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Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

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Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#291

Post by kashunstva »

sleepingadmin wrote: post #268
issa wrote: post #139

I have a foreign wife and it really drives home one truth: America is a very nuanced place. We have this idea of almost unlimited free speech. Which sounds great, but in practice, it is not really true. Because ultimately, Americans do not have equal rights. We see this over and over in different aspects of society. The Frederick Douglas example from Boston in the article is a great example of why free speech is good…

>But, again, in practice, the people in power do not allow free speech. And this is fundamentally different from most examples of cancel culture. Here in Canada we actually removed freedom of speech. Hate speech laws are tremendously vague and are really not used to prevent anything bad. Sure the Westboro baptists have their 'god hates canada' stuff but realistically speaking it's never used to prevent anyone who is…

> Here in Canada we actually removed freedom of speech.

Canadian here. Whether one sympathizes with the truckers or not, or has a more nuanced opinion, claiming that free speech was removed (implying some official stance) is hyperbolic. I will concede that the Charter is more vague than I'd like on where the boundaries of free expression lie.

As for GoFundMe, wasn't their decision - whether you agree with it or not - the decision of a private company that's free to choose with whom it conducts business?

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#292

Post by kashunstva »

sleepingadmin wrote: post #283
glial wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like this flag was counter protesters trying to label these Indian truckers as white supremacists. That's quite a claim to make w/out providing evidence.

>That's quite a claim to make w/out providing evidence. There's literally 3 links providing evidence in my post. Furthermore, the onus is on the claimant. The claim being made that these Indian truckers are white supramacists and nazis; or that their friends and fellow protestors are nazis? That literally doesnt make any sense. Sorry but the yellow journalism or, might i even say it, the propaganda asserting these pr…

> the onus is on the claimant

It seems the claim to which glial was referring was the claim that the Nazi flags were some sort of false-flag operation, that these flags were carried by counter-protestors in an effort to falsely implicate the protesting truckers. What is the evidence of that specific claim?

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#293

Post by Clubber »

wayoutthere wrote: post #24
EricE wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I don’t know how this gets enforced, but we simply cannot give every lunatic a megaphone." At least in the US you can't enforce it - and yes, any lunatic can grab a megaphone if they want. The best way to handle problematic speech is more speech, NOT less. Trying to pretend lunatics don't exist is irrational and often a pretext to just block people that others disagree with. Screw that. Safest place for lunatics is…

Well the way things are headed, we’ll be fighting it out in the open IRL soon.

>Well the way things are headed, we’ll be fighting it out in the open IRL soon.

If so, I think it will be along the lines of two people get into a fight. After about 5 seconds, they are exhausted and realize that getting into a fight was a really bad idea. They will soon stop and hopefully grab a beer together afterwords, perhaps to argue politics some more.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#294

Post by YEwSdObPQT »

Clubber wrote: post #275
YEwSdObPQT wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument you have presented is a classic tactic that the state uses to justify censorship and its abuse of power. Present scary group of people and then use it to justify taking away everyone's rights. it is a nonsense because. Firstly There simply isn't enough for these people to be politically relevant. The number of KKK members in the US IIRC is approximately 10,000 in a country of ~350 million. That is 0.002%…

>In the US I heard they can literally take your property if they suspect (have no proof) that it might be used in illegal activity. It's called civil asset forfeiture. Many police departments use this as a tactic to fund their departments. Some have been said to fund police parties and drink machines with it, among other things. The federal government incentivizes this as a "cut" needs to be send to the federal gover…

Thanks for the information. I've seen Civil Asset Forfeiture discussed about before on message boards and couldn't remember for the life of what it was called. Civil Asset Forfeiture is just state sanctioned theft from what I can tell.

> Also, in the US, all civil servants have what's called qualified immunity, which means they can't be sued for wrongdoing unless the exact thing happened before qualified immunity was enacted in the 60s. This is an example of a corrupt government protecting itself.

I didn't know about this. But yep it is another example of the state protecting itself at the detriment of the citizenry.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#295

Post by darebak »

kashunstva wrote: post #291
sleepingadmin wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But, again, in practice, the people in power do not allow free speech. And this is fundamentally different from most examples of cancel culture. Here in Canada we actually removed freedom of speech. Hate speech laws are tremendously vague and are really not used to prevent anything bad. Sure the Westboro baptists have their 'god hates canada' stuff but realistically speaking it's never used to prevent anyone who is…

> Here in Canada we actually removed freedom of speech. Canadian here. Whether one sympathizes with the truckers or not, or has a more nuanced opinion, claiming that free speech was removed (implying some official stance) is hyperbolic. I will concede that the Charter is more vague than I'd like on where the boundaries of free expression lie. As for GoFundMe, wasn't their decision - whether you agree with it or not -…

I don't understand, didn't GoFundMe take money but refused a service that was paid for? If they decided to ban that particular campaign, they should return money to the donors not donate it to some other cause, no?

I am not super knowledgeable about the situation, apologies if I misrepresented something.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#296

Post by scotty79 »

bavell wrote: post #258
scotty79 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was too little too late was not the freedom of speech, but laws against anti-Semitic expressions. They were too limited and mellow. Goebbels was sentenced for anti-Semitic expressions which didn't stop him at all.

You're ignoring entirely the devastating economic impact of the treaty of Versailles and claiming it was all about free speech. Totally off the Mark ;)

I never said it was the only reason. Free speech is a tool. Generally wonderful invention, like a knife. But when wielded by wrong people in troublesome contexts it helps them in achieving disastrous goals. Along with plenty of other tools.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#297

Post by JohnTHaller »

raxxorrax wrote: post #240
wonnage wrote: post #79

The article never once tries to define what it thinks would be good "cultural health". You can kinda infer that the current level of vitriol and animosity is bad, but what kind of society would that look like and how would we get there? I can see three versions. First is a homogenous culture where there is nothing to fight culture wars over. I don't think such a thing is possible, nor desirable, since the author's fr…

> but the truth is a disturbing minority of this country believes Trump I believe this is just you looking for excuses to close yourself to other arguments and perspectives. I think there is quite an easy explanation for the success of Trump and that is that people were fed up with politics. Especially good weather topics like representation that are interesting for well-situated students that believe they don't get…

The section you partially quoted is about the tens of millions of Americans who believe Trump won the election. Not who are fans of Trump. And they believe this based entirely on the word of Trump and his sphere and right-wing pundits and politicians. Despite the fact that there is no evidence of any widespread voter fraud. And the meandering arguments used by Trump's 'Kraken' lawyers in court had no factual basis or merit and were tossed across the country.

Fun fact: The only person to claim that bounty offered by the Republican Lt Gov of Texas for verifiable voter fraud was a Democrat proving an illegal vote for Trump.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#298

Post by beebmam »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #177
beebmam wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forced curriculum on students, at all, is no different than re-education camps; state sponsored indoctrination that both political parties (currently) support. All education should be consensual

You're essentially saying school vouchers, and then the government doesn't choose the curriculum at private schools. In a public school there isn't anyone else there to choose the curriculum. Everyone there is a government employee.

No, I'm arguing that forced schooling in general is an unethical act, on par with communist indoctrination, and there should be no government run schools at all

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#299

Post by wpietri »

ianai wrote: post #88
wpietri wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very obviously conservative in language and origin; you only have to read French's bio or about where The Dispatch's come sfrom. Their tag line is, "Fact-based reporting and commentary on politics, policy and culture -- informed by conservative principles". 5 years ago this would have no question passed for a conservative piece. What has shifted here is the rapid Republican/Trumpist slide toward authoritarianis…

But aren’t bouncers a sign of a very popular bar? I don’t think that makes the point they’re targeting as an analogy. Good comment though.

Bouncers aren't there to create a healthy bar. They're there to set a minimum standard for behavior. E.g.: https://twitter.com/iamragesparkle/status/128089153745134387...

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#300

Post by wpietri »

klyrs wrote: post #101
wpietri wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very obviously conservative in language and origin; you only have to read French's bio or about where The Dispatch's come sfrom. Their tag line is, "Fact-based reporting and commentary on politics, policy and culture -- informed by conservative principles". 5 years ago this would have no question passed for a conservative piece. What has shifted here is the rapid Republican/Trumpist slide toward authoritarianis…

> So I read this as a conservative who is shocked by the monster he helped unleash. That's an interesting read on the situation. If conservatives are rethinking their devotion to a would-be dictator, would you silence their ruminations?

Where did you get the idea I think French should be silenced?
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