In a rather well-timed yet coincidental counterpoint to Why we're Losing the Internet to the Culture of Hate, Milo Yiannopoulos over at Breitbart brings us this:
A warped currency today governs popular culture. Instead of creativity, talent and boldness, those who succeed are often those who can best demonstrate outrage, grievance and victimhood.
Even conservatives are buying into it. Witness, in the days since Breitbart executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon was announced as Donald Trump's campaign manager, how establishment stooges have bought into the worst smear-tactics of the left. As with the left, nothing is evaluated on its quality, or whether it's factually accurate, thought-provoking or even amusing: only whether it can be deemed sexist, racist or homophobic.
Campuses are where the illness takes its most severe form. Students running for safe spaces at the slightest hint of a challenge to their coddled worldview. Faculties and administrations desperately trying to sabotage visits from conservative speakers (often me!) to avoid the inevitable complaints from tearful lefty students.
In this maelstrom of grievance, there is one group boldly swimming against the tide: trolls.
Trolling has become a byword for everything the left disagrees with, particularly if it's boisterous, mischievous and provocative. Even straightforward political disagreement, not intended to provoke, is sometimes described as "trolling" by leftists who can't tell the difference between someone who doesn't believe as they do and an "abuser" or "harasser."
Yeah, you knew I wouldn't let that kinda SJW nonsense slide without comment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:58PM
Yes, I absolutely do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @06:01PM
How'd that work out for your ancestors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:18PM
What, you mean being able to speak their mind freely? Worked out fine until recently when the libtard fuckwads decided free speech was only for them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:17AM
Look at buzzard pretending the trail of tears didn't happen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 22 2016, @02:24AM
My ancestors were warriors. They may have died but at least they didn't whine about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:08AM
> My ancestors were warriors. They may have died but at least they didn't whine about it.
True or not, its a non-sequitor.
They are dead because speech convinced the us government that killing them - men, women, children - for their land was perfectly OK.
Haven't you ever wondered why free speech is so important? What's the point?
So what if a bunch of people talk to each other or not. What difference does it make?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 22 2016, @02:41PM
No, I have never wondered why free speech is important. It's been self-evident ever since I can remember.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:50AM
Did you just say that the people who were force marched off their land and themselves chose to call that forced march "The Trail of Tears and Death" did not whine about it?
They didn't name it "The Happy Fun Trail" did they? I'm pretty sure those weren't tears of joy, they literally named it for the act of crying.
Just how deep is your denial buzzard?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 22 2016, @02:35PM
Walk a thousand miles, you're entitled to bitch that your feet hurt a time or two. What you're not entitled to do is bitch that an ancestor you never met and no living family member remembers had a hard time of it. That's called being an entitled, whiny, little bitch.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:20PM
The way I like to present that point of view to liberals is to suggest that Trump will become president and then it will be they who will be marginalized and up against the wall; and that's why all people must stand for even speech they find repugnant.
Suppose that Trump does win, and the present militant form of "political correctness," becomes as undesirable as racism and sexism are now - if those people had formerly stood for free speech, then there would be little or no backlash. One of the best windfalls of a Trump victory would be to see the swift backlash against the P.C. mass-insanity that's been plaguing America for the past 8-ish years.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:39PM
Absolutely? "Only Sith and Buzzards deal in absolutes." Qui Gon Jinn, Jedi Master.
The issue is not about free speech. It is about being an ass. And technically, being an ass means having no sensitivity to context.
An instance: Once upon a time, a German University invited an American Philosophy professor to give a talk. Students occupied the lecture hall, blocked access, and the professor was not able to speak. Censorship? Maybe. But context means that details matter.
The professor was Peter Singer, a well-known advocate of animal rights, and proponent of Utilitarianism. His talk was to be making an argument for euthanasia for those born with severe defects, with the idea it would be cruel to prolong a life that held no prospect for happiness, and only promised more pain. With provisos, philosophically this in an argument an ethicist could make. So why did the students shut him down?
Germany. The policy of eugenics did not only mean the termination of Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and Communists, it practiced the killing of the mentally or physically deformed as well. There is a great scene in "Life is Beautiful", where a mother is complaining about a homework problem given to her child, calculating the cost of keeping a developmentally retarded person alive versus terminating them: "How they can expect a child to do math this complicated!" For Singer to attempt to give a talk on this topic, in post-Nazi Germany, bespeaks a complete lack of understanding of context. Political Correctness? Damn right, you do not give a speech like this in Germany, it is too soon, and many never not be.
Of course Singer complained, accusing German students of not having sufficiently learned the value of free speech in academia. I was just wondering why he was such an ass.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:20PM
Ar, you're your own contradiction. Without free speech, you couldn't say such foolish shit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:42PM
Ha ha, Buzz! Made you listen! Be more careful in the future.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:49PM
Well, you know, I was going through all my replies and you were in there, so I thought what the hell...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:43AM
So because a philosophical argument made some Germans uncomfortable, they took it on themselves to decide that nobody should be allowed to hear the argument?
Yeah, Germany is full of authoritarian assholes. Some things never change.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:32AM
So because a philosophical argument made some Germans uncomfortable,
Just don't get it, do we? No, not a matter of discomfort. A matter of moral responsibility. Germans are better at this than Americans, though at great cost. They are ashamed at having accepted such arguments in the past, and now will not stand to have anyone make the same argument again, having seen first hand where it goes. Context, ass. Or as realtors say, location, location, location. We see your location, ass.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:42PM
Germany, it is too soon, and many never not be.
So the feelings of a bunch of teens, who have never had anything bad happen to them, are more important than humans rights and correct medical care for the most vulnerable demographics?
I am sorry, but fuck you. This is the same thinking that the Nazi's used to dismiss this same societal group to unimportance. Feelings never trump Human Rights, I would not change that opinion even if the coddled teens were replaced with Holocaust survivors.