Thread for exploring retardation of retarded progressives

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

I don't think there is anything wrong with imagining a character in a certain way..
It's kinda like changing Harry Potter to be asian. The character isn't asian... or black.. or gay... The author had a set idea of what they looked like. It's the author's vision and if that's how they want it done.. I see no issue with it.

[Madmya]

That's because you're not a retarded progressive.

The whole thing annoys me.

[Cletus]

I was totally cool with Starbuck being a chick the second time around but would have spat the dummy if that chick was Whoopi Goldberg. My tolerance only knows so much tolerance.

[itch]

Make Idris Elba 009 or something. If you're really deadset on making every piece of fiction reflect some weird social justice vision of the world, then have James Bond call him up on the phone and ask the black 00 agent for permission to take a piss or whatever, no you know, Idris Elba saves the day, James Bond couldn't have done it without him. I'm not against good fiction like...

Mad Max, evereyone is talking about how Mad Max was overrun by feminism... I actually liked the film, it was really well written, yeah it had a feminist slant to it, but you know what they didn't do? They didn't make Mad Max a girl! They added a new character and created new content.

[itch]

Here are two very different perspectives on the current state of our culture

(the sensible and liberal vs the hysterical and authoritarian respectively)

Rise of the Cultural Libertarians


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... ertarians/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

RISE OF THE CULTURAL LIBERTARIANS

A new force is emerging in the culture wars. Authoritarians of all stripes, from religious reactionaries to left-wing “social justice warriors,” are coming under fire from a new wave of thinkers, commentators, and new media stars who reject virtually all of their political values.

From the banning of Charlie Hebdo magazine across British university campuses on the grounds that it promoted islamophobia, to the removal of the video game Grand Theft Auto V from major retailers in Australia on the grounds that it promoted sexism, threats to cultural freedom proliferate.

From the banning of Charlie Hebdo magazine across British university campuses on the grounds that it promoted islamophobia, to the removal of the video game Grand Theft Auto V from major retailers in Australia on the grounds that it promoted sexism, threats to cultural freedom proliferate.

There is a reason for the sound and fury. Like all insurgent movements, the emergence of cultural libertarianism is creating tensions, border skirmishes, and even the occasional war with lazy incumbent elites. Some of these rows can be breathtakingly vitriolic, as self-righteous anger from social justice types collides with mocking and occasionally caustic humour from cultural libertarians.

WHAT THEY’RE FIGHTING

Cultural authoritarians from both the left and right occupy most positions of power in government, academia and the media. Both argue that art and expression can be harmful. Conservatives say that overly-violent video games and movies are the cause of school shootings and youth crime. This was the view of Jack Thompson, who led a crusade against violent video games and rap lyrics in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Progressives argue that “problematic” media can lead to racism and misogyny. In the words of left-wing culture critic Jonathan McIntosh, “oppressive media representations can be damaging sociologically.”

....


WHAT CULTURAL LIBERTARIANS BELIEVE

Free expression. No idea is too dangerous for cultural libertarians, who want total artistic and intellectual freedom. They often indulge in deliberately outrageous jokes and wacky opinions to test the boundaries of acceptability. Little wonder that the movement’s leaders often attract large followings from the the chaotic, politically incorrect world of anonymous imageboards like 4chan.

Resisting identity politics and public shaming. The movement can also be seen criticising modern methods of cultural control and the neo-puritanism they say has infected modern cultural criticism. The newest of these is a rash of social justice-inspired online vigilantism where professional offence-takers use the power of social media to destroy the reputations and careers of their targets. Justine Sacco, who faced global outrage and the loss of her job over a single politically-incorrect joke, is one well-known victim. Astrophysicist Dr. Matt Taylor and biochemist Sir Tim Hunt were also victims of this modern form of thuggery.

A sense of humour. Cultural libertarians combat anger with ridicule. There is a certain preposterousness to bloggers and social media addicts setting themselves up as a new priesthood, which makes them easy targets for comedy. As MIT Technology Review editor Jason Pontin puts it: “Tyrants, authoritarians and activists all hate the sound of laughter.” Cultural libertarians understand this instinctively.


An end to nannying and “safe space” culture. Arrayed against the cultural libertarians is the control freakery of the establishment, left and right, and the second coming of political correctness as embodied in campus safe space movements. This latter movement claims that students are too fragile to be exposed to dangerous ideas, and that even mildly offensive speech can cause permanent emotional damage. On the internet, these activists enjoy the support of outlets like Vox and Buzzfeed.

Defending personal freedom. Cultural libertarians may have their own opinions about how people should live their lives, or have low tolerance for offensive speech. But what distinguishes them from their opponents is their rejection of attempts to impose personal standards on others.

Defending spaces for uncomfortable opinions. Reason columnist Cathy Young is a critic of the “misogynistic rhetoric” of masculinist bloggers like Daryush Valizadeh, but nonetheless defended Valizadeh’s right to speak after activists launched a campaign to ban him from Canada. Cultural libertarians are serious about protecting the the freedoms of people they despise.

Fact over feelings. Hand in hand with their commitment to free speech goes a loathing for narrative-led journalism. Cultural libertarians are highly critical of “feelings over facts” in general, but particularly where it gives rise to failures in reporting such as the Duke Lacrosse case, the Rolling Stone debacle, “Mattress Girl” Emma Sulkowicz and GamerGate.


....

And The Guardians response as the SJWs close ranks and ready their defense to the challenge.


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ng-for-you" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Twitter tyrants and social justice warriors beware! The libertarians are coming for you
Jason Wilson


The British writer Brendan O’Neill, an editor of online journal Spiked, has become quite congenial to News Corp’s stable of grumpy old men. Despite self-identifying as a Marxist, he’s recently become a kind of honorary member of the Australian right.

O’Neill protests that he’s really a lefty but, as George Monbiot pointed out long ago, he “and his fellow travellers have sided with the toffs” in the class war. The Spiked editor begs to differ, yet he’s been showing up more regularly in the Australian and has earned repeat invitations to appear at conservative thinktanks and as the “contrarian” on the ABC’s Q&A program.

He’s just concluded another tour of the colony, so it’s interesting to note that US rightwing outfit Breitbart recently published an odd story celebrating the rise of the “cultural libertarians”, O’Neill among them.

The “movement” includes professional anti-feminists like Christina Hoff Sommers, and celebrity culture warriors like Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos and Firefly actor Adam Baldwin, of late a supporter of Gamergate.

Perhaps unintentionally, the Breitbart article exposed the self-contradictory positions held by O’Neill and his fellow travellers – a bunch of people who talk endlessly, and proprietorially, about the right to free speech but squeal like stuck pigs when their opponents use speech to get things done.

Breitbart grounds the movement with the same story of victimhood that fuels everything from Piers Akerman’s columns to Donald Trump’s yelps about political correctness.

Apparently, “cultural authoritarians from both the left and right occupy most positions of power in government, academia and the media”.

In practice, the “authoritarians” that seem to exercise the cultural libertarians the most are feminists – whether they are people like Anita Sarkeesian who criticise the hypermasculine tenor of videogames, or the women scientists who objected to condescending remarks about them by Tim Hunt.

Yet judging by the state of, for instance, Reddit, social media and talk radio, these authoritarians are doing a pretty lousy job of shutting down offensive or abusive speech.


Nevertheless, the cultural libertarians have had enough. Breitbart helpfully lists their core beliefs. The problems begin almost immediately.

First, we’re told, they value freedom of expression above all else:

No idea is too dangerous for cultural libertarians, who want total artistic and intellectual freedom. They often indulge in deliberately outrageous jokes and wacky opinions to test the boundaries of acceptability.

Interestingly, the very next tenet is a commitment to “resisting identity politics and public shaming”. According to Breitbart, they criticise:

[M]odern methods of cultural control and the neo-puritanism they say has infected modern cultural criticism. The newest of these is a rash of social justice-inspired online vigilantism where professional offence-takers use the power of social media to destroy the reputations and careers of their targets.


....

Personally I think the Guardians reply doesn't make any sense. It's literally full of logic holes and it practically amounts to a troll.


Oh how ascerbic! He accused the 'libertarians' of 'playing the victim'! Wow he really flipped the script... What a load of BS.

[Froggy]

It's the Guardian, what do you expect?

[Madmya]

Today's outrage: Abbott loosely compares IS to Nazis.

Oh, the horror! Funny how so many people start frothing at the mouth at the mention of Murdoch or News Corp, yet fail to see that Fairfax are no different except that they bat for their team.

[itch]

What's really weird is when you speak out against Islam and people call you a nazi.

Don't Muslims want to destroy Israel? Don't they hate jews?

So supporting the spread of Muslims and their hatred of Jews is the best way to not be a nazi? Is there any issue where the left isn't like a total 180 from reality?

[itch]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations ... Arab_world" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In speeches, Hitler made apparently warm references towards Muslim culture such as: "The peoples of Islam will always be closer to us than, for example, France".[1]

A famous anecdote about Adolf Hitler's perspectives towards Islam and the Arabs is recounted by Albert Speer in his best-selling memoir, Inside the Third Reich. Speer reports that "Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs."[2] The delegation had speculated that the world would have become "Mohammedan" if the Berbers and Arabs had won the Battle of Tours in the 8th Century AD, and that the Germans would have become heirs to "a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and in subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the German temperament."[3] Speer then presents Hitler's claims on this subject:

Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire.

[4]


This "exchange" occurred when Hitler received Saudi Arabian ruler Ibn Saud’s special envoy, Khalid al-Hud al-Gargani.[5] Earlier in this meeting Hitler noted that one of the three reasons why Germany had warm sympathies for the Arabs was:

… because we were jointly fighting the Jews. This led him to discuss Palestine and conditions there, and he then stated that he himself would not rest until the last Jew had left Germany. Kalid al Hud observed that the Prophet Mohammed … had acted the same way. He had driven the Jews out of Arabia ….[6]

The description of the relationship between Nazi Germany and Islam continues, including military collaborations.

[itch]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review ... 1421441724" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Why Hitler Wished He Was Muslim
The Führer admired Atatürk’s subordination of religion to the state—and his ruthless treatment of minorities.

‘It’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion,” Hitler complained to his pet architect Albert Speer. “Why did it have to be Christianity, with its meekness and flabbiness?” Islam was a Männerreligion—a “religion of men”—and hygienic too. The “soldiers of Islam” received a warrior’s heaven, “a real earthly paradise” with “houris” and “wine flowing.” This, Hitler argued, was much more suited to the “Germanic temperament” than the “Jewish filth and priestly twaddle” of Christianity.

Muslim recruits of the SS Handzar Division pray in 1943.

[itch]

It seems one of the bigger stories of the SJW sphere is the outrage over Peter Dutton accusing Fairfax and the ABC of being on a 'jiihad' against the government. Rofl.

What's funny about a lot of lefties replies to this accusation is that they don't actually deny that our National Broadcaster is barely ashamed of or barely bothered to even veil their flagrant left wing bias, choosing to instead remind us all of News. ltd. co-ordinated attacks on Labor over the years.

They're so ready to position the ABC as the left counterpart to News ltd. At least we can agree on something.

[Hercy]

You've missed the point about Abbott's remarks about Nazis. He said that ISIS are worse than the Nazis because ISIS broadcasts its atrocities whereas the Nazis tried to hide them. Abbott attributes this to the Nazis being ashamed of their actions, therefore the Nazis had some conscience. It's an utterly bizarre argument.

[GreyWizzard]

I really like the term Social Justice Warrior. It's really positive. Like you're a warrior for social justice, making things right in the world. It's inspiring actually.

[Hercy]

It's like the insult "do gooder".

[itch]

You've missed the point about Abbott's remarks about Nazis. He said that ISIS are worse than the Nazis because ISIS broadcasts its atrocities whereas the Nazis tried to hide them. Abbott attributes this to the Nazis being ashamed of their actions, therefore the Nazis had some conscience. It's an utterly bizarre argument.

This reminds of when you accuse Islam of being pedo-friendly, people will always say 'What about Jimmy Saville, he wasn't a muslim.' or 'What about the pedophilia scandal running through the British Royal family and the aristocrasy and the Judges that were involved.'


I'll use Abbotts argument, so reviled is pedophilia in our culture that you need a vast network of illuminatists and clandestine affiliates to surreptitiously source and traffic your victims in the shadows. And even then, should you be found out you're banished to the deepest gulags and prisons, reviled even by the prisoners.

In Islam? Talk to your local mosque, someone's cousin probably has a niece that just got her first period.

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Contemporary_ ... _Marriages" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/muslim-child- ... 3bw8o.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


I agree with Abbott. His argument is a canny one.


Muslims are proud of their anti-semitism.

It only seems like a bizarre argument to you because all of your arguments are so absurd, one as canny as this seems foreign.

[Cletus]

They're fair insults. Do gooders and SJWs tend to serve their own short sighted and intolerant perspectives. Like for example wanting certain aspects of videogames banned regardless of whether or not the greater majority are ok with it. It's an insult because these minorities want to set out how everyone else behaves, interacts, thinks and speaks. It's no different to calling a religious person pushing their agenda a god botherer (which would cover Abbott, BTW). One is absolutely no better than the other.

[itch]

I appreciate your contribution Cletus, thank you if I could take the stand.

Did anyone see The Drum?

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/drum/N ... 00#playing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

21:15 - they address Abbott's comments re: the nazis.

Weisser schools these fucking libtards. Soft headed Islam apologists. I can't believe that blonde haired broad. Treacherous bitch. And don't get me started on that bald cunt!

As much as these people feign indignation at the prospect of Abbott apparently diminishing the enormity of Hitlers atrocities, these strike me as people who would have a laundry list of complaints about Israel. Heck, if you gave them enough drinks I'm sure they'd unload a conspiracy theory or two about how 'Murdoch and the jews run the media' all the while, playing violins for Palestine and how the only reason muslim people are awful is because we bombed them too much, or didn't bomb them enough, or didn't bomb the right ones.

Seriously though, if you watch this whole episode of The Drum, it's champaigne ABC. Start with an image of a dead baby and then ramp right up to suggesting that the 1,000,000 African and middle eastern immigrants to be received by Germany simply isn't enough! And they even say 'Thank goodness Europe hasn't followed our lead on how to deal with refugees!'. However, I think the cake was definitely taken when Blondilocks Ahmadinnejad expressed distaste at using this issue as a 'political football'. From someone who suggested that a dead baby was the reason we need more muslims, it's little pot and kettle if you know what I mean.

These people will be on the wrong side of history you know. One day someone will say, Europe used to be a nice place you know... and no-one will believe them.

[Froggy]

Parts of Europe are already at that point Itch. To confect outrage over what Abbott said today is a good effort, I'm sure ISIS threw a gay or two off a 10 story building in solidarity with the SJW's.

[itch]

Definitely mate definitely.

Just think, hopefully soon all the Australian feminists are going to get what they want - a chocolate boyfriend and a hijab to keep them isolated from the male gaze. After all, if politics can't provide them that, then what the fuck is it good for!

[Cletus]

I started watching the Drum but I might have to opt out. I'm pretty rock solid in the belief that any person who can make it to this country AND has a legitimate claim for refugee status should absolutely be taken in regardless of religion or numbers. I get the necessity for refugee camps as a temporary arrangement while people are processed but I absolutely don't agree with boats being repelled. Assimilation might be nice but it can't be demanded. It happens over several generations. But my understanding is that it does happen. No matter how the argument is framed I strongly believe that any country not at war (or in famine) should take in those that are fleeing war. It's up to those countries to preserve their own culture but in doing so that culture usually expands and changes because it has to anyway. The other side to that is we aren't landlocked. It's not so easy for mass migrations to impact our society so I recognise the whole "that's easy for you to say", kind of thing.

There, I'll get off my soap box.

[itch]

Here's the difference between Labor's immigration policy and the Pacific Solution which was Howards policy.







http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/ ... ist50.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a rare disclosure, Abbott government admits turning back 633 asylum seekers

Despite claims from the left that Abbott and Sovereign Borders withholding information about 'operational matters' is an indication that boat arrivals haven't changed at all, I think the report of 633 individuals attempting the trip over 18 months shows a remarkable success.

And all of them turned away.

Now...

You might say that turning them away is a bummer, but it's the turning them away that is deterring them from attempting the trip.

You know, 20,000 in one year that's nuts. And I really doubt that the extreme growth in the rate of arrivals would have slowed, in fact with what's happening now in africa/europe, we would be at like 50,000 + surely?

One thing I will concede is that processing should be quick, whatever the ultimate decision, I hate the idea of people languishing in prisons. Labor has a lot to answer for, inviting them over and then locking them up like that. 30,000 person backlog according to SHY.

[Madmya]

You've missed the point about Abbott's remarks about Nazis. He said that ISIS are worse than the Nazis because ISIS broadcasts its atrocities whereas the Nazis tried to hide them. Abbott attributes this to the Nazis being ashamed of their actions, therefore the Nazis had some conscience. It's an utterly bizarre argument.

No he didn't say that. Alan Jones queried him on what he thought about sections of the public accusing him of trying to stir up fear regarding ISIS. He then factually talked about how not even the Nazis broadcast their atrocities with pride. That's all. There was no ranking of evil. He's just trying to convey, correctly, how fucked up they are. The closest ranking of evil came from Fairfax in their article accusing Abbott of saying ISIS are worse than Nazis by comparing death counts. How's that for retardedness?

[Hercy]

"“The Nazis did terrible evil but they had sufficient sense of shame to try and hide it. These people boast about their evil. This is the extraordinary thing.

“They act in the way medieval barbarians acted only they broadcast it to the world with an affrontery that is hard to credit and it just adds a further dimension to this evil.”

The first sentence is comparing one thing to another when he says "...did terrible evil but..." "...these people boast...".

And in case you still think there's ambiguity, he cleared it up later:

"Unlike previous people Stalin or Hilter or whoever that tried to cover up their evil, this wretched death cult boasts about it"

"Unlike" is a term used to compare things.

[itch]

Whilst ISIS hasn't killed as many as the Nazis yet, if the political left makes enough excuses for them, and invites enough of them into the country, that could all change.

It's important to be honest about things as they emerge.


The bloody Labor party and the Greens are akin to a fucking Holocaust denialist, the rate at which they diminish the threat of Islam.

[Peppermint Lounge]

What Abbott said is so historically wrong it may as well be a post in this thread. The Nazis didn't hide their atrocities because they were ashamed of them, they did so to avoid being criminally responsible. It's not a big ask to have a prime minister be historically accurate when making WW2 comparisons.