Can you explain how it is you're privy to the contents of the pms Wookie sent? Are you still in contact with BruceZ?

FoldN, by your dumb arguments we should be allowed to personally attack others with no limits! Otherwise its censorship! Unless you want to twist yourself into a knot and argue that posting hate speech from a neo-Nazi website dedicated to destroying jewish people needs to be allowed but calling someone who posts that hate speech a racist needs to be censored.

What argument? Let's start at the beginning.

My first contention is that it's a matter of personal opinion if the phrase "you're a r-word" is a personal attack in all contexts.

Do you feel this part of my argument is "as facile as it is infantile"?

I mean, **** bro, you're also welcome to just vote with your feet. Surely there's another forum out there that more closely matches your ideals. You're welcome to leave us in our infantile censored space and find one more enlightening.

This seems like a good forum for discussing the different liberal (and other) approaches to free speech etc - leaving makes no sense just because some particular view holds sway.

Would really like to finish the delineation of racial street-walking tendencies. As I recall, we had:

Blacks - always walking in the streets
Whites - don't walk in the street

What about American Indian and Alaska Natives? Or Filipinos? Lets fill out the matrix and maybe we can start to connect some dots.

Duffee literally was the guy I was referencing who was REALLY UP for having an intellectual discussion on Africans having IQs below 85. He got banned for linking to ****ing The Daily Stormer.

See, this is the **** that gives it away. Being all "hey you're shutting down productive discussions" and "dissenting views are being censored" in the abstract sounds reasonable right up until the first ****ing example you give is an out and proud white supremacist. Prior to being banned duffee argued strenuously that black poverty was the result of poor black decision making, not racism, and that there was no racism is law enforcement. You and chezlaw may want to engage in a "productive discussion" by learning more about those very interesting ideas and like, agreeing with that ****, but the rest of us are under no obligation to humor that garbage.

So, yeah, I appreciate you conceding the point, FoldN. Now go back to SMP

Yeah, all FoldnDark needs to do is wrap his head around the concept that context matters. Like, perhaps in the context of the slice of IRL MO he frequents, the phrase "you're a r-word" is always a personal insult... but here in the context of posting anonymously on 2+2 the phrase "you're a r-word" isn't always a personal insult. You know, like spouting "Jesus F***ing Christ" might not be considered rude at most bars, but probably is in a quite a few churches.

But... if the concept of context is over his head... then sure, maybe the interwebs forum down the URL block might be more suited to his taste.

Banning links to thedailystormer is censorship according to FoldN.

I think the discussion hits a little too close to home for many of them. Criticism is tough to take whether you're a racist, anti-racist, free speech advocate, beekeeper, all of the above. Anyway, I've made most of my points on the expanding prevalence of safe space culture outside of a few college basements, and the harm I believe it is to the very causes it seeks to protect. I've posted enough supporting links to fill a very large bookshelf. At this point, I clearly think most people who disagree on the basic premises are ...demonstrating cognative dissonance at a very large scale.

It's been an interesting, if harrowing discussion, and I've learned a lot, particularly about the value of freedom of speech. I think it's time to shift focus for awhile.

I have aquired the transcripts of these podcasts, with assurances from the host they will be posting them online from now on. Soon I'll open a thread on free speech with the aim to discuss its value in society, particularly in combating the ills of racism, sexism, homophobia, and more, and I'll be citing from the podcasts many of the opinions from well regarded scholars and civil rights advocates like Jonathan Rauch, Glenn Greenwald, David Baugh, and many others. I hope you and others with a thirst for continued knowledge will find it interesting.

Lol, it clearly is by every definition of the word. And what's particularly egregious is that Duffee just did a google search and linked stats from the site, claiming he did not notice it was on the blacklist (is there one btw?), and the stats themselves were in no way even challenged! I think they were originally pulled from DOJ or something, so they were very likely accurate. You have just shown why it's wrong to constantly attack the arguer, rather than the argument.

Yet calling thedailystormer a hate site or criticizing posters who post the Neo-Nazi ideas espoused on there somehow needs to be stopped by the mods and, uh, the mods stopping that clearly isn't censorship somehow Again, you might want to PM Mat about that policy as its his decision, not Wookie's. Or start FoldNrapist.com and allow all the links to Neo-Nazi sites that your heart desires rather than trying to force twoplustwo to host hate speech on their commercial website.

Amazing stuff FoldN. Glad you've turned to providing us all with a laugh rather than your usual past times of raping and drunk driving.

Dude, I'm trying to have an actual 'intellectual' discussion with you regarding the use of the r-word. Isn't that what you are always claiming you wanna have? Why are you running away?

Further, I think it's despicable that you spewed out the calumny about our mods here in Alta Politards deliberately and maliciously abusing the no "name calling" rule to target certain viewpoints, as part of some misguided conspiracy to suppress free speech in order to fight racism... and you are now running away with your tail between your legs.

Keep running... go back to SMP !!!1!

It's not really plausible that context is a concept that is over anybody's head. more likely there's a different view of what follows from the context.

I don't think anonymity has an impact on whether calling someone a racist is a personal attack or not. It changes whether or not personal attacks are acceptable - the way we acceptably behave in PU might be very unacceptably dangerous in the PUB context.

Lol, if this were a public forum, that rule as enforced would be struck down as an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech so fast your head would spin. No judge would agree that a personal attack could be defined so ambiguously.

Looking forward to your thread FoldN! I will personally be adding posts into your thread that I believe are racist and will be calling them racist and the people who posted them racist as I exercise my free speech!

There's a rather famous court case in which a Supreme Court justice held that he could probably never give an adequate or complete definition of hardcore pornography, but that he knew it when he saw it. Later decisions still left the basic subjectivity of obscenity laws untouched.

I'm not sure you can make a convincing argument that no judge would ever allow an ambiguous definition in the context of evaluating free speech rights.

Well, I think it has a lot to do with it. But great, here we are having an 'intellectual' conversation regarding the r-word. From here, we could share our reasons while we feel anonymity is relevant, or not. Rinse & repeat... that's how 'intellectual' conversations tend to go.

This is the exact conversation I'd like to coax FoldnDark into participating in. So far, he's dismissed the entire discussion out-of-hand as being "as facile as it is infantile". Then he announced he was "moving on". I think it's fair at this point to question if FoldnDark is really truly interested in having these kinda 'intellectual' discussions at all.

You just called them racist, why are you attacking them? If a racist wants to call me a non-racist they are welcome to.

I like that you're going with my fantasy of litigation. Continuing with your line of reasoning, every single judge would take look at just a number of the posts in here and, like with hardcore pornography, know a personal attack when he saw it. Understanding that racism, sexism, etc., are a matter of viewpoint, there is absolutely no way a judge would allow a rule like "attack the arguer, not the argument" be interpreted in a way that allows such attacks, but not others like "you're an idiot" based the rule of viewpoint neutrality, and he would find this site has infringed on the first amendment rights of it's members. Open and shut, says I, the faux ACLU attorney

LOL no. This isn't a public forum, and every single "time & place" restriction on the 1st A is completely ambiguous. Do you imagine you can yell "Irefay !!!1!" in the theatre.

But back here in reality, you're doing that whole begging the question thingee again. Your issue isn't with enforcement of the rule, your issue is with interpretation of the rule.

What's going on isn't this: that the rule has been interpreted as "you're a r-word" is always considered a personal attack, and then the mods are capriciously and maliciously mis-enforcing that rule interpretation to squelch certain viewpoints... as part of some absurd conspirtardical nonsense.

That's all calumny, and you should be ashamed of yourself for spreading it.

I'm not convinced that you know the difference between an assertion and an argument. The above contains assertions ("every single judge would...", "there is absolutely no way...", "racism is a matter of viewpoint..."), but no supporting arguments. On the other hand, my argument was that you were wrong to declare that no judge would allow an ambiguous standard because judges already allow ambiguous standards.

You're also begging the question by referring to use of the term "racist" as an attack. That is the entire question the judge would be deciding!

Ok and I'm not dogmatic about my view at all as it hasn't come up much so let's talk. Do we differ on either of the points I raised:

1) the issue of the truth of the name calling is the same in either case
and
2) the potential for escalation into violence is about the consequences of a perceived personal attack not whether it is a personal attack or not.

or something else?

Sigh, I'm pointing out that racist, sexist, idiot, fatass, homophobe, jerk, and all sorts of words are clearly up for interpretation by everyone, and there is no way a judge would uphold a rule that allows for censoring speech based on a government's (or moderator's) interpretation of how those words were "intended" in such an ambiguous manner. It's too arbitrary, ripe for abuse from a tyrannical government, and precisely what the First Amendment was written for. Like, it still blows my mind for instance that Wookie can claim many of the personal attacks by fly and others in here are not intended to be attacks! I don't even think fly would deny it to be honest.

I'd really like to coax FoldnDark into this conversation too. What say you FoldnDark ???/?