what a lovely parade of straw men that completely undermine any legitimate point hidden within.

the left won the moral argument decades ago,now a small cadre a shrieking harpies has taken over to....ok..i don't know WHAT they are trying to do,because everytime i try to speak to one of those snowflakes,they spray me with pepper spray,call me a rapist and run to their safe space.

or they tell me that i am not entitled to an opinion,because i am a hetero-white-male.

not saying a discussion with someone on the ultra right fares any better.either they want to share their adoration of their corporate jesus..joel olsteen..or they are constantly trying to berate me with neo-fascist literature,and show me just how patriotic a super patriot like them REALLY is,and then tell me why they couldn't join the military due to horrible bunions.

and of course one mention of muslims and they wet themselves.getting sick of loaning out my extra clothes because their bladder gets weak at the mere mention of brown people.

for years we have watched the left lose their way,and get lost in an ocean of rhetoric and faux outrage,and the same has happened with the right.

the extremes have taken hold of the megaphone,and are trying to shout each other down with their own sanctimonious self-righteous moralizing.

so the left is in the corner picking boogers and the right has gone fucking insane.

i'm telling you guys...
trump is not the disease...
he is a symptom.

our country is very very sick right now.

and i fear it is only going to get worse.

i predicted when trump won that he would rival bush in his ineptness and bungling buffoonery.well here it is a month into his presidency and i think i can say with some conviction:i was wrong..it is going to be so much worse than bush.

i need a drink...

Lol, Prager "University".

I guess Trump had to get his idea from somewhere.

Please expand, because while I can see that he's picking and choosing some easy targets for criticism (over the top SJW stuff) that may not be representative of the at-large "Progressive" agenda, nothing really jumped out at me as a "straw man" argument.

I'm a somewhat conservative-leaning person (at least on issues that I think should be in the realm of government), but I feel like I have a legitimate beef with some of what the party that is "supposed" to cater to conservatives actually does in government; what the GOP seems to present as its "platform".

This guy is a liberal-leaning person who feels like he has a legitimate beef with some of what his party thinks their platform should be. And I tend to agree with a lot of what he's saying.

And I would hope that even if I didn't agree with anything that he was saying, I'd be all for protecting his right to say his piece. Some people/groups test our patience for that, like the Westboro Baptist Church -- ostensibly a crazy right-wing organization that just wants to get their message (of hate and bigotry) out there. But in reality they are just a bunch of con men who stir up trouble in order to provoke violent or other responses that they can start litigation over. The point is, there are good ways and bad ways to deal with idiots like that.

Threats to free speech from the other side of spectrum are much more subtle, and therefore perhaps more insidious and dangerous. For example, at about 3:00 in the video where he lists "racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, and islamophobia" as "meaningless buzzwords". For many people, those words are NOT meaningless, but real, concrete problems that they actually have to face in their lives. Problems many orders of magnitude more significant and weighty than any of the minutia that can make or ruin our average day. Unfortunately, those words do tend to carry a lot less weight when they are bandied about willy-nilly every time we disagree with someone for any reason.

I guess, we all really do have more things in common with each other than things that separate us from each other. The frequent and extreme factionalizing and partisanship today seems very counter productive. And there's plenty of blame for that to go around.

There are some valid points here, but I think there are multiple interpretations to these issues and it's not so clear cut.

I'll just pick an easy one. Trigger warnings are no more a restriction of free speech then calling a movie rated R VS PG13, it's just more specific, so lets get that out of the way. Take a read of a classic like John Stuart Mills “On Liberty”. He does a great dissemination of freedom and balancing it with causing harm developing the harm principle and the offense principle. It's well thought out and addresses these very issues. There is a recognition that free speech should be regulated depending on if it causes harm. For instance it's illegal to yell “fire!” in a crowded movie theater since it could cause harm from a stampede of people trying to leave. I apologize if I get things wrong, but the following is my understanding here, but look here if you're interested. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Theory_of_liberty)

It's a difficult concept to define what is an act of harm. In general this is highly related to concepts of political correctness and has it's very roots in classical liberal thought. In my understanding, Mill would say not to restrict free speech in the case offense only in the case of harm. However, psychology and neuroscience make this line less distinct in caseses of trama or deep internalized concepts where we might see words leading to genuine harm of an individual, not just offense. This means that harm is less universal and depends on the individual and it leads to the idea of separating spaces based on the line between offense and harm. My understanding is the idea of rating systems, red light districts come from this. Also, now, a newer concept of safe spaces. It's easy to say that people should just suck it up, but it's not always that clear cut and there is historical precedence for this idea.

Trigger warnings are a trigger for the right. And I'm not even kidding.

SJWs are not progressive or the left, no matter how loudly they claim to be.

Odd that he tells us what is not progressive, then forgets that definition to say that progressives now work towards the opposite of his definition and that "progressive" now means oppressive.

Allowing and supporting a small vocal and zealous group co-opting a political party and changing it's platform 180 degrees by giving credence to their false narratives and claims to be 'progressive' is disgusting and disingenuous, and he knows it.
Just stop calling the SJW idiots progressives or the left, since they are neither, and the problem for progressives and the left are solved. SJWs WANT to represent the left, and the right WANTS them to represent the left (because they're easy to argue against), but they simply don't. Pieces like this only serve to support the SJW snowflakes and the false right wing narrative that the left is fascist.

He does also bring up many straw men, like Catholics being forced to pay for abortion causing birth control, they aren't and they never were, they only had to allow their employees the freedom to buy it with federal money if they so chose, but they don't want people to have the choice and apparently think that if they pay you, they have the right to control how you spend that money, what you may believe, and how you choose to live your life.

Sad that he's gone the route of supplying straw men, conflation, misdirection, misidentification, and misinformation in order to rail against something he's helping cause with those actions. It's like calling the tea baggers conservative right wingers, they weren't/aren't either, but they successfully co-opted the right by claiming they were both and the right going along because they needed the idiot vote....lets not let that happen on the left, please.

SJWs aren't on the left, and aren't progressive, they are fascists and cry babies trying to grab control of the left and progressive movements for their own means, not to further the left's agenda. Fight them, don't capitulate and slink off, handing them a political party like the right did with tea baggers.
STAND UP TO THEM.

@newtboy

i agree with pretty everything you said,but in rubins defense,that is what they identify themselves as.

but i agree,both those who identify as either liberal or conservative need to call out the bullshit when people claim they represent a certain political philosophy.

So the Republicans left the Conservatives and took the party to the left, meanwhile the SJW's took the Democratic party and drug it out to the WAY WAY out to the left?

In any effect, I agree with him in just about every way, and welcome him to come join us "tea baggers". We aren't nearly as racist, homophobic, or bible thumping as the media makes us out to be.

Not saying those people don't exist, but they are a really, really small fringe, and putting their identity on a whole group of people is like saying all left wingers are in perfect alignment with BLM or OWS groups.

Are you really blaming the debacle that is Trump on a small sect of the left wing, cos like, maybe its contributory...but you know, the straw that breaks the back is, afterall, still only a piece of straw.

Have you actually, personally, been pepper sprayed for just trying to speak?

If not...faux outrage? Irony detected.

Idk. I'm white, I'm male, I'm straight, but we clearly swim in different circles. The only person censoring me is me. I think the white, male, straight demo is heard from quite enough. He IS President afterall.

Not that I don't think there has been a tendency to stifle discussion through the abuse of "poltical correctness", but honestly, sometimes the "precious snowlflakes" thing seems like a more apt to description of the anti-SJW crowd that seem more butthurt that some people disagree with them than the people they offend.

No, the teabaggers invaded the republicans and took them mostly far right but really deep into insanity, where they aren't right or left, just angry and lashing out while accepting no responsibility for their parts in problems. They are anti tax, but pro spending, anti big government unless it's a government project they support, then big government is what's needed every time, anti regulation unless it's a regulation against something they dislike (like abortion, relaxing drug policies, marriage, equal protection under the law, etc).

Every teabagger I've met (and there are many) has been at least as if not more racist, homophobic, and bible thumping than the media makes the 'party' out to be, including (sadly) many of my own family members. They are not the fringe, they are the base, you're either lying or don't know your own group. They are also just as dumb and/or stupid as they are portrayed, my favorite slogan is "keep your government hands off my medicare", clearly the woman carrying it was so dumb she didn't understand that medicare is a government program, just like 1/2 of you don't know that the ACA is Obamacare, but HATED Obamacare with a passion while insisting the ACA is great. Not racist? Then what? Just brain dead? It's this disconnect from reality and sanity that made me run from them as soon as it was clear where the party was going....it didn't start out like it ended up, it started out more like OWS.

Haven't you been the one saying all left wingers are in perfect alignment with SJWs recently....repeatedly and smugly? Yes...that was you.

*facepalm

Are you really suggesting that if one is not personally physically attacked by those wishing to extinguish free speech with violence as they hijack another political party into fascism, one has no right to stand up and complain that they do it to others?

Cranial rectosis detected.

I agree with all of that, and there definitely are reasonable limits to completely "free" speech -- like the fire in a crowded theater staple example.

"Harm" seems like a good place to start when defining those limits. It works in the "fire in a theater" base case really well; by making that out of bounds you avoid trample / stampede injuries.

But what about "trauma or deep internalized concepts where we might see words leading to genuine harm of an individual", as you suggest? I'd agree that cases like that can exist. But to me, the question then becomes "how easily can you avoid those words?"

Offended / "harmed" (perhaps genuinely) by something you see/hear on TV? Very easily solved -- change the channel. Publish "trigger warnings" recommending like-minded individuals also avoid that channel/program/whatever if you like; people who do not agree can also easily avoid those.


Offended / "harmed" (perhaps genuinely) by something your professor said in a University? A bit harder to avoid. Someone in that situation can drop the class and try to take it with a different professor (which may not be possible), avoid taking the class entirely (although it may be a requirement for graduation), or contemplate moving to a different university (which is likely an uneconomical overreaction).

There are arguably better options available for such a person. I'd encourage them to reflect on the phrase "choose your battles wisely", and decide if this particular "harm" (giving all benefit of the doubt that it does actually exist) is worth escalating.


Offended / "harmed" by something your boss says at work? "Choose your battles" still applies, but perhaps also consider asking people who have had a job and who have had to work for a living for advice. When (trigger warning) 99.9% of them say something like "welcome to the real world", maybe -- just maybe -- it is time to look within and re-evaluate your own offense / "harm" threshold.

"Offended" is different from "harmed". The SJWs need to learn that lesson fast. Harm in this context means put in physical danger of injury, which a stampede or riot would fall under and why you can't incite either.

If one is truly "harmed" by offensive words, that's an extremely odd personal mental problem that should not be inflicted on the rest of us, please just avoid the public and stick with your similarly afflicted group.

Your TV point is good, change the channel or turn it off.
Your college point is terrible, IMO. College is, in large part, intended to expose you to new and differing ideas and mindsets and teach you how to interact with those holding them. Interpersonal communication was a requirement where I went. If that's something people are uncomfortable with, they don't belong in colleges. Period. If someone wants to start a school where those ideals (safe space, regulated speech, trigger warnings, etc) are reinforced, fine, but it shouldn't be accredited because, no matter how good the classes and students are, it's missing a key component.
The boss being offensive, there's a clearly defined legal line, if they cross that line you can sue, if not, grow a pair and realize two of the most important lessons my parents taught me...."life's not fair", and "what you want and what you need are two different things, and knowing which is which can be the road to contentment, while not knowing is always a road to ruin". I feel like a lot of kids today have never heard either.

@Jinx
my main point is the the fringe of both ends of the political spectrum dominate the discussion,and BOTH are fucking horrible,ill-thought,narrow-minded and petulant.

they are part of the disease.

not every person who identifies as left is a snowflake,nor is everyone who identifies as right a bed wetter.

i wrote extensively on why trump won,and would happy to share if you would like me to,but to answer your question:no.snowflakes are not to blame (and i am struggling how you conflated that to be honest).

i have been:pepper sprayed,maced and beaten by three cops.
i have been thrown in solitary for days without food or water,and no working toilet.
i have been punched in the face by a supposedly devout christian,and i have been publicly harrassed for mistaking a young woman for a man at a gay bar.

is there anything else you would like to know to assuage the MASSIVE presumptions you made in your comment?

look dude,if you can't see that both the ultra left and ultra right are fucking bonkers and have lost their way.they co not even come close to representing the majority,and by their behavior..i do not think they really care.

so why should we?
the people who recognize that shit has gone sideways.that the politicians are purchased corporate whores,and this binary politics is just a device to keep us divided.

i am an anarchist,but i am not stupid,and refuse to be coddled or manipulated into buying into shitty philosophies and even worse politics.

the ultra left are fucking cry-babies,and the ultra right neo-fascists are bed wetters.

and both have lost their way.

No, I'm saying moderate your hysteria children.

@newtboy -- I'm with you, although I do think that offensive words can cause "harm". For some definitions of harm. Some of which I might even personally find valid.

I don't think that giving snowflakes a reality check is a primary function of Universities, as I think you do. Certainly not for all majors. My degree is in Computer Science, sort of engineering-lite, and no courses in my major "exposed me to new and differing ideas and mindsets and taught me how to interact with those holding them". To be fair, I wasn't actively looking for things to take offense to, as I think many SJW types are.

I don't think my University experience "failed" in any way by not forcing those kinds of challenges on me, mostly because those kinds of challenges are a normal part of real life. If someone has managed to avoid such challenges up to the point that they are entering University, they will probably find a way to avoid them at University also. But they can't avoid it forever.

"lashing out while accepting no responsibility" - Sounds exactly like every BLM, OWS, or any other Liberal hate group if you ask me. Talk about being drug into insanity. Besides, show me ONE Tea Party protest where there was ANY violence.. lashing out... Pft There is you face palm moment right there.

And no, true Conservatives are not anti-tax but pro-spending. You just described where the Republican party went, but NOT the Conservative. And yes, I know exactly what I stand for.

So I guess I can say every Liberal I've met is as racist and hate-filled as BLM, OWS, and militant Feminist groups. That makes it true since I posted it on the internet... *rolls eyes*

And if you want to talk about party base and abject stupidity, there are GOBS of examples of videos showing the complete ignorance of students on college campuses and protesters at some of these big Liberal events.

Seems to me like the typical Liberal has no idea what he is protesting other than they were told that something was bad and they should be mad about it, and the Professor said they could skip class if they go too! Oh, and can't forget all the PAID "professional" protesters.

The historical precedents being (self)censorship and gulags.

Subjective offense and harm defined by well-meaning panels of social judges are the road to hell.

Is the man really black enough to be allowed to say nigger? Is the woman really ugly or is she justly offended? Who decides? Or is there some other concept at work here? Like common morals decided upon by peers in normal social contact (conflict), instead of dictated by a "higher" entity, the SJW.

Let the people decide for themselves. The normal path is that legislation is formed based on morals, not the other way round.

So, you admit your group is at least shirking responsibility as much as you feel OWS and BLM are? That's quite a lot.

Eureka, California. I watched them be violent and attack anyone disagreeing. I'm 100% positive it wasn't the only place that happened.

So, you think you can completely separate republicans and their actions from "conservatives" who identify as republican, are embraced fully by republicans and courted by them, and vote them into power, but all democrats are incontrovertibly violent SJWs, even though dems don't accept them and never court them. As I said, shirking responsibility for your actions....it's the conservative way.


First, I've addressed the difference, republicans embrace the insane teabaggers, democrats rail against SJWs. Second, look at numbers. A few thousand ignorant students is far less than hundreds of thousands of outraged ignorant ball lickers.

The average, typical liberal is protesting an idiot in power selling us down the river to the highest bidder and eroding hard won civil rights. They are not typically students (no matter how much you wish they were because many of the student protests are easy to degrade and dismiss, but most protests/rallies aren't).

Professional paid protesters...another disproven bit of right wing propaganda. You watch WAY too much Alex Jones....why not bring up the pedophile ring Clinton heads, or the murders she personally committed, or the fish people she keeps in a hidden tank in her office, or the violence they planned for the inauguration?
Sad. Biggly sad.

@MilkmanDan
Well, I believe words will never hurt me (unless I let them).

My parents both work for Stanford, and there, and at many other decent colleges, being exposed to new ideas and people is certainly an integral part of the educational experience. That doesn't mean you have to become a SJW, it means you learn how to discuss topics with those you disagree with, not just live in an echo chamber.

I think many today are so sheltered and deep in a bubble that they do make it to colleges having never had their beliefs challenged in any meaningful way. That they can graduate with the same flaws is horrendous, IMO.

Bahahahaha! Okay... Now you've shown your true ignorance to what is happening. Perhaps you have been partaking a bit took much koolaid from the altar of Rachel Maddow.

Conservatives EMBRACED by Republicans? It is more like true Conservatives are hated and suppressed by Republicans. Ted Cruise is a Conservative, and Republicans tend to hate on him more than they do on the Democratic Party.

I'm still waiting to see some violent Tea Party news. I went ahead and did a Google on it cause I don't remember ANY, and sure enough there is SO little that Google couldn't even fill a single page with hits. The ones that were there were minor at worst. Just because SJW news media spouts out rubbish to rile up the ignorant masses doesn't make the rubbish any more true.

Shall we check on violence and BLM or violence and OWS?

Nope, don't watch her.
Sweet zombie Jesus. I can't believe you are attempting to separate the conservative movement from their chosen party, republicans.
Flaberghasting.
Why did "conservatives" vote for Republicans then? Why is Ted one? Why was he a republican candidate for president? They hate him because he's a complete douchbag, not for his politics.

So you found some and dismiss them as minor, you'll probably be saying there aren't any by tomorrow. Edit: oh, you already dismissed them with "I'm still waiting to see some violent teabaggers news" before going on to admit you found some....barely a full page of links to stories about them (you claim, when I googled it well over 20 pages of links to reports of tea party violence came up) but you are still waiting to see some. There is none so blind as he who will not see.

SJW news media?!? You may need professional mental help.

I never made an idiotic claim that they were completely non violent, or claimed them as my chosen people, that was you spouting ignorance about your own group, teabaggers.

Funny thing is the old left is acting that extreme and downright lunatic, that the new right and new left are finding a lot of common ground now.

In Germany for example you can see that on Die Linke, a pure left party (links means left in German), which is actually well established. They are now suddenly talking about things that only the right wing would have talked about, so much that a new right wing party already offered some of them to join their party. Sure, they still have a lot of the old leftists among them who just keep raving in their delusions, but they are realizing reality and are leaning more and more to a policy of reality.

I said that before, if you act like extremists, you will lose the moderates and people who can still think for themselves, and thats exactly whats happening now. I considered myself more of a leftist than right winger too until a few months ago actually. Now, I would never go that far, because I know with what lunacy, hypocrisy I would be identified with. And that is actually making me mad, because there were a lot ideas from the left, that now have lost most of their credibility, throwing us all back decades, or more.

Enoch nailed this in the second post.

Trump is NOT the problem. The extreme right is the problem. The extreme left is the problem. BOTH the extreme left and the extreme right WANT both sides to become more extreme. Both the extreme left and right want a fight because they deeply believe their holy crusade is right, to facilitate their fight they need the moderates to fade away. Poisoning both parties so they are unpalatable to the moderates is what they want.

The Alt-Right doesn't want moderate right leaning voters in the republican party. They are so far right those moderates are traitors to their cause and enemies to their ideals.

OWS, BLM, and the SJW's don't want moderate left leaning voters in the democratic party. They are so far left those moderates are traitors to their cause and enemies to their ideals.

Trump is just a symptom of the two extremes successful campaigns of growth. The only upside to Trump being president is that at least their is some glimmer of the republican party itself questioning the wisdom of the direction it's being dragged along. The democratic party meanwhile is doubling down on an absolute refusal to try and lure away or court moderates that voted republican, because after all, they are the enemy.

If the parties can't be forced to try courting moderate voters, this just keeps getting worse. Don't delude yourself into thinking the answer is to get a Democrat in next time. Without moderating the underlying extremes this just keeps getting worse.

Let's hope the rumors about Sanders starting a new party are true, then.

*controversy

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.