I'd like to bring up immigration reform. I think saying that, generally, D's are for it and R's against, at least as proposed right now, is fair. So, is that Republican bigotry or is something else at work? Is the R's insistence on stopping illegal immigration first and doing something about the illegals (or, for the sensitive, 'undocumented') reasonable or is it code for bigotry?

Personally I'm not sure. I'll say that here in Arizona the R governor just refused to issue driver's licenses to the now adult children that are covered under some sort of deferred action plan whipped up by Obama and that's just damn mean. Straight up political calculation, imo, but as mean as it gets.

It's the same as Voter ID. Whether it's explicitly rooted in dislike for Mexicans, or if it's just a tactic to keep voting demographics more favorable, it's bad.

It's another situation where what's politically good for the republicans just happens to be incredibly racist.

You're discounting the value that comes from highlighting to potentially reasonable observers that these aren't "reasonable" positions, but, at best, lightly wallpapered bigotry.

Marriage equality, voter ID, immigration, Paul newsletters--you can generally pick the topic.

Note that just within this forum, over the past 5 or so years we've seen a marked decrease in the amount of open racism. In the 2008 campaign's version of our Ron Paul threads, a surprising number of posters were pretty willing to go out there and defend the content of the newsletters as being true, the first draft response was that the newsletters were not racist. A former MODERATOR of this forum defended Ron saying that 95% of DC's blacks were criminals!

People were posting like this:


!!!!

For another example, in 2008, people were making posts like

Which is just a straight up white supremacist lie(though of course, of course we must give Nich UNLIMITED BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT and concede that it's certainly possible that, as he was raised by wolves, he didn't know that was false when he posted), and it went completely unchallenged.

That thread was full of dudes nodding sagaciously at each other about how obviously desegregation was horrific government overreach and also Ron Paul 2008! That's embarrassing.

The community here has changed its composition for the better, both in level of discourse(cites to actual history rather than hazy guesses at applying first principles!) and in those participating.

I think the shouters over value the technique and don't appreciate the extent to which reasonable observers will turn away in disgust/think their argument as unworthy since it can't be stated but must be screamed. Here's Ray Kelly from a few days ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZVm2L4NTYo

They don't like stop and frisk, no matter how many ppl it saves, which is fine since it does have an unconstitutional aroma. I change the channel when I see ppl like this. And that's me, I at least understand them, but then there are others whose reactions we can't predict and whose support we need.

And that's a great example of why Fly is a great poster. He'll go back half a decade with specific posts to make a point.

The Neoconfederate/Libertarian nonsense has dramatically decreased over the past two years.

The only downside of that is I bet we could've gotten some hilarious defenses of Rand Paul plagiarizing Wikipedia if the the Revolution was still in force here.

How many people was that, again? Limited only by your imagination?

But that's not what this is about. I don't even know what "change the channel" means in this context.

I'm not sure what your analogy here is, but calling anti-equality arguments bigoted isn't equivalent to shouting down the speaker. It's actually engaging the argument on its merits.

Does this work? More specifically, does it work for issues for which you haven't already won? I could see it working for say, Holocaust deniers. But in that case, there is little harm that Holocaust deniers can do given how far from the mainstream they are in the first place. I could also see debating and demolishing the arguments of the Holocaust deniers as being even more effective, but let's grant that it's not for now.

However, take a view in which both sides are fairly evenly balanced, or you're on the minority side. Do you think for say, animal rights activists, calling people who eat meat "murderers" is an effective tactic? I would think not. The people that do that these days usually get maligned as extremists. Hardly anyone mildly sympathetic to animal rights goes "Oh yeah, it is totally murder to eat animals" and immediately joins up. No-one thinks "Ah, eating animals isn't a reasonable position, because these guys berated meat-eaters". You would need meat-eating to already be a highly marginalised practice before berating them can potentially send any signals.

Holocaust denial? What?

Marriage equality was an issue where both sides were evenly balanced in numbers, or didn't you notice?

Examples, how do they work?

So? The point about animal rights shows that berating obviously didn't have that effect when SSM was a minority position (contrary to what Fly was saying). When it's relatively evenly divided, you don't look extreme by berating people, but when 45% of the population disagrees with you it's unlikely to signal that the position is unreasonable.

Well, there's more to an example than randomly taking the opportunity to talk about how Holocaust denial is harmless. I don't think inviting Holocaust deniers to academic conferences on WWII is going to improve the discourse, do you?

Shockingly, no evidence is produce for either the original discussion or for the new example (horse slaughter in the USA for human consumption, anyone?) that you have introduced.

The conversation moved forward because the discussion could be framed as overcoming simple bigotry. That's an essential component of why the change was so rapid.

The point is, by debating Holocaust deniers, the worst you're doing is wasting your time. There isn't really a significant risk that by "lending them legitimacy" you're going to contribute to anti-Semitic policies being introduced in the future.

It's meant to be an appeal to intuition more than anything. If you disagree, then I'll have to try something else.

And you've backed this up with a vast array of evidence...?

And regardless, it's obviously wrong. Why? Well, because outside of message boards and echo chambers, SSM advocates don't actually do this. Whenever there's a SSM referendum, what do the pro-SSM ads look more like?

"Opposing SSM is bigoted. Let's overcome bigotry."

or

"SSM makes everyone equal. Let's further equality".


Why is this the case? Are the people who finance pro-SSM campaigns too dumb to realise that they should be berating the other side? If they hired Fly, would they get much better results?

Is this the point where we start gifbombing the thread? I'm never entirely sure how ******ed the arguments have to be before we get giffy.

Social pain is a consequence of bigotry in a society where equality is a moral standard. How much social pain should we spare the bigots? Pole?

Remember, I was raised by wolves. So please explain patiently why the xpert shaming bigots strategy, which has been the primary reason for the pro-SSM shift in public opinion and the change in the discussion, is in fact not used by the people most prominently trying to shift public opinion in a pro-SSM direction. The real impact has been made by a bunch of guys on the internet.

Nich you seem mad bro

nich it is the strategy

and it works

again, the fundamental problem is that you are a bigot, not that your feelings are hurt

I mean, I get why. This forum used to be a great place for racists to congratulate the mentally ill for being the most logicalest.

Seriously the entire SSM movement has been explicitly labeling opposition as bigotry. I realize that ads about marriage equality don't use swears, but when people are organizing boycotts and ****? What message is that sending? Nich, I'm sure you'd snively complain about how a boycott could very seriously harm the livelihoods of people who might theoretically be bigoted personally and all that ****.

I don't think that you've thought this through very well. Gun control, removing guns from the streets, etc, etc, is the mantra of the left, the City politicians and community groups/churches. Why? Well, bec gun control means fewer deaths, ldo. Why don't you ask some of those ppl how many lives are saved by removing guns? They don't know either, exactly, except they can credibly claim it to be a significant number, which it is.

So the NYPD used stop and frisk. Effective but controversial. The people have a vote, they can use persuasion, they can sue (ongoing) but you seriously think shouting down a person such as Ray Kelly is the way to go?


'Change the channel' means 'tune it out.'

With the bolded it appears you have come to agree w/ me.

I hope to learn from such a paragon of calm collectedness as you.

Well I'm convinced. I mean, basically no-one uses the strategy except brave internet warriors, but I suppose it's good to know that literally dozens of people are leading the charge in changing the hearts and minds of millions of people.

Stop trying to be Fly, you're bad at it.

Bigots are natural cowards. They can be internet warriors, but not brave internet warriors.

How much social pain does the outspoken observation of cowardice cause?

Even if we were to grant that message is "BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT", it's very much an implicit message. Also, it frequently doesn't work.

Uh, no? Why would I think that people have a right to their customers? I swear half the views you try to pin on me are just completely made up. It's like, I dunno, you might have trouble with reading comprehension or something.