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[mainiac]

I honestly dont think it's personal, people just really hate SJW.  It's a mirage into which we have poured all our loathing to create the object of perfect scorn.  So it's pretty triggering to talk about them.

[Max™]

I hate that the term exists and that I know what it means, but I personally blame the faff over the Hugo awards as I had never been so sadly informed prior to then, though I love that I learned about that beautiful man Chuck Tingle due to it.

In other news, I just saw a hilarious clip from the political rickroll with an MSNBC anchor exhibiting what I can only call political shellshock, as she looks back to see the stage collapsing and just kind of tiredly comments on it.

[mainiac]

In other news, I just saw a hilarious clip from the political rickroll with an MSNBC anchor exhibiting what I can only call political shellshock, as she looks back to see the stage collapsing and just kind of tiredly comments on it.

They turned the entire Trump campaign into a single clip?

[Flying Dice]

FD: You quoted RT. I think it's fair to say that you're misrepresenting what happened there. It's a bad example is what I'm saying.

Folks, could it be that 'SJW' is used with two very distinct meanings, and that much of the disagreement here comes from that ambiguity? Though if you want to continue discussing this possibility or indeed the entire SJW topic, please move your asses out of my thread and into a purpose-made sacrificial one. I'm very pleased that this one's almost made it to 300 pages, and I'd like to see it actually get there.

E: Same goes for snarky remarks about unlawful cops.

Yeah, sorry, I'm kinda posting in between sessions of working on stuff that stresses me out for a productive purpose and didn't check the header, just copied a familiar headline-url from Google since this shit is absurdly easy to find as long as you're not restricting yourself mainlining TYT propaganda.

That said, I'll shift entirely over to saying "regressive left" if I bother risking a warning bashing my head into a brick wall arguing politics again, since y'all are right: there are people who take the "social justice" literally, the people who use it as an easy abbreviation for regressive leftists, and the people who use it as a vague Other, and that just from two seconds of recollection.

I'm not opposed to social justice in the egalitarian, non-crazy sense - the exact opposite, rather. That's pretty much the heart of social progressivism. When I said "SJW" I was using that in the ironic sense, similarly to how people riff on American invasion of/political interference in third-world countries as self-defense or bringing democracy.

[Max™]

In other news, I just saw a hilarious clip from the political rickroll with an MSNBC anchor exhibiting what I can only call political shellshock, as she looks back to see the stage collapsing and just kind of tiredly comments on it.

They turned the entire Trump campaign into a single clip?

Basically, yeah. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/donald-trumps-birther-pr-stunt-beset-by-chaos-stage-co-1786716861

[misko27]

Some people complain about politics, but it is truly semantics that is the most vital and divisive topic. Entire discussions can be almost painfully agreeable; or vicious, cruel and flame-baiting, entirely turning on choice of words.

[mainiac]

Basically, yeah. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/donald-trumps-birther-pr-stunt-beset-by-chaos-stage-co-1786716861

One might speculate that mistreating the press seems to be the thing that has actually cost Trump the support of the press.  He has lied for years but the NYT, AP, WaPo and Tribune finally used the word "lie" to describe his actions.  It's not exactly a reassuring notion about the third estate as a bedrock of democratic debate.

[RedKing]

10/10 strawman there

No it's really not.  Folks, let's have a history lesson.  This may seem meandering at first but it's actually terribly relevant to Trump and the whole "SJW" label that people use as if it's an insult. 

Way back in 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton decided to get in the business of critiquing unknown rap artists.  Namely a woman named "Sister Souljah" who nobody gave a shit about before or since.  She said some stuff about the LA riots he deliberately took out of context and said "If you took the words 'white' and 'black,' and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech,"

So, why did Bill Clinton do this?  He wasn't so stupid that he could honestly believe the intentional misreading of her words.  His relationship with the black community was a political liability so he needed to pick a fight with a black person.  Sister Souljah was perfect to diss.  The comments she made about the LA riots were the perfect strawman for white fears about black people.  Sister Souljah was a sacrificial lamb, by mistreating her he could allay the fears of the white-racist-but-not-too-racist crowd.  And she wasn't popular enough that his comments would have any backlash to speak of.  By being just a little bit racist towards one person he would have a pass to go ahead and be tolerant and appoint black cabinet officials.  It was an act of subtly affirming their worldview so they would accept his actions.  "I'm not judging you for thinking black men in cities are criminals.  Even I'm disgusted by the most extremist of them like Sister Souljah."

But that's just a long way of saying "he threw racists a bone to keep them off his back."

Every liberal public figure does this a little bit and not just with regards to black people.  Remember when Obama said that wearing an american flag pin was trivializing patriotism?  Well he gave up and started wearing them.  And usually politicians have to throw bones that matter a lot more.  Obama took time to "evolve" his position on gay marriage.  Obama denounced rap glorifying criminals.  Clinton went for Dont Ask Dont Tell which was a huge step up but still threw the homophobes a bone.

SJW is a vacuous word whose meaning is in the eye of the beholder.  But it's derogatory.  Where the MAGA crowd says "cuck", you say "SJW".  It's like where the Klan said "n****r", the respectable country club racist said "negro problem" in the 50s and talks about "urban demographics" today.  Everytime you say "SJW" you picking a fight with Sister Souljah.  I mean not literally, you aren't trying to appear a little racist, you are creating a strawman for a much more general thing.  SJW is in the eye of the beholder but a pretty damn good definition is "the people trump supporters hate the most."

And the thing is you aren't Bill Clinton in this parable.  You aren't Barack Obama "evolving".  You are the racists and the homophobes that are getting thrown a bone.  Because you aren't doing this out of a belief it's for the greater good of the group you insult, you are doing it because you just want to insult them.  You are using the language of exclusion.  Or to put it at a gradeschool level you are being a bully.

Now I dont expect you to understand all of this.  But you shouldn't need to think out all the details to see the problem.  I think more then half the people in the US dont know what the term "dog whistle" means.  But they still know what Trump is trying to be racist when he demands to see Obama's birth certificate and asks if he is a muslim.

Insulting people by using the term "SJW" is the mildest form of the alt-right culture war on leftism but it's still affirming that view.  It implicitly and completely affirms the notion that it's okay to have contempt for people for pushing leftist views.  It doesn't say you disagree with them, it says they are to be looked down on.  So if you use SJW you have zero right to bitch about Trump.

And honestly, I think it's a massive disappointment that the so called "revolution" of outspoken young people fails so massively in this regard.  They buy into the language of exclusion enthusiastically.

Well, that's certainly a....novel interpretation of history. Utterly disagree with your conclusion though -- that any criticism of the Left is basically being a pawn of the far-right? Especially when it's criticism of people who have gone so far out into left field that they're not even in the fucking stadium anymore.

I mean, shit, weren't you one of the ones rightfully bashing Jill Stein for some of the cray-cray she's been spouting? Stein is a perfect example of what we're talking about here -- someone who's pushed back against the mainstream so hard that they just broke and wound up in their own personal fantasy land, which is often much scarier than the place the rest of us live.

[mainiac]

that any criticism of the Left is basically being a pawn of the far-right?

Not remotely my conclusion.  In fact I just gave examples of the last two left wing presidents doing bad shit.  And I will go way beyond that.  I will say that almost everyone on the left will resort to Sister Souljah denunciations or it's cousin, hippie punching.

Especially when it's criticism of people who have gone so far out into left field that they're not even in the fucking stadium anymore.

It's not criticism of the crazies, it's a form of strawman argument..  When Bill Clinton picked a fight it wasn't because he thought it was bad to murder white people.  Of fucking course he thought it was bad to murder white people.  He picked a fight because he was trying, just a little bit, to throw a bone to people who were worried about blacks being violent criminals.

[Frumple]

Well, that's certainly a....novel interpretation of history. Utterly disagree with your conclusion though -- that any criticism of the Left is basically being a pawn of the far-right? Especially when it's criticism of people who have gone so far out into left field that they're not even in the fucking stadium anymore.

That's... not what M's spiel was saying, though? The conclusion was that using far-X terms for their opposition as a means of contempt was reinforcing said far-X's worldview. Criticism is fine, it's when you're aping the same worldview and terminology (and its use) the alt-foo folks are using you're contributing to a problem, basically.

[Flying Dice]

Well, that's certainly a....novel interpretation of history. Utterly disagree with your conclusion though -- that any criticism of the Left is basically being a pawn of the far-right? Especially when it's criticism of people who have gone so far out into left field that they're not even in the fucking stadium anymore.

That's... not what M's spiel was saying, though? The conclusion was that using far-X terms for their opposition as a means of contempt was reinforcing said far-X's worldview. Criticism is fine, it's when you're aping the same worldview and terminology (and its use) the alt-foo folks are using you're contributing to a problem, basically.

Progressives generally call the alt-left the regressive left. Because that's what they are, regressive leftists.

The alt-right generally calls them liberals. Only difference is, these days there actually is a lunatic fringe on the left large enough to notice, so it's more than them just spouting hot air. That's what gives the centrists the excuse to attack progressives and label them as alt-righters. We despise the regressive left because they're authoritarian bigots; the alt-right despises them because they're in large part the sum of their paranoid fears made manifest.

I think that (for me at least) progressives have a stronger reaction to the regressive left than the alt-right for a couple reasons: they've emerged much more recently; they are perverting our ideals and goals for their own selfish, hateful ends while denying our political identity and trying to claim it for themselves; they have a meaningful degree of support from the media and government (whereas nobody who isn't an alt-right loonie themselves takes alt-right loonies seriously for even a moment); and they serve the interests of corporate America and the extremely wealthy when they divide the poor and middle class with racial and sexual conflict, weakening awareness of the ongoing one-sided class war that's slowly driving the vast swath of the citizenry into a vague lower-class level of subsistence living.

Also, ain't entirely wrong.

[SirQuiamus]

Please, your own strawmen are enough. You don't have to draw on the tired old tar-pit of "hurr durr not agreeing with the regressive left means you're a bigoted fascist". Nobody with a grain of common sense buys that line - I suspect that that's why it's so popular with SJWs, considering the alarming lack of critical thinking skills and utter inability to self-examine. Incidentally, that's why Shillary supporters like yourself love the regressive left, they give you the perfect excuse to lambast progressives that don't march in lock-step behind the leaders of the corp-cap-backed centrists.

If you bitch about social justice warriors without a trace of irony you have zero right to bitch about trump.

I don't discriminate; I mock all fringe loonies equally. The source from which hateful authoritarian ideologies are derived is ultimately irrelevant in the face of what they produce - in the end it doesn't matter why people are being harangued, censored, imprisoned, &c. unjustly, merely that they are. The alt-left is just as destructive and selfish as the alt-right, the only difference is that they haven't had as long to show it.

Anyone trying to frame the current political climate in the U.S. as a binary "us vs. them" has an agenda to push.

pretty sure they don't... actually... exist, though?

it's just trolls and poes at this point, riffing off teenagers who think they have it all figured out.

Um. Except that we see things practically daily that say otherwise. That's part of the genius of the thing, though, is that they use language to shield their intent.

Oh, here's a topical example. Great, right? Sexual harassment as a hate crime if it's specifically motivated by gender, sounds good.

Except that it only applies to women being abused or discriminated against. And

[it] means abuse or harassment which might not be a crime can be reported to and investigated by the police, and support for the victim put in place.

What's that? Someone triggered you? Report them to the police, and even if no crime was committed, even if the only proof that anything happened is your word, the police are required to investigate.

Let's repeat that. The police. Are bound by law. To investigate incidents even when they are not crimes.

Or if you prefer the personal touch, how's this? A day or two ago, someone I know (details spared because seriously the alt-left doxxing hate machine is kinda scary) went off on someone else for describing a crazy set of circumstances as "crazy", a lengthy rant about how it's demeaning and offensive to use the word "crazy", that it stifles the experiences of the mentally ill. Never mind that it was being used to describe a state of affairs disconnected from any group or individual which was crazy in the "Why!? Why would people do this? Why is this a thing!?" sense.

Here's one that's a bit older, how's this for twisted thinking? The imperatives of the regressive mindset are so strong that, despite a lot of these people being alleged feminists, they're willing to cover up when they're raped, lie to the police about the ethnicity of their attackers, frame the narrative to blame a nebulous group of people who had nothing to do with it, and even attack other rape victims as racist liars.

The head-in-sand game is getting a tad old. Just because you're not paying attention doesn't mean things aren't happening. I could spend hours accumulating material like this, but frankly I doubt it would help convince you. It's a sick, twisted ideological strain that's escalating tensions for no good reason, promoting racial and sexual hatred, fighting to bring back racial segregation, and serving the interests of the wealthy by removing the possibility of the poor and (increasingly shrinking) middle class uniting against the real enemy of liberty and collective prosperity.

Ahhhhhhh ... ... yesssss ... that's it ... ... uhhhhhh ...

[mainiac]

Okay Flying, I'm gonna need you to specify what you mean with alt-left and progressive in that point.

Also, ain't entirely wrong.

All you are doing is stating two opinions.  I mean you show a picture of Clinton and I think "Wow, look at this smart hardworking woman who is going to fight for us no matter how much she is punished for it."

[Reelya]

Yeah, not even sure what Alt-Left is about. Although I know bigots who are left-aligned. This one specific college lecturer comes to mind. Basically he had a politically correct "protected list" of things which he was holier than thou about (racism, sexism against women, homophobia) which he'd rip anyone to shreds for questioning his pronouncements. But for anything not on that list, he felt entitled to ridicule and heap abuse on that identity. The problem was that "respecting others" for this guy was only about not stepping on anything on the "black list" rather than a default modus operandi that you extend to people in general, and following the "list" seemed mostly about asserting that he's morally better than you.

EDIT: So i might hold that guy up as a potential example of the regressive left. Is it someone who's not actually respectful of others, but uses "PC" as a weapon perhaps?  e.g. if you really respect identities shouldn't you also respect people's religion even if christian, race even if white, sexual identity even if straight, gender even if male etc. You can't shit on those identities any more than you can shit on the alternatives and truly call yourself a respectful politically-correct person. Being protective alternative identities is read by some as a carte-blanc right to be abusive to mainstream identities.

[mainiac]

I think there is a gap to invent a better definition.  The alt left is a Webb/Chaffee ticket.  Alt-alternatively it's a Chaffee/Webb ticket.  Either way we are blowing up an asian soldier with the metric system.