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#3952 Aug 13 2017 at 10:23 PM Rating: Good
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Allegory wrote:
Responsibility is proportional. Threatening violence is bad. Murder is worse. False equivalency is dishonesty.


This wasn't just threats though. Both groups came geared for a fight, and did.

One person used a car to run over people and kill one. But that doesn't negate the groups of protestors who did more than just threaten violence. Seems like it also be dishonest to call the counter protestor actions just threats.
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#3953 Aug 14 2017 at 12:24 AM Rating: Good
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There is a fine line stopping the majority of the alt-right protestors from killing whoever they please. That line becomes thinner as they are emboldened by events like this. Violent clashes with counter-protestors are exactly what they want, and the entire reason their march took place. Many of the people there were armed militias. They are waiting for someone to give them a reason to kill them.

Sadly, one ****** in particular thought blocking the road was a good enough reason for him. Miraculously, this one attack did not cause violence to escalate to a point higher than it was already at.

Imagine though, what do you suppose would have happened if someone ran over a group of alt-right protestors instead?

Speaking of thin lines. I really think this forum is breathing its last breaths. It's becoming nearly impossible to post anything anymore.
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#3955 Aug 14 2017 at 5:30 AM Rating: Excellent
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Kuwoobie wrote:


Speaking of thin lines. I really think this forum is breathing its last breaths. It's becoming nearly impossible to post anything anymore.




Admn Gidono has identified the issues with the site/posting to have to do with enormous database tables (and a bunch of programming lingo that is over my head) that the site works through every time someone posts. It is taking him literally days to download this over to his isolated workstation (or something) so he can work on it (which is happening right now). Sorry my response isn't more technical.

His goal is to remove bloat that is sinking the ship (my paraphrasing).

This means expect defunct game forums to be truly nuked (i.e., Warhammer online comes to mind)

This means nuked posts that users don't see, but actually still all exist will probably be truly erased.

This means he intends to run queries that allow him to remove ancient duplicate posts (lots of them hidden in item forums for Everquest for example). He'll be coordinating his efforts with the specific forums that have their own active admns (i.e., EQ2 and FFXI iirc to name two).

I've already PMed Gidono about the Asylum and other cross-site forums... he figures they will be the last thing he gets to as they will require him to clear up by hand. Expect him to post here to consult with all you active posting users when he is ready to tackle that. He is aware that the Asylum and such are still active.

Obviously this is a ton of work he is taking on, and only doing so because site performance has to improve. I would assume he will only work through this process as far as needed to solve the site issues, considering he has many other things I am sure he would rather work on. This may mean the cross-site forums end up not needing attention at all (being late on the to-do list).

The Asylum is not forgotten.
#3956 Aug 14 2017 at 6:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel's postcount is tearing this forum apart.
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#3957 Aug 14 2017 at 7:13 AM Rating: Excellent
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Who knew the day would come when Tirith was repeatedly trying to draw equivalency arguments between White Supremacist terrorists and the people standing up to White Supremacist terrorists?

"Oh, but it was just ONE Nazi murdering people with his car!" Good lord Smiley: disappointed

Ah well, even if you think that murdering people isn't all that big a deal if you can point to another guy with a stick, the point still remains that Trump's response was widely seen as weak and lacking from both sides of the aisle. I'm sure it went over fine with the "But they were mean too!" crowd but most rational people were embarrassed by it.

Edited, Aug 14th 2017 8:15am by Jophiel
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#3958 Aug 14 2017 at 7:17 AM Rating: Excellent
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snailish wrote:
The Asylum is not forgotten.

Can I get this in bumper sticker form?

I've always figured that dumping stuff like those old locked FFXI server forums and other long defunct stuff could only help.

I'm willing to shoulder the burden of deciding which Asylum posts are worth keeping. PM me for rates.

Edited, Aug 14th 2017 8:18am by Jophiel
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#3959 Aug 14 2017 at 8:13 AM Rating: Good
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TirithRR wrote:
But that doesn't negate the groups of protestors who did more than just threaten violence.
Well, if the group you're counter-protesting has a long history of violence and is willing to murder you after the protest has been over for hours with a car then it kind of does negate some tussling.
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#3960 Aug 14 2017 at 10:30 AM Rating: Excellent
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What a waste.

With all the serious problems in this world people somehow think the little ones we have are worth fighting and killing each other over.

Edited, Aug 14th 2017 9:31am by someproteinguy
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#3961 Aug 14 2017 at 11:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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brb Gonna kill someone over global warming.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#3962 Aug 14 2017 at 11:19 AM Rating: Excellent
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brb Gonna kill someone over global warming double posting.

Edited, Aug 14th 2017 12:23pm by Jophiel
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#3963 Aug 14 2017 at 11:37 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
brb Gonna kill someone over global warming double posting.
Make sure to double tap.
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#3964 Aug 14 2017 at 12:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
brb Gonna kill someone over global warming.
In theory could we re-sell their unused emissions to companies as a pollution offset? Asking for a friend, of course... Smiley: um

Seriously though, I'll (hopefully, perhaps) never understand how a person could hate someone so much that killing them seems justified. Debate, argue, shout, troll, whatever; people disagree on stuff, we get upset about stuff. It's not like this is some kind of medieval or 3rd world revolution where people are choosing between starving to death or fighting. Political debates are interesting but some people just take the rhetoric way too seriously. Now that it seems to be more useful to keep the base motivated year-round rather than appeal to a slowly vanishing number of swing voters those propaganda machines never let up.

Yay 4 America. Smiley: frown
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#3965 Aug 14 2017 at 2:01 PM Rating: Excellent
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someproteinguy wrote:
Seriously though, I'll (hopefully, perhaps) never understand how a person could hate someone so much that killing them seems justified.
I'd cut down someone's whole family tree if they hurt mine.
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#3966 Aug 14 2017 at 2:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#3968 Aug 14 2017 at 2:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
someproteinguy wrote:
Seriously though, I'll (hopefully, perhaps) never understand how a person could hate someone so much that killing them seems justified.
I'd cut down someone's whole family tree if they hurt mine.
Yeah see I'm not like that, or at least I've never been pushed enough to find out. Have backed down from instances I certainly could have done something stupid though, so I at least have hope the trend would continue.

I mean if you were holding a gun to my kid's head and told me to go fight in a war or something, you'd probably be able to make me shoot at people. That's still a long way from voluntarily jumping at the opportunity to mow down protestors in the street or politicians playing baseball though.
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#3969 Aug 14 2017 at 6:32 PM Rating: Good
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lolgaxe wrote:
I'd cut down someone's whole family tree if they hurt mine.

If it's just to sate your revenge and you don't mind them coming back to do the same to your family I guess that is rational. But that kind of mentality serves more to escalate rather than deter, especially when both parties think the same way.

Would you kill your daughter to kill the man who killed your wife?

Edited, Aug 14th 2017 7:37pm by Allegory
#3971 Aug 14 2017 at 6:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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Samira wrote:
No, he really didn't. He said there was too much hatred on all sides, and it gives him a sad.


Which is an accurate statement though. The problem is that there's a lot of "side taking" going on, both in politics and especially in the media. I have no love for white supremacists, but they have just as much right (that pesky 1st amendment thing) to assemble and speak as any other group (like say Black Lives Matters). In this case, they applied for the proper permits, had a scheduled time and place to assemble, and thus had the "right" to be there. The counter protesters, of course, also had a right to show up (at the same time and place). What neither side had a right to do was to start blocking traffic on streets in the area, assault random people on said streets (or each other for that matter).

Someone in the comments section of the linked article raised a question: What would have happened if no one had showed up to counter protest? Probably nothing. No violence. And no death. You'd have a group of people most of us don't agree with, having their say, as they are legally entitled to do. And the rest of us can allow their speech to influence us to whatever degree it will do so (most of us, in the negative, one would hope). The key point is that you judge the speech based on the speech itself.

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He did not specifically condemn the white supremacists at the heart of this mess, as he has repeatedly failed to do.


Because they were not the only part of this, nor the primary reason the march turned violent. The sad part is that this has been going on for some time. I've commented on it in the past. It seems as though assemblies only turn violent when there are liberals involved. And if this was just restricted to angry liberals protesting the speech of white supremacists, we all might even be a bit more willing to accept such things (well, not the death via road rage of course). But it's not limited to this. The left has been acting to systematically block conservative speech of all kinds for years now. See protests at universities designed to prevent a conservative speaker from speaking. Happens all the time. Heck. This goes on, in a less violent manner, via the implementation of "safe spaces", and policies claiming to protect people from triggers (which is code for "don't allow conservative speech").

The left seems to have decided that it can't win an argument by actually engaging the other side, so they just shut down the other sides ability to speak (or at least to be heard). In this case, it was a bunch of people saying things that most of us reject automatically disagree with. Although I suspect there were a lot of people showing up for this that had nothing at all to do with white supremacy, but rather a quite reasonable opposition to the removal of a statue of a man who is arguably the one "clean" symbol the South had coming out of the Civil War, with no connection to slavery or racism at all. One can argue the frustration many have with symbols that in their mind have nothing to do with racism or slavery being co-opted by the left and made into those things, so strongly that they must be removed from public sight for fear of offending people. Which, yeah, is another one of those "eliminate speech we don't agree with" practices.

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Put it this way: white supremacists are extremely encouraged by his response. So maybe he's not a ****, but he is certainly #1 with *****, and apparently content to be.


I can't speak to what white supremacists may think, but I'd say the left is far more encouraged by his response than anyone. It's a response that they can use to further paint Trump, the GOP, and all conservatives as being associated in some way with white supremacy, racism, slavery, etc. For Trump, it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If he condemns just the white supremacists, then he allows the left's tactics to succeed, and along the way gives weight to the associative denial process (and encourages more of it in the future). If he condemns "all" violence, he's labeled as somehow protecting or siding with said supremacists and the left piles on with that narratives.

It's the exact same thing that BLM does when someone response that "all lives matter". It's designed to be a trap. If you don't put that "all" in there, then you are supporting the language itself, which suggests that black lives matter either more than other lives, or at least differently (both of which are innately racially biased, which we conservatives tend to not like to do), or you do, and are bashed for being insensitive to the cause, and thus presumed to be in opposition to the idea that black lives matter at all.

IMO, it's an ugly way to present a position from the start. But that's what our politics have turned into lately.
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#3973 Aug 14 2017 at 6:51 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
You can't just comment on both sides being violent? He's bad for not picking out the evil side only? I don't think he did so just to not anger the white nationalist group. But did so to try to show the non-racist voters on the right that he wasn't giving the "left" a free pass on their participation in the violent protests.


Precisely. This was about Trump being aware that the exact same counter protests are being used all over the place, countering and shutting down far more types of speech than just some white supremacists, and it's an issue that many conservatives are very worried about. As I mentioned above, if he fails to make this about "all" violence at such events, he essentially gives the left a green light to continue the tactic, knowing that everyone from the media, to the political class will join in blaming the folks who were protesting, and not the folks who showed up to make that protest violent. It'll cause *more* violence at protests, because the left will realize that if they show up and create a riot, they "win".

It only stops if someone calls them out for it and holds them accountable. This time it was a group of white supremacists, but there's no reason why the same exact tactic can't be used against a march for tax reduction, or health care reform, or immigration reform, or welfare reform. The left gets "angry" about all of these. They've been taught for decades that conservative positions on these things aren't just wrong, but are "evil", and those who hold them are either horribly misguided, or are themselves "bad people". Why shouldn't they show up with masks and bottles and sticks and start beating on those evil people who want to take away their welfare funds, or prevent the rich from paying their fair share, or prevent some poor immigrant from coming to the US despite not having any marketable skills to add to our economy?

I've long said that the left heavily employs an "ends justify the means" approach to politics. They're not only fine, but probably ecstatic that someone who can be labeled as "right wing" finally snapped in response to their obstruction tactics and did something horribly violent and killed someone. This is like Christmas morning to them, because they can use it as ammunition for their "side". One death is well worth the value to the cause for them. They'll do it again. And in broader political topics. Because it works.

Which is why it needs to be condemned. Period. It's not about the nature of the speech at this particular protest. It's about the actions of those involved.
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#3974 Aug 14 2017 at 7:27 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Someone in the comments section of the linked article raised a question: What would have happened if no one had showed up to counter protest? Probably nothing. No violence. And no death. You'd have a group of people most of us don't agree with, having their say, as they are legally entitled to do.


I completely, totally wish that this had been the case. My point of view is that trolls should be ignored to the extent possible, in meat space as well as on the net, except when it's possible and expedient to mock them.

However, another point of view is that showing up to oppose out and proud fascists has value, for people who would otherwise feel even more marginalized if the original protest had gone unremarked. I can see that argument; my way doesn't give the attention whores what they want, but also makes no statement against them.

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#3975 Aug 14 2017 at 7:37 PM Rating: Good
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Gbaji wrote:
countering and shutting down far more types of speech than just some white supremacists

Yes? That's how the marketplace of ideas works. The right isn't being censored, they're just not convincing.
#3976 Aug 14 2017 at 7:43 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
I've long said that the left heavily employs an "ends justify the means" approach to politics. They're not only fine, but probably ecstatic that someone who can be labeled as "right wing" finally snapped in response to their obstruction tactics and did something horribly violent and killed someone. This is like Christmas morning to them, because they can use it as ammunition for their "side". One death is well worth the value to the cause for them. They'll do it again. And in broader political topics. Because it works.


This is a sad, cynical point of view. I am not happy about anyone dying, and I don't know anyone who is celebrating Ms Heyer's death as a valuable opportunity for propaganda. That you see me, and others who think like me, this way speaks volumes about you.
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