Stop Feeding Milo Yiannapolous

Roland Dodds

Roland Dodds is an educator, researcher and father who writes about politics, culture and education. He spent his formative years in radical left wing politics, but now prefers the company of contrarians of all political stripes (assuming they aren't teetotalers). He is a regular inactive at Harry's Place and Ordinary Times.

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619 Responses

  1. Damon says:

    Hmm…gee…this guy sounds like the mirror image of some folks on the left. Bed made…lie in it.

    I have no problem going to see this guy talk. I saw Jean Kirkpatrick, Marc Russell, George Will, and folks on the left. Generally, about 4 a year for each year in college. I remember the guys on the right mainly because of all the protests..which never happened when someone from the left came for a talk. Someone’s opinion’s don’t scare me and I find “how people think” interesting.Report

    • veronica d in reply to Damon says:

      @damon — Milo has reached the point, however, where he will single out students on campus, show their pictures, give their names, and then tell the audience how terrible this individual is. In one case the person’s crime was being transgender.

      Yeah, this is free speech, in the sense that if I knew your name and address I could probably convince a bunch of people to harass you. Which, maybe that is a victory of sorts. I doubt it.

      The thing is, Milo trucks in ugliness, and he will increase his ugliness to whatever point is needed to generate a response. And indeed, people would be smarter to ignore him. However, consider what would then happen: he would increase his ugliness, always just short of criminal levels, until it becomes quite difficult to ignore.

      This is #gamergate, basically. It’s manifest bullying.

      Saying “the left” will protest any conservative is perhaps true. But I, veronica d, won’t protest literally all conservatives. Milo is different. He does not share ideas. He preaches targeted hate, and not against those will power, not against “public figures,” but against random vulnerable people.

      Plus, he’s pretty much a Nazi. If conservatives are tired of being called Nazis, then do not become Nazis.

      I mean seriously, you are responsible for what you become.Report

      • Burt Likko in reply to veronica d says:

        Singling out a student with name and other identifying information and holding that person up for obloquy is likely not protected conduct under the First Amendment. I suppose the devil is in the totality of the facts and circumstances, as lawyers are wont to say, but IMO this looks a lot more like defamation and incitement to violence. Regardless of the reason why the victim is held up to obloquy.

        Unfortunately, a statement holding transgender people in general up to obloquy probably is protected speech, however crass. But to do that to a specific person (who is not already a public figure)? That crosses a legally significant line in my mind because of the substantial likelihood that this will diminish that person’s reputation and expose that person, uninvited, to a substantially enhanced risk of violence.Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Burt Likko says:

          Well there it is, boys, not protected speech. Now get that damn window down and let’s lynch us a Jew!Report

          • Burt Likko in reply to DensityDuck says:

            Dude, I’m just providing information here. This is not exactly what I intended be done with it, so that’s all on you, bubba.

            (FTR: I intended to suggest that maybe Milo’s speeches really aren’t justified under the First Amendment, so “free speech” might not be a countervailing value in this situation, given the information @veronica-d provided. That’s it.)Report

  2. Road Scholar says:

    I agree with Damon that I find “how people think” interesting. It’s why I’ve been spending a lot more time lurking — and taking notes — than commenting of late.

    Has it occurred to you that maybe these nice, wholesome, conservative kids might just actually agree with the things Milo is spouting, including the odious crap, and that’s why they’re inviting him to campus?Report

    • Kim in reply to Road Scholar says:

      Road,
      Sure. People who actually believe in free speech enough to get banned from First World countries are a rare breed.Report

    • Roland Dodds in reply to Road Scholar says:

      That may be the truth, but then they can dispense with the excuse that he is invited simply to “generate debate.” If they support the positions linked to above then just say so and avoid hiding behind the banal “free speech” argument that seems to dominate every discussion of his appearances.

      I hope they don’t. Not because I am a college Republican but because I believe we need a capable conservative counter on our college campuses. If college Republicans are in agreement with Milo when it comes to the specifics than we really have seen a death of conservatism as a viable political ideology.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Roland Dodds says:

        One of the problems is that I can’t tell the difference between a protest against the racist, sexist, homophobic George Will and a protest against the racist, sexist, homophobic Milo Yiannapolous .Report

        • Roland Dodds in reply to Jaybird says:

          I agree. The left has cried wolf so often that when the actual far-right started to show up they had already lost credibility. When no platforming was used to stop people Ayaan Hirsi Ali from speaking at colleges it is clear that activists were willing to stop anyone speaking they were opposed to.

          I will take up that fight another day. I would like to actually ask college Republicans to articulate what they hope to gain from bringing Milo. Is it just to make a splash? Are they in agreement with his positions? When I think of all the great conservative voices that could be invited to challenge left-wing orthodoxy and generate debate, I am saddened to see an obvious provocateur and con-artist routinely get the gig.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Roland Dodds says:

            I would like to actually ask college Republicans to articulate what they hope to gain from bringing Milo.

            If I had to guess, I would say that the hope is that it will inspire funny protests and allow for a dialectic to be set up. Make passers-by look at the two sides that are arguing and force them to pick a side.

            Do you want to be on the side of the gay guy who is funny and is arguing in service to such concepts as Free Speech?

            Would you rather be on the side of the anarchists using Black Bloc tactics?

            Pick one.

            You do this right, you can make people unsympathetic to the stuff bundled with the side they don’t pick.Report

            • Roland Dodds in reply to Jaybird says:

              If it is true that someone like George Will will generate the same response from the left, why wouldn’t college Republicans bring him then? At least a conservative could justify and support his actual policies. Heck, I would be out in the streets fighting against the left if they were to do what they did in Berkeley to George Will. But for Milo? I am not going to stick my head out for that guy, even if I disagree with black bloc tactics.

              Again, I am trying to have goodwill towards college Republicans. Maybe they don’t invite George Will because they don’t agree with him but think Milo’s ideas are great.Report

              • North in reply to Roland Dodds says:

                I suspect that their problem is liberals wouldn’t turn out to protest Will the way they will turn out to protest Milo.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Roland Dodds says:

                Back in 2008, Colorado College brought George Will to their campus.

                We went to go see him. We walked past protesters to go see him. Granted, these protesters were only chanting and holding signs, they weren’t lighting anything on fire.

                Even back then, he was a million years old.

                But for Milo? I am not going to stick my head out for that guy, even if I disagree with black bloc tactics.

                Fair enough. But dig this: there will be more College Republicans inviting Milo to speak. And there will be more Black Bloc tactics opposing him.

                As time goes on, there will be more and more posts saying “College Republicans! Quit inviting Milo!”

                But there will also be more and more posts saying “College Liberals! Quit rioting!”

                And the contradictions will heighten. And we will have another election.

                Maybe you’ll be smart enough to look at the candidates and not associate them with the two groups fighting on campus, but a lot of people will be chained to seeing “Trump == Milo” and “(Generic Democrat) == Rioters” and will have to pick a side or manage to forget to vote that day.

                Who will be more dissuaded from voting? Who won’t mind showing up on that particular Tuesday?

                As odious as Milo is, and he is odious, I think that he’ll hold up well against riot footage.Report

              • Kim in reply to Jaybird says:

                Jay,
                And the powers that be win. If we let them.Report

              • Roland Dodds in reply to Jaybird says:

                “As odious as Milo is, and he is odious, I think that he’ll hold up well against riot footage.”

                I think you are right about that. I hope that those us with a moderate approach to life and discussion can push back against the simplistic narratives that the radical fringes have used for political gain. But that means I ask Republicans to reflect on why they are doing what they do, just as I ask my leftist friends who celebrated acts of violence for weeks following the inauguration what they hope to accomplish from said actions in the long term. I am old enough to know which one of these competing (yet false) narratives will win at the ballot box and it won’t be the left.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Roland Dodds says:

                ” But that means I ask Republicans to reflect on why they are doing what they do”

                They’re giving you a chance to show them who you are.Report

              • Roland Dodds in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Then I guess I passed with flying colors much like the entire liberal Bay Area that didn’t show up to riot. 150 anarchists failed said test however.Report

              • I ignored the guy, which is exactly what he deserves.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                *THIS* strikes me as the absolute perfect response.

                The argument that I’ve seen is something to the effect of “if Milo came and was ignored, he’d give a speech to a couple hundred College Republicans. Thanks to the riots, sales of his book are apparently soaring.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird says:

                but…but…but…but HE’S A BAD GUY! A BAD GUY!!Report

              • Well yes, he’s a piece of shit. But he’s a piece of shit who thrives on attention, so let’s starve him of it.

                Not that you didn’t know that already.Report

              • notme in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                If he is a piece of shit then he has something in common with Bill and Hillary.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to notme says:

                Cool segue, man. How did you manage that one?Report

              • Dave in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                @mike-schilling

                If I answered your question, it probably wouldn’t stay up for long.

                Don’t know why there’s an “if” in that statement above. The author of this vile garbage is a piece of shit. There’s no debate. He’s clueless on the fat shaming studies, wants to ignore the issue of weight stigma and weight discrimination, which are quite real and have gotten a lot of attention in healthcare circles for the right reasons, and wants to treat the issue as if it’s political correctness run amok.

                Perfect for right wing neanderthals. Garbage for those of us that care about the issue and know what can happen when people act upon that shame and go off the rails.

                But it’s for their benefit (eyeroll).

                Not sure why there’s nearly 400 comments on this one but whatever. Liked the OP.Report

              • Koz in reply to Jaybird says:

                Back in 2008, Colorado College brought George Will to their campus.

                We went to go see him. We walked past protesters to go see him. Granted, these protesters were only chanting and holding signs, they weren’t lighting anything on fire.

                This is very useful context in terms of the OP. The College Republicans do invite George Will, the libs do protest him (though maybe not quite as aggressively as Milo), so the likes of George Will quit coming.Report

              • Autolukos in reply to Koz says:

                If your sensibilities are too delicate to handle CC students with signs, I’m not sure how you muster the courage to walk out your front door.Report

              • Koz in reply to Autolukos says:

                You should be rethinking this. Colorado College is in Colorado Springs, a semi-major city at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It’s a typical place for a college to be, in that it’s somewhere in the middle between a major media center and glorified truck stop.

                There are some people who are local to CS (I think James Dobson might be one), but most reasonably prominent college speakers have to travel. Do I really want to travel maybe hundreds of miles to be interrupted, to be dodge civil disturbances, to require a significant security presence. No, it’s easier just to stay home, or meet with friendlier people, or friendlier audiences.

                Libs participation in contemporary culture is significantly about pollution. Libs should quit polluting.Report

              • Autolukos in reply to Koz says:

                I know where CC is, having graduated from it in 2010; the protest scene at the time was not impressive.Report

              • I know where CC is, having graduated from it in 2010;

                Even better than happening to have Marshall McLuhan in your pocket.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Koz says:

                As Citizens United shows, it’s a vital First Amendment right for the obscenely rich to be able to buy elections, but college kids holding signs? Lock them up.Report

          • Pinky in reply to Roland Dodds says:

            “I would like to actually ask college Republicans to articulate what they hope to gain from bringing Milo.”

            My guess is, they believe themselves to be in a fight for free speech. Not Milo’s kind of hateful free speech, but the day-to-day kind where you’re not allowed to talk about certain topics based on your skin color or sex, where certain political opinions that aren’t hateful are deemed so and banned. We’re coming off of an election where publicly supporting one of the major party candidates was treated as a punishable offense on campus, by students, teachers, and administrations.

            The problem is that free speech can be defended intellectually by decent argument, but it has to be defended practically by uncivil speech.Report

            • Roland Dodds in reply to Pinky says:

              “The problem is that free speech can be defended intellectually by decent argument, but it has to be defended practically by uncivil speech.”

              I guess I will have to stick with the former.Report

            • InMD in reply to Pinky says:

              @pinky

              I think there’s some truth to that analysis, and while I don’t want to speak for @roland-dodds it would seem that a more defensible approach would be to get someone from FIRE or a similar organization. Unless of course the goal is, aa others have speculated, simply to bait leftists into painting themselves as the greater of two evils.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Jaybird says:

          As an article on The Federalist says today, If College Students Will Protest Mike Huckabee, They’ll Protest Anybody.Report

          • Mike Schilling in reply to Pinky says:

            I would have agreed a few years ago, but he’s not exactly Mr. Rogers these days.Report

            • Pinky in reply to Mike Schilling says:

              The Federalist article argues that Huckabee can’t fairly be accused of racism, sexism, or support of police misconduct, and therefore his speaking can’t be opposed by the criteria of modern free speech codes.Report

            • Brian McCarthy in reply to Mike Schilling says:

              @Mike Schilling you seem to always have a “yes, but…” suggestion for what your political opposites might do. Let’s take it to the level of what do you think the 1st am. ought to protect, is it any speech, political speech, speech with certain exceptions, odious and hateful speech??? We are for good or ill linked to the Holmes conception of the marketplace of ideas as a lode star. Do liberals still accept this premise for the analysis of free speech in the abstract?Report

              • The first amendment is about state action; it doesn’t have a thing to do with protests against a particular speaker. If we’re going to talk about free speech, we need to distinguish between the different versions or aspects of it.Report

              • Autolukos in reply to Don Zeko says:

                The first amendment is about state action; it doesn’t have a thing to do with protests against a particular speaker.

                I take your meaning, but of course it does have something to do with those protests: it protects them.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Autolukos says:

                Right, good point. Honestly I think there is an interesting debate to be had about how far the cultural norm of free speech should go and how to think about people using speech to express disapproval of other speakers that has the effect of discouraging or suppressing speech. It’s just that we’re emphatically not having that debate here because it’s so much fun to talk about who is bad and should feel bad.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Don Zeko says:

                At first blush I think that’s great, but then, aren’t social norms the boundaries which, if crossed, make one a “bad person”?

                When people talk about social norms it always seems to sound like some noble and grand thing,but what isn’t discussed much is how we treat the transgressors.

                Traditionally it was by shaming, shunning or more violent forms of censure and coercion.

                I’m not saying thats bad, just that in order to taste the fruits of a stable social order, we need some form of coercion. Most of us tend to flinch at that, since it provokes our intuitive sense of mercy and forgiveness.Report

              • Protesting a speaker is free speech. I don’t understand what “If College Students Will Protest Mike Huckabee, They’ll Protest Anybody” means. Huckabee is am increasingly belligerent jerk and a Trump toady, not a moral exemplar. If the statement were “If College Students Will Protest Vaclev Havel They’ll Protest Anybody”, Republican Party Reptile Redux might have a point.Report

        • Tod Kelly in reply to Jaybird says:

          @jaybird

          One of the problems is that I can’t tell the difference between a protest against the racist, sexist, homophobic George Will and a protest against the racist, sexist, homophobic Milo Yiannapolous .

          @roland-dodds

          I agree. The left has cried wolf so often that when the actual far-right started to show up they had already lost credibility.

          I am curious as to why this matters at all. I distinctly remember some liberals and leftists called Ron Paul a racist in 2012… and what the fish does that have to do with a discussion about the merits of what Dyalnn Roof did in 2015? I definitely have heard some conservatives disparage all Muslim immigrants (even legal ones) and bash the gay lifestyle on talk radio pretty much every day I listen to it. How relevant is that to a discussion about whether or not we should allow more Omar Mateens?

          Just being clever for clever’s sake isn’t really always all it’s cracked up to be.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Tod Kelly says:

            I am curious as to why this matters at all.

            Insofar as the Democratic Party election post-mortem seems to be “we won the popular vote and the reason that we lost the Blue Wall is that whiny swing voters were hornswaggled by Republicans yelling about Clinton’s emails”, I think that it matters very, very much.

            Because, from my perspective, Democrats won’t win elections without changing unless Trump gets really, really bad.

            And I don’t mean “really bad from the perspective of someone who lives in Brooklyn”. I mean “really bad from the perspective of someone who lives in Wisconsin.”

            And the general feel that I get from the Democrats is that they have no reason to change.

            Which leads me to the conclusion that they’re going to lose the next couple of elections.Report

            • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

              fwiw, i don’t how you filter your info. I’ve heard plenty of D officials types talking about change. Sure some are doing a vareity of what you said, but many aren’t.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

              the reason that we lost the Blue Wall is that whiny swing voters were hornswaggled by Republicans yelling about Clinton’s emails”,

              If commenter Koz is to be believed, thats exactly, precisely, what happened.
              These Dems are loyal Democrat plantation voters, who love them some abortion rights and labor unions, but emails, man.

              So my question is what happens when Mrs. DemTrump voter goes down to PP to get her thrice-yearly abortion, and finds the doors locked and doctor arrested.

              Or Mr. DemTrump voter loses his health insurance because he had kidneystones a few years ago, and now can’t afford his chemo.

              Or the school that Junior DemTrump goes to closes down, and they have to pay a small fortune to Barron Trump Academy Elementary School.

              IMO, this is going to be bad.

              And I don’t mean “really bad from the perspective of someone who lives in Brooklyn”. I mean “really bad from the perspective of someone who lives in Wisconsin.”Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Here’s a fun fact: less than two months from the deadline, 8 of the 11 Virginia House districts that Clinton won do not have a Democratic candidate running for them.

                #10, #12, #40, #42, #68, #73, #94, and #100.

                (I can’t speak for Koz. I spent a lot of 2010-2012 arguing with him that the Democrats in 2006 and Obama in 2008 were, among other things, a repudiation of Bushism and the Republicans turning their back on Libertarian/Fiscally Conservative ideals his only counter-argument was how much worse the Democrats were. For the record, I also see Trump as a repudiation of Bushism but that seems like one hell of a moot point.)Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                Thats political malpractice by the VA Dem party, I agree.

                My objection to the people demanding that Dems “adjust” their views, “moderate” their stance, “compromise” or whatever other euphemism you choose, is towards what?

                No one can name any Trump policy, there exists no coherent Trump idea of economic progress, and to this day no one can formulate a plan to regain jobs in the Midwest without using the term “Underpants Gnomes”.

                So what changes would you suggest the Dems make to their views?
                (“OK, so maybe Muslims ARE an existential threat to America; but lets only imprison half of them, as a compromise“)

                Further, I think Koz is right to a degree, that there are plenty of Trump voters who really don’t want the Trump/ GOP policies.

                How many Trump voters want to dismantle Medicare? Social Security? Planned Parenthood? The ACA?
                Seriously, how many people have you met who want to re-introduce child labor? Or eliminate the minimum wage?

                The error in the concern trolling of the Dems is the assumption that the Ryan/McConnell congress represents the true policy desires of the American people.

                It doesn’t. If anyone disagrees, show your work.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                The error in the concern trolling of the Dems is the assumption that the Ryan/McConnell congress represents the true policy desires of the American people.

                I don’t think that it does.

                But I think it does a less horrible job than the Democrats, on a national level, are articulating.

                They’re, instead, making jokes about how stupid the people who wouldn’t vote for them must be. Oh, and failing to run candidates in winnable districts. But that second problem is kind of not worth investing in if the first isn’t tackled.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                So the Republican message to the country is defined by the statements that the President makes, and the Democrats’ message is defined by a cherry-picked selection of liberals chattering on Twitter?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                If Twitter is the battlefield, that seems vaguely accurate.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                Why on earth would twitter be the battlefield? Barely anyone, statistically speaking, actually uses it. And even if it is, why are we assuming that the awful things liberal twitter eggs say are how the whole world perceives liberals?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Where would you suggest the battlefield be?

                The voting booths?
                The senate floor?
                The front pages of the various newspapers?
                Some amalgam of all of them?

                The main thing I’m looking for is some way to measure who is winning.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                Polls? Elections? Something, anything, other than the subjective impressions of one person trying to read the minds of swing voters from his keyboard?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Fair enough. We’ll wait until 2018 to have a definitive answer.Report

              • Kim in reply to Jaybird says:

                Jay,
                Disagree. Idaho will vote for a Democrat if the Republican is crazy enough. And Idaho doesn’t really care what Liz Warren is saying.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                I have a suspicion – ok, maybe it’s a hope, but I’m putting togrther some disparate anecdata… That trump’s campaign was SO content-neutral, incoherent, and blatantly self-serving… that a not overlarge but still significant fraction of his support voted under the assumption that he was, of course!, lying – to everyone else.
                Women who think he won’t touch Roe. Workers who love the ACA but hate Obamacare and thimk only dark people will lose their insurance.
                Basically everything trump voters think about him is projection because there’s no there there. Every time he actually does somethimg, he’ll lose the people who’d convinced themselves he wouldn’t.
                Some of them. Maybe enough. Our country can hope.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to El Muneco says:

                That’s what I am seeing among my Trump friends and relatives.
                They all are convinced that Medicare and the No Pre-existing Conditions clause will still be there when they want it.
                But the illegals will be gone by summer.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                That’s funny. I saw the comment on the right side of the screen and I could immediately tell that it was you. There’s just a rhythm of superiority to it that you probably don’t intend.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

                I should probably attend sensitivity classes.

                Does Milo offer those?Report

              • Kim in reply to El Muneco says:

                Muneco,
                Trump can’t do a damn thing about Roe V Wade. Seriously, if we didn’t get it rolled back when there was a conservative majority on the court and it was a BIG Issue, why do you think it’ll get rolled back now?Report

              • Koz in reply to Jaybird says:

                This probably isn’t super topical. Nonetheless….

                (I can’t speak for Koz. I spent a lot of 2010-2012 arguing with him that the Democrats in 2006 and Obama in 2008 were, among other things, a repudiation of Bushism and the Republicans turning their back on Libertarian/Fiscally Conservative ideals….

                Back then, I stipulated to this part.

                his only counter-argument was how much worse the Democrats were. For the record, I also see Trump as a repudiation of Bushism but that seems like one hell of a moot point.)

                But the “only” part is bogus. While it is true that the Demos were worse, my main argument at the time was that the GOP of that time were the representation of limited government and fiscal responsibility in the political sphere, as I think the events of that time and since have fairly conclusively shown.

                Or to put it another way, Jaybird’s argument “because W” is conclusive of nothing.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                So my question is what happens when Mrs. DemTrump voter goes down to PP to get her thrice-yearly abortion, and finds the doors locked and doctor arrested.

                She’s probably rich enough to have one without public money. The poor will suffer until some women die in back alleys and that goes public, but that’s a different issue.

                Or Mr. DemTrump voter loses his health insurance because he had kidneystones a few years ago, and now can’t afford his chemo.

                Without health care reform (as opposed to insurance reform) no one will be able to pay for anything.

                Or the school that Junior DemTrump goes to closes down, and they have to pay a small fortune to Barron Trump Academy Elementary School.

                Charter Schools are public schools. BTW having a charter around is *amazing* at keeping the public school in line. If take the kids charter then I’m taking them “out of the district”.Report

            • Tod Kelly in reply to Jaybird says:

              Oh, so there’s a horse race question to be examined?

              Well then by all means, let’s ignore the content of what’s being done and focus on that.Report

          • Rand Paul? Calling Ron a racist does have some facts behind it, even if they’ve been unconvincingly denied.Report

          • Roland Dodds in reply to Tod Kelly says:

            @tod-kelly I think you are addressing two separate things here. Calling Ron Paul a racist in 2012 has nothing to do with talking about racist violence by the likes of Dylan Roof in 2015. I also distinctly remember calling a whole slew of Republicans fascists back in 2002. They were not of course, but now that I am seeing actual far-right figures take power, I recognize that all that hyperbolic language numbed people to the power of those terms.

            It doesn’t mean you don’t call a spade a spade but I recognize I made a mistake in employing that type of language inappropriately. I hope others on the left figure that out as well.Report

            • Dark Matter in reply to Roland Dodds says:

              …but now that I am seeing actual far-right figures take power…

              …It doesn’t mean you don’t call a spade a spade but I recognize I made a mistake in employing that type of language inappropriately.

              How many dead bodies are these far-right figures responsible for? How much domestic terrorism? How much violence? Is anyone on the Right endorsing violence? Say, claiming Dylan Roof is misunderstood and should be let go? Has Trump written a book somewhere calling for mass murder?

              As far as I can tell you’re still screaming wolf.

              The Left needs a violent genocidal villain to justify how violent the Left itself is, and there is nothing around like that short of ISIS.

              There are policy differences, opposing open borders, opposing free trade, endorsing school choice, etc, but screaming wolf worked so well for so long that it’s a reflex.Report

    • Tod Kelly in reply to Road Scholar says:

      Has it occurred to you that maybe these nice, wholesome, conservative kids might just actually agree with the things Milo is spouting, including the odious crap, and that’s why they’re inviting him to campus?

      I find a lot of people these days raise this question when talking about people like Milo. I confess, I am unsure why it makes a difference.Report

      • gregiank in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        It seems like lots of conservatives don’t want to believe the worst conservative trolling/vitriol is a real belief. It’s just torking off liberals so they can ignore it or enjoy since it’s just a game.
        I’ve seen it a lot as a rationalizations for vile Reddit’s and such; those guys are just reacting to PC culture so it’s really the libs fault. That frequent posters to Coontown actually are virulent racists is hard to believe for some. The belief is they are just trolling not true believers. Does that make it okay? well not to me but to some that is plenty good enough.Report

        • Tod Kelly in reply to gregiank says:

          I get what the argument is. What I don’t get is why the answer to the question matters.

          “Hey, I know you’re scared that some faceless person sent you a swastika and a note saying that they were going to rape you, but you should know they’re pranksters and might not have meant it in their hearts. They may even like women and Jews deep down inside!”

          Seriously, why the fish does it matter what’s in their hearts?

          I am asking this question in all seriousness.Report

          • If college Republcians like Milo because he pisses the right people off but wouldn’t ever do that stuff themselves, that’s one thing. If they’re going to emulate him, that’s another.

            Of course, that’s all completely different from enjoying seeing Richard Spencer get punched, which proves that liberals are the real Nazis.Report

          • Brandon Berg in reply to Tod Kelly says:

            It matters because if it’s just talk, it’s not going to translate into action. A bunch of teenagers with too much time on their hands sending out threatening/harassing e-mails just to screw with people is a problem, but it’s not nearly as bad a problem as a large-scale violent radical movement that’s actually going around lynching people.Report

              • Jesse in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                As we all know, Mike, any white person that engages in obviously politically related shooting are lone gunmen and we have nothing to fear from law abiding lovers of the 2nd Amendment.

                OTOH, anytime a Muslim engages in violence, any follower of Islam in the US better have a 5,000 word defense of their religion and continued existence within the United States ready or be seen as a silent supporter of jihad and radical Islam.Report

            • RTod in reply to Brandon Berg says:

              Sending someone anonymous Rape threats is just talk? Sending SWAT teams to someone’s door in the hope things get out of hand is just talk?

              This is what I mean. You can learn to justify all kinds of acts if your focus is on what’s really in the little monsters’ hearts, not what they do or say.Report

          • DensityDuck in reply to Tod Kelly says:

            “I get what the argument is. What I don’t get is why the answer to the question matters.”

            It matters for the same reason that we make a distinction between murder and manslaughter.Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    I knew he was somewhat sexist, somewhat racist, and a big fan of Gamergate… but I didn’t know he was also a hypocrite! GET HIM!Report

    • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

      How is this responsive to Roland’s post?Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to Don Zeko says:

        Jaybird never can resist unleashing his fake Socratic Method to troll liberalism and liberals.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

        Here, let me paste some of Roland’s post for you:

        But Milo’s actions are anything but a defense of free speech principles. His attempts to silence those who dare speak of him unkindly (much like our current president) by using his swarm of online acolytes is not a political act that should find support from any ideology or persuasion.

        Worse yet, he has personally attempted to get people fired from their jobs for speaking unkindly of his enterprise.

        The entire last third of his post is dedicated to how Milo isn’t really a fan of free speech despite hiding behind the concept.

        In the circles in which *I* argue, typically, you set up arguments like this:
        Good argument
        Better argument
        Best argument to land the knockout punch.

        Assuming that Roland did that here, his knockout punch has nothing to do with Milo being bad in his own right, but in being a hypocrite.

        I was gently teasing the idea that the appeal to hypocrisy was, in itself, a particularly strong blow to land against someone like Milo especially in an essay that established early on that it wouldn’t “step into the debate around the ethics and worthiness of direct action or no platforming”.

        So it didn’t take a stand on Free Speech, it merely pointed out that Milo had one and concluded, triumphantly, that Milo wasn’t living up to it.

        That’s how it was responsive to Roland’s post.Report

        • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

          As I read it, the central thrust of Roland’s post was that college Republicans should pay attention to what Milo actually has to say, what he has done, and whether that’s what they want to be associated with rather than embracing him simply because of how the left treats him. You responded to this by…talking about how the left unfairly shouts him down.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

            You responded to this by…talking about how the left unfairly shouts him down.

            No I didn’t. I wrote “I knew he was somewhat sexist, somewhat racist, and a big fan of Gamergate… but I didn’t know he was also a hypocrite! GET HIM!”

            Then you asked me what that had to do with Roland’s post.

            Seriously, just scroll up. It’s right there.Report

            • North in reply to Jaybird says:

              FWIW I’d say being correctly identified as a hypocrite is a really telling point against Milo.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                When the context that we’re deliberately and explicitly not dwelling on is that his speech got shut down because of a riot as part of a pattern of unpleasant speakers getting shut down on campus?

                There are thousands of things to hate about Yiannapolous.

                Among other things, the fact that he has apparently read and internalized Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

                Moreover, it’s not like this particular variant of his hypocrisy is a hypocrisy that distinguishes him from his opposition among those who actually do espouse the very ideals where he is being a hypocrite. So we’ve got Yiannapolous fighting against the college left (or whatever you’d want to call them) and neither one believes in free speech.

                And the argument here seems to be “if you really believed in free speech, you’d do what just so happens to be what the people who oppose Yiannapolous want you to do”?

                I don’t find that argument likely to change a single mind.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                But it’s not about Milo, it’s about College Republicans. Rolands’ point is that if you wanna be for free speech invite a speaker who’s actually for free speech rather than Milo who appears, per his hypocrisy, to actually be merely for provocation. By inviting Milo instead of some non-hypocritical free speech conservative College Republicans are diminishing themselves.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                By inviting Milo instead of some non-hypocritical free speech conservative College Republicans are diminishing themselves.

                On an absolute level, yes.
                On a positional level, I’d say that the jury is still out.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                So college Republicans should be happy to degrade their own ideas and associate with odious fringe figures so long as it reflects even worse on the left?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                “Should” is above my pay grade.

                There will be college republican groups who will, though. They will be *DELIGHTED* to degrade their own ideas and associate with odious fringe figures so long as it reflects even worse on the left.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                So normative judgments are above your pay grade? I agree that that’s what will happen, but I’m happy to say that milo, the conservatives inviting him, and the people violently protesting him and shouting him down are all being varying levels of bad.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Normative judgments lead me to “HOLY CRAP THESE PEOPLE ARE RIOTING AND ATTACKING PEOPLE!” before it gets me to Milo.

                As such, I’m not sure that getting me to focus on the normative judgment will get me where you want me to go.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                This is whataboutism. I just said I disagree with how the campus left reacts to Milo. Why can’t you say you disagree with the college Republicans that invite him?Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Don Zeko says:

                “I just said I disagree with how the campus left reacts to Milo. Why can’t you say you disagree with the college Republicans that invite him?”

                What if Jaybird doesn’t disagree with the notion that you should give your political opponents a chance to visibly fail to live up to their stated ideals?Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Then I’d like him to come out and say it rather than continuing to dance around the question.Report

              • dragonfrog in reply to DensityDuck says:

                I can’t say with a perfect lack of uncertainty I didn’t fail to not cancel an odd number of negatives in parsing that sentence.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I am certain that I disagree with the college Republicans that invite him.

                I think that, absent the riots, they’d be doing damage to their own cause.

                Absent the riots, people would look at Milo and see that he is a transparent fraud and provocateur who is merely a genius when it comes to self-promotion and is standing on no foundation at all.

                Absent the riots, I’m sure that we’d all be able to see that sort of thing.

                Absent the riots.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                I find it interesting that no one on this thread is speaking in the first person anymore.

                No one is saying, “Wow those protests changed my political persuasion”.

                Or even in the second hand; “Wow, my friend Steve was totally a Hillary supporter until they rioted against Milo”

                Or even third hand with data: “Wow, polls have really swing in Milo’s favor since they rioted”;

                No, the comments seem to be revolving around some invisible person who can’t really be identified, but can be studied with a detached View From Nowhere that takes no position and sees both sides as bad but is firmly convinced that the liberals are worse.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                a detached View From Nowhere that takes no position and sees both sides as bad but is firmly convinced that the liberals are worse

                Don’t see it as “the liberals are worse” but that “the rioters are worse”.

                Because, in this case, both sides are bad.

                But the rioters are worse.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird says:

                But Jaybird, you have to understand that the rioters are no more with the liberal left than the KKK is with the conservative right!Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Jaybird says:

                Jaybird: Don’t see it as “the liberals are worse” but that “the rioters are worse”.

                Because, in this case, both sides are bad.

                I’m not sure. I’ve gone to listen to people I disagree with, just to hear them talk. I’m pretty sure they were invited to talk by people who didn’t agree with them.

                And what this guy is doing seems more like performance art than serious political speech.

                What he’s doing is bad, but imho whatever college conservative group brought him isn’t sullying their name all that much and the Left is shown to be violent and intolerant (which btw is a bigger problem).

                My “bad” meter for the College group doesn’t ping all that much. Now it would if they said they supported him, but he’s enough of a caricature that seems unlikely.Report

              • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                No, the comments seem to be revolving around some invisible person who can’t really be identified,…

                Right, because they are wearing masks and indistinguishable black clothing for the purpose of being able to commit felonies in anonymity.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Koz says:

                No, I was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.Report

              • Kim in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Chip! Stop Scaring the Scientologists!Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                So you agree with the post, but just can’t bear to discuss Milo without yelling about riots riots riots?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I don’t think, at this point, it’s possible to talk about Milo without spending a good chunk of time on riots, riots, riots.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                No, we can’t, because any attempt to discuss the behavior of anyone else involved will immediately be met with BUT RIOTS.Report

              • Koz in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Really, what else is there to talk about? Like I’m going to care a whole lot about the substance of Milo Yiannopoulos one way or the other.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Koz says:

                As far as I can tell, the discussion Don Zeko and Chip Daniels want to have is:

                1) Milo is bad
                2) The endReport

              • Nevermoor in reply to Don Zeko says:

                What campus left?

                For those who don’t live in the Bay Area, the “black bloc” isn’t some sort of general idea or tactic, it’s specific people who seem to delight in using any number of protests for cover to commit property crimes (for decades, but notably during and after the occupy movement). Who are assholes, but have nothing to do with the “campus left” that seemed poised to protest but not block the other asshole we’re talking about.

                And if anyone here has a problem with protest-but-not-block, I’d love to see your “defender of free speech” credentials.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Nevermoor says:

                For those who don’t live in the Bay Area, the “black bloc” isn’t some sort of general idea or tactic, it’s specific people who seem to delight in using any number of protests for cover to commit property crimes (for decades, but notably during and after the occupy movement). Who are assholes, but have nothing to do with the “campus left” that seemed poised to protest but not block the other asshole we’re talking about.

                Indeed.

                Milo, as he has been invited around the country, has been met with a steady stream of protests.

                *Protests*. No one is trying to get him barred from campus, they are out there protesting his message.

                *This time*, a particularly Oakland problem shows up: The Black Bloc assholes, who need to be tracked down and fucking arrested for repeated acts of violence and essentially being a terrorist cell, even if their ‘terrorism’ seems limited to street level violence and acts of vandalism.

                This didn’t have anything to do with the campus.

                And you could be asking ‘Why doesn’t the left disavow them?’…except it *does*. The actual left, in any place that deals with them, got sick of them long ago and want them gone. (And it’s worth pointing out that they are, literally, anti-fascist anarchists who want to burn the whole thing down, and think the Democratic party is barely better than Republican party.)

                Stop treating them as ‘the left’, and don’t treat them as ‘the college left’. Start treating them as, well, the same as the damn KKK or whatever. They are, literally, anti-fascist anarchists who want to burn the whole thing down, and think the Democratic party is barely better than Republican party. They are, at best, the ‘far-left’. (The *actual* far left, the neo-nazi equivalent of the far-left. Not, say, Bernie Sanders)

                Or, hell, maybe we should start calling them the alt-left. Apparently, the right was allowed to randomly disassociate their philosophical far-right from their violent and misogynistic and racist far-right by just calling it the ‘alt-right’, so let’s disassociate *our* philosophical far-left from our violent and misogynistic (And possibly racist?) far-left.

                They’re the idiots who killed the Occupy movement in Oakland, incidentally.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to DavidTC says:

                If you were in the crowd on Sproul Plaza that night, the antifa might have appeared to be a homogenous mass of agents of chaos descending on your “resistance dance party.” This is understandable. Black bloc tactics are primarily designed to protect the identities of the individuals in the bloc from doxxing, surveillance footage and being singled out for arrest. You couldn’t tell who was behind those masks, and that’s the point.

                But don’t get it twisted. We were not, as the news, the chancellor and concerned progressives have alleged, “unaffiliated white anarchists.” Behind those bandanas and black T-shirts were the faces of your fellow UC Berkeley and Berkeley City College students, of women, of people of color, of queer and trans people.

                “Stop treating them as ‘the left’, and don’t treat them as ‘the college left’. Start treating them as, well, the same as the damn KKK”

                Possibly @jaybird is right… if you have a riot problem, thinking you have a Milo problem might be fraught with unintended consequences.

                I will say this though, having now read and watched Milo in action (Thanks Obama OT), my counter intuitive thought for the day is that Milo isn’t there for the Republicans, he’s recruiting the Liberals. The Republicans? They are being subverted by request. Whatever the Alt-Right is (and I’m pretty sure y’all don’t get it), it is a youth movement, and it’s target is Millennials. The millions of views he’s getting? Those aren’t closet conservatives, they are Alt-curious snake people.

                So, Roland is absolutely right, “conservatives” shouldn’t ask Milo to speak to their youth… he’s recruiting, he’s just not recruiting for anything conservative. Possibly he’s recruiting for a new Republican party. But then, the Republican party is a failed project; long live the Republican Party.Report

              • Brandon Berg in reply to DavidTC says:

                No one is trying to get him barred from campus

                I haven’t been following all that closely, but from what I can tell, that is exactly what they’re trying to do.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Brandon Berg says:

                Allow me to rephrase:

                A large amount of students and other people had tried all sorts of ways to have him barred from campus on various grounds. (Grounds that actually seem pretty solid, BTW. There is pretty solid evidence that he *personally calls out students* for various things he doesn’t like, which is almost certainly a violation of university harassment codes.(1))

                The *protesters at the event* were not trying to have him banned, they were, in fact, calling what they were doing a ‘dance party’ and presenting a counter message of love and inclusion, which sounds a bit goofy to me, but whatever. They were not trying to stop Milo from speaking at that point, they were not trying to stop people from entering to hear him speak. (This is also how it has worked at other campuses, AFAIK.)

                Until the antifa showed up and started breaking stuff and threatening people.

                1) Which presents a rather obvious way to solve the entire damn problem of Milo: Hey, group of students trying to invite someone to campus? If they break any university rules, (Especially rules they appear to break *every time they give a speech*, i.e., things you can’t claim ignorance about) you will all get punished as if you had broken them.

                Threaten the College Republican for expulsion based on *Milo’s* behavior. Say you’re basically going to pretend that *each of them* gave his speech, and, BTW, they might want to quickly check the school handbook again for what ‘harassment’ consists of. See how quickly they decide that his stunt show is a bad idea.Report

              • Iron Tum in reply to DavidTC says:

                Yes, the rioters totally weren’t connected to UCB students.

                Except for those students who talked about being part of it in yesterday’s Daily Cal.

                And that staff member bragging about beating people up.

                And those faculty also in yesterday’s paper.

                But other than those, yup. Totally unconnected.Report

              • veronica d in reply to Jaybird says:

                @jaybird — Except I didn’t hear a peep from you when a Milo supporter literally shot a protestor. Nor do you seem particularly bothered by violence from right wing hate groups. For example, your visceral response to the recent Quebec City shooting was — well — it was weird.

                You judge a person not only by their words, but by the passion behind those words. You care a lot about the things the left does, but not so much about things the right does.

                I think I understand. You’re an “aggrieved white guy,” with all the ensuing pathologies. On the other hand, you’re smart enough to see how that is a dead end viewpoint. On the third hand, your visceral reaction show through.

                You are the Milo supporter, even if it tears you up inside.Report

              • Kim in reply to veronica d says:

                v,
                And I didn’t hear a peep from you when — rather than gamergate amorphous “death threats”, a transsexual decided to murder someone’s mom because a guy SaidSomethingOnTheInternet.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to veronica d says:

                Yes. This is another example of the “you are a bad person” argument.

                It has nothing to do with the position, but (instead) with the associations you’re hoping will be made with the other person.

                Except I didn’t hear a peep from you when a Milo supporter literally shot a protestor

                This story. Do you want me to talk about it now or not?

                From the first paragraph:

                Though the details of the incident are shaky, police have confirmed that an anti-Trump protester was non-fatally shot outside of a Milo Yiannapolous event at the University of Washington on Friday. The police took the alleged shooter, described as an Asian man, in custody, but have since released him after he told them he thought the protester was a “white supremacist” and he was simply acting in self-defense.

                I would have turned it into a discussion about why it’s important to not punch Nazis.

                I’d have put emphasis on the whole “it’s not that I don’t think real Nazis shouldn’t be punched, it’s that I don’t trust your Nazi Detectors to the point where I think we should be handing out Nazi Hunting Licenses”.

                But I thought that I made all of those points ad nauseum before.

                In any case, could you point me to the stories you need me to comment on so that I can comment on other stories for the next week?

                Maybe we could make that a thing. “Stories everybody needs to chime in on if they want to comment on stuff next month.”

                For example, your visceral response to the recent Quebec City shooting was — well — it was weird.

                It was an attempt to mock the politicization of attacks. Everybody was holding their breath to find out who the shooter was before they gave one of their two speeches on violence.

                I think I understand. You’re an “aggrieved white guy,” with all the ensuing pathologies. On the other hand, you’re smart enough to see how that is a dead end viewpoint. On the third hand, your visceral reaction show through.

                I will tell you what I told Chip back on Saturday:

                Here’s one of the things that I keep noticing:

                The style of argument that says that when one can make the argument about the other person, one can dismiss the other person’s argument after establishing that the other person is bad.

                So, in the future, let’s assume that I am bad. Just straight from the get-go. Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, let’s just pile them on.

                There.

                We’ve established that I am bad.

                To use your words, “the Milo supporter”.

                Now what?

                I’m not sure that yelling “THAT PERSON IS BAD!” works anymore. The problem is that it worked so well for so long that a lot of people have forgotten the other ways to argue against people.

                So let’s assume that I am Milo’s biggest fan.

                Do you have an argument beyond that?Report

              • dragonfrog in reply to Jaybird says:

                Everybody was holding their breath to find out who the shooter was before they gave one of their two speeches on violence.

                What a mind reader you are.Report

              • North in reply to veronica d says:

                I know I’m not around a ton these days but don’t we usually take people at their word about what they believe rather than divining their true intentions through deeper readings of them as a person?Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to veronica d says:

                ” I didn’t hear a peep from you when a Milo supporter literally shot a protestor. ”

                He shot someone with a swastika tattoo who, he thought, attacked him in a scrum. It’s a dumb situation and the guy shouldn’t have been carrying if he was going to act like that, but if you want to make this be a thing where Milo Supporters Are Literally Targeting People For Assassination And Jaybird Doesn’t Care, you’re gonna need something better than that.Report

              • Damon in reply to veronica d says:

                You mean this guy?

                Released. “The man and his wife surrendered to UW police several hours later, claiming he fired in self-defense, according to law-enforcement officials. He was questioned and released. The Seattle Times is not naming the man because he has not been charged with a crime.”

                Assuming no new evidence, he did nothing wrong.Report

              • So college Republicans should be happy to degrade their own ideas and associate with odious fringe figures

                It’s a requirement if they want to grow up to be real Republicans.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                Well hell I’m absolutely one of the “stop being violent you idiots; if you actually care about left/liberal causes (and the jury is out on that) being violent hurts them” liberals.
                But this post was about College Republicans and what inviting Milo says about them, regardless of how Liberals do or don’t react.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                But this post was about College Republicans and what inviting Milo says about them, regardless of how Liberals do or don’t react.

                With an emphasis on Milo’s hypocrisy with regards to Free Speech that followed an explicit acknowledgement of the no-platforming that takes place on college campuses.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                No, with an emphasis on how Milo’s behavior is inconsistent with the claimed commitment to free speech by the College Republicans who pay him to speak at their events.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Yet it’s sadly consistent with the left mentioned in this paragraph:

                I won’t step into the debate around the ethics and worthiness of direct action or no platforming. This is an essential dispute that the various coalitions of the left will need to continuously discuss in the age of Trump and beyond.

                The question of consistency is a question of “consistency in *WHAT*”?

                I mean, if consistency is a virtue at all. (Personally, I see consistency as more of a handmaiden of the virtues than a virtue in and of itself.)Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

                What about this? What about that? Ooh, look over there, a squirrel calling someone a racist! We have, have had, and will have plenty of threads in which to talk about whether or not lefty protesters are doing it right or not. Roland was trying to have just one thread about whether or not College Republicans should keep paying Milo money and giving him a forum, and apparently the reasoned judgment of the right-of-center commentariat here is that no, we absolutely cannot talk about that thing, because the lefty protesters are doing it wrong and we need to talk about them, right now, right here, instead of talking about what Roland was trying to talk about.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Well, I’ll just say this again:

                I am certain that I disagree with the college Republicans that invite him.

                I think that, absent the riots, they’d be doing damage to their own cause.

                Absent the riots, people would look at Milo and see that he is a transparent fraud and provocateur who is merely a genius when it comes to self-promotion and is standing on no foundation at all.

                Absent the riots, I’m sure that we’d all be able to see that sort of thing.

                Absent the riots.Report

            • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

              If you want to talk about hypocrisy, I’d say the post wasn’t about Milo’s hypocrosy. It was about how an organization committed to free speech on campus wouldn’t invite Milo to speak because he’s not a supporter of free speech.Report

            • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

              But that said, your post sure sounds to me like you were mockingly adopting the voice of a liberal labeling and shouting down Milo. Perhaps I didn’t read your intent correctly, but I don’t think that’s my fault as a reader here.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Don Zeko says:

                So, if he adopted that voice and says the same things that the liberals shouting down Milo say, does that make those things wrong? If so, why? Are they wrong because Jaybird, or wrong because they’re wrong in themselves?Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to DensityDuck says:

                They’re wrong because they are side-stepping the point of the post and, just like the college Republicans Roland was calling out, ignoring the noxious racist bully in the conservative ranks in order to complain about lefty protesters. It’s a move that can be wrong even if the criticism of the lefty protesters is 100% valid and accurate.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Don Zeko says:

                ” they are side-stepping the point of the post ”

                The point of the post is “forget about the riots, MILO IS BAD”, and that is begging a pretty big question.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to DensityDuck says:

                If you want to live in a world where the badness of a thing doesn’t matter at all so long as it is opposed by an arguably worse thing, have fun.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Don Zeko says:

                “I’m sure that you want to talk about George Zimmerman, but we need to look at the serious problem of neighborhood crime and the inability of police to respond effectively.”Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to DensityDuck says:

                All liberals are fairly tarred with anything the dumbest of them says. No republican is fairly tarred with anything even the leadership of the GOP says.

                It’s been sixteen years of this. Until you let me know when you’re responsible for things Trump does, don’t make me responsible for things a group of non-campus east bay degenerates does.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Nevermoor says:

                “All liberals are fairly tarred with anything the dumbest of them says. No republican is fairly tarred with anything even the leadership of the GOP says.”

                what in the hell are you even talking about dude

                “Until you let me know when you’re responsible for things Trump does, don’t make me responsible for things a group of non-campus east bay degenerates does.”

                I got an idea. How about you stop saying “whoa, the KKK endorsed Trump, DOESN’T THAT MEAN SOMETHING” and we’ll stop saying “whoa, anti-Milo protestors set things on fire and smashed windows, that reflects badly on the movement, or maybe it would if there were any unbroken glass left”Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Ok. How about “Trump wants to arrest 5 year olds because they are Muslims, why do you support that?”Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Nevermoor says:

                I’m not sure what point you think you’re making, here, because you’re doing the very thing that you tell me never happens.Report

  4. notme says:

    Maybe if Milo didn’t get all the attention from the rioting snowflakes his shtick might wear thin and eventually no one would care.Report

    • Troublesome Frog in reply to notme says:

      I think you’re probably right. He’d ratchet up his assholery just to the edge of legality in an attempt to get attention, but if it didn’t get him the attention, that would be it. Unfortunately he has a critical mass of supporters that allow him to make trouble for some time without any new attention, so the opportunity to nip him in the bud by simply ignoring him has passed. People being outraged fed him too much and now he has momentum.

      Now people either have to do the hard work of ignoring a big groundswell of assholery for an extended period of time while the lack of attention starves the phenomenon, which is hard, so protesters and people with voices in the media are going to keep playing his game and feeding him. They deserve each other. If only there was a way to avoid making him rich while they clash.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to notme says:

      When you’re right, you’re right.Report

  5. Saul Degraw says:

    I think Road Scholar has it right above. The Republican Party has been turned into the Party of Trump and Breitbart. Trump might be unpopular overall but 81 percent of the GOP base loves him.

    This might have always been the case. A lot of leading conservatives like Coulter cut their teeth mocking liberals on campus in ways that were callous and Milo lite. As to “generating debate”, I think they are a sniveling bunch of cowards hiding behind weasel words.

    There is a liberal meme that I have seen on the net. It showed Trump cruely imitating the disabled reporter for the Times. The picture is accompanied by text that states “I don’t know why this did not disqualify Trump” or some such.

    I know why and I am a liberal. A lot of humans are tribal and cruel and will look for any opportunity to be cruel. It never and will never occur to them that making fun of someone for an immutable trait or background characteristic is wrong. When did my fellow liberals become Pollyannas on human nature?Report

    • LeeEsq in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      I don’t know that liberals are exactly naive on human nature. Based on my reading of LGM, a lot of them seem to think that all white people in the United States are evil by birth, especially if they are men. They also think that anybody who disagrees with them on even the most minor point are evil or at best severely misguided. That’s being Calvinistic, not Pollyannish.Report

      • Kim in reply to LeeEsq says:

        Of course liberals are naive about human nature. That’s by definition. Liberals believe that all humans should be treated alike. (Under Color of the Law is a sidenote, and a restriction that doesn’t apply to a lot of what the liberals stand for).Report

      • Brent F in reply to LeeEsq says:

        And since this topic is specifically about campus politics, in my recent experience its quite easy to be treated like your a reactionary for being a technocratic liberal rather than a fully committed advocate of social justice as understood by the campus left crowd. I felt pretty sorry for the explicity christian or free-marketer students for how in the minority and shouted down they must have felt.

        On the other hand, what I’m pretty sure the motivation for the campus Repulicans in this case was not “free speech,” but a provcation to make people they don’t like look bad. Which they succeed at because people don’t know better than to not be baited like that.Report

  6. Chip Daniels says:

    “I would like to actually ask college Republicans to articulate what they hope to gain from bringing Milo.”

    Make libruls heds assplode.

    The conservative movement has nothing other than Cleek’s Law and spite left.

    What do they believe in?
    What are their motivating principles?

    They have abandoned every single possible principle of conservatism, from free market economics to moral propriety to American defense of the free world.

    We keep analyzing and studying the Trump base, and keep finding the same answer; they are angry, and believe they have been wronged, and want to punish someone.Report

    • Joe Sal in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      Chip your using an outdated model.Report

      • North in reply to Joe Sal says:

        Do elaborate.Report

        • Joe Sal in reply to North says:

          How many angry conservatives you seen lately?

          I don’t even know who ‘college Republicans’ are supposed to refer to in the essay other than maybe some coastal republican college kids. Maybe they are thumbin’ in the eye of liberals, but what are we talking 10,000 yutes?

          Conservatives are moving nearly every goalpost they can in the direction they want.Report

          • Joe Sal in reply to Joe Sal says:

            Hell if I were to pick a population of angry frothing at the mouth folks like Chip always likes to make fun of, well, who would I be looking at today.Report

            • Nevermoor in reply to Joe Sal says:

              How about the people who finally have to come up with a single effing clue on healthcare, after eight years of dishonest mouth-froth.Report

            • Troublesome Frog in reply to Joe Sal says:

              I think the difference is that the party out of power is always angry, but there seems to be only one side that reliably does stuff primarily because it upsets the other guys. With the exception of gay wedding cake court stunts, I don’t see a lot of, “Because it pisses conservatives off,” as the reason for doing things.

              Milo is definitely a “because he pisses liberals off” phenomenon. If they had to just sit in a room and listen to him without the joy of knowing that upsetting people they don’t like, only the much smaller subset who thinks Ann Coulter is a deep thinker would actually be entertained.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                Yeah the alt-right and Milo are pretty small subsets to be making broad assumptions about.Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Joe Sal says:

                I think I just need to point out that I’ve had a number of discussions on this very forum with people who use, “Because it pisses liberals off,” as a reason they support certain policies. University speaker invitations made out of spite are just another manifestation of the problem that underlies government by spite.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                There for sure is a state of enmity. Even if a truce were made all the old positions would soon re-apply themselves to the same hills.
                I feel that it comes from the way liberals appear to ‘own’ and progress the social policy world. It is seen as aggressive if not outright coercive in many circumstances.

                Aggressing against an agressor isn’t held in the same light as aggressing against a non-aggressor. That’s why the ‘pissing liberals off’ is kind of a vectored thing.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to Joe Sal says:

              Hell if I were to pick a population of angry frothing at the mouth folks like Chip always likes to make fun of, well, who would I be looking at today.

              Well, lets start with the Frother-in Chief, with his Twitter tirades.Report

          • Pinky in reply to Joe Sal says:

            “Conservatives are moving nearly every goalpost they can in the direction they want.”

            ?Report

          • North in reply to Joe Sal says:

            Lately? Not many, after all their party just ostensibly won the election. I’m not exactly in tune with conservative thought but I’d describe their mood as a combination of delight and terror.

            None of that, however, addresses Chips’ points. In electing Trump the conservatives demonstrated that very few of their ostensible principles are actually central. Character doesn’t matter, defense hawkishness is once again demonstrated as a chimera, social conservatives continues their retreat (albeit now in a more orderly controlled manner credit where it’s due), and the republican versions of libertarianism stand stripped of every veneer of voter support from their own side. What do conservatives actually believe in now days? In the wake of Trump’s election it’s difficult to say for sure beyond spiting liberals- I’m unsure if Trump even knows himself.Report

            • Joe Sal in reply to North says:

              I would have to see some pretty clear attribute data to connect voting for a person in a political system, to someones personal principles or beliefs. Especially given the years of screwed upness of the system in question.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to North says:

              After Trump’s defense of Putin to Bill O’Reilly, in saying America has a lot of killers too, I wandered thru the comments setion of Gateway Pundit, the most reliable Trump outlet after Breitbart.

              It was interesting/ sad to see a pitched battle between the rightists declaring “Yeah, America has no moral ground to criticize Russia!” and the “b-but Putin is a monster!”

              FWIW, the pro-Russian side appears to be winning the day.
              Matt Levin calls them the “CodePink Republicans” and I gotta say, its an apt description.
              Only 2 years ago anyone voicing such a comment would have been declared a traitor;
              Today, we are friends with Russia, we have always been friends with Russia.

              A few years ago, anyone suggesting that President Obama install a tariff wall to outsourcing, would have received a haughty lesson in “Econ 101”;

              Today, we demand a command and control economy, we have always demanded a command and control economy.

              I mean, seriously can anyone here actually articulate a “conservative” position that is evidenced by the Trump Administration?Report

            • LeeEsq in reply to North says:

              Conservatives believe in using government to make wealthy people wealthier at the expense of everything else and using every rhetorical tactic possible to do so even if it means invoking some of the uglier parts of human nature like raw tribalism.Report

          • Burt Likko in reply to Joe Sal says:

            I think there’s still a market for “say whatever makes liberals’ heads asplode.” It may not be quite the same thing now, but that’s because the agitated policy bromides need to identify some remnant of the Obama Administration or an external threat to agitate against, and then it gets followed by a brand-new coda that I’ve heard a lot of: “And we’re in power and you aren’t so we’re going to do this if we want to. By the way, you changed the rules so you can sit down, shut up, and if you don’t like it, try to win an election sometime you liberal LOSERS!” I’ve seen that, expressed in various ways, a fair amount from the rightward members of my twitterfeed, which usually results in dozens of likes and retweets.Report

            • Joe Sal in reply to Burt Likko says:

              Man, I used twitter once and put it down and never looked back. I catch stuff on the sidebar here on occasion. Not sure that’s the platform of level heads.

              I’m sure if anyone of the right is stuck over there in cali, they probably would be a little hostile. 😉Report

  7. Pinky says:

    Ben Shapiro will energize the crowd and bring out the protesters as much as Milo Yiannopolous, but he’s smart. If you’re thinking about a campus speaker and you’re hoping to trigger some leftist outrage, why not go with the guy who’ll give a meaningful presentation?Report

    • Troublesome Frog in reply to Pinky says:

      That sort of gives away the game. The only thing Milo offers is more leftist anger in exchange for less content. If they’re making that trade off, we know what the audience really wants.Report

      • Pinky in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

        Ben and Milo have both been barred from campuses; they’ve both had events disrupted by protesters. Up until a week ago I would have said that they’re equally controversial. As far as I know they’re equally in circulation on the lecture trail.Report

        • Troublesome Frog in reply to Pinky says:

          I would say they’re equally controversial with the types of people who protest speeches at universities, but Elmo is probably just as controversial as they are with that crowd. Getting the fringe worked up is easy. If you want to get *everybody* who isn’t nuts annoyed at you, you invite Milo.

          For myself, I’m a pretty reliable Democrat but not especially radical in my beliefs and I don’t even really consider Shapiro and Yiannapolous to be the same sort of organism. The only thing they have in common is that they’re on the right and they upset various segments of the left. Beyond that, one of them is a legitimate thinker who believes the things he says and the other is a clown who wouldn’t be making any money if he didn’t have the power to cause riots and will say anything as long as the riots keep happening.Report

          • Pinky in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

            I think we’re mostly in agreement. My problem with your comment about what “the audience really wants” is that is seemed to imply that Milo is significantly more popular than Ben. He may be more popular, but I don’t think it’s a blowout. They look comparable in Youtube view count.Report

            • Troublesome Frog in reply to Pinky says:

              Well, the important thing to remember here is that if there’s one slot, he just needs to get 51% of the votes of whatever small set of people are choosing the speaker. It doesn’t say a heck of a lot about his popularity in the grand scheme of things. As long as he fills an auditorium, he’s popular enough. We’d have to look at turnout numbers for both to know which one is more popular with the actual viewers, but based on my experience with college students attending speaker events, I’d put my money on Milo.

              But to the extent that *some* group of people made the decision, it reveals their preferences pretty neatly.Report

  8. Pinky says:

    “Stop feeding Milo Yiannopolous.”
    =
    “Baby, you’ve got to know better than to talk back to me when I’ve been drinking. It’ll just get your lip split.”Report

  9. Chip Daniels says:

    The liberal handwringing over Milo and the people who loudly oppose him seems overwrought.

    The utilitarian argument asserts that the violent protests somehow help him appear sympathetic; I don’t believe this.

    In order for that argument to be true, there has to be a significant set of people who are ambivalent about Milo, but after seeing the violent protests swing in his favor.

    Where are these people, have we heard from them? Or do they exist only in David Broder’s ghost’s head?

    The other idea is some sort of free speech absolutism, the Nazis-in-Skokie thing.

    I can be sympathetic, but my sympathies are very limited.
    Because civil society must have boundaries and taboos and limits.

    If you want to be protected by the umbrella of civil society, you kind of need to establish you are a part of it.Report

    • Don Zeko in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      It doesn’t have to be that it makes Milo look good, it just has to be that it plays into (imo unfair and irrational) impressions of marginal voters that liberals are kooks and hippies and rioters. If you look at how these events are covered, it’s all about how bad and scary the protests are rather than how odious and awful the guy the college Republicans are embracing is. It’s unfair, but it’s how the world works.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to Don Zeko says:

        Right, but who are these people who get these impressions?
        The marginal swing voters?
        I doubt it.
        And how could we counter?

        Because you know that the Murdoch press has struggled mightily to portray the millions of people in the Women’s March as paid stooges of George Soros, fringe anarchists, souor grapes Hillary supporters, or any other epithet they could invent.

        As we’ve discussed on other threads, it doesn’t matter what we do, what we say, how we act.
        We aren’t being viewed and judged by an impassive objective jury;

        To frame all of our protests on “How can we prevent Fox News from making us look bad” allows them manipulate us into silence because, you will find out that the only protest that isn’t a violent thuggish fringe is one that celebrates the Dear Leader.Report

        • Don Zeko in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Most people that view the anti-Milo protests that way aren’t gettable votes, true. Not all of them are. How many votes do we win with these protests? Who is impressed by them that isn’t already on board?Report

          • Nevermoor in reply to Don Zeko says:

            Radical theory: elections aren’t going to be won by reaching for a middle that doesn’t exist. They’ll be won by mobilizing those who support you to actually effing vote.

            Violent protests are bad for that, which is one of the many reasons that the black bloc is stupid. Protests, however, are great for that, which is why the GOP is trying desperately to discredit the huge volume of protest we’ve had so far. Or, hilariously, try for a BSDI by showing literally dozens of pro-trumpers “rallying.”Report

        • North in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Prevent? No? But maybe not make it so laughably easy for the right wing media clowns to do their paint by numbers shtick?Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          “who are these people who get these impressions? The marginal swing voters?”

          Bro, we just had an election where the marginal swing voters stayed home and Donald Trump WON because of it.Report

    • North in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      Chip, dude, you and I both know there’s a huge horde of low info voters and their votes count just as much as the votes of the much smaller numbers of high info voters. When they hear about Milo they have no clue what he stands for except A) liberals say he’s a monster and B) some leftists riot and burn property over him. To low info voters A) liberals call everyone monsters and B) people who riot and burn property are unsympathetic and they like to vote against them.
      So it’s not hard for me to see a pretty strong utilitarian argument against violent leftists even before we talk about how these idiots hurt their own causes and are damaging norms that protect leftists and anti-institutionalists far more than they protect the establishment or right wingers. I’m not going to quote Robert Bolt but you know it’s salient here.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to North says:

        I would like to meet one of these people and see what their impressions of the Bundy gang were.

        Boy, they must surely have become Hillary supporters after that episode!Report

        • North in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          They’d probably say “Bundy who?”Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to North says:

            And if I asked about the assassinations of abortion providers, they would scratch their heads and knit their brows.
            If I asked about the training camps for white militia groups, the bomb threats to Jewish groups, Eric Rudolph…crickets.

            This is why I think the whole problem is hypersensitivity of the left to our fringe.

            The right loves their bombthrowers, both the metaphorical and literal kind.
            And they don’t suffer from it.
            Why should we?

            The swing voter who might come to our side, but for the black bloc guys;
            but for the Occupy guy who crapped on a cops car;
            but for the MoveOn guy who drew a Hitler mustache on GWB’s photo;
            but for the campus silliness of safe spaces;
            BUT FOR HER EMAILS…

            these people are mythical beasts.Report

            • North in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Odd, I usually find that right wingers frantically and angrily denounce people who assassinate abortion providers and claim they’re not true rightists.

              Okay so the mushy center is imaginary? I don’t believe it; the available data doesn’t support it. 2008 happened in the same universe as 2016.

              Let’s turn it around here? Who, exactly, does a masked idiot setting fire to things and breaking windows make go “You know those guys sure make me more enthusiastic about supporting their causes”?Report

            • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Wow, right-wingers must be really stupid. Like, sub-human stupid. Why do you even talk to them?Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          “I would like to meet one of these people and see what their impressions of the Bundy gang were.”

          “Huh, so the government says that these ranchers aren’t allowed to run cattle? Sounds like the ranchers are gettin’ a shitty deal there. They’re in an armed standoff? That’s kinda dangerous, hope nobody gets hurt like happened at Waco.”Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      I think I am somewhere between you and Don Zeko.

      I agree that there is a lot of pearl clutching on this issue and the number of people with neutral opinion’s on Milo Y can probably fit very comfortably into a phone booth. On the other hand, the left seems to get lumped together when in truth Anarchists and Communists have very little in common with mainstream liberals like me.

      It is interesting that a lot of people consider me far to the left when I can point to people who make me seem center-right in many ways. But a lot of people (wrongly in my opinion) lump all the protestors together and I also think Steve Bannon would love to see an anti-Trump protest erupt into people throwing things at cops and breaking even more windows.

      I don’t like the Black Bloc. I largely consider them people who want to break things as opposed to people pushing for specific changes.

      One of the reasons I think OWS fell apart is because you initially had working people like cops and teachers who were sympathetic but it was taken over by people who just wanted to burn everything down and start again. The incramentalism v. burn it all down argument will always cripple the left.Report

    • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      If you want to be protected by the umbrella of civil society, you kind of need to establish you are a part of it.

      Exactly. I think you’re just mistaken as it pertains to who this is supposed to apply to. Libs think they’re just “resisting” the Trump Administration, but really they’re resisting most of civil society. And society can and likely will take countermeasures.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to Koz says:

        they’re resisting most of civil society.

        By doing what…?Report

        • Francis in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          … voting for Hillary in greater aggregate numbers than DJT;
          … having a really big march;
          … telling true stories about the importance of the ACA in keeping them alive;
          … thereby scaring off the Republican party from passing its ACA repeal bill
          … truthfully pointing out that Presidential spokespeople are having trouble with telling the truth;
          …. truthfully pointing out DJT’s most notable efforts to date in “shaking things up” have not complied with the law or Constitution;

          … in general, preventing Koz from getting what he (she? lost track) wants (which, as best I can tell, is complete submission by liberals)Report

        • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Specifically, by their attempts to prevent the Trump Administration from performing the day-to-day operations of the Executive Branch.

          More generally, by their pollution of our cultural sphere through their assumptions of territorial control over it, eg, this Milo thing. People need to have the freedom to engage with each other on their own terms. We all have some idea what that’s supposed to entail, and what the reasonable exceptions or caveats might be.

          A lot of libs like to believe this, until it becomes inconvenient, and then the morally defective rationalizations come out. This spoils our public culture. So it’s important to emphasize that the downside to libs goes substantially beyond the relatively narrow confines of politics.Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Koz says:

            their attempts to prevent the Trump Administration from performing the day-to-day operations of the Executive Branch.

            Like, by hiding the light switches?

            …pollution of our cultural sphere…

            I’m tempted to go full “Old School Conservative Chip” and start quoting Russell Kirk, or Moynihan, or Buckley or Muggeridge on you, and go on at length about the need for civil society to stand its ground against the transgressive profanity of Milo and his crowd.

            See, what makes Milo so newsworthy is that he uses the transgressive cultural violence of the countercultural Yippies, in the opposite direction. He is channeling Abbie Hoffman but flips the bird not at the Pentagon but at the staid edifices of modern moral conformity in favor of a radical individualism.Report

            • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Like, by hiding the light switches?

              ?

              I’m tempted to go full “Old School Conservative Chip” and start quoting Russell Kirk, or Moynihan, or Buckley or Muggeridge on you, and go on at length about the need for civil society to stand its ground against the transgressive profanity of Milo and his crowd.

              And if you did, I’d probably be inclined to agree with you. But that’s not what this is about now, is it? But fwiw, I have seen very little of Milo directly but my impressions agrees with yours (Yippies, Abbie Hoffman etc.), which is why I find him vaguely distasteful.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Koz says:

                What has happened over the past few decades is the lefts version of individualism has weakened, and their embrace of solidarity and community norms has strengthened.

                For example in 1972 a liberal view of homosexuality might celebrate no strings attached sexual freedom while a 2016 version celebrates married gay parents and lesbian Scout leaders.

                Most community norms and social culture have now absorbed liberal notions; laws demand access for the handicapped, men marry men, corporations celebrate Happy Holidays instead of Christmas, and women advance in careers that were once reserved for men.

                What the Trump voters reject, is not a change in norms- its far too late for that.

                What they are advocating is revanchism and restoration, to explode the current norms in favor of the old ones.

                Enter Milo, the bombthrower.Report

              • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                This is an odd comment, and I don’t think it holds up as written. You’re probably thinking of ancillary situations relative to what you have written.

                For example in 1972 a liberal view of homosexuality might celebrate no strings attached sexual freedom while a 2016 version celebrates married gay parents and lesbian Scout leaders.

                I’m no big expert on homosexuality but this reads wrong for me. But my guess is, in 1972 almost every sort of Leftist (including conventional liberals) would have agreed in the aesthetic revulsion against homosexuality. And as far as making a political point, the more Marxist inclined would have said that it was a late capitalist degeneracy of the alienation from labor (in retrospect, they might have been right).

                Most community norms and social culture have now absorbed liberal notions; laws demand access for the handicapped, men marry men, corporations celebrate Happy Holidays instead of Christmas, and women advance in careers that were once reserved for men.

                The political energy and violence behind this relative to the plausible return doesn’t make sense either, and creates some weird time warps in libs’ minds. Like we have to have stairways in 747s to be ADA compliant, in order to retroactively refight the civil rights movement or women’s suffrage.

                Enter Milo, the bombthrower.

                And this doesn’t work either, at least not directly. Trump is not a revanchist, Milo is especially not a revanchist. I think you think some low-left English triple bank shot logic to make this work.Report

              • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Enter Milo, the bombthrower.

                The Milo riots at Berkeley have exposed an interesting lacuna in lib thought over the last couple of weeks or however it’s been.

                So far we’ve seen a few different responses to the riots. Eg, “those were just a few anarchist troublemakers, nothing representative of libs in general.” One the of the libs here took this angle, and to be fair it was substantially more credible when he started that line of argument than it is now.

                Robert Reich insinuated that the rioters were in fact right-wing agents provacateur.

                Some elements of the Berkeley campus Left basically said, yeah Milo sucks, the riots were a good thing.

                Finally, at least one blogpost (linked from here) tried to argue that free speech wasn’t a real principle to respect any more, but a bourgeois conceit or some other Left jargon for something acceptable to disdain. Frankly, that one scares me the most, because I fear that a good number of the libs here are sympathetic to that, or at least would be if they thought about it.

                But for me, there’s an dog that’s not barking here. There’s an obvious alternative that the libs seem to be putting in a decent effort to avoid considering. Specifically, “I, as lib, know at some level that it’s wrong for me to attempt to prevent a generic speaker from meeting with a willing audience. But, in this case at least, I want to assert at least a little bit of control over it anyway. And I did this because I was a bad person.”

                It’s very important for libs to be able to acknowledge this, not just in this one case but in general, even though it could be embarrassing or painful.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Koz says:

                As I said elsewhere, my response is to ignore him, which is also the best way to make him go away. exerting control to stop disliked speech isn’t liberal, it’s Mitch McConnell.Report

              • Koz in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                I guess that’s another response, which I suppose I could have mentioned, though frankly I didn’t see much of it.

                Fwiw, I didn’t write anything but I agreed with your prior argument about Elizabeth Warren. Ie, that she violated the Senate rule pertaining to Jeff Sessions but the context where she was speaking was in relation to a nominee before the Senate as opposed to a colleague. It doesn’t happen often enough to worry about I guess.Report

              • notme in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Enter Milo, the bombthrower.

                Neither you nor the left can control the existence of folks like Milo, however, folks can control how they act/react or respond. So far the response doesn’t seem to live up to the better angels of the left’s nature. (assuming there are any)Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to notme says:

                Well ok, if Milo is out on a fringe where we expect to see crazy people that can’t be controlled by the center, why are we assuming “the left” can control the people breaking windows? How about the college republicans that invite Milo to speak and pay him money, are they responsible for their actions?Report

              • notme in reply to Don Zeko says:

                How about the college republicans that invite Milo to speak and pay him money, are they responsible for their actions?

                Of course they are. I hope this isn’t a sad attempt to compare free speech to violence.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to notme says:

                Of course it isn’t; I’ve said repeatedly in this thread that rioting over some guy speaking at a campus event is bad and wrong. I’m just wondering why it is that you think Milo’s general awfulness doesn’t say anything about the right or Republicans, but the rioting of a few dozen or maybe hundred people at this event says something about the left writ large.Report

              • notme in reply to Don Zeko says:

                general awfulness

                I’m not sure what that means but it sounds an awful lot like “stuff I don’t like,” which strikes me as whining.Report

              • Koz in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I’m not buying the idea that Milo is generally awful. But it’s pretty clear from the aftermath of the riots and other expressions of “resistance” that these riots are fairly associated with the modern Left in America, among other reasons because the Left has made that association themselves.

                The Left has corrupted, in their own minds the rhythm and context of politics in the larger space of the public sphere, and the “resistance” is the current expression of that corruption. So instead of trying to micromanage Milo’s ability to talk on campus or Donald Trump’s Executive Orders, the appropriate move for all parties is for the libs to uncorrupt that first.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Koz says:

                “I’m not buying the idea that Milo is generally awful.”

                Well then…Report

              • Koz in reply to Kazzy says:

                I guess we’re agreed then.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                wondering why it is that you think Milo’s general awfulness doesn’t say anything about the right or Republicans, but the rioting of a few dozen or maybe hundred people at this event says something about the left writ large.

                Two issues.

                First, what Milo is doing is legal. I, as a bystander, am under no obligation to stop him, gather evidence for the police, use my smartphone to take photos, etc. Everyone knows who he is and where he is so there are no problems enforcing the law if he does step over the line.

                For the Protesters, the opposite is true. If my roommate or fellow protester is breaking things or starting fires, then me not turning in my phone’s evidence is a problem, so is me covering for him in any way.

                2nd, we’ve had people on this forum state what Milo is doing isn’t even problematic. That Milo-the-reality is different than Milo-the-Left’s-claim. The Left has a long history of screaming “wolf” for their naked political advantage, and it’s possible they’re doing it yet again.

                It’s possible that Milo *isn’t* “generally awful” and the Left is just using false accusations to stir up trouble and then blaming the Right for their own violence.

                That this is, as usual, about the Left wanting power and not “the Right being awful”.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Well ok, I suppose i shouldn’t have taken @notme ‘s comment distancing himself from Milo seriously. He is a member in good standing of the right and liberals like Ben Shapiro and Ian Tuttle in the National Review are wrong to think that he is, at best, running cover for open racism and anti-semitism. My mistake; I’ll go back to flagellating myself for being on the same side of the political spectrum as some criminals in Berkely that I’ve already condemned repeatedly in this thread.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I suppose what both of us should do is find a clip of Milo’s act and see if it’s really vile or just somewhat vile or even just on the edge.

                On the other hand I’m not into flagellation so maybe not.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I haven’t watched his act, but I have read a transcript. The whole thing.

                The thing is, Milo’s act isn’t *that* different than you’d read on a lot of right-wing places. 95% of his act is just completely standard fair. I don’t know how well he is at delivery, but even the text seems funny to me. Hell, he’s *less* offensive than some of the other stuff I’ve read at Breitbart.

                I am aware he’s said some really vile things in *general*, but these speeches aren’t, because he knows his crowd, and these are generic right-leaning college students, not his alt-right twitter base. For example, with the immigration, it’s not ‘We must maintain the purity of the white race’, it’s ‘Poor Mexicans will take our jobs…and people who claim this is about race are idiots.’.

                The problem is the remaining 5%, the 5% that appears to be topical…and by topical, I mean, he starts bringing up specific liberals that *go to the school* he’s giving the speech at, and how bad they are. Identifies them by name, sometimes (not sure how often, but he’s done it) throw up a picture on the wall, etc.

                The speech I happened to read, the person he singled out was someone who had reported harassment for wearing a hijab, and he decided that the harassment claim was bogus, and she was just a liar.

                So, well, if she actually *was* getting harassed…well, it’s probably going to get worse.

                It’s that sort of assholery that people are objecting to. He could avoid those references to current students, hell, he could *use students at other colleges*, just mix up his examples where he’s not specifically *singling out actual students on the campus*, and almost all of the people objecting to him would vanish.

                I certainly wouldn’t be objecting to him speaking. (Although it would still be fair to point out that College Republicans are inviting a speaker who has said some *really* horrible stuff, even if he’s not going to say it there.)

                But his entire shtick is that liberals are just running around *pretending* they are harassed. It’s why his show name calls him ‘Dangerous’, because he’s claiming that liberals are pretending that’s dangerous and it’s not.

                It’s a stunt. Give a *mostly* reasonable speech, claim that he’s being attacked for *that*, claim that liberals will not allow conservative ideas on campus. Meanwhile, everyone on the right is totally outraged by these horrible censoring liberals, and ignore the fact all the left is *actually* complaining about his ‘Single individual students on campus out for possible targeting’ shtick.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC says:

                Oh, and incidentally, I don’t want to give them impression that Milo *isn’t* a very vile person. He is. Hell, I stay away from his as much as possible, and even I’ve seen vile tweets from him, and he is the weird sort of gay man who is utterly freaked out by women merely existing. (heterophobic?) Not, like, pretend disgusted, but actually disgusted by the entire concept.

                But the thing is, he’s not *not giving vile speeches* on these campuses. (He would probably get thrown off the stage even by a *right-leaning* crowd at a college if he expressed that sort of thing.)

                He is giving perfectly sounding speeches, gently mocking a bunch of liberal, and even some conservative ideas. These speeches, almost incidentally, happens to talk about how horrible specific liberals are *that go to class with you*, and here’s a bunch of information about those horrible liberals.

                And isn’t it absurd how liberals try to make that out to be dangerous? How they try to pretend he’s dangerous for saying those sorts of things? It’s just information, and it’s not like any minority has ever been attacked before because they got singled out.

                And when they *do* claim that, they’re *lying*.Report

              • Francis in reply to DavidTC says:

                how about gynophobic?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                The speech I happened to read, the person he singled out was someone who had reported harassment for wearing a hijab, and he decided that the harassment claim was bogus, and she was just a liar.

                Didn’t someone on this forum point out that she actually was lying, or am I misremembering?

                As far as I can tell, false claims of victimhood by SJW are pretty common. If he’d come to my old campus, he could have talked about two false claims of rape. One of my ex-inlaws has made five or so.

                If you’re going to make public false claims of abuse, then a public shaming is appropriate.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Dark Matter says:

                “As far as I can tell, false claims of victimhood by SJW are pretty common.”

                More or less common than actual abuses?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

                In the days after the election, you wrote a comment to me that contained a number of attacks by, presumably, Trump supporters against, presumably, Clinton supporters.

                I’m trying to google it now but I can’t find it right away.

                I’m wondering how many of the examples you gave me ended up being hoaxes.

                I’m wondering what it would demonstrate if more of them were than not.

                But, as I said, I’m having trouble finding the comment so I can’t prove anything quite yet.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Kazzy says:

                More or less common than actual abuses?

                Depends a lot on the claim, the details, and the level of self serving-ness.

                So for swastikas made from fecal matter, probably all of them are false. For Rape? I think I remember studies suggesting a hair more than half of rape police reports are false.

                “more or less common than actual” is probably the wrong question. I assume many/most cases of abuse aren’t reported because people have lives. That doesn’t change the level of falsehood on actual reports.

                There are people who *like* the drama, the attention, the sympathy, and the power from being a victim. Support groups offer sympathy and take everything at face value. They don’t ask detailed questions that would show the victim is making it up. This is true in spades for SJW incidents which happen to SJW activists.

                This btw is yet another reason why the police and not colleges should be handling this sort of thing. The *idea* that false claims even happen, much less is a serious problem, is heresy for certain groups.

                If someone says they’re a victim then that’s supposed to be this ultimate trump card. But since we mostly don’t punish for false reporting it’s a very-high-reward very-low-risk move.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Didn’t someone on this forum point out that she actually was lying, or am I misremembering?

                No. I am the only person who mentioned her, because I randomly read *that* specific Milo transcript to find out what he talked about on campuses. In fact, as far as I know, of all the people pointing out horrible Milo behavior, I am literally the only using her as an example, because I *just happened* to stumble across that particular speech and read it. (Note, again, this speech is up on Breitbart, so presumably he’s proud of it.)

                All I said she had not reported it to the police, which Milo took as evidence she was lying.

                Of course, the reason she had not reported it to the police is that it was basically a person she knew tugging at her hijab and making some prejudice comments, and she did not want that person to be arrested for such a stupid thing. She merely reported it to the people at the school in charge of such things, and hoped they would have a discussion with him.

                And, while we’re talking about shaming people, it is worth pointing out *she has not said who it was* publicly because she feels *he* shouldn’t be shamed for it.

                As I’ve asked before, do I need to read *more* of Milo’s idiotic speeches to figure out how he singled out *other* people and what their supposed crime was? Seriously, I picked that speech *at random*, and I’ve actually not see other people mention this example, which makes me wonder what *else* is in his speeches?

                I mean, there was that trans student that was singled out, who he claimed was…lying about being trans, I think? (Of course, as her older pre-transition picture was put on the screen, and *no one recognized her* in the audience, I think we can perhaps assume that she *is* trans and he was completely wrong.)

                He called a professor at West Virginia University a ‘fat faggot’. Which, I suspect, is probably against the student code of conduct.

                As far as I can tell, false claims of victimhood by SJW are pretty common. If he’d come to my old campus, he could have talked about two false claims of rape. One of my ex-inlaws has made five or so.

                Like that guy who is falsely claiming he was shot at a Milo event.

                I mean, was actually shot.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                Like that guy who is falsely claiming he was shot at a Milo event.

                (I tried posting the link and my post got axed so here’s a longer quote. I think this is the event in question.)

                Radical leftists staged a violent riot outside of a Seattle speaking event by Milo Yiannopoulos on Friday night. They assaulted people and threw bricks and paint at police officers. Then someone shot a 32 year old white male in the abdomen. The injury was considered life threatening. The victim was still listed as being in critical condition on Saturday. Two men, including the shooter, turned themselves in to University of Washington police a few hours after the shooting.

                Shortly after, a local “Antifa” gang in Seattle announced that the victim is one of their “comrades.” They immediately blamed the shooting on a “Trump supporter.” So-called “Antifa” gangs wear all black and routinely engage in violence…

                The man who was shot was wearing political buttons identifying him as having a far-left/Marxist ideology. Friends told Seattle media that he is a dedicated “anti-racist,”…

                However, the police have now disclosed information about the suspect. He is a fifty year old “Asian.” He told police he was attacked by “some type of white supremacist,” and was forced to shoot the man in self-defense.

                Seattle authorities appear to be treating the shooting as justifiable self-defense.
                Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Shortly after, a local “Antifa” gang in Seattle announced that the victim is one of their “comrades.” They immediately blamed the shooting on a “Trump supporter.” So-called “Antifa” gangs wear all black and routinely engage in violence…

                There’s video of the shooting on Reddit.
                http://patch.com/washington/seattle/video-shows-moments-shooting-uw-milo-yiannopoulos-protest

                It’s from a distance and there are people in the way, and it’s really hard to tell when the gun first appeared so it’s hard to interpret events…but the shooting victim’s head and face are clearly uncovered then entire time, and the ‘all black’ outfit he is wearing appears to be some sort of black (leather?) jacket over a black t-shirt with some graphics on it, which is way too identifiable to be an antifa ‘uniform’, which they make themselves out of black cloth.

                The outfit and look screams ‘biker’, actually.

                Antifa might call him a ‘comrade’, but there’s no evidence he was part of antifa.

                However, the police have now disclosed information about the suspect. He is a fifty year old “Asian.” He told police he was attacked by “some type of white supremacist,” and was forced to shoot the man in self-defense.

                And then, after shooting someone in self-defense, he ran away for two hours and did a factory reset on his phone, and *surely* we should believe his story.

                At least the somewhat absurd claim that the shooter was a Sanders supporters has gone away after someone noticed he was attempting to get Milo’s autograph on Facebook, because (The Facebook post claims) *someone stole his MAGA hat* and wanted Milo to sign a new one for him, so, yes, he was a Trump supporter, and a Milo supporter.

                And there were claims the victim was a ‘conservative’, which echoed around for a while, have now disappeared. The victim was there claiming to represent the International Workers of the World!

                It is fairly clear that the shooter ran off, and spent a lot of time trying to come up with a story that isn’t even slightly real. How about…he was just some a Sanders supporter that got attacked by a racist, and had to defend himself! Sounds good! (I wonder how long it took him to realize he needed a story, because he had been filmed by a dozen people and he was going to be found.)

                I don’t know. Maybe he *did* have to defend himself. The video does show him and the victim yelling about something, and the victim did *run over* to the shooter fairly quickly, in a manner that could be threatening…although it really doesn’t seem they were still arguing, or even talking, when the shooting actually happened.

                And, as I said, without knowing when the *gun* came out, it’s sorta hard to tell what is going on. Maybe it’s self defense, who knows?

                But the shooter already thrown around enough lies that I really can’t take his word at anything, because it’s become clear that he came up with a ‘clever narrative’ after the shooting before turning himself in that is just completely made up.

                Hey, look, what is probably a false claim of victimhood…but not by a SJW.

                Seattle authorities appear to be treating the shooting as justifiable self-defense.

                No they don’t. They haven’t made any statements at all about it, except to say they are going through video and phone messages. The claim they are ‘treating it as justifiable self-defense’ is just made-up nonsense that seems to be based in the fact they let the shooter go without bail, but that’s not really uncommon in certain places if they don’t think he’s a flight risk.

                Edit: Oh, also, the search warrant for the phone specifically mentions they are investigating him for first-degree assault.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                So I’ve got a bad news article? Wouldn’t be the first (or last) time the media has made stuff up.Report

              • Kim in reply to DavidTC says:

                SJWs are calling the cops on people wearing Indian Costumes.
                At that point, it’s no longer “conservative ideas aren’t allowed on campus” it is “fun is no longer allowed on campus, and you will be Arrested For It”

                (Also, yes, some liberals are lying about it. Provable fact — TYT had a liar on their election day coverage, and with no pushback from Cenk, who should have been able to hear the “the whole bus clapped” meme.)Report

              • If he’s too vile for Ben Shapiro, he’s pretty damned vile.Report

              • Koz in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I’ve been a fan of National Review for a long time, but I think both of those pieces are pretty weak, not least because arguments based on extrapolations of twitter feuds don’t necessarily have a lot of substantive weight.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Koz says:

                Out of curiosity, can you name any media figures or elected officials on the right that liberals accurately characterize as racist or anti-Semitic?Report

              • Koz in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I’m sure there are. Most of them I who are probably too obscure for me to worry about. David Duke certainly would be if he were on the right, which he may be, though I don’t know for sure since I have no reason to worry about him.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Out of curiosity, can you name any media figures or elected officials on the right that liberals accurately characterize as racist or anti-Semitic?

                Let’s reverse the question.

                Is there anyone on the Left that is characterized as racist or anti-Semitic?

                If memory serves there used to be serious people claiming it was *impossible* for a minority to be racist (apparently even against other minorities, much less against Whites).Report

              • Road Scholar in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Let me jump in here, DM. I believe the speaker you’re referring to was, clumsily and not terribly accurately, attempting to elucidate the distinction between prejudice and discrimination. Anyone can be prejudiced against someone else for any one of a number of reasons [insert standard EEOC laundry list here]. But in order to discriminate one has to be in a position to actually do something with that prejudice. This implies a power relationship such as employer/employee.

                If you see the various -ism’s as social/cultural phenomena and, correctly, see white/male/hetero/etc as the dominant force in our society, and you see discrimination as the active issue, then that statement sorta makes sense. I don’t completely buy it, but that’s how I would interpret that.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Road Scholar says:

                If you see the various -ism’s as social/cultural phenomena and, correctly, see white/male/hetero/etc as the dominant force in our society, and you see discrimination as the active issue, then that statement sorta makes sense.

                There are minority cops, politicians (even Presidents), employers, millionaires, billionaires, cities, and so forth. The concept that they don’t have any power to abuse is laughable.

                IMHO a good translation of that is:
                “Charges of -ism are supposed to be a political club used against the Right, but never against the Left.”

                Far too often this is about political power, not fixing things.Report

            • Kim in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Chip,
              I happen to like transgressive profanity. Problem is Milo’s just not so good at it.Report

          • Francis in reply to Koz says:

            “their attempts to prevent the Trump Administration from performing the day-to-day operations of the Executive Branch”

            such as? Marches are legal. Pointing out Administration lies is not only legal but the very purpose of the press. Filing lawsuits is not only legal but a major component of the system of checks and balances.

            Pollution of the cultural sphere? No one’s forcing you to watch HBO. There are still plenty of safe spaces for conservatives. TAC, National Review and Red State are all still publishing, aren’t they?

            (Although demanding a safe space is not exactly a conservative position.)

            What ever happened to the marketplace of ideas?

            (ps: “Pollution” is such an interesting word choice. It suggests that the appropriate response to liberal ideas is to dam them up, prevent them from being heard at all.)Report

            • Morat20 in reply to Francis says:

              Pollution of the cultural sphere? No one’s forcing you to watch HBO

              Ever notice how badly the people screaming about snowflakes and safe spaces seem to be the ones who neec them?

              Darn you liberals! Your stubborn refusal to lie down and die is triggering conservatives everywhere. Have you no shame?Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Morat20 says:

                Hey, you’re right! Microaggressions are bullshit, trigger warnings are stupid, and safe spaces are a joke.

                Was that where you were going with that?Report

              • Morat20 in reply to DensityDuck says:

                I was aiming more for “Isn’t that ironic” and “projection really is a thing” but I might have been too subtle.Report

              • Francis in reply to DensityDuck says:

                avoiding microaggressions is what my parents taught me as “politeness”

                trigger warnings should be nothing more than an effective teaching tool. The TV networks have been delivering them for as long as I can remember.

                safe spaces can be nothing more that an exercise of the freedom of association.

                and — most importantly — college kids are somewhere between adults and adolescents. They are going to make stupid mistakes. I went to Dartmouth a year behind Dinesh D’Souza, so I saw liberal-baiting by a true master. He and his team made a few good points, published a fair amount of poorly written shock stuff and also hurt quite a few people. (recording and publishing the transcript of a gay student’s association meeting was particularly low, in my view.)

                As far as the Berkeley incident goes, what really surprises me was the police’s failure to control the anarchists. Protesting != rioting and the Heckler’s Veto sucks no matter who is doing it. But young kids do love getting their rage on.Report

              • Kim in reply to Francis says:

                Francis,
                Trigger warnings are a fucking joke. If you were to actually put trigger warnings on everything that triggers someone, you’d have to put it on Every Single TV Show out there. (A Friend of mine is triggered by That Fucking Door Noise — as in actual PTSD. I don’t have a lie detector on hand, but I know I could get a GSR just from him listening to it).Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kim says:

                The point of trigger warnings is not to put warnings on everything that might trigger someone, it’s to put warnings for the biggest triggers out there so that people with PTSD from the most common things that cause PTSD can say “you know what, I’m not going to read this article” at the beginning rather than get halfway through and be blindsided by a particularly graphic example.

                The argument is not “don’t put door noises in your show without a ‘trigger warning: door noises'” and has never been.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Jaybird says:

                I’ll grant that, occasionally, some SJW type will show up and start using “trigger warnings” as a justification for why something shouldn’t have been written in the first place.

                This is a stupid act and discredits a practice that is, on its own, a good thing.Report

            • Koz in reply to Francis says:

              such as? Marches are legal. Pointing out Administration lies is not only legal but the very purpose of the press. Filing lawsuits is not only legal but a major component of the system of checks and balances.

              Such as slow-walking the Cabinet and the various disruptions surrounding his inauguration, and the premises behind the anti-Trump energy since then.

              What ever happened to the marketplace of ideas?

              It’s still there obviously but so far at least there is a profound ignorance or undermining of the rhythm of our political culture. In our election season, substantive matters often get stifled because our ability to concentrate is consumed by partisan, factional, or ideological division. Then, we have an election, and those divisions recede from the foreground (or are at least supposed to).

              Last year, Trump was running for President, and we got to hear all sorts of reasons why Trump is unfit, he’s narcissistic, he’s racist, etc, etc. That was last year, this is this year. This year, Trump is President, and libs expect us to entertain their shit like he was still running. Enough already, it’s time to move on, and time for libs to loyally participate in American politics, taking President Donald Trump as a given, or remove themselves from political culture to do other shit, which is also perfectly acceptable.

              (ps: “Pollution” is such an interesting word choice. It suggests that the appropriate response to liberal ideas is to dam them up, prevent them from being heard at all.)

              Pollution in that circumstance is a deliberate word, in contrast to thugs which sometimes conservatives use. It’s certainly fair to describe the Berkeley protestors as thugs, I think, but we should also note that the libs’ intellectual corruptions go way beyond physical violence and threats of violence. Most importantly, it’s an appeal to libs to appreciate that our cultural discourse is a shared resource (as opposed to a propietary resource for them) and we should all steward that resource appropriately.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Koz says:

                slow-walking the Cabinet

                Well… pick a non-incompetent cabinet and it won’t be slow-walked. Is there anyone on this planet who thinks DeVos is qualified to be secretary of education?Report

              • Koz in reply to Nevermoor says:

                I think she’s great personally but even if I didn’t Trump is responsible for picking her. Whatever she does is his problem. Show us you want to be part of America, wave her through.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Koz says:

                Hang on a second – I’ll be right back… Just digging up a quote from you saying exactly the same thing about Merrick Garland.
                Oh. My.
                I could be some time…Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to El Muneco says:

                Yup. Liberals should always unilaterally disarm.Report

              • Koz in reply to El Muneco says:

                Sigh, it’s easier if you just pretend Merrick Garland doesn’t exist. Mrs. DeVos represents the President, reports to the President, and serves at the pleasure of the President. None of those are true for Justices of the Supreme Court except the first, and sometimes not even then.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Koz says:

                Easier for whom, exactly? Easier for Senate Republicans to pretend they aren’t a bunch hypocrites that take a wrecking ball to any institution that produces outcomes they dislike, I suppose.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Garland is hardly the first, nor will he be the last, Judge to fail to be confirmed by the Senate. There’s a lot to be said to send the balance of the Court to the voters to decide. The voters appointed Obama in 2012, and they appointed the GOP in 2014 to stop him.

                Think about what happens if Trump sends Garland in there right now. We have a party line vote saying “no”, and then Trump goes back to his list.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Which is why, really, no SCOTUS pick should be confirmed until the people have had a chance to have their say, in 2020.

                Its only reasonable.Report

              • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Come on Chip, can’t you be at least a little bit embarrassed for going to that well at least three times (probably more)?

                If you can’t win, at least be happy for our team.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Haven’t you gotten into enough trouble by ignoring the voters?Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Where does it say the will of the voters regarding Supreme Court justices is bound to the electoral college (rather than, say, the popular vote)?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Where does it say the will of the voters regarding Supreme Court justices is bound to the electoral college (rather than, say, the popular vote)?

                The Constitution.

                That’s the legal document which lays out how the President is elected and how many Senators each state gets.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Which has what to do with the GOP’s newfound (then cynically abandoned) belief that you need an election to decide who the people want on the Supreme Court? I don’t recall the electoral college being a part of that particular plebiscite.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                The GOP? The Biden rule was created by former Vice President Biden.

                And mostly it’s about political power and costs, but the fig-leaf ethical covering is that we have a President attempting to make a Supreme Court choice in an election year while Congress (who faced the voters more recently) was elected on a mandate to stop him.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Dark Matter says:

                “…Congress (who faced the voters more recently) was elected on a mandate to stop him.”

                That isn’t how we elect Congress.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Remind me which Justice’s nomination Joe Biden refused to vote on again? If you can’t, stop deflecting.

                There was a norm, the GOP broke it. Actions > words and all that…Report

              • notme in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Crazy Uncle Joe would have applied his rule to all nominations.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Remind me which Justice’s nomination Joe Biden refused to vote on again?

                Joe stated he’d refuse to consider *any* Bush nomination during an election year.

                Something about how Presidents historically held themselves back from submitting one at that time, so it’d be unethical and a break in precedence to do so, and the Senate would be ethical and submit it to the voters.

                What Joe thought he was doing was establishing rules he’d then say were defined ahead of time. There’s a lot to be said for that.

                There was a norm, the GOP broke it.

                The norm is that the Pres can submit Supremes (which he did), and the Senate can say “no” (which they did). The norm (and the Constitution) doesn’t cover what form that “no” needs to take, this is the 5th time the Senate has killed a nomination by deliberate inaction. The GOP took the route of maximizing their ability to say no while minimizing the political fall out.

                In theory the President is supposed to go to the voters with this and they’ll punish the Senate for inaction. Instead the voters rewarded the GOP by letting them keep the Senate.

                Given that Trump expressly made which person he’d put on the Court a big point of his election, we have something like judgement via the voters.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                The norm and the constitution are different.

                I agree the Constitution doesn’t require a vote on a nominee. The norm absolutely has been that nominees get a prompt vote. Biden as a senator never prevented one, so color me unimpressed by motivated conservative quote-hunting.

                Color me equally unimpressed by conservatives’ newfound belief in the will of the voters after they won a close election. Unless you can link me to comments where you poo-pooed attempts to prevent the ACA from passing because Obama “expressly made [the ACA a] big point of his election, we have something like judgement via the voters” I don’t see anything there other than an attempt to claim unwarranted legitimacy and trying to badger Democrats into unilaterally disarming.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Your “political fact” link, while true, cherry picks the dates. This is the longest vacancy we’ve seen in 30 years, but that’s only because the issue hasn’t come up in 30 years.

                This is going to be the 7th or 8th longest vacancy in history.

                http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/26/long-supreme-court-vacancies-used-to-be-more-common/

                conservatives’ newfound belief in the will of the voters after they won a close election.

                Oh, it was expressed before the election when they didn’t think Trump would be making the pick. They even kept it when it looked like Clinton would win and they might lose the Senate.

                Unless you can link me to comments where you poo-pooed attempts to prevent the ACA from passing because Obama “expressly made [the ACA a] big point of his election,

                Considering we had wave of GOP after wave of GOP take office by opposing it, starting with Ted Kennedy’s replacement, maybe “the voters wanted the ACA” isn’t the rock to stand on.

                trying to badger Democrats into unilaterally disarming.

                Eh? It’s impossible for me to picture Joe letting Bush have a Supreme choice when there was a chance to unseat him, and that’s even without Joe expressly saying he wouldn’t. The problem isn’t that things just got worse, things were that bad when Joe laid down his line, and probably even before that.

                If Bush had the option to fill a seat, and Joe had the option to stop him and give it to his replacement (Obama as it turned out), would that help or hurt Joe’s personal election odds?Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Considering we had wave of GOP after wave of GOP take office by opposing it, starting with Ted Kennedy’s replacement, maybe “the voters wanted the ACA” isn’t the rock to stand on.

                Great, so let’s leave the spot open until 2018 and see whether we have a wave of democrats take office. I just don’t think it’s fair not to let the voters weigh in first. /s.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Great, so let’s leave the spot open until 2018 and see whether we have a wave of democrats take office. I just don’t think it’s fair not to let the voters weigh in first.

                What you mean is the voters need to weigh in again and again until they get it right, and they should be ignored otherwise.

                That sounds self destructive.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                /s

                You are apparently not aware of all internet traditions.

                /sReport

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Sarcasm?

                Thank you.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                No, that’s your position.

                The voters weighed in on who should fill supreme court vacancies occurring in 2016 and picked Obama. Your team didn’t like it, so changed the rules.

                If the standard used to justify this blatant disregard for Supreme Court nomination norms is “let the voters decide on the specifics” then I think it’s wholly unfair to nominate a justice the voters haven’t yet had a chance to consider.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                The voters weighed in on who should fill supreme court vacancies occurring in 2016 and picked Obama.

                The voters in 2012 game Obama the ability to pick Supremes for the next four years. Then in 2014 they solidly gave the GOP the ability to stop him. That’s a problem.

                If the standard used to justify this blatant disregard for Supreme Court nomination norms is “let the voters decide on the specifics” then I think it’s wholly unfair to nominate a justice the voters haven’t yet had a chance to consider.

                :Amusement: Trump ran on putting this guy on the court.

                No one has ever done that before, apparently Trump thought people wouldn’t just trust his judgement. The fun part with all that is yet to come, if/when the Dems take back the Senate, does Donald break his word or push through a nominee from that list? Either way it’s probably a trainwreck.

                If you assume he doesn’t have any political ideals, then right now he’s basically handed his SC pick to the Senate in exchange for their support. That’s an interesting dynamic if the Senate switches sides.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Dark Matter: The norm is that the Pres can submit Supremes (which he did), and the Senate can say “no” (which they did).The norm (and the Constitution) doesn’t cover what form that “no” needs to take, this is the 5th time the Senate has killed a nomination by deliberate inaction.The GOP took the route of maximizing their ability to say no while minimizing the political fall out.

                You’re leaving out an important part of this story. After those five nominations went down, the President nominated someone else who was then confirmed. Outright preventing a president from filling a Supreme Court vacancy at all is quite new, and a much bigger deal than forcing a president to settle for a second choice.

                Oh, and there’s also the fact that nobody doing this to Garland even bothered to spell out some kind of problem with Garland as a nominee. Never mind that he was center left and relatively old with a spotless record, he went down sight unseen. If the system were working properly, someone like Garland would have been the compromise candidate Obama had to accept because he didn’t have a friendly majority in the Senate.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Outright preventing a president from filling a Supreme Court vacancy at all is quite new

                That depends on whether or not Biden was lying about the practice being for Presidents to not try this in an election year.

                Oh, and there’s also the fact that nobody doing this to Garland even bothered to spell out some kind of problem with Garland as a nominee.

                You’re complaining that he wasn’t Borked? That the GOP didn’t make up lies and paint him as a horrible human being? Garland as a judge and as a person are left with their reputations intact. Ethically that’s way better than what the Dems did to Bork and what they’re about to try with Trump’s guy.

                If the system were working properly, someone like Garland would have been the compromise candidate Obama had to accept because he didn’t have a friendly majority in the Senate.

                That “compromise” would shift the Court as a whole pretty seriously to the Left given who he was replacing. Trump’s guy won’t shift the court at all, my expectation is the Left will still throw down a massive attempt to wreck his life.Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Dark Matter says:

                You’re complaining that he wasn’t Borked?

                If they “Borked” him and then confirmed Obama’s next nominee afterward like what actually happened during the Bork fiasco, that would have been fine with me.

                It’s almost like the Bork situation was about Bork specifically and the Garland situation was about the very notion that Obama might have the temerity to nominate anybody at all. But that couldn’t be it. Surely there’s a fundamental intellectual principle that makes the Republican behavior this time around totally within historical norms. We just haven’t found it yet.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                Bork was hard Right, the next guy was a compromise.

                The problem is “compromise” and “will swing the court solidly to the Left” are basically opposite by their very nature.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Don’t forget the justice who withdrew his own nomination after NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported that he smoked pot with his college students!Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Jaybird says:

                In other words, after Bork, Reagan yielded to the Senate and attempted to replace the Court’s swing vote with another swing vote… and Kennedy is certainly that.

                With Obama replacing Scalia? Obama isn’t going to go with someone hard Right, or even moderate Right, so instead he went with very ethical moderate Left and hoped for the best.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

                I’m sure Pat Buchanan disliked that guy. On principle, of course.

                Geez, he was only 41 at the time. (He’s only 71 now.) How long before the GOP starts nominating toddlers?Report

              • I thought Hard Right was someone principled like Scalia, not a toady with a bizarrely narrow view of the First Amendment.Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Dark Matter says:

                The ideological makeup of the court isn’t written into the constitution or built into the fabric of the universe. There’s no reason to assert that the baseline for a new nominee is that he needs to be an ideological replacement for the person whose seat he’s taking. You’re just using it to define your personal preferences as the compromise.

                Taking it to its logical conclusion, if Obama nominated anybody other than a loyal conservative, he’d be swinging the ideological balance of the court, and that’s definitely not a compromise. Until just a short while ago, “compromise” meant finding a nominee both sides could live with (historically with a lot of deference to the President’s choice), not keeping the court’s balance permanently the same.

                The good news is that when it’s time to replace Ginsburg, the Republicans will surely hold to their tradition of supporting ideological continuity and not try to pull the court to the right.

                Seriously, I don’t get why it’s so hard for Republican partisans just to admit that they snatched a court seat because they could rather than coming up with depressingly transparent attempts to invent a post-hoc faux-principled justification for it. The new normal is that if you can steal a seat, you do it. That’s unfortunate for a bunch of reasons, but it is what it is. Why try to hide it?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                You’re just using it to define your personal preferences as the compromise.

                No, I’m pointing out that “compromise” was impossible since the two sides had diametrically opposed ideas on whether or not the court should have it’s ideology flipped.

                Trying to claim that it’s a “compromise” to flip the court Left is absurd. Ditto claiming that it’d be a “compromise” to force Obama to submit a Hard Right justice… and those are the only options I see on the table.

                This situation was going to have a winner and a loser.

                The good news is that when it’s time to replace Ginsburg, the Republicans will surely hold to their tradition of supporting ideological continuity and not try to pull the court to the right.

                If the Dems control the Senate then maybe. Trump probably doesn’t have political ideals. It’s easy to picture him copying Reagan and just giving the Senate what they want.

                The new normal is that if you can steal a seat, you do it. That’s unfortunate for a bunch of reasons, but it is what it is. Why try to hide it?

                Why try to claim this is “the new normal” after Biden openly proclaimed this as Dem policy many years ago? My expectation is everyone involved would make the opposite argument if the seats were reversed (and Biden actually has).

                I’m not blaming the Dems for taking us here with Biden or even Bork. The political forces at work transcend any one person, or even any one president. The GOP basically had no choice but do this, and if the issue had come up with Bush the Dems also would have had no choice.

                Partly this is happening because Congress is handing divisive issues to the Court, and otherwise not doing it’s job by creating bad and badly written laws. And partly this is happening because the gov is intruding into every sphere of life.

                We’re not done fighting over the role or makeup of the Court, however this stack up of circumstances doesn’t happen very often.Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Dark Matter says:

                No, I’m pointing out that “compromise” was impossible since the two sides had diametrically opposed ideas on whether or not the court should have it’s ideology flipped.

                This is the usual, “If the function’s direction doesn’t support your argument, take the derivative and argue that its rate of change is in the right direction. Repeat as necessary,” trick. The first order question, “Should Obama have to nominate a loyal conservative?” is crazy on its face, so we ask about how it would change the court instead of asking about the nominee’s suitability. If that question had been ridiculous, we’d probably be talking about how quickly the court should be allowed to change.

                The political forces at work transcend any one person, or even any one president. The GOP basically had no choice but do this, and if the issue had come up with Bush the Dems also would have had no choice.

                Nobody ever puts away the weapons they first used during the last battle, and everybody is just waiting for the next set of weapons to be pulled out. The filibuster is probably going away before too much longer (although that’s one I happen to agree should go).

                But the fact remains that whoever uses a weapon first is the one who used it first, so this round of escalation goes to the Republicans, even though I don’t doubt that if we’d waited long enough, a Democractic Senate would have done the same. But now everybody would be crazy to go back, so it’s party-line votes for Supreme Court justices from now on.

                My expectation is everyone involved would make the opposite argument if the seats were reversed (and Biden actually has).

                Quite possibly for most. I would not because I see this a very serious deterioration of the process. I never expected G.W. Bush to nominate liberal justices just because I wanted them, and I wouldn’t have approved of completely stopping him from filing any federal position, just as I wouldn’t approve of completely stopping President Trump. I’d certainly be embarrassed to be making arguments about whether it was OK to shift the balance of the court.

                We’re not done fighting over the role or makeup of the Court, however this stack up of circumstances doesn’t happen very often.

                A split between the White House and the Senate isn’t that uncommon. I expect this one to come back to haunt us pretty regularly. If the party in control of the Senate has any sense, it means no more Supreme Court confirmations without a friendly President in power.

                I don’t know how long before that’s the rule for all federal judges, but it seems like it’s almost guaranteed to happen sooner or later. Overall, it just means fewer centrists and more extremists at every appointed seat as we continue down this road.Report

              • It also means that the ability of the courts to do their job will degrade steadily over time, as you get more and longer vacancies, and that we’ll see more wild shifts in doctrine when the stars do align and a President happens to get to appoint two or three 45-year-old justices at once.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                The first order question, “Should Obama have to nominate a loyal conservative?” is crazy on its face…

                Is it? The Senate really did twist Reagan’s arm into nominating a guy who wouldn’t shift the balance of the court.

                Relations between the Prez and the Senate were less poisonous then, and the SC was less of a hot issue, but we’ve actually seen this sort of thing in living memory.

                But the fact remains that whoever uses a weapon first is the one who used it first, so this round of escalation goes to the Republicans…

                Sure.

                even though I don’t doubt that if we’d waited long enough, a Democractic Senate would have done the same.

                Given that Joe announced many years ago that if it happened on his watch, they’d do it? Yes.

                A split between the White House and the Senate isn’t that uncommon. I expect this one to come back to haunt us pretty regularly. If the party in control of the Senate has any sense, it means no more Supreme Court confirmations without a friendly President in power.

                If it’s split, then hopefully we get moderates (presumably Garland or someone like him would have ended up on the Court if Hillary had won but whatever).

                My expectation is that both sides jockey for position, tell lies, and brand the other guy as racist for not doing what they want. So business as usual. Thomas is a good example, the Dems had the choice of either looking anti-black or voting for a conservative.

                Overall, it just means fewer centrists and more extremists at every appointed seat as we continue down this road.

                Yeah. One of the big things which creates civil wars is the gov becomes too important to trust with the other guy.

                We’re not close to that, but everyone who argues for *X* expansion of the government needs to understand the other side will be using *X* sooner or later.

                And, we just elected Trump. My expectation is he’s not even close to what “bottom of the barrel” looks like. Power attracts people who abuse it.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Does it matter… at all… that prior to Obama actually nominating Garland that a prominent Republican suggested Garland — by name — as a fine nominee?

                Or that many Republicans strongly supported his previous appointment?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Kazzy says:

                Does it matter… at all… that prior to Obama actually nominating Garland that a prominent Republican suggested Garland — by name — as a fine nominee?

                Wasn’t that in the context of Souter or Steven’s replacement?

                Or that many Republicans strongly supported his previous appointment?

                Gorsuch was voted into the 10th circuit *unanimously* by the Senate.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Under pre-2016 norms Gorsuch would almost certainly be easily confirmed (probably when RBG’s seat opens one way or another).

                Now, however, Democrats have no reason to let the GOP easily complete their theft of a seat.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Now, however, Democrats have no reason to let the GOP easily complete their theft of a seat.

                Depends on whether getting rid of the filibuster is in the best interests of the minority party.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Guys, guys, its all moot now anyway.

                Judging from Trump’s Mad King George impression yesterday, he appears to be in the last year of the presidency anyway.

                And we all know what the rules are for SCOTUS nominations are then!Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                he appears to be in the last year of the presidency anyway.

                President Pence. Has a nice ring to it, no?Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Is it?

                Yes, it is. It presupposes that the current ideological makeup of the court is somehow preordained and that changing it is an outcome that both sides should agree is wrong. A permanent conservative majority is not rolled up in Maxwell’s equations or anything like that. I’d expect Obama to want a liberal Justice and Republicans to want a conservative one regardless of who was occupying the seat before, and in a sane world, the outcome of their negotiation would end up somewhere in between.

                The Senate really did twist Reagan’s arm into nominating a guy who wouldn’t shift the balance of the court.

                They twisted Reagan’s arm to get a candidate further from Reagan’s preferences and closer to theirs. The seat they were filling had nothing to do with it. You don’t really think that if they were replacing a Scalia the Senate would have said, “Oh, Bork is fine because it preserves the current balance,” do you? The fact that they were replacing a moderate doesn’t change the incentives or preferences at all.

                If it’s split, then hopefully we get moderates…

                Until this last go-round, the typical operation was to agree on somebody somewhere between and that’s what would happen. But now that we’ve proven conclusively that you can cut the President entirely out of the process, why would the Senate take input from an opposition President again? What’s the limiting factor to prevent the Dems from taking the Senate in 2018 and saying, “We think the Deeply Principled answer is for the next President to decide in 2021, so all nominations are on ice,” and waiting it out?

                The old paradigm produced moderates. The new paradigm is to reject moderates in hope of getting a friendly extremist instead.

                My expectation is he’s not even close to what “bottom of the barrel” looks like. Power attracts people who abuse it.

                We definitely agree on this. I’m just pleasantly surprised he nominated somebody in good standing to the court instead of an old buddy from his Trump University scam. If a Senator right now, I’d probably vote to confirm him even if we had a 51 vote majority.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                The fact that they were replacing a moderate doesn’t change the incentives or preferences at all.

                I disagree. I think changing the court’s balance increases the stakes. I think people pay attention to that.

                What’s the limiting factor to prevent the Dems from taking the Senate in 2018 and saying, “We think the Deeply Principled answer is for the next President to decide in 2021, so all nominations are on ice,” and waiting it out?

                The “limiting factor” is supposed to be “political cost”. A political fight between Congress and the President is hardly a new thing. The President is supposed to be an expert in politics and increase those costs.

                Obama was decently good at blaming the GOP for these sorts of political fights (witness shutting down the gov). In theory Obama was supposed to give the GOP a choice along the line of what Bush did with Thomas and then beat on them for not putting his guy in.

                However this time opposing the President’s SC pick had political benefits, not costs. It’s possible Joe was correct, that putting in a new Supreme isn’t something that happens in a Presidential election year.

                I’m just pleasantly surprised he nominated somebody in good standing to the court instead of an old buddy from his Trump University scam.

                To be fair Trump is honoring his word and his political promises. It’s also likely he doesn’t understand he’s putting in place someone who takes a dim eye to gov abuses including Trump’s.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                It’s almost like the Bork situation was about Bork specifically and the Garland situation was about the very notion that Obama might have the temerity to nominate anybody at all.

                The problem is “compromise” and “will swing the court solidly to the Left” are basically opposite by their very nature.

                And the naked partisanship comes out. Affirming Garland is bad because he’s selected by a democrat. Opposing Gorsuch is bad because he’s selected by a republican. And the overriding principle is that republicans must, at all times, have a 5-4 majority. Hey, at least we aren’t pretending there’s a high-minded principle any more.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Hey, at least we aren’t pretending there’s a high-minded principle any more.

                Oh, I thought the Biden rule was clearly not “high-minded” when Joe created it. For that matter Bork (and multiple others on both sides) showcased this.

                The last time we had a Justice opposed for good (meaning non-partisan) reasons was when Bush nominated that airhead.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Deflectors engaged I see.

                The Democrats have never done what you claim is a “rule,” have confirmed justices they would never have selected (most recently Alito and Roberts), and have rejected nominees only after a hearing (whether or not you personally agree with the rationale). The Republicans rejected a fully-qualified nominee so centrist that Republicans used him as an example of a compromise candidate.

                Your attempt to blame Democrats for this, and to say Democrats should unilaterally disarm now that the norm is shattered is, frankly, silly.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                His nomination is, however, the first time a sitting President has been unable to confirm a nominee to a vacancy to the Supreme Court before the end of his term. It’s not even slightly like Bork, who got hearings and was followed up by another nominee that was easily confirmed.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Don Zeko:
                His nomination is, however, the first time a sitting President has been unable to confirm a nominee to a vacancy to the Supreme Court before the end of his term.

                That’s right, the Senate invoked the “Biden Rule”, created by Vice President Joe Biden back when he was a Senator.

                Mr. Biden, then the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said there should be a different standard for a Supreme Court vacancy “that would occur in the full throes of an election year.” The president should follow the example of “a majority of his predecessors” and delay naming a replacement, Mr. Biden said. If he goes forward before then, the Senate should wait to consider the nomination.

                “Some will criticize such a decision and say that it was nothing more than an attempt to save a seat on the court in hopes that a Democrat will be permitted to fill it, but that would not be our intention,” Mr. Biden said at the time. “It would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is underway, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over.

                “That is what is fair to the nominee and essential to the process. Otherwise, it seems to me,” he added, “we will be in deep trouble as an institution.”

                https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/us/politics/joe-biden-argued-for-delaying-supreme-court-picks-in-1992.htmlReport

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Yes, because what one senator argued 25 years ago and didn’t follow up on, and which no party ever actually carried out, amounts to a “rule” governing how Senators ought to behave. Suuuuure.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                one senator

                He’s the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, very well situated to carry out the actions he laid out.

                didn’t follow up on,

                He didn’t have the opportunity because none of the Supremes died.

                As a matter of policy, it actually makes a lot of sense. The Senate’s personal election chances go up by putting their guy on the court. Politicians are unlikely to go out on a limb to help an opposing Prez tilt the Court the “wrong” direction from the standpoint of their constituents.

                That was doubly true in this case because a fair bit of the GOP ran on the platform of reigning in Obama, and their election was more recent than his. And yes, I understand that this rule was only supposed to be used to prevent Republican Presidents from making Supreme choices but whatever.

                The interesting question is “was Biden correct”? Did past Presidents in this situation avoid painting themselves into this corner? Looking at a graph… I don’t think so, although I don’t think the issue comes up a lot. However this is the fifth time a nomination has been killed via lack of action.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsuccessful_nominations_to_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_StatesReport

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Dark Matter says:

                So the new highly principled and logically consistent rule is that the sitting President gets no Supreme Court nominees if the Senate is controlled by the other party and gained seats in the last election?

                We’re going to stop there, right? That’s the bedrock Way Things Have Always Been and it won’t get any more antagonistic?

                Because I’m doubting that.Report

              • Koz in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Easier for you and the other libs to figure out what you’re going to do without political power instead of trying triple combination bank shots to get it back right away. I mean, I guess there’s some chance that whatever’s going down with Digby or Balloon Juice could work, but what if it doesn’t. I think you’d have to believe that’s more likely at the moment.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Koz says:

                So opposing policies they disagree with, protesting, organizing, and contesting the next round of elections is a triple bank shot? News to me, dude.Report

              • Koz in reply to Don Zeko says:

                It’s this mentality of “resistance” in that we sorta hate him for what he does, but we really hate him for who he is, with the expectations of carrying that into the public sphere, and organizing other likeminded people around that.

                That induces sclerosis in governance, which may or may not be the worst thing. But more importantly, it induces antagonism and balkanization among Americans in general outside of politics, and that for sure is a bad thing.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Koz says:

                In what way is she great? Her complete lack of knowledge about basic educational issues?

                I mean, my wife’s family is full-red fox news consumers in Oklahoma and they know no human beings who think she’s qualified for her job. Which is a LOW bar given those priors.Report

              • Francis in reply to Koz says:

                The premises behind the anti-Trump energy are that the new President is a narcissistic thin-skinned bully who has neither the wit, the intelligence nor the stamina to govern intelligently.

                And, conveniently, the POTUS is proving us correct. Rage-tweeting. Flagrantly lying about important issues, like the number of illegal votes cast. Picking fights with allies. Executing an EO that most any attorney could tell him had major legal issues. Executing the EO is a manner so incompetent as to be comparable to the roll-out of the ACA Exchange. Talking absolute nonsense about NAFTA and health care reform. Talking more nonsense about crime.

                If you don’t like the libs’ new-found enthusiasm for a fight, perhaps you should take a look at your own guy. For a conservative, you’re showing a surprising lack of responsibility. I thought that blaming the other side was what libs did, while conservatives owned up. (At least, that’s what I was told for the last 8 years.)

                And if you’re bitter about the lack of a honeymoon, ask Judge Garland how he feels about the way he was treated. It is time for PAYBACK, baby.Report

              • Koz in reply to Francis says:

                The premises behind the anti-Trump energy are that the new President is a narcissistic thin-skinned bully who has neither the wit, the intelligence nor the stamina to govern intelligently.

                Ok, for the sake of argument let’s stipulate to that. Then what’s the best way forward for America given that person was just elected and inaugurated and he’s going to be POTUS for a while? The answers libs have come up with so far seem to woefully inadequate. Specifically, they all seem to have as a premise that they’ll have political power that they don’t have.

                And if you’re bitter about the lack of a honeymoon, ask Judge Garland how he feels about the way he was treated. It is time for PAYBACK, baby.

                Like this. Nobody cares about Merrick Garland. The most likely outcome for the libs antagonism toward Judge Gorsuch is that they’ll lose politically and substantively.

                Maybe you could try to create some solidarity for Americans across ideologies.Report

              • Francis in reply to Koz says:

                ” The answers libs have come up with so far seem to woefully inadequate.”

                The Democratic Party has certain goals. One of them is to preserve as much as possible of the ACA.

                What is the most likely road to success — cave now and start negotiating compromises, or start by total opposition? Why not start with filling town halls with people talking about the ACA being a matter of life-and-death?

                Looking at the lessons from passing the ACA, not to mention the Republican struggles right now to get a bill on the table, it seems to me that total opposition upfront is the better strategy. Compromises can be offered at the last possible minute.Report

              • Koz in reply to Francis says:

                Looking at the lessons from passing the ACA, not to mention the Republican struggles right now to get a bill on the table, it seems to me that total opposition upfront is the better strategy.

                In terms of inside baseball, this could be right (or might not, but for the sake of argument let’s stipulate that it is). But in context of the outside game where libs and Demos are running a substantial credibility deficit, and are exacerbating that by hyperbolic opposition to Trump, they might be better off trying to build some bandwidth first.Report

              • Francis in reply to Koz says:

                “Demos are running a substantial credibility deficit”

                Assumes facts not in evidence.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Francis says:

                Insisting that Hillary won the popular vote, that Trump’s inauguration wasn’t the most popular thing ever, that the media does cover terrorism, that the murder rate is down …

                Sad.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Koz says:

                Ok, for the sake of argument let’s stipulate to that.

                Sure. Then the people who voted for him are criminally irresponsible, and should STFU. Any response? (If you’re paying attention that would be a “shake your head ‘no'”.)Report

              • Maria in reply to Koz says:

                “Enough already, it’s time to move on, and time for libs to loyally participate in American politics, taking President Donald Trump as a given, or remove themselves from political culture to do other shit, which is also perfectly acceptable.”

                I am getting stuck on the word “loyally” here. What would loyal look like? As a liberal and a Democrat I am honestly interested to know what I could do to have you take me seriously. And I mean me, not libs, not Dems in general, but me – a married, middle-aged, white, middle-class woman. What do I need to do/say to fall into the category of loyal?Report

              • Koz in reply to Maria says:

                I am getting stuck on the word “loyally” here. What would loyal look like? As a liberal and a Democrat I am honestly interested to know what I could do to have you take me seriously. And I mean me, not libs, not Dems in general, but me – a married, middle-aged, white, middle-class woman. What do I need to do/say to fall into the category of loyal?

                You are correct to focus on “loyal”, that’s the key word. For me, the important thing is some credible attempt at solidarity toward political opponents. Not just conservatives, in fact I think it’s more important to demonstrate some kind engagement with Bernie supporters who stayed home, and “radical centrists”, “Reagan Democrats” “Rust Belt Swing voters” who flipped to Trump.

                From where you are, I think a more fundamental question is to ask what you hoping to accomplish in political culture. Whatever it is, is it realistic or legitimate for where we are right now? Very likely it’s not, but whatever it is, it’s likely to get here faster with some commonality across the ideological divide.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Koz says:

                Which, presumably, is why you were up in arms about the last eight years. Let me find those criticisms of the GOP’s abject and unprecedented failure to make “some credible attempt at solidarity toward political opponents”

                I’m sure they’re in your posting history…Report

              • Koz in reply to Nevermoor says:

                Sure, when Mr Obama was President, or when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress, or both, the Republicans tried to prevent them from legislating contrary to the their understanding of the best interest of America. They also tried to regain those offices for themselves as the opportunities arose.

                Specifically, there is a rhythm to American politics, any democracy really, but parts of the rhythm of America are unique to it. There are certain things, which are appropriate at one time, which are not appropriate at another. It is certainly likely that the Democrats will want to organize themselves in and out of Washington in such a way that they will be successful in upcoming elections.

                It’s not necessarily clear that means they have to have a stance of hyperbolic opposition now. It’s so difficult to imagine what Trump or Republican officeholders would do that would meet with approval or at least legitimacy in the eyes of liberals, it becomes easier to get by without those things, as in fact the Republicans and the Trump Administration have liberty to do at the moment.

                But even aside from the policy issues, which are important, the possibility of goodwill across ideological lines seems to be completely forgotten. Francis mentioned PPACA above. There will be other PPACA’s. How much is PPACA worth compared to the political antagonism among Americans? If we are fixated on PPACA, do you suppose it’s more likely or less likely to maintain a benefits package you’d be happy with if we think that half or more of the beneficiaries are political enemies we don’t care about anyway?Report

              • Francis in reply to Koz says:

                “the possibility of goodwill across ideological lines”

                Okay then! Since you control the House, the Senate and the White House, but lack the 60 votes in the Senate to break the filibuster, it seems to me that it’s incumbent on YOU to make the first move.

                Whatta ya willing to offer for 8 to 10 votes? Or do we now get the Democrats spending 4 years complaining about Republican unwillingness to comprise (hopefully using a less homophobic version of “crammed down our throats”)?

                [the debt ceiling and the sequester both could be interesting.]Report

              • Koz in reply to Francis says:

                There may be a world where the filibuster in the Senate is the immediate problem. Whatever you can say about that, we’re not in that world now.

                This is about a world where we don’t have to have gratuitous factional antagonism. Wave the nominees through. Avoid the hyperbolics. See if you can find a way to talk with the Republicans, and for that matter Trump himself. It costs quite a bit less than you think.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Koz says:

                We’ve been waiving the non-terrible ones (i.e. at-least-marginally-qualified) through.

                It’s the unprecedented number of completely terrible and unqualified selections that’s causing the problem. No one has ever picked a less qualified secretary of education. No one has ever picked a less qualified secretary of state. And Sessions was deemed to racist to become a judge in the freaking 80s. None of these things are liberals’ fault, no matter how much you want to ignore that simple fact.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                And Sessions was deemed to racist to become a judge in the freaking 80s.

                I spent a minute or two checking on this and he was Borked. The “racist” thing was while Sessions was attempting to put to death a Klan member for killing a black man, Sessions told a gallows humor joke. Everyone in the room knew exactly how heinous the Klan was and exactly what Sessions thought of them.

                That’s the context of Sessions’ “racism”. So the charge is a lie. The Left always trots out the racism charge and that you’re repeating it says more about you than about him.

                No one has ever picked a less qualified secretary of state.

                Obama’s first Sec of State’s big qualification was being married to a successful and popular politician.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I spent a minute or two checking on this and he was Borked.

                That’s not the allegation in Coretta Scott King’s letter, which were allegations that Sessions decided to investigate totally bogus claims of absentee voting fraud in by black people and in majority black counties in order to suppress votes. This summarizes the events of her letter than the letter:

                https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/magazine/the-voter-fraud-case-jeff-sessions-lost-and-cant-escape.html?_r=0

                It really is hard to see that as anything other than Jeff Sessions using his power as US Attorney to intimidate black voters and try to arrest civil rights leaders who were attempting to help people vote.

                There are, of course, people asserting that those civil rights leaders were guilty. There is at least one family of six people who claim their votes were indeed tampered with. Here’s the other side of the story:

                https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/01/how-black-democrats-stole-votes-in-alabama-and-jeff-sessions-tried-to-stop-it

                Of course, there were 17 people who, when presented with ‘their tampered-with ballot’, said ‘That *is* how I voted.’ (And fact that tampering with 27 of the *seven hundreds* of absentee ballots they collect and mailed seems odd behavior. If most everyone voted for the ‘correct person’, why tamper at all? If they didn’t, surely more tampering was needed!)

                I don’t know. Maybe some ballots were tampered with. Maybe the people who said that was how they voted were lying. Maybe what happened in court was essentially jury nullification as black people didn’t want to convict local civil right’s heroes. It’s possible.

                Or maybe the people who said their votes were tampered with were intimidated into it…and there’s where we get to the point in this case that should stand out *even if you think the defendants were guilt as hell*. It is something you will notice the ‘defense’ of Sessions completely omits:

                The treatment of the *witnesses and supposed victims*. Hauling someone, especially elderly people, 160 miles to give a *disposition* is insane, as is fingerprinting and photographing them. Remember, under the prosecution’s theory, either their ballots were stolen or altered, they had not even possibly committed any crime. They were *victims*.

                The behavior in just that part of the story, which no one seems to dispute, seems like really obvious attempts at punishing black people for voting, and make sure they won’t vote again, which apparently at least three of those people *openly said they wouldn’t do anymore*, as presumably they now understood what happened to black people who voted….they get hauled halfway across the state and fingerprinted and treated like criminals. (Fun fact: The election under discussion was a primary, which means these…well, these interrogations for lack of a better term, happened right before the general election.)

                That, right there. That happened under Jeff Session’s authority. Maybe it happened as part of a bogus investigation, maybe it happened as part of an entirely legitimate one, I have no idea. But it happened, and it’s not acceptable. It was outright voter intimidation *by a US Attorney*.

                And let’s remember this happened in 1984, not the 50s.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Re Sessions: Nope.

                Re DeVos: at least we seem to agree there.

                Re Sec. State I guess we’ll agree to disagree about whether being a senator makes one more than just someone’s wife.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Nevermoor says:

                @davidtc
                @nevermoor
                You’re presenting the “Bork” arguments at face value, often ignoring the context it itself often supplies.

                In big every large bold letters it says he said “The NAACP (etc) are Anti-American”, and in the fine print it turns out he was talking about their support for murderous Pro-Communist rebels in foreign countries, and how that costs them moral authority.

                He said “I thought those guys [the KKK] were OK until I learned they smoked pot”, while he was trying them for murder and the like.

                And Thomas Figures, the now-dead star “witness” for all this (although he wasn’t under oath), is known for things like bribing witnesses, paranoia, and thinking Dan Rather was talking to him specifically through the television.

                (replying to David)
                So when he’s not executing members of the Klan and racially integrating schools, he’s suppressing the black vote?

                Or maybe legit policy differences are being exaggerated and misrepresented so the Dems can once again play the “he’s a racist” card on anyone who isn’t a Dem?

                Since him executing a member of the Klan is portrayed as an act of racism, I find it hard to trust his critics.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Stalin killed Trotsky, so really, I don’t trust anyone who accuses him of being a Communist.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                People who deny the agency of Ramón Mercader deny the agency of People of Color.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Stalin committed enough heinous deeds that we don’t need to make stuff up.

                That people need to spin, putting the death penalty on a Klan member into an act of racism, says Sessions apparently hasn’t. The case against him is so weak that *this* is what they need to resort to.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                How can Stalin be a Communist, when he executed Communists?

                In fact, I think its fair to say Stalin executed more Communists than anyone else in the world.

                People spin the purges as an act of Communism, but since it was directed at Communists, this is unpossible.

                Just like Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, Stalin is a victim of a vicious slur campaign.

                Republicans should like him anyway- He was a strong leader, who often rode shirtless on horseback.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                There is *NO* evidence that Stalin ever killed *ANYONE*.

                You slur a great man with your lies!

                “Oh, but he signed pieces of paper!”

                How many pieces of paper have *YOU* signed? QUICK TRY CHIP FOR MURDER BECAUSE HE SIGNED A PIECE OF PAPERReport

              • Stillwater in reply to Jaybird says:

                There is *NO* evidence that Stalin ever killed *ANYONE*.

                I just googled it up, and you’re right: the consensus seems to be that there is no evidence Stalin ever personally killed anyone.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                So when he’s not executing members of the Klan and racially integrating schools, he’s suppressing the black vote?

                Sessions as *said* he filed lawsuits that forced school integration. He said it, and everyone dutifully repeats he ‘filed several cases to desegregate schools’. The problem is…no, he didn’t:
                https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/which-schools-did-jeff-sessions-desegregate/509867/

                There were some existing school desegregation cases when he became a US Attorney, and basically what he did was…not stop them. No new school desegregation cases were filed at all during the 80s in Alabama, mostly because Alabama was *already under* a court order to desegregate schools, and the three existing cases were just it failing to do that. Some of the court filings in those cases made during his term do have his name on them, but that was apparently a complete formality.

                He *does* have his name on United States v. Conecuh County, a voter fraud case, also a formality because he was the U.S.A. at the time…but that was from, and entirely done by, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, not him. But, to be fair, let’s quote the real attorney on the case:

                John Tanner, former Justice Department attorney and main attorney on the case, told The Atlantic that Sessions was “interested” and “supportive” of the Civil Rights Division attorneys who did most of the work on the case.

                So…there we go. He didn’t shut down desegregation cases, and seems interested and even supportive of a voting fraud case. Yay?

                That doesn’t appear to be fighting for civil rights. It’s not fighting *against* them, but it’s not really fighting for them, either. To be fair, that *literally wasn’t his job* as U.S. Attorney, it was the job of the Civil Rights Division.

                But *he’s* the one running around claiming he *was* fighting for civil rights in as U.S. Attorney, by all these mysterious cases he filed…which was really just another part of the government doing their job.

                And then *he himself* launched a voter fraud case, and *it* ended up hassling black voters and was targeted at civil right leaders attempting to collect absentee ballots.

                Or maybe legit policy differences are being exaggerated and misrepresented so the Dems can once again play the “he’s a racist” card on anyone who isn’t a Dem?

                Legit policy differences like ‘Should black voters who have committed no wrongdoing at all and are, in fact, alleged victims of wrongdoing be hauled for a three hour(1) car trip to give a disposition they could given at the local courthouse, who were treated *like* criminals while giving it, and then had another three hour car trip *back*… Yes or not?’

                …is just a policy difference?

                Wait, are you asserting that was a *policy*? Did this policy apply to everyone, or just blacks?

                It’s worth pointing out that convening the grand jury in Mobile is pretty inexplicable, also. Selma is literally the next county over and contains the *other* District Court for the ‘Southern District of Alabama’. The *actual trial* took place in Selma, after all.

                But he convened the grand jury in Mobile for no reason *cough*whiterjurypool*cough*, resulting in six hour round trip travel time. (Not that any travel time is needed for *dispositions*, which can be taken at the local courthouse, or, really, anywhere a table can be set up.)

                1) I am guessing the time here. Three hour is about the shortest plausible 160 mile car trip. It was probably closer to four once everything is accounted for.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC says:

                BTW, for those of you are not aware, a grand jury proceeding consists of a prosecutor (In this case, a US Attorney) presenting the best possible case the government has, with no defense or *witnesses* present. They, instead, quote witness statements.

                There is absolutely no reason to demand witnesses travel to the *location* of a grand jury to *write down their statement*. A grand jury cannot legally interact with witnesses, witnesses cannot be called in to testify, witnesses cannot be cross examined. They are questioned by only the state’s attorneys beforehand, and their statement (Or whatever part of it most supports the case.) is presented to the grand jury.

                Sessions hauled these *victims* of vote tampering to Mobile for…what? Fun? Spite?

                He was the US Attorney, they were witnesses, he could indeed legally compel them to ‘testify’ in whatever manner he wanted at whatever location he wanted, but, seriously, his behavior is *literally completely inexplicably* unless his goal was to intimidate them. Intimidate them into testifying how he wanted, intimidate them into never voting again, whatever, I don’t know, but that is not acceptable behavior of a US Attorney, and it is certainly not acceptable behavior for *the* US Attorney General.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                Sessions hauled these *victims* of vote tampering to Mobile for…what? Fun? Spite?

                I’ve no clue. But let’s just recap.

                Sessions was accused of racism…

                …and the best piece of evidence against him (the KKK) turns out to be a politically motivated lie…

                …and the 2nd best piece of evidence against him turns out to be the word of a guy with mental problems including paranoia, and it also looks like a politically motivated lie.

                Those are the two points (out of two) that I bothered to research.

                But hey, gosh darn it, the Dems called him a racist and they never use that word for politics, so he’s got to be a racist somehow. So, knowing that he’s a racist, we’ll look at his entire career and just assume racism was why he did anything we can’t explain or don’t have the details on, and we won’t check the accuracy or whatever.

                Better still would be to find accounts where we *can’t* check the accuracy, because that deals with all these annoying issues and we can finally hold the racist accountable for his racist views.

                So, no, I’m not going to bother doing more research on Sessions’ racism. The first two points didn’t convince you, if I find a third you’ll just move to a fourth. I’ll just assume he’s not a Democrat, because that seems to be what you really mean.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                So, no, I’m not going to bother doing more research on Sessions’ racism. The first two points didn’t convince you, if I find a third you’ll just move to a fourth. I’ll just assume he’s not a Democrat, because that seems to be what you really mean.

                No. The two points that I had not, in fact, ever heard of and I did not advance at all, being disproved, did not somehow convince me that my *actual researched* point was invalid.

                No one even made the argument you’ve shot down *on this site*. You went out and found it. Asserting that *I* moved on to a third (Third? What was the second?) claim is nonsense, I didn’t make any other claim to start with! *You* were the one who decided that the case against Sessions was just some jokes he said.

                Maybe, if *you* were going to research one (or two?) specific example, you should have either asked here, or, here’s a weird idea, research the case *being referenced by Democrats on the floor of the Senate that just made the news*, because they made Warren stop reading a letter about it.

                On one hand, the Democrats in the Senate are making serious allegations of Session’s behavior as US Attorney, citing apparent abuse of power and active voter suppression. On the other hand, some liberal web sites say he joked about the KKK. Which shall Dark Matter investigate!?

                The jokes! Which are, of course, nothing and stupid. (1)

                But, hey, this is new and exciting. You know, I’ve been hearing all bad things about Hillary Clinton, and I did some research and it turns out those allegations are made up. There *isn’t* a pedophilia ring being operated out of the basement of a pizza parlor! It doesn’t even have a basement!

                And thus, with a single paragraph, Clinton is cleared of all possible wrongdoing forever.

                1) Frankly, that joke would be nothing even if *not* in the context it was made. A *joke* like that requires being the opposite of what is expected. His joke only works if everyone thinks the KKK is really bad, and drug use isn’t (Or at least is nowhere near as bad as the KKK), because the *joke* is that he took offense to the wrong thing. If everyone didn’t think that way, *it would not be a joke*…and the structure of it is clearly intended to be a joke.

                Please note, however, someone can dislike the KKK and *still actively work to suppress black votes*.Report

              • Koz in reply to Nevermoor says:

                We’ve been waiving the non-terrible ones (i.e. at-least-marginally-qualified) through.

                Oh bullshit. The activist libs in America have successfully been browbeating the Demos in Congress into “resistance” against the Trump Administration in a particularly mindless and antagonistic way.

                Presumably the intention is to come up with a reverse Tea Party. That may or may not work. But it’s a horrible idea regardless. Supposedly we have to put any kind of positive governance on hold until at least the midterms of 2018 in order to give the Demos a chance to exact some political revenge.

                Suppose the Republicans win again then (which is at least plausible, maybe even likely)? What do you suppose an appropriate punishment for the libs should be in that case?Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Koz says:

                If you’re going to call bullshit, point me to the heavy opposition to, for example, Nikki Haley.

                If you can’t, then I trust your retraction will be prompt and heartfelt, because you’re an honest commenter, not a partisan hack.Report

      • Kim in reply to Koz says:

        I’m tempted to quote something out of Encyclopedia Dramatica to explain to you what being outside of civil society is, and what the consequences are.

        I don’t think it would survive the editors around here, so I shall desist.Report

    • George Turner in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      In the past weeks I’ve seen those very people in comment threads all over the Internet, and they include a great many Democrats.

      They are part of the former Democrat base of working-class, blue-collar people who drive trucks and don’t like masked thugs attacking people on the streets. A great many of them switched parties and voted for Trump. Protests like Berkeley’s are causing a great many more who stayed loyal in November to go ahead and abandon the Democrat party. I know that because I’m seeing so many of them say it in the comments sections of mainstream media articles.

      It’s been said that the Vietnam war kept going for several years because of the reaction of a vast swath of the public to the antics of the left-coast anti-war protesters, who, based on polling data, increased the popularity of the war.Report

      • Kim in reply to George Turner says:

        George,
        Hey there! Welcome!
        Sorry, but I think you’re thinking of someone you have met, some old sod who ain’t terribly relevant anymore.

        Dirty Fucking Hippies doesn’t play very well anymore, ya know?

        Besides, 2016 was peak SJW. Did you hear what happened to the Tea Party grifters?Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to George Turner says:

        So these commenters you see all over the internet were really, all set to vote Team Hillary, until, what, her emails? A guy they saw on Fox News breaking a window in Oakland?

        Then they were forced, forced, to vote Trump, and Ryan/ McConnell too?

        They said, “I’ll never vote for those black clad guys.
        They just make me so mad, by God, I wanna dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and the ACA!
        And repeal Davis-Bacon!
        And pass national Right To Work laws!
        And overturn Roe and make abortion illegal!”
        And reinstate child labor!
        And dismantle public schools!
        And deport millions of Mexicans!
        And register those damn Muslims!

        But yeah, I’ll miss voting for the Democrat Party.”Report

        • George Turner in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          The one’s who drew the line at Hillary’s e-mails voted for Trump. What I’m seeing now are ones who voted for Hillary but who are now renouncing the Democrat party because of things like the Berkeley riots. They say there are just fed up. Some of this was already going on because of all the other post-election protests, too.

          What seems to be happening is that the old dividing line of liberals versus conservatives is being redrawn as breathless angry progressives versus normal people.Report

          • Kim in reply to George Turner says:

            George,
            Remind me why the Republicans voted for a lifelong Democrat from New York City?Report

            • George Turner in reply to Kim says:

              Because, like Milo, he’s FABULOUS!

              The election flows from the assertion that the critical issue facing the United States is political correctness. With political correctness there can be no honest, open discussion and people can’t make decisions based on their true thoughts and feelings because those are suppressed. Thus the decisions won’t reflect either the wisdom or desires of the populace, created a vast disconnect.

              Trump was the candidate who saw that, and he exploited it masterfully.Report

              • Kim in reply to George Turner says:

                George,
                Jesus christ, you’re telling America about political correctness?
                Hahaha!
                Do me a favor and go holler at Australia. Maybe when you get banned from a country or two I’ll take you seriously.Report

              • gregiank in reply to George Turner says:

                There are always points where i can agree with people about the problems with PC. The problem is they inevitably barrel on past it to the point of silliness.Report

              • Dave in reply to gregiank says:

                gregiank:
                There are always points where i can agree with people about the problems with PC. The problem is they inevitably barrel on past it to the point of silliness.

                This x 1,000,000.

                It’s always the bad reactions to it that look worse than what it is people are complaining about, even if there’s a valid complaint to be made.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Dave says:

                AOL. I was there at a liberal arts college for PC. I was there when David Spade provided its shark-jumping moment. You can still see its DNA on campuses today.
                But what, off campus, gets indiscriminately labeled as such? Scope creep.Report

              • Kim in reply to Dave says:

                Firing people for misgendering someone by accident is pretty bad.
                Arresting people for “racist” halloween costumes (Pocohantas, say),… that’s pretty bad.
                SJW in action, folks.Report

              • Being polite to someone just because he’d served his country honorably and suffered terribly for it. I mean, who does that?Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to George Turner says:

            In order for this crossover to be true then, wouldn’t it stand to reason that there exist now millions of Trump voters who are still friendly to labor unions, abortion rights, government regulation public schools and Muslims?

            Or did they somehow change all these views because, y’know, emails.Report

            • George Turner in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Yep. Trump has redrawn the electoral map and the political breakdown of the two parties, upending decades of relative stability. After his meeting with union leaders, Trump got the wholehearted support and effusive praise from the head of the AFL-CIO and the head of the Teamsters. Trump is stealing the Democrats’ base by delivering for American workers instead of throwing them empty promises while gutting their industries and towns.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to George Turner says:

                Uh huh.
                Did they comment on the proposed elimination of Davis Bacon and the new national Right To Work act?
                I’ll bet they are just grinning ear to ear now, dontcha think?

                I wonder how the Trump voters in the midwest are reacting to the Trump’s reinstatement of the pre-existing conditions clause, or his proposal to allow health insurers to charge 50 year olds more than is allowed under the ACA?

                I wonder how those middle aged Trump voters like that their retirement managers are now allowed to take money from hedge funds to steer them to ruinous underperforming accounts, now that they no longer have a fiduciary duty?

                I bet those low income Trump voters dig the fact that they no longer can go to Planned Parenthood for low cost reproductive services.

                Yeah, he’s delivering for the workers, all right.

                As I like to ask,
                Hows that Trumpey Changey thing workin out for ya?Report

              • George Turner in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                What good does it do to oppose a right-to-work act when the factory is moving to China?

                Trump won Ohio. He won Michigan. He won Wisconsin. He won Pennsylvania. He won West Virginia. He took the rust belt, the Democrats “blue wall” away from them.

                Union voters were turning out in droves for him.

                Saying things like “Planned Parenthood provides low cost reproductive services” is why Hillary lost. Well, that and her unbelievable corruption, rapist husband, and all the rest. She lost among white women. and now is busily trying to turn the DNC into the party of unmarried liberal white women and coastal metrosexuals who still live with their parents.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to George Turner says:

                Oh heavens no, we wouldn’t want to have a corrupt rapist in the White House.Report

              • notme in reply to Don Zeko says:

                So you want Bill Clinton back in the White House?Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to George Turner says:

                OK, so the way Trump is delivering for the working class is to bust the union and drive their wages lower?
                And let their insurance company drop them because they got sick once?
                Or charge them more because they are older?
                And have their IRA get funneled into a loser account because the fund manager was paid to offload the dogs?

                Man, those lucky Trump voters. Wonder when they will get tired of winning.Report

              • George Turner in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                No. Trumps way to help the workers is to stop the mass importation of millions of illegal aliens who drive wages down, and to stop the mass export of the factories that provided union jobs.

                Both he, the rust belt union workers, and other “deplorables” that the GOP was intent on ignoring have a gut feeling that globalism and free trade is screwing us over. All they have to do is drive around town looking at the empty factories to know something is amiss. Both Democrats and Republicans keep promising them that free trade benefits everybody, in aggregate, but if it did why are they working part time at Dairy Queen instead of their old job as a machine tool operator?

                The problem is that standard economic theory assumes that comparative advantage is a relative constant that determines what is being traded, not the thing being traded. Yet now both factories and the intellectual capital to run them efficiently can be boxed up, commoditized, and shipped overseas just as easily as the appliances they produce.

                Unemployed workers are sitting at home watching TV and ads come on bragging about how UPS can manage “your” company’s entire logistic chain from Bejing to your customers in Memphis.

                The Chinese, not steeped in Adam Smith and orthodox economics, doesn’t want the benefits of trade with us, they want our means of production.

                Why buy a British Rover when they can just buy the Rover factory and move it to China? So the elites tell us that with globalization we’ll benefit from replacing those Rover jobs with IT jobs, which we’ll then outsource to Bangalore. About the only job we can’t export is gardening, but then all those gardening jobs are being filled by illegal Guatemalans.

                The stock holders and factory owners are of course making a fortune by doing this, but American workers are dumped by the wayside. We might as well just dump them in the slums of Calcutta.

                Trump, and the people who voted for him, say this nonsense has to stop. If we export all the factories and businesses that gave us the highest standard of living, we won’t have the highest standard of living, the country that bought all our means of production will. We’ll be stuck trading them corn and wheat for all the manufactured goods and electronics that used to be built here, by us.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to George Turner says:

                Seriously, no one is a more fierce critic of our “free trade” policies than I, so kudos to your paragraphs on that.

                But I have to wonder; lets assume the gardener is now the American Trump voter.
                How much is he getting paid?
                Assuming the Republicans get their way and the minimum wage is abolished, of course.

                And how is Trump going to keep the jobs from moving to China, again? Some sort of tariff thingy? Or poison their executives with polonium?

                Or the bigger question, of how Trump stops UPS from replacing its humans with software, and Uber replaces its drivers with robo-cars.
                Is Trump going to Tweet them into submission?

                Has anyone who actually grasps economics weighed in on this proposal?Report

              • Kim in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Chip,
                Minimum Wage increases are now a rightwing thing.
                Think it through, and then get back to me.

                You want an actual populist thing? You gotta go Mandatory Minimum Income.Report

              • … so let’s DEFINITELY do everything we can to cripple unions.Report

              • George Turner in reply to Nevermoor says:

                That’s why all the labor union bosses are praising the hell out of President Donald J Trump. Hillary would have happily arrested them to make license plates in Chinese sweat shops.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to George Turner says:

                Wait, what? HRC would have arrested union leaders?Report

              • George Turner in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Heck, she’d sell Chelsea to the circus if she thought she’d make money off it.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to George Turner says:

                In addition to what Chip pointed out – mass importation of illegal immigrants on the scale of millions?
                Net immigration – with the exception of Central Americans fleeing gang violence (and therefore problematic because that’s not protected, so they’re not officially refugees) – net immigration, legal and illegal, is trending neutral. Illegals (to use notme’s charming term) are for the most part, at this time, long-term residents.
                There is not a flood of wetbacks that can be stopped by a wall. There just isn’t.
                Mind you, if there was a proposal to build a wall as an old-school money-vomiting WPA program that would help out the people who are in danger of losing their livelihoods but can’t fathom retraining to work on a computer – well, I’d consolidwr supporting that…Report

            • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              In order for this crossover to be true then, wouldn’t it stand to reason that there exist now millions of Trump voters who are still friendly to labor unions, abortion rights, government regulation public schools and Muslims?

              Well yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Is that really something you’re invested in disputing, Chip?

              Beyond that, they don’t believe the answers they’re hearing from mainstream libs, and think they’re being lied to, eg, emails.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Koz says:

                If so, is there any rational case to be made that these folks didn’t make a huge mistake in voting for Trump?Report

              • Koz in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I think I misunderstood you on first reading. You’re asking if there are credible reasons to believe these voters made the right choice?

                I think it’s pretty clear that there are, from lots of different angles. The two most obvious reasons for me are first, a rejection of lib Establishment’s self-issued lie license, eg, emails. Second, a rejection of modern lib multiculturalism. That’s just for starters.Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Koz says:

                Going down the wish list of Trump voters, I can’t help but think they’re going to be mostly disappointed on issues ranging from “draining the swamp” to reducing corruption to bringing back those manufacturing jobs, but I will admit that if your hot-button issue is fighting against multiculturalism, Trump voters are going to get more or less what they hoped for. And taking the temperature anecdotally, it seems like it’s not a minor issue.Report

              • Koz in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                For the white working class Rust-Belters, I don’t think they expect Trump or the political class in general to solve their problems. They understand how deep they are if nothing else.

                But they’re not buying the coastal libs’ multicultural worldview, transgender this, undocumented that, Muslim that other thing. Even if we were sympathetic with lib narrative relating to those things, there’s no reason to think that libs have the cultural resources they need to implement what they want to do. And probably most important, there’s the sense that America needs to be healed from the inside out. That the libs do-gooder multicultural narrative is a distraction from their duties of loyalty and solidarity toward America.Report

              • Kim in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

                tf,
                Trump voters in the Midwest knew they were probably going to get screwed by him. They knew they were definitely going to be screwed worse by Hillary, though.

                A Vote for Trump was a vote to kick washington in the balls. (also, please remember that Trump ran left on economics — way way past Hillary into protectionism).Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Koz says:

                Wait, you’re claiming there is a large number of Trump voters who are friendly to labor unions, abortion rights, government regulation, public schools and Muslims??

                Care to point me to some? Like, a blog, a poll, or something?Report

              • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Secondarily, yes, which should give you cause to reconsider some of your ideas about American demographics. Ie, that even if this or that group of Americans supposedly favor labor unions, abortion rights, etc., there’s profound limits and how much they are going to be willing to allow doctrinaire libs such as yourself to pull them in whichever direction you want them to go when they’re out voting for Donald Trump.

                In fact, it’s because of the similar obstinate mentality of the Clinton campaign and the libs who enabled it that we have President Donald Trump in the first place. I mean I’ve seem lots of libs make snarky asides about “Emails?” (you included) without making any kind of meaningful effort to appreciate how that issue got as much traction as it did.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Koz says:

                So, since you’re better plugged into the Trump camp than I am, how are these millions of DemTrump voters reacting to the Muslim EO, defunding of Planned Parenthood, Davis Bacon, Right to Work legislation, and so on?

                Are they hopping mad, banging their sippy cups (cuz they’re Dems, after all), or are they cool with all that?

                P.S.
                Oh, and how are they feeling about Trump’s unsecured private email server? Man, that oughta get some traction!Report

              • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                So, since you’re better plugged into the Trump camp than I am, how are these millions of DemTrump voters reacting to the Muslim EO, defunding of Planned Parenthood, Davis Bacon, Right to Work legislation, and so on?

                I have no special knowledge of the Trump camp, but my guess is they would be pretty noncommittal about the whole bunch.

                They might be mildly in favor of the EO, but it’s a small piece early in the game. The rest of them are even earlier, I don’t think one of them is even in force. Frankly I haven’t heard of them myself as it relates to recent actions of the Trump Administration.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Unsecured e-mail server.
                Official favors to Wall Street figures who contributed.
                Self-aggrandizing military action throwing away US servicemen’s lives over the heada of their commandwrs who knew better.
                “Charitable” foundation that didn’t just play fast and loose with regulations but just ignored them.
                Every ethical concern thar was leveled at Clinton has proven true afainst trump. And we haven’t heard boo from principled conservatives.
                And that doesn’t even include the unsecured hotline to Russia or putative selfies of someone’s best R. Kelly impression.
                He must actually be the Antichrist.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to El Muneco says:

                And we haven’t heard boo from principled conservatives.

                You mean, other than “never Trump” and the 3% (ish) of the GOP voted for Hillary. Awkwardly this was balanced or outweighed by the Dems who voted for Trump.

                But now he’s in office, and we’ll see how he does. It’s possible my vote against him was a mistake and I shouldn’t have judged his words so literally. Maybe he’ll do good things. It’s also possible we’re in the middle of a great reshuffle which will end with me flipping parties.

                He must actually be the Antichrist.

                Or the media could be having a melt down and exaggerating yet again.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to El Muneco says:

                principled conservatives

                Both of them, you mean?Report

              • Kim in reply to El Muneco says:

                El Muneco,
                So I know a guy in a position to know just how many enemies Trump is making.
                He gives Trump 50/50 of lasting his first term in office.Report

              • Kim in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Chip,
                Hey, I’m here (and voted for Trump). Rather fight with Trump trying to shoot me in the face than Hillary stabbing the left in the back.Report

  10. Aaron David says:

    From the post:

    When I walked into the University of California, Santa Cruz I was a committed leftist and was right at home with the political tone the university maintained. I experienced a slow move away from the radical groups and policies I had spent years defending but could never fathom leaving the left behind.

    And from your comments:

    I hope they don’t. Not because I am a college Republican but because I believe we need a capable conservative counter on our college campuses. If college Republicans are in agreement with Milo when it comes to the specifics than we really have seen a death of conservatism as a viable political ideology.

    This puts you in a very precarious position to be the one to judge hypocrisy. Putting aside the fact that you, as a leftist of some sort of veracity, are setting yourself as the judge of conservatism, you are letting the ways and means of your beliefs decide whether or not others are following theirs. From your point of view, obviously he is a hypocrite, but that says nothing of whether he, and indeed conservatives in general, feel he is being such. When you state “But Milo’s actions are anything but a defense of free speech principles. His attempts to silence those who dare speak of him unkindly (much like our current president) by using his swarm of online acolytes is not a political act that should find support from any ideology or persuasion.” you don’t explain how this actually works, nor show example of it in action so we, and by extension any possible conservative readers here, to help us judge.

    It seems more that you are using your definitions of what is good and proper in the way of Free Speech to paint him as a hypocrite rather than how his actions don’t lead to his own definition , or that of the right in general. It could be that conservatives on campus, like conservatives in general, feel that they need something/someone to break down the walls of conventional definitions of Free Speech, or that they feel that they aren’t able to actually have FS due to constraints placed upon their ideology and how to enact it by those who are actively hostile to that viewpoint. That, indeed, there is no way to get a message across without shattering many ideas regarding FS, which they most likely feel are shibboleths.

    Given how often conservatives talk about PC culture and how corrosive it is, it would seem that this is right up their alley.Report

    • Don Zeko in reply to Aaron David says:

      What, then, is your proposed definition of free speech that Milo’s actions are compatible with but that Milo’s liberal critics violate?Report

    • Roland Dodds in reply to Aaron David says:

      Few things.

      1. I left out a lot of my personal political journey for brevity’s sake. I came to reject a lot of my leftist politics. I recognize I supported all kinds of ideas and individuals that anyone who cares about liberty and human rights should be embarrassed by.

      2. You said, “you are letting the ways and means of your beliefs decide whether or not others are following theirs.” That is only half true. As noted in the piece, I had friends who were conservatives. The fact that they rejected the rolling mindset of some in their movement was part of my assessment of said points.

      Having said that, I have no problem looking at someone else’s ideas and principles through my own ideological lens and assessing it based on my own criteria. My criteria and understand of those ideas may change with debate and honest discourse over time. This brings us back to the issue of Milo; if he does not help create that discussion and debate than what good is her to college Republicans? If “conservatives” are now radicals, demanding a destruction of our common institutions and rules of decency, then fine. I simply won’t let them claim to be anything less.Report

      • Aaron David in reply to Roland Dodds says:

        In response @roland-dodds (and thank you for the response) two things.

        1. I understand that brevity is important and that all sorts of things end up on the cutting room floor, but in this case remember that you are talking about one groups opinion from a decade ago. And even then, you state that there were others on campus, of that political suasion, who even then were in disagreement with your interpretation of how conservatives should act. What has changed, if anything? As this was before the Obama admin, did that poison discourse for them? And what are those people you knew then saying now, are they with Milo are against Milo, or worse, indifferent?

        2. You are absolutely correct that you get to use your beliefs to look at and judge others actions, I alluded to that in my original response. But, that said, that only carries as much weight as the other gives it. And going back to my first point, if their opinions (the right) have changed in how they regard your opinions, well, yours might carry less water than you think, indeed might incite rather that mollify.Report

        • Roland Dodds in reply to Aaron David says:

          @aaron-david

          1. Good question. I am in contact with a portion of this conservative group I noted (as this was before Facebook/Twitter I simply lost any contact and can’t even remember their names). All the conservatives that avoided the sensationalist paper noted in my piece supported Rubio/Bush/Walker at some point in the campaign. None of them ever went to Trump, although I do see some effort to defend his presidency now that he has been elected.

          They are all middle class and have families/careers. They are not the types to jump in with the alt-right/lite. They are saying the same thing many of us are here (“Milo is bad. Riots also bad. What happened to my country?” etc.)

          2. My opinions carry weight with the conservatives I know personally, and their opinions matter to me. I stay in contact with them because I enjoy their company and we all like honest debate. We have a relationship and thus don’t put words in each other’s mouths that we wish to argue against. That “the right” has gone against the type of conservatism my friends represent says a lot about how the political sphere has changed in the last few years. Obviously, many on the right would just say I’m “tone policing” and giving unwarranted advice to a group I care little about. That’s fine, but I think I have made more of an effort to talk about things the hard-right has wanted to discuss than many liberals/leftists. One would hope that gets me their ear for at least a few minutes.Report

  11. Doctor Jay says:

    This isn’t what Roland said, so much as what this post reminds me of. I too, had many a friend who was conservative in my college days, and some even now. We could talk about things.

    The election left me with a sense of betrayal by many of those people. The polls make it clear that there were a lot of people who didn’t really approve of Trump, but voted for him anyway.

    Similarly, there are probably a lot of people in those audiences who don’t like Milo, but sponsor him anyway. This gives me a senses of betrayal as well. I know plenty of conservatives who know what constitutes good behavior and what doesn’t, and are well able to tell what a slimeball Milo is. But apparently they don’t care about that any more. The level of spite running around the country is at an all-time high.

    I’ve been in “WTF?” mode for several months now.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Doctor Jay says:

      ” I know plenty of conservatives who know what constitutes good behavior and what doesn’t…”

      You know, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. And they also know that, when given a chance, liberals will proudly and publicly demonstrate that they have no god damn clue about these things.

      Or, y’know. #notallliberals. But if the conservative philosophy can be blamed and held responsible for encouraging the KKK, for encouraging hate crimes against Muslims, then why can’t the liberal movement be blamed for anarchists smashing windows, setting things on fire, throwing bombs at police?Report

    • Kim in reply to Doctor Jay says:

      I voted for Trump out of a sincere understanding that Hillary would be worse (And I know someone who works for Hillary). That Hillary’s mental stability had deteriorated drastically within the last 12 months, and that someone I would have been okay voting for in January was not someone I could endorse in November.Report

  12. Jaybird says:

    One of the funny points I saw made on the twitters was a comparison of the Milo Riots to the Mohammed Cartoon riots.

    Is your initial response to say “well, they shouldn’t have printed that” when you see the riots?Report

    • Roland Dodds in reply to Jaybird says:

      A good question. My first reaction would be to ask what is the point of the publication? I thought it was silly for folks to argue all magazines and papers should publish the cartoons “to make a point.” Is it fitting with the style and structure of the publication? The NYT is not in the business of goading people just to get a rise. Charlie Hebdo is.

      I also don’t mind Milo publishing his ideas and for people to discuss and debate them (like we are doing now). But I question the wisdom of a Republican organization aligning with him if they claim to be conservatives. Would I have supported Charlie Hebdo if they were staging protests outside Mosques and hand out their paper? Probably not.Report

  13. Damon says:

    Yes, continue to feed the troll.

    Light the torches and bring the pitchforks.

    Burn it all down.

    Be careful what you wish for. Don’t come crying to me when the same things happens to you. I’ll laugh or shoot you in the face.Report

  14. Koz says:

    Rather, I want to address my Republican comrades that keep inviting Milo to speak at their respective universities.

    For me at least, the reason the College Republicans are doing this is to demonstrate that they can. Ie, we invite him, people bitch, some people protest, security keeps order, and nothing really bad happens. In the case of Berkeley it seems that this was a failure.Report

    • George Turner in reply to Koz says:

      The reason to invite Milo is that his talks are wildly entertaining. The Youtube videos of his campus talks get 150,000 to over a million views each. He’s THAT fabulous.

      And more entertaining is the way the left screams and bangs their sippy cups because they no longer know how to form a remotely coherent argument or an attack that makes a lick of sense. They screech that Milo is a white nationalist, but he’s a Greek/British Jewish foreigner, so exactly what nation would he be a nationalist of? They scream he’s a racist – but he’s devoted to black dick. It’s all so amusing.Report

      • Kim in reply to George Turner says:

        The reason to invite Milo is that he’ll show up, and he’ll talk Right.

        I know plenty more entertaining people than him, and people with more caltrops to put afore everyone’s ideological hobbyhorses.Report

        • George Turner in reply to Kim says:

          Yes, but how many Youtube views do their speeches get?

          Let’s look.

          George Will at Purdue University: 6,855 views.
          George Will at the Illinois College of Law: 1,257 views.

          Some of Will’s other talks get somewhat more views, but not much more.

          From page 1 on Milo.

          Milo Thrashes Heckling Muslim Woman at New Mexico: 1,390,798 views.
          Milo at UC Colorado Springs: 171,528 views.
          Milo at UW-Milwaukee: 323,493 views.Report

      • Koz in reply to George Turner says:

        I have seen very little of Milo firsthand so I’ll take your word for it. My impression of him is that he operates in a very narrow cultural space to really put the spotlight on the cultural and aesthetic dead end of modern multi-culti intersectional Pokemon.

        I’ll stipulate that he’s good at that, but when push comes to shove it follows that lib Pokemon being a dead end, and Milo being a critique of that, means that Milo is a dead end as well. We (normies, libs, and Milo) would all be better off if libs could find something else to consume their attention.Report

        • George Turner in reply to Koz says:

          Oh, then pull up one of his campus talks! They’re a hoot. I had two college housemates last year who’d only heard the name, so I had them pull up a video. They were almost instantly mesmerized and started watching lots of his videos, becoming huge fans.

          I’m not even sure Milo would be classified as right-wing. He’d probably be on the left on the vast majority of issues if the time period of the left-right scale was the 1990’s. But he is a powerful opponent of the far-far modern radical left and their political correctness, constant shaming, virtue signaling, lies, and group-think. They’re basically hall monitors from hell, few people like them, and it’s long past time to quit being afraid of them.Report

          • Pinky in reply to George Turner says:

            Have you watched any of Ben Shapiro’s speeches? They cover similar ground on political correctness etc. But the Q&A section is where you’ll see the biggest difference. It’s like Howard Stern versus Mark Levin. Milo has about 8 facts on hand. Ben knows the material.Report

            • George Turner in reply to Pinky says:

              But does Ben Shapiro have fabulous hair? No, he doesn’t.
              Does he have a cool British accent? No, he doesn’t.

              Milo’s trolling works because he’s a flaming gay foreigner who loves black dick. That apparently drives many on the left into fits of apoplexy, such as the infamous Trigglypuff.Report

              • Pinky in reply to George Turner says:

                They shouted louder over Christina Hoff Summers. They’re not enraged by Milo; they’re not enraged at all. They’re deliberate. Don’t give them the excuse of passion.

                Now, there is what Greg Gutfeld calls the “Dean Wormer Effect”. The left has always assumed that they’re the Deltas and the conservatives are Dean Wormer. It leaves them badly unprepared when conservatives are cooler by the superficial standards they embrace. You could argue that the whole election pivoted on the negative value of a Gwyneth Paltrow endorsement. But that just gets Milo’s foot in the door. It doesn’t make him interesting in the long run, though, or informative in a 90-minute lecture. It definitely doesn’t lay out an actionable agenda. Those things matter.Report

              • George Turner in reply to Pinky says:

                But having an actionable agenda isn’t Milo’s job. He’s not tasked with winning the war in the Pacific, he’s tasked with landing on a hostile beach and holding it. His job is to push back against the campus culture of censorship and political correctness instead of ceding terrain to the enemies of free speech, free thought, and open discussion. As part of this, he points out how stupid millennial progressives are when they rabidly defend so many things that would have been anathema to real liberals, such as supporting Islam and gay rights. As he says, you can have Muslim friends and gay friends, but if you invite him to the same party off the roof he goes. Or there’s the angry feminists who get triggered if you dare to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the Islamic world isn’t as keen on women’s rights as, say, Canada is.

                It’s the inevitable intellectual rot that started with multiculturalism, an idiotic belief system that actually would refute the entire progressive worldview because if all cultures are equal across space, they’re also equal across time. That would mean that social progress over time is thus impossible. San Francisco culture would still be equal (and thus no better) than Medieval German culture where people were burned at the stake for heresy. Well, okay, maybe those two particular cultures aren’t that different. But you get the idea.Report

          • Koz in reply to George Turner says:

            But he is a powerful opponent of the far-far modern radical left and their political correctness, constant shaming, virtue signaling, lies, and group-think. They’re basically hall monitors from hell, few people like them, and it’s long past time to quit being afraid of them.

            Yeah yeah yeah, I agree with this, in fact it’s pretty much a restatement of what I wrote above. It’s still a dead end, or at best a very limited purpose tool.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to George Turner says:

        Proudly citing a number of YouTube views is the 2017 version of “my website has over fifty thousand hitsReport

        • George Turner in reply to DensityDuck says:

          And yet college kids, the target audience and the people deciding who to invite, live and die by such things. Watching a far more informative lecture by Milton Friedman or William F Buckley is great, but it’s not “exciting”. Milo is exciting, and one of the purposes of college speakers is to entertain as well as enlighten.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to George Turner says:

        So…you like Milo because he makes libruls heads assplode?Report

  15. Iron Tum says:

    Rather, I want to address my Republican comrades that keep inviting Milo to speak at their respective universities.

    If this were true, why in G-D’s name would you post it here, where the number of College Republicans(TM) is a function whose limit goes to zero?

    The point of Milo isn’t that he’s a champion of free speech, it’s that his enemies and their institutional support is absolutely not.Report

  16. Jaybird says:

    “Stop Feeding Milo Yiannapolis”

    What does Milo eat?
    One of the things that I’d say that Milo eats is “controversy” and making people say “holy crapola, I don’t want to be affiliated with *THAT*.”

    So here’s the two things to be affiliated with.

    One is Milo.
    The second is Berkley’s Student Newspaper filled with op-eds talking about the protests.

    Now, in my twitters, I was told to imagine the parody version of what Berkley’s Student Newspaper would argue about the protests… and so that’s what I’ll ask you to imagine. Try to come up with the most over-the-top “that’s not fair to the students at Berkley” parody of what they’d have to say about the protests that you can come up with. If you don’t want to imagine such a thing, try to imagine what someone like me would joke about what the students at Berkley would say.

    Now click here and read the op-eds from Berkley’s Student Newspaper.

    Stop feeding Milo Yiannapolis.Report

    • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

      If everyone in a broadly defined political coalition gets to be defined by the dumbest college newspaper editorials available, then just wait until I dig up some of my old copies of The Davidsonian.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Don Zeko says:

        I wasn’t trying to define a political coalition, I was more trying to define what Milo eats and suggesting what might be done to give him less to eat.

        If the argument is that you have every right to feed Milo, well… Um. I suppose you do.

        Let me get out of your way.Report

        • Don Zeko in reply to Jaybird says:

          He eats all sorts of things, I would suggest. His fame requires that he be published by outlets like breitbart and invited to speak by conservative groups, who pay him money which he uses to buy food that he literally eats. Then he has to be criticized by the left in ways that are sufficiently histrionic or violent as to draw media attention. If any of those three links break down, he’s some asshole on the internet that nobody remembers or cares about.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

      What does Milo eat?

      I believe that information was given above, and neither of us has one of those.Report

  17. Koz says:

    At the of suggestion one commenter I watched a YouTube of a Milo event on campus, specifically at the University of New Mexico occurring within the last week or month or so.

    I gotta say, I was very very impressed with Milo, much more than I expected to be. If this was a typical Milo performance, libs should be even more ashamed than usual for attempting to disrupt it. I’m a little surprised they try as hard as they do.

    I was expecting an alt-right analog to Andrew Dice Clay, but that wasn’t it at all. It was substantially, less comic, less vulgar, less incendiary than I expected. In fact, on several occasions he was judicious and even poignant, words I was not expecting to use, and surprisingly substantive.

    In the particular context of the OP, I expected to agree with most of his premises but disagree with the conclusions. On the strength of his performance at New Mexico, it’s fair to say that Roland’s whole case is weak from soup to nuts. There were things said that I didn’t agree. But there was absolutely nothing there that should have been an occasion for riot or disruption.Report

  18. veronica d says:

    There is a pattern here, tho, that is hard to ignore and very ugly. Consider three “positions” that the right has taken, one historic, two current.

    First, during the civil rights era, many on the right suddenly discovered a new commitment to federalism, under the moniker “state’s rights.” Now, very few people have an abiding, abstract commitment to federalism. I certainly don’t, although I do hope that federalist principles will protect me (to some degree) from anti-LGBTQ hate in the new administration. But the point is, whereas I might enjoy some flavors of federalism in service of human rights and dignity, the right-wing wanted federalism so they could continue to oppress black people.

    It was transparently racist.

    Libertarian types (and similar) want to turn the conversation to the abstract principles. That’s fine, if that is what interests you. I can’t help but notice the manifest racism.

    I know which side I am on.

    Fast forward to today. The second position I want to discuss is the spate of “religious freedom” bills/laws/etc. floating around. The thing about these is they really don’t discuss religious freedom is a general sense. None of these laws would allow a person to avoid paying taxes on religious grounds (and obviously not). Nor do they protect the rights of Muslim Americans to build a mosque where they choose, etc. In fact, a central factor of all of these laws is the “right” of evangelicals to discriminate against LGBTQ people.

    Certainly I favor religious freedom, up to a point. But there is a point where that stops. (I doubt anyone here favors human sacrifice, for example.) That I draw the line on the side that protects the civil rights of LGBTQ people says something about my values. That the right draws the line precisely on the other side reveals theirs.

    So we get to Milo and “free speech.” Now, certainly academic freedom is important, but long gone are the days where you could be arrested for arguing Heliocentrism. Likewise, no one would probably care much is Milo was preaching creation science. They might decide he was an ignorant jackass, but I doubt anyone would riot.

    Recently my employer invited David Gelernter out to speak on his book on the structure of human consciousness. Now, I dislike his politics. On the other hand, machine intelligence is a big part of what my employer does, so our interest in his stuff was obvious. So he came, gave an interesting talk, took questions, etc. I stood for questions, challenged him, listened respectfully to his response (which I disagreed with, but whatever). Certainly the man enjoys academic freedom.

    Had he spent his time mocking LGBTQ people, I would have stood, interrupted him, demanded he stop, etc. My employer would no doubt have supported me.

    Academic freedom does not include manifest hate speech, at least not where I work.

    So what speech does Milo fight for? Simply this: the right to harass transgender people, to mock fat people, etc. In other words, his free speech is the freedom to be a bully.

    Gee, you all on the right should sure feel proud.

    In any case, these patterns are clear.Report

    • Kim in reply to veronica d says:

      I do not feel that it is right to make it illegal to harass certain groups but not other groups.
      If the disagreement with such laws requires being a racist bully to prove a point, well, that is expressing freedom of speech.

      When one is willing to go to jail for what one believes, that is something to be respected. When one is willing to have an open arrest warrant out on their name, that is something to be respected.

      I see no signs that Milo is anywhere near willing to stand on his principles. He may not have any.

      But for those who are willing, those who do things to make a point especially while trolling — yes, I’ll be proud of them.Report

      • veronica d in reply to Kim says:

        @kim — The legal rights to free speech are not under challenge for Milo or the “campus Republicans.” What is being challenged is their rights to be publicly repulsive without consequences. See Popehat.Report

        • Kim in reply to veronica d says:

          veronica,
          Therefore, I think we are arguing the wrong thing, and ought to be supporting the trolls willing to get banned from countries rather than Milo, who hasn’t the chutzpah to do anything with personal consequences.Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to veronica d says:

          “What is being challenged is their rights to be publicly repulsive without consequences.”

          So, like, smashing windows and assaulting women with pepper spray, that’s what you mean by ‘consequences’?Report

    • Pinky in reply to veronica d says:

      I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have an abiding commitment to federalism.Report

      • Pinky in reply to Pinky says:

        Oops. I clicked “submit” too soon. Federalism is as important a concept as we have in our founding. We should pay a lot more attention to it. I suspect a lot of conservatives feel that way. And – you say that you’re a libertarian, but you’re not strongly federalist? How does that work?Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to veronica d says:

      Most political discussions proceed from the assumption that a just society is created from a certain creed, manifesto, constitution or governing statement of principles.

      These principles are objective and impartial, like the Bill of Rights or the abstract principle of the separation of church and state.

      Our image of Justice is, literally, a woman who wears a blindfold. She is unable to see the world, and weighs the fate of people according to an abstraction in her head.

      Yet as V has shown above, this doesn’t really map to human behavior. Whether we advocate for federalism or free speech or academic freedom isn’t from behind some Rawlsian veil of ignorance, but from our own lived experience.

      There is a principle in social justice thinking that discovery of justice can’t be found in creeds or abstract principles alone; they can’t possibly have enough breadth and wisdom to adapt to the myriad human motivations and behavior.

      Instead, the idea is that justice can only be discovered by the mingling of several methods-

      One, moral intuition or revelation;
      Two, reference to creeds or literature;
      Three, analysis of the existing facts on the ground, and;
      Four, discussion, debate and consensus.

      I like this, because if Milo shows anything, its how weak and useless the abstraction of “free speech” is; it isn’t a principle that can do enough work on its own to create a just world.Report

      • Kim in reply to Chip Daniels says:

        Crock of shit, that one. You hear a white guy saying from his revealed experience that women have a better chance of getting published than men? He’s got evidence to back himself up, say? Yeah. right. consensus.

        Consensus is the camel made by committee. Social Justice Warriors don’t want consensus, they want control. And Attention.

        When people blatantly lie on national television — and aren’t called on it by the moderators, either… where the hell is the analysis of the existing facts on the ground?? It aint’ possibly anywhere near the discussion and debate.Report

      • Iron Tum in reply to Chip Daniels says:

        Instead, the idea is that justice can only be discovered by the mingling of several methods-

        One, moral intuition or revelation;
        Two, reference to creeds or literature;
        Three, analysis of the existing facts on the ground, and;
        Four, discussion, debate and consensus.

        You may be too young to remember this, but at one time, this process was called “forming a lynch mob.” Now it’s (apparently) called “social justice.” La plus ca changeReport

        • Chip Daniels in reply to Iron Tum says:

          How do we discover the difference between legitimate (just) violence and illegitimate (unjust) violence?

          Is there a universal principle somewhere that always works?Report

          • Iron Tum in reply to Chip Daniels says:

            How do we discover the difference between legitimate (just) violence and illegitimate (unjust) violence?

            Is there a universal principle somewhere that always works?

            I hear Libertarians talking about something they call the “Non-Aggression Principle.” They seem to think that is generally applicable.

            Some combination of the 4 rules of gun safety and the expectation of reciprocity might work.

            Unless you are hinging the question on a very specific definition of “universal” and “always” and planning ot using edge cases to negate any idea. In which case, all you’re left with is the Supreme Authority of Violence, which makes lynch mobs perfectly “just.”Report

      • Koz in reply to Chip Daniels says:

        One, moral intuition or revelation;
        Two, reference to creeds or literature;
        Three, analysis of the existing facts on the ground, and;
        Four, discussion, debate and consensus.

        I like this, because if Milo shows anything, its how weak and useless the abstraction of “free speech” is; it isn’t a principle that can do enough work on its own to create a just world.

        In the abstract, it’s hard to say what this is supposed to mean. We can have free speech as a principle, and like other principles there can be exceptions. To say that free speech isn’t or shouldn’t be a principle seems to me to be really bad, because it’s hard to make good things from the absence of principles. Like the Peter Frase piece on the other thread, where the idea seems to be speech needs to be ok by Left activists in order to be kosher, which is the worst possible solution.

        As it pertains to Milo, it’s kind of irrelevant anyway, because whatever exceptions there would be to free speech wouldn’t apply to him anyway.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to Chip Daniels says:

        “Three, analysis of the existing facts on the ground”

        Well, the existing facts on the ground are people smashing windows and assaulting women.

        “There is a principle in social justice thinking that discovery of justice can’t be found in creeds or abstract principles alone; they can’t possibly have enough breadth and wisdom to adapt to the myriad human motivations and behavior.”

        Hah. Also when we look in abstract principles we find that our own behavior is morally suspect, and yet it feels good to act the way we do, and our philosophy is that nothing that feels good can be truly bad, so the abstract principles must be wrong.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to veronica d says:

      The assumption we, as a society, ought to abandon First Amendment concepts only makes sense to me if one holds the assumption that one and/or one’s own would be in charge of telling other people what they can and cannot say in public.

      I suppose I could see an altruist saying “some fraction of the things that I am inclined to say are harmful to society and, as such, I think the society ought to prevent me from saying them and since I care about society more than I care about some fraction the things I am inclined to say, I think I should be prevented from saying them”, if I squint, but if I don’t squint, the sentiment strikes me as self-contradictory.

      So it only makes sense to me if I assume that I will be the one holding the censor’s pen and/or handing out ball gags after we establish that we want them to be used.

      And I’m trying to come up with another way to think about it and I can’t.Report

    • Pinky in reply to veronica d says:

      “So what speech does Milo fight for? Simply this: the right to harass transgender people, to mock fat people, etc. In other words, his free speech is the freedom to be a bully.”

      He is a bully, but the kind of speech he stands for is free speech. It’s not simply making fun of fat people that’s being banned on campuses. As I’ve said, I’m much happier with Ben Shapiro being the standard bearer on this battlefield. But often times, free speech is defended by the most outrageous. The bully that bullies bullies frequently becomes the leader of a movement. (And frequently becomes a tyrant when he gets real power.) Anyway, my point is that a fairer hearing of Milo wouldn’t depict him as primarily a trans-basher.Report

      • Kim in reply to Pinky says:

        Pinky,
        Or their mum dies and they hang up their hat.

        Because in this sick sad world we live in, apparently it’s worse to harrass Quinn online than it is to stab someone’s mom in the heart.

        Now, who wants a job where the last person’s mom got murdered because of it?Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

        Does free speech have an end, or is it an end in itself?Report

        • Kim in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Chip,
          Bit o’ both, really. Bad Advice Dog and Dogecoin sparkle, don’t they?Report

        • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Is this question a tangent? It may be worth pursuing, but I’m just not sure how it would tie into the ongoing conversation. I guess because Veronica talked about the kind of speech Milo fights for, and I replied that he fights for free speech, someone could say that Veronica was seeing it as a means and I was seeing it as an end. But I wasn’t thinking of it in those terms.

          I’d say that, big picture, everything is a means to the ultimate end, which is God’s glory. This includes individual freedoms. Freedoms can be misused, but they are apparently a necessary means for human growth, and as such they may operate as intermediate ends.Report

          • Troublesome Frog in reply to Pinky says:

            I think that when people ask that question, they’re trying to bracket what things can be called “legitimate free speech” based on what end that speech is working toward. So free speech used for “good” is protected and free speech used for “evil” can be shut down.

            Personally, I find the distinction, “Speech is OK, hitting people over speech is not,” a lot easier to adjudicate in an objective and consistent manner than, “Your speech was used for bad ends, so it’s not protected.”Report

            • Dark Matter in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

              Personally, I find the distinction, “Speech is OK, hitting people over speech is not,” a lot easier to adjudicate in an objective and consistent manner than, “Your speech was used for bad ends, so it’s not protected.”

              It’s not about speech, it’s about power.

              The Left *wants* to be able to riot, burn down buildings, and claim it’s because the Right is violent and hateful.Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I’m sure that’s true for a sufficiently carefully defined group called “The Left.” In fact, it seems trivially true if you define “The Left” the right way, which makes the claim pretty uninteresting.Report

      • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

        He is a bully, but the kind of speech he stands for is free speech.

        Not buyin’ it, at all. One big takeaway from the YouTube video I watched is the extent to which he’s looking to persuade his adversaries instead of humiliate them. I was really far more impressed with him than I expected to be.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to veronica d says:

      “certainly academic freedom is important, but long gone are the days where you could be arrested for arguing Heliocentrism. ”

      Nobody was ever arrested for arguing Heliocentrism.

      “what speech does Milo fight for?”

      By asking this you’re going against two hundred fifty years of jurisprudence to the effect of “speech regulations based on content are inherently un-Constitutional”. But, y’know, I guess if you want to claim that the Bill Of Rights was a mistake you’d be in good company. (Or, well, you would if you hadn’t already rejected the notion of federalism.)Report

    • DavidTC in reply to veronica d says:

      So what speech does Milo fight for? Simply this: the right to harass transgender people, to mock fat people, etc. In other words, his free speech is the freedom to be a bully.

      I just said this above: Campuses have rules that include banning harassing behavior. Harassment codes that are *more restrictive than the law*.

      They do this with the justification that *they are an educational environment*, and it doesn’t matter if you have a first amendment right to say what you want about fellow students, you don’t get to do it on campus, anymore than you have a right to stand up in class and start a speech.

      I have no idea why they should allow *a speaker* who breaks the rules that *students* are required to follow.

      Perhaps the argument is, *in theory* we can’t know what is going to say before he says it. (Despite the fact he does it every time.) And not being a student, they can’t punish him afterward.

      So I have a fairly simple solution: Students that are members of groups that knowingly invite people who are going to break harassment codes have every right to do that.

      And the university will, afterward, treat the speech they gave as something *they*, personally, said. And something their group said.

      Which probably means that group is being disbanned and they are all going on probation, at a *minimum*.Report

      • Iron Tum in reply to DavidTC says:

        Collective punishment is just adorbs.

        And of course, such a stance would never be used to expel any student who has ever attended a “justice for __________” rally.Report

      • Koz in reply to DavidTC says:

        They do this with the justification that *they are an educational environment*, and it doesn’t matter if you have a first amendment right to say what you want about fellow students, you don’t get to do it on campus, anymore than you have a right to stand up in class and start a speech.

        There is no doubt from what I have directly seen and read of Milo, that his presence on college campuses is a furtherance to their educational mission as opposed to a detriment to it.

        Furthermore, the desire to suppress his presence on campus is a symptom of the profound corruption of contemporary American universities.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

        “Students that are members of groups that knowingly invite people who are going to break harassment codes have every right to do that.

        And the university will, afterward, treat the speech they gave as something *they*, personally, said. And something their group said.”

        that is ABSOLUTELY THE BEST IDEA EVER AND WILL NEVER EVER LEAD TO ANY PROBLEMS

        Like, I totally cannot imagine articles that go like this: “Eleven members of the Dartmouth Black Students Association were suspended today after complaints surfaced that their invited speaker, Jerome Hammett, made remarks derogatory towards women and homosexuals. The BSA denies these allegations despite video provided to campus authorities by an anonymous source…”Report

      • Francis in reply to DavidTC says:

        oh yuck. I tend to agree with you much of the time but this is a really bad idea.

        The Gay Students Association invites a speaker to talk about homosexuality in ancient Palestine. The Christian Students Association files a petition with the University’s Department of Student Affairs claiming harassment. Now what?Report

      • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC says:

        I suspect people don’t actually understand what Milo has been doing.

        Milo has been *putting up the names* of actual students he says are transgendered, or here illegally, and talking about how horrible they are as people. (I don’t know what sort of fact-checking he is doing, so I say ‘he says’, but don’t read that as him being wrong. I have no evidence he’s *slandering* people with falsehoods. That’s not the point.) He actually pointed out a transgendered student out in the *audience* at one of his events.

        This is pretty much a *direct* violation of various student harassment codes at college, which prohibit publically insulting (or even calling out) fellow students based on various specific traits…except Milo, obviously, is not subject to any such student code, not being a student. So I say…apply the codes to the people who invited him, instead.

        Someone who is giving a history lesson is not even vaguely like that. Hell, someone giving a speech about how homosexuality is morally wrong isn’t breaking the harassment codes, unless they go talking about *specific gay students*.

        The harassment codes are pretty strictly limited to *singling other students out* for specific, protected traits or behaviors.

        That said, UC Berkley doesn’t appear to *have* a harassment code, or at least not that sort. It just has the standard US government definition of what sort of harassment is *illegal*, which is obviously much stricter and basically requires conduct so severe the victim cannot get an education due to it. Weird.

        That said, Milo’s behavior would appear to qualify under their ‘Terrorizing Conduct’ section of their student conduct. Note he doesn’t even have to terrorize, merely speaking *in reckless disregard of the risk of terrorizing* is enough. I.e., you don’t have to attack people, or openly encourage to do so. You speak in a reckless manner that causes *other people* to make people fear for their lives or well-being, you can be punished for it.

        102.24 Terrorizing Conduct
        Conduct, where the actor means to communicate a serious expression of intent to terrorize, or acts in reckless disregard of the risk of terrorizing, one or more University students, faculty, or staff. ‘Terrorize’ means to cause a reasonable person to fear bodily harm or death, perpetrated by the actor or those acting under the actor’s control. ‘Reckless disregard’ means consciously disregarding a substantial risk. This section applies without regard to whether the conduct is motivated by race, ethnicity, personal animosity, or other reasons. This section does not apply to conduct that constitutes the lawful defense of oneself, of another, or of property.

        Milo’s shows of condemning transgender people and immigrants, and then listing them, *certainly* qualifies as that…in fact, it’s hard to figure out *what else* he expect to happen besides them getting accosted by people, which is clearly going to result in those people feeling threatened.

        Checking, there were petitions at UC Berkeley alleging Milo has a record of doing exactly that, and saying he shouldn’t be allowed to speak there on *exactly those grounds*, that he is in violation of their ‘Terrorizing Conduct’ code of conduct…but I suspect they ran into the obvious problem that obviously he *hadn’t* said anything *on the campus* that specifically made students feel unsafe *before* he spoke on the campus, so hadn’t technically broken the code. I.e., the rule couldn’t be applied pre-emptively.

        So, basically, apply *that rule* to the students who invite him.

        And I find it somewhat baffling that people think ‘collective punishment’ of people who are *voluntarily members of a group* who invited a speaker that *cannot otherwise be held to any code of conduct* is a bad thing. They are, of course, free to quit the group when the determination to ask for the invite is made, and not get punished. I think it might even be possible to add some sort of ‘did they have knowledge this would happen’ test, in case they don’t know that will happen…but we can also have the university to basically warn the group ‘It looks like really strong odds he *is* going to break the code of conduct, and we *will* punish you if he does. You *have* been informed of this. Do you *still* want him?’

        And, really, the only way to read this is that everyone wants for students to be able to *blatantly* violate the code of conduct, if they use a third party to do it.

        Does this apply to other things, also? If a student group invites someone on campus as part of a plot for that person to bribe a teacher, it’s all good? If they invite in a speaker they know is going to haze students, it’s fine? They can hire someone (or a series of someone) to stalk another student? They can get *other people* to fabricate and furnish false records for them? (All things that are not illegal, or at least have higher thresholds than the student rules.)

        So, basically, the rules should only apply to the actual behavior of students, and we should just leave the loophole of ‘students getting other people (Who of course cannot be punished via the school rules) to break the school rules for them’ wide open? That is an *odd* argument.

        As is the argument that if a *student group* (Which, I probably should point, is actually *part of the school*. Student groups are *school organizations*.) officially decided to participate in getting a third party to break a student rule, they should not be punished. What, really? That’s what people are going with?

        Or is everyone just against *this particular code of conduct* existing at all, but has not bothered to say that? This seems odd, as absolutely no one here seems to even know what part of the code of student conduct Milo’s behavior would be in violation of, so it seems really weird everyone is opposed to it. Hell, *I* didn’t even knew until this post.

        So, I ask everyone: Are you against this rule existing *at all*, or are you against punishing students who invite people who are clearly going to break student rules?Report

        • Iron Tum in reply to DavidTC says:

          Please, PLEASE stop with the “Milo is outing trans students” bullshit.

          What actually happened is that a particular trans student was asked to stop waving her penis around in the the women’s locker room after other women who were made uncomfortable complained about it. She refused, released a few tumblr-quality rants, and announced that she was ragequitting UW-Milwaukee for the purportedly more welcoming climes of UW-St Cloud. It was in all the local papers. She was a campus celebrity. It was a matter of local interest, you might say. When Milo spoke, he was commenting on an ongoing local controversy that fit smack-dab in his kulturkampf wheelhouse. The local politically-aligned periodical then published her response, in which she attempts to justify every single negative stereotype or caricature of transwomen.

          http://overpasslightbrigade.org/hates-insidious-face-uw-milwaukee-and-the-alt-right/Report

          • DavidTC in reply to Iron Tum says:

            I didn’t say he outed anyone at all.

            I said he pointed out that student in his audience after condemning her behavior.

            That, right there? Just those specific acts?

            A violation of the student code of conduct of Berkeley.Report

            • Iron Tum in reply to DavidTC says:

              If we’re going to be pedantic, no. No he did not point out a student in the audience. If you read her own words, she says she was not indicated directly, only that her picture was put up (from earlier in her transition), but fortunately nobody in the audience recognized her (since her then-current appearance was different.)

              Second, having actually been to various protests in Sproul Plaza, there is no way in hell that part of the student code is enforced fairly if ever.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Iron Tum says:

                If we’re going to be pedantic, no. No he did not point out a student in the audience. If you read her own words, she says she was not indicated directly, only that her picture was put up (from earlier in her transition), but fortunately nobody in the audience recognized her (since her then-current appearance was different.)

                Oh, so he only avoided breaking the rules *by luck*?

                So, let’s think about this…why exactly did he need a photo of her? To make sure all his listeners could *identify* her? So they can…what? Go up to her and…what? What is the intended outcome here?

                It is possible for him to argue he wasn’t *intending* anyone do anything. He didn’t break any laws. But, sadly, the Berkeley rules actually prohibit students from acting *with disregard* of their actions. He (Or, rather, a student in his place) won’t have to ‘intend’ that his listeners cause her to fear for her safety, he just has to *not care* that they might do that.

                I will point out that him talking about local students and asserting there are problem with those specific students is something he does consistently. Here’s a speech from New Mexico:

                Here at UNM, a female Muslim student, freshman Leena Aggad, told a similar story of suffering an attack at the hands of what she called a “buff Trump supporter”.

                It’s funny, the story seems to have dropped from the media IMMEDIATELY after the first report, and the cops don’t know anything about it. This could have been a real incident, but it makes you wonder doesn’t it?

                I mean, I’m not accusing you of lying, exactly, Leena, but how is it that you found time to report this harrowing crime to the press, but not the police?

                (The ‘harrowing crime’, for reference, is her hijab being pulled at, which, uh, is probably not something that it is logical to bother to report to the police.)

                I don’t know if he put up *her* picture, and, I will admit, she wasn’t a *secret* either…she said this to local newspapers. But Milo made sure everyone could identify the *liar* who is, along with a bunch of other liberals, making up things about Trump supporters.

                Because this is what he does. Milo shows up at campuses and makes sure all his listeners are well aware of the ‘problem liberals’ at the school. That’s always in his speech, it’s not some random thing. In *one* instances, that person happened to be in the audience, which is completely random, but the identifying students thing is something he always does.

                That is entirely within free speech, and Milo is free to say that certain people are a problem at specific campuses, without any regard of might happen.

                What that *isn’t* within, however, is student conduct codes, and I don’t see why the students inviting him get to break those rules via proxy.

                Second, having actually been to various protests in Sproul Plaza, there is no way in hell that part of the student code is enforced fairly if ever.

                If it’s not enforced fairly, that is a reasonable complaint. I have no information on that.Report

              • Koz in reply to DavidTC says:

                Oh, so he only avoided breaking the rules *by luck*?

                Lib, what is wrong with you?

                This isn’t something you have to dig through the weeds of the Berkeley student manual for. A guy wants to come to campus to make his points about various, relatively topical shit. An audience wants to come to hear them. Nasties want to disrupt or prevent that based on what they anticipate his content to be.

                There are exceptions to the rules supporting free speech. But this isn’t one of them. Obviously what we want is to let the guy have his say and let the audience find a way to hear him. It’s plain ol’ ordinary crackers, to borrow from an Eddie Murphy routine.Report

              • Iron Tum in reply to DavidTC says:

                break those rules via proxy.

                This is begging the question harder than a blind war amputee with a dog and a harmonica.

                If it turns out to even be a coherent and actionable concept… how many hundreds of ways do you think it will be abused… by next Tuesday?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Iron Tum says:

                If it turns out to even be a coherent and actionable concept… how many hundreds of ways do you think it will be abused… by next Tuesday

                Why, do people *regularly* officially invite people to campus who break campus rules?

                If so…shouldn’t something be done about that?

                Look, you want to argue that rule could be abused…it indeed could. It is very vague.

                And if Milo was just going around trashing immigrants, or Muslims, or trans people, in general (Which he also does.), and people were arguing *that* breaks the rule, I would probably be on the other side of this.(1) People have the right to opinions about things, and to state them.

                But what Milo is doing is pretty much exactly what the rule is designed for. He is ‘recklessly’ singling people out without the slightest care if this results in people feeling threatened. (And that’s being *kind* to him. Best possible interpretation. Like I said, I don’t know what the hell he was doing by showing people a *picture*, or what he thought that was for.)

                He is *this close* to asking people to confront the people he’s calling liars and perverts. He is *not* doing that, he has enough distance from that to not be in violation of laws about inciting violence. He knows where the legal line is and is stopping well short of *that*.

                But he really is breaking the student code of conduct by doing *exactly* what it’s intended to stop…recklessly failing to consider if his words will cause people to feel endangered and thus *not be able to get an education*.

                1) I dunno, his request for students to report people ‘who look like illegal immigrants’ to ICE is *also* going to result in some confrontation, because ICE, of course, is going to tell callers ‘You are stupid, you have no knowledge of their immigration status, now get off the line’, and now those people are angry and that hypothetical ‘illegal’ is still standing there, being all illegal and stuff.Report

              • Iron Tum in reply to DavidTC says:

                He is ‘recklessly’ singling people out without the slightest care if this results in people feeling threatened. (And that’s being *kind* to him. Best possible interpretation.

                Not true.

                Not even remotely true.

                So far from being the truth that I am having difficulty coming up with conclusions as to why you would say it other than 1) you being a complete paranoiac 2) you offering the argument in bad faith or 3) you having a mind so alien from other humans I’ve interacted with that you might as well be a different species.

                Here’s a completely different interpretation from your “sic the mobs of pitchfork-wielding peasants against the monster” one.

                There was this man, an entertainer by trade, who has a comedy show where he performed under the name of Jon Stewart. Not everyone has heard of him, but I will try to explain his material which you can verify for yourself by looking his material up on Youtube. One of his comedy techniques would be to put up a video clip (usually followed by a still from that clip of the to-be-mocked-individual’s face) featuring a person who he believed his audience would be antipathetic towards. He would then proceed to mock said individual. This routine made him extremely popular. Apparently people really find mocking their outgroups enjoyable. Who knew? So maybe, just… maybe… Milo was using this demonstrably effective technique (also used effectively right on these very pages!) and that’s a different interpretation.

                Unless you are seriously proposing a ban on anyone who could possibly be in the audience, which would mean you would only be allowed to mock dead people (although if you widened the scope of the unmockable to include heirs or descendants you could remove those as well). But I can’t really believe that you even intend to defend even the less extreme version of “don’t make individual students uncomfortable” since the entire format of a number of student actions (fake Israeli checkpoints, tunnel o’ hate speech, etc.) is built around the concept of making students angry/embarrassed/afraid so that they will fight the injustice purportedly being demonstrated.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Iron Tum says:

                There was this man, an entertainer by trade, who has a comedy show where he performed under the name of Jon Stewart. Not everyone has heard of him, but I will try to explain his material which you can verify for yourself by looking his material up on Youtube. One of his comedy techniques would be to put up a video clip (usually followed by a still from that clip of the to-be-mocked-individual’s face) featuring a person who he believed his audience would be antipathetic towards. He would then proceed to mock said individual. This routine made him extremely popular. Apparently people really find mocking their outgroups enjoyable. Who knew? So maybe, just… maybe… Milo was using this demonstrably effective technique (also used effectively right on these very pages!) and that’s a different interpretation.

                As I said, *students* are protested under the student codes of conduct, because *they* have a right to an education without worrying about attack. No one else is protected.

                You seem to be under the odd impression I think Jon Stewart should be allowed to go to college campuses and single out individual students for mockery. But I do not think *he* should be allowed to do that *either*, and if he had a history of doing that, and was invited anyway, the people who invite *him* should be punished also.

                You also seem to think ‘being in the audience’ also has anything to do with it. I just pointed out as something could make someone *immediately* concerned for their safety. Luckily, this person was *not*, but the standard is ‘acting with disregard’, not ‘actually made people fearful’.

                Additionally, you seem to treating all forms of derision as equal. No one Jon Stewart has ever mocked has been attacked due to what he is mocking them for. Politicians do not get murdered because Stewart pointed out they did something stupid. Additionally, politicians are used to people harassing them generally, and have security.

                Trans people, however, *are being murdered*. Stirring up dislike of a specific individual trans student is entirely different than stirring up dislike of a specific Senator. (1)

                Hell, with the Muslim student, he stood there and *told a story* about how the person he was talking about was assaulted because of who she was….and he decided to disbelieve it, and call her a liar as part of a conspiracy to slander people.

                I can’t help but think that her now being considered by listeners as ‘The *lying* Muslim that is deliberately slandering Trump supporters’, instead of just ‘a Muslim’, might make her *more* likely to be attacked again, or at least *fearful* of that possibility.

                Do I need to read *more* Milo speeches to find *more* examples?

                But I can’t really believe that you even intend to defend even the less extreme version of “don’t make individual students uncomfortable” since the entire format of a number of student actions (fake Israeli checkpoints, tunnel o’ hate speech, etc.) is built around the concept of making students angry/embarrassed/afraid so that they will fight the injustice purportedly being demonstrated.

                Making students who choose to participate in things uncomfortable, or even attempting to involve them in a performance by talking to them as they anonymously walk past, is not the same as a speaker naming and shaming identifiable individual students (Even showing their picture) to a crowd of people.

                If other students are doing *that*, they *also* need to be stopped. All students have a right to attend classes without having to worry about being targeted for harassment, especially not for who they are.

                1) I know it seems ‘unfair’ to conservatives that the left is more likely to claim to feel threatened, but that is literally because people on the left, being more likely to be minorities, are more likely to be attacked for who they are. This is not just something the left is *making up*, no matter how much Milo wants it to be.

                And the code applies to everyone the same. But in much the same what laws against stalking and domestic abuse mostly protect women, because those are mostly the victims of those things, rules about harassment and being threatened for who they are mostly protect minorities, because those are mostly the victims of *that*.

                In fact, it’s something Milo, as a gay man, not only understands, but is *deliberately using* as a way to paint the left as the villains, because it’s easy to make them scared of attacks, and, oh, look at how irrational they are. That’s the reason his show is named ‘Dangerous Faggot’.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “I know it seems ‘unfair’ to conservatives that the left is more likely to claim to feel threatened…”

                It doesn’t seem unfair to me.

                It does seem strange that people who spent their entire lives being threatened and living in fear would be happy about seeing their nominal allies call for more threats and more fear.Report

              • Kim in reply to DensityDuck says:

                I’m not happy about “living in fear.”
                But I’m a lot less happy about the trannie who decided to kill someone’s fucking mom because they didn’t like what he said.

                Salt.

                Also, Faked Death Threats are a part of the PR manual (that a friend of mine wrote), so when any of his clients start bitching about death threats, I take them with a sizeable grain of salt.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Kim says:

                Did that happen?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                It does seem strange that people who spent their entire lives being threatened and living in fear would be happy about seeing their nominal allies call for more threats and more fear.

                I’ll assume by ‘nominal allies’ you mean antifa, right?

                My reply is thusly: Who said they’re happy?

                I think some people need to notice something: Their ‘nominal allies’ didn’t attack venue that Milo was speaking at. The venue was there, yes, but they were hardly going to get inside.

                They actually ran riot *within the protest the left was holding*, the dance party. (1)
                People, dressed in black with masks on, didn’t descend about the Milo speech. Oh no, that had security provided, was in a locked building, and was hours away anyway. They descended upon *the counter-event* being held by the people who were not happy that Milo was there, and trying to pull the spotlight off his event and put forward something else. (Something goofy, something that sounds hippy-dippy, the modern version of a ‘love-in’, but whatever.)

                This not only disrupted the counter-event, but could have resulted in non-antifa people being *injured* by the police, either accidentally or because the police thought they were antifa, as the policies tried to get things under control.

                You are *entirely correct*, in that people who have seen them and their friends attacked by assholes, the people who are subject to anti-gay or racist or whatever slurs, who sometimes find themselves fearing for their life because a group of people have suddenly ‘taken an interest’ in them and started following an heckling them…those people *should* be very upset that a bunch of masked ‘vigilantes’ are running around terrorizing people, even if those people claim to be ‘on their side’.

                What you sorta missed is…they mostly *are* upset about it!

                You *have* noticed that I, in fact, am pretty upset about these assholes, right?

                1) I actually ended up reading the antifa messaging here *first*, and they kept calling it a ‘dance party’, in quotes, I assumed they were degenerating a protest by calling it a dance party, and for the longest time I didn’t realize the protest was, literally, a dance party.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                They actually ran riot *within the protest the left was holding*, the dance party.

                This sounds equiv to a wedding party where (as expected) the best man gets drunk and starts a fight. It’s a problem, but it’s an “inter-family” problem.

                Everyone knows who the problem person is but the Bride is going to invite her brother so everyone is stuck with the drama.

                What you sorta missed is…they mostly *are* upset about it!

                Upset enough to have them arrested? Because this sort of thing happens way too often to call it rare, and normally you claim it’s someone else’s fault.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Everyone knows who the problem person is but the Bride is going to invite her brother so everyone is stuck with the drama.

                That’s a great analogy, except you are aware there’s no way to not invite someone to a public protest, right?

                Upset enough to have them arrested? Because this sort of thing happens way too often to call it rare, and normally you claim it’s someone else’s fault.

                You seem to keep switching what we’re talking about.

                What I was talking about the was antifa running through the counter-event dance party, randomly attacking people that they thought might be Trump supporters or whatever the hell they were doing. (There is a story they punched someone wearing a Trump hat, or maybe just a red hat, but no one seems very sure of what happened, or if that person was attending the dance party or not.)

                No one needed to call the police…the police were there, and shut everything down.

                If there is some allegations that any of the peaceful protesters (aka, the dance party people), hid or protected any of the antifa, I am unaware of it. I’m not even sure how that would *work* considering the antifa were basically wearing uniforms!

                But there are different sorts of violence that happen at protests. That’s the ‘planned disruption by a large outside group, and, yes, the police will be alerted, in the sense they…don’t really need to be alerted to that happening, it’s pretty clear.

                Another type is property destruction, which almost always happens *outside the protest*, not even ‘the fringes’, but, like a street over…because the dumbass police have decided to line up and shove the protest around instead of keeping order in surrounding streets.

                No one in the protest is ‘shielding’ those people at all, because *no one*, not the police, not the other protesters, know who is doing it! Because it is happening out of sight of them. (If it was happening *within* the sight of the police, the police would, duh, be arresting people.) And even if someone *does* see it, what are they supposed to do? Follow around the clearly violent person and hope a police officer wanders by?

                The police need to get their damn act together and stop trying to keep people who have a legal permit and are waving signs from straying off the sidewalk…while trashcans are being thrown through windows on the next street over.

                It’s amazing how often people think reports of property damage justify those long lines of cops in riot gear. Every time people see that, I want them to think one thing: So the police were *there* screwing around with the *crowd of protesters* while, nearby, people were looting and breaking stuff unimpeded?

                Sorta changes your perspective on things.

                Now, there *is* a sort of violence that the protesters *will* shield people from the police. It’s the ‘someone in the crowd throws something at the police’ type of violence.

                And the crowd often ‘protects’ that person because the police are *wrong* about what happened, and the crowd knows that. In fact, crowds are known to point out the correct person and have the police ignore it.

                Other times, the crowd will have no idea what’s going on, or even who the police are trying to arrest. They just see police officers shoving some people to the side and grabbing other people.

                If the interactions the crowd has had with the police up to that point have been friendly, they will assume the police have a good reason for this. If the interaction *has not* been that way, than the crowd is likely to assume other things.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “you are aware there’s no way to not invite someone to a public protest, right?”

                So when someone spraypaints a swastika on a synagogue, that’s because Trump created a climate of hate and anger in this country that normalizes and encourages this sort of behavior.

                But when people at a protest start trashing the place, that’s entirely on them and you can’t possibly suggest that the protest was in any way an encouragement of that sort of behavior.

                As though Black Bloc is just going around smashing windows and throwing bombs at the cops every day, even if there aren’t protests happening anywhere.

                “Another type is property destruction, which almost always happens *outside the protest*,”

                so either A: you’ve forgotten what the OP was writing about or B: you actually do believe that people just randomly run around smashing windows and looting stores every day, and if it happens to occur at the same time as a protest then it’s just random coincidence?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                So when someone spraypaints a swastika on a synagogue, that’s because Trump created a climate of hate and anger in this country that normalizes and encourages this sort of behavior.

                But when people at a protest start trashing the place, that’s entirely on them and you can’t possibly suggest that the protest was in any way an encouragement of that sort of behavior.

                Your idea of ‘encouragement’ seems to be ‘things that exist’.

                ‘You claim some speech over there encouraged something, but there are also things over there that could have encouraged other things’.

                There has been, certainly, specific speech at protests that have encouraged specific violence behaviors. The WTO protests in 99, for example, had a lot of rethoric about multi-national corporations, thus encouraging people to attack…multi-national corporations. Well, that worked exactly as intended.

                These are, and I use the word again, *specific things*, not some sort of generalized thing that left protests create by merely existing.

                At this point everyone here has decided to weirdly generalize all left protests together, because people getting upset in Ferguson (*Before* any protesting started) and burning buildings is the same as antifa running crazy through a left counter-event at Berkeley is the same as nothing happening at the Women’s march.

                It’s all the same! The left is encouraging violence, except, of course, in the actual words it is saying.

                Giant vague things do not cause violence. People are not saying Trump is creating a climate of hate and anger in this country as some sort of mist floating around.

                They are saying that *his statements*, which are actual things, have encouraged violence and hate, in the sense those are the words coming out of his mouth.

                As though Black Bloc is just going around smashing windows and throwing bombs at the cops every day, even if there aren’t protests happening anywhere.

                You mean, exactly like they did in Washington DC on Inauguration Day, where there were no protests (Those were all the *next* day.) but they ran around breaking stuff, blocking access to the Mall, and punching Nazis anyway?

                Or do they *themselves* count as a protest in your book?

                so either A: you’ve forgotten what the OP was writing about or B: you actually do believe that people just randomly run around smashing windows and looting stores every day, and if it happens to occur at the same time as a protest then it’s just random coincidence?

                Or C: Vandalism and looting are not the same thing. Looting usually involves some neccessary vandalism, but vandalism *without* looting is unrelated to looting.

                Any time streets are abandoned and the police idiotically do not patrol abandoned areas and do not respond to reports of criminal activity in reasonable amounts of time, there will be looting. I’m actually completely baffled by the idea that it’s *protesters* looting. So…they’re carrying their loot around while protester? They wrap up a day of protesting and decide to take home a door prize?

                Or we could notice that looting *also* happens during blackouts and disasters, and realize that looting happens whenever people think they can get away with, and the police are *very stupidly* making it clear they do not give a goddamn about what is happening *nearby* to a protest, as they are hyper focused on making sure that a protester keeps both feet on the sidewalk at all times, because if they don’t, *they get to arrest them*.

                Vandalism, which we will notice is *not* something that happens during blackouts (Except as needed to loot.), *is* caused by ‘protesters’, or at least by people angry at whatever the protesters are angry at,and they’ve probably been in and out of the protest. (Unless they’re buses full of antifa people who show up out of nowhere.)

                It *also* only happens because people think they can get away with it. This, *mostly*, is due to the nonsensical behavior of the police and happens out of their sight, like looting.

                None of this is caused by the crowd encouraging people to do this…unless the crowd encourages people to do this. Which generally would require some specific evidence of this, or a reason *why* the crowd would be angry at those things.

                I will also point out that the antifa people, *not being in the original protest* at Berkely, could hardly have gotten riled up *by* the crowd. They showed up in masks and carrying fireworks!Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “You *have* noticed that I, in fact, am pretty upset about these assholes, right?”

                Yes, and I also keep seeing you write about how the cops acted, and how the cops focused on the wrong people, and the cops’ attitudes, and the cops looking threatening, and the cops using excessive force, and blah, blah, blah.

                I see an awful lot of “yeah the protestors are assholes BUT THE COPS”.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Yes, and I also keep seeing you write about how the cops acted, and how the cops focused on the wrong people, and the cops’ attitudes, and the cops looking threatening, and the cops using excessive force, and blah, blah, blah.

                Oh, I see. You’ve gotten my talk about *Ferguson* confused with the *antifa* stuff.

                I haven’t condemned the cops at all at the antifa thing…actually, I do, but the other direction. See below.

                I have some very simple premises here and it’s pretty easy to understand them, but I guess I will *restate* them all:

                1) Various people here have claimed that the left is most violent at protests.

                To which I respond: The police and governments have systematically been disruptive to left protests for…well, literally forever, in fact. There’s not actually a time where it’s gotten worse, because it *started out so bad*, and then slowly got *better* to Kent State levels, and then even better, to the point where the police *actually get called on their bullshit and criminal behavior in the courts now*. (They still *do* it, and suffer no actual *penalties* for doing it, but at least people don’t go to jail because the police make shit up.)

                But it’s still happening, and it’s systematic.

                Meanwhile, right ‘protests’ are allowed to proceed completely unimpeded, without the slightest pushback from the police, which *mysteriously* means no one starts yelling, shoving, or throwing things at the police.

                2) The police and government in Ferguson are fascist racist idiots who treated black people like crap and brought the city to a boiling point. And were surprised when it suddenly boiled over.

                What happened in Ferguson isn’t ‘justified’…it’s just what happens when a community is angry enough, for long enough, at the government that has been forced on it, and something happens.

                The irony here is this is what the far right has been claiming for years, yammering about how governments that get out of line need to be overthrown and whatnot, and claiming everyone is right at the line…and failed to notice that while our *Federal* government is pretty much with what people want (Yes, even now.), there really are some local governments that are not even *slightly* representive of large groups of their voters, that just stomp all over specific communities. (Almost always minorities, although I’m sure there’s some purely-class stomping somewhere.)

                And I point out again, this was not actually part of a ‘protest’ anyway…protests didn’t even start until *after* the night of arson and vandalism. (There is, as far as I can tell, exactly one instance of looting after the protests started…and notable, protesters *blocked off the looters*.) This makes it doubly absurd when people are trying to claim it’s an example of ‘left protests’ getting out of hand.

                That wasn’t ‘left protests’ getting out of hand, that was an entire community of black people getting out of hand because the police’s behavior towards them, in their minds, finally became inexcusable. (And it doesn’t matter much if people can come up with excuses for that behavior later.)

                3) Antifa is not part of the left. It was arguable part of, or at least worked with, ‘the left’ for one protest, the WTO, back in the 99 (Although even then not really.), and since then no one will work with people who use those tactics, because it turns out hiding people’s identity makes them automatically more violent. So antifa is not representative of the left, and should not be called ‘the left’. It is a separate entity.

                As I said, if the right can just disassociate itself from white nationalists by calling them the ‘alt-right’ (Despite the lines being very blurry), I don’t see why anyone gets to pretend antifa (Who doesn’t have very blurry lines, because *no one really knows who they are*.) is the same as the *actual* left. Especially as the left, quite actively, condemns them.

                Note antifa exists as a reaction to #1 up there. And, I suspect I must make it clear or people will take it out context, ‘reaction’ does not mean *justified*. But if the police did not (and had not always) treated the left that way, part of the left wouldn’t have run off into gibbering face-mask-wearing violence.

                4) I have no problems with how the police reacted at UC Berkeley…actually, I do, and that was because they just let these antifa idiots apparently drive off without stopping them, when they knew they were coming, and this seems like a really good time to issue the police spray-paint, set up a bunch of cameras, and have them tag all these morons as soon as they show up, and detain the vehicles they showed up in, and just arrested the entire mess of them.

                Instead they just stood back and let them run wild.

                Hey, weird thought. Do you know the best way to *encourage* antifa? Make it well known that while the police (In general, I don’t know about Berkeley) will harass people are left-cause-based protests if the protesters behaves themselves and are known, but if the protesters put on masks and run around breaking shit, the police will just let them do it.

                Can I suggest it *should be exactly the fucking opposite*? That maybe the police should point all that harassment power *at the people who have clearly shown up to cause problems*, and not the people calmly holding the signs calling Trump a Nazi?Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

          “I suspect people don’t actually understand what Milo has been doing.”

          So, throwing bombs at the cops and pepper-spraying women, that’s actually defensive violence? These brave white knights wearing black masks, they’re doing this to protect the innocent and the weak against the oppressive homosexual Jews?Report

          • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

            I guess you haven’t read my posts where I say that the Black Bloc people should *immediately* be converged on by police and arrested, or at least forced to identify themselves…and, of course, put the mask back on, oops, the police have forgotten who you are and you have to ID yourself again.

            Behavior of one group of idiots who should all be arrested does not mean the College Republicans should be allowed to break rules by proxy.Report

            • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

              I agree that the Black Bloc people should be arrested by whatever means are needed.

              Do you? Like, when the cops break out the water hoses and billy clubs, mace non-Bloc people because the brave anarchists ran into a crowd, you’re willing to accept that this is what it takes to arrest bad actors in a situation like this?

              I kind of think we’d hear a lot about militarized policing, and suppression of dissent, and White Supremacy, and so on. It’s been how things have gone down so far; remember how they went in to bust Occupy and it destroyed the careers of two police chiefs and a mayor?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Whoa, slow down there Sparky. I didn’t say ‘by any means necessary’. They’re not terrorists holding an atomic bomb on a dead man’s switch.

                Do you? Like, when the cops break out the water hoses and billy clubs, mace non-Bloc people because the brave anarchists ran into a crowd, you’re willing to accept that this is what it takes to arrest bad actors in a situation like this?

                What exactly is your hypothetical situation here?

                Did some *peaceful* Black Bloc people show up and are *peacefully* mixed into the crowd and protesting? This is extreme weird and unlike them, but I don’t quite see why anything really need doing about it…if Black Bloc has suddenly turned peaceful, whatever.

                Have they committed crimes or anything they could be plausible arrested for *before* that? Are they committing violence from *within* the crowd?

                If so, is the crowd *shielding* them, or is it just *there* because that’s where it was told to be? (How dare you protesters block police officers by standing where you were legally told to stand!)

                Seriously, you’ve got a whole bunch of assumptions going on here that is not really plausible behavior of crowd *or* of Black Bloc. Black Bloc does not stay within the boundaries of where protesters are supposed to be staying, which means police don’t have to go through normal protesters to get to them. They roam around committing ‘direct action’, which means breaking windows and physically attacking people.

                The problem is that the police insanely focus on the hundred people holding signs and chanting in the designated areas, entirely lawful, and ignore the black-clad people running around just out of sight, breaking windows and sprinting past as they punch people….and the second they’re out of sight, they can’t be identified, because they are just one of dozens of people wearing all black.

                I know that *sounds* insane, but that’s how cops appear to behave at protests.

                Leave the damn peaceful protesters alone. Those guys can probably live with *one cop* to sorta keep them grouped up.

                The rest of the police should deal with the *actual problem*, who have *cleverly identified themselves by wearing all black*…and the police, the courts have said, have the right to force people to identify themselves, so there you go, there’s how you can intercept them *before* they commit a crime. Someone wearing all black? Stop them, and demand the identify themselves. They put a mask back on and walk off, do it again….apprently, cops can’t keep track of people wearing masks, and are apparently going to just keep demanding ID over and over again. Doh! Probably shouldn’t have all dressed identical and worn facemasks, then!

                The problem, of course, is that police *think left protesters are an affront to the national order of the universe*, and find it *impossible* to leave them alone. To just let them stand there and yell until they get tired and go home. The police *absolutely refuse to do this* 9 times out of 10.

                Granted, at UC Berkeley, there were about *150* of the Black Bloc people, which, uh, probably overwhelmed the police. I can’t really fault the police for *that*. Arrest all you can, expel any students, ban everyone else from the campus.

                I kind of think we’d hear a lot about militarized policing, and suppression of dissent, and White Supremacy, and so on. It’s been how things have gone down so far; remember how they went in to bust Occupy and it destroyed the careers of two police chiefs and a mayor?

                Good. Maybe they learned their lesson in whether or not they should sweep all protesters up in the same net.

                Hell, the behavior of Oakland police towards Occupy Oakland (*all* of Occupy Oakland) is what started this current group of Black Bloc people to start with. Speaking of that, as I went to make sure I had that timeline right, I came across this article, which hilariously has Occupy Oakland saying the same words as you: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2098891,00.html

                Rasta, another camp resident, is less conciliatory: “These anarchists are going to f— this up; we need to stop them by any means necessary,” he says, making a slicing motion with his hand.

                Note this article from literally 5 days before the anarchists did, in fact, fuck it all up, and the police shut everything down. Rasta was 100% correct.

                This gave the Black Bloc people their current ‘justification’ for ‘direct action’…because the city, and society in general, *will not allow left protests*. (And the thing is…they aren’t wrong about that.)

                At some point I am going to have to write up some sort of explainer or article about all this, because the rise of Black Bloc is a deliberate response to police officers *mistreating* left protesters and escalating shit, which in turn causes Black Bloc to point that out, and claim that the correct response to to just start breaking shit. (Wrong!) This *in turn* allows the police to escalate things almost immediately at protesters, and run around with riot shields and crap for no reason.

                Black Bloc is basically an extreme amplification of the cycle of ‘the police refuse to let people on the left fucking protest freely’, resulting in both sides escalating. Black Bloc is just it sorta happening at a *meta* level, where things are pre-escalated.

                This is not to *justify* them, and as I said, they need to be shut down.

                But in addition to just arresting them, you know what would help shut them down? The police *behaving in a calm and respectful manner* to protests on the left, like they do to protests on the right. Black Bloc’s entire existence would be *instantly proven wrong and pointless*.Report

              • Morat20 in reply to DavidTC says:

                Cynically, my view of the cop thought process is:

                “I’ve got a crowd standing here, and a guy in black tossing rocks and running away there, and this riot gear is heavy. Let’s pepper spray the people I don’t have to chase”.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Morat20 says:

                “Let’s pepper spray the people I don’t have to chase”.

                “Hey, look, these people are conveniently kneeling down in a row, I can just spray them all at once!”Report

              • notme in reply to DavidTC says:

                What are the cops supposed to do when the snowflakes won’t disperse? Maybe throw them a pizza party or offer a back rub? If they want to persist then take the pepper spay and stop whining.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to notme says:

                Maybe they could do the same thing they did when people at the Bundy Ranch didn’t disperse.

                Or maybe they could realize their goddamn job is to keep the peace and a bunch of protesters in the middle of a large space where people can walk around them is not, in any way, impacting the peace.Report

              • notme in reply to DavidTC says:

                Actually keeping the peace is only one aspect of their goddamn job. Another part of their goddamn job is enforcing the rules and sometimes that means dealing with non-compliant folks. If the snowflakes won’t move then the consequences they received are appropriate.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to notme says:

                Because of course it was impossible to just arrest them. You know, physically cuff them and move them into a squad car or whatever. It’s really amazing that the police have never figured out a way to arrest a nonviolent but noncompliant person without pepper spray or tazers.Report

              • Morat20 in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I’ve always found it fascinating that reporters can often find the black bloc folks, but cops can’t.

                Hundreds of peaceful people over here, tons of cops. A handful of anarchists a block away breaking stuff? Cameras, but no cops.Report

              • notme in reply to Morat20 says:

                Of course the newspapers can find them. It like roaches being attracted to a pile of crap. They know the papers will give them the publicity they want in the most sympathetic way possible.Report

              • notme in reply to Don Zeko says:

                You make arresting them sound so simple when folks are seated and linking arms in order to impeded their removal. Physically removing them could easily result in injury to the protestors and the cops. It’s much easier to pepper them to get them release their arms and then arrest then while the can’t resist. It’s easy for folks like you to second guess when you know nothing about the subject.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to DavidTC says:

                I didn’t think “dude, you’re making Black Bloc tactics more likely” when the UC Davis incident happened.

                I now realize that I should have.

                (Wanna go back and read those threads? Sure you do!)Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Jaybird says:

                Heh, I wonder where I was for those discussions.

                But, yes.

                The thing is, the antifa are basically right in all their premises. The antifa’s conclusion of ‘so we should break shit’ is incredibly stupid, of course, but their premises are right.

                They use stronger language than I would use, but they are, 100%, correct about the behavior of the police and how the police often are operating in ‘These people all need arresting!’ and ‘What can I do to make this person do something that I can arrest them for?’ mode at left protests.

                And that the police, when rendered unable to trick protesters into stuff like that, or unable to sneak someone in to incite the crowd (Yes, that still happens.) often just resort to outright illegal behavior, or making up charges.

                It is downright amazing how often charges are just dropped, and even more amazing how often there are *settlements* paid to people arrested.

                *I* kinda feel people shouldn’t get to use anything as an example of a ‘violent protest’ if the police admit major wrongdoing, or a court finds the police broke the law. It’s basically fruit of the poisonous tree…clearly police were *also* out of control there, and not only can we not trust they didn’t provoke stuff, we can’t even trust their account of events!

                And if you filter those out, you lose almost all ‘violent’ protests.

                Although, as I said, you don’t lose this one…so I guess we’ve successfully proven that antifa are violent protesters. (Which I’m not really sure was in dispute.)Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC says:

                Black Bloc’s entire existence would be *instantly proven wrong and pointless*.

                I have to admit, re-reading this, it’s a bit wildly optimistic of me.

                In this case, antifa wasn’t showing up due to ‘the protest’ at all, they were showing up due to Milo, and probably would have shown up regardless of any protest.

                The university actually sorta bent over backwards to arrest the concerns of people on campus about Milo, but ultimately decided they couldn’t not invite him. And there’s no evidence the police were hostile at *that* protest, or even that the police were generally hostile to campus protests. (Like I said, the Oakland antifas were born out of *Occupy* getting stomped on.)

                There wasn’t anything, specifically, the university or the police could have done *there* to stop antifa.

                But that just shows, when decades of systematic abuse at the hands of and misbehavior by the police create a violent pushback, it’s not going to immediately go away just because the police stop that behavior. It also doesn’t mean it won’t spread to places they don’t behave that way at all.

                But *if it is* going to go away, the police *do need to stop*.

                Even if antifa all immediately arrested tomorrow, if the police continue to refuse to treat left protests like they do right protests, it will be back, or something like it.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                Many ethical systems have serious problems on what to do about “evil” and make the mistake of thinking it will go away if they wish really hard.

                Assume the group of violent “protesters” aren’t thinking in grand concepts and aren’t meta about police brutality and such.

                Assume they just like setting fires, breaking things, and stealing stuff, and they can do that in a protest.

                Now all of a sudden, if the police back off, the mob gets out of control and stuff burns.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Assume the group of violent “protesters” aren’t thinking in grand concepts and aren’t meta about police brutality and such.

                Assume they just like setting fires, breaking things, and stealing stuff, and they can do that in a protest.

                If we assume *that*, we shouldn’t allow any protests at all.

                This seems a dumb assumption, though.

                Unless by “protesters”, you mean ‘antifa’, in which case, I *do* assume that.

                After about the tenth time people in all black with face masks show up at protests and start trashing things and attacking people, I think I’m allowed to start assuming people who show to protests in all black and and face masks are not up to any good. And so I *do* think they shouldn’t be allowed to participate in a protest, at least not dressed like that, and the police maybe should use their mighty harassment powers for good for once and harass *those people*.

                But here’s the thing about people who show up to commit violence: That will always happen. It happens anywhere there’s a known crowd.

                But those people will only be *shielded by the crowd* if the crowd see the police as enemies, and the crowd will only see police as enemies if the police have been behaving hostility towards the crowd to start with.

                Well, barring weird situations where the police are *already* see as hostile, which is basically the story of Ferguson. Not just the shooting or the treatment of Brown’s body, those were just the straws that broke the camel’s back. That entire community saw the police as an occupying force, and it’s hard to argue with them when you look at the behavior of the police from *before* all that. (Seriously, the sheer amounts of fines for *walking across the street* is amazing.) Which is why those local police departments needed to step aside and let someone else police the protests. In fact, I think that’s a pretty good rule whenever a protest is *specifically aimed at police behavior*.

                But most protests don’t start with the police as enemies. Most protests are only going to see the police as hostile *if the police start behaving as such*.Report

              • notme in reply to DavidTC says:

                But those people will only be *shielded by the crowd* if the crowd see the police as enemies, and the crowd will only see police as enemies if the police have been behaving hostility towards the crowd to start with.

                Sure that is surely the ONLY reason why they might shield them. Talk about faulty logic.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                (combining two posts)

                You seem to be assuming there are two distinct groups of protestors, my expectation is that it’s more like shades of grey. So people can switch sides, and WTO protests saw that. Anarchy and defying the man is fun.

                Further, the purpose of some of these protests is to “create” a police response. You can much more easily claim to be a victim if the police are beating you, and what you did to earn that beating can be forgotten.

                MLK picked the stupidest most brutal sheriff to march against because he wanted images, those images did great things for his moment and only cost a few bruises.

                The police could, I don’t know, try *not* arresting people who are not causing any harm to anyone, and whose worst crime appears to be loitering.

                I know it sounds crazy, but it Just. Might. Work.

                It works if there actually is a difference between the good protestors and the bad ones. And if the two groups don’t support each other. And if people don’t switch from “good protest” to “loot/burn” on the drop of a dime. And if the good protestors don’t view part of their mission to deliberately fire up a fight with the police.

                And if the police can tell the difference between the two. And if there really is a difference.

                There’s also something to the idea that if you’re hanging out with arsonists and helping them break the law, then maybe the police aren’t obligated to treat you with kid gloves and you’re part of the problem.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                But what do you make of the argument that we shouldn’t prosecute people who loot and steal, since it would simply be too much effort, and disruption?

                I mean, black bloc is no HSBC Bank, but still…Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                If we’re talking about HSBC Bank then the problem is what they did was legal… so what should have been done was firing the top two or three layers of management with clawback of their bonuses.

                But what do you make of the argument that we shouldn’t prosecute people who loot and steal, since it would simply be too much effort, and disruption?

                I think it’s politically motivated.

                Parts of the Left wants it done to let everyone know that the next group of rioters can do their thing without consequences… so we (society) had darn well knuckle under to their demands.

                The only thing some of these groups put on the table is a lack of their own bad behavior, i.e. make nice with us or we’ll burn something and wreck your whatever.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Legal.
                *snort*
                Yeah, good one, that.

                Steal a small fortune, the king will hang you.
                Steal a large one, you become the king.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                If they’d only stolen it’d be easier. They *lost* money by the truckload.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                You seem to be assuming there are two distinct groups of protestors, my expectation is that it’s more like shades of grey. So people can switch sides, and WTO protests saw that. Anarchy and defying the man is fun.

                ‘defying the man’ is not the same as ‘committing harmful criminal acts that need to be stopped’.

                Oh noes, the mass of people has spilled out from where their permit allows and now they’re in the road! Whelp, better start arresting people!

                Funny story: Each year I go to DragonCon, in Atlanta, and, while the city does what it can, it is always a mess, and traffic in that area turns into a disaster, with people completely screwing it up. It’s set in five different hotels, and con-goers walking between those hotels cause *utter chaos*. Note DragonCon *has no public permit* at all. (Well, I guess the parade has one.)

                And the police, of course, immediately arrest anyone who steps into the road not at the light, or crosses against the light, or blocks a sidewalk because their costume has frickin wings, or loiter on the sidewalk because they are placed in a long line that is on the sidewalk, or violates any law at…oh, wait. No they don’t.

                They instead are wandering around *trying to keep everything working*. I’ve never even seen them give a ticket, although I have seen them give a few talkings-to to idiots that actually endangered people.

                That is *one* way to treat a mass of people so large they really cannot be expected to follow every letter of the law. It’s the way police treat groups *they are not hostile to*, just completely ignoring most the ‘crimes’ happening right in front of their face, because those sort of laws are *not actually supposed to be enforced* unless they need to be.

                The story changes immediately if the police decide to be hostile.

                Further, the purpose of some of these protests is to “create” a police response. You can much more easily claim to be a victim if the police are beating you, and what you did to earn that beating can be forgotten.

                MLK picked the stupidest most brutal sheriff to march against because he wanted images, those images did great things for his moment and only cost a few bruises.

                …so your argument is that the police *should* stupidly overreact to any challenge of their authority with violence?

                Or is your argument that what I am describing, that the police respond to any provocation or any challenge to their authority, in ways that *cannot but* anger and incite the crowd…but it’s not as part of a deliberate strategy *to* get that to happen, but because they’re too damn dumb and untrained?

                And if the police can tell the difference between the two. And if there really is a difference.

                It is not the job of the police to arrest ‘bad protesters’. It is the job of the police to arrest people who are committing serious crimes. (Or, as I’ve said, people who dress in the ‘violent crime’ uniform of all black with a facemask.)

                And by ‘serious’, I don’t mean crimes that anyone in a large crowd will do, like trespassing by five feet onto private property (Which, strictly speaking, is not even trespassing unless they have signs up or the property owner asked that person to leave and they didn’t) or ‘blocking traffic’ by spilling into the road, or disturbing the peace by yelling, or refusing to disperse because the police just tried to disperse a legal protest, or all the laws that *actually* exist to give the police *discretion* over situations.

                The police currently take that discretion and use it to anger and harass crowds, instead of using the discretion to keep things calmed down.

                By all means, if someone in the crowd commits some vandalism or violence against the police (Or anyone!), the police should arrest them. And if the police have not been *harassing and angering* the crowd, that probably will be *really easy* to do.(1)

                It’s so easy to do, in fact, that *you do not hear about it*. There are plenty of examples of some guy throwing a rock through a window, and everyone near him is like ‘Hey, that guy just threw a rock through a window. Police!’ (And then everyone will talk about how that protest ‘had some incidents of violence’.)

                You only hear about protests where the lines closed up, or, in other words, you only hear about the protests where people *thought the police were so dangerous that they risked their personal safety and liberty to protect other people from the police*.

                Sounds a bit different when it’s said that way, doesn’t it?

                If people systematically feel the need to shield people from the police at an event, what the *fuck* are the police doing to engender that? Is it the tear gas? Is it the tasers? Is it related to the fact that, after protests, people who have been arrested almost always have their charges dropped, and if they aren’t dropped, those people *win in court*?

                Why, what it’s actually sounding like is that police like to arrest people at protests for no reason at all, not because of any lawbreaking or violence or anything of that person they could justify in court, but because those people *piss them off*, and maybe others in the crowd aren’t fans of that. Maybe the police are just deciding that the loudest people *are* the rock throwers.

                1) And, like I said, there is an exception where the protest target *is the police themselves*, which is why, in those circumstances, bringing in some other police force would be rational.

                And also, we probably shouldn’t have communities where the anger at the police is that high to begin with, and maybe we should look into those situations *before* they boil over! (For example, the fact the police were basically taxing Ferguson citizens to death via fines for really stupid shit, along with the fact Ferguson residents were unable to change this because of how their political divisions worked. The entire place was ready to explode at the police…and then we got a unarmed body in the street for hours. It’s easy to come up with reasons *that event* is justified, but that event was just a trigger.)Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “That is *one* way to treat a mass of people so large they really cannot be expected to follow every letter of the law. ”

                It’s so funny to me how you go in with “well if the cops didn’t start none, there wouldn’t be none”, and then you turn around and say “but they definitely shouldn’t do anything to large crowds of people shouting angrily at individuals, that sort of thing never goes bad and certainly doesn’t go bad quickly”.

                “we probably shouldn’t have communities where the anger at the police is that high to begin with”

                Ah yes, “they started it”. Oh, and then you rush to tell me that you aren’t justifying anything, you’re just saying, y’know, maybe if she weren’t such a bitch we wouldn’t have to pop ‘er in the mouth.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                It’s so funny to me how you go in with “well if the cops didn’t start none, there wouldn’t be none”, and then you turn around and say “but they definitely shouldn’t do anything to large crowds of people shouting angrily at individuals, that sort of thing never goes bad and certainly doesn’t go bad quickly”.

                That sure is an interesting quote of mine that doesn’t seem to be based on any words I actually said.

                As I have pointed out, almost *no protests have ‘enemies’ physically present*. Shouting at *who*?

                I have no idea why people seem to be unable to understand what I am saying. Protests escalate when there are two sides. They do not escalate when there is only one side. This is pretty simple, and not very easy to debate against.

                And the problem is, in left protests, the police almost always decided to insert themselves as one of the sides, by generally harassing protesters and making them angry at the police, instead of what the left is actually protesting about. (And things there escalate even quicker because the police can do more things than some hypothetical counter-protest.)

                The fact the police have *continued* to do this over several decades (and in fact does it so much that the list of *courts* getting upset at *blatantly illegal* behavior in that regard would be too long to list here) has resulted in the creation of problems that are going to be hard to untangle, where there are groups intent on non-peaceful protest.

                I do not have an immediately solution to *that*, but my immediate solution to *not having more problems* is for the police to stop acting like that. (And perhaps not, as a recent GOP leader suggested, have another ‘Kent state’.)

                But we know law enforcement: If it doesn’t have an enemy, it creates one.

                My basic thought is: The police should not harass protesters. If the police would stop doing that, protests would go smoothly, because almost all the people who go to a protest are there to just hold signs and go back home. And another, much smaller percentage are there to be ‘stunt-arrested’ for trespassing or blocking traffic or whatever, and while the police obviously should arrest those people, this is hardly any distrubance at all.

                Another thought is, if the police *are* what’s being protested, they probably shouldn’t be anywhere near that protest. Get some other group to control it.

                Because, and I cannot make this clearer: We do not want *enemies* at protests. Enemies cause violence. We want a single side standing there, telling us what they think, which will result in basically *no violence at all*.

                Ah yes, “they started it”.

                Weird how conservatives seem to think the government is too big and powerful and out of control, but that cannot possibly apply to the police.

                Here is *my suggestion* for how democracy should work: If the majority of people in a community do not like how policing that community is done, they have a *right* to alter how the policing is done, or replace the police force! If they do not like the fact the police are giving them tickets for stepping into the street or listening to music, they have a right to *different police*. We govern *by consent of the governed*.

                But, all too often, in black communities, that is not true, because their area does not consist of a majority of the voters in ‘the government’, and the rest of community has no problem with the police because they confine their abhorent behavior to the black areas.

                This is what happened in Ferguson. And then an unarmed person was shot.

                Or maybe conservatives will understand this one: But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.Report

              • Kim in reply to DavidTC says:

                David,
                Wow. So Atlanta has decent cops. Color me surprised.
                The Dorsai Irregulars are what happens when Cops Are Stupid and Hurt ConGoers.

                When you hire the Dorsai Irregulars, you get a special “ConJail” that isn’t as scary as the normal jail, and it’s where you haul the people who decided chewing on live wires is “appropriate roleplay” and not potentially lifethreatening.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Kim says:

                Wow. So Atlanta has decent cops. Color me surprised.
                The Dorsai Irregulars are what happens when Cops Are Stupid and Hurt ConGoers.

                I don’t think it has anything to do with Atlanta cops specifically.

                I kinda think the Dorsai Irregulars are what you get when cops in 1970 are asked to provide security for furries, instead of what happened when cops in 1990 are asked to provide security for Trekkies and tabletop gamers.

                Sci-fi fans in 1990 were probably seen as a bit odd, but not that bad. (And now it’s completely normal, and the police seem to quite enjoy the crowds.) Whereas I suspect that furries in 1970 were seen as degenerate perverts, at least from the view of the cops. (Hell, they might *still be* seen that way.)

                I think one of the ways the left is probably falling down on educating people is explaining exactly how police treat different people differently. #BlackLivesMatter and all that, but I think people might understand that better if they realized it was a *spectrum* of how cops treat people. It’s not, like, the cops are polite to some people, and shooting everyone else on sight.

                I was once pulled over for ‘weaving’ in my crappy looking car in the middle of the day in my rural North Georgia county. And I’ll admit I probably was…it was a completely empty road with long sightlines, and it is entirely possible I was over the line at some point. I was actually annoyed at something else, and not paying a lot of attention if I didn’t have to, like if the road was completely empty. <british accent>It’s a fair cop.</british accent>

                But what I really was pulled over for was because I met the ‘meth distributor’ profile and he wanted to search my car. White guy, long ponytail, ragged beard, crappy looking car, driving up from Atlanta in the middle of the day. Either coming to get some meth, or coming to bring supplies, or both.

                And then, the first thing he asked when I got out of the car, was if I worked at a local theatre. (1) I explained that, well, ‘work’ would imply payment, but I do *volunteer* there.

                And I could immediately see him reclassify me from ‘meth distributor’ to ‘one of those local theatre hippies’, especially when I explained I was on the way back from a meeting at my job at a web design company.

                I mean, he still searched my car, because who knows, ‘theatre hippy’ might equal ‘has some pot in the car’, but he didn’t do a particularly good job of it.

                Then, because my car didn’t just *look* crappy but actually was, it wouldn’t start and he had to jump me off.

                Edit: And I somehow forgot to summarize my point: I suspect I would have gotten a ticket for weaving, and not gotten a jump, if I had *continued* to fit the ‘meth distributor’ profile, even if he had found no meth. He actually seemed somewhat *apologetic* when he realized I had been ‘misclassified’, explaining that they get a lot of drug traffic on the road.

                I managed to not snark ‘So you’re pulling over people for weaving to see if they’re meth distributors? Is the how the law is supposed to work?’

                1) It’s amazing how often I get asked this, and I never immediately catch on it’s because I’m wearing a *show shirt*, which probably consist of half my t-shirt wardrobe at this point. I’m always feeling around for a second, panicked, because I wonder if I should know them from there and what their name is, and then I realize ‘Oh, wait, they read it on my shirt.’Report

              • Kim in reply to DavidTC says:

                In the 1970’s, furries basically didn’t exist.
                Being gay was bad enough.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                ‘defying the man’ is not the same as ‘committing harmful criminal acts that need to be stopped’.

                True… but the later can be a subset of the former.

                …so your argument is that the police *should* stupidly overreact to any challenge of their authority with violence?

                No, my point is there are more than two groups of protesters out there, and it’s a range rather than distinct groups. At one end of the spectrum we have the true anarchists who loot and burn because that’s what they want, at the other end the defy-the-man-but-be-lawful.

                In the middle are the ones who will set fires if others are doing it and the police aren’t around. Be-with-the-in-crowd is very strong, if everyone is non-violent then there’s social pressure to be non-violent, if violence breaks out then it can spread.

                There are also the “advance the cause” types who are going to provoke the police no matter how nice the police are. Some because they view the police as evil, others because they understand how powerful are pictures of police abuse.

                maybe we should look into those situations *before* they boil over! (For example… Ferguson

                Yes, Ferg was a mess before the shooting, and yes, the initial protests were “boiling over”. However, after everything has hit that point, anything the police do is problematic. Back off and building burn, use enough force to stop that and it’s “abuse”.

                Worse, the police can be in this no-win situation out of the box. Legit protest needs a very light hand, loot/burn needs the opposite. These two groups can travel together, typically want the same thing, may support each other, and it’s far from clear that they’re distinct, or even separate.

                So what actually needs to happen is the nonviolent group needs to turn in the violent one as opposed to covering for them and blaming the police. Otherwise they’re not actually different groups, just different tactics.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                At one end of the spectrum we have the true anarchists who loot and burn because that’s what they want, at the other end the defy-the-man-but-be-lawful.

                At one end there actually are people who do not want to defy the police at all, because they’re making their opinions about *something else* known.

                Be-with-the-in-crowd is very strong, if everyone is non-violent then there’s social pressure to be non-violent, if violence breaks out then it can spread.

                Yes. But social pressure can also come from the other side. Violence doesn’t just become more acceptable if the people next to you are doing it, it also becomes more acceptable if the *police* are doing it.

                Police shove you, you shove them back. A perfectly reasonable response, and also something they can decide to call assaulting a police officer and arrest you.

                There are also the “advance the cause” types who are going to provoke the police no matter how nice the police are. Some because they view the police as evil, others because they understand how powerful are pictures of police abuse.

                And thus I shall urge the police to take a cue from MLK and not respond. Don’t let them provoke you.

                However, after everything has hit that point, anything the police do is problematic. Back off and building burn, use enough force to stop that and it’s “abuse”.

                Well, yes. But was a no win situation sorta constructed out of the police’s *own behavior*, for decades.

                The police basically operate by everyone agreeing they’re in charge and their behavior is reasonable. It is, in essence, a bluff…the police are vastly outnumbered by everyone else. Any time that starts getting called into question, we have a *very serious problem*. The police can *usually* recover by force, but that is absolutely no way to run a society, and literally just makes things worse.

                Mysteriously, almost all these situations are in black communities, that for some reason have a mostly-white government. We could point out the obvious reason suggesting itself, but let’s not. The rest are at left-protests, and we could speculate about *that*…but let’s not. The reason isn’t actually important…the problem is the problem, regardless of the cause.

                And a major part of the problem is the right trying to deny the problem exists, or that perhaps we should start treating it as some sort of systematic reoccurring problem that we should setup up tripwires to catch and protocols to handle, and *maybe* the police need to behave in a different matter. Which after all is the *right of people in a democracy*, to control how their law enforcement behaves. (Except, mysteriously, these black communities also seem to share a government with richer, whiter communities that somehow produce all the elected officials and where the police *don’t* act that way.)

                But the right always insist *there is always some justification* for whatever event set the community over the edge. There was *some* misbehavior on the part of whatever, some reason that everyone’s outrage in that community doesn’t matter. Some guy threw something, or someone’s hands weren’t up, or the kid didn’t drop his toy gun. Some reason it’s all within procedure. (And also it would be completely impossible to change procedure, for some reason.)

                The problem is…that event was the last straw. Things were *horribly* broken before that.

                The thing is…#blacklivesmatter is…somewhat wrong. I understand why they’re focusing on deaths, I do, but the problem is a bit vaster than that. It’s that, in a million different ways, in cities all over this country, the police *make themselves enemies* of black communities. The problem isn’t the shooting of innocent people, or even the shooting ‘Guilty but probably didn’t need to be *shot*’ people, the problem is the community flatly does not trust the police, and that’s pretty much entirely based off how the police behave.

                And the antifa people, to get back to protests, have also come to this conclusion because of repeated abuse, by the left, at the hands of police. Again, *they are not wrong* in their premises…their conclusions are idiotic, but their premises are correct. (And ‘the left that goes to protests’, generally having more free time and access to lawyers than random poor black communities, have *repeated won* court cases that show abuse.)

                There is no way for the ‘left’ to stop this, or it having anything to do with the left at all. The problem is the police simply are hostile to certain groups of people, and decades of that *will produce a backlash*.

                It is not the job of people with particular political opinions to try to justify the *behavior* of the resulting backlash, some of it is justifiable and some isn’t, but it is worth pointing out that this is not some mysterious event caused by space aliens, but a *quite obvious* response to decades of a certain percentage of police starting a dick-measuring contests every time they see someone who looks like a hippy or a liberal or a black kid with baggy pants, and suddenly feeling the need to beat them down.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “those people will only be *shielded by the crowd* if the crowd see the police as enemies…”

                …or if they run into the middle of the crowd and people like you say “hey, the cops shouldn’t harass people who are just standing around speaking their minds nonviolently, that kind of thing is why violent persons show up at protests in the first place!”Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “But in addition to just arresting them, you know what would help shut them down? The police *behaving in a calm and respectful manner* to protests on the left, ”

                I love this idea you have that someone can drag a screaming woman across the ground in a “calm and respectful manner”.

                “Black Bloc is just it sorta happening at a *meta* level, where things are pre-escalated.”

                um. uh…pre-escalated?

                You’re saying that smashing windows and throwing bombs when the cops have done nothing but stand that is justified by past instances of police use of force?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                I love this idea you have that someone can drag a screaming woman across the ground in a “calm and respectful manner”.

                The police could, I don’t know, try *not* arresting people who are not causing any harm to anyone, and whose worst crime appears to be loitering.

                I know it sounds crazy, but it Just. Might. Work.

                In fact, the police might want to considering not arresting *all sorts of people* peacefully making their opinion known, even if they don’t have permits at all!

                It seemed to work pretty well for the airport protests, where no one had permits, and the police just shrugged and said ‘Okay. Stand over there’, and the protesters did, and mostly the only people who got arrested were people who deliberately and knowingly blocked traffic to get arrested as a political point. (I think one airport had some sort of confrontation.)

                Apparently, when most people show up to protest, what they *actually* want to do is stand peacefully and hold signs and say things to passersby, and if the police don’t try to make a confrontation with them by ordering them around randomly or trying to force them to leave, there will be no confrontation! They will just calmly stand there and say things.

                Weird, huh?

                You’re saying that smashing windows and throwing bombs when the cops have done nothing but stand that is justified by past instances of police use of force?

                You seem to be assuming me saying ‘is caused by’ is me saying ‘is justified by’.

                But I think I’ve addressed this in other posts at this point.Report

            • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

              Behavior of one group of idiots who should all be arrested does not mean the College Republicans should be allowed to break rules by proxy.

              I’m not convinced these “rules” should exist, i.e. that the value they create is worth the cost they inflict. The rest of society functions reasonably well without snowflake protection. Forcing colleges to set up their own parallel legal system seems like a power grab to remove various protections and processes which we’ve spent centuries creating.

              The usual things which are illegal or banned should be illegal or banned. High on that list is violence, what the College GOP is doing (or even what Milo is doing) isn’t comparable to setting fires and breaking stuff.

              Assume Milo’s supporters are correct and he’s not that bad, and the Left is just going nuts because making unsupported accusations and using mob violence to shut people down is fun and powerful. That would put a lot of this in a different light… and I haven’t personally reviewed his act so maybe we’re actually there.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I’m not convinced these “rules” should exist, i.e. that the value they create is worth the cost they inflict. The rest of society functions reasonably well without snowflake protection. Forcing colleges to set up their own parallel legal system seems like a power grab to remove various protections and processes which we’ve spent centuries creating.

                Colleges already have to have rules about speech.

                For the most obvious and relevant one, they, like workplaces, are not allowed to have hostile environments.

                Unlike workplaces, they attempt to have some counter of free speech.

                But this is a bit weird of a discussion anyway.

                Technically speaking, the *College Republicans* are a *sub-group* of the school (As all official school clubs are), and Milo was invited there, at their request, *by the school* to use a *non-public* college space. (At least, I assume he was invited to speak in an auditorium, and I assume people aren’t allowed to wander into college auditoriums randomly and give speeches.) He didn’t, like, wander onto the campus and start speaking on the quad.

                It seems weird to assert this is something that generally would be allowed under free speech. He was an *invited guest speaker*, and that is coming more from a tradition of *academic freedom* than free speech.

                I mean, let’s take it out of the college: My county government has a ‘auditorium’. (Used for both government meetings and as a courtroom.) I am not sure what sort of official club I could start ‘under’ the county government, but there are quasi-governmental non-profits like our development authority that have some delegated government powers, and other groups that work closely with the county government, like the Chamber of Commerce, and other groups that are generally given free access to government property, like the Red Cross’s blood drive.

                And while I feel that probably any of them could ask the local government for use of the ‘auditorium’, and get it, I suspect they couldn’t decide to host some speaker the county government didn’t want there and get it because ‘free speech’.

                Just because something is a government-owned room doesn’t mean you can demand the right to host a speaker there…especially when the organization doing the demanding is technically part of the school to start with.

                And, yes, if the college *does* allow access to the room, they are supposed to allow it *equally*…but saying they can’t have other restrictions (as long as those restrictions apply *equally*) seems dubious. They can’t put restrictions on *people they are inviting as a guest*?

                The College Republicans renting a venue elsewhere and inviting Milo to speak is much more justifiable under Free Speech. And random students (who happen to all coincidentally be members of the College Republicans, but are not officially doing it as the club) inviting him to some other venue is something that it would be really hard to find fault with.

                But, of course, it’s pretty unlike anyone would protest those things, which is what Milo wants.Report

              • Francis in reply to DavidTC says:

                Wait a moment. If the county govt is allowing use of the room for private clubs — like the Chamber of Commerce — to invite guests to give speeches, then my view is that they better be opening up the room on an equal basis to everyone else, including the local chapter of American Nazis.

                Time, place and manner restrictions are acceptable. Content-based ones are not. That’s exactly the point of the Free Speech clause.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Francis says:

                *sigh*

                Chamber of Commerce, as I said, can *take quasi-government roles* (Such as managing parking or whatever), and my comment was in respect *to them doing that*, and requesting the room due to them doing that, not just ‘anyone can request the room’.

                If you want a better example, imagine the local library requesting to use the courthouse auditorium. Technically they’re part of the county government, but operate mostly independently.

                I just didn’t want to say that, and have someone someone say ‘That’s actually part of the government, not an outside organization’ and think it refutes my point.

                Well, the thing is…college clubs are actually *part of the college*. They have a facility adviser that is legally in charge (Aka, their *employee* is in charge.), they have to follow specific money management and voting rules, they even, under the rules, let anyone join and vote, which is sometimes a bit of a shock because clubs can be hijacked. They are, both in spirit and *legally*, a part of the college.

                College aren’t letting ‘anyone’ use the room, they actually letting *themselves* use the room, just like a professor can check out a video projector or whatever.

                A lot of here people have a lot of just *complete wrong premises* walking into this discussion about the relationship between various entities, and so come to some really weird conclusions, like a college cannot sanction *part of itself* for breaking rules if that part claims ‘free speech’, or that a college cannot stop *itself* from using a room.

                There is no free speech issue at all, anymore than a local library can claim their free speech is silenced if they are ordered by the county government to take down their a banner proclaiming how great Hitler is. They are *part of that government/college*, and can be ordered to do whatever.

                As I’ve mentioned before, college clubs having a presumed right to freely invite speakers is not really a ‘free speech’ issue at all. Colleges tend to *sorta* treat it as one, and are loathe to interfere, but in reality any freedom there is a tradition borne out of *academic freedom* in education, and the speakers are mostly assumed to be presenting *academic* ideas.

                But this is not some sort of constitutional principle. This is because parts of an entity do not have constitutional rights against other parts of it.

                Of course, college students are perfectly capable of forming their own unofficial clubs of any sort, and doing all the speech they want. In fact, those clubs cannot legally be barred from campus, as various unofficial newspapers have won that fact in court. But they don’t get to use college resources, and certainly don’t have any sort of right to make the college host a speaker.

                Milo, or any group that isn’t legally part of the college, has a complete and total right to rent a hall and have him give a speech. If the college is in the habit of renting out their own halls (They are not, no college is) he even has a right to rent *that*. He also probably has the right stand in the quad and give a speech, assuming the college doesn’t have rules about non-students on campus.

                But the College Republicans club does not have a ‘free speech right’ to invite him that the college must follow, because the College Republican club is, legally, another name for *THE COLLEGE*. They do not have an independent existence.

                And now that we have dispensed with *that* nonsense about what the college *can* do under the law, I will point out that I *do not think the college should be deciding who is invited*.

                The college has a *right* to not invite speakers (I’m not sure why an institution would even need a ‘right’ not to have part of itself use its own room.), but I don’t think they *should*.

                Instead, they should make it clear that speakers *who break school rules* will reflect back on the club, and the people in the club. If a club ask the college to invite them and continued to do so even after the college points out ‘It sounds like those guys are going to break the rules’, and he *does* break those rules, consequences will happen as if *those guys* broke the rules.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                Heh. So the First Amendment applies to everyone…as long as they’re the government. And as long as it’s, like, the for-reals government, not an organization that’s only a sort-of government body defined by a category I just made up (but I have all kinds of reasons why it totally existed it’s just that we never talked about it before.)

                And, I’m sure, we can come up with reasons why this or that speech restriction by an actual government agent is not subject to the First Amendment, like, the 1A says Congress and I’m a member of a state municipal government, bro, so stick your 1A up your A. Or maybe it’s not a law, it’s a regulation, and the 1A says “law”. Or maybe we’ve established a Free Speech Zone and anyone can say anything so long as they’re in it, and these regulations apply to everyone equally so you don’t have standing to complain.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Heh. So the First Amendment applies to everyone…as long as they’re the government. And as long as it’s, like, the for-reals government, not an organization that’s only a sort-of government body defined by a category I just made up (but I have all kinds of reasons why it totally existed it’s just that we never talked about it before.)

                What the hell are you talking about? I said, very clearly, that the Chamber of Commerce was not a great example, because I was trying to get across a complicated idea there of specific circumstances, and it didn’t work. People who have not done volunteer work in small towns do not understand that sometimes non-profits end up in specific roles where they are implementing government decisions, or even basically making decisions for the government(1), so end up with access to government resources, but that hardly means they can do anything they want with it.(2) But that is *way too complicated* to get into. So forget it.

                Pretend I said the county library instead. That actually is closer, anyway.

                My assertion is that, as I said very clearly, that official college clubs *do not have any first amendment right separate from the college*, because they are literally part of the college as a legal entity. The college is in complete in total control of them, and they are actually *a part of the college operated by the facility adviser*.(3)

                Do you understand that concept? That a college club can no more assert free speech rights against a college because the college/club (and note there’s a reason people keep flipping between ‘The college invited Milo’ and ‘The club invited Milo’. Both of those things are true. Because those are the same thing.) than a local library could assert against the county government.

                This is because they are actually *the same entity*.

                And, additionally, as I pointed out, the college is not actually allowing ‘anyone’ to use the space, and thus doesn’t have to be ‘fair’ about who can use it…the college allows *itself* to use the space.

                Are you following that? Any comments on *that*?

                1) Development authorities, like the one my town has, actually just *lost a case* on that. Those things, in case people don’t know, are non-profits created to keep a town ‘a certain way’. (My town is attempting to keep the ‘historic’ look.) Rejections by them now *must* be appeal-able to the government…the government can delegate some decisions to them, but can’t make them the final authority.

                2) Granted, when *I* was involved in that some of thing, the questions were more to the extent of ‘Can we promote other stuff we’re doing during this?’ (Result: We asked, and the government said yes.) and ‘We need to make sure that none of this can be seen as political in any manner.’

                3) This is, weirdly, the *second* time I’ve had to explain this exact fact here, and the last time was in a *completely different context*, and, frankly, I’m getting a little tired of people sprouting off about college censorship *without knowing basic facts about the relationship of colleges to college ‘clubs’*.

                How hard would it be, at the end of any article about a college group, to put ‘The group referenced in this story, is, of course, an official club of the college, and thus is legally part of it’. (Or pointing out it’s *not* an official club and what that means.)

                Almost *no one here seems to know or understand this basic fact*, thus resulting in *really stupid* discussions about 1st amendment issues that do not exist at all, instead of more proper ‘Considering academic freedom and a tradition of allowing people to express their views, and the fact it, as a government agency, should be political neutral…how does all that balance against the need to create a non-hostile environment. How much freedom should the school allow these clubs?’ (And I have already clearly stated my position…in most cases, total freedom in *advance*, but slap down misbehavior, even by non-students invited as guests.)Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “That a college club can no more assert free speech rights against a college because the college/club (and note there’s a reason people keep flipping between ‘The college invited Milo’ and ‘The club invited Milo’.”

                This argument isn’t as convincing as you think, because it suggests that the college itself should have acted to rescind the invitation of Milo…and that because they didn’t, it’s the college’s fault and not that of the students. If everything that a college club does is effectively an act by the college itself, then ipso facto the building getting wrecked is the college’s responsibility.

                Note that you’re suggesting that every college club should have extreme oversight, to the point of having an administration member present at all club functions and have an overriding veto of any club decisions. Which I don’t think is what you want to mean, but it’s what you do mean.

                Stop citing your non-profit experience. It’s only vaguely relevant.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                This argument isn’t as convincing as you think, because it suggests that the college itself should have acted to rescind the invitation of Milo…and that because they didn’t, it’s the college’s fault and not that of the students. If everything that a college club does is effectively an act by the college itself, then ipso facto the building getting wrecked is the college’s responsibility.

                I have no idea what you mean by ‘responsibility’ there.

                Do you think I was trying to blame the *antifa* action on the College Republican club? I don’t see where you got that, but I will, unequivocally, state I was not, and the people who *broke shit* should be arrested and charged and ‘held responsible’ for breaking shit, not the College Republican club, which emerges from this mess ‘blameless’. (I mean, they still soiled their reputation by *inviting* Milo, but legally and WRT the school rules, they’re fine.)

                I said the College Republican club should be held responsible for *what Milo says* if it is a violation of school rules.

                This is akin to holding them responsible with the key to a meeting room to hold meetings in, or letting them borrow equipment. Colleges allow students to take responsibility for things, and punish them if they misuse those resources and grants of power. If student hold keggers in their club’s meeting rooms, the students will be punished.

                And, likewise, the college should say ‘We can ask this speaker to come here, as you have asked, but other students have pointed out things in some of his speeches, and we’re asking *are you sure*? Because we’ve identified several things in his speeches that, if he says them here about *our* students, will be in violation of the student code of conduct. And if he breaks the student code of conduct, *you* will be punished as we cannot punish him. Please sign this statement that you agree with this.’

                Note that you’re suggesting that every college club should have extreme oversight, to the point of having an administration member present at all club functions and have an overriding veto of any club decisions. Which I don’t think is what you want to mean, but it’s what you do mean.

                That not only is not what I ‘want’ to mean, and ‘do’ mean, but *what is true*.

                Although I don’t think the facility adviser *has to be* at all club meetings if he doesn’t *want* to be, but he certainly *can* be, and yes, he gets a veto over club actions, or even can just randomly dissolve the club. (Unless they can find some other facility adviser.)

                Again, the fact the school went ahead and invited Milo is nothing to do with the first amendment. They were under no *obligation*, to themselves, to invite him to speak to themselves.

                Colleges invite speakers the administration and students mostly or entirely disagree with because of abstract concepts of academic freedom and the idea that all viewpoints should be represented in the academic world. Not any sort of free speech rules.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “Do you think I was trying to blame the *antifa* action on the College Republican club? ”

                Do you actually, only at this point in the discussion, realize that’s what I thought? My repeated references to smashing windows and setting things on fire just flew over your head?

                God damn, dude, do you even read the posts you’re replying to?!

                “That not only is not what I ‘want’ to mean, and ‘do’ mean, but *what is true*.”

                I don’t recall faculty advisors of any sort at any of the clubs I was a member of in college, even when it was student government spending actual college money on things (we had a nominal administration supervisor but I don’t think I even knew her name, and she most certainly didn’t have the power to just arbitrarily dissolve the student government or refuse to provide funds it decided to use.)

                Considering that the anime clubs showed straight-up porn during their weekend-long marathons, the lack of oversight was probably a good thing as far as my continued enrollment was concerned.

                “the fact the school went ahead and invited Milo is nothing to do with the first amendment.”

                Okay stop, because the school did not invite Milo, the club did. I recognize that your argument requires us to accept this weird framework you have about school clubs speaking with the voice of the school, but it isn’t going to happen.

                “I said the College Republican club should be held responsible for *what Milo says* if it is a violation of school rules.”

                This kind of hammer is going to hit a lot more people than that icky, icky Milo Yiannapolous. As I pointed out much earlier (and you just kind of glided past, further evidence that you don’t actually read my posts) it’s a weapon that will be very easy to turn against the wrong targets.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Do you actually, only at this point in the discussion, realize that’s what I thought? My repeated references to smashing windows and setting things on fire just flew over your head?

                If you think you have been talking about such things to me, you are very mistaken. You have mentioned them once, and I immediately responded with ‘all the antifa people should go to jail’. Then, after a lot of talk over the legal status of clubs and how the school should react to clubs attempting to troll the campus, suddenly you claim you’ve been talking about ‘People should be punished for violence’ the entire time, and I’ve been disagreeing with that.

                You are, at this point, trying to pretend I’m supporting violence without any actual *words* indicating that, and in fact a lot of my words saying otherwise.

                I don’t recall faculty advisors of any sort at any of the clubs I was a member of in college, even when it was student government spending actual college money on things

                The fact you are completely unaware of how any of this works or the legal status of official college clubs is not surprising, almost no one seems to understand this.

                Here, have a Supreme Court decision that will explain the legal status of student organizations *within the first paragraph*: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1371.pdf

                That suit, BTW, was whether or not a student organization had to abide by the ‘All student groups must accept all comers’, because a religious group wanted to bar gay students.

                The group *lost*. (And even the dissent doesn’t disagree with the idea that college *could* have such a ‘must accept all students’ policy, it just points out the college apparently *invented* the policy for that specific group, and has let other groups get away with apparent restrictions.)

                Whether or not the college can just dissolve a club depends on how it works. Some schools have non-profits that join the school (Like in that court decisions), some schools have entities created under it (Which I believe is how it works for schools in UC), and some schools have combinations of both.

                If I am wrong and that is not how it works at Berkeley, and the College Republican group is some separate non-profit entity that just signed up to be a student group, the school can’t dissolve it, just stop providing any space for it.

                But my premise is something that students should be punished for inviting a speaker that break conduct rules, so what hypothetical existence it could have outside the school, where it cannot invite speakers, is not very relevant. (Even if it was an entirely college organization and the college could dissolve it, the people involve could instantly create a non-college organization, so it’s a bit moot anyway.)

                (we had a nominal administration supervisor but I don’t think I even knew her name, and she most certainly didn’t have the power to just arbitrarily dissolve the student government or refuse to provide funds it decided to use.)I

                The student government, of course, would *always* be something created under the school.

                You think *the college* cannot refuse to fund *the student government*? That the student government has a *right* to student activity fees? Are you serious?

                Considering that the anime clubs showed straight-up porn during their weekend-long marathons, the lack of oversight was probably a good thing as far as my continued enrollment was concerned.

                I have no idea why you think the fact they showed porn is relevant. Do you think that was illegal? Or even a violation of school rules? Neither of those would appear to be true. Why would the college not stopping them prove anything?

                Okay stop, because the school did not invite Milo, the club did. I recognize that your argument requires us to accept this weird framework you have about school clubs speaking with the voice of the school, but it isn’t going to happen.

                It sure is lucky that club had an auditorium built on campus. Man, that must have been expensive for a college club, and kinda weird the school allowed it.

                This kind of hammer is going to hit a lot more people than that icky, icky Milo Yiannapolous. As I pointed out much earlier (and you just kind of glided past, further evidence that you don’t actually read my posts) it’s a weapon that will be very easy to turn against the wrong targets.

                Remember everyone, this is an *already existing* code of conduct that already applies to students. I just want it to apply to students for people they have the school formally invite as speakers, during their student-organization-sanctioned speech.

                There are students being punished *right now* for violating this code of conduct, via the due process that the school already has set up. Students can, right now, get punished on possibly-flimsy eyewitness testimony, for things said in the heat of the moment, for behaviors they didn’t realize was over the line. This is true *right now*.

                What *I* am suggesting is that it also could be easy changed to apply to third parties in a *formal invitation situation* where students have been warned, by the college, that the speaker they want invited has repeatedly gone across the line before, and a speech that is *videotaped and watched by everyone* so what the person say is very clear and well documented, and who will not be in any sort of confrontation with anyone.

                And note by ‘could be changed to apply’, I mean *actually changed*, not the school trying to reinterpret that on the fly, which they are hesitate to do. I am not staying the school shouldn’t have invited Milo…I think they would have grounds to reject him, but I understand why they think they might not have.

                So *right now*, schools to need to be looking at their rules, and trying to figure out what would happen if students deliberately invite a speaker who is clearly going to break the code of conduct, and how they can stop that *before* it happens.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

                “If you think you have been talking about such things to me, you are very mistaken. ”

                Hey, keep explaining to me what I’m saying, that is definitely making you look good.

                “You are, at this point, trying to pretend I’m supporting violence”

                No, I’m saying that you’re excusing it. You’re trying to get us to agree with some theory of contagion where people should be held responsible for unreasonable reactions to the speech of unrelated persons, a sort of “bitch deserved it for talking like that, once removed” reasoning.

                “Here, have a Supreme Court decision that will explain the legal status of student organizations *within the first paragraph*:”

                I’ll see it and raise you a UC Berkeley policy on free speech. And you’re going to read that and go “ooh, OOH, it says that harassment is not constitutionally protected!”, and I’m going to reply that the next sentence is “the actual definitions of these conduct violations are set out in the Code” and that said Code requires the harassment to be pervasive and ongoing.

                “I have no idea why you think the fact they showed porn is relevant.”

                I guess if you don’t think showing porn might violate a university code of conduct then there’s nothing useful I could say here.

                “There are students being punished *right now* for violating this code of conduct, via the due process that the school already has set up. Students can, right now, get punished on possibly-flimsy eyewitness testimony, for things said in the heat of the moment, for behaviors they didn’t realize was over the line. This is true *right now*.”

                And you…want it to be true? You want it to keep working like this?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Hey, keep explaining to me what I’m saying, that is definitely making you look good.

                Did you just complain about me tell you that you weren’t saying a specific thing in this discussion, and that I shouldn’t tell you want you’re saying?

                That thing I said you weren’t saying, of course, is you telling *me* what *I’m* saying.

                No, I’m saying that you’re excusing it. You’re trying to get us to agree with some theory of contagion where people should be held responsible for unreasonable reactions to the speech of unrelated persons, a sort of “bitch deserved it for talking like that, once removed” reasoning.

                Hey, keep explaining to me what I’m saying, that is definitely making you look good.

                I’ll see it and raise you a UC Berkeley policy on free speech. And you’re going to read that and go “ooh, OOH, it says that harassment is not constitutionally protected!”, and I’m going to reply that the next sentence is “the actual definitions of these conduct violations are set out in the Code” and that said Code requires the harassment to be pervasive and ongoing.

                And, wow, you clearly haven’t read a *single thing I’ve said here*. As I said, Milo’s speech is not in violation of the *harassment* policy. He’s in violation of the *terrorizing conduct* policy…well, except he’s not, because that is part of the student code of conduct and only applies to students.

                But as that page *directly points out*, ‘Speech activities that violate Time, Place and Manner rules may subject individuals to discipline.’

                And if you follow that link, one of the rules in which they mean that is they have *specific rules about reserving facilities*: http://sa.berkeley.edu/uga/regs

                241. Violation of any campus regulation or terms or conditions of authorization governing reservations, requests, or use of campus facilities and services may result in loss of organizational or individual privileges for a specified period of time. A violation may also be grounds for revocation of recognition of campus organizational status. Any person or group involved in the willful or deliberate violation of this section may forfeit the privilege to reserve facilities and may be subject to relevant disciplinary action, including monetary sanctions and/or reimbursement for damages and injury.

                Not only can organizations be sanctioned for violating university regulations while using campus facilities, but *so can individual students that are members of that group*! Exactly what I was suggesting! Again, right now. Right in the rules.(1)

                Note I am not arguing this *currently* provides grounds to sanction students who invented someone who breaks the student _code of conduct_, as the student code of conduct is not in that clause, just ‘university regulations’, and those are not the same thing. (This is basically what the university concluded, and I think they’re right there.) I am arguing that part *should be changed* to include groups inviting guests they are aware will not follow the student code of conduct during their events.

                And, frankly, this should apply to all invited visitors, and all rules. There needs to be *intent*, yes, if some random jackass breaks a school rule and happens to be at an invited event, no, the group shouldn’t be punished. But if, for example, a group invites someone on campus specifically to sell them course material (Which is a violation of the student code of conduct, but obviously not illegal), the student group *should* be punished for that…and right now cannot in any way I can see. Likewise, if the group invites a speaker that others point out consistently says things that would break the student code of conduct…and he does the thing he obviously was going to do, well…

                It is an obvious, problematic loophole in the rules that students can knowingly get non-students to break the rules *for them* and not get punished.

                And that link shows my memory was correct: Campus Organizations at Berkley (And I’m pretty sure all of UC) have to be *specifically created organizations* under the college, and thus can be dissolved at will. In fact, they can specifically be dissolved for breaking regulations concerning campus facilities they have been granted permission to use! Again, and I repeat…right now.

                While you’re at it, #171. Hey, look, they can indeed dissolve the student government.

                I guess if you don’t think showing porn might violate a university code of conduct then there’s nothing useful I could say here.

                Unlike you, I’ve actually *read* the student code of conduct at UC Berkley, and there is absolutely nothing in there about viewing porn or allowing other people to view porn. (Disorderly or lewd *conduct* is banned, but that’s conduct. So as long as people keep their hands out of their pants.)

                I have no idea what college you went to, but I’d like to see any public college with rules banning porn. (Or even secular private college.)

                And you…want it to be true? You want it to keep working like this?

                What, as opposed to people being punished for violating the student code of conduct *without* any sort of trial or appeal?

                1) Seriously, I’m actually starting to think the note we need, to explain things, every time an article is posted here about free speech on campus won’t work. Instead we need a note saying: Hey, most of you people apparently know *nothing* about this topic *at all*, and you really need to do a bit of reading on it before commenting.

                It’s a bit amazing how many people seem to think they can disprove my point by saying ‘But…if that was true than the university could do this specific horrible thing’, and I’m like…uh…yes, they can do that thing. They very clearly can do that thing. They have always been able to do that thing. This is not something that anyone is debating…except half the people here, apparently.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC says:

                For the most obvious and relevant one, they, like workplaces, are not allowed to have hostile environments.

                “hostile” seems to mean “anything any snowflake disagrees with”.

                A lot of these accusations seem to be more about projecting power than protecting people. Like how any GOP guy running for Prez is accused of racism until the definition apparently means “not a Dem”.

                if the college *does* allow access to the room, they are supposed to allow it *equally*…but saying they can’t have other restrictions (as long as those restrictions apply *equally*) seems dubious.

                Saying you can use it as long as you don’t offend any SJW seems inherently unequal.Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

          Also I see exactly zero people anywhere suggesting that someone who is causing harm under the law should not be subject to penalties for that harm.

          What people are concerned about is the suggestion that preemptive violence is justified by the potential for harm.

          Or the idea, which you put forth here, that we ought to punish the ones we can catch (and extra hard, for that matter, just to show the real bad guys what we’ll do to ’em when they stop hiding behind the Constitution).Report

          • DavidTC in reply to DensityDuck says:

            What people are concerned about is the suggestion that preemptive violence is justified by the potential for harm.

            Then people do not understand the student code of conduct at universities, which, in this particular school, bans people speaking with a disregard as to whether or not their speech will cause people to become fearful that people who *listened* to that speech intend them harm.

            A college, even a public college, is an educational environment, and as such there are rules about speech disrupting the education.

            One of those rules is that not only can you not *deliberately* make other students feel unsafe, but you can’t *recklessly* make them feel unsafe by failing to consider if *the people you are talking to* will take your words and use them as some sort of rational for making others feel unsafe.

            I.e., under the law, inciting violence requires a) intent, and b) violence to actually happen.

            Under school rules, however, you don’t need intent (just disregard) and violence doesn’t have to happen…students just have to think *violence might be going to happen* to them based on what you said.

            This is because schools are *educational environments*, and students are supposed to feel safe, they are supposed to be able to freely walk around and attend classes without worries they are going to attacked.

            Those are the actual school rules. Milo repeatedly breaks those rules. A lot of speech breaks those rules, in fact…the question is, *should official university groups on the university be allowed to invite speakers who break those rules*?

            Like I said, pick one: Either you don’t like that particular school rule, or you think it’s fine that student can break it by proxy, by simply having someone else stand on stage and repeat things they could not say.Report

            • DensityDuck in reply to DavidTC says:

              “Like I said, pick one: Either you don’t like that particular school rule”

              I don’t. But, then, it wasn’t I (or people like me) who called for it to exist in the first place.

              “under the law, inciting violence requires a) intent, and b) violence to actually happen.”

              It also requires that the incited violence be directed against someone other than the speaker. If I say that you’re a jerk and you punch me in the face, you cannot claim that I “incited violence” and therefore I’m at fault!

              I mean, what, you’re saying that the smashed windows and beaten bystanders are the fault of the people who invited Milo?Report

              • notme in reply to DensityDuck says:

                I mean, what, you’re saying that the smashed windows and beaten bystanders are the fault of the people who invited Milo?

                I think you’ve got it. The snowflakes can’t control themselves and things are other folks’ fault.Report

    • Dark Matter in reply to veronica d says:

      So what speech does Milo fight for? Simply this: the right to harass transgender people, to mock fat people, etc. In other words, his free speech is the freedom to be a bully.
      Gee, you all on the right should sure feel proud.

      I don’t see how Milo’s behavior is different from Serrano’s “piss Christ”. He’s deliberately offensive for the purpose of attracting attention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

      The part I don’t get is why you’d go to one of his shows. You know who he is, you know what he does, it’s presumably pay-to-go. There’s a disconnect between you claiming you’re a victim because of what he’s saying to you and you paying to hear it.Report

  19. jkwo says:

    “it isn’t a principle that can do enough work on its own to create a just world.”

    There is a huge chunk of people out there who will never, ever, ever, ever agree with you on this.

    We recognize that our senses of justice can never be 100% perfectly reconciled, and so for people like me, the solution is democracy and open debate.

    You may or may not recognize that our senses of justice can never be perfectly reconciled, or you may be one of the social justice types who believes that every last soul who disagrees with them is either an ignorant one waiting to be enlightened or a sub-human with no heart.

    But at the point when you discover that such is not the case, it seems that your solution would be to be to discard that information and to pursue your idea of justice by whatever means might be available to you.

    By my morality, free speech isn’t the means to an end. It is its own end. The very fact that you and I can express disagreement with each other and more specifically the government without being locked up is the beauty of it.

    Democracy is its own reward, to many of us.

    You seem to be hinting that because the objective and the impartial are impossible to fully attain (like most new years resolutions or aspiring to be a good husband or mother), we should be prepared to embrace the subjective and the partial in our broad pursuit of justice.

    But, as you probably already know, the first question that any speech advocate will ask here is “partial to whom?”

    If the answer is me, that doesn’t work because I know what that kind of power does to people. If the answer is you and your comrades (and it is), then I like the answer even less, because people who come into the fray with an expressed interest in societal control have historically wielded that power with… deadly enthusiasm.Report

  20. gregiank says:

    College R’s making fun of the holocaust. Sigh. Such humor.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/college-republicans-sorry-hitler-valentines-cardReport

    • DensityDuck in reply to gregiank says:

      Have we got confirmation that it was an actual member of the College Republicans who created the note and put it in the bag with the intent that a non-member receive it?Report

      • Jaybird in reply to DensityDuck says:

        The article makes the explicit point that the College Republicans apologized on facebook.

        At tonight’s College Republican meeting, we had a Valentine’s Day party, in which each member decorated a bag and other members placed valentines inside of others’ bags. Unfortunately, a very inappropriate card was placed into a bag without other members’ knowledge. A bag was then given away to students sitting in Anspach, once again without members’ knowledge of its contents. The College Republicans as an organization did not distribute this valentine. We in no way condone this type of rhetoric or anti-Semitism. We apologize for any offense, and want students to know that we do not tolerate this sort of behavior.

        Looking at the wording, I’m guessing that it was.Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird says:

          I’ve just been handed this note

          The Office of Civil Rights and Institutional Equity at Central Michigan University has concluded its inquiry into an anti-Semitic Valentine card that was distributed on campus Wednesday night following a student organization event.

          OCRIE Executive Director Katherine Lasher said her staff has talked with the individuals involved and determined the card was the misguided action of one individual, who readily admitted her role. The young woman is not a CMU student and has left Mount Pleasant.

          “The grossly offensive action of one individual, a nonstudent, has deeply distressed our campus community and others across the nation,” President George E. Ross said. “With heavy hearts and great embarrassment, we apologize. To those of Jewish descent, rest assured that we stand with you and vow to continue the effort to educate others.”

          Lasher said her staff talked with and determined leaders of the student organization, College Republicans at CMU, were unaware of the card. Damon Brown, director of student activities and involvement, said members of the student organization are shocked and remorseful.

          Report

          • Jaybird in reply to DensityDuck says:

            The young woman is not a CMU student and has left Mount Pleasant.

            Hoo boy. Never apologize for anything.Report

            • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

              ““With heavy hearts and great embarrassment, we apologize.”Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

                They effectively admitted fault.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Who do you think didn’t apologize?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

                I don’t think that anybody didn’t apologize.

                Is there another way to read “Hoo boy. Never apologize for anything.” than as a way that assumes that someone didn’t apologize, especially in a thread where the person who posted “Hoo boy. Never apologize for anything.” posted a link to the facebook post in which they apologized?Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

                If you meant something other than, “Never apologize for anything,” then write something other than, “Never apologize for anything.”Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

                I didn’t mean something other than “Never apologize for anything”.

                When the college Republicans apologized, they used language that indicated that the person might have been a college Republican. It’s right up there.

                Then the *COLLEGE* apologized?

                Over someone who wasn’t even a *STUDENT*?

                Dude, you’re a teacher. If someone who wasn’t a student at your school took an inappropriate picture that implied that they were a student at your school, would you apologize?Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

                I certainly wouldn’t say, “Not my problem!”Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Kazzy says:

                That’s better than I’d say. I have no idea what Jaybird”s arguing here. He seems to be saying that both the school and the college Republican’s apologized even tho no one apologized.

                I’ll say this, tho: truth predicates and goin’ meta are inversely correlated.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Stillwater says:

                He seems to be saying that both the school and the college Republican’s apologized even tho no one apologized.

                From the first link:

                We apologize for any offense, and want students to know that we do not tolerate this sort of behavior.

                From the second:

                With heavy hearts and great embarrassment, we apologize.

                Both the school and the college president apologized.
                I would have thought that if anything was beyond dispute in this whole cluster, it would be that.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Jaybird says:

                I didn’t mean something other than “Never apologize for anything”.

                So – guessing here – your point in writing the above is that even tho they DID apologize they shouldn’t have? …..?Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Kazzy says:

                Kazzy, dude.

                The College Republicans and the university administration were so sure that they would be in unbelievable trouble over this that they apologized, twice, for something that a student didn’t even do.Report

            • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

              The young woman is not a CMU student and has left Mount Pleasant.

              And we are strongly considering removing her from the position of honorary oberführer.Report

    • notme in reply to gregiank says:

      TPM, really? Given their liberal bias, how can i seriously believe this until i see it verified in two other non biased news sources? Does that sound familiar?Report

  21. Thinking Observer says:

    Milo is such an overhyped asshole, I’d bet he’s financed by Soros to make The Right look silly. This rabid-tongued harpie is no one to compare to Trump. Trump has been egregiously piled on since he started his run because he is the only individual in upper politics not owned. When this ungoverned mouth started flapping you notice he parrots unspectacular remarks that anyone checking alternative news and Islam watch sites might write. Milo seems to have syphilitic diarrhea of the brain or perhaps a mutated strain of Tourette’s yet studied.

    There is a deep-seated and abiding hatred of women oozing from Milo like a toxic infection. He calls himself “dangerous faggot”, but upon inspection, here’s a putz once claiming to be bisexual but was overwhelmed by women.

    He has written bizarre tracts denying female sexuality and purporting multiple orgasms can’t exist, and women must be replaced by robots. In short, any and everything eclipsing his megalomaniacal self image must be eradicated and forgotten. Only Queen Bitch Milo should experience adoration, ecstacy or reverence. Couple this with his meth-head delivery and you’ve got the poster boy for every miserable, homely queen who bitterly despises women because they can’t be one.

    If there is even an ounce of authenticity in this vacuous, bleached blond bag, all the more tragic since he has estranged himself from the most potent of the Patriotic Right, the Underground Lesbian Fringe. That’s right, the REAL Feminists you’ll never see at some ludicrous Women’s March organized by CAIR.

    Gays, conservatives, the right, and certainly Donald Trump don’t need this festering bag of pus. Pandering campuses and indiscriminate rags in desperate need of buzz want him. I imagine after while, he’ll bloat out like a floating cow corpse after being forced to give up amphetamines. They’ll discover his pasty, menopausal body hanging butchershop style in a coat closet. He’ll be eggplant colored, just like the mps discovered after failed autoerotic asphyxiation.

    Bon Voyage Milo! Bon Voyage!Report

  22. Kazzy says:

    Seems reasonable. I don’t know who Scahill is but I usually listen to the podcast of Real Time. I’m not a fan of Maher’s but I appreciate getting to hear his guests and, when he’s at his best (which isn’t the norm), Maher can create an atmosphere for real debate and dialogue.

    If you aren’t familiar with the show, the lead guest goes 1-on-1 with Maher, interview-style. Than there is a 3-person panel (where Scahill would have appeared) with does not include the lead. The lead usually does return for the Overtime segment where questions from Twitter are fielded with minimal debate between the guests.

    Taking Scahill at his word (and I have no reason not to), it seems he is saying, “You guys do you… but that ain’t me so I’ll pass.” He doesn’t seem to be trying to change HBO/Maher’s mind but rather is choosing that which he wants to be associated with. Now, if every guest opts out because someone they disagree with is on the show, the show ceases to work and that would be bad. But Scahill makes clear this isn’t about disagreement. Rightly or wrongly he considers Milo beyond the pale, offensive, and a danger… all things he wants nothing to do with. Both his assessment and his decision seem reasonable.

    If you find someone or something objectionable, object! This is one (though not the only) form of objecting.

    If you disagree, disagree. This would be a poor way to voice disagreement.

    Let’s not conflate disagreeable with objectionable (neither one of which is objective). Scahill seems to recognize the difference.Report

    • Brent F in reply to Kazzy says:

      On this subject, I think Larry Wilmore was pretty much on point in the Overtime discussion.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cDLflyQ8TA

      Milo was given sufficient room to demostrate what a substanceless ass he is and Wilmore freely called him out on it.

      Milo also is getting to be the keynote speaker at CPAC, in case any American conservatives out there want to object to him being considered a face of their movement. This guy belongs to you now and you’re going to have to either own him or punt him out.Report

  23. veronicad says:

    So I guess there have been developments.Report