Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Gavagai]

In other words - until you advocate harrassing antifa and BLM in the same way, you are hypocrites.

[Japper007]

In other words - until you advocate harrassing antifa and BLM in the same way, you are hypocrites.

That starts to be the case when BLM and Antifa start commiting terrorism like the Fascists at Charlotteville, or start advocating vigilante "justice" like Alex Jones. As long as BLM and Antifa are not running over innocent people with cars, or commting armed home invasions like with "pizzagate", there is no hypocricy here. Can you point me to a leftwinger who hasn't gotten banned from YouTube despite advocating terrorism or at least murder?

You are just throwing this on some sort of left wing conspiracy, rather than considering the far more likely answer that nutjobs get banned no matter their allegiance.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Come the fuck on right wingers constantly report leftists and liberals on twitter. But someone like Alex Jones, who peddles blood libels against migrants and refugees, harasses the parents of murdered children, gets hundreds of chances.

Making Alex Jones their cause celebre demonstrates how hypocritical they are. Look at what they did with the lady with the sign on her car saying "fuck Trump", they harassed her out of her job.

[ipecac]

That's cause you're an irrelevant.

Being irrelevant to the news is generally a good thing. You, on the other hand, are likely to feature after finally snapping because of 4chan trolls.

[T-hawk]

Alex Jones was banned from both Twitter and YouTube because these companies have an obligation to their advertisers to uphold a certain standard of decorum, no brand wants to assosiate itselve with Jones and his ilk, it's PR suicide. ... Also Jones isn't censored, the government has not silenced him or even attempted to do so. Last I heard of him he was trying to self-publish his videos, as is his right.

I'm aware of the differences between a private entity vs a government. Both are censorship; the first sentence of the wikipedia article says so. Being by government only makes it against the first amendment.

Yes, a private platform should act in its own interests, and can remove any content it does not want to host, for any reasons such as business results. Yes, it's Jones' problem to find another host and get his audience to it. I'm not arguing against that. I'm arguing against the liberal cheerleading and celebrations about it, that they think they somehow won a fight or changed opinions when the people who hold them haven't actually gone anywhere. Shutting down speech forcibly and unpersoning Jones is not winning an argument or something to be proud of in a free democracy. The liberal side can't figure out how to work against Trump's base because they can't even acknowledge them as humans holding opinions.

I'll be honest T-Hawk : if you generally side with the deplorables against those who fight the deplorables I don't care that you're offended by the use of that term. You yourself recognize them for what they are. You can probably see that Trump is appealing to their worst instincts for political gain. Do you really not care that these people are dangerous, that they destroy lives ?

I'm not offended by the term; I'm pointing out how the use of it and all the other insults terminate debate rather than engage in it productively.

I side with Trump not because I support the deplorables or hold their opinions, but because in winner-take-all American politics, the sum of Trump's package, mostly the economics, represents a proposition of more favorability for me than the sum of the liberals' package. The liberals refuse to see any distinction between some such slight favorability and actually being a deplorable. These are the Trump supporters the Democrats could win over, but can't grasp that they exist to do so. You can't yell and scream a target into supporting you, you have to propose something they actually want. But the Democrats continually offer nothing to employed straight white men but privilege-shaming.

You're a moderator for this forum right? What would you have done if someone started spewing Alex Jones level rhetoric, personal attacks and conspiracy theories over here?

It's not my site, I don't own it and I'm just one mod of many. Someone else here would be sooner to act than I would. But I'll grant the hypothetical, what if I did own such a site.

Mostly the best way to handle it seems to be to compartmentalize. Most forums have an off-topic political area, and Reddit separates the subforums all the way down for whatever echo chamber you want, so content disliked in one can go to some other. That model accommodates everyone as best as can be done. It doesn't work well for Youtube and Twitter since their whole business model is to cross-promote, but compartmentalizing fits the likes of Reddit fine.

Again I side with the deplorables because of the asymmetry in that compartmentalization. The raging liberals on most of Reddit want the_donald and everything associated banned, even though that stuff resides somewhere they never have to look at. Liberals want to render unable to speak those they don't like far more than do conservatives. Even the deplorables generally don't seek to impose force and tyranny on the other side's ability to speak.

What would you do if someone started spewing like Alex Jones here in a forum listed at the bottom that you would never have to look in? If you would care, why?

[AdrienIer]

You had a whole primary season to prove that the Trumpists were not the core of the republican party, that the republican party was better than that, and that you could protect the country from someone that extreme, both in style and substance. Not only did you not succeed, but I'd add that you didn't really try, and that after you F-ed up you had no issue getting in line behind the racists. (note that this is a general you, as in the conservative movement minus the neonazi/racists etc, not just you T-Hawk)

Edit : And the part about privilege shaming : frankly your insecurities don't have to make you overreact to whatever it is that you call "privilege shaming". You can't at the same time accept the existence of "deplorables" and refuse the fact that black people have it harder in America than white people.Whatever the democrats are doing, it's not true that (to borrow a term from Fox propaganda and conservative talk radio hosts) the democrats are waging a war on the straight white man. They're just not actively keeping non-straight white males' head in the water.

[Bobchillingworth]

T-Hawk, it is abundantly clear that you will vote for and defend any politician, no matter how odious, that caters to your narrowly-defined self interest. I am perplexed as to why you believe this behavior entitles you to a greater measure of respect, or makes you less deplorable, than someone who supports the same evil out of genuine conviction; the result is identical.

Or, put another way, I see very little evidence that you care about anyone other than yourself, and you certainly don't believe in any sort of "greater good" or obligation of the individual to society. Given that, why do you expect that anyone should give a shit about you or your feelings?

What would you do if someone started spewing like Alex Jones here in a forum listed at the bottom that you would never have to look in?

If a member's hate speech on RB led to someone shooting up a restaurant, they would be summarily banned, and it's highly unlikely the site would survive the ensuing media frenzy, law enforcement investigation, and potential lawsuits.

[T-hawk]

You had a whole primary season to prove that the Trumpists were not the core of the republican party, that the republican party was better than that, and that you could protect the country from someone that extreme, both in style and substance. Not only did you not succeed, but I'd add that you didn't really try, and that after you F-ed up you had no issue getting in line behind the racists. (note that this is a general you, as in the conservative movement minus the neonazi/racists etc, not just you T-Hawk)

I favored John Kasich in the primary, the candidate with a real record of financial conservatism.  But financial responsibility isn't sexy.  Once it became clear Kasich wasn't going anywhere, only Trump had the sizzle to win the general election.  Same for Cruz, Rubio, Jeb.  Enough of their supporters still wanted Trump's economics more than anything any Democratic administration would do, so why would they try to stop him?

The culprit is the plurality-take-all electoral system, not Trump's approach to it.  Trump merely optimized his behavior to win within the system.  The problem is that there's no way a single vote can express support for Trump's economics but not the deplorable stuff. I refuse to let happening to be on the same side as the deplorables shame me into supporting unfavorable-to-me liberal economics.

refuse the fact that black people have it harder in America than white people.

I don't refuse that.  I refuse the notion that that somehow incurs some obligation on me.  I didn't wrong anyone for being black.  Not even indirectly by supporting Trump; as we said, he holds no race-based policies or positions.

T-Hawk, it is abundantly clear that you will vote for and defend any politician, no matter how odious, that caters to your narrowly-defined self interest.  I am perplexed as to why you believe this behavior entitles you to a greater measure of respect, or makes you less deplorable, than someone who supports the same evil out of genuine conviction; the result is identical.

The difference is that I can be swayed by offering a better proposition for my self-interest.  The result is not identical if the liberals could figure out how to offer accordingly.  I'd be perfectly in favor of a jobs or health-care program that worked equally well for me and for, say, the Muslim refugees that the deplorables hate.  My point is that the liberals don't even try to think about my interest; they'd rather hand out affirmative-action jobs to their preferred identities while ignoring mine.

If a member's hate speech on RB led to someone shooting up a restaurant, they would be summarily banned, and it's highly unlikely the site would survive the ensuing media frenzy, law enforcement investigation, and potential lawsuits.

Simplifying that, hate speech on a forum like this could be an existential threat to the rest of it even if you never look at its area.  That's an angle I hadn't considered.  It may have merit, but that outcome does come at the end of a long list of hypotheticals.

[AdrienIer]

My point is that the liberals don't even try to think about my interest;.

They think about the interest of the society, and of the general US population. You may disagree with their proposed solutions but in the long term those policies are definitely aimed at making your life better. At the expense of losing a few undeserved short term advantages like being born white.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Bad News Thawke, any ethnostate that has finished purging itself of arabs and mexicans and africans will move on to the next target on its list: Men who Masturbate to Ponies. Won't wanna be you.