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[obeast]

If you want to talk about numbers, let's go right back to this whole event that triggered this being a handful of blac block types among a crowd of 1500.

How many Starbucks windows are broken, out of all their locations in the U.S., by leftist radicals? Is such a rare event worth spending so much more time handwringing over?

I think I was at least somewhat clear on the reason for hand-wringing:

On the other hand, public views on free speech issues and the appropriate uses of political violence -- and the widening chasm between liberals and conservatives in the US -- could be immensely consequential.

If the public response is "these ideas are awful, and it's entirely acceptable to simply prevent them from being espoused, by force if necessary," that's kinda a big deal. Note: to my eye, this has not been the public response, although you can see people edging towards that viewpoint in this very thread.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Blow and I agree. The Left are the new fascists. Follow dogma or be destroyed. I've voted liberal my whole life and these new liberals scare the hell out of me.

What...

 

[Eidan]

Ugh. Any respect I have for Blow just evaporated. An absolutely pathetic post on his part.

 

[WhiskeyKnight]

Do you think protesting at Vets funerals saying that god hates them is okay? Those are not protected under the first amendment.

Wow. You are completely wrong about this.

Snyder v. Phelps (2011)

The family of a deceased soldier sued Westboro after they picketed the soldier's funeral. In an 8-1 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Westboro's right to picket on a public sidewalk. While acknowledging that Westboro's "contribution to public discourse may be negligible," Chief Justice John Roberts's ruling rested in existing U.S. hate speech precedent: "Simply put, the church members had the right to be where they were."

 

[The Adder]

So he had an opinion about the left, but he needs to talk about some other fucked up crime too? He's talking about the left because they're the people whose side he wants to be on, but he's finding himself alienated from them and believes they're hurting their own cause. It's not about who's worse, some other hate crime has got nothing to do with it and he's not implicitly condoning that by not mention it.

This thread is proving his point, that someone like him can't even make (in my opinion) a quite level headed criticism without being crucified for it. You can't kill discussion like that, it's toxic.

On the subject of killing conversation:

"Stop disagreeing with this point of view I agree with or else you're being toxic."

 

[onadesertedisland]

I have the feeling that support for this Blow guy's argument and Milo is coming from younger, non-minority people. Silencing hate speech is not an attack on your right to free speech, in fact it's the opposite. Because hate speech directly threatens your freedom of speech and is intended to harm those the hate is directed towards.

 

[kingocfs]

What...

Stop asking questions, there is no critical thinking happening on the left.

 

[Glix]

So he had an opinion about the left, but he needs to talk about some other fucked up crime too? He's talking about the left because they're the people whose side he wants to be on, but he's finding himself alienated from them and believes they're hurting their own cause. It's not about who's worse, some other hate crime has got nothing to do with it and he's not implicitly condoning that by not mention it.

This thread is proving his point, that someone like him can't even make (in my opinion) a quite level headed criticism without being crucified for it. You can't kill discussion like that, it's toxic.

Its so easy to say when you are not the target.

So it would be okay for him to spend time talking about how fucking bad the jews are and then put a picture of me up on the screen and label me as a jew?

You are defending his right to do this?

Because a bunch of protesters took it too far, either out of frustration or because some anarchists showed up?

 

[psychowave]

"replace fascist with anything else and see how it sounds"

Why is this being parroted as some kind of argument? The reason people are upset is because fascist is accurate to the current climate and its fucking heartbreaking. People have a right to be mad and angry as much as anyone else has a right to spew hateful bullshit.

When I read recipes I replace "salt" with "arsenic" and I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

 

[Cyan]

And following on from Niro's message, I'm going to lock this. We had this thread already when everything went down in Berkeley, and it was locked because the discussion was both increasingly heated and revolving around the same disagreements being repeated over and over. Jonathan Blow has nothing new to add here, which is probably why this thread is following the same path as the first one.