"but what about those other YouTubes?"

Testimony on Capitol Hill today regarding Free Speech on College Campuses:

Might be a good listen, if you're genuinely interested in this subject.

https://youtu.be/BOoHS6C-AUY?t=45m11s

Nobody is genuinely interested in this subject, Jiggy

Except it's everywhere, in this forum even, in this thread.

The greater problem is that so many folks seem to think free speech is only about the state, and that it's perfectly ethical to try to shut down your political rivals by legal means, sometimes even fine to cross the line and do it illegally if the rival is really, really bad, ie "punch a nazi."

But in our diverse, pluralistic society it is an absolute necessity we understand why not just allowing, but actually seeking out and inviting alternate points of view, even those we might find abhorrent is important, if for no other reason than to better understand why we believe what we believe... but also for so many more reasons that help us slice through motivated reasoning to find truth, scrubbing away confirmation bias to create knowledge.

Not that this sort of debate hasn't always occurred historically, as Mill shows us with his defense of freedom of expression from the masses written 150 years ago, but it's that our society today is suffering as more people disagree with that liberal mindset, resorting and allowing themselves to succumb to a much more censorious closed mindset. It's a sickness - call it the cynical abuse of PC - from which much of our society is suffering the symptoms today, and the examples are plenty.

We have lots of posters ITF who have been vocally in favor of shutting down Pv7 to prevent the ugly "hate speech" they imagine goes on here. Why?

We have what used to be thought of as a far right problem in the US, the authoritarian tendency to silence political speech, now manifesting itself on the left more and more frequently, with masked men and women intimidating and attacking others of differing political pov with the express purpose of stopping their "hateful" speech.

We have these sorts of things going on all over the country on and off college campuses, and of course, lots of posters here who defend it, even earnestly argue in favor of the protesters' actions to stop conservatives, libertarians and even some liberals' voices that "offend" them, causing them verbal "violence".

But when anyone points any of this out here, we get shrugs, denials and equivocation. Well, those other guys do it more! Okay, so? Jiggy posted a link above of a congressional committee to address this very problem on state funded university campuses. It's a fascinating discussion, and one almost none of you will bother to watch. But no matter, the wheels of democracy will turn with or without you.

Regarding Pewdiepie, only one of many recently railroaded for doing absolutely nothing wrong, but who also happens to have 55+ million sympathetic followers - just read the comments section here, and here, and the hundreds of videos in his defense), regarding him, others like him, and the Youtube community in general, which reaches hundreds of millions more people world wide, I find quite a lot of solace that that community has a young and growing user base.

Did not read. I was looking for examples in the real, adult world.

Lol at you. He absolutely did something stupid and Disney did not act unreasonably in cutting ties with him. As far as I can tell he still posts on YouTube and he's not in jail or anything so like, what the **** are you even on about?

Like, you are literally complaining that some people got mad when he put a picture of a "kill all jews" sign on his channel.

It's not just the activists, but it's some of their professors who indoctrinate and help organize these groups, even the school administrators themselves who allow the "heckler's veto" training kids the wrong principles on free speech. Do you remember when this student movement of crybullies started to get real attention long before Evergreen almost two years ago at Yale? Two of those students were recently given "truth teller" awards, apparently for shaming the Christakasis, a couple of very well meaning liberal professors, accusing them of white supremacy and screaming at them. This is a familiar trend. You remember this video, right?

Well sure, absolutely. Not instead, but as well. Because the right is going to be reactionary to the sorts of things you mention, but they won't be justified in doing so, and eventually the those causes have a chance to win out among right minded people. The middle will be swayed first, then moderate right wingers, and eventually almost everyone. That's how it has always worked. But right now the right are justified, because they're also reacting to authoritarianism on the left, which is killing the causes the left is trying to promote.

Of course the left has a lever, and so does the right. Politics is always in a state of flux or equilibrium that any group can upset. Of course the right should be less authoritarian, and they should be more liberal. And we should make arguments to any right wingers here to that effect... moving them to the middle, upsetting the equilibrium, moving us in the right direction. Very difficult to do if we don't actually believe in those principles, or allow ourselves to be bullied by those on the left who don't.

How so? Tell me how Christianity, for example, a doctrine that tells you you have original sin and that only prostrating yourself to an all-knowing all-powerful god and repenting can save your eternal soul from damnation and suffering, no matter what else you do, is not demanding you succumb to authoritarianism?


Why should they, and why should you want them to? For the same reasons you should want the right, and everyone else to accept liberal principles. How is this even a question you would ask me? If we can't agree on this, then we won't agree on anything.


I think I heard him say he voted for Stein in one of his interviews, but I'm not sure. Either way, millions of people on the left either voted third party or abstained, this is clear, while the right managed to swallow all their principles and vote for a con man, because he would be "their con man" or so they hoped, and because he was not a Democrat - which is the real issue. This was the most tribal election in US history (citation needed, but will not be given ).

We're on opposite sides of this too. I wasn't surprised he won the nomination, I know enough Trump supporters to understand their mindset, there utter hatred of Hillary and how PC the left has become, stuffing their morals down everyone else's throats. You may as well try to convert an Evangelical to Islam. Maybe my tribalism argument isn't perfect, but Trump should have had no chance in the general, he's a godamn circus barker FFS and most Republicans know that, but he eeked it out because the the Republicans went with him anyway, they stuck together, and the Democrats did not, too many abandoning their party because they didn't get the guy they wanted.

Sorry, but this is the real world, and so are hundreds of millions of people who watch youtube, tweet, facebook (though I hear some are russian bots), and so are college students, and so are antifa, and plenty of these real life people are of voting age. I don't know wtf you're getting so worked up about that you can't see this is the world we all actually live in. And I'm not complaining some people got mad or offended. What I and tens of millions of others are tired of is people like you who either cannot take a stupid joke yourselves, or are too easily duped by those who use PC to distort and attack others. The reporter who wrote the hit piece made similar stupid jokes himself FFS.

Right, but people doing stuff on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are not political activists, they have nothing to do with me, and I have no control over them.

I'm not sure why you think I'm worked up.

If you want to say that this is a problem of "the left", you have to tie it to actual politicians. If it's just dumb people being dumb on Facebook, I still don't understand why I should care.

...

You are literally complaining about people getting mad or offended. The second sentence in this quote directly disproves the first.

I'm not sure why you say people "like me". As I've repeatedly stated, I don't give a **** about PewDiePie. I've never watched any of his videos and I didn't even really know about this incident until it was brought up in the forum. I'm certainly not personally upset about PewDiePie and I'm not easily offended in general.

So the reporter is a hypocrite.

Confronting, resisting and defying is part of an active speech diet.

Oh, for sure.

LOL


FoldN, you fool nobody with these methed out posting binges. Go tell your dad he ruined your ****ing life when you gave you that Ayn Rand book without clarifying that it was fiction for losers.

"similar" lol

FoldN do you think your personal history of Holocaust denial might influence your halfwitted, uneducated, angry white male who is 40 ****ing years old and watching Minecraft youtubers FOR THE POLITICS might have you too triggered?

I do need to clarify my statement about you literally never fooled anyone, I should add besides other dip**** right wingers running the same "fake objective centrist/leftist" scam, FoldN. You have one ****ing friend on 2p2, and you have to stay in the "white supremacy 4 dummiez" subforum because that's the one he moderates.

I know they have time outs, but they need to add wash your mouth out with soap sanctions as well.

It would be boring if we all posted in the same style.

BURNED

OK, I'm back from my temp-ban. Shame on me. It's in the SN... what can I say?

During my time of wandering in the desert, I have pondered FoldnDark's so-called "argument". In the canonical form, it is...

• Coach: Don't swear, it hurts the team.
• Kid: But coach, the other team swears too.
• Coach: Swearing is bad.

I wonder what happens when FoldnDark answers the phone, and there's an annoying sales clown on the other end of the line. Does he (a) 'deplatform' that clown by hanging up, or (b) does the ghost of J.S.Mill require him to listen to the sales clown's free speech possibly forever ??

Yeah... uh... see, the thing about that is... PewDiePie admitted he did wrong (as did 'Count Dunkula' -- Markus Meechan -- in the other case mentioned), and obviously a firm like Disney really cannot, in public-relations terms, ally itself with Nazi genocide or with idiots who make light of Nazi genocide. That type thing is just not good for business, believe it or not.


PewDiePie's followers just watch to see him play Crash Bandicoot games.

I'm not sure what to say about this. I don't agree that eg Obama or Bill Clinton were more significantly conservative or worse than Carter, LBJ, Kennedy, or Truman. I'll agree that what it means to be a Democrat has changed over time, although not as much as you seem to, and not in such a unformly negative direction. It seems to me that you are still primarily responding to the sorting of the parties more than actual changes in ideology.

I'll again say that I don't think there is much Democrats can do electorally to affect how crazy the GOP becomes. Your thesis about the moderating impact of a 2-party system system ignores the impact of primaries in selecting candidates.

In 1980 the average federal tax rate for the top 1% was 33.2%. In 2013 it was 34%.

In 1980 the average effective tax rate on long-term capital gains was 15.5%. In 2014 it was 18.8%.
Yes it is, although corporate income tax as a share of GDP has been fairly constant at around 2% since 1980.

The minimum wage has been fairly constant since 1985. Take that as you will.

These are related, and the increase in inequality is a global phenomenom.

Middle class incomes have grown since 1980, so I don't agree with your claim that they are getting killed.

Completely agree with this - Democrats have failed on crime and punishment issues. I will point out that under Obama we saw a drop in the incarcaration rate for the first time in decades, and I think there is a more recognition now among Democratic leaders of the seriousness of this problem.

Not sure this is a significant change from prior views in the Democratic Party, so it is hard for me to compare. I do think that at least on some civil liberties issues, eg race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. the Democratic Party is much better than in 1980.

It is not my view that the Democratic Party has been perfect since 1980. But I don't see what you think they're supposed to have done to stop Republicans from becoming more conservative. On the one hand you are criticizing them for becoming more conservative, but on the other you are criticizing them for not winning more elections in a two-party system. If you accept the median voter theorem (which you seem to be presupposing), you only get one of these.

We get that you like antisemitic humor. Maybe you should open up you mind to the opinion that most people don't like it.

Okay.

I disagree.

By forming powerful and competing communities of influence outside of government, thus lessening the danger of government being captured by a single religious group and acting as a competing source of influence preventing political leaders from having too much sway.

You didn't understand what I wrote. I asked why I should want radical left people who are opposed to liberal values to pretend to hold them in order to gain political influence.

No citation for Weinstein?

As for the people on the left who didn't vote for Hillary, sure, I don't pretend that the Democratic Party is wide enough for everyone to want to support its candidates. I'm not sure that this is particularly different than in the past, but maybe you think differently. I disagree with you about people on the right swallowing all their principles - many of them also didn't vote, or voted third party.

I guess we just disagree. My view is that the decision between candidates typically happens within the party in the primary (whether invisible or electoral), but that the general elections is mostly just how many of your own partisans come out to vote.

So, college students were being indoctrinated by gangster rap and mind- controlling leftist school admins and professors. And, then trump + team alt-right wingers did what!??? to help the poor college kids under leftist psionic distress ????

Oh,oh-oh! You see, the kids these days, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage. With the hippin' and the hoppin' and the bippin' and the boppin', they don't know what the jazz is all about. Y'see, jazz is like Jello pudding... no, that's not it. Jazz is like Kodak film... no, that's not right neither. I've got it, jazz is like the new Coke - it'll be around forever.

Suppressing college students -versus- activating college students, -versus-leave them college students alone, -versus- hey, we are college students, we organized ourselves, duh.

Any body remember that movie PCU?

Was the dean based off Nancy Pelosi?

One little binger...to brighten up your day

If the parties sorted, so that Ds became more liberal and R became more conservative, with no underlying overall shift, then that certainly isn't an explanation for anything I'm saying about Ds becoming more conservative.

The median voter theorem is obviously a huge oversimplification, but a couple of applications of it seem reasonable enough for big-picture stuff, and I still have no idea how you're arguing what you're arguing. Take an electorate that's somewhat distributed from 0 to 100. Ds would be 0-40, R's 60-100, and independents/swing voters in the middle (the exact size doesn't matter much), and the voters vote for whichever candidate is closer. Ds would nominate around a 30, Rs would nominate around a 70 (both pretending to be more extreme in the primary and more centrist in the general), and you'd have a tossup. Or a 35 and a 65, whatever.

Now if republicans, AND REPUBLICANS ONLY, go insane and start nominating Teabag McNutjobs at 85, they just start losing all the formerly-tossup races if the Ds don't change at all. Ds in R-leaning, but not R-lock districts could go more conservative to try to win some of the rightest-leaning independents, but if they're successful, the result of that is replacing an average-to-right R with a less conservative D, which is still net liberalization. You could have an alternative timeline where the Ds become slightly more conservative *and* win a lot more elections, and call it a result of the Rs going insane, and I'd agree with you. But that's not the timeline we're in, or even close to it.

What has actually happened- Rs going insane AND still winning lots of elections, is basically possible in one of two scenarios- D's nominate similar extremists in similar numbers on the other side (didn't happen), or enough of the electorate shifted so that yesterday's 40s are now what yesterday's 50s and 60s were (what actually happened, over and over). And that shift in the center/median's attitudes made Ds chase to the right. I still have no idea how your theory of Rs dragging Ds without a shift in the electorate or Rs losing a bunch of elections is supposed to work.

This is an extremely misleading number (I don't believe you're trying to pull anything by quoting it) and also a great way to show the shift I was talking about. If you look at the actual numbers in https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/80inintravmatr.pdf a couple of things jump out- first that the marginal tax rate was actually quite high in aggregate, and table 1 is downright fascinating. The total number of returns is about 72% of the 20-64 population. The median AGI is around 13k. The 1% cutoff is about 80k (6x) and the 0.1% cutoff is a tad over 200 (call it 18x), which was also the cutoff for the top tax bracket, and the top bracket has a much higher effective tax rate (and marginal obviously).

Then get recent numbers from here https://www.irs.gov/uac/soi-tax-stat...d-gross-income and a few things jump out- first, despite something like a 40% increase in population, the number of returns filed is only up 5%. Using the actual returns filed, the median is a tad over 50k, the 1% cutoff is around 600k (12x), and the 0.1% cutoff is around 3 million (60x). Adjusting for population by adding 30 million bricks changes the numbers but leaves the ratios pretty similar.

So it's basically apples and oranges to compare today's 1% to the 1980 1%. The "filthy rich class", by basically whatever non-percentile measure you use, is close to 10x bigger than it used to be, and both the effective and marginal tax rates on them are MUCH lower now.

I can't find a simple enough explanation of that number to figure out if it's representing something real, structural, behavioral, or what. It's possible that the change is nothing or that I'm somehow backwards despite the rate decrease.


I wonder where the (implied and real) increase in corporate profit/gdp is coming from... Hmm.. What if they just made a lot more money and only paid most of their workers a little more? Would that do it? I wonder if there's any evidence consistent with such a thing happening...


Real GDP per capita has roughly doubled, and if you look at the little "real income growth since 1967" table 1) obviously the richest are killing it, 2) since that method of accounting (AFAIK) doesn't capture the non-cash aid to the poors, which is huge now, they're also killing it. And the middle quintile and non-aid portion of the second quintile lags huge. Are they literally worse off than in 1980? Of course not. That would be quite a trick against that growth backdrop. But the growth is everywhere else and they're way worse off relatively.

Yeah, I'll agree with that. It's just frustrating that measures that could have been something were largely late-term token gestures that have already been undone (private prisons, asset forfeiture, sentencing I think).

Sure, on race/gender/orientation, the Rs are better (or at least not dumb enough to seriously complain about miscegenation and ****- even Trump hasn't regressed to complaining about *gays* in the military) and the Ds are much better. The US hasn't really been a leader on such things, so I don't know exactly how it all came to be, but there's no question which party did more to facilitate it at the very least and an issue where an electorate shift has forced the R pols somewhat left even as they whine and *****.

You might be right on the rest, although since W basically started it day 1 and nobody had done it before, and D voters bitched hard, it's a big stretch to call it a measure with D electorate support- maybe D politicians in their secret hearts collectively would have gone for it, and it was just that no pols from either side would touch it until the "we can literally get away with absolutely anything" revelation under W.

Riiight, they "admitted" it in the same way the CNN wresting meme guy admitted to doing wrong.... because they had to in order to avoid even more trouble. Meanwhile, the support for these guys goes through the roof, Pewds, Count Dankula, and millions of their fans now have a chip on their shoulder because they were just goofing around and were run through the muck for it.

I don't think you "normies" and "SJW's" realize that to much of the younger generation, Hitler is like Darth Vader, the epitome of evil, but while many of us may have had grandparents or acquaintances who lived through the Holocaust, they don't have much of any connection to it. Kind of like how many Asians seem to love Hilter. But they also get that it really rustles a lot of people, so that's fun to some of the sickos and degenerates who take the memes too far.

The social justice left and those cowed by it are basically fighting the drug war and calling weed schedule one, or a gateway drug or some other nonsense, and losing the next generation of kids raised on the internet.