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posted by janrinok on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-don't-agree-with-it,-but-I-will-defend-your-right-to-say-it dept.

[janrinok] For those of you who do not want to read about the 'extremes' of US politics (alt-right or left-wing) I suggest that you skip this story and wait for the next one. If you feel that we shouldn't publish any story that does not accord with your own, probably less extreme, views then perhaps you should remind yourself that we try to give everyone in our community the benefit of free speech and we do not intentionally censor or promote any particular view or political leaning. Of course, you are welcome to contribute your own comments in the subsequent discussion that will follow.

This MSNBC Guest Just Showed Why The Intellectual Dark Web Exists

On Tuesday, The New York Times’ Bari Weiss appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss her new in-depth piece on the so-called Intellectual Dark Web – an agglomeration of thinkers from all sides of the political aisle who have been cast out by political correctness and now converse with one another regularly and publicly (full disclosure: I’m a charter member, along with friends including Sam Harris, Eric Weinstein, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, and others). The entire premise of the IDW is that many on the Left refuse to acknowledge good-natured disagreement; instead, all disagreement must be due to nefarious evil on the part of those who disagree.

Proving the point on MSNBC was guest Eddie Glaude Jr., chair at the Center for African-American Studies at Princeton. When Weiss cited the discussions between me and Sam as evidence for the diversity of the movement, Glaude responded, “What allows you to describe these folks as intellectuals of sort? Let me say it differently. They’re connected intellectually by what common commitments? So you might have different ideological spaces, but when you talk about Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro in one sentence, I can see the connection between those two.” Weiss responded, logically enough, “Which is?” And Glaude explained:

Having something to do with how they think about race, having something to do with how they think about diversity in the country and the ways in which diversity is talked about, right? The way in which they think about political correctness. Weiss responded, “Yeah, they’re anti-identity politics, for sure.”

To which Glaude launched into a full defense of identity politics: “Identity politics is a phrase that kind of is a red herring. Identity politics is just simply questions of justice, right?”

At this point, Joe Scarborough jumped in and hit the nail directly on the head:

Eddie, you have just made Bari Weiss's point, that you disagree with the way Bari Weiss views the world, so you're going to help her view the world more the way you view the world. The entire purpose of the exercise is to have honest conversations with people, and to not question their morality, or their wisdom just because they don't view the world exactly the same way that you do.

The "Intellectual Dark Web," Explained: What Jordan Peterson has in Common with the Alt-Right

Bari Weiss, an opinion writer and editor at the New York Times, created a stir this week with a long article on a group that calls itself the "Intellectual Dark Web." The coinage referred to a loose collective of intellectuals and media personalities who believe they are "locked out" of mainstream media, in Weiss's words, and who are building their own ways to communicate with readers.

The thinkers profiled included the neuroscientist and prominent atheist writer Sam Harris, the podcaster Dave Rubin, and University of Toronto psychologist and Chaos Dragon maven Jordan Peterson.

Some assertions in the piece deserved the ridicule. But Weiss accurately captured a genuine perception among the people she is writing about (and, perhaps, for). They do feel isolated and marginalized, and with some justification. However, the reasons are quite different from those suggested by Weiss. She asserts that they have been marginalized because of their willingness to take on all topics and their determination not to "[parrot] what's politically convenient."

The truth is rather that dark web intellectuals, like Donald Trump supporters and the online alt-right, have experienced a sharp decline in their relative status over time. This is leading them to frustration and resentment.

[janrinok] And another contribution from Ari reviews Amanda Marcotte's new book:

Birth of a "Troll Nation": Amanda Marcotte on How and Why Conservatives Embraced the Dark Side

Interview at Salon with author Amanda Marcotte:

I had no role in editing Amanda Marcotte's new book, which bears the amusing and highly appropriate title, "Troll Nation: How the Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set on Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself." None of it previously appeared in Salon, to be clear;

But "Troll Nation" is not about the election of Donald Trump. Amanda and I have certain areas of cheerfully-expressed political disagreement, but I think we share the view that Trump was the culmination of a long process, or is the most visible symptom of a widespread infection. Amanda's analysis is, as always, calm, sharp-witted and clearly focused on available evidence. American conservatives, she says, used to make rational arguments and used to present a positive social vision. Did those arguments make sense, in the end? Did that "Morning in America" vision of the Reagan years conceal a vibrant undercurrent of bigotry?

[...] How we got from the supercilious, upper-crust conservatism of William F. Buckley Jr., the dictionary definition of an elitist -- the dude could read and write Latin, for God's sake -- to the delusional ignorance of Alex Jones and #Pizzagate, the small-minded hatred of Charlottesville and the unquenchable thirst for "liberal tears" is one of the darkest mysteries of our time. It's also the story of "Troll Nation."


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2Original Submission #3

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:32AM (14 children)

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:32AM (#679092)

    I find it funny that these people get thrown in with the alt-right, or even traditional conservatism. All of the named people in the article and summary support universal healthcare, and some form of wealth redistribution to address growing inequality in an increasingly automated capitalist economy. Jordan Peterson, often thought of as a Christian conservative, is on video stating that he isn't even sure that the Resurrection is a literal historical fact.

    These people aren't far-right radicals, they aren't even conservatives.

    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:35AM (1 child)

      by Arik (4543) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:35AM (#679095) Journal
      And on the other side, there's nothing liberal about todays 'progressive left' either.
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by BK on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:16PM

        by BK (4868) on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:16PM (#679240)

        Therefore a wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.
        — Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince"

        --
        ...but you HAVE heard of me.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by xhedit on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:38AM (8 children)

      by xhedit (6669) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:38AM (#679098)

      What they are is people who don't agree with the progressive left. Everyone who doesn't agree with that particular orthodoxy got thrown in together, whether it's old lefties, libertarians, moderate republicans, whatever. You'd think progressives would ally with old lefties on economic issues, with libertarians on social issues, and on that trump is a twat with moderate republicans, but instead it's "YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME AT LEAST 90%, FUCK OFF" and a real shame.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:42AM (7 children)

        by Arik (4543) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:42AM (#679101) Journal
        It really is a cult. There are mantras that you must repeat, rituals you must honor, to be seen as one of them, and frankly you could probably agree with them on every substantive political issue and still get called a nazi and sucker punched with a bike chain if you don't get those right.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @02:59PM (5 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @02:59PM (#679195)

          All that can be mirrored back on the alt right types as well. Extremism sucks, stop reinforcing the divisions.

          • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:37PM

            by Arik (4543) on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:37PM (#679206) Journal
            "All that can be mirrored back on the alt right types as well."

            Yes, I've said that repeatedly.

            I'm not going to turn it into a mindless mantra that gets repeated along with everything else I say though. I reserve the right to criticize all these idiots individually as well as severally, without having to ritually condemn other groups in the same breath.

            If I concentrate on the regressive left more it's simply because they're the ones that are sometimes given credibility and indeed praise. No one likes the nazis, so there's less real need to talk about what's wrong with nazis? you know, I think everyone already has a fairly good idea what's wrong with nazis. I don't talk about that much because (fortunately!) I don't need to talk about that so much.

            Now one of the things I fear most about what they're doing now, with the situation in the US now; which has some uncomfortable parallels with what was going on with Germany back in the early 30s or thereabouts; well historically tone-deaf violent leftist extremists were quite the 'useful idiots' for the (actual) Nazis. And I'm very much afraid we are seeing that happen again here. So there will probably be more need to talk about why the Nazis are bad in the future, unfortunately, and I'm aware of that.

            But setting is both time and place, now and here on Soylent is the setting, and we're currently knee deep in Che Guevara wannabe's who think old liberals like myself are 'nazis.' You wanna talk about how bad nazis are? There are one or two trolls that will have fun with you and everyone else yawns and moves on to the next post. Water is wet. Sheepdogs protect sheep. Han shot first. Tell me something I didn't know.

            On the other hand seeing the decline of what passes for a left wing in this country is actually something I find worthy of comment.

            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
          • (Score: 2, Redundant) by jmorris on Sunday May 13 2018, @04:58PM (3 children)

            by jmorris (4844) on Sunday May 13 2018, @04:58PM (#679224)

            Get on Gab and find out how wrong you are. The Alt-Right is a far more diverse and intellectually open movement than the Left. We got hard core Christians (both Catholic and Protestant of course), Odinists, militant Atheists and somehow (don't ask me) a few oddball Jews. We got both ironic and (I think) serious flat earthers, creationists, we got socialists, Nazis (ironic and serious), anarchists, minarchists, monarchists, libertarians, reactionaries, neoreactionaries, both feminists and anti-feminists. We all seem to agree on one thing, the world the Left made has went wrong. If you actually want to discuss ideas without worrying about being banhammered it is the place to be.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:51PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:51PM (#679302)

              Get on Gab and find out how wrong you are.

              Why should we take such advice, when it very clearly did no such thing for you, jmorris?

              • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @09:52PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @09:52PM (#679323)

                Shoot, was going to mod you flamebait, but I somehow blew through all my mod points after modding up jmorris. He doesn't speak the same language many of us do, but he is absolutely correct. Neoliberal imperialist capitalism has brought society to the breaking point. That is perhaps best evinced by a trans woman/advanced infiltrator/lizard person (I think I hit all the keywords there) modding him up.

                Your comments are contributing nothing. All you're accomplishing is showing the rest of us that you are a brownshirt.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @07:11PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @07:11PM (#679726)

              hey so seriously -- where would conservative jews go, besides the few oddballs?

              it seems that gab attracts 'right leaning' people, either born that way or learned to lean that way. religion is just a part of ones worldview (except for those that make it their entire view).

              you make it look like moderate conservatives wouldn't fit in there.

              i know plenty of people that think to the right but don't want to associate with some of the people they see on the right. probably more so than those i know leaning left, who tend to be much more relaxed than specifically liberal.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by VLM on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:12PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:12PM (#679356)

          and still get called a nazi and sucker punched with a bike chain if you don't get those right.

          Very imaginative. The NRX people and the national socialist people and the alt-Lite people mercilessly tease each other when visiting "the other side's" podcasts or being discussed in right wing podcasts or other right wing media, which is a bit short of the sucker punch with a bike chain. The only people sucker punching with a bike chain are leftists.

          There's a tendency to try to argue from the middle, but I'm on the right, enjoy right wing media, and nothing of what you claim happens on the right, trust me I'd have seen it personally, if its out there.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @01:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @01:26PM (#679176)

      I find it funny that these people get thrown in with the alt-right, or even traditional conservatism

      Ben Shapiro, the author of the first piece is a conservative. The yarmulke was possibly the biggest indicator to the far-left about his Nazi sympathies, he was also (according to the ADL in 2016) the main target of online anti-semitic abuse from the alt-right. The Weinstein brothers, Jonathon Haidt, Stephen Pinker, Sam Harris, Yaron Brook, Milo Yianopolis ... the far-left are busy working on a final solution to the problem of Jewish intellectual Nazi prominence in public life; perhaps they will end this privilege by making them all wear identifying badges?

      Still with the smears, calling anyone south of what Bret Weinstein calls the "Left Pole" a fascist and a Nazi. Meanwhile the residents of this Left Pole are the ones pushing identity politics and "social justice" which seek to persecute based on race, creed and any other characteristics the far-left can capitalise on by maligning as hate targets. The reason the far-left hate the Intellectual Dark Web is because they created this platform by deplatforming and slandering the participants.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by crafoo on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:04PM (1 child)

      by crafoo (6639) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:04PM (#679226)

      They're pretty much classical liberals that believe in freedom, self-expression, and critical reasoning. That makes them enemies of the regressive left. Applying critical reasoning is directly counter to post-modernism philosophy. It doesn't hold up under careful consideration. So they must label these people as "evil" and shout down their arguments. They have no real counterargument other than "my feelings, my victimhood".

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:21PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:21PM (#679360)

        freedom, self-expression, and critical reasoning

        Hard to believe after centuries those are far right viewpoints.

        What always happens toward the end of dominance of a civilizational outlook, is everything useful is not self evident to everyone, so even the rebels hold values like "freedom" and all the legacy civilization has that it solely owns only by itself will by definition be freakshow, so "muh feelings" and street violence is all the left has in 2018 because any idea they had that was any good in, say, 1776, has been co-opted away such that everyone holds it, more or less.

        Adding to the fun is "everything goes leftward with time" because as adult supervision is grossed out and leaves for newer cleaner greener pastures, what remains goes further and further left because only the left is "left" behind. Excluding population growth of course, look at something even as simple as white flight from cities, Detroit, perhaps. Its not that Detroit went left wing because of invasions, its that everyone sane with the ability to leave ran like hell for the burbs, leaving behind clown world that only gets crazier the more sane people leave. See also, music, "hollywood", academia, legacy dying media, social media, The Boy Scouts, etc...

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jb on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:17AM (3 children)

    by jb (338) on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:17AM (#679107)

    How we got from the supercilious, upper-crust conservatism of William F. Buckley Jr., the dictionary definition of an elitist -- the dude could read and write Latin, for God's sake...

    Since when does reading & writing Latin make someone elitist? Everyone in my second form class could do that (and some of them struggled with basic arithmetic)

    What's next? Anyone with a half-decent education gets branded as elitist?

    Hmm, that rings a bell -- sounds a lot like what went on in China during Chairman Mao's "cultural revolution".

    Oh dear, I've just admitted to knowing more than zero about modern history -- I guess that makes me an "elitist" by these bozos' bizarre definition too ... must be time to go look for the West's equivalent of Taiwan...

    • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:08PM (2 children)

      by crafoo (6639) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:08PM (#679228)

      Post-modernism is directly counter to intellectual thought. It's about dividing people along (mostly arbitrary) social lines and ranking them in some sort of hierarchy. Those higher in the hierarchy have, by definition of their system, more valuable insight and opinions which trump those lower in the hierarchy. It is directly opposed to critical reasoning and objective reality. Most sane people have at least some sort of issue with this "reasoning" when they first encounter it. Unless of course, they have been fed this post-modernism philosophy throughout schooling since childhood. Essentially programmed to self-destruct modern society.

      • (Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:22PM

        by Post-Nihilist (5672) on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:22PM (#679361)

        Essentially programmed to self-destruct modern society.

        that the whole point of the postmodernist aesthetic, a nihilistic skepticism towards the Great Western narrative... that philosophical mouvement crystalized in may 1968...
          It is mostly out of fashion and academia is now writing about metamodernism :

        a "structure of feeling" that oscillates between modernism and postmodernism like "a pendulum swinging between…innumerable poles".

        --
        Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
      • (Score: 2) by jb on Monday May 14 2018, @05:48AM

        by jb (338) on Monday May 14 2018, @05:48AM (#679436)

        It's about dividing people along (mostly arbitrary) social lines and ranking them in some sort of hierarchy. Those higher in the hierarchy have, by definition of their system, more valuable insight and opinions which trump those lower in the hierarchy. It is directly opposed to critical reasoning and objective reality.

        Sounds a lot like feudalism...

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:30AM (24 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:30AM (#679109) Journal

    The right has it's problems. The biggest problem is it's assortment of radical right people. There really are ultra-righties who should have been drowned when they were pups. But, the left has problems just as big, just as bad.

    I question the rationality of any left leaning people who buy into those identity politics. I have a friend who is black. The man says he has to vote Democrat, for various reasons. He simply does not understand that he is being manipulated. Well, not him individually, but as part of a voting block, he is being manipulated. “ I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” Lyndon Baines Johnson about the Great Society plan. Unsourced quote floating around the internet for years.

    While that quote may or may not be completely accurate, LBJ said a lot of other things that definitely support the quote. In short, they toss the Negro a few crumbs here and there, to make the Negro believe the party cares about them - then screw him over. Who were some of our more "Law and Order" presidents? I'll point to Clinton, who signed laws that put more black people into prison. Those damned progressives can be credited with creating single mother black families.

    Identity politics. That shit undermines everything that America is about. They've shitcanned the concept of the American Melting Pot, and instead, decided to keep the nation divided based on trivial bullshit. They don't WANT America to put it's bad history behind it. They intend to milk slavery for all of eternity. It might make sense to someone, but a divided country won't last very long. The idiots are putting themselves out of a job.

    Righties going underground? Wow. And, these aren't even the most extreme righties. If anything, the extreme righties are fighting to come out, and go mainstream. Instead, we have more moderate righties going underground, so that they may have intelligent discussions. That is well and truly fucked up.

    If you lefties can't understand that you are becoming the next generation of terrorists, there is something wrong with your heads. A terrorist INTENDS that his disapproval can cause people to think and talk as he desires. And, that is precisely where you are going. You fully intend that calling a person a Nazi will silence him/her. Or, misogynist, or capitalist, or any of a dozen other names you bandy about. The merest show of disapproval can and does silence a lot of people, depending on the auience, and the venue.

    As much as I disapprove of America's "right", the far left truly disgusts me. It plays at politics, and plays at manipulating people, while dreaming of a "better world". But, it's so fucking STUPID that it can't possibly understand where it is really going.

    Marx, Lenin, and Stalin would be truly proud of our far left idiots, if they could see them. Disgusting, useless shits.

    How about some of you moderate lefties? Why can't you understand where your leadership is taking you? Stand up, and be counted. Let's stop pushing Black (Mexicans, women, or whoever you happen to be most concerned about) into their own ghettos. Let's reach out and bring them into the mainstream. Let's help them UP, instead of relegating them to the ghettos. That infamous high-school to prison thing has been carefully engineered, by your own far left leaders. Stand up and put them out of business.

    You moderate left people should be joining the righties in their underground lairs. You are the ones who can offer rational discourse. Your leaders are incapable of doing so. They are ideologues, no less than the ulra-right righties.

    Don't forget that the DNC was hijacked, to silence the American left. They decided to silence you at the polls, and to force an unwanted candidate on you. Bernie was shut out, Clinton was ushered in like a queen, despite the left's wishes. Wake up and smell the coffee, people. The moderate right is more like you than the far left. Join them - talk to them. Together, you can shut out the extremists at both ends of the spectrum.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:26AM (17 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:26AM (#679119)

      Err, the problem is that you have Nazis on the right now ... so how should black people vote?? With party that doesn't care especially about that *or* for a party that has members that chant "white America".

      If anything, the extreme righties are fighting to come out, and go mainstream. Instead, we have more moderate righties going underground, so that they may have intelligent discussions. That is well and truly fucked up.

      No shit it's fucked up. America has very quickly cascaded down from "leader of the world" to "Russia wanna-be". Pax Americana is close to over. Maybe it will take 1 more "administration" like that "beautiful" one you have now.

      As much as I disapprove of America's "right", the far left truly disgusts me. It plays at politics, and plays at manipulating people, while dreaming of a "better world". But, it's so fucking STUPID that it can't possibly understand where it is really going.

      Thanks for the nice discussion. Very illuminating examples.

      Let me give you a nice summary of how ideology plays along. "Identity politics" is a far-right invention. Far-left invention is "class warfare" politics. For the left, if you are poor you are in the same class no matter what your skin colour. Be that white, black or whatever. For the right, it's not so easy. The left talks about ideals and laws that apply equally to everyone. On the right, you don't have laws that apply equally - just see how police is always the "good guys" no matter what the circumstances.

      Also, don't bring up Stalin. He was as much "left" wing as any other vanilla dictator that only cared about himself. Stalin had no ideology and was only playing the system.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:47AM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:47AM (#679123)

        In order to "have Nazis on the right", the situation has to be like 1930s Germany, with the only serious alternative being communism. All of mainstream politics in the USA is far right of Nazi stuff.

        Nazis favored gun control. (needed if you want to kill Jews) Who in the USA endorses gun control today?

        Just as Hitler started with euthanasia of disabled people, the UK is doing it today. (Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans) These children were both prohibited from seeking medical care in other countries. The UK's socialized healthcare system wanted them dead. Alfie took 4 days to starve. Who is it in the USA that endorses socialized medicine?

        Hitler found capitalism's judgement of man by paycheck to be unseemly. He opposed capitalism. He wanted socialism instead. What USA party tolerates this view?

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:55AM (4 children)

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:55AM (#679130) Journal

          The Charlie Gard case was a best interests case in 2017 involving Charles Matthew William Gard (4 August 2016 – 28 July 2017), an infant boy from London, born with mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS), a rare genetic disorder that causes progressive brain damage and muscle failure. MDDS has no treatment and usually causes death in infancy. The case became controversial because the medical team and parents disagreed about whether experimental treatment was in the best interests of the child.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Gard_case [wikipedia.org]

          The Alfie Evans case was a legal case in 2018 involving Alfie Evans (9 May 2016 – 28 April 2018), an infant boy from Liverpool with an undiagnosed neurodegenerative disorder.[1] The medical team and the child's parents disagreed about whether to maintain Evans' life support or to withdraw it, resulting in a legal battle. Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust sought a declaration that continued ventilatory support was "unkind and inhumane", and not in Evans' best interests. Alfie's parents, Kate James and Thomas Evans, resisted the application.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_Evans_case [wikipedia.org]

          Alfie took 4 days to starve.

          No - he didn't starve, he continued to be fed until his death. You are simply trying to put a convincing argument by claiming an emotional lie as a fact. He was unable to breath without assistance.

          The UK's socialized healthcare system wanted them dead

          Wrong again - the NHS could not judge in this matter. Arguments were presented in the High Court, and several appeals were allowed in both cases to ensure that all facts were known and considered. It was the High Court that judged that neither child would enjoy any quality of life and that prolonging life would be causing unnecessary suffering with no hope of a cure. The High Court eventually ordered that life support could be withdrawn in the best interests of the child in each case.

          The 'medical support' being offered from overseas in the case of Alfie Evans was not a cure nor even a palliative treatment. It was simply to provide for assisted breathing.

          In the Charlie Gard case the courts and medical experts eventually agreed that the 'experimental treatment' offered no hope of a cure:

          Charlie's parents still wanted to try the experimental treatment and raised funds for a transfer to a hospital in New York. In February 2017, GOSH asked the High Court to override the parents' decision, questioning the potential of nucleoside therapy to treat Charlie's condition. The British courts supported GOSH's position. The parents appealed the case to the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. The decision of the court at first instance was upheld at each appeal. In July 2017, after receiving a letter signed by several international practitioners defending the potential of the treatment and claiming to provide new evidence, GOSH applied to the High Court for a new hearing.[5]:9 Dr Hirano visited Charlie at GOSH during the second hearing of the case at the request of the judge. After examining scans of Charlie's muscles, Hirano determined it was too late for the treatment to help Charlie and the parents agreed to the withdrawal of life support. GOSH refuted Hirano's statement that it was too late for the treatment. GOSH maintained its position throughout that Charlie's condition had deteriorated by January to the extent that the proposed experimental treatment was futile.

          [Emphasis mine in all instances]

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday May 13 2018, @09:04AM

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @09:04AM (#679132) Journal

            Sorry - I should explain that GOSH is the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. It is a specialist children's hospital.

            Note also that the rulings were upheld by the Appeals Courts, the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights in the Charlie Gard case, and by the Appeals Courts and Supreme Court in the Alfie Evans case.

          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @02:16PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @02:16PM (#679188)

            What is strange to me is the altering of these children's stories so to prove some point of government wants to kill kids. Adding in pure lies or leaving out subtle truths. Both with an end goal. The state wants to harm us.

            All the while guns in America are killing children with far less complicated health issues. Most of them healthy enough to be killed at school.

            But just like the left can't give an inch in abortion the right can't give an inch on guns. And so we get these weird twists in truth.

            • (Score: 4, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:07PM (1 child)

              by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:07PM (#679227) Journal

              I'm a lefty and Pro2A. Leaving aside the actual statistical rarity of being killed by a rifle in America, I always find it shocking that virtually every gun control measure has exceptions for police and national guard (rooted in a collective 2A worldview no doubt) when these groups have ever been the tools of oligarchy. Only 100 years ago, Rockefeller Jr was paying the Colorado NG troops' salaries when they burned down a miners' encampment (the miners had been evicted from the Company Town) and in the process incinerated 11 kids and 2 women. They fired machine guns at the encampment. They shot the leader of the miners in the back during a negotiating session after beating him over the head with a rifle so severely the rifle stock broke.

              Please explain how it is a progressive value to ebsyre that the tools of oligarchy are the only group who should have access to self-defense when most often, those Tools use those weapons offensively.

              On the Ludlow Massacre: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-ludlow-massacre-still-matters [newyorker.com]

        • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:26AM (1 child)

          by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:26AM (#679161)

          > Just as Hitler started with euthanasia of disabled people, the UK is doing it today. (Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans) These children were both prohibited from seeking medical care in
          > other countries. The UK's socialized healthcare system wanted them dead. Alfie took 4 days to starve. Who is it in the USA that endorses socialized medicine?

          The UK, and it is far from alone in this, has a legal system where the courts can decide what is or is not in the interests of an individual who cannot give consent. Simple demographics says most such individuals are children. Some parents think they are the sole arbiter of a child's consent, but it is much more complicated than that in law, and courts can and do overrule parents in the interests of the child.

          Note: the courts. In every case. Not the doctors, not the "socialized healthcare system".

          Now, personally, I think that in a health system with limited resources where people do actually die because of limited intensive care availability, when the consensus is that there is no more that medical science can do it is time to say goodbye and get off the ventilator so it is there for someone else who needs it for a week or two to actually have a chance to recover and live. It's fine to believe in miracles, but if they do happen then they can happen without ventilators and did happen before we had ventilators, so leave the ventilator for someone who doesn't need a miracle.

          In the USA of course, and some other places, no one really cares as long as someone is paying the bill. See how long the life support stays plugged in if the bill isn't paid. But then I guess in some world views that is fine, because Hitler wouldn't have liked it...

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:11PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:11PM (#679198)

            That is why EVERYONE should have a document that specifies their care in the event of being unable to speak for themselves. Parents should have one for their children too. If the parents and children are both in a state where they cannot make decisions, then these documents will speak for them.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:34AM (8 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:34AM (#679129) Journal

        Nazis, then or now, aren't "right". They are racists. They pretend to be superior to all other races - black or brown, American or Australian natives, Persian or Arab - they are the world's ubermensch, and everyone else is inferior. That isn't exactly left or right. Most of the right despises Nazis - it is the left that has driven Nazis closer to the right, and/or the right closer to the Nazis. In the 1940's almost everyone in America were united in opposition to Nazis. Their views are not the views of the right. You'll get nowhere in a rational discussion trying to say Nazis fit into the mainstream right.

        I can't imagine how you can say that identity politics is a right invention. It is the left who caters to CAIR, to illegal aliens, the blacks, and everyone else who isn't part of the right. Republicans didnt' invent that crap. Lefties say, "You're a victim, let us help you out, just vote for us!" Righties, on the other hand, seldom address that "victim" bullshit. If they do address it, it's more like, "Yeah, our grandparents did some shitty things to your grandparents. Let's get over that, and make money. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Capitalists don't give two shits about identity - they like money, and they'll cooperate with the devil to make more money.

        Stalin? I don't much know or care what his personal ideology was - but socialists most certainly enabled him to commit his crimes against humanity. Socialists, or communists, handed him most of Europe to desecrate. Socialists put him in power, and kept him in power. And, socialists today are working toward that same kind of atmosphere, right here in the US of A. What's more, their last candidate in the presidential election could very well have become a modern day Stalin. That psychopathic witch can and does justify everything. It was alright to sell fissionable material to the Russians, then the Russians became the Great Boogeyman, allied with that vast right conspiracy. The woman is every bit as insane as Stalin was.

        I really don't believe that you are firmly rooted in reality. Stalin, Hitler, and every other psychopath who has carved a place in history, remain in history as object lessons. But, many of us refuse to learn those lessons.

        Ask yourself, "How can America become a modern day Soviet?" Then, look at our "left" wing of American politics. As the other AC who answered you has already pointed out, Democrats are clamoring for gun control right now. It is well established that every oppressive regime goes after the weapons first. They want a population that cannot fight back when they expose their real intentions.

        I'm not asking you to trust the right. I'm just asking that you take a damned good look at our left. They truly are despicable - deplorable even. The right will exploit you at every opportunity, but they aren't out to kill anyone. The left is constantly telling us that Whitey needs to die, white hetero males first, then whoever else they decide upon.

        • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:09PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:09PM (#679196)

          You cray cray broheim.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Bobs on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:25PM (5 children)

          by Bobs (1462) on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:25PM (#679241)

          I can't imagine how you can say that identity politics is a right invention. It is the left who caters to CAIR, to illegal aliens, the blacks, and everyone else who isn't part of the right. Republicans didnt' invent that crap. Lefties say, "You're a victim, let us help you out, just vote for us!" Righties, on the other hand, seldom address that "victim" bullshit. If they do address it, it's more like, "Yeah, our grandparents did some shitty things to your grandparents. Let's get over that, and make money. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Capitalists don't give two shits about identity - they like money, and they'll cooperate with the devil to make more money.

          Runaway, sometimes you say things I agree with, but, in terms of identify politics, the Right-wing has embraced it as way to motivate voters in the US, and the left is responding to that. While identity politics has a long, complicated history in the the USA for both/most political parties the left has basically taken it up in response to the explicit calls from right-wing groups in recent decades to diminish non-white males:

          The point is, the GOP has actively targets groups by their identify, and in response the Democrats/Left have raised it as a unifying issue for their various groups. Has the reaction sometimes gone too far? Sometimes, but there are always a few idiots in every group.

          It is clear the right-wing has tried to demonize all sorts of groups in order to scare people into voting Republican, and this has tuned identity politics into a rallying cry for the left in opposition.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:49PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:49PM (#679271)

            My life long I opposed the republican party for the racist, ad hominem demagogues harbored within.
            I will not tolerate the democratic party going down the same path of racist, sexist discourse.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:06PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:06PM (#679283)

              Fair enough, but people need to realize the reality of how we've gotten where we are. It does no good to yell about a particular evil if you ignore the cause of it.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:08PM (1 child)

              Best of luck to you at retaking your party. Sincerely.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @04:51AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @04:51AM (#679423)

                It would take a lot of luck - whatever you may think of Sanders, I thought he was the best hope for the country.

                But the democrats were never my party. I tended to favor them because racist and religious claptrap did not originate among them, as much as it did with the republicans.

                And I am young enough to not remember when the republicans were the "party of Lincoln". But I remember when there were quite a few economic liberals still there, before the Norquistas and the tea partiers pushed most of them out. Trump strikes me as one of those, so I'm not too unhappy he is president.

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 14 2018, @07:33AM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 14 2018, @07:33AM (#679461) Journal

            Thanks for the response.

            The Southern Strategy? Odd - the biggest racists during reconstruction were Democrats. And, because the R's were trying to turn racist D's into R's, they get demonized for it. Ohhh-kay. Worse, everyone has forgotten that the D's were racists back then. Can we agree what you will never get a fair and balanced account of reconstruction from either a D or an R partisan? As a non-partisan, I might make a more fair and balanced story of it - if I were to take the time to work it all out, and put it into print.

            War on Drugs? Are you suggesting that maybe Democrats have never gone the "Law and Order" route? Bill Clinton did that. Hillary is famous for an interview in which she supported Law and Order - as well as making some truly asinine comments about the slave labor taking care of the Arkansas governor's mansion. But, Dems are usually forgiven for those transgressions, because they blame it all on Republicans. Nixon, you say? The "war on drugs", or more accurately, the "war on marijuana" began about 7 years before Nixon was even born. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron.html [pbs.org] That page fails to note one important event that should be in the timeline: Prison for Profit was born in the closing years of World War Two. It was Roosevelt who approved of the idea of incarcerating huge numbers of black males to keep the black population under control. And, Truman was right on board with the idea of controlling the blacks, so the unofficial policy stayed in force after Roosevelt's death. But, again, the Democrat(s) responsible can be dismissed, ignored, and/or forgiven. But, DAMN, politics are dirty!

            Homosexuality? My opinions have been posted on Soylent many times. I can't find a lot of fault with the R position. The D's, on the other hand, are happy to exploit homosexuals, just as they exploit blacks, and every other splinter group in - or even out of - this country.

            Trump targets? The D's interpret stuff however they want, we know that. In point of fact, Trump "targeted" people from known terrorist producing countries. Those countries tend to be populated by non-white and non-Christian people. Go ahead, turn that into an attack on brown people. It works for the D's.

            While I disagree with you, you've given me some food for though. Especially with the southern strategy thing. There really wasn't a "good" side in that issue when it comes to politics.

        • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 14 2018, @04:01AM

          by Arik (4543) on Monday May 14 2018, @04:01AM (#679408) Journal
          There's that to worry about, and then the other hand too. The serious neo-nazi type groups that were virtually extinct *do* seem to be experiencing something of a resurgence (even if both they and their mortal enemies exaggerate this for their own reasons there does seem to be real growth underneath those exaggerations) as a result of having the outrage that these full on neo-communists manage to provoke among particularly poor white working class folks to work with as a recruitment tool.

          While the thought of this insane ideology taking over is horrifying and should be - there is ALSO the possibility that they could wind up, not taking over completely, but getting close enough to doing so that they frighten the voting majority into electing another Hitler to put the lid on them.

          If you listen to these folks, of course, Trump IS a nazi, but they still can't seem to take onboard the fact that it was the thought of yet another term of Hillary that scared folks into voting for him. So I'm guessing if next election presents them with a candidate even less to their taste than Trump, they'll pretty much keep using the same tactics that resulted in his win...

          That's what happens when you can never admit your mistakes.

          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:23AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:23AM (#679139)

      I just love it when Runaway pontificates! It smells like, napalm.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @12:46PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @12:46PM (#679167)

        That's pretty fucking impressive. I wish I could make napalm smells by pontificating.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Arik on Sunday May 13 2018, @02:24PM

          by Arik (4543) on Sunday May 13 2018, @02:24PM (#679189) Journal
          Just eat a couple of spicy burritos about 20 minutes before you start the pontificating.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 1) by Captival on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:27PM (2 children)

        by Captival (6866) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:27PM (#679234)

        And here we have an anonymous idiot who adds absolutely nothing to the discussion besides an ad hominem attack. You're not superior, you're the scum of society. If you had anything useful to say, you would have said it.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:20PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:20PM (#679260)

          You need to read the THIRD Fine Article in this hot mess of submissions. The point is that the right has lost the culture wars, and so has nothing to discuss, so they have become trolls. Pointing out that one of them is our redoubtable Runaway is no argumentum ad hominem, is just pointing out he has nothing to say, other than that he hates what he does not understand.

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:21AM (2 children)

    And I've been a business owner since 1998

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:52AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:52AM (#679151)

      Care to tell us where and hand over the 'keys' so we can come and take what we can use, as claiming to be a business OWNER is explicitly not allowable under true Marxism?
      By definition, owning a business is a capitalist controlled license giving you control over the means of production/service, and that sir is a direct violation of the Marxist solution.
      You dont of course need wage-slaves to be violating classical Marxism, there mere fact that you have control of the provision of service is enough.
      You are of course free to toil to provide for yourself and your family, however you are not free to withhold any freedom to do the same from your brothers (and sisters), including
      the withholding of means, license, or knowledge.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:19AM (#679138)

    Of course, the answer to the headline is no. In fact, it is the other way around: lack of intelligent discussion fosters extremism.

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:42AM (6 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:42AM (#679147) Journal

    This is not how you free aristarchus! The effort is appreciated. I still think JR is afraid of Amanda.

    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:57AM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @10:57AM (#679153) Journal

      So you don't want your submissions publishing? Er, stick to your journal then. :)

      By the way, is Amanda free Tuesday evening - I'm looking for company during a meal in a restaurant...?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Sunday May 13 2018, @01:47PM (4 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday May 13 2018, @01:47PM (#679178) Journal

      It's how you three aristarchus.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:26PM (3 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:26PM (#679261) Journal

        Exactly! Bundling with unrelated (more or less) articles, so as to dilute the full aristarchus, and then providing a lengthy trigger-warning for alt-right types and seeking to create a safe space for them, would seem to be an attempt to mitigate the force of the critique. With predictable results. So, again, thanks for trying to three aristarchus!

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday May 14 2018, @06:14AM (2 children)

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 14 2018, @06:14AM (#679444) Journal

          Bundling with unrelated (more or less) articles

          But they are clearly not unrelated. The first 2 articles are just different views on the same story. The third article is yet another observation - this time from a different source - of the same phenomenon. Articles 2 and 3 with both submitted by yourself and, looking at your posting record, you only post about one topic. So there is clearly another link there.

          The reason for the 'trigger warning' - which is no such thing - is that this site tries to promote intelligent discussion. I respectfully asked that those who are not interested in the topic to please let others have such a discussion without it turning into the usual mud slinging pointless insults that we often get with such topics.

          providing a lengthy trigger-warning for alt-right

          You are letting your own bias view what you read. I intentionally made the warning all inclusive by not specifying one side or the other alone, and I quote "(alt-right or left-wing)", And it was not a request for those people to stay away but rather a warning for those who are not interested in the subject matter regarding what was to follow. The problem with your submissions is that they are always one-sided. You never try to see the problem for someone else's viewpoint. The 2nd submission, from which you quoted, left out the all important part that we need to have intelligent discussion and not just keep regurgitating the same old biased claptrap which results in an environment of hatred.

          If your previous comment was intended to claim that all your submissions should be discussed in isolation in order to prevent the 'dilution of the full aristarchus' then you need to bring a bit of reality to your life, You are but one member of this community. Your submissions get viewed exactly the same as any other submission and treated on their merit alone. Where we get related stories the editors will merge them (as we have done here) and where we receive the same story repeatedly then they will get rejected. This site was created to concentrate on topics of a specific interest, namely STEM. Politics has been added relatively recently because there is a genuine link between some political stories and our main interests. It is NOT here to be the vehicle for your own political views. You might have more success offering your submissions to a site that is interested in the same things that you are or, if such a site does not exist, then you may use the REHASH code base with our blessing to create your own site.

          Aristarchus, you are not a special snowflake in this community. We accept your foibles and imaginary persona but, at the end of the day, you alone do not dictate what we will publish or how we will treat your submissions. You are welcome to publish them all on your journal but any submissions for the front page will be treated like any other that we receive. If you wish to improve your acceptance rate, try submitting something other than politics and, preferably, on a subject more closely aligned with our community's interests.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday May 14 2018, @10:06AM (1 child)

            by aristarchus (2645) on Monday May 14 2018, @10:06AM (#679504) Journal

            Perish the thought!

            Aristarchus, you are not a special snowflake in this community. We accept your foibles and imaginary persona but, at the end of the day, you alone do not dictate what we will publish or how we will treat your submissions.

            I never imagined such a thing! I just wanted to counter the right-wing censorship suggested by TMB and a certain not-to-be-named editor regarding the alt-right. If such a ban were to be lifted, and aristarchus was freed, I would probably stop submitting nothing but, and go back to what I used to do, before the censorship incident. You are not getting it at all, janrinok! Again, I appreciate your honest attempts to understand, and diligent effort to rectify, but since you fail at the first, the second is failing badly.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday May 14 2018, @10:58AM

              by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 14 2018, @10:58AM (#679518) Journal

              In which case I say:

              #freearistarchus - for God's sake somebody give him Dobby's sock!

  • (Score: 4, Touché) by Subsentient on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:00AM (14 children)

    by Subsentient (1111) on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:00AM (#679155) Homepage Journal
    Regressives to the left of me, regressives to the right of me. On the right, you have skinheads and 70-year-old texan farmers who use the word "nigger" in the worst way, accompanied by the soulless hard-right libertarians who admit that they literally don't care if people starve and die on the street, and then you have the filthy rich bastards who have much the same mindset as the libertarians, but without the ideological meat at the center, being more of a vapid, gaping black hole of a personality with some greed and arrogance for an accretion disc. On the left, you have the Tumblr SJWs who are disappointed when their kids are straight, who file rape charges against someone who saved them from drowning and gave them CPR, who want you to ask your toddler what pronouns they prefer, who get furious when someone points out the skeletal differences between genders and races, who discriminate against white males the same way the 50s discriminated against people of color, and who want to totally ban not just guns, but attempt to ban KNIVES, United Kingdom style. The sheer weight of my misanthropy can collapse stars. My faith in humanity is barely still within the negative range of a 64-bit signed integer.
    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by choose another one on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:33AM (1 child)

      by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:33AM (#679162)

      [reads post, walks down to kitchen] er, nope, the UK has not banned knives.

      Guns? Yep. But only some of them. Although city folk do seem continually surprised that shotguns are legal and still common in rural areas...

      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 14 2018, @03:47AM

        by Arik (4543) on Monday May 14 2018, @03:47AM (#679407) Journal
        He was probably thinking of this: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-office-announces-plans-for-offensive-weapons-bill-to-tackle-serious-violence

        The full details aren't known but just from the fluff it sounds like quite a pain in the arse come time to replace one of those blades. Might need to consult a high-powered attorney^wbarrister or two before you try to transport them as well. But you're right, not completely banned.

        The "zombie knife" is banned however, and I thought that sounded interesting, wtf is a zombie knife? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_knife

        So it turns out it's sort of the UK equivalent of an "assault weapon" - it's essentially a knife that looks too scary. A perfectly normal kitchen knife that has a serrated edge and some sort of "images or words" which are judged suggestive becomes, through judicial transmutation, a "zombie knife" and illegal to manufacture, sale, import, or even possess, the moment the images or words are added.

        That's pretty darn funny actually.

        The UK countryside is alright. It's too bad London makes the rules. Amounts to a foreign occupation, one might even say.

        Cheers!
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 13 2018, @11:53AM (10 children)

      When you know not whereof you speak, your mouth is best used for chewing. I know plenty of Texans. Most of them appreciate a good racist joke. Plenty of them say nigger. None of them take it seriously though; they're just in it for the lulz. If you ask them out of the blue what group of Americans they hate most, they're either going to say Yankees or Californians to a man.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:13PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:13PM (#679199)

        And if you believe they aren't racist you haven't been paying very good attention or you are just a moron. Given your penchant for idiocy I'll lean towards the latter.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 13 2018, @03:33PM (2 children)

          No, sweetums, being a racist requires you judge people by their race. Jokes do not require this.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:11PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:11PM (#679288)

            And the majority of people I know who have made racist jokes tend to have mild racist tendencies as well. Perhaps you are too "white" to actually notice racism that isn't in-your-face. Maybe you need to get out more, you seem to base your opinions of reality on some ideologically "pure" assumptions. Which is why you rocked that stupid sig and thought you were making some bold statement.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:30PM

              You don't love my sig?! However shall I go on?! It was meant to annoy your type not make any deep statement, though feel free to learn something about yourself from it anyway.

              The majority of people I know who make racial jokes have more races in their living family than the douchebags calling them racists. They're made in a good natured, tribalistic way, much in the same way us Sooners fans like to give the Longhorns fans shit every chance we get even though we'd still have their backs in a bar full of yankees. The traditional method is to take an already silly stereotype and push it to absurd lengths to render a situation comical. If your skin weren't tissue paper thin you would have realized this long ago.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by loonycyborg on Sunday May 13 2018, @04:07PM (5 children)

        by loonycyborg (6905) on Sunday May 13 2018, @04:07PM (#679215)

        Hating and not considering someone a proper human being are different things. And racism is basically that: not considering some artificially chosen group of people to be, well, people. It didn't always exist in americas or anywhere else. Just at some point people decided to arrange this new mental shortcut so they could see who's master and who's property by color of their skin. If someone doesn't fit in this worldview it can be fixed by strategic termination of life. The few will sacrifice themselves so the rest will enjoy more ordered world where you can see who's who by color of their skin. But hate is not involved. How can you hate our own property, an object?

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:06PM (3 children)

          It didn't always exist in americas or anywhere else.

          Erm... Yes, it did. In every civilization in history, in the Americas since they were first discovered by someone other than the natives, and among the natives themselves even. Believe it or not, hating someone over arbitrary differences or even just outsider status is one of the most common lines of human thinking there is.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 1) by loonycyborg on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:34PM (2 children)

            by loonycyborg (6905) on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:34PM (#679300)

            I was referring not to hate but to human pegging based on color of skin in particular.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 14 2018, @12:14AM (1 child)

              Fair enough but it gets the same answer. Human beings haven't even seriously attempted to work past their inherent tribalism until recently. You'll see a city or two that looked like they were throughout history but it was mostly an illusion caused by the city deciding it was easier to take foreigners' money in their markets than having to go out and take it from them at sword point; the discrimination still existed once you got past profit motivated civility.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 14 2018, @03:33AM

                by Arik (4543) on Monday May 14 2018, @03:33AM (#679403) Journal
                It's more than that - it was only through the profit motive that humans ever stumbled upon the fact that there WAS another way to deal with those outside your tribe other than violence. Whenever they meet, there is either commerce or war. Say no to commerce and you are saying yes to war, in the end.
                --
                If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:38PM

          by Arik (4543) on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:38PM (#679266) Journal
          "It didn't always exist in americas or anywhere else."

          How do you figure? Do you have any idea how many hunter gatherer tribes use a word to refer to themselves that means 'the real people?' Do you know anything about how chimpanzee groups interact?
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:21PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:21PM (#679232) Journal

      who file rape charges against someone who saved them from drowning and gave them CPR

      That story was satire -- it's good satire but its effect is ruined when taken for fact:

      Original: http://www.theportlygazelle.com/2015/09/27/a-man-saved-me-from-drowning-but-now-i-am-suing-him-for-rape-because-he-touched-me/ [theportlygazelle.com]
      About author: http://www.konbini.com/us/lifestyle/feminist-suing-man-saved-life-rape/ [konbini.com]

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:11PM (4 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Sunday May 13 2018, @05:11PM (#679230)

    The article being discussed is just a smokescreen where the Left is up to its usual game of trying to hand pick its official opposition. They realize the old school WFB Conservatives have lost the required level of public support to effectively perform their traditional role of absorbing all opposition and harmlessly dissipating it into pointless debate and inaction; they seek to carefully curate their replacement. None of the names bandied about in that piece are likely to be long term leaders of any real opposition movement, which is the point of blessing them as "newly minted, just edgy enough" people to add to the short list of people "permitted on TV."

    • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:32PM (3 children)

      by captain normal (2205) on Sunday May 13 2018, @06:32PM (#679242)

      Ah ah...looks like we have found the reason why we can't have an open rational debate.

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:09PM (2 children)

        You're correct if you side with the portion of the left that is absolutely, no questions doing exactly that. Your religion forbids it. If you don't, pick an issue, any issue, and there are plenty here who would be happy to beat it to death from every logical angle so we can see where the truth lies.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:15PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 13 2018, @08:15PM (#679289)

          If you're not with us you're against us!

          Heh, I see waaaay more of that attitude from you and jslow over there. You righties have been working overtime to demonize liberals since Trump got elected, guess that hate train was too fun to stop now that you "won". Take your persecution complexes and shove em' up yer butts where they belong, and stop projecting your issues on to others.

  • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday May 14 2018, @09:09AM

    by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday May 14 2018, @09:09AM (#679495) Homepage Journal

    Yes. It does. Next question please...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @10:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @10:39AM (#679513)

    I didn't come here to study these people.

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