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Jan 20, 2017 at 4:28 pm
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Naw, for this type of job you take payment up-front.
Seriously, schools may talk about a zero tolerance policy on bullies, but the truth is they kind of can't be bothered because it's a fraught topic. And while bullies may be seen as stupid, they're often cunning enough to exploit that. Gas Lighting: the early years. The bully doesn't actually hit you, his minion does. Or if someone in authority is called upon, it's easy to talk about how you were just roughhousing, or promise it will never happen again. And, hell, if you're the victim (not like I ever was *cough*), when called on about it, you'll lie in the off chance that it might put off worse damage down the line. What, where did you think the Cops era rhetoric of abused wives came from? "He didn't mean to hit me, officer! He's a good man!" So teachers and principals mirror the usual line of how you need to take care of this for yourself or if you ignore them they'll leave you alone or... sound familiar?
So bullying is complicated, kind of above the teacher's pay grade. But what happens if you respond? What happens if you snap or react or, what's the word, defend yourself? Well that's fighting and fighting is clearly not allowed so everyone involved (including the victim) will be suspended. If you're a good student (and I was) who doesn't want that kind of blot on your record (because, as I was told by the principal, they didn't expect that of me, I'm usually nicer, what happened?) you learn not to do anything.
The system is rigged. And the cunning bully, like Trump, like these racist assholes, knows this and exploits it. I mean, where do we start the whole "boys will be boys" rhetoric that we keep hearing after another athlete rapes a girl? When do you first hear about how "Oh he wouldn't do that, he said they were playing" defense? On the playground, because it's easier than getting involved.
So, no, violence is not the answer. But I'm starting to believe that something like this, something on a relative low level? I think it could change the question significantly.
But its beside the point because I wasn't expressing sympathy for Spencer. I'm just saying that there are Nazis who've never been punched in the face (i.e. not sufficient) and there are people who've been punched in the face who are not Nazis (i.e. not necessary). And therefore, his being a Nazi is not why he got punched in the face.
It's not "just opinions", "just a point of view". When people call for ethnic cleansing, when they encourage and justify police violence against blacks, they are the generals of of the army attacking you. When they shot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane, they were't killing a non-combatant. Saying the planes should attack Pearl Harbor at dawn wasn't Yamamoto exercising his right to free speech. "Just saying", just an opinion. He was participating in the attack by telling the attackers what to do, and when. Spencer is participating in the attacks carried out as a result of his words.
You don't have to pretend that terrorist recruiters and radicalizes are non-violent. Today somebody hit Spencer back.
Some fun bits on this topic, now that Twitter has had a few hours to play with it:
Gerry Duggan, PESTERING PUPPETS
Yeah, how'd that work out? Those 25 countries didn't elect Trump.
This knee-jerk, uncritically swallowed folk belief that tolerating garbage people, coddling Nazis and terrorist recruiters (but only if they call themselves Christian) is in no way a necessary condition for a free society. We are surrounded by free societies -- many that are freer and more just and stable than ours -- that don't stand there smiling while they let Nazis piss on their leg.
Good.
@13 You're a twat. Go walk your talk then and see how moral you are then.
This is only off the top of my head. With some homework the number of ways the freedom of speech and the press is limited, even though it "shall not be infringed period" goes on and on.
But here comes a white Christian radicalizing the next Dylan Roof or Timothy McVeigh, and *then* all of a sudden freedom of speech is a radical absolute. We think nothing of jailing people for printing images of Mickey Mouse, but the "right" of Nazis to spread terror is sacred?
Don't tell me censorship is some foreign practice you can't tolerate. You live comfortably with censorship every day, and you like it. Censorship is normal and healthy. Be a grown up about that simple fact.
If we can contort ourselves around the black arts of copyright and fair use laws without crushing freedom, we are capable of telling the ethnic cleansers and terrorist apologists to shut the fuck up, while still having a vibrant body politic.
And this is not a hypothetical claim. Look around at dozens of advanced democracies across the globe. They do it every day and it works.
Wow!
Can i repost this, on Facebook, for example?
With citation, of course.
I encourage you to understand the difference between punching up and punching down. This will clear up a lot of your confusion.
In Germany, and dozens of other countries with healthier democracies, and less corruption than the US, the government puts limits on Nazis and other hate speech before it comes to violence. They know that if they don't, there are citizens who rightfully ask if their church will become the next Mother Emanuel, and they will rightfully strike back in self-defense. Then you've got open warfare in your streets.
When Milo Yiannopoulos or Richard Spencer radicalizes a disturbed young man to walk into a room and start executing innocent people because of their ethnicity, and then Yiannopoulos or Spencer turns around and gives another little talk like the one that set the last mass murderer on his course, the remedy is not "more speech".
Incite... kill.. criticize... incite... kill again... is not a dialog. It's cycle of radicalization, terrorism, and witty repartee followed by more radicalization and MORE terrorism.
Look at the countries that have deported or banned Spencer or Yiannopoulos or banned Nazi political parties. Show me where that censorship led to less freedom. Show me where it led to tyranny. It didn't.
Your premise has been disproved. Over and over and over. They suppress hate speech, they jail Nazis, they shut down terrorist organizations disguised as "political" parties. And then? The real political dialog goes on, the press continues to act as a check on corruption. You said if you don't allow the KKK to march, it's the end of freedom. I showed you this country, and this country, and this one and this one and this one, again and again and again where they didn't let them march, and the outcome you predicted didn't happen. Didn't happen.
How many times does this prediction have to fail before we accept the fact that the prediction is false? It's not an unreasonable prediction. It could have been true, if we didn't know better. But we know better. We've seen the proof. The experiment has been repeated.
My point is to look at how dogmatic Americans can be about rights and freedoms. They get all this crap drilled into them in school and nobody questions it. A rich man can destroy Gawker because of a personal grudge, but we delude ourselves into thinking hate speech and terrorist radicalization are "the price we have to pay" for freedom. The UW administration thinks, dogmatically, in spite of all evidence, that they're making a fucking point by rolling out the red carpet to a terrorist spokesmodel. Sometimes the only price you have to pay for freedom is to use your god damn common sense.
The video doesn't show that. Obviously you're speaking figuratively and I was being literal and you're also extrapolating and insinuating my comments beyond recognition; nevertheless, I find yours quite interesting.
Why not use a "white supremacist", since that's what he so obviously is? Let's call a turd a turd,