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Comment by GPerson | Hacker News Reader

I’m interested in a neutral explanation of why this post is widely downvoted.

What is the significant difference between a satirical flyer titled “Black Lives Matter — Mostly Peaceful Arson and Riot” and a satirical flyer titled “The Originalist Case for Inciting Insurrection”? I’ll grant the second is more original, and perhaps wittier in the context of a mostly progressive law school audience. But both of these are intended to mock one side and entertain the other. Both of these are crass, and both implicitly defame.

However only one of these would be met with a school-wide email from the university president apologizing for the offense and reaffirming commitments to support and promote diversity. I think this is what the original poster is asserting.

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I downvoted because the comment feigns victimhood and differential treatment where there is none. Stanford didn’t say “chill out it’s just satire” in this case. It wasn’t until a non-profit advocacy group and the media got involved that Stanford Law suddenly “decided” it was just satire and dropped the proceedings against the student. I have no reason to expect things would have played out any differently for the hypothetical flyer either.

This is a fair point and changes my mind.

You really have no reason to expect things would have played out differently for a flyer poking fun at BLM? The only reason BLM exists at all is because it is that even completely fact based critiques of its core premise, that black people are being victimized disproportionately by police, are shouted down with religious fervor--to say nothing about the entirely foreseeable, disastrous consequences of its proposals.

I doubt anyone will read these articles because they are afraid of being called racist but for example here:

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877

and then there was a very small "correction" which changes nothing:

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/16/9127

and then note the weasily "retraction" that don't really retract anything that happened right when BLM was taking off.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/30/18130

If you dont think BLM receives special treatment please contact me because I have a bridge in new york to sell you.

>and then note the weasily "retraction" that don't really retract anything that happened right when BLM was taking off.

>https://www.pnas.org/content/117/30/18130

Holy cow. One can almost see the gun pointed off-camera at the hostage assuring viewers that he is being well treated!

The people named in one of your examples didn't actually encourage, incite, or support violence; people in the other example did.

One of those sides has power and the other does not.

Power in what context? Both sides seem to have power.

I think it’s fair to assume that there is a political bias in university administrations. Here’s an opinion piece where the author states that in their survey of political leanings in university administration the bias is significant.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/opinion/liberal-college-a...

I could not find any documentation or review of this survey. It does agree with my own observation however.

If you posted a flyer calling for arson and riot, even satirically, it probably wouldn't have gone over well. This was a flyer advertising a talk.

> But both of these are intended to mock one side and entertain the other. Both of these are crass, and both implicitly defame.

So what? That's not illegal. You're allowed to criticize others—that's a key purpose of the First Amendment.

Hello,

Respectfully, I believe you’ve missed the point of my post, which is not to assert the validity or invalidity of either perspective (I agree both should be protected by the first amendment), but to question why the audience of this website downvoted the original post so readily, and to boost the opinion that there is a political bias in university administrations.

Additionally, the flyer about Black Lives Matter could equally well be a talk.

>Additionally, the flyer about Black Lives Matter could equally well be a talk.

And if it were, it might hypothetically have been tolerated.

However, "Black lives matter mostly peaceful arson and riot" doesn't describe a talk, it describes an arson and riot. Claims that Stanford reacting differently to the two would merely be due to political bias is disingenuous projection.

Maybe GP intended to describe a satirical talk exactly like the one in the OP, but they didn't, and their language entirely undercut the premise of their attempted argument.

Ah there’s a simple explanation. When I read the original post I missed the word “a”, which changes the meaning. When I read the post it sounded like a talk criticizing previous protests as riots, not an advertisement for a future protest.

However I still assert that the talk titled as it is in my post would not be met well.

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