Ongoing Coup in Sri Lanka

[HoloDoc]

Well, someone is being intellectually dishonest here. And I don't think it's me, TF, or Lexicus. @Traitorfish explicitly pointed out the original excuse of genocide just above. It's clear-cut, and any defence of that comment is either trolling for the sake of it, or just a defence of genocide in and of itself. So I rite rate, piss off to Stormfront if you believe such things. I don't want you in my threads.

Cue snarky response, accusations of political correctness gone mad, "I was just raising questions," "words have meaning!" Blah blah blah.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: As a reminder, thread access is administered by the staff, not any individual member.

 

[Traitorfish]

Even side by side, there is no viable rationale that gets you from "x happened because of y" to "x is absolved due to y".

I already addressed this explicitly:

Moriarte's first intervention in this thread was to suggest that the persecution of the Rohingya was a natural consequence of paramilitary activity, reducing the practical and therefore moral agency, and as a consequence the moral culpability, of the Myanmarese regime.

What is insidious is not that he is suggesting that genocide is an appropriate response to paramilitary activity- although the implication hangs rather heavily over all of his posts- but the suggestion that it is an inevitable response, as if the Myanmarese state was a force of nature, and not a group of people making choices. This functions to excuse these people, as it frames their actions not as the result of practical and moral choice, but as the consequence of an overriding institutional logic against which these individuals were powerless. That they were "just following orders", so to speak.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, someone is being intellectually dishonest here. And I don't think it's me, TF, or Lexicus. @Traitorfish explicitly pointed out the original excuse of genocide just above. It's clear-cut, and any defence of that comment is either trolling for the sake of it, or just a defence of genocide in and of itself. So I rite rate, piss off to Stormfront if you believe such things. I don't want you in my threads.

Cue snarky response, accusations of political correctness gone mad, "I was just raising questions," "words have meaning!" Blah blah blah.

No, there is an assumption of intent to excuse genocide. Nothing posted in this thread thus far has explicitly done so.

Given the horrible nature of the action in question and that the poster accused of doing this has explicitly denied the intention to excuse genocide, it *is* intellectually dishonest to re-frame his argument as "excusing genocide" to then make a case against something he never actually said or did.

I already addressed this explicitly:

And I pointed out that he did not say the actions were a "natural consequence", nor did he make any assertions about practical/moral agency whatsoever. These were unduly inferred, not actually stated. Despite his refutation of that intent, multiple posters are dogpiling to insist otherwise. That's disingenuous and destructive to discussion. If it's not reasonable to assume your intent is something you deny, it's similarly unreasonable to assume his.

 

[Wastl]

No, there is an assumption of intent to excuse genocide. Nothing posted in this thread thus far has explicitly done so.

Given the horrible nature of the action in question and that the poster accused of doing this has explicitly denied the intention to excuse genocide, it *is* intellectually dishonest to re-frame his argument as "excusing genocide" to then make a case against something he never actually said or did.


And I pointed out that he did not say the actions were a "natural consequence", nor did he make any assertions about practical/moral agency whatsoever. These were unduly inferred, not actually stated. Despite his refutation of that intent, multiple posters are dogpiling to insist otherwise. That's disingenuous and destructive to discussion. If it's not reasonable to assume your intent is something you deny, it's similarly unreasonable to assume his.

Moriarte cleared made a statement as an answer to a post that was talking about the treatment being genocide. Said comment said that maybe that wouldn't have happened if Rohingya hadn't carried out terrorist attacks and killed 12 policemen. That is as clear cut an excuse for genocide as it gets. How could it possibly be considered anything else?
There is a post that explicitly talks about war crimes and genocide, followed by an answer to that post, which declares that "if X hadn't done Y, maybe they would have been better off". That is excusing the acts against these people, and therefore excusing genocide. Not to mention that it connects the suffering of a whole people to acts committed by a few, legitimizing the suffering of all Rohingya because a splinter-group of militia is committing acts of violence as well. With that kind of logic you can defend every sort of oppression you could possibly think of, because some people will always try to use violent means to fight for themselves.

Going "lalalalala I can't hear your arguments, and he didn't state in those exact words that they were responsible for the genocide" isn't an argument at all. It's ignoring what was actually written. If there is one thing that is intellectually dishonest and disinngenuous in here, it is you accusing others of being intellectually dishonest. You can't just randomly ignore content that is actually in there (nor the context of the situation) just because it doesn't fit your narrative. The fact remains, Moriarte's post directly quoted a post that was talking about war-crimes and genocide, and blamed the Rohingya for what happened to them.

 

[Traitorfish]

And I pointed out that he did not say the actions were a "natural consequence", nor did he make any assertions about practical/moral agency whatsoever. These were unduly inferred, not actually stated. Despite his refutation of that intent, multiple posters are dogpiling to insist otherwise. That's disingenuous and destructive to discussion. If it's not reasonable to assume your intent is something you deny, it's similarly unreasonable to assume his.

Is it preferable that we refuse to hold people to account for the stupid and offensive things they say, on what I suppose might in context be considered the charitable assumption that they were just being thoughtless and mean-spirited?

If you really insist, we can have both the assumption of thoughtlessness, and the expectation to account for it. It's not certainly not clear why we should indulge this motte-and-bailey crap, to let people some absurd and offensive things, then let them retreat to a more palatable position without ever having to admit that what they said was absurd and offensive. By all means, people can withdraw from untenable positions, but they should have the decency to admit that you're doing so, and I think we're entitled to demand that decency of them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Moriarte cleared made a statement as an answer to a post that was talking about the treatment being genocide. Said comment said that maybe that wouldn't have happened if Rohingya hadn't carried out terrorist attacks and killed 12 policemen. That is as clear cut an excuse for genocide as it gets.

No, it isn't. It no more excuses this genocide than the Persian government's actions excused the Mongol's treatment of civilians there. Insistence on "excusing" is strange because it's directly counter to the poster's stated intentions.

Let's turn this practice around. Rather why are you excusing the holocaust? What's that you say? You weren't? Too bad. I think you were, so you were. No need for evidence or any consistency with word utilization in the English language. I'm just going to zero in on the idea that you excused the holocaust.

Fair? That's what's being arbitrarily done here.

That is excusing the acts against these people, and therefore excusing genocide.

Using the same principle of using words to have meaning they don't, I will point out that your saying that excuses the holocaust. Whatever you actually said doesn't matter. I'm going to say that this quote means that and roll with it since that tactic is apparently in vogue for this thread.

With that kind of logic you can defend every sort of oppression you could possibly think of, because some people will always try to use violent means to fight for themselves.

Nobody on this thread is oppressing anybody to my knowledge.

Going "lalalalala I can't hear your arguments

That's my line. Quoted insists in repeatedly ignoring actual usage of words in the English language *and* insists on ignoring the stated intention of the poster outright. You can't get more "cover the ears" than that.

It's ignoring what was actually written.

The irony is thick. An objective analysis of the words on the screen demonstrates that what is written does *not* defend or justify genocide. The only activity on this thread that "ignores what was actually written" are the posts that insist someone's intent is different from what was actually typed and insists on affixing implied intention the poster stated outright wasn't intended.

You can't just randomly ignore content that is actually in there (nor the context of the situation) just because it doesn't fit your narrative.

That's been my point from the start, so why are you doing it?

Is it preferable that we refuse to hold people to account for the stupid and offensive things they say, on what I suppose might in context be considered the charitable assumption that they were just being thoughtless and mean-spirited?

If the response to that post had merely been "that statement was in bad taste and doesn't contribute much to the situation at present", we wouldn't be having this discussion on page 4.

It's not certainly not clear why we should indulge this motte-and-bailey crap, to let people some absurd and offensive things, then let them retreat to a more palatable position without ever having to admit that what they said was absurd and offensive.

The fact of the matter is that the alleged position taken was never taken. Even if it was something lacking in tact, calling it something it isn't and repeatedly beating the dead horse of false intent makes things worse.