U. of Chicago tells SJWs to shove it

[Rogue 9]

Someone doesn't have to be "shitty" to have an opinion that is actively destructive to a marginalized community. I've known plenty of people who were not malicious and yet still had beliefs of transgender people that were actively gross, and the only way they learned otherwise is by me and possibly others telling them they were wrong.

Exactly. That is the answer. In an academic setting, the answer to incorrect or harmful speech is more speech, not open censorship. Universities must allow and foster open academic inquiry; if they don't they fail in their fundamental purpose.

Besides, if you just make people shut up instead of correcting them, they don't change their beliefs; you've just compelled their silence. I trust I don't have to point out how dangerous that difference can be.

Glad the slaveowners ignored all those abolitionists, then. Since, apparently, abolitionists were all just biased from being too close to the issue, and should have asked the slaveowners what they thought about the issue first.

Funny that you should rush straight to that example, as the slaveholders did precisely that and more to the abolitionists, even going so far as to interdict the United States Postal Service! If anything you've introduced the perfect example of why censorship is not the answer.

[Dragon Angel]

Someone doesn't have to be "shitty" to have an opinion that is actively destructive to a marginalized community. I've known plenty of people who were not malicious and yet still had beliefs of transgender people that were actively gross, and the only way they learned otherwise is by me and possibly others telling them they were wrong.

Exactly. That is the answer. In an academic setting, the answer to incorrect or harmful speech is more speech, not open censorship. Universities must allow and foster open academic inquiry; if they don't they fail in their fundamental purpose.

...Is this germane at all to this conversation?

Besides, if you just make people shut up instead of correcting them, they don't change their beliefs; you've just compelled their silence. I trust I don't have to point out how dangerous that difference can be.

I trust you know the difference between trying to correct someone who is innocently and without any awareness spouting hateful propaganda (but is willing to learn), and trying to correct someone like Milo Yiannopoulous.

The former is passive naivety, even if unintentionally spreading something extremely harmful. The latter is active maliciousness, and trying to argue with them is like trying to argue with a wall that wishes to crush you. The ones people are talking about are the latter, not the former. Nuance matters.

I'd appreciate it too if people in this thread stopped coopting what I'm saying into a discussion I'm not involved in, by the way. Now you're the second person.

Glad the slaveowners ignored all those abolitionists, then. Since, apparently, abolitionists were all just biased from being too close to the issue, and should have asked the slaveowners what they thought about the issue first.

Funny that you should rush straight to that example, as the slaveholders did precisely that and more to the abolitionists, even going so far as to interdict the United States Postal Service! If anything you've introduced the perfect example of why censorship is not the answer.

The point sailed so far off your head it's close to the moon by now.

[Rogue 9]

In the case of someone like Milo Yiannopoulous the answer is to make him into a public laughingstock and use him as a springboard to show exactly why his arguments are wrong. Also if you don't want people to drag what you say into relation with the thread topic, don't post things off the thread topic. I greatly respect the struggles of transgendered people, and I would never presume to tell them what their interests are and are not, but you shouldn't be surprised that people talk about the role of universities in regulating the speech of their students and faculty in a thread about that role.

As to the abolitionist example, I'm afraid it's you who've missed the point. Censorship is a blunt instrument usable by whoever's in power. Sure, you can set that precedent, and it's all fine as long as you or your allies hold the reins of power, but then suddenly Mitch Daniels is president of Purdue University (actually happened) and then a staunch Republican ex-governor has all the tools the previous liberal university administration had. It is only the fact that the federal courts agree with me that keeps him from letting his political orthodoxy overtly guide university policy on student life, not the goodness of his heart.

I grasp that Ziggy was trying to convey that slaveholders shouldn't have a say in the liberty of their slaves, and he's absolutely right, but what I was getting at is that slaveholders tend to be people in power, as the ones he chose for his example were, and people in power will use the tools of power to their ends. They shouldn't have had a say in the liberty of their slaves, but they did. And since censorship in the university setting is the topic of the thread, the only relevance of the example to the thread is that the moral argument did not make a practical difference, since they used the very methods advocated for use against campus speakers and offensive students to silence the abolitionists and keep them from making the argument.

The parallel, of course, is that anti-trans idiots hold a lot more power than trans people and their allies, at least socially, and trying to silence them will end in failure and in the use of the precedent to silence you. Robust public debate is what's required to sway Simon's 89% of the population that does nothing; since the bigots are demonstrably wrong, they'll come out on the wrong end of it. I take this same approach to dealing with neo-Confederates (that specialty is why I latched onto Ziggy's example and it's glaring problem); the objective is never to convince them, but rather everyone on the fence who might otherwise be swayed their way. It's the same with anyone in the wrong; argue against them enough, even though they'll never be personally convinced, and the cracks will start to show for everyone else to see.

[Knife]

Someone doesn't have to be "shitty" to have an opinion that is actively destructive to a marginalized community. I've known plenty of people who were not malicious and yet still had beliefs of transgender people that were actively gross, and the only way they learned otherwise is by me and possibly others telling them they were wrong.

That is a problem in a free society with freedom of speech. It does not make your job easy (I do admit) but with anything that affects EVERYONE in a free society, the opinions of all are addressed. Some of those are open to mockery, indeed. Some are negative even with good intentions, indeed. But, to just take a minority opinion and take is as sacrosanct is asinine. Sure, while I do agree your cause is just, plenty of causes are out there that are not but their advocates are just as close and just as fervent as yours.

How do you determine someone who is "unbiased"?

the same way we advocate unbiased persons in any other dispute or investigation. Off the cuff, a physiologist or sociologist who interviews all concerned and puts forward an unbiased opinion based off of their specialized bailiwick using some semblance of the scientific method. Is your issue any different than any other major issue in society where the best efforts aren't along this line?

You're entering the same problem I have with Balrog's devil's advocate. Anyone who is involved in a marginalized community, by this thought process, shouldn't have as much weight in thoughts of their own oppressions because they are members of that marginalized community and therefore "biased". Black people are too "biased" to really have an opinion about police brutality! Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are too "biased" to really have an opinion about same sex marriage!

Which is why you are too close to the subject. I'm not saying you should not have a problem, or a solution, or an opinion. Advocate as much as you can. But, accept you have a bias in this. The cure/solution/fix to the situation will affect everyone and by that the affects should be noted that can happen to everyone. Shit, I don't know, they might be minuscule. Depends on the fix, but in a free society everyone gets to weigh in on it but if we're smart, only an unbiased third party should put into affect the solution to make sure it is the most fair solution.

People who aren't part of these communities are also not "unbiased" in one way or another. Society has already taught us--something we are slowly overcoming, but it has not actually happened--that LGBTs are second-class citizens.

You can be your own worst enemy. I support LGBT rights, did what I could for the cause. I go to LBGT functions when I can. You telling me I think you are a second class citizen no matter what my personal history is, is insulting. You make enemies out of friends d/t your own bias. Shit, I'll tell you right now, as much as I support LGBT rights, I HATE being called Cis. It straight up pisses me off. Do I quite at this time in my advocacy? No. Can I perceive a time where it might make me not? I'm not sure. I could make me not actively participate, though not advocate for the negative.

Otherwise, why are we still having discussions over homophobic bakeries not willing to provide cakes to same sex couples? Why do we still have discussions over whether or not the F-slur is nice and proper while the N-slur is accepted as the domain of utter shitcakes?

Yeah, you're too close to it. I'm on your side in this, why bring it up?

This is an incredibly dangerous thought process to consider marginalized people as too "biased", because then you not only exclude them from talking about what they experience, but then give much more weight to people who are operating on outdated and destructive information.

No it is not. Traumatized people are victims and deserve justice, equality, and fairness. That said, they are traumatized and do not deserve absolute jurisdiction on affairs based on their trauma. An unbiased source should be an advocate for society to make sure the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.

I'll be honest too, I'm also restraining myself from exploding on you because you are far from being the only person who has told me that I'm too "biased" to think of what I experience as a trans woman. I'm too "biased" to know what the real world is like in treating trans people. I'm too "biased" to know I'm trans in the first place. I'm too "biased" to realize that the world is already so very accepting of trans people and I should just accept everything the bigots are trying to do like banning us from using bathrooms.

I've heard all of this before. It's an excuse for more shit and letting the status quo survive.

You are not too unbiased to feel that or to experience that. And for your experience all I can say is you have both my sympathy and support in your journey to equality. However, when it come to social change, you do not have exclusive rights to the exact social change. More empathy? Sure. More understanding? Sure. All non trans people should do XYZ... No.

Does that make her factually wrong? If so, go right ahead and address whatever she's saying on its own merits.

No, doesn't make her right either. That's pretty much my point.

If not, why should she be expected to recuse herself from representing HERSELF?

Never said that, said that the rest of society who is affected by her solution can have a say in it too.

Good luck finding unbiased people, as distinct from people who just happen to randomly parrot whatever biases are floating around in popular culture.

I know right, there isn't any sociologists or physiologists or other personnel who could interview both sides and give an unbiased analysis on it at all. We should probably start training people like this for similar issues in the future. We could use them in all sorts of issues.

The whole point here is that when the default state of society is "bias against a tiny minority group," giving equal weight to the people against the group and the people defending it results in the group being brutally crushed and destroyed. If that was the goal all along, you could save time by just spray-painting "to hell with minorities" all over the place.

LOL, in what other thing do we just take the minority opinion and run with it when changing a large system? Yeah, I agree it sucks for the minority, but punishing the majority is just as counter productive. And do not take these gross generalizations as some sort of indictment of the particular minority we discuss. I'm actually on their side and do what I can to advocate for their cause. That said, we supposedly live in a free society (I know, not that equal) so to crush the majority for the minority is just as bad as the other way around.

And if (as is more likely) your goal is some kind of fair and equitable arrangement... That cannot possibly happen as long as 95% of the voter base is hearing a giant echo chamber full of bigotry. The minority's voices will always be marginalized and suppressed in an environment like that, they will never, ever get even whatever minimum of things they in fairness deserve.

Lets be clear. I'm against a solution of any issue being dictated from the minority with no input from the majority that massively affects the majority. This is a general objection that has jack and shit to do with any particular cause no matter what sympathies I have with them. This is not a 'I hate gay people' thing. If we could fix it with 'something simple' I'd be all over it, vote it, advocate it, no problem. Shit, I don't know, maybe it can. What I object to is if it is some society wide affecting thing where people advocate that the minority could dictated a change in opposition to the majority. That runs counter to everything I believe. While in this one case it could and would be a good thing, the general practice hits a slippery slope very quickly.

So before there is any hope of even having a meaningful conversation about what is and is not fair, you have to at least exclude from the discussion those who are so biased against the minority that they would (wittingly or unwittingly) act to destroy the minority.

At no point do I advocate excluding anyone. You are being dishonest. I'm for quite the opposite in that all stack holders with interests or being affected in the solution have a say. If you are going to put into affect a federal law in which religious fucktards cannot oppress a minority ( a thing I support) you at least have to listen to their cause and try to understand it. Once you do, and if it is shit, you can mock it, suppress it, whatever. But if we are to pretend we are a free society where everyone gets a say, you have to listen to them.

I know, pretty much most people in this thread or advocate for this change, have listened to them already. I get that. But to advocate a massive change to society, plenty of people have not. And in any case, those who propose a solution should accept that fact that they might have to repeat that explanation over again a few times.

You cannot have a meaningful conversation about race relations as long as "black people are stupid thugs by nature" is an acceptable, represented position at the negotiating table.

You cannot have a meaningful conversation about gay rights as long as "burn the queers" is an acceptable, represented position at the negotiating table.

Sigh, no shit. On the other side, you don't give ultimate power to change things to people traumatized by those shitty people due to the natural tenancy of people to over react and punish other groups to their pain. You listen to them, understand the problem, listen to the opposition, understand them, and then make a change to the benefit of the aggrieved without overly punishing the majority. Unless you really want a backlash that undoes your solution.

[Knife]

The parallel, of course, is that anti-trans idiots hold a lot more power than trans people and their allies, at least socially, and trying to silence them will end in failure and in the use of the precedent to silence you. Robust public debate is what's required to sway Simon's 89% of the population that does nothing; since the bigots are demonstrably wrong, they'll come out on the wrong end of it. I take this same approach to dealing with neo-Confederates (that specialty is why I latched onto Ziggy's example and it's glaring problem); the objective is never to convince them, but rather everyone on the fence who might otherwise be swayed their way. It's the same with anyone in the wrong; argue against them enough, even though they'll never be personally convinced, and the cracks will start to show for everyone else to see.

Agreed. Sometimes you talk to a person, sometimes you talk to someone listening to you talk to a person.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I grasp that Ziggy was trying to convey that slaveholders shouldn't have a say in the liberty of their slaves, and he's absolutely right, but what I was getting at is that slaveholders tend to be people in power, as the ones he chose for his example were, and people in power will use the tools of power to their ends. They shouldn't have had a say in the liberty of their slaves, but they did. And since censorship in the university setting is the topic of the thread, the only relevance of the example to the thread is that the moral argument did not make a practical difference, since they used the very methods advocated for use against campus speakers and offensive students to silence the abolitionists and keep them from making the argument.

The parallel, of course, is that anti-trans idiots hold a lot more power than trans people and their allies, at least socially, and trying to silence them will end in failure and in the use of the precedent to silence you. Robust public debate is what's required to sway Simon's 89% of the population that does nothing; since the bigots are demonstrably wrong, they'll come out on the wrong end of it. I take this same approach to dealing with neo-Confederates (that specialty is why I latched onto Ziggy's example and it's glaring problem); the objective is never to convince them, but rather everyone on the fence who might otherwise be swayed their way. It's the same with anyone in the wrong; argue against them enough, even though they'll never be personally convinced, and the cracks will start to show for everyone else to see.

Nice strawman. I never advocated "silencing" bigots, and it's a pretty gross distortion of my post to claim it did, or that I am not in favor of "robust public debate". But, yes, point out as a "glaring problem" the entire point of my post.

[Dragon Angel]

In the case of someone like Milo Yiannopoulous the answer is to make him into a public laughingstock and use him as a springboard to show exactly why his arguments are wrong.

That's gonna be kind of hard if you have people telling you you're too biased to show why he is wrong.

Also if you don't want people to drag what you say into relation with the thread topic, don't post things off the thread topic. I greatly respect the struggles of transgendered people, and I would never presume to tell them what their interests are and are not, but you shouldn't be surprised that people talk about the role of universities in regulating the speech of their students and faculty in a thread about that role.

This conversation was a spinoff entailing who has more authority to speak on what. Other people such as maraxus are arguing what I believe better than I have the energy to go through right now, so I decided to devote my thought space into this conversation instead. If you want to quote my words, don't quote them outside the context they were intended for. Otherwise you're being dishonest.

I'm very glad you respect our struggles, but I wasn't calling into question your respect either.

As to the abolitionist example, I'm afraid it's you who've missed the point. Censorship is a blunt instrument usable by whoever's in power. Sure, you can set that precedent, and it's all fine as long as you or your allies hold the reins of power, but then suddenly Mitch Daniels is president of Purdue University (actually happened) and then a staunch Republican ex-governor has all the tools the previous liberal university administration had. It is only the fact that the federal courts agree with me that keeps him from letting his political orthodoxy overtly guide university policy on student life, not the goodness of his heart.

I grasp that Ziggy was trying to convey that slaveholders shouldn't have a say in the liberty of their slaves, and he's absolutely right, but what I was getting at is that slaveholders tend to be people in power, as the ones he chose for his example were, and people in power will use the tools of power to their ends. They shouldn't have had a say in the liberty of their slaves, but they did. And since censorship in the university setting is the topic of the thread, the only relevance of the example to the thread is that the moral argument did not make a practical difference, since they used the very methods advocated for use against campus speakers and offensive students to silence the abolitionists and keep them from making the argument.

The parallel, of course, is that anti-trans idiots hold a lot more power than trans people and their allies, at least socially, and trying to silence them will end in failure and in the use of the precedent to silence you. Robust public debate is what's required to sway Simon's 89% of the population that does nothing; since the bigots are demonstrably wrong, they'll come out on the wrong end of it. I take this same approach to dealing with neo-Confederates (that specialty is why I latched onto Ziggy's example and it's glaring problem); the objective is never to convince them, but rather everyone on the fence who might otherwise be swayed their way. It's the same with anyone in the wrong; argue against them enough, even though they'll never be personally convinced, and the cracks will start to show for everyone else to see.

If they're so obviously demonstrably wrong, then why is the mainstream still accepting of blatant anti-trans propaganda? Why are gender reparative clinics and autogynaephilia still accepted, despite the mounds and mounds of writings and studies by activists and scientists showing them so wrong? There has been robust public debate. Yet, like climate deniers, the mainstream is still accepting false and destructive ideas that are only going to lead to a depressing end.

Ask yourself: Why is this? Despite all that has been said in support of climate science and LGBT rights, why is the mainstream not denouncing deniers and bigots like the mainstream would outright white supremacy? This progress didn't happen by itself, it happened with bold action against them and not going "call it 50/50 the Jews say the Holocaust happened while the neo-Nazis say it didn't happen, write that into all the textbooks". You cannot be neutral to the truth and allow lies to become the truth. To do otherwise is lulling yourself into a false sense of progress.

That is a problem in a free society with freedom of speech. It does not make your job easy (I do admit) but with anything that affects EVERYONE in a free society, the opinions of all are addressed. Some of those are open to mockery, indeed. Some are negative even with good intentions, indeed. But, to just take a minority opinion and take is as sacrosanct is asinine. Sure, while I do agree your cause is just, plenty of causes are out there that are not but their advocates are just as close and just as fervent as yours.

A "minority opinion" that just happens to have been written about and discussed hundreds of thousands of times, with wide acceptance throughout activist and scientific communities? When does it no longer become a minority opinion, to you? What are you even talking about now with "minority opinion" because right now I can interpret it as you applying to LGBT rights or debated hot topics like microaggressions?

the same way we advocate unbiased persons in any other dispute or investigation. Off the cuff, a physiologist or sociologist who interviews all concerned and puts forward an unbiased opinion based off of their specialized bailiwick using some semblance of the scientific method. Is your issue any different than any other major issue in society where the best efforts aren't along this line?

"Let's call it 50/50, transgender people say this, anti-trans bigots say this, we should just accept both, they are both valid."

Is how you come across. When one side is saying "please let us live the way we want to" and the other side is saying "those freaks are disturbing the natural order, they should be ILLEGAL" there is no purpose to listening to the other side other than maintaining the status quo or literally regressing society. More people will just continue to die with your unnecessary gatekeeping and bureaucracy.

Also as I said to Rogue, studies have been done, papers have been written. And yet, people are pretending they haven't been!

Which is why you are too close to the subject. I'm not saying you should not have a problem, or a solution, or an opinion. Advocate as much as you can. But, accept you have a bias in this. The cure/solution/fix to the situation will affect everyone and by that the affects should be noted that can happen to everyone. Shit, I don't know, they might be minuscule. Depends on the fix, but in a free society everyone gets to weigh in on it but if we're smart, only an unbiased third party should put into affect the solution to make sure it is the most fair solution.

My desire to live my life as who I am is too biased OK got you.

If this simple idea is too cumbersome for some people to accept, how is this my problem?

Man, you're now sounding like one of those middling liberals who kept telling Martin Luther King that "this isn't the right time for black equality".

You can be your own worst enemy. I support LGBT rights, did what I could for the cause. I go to LBGT functions when I can. You telling me I think you are a second class citizen no matter what my personal history is, is insulting. You make enemies out of friends d/t your own bias. Shit, I'll tell you right now, as much as I support LGBT rights, I HATE being called Cis. It straight up pisses me off. Do I quite at this time in my advocacy? No. Can I perceive a time where it might make me not? I'm not sure. I could make me not actively participate, though not advocate for the negative.

...

Yeah, you're too close to it. I'm on your side in this, why bring it up?

Whoah now, did I specifically call you out as being homo/transphobic? No, I stated that society teaches us LGBT people are acceptable targets to be demoted in position. These ideas permeate you whether you are aware of them or not. That does not make you an explicit homophobe or transphobe. It does mean you can be influenced by these and have thought processes that are against our rights.

And no, it seems like you're slowly digging a hole you're going to be unable to get out of. I'm not exactly perceiving you to be "on my side" right now, despite your claim. "You make enemies out of friends"? "I HATE being called Cis"? So, people making strong statements about themselves pisses you off? Get the fuck out of here.

No it is not. Traumatized people are victims and deserve justice, equality, and fairness. That said, they are traumatized and do not deserve absolute jurisdiction on affairs based on their trauma. An unbiased source should be an advocate for society to make sure the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.

"Swing too far the other way" as in "full acceptance of marginalized people's rights is too much"? Oh boy you're really showing it.

You are not too unbiased to feel that or to experience that. And for your experience all I can say is you have both my sympathy and support in your journey to equality. However, when it come to social change, you do not have exclusive rights to the exact social change. More empathy? Sure. More understanding? Sure. All non trans people should do XYZ... No.

Gods you are pretty much exactly like that middling liberal now.

If not, why should she be expected to recuse herself from representing HERSELF?

Never said that, said that the rest of society who is affected by her solution can have a say in it too.

Then I request: Demonstrate how society is encumbered by "my solution" without attempting to undermine my authority in my own experiences.

I know right, there isn't any sociologists or physiologists or other personnel who could interview both sides and give an unbiased analysis on it at all. We should probably start training people like this for similar issues in the future. We could use them in all sorts of issues.

How presumptuous of you to think this hasn't been done. Do you deny climate change too, perhaps?

LOL, in what other thing do we just take the minority opinion and run with it when changing a large system? Yeah, I agree it sucks for the minority, but punishing the majority is just as counter productive. And do not take these gross generalizations as some sort of indictment of the particular minority we discuss. I'm actually on their side and do what I can to advocate for their cause. That said, we supposedly live in a free society (I know, not that equal) so to crush the majority for the minority is just as bad as the other way around.

"I agree it sucks for the minority but punishing the majority for not accepting the minority's rights to live in peace is just too much, I'm sorry minorities but you're just gonna have to live with this."

You're. Not on our side. Wow, your blindness to this is just mindblowing.

Lets be clear. I'm against a solution of any issue being dictated from the minority with no input from the majority that massively affects the majority. This is a general objection that has jack and shit to do with any particular cause no matter what sympathies I have with them. This is not a 'I hate gay people' thing. If we could fix it with 'something simple' I'd be all over it, vote it, advocate it, no problem. Shit, I don't know, maybe it can. What I object to is if it is some society wide affecting thing where people advocate that the minority could dictated a change in opposition to the majority. That runs counter to everything I believe. While in this one case it could and would be a good thing, the general practice hits a slippery slope very quickly.

You would fit well with the middling liberals in the Civil Rights Movement's time.

Sigh, no shit. On the other side, you don't give ultimate power to change things to people traumatized by those shitty people due to the natural tenancy of people to over react and punish other groups to their pain. You listen to them, understand the problem, listen to the opposition, understand them, and then make a change to the benefit of the aggrieved without overly punishing the majority. Unless you really want a backlash that undoes your solution.

Tell me something, how are LGBT activists utterly encumbering you today? I don't believe you are at all being sincere. If you can demonstrate something concrete, do so please, otherwise shut the fuck up.

[maraxus2]

In which case a decision ought to be made about who should have the power to decide what is allowed on campus, the administration or the students?

From a moral standpoint, yes. Personally, my sympathies lie with the students. This is mainly because students don't seem to have much of an external motivation to try to block speech. The article posted at the beginning of this thread helps demonstrate this. Chicago isn't much interested in fostering an academic environment of free exchange of ideas, but placating the dipshit alums who want to withhold donations because they hold inaccurate stereotypes of student activism. That's sort of beside the point though.

I don't think that speakers should be unilaterally banned from speaking on campus unless they meet specific criteria: 1. that they're engaging in hate speech, and 2. that they're using university funds or resources to do so. If someone wants to speak their viewpoint in the middle of the UCEN, for instance, they should be presumed to be allowed provided they meet these two criteria. If a speaker fails one of the criteria, school admins should have second thoughts about inviting them. If they fail both, they should absolutely not be allowed to speak. Students exercising the heckler's veto is fair game and should be expected, especially if they have "controversial" ideas.

I find it interesting that you and others keep lumping everyone disinvited from speaking on campus under the "rape apologist" label as though they are all synonymous. Are you saying what Christine Lagarde had said or was going to say was equally repugnant as George Will?

Of course not. But you're defending the right of people to speak on campus as an absolute right. It stands to reason that you should therefore defend the absolute worst instances of speech on campus, since you don't seem to have any restrictions on who or what is fair game as far as speech goes.

I contend that there are limits on speech on campus with public resources, and I further contend that these restrictions exist outside of academia. These restrictions never seem to draw the same ire that trigger warnings, safe spaces, and disinvitations seem to bring. I contend that there is a reason for this, and that this reason is because protest mainly comes from people who stereotype student activists, and who don't give much of a shit about free speech outside of the weird culture war currently going on in universities.

And yet two-thirds of college students want to ban 'intentionally offensive' speech. Which is fine except when the definition of what is or isn't "intentionally offensive" moves beyond something as simple and blatant as wearing a Swastika and yelling "Kill the Jews!" Especially when what is being defined as offensive can be almost comically broad.

I have no problem whatsoever with banning intentionally offensive speech, particularly hate speech. Of course people are going to wrestle with the particular notions that constitute "offensive speech," since this is a brand new subject for most universities. Of course it's going to be comically broad until the universities in question can come to some kind of consensus on the issue.

You're acting as though universities are proposing to make microaggressions a grave infraction with serious consequences. I see absolutely no evidence that this is the case.

Well first of all UC isn't banning trigger warnings, they just aren't giving them "force of law" if you will.

So then what the fuck is this letter even about? I'll tell you; it's about making alums and donors feel better about giving money to a historically conservative university. It is a publicity stunt, pure and simple, and it's a stunt that's preying on the reactionary feelings of people who left university some time ago. This does not strike me as a particularly compelling reason to issue this trivial letter.

Secondly, "loosening" free speech can only be a good thing. Students should not fear for their academic future if they choose to exercise their right to speak on a controversial/offensive subject, whether it be another Piss Christ or another Muhammad cartoon.

The crucial difference between the Muhammad Cartoons and George Will speaking on campus is that one involved school funds while the other was private speech. That is an all-important distinction that you seem to have ignored or missed. Letting students debut a particularly visceral or raw project is worlds apart from paying George Will to talk about sexual assault at a left-wing women's college.

Nobody is seriously suggesting that professors should be forbidden from discussing controversial topics within an academic context. Certainly no school administrations are proposing to do so. But students are, and should, protesting if school administrations are using school resources to fund speakers that students find offensive.

Despite that distinction though both speakers were caught up in the same drive to ban or disinvite speakers deemed controversial or offensive by a few.

True! Doesn't seem to have much of a chilling effect though. Alice Walker's banning didn't chill Palestinian solidarity movements on college campuses, and I'd seriously doubt that it had much of an impact on the famously left-wing Michigan campus.

On the whole yes, but in cases such as Alice Walker, Christine Lagarde, and yes even George Will, it serves as a symbol that the institution considers certain opinions verboten, which can have a chilling effect on people currently at that institution who might worry that their expressing their opinion on, say, Israel could have similar consequences.

I categorically disagree. Disinviting people doesn't signal that those opinions are taboo or forbidden, just that you're not allowed to disseminate them using public resources.

You keep using phrases like "can have" or "might have" or "would have" a chilling effect on campus without actually demonstrating any evidence whatever that it is, in fact, doing so. As mentioned above, I would be very surprised if disinviting Alice Walker had any chilling effect on the Palestinian solidarity movement.

We've seen far worse than disinvitation as a direct consequence of having anti-Israeli political opinions. Norman Finkelstein was chased out of American academia because he picked so many fights with powerful supporters of Israel. They made an example out of him that was far more severe than anything we've seen to date. Did that have a chilling effect on me or my fellow SJP members? Hell no! If anything, it only made us more determined to organize.

For good reasons though, and within a limited framework which errs on the side of free speech. You are free to kick anyone out of your home for anything they say that you might find disagreeable. A movie theater is free to kick someone out of their business for being disruptive, but not for being of a certain race or creed. An educational institution should not be run like a private home or a public business though, if only for the sake of being an open place of learning.

Which is fine, provided it's within an academic setting. You're acting like students are constantly engaged in academic discourse and experiences with each other. This is has not been my experience. Schools also have a responsibility to keep the peace on campus, which would be difficult to do if we allowed, say, neo-Nazis to use school money to speak on campus. This is much more akin to your movie theater analogy than anything else. People aren't being disinvited because of their race or creed, but because they say shit that students (or some of them, at least) find offensive.

You act as though one can't believe both are dangerous and should be combated as a preventative measure to a greater evil.

I just find it remarkable that people who rail against SJWs focus all of their attention on insignificant disciplinary actions on college campuses, rather than on big picture items that are frankly much more important to free speech and expression. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

Except it wasn't through the complete systemic banning of anti-Semitism which brought about an improved situation for Jewish-Americans; a public business can't fire an employee or refuse to serve someone simply for being a Jew but at the same time Neo-Nazis are still free to hold rallies, distribute media and generally express their opinion on the subject. It was by changing the public at large's opinion through the free exchange of idea, and ultimately it is the public's continued opinion on the subject which is keeping those laws on the books.

Simon answered this more fully. I agree with his argument that widespread anti-Semitism started to die off when American society made the broad decision that those opinions should be proscribed. It was not changed by a "free exchange of ideas," especially when you remember that the United States imprisoned Nazi-sympathizers in concentration camps during the war. It also didn't hurt that American Jews became, by far, the most politically and socially successful minority group in American history. The "free exchange of ideas" you describe had very little to do with it.

With the ultimate goal of eliminating hateful speech with no benefit to society, no? Yet they continue to be committed, and will continue to be committed.

No, with the goal of putting another tool in a prosecutor's toolkit. Hate speech laws are much like hate crimes laws. They're not designed to extirpate racism root and branch, but to give legal authorities another way to prosecute violent offenders against specific individuals.

Hate crime laws are actually a pretty solid parallel to hate speech laws. The DoJ convicts a very tiny number of people of hate crimes every year, but they are useful as a prosecutorial tool to secure a conviction and lengthy sentence. I'm not normally one for aggressive prosecution or mass incarceration, but I see no evidence that hate crime laws are anywise harmful. I see substantial evidence that they are helpful in narrow circumstances.

Beyond that, hate crime/hate speech laws are valuable in that they signal that the government acknowledges that oppressed peoples require specific protection against specific oppression. They acknowledge that people are not equal under the law, and that the context in which a crime takes place is just as relevant as the crime itself. That is a valuable signifier for people needing extra protection.

"Injurious to the community" in what way, assuming the community is able to come to an agreement about what is and isn't injurious to itself? It's easy to define punishments for stealing goods from someone or committing bodily harm on them, and we already have restrictions on "fighting words" in the US but what should be the legal punishment for being rude to someone? Should you get two years in jail because your "microaggression" was just the last straw for someone?

Injurious to the community in that the speech itself, or the speakers themselves, do nothing except provoke conflict on campus. I have elaborated on this above.

Who is saying that you should be punished for being rude to someone? Who is saying that microaggressions should be a punishable offense? Your stereotypes are showing.

I would point to professors and other administrative personnel who were forced to resign or fired for expressing their views, such as the Yale professor.

I'm sorry, but I do not view the forced resignation of an MA student - she was not a professor - for airing an extremely ill-considered opinion on company time and using company resources as an assault on free speech. Which is precisely what she did.

If you can demonstrate a professor who was terminated because they discussed a controversial subject within an academic context, I will concede the entirety of my argument. Until then, I suggest you find something more productive to worry about.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Balrog, you are making an error. You are conflating "free speech" with "free speech while acting as a paid speaker".

Anyone can say whatever the ever-loving monkey-wangles they want on a university campus. At ASU, we used to get absolutely vile street preachers like clockwork, and there was sweet fuck-all anyone could do about it. Except of course for the Hecklers Veto (which you can see me about to enthusiastically utilize here), which you have decried in this thread if I remember properly.

Yeah, one takes place before the speech starts, the other takes place during the middle of the speech. Same effect.

There it is...

Protip: Free speech is not consequence-free speech. If you want the free and open exchange of ideas, heckling and ridicule of vapid or vile ideas goes with the territory.

Anyway, on the to the rest of the argument.

This is different from an "anything goes" approach to university-arranged speeches. Those talks are curated, they are arranged at great expense, and the speakers are being paid for their time. When you object to a disinvitation on the grounds of free speech, the argument you make is equivalent to a free-speech based objection to the university never inviting them in the first place. Why that is completely ridiculous should not require elaborate explanation. Simply: the university has limited slots and funds, and narrow the pool of speakers to a few based on any number of criteria. Typically, they bring in some luminary or another as part of their educational purpose. Are you seriously going to argue on free-speech grounds that any one person is entitled to that slot?

[Simon_Jester]

The parallel, of course, is that anti-trans idiots hold a lot more power than trans people and their allies, at least socially, and trying to silence them will end in failure and in the use of the precedent to silence you. Robust public debate is what's required to sway Simon's 89% of the population that does nothing; since the bigots are demonstrably wrong, they'll come out on the wrong end of it. I take this same approach to dealing with neo-Confederates (that specialty is why I latched onto Ziggy's example and it's glaring problem); the objective is never to convince them, but rather everyone on the fence who might otherwise be swayed their way. It's the same with anyone in the wrong; argue against them enough, even though they'll never be personally convinced, and the cracks will start to show for everyone else to see.

Thing is, there's a transitional phase. At first, the minority is totally outgunned and crushed. Then, the tide of public opinion begins to shift, and oppressing the minority becomes less popular, and people start to care about what happens to that minority. Eventually, the public agrees that the discrimination is wrong, and ostracizes anyone who still outspokenly

In the transition between the second and third stages of the process, a lot of people who actively desire to go on maintaining the oppressive status quo will start to feel like something's gone wrong. It used to be socially acceptable for them to say XYZ in public forums, but now it's not! This is censorship! This must be what being a marginalized victim is like! They're being oppressed! Quick, call Fox News and alert them to how the tyranny of the PC minority is taking over America!

If you try to say "no, wait, we can't censor these people," you're basically cutting off a natural expression of the process by which the public becomes convinced that the harmful attitudes are wrong.

From the point of view of the people trying to keep misogynist paid speakers off campus and trying to establish a few separate lounges and clubs for minorities, the conversation was already had. They're convinced. Now they want to act on their convictions by reducing the harm that is done. Stopping them in the name of continuing the conversation isn't necessarily a good idea.

People who aren't part of these communities are also not "unbiased" in one way or another. Society has already taught us--something we are slowly overcoming, but it has not actually happened--that LGBTs are second-class citizens.

You can be your own worst enemy. I support LGBT rights, did what I could for the cause. I go to LBGT functions when I can. You telling me I think you are a second class citizen no matter what my personal history is, is insulting. You make enemies out of friends d/t your own bias. Shit, I'll tell you right now, as much as I support LGBT rights, I HATE being called Cis. It straight up pisses me off. Do I quite at this time in my advocacy? No. Can I perceive a time where it might make me not? I'm not sure. I could make me not actively participate, though not advocate for the negative.

I must note that you're not drawing a dividing line between "society" and "you personally" here, which is part of the problem.

If you identify with "society," then you are taking upon yourself responsibility for the way the mainstream affects people, in which case you cannot disown other people's criticism of that mainstream by talking about how you personally support their causes.

Conversely, if you are prepared to say that maybe society isn't treating someone right, you have to be prepared to hear "society makes us second-class citizens" as a different statement from "YOU make us second-class citizens." If you reread what Dragon Angel said... well frankly, that's what she just said.

This is an incredibly dangerous thought process to consider marginalized people as too "biased", because then you not only exclude them from talking about what they experience, but then give much more weight to people who are operating on outdated and destructive information.

No it is not. Traumatized people are victims and deserve justice, equality, and fairness. That said, they are traumatized and do not deserve absolute jurisdiction on affairs based on their trauma. An unbiased source should be an advocate for society to make sure the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.

Honestly, there is little danger of that actually happening.

I don't worry about what will happen if blacks are given 'too many' advantages to compensate for past racism. I don't worry about what will happen if gay or trans people get 'too many' accomodations. Why? Because they are always going to be in the minority, no matter what. They will always be outnumbered five or ten or twenty or a thousand to one. There is no more danger of us ever actually living in a society where trans people somehow get to cause meaningful harm to non-trans people, than there is of us living in a society plagued by unicorn attacks.

It's pointless to tell someone to slow down for fear of them somehow causing unicorn attacks.

If not, why should she be expected to recuse herself from representing HERSELF?

Never said that, said that the rest of society who is affected by her solution can have a say in it too.

Thing is, the effect of what you're saying is to tell people "sit down and hush while society finds an answer for your problem."

How does this address the obvious problem that the last time mainstream society found an answer for their problem, their solution was to create the very problem they now want solved?

Good luck finding unbiased people, as distinct from people who just happen to randomly parrot whatever biases are floating around in popular culture.

I know right, there isn't any sociologists or physiologists or other personnel who could interview both sides and give an unbiased analysis on it at all. We should probably start training people like this for similar issues in the future. We could use them in all sorts of issues.

There are large numbers of sociologists and physiologists involved, they are actively engaged in the debate. Some of them are actively biased in ways that are scientifically full of holes. Others are not. They are not being ignored or neglected here.

The whole point here is that when the default state of society is "bias against a tiny minority group," giving equal weight to the people against the group and the people defending it results in the group being brutally crushed and destroyed. If that was the goal all along, you could save time by just spray-painting "to hell with minorities" all over the place.

LOL, in what other thing do we just take the minority opinion and run with it when changing a large system? Yeah, I agree it sucks for the minority, but punishing the majority is just as counter productive. And do not take these gross generalizations as some sort of indictment of the particular minority we discuss. I'm actually on their side and do what I can to advocate for their cause. That said, we supposedly live in a free society (I know, not that equal) so to crush the majority for the minority is just as bad as the other way around.

Thing is, there's no similarity between the 'punishments' proposed for the majority and those actually faced by the minority.

The punishment inflicted on 10% of the population (say, left-handed people) if they are discriminated against by the right-handed majority is huge. They suffer constantly, in life-altering ways. If the left-handed people reply "stop discriminating against us, please," that is not a major inconvenience on the part of the other 90% of the population. They're not actually suffering in any way that really means anything.

Lets be clear. I'm against a solution of any issue being dictated from the minority with no input from the majority that massively affects the majority. This is a general objection that has jack and shit to do with any particular cause no matter what sympathies I have with them. This is not a 'I hate gay people' thing. If we could fix it with 'something simple' I'd be all over it, vote it, advocate it, no problem. Shit, I don't know, maybe it can. What I object to is if it is some society wide affecting thing where people advocate that the minority could dictated a change in opposition to the majority. That runs counter to everything I believe. While in this one case it could and would be a good thing, the general practice hits a slippery slope very quickly.

Except that there is absolutely no realistic, meaningful sense in which any member of these minorities IS forcing anything on the majority. Except, of course, for actually convincing the majority to do it, or convincing the majority's duly selected leaders to do it. Both of which are widely accepted ways for a minority to protect their rights.

So what, specifically, is the problem here?

So before there is any hope of even having a meaningful conversation about what is and is not fair, you have to at least exclude from the discussion those who are so biased against the minority that they would (wittingly or unwittingly) act to destroy the minority.

At no point do I advocate excluding anyone. You are being dishonest. I'm for quite the opposite in that all stack holders with interests or being affected in the solution have a say. If you are going to put into affect a federal law in which religious fucktards cannot oppress a minority ( a thing I support) you at least have to listen to their cause and try to understand it. Once you do, and if it is shit, you can mock it, suppress it, whatever. But if we are to pretend we are a free society where everyone gets a say, you have to listen to them.

I know, pretty much most people in this thread or advocate for this change, have listened to them already. I get that. But to advocate a massive change to society, plenty of people have not. And in any case, those who propose a solution should accept that fact that they might have to repeat that explanation over again a few times.

And yet there comes a point at which we stop listening to certain people. We've stopped listening to white supremacists- 100 years ago their views were mainstream and published in reputable newspapers. We've stopped listening to anti-Semites, we've mostly stopped listening to misogynists. We no longer really bother bringing their views to the table, precisely because it has become obvious to everyone involved that they don't have anything useful to say. All they do is make it impossible to solve real problems faced by the groups they hate, by denying that there should ever be a solution, or that there was ever a problem.

You cannot have a meaningful conversation about race relations as long as "black people are stupid thugs by nature" is an acceptable, represented position at the negotiating table.

You cannot have a meaningful conversation about gay rights as long as "burn the queers" is an acceptable, represented position at the negotiating table.

Sigh, no shit. On the other side, you don't give ultimate power to change things to people traumatized by those shitty people due to the natural tenancy of people to over react and punish other groups to their pain. You listen to them, understand the problem, listen to the opposition, understand them, and then make a change to the benefit of the aggrieved without overly punishing the majority. Unless you really want a backlash that undoes your solution.

Exactly where is that a realistic threat? In what nation or on what planet are we seeing, say, the entire government replaced by gay people who start methodically persecuting straights and punishing them?

[Knife]

A "minority opinion" that just happens to have been written about and discussed hundreds of thousands of times, with wide acceptance throughout activist and scientific communities? When does it no longer become a minority opinion, to you? What are you even talking about now with "minority opinion" because right now I can interpret it as you applying to LGBT rights or debated hot topics like microaggressions?

Because when I entered this shithole of a discussion it was about the notion that ANY minority has the sole discretion of determining a solution without the input of the majority.

"Let's call it 50/50, transgender people say this, anti-trans bigots say this, we should just accept both, they are both valid."

You'll of course point out where I said all opinions are valid, I said you cannot put a solution to the masses that affects the masses without at least some input from them.

Is how you come across. When one side is saying "please let us live the way we want to" and the other side is saying "those freaks are disturbing the natural order, they should be ILLEGAL" there is no purpose to listening to the other side other than maintaining the status quo or literally regressing society. More people will just continue to die with your unnecessary gatekeeping and bureaucracy.

Also as I said to Rogue, studies have been done, papers have been written. And yet, people are pretending they haven't been!

I'm saying you should be better than them.

My desire to live my life as who I am is too biased OK got you.

If this simple idea is too cumbersome for some people to accept, how is this my problem?

Man, you're now sounding like one of those middling liberals who kept telling Martin Luther King that "this isn't the right time for black equality".

Yeah, that is my concern. I'm a dirty middling liberal who is on your side but also wants to follow free expression and protect it. If I let your minority group go ape shit on the majority by principle, why not another minority group I disagree with.

Whoah now, did I specifically call you out as being homo/transphobic? No, I stated that society teaches us LGBT people are acceptable targets to be demoted in position. These ideas permeate you whether you are aware of them or not. That does not make you an explicit homophobe or transphobe. It does mean you can be influenced by these and have thought processes that are against our rights.

You kind of do when you imply or state I have zero say in any solution or even basic human empathy if I do not reflect your exact experience and trauma. And I disagree that the society as a whole teaches us that LGBT are targets. Sure, plenty of sub cultures in our culture do and I agree with that but to indite the whole culture is both wrong and insulting. That you think all of culture do this whether we are 'aware of them or not' further makes me think your bias on the subject would be negative to a solution. That you see all of society as against you, no matter if a good chuck of that society is for you and advocates you, is again you making enemies out of friends. You don't have to kowtow to me, I don't expect that, but for fucks sakes don't spit in the eye of people saying "I hear for you, how can I help" just because they don't have a precise experience that you do.

And no, it seems like you're slowly digging a hole you're going to be unable to get out of. I'm not exactly perceiving you to be "on my side" right now, despite your claim. "You make enemies out of friends"? "I HATE being called Cis"? So, people making strong statements about themselves pisses you off? Get the fuck out of here.

Perhaps being told I'm part of the problem when I go out of my way to be part of the solution while not being part of that particular minority might color my perspective. So.. fuck you and your hole. I can still follow through with MY principles of equality while deciding I don't particularly like you. You are not your cause. If you detect negativity, it just might not be because you're trans, perhaps your just an ass who happens to be an a trans.

"Swing too far the other way" as in "full acceptance of marginalized people's rights is too much"? Oh boy you're really showing it.

Yeah, all you can see is slights on your cause. Again, you have major biases.

Gods you are pretty much exactly like that middling liberal now.

And your a jack ass who views the whole world out to get them whether or not they are. Again, and not specifically for you but for other readers, my now open dislike for you should not be taken as a dislike for this particular cause. You are not your cause.

Edit: had to put a 'not' in there to make my point and not make me a shit head on the original text.

[Knife]

Balrog, you are making an error. You are conflating "free speech" with "free speech while acting as a paid speaker".

That is actually a good point I had not considered.

Protip: Free speech is not consequence-free speech. If you want the free and open exchange of ideas, heckling and ridicule of vapid or vile ideas goes with the territory.

That is pretty much my opinion on the other sub discussion going on here.

Simon, have not ignored you, but rather thinking upon a response.

[Flagg]

I want to say that on the point of "who should have more of a say when it comes to speakers at a university/college, the students or the institution?": Who is going to be paying for the education for the next decade or so assuming student loans? I mean not to sound trite, but "the customer is always right" may not apply to the extent that you want less ice in your soda at McDonalds but if a majority of students don't want, for instance, Henry Kissinger giving a speech at their school, I side with the students. Even more so if it's a graduation ceremony.

[Simon_Jester]

Simon, have not ignored you, but rather thinking upon a response.

Well, I think you should bear in mind that I, for one, am confused about why you even brought this up.

In my experience, it is incredibly rare to meet an advocate of a minority who doesn't recognize that their minority is never going to be free to decide how society is run. Being part of a minority group that gets hit with discrimination is one, big, lifelong lesson in "you are not in charge and never will be."

This is why a huge part of minority activism is just trying to even get the facts out there. And spreading the facts loud enough that they break down the walls of bizarre myths that the majority will invent to justify an oppressive status quo. Myths like "blacks are happiest as physical laborers, so not letting them into good schools is doing them a favor!" Or myths like "Gays are pedophiles, and being gay is a choice that people make after being corrupted by other gays, so we're right to suppress and imprison and brutalize any gays we find, so no one is corrupted!" Or myths like "women are naturally lustful, so we have to keep them bundled up indoors so they don't victimize hapless upstanding males!"

I mean, the mere fact that it is necessary for the minority to deal with that kind of belief shows the power that a majority group has over an oppressed but smaller group. And that power doesn't go away just because the discriminatory laws are abolished. The opinion of the majority is totally indispensible. It's a blunt fact of life, not something that anyone is likely to try and somehow push away in an attempt to 'punish' the majority in any meaningful way. Aside, of course, from the "punishment" of not being able to discriminate against people and hurt people.

Because when I entered this shithole of a discussion it was about the notion that ANY minority has the sole discretion of determining a solution without the input of the majority.

...I don't remember anyone saying that. Who said that, again?

Again, there is simply no realistic way for minority groups like blacks, let alone even smaller groups like gays or practically microscopic groups like trans people, to decide on a "solution" without the majority's acceptance, agreement, and at least passive support. It simply can't happen. 1% of the population cannot compel the other 99% to do anything without most of the other 99% already thinking it's a pretty good idea.

About the only group historically discriminated against in our society that could possibly take over and start reversing the tyranny and oppression would be women. Women at least have large enough numbers that the idea of Western societies turning into matriarchies that oppress men isn't quite a complete joke. Even that seems pretty unlikely within the next 50-100 years, and we can't predict farther ahead than that.

But no, there will not be a black-dominated America in which whites are second-class citizens. No, there will not be a gayocracy where being straight is somehow discriminated against. No, there will not be a society where trans people get to do anything that does more that causes any more 'punishment' than occasional minor discomfort for members of the majority whose gender identity lines up with their genes.

So the minorities we're talking about here cannot possibly have "sole discretion of determining a solution," and literally everyone involved with even a sliver of brains knows it.

But what is intensely toxic to any hope of ever creating a fair society, is when we treat the people who are harmed and abused by a crime as somehow unfit to comment on it, or unfit to speak on their own behalf. Or somehow "less expert" on their own experiences than a bunch of people who will never, ever suffer any conseqeunces if they get it wrong out of sheer ignorance.

As far as I can determine, you came in taking a stance of "you're too biased, back off and let the experts handle this," and I honestly am not clear on what you thought you were responding to by doing so. This may explain why others aren't reacting to you the way you might expect...

"Swing too far the other way" as in "full acceptance of marginalized people's rights is too much"? Oh boy you're really showing it.

Yeah, all you can see is slights on your cause. Again, you have major biases.

Is it major bias when, from experience, you've spent years listening to people who hear you say "maybe I should have the right to live in peace and not be made miserable or punished for being who I am," and their response is "whoa whoa, let's not be hasty, we need to have experts decide this, who are conveniently totally unaffected by the consequences of their own decisions!"

I mean, if you had a problem that others were pushing off that way, you might not be so receptive to the hundredth person to say that. I know I wouldn't be.

[Flagg]

Is it major bias when, from experience, you've spent years listening to people who hear you say "maybe I should have the right to live in peace and not be made miserable or punished for being who I am," and their response is "whoa whoa, let's not be hasty, we need to have experts decide this, who are conveniently totally unaffected by the consequences of their own decisions!"

I mean, if you had a problem that others were pushing off that way, you might not be so receptive to the hundredth person to say that. I know I wouldn't be.

It's the old joke regarding South Park golden mean philosophy (unless it's something that effects them personally): "If SP were written in Central Europe during the 1930's, Jews would just be sterilized and sent to Madagascar at the end of the episode and Hitler would fart a lot."

Not to say anyone here supports that shit, but it's the way a lot of people in minority situations feel when people not effected by the societal biases that they are every day try to find "sensible" solutions. In other words, when it comes to equal rights, not giving the minority 100% equality is always wrong even if well meaning people agree to 99.9% equality.

[Dragon Angel]

You'll of course point out where I said all opinions are valid, I said you cannot put a solution to the masses that affects the masses without at least some input from them.

You're either lying or a moron. You've either been saying this numerous times in such weaselly words as to stay under the radar or you're talking out of your ass without realizing because I am not the only person in this thread who has read you like this.

Oh wait I'm misinterpreting you this is just me being more biased I'm just making an enemy out of my supposed ally here because I'm much too close to the hurt, oops why am I speaking my triggered trans brain.

I'm saying you should be better than them.

Better than them, how? Tell me, how should I be better? You haven't yet demonstrated how we marginalized folks are being so much of a burden to you and the whole of society like I requested. Answer that.

If I let your minority group go ape shit on the majority by principle, why not another minority group I disagree with.

Demonstrate how this is happening or withdraw from this line of discussion.

You kind of do when you imply or state I have zero say in any solution or even basic human empathy if I do not reflect your exact experience and trauma. And I disagree that the society as a whole teaches us that LGBT are targets. Sure, plenty of sub cultures in our culture do and I agree with that but to indite the whole culture is both wrong and insulting. That you think all of culture do this whether we are 'aware of them or not' further makes me think your bias on the subject would be negative to a solution. That you see all of society as against you, no matter if a good chuck of that society is for you and advocates you, is again you making enemies out of friends. You don't have to kowtow to me, I don't expect that, but for fucks sakes don't spit in the eye of people saying "I hear for you, how can I help" just because they don't have a precise experience that you do.

Where did I say "if you don't reflect my exact experience or trauma"? You are putting words in my mouth and being extremely dishonest. I've been stating so many times in this thread "people who are trans have more say in trans matters" "people who are black have more say in black matters" "people who are not <group> do not have rights to make wide-reaching judgements about <group> because they most likely do not have the right informed experience about it". This is a strawman and you know it.

You disagree society as a whole ..... how long have you been on this board? You really, seriously can claim society has not taught you a single thing against homosexuality, against gender identity? How about against racial minorities? You are seriously making this argument?

I suppose Black Lives Matter is just talking out of their ass then. I suppose LGBT people have truly equal rights then, and not massive governmental power structures and the bigoted populous constantly attempting to undermine our rights. Gay marriage was never a problem. Transgender people are capable of transitioning freely without interference by the government or gatekeeping doctors. We've never had a problem going into bathrooms.

This is great revisionism. Calling me too biased is a nice handwave for your own complete ignorance, and you've built a great wall of it by now. I'd almost say you are projecting, but I'm not a psychologist.

This is part of why I don't believe your sincerity.

Perhaps being told I'm part of the problem when I go out of my way to be part of the solution while not being part of that particular minority might color my perspective. So.. fuck you and your hole. I can still follow through with MY principles of equality while deciding I don't particularly like you. You are not your cause. If you detect negativity, it just might not be because you're trans, perhaps your just an ass who happens to be an a trans.

The whole point of activism is to enlighten people that they may be perpetuating a problem without knowing it. And then we have people, like you here, trying to honestly tell us you've never been wrong. You've always been woke. You never, ever unintentionally caused harm, when the point of movements like Black Lives Matter is to show white people can accidentally, without awareness, support power structures against black people that cause black people to live as second-class citizens and die on the streets regularly by cops. The same applies toward LGBT activism.

Did I ever go "die cis scum" on you in this thread? Have I literally directly attacked you for being cis in this whole argument? No, I'm taking grave issue with you telling me I'm too "close" to the situation to make a judgement on my own place in society. You have huge issues if you think me being trans gives me less say on how I should be treated in society, after all, why don't you tell Alyrium he is too biased to talk about homosexuality? Why don't you tell Duchess of Zeon and other trans members who are or have been on this board they are too biased? Come on, why don't you?

If I'm an ass then I take that as a compliment compared to what I think of you.

Yeah, all you can see is slights on your cause. Again, you have major biases.

There you go with that handwave again. Address the questions I posed to you. Now.

And your a jack ass who views the whole world out to get them whether or not they are. Again, and not specifically for you but for other readers, my now open dislike for you should not be taken as a dislike for this particular cause. You are not your cause.

No, I'm not my cause. The whole of trans people are our cause. And trust me when I say we all have disagreements, ourselves.

Don't worry my dude, I don't like you either. You've made it plenty obvious you're only as much of an ally as you can be while it's convenient for you.

[Dragon Angel]

Going to just add here that I'm in seething sardonicism mode now because it's rather difficult to make an argument when someone is using ad hominem wavery of your own identity against you, to discredit you from your own opinions about your entire life.

This isn't the greatest way, as I'm sure many who are reading this know, to gain the favor of people you are supposedly advocating for. Knife, and possibly Balrog, as long as you do this it's not us "making enemies of our friends" but actually you pushing people that you purport to advocate away. There are scores of marginalized people who are becoming rather tired of fly-by-night allies who think they believe in equality but also think "but let's not go too far" for some measure of "too far".

However that means.

No, you don't have to believe every single thing a marginalized person says but the moment you use excuses like "we are too close to our own oppressions to really make a good judgement about them" we sigh at you, we shake our heads, and we hold you either in derisive mockery or seething rage.

[Flagg]

I can say with some guilt that I've unintentionally offended trans people and that group (because I have no idea wtf the right term is and don't want to again offend) without even realizing it, including using phrasing that looking back with more insight and wisdom was terrible, but cluelessly so on my part. The fact that I'm a fucking asshole doesn't help matters.

Yeah, it can be frustrating when attacked because you used a slur in good faith (I'm not getting into it but I think Dragon Angel knows what I'm talking about) because I think telling someone the proper terminology and them attacking them for not using that in the future would be more helpful, but I can't fault someone for assuming the worst when most of the time the worst is right on the money.

And it comes right back to privilege. And there are so many varying degrees of privilege it can feel like walking through a minefield. I mean I don't feel part of the majority despite being a heterosexual white male due to my political and non-religious beliefs, but that's cry me a river territory since I can go pretty much anywhere without fear of insult let alone physical violence unless I'm wearing a shirt that says "Fuck America, Atheist 4 Life" and even then I'm more likely to get stink eye or fucking laughs.

So I guess what I'm saying is, check your privilege and learn of what you speak. Yeah, that coming from me.

[Dragon Angel]

I can say with some guilt that I've unintentionally offended trans people and that group (because I have no idea wtf the right term is and don't want to again offend) without even realizing it, including using phrasing that looking back with more insight and wisdom was terrible, but cluelessly so on my part. The fact that I'm a fucking asshole doesn't help matters.

Yeah, it can be frustrating when attacked because you used a slur in good faith (I'm not getting into it but I think Dragon Angel knows what I'm talking about) because I think telling someone the proper terminology and them attacking them for not using that in the future would be more helpful, but I can't fault someone for assuming the worst when most of the time the worst is right on the money.

I'm probably atypical in this aspect but when a friend of mine offhandedly says something like "that shit's fuckin' gay" in a derisive sense, it's something I notice but I don't really hold it against them since I know them well enough that they didn't really intend it in a homophobic fashion. It's just been such a part of language that they bleat it out and don't realize just what they're doing. And I've been out to them for years.

Actually, now that I think about it their frequency of using it has indeed decreased over the years, so that's a good mark for them.

I try to extend the same understanding toward strangers and acquaintances I barely know, before really making a judgement upon them. Context and history very much matters (to me personally, at least) and if I see that someone is "on the right path" so to speak their little flaws aren't too much of a concern to me. Of course, this understanding isn't infinite, and I do tend to lose patience if a stranger shows they are genuinely bigoted or terminally naive.

And it comes right back to privilege. And there are so many varying degrees of privilege it can feel like walking through a minefield. I mean I don't feel part of the majority despite being a heterosexual white male due to my political and non-religious beliefs, but that's cry me a river territory since I can go pretty much anywhere without fear of insult let alone physical violence unless I'm wearing a shirt that says "Fuck America, Atheist 4 Life" and even then I'm more likely to get stink eye or fucking laughs.

So I guess what I'm saying is, check your privilege and learn of what you speak. Yeah, that coming from me.

To me, privilege is an extremely complex thing that can end up traveling into so many axes that it's frankly impossible to walk on this Earth without violating someone else's boundaries. The best way I've learned is just to treat those like any other mistakes: acknowledge them, and if it's a general sentiment you've found try to learn to do better to the people in that group, or a specific sentiment to one person make a note of it to try never repeating it to that person. And I mean really try, because some of these things have been such a part of society that they could take decades to undo as adults.

There are those who believe even accidental violations of boundaries are marks on someone forever and frankly I find that unrealistic too. None of us come out of the cradle woke, and we sure as hell aren't going to the grave as humanist Buddhas. The only thing we can really do in life is to learn, learn, learn, and though we may have personality flaws (damn I know I do lol) try to work around them as best as we can and treat each other as, well, human beings.

[Flagg]

Yeah, the only one I unfortunately will come out with is (luckily only at home, during football, and only after a frustrated series of inventive usages of "fuck") the f-word, but the full word and I always feel like a dick because I've trained myself not to ever say it in other areas. I say "lame" if something is lame, not "gay". The best way is to recognize when you think it and remind yourself it's bad.

I just have trouble with what to call various trans people because I've gotten bad information in the past and with my general assholish personality I don't get the benefit of the doubt, which just comes with the territory I guess. It's how I deal with my over abundance of empathy. Fucking empathy. Why can't I be a psychopath like everyone else born in Texas?

[maraxus2]

Yeah, the only one I unfortunately will come out with is (luckily only at home, during football, and only after a frustrated series of inventive usages of "fuck") the f-word, but the full word and I always feel like a dick because I've trained myself not to ever say it in other areas. I say "lame" if something is lame, not "gay". The best way is to recognize when you think it and remind yourself it's bad.

I find that "fuckboy" and derivatives thereof (e.g. fuccboi) are good substitutes, mainly because there are no circumstances in which a thoroughly hateable person can't be described as a fuccboi. Sam Brownback's cutting welfare to starving children again? Fuccboi. Some dipshit at a bar is hitting on my girl? Fuccboi. Zontag is talking about SJWs again? Definitely fuccboi.

[Flagg]

Yeah, the only one I unfortunately will come out with is (luckily only at home, during football, and only after a frustrated series of inventive usages of "fuck") the f-word, but the full word and I always feel like a dick because I've trained myself not to ever say it in other areas. I say "lame" if something is lame, not "gay". The best way is to recognize when you think it and remind yourself it's bad.

I find that "fuckboy" and derivatives thereof (e.g. fuccboi) are good substitutes, mainly because there are no circumstances in which a thoroughly hateable person can't be described as a fuccboi. Sam Brownback's cutting welfare to starving children again? Fuccboi. Some dipshit at a bar is hitting on my girl? Fuccboi. Zontag is talking about SJWs again? Definitely fuccboi.

I like "fuckbag". That way I get the "fuck" and the guttural finish of a hard "G" with "bag" so I'm less likely to let a bundle of sticks or UK word for cigarette slip out.

[Crown]

Dear Knife; the best way to maintain your sanity and grounding regarding the SJW nutjobs is to allow yourself to be true to your principles and not force yourself into thinking that you need to adopt all of theirs.

As an example; I support marriage equality not because of the progressive/regressive privilege stack or my feelings towards the Gay Community; I support marriage equality because the idea that an adult's pursuit of happiness should be hindered by other adult's appeal to a 2000 year old fairy tale to be fucking moronic.

The good news about SJWism is that it eventually eats itself as they turn on their own; for example white gay men no qualify for the oppression Olympics (hi Alyrium Denryle welcome to the bottom ... err top ... err ... either way we have the ill begotten gains of the oppressed to feast upon make yourself at home) so we have that to look forward to.

To those who seem to be taking the opposition on this whole thing I have to ask; are you denying the existence of SJWism full stop, or just bulking at the stereotype?

[Simon_Jester]

Any community which abandons things like civility and kindness, and uniform standards of justice and fairness, and mutual support, for the sake of The Cause will end up devouring itself.

Which is largely beside the point.

The point is that while there is a small, tempest-in-teapot minority of people who DO turn on each other, who ARE obsessed with comparing each other's pain and oppressed-ness, they are insignificant. They serve only as an excuse to pretend that they represent a larger category of people who have very real problems, for purposes of discrediting them. It's a form of ersatz red-baiting.

[Dragon Angel]

Your inflammatory wording aside, Crown, it's not that people deny there has been or ever will be people who overreach (hell, I've acknowledged that a few times already in this thread). People deny the exaggeration, the supposed prevalence of these types over the entire activist community. And as such, this "prevalence" supposedly justifying the label of literally anything of activist causes "SJW".

I can't take the term, nor the people who use it, seriously at all because it's used for so many situations that it's completely lost its meaning. From my anecdotal perspective, 90% of the people who throw the term around tend to be the sort of shitbags that want to banish all Muslims or think rape threats over the Internet are just the Internet's way of saying hello. I tend to actively think less of people using it, unless proven otherwise. Sorry, way too many bad experiences.

For the record, I don't like what's being described in the article you linked either. However, I wouldn't nearly attribute this to being the entire activist cause "eventually eating their own". Such isolated examples being used to paint all of activism just shows a person is out for their own agenda rather than an honest conversation.