Heavy handed? Sure, agreed. But not a surprise.
Telling level of dog whistles in all those comments too - talking about how white people are oppressed/discriminated against.
Just another day in alt-right shit-posting ppl, nothing to see here.
Censorship is censorship, and the Reddit users do a fine job of downvoting the speech they view as not contributing to the conversation.
I think a term that is often used by conservatives (as well as folks like Bill Maher) is getting sadly accurate: the regressive left.
The first step of the regressive left in silencing opinions they don't agree with, instead of simply countering those opinions with their own, is to label that speech and/or the person using it as some form of hate speech. Once the speech and/or the person is labelled (subjectively) as such, they are sufficiently dehumanized to make them unworthy of being heard and/or argued with.
It hurts us when we do this. The people in the middle who might actually be swayed in an argument see the silencing of dissent, and it makes them hate us.
If so... carry on. I can respect that. It's a completely impractical idea but at least it's consistent.
Say you've got a tribe of 100 people, and 80 of them basically agree on most things, and amicably sort out their disagreements when they don't, and are able to work together most of the time. Then, you've got the other 20 people, who scream and bitch about every fucking thing, and constantly insist that some small number of people among the 80 are "out to get them" and "destroy the tribe" and demonize them, and it's always some slightly different subset of the 80 every time such that most people, at one point or another, are slurred as tribe-hating traitors. The main contribution these 20 make to tribal society is, at best, to grab the mic at every opportunity so it takes 10x longer to resolve an issue than it otherwise would, and at worst to pit everyone against everyone else and cause brand new problems that weren't there before. Is there ever a point where the tribe is justified in exiling these 20 people?
Now, I know that tribal politics do not scale exactly to national politics, but do you think there is a point where we can say that some group of people have had their say, and then some and it's time for them to shut the fuck up so we can carry on with our god damn business?
You think there is much chance of that happening, like ever?
Now look back at the fight for racial and gender equality as well as gay rights and tell me how hypocritical you think you sound.
I mean one of the groups you mentioned above is actually the fucking majority group (women). Their struggle for a position in society and a voice in the public discourse is not comparable to that of the far right, because on the face of it they should be dominating the discussion, and are not. Likewise black people may not be the majority, but they should not be subjected to fire hoses (and much worse) if they try to vote. And so on.
And I'll point out that none of those groups actually got anything substantial until after the majority agreed with it. They never drove policy like e.g. the evangelicals do despite being a minority of the population and wanting something most people didn't care for.
I'm not saying people shouldn't be given a voice, I'm saying that when a group is consistently given a voice and policy impact way out of proportion to their numbers (and necessarily at the expense of other groups), that it is fine for society to react to that especially if no legislative action is involved.
When does it go from merely saying that the minority has said too much, toward actively crushing their ability to say things that annoy the majority?
Again, when is enough, enough? Is there any point at which you are comfortable - again at a societal level not as an act of Congress or something - with informing these people that their positions are unpopular and hated, and they need to, and if they refuse will be made to (e.g. r/news reaction here), quit hogging the public discourse in favor of some other people with fresher ideas?
I mean, it's not like "gays shouldn't be married, Muslims should be banned, taxation is theft, Obama isn't eligible for office, Hillary left people to die in Benghazi for no reason at all, black people are fools for the Democratic party, Mexicans are both lazy moochers and taking all our jobs, and on and on and on and on and on" hasn't gotten a fair hearing. Not according to my Facebook feed, anyway.
So, again, at what point is it okay to tell these overbearing loudmouths to shut the fuck up and give the 80 other people in the room a chance to speak? Is it ever okay? Should we doom ourselves to rule by the loud and obstinate?
So yes. The world will only grow louder.
Also bear in mind this is not an act of Congress. This was a popular subreddit where some unpaid mods decided to go nuclear on people who have a history of hijacking discussion and preventing civil discourse. I think that public forums like Reddit do have an ethical duty to freedom of speech, but their duty stops short of the restrictions that are (and should be) placed on government i.e. Congress.
Also, to be clear, I am not suggesting that the 20 are all alt-right, but neither do the political views of that 20 need to mirror that of the 80 (taken to the extreme).
So - neither of you answered my actual question. Any other takers?
People are always heroes in their own stories. They truly believe it. If they set out to "inspect" if that is really the case, their honest evaluation will be that, yes, they are.
Is donating blood to victims of a mass shooting an alt-right, Islamophobic thing?