Author Topic: Trump, The Reality Show  (Read 109596 times)

Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #100 on: March 15, 2016, 02:52:24 PM »
You're being critical about the fact taht they didn't do it in a way that you approve of to the point that you're paying no attention to the message, but focusing completely on your disapproval of the delivery.
For the same reason that the Unabomber's manifesto should not have been published at his demand, the method of delivery chosen (ie disruption) should taint the ideas that are being exposed.  Anyone who choses to use disruption is acting on a fundamental disrespect for the rights and ideas of others so profound that their judgment is inherently suspect.

Please note, that doesn't prejudge a cause, morons support all causes and beating them in an argument proves nothing, but it does demonstrate that these particular people are not capable of forming an argument that is worth hearing.

This is your standard ends justify the means argument, and for a liberal I'm always surprised at how often you employ it. It's typically a right-wing tool of analysis.
Where on Earth do you find support for ends justifies the means being a right wing tool of analysis?  It's pretty much the defining characteristic of the Democratic party on every modern issue.

Fenring

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #101 on: March 15, 2016, 03:13:04 PM »
This is your standard ends justify the means argument, and for a liberal I'm always surprised at how often you employ it. It's typically a right-wing tool of analysis.
Where on Earth do you find support for ends justifies the means being a right wing tool of analysis?  It's pretty much the defining characteristic of the Democratic party on every modern issue.

I would specify that it's a method employed by certain right-wingers, but not all. Certainly it's the mainstay of Neocons, as well as those groups that support CIA or military-based regime change. In terms of aggressive foreign policy I would agree with you that militaristic ends-justify-the-means is becoming a bipartisan thing. Another example of this being more a right-wing mentality is in the area of torture, where various GOP officials not only employed torture during W's Presidency but later even defended it as necessary. This is about as fundamentally ends-justify as you can get. Even supply-side economics is, on its face, end-justify-the-means. After all, it surely cannot be morally good in itself to give even more resources to those who are already rich; that pretty much flips Robin Hood right on its head. But the argument that this nevertheless ushers in greater wealth for all is the only argument that could justify such an act, and even even so it comes off as distasteful to many.

The surveillance state is another ends-justify-the-means system, although since it has been perpetuated during Obama's Presidency this one also appears to be bipartisan.

Maybe you'd prefer it if my statement read that it's a typically right-wing approach but that the left has been increasingly taking part? I have no problem agreeing that both sides are hopelessly mired in corruption and hypocrisy now, but I think it's not too controversial to say that the Democrats were supposedly the civil rights party since the mid-20th century, and that central to this philosophy ought to be not trampling over small things to achieve big things. Little people matter; little acts matter; how you treat people matters. So in this sense even if it's true now that both parties employ the ends-justify mentality to some extent it isn't a betrayal of the party's stated beliefs when the GOP does it as it is with what's supposedly a civil rights party.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2016, 03:15:52 PM by Fenring »

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #102 on: March 15, 2016, 04:21:01 PM »
You're being dishonest about what the skank did.
No, I'm simply not agreeing with your interpretation of events. And still objecting to your use of judgemental. and actively sexist name calling.  Even if you have no respect for her, have some respect for women in general by not using terminology that demeans them as a class by using them as a point of comparison for bad behavior.

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She stopped talking and started doing that four and a half minutes of silence bit.
Talking yes, speaking no. Or do you take any request for a moment of silence as a signal that someone is done speaking? SO again, it's not that she lied, but that she didn't behave in the way you wanted her to.

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  You can't force that on a crowd,
She didn't. She asked for it and performed it, but made no effort to actively force the crowd to participate.

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especially a crowed you've been insulting and lying about.
Completely unfounded claims. Calling someone out for bad behavior is not insulting or lying about them, even if they feel indignant that someone is holding them to account.

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  She called them white supremacists and then expected them to go silent for her?
No, she called them that so that they'd have to at least consider the effects of their behavior, even if they then chose to prove her right by way of their disrespect.

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At that point it became obvious that she had no intent to give the mike back.
That's your opinion. I disagree.

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  So  when you pretend that her intent wasn't primarily to shut Sanders' speech down, I lose respect for you to the point I don't trust anything you say.
Right, because the only valid opinion here is yours. If others disagree, then you should punish them for not bowing to your authority by being disrespectful.

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  I didn't make up those facts or the meaning of lying or fraud, and when you pretend that's just my own standard, you come off as a sellout like her.
You made up your interpretations of her actions, and it's dishonest to present those as facts rather than as your opinions.

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less than 40% of white Americans approve of MLK during his time, but most got the message at Selma and things began to change fast.
The right ones got the message and things changed because the forced the issue despite the objections of those that were opposed.

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You blather about the message but all you are doing is defending the protesters.
Absolutely. Someone has to, and the more people do, the less need for protest there will be.

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MLK was willing to endure beatings and prison to get his message out.
Well thank goodness we have you to help administer the beatings, if verbally, to those that follow after him. They wouldn't get nearly as much press if people like you weren't ready to go to town on them when they spoke out.

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You bleat on about the unfairness of me saying mean words that you even admitted may be true.
I've never said one thing about fairness or unfairness (except, occasionally, to dismiss them as vacuous notions.)

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If the message is important, then articulating it, actually getting people to understand and contemplate what you are saying, would be more important than getting them to like you or to kiss your ass. 
Indeed, as you're proving here. And that was my point above as well. They're obviously not trying to get you to kiss their ass, or even like them. They're trying to be heard by the people in a position to make a difference, and they're continuing to get results, rather than bowing down to the supremacist notion that they need to please white people in order to be tolerated.

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Let me tell you a bit more about this dumb ass slag that you lionize.
ANd you're making things up again. That I'm willing to defend a particular protest action says nothing about whether I agree with her on any given point.

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She busted up a Seattle meeting that was promoting the use of body cams on cops.  You know the sort that would PREVENT the very sort of police violence that this dumb slag supposedly opposes, right?  Do you know what she said about it?  That she had no interest in watching her oppressor's "home movies." 
If I have time, I'll look into it. It'll be interesting to see what effect it had on the overall conversation, particularly if it helped ensure that people didn't just do the minimum possible by deploying body cams and then pretending that they'd done all they could to fix the more fundamental problems.

Because, while body cams do help protect people from the problems, they don't actually address the underlying issues, without which, body cams wouldn't be needed in the first place. They're a good step,. but they're a short term bandage, not a cure.

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Wanna bet Pyr is going to dodge that last challenge re body cams and come back with more personal attacks on me wrapped in sanctimonious jibberjabber?
We'll see what I have time for. BUt nice try at derailment there by bringing up something completely irrelevant to the protest action in question and it's immediate and long term effects.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #103 on: March 15, 2016, 05:03:23 PM »
This is your standard ends justify the means argument,
No, it's a right tool for the job argument. It's not the ends that justify the means, but the nature of the problem itself. Suggesting that the means needs to be justified here comes from your presumptions, not mine.

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Further, you assert that she created grounds for a better conversation about the topic, but I've never read one single thing corroborating this claim; it seems entirely to be made of smoke. When Clinton met with BLM members it was arranged and mutually agreed upon.
After BLM advocates had been turned away many times. It was only arranged and agreed to instead of dismissed in the wake of this event.

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They didn't storm her rally, and they had real questions for her rather than the mere intent to disrupt.
And had Sanders already similarly made such a big deal about meeting with them publicly and thus induced Clinton to have to follow suit, it's likely none would have seen the motivation. The meeting with Clinton alone was a major win for them out of this, because her much tighter security had, till then, actively prevented them from even getting into any events, never mind actually commanding her direct personal attention.


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You know the difference between an activist and a disruptor?
One acts in the way you are about to dictate as proper, the other one does not.

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For a person to successfully disrupt an event and then have nothing to say demonstrated that this was not an activist deep in the cause they were supporting. Such a person would have plenty to say on a moment's notice.
That's funny, it seems like she did have plenty to say, it just wasn't well rehearsed. In fact Pete is here bashing her for saying too much and not giving the microphone back according to his schedule. She wasn't ready to speak, she wasn't rehearsed, so what she said didn't come out in as organized and coherent way as it would have if she were better prepared, but that doesn't mean there was nothing there at all.

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It's not like activist speech is canned or scripted; they know their topic.
It's not like activists don't give rehearsed speeches either, though. They can be rehearsed, they can be off the cuff. A prepared and rehearsed statement will always be more tight and coherent than an off the cuff delivery, and each has its place. And even off the cuff delivery benefits from the implicit rehearsal of having done int many times until one has effectively perfected their delivery method.

That she was young and relatively inexperienced isn't really at issue here. She managed to pull off a bigger success than she was expecting and had some pretty significant downstream effects.

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I remember back during Occupy there'd be people accosted by a camera crew and extemporaneously spell out detailed problems with Wall Street and what they wanted changed. They were passionate about it. And these weren't designated spokespeople or experts - some of them were barely teenagers and they knew their stuff.
Repeat and re articulate a concept many times over and you can get pretty good at speaking off the cuff about it. The internal debates about such principles within the Occupy movement were very good and getting people to articulate such ideas on the fly easily, especially because such activity was encouraged rather than used as basis to criticize others as it is in other forums.

Can BLM learn a bit for the Occupy tactics? Absolutely; there were a lot of useful tools developed or improved upon through the various groupings.

 But this lady who disrupted Sanders didn't have anything to say, wasn't versed in her material, and had no real cause to put forward. She was there to harass Sanders and that's exactly what she did. Because she was there under the false banner of BLM Sanders knew the game was up.

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This disruptor didn't bring attention to her cause, she brought shame to it.
Seems like we're still paying attention, so the first half of that is false. It'll only become true once no one talks about it anymore.

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Countless people who witnessed this were disgusted.
I'm sure they did and were. That's the price of speaking out about things that make other uncomfortable.

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You can rely on the fact that Sanders supporters came out of this upset rather than impressed with her so-called cause.
I'm sure many did, if they didn't then there really wouldn't have been a need to do it in the first place. The one thing that could have contradicted what she said would have been everyone being patient and respectful of her until she was done, capping it off with a little polite applause and then getting back to the business at hand.

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It received attention all right - negative attention.


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Luckily for the BLM she wasn't actually part of it, which meant her shameful act reflected only on her and not on BLM.
You still haven't pointed out this magical grand judge of the BLM movement that makes such declarations. How can one not be part of a movement that's based on voluntary declaration of affiliation?

She definitely sparked a lot of conversation within the movement between people that supported her action and those that didn't like it. But again, that's how sich things work.

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Or at least I hope that's the case, because she may inadvertently have poisoned part of the public consciousness against BLM too. Some people probably never heard the update that she wasn't BLM, so they'd blame BLM for the disruption. Others may have read the update but it was too late for them; the negative association was already made and couldn't be unmade.
Further validating her action, and proving her point, then.

Pete at Home

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #104 on: March 16, 2016, 12:01:56 AM »
She busted up a Seattle meeting that was promoting the use of body cams on cops.  You know the sort that would PREVENT the very sort of police violence that this dumb slag supposedly opposes, right?  Do you know what she said about it?  That she had no interest in watching her oppressor's "home movies." 
If I have time, I'll look into it.

I doubt you will.

It'll be interesting to see what effect it had on the overall conversation, particularly if it helped ensure that people didn't just do the minimum possible by deploying body cams and then pretending that they'd done all they could to fix the more fundamental problems.

Because, while body cams do help protect people from the problems, they don't actually address the underlying issues, without which, bodycams wouldn't be needed in the first place. They're a good step,. but they're a short term bandage, not a cure.

That's idiotic.  Body cams are both a short term cure and a diagnostic for long term cures.  Plus in the medium term it will weed out abusive cops.  You can't solve a problem without getting a good look at it, and analysis of this sort of footage will revolutionize police training to handle situations safely.

What cameras won't solve is the underlying poverty of African Americans, nor the police-fearing culture that gelds their interactions with police.



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Wanna bet Pyr is going to dodge that last challenge re body cams and come back with more personal attacks on me wrapped in sanctimonious jibberjabber?
We'll see what I have time for. BUt nice try at derailment there by bringing up something completely irrelevant to the protest action in question and it's immediate and long term effects.
 [/quote]
Nice try at pretending that body cams aren't "relevant", (which you use here again in typical Pyr fashion to shut out any inconvenient fact).  You blather about the importance of her message, which presumably involves police violence against African Americans. 


Pete at Home

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #105 on: March 16, 2016, 12:06:06 AM »
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Countless people who witnessed this were disgusted.


I'm sure they did and were. That's the price of speaking out about things that make other uncomfortable.

Stop playing stupid and misrepresenting what people say.  No one's complaining about her speaking out.  The problem is the thuggish manner that she and her blackface Asian thug took and held the stage, with screaming, threats, and refusing to treat everyone else as human beings.

"We're going to let you speak.  How long do you need."

Blackface Asian: "Stop asking questions or we will shut you down."

"No, I'm simply not agreeing with your interpretation of events."

I might believe that you simply disagree with my interpretation, if you didn't lie about what I said.  If you disagreed with what I said you could respond to that, instead of pretending I'd said something else.

" And still objecting to your use of judgemental. and actively sexist name calling. "

I've never before referred to a woman as a "skank" and will gladly desist if you will answer my questions and stop lying about what I said.  There is no rule against showing disrespect to a person who isn't an Ornery member, and her thuggish conduct and failure to communicate even at the level of a trained chimp, while holding the stage hostage, has earned my contempt.



« Last Edit: March 16, 2016, 12:14:20 AM by Pete at Home »

Pete at Home

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #106 on: March 16, 2016, 12:38:32 AM »
If you want to persuade me to not describe Marissa Johnson as a shallow controlling little attention whore, wbo dances on black dead bodies in order to play gunpoint Simon Says with an angry white crowd, then please show me where she actually advocates for some solution.  Since she came in to silence folks who were trying to advocate for police body cams.  What specific viable change in how society does things, is she recommending?

As a former lawyer who had several black and Latino clients tortured by feds and locals, You had better have a really good *censored*ing alternative after blowing off cop cameras as a "short term bandaid."  Please show me something real.  I would really like to believe that you're not like that posturing slag.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #107 on: March 16, 2016, 01:04:38 PM »
That's idiotic.  Body cams are both a short term cure and a diagnostic for long term cures.  Plus in the medium term it will weed out abusive cops.  You can't solve a problem without getting a good look at it, and analysis of this sort of footage will revolutionize police training to handle situations safely.
They're not a cure any more than a lab test is a cure. they're a diagnostic tool as you note. If all the footage goes into a vault and no one sees it or pushed for action on it, nothing will change. They're a tool, taht helps us find a solution, not a solution unto themselves, despite people taht will claim the problem has been solved because body cams are now deployed so everything will automatically be better.

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What cameras won't solve is the underlying poverty of African Americans, nor the police-fearing culture that gelds their interactions with police.
Indeed. Activism, that's assisted with footage will help with the latter, and other economic policies will help with the former. But that's the point, in no case are cameras the final cure for anything, they're a patch that helps us get closer to real solutions, with ongoing activism being needed to make sure taht we don't stop there and pretend things are fixed, as has routinely happened with every other "solution" applied in the past/



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Nice try at pretending that body cams aren't "relevant", (which you use here again in typical Pyr fashion to shut out any inconvenient fact).  You blather about the importance of her message, which presumably involves police violence against African Americans.
If body cams have something to do with the disruption of the Sanders rally, you'll need to spell it out for me. Otherwise this is a separate protest action that only happens to be linked by having a person to point to that was around for both of them. Otherwise the body cam disruption has no relevance to the Sanders disruption. But this does fit your general patter of me pointing out how you derailed one specific conversation to inject a completely different conversation, then accuse me of saying taht the other conversation is't useful because I point out that it's a separate thing unrelated to the current conversation.

So please-  connect the dots here. What does the issue of body cams have to do with your objections to her behavior at the Sanders rally aside from the completely incidental fact that she was involved with both events?

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #108 on: March 16, 2016, 01:13:21 PM »
If you want to persuade me to not describe Marissa Johnson as a shallow controlling little attention whore, wbo dances on black dead bodies in order to play gunpoint Simon Says with an angry white crowd, then please show me where she actually advocates for some solution.
Why does my difference in opinion on her actions have any relevance to your usage of empty, degrading, and inflammatory name calling? What is it about her sexual behavior that you believe is relevant such that you apply with words "whore" and "skank" in a way taht both targets empty invective at her and perpetuates the notion that women need to conform to your sexual standards to be respected?

Why can't you just talk about your objections and your opinions about the issue without resorting to degradation and name calling?

Wayward Son

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #109 on: March 16, 2016, 02:59:15 PM »
Here's one for the Reality Show.

In Illinois, Trump lost delegates because they had foreign-sounding names.

If I understand it correctly, in Illinois, you don't vote for the candidate, but for the delegates.  Each congressional district has three delegates that can be elected, and each of them has the name of the candidate they are pledged to.  So if you want all three to go to a certain candidate, you vote for the three delegates that have that candidate's name next to them.

This worked well if the candidate's name was Doug Hartmann.  But Raja Sadiq, in the same district, got 25% fewer votes, even though both of them were pledged to Trump.

So in three districts, the number one and two spots were taken by Trump supporters, but he lost the third delegate because the third supporter (with a foreign-sounding name) missed the third spot--a pattern unique to Trump.

It's like Trump supporters wouldn't support Trump if his delegate didn't sound "American" enough. :)

Mynnion

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #110 on: March 17, 2016, 12:56:09 PM »
I was working my way through my daily news list and saw an interesting article on Trump as a threat to the global community.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35828747

AI Wessex

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #111 on: March 17, 2016, 01:31:56 PM »
My wife read me a report (Politico?) from an interview with Trump yesterday.  He was asked how he was going to get Mexico to pay for the wall. His answer was basically that he would threaten them with our military and even hinted that Japan suffered certain consequences for not surrendering soon enough.  Will even this be somehow glossed over?

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #112 on: March 17, 2016, 01:44:48 PM »
I did nearly snort my drink this morning when I heard "I talk to myself. I've got a great brain. I say a lot of things."  getting airtime.

If the media doesn't realize that it's being trolled at that point, it's lost beyond all hope in accurately covering his campaign. He's got it completely twisted around his finger.


Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #114 on: March 17, 2016, 02:45:49 PM »
That's idiotic.  Body cams are both a short term cure and a diagnostic for long term cures.  Plus in the medium term it will weed out abusive cops.  You can't solve a problem without getting a good look at it, and analysis of this sort of footage will revolutionize police training to handle situations safely.
They're not a cure any more than a lab test is a cure.
I'm not aware that bacteria or virus become aware of lab tests and modify their behavior while the tests are going on.  In fact your flat wrong about this, recording police interactions and making them aware that they will be accountable for what's on the tapes (and even more liable if tapes go missing), will directly act to control those abuses that occur because certain officers think they can get away with it.   

I think you're overselling the importance of activism, the vast majority of all beneficial change comes from within the system and working with the system.  Activism is useful highlight areas that have been overlooked, but not for long term development.


Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #116 on: March 17, 2016, 03:14:09 PM »
I'm not aware that bacteria or virus become aware of lab tests and modify their behavior while the tests are going on.
Out of bounds of what I was using the metaphor to illustrate.

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[ In fact your flat wrong about this, recording police interactions and making them aware that they will be accountable for what's on the tapes (and even more liable if tapes go missing), will directly act to control those abuses that occur because certain officers think they can get away with it.   
This will only happen is someone holds them accountable for what's on the tapes or for missing tapes. The tapes in Chicago almost did no good, it took activism to actually make them follow the necessary procedure to make the tapes useful.

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I think you're overselling the importance of activism, the vast majority of all beneficial change comes from within the system and working with the system.
Which is it, then is activism not useful, or do people need to work within the system to make change. Activism has nothing to do with in our out of the system; it has to do with active engagement by members of the public to make sure that change is happening. It only goes outside the system when the system does not offer a useful or sufficiently expedient path to the necessary changes.

Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #117 on: March 18, 2016, 10:13:54 AM »
I'm not aware that bacteria or virus become aware of lab tests and modify their behavior while the tests are going on.
Out of bounds of what I was using the metaphor to illustrate.
Your metaphor was poor specifically because it denied the agency of the police officers and the probable impact of their awareness that they would be subject to real oversight.  That's exactly the point of body cameras, to move all those he said/she said interactions where the officer's word is given precedence by the courts back into the realm of what really happened.  We've seen some pretty blatant videos in the last few years, officer shooting someone and planting a gun, officers jumping out of cars and immediately shooting non threatening people.  It's clear that they've been used to a culture of deference and being able to blame their victims.  This is type of transparency creates an accountability that is a direct cure for that, and it's knock on effect is even greater.

As a related issue, we should all uniformly oppose any law or attempted regulation that bars or purports to make illegal filming officers who are interacting in any way with the public.
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This will only happen is someone holds them accountable for what's on the tapes or for missing tapes. The tapes in Chicago almost did no good, it took activism to actually make them follow the necessary procedure to make the tapes useful.
The whole point of the requirement is to require the tapes be made available.  I think your "issue" is pretty fake, but I'll go on record saying I support making the tapes available.  It shouldn't take activism to do it, in fact, the far more powerful and effective way to do it, is to have court's disallow officer testimony where they fail to produce the tapes.  That's exactly the way most of our civil rights have been protected vis a vis the police.  Activism leaves too much to chance whether an issue gets enough attention to allow for fairness to creep in.
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I think you're overselling the importance of activism, the vast majority of all beneficial change comes from within the system and working with the system.
Which is it, then is activism not useful, or do people need to work within the system to make change. Activism has nothing to do with in our out of the system; it has to do with active engagement by members of the public to make sure that change is happening. It only goes outside the system when the system does not offer a useful or sufficiently expedient path to the necessary changes.
It depends on what you mean by "activism".  If you are counting everyone who advocates for change as an "activist" then yes, its useful.  If you're looking at the extremists that we've been discussing then not so much other than at flash points.  This is one of those places though, where I suspect you'll be incredibly vague, because you'll use the broad definition to defend activism and then narrow it when you want to attack.

You tell me what you are referring to and I'll better answer your question.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #118 on: March 18, 2016, 11:07:57 AM »
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The whole point of the requirement is to require the tapes be made available.  I think your "issue" is pretty fake, but I'll go on record saying I support making the tapes available.  It shouldn't take activism to do it, in fact, the far more powerful and effective way to do it, is to have court's disallow officer testimony where they fail to produce the tapes.
Sure, but that's not going to happen unless, can you guess? People advocate for it and get it to happen.

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If you're looking at the extremists that we've been discussing then not so much other than at flash points.
Which is convenient, because anyone that advocates for something that you don't want to happen can be dismissed by calling them an extremist. The should just sit down shut up, and file a polite formal complaint that you can toss in the trash after saying that you'll take their point of view under advisement.

Activists only get loud and "extreme" once it's clear that the system is dismissing them. If you don't want this kind of flash points to emerge, then you should be more supportive of them and help push for change before they become necessary, not sit around trying to shout them down for doing what it takes to get things done long after more polite measures have failed.30, 40, 50 60 years? How long are they supposed to sit quietly and hope that the system might start working right so as not to annoy you by being loud enough that you can't keep ignoring the problems?

Fenring

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #119 on: March 18, 2016, 11:28:04 AM »
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If you're looking at the extremists that we've been discussing then not so much other than at flash points.
Which is convenient, because anyone that advocates for something that you don't want to happen can be dismissed by calling them an extremist. The should just sit down shut up, and file a polite formal complaint that you can toss in the trash after saying that you'll take their point of view under advisement.

That's a very bold statement. Are you sure you have a right to tell Seriati what he does and doesn't want to happen?

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.

Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #120 on: March 18, 2016, 11:58:13 AM »
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The whole point of the requirement is to require the tapes be made available.  I think your "issue" is pretty fake, but I'll go on record saying I support making the tapes available.  It shouldn't take activism to do it, in fact, the far more powerful and effective way to do it, is to have court's disallow officer testimony where they fail to produce the tapes.
Sure, but that's not going to happen unless, can you guess? People advocate for it and get it to happen.
Nonsense.  Virtually all of your civil rights have come about "activist free" by the dry operation of the courts.  Our fundamental commitment to the rule of law (which you would like to erode) has provided more real protections for you than all the activists put together.

In this case, we're already at a point where video evidence is almost always produced and almost always used to identify suspects and allow the police to catch them.  It is literally only a matter of time before convictions get thrown out because of a failure to produce video evidence.  There is absolutely no question, that if a department has body cameras they will be required to share the videos with defense attorneys, and that as the videos become common in court rooms their lack will lead to negative inferences.
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If you're looking at the extremists that we've been discussing then not so much other than at flash points.
Which is convenient, because anyone that advocates for something that you don't want to happen can be dismissed by calling them an extremist.
I didn't speak at all to what they are advocating for, only how they choose to do it.  You're the only one on these boards that categorically dismisses arguments by anyone.

That said you've already gone on record supporting extremists who can't even articulate their argument.  How can anyone even get to the point of "dismissing" an argument that can't be stated?  They've dismissed their own "argument" by not having one.  I can choose to dismiss their inarticulate anger, and I do reject their chosen tactics in some cases (I dismiss any disruptor or suppressor of free speech of others out of hand, I don't dismiss protestors or those who criticize other's free speech).
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The should just sit down shut up, and file a polite formal complaint that you can toss in the trash after saying that you'll take their point of view under advisement.
Given my long standing and oft stated support for the Rule of Law, I'd like you to support your claim that I'd support tossing their complaint in the trash, in either a figurative or literal sense, or else quit trolling and retract it.

I've quite specifically articulated that the Rule of Law has done more to protect these people already, and will continue to do more, than all these protests put together.
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Activists only get loud and "extreme" once it's clear that the system is dismissing them.
That's a lie.  It may have been true once, but extreme "activists" these days are loud and extreme even when the system bends over backwards to validate and accommodate them.
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If you don't want this kind of flash points to emerge, then you should be more supportive of them and help push for change before they become necessary, not sit around trying to shout them down for doing what it takes to get things done long after more polite measures have failed.30, 40, 50 60 years? How long are they supposed to sit quietly and hope that the system might start working right so as not to annoy you by being loud enough that you can't keep ignoring the problems?
You do a lot of lecturing for someone without any real ideas on how to effect a meaningful change.  Adult discussions that balance the costs of action with the gains, and that weigh all sides of an issue and all viewpoints are going to be the way we solve these problems.  Activists don't put forward solutions, they put forward demands based on their wants without any real consideration of anyone else's needs.  And you dismiss any obligation on their part to consider others by the mental short cut of declaring the system to be so weighted against them that nothing they demand could impose on anyone else.  Then of course you double down by accusing anyone who questions of being too privledged or afraid of losing their own better position to be an honest participant.

If they want change, they need to explain in a convincing manner why its better for everyone, or at a minimum how its a much better situation for a group that's been treated unfairly and that the burden for others to bear in their place is worth it.  And I don't give a rats ass about your view that I'm telling them how they have to protest, when you're trying to tell me how I have to respond to them.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #121 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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #122 on: March 18, 2016, 12:55:37 PM »
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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.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2016, 12:57:54 PM by Pyrtolin »

Wayward Son

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #123 on: March 18, 2016, 01:02:58 PM »
And as the show goes on, another idea pops up.  A State Legislature could override the popular vote and make the House decide the next President.

Basically, it could go like this.  While the people vote on who they want for President, the state legislatures appoint the electors for the electoral college.  Normally, they vote according to the results of the election, but there is no Constitution requirement for them to do so.

So the legislation in a state like Texas could appoint electors that would vote for a third candidate, like Paul Ryan.  If the election was close enough, that could mean that neither of the other candidates would receive the 270 required to win.  So the decision would revert to the House of Representatives, who would choose among the candidates with electoral votes--including the Texas pick.  So with a willing House, both the Democrat and Republican candidates could be ignored and the Texas pick could be voted in by the House.

It's a wild, long-shot idea, which would probably result in the members of the House being replaced (although it would be the next House members that would vote), but the fact that anyone is talking about this shows what a crazy circus this election is becoming.


Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #124 on: March 18, 2016, 01:25:49 PM »
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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.
That's nothing but a side step, I certainly expanded on the point in the text you choose to snip away.  We can't "discuss the issues" with those who refuse to engage in discussion and can't articulate their issues.  They haven't even been convincing that they are outraged about substantive issues.
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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.
No, you can find where I said they should be ignored if they disrupt political speech.  Suppression of free speech is not a form of protected free speech, no matter how you pretend otherwise.

No protestor has a right to prioritize their own voice over other voices engaged in political speech, they can protest it, they can't disrupt it.  Even you know this, you get all in a tizzy whenever anyone even suggests that protestors don't have a right to demand our undivided attention, even if they have nothing to say, at a whim for as long as they choose to do so.  You just have no concept that anyone other than protestors has rights or the right to speak.  Absolutely no one is forcing protestors to listen to a political message.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #125 on: March 18, 2016, 02:19:28 PM »
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  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.

Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #126 on: March 18, 2016, 02:31:02 PM »
That's a very dishonest reply Prytolin.  Both Sanders and Trump had political rallies disrupted, that is not my imagination.  Interrupting to the point that a political rally can't occur is in fact suppression, and you'd acknowledge it if your protesters were disrupted in the same manner.  Your belief in the correctness of social causes is not sufficient to take away everyone else's rights.

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

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #127 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.

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  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.

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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?

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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.


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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.

Fenring

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #128 on: March 18, 2016, 03:04:24 PM »
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  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.

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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #129 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"

Fenring

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #130 on: March 18, 2016, 03:50:18 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? This is so old hat that it should be obvious by now. We can't know what motivated the fake-BLM people to disrupt Sanders, but it apparently didn't occur to you that they may have been sent there by Hillary or who knows who else. 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. Now, they may have been 'earnest' incompetent protesters as well, so both possibilities should be considered. But it doesn't seem like you do consider both as possible; you treat disruptors as having honorable intentions sight unseen, even when their actual conduct isn't honorable at all.

The Onion even satirized this the other day by showing the GOP leadership itself personally appearing at a Trump rally to disrupt it (and being roughed up in the process, hehe).

Similarly for Trump, any disruptions of his rallies that were in fact orchestrated by the RNC would also count as suppression by your definition because Trump as one man - an outsider in Washington - is certainly less powerful than the various candidates standing alongside the RNC and their lobbyists.

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. You don't know who sent them or what they really wanted to achieve. 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.

Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #131 on: March 18, 2016, 04:09:11 PM »
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  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.
The power of a mob to suppress is well understood, it brings physical intimidation or force to an instant situation, and forces the suppressed to use physical force or accept the disruption. 

Doesn't really matter though, our rights are premised on only the weaker party having them.  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.  There is no exception for a "weaker" party being allowed to prevent a stronger from engaging in political speech.  Pretending like they don't have physical power, without which they wouldn't be able to disrupt at all, makes your point into a falsehood.  The whole point of disruption is to change the relevant measure of power to one the disruptor has an advantage on.
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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?
Not trying to equate, flat out stating that disruption is always an exercise in power, and the disruptor, to be effective, is just using a different form of power.  Doesn't make a difference if it's pinkerton's suppressing the weak, or an angry mob suppressing the "powerful" its still a violation of their rights to engage in political speech. 

There is no message for which you or anyone else is entitled to suppress the message of another.
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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.
No matter how often you pretend that is the case, you're the only one who's supporting suppressing anyone's rights.  No one asked any protestor to surrender any right to please me or anyone else, yet you demand that people you label as powerful give up their most fundamental right to engage in political speech.
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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.
Spoken like a true radical, in spite of all the lessons of history.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #132 on: March 18, 2016, 04:14:52 PM »
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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.

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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?

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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.

 
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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.

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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.

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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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #133 on: March 18, 2016, 04:16:47 PM »
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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.

Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #134 on: March 18, 2016, 04:20:31 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.
That's true, I'm not obliged to do anything.  But it is heartening to see so many posters directly question your never ending attempts to burden shift through changing definitions.
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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 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.  If you want to continue to pretend that people who don't listen, can't say what they want and have no respect for anyone else's rights have an important message that we all have to listen to, I can't stop you.
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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.
Why would agree to that?  It's just another version of a fake definition you generate to obfuscate the issue.  Suppression as a concept doesn't say anything about whether one group is objectively weaker or stronger, it's talking about a subjective context.  I flat out reject your unproven assumption that every term can only have meaning in a context of absolute power levels (that only you are "qualified" to establish).
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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.
No, that's both error and motive speculation.  It's not my fault that you can't discuss anything without translating it in your head into a class based power struggle against the institution.  Rights apply to individuals, not to classes. 

It's just a fact that Trump and Sander's had their political speech suppressed.  Makes no difference if they have other opportunities to speak, or if they are more "powerful" on some arbitrary measure than the suppressors on every other day of the weak.  You're playing a dangerous game when you validate the "weak" using force to upend the rights of the powerful, because you're just validating - under another name - the old concept that might makes right.  And that's not a game that plays out to the benefit of the weak long term.
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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"
You're not being charitable, you're not being honest, and you're not even arguing in good faith.  You just strawman everything into defined terms and power constructs you feel comfortable with without engaging the actual arguments made.

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.

Seriati

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #135 on: March 18, 2016, 04:22:33 PM »
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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.

Fenring

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #136 on: March 18, 2016, 04:27:27 PM »
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.

I was purposely making a weaker argument than I could have just to show that even using the definitions you prefer I could make a case for the Sanders and Trump disruptions as being suppression. But as it stands the real argument is the one Seriati has made.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #137 on: March 18, 2016, 04:29:14 PM »
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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.

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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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #138 on: March 18, 2016, 04:30:53 PM »
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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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #139 on: March 18, 2016, 04:34:37 PM »
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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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #140 on: March 18, 2016, 04:39:54 PM »
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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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #141 on: March 18, 2016, 04:45:05 PM »
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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.

Fenring

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #142 on: March 20, 2016, 02:16:08 AM »
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.

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

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-protesters-rally-arizona-highway-1.3499162

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Footage of the demonstration in Arizona showed a group of protesters with cars blocking forward traffic, holding signs that read: "Dump Trump" and "Shut Down Trump."

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

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?
« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 02:18:25 AM by Fenring »

Pete at Home

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #143 on: March 20, 2016, 07:09:01 AM »
If you want to persuade me to not describe Marissa Johnson as a shallow controlling little attention whore, wbo dances on black dead bodies in order to play gunpoint Simon Says with an angry white crowd, then please show me where she actually advocates for some solution.
Why does my difference in opinion on her actions have any relevance to your usage of empty, degrading, and inflammatory name calling? What is it about her sexual behavior that you believe is relevant such that you apply with words "whore" and "skank" in a way taht both targets empty invective at her and perpetuates the notion that women need to conform to your sexual standards to be respected?

Why can't you just talk about your objections and your opinions about the issue without resorting to degradation and name calling?

Being an attehntion whore has nothing to do with sexual behavior, sillly.  That's like arguing that because Hitler wasx a vegetarian, I cant call him a "butcher".  Here again you strain slavish literalism past the point of illiteracy.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #144 on: March 21, 2016, 09:19:05 AM »
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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.

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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?
« Last Edit: March 21, 2016, 09:24:10 AM by Pyrtolin »

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #145 on: March 21, 2016, 09:33:33 AM »
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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.

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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.

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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.

Fenring

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #146 on: March 21, 2016, 10:14:12 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.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #147 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.)

D.W.

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #148 on: March 21, 2016, 10:22:56 AM »
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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.
In general I agree with your sentiment that we should remove misogyny from our insults.  Many of them don't even make sense.  We (some of us) shout them when irritated or upset or just for the reaction without giving them much thought.  I've shouted (in my enclosed car), "You stupid m'fer!".  Right after I thought to myself, "Well, I've F'ed a mother...  Why is that an insult at all?  Are we suggesting incest on the part of the labeled?  Is this a terrible insult that lost meaning through short hand?  It makes no damn sense as it stands...

So, I get it.  Some of our insulting language can not only border on nonsensical but can also be harmful to people who have nothing to do with the target of our ire.  That should be looked at and we should attempt to control for it.

Attention whore however...  One who sells their dignity and behaves outside of societal boundaries in order to receive attention (good or bad); well that one is spot on.   As to why we don't take the long hand approach and remove "whore"?  Well it doesn't have the same ring to it.  Less is more on verbal barbs.  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.  I suppose you could argue "jackass" but I don't believe they are equivalents.

Pyr, I think you are attempting to shoewhoren this point into a larger discussion.  :)
This reads very much like a, "get off my lawn you rotten kids", argument.  I think this label is both technically accurate and quickly conveys a concept for which we sadly have a pressing need to identify and condemn.  Far more so than actual whoring... which is the only caveat I would grant.  While that deals with sex, it is not however sexist.

Pyrtolin

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Re: Trump, The Reality Show
« Reply #149 on: March 21, 2016, 10:33:21 AM »
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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.