[RD] Berkeley Riots

[Lexicus]

You think people didn't believe?

I don't know whether people believed or not, but it isn't really the point. The point is that the situations aren't comparable because Milo isn't some random black kid guilty of breathing while black.

That it pisses you off means you should watch your jaw on that one.

It doesn't particularly piss me off, but then I'm just a white privileged internet guy. I've spent enough time in "SJW" (god I hate that phrase) circles to have a decent idea of where (some of) their berserk buttons are.

I do find the comparison of Milo to lynch victims to be in extremely poor taste since Milo is actually far more comparable to people who stir up lynch mobs. Milo was banned from Twitter for this reason.

 

[metalhead]

You think people didn't believe? Oh, I think they believed. If not all, enough to look away. And that's from somebody who has no family fondness at all for dipweed hanghappy knights with golden circles. That it pisses you off means you should watch your jaw on that one.

In a society where a black man even looking a white woman in the eye was a lynchable offense, I'm going to go out on a limb and say the truthfulness of a specific allegation of rape was not foremost on the minds of a given lynch mob.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'd also like to say that it's basically impossible to construct a comprehensive theory of morality that would tell you how to act in any given situation. It's got to be evaluated case-by-case.

While I agree the former is impossible the latter isn't morality, it's convenience.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well metal, given the rates at which university students are incapable of determining false news I think you have an uphill battle if you want to assert the claim that truthiness is really of fundamentally different import.

 

[metalhead]

But fundamentally, people being lynched were lynched on account of the color of their skin, and nothing more. The reason behind it was of little consequence. The act of a black man looking at a white woman the wrong way was not an assertion of any actual act of wrongdoing on the man's part - his offense was simply existing as he was.

The parallel you are trying to draw doesn't really make a lot of sense. Milo's trolling is of public record, and not something he denies engaging in. He's gone so far that Breitbart considers him a liability. I'm not sure "truthiness" is apt here at all.

 

[BvBPL]

Advocating lynching people because of their speech doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Advocating lynching people because of their speech doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

It does to me. Color of skin is a trivial product of genetics. Lynching me for that is absurd. What I say is who I am. If I am disagreeable enough that you want to lynch me, I have no one to blame but myself.

 

[bernie14]

So is it morally justifiable for christians to lynch abortionists?

 

[galdre]

If I despise people who want to lynch others, am I justified in wanting to lynch them?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So is it morally justifiable for christians to lynch abortionists?

Sure, but not legally. Just like it is morally justifiable for anyone to lynch christian zealots who pose a threat to their life or their mutual society, but not legally justifiable.

 

[Lexicus]

Advocating lynching people because of their speech doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

Look, ya boi already tacitly admitted that he let his fingers run ahead of his brain there. Do you require a formal admission that I was wrong?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If I despise people who want to lynch others, am I justified in wanting to lynch them?

Sure. Wanting to is perfectly reasonable. We have laws for good reason though, and you should follow them.

 

[Farm Boy]

But fundamentally, people being lynched were lynched on account of the color of their skin, and nothing more. The reason behind it was of little consequence. The act of a black man looking at a white woman the wrong way was not an assertion of any actual act of wrongdoing on the man's part - his offense was simply existing as he was.

Now that's not jiving with my understandings. The reasons aren't of little consequence, though they're dumb, and the end results are the same. You're confusing how bad the reasons are with there being none whatsoever, I think.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'd clarify with "the stated reasons are of little consequence," which I think was adequately implied.

 

[metalhead]

Now that's not jiving with my understandings. The reasons aren't of little consequence, though they're dumb, and the end results are the same. You're confusing how bad the reasons are with there being none whatsoever, I think.

The stated reasons were so arbitrary as to be functionally meaningless. It's the same reason those good ol' boys decided to chain James Byrd to their bumper and go for a drive. It wasn't about anything a person did, it was simply about who they were.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

But that contradicts your earlier statement that things like hospitality and trust don't require justification. That's clearly not true in many contexts. It's relevant to the discussion we're having because the argument here should be focused on the context of the protest/violence, and whether that justifies it.

Not really. I agree that in any particular instance either might be the right or wrong thing to do. You maybe giving succour to a murder on the run. You may be smashing the teeth out of someone who's done nothing wrong. But be honest, if you're hospitable to everyone you meet, the vast majority of the time you'll be doing the right thing. If you smash the teeth out of everyone you meet, the vast majority of the time you'll be doing the wrong thing. But anyway, if in doubt, doing the "good" thing is surely the best option.

But it's a completely tangential and irrelevant discussion anyway. This isn't some completely abstract hypothetical situation where there's zero information. It's a specific person who's alleged to have said and done specific things, evidence of which purportedly exists, and which is being used to justify specific "bad" actions. No other contexts are relevant.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

¿The problem is you saying there's a problem with talking about the things you bring up while defending that you brought them up

I don't even follow that. You'll have to be more specific. I don't appear to be saying that in either of the things you quoted.

Yes I was saying that you should treat any individual post on its own merits, not just by what you think of the poster who made it. That's seems the best way to be fair. BUT, even if you're not going to do that and you're going to be using the latter and going on "credibility", then that still wouldn't make sense in this context as I wasn't making a claim, I was asking for evidence.

Two different and non-contradictory propositions. And not complicated ones either. I don't know why I've had to restate them so many times.

Also don't see how either of these relate to what you're saying now.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Not really. I agree that in any particular instance either might be the right or wrong thing to do. You maybe giving succour to a murder on the run. You may be smashing the teeth out of someone who's done nothing wrong. But be honest, if you're hospitable to everyone you meet, the vast majority of the time you'll be doing the right thing. If you smash the teeth out of everyone you meet, the vast majority of the time you'll be doing the wrong thing. But anyway, if in doubt, doing the "good" thing is surely the best option.

I don't even follow that. You'll have to be more specific. I don't appear to be saying that in either of the things you quoted. Yes I was saying that you should treat any individual post on its own merits, not just by what you think of the poster who made it. That's seems the best way to be fair. BUT, even if you're not going to do that and you're going to be using the latter and going on "credibility", then that still wouldn't make sense in this context as I wasn't making a claim, I was asking for evidence. Two different and non-contradictory propositions. And not complicated ones either. I don't know why I've had to restate them so many times. Also don't see how either of these relate to what you're saying now.

Feel free to correct me, as I haven't been posting in the Nazi-punching thread, but I have read some of it, and it seems like you (and BVBPL) are invoking some of the stances, posts and positions that people have taken here. Not cited them necessarily, but invoked them. Not to say that that thread is irrelevant to this one, indeed I thing there is overlap in the issues discussed there, but I bring this up because it seems to contradict or at least have some tension with the position that you are taking here about treating/responding to posts and posters based solely on the merits of the individual post, rather than "credibility" or more specifically, the arguments claims, positions etc that they have taken in the past.

Am I wrong to say that the Nazi-punching thread discussions are having some bearing on how you discuss the issues at Berkeley?

 

[aelf]

You think people didn't believe? Oh, I think they believed. If not all, enough to look away. And that's from somebody who has no family fondness at all for dipweed hanghappy knights with golden circles. That it pisses you off means you should watch your jaw on that one.

Did I miss something? Did someone die or get injured? People non-peacefully stopped some douchebag from giving a speech at a venue and there are comparisons with lynching black people now?

Poor black people. Punching Nazis was also compared to punching them in the other thread. Not sure why they deserve to be compared to Nazis and Milo.

 

[Farm Boy]

The stated reasons were so arbitrary as to be functionally meaningless. It's the same reason those good ol' boys decided to chain James Byrd to their bumper and go for a drive. It wasn't about anything a person did, it was simply about who they were.

Ok, if you want to talk about the actual humans who chain other humans to bumpers and hit the gas: that's quite a beast to deal with. And almost impossible to reason with. Which is why we tend to lock them in cages. Fortunately, almost nobody actually does these things(unfortunately, enough still do). The militaries of the world have spent significant amounts of effort on raising the percentage of their soldiers, who will in battle, aim a rifle at another human being and pull the trigger. I think naturally humans who will kill other humans hovers around 2%. Without about half of those people being psychopaths and the remaining half willing to do so out of loyalty/love. But what we're looking to do isn't actually fixing the most violence prone people, just reducing the situations in which their willingness to kill is tolerated. And the reasons very much matter there, especially the bad ones. Then the guys who "just make up reasons" start producing Elijah Lovejoys and Rev. James Reebs, etc. and those martyrs are actually the effective tools against the prejudices that cause murderers to be tolerated. It's the breakdowns of the reasons that force them to eat "their own."

Yes Aelf, you missed something. That applies to the nature of prejudice, applicable in the tangent here. Not to any fever dream in which black guys = nazis or brietbart editors. If disinterested in the tangent, cool, refocus on the RD OP.