4 ms·

Seems like policing speech is a bad precedent to set, and even if you don’t think it’s a slippery slope, how do we make sure the government’s definition of the

Seems like policing speech is a bad precedent to set, and even if you don’t think it’s a slippery slope, how do we make sure the government’s definition of the phrase is/remains reasonable? Ideally the extreme left wing will be marginalized (i.e., no more dominating universities and newsrooms or tech companies) just like we marginalized right wing extremists.

joshuamorton 8y ago
Part of the problem may be that you're off the opinion that tech companies are the extreme left. I've met people on the extreme left, they're not average Facebook or Google employees. No one on mainstream TV is "extreme" left. You have to get to theyoungturks or chapotraphouse. (And these are marginalized, given that you've probable maybe heard of Cenk and TYT, but CTH is a podcast and subreddit and nothing else). If your ideal is that the US's center left (which is globally center or center right) is considered the extreme left and marginalized, your personal overton window is so far to the right that you probably shouldn't be making these decisions. And as you say, the government probably shouldn't be either, it would allow a government that believed that CNN was far left to censor it.
- weberc2 8y ago
  Let me set the record straight so you don’t have to guess about whether I’m conflating far left and center left: 1. I’m a moderate liberal by every measure. 2. I don’t view CNN as far left; while it is shamefully partisan, no more so than Fox News. 3. I don’t want the government to censor anyone, I’m more or less a free speech absolutist. 4. I don’t think tech companies in general are far-left; only that a handful appear to contain a sufficiently powerful contingent of far left ideologues who feel comfortable using their company to suppress dissent (social media platforms censoring moderate liberal and conservative viewpoints, Google firing Damore under patently false pretenses, Mozilla pushing out Eich, etc).
  - xte 8y ago
    A small intervention: to my (western) European eyes saying that CNN is far left or even saying that far left exists in the USA is a fascist affirmation... That's to add a different "relative" measure. Apart of that far left and far right are essentially the SAME, their "lower labor force" are fanatic people used as a weapon/Ford models workers by the very same "sponsors" who want dictatorship instead of free society. If you read about or know someone who have visited both Franco's Spain and Chernenko's Soviet Union you will see that they are equally oppressive and use essentially the very same language, only with a little color variation in flags. Do not forget that Lenin was massively financed by Kaiser's Germany, Stalin by UK crown etc just to stop socialism transforming it in a dictatorial regime with same symbols, not different by the hitler financing by German élites against socialism in Germany, mussolini financed by UK crown against a socialist Italy etc. "left" is socialism, "center" is liberalism, the rest are only a grayscale of dictatorship movements disguised in various ways.
    - weberc2 8y ago
      Yes, these political descriptors have different meanings in the US compared to Europe.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    Then why did you originally claim it was dominating universities, tech companies, and the newsroom? Those things are maybe left of center under some metrics, but not far left, and certainly not extremely far left, so why claim that? Again, if you're now going to claim that the people like Sargon and Milo and co being censored are moderate liberals, I'm gonna say that you're just patently incorrect, and your left-right scale is broken. That you equivocate fox and CNN only cements this. Compare morning Joe (one of the most partisan shows on CNN) to Hannity or Carlson, and there really isn't a comparison.
    - weberc2 8y ago
      “The far left dominates universities, newsrooms, and tech companies” meant that these three categories of organizations are more likely to push a far left agenda. It doesn’t mean the organizations themselves are completely or even majority far-left. It also doesn’t mean every organization in the category behaves this way. It only means the power balance leans far left. As for why “far left” and not “moderate left”—because moderate leftists don’t have the authoritarian bent that we see from these organizations. They don’t seek to suppress moderate voices. I don’t know much about Sargon, but nothing on his wiki page seems to suggest he is far right, and I never claimed Milo was a moderate anything. You keep throwing out these straw men as though you’re desperate to have a very particular argument when it seems like you and I likely agree on quite a lot... RE Fox vs CNN, I don’t follow your point. They’re both patently moderate organizations; seems like you’re conflating partisanship with extremism and your sense of partisanship is based on two data points. In any case, I’m not interested in splitting hairs between Fox and CNN so long as we can agree that neither is extreme-anything (and if we can’t then you’re too far off the reservation to have a productive conversation with).
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]

joshuamorton 8y ago

Part of the problem may be that you're off the opinion that tech companies are the extreme left. I've met people on the extreme left, they're not average Facebook or Google employees. No one on mainstream TV is "extreme" left. You have to get to theyoungturks or chapotraphouse. (And these are marginalized, given that you've probable maybe heard of Cenk and TYT, but CTH is a podcast and subreddit and nothing else). If your ideal is that the US's center left (which is globally center or center right) is considered the extreme left and marginalized, your personal overton window is so far to the right that you probably shouldn't be making these decisions. And as you say, the government probably shouldn't be either, it would allow a government that believed that CNN was far left to censor it.

weberc2 8y ago
Let me set the record straight so you don’t have to guess about whether I’m conflating far left and center left: 1. I’m a moderate liberal by every measure. 2. I don’t view CNN as far left; while it is shamefully partisan, no more so than Fox News. 3. I don’t want the government to censor anyone, I’m more or less a free speech absolutist. 4. I don’t think tech companies in general are far-left; only that a handful appear to contain a sufficiently powerful contingent of far left ideologues who feel comfortable using their company to suppress dissent (social media platforms censoring moderate liberal and conservative viewpoints, Google firing Damore under patently false pretenses, Mozilla pushing out Eich, etc).
- xte 8y ago
  A small intervention: to my (western) European eyes saying that CNN is far left or even saying that far left exists in the USA is a fascist affirmation... That's to add a different "relative" measure. Apart of that far left and far right are essentially the SAME, their "lower labor force" are fanatic people used as a weapon/Ford models workers by the very same "sponsors" who want dictatorship instead of free society. If you read about or know someone who have visited both Franco's Spain and Chernenko's Soviet Union you will see that they are equally oppressive and use essentially the very same language, only with a little color variation in flags. Do not forget that Lenin was massively financed by Kaiser's Germany, Stalin by UK crown etc just to stop socialism transforming it in a dictatorial regime with same symbols, not different by the hitler financing by German élites against socialism in Germany, mussolini financed by UK crown against a socialist Italy etc. "left" is socialism, "center" is liberalism, the rest are only a grayscale of dictatorship movements disguised in various ways.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    Yes, these political descriptors have different meanings in the US compared to Europe.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  Then why did you originally claim it was dominating universities, tech companies, and the newsroom? Those things are maybe left of center under some metrics, but not far left, and certainly not extremely far left, so why claim that? Again, if you're now going to claim that the people like Sargon and Milo and co being censored are moderate liberals, I'm gonna say that you're just patently incorrect, and your left-right scale is broken. That you equivocate fox and CNN only cements this. Compare morning Joe (one of the most partisan shows on CNN) to Hannity or Carlson, and there really isn't a comparison.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    “The far left dominates universities, newsrooms, and tech companies” meant that these three categories of organizations are more likely to push a far left agenda. It doesn’t mean the organizations themselves are completely or even majority far-left. It also doesn’t mean every organization in the category behaves this way. It only means the power balance leans far left. As for why “far left” and not “moderate left”—because moderate leftists don’t have the authoritarian bent that we see from these organizations. They don’t seek to suppress moderate voices. I don’t know much about Sargon, but nothing on his wiki page seems to suggest he is far right, and I never claimed Milo was a moderate anything. You keep throwing out these straw men as though you’re desperate to have a very particular argument when it seems like you and I likely agree on quite a lot... RE Fox vs CNN, I don’t follow your point. They’re both patently moderate organizations; seems like you’re conflating partisanship with extremism and your sense of partisanship is based on two data points. In any case, I’m not interested in splitting hairs between Fox and CNN so long as we can agree that neither is extreme-anything (and if we can’t then you’re too far off the reservation to have a productive conversation with).
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]