The Refuge of the Toads

[DaveDodo007]

The Red Pill: Melbourne cinema drops men's rights film after feminist backlash
Documentary criticised as unbalanced and cinema cancels screening worried it could be ‘potentially damaging to our credibility’

The Australian premiere was cancelled on Wednesday, after an online petition calling on the cinema to abandon the “misogynistic propaganda film” eclipsed 2,000 signatures.

Though the film eventually raised more than US$211,000 on Kickstarter, its release has been plagued with controversy, much centring around one of its central subjects: Paul Elam, the founder of the men’s rights website A Voice for Men, which has published some “deliberately inflammatory” articles on domestic violence, feminism and rape.

“You see, I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage,” reads one of his posts on the site. “I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.”

Alan Scherstuhl referenced Elam’s writings in his review of the documentary for the Village Voice.

The Red Pill, he noted, was screened in theatres “mostly so that outlets like this one get tricked into running reviews that, even if negative, confer some kind of legitimacy”.

“I apologise for taking the bait,” he added.

Guardian Australia also apologises for taking the bait.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/o ... t-backlash

Well they are getting a bit of a bashing in the comments but Christ some of the lengths feminists will go to shut down different opinions is disturbing.

[MarcusAu]

He made a statement some months ago in support of Gary Johnson, but has since expressed some regrets about Johnson's antics.

Lately he does seem to be listing to the right.

I'm just happy to see people speak (even though it would be nice to have more).

But in the end with Rubin - he is not a journalist and seems to be picking up the interviewing skills as he goes along. He just does not seem to have it in him to be confrontational; but Paxman has retired and Hitchens is dead, so what are you going to do?

nb I'm no fan of Milo - he has some talent for public speaking, but I wonder how deep his principles really go. The one good thing he may do is to inspire a similar (put hopefully more principled) figure in opposition to him.

National Review seems to have some conservatives who argue their points coherently - but no one has captured the public imagination like Milo (or are we living in a buble and it just seems that way?).

[Kirbmarc]

Reminds me of something that occurred to me a while back about the birth of the Roman Republic.

The official story is, the monarchy was overthrown because the son of the king raped a noblewoman, so they swore never again would one man have absolute power, and throughout the life of the Republic the Romans wouldn't tolerate anyone who looked like they were setting themselves up as a king.

Which doesn't really make sense. How does a crime committed by the son of a king mean that one man having absolute power is bad? It wasn't the man with absolute power who committed the crime.

Then you look at the Republic itself. It had a very clear divide between the landowning aristocracy, who comprised the senate and competed for all the magistracies, and the plebs. And the people the aristocrats killed for aspiring to kingship were all populists who wanted to redistribute wealth or otherwise help the plebs. In 439 BC, during a famine, Spurius Maelius bought up grain and sold it cheap, and he was accused of wanting to make himself king and killed. Tiberius Gracchus was killed in 133 BC for trying to redistribute land to poor Romans, ostensibly because he was trying to make himself king. Sulla, who took power by force and made himself dictator indefinitely, thereby giving himself absolute power, and purged his enemies by posting death lists in the forum, was never accused of making himself king and died in his bed rather than being assassinated - because he reformed the Republic in favour of the aristos.

I think the reason the Roman monarchy was overthrown was because the kings, or at least the last of them, were populist strongmen who cut the aristocrats out, like the Greek "tyrants". The rape of Lucretia was chosen as a cover story because rape is always a good excuse to take shortcuts with the law.

Caesar was also a member of the "populares" who had the support of his legions and of the common folk. He was a follower of Catilina, another wannabe "strongman" who was accused of wanting to seize power and killed (in battle). He narrowly escaped the strong arm of aristocratic justice and was smart and successful enough to actually seize power. Until he was killed for having basically become a king.

Augustus was even smarter and realized he could appease the nobles by formally keeping the institutions of the republic alive and by sneakily ceasing all power without doing it openly. He kept switching from one magistrate to another and never proclaimed himself "dictator for life" like Caesar did. He ruled without being explicitly in charge.

It's a mistake, though, to think that the "populares" didn't want to seize power for themselves through populist policies. After all making friends with the masses is a good way to secure a power base and become a popular king. People can support a three-headed tyrant as long as their bellies are full (or at least they're not starving like they did) and they're entertained/made feel proud of themselves (see: Putin, Vladimir).

It's also not entirely true that the "optimates" represented only the interests of the rich and the "populares" those of the poor and disenfranchised. Caesar, just like the Gracchi and probably Melius too represented the interested of the people in the city, while the "optimates" represented the interests of the people in the country. Even though this is still an oversimplification and to completely understand those dynamics you need to understand Roman society and its economic dynamics.

The power bases of the "populares" were the masses of those who had lost their own small lands to other, bigger landowners and had moved to the city, but also the burgeoning classes of "cavalieres": traders, artisans, merchants and everyone who had a job which wasn't tied to owning land. Crassus was a member of the "populares" and he was an incredibly rich businessman who thrived through having invented fire insurance and running a mob/business of firefighters for hire. Many of the "populares" were former slaves who were emancipated or even emancipated themselves.

On the other hand the "optimates" represented the landowners. Most of those landowners were aristocratic and owned large estates (the "lati fundum") which they acquired by managing not to be drafted in the army by paying for replacement soldiers to fight in their stead and so having time to tend to their lands and to eventually buy the lands of those who were in the army for a long time. But some landowners had smaller or even little pieces of land and still sided with the "optimates": they were often in unequal but protected business relationships between clientes and patrones. Cicero was one of them: a homo novus (new man, someone who didn't have any forefathers who had been magistrates) who nevertheless opposed Catilina and utterly trashed him in the Senate.

Interestingly enough Catilina, who had sided with the populares and have even spoken about conceding freedoms to some categories of slaves, had started his career under Silla, the ultimate champion of the optimates.

Ultimately the big struggle wasn't between the rich and the poor, or between the nobles and the non-nobles, but between the supporters of land ownership, lead by those who had gamed the system in the country, and the supporters of the people in the city, lead by those who wanted to game the system in their favor in the city. Clientes, small landowners, slaves and proletares (those whose only wealth was their children, their prole) were pawns of the political game between the old cliques of those who had friends within the institutions, the new cliques who wanted to replace them and those who wanted to put themselves in charge by appealing to the masses with bread and circuses.

"Strongmen" are rarely, if never, well-intentioned, or if they start with good intentions they either quickly lose them or are eliminated. Politicians want first and foremost acquire power and stay in power, although they don't do it all in the same way.

The old cliques tend to be conservatives and use the elderly, the traditionalists and the small business or land owners in the country to support their cronyism and "good ol' ways" at the "gentleman's club". However they often defend the right to property and other individual rights, and solid institutions, since they're beneficial to justify land owning and businesses.

The new cliques tend to promise change and appeal to those who think that such a change is needed, and they're strong among the people who find jobs and opportunities in the cities (either because they were born or moved there) and among urban communities in general (which often include minorities). They tend to promise governmental help and big, long-term projects (redistribution of lands, reforms, quotas, etc.)

The "strongmen" tend to promise (and sometime to deliver) "pork barrel" (appropriation of government spending for localized projects), breads and circuses and seemingly easy solutions to complex problems. Their target are people who don't fall in either with one side or the other: slaves, the disenfranchised, people forgotten by old and new cliques but also dynamic parts of society who wish for more localized projects and less central control. They tend to disdain both long-term, complex projects and freedoms and institutions: they focus more on easy to implements, short-term fixes, even if they might lead to issues in the long run.

There is no "good" or "bad" side. People can benefit and be damaged from all sides, although each side is more beneficial to some groups and more damaging to others. A healthy liberal democracy possesses dynamics between those sides within a robust institutional frame which keeps each side from getting too much power and degenerating into an authoritarian nightmare under an old clique, a new clique or a "strongman". There should also be people who defend the institution themselves, not the cliques or the strongmen. There should be a widespread consensus that the institutions of a liberal democracy are good towards all, not just when they're in our favor.

However no system is perfect. There are always ways to cheat. If the institutions are too solid the wannabes in the old cliques can make sure that laws and principles are interpreted only in the favor by painting any change and improvement as "degeneration" (2We're only preserving the institutions of old!"), the new cliques sow dissent and discord ("Bring on the revolution! Change, we believe in it!") and the "strongmen" take advantage of crisis ("Only I can bring back order and punish corruption/feed you/give you a job!").

Modernity has created media so pervasive, so omnipresent that group manipulation is as easy as clicking "send". People, immersed in a sea of freely available information, read only things they agree with and that make them feel good or outraged and smugly superior to those they dislike. After the recent fall of ideologies, instead of becoming smarter, more pragmatical and more attentive to the tactics of people in politics people have polarized along increasingly petty sides.

The new cliques have recently found a way to manipulate crowds through systematic deconstruction of institutions who should balance out powers, promotion of special identities and guilt and shame for those who are seen as the oppressors. Authoritarian identity politics are on the rise.

In this situation, and after/in the middle of an economic crisis is it any wonder that reactionaries (violent, revolutionary conservatives) and aggressively populist "strongmen" are fighting against the new cliques/identity politics? And that the people who only want to protect balanced and controlled institutions find themselves on the side of the old cliques and of the "strongmen" pretty much by default in this specific fight, even though they don't share the same goal?

[DaveDodo007]

I had high hopes for Dave Rubin when he first started his show. It seemed like he was genuinely interested in providing an outlet for different views, but he interviews almost exclusively right-wingers now, and it's almost always a softball interview. I'm surprised he didn't go full Trump-tard.

Have you ever tried to get a lefty/libtard to defend their views out in the open. They like their echo chambers too much where they can virtue signal to each other. Hell I have been blocked by most of them on twatter without ever contacting them in the first place.

Here we go - Dave Rubin interviewing a Hillary supporter. (Are Hillary supporters considered left wing?)

I as a UK conservative would be kick out of the Democrat party for being a pinko.

[Tigzy]

Just seen Dr Strange. My verdict - pretty damn good, but not without its flaws.

First off, what's good is very, very good good indeed. The opening sequence, featuring the Ancient One battling Kaecilious (or whatever) and his goon squad across, along, in-between - yes, really - an unfolding, twisting, unfurling London cityscape is just outstanding. In fact, it blows you away so much that the remaning action sequences never quite reach these heights, though they remain very good in themselves. And then there's the sequence where the Ancient One tips Strange over into the mystical realm for the first time. Now, I'm not familiar with hallucinogens, but I suspect the writers must have read quite a lot of Terence McKenna and Timothy Leary, because I'm pretty damn sure that's the closest cinematic representation of a DMT trip we're ever going to get. It's quite amazing (and really, watch it in 3D) and a pretty bold move for a family orientated Marvel production to be so obviously druggy.

The performances: Benesnatch Cumbernotch is like shit in a field at the moment, but he really does look like he was born to play Dr Strange. Admittedly, he works best when he's in his pre-mystical phase as an arrogant, pencil-necked twat (no surprise there), but looks wise, he's a perfect fit for the character. It's also pretty obvious he based his performance on Hugh Laurie's House, but that's no bad thing. Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One was a good mix of the amiable and weird, and worked well IMO. Sure, the SJW squad bitched about the character being a 'whitewash' of an originally asian character, but considering comic-book Ancient One was nothing more than a stereotyped wise-Asian-sage trope, turning this character into an ancient (obviously) celtic sorceress was a nice inversion of a hackneyed concept, I thought. In any case, Rachel McAdams was utterly, utterly wasted. Mads Mikklesen was given too little to work with - generic 'bad guy' really. Chiwetel Ejiolfor actually had some good stuff to work with as Mordo, despite people saying that he too was wasted - it's clear that his role is part of an expanding character arc (as readers of the comics will know), and the motivational groundwork is well laid here as regards likely future developments.

The flaws: Well, one really. But a big one. Dormammu. Crap. Considering how large he - and his dark dimension - looms in the Strange mythos, this was something which really needed another film to explore. In the end we got a 'climactic' battle involving a shoehorned-in giant face that looked sort of like a rippling, wavy Galactus instead of the fearsome, flame-headed demon that haunted Strange and the Ancient One so effectively. Given the amount of visual creativity that's in this film, Dormammu came across as a wasted opportunity - leading me to suspect he might have been added in as an afterthought to appease the fandom. In the comics, Strange was actually pretty terrified of facing this foe for the first time - in those old Lee and Ditko stories, he seems almost resigned to defeat - while here Dormammu's...well, he's just another obstacle really. Dormammu should at least be a bit awesome, but here he just seems somehow generic. Disposable.

Anyways, does it deserve the 98% rating it's presently enjoying on Rotten Tomatoes? Nope. But I would put it at a solid 7 out of 10, which tallies with RT's average critic rating. It's good, but not that good. Solid Marvel fare, but with an added bonus of some genuinely astounding visuals and action sequences.

[Really?]

Hilarious:

White feminists gotta go.

This age-old adage was affirmed Sunday when the painstakingly pale Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn desecrated timelines and Tidal subscriptions everywhere with their sub-basic brand of white feminism.

In a poorly executed attempt at parodying Beyoncé’s pro-black anthem “Formation,” the CultureVultureTwins™ and their black friend dressed up in dirty T-shirts, bulletproof vests and straw hats to offer what can best be described as the white feminist Pinterest board on how to execute ironic racism and completely dislocate black women from artwork created for us, by us. There have been good, thoughtful, funny parodies of “Formation”—Schumer’s isn’t among them.

The video received swift and immediate backlash from black women who presumably saw two white women lip-synching about their “Negro nose and Jackson 5 nostrils” as a slap in the face to actual black women with Negro noses and inspired Twitter maven @FeministaJones to incite black Twitter to trend #AmySchumerGottaGoParty.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture ... olishness/

[DaveDodo007]

I had high hopes for Dave Rubin when he first started his show. It seemed like he was genuinely interested in providing an outlet for different views, but he interviews almost exclusively right-wingers now, and it's almost always a softball interview. I'm surprised he didn't go full Trump-tard.

Have you ever tried to get a lefty/libtard to defend their views out in the open. They like their echo chambers too much where they can virtue signal to each other. Hell I have been blocked by most of them on twatter without ever contacting them in the first place.

Yeah, and all right wingers just hate echo chambers.

:roll:

Well I do though the far right do seem to love their little niches as they might meet big meanies who expose their bullshit.

[comhcinc]

Does he support Hillary? The last I saw from him, he definitely seemed to be leaning towards Gary Johnson. He looked to me like he had gone over to the libertarian side. From Bernie supporter to libertarian in the course of a few months, that's quite a change.

Hey no, you're right. He is supporting Big Johnson and for that matter so I am also coming off voting for Sanders in the primary.

I don't think it's that a big of a change depending on your reasoning. For me the republicans did not have any good candidates and I don't trust Clinton.

Johnson is the only guy I feel comfortable voting for out of the "big" 4.

[John D]

Does he support Hillary? The last I saw from him, he definitely seemed to be leaning towards Gary Johnson. He looked to me like he had gone over to the libertarian side. From Bernie supporter to libertarian in the course of a few months, that's quite a change.

Hey no, you're right. He is supporting Big Johnson and for that matter so I am also coming off voting for Sanders in the primary.

I don't think it's that a big of a change depending on your reasoning. For me the republicans did not have any good candidates and I don't trust Clinton.

Johnson is the only guy I feel comfortable voting for out of the "big" 4.

Feel the Johnson!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Hilarious:

White feminists gotta go.

This age-old adage was affirmed Sunday when the painstakingly pale Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn desecrated timelines and Tidal subscriptions everywhere with their sub-basic brand of white feminism.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture ... olishness/

Right, cuz Shumer and Hawn put so much diligence and effort into their whiteness.

[Billie from Ockham]

Feel the Johnson!

As opposed to "feel the Bern!" which always made me think of the Clap.

[comhcinc]

Feel the Johnson!

As opposed to "feel the Bern!" which always made me think of the Clap.

Feel the Johnson

Feel the Bern

Grab them in the Pussy


This is a pretty sexual slogan year.

[free thoughtpolice]

John D wrote:

Feel the Johnson!

I try but the older I get the less it feels, or cares.
An interesting scenario, neither Clinton or Trump gets enough electoral college and Congress chooses. Pres. Ryan?
How would that worK?

[katamari Damassi]

Makes you wonder how Miri got her bachelor's in psychology with such little knowledge about psychology.

At many schools, Psychology is second or third to Media Studies and/or Mass Communications as the major to declare if you're either an idiot or just not into the academic side of being in college. (Plus, most of what you "learn" in undergrad psych courses is really fucking obvious.) One of my unwritten jobs at my present school is to scare these people away by making the Methods and Stats course as "rigorous" as possible. We can do this because our majors-to-faculty ratio is already very high. Other places must keep the losers to justify the number of faculty in the dept. I enjoy my job. Watching it soak in that working third shift at a 7-11 is not going to change any time soon is one of the small pleasures in life. That some of these shits can dodge this via Patreon and KickStarter pisses me off.

Since they fetishize mental illness; when will SJW's rally behind the first self declared mentally ill presidential candidate? We need a paranoid schizophrenic in the whitehouse. Trump's narcissistic personality disorder just isn't cutting it.

[free thoughtpolice]

A joke so old it can't read itself

SAM_4464.JPG

(393.07 KiB) Downloaded 396 times

[gurugeorge]

Well considering this issue has been going on since the birth of democracy. Plato mentioned something similar in his book The Republic, were the Elites and Oligarch power was threatened when the plebs found a local 'Strongman' to challenge them. His solution was awful though as he believed that those in power had a right to lie to the plebs, proving once and for all that Plato was a cunt.

Plato's The Republic is the indirect inspiration of Nazism and Communism, in both cases through Hegel and his theory of the state.

Rousseau inbetween, his system had the Platonic flavour, and has inspired both the Far Right and the Far Left.

[Bhurzum]

Well, just like having a challenge fap to a madonna video, I failed miserably at enduring "Michael Moore in Trumpland" - there's only so much anti straight-white-men bullshit I can stomach.

For those of you made of stronger stuff, give it a go but don't say I didn't warn you!

[Really?]

Well, just like having a challenge fap to a madonna video, I failed miserably at enduring "Michael Moore in Trumpland" - there's only so much anti straight-white-men bullshit I can stomach.

For those of you made of stronger stuff, give it a go but don't say I didn't warn you!

Stop being a negative nellie. Michael Moore is just exposing the fact that old straight white cis males, particularly those with money, have too much power in politics, industry and the media.

[Shatterface]

Stop being a negative nellie. Michael Moore is just exposing the fact that old straight white cis males, particularly those with money, have too much power in politics, industry and the media.

It's always the ones you least expect.

[free thoughtpolice]

[Old_ones]

Well, just like having a challenge fap to a madonna video, I failed miserably at enduring "Michael Moore in Trumpland" - there's only so much anti straight-white-men bullshit I can stomach.

For those of you made of stronger stuff, give it a go but don't say I didn't warn you!

I wish he would fuck off back to his favorite burger joint and stop with his garbage propaganda. His schtick was never very good, and it's relevance peaked over 10 years ago.

[Really?]

Thanks for letting us know about this cultural appropriation. Co-writer Steve Perry is of Portuguese origin. Are these men from Portugal? No. The woman who introduced them is German. How dare she try to make money off of the work of a POC from one of the lesser-advantaged European countries?

Hayseed Dixie itself is problematic. They gained prominence with their bluegrass "tribute" to AC/DC, a band from Australia. These damn white males think they can steal anything they want. Why won't they make their own culture?

DO NOT listen to and admire how they reinterpreted one of the greatest Australian folk songs ever written.

[Old_ones]

In other news, Freefallblogs continues its descent into oblivion. Anyone have any insight into why they are suddenly plummeting? They've been going down for over a year, but it seems like they just fell off a cliff...

[Really?]

In other news, Freefallblogs continues its descent into oblivion. Anyone have any insight into why they are suddenly plummeting? They've been going down for over a year, but it seems like they just fell off a cliff...

I am definitely not an expert in internet quantification protocol, etc., but it's my understanding that search results and the like are weighted on a kind of scale. If you update your site regularly and get regular hits, your scores go up. If you update less and get fewer hits, the algorithm gives you less of the benefit of the doubt.

I just saw a scholarly book from the Oxford University Press about modern atheism and the Atheism Plus mess gets a whole chapter. Not surprisingly, the "impartial" author concluded that Rebecca Watson and Jen McCreight and others were just victims of misogynist abuse. There was no mention of Carrier, which I found funny.

Their bullshit has what they call a "long tail." PZ and the others have gotten 100% favorable treatment by those who actually write history, but that support


is


shrinkingggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

[rayshul]

I think people are losing interest in academia

[paddybrown]

Reminds me of something that occurred to me a while back about the birth of the Roman Republic.

...

Caesar was also a member of the "populares" who had the support of his legions and of the common folk. He was a follower of Catilina, another wannabe "strongman" who was accused of wanting to seize power and killed (in battle). He narrowly escaped the strong arm of aristocratic justice and was smart and successful enough to actually seize power. Until he was killed for having basically become a king.

Augustus was even smarter and realized he could appease the nobles by formally keeping the institutions of the republic alive and by sneakily ceasing all power without doing it openly. He kept switching from one magistrate to another and never proclaimed himself "dictator for life" like Caesar did. He ruled without being explicitly in charge.

It's a mistake, though, to think that the "populares" didn't want to seize power for themselves through populist policies. After all making friends with the masses is a good way to secure a power base and become a popular king. People can support a three-headed tyrant as long as their bellies are full (or at least they're not starving like they did) and they're entertained/made feel proud of themselves (see: Putin, Vladimir).

It's also not entirely true that the "optimates" represented only the interests of the rich and the "populares" those of the poor and disenfranchised. Caesar, just like the Gracchi and probably Melius too represented the interested of the people in the city, while the "optimates" represented the interests of the people in the country. Even though this is still an oversimplification and to completely understand those dynamics you need to understand Roman society and its economic dynamics.

The power bases of the "populares" were the masses of those who had lost their own small lands to other, bigger landowners and had moved to the city, but also the burgeoning classes of "cavalieres": traders, artisans, merchants and everyone who had a job which wasn't tied to owning land. Crassus was a member of the "populares" and he was an incredibly rich businessman who thrived through having invented fire insurance and running a mob/business of firefighters for hire. Many of the "populares" were former slaves who were emancipated or even emancipated themselves.

On the other hand the "optimates" represented the landowners. Most of those landowners were aristocratic and owned large estates (the "lati fundum") which they acquired by managing not to be drafted in the army by paying for replacement soldiers to fight in their stead and so having time to tend to their lands and to eventually buy the lands of those who were in the army for a long time. But some landowners had smaller or even little pieces of land and still sided with the "optimates": they were often in unequal but protected business relationships between clientes and patrones. Cicero was one of them: a homo novus (new man, someone who didn't have any forefathers who had been magistrates) who nevertheless opposed Catilina and utterly trashed him in the Senate.

Interestingly enough Catilina, who had sided with the populares and have even spoken about conceding freedoms to some categories of slaves, had started his career under Silla, the ultimate champion of the optimates.

Ultimately the big struggle wasn't between the rich and the poor, or between the nobles and the non-nobles, but between the supporters of land ownership, lead by those who had gamed the system in the country, and the supporters of the people in the city, lead by those who wanted to game the system in their favor in the city. Clientes, small landowners, slaves and proletares (those whose only wealth was their children, their prole) were pawns of the political game between the old cliques of those who had friends within the institutions, the new cliques who wanted to replace them and those who wanted to put themselves in charge by appealing to the masses with bread and circuses.

"Strongmen" are rarely, if never, well-intentioned, or if they start with good intentions they either quickly lose them or are eliminated. Politicians want first and foremost acquire power and stay in power, although they don't do it all in the same way.

The old cliques tend to be conservatives and use the elderly, the traditionalists and the small business or land owners in the country to support their cronyism and "good ol' ways" at the "gentleman's club". However they often defend the right to property and other individual rights, and solid institutions, since they're beneficial to justify land owning and businesses.

The new cliques tend to promise change and appeal to those who think that such a change is needed, and they're strong among the people who find jobs and opportunities in the cities (either because they were born or moved there) and among urban communities in general (which often include minorities). They tend to promise governmental help and big, long-term projects (redistribution of lands, reforms, quotas, etc.)

The "strongmen" tend to promise (and sometime to deliver) "pork barrel" (appropriation of government spending for localized projects), breads and circuses and seemingly easy solutions to complex problems. Their target are people who don't fall in either with one side or the other: slaves, the disenfranchised, people forgotten by old and new cliques but also dynamic parts of society who wish for more localized projects and less central control. They tend to disdain both long-term, complex projects and freedoms and institutions: they focus more on easy to implements, short-term fixes, even if they might lead to issues in the long run.

There is no "good" or "bad" side. People can benefit and be damaged from all sides, although each side is more beneficial to some groups and more damaging to others. A healthy liberal democracy possesses dynamics between those sides within a robust institutional frame which keeps each side from getting too much power and degenerating into an authoritarian nightmare under an old clique, a new clique or a "strongman". There should also be people who defend the institution themselves, not the cliques or the strongmen. There should be a widespread consensus that the institutions of a liberal democracy are good towards all, not just when they're in our favor.

However no system is perfect. There are always ways to cheat. If the institutions are too solid the wannabes in the old cliques can make sure that laws and principles are interpreted only in the favor by painting any change and improvement as "degeneration" (2We're only preserving the institutions of old!"), the new cliques sow dissent and discord ("Bring on the revolution! Change, we believe in it!") and the "strongmen" take advantage of crisis ("Only I can bring back order and punish corruption/feed you/give you a job!").

Modernity has created media so pervasive, so omnipresent that group manipulation is as easy as clicking "send". People, immersed in a sea of freely available information, read only things they agree with and that make them feel good or outraged and smugly superior to those they dislike. After the recent fall of ideologies, instead of becoming smarter, more pragmatical and more attentive to the tactics of people in politics people have polarized along increasingly petty sides.

The new cliques have recently found a way to manipulate crowds through systematic deconstruction of institutions who should balance out powers, promotion of special identities and guilt and shame for those who are seen as the oppressors. Authoritarian identity politics are on the rise.

In this situation, and after/in the middle of an economic crisis is it any wonder that reactionaries (violent, revolutionary conservatives) and aggressively populist "strongmen" are fighting against the new cliques/identity politics? And that the people who only want to protect balanced and controlled institutions find themselves on the side of the old cliques and of the "strongmen" pretty much by default in this specific fight, even though they don't share the same goal?

Agree with you entirely. I hope you don't think that by suggesting the kings were populist strongmen that I think they were the "goodies" and the aristocrats were the "baddies". Just suggesting that the kind of people the aristocrats bumped off for trying to be kings, and those they didn't, might indicate a different story than the official one as to why they overthrew the kings in the first place.

Most of the Roman populists were probably no more friends of the poor than Trump or Putin are. They were unprincipled opportunists who got what they wanted by appealing to lowest common denominator. Clodius being probably the most obvious example. Caesar was primarily interested in his own status, and started a civil war rather than lose face. Augustus was smarter and was willing to efface his status somewhat in favour of the substance of power.

In the current US presidential elections, we have an optimate (Hillary) vs populist (Trump) contest - but just like in Rome, they're both aristocrats, using the tactics they think are more likely to win them power.

[Spike13]

In other news, Freefallblogs continues its descent into oblivion. Anyone have any insight into why they are suddenly plummeting? They've been going down for over a year, but it seems like they just fell off a cliff...

I am definitely not an expert in internet quantification protocol, etc., but it's my understanding that search results and the like are weighted on a kind of scale. If you update your site regularly and get regular hits, your scores go up. If you update less and get fewer hits, the algorithm gives you less of the benefit of the doubt.

I just saw a scholarly book from the Oxford University Press about modern atheism and the Atheism Plus mess gets a whole chapter. Not surprisingly, the "impartial" author concluded that Rebecca Watson and Jen McCreight and others were just victims of misogynist abuse. There was no mention of Carrier, which I found funny.

Their bullshit has what they call a "long tail." PZ and the others have gotten 100% favorable treatment by those who actually write history, but that support


is


shrinkingggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

If you are interested, tl dr (teal deer) does a wonderful deconstruction of a feminist academic paper.( why stem fields are hostile to women)

https://youtu.be/1tBpJubrikA

It's one of his live streams so a bit long but amusing. (2hrs.)

[MarcusAu]

...

Right, cuz Shumer and Hawn put so much diligence and effort into their whiteness.

They don't need to as Whiteness is simply the absence of culture.

[Steersman]

Steersman: "Helluva choice facing America. But still hard not to conclude that Trump is decidedly the lesser of the two weevils."

I can't imagine being terrified enough of Muslims to reach that conclusion.

Don't think you've been paying much attention to current events, and the ideology behind them, if that's the case. For details you might check out the Islam & Islamism thread or any of Anjuli Pandavar's many posts on the topic over at FTB (surprisingly). And these more recent stories: ....

Notice any geographical patterns to those headlines, dude? Here, let me highlight some things to help you notice...

(bolding and snips mine)

Not that the US shouldn't be concerned with the problems of our allies, but we aren't facing an immigration crisis here. I live in the same metropolitan area as the biggest population of middle easterners in the US, and I can tell you that they aren't burning shit down. Dearborn isn't the scary part of Detroit.

So what that the most recent Muslim depredations have been in Europe? Though I might remind you of Orlando. And 9/11. And we should be precluded from learning from the mistakes of our allies? You think what's happening in Calais, and Nice and Cologne won't or simply can't happen here? Particularly if the percentage of Muslims in the population in the US & Canada increase to that found in Europe. I note that Germany has about 2% Muslims while the US has about 1%, and France has some 5% to 10% Muslims. Never hear of the adage about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure?

Even if we were facing an immigration crisis, Trump's ideas are juvenile and unworkable. We can't just say "Muslims fuck off" and restrict all traffic of them. That would be unconstitutional, and it would be a terrible idea for diplomatic reasons. Trump wouldn't be able to implement his ideas even if he were elected, but thankfully it looks like he'll never have the chance to try.

Horse feathers. Never hear of the population transfer between Greece and Turkey in 1923 that saw some 500,000 Muslims moved from the former to the latter? Know that the principal author of that wound up getting the Nobel Peace prize for his efforts? Know that the US, apparently, deported some 2 to 3 million Mexicans between 1930 & 1954? Hardly what anyone with any knowledge of geopolitics would call "juvenile and unworkable" ideas; they might be unconstitutional, although I think that is decidedly moot. As I've quoted elsewhere (Islam and Islamism thread probably at least), the right to immigrate is not an absolute - countries do have a right to control their borders - and Islam arguably qualifies as a "totalitarian" political ideology which, by the US Immigration and Nationality Act (section 313), precludes naturalization of those subscribing thereto.

[.img]http://snappa.static.pressassociation.i ... 00x398.jpg[/img]

^^ Billboard says "Donald Trump can't read this but he's afraid of it anyway". This applies equally well to Steersman.

You think that Churchill and Ibn Warraq, and many others, were given to "attacks of the vapours" when it came to Islam?

[Steersman]

Old ones wrote:

Not that the US shouldn't be concerned with the problems of our allies, but we aren't facing an immigration crisis here. I live in the same metropolitan area as the biggest population of middle easterners in the US, and I can tell you that they aren't burning shit down. Dearborn isn't the scary part of Detroit.

Steersman lives a few miles and across the bridge from the North Shore of the Vancouver area where there are tens of thousands of muslim refugee types that arrived mainly in the 1980s (from Iran) have been living without a single terrorist incident coming from them.
Meanwhile, a slightly larger Sikh community, also in Steer's hood committed the largest terrorist act in Canada's history, bringing down an Air India flight. They also assassinated an Indian diplomat that was visiting Vancouver Island, as well as moderate Sikh journalists and politicians. A disturbing number from that community have the same primitive Taliban style attitudes they had in the peasant areas of the Punjab in spite of being in Canada for generations. Honor killings anyone?

That looks rather disingenuous if not intellectually dishonest or fraudulent. No doubt the Sikhs have their fundamentalists and ideologies that belong back in the 6th century where they came from. But it doesn't take much effort to find the clear evidence that Islamic extremism is the single largest cause of deaths due to terrorist attacks. Maybe we should be judging immigrants accordingly?

I don't want to see salafi muslims move here for sure, and don't want to see a large influx of refugees that will have issues fitting in and living productive lives here either.
But never go full Steersman :hand: .

So long as Muslims insist that the Quran is the literal word of gawd - and expect everyone else to kowtow to their barbaric ideologies and psychotic pedophile Prophet, so long will they be incapble of "fitting in and living productive lives here":

Muslims are "impossible to integrate " into Western European society says Czech president in anti-migrant rant

19:04, 17 JAN 2016 UPDATED 19:45, 17 JAN 2016
BY ELLE GRIFFITHS

Referring to the mass New Year's Eve assaults on women in Germany and elsewhere, Milos Zeman said it was better for Muslims not to bring their culture to Europe "otherwise it will end up like Cologne"
Czech president Milos Zeman said in a televised interview that integrating Muslims into Western Europe was "practically impossible".

Speaking on local TV on Sunday the country's premier said: "The experience of Western European countries which have ghettos and excluded localities shows that the integration of the Muslim community is practically impossible."

And referring to the mass New Year's Eve assaults on women in Germany and elsewhere, he added: "Let them have their culture in their countries and not take it to Europe, otherwise it will end up like Cologne." ....

Hardly a "rant" - just calling the spade a shovel.

[fuzzy]

I can't quite put my finger on it, but Iran's president reminds me of somebody.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bGYbmwDK54U/V ... ouhani.jpg

[AndrewV69]

In other news:

[AndrewV69]

I can't quite put my finger on it, but Iran's president reminds me of somebody.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bGYbmwDK54U/V ... ouhani.jpg

PeeZuss Christ!

BTW ... Hasan Nasrallah looks so much like me it is not even funny. Even fooled my English Sister in Law.
http://www.topnews.in/files/nasrallah_0.jpg

[Ape+lust]

I can't quite put my finger on it, but Iran's president reminds me of somebody.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bGYbmwDK54U/V ... ouhani.jpg

http://imgur.com/UUC4PlD.jpg

[deLurch]

Racists Anonymous helping to make people aware of their own biases
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/racists-ano ... wn-biases/

It is at a Unitarian Church in California.

[Dave]

Trump advisor calls accusations against him, "man-shaming."

https://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/ ... ing/214144

That's good. That's top level trolling.

[John D]

Racists Anonymous helping to make people aware of their own biases
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/racists-ano ... wn-biases/

It is at a Unitarian Church in California.

One person is quoted saying: “I hadn’t considered myself a racist coming here,” he said. “Once we got into these discussions, it started me thinking … maybe there is a little bit of racism in everybody. And that I was one of them.”

[TedDahlberg]

The girl's name isn't Becky. I'm assuming it's some sort of inside joke/nickname amongst her friends.

Or you know an internet meme

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/becky

As the internet ages, ultimately every word will become a meme.

Shaka, when the walls fell?

[Søren Lilholt]

I can't quite put my finger on it, but Iran's president reminds me of somebody.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bGYbmwDK54U/V ... ouhani.jpg

http://imgur.com/UUC4PlD.jpg

Even the simple ones are genius.

[deLurch]

There used to be a day and age when I would read something like this and be horrified. But now when I read it, I have no clue if the allegations are true, or if it is another poor schmuck caught up in a moral panic.

University of Wisconsin student accused in string of sex assaults
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alec-cook-u ... -assaults/

[CommanderTuvok]

There used to be a day and age when I would read something like this and be horrified. But now when I read it, I have no clue if the allegations are true, or if it is another poor schmuck caught up in a moral panic.

University of Wisconsin student accused in string of sex assaults
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alec-cook-u ... -assaults/

Strange times.

Every instance of unwanted advances is now promoted to more serious categories, even "rape". But this is only in certain circumstances, i.e. the bloke is "white". Compare to the Cologne attacks, or Rotherham abuse, and actual serious sex crimes gets "mitigated" by the same SJWs, or excused as "exaggeration". Total hypocrisy.

Also, there was a strange story from the UK recently about a council taking the unusual decision to seek anonymity for 4 men accused of sexually abusing a minor. Doesn't take long to find out why the council tried to take this very unusual step. Remember, councils tend to be of the SJW "name and shame so it brings out other witnesses" types.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... y-her.html

[Billie from Ockham]

I think people are losing interest in academia

I agree.

I think that I'll stay home today and watch shitty movies on Netflix.

[Lsuoma]

Twatter is currently having financial problems, and is cutting jobs:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37789415

Can't disappear soon enough for me.

[deLurch]

Twatter is currently having financial problems, and is cutting jobs:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37789415
Can't disappear soon enough for me.

Much has been made of Twitter, Facebook or even Youtube censoring people with wrong-thought. The censoring platform tends to keep mum on why the text/video/person was hidden/banned. It could be their platform's choice, it could be rogue staff, it could be an inappropriate flagging campaign from ideological opponents.

I think the conversation needs to shift from wondering IF the censorship was structural or flagging abuse and just come to the determination that it doesn't matter if the censorship pushed by the platform or a gamed flagging campaign, the end result is the same and the platform is equally shitty no matter the root cause.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

Twatter is currently having financial problems, and is cutting jobs:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37789415

Can't disappear soon enough for me.

Hopefully in a few years it becomes the next MySpace. It would be nice to see Facebook be more open and aboveboard as well.

[Kirbmarc]

Another interesting Sargon video:



Apparently to SJWs Jared Diamond has become racist.

By the way I've discovered a SJW/Marxist critique of Diamond by James Blaut (the author quoted in the video) which is amazing in its dishonesty and inaccuracy. I'd post my counter-critique here, but it's shaping to be very long and I'm not sure anyone would read it.

[jet_lagg]

You're referring to his paper Environmentalism and Eurocentrism? I googled it out of morbid curiosity over how one gets from Diamond's thesis to racism. Just reading the abstract I can take a guess. Saying anything other than all civilizations are perfectly equal, even if you restrict yourself to clearly defined and defensible metrics which you do not attach any inherent value to, and even if your theory is that differences within those metrics are caused by an accident of geography rather than any virtue of the people within those civilizations, is racist?

[dogen]

There used to be a day and age when I would read something like this and be horrified. But now when I read it, I have no clue if the allegations are true, or if it is another poor schmuck caught up in a moral panic.

University of Wisconsin student accused in string of sex assaults
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alec-cook-u ... -assaults/

In this case, the case against him appears to be pretty solid -- multiple reports of separate, physical incidents involving multiple women. It seems that he's suffering from mental illness, and this has led the severity of the incidents to escalate over time from creepy to illegal.

(disclaimer: while I'm at UW-Madison, I do not speak for UW-Madison)

[Kirbmarc]

You're referring to his paper Environmentalism and Eurocentrism? I googled it out of morbid curiosity over how one gets from Diamond's thesis to racism. Just reading the abstract I can take a guess. Saying anything other than all civilizations are perfectly equal, even if you restrict yourself to clearly defined and defensible metrics which you do not attach any inherent value to, and even if your theory is that differences within those metrics are caused by an accident of geography rather than any virtue of the people within those civilizations, is racist?

Yup. I've read it in its entirety and I'm amazed at how anyone could publish it. It's full of obfuscating tactics, disinformation, deliberately inaccurate representations of Diamond's book and at least one bald-face lie (that Diamond "completely ignores" the role of sorghum). The funniest part is when Blaut tries to prove that Diamond is a Eurocentric bigot by arguing against Diamond's environmental determinism through the use of...Diamond's environmental determinism. It has to be read to be believed: Blaut sets up a straw man version of Diamond's hypothesis and demolishes them by saying what Diamond actually said.

Also hilarious is Blaut's skirting the line towards neo-Lysenkoism in order to deny that Mediterranean crops aren't suitable for the tropics, and vice versa: they just "adapt and diffuse", just like that, as long as people want them to.

Blaut also seems to think that there's no problem if your crops have a poor nutritional value: you can just eat more and you'll be fine! There's no such thing as sustainability or differential yield: different crops can all support the same number of people and so the same advancement in civilizations, and all civilizations were equally technologically developed until the Europeans went out colonizing.

Basically according to Blaut societies chose not to develop, it was only the Evil Warmongers who fostered the Evil Colonialism and Evil Competition instead of focusing on living at peace with their neighbors and within their society.

[Shatterface]

Twatter is closing their video sharing app Vine too.

[Dave]

Feel the Johnson!

As opposed to "feel the Bern!" which always made me think of the Clap.

Youre not the only one:

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entir ... -check.jpg

[jet_lagg]

Have I been ninja'd on this? Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali declared anti-muslim extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center. I knew these guys were clowns after they said Pepe was a hate symbol, but at least that was funny. This is completely fucking outrageous.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[jet_lagg]

https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/fiel ... emists#ali

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Racists Anonymous helping to make people aware of their own biases
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/racists-ano ... wn-biases/

It is at a Unitarian Church in California.

Can't wait for Cock Suckers Anonymous helping to make people aware of their own gayness.

Hi! I'm David, and when I watch football, I can't help but think how much I wish Drew Brees would put his hands between my legs, too.

I'm Barb. I'm a married mother of three, and I'd totally eat out Ellen DeGeneres.

[Sunder]

I stumbled upon Crash Course years back and while they had some questionable SJW leanings apparently it's gotten far worse over there.

And yeah, declaring someone like Diamond whose theory as understood by most people is "whitey got lucky is all" as a racist is the fucking looniest shit imaginable. But that's par for the course for SJWs. Condemning real racism is boring because everyone does it. If you want to really be a super anti-racist you have to condemn other anti-racists so you can be the least racist of all.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Have I been ninja'd on this? Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali declared anti-muslim extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center. I knew these guys were clowns after they said Pepe was a hate symbol, but at least that was funny. This is completely fucking outrageous.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Gotta protect those poor, downtrodden Islamic share-croppers of the Mississippi Delta!

And did you know that one in three Appalachian Salafis are victims of hate crime?

[HelpingHand]

http://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2016 ... ncart_2box

1. Uses the 'no trust us, we can't show them but there are really mean tweets' gambit.

2. Exhibits full FlavorAid drinking of the Leslie Jones/Milo narrative.

3. Uses Zoe Quinn as an example of a poor oppressed woman.

[Sunder]

I stumbled upon Crash Course years back and while they had some questionable SJW leanings apparently it's gotten far worse over there.

And yeah, declaring someone like Diamond whose theory as understood by most people is "whitey got lucky is all" as a racist is the fucking looniest shit imaginable. But that's par for the course for SJWs. Condemning real racism is boring because everyone does it. If you want to really be a super anti-racist you have to condemn other anti-racists so you can be the least racist of all.

Well to give them the benefit of the doubt (even though I really don't like the Green brothers), comments from people who are fans of the channel on that particular video are extremely negative, so seems it's possible they just really fucked up and failed to properly vet this person's argument before giving them a platform. Though it's also possible that they've just gone off the deep end. Either way, I hope they lost a lot of subs over this.

[Kirbmarc]

https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/fiel ... emists#ali

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

From the SPLC profile of Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

While in the Netherlands, she wrote the script for a short and provocative film about women and Islam directed by the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in the street by a jihadist a short time after its release. The murderer left a note threatening to also kill Hirsi Ali pinned to his victim’s body with a knife.

Yet somehow she's the dangerous extremist.

On Maajid Nawaz:

In the list sent to a top British security official in 2010, headlined “Preventing Terrorism: Where Next for Britain?” Quilliam wrote, “The ideology of non-violent Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists; they disagree only on tactics.” An official with Scotland Yard’s Muslim Contact Unit told The Guardian that “[t]he list demonises a whole range of groups that in my experience have made valuable contributions to counter-terrorism.”

Ah, the marvelous art of quoting things out of context:

"These are a selection of the various groups and institutions active in the UK which are broadly sympathetic to Islamism. Whilst only a small proportion will agree with al-Qaida's tactics, many will agree with their overall goal of creating a single 'Islamic state' which would bring together all Muslims around the world under a single government and then impose on them a single interpretation of sharia as state law."

The document adds that if local or central government engages with such groups "it risks empowering proponents of the ideology, if not the methodology, that is behind terrorism".

This is true. This is what those groups believe and say. But reporting this to the authorities is "hateful".

Politicians described as "Islamist backed" include Salma Yaqoob, who stood for the Respect party in Birmingham, and the former MP George Galloway.

Galloway IS islamist backed. He's the one who should be on the SPLC site if they were even remotely honest. Straight from the horse's mouth:

Galloway has worked for the Iranian state-run satellite television channel, Press TV since 2008. Galloway said in a speech at the London School of Economics in March 2011: “Because I don’t believe that the government of Iran is a dictatorship I have no problem about working for Press TV in London which is a British owned television station"

But saying this to the authorities is "hatred" and "anti-muslim extremism".

According to a Jan. 24, 2014, report in The Guardian, Nawaz tweeted out a cartoon of Jesus and Muhammad — despite the fact that many Muslims see it as blasphemous to draw Muhammad. He said that he wanted “to carve out a space to be heard without constantly fearing the blasphemy charge.”

And this is..bad? How?

That's also some pretty disgusting character assassination about Nawaz not being "feminist" because he went to a strip club. The SPLC is the SJW McCarthy.

[HelpingHand]

[quote="jet_lagg"]Have I been ninja'd on this? Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali declared anti-muslim extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center. I knew these guys were clowns after they said Pepe was a hate symbol, but at least that was funny. This is completely fucking outrageous. /quote]


She was said that 70% of violence in the world came from Muslims. On the Daily Show. Definitely an extremist.

He once said, “The ideology of non-violent Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists; they disagree only on tactics.” He also once tweeted a Jesus and Mo cartoon! He also allegedly tried to touch a lap dancer.

I am convinced.