Politics Thread - Ka-tet of 19

[Guard Dog]

OK Sharp One, if you had used this example you'd have had a valid point. THIS is a threat to free speech. Notice where it's coming from? https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/survival-of-our-democracy-depends-on-banning-sites-like-infowars-democratic-senator-says

 

Couple this with the policy paper Warner's office wrote concerning the government appointing content regulators over tech companies (I linked it on the last page) and you get a clear picture of the government taking a hand to suppress hate speech as they define it. Of course the more the government gets involved the more likely this gets a court challenge that will very likely succeed. These days the courts' attitudes towards the 1st Amend have been decidedly permissive.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Guard Dog

[Amentep]

If you get licked off twitter just go to Tumblr.

 

Is this really a thing?    

[Guard Dog]

 

If you get licked off twitter just go to Tumblr.

 

Is this really a thing?  

 

If you gotta go, go smiling!

[Guard Dog]

I agree that actual Government suppressing civil rights is worse, but I disagree that big company monopolists doing the same is alright and there is nothing to see here.

Especially if said monopoly is politically inclined and is aiming to support political views and candidates in to the Government where they can turn "company policy" into "Government laws".

Which circles back to the argument I've been making here for years. You want to protect yourself from "big Corporations" then kill the power of the government. Don't ask a wolf to protect you from the other wolves.

 

And it isn't a monopoly. There are other options out there. Including organizing boycotts if you're so inclined. What happens to facebook if a lot of people stop using facebook? Ask MySpace.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Guard Dog

[Malcador]

Which circles back to the argument I've been making here for years. You want to protect yourself from "big Corporations" then kill the power of the government. Don't ask a wolf to protect you from the other wolves.

Not following that, they seem somewhat separate from each other, no ?

[Guard Dog]

 

Which circles back to the argument I've been making here for years. You want to protect yourself from "big Corporations" then kill the power of the government. Don't ask a wolf to protect you from the other wolves.

Not following that, they seem somewhat separate from each other, no ?

 

Just a general example here. The largest and most power company in the world cannot take a single penny from me without my approval. The smallest government in my home county can take everything from me. If they take something from me at the behest of and benefit to the corporation who is the real bad guy here? Who should I be most afraid of?

[pmp10]

Alex Jones and his channel InfoWars was banned by YouTube, Facebook, Apple and Spotify on the same day.

So did he do something more nonsensical than usual?

[Blarghagh]

Capitalism at work. He hurts their respective brands, so they kick him off their platform. I can't wait until ISPs realize the same thing, what with him supporting the removal of Net Neutrality and all. That would simply be delicious.

 

Didn't he also throw a fit about how private businesses should be allowed to refuse services? Like bakeries refusing gay people etc.? I wonder how he feels now that he's in their shoes.

[Malcador]

Just a general example here. The largest and most power company in the world cannot take a single penny from me without my approval. The smallest government in my home county can take everything from me. If they take something from me at the behest of and benefit to the corporation who is the real bad guy here? Who should I be most afraid of?

I see, but killing that government power isn't going to really help me against a corporation doing ill to me, so they seem somewhat independent. Business people are only honest with a gun to their head, after all.

[smjjames]

That's one of the problems I have with libertarians, particularily the ones who are the more extreme type (GD isn't that extreme though), since it takes the government to stop companies from doing stuff like dumping chemicals into the water, who is going to stop them if the government doesn't? Sure, you can go the legal route, but that has problems of it's own.

 

 

Capitalism at work. He hurts their respective brands, so they kick him off their platform. I can't wait until ISPs realize the same thing, what with him supporting the removal of Net Neutrality and all. That would simply be delicious.

Didn't he also throw a fit about how private businesses should be allowed to refuse services? Like bakeries refusing gay people etc.? I wonder how he feels now that he's in their shoes.

 

Speaking of that, I wonder how conservatives would like a scenario where private businesses refuse services to homophobes and to take the religion track, what if the hypothetical business proprietor is a devout follower of a religion that says they must embrace homosexuals with love and reject homophobes and not allowing the proprietor to do that is a violation of their religion (which is the same argument that said bakery refusing gay people etc is making.

[Gfted1]

The "legal route" is the ultimate trump card. You can litigate for DECADES, where no answer is ever final, until it winds its way to the supreme court. You just need to tie them up in court before they can start. For example, did you know that every square inch of the US is either sacred or the only home of an endangered species!? Its uncanny.

[Bartimaeus]

Capitalism at work. He hurts their respective brands, so they kick him off their platform. I can't wait until ISPs realize the same thing, what with him supporting the removal of Net Neutrality and all. That would simply be delicious.

 

Didn't he also throw a fit about how private businesses should be allowed to refuse services? Like bakeries refusing gay people etc.? I wonder how he feels now that he's in their shoes.

 

His hypocrisy aside, that's very much a double-edged blade, since they can easily go the opposite route...but I'm sure you know that. Delicious indeed because you'd think, if they had any brains, they'd be desperately fighting to keep their platform alive and accessible instead of allowing other near-monopoly corporations to decide it for them. I guess not.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

There's no edge. He got banned for continually breaking terms of service (despite being warned repeatedly that it would result in closure) by, among other things, directing and instigating harassment. He's broken terms of service before and got off scot-free. These platforms have been giving him extreme preferential treatment for years that other accounts wouldn't have survived. He pushed his luck and brought this down on himself. There's no sudden unfairness or politics here, as much as the usually 'keep politics out of this' folks try to inject it. It's just another internet troll getting banned. Just a well-known one.

[Guard Dog]

 

Which circles back to the argument I've been making here for years. You want to protect yourself from "big Corporations" then kill the power of the government. Don't ask a wolf to protect you from the other wolves.

And where did I did that?

 

You didn't. Just sayin'.

[Guard Dog]

For those of you depending on the government to stop the evil corporations from polluting the environment don't forget, evil corporations are campaign donors. And there are plenty of instances where the government looked the other way on health, safety, and environmental regulations when "friendly" evil corporations were involved. BP before Deepwater Horizon, US Sugar, Volkswagon in the UK come to mind. I wouldn't have to look hard to find others.

 

If you expect a politician, any politician, to do something other than satisfy their immediate best interests you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Democrat, Republican, whatever. If you drinking lead poisoned water gets them re-elected then drink up mother f----r.

[Malcador]

I guess it's a case of an imperfect solution being better than none. Although I suppose people could start dragging CEOs from their beds at night. Hm...

[Volourn]

"argument that said bakery refusing gay people etc is making."

 

FAKE NEWS.

 

 

He didn't refuse 'gay people'. He had sderved the same gay people multiple times over the years. Them being gay had  nothing to do with his refusal of services. he refused to make one specific cake.

 

So 'twas the 'gay wedding cake' that got refused not the gay couple.

[smjjames]

I was attacking the rationale he was using, not the baker specifically.

Edited August 7, 2018 by smjjames

[Volourn]

No. You made a FAKE NEWS claim. You stated, clearly, that he refused them *because* the people were gay. He did no such thing.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Volourn

[Guard Dog]

Mother is on a roll!

[smjjames]

Obviously he didn't state outright 'because they were gay', he said 'because my religious conviction tells me not to' with the 'because they are gay' being implied rather than being said. How is that different from saying 'because they were gay'?

Edited August 7, 2018 by smjjames

[Zoraptor]

Because it leaves off his qualification- he didn't serve them because they were gay and wanted a wedding cake, if they'd asked for a different sort of cake it would have been fine. If an asian couple asked a muslim baker to make a bacon cake and he refused you couldn't say it was because they were asian, it would be because they wanted him to use bacon.

 

There's no edge.

 

There is in that he got banned in a coordinated manner by multiple companies simultaneously, companies that- coincidentally? 'coincidentally'?- have been under pressure to make sure news only comes from mainstream sources. Doesdn't really matter if it isn't the government technically doing the banning if they're getting others to do it for them.

 

Jones has definitely been asking for it for some time and is essentially worthless as a source of information, but the obvious coordination is a problem and it could easily be used against, others in a progressive slide- indeed 'unfriendly' news sources are already targeted via soft methods to suck up to US and other politicians.

[smjjames]

The muslim baker would probably go 'wtf even is a bacon cake?'. Plus there are alternatives to pork for bacon (vegetarian alternatives even), the gay couple don't have an option to not be gay.

Edited August 7, 2018 by smjjames

[Volourn]

"Obviously he didn't state outright 'because they were gay', he said 'because my religious conviction tells me not to' with the 'because they are gay' being implied rather than being said. How is that different from saying 'because they were gay'?"

 

Stop the FAKE NEWS.

 

He never refused to bake for them because they were gay.  As I stated above, this baker had baked cakes for this same couple MULTIPLE TIMES previously. There was never an issue with them being gay. Ever.

 

Let's do this again to be clear. He never refused to bake them a cake because THEY were gay. That is false. The issue was the cake they wanted him to bake.

 

ie. Some gun nut goes to  an anti gun bakery. He's been going there for eyars. they always bake him said cake. One day the gun nut wants them to make a gun themed cake. The anti gun fella says no because he ain't into that. That baker did not refuse to the gun nut because he is a gun nut. he has served in the past and is perfectly willing to serve him in the future. Just will not make a gun themed cake.

 

See the DIFFERENCE?
 

[smjjames]

I don't recall anything saying that it wasn't the first time the two had visited that bakery for things other than a wedding cake, so, you're going to have to back that statement up.