Reddit Is Tearing Itself Apart

I find this comment to be ignorant and not constructive.

Edit: This user already had this debate in another thread and conceded, then brought it up here again.

Here are some comments from this user to show you what I mean: > It was stuff like idiots accusing everyone that didn't support trump

> There is a lot of worthless hate speech in the world. Nothing is learned from it except that the speaker is ignorant

> You're not restricting thoughts or ideas you are simply not agreeing to promote it.

And finally, when he conceded it really is about free expression:

> Reddit stopped claiming to be about free speech years ago.

I don't appreciate the ad hominen attacks, and I'm not going to debate whether or not this is about free speech with this user.

As someone who tried to compete with Google in search, I'm all for Google being permitted to filter anything they like; it's only censorship when a government forces or encourages them to do it. I'm also all for Google having an editorial opinion.... I have my own, and if you like mine better than Google, so be it.

This is the way that free speech has always worked in the US; if you own a printing press, you can print what you like.

Who the hell is Richard Spencer? I had never heard of him until a couple weeks ago. No one I know who claims the label "alt-right" had heard of him until a couple of weeks ago. No one anywhere had heard of him until the media dug him out from under his rock and started shooting arrows into the big bull's eye he helpfully painted on his idiot forehead for them. Were I conspiratorially minded, I'd imagine he might be a false-flag plant. But I'm old enough to know better.

The people I know who claim "alt-right" are not. They're young and full of piss and vinegar. They're also largely quite intelligent and not less well supplied with humanity than anyone else their age. They were quite receptive to the idea that nothing in the world is simple, and that demonizing any group of people en masse is a cheap, lazy, stupid shortcut past a lot of hard thought and the careful application of empathy toward the acknowledgement that compromise and negotiation are necessary toward any modus vivendi that's satisfactory to everyone, or as nearly so as can be managed in the imperfect world we inhabit.

I've been at this for a year now, more or less. It's been slow, difficult, complex, and anything but heroic, as teaching always is. But I'd capitalized on a couple of early successes, favorably impressing some of those among this group who are themselves generally looked up to by most others, and I was having a real effect. I had them thinking, or starting to - critically analyzing the contradictions between the left's claims and its behavior, and distinguishing the desirability of a lot of progressive goals from the counterproductive ways in which the modern progressive movement operates. I had them getting toward ready to start using the brains and the hearts God gave them to work toward a genuinely better world - for everyone - rather than the mirage of the progressive millennium whose pursuit has brought us to the pretty pass whereat we stand.

Of course, that was before the whole godforsaken world started calling them Nazis, sight unseen. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that? They're good kids, but they're kids. If you think it's easy, over a purely textual medium, to outdo "fuck you, you're not my dad", then by all means I invite you to try. And if you want to write them off, fine. That's easy and it's comfortable and it feels good. I get that. I don't even blame you, although I'd like to, because that would be easy too. But I am going to tell you you're making a mistake.

Not that it matters, at this point. In the last few weeks, I've seen my influence go from considerable to just about none. They aren't listening to me any more, because there's nothing in the world as exciting as to fight against injustice - which is exactly how they see it, and considering the way I'm seeing them slandered I don't even think they're wrong. Certainly one bookish old homosexual who counsels analysis and empathy over rash action can't live up to that! So they're going to go their way, and you are going to go yours, and I guess I've wasted a year's worth of the hard work with which the actual left, for whom I hold no love, can't be bothered. Perhaps I should have done better, but for the life of me I can't see how. There's only so much shit you can expect people to eat, and the left long ago passed that mark with those whom it makes its enemies. Little wonder they're starting to sick it up now, and we all have to live with the mess.

(And I see the post's been flagged, which means even the time I've spent writing this comment was wasted, because no one will see it. So it goes. May God and history judge us all more kindly than we deserve.)

Is it illegal to call people fat in this country now? Serious question. At first I was inclined to ridicule your position, but I have to wonder how far the 'hate crime' legislation has progressed.

I don't see what I conceded exactly? The post I responded to claimed that reddit was claiming to be about free speech when spez has openly stated on many occasions that it wasn't originally and isn't now and that it only became more open to it because they were lazing about policing. That has nothing to do with my other statements nor does it contradict any of them.