DragonAngel, you make it very hard to want to respond to your post, because of your unbelievable inability to actually address what my point, instead of continuing to hyperventilate and attack my character. It really is quite remarkable.
I'm responding selectively to your post; I don't want to misrepresent your arguments, but I also don't feel the need to do a line-by-line when you seem to be spectacularly missing the point. For example, I feel no need to respond to you calling me a "spineless" and "week-kneed liberal", because those insults are both utterly irrelevant to the argument and serve no purpose other than for you to feel more smug about how righteous your self-appointed crusade is. I've also rearranged your quotes a little bit. Again, I'm not doing this to be dishonest, but because your post was a rambling mess so in order to respond to the meat of your arguments I'm concatenating similar thoughts together so I don't have to keep repeating myself. If you feel I've misrepresented you somehow, please point out how and where and know that it was entirely unintentional.
Oh, the "I haven't seen it so it must not exist" argument.
Given what I'd seen wautd post about Islam before, and given he basically confirmed my suspicion afterward, I was proven right.
If you're going to argue "but wautd didn't mention anything about Islam in his post waaahh", spare me. I have no interest in talking about something someone posted while conveniently forgetting their post history. After all, you DID bring up TRR's pushing of the Russian issue, so it's not like you object to that method of debate is that so?
And no, unlike what your pie in the sky fantasyland tells you, this forum is NOT immune to that effect.
I never said it didn't exist.
I asked you to tell me where it has happened, because it didn't happen in the thread that you were hyperventilating over. Instead, you somehow pretend that because I don't maintain an encyclopedic knowledge of every single poster's posting history on every subject, I'm somehow a "coward". So ... seriously, go fuck yourself, you holier-than-thou weasel. I'm so sorry that I committed the horrible sin of not remembering wautd's posting history, because that's so cowardly of me.
Now, if you are done with your bizarre fantasies and ad hominems, feel free to actually show me the posts in question. Because that's what you do when someone requests evidence, you actually SHOW them that evidence, you don't go around bloviating about how stupid and spineless I am for not reading every single thread in the history of these forums.
Imagine seeing that every time a news report comes out about terrorism or a mass shooting. Every. Time. Without any facts to back them up.
... So? I don't see what this has to do with my argument. Or do you not understand what my argument is? You do realize I never denied that there was a massive cultural problem? And did you miss the part where I am saying that flipping out at people for even daring to mention radical Islamic terrorism IS NOT THE WAY TO ADDRESS THE ROOTS OF THAT PROBLEM?
As Tribble has stated, how we define "terrorism" has become ridiculously warped in recent years. Acts that would have also been considered terrorism even in the Bush to early Obama years barely enter people's notice as terrorism. In the meanwhile, we have almost every incident that involves a Muslim perpetrator being labeled as a terrorist act. We have ISIS claiming responsibility for acts by people whose only connections to them was reading their propaganda. We have everyone taking those at face value which is why we have lone wolves marked as attacks by the Islamic State Organization itself. If you looked at reports and the media without any further context, you'd think that ISIS was successfully running a global conspiracy network, when in reality, they just have extraordinarily good marketing.
I am well aware of all this. But I am struggling to understand how it invalidates my point. My point stands even if you don't use the word "terrorism" at all; I only use the word terrorism because it is a convenient and widely understood phrase. Of course we can do down a rabbit hole argument of how you define it, but it has absolutely nothing to do with my argument. At all. We can also talk about what constitutes "radical Islam" because that, too, is a nebulous concept. But it's also utterly not the point. So ... what does all of this have to do with my point?
Also this fear isn't "nebulous" you privileged shithead. If you knew any Muslims you'd know this is extremely real. The environment is already impossible to discuss in, which is why I advocate handling it carefully, not your hyperbolic chant of "You're going to stifle all discussion!!!" You don't need me to cultivate this environment when it already exists. I'm the one with her head in the sand? Jesus, you have no idea of anything, you sparkling example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Oh look! More ad hominems that don't actually address my argument at all.
But, hey, feel free to make wild assumptions about my character that aren't even remotely true, because it must make you feel so much better about yourself. I would ask you to talk to the Muslim girl I am currently dating, but I'm sure you will just then find another way to incorrectly invoke a psychological concept because you think it somehow impresses anybody or makes you sound less like a hyperventilating blowhard. (Seriously, do you even know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is?).
People can discuss radical Islam, but without discussions devolving into shitfests about Islam.
WHICH WAS EXACTLY MY POINT. THIS IS LITERALLY EXACTLY WHAT MY ENTIRE ARGUMENT IS. I'd be inclined to treat this as a concession, but I'm not entirely sure you even know what my argument is, because you are so focused on attacking the illusory week-kneed privileged liberal coward you seem to think you are talking to.
If people can't handle sensitive topics with care, then they shouldn't get to play with those topics, just as topics of social justice are handled.
And it's becoming increasingly apparent that YOU are the one that shouldn't get to play with this topic, here. Which, again, is the entire argument I've been making, which you have thus far been spectacularly incapable of understanding.
No, I'm not letting you go on this. Back this shit up with better reasoning, now, or retract it you smarmy asshole. HIV is a mindless retrovirus that is prevalent among homosexual males but is not accused of being intrinsic to homosexuality in the media, not even on Faux News. You don't see the media constantly blaring crackpot theories stating AIDS is caused by homosexuality. Perhaps during the 90's and/or before, but most certainly NOT today. NOT outside of the conservative homophobic underground.
I KNOW HIV IS A MINDLESS RETROVIRUS. THAT WAS THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE HYPOTHETICAL. Which, by the way, you failed to answer. Instead of actually answering my hypothetical scenario, you actually inexplicably managed to get offended by it, and started hyperventilating about that! Jesus, man. Do you have any self-awareness whatsoever? Or any reading comprehension?
And, yes, the hey-day of "HIV as the homosexual disease" was the 1990s, but that mindset has not completely gone away. It is somewhat moderated these days, but the perception that is more intrinsically associated with homosexuality is still very prevalent (in fact, a rather massive public health problem now is the difficulty in arresting the HIV epidemic among African-Americans and other minority groups, especially in under-privileged areas where they don't have as much exposure to proper education on the subject ... these are communities where "HIV=gay" is still an incredibly prevalent belief). Take it from someone who works in global health and actually does research on HIV and public perception/knowledge of the disease. Oh, but surely I'm just a coward and don't know what I'm talking about.
Now, will you actually address the point? Or is it difficult for you to climb down off of your high horse?
I'm just incredibly frustrated at a. feeble-minded attempts to allow untruths to be considered on a similar level as facts
I'm frustrated with this, as well. But where have I done this? Or is the notion that "radical Islamic terrorism" is a major political issue somehow an "untruth"?
b. seeing dog whistles go unnoticed and even defended
The problem is you seem to think EVERYTHING is a dog whistle. You're the boy who cried dog whistle. You do realize that relentlessly attacking every possible thing as a dog whistle can actually be worse than ignoring them? All you are serving to do is obfuscate what actually is problematic by forcing everyone to wade through waves of false positives, because (in your words) you are unable to handle a sensitive topic with care.
and c. being accused of wanting to censor discussion.
It's less that you want to censor discussion, but you certainly have a bizarre desire to obfuscate it. I mean, just look back at this last post, and how little of it actually has to do with the argument at hand, as opposed to finding increasingly wild ways to insult me based on whatever weird perceptions you have about me as a person. You couldn't even honesty respond to a hypothetical, because you somehow managed to find a way to be offended by it, and bizarrely demand that I retract it.
And I especially don't like that used against me in a self-righteous hysterical tone.
Get a fucking (metaphorical) mirror, man. You're the one with the self-righteous hysterical tone, here. You're the one that keeps throwing around bizarre strawmen and ad hominems, and going on rants about how I shouldn't talk about this issue because I'm "privileged" and "don't know any Muslims" and other personal things (which you can't possibly know about me, and which are patently false) instead of just calmly addressing my arguments on their own merits.
