12 ms·

I wonder how many people interpret this based on “the other side” rather than objectively?

by brightball 1y ago

Amezarak 1y ago
[flagged]
- fifteen1506 1y ago
  I don't recall the government using FCC to fire someone. I'd rather wish the previous governments had closed down Fox News, though. PS: not an USA citizen.
  - Amezarak 1y ago
    That’s the problem. Everyone makes tendentious arguments about how their exact reasoning and mechanism is justified, while the other sides’ is not justified. The outcome is the same. Edit: I have been rate limited so I cannot reply, but note I was referring to prior administrations coercing media companies to censor and deplatform people, so yes, it is functionally the same whether it’s the FCC or Congress or other executive departments doing the coercing.
    - estearum 1y ago
      The mechanism is rather important though. Government coercing private parties based on content of speech is illegal. Private parties governing their own speech is not, and is in fact a key First Amendment-protected activity in and of itself.
    - stackbutterflow 1y ago
      > The outcome is the same. That's the problem. The outcome is not the same. It couldn't be more different. That's how one side knows they're right.
    - reb 1y ago
      The outcome is not the same: allegedly repressive liberal administrations, internet businesses, and tv networks allowed openly authoritarian media to continually build momentum for a decade until that media delivered an authoritarian regime willing to actively dismantle the open system that allowed it to come to power. Contrast that with less than one year of the authoritarian regime, where the full force of the government apparatus is being used to crush political opponents by: defunding educational institutions, ending international soft-power programs, militarizing cities, threatening to de-license broadcasters, and classifying rights-based activist organizations as terrorists. The liberal era was marked largely by criticism without consequence, where "deplatforming" was a social phenomenon that meant hopping to one of many other open networks, not the dogged federal punishment of institutions and individuals promoting inconvenient narratives. I'll join you in criticizing the liberal order any day, but it's beyond bad-faith to pretend the current administration is just more of the same.
      - Amezarak 1y ago
        > where "deplatforming" was a social phenomenon that meant hopping to one of many other open networks, not the dogged federal punishment of institutions and individuals promoting inconvenient narratives. This is manifestly untrue. The government directly prosecuted people for their social media postings and ordered Facebook and Twitter to censor people, among many, many other acts. > The liberal era was marked largely by criticism without consequence, You are able to believe this because the government and the chattering classes were so efficient in their control of the narrative that their abuses were institutionalized as the norms: people that were punished were so bad we didn't question the idea they were extremists or Nazis, and even when the government clearly overreacted, the reaction was largely tepid because complaining too loudly would seem to empower the wrong people. Now that populists have reacted, we're all shocked. That's on us to be responsive democratically, or these things will continue to happen.
- _luiza_ 1y ago
  Feels like the game needs reframing; Also possibly time for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to get an update.
- adriand 1y ago
  > A few years ago when people were being sentenced to prison for memes Is this what you’re referring to? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/10/23/douglass-mackey-sentenced-for-encouraging-voting-via-text-fact-check/71259916007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/10/23/dou... I agree that the left did not take free speech as seriously as it ought to have. However, today the president is as opposed to free speech as the most rabid leftist university protestor from a few years ago, and that is a lot different.
  - Amezarak 1y ago
    Yes. Note that what Mackey did, and the content of his posts, was entirely legal and his conviction was overturned unanimously on appeal. To convict him originally, the government had to lie about him participating in a conspiracy - the reason the conviction was overturned is because they lied about the evidence of the conspiracy. There was never any dispute that merely posting what he did was legal. I also wasn’t claiming his memes were criticizing Clinton. Edit because I have been rate limited: if you contend that it was criminal, why did the government charge him only with a crime that it didn’t have actual evidence for?
    - estearum 1y ago
      It really isn't "entirely legal" to deceive people as to how/when/where to cast their vote, and I don't think you'll find much sympathy for the view that it should be even among vigorous defenders of the First Amendment. His conviction was overturned due to lack of evidence of that he knowingly joined a conspiracy (required by the specific statute they charged him under) not because what he did is protected speech. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2024/08/Fact-Sheet-False-Misleading-and-Intimidating-Election-Information.pdf https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites...
      - tbrownaw 1y ago
        "Due to high turnout, polling stations are expected to be overloaded and the party I don't like should vote the day after election day" is a fairly standard joke. What he's described as posting isn't that different.
- alecst 1y ago
  To help me take this argument seriously, could you give a specific examples of when the shoe was on the first foot? Like > a few years ago when people were being sentenced to prison for memes are you talking about the guy whose memes tricked thousands of people (of one political party) into thinking they could vote by texting a number?
  - Amezarak 1y ago
    You may want to read the Appeals Court ruling that overturned his conviction 3-0 because the government lied. But also consider the point that everyone has a reason why their exact situation is different than the other sides when the outcome is the same. They would say for example that Kimmel was simply deplatformed because he also spread misinformation. There’s no way out until everyone agrees it is the outcome that matters rather than doubling down because their ideology is so correct that it is beyond contestation and the other side are enemies destroying democracy rather than rivals.
    - thfuran 1y ago
      >They would say for example that Kimmel was simply deplatformed because he also spread misinformation. Okay, but they would be either misinformed or lying.
      - ezekiel68 1y ago
        They would not. I love Kimmel, but it turns out the story of the gunman is now much more layered and nuanced than "the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them..." In Kimmel's defense, this was a developing story at the time, but it is not untrue, in hindsignt, that Kimmel spread misinformation.
        metamet 1y ago
        Nothing Kimmel said in the quote you provided is untrue. His statement is about their actions in response to the event, not anything to do with the actual sentiment of the shooter.
- ezekiel68 1y ago
  Everyone voted them down, but there's a kernel of truth here. We were all in favor of it when Judicial Activism gave us approved Liberal outcomes starting in the latter half of the 20th Century. We didn't realize that the only thing preventing "the other side" from weaponizing the same tactic was a generation of politicians loathe to violate the separation of powers. Once they all passed away, all hell broke loose and here we are... As the Left used to point out, "You can't legislate morality." Except... they did. And now they are shocked -- SHOCKED, I TELL YOU -- to discover that the Right has lost its scruples in resisting the same temptation. "Strung up on the gallows prepared for their enemies" (ancient morality tales) and all that.
tobias3 1y ago
As a German outside observer I can tell you there is only one side going down the facist path. The "other side" isn't great either. Would be great to have a sane alternative, I guess.
- Amezarak 1y ago
  Perhaps you are not aware that the “other side” declared Constitutional amendments by fiat, assassinated American citizens with drone strikes, lied to the courts to imprison influential Twitter users, used intelligence agencies to spy on Congress, dramatically expanded the surveillance state, declared by EO they simply wouldn’t enforce some laws on favored demographics, ordered social media companies to censor and ban users, locked people down unless they were protesting for approved causes, and engaged in politically motivated prosecutions of their enemies. Authoritarianism is not a “one side” problem in the US and until we collectively figure that out each side will continue increasing it, all in the name of stopping the other sides’ extremists.
  - immibis 1y ago
    The "same side" does all of that but also a bunch more bad stuff. The equlibrium that is always reached in a first-past-the-post voting system is two parties that are mostly the same, and you vote for a party that's only slightly more of what you want (because those are the options) and your vote tells both parties which direction to move in, to chase more votes. If the party that drone strikes its own citizens and imprisons Twitter users consistently gets more votes than the party that drone strikes its own citizens, imprisons Twitter users, and builds concentration camps, then the latter party will quickly figure out that the only way to win is to drone strike its own citizens, but not imprison Twitter users, or build concentration camps. And then the former party (now losing) figures out that doing none of the above is the way to win, but maybe they still tap all communications. And so on... We got to the point we're at today step by step, with people voting for one new measure at a time, and parties taking notice of what measures people consistently vote for. The current parties did not spring fully-formed out of Zeus's forehead.
  - thrance 1y ago
thomassmith65 1y ago
This post from 2003 has made the rounds several times in recent years... "The 14 Characteristics of Fascism" https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html ...and I recall people reading it and saying they don't see how Donald Trump ticks the boxes. It's all very tedious to complain about when half the electorate supports it. It makes one feel like a nag and a broken record.
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  There are clearly very many countries that tick most of those boxes. Including some that i wouldn't necessarily define as fascist. Prominent examples are China, Russia, Iran North Korea and other middle eastern countries. I'm not saying this list is incorrect, per se, but it is vague to the point of uselessness.
  - thrance 1y ago
    I mean, as far as fascist states go China, Russia and North Korea are pretty up there? In the original "14 points" [0], the author explains this is not an exhaustive checklist that makes something fascist if it ticks all of the items, and gives motivation for such a list. Go read it if you have time to, it's rather short and well written. > Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola. > But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. [0] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci...
twodave 1y ago
I have come to conclude that there are both reasonable and unbalanced individuals on the extreme ends of both sides. When Obama was elected I had paranoid relatives telling me he was going to pilfer their 401k and bankrupt the country. Well, that never happened. When Trump was re-elected it was, “He is going to tear down democracy! He’s going to put gay people in concentration camps!” Last I checked we still have free elections, and nobody cares whether you’re gay. And we see political violence targeting both major parties. This also is not new. So I think this isn’t a result of anyone’s politics, but rather individual temperance; the voices we choose to amplify and listen to.

I wonder how many people interpret this based on “the other side” rather than objectively?

Amezarak 1y ago

[flagged]

fifteen1506 1y ago
I don't recall the government using FCC to fire someone. I'd rather wish the previous governments had closed down Fox News, though. PS: not an USA citizen.
- Amezarak 1y ago
  That’s the problem. Everyone makes tendentious arguments about how their exact reasoning and mechanism is justified, while the other sides’ is not justified. The outcome is the same. Edit: I have been rate limited so I cannot reply, but note I was referring to prior administrations coercing media companies to censor and deplatform people, so yes, it is functionally the same whether it’s the FCC or Congress or other executive departments doing the coercing.
  - estearum 1y ago
    The mechanism is rather important though. Government coercing private parties based on content of speech is illegal. Private parties governing their own speech is not, and is in fact a key First Amendment-protected activity in and of itself.
  - stackbutterflow 1y ago
    > The outcome is the same. That's the problem. The outcome is not the same. It couldn't be more different. That's how one side knows they're right.
  - reb 1y ago
    The outcome is not the same: allegedly repressive liberal administrations, internet businesses, and tv networks allowed openly authoritarian media to continually build momentum for a decade until that media delivered an authoritarian regime willing to actively dismantle the open system that allowed it to come to power. Contrast that with less than one year of the authoritarian regime, where the full force of the government apparatus is being used to crush political opponents by: defunding educational institutions, ending international soft-power programs, militarizing cities, threatening to de-license broadcasters, and classifying rights-based activist organizations as terrorists. The liberal era was marked largely by criticism without consequence, where "deplatforming" was a social phenomenon that meant hopping to one of many other open networks, not the dogged federal punishment of institutions and individuals promoting inconvenient narratives. I'll join you in criticizing the liberal order any day, but it's beyond bad-faith to pretend the current administration is just more of the same.
    - Amezarak 1y ago
      > where "deplatforming" was a social phenomenon that meant hopping to one of many other open networks, not the dogged federal punishment of institutions and individuals promoting inconvenient narratives. This is manifestly untrue. The government directly prosecuted people for their social media postings and ordered Facebook and Twitter to censor people, among many, many other acts. > The liberal era was marked largely by criticism without consequence, You are able to believe this because the government and the chattering classes were so efficient in their control of the narrative that their abuses were institutionalized as the norms: people that were punished were so bad we didn't question the idea they were extremists or Nazis, and even when the government clearly overreacted, the reaction was largely tepid because complaining too loudly would seem to empower the wrong people. Now that populists have reacted, we're all shocked. That's on us to be responsive democratically, or these things will continue to happen.
_luiza_ 1y ago
Feels like the game needs reframing; Also possibly time for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to get an update.
adriand 1y ago
> A few years ago when people were being sentenced to prison for memes Is this what you’re referring to? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/10/23/douglass-mackey-sentenced-for-encouraging-voting-via-text-fact-check/71259916007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/10/23/dou... I agree that the left did not take free speech as seriously as it ought to have. However, today the president is as opposed to free speech as the most rabid leftist university protestor from a few years ago, and that is a lot different.
- Amezarak 1y ago
  Yes. Note that what Mackey did, and the content of his posts, was entirely legal and his conviction was overturned unanimously on appeal. To convict him originally, the government had to lie about him participating in a conspiracy - the reason the conviction was overturned is because they lied about the evidence of the conspiracy. There was never any dispute that merely posting what he did was legal. I also wasn’t claiming his memes were criticizing Clinton. Edit because I have been rate limited: if you contend that it was criminal, why did the government charge him only with a crime that it didn’t have actual evidence for?
  - estearum 1y ago
    It really isn't "entirely legal" to deceive people as to how/when/where to cast their vote, and I don't think you'll find much sympathy for the view that it should be even among vigorous defenders of the First Amendment. His conviction was overturned due to lack of evidence of that he knowingly joined a conspiracy (required by the specific statute they charged him under) not because what he did is protected speech. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2024/08/Fact-Sheet-False-Misleading-and-Intimidating-Election-Information.pdf https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites...
    - tbrownaw 1y ago
      "Due to high turnout, polling stations are expected to be overloaded and the party I don't like should vote the day after election day" is a fairly standard joke. What he's described as posting isn't that different.
alecst 1y ago
To help me take this argument seriously, could you give a specific examples of when the shoe was on the first foot? Like > a few years ago when people were being sentenced to prison for memes are you talking about the guy whose memes tricked thousands of people (of one political party) into thinking they could vote by texting a number?
- Amezarak 1y ago
  You may want to read the Appeals Court ruling that overturned his conviction 3-0 because the government lied. But also consider the point that everyone has a reason why their exact situation is different than the other sides when the outcome is the same. They would say for example that Kimmel was simply deplatformed because he also spread misinformation. There’s no way out until everyone agrees it is the outcome that matters rather than doubling down because their ideology is so correct that it is beyond contestation and the other side are enemies destroying democracy rather than rivals.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    >They would say for example that Kimmel was simply deplatformed because he also spread misinformation. Okay, but they would be either misinformed or lying.
    - ezekiel68 1y ago
      They would not. I love Kimmel, but it turns out the story of the gunman is now much more layered and nuanced than "the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them..." In Kimmel's defense, this was a developing story at the time, but it is not untrue, in hindsignt, that Kimmel spread misinformation.
      - metamet 1y ago
        Nothing Kimmel said in the quote you provided is untrue. His statement is about their actions in response to the event, not anything to do with the actual sentiment of the shooter.
ezekiel68 1y ago
Everyone voted them down, but there's a kernel of truth here. We were all in favor of it when Judicial Activism gave us approved Liberal outcomes starting in the latter half of the 20th Century. We didn't realize that the only thing preventing "the other side" from weaponizing the same tactic was a generation of politicians loathe to violate the separation of powers. Once they all passed away, all hell broke loose and here we are... As the Left used to point out, "You can't legislate morality." Except... they did. And now they are shocked -- SHOCKED, I TELL YOU -- to discover that the Right has lost its scruples in resisting the same temptation. "Strung up on the gallows prepared for their enemies" (ancient morality tales) and all that.

tobias3 1y ago

As a German outside observer I can tell you there is only one side going down the facist path. The "other side" isn't great either. Would be great to have a sane alternative, I guess.

Amezarak 1y ago
Perhaps you are not aware that the “other side” declared Constitutional amendments by fiat, assassinated American citizens with drone strikes, lied to the courts to imprison influential Twitter users, used intelligence agencies to spy on Congress, dramatically expanded the surveillance state, declared by EO they simply wouldn’t enforce some laws on favored demographics, ordered social media companies to censor and ban users, locked people down unless they were protesting for approved causes, and engaged in politically motivated prosecutions of their enemies. Authoritarianism is not a “one side” problem in the US and until we collectively figure that out each side will continue increasing it, all in the name of stopping the other sides’ extremists.
- immibis 1y ago
  The "same side" does all of that but also a bunch more bad stuff. The equlibrium that is always reached in a first-past-the-post voting system is two parties that are mostly the same, and you vote for a party that's only slightly more of what you want (because those are the options) and your vote tells both parties which direction to move in, to chase more votes. If the party that drone strikes its own citizens and imprisons Twitter users consistently gets more votes than the party that drone strikes its own citizens, imprisons Twitter users, and builds concentration camps, then the latter party will quickly figure out that the only way to win is to drone strike its own citizens, but not imprison Twitter users, or build concentration camps. And then the former party (now losing) figures out that doing none of the above is the way to win, but maybe they still tap all communications. And so on... We got to the point we're at today step by step, with people voting for one new measure at a time, and parties taking notice of what measures people consistently vote for. The current parties did not spring fully-formed out of Zeus's forehead.
- thrance 1y ago

thomassmith65 1y ago

This post from 2003 has made the rounds several times in recent years... "The 14 Characteristics of Fascism" https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html ...and I recall people reading it and saying they don't see how Donald Trump ticks the boxes. It's all very tedious to complain about when half the electorate supports it. It makes one feel like a nag and a broken record.

FridayoLeary 1y ago
There are clearly very many countries that tick most of those boxes. Including some that i wouldn't necessarily define as fascist. Prominent examples are China, Russia, Iran North Korea and other middle eastern countries. I'm not saying this list is incorrect, per se, but it is vague to the point of uselessness.
- thrance 1y ago
  I mean, as far as fascist states go China, Russia and North Korea are pretty up there? In the original "14 points" [0], the author explains this is not an exhaustive checklist that makes something fascist if it ticks all of the items, and gives motivation for such a list. Go read it if you have time to, it's rather short and well written. > Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola. > But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. [0] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci...

twodave 1y ago

I have come to conclude that there are both reasonable and unbalanced individuals on the extreme ends of both sides. When Obama was elected I had paranoid relatives telling me he was going to pilfer their 401k and bankrupt the country. Well, that never happened. When Trump was re-elected it was, “He is going to tear down democracy! He’s going to put gay people in concentration camps!” Last I checked we still have free elections, and nobody cares whether you’re gay. And we see political violence targeting both major parties. This also is not new. So I think this isn’t a result of anyone’s politics, but rather individual temperance; the voices we choose to amplify and listen to.