. Meaning is defined by consensus usage in our society. As you would discover if you actually went around using racial slurs against people who do bad things, and found that your assertion that this is a perfectly reasonable non-racist thing to do didn’t hold water.
The argument could be advanced that the existence of definite lines between “Baby Boomers” and Gen-Xers is also a social construct, and therefore perhaps subject to change over time.
So it would be hypothetically reasonable to argue that there are only two genders RIGHT NOW.*
*RIGHT NOW being defined as some time PRIOR to the emergence of multiple genders as a concept.
UnderLIE.
Your argument is invalid.
Your on a role here, aren’t you?
There is a particular ROLE which I feel is being thrust upon me, yes, if that’s your question.
Otherwise, my list just got a bit longer…
ETA: Belay my last. There’s no otherwise.
ISWYDT!
Kimstu, it does seem like scientific racism is pretty much banned here. To be clear, I’m fine with that.
OP, kaylasdad99 makes a good point about reinventing the wheel – how many times should we have to show that scientific racism is bunk or that there are more than two genders? How many times do we have to argue against 9/11 Truther videos?
I can come up with lots of examples of opinions that are obviously disfavored on this message board but are in no danger of being banned:
President Trump should be re-elected
Abortion should be banned
You must accept Jesus Christ as your savior or risk going to hell
Nuclear power should be banned
GMO foods should be banned
Public money should go to funding churches
The United States should follow Venezuela’s example for governance
The “trick” is to stay away from hate and bigotry. That should be hard for anyone, regardless of their political background.
But that’s not child molestation – you could make a perfectly good and non-trolling argument that teens who engage sexually with other teens (in person or with their phones) are not necessarily being predatory and shouldn’t necessarily be treated as criminals. And I might agree with that argument!
I can’t recall a single racist or hateful post from you. I’ve seen many posts from you that I think are wrong on the facts or opinions, maybe even wrong on what counts as racist or hateful… but I haven’t seen you make a racist or hateful post.
I lay out my beliefs in a straight forward manner sometimes, but there are very few posters I’ve actually called hateful or racist, IIRC.
If you argued that a slur isn’t necessarily hate speech, I’d probably disagree and make an argument similar to this one. But I don’t plan to call you racist or hateful unless I see you make an actual racist or hateful post (and even then, you may have just made a mistake, and I might characterize the post and not the poster).
Are you sure you’re not just making an easy rationalization to avoid a difficult topic?
I can’t characterize threads I can’t see – if you have a link, maybe we could discuss those threads.
When passions get hot sometimes that can be sensed through the screen. Even though you often take positions I find wrong (sometimes very wrong!), I think you’re a good poster and definitely not a troll. I always appreciate effort, and you put effort into laying out your thoughts. Even the wrong ones!
Maybe posts like this can help posters who disagree with your position be a little more likely to respond in a helpful way, if they so desire. But you have to also understand that you might have some biases and ignorances about certain issues that can be very profound and significant in other people’s lives, and dealing with these kinds of ignorances and biases can be exhausting for some folks who have to deal with it constantly every day. I think you’re pretty good at approaching the issues with humility, but also continue to have compassion for folks with very different experiences who have suffered due to these sorts of biases and unfairness in society. I think if you lay things out similar to the way you did in this post, you’ll be more likely to get positive engagement.
I just wanted to clarify if they were being equated, not knee-jerkedly reacting to just their proximity in the same sentence. The point being it’s not like we oppose child molestation and embrace trans-rights out of some purely arbitrary idea like picking a favorite color (or as a " politically correct doctrine handed down from the left", as Ultravires, the poster to whom I was responding, earlier put it). There are significant distinctions between the issues that make one acceptable and one not. “Whataboutism” seeks to ignore those distinctions whenever possible.
Max, is this the thread you refer to? I don’t see any reference that the women the OP is referring to are prostitutes.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=880135
He’s talking aboutthis thread.
If that’s the thread, there was a lot of good discussion, AFAICT from skimming it (didn’t read every post, but I did read several of Max’s). Maybe Max found some of it tough… if so, then there are going to be tough discussions sometimes for tough topics. Maybe some folks were too harsh (though I didn’t note any that jumped out as too harsh in my skimming), but that’s also going to happen sometimes too, especially with topics that are potentially traumatic for some.
How do you know?
By female streetwalkers, Max S. is referring to women walking down the street.
I assume he’s referring to this thread. I just scanned through it, and most posts are from people who have either claimed they’re male or have male-sounding names. There are a couple posters in there for whom I don’t know either way - maybe Max knows better. That said, I mean, even posters who have said they’re male could be lying, so who really knows?
If I had written Max’s sentence and prefaced it with, “as far as I know”, it’d be true (for me.)
Which would be a really weird use of the word. Perhaps he’s just misremembering?
Claiming that words do not mean what they plainly do mean would be consistent with his other assertions that words do not carry the semantic content and cultural significance that everyone else understands them to have. He has claimed that using a racial slur against someone has done something bad is not a racist thing to do, apparently because it is directed at one specific individual rather than explicitly at all people in that group.
His last sentence makes explicit, I think, that he simply does not grasp that the meaning of language is not a matter of subjective opinion but an empirical objective question of cultural consensus.
It seems unlikely. The OP of the thread Max S. is referencing was clearly talking about being distracted by random women walking down the street. He either considers all women to be prostitutes or he feels no need to adhere to linguistic conventions.