Repair-It

In actuality, Scott, I’d say the folks who organized this rally knew that no one thinks their views matter. In fact, they counted on it. Groups like that depend on what I’d call “self-fulfilling prophecy victimization,” which is basically how you “market” hateful, wrongheaded or downright ridiculous viewpoints to a broader audience.

This comes in several steps:

1) Realize your viewpoint is hateful, and wrong, and probably needs to change.
2) But you won’t do it anyway.
3) You know that if you broadcast your hateful, wrong viewpoints in public, a large part of the general public will react with revulsion.
4) Revulsion tends to include anger. Human Nature 101.
5) Anger at your hateful, wrong viewpoint reinforces your viewpoint that people hate you.
6) Large scale public hate tends to make the news.
7) Therefore, hate and troll away, wait for the angry response to make the news, and say, “see, I was right…we’re victims of HATE!”
8) Since all this made the news, millions of decent people will say, “hey, maybe we should do something about these hateful creeps. Millions of people = politics.
9) Use that as “evidence” of your political oppression.
10) Welcome new members who feel the same and watch your movement grow.

And on and on. These folks WANT to be victims. It’s kind of like Gandhi’s “passive resistance,” except the cause they are trying to push is completely wrong.

Hitler used this tactic brilliantly, by the way. It’s also a go-to in terrorists’ playbooks.

“What they did, according to First-Amendment case law, is illegal (Brandenburg vs. Ohio says free speech may not be limited by the government unless it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”) Viewed in that light, what you’re advocating is dialog and understanding viewpoints with criminals.”

No, you misunderstand Brandenburg. That exception to free speech is very narrow, and says that only direct calls to imminent violence aren’t protected. White dude is free to spout his ignorant views, because if you restrict free speech based on how violently some listeners might react to it, you’re basically saying that the hecklers veto determines what speech is acceptable and what is not. Yes, there’s a limit to what constitutes valid expression, but just declaring some people criminals based on their viewpoints is a very dangerous position.

Free speech is easy to support when you agree with it, but we don’t need to protect popular speech.

What we had in Charlottesville was two groups of armed idiots looking for a fight and, unsurprisingly, finding one, and law enforcement failing miserably in their duty to keep said groups of idiots apart.

@Secret Hi5: That is exactly my point. There are always “some people” saying stupid things and it becoming a very common media tactic. Here is the formula:

Step 1: Find a current controversial/emotional issue
Step 2: Quote a stupid and inflammatory comment from a partisan troll.
Step 3: Watch the bar fight break out in the comment section.
Step 4: Collect advertising revenue
Step 5: (Optional) Defend yourself by claiming that you’re doing a service to the community by hosting a public debate of the issue.

kevm14 wrote:It seems to me that what that has morphed into is "ban speech that offends me." Or "ban speech that does not align with my political views." If anyone makes these arguments explicitly or implicitly, they are just plain wrong and don't understand how this country is supposed to work.

kevm14 wrote:

Step 4: Collect advertising revenue

kevm14 wrote:So what now?