We are all Slave now.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I think those are all about the current Falwell's father, who was a peach compared to this lemon.

Huh? The elder was a first order degenerate, a friend of vile shitballs like Ed Messe, and the father of the "Moral Majority." It's hard to imagine a person who more effectively degraded the character of our national discourse. The son's a cretin, but he's just assuming the family business. Is he perhaps more loathsome for embracing Trump? No. The father would have done the same, only in a more grotesque fashion. I have no doubt the elder, shrewd PR manipulator he was, would have had Trump "baptized" in some Moonie-like ritual to cleanse him of his sins. And he'd have gotten Murdoch to run the spectacle in prime-time. Thankfully, the son lacks that sort of PT Barnum "charisma."

But, then again, he might just be saving that grand gag-inducing Repentance-Fest for 2020... Good luck to him trying to figure out how to dunk Trump's combover in the holy water.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Nice try. I’m hell bent here on showing GGG’s politics are classic doctrinaire liberal talking points. Wanna-be bourgeoise elitism. It’s not thoughtful, and it’s dangerously opposed to actual free speech.

The rules are idiot simple. Virtue signal on liberal issues of the moment. Lob accusations of bigotry and sexism reflexively at everything one can. But as to economic policies that savage the disadvantaged you otherwise champion? Shut your mouth. Do not touch any issue that could imperil your slot in the top 10%.

You know exactly the sort of bullshit progressivism I’m discussing. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and you’re doing it right here. You know goddamn well I’m not rehabilitating Murray. But you keep throwing that accusation to try to argue that I’m trafficking in deviancy. Do you seriously think your full-of-shitness there could ever be hidden?

Engage honestly and stop being sleazy.

No one involved in this entire conversation is advocating any kind of censorship, and your repeated invocation of the word shows that you don't know what it means.

If you go to a cocktail party and insist on telling everyone at length that Murray is a victim of censorship, and you just keep repeating yourself instead of engaging in conversation, and everyone else there agrees that your ideas are stupid and they've heard enough and the hosts don't want to invite you to their next party -- if that happens, you haven't been censored. You've had a chance to communicate your views, and people don't want to hear any more.

If two historians are having a debate about the French Revolution, and one presents a feminist analysis of the what happened, and the other says, you know, you can't really understand what happened in the French Revolution without understanding the economic incentives, that also is not censorship. That is how ideas are contested.

Classical liberalism says the remedy to speech you don't like is more speech. That is exactly what Klein did with Murray and Harris, and what I have done with you. No one has shut anyone up. There have been a lot of questions to show that certain ideas are incomplete and wrong. Pointing that out also is not censorship, and more than you were censored in the seventh grade when you wrote a mediocre essay and your teacher gave you a C+.

I know you wish that I would say that being the victim of discrimination absolves a person from any responsibility for their subsequent actions. But I don't think that and haven't said it.

What I have said, repeatedly, is that talking about
- the "responsibility"
- of a "group"
for its collective circumstances
- cannot be "assessed" in any rigorous way, let alone
- with "science."

If you can't get the difference between what I have and have not said, you are dumber than I give you credit for. And you are not that stupid. So when you tell me that I am not being "honest" with you, take a long hard look in the mirror.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Oh, we can have this discussion all day...

Anyone arguing players do not have a right to take a knee is, despite no doubt thinking himself a “patriot,” deeply un-American.

My point about Kaepernick was not that you might think he doesn't have the right to express himself, but that he (and others) -- unlike Harris and Murray -- are actually paying a price for expressing their views.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Wait, we're parsing Klein for a vague whiff of censorship during an extended conversation with the person allegedly censored, but we're taking Murray at his word? Okay.

"Parsing" would involve actual text. Sebby has moved on to Klein's "subtext," which is a fancy way of saying that Klein really means all sorts of things that he hasn't said but which Sebby gets to make up.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Huh? The elder was a first order degenerate, a friend of vile shitballs like Ed Messe, and the father of the "Moral Majority." It's hard to imagine a person who more effectively degraded the character of our national discourse. The son's a cretin, but he's just assuming the family business. Is he perhaps more loathsome for embracing Trump? No. The father would have done the same, only in a more grotesque fashion. I have no doubt the elder, shrewd PR manipulator he was, would have had Trump "baptized" in some Moonie-like ritual to cleanse him of his sins. And he'd have gotten Murdoch to run the spectacle in prime-time. Thankfully, the son lacks that sort of PT Barnum "charisma."

But, then again, he might just be saving that grand gag-inducing Repentance-Fest for 2020... Good luck to him trying to figure out how to dunk Trump's combover in the holy water.

Stop censoring me.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Stop censoring me.

Funny -- apparently it's censorship to disagree with someone's ideas on substantive grounds, but not to impugn their honesty or call them authoritarian. That's how free speech works!

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Funny -- apparently it's censorship to disagree with someone's ideas on substantive grounds, but not to impugn their honesty or call them authoritarian. That's how free speech works!

Sebastian. Tyrone. Don’t make me stop this car.

ETA: Whose sock was Dead Fucking Horse? We need her/him back.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

No one involved in this entire conversation is advocating any kind of censorship, and your repeated invocation of the word shows that you don't know what it means.

If you go to a cocktail party and insist on telling everyone at length that Murray is a victim of censorship, and you just keep repeating yourself instead of engaging in conversation, and everyone else there agrees that your ideas are stupid and they've heard enough and the hosts don't want to invite you to their next party -- if that happens, you haven't been censored. You've had a chance to communicate your views, and people don't want to hear any more.

If two historians are having a debate about the French Revolution, and one presents a feminist analysis of the what happened, and the other says, you know, you can't really understand what happened in the French Revolution without understanding the economic incentives, that also is not censorship. That is how ideas are contested.

Classical liberalism says the remedy to speech you don't like is more speech. That is exactly what Klein did with Murray and Harris, and what I have done with you. No one has shut anyone up. There have been a lot of questions to show that certain ideas are incomplete and wrong. Pointing that out also is not censorship, and more than you were censored in the seventh grade when you wrote a mediocre essay and your teacher gave you a C+.

I know you wish that I would say that being the victim of discrimination absolves a person from any responsibility for their subsequent actions. But I don't think that and haven't said it.

What I have said, repeatedly, is that talking about
- the "responsibility"
- of a "group"
for its collective circumstances
- cannot be "assessed" in any rigorous way, let alone
- with "science."

If you can't get the difference between what I have and have not said, you are dumber than I give you credit for. And you are not that stupid. So when you tell me that I am not being "honest" with you, take a long hard look in the mirror.

Is there a mirror one cannot look into for a long time? I’ve never met one.

It’s kind of like a conversation with you, where you find some narrow point - a thin one, often - and repeat it endlessly, driving every subsequent branch of the conversation back to it, so can “win.” It’s the same thing, over and over, unchanging.

But I like mirrors. And I’ll take vanity over insecurity all day. Nobody ever got laid being the most officious Timmy in the room.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

My point about Kaepernick was not that you might think he doesn't have the right to express himself, but that he (and others) -- unlike Harris and Murray -- are actually paying a price for expressing their views.

Harris is paying a price. He dared to call people of your sensibilities out as full of shit thought police. And now he can’t shop anywhere they sell the really good purely organic kale.

Actually, Harris would tell you to your face that you’re a joke. Which is what really annoys the PC crowd about people like him. He’s an actual liberal. And he knows you’re not. And isn’t shy about telling you so.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

"Parsing" would involve actual text. Sebby has moved on to Klein's "subtext," which is a fancy way of saying that Klein really means all sorts of things that he hasn't said but which Sebby gets to make up.

I actually agree with this. I’m reading through Klein. Which I’ve said. How else does one translate doublespeak?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Is there a mirror one cannot look into for a long time? I’ve never met one.

It’s kind of like a conversation with you, where you find some narrow point - a thin one, often - and repeat it endlessly, driving every subsequent branch of the conversation back to it, so can “win.” It’s the same thing, over and over, unchanging.

But I like mirrors. And I’ll take vanity over insecurity all day. Nobody ever got laid being the most officious Timmy in the room.

I'm sorry I left the impression that I think there is some narrow flaw with your idea of scientifically assessing how disadvantaged minorities are responsible for their disadvantages. I have been trying to convey that the whole fucking idea is misconceived from soup to nuts, in about the broadest possible way, but I guess I didn't make that clear enough for you. My mistake.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Harris is paying a price. He dared to call people of your sensibilities out as full of shit thought police. And now he can’t shop anywhere they sell the really good purely organic kale.

Actually, Harris would tell you to your face that you’re a joke. Which is what really annoys the PC crowd about people like him. He’s an actual liberal. And he knows you’re not. And isn’t shy about telling you so.

Oh the humanity.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Oh the humanity.

Display a little more insensitivity. Harris is allergic to the chemicals used on factory-farmed kale.

He's also allergic to Humboldt Fog, monster.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Sebastian. Tyrone. Don’t make me stop this car.

ETA: Whose sock was Dead Fucking Horse? We need her/him back.

I've thought about pulling out Nut Case, Sensitive, to talk about all the Nuts!, but it just makes me miss NCS.

But, sorry, Dead Fucking Horse wasn't mine.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Sebastian. Tyrone. Don’t make me stop this car.

ETA: Whose sock was Dead Fucking Horse? We need her/him back.

I want to turn it into the neighborhood where we discuss corporate preclusion of expression.

I occasionally look at the Mrs.'s FB page. Used to be filled with dicey jokes, party pics, etc. Over the last few years, it's turned into a sewer of bland positive platitudes (often using the word "blessed," which should be banned), ads from friends who've discovered the joy of becoming realtors, eulogies for dead pets and great grandparents, and the obligatory "thoughts and prayers" following some tragedy (or some vague request for gun control where the tragedy is a mass shooting). Oh, and "awareness" events (runs, fast walks, relays, bike rides, bus rides, marches, unexplained ribbon-wearing ceremonies, etc.).

This is all, of course, because everybody's afraid of being flagged as offensive... The nagging fear that somewhere, some HR Gestapo is taking a screen shot of you in a bikini, holding a mojito, and slotting it as strike one in a "poor judgment" file. So the default offerings are... dreck. What you'd hear at a corporate retreat.

How fucking boring. How anathema to the freedom the internet was supposed to provide. All created by our corporate state.

Maybe a little of this socialism thing makes sense... We certainly aren't really free in this faux capitalism of the moment:

"Socialism means different things to different people. For some, it conjures the Soviet Union and the gulag; for others, Scandinavia and guaranteed income. But neither is the true vision of socialism. What the socialist seeks is freedom.

Under capitalism, we’re forced to enter the market just to live. The libertarian sees the market as synonymous with freedom. But socialists hear “the market” and think of the anxious parent, desperate not to offend the insurance representative on the phone, lest he decree that the policy she paid for doesn’t cover her child’s appendectomy. Under capitalism, we’re forced to submit to the boss. Terrified of getting on his bad side, we bow and scrape, flatter and flirt, or worse — just to get that raise or make sure we don’t get fired."