Freedom of speech means freedom from repercussions?

[AppleDumplingHead]

The PotUS advisors are his cabinet. The PotUS hand-picks his cabinet. When you attribute PotUS action to "advisors" you are attributing the action to his cabinet, whom he selected for those positions.

Honestly, it seems several US presidents referred to divine methods for inspiration, not the least of which Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln to G.W. Bush. I think most people do to some extent, and it would be a bit hypocritical, when I sometimes do it, to say one or another spiritual contention is inherently wrong.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The PotUS advisors are his cabinet. The PotUS hand-picks his cabinet. When you attribute PotUS action to "advisors" you are attributing the action to his cabinet, whom he selected for those positions.

The impression I get is that the American cabinet doesn't need any political experience at all, or at least of the people Trump has appointed, I don't remember if any of them have political experience.

In Canada, the cabinet members are generally expected to have earned their place in Parliament by winning in their riding. Occasionally a member of the senate might be appointed to cabinet, and admittedly it's not necessary to have prior political experience to be appointed to the senate.

Honestly, it seems several US presidents referred to divine methods for inspiration, not the least of which Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln to G.W. Bush. I think most people do to some extent, and it would be a bit hypocritical, when I sometimes do it, to say one or another spiritual contention is inherently wrong.

One of the refreshing things about our current government is that we have a Prime Minister who keeps his religious life separate from his professional life (he's Catholic). All this "God bless this" and "God bless that" becomes tiresome, especially when you don't happen to be of that religion or any at all.

If you pray, that's your business. Your beliefs are yours. But you're not running a country, and you're not relying on horoscopes and other pseudoscientific nonsense to make decisions that will affect hundreds of millions of people. It makes about as much sense to rely on that as it did for the ancient Roman emperors to rely on reading the entrails of sacrificed animals to tell them what to do.

 

[aelf]

Who is being censored? What logical critique is being stifled?

As far as I'm concerned, transgender children on the cover of National Geographic pretty much exemplifies a perfect stance what you're implying is wholly untrue. The fact schools are obligated to "serve croissants because a handful of young people think they're Napoleon" establishes who is in control of public opinion. The very fact that every darn media outlet jumps when "black lives matter" says jump betrays your missive. You and Emma Watson need to sit down and have a real conversation who has the public ear.

Eh, just because the kind of viewpoints you prefer aren't currently dominant doesn't mean people with those viewpoints don't desire censorship. They do. They've been whining about the elitism of those who tell them they're wrong. Logical critique is definitely not something they're willing to accept. That's kind of the nature of bigotry. If these people are more influential, you can be sure that they will be as 'anti-free speech' as the PC warriors, if not worse. In fact, we've seen that for centuries, enforced by far worse punishment than SJWs can ever dream up.

Gosh, it's like people are treated unfairly when they don't get every darn thing they want. It's entitlement, a bunch of spared rods and spoiled children.

That perfectly describes these conservatives. Thanks.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

The impression I get is that the American cabinet doesn't need any political experience at all, or at least of the people Trump has appointed, I don't remember if any of them have political experience.

In Canada, the cabinet members are generally expected to have earned their place in Parliament by winning in their riding. Occasionally a member of the senate might be appointed to cabinet, and admittedly it's not necessary to have prior political experience to be appointed to the senate.


One of the refreshing things about our current government is that we have a Prime Minister who keeps his religious life separate from his professional life (he's Catholic). All this "God bless this" and "God bless that" becomes tiresome, especially when you don't happen to be of that religion or any at all.

If you pray, that's your business. Your beliefs are yours. But you're not running a country, and you're not relying on horoscopes and other pseudoscientific nonsense to make decisions that will affect hundreds of millions of people. It makes about as much sense to rely on that as it did for the ancient Roman emperors to rely on reading the entrails of sacrificed animals to tell them what to do.

smh. I don't get you. I just don't.

Eh, just because the kind of viewpoints you prefer aren't currently dominant doesn't mean people with those viewpoints don't desire censorship. They do. They've been whining about the elitism of those who tell them they're wrong. Logical critique is definitely not something they're willing to accept. That's kind of the nature of bigotry. If these people are more influential, you can be sure that they will be as 'anti-free speech' as the PC warriors, if not worse. In fact, we've seen that for centuries, enforced by far worse punishment than SJWs can ever dream up.



That perfectly describes these conservatives. Thanks.

Well, you did an excellent job of deflecting. "Desiring censorship" isn't the same thing as "existing censorship" which exists in safe spaces. Everyone "whines" from another point of view when told they're wrong. I'm not entirely sure "absent logical critique is the nature of bigotry", I think that's a decided lack of human introspection. I'm not sure it's fair to argue the status quo in the iterations of societal development as "anti-free", when we're, now, in the fortunate, and safe, position of retrospect. Humans did what they did, when they did, how they did, to whom they did, and now we're here. I think there probably were societies, albeit small, with much the same inclination we have for humanism long, long ago, if not entirely in practice at least in premise, and I'm pretty sure they got wtfpwnt by their neighbors who killed them, enslaved them and probably worse. Survival is a weird thing when you actually are in a position to need to manage it. I'm not hearing much of that kind of practical sense from what you say. I think you're on a very strange invisible horse.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

smh.

We have a smiley here for that:

I don't get you. I just don't.

Yes, that's been obvious to me for quite awhile now.

Not sure how these snide comments relate to what you quoted. Did I say anything factually untrue in that post?

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

We have a smiley here for that:

Yes, that's been obvious to me for quite awhile now.

Not sure how these snide comments relate to what you quoted. Did I say anything factually untrue in that post?

It's just too much to go through, I don't know where to start. I already tried to point things out, you shrug them off as peripheral. You have the right to understand and believe the way you do. It's the same stuff I'm used to staving off in my own party, i.e. "dumb (this religion)" "dumb this" "dumb that" "I should have this and express it, you can't, I'm tired of it" "complain about everything that's benefited me" "wholesale misunderstanding of history" with your own ironic Canadian twist. I guess I should expect it. None of us are getting younger.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's just too much to go through, I don't know where to start. I already tried to point things out, you shrug them off as peripheral. You have the right to understand and believe the way you do. It's the same stuff I'm used to staving off in my own party, i.e. "dumb (this religion)" "dumb this" "dumb that" "I should have this and express it, you can't, I'm tired of it" "complain about everything that's benefited me" "wholesale misunderstanding of history" with your own ironic Canadian twist. I guess I should expect it. None of us are getting younger.

What does this word salad even mean?

I made it clear that it's American pop culture that doesn't mean much to me. Some TV shows have apparently been on for 10 years and the first I hear of them is when somebody on TrekBBS flips out over some plot point or actor I'm only vaguely aware of at best. I do try to pay attention to the major stuff Trump does, because his sycophants here praise him for the hateful and bigoted things he says. The federal Conservatives here are in the middle of a leadership race - 14 candidates so far - and some of them embrace every syllable Trump utters. These are not people I want running this country.

So thanks for not reining in that hateful, bigoted, misogynistic <censored>. Thanks a lot, U.S. Really. /sarcasm

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Did I say anything factually untrue in that post?

Factually untrue? Probably not. However your post is built on a false premise.

It is "factually true" that a US cabinet post "does not require political experience," in that an appointee can be drawn from anywhere so did not have to be elected to any position. The false premise is that political experience, ie the ability to campaign and be elected, is somehow a qualifier for cabinet positions. Cabinet positions are chief executive positions at the head of a government department also serving as chief advisors on the areas of concern of that department. NONE of those departments are named the "getting elected" department, so none of them really demand political experience from the person chosen to head them up. Because of the high profile of some of these positions and the experience gained from serving in them they are considered stepping stones to political success, but the political success is not a prerequisite.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ronald Reagan was just an American pop culture icon that had no impact on the average Canadian.

You heard it here first.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I agree.

I do not have a problem with laws against hate speech particularly those that may inspire others to commit crime; but
when it comes to bigotry that can be interpreted by X as little as Y typing something about Z that X does not agree with.

I regard the "ape in heels" as very rude and in poor taste, but only arguably racist.

And I get the impression that that particular quote was just one of many things that woman had got wrong.

I agree, if it was only that single line posted ever, then it wouldn't be too different from calling her a goat, horse, idiot, or dodo in principle. All rude and unprofessional, but not necessarily racist or bigoted. The immediate association of racism with her statement by others represents a problem itself. It shows that people hearing it are taking it as a racist slur, and not utter nonsense/childish prattle.

Unfortunately, that association comes from experience, but context is everything here. Only gorillas are actually gorillas. Would this statement get the same treatment if spoken about a power lifter caught taking steroids? Almost certainly not. It is *probably* racist, and with more context you weight that probability as increasingly high. However, it seems strange as the sole impetus for firing someone. It probably wasn't, either.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It might be "only arguably" racist, but it's a pretty strong argument that isn't really hard to make.

I think the definitive test, really, is how excited do the avowed racists get? If you go to a known hate site and they are crowing about how great it is to see someone "just say what everyone is thinking" then the conclusion is obvious. It doesn't prove that the person saying it intended it to be racist, but it definitely was. Racist hate sites just love those references to other primates, and at this point its hard to give the benefit of the doubt that anyone wouldn't know that.

 

[Traitorfish]

Why not? Isn't the purpose of a slogan on a t-shirt to convey some sort of message? And isn't it more sensible to do that in a straightforward way?

Yeah they are conveying a message. It's: look how dumb this slogan is. **** REAGAN.

Okay, that's straightforward to you. But I'm not American, and Reagan was never anyone I was expected to respect, or even pay attention to at all, if I didn't want to.

And if you weren't familiar with the English language, "just say not to drugs" would just be a random collision of letters. Communications always assumes a context and that the audience is familiar with that context; if you're not, you're probably not the intended audience.

 

[Farm Boy]

Racist hate sites just love those references to other primates, and at this point its hard to give the benefit of the doubt that anyone wouldn't know that.

This alone is a bit weird and I've just started picking up on it. It seems like many of our posters here read way, way more right wing racist-drivel websites than I would expect. Suddenly finding quotes off of Stormfront provided as if they were high entertainment in another thread was a surprise. I agree that you can't just take everyone on good faith, but until that row a bit back I had no idea "gip" was spelled "gyp" and it connotated more than simply getting a bad deal on a purchase. Thank goodness that reference was obscure enough to be believable and the person who made it had enough identity cred as well.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And if you weren't familiar with the English language, "just say not to drugs" would just be a random collision of letters. Communications always assumes a context and that the audience is familiar with that context; if you're not, you're probably not the intended audience.

And sometimes I am, I don't get the message because the context is unfamiliar, and the person doing the communicating flips out or starts with the mockery because their message was not understood.

Ronald Reagan was just an American pop culture icon that had no impact on the average Canadian.

You heard it here first.

As usual, you're taking two different things I said, twisting them, and the result is something other than what you know damn well I meant.

Yes, he was a pop culture icon - he was an actor, after all, and had many fans. I wasn't one of them, and I don't consider it important to pay that close attention to American pop culture. I'm not going to repeat the reasons why I didn't (still don't) respect him as a politician because you can read them for yourself.

Just quit playing your "twist Valka's words" game. It's childish.

 

[Traitorfish]

And sometimes I am, I don't get the message because the context is unfamiliar, and the person doing the communicating flips out or starts with the mockery because their message was not understood.

I guess we're not talking about that t-shirt anymore.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I guess we're not talking about that t-shirt anymore.

Are you saying that mockery has not been going on?

 

[Traitorfish]

Are you saying that mockery has not been going on?

Hey now, I just like debating the semantics of obnoxious hipster tees, leave me out of these colonial rivalries.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

I'd take this to be relevant to topic.
http://ew.com/tv/2017/01/03/ellen-degeneres-kim-burrell-cancelled-tweet/

Yes, it's Ellen's show, Ellen has the right to refuse guests, who likely are paid a premium to appear. Ellen, however, isn't willing to allow a performance by a person of a different understanding or frame of mind. Burrell isn't "trolling", these are her genuine convictions. Yet her talent and conviction just doesn't gel with Ellen's identity agenda and thus she is not welcome, she is censored from appearing in Ellen's "space".

That, regardless of how understandable I see Ellen's decision, is the practice of "safe space". She wants to be seen as equal, supposedly, but does not feel others belong in "that" equal. It's rational, it's "fair", but something seems deeply disingenuous about the plight, continuing forward.

 

[Traitorfish]

Homophobes are not, in most juristictions, a protected class.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Homophobes are not, in most juristictions, a protected class.

I'm not defending the harsh tone. I'm contrasting one person's argued right to express to another person's right to express. One person feels strongly one way, which is obviously self-supporting, which means to say they want to be seen as equal while they act in a way another sees as aberrant. This trumps the person who feels strongly because it's part of that person's religious conviction, which, incidentally, is also a free expression in a liberal society. It's not nice, it's not cool, it seems restrictive, nonetheless that is this person's position, and it will be, in the majority, seen as "wrong".

It's like we're being shamed into a behavior pattern that "we can't not like that". Well, why? Why can't people "not like that"? When did that become shameful?