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Joined: Tue September 24, 2013 5:56 pm Posts: 47296 Location: In the oatmeal aisle wearing a Shellac shirt
BurtReynolds wrote:
I could go on and on, but a few general thoughts,
- when we see feminists accusing other prominent feminists of being sexist, and endless "no true scotsman" fallacies being whipped about for even the slightest breach in their byzantine social norms, it's fair to assume that it's gone off the rails. Desire for equality and liberty take a back seat to a perverse etiquette. This is oppressive and not liberal.
- Recently, the modern progressive's relationship with free speech can be described as chilly at best (see the leftist government prosecuting a Koran burner for blasphemy, for example). And I'm talking about free speech as a value here. Many increasingly do not see free speech as important, in any context. You can believe free speech is dangerous and that it should be curbed, but this does not make that belief liberal. It just means you have an illiberal belief.
- Many on the left (social justice warriors for lack of a better name) use statistics based on broad characteristics such as sex or race (and seemingly only those few characteristics) as a convenient justification to discriminate against or judge an individual. This is not liberalism. One can of course look at statistics to make out social inequalities in a system (though it isn't enough to suppose much), but then using that to act in a blatantly racist or sexist way is reprehensible.
- Increasingly, the primary defense against this is to simply declare that only whites can be racist, which is patently absurd. Oddly enough, they fully admit that non-whites can be racially prejudiced assholes, so they apparently don't have a problem with admitting that they are racially prejudiced assholes. But they aren't racist. Of course they're racist, and anti-liberal to boot.
-Instead of fostering a unified society where people see themselves as individuals rather than a part of a particular group, the social justice movement is likely responsible for further dividing people along tribalistic lines. The ever increasing desire to place people into conveniently labelled boxes based on race, sex, etc. and bristling at any mixing between those people (with dreaded cultural appropriation, for example) is anything but liberal. None of this does anything to foster unity or understanding between people. In fact, it drives people apart and stagnates cultural development (to say nothing of the fact that it has greatly weakened the democrats).
- Anyone having their rights infringed is being oppressed. Institutionality has nothing to do with it. Of course a white person can be oppressed by marginalized people, though it's less likely. Any oppression, racism, etc. ---even against white people--- hurts everyone, especially the marginalized. Racist modes of thinking are destructive, not just specific forms of racism. We aren't going to end racism by excusing some forms of it in the interests of fairness.
BurtReynolds wrote:
Recently, the modern progressive's relationship with free speech can be described as chilly at best (see the leftist government prosecuting a Koran burner for blasphemy, for example). And I'm talking about free speech as a value here. Many increasingly do not see free speech as important, in any context. You can believe free speech is dangerous and that it should be curbed, but this does not make that belief liberal. It just means you have an illiberal belief.
BurtReynolds wrote:
You can believe free speech is dangerous and that it should be curbed, but this does not make that belief liberal. It just means you have an illiberal belief.
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That was a good post Trag.
