Cancel culture

[Gaz]

The argument "BuT yOU sHOuLd REaD bOTh SidES!!!111!" is a dreadful argument, by the way.

I believe in equal rights for BAME people. Why would I need to read something by someone who doesn't to bolster my own viewpoint?

[The_Kincardine]

7 minutes ago, JMDP said:

Absolute NAP that you're about 2 more treble gins away from posting about the DPRS on the indyref2 thread.

Also, it doesn't surprise me to see you make such a reductive, stupid statement. There are over 50 pages on this thread and the arguments have been made extensively - engaging with the nonsense pandarilla linked to from Spiked won't add anything that hasn't already been covered. It's perfectly valid to dismiss it as the bad faith nonsense it is. 

Today's 'shock horror' is discovering that you're a teacher.  You probably are in the same school as @DeeTillEhDehas you are a balanced pair of charmless, brain-dead fuckwits who constantly drone on about my drinking (not that you know anything about it) and repeating the same tired old tropes and neither of you have an original thought in your head.

The article linked to by the estimable @pandarillawas well worth a read and a comment.  That you dislike my comment(s) or even the act of commenting backs up the main assertion of the piece  which is that you can't reason with a boor.  Or, in your case, a bore.

[Shotgun]

Do we have to read the Sun from cover to cover every day before we can claim that it's shite? Or everything written in Pravda before we can criticise the USSR? How about listening to every Ed Sheeran record before we can acknowledge his music to be terrible?

Enough with this crap that we have to read every line of right-wing propaganda just because it's been written. I've heard enough right-wing pigshit to last me a thousand lifetimes. I know what the right-wing has to say and it stinks. I don't need to read everything they produce before I can hold an opinion.

Again; "the left are the enemies of free speech" is just more right-wing bollocks. Those who demand the right to a platform to spew their hate while insisting that nobody be allowed to disagree with them are the enemies of free speech.

"I believe racism is wrong."
"Well, how many articles discussing the benefits of racism have you read?"

f**k
Right
Off 

[JMDP]

6 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

Today's 'shock horror' is discovering that you're a teacher.  You probably are in the same school as @DeeTillEhDehas you are a balanced pair of charmless, brain-dead fuckwits who constantly drone on about my drinking (not that you know anything about it) and repeating the same tired old tropes and neither of you have an original thought in your head.

The article linked to by the estimable @pandarillawas well worth a read and a comment.  That you dislike my comment(s) or even the act of commenting backs up the main assertion of the piece  which is that you can't reason with a boor.  Or, in your case, a bore.

Reductive, stupid and abusive. I can't help that you are too steaming and thick to engage with the points raised by several posters about Spiked and why the article can be dismissed off hand. I love how you think the final line that you have written here is a winner too.

You stick with the "original thought" of the DPRS though. 

Plenty of water, couple of paracetamol and plenty of sleep, brother. 

[The_Kincardine]

13 minutes ago, JMDP said:

Reductive, stupid and abusive. I can't help that you are too steaming and thick to engage with the points raised by several posters about Spiked and why the article can be dismissed off hand. I love how you think the final line that you have written here is a winner too.

You stick with the "original thought" of the DPRS though. 

Plenty of water, couple of paracetamol and plenty of sleep, brother. 

*yawn* have you stopped now?

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

6 hours ago, Gaz said:

The argument "BuT yOU sHOuLd REaD bOTh SidES!!!111!" is a dreadful argument, by the way.

I believe in equal rights for BAME people. Why would I need to read something by someone who doesn't to bolster my own viewpoint?

You can't claim to truly understand the issue until you've taken the time to engage with the KKK and learn their point of view. Perhaps over a nice cross burning.

These last few pages are genuinely nuts. The guy's meant to be teaching kids how to analyse sources for a living!

Edited July 26, 2020 by Genuine Hibs Fan

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

5 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

Today's 'shock horror' is discovering that you're a teacher.  You probably are in the same school as @DeeTillEhDehas you are a balanced pair of charmless, brain-dead fuckwits who constantly drone on about my drinking (not that you know anything about it) and repeating the same tired old tropes and neither of you have an original thought in your head.

The article linked to by the estimable @pandarillawas well worth a read and a comment.  That you dislike my comment(s) or even the act of commenting backs up the main assertion of the piece  which is that you can't reason with a boor.  Or, in your case, a bore.

 

[bennett]

8 hours ago, ali_91 said:

What’s your opinion on JK Rowling getting her lawyers on publications calling out her transphobia? That the left? 

I still can't believe that she got away with saying women menstruate, she truly is vile. 

 

[Guest JTS98]

12 hours ago, MixuFruit said:

Ok here is my proper response.

Spiked is funded by the Koch brother (one of them thankfully died). They have an interest in keeping things hell bent on a hyper capitalist future that will make parts of planet earth uninhabitable for humans in my kids lifetime because ambient temperatures will rise high enough for long enough in summer to denature proteins in living cells.

Any and all attempts to stave this off by attacking capitalism are a mortal threat to these people. One of the important threats they have identified  is a rising level of social democratic and environmentally conscious thought among people under 40. You'll most often see this being expressed by Brendan O'Neill who quite literally writes articles with a template of 'If you thought [thing] was progressive because [person] said it, then get real.'

Nobody buys Spiked. It's kept afloat by Koch cash, as are a dozen other similar outfits with other backers. All designed to inflate a neoliberal doctrine that is not at all popular with normal people. But it all contributes to a cacophony of stuff that shunts enough people away from voting for social democracy to maintain their status quo.

Koch and people like him are to their cores evil people. Clicking a link, reading an article, hearing someone out in the marketplace of ideas connected to them is an act of violence against humanity.

I think you’re a good poster. But this whole response is man not ball. 

[Falcor Roar]

On 22/07/2020 at 22:36, ali_91 said:

Thanks. 

I didn’t say it was absurd to think that holocaust denial should not be criminalised, I said It was an absurd position to defend somebodies right to holocaust deny, a subtle but clear difference.
 

Being such a proponent of free speech that you feel you need to be a signatory to the petition Chomsky put his name to IS an absurd position. I’ve put part of the article below, but it goes miles beyond ‘he shouldn’t be criminalised for his remarks,’ it paints him and his ‘research,’ as legitimate, and is quite clearly inflammatory nonsense. It could maybe be considered a lapse in judgement if he hadn’t subsequently doubled and tripled down on it.

I agree that education is important to stop bigotry in all shapes and sizes, but not criminalising holocaust denial because it might annoy other anti-semites is not a sustainable argument.
 

Your last paragraph is whataboutery. 

Dr. Robert Faurisson has served as a respected professor of twentieth-century French literature and document criticism for over four years at the University of Lyon-2 in France. Since 1974 he has been conducting extensive historical research into the "Holocaust" question.

Since he began making his findings public, Professor Faurisson has been subject to a vicious campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander and physical violence in a crude attempt to silence him. Fearful officials have even tried to stop him from further research by denying him access to public libraries and archives.

 

 

I think it's a strange notion to believe that an advocate for far reaching free speech in the public sphere should care at all about what speech he is defending. The whole point is you're defending all speech, even that to which you vehemently disagree with. He has signed thousands of such petitions without knowing or caring about the cause. He's defended the rights of neo fascists, war criminals, climate change deniers, advocates for nuclear proliferation and so forth. And much of that has a direct consequence in terms of framing policy decisions which are highly destructive. This isn't really controversial, it's to be expected of an anarchist. It's also pretty much a default position for most Americans across much of the political spectrum.

His letter of correspondence which Faurisson used in his book, amongst other points, outlines what we already know as fact, that challenging the established facts of the holocaust isn't directly anti semitic. That's the whole point, these people hide behind a supposed respectable veneer of 'genuine' enquiry. We know and Chomsky later agrees (though he shouldn't have to) that the motive and intention of a holocaust denier is most definitely anti semitic. It's obviously a masquerade. Id advise that his letter to Lawrence k. Kolodny is worth reading with respect to this affair. The point of us discussing the issue is that I do not agree that it was reasonable grounds for a boycott of Chomsky's  work in France. It's also been used as a stick to beat him with by both the right and the authoritarian left which is depressing considering that he is such an important voice in defending marginalised groups across the globe.

I'm not bothered about bothering anti semites, I'm not sure why you've said that. I do repeat the point that the burden of justification for criminalising holocaust denial is with you. Free speech is important. If it's to be rolled back on this issue then we need to know that It will likely be effective. Stamping down upon  such people with the full weight of the law sounds attractive but I'm not convinced it's that easy to destroy, I think that's naive. There may be secondary grounds on the basis of preventing offence but that's secondary to actually preventing anti semitism. 

[NotThePars]

5 hours ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

Morning kincy, hope you're well.

That's a bit of a mischaracterisation of my views tbh - it's more that I know who published it which helps me know how reputable a source it is. It's a sliding scale - I know I mentioned the mail but even it is significantly better than Spiked - at least people are actually buying the mail, there's a constituency for it made up of real people. 

Anyone defending Spiked should be asking themselves why the Kochs throw so much money into artificially boosting debate around nothing issues like cancel culture at a time when a significant majority of the public is demanding action on climate change. Then hopefully they should begin to realise why nobody who pays attention is going to indulge their demands to take anything it publishes seriously. There's a reason why they publish every brain fart contrarian take that Brendan O Neill has and it's not about the spirit of debate or the marketplace of ideas.

Hopefully we manage to avert devastating climate catastrophe and since the Kochs will likely be dead and their failson appears to be a harmless eccentric we will have to settle for giving Brendan the guillotine treatment

Edited July 26, 2020 by NotThePars

[Moomintroll]

2 hours ago, ali_91 said:

I still can’t believe that Adolf Hitler thought that moustache was trendy, he truly is vile. 

If he didn't spend so much time painting, he couldn't have held up his right arm so long, APAB.

[anotherchance]

The argument "BuT yOU sHOuLd REaD bOTh SidES!!!111!" is a dreadful argument, by the way.
I believe in equal rights for BAME people. Why would I need to read something by someone who doesn't to bolster my own viewpoint?

I also agree in equal rights for BAME and other minorities, and I don’t tend to have time for those who don’t.

On other things though which are less set in stone, I prefer to try and get an understanding of where those who hold different opinions are coming from, rather than surrounding myself (wherever possible) with people who almost always share my opinion. The world doesn’t work like that, and it’s especially counterproductive when it comes to winning round people so things like Trump/Brexit/Tory governments happen less - Clinton especially fell into this trap.

I’m with Panda on this one - I read Spiked from time to time and there’s plenty I disagree with. That doesn’t mean that challenges to aspects of how the left behave aren’t legitimate or at least worth debating in a civilised manner. Always find it better to engage with the ideas presented rather than criticise the motives.

I want the left to be strong because I want progressive governments and policies in place. I could greet about the biased media all day every day, but I’d rather we owned our own shit and made ourselves as strong as possible. Sadly, all too often when you challenge people on (what I consider to be) their counterproductive attitudes and behaviours it’s about as welcome as a shite in a swimming pool, and the resulting personals is worse than what I get when I pull Tories up on their shite.

[Miguel Sanchez]

I had never heard of Spiked or Brendan O'Neil until last night. A cursory glance at their respective wikipedia pages quickly made it quite clear that I have no interest in anything they have to say on political or social subjects. 

[invergowrie arab]

Some people are not coming to this culture war shit fresh.

Therefore you will get people (mea culpa) who have done all this shit for years who know the characters, know the tactics and have wasted too many hours and too much energy "debating" over the years. Thats why my reaction to a Spiked article is a simple f**k off. 

I'm sure it sounds rude or aggressive or arrogant but there it is. However, equally, f**k off with your play the man takes too. These people are not good faith actors. They put enough sugar on your shit sandwich to encourage you to take a bite.

Thats why saying "I don't agree with everything but they make good points" makes you folk sound naive. You are being played into sharing some really toxic, dangerous ideologies.

 

 

 

 

[anotherchance]

It isn't challenging the left though. It's challenging what the majority of people believe. For instance on the trans vs terf thing that rages on, polling indicates the majority of men and the majority of women favour self ID etc. It's characterised as challenging the left to make it seem like a niche interest issue to undermine 'calls to cancel' etc.

I agree, in my experiences, most people are pretty much on the “live and let live” side of things.

I think though when it gets down to the complexities/shared space debates then people back off from asking questions/forming further opinions on the subject matter because it’s an absolute shitfest of a debate where so many people seem to be speaking with certainty. I think the tone does the trans community a disservice, because the more consensus you can get, the better.

From my perspective, I think rather than middle aged men screaming at each other online about trans issues, I’d rather trans voices were amplified and retweeted.

I’ve made these types of points to friends previously, and it’s not necessarily the views they don’t like - it’s the fact that I have the temerity to question them.

[tongue_tied_danny]

4 hours ago, ali_91 said:

I still can’t believe that Adolf Hitler thought that moustache was trendy, he truly is vile. 

It was at the time. All the major celebrities of the day like Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy and Hen Broon rocked toothbrush moustaches. 

[Moomintroll]

6 minutes ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

It was at the time. All the major celebrities of the day like Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy and Hen Broon rocked toothbrush moustaches. 

Chaplin was clearly a paragon of virtue, Hardy was dodgy & I knew a henbroonalike nicknamed Toblerone who should still be in the jail for noncery.

[Dunning1874]

Pandarilla was accusing those who disagreed with him of not engaging in good faith earlier in the thread. Then he shares a fucking Spiked article, and everyone who points out the reality of that website are the ones refusing to engage in good faith for not reading the article. The level of naivety on display is painful.

Now we've gone down this road and no reasonable discussion can be salvaged here, I formally declare this a Brendan O'Neill head thread.

[tamthebam]

Is he related to a certain Accies fan? We demand to know!