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There doesn't seem to be much remaining restraint against suppression of conservative speech, since so many norms have now been revoked. You don't have to agree

by gfodor 6y ago

There doesn't seem to be much remaining restraint against suppression of conservative speech, since so many norms have now been revoked. You don't have to agree with these people to understand the basic formula that if a large enough group feels like they have been disenfranchised and are now being suppressed from talking about it by those in power the result is always the same. The way out of this was for the winning side to get out ahead of it and do everything in their power to legitimize the election for these people. They didn't have a moral duty to do so, but it was foolish not to, since now by not doing so we've seen a deep, cemented, hatred and distrust of the outcome and the other side that from my vantage point is materially worse than before and could have been avoided to a large degree. We're in trouble. People on the "winning" side of this dispute seem to be celebrating as the other side's hopes are dashed and their speech is marginalized, but in fact they ought to be terrified, since insofar as the other side isn't persuaded of their error and their beliefs deepen in light of the coercion being used against them being seen as a form of confirmation, things are going to be worse for everyone going into the new year. A strange irony from this situation that I hadn't realized is that it seems that if one is on the winning side of a dispute its the point of maximal confidence the other side will be coerced into submission that one actually should be the least confident that the dispute is going to be settled, since it means coercion has been accepted as the only possible method to settle it. In fact, its that moment, the one where persuasion is understood to not be viable, which presents the greatest danger. Our history points to another example of the point of presumed capitulation in fact being the start of anything but, but I won't make the analogy at the risk of it (rightly) being torn apart.

rblatz 6y ago
How is the president actively undermining the core ideals of our country conservative speech? His childish behavior is the problem, the fact that all these tech companies have to step in to prevent him from actively harming the country is a symptom of his own megalomania running unchecked for so long.
- gfodor 6y ago
  YouTube has stated they will ban content, no exceptions, that contains skepticism in the 2020 election, and they've started doing so. If you can't recognize this for what it is, it's not my problem personally, but it will soon be all our problem if enough people like you are willing to tolerate it. (And yes, before you construct a strawman response, YouTube is within their rights to do this. But that has nothing to do with if it's something we think is morally correct to do, nor how we should think about the second order effects of doing so, and the dangerous precedents it sets.)
  - rblatz 6y ago
    This is no different than how our country operated for the entirety of its existence. The major news outlets never made it a normal practice to help crackpots spread their theories. YouTube has tolerated this for much longer than the never we previously had.
pfdietz 6y ago
The end game could be the GOP going full confederate and the Democrats nuking them with the 14th amendment, Section 3. "Sorry guys, this court judgement now says you're banned from holding any public office, federal or state." Simply giving aid or comfort to those engaged in insurrection triggers this section. In this sense, having actual bullets being fired by "rebels" would be the biggest Christmas gift the Democrats could get.
- gfodor 6y ago
  And then what? People who have a mental model where if, God forbid, things come to that point, they will just come to an underpants-gnome like step that settles the issue seem ignorant of history. What you illustrate will just be a point of further escalation, one of a long chain that will lead to a real shooting war, unless one side turns away from the abyss on their own volition, not because the other side "nuked them" via a legal case.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    What happens then is that the full power of government would be in the hands of the democrats, likely including the power to impeach and remove members of the Supreme Court they don't like. If they control enough state legislatures they get to amend the constitution as they see fit also. There is no prospect of a rebellion overcoming the US military machine, and its presence would allow the GOP to be purged and suppressed. Maintaining a low level of guerilla activity would allow this to continue. The GOP is playing a very dangerous game for themselves moving in this direction.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      OK, lets say that we find ourselves in a situation (again, God forbid) where the Democrats have secured all levers of power in response to a small violent uprising, and the mechanism was not through a vote but through a legal process which barred Republicans from the government. What do you think happens if half of the country sees that government as illegitimate, including many members of the military? Governments aren't magic. They exist only if enough people see them as legitimate. The scenario you outline, as supported by polling data, implies to me approximately a third of the country would reject this outright as a legitimate government, with a high bias towards the military. Are you really thinking this through? Do you know how easy it would be for there to be a guerilla war in the US, which is organized in part by military defectors? All it would take would be for enough belief that the country's goverment had become tyrannical. This is exactly the premise of the two prior situations where Americans mobilized for war on our own soil. The scenario you outline is precisely the situation that most strong supporters of the second amendment believe it was created for, and why they exercise it - to provide a deterrence and eventually, if needed, a mechanism to overthrow a tyrannical government.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> The way out of this was for the winning side to get out ahead of it and do everything in their power to legitimize the election for these people. How does one do that when the people you are trying to convince are inherently unconvincable? They refuse to acknowledge experts, legal authorities, or any application of logic. If one of them steps out of line and goes against the narrative they are torn apart for it.
- gfodor 6y ago
  You're categorizing literally tens of millions of people (in the last poll) as all having the same belief structure. In reality, you have a wide spectrum of people having varying degrees of suspicion about the current election. The goal isn't to convince all of them, but for enough of them to have reasonable confidence in the election to be willing to accept it and reject the positions of those who want to escalate things with the belief it was fraudulent. Polling implies there is a wide gulf to bridge, with moderates having extreme doubt in the result. This is unsustainable. I would imagine to actually get to that point there are really only a few simple steps needed: full forensic audits of the disputed states, as well as a day in court in SCOTUS. I believe so far those have been largely denied or blocked (the merits of doing so are irrelevant) - if those were acquiesced by the winning side and accelerated at the outset it seems highly likely to me we would be nowhere near the precipice it seems we are now.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Look, Trump has lost nearly every single case brought forth about the election. Not just lost, but badly lost. Embarrassingly lost. Even a cursory glance at these cases show allegations with no supporting evidence or only hearsay. If any person still thinks the election was stolen after that, they're not a reasonable person.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      More than a third of polled Americans see the election as illegitimate, and that includes Democrats and non-affiliated voters. [1] This doesn't mean they're right. Unfortunately, no matter how "unreasonable" you think these people are, when they exist in such numbers and feel with such confidence they've lost the ability to have fair elections, the result of suppressing, ridiculing, and marginalizing them is fairly predictable. [1] https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3685 https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3685

by gfodor 6y ago

rblatz 6y ago

How is the president actively undermining the core ideals of our country conservative speech? His childish behavior is the problem, the fact that all these tech companies have to step in to prevent him from actively harming the country is a symptom of his own megalomania running unchecked for so long.

gfodor 6y ago
YouTube has stated they will ban content, no exceptions, that contains skepticism in the 2020 election, and they've started doing so. If you can't recognize this for what it is, it's not my problem personally, but it will soon be all our problem if enough people like you are willing to tolerate it. (And yes, before you construct a strawman response, YouTube is within their rights to do this. But that has nothing to do with if it's something we think is morally correct to do, nor how we should think about the second order effects of doing so, and the dangerous precedents it sets.)
- rblatz 6y ago
  This is no different than how our country operated for the entirety of its existence. The major news outlets never made it a normal practice to help crackpots spread their theories. YouTube has tolerated this for much longer than the never we previously had.

pfdietz 6y ago

The end game could be the GOP going full confederate and the Democrats nuking them with the 14th amendment, Section 3. "Sorry guys, this court judgement now says you're banned from holding any public office, federal or state." Simply giving aid or comfort to those engaged in insurrection triggers this section. In this sense, having actual bullets being fired by "rebels" would be the biggest Christmas gift the Democrats could get.

gfodor 6y ago
And then what? People who have a mental model where if, God forbid, things come to that point, they will just come to an underpants-gnome like step that settles the issue seem ignorant of history. What you illustrate will just be a point of further escalation, one of a long chain that will lead to a real shooting war, unless one side turns away from the abyss on their own volition, not because the other side "nuked them" via a legal case.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  What happens then is that the full power of government would be in the hands of the democrats, likely including the power to impeach and remove members of the Supreme Court they don't like. If they control enough state legislatures they get to amend the constitution as they see fit also. There is no prospect of a rebellion overcoming the US military machine, and its presence would allow the GOP to be purged and suppressed. Maintaining a low level of guerilla activity would allow this to continue. The GOP is playing a very dangerous game for themselves moving in this direction.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    OK, lets say that we find ourselves in a situation (again, God forbid) where the Democrats have secured all levers of power in response to a small violent uprising, and the mechanism was not through a vote but through a legal process which barred Republicans from the government. What do you think happens if half of the country sees that government as illegitimate, including many members of the military? Governments aren't magic. They exist only if enough people see them as legitimate. The scenario you outline, as supported by polling data, implies to me approximately a third of the country would reject this outright as a legitimate government, with a high bias towards the military. Are you really thinking this through? Do you know how easy it would be for there to be a guerilla war in the US, which is organized in part by military defectors? All it would take would be for enough belief that the country's goverment had become tyrannical. This is exactly the premise of the two prior situations where Americans mobilized for war on our own soil. The scenario you outline is precisely the situation that most strong supporters of the second amendment believe it was created for, and why they exercise it - to provide a deterrence and eventually, if needed, a mechanism to overthrow a tyrannical government.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> The way out of this was for the winning side to get out ahead of it and do everything in their power to legitimize the election for these people. How does one do that when the people you are trying to convince are inherently unconvincable? They refuse to acknowledge experts, legal authorities, or any application of logic. If one of them steps out of line and goes against the narrative they are torn apart for it.

gfodor 6y ago
You're categorizing literally tens of millions of people (in the last poll) as all having the same belief structure. In reality, you have a wide spectrum of people having varying degrees of suspicion about the current election. The goal isn't to convince all of them, but for enough of them to have reasonable confidence in the election to be willing to accept it and reject the positions of those who want to escalate things with the belief it was fraudulent. Polling implies there is a wide gulf to bridge, with moderates having extreme doubt in the result. This is unsustainable. I would imagine to actually get to that point there are really only a few simple steps needed: full forensic audits of the disputed states, as well as a day in court in SCOTUS. I believe so far those have been largely denied or blocked (the merits of doing so are irrelevant) - if those were acquiesced by the winning side and accelerated at the outset it seems highly likely to me we would be nowhere near the precipice it seems we are now.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Look, Trump has lost nearly every single case brought forth about the election. Not just lost, but badly lost. Embarrassingly lost. Even a cursory glance at these cases show allegations with no supporting evidence or only hearsay. If any person still thinks the election was stolen after that, they're not a reasonable person.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    More than a third of polled Americans see the election as illegitimate, and that includes Democrats and non-affiliated voters. [1] This doesn't mean they're right. Unfortunately, no matter how "unreasonable" you think these people are, when they exist in such numbers and feel with such confidence they've lost the ability to have fair elections, the result of suppressing, ridiculing, and marginalizing them is fairly predictable. [1] https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3685 https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3685