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Bannon said on this podcast that he would mount Anthony Fauci and Christopher Wray’s “heads on pikes” outside the White House as a “warning to other bureaucrats

by avalys 6y ago

Bannon said on this podcast that he would mount Anthony Fauci and Christopher Wray’s “heads on pikes” outside the White House as a “warning to other bureaucrats.” This was a few months ago. I presume he has been saying similar things since then. For years, the defense of these assholes has been “Oh, that’s just rhetoric, it’s not meant to be taken literally.” Well, we’ve just seen what happens when it gets taken literally. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

FFRefresh 6y ago
You mention that what he said was taken 'literally', so is it your insinuation that Bannon's 'heads on pikes' comments directly led to heads being placed on pikes at the Capitol? Also, are you in favor of sanctioning and deplatforming for anybody who uses rhetoric that when taken literally would mean some sort of violence? Even if those espousing such rhetoric fall on different parts of the political spectrum? After all, we've seen what happens when it gets taken literally.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
I had socialist/communist/anarchist friends throughout college talk about the need to use guillotines.
drogon2020 6y ago
It’s a figure of speech. Grow up.
- dang 6y ago
  We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Mashimo 6y ago
    What does it mean if a username is green? I thought he was some kind of mod / admin, because it stands out.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      It's actually somewhat the opposite—green indicates a new user, iirc the threshold is less than two weeks old. I don't quite get the purpose either.
    - dang 6y ago
      Yikes, that's a bit scary - I've added that to the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
throwawaysea 6y ago
If this standard is being applied, it should be applied to everyone. BLM-affiliated protest groups have suggested violence like this many times. For example, check out https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/us/protest-personal-homes-doxxing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/us/protest-personal-homes..., where protesters showed up at Seattle's mayor's house and spray painted "guillotine Jenny". Neither BLM nor the councilmembers who encouraged the protesters have been banned from big tech platforms. What about when they did the same to Jeff Bezos outside the building he works at (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/08/jeff-bezos-guillotine-protest-amazon-workers https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/08/jeff-bezos-guilloti...)? What about when something similar was done to Trump outside the white house (https://www.newsweek.com/protest-trump-doll-guillotine-outside-white-house-rnc-1528381 https://www.newsweek.com/protest-trump-doll-guillotine-outsi...)? Treating Steve Bannon differently is hypocritical and unfair. > Well, we’ve just seen what happens when it gets taken literally. Can you quote a specific person saying "go to the capital and break the law and commit violence"? Because I don't think you can find that evidence.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  > protesters showed up at Seattle's mayor's house and spray painted "guillotine Jenny" Does these people also have a YouTube podcast that was taken offline? Or are you trying to point a finger at an unrelated issue and saying, "That is also bad!!" What you are doing is called whataboutism. We need to evaluate situations with their context. Constantly pulling in new examples and "they did X which excuses Y" is a child's game. It's the rhetorical equivalent to "they started it!". For example, I might say, "the BLM was responding to threats of violence from the cops" to which you might respond, "the cops were responding to threats of violence from suspected criminals". We could continue this chain forever, coming up with some other example and historical precedent. It's not productive. We're here, now in this thread discussing this one event. > Can you quote a specific person saying "go to the capital and break the law and commit violence"? I assume you mean on Bannons show? Because there are tons of examples of what you've described in other contexts.
- Osiris 6y ago
  Yes, the standard should be applied to everyone. In my opinion, no one should ever suggest the murder of any other person regardless of whether they intend it as sarcasm, hyperbole, metaphor, or anything else.
dionian 6y ago
I'm a native-born American citizen and we used the phrase figuratively in my household as I was growing up. Just saying.
- avalys 6y ago
  Did you use it against your political enemies in a public forum with millions listening?
- triceratops 6y ago
  Here's the full quote: "Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes". Now the generally understood figurative meaning of putting someone's "head on a pike" is "fire them in disgrace". But Bannon's ruled that one out in the first sentence. So I'm honestly at a loss as to what he meant. Can you, as a "native-born American citizen", help me understand what his figurative meaning was here? I've asked a bunch of people on here who claimed "no big deal, it was a figure of speech" but they failed to explain what it means.
  - phendrenad2 6y ago
    Hmm so wishing for something tongue-in-cheek is bannable. Got it.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      I don't see an answer to the question I asked. All I see is variations of "It's a joke bro, relax!". (And that's 0/4 on HN when I've asked this question) Explain the joke, please! I'm not trying to take those words literally. I'm just looking for a figurative meaning of "heads on pikes" that makes sense in this context. "Fire them" makes no sense at all. So what is it?
      - phendrenad2 6y ago
TheOperator 6y ago
Gonna need to ban a lot more people than Bannon if you're going to ban everybody who used figurative calls to violence and was associated with some group which engaged in violence. Especially given 9 people died in BLM protests last year. Regarding this incident Zuckerberg didn't ban him at the time because he said that Bannon didn't even violate his sites policy in regards to how many times you have to say things like this before getting banned. He reacted with a removal of the video. Zuckerberg was correct and for all the hate leveled against him he seems to be one of the only people who is resisting political pressure and fighting to enforce policy fairly and unarbitrarily. An extremely broad amount of people will once or twice say something like this regardless of political affliation and the banning of Bannon here is mostly a mixture of hindsight and bias and arbitrariness. Bannon wasn't banned today based on an equally applied sober reading of social media policy, but because the capitol riots happened. Trumps supporters messed up a building and got themselves killed and that's being used as a pretence to treat other Trump supporters arbitrarily online for the greater good because they're just too dangerous.

by avalys 6y ago

FFRefresh 6y ago

You mention that what he said was taken 'literally', so is it your insinuation that Bannon's 'heads on pikes' comments directly led to heads being placed on pikes at the Capitol? Also, are you in favor of sanctioning and deplatforming for anybody who uses rhetoric that when taken literally would mean some sort of violence? Even if those espousing such rhetoric fall on different parts of the political spectrum? After all, we've seen what happens when it gets taken literally.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

I had socialist/communist/anarchist friends throughout college talk about the need to use guillotines.

drogon2020 6y ago

It’s a figure of speech. Grow up.

dang 6y ago
We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Mashimo 6y ago
  What does it mean if a username is green? I thought he was some kind of mod / admin, because it stands out.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    It's actually somewhat the opposite—green indicates a new user, iirc the threshold is less than two weeks old. I don't quite get the purpose either.
  - dang 6y ago
    Yikes, that's a bit scary - I've added that to the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

throwawaysea 6y ago

If this standard is being applied, it should be applied to everyone. BLM-affiliated protest groups have suggested violence like this many times. For example, check out https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/us/protest-personal-homes-doxxing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/us/protest-personal-homes..., where protesters showed up at Seattle's mayor's house and spray painted "guillotine Jenny". Neither BLM nor the councilmembers who encouraged the protesters have been banned from big tech platforms. What about when they did the same to Jeff Bezos outside the building he works at (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/08/jeff-bezos-guillotine-protest-amazon-workers https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/08/jeff-bezos-guilloti...)? What about when something similar was done to Trump outside the white house (https://www.newsweek.com/protest-trump-doll-guillotine-outside-white-house-rnc-1528381 https://www.newsweek.com/protest-trump-doll-guillotine-outsi...)? Treating Steve Bannon differently is hypocritical and unfair. > Well, we’ve just seen what happens when it gets taken literally. Can you quote a specific person saying "go to the capital and break the law and commit violence"? Because I don't think you can find that evidence.

Pfhreak 6y ago
> protesters showed up at Seattle's mayor's house and spray painted "guillotine Jenny" Does these people also have a YouTube podcast that was taken offline? Or are you trying to point a finger at an unrelated issue and saying, "That is also bad!!" What you are doing is called whataboutism. We need to evaluate situations with their context. Constantly pulling in new examples and "they did X which excuses Y" is a child's game. It's the rhetorical equivalent to "they started it!". For example, I might say, "the BLM was responding to threats of violence from the cops" to which you might respond, "the cops were responding to threats of violence from suspected criminals". We could continue this chain forever, coming up with some other example and historical precedent. It's not productive. We're here, now in this thread discussing this one event. > Can you quote a specific person saying "go to the capital and break the law and commit violence"? I assume you mean on Bannons show? Because there are tons of examples of what you've described in other contexts.
Osiris 6y ago
Yes, the standard should be applied to everyone. In my opinion, no one should ever suggest the murder of any other person regardless of whether they intend it as sarcasm, hyperbole, metaphor, or anything else.

dionian 6y ago

I'm a native-born American citizen and we used the phrase figuratively in my household as I was growing up. Just saying.

avalys 6y ago
Did you use it against your political enemies in a public forum with millions listening?
triceratops 6y ago
Here's the full quote: "Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes". Now the generally understood figurative meaning of putting someone's "head on a pike" is "fire them in disgrace". But Bannon's ruled that one out in the first sentence. So I'm honestly at a loss as to what he meant. Can you, as a "native-born American citizen", help me understand what his figurative meaning was here? I've asked a bunch of people on here who claimed "no big deal, it was a figure of speech" but they failed to explain what it means.
- phendrenad2 6y ago
  Hmm so wishing for something tongue-in-cheek is bannable. Got it.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    I don't see an answer to the question I asked. All I see is variations of "It's a joke bro, relax!". (And that's 0/4 on HN when I've asked this question) Explain the joke, please! I'm not trying to take those words literally. I'm just looking for a figurative meaning of "heads on pikes" that makes sense in this context. "Fire them" makes no sense at all. So what is it?
    - phendrenad2 6y ago

TheOperator 6y ago

Gonna need to ban a lot more people than Bannon if you're going to ban everybody who used figurative calls to violence and was associated with some group which engaged in violence. Especially given 9 people died in BLM protests last year. Regarding this incident Zuckerberg didn't ban him at the time because he said that Bannon didn't even violate his sites policy in regards to how many times you have to say things like this before getting banned. He reacted with a removal of the video. Zuckerberg was correct and for all the hate leveled against him he seems to be one of the only people who is resisting political pressure and fighting to enforce policy fairly and unarbitrarily. An extremely broad amount of people will once or twice say something like this regardless of political affliation and the banning of Bannon here is mostly a mixture of hindsight and bias and arbitrariness. Bannon wasn't banned today based on an equally applied sober reading of social media policy, but because the capitol riots happened. Trumps supporters messed up a building and got themselves killed and that's being used as a pretence to treat other Trump supporters arbitrarily online for the greater good because they're just too dangerous.