Attacks in Paris + Belgium

[silkyman]

Which gender is purple supposed to be?

 

[blade1889]

I'd have guessed female...what exactly a gender neutral colour is I'm not sure. Maybe white?

 

[Aber gas]

I'd have guessed female...what exactly a gender neutral colour is I'm not sure. Maybe white?

Steady now, that's a whole other can of worms

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

Surely if subversive handbag wielding, homosexual agenda promoting teletubby TINKY-WINKY has taught us anything it's that purple IS a gender neutral colour.

SOME PEOPLE...

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

purple is for women
blue is for men

pink is for gays
____ is for heteros?

gay man is blue-pink

 

[sl1k]

Fuck that I'm like mad masculine yo, and I love purple me

 

[nousername]

Purple is the colour of royalty and power, the colour of Queens maybe...?!

Maybe I misread the earlier post and it was actually a group of heterosexual blokes complaining they were offended?

 

[nousername]

I can't remember any politics at University, from recollection everybody was quite indifferent.

However I did go part-time, to a trumped former polytechnic, where the main topic of conversation was usually what the latest model of Vauxhall Corsa was.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

i was at an interesting talk a few months back with julie bindel and peter hitchens both arguing the same point, that we are developing into a society that is censoring itself.

Dead suspicious of anyone who has massive media platforms etc and is invited to loads of speaking gigs moaning about censorship. Like, free-speech isn't the right to a platform. And no-platforming doesn't inhibit free-speech.

Also dead suspicious of the "if we debate it it will go away" line of argument. Bindel/Greer etc's views on transgenderism have been debated at length over thirty or so years. They're not new ideas; they're not interesting ideas; they're not really credible ideas. And yet neither they (nor Bindel/Greer etc) are actually going away.

Yeah, there's some people who make idiots of themselves if you give them a platform - but there's also loads of people who are adept at sneaking the most appalling of ideas under superficially rational arguments. Debating someone doesn't prove whether they're right but how good at debating they are.

You can disagree with him, no one is saying you can't. What I was saying is that by misrepresenting him to make him appear like a racist or fascist. Or shouting racist/fascist/bigot at anyone who steps outside the SJW/Regressive Left line then that does shut down debate. They are all pretty loaded terms and people do become wary about what they say as either they are worried about being labelled such (as such a label sticks) or they just can't be bothered with the hassle of putting up with that.

I find the opposite with the people that I have on facebook for example that many more subscribe to these ideas. Maybe because a few years ago I would have been one of those being called regressive left and so my facebook is full of these people. But I think it is in the mainstream as well, Ben Affleck being a prime example.

Sam Harris' views, as much as they can be unpacked neatly, are pretty fascist*. Like, he believes in American exceptionalism and clearly the unique righteousness of the American state. To counter that - and to provide the existential enemy that fascism requires - he talks up the threat of Islam. And he argues for persecution of the minority group to protect the majority.

Like, if he's not a fascist, he's certainly a cheerleader for fascism. Arguably that sort of hand-wringing apologia for fascism is more insidious than the stuff Donald Trump's coming out of because the deeply racist assumptions its founded on are cloaked behind veneers of rationality.

* My definition of fascist is a sort of authoritarian nationalism which claims that antidemocratic and authoritarian (and possibly revolutionary) action is necessary to save the liberal state from an external or internal enemy.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

If you remove the nationalist criteria - which doesn't fit Harris who is an internationalist anyway - then you can just as easily fit yourself in there.

On the Greer point I would argue that the reasons her views haven't gone away is because they have not been properly refuted. It's not a phenomena that we're not even close to understanding and the jury is very much still out. You could easily make the argument that those who encourage people to take hormones and mutilate their genitals because they believe they were born the wrong sex (I thought gender was a social construct?) are far more damaging.

 

[blade1889]

They've been debated and are becoming less and less propagated as generations go on, certainly since 30 years ago. Largely, in my opinion, thanks to those views being debated and not just told they're wrong. But also people such as Bowie bringing the awareness of issues into peoples minds, again something that debate also does. I'd much rather people have intolerant views challenged than they carry on with those views, propagating them in echo chambers where they're allowed to speak amongst similarly minded or 'undecided' people. Similar to (getting back on topic) telling people their views on women's rights is wrong, you gain far more through education and part of that has to be the debating of both sides of the argument. Banning the debates and effectively sweeping under the carpet that people hold these views does nothing for the cause imo.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

If you remove the nationalist criteria - which doesn't fit Harris who is an internationalist anyway - then you can just as easily fit yourself in there.

Nah, fascism is all about reforming the liberal state to save it (again possibly via revolutionary means but not necessarily). I want to abolish the liberal state.

Harris is definitely not an internationalist. He defends atrocities carried out by the USA because he believes that the motives behind those atrocities are uniquely good. His belief in America sweeping away the tyrants of the world isn't internationalism rooted in solidarity with people living under tyranny - it's American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny - two cornerstones of the philosophy of neo-conservatism and American nationalists generally.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

I can't say that that is what I understand internationalism to mean. Is it not more about breaking down political and economic national barriers and forging more international co-operation and such?

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

guess that's the neo-liberal definition vs the more trotskyist original incarnation

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

I can't say that that is what I understand internationalism to mean. Is it not more about breaking down political and economic national barriers and forging more international co-operation and such?

I wouldn't view that as incompatible with nationalism, tbh.

 

[Alty]

Nah, fascism is all about reforming the liberal state to save it (again possibly via revolutionary means but not necessarily). I want to abolish the liberal state.

Harris is definitely not an internationalist. He defends atrocities carried out by the USA because he believes that the motives behind those atrocities are uniquely good. His belief in America sweeping away the tyrants of the world isn't internationalism rooted in solidarity with people living under tyranny - it's American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny - two cornerstones of the philosophy of neo-conservatism and American nationalists generally.

Motivations vs consequences. Interesting.

I genuinely can't remember if you're one of these people, but several TFF and 1FF members repeatedly made the case that the motivations behind actions were every bit as important as the consequences. Hence defending anti-fascist demonstrators if one of their rallies ended up much more violent than a similar one by the EDL. Does the logic not extend to the intentions of national governments?

Or is you're contention that the intentions of the US Government are no more noble/justifiable than those of, say, ISIS? Or the Taliban?

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

A man's been arrested trying to enter Disneyland Paris with guns, a box of ammunition and a Qur'an.

 

[silkyman]

That'll make half term interesting...

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

apparently not a terrorist tho

 

[blade1889]

Slightly relevant to some earlier posts in this thread but not related to the Paris Attacks


https://z-1-video-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.n...=096cbfaf9fb6479e1416354f52776dce&oe=56E1E4E6

 

[Womble98]

FML.

Slightly relevant to some earlier posts in this thread but not related to the Paris Attacks


https://z-1-video-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xtf1/v/t42.1790-2/12014615_1023606724337484_622014623_n.mp4?efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InNkIn0=&oh=096cbfaf9fb6479e1416354f52776dce&oe=56E1E4E6

Link doesnt work.

 

[blade1889]

Link doesnt work.

So it doesn't. Cant find the video anymore but this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hould-not-be-coddled-are-we-really-surprised/

 

[Renegade]

I'm always petrified when someone updates this thread. Use your powers wisely!

Fair play Obama, the SJWs are not going to like that.

 

[Jockney]

sjw's used ironically there, or...?

 

[Renegade]

Semi-ironically (reference to earlier in the thread), 'twas just a jibe at the University culture across the UK and the USA which has made a habit of banning people like Richard Dawkins from speaking at their Universities because they don't share some of his political opinions, castigating intellectuals like Jonathan Haidt for discussing taboo subjects (even though he discussed them through the prism of moral psychology) and only caring about free speech as long as it doesn't offend their ideals. Obama agrees, you don't have the right to not be offended, Universities should be a place of open discourse. Trigger warnings, micro-aggressions, safe spaces, professors petrified to teach their students in case something they say is taken out of context, resignations all over the place, it's absolute insanity.

 

[Tilbury]

Soo following on from the last few points, a non-violent protest by the liberal group MoveOn at a Donald Trump campaign event in Chicago (at the University of Illinois) forced him to cancel his speech. After this fights broke out between supporters and non-supporters.

 

[Womble98]

Soo following on from the last few points, a non-violent protest by the liberal group MoveOn at a Donald Trump campaign event in Chicago (at the University of Illinois) forced him to cancel his speech. After this fights broke out between supporters and non-supporters.

I'm no Donald Trump fan but it wasn't non-violent. They also planned to run onto the stage and disrupt the speech: the Secret Service ordered it cancelled after they found this out. It's massively ironic trying to prevent Donald Trump, the guy they call a fascist, from speaking by using the same kind of disrupting tactics used in 1920's Germany. He has a right to speak, regardless of how much they disagree with what he says.

 

[Jockney]

I'm no Donald Trump fan but it wasn't non-violent. They also planned to run onto the stage and disrupt the speech: the Secret Service ordered it cancelled after they found this out. It's massively ironic trying to prevent Donald Trump, the guy they call a fascist, from speaking by using the same kind of disrupting tactics used in 1920's Germany. He has a right to speak, regardless of how much they disagree with what he says.

There was very little violence -- mainly minor individual scuffles between Trump supporters and protesters -- and the plan was not to invade the stage at all, where did you hear that? Precisely ONE dude tried to break through the cordon.

And the organisational efforts of the protesters was decidedly anti-fascist. That is how you fight fascism. You do not sit idly by while a demagogue spreads hate and fear in a community that is already feeling the strain of social and racial tension.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

The fact that one of the group tried to storm onto the stage, with Secret Service having to surround Trump, is significant I think. If he could get that close then what could the rest of them do. All this will likely do is convince the authorities that protesters will have to be kept back even further to maintain security. Meanwhile he's crafting this to suit his own narrative like he always does.

Really the only thing that I've seen hurt him is when Fox News (of all organizations kek) went after him in one of the recent debates and showed conclusively that the numbers he was using regarding saving medical costs were totally bogus.

 

[Tilbury]

The fact that one of the group tried to storm onto the stage, with Secret Service having to surround Trump, is significant I think. If he could get that close then what could the rest of them do. All this will likely do is convince the authorities that protesters will have to be kept back even further to maintain security. Meanwhile he's crafting this to suit his own narrative like he always does.

Really the only thing that I've seen hurt him is when Fox News (of all organizations kek) went after him in one of the recent debates and showed conclusively that the numbers he was using regarding saving medical costs were totally bogus.

Er well that's bollocks considering Trump never went on the stage.