4 ms·

The SPLC? Seriously? Bigotry isn’t a legitimate point of view. You don’t have a right to have that opinion.

by gnu8 9y ago

nbdev 9y ago
Blindly supporting something and crying "Bigot!" if anyone questions it is legitimate? Seriously, no.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  This idea that people are blindly just calling "Bigot", as if it isn't based on the actions and words of the people in question, is pretty old.
  - remarkEon 9y ago
    Ironically, the base definition of “Bigot” is simply intolerance of those who hold different opinions. This describes the social justice Left quite a bit more than it does the Right currently. So, yes, people are indeed blindly calling folks “Bigot” without thinking through what doing so implies about their own tolerance toward others.
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      Why should one have tolerance for the intolerant? Why should a gay person have tolerance for someone saying that they basically don't deserve the same rights as other people?
      - remarkEon 9y ago
        Because otherwise you have to sit here and enumerate which things exactly are intolerable. Do you really think you or anyone possesses the moral authority or wisdom to do that? If a Catholic considers it wrong and immoral to condone Gay Marriage why do you get to claim authority over their conventions?
        s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Because gay marriage quite literally has no effect on their life whatsoever. That's in addition to the whole "denial of fundamental rights" and "second class citizen" thing I mentioned above.
        remarkEon 9y ago
        I’m curious to understand how you came to this conclusion, that it has “no effect” on their lives. It so obviously does. Should someone of the Catholic Faith wish to express such an opinion they risk social ostracism and, perhaps, their job. If you meant that two gay people getting married doesn’t have a material effect on someone regardless of their opinion on it, well, there’s a certain pastry chef who would disagree with you. I don’t really have a dog in that fight one way or the other. What I’m trying to point out to you is that these things are most definitely not “settled” issues if you think about them for more than the fleeting moment it requires to let everyone know how progressive you are. They likely never will be settled - unless you get your way and the “wrong” opinions are banned.
grzm 9y ago
I believe the SPLC has done a lot of good over the course of its history. There have been a few recent occurrences where I think they've lost a bit of perspective and nuance. You may disagree, but if you want to see some examples, you may want to look at their listing of Ayaan Hirsi Ali[0] and Maajid Nawaz[1] as "anti-Muslim extremists"[2] for why people may view the SPLC this way. Please don't read this as a blanket condemnation of the SPLC (nor as agreement with your parent), as that's not my intent; rather, that there's more nuance there than some (not all) rather recent SPLC stances would seem to admit. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maajid_Nawaz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maajid_Nawaz [2]: https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-guide-anti-muslim-extremists https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-...
- stareatgoats 9y ago
  SPLC does an amazing job in identifying hategroups and their supporters, across the political spectrum, and should be a household resource on par with Google. Which doesn't mean they are infallible: I agree about Maajid Nawaz. As for Ayaan Hirsi Ali I for one find the quotes that SPLC attributes to her pretty extreme. Are any of them incorrect, or has she modified her stance more recently?
  - Steko 9y ago
    That Reason interview SLPC links makes her look effing bonkers. ‘Extreme anti-Muslim’ is exactly how I’d characterize her views.
  - grzm 9y ago
    I'm not well-read enough to speak on her behalf, and would hope that the quotes SPLC references are accurate. In interviews I've heard with her, she definitely comes across as strident, and more so than I would prefer, but not uncritically anti-muslim in a bigoted sense, and wouldn't put her in the same category as Richard Spencer, for example. That's one of the problems with lists like these: people will look at the names and not necessarily dig into why each is included. It's to the SPLC's credit that they include supporting material. As for her changing her stance, the Wikipedia article references a Max Rodenbeck article from the New York Review of Books in 2015 that she has "mellowed". If this is something you're interested in, I encourage you to look into this deeper yourself, if only because I don't think I can do full justice to the issue. Stuff like this is complicated, and one needs to weigh one's own values and their rankings as a whole, rather than as a single issue, which often gets missed in a lot of discourse today. And to reiterate, I agree with you that the SPLC has historically been a force for good for the reasons you mention.
unethical_ban 9y ago
Actually, I think in the United States, one does have the absolute right to have bigoted opinions, and even to speak them publicly, as stated in the 1st amendment. Furthermore, the point of the OP is that the SPLC itself has gone overboard in governing who and what is hate speech or bigotry. Some of their work is obviously legitimate, but not everyone who has a problem with Islam is a bigot anymore than those who have a problem with Christianity or Naturalism or Republicans.
- stareatgoats 9y ago
  It would help if you could link a resource that shows how SPLC considers everyone who has a problem with Islam a bigot. I'm sure you could find a case or two where they have gone too far, but that's not the same as 'everyone' obviously.
remarkEon 9y ago
>You don’t have a right to have that opinion. Which opinions does someone have a “right” to have? Is there a list? SPLC has managed to do a lot of damage to its credibility by adding otherwise nominal conservatives to its lists of bad actors.
cryptonector 9y ago
GP absolutely has the right to their opinions, whatever they might be. As do you. As do I. "You don't have the right to that opinion" -- you are allowed to hold that disgusting opinion, but it is disgusting. We judge -- we must judge. Fine. But I would much prefer that we say "that's wrong/dumb/whatever" and never "you do not get to speak [that or at all]".
megaman22 9y ago
Attacking Christina Hoff Sommers is an indication of jumping the shark http://www.weeklystandard.com/splc-targets-feminist-scholar-christina-hoff-sommers/article/2011753 http://www.weeklystandard.com/splc-targets-feminist-scholar-...
- Steko 9y ago
  Their criticism seems justified: Claiming rampant false accusations of rape and violence is one of the most prevalent men’s rights and equity feminist talking points.23 Who Stole Feminism?, a classic among conservative “feminists” published the following year by Christina Hoff Sommers, similarly argues that “gender” or “radical” feminists lie about rates of rape and domestic violence. Speaking on campus sexual assault in 2014, Sommers, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, repeated the same themes of “false accusations” and “[i]nflated statistics,” declaring, “I believe that the rape culture movement is fueled by exaggerated claims of intimacy and a lot of paranoia about men.”24 A spokesperson for A Voice for Men (AVFM), one of the most prominent men’s rights organizations, rejected rape “hysteria…as a scam” and baselessly claimed that sexual assault affects only about two percent of women—far from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s one-in-five statistic.25 Although equity feminists reject the existence of structural constraints on women, like Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) they suggest that American boys and men suffer at the hands of gender feminists. In 2000, Sommers wrote The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, and a flurry of concern over boys’ educational achievements in 2013 landed her in major outlets including The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and The Atlantic. Psychologist Helen Smith, one of IWF’s “Modern Feminists,” suggested in 2012 that “the deck is so stacked against men that they are ‘going Galt,’” a reference to Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, an MRA favorite.26 Equity feminism’s depiction of women as liars with “victim mentalities” dovetails alarmingly with (and legitimizes) the online manifestation of the men’s rights movement, which uses more virulent and hateful rhetoric to convey the same argument.

The SPLC? Seriously? Bigotry isn’t a legitimate point of view. You don’t have a right to have that opinion.

by gnu8 9y ago

The SPLC? Seriously? Bigotry isn’t a legitimate point of view. You don’t have a right to have that opinion.

nbdev 9y ago

Blindly supporting something and crying "Bigot!" if anyone questions it is legitimate? Seriously, no.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
This idea that people are blindly just calling "Bigot", as if it isn't based on the actions and words of the people in question, is pretty old.
- remarkEon 9y ago
  Ironically, the base definition of “Bigot” is simply intolerance of those who hold different opinions. This describes the social justice Left quite a bit more than it does the Right currently. So, yes, people are indeed blindly calling folks “Bigot” without thinking through what doing so implies about their own tolerance toward others.
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    Why should one have tolerance for the intolerant? Why should a gay person have tolerance for someone saying that they basically don't deserve the same rights as other people?
    - remarkEon 9y ago
      Because otherwise you have to sit here and enumerate which things exactly are intolerable. Do you really think you or anyone possesses the moral authority or wisdom to do that? If a Catholic considers it wrong and immoral to condone Gay Marriage why do you get to claim authority over their conventions?
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Because gay marriage quite literally has no effect on their life whatsoever. That's in addition to the whole "denial of fundamental rights" and "second class citizen" thing I mentioned above.
        remarkEon 9y ago
        I’m curious to understand how you came to this conclusion, that it has “no effect” on their lives. It so obviously does. Should someone of the Catholic Faith wish to express such an opinion they risk social ostracism and, perhaps, their job. If you meant that two gay people getting married doesn’t have a material effect on someone regardless of their opinion on it, well, there’s a certain pastry chef who would disagree with you. I don’t really have a dog in that fight one way or the other. What I’m trying to point out to you is that these things are most definitely not “settled” issues if you think about them for more than the fleeting moment it requires to let everyone know how progressive you are. They likely never will be settled - unless you get your way and the “wrong” opinions are banned.

grzm 9y ago

I believe the SPLC has done a lot of good over the course of its history. There have been a few recent occurrences where I think they've lost a bit of perspective and nuance. You may disagree, but if you want to see some examples, you may want to look at their listing of Ayaan Hirsi Ali[0] and Maajid Nawaz[1] as "anti-Muslim extremists"[2] for why people may view the SPLC this way. Please don't read this as a blanket condemnation of the SPLC (nor as agreement with your parent), as that's not my intent; rather, that there's more nuance there than some (not all) rather recent SPLC stances would seem to admit. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maajid_Nawaz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maajid_Nawaz [2]: https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-guide-anti-muslim-extremists https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-...

stareatgoats 9y ago
SPLC does an amazing job in identifying hategroups and their supporters, across the political spectrum, and should be a household resource on par with Google. Which doesn't mean they are infallible: I agree about Maajid Nawaz. As for Ayaan Hirsi Ali I for one find the quotes that SPLC attributes to her pretty extreme. Are any of them incorrect, or has she modified her stance more recently?
- Steko 9y ago
  That Reason interview SLPC links makes her look effing bonkers. ‘Extreme anti-Muslim’ is exactly how I’d characterize her views.
- grzm 9y ago
  I'm not well-read enough to speak on her behalf, and would hope that the quotes SPLC references are accurate. In interviews I've heard with her, she definitely comes across as strident, and more so than I would prefer, but not uncritically anti-muslim in a bigoted sense, and wouldn't put her in the same category as Richard Spencer, for example. That's one of the problems with lists like these: people will look at the names and not necessarily dig into why each is included. It's to the SPLC's credit that they include supporting material. As for her changing her stance, the Wikipedia article references a Max Rodenbeck article from the New York Review of Books in 2015 that she has "mellowed". If this is something you're interested in, I encourage you to look into this deeper yourself, if only because I don't think I can do full justice to the issue. Stuff like this is complicated, and one needs to weigh one's own values and their rankings as a whole, rather than as a single issue, which often gets missed in a lot of discourse today. And to reiterate, I agree with you that the SPLC has historically been a force for good for the reasons you mention.

unethical_ban 9y ago

Actually, I think in the United States, one does have the absolute right to have bigoted opinions, and even to speak them publicly, as stated in the 1st amendment. Furthermore, the point of the OP is that the SPLC itself has gone overboard in governing who and what is hate speech or bigotry. Some of their work is obviously legitimate, but not everyone who has a problem with Islam is a bigot anymore than those who have a problem with Christianity or Naturalism or Republicans.

stareatgoats 9y ago
It would help if you could link a resource that shows how SPLC considers everyone who has a problem with Islam a bigot. I'm sure you could find a case or two where they have gone too far, but that's not the same as 'everyone' obviously.

remarkEon 9y ago

>You don’t have a right to have that opinion. Which opinions does someone have a “right” to have? Is there a list? SPLC has managed to do a lot of damage to its credibility by adding otherwise nominal conservatives to its lists of bad actors.

cryptonector 9y ago

GP absolutely has the right to their opinions, whatever they might be. As do you. As do I. "You don't have the right to that opinion" -- you are allowed to hold that disgusting opinion, but it is disgusting. We judge -- we must judge. Fine. But I would much prefer that we say "that's wrong/dumb/whatever" and never "you do not get to speak [that or at all]".

megaman22 9y ago

Attacking Christina Hoff Sommers is an indication of jumping the shark http://www.weeklystandard.com/splc-targets-feminist-scholar-christina-hoff-sommers/article/2011753 http://www.weeklystandard.com/splc-targets-feminist-scholar-...

Steko 9y ago
Their criticism seems justified: Claiming rampant false accusations of rape and violence is one of the most prevalent men’s rights and equity feminist talking points.23 Who Stole Feminism?, a classic among conservative “feminists” published the following year by Christina Hoff Sommers, similarly argues that “gender” or “radical” feminists lie about rates of rape and domestic violence. Speaking on campus sexual assault in 2014, Sommers, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, repeated the same themes of “false accusations” and “[i]nflated statistics,” declaring, “I believe that the rape culture movement is fueled by exaggerated claims of intimacy and a lot of paranoia about men.”24 A spokesperson for A Voice for Men (AVFM), one of the most prominent men’s rights organizations, rejected rape “hysteria…as a scam” and baselessly claimed that sexual assault affects only about two percent of women—far from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s one-in-five statistic.25 Although equity feminists reject the existence of structural constraints on women, like Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) they suggest that American boys and men suffer at the hands of gender feminists. In 2000, Sommers wrote The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, and a flurry of concern over boys’ educational achievements in 2013 landed her in major outlets including The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and The Atlantic. Psychologist Helen Smith, one of IWF’s “Modern Feminists,” suggested in 2012 that “the deck is so stacked against men that they are ‘going Galt,’” a reference to Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, an MRA favorite.26 Equity feminism’s depiction of women as liars with “victim mentalities” dovetails alarmingly with (and legitimizes) the online manifestation of the men’s rights movement, which uses more virulent and hateful rhetoric to convey the same argument.