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I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only see

I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives - contrast Google evicting milquetoast conservatives from Youtube with no legal repercussions versus that baker in Colorado getting sued a bunch of times for not wanting to bake gay, satanist, etc. themed cakes. There are plenty of examples along these lines. In general, the last 50-60 years have seen private individuals and businesses stripped of their rights to turn away customers, in the US mostly under the guise of the CRA, FHA, etc. YouTube finds itself remarkably (and unsurprisingly) unrestrained by these kind of (progressive) laws.

tootie 6y ago
There's ample for why it's illegal to discriminate against classes of people. Imagine business in the 20s with signs saying "Irish need not apply" or "No dogs or Jews". The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. Any "conservative" content that has been kicked off of platforms like YouTube has been specifically targeted not for political reasons but because they were spreading hate speech and/or dangerous disinformation. Things like racism, sexism, religious intolerance, specific accusations (ie Joe Scarborough is a murderer) or dangerous disinformation (ie 5G causes Coronavirus) are not intrinsic to any group of people. There's still plenty of content around mainstream conservatism that can be viewed freely. I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid. People aren't computers and just because you can't apply a mathematically rigorous distinction between these kinds of speech doesn't mean that a reasonable person can't easily distinguish them.
- defen 6y ago
  > The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. He offered to sell them a pre-made cake (in compliance with non-discrimination laws). The question was whether he could be compelled to perform an act of speech (custom-making a cake) that violated his sincerely-held religious beliefs.
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    It was a work for hire service that he refused, the speech argument is pretty flimsy (to me at least). To me it's like trying to say that your hedge trimming service is a creative act, and thus speech, so your landscaping company can deny service to a same-sex couple. I guess reasonable people can disagree, but we wouldn't be as conflicted it it was an interracial couple that he was denying services to. I doubt history will be kind to that SC decision.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - defen 6y ago
      In general, trimmed hedges don't inherently convey a meaningful message, but if you asked someone to trim the hedges into a message that violated your sincerely-held religious beliefs then I think the same principle would apply. > we wouldn't be as conflicted it it was an interracial couple that he was denying services to I don't believe you would be able to make a "sincere religious conviction" argument against it - I'm not aware of any mainstream religions that prohibit interracial marriage as part of their doctrine (as opposed to an epiphenomenon of the cultural practices of the people who make up the group).
      - mullingitover 6y ago
        > I don't believe you would be able to make a "sincere religious conviction" argument against it People have used sincere religious arguments against interracial relationships for decades if not centuries. The reason it's not invoked now is because we've had a couple generations where the law of the land was obviously morally superior to the scriptures, to the point it's not seriously debated anymore.
        defen 6y ago
        As far as I am aware, there is nothing in the scriptures of any major religions regarding interracial marriage (which makes sense, since the modern conception of race didn't exist thousands of years ago when most of them were written). So I'm not sure what "sincere religious belief" those people would have been using in their arguments - just being a Christian doesn't automatically make any sincere belief you hold a religious one. Many religions do have scriptural prohibitions against homosexuality, however.
- centimeter 6y ago
  > The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. So is it a "human right" to use a business's services even if they don't want you to, or not? Be consistent. If it is, it's a human right violation to politically deplatform people. > has been specifically targeted not for political reasons This is obvious bullshit to anyone who follows youtube/twitter/facebook censorship drama. Tons of people have been deplatformed without having e.g. harassed anyone. > they were spreading hate speech Is this supposed to impress us? That something someone said falls under this recently-made-up category that coincidentally includes a bunch of factual rightist talking points? > There's still plenty of content around mainstream conservatism I'm sure you feel that way, but conservatives certainly don't agree with you. > I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid There's not a slippery slope argument here - YouTube, Twitter, and others have deleted content that many conservatives think is obviously fine and within the bounds of civil discourse. Here are two related things that came up in my feed literally today: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/5/26/21270290/youtube-deleting-comments-censorship-chinese-communist-party-ccp https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/5/26/21270290/you... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1201181 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1201181
mullingitover 6y ago
> I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives When conservatives run businesses and want to do hateful things, they get in trouble with the law. When liberals run businesses and don't let conservatives do hateful things on their platform, they don't get in trouble with the law! So unfair. The difference is that conservatives have (correctly) been stripped of their ability to legally commit human rights abuses. A web site refusing to host your content for reasons not related to your race or religion, but instead based on the content of your character, is absolutely not a human rights abuse.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  But who get's to arbiter the content of one's character? And by what metrics are so perfect they won't be abused or change in 5 years?
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    > But who get's to arbiter the content of one's character? Only you get to make the decisions that define your character. Others observe your choices and choose to associate with you, or not to. > And by what metrics are so perfect they won't be abused or change in 5 years? There are no metrics. The free, global, unfiltered publishing platform is free to decide that they just don't like you. Nobody is entitled to free unfiltered publishing of their content. I should note that if you're willing to pay, there's basically nothing that you can't get published on the internet. For some reason people get the 'free' in free speech confused with zero-cost. You can publish whatever repugnant material you like, you just don't necessarily get the eyeballs that some believe they're entitled to.
- legolas2412 6y ago
  So, discrimination on political lines is fine as it is based on the content of your character? Btw, political discrimination is illegal.
  - 6y ago
kube-system 6y ago
> they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives This can be mostly likely summed up as self-selection bias. Discrimination laws are not being applied unequally to people of differing political opinions. It is much more common that people's political identities are self-chosen based on their own personal identity and experiences.
- centimeter 6y ago
  The actual dominating selection bias is that "discrimination laws" were an authoritarian progressive political strategy, so they align most closely with authoritarian progressive beliefs and interests.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    So was social security and a ton of other laws, but that's pretty irrelevant in today's politics. As far as politics today is concerned, I would sure hope that both conservatives and liberals both agree that is it wrong to deny service based on someone's membership in a protected class.
    - centimeter 6y ago
      > As far as politics today is concerned, I would sure hope... Of course, as a progressive (I'm guessing), you would hope the overton window stays firmly within the progressive comfort zone. This has little to do with the fact that progressive laws do, in fact, generally work in opposition to conservative (rightist and/or libertarian) politics, even if we can retroactively come up with some clean-sounding justification like "it's about human rights". It's not self-selection bias.

tootie 6y ago

There's ample for why it's illegal to discriminate against classes of people. Imagine business in the 20s with signs saying "Irish need not apply" or "No dogs or Jews". The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. Any "conservative" content that has been kicked off of platforms like YouTube has been specifically targeted not for political reasons but because they were spreading hate speech and/or dangerous disinformation. Things like racism, sexism, religious intolerance, specific accusations (ie Joe Scarborough is a murderer) or dangerous disinformation (ie 5G causes Coronavirus) are not intrinsic to any group of people. There's still plenty of content around mainstream conservatism that can be viewed freely. I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid. People aren't computers and just because you can't apply a mathematically rigorous distinction between these kinds of speech doesn't mean that a reasonable person can't easily distinguish them.

defen 6y ago
> The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. He offered to sell them a pre-made cake (in compliance with non-discrimination laws). The question was whether he could be compelled to perform an act of speech (custom-making a cake) that violated his sincerely-held religious beliefs.
- mullingitover 6y ago
  It was a work for hire service that he refused, the speech argument is pretty flimsy (to me at least). To me it's like trying to say that your hedge trimming service is a creative act, and thus speech, so your landscaping company can deny service to a same-sex couple. I guess reasonable people can disagree, but we wouldn't be as conflicted it it was an interracial couple that he was denying services to. I doubt history will be kind to that SC decision.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - defen 6y ago
    In general, trimmed hedges don't inherently convey a meaningful message, but if you asked someone to trim the hedges into a message that violated your sincerely-held religious beliefs then I think the same principle would apply. > we wouldn't be as conflicted it it was an interracial couple that he was denying services to I don't believe you would be able to make a "sincere religious conviction" argument against it - I'm not aware of any mainstream religions that prohibit interracial marriage as part of their doctrine (as opposed to an epiphenomenon of the cultural practices of the people who make up the group).
    - mullingitover 6y ago
      > I don't believe you would be able to make a "sincere religious conviction" argument against it People have used sincere religious arguments against interracial relationships for decades if not centuries. The reason it's not invoked now is because we've had a couple generations where the law of the land was obviously morally superior to the scriptures, to the point it's not seriously debated anymore.
      - defen 6y ago
        As far as I am aware, there is nothing in the scriptures of any major religions regarding interracial marriage (which makes sense, since the modern conception of race didn't exist thousands of years ago when most of them were written). So I'm not sure what "sincere religious belief" those people would have been using in their arguments - just being a Christian doesn't automatically make any sincere belief you hold a religious one. Many religions do have scriptural prohibitions against homosexuality, however.
centimeter 6y ago
> The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. So is it a "human right" to use a business's services even if they don't want you to, or not? Be consistent. If it is, it's a human right violation to politically deplatform people. > has been specifically targeted not for political reasons This is obvious bullshit to anyone who follows youtube/twitter/facebook censorship drama. Tons of people have been deplatformed without having e.g. harassed anyone. > they were spreading hate speech Is this supposed to impress us? That something someone said falls under this recently-made-up category that coincidentally includes a bunch of factual rightist talking points? > There's still plenty of content around mainstream conservatism I'm sure you feel that way, but conservatives certainly don't agree with you. > I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid There's not a slippery slope argument here - YouTube, Twitter, and others have deleted content that many conservatives think is obviously fine and within the bounds of civil discourse. Here are two related things that came up in my feed literally today: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/5/26/21270290/youtube-deleting-comments-censorship-chinese-communist-party-ccp https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/5/26/21270290/you... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1201181 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1201181

mullingitover 6y ago

> I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives When conservatives run businesses and want to do hateful things, they get in trouble with the law. When liberals run businesses and don't let conservatives do hateful things on their platform, they don't get in trouble with the law! So unfair. The difference is that conservatives have (correctly) been stripped of their ability to legally commit human rights abuses. A web site refusing to host your content for reasons not related to your race or religion, but instead based on the content of your character, is absolutely not a human rights abuse.

Avicebron 6y ago
But who get's to arbiter the content of one's character? And by what metrics are so perfect they won't be abused or change in 5 years?
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > But who get's to arbiter the content of one's character? Only you get to make the decisions that define your character. Others observe your choices and choose to associate with you, or not to. > And by what metrics are so perfect they won't be abused or change in 5 years? There are no metrics. The free, global, unfiltered publishing platform is free to decide that they just don't like you. Nobody is entitled to free unfiltered publishing of their content. I should note that if you're willing to pay, there's basically nothing that you can't get published on the internet. For some reason people get the 'free' in free speech confused with zero-cost. You can publish whatever repugnant material you like, you just don't necessarily get the eyeballs that some believe they're entitled to.
legolas2412 6y ago
So, discrimination on political lines is fine as it is based on the content of your character? Btw, political discrimination is illegal.
- 6y ago

kube-system 6y ago

> they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives This can be mostly likely summed up as self-selection bias. Discrimination laws are not being applied unequally to people of differing political opinions. It is much more common that people's political identities are self-chosen based on their own personal identity and experiences.

centimeter 6y ago
The actual dominating selection bias is that "discrimination laws" were an authoritarian progressive political strategy, so they align most closely with authoritarian progressive beliefs and interests.
- kube-system 6y ago
  So was social security and a ton of other laws, but that's pretty irrelevant in today's politics. As far as politics today is concerned, I would sure hope that both conservatives and liberals both agree that is it wrong to deny service based on someone's membership in a protected class.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    > As far as politics today is concerned, I would sure hope... Of course, as a progressive (I'm guessing), you would hope the overton window stays firmly within the progressive comfort zone. This has little to do with the fact that progressive laws do, in fact, generally work in opposition to conservative (rightist and/or libertarian) politics, even if we can retroactively come up with some clean-sounding justification like "it's about human rights". It's not self-selection bias.