10 ms·

> To me, that'd be a good outcome for the confederate flag. Where does it end?

mikepurvis 6y ago
At a point which is beyond the confederate flag. There may well be a slippery slope somewhere along this road, but it's not here. Gun advocates resist common sense reforms with the same logic, but lots of military weapons (minigun, flamethrower, rocket launcher, etc) are already either banned or highly regulated and have been for years without anyone's rights having been trampled.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  What do you think of the counterargument about statues? A few years ago, the idea that removing Confederate statues might lead to removing statues of founding fathers was considered an absurd slippery slope argument; a few days ago, the New York Times published an opinion piece arguing that statues of George Washington should be torn down. How can we be confident that this isn't a step down that same slope?
  - vimy 6y ago
    Statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and even Lincoln have already been attacked by the mob. Mount Rushmore is now a symbol of white supremacy. The Emancipation Memorial, paid for by former slaves, is also considered racist now. Boston is going to remove it. The slippery slope has turned into a slide with no end in sight. https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/boston-art-commission-votes-8-0-remove-emancipation-memorial-park-square/OZTMVYPMVJA6RJWRDUAM6P2DOU/ https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/boston-art-commissio...
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      From your own link: > But Blacks weren’t part of the design process, and the memorial’s central visual takeaway — a Black man kneeling before his white savior — has had people cringing for years. They paid for it, but didn't get to have input on how it'd look. Seems like the precise sort of thing folks are upset about. Rushmore was a treaty violation from the very beginning, and Native Americans occupied it as far back as 1971 in protest.
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    The NYT opinion page is hardly a barometer of broad public consensus— see the recent scandal of the Tom Cotton "send in the military" piece.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      I'm not sure I follow. Opinion polls at the time showed that a significant majority of the public wanted the military sent in.
      - rickbutton 6y ago
        source?
      - mikepurvis 6y ago
        Most of the coverage I saw was people horrified at the constitutional implications of the military being turned on US citizens, on US soil, by order of the president.
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        I mean, there just aren't any constitutional implications - it happened in 1992 with no lasting repercussions.
        ceejayoz 6y ago
        There are constitutional implications to the use of the Insurrection Act against largely peaceful demonstrations, like the ones in DC at the time it was invoked. The First Amendment does not protect riots, but it does protect protests outside the White House.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- tc313 6y ago
  I agree with regards to private companies banning racist symbols, but the top comment was talking about anti hate-speech _laws_, which seem like a departure from my understanding of the first amendment. If a law against displaying the Confederate battle flag can be justified without a change to the constitution, then it really does become a slippery slope when determining what other unpopular expressions the first amendment fails to protect.
- beaner 6y ago
  Reminds me of when Trump a while ago (before the recent George Floyd stuff) was commenting on statues being torn down, and commented something like, "next they'll go for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, where does it end?" John Oliver did a bit on it answering "Somewhere. It ends somewhere," implying that he was an idiot, that it was a stupid comment, and everybody laughed. Now we're here and it has actually happened in reality. It's even gone further. Roosevelt. Lincoln?? We even have prominent BLM figures saying the western portrayal of Christ is systemic racism and must be erased. Since then I've come to see the answer "it ends somewhere" as completely void of any value or meaning, and mostly just a justification for mindless erasure. It's not a smart zinger, it's empty.
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    The Lincoln statue is kind of a special case, and it's obvious why from looking at it: https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-art-commission-unanimously-votes-to-remove-controversial-abraham-lincoln-statue-in-park-square/33017211 https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-art-commission-unanimous... As far as the others, clearly there is an Overton shift happening here, and that will embolden some advocates to make more extreme demands. Is that bad? Probably not, but I think most statues of Washington are likely safe for at least another generation or two, and if they get moved from the public square into museums at that later point, well, that's something the future will have decided on.
  - ebg13 6y ago
    > figures saying the western portrayal of Christ is systemic racism You mean the ones where he's shown as west-european white? I suppose we could bother thinking about why he looks like that in those portrayals when he definitely wouldn't have in real life.
    - beaner 6y ago
      One reason is that people might feel closer to something that they think superficially resembles themselves. This is part of the reason why diversity is important, according to so many people right now. Not just because groups have more perspectives, but because the people in the minority feel more comfortable when the minority is not so small. I remember some years ago about a situation regarding a movie. I forget the exact details, but it was something like a Filipino movie about an American disaster, like 9/11. The movie was based on a historically inaccurate story of a Filipino man or family involved in the circumstances, when in reality there had been none. I don't know whether or not the Filipino person was a replacement for a white person's real story. But as someone much closer to the original circumstances, my perspective is not that I or my community's history has been replaced or been removed due to "racism." It is rather very touching that this foreign community felt close enough and impacted enough by the story to envision themselves inside it, taking part in it. To me, it was an expression of closeness and understanding, not appropriation or racism. Plus it seems strange to me that in a story where people walk on water and talk to burning bushes and kill gays, that the most offensive or historically inaccurate thing is that some people have envisioned the main character as being similar to them.
ceejayoz 6y ago
Germany doesn't seem to have significant difficulty banning Nazi symbols and propaganda without accidentally banning, say, depictions of unicorns. Slippery slopes have varying levels of steepness.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  I believe the parent poster is referring to the extremely recent reforms going on in Germany, which are above and beyond their historic control of Nazi symbols: https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/germany-tightens-online-hate-speech-rules-to-make-platforms-send-reports-straight-to-the-feds/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/germany-tightens-online-ha... I don't have an opinion on this as it's way too fresh to have observed the effects of it and render a judgment; just here to provide context.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    That sounds like they're just setting up a mandatory reporter scenario, akin to how certain private entities are obligated to report child abuse in the USA.
namdnay 6y ago
Like most European countries today? This slope doesn’t seem particularly slippy
- jaywalk 6y ago
  You mean countries where you can be arrested for a tweet that offends someone? Yeah, no thanks.
  - namdnay 6y ago
    Because that’s not already the case in the US? Ask a Muslim friend to post a joke about blowing up JFK and see how long it is until their door is broken down
    - jaywalk 6y ago
      Come on. Threatening to blow up an airport is not in the same ballpark as hurting someone's feelings.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        Which European nations have rules against mere "hurting someone's feelings"?
        kube-system 6y ago
        There are a number of examples of speech laws in the western world that have banned insults. From 1994-2014 the UK had a ban on speech that was "insulting" The UK's Communications Act 2003 section 127 also says: > (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he- > (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or > (b) causes any such message or matter to be so sent. > (2) A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he- > (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false, > (b) causes such a message to be sent; or > (c) persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
0l2wn9Bmxw 6y ago
Is that a good enough reason to not start at all? (Even in general, not necessarily in this context)
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Why do you assume it continues?
happytoexplain 6y ago
This question is applicable to all laws and impossible to objectively answer. It has no real value.
UncleMeat 6y ago
The confederate flag maybe? We get to pick each time. "Well, we banned the confederate flag, better prevent white people from listening to rap" isn't the sort of thing that happens. Each adjustment to social norms is an independent choice that our society gets to make.

At a point which is beyond the confederate flag. There may well be a slippery slope somewhere along this road, but it's not here. Gun advocates resist common sense reforms with the same logic, but lots of military weapons (minigun, flamethrower, rocket launcher, etc) are already either banned or highly regulated and have been for years without anyone's rights having been trampled.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
What do you think of the counterargument about statues? A few years ago, the idea that removing Confederate statues might lead to removing statues of founding fathers was considered an absurd slippery slope argument; a few days ago, the New York Times published an opinion piece arguing that statues of George Washington should be torn down. How can we be confident that this isn't a step down that same slope?
- vimy 6y ago
  Statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and even Lincoln have already been attacked by the mob. Mount Rushmore is now a symbol of white supremacy. The Emancipation Memorial, paid for by former slaves, is also considered racist now. Boston is going to remove it. The slippery slope has turned into a slide with no end in sight. https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/boston-art-commission-votes-8-0-remove-emancipation-memorial-park-square/OZTMVYPMVJA6RJWRDUAM6P2DOU/ https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/boston-art-commissio...
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    From your own link: > But Blacks weren’t part of the design process, and the memorial’s central visual takeaway — a Black man kneeling before his white savior — has had people cringing for years. They paid for it, but didn't get to have input on how it'd look. Seems like the precise sort of thing folks are upset about. Rushmore was a treaty violation from the very beginning, and Native Americans occupied it as far back as 1971 in protest.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  The NYT opinion page is hardly a barometer of broad public consensus— see the recent scandal of the Tom Cotton "send in the military" piece.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I'm not sure I follow. Opinion polls at the time showed that a significant majority of the public wanted the military sent in.
    - rickbutton 6y ago
      source?
    - mikepurvis 6y ago
      Most of the coverage I saw was people horrified at the constitutional implications of the military being turned on US citizens, on US soil, by order of the president.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        I mean, there just aren't any constitutional implications - it happened in 1992 with no lasting repercussions.
        ceejayoz 6y ago
        There are constitutional implications to the use of the Insurrection Act against largely peaceful demonstrations, like the ones in DC at the time it was invoked. The First Amendment does not protect riots, but it does protect protests outside the White House.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
tc313 6y ago
I agree with regards to private companies banning racist symbols, but the top comment was talking about anti hate-speech _laws_, which seem like a departure from my understanding of the first amendment. If a law against displaying the Confederate battle flag can be justified without a change to the constitution, then it really does become a slippery slope when determining what other unpopular expressions the first amendment fails to protect.
beaner 6y ago
Reminds me of when Trump a while ago (before the recent George Floyd stuff) was commenting on statues being torn down, and commented something like, "next they'll go for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, where does it end?" John Oliver did a bit on it answering "Somewhere. It ends somewhere," implying that he was an idiot, that it was a stupid comment, and everybody laughed. Now we're here and it has actually happened in reality. It's even gone further. Roosevelt. Lincoln?? We even have prominent BLM figures saying the western portrayal of Christ is systemic racism and must be erased. Since then I've come to see the answer "it ends somewhere" as completely void of any value or meaning, and mostly just a justification for mindless erasure. It's not a smart zinger, it's empty.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  The Lincoln statue is kind of a special case, and it's obvious why from looking at it: https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-art-commission-unanimously-votes-to-remove-controversial-abraham-lincoln-statue-in-park-square/33017211 https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-art-commission-unanimous... As far as the others, clearly there is an Overton shift happening here, and that will embolden some advocates to make more extreme demands. Is that bad? Probably not, but I think most statues of Washington are likely safe for at least another generation or two, and if they get moved from the public square into museums at that later point, well, that's something the future will have decided on.
- ebg13 6y ago
  > figures saying the western portrayal of Christ is systemic racism You mean the ones where he's shown as west-european white? I suppose we could bother thinking about why he looks like that in those portrayals when he definitely wouldn't have in real life.
  - beaner 6y ago
    One reason is that people might feel closer to something that they think superficially resembles themselves. This is part of the reason why diversity is important, according to so many people right now. Not just because groups have more perspectives, but because the people in the minority feel more comfortable when the minority is not so small. I remember some years ago about a situation regarding a movie. I forget the exact details, but it was something like a Filipino movie about an American disaster, like 9/11. The movie was based on a historically inaccurate story of a Filipino man or family involved in the circumstances, when in reality there had been none. I don't know whether or not the Filipino person was a replacement for a white person's real story. But as someone much closer to the original circumstances, my perspective is not that I or my community's history has been replaced or been removed due to "racism." It is rather very touching that this foreign community felt close enough and impacted enough by the story to envision themselves inside it, taking part in it. To me, it was an expression of closeness and understanding, not appropriation or racism. Plus it seems strange to me that in a story where people walk on water and talk to burning bushes and kill gays, that the most offensive or historically inaccurate thing is that some people have envisioned the main character as being similar to them.

ceejayoz 6y ago

Germany doesn't seem to have significant difficulty banning Nazi symbols and propaganda without accidentally banning, say, depictions of unicorns. Slippery slopes have varying levels of steepness.

mikepurvis 6y ago
I believe the parent poster is referring to the extremely recent reforms going on in Germany, which are above and beyond their historic control of Nazi symbols: https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/germany-tightens-online-hate-speech-rules-to-make-platforms-send-reports-straight-to-the-feds/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/germany-tightens-online-ha... I don't have an opinion on this as it's way too fresh to have observed the effects of it and render a judgment; just here to provide context.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  That sounds like they're just setting up a mandatory reporter scenario, akin to how certain private entities are obligated to report child abuse in the USA.

namdnay 6y ago

Like most European countries today? This slope doesn’t seem particularly slippy

jaywalk 6y ago
You mean countries where you can be arrested for a tweet that offends someone? Yeah, no thanks.
- namdnay 6y ago
  Because that’s not already the case in the US? Ask a Muslim friend to post a joke about blowing up JFK and see how long it is until their door is broken down
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    Come on. Threatening to blow up an airport is not in the same ballpark as hurting someone's feelings.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      Which European nations have rules against mere "hurting someone's feelings"?
      - kube-system 6y ago
        There are a number of examples of speech laws in the western world that have banned insults. From 1994-2014 the UK had a ban on speech that was "insulting" The UK's Communications Act 2003 section 127 also says: > (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he- > (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or > (b) causes any such message or matter to be so sent. > (2) A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he- > (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false, > (b) causes such a message to be sent; or > (c) persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

0l2wn9Bmxw 6y ago

Is that a good enough reason to not start at all? (Even in general, not necessarily in this context)

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago

Why do you assume it continues?

happytoexplain 6y ago

This question is applicable to all laws and impossible to objectively answer. It has no real value.

UncleMeat 6y ago

The confederate flag maybe? We get to pick each time. "Well, we banned the confederate flag, better prevent white people from listening to rap" isn't the sort of thing that happens. Each adjustment to social norms is an independent choice that our society gets to make.