Is Free Speech Under Attack in this Country?
- Thread starter sturg33
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Tapate50
Well-known member
The Chameleon strikes again
I personally fear the societal repercussions of parents on both sides picking and choosing an education track that does nothing to challenge their pre-existing assumptions of the world and instead reinforce them uncritically, but I also hold a fundamentally different view of the liberties of minors. There are parental rights that I agree must be upheld, but I do worry about the harm that can be done to teens based on the views of their parents, be them leftists who might steer them toward gender ideology or conservatives who impose their religion upon them. I don’t have a solution to offer on this front, but these same people I mention as stuck in a dogmatic echo chamber on either side are raising these kids, and I personally question the morality of treating children as an extension of their parents.
I appreciate your willingness to engage fully on this, but you must recognize you state a lot of your views and opinions here as facts in ways that I don’t think are being earned logically by your arguments. If you lead from the premise that my subjective view of reality is objectively wrong because it differs from your own, it’s difficult to fully discuss these issues. I get this is a message board and we don’t need to cite our sources, but you’re making a lot of baseline assumptions on things that should at least be open for debate.
For instance, your claim that Marxists are some monolith that embrace violence and the demonization of others is undercut if you don’t recognize that these are also traits of Fascists. If you simply deny that Fascism even may be on the rise without evidence while insisting without evidence that Marxism is on the rise, you’re no longer debating. You’re simply brow-beating based solely on your own personal experience.
1) And I don’t call everyone to the right of me a Fascist. I should at least be allowed to generalize a little if you’re going to insist on doing so.
2) I think that’s in large part because leaders on the right have done a truly phenomenal job politically. They’ve managed to make the Joe Biden and Chuck Schumers of the world so absolutely toothless and irrelevant that they don’t need to use the same tactics the Dems are using. Let’s not forget so easily that Obama was a secret Muslim sleeper agent ten years ago. When the left was winning the culture war, the rhetoric on the right was different. But now that they’ve built this political advantage, they use it to apply these more aggressive characterizations to overly broad groups. Chuck Schumer doesn’t need to be called a Commie because they recognize nobody gives a single solitary fuck about what Chuck Schumer says or does. Instead, *all immigrants* are invaders committing all the crimes. *All protestors* are paid political operatives undermining America. For me, I see that as just as pervasive and dangerous as the suggestion that the elites within the Republican Party and Trump’s orbit are specifically doing tyranny. If you are so outraged by the shooting in Minnesota that you are willing to consider the forced indefinite imprisonment within an asylum of every trans American, spare me the suggestion that you’re not subject to some radicalization from the media diet you’re being fed. You don’t have to like Donald Trump or the Republican Party or be a stooge to be radicalized. That you’re willing to so freely consider trading such important liberties of an entire population of people over the actions of far less than 1% of that population and the speech of others is radical given your other views on liberty. And quite frankly, I don’t see it as that much less concerning than the mainstream liberal reaction to Kirk’s assassination. The reason I find myself more aligned with you on the left’s response to this event than I have been for things like trans rights and crime is that I find the left’s response here so utterly devoid of empathy that it viscerally enrages me.
But I’ve felt that very outrage when you so utterly disregard the very humanity of entire groups of people that haven’t *actually* ever harmed you. Even with the gender stuff, it wasn’t the actual trans people that ever transgressed you. If you were ever reprimanded over pronouns or someone was forced to shower with a different gender in a school locker room or literally *any* of the structural abuses one could suffer due to gender ideology, it needs to be clearly remembered that the people harming you are statically overwhelmingly (damn near universally) cis-gendered, and statistically probably even white males. If the head decision maker at your company is an owner or CEO answering to a board of directions is not cisgender, please feel free to correct me. Anybody below that level implementing any policies that restrict your personal freedom beyond what’s required by law only draw their ability to do so from the top. Similarly, I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the statistics, but unless you live in one district that elected a trans member of Congress, it’s cis-gendered people restricting your civil liberties. So you’re explicitly blaming the speech of trans people for the actions of non-trans people and declaring that the solution is to punish those trans people.
Now for me, I’m pretty damn good at compartmentalization and I like the challenge of debating something I oppose so violently, it brings me peace to vent my frustrations about the world through novels on a Braves message board in and around tabs of errant Google searches looking at the statistics and other perspectives on the issue at hand and questioning why I believe this. I’ve played some games of devil’s advocate with myself on beliefs on things like trans healthcare that have shook me a bit. But I suspect that’s not an approach that the average leftist keyboard warrior is employing to arrive at some of the views I deeply believe in. Which is why I am so disturbed by the response from the left this week.
You like to invoke suicidal empathy, but I see the primary issue as selective empathy. The term is so pervasive in our politics now, but just like Economics and the response to tariffs, I think a lot of people on both sides have told on themselves that they don’t actually have any idea why they say what they say or even believe what they believe. Just like you cannot make an effective argument about why tariffs are obviously bad while also advocating for significant increases to the minimum wage or high business taxes that insufficiently consider the labor implications, you cannot bemoan the lack of empathy from the right only to turn around and celebrate someone being murdered for their opinions and speech. But on the flip side, I cannot take it seriously when someone goes around saying “fuck your feelings” on topics like Palestinian children dying only to turn around and clutch their pearls when people on the left do not show sufficient empathy toward Charlie Kirk. I still forgive a lot of it as the words of a shocked, angry and sad group of people mourning the loss of someone important to their movement, but there’s still an inherent contradiction present. The mechanism for why someone would not mock a dead person they disagree with is empathy. It’s like the textbook definition of empathy. I care about Charlie Kirk’s death because I hurt for the people that are dealing with pain over his violent murder.
Much like I just mentioned with the fact that trans people aren’t voting on our rights, even if Charlie Kirk had influenced any changes to policy and that policy was so bad that it harmed others in your estimation, Charlie Kirk never took anybody’s rights away. Charlie Kirk never harmed a person. Charlie Kirk used his voice to advocate for policies he supported. No amount of disdain I have for his rhetoric or the influence he or his organization have exerted to those ends can justify his murder. So even to those who might equivocate with that “we’re not laughing but please consider …” shtick to appear reasonable in your unwillingness to condemn and mourn the senseless loss of life, I ask you again to search harder for your empathy.
Um, in summary Donald Trump and his entire administration call half the country evil on a daily basis so it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
(Did you guys know there’s a 10,000 word limit? I’m sitting here typing while listening to music and watching the rain and it’s damn wonderful)
3) I think that’s a problem the left does need to grapple with on some level, but not quite in some of the respects you might. In terms of total political violence, the statistics just don’t suggest that it’s an exclusively leftist issue. I think the commonalities in the people committing this type of violence are less political and more in the profile of the person. Angry and lonely ~20-year-old active online in unmoderated chats on Discord or other social media sites radicalizing each other on whatever social issue they prioritize. This profile has been seen across the political spectrum, and I think it’s part of what’s confounding people about the violence whenever their manifestos turn out to be contradictory or there isn’t a good enough story. Just look at the person who attempted to assassinate Trump. Once all the information came out and there wasn’t a strong enough narrative to link him to some specific movement, conservative grifters instead just use him as a nefarious conspiracy theory about how “we still don’t know anything about him?” as if Kash Patel’s FBI is just sitting on the some successful dark leftist plot. The assumption is that the root cause of the violence is the political rhetoric, rather than some ancillary factor while the shooter is radicalized by more apolitical factors like a bunch of disturbed young men finding camaraderie over their dark thoughts online and forming the worst kind of echo chamber that glorifies violence for the sake of violence.
What the left needs to own up to is that they aren’t offering a positive vision of what they want to do and they are happy to play the part of the resistance, which is itself very toxic. They don’t have anything to say about what they’d do instead of what Trump is doing and instead do embrace fear mongering. It’s one thing I think you guys really underestimate about the success of Mamdani that isn’t nearly as sinister or scary as it’s made out to be. Mamdani isn’t winning because he’s a socialist and socialists have taken over the left. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries wouldn’t be our party leadership nor Joe Biden and Kamala Harris if that were true. It’s because Mamdani is a bright and personable candidate who communicates in a way that feels authentic and mission-oriented. Right now the candidates on the far left of the party are winning Dem voters, not because the country yearns for the fall of capitalism, but because at least they’re offering more than “we will stop Donald Trump” which the more moderate left has abandoned to their own peril. Mamdani’s primary “reasonable” competition in the race are the incumbent corrupt and despised mayor, and the guy who resigned as governor in disgrace just 4 years ago. If Mamdani’s success is a warning sign of anything, it’s the ineptitude of Democratic Party that the only candidates they can conjure up to just connect with voters are all socialists.
What the left needs to own up to is that they aren’t offering a positive vision of what they want to do and they are happy to play the part of the resistance, which is itself very toxic. They don’t have anything to say about what they’d do instead of what Trump is doing and instead do embrace fear mongering. It’s one thing I think you guys really underestimate about the success of Mamdani that isn’t nearly as sinister or scary as it’s made out to be. Mamdani isn’t winning because he’s a socialist and socialists have taken over the left. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries wouldn’t be our party leadership nor Joe Biden and Kamala Harris if that were true. It’s because Mamdani is a bright and personable candidate who communicates in a way that feels authentic and mission-oriented. Right now the candidates on the far left of the party are winning Dem voters, not because the country yearns for the fall of capitalism, but because at least they’re offering more than “we will stop Donald Trump” which the more moderate left has abandoned to their own peril. Mamdani’s primary “reasonable” competition in the race are the incumbent corrupt and despised mayor, and the guy who resigned as governor in disgrace just 4 years ago. If Mamdani’s success is a warning sign of anything, it’s the ineptitude of Democratic Party that the only candidates they can conjure up to just connect with voters are all socialists.
acesfull86
Well-known member
And what if they’re indoctrinating leftist viewpoints without any visibility, but their students still meet the baseline? A not uncommon experience already.
How would you square that view while also believing the federal government must shutter MSNBC? Should every one of these schools be required to install a MAGA government worker in every classroom to ensure no proliferation of leftist propaganda? Or are you actually promoting a pro-market (gasp!) viewpoint?
I’m trying to figure out how one can be for 100% private education and for 100% heavy handed government influenced media…
Oh you can have schools that have indoctrination. Parents then have the easy option to take them out and send them elsewhere. I’ve also been against funding schools that push trans ideology or allow their teachers to do so. So there’s a very governmental action I’m in favor of.
My direction towards “news” orgs is that they are centrally coordinated and controlled by a group intentionally trying to damage the country.
To even liken theee things is amazing.
acesfull86
Well-known member
Or parents would have the easy option to allow them to stay and get indoctrinated.
Parents also have the ability to not turn on MSNBC, btw…
Ah yes the parents of late teens and early 20 year olds are certainly doing that and the kid can’t do anything about it.
But why don’t we just allow centrally coordinated Marxist propaganda to flow through to our country and do nothing about it
You sure do hold a lot of hatred for China for someone who will unflinchingly say shit like this.
acesfull86
Well-known member
Which part can the kids do something about? Because I certainly wasn't allowed to remove myself from one school and enroll in another when I was a kid.
So if a kid is being indoctrinated in leftist ideology in school (or doesn't know any better) and the parents either don't mind, or actively support it (or also don't know any better), what then?
You're really going to tell us you're 100% for that sort of school choice, but 100% against the freedom of choice when it comes to media consumption?
chop2chip
Well-known member
what I don’t understand from my MAGA folks is do y’all not realize the changes you’re begging for is happening organically without government intervention?
People aren’t consuming left wing media anymore.
People are leaving blue cities and these blue cities have in kind have started to crackdown on crime (see San Francisco).
Trans culture has been pushed back to the fringes not from government action but from public outcry (trans sports, treatment for young people, etc.)
There’s plenty more that the government can do within the confines of our existing government to achieve more of your policies goals. Sturg has mentioned a few. Why do we need to burn down the house?
People aren’t consuming left wing media anymore.
People are leaving blue cities and these blue cities have in kind have started to crackdown on crime (see San Francisco).
Trans culture has been pushed back to the fringes not from government action but from public outcry (trans sports, treatment for young people, etc.)
There’s plenty more that the government can do within the confines of our existing government to achieve more of your policies goals. Sturg has mentioned a few. Why do we need to burn down the house?
acesfull86
Well-known member
This. Every crisis, real or imagined, prompts calls for the government to push the "do something" button. We're almost always worse off for it, but the lesson never sticks.
I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if this is actually the very thing that upends the whole movement honestly. There’s no way these policies would play well with the people who were disillusioned with the illiberalism of the left during the past decade.