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This discussion is pointless because it's just a proxy war. Everyone's position is completely determined by what they think of Bannon (or Trump really), so no i
by tooscared 6y ago
This discussion is pointless because it's just a proxy war. Everyone's position is completely determined by what they think of Bannon (or Trump really), so no information is exchanged. Here's a thought anyway though. The image he used (heads on pikes) is gruesome and is also a common metaphor for doing something dramatic to deter unwanted behavior, also known as pour encourager les autres. In my mind that usage tilts the remark away from "let's literally put their heads on pikes" to the more metaphoric. Now try this thought experiment: come up with some new grisly image of a way to murder someone, without any history of being used as a metaphor, and imagine Bannon had used that image instead. That would tilt the remark more towards being an actual threat.
Other people in this thread have made a similar better point. If he had said "heads should roll", that's not a call for decapitation. Another obvious point is that he's being an edgelord, going too far but not exactly all the way, in order to get attention. Edgy references to civil war are the same. That's not starting a war, but it's not totally not starting a war either. There aren't precise lines to draw here, probably on purpose.
- AaronFriel 6y agoWhich is why his Facebook page later posted that he specifically called for those individuals' execution?
- tooscared 6y agoI assume you mean https://web.archive.org/web/20201106185230if_/https://www.facebook.com/SteveKBannon/posts/376710023761776 https://web.archive.org/web/20201106185230if_/https://www.fa... because you've brought this up like six times already, but I think you're overinterpreting it. To me it looks like someone pasted a headline from some news story reporting the heads-on-pikes comment. Probably some intern, as I doubt that Bannon is pasting things into Facebook, he is surely too vain for that.
- AaronFriel 6y agoThat's the same verified Facebook page that hosts his weekly live stream. You can say that those aren't his words, but... his platform again states he's calling for the President to execute two people.
- isoskeles 6y agoHe's quoting another headline: https://www.thewrap.com/steve-bannon-suspended-by-twitter-after-calling-for-execution-of-dr-fauci-and-fbi-director-wray/ https://www.thewrap.com/steve-bannon-suspended-by-twitter-af... I am going to post this as a reply to every single one of your comments that repeats this lie.
- dang 6y agoPlease drop the 'lie' bit- there's no evidence that AaronFriel is being intentionally misleading.
- isoskeles 6y agoYou've successfully allowed a thread to have DOZENS of AaronFriel's false comments, whether or not they were lies, they were clearly misinformed. You've allowed his comment, which I'm sure multiple people flagged, stating this, to stick: > I am beyond tired of people making excuses for public threats of violence from authoritarian right-wing actors. It isn't helpful to any discourse to pretend words don't mean what they mean anymore. Fuck you, dang. Go ahead and ban me. You're a really fucking shitty moderator, and you allow fucking garbage political threads like this to go with one-sided, bad faith, bullying trash from people like AaronFriel. But, OOOH GOTCHA ISOSKELES, YOU SAID "LYING" WHEN MAYBE HE JUST DIDN'T KNOW. Fuck you. And fuck Hacker News.
- dang 6y agoOuch. Look, I know how explosive all this is and I don't need to ban someone for having strong feelings. But we need to hold the container in a certain way. It's fine to say that another comment is false, especially if you then add corrective information. It's fine to say that it's misleading, if you show how and (again) add corrective info. But to say that another user is lying crosses a clear semantic line: it imputes malicious intent, i.e. not just that they're wrong but that they know the truth and are intending to deceive. That we don't allow. Surely it's not hard to see why. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ZeteticElench 6y agoThe reference to going back to the time of the Tudors when they actually did such things tilts it back to being a real call to action.