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MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

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Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nazi flag is inarguably racist propaganda. The Confederate flag, however, has for decades been a symbol of southern pride for many people. I read somewhere recently that over 40% see it as a symbol of heritage more than racism.

Why not adopt a new symbol of Southern pride? Something with pickup trucks and horses, steers and cowboy hats, peaches and iced tea, guns and saxophones. You know, all the beloved and positive aspects of Southern culture and heritage. It seems very un-American to me to use the flag of a treasonous rebel army that attacked their fellow countrymen.

Ten bucks says whatever new symbol gets used will be (considered?) a de facto racist symbol within a couple years.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I conflate the Confederate flag with violently taking someone's life away irreversibly. Because that's the meaning behind that symbol.

Symbols are not literally the things they represent.

No, but they do symbolize the things they represent. That's actually where that word comes from.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#693
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a deeper underlying issue here, and that is that some people don't actually want a place online where people can speak freely without restrictions. They will claim that the internet is already "free enough", and will cite "workarounds" similar to yours, but when pushed, will admit that having a place online, very accessible to the average person, with effectively very few restrictions on speech, is a…

People can speak freely without restrictions using their own resources. What you are asking for is to force other people to set up platforms for people to speak, which is a very different thing. Freedom of speech has always applied to the former, but never the latter.

>People can speak freely without restrictions using their own resources.

The average person cannot. "Just host your content on Tor" (as it was eventually suggested elsewhere) is not a solution to there being lack of an accessible online public space, when faced with private entities who will deny you hosting and domain names.

But I would like you to answer the question posed in the post you replied to (yes I know it wasn't originally addressed to you). Are you someone who believes that a place like that shouldn't exist because of the content you believe that would be posted?

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard of that. I can just imagine being somewhere loud and giving the ok / perfect symbol to a friend across the room and then being called a racist. Damn, that's scary.

My wife is a high school teacher and, until we had our first child, was also the swim team coach. Early last year she made a kid run laps after he low key photo-bombed the team picture by making the "Ok" symbol on one of his thighs. Then she gets an angry text message from the kid's mother who believed her son was being punished specifically for making the "ok" symbol. This woman had found a picture of my wife on Fac…

> My wife didn't respond, of course. She immediately looped in her admin and explained what was going on. Fortunately that was the end of it, but it's not hard to imagine someone getting caught up in a similar situation and it becoming a full on witch hunt.

Well, the hunt began when your wife made a kid run laps because he made an OK sign on his leg because he thought that was a 'cool' thing to do comparable to giving the person in front of you 'rabbit ears' by making a V-sign behind their head, not when that kid's mother started social media dumpster diving for 'evidence' to use against your wife. The way to avoid these witch hunts is to avoid starting them, not to make the first step and then complain when others follow suit. She could have taken the kid aside and asked him why he made that sign, he probably would have replied he got it off the 'net or from his friends who made him think it was 'cool'. She then could have told him why it is not cool, i.e. that him making that sign would be interpreted by some as him being a supporter of a nefarious ideology. By singling him out to run laps after he low key photo-bombed the team picture by making the "Ok" symbol on one of his thighs she more or less handed that kid's mother all the ammunition she needed to follow in pursuit.

In Dutch there is a saying which applies to this; "Wat gij niet wilt dat u geschiedt, doet dat ook een ander niet", it translates to "Do not do unto others what you do not want to have done upon yourself".

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that it isn't a symbol of southern heritage for everyone doesn't mean it's not a southern symbol for many. Are you suggesting that African-Americans identify with the Confederate battle flag...? No, and nothing in my comments suggested that. It makes sense that they wouldn't since their relatives probably didn't after the war. For many people, their relatives did identify with the flag. It probably started a…

> The fact that it isn't a symbol of southern heritage for everyone doesn't mean it's not a southern symbol for many. Could that be because there isn't just one type of "southern heritage?" Do you really want to equate the southern heritage of black people in the south with those who fly the Confederate battle flag?

If you search at images.google.com for "black people confederate flag" without quotes, you will see black people who support the confederate flag. Strangely, that is practically all that is shown for pages. I don't know what all of their reasons are, but they exist and those people have just as much of a right to their beliefs as others have. They are people with their own heritage. One heritage is that some people fought for freedom and the ability to secede, not for slavery.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#696
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet we've seen hosts, domain registrars, and other service providers restrict certain ideas on their platforms. How practical is it in reality to be your own ISP, domain registrar, certificate authority, hosting service, web dev agency, and community moderator all in one?

Not very. But it's what the Constitution provides. It guarantees you the right to express your thoughts using your own resources. It does not force others to do it or make it easier for you.

The Constitution assumes a public space exists, otherwise if it was all private, there would be no point to any of the Bill of Rights, since private entities would/could override all of them. The internet is a land controlled entirely by private entities.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#697
post #690
post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the Nazi flag may be a racist symbol, the Swastika, however, is not a racist symbol. Billions of people understand its religious significance.

The Swastika is a racist symbol across an entire hemisphere of this planet. The Nazi flag, itself, isn't racist minus the Swastika - in fact, when people want to graphically portray a Nazi analogue without offending people, they usually just use the flag with the Swastika swapped out for something else. The fact that it isn't racist in, say, China doesn't mean it also isn't racist when spray painted on a synagogue.

That's an intentional misrepresentation of what I wrote.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#698
post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may have been made up, but I'm willing to bet that a not insignificant portion of people who are _now_ making it aren't doing so to make a point of saying "everything is just fine". My town had an issue with a cop posing out with a bunch of 3%ers at their gun store. This is in the PNW, and the owner of the store, born and raised in the PNW, has a Confederate flag neck tattoo. This was during some street protests.…

> It may have been made up, but I'm willing to bet that a not insignificant portion of people who are _now_ making it aren't doing so to make a point of saying "everything is just fine". Absolutely. But the corollary is that every time someone claims that something (a flag, a gesture, a tradition) is racist, then it actually transforms it into something racist. Because at that point you're forced to abandon it or con…

> the corollary is that every time someone claims that something... is racist, then it actually transforms it into something racist.

This sounds like something out of a Borges story. Final scene narrated in the few remaining words designated as not harmful.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#699

I don’t see how you can make a good faith argument the confederate flag is any different from a swastika. Both represent institutions built solely for racist motives and the subjugation of another race.

> institutions built solely for racist motives and the subjugation of another race

you think that racism and racial subjugation were the PRIMARY motives for National Socialists?

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument for banning swastikas, not banning anyone who displays a swastika. And before you say "come on, swastikas are pretty extreme", remember the moral panic we just went through when 4chan trolls convinced people that the OK hand sign was a "one-sided version ofna White Power" sign and got people fired from their jobs for making the sign.

It may have been made up, but I'm willing to bet that a not insignificant portion of people who are _now_ making it aren't doing so to make a point of saying "everything is just fine". My town had an issue with a cop posing out with a bunch of 3%ers at their gun store. This is in the PNW, and the owner of the store, born and raised in the PNW, has a Confederate flag neck tattoo. This was during some street protests.…

What is a 3%er? Is it like a 1%er but... less rich? What does it take to qualify as a 3%er?
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