It makes sense if you understand that they aren't focused on general principles. Diversity is bad when it involves non-whites, women, gay people or research involving these groups. Diversity is good when it involves "race realists." Free speech is bad when students are advocating for divestment initiatives. Free speech is good when a professor calls somebody the n-word online.
The goal is white supremacy and antifeminism.
The goal is power. Suppressing DEI, etc is just a simple way to find a group of people that have different values and eliminate them from the power structure.
An important part about targeting DEI and trans communities is that these two groups stand for immutable properties: I can’t change my race. I can’t stop being my gender identity.
When you “other” people based on immutable properties, it becomes very dangerous. If you can’t force someone to be white and straight, what do you do with them? The government stops funding programs to help these groups, they spread lies and fear about them, and then they sit back. When the people in power tell their supporters that the “other” are the enemy, what recourse is left for one’s safety other than violence. Authoritarian regimes always trend towards genocide, and they always target groups with immutable traits.
When these people use "freedom of speech" all they mean is they want to say their vile Nazi stuff without people complaining.
Also called freedom from consequences. Free speech makes sense in a free society, freedom from consequences does not. Yet that's what they're calling for.
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Sigh, no. Obviously, just about any argument from nazi immediately gains credibility nearly instantly. It surely approaches the merit of 'think of the children' in terms of its ease of use while maintaining its flag waving functionality.
And no, when people talk about "freedom of speech", it is not about just saying that. It is about saying anything. The problem is, and always has been, people. Why? Because when you defend it, you tend to defend ones that are, at best, edge cases.
Defending all speech however deplorable would be consistent and defensible. The administration isn’t doing that. They are targeting speech they don’t like. Don’t speak out against our genocide in Gaza or be deported/expelled. Don’t share your pronouns or lose your job. Etc.
Sure, but is it a good idea for us to abandon that idea and not defend it, while it is under assault from the administration. I personally would argue no, but I am very, very biased.
What I do not understand, and I do mean it, is why on earth would anyone argue to limit their own right to speech? Isn't it clear that you are, at best, undermining your own rights in the long term?
HAMAS is a designated terrorist organization. It is the U.S. government's job to keep out foreigners who overtly do things like support terrorist organizations, do human trafficking, etc.
It's quite simple, IMHO, and not a free speech issue. Americans don't owe entry to everyone who shows up at their borders, nor do they owe them a full suite of rights and legal protections once they're admitted.
Do you really believe that most of the people being deported or imprisoned by ICE this year are truly supporters of terrorism? Since no due process is being followed what gives you any confidence that the accusations against these people are true?
> Do you really believe that most of the people being deported or imprisoned by ICE this year are truly supporters of terrorism?
I don't think that's what's at stake here. I would assume the vast, vast majority of deportations are some version of "You're here illegally because you snuck in / overstayed your visa / lied on some form. Here's a ride back to $COUNTRY"
I think what is at stake is the small, small % of deportations that are because of particular speech or actions that aren't transparently crime (e.g., stealing a car is transparently crime).
And to answer your question, I don't know. While it doesn't appear to me that the Americans are reaching the highest possible standards of due process, "no" due process is pretty obviously false. And I don't think it's an issue of the accusations being true or false, either--my impression is the facts aren't in dispute, it's what happens based on the facts that is.
OK, all of that said: my guess is the people being deported for supporting HAMAS aren't HAMAS supporters in some sort of deep, true, essential way. They're kids or young people who are swept up in a fad.
How does that relates to the parents post ? For sure you can understand Hamas is a terrorist organisation AND any the same time that some wants to talk about the genocide in Gaza.
Also, using a terrorism judgement as an argument is a bit weak because it’s subjective, and because our western gouvernement do trade times to times with terrorist organisations. Heck my own countries is classified as a terrosist and I’m totally free to come visit the USA (which are themselves a terrorist state).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_terrorism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism
> For sure you can understand Hamas is a terrorist organisation AND any the same time that some wants to talk about the genocide in Gaza.
Totally. The pro-Palestine protesters at U.S. universities are often overtly pro-HAMAS too (or instead).
care to substantiate your claim?
"Protester outside Columbia University seen yelling ‘We’re all Hamas,’ ‘Long live Hamas’"
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/protester-outside-colum...
I was one of the people who briefly tried to take right wing “free speech” arguments at face value, eg when Elon Musk bought Twitter. Almost instantly he began allowing white supremacists and actual declared neo-Nazis back onto the platform, while kicking people off for any speech he didn’t like. I don’t think the claim “the recent right wing enthusiasm for ‘free speech’” does, in fact, selectively benefit Nazis and white supremacists” is actually wrong when you evaluate the effects.
Would you argue that the "kicking off" is more or less intense under Elon vs. the other guy?
My impression that the rate of censorship overall has plummeted. Pre-Elon, it was easy to get banned for wrongthing. People would gang up on wrongthinkers, mass-report them, etc.
I wonder what the rates of actual bans have been.
https://fortune.com/2024/09/25/twitter-x-account-suspensions...
tripled.
They just want to protect nazi speech, like I said in the downvoted comment.
I don't care what your vibes are here.
They aren't even against actual anti-semitism. Happy merchant memes, george soros conspiracies, protocols stuff, that's all A-ok because it's nazi stuff.
If you have the wrong opinion on israel palestine, it's the concentration camp for you.
The first group the nazis sent were social democrats, peace activists, journalists ... The famous nazi book burning was at an lgbt institute. I mean they're just doing nazi shit. I don't know why this isn't clear.
Thanks for looking that up.
Without knowing the denominator (# of accounts, # of posts, # of new accounts), I'm not sure what to make of it.
Even then, we want the subset of bans that were for political reasons (i.e., supporting Labour is fine, supporting Reform is hate speech). According to the actual report (which can be found here: https://transparency.x.com/content/dam/transparency-twitter/...), of 5,296,870 account suspensions only 2,361 were for "hateful conduct", while 57,185 were "violent and hateful entities" and 1,102,778 were for "abuse and harassment". Eyeing the categories, those are the only ones that seem plausible for political motivation.
So it's some subset of that 1,162,324 (22% of total) that we're interested in. I would bet the vast, vast majority of those either aren't politically motivated, or are politically motivated but in such a way that virtually everyone would agree (e.g., torturing puppies for fun).
And, of course, among politically-motivated bans, not all will be in support of Red Team / against Blue Team. Some will be bans of Red Team supporters, and for some the valence won't be clear.
> Even then, we want the subset of bans that were for political reasons (i.e., supporting Labour is fine, supporting Reform is hate speech).
Do you have any examples was banned for supporting Reform? I ask because I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard someone say they were banned for their political views and then checked to see that what actually got them banned was something like targeted harassment of a political opponent.
I didn't mean this as a real example, I meant it as illustrative. I've never seen anyone banned for supporting Reform (I've never seen anyone banned at all! I try to limit my internets).
If you're a free speech absolutionist (your argument was simply "kicking off got more intense"), it shouldn't matter what speech was said to get kicked. Politcal or not, it's all speech.
So the only way to retort the bans tripling is if you think Most people banned are not humans. Which is possible, but unlikely given current speculations that Twitter is 80% bots.
> Politcal or not, it's all speech.
This is a fair point. If I concede it, we still need some denominators.
> So the only way to retort the bans tripling is if you think Most people banned are not humans.
Denominators.
That's all speculative. Musk Twitter brought a bunch of far right provocateurs like Alex Jones Back on and increased the bans by 3x. There's more people leaving than coming to the platform.
That's what we do know.
As far as "Red/Blue" that's not current.
Instead we've got an establishment party, the Democrats, a disempowered left, a disempowered conservative party, and a party that does Nazi shit, the Republicans.
That's why a bunch of the Bush era conservatives lined up behind the Democrats, conservative and right wing are Not the same just like liberal and left wing are not
Nothing in my grandparent comment is speculative. I literally type out the data and discuss what additional information we would have to have in order to arrive at something approaching a meaningful estimate of the quantity we are both interested in.
As for Red/Blue not being current, I'm not an expert. The only bone I would pick is the Republicans aren't doing "Nazi shit". Nazi / Fascist used to mean something, you know. It seems like people are starting to use those words to mean "authoritarian" or something along those lines.
They're building concentration camps, sending peace activists to it.
They don't care about birthright or other forms of citizenship and are trying to do a nuremberg law to redefine it.
Also see Civil Service Law (1933) where they purged political opponents from government jobs.
They've tried to strip the power of the purse from Congress and ignore the courts which is how an enabling act would work in the US context.
He's even trying to Lebensraum Greenland.
The famous Nazi book burn was at an LGBT institute. They're demonizing the same group
Hitler even had an Elon Musk named Alfred Hugenberg. I mean it's like they hired historians to do a full reenactment.
I dunno. There's these people that are like "well you see the Nazis demonized Jews while Trump demonizes Muslims! The Nazi Beer Hall Putsch was in November and January 6 was in January! Trump has red hats while the Nazis had red armbands!" Just falls flat
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm going to be very honest with you: this strikes me as unhinged. I don't mean to put you down, I really mean to be honest. Our perceptions of the world are really, really different. I can imagine how you might believe things like this if you spent too much time in online echo chambers. The information environments they make for you are too...much. The bots run by nefarious parties seek only to make you feel the way you feel, make you believe the things you believe.
I can only recommend that you take a step back, and unplug, fellow traveler :-)
"Don't worry, nothing bad can ever happen" while people are sent away to gulags.
To "unplug" as you demand is morally reprehensible.
Is he morally obligated to participate? There are some interesting arguments on both ends, but I am curious what you mean by this.
I spend exactly Zero time on online echo chambers.
I don't use social media anymore and I don't own a television.
Auschwitz being in Germany was convenient because it was extrajudicial and outside of the German constitutional protection.
We're seeing the exact same thing. Trump shrugs that there's nothing he can do to bring the innocent person back AND that he intends to send thousands more regardless.
They've found their Auschwitz where people don't have a right to have rights as Hanna Arendt said. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Confinement_Center it even looks like a Nazi camp.
From the article "Trump further suggested to Bukele that he should "build about five more places" like CECOT"
They're actively trying to redefine citizenship status and send peace activists there.
What you're seeing is what Maurice Bardèche, the 60s French pro-fascist theorist was predicting. He's to fascism was Marshall McLuhan is to social media.
If these are new names to you then maybe the one scrolling through echo chamber memes might be you...
Personally I'm done with this fascist failing shit hole country.. I'm looking to leave. My portfolio is down over a million dollars since these Nazi retards took power.
Seriously, fuck this place
This is a general argument and has nothing to do with Elon Musk. He capitalizes on a weak position some of his political opponents bring forward. Not giving him the opportunity for that would have cost nothing... on the contrary.
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I'm not sure what "agree with the Palestinians" would mean. Like they are not happy with being genocided? I think that would be most people's feeling in that situation, though that doesn't show any proximity in belief, value or principle.
Yeah I guess this is what happens to censored viewpoints. Most people have only heard a caricature of it.
The world is really a lot more interesting if you try to understand everyone’s actual perspective. It also becomes much more coherent. Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints.
In what I’ve seen of “race realist” writings online, they tend to be very anti Israel. So to associate the admin with “race realists” for cracking down on anti Israel protests strikes me as lacking an understanding of either the admin or of the “race realists” perspective.
> Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints.
If you're arguing a fairy-tale definition of "evil" as an inherent property were people do evil for evil's sake, or simply can't help it, sure - almost nobody is "evil", if having actual, realistic motivations automatically disqualifies "evil".
I think evil can still be a useful, moral concept, if you give up the need for it to be absolute and objective, while accepting the ambiguity that comes with it. Still, it's likely possible for a lot of people to agree what constitutes evil, especially when seeing examples.
I would certainly like to keep considering things, actions and sometimes even people, to be "evil", _especially_ after considering their motivations, views and justifications.
>Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints.
If your interest is in killing me on account of how I look and nothing else, I would indeed consider you evil. Your "viewpoints" end where my rights begin.
as for the admin, I don't care about their views. They have a constitution to follow. Which is specifically aobut what the government cannot do to its people. We tolerated KKK and Neonazi rallies under those principles of freedom of speech and assembly. While citizens can counter protest, the government stepping in to quash either of those people is illegal here.
"Race realism" is just a meaningless label Neo-Nazis use, because they are still trying to fly under the radar, or they are slightly embarrassed of being what their grand-parents fought. They might try to butter up their standing by (falsely) citing stuff like the Bell Curve, but it is still the same vile and evil ideology it was 80 years ago.
But not all fascists are neo-nazis. Just because a subset of today's fascists describe themselves that way, doesn't mean they are fundamentally different from other fascists. Look at Steven Miller; he's jewish, and quite obviously a white supremacist. He's all about dehumanizing people he thinks of as leser, and he welcomes the new fascist America. AfD, the german far-right party, is both very pro-Israel and loves to play "tread the nazi line and extend it"-game. Anti-semitism is a common, but not necessary prerequesite to fascism.
When I was younger I also thought the opposite of good should be bad, and it is silly to describe things as evil. I disliked the religious connotation, but have changed my mind. There are people committing absolutely horrible things, and calling it anything but evil is underestimating the depravity of those characters. To quote Captain G. M. Gilbert:
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
You say that as if the "admin" is one person. It's a loose collection of interests.
of course "race realists" tend to be anti-Israel; many of them are genuine neo-Nazis. the term arose back in the '90s among white supremacists, who tend to be heavily antisemitic.
the Trump admin aren't (for the most part) "race realists." or antisemitic. or philosemitic. no, the Trump admin is cynically indifferent to the plight of the Jewish people. they're using antisemitism as a cause celebre, a useful cudgel to attack their enemies on the Left. Republicans are using Jews the way the Democrats used trans people - as pawns in a game of identity realpolitik. at least until our political liability outweighs our usefulness, then we get left holding the bag.
you can spot false allies like this because they will amplify the most extreme voices, the most divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, when speaking for their charge. I guarantee you, most trans people didn't want Canadians fined for using the wrong pronouns, and most Jews don't want grad students deported for writing an op-ed. the loudest voices aren't ours.
It's a bit more complex.
Neonazis tend to like the idea of Israel while hating the occupants. They hate sending aide there but love it if Jews move there.
The notion of a Jewish state was an OG Nazi idea (see Madagascar plan). They wanted a place to send their unwanted citizens.
On top of that, core to most fundamentalist Christian belief is that utopia will happen after a strong Israel gets involved in massive wars. That value is why you may see neonazis cheering on Israel as an aggressor because they believe it'll lead to utopia.
This is why mixing support for Israel with whether or not someone is antisemitic is silly. Israel isn't the Jews and Jews aren't Israel.
And it seems to work quite well in the current political landscape and the use of such tactics certainly got more common in recent years. It seems to work better with reactionary groups since they would accept any and all reason for their animosity anyway.
Yeah, Nazi seen themselves as heroes building better future for the Germany. Stalinists seen themselves as heroes too. They just had different interests and viewpoints. And those different viewpoints indeed make them indeed "evil". And dangerous.
Also, seeing people whose goals are cruelty to others or harm to me as neutral is wrong.
"Race realists" tend to be anti-jew but not anti-Israel. Israel provides a few key benefits for their belief system even if they hate jewish people. It means that there is a place for jewish people "over there" and not here. And it provides a starting point for their ethno-nationalist project in other countries ("if Israel can be a country for Jews then why can't Germany be a country for Whites").
Further, the Trump administration is committing violence against people simply advocating for no more bombing in Palestine. Despite the administration's claims that these people are "Hamas supporters" and "anti-semites", the bulk of these people are not actually advocating for violence to be done to jewish people that might put them in concert with far-right anti-semites.
Genocided is certainly the wrong term. It is not on all Palestinians but the government of Gaza did attack Israel. It fired an insane amount of rockets before their latest attack too, but that has already been seen as normalized. Which is ridiculous as well.
If oppression justifies these rocket attacks, a lot more than some rhetoric can be justified as well.
No it’s absolutely the correct term. What are you a BBC anchor?
I am not learned enough on this topic but:
>the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
I don't know how you say that isn't aa textbook definition of genocide.
Israel has security interests after it was attacked by Hamas. It did withdraw from Lebanon, Gaza and quite a few other places that immediately filled with militant terrorists. And this latest escalation only happened because of an attack as well, otherwise Gaza would look quite differently now.
To say their goal is just killing people is way out of context and blind to the facts.
Either these places find peaceful solutions like Egypt or Jordan, or they will face military consequences for their aggression that will also hit innocents, which is what is happening now.
Hamas wanted to start this war, not Israel. There are numerous way for them to get their land back and sue for peace if they take the chance. Of course they don't get land that is Israels, they have lost their war.
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> Diversity is bad when it involves Whites, men, straight people or research involving these groups.
If you think that's what the "other side" is saying, then you've completely misunderstood what the diversity idea is about. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.
It even has a name: strawman argument. And it's so popular!
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and yet when fields with a dearth of White Men offer recruiting events tailored to them, the "other side" is up in arms about it. Its clear that no part of DEI wants to include Whites, Men, or the doubly dreaded White & Men combo.
https://journals.rcni.com/nursing-standard/comment/a-focus-o...
The problem is- they are not anti-racist honest. You are either nurture or nature, but if its all nurture, they refuse to discuss that part, compare those parts, work out the problematic parts and compose better societal models. They just idealise, bigott stay quiet and adverse engage only with those who respond civilized. Its all lies and damned lies and statistics.
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Unfortunately, unlike the post above mine, my list is grounded in reality.
Again, both sides play this game, both sides claim to have "reality" on their side.
As loathe as you may be to admit it, there is such a thing as truth. Both sides claiming something doesn’t mean both sides claims are true (or conversely that neither sides claim is true).
You don’t seem to be thinking very well.
Whoosh, my point exactly. This is an r/selfawarewolves-tier comment.
You don't seem to be thinking very well.
Come on man this isn’t Reddit.