Missed the Jordan Peterson reference. Being Canadian I've seen a lot of hate thrown his way from the left, but only hyperbole as reasons. Would you have specific things he has done or said to justify this?

Edit: The summary of my familiarity with Peterson is here
https://videosift.com/video/Secret-recording-of-Canadian-Uni-blocking-free-speech

?
So, do you disagree with his point, or just think people are so outrageously out of control that saying anything anyone might find offensive is asking for trouble? Kind of like any woman not wearing a burka is asking to be raped?
Do you mean you think people have a right to never be offended, and that right trumps the constitutional right to free speech?
You're going to need to explain that one to me.

The United States: "Land of the Free!"

Number three
You have the right to free speech
As long as
You're not dumb enough to actually try it
Know your rights
These are your rights
--The Clash

Your video, Tech Giant Slowly Strangling Independent Media & Free Speech, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

And out the window goes the lie that the right defends free speech and the constitution.....again.

We don't stand for that kind of crap up here in Canada...

Jokes aside, we make exceptions to free speech and hate speech is something you CAN be prosecuted for. A teacher that was trying to teach holocaust denial was convicted for it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_Canada

My 2 cents, punching a nazi is more wrong because of the vigilante aspect of it than in an absolute moral sense. IMO the state should have laws about support for or membership with known criminal, terrorist or hate groups. Nazi's and KKK for starters, Westboro baptists and Saudi Wahabiism too depending on where society wants to draw the line. Morally though, I have no problems with declaring that debating merits of fascism and even mistreatment of Nazi germany historically is free speech and protected, but at the same time wearing a swastika on your arm or a pillow case on your head while marching in the streets to support your 'cause' should see you convicted and sentenced.

Very analogous to Westboro Baptist "church" stooges. They (ab)use their constitutionally protected rights to free speech to say the most offensive and provocative crap that they can come up with, specifically with the intention to incite a (violent) reaction against them. Why? Because pretty much the entire Phelps family are lawyers, and they know that they can generally win any assault case that they can provoke people into. All that hate they spew boils down to a stupid, petty moneymaking scam.

Is the Seattle Nazi that devious and cunning? I doubt it. Probably just a crazy / fucked up guy, as Maher said. That doesn't excuse his fuckwittery, but it does reinforce Maher's argument that punching the guy is NOT the best response.

Morello is awesome, with RATM and Audioslave, and now Prophets of Rage, etc. But he's dead wrong on this issue, and comes across as a bit of an "internet tough guy". Outside of just ignoring them, I kinda think the only way to one-up these people is to know the law, what constitutes assault etc., and essentially beat them at their own game (ie. provoke them into doing something to you). On the other hand, there's something to be said for using using passive-aggressive snark to mock / humiliate them in a nonviolent way, ala the Foo Fighters:

Did you fall on your head as a child? Those people taking a knee aren't bashing America. They aren't bashing the flag, the troops, or anything like that. They are peacefully protesting injustice.

As has been pointed out by many many people, Rosa Parks wasn't protesting public transpiration, the Greensboro sit-ins weren't about Woolworth's dominance in retail at the time... they were all protesting injustice. How can that really simple little fact be ignored by Trump and his supporters? Are they so brain washed by him, that they'll believe every little pile of shit that comes out of his mouth. Do they want to suck his cock that bad? They need to fucking learn to think for themselves. Learn to vet information... and actually vet, not just find the first couple Google answers.

Somehow it is okay for a bunch of white Nazis to protest, and that is fine, and free speech, but the instant a black man protests injustice, suddenly he's an ass hole who needs to be fired? Over 400,000 Americans died fighting Nazis, but now according to Trump, Nazis are "very fine people". No they are not. Not a single person who's a Nazi, KKK member, white nationalist, or would march with them are very fine, or even fine, or even good. They are all evil.

The fact that most on the right think Jesus would side with a Nazi over a black man's protest of injustice (because, if you are a Christian, then every thought has to be what would Jesus do in that case) just goes to show how evil, and horrible the right's Jesus is. It's why I'd rather me and my children burn in Hell than be around people like those Nazis, and that Jesus who'd love them more than the black man protesting the injustice his people still endure to this day. I'll do everything in my power to insure my children hate the Jesus that the right promotes. No wonder Christianity is loosing numbers, it's a faith about hatred and bigotry, the love that Christ promoted in the Bible, is no longer there. They may think they show love, but I can 100% assure them, from the outside looking in, all anyone sees from that form of Christianity, is hatred and bigotry, and as it is the dominant form of Christianity in America, it is all anybody ever sees. I hope there is a Heaven and Hell, and I hope that God points to the millions of souls burning in Hell because of their bigotry and hatred... I'd love it if for the first 20 billion years they had to live outside the gates of Heaven, or in the slums of heaven, hearing the torrents of those of us in Hell, knowing they personally are the reason we are there, that we were all turned off Christ because of the way modern Christians act.

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Let me disabuse you of some of your assumptions...

I didn't do gamergate and I don't really give a fuck about feminism/anti-feminism as it pertains to how I treat women in the real world (that being egalitarian, everyone should be equal).

Now that that's out of the way, yeah, I am for fucking real. Whether it was a stunt or just a bunch of people turning up to a talk which they paid their money to get in to, it doesn't really matter. Sarkessian was the aggressor (unless you truly believe that threaten = criticise someone's ideas online then show up in person to let them have their say), using a position of power, backed up by a bunch of like minded people to abuse paying attendees who's only crime was sitting up the front and listening quietly, which they are entitled to do.

/shockfuckinghorror, never mind free speech, you can't even listen to people anymore without them wetting their pants in terror.

There is plenty of video footage of said event and you are more than welcome to point out to me exactly where in that footage any of the so called aggressors did anything actually aggressive. Aka, the point where my opinion of what went on is different to the reality. I don't need to convince people of the reality of the situation, I can just roll the footage.

She broke the code of conduct, and while other YT'ers were being ejected for being in public areas (a breach of the CoC), she was given an explicit pass by the Greens. Sargon and the rest of the so called aggressors were not ejected or banned from Vidcon which indicates to me that they did nothing wrong in the eyes of the organisers. The aggressors seemed to get along fine with other people they met that they ideologically disagree with, with no other incidents being recorded. Sark, on the other hand, also verbally abused Boogie2988, one of the nicest and most considerate people I've seen on YT, and someone who had gone out of his way not to offend her.

All this is a matter of record, not my opinion. So now comes the question of your integrity. Are you going to actually back up your claims with a little actual evidence, or are you just going to go back to calling names... ; P

I 100% agree, but at some point it moves from acceptable to immoral, and that point varies. That's why I gave examples that I think many/most people would not consider rape (pretending you're rich), and what I suspect is its counterpart (pretending you're their partner).

Note that I'm not arguing whether or not this was rape, I'm just making the point that there's a valid argument to be made. I know that's cravenly copping out, but I'm not confident enough to make either case 100%.

I'm a follower of the George Carlin philosophy that says you can only take offense, you can't give it. i.e. offence is in the eye of the beholder, and so any judgement needs to take into account things like intention, and should err on the side of free speech. Any psychological attack - from being cut off when driving to being told you have cancer - will damage you only to the level that you let it (which is largely out of your own control), but that doesn't stop the source of the attack from being in the wrong.

This is why I looked at this case in cost-benefit terms. We can't know for sure how this affected those involved, but it's reasonable to suspect that the woman was psychologically scarred through little or no fault of her own, and sexual violation is one of the most cruel and personal. This is amplified by the public nature of it. Yes, maybe - hopefully - she chalked it down to a bad decision, but I think it would be completely understandable if she was significantly damaged by what was unarguably a malicious action against her (even if the malice wasn't directed towards her).

Bob, the people you're trying to either defend or deflect attention from are fucking cunts, end of story. I understand that people are being driven to the far right (leftist violence and impingement on free speech predated Trump and the rise of the alt right, and has a lot to do as a causal factor for both), and that certainly not everyone heading to that end of spectrum are awful, but anyone preaching racial purity, resisting the white genocide etc have lost the fucking plot. There is no right side apart from condemning all illegal violence and upholding free speech.

Newt, you pontificate about how even handed you've been, but where are the hosts of videos showing antifa violence? Where are the upvotes for this video? I've been considering putting some of them up not as a mitigation for the actions of the right, but to show that polarisation and extremism is no good for anyone, but I was almost entirely sure they wouldn't sift in the slightest. Given this vid has been up for 9 hours and has 1 vote (mine), the theory seems to hold water...

Meanwhile, Arnold's tirade against nazi's is top sift of the week. Not that he was wrong of course, but anyone with five minutes and a willingness to be open minded can find endless unbiased documentation of leftist violence, something he completely omits to mention. He talks about the nazi's rotting in hell, how about Stalin's communists (which antifa models itself off...)?

Sift is leftward leaning and that's cool, I generally agree with a lot of sensible ideas that people around here are for. But it has it's own bigotry against people expressing views that aren't in lockstep with the majority view, and members certainly aren't afraid to punish people for not toeing the line.

And one of my favourite quotes as an advocate for free speech no matter how awful or confronting it might be...

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

H. L. Mencken

@Diogenes

Thank you for your detailed answer. I do agree with you that context matters and that words are neither inherently good or bad by themselves. However, I think you’re looking at the situation from a more microscopic point of view as a simple joke between two people. I prefer to take a more macroscopic view of the situation. Allow me to explain.

Going back to my hypothetical example, it’s true that I didn't mean any harm when I used the term "retard" towards my brother. I think all people like to think of themselves as "good" people. For example, I would never in my life point at person with Down Syndrome and scream "Retard!" at the top of my lungs or attempt to belittle someone with an actual mental disability. The problem, however, is that by using the word in the way I did in the example I am tacitly--and quite publicly (remember this is happening in a parking lot)--endorsing the equating of people with mental disabilities to stupidity. I may be making a joke towards my brother but it isn’t just my brother that winds up being the butt of the joke.

Now maybe from your perspective, it’s just one person saying a joke. Look at the context, you might say. It’s a distasteful joke but no big deal, right? And I could agree with that if it was just some off-color joke limited to a single individual. Unfortunately, and I think we can both agree on this, the use of “retard” to mean “stupid” is a relatively common occurrence in American vernacular. You couple that with the stigma against mental illness and mental disability and I think it becomes fairly plain to see that on the macroscopic level (i.e. society) we have a problem: a group that is socially disadvantaged and historically discriminated against is even further marginalized by the language people use in their everyday lives. Now, if you don’t agree this is a problem, I’m afraid the conversation has to end here since the logical conclusion of such a stance is that people should be free to say whatever they want and be immune to criticism, damn the consequences.

But if you do agree it is a problem, how are we going to solve it? My take on the situation is that doing absolutely nothing when witnessing a situation like the one I've described is unlikely to improve society in any way. The status quo will be maintained if people are not confronted about their language use.

That being said, people often say things without fully comprehending the implications of what they are saying. They often talk the way they were raised and never once questioned whether what they were saying was actually harmful or not. I don’t think people should be pilloried for that, but in the event that they are unaware of how they are contributing to the discrimination and oppression of others they certainly need to be educated.

This necessarily entails confrontation, although that confrontation might be very low key. Continuing the example above, I think a good way for the woman in the example to “enlighten” me about my misguided use of the word “retard” would be something along the lines of this:

“Excuse me. I really wish you wouldn’t equate having a mental handicap with stupidity. My nephew has Down Syndrome and even though, yes, he can’t do everything that a person without an intellectual handicap can do he is most certainly not stupid.”

Now, all of that said, I see nothing wrong with publicly shaming those who clearly understand the implications of what they are saying and out of either stubbornness, a need for attention, or actual spite willfully continue to use language that is degrading or oppressive. A white person frequently using the N-word in public to describe black people, for instance, is a situation where I’d be completely fine with them getting verbally eviscerated. We don't always have to be polite, even when being politically correct.

As a final note, I want to make it clear that I believe in free speech in the sense that everyone should be free to say whatever they wish. However, as a caveat to that I also believe that free speech comes with the responsibility that people must own everything they say. If someone wishes to use offensive, degrading, or oppressive language that is their choice. Free speech in no way gives them a free pass from criticism of that choice, however.

Big difference

The TEA party wants to follow the Constitution.
All other groups don't.

How do the justice democrats line up with the Constitution?

I checked you link to the JD platform - Some are worthy but still most are Un constitutional BS feel good look nonsense .


Pass a constitutional amendment to put an end to Washington corruption and bring about election reform. --- Never pass FOx watching hen house- only a smaller government helps this and term limits.


Defend free speech and expression.-Left are the oppressors
Ensure universal healthcare as a right. -Un constitutional
Create the new new deal.
Ensure universal education as a right. Un constitutional
Ensure universal healthcare as a right.Un constitutional
Make the minimum wage a living wage and tie it to inflation.Un constitutional
Defend and protect women’s rights. - So we dont cre about men?
Ensure paid vacation time, sick time, family leave, childcare. Un constitutional
Protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Un constitutional
Implement comprehensive immigration reform. agreed
Enact police reform. - Agreed arrest criminals
Combat homelessness. - bring back sanatoriums that liberals removed .