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[Andir]

I am of two minds on this: yes, that would be nice, maybe it would have prevented those horrendous murders in Norway this last week.  But at the same time, that is exactly what happened in the 60s, and though I would love to say "talk it out, and it will be cool" some people simply lack (even at advanced age) the maturity to discuss things without resorting to violence.  We have a quandary: we want the fringe to speak, but how to do it without hate-speech-inspired violence?  The courts only move so quickly!

Sure, but some of that violence wasn't from other citizens, but the government (through it's representatives) itself.

Edit: Sadly, I have to sleep.  It was just getting interesting.

[Vector]

So now we get back to hate speech?  I mean, if words can be considered hateful and detrimental to someone... You want me to leave and you tell me I'm the one trying to silence people.

And now you're classifying it as hate speech?  REALLY?  Good bloody job!  I just... okay, I need to bow out of this before I blow a billion gaskets.

You are allowed to offer a dissenting opinion.  I am also allowed to ask you to leave, because you are acting to the detriment of the people and discussion here.  Want to make a "oh my god people who complain about oppression are so whiney!" thread?  Go for it!  I'll argue with you there!  But I am doing my damndest to keep this space safe, and if you just can't stand the idea that someone who has suffered would speak about it for a couple of posts, and that we would have that as the topic of discussion for a while... well, get over it, hey?

Classifying a conversation in cyberspace rape because it's been discussed too long.  Classifying a request that you stop telling survivors to shut up as hate speech.

This is absurd.


I do not want you to leave.  I do not have a problem with you arguing, in general.  But just as certain people are not allowed to qualify every social difficulty or misinterpretation as "autistic," you are not allowed to appropriate rape and hate speech for your own ends.

People are not raped by taxes.  They are not raped by academic exams of the pencil and paper variety--no, not even mathematical analysis, popular as that "joke" is.  They are not raped by getting fragged in computer games, and they are not raped by suggestions that they might act for someone else's benefit.

I am sure I do not need to clarify what rape really is.

This is not the time or place for that language, and I would really like it if you understood that rather than increasing your belligerence.

[Gamerlord]

Can someone explain what Andir is saying to me please, I've got no bloody idea what he's on about?

[Angle]

Totally legal, and it also avoids the quandary of giving government authority (which it invariably abuses) over religious institutions.  Similar to federal funds for Planned Parenthood, if you understand what I mean.

Enevitably abuses? how? I would like an explanation.

[Vector]

Can someone explain what Andir is saying to me please, I've got no bloody idea what he's on about?

Apparently he thinks he's being raped by the suggestion that we might like to do something about repressive religious groups in the US, and the request that he stop appropriating the word "rape" for this purpose constitutes hate speech.

I don't really get it, either.

[Glowcat]

But the

we're trying to get you laid

As a justification of Greta Christina's good intention was the most sexist thing I've heard toward men.

Please explain how men making untoward advances on women and her informing them what not to do is sexist.

Which part of this is sexist?

We are trying to help you get laid.

We're trying to do a lot more than that, of course. We're trying to make the atheist community more welcoming to women: because that would be better for women, and because it'd be better for atheism. We're trying to educate men about the reality of women's experiences, including the reality of how sex commonly gets used to trivialize women, and the reality of sexual violence. We're trying to make the world a less sexist place.

But we are also trying to help you get laid. (Many of us, anyway.) We are trying to show you the context into which your flirtations and advances and comments about our appearance are falling. We are trying to show you what it's like to be a woman: what it's like to try to be flirtatious and sex-positive and still be realistic about the no-joke threats we face every day to our safety and our lives.

[Andir]

You seem to be taking offense to a figurative word ("rape") and assuming I'm talking about the sexual aspect of that word?  There are many uses for "rape" and one of them includes forcibly seizing/taking.

I was not allowed to offer a dissenting opinion.  I was told that I was wrong many times by stating that people have a choice in their religion and actions.  I also stated that they had choices to leave said environment and it was "forcibly taken from me" as false by multiple people.

It had nothing to do with the length of the conversation... only the idea that my opinion was absolutely wrong and nobody provided methods, factual evidence or links... but one person provided a singular case where they were able to remove themselves from the situation but magically, nobody else can by themselves.

I'm not sure why you are attributing my comments with taxes, exams, games, or autism though...

[Angle]

Well, the stereotyping men as "can't think of anything except how to get laid" is a little sexist. In her defense, though, some of us actually seem to be like that.

[Phmcw]

To the men who have been resisting and pushing back against the feminists on this issue, there's a very important thing I want to say to you:

We are trying to help you get laid.

Seriously? Is it all that is supposed to matter in our primate brain?
Is that why we're supposed to be interested in the feminist discourse?

Well, the stereotyping men as "can't think of anything except how to get laid" is a little sexist. In her defense, though, some of us actually seem to be like that.

That's not a defence. That's exactly the kind of over-generalization that start discriminations.

[Bauglir]

We need to talk about it because people insist that we shouldn't talk about it. If we didn't need to talk about this, the response would not be, "She shouldn't have brought this up!" but "Since she's brought it up and clarified her own feelings, he should apologize for his misunderstanding and do his best to recognize his error and correct it in the future."

But let me be clear. I don't think this argument is inherently worth the time it's getting. I agree that this particular event is not really the business of the Internet at large; social errors happen all the time, people apologize, everyone moves on. What is absolutely worth talking about is the number of people who think that her comments were somehow wrong. That he shouldn't even be informed that there was a problem, however minor. That there really was no problem at all, and brief mention of this is such a transgression that it is worth their time, in turn, to complain about it to her.

As far as I'm concerned, this is basically the equivalent of a vegetarian (who would become physically ill upon eating meat) asking for a meat-free dish at a restaurant, and being told to shut up and stop rocking the boat as if the mere request has ruined everyone's evening, somehow*. And yeah, I think an atmosphere that generates that kind of behavior is definitely worth talking about.

*It's not a perfect metaphor, but I hope it suffices.

[Angle]

You seem to be taking offense to a figurative word ("rape") and assuming I'm talking about the sexual aspect of that word?  There are many uses for "rape" and one of them includes forcibly seizing/taking.

I was not allowed to offer a dissenting opinion.  I was told that I was wrong many times by stating that people have a choice in their religion and actions.  I also stated that they had choices to leave said environment and it was "forcibly taken from me" as false by multiple people.

It had nothing to do with the length of the conversation... only the idea that my opinion was absolutely wrong and nobody provided methods, factual evidence or links... but one person provided a singular case where they were able to remove themselves from the situation but magically, nobody else can by themselves.

I'm not sure why you are attributing my comments with taxes, exams, games, or autism though...

The problem is that you equate actual rape with merely being arguead against, or things that are merely uncomfortable.

As for the rest, you stated an opinion. people stated differing opinions. this is how things work, and personally, I rather like it. If you don't want to argue, don't state an opinion.

[The Maestro]

Totally legal, and it also avoids the quandary of giving government authority (which it invariably abuses) over religious institutions.  Similar to federal funds for Planned Parenthood, if you understand what I mean.

Enevitably abuses? how? I would like an explanation.

I don't know what country you are from, but the United States in particular has a particularly poor track record of bureaucracies abusing their power in the extreme.  I didn't mean that specifically about religion, but as a statement in general of the fact that the US Government (among others) is not that good at self-limiting.

TSA: Gropes elderly people and children

NSA/CIA: Regularly wiretaps/tracks/assaults/arrests/etc. etc. innocent people on no more than minor suspicion.  Thanks, patriot act.

National Reserve Bank: regularly treated by the federal executive branch as unlimited borrowing money, to the detriment of the American people and the world economy.

I mean, that's just three, not an exhaustive list by any means, but if I make a large list then there will be 50 ninja replies before I'm done.  ACLU has a nice little top ten list, though.  It's proven to be the case that abuse of power is exponentially related to the amount of power available to abuse.  It's what people do.  It's science.  The science of people being dicks.

EDIT: Had to move a link to make the post more understandable.

[Nadaka]

You can't dismiss it all by saying its so rare it doesn't matter or by blaming the victims by saying that it is their choice and that they have options. And that is exactly what you have done, and I will not abide that.

So I present the question that I've been alluding to all along.  Is your solution to go all Hitler on these religious people and lock them in concentration camps until they change their way... because they don't follow your way of life?  This is the impression I get from all this ranting.  You want change and you want it to happen so fast that people change their ways (to match yours) overnight.  Hopefully you've seen historically that can never happen.  You cement some people's opinions on their ideas (like the KKK) and you push away others (Dawkins.) (edit... I seem to be having issues with the edit field right now... sorry about the content change...)

The fuck? You were in the conversation for the following quote. You made the post 2 down from it.

Actually, I do. It isn't the only source of evil, and most religious people are not evil. But there is something fundamental about faith and dogma that sometimes creates an opening for something malignant, corrupt and infectious to fester unchallenged by reason or morality.

In order to force others away from that, I would have to cast off my ethics, my belief that people have a basic right to free will. To me the mind is sacred, if I abandon the idea of free will, of free expression, of the mind. I would have abandoned my respect for the single most important thing that makes us human. I would have to become a monster.

My belief in the freedom to choose religion was hard to come by, but it is the right thing.

You are trying to shove your own bullshit in my mouth while you defend a religion that has a policy endorsing the rape of women and abuse of children. If your religion really is threatened by my "hate speech", you are a vile and evil person, utterly beneath my contempt.

No offense intended to Willfor, freeformschooler or any other moderate religious person.

[Glowcat]

Well, the stereotyping men as "can't think of anything except how to get laid" is a little sexist. In her defense, though, some of us actually seem to be like that.

To the men who have been resisting and pushing back against the feminists on this issue, there's a very important thing I want to say to you:

We are trying to help you get laid.

Seriously? Is it all that is supposed to matter in our primate brain?
Is that why we're supposed to be interested in the feminist discourse?

Well, the stereotyping men as "can't think of anything except how to get laid" is a little sexist. In her defense, though, some of us actually seem to be like that.

That's not a defence. That's exactly the kind of over-generalization that start discriminations.

You guys realize the context here is when men are making advances and trying to get laid, right? This thing started because somebody made a horrible attempt at hitting on somebody when they shouldn't have.

[Duke 2.0]

Well, the stereotyping men as "can't think of anything except how to get laid" is a little sexist. In her defense, though, some of us actually seem to be like that.

 I understand the point of adding this sentence, but I feel the spirit of Vector channeling into me to tear it apart because it seems like a good deal of sexist bullshit, of which Im calling out as part of our culturethan any specific use of this phrase. And as much as I dislike the "Take somebodies argument, change the Noun or Verb, present as own argument" line of arguing, I will present the idea of changing Men to Women and the stereotype to any stereotype hated by my buddy here.

 Im also kinda itching to join in on the rleigious aspect of this discussion without looking too far back into the discussions here as it is incredibly painful to slog through this thread. I want to present my view on how deprogramming has really hurt people who believe in my faith and that while I understand its use in preventing junk like the Jonestown cult suicides and abusive cults, there would need to be strict guidelines that major religions would have to agree with. That last bit provides a good deal of strife over the issue and will prevent anything from being done I know, but the summary of my argument is that the extreme end of the control spectrum is far scarier than than the far end of the freedom spectrum.
 Im terrible at debating though, and I feel any attempt at arguent on he web over this will quickly move away from a discussion on how much freedom of speech we should allow to the evils of my faith and ideals. Discussing stuff like this is very close to various lines that are easily crossed because of a shale piles worth of chips on peoples shoulders. I know Vector is trying her best to maintain a nice free atmosphere of discussion and I wish her more power, but this is indeed quite intimidating to walk into.