BitPatron – A Bitcoin Censorship-Free Patreon Alternative
bitpatron.co
bitpatron.co
So a solution is not yet another platform but everyone (that cares enough) to run their own decentralized way of accepting payments/support.
Just install BtcPayServer ( https://btcpayserver.org/ ) and you can start accepting payments in Bitcoin and other coins even via LN, without having to trust any intermediary plus no extra middlemen fees.
Ideally, I could do something like set my monthly expenditure at something like $40, and I could nominate a list of creators, and they could all just get $1 per month.
How does Go Fund Me keep from turning into the mother of all money laundries?
This is obscuring what was said. Specifically, he said:
"You’re acting like a bunch of n * * * * * s, just so you know. You act like white n * * * * * s."
and
"Look, you carry on, but don’t expect me to then have a debate with one of your f * * gots.…Like why would I bother?…Maybe you’re just acting like a n * * * * r, mate? Have you considered that? Do you think white people act like this?"
It's not even the words themselves, it's the deeper implication ("Do you think white people act like this?").
I see this as no different from a TV network firing a host who said a whole bunch of racist stuff that didn't happen to be said on the TV network. Why should they continue to give this person money if they don't want to?
He's using the white supremacist's own racism against themselves. "Reading the deeper implication" has many likely interpretations of Sargon's internal mental state that are both non-racist and racist. That's quite far from "manifest observable behavior" Patreon claims in their TOS. They just have to cut off a father's income just before Christmas for a counter-troll on an obscure fringe live-stream from 10 months back? An organization making that much of a stretch is showing its hand. (Again, I don't approve of Sargon's language. It was definitely a mistake for him to say such a thing.)
I see this as no different from a TV network firing a host
Then how is it that someone did a search of Patreon's site and turned up tons of n-word occurrences? How is it that Patreon continues to fund groups that seem to encourage violence? If Patreon is reaching that far in Sargon's case to "protect their brand" yet have so many skeletons like that, so easily found, I highly doubt that "protecting their brand" is their actual underlying motivation.
In any case, Patreon is a conduit for payment, not a network. Perhaps they're pivoting, but from where I stand, it's completely the wrong move. They've severely damaged their standing as a means of paying creators.
Because these people don't matter to Patreon.
>How is it that Patreon continues to fund groups that seem to encourage violence?
Because these people don't matter to Patreon.
>If Patreon is reaching that far in Sargon's case to "protect their brand" yet have so many skeletons like that, so easily found, I highly doubt that "protecting their brand" is their actual underlying motivation.
It likely IS their motivation (or the more general motivation of making money anyway).
Someone did some math and realized that continuing to give this person money will, on balance, be more harmful than not giving this person money. That really is the extent of it all. No one at Patreon likely gives a shit about the guy except that he is too controversial compared to the amount of money he makes them.
Let's say Patreon makes 10% of the revenue this guy brings in. $15,000 is such an irrelevant amount compared to the amount of harm that continuing to support this guy monetarily could potentially cause that it would be insane to continue to bother sending him any money.
Then this is an even more disturbing thing. If "protecting their brand" means they have to act as if Sargon of Akkad is something -- contrary to the facts -- because activists and media have pushed a narrative, but they don't have to do anything about actual incidences of the n-word and groups possibly funding actual violence, then the narrative means all and facts mean nothing.
There is some group of people who has been corrupted by power and is abusing power. Nothing to do with identity here, but everything to do with socioeconomic power controlling information.
Few things are as binary as this.
But yes, narrative matters, as well as facts. Narrative built on a complete lack of facts is more difficult to sustain that that which is based on some facts.
Still, the $15,000 or so this dude makes for Patreon (at most!) is likely not worth the hassle of keeping him around.
They're just managing contributions, and taking a cut. So it's not like they're paying a salary or whatever.
Personal choice. I really hate those two particular words.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/9/16627900/ta-nehisi-...
What would be a better reason? Or, do you think white people should feel free to use that word?
Because there was a time when white people felt free to use that word, and there are still pockets of white society where people feel free to use that word, and if you think those times or those people are good ones to emulate, I'd be quite interested to know why you think that.
I think all people should feel free to use whatever words they want to use as long as they are speaking truth.
Because it seems like "don't say hurtful things" covers a lot of stuff, but you miss out on the specific empathy this specific situation gives you by reflecting on why this one word should be taken off the table for white people.
Now, what's condescending or insulting?
https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001977868-...
No service that's subject to any nation's jurisdiction could be considered truly "censorship-free". Because, you know, said nation could censor it.
I'd have a terms of service not too different from the one Patreon had published at the time of Jack Conte's interview. Such a site would also be "protecting a brand," but the political facet of the brand would be one of enabling the funding of civil and reasoned (though perhaps controversial) discourse. Granted, that's going to be a real can of worms.
Operating solely under US jurisdiction, it would be virtually immune to government censorship. Given strong protection of free speech in the US Constitution. And so it could be as censorship-free as its operators desired, without interference from private third parties.
But all bets are off if other nations have jurisdiction. Consider the pressure that Google is facing to apply "The Right to be Forgotten" to all searches globally. Or pressure from the UK and Australia to censor mention of legal stuff under protective order. Or China, seeking to block coverage of its Muslim "reeducation efforts".
this type of property is notoriously easy to hide!
Taxing income is the least worst. The best is taxing capital gains/profits from corporations.
Not if you want it to be protected by a patent, trademark, or copyright.
I haven't considered all the economic consequences of this, but it does seem like enforcement is a minor problem.
There was someone who said something like "Don't tax money that can move." It would be interesting to see all of the countries figure out a way for it to happen anyway.
The US taxes citizens abroad, but you get to deduct taxes paid to your country of residence. Since the US has relatively low taxes, this usually means citizens abroad pay no taxes to the US. It may be more nuanced than that. I have never filed taxes while living abroad, this is just my immediate recollection.
I'm not sure if you read my comment correctly.
> The US taxes citizens abroad, but you get to deduct taxes paid to your country of residence. Since the US has relatively low taxes, this usually means citizens abroad pay no taxes to the US.
I am saying that taxes in the US are low, which is why citizens abroad usually don't have any more taxes to pay after deducting the taxes paid to their country of residence.
France's asset tax was effectively protested by the wealthy doing what they always do - threatening to leave loudly, maybe taking some time off in one of their overseas residences, and then doing absolutely nothing.
Which they never do (unless they were going to do it anyway - i.e. outsourcing).
I wonder what the total value of land is in the US compared to buildings and other assets (subtract land value from stock values) and what the tax rate would have to be to replace the income tax?
I don't like lots of what I hear. But the right to free expression is more important than what I like, or don't.
From the ACLU:
> Can my free speech be restricted because of what I say — even if it is controversial?
> No. The First Amendment prohibits restrictions based on the content of speech. However, this does not mean that the Constitution completely protects all types of speech in every circumstance. Police and government officials are allowed to place certain narrowly drawn "time, place and manner" restrictions on the exercise of First Amendment rights — for example, permit requirements for large groups using public parks or limits on the loudness of sound amplifiers. Any such restrictions must apply to all speech regardless of its point of view.
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/demonstrations-and-pro...
Also, it's funny that much of what's now "politically correct" was totally unmentionable and censored in the 50s. If those who were "politically correct" then had done a better job at censorship, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
There is no protection, whatsoever, from any private individual or corporation being required to aid you in broadcasting, distributing or otherwise conveying your speech.
False. This is another of the false narratives promulgated by authoritarians on the left, hoping people will just give up and go away. Free Speech is a fundamental human right, and it doesn't stop at the borders of government vs. private property.
A Jehova's witness was trying to distribute pamphlets in a mining town, where basically all of the houses, all of the roads, and all of the sidewalks were constructed and owned by the company. The company said, "my town, my property, I don't want you to distribute your media." However, in the earlier history of the United States, it was jurisprudence that Free Speech holds priority over private property rights. The company was forced to allow it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBozijndSLc
(Re: Silencing and hoping people will just give up and go away. Again, the obnoxious religious conservatives used to do this sort of thing to homosexuals. All sorts of bigots who held position and power used these sorts of cheesy tactics against racial minorities, alternative lifestyles, basically all kinds of non-mainstream people, because they had no logical, principled, meritocratic arguments. In the end, it was all about feels and people shunning others based on tribalism. That's not what a free society looks like. You need real discourse, not treating ideas like they're armbands.)
And yes, it's true that the Constitution only applies to government action. So private individuals have more freedom to discriminate and censor. Those rights are generally limited, however, for those who provide public services.
For example, if you're seeking a housemate, or inviting people over for dinner, you're free to discriminate. Even over protected categories, such as race, religion and gender status.
But if you're renting or selling an apartment or house, or running a restaurant, you are far less free to discriminate. In particular, over those protected categories. Indeed, you will be required to accommodate needs of those with differing abilities.
The relationship of discrimination and censorship is admittedly complex. In most of the US, for example, shopping malls cannot legally discriminate against protected classes. However, they can freely censor speech. And exclude people who say or do stuff that's against their rules.
Given all that, Patreon is indeed free to censor and exclude. Just as shopping malls are (except, as I recall in California). But even so, there is the expectation that operations that are effectively public spaces (even though they are not governmental) ought to respect rights to free expression. That was typically so for newspapers. And there's been considerable litigation over protests in shopping malls.
So can Patreon legally discriminate and censor, based on politics? Yes, clearly. But can they legitimately be criticized for doing so? Also yes.
In what way? I don’t recall police and other authorities being overly restrained from extremes of violence against civil rights demonstrators, arresting and imprisoning them, and even killing them. If anything progress was made despite the lack of any freedom whatsoever, through civil disobedience. In the case of homosexual rights in the US, it didn’t exactly kick off with a sternly worded letter, it was the Stonewall Riots.
Coverage by national mass media generated widespread public support for federal intervention. And arguably, federal action wouldn't have happened without it.
And indeed, there's quite the contrast for the establishment of homosexual rights in the US. Because there was, for some years, virtually no coverage of the matter in national mass media. I mean, most people arguably considered homosexuality to be far more disgusting than racial mixing.
It was the fight against racial segregation, and the protest movement against the Vietnam War, that set the stage for establishing homosexual rights. And increased coverage in national mass media played a huge role.
So is Patreon comparable to the national mass media? I think that it is.
And yes, I get that those fights for civil rights were "good fights". And that racists and Nazis are "bad people". So it's supposedly just fine to censor them. But that's a dangerous game. It's the old "whose ox is being gored" thing.
Edit: Yes, I'm wrong about "didn't take long" for civil rights. It did take decades. But the main point stands. There wasn't much progress until the national mass media started covering it. And it did take maybe a decade longer for the national mass media to start covering the fight for homosexual rights.
Your sense of how the Civil Rights movement went is... interesting. It isn’t accurate though, and seems oddly idealized. Here’s the reality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_civil_rights...
For some context, the movement really kicked off in 1954, the famous bus boycott wouldn’t occur for another two years, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in late 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr wouldn’t give his famous speech in Washington for eight more years, in 1963, the same year Dr. King was arrested again earlier that year. The same year that George Wallace, “Calls for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in his inaugural address.”
So no, it didn’t go quite how you think it did. “Some censorship” and “some police and other authorities,” while technically correct understates the reality. Whole regions and their entire governments fought tooth and nail, ultimately requiring the deployment of the national guard. Media helped to an extent, and the federal government acted in slow motion as it always does.
It did take decades. Several decades, now that I think of it.
But do you think that federal intervention would have occurred in the absence of national mass media coverage?
Edit: Yes, there were huge protests, both locally and in Washington, DC. But if the national mass media had not covered those protests, would there have been any action?
I think not.
More than a decade of social upheavel was never going to be swept under the rug, unless the government flexed its muscles and ignored constitutional protections. This is the point, Patreon is just another outlet, and as long as the government isn’t using its extraordinary powers to arrest, supppress, and kill there are always other outlets. We have no guarantee of an easy time, and certainly no guarantee of imposing upon a private company. We have a right to speak, and I think that implies a right to be heard, but not a right to any particular audience just because it’s the one we want.
Last, remember that one of the most potent things to come out of attempts to silence Dr. King was his Letters From Birmingham Jail. On the other side of the same coin, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in jail. Sargon lost a platform to make money, and wants to act like he’s been crippled in the marketplace of ideas.
Bull. Shit. Free Speech doesn’t mean that you get to dictate how another nominally free entity behaves. The people who’ve invested time and money into Patreon get to choose who they do business with, they don’t have a legal or moral obligation to act as middleman fundraiser for anyone they see as threatening their business.
But the but-for world here -- analogous to Twitter, Patreon, etc censoring stuff -- is that national mass media would not have covered that stuff.
And how does what you say about Patreon not apply to traditional media that's privately owned?
Also, I'm not necessarily arguing that Patreon etc should be prevented from censoring. Mainly I'm pointing to consequences of traditional media being rep0laced by social media, Patreon, etc.
Some decades ago, there were similar concerns about public streets and squares being replaced by shopping malls. And this is a far more extreme version.
Like just recently, the whole point was that the White House had to ask the national media to give the President airtime - they are, in fact, completely able to refuse to.
If you hide people and prevent the people you disagree with from talking - they will just go underground and grow there. The public will just see that you have no real arguments against them (because you would have presented them) - and instead are trying to silence them.
If you want real change, you need to argue with your opponenets, not try to push them into underground.
Social repercussion, up to casting people out of communities, can actually be a highly valuable since very effective tool in such situations. Humans are social beings, after all. But you are right, it must be used sparingly, otherwise those outcast will form communities of their own and reinforce each other.
To what extent is this historically true? In fact, the big instances (like the actual Nazis) were very much silenced by force; the Nazi State was not defeated through the Jews debating them. From Sartre,
> “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Maybe J.S. Mill's ideal would be better of revised rather than assumed.
Beyond that the reason you can’t be extradited to Saudi Arabia is that few countries have such treaties with them. It’s true that the US uses it’s military and monetary power to shove unfavorable conditions where possible, but that’s a universal feature of powerful nations, see China for clarification. Such treaty obligations can lead to problems like the persecution of Kim Dotcom, but it also leads to confrontations over human rights and fairness of laws.
Treaty obligations within Europe prevent them from extraditing someone for a capital crime in a other country. Being outside of binding web of treaties offers freedom, but it often offers the most freedom to dictators. So yes, US copyright law is a mess, and that mess spreads through treaties. That’s a problem with US law, not the concept of treaties.
Most of all, such treaties offer avenues other than violence for countries to settle disputes, and that value can not be overstated.
Of course this solution is fine for those who have tech background and can handle the necessary customizations.
But our mission is to provide a user friendly censorship-free Patreon alternative for everyone, including all the necessary features: all integrations, video hosting, etc.
To achieve this goal, we need to sustain our 6 dev team to work full time and deliver a top notch product.
We would love to do it without needing to charge, but it's not possible tbh. Ads rev isn't even an option for us.
Also, we will use the revenue to create marketing and edutional campaigns to educate others and help Bitcoin - the free speech money - achieve mass adoption.
Is it not functional in BTCPay server perhaps? Nevertheless, the network itself functions already and functions well. (Adoption will take time to spread, yes.)
The larger phenomenon has also been dubbed "woke capital": the claim is that as a shield against public opinion and regulators, multi-billion dollar corporations promote various types of progressive activism that don't cut into their bottom line [2]. How public opinion and regulators got that way is another story and still a mystery to me.
[1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1081248850252390400.html [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/opinion/corporate-america...
A company I work with is heavily engaged in corporate activism. They suggested political viewpoints during the midterms and tend to only hire candidates who share those same perspectives. There has been at least one employee who was let go over their support of a different political viewpoint.
It wasn’t always like this. It has intensified over the past two years. The majority of their revenue is from a single company and I suspect that has something to do with it.
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b14z9vvlscsnp2...
8chan
Encyclopedia Dramatica
BitChute
Wikileaks
Numerous Antifa chapters
World Socialist Web Site
If people are seriously accepting moral leadership from credit card companies, what is there really to add.
Just build something around Bitcoin or Ethereum for the payment/payout centric problems in this world and use a very good exchangable well established, EXISTING cryptocurrency. No need to reinvent the wheel again&again.
Now Amazon isn't known to succumb to external pressure as far as I know. But depending on desperation and resources there's really a lot you could do. For example you could even go ahead and manufacture a controversy with some fake accounts and use it as evidence that Bitpatron is not doing due diligence. And of course, you could try to find another point of failure, like trying to convince their domain registar that the site is illegal. A lot of domain registars cave easily to pressure (Not all. Gandi is a good counter example.)
These aren't really theoretical attack vectors, but they are merely hypothetical for Bitpatron. Still, if you want something resistant to speech control you are gonna need more decentralization imo.
In neither case can I blame them. Those are fights which hurt them with very little upside.
And, in democratic nations, the laws often do follow society's agreed upon moral imperatives. This is why child abuse and animal abuse are illegal.
The sticky situations come in where there is not a strong consensus. In the US: Abortion, vaccines, climate change, gun control. There's an ebb and flow to it, but a lot of people will be generally unhappy no matter what does or doesn't happen.
Let's go back to my comment:
>If it was agreed upon then it would be illegal.
I think this is necessarily true. If society has a strong agreement that something is morally wrong, the laws almost certainly would follow, as they tend to.
I am not saying this is a perfectly accurate measure, and I'm also not saying the reverse is true. But I am absolutely saying that I believe one of the main reasons people go about imposing moral beliefs on others by threatening service providers and forming harassment mobs is because some group of people has a strong moral imperative that other people may not have or may actually disagree with.
I don't believe in absolute free speech, but I believe that people should be able to express themselves in ways that are legally protected. I also think it's okay for people to express their dislike of things, but I don't think it's OK to engage in coordinated harassment. Internet mobs are not the force I want policing the internet.
If you have a strong moral imperative against something that's legal, why do you think it's legal if everyone agrees with you?
Nope.
there are only individuals.
That being said I do subscribe to the Larry Flynt doctrine of free speech-- free speech is measured by the freedom of the least sympathetic speakers. The fact that platforms like gab.ai can be created without legal ramifications means that we still basically have free speech.
North Korean citizens generally don't go "underground" either.
Do you think they're well informed about the world?
It's a different story in the west now, where information is generally available without the need to go "underground", so to speak - so why would be not be intent on keeping it that way? It seems that some people would like to drive things underground because it hurts their feelings. Is China the role model we're aspiring to become?
We wanted a simple name and this was one of the first options we thought, together with BitSubscribe .
Hope you understand.
To be honest, I'm not too sure if this would be the best fit for a startup incubator and VC funding. If I was a libertarian and very interested in free speech, I think I would prefer to use a platform that was bootstrapped and independent. Going through a startup incubator and taking VC funding doesn't feel very aligned with this culture.
Because their programming language builds in support for systems like this with smart contracts. And also Ethereum is tackling scaling and microtransactions head on with major upgrades to their core.
Think of a Swiss Army Knife. Just because it can act as a fork, as a knife, as a spoon, (and so on): nor restaurants will present consumers with Swiss Army Knifes, nor consumers would appreciate it. Sometimes the direct and relatively simple is indeed more suitable/needed. Depends on the domain, sure..
which, in this case, I think it's really "actual payment" problem (not contracts etc).
Patreon does not have a limitation of a funding goal usually, it just sends all the funds directly to the creator. It's not like kickstarter.
You should just go back to Tibet.
Bitcoin does not have smart contracts or a programming language and the scaling in the new Ethereum is going to be better.
Interesting to see if this is just a fad or are these going to make any impact incumbents.
I want to be able to send money to some people on a regular basis, whatever way they're accepting payments, I will do it. I've sent cheques to some people since I closed my Patreon account, that works okay too (but it's inconvenient to deposit cheques, so you have to send them once a quarter or year or so rather than once a month).
The only way a new social network is likely to succeed is if it is part of a federation of social networks that communicate using protocols such as ActivityPub, making one big network where the whole exceeds the sum of thew parts.
The idea that Reddit, Twitter and Patreon can not be supplanted show an ignorance of history
These alternatives come up because there are real problems with censorship on existing platforms (or let's say "perceived real by enough people"). If those problems will keep persisting and will get worse - then the alternatives will absolutely thrive. If Patreon and Visa and others will get some sense back - then alternatives will become a passing fad.
BitBacker is nice, but tbh, it still lacks the necessary features and even more important a proper ux to be a real alternative for most of Patreon users.
They're trying to stay on the nice side of credit card and other financial companies so porn, speech that takes on controversial/flame/political/religious topics, being a dick or unsavory person, doing illegal things in $COUNTRY will get you banned from the platform. It's understandable from a staying in business point of view but it can feel hypocritical, heavy handed and disingenuous when you hear the CEO speaking about it and explaining the company's actions to users. He won't own up to what they're doing, which would allow people at least be able to empathize with him.
I don't use the platform and I don't support anyone on Patreon. Unless I've made a mistake explaining the situation I'd prefer not to expand this thread. It's serious flamebait.
The hubris of the tech leaders are a cause for concern. Who voted for them to be our puritanical leaders and tyrants? Do we really want Tim Cook, Zuckerburg, Page/Brin, Conte, etc to be our moral censors? Do we really want them to be the American Politburo to rule over us? I certainly don't. What's even more incredible is that the co-founder of Patreon is a musician by trade. You would think he, of all people, would be against censorship.
Also, in many instances, you can predict someone's political views with some accuracy just by their profession.
Literally everything you're saying should make them sympathetic to free speech was perpetrated, in the west, by the right-wing.
So go figure: they don't like them.
It's not a matter of liking "right-wing" or "left-wing". Both are capable of oppression and horrific behavior. That's why I believe in principles like free speech. So that horrible people from both the left and the right can't silence people.
I can't understand people like you. The right wing are terrible because they censored people. So lets be like the right wing and censor?
This is where you're wrong. If a payment processor doesn't like someone, they'll just threaten a platform after platform wherever you pop up. Block whoever we don't like or you won't be able to process payments.
Case in point: Sargon of Akkad. I'm not going to take any stand in this controversy because I don't know the backstory, however as soon as he switched from Patreon to SubscribeStar, PayPal went after SubscribeStar. I'm assuming they've said no when asked to block Sargon, because you can no longer cash out via PayPal. It wasn't Patreon that was after him, it was PayPal.
If visa/mastercard tells you they will block payments to that website because they don't like your ideas, that's the end of it.
Most prominently, recently, a center-left commentator whose opinions certain executives don't like.
Baloney. He's claims to not be alt right despite having identical views on most topics. It's about as convincing as when the KKK says they aren't racist, they just love white people.
He does cite specific differences from the Alt-Right, e.g., he views as excessively collectivist; he hates most of the things they hate, which makes the difference largely academic to a lot of people outside of the broader far right.
To say he is alt right is unreasonable and incorrect, although for some he is certainly divisive.
That's basically the same kind of tactics religious fundamentalists tried to pull in shaming homosexuals way back when. That sort of social manipulation through dishonest labeling, that spirit of squashing dissent -- it's the same kind of tribalist petty evil practiced by bigots back in the day. People who know better need to stand up and call it out.
Btw, the article you link seem to argue that there is a historic parallel to this argument. However, post-modernist is a much newer concept and ideology than the historic events listed in it.
Sargon is Center Libertarian, pretty far from the alt-right which are more accurately labeled Authoritarian Right
“Classical liberal”, with or without “British”, is a standard self-identification for modern conservatives, especially right-libertarians; a very wide portion of the political spectrum—reaching pretty far both left and right and everywhere in between—in the modern West, especially the Anglo-American subset, has or claims roots in 18th century British liberal thought.
> However, since he also criticizes the far left, the far left tars him as Alt-Right,
Lots of people criticize the far left without being labelled Alt-Right; OTOH, he does seem to be from a space slightly more libertarian though equally far right and equally, or nearly so, xenophobic on most social axes to the Alt-Right. So there is a real, if perhaps exquisitely fine, distinction there.
So there is a real, if perhaps exquisitely fine, distinction there.
In 2018, this is called an "exquisitely fine, distinction" where in years past, he would just have been called center-left.
He seems to think he is, since part of his criticism of the Alt-Right was that they weren't sufficiently nice to him personally, violating the maxim that “White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another” (he later claimed this was a criticism of them violating their own standards, but whoever the standard is attributed to his invocation of it only makes sense if he believes he is White.)
> "Xenophobic" is the label used by the far left to tar anyone who believes in stricter border policies.
That may be how some subset of the far left uses it, but it is nevertheless a word with actual meaning, that applies to Sargon, and I'm not a member of the far left.
> in years past, he would just have been called center-left.
Which years past? Maybe the 19th Century. Not anytime in living memory.
That's not how he identifies, though he doesn't think identity should be an issue and that people should be judged by the content of their character.
violating the maxim that “White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another”
Again, trolling white supremacists by throwing their own broken beliefs (and inability to live up to even those broken ones) back in their face.
I'm not a member of the far left.
Really?
> in years past, he would just have been called center-left.
Which years past? Maybe the 19th Century. Not anytime in living memory.
In my living memory, certainly. Someone being against identity politics, for strict border controls, and being for "equality of opportunity" but opposing "equality of outcome" is a perfectly reasonable liberal position to me, and could have been claimed as such with no comment in the 80's, 90's, and 2000's. It's a dishonest far left narrative to try and label those as "conservative" or even "Alt Right."
I'd never heard of this Sargon guy before and only now feel oriented after reading this thread. It's an ideological subject. Shrug.
Seems to me that Sargon person is one of those but can't tell.
There's a dishonest tactic of tarring at play here.
No. What's dishonest is to call people like Sargon of Akkad, Tim Pool, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, or Steven Pinker "Alt Right" in an attempt to silence them purely by association. All of those people oppose the alt right! Really, no one should be getting away with those cheesy 80's Moral Majority tactics. If just using the n-word makes one alt right, then my creole ex-girlfriend's transvestite creole musician brother is "Alt Right" -- NOT!
It’s so strange that banning of Neo nazis (as you describe him) is controversial!
It's controversial, because many people are being labeled thusly as a dishonest authoritarian intimidation tactic. Tim Pool, who's non-white, a lifelong liberal, and left leaning, is another alternative journalist who is similarly -- and dishonestly, inaccurately -- tarred.
It's controversial, because there are those of us in the liberal camp seeing such dishonest and authoritarian tactics used to silence dissent from within the left. That's not how democratic institutions and organizations who supposedly care about truth are supposed to act.
He criticizes the Alt-Right and White Nationalists in part by calling them n * * * ers, just so it's clear for readers.
Since biycoun doesn't have subscriptions, you'd need to topup your account X amount which then gets distributed over the months to bitpatreons?
If I am giving you money and your are giving bitcoin to the people I am supporting, then mastercard will not allow you to take money if you facilitate right wing views.
If I am giving you bitcoin and you are giving money to the people I support, then Mastercard will cut you off if those people have right wing views.
If I am giving you bitcoin and you are giving bitcoin to the people I support, then how is it different from just giving bitcoin?
It doesn't really solve the free speech problem as what is needed is a way for all views to be paid with the ease of a credit card, instead of just approved views.
That is clearly not correct. You can subscribe or donate to "The National Review", "The Weekly Standard", "The American Spectator", "The American Conservative", "The New American", and "FrontPage Magazine" all via MasterCard, and these are all right wing publications facilitating right ring views.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/jihad-watchs-robert-spencer-ann...
$CashPay$ is a pivot on the Offering Plate employed by the church and by beggars for millennium; cash.
FAQ
Q: As a content creator, how do I accept payment for my work? A: Content creators disclose a PO Box address.
Q: As a patron of content creators, how can I support them? A: Patrons can send cash, pre-paid debit cards, money orders, etc. in an envelope to the disclosed PO Box address.