Philosophy Now Forum

Pluto wrote:...
They knew it was to be the opposite and so

Your conspiracy goggles blinker and blind you.

wtf wrote:These "Black Bloc" morons, as they call themselves, are the ones who show up after dark to break windows and start fires. And grab the narrative.

Yes, I agree...the thugs are probably just looking for the chance to make a headline. However, at this time and place, it's interesting to consider that the right-wingers are not a fertile ground for this sort of thuggery; the news allows for it, and the left-wingers don't seem to condemn it very quickly.

What do you think was on tv the next day?

Oh, the violence, for sure; as the old saying in news goes, "If it bleeds, it leads." The top story must have blood, scandal or nastiness of some elaborate kind, for sure. That's just how the traditional media sells their product. That's 'old news.'

If the country has to choose between Trump and morons setting fires, it will choose Trump.

I'm pretty sure it already did...at least by normal electoral procedure, and by a fair margin. The Left's whining about the numbers in California and New York seem to me (as an outsider to all this) as "sour grapes," and even the "peaceful" protests that serve as the Bloc's launch pad look petulant and puerile. After all, the joker's only been in power for a week or so; how much can they really be protesting? Maybe he won't even do all the things they fear, or the things he promised to do. He's a bit of a media chameleon himself. You would think the Left would be smart enough to follow the Bunker Hill axiom, and "not shoot until they see the whites of their eyes." Right now, they're just creating circuses of whining.

But the Berkeley protest was a bit different, too. Apparently, there was no "peaceful stuff" at the beginning, and things got wild right away. The speaker didn't even get to start. And that's what I mean: what's the point of protesting something that hasn't even happened yet?

This Leftist weirdness is not just "Berserkeley." It's always been a weird place. But the Women's March, and all the other incidents of prancing around with placards and costumes, as if the Fifth Reich was immanent, all that, it seems to me was just ridiculously premature.

I don't know why any of it is tolerated, from any side. A reasoned debate would be much more productive. These protesters all think they're all being MLK, when really they're being Bozo the Clown.

Immanuel Can wrote:

wtf wrote:These "Black Bloc" morons, as they call themselves, are the ones who show up after dark to break windows and start fires. And grab the narrative.

Yes, I agree...the thugs are probably just looking for the chance to make a headline. However, at this time and place, it's interesting to consider that the right-wingers are not a fertile ground for this sort of thuggery; the news allows for it, and the left-wingers don't seem to condemn it very quickly.

As usual, Mr Can, you haven't done your research. Your own OP mentions brown shirts and kristallnacht. Right wing thugs going on the rampage is hardly current news. Black bloc is an anarchist, not 'leftist' signifier; are you too stupid or lazy to appreciate the difference?
This from Fox news, and frankly, Mr Can, if a fool like you can't trust them, you have no deeper depths to plumb:
"UC Berkeley condemns in the strongest possible terms the actions of individuals who invaded the campus, infiltrated a crowd of peaceful students, and used violent tactics to close down the event. We deeply regret that the violence unleashed by this group undermined the First Amendment rights of the speaker as well as those who came to lawfully assemble and protest his presence," university spokesman Dan Mogulof responded."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/02/mi ... -left.html
Wake up, or be a twat all your life. It's your choice.

Immanuel Can wrote:I've just read that a speech at Berkeley was shut down by a gang of (apparently) Leftist thugs smashing windows and setting fires.

Question:

If men in brown shirts storm though the streets, breaking windows and suppressing dissent, it's called "Kristallnacht," and it's an epic human rights disaster.

If people in black hoodies storm through the streets, breaking windows and suppressing dissent, it's called "Liberal social activism," and we laud it as a gesture of human rights.

Does any of that make sense?

If I shoot Hilter in the face I become a hero in England, if I do the same to Churchill somehow I'm evil.
The World's gone PC MAD!!

Hobbes' Choice wrote:If I shoot Hilter in the face I become a hero in England, if I do the same to Churchill somehow I'm evil.
The World's gone PC MAD!!

It's wasted on Mr Can. He won't get it.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:If I shoot Hilter in the face I become a hero in England, if I do the same to Churchill somehow I'm evil.
The World's gone PC MAD!!

Well, whether or not it's right to shoot anybody in the face (or anywhere else) is an important question, isn't it? And that realization parallels the one I'm asking:

That is this: regardless of agenda, is a permissible way to behave to shut down free speech from the opposition before it's even been offered, and to do so by silly protests and gratuitous violence instead of on the basis of making better arguments?

Interestingly, there is one way in which my analogy was debatable. "Nazi" means, "national socialist." This means that in point of fact, Hitler was actually "left-wing" too -- at least in terms of his political and social policy. So I would really have to find a comparable expression of "right wing" shutting down of debate. I'd just find that quite hard to do right now. There are historical precedents in the past, of course; but at least in North America they were mostly associated with the Democratic party...as was the KKK and the "Jim Crow" politicians...which would make them...wait for it...left wingers.

Why does the Left attract such lunatics?

Immanuel Can wrote:I've just read that a speech at Berkeley was shut down by a gang of (apparently) Leftist thugs smashing windows and setting fires.

Question:

If men in brown shirts storm though the streets, breaking windows and suppressing dissent, it's called "Kristallnacht," and it's an epic human rights disaster.

If people in black hoodies storm through the streets, breaking windows and suppressing dissent, it's called "Liberal social activism," and we laud it as a gesture of human rights.

Does any of that make sense?

"George Orwell, like many other literary scholars, is interested in the modern use of the English language and, in particular, the abuse and misuse of English. He realizes that language has the power in politics to mask the truth and mislead the public, and he wishes to increase public awareness of this power. He accomplishes this by placing a great focus on Newspeak and the media in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Demonstrating the repeated abuse of language by the government and by the media in his novel, Orwell shows how language can be used politically to deceive and manipulate people, leading to a society in which the people unquestioningly obey their government and mindlessly accept all propaganda as reality. Language becomes a mind-control tool, with the ultimate goal being the destruction of will and imagination." -from an essay by Jem Berkes

bobevenson wrote: George Orwell, like many other literary scholars, is interested in the modern use of the English language and, in particular, the abuse and misuse of English. He realizes that language has the power in politics to mask the truth and mislead the public, and he wishes to increase public awareness of this power. He accomplishes this by placing a great focus on Newspeak and the media in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Demonstrating the repeated abuse of language by the government and by the media in his novel, Orwell shows how language can be used politically to deceive and manipulate people, leading to a society in which the people unquestioningly obey their government and mindlessly accept all propaganda as reality. Language becomes a mind-control tool, with the ultimate goal being the destruction of will and imagination. -from an essay by Jem Berkes

This technique is not exclusive to governments.

bobevenson wrote:It does seem to be exclusive to left-wing socialists, though.

You don't believe that.

Harbal wrote:

bobevenson wrote:It does seem to be exclusive to left-wing socialists, though.

You don't believe that.

Please, it's an obvious fact!

bobevenson wrote: Please, it's an obvious fact!

My mistake, I thought you were smarter than that.

bobevenson wrote:It does seem to be exclusive to left-wing socialists, though.

Look at the typical "left-wing" tactics Harbal's using:

Shame -- "if you were smart, you wouldn't think that."

Personal insults -- "You don't believe what you say" (i.e. you're a liar)

That's how the Left argues: no facts, just impotent rage, emotion, insults, and repeated commands to "shut up," in one form or another.

It's precisely the spirit of the people in the Berserkeley riots...don't let anyone else speak.

That sort of bratty vacuity probably tells you as much as you need to know about how the Left lost the last election. It's tired and silly, and people are not interested in it anymore.

Maybe the Left finally dropped to a level where they were able to prove H.L. Mencken wrong.

Immanuel Can wrote:
Look at the typical "left-wing" tactics Harbal's using:

Double drat! I've been unmasked. Yes, I admit it, I'm a Marxist. Groucho was my hero.