Messages

51

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 03:18:59 PM »

For every deed there is not a doer. Haven't your read your Nietzsche, man? There is simply no need on all occasions to track down someone as the cause of each bad thing in life that happens.

Sure. But we're not talking about every deed, we're talking about a specific deed- in particular one where damage was done due to improper respect for consent. There plenty of situations where the above applies, this is not one of them.

As for the rest of your points, although I always learn from discussing things from you it never ceases to be an annoyance when you dress your replies in such a way that you paint opposing opinions to yours as gaslighting or victimizing people, while your side is given the virtue of being on the side of victims.

So I should accept false and demanding accusations in arguments because its bad form to point out when someone is making false accusations?

It's a manipulative rhetorical method (and yes, it is a purely rhetorical rather than dialectical technique) and hampered the quality of conversations with you.

And dismissing and trivializing the concerns of victims of harm isn't a rhetorical technique? Dismissing the trauma of being subject to misconduct as simply being confused and regretful isn't an attempt to erase the reported experience of others and replace it with your assertions?

Sure they're both rhetorical devices, but there's a difference- mine actually shows respect for people's reported experiences, while yours dismisses that testimony and replaced with your personal assertions of what you think they're feeling.

 

Any implication that 'your side' of the argument is more concerned with the general welfare of people than the other side should probably be discarded out of hand. I think it has no place in debate where both sides are supposedly respectful of each other.

If you were being respectful and not dismissive then I wouldn't find myself needing to point out where you are being dismissive. If you want a respectful discussion, then show respect in the arguments you make instead of being disrespectful and dismissive of others such taht it becomes necessary to point out that disrespect to counter misrepresentations inherent in it.

52

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 02:49:11 PM »

And ignoring someone's capacity to consent or denying their will has very real and damaging consequences. The way we invalidated consent may differ between men and women in our social constructs, but such invalidation is damaging regardless and contributes to pain and mistrust across the board.

Eroding the validity of peoples affirmative consent also has very real and damaging consequences.

Which is why violations of it need to be taken seriously.

Waving this particular magic wand in an attempt to stop rape may result in equally corrosive effects on society.  There MUST be a better path to eliminate date rape than abolishment of personal responsibility.

Indeed- that's why I push a solution that's specifically about personal responsibility instead of one taht lets people misbehave and then says "It can't be misbehavior since they were too drunk to know better"

Your position strikes me as alarmingly sexists (though statistically relevant) but it’s the infantilizing of adults (even young adults) that concerns me most.

how is it infantilizing to assert that people should be held responsible for damage/harm cause even if they're compromised when they do it? Seems to me that the position that tries to deny that there was any damage done and shelter peopel taht have done harm from facing the consequences of their mistakes in regards to the treatment of others is the one that allows the long established harmful cycle to continue.

53

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 01:30:34 PM »

The idea that if I drink, others are suddenly MORE responsible for making sure I do not harm myself or others is beyond repellent to me.

That's fair. But that's also why I'm advocating for the position that it's _your_ responsibility to make sure you don't accidentally hurt others. That "I was too drunk to tell that they wren't in a good state to offer consent" is no excuse, because you should be the one that's saying "I've been drinking, and thus not in a good position to make such calls" just like you should be the one that says the same about getting into a car in such a state. It's a community good that we watch out for others and try to help prevent such mistakes from happening, in my opinion- but my point here all along is that everyone should be more mindful of their own behavior and the unintentional harm that it can cause, particularly if they're impaired.

There are no take backs.  YOU decide to get wasted, YOU deal with the fallout.

Dealing with the fallout include honestly assessing and getting help for injuries that you sustain, not pretending that they're not injuries just because yo got them while drunk. It's perfectly fair for a person to come away saying "I should not take that risk again", but it's absurd to say "I should ignore my injuries" as well.

  If you are lucky, and around people who care about you, they will likely protect you.  This is probably one of the most selfish acts you can take as an adult and even in "good company" is a gamble.

Being able to trust others is not selfish, its a societal ideal. The degree to which we have to carry mistrust around as a shield is harm to ourselves and self perpetuating harm to our society, and the only way to fight back against it is to advocate for behavior standards that allow for more trust and thus healthier relationships and interactions instead of continuing to explicitly or even tacitly approve behavior that requires others to have to always be defensive.

It may not be possible to achieve, to be sure, but that's no reason to give up completely and stop pushing toward it.

  Some people are *censored*ty enough that even stone cold sober they will take advantage of you.  Intentionally choosing to disadvantage yourself and lower what defenses you have against "bad people" then blaming the world for not protecting you is pathetic.

Sure. But that's not what's happening here. What's happening is acknowledging that misconduct does harm to others and trying to teach people how to avoid accidentally engaging in it, so that they have more power to choose to avoid it, and thus we can more clearly isolate those taht mean to do harm from those that make mistakes. I mean, even if we got to the point where the response to the average consent violation was a heartfelt apology and an earnest attempt to understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future, instead of justifying it as normal behavior and telling the person who was hurt to suck it up, we've be on much better ground and most of the danger would fade pretty quickly. IT's only when we keep telling the people that get hurt that they really weren't hurt or that they're the ones trying to hurt people when they express the harm done to them that we maintain the culture that compounds the damage and destroys trust instead of enough racing peopel to take responsibility for it and builds toward more ability to extend trust to others.

There's PTSD related to being a true victim and then there is dealing with the sudden reality shattering realization that you are a grown up and your actions have consequences.

Absolutely. And ignoring someone's capacity to consent or denying their will has very real and damaging consequences. The way we invalidated consent may differ between men and women in our social constructs, but such invalidation is damaging regardless and contributes to pain and mistrust across the board.

54

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 01:00:45 PM »

It's funny, I was just chatting with a psychiatrist about PTSD, and he unequivocally described it as an error in thinking.

Such errors in thinking are mental damage. They don't fix themselves, they require therapy to correct. I mean, we could call a stroke an "error in blood circulation through the brain"; that doesn't make it any less a serious medical issue that requires treatment.

It seems like you're trying to use the wording used to try to describe the issue as a tool to minimize or handwave away the damage.

In other words, it's the perception by the mind that there is danger or a current stressor when in fact there is none, and part of the treatment is to get the patient to realize there is, in fact, no present problem any more.

Indeed. A prior exposure to damage creates an ongoing fear that the damage will recurr, even if there isn't a rational reason to perceive danger in a given situation. That's part of why consent violations are a big deal- they lead to the future belief that one's consent in any given situation isn't relevant and thus eat a way at a person's sense of self worth. They trigger a form of PTSD where a person lives and acts in fear of future violations.

The problem is in the false perception of a problem.

Sure, which is caused by a prior problem that repeats itself over and over. Now you seen to be mistaking the ongoing fear of recurrence of misconduct toward a person who has experienced past misconduct with a suggesting that the past misconduct that triggered the ongoing fear is the thing that didn't happen.

Which sort of ties back into my comments on your analogy. When a car is crashed and the drivers sustain injuries, there is no question of perception or opinion. There is mechanical damage, period.

ANd when someone is the victim of misconduct, there is mental and emotional damage, period, as evidenced by the resultant errors in thinking that project fears on future misconduct on otherwise non-threatening situations in their life.

It's just a terrible analogy when comparing that to people who arguably feel bad, or guilty, or conflicted, or confused, or not sure what they feel, or maybe later have someone suggest to them they were raped, or maybe liked it but they're not sure, etc etc.

Well then good thing no one is trying to create a false narrative of minimization that tries to dishonestly suggest that a person suffering from PTSD after an incident is just feeling regret or guilt. Oh wait, that's exactly the kind of _wonderous_ combination of minimization, victim blaming, and gas lighting that you're applying here. Telling people they aren't feeling what they're feeling because you know better than them what they're feeling, so if they don't bow down to you're superior knowledge of their mental state, they must be being dishonest with themselves and everyone around them. Nice touch taht you polish it off by casting shade on medical professionals who help people taht don't understand that what they're feeling is PTSD sort out what it is that they're experiencing and what may have triggered it by asserting that you know better than them as well what the real problem is.

Here's a hint- if it were just regret taht they were feeling, they'd know what it was pretty clearly; there would be no confusion, and the issue of misconduct would not come up in the first place. It's specifically because they're feeling more than regret over a poor choice that they find themselves in a state where they often need professional help or an external perspective to sort out what's going on.

Even some kind of PTSD is not at all evidence that the PTSD was caused by the other person, even though its inception was coincident to the event of tipsy sex. It may have been triggered by interaction with the other person, but you want to try to draw a line of guilt or responsibility and I see no legitimate way of  you doing so under these circumstances.

Who else are you suggesting caused the violation of their trust that triggered the response? It's possible that it was caused by accident rather than intent (in fact highly likely in most cases) but the fact taht someone accidentally hurt someone else does not mean that they didn't hurt someone else, it just means that they wren't aware or did not intend the consequences their action caused. It suggests that better education and more mindfulness are important factors in preventing future occurrences, but it doesn't magically fix the damage done or need to address it honestly as damage rather than through minimization and blame cast on the person that was hurt.

55

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 12:10:55 PM »

I'm not sure the risk of crashing into a third party is equivalent to someone walking by an open door or window and seeing two drunkards going at it.  Some times there just aren't any good analogies.

Who said anything about witnesses. I mean, there is a risk that someone who is drunk might assault someone who is sober, btu that's even more of an argument for pushing the notion that if you've been drinking you should assume that your ability to make decisions about actions that might hurt others is impaired.

But were talking here about people who take end up taking actions that they aren't actually comfortable with and then come out with some form of PTSD related to it afterwards, not people who are subjected to a direct physical assault in this context.

56

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:58:00 AM »

Now, your analogy might be a little better if you were talking about drunken drag racing, but comparing an automobile accident to two people doing something legal and voluntary and one of them regretting it...l don't see the point. Sounds like a semantical waste of time.

Wait, so if we didn't have laws against DUIs you'd be fine with drunken accidents, since it was two people deciding to do something legal and voluntary?

The law against it is a recognition of the degree of potential for harm and damage, and the degree to which it's important to bring community assessment of cost to bear against the issue, not what makes it dangerous in the first place.

57

General Comments / Re: Fighting words

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:38:44 AM »

In light of some of the reports from Trump rallies, at least some of the protestors (or disruptors, to head of the semantic discussion) are clearly near this line if not over it.

What I'm waiting to see is how Trump manages to change the way he's currently provoking protesters to try to cross the line without actually being able to be called into fighting words into a trap to recruit them once he's up in the general and not in the primary. He knows he can push their buttons and even stage rally cancellations in order to frustrate and manipulate them into even more aggressive action, but it's like watching a stage magician and trying to catch exactly when he sets up and pulls the bit of subterfuge that makes the trick work.

58

General Comments / Re: What I find disturbing about Trump...

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:31:57 AM »

First, it was bizarre that he used a press conference the day after big wins in primaries for an infomercial, but even more bizarre that the companies behind the products either aren't actually owned by him (wine) or failed years ago (steak - displayed steaks were purchased for the event), one for which he is a private-labeled re-seller (water), and one (magazine) isn't a product at all but a brochure.

Ho much did that stunt cost him vs how much trying to buy an equivalent amount of media coverage? Especially when you consider that he was showcases stuff taht his businesses already buy under contract, not things that he needed to work out a specific purchase for in order to stage the event.

He's a con man, and knows just how to run a con that's putting PT Barnum to shame. It's amazing to watch once you put aside that our natural political future is up for grabs in this particular game.

Keep in mind that, at the moment, he's playing to an audience that's been conditioned to suspect and outright deny the general media. So if he can get that media to call him out and keep attacking him for doing crazy things, he actually _raises_ himself in the esteem of his target audience. He becomes the shining example of just what they've been told all along about how the media is out to smear the peopel looking out for their best interests.

This is the long running GOP "Liberal media" smear coming home to roost in a way taht they can't unwind quickly enough to mitigate, since it's now being turned against them and their attempts to try to expose him.

59

General Comments / Re: What I find disturbing about Trump...

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:22:08 AM »

You can argue that with 500 (so-called) separate enterprises  under his belt a few would be expected to fail amid the vast number of successes.

You're mistaking the success of the company with whether or not he walks away with more money/wealth in the aftermath. Killing a company after draining it of what little value it has left and getting as many other people to eat the costs of the loss as you cvan that aren't you is a success by our current corporate/business environment. He doesn't even have ii have made the money himself to come out ahead- if he ensured that a handful of peopel that he wants to be able to cash in favors with in the future come out a head, such that he now has leverage over them, then he's come out a head, even if it looks like he took a loss on paper.

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General Comments / Re: What I find disturbing about Trump...

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:14:42 AM »

Mebbe, but if he had invested his inheritance ($200M) in the S&P 500 when he got it, he'd have more money today than he does from his lifetime of making deals and no bankruptcies.

Would he have all of the contacts, resources, power, and influence, or just a stack of cash? You don't exactly make waves by letting money ride in an index fund, and productive wealth is, fundamentally, a measure of all the non-financial resources taht one has at ones command to produce things or get things done.

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:11:31 AM »

A risk to your self is a risk taht it's your business to manage. A risk to you and other people aroudn you becomes a risk that everyone has a stake in managing.

And being dismissive about emotional and mental harm just contributes to it, you're actively begging the question when you try to handwave them away as if they weren't meaningful, especially since every bit of evidence we have points to them being at least, if not more crippling in many cases than physical harm.

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General Comments / Re: If you haven't seen "Cartel Land," you are part of the problem

« on: March 23, 2016, 11:02:08 AM »

There's also this that's been making the rounds recently:

http://reason.com/blog/2016/03/22/nixon-invented-the-drug-war-to-decimate
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon

At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. "You want to know what this was really all about?" he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

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General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 23, 2016, 10:56:22 AM »

  I was criticizing the notion that the stated goal can excuse the methods used in the name of conveying it.

That's not a point anyone has tried to argue. Just the opposite- I pointed out taht they should be held culpable for those methods without regard to the message.

The problem is saying that the methods chosen have any bearing on the message itself and should be used as an excuse to shut down or derail discussion of the message. There's a huge difference between saying that the methods should not be used to dismiss the message and saying taht the message should somehow make the methods legal in its own right. The message needs in either case, to be judged on its own merits, as does the legality of the methods used. As noted, the methods can speak to the desperation of the person speaking,  but desperation isn't a direct indicator of validity of the content, though it can be a commentary on the degree to which people feel taht their voice is not being heard and suggest an additional discussion on how to make even peopel who happen to be wrong, feel like their messages are being heard and given consideration, even if that consideration does not, ultimately go their way.

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 23, 2016, 10:44:23 AM »

What if they're both tipsy?

Then they both have impaired judgment and risk causing harm.

If they both regret it the night after, does that make them both mutually guilty of "sexual misconduct"?

If both drivers in an accident are drunk, are they both guilty of a DUI and shared fault in the accident? Or does it mean that there was no accident?

If one regrets it but the other doesn't, then the one who doesn't regret it is guilty and the one who does regret it is innocent?

If both drivers are drunk and the only driver that was injured was actually properly following the other rules of the road at the time (say, stopped at a red light) how does taht affect things?

What if someone feels okay about it the next day, but a week later feels regret? Does that retroactively impugn said conduct? If so, does the resulting regret in the party accused of misconduct in turn transmute the initial regretor's conduct, rendering it "misconduct"?

If it takes a week for an injury stemming from the accident to be identified, does it make it any less an injury from the accident?

Except for the kind of harm taht one is at risk of causing, there really is very little difference between getting drunk and deciding to drive on a public road and getting drunk and trying to have sex with someone that one does not have prior agreements in place with. It can and many times does go okay, but the degree to which it increases the risk of an accident and personal harm to someone makes it reasonable for us to tell people that they should just assume taht it's not okay from the outset; and we don't try to magically make the harm justified just because both people happened to be impaired, rather we do absolutely hold them mutually culpable for misconduct.

65

General Comments / Re: If you haven't seen "Cartel Land," you are part of the problem

« on: March 21, 2016, 05:26:41 PM »

Iirc, the organized crime did not just "go away" when alcohol legalized.

The cartels are also in the slavery business.  Legalize that too then?

It didn't go away, but it was severely undercut and had to look for other avenues that gave it much less popular cover (or, in some cases, more respectable cover that tended to expose it to more scrutiny)

Drug legalization and immigration reform that reduces or eliminates the need to try to smuggle people across the boarder won't make Mexican crime go away, but they will severely undercut its funding and it will mean that it only get cover form the much smaller market for its other services. That's not a death blow, but it's enough to make it a problem that's more in the reach of conventional enforcement rather than at the level or state warfare.

66

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 05:17:03 PM »

It doesn’t.  That was my point.  You cannot say, “I do not concern myself with the legality of the protester’s methods”, implying that concern lies with law enforcement, and be a proponent of protest against abuse of authority (which I am assuming you are). 

TO some degree, sure. But one can easily say "That's a separate conversation." When it's being used as an active distraction from a conversation about the content of the message. And also that conversation has to cover more that jsut the fact of its legality, because, in many cases, the action should, under normal circumstances, be illegal because of the need to not only put a cost on the behavior, but toad value and impact to its being engaged in as a protest action.

Again- there are good reasons to make obstructing traffic illegal that have nothing to to do with protest actions. I'm sure I'd be unhappy if someone obstructed traffic when I was trying to get somewhere. But that illegality, that discomfort - they're things that actually give it value as a protest action. Without it being against the law, there'd be no value or voice in engaging in it as way to raise consciousness of a given issue.

I am suggesting you MUST have an opinion.  It can be either that the laws of permissible protests are wrong, or correct or on how those laws should be enforced.  By washing your hands of all concern for it, you are granting others the power to abuse authority or manipulate you.  Maybe it’s not even abuse, since you gave them consent through your lack of concern.

And I gave it-= in this case I do think laws about obstructing traffic are reasonable. But I also point out that that has no relevance to the message of the protestors in this case, especially because they're not staging the protest here to contest traffic laws, so we're not even dealing with the corner case of staging protest actions to push on the laws or enforcement practices that are being protested. This is a completely different issue and trying to pretend that ever protest must be judged on anything but it's own message (never mind based on every possible injustice that might be protested) is and absurd degree of concern trolling.

  If you focus only on the message and ignore law enforcement cracks down you put yourself in danger and may miss that the corruption of law enforcement is a graver threat than the message which drew them to act.

Which is why it's important to protest against abuses by law enforcement when it occurs, or laws taht are abusive. But taht doesn't mean that all law enforcement and laws are abusive, or that one should opposen them when they're reasonable and allied in the context of a protest that's violating them in order to communicate its message.

If proponents of a cause choose a method that vilifies them in the eyes of the majority they can do grievous damage to their cause.  Does the average citizen care about your cause if you murdered 10’s or 100’s to get the attention; or do they just see a terrorist and ignore the message?

This only matters when the protest is intended to evoke the direct sympathy of the average citizen, rather than to reach out to those that are actually receptive and perhaps able to take action in regards to the content of the message. Particularly when protesting supremacy- tyranny of the majority/majorian group- is part of the point of the protest. How is does it even make sense to tell someone who is objecting to being oppressed by the majority that they should only do so by bowing down to that majority and doing things to make it happy?

Our system of governance has systems and safeguards built in so that it's not simple majority rule- so that a group that is right can press its case and be protected _even if_ the majority doesn't like them. So hat they're not forced to subserviently bow down to oppression in order to gain respect. Protests are actions that put pressure on those systems to to their job, they're not marketing campaigns for majority approval.

If something is unjust, does it become less unjust because you've behaved poorly as well? THe validity of a complaint about an unjust system has nothing at all to do with the behavior of the messenger, though the extremes they have to go to in order to be heard can say a lot about the degree of suppression or denial of their message within a given system.

(And this does not mean that all messages are equally valid. Not all messages actually highlight an injustice, just the nominal perception of it by the person trying to speak. But against, that validity has noting to do with the tolls used to express it; dismissing it because of them rather than based on the independent merits of the message is suppressive and exactly the kind of behavior that leas to an escalation in the extremity of protest actions.

The method of protest IS the message (or at least a large part of it).

Only when it's explicitly meant to be.  Otherwise it's not. It's an indication of the degree of action the speakers felt was necessary to be heard, but the validity of the message itself has inherent relevance to the tolls used communicate it. Slavery is not more unjust is I write a sternly worded letter to the editor about it, it's not less unjust if I lead rebellion against it; it's injustice is an independent feature of the system, not a variable based on how polite I am when I make my objections.

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 04:23:45 PM »

It would additionally need to be clear that when we say "tipsy sex may be unethical" that means that, as you put it, it's a red flag, but does not automatically imply anything.

It means caveat emptor. You're taking a risk because you don't know how it's going to turn out. IT won't necessarily go wrong, but it if does, that's the price you take for taking the risk.

Insofar as alcohol can change personality and desire, I would prefer to argue that someone choosing to drink is choosing to become a new person temporarily, rather than to argue that they are the same person they were before and now lose the right to agency.

Sure, but unless they plan on staying drunk for the rest of their lives, you have to accept taht you're interacting with both people the sober and the drunk one, and that the sober one is likely going to be the one reacting to what happened after the fact, with as full legal rights to their body as the drunk person has (And alcohol is nothing compared to, say, MDMA (Molly/Ecstasy) when playing along those lines)

It's just as valid to say "I'm using this drug to help loosen my up to act a certain way" as it is to say "I trust that no one in this place will take advantage of my altered state to do something I would otherwise disapprove of" and there's no way to tell the difference unless you've talked to the sober self to understand what their actual desires are. It's fully possible you'll get the first case, but if you hit the second case, even if that was poor judgement on their part, the you can't walk back the damage after the fact.

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 04:11:03 PM »

If Pyr wanted a bright line, he would use a term other thsn rape, because that is the sourde of all of the blurryiness, confusion, and catastrophe in the story.

I like the phrase "sexual misconduct" that was used in this article to cover the grey area of things that are not okay, even if they may be legal. I'd be perfectly happy to run with that, since we lack much other language to specifically refer to it, short of pointing out the presence or lack of consent being the only real way to sort things between being labeled as sex or rape

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 04:08:16 PM »

Wait - does the highlighted part contradict your own intent in using this quote? It seems to me to detail what persuasion is and why it's necessary. The difference between persuasion and coercion is precisely that with persuasion you try to show how it would be in someone's interest to do something, even if they don't initially see it or agree. With coercion you don't care what they want and you try to force them.

The difference is specifically in that last bit. In the quote they _already have the interest_ . You ask them "would you be willing to negotiate over this they say yes, and then everything is above board. IF they don't have an interest- if they say "No, this is not negotiable" and then you keep pushing them to negotiate regardless, you're not letting them freely choose to engage, but instead showing that you don't care what they want, but only about getting what you want from them. (The free choice to engage also applies if you're holding an existential need over their head- something they can't refuse to try to get because they need it to survive.

Remember wanting to not negotiate about something is, very much a thing they want. If you ignore that and try to force them to negotiate, then you are being coercive on that standard of not paying attention to what they want.

Negotiation in society is about everything, full stop. Humans are constantly in the process of assessing, conforming, changing, trying to change, and fighting for what they want. If you don't think interpersonal relations are about negotiating what each person wants and can get then while I can't speak to your personal experience (maybe it is like this) I can certainly suggest that you don't have much of an understanding on how most other people interact with each other.

Not everything is a commodity up for sale, and it's exceptionally dehumanizing to not respect that. IF a person wants to puts some part of themselves on the market for trade, that should be their decision, not yours to force them into because you want to be able to buy it. IF they say taht their sexual attention, secret thoughts, their family heirlooms, or anything else is not for sale, then it is absolutely coercion to try to force them to sell them to you, regardless of the price you offer. IF they later see that you have something they want and willingly come to you in order to make such a trade, knowing that you've expressed a given desire in the past, then you're working on equitable ground.

Some people do seek out and enjoy prostitution as a trade. But  you're effectively saying that everyone's a prostitute, all you have to do is keep on them to sell you sex until they give in and do it, and so long as they break down in the ned and give you what you want, you must have been right, without any regard to the damage done in the process.

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 01:08:24 PM »

The attempts to protect people from coercion and harm would likely benefit from a discussion on how to best convey "I am not open to negotiation right now".  Suggesting that it is never OK cannot help but be read as ridiculous.  We need solutions which do not erase what it means to be human beings taking part in a society.

One would think that saying that would be sufficient, but the problem comes not from trying to say that, but from the way we punish those who say it or just outright ignore it in favor of persisting to push them to change their mind instead of accepting the reply and perhaps changing what we offer until they choose under their own will to come to the table.

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 01:05:13 PM »

I'm not confusing legal/illegal with right/wrong. On the contrary, it's you who forgets the link between these.

We have a broken system that has may laws built on ignoring that distinction. That doesn't make the system de facto right, nor does to make the system illegal. It meas that people who see how it's broken should try to advocate for ways to fix and improve it to be more just and less coercive.

NO ONE in business wants to make less money than they dream of, and no one wants to accept high overheads and low profit from competitive selling prices.

Sure most people are in business because they have a skill at creating a certain kind of value and they want to find a way to meet their needs and desire for luxury beyond them. Markets and money are tools they choose to use in pursuit of those goals because they've evolved to be the most effective way we have to transact on such issues. Heck, the most fundamental rule of markets:

But man has almost constant occasion for the help
of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their
benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to
another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which
I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every
such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the
far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is
not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.

Rests on pointing out that it's incumbent on anyone in business to fin out what others want and offer it to them so that they _want_ to trade with you, not to try to manipulate others into giving you what you want against their will.

Remembering, also, that the fundamental characteristic of a free market- the one that defines it as free, even, is the ability of other parties to choose to engage with each other on and honest and purely voluntary basis. Both parties have to want to reach a deal with each other, if one does not want to make a deal, but is compelled to transact, then the market is no longer a free one, whatever other market features it may still employ.

I'm not confusing anything. It is pretty much a de facto premise of living in society that you must be constantly open to negotiation.

About factors relevant to managing the society? Yes. About anything and everything taht someone whats to commodify? No. I must will willing to negotiate on the rules of society in order to come to common ground with others in that society. That's far different than saying I must be open to negotiating with every other person about meeting their arbitrary personal desires.

We have a tool for social negotiation- government and the rule of law. We even have guidelines for personal dealings- courtesy and ethics. Those are certainly areas taht you must be able and willing to negotiate on in order to exist with others in a non coercive state. But none of them are sexual availability or other forms of direct personal trade, service, or attention.

You think children want to learn how to curb their behavior?

Most children want to learn and they want to be treated justly. Most certainly want to know how to be liked and treated well by their peers. They are absolutely open to learning about morality and behavior standards as the basic tools to those ends, though they may object to coercive methods of teaching.

What you mean to say is that one person may want something orthogonal to what the other person wants and the other person would like to create an alignment in their desires.

Sure, which is why it's okay to ask if someone is open to making a particular deal, but not okay to manipulated them into doing so if they decline.

72

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 12:30:53 PM »

Because it's not for me to pass such judgments; that would be de facto suppressive, since it would be dismissing the message based on my completely irrelevant personal opinion of the messenger. Whether I support or oppose their action has no bearing on anything and is is a complete distraction from any meaningful conversation.

Doesn't this sentiment directly contradict the concept of protesting wrongdoing?  How can one wash their hands of law enforcement in one situation yet claim that protest, even disruptive protests which break laws, is necessary to conform law enforcement to represent the people and work justly?

How is challenging the abuses of law enforcement equivalent to washing one's hands of it? I don't think many people are meaningfully protesting the fundamental concept of laws or their enforcement- most protests focus on the ways taht the system is being applied unjustly and in biased manners.

Again- there is plenty of room to discuss whether a given law or system of enforcement is just, but it becomes even more important in those situations to distinguish between the method of protest and the message of the protest. (Especially for law enforcement officers, who can very easily end up underscoring the point if they react abusively)

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 12:19:18 PM »

Look up "convince" then "persuade" Pyr.  You appear to be running on an alternate definition where it is interchangeable with "coerce" or "deceit".

who do you convince or persuade someone who does not _want_ to be convinced or persuaded without first coercing them into being receptive in some way?

Again, as I directly qualified from the start, we're not talking about situations where someone has _invites_ another person to convince them, but rather where once person is trying to convince another _against their will_. That is fundamentally coercive.

74

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 12:16:39 PM »

Who was rounded up here?

Please show where the protesters offered to set up an alternate route for the people in cars to go while the roadblock was in effect. If they had no intent to trap anyone on a road then surely they created an alternate path for them, correct?

Rounding up would suggest taht the protestors forced them to be on the road in the first place. They impeded traffic, they did not force anyone to be in traffic. There are definitely negative ramifications for doing so outside the context of the message they were attempting to communicate, and hey should be held accountable for those.

Again, I imagine that there are already legal penalties for actually forcibly abducting peopel, if you want to add that, as well as detaining them against their will.

A complete dodge. Whether there happen to be legal consequences for their action has no bearing on whether you think their action should be condoned or condemned. You seem to be making it clear so far that you will not criticize or even recognize criticism of protesters for anything they do short of, perhaps, murder or mayhem.

Because it's not for me to pass such judgments; that would be de facto suppressive, since it would be dismissing the message based on my completely irrelevant personal opinion of the messenger. Whether I support or oppose their action has no bearing on anything and is is a complete distraction from any meaningful conversation.

We have the law to handle putting a price on actions if they come at a public cost. If they violated such, then they should be held accountable for that cost. Pay the debt to society that they incurred by acting, as it were. It's fair to talk about the costs vs penalties for the actions that they took without regard to their message, if we want to talk about whether the penalty for traffic obstruction is not high enough. It's also fair to talk about the message without regard to the way it was delivered, but conflating the two discussions would be suppressive- using the accessibility of their action as an excuse to ignore the message behind it.

In fact, the less I condone the method of the message, the more important it is for me to figure out what they're trying to say and how to give them a less distasteful way to engage so taht they're not drive to such lengths in the future because they're ignored if they try and use existing avenues.
Maybe you'd like to go on record and say specifically whether what they did here was ok, and whether it should be considered fair play or off-limits to physically stop people and disallow them going to a political rally?
[/quote]

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General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 12:00:01 PM »

Obviously advertising will be illegal, as its entire basis is in persuading people to do things. Sometimes it's borderline brainwashing, so advertising is right out. Likewise with attempts to market to customers or compete in any overt way.

You are confusing right and wrong with legal and illegal. The two categories are orthogonal to each other. There's some overlap but it's absurd to suggest that they're even remotely the same. Advertising is coercive and manipulative. That means people should be aware of its nature so they can' better apply discernment. It doesn't mean that it should illegal.

In business neither party in a transaction tends to accept an initial offer, and a negotiation must be made with each side trying to get the most out of the other. This will obviously be off-limits, and price negotiation will be illegal since it's 'coercive.' Market-based economics cannot function without initial disagreement and either one side persuading the other or a half-way point decided upon.

THis is not true if you start from the premise taht both parties _want_ to make a deal. Negotiating toward an end goal that both want is not coercive. Approaching someone taht _does not want_ to make a deal and pressuring them until they give in and make a deal is coercive.

There can be no moral education, since education (especially in young people) requires convincing someone that what they are currently doing, or at least naturally inclined to do, is harmful and should be stopped.

Showing someone how something is hurtful and knowing that this will cause them to avoid that behavior is vastly different from making someone thing that a behavior is harmful to as to manipulate them into reacting. And again, there's the line between guiding someone who _wants to learn_ and forcing someone to listen who is uninterested in learning.

The legal system, which is currently based upon two sides (lawyers) persuading a third party (judge or jury) of the merit of a case. There could be a legal system without persuasion, but the current one is based upon persuasion and so would obviously have to be scrapped.

Our legal system as even more problems than it might seem if you start from the presumption that judges and juries do not _want_ to be convinced of a given position; that they're being forced to review evidence against their will.

Friends who want to go out to the movies might have to all split up and go see different film alone, since persuading your friend to see the movie you want to see would be assault.

Again, you're confusing negotiating toward a common goal with manipulating someone into participating in negotiation. Pretty much every item you put forth here ignores the difference between voluntary participation and being forced to participate.

It should be evident by now that what I mean to say is that most human interaction of any kind involves persuasion and - ideally - agreement after the attempt to persuade or negotiate are concluded.

PErhaps, but on a voluntary basis. People negotiate because they both want something. When only one person whats something and they force the other person to negotiate and eventually give in to their desires, you've violated taht important baseline of mutual desire and are, instead, imposing your will on them.

76

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 11:37:36 AM »

Are you suggesting that the act of convincing someone ALWAYS equates to manipulation?

Trying to convince someone is always a directed and intentional act. It's inherently manipulative. It's also very distinct from honestly presenting yourself and allowing them to choose how to react, because in the latter case, you're not applying pressure to them in order to push them toward your desired result. (Dishonestly presenting yourself, on the other hand is absolutely a ploy to try to convince them to do something by trying to force their reactions to go a certain way)

As soon as you step from "I'm doing this because this is who I am" (Which includes "This is how I react to what you've communicated to me") to I'm doing thins because I want to make you act in a certain way" you've stepped from controlling yourself to attempting to control others.

It is in my opinion the very definition of humanity.  When we become so insulated from others that our opinion is never influenced by others we have ceased to be human at all.

There's a difference between not being influenced by what others feel, and using the fact taht you know others will be influenced to control them and make them act in ways that they'd otherwise prefer not to. One can react to the opinion of others, even to offer the suggestion that the opinion is wrong or to demonstrate honest change because of it, without attempting to force them to change their opinion.

Acting better in an honest way because you'd like someone to have a more accurate impression of who you are is one thing. That's controlling your behavior and allowing them to react as they will. Intentionally putting on an act for someone in order to force them to react in a specific way that meets your desires is not okay. BEcause you've gone from controlling your behavior and allowing them to choose how to react to it to controlling their behavior and reactions through manipulation.

77

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 11:10:48 AM »

Do you believe we all have some sort of pre ordained destiny and that our first position is our final one and anything that makes us reconsider is an affront if not an assault?

Impressions change over time. There's a difference between allowing them to evolve naturally and applying pressure to someone to manipulate them to meet your will.

In the manner that most if not all reasoning beings understand the concept of free will.

Then all of advertizing and marketing is nonsense and doesn't work. The facts of the world disagree sharply. Emotional and psychological manipulation are real things and can have real effects on people, overriding their basic will. As the writer points out, we need to be very careful to distinguish between acting in ways that might lead to someone consenting and playing games that manipulate them into giving consent because we've decided that they will is less important to use than having our personal desires met.

78

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 10:54:03 AM »

Sure, but the only way steps will be taken at all is if people who see the benefit of a given path keep pointing the way to it.

79

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 10:51:30 AM »

The truth of the matter is, if you convince someone to sleep with you, then the sex is not 100% consensual.

This poorly thought out sentence pretty much ruins their whole point.
If you are "convinced" then it is indeed 100% consensual.  If you agree after being pressured, that can be something else.

How so? If you have to be convinced, then it's not consensual. That means someone had to apply pressure to you to get you to change your mind. (Unless you specifically put forth that you _want_ to be convinced as part of the process, but at that point you've already voluntarily engaged by confirming that you're open to the idea)

80

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 10:33:21 AM »

Also, just because prostitution is primarily thought of first as a female occupation, that is not exclusive.  It's not like we have a variation of insult for male attention whores.

That's not accidental. There's a whole extra level of social damaging implicit in the fact taht the way we insult ment is to compare them to women, on top of the fact that we use biased terms about women as a way to cast them as second class. (And while there are male related insults, they almost always tend to emphasized and sell aggressive or dominant behavior, implicitly reinforcing a superior male gender role, even while using it to criticize)

But there's a simpler solution, really, which is "Don't insult people". IF you want to accurately apply a term to someone's behavior, pick one that directly speaks to the behavior and is as neutrally valenced as possible (no term is completely neutral, to be sure, but there are definitely ones taht have a much longer track record of oppressive use by defining otherwise irrelevant behavior as bad vs those that specifically identify harmful behaviors and identify a specific harm.

81

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 10:19:30 AM »

So in short you condone forcibly rounding up unwilling citizens and detaining them unlawfully while you issue speech they have not agreed to listen to and are visibly angry to have to endure.

Who was rounded up here? Again, I imagine that there are already legal penalties for actually forcibly abducting peopel, if you want to add that, as well as detaining them against their will.

What I point out is that even if the actions are illegal, it's absurd to suggest that no speech is occurring in the overall act, and that there are not and should be no legal penalties for the content of the message. Only for the specific illegal acts that were used in the process of conveying it. (And that, relatedly, no act should be made illegal simply for the purpose of removing an avenue for speech. There are other reasons that such actions are illegal that have nothing to do with message content.)

82

General Comments / Re: In a self described serial rapist's own words, with an interesting twist...

« on: March 21, 2016, 10:10:46 AM »

Here's a good take on the matter, written from someone that gets it a bit better than the original article, which was, as noted, trying to mock the ideas that it highlighted when it played on harmful stereotypes to try to make a point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ravishly/learning-to-practice-cons_1_b_8229342.html

I thought I had seduced him, but the next morning, I learned I had actually guilted him. “I didn’t want you to feel bad,” he said. He didn’t want me to be the girl whose naked body could not even arouse her boyfriend.

I told my friend the story the next day. I told her I realized I would not be OK with any guy doing that. Was this any different?

“I think it’s different because men are more threatening,” she said. I think this belief is really dangerous. There are plenty of women who are physically stronger than plenty of men, but that’s beside the point. Sexual misconduct isn’t always accomplished through physical force. It’s often accomplished through emotional manipulation. And I had done that.

The truth of the matter is, if you convince someone to sleep with you, then the sex is not 100% consensual. It’s not necessarily rape, but it is a form of misconduct. Even if someone physically gets on top of you, they are not making the decision freely if something other than their own desires are influencing them.[/quote[

83

General Comments / Re: Who is your favorite Candidate for the Republican Nomination?

« on: March 21, 2016, 09:53:08 AM »

"Our biggest concern was that he was inciting aggressive action against the Soviet Union, with the possibility of a nuclear holocaust that would have been far worse for all of humanity than the holocaust of WWII. "

What does that have to do with the writer feeling like a *Jew* in Nazi Germant?

Directly? The comparison is loose. The way he played to white supremacism and racial bias along with it (The origination of the Southern Strategy, which Trump has pulled fully into the open by not covering up his appeals to it)? That's what makes the parallel. It's not the militarism alone, it's harnessing the prejudice and sense of cultural and economic superiority of white people against blacks and other racial minorities that the Goldwater and every other Republican campaign afterwards has employed along with ti that was and is a clear variation on the same theme.

But if course he was easy enough to ignore instead of taking seriously at the time, never mind now. Trump is starting to bring some people out of denial about it, but he still manages to command huge audience of people conditioned over a couple generations to respond to supremacism, and the GOP is powerless to stop him because he's doing it so openly that their subtle cues come across as the underhanded manipulation that they always have been.

84

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 09:33:33 AM »

So tell me, Pyr, does this also not count as an attempt to suppress speech?

Whose speech was suppressed? Was Trump rendered at all unable to chose and publicly air his response to the action?

I mean if you want to talk about how they helped him get his message out and build support by what they did in the process of trying to communicate their message, you'd have some pretty solid ground to stand on, But to argue taht there was any danger of rendering him unable to speak or respond is pretty absurd.

Is there much of a difference between physically preventing someone speaking versus physically preventing people from travelling to hear the speech?

Only in what the legal remedies are for such restraint. I imagine taht there are some pretty specific traffic laws that they were violating taht can and should absolutely be applied as the price for taking such an action, similar to any other kind of civil disobedience that involves using legal violations as a protest tool.

And regarding your belief that protesters have as much right as anyone to say their piece, do they likewise have the right to detain and force others to hear their message?

They had a right to speak. I imagine there will be no charges pressed for the message they were communicating, while there will be some internal tsk-tsking for helping make Trump's voice even louder and giving him a larger platform to speak from. I also imagine taht some of them may be facing traffic related fines completely unrelated to their speech as the legally assigned price on the kinds of actions that they took in order to be heard.

85

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 21, 2016, 09:19:05 AM »

Being an attehntion whore has nothing to do with sexual behavior, sillly.

if it has nothing to do with sexuality, then it's harmful to invoke words taht are designed to create the impression that sexuality is something that should be use to denigrate people.  Not that it's good to denigrate peopel directly for their sexuality in the first place, but this gets a double whammy. Why not jsut say "she's just trying to get attentino" You still get to be judgmental, but without resorting to outright denigration of female sexuality by using terms taht are rooted in attacking it as valid comparisons to use to attack others.

That's like arguing that because Hitler was a vegetarian, I cant call him a "butcher".

I was unaware of a parallel situation where "butcher" was generally used as a term to judge and implicitly control the behavior of an entire class of people by punishing them for otherwise personal choices in vocation or behavior.

Are you saying actual butchers are punished by society for their choice of vocation to make the comparisons equal in net effect? That calling someone a butcher helps promote the notion that butchers are morally bad people?

86

General Comments / Re: Election Day

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:52:56 PM »

Let me repeat the obvious in the form of a question.  Why are liberals who enthusiastically supported Obama in his first election dissatisfied with him now?

Because his negotiation strategy failed, and he didn't shift it well enough or use the tools that he had at his disposal well enough to make as much progress as people would have like to see. Clinton may absolutely be more willing to apply those tools forcefully, but Sanders offers a proven track record of applying them with finesse and actually accomplishing a lot against odds taht seemed stacked against him.

Clinton may be able to pull off a few big upsets, but that needs to be weighed against Sanders being able to score a mountain of small victories that amount to much more meaningful change, and that's without getting into the difference in potential coattails so far as setting how favorable the congress he needs to deal with is.

87

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:45:05 PM »

No one suggested anything constraining the protestors speech, in ways I "feel comfortable with" or otherwise.  I flat out said, no one, whether you label them weak or strong, has a right to suppress anyone else's speech.

But then turn around and advocate for protestors speech to be suppressed, over and over and over again. You don't get it both ways here. No one has prevented the candidates from speaking at all, in any way shape or form. The candidates have had to choose _how_ to speak in response to the protestors, but that's not suppression, that's dialog.

The only person here saying that anyone should shut up and stop talking is you in regards to the protestors. I have not suggested that the candidates should not speak in any way, you are the one advocating, over and over, that someone not speak until and unless they do it according to the way to dictate to them and not how they choose to speak.

88

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:39:54 PM »

It's just a fact that Trump and Sander's had their political speech suppressed.

Which one? I'm sorry, who has been out there talking in their name then, since someone has been claiming to on both parts?

If you want to point to the DNC and things like the way it scheduled the debates in bizarre was as being suppressive to Sanders, that makes sense. The protesters, though had absolutely no effect on his ability to speak, and his response tot hem was a decision fully and freely made under his own power.

89

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:34:37 PM »

If you want to pretend that people with the ability to put their message out there without suppressing others political speech have no choice but to engage in the worst forms of repression I can't stop you.

You're the one pretending that not me. The candidates have near universal ability to put their message out there however they want. The protesters have no meaningful way to get their message across without disrupting in order to actually have a voice in the conversation instead of being relegated to effective silence.

90

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:30:53 PM »

A collection of the powerful is still entitled to get together and engage in political speech without being disrupted under our freedoms of association and speech.

WIthout being disrupted _by the government_. Their freedom to speak does not, as you' have it, empower them to silence others, even if those others are interrupting them.

I take  my earlier comment back, this is now the most irrational thing you've ever said.  In any event, the Supreme Court precedents are clear on this.  The government has an affirmative duty to prevent disrupters from engaging in the conduct you are favoring, because unlike you, they understand that preventing anyone's message (whether you're weak or not) violates the very fundamental ideas protecting everyone's right to put there message out there.

and yet the protesters aren't preventing anyone from speaking, the only people being prevented from are the protesters if we follow your insistence that they be silenced.

91

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:29:14 PM »

No one asked any protestor to surrender any right to please me or anyone else,

Nonsense. You keep insisting over and over that the protestors must surrender their right to speak to let the more powerful people talk uninterrupted.

yet you demand that people you label as powerful give up their most fundamental right to engage in political speech.

No I don't. Not once in this has anyone more powerful been denied their right to speak. At times they've changed what they said or where they were going to speak in response to the speech of others, but not once have they been prevented from speaking. Sanders could have easily had the stage cleared or even waited out the protest action, he chose not to. Trump could have easily held his rally and let the protesters have their protest, but he chose not to.

you seem to be forgetting that speech goes both ways in your insistence that people who are protesting should be blocked from engaging in dialog with others who have more power to speak.

And you resort to even more slander by now, without evidence, equating them to mobs or hired enforces despite having no evidence to back those claims.

The protesters have just as much right to speak or disrupt as the politicians. The response that respects taht right is to engage them in dialog, not to try to silence the protesters because you find their speech inconvenient as you keep insisting should happen.

92

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:16:47 PM »

A collection of the powerful is still entitled to get together and engage in political speech without being disrupted under our freedoms of association and speech.

WIthout being disrupted _by the government_. Their freedom to speak does not, as you' have it, empower them to silence others, even if those others are interrupting them.

93

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 04:14:52 PM »

Did it ever occur to you that throughout American history powerful people have hired goons to go and disrupt meetings of various kinds that threaten their interests?

Sure, but that kind of accusation requires evidence. Trump has certainly tossed up random accusations, but not provided any backing; the evidence as it stands there would point more to him having picked the venue he did with the specific intent to cancel and blame someone for it taht it does anyone else actually hiring peopel to disrupt him.

We can't know what motivated the fake-BLM people to disrupt Sanders,

Hey, whats a little more slander, despite the fact taht you still haven't justified your "fake" accusation. Is someone a fake football fan if they aren't on a list of season ticket holders in your book?

but it apparently didn't occur to you that they may have been sent there by Hillary or who knows who else.

It's possible, but there's no evidence to suggest that it's a reasonable possibility.

 

Even if you insist on framing suppression as being top-down, surely it should brook no debate that Hillary is by far a more powerful person with more connections than Bernie and that any move by her to suppress his campaign is textbook suppression by your definition.

Sure, but again, there's no evidence that she's doing that. Some of the donor list scandals and funkiness with the DNC itself may have a suppressive angle to it, but a single disruption that has a far easier explanation if just taken at face value doesn't hold up, unless you're suggesting that Clinton is exceptionally erratic, worried that she's exceptionally vulnerable, and prone to poor strategic moves.

If that's what's happening, then, sure it's suppressive, but it's not the act of disruption that's suppressive, it's the act of paying for disruptions.

But again, all of that falls under better explaining what was meant by suppression above and lies way outside the much more direct associated. He didn't say it was suppressive because [pick you conspiracy theory] he said that it was suppressive because it was disruptive, which is simply not true. Disruptions can be used suppressively, but that's not a straight line claim as was made.

You want to frame this as the lowly humble protesters trying to disrupt the mighty Presidential candidate, but that assessment already makes assumptions you cannot make with the information you have.

No, it takes not making assumptions _beyond_ the information that I have. Any other explanation requires seculating or unsupported accusations of deception.

Telling us what they said they wanted to achieve is obviously useless because whether or not they were there with honorable intentions they would always speak as if they were; so that line is a wash.

Sure, which is why not taking them at their word requires having evidence to justify doing so. Otherwise you're basically just engaging in character assassination and speculating beyond the available evidence.

94

General Comments / Re: Election Day

« on: March 18, 2016, 03:38:59 PM »

A lot of small changes stacked on top of each other can easily add up to a few large changes that never actually happen.

And you're confusing scope of ultimate vision with strategy to implement that vision. How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Clinton may be promising to swallow a turkey whole, but the elephant is, once finished, a much larger goal to reach.

95

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 03:29:52 PM »

Don't you know by now that obliging others to frame issues in the peculiar ways you would like them dressed is not honest debate? Purposely sidestepping the meaning of a post by claiming a different definition than the one used by that poster is a disruption tactic in itself.

I'm not obliging him to do anything. If he wants to characterizing people with less power standing up to those with more power as an oppressive act, though, he's going to have to show better reasoning than just defining a given protest act to be oppressive on the fly.

IF we can consistently agree that "suppression" just means "a weaker party interrupting a stronger one" then I'll accept that definition for the context of the conversation, but only under the condition that later games aren't played to try to apply a completely different meaning of the word.

But I feel that I did actually dress the meaning he intended- specifically an attempt to cast Sanders or Trump as the weaker party/victim and pretend that the protestors were the party bringing institutional power to bear to prevent them from being able to speak. Which is actually what you were trying to suggest I was doing- an attempt to falsely reframe the issue by assertion instead of honestly evaluate the balance of power.

And that's being charitable. Less charitable was that he was falling back on simple authoritarianism, suggesting that that people should only speak if they do so in a way that meets the approval of those in power, thus using "suppression" to mean "in violation of authority"

96

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 02:44:39 PM »

That's a very dishonest reply Prytolin.  Both Sanders and Trump had political rallies disrupted, that is not my imagination.

Disrupted sure. Disruptions are part of life. Each chose a different way to deal with them. Sanders chose to allow the protesters the stage and move on to his next engagement. Trump has had disruptive people removed by force, as is his prerogative (something that Sanders could have done as well) Trump also chose to cancel one event in order to blame processors for shutting it down. Neither has had any problems being able to speak, and in fact has spoken through their choice of how to deal with the interruptions.

  Interrupting to the point that a political rally can't occur is in fact suppression,

Really? What greater power was being used to prevent someone with less power from acting here? Suppression is a top down act, not bottom up.

and you'd acknowledge it if your protesters were disrupted in the same manner.

In the same manner? By someone less powerful that was ignoring them taking action to get them to pay attention? No. OR are you trying to equate a more powerful entity abusing power to disrupt legal actions with someone less powerful stepping up and doing what it takes to be able to speak?

Your belief in the correctness of social causes is not sufficient to take away everyone else's rights.

Sure, but you're the only one talking about people surrendering their rights to please you here.

Disruptions are never necessary, that's just a lie you tell yourself.

Disruptions are the only way to break the status quo. Inertia insures taht nothing changes unless it is disrupted.

97

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 02:19:28 PM »

  Suppression of free speech is not a form of protected free speech, no matter how you pretend otherwise.

Sure, but that's not something that's happening except in your imagination to justify false accusations. Suppression requires legal power. Speaking up, even interrupting, by someone that you'd prefer remain silent is not suppression. Advocating that ehy be ignored because you disapprove of them is, however attempting to silence them.

But then again, if you weren't so busy ignoring people who tried to speak, then perhaps such disruptions wouldn't end up becoming necessary for them to get a chance to do it.

98

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 12:55:37 PM »

I didn't speak at all to what they are advocating for, only how they choose to do it. 

Exactly my point. Make the conversation about irrelevant judgmentalism and you get away with not discussing the issue or at least poisoning the well with such judgements that have nothing to do with the substantive issues.

Heck I think can pull a direct quote from you not to long ago in one of these threads where you outright advocated for such dishonesty by saying something that effectively justified ignoring protests if you judge their behavior to be poor rather than being honest and treating the message and the messenger completely separately.

99

General Comments / Re: Trump, The Reality Show

« on: March 18, 2016, 12:53:03 PM »

I, for one, would call some of the actions of BLM extreme, and some members who protest extremist. Do you take that to mean I have no concern for unequal treatment of citizens by police on racial lines? If so your ability to assess what I think would be deeply flawed.

No, I just suggest that accusations of extremism are distractions. It doesn't say anything about the issue at hand, but it does divert the conversation away from discussion of the actual issues and toward useless judgmentalism directed at the people involved.

I mean, if they commit a crime they should be held legally accountable, but even that should not be used as a dishonest excuse to poison the conversation of the actual issues that need to be resolved.

100

General Comments / Re: A question about unfair taxes

« on: March 18, 2016, 12:49:14 PM »

Well, except that bidding up occurs because there is too much cash available compared to certain resources,

It occurs when it is, And there are some pockets where that's true, but on the whole our economy is cash starved as evidenced by involuntary unemployment being at a non-zero rate and private debt being excessively high to paper over the gap.

a problem that your policies on generation of cash would make worse.

My policies involve putting cash where it creates the most resources. Our current policies create _just as much_ but put it where it creates the least resources by only making available in the form of loans or credit. Plus my policy reduces the amount of cash that's generated just to pay the financial sector rent/private tax on making cash to fill the shortfall.

  Face it, your ideals don't work at all if you leave anyone in control of disproportionate amounts of capital, so at some point you have to advocate taking away "excess savings" through tax or another mechanism.

You don't need to tax savings themselves, just tax excessively rapid liquidation. I covered taht above when I suggested heave taxes on financial income over 2x median. Cash out a massive chunk of savings at once and a good section of it should disappear to prevent just such manipulation unless you spend it on increasing production, and thus can deduct it.

Our whole economy, the world economy and federal monetary policy are all premised on revenue offsetting expenditures, notwithstanding the theory behind your arguments.

Not since we adopted fiat currency. The myth is used to trick people into supporting bad policy, but our primary agents of monetary policy have been outright begging the federal government to run a large enough deficit to keep the economy healthy and pointing out that they're effectively paralyzed because of underspending. The only reason the myth persists is because it benefits the financial sector at the expense of the economy and because it gives the politicians who sell it a level to manipulate the electorate.

Bank lending or loan repayment/savings will automatically offset just about any fiscal increase we can make, it will just mean that government, not banks control the tax rates in proportion to the shift of debt from private accounts to public ones.

Sure it's possible that we can get to the point whee too much money is going in, but the Fed has much better control over that, and can warn us long before it even comes close be being a dire as out current shortfall is so that we can adjust tax and spending policies to account for it.