Open Thread and Link Farm, What Your Gender Studies Professor Told You Edition
- Trump’s Awful Afghanistan Speech | The American Conservative
It’s important to remember that many of Trump’s reality-denying beliefs – such as his conviction there was any legal or pragmatic way to remain in Iraq in 2011 – are completely mainstream, ordinary views among Republicans at every level.
- Texas’ congressional delegation famously voted against aiding the Northeast after Hurricane Sandy – and those same folks are now asking for help. And they’ll get it (as they should). But it’s hard not to feel like this is representative of a larger problem – conservative states demand aid when they’re in trouble, but don’t lift a finger to help the rest of us. (And by the way, Cruz’s “the Sandy bill was two-thirds pork” claim is total bullshit.)
- Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world | World news | The Guardian
- A (Cis) Man Spied on Women in Target; A Christian Group is Blaming Trans People – Friendly Atheist
- The truth about “political correctness” is that it doesn’t actually exist – Vox
This article is a couple of years old, but I was reminded of it on Twitter, and I think it holds up well.
- Really fascinating article, by an college professor who emigrated from Iran, about the friendship she struck up with an Iranian hacker who stole her Instagram account.
- Arizona Unconstitutionally Banned Mexican-American Studies Classes, Judge Rules | HuffPost
But only the left is attacking free speech on campus.
- Psychedelic drugs ‘as safe as riding a bike or playing soccer’ and could help solve addiction | The Independent
- Forbidden love: The WW2 letters between two men – BBC News
This line is so on the nose that if it were in fiction editors would object: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.”
- Federal Judge Clears the Way For Uber and Lyft Drivers to Unionize – Slog – The Stranger
- Interesting twitter thread on who is considered “fat” withing the fat-positive community.
- Scott Adams’s Nihilistic Defense of Donald Trump
Highlights of a conversation between Sam Harris and Scott Adams.
- Lessons from camels
A ten-day camel trek through the South Australian outback. With your parents.
- Trump Supporters Think White Christians Are The Primary Victims Of Discrimination In America – Public Policy Polling
Also, “Trump voters say they would rather have Jefferson Davis as President than Barack Obama 45/20.”
- Charlottesville Was a Preview of the Future of the Republican Party
“This is the state of the GOP leadership pipeline. In a decade, state legislatures will start filling up with Gamergaters, MRAs, /pol/ posters, Anime Nazis, and Proud Boys.”
- UK Government’s attempt to deport Afghan asylum seeker fails after pilot refuses to take off | The Independent
Activists spoke to other passengers on the plane, who spoke to the crew, who passed their concerns on to the pilot.
- These Women Entrepreneurs Created A Fake Male Cofounder To Dodge Startup Sexism
- “Being transgender is a mental illness”: What does the DSM really say? | Gender Analysis
- If you’re looking for a smart light comedy to watch, I recommend Submissions Only, a made-for-the-web sitcom about auditioning for Broadway shows, starring, written and co-directed by Kate Wetherhead, an actress I’d previously only known from the Legally Blonde musical. I think that even people who aren’t nerds for musicals could enjoy this show (although if you are such a nerd, you’ll have fun spotting all the well-known Broadway faces doing cameos).
- Democrats’ 2018 gerrymandering problem is really bad – Vox
“A leading forecast says they’ll get 54% of the votes — and only 47% of the seats.”
- Houston isn’t flooded because of its land use planning.
- Hitting Harmony
“I am now twenty-three and all I can think about is how that’s the same age Harmony Korine was when I wrote E-N-V-Y on my fist and socked him in the head.” What a bizarre person. Thanks to Ben L. for the link.
- “If you reflexively oppose antifa today, you probably would have opposed the lunch counter sit-ins in 1960.”
I was skeptical when I read this tweet – but persuaded by the time I had read the entire thread. The thread is by Angus Johnson, who I think is a CUNY professor.
- 72 Women. 1250 Miles. No GPS.
“I competed in America’s first all-female endurance road rally. I’d never even changed a tire.”
- Climate change did not “cause” Harvey, but it’s a huge part of the story – Vox
“‘Adaptation’ will mean figuring out who has to leave, who has to pay for resettlement, and who bears the cost of the abandoned city’s infrastructure as it rots, crumbles, and pollutes.”
- Federal Judge Blocks Alabama Law That Put Minors Seeking Abortion on Trial – Ms. Magazine Blog
- Profile of Danny Rubin, the writer of “Groundhog Day” (both the movie and the musical).
Very frustrating that he wrote a bunch of screenplays which were turned down for playing with formal elements rather than using standard structure. That’s exactly what makes Groundhog Day great!
- North Carolina Passes An Entirely Misguided Restore Campus Free Speech Act | Techdirt
“The proponents of this law will want to say that this refers to students rioting, or accosting would-be invited speakers, but there are already laws on the books to prosecute those crimes. Instead, this law seeks to punish students that attempt to shut down speaking engagements via peaceful protest, which is a form of speech.”
- STUDY: How ‘Status Offenses’ Push Students of Color, Queer Kids Into Criminal Justice System | Colorlines
- The First Amendment (Literally) Banned in DC | American Civil Liberties Union
- Sentencing Law and Policy: Should and will SCOTUS take up constitutional challenge to Minnesota’s sex offender confinement program?
Yes, they definitely should. “The core of the case is that the state set up what it said was going to be a civil commitment program. And the core definition of that is people get out, and that’s exactly what is missing in the Minnesota program. It’s not just missing here or there, it’s systemically missing.”
- Titleist Tees Up Lawsuit Against Parody Clothier Because Golf Doesn’t Have A Sense Of Humor | Techdirt
We should see cases like this as free speech issues.
- The Disabled Life is a comic strip by and about “two Canadian sisters documenting the jerks and perks of living #TheDisabledLife.” I’ve been enjoying their archives today.
- Noah Scalin’s Portraits Made from Piles of Clothes | Hi-Fructose Magazine
- Violent no-platforming of Milo and Charles Murray raised both their profiles.
I feel like I did a cartoon about this.
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How can you support #23 and #35 at the same time? They’re diametrically opposed.
I think the difference between the lunch counter sit ins and the antifa protests is that the lunch counter protests had a well defined goal- to end an official segregation policy. The antifa protestors want to suppress fascist speech. But who decides what constitutes “fascist”? Does a protest against the SPLC’s Hate List count? Does an anti-feminist protest count? Does a celebration of Ronald Reagan’s birthday count? Basically, the difference is that the lunch counter protestors wanted to end an official policy while the antifa protestors were saying “We have the right to suppress any speech we deem hateful- just trust us, we won’t abuse it”.
I honestly don’t see the conflict. Did you read all of #23?
OK, I see, he makes it clear further down that he’s ambivalent about antifa. Still, his “sometimes it’s necessary to use violence first” attitude is troubling.
Not by land use planning but more and larger storm canals would certainly help.
Darnit, Amp, I haven’t finished reading the last set of links yet! :)
I thought some of the regulars here might enjoy this video on masculinity and the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
The picture at the top of this article is the first thing I thought of when reading that meme at the bottom.
Re #28:
Using noise makers, shouting down speakers and physically blocking people from attending could be described as “speech”, however it’s “speech” in the same way that breaking into someones house and flashing your junk is “speech”. The fact that an act might be expressive, doesn’t mean that it’s something that ought to be legally protected.
There are many ways to express disagreement with an event. Many of those should be protected, including some which are unavoidable to those attending the event. However, going as far as to shutdown an event is not something that’s required further the expression of your own ideas. It’s an act that focuses on preventing the expression of others’ ideas. That to me seems a perfectly reasonable thing to make rules and impose punishments to prevent. Doing so would seem to be a good way to protect minority viewpoints and groups from the tyranny of the majority.
Desipis – Yes, the meme is a reference to that photo – or, rather, to Matt Walsh’s very bad take on that photo.
Regarding #28, it’s interesting that you limit your discussion to acts that “shutdown an event” and prevent “the expression of others’ ideas.” But neither the model legislation that conservatives are pushing in many states, nor the North Carolina version (which is, thankfully, watered down from the model legislation) are limited in that way.
From the model legislation:
“Infringing” could mean a wide range of things; it’s certainly not inherently limited to acts that shut down others’ speech.
How can something that odd hold up at all? I can just imagine the whole set of articles: “The Truth about [my opponent’s favorite claim] is that it doesn’t actually exist.” Surprise–all those discussions you’ve been having on the left about mansplaining, cultural appropriation, microaggressions, and so on are moot, because those things don’t exist! The same applies to reverse racism, anchor babies, and whatever the right likes to talk about.
The best thing which could possibly be said for that sort of argument is that s more rapidly returns everyone to go outside and play.
She thinks that the PC label is selectively applied to speech which the labelers don’t like. That’s true, of course, as it is for almost all such labels. And so, she claims, the term is meaningless: she dismisses all PC allegations en masse by saying “they don’t exist.”
But she would never accept Chait’s dismissal of claims which she likes; in fact, the whole premise of the article is an attempt to dismiss one set of claims and to protect another set of claims. As advocacy articles go, it’s horribly bad.
Can you describe things which you are concerned that would be covered by “infringing” that you thing should be permissible?
Laughing at a speaker could be consider “infringing,” since some powerful conservatives apparently believe it’s worth sending someone to prison over.
Persistent but not continuous booing and hissing.
Non-continuous heckling – for instance, a student loudly yelling “torturer” at a John Yoo speech.
Yelling an angry disagreement with a professor in a public square – something that some conservatives have called on a Yale student to be expelled for.
An organized silent protest in which students stand up en masse and leave during the speech.
Students standing with protest signs at the back of the hall, especially if the speaker quits halfway through the speech, saying the protests ruined his ability to focus on his speech.
A protest outside the building that forces some audience members to use a different entrance than the one they’d prefer (perhaps causing some to just leave rather than going in to hear the speech).
A petition saying that a different commencement speaker should be chosen.
Etc, etc.
Kate on RJN’s thread (posting here since it’s getting off topic):
I agree that we should be alarmed by the Nazi flag waving, Nazi slogan chanting, violent group in Charlottesville. However, I think we should also be alarmed by the Communist flag waving, Communist slogan chanting, violent groups that have been appearing across the US (and elsewhere). We shouldn’t be focusing so much on one of these groups that we ignore the threat of the other.
The latest Joe Rogan podcast has both Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein on it. They discuss (among many things) the physiological foundations of white nationalism. I found the whole 3-ish hours of it interesting and thought provoking.
I’m not sure what “Communist” groups or incidents you’re referring to. I’ve asked before, and I’ll ask again – do you have any stats to back up your view that these are parallel threats. Because, I’ve been looking and everything I can find suggests otherwise. For at least the past 25 years, right wing violence has been far, far more deadly than left wing violence in the U.S.. I have linked to those statistics many many times. But, here is the report from the Anti-Defamation League again, which sets the violence of 2016 in historical context. Here is the GAO report on combatting violent extremism, which also does not see left wing violence as a comparable threat.
There are violent elements on the left, but they are bunch of isolated groups – anarchists, anti-Israel, radical animal rights activists, radical environmentalists, and Black Nationalists stand out. Moreover, they have contradictory goals and underlying principles which make unification unlikley. In contrast, right wing groups are uniting around the cause of white nationalism.
Finally, the left wing fringe really is fringe. That is no longer true of the alt-right. With the election of Donald Trump, appointment of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, figures like Miller and Clark in the White House, the alt-right feels supported by the U.S. Government. The left wing fringe has no comparable support coming from Democratic politicians.
The recent pardoning of Joe Arpaio is an escallation. With the pardon, Trump has essentially told law enforcement that they can harrass U.S. citizens and hold them without cause in inhumane conditions with impunity. Trump will have their back. If Trump is on the side of white nationalists, who want a white America, the expansion of Arpaio’s policies would be the way to start ethnic cleansing. I hope that he doesn’t want that. But, his alt-right followers, who do want that, seem enthusiastic. There is no comparable threat from Communists, or any other leftists, in the U.S. government. There is no comparable enthusiam for democrats from the left-wing fringe (nor was there under the Obama adminstration).
When I was a depressed teen – and I can’t remember whether this was before or after I dropped out of college – my family thought that my problem was that I was gay. Which I wasn’t and still am not. So, this week, my mom calls and tells me about a weird dream she had. She didn’t say it, but it was clear that in the dream I was gay and not willing to come out. I think it’s just so weird that 3o plus years and two marriages later, my family still – at least subconsciously – suspects I’m gay.
My family was the same. It’s probably because you, like me, were fairly cynical and standoffish about romantic relationships as a teenager. (IIRC, in fact, snarking from the sidelines about our other friends’ fucked up versions of “romance” was one of the things that cemented our friendship)
I was terribly oblivious to others’ assumptions back then. It was only when I paid a visit to my old high school teachers after leaving for college that I realized that every last one of them “knew” that Valerie and I were lovers. And then, all of a sudden, so many vaguely mystifying interactions–which I now recognize as kindly and sincere efforts at support–finally made sense to me.
…and a candidate for AG in Alabama is encouraging anti-abortion activists to get violent. http://www.alreporter.com/2017/08/30/ag-candidate-sam-mclure-addresses-constitution-party/
Once when I was a teenager, my mom told me she was glad I’d turned out straight (because life was much harder as a queer person–though I think it was also her being uncomfortable with unfamiliar things). When I asked why that was in question, she said it was because I always played at having kids, but never a husband. Lots to unpack there, lol.
And of course this is especially funny because I’m bisexual…
Kate:
There’s no need to put Communist in scare quotes. There are groups waving the red hammer and sickle flag at Berkley, at Portland, at Charlottesville. Wherever antifa go, there are communist flags. When you talk to these people they justify violence against innocent people as part of “the revolution”. These are people across the country that openly and brazenly support a murderous and inhumane ideology that is responsible for killing tens of millions of people and oppressing far more into a brutal misery.
While the leftist media has decided to make these people “heroes”, the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence”, and noted that antifa were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets. Do you support these terrorists?
Sure, but the issue is the very sharp escalation on the left in the last year or two. What was going on a decade ago isn’t directly relevant to assessing the circumstances now. I think extremists on both sides are a serious issue.
However, if you want to get into an argument about “which side is worse”, as pointless as that would be, let me ask you some questions.
Is there a country out there at the moment founded on Nazism? Is there a Nazi founded country exerting increasing economic and political influence over the world? Is there a Nazi founded country being increasingly assertive with its military, threatening international trade? Is there a Nazi founded country using its vast wealth to spread it’s influence and ideology across the globe, including into western countries such as the US? Is there a Nazi founded country oppressing racial minorities and disappearing democracy advocates? Is there a Nazi country with a puppet state, also founded on the same ideology, run by a leader who makes Trump look like a great wise man, a puppet state that has very recently demonstrated it’s ICBM and H-bomb capabilities?
Because there is a Communist one.
To be fair, those were some truly fucked up versions of romance. And, perhaps, our snark wasn’t nearly loud enough. Then I had my own 10 year fucked up version of romance. I guess I should have practiced more before I tried it out.
“Is there a country out there at the moment founded on Nazism”?
Is there a country out there founded on an ideology that Antifa would support? Because let me tell you now, I am not necessarily a fan of Antifa, but the similarities between their ideology and the state ideology of countries like China, Vietnam and Cuba is pretty much nil. Most self-proclaimed communist parties explicitly abandoned the international struggle for worker’s rights in the 80s.
And there’s certainly no substantive material or financial connection between these governments and Antifa.
So, Desipis, you’ve got one picture of a communist flag, an interview with a kid who talks about revolution in a non-specific way and an article that identifies Antifa as essentially anarchist street gangs. That’s not data, its a string of anecdotes about left wing violence, two of which don’t support your thesis about communisim.
The uptick in deaths from left-wing extremism in the past two years is attributable to two attacks on police officers by Black Nationalists in Dallas and Batton Rouge in 2016 (see my link to the ADL report @13). Those attacks were horrible and have been roundly condemned by almost everyone.
The violence descibed between the alt-right and antifa would just be violence between two street gangs, if the alt-right weren’t being supported by people in the White House. But they are. That’s what makes it different.
As for global communism, Ortvin handled that well @20.
Trump just turned DACA into a ticking time bomb for 800,000 immigrants – Vox
Not unexpected, but still horrible. What do people think the odds are that a Republican-controlled congress puts in a fix, allowing people who have been in the US since childhood to have a legal place in the US, within six months?
I would put the odds at infinity to one, Amp.
Well, the Dems had full control of Congress for four years, and they even had a Democratic president for two of those years. If they didn’t do it, then I think the chances of the Republicans doing so are not so great.
Then again, who knows? Trump properly has put the burden on Congress: it’s their job to resolve it, not his. The process was never supposed to substitute executive power for congress.
But we don’t know how they will rule. After all it’s obviously convenient for all politicians to duck as many issues as they possibly can. That makes it very difficult to predict what they will do when push comes to shove.
I don’t. If antifa activists were actually worried about impending ethnic cleansing in the U.S., they’d be following around ICE agents with cameras, and trying to document conditions in detention facilities, not picking fights with a bunch of loser alt-right keyboard warriors.
If I recall correctly, the Dems passed it through the House and voted 55/45 for it in the Senate – a majority, but not enough to overcome the Republican filibuster. (There were about five months when Democrats had 60 votes, or three months discounting the summer break and the time when Kennedy was too sick to come in; that was when the ACA was being passed, and there wouldn’t have been time for another controversial bill at the same time).
Clean legislation providing a way for Dreamers to legally remain in the US, on the other hand, would easily pick up Democratic support in the Senate, so the filibuster wouldn’t be a barrier. If Republicans wanted to pass Dream Act style legislation, they’d have no problem.
ETA: It was 55 to 41. Mostly a party-line vote, with 5 Dems and 3 Republicans not voting party line.
Don’t be ridiculous. Congress has a ton of time, the fact they they waste most of it is besides the point. “We wanted to but were too busy” is silly.
You’re completely wrong about this – there actually isn’t time to pass everything in a three-month period, ESPECIALLY when one party is trying to make things go slow, and very controversial bills take up a lot more time and energy than routine business. (This is really Congress 101 stuff, and it’s hard to believe you don’t know it.)
The Democrats passed The Dream Act through the house and fifty of them voted for it in the Senate – even though this was a bill that many of them expected to lose votes over. The “well, obviously they didn’t WANT to pass it” case is not credible.
Uh … yeah. McConnell is famous for this.
Throughout the Obama Administration, McConnell routinely called cloture motions–that is, requesting proof that at least 60 Senators were willing to proceed to a vote. This maneuver requires that at least one business day pass before the cloture vote can occur. So if McConnell calls the cloture motion on Monday, the actual vote on the motion can’t occur until Wednesday. And THEN the Senate proceeds to have 30 hours of debate on the topic, meaning the actual vote on the merits couldn’t occur until Thursday.
And then the Republicans would often happily vote in favor of whatever it was. The point wasn’t to stop the bill/appointee/whatever; the point was to eat up the clock.
Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute and author of The End of White Christian America (emphasis added).
So what? The very controversial bills part is not imposed by a third party. It is imposed by the folks on various sides.
Are you insistent that you must drive the opposing party to the boundary of their acceptability window, thereby maximizing your benefit and minimizing their benefits? That takes a lot of time.
Are you willing to pare down your plan to the minimal bare bones? Will you rapidly cede many of your preferred options; will you accept anything which is “better than nothing”; will you agree to the things your opponents want (stricter immigration enforcement, for example)? That takes much less time.
IOW, it depends where you fall between “get some formal resolution for these folks, whatever it is” and “get a resolution which I like.”
A fascinating paper with a large longitudinal study of people w/r/t discrimination and some very detailed data. Unfortunately the writing is almost a textbook example of how to present things poorly, so LOOK AT THE DATA or the conclusions will mislead you.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0183356&type=printable
For example, when analyzing “Reason given by respondents for discrimination” the paper says
That is functionally meaningless since the demographics are a vague match for the population, which is to say they’re mostly white. And whites don’t generally suffer discrimination based on race: if you have a mostly-white sample who is mostly choosing “other” that doesn’t really tell you a ton about the other populations. Whereas if you look at the POC who are sampled (see Table 3 on page 5) then unsurprisingly, “race/ancestry” is the top reason for it.
Anyway: It’s an interesting read, mostly for the data tables.
I think you’re misreading the table. For example, 25% of black people report “race/ancestry/skin color” as the reason for the discrimination, whereas 48% of black people report “other” as the reason.
Sen. McCain’s call for “regular order” is relevant here. The short version of regular order is:
Bill introduced -> Ways and Means Committee assigns to appropriate Committee -> Committee assigns to Subcommittee -> Subcommittee holds hearings, marks up bill with adds/deletes/changes, refers up to full Committee -> Full Committee debates, marks up bill, sends to full house (i.e., House or Senate) -> house debates, may still make changes, votes up/down on bill -> Presuming voted up, bill sent to other Congressional House -> Whole damn process starts over again -> -> -> -> if other house votes bill up it has probably changed from what they were sent, so goes to Reconciliation committee made up of members of both houses of Congress -> they create compromise bill spending half their time debating it in committee and half their time talking to members of their house and caucus to figure out what compromise will be acceptable -> send bill to originating house for up/down vote -> presuming up, send bill to other house for vote.
Yeah, that takes some time. And I’ve probably left stuff out. Add in meetings with constituents, lobbyists, etc., flights back home to see constituents/lobbyists/spouse/kids and it takes a lot more time than people would think.
Amp:
I’m all for giving illegal aliens who were brought into the U.S. as minors a path to citizenship once they meet to-be-determined but reasonably attainable conditions. But the reason we have them is in large part due to inadequate border security. Making provisions to provide a workaround for a problem without doing something about what caused the problem is unacceptable.
Unless, of course, you don’t see the presence of illegal aliens in general and minor illegal aliens in particular in the U.S. as a problem, or as a problem that is properly solved by opening the borders with no or absolutely minimal security. Which seems to be the position of a vocal part of the left.
Shit, you’re right; I did. Oops. And thx. ;)
RonF:
It depends on your definition of “in large part”, I guess. You’re pretty low on details here, so perhaps you know all this, but: most measurements these days say more than half of new undocumented immigrants overstay their legal visas, instead of crossing the border illegally, though the numbers are comparable in scale. Also, the number of undocumented immigrants in the US is not increasing: since the economic crash there’s been such a large movement of people back to Mexico that it offsets the slightly increased rate of people coming in from the rest of Central America. We’re down more than 10% from the peak number of undocumented immigrants in the US in 2007 (more than can be accounted for by deportations).
Border security is a hard problem. If you haven’t watched John Oliver on the border patrol, I’d recommend it: one of his pieces where I learned a lot.
When it comes to “stuff we should do with our resources,” I think “increasing the amount of time, money, and personnel we use to keep out or deport undocumented immigrants” has an incredibly low RoI. And tying bad policy to the safety and security of young people who’ve lived here most of their lives strikes me as a very bad tradeoff.
A reminder: Please do not use the phrase “illegal alien” here on “Alas.”
Most obviously those are not the same folks. People who are able to obtain legal entry are at least a semi-selected class, and although they are breaking the law by overstaying they at least had permission to enter in the first place. In civil housing laws there’s a distinction between a trespasser and an unwanted holdover tenant: both are a problem but the trespasser is much more of a problem.
Are you considering the unseen ROI to everyone else?
The RIO does not only accrue to people who want fewer immigrants overall. It also accrues to the other potential immigrants who don’t break the law by sneaking in or overstaying. And it also accrues to the people who are OK with more immigrants, but who are not OK with giving up the ability to choose.
Even if we admit a ton of legal immigrants, we will always filter applicants. And when it comes to helping folks out, I would probably admit way more folks from Africa and Asia and way fewer from Mexico. But people keep sneaking over the southern border, and people keep overstaying their visas. So the presence of those folks makes it less appealing to admit other people. Conversely, if you could stop the sneaking and overstaying, then you would have more room for those folks.
Sneaking in or overstaying is the immigration equivalent of stealing charitable funds to give to your favorite charity. Sure, the money got used for good purposes, but not necessarily the purposes of the person who gave the money. And the theft messes up the whole distribution plan, so otherwise-good charities get stiffed.
This is the real choice. If we didn’t have so many people overstaying visas it would be easier to get a visa. When you oppose deportation for overstaying, you are also passing the buck to the hopefuls in line, and saying “sorry, folks.” It’s not a more moral decision, it doesn’t enhance the overall people helped; it mostly helps the person in front of you at the expense of the other guys.
@gin-and-whiskey:
The problem is that the label is applied with so little selectivity that it’s become entirely meaningless, and is hardly limited to speech any longer. The President of the United States was elected after pointing to the military not committing war crimes as an example of “political correctness”, so the term has been entirely debased in the years since that article was written, and it was pretty much garbage then.
Dr. Jerry Pournelle has passed. He was a giant of SF and a respected intellectual. I had the privilege of meeting him once and arranging for him to speak as a presentation sponsored by an ASTM subcommittee I was a member of. The issue was how one might establish standards for personal computers – this was quite some time ago. Sad to see him go.
I see where the Portland police arrested some fascists yesterday.
Your definition of fascist, Ron, seems taken directly from The Young Ones
Did anyone catch the RadioLab story on “the first female gondolier in Venice“?
Briefly, Alex works as a gondolier—basically, a water-based chauffer, paddling people around the canals of Venice. But Alex didn’t want to attract any great attention to this activity because, among other reasons, Alex didn’t have an official gondolier’s license. Yet a journalist got ahold of the story, and in 2007 the story went world-wide: Venice’s first female gondolier in 923 years!
When the authorities tried to shut down Alex’s business, Alex got dragged into various legal proceedings and eventually landed at the Italian Supreme Court—which upheld Alex’s right to work as a gondolier. What a great triumph against sexism!
Yet there was other reasons Alex didn’t especially want the attention: [SPOILER! SPOILER!] Alex identifies as male. But the Alex Triumphs Over Sexism story had taken on a life of its own.
But hey, the story was good for business, so why not? So Alex put up a web page advertising the services of the first female gondolier in Venice.
Still, this public role would eat at Alex. So now, after all these years, Alex has publicly declared his identity as male.
A complex story—including an explicit discussion about which pronouns to use when referring to Alex at various points in the story.
That made zero sense to me, Jake. But when people dress up in black, wear masks, carry weapons, go out with in public, assault peaceful protesters and assault the police trying to protect them I figure “fascist” is reasonably close to the mark.
Fascism is a political ideology that has little to do with what those people were doing. If you’re going to reach for a loaded word, I suggest “terrorist” is more appropriate for people using violence and intimidation to try to get their political way. Admittedly, it’s fairly low grade form of terrorism by contemporary standards, but nonetheless still terrorism.
Yeah. That’s not what fascism is, thus the link to The Young Ones. Your definition of fascism is just as on the mark as that character’s definition.
Words have meaning and, if you’re going to use a word, it behooves you to know that meaning. Especially when multiple people tell you repeatedly that you are misusing a term. We’re not even asking you to google it – which I know seems too taxing for you. You’ve actually been given the definition in responses to your continued misuse of “fascist” over the last month plus. This is getting tired.
Let me help you out on this one last time:
Fascism
When people kill millions in death camps, even that is not necessarily fascist. Stalin did that. He was a totalitarian communist, not a fascist. That does not minimize the crimes of Stalin. It just accurately describes his ideology.
“Stalin did that. He was a totalitarian communist, not a fascist.”
Remember, to many conservatives, Hitler and Stalin are ideological twins who just had an intercinine split, and ‘communist’ and ‘fascist’ are two different words for the same (leftist) ideology.
To these people it’s conservatism, not socialism or communism, which is the ideological polarity of fascism.
Yes. Basically, my point it is that is both very difficult and very expensive to (humanely) reduce the numbers of unauthorized immigrants in the US, and that’s true regardless of why you’d want such people gone.
I think this is wrong for two reasons.
1. Philosophically, the number of immigrants we admit into the US is not some externally-imposed or natural limit. We can change it. (We probably shouldn’t change it by a factor of, say, 10, because that’s big enough we can’t predict what will happen–but we can certainly increase it some.) There is little political will to do this, of course, but the largest resistance is coming from the same people who are most opposed to the presence of undocumented immigrants in the first place: if they really wanted to admit people further down the visa queue, there’s nobody stopping them.
2. Practically speaking, as I mentioned on the other thread, do you think if we managed to deport all undocumented immigrants that we would replace those undocumented immigrants with anywhere near the same number of immigrants on legal visas, given our current political makeup?
And, I guess, to walk my previous comments back a little as I’ve thought on it more: sure, we should compromise when we make laws. But removing or preventing undocumented immigrants is hard, and of those options, increased border security seems to me–as someone, admittedly, without a lot of experience in this area–to be one of the hardest to do effectively, as well as one that has the most significant downsides in public perception, both domestically and internationally. That RonF mentioned that specifically, not a general request for improvements in immigration enforcement, was what made me annoyed enough to comment. I do still think, philosophically, that expanding immigration law enforcement beyond current levels is unlikely to benefit us as a country–but as a tradeoff for keeping DREAMers here, that’s a kind of deal I’d be willing to make.
The administration has issued new interim rules for evaluating sexual misconduct complaints:
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/qa-title-ix-201709.pdf
Worth a read.
Harlequin:
A fair criticism. Indeed I would want to see a general improvement in immigration enforcement (e.g., better tracking and deportation of people overstaying student and work visas) as well as border control. I simply overlooked it when writing my original post.
How do you figure?
That presumes that by changing it by a factor of 10 you mean increasing it by a factor of 10, not decreasing it.
A general announcement:
I apologize for the anger that has seeped into some of my recent posts. Without going into details, in the last month I have spent 2 days sitting in hospital waiting rooms while my wife has spent a total of 9 hours on operating tables. The outcomes have been favorable, but both the run-up to them and her recoveries have been difficult, and in one case while she has been able to resume normal activities she has not yet completely recovered and will remain on medication the rest of her life. It’s been stressful, and to a certain extent still is; my health has been affected as well.
I hope everything works out in the best possible manner for both of you, RonF.
Ron, I’m so sorry to hear that. I hope that your wife’s recovery, and your own, both go as well and easily as possible.
Hang in there, RonF. We’re thinking of you.
RonF, I’m so sorry to hear that. May progress continue to be as good as possible.
Thanks for the good thoughts folks. My wife’s progress continues, thank God. She has resumed most normal activities but has not yet returned to work. The issues I have been having have seem to have subsided, although not gone by any means. Stress can do very bad things to you and leave a lasting mark. Last weekend I went on the Troop’s annual climbing trip. I made it up the CCC trail at Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin. I had to stop 4 times on the trail up, but at least I made it.
Commenting will remain light. Sorry for abandoning threads.
I have been a Scout leader for the last 25 years. I just found out last night that last week one of my Pack’s Cub Scouts was riding his bike down the street and noticed smoke coming from the house next door to his. “Recalling his training with [his Cub Scout Pack] [he] knew not to panic. Instead he dashed home and hollered for his father to call 911 because the neighbor’s house was on fire.” The neighbors were sleeping inside. The fire inspector told the Scout’s father that the neighbors would likely have died if the Scout had not done as he did. The Scout was quoted as crediting the Cub Scouts as teaching him to not panic and do what he needed to do. We’re putting him up for a B.S.A. medal.
Nice to know something has come of the last 25 years. In the immortal words of Carl Spackler, “So I’ve got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”
Ron, I’m so happy (and relieved) to hear that your wife’s recovery is proceeding. That’s the best news.
And wow, that’s extraordinary about the cub scout from your pack! Is the cub scout one that you know?
That’s so great. Congratulations on being such a positive influence in his life!
I’m also really hoping for you and your wife. Hugs if you take them from online folks.
I do, Mandolin, and thanks! I can use them. Thanks as well, Amp! No, I did not know the Cub personally, but I expect to get to know him soon as he is Webelos rank and will be crossing over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts in February. I will see him tomorrow night as he is being honored by our Mayor and Trustees. We’re going to get as many Scouts and Scouters as we can there. We’re still working on the B.S.A. recognition.
I appreciate the good thoughts much.