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[Sou Da]

Well, yes.

Most people don't flip their lids when parents refer to their children as their birth genders; wear certain clothes or hairstyles; object to class lessons being taught because of some arbitrary lens through which they view the world; claim discrimination because they're not being addressed by a gender that was made up on Tumblr; cry foul because the food being served in the cafeteria is stealing from another culture; try to normalize and celebrate mental illnesses like autism and aspergers; act like it's a grave and terrible injustice that some people were born more fortunate than others.
And those are just the ines off the top of my head.

So yes. Roads do go both ways, you know.

Real curious as to what you thought "we're" meant in that post because it sounds like you're pinning them (the poster you quoted) with a lot of strawman bullshit.

 

[therealist]

Have I not made myself incredibly clear?

"I see violence and abuse and I'm perfectly fine with it"

All right then.

 

[TestOfTide]

Milo has 2 million+ followers on Facebook. Anecdotal experience suggests to me that he is massively popular with young men. They see him as a countercultural figure and their sole defender in some kind of strange culture war that isn't widely understood.

Obviously he's a massive cultural figure, and it is weird that he is a right-wing one. This is an anomaly. It suggests something has really shifted in the youth culture in the last few years. He's some mixture of shock comedian and political agitator.

He didn't become popular for no reason. A lot of people (mostly young, mostly male) feel extremely suffocated by the environment on campus and in the culture at large. That's why they saw him as a rockstar, not because he was particularly coherent (he wasn't) but because of the enormously outsized reaction he would provoke in the people they despise.

The right-wing has completely taken over Youtube. And 4Chan. And Reddit, before they clamped down on it. What happened? Something enormous shifted between 2012 and 2016.

If you haven't been on a campus in the last few years, you don't know how tense the environment is.

People would like to wish away these undercurrents in the culture, but they can't.

If the mainstream left in America follows the playbook of the Jeremy Corbyn types, they will hand the future to the right. I see this future as more possible than some on here do, and I don't think it is a good scenario for anyone.

It will give me no pleasure to see myself vindicated over the next few years, but I think it's likely.

Do you really want to go on the hill of defending the pedophilia apologist?

Yes Milo has millions of followers? You know who else has millions of followers? Donald Trump.

Neither has ever given a valid statement on anything in their entire lives.

 

[Buckle]

Guys like Milo having millions of followers isn't really alarming.

Every era has that group of hateful shitheads that gather around some asshole that feeds off their hate and paranoia.

Its putting too much faith in us at this point as a country to actually find that shocking or believe it could have never happened.

Theres always going to be terrible people trumpeting horrible self destructive causes.

All the polite words and hugs in the world aren't enough sometimes. Sometimes people are just bad.

 

[pigeon]

Well, yes.

Most people don't flip their lids when parents refer to their children as their birth genders; wear certain clothes or hairstyles; object to class lessons being taught because of some arbitrary lens through which they view the world; claim discrimination because they're not being addressed by a gender that was made up on Tumblr; cry foul because the food being served in the cafeteria is stealing from another culture; try to normalize and celebrate mental illnesses like autism and aspergers; act like it's a grave and terrible injustice that some people were born more fortunate than others.
And those are just the ines off the top of my head.

So yes. Roads do go both ways, you know.

To be clear, the strange behavior I was referring to in the post this is responding to is "reading the comments on news stories."

I guess you decided to take it somewhere else though!

 

[Turbo Killer]

Wait, are you saying that it's the fault of those things that right wing types exist? Most bizzarely, that "normalizing mental illness and autism" is somehow bad or wrong?

I *eagerly* await your response.

Yeah, that part threw me off.

 

[2Smashed4U]

"It's the left's fault that white people decided to go super-racist because some kid at Oberlin got mad about general tso's chicken"

 

[Arkage]

Liberals are definitely capable of being assholes but so far it seems like being Nazis is pretty well limited to the right

The right has Nazism, the left has Marxism. Nazism is certainly the more visible threat in terms of racism, though.

 

[Codeblue]

The article gets at least one major thing wrong. They aren't fighting intolerance, the don't pretend to. They don't want to say that they're better, they just want to say that the other side is just as bad to justify themselves. They're using free speech as a tool to provoke and promote hate, pure and simple. Sorry about the anarchists, but that shouldn't impede protesters from expressing themselves.

 

[HStallion]

Well, yes.

Most people don't flip their lids when parents refer to their children as their birth genders; wear certain clothes or hairstyles; object to class lessons being taught because of some arbitrary lens through which they view the world; claim discrimination because they're not being addressed by a gender that was made up on Tumblr; cry foul because the food being served in the cafeteria is stealing from another culture; try to normalize and celebrate mental illnesses like autism and aspergers; act like it's a grave and terrible injustice that some people were born more fortunate than others.
And those are just the ines off the top of my head.

So yes. Roads do go both ways, you know.

As someone on the spectrum you can fuck off

Edit: unless I read this wrong. Not sure.

 

[pigeon]

Wait, are you saying that it's the fault of those things that right wing types exist? Most bizzarely, that "normalizing mental illness and autism" is somehow bad or wrong?

I *eagerly* await your response.

It seems pretty clear that he's saying that all of these behaviors are not just strange but problematically incorrect.

 

[ryseing]

Well, yes.

Most people don't flip their lids when parents refer to their children as their birth genders; wear certain clothes or hairstyles; object to class lessons being taught because of some arbitrary lens through which they view the world; claim discrimination because they're not being addressed by a gender that was made up on Tumblr; cry foul because the food being served in the cafeteria is stealing from another culture; try to normalize and celebrate mental illnesses like autism and aspergers; act like it's a grave and terrible injustice that some people were born more fortunate than others.
And those are just the ines off the top of my head.

So yes. Roads do go both ways, you know.

How dare those spectrum kids want to be accepted! And acknowledging ASD people can do some cool shit is a whacky left wing narrative!

 

[Erevador]

Do you really want to go on the hill of defending the pedophilia apologist?

Yes Milo has millions of followers? You know who else has millions of followers? Donald Trump.

Neither has ever given a valid statement on anything in their entire lives.

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

 

[HStallion]

"I see violence and abuse and I'm perfectly fine with it"

All right then.

Won't someone think of the bigots and shit stirrers!

 

[2Smashed4U]

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

I don't think "most" people agree with me nor share the same worldview that I do.

Did I do it? Does that mean Donald Trump might lose the next election now?

 

[HStallion]

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

You never did respond to Beyonce having 60 million followers. Wouldn't that make her like Milo times 30?

 

[TestOfTide]

The right has Nazism, the left has Marxism. Nazism is certainly the more visible threat in terms of racism, though.

Except liberals tend to be center-left.

The left wing equivalent to nazis would be jackasses like Jill Stein.

 

[Toxi]

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

There is nothing to indicate Trump's victory was based on ideological slant in American higher education, so this is a non-sequitur.

"I believe Donald Trump's victory was based on LEGO's cancellation of the Bionicle toyline."

 

[pigeon]

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

I think we actually have a pretty realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed that to happen and that's why the new policy is that Nazis should be met with violence rather than welcomed and civilly debated.

 

[Sou Da]

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

Basing this off of Facebook numbers seems asinine. Why do you keep using these blanket statements to puff up your arguments?

 

[KernelPanic]

Btw, flat tax girl needs to keep listening to her Economics classes.

But they believe in it! Facts don't matter.

 

[Oblivion]

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

Apologies if I'm still not understanding your argument. You seem to agree that Milo is "indefensible", but still think that there should be more professors who believe/support the same things he does because that's how a good chunk of the country feels as well?

 

[BunnyBear]

This is not good advice to get an idea for what any sane people think.

The NYT has really become a dumpster fire as of late.

What do you mean by the NYT thing?

 

[Arkage]

Except liberals tend to be center-left.

The left wing equivalent to nazis would be jackasses like Jill Stein.

I would say the left wing equivalent to Nazis are the antifa types (who are probably closer to anarchists than Marxists). Basically those who are aching for a street war.

 

[Ampersands]

Where are the anti-Trump Republicans? It's fucking unbelievable how so many have thrown their weight behind him when he wasn't before and sure as hell isn't now a respectable public figure or politician. I've yet to meet a single Republican admit that they don't like Trump.

 

[TestOfTide]

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Yes so very popular. Which is why he lost his book deal, got banned from Twitter, and got disinvited from CPAC.

The problem isn't the sensitivity of liberals. It's the fragility of white young men who can't handle the fact that most people don't find it funny when they repeat the nazi jokes and rape jokes that they repeat from their favorite youtubers.

The way to win against nazis isn't to fucking coddle their sensitivities and hope they will listen. You beat nazis by shaming and humiliating them until they are literally afraid of spewing their nazi shit.

 

[pigeon]

I would say the left wing equivalent to Nazis are the anti-fas types. Basically those who are aching for a street war.

"Fascism is bad" and "people of color should be purged from the country" do not seem like super equivalent ideologies to me.

 

[danm999]

Universities are incredibly unbalanced ideologically in favor of the left. You don't have to be a right-winger to concede this and acknowledge that it is a problem. When the teachers are 9 to 1 on the left (many on the far left), and the country is narrowly split down the middle, that signals a real disconnect.

These college students are not wrong to feel that they are in a precarious position in the social and administrative environment on these campuses.

It would be in everyone's favor to have more ideological diversity on campus and a clear stance from administrators in favor of the free expression of a plurality of political views.

Absurd and dangerous sentiment.

So what, start teaching science courses giving equal time to creationism and climate change denial?

Start teaching history courses giving equal time to Holocaust denial and white supremacy?

 

[Kinsei]

Universities are incredibly unbalanced ideologically in favor of the left. You don't have to be a right-winger to concede this and acknowledge that it is a problem. When the teachers are 9 to 1 on the left (many on the far left), and the country is narrowly split down the middle, that signals a real disconnect.

These college students are not wrong to feel that they are in a precarious position in the social and administrative environment on these campuses.

It would be in everyone's favor to have more ideological diversity on campus and a clear stance from administrators in favor of the free expression of a plurality of political views.

Absurd and dangerous sentiment.

That's not a problem. It would be a problem if there were more right wing university professors.

 

[Epsilon-delta]

Where are the anti-Trump Republicans? It's fucking unbelievable how so many have thrown their weight behind him when he wasn't before and sure as hell isn't now a respectable public figure or politician. I've yet to meet a single Republican admit that they don't like Trump.

Nowhere to be found because their party won and they treat politics like a game of sports.

Party before country.

 

[Infinite]

Except liberals tend to be center-left.

The left wing equivalent to nazis would be jackasses like Jill Stein.

Except she wouldn't be equal in any way to a nazi despite being a dumbass

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Why am I not surprised they led with the brown Republican lol

I'm tired of people pretending like being a Republican isn't a bad thing though

 

[Elandyll]

For their lectures, did they try and invite moderate Conservatives with a good ability to explain their views rationally and able to debate with reason, or did they invite the most blatantly shit-stirring/ outrageously triggering conservative pundits they could find?


Oh... Right.

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

Well, yes.

Most people don't flip their lids when parents refer to their children as their birth genders; wear certain clothes or hairstyles; object to class lessons being taught because of some arbitrary lens through which they view the world; claim discrimination because they're not being addressed by a gender that was made up on Tumblr; cry foul because the food being served in the cafeteria is stealing from another culture; try to normalize and celebrate mental illnesses like autism and aspergers; act like it's a grave and terrible injustice that some people were born more fortunate than others.
And those are just the ines off the top of my head.

So yes. Roads do go both ways, you know.

Should I take this section by section?

I feel like it would be wasted effort though.

 

[pigeon]

It is still unclear to me why a a white supremacist organization is allowed to organize events on Berkeley's campus.

 

[Oblivion]

Where are the anti-Trump Republicans? It's fucking unbelievable how so many have thrown their weight behind him when he wasn't before and sure as hell isn't now a respectable public figure or politician. I've yet to meet a single Republican admit that they don't like Trump.

If you were a Republican before Trump came into the picture, you already had some degree of support when it came to things like tax cuts, curbing illegal immigration, racially profiling muslims, being against welfare, etc.

Going from that mindset to what Trump has advocated for, is pretty much a hop, skip and a jump away. The biggest issue I've seen these types of Republicans have is not so much policy differences with Trump, but rhetorical differences.

 

[Fenderputty]

I think we actually have a pretty realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed that to happen and that's why the new policy is that Nazis should be met with violence rather than welcomed and civilly debated.

What policy is this? Who made it so? Why aren't all "Nazis" running scared of this "new policy". Are you speaking for me here? Am I not liberal because I'm not punching "nazis"? Does a regular old republican from Berkeley qualify as a "Nazi" or do they need to come from a stronghold like the OC? Can I expect something formal so I knew no where I now stand?

 

[Erevador]

I think we actually have a pretty realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed that to happen and that's why the new policy is that Nazis should be met with violence rather than welcomed and civilly debated.

Milo may be a clown, possibly a dangerous one, but he is no Nazi. That trivializes actual Nazism. It was amusing to see people refer to Milo's fellow traveler Ben Shapiro as both a Nazi and a white supremacist, when he is an orthodox Jew who wears a Yarmulke and would not be well received by either Nazis or white supremacists.

There are right-wing reactionaries that are not Nazis. Dilute a word like that and you won't have it when the truly sinister fringe figures arise.

Yes so very popular. Which is why he lost his book deal, got banned from Twitter, and got disinvited from CPAC.

All of those things merely confirmed his "punk rock" image in the eyes of his followers.

Apologies if I'm still not understanding your argument. You seem to agree that Milo is "indefensible", but still think that there should be more professors who believe/support the same things he does because that's how a good chunk of the country feels as well?

Most professors are not cultural provocateurs like Milo, nor should they be. Traditional right wing and libertarian viewpoints (Thomas Sowell, Niall Ferguson, George Will) very much have a place in academia, where they are increasingly hard to find. The ideological homogeneity has rapidly worsened over the last 30 years as many disciplines (particularly humanities and social sciences) have moved towards the radical end of the left-wing spectrum. Increasingly, academics in those fields become ensconced in fringe-left purity tests and disincentivize research that doesn't confirm their ideological assumptions. It is majorly undercutting the credibility of major areas of academia.

The hard sciences and business schools have largely been exempt from this, but that's beginning to shift too.

 

[Nafai1123]

Universities are incredibly unbalanced ideologically in favor of the left. You don't have to be a right-winger to concede this and acknowledge that it is a problem. When the teachers are 9 to 1 on the left (many on the far left), and the country is narrowly split down the middle, that signals a real disconnect.

These college students are not wrong to feel that they are in a precarious position in the social and administrative environment on these campuses.

It would be in everyone's favor to have more ideological diversity on campus and a clear stance from administrators in favor of the free expression of a plurality of political views.

Absurd and dangerous sentiment.

Liberals shouldn't have to apologize for knowledge breeding liberalism.

 

[Toxi]

The social sciences are losing credibility as they ignore important evidence like the comments sections of some news articles.

 

[TestOfTide]

All of those things merely confirmed his "punk rock" image in the eyes of his followers.

So what you are saying is that his followers responded to the revelations that he defends pedophilia not with disgust but by thinking "Oh man! So cool! He's such a cool punk defending pedophilia."

And that's supposed to convince me take his fanbase seriously......how?

Because all that tells me is that his fanbase is a combination of sexual deviants and jackasses who are so stupidly contrarian that they make Bill Maher look like Wolf Blitzer.

 

[pigeon]

The social sciences are losing credibility as they ignore important evidence like the comments sections of some news articles.

How many Facebook followers do the social sciences even have

 

[Team Alucard]

Most professors are not cultural provocateurs like Milo, nor should they be. Traditional right wing and libertarian viewpoints (Thomas Sowell, Niall Ferguson, George Will) very much have a place in academia, where they are increasingly hard to find.

The former two are right-wing economists (which you will find scores of in any econ/business department) and the third is a climate change denier and rape apologist aka someone who rightly should have no voice in an academic setting.

Also, are we gonna pretend economics isn't a social science?

Not only is it a social science, its the worst of the social sciences. Complete trash based entirely on pseudoscience, unscrutinized cultural bias, and political manipulation.

 

[HariKari]

Universities are incredibly unbalanced ideologically in favor of the left. You don't have to be a right-winger to concede this and acknowledge that it is a problem. When the teachers are 9 to 1 on the left (many on the far left), and the country is narrowly split down the middle, that signals a real disconnect.

Knowledge and learning is biased towards progressiveness aka the opposite of dig-your-fucking-heels-in conservatism.

 

[Toxi]

Also, are we gonna pretend economics isn't a social science?

 

[TestOfTide]

How many Facebook followers do the social sciences even have

"Peer Reviewed Articles? I already see my peers on Facebook reviewing those articles and their reviews say those articles suck."

 

[Hickbilly Deluxe]

They've deliberately created an unsafe environment on campus. University should expel the club leadership of College Republicans.

I must say this is the dumbest thing I have read today, and I perused the Tumblr reaction pictures to the Samurai Jack shipping today. Congrats.

 

[HStallion]

Milo may be a clown, possibly a dangerous one, but he is no Nazi. That trivializes actual Nazism. It was amusing to see people refer to Milo's fellow traveler Ben Shapiro as both a Nazi and a white supremacist, when he is an orthodox Jew who wears a Yarmulke and would not be well received by either Nazis or white supremacists.

There are right-wing reactionaries that are not Nazis. Dilute a word like that and you won't have it when the truly sinister fringe figures arise.

All of those things merely confirmed his "punk rock" image in the eyes of his followers.

Most professors are not cultural provocateurs like Milo, nor should they be. Traditional right wing and libertarian viewpoints (Thomas Sowell, Niall Ferguson, George Will) very much have a place in academia, where they are increasingly hard to find. The ideological homogeneity has rapidly worsened over the last 30 years as many disciplines (particularly humanities and social sciences) have moved towards the radical end of the left-wing spectrum. Increasingly, academics in those fields become ensconced in fringe-left purity tests and disincentivize research that doesn't confirm their ideological assumptions. It is majorly undercutting the credibility of major areas of academia.

The hard sciences and business schools have largely been exempt from this, but that's beginning to shift too.

What are you even arguing anymore?

 

[pigeon]

Milo may be a clown, possibly a dangerous one, but he is no Nazi. That trivializes actual Nazism.

He supported a white supremacist for president. I feel like that's pretty straightforward.

You might quibble over the exact flavor of white supremacy but I feel like that's a waste of energy.

It was amusing to see people refer to Milo's fellow traveler Ben Shapiro as both a Nazi and a white supremacist, when he is an orthodox Jew who wears a Yarmulke and would not be well received by either Nazis or white supremacists.

So's Jared Kushner. White supremacy makes strange bedfellows!

There are right-wing reactionaries that are not Nazis. Dilute a word like that and you won't have it when the truly sinister fringe figures arise.

This literally already happened and people like you are busily engaged in rehabilitating and normalizing those fringe figures, so I don't think we get very much from saving the word. You'll just be there to call it liberal excess when we complain about the internment camps. After all, imagine how many Facebook followers the internment camps will have!

 

[cashman]

This is not good advice to get an idea for what any sane people think.

The NYT has really become a dumpster fire as of late.

I'm just glad all those people paid for a subscription so they could pay for Bret Stehpens' salary