U.S. Politics: There's Identity Politics, On Many Sides

[OldGimletEye]

On 9/2/2017 at 10:31 PM, Lew Theobald said:

Exactly.

What you seem to want to do is give power to the government, so that they can determine WHICH corporations and WHICH billionaires you should be allowed to listen to.  And you imagine somehow that this power won't be abused.

Except that isn't what is happening. Limiting spending isn't saying a billionaire can't speak, write, or publish whatever he likes. It is saying that he can't spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. And it isn't saying which billionaire you have to listen to. The spending limit would apply to them all. Same with corporations.

[all swedes are racist]

28 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Exactly.

What you seem to want to do is give power to the government, so that they can determine WHICH corporations and WHICH billionaires you should be allowed to listen to.  And you imagine somehow that this power won't be abused.

it may or may not be, as opposed to with a for profit corporation where it is almost guaranteed to be abused

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

12 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

What I was doing was rejecting the proposition that corporate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.  It is protected, and it should be protected.

Are there fuzzy areas at the edges?  Yes.  There are always fuzzy areas at the edges.

It's protected, but I think it's significantly different than an individual's rights. You can't honestly believe that a corporation truly speaks with one voice, for instance. Like does every employee or stakeholder in Chik-Fil-A have anti LBGTQ views? Their ownership clearly does, but they can't possibly speak for all of their employees. Or look at the Hobby Lobby stance regarding Obamacare. Do you honestly think that there wasn't one employee of Hobby Lobby that didn't want birth control to be covered under employer provided healthcare? Corporations are made up of people, but they cannot logically be considered individuals when it come to speech. 

[OldGimletEye]

On 9/2/2017 at 10:42 PM, Lew Theobald said:

In my very first post on this issue, in this thread, I wrote:

"The constitution does not allow restrictions on freedom of speech (with certain narrow exceptions)."

And I thought, even as I wrote it, that if I did not repeat that final parenthetical remark EVERY SINGLE TIME, I referred to First Amendment Rights, someone would accuse me of being an absolutist, who does not even acknowledge the traditional restrictions on free speech, established in First Amendment case-law.   And then they would insist that they know my position better than I do, even after I clarified the matter.

That is what you are doing here.

Don't be unreasonable.  The matter has been clarified.  Just accept the clarification and move on.  Don't try to prove to me that you know what I think better than I do.

Fine, as long as your recognize this fact. And that Citizens United seemingly over turned prior case law that gave the government more power to regulate giving money (particularly corporations) for political purposes.

And I'll have to read Austin again, but it doesn't seem like the pre-Citizen United law (Austin) was really that onerous on corporations.

[OldGimletEye]

On 9/2/2017 at 10:51 PM, Lew Theobald said:

I'm not a "libertarian".  Or is that the epithet lately for a traditional liberal, who actually believes in First Amendment rights?

Depends by what you mean by "traditional liberal". Like a "liberal" 1850s style? A liberal after the 1930s?

But, the stuff you said, did sound a lot like typical libertarian clap trap.

Anyway, I'm not against First Amendment Rights either. But, I do think some regulation on how money is spent on political campaigning isn't going to kill the first amendment.

[Bonnot OG]

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

What did he do?  Scream "fire" in a crowded theater?  Commit some other crime?  If so, then call the police.  In the meantime, those of us who believe in free speech do not need to familiarize ourselves with everything he has ever said and done.

Oh so you don't know either but try to insert your ignorance into the conversation and instead choose to be willfully ignorant? 

Maybe you should familiarize yourself with what he has said and has done before opening your mouth, especially since what he has said and done is inciting violence and putting people he targets in a dangerous situation.

Also, no thanks on the cops thing. They aren't the friends of people of color, the lgbt community, people that rely on DACA. Which are the people that Milo has targeted. 

Like I said before, you free speech absolutists care more about that than the safety and the rights of the marginalized. 


oh and this is what Milo has done. 

http://www.teenvogue.com/story/milo-yiannopoulos-harassed-a-transgender-student-at-her-school

He also was planning on outing undocumented students at Berkeley, but was unable to do so since it was shut down because of Antifa rioting and going after Milo supporters.

But hey, free speech at all costs! Fuck the safety of the marginalized and their rights, right? 

Oh wait, I'm talking to a classic liberal. Wasting my time.

[Seli]

11 hours ago, Altherion said:

The normally liberal Salon has an interesting article on identity politics. It's pretty long and I don't agree with everything it says, but it does state several interesting points which are rarely found in the mainstream media. For example:

There's also this idea which is very nearly self-evident, but fairly controversial:

This obviously isn't well received by the commenters at Salon (who, as far as I can tell, are spewing the usual drivel regarding intersectionality and the like), but it's still remarkable that Salon would publish it -- identity politics is a significant fraction of their bread and butter stories.

An interesting piece, it would be nice to live in his world where (in the US) identity politics magically disappeared after the Jim Crow only to come back afterwards.

To me it reads like he has been to locked up in the ivory tower of the yuppie 80's. With an academic view of how the world ought to be rather than how it is, deeply informed by the US use of liberal, conflating the conservative traditional liberals with more progressive groups.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

7 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

Oh so you don't know either but try to insert your ignorance into the conversation and instead choose to be willfully ignorant? 

Maybe you should familiarize yourself with what he has said and has done before opening your mouth, especially since what he has said and done is inciting violence and putting people he targets in a dangerous situation.

Also, no thanks on the cops thing. They aren't the friends of people of color, the lgbt community, people that rely on DACA. Which are the people that Milo has targeted. 

Like I said before, you free speech absolutists care more about that than the safety and the rights of the marginalized. 


oh and this is what Milo has done. 

http://www.teenvogue.com/story/milo-yiannopoulos-harassed-a-transgender-student-at-her-school

He also was planning on outing undocumented students at Berkeley, but was unable to do so since it was shut down because of Antifa rioting and going after Milo supporters.

But hey, free speech at all costs! Fuck the safety of the marginalized and their rights, right? 

Oh wait, I'm talking to a classic liberal. Wasting my time.

Any proof his was going to out anybody? I mean hard proof not hearsay? Where did he incite violence as well? 

I'm no fan of his, but if you're going to bark about ignorance then back up what you are saying.

[GAROVORKIN]

45 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Any proof his was going to out anybody? I mean hard proof not hearsay? Where did he incite violence as well? 

I'm no fan of his, but if you're going to bark about ignorance then back up what you are saying.

He wants to live in Oceana  

 

[Inigima]

51 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Any proof his was going to out anybody? I mean hard proof not hearsay?

You know he did it before, right?

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

8 minutes ago, Inigima said:

You know he did it before, right?

You do understand that doesn't count as proof as to what he was planning to do right? 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

35 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

He wants to live in Oceana  

 

I don't know how things look over where you are right now, but If the American Antifa is anything like their European counterparts then they are basically just the drug addicted and anti-social wing of the communist party. They have existed here for far longer than any Trump related movements, and tend to define "fascism" as anything that isn't literal communism. All in order to get an excuse to set fire to innocent peoples' cars, throw rocks through store windows, and vandalize public property that millions in tax revenue then has to be redirected to pay for. 

[GAROVORKIN]

Antifa seems to also seems to be opposed to legitimate conservatives viewpoints too.

 

 

 

[Swordfish]

11 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

Are you truly that ignorant of what Milo is and has done or attempted to do? Fuck his free speech when he hides behind it and free speech absolutists like yourself fall victim to his bullshit which allows him to put people in danger thanks to his abusive behavior that he pushes his bigotry with.

How is outing trans students or DACA students and inciting harassment of them an act of free speech?

It's wonderful to see people think the rights of bigots matter more than the existence and rights of those their bigotry impacts. 

So glad the privileged help perpetuate bigotry with their free speech fetishism / absolutism.

If private citizens shut down bigots, people whine. If people want an authoritative body to protect those that bigots are targeting, people whine. It is a lose lose situation for the marginalized and privileged white straight cis people have no issue giving them a platform. 

There's a difference between'having no issue with it' and thinking they should be censored.

You're absolutism is far more dangerous than my (alleged) absolutism.

Its interesting that 'absolutism' has become the new billy club of the censorists.  Did this strategy get published is a newsletter somewhere?

 

'If someone disagrees with you about censoring views you disagree with, just call them n absolutist'

[GAROVORKIN]

8 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

There's a difference between'having no issue with it' and thinking they should be censored.

You're absolutism is far more dangerous than my (alleged) absolutism.

Its interesting that 'absolutism' has become the new billy club of the censorists.  Did this strategy get published is a newsletter somewhere?

 

'If someone disagrees with you about censoring views you disagree with, just call them n absolutist'

It doesn't matter what you say to him . He can't see outside the box he's in  because he doesn't want to .     

[OldGimletEye]

Just a bit more on for profit corporate speech.

Like most people here that have to plan for their eventual retirement, I own corporate equity whether directly or indirectly whether through mutual funds or ETF’s or whatever.

Now, you have a lot of CEO guys running around the country telling everyone just how wonderful everything is going to be with a big old corporate tax cut.

Uh, um, you know, well call me skeptical. So rich CEO’s guys pronunciations about the awesomeness of corporate tax cuts don’t represent my views on this topic. And then of course, rich CEO guy has a pretty big incentive to promote big tax corporate tax cuts, you know, with all those stock options he’s got and all. In short, rich CEO guy doesn't speak for me.

Of course rich CEO guy can say generally whatever in the hell he wants. But, when he starts spending corporate money on what might be his own personal preferences, then we have a problem.

[OldGimletEye]

On 9/3/2017 at 8:14 AM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

You do understand that doesn't count as proof as to what he was planning to do right? 

Uh, why wouldn't count as proof? It's some proof of what he might do. You might argue it's not high quality proof or whatever, but to say its not proof isn't correct.

I'm inclined to let somebody like Milo talk about whatever topic he likes. If wants to sit there and trash progressives and blame them for everything that's wrong in the world, that's fine with me. It shouldn't be to hard to make mince meat out of him anyway.

But, when we get into this thing about him humiliating private students, that do not wish to be thrusted front and center in public controversies, and that have a reasonable expectation of privacy, I think curtailing his speech is appropriate.

Maybe given his history Milo should be required to deposit a fairly large sum of money - to paid out to his victims if he screws up.

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, Seli said:

An interesting piece, it would be nice to live in his world where (in the US) identity politics magically disappeared after the Jim Crow only to come back afterwards.

To me it reads like he has been to locked up in the ivory tower of the yuppie 80's. With an academic view of how the world ought to be rather than how it is, deeply informed by the US use of liberal, conflating the conservative traditional liberals with more progressive groups.

It did not disappear -- in fact, using the broad definition, it cannot ever fully disappear -- but it was de-emphasized which allowed the set of people that cares about such things to focus on stuff which, if not always helpful, is at least not actively harmful.

And there are no progressive groups in the US in the sense that you mean, at least not with any kind of power (the lonely possible exception being Bernie Sanders who is a kind of vestigial remnant). That is part of the article's point: in the US, "progressive" has become nearly synonymous with "politically correct neoliberal".

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Who cares?  The point is, they speak (or actually, their people speak).  You don't have to trust them.  You don't have to listen to them if you don't want to.  But it should be your own decision, not the government's.

You should care. There have to be reasonable limits to this, as you can't reasonably assume that their "voice" is a genuine reflection of their organization as a whole. That's what they are claiming when they say "corporations are people".

[Bonnot OG]

Show Milo has history of being a piece of shit that outs marginalized people and planned on doing it again, people still ask for proof and stick up for him. Christ on a cross some of you are obtuse.