patrick.net

T L Lipsovich says

Words are Words, deeds are deeds and words should not have consequences 99.9999% of the time. As you know, I believe that Free Speech should apply everywhere, in workplaces and especially in universities, except military secrets by active and former personnel. The idea you don't have free speech at a workplace or university is a holdover from the feudal era where you are your bosses' property or somehow represent the university. No, you are trading your labor for money. Not your conscience.

Words matter. Words lead to deeds. Responsibility for what one says should matter. Free speech doesn't apply everywhere whether you think it should or not - do you really want ISIS to be free to recruit on campus for example? I think there are limits, but then I'm not American, so maybe we just simply hold different perspectives.

Rashomon says

Words matter. Words lead to deeds. Responsibility for what one says should matter. Free speech doesn't apply everywhere whether you think it should or not - do you really want ISIS to be free to recruit on campus for example? I think there are limits, but then I'm not American, so maybe we just simply hold different perspectives.

Explain to me how calling an actress fat and untalented leads to any deeds?

If Trump is assassinated, do Rosa Brooks, Sarah Silverman, and others who have hinted at violent coups deserve to be charged with Accessory to Murder?

By the way, you can't believe this and be a liberal, since this entire line of thinking is fundamentally anti-liberal and totalitarian. Not authoritarian because authoritarians don't try to control what you think; obedience is enough (the entire point of contrast with traditional authorities in 1984) What are you?

T L Lipsovich says

Explain to me how calling an actress fat and untalented leads to any deeds?

If Trump is assassinated, do Rosa Brooks, Sarah Silverman, and others who have hinted at violent coups deserve to be charged with Accessory to Murder?

It creates a climate, don't you think? Pretty much every movement started off with words. They have power to influence.

T L Lipsovich says

By the way, you can't believe this and be a liberal, since this entire line of thinking is fundamentally anti-liberal and totalitarian. Not authoritarian because authoritarians don't try to control what you think; obedience is enough (the entire point of contrast with traditional authorities in 1984) What are you?

I guess that depends on what you mean by liberal. There have always been limitations on free speech in Europe, and for pretty good reasons in many cases (whether or not you agree with them), and those limitations have been widely supported. This isn't the defining point of being liberally minded, certainly not in Europe at least. I believe in the right of people to express their opinions, but I don't see why that can't be done in a civil manner, though I'll happily make an exception for one or two on this forum.

Rashomon says

I guess that depends on what you mean by liberal. There have always been limitations on free speech in Europe, and for pretty good reasons in many cases (whether or not you agree with them), and those limitations have been widely supported. This isn't the defining point of being liberally minded, certainly not in Europe at least.

Historically Europe has been a lot less interested in civil liberties, also.

T L Lipsovich says

Historically Europe has been a lot less interested in civil liberties, also.

It's also given people universal healthcare, better social services etc. etc. Take your choice.

Rashomon says

It's also given people universal healthcare, better social services etc. etc. Take your choice.

And started the world's bloodiest wars. And notably anti-democratic. The EU itself is an anti-democratic institution, designed to be an extra-level of governance limiting Democracy, just in case the Communists or Hard Left won a majority in Italy or France.

Rashomon says

Rockers

In the 50s, the levels of power encouraged and tolerated open bias against White Males?

T L Lipsovich says

Words are Words, deeds are deeds and words should not have consequences 99.9999% of the time. As you know, I believe that Free Speech should apply everywhere, in workplaces and especially in universities, except military secrets by active and former personnel. The idea you don't have free speech at a workplace or university is a holdover from the feudal era where you are your bosses' property or somehow represent the university. No, you are trading your labor for money. Not your conscience.

yes, it's a holdover and a horrible loophole used to arbitrarily DENY someone something. promotion, raise, bonus, steady pay, continuous employment, grade point average, degree, whatever.

what's insidious is that the claim doesn't even have to be true for the reprimand to be executed. further, THE STAIN NEVER GOES AWAY - people carry it on their reputation for the duration of their studies/employment at that institution.

T L Lipsovich says

And started the world's bloodiest wars. And notably anti-democratic. The EU itself is an anti-democratic institution, designed to be an extra-level of governance limiting Democracy, just in case the Communists or Hard Left won a majority in Italy or France.

Times change - and the EU is in large part an attempt to maintain peace in a very unstable part of the world historically. It's easy for Americans to scoff at these institutions, but your country hasn't suffered the kind of devastation wrought by two world wars and all the conflicts that preceded that (on your actual home soil).

Rashomon says

Times change - and the EU is in large part an attempt to maintain peace in a very unstable part of the world historically. It's easy for Americans to scoff at these institutions, but your country hasn't suffered the kind of devastation wrought by two world wars and all the conflicts that preceded that.

No,it's there to trap Italy or France in the (West) European Economic system in case they voted a hard left government, giving that new government another hurdle to climb. That's literally the reason it exists and why it came about when it did. - and why it's falling apart now, after the Cold War and incorporation of Eastern Europe at different levels of development - is no accident.

T L Lipsovich says

No,it's there to trap Italy or France in the (West) European Economic system in case they vote a hard left government, giving that new government another hurdle to climb. That's literally the reason it exists and why it came about when it did. It's also why it's falling apart right now and not long before.

You know that makes no sense at all. Many of the post WWII governments in Europe have been hard left at least in terms of what the US takes as hard left - your Democrat party is more conservative than our Conservative party FFS.

Rashomon says

You know that makes no sense at all. Many of the post WWII governments in Europe have been hard left at least in terms of what the US takes as hard left - your Democrat party is more conservative than our Conservative party FFS.

The SPD is certainly not hard left, nor have most other European "Socialist" Parties. They have a stronger social safety net. But even Conservative parties in Europe don't seriously consider dismembering social programs.

Liberals in Europe are NOT identified with the left. That is very much a US concept.

T L Lipsovich says

That's a good thing. White Males were the first to postulate Slavery was a moral wrong and unilaterally sweep the slave trade from the seas and 3/4 of the planet Earth.

The first to conceptualize human rights. But not all White Men get driven in limos, have maids, or drop $2000 on coke and escorts.

Free Speech is always pilloried, until it disappears and the "Boni" or "Optimates" create a new system where criticism is banned.

Your point? White men were also the ones to profit massively from slavery for several centuries, so then having some decide that it was morally wrong demonstrates what exactly?

Rashomon says

Your point? White men were also the ones to profit massively from slavery for several centuries, so then having some decide that it was morally wrong demonstrates what exactly?

You forgot about the world's greatest Slave-traders, who not only outdid Europeans 10x over in 3x longer time period, but inspired the word from "Slav".

That as late as the US Civil War, European Philantropists were leaving money to liberate slaves.

It's why Corsicans scared them away by putting one of their heads on their flag - still used today.

They were all over East Africa and India before Henry the Navigator was born, trading slaves by the millions. They went up the Dneipr and even raided Iceland and Ireland for Slaves in the 18th Century.

They got away with it until Europeans developed the steamship their galleys couldn't outrun by pointing their prow into the wind.

Do you know who these infamous pirates, and world class slave traders since 600AD were named?

T L Lipsovich says

Liberals in Europe are NOT identified with the left. That is very much a US concept.

Again that depends on what you consider left - apparently you are referring to the hard left - liberals in the UK have historically gravitated towards Labour as it was - the liberal/SDP party was always pretty nondescript. Times have changed though and most European parties have moved to the center.

Rashomon says

Again that depends on what you consider left - apparently you are referring to the hard left - liberals in the UK have historically gravitated towards Labour as it was. Times have changed and most European parties have moved to the center.

I mean in real Europe :-)

In Denmark, Germany, France, etc. Liberals are considered wholly separate, and use the color Yellow, not a shade of Blue or Red.

T L Lipsovich says

I mean in real Europe :-)

In Denmark, Germany, France, etc. Liberals are considered wholly separate, and use the color Yellow, not a shade of Blue.

I would say that is more a product of the electoral system that they adopt in many of the countries, which gives a greater voice to the smaller groups. If they had an electoral system like the UK or US, it would be a different story.

It's amazing that when people think of slavery, they think of the ethnicity/civilization that banned it first and practiced it the shortest, not the one that practiced it the longest, over a greater range, for a longer time, and only gave it up when they faced complete technological military dominance and had no choice.

T L Lipsovich says

It's amazing that when people think of slavery, they think of the ethnicity/civilization that banned it first and practiced it the shortest, not the one that practiced it the longest, over a greater range, for a longer time, and only gave it up when they faced complete technological military dominance and had no choice.

I don't follow. England abolished slavery before the USA if that was what you were referring to.

Rashomon says

I don't follow.

Arabs and Turks. 600-1964. Millions of East Africans, Indians, Russians, Ukrainians (Slav=Slave), etc. Zanzibar alone was greater than any European-run trading fort in West Africa. They even had massive Slave rebellions in the Gulf, of which the "Zanj" is the most famous.

Arabs wrote books about White Slaves vs. Black Slaves vs. Indian Slaves and how to 'manage' them differently.

And the foreign Turkish imperialist colonialists ruled 1/3 of Europe, enslaved and emasculated children as eunuchs, raped like crazy, closed down Churches.

I will let @MMR discuss their benign, loving rule of India and Hindus and Sikhs under the Mughal Empire.

Anyway, as late as 1850, Europeans were still leaving money in their wills to buy the freedom of Algerian Slaves.

Again, the French and British with steamships ended the slave trade at the point of a gun.

In fact, the very first battle the US Navy ever fought after Independence was against a Pirate Slaver on the Barbary coast for enslaving and taking the crew of US Merchant Ships.

"To the shores of Tripoli" in the USMC Marine Hymn is about a cutting out expedition to free Americans up for ransom or slavery.

Rashomon says

Eh? Slavery is practiced in every country on the planet.

Now you're being obtuse. Show me the numbers of slaves picking lettuce without wages in California, wearing chains, where the Sheriff picks them up and whips them before sending them back to the Plantation Owner. That IS a thing in Mauretania - Land of the Moors.

Except for the occasional wise-ass MENA 'investor immigrant' bundling over their Indonesian Slave Housemaid to Long Island or Orlando, actual Slavery is unheard of.

As a history major I'm stunned at the ignorance of even well-educated people as to a major, broad fact of history.

The Arabs' economy was basically run around the slave trade for ~1400 years.

In fact, when the British claimed the right to seized all slave ships, that's when the Arab's MENA Economy collapsed and the gap truly opened up between Europe and the MENA. Not even the spice trade broke the Arabs, it was slavery.

T L Lipsovich says

As a history major I'm stunned at the ignorance of even well-educated people as to a major, broad fact of history.

The Arabs' economy was basically run around the slave trade.

So? Europeans and the US made vast sums off the back of the slave trade as well. These were (are) far more advanced societies at the time and yet they had no qualms about doing it for centuries. You are now attacking less developed countries for doing it longer? I don't really see where you are going with this.

Rashomon says

So? Europeans and the US made vast sums off the back of the slave trade as well. These were/are far more advanced societies at the time and yet they had no qualms about doing it for centuries. You are now attacking less developed countries for doing it longer? I don't really see where you are going with this.

Arabs were NOT less developed than Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (after which there were no slaves of number in Europe and never again in the next 1600+ years) and around 1400-1500AD. Yet that was their time of peak slavery, which did not drop off until Europeans put an end to it with firearms and steamships.

Arab civilization started to go under because of Mongol attacks, and because all the educated Greek-speakers converted to Islam over the centuries, thus the Arabs lost touch with science and learning.

"If it contradicts the Koran, it is Satanic. If it is merely reinforces the Koran, it is superfluous." - Egyptian Caliph on Greek Science and Literature.

T L Lipsovich says

Arabs were NOT less developed than Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (after which there were no slaves of number in Europe and never again in the next 1600+ years) and around 1400-1500AD. Yet that was their time of peak slavery, which did not drop off until Europeans put an end to it with firearms and steamships.

What period was the height of the European and US slave trade? You are comparing two different periods.

T L Lipsovich says

Arab civilization started to go under because of Mongol attacks, and because all the educated Greek-speakers converted to Islam over the centuries, thus the Arabs lost touch with science and learning.

"If it contradicts the Koran, it is Satanic. If it is merely reinforces the Koran, it is superfluous." - Egyptian Caliph on Greek Science and Literature.

If you're such a history buff, then you know damn well that is a laughably simplistic explanation. Powers rise and fall for a myriad of reasons.

Rashomon says

What period was the height of the European and US slave trade? You are comparing two different periods.

No. Once the Westerns Roman Empire fell in the 400s, Slavery was never a thing in Europe again. Oh yeah, some Norman King of the two Sicilies or Henry the Navigator might have had a Black or two as a curiousity for Court, kept as a showpiece but not expected to plant cotton or fan his face, but slavery itself hasn't existed inside Western and Central EUROPE since about ~400 AD.

The only European slaves were those taken in raids by Arab and Turkish slavers on the Med Coast, the Balkans and in what is today the Ukraine.

Oops, I lied - I just remembered the Venetians selling the Children's Crusaders into slavery in Alexandria when the Pope couldn't pay. They were reviled throughout Europe for a century for that foul deed.

Rashomon says

If you're such a history buff, then you know damn well that is a laughably simplistic explanation.

It's actually true. One of the reasons Arab Muslims started putting restrictions on converts (beyond reciting that Koranic Verse 3x) is that THEY THEMSELVES made a connection between the number of converts and the economic health of their Kingdoms.

If the Confederacy or the Spaniards said Blacks aren't Slaves if they say the Pater Nostrum 3x or "In Jesus' Name" 3x, you bet your ass local viceroys and governors would be coming up with extra restrictions on how to convert.

Rashomon says

I'm curious about your thrust about WHITE, WHITE, WHITE. So the most advanced societies at the time, over prolonged periods of time finally banned slavery, one of them after a civil war? That hardly warrants praise.

Dude, you're being obtuse.

Are you going to admit to the fact that Arabs were the greatest slave traders that ever lived, totally international, totally systemic, from the Bay of Benghal to the Horn of Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar to the Crimea and beyond?

And only ended it by European force of arms?

Hell, Saudi Arabia only formally ended slavery in 1964.

www.youtube.com/embed/emRVkisdbhc

This is American narration of footage of Arab Slavery filmed by Italians in East Africa, I believe.

More Institutionalized Slavery in Saudi Arabia, where every Saudi prince has his Black Slave carry his books. Also 1960s:
www.youtube.com/embed/G-U4ChO6o0Q

Then of course, there's Qatar's winning bid on the World Cup. Every building you'll see is built by Indian, Sri Lankan, Filipino, and Indonesian Slaves, whose passports are taken (violating international law) and live in desert tents in 104 degree weather.

T L Lipsovich says

No. Once the Westerns Roman Empire fell in the 400s, Slavery was never a thing in Europe again. Oh yeah, some Norman King of the two Sicilies or Henry the Navigator might have had a Black or two as a curiousity for Court, kept as a showpiece but not expected to plant cotton or fan his face, but slavery itself hasn't existed inside Western and Central EUROPE since about ~400 AD.

The history of slavery in Europe far exceeds 400AD, and which was then basically replaced by serfdom in medieval Europe.

T L Lipsovich says

Dude, you're being obtuse.

Are you going to admit to the fact that Arabs were the greatest slave traders that ever lived, totally international, totally systemic, from the Bay of Benghal to the Horn of Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar to the Crimea and beyond?

And only ended it by European force of arms?

Hell, Saudi Arabia only formally ended slavery in 1964.

Why do I need to admit it? Facts are facts. This isn't a bloody game of oneupmanship. It's like the idiotic arguments that if X does it, then so can we (or vice-versa). Different cultures and different economic realities have resulted in different development. Amazing.

T L Lipsovich says

Then of course, there's Qatar's winning bid on the World Cup. Every building you'll see is built by Indian, Sri Lankan, Filipino, and Indonesian Slaves, whose passports are taken (violating international law) and live in desert tents in 104 degree weather.

Yes, it's shocking and extremely widespread.

Rashomon says

Why do I need to admit it? Facts are facts. This isn't a bloody game of oneupmanship. It's like the idiotic arguments that if X does it, then so can we (or vice-versa). Different cultures and different economic realities have resulted in different development. Amazing.

Glad you mentioned this.

Teaching that only White Europeans engaged in Slavery for an historically brief time before English Christian Evangelicals and French Humanists got laws passed that wiped it from the face of the Earth, while not teaching about Arab Slavery...

... is the same as teaching about Stalin's Gulags and Holodmor and Judeo-Bolshevism while ignoring, or perhaps only a token grudging acknowledgement made in duress, the Holocaust and the mass extermination of Slavs under Hitler.

This is how SJWs and the modern left generally are just like White Supremacists and Fascists.

What began as a good-intentioned warning about moral superiority and taking a look at the plank in one's own eyes about foreign atrocities, ended up becoming more and more extreme virtue signalling, to the point where American Slavery is the Original Sin of Whites, but Brown People are only mentioned as the victim of Whites.

I guarantee you if you went to BLM or an Arab Parade in Detroit, and starting talking about the absolute fact of massive, millenium long Arab Slavery that was only ended by Europeans imposing their will on them, they'd call you a Nazi and deny the whole thing.

The real villain in all this is PoMo, which has taken the highest ideals of Man as expressed in Modernism, and turned it into Relative Truths and competiting Identitarian Narratives. It doesn't do this to act as a warning for mankind, it does this because it's fun word play and allows the salacious fun of destablizing society, being contrarian for contrarian's sake and setting people against each other.

The good news is that since PoMo and Identitarian Politics is the dominant paradigm (and notice it avoids class issues because it's primarily an Elite Driven Ideology who don't want criticism turned against themselves), it is now cool to subvert it with old fashioned Liberalism and Civic Nationalism.

Meme Magic for the win. #Kekistan

T L Lipsovich says

Teaching that only White Europeans engaged in Slavery for an historically brief time before English Christian Evangelicals and French Humanists got laws passed that wiped it from the face of the Earth, while not teaching about Arab Slavery...

... is the same as teaching about Stalin's Gulags and Holodmor and Judeo-Bolshevism while ignoring, or perhaps only a token grudging acknowledgement made in duress, the Holocaust and the mass extermination of Slavs under Hitler.

Not really. I studied history up till I was 18. It was compartmentalized - ancient history, British history, European history... Teaching one doesn't automatically require the teaching of the other. There simply isn't time to teach everything and/or it's simply not on the curriculum at that time.

T L Lipsovich says

The good news is that since PoMo and Identitarian Politics is the dominant paradigm (and notice it avoids class issues because it's primarily an Elite Driven Ideology who don't want criticism turned against themselves), it is now cool to subvert it with old fashioned Liberalism and Civic Nationalism.

Yes, it's my strong suspicion that identitarian (first time I've ever used that word) politics is actually a clever way of turning the left away from its original fight against the idle elite classes.

It then becomes a fight of the various lower-class identities against each other, and they forget who is actually taking all their money.

There's a wonderful old cartoon showing a boss turning his ethnic workers against each other in the same way, claiming each worker said the other kind was lazy, with the goal being to get them all to work hard for the boss. Can't find it right now.

This is a legit theory

rando says

There's a wonderful old cartoon showing a boss turning his ethnic workers against each other in the same way, claiming each worker said the other kind was lazy, with the goal being to get them all to work hard for the boss. Can't find it right now.

Have this one saved up! Mr. Block, strip is mostly about the goodhearted but naive American worker who falls for every scam and "aspiration propaganda" in the Man's Book.

1910s: All races unite and Power to the Workers! Fight the Elites and their controlled Media Apologists!
2010s: All races unite and Power to the Admins! Love the Elites and their controlled Media Apologists!