I saw $787 million or so.

Yes, that's why it's fair to me to finish it.

Now where's my old ban hammer. I assume it's in the same place because it's too heavy for anyone else to lift!!!

Damn. This place got soft!!!!! :D

Isn't calling me names a violation of the commenting policy? Who enforces that around here these days?

I smoke them slowly to ensure a long, painful death!

The same exact thing that happens in NJ when the beaches, hotels and other facilities start to re-open - not much and likely not enough to turn the red states into Manhattan.

One side makes idiotic appeals to tyranny and liberty and uses dumb ass terms like "lock down". The other either assumes people are so f--king stupid that people can't act responsibly or nutpick the idiots and assume that people are going to act in the worst way possible.

They better get the god damn gyms open because it's obviously that no one even lifts. Pathetic.

"Even if a man isn’t attractive in features and build, having height seems to convey presence that gets above the lack of good looks."

I'm 5'5". I disagree. In fact, I love the fact that people "take off the gloves" when short people are discussed. I should get in on those conversations and then I could live up to the "short person asshole" reputation only it'll have nothing to do with my height".

I don't mind short jokes. Think of how my lived experience contributes to a certain kind of STANDpoint epistemology...oh you can't tell that I'm standing...sorry.

Get it?

"And unlike Roland, their concerns were not being backed up by actual murders."

The existence of evidence in of itself doesn't justify an argument. For example, from his post:

"If we don’t take this threat seriously, these acts of violence will only continue."

Does his evidence back up this claim? Of course not, he's Chicken Littling. Yes, we take this seriously and have for as long as I remember.

No matter what is discussed or agreed upon as solutions, the violence will continue. It's inevitable.

Also this:

"Up until 2017, I was ignorant of Youtube communities and failed to see how successful the alt-right was in hooking young men into ever-increasing extremism."

Kind of the same arguments thrown at me in the past about the SJ-left, what are we really talking about when we're talking about success? Increase in numbers? Okay. Increase in profile even bordering on or in some facet of the mainstream? To a point, yes.

Something we all need to freak out about and blow out of proportion?

Absolutely not. Throwing out de-platforming or needing to do something and reading posts written in the kind of grievance politics style of the last de-platforming post is a bit of a disproportionate response, at least to me.

I'd say it's off the cuff but I can put heat behind that if I chose. The conscience was inspired by Burt's dissent in our Ordinary Court Hobby Lobby case we did five years ago.

I went back to it recently. Good times.

"Advocating violence is different from glamorizing violence. And it has a long and unsettling history of working.. "

To the critics of heavy metal music, it was the glamorizing of violence, sex, drugs, the occult, etc. that, from the perspective of its critics, made the line between glamorizing in art and advocacy go away.

Like Roland, they were concerned about how those messages were going to be received. Like Roland, there was a somewhat disproportionate response, moreso with the heavy metal but it's still here as well.

If Roland doesn't think far right terrorism isn't being taken seriously, I'm not sure how to respond to that.

Mike,

I know you and I need to have a LONG conversation about all of this because I owe at least a dozen responses to things you've said.

Even if they don't belong on a respectable platform, they'll manifest themselves elsewhere.

I have mixed feelings about de-platforming - some hills aren't worth fighting on at all but others moreso. It almost feels to me like winning a battle but losing the war (or least not winning the war).

In exchange for allowing viewpoint-discrimination, allow them to be sued out of existence?

What am I missing here?

Enlightenment-adjacent? Is that like me being called alt-right-adjacent because I criticized the wrong person?

Come on.

Even after they opposed the idea for several years after Citizens.

I guess we live in the post-truth world so anything goes, except for me being tall.

"to Bookdragon: I can’t accuse you of moving goalposts, because there have never been goalposts in the West for free speech"

Seriously? Compare the 1960's landmark First Amendment cases to the WWI- era First Amendment cases challenging convictions under the Sedition Act.

When you read the majority opinion in Brandenburg v Ohio, you'll watch as the goalposts move right before your eyes.

"Trying to turn that around against trans folks has no such evidence, and you know this. Thus you’re argument is unserious."

Pretty much, but your critics will be able to point out bad actors. What they can't do is establish evidence that they're the kind of systemic threat that require appropriate steps to deal with.

"to Veronica: What evidence is sufficient to override the Western prioritization of freedom of speech?"

To Pinky - what "western prioritization of free speech" do you speak of? I'm curious because modern free speech doctrine was never an integral part of "the West" or the Enlightenment. It arose in the 1960's.

This argument strikes me as one of those I see online from the "classical liberal" set where they think they're defending Enlightenment values but are really taking an anti-Left position and weaponizing ideas.

Defending free speech requires respecting Twitter's right to de-platform ideas and/or people it doesn't want on its platform.

But happy to discuss the differences as you see them. At least I'll know what I need to address.

I've gotten to the parallels not to the differences but if I had to make an educated guess, there are a number of differences up to and including people exposed to certain ideas and becoming violent.

"“Deplatforming” involves private actors choosing which voices they should support and amplify. It is entirely consistent with free speech."

Private actors include corporations expressing a right to associate - like Twitter.

I guess corporations have rights and even a conscience?

"I don’t know why it is so difficult for people to perceive Israel as a nation like any other, say, Britain or France.."

Like Veronica said, the Left needs to do better. Your turn. At least acknowledge the situation correctly.

Everyone knows that SJWs aren't shooting up synagogues, but you know what they do when their own kind get accused of anti-semitism (remember the bigots running the Women's March?), it's downplayed just like that.

I've dealt with these people, irredeemable scumbags down to the last one. Had they stuck to the typical SJW "know your place" comment because of my identity as intersectionality's Spawn of Satan, that would have been fine since counterarguments based on identity tell me the other side isn't too bright.

But no...they were feeling a little too overconfident and played the "other side was worse" card. Maybe they said the "needed" to do better. I know they didn't take that specific incident as a teaching moment for "them" to DO better so I decided to express my distaste with their opinions in as undiplomatic way as possible and threw her "allies" under the same bus.

I have Jewish friends and family so yeah, I'm going to make sure I take anti-semitism as deeply and personally as I can for their sake.

As to the left doing better - for the SJ left, it's not going to happen. Ever. Like I said elsewhere, some of the fundamental ideas that drive the more ideological brands of social justice activism - because they can't solve for anti-Semitism (given the emphasis on race), anti-Semitism is at best a logical conclusion (although individuals themselves may not be) and at worst a feature and not a bug.

Liberals don't have this problem, and many of them are sympathetic to social justice causes so maybe they think they can address this. That wouldn't be my preferred choice.

I locked horns with someone defending de-platforming and her Ace in the Hole was Contrapoints' videos on the subject. I give an A for effort but it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before and addressed at some point.

Or, as they say, her positions are "problematic".

"I am still fairly convinced that the overwhelming majority of Americans (and world citizens) have no idea what 4chan and 8chan are, yet alone visit it."

This is 100% correct.

"How many people live and breath in the Extremely Online?"

Too many people. Not me though. I prefer the very online of this place to the shitholes like Twitter. I'm more likely to encounter people similar to those here in my everyday life than the nutbags on Twitter.

I feel like I'm reliving the heavy metal hysteria of the 1980s.