Left Wing Groups Call For Limitations On Speech

[Moonbeam]

Okay, in how many threads have I either defended Obama (who is mostly diametrically opposed and at best occasionally anemically supportive to any causes I have) or refused to blame him for the latest crisis? I don't do sophistry; I seldom even do nuance. I do agree that there is only one human race. Ichthyologists use the concept of race but recognize that it is a purely human construct useful only for purposes of classification, whereas anthropologists and sociologists typically use the concept of race as though it has some greater meaning. But please notice that in this instance, as with almost any modern issue, it's the left treating race as if it has some precise and scientific meaning rather than the truth, that race is an arbitrary and artificial construct, a grouping of necessarily vague characteristics, in order to excuse some people from compliance with the law. And in this case the left has stretched the concept of race itself far beyond its breaking point for purely political benefit, so that race is now defined as nothing more than a common language group (Spanish or Portuguese) and VERY general area (i.e. the New World below the United States.) In fact the left is stretching race even further, so that both ethnic Mayans or Amerindians in North American Mexico speaking no Old World languages whatsoever and ethnically pure European Argentinians speaking only Spanish are both grouped as Hispanic or Latino. And then, having stretched the very concept of race beyond all recognition, the left has the gall to denounce the right and center as racist if they don't allot special privileges based on this absurd travesty of race. Just goes to show that the left is without any sense of shame.

Wiki says that La Raza refers to the people but that there are critics who say it is racist. You are such a critic. I will assume, for now, that those who invented the term as a statement should know what they mean, not you. Sorry, I am not otherwise interested in this. Just stopped by to point out that La Raza doesn't mean the race to the folk who say it doesn't regardless if you say it does. And just in case you don't know it, ichthyologists study fish.

 

[CKent]

A coalition of more than 30 organizations argue in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news.

The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs "masquerading as news" use hate as a profit model.

"As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve," the organizations wrote to the FCC. "In this same atmosphere hate speech thrives, as hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television program masquerading as 'news.'"

Wow what are they smoking? Competition in media has gone way up, it's why they've become a fear industry rather than report a wide range of news factually and without bias. The internet is the only way to get any real news these days. They have it completely backwards.

 

[werepossum]

While I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you here, can you give an example of where liberals use "race as if it has some precise and scientific meaning." I never hear anything from liberals about "race" except that it's an artificial construct. I don't doubt there is some example of the term being employed in such a way as to suggest that race is scientifically definable, but I don't recall every hearing anything of that nature, not from liberals. Are you referring to, say, defining who isn't and isn't "black" for purposes of something like affirmative action, for example?

- wolf

Race-based admission policies. Race-based politics. Race-based government giveaways. Race-based litmus tests that find discrimination in any result that does not mirror society's breakdown (except in those cases where non-Hispanic whites are the under-represented group.) The Congressional Black Caucus. The first black president. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. All these things require legally grouping people into those who are black, those who are white, those who are Amerindian, those who are Asian, etc. according to precise legal definitions. If you are black then you get this benefit; if you are not, you do not get this benefit. This is not a matter of grouping people into a category based on the best fit, but a precise segregation of society into groups. You can argue that there is a valid social reason for such divisions, but you can't possibly argue that this does not exist. Whereas classical liberalism exalted the individual, modern liberalism (aka progressivism) is completely about group identities. When Hillary Clinton speaks of the war against individualism or the cult of the individual, she is speaking specifically about this need to group people into legally defined groups so that society (and more importantly, government) can treat each group differently at will. We spent a century and a half (not to mention an incredibly bloody war) getting past this only to rush right back into it, and I see no reason other than the accumulation of political power.

 

[werepossum]

The entire rest of your post is a passionate argument for nuance, albeit unconsciously laden by you with the kind of crude and unhelpful cartoon reductionism -- THE LEFT -- that lacks any depth or nuance at all.

In case you lack the nuanced logic skills to follow what I'm saying, the diversity of people and views you crudely encompass under THE LEFT matches or exceeds the diversity of peoples you lambaste THE LEFT for putting under the single rubric of Hispanic.

How's that for unexamined irony on your part? Notice, I could have called it hypocrisy, but here I'm being polite and practicing a bit of . . . nuance.

You should try it more often yourself. Sophistry is denotationally pejorative. Nuance is most decidedly not.

Appreciation of nuance is, in fact, what separates the adults from the precocious but shallow 12 year olds. If you can't see or make fine distinctions, then you are doomed to a simplistic and crude cartoon view of the world.

If you can only see and make such distinctions when you are critiquing others, but can't or won't see them in your own utterances, word usage, and views, then you are also in a stage of sadly arrested intellectual development.

Chronological 12 year olds tend to grow out of this. Emotional 12 year olds tend not to.

So dividing people into artificial and competing groups is okay because the people who do so don't all look the same? I think that rather than argue with that, I'll simply leave you happily playing in your own filth, giggling at my lack of nuance. One thing though - logic is inherently NOT nuanced. Logic is black and white, yes and no. The machinations you use to toe the party line aren't logic, they are simply justifications.

Moonie, I'm assuming that if (when?) the Klan calls for everything for Whites, nothing for non-Whites - but insists that "Whites" means all people - and writes a friendly wiki entry you'll extend to them the same courtesy of pretending that they invented these words and can therefore assign to them any meaning they desire. Rest assured that my position - that words mean what they mean, not some alternate meaning that makes you not look like a racist bastard when you use them - will remain the same.

 

[Perknose]

The entire rest of your post is a passionate argument for nuance, albeit unconsciously laden by you with the kind of crude and unhelpful cartoon reductionism -- THE LEFT -- that lacks any depth or nuance at all.

In case you lack the nuanced logic skills to follow what I'm saying, the diversity of people and views you crudely encompass under THE LEFT matches or exceeds the diversity of peoples you lambaste THE LEFT for putting under the single rubric of Hispanic.

How's that for unexamined irony on your part? Notice, I could have called it hypocrisy, but here I'm being polite and practicing a bit of . . . nuance.

You should try it more often yourself. Sophistry is denotationally pejorative. Nuance is most decidedly not.

Appreciation of nuance is, in fact, what separates the adults from the precocious but shallow 12 year olds. If you can't see or make fine distinctions, then you are doomed to a simplistic and crude cartoon view of the world.

If you can only see and make such distinctions when you are critiquing others, but can't or won't see them in your own utterances, word usage, and views, then you are also in a stage of sadly arrested intellectual development.

Chronological 12 year olds tend to grow out of this. Emotional 12 year olds tend not to.

So dividing people into artificial and competing groups is okay because the people who do so don't all look the same? I think that rather than argue with that, I'll simply leave you happily playing in your own filth, giggling at my lack of nuance. One thing though - logic is inherently NOT nuanced. Logic is black and white, yes and no. The machinations you use to toe the party line aren't logic, they are simply justifications.

Wow, so many leaps of logic and outright fabrications in one short reply, Mr. Logic Guy!

First bolded: PLEASE show me where I said anything even remotely close to that! Quote me and explain, I'll be right here. No diversions, just do it.

Second bolded: WHAT machinations? Please quote the parts of my post that you think are these evil machinations, and then explain why you do, with LOGIC.

Then tell my what in my post is toeing to what party line. Be sure to use quotes and be specific in your supporting logical explanation, Logic Guy!

My post is helpfully re-quoted just above your angry and illogical screed, so, NO EXCUSES, get to work!

No diversions, no more bullshit until you have proved and supported the "logical" assertions you made above.

I'll be waiting right here.

 

[werepossum]

Wow, so many leaps of logic and outright fabrications in one short reply, Mr. Logic Guy!

First bolded: PLEASE show me where I said anything even remotely close to that! Quote me and explain, I'll be right here. No diversions, just do it.

Second bolded: WHAT machinations? Please quote the parts of my post that you think are these evil machinations, and then explain why you do, with LOGIC.

Then tell my what in my post is toeing to what party line. Be sure to use quotes and be specific in your supporting logical explanation, Logic Guy!

My post is helpfully re-quoted just above your angry and illogical screed, so, NO EXCUSES, get to work!

No diversions, no more bullshit until you have proved and supported the "logical" assertions you made above.

I'll be waiting right here.

I'm sorry, could you tell me which part of "I think that rather than argue with that, I'll simply leave you happily playing in your own filth, giggling at my lack of nuance" you found difficult to understand? But since you insist . . . You took exception to my taking exception to the grouping of everyone below the southern US border as Hispanic purely on the grounds that "the left" is diverse, no comment at all about the substance but merely a well-worded "I know you are, but what am I?" At least, you addressed my complaint only by claiming that I am doing the same. To quote:

the diversity of people and views you crudely encompass under THE LEFT matches or exceeds the diversity of peoples you lambaste THE LEFT for putting under the single rubric of Hispanic.

As that is the ONLY point you offered that even obliquely touched on my point, I am assuming that you somehow feel that this is a refutation of my point. Granted, I am assuming here that you actually meant it as a refutation of my post; perhaps it's nothing more than the rhetorical equivalent of a dozing drunk being poked with a stick and momentarily rousing. If however you actually meant it to refute my point, then the only way it could possibly do so would be to postulate that grouping everyone below the southern US border as Hispanic is acceptable because the left (those doing the grouping, as it is certainly not being done by the right) is even more diverse. If you did not intend this comment to somehow be a refutation of my point, but merely a personal attack on me for having it, then I can see why my logic would escape you. In that case, I bow to your superior sense of nuance and wish the two of you much happiness.

As to your machinations - let me first ask a question. Are you aware that this is not your only post? That you have posted a great deal on this forum? Because that comment alluded not to this post, but to your way of energetically positioning yourself in lockstep with the far left position on virtually every subject, yet somehow still considering yourself to be a clever and nuanced fellow. This is an odd but recurrent theme among the far left for some reason. Among the hard right there are a great many people who are equally in lockstep with the far right position on virtually every subject, yet those fellows are typically proud to see the world in black and white, right and wrong, Christian and heathen. Only on the left does one find people traveling in herds, always seeing all the merit on the left's arguments and none of the right's, whilst proclaiming their nuanced thought. Thus what is defined as nuance is merely the mental gyrations required to justify taking the far left position on every possible subject while refusing to acknowledge the rest of the herd marching along side.

But rest assured that my post was not angry. Your last two posts both made me laugh out loud, and I've written that response and this while smiling.

 

[Perknose]

Wow, so many leaps of logic and outright fabrications in one short reply, Mr. Logic Guy!

First bolded: [So dividing people into artificial and competing groups is okay because the people who do so don't all look the same?] PLEASE show me where I said anything even remotely close to that! Quote me and explain, I'll be right here. No diversions, just do it.

Second bolded: [The machinations you use to toe the party line aren't logic] WHAT machinations? Please quote the parts of my post that you think are these evil machinations, and then explain why you do, with LOGIC.

Then tell my what in my post is toeing to what party line. Be sure to use quotes and be specific in your supporting logical explanation, Logic Guy!

I'm sorry, could you tell me which part of "I think that rather than argue with that, I'll simply leave you happily playing in your own filth, giggling at my lack of nuance" you found difficult to understand? But since you insist . . . You took exception to my taking exception to the grouping of everyone below the southern US border as Hispanic purely on the grounds that "the left" is diverse, no comment at all about the substance but merely a well-worded "I know you are, but what am I?" At least, you addressed my complaint only by claiming that I am doing the same. To quote:
As that is the ONLY point you offered that even obliquely touched on my point, I am assuming that you somehow feel that this is a refutation of my point. Granted, I am assuming here that you actually meant it as a refutation of my post; perhaps it's nothing more than the rhetorical equivalent of a dozing drunk being poked with a stick and momentarily rousing. If however you actually meant it to refute my point, then the only way it could possibly do so would be to postulate that grouping everyone below the southern US border as Hispanic is acceptable because the left (those doing the grouping, as it is certainly not being done by the right) is even more diverse. If you did not intend this comment to somehow be a refutation of my point, but merely a personal attack on me for having it, then I can see why my logic would escape you. In that case, I bow to your superior sense of nuance and wish the two of you much happiness.

As to your machinations - let me first ask a question. Are you aware that this is not your only post? That you have posted a great deal on this forum? Because that comment alluded not to this post, but to your way of energetically positioning yourself in lockstep with the far left position on virtually every subject, yet somehow still considering yourself to be a clever and nuanced fellow. This is an odd but recurrent theme among the far left for some reason. Among the hard right there are a great many people who are equally in lockstep with the far right position on virtually every subject, yet those fellows are typically proud to see the world in black and white, right and wrong, Christian and heathen. Only on the left does one find people traveling in herds, always seeing all the merit on the left's arguments and none of the right's, whilst proclaiming their nuanced thought. Thus what is defined as nuance is merely the mental gyrations required to justify taking the far left position on every possible subject while refusing to acknowledge the rest of the herd marching along side.

But rest assured that my post was not angry. Your last two posts both made me laugh out loud, and I've written that response and this while smiling.

So many words, so much diversion, but most important, SO MUCH DIRECT LOGIC FAIL here, Mr. LOGIC GUY!

The first assertion of what I said that I asked you to quote where I said it and then logically prove your assertion was:

werepossum:
So dividing people into artificial and competing groups is okay because the people who do so don't all look the same?

To prove this assertion, you use this quote of me:

Perknose:
the diversity of people and views you crudely encompass under THE LEFT matches or exceeds the diversity of peoples you lambaste THE LEFT for putting under the single rubric of Hispanic.

Let me break it down for you, you know, logically:

1. There is NOTHING in my statement that proves your assertion. Not ONE THING. To make this clear to you, I do not in any way say in that quote that "dividing people into artificial and competing groups is okay because the people who do so don't all look the same", as you assert.

I asked you to logically defend your quoted assertion above. You do not even address it! LOGIC FAIL.

2. You say, "I am assuming that you somehow feel that this is a refutation of my point." Your point that lumping diverse peoples into one category has merit.

BUT PLEASE LOOK AT WHAT I FUCKING WELL WROTE NUMBNUTS! I was pointing out to YOU that YOU did THE SAME DAMN THING with YOUR overly broad category of THE LEFT. LOGIC AND BASIC READING COMPREHENSION FAIL

3. You then go on to say, based on your logically and factually unsupported ASSumption, that the only other logical point you can conclude is that I was " merely [making] a personal attack on me for having it." EXTENDED LOGIC FAIL.

Never mind the you NEVER addressed and answered what I asked you to address. Your assertion that anything I posted purported, " dividing people into artificial and competing groups is okay because the people who do so don't all look the same" is COMPLETE AND UTTER FAIL

I also asked you to quote and then support anything in my post which supported your second assertion, WITHOUT DIVERSION!

You couldn't.

Instead you offered NOTHING but diversion and factually unsupported allegations, lumped together with a further raft of crude, red faced generalizations. RED FACED LOGICAL AND PERSONAL FAIL

Your final grade is FAIL on every single point, with extra fail credit for stunning lack of reading comprehension and your several long winded, factually and logically unsupported diversions.

The Dub wanted no child left behind. We might have to make an exception in your case.

 

[nonlnear]

I fully understand what you mean, including your emphasis on "as if." My experience, however, is that liberals tend to not use the the word "race" at all, unless, of course, they are accusing someone of being a RACist, or claiming that someone is discriminating based on RACE. In that context, implicitly they are describing what they perceive as the alleged racist/discriminator's view of "race" rather than their own. I do hear liberals often using the term "ethnic" or "ethnicity" - a much broader term than race - and also the onmipresent "culture." So I don't really hear liberals using the term AS IF it was scientifically precise, because I never hear them using it at all unless it is some sort of accusation. In modern liberalism, the term "race," with its biological underpinning, seems to be totally un-PC. So while I don't always agree with liberals on issues of race/ethnicity/culture, I don't necessarily perceive the inconsistency that you and werepossum perceive. But that's been my personal experience.

I think I agree with you for the most part actually. It's mostly the hack commentators who reduce the vocabulary to the more "common" terms when destroying the concepts for the masses. However when viewed thematically I don't think the word choice in particular is all that critical to the general point. The arguments made by sociologists, [insert group] studies folk, et. al. often still boil down to a structure similar to what I laid out. They make an emotionally charged case for some moral high ground, often laced with enough statistics to convince those readers who are just barely hanging on that they are using the traditional forms of empiricism and precision in crating their arguments. Then when pushed to make their case precise under closer light there is the retort that precision is a conceit of the entrenched power brokers.

Granted there are plenty who don't bother with the charade of statistics (which in the social sciences are mostly bunk anyways, so more power to them), but then you are generally left with basically an opinion piece and a couple anecdotes. Then again perhaps that is a more honest way to pursue the humanities after all...

 

[BoberFett]

werepossum, don't even bother arguing with these window-lickers. Perknose is still convinced that because I, a self-proclaimed libertarian, disagree with another self-proclaimed libertarian, "owned" myself and showed that libertarianism has "inherent contradictions."

In other words, the moron doesn't know his asshole from his elbow and isn't even worth trying to engage in discussion.

 

[woolfe9999]

Race-based admission policies. Race-based politics. Race-based government giveaways. Race-based litmus tests that find discrimination in any result that does not mirror society's breakdown (except in those cases where non-Hispanic whites are the under-represented group.) The Congressional Black Caucus. The first black president. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. All these things require legally grouping people into those who are black, those who are white, those who are Amerindian, those who are Asian, etc. according to precise legal definitions. If you are black then you get this benefit; if you are not, you do not get this benefit. This is not a matter of grouping people into a category based on the best fit, but a precise segregation of society into groups. You can argue that there is a valid social reason for such divisions, but you can't possibly argue that this does not exist. Whereas classical liberalism exalted the individual, modern liberalism (aka progressivism) is completely about group identities. When Hillary Clinton speaks of the war against individualism or the cult of the individual, she is speaking specifically about this need to group people into legally defined groups so that society (and more importantly, government) can treat each group differently at will. We spent a century and a half (not to mention an incredibly bloody war) getting past this only to rush right back into it, and I see no reason other than the accumulation of political power.

I don't want to stetch this limited tangential point out too far, so just one final comment. The liberal PC is to refer to blacks as African American. This PC form was not randomly chosen. Earlier forms such as black, colored, negro, or worse, negroid, refer to physical characterisics which are obviously undergirded by genetics. Liberals, who ideologically reject biological classification, choose a term which refers to national/regional origin instead. These days, that is the term used in basically all those contexts you describe. Of course, it is unspoken that a person is being identified as "African American" based on appearance. In any event, I still do not see where they claim either explicitly or implicitly that they endorse race as a biological classification.

- wolf

 

[werepossum]

werepossum, don't even bother arguing with these window-lickers. Perknose is still convinced that because I, a self-proclaimed libertarian, disagree with another self-proclaimed libertarian, "owned" myself and showed that libertarianism has "inherent contradictions."

In other words, the moron doesn't know his asshole from his elbow and isn't even worth trying to engage in discussion.

I have to agree it's an exercise in futility, but it's certainly fun. He's as squalling mad as a baby left too long in its own poo. It's always amusing to see these angry ideologues go through their contortions to try to bring some internal logic into their emotion-based party line beliefs.

I don't want to stetch this limited tangential point out too far, so just one final comment. The liberal PC is to refer to blacks as African American. This PC form was not randomly chosen. Earlier forms such as black, colored, negro, or worse, negroid, refer to physical characterisics which are obviously undergirded by genetics. Liberals, who ideologically reject biological classification, choose a term which refers to national/regional origin instead. These days, that is the term used in basically all those contexts you describe. Of course, it is unspoken that a person is being identified as "African American" based on appearance. In any event, I still do not see where they claim either explicitly or implicitly that they endorse race as a biological classification.

- wolf

My point was that the left, in order to treat people differently based on race, must necessarily accept rigid race-based classifications as scientifically valid. It's all well and good to say that liberals today use national and/or regional origin, but this is easily disproven. The indisputably African Libyans are clearly not racially black or "African-American", the white South Africans date back half a millennium, yet these groups do not qualify for "African-American" benefits because those benefits are race-based. You can say liberals reject these classifications or reject that they have a biological basis, but liberals are certainly the ones establishing legal definitions based on race. And leftists from the President on down to liberals on this board decry as racist anyone who agrees even with enforcing existing immigration law; this undercuts your assertion that the left are not establishing definitions of race. You can't very well accuse your political opponents of being racists and yet deny that you are using race, you can't use race to divide people into groups without defining race, and you can't define race without establishing some underlying pseudo-scientific basis for your definitions.

 

[Ldir]

You can't very well accuse your political opponents of being racists and yet deny that you are using race, you can't use race to divide people into groups without defining race, and you can't define race without establishing some underlying pseudo-scientific basis for your definitions.

Wrong. You fail at logic. I can see someone else's racism based on his definition of race, not mine. It does not matter what I think Hispanic means. It matters what he thinks and how he acts towards someone he thinks is Hispanic.

 

[Munky]

The children are masturbating again.

^ The troll is diverting the thread again.

 

[piasabird]

If "hate speech" was outlawed, we would have to outlaw most of the political speech and close this forum. In fact it would be hard for a politician to get elected. Basically politicians get elected on the hateful things they sell about other candidates and the opposing political party. For instance blaming the last 8 years on Bush, could be considered hate speech. Talking about Muslim Terrorists could be considered hate speech. Speaking negatively about religion or the lack thereof, could be considered hate speech.

Is this what you really want?

 

[Munky]

Leave it to biased, self-serving interest groups to define what constitutes "hate speech." Don't like illegal mexicans? Hate speech. Got a problem with middle eastern terrorists? Hate speech. Basically, whatever doesn't confirm to their lala-land, universal tolerance for everything under the sun philosophy can potentially be twisted into hate speech.

 

[Patranus]

Its nice to see the "progressives" trying to use the full force of the federal government (FTC) to shape "new" media and "reinvent" journalism.

The government has ZERO role in "reinventing" journalism. Government support of journalism has an inherent conflict of interest.

(it is also interesting they are looking at papers by a communist who loves Hugo Chavez but are we really surprised that Hugo Chavez supporters are in the government anymore?)

When congress cannot pass laws to limit free speech the "progressive" will just regulate that speech out of existence.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Its nice to see the "progressives" trying to use the full force of the federal government (FTC) to shape "new" media and "reinvent" journalism.

The government has ZERO role in "reinventing" journalism. Government support of journalism has an inherent conflict of interest.

(it is also interesting they are looking at papers by a communist who loves Hugo Chavez but are we really surprised that Hugo Chavez supporters are in the government anymore?)

When congress cannot pass laws to limit free speech the "progressive" will just regulate that speech out of existence.

Progressives are all for free speech -- as long as you agree with them.

 

[werepossum]

Wrong. You fail at logic. I can see someone else's racism based on his definition of race, not mine. It does not matter what I think Hispanic means. It matters what he thinks and how he acts towards someone he thinks is Hispanic.

It matters a great deal how you define Hispanic if you then propose that any speech or action you deem offensive to Hispanics is hate speech AND propose that government find ways of ending that speech or action. In this case, these groups (and their supporters on this board) are defining any negative comment against someone self-identified as Hispanic as automatically racist, as well as defining attempting to enforce existing immigration laws as automatically racist. They are also attempting to have the government "monitor" this "hate speech" - most of us think in preparation to having government take it off the air. Wolfe disagrees, but considering that these same people periodically propose using the Fairness Doctrine and/or "community standards" committees to take opposing viewpoints off the air and replace them with friendly viewpoints (not to mention Obama's own comments that there is "too much information out there") believing this is hardly unreasonable whether or not it is true. Thus their definitions of "Hispanic" and "hate speech" are very important indeed. Again, these groups also embrace the National Council of La Raza, leading to the truly bizarre idea that "The Race" does not indicate race but "illegal immigration" does indicate race. This is far too absurd to seriously consider.

Also your reply seems to indicate that this hypothetical person thinks about and acts toward someone differently (and noticeably so) if he thinks they are Hispanic. That's a bizarre concept.