Looney Left keeps crapping their pants and keeps helping, not hurting, the Looney Right.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4710708/Rosie-O-Donnell-encourages-peopl...

This is just the latest example of a "liberal" or "leftist" showing his or her ass in public. Though I have never voted republican in my life I now refer to myself as an independent since I do not wish to be identified with this type of eight-year-old-child level humor.

Sure, most people in the U.S. hate on trump, including myself. Fine. Just keep the spleen to yourself and your close friends - that would be my advice. Showing your ass in public doesn't hurt trump. trump is doing a great job of self-destructing and needs no help from either Hollywood "celebrity" fellow narcissists or "regular" people. This is not my brilliant invention but is a time-honored cliched truism - "When your enemy is destroying himself, do not help - by helping you may actually help him".

If this is over the head of anyone reading this I apologize but I don't know how to dumb it down for you.

BTW - I invite all to read a few of the comments at the end of the article and you will easily see what I mean. Here's one good example:

"At first it made me sick that Rosie was doing this, but it actually helps. Because of ignorant, selfish, hate-filled people like Rosie, I think that President Trump will get a 2nd term. So thank you Rosie for being the stupid person you are."

Really - it's like handing your worst enemy a heavy club and then inviting him to feel free to repeatedly whack you over the head.

Have you seen the "game". It just has a really cheesy representation of Trump walking to the edge of a cliff and falling off out of the screen while he says something silly. Anyone who has actually seen and still objects to it is just blowing smoke.

> 3

How cheesy the production may be is not the point. This whole thing is low class and childish. Hating someone and wishing them dead - this is not a good thing to go public with, if you are celebrity, IMO - unless the object of your hate is a Hitler or a Stalin.

This just gives the alt right political ammunition. It is a stupid way to engage in political war. It gives trump-humpers moral equivalency so that they can really go nuts claiming that left-wingers are promoting violence - illegally since the president is the target.

Also, everyone - including Rosie O'Donnell - will now to be subjected to ten times the insults about fat women, and lesbians, and the fact that RO is estranged from all her past girlfriends and wives, and how RO's own daughter hates her, etc., ad nauseum.

How about if lefties stop shooting themselves in the foot - wouldn't that be, uh, a step in the, uh, correct direction?

Related:
https://pjmedia.com/blog/liveblogevent/wednesdays-hot-mic-15/

Maine State Rep. Scott Hamann (D.) is receiving calls to resign after writing a Facebook post Tuesday night in which he used violent language against President Donald Trump.

Hamann has since deleted the post, but not before the Maine Republican Party was able to obtain a screen capture of the profanity-filled rant, the Portland Press-Herald reports.

"Trump is a joke, and anyone who doesnt (sic) have their head up their ass understands that," Hamann said. "100% of intelligent Americans agree that Trump is a complete loser."

"But go back to clinging to your guns because you're afraid. Pussy. See, it's not only Trump supporters who can talk like complete assholes. As long as that's what's coming out of that side, then I'll match you dumb fucks word for word," he said.

Immediately following was the threat that concluded his post: "Trump is a half term president, at most, especially if I get within 10 feet of that pussy."

He is now being investigated by the Secret Service, as indeed he should be, and has been removed from all committees he was on: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/14/scott-hamann-maine-democrat-kick...

>1 JGL53:

Sorry, but that link is invalid. It includes both "dailymail" and "news", which as many Britons will tell you, is a contradiction in terms.

> 6

Well, you give it the old college try, Tid, but you apparently went to the wrong college. lol.

The truth of the message can't be avoided by questioning the integrity of the messenger. Ever heard that one before or are you new to our planet? lol.

If you want to be prissy, then OK, that's just you. We all understand.

But - if you would simply Google "rosie o'donnell trump" the first hit will be about this story from CNN, then foxx, the daily beast, and breitbart. Not good, but then you will see links to Vanity Fair, youtube, and Huffington Post.

It seems to be common knowledge pretty much all over both America and Amurica. Except in your case? So - have you been incognito for the past few weeks? - On vacation to Bali? Tasmania?
Tierra del Fuego? - Or in a coma and you've just revived?

lol.

>7 JGL53:

I was only trying to make a joke about The Daily Mail, which I truly despise.

Hosing human excrement off sidewalks is racist, according to councilman in Seattle.

Ah, identity politics: The avant garde of sanity.

From the original article in the Seattle Times:

Some committee members expressed concern about addressing the symptoms of the area’s problems without getting to the cause. Councilmember Larry Gossett said he didn’t like the idea of power-washing the sidewalks because it brought back images of the use of hoses against civil-rights activists.

That's pretty fucked up. In comparison I live near the capitol of my state - Mississippi - and there are homeless shelters there all of which are equipped with restroom facilities. Anyone, homeless or not, who tried to shit on our sidewalks would probably get his head cracked by law enforcement (giving them a real reason to shit on the sidewalk, I suppose).

As to Seattle, there is a long rainy season there. Doesn't that periodically wash down the sidewalks? Christ on a crutch, how much shitting on the sidewalks do the homeless engage in - is the sidewalk their official restroom?

People like to talk trash about Mississippi and, yes, we have had a shitty record as a state over the centuries. Nowadays we still like to think we are better than Arkansas and West Virginia and several square states just west of the Miss. River. In any event we figured out the homeless problem decades ago. We give them a couple of cheap meals a day, a place to sleep and a place to shit. It is not that difficult a problem to figure out.

The powers that be in Seattle seem to have their heads up their collective asses.

(On a positive note I did enjoy the Pike Place Market experience the few times I have visited Seattle. That was very cool.)

>9 Carnophile: That headline isn't an accurate summation of that text that you quoted. Not liking the image of something doesn't mean that councilman ultimately decided that it shouldn't be done.

(LT ate my post. Trying again.)

>10 JGL53: The powers that be in Seattle seem to have their heads up their collective asses.

Which is consistent with their nonchalance about shit on the sidewalks.

>11 jjwilson61: That headline isn't an accurate summation of that text that you quoted.

Give up, jj.

JJ is absolutely correct, and Jungle Man is correct in what he implies--that perhaps Seattle needs a more enlightened approach to the problem of homelessness.

>13 RickHarsch: perhaps Seattle needs a more enlightened approach to the problem of homelessness.

But in the meantime they should let shit accumulate on the sidewalks.

>14 Carnophile: That's not what Gossett said, but you'll never acknowledge that.

>14 Carnophile: Yes.

>15 jjwilson61: Quoting from the article, again:

"Larry Gossett said he didn’t like the idea of power-washing the sidewalks"

>17 Carnophile: So, he didn't like it. We all do things we don't like because there are good reasons for doing them. He never said that he wanted to do nothing and just leave the shit on the sidewalk.

>18 jjwilson61: We all do things we don't like because there are good reasons for doing them.

In other words, you're hoping that he intended something for which there is no textual evidence.

He never said that he wanted to do nothing and just leave the shit on the sidewalk.

He never said he wanted to do something about it either.

Transgender "woman" is convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in a home bathroom

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5000666/Transgender-woman-guilty-sexuall...

Headline by Daily Mail; quote marks around the word woman by yours truly.

The Left's position: This happened in a home bathroom, but we need to encourage more of this, so we need laws to require trannies in public bathrooms too.

>20 Carnophile:

"The Left," such as I understand it, is not in favor of sexual assault.

Nor is "the right."

Actually, this might be a consensus issue. (I like to hope so...)

If somebody--tranny or other--commits an assault, there's a big problem.

Nobody should get a pass. It's all about the victim.

Are you suggesting a causal link between transgender individuals and assaults?

For my part, I've encountered more info about transgender indviduals as victims of assaults.

Not as perpetrators.

>21 krolik:

Hear hear

>21 krolik: "The Left," such as I understand it, is not in favor of sexual assault.

One judges by revealed preference, not stated preference.

The left is in favor of sexual assault.

>23 Carnophile:

I'm attached to the idea of evidence.

> 23, 24

I'm quite sure the proposition "'The Left' are all in favor of sexual assault - based on the actions of X number of identified members of 'The Left'" - qualifies as more than one type of logical fallacy. I think "cherry-picking fallacy" might be one. Perhaps some of you geniuses can identify others. Here's a site with a comprehensive list of fallacies you can reference:

http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/ENGL1311/fallacies.htm

I do my best to get an idiot to shut up and am undermined at every turn...

>25 krolik: I'm attached to the idea of evidence.

No. No, you really aren't.

>27 RickHarsch: I do my best to get an idiot to shut up and am undermined at every turn...

Your best isn't even good enough to take down an idiot.

It's good enough to get the idiot to come out and show himself.

#30 Shit! I admitted that my best isn't even good enough to take down an idiot! I'd better try to change the subject and move the goalposts!

Though I agree that it's satisfying to get the idiot to show himself.

Back to thread topic:

Public library hosts a demon-horned transvestite to read for children’s story time:

http://www.wnd.com/2017/10/drag-queen-demon-reads-to-kids-at-michelle-obama-libr...

You have to click through to see what the thing looks like. And what is the red stuff on the tips of the horns supposed to be, one wonders.

>32 Carnophile:

Have you ever been to a traditional British pantomime and seen the characters we have used to amuse our children for generations? And yes, it includes drag queens and devils with horns. Good to see the USA catching up.

And the drag queens and the devil were presented as role models, were they?

And there was, in particular, a demon in drag, with horns tipped with blood, and this was presented as a model to emulate, was it?

Right.

And if that did happen - if England had traditional shows that told kids, "Be like the devil!" - that’s not something to emulate.

I don't think you're helping your cause. (Whatever it is. Transvestite Satanism or whatever.)

Here’s the pic for people who don’t want to click through:

Tell me again, Tim, that the right invented a fantasy that we're involved in a cultural war.

>32 Carnophile: I'm not seeing how this is meaningfully different from the Brothers Grimm, Panto, mummers, or the Lord of Misrule.

Stirring tea is more tempestuous.

And on what grounds do you say that it's blood on the horns and not strawberry jam? What is the name of the demon with five horns?

I grew up on a steady diet of Warner Brothers cartoon characters blowing each other up with sticks of dynamite. Bugs Bunny wasn't averse to the occasional transvestite turn, either.

Just to reassure you, Carnophile: those horns aren't real. Don't worry.

37 and 38 are just 33 redux.

>37 librorumamans: And on what grounds do you say that it's blood on the horns and not strawberry jam?

Sadly, this is typical. I could say, "Because they're horns, and not pieces of bread." But that would be idle, since you already know that.

Feminist revolutionaries showing the boys they’re just as good as them... if not better!

New York Times: The Culture Is Changing, With Feminist Cheese

Farm in Newbury, MA, only sells cheese made from female goat milk! Take that, male chauvinists!

“As it should be,” said Seana Doughty, 46, of Bleating Heart Cheese in Tomales, Calif... “Last time I checked, you couldn’t milk boys!”

Rrright?

Who says boys can’t give milk? Fucking transphobic bigot!

It is not at all clear why, in this context, horns must incontrovertibly be bloodied. And indeed, we've just been dealing hereabouts with a wild deer that has a purple hammock in its horns. The purple, I take it, is random.

The left is in favor of sexual assault.

>42 barney67:

"The right", in the person of your president, is on record as being in favour of grabbing women by the pussy, which I believe constitutes sexual assault.

Would you care to provide evidence of "the left" being in favour of sexual assault?

NB: That's not the same as finding either left or right wing individuals who have committed sexual assault; rather it's looking for a pattern of statements, attitudes and policies which are in favour of sexual assault.

Did Mr. Trump do _any_ of the following? --

Sexual abuse: 18 U.S. Code § 2242

knowingly—
(1) cause another person to engage in a sexual act by threatening or placing that other person in fear (other than by threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping);
or
(2) engage in a sexual act with another person if that other person is—

(A) incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct; or
(B) physically incapable of declining participation in, or communicating unwillingness to engage in, that sexual act;

Well, how about

10 U.S. Code § 920 - Art. 120.
Rape and sexual assault generally

(1) use unlawful force against that other person;
(2) usie force causing or likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm to any person;
(3) threaten or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, grievous bodily harm, or kidnapping;
(4) first render that other person unconscious; or
(5) administer to that other person by force or threat of force, or without the knowledge or consent of that person, a drug, intoxicant, or other similar substance and thereby substantially impairing the ability of that other person to appraise or control conduct;

(b)Sexual Assault.

(A) threaten or placing that other person in fear;
(B) causing bodily harm to that other person;
(C) make a fraudulent representation that the sexual act serves a professional purpose; or
(D) induce a belief by any artifice, pretense, or concealment that the person is another person;
(2) commit a sexual act upon another person when the person knows or reasonably should know that the other person is asleep, unconscious, or otherwise unaware that the sexual act is occurring; or
(3) commit a sexual act upon another person when the other person is incapable of consenting to the sexual act due to—

(A) impairment by any drug, intoxicant, or other similar substance, and that condition is known or reasonably should be known by the person; or
(B) a mental disease or defect, or physical disability, and that condition is known or reasonably should be known by the person;

18 U.S. Code § 2242 - Sexual abuse



knowingly—
(1) causes another person to engage in a sexual act by threatening or placing that other person in fear (other than by threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping); or
(2) engages in a sexual act with another person if that other person is—
(A) incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct; or
(B) physically incapable of declining participation in, or communicating unwillingness to engage in, that sexual act;

Trump has never been "on record" as "in favor of" "grabbing women by the pussy." People who claim that he is are either ignorant or they are maliciously abusing facts.

Trump has been recorded expressing surprise at the frequency with which, in his experience, women have allowed him to, as he put it "grab them by the pussy". He never asserted that this was respectable behavior, never claimed that he was "in favor" of this as a common habitual practice--on his own part or the part of others. Moreover, it is flagrantly deceitful to assert that, just because some people wrongly characterize Trump's acts--described as "grabbing them by the pussy"--as categorically examples of illegal "sexual assault" or "sexual abuse" (they are not ) --does not mean that Trump can be fairly described as having favored, advocated or excused sexual assault or sexual abuse.

Those who continue-- in the face and knowledge of these facts-- to assert that Trump is an advocate or apologist for sexual assault or sexual abuse are fucking liars.

>42 barney67: And the right has green hair.

I was afraid to mention that

>39 Carnophile:
37 and 38 are just 33 redux.

If that's your "argument", I guess it's three strikes, you're out.

Lumping Trump in with all these others is just stupid.

The only reason liberals do it is because they feel they have to defend "their side", which is stupid. Or they want everything to be nice and equal, which is also stupid, so that no one claim there is more sexual abuse on the left than right, though of course there is. The evidence is all over the place.

>47 krolik: There you have it: trumped by Barney's specificity and book-larnin. I see why he is against posting links: where would he start?

>48 barney67:

I haven't "lumped in" Trump with any others. In response to your stand-alone statement that, "The left is in favor of sexual assault", I have merely pointed out that the flagbearer of "the right" is on public record as being in favour of sexual assault.

>41 librorumamans: Bloody brilliant.

>47 krolik: I was wondering when a lefty would try the old, "When getting your ass kicked, declare victory" move.

Back to thread topic:

Texas State Univerity student in school newspaper, to white people:

“Your DNA is an Abomination.”

And

"I hate you because you shouldn’t exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other cultures, upon meeting you, die.”

>51 Carnophile:
My ass is just fine, thank you very much. I was simply observing an absence of argument on your part.

>53 krolik: I was simply observing an absence of argument on your part.

Seriously, is there anything to the left other than projection?

Philly Lawmakers Seek to Ban Bulletproof Glass in Liquor Stores

A controversial bill under consideration would require liquor stores to pull down the bulletproof glass they currently use to protect their clerks...

(Democrat) City Councilwoman Cindy Bass proposed the legislation... the bill proposed reads, in part: "No establishment shall erect or maintain a physical barrier."

"Right now, the plexiglass has to come down," Bass said.

>55 Carnophile: I like this from the article....

And there's nothing in the bill that will limit the regulation to just these small liquor stores.

So, does she want banks to pull theirs down too?

>56 rastaphrog: So, does she want banks to pull theirs down too?

One wonders. The thing that gets me about this is that it's hard to read it as other than a bill to make it easier for robbers to kill their victims. What other point could it possibly have?

Leftist “protesters” want to stop “Pedo bashing.” What the FUCK!?

http://reactionarytimes.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-man-in-known-by-company-he-keeps....

Woke filmmaker Kate Morgan, in a tweet:

BE WELL ADVISED WORLD, IF YOU HAVE A PENIS YOU PROBABLY DESERVE MURDERING.

>58 Carnophile: Clearly one guy with a sign who planted himself at the front of an unrelated protest in an agitprop gesture. Yawn.

Ah yes, the one guy who split himself into three people holding the sign.

Point taken. But note: those are the only guys in the picture who are masked. This is a protest having to do with the treatment of minorities at Columbia. These guys photo-bombed it.

>59 Carnophile:

The above was apparently a clarification of an earlier tweet:

I hate my father and pretty much all men as much as I hate White people.

See, one of the main problems of our era is people with personal issues like this working those issues out in the realm of public policy. 90% of feminism comes from women like Kate and her issues. The key, Kate, is medication and therapy, not hating everyone.

>62 davidgn:. Come on, How do you know they photobombed it? Anyway, lefties have been known to physically assault people for wearing MAGA hats. No such objections to the pro-pedophile folks, though.

Mmmm, smell the sanity: Entire family turns transgender:
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/entire-family-turns-transgender

Of course, this could be a joke or a trolling operation. It's a symptom of our times, though, that you can't tell.

>64 Carnophile: How do I know? Because:
1) The banner is incongruous with the rest of the protest.
2) That kind of shit doesn't/wouldn't fly on a legitimate protest banner in that milieu.
3) This is the type of shit Cernovich and his ilk like to pull.
4) The proof of the tactic's effectiveness is that people like you believe it.

I took five seconds to figure it out the first time from the still, then another 10 seconds when you pointed out I'd missed the extra hands on the banner. And lucky for you, I just decided to take 30 seconds to find the following links and another minute to skim them:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alt-right-frames-protesters-as-pedophiles-with-fak...
Lasted about 10 seconds before the shit hit the fan, apparently. Sounds about right.
http://gothamist.com/2017/10/31/mike_cernovich_stole_my_photo_lied.php#photo-1
http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/10/pro-pedophile-columbia-students-rumor.html

And then I took 3 minutes to type out this reply. That's far more of my time and effort than this type of drivel deserves.

>65 Carnophile: A definite oddity and rarity. While it's possible this is legitimately and soundly true (in which case I don't have a problem with it), I tend to suspect either a publicity stunt not entirely on the level, or that something untoward and unhealthy may going on with the dynamics of that particular family (not that those are mutually exclusive propositions). I'm certainly not able to draw any firm conclusions based on a few gawking pieces in the right-wing media.

If you're actually interested in legitimate social controversies relating to the diagnosis of transgender children, you might try reading things like this:
https://www.thecut.com/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/gender-identity-debate-swirls-over-...

But I'm no doubt a fool to bother sharing such pieces, because you're clearly playing a rather mindless game game of "hey, look at the freakish liberal pedo queers!"

Apparently there's a documentary about this Toronto episode. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x58s24i

The BBC produced it; the CBC refused to air it. Haven't watched it yet, so I have no settled opinion, but I share it in the hopes that it might broaden certain posters' mental horizons.

>68 davidgn: Thank you very much for that link. It's a complex and fraught subject.

>63 Carnophile:

I'd rather have written "meditation" than "medication" as "therapy" but the gist of the point is there. That doesn't mean that hatred is always out of order. But practically hating nearly all men--yes, that is one's personal problem, not a social one.

"...one of the main problems of our era is people with personal issues like this working those issues out in the realm of public policy...."

+10,000

!!!!! Ding, ding, Ding, ding, Ding, ding, Ding, ding, Ding, ding, Ding, ding, Ding, ding, Ding, ding!!!!!!

>70 proximity1: so feminism is nothing more than women who need therapy foisting their personal problems on a benign society?

>70 proximity1:

Unfortunately, going on medication often seems to just make them higher-functioning, without curing them. Sigh.

>66 davidgn:

I've read the links. There's nothing there but he said/she said. One party says one thing, another party says the opposite.

I find this quote from the Daily Beast link particularly stupid:

At least two people at the Columbia event “unveiled the banner and handed it to a couple of people who held it without really of looking at it,” before disappearing into the crowd Offenhartz told The Daily Beast.

Really? They help up the sign without looking at what it said?

Hoax or no, though: Why might it seem believable? Hmm, let's think.

https://www.thecut.com/2017/02/salon-shouldnt-have-unpublished-its-pedophilia-ar...

http://mobile.wnd.com/2017/02/salon-deletes-articles-defending-pedophilia-from-s...

https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/salon-pushes-pedophile-sympathyagain

https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2017/06/17/salon-deleted-its-articles-defending-...

http://delarroz.com/?p=1873

>67 davidgn:
>68 davidgn:

On the transvestite family thing, as I said when I introduced it in #65, "Of course, this could be a joke or a trolling operation... you can't tell."

From 67:
But I'm no doubt a fool to bother sharing such pieces, because you're clearly playing a rather mindless game game of "hey, look at the freakish liberal pedo queers!"

If you want to say that an entire family of transgenders isn't freakish, knock yourself out.

As to pedos, I can't tell whether you're defending them or not. I hope not. But if you're suggesting that I "broaden my mind" about that: No.

>71 RickHarsch: So you describe "hating nearly all men" as feminism?! It's misandry, not feminism - and yes, it is just as pathological as misogyny.

> 75

Many, many misandryists (sp?) self-label themselves as feminists. Therein lies the confusion.

If NOW would rename themselves NOM - National Organization for Misandry - then that would help clear up the situation.

>74 Carnophile: I wrote that line the way I did to highlight how you seem intent on conflating every cultural phenomenon, or orientation, or gender identity that doesn't correspond to your white heterosexual traditionalist standards, without much reflection on distinctions between them. Your obvious confusion in that last line only demonstrates my point.

As for the links you shared: let me make this real, real simple so you can understand it. First, I hope we can take it as a fact that some people are fucked in the head in ways that makes them dangerous to children. Second, given that it's unlikely that any amount of therapy will ever unfuck their heads at a basic level (and the research bears this out -- cf. for example https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/what-can-be-done-about-pedoph... ), the main goal of therapy for these people is to teach them how to avoid acting on their impulses. So, now let's say a bunch of these fucked-in-the-head people realize they're fucked in the head and that the things they feel compelled to do are morally wrong, and they get together to try to help teach each other how to avoid hurting kids. The best response to this is to say:
1) "Kill them! Kill them all! These people should not be allowed to exist!" (Lynch mob)
2) "They're fucked in the head! Banish them to the margins, heap eternal scorn upon them because they're fucked in the head (regardless of whether or not they commit crimes) -- and above all fuck them if they want to go talking about their fucked-in-headedness with one another! Therapy? I'll show them therapy! *dons steel-toed boots* " (Status quo, more or less)
3) "Umm... right. You go ahead and do that. I don't particularly want to think about it, but if it keeps you and your fucked-in-the-head buddies from hurting kids, have at it. And if it doesn't... well, that's what prison is for." (Fewer kids hurt... maybe).

I know what my answer is. Now, whether Salon should have published that article... I don't know. I haven't read it. Maybe I'll take the time at some point. But note: none of the above have ANYTHING to do with organizations like NAMBLA (as printed on that banner), which are dedicated to the proposition that their members are NOT fucked in the head. Another example of your failing to draw distinctions.

>75 Guanhumara: I'm afraid you've just sleepwalked into a hornet's nest of sarcasm, G.

>78 davidgn: Thanks for the insult, @davidgn. I am well aware of the nature of "debate" here.
But the fact remains that the only person here who has actually described Kate Morgan's rants as "feminist" is @RickHarsch, which does no service whatsoever to the point that he appears to be trying to make.

>79 Guanhumara: Except that that's not what Rick said. Carnophile advanced the proposition in question, Prox seconded it, Rick mocked Prox, and now you're going after Rick.

>80 davidgn: Yep. Two of the most prominent advocates of "let's generalize from a single instance" went after someone who made a particularly stupid misandrist rant.
I would say that is speaking thus, she is indeed airing her personal demons, not speaking as a representative of any segment of society.
In his attempt to mock, Rick acceded to the claim that she or her statements are "feminist". (You can't generalise from a person to a group, unless the person is actually a member of that group.) That is as great an insult to feminism as anything else said here.

>81 Guanhumara: Rick will no doubt answer with far greater wit, but I don't see that he acceded to any claim. He simply restated Prox's absurd generalization for purposes of the pillory. (Read further up the thread.)

>63 Carnophile: EXACTLY!!!!!!

>75 Guanhumara: Fear of admitting mistakes can lead to a Guantanamo of the mind. As for Kate Morgan, I have no idea who she is--she is familiar to me only as someone recently mentioned in a dizzy post, 'facts' regarding what I may or may not have argued having anything to do with said morgana are so much guanho.

More progress and enlightenment:

The female NHS nurse I asked for came with stubble

A woman who requested a female NHS nurse to perform her cervical smear test was “embarrassed and distressed” after a person with stubble and a deep voice summoned her for the intimate procedure.

When the patient pointed out the mistake, the nurse replied: “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”
...
The nurse “had an obviously male appearance... a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble”, she said.

>77 davidgn: I wrote that line the way I did to highlight how you seem intent on conflating every cultural phenomenon, or orientation, or gender identity that doesn't correspond to your white heterosexual traditionalist standards...

Where did “white” come from? So you’re saying minorities are pro-pedophilia?

Posts 60, 62, 66: “Obviously a fake photobomb, because no one would ever defend pedos!”

Post 77: (Defends pedos.)

As long as the catholic church continues to exist and operate the question of being serious about preventing child rape is a moot point.

Let's move on to a solvable problem. Like, say, god damn republicans. Vote the motherfuckers out of office. All of them. That's a plan. Let's work on that.

> 89

As many times as they will let me. Probably only once though.

If some majority of voters aren't pissed enough to go vote the fucktard republicans out of office this November then I guess they will never be and the U.S. therefore is doomed and destined to be a third world country ruled by a rich oligarchy. It is looking like the swamp is going to be drained in November though. Jesus fucking christ I fucking hope so.

> 91

But just to make up for those whose votes were suppressed. lol.

In any case you have no fucking clue what my "ilk" are. I may be the only member. I am 68 years old and have probably forgotten now more than you or any of your ilk will ever know.

Psychologist says that kids shouldn't be allowed to have best friends, because it’s ‘exclusionary’.

https://health.usnews.com/wellness/for-parents/articles/2018-01-05/should-school...

SJWs: New York Times photo of chopsticks is racist!
https://pjmedia.com/trending/sjws-melt-new-york-times-chopsticks-photo/

From the HuffPo piece:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-times-chopsticks-photo_us_5a454f27...
“The paper issued a statement agreeing with disgruntled readers, but many people felt the original article reflected a cultural blind spot that might only be resolved by putting more people of color into top positions.”

- Choking on a god damn gnat and swallowing the motherfucking camel (paraphrasing Matt. 23-24). Fuck that fucking bull shit.

The political correctness bullshit of the political left is peanuts compared to what the goddamn republicans are doing to this country.

trump is little more than a Russian agent and the republicans, even former critics, have now gone all in defending the indefensible.

Lying to defend a president who obstructs justice and is too dumb to even realize he has - I say that is god damn treason.

The Most 2017 Headlines:

Out of favor with the Left: Trees near golf courses, marble statues. (“Racist.”)

In favor with the Left: Defecating in the streets, knowingly infecting people with HIV.

California has changed the act of knowingly infecting people with HIV - without telling them - from a felony to a misdemeanor. This also applies to donating blood, knowing that you’re HIV infected.

Denver has lowered the penalty for defecating in the street, explicitly to protect illegal immigrants.
“City leaders and immigrant rights advocates argued the changes will protect Denver’s immigrant community from facing unintended consequences.”

Some of us want to remove people who defecate in the street. What is this leftist obsession with poop?

From link in foregoing post...

Honorable mention: Most Creative Use of a Traditional Musical Instrument

Gay porn studio under fire for using a didgeridoo as a dildo.

Quote: “I’m gonna didgeridoo you in the ass.”

The film is being criticized in Australia for being racist and culturally insensitive to aboriginals.

>87 Carnophile:

Post 77: (Defends pedos.)

No he didn't. He attacked mob violence.

>98 Tid:

Well said, Tid.

And he mentioned one small positive attempt to reduce paedophile acts, while still recognising that in many cases prison will still be the required option. What on earth is wrong with that?

>97 Carnophile:

I've never been part of an oppressed and marginalised minority who have experienced genocide, who have been hunted down like animals in their own land, who have been discriminated against, had their children systemically removed from them by their own government and subsequently routinely abused, face poverty, alcoholism, unemployment etc on a scale far greater than the dominant culture, had their own culture and religion rubbished and undermined, so I have no idea what Aborigines find offensive. However I am prepared to listen to them and try to respect their viewpoint when they tell us something is offensive to them.

>101 Collectorator: I couldn't agree more. Enough of aboriginals interfering with convict porn.

>101 Collectorator:

Any chance of you commenting on the issues rather than making irrelevant personal comments?

Well, if the didgeridoo dildo is politically incorrect, then I guess the Baby Jesus Butt Plug and the Jackhammer Jesus are both out too:

https://www.divine-interventions.com/shop/

Nevertheless they can only have my Holy Water Lube when they pry it from my cold dead hand.

>104 JGL53:

I will dignify this with a serious answer even though my past experience with you suggests this might not be very fruitful.

I don't think this is about political correctness, whatever that rather meaningless slogan means to different people. I think one should look at the target group of something offensive. Nobody has the right to never be offended, but personally I would prefer to try not to heap further indignity on already marginalised, vulnerable and discriminated-against groups.

>106 Collectorator:

What a strange question. Isn't, "Why would you want to shoot an innocent stranger who has done nothing to you?" a more normal question than, "Why would you want to not shoot an innocent stranger who has done nothing to you?"

Why would anyone want to heap further indignity on already marginalised, vulnerable and discriminated-against groups? Surely that should be the default question?

>106 Collectorator:

>106 Collectorator:, >108 proximity1: Well, John, there is your answer. Those two happily admit they are interested in making personal attacks and not discussing the issue. In your position I would thank them for being forthright and move in, quietly dismissing them for ciphers.

For me, it could as well have referred to 105.

Why doesn't or oughtn't "not to heap(ing) further indignity on already marginalised, vulnerable and discriminated-against groups" actually depend on, as someone once said, "the content of the group's members' character as, perhaps, opposed to whether or not these members in fact belong to what are already marginalised, vulnerable and discriminated-against groups"?

Hmm?

Wouldn't JTF be quite happy to see Carolina's White Supremicists become (if they are not) or remain (if they already are) "marginalised, vulnerable and discriminated-against groups"? Would it be that difficult to come up with half a dozen other groups we might ask the same about --as we should suppose from his history of comments here that JTF sees things?

Sexually-predatory men? Shall we come to their defense as actual or soon-to-become "marginalised, vulnerable and discriminated-against groups"?

And which of you is not dreaming of rendering President Trump as marginal, as vulnerable and as discriminated against as is humanly possible to make him---right to your devoutly-wished impeachment, trial, conviction and removal from office? or the supposedly "simpler" task of having him found mentally unfit and subject to removal under the abusive use of the 25th amendment?

Hmmm?

>112 Collectorator:

"I bet I know! JTF himself!"

LOL! Ding!, Ding! Ding!

But, let's try and keep our perspective: John "has help" in that endeavor.

Intellectual life as a rudimentary tale, a cauldron of ignorance, filled by idiots, signifying worse to come.

I'm so doggone tired of Aborigines bossing me around. Geez louise...

>100 John5918: I am prepared to listen to them and try to respect their viewpoint when they tell us something is offensive to them.

You're inspiring, john.

>98 Tid: Post 77: (Defends pedos.)

No he didn't. He attacked mob violence.

Yes, he did. Cut the bullshit.

1) Even if he just “attacked mob violence” against pedos, that’s defending pedos.

2) He paints a picture of a “lynch mob” allegedly howling “These people (pedos) should not be allowed to exist!” Slamming that (alleged) lynch mob is defending “these people.”

3) He portrays it as a horrible idea to “Banish them to the margins.” That’s also defending them.

4) He portrays it as a horrible idea to “heap eternal scorn upon them.” Defending them.

Yes, he actually portrayed it as BAD to scorn pedophiles.

Nine-year-old boy sexualized with heavy make-up for erotic clothing company:
https://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/9-year-old-drag-queen-hired-in-ad-cam...

NB: “erotic clothing company” is the company’s own self-description.

Gay web site tries to lie and deflect by claiming that the 9-year-old was himself bullied, provides no evidence of this. Quotes people harshing the publication owner, an adult... thing... called Brandon Hilton:
https://www.out.com/popnography/2018/1/09/conservatives-bully-9-year-old-drag-qu...

So the article’s headline, “Conservatives Bully 9-Year-Old Drag Queen Lactatia for Modeling a Sequin Onesie,” is, judging from the article itself, an outright lie.

Huffington Post refers to people who object to sexualizing a 9-year-old as “trolls.” Seriously:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-year-old-drag-queen_us_5a550a30e4b0efe47e...

The. Left. Is. Trying. To. Normalize. Pedophilia.

>117 Carnophile:
"Even if he just “attacked mob violence” against pedos, that’s defending pedos."

Would it thus make sense for somebody to claim that "Carnophile is a defender of mob violence" against pedos?

Or would such casuistry distract from the particular issues we're arguing about?

>118 Carnophile:
Here, for instance, is a more serious issue than tendentious parsing of somebody's post.

I agree that sexualization of children can have dangerous implications. Feminists have been talking about this for years, for instance regarding child beauty contests.

But I'm perplexed why you'd characterize it as a left/right issue. Pedophiles come from across the political spectrum.

Economically speaking, the example of an erotic clothing company sounds more specifically like an example of capitalist commodification, answering certain consumer desires. And yes, this raises all sorts of questions.

As for your reference to "an adult...thing", well, wouldn't it be more accurate to refer to "an adult person"?

>119 krolik: Would it thus make sense for somebody to claim that "Carnophile is a defender of mob violence" against pedos?
Or would such casuistry distract from the particular issues we're arguing about?

In 77, davidgn defended pedos.

You can try to distract/defelect/change the subject all you like, but I'll just change it right back.

>120 krolik: tendentious parsing of somebody's post.

How DARE you read what he wrote and quote it!

>120 krolik:
Economically speaking, the example of an erotic clothing company sounds more specifically like an example of capitalist commodification...

Stop pretending you misunderstand.

The problem is the left. Look who is pushing this or defending it - Salon, HuffPo, the BBC. (See the links in #73, 118.)

The common element is that they’re politically left.

(The BBC is mostly state-supported, by the way. It’s not a for-profit capitalist company.)

Then guy who wrote the original Salon piece wrote a follow-up saying that those who objected to the original article were a “right-wing hate machine.” The right is more staunchly anti-pedo-normalization, by the Salon pedo’s own admission.

The common denominator is not “capitalism”; it is the left.

And you know it. Cut the horseshit.

>120 krolik: I'm perplexed why you'd characterize it as a left/right issue. Pedophiles come from across the political spectrum.

Don’t pretend you misunderstand. That strategy is completely transparent. We are talking about who is defending and trying to normalize pedophilia, not who is a pedophile. You know that quite well. You are pretending to misunderstand, because the truth is politically uncomfortable for you.

(It doesn’t have to be, though. Switch sides, for fuck’s sake.)

I'm not pretending I misunderstand, though I certainly grant that I have not studied this thread as closely as you have. The personal aspersions bore me (for everyone concerned). If I misunderstand, it's my bad, but not my plan. It is also possible that maybe you misunderstand me?

For what it's worth, you seem reluctant to answer my question about mob violence in >119 krolik:. Of course, you're not obligated to do so. Suit yourself.

But, if that's kind of parsing you insist that your interlocutors play along with, I will also say that I stand with the pedos (or whatever other criminals, of whatever description) having the right to due process over the pitchfork crowd and mob violence.

"You can see this in operation right now, today, by the simple expedient of turning to CNN and watching commentator after commentator explode in gleeful outrage over Donald Trump’s alleged comments about the relative desirability of immigrants from countries like Norway, on the one hand, and countries like Haiti, El Salvador, and various apparently unnamed African countries on the other. (I say “alleged” not because I doubt the substance of the report, but simply because the president has disputed some details of the reporting.)

"Two questions: Were all those commentators at CNN (and the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other purveyors of sanctimony)—were they more delighted or unhappy about the president’s comment? Think carefully before answering."

... "my second question: Was the president right to question the desirability of accepting immigrants from places like Haiti?"

Of Home Truths and Shitholes
By Roger Kimball| January 12, 2018

>117 Carnophile:

I repeat, he is not defending paedophiles. He is referring to one method of attempting to reduce paedophile acts, while also recoginising that if it doesn't work, prison is another method. How is trying to reduce paedophile acts defending paedophiles?

>112 Collectorator: Just who decides which are the "already marginalised, vulnerable and discriminated-against groups?"

Not me. If you have to ask this question, you are either playing games (the most likely explanation, I suspect) or you are exceptionally ignorant about the history and current reality of the Aboriginal people of Australia.

>116 Carnophile: You're inspiring, john.

Why thank you, kind sir.

>129 Collectorator:

Thank you and my apologies for doubting you. See, it was a genuine misunderstanding.

>129 Collectorator: A post for purposes of clarification, typed while keeping a straight face.

In #100 Johnthefireman was obviously writing about Australian aboriginals, with whom he obviously identifies well enough to understand that they have legitimate grievances and so he apparently does not delight in didgeridoo/rectal humor, nor in the fact that some aboriginals find that humor painful.

The answer to 106, about 103, is so that you don't come off as a troll. Jtf apparently still has some hope that the most grotesque personalities involved in this forum have an agenda beyond insulting him and a couple others. They don't. You obviously don't. I don't think this is against the TOS, but if so, flag. What I am saying is that you, Collectorator, are clearly not involved in this forum to engage in discussion, and some simple content analysis shows that you have a particular animus towards johnthefireman. I think if he weren't such a nice guy you would leave him alone; but as he does his best to engage people seriously, even you, who have no interest in being engaged seriously, you enjoy fucking with him. It's typical bully behavior. The bully mindset. It's particularly pathetic here because you have no victim, just the resounding silence of self-mockery emanating from your posts.

>126 proximity1: ... "my second question: Was the president right to question the desirability of accepting immigrants from places like Haiti?"

No. If what he wants is merit-based immigration then why does the country of origin matter at all?

>132 jjwilson61:

In the Is Donald Trump a Racist (Part 2) thread, someone has posted a link to an article entitled African immigrants are more educated than most — including people born in US. It would seem that if he wants merit-based immigration, then he should be encouraging Africans to come. Perhaps he might also want to consider expelling some of the US-born citizens who are less qualified than the Africans?

PS: That last sentence is said tongue in cheek.

> 126 What a sorry and freakish attempt to defend racism.

-

The average African who immigrates to the U.S. is probably better educated than you are.

Norwegians have little incentive to immigrate to the U.S., which is a shithole compared to Norway.

You should be sent to bed without your supper, proxy. I assume you are ten years old.

>119 krolik: Would it thus make sense for somebody to claim that "Carnophile is a defender of mob violence" against pedos?

If I catch an adult sexually molesting a child I’m going to beat the shit out of that adult.

But stop trying to change the subject. Davidgn originally said leftists would never hoist a banner that said “stop pedo bashing,” and so the photo showing them doing exactly that must be a false flag operation. But his own post 77 amounts to saying “stop pedo bashing.”

Illustrating (with other items in this thread) that there’s an attempt to normalize pedophilia coming from the left.

>127 John5918: I repeat, he is not defending paedophiles.

Yes he did. He actually claimed it was bad to "scorn" them.

>136 Carnophile: Jtf: this guy is either a liar or unable to grasp davidgn's rather direct, higher than Trump-level verbiage. Or a mere troll, I suppose, which would be someone lying for the pettiest of purposes, suggesting some degree of sociopathy.

>135 Carnophile: If I catch an adult sexually molesting a child I’m going to beat the shit out of that adult.

If you have to use a degree of force to protect the child and detain the criminal until the police arrive, that's OK. If you "beat the shit out of someone" you are no better than a vigilante and you have committed a crime.

>136 Carnophile: He actually claimed it was bad to "scorn" them

In the context of David's post, he is speaking of a group of paedophiles who are actively trying to prevent themselves from perpetrating paedophile acts. Should we scorn these people? Should we scorn drug addicts and alcoholics who take steps to get clean? Someone close to me is a recovering alcoholic who is now a counsellor helping others to recover. Should I scorn him, or rather encourage him in his endeavours?

And as David also pointed out, paedophilia is a sickness, not a choice. While we certainly may need to lock some of them up to protect children (as David says), should we scorn sick people? Should we scorn people who have mental illnesses? I believe in the old days the public could visit lunatic asylums to laugh at the mentally ill. Is that the sort of thing you are advocating, by implication if not explicitly?

So no, it's not defending paedophiles as you try to twist it. It's defending basic human values. We don't scorn those who are trying to do good. We don't scorn sick people. Or maybe in your circles you do? If so, we are talking past each other.

>117 Carnophile:

"Yes, he did. Cut the bullshit.

1) Even if he just “attacked mob violence” against pedos, that’s defending pedos.

2) He paints a picture of a “lynch mob” allegedly howling “These people (pedos) should not be allowed to exist!” Slamming that (alleged) lynch mob is defending “these people.”

3) He portrays it as a horrible idea to “Banish them to the margins.” That’s also defending them.

4) He portrays it as a horrible idea to “heap eternal scorn upon them.” Defending them.

Yes, he actually portrayed it as BAD to scorn pedophiles."

"Bullshit" is disagreeing with you, right?

Sigh.

Well let's actually see what he did say, shall we?

"As for the links you shared: let me make this real, real simple so you can understand it. First, I hope we can take it as a fact that some people are fucked in the head in ways that makes them dangerous to children. Second, given that it's unlikely that any amount of therapy will ever unfuck their heads at a basic level (and the research bears this out -- cf. for example https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/what-can-be-done-about-pedoph... ), the main goal of therapy for these people is to teach them how to avoid acting on their impulses. So, now let's say a bunch of these fucked-in-the-head people realize they're fucked in the head and that the things they feel compelled to do are morally wrong, and they get together to try to help teach each other how to avoid hurting kids."

I took English at school, and that included comprehension. I assume you're equally au fait with English comprehension, so we shouldn't have to quarrel over the meaning of words? So my summary of what's being said here is "You probably can't cure a pedo, so let's start with having them recognise themselves for what they are and resolve to avoid abusing kids." That's defending pedos? No. Big comprehension fail.

His next response is:

The best response to this is to say:
1) "Kill them! Kill them all! These people should not be allowed to exist!" (Lynch mob)

A common, and not entirely incomprehensible reaction, which achieves - what?

2) "They're fucked in the head! Banish them to the margins, heap eternal scorn upon them because they're fucked in the head (regardless of whether or not they commit crimes) -- and above all fuck them if they want to go talking about their fucked-in-headedness with one another! Therapy? I'll show them therapy! *dons steel-toed boots* " (Status quo, more or less)

More common reactions. End result? Marginalise and monsterise pedos so much that they feel they have nothing to lose by continuing to act on their twisted impulses, and thereby become MORE, not LESS, dangerous. That's defending pedos? No it isn't. It's seeking to avoid making them more dangerous than they already are.

3) "Umm... right. You go ahead and do that. I don't particularly want to think about it, but if it keeps you and your fucked-in-the-head buddies from hurting kids, have at it. And if it doesn't... well, that's what prison is for." (Fewer kids hurt... maybe).
This all hinges on what david meant by "go ahead and do that". I am assuming he DOESN'T mean "go ahead and abuse kids", and therefore it reads ambiguously. He needs to come and clear up this point.

At any rate, the ideal solution is that kids aren't abused, and that there isn't any more violence in society by lynch mob reactions. Violence breeds violence, and if you endorse that, you're no better than the people you condemn.

>139 Tid: It shouldn't have been necessary, but that was a nice, clear exposition.

I'd add: to parse the 'ambiguous' you go ahead and do that. as meaning "go ahead and abuse kids" would lead to
go ahead and abuse kids...if it keeps you and your fucked-in-the-head buddies from hurting kids
That is oxymoronic.

It is therefore absolutely clear that this is not what david meant.

And "you go ahead and have those meetings, where you talk about how not to do things I don't even want to think about" IS the obvious interpretation of that sentence.

----

Unfortunately, I would, however express caution as to whether these groups actually do have the desired effect:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/30/sex-offenders-on-group-treatment...

I think the main point is that the troll got more attention than he could have dreamed of.

Interesting that his name is "carnophile", which I take to mean "loves meat".

Well, I enjoy meat too, as part of a BALANCED diet. Maybe he needs to learn what exactly balance means.

First:

The word “pedophile” in everyday use by normal people - never mind what the dictionary or the psychiatric diagnostic manual says - means an adult who sexually molests children. Or at least takes steps to do so. It’s never been generally used, until the Left started its horrifying attempt to normalize it, to refer to someone who didn't try to do so. That’s new, and is an attempt to change the language that has a definite purpose behind it. Indeed, there never has been a word for someone who makes no effort to do it, since normally you’d never know.

So contra #139, we might have to "quarrel over the meaning of words." I'm mentioning this now in case it becomes necessary later.

That said, with the lack of an obvious word to use for “people with the urge to sexually molest children, who may or may not act on that urge,” I’ll use the words “pedophiles” or “pedos” for the moment.

>138 John5918: In the context of David's post, he is speaking of a group of paedophiles who are actively trying to prevent themselves from perpetrating paedophile acts.

>139 Tid: my summary of what's being said here (in 77) is "You probably can't cure a pedo, so let's start with having them recognise themselves for what they are and resolve to avoid abusing kids." That's defending pedos? No.

In other words, “In 77, davidgn wasn’t talking about all pedos; just a subset of them!” Yes, I know. The entire attempt to change the subject from “pedophiles” to “pedophiles who are (allegedly) trying to stop being pedophiles” is an attempt to defend all pedophiles. That’s the only reason one would attempt such a switch of subject when the original banner (in 58) that started the whole discussion said “No pedo bashing.” It did NOT say “No bashing pedos who are allegedly trying to stop being pedos.”

In fact, post 77 is even worse than that. The banner presumably used the normal meaning of the word “pedos,” as people who (try to) act out. Therefore the purported subset in 77 - those who don’t try to act out - is not actually a subset of that group. (Can’t be, by definition.)

Perhaps the crowning moment in 77 is this:

none of the above have ANYTHING to do with organizations like NAMBLA (as printed on that banner)...

Having admitted the attempt to change the subject, he finishes with this priceless summary:

Another example of your failing to draw distinctions.

>140 Guanhumara: Unfortunately, I would, however express caution as to whether these groups actually do have the desired effect...

Indeed. To just assume that that’s the intention or the effect of such groups is to defend the pedophiles who participate in them.

Back to the general topic of the left and pedo normalization:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/28/documents-tie-berkeley-riot-organizers-to-pro-...

>144 Carnophile: The entire attempt to change the subject from “pedophiles” to “pedophiles who are (allegedly) trying to stop being pedophiles” is an attempt to defend all pedophiles.

Well, no. It's an attempt to stop you lumping all paedophiles together and to recognise that there are differences, subsets if you like.

>147 Carnophile: To just assume that that’s the intention or the effect of such groups is to defend the pedophiles who participate in them.

No, he specifically admits that it might not work and he recognises prison as necessary is such cases.

> 149 I propose that as all but one (Carnophile) here understand #77, there is no need to discuss that post further. The writing is clear, his points are clear. Why continue to be sucked into the trolling games of Carnophile? And of course any suggestion that any particular political segment supports pedophilia is patent nonsense, so why discuss even that proposition. If I chose to engage in that I would immediately discuss US/NATO factions in Europe with clear right wing affiliations who were involved in attempts to quiet revelations of pedophilia in Brussels; but despite the ugly nature of these groups I don't think they actually support pedophilia and their actions don't suggest that the right wing is more prone to supporting pedophilia. Any further nonsense about ideology relating to pedophilia should be laughed off the thread. It doesn't take any research to know absolutely that pedophilia is repugnant to all who are not pedophiles.

edited to exclude Guanhumara from the list of, now one, who do not or pretend to not understand davidgn rather simple post 77

>143 Carnophile: The word “pedophile” in everyday use by normal people - never mind what the dictionary or the psychiatric diagnostic manual says - means an adult who sexually molests children.

NO. The word "pedophile" has always meant "adult who has the urge to sexually molest children".

Into that category fall:

a) people who have been abused so badly and have such a screwed-up past, or are so mentally impaired, that they don't understand that their desire is wrong;
b) people who know perfectly well that their desire is wrong, but don't give a shit;
c) people who don't think their desire is wrong, but aren't keen on life in prison either, and know that's where society will put them if they act on those desires, so are trying to avoid actions that risk prison;
d) people who feel the urge, know it is wrong, and are ashamed of it.

Assuming that all people with a particular urge (however perverted) act on it, is simply ridiculous.

All child molesters are pedophiles.
Not all pedophiles actually molest children.
It's quite simple.

(We don't need new vocabulary. The old one works quite well, except when people like you try to redefine it.)

Nobody rationally decides "I want to be a pedophile". You have to be pretty screwed-up to get that urge.

Some of the people who get that urge want to act on it. Those who do, are the ones we hear about.

But to pretend that 'all pedophiles actually molest children (or view pictures of others doing that, which I agree simply incentivises others to make those videos)' is as ridiculous as saying that everyone who has had the urge to kill someone is a murderer.

People who realise they have anger and violence management issues often try group therapy to keep their inclinations under control.
If the people in category (d) want to do the same, I'd say that is a good thing.

Anything that results in fewer pedophiles attempting to interfere with children is a good thing.

If the people in group (d) want to encourage the people in the other groups not to act on their sick desires, that is also a good intention. But I admit it may work in reverse - hence my caution. Theoretically, the best person to persuade a pedophile not to act on those desires is another pedophile. Unfortunately, the psychopathic ones in group (b) may be the more persuasive.

And, since it may be necessary to clarify:

I feel sorry for the people in group (a), but I want them kept far, far away from children.

I hope society punishes the people in group (b) with the full rigour of the law.

I have ZERO sympathy with the people in group (c), and I'd like them very carefully watched; but since it would be immoral to act punitively on desires that they have not acted on, I'd rather take as many measures as possible to persuade them to continue NOT acting on them.

Group (d) may be very small. But since it takes courage to admit to oneself "I have a sick, filthy urge" then those who come out publicly to seek help in suppressing that urge do indeed deserve encouragement in their aim.

Nobody wants to think about pedophilia.
But when society pretended that it didn't exist, child abuse went on in secret.
Now we acknowledge that the condition exists, we can protect children better.

Recognising that a condition exists does not "normalise" it.

It enables us, as a society, to take measures to deal with it.

Which is far better for children than simply metaphorically whistling in the dark with our finger in our ears, until the next assault is perpetrated, and then beating up the perpetrator after the vile act was committed.

>151 Guanhumara: My apologies for in #150 making the mistake that you did not understand post #77. I was basing that assumption on your misguided posts #79 and #81. Apparently your misunderstandings had nothing to do with your understanding of pedophilia and the famed post 77.

I have amended my post accordingly.

>151 Guanhumara:

Thanks. Very clear.

>151 Guanhumara:

Yes, thanks for taking the trouble to walk it through...

>150 RickHarsch: Why continue to be sucked into the trolling games

Thanks, Rick. At one level I think you are correct.

At another level, though, I think it goes beyond "trolling games". There is an element of the extreme right wing ("the Looney Right", to borrow a phrase from the thread title) which somehow lives in an alternative reality, ignoring evidence and facts. They have created a narrative which many of them probably believe to be true.

I think it is always worth challenging that narrative whenever it comes up, not because I have any expectation of changing their opinion, but because the more it is allowed to pass unchallenged the more it starts to become accepted as part of the background - it becomes normalised and starts to creep into the real-world narratives.

Not sure how well I have expressed myself here, but I hope it makes some sense.

>155 John5918: I understand completely. But a couple times recently it has devolved into specific attempts at mocking you, which I find hideous, particularly as you come off quite gentle and I am quite sure that it is that side of you that attracts their bloodlust. So it's particularly disgusting, a cowardly behaviour. In my own case I have been lucky enough to have been blocked by all but maybe Barney among those who, well, who let us say are reflexively rightwing and/or pro-Trump (the or is for proximity who is reflexively pro-Trump, but I think fancies himself a far left feller).

I also support your continued efforts because I don't think any of the attacks here hurt you, you being a grown up capable of discerning thought. I hope I am right. I know that's the case for me. Guanhumara called me a racist recently and my first response, my live response was to laugh (I am racist because I don't take care to separate WWII POWs--all of the caucasian race, of course, between Nazis and Germans, using the two interchangeably. I know I should always say Nazi Germans, but sometimes I just haven't the...specific need.)

>144 Carnophile:

"the original banner (in 58) that started the whole discussion said “No pedo bashing.” "

You make no reference to the fact that the poster in question was a deliberate photobomb by right wing activists in order to discredit the protest. They turned up - apparently part of the protest - waited for a photo opportunity, unfurled the banner (which no-one there had seen up to that point), then left quickly having achieved what they set out to do. This is documented (I think I followed a Facebook link and Shared it, so I no longer have the link to hand).

In that sense, it's 'fake news'.

>158 Collectorator:

Ha ha. Easy to mock, less easy to disprove.

Anyway, it might have been here in Library Thing. That make it any more funny? Ha ha?

Yes, it was here actually. See above, 66. Follow the links.

I wonder, as I must, whether reliance on facebook and the use of such trite dipperies as ':D' are of different specie.

Hear Bill Maher here : 'The Nothing Is Funny People' Trying To Take Over World' (Don't allow them to do that.)

_____________________________

Then there's the looney 'Right-wing':

"Washington: City of Hate"

"You wouldn't know these were boom times with the stock market at all-time highs and unemployment near all-time lows if you were in the nation's capital.

"Washington, D.C., is a city of hate.

"When you visit, it appears no one can stand each other. The two political sides are at each other's throats so constantly it's hard to imagine they sleep. Maybe they don't. And then there are the sides within the sides, always ready for more gnashing of teeth, mutual hostility, and endless contempt.

"Talk about the cliché "can't stand prosperity" — that's what we have. If the boom goes on much longer and the economy becomes yet more successful, we'll be on the brink of a civil war. Only this time, it will be fought in Mercedes and Teslas. The richer we are, the more we despise each other."

Unemployment is not at all-time lows-- the government's fiddling the figures in order to exclude the chronic-and-long-term-unemployed is at an all-time high.

The stock-market--as the melt-down of 2007/8 ought to have indelibly impressed even a Right-winger--is not a measure of actual (real) economic prosperity; rather, it is a moving statistical hunch about the variable worth of a future promise to redeem tradable--fungible--goods: debt instruments of all sorts, commodity futures, real property and mortgages on it--all this and more can, in an instant, go from extremely desirable, highly-valued investments to worthless junk which cannot be given away.

The author even gets his copy wrong:

He writes, "Yet you and I, the people of this country, are not permitted to see things only the denizens of Washington can see,"

when what he means to say is,

"Yet you and I, the people of this country, are only permitted to see things which the denizens of Washington want us to see. "

More attempts to avoid the subject - the attempt from the left to start normalizing pedophilia - while totally ignoring, among other things, the links in posts 73, 118, and 148.

>157 Tid: You make no reference to the fact that the poster in question was a deliberate photobomb by right wing activists in order to discredit the protest.

I dealt with that claim in 73.

>151 Guanhumara:

The word “pedophile” in everyday use by normal people - never mind what the dictionary or the psychiatric diagnostic manual says - means an adult who sexually molests children.

NO. The word "pedophile" has always meant "adult who has the urge to sexually molest children".

False. The word has meant an adult who (tries to) sexually molest children.

We don't need new vocabulary. The old one works quite well, except when people like you try to redefine it.

To try to redefine the word, while accusing other people of trying to redefine it, is particularly disgusting when we need the word to help us think clearly about threats to children.

>151 Guanhumara: But when society pretended that it didn't exist, child abuse went on in secret.

Who in this thread is advocating pretending that it doesn’t exist?

>149 John5918: The entire attempt to change the subject from “pedophiles” to “pedophiles who are (allegedly) trying to stop being pedophiles” is an attempt to defend all pedophiles.

Well, no. It's an attempt to stop you lumping all paedophiles together and to recognise that there are differences, subsets if you like.

No. The banner that started this subject did not say, “no bashing of a subset of pedos.” It said, “No pedo bashing.”

Thus illustrating the attempt to normalize pedophilia.

You and others can keep trying to change the subject. But I'll just keep calling that out.

>149 John5918: To just assume that that’s the intention or the effect of such groups is to defend the pedophiles who participate in them.

No, he specifically admits that it might not work and he recognises prison as necessary is such cases.

From 77:
let's say a bunch of these fucked-in-the-head people... get together to try to help teach each other how to avoid hurting kids.

He’s assuming that’s their intention, and not, say, conspiring to molest kids.

if it keeps you and your fucked-in-the-head buddies from hurting kids, have at it. And if it doesn't... well, that's what prison is for.

He only specifically acknowledged that it might keep pedos from hurting kids and that “it doesn't.” That real and horrifiic risk of it making things worse is ignored. Ignoring such a clear risk is an attempt to defend these people.

Overall, 149 is more minutia that ignores the subject. More attempts to pretend, e.g., that the material in 148 doesn't exist.

Why are you trying to change the subject away from the attempt from the left to normalize pedophilia?

Do you support that attempt?

>169 Carnophile: No one in this post has done anything to 'atempt to normalize pedophilia'. No post makes that suggestion. The question I can't seem to spend much time pondering is whether Carnophile has any thoughts beyond the imagined chiaroscuro of left versus right.

>164 Carnophile:

If by "dealt with" you meant "rubbished without considering the actual facts", then yes you did. Which means that actually, you didn't.

>167 Carnophile:

We're not changing the subject. We're just disagreeing with you, and pointing out where we think you're wrong, based on evidence. You're the one using such loaded terms as "the left trying to normalise / defend pedophiles". You have no proper evidence to defend such a claim.

>169 Carnophile:

I don't support that "attempt" because it doesn't exist. It's as worthy of addressing as the average Trump craziness.

Thanks, Tid.

>174 John5918:

You're welcome.

>171 Tid: If by "dealt with" you meant "rubbished without considering the actual facts", then yes you did.

So you’re pretending you didn’t read 73. Or maybe you really didn’t read it. Interesting.

>172 Tid: You're the one using such loaded terms as "the left trying to normalise / defend pedophiles". You have no proper evidence to defend such a claim.

And now you’re ignoring, among other things, the links in posts 73, 118, and 148.

>176 Carnophile:

The only thing I'm ignoring is the message of the ultra-right, of whom I infer you're a sympathiser if not an actual member, that sees violence as the solution to every identified problem in society. Except, that is, the right to bear arms, racism, the right to freedom of speech of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, harmless "banter" towards women disguising sexual harrassment, etc etc.

Paedophilia inasmuch as it involves the actual abuse of children (in whatever form) is horrific and is rightfully punished, along with setting up channels of protection for children as a positive outcome.

However, I sympathise with any paedophile who self-identifies as such without acting on their urges. It must take immense courage to do this, when it exposes them to the itchy trigger fingers of the far right who would have a new "Strange Fruit" hanging from trees and lamp-posts to satisfy their blood lust in the feeble pretence of "protecting children" when actually all they want is violent pseudo-Biblical revenge for something which in all probability never actually happened to them personally.

Since by far the majority of child abuse is committed by members of their own family or people known to them, your violent urges are, as I said above, and which you choose to ignore, as bad as the urges you condemn.

>177 Tid:
Topic: pedophilia.
Tid: (Something something something) Ku Klux Klan!!! Neo Nazis!!!

I sympathise with any paedophile who self-identifies as such without acting on their urges.

Dear God. Normal people do not sympathize with the urge to molest children.

your violent urges are, as I said above, and which you choose to ignore, as bad as the urges you condemn.

There it is in explicit black and white: A leftist saying that wanting to punish child molesters is just as bad as wanting to molest children.

Hey lefties, tell me the one again about how there’s no attempt to normalize pedophilia coming from the left.

> 178

Tid: Paedophilia inasmuch as it involves the actual abuse of children (in whatever form) is horrific and is rightfully punished, along with setting up channels of protection for children as a positive outcome.

Carnphile: same shit every post, which is to say trolling.

>178 Carnophile:

I sympathise with people with any form of psychological disorder (yes, even internet trolls). I sympathise particularly with people who are doing what they can to avoid the negative impact of their disorder and to manage it. Elsewhere I think I have cited recovering alcoholics as an example. Are you seriously suggesting that "normal people" do not sympathise with psychologically disturbed people? Either society is far worse than I imagined, or you live in a very disturbed little bubble. If that's what passes for "normal", please count me out. Again, as I have cited above, we used to let the public come and laugh at the lunatics in the asylum. Nowadays we tend to sympathise with them and try to help them to manage their illness.

your violent urges are, as I said above, and which you choose to ignore, as bad as the urges you condemn.

There it is in explicit black and white: A leftist saying that wanting to punish child molesters is just as bad as wanting to molest children.

I think most normal readers will see how you have carelessly or perhaps carefully changed the language. Wanting to punish people who break the law (whether they have molested a child or committed any other form of criminal act) is not the same as having "violent urges", particularly when your violent urges seem to be against people who have not actually molested children even if they have the urge to do so. As I have also said before, western society has supposedly moved on from vigilantism to a system where the police have to arrest someone, evidence has to be gathered and a court has to decide guilt or innocence before there is any talk of punishment.

You can keep on repeating the same slogans if you wish. I will continue to challenge them whenever I have time.

>179 RickHarsch: >180 John5918:

Thank you Rick, John.

I should have learned long ago that there is no arguing with a troll.

>181 Tid:

100 posts after any point he had was effectively countered...

John has fierce patience. I get bored with repetition. Particularly when there really is no interlocutor, no one really there.

>165 Carnophile: Interesting.

Let us assume, for a moment, and against the available evidence, that you are not trolling, but sincerely believe that the suffix -phile refers to a sexual act, rather than its true meaning of "a desire for"....

Are you telling us you fuck your food (specifically meat), Carnophile?

>183 Guanhumara: ...for a start, anyway...

>185 Collectorator: Thanks for the image, though I wouldn't wish it to be fatal.

>183 Guanhumara:
Post 165 was about how people use the word "pedophile."

Antics like post 183 don't help your cause.

Me at 135: If I catch an adult sexually molesting a child I’m going to beat the shit out of that adult.

>180 John5918: your violent urges seem to be against people who have not actually molested children

Even for a leftist, this is a particularly brazen lie.

>180 John5918: Are you seriously suggesting that "normal people" do not sympathise with psychologically disturbed people?

Normal people do not sympathize with those who want to molest children.

How sad that this even need be said.

>180 John5918: Are you seriously suggesting that "normal people" do not sympathise with psychologically disturbed people? Either society is far worse than I imagined, or you live in a very disturbed little bubble.

So people who don’t sympathize with the urge to molest children are “disturbed” in your opinion.

Oh my God.

>190 Carnophile:

You keep regurgitating the same old rancid puke time after time, provoking reasonable people to waste their precious energies replying to the likes of sociopaths like yourself.

Well I for one have had enough of you and your anti-left paranoid psychoses. Do what you f***ing like, just get out of my face.

>191 Tid:

I was going to say "repeating the same meaningless slogans" but I have to say that "regurgitating the same old rancid puke" has a certain ring to it!

>191 Tid: LOL I suppose this technically should be flagged ("sociopaths") but I can't bring myself to do it. You cannot buy comedy like this.

>193 Carnophile: There is also the point that if you flag the post and let it be known that you did your posts would be subject to content analysis that could determine whether or not the writer was a sociopath, someone posing as a sociopath, or both.

Absolute fucking insanity:

NHS to Offer Biological Men Cervical Cancer Smear to Avoid ‘Triggering Gender Dysphoria’

and

Biological women who legally define themselves as men will not be routinely scanned for breast and cervical cancer, even if they retain these organs and remain at risk, the National Health Service (NHS) has said.

If you don’t want to make out with a transvestite, you're “transphobic”:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/25575/watch-ginuwine-accused-transphobia-refusing...

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42652947

>195 Carnophile: I have to say that I agree here.

It is not your gender that determines whether you need a test for cervical cancer. It is simpler than that.
It is nothing to do with your identity; it is to do with whether you possess a cervix.

It seems to me that rather than being supportive of transgendered people, this ruling is going out of its way to humiliate them.

Consider someone who has a cervix but identifies as a man and, like most other cervix-possessors, wants to get it checked:
Women will get a discreet letter in the post; they dial the number, get their name checked off a list, and make an appointment.
Whereas the transgendered person is forced to make contact themselves, explain why they want this procedure etc. etc.

That sounds to me a lot more stressful than getting a letter in the post reminding you of the existence of organ you wish you did not have.

It seems that feminist vegan animal rights advocacy is “super trans-exclusionary.” Not just a normal level of trans-exclusionary, mind you.

(I wish I could see the face of the first feminist vegan etc., who smugly thought, "I'm a feminist vegan animal rights activist. You can't get much more politically correct than that; I'm definitely safe from accusations of political incorrectness."

Surprise! You know that demon of identity politics you let out of the pentagram a couple of decades ago? Well, guess what!)

>198 Carnophile: who smugly thought, "I'm a feminist vegan animal rights activist. You can't get much more politically correct than that; I'm definitely safe from accusations of political incorrectness."

On the other hand, most people who believe strongly in something and take action to mobilise support for change do so because, er, they believe strongly in something and want change. I doubt whether "accusations of political incorrectness" even enter their consciousness. Of course straw men/women and caricatures may think differently.

Coming to the splintering scene--

"Naturally-Native women"-- born female through conception via ordinary M-F intercourse.

"In-Vitro-Native women" -- born female but conceived outside a uterus.

"Trans-types" --

with all conceivable variant sub-groups---

Pro- WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
Anti- WWE

Pro-handcrafted micro-brewery artisnal beers only, carnivore, Pro WWE, loves working in the garden,

Catholic-beer drinker, canned, bottled, draft beers accepted, vegan, Pro-WWE, hates working in the garden, hang-glider enthusiast, flies mini-drone aircraft for fun and photography,

BB-O "Bottled-beer only",

With tattoos,

Without Tattoos,

Tattoos and piercings,

etc.

etc.

etc.

>199 John5918: I doubt whether "accusations of political incorrectness" even enter their consciousness.

Hilariously, you may be right!

Minority SJWs go nuts because a white girl is cast as Esmerelda in high school play of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. School cancels the production:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/hunchback-americans-protest-flatbacking-of-the-hunchba...

I’ve read Victor Hugo’s Hunchback, and I recall Esmerelda being white.

>203 Collectorator:

Great minds!

Fact: Polynesian beats up black guy.
Analysis: It’s white people’s fault!

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/auburn-beating-shows-racist-ideas-can-...

Transvestites are disproportionately singled out by floods, apparently.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1334632?journalCode=cgp...

Abstract: This article gives voice to trans experiences of disasters... We present and analyse trans voices from a survey conducted across multiple case study sites and insights from interview data with a trans person who experienced the 2011 Brisbane floods. Conceptually, to provide a robust understanding of trans experiences of disasters, we bring socially sensitive disaster studies into conversation with trans geographies. Disaster studies have begun to examine LGBT experiences, with some suggestion that trans people are most vulnerable.

>207 Carnophile:

Vulnerable minorities are almost always more vulnerable during and after a disaster. It's no accident that aid agencies try to prioritise groups such as children, orphans, the elderly, the disabled, after a disaster, as these groups are less able to fend for themselves. Disasters disproportionately affect the poor, as they often find themselves living in areas which are most prone to flooding, for example, and they have fewer resources to help them recover. And aid agencies also target margnalised identity groups (eg immigrants, refugees, certain tribes and ethnicities, certain castes, certain races, certain religions, in many cases women) because they are less likely to receive assistance from their government and neighbours. So it probably is time to study whether sexual orientation groups might suffer the same problems during and after a disaster. At the very least, it is not a "looney left" notion.

>209 Collectorator:

Would you care to actually address the professional points I made rather than just giggling? Do you have any experience of working in and after disasters?

For some reason your giggling makes me think of the late great comedian Frankie Howerd. "A muffled titter ran through the audience..."

>211 Collectorator:

So you don't have any professional experience of disasters and you wouldn't have a clue how to respond in any rational manner?

>213 Collectorator:

Interesting. Which part of my post is factually wrong? That aid agencies prioritise vulnerable and marginalised groups? That vulnerable and marginalised groups are often disproportionately affected by disasters? That it might at least be worth studying groups which have hitherto not been considered? Once studies have been done, professionals within the aid community and governments who fund their work can make an evidence-based judgement as to whether any particular group needs extra attention.

Sincerity is, of course, very difficult to judge. I'm intrigued that you feel you can know so much about my inner self from a few random postings on LT, and that you consider your opinion to be evidence based. Or do you consider anyone who challenges your narrative to be insincere?

>215 Collectorator:

We'll, I'm waiting for a rational response from you, rather than more muffled titters.

Which victims are you referring to?

>217 Collectorator: Are you older than 9?

>208 John5918:
Vulnerable minorities are almost always more vulnerable during and after a disaster... immigrants, refugees, certain tribes and ethnicities, certain castes, certain races, certain religions, in many cases women

Yadda yadda, transvestites are "less able to fend for themselves," yadda yadda.

Your views continue to intrigue me. Write a guest post for my blog!

>220 Carnophile:

You misquote me. I have no idea whether or not transvestites constitute a particularly vulnerable group as I have not seen the results of any studies. But to do such a study is not "looney". It is perfectly reasonable.

>219 Collectorator: LOL! How did I overlook that before?

>221 John5918: I have no idea whether or not transvestites constitute a particularly vulnerable group (to floods, etc.) ... But to do such a study is not "looney". It is perfectly reasonable.

I just felt a disturbance in The Force, as if a thousand trannies had suddenly been disproportionately victimized by floods.

>222 Carnophile:

You seem to be both dismissive of and callous towards victims of disasters such as floods.

How much do you know about transvestite communities in Asia, as a matter of interest?

>223 John5918:

Best not to feed the trolls I guess. These two give even ad hominem a bad name.

>229 Tid: Not in this context.

>223 John5918: How much do you know about transvestite communities in Asia, as a matter of interest?

(LOL. I don't intend to respond to this, but I'm delighted that you asked it and want to archive it forever.)

>226 Collectorator:

No. It isn't. You have fallen into the common trap, where people think ad hominem simply means 'gratuitous insult'. For your delectation:

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/1/Ad-Hominem-Ab...

http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/~heuveb/teaching/CriticalThinking/Web/Presentations/Ad...

>229 Tid: So you're admitting it was a gratuitous insult.

>231 Carnophile:, >230 Collectorator: It was a fair question.

>229 Tid:

"you have fallen into the common trap, where people think ad hominem simply means 'gratuitous insult'."

Basically right.

"Asking me about my age while implying I am a child is an attack against me."
>230 Collectorator:

Not so very long ago I'd have agreed with that (230). But since then I've been reading some recent work on reasoning and several of my former assumptions about arguments have been thoroughly overturned :

real ad hominem arguments are quite unusual. Nearly all of them are related logically to a reasoning-fault in the argument being critiqued. It's probably better to ignore objecting to arguments as ad hominem-- every argument carries some aspect which impugns the reasoning of views being critiqued. The only valid point is whether there's any validity in the critique. If your correspondent really is only nine years old and you're discussing adult sexual matters, age can be a valid point of objection--goes to a probably-inherent unfamiliarity with important experience and knowledge of the matters being discussed.


The widely-supposed distinction between "scientific" thinking, reasoning, and supposedly other-than-scientific reasoning is basically an illusion. Scientists and the "lay" public don't operate via distinct types of reasoning. Carefully looked at, scientific reasoning proceeds on the very same bases as any. What might distinguish scientists' reasonings is not the way they reason but the topics of, objects of, their enquiry, their reasoning: scientists are supposed to concern themselves with matters which are susceptible to being verified or disproved by observation or experiment. There are "good", "valid" reasoning processes and others which are something less than good. But they are not fundamentally different in kinds. They are all based on appeal to analogy, comparison, contrast, similarities or differences which are cited to support or refute a claimed resemblance or distinction.

For some reason this brings to mind a clip I watched on YouTube yesterday:

John Cleese on Stupidity

Disclaimer: I am not, of course, suggesting that any poster here or anywhere on LT meets Cleese's criteria for stupidity.

>230 Collectorator:

"(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
"vicious ad hominem attacks"

Asking me about my age while implying I am a child is an attack against me."

Indeed it is / was. But as you can presumably see from the very definition you have posted, it was not an attack on any argument you made, merely an implied comment about your apparent childishness, and therefore not ad hominem .

"When you're in a hole, stop digging Tid."

The only one(s) I see in a hole here, is you and your confrère.

>233 proximity1:

Yes

>234 John5918:

:D QED, perhaps?

>236 Collectorator: You weren't making an argument against the point I had made, which is what is expected when replying to me.

In >103 John5918: I asked "Any chance of you commenting on the issues rather than making irrelevant personal comments?" and your response in >106 Collectorator: was "why?" In >109 Collectorator: you helpfully informed me, "My post 106 referred to your post 103, john", just in case I was confused.

In >210 John5918: I asked, "Would you care to actually address the professional points I made rather than just giggling?" and your response in >211 Collectorator: was "No. I am not required to 'address' anything", helpfully clarifying in >213 Collectorator: that "you cannot be relied upon to post factually or with sincerity".

What has caused you to change your mind and expect a poster to actually address the points people make rather than just making lazy attacks on the person? But I hope we can look forward to you addressing the arguments from now on, rather than just giggling and, er, posting lazy attacks on various persons.

>238 Collectorator:

I rather think your comment "You weren't making an argument against the point I had made, which is what is expected when replying to me" has wider application than this single little conversation with Tid.

>240 Collectorator:

So is it only you for whom "an argument against the point I had made... is what is expected when replying to me" rather than "a lazy attack against my person"? (>236 Collectorator:) or is that privilege extended to the rest of us as well?

Actually >240 Collectorator: does look a little bit like "a lazy attack against my person. See?"

>242 Collectorator:

I was quoting you directly - that's why it was in, er, quotation marks. It wasn't a lazy attack on my person, it was a lazy attack on a person, something which you appeared to be against in >236 Collectorator:. Or, as I asked in >241 John5918:, are you only against it when it is aimed at you, or are you against lazy attacks on other persons as well?

>244 Collectorator:

Yes. There is a lazy attack in >240 Collectorator:, maybe against me and somebody else if you say so. A lazy attack is a lazy attack.

>246 Collectorator:

Certainly. And maybe you'll do me the courtesy of letting me know when you make up your mind whether you are only against lazy attacks directed against you, or whether you are against lazy attacks on other persons as well?

>236 Collectorator:

"There's your admission. That's the whole point." ... " You weren't making an argument against the point I had made, which is what is expected when replying to me. Rather, you chose to make a lazy attack against my person. See?"

Really hard to argue with that. After all, we're told by the author herself in >229 Tid:, in effect, (paraphrasing here)

"Hey! it's not an ad hominem, it's rather a "gratutitous insult."

LOL! Okay-y-y-y-y-y, then.

So, to recap in a semantical matter:

"Are you older than 9?"

"Objection, your honor. Ad hominem.

"Overruled."

"Objection, your honor-- gratuitous insult, then-- directed at counsel, not to the court, by the way."

"Objection sustained. The counsel will please refrain from gratuitous insutls and you're reminded, counselor, your remarks are to be addressed to the court, not to your learned counsel in opposition. Jurors, you're instructed to ignore that remark."

BTW, Am I supposed to be the "confrère"? Actually, that'd be fine. Confrère to Collectorator--okay --neither being quite apt terms as confrères are brothers in arms and consœurs are sisters in arms. I'm, rather, (as Mick Jagger sings it), "a rank outsider" and Collectorator "can be my partner in crime."


Say now baby, I'm the rank outsider,
You can be my partner in crime.
But baby, I can't stay,
You got to roll me and call me the tumblin ...

;^ )

>249 Collectorator:

Ah, conditional courtesy... or just evading the question?

Some people STILL don't seem to understand what ad hominem actually means. It is NOT a gratuitous insult against someone. If >251 Collectorator: had actually bothered to follow up those links I posted in 229, he might actually now understand what it really is.

My question about whether @Collectorator is older than 9 was in response to >215 Collectorator: "I'm waiting for you to get around to blaming the victims again. hee hee" and >217 Collectorator: "aHA! You've blamed so many you've lost track!" which quite merited my question about age, though I do admit I was deliberately being insulting. However, for ad hominem to apply, he would have had to be making some kind of argument - and if I'd attempted to refute that argument by insulting him (addressing him and not his arguments) then that would be ad hominem. However, anyone can see that he was simply being insulting himself, by making childish attacks directed at @johnthefireman, and not making an argument.

>248 proximity1: It seems you too don't know what ad hominem really is either, though I'd thought in >233 proximity1: that you did. However, I was not naming you as @Collectorator's confrère - that dubious "honour" goes to @Carnophile.

>252 Tid: I don't really care who is right about the charge of ad hominemming. I counter-flagged because your #218 was apt and called for. Excellent archery. What I see here on this thread is disgusting playground bullshit that I follow, frankly, in the apparently vain hope that jtf will finally find the appropriate, scathing way to get these goons to behave with a modicum of integrity. His repeated attempts to try to get a straight answer out of Collectorator, who is clearly only posting out of a social cipher's need to bully someone, are painful to read. Jtf is clearly in a different intellectual and human league and so engaging the three isolate dullards here creates a cacaphony of caca. I won't presume to advise you, Tid, but you are also in a different league--if you battle them in the scumpond they inhabit, you can only come out of it with a bescummed moral victory at best.

>252 Tid:, >253 RickHarsch:

Well, I tried to take it to its conclusion just to see what would happen. I have seen. I'll try not to do it again.

"ad hominemming". Lovely word!

>253 RickHarsch:

Thanks - I will try once more, then flee this particular scumpond. Life's too short.

>254 John5918:

Thanks at least for the effort.

A final attempt to clarify ad hominem - if the readers of this (you know who you are) refuse to accept it, then they inhabit a world where white = black and all is inverted.

Definition:
Ad hominem attacks can take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or more subtly casting doubt on their character or personal attributes as a way to discredit their argument. The result of an ad hom attack can be to undermine someone's case without actually having to engage with it.

Examples:

A: I am against capital punishment as it is a harsh, permanent and irrevocable sentence.
B: F*** off, you liberal a***hole.

Not ad hominem - B has made no attempt to attack A's case, and has simply been rude and offensive.

A: I am against capital punishment as it is a harsh, permanent and irrevocable sentence.
B: I hate liberals, and see this anti-capital punishment thing as a clear example of their woolly mindedness.

Not ad hominem - B has expressed prejudice against an entire segment of thought, rather than attack A in particular.

A: I am against capital punishment as it is a harsh, permanent and irrevocable sentence.
B: Yeah, so what about child killers, huh? (You should have met one long ago.)

Not ad hominem - B has legitimately questioned an aspect of A's case, then added a gratuitous but unrelated insult.

A: I am against capital punishment as it is a harsh, permanent and irrevocable sentence.
B: Your parents were both liberals, therefore your argument on capital punishment is bound to fail.

That IS ad hominem - B has not insulted A, but attacks A's case with a personal argument.

A: I am against capital punishment as it is a harsh, permanent and irrevocable sentence.
B: Why should we believe anything you say? You're a liberal a***hole who fills these forums with your garbage.

Also ad hominem - B has tried to refute A's case with a personal attack. This is the kind of ad hominem attack we are more familiar with, but sadly in many people's eyes it is the insult that defines the fallacy, not the bogus attempt to refute an argument.

>255 Tid:

Agreed.

An insult is NOT an ad hominem argument; it is simply an insult.

An ad hominem argument is not necessarily (a) an insult or (b) untrue.

It is simply an attempt to undermine the validity of the opponent to have a worthwhile opinion, whilst avoiding having to tackle the actual points that they expressed.

>256 Guanhumara:

Thanks for that. I think most members of LT understand this.

I did my GCE O-Level in Logic nearly fifty years ago, and I can recall learning the common logical fallacies, including ad hominem. I thought they were pretty widely understood until I entered this LT thread...

>this post doesn't count, of course, but I want to pause here to note that there have been six straight honest, adult posts.

>255 Tid: -- >257 Tid:

Try the search-string = Hitchcock+on+ad hominem

See :

http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~hitchckd/adhominemissa.htm

"Why there is no argumentum ad hominem fallacy"

David Hitchcock
McMaster University

"Contemporary introductions to logic (e.g. Hurley 2003: 118-121, Copi & Cohen 2002: 143-145) typically treat the argumentum ad hominem as a fallacy of relevance. It is said to consist generically in a response to someone’s statement or argument by an attack on that person. The abusive ad hominem is pure abuse; it points out some fault of character or intellect in the opponent. The circumstantial ad hominem is tied more specifically to the content of the opponent’s discourse; it alleges some self-interested motive or dogmatic bias as the source of the opponent’s position. The tu quoque responds to a criticism of behaviour by pointing out that the critic has previously engaged in that very behaviour. All three types of personal attack, the textbooks typically say, are irrelevant to the merits of the opponent’s position. Thus all three are fallacies. To show that someone’s statement or argument is inadequate, one must point out substantively what is wrong with it. Personal attack is logically otiose.

On the contrary, I shall argue, there is no such thing as an ad hominem fallacy."

...

"Contrapositively, to show that a certain move is not a fallacy, one needs to show only that one of the necessary conditions for fallaciousness is lacking. Perhaps the move is not even a way of reasoning or arguing. Perhaps it is not a mistake, or not always a mistake. Perhaps people do not actually make this move in real arguments, at least not with enough frequency to deserve the invention of a label and a listing in the pantheon of logical fallacies. Or, if the move does occur with some frequency, perhaps it is so patently absurd that it would not fool anybody with even a minimum of logical acuity. Any of these four possibilities would be enough to show that the move in question is not a fallacy.

"The reasons for the non-fallaciousness of the argumentum ad hominem vary from one species to another. I shall therefore consider each species separately, in each case giving some historical background."

...

>258 John5918: I believe that it is no longer taught in schools, John. More's the pity...

>257 Tid: I wish I could believe that.

But most of the "debates" I have read recently seem to make no attempt to address the points raised, but instead concentrate on impugning the character, or presumed motives, or truthfulness of the previous poster.

For an ad hominem argument to be convince an audience, the audience has to be stupid enough not to realise that they are being deflected from the actual issue in question. (Although rhetoricians do allow the effectiveness of corollaries to a reasoned refutation of previous points.)

Which implies that either the poster is too stupid to realise the fallaciousness of their argument, or they are assuming that their audience is too stupid to notice.

It makes 'debate' here seem pretty pointless.

>261 Guanhumara:

I think you're probably (no, certainly {sad face}) right.

>260 proximity1:

Thank you for at least engaging with the discussion in an adult manner. Hitchcock raises an interesting set of points. He reasons there is no ad hominem fallacy , which I'm happy to concede from the viewpoint of pure logic. What I've been talking about here is argumentum ad hominem which he says can be CORRECT (presumably in a factual though coincidental way), but which is an INCORRECT way to debate the points of an argument, relying as it does on a particular in order to disprove a generality .

>261 Guanhumara: either the poster is too stupid to realise the fallaciousness of their argument, or they are assuming that their audience is too stupid to notice

I posted this little video on another parallel thread and I now repost it here:

John Cleese on Stupidity

>262 Tid:

More "engagement" then:

When Hitchcock writes of there being no (valid) ad hominem "fallacy", he _means_ by that, as I understand it, simply the very same thing as you mean by "ad hominem this, that and the other..." since, as those whose views he critiques here see it, the "fallacy" aspect is not just occasionally coincidental to ad hominem; rather, it is (in their view) inherent in the character of ad hominem It is this view which he contests in his brief article/critique :

they regard ad hominem as a "fallacy" per se--which is their entire point in making an issue of it in discussions of logic and reasoning--and, so, Hitchcock, writing carefully, is arguing--well, he's really making two subtlely-distinct points at once.

First, he's saying that ad hominem isn't a fallacious matter, logically or otherwise, to the extent that there even is such a thing;

"1. The Traditional Sense of the Ad Hominem



... By the 17th century, logic textbooks were using the phrases “argumentum ad hominem” and “argumentatio ad hominem” quite generally for arguing about any subject-matter at all from the concessions of one’s interlocutor, .... John Locke is referring to this background when he reports in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, first published in1689, that “to press a man with consequences drawn from his own principles or concessions … is already known under the name of argumentum ad hominem” (Locke 1959/1689: 278; IV.XVII.21).

"In this whole tradition, which continued in logic textbooks of the 18th and 19th century (Nuchelmans 1993), there is not a hint that an argumentum ad hominem is a personal attack. It is not an argument against the opponent, but an argument to the opponent, i.e. to the commitments already made by the opponent, whether by unprompted assertion or by concession in response to a question. It is a perfectly legitimate way for a proponent to get the opponent to accept the consequences of those commitments, even if the proponent does not share them. It is not in itself mistaken, merely of limited probative value."

"A fallacy is committed, Whately claims, if (and apparently only if) an argumentum ad hominem is presented as having established the conclusion absolutely, rather than merely as one that the individual referred to is bound to admit. But it is confusing to describe this mistake as an ad hominem fallacy while at the same time maintaining that the argumentum ad hominem on which it is based is non-fallacious. Parry and Hacker (1991) have coined the phrase illicit metabasis for the mistake of claiming on the basis of an argumentum ad hominem to have proved the conclusion to someone other than the opponent. The mistake here is in the misrepresentation of a legitimate argumentum ad hominem. It may of course be doubted whether the mistake occurs often enough, and is deceptive enough, to be dignified with the label of a fallacy. Certainly most contemporary logic textbooks do not mention this error in their list of fallacies." (emphasis added)

Having already stated above, that,

" On the contrary, I shall argue, there is no such thing as an ad hominem fallacy."

he goes on to point out, the very concept of ad hominem as it is frequently used and thought of by those he critiques is not just a problematic idea, rather, he is arguing that there's really no good ground for it at all as a concept in argumentation--

"But it cannot be dismissed on the ground that any attack on a person is in principle irrelevant to the quality of that person’s arguments.

"Thus the sort of personal attack labelled as (emphasis added) an abusive ad hominem does in fact occur with some frequency. It may have various functions. It can be a relevant attack on some aspect of an opponent’s ethos that bears on the acceptability of her position. It can be purely diversionary, an attempt to divert attention from the substantive claim or argument of one’s opponent. In the latter case, it is generally objectionable as a rhetorical strategy, but is not a kind of reasoning, and so not a mistake in reasoning. Hence, on the conception of fallacy with which we are working, it is not a fallacy. Rarely, as in the lecture by Adam Smith, it reasons explicitly from some deficiency in a person’s makeup to the inadequacy of the person’s reasoning. But real cases of the abusive ad hominem do not make the crude mistake of reasoning from some fault of character or behaviour in an opponent to the unacceptability of that opponent’s statement or argument. Nor would addressees be deceived by such a crude mistake."

So I suggest that there is no real distinction where you see one.

>264 proximity1:

'In the latter case, it is generally objectionable as a rhetorical strategy, but is not a kind of reasoning, and so not a mistake in reasoning. Hence, on the conception of fallacy with which we are working, it is not a fallacy. Rarely, as in the lecture by Adam Smith, it reasons explicitly from some deficiency in a person’s makeup to the inadequacy of the person’s reasoning. But real cases of the abusive ad hominem do not make the crude mistake of reasoning from some fault of character or behaviour in an opponent to the unacceptability of that opponent’s statement or argument. Nor would addressees be deceived by such a crude mistake."

I think that underlines my understanding of his argument? I.e., that what we often call ad hominem is neither a logical fallacy, nor is it genuine reasoning. As to his final sentence, I'd find it interesting to see a concrete example of what he defines as a genuine 'abusive ad hominem'.

>265 Tid:

"As to his final sentence, I'd find it interesting to see a concrete example of what he defines as a genuine 'abusive ad hominem' "

But such an example figured in the article I cited---did you read it?

3. The Abusive Ad Hominem
___________________________

As one example of the abusive argumentum ad hominem, we may take the following letter to the editor:

(2) Re: Emotional Bardot Makes Plea For Seals (March 23):

'Is Brigitte Bardot really the compassionate crusader she claims to be?'

'A quick Google search reveals that she has been found guilty of inciting hatred at least four times by French courts in recent years. Her most recent conviction was in 2004, for remarks in her book, A Scream in the Silence, that viciously attacked gays, Muslims, immigrants and the unemployed. She considers homosexuals to be “fairground freaks” and opposes interracial marriage. Her political hero is Jean-Marie Le Pen, the extreme-right National Front leader.

'This is the champion that animal activists have brought to teach Canadians about ethics and compassion?'

(Alan Herscovici, executive vice-president, Fur Council of Canada, Montreal, The Globe and Mail, 24 March 2006)"

RE :

"I.e., that what we often call ad hominem is neither a logical fallacy, nor is it genuine reasoning."

It seems to me that you miss his key point--

For him, argumentum ad hominem isn't even "against the man": though he doesn't employ the term itself, the gist of his view is that "argumentum ad hominem is merely a label for a logical fallacy and, as such, is also something which is conceptually confused and erroneous and for which no good example exists.

>266 proximity1:

"But such an example figured in the article I cited---did you read it?"

Was that "as those whose views he critiques here see it"? Unfortunately, I don't get a link or anything when I click on that.

"the gist of his view is that "argumentum ad hominem is merely a label for a logical fallacy and, as such, is also something which is conceptually confused and erroneous and for which no good example exists."

That's where I'd have to disagree with him. There ARE cases where a particular characteristic of the proponent is used by the opponent to discredit the actual argument, which in itself is fallacious, even though the argument being countered may in fact be wrong. It would be like saying that Hitler wrought evil because he was Austrian, which is an incorrect proposition with which to draw a correct conclusion. I'm still reflecting on the Bardot letter above, as I can see both sides in that (but then I would - I'm a liberal 😄 ).

Thank you all for your engagement with LibraryThing. But, honestly, if some of you don't shape up, you will be suspended or kicked off the site.

LibraryThing has a Terms of Service. It governs how members may use the site. All members must follow it. Among other things, it requires members:

1. Not attack other members personally. This includes name calling. You can always criticize an idea, but attacking a member (even if you don't directly say their name) is prohibited. You are all smart people. There's no reason you can't observe the distinction between "X is a stupid argument" and "you are an idiot."
2. Not abuse the flagging system, by flagging or counter-flagging inappropriately. Every flag you make is visible to administrators. If you make a habit of mis-flagging or "defending" your allies with a counter-flag, when the abuse is clear as day, this will be noticed.

Both points above have been abused here. And in a number of recent topics.

We call all understand a momentary slip, in the heat of the moment, and in ignorance of the system. But a number of members here have been warned, or even suspended before, and are publicly knowledgeable and equally publicly contemptuous of the system.

I am writing a number of members here, to warn you. Any further violations of this sort here will be met with warnings, suspensions or deletions. For those who have been warned before, I can assure you it will not be another warning.

Well, in this purposely-vague enviroment of discussion rules-and-sanctions-and-threats, I've already found participation in the semi-free commentary so restrictive in the manner in which I am allowed to express my opinions that I've simply dropped out of many discussions altogether. That, after all, is the course that the vast majority of LT members follow: not that they drop out after a period of frustrated participation, rather, they just don't ever take any part in discussion fora in the first place. If your objective is to drive out my participation little by little then congratulations on a job well-done. You can always sterilize discussions enough to make them only interesting to and practicable by those who conform to your ideas of interesting discussion and all others willl eventually drop out. There's safety in bland, sterile politesse behind which not a shred of sincerity exists and which, for some, comes easily and at no psychic cost.

Your dislike of my opinions and, maybe most of all, the way I express them could hardly be more obvious. You've made a point of reminding readers that you block and don't read my posts.

Given these facts, if my continued use of and access to what has become more and more important to me as a catalog-reference--even as its utility and interest as a social-medium place of debate has correspondingly dwindled--simply and practically depends on my guessing correctly and eventually just completely dropping all participation in discussion threads, would you just please let me know that sooner rather than later that this is what you are looking for?--and especially before arriving at the point where you take the opportunity to expel me from the site?

Years ago, I put many, many, score hours into writing and posting cross-referenced citations which exhibited related ideas and issues across numerous quite diverse authors' works, only to eventually see all of it removed with no prior notice and no idea that my effort wasn't liable to be erased on a whim. That, too, taught me an important lesson: don't invest that kind of effort here. It's not appreciated.

(This post contains no deliberate name-calling.)

>269 proximity1: . . . that the vast majority of LT members follow: not that they drop out after a period of frustrated participation, rather, they just don't ever take any part in discussion fora in the first place

As one counter-example, I have dropped out of most participation here out of frustration.

I am nostalgic for my early years of participation on LT in the Let's Talk About Religion group and sometimes this one when most posts

• showed maturity
• showed some willingness to engage in mutual learning
• avoided hysterical exaggerations
• followed and accepted conventions of reasoning
• did not block (in the psycho/social rather than the technological sense)
• avoided a binary outlook that contrary views are a priori wrong
• were not derisive of others' attempts to express (as time allowed) often complex and nuanced ideas.

. . . I could go on.

This thread provides multiple examples of puerile contentiousness that miss all of these characteristics — and more. There are a few fora I know of where mature discussion still takes place on the internet; it is possible. Baiting people, verbal bullying, and shouting down measured contributions are not conduct that I find self-nourishing or self-enhancing. I wonder why they are for some of you.

>270 librorumamans: I am nostalgic for my early years of participation on LT

Me too. I wonder sometimes whether I was/am imgaining it, but I'm pretty certain that there was an era during the earlier days of LT Talk when the quality and civility of the conversation was better - and indeed when it was actually a conversation.

>270 librorumamans:, >271 John5918:

Agree. There were plenty of dead-ends and dust-ups, too, but it was more varied.

>270 librorumamans:

" I have dropped out of most participation here out of frustration."

Yeah? Well, now, so have I. There are now numerous members whose posts I now _never_ look at because the possibility of a fair and interesting debate, however rambunctious, is completely foreclosed by the unequal way in which the site's managers apply the claimed "rules"--at which we're left too much to second-guess.

FYI, If my opposition-correspondents behaved according to these--


showed maturity
showed some willingness to engage in mutual learning
avoided hysterical exaggerations
followed and accepted conventions of reasoning
did not block (in the psycho/social rather than the technological sense)
avoided a binary outlook that contrary views are a priori wrong
were not derisive of others' attempts to express (as time allowed) often complex and nuanced ideas.

my own comportment here would be wholly different. But, under the circumstances, I'm faced with people who, yes, show a consistent lack of all those traits. So this is self-defense. I'm faced with a site management which makes no secret of their (his) personal dislike--to put it mildly--of me, a management which applies or doesn't apply the vaguely-stated "rules" in a manner which leaves my opponents' unfair tactics free and unchecked while I'm bound by threats and warnings to bite my tongue. Who wouldn't then drop out in frustration?

Participation here is easy and painless as long as one

has nothing very interesting to say,

has little or no real concern for or passion about the things in which one does engage for discussion

is blissfully free of any cognitive dissonance arising from rank hypocrisy in pretending to a politesse which one feels not at all.

I happen to actually care about the topics on which I post opinions. They matter to me. I could--and have--dropped out of a considerable number of discussions because they are simply no longer interesting or worth my time.

I'd happily leave you and others to discussion in "Let's Talk About Religion" as that is something which no longer interests me apart from as an historical topic--the history of past religious belief.

____________________________

"There are a few fora I know of where mature discussion still takes place on the internet; it is possible."

I can't even name one. And you didn't cite any example. So I really wonder: where are these places?

>271 John5918:, >272 krolik:

There were plenty of dead-ends and dust-ups, too, but it was more varied.

While I'm sure such statements feel true, it would be interesting to know if they were statistically true. My guess is that sometimes "good discussions" migrate around different groups and threads as posters' interests change or evolve.

>273 proximity1: I'm faced with people who, yes, show a consistent lack of all those traits. So this is self-defense

I find that a strange statement. Self-defence how? How does using the same behaviour which you say you oppose actually defend you in any way? How does it help you with "the possibility of a fair and interesting debate", which you apparently crave as you do "actually care about the topics on which I post opinions"?

>274 southernbooklady:

Thanks, Nicki. You may well be right. There's always the risk of looking nostalgically at the past through the old rose-tinted spectacles.

One group which I frequent is the Catholic Tradition group. It went through an appalling phase a few years ago with two or three regular posters who, it seemed to me at least, disrupted any attempts at sane conversation. They all seem to have disappeared (I know at least one was banned from LT) and now it is broadly a pleasant group. Maybe this dynamic repeats with other groups too.

For what it's worth, I don't recall ever feeling that the management of the site was ever anything but rather liberal with its own rules; certainly Spalding doesn't have a hair-trigger. He has warned me and my violation of the TOS can plainly be seen above.

The person who did Obama’s official White House portrait, some scumbag called Kehinde Wiley, has done (at least) two pics of black women holding blades and white women’s severed heads.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obamas-portrait-artist-painted-black-women-wit...

Me in #270: There are a few fora I know of where mature discussion still takes place on the internet; it is possible.

>273 proximity1: I can't even name one. And you didn't cite any example. So I really wonder: where are these places?

I didn't cite because the ones I had in mind are closed groups accessible, for example, to those who graduated from a particular school.

>278 Carnophile: I think that post might be an example of informal ad hominem.

>273 proximity1: I happen to actually care about the topics on which I post opinions. They matter to me.

I have recognized this, and I respect it.

Thinking generally and beyond individuals, I am led to despair that this almost-real-time and text-only medium is ill-suited to strongly held points of view.

I recall, by a chain of free associations that I won't elaborate, some of Hamlet's instruction to the players:

. . . if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.. . . . [III,ii]

The earlier speech delivered by the Player describing the slaughter of Priam is devastating to watch if delivered small in this way, without sawing the air. But to achieve the equivalent here on the web demands more skill, revision, and time than most of us can provide.

>280 librorumamans:

Aw, man, you're onto me!

Comic Con excludes straight white men from all mixer events:

https://pjmedia.com/trending/segregation-comic-con-no-straight-white-males-allow...

If you just read the first few sentences you might get the impression that there are some minorities-only events in addition to no-restrictions events. That's not the case; read the whole thing.

>281 librorumamans:

"I didn't cite because the ones I had in mind are closed groups accessible, for example, to those who graduated from a particular school."

In short, these are irrelevant to the discussion here. There are and long have been private clubs where strict rules apply and all members accept--and know--these when they are admitted to membership. That is not analogous to this site's operation. People are invited indiscriminately, without any particular qualifications for participation. As for the TOS rules of discussion, these are neither clear nor clearly understood by people either before or after they become participating members.

So, again, in short, I've seen no practical examples of these fora ... where mature discussion (as you described it) still takes place on the internet.

I didn't think of it until later but I ought to have pointed out that, the vague "rules" here, as they may be applied in practice, according to the prejudices of the moderators, can give clear advantages to people who are dishonest, who lie, distort and deny facts. That is because all of that can be done with the complete adherence to conventions (here) of simplistic politeness--since it is not regarded as impolite to lie or distort facts. Thus, after one has exhausted all the available polite arguments, when liars and fact-distorters persist in calmly and politely ignoring the facts and arguments they've refused to respect, the fair-minded participant has no alternative to renouncing further comment --because he's not allowed to call his opponent by terms which are factually descriptive: "bloody-minded liar", for example.

That means, in effect, that discussion is not only likely to end at this point of futility, but the point of futility is brought nearer to hand, aided and abetted, by the very way the vague rules are formulated and applied because, in effect, they say,

"Don't like arguing against a dishonest, lying,
fact-distorting son-of-a-bitch who has no compunction
about lying and no trouble in pretending to be superficially
polite, since hypocrisy comes second-nature to him? Fine.
Then drop out. For such is in a de facto
manner the protected mode here.

This a place which is "safe" for lying liars because they cannot be denounced as such. It's safe for people who, in shameless disregard for the truth, distort historical fact--unless the distortions violate the Politically-correct's sacrosanct history in which case and for which distortion or denial, the people concerned will be promptly and severely sanctioned: try claiming that the Holocaust didn't happen. You'll see and hear prompt "push-back", you'll probably see your claim buried in little red flags--since that is such an easy way to signal virtue, a key theme in discussions here.

It's a site safe for posting photos of kittens, puppies, unicorns and faries, gardens and grand-children:

http://www.librarything.com/gallery/recent

It's a site safe for innocuous games:

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27 75 Books Challenge for 2018 : souloftherose's 2018 reading - thread the first 194 unread / 194 drneutron, Yesterday 10:15pm

29 Folio Society devotees : List of Folio Society book series

But if you want to and you need to defend something like common-sense or common-language as priceless cultural treasures from people who'd degrade and despoil them for petty, ignorant and selfish reasons, you should go do that elsewhere because your opponents have a definite advantage over you here, and, where there are serious things at stake, that may be infuriating to have to accept politely--since you might actually give a damn. This is a site with commercial interests trumping all else. So, it's above all suited for people who really don't give a damn.

>284 proximity1: Reading through this thread, I think your viewpoint of LT administration is pessimistic. Like others here, I think the administrators are tolerant and give adequate warning. In >268 timspalding:, Tim reminds us all of the rules and expectations for this site.

IMO, when we have face-to-face discussions, there is room for more passion. A text only medium is challenging because we can't read body language.

>284 proximity1: But you can call out a liars lies, you just can't call them a liar. And while it may be frustrating to let such a person get away with it, it's not your job to patrol the internet for Truth. In real life if someone lied all the time you'd probably avoid them and they'd go on spreading your lies where you can't hear them. Is that so much different than blocking them?

That's really beside the point, J.J. (You're record remains perfect.)

It's not a question of me "patrolling the internet for Truth." I participate in an tiny few places and this is one; I have neither the time nor the interest in "patrolling". What I am interested in is having the same fair opportunity for open discussion as others here have. A dishonest set (of participants here) should not be granted the default advantage of protection (here) from others (who are here) describing them as what they are, liars, distorters, and traffickers in rank dishonesty--simply because it's deemed impolite to do one but not impolite to do the other.

I could turn your observation right around and point out (and ask you), "in the world outside this over-protected site, I can call a liar a liar--whether he likes it or not. Why shouldn't I have that same freedom here? Or, why is it not "impolite" to lie in discussions at this site but is impolite to call a liar a "liar"? Hmm?

The question remains. If you can call out the lies, why must you call out the liars?

>287 proximity1: liars, distorters, and traffickers in rank dishonesty

Who gets to decide who are "liars, distorters, and traffickers in rank dishonesty"? In many cases that I have seen on LT these are just allegations levelled at someone you disagree with (that's not a personal "you" but a generic one). Some people seem to think that if you look at something through a different lens, from a different background, in a different cultural context, with different unspoken assumptions and different conventional wisdom, then you are a liar, distorter, and trafficker in rank dishonesty. Some people will not accept that there is anything other than their own interpretation and or perception of an event or an idea.

But, like >286 jjwilson61: and >288 jjwilson61:, I can't see why one can't refute the lies, distortions and dishonest statements without having to attack the person. How is debunking a lie any less effective than calling someone a liar?

in the world outside this over-protected site, I can call a liar a liar--whether he likes it or not

Yes, you can. She might punch you in the face or sue you for slander. In the British parliament, incidentally, you can't call someone a liar, although you can suggest that he has been economical with the truth.

why is it not "impolite" to lie in discussions at this site but is impolite to call a liar a "liar"?

It is impolite to lie in discussions on this site, and it's not healthy for the conversation. But using offensive terms about someone is just as impolite and is probably even worse for the conversation.

There are very few statements made in an Internet forum that you can both
(i) know to be untrue AND
(ii) know for a fact that the person who made that statement KNOWS it to be untrue.

They may be maliciously trying to deceive, or they may be simply regurgitating false information that they themselves have obtained elsewhere, but genuinely believe to be true.
(And they may be a gullible, blithering fool for so believing - but that is a separate issue!)

To know that some is actually a liar, you need to know that both (i) and (ii) apply.

You may make reasonable hypotheses about a person's character and motivations, based on their behaviour here, but it is still only a hypothesis - unless you also know them in person.

So, politeness requires that you stick to the provable facts - that such-and-such a statement is a lie - rather than make a statement that they are a liar, which can usually only be an hypothesis.

Why would you want to do otherwise? It only weakens your case.

ETA: if someone has been convicted, in a court of law, of malicious libel or slander, then they could be considered a proven liar. Would to state this be against the TOS? I don't know. But it is a hypothetical situation that is not particularly likely to arise in practice.

>288 jjwilson61:

This is a little like a court in some ways. There are a great many "cases" under way at any given time and many concern the same parties. As in court, here, it is much more efficient to be _able_ to put readers on notice that person "A" is an habitual liar--and cite a brief example if needed, without having to retail the particular instance itself, which may require the readers to review a tedious back-and-forth to discover what has gone into the record.

Really--I am constantly amazed at the stuff which must be explained to you--which you simply don't get with a little reflection of your own. IT IS TIRESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>291 proximity1: Really--I am constantly amazed at the stuff which must be explained to you--which you simply don't get with a little reflection of your own.

Maybe I just start from different assumptions than you do.

As to your first paragraph, you're putting yourself in the position of prosecutor, judge, and jury. Why should any of us take your word for it that someone is a habitual liar. And if it's really obvious that they are, then we don't need you to spell it out for us.

>292 jjwilson61:

>291 proximity1: 'Really--I am constantly amazed at the stuff which must be explained to you--which you simply don't get with a little reflection of your own.'

"Maybe I just start from different assumptions than you do."

No doubt you do. So, let's see, in the following,

"If you can call out the lies, why must you call out the liars?"

what might the precedent assumptions be?

Perhaps that,

--- as concerns lies versus their purveyors, liars, it's all the same whether one points out the lie(s) as the liar--- ?

If such was your assumption, did you bother giving any critical thought at all to its validity?

or, perhaps this assumption,

--- knowledge of the source of some deceit, falsehood, dishonesty, is of no particular interest or utility to us in judging the character and objective(s) of the deceit, falsehood, dishonesty ---

maybe that was in your mind. Again, if so, I wonder about the validity of such an assumption and how it is that, if you thought about it all, nothing in the nature or a reasoning flaw seems to have occurred to you.

Maybe all these queries of yours--to me, hardly credible as sincerely posed on your part--are in fact sincerely posed. But I find it harder and harder to escape the impression that you are simply putting me on. I'm going to act on that assumption--though it might be erroneous--and dispense with taking any further notice of your posts.

In the future, if you should happen to read something of mine, then, when, as is surely to be the case, you fail to grasp some point I'm making, please apply to someone else for an explanation of the point.

>289 John5918:

"In the British parliament, incidentally, you can't call someone a liar, although you can suggest that he has been economical with the truth."

I still chuckle over Dennis Skinner's classic (for Americans, DS is an old ultra-left politician who - still in Parliament - has never been afraid to call out the right in the most uncompromising terms):

Skinner: "Half the members opposite are crooks".
Speaker: "You must withdraw that remark immediately".
Skinner: "Not a problem. Half the members opposite are NOT crooks".

>292 jjwilson61:

Agreed. As I said in >289 John5918:, "Some people seem to think that if you look at something through a different lens, from a different background, in a different cultural context, with different unspoken assumptions and different conventional wisdom, then you are a liar, distorter, and trafficker in rank dishonesty. Some people will not accept that there is anything other than their own interpretation and or perception of an event or an idea."

>294 Tid:

At last — some genuine wit in this tendentious thread!

>296 librorumamans:

Thank you :-)
Though the wit is all Denis Skinner's, not mine.

A Photo of Charles Murray Is Too Traumatizing for Some Middlebury College Students

Explaining his bold decision to show a photograph of a person, the paper’s editor-in-chief wrote,

During a heated debate in the newsroom on Tuesday night, most of the section editors, and the managing editor, said that running this photograph would be inappropriate. Though I deeply respect the input of my editors, I decided to run the photograph anyway. I take full responsibility for this decision. It was mine alone, and any criticism should be directed at me alone.

The pic and the editor’s full comments are here.

Here’s the trauma-inducing photograph:

>299 Carnophile:

Dear God! The horror! Will no one think of the children?!

Note that it is reported that the campus is "desperately trying to move forward" since the disrupted event.

("I also recognize that Murray's visit to campus last March is an open wound for a campus trying desperately to move forward from it.")

This is wacko 'chicken-without-a-head' liberalism.

Yeah, the students attacked him and the professor who was debating him - physically - and now they're whining about how hard it is for them to move on.

Student barred from class for saying there are two genders, insisting that he has the right to speak.

Also, the class he’s barred from is required for him to graduate.

Intolerance from the Left or Right is ridiculous. The hypocrisy, though, on a modern, Western college campus is inconceivable unless its a Monty Python skit. Good luck to all these students when they hit the working world and have to get along to get a job done.

We don't know enough about the student involved, except what's been reported. If he was - say - a typical product of the Westboro Baptists, I'd have little or no sympathy to offer him. If, on the other hand, he was more typical of Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford, I'd be more inclined to be on his side.

Character and personality count for a whole lot, and unfortunately we don't know either in this case.

>304 Tid: Actually I disagree with you here. I should not matter whether this lad is a likeable chap, or has good social skills. (And it certainly does not matter that I disagree with his viewpoint. Freedom of speech does include the right to express views I find offensive, as well as those that I agree with.)

However it matters how you express your views. The suspension letter does not refer to his views being unacceptable; it cites disruptive behaviour. We only have his claim that he expressed himself in an appropriate manner. The teacher felt that he did not. And the truth between those competing claims is something that the college authorities will have to decide; trial by media cannot resolve that.

#304. I like how in a post about loony left-wing notions, a leftist says you should only have the right to free speech if she likes your character and personality.

>305 Guanhumara: The suspension letter does not refer to his views being unacceptable

Yes it does. See next post.

it cites disruptive behaviour. We only have his claim that he expressed himself in an appropriate manner.

It alleges disruptive behaviour. We only have the professor's claim that he expressed himself in an inappropriate manner.

The professor admitted in writing - this link contains a photo of the document - that two of the reasons she tried to remove him from the class were

(1) that he stood up for his right to speak, objecting to the professor’s insistence that men defer to women until all women were done speaking (!!!).

Ingle said that after the class watched the Ted Talk, Downie asked female students to comment on “the reality of white male privilege,” “systemic male sexism,” and “mansplaining,” adding that male students were to remain silent until the female students were done speaking.

The official line on this in writing from the professor herself is

“Disrespectful objection to the professor’s class discussion structure” - How dare you think you have the same right to speak as anyone else! - and “refusal to stop talking out of turn.”

Another horrifying thing he did was (2) that he dared to disagree with the professor: “disrespectful references to the validity of trans identity and experience.”

Part of the process of education is learning how to handle people in authority espousing positions with which you disagree.

As someone who disagreed with almost every aspect of my English teacher's politics at grammar school, I learnt the valuable art of how to tear apart their views with the utmost politeness. The more vehemently you disagree, the politer it is necessary to be. Learning how to argue can be frustrating, but is a valuable lifeskill.

The facts, as claimed, are that he disrupted the teacher's lesson structure (which he does not dispute), and that he challenged her views disrespectfully and angrily.
"Freedom of speech" is the right to express one's point of view. It does not mean that one has the right to express them in whatever manner one chooses, without consequences.

But I agree with you here:
>307 Carnophile: it cites disruptive behaviour. We only have his claim that he expressed himself in an appropriate manner.
It alleges disruptive behaviour. We only have the professor's claim that he expressed himself in an inappropriate manner.

I am not automatically believing either the teacher or the student.
My point is that we, the readers on the Internet, cannot tell what actually happened. We are hearing one version; the school, hopefuly, is hearing both (with corroboration from the class, as necessary).

If she is penalising him for his views, that is wrong. But to penalise him for expressing them disrespectfully is her perogative.

None of us knows what occurred in that classroom, so, to my mind, it's idle to argue the case.

More generally, a classroom is not a commons. A teacher's role is to create a structure in which some sort of desired learning can take place, and in which some predetermined outcome is facilitated. Students acquiesce in this process, whatever it may be from day to day. If they choose not to acquiesce, their option is to leave, understanding that there may be consequences to doing so.

Faced with a student who vehemently and obstructively rejects the learning model in place, a teacher has the right, and I think a professional duty, to remove the student in the short term and to seek some form of remediation and accommodation outside of class time.

Obviously, there are also situations where teachers make unreasonable or inappropriate demands, and there are procedures to deal with those as well.

>308 Carnophile: Ingle said that after the class watched the Ted Talk, Downie asked female students to comment on “the reality of white male privilege,” “systemic male sexism,” and “mansplaining,” adding that male students were to remain silent until the female students were done speaking.

If this were the teacher's normal practice in all lessons then of course it would be questionable. However it seems that this was a process, a structure, that the teacher was using in a particular lesson in order to be part of the learning process - presumably first to allow space for the females to speak uninterrupted, and second perhaps to let male students know what it feels like to have to come second. The males were not being muzzled nor having their right to free speech curtalied - their opportunity would follow the females' opportunity. Does the right to free speech include the right to interrupt others when you have already been told that you will have the opportunity to speak in a couple of minutes time?

It's by no means an unusual process in a number of fields (including peacebuilding, conflict transformation and counselling) to ask one group to remain silent and listen properly to the other group without interrupting before being given their chance to speak while the other group remains silent and listens properly. Those who are open to listening usually appreciate it.

Maybe I didn't read everything, but...This was a class about sexism and men were asked to let women speak first and some dick couldn't tolerate it and made an issue of it? Is there more to say?

>310 librorumamans: >311 John5918:

Agreed; I should have added to >304 Tid: that the MANNER of expressing disagreement is important (an object lesson for some here too - you know who you are).

>312 RickHarsch:

You've boiled down the essence of it. Probably there's not a lot to say about it, especially as - like I said above - we don't know the full unbiased facts.

Not a direct comparison, but today's Grauniad reports on a social experiment tried out by a Nigerian chef in New Orleans, USA.

Should white people pay more for lunch? New Orleans chef tests social experiment

"the point of the experiment... was to start a conversation", and I suppose that is the comparison I would make with the teacher in the last few posts.

Incidentally, nobody was forced to pay more - everybody, white or black, was given the choice of paying either USD 12 or 30, representing the income disparity between white and black people in the city. But it seems from the report that it did indeed start a conversation.

I know that had I been there, the conversation would have begun with: Nice idea, I support you, but how about I just toss in a symbolice three bucks extra. I haven't had a 30 buck meal (that I paid for) for several decades...

>315 RickHarsch:

Yes - it has started a conversation!

When I lived in Khartoum many years ago I would often go to the local markets. Haggling was the order of the day in the Arab culture, but there was also an informal sense of how much different classes of people should pay for the same goods. A poor old widow would not be expected to pay as much as a well-dressed businessman. As an expatriate I was of course near the top of the paying scale, although those vendors who knew I worked for the church would take that into account and lower the rates. You could haggle as much as you like, and of course the price would come down from the original ridiculously high starting point, buut the end point was still different for different people.

Many years earlier, living in a rural Ugandan village, I learned a local haggling phrase which, (very!) loosely translated/paraphrased, meant, "Bloody hell, for that price I could buy a white woman!" Hearing it from my lips would instantly produce gales of laughter and the price would drop significantly.

>316 John5918: whenever in India I would assume a daily living tax. in a conventional store i would pay the exact price for an item, while outside I would figure on spending about twice that required. tips and handouts usually added up to something easily affordable for me and kept those I came in contact with happy enough.

I came across a madwoman from the US some years ago in India, and after hearing a series of her screeds about, for instance, autorickshaw drivers trying to rip her off (in my experience the south Indian autorickshaw drivers have always come off as a very honorable tribe), i told her she should should never have foisted herself on the country. She's was not rich, she protested! She had to make her money last a full 7 months, she protested. I told her yes she was rich, in this context VERY rich, and ought to leave after five months, pockets empty.

I don't feel rich, living paycheck to paycheck, but the reality is -- when compared to many people -- I am incredibly rich. For example, I pay a water/sewer bill quarterly. It averages $225 USD. It pinches my budget to pay it. BUT what I get in return is reliably safe drinking water and a flushing toilet. I pay the electricity and gas bill, yes, but get heat and light except when we have the exceptional power outage.

I have enough money to choose what to buy to eat. I can't afford caviar and champagne (yuck), but I can buy lots of beans, chicken and canned vegetables. I have a lot more choice than many citizens in my own country. When my daughter went to college in the inner city, I'd shop for her occasionally in the only locally available grocery store. Not much available in the way of fresh vegetables, but a lot of starchy, carbohydrate-laden food. The inner city can be a food desert for people who must rely on public transportation.

So, yeah, I'm rich.

>309 Guanhumara: Part of the process of education is learning how to handle people in authority espousing positions with which you disagree.

Part of education is being allowed to disagree.

The facts, as claimed, are that he disrupted the teacher's lesson structure

...the “lesson structure” being that he was required to defer to other people because of his sex.

...and that he challenged her views disrespectfully and angrily.

So she claims. But she’s obviously lying, for a couple of reasons:

First, one of her main objections is that he dared to speak out of turn! How dare he think he has the same rights to speak as other students!

Secondly, the teacher explicitly objects to him not sharing her views on transvestites: “Disrespectful references to the validity of trans identity and experience.”

Thirdly, this part of the teacher’s demands is another real giveaway:

“Lake will begin class with an apology to the class for his behavior and then listen in silence as the professor and/or any student who wishes to speak shares how he or she felt during Lake’s disrespectful and disruptive outbursts.”

The Stalinist demand for a public apology and that the victim of this demand stand by and allow himself to be publicly shamed, while bearing it in meek silence without talking back or daring to object to what his accusers say about him, is never how actual classroom disruptiveness is handled.

I am a college professor. Standard practice is literally the exact opposite of that. It’s to issue any sanctions against the student “offline,” outside of class, whenever possible.

"Freedom of speech" is the right to express one's point of view. It does not mean that one has the right to express them in whatever manner one chooses, without consequences.

Actually, yes, it does. That’s the definition of freedom of speech: That you don’t face punishments (“consequences”) for expressing your views.

>310 librorumamans: A teacher's role is to create a structure in which some sort of desired learning can take place, and in which some predetermined outcome is facilitated.

If “predetermined outcome” means e.g. “Students should know all 50 state capitals by the end of the semester,” then sure. If it means, “Students must agree with me that (victim group du jour) is oppressed, and a singled-out group of students must defer to other students because of the genitals they were born with,” then... No.

Students acquiesce in this process, whatever it may be from day to day.

A weird thing to say about a student who explicitly did not acquiesce in the process.

librorumamans says: “If the rule is that black students should defer to white students, then those black students should just shut up until they’re given leave to speak! After all, ‘Students acquiesce in this process.’”

If they choose not to acquiesce, their option is to leave, understanding that there may be consequences to doing so.

librorumamans: “When you get on the bus as a black rider, you acquiesce to sitting in the back. It’s their option to not do so, but they understand that there may be consequences.”

Obviously, there are also situations where teachers make unreasonable or inappropriate demands, and there are procedures to deal with those as well.

Enforced public shaming with a demand for meek submission to other people telling you how bad you are, is not how one deals with disruptive students. That’s not within a light-year of how it’s done.

>311 John5918: it seems that this was a process, a structure, that the teacher was using...

Yes, that’s the problem.

presumably first to allow space for the females to speak uninterrupted

They do have the right to speak interrupted.

and second perhaps to let male students know what it feels like to have to come second.

Males DO come second. As just one example, they have affirmative action as institutionalized, legalized discrimination working against them.

More to the point, it’s not the teacher’s job to say, “The following groups are oppressed, and no one is allowed to disagree with me!”

The males were not being muzzled nor having their right to free speech curtailed

Yes they were. They were having their right to free speech curtailed.

And if women speaking first doesn’t curtail men’s free speech, then how would a man speaking first curtail women’s free speech?

Does the right to free speech include the right to interrupt others when you have already been told that you will have the opportunity to speak in a couple of minutes time?

There you go with the interrupting thing again. If waiting for a couple of minutes doesn’t curtail anyone’s rights, then how are women hurt if a male student speaks first? (This "interrupting" line is especially weak since he says he waited for 30 seconds, and no woman spoke!)

It's by no means an unusual process in a number of fields... to ask one group to remain silent and listen properly to the other group without interrupting before being given their chance to speak

Then I disagree with those fields too. And there you go again, trying to conflate who is being allowed to speak when, with interrupting others. The issue isn’t interrupting.

Another story of transvestites being excluded because they might offend transvestites (yes, you read that correctly):
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drag-queens-banned-from-performi...

Thread winning comment at Instapundit (https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/293757/#respond):
A dress code for a gay parade. That's funny.

Runner-up:
So now there's a "right" way to impersonate women?

>319 Carnophile:

""Freedom of speech" is the right to express one's point of view. It does not mean that one has the right to express them in whatever manner one chooses, without consequences.

Actually, yes, it does. That’s the definition of freedom of speech: That you don’t face punishments (“consequences”) for expressing your views."

That's a rather sad interpretation of what was never meant (by your founding fathers, who clearly had more wisdom and commonsense) by "freedom of speech". Your views may be offensive and hurtful to the majority of people - while you have the legal right to speak those views, you also must accept the consequences of doing so if you end up offending or hurting people by what you say. In fact, in Germany, it is ILLEGAL to express Holocaust-denying views and quite rightly so. The Constitution may say one thing (knowingly misunderstood by some), but morality may say another. And the Constitution has no authority outside the States, so if one was to travel to Germany and scorn the Holocaust, one would be arrested and no American judge would have the power to revoke it.

>324 Tid:

" Your views may be offensive and hurtful to the majority of people - while you have the legal right to speak those views, you also must accept the consequences of doing so if you end up offending or hurting people by what you say."

The right-to-free speech should entail more in legal validity and protection from the state than merely, "We'll prosecute for murder those who lynch you as a reaction to your public comments," shouldn't it?

That doesn't mean that I expect the government could, even if it wanted to, remove all risk involved in openly being known for saying highly controversial things in public. It can't. But free-speech shouldn't be any easy and sure-fire means to suicide.

>325 proximity1: The right-to-free speech should entail more in legal validity and protection from the state than merely, "We'll prosecute for murder those who lynch you as a reaction to your public comments," shouldn't it?

For some reason that phrase sparked in me the thought, "The right to enjoy civil and human rights should entail more in legal validity and protection from the state than merely, 'We'll prosecute for murder those who lynch you as a reaction to your being black / gay / female / Muslim / an immigrant,' shouldn't it?"

I think at least part of that "more" might include taking legal action against those who deliberately and calculatedly incite hatred and violence under the guise of freedom of speech. Note that this is a higher bar than merely disagreeing or even being insulting and offensive.

>319 Carnophile: Actually, yes, it does. That’s the definition of freedom of speech: That you don’t face punishments (“consequences”) for expressing your views."

>325 proximity1: The right-to-free speech should entail more in legal validity and protection from the state than merely, "We'll prosecute for murder those who lynch you as a reaction to your public comments," shouldn't it?

Actually, the right-to-free speech does NOT protect you from being lynched in response to your public comments - it is the illegality of murder that does that.

The right to free speech is the right to to speak without fear of the State punishing you for your words.

It does not entail the expectation that the State should protect you from the consequences of your actions (as long as those consequences do not in themselves constitute the commission of a criminal act).

Liberty to act is not freedom to act and expect to evade the consequences. Taking responsibility for the consequences of one's actions should be the expectation of every adult and child.

>327 Guanhumara: Taking responsibility for the consequences of one's actions

Indeed. So much of the narrative is being framed in terms of individual rights without the corresponding responsibilities.

The African Union charter on human rights pretty much mirrors the Universal Declaration except that as well as individual rights it also talks about the rights of communities, or society. I think it is an attempt to balance one's individual freedoms against one's responsibility to society.

Action To Counter Hate Speech Launched In South Sudanese Refugee Camps In Uganda (Gurtong)

>327 Guanhumara:

the guy said, (in Bold-face !)

"The right to free speech is the right to to speak without fear of the State punishing you for your words.

It does not entail the expectation that the State should protect you from the consequences of your actions"

Yada, yada, yada...

>327 Guanhumara: If you are going to quote me, please do it accurately.

The addendum that I included: as long as those consequences do not in themselves constitute the commission of a criminal act IS relevant here.

Thumping people whom you disagree with is a criminal act, along with a variety of public order offences, up to and including riot.
"Public order" statutes exist because when a "frank expression of views" devolves into violence, innocent bystanders tend to get hurt.

Hence the use of a police cordon to separate belligerent marchers from any belligerent protesters. Is this to protect the marchers? Or to protect the general public?

I don't personally want to see Islam as the world's dominant religion, but a desire to persuade others to one's own point of is shared by most religions and many atheists.
Jihad (in the Islamic sense, not in the Western media sense) means "struggle", and encompasses peaceful opposition (as well as violent).
Crusaders are, by definition, "those committed to military assault upon Islam"; calling on any group to defend themselves when under military attack is generally accepted as reasinable.

Now, do I really think that all the marchers in that photograph are fluffy pacifists, fully committed to opposing the use of force in the promulgation of their beliefs? Probably not.

But they have not publicly said anything calling for violent jihad. This is a photograph from the UK, where we do not have unrestricted freedom of speech. Replace "Crusader" with "Christian" and the placard holder would be charged with "incitement to religious hatred". Replace Jihad" with "holy war" and the charge probably would be "encouraging or assisting a crime", under the Serious Crimes Act 2007.

Are any of those marchers mentally making those substitutions? Maybe.

But I am very sure that I never want to see a situation where a citizen's rights are altered by the State's opinion as to what he (or she) is THINKING.

When thoughtcrime becomes a thing, I will know 1984 has truly arrived.

>330 proximity1:

That photo is an excellent example of the protection of the right to demonstrate peacefully even in support of unpopular and minority causes. The same police might find themselves protecting a far right rally the next day.

>327 Guanhumara: The right to free speech is the right to to speak without fear of the State punishing you for your words.

The state supports all colleges and universities these days, so this argument can’t be made even in theory until all student loans, grant funding for research, and other government support of the educational system are eliminated.

That all applies to all colleges and universities. Of course, it applies even more forcefully to government-run ones. And the college where this happened?

“Indiana University of Pennsylvania is a public research university in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is one of the two largest universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and thus the commonwealth's fourth or fifth largest public university.”

>327 Guanhumara: ...the consequences of your actions... not freedom to act and expect to evade the consequences. Taking responsibility for the consequences of one's actions should be the expectation of every adult and child.

You’re saying that if the teacher ordered black students to respectfully wait in silence until all the white students were done speaking, and a black student protesting this was ejected from the class, then his rights aren’t being violated, it’s not suppressing his freedom of speech, and he should accept that it’s “the consequences of his actions.”

And “consequences”? What the fuck are you talking about? The student’s being ejected from the class wasn’t the “consequence” of his speech; it was something the professor did to him. And you’re saying that he should take responsibility for her action! All the while delivering a lecture about how people should take responsibility for their own actions! Unfuckingbelievable!

This is a level of hypocrisy, double standards, and inconsistency that plunges up its own asshole and swallows its colon.

>331 Guanhumara:

"Hence the use of a police cordon to separate belligerent marchers from any belligerent protesters. Is this to protect the marchers? "

LOL!

Hint : the police are there to protect the marchers, the 'protesters', FFS!

If you need someone to tell you that, you should do some studying prior to participating here in ignorance.

The supposed distinction between a duty to protect free “speech” per se as a public value versus no duty at all to protect the speaker, per se who is exercising his supposed free-speech rights is just the kind of very thinly-sliced baloney which brings liberal “thinking” into disrepute and is so typical of these times of truly shitty confusion over basic principles of civil liberties.

It actually reminds of another famous distinction made imfamous by liberals' use of it as a model of idiotic distinctions—I refer, of course, to the famous “Guns don't kill people, people kill people,” said in hopes of distracting the listener from the important fact that, too often, 'people kill people' through the use of guns.

Many liberals are quick to point out that free-speech rights are not competely without limits. One may not, for example, call for the murder of others hoping to incite acts of murder. In that light, how and why is it even legally permissable to march in a rally chanting and carrying signs, “death to those who insult Islam!” ?

Personally, I consider it vain and irrelevant to waste time arguing about whether such calls constitute “hate speech.” Whether the calls are issued out of hatred or not is strictly neither here nor there. But, where no violence is being called for, we do, indeed, have a duty to put up some real and effective defense for not only the safety of the words, per se being uttered or written and published but also for the speakers, the writers and the publishers of such words.

Take a good look at the photo. Do you know where these marchers are as this photo is taken? They're in Upper Brook Street, W1, in London's Mayfair neighborhood. The white-stone building in the upper right of the photo--to the march's left--is No. 22 Grosvenor Square, just at the intersection of Upper Brook Street and N. Audley Street. A huge office complex (out of view in this photo) to the marchers' right are offices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (!?). It's a nice sunny spring or summer day. There is no reasonable danger to these marchers--who certainly don't live in this neighborhood--as they file through along Upper Brook Street. But the police shown in this photo are there to protect the marchers, not to protect others from the marchers--not that the police wouldn't do that, of course, if for some bizarre reason it suddenly became necessary.

What we're seeing in this photo is a crowd of people operating on their tiny "reptile" brain alone, the septum, amygdalae, hypothalamus, hippocampal complex, and cingulate cortex. Though it's safe to assume these people also have the usual average in gray-matter, (1300 to 1400 grams (or around 3 pounds), and 1,274 cm3 to 1,131 cm3 in volume), we don't see a lot of evidence of their use of that in this photo.

Do you think I really want to have to defend these morons? protect them in their persons as well as in their abstract damned-fool opinions? Of course I don't enjoy having to do that. But it is necessary because the right to free speech is a non-divisible public-good; the fire I'd only too happily throw these people into would eventually come to consume me or others I would not like to see destroyed in the process. Unfortunately, we cannot only protect the people with the good ideas who desire to speak freely. The rights of morons, too, have to be defended in both their persons and their beliefs; how wonderful if it weren't that way: how much simpler it would be if we could just identify the idiots and then quickly, quietly and efficiently get rid of them, once and for all. But that's not possible. The only way to protect smart people and their smart ideas and opinions is to also protect the reptile-brain people and their retrograde ideas and beliefs.

As for the possibility of there being some idea of doing violence on their minds, yes, indeed: any of them who may have or come to have specific plans and intentions to do violence to others in the name of their obscurantist religious beliefs, should be identified, arrested, given their due-process rights, and, if it's found that they did have a plan to commit violence, they should be chucked out of the country and kept out permanently--and that photo should be filed and used as a study-resource in aid of the police's identifying the people who may pose serious danger to others.

>336 proximity1: Cherry picking again, p1? >331 Guanhumara: was a thoughtful, nuanced post and you take one statement out of context and do so in an insulting manner. I'm not surprised, though. It's your stock in trade.

Planned Parenthood tells youth they have the right to knowingly infect their sex partners with HIV without telling them:

Young people living with HIV have the right to decide if, when, and how to disclose their HIV status... Some countries have laws that say people living with HIV must tell their sexual partner(s) about their status before having sex, even if they use condoms or only engage in sexual activity with a low risk of giving HIV to someone else. These laws violate the rights of people living with HIV by forcing them to disclose or face the possibility of criminal charges.

Summary of the modern Left: If they have their way, you DON'T have the right to say that there are only two genders, but you DO have the right to knowingly infect another person with HIV without telling them.

>338 Carnophile: >339 Carnophile:

What evidence do you have for these from neutral and objective sources?

Also, what connection is there between Volkswagen, the German Courts, and "the Left"?

And indeed HIV?

>342 Collectorator:

I'm not from the US. I know nothing about Planned Parenthood. Your implied assertions behind the phrases "purposefully" and "cannot be helped" are unnecessary, and would also be offensive if I actually gave a toss.

>343 Tid: I think because many of the people on the thread are from the U.S. we have a tendency to assume that others are as well. Thanks for the reminder.

Planned Parenthood is seen as being on the left because they support birth control and, yes, abortion, which generally speaking is diametrically opposed by many conservatives on the right.

>342 Collectorator: I followed the link and don't recognize the news source. Has this been reported by other media outlets? I looked it up on Wikipedia and this is what I got:

PJ Media (originally known as Pajamas Media) is an American conservative news, opinion, and commentary collaborative blog that was founded in 2004.

I'd need to see the sources verified before I put stock in this.

>344 pmackey: The link is one of about a dozen that will come up in a search for "Planned Parenthood, HIV, rights" -- most dating to December, 2015.

Here's PP's info on living with HIV from their website:

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/stds-hiv-safer-sex/hiv-aids/living-hiv

And here's the original brochure that spawned all those accusations that "PP says it's your right to infect your partners with HIV!"

https://www.ippf.org/sites/default/files/healthy_happy_hot.pdf

As usual, a lot of the hysteria relies on our willingness to ignore context.

>346 Collectorator: Sorry. You're right. It was Carnophile that posted the link.

>345 southernbooklady: Thanks for the clarification. Context is everything.

>347 pmackey: Context is everything.

Words that would go on my tombstone if I didn't plan on being cremated.

>Planned parenthood is the outgrowth of a sensible legal decision made when mainstream liberals were in reform-minded clothing. Leftism has nothing to do with abortion rights. Leftists understand that capitalism is oligarchic and maldistributed money does more than distort democracy--it undermines the very concept. What makes many of the threads that cast oppositions between right and left that are really merely social matters that pit liberals against conservatives extemely boring is that they bear no relation to extant political conditions nor the beliefs they give rise to.

NBC:

“Democrats love unions. Just not for their own campaign workers.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/democrats-love-unions-just-not-their-...

>340 Tid:
>344 pmackey:
>347 pmackey:

The truth hurts, huh? Fine, here’s the link to the actual Planned Parenthood document itself, which PJ Media provides and which you easily could have clicked on:

https://www.ippf.org/sites/default/files/healthy_happy_hot.pdf

Sure enough, the quote is in it.

Still agog at all this. If you see a tranny walking down the street, and you have a choice between saying to him, “There are two genders,” or knowingly infecting him with HIV without telling him, the left would rather you infect him with HIV. That’s your action they’d actually defend.

Some of us, unlike the modern left, are actually against infecting transvestites (or anyone else) with HIV.

>340 Tid:
>344 pmackey:
>347 pmackey:

OK, I think we’re making progress here. Instead of saying,

“What’s wrong with injecting someone with HIV?”
or,
“What’s wrong with forcing a company to employ a death-threatening ISIS recruiter?”

lefties in this thread are using the second line of defense of, “You can’t make me believe these stories are true!”

Any non-lefties in this thread, notice the absurd insinuation that PJ Media would just fabricate the Planned Parenthood quote or the German court case. And notice the sudden reluctance to fact-check these stories, which lefties usually are happy to do.

Now I’m not, as a general rule here on LT, going to fall for the leftist-in-denial trap of letting lefties define what’s a credible source.

For these two cases, though, I think I’ll play along with the game. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see what the response is to the defeat of the second line of defense.

(My recommendation: Repudiate leftism, come back to reality. It’s always there for you, and those of us fighting for sanity welcome all the help we can get.)

>340 Tid: what connection is there between ... the German Courts, and "the Left"?

If you want to argue that making a company re-hire a death-threatening ISIS recruiter is a right-wing, or apolitical thing, go for it.

If you want to argue that PJ Media just made up that story, go for that, too. But whatever.

Here’s the Express.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/930912/VW-ISIS-recruiter-sacked-Wolfsburg

Here’s the the Daily Mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5494085/Volkswagen-ordered-instate-suspe...

Here’s a law firm specializing in employment law:
https://www.gqemploymentlaw.com/resources-centre/features/article-971-2018-03/co...

“GQ is part of Littler Global, the world's largest global employment and labour law practice, with more than 1,500 lawyers in over 75 offices worldwide.”

>355 Carnophile: I have no idea about re-hiring ISIS folk, but I know a lot about the US going into Germany and hiring and protecting Nazis. See Klaus Barbie for a particularly grotesque example.

>352 Carnophile: here’s the link to the actual Planned Parenthood document itself, which PJ Media provides and which you easily could have clicked on

You may have noticed that >345 southernbooklady: searched for, found and cited that link some seven posts before you produced it in triumph and implied that people couldn't be bothered to. Quoting the actual words in context is valuable.

>351 Carnophile: Democrats love unions

Well, yes. That's hardly a new thing. So do many mainstream centre and left-of-centre parties throughout the world (not that the US Democrats could really be called left of centre). One of the things unions try to do is ensure that workers are not dismissed without due process, according to the laws of the land, laws which in many countries had to be struggled for in the face of strong, violent and often criminal opposition by the capitalist owners of industry. None of us know the ins and outs of this particular case, but after it has been through both the internal dismissal processes of VW and a German court I would suspect that all parties have been heard. Since the word "terrorist" has been used, no doubt the German security services have had their say also. There are probably higher courts of appeal in both Germany and the EU which can be accessed by any party if required.. That's what due process is all about.

>354 Carnophile:

But, it's not Leftism. If it were Leftism...

On the general topic of HIV, the Washington Post had a story on a British man convicted of infecting partners with HIV.

A British man found guilty for intentionally infecting five men with HIV was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday, the conclusion of a unique case that was a first for the country and has drawn coverage from around the world...

Daryll Rowe, who was convicted of five counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, is the first person to be convicted of the charge in Britain, according to the Telegraph. Rowe had claimed the disease was no longer terminal and his lawyers had asked the judge not to give a sentence that would reinforce stigma about AIDS.

Link is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/04/18/british-man-who...

>352 Carnophile: Okay, so the quote is in the Planned Parenthood document. That doesn't change SBL's point that it needs to be taken in context. My concern with the PJ news story is that it is one report in a relatively obscure news source/blog. Was the story carried by a reputable news source? If yes, then, great; the story is corroborated. If not, then take it with a grain of salt. It appears there are elements of truth in the PJ article, but the facts have been misinterpreted to fit an agenda.

Whom do I consider reputable news sources? The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reuters, BBC. Notice that neither MSNBC or Fox news are listed. I consider both too biased to be honest brokers of information.

>357 John5918: Quoting the actual words in context is valuable.

In fact, the focus of the brochure is to help HIV positive people get past the attending shame and stigma and to give them the tools to lead productive and fulfilling lives and have real, loving relationships. There is a whole page of advice on how to talk to your partner about having HIV. The whole thing is focused on respect, dignity, honesty, and being safe. So saying that PP supports the right of people to lie and to infect others is misleading in the extreme.

On the whole, I think compassion, education, and respect is a more pragmatic approach to dealing with HIV than treating sick people like pariahs who only have themselves to blame for their situation.

>360 southernbooklady: On the whole, I think compassion, education, and respect is a more pragmatic approach to dealing with HIV than treating sick people like pariahs who only have themselves to blame for their situation.

Amen, sister.

>346 Collectorator:

Take a good look at my face. Observe its "don't give a toss" expression. Ruminate on that.

>355 Carnophile:

Whatever my views about what Volkswagen and the German Courts ruled, you still haven't answered my question: what's the connection between them and the left? Neither the company nor the judiciary in question are noted for any left wing bias.

>357 John5918: You may have noticed that >345 southernbooklady: searched for, found and cited that link some seven posts before you produced it in triumph and implied that people couldn't be bothered to.

You may have noticed that I wasn’t responding to southernbooklady; I was responding to two other people who challenged me to find another source for the Planned Parenthood quote. So I did.

And indeed, the two people I was replying to couldn’t be bothered to check it out.

>357 John5918:

My union link has nothing to do with the ISIS thing in my mind.

>345 southernbooklady: context
>347 pmackey: context
>357 John5918: context
>359 pmackey: context

Well? I’m still waiting for the exculpatory “context.”

>363 Tid: Whatever my views about what Volkswagen and the German Courts ruled, you still haven't answered my question: what's the connection between them and the left?

Yeah, I still haven’t answered your question! It’s almost like I don’t take it seriously!

(PS: It’s not about Volkswagen.)

>369 Collectorator:

I am proud to consider myself to be left of centre.

I do not want to distance myself from broadly left of centre views.

There is no alt-left in the same sense as the alt-right.

There is no contradiction between all those statements.

The recently bankrupt Toys-R-Us contributed to Planned Parenthood. Yes, it literally helped to kill its own customers.

Google searching on something like toys r us, donate, planned parenthood is illuminating.
Toys-R-Us defenders try to say “Ha, that’s not true!” by pointing out that Toys-R-Us stopped donating directly to Planned Parenthood in 2010. So in other words, the answer is Yes, Toys-R-Us donated to Planned Parenthood.

It also donated indirectly after 2010:
“Toys R Us matches gifts to Susan G. Komen NYC and MN chapters, which continues to fund Planned Parenthood, Accessed 02/16/17.”

>371 Carnophile: You say that like it's a bad thing to donate to Planned Parenthood.

>368 Carnophile:

"(PS: It’s not about Volkswagen.)"

>338 Carnophile: "German Court Orders Volkswagen to Rehire Suspected ISIS Recruiter Who Told Coworkers They'd 'All Die'"

That's odd. So when you say "Volkswagen" it's actually code for something else?

>370 John5918:

Well said. One thing that irrationally emotive anti-left people like @Collectorator and @Carnophile don't seem to realise is that "the left" is not simply politics (or anything) that you don't agree with - it all depends where you stand and where you're coming from. One clear example is a comparison between Hillary Clinton and Theresa May. You probably couldn't get a cigarette paper between the two of them, yet the former is regarded as "the left" in America, while the latter leads the Conservative Party in the UK and is seen as very definitely right of centre.

What differentiates Bernie Saunders and Jeremy Corbyn? Apart from the fact that the latter now leads his party, the other main difference is that there is absolutely no way - if Corbyn had lost his leadership election - that some of his supporters would have switched to Nigel Farage instead. Only in America could some of Bernie's supporters have switched to Trump when he lost the nomination battle. Otherwise they're both cut from the same cloth.

"Left" and "right" are very movable feasts : the definitions of both change over time, change across geographical boundaries, change even in individuals' minds over the course of their lifetimes.

>375 Tid:

I'm proof that your view is false.

Had Corbyn lost the Labour leadership--and I'd voted, which, under 'normal' circumstances, I could do (and have in fact done) in both Britain and the U.S.-- I'd have been willing and able to vote for Farage on the dual basis of his party's insistence on Brexit and, as an "extra" advantage, demonstrating to Labour that its rejection of Corbyn cost it another vote.

As it was, I advocated the defeat of both Corbyn's opponents--all of them--and, after Senator Sanders was cheated out of a fair primary run--Trump's opponents, which, in the U.S. system, realistically meant only Hillary Clinton since there was no way another candidate had any chance of defeating Trump.

On principles, Corbyn's liberal bona fides are to me somewhat more impressive. Sanders has spent a lifetime as a U.S. senator being generally ineffective in opposing the growing dominance of both the Republican party and, especially, the takeover of the Democratic party by forces which so resemble the Republican party.

If you want to cite a clear distinction between Corbyn and Sanders, it's simple:

Corbyn would never be caught dead campaigning for Hillary Clinton because he's actually intelligent enough to understand that "the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your 'friend.'"

As far as I'm concerned, for all the good he's done in national politics and in the U.S. senate, Sanders might as well have never gone into politics. I wouldn't say the same about Corbyn though I'm completely ready to find him disappointing in some respects.

In real life, it's quite possible to consistently defend political principles without fear or favor and disregarding the changing fashions of the moment. That means, for example, that, before it became synonymous with idiotic authoritarian sexist bigotry to the detriment of both men and women, it was possible to, indeed, it was necessary as a principled Leftist, to support and defend equal opportunity-rights (as opposed to artificially-forced equal outcomes) for women and, in addition, informed access to abortion. Now, for the same prinicples, a Leftist has to oppose the idiocy of "Second-wave' feminism --which is just a euphemism for blind doctrinaire sexist bigotry.

(This is the theory. As a matter of strict practicality, it's apparently exceedingly difficult to actually practice ethics in a consistent principled manner. I have no way to know how many come close to doing that but I suspect that it's about as common in the general population as, say, recipients of the U.S. military's Medal of Honor for bravery.)

The same, in principle could be done from the right-wing end of the political spectrum. Good conservatives could and did oppose Nixon and supported the call for his impeachment and trial and removal. The same conservatives today would be defending Trump against spurious charges that he's secretly in league with the Rooskies or that his election is per se illegitimate on its face.

_______________________________________________________________________

Another example: We find out now, under the circumstances which test them, that neither The Guardian (of London) nor The New York Times are principled defenders of liberal principles. In the case of the Times, that is hardly news for anyone familiar with its rather pathetic history. Both papers are now revealed as basically worthless pieces of shit--in a time when good journalism is as rare as it is desperately sought.

Why is post >375 Tid: flagged? Is it because of "irrational"? Okay, maybe that's going over the line but hardly worth flagging. Considering the combative tone of many of the posts, I think it's even.

>378 pmackey: One can say that a person is being irrational and emotive, or is acting irrational and emotive, but not that they are irrational and emotive. On LT letter of this particular law supersedes the spirit.

>379 southernbooklady: Good point and it's only fair.

>379 southernbooklady: Also note that only one person said it was flagged. This often happens when the person who crosses the line is the more sympathetic of the arguers. In a case like this, there seem only two people arguing who are serious, Tid and Proximity1, and of those two, Tid is by far the more generous and sensible IN HIS POSTS, while Proximity1 is often extremely arrogant IN HIS POSTS.

>375 Tid:
"One thing that irrationally emotive anti-left people like Collectorator and Carnophile don't seem to realise is that "the left" is not simply politics (or anything) that you don't agree with - it all depends where you stand and where you're coming from."

The problem with this, as far as I can see is those are the two people who IN THEIR POSTS are the least serious, and for me the least worthy of attention. They are not emotive and irrational IN THEIR POSTS, rather calculated, lamely attempting to provoke. I'm sorry this latter may be insulting you, Tid, but I don't find anything they say truly provocative, because I can't take any of it seriously.

>379 southernbooklady: >382 RickHarsch:

Perhaps I didn't make it clear enough in >375 Tid: - I was referring only to the two members' "anti left" stance, not to them as individuals. It doesn't seem to be rational or consistent, but does appear to be emotive. This is in direct contrast to >377 proximity1: which argues a position against my post which is perfectly coherent and well laid out, even if I don't personally agree with all points made.

Now that is flaggable. (384)

>383 Tid: I was referring only to the two members' "anti left" stance, not to them as individuals.

Since you wrote, "One thing that irrationally emotive anti-left people like Collectorator and Carnophile don't seem to realise. . ." In the interests of clarity, I'd have to say that no, as written you weren't referring to a stance, but to the posters. Whatever your actual intent. We're we just having a grammar-slash-civility war somewhere around here?

Still, given how often women are still charged with being irrational and emotional, it's nice to know that people in this forum recognize such things as a personal attack and would rise to object when they see it, and never respond in kind. :)

Am I missing something or has >375 Tid: been counterflagged enough for the flags to have now disappeared?

I agree with those who say that technically, the wording "irrationally emotive anti-left people" describes the person not the behaviour and could be construed as a TOS violation, but in the context of this thread it obviously refers to behaviour which has consistently been demonstrated in this and other threads, and is also pretty mild.

To put it another way, if I consistently and clearly demonstrate left wing traits and views and somebody calls me a leftwinger, that is more descriptive than insulting. If I consistently and clearly demonstrated irrational and emotive anti-left traits and views then perhaps calling me an irrationally emotive anti-left person might be considered descriptive rather than insulting?

Just my opinion but the key word is irrational in that it negates the person rather than the idea. Emotive is okay. I just looked it up and got this, arousing or able to arouse intense feeling. There are times on these Pro & Con threads when many become emotive, including me.

What gets my goat is unrelenting negativity where some of the posts DO seem to be irrationally emotive, whether left or right.

>386 southernbooklady:

I'm afraid the confusion arose because of my grammar nerdishness. I thought two consecutive adverbs ("irrationally emotively") looked ugly so I avoided that construction. If I'd gone with it, it would have been seen as specifically referring to the "anti-left" stance with no room for doubt.

(How do you counter-flag?)

> 390 The rules are quite liberal. For instance, the inanity of post 389 is not flaggable. But I beg of you sane people to understand it for the utter gratuitous nonsense that it is.

FWIW, two points:

1. I find the use of "irrationally emotive" to be a tricky case. I head John's point--it looks personal but may not be so. That said, the whole point of LibraryThing's content standard is that looks are primary. Content enforcement is simple, and non-contextual. We aren't in charge of reading 100 posts to determine what people really mean and feel, who deserved it and so forth. We look to the words used.

2. While an edge case, I would urge users who have been recently and strongly warned that they are on warning about TOS violations, and that no further TOS violations will be accepted, not go there.

>392 timspalding: So are you warning people who have been warned that they have been warned? Or is this a warning that those who have been warned are being warned again that they have been warned and are therefore under a state of warning in regard to the warningness of the previous warn?

p.s. What is recent? At what point can the warned, or the warned about being warned warned, fuck up again?

ETA: I think in my second question I mean to ask: Or is this a warning that those who have been warned are being warned again that they have been warned and are therefore under a state of warning in regard to the warningness of the previous warn and that a warning constitutes a further warning if the warning is referred to in the context of a general warning that includes the specifically warned who have been warned with a warning that seems about as degradeable as plastic, which as you know was warned about in the 1960s, meaning that I am also asking if the warning when warned about in further warning suggests an indefatigability of the warner, he who warns the warned?

>393 RickHarsch: I believe you're describing, in a very roundabout way, a theory of anthropogenic global warning. Am I correct?

If I am right, you are correct.

We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

>393 RickHarsch:

Hilarious - I love it!

I think I should point out to >392 timspalding: that what he sees as borderline was fully explained in >390 Tid:. I take his point about "reading 100 posts", but there's absolutely no excuse in not going back 2 posts when they are sitting right under your nose, displayed on the screen. I won't wait for an apology, in my experience it won't be forthcoming.

>393 RickHarsch:

Rick, old mate, can I have some of those nice mushrooms you've been eating?

>397 Tid:

Thanks, Tid.

What Spalding also says, which is hypocritical, is "We aren't in charge of reading 100 posts to determine what people really mean and feel, who deserved it and so forth." That implies the history of an argument does not matter, and yet he calls me anti-semitic based on posts from several years ago. He will say, No, not the history of content but the history of behavior or some such. But you don't call someone an anti-semite without that you take into account your own irrational feelings. Not a post of mine ever has been anti-semitic (in the sense he means it--I imagine his semites exclude non-Jews). I have been writing a baseball book so thinking baseball most of every day and waiting for his next crusade, where I could honestly claim that some of my favorite ballplayers have been Jews (and NONE Palestinian), but time is passing and why not say it now.

>398 John5918: Off even the alcohol for going on two years, Johnny: you're getting the real thing.

ETA: though at a ball game in Staranzano, Italy, yesterday a couple guys kept asking what was in my drink, or was it something in my cigarettes...I was just having a good old-fashioned day at the ball park. I even stuck up for the ump who called infield fly rule on a pop that landed a foot on the grass behind second base. Suddenly everyone figured me for the expert, even one old fucker who hates me and moreso now because I told him he was wrong, that the ump hasn't the NASA-type equipment to determine whether the ball will land on dirt or grass--it's a matter of whether the ball is a basically easy catch or not. It is also not his to decide if one team is so bad it is not likely the ball will be caught. And, you know, when you are up 11-0 and still haven't put your best pitchers in, it's a bit unseemly to get all excited over a call anyway.

>400 RickHarsch:

A year or so I was watching a rugby international involving Ireland in a sports bar in Nairobi with a mate of mine, and we were chatting to a lot of other English and Irish hard-core fans, and we all found ourselves baffled by some of the referee's decisions until the TV commentators explained them. Seems the rules of rugby have been fine-tuned a bit since we used to play a good few years ago.

>401 John5918: Probably well-meaning attempts to keep a few players left alive at the end of a career.

>369 Collectorator: Besides, as per >370 John5918:, the failure for the parts of the sentence to go together, if we're going to split humanity or Americans or whatever into two political parts, inevitably both sides are going to have their fair share of idiots and jerks.

>392 timspalding:

No, it’s not a goddam “edge case,” but site owner now has spoken in his official capacity saying that it is.

Ruling/precedent noted.

>375 Tid: I don’t respond to illogically neurotic anti-right people like Tid.

>390 Tid: Bullshit.

(Edited to correct the reference to #374 to #375.)

>406 Carnophile:

Have I actually engaged in a personal attack? If so, I apologise, but I don't think I have. >387 John5918: is not a personal attack.

>188 Carnophile: refers to an inconsistency in your position during a long, rambling and tedious e-mail exchange on a particular topic. While you and I clearly disagree on the matter and perceive it differently, disagreement and different perception is not "pathological dishonesty". I don't see a personal attack.

>390 Tid:

That you describe my factual and truthful account in >390 Tid: as "bullshit" says everything about you and nothing about me.

>408 Tid: Oh, yeah, yeah, totally, that’s very persuasive. In fact, it also describes my post in 405 as well - which was phrased in the same way - so I trust the flags on it will be removed in short order.

>387 John5918: If I consistently and clearly demonstrated irrational and emotive anti-left traits and views then perhaps calling me an irrationally emotive anti-left person might be considered descriptive rather than insulting?

Cute. If you consistently and clearly demonstrated dishonesty then perhaps calling you dishonest might be considered descriptive rather than insulting?

>407 John5918: 188 Carnophile: refers to an inconsistency in your position during a long, rambling and tedious e-mail exchange

We have never had an e-mail exchange.

The difference between 387 and 406 is that the poster of 387, is, in fact, demonstrably dishonest.

German Judge Says Turkish Man's Forced Violent Sex Is 'Culturally' Not Rape

Though the girl
(1) told him she didn’t want to have sex with him,
(2) shouted "Stop!" when he started forcing himself upon her, and
(3) scratched at his back during the first of his several rapes of her,

the defense tricked her into this one ill-advised statement: That since she gave up resisting after a while, he might have thought the sex was consensual, within the confines of his own Turkish culture. What the fuck? How is screaming “Stop!” consenting to sex, in any culture?

And why should it be HIS culture, and not HERS, that matters? So the alleged “culture” of a would-be rapist lets him rape anyone he wants? But one ill-thought answer to one question, which goes against the entire rest of her testimony, is seized upon by one judge to let the rapist off.

Instead of a rapist being obligated to heed the plain, everyday meanings of words, like “Stop!”, apparently a woman is now obligated to familiarize herself with every culture in the world, so she can communicate “I don’t consent!” in all languages and cultures.

Analyze the position, not the person.

If you feel mistreated, drop the thread, walk away. This site tilts way left. Accept it or leave.

>410 Carnophile:

As I have consistently pointed out here and elsewhere, disagreement, or viewing something through a different lens, or speaking from different experience, culture and context, or misunderstandings, even mistakes, do not constitute dishonesty. You and one or two other posters do yourselves no favours by constantly claiming that anything which challenges your own perception is "dishonesty" instead of actually engaging on the substantive issue.

Edited to add: And >412 barney67: has just crossed with this post, and for once I agree with Barney - "Analyse the position, not the person", which is another way of saying, er, stop claiming dishonesty and engage on the substantive issue.

>411 Carnophile:

This is of course appalling, but it's one of many examples of the long struggle for women to be heard when it comes to rape. As you're probably aware, a court in Spain has just found a group of Spanish men who describe themselves as Wolf Pack and who committed a gang rape during the Pamplona bull run guilty only of the lesser charge of sexual abuse rather than rape.

Pamplona rape case: Protests over sentence go in to third day (BBC): Many said they were motivated not only by this case, but they also wanted to take a stand against the whole legal system, which they said was stacked against women. "Justice is still patriarchal"

I presume everybody, left and right wing, wants to take a stand against a legal system which is stacked against women? Although when you have a right wing president who thinks it is acceptable to grab random women by the pussy, that's certainly not helping the cause.

>409 Carnophile:

In fact, it also describes my post in 405 as well - which was phrased in the same way

My post >408 Tid:

"That you describe my factual and truthful account in >390 Tid: Tid: as "bullshit" says everything about you and nothing about me."

Your post >405 Carnophile:

">374 Tid: Tid: I don’t respond to illogically neurotic anti-right people like Tid.

>390 Tid: Tid: Bullshit."

Phrased the same way? The jury will decide.

>413 John5918: disagreement, or viewing something through a different lens, or speaking from different experience, culture and context, or misunderstandings, even mistakes, do not constitute dishonesty.

Me in post 135: "If I catch an adult sexually molesting a child I’m going to beat the shit out of that adult."

You in post 180: "your violent urges seem to be against people who have not actually molested children"

Furthermore, when called on it, you made up a reference to an email exchange that never took place.

>413 John5918: I agree with Barney - "Analyse the position, not the person"

Oh? You at 387: “If I consistently and clearly demonstrated irrational and emotive anti-left traits and views then perhaps calling me an irrationally emotive anti-left person might be considered descriptive rather than insulting?”

Were you saying something about not analyzing the person?

>414 John5918:

Fact: Rapist in Germany gets off scott-free because he’s from another country.

Analysis: It’s Trump’s fault!

Related:
Court in Finland rules that sex between a 23 year old migrant and a 10 year old girl is not rape.

The rapist still got three years in jail on a lesser charge, but what the fuck?

>416 Carnophile:

If you carefully re-read that whole long rambling exchange, you'll recall that there was a conversation about people who have paedophile tendencies but who have never actually molested a child, who don't want to do so, and are seeking strategies to avoid doing so. There were indications that some of the right wing protagonists wahted to beat the shit out of these people. Hence my observation that "violent urges seem to be against people who have not actually molested children". I think at another point I also pointed out that if a citiizen catches someone molesting a child, then they should use whatever minimum force is necessary to prevent the crime and to detain the criminal until the police arrive - which is somewhat dfferent from "beating the shit out of them". Clearly we disagree, but there is little point continuing a conversation about dishonesty.

>417 Carnophile:

>387 John5918: was a contribution to a specific issue about a flagged post directly related to an alleged personal attack, hence analysing the person in that particular instance was in context.

>418 Carnophile:

Which is presumably why you would agree with my >414 John5918: that this is yet another "one of many examples of the long struggle for women to be heard when it comes to rape" in "a legal system which is stacked against women"?

>418 Carnophile: Re the 23 yo raping/molesting 10 yo.

I don't want to Monday morning quarterback this, but no question this is heinous. In the U.S. this is statutory rape, but I don't know what the Finnish laws are. A 10 yo does not have the life experience or maturity to give consent.

>420 pmackey:

Exactly. The UK laws are quite specific - it's statutory rape. To say the child 'wasn't forced and wasn't in fear' would carry little weight and the perpetrator would get a long sentence here.

Sex without consent is rape. Courts around the world must catch up (Guardian)

While some judicial systems acknowledge that ‘no means no’, they don’t seem to understand that ‘no’ can be conveyed in more than just words

>422 John5918: A very searing article. No one deserves to be treated like these women were. I hope there's a very special place in hell reserved for "wolf packs".

>419 John5918: you would agree with my (post 414) that this is yet another "one of many examples of the long struggle for women to be heard when it comes to rape" in "a legal system which is stacked against women"?

It’s not a “long” struggle in that judicial permission for culturally different immigrants to rape at will has not been around very long.

>419 John5918:

387 was a contribution to a specific issue about a flagged post directly related to an alleged personal attack, hence analysing the person in that particular instance was in context.

Someone called me and another poster “irrationally emotive” and then you basically said, “It’s not an insult because they totally ARE!”:

If I consistently and clearly demonstrated irrational and emotive anti-left traits and views then perhaps calling me an irrationally emotive anti-left person might be considered descriptive rather than insulting?

The fact that someone else went personal first, and then you joined in, isn't relevant.

Go away, John.

There is this other difference. In establishing your dishonesty, I actually cited your words.

In quoting yourself you then shaved off a crucial word from the quote, thus engaging in more dishonesty:

>419 John5918: some of the right wing protagonists wahted to beat the shit out of these people. Hence my observation that "violent urges seem to be against people who have not actually molested children"

At >180 John5918: you actually wrote,

your violent urges seem to be against people who have not actually molested children

I notice that you excluded the word “your” when you quoted yourself, trying to make it look as if you were speaking of “right-wing” people in general. You weren’t.

Maine Democrats Vote Down Bill Banning Female Genital Mutilation:

https://pjmedia.com/trending/maine-democrats-vote-bill-banning-fgm/

>420 pmackey: A 10 yo does not have the life experience or maturity to give consent.

Exactly.

>428 Carnophile: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-maine-democrats-vote-to-allow-fgm/

>430 jjwilson61:

The Snopes piece argues against a claim I didn't make, by a source I didn't link to.