10
Nov
2016
An Example of the Tolerance of the Left
This is really amazing. One tweet is from election night, and the next tweet is two days later–it’s literally the 4th tweet after the first one I show.
We are now under total Republican rule. Textbook fascism. Fuck you, white America. Fuck you, you racist, misogynist pieces of shit. G'night.
— Laci Green (@gogreen18) November 9, 2016
and then
When they go low, we go high. #ThursdayThoughts
— Laci Green (@gogreen18) November 10, 2016
Similarly, there are plenty of black people on Twitter saying (literally), “Die white people, die!” and then also saying, “Even if you don’t bear personal ill-will to us, you have to realize that voting for Trump makes us feel persecuted.”
Just wait till the economy crashes. This is going to be ugly.
Ha, I had literally just sent my friends a few of her tweets. Did you see how she was calling for coming together and uniting no matter who wins the day before the election. Haha. Apparently, she said that thinking it was impossible for Trump to win. You should add that one in an update to get the full circle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYy77IGsBFc
It’s already ugly.
http://tinyurl.com/ztnhn67
Do you tink that the chances of a crash are high sometime during the next 4 years? If so, how do you think it will compare to 20087/2008?
that should read 2007/2008…
That’s scary. People are already committing violence. You’re right; when the economy crashes things are probably going to get really bad.
Bob, I think it’s perfectly coherent to say “I can tolerate everything except intolerance.” And both of your pairs of example are arguably instances of that.
Now there is a case to be made that that’s not what liberals actually do, as argued in Scott Alexander’s classic blog post “I can tolerate anything except the outgroup”: slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ But I don’t think what you’re describing is self-evidently hypocritical.
(For the record, I don’t agree with this liberal sentiment; I think we should be intolerant of things other than intolerance, and conversely I don’t think we should be intolerant of all forms of intolerance.)
I should also mention that I detest the use of profanity and language like “die”. But I don’t think that accusations of fascism, racism, etc. are inherently bad.
Your analogy of “I can tolerate anything except intolerance” does not apply to the people to which you are referring that analogy.
The people Murphy is quoting are themselves intolerant.
Hence the hypocrisy.
Well, I think the people Bob, describing are arguably only being intolerant of intolerance (“meta-intolerant”), not object-level I toleration. It’s not hypocritical to be tolerant of everyone except those who are object-level intolerant. By object-level intolerant I mean intolerant of things other than intolerance.
I mean, okay, but you gotta see the inequivalence between the statements “I am tolerant of everything except intolerance” and “I am tolerant if everything except intolerance of things other than intolerance.” The latter is goofy, but, no, not hypocritical.
Well, when people say “I am tolerant of everything except intolerance”, they don’t mean that literally, because then they would be intolerant of themselves. What they mean is “I am tolerant of everything except intolerance of things other than intolerance.”
Come on Keshav, “white people” as a whole are intolerant?
Oh, and you owe my $50.
Gene, Laci Green could be factually incorrect in a thousand different ways and it wouldn’t be hypocritical. In any case, I think if you asked her, she would say that not all white people are racist and misogynists, just that far too many of them are.
“not all white people are racist and misogynists, just that far too many of them are.”
That is true about every race, if your standard is that all racism is bad.
A person who is against racism can say that not all black people are racist, just that far too many are racist. And if you’ll excuse me if you’ll pardon me, but I am willing to speculate that the 98% of black voters who voted for Obama, were not all voting based on Obama’s preferred policies. That is a kind of racism right there.
White people who are racist for some reason are the primary focus of racists in the mainstream discourse. Every other racist is too often portrayed as a victim, no matter how racist they in fact are. Black Lives Matter members publicly saying they are killing white people because they are white, is tolerated by the tolerant left, which is in itself a very intolerant position towards peace, understanding, and cooperation.
There are far too many people, probably the overwhelming majority oin these Soros funded protests, who are intolerant of protecting against racist violence from non-white individuals. That isn’t “meta” intolerance, it is straight up intolerance.
“A person who is against racism can say that not all black people are racist, just that far too many are racist.” Well, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that far too many black people are racists, simply because I don’t think it’s accurate to say that there are many racist black people. There are far larger numbers of racist white people.
“And if you’ll excuse me if you’ll pardon me, but I am willing to speculate that the 98% of black voters who voted for Obama, were not all voting based on Obama’s preferred policies. That is a kind of racism right there.” Well I don’t think that they did this becaus they thought that black people are racially superior to white people. They just did it because they wanted America to achieve the milestone of electing the first black President.
“White people who are racist for some reason are the primary focus of racists in the mainstream discourse.” That’s because there are more of them, and because this country has a long history of white racism, and because whites are in the majority so they are in a better position to be the oppressors rather than the oppressed.
“Black Lives Matter members publicly saying they are killing white people because they are white, is tolerated by the tolerant left, which is in itself a very intolerant position towards peace, understanding, and cooperation.” Major_Freedom the number of Black Lives Matters supporters who favor killing white people is minuscule.
“There are far too many people, probably the overwhelming majority oin these Soros funded protests, who are intolerant of protecting against racist violence from non-white individuals.” There just isn’t that much racist violence from non-white individuals in this country. Even when some Black Lives Matter protestor have resorted to property violence and looting, in the vast majority if cases it was not motivated by racism.
Keshav
Would you agree with me that there are more Hindus who are racists than there are Osirians ( worshippers of Isis and Osiris) who are racists? Or for that matter, than card carrying members of the American Nazi party? Would you agree with me that Just counting noses not percentages can be misleading?
Keshav:
“Well, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that far too many black people are racists, simply because I don’t think it’s accurate to say that there are many racist black people. There are far larger numbers of racist white people.”
That is obviously because white people statistically outnumber black people something like 8 to 1.
The point is that if the standard is that racism is bad, then any quantity of racism is “far too much”.
It is not unreasonable to speculate that per capita, there is no difference in the number of racists among the various races. White people are statistically no more racist than black people.
“Well I don’t think that they did this becaus they thought that black people are racially superior to white people. They just did it because they wanted America to achieve the milestone of electing the first black President.”
This doesn’t address the point. Voting based on race is racist. Racism is not just about the belief that some races are superior to others. It include other beliefs.
“That’s because there are more of them, and because this country has a long history of white racism, and because whites are in the majority so they are in a better position to be the oppressors rather than the oppressed.”
But racial oppression and racial victimization are always individual to individual interactions. Racism does not suddenly disappear on the basis of the oppressors being small in number. Victims of racism are victims of other individuals.
It is not a good justification to ignore or minimize victims of racism simply because their own race is statistically higher or lower than other races.
“Major_Freedom the number of Black Lives Matters supporters who favor killing white people is minuscule.”
That presupposes a standard that I reject. What you call minuscule, is to the individual everything in the world. What, are we supposed to tell families of those murdered that their pain doesn’t much matter because the murderers represent a particular percentage of a particular race at a particular time?
“There just isn’t that much racist violence from non-white individuals in this country.”
What you call “not that much” is everything to the individual victims.
And, Statistically speaking, not that this proves anything about racial tendencies, but most crime is committed by people who happen to be black. You are more likely to be a victim of a criminal who is black than a criminal who is white or Hispanic.
She gets to and, in fact, does define intolerance as how it accords with her beliefs.
MF is right that racism is bad whoever is the racist, black or white. I believe that far too many black people are racist, just as far too many white people are racist. We should condemn it in all cases.
Keshav is right that we need to be more concerned about racism from the majority and powerful populations than among minorities. The powerless can not do nearly as much with their racism as the powerful. The focus on white racism is correct.
I think racism is in part instinctive. We are all racist in the sense that we are suspicious of “outsiders”, or people who are different, but we must acknowledge this and use our intellect to override these impulses. We may not be able to entirely prevent racist thoughts, but we can individually refrain from racist actions.
Hopefully one day we will not even see color as important, and racism based on color will be a thing of the past. But until then, we are all subsumed in a racist narrative and we must individually be on our guard.
And concerning our bet, you never got back to me on what odds you wanted, so as far as I’m concerned we never actually agreed on a bet. Tell me if you feel differently.
And in any case it would have been ten dollars, not 50, and it would have been payable to a charity, not you. Are you confusing me with someone else?
They are intolerant towards a tolerance that they falsely label as intolerance.
The argument they are only being intolerant towards intolerance is in this particular context a rationalization for object 1 intolerance.
Trump talked about supporters so committed they’d support him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. A shrewd and jaundiced observation. Keshav Srinivasan seems to be the Left equivalent, and if Laci Green shoots a Trump voter on Fifth Avenue and he would still defend her.
For the record, I unequivocally condemn her use of profanity. I’m not just blindly supporting her. I think she can be legitimately accused of man things, just not hypocrisy.
People can be hypocrites even when they are attacking and hating people they falsely perceive to be aggressive and hateful.
People do not need to consciously admit they are eliciting a hypocritical position. They just have to be wrong about the people they are attacking. And in this case she is going after people who are not what she says they are. Hence she is a hypocrite.
Being wrong about the people you’re attacking is not hypocrisy.
No it isn’t Keshav. But that is not what Major or Bob or I are saying. She is accusing them of bilious hatred, and doing it biliously and hatefully.
Keshav:
“Being wrong about the people you’re attacking is not hypocrisy.”
It is when what you are attacking them about is also what you yourself are doing.
You condemn the profanity, but what about sentiment? “Fuck you white America” seems to me unambiguous in its contempt and hatred of a racial group. If she had posted instead “I loathe white American who are overwhelmingly vile people”, which is the import of what she said, would you condemn it?
And would you think that a higher or lower road than what she actually said?
This is pathetic Keshav. Really you seem like an exceptionally smart and thoughtful person, so it cannot be that you do not see the rank hypocrisy. And it cannot be that you think the first tweet is a protest against (imagined, future) intolerance. It is bile, uncut. For you to offer an apologia is shameful.
Craw, I genuinely believe that saying “I can tolerate everything except intolerance.” is not a hypocritical position in the slightest. And I think the first tweet is clearly inveighing against intolerance, not intolerance in some imagined future, but intolerance in the here and now. Hence the use of the terms “racist” and “misogynist”.
Now I certainly think that the first tweet can be criticized in other ways, and the word “bile” might not be unwarranted. But I simply do not see any hypocrisy or inconsistency.
Who gets to define tolerance and intolerance?
Trump was going to get called “racist” etc regardless of what he actually did and regardless of policy. Republicans always get called racist despite the long history of Democrats actually behaving as racist (e.g. KKK was primarily a Democrat organization), and Democrat policy being racist (long list if you look it up). Trump supporters have been automatically branded with the same for no other reason than they prefer Trump to Hillary.
I think the Trump campaign has drawn on racial resentment and white identity politics in a manner and to an extent that other Republicans have not. That’s why alt-right has come into prominence alongside the rise of Trump.
And yes, the Democratic Party used to be the party of slavery and segregation month ago, but American politics has changed a lot since then. There’s a reason why the George Wallace voters switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
The very creepy Trumpista Vox Day has this to say (early and often):
The British people made their will perfectly clear by voting for Leave. And they have the same moral right to fight for their own self-determination that they fought to defend for other European peoples.
It should not escape one’s attention that the legal action to deny the will of the British people was led by a mixed-race South African woman. That’s not an accident; it is EXACTLY why genetic nationalism is the only sound basis for a coherent and cohesive political system.
Theresa May ought to go Andrew Jackson on the High Court, after repatriating Gina Miller to South Africa.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/11/brexit-blocked.html
So who is going to determine just who is and isn’t part of the “genetic nation”? My neighbor was a Marine M.P. during Viet Nam in NYC. He said you just could not allow Swedish-American and Norwegian-American soldiers to drink in the same bar together because they would always end up in a major brawl with each other.
Those people all look alike to me.
People always VOTE tribal. They tend to not buy and sell tribal. And that seems to be a very good reason to not have a “political system”.
Appalling website. I certainly won’t go there again.
It is ironic that the Brexiteers who that claim their concerns were not abut racism and xenophobia but were all about protecting Parliamentary sovereignty get all up in arms when a court rules that Parliament is sovereign. And on the grounds that it might disturb their ideas on racial purity. Hypocritical xenophobes.
And there it is, all Brexiters are called xenophobes based on cherry-picking.
Craw, no one is saying here that everyone who supports Brexit is xenophobia, just that there’s a troubling amount of xenophobia among Brexit supporters.
…and the Hillary campaign drew upon racial resentment and non-white identity politics.
It was reported in 2008 that 95% of the black voters supported Obama for President. That would be identity politics, yeah?
Were you disturbed by that too, or do you only get disturbed when Trump gets the vote of 53% of white women?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/dear-white-women-we-messed-this-up-election-2016_us_582341c9e4b0aac62488970e
Openly browbeating people because they don’t follow the identity politics that the Democrats have allocated for them. How disrespectful is that?
As for George Wallace voters switching party… prove it.
Trump did better amongst minorities than Romney. He did worse amongst whites than Romney. You are in the grip of a prejudice.
“Trump was going to get called “racist” etc regardless of what he actually did and regardless of policy. Republicans always get called racist…”
It is important to differentiate between Trump and other Republicans. Trump is not only called racist because he is a republican, and many more people called him racist than they call other republicans, some of them are republicans too.
You are deluded if you think this is because Trump is a republican.
” Trump is not only called racist because he is a republican…”
Even more because was outsider.
Gene, Bernie Sanders was not viewed as racist. There is a reason why Trump’s campaign and not Bernie’s campaign caused the alt-right to come into prominence.
And even more because he says racist things. I mean, how hard is this? He says most Mexican migrants are rapists and murderers, wants to ban Muslims entering the country, fails to disavow the KKK, among lots of other similar stuff. And people say he is accused of racism because he is Republican or Outsider. No, it is because of what he says and does. Am I missing some sarcasm here?
Keshav,
Bernie was ruthlessly attacked by the DNC and the Clinton machine.
They just didn’t use the tactic of “racist” because he was running for Demcorat nomination, and democrats are not portrayed as racist by other democrats, lest they lose the game of “all republicans gain power on the basis of racism”.
There is another kind of racism that the left often refuses to admit, and that’s the “benevolent racist” racist.
I find Keshav s argument odd. Trump was called racist for wanting to restrict immigration. Tel says its because Trump was Republican. “Not so, Bernie Sanders also wanted to restrict immigration but was not called a racist” sounds like evidence for Tel, not against him.
“Bernie Sanders was not viewed as racist.”
He is though, by the same standard that Trump is.
This is, after all, the guy who told Vox that Open Borders is “A Koch Brothers proposal.”
“He is though, by the same standard that Trump is.”
That is not the same standard at all. I read that article and nowhere in it did Sanders say that Mexicans coming over were were rapists and criminals.
There is a clear distinction between desiring restrictions on trade and immigration and using that sort of language.
It is not only because Trump says he wants to restrict immigration that he is called a racist, but because he uses such language in the debate.
Why can you not see this?
Bernie Sanders hates brown people. Why can you not see that?
Harold,
If your theory is right then there should be no accusations of racism against Trump before he gave that speech, based on his position on immigration. I feel a wager coming on.
I googled Sanders racist comments. i found this
“BERNIE SANDERS: When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or when you get dragged out of a car.”
He ws also against Black Lives Matter apparently. Does that make him racist by your logic?
Can you not see a difference between that and what Trump said?
There is little evidence that Sanders said racist things. There is lots that Trump did.
Craw: that was never my position. You are constructing a straw man. Trump has a past.
Keshav
Let’s stipulate bile then. Spewing bile then saying “but unlike you I take the high road” isn’t hypocrisy?
Or let’s just stipulate fulsome obscenity. “I am keeping it classy you fucking shitbag.” No hypocrisy there, no double standard?
““I can tolerate everything except intolerance.”
It appears coherent on superficial examination. Any closer examination reveals it to mean” I tolerate things I like, and dump on things I don’t like.”
Gene is right.
Boom, rimshot.
Egats, I also find myself agreeing with Gene.
The trick is (as I said above) who gets to decide what is “intolerance”. Once one group can invent their own definition of intolerance and then take escalating action based on that, they have power to crack down on anyone.
A student “Kyran Findlater” made a statement on Facebook expressing his opposition to racial segregation in university, and his belief that such segregation merely entrenches separation and inequality. The Australian “Human Rights” Commission decided this statement was racist, and after secretly building a case against Findlater for approx one year, they finally notified him that he must pay $5000 within a few weeks as a settlement.
https://www.facebook.com/Conservative001/posts/1208161875918113
This is not a joke, Findlater was facing a lawsuit with $250,000 damages plus damage to his reputation. Being unable to afford a legal defense he gave up and paid the $5000.
The protests are being organized by a Soros funded outfit called the “Socialist Advantage Groups”.
They are not “organic”.
Trump needs to mimic Putin and ban Soros and his NGO’s, but wiil he even make it into the office? It’s going to be a hell of a ride and I doubt any 3-letter agency will go and do it’s duty of prosecuting him for inciting violence.
How do these people show their faces publicly after comet ping pong was made public shows there is no will to do it.
Putin also stopped adoption out of Russia, because he probably knew about the pedo ring. Remember his comment about kids and a country’s future?
Stay vigilant.
My wife had one of her lefty friends tear into her on Facebook, accusing her of being an actual, literal murderer, since in this woman’s crazy head Trump is actually going to kill her. Note that my wife did not support, endorse, or vote for Trump, she just didn’t vote for Hillary, therefore she “didn’t help stop this nightmare.” It’s very weird to me that real people — rather than just Hollywood celebrities — think this is any way to behave.
Cognitive dissonance. It will be even worse if Trump succeeds or acts responsibly.
Keshav, suppose I had titled this post, “An example of hypocrisy from the Left.” Would you have high-fived me? She wasn’t talking about tolerance in her tweets, she was talking about keeping it classy in contrast to those dirty Trump fans.
The hypocrisy or contradiction here is that she thinks her opponents are “going low,” after she posted that tweet Election Night. And no, you can’t say, “Well putting aside the f— you and the pieces of s— stuff, I don’t see why her tweet is so bad.” That’s a large point of the point.
Paul Krugman stays classy as always:
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/795324133655674880
I’m doing a victory dance regarding by decade-long warning that Keynesians never actually engage basic Austrian concepts.
Am I the only one who thinks Keshav is looking at only one tweet at a time? He seems to be saying the first bilious tweet is not (in isolation) hypocritical, and the second smug tweet is not (in isolation) hypocritical, so she’s not hypocritical.
Am I the only one who thinks Keshav is looking at one tweet at a time, in isolation, and saying “that’s not hypocritical”?
“Just wait till the economy crashes.”
This sounds like the usual Austrian two-step: a vague prediction you can’t be pinned down on. If the economy is fine for a decade but tanks under president Miley Cyrus you’ll claim credit for the prediction, but if it doesn’t tank under Trump you can’t be blamed. So, when will it tank? Within 6 months is close enough.