Tweet
People who think like you do are vile, evil and unworthy of the title human. There's no place for your hate speech in polite - or any society. There's no excuse for thinking the way you do.
Okay, the two of you who are inexplicably still reading, tell me, what did the above accomplish? Right, I made people mad and didn't convince anyone to change anything. Useless.
Censoring public discourse has a very nasty side effect - people who can't be heard peaceably will make themselves heard violently. There's a difference between maintaining civility in public discourse (something of a lost art, really) and excluding people entirely because you don't like what they have to say. The latter is in part responsible for the extreme backlash we are currently seeing. Continually marginalizing people rather than tackling their ideas does nothing good. It doesn't, obviously, always contribute to violence - at least not necessarily violence to others (unknown how it contributes to suicide, if at all. Presumably, it does.).
For nearly twenty years we have been telling people who's ideas we don't like - justifiably so - to shut up, get lost, get to the back of the proverbial bus. I don't know that the recent violence is directly related but it's beyond conception that the systematic silencing of people hasn't contributed to the violent outburst.
It certainly doesn't justify the violence - nor make the most repugnant of ideas correct - but maybe we'd be better served if we tried to defuse bombs instead of trying to bury them under potential shrapnel. They don't need to be treated with kid gloves - but should be heard. That racism is at issue is what points the finger here - racism is the easiest of all bias' to refute. Skin color is just that - skin color and nothing more. All the crap we build around it, that stuff only makes sense to the angry and the hurting - yes, hurting - and once vented, stands no chance in the light of reason - or day, for that matter.
Yeah, I see a lot of blame for the liberal side here, but honestly, conservatives have been in power much of the time this nonsense was going on so it ain't just them. Liberals wanted to silence dissent - conservatives didn't want to upset potential voters. Congrats, politics won at the cost of public discourse - you know, one of the underlying foundations of a democratic republic. Baby, bath water and tub all out the window - and Baby is crawling back in with a bone to pick.
Okay, have at it. I'm fairly sure 90% of those about to answer won't have read what I said past the first line - which is another reason telling people their ideas make them subhuman isn't a good way to start a dialogue. Of the few that did - feel free to disagree - but I challenge you to actually conduct a dialogue, not a diatribe. The opening was enough of that crap, don't you think?
Okay, the two of you who are inexplicably still reading, tell me, what did the above accomplish? Right, I made people mad and didn't convince anyone to change anything. Useless.
Censoring public discourse has a very nasty side effect - people who can't be heard peaceably will make themselves heard violently. There's a difference between maintaining civility in public discourse (something of a lost art, really) and excluding people entirely because you don't like what they have to say. The latter is in part responsible for the extreme backlash we are currently seeing. Continually marginalizing people rather than tackling their ideas does nothing good. It doesn't, obviously, always contribute to violence - at least not necessarily violence to others (unknown how it contributes to suicide, if at all. Presumably, it does.).
For nearly twenty years we have been telling people who's ideas we don't like - justifiably so - to shut up, get lost, get to the back of the proverbial bus. I don't know that the recent violence is directly related but it's beyond conception that the systematic silencing of people hasn't contributed to the violent outburst.
It certainly doesn't justify the violence - nor make the most repugnant of ideas correct - but maybe we'd be better served if we tried to defuse bombs instead of trying to bury them under potential shrapnel. They don't need to be treated with kid gloves - but should be heard. That racism is at issue is what points the finger here - racism is the easiest of all bias' to refute. Skin color is just that - skin color and nothing more. All the crap we build around it, that stuff only makes sense to the angry and the hurting - yes, hurting - and once vented, stands no chance in the light of reason - or day, for that matter.
Yeah, I see a lot of blame for the liberal side here, but honestly, conservatives have been in power much of the time this nonsense was going on so it ain't just them. Liberals wanted to silence dissent - conservatives didn't want to upset potential voters. Congrats, politics won at the cost of public discourse - you know, one of the underlying foundations of a democratic republic. Baby, bath water and tub all out the window - and Baby is crawling back in with a bone to pick.
Okay, have at it. I'm fairly sure 90% of those about to answer won't have read what I said past the first line - which is another reason telling people their ideas make them subhuman isn't a good way to start a dialogue. Of the few that did - feel free to disagree - but I challenge you to actually conduct a dialogue, not a diatribe. The opening was enough of that crap, don't you think?
Comment