Conservative Treehouse is being de-platformed
Quite a few people have called my attention to the fact that the blog Conservative Treehouse is being de-platformed by WordPress:
One week after the 2020 presidential election, The Conservative Treehouse received the following notification:
…”given the incompatibility between your site’s content and our terms, you need to find a new hosting provider and must migrate the site by Wednesday, December 2nd.”
What does this mean? It means CTH is being kicked-off the WordPress website hosting platform because the content of our research and discussion does not align with the ideology of those who define what is acceptable speech and what is not.
What was our violation? After ten years of brutally honest discussion, opinion, deep research and crowdsourcing work -with undeniable citations on the events we outline- there is no cited violation of any term of service because CTH has never violated one.
The WordPress company is not explaining the reason for deplatforming because there is no justifiable reason for it. At the same time, they are bold in their position.
I haven’t been a big consumer of Conservative Treehouse, although I’ve gone there now and then.
To me, this deplatforming is alarming but unsurprising news. It is particularly unsurprising that they are not being told the reason why. That’s a hallmark of deplatforming in general – violation of terms of service and the like, without any more detailed explanation.
I believe that Conservative Treehouse is hosted by WordPress.org, which is a very different thing than just using parts of WordPress to set up a blog and being hosted elsewhere. I’m pretty sure they’ll land at another host and take their readership with them. But it’s still very chilling – not to mention expensive and time-consuming for the site.
The internet has been changing over the years, and all of the changes seem to go in the direction clamping down on speech on the right.
[ADDENDUM: David Foster of Chicago Boyz writes about myriad attacks on free speech.]
Should the Dystopian Duo attain victory (despite overwhelming evidence of the election’s having been stolen), the erosion of free expression is likely to intensify, with Big Tech, in collusion with Big Media, having no longer any reason to permit any “unacceptable” opinions, as well as possessing unchecked power to censor whatever the oligarchs of SV deem potentially dangerous to their monopoly on the flow of information. Freedom of speech, which is of the utmost importance to the maintenance of a republic, is under greater threat now than at any time in recent history; sensing their imminent seizure of unprecedented power, leftists, dreaming of the “great reset”, are, in fact, ravenous for totalitarian control.
The hosting platform wordpress.com (distinct from the publishing software, which is some kind of open source project) is owned by a company called automattic…which also owns other things such as the askimet spam filter and the gravatar avatar system. Askimett’s investors include Salesforce Ventures and the New York Times.
https://automattic.com/
Their motto is ‘We don’t make software for free. We make it for freedom.’
The level of attacks now directed at free speech, from multiple directions, is truly scary. See my post The Multi-Front Attack on Free Speech:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/64512.html
Viewpoint discrimination is illegal in California, under state law. Query if it applies to corporations or only individuals.
“We make it for freedom.”
Yes, the freedom to say two plus two is five when the Party requires it.
Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. We must try harder. It is not easy to become sane. The good folks at Askimett will help us to become maximally sane and maximally free.
I am almost positive this is from WordPress.com and NOT WordPress.org. WordPress.org is open source software, it is not a hosting platform.
WordPress.com IS. My web site uses WordPress.org software (it is a content management system) but I have it HOSTED with Siteground, which has the server my site is hosted on. Each host has its own set of terms and conditions. On some you cannot have adult sites, etc.
Conservative Treehouse (which I’ve never read) should definitely change to the .org software. It’s simple to do. I’ve used wordpress.org for several years and if I can do it, so can they!
This continues America’s drift into two camps. CTH will leave WordPress, and other blogs will be de-platformed from that host. They’ll all find somewhere else to go, just as people who are now leaving Facebook are heading to MeWe and others are leaving Twitter for Parler. When enough people have joined their respective hosts, we will eventually reach a point where there are two distinct realities — what appears on the left-leaning web sites and what appears on the others.
Other divides will pop up. Maybe Governor Inslee will close Washington’s eastern border with Idaho because the governor there does not enforce a stringent enough mask mandate. And people leaving Fox News will find a home at News Max. BLM supporters will stop watching NFL. You can attend church at the Crystal Cathedral or at the Divine Church of Gavin Newsom. And so on.
Until there is little intellectual (and possibly economic) intercourse between the respective sides, and the smart Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who said they wanted to bring people together will have managed to build a wall between the two camps.
The joke’s on them.
Also…what might be the *reasons* why so many people have seemingly turned away from supporting free speech?
I speculated on the causes here: Is Free Speech Too Exhausting?
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/64391.html
First and foremost: The fear that others just might be convinced.
Ira M. Siegel, I agree, but sometimes I think the even greater fear is that the person rejecting free speech might be convinced himself or herself, and then everything would have to change.
Petty tyrants always think they can force you to be satisfied with what they offer under strict controls. It never works, even in societies that don’t enjoy widely ranging freedoms, much less in an open society like the US. It only breeds resentment and recalcitrance – as it is doing now.
Robert Barnes pointed this out a while ago – the irony of people like Alex Jones being deplatformed while the obtuse overlord hosts are wondering how on earth he has an audience and as they haughtily condemn both. Newsflash: It’s because he’s offering more unvarnished insights than you are, and if people can’t get it from you, they’ll get it from Alex Jones and other cranks like him. But they’ll get it nevertheless.
Mrs. Whatsit – You are exactly right. I spent a decade talking with my brother-in-law….asking questions, asking him to explain his logic, exposing contradictions, flaws…answering questions, puzzling over ideas….and then, one day, he just stopped and outright admitted, “What you’re saying makes so much sense, I know it’s right. But, my entire career I’ve worked at places where if you weren’t a left-winger, your career was a dead end. So, rather than live a lie, I just don’t think about it…”
David Foster, if you haven’t already, please read some of Arthur Milikh’s writings on “hate speech”.
Free speech ala 1st Amendment has been eroded by Euro concepts of hate speech. The “community standards” of social media are based on hate speech concepts and Critical Race Theory.
That’s why conservatives are censored.
That’s why, in conceptual terms it is OK for a Muslim to say “it’s OK to cut off the head of an infidel while he is still alive”. But it is not OK for a conservative to say “that Muslim said it was OK to kill infidels”
https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/report/hate-speech-and-the-new-tyranny-over-the-mind
It’s terrible that Free Speech is under assault, and the de-platforming is bad, too.
I guess I’ll have to look for some other host for my little wordpress.com blog, which has been hosting me for free.
Conservatives need to understand that a huge driver against “hate speech” is the problem of Black poverty in America. After Civil Rights, after Affirmative Action, after welfare and welfare reform and dozens and dozens of gov’t programs – why aren’t there more equal outcomes?
True answer (only influences, not deterministic)
#1: more whites have success behavior, more black have non-success behavior.
ZZZZZZP – Behavior answers are not allowed.
#2: Sexual promiscuity and the number of kids from unmarried parents.
ZZZZZZP – Promiscuity answers are not allowed.
#3: IQ differences
ZZZZZZP – you’re a racist. You must be de-platformed and lose your job and go on a list to never be served in public restaurants or ever allowed in any club ….
If the complex true influences are not allowed, because the truth is NOT PC, not Woke, then the answer will not be true.
False answer: racism (mostly false – there does remain some racism)
Only racism is an allowed answer. All other true answers are called “hate speech”.
Hate speech laws are to avoid truths that show Woke is not true.
I reckon they’ll come for you to Neo…and the rest of us if they have their way.
John Guilfoyle:
I’m not hosted by WordPress.
But obviously, when you’re dealing with the left, it just depends on how far they want to go. I’m very far from one of the biggest fish in the pond, but I’m a fish nevertheless.
“I’m a fish nevertheless”
That’s exactly the point…We all heard Mad Maxine ranting all those months ago. We’re not welcome at gas stations, restaurants, websites, church, family dinners, FB friendships…They’re making lists & “cancelling” & de-platforming are just the beginning…gulags for us and who could forget Kathy Griffin & Donald Trump’s “head?”…unless of course we decide differently.
When they tell you they hate you & want you gone…I’m going to act like they mean it.
A bit OT but I often think about this era’s resemblance to C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, specifically the last book called That Hideous Strength, in which a shadowy organization called the N.I.C.E. is taking over and transforming England. It is not a completely parallel situation, but it has a happy ending which involves Merlin the Magician’s reappearance. Let’s not get too down but soldier on. Where there is life there is hope, and, hopefully, faith!
Tom Grey,
So much truth. Thank you.
That’s a hallmark of deplatforming in general – violation of terms of service and the like, without any more detailed explanation.
I get that from non Leftists these days.
Oliver T…’That Hideous Strength’ is a deep book, and one which will upset many people. As I said in my review:
Trigger Warning: There is something in this book to offend almost everybody. It contains things that will offend technologists and believers in human progress…social scientists…feminists…academic administrators…bioscience researchers…and surely many other categories of people. It will probably also offend some Christians, for the way in which Christian theology is mixed with non-Christian magic. By the standards now becoming current in American universities, this book, and even this book review, should be read by no one at all.
But for those who do not accept those standards…
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/43802.html
Welcome to The Pirate bay, Flat Earth Theory, and other “fringe” stuff, Tree House.
People get what they have coming. A boomerang.
David+Foster on November 16, 2020 at 4:33 pm said:
The level of attacks now directed at free speech, from multiple directions, is truly scary. See my post The Multi-Front Attack on Free Speech:
Scary…? Interesting. This human obsession with fear I can understand on an intellectual level, but I have not felt the emotion for quite some time now. March 2020 I felt it from the collective, as things went sky diving but… for years I have not been capable of feeling this “fear” that people talk about.
The Divine Will supersedes such considerations.
To add to Tom Grey, I believe Red Diaper Baby Obama boosted the moral blackmail/racist mongering intimidation political leverage game that’s been mainstreamed ever since.
Rev. Jessie Jackson was a piker at this game. It was a greed thing for him. He lacked wider, utopian vision. The Leftists since Zero have basically backed Revolutionary Marxoid transformation, instead.
Is being kicked off one host the same as being deplatformed?
@Mark:Is being kicked off one host the same as being deplatformed?
Is having one lecture canceled by threats of violence “deplatforming”? Is being denied service at one lunch counter or accommodations at one hotel because of your race “Jim Crow”?
Is your argument really that Conservative Treehouse has to be kicked off every host with no identifiable policy violation given, even a fake one, before you can say they were “deplatformed”?
If it isn’t do tell us what your standard really is.
I think it’s clear to say that being kicked off one host–with even neo saying they’ll find another–is not the tragedy of being completely shut down and denied a place to go and have your say.
My standard is that you’d need to be removed either from major social media (FB + Twitter) or from numerous hosts making the content seriously difficult to distribute.
Now: being denied a platform because of *what you are* vs. *what you say/do* is a bit different, of course. We, as a society, have decided that’s a lot more questionable–no?
Mark:
Get up to speed, thinking people are leaving Fakebook and Spitter for Parler. Even you could go there.
I have an account on Parler and Gab. They don’t have the reach of FB + Twitter so being kicked off of Gab isn’t the same as being “deplatformed.” (I am up to speed, sorry om).
Hi Mark,
Why don’t you expand on what you have said there so as to make your meaning more clear. Perhaps with a couple of “for instances”.
The predicate assumption stated in the last sentence is rather interesting too. After you clarify what is the apparently moral distinction that you are trying to draw, you can then say how it is “we as a society” decided this, and when it was decided.
Thanks.
Well, I mean–it’s not set up as a “mathematical proof”–but I believe (maybe I’m wrong) that as a society we decided that kicking someone out of a restaurant because they are dark-skinned is wrong.
Kicking them out for wearing a nazi flag is fine. Right?
While I don’t think this is universal, I believe this razor is pretty wide spread. The decisioning process has been on-going but with race, the integration of the military was a big part. The ending of Jim Crow laws was part of it too.
I expect you understand all this though.
Mark:
Is a Trump hat a Nazi flag? Seems to be that for your allies Antifa/BLM. Is the Antifa flag a Commie symbol?
Is whiteness a sin and cause for sanction and remedial training to cure “systemic racism” or “unconscious bias?” Seems to be for your allies in the Progressive establishment.
Are you on board with CRT and if not why not? When did you stop being a racist?
I expect you understand all this and approve.
Mark makes a good point that American society was already corrupt. I think the USA has a far worse dark side than people realize.
So like John Galt, why keep supporting a corrupt society by trying to slave yourself to their “platforms”?
The perfect example is Neo censoring Flat Earth Theory here and even telling me to self censor my thoughts like 1984.
If the majority deems something not allowed, then they have the power to make you very uncomfortable if you try to buck the system.
Which is why it is better to Burn it All Down.
So why should conservatives be given freedom when they don’t even give the same consideration to Flat Earth theorists?
The crocs eat the conspiracists and conspirituals first, after all, as they are a fringe minority, like gamers in Gamergate.
Then when conservatives are the big boy in the room, when they get attacked, they now wonder why they get no support. Because they gave no support. Because they are on A LIST.
Help, help says Yammer, I’m being repressed, it’s Orwellian. 🙂
Ymarsakar:
Please stop misrepresenting what happened re flat earth on this blog.
You were writing comment after comment after comment on this blog about flat earth. None of my posts were related to it, but you brought it into the conversation over and over and over. At the beginning, when you were writing about it here only now and then, I never stopped you. It was only after you increased your discussion of it in frequency that I requested you desist here. I also made it clear that I did not mind you discussing it now and then, and in particular if if was relevant to a post, but that it was the frequency that was the problem.
I have never told you or anyone else to censor your thoughts. That would be an absurd thing for me to do.
I also explained that this is a blog that is a platform for my writing and for the comments of others, and I allow a wide range of comments and commenters, including you for many many years. But I reserve the right to ban anyone. In particular, I also have blog policies about insults and the like, although there is a certain amount of leeway there, too. I have never banned you, but I have told you that if you keep discussing flat earth in the way you were doing it before – essentially, comment after comment after comment about it in threads that have zero to do with it – I will delete them.
You are free to think whatever you want. I am not a platform like Twitter or Facebook, either. This is a personal blog. I have no power to censor you out in the greater internet world, and I have no desire to do so. I ask you to abide by the rules.
Mark:
Being kicked off a host is something Conservative Treehouse can absorb because they are a big blog, but it is an expensive and labor-intensive proposition. One has to pay money, probably to a computer expert who will set up the transition, and also deal with the problem of the old URL links that will now lead nowhere. I had to do it (not because of de-platforming) 2 times in my blog career, and each time it was a major deal and the second time it was a big expense as well. I won’t go into the details, but it took a long time to find someone to help me do it, because I couldn’t do it on my own. Suffice to say that for a blogger without funds it could easily be the difference between blogging and having to stop blogging, if the free platforms would no longer host that person.
I understand that it requires work. But there are other free or very-low-cost platforms that exist. If *no* free or low-cost platform will host you, that’s a lot closer to deplatforming–but a host deciding kick you off for whatever reason (based on your content or behavior) doesn’t seem like *deplatforming* to me if it’s not widespread.
I know The Conservative Treehouse (and I have no idea why WordPress isn’t hosting them–they were one of the smarter conservative blogs out there)–but what should WordPress do if they decide a blog they’re hosting isn’t compatible with their beliefs?
Just “suck it up”?
Mark:
I am under the impression that WordPress has a legal status that does not allow them to dump a blog merely because it is not compatible with their political beliefs. See this.
Shipwreckedcrew believes CTH was deplatformed not because of the blog posts but because of the comments.
Seems to me that that’s also got to be speculative, though.
“
What I don’t understand is your attempt at an analogy.
So, first we stipulate we are speaking principally of taxpayer funded institutions and privately owned “public accommodations”?
And I take it by “we as a society” you refer to Supreme Court decisions and various statutes found on the books?
Certainly, you do not imagine “society” has any real institutional existence of its own, I’m guessing you are smart enough not to reify “society”.
Anyway, since you introduced the Nazi flag in contrast to African heritage, it is unclear whether the “what they are” contrast you wish to introduce refers solely to heritage and caste versus active promotion of contentious political views while in a public accommodation, or, whether your understanding of a denial of service also extends to, say, a person who is recognized as having expressed certain views in other venues. Sara Huckabee and Tucker Carlson would be two prime examples much less extravagant and far fetched than your hypothetical flag wearing promoter of Naziism. In their cases “what they are” has apparently been defined by those denying them service on the basis of what they have legally said or done elsewhere.
If you wish to stick to your Nazi analogy, and find Carlson too hard a case, maybe Richard Spencer, who apparently is a racialist, will do.
Under your interpretation of what “we as a society” have decided, may he be denied public accommodation – assuming he enters wearing a business suit and not a toga fashioned from swastika flags? And if so, on what grounds?
Neo,
It seems to me that a web site having half a million to a million visitors a day, as they claim, is almost irresponsible if they dont have their own server. That is, if they have an actual mission, rather tnan just falling into what they have become.
What would it cost 20 grand?
Even the most unobtrusive and selective advertising might sustain such a site without turning it into the exploding web page nightmares that some conservative news sites have become.
Traffic of a million visitors a month and an under 1% click rate on ads, would fund most sites according to the projections I have seen claimed. Whether that is vastly overblown, I could not say on the basis of the slender research I have done so far.
But CTH claim at least 15 times that one million a month mark. Even at a .01 ad exploratory rate they could easily acheive, theoretically, a hundred eighty thousand ad clicks a month … if the sites claimg all this are not blowing smoke.
Geez. It can’t really be that easy.
Neo: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml
The whole 230 idea is wishful thinking on the part of conservatives.
DNW – “What you are” generally refers to traits over which you have no or little control (i.e. being black, being a woman, being from Italy, being over 55, etc.). In some cases these have protected status under law, but in any event, I would hope we all agree that discrimination against someone based on age when they are clearly capable of doing a job (as an example) is wrong.
“what you do / say” — I used the example of a swastika because I assumed it was one we would both easily agree with. Since you think Spencer is a “racialist,” perhaps I was wrong.
I wouldn’t serve Spencer in a restaurant and I have no problem with Huckabee being asked to leave one. I don’t know what happened to Tucker but, sure: if your job is being a provocative entertainer and you wind up provoking people? I’d imagine he got what he wanted?
Finally: Society may not be real–but you’ve *always* been able to get fired for spouting something at odds with the zeitgeist. Go back to 1950 and talk about how great interracial marriage would be around the office and see what happens. (as a thought experiment since I you seem to be taking things literally).
Mark
“I wouldn’t serve Spencer in a restaurant and I have no problem with Huckabee being asked to leave one.”
Did you work at Woolworths in July of 1960 … sounds like it?
Jack – No? I mean, no. Of course not.
Mark:
What about being caucasian? Worshiped whiteness lately? What about being trans or cis or hex or rex or dex or whatever flavor of the day? Got any cakes you want to bake or not? Flowers you want to sell or not? Things you don’t want to say; silence being violence or complicity in oppression?
How profound, zeitgeist! What a tool.
Mark:
There is a conservative argument on that (discussed in the City Journal link I offered earlier). Your link offers the tech argument to the contrary. It has not yet been determined which will end up ruling the day. Legal challenges could be mounted, perhaps successfully, and that doesn’t make the argument “wishful thinking,” it makes it a possibly valid argument. However – yes, presently WordPress is able to do what it did to Conservative Treehouse.
From the City Journal article I linked:
Neo – I’m aware of the potential argument. I remember when conservatives were *against* the Fairness Doctrine.
But the thing you’re right about is that today, WordPress can, indeed, do what they did.
I take it you think this shouldn’t be the case?
Way back I (and several others) worked for a hosting company moderating a forum that was used for customer support. It was fun and learned a lot about coding and how Web Hosting works. The sites that got the boot were almost all porn with a couple that gained enough traffic that it caused problems that the servers couldn’t handle. Those would be politely asked to find another host.
I’m thinking conservative sites with large following will fall in the PORN category in the future.
I’m thinking conservative sites with large following will fall in the PORN category in the future.
Twenty-odd years ago, you read WIRED magazine or talked to the IT techs at your workplace and you got the impression that the modal type in tech was libertarianish if they gave any thought at all to civic matters. It’s quite puzzling that Google, Facebook, and Twitter should have come to be dominated so thoroughly by antagonistic leftists (many of them with cluster B personality disorders). Look at the older generation of tech lords – Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, &c – none of these people evinced an interest in getting mixed up in contentious political controversies. Ditto Marc Andreesen and Elon Musk, who were coming into prominence during the period running from 1994 to 2000.
The whole 230 idea is wishful thinking on the part of conservatives.
You mean we cannot modify the statute in ways that might displease you. Thanks for your input.
Heh!
https://www.theepochtimes.com/facebook-removed-stop-the-steal-group-to-prevent-violence-or-civil-unrest-zuckerberg_3583195.html
OTOH…
https://www.facebook.com/antifaintl/
https://www.facebook.com/BlackLivesMatter
Art-Deco: Oh, no–that’s not what I mean at all.
Neo presented it (as do you guys, almost constantly) as a done deal–as a law that makes Facebook culpable for “censoring conservatives” (which is nonsense). It isn’t.
Now, you can pass a NEW law. Maybe an act that requires people who own a “channel” to give “equal time” to different views?
You could call it a “Doctrine” and demand “Fairness” (equality of outcome). It would be a bold new conservative idea, of course–but that seems to be where y’all are headed.
Wasn’t Joe Biden that said Antifa is an “idea.” Looking at the Antifa Facebook page it seems they are pretty organized to me.
Antifa and BLM have already started to demand their pound of flesh for helping Joe … and they will get it.
Mark:
Hey y’all, yeah you.
Andrew McCarthy has proposed changing the last phrase of the Section 230 statute “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” to be simply “illegal” from “otherwise objectionable.” Andy posits that such a change will eliminate the ability of your tech giant overlords to censor free speech. Y’all got a problem with that, Markey?
Y’all approve of free speech? Tool.
Om – I think NBC should be forced to air my manifestos nightly, I do.
Yeah, no: I’m old school (conservative). My house, my rules.
Sorry.
Jack – what help did antifa provide Joe Biden?
With the exception of creating chaos during a Trump admin … I’d say none. But Antifa wants something. Do they want something for nothing?
Mark says,
Well Mark, you are wrong, but not in the way you rhetorically pose.
Racialism:
From what I have seen of Spencer, he seems to qualify. As would Louis Farrakhan, The Nation of Yaweh, and some of the sub-sects of the Black Hebrew Israelites lately in the news.
It would be interesting to watch you act on your principles as you denied these latter individuals and groups public accommodation based on their recorded public pronouncements and admitted ideologies.
But then, perhaps that would not be in line with your understanding of the Zeigeist which siuationally determines right from wrong for you. And in their cases perhaps you would adjust your principles and issue them special legal immunities and exemptions based on their immutable characteristics. Only you can definitively answer that. Perhaps your razor cuts only one way, eh?
You have no problem with Huckabee being run out of the restaurant because the Zeitgeist or something makes it natural and expected . And you have no problem with Carlson who you characterize as a provocative entertainer being run out with his family because he is that.
So I suppose you would be fine with it if Bill Maher or Margaret Cho were run out of an eatery … not because of their immutable characteristics but because they were provocative entertainers.
Just trying to get to the bottom line on your principles here; such as they may be.
DNW – When someone tells me about “The War of Northern Aggression” I know what they’re talking about. When someone describes Spencer as a “racialist” instead of a “racist” I get the same vibe.
I have zero love for the the Black Hebrew Israelites or Lewis Farrakhan (and I don’t know enough about the Nation of Yaweh to know one way or another). I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you.
The Zeitgeist doesn’t determine right from wrong for me–it just determines what kinds of speech can get you fired.
Huckabee made a habit of lying to the American people for a POTUS who was pretty explicitly cruel and racist. Tucker Carlson? I’m not sure what happened to him–but there’s a reason he’s the favorite celeb on StormFront.
I think we’re all pretty clear here.
Mark:
Correct – it’s not a done deal. But it’s the conservative POV on the legal question, and I believe it’s the correct point of view and should prevail (which doesn’t mean it will prevail). I believe there’s an inherent contradiction and, as I already quoted:
However, my original very short comment on the issue did not make that distinction clear at all. But that’s why I said “I am under the impression that…”.
Mark, pretty clearly a tool. Drops the “racist” card, and the the “cruel” card. What a colossal tool and a snowflake, must have been in the 10th Mountain Division, as they do a lot in the snow IIRC. Or not, tools and trolls aren’t known for their honesty.
Zeitgeist again, LOL.
Yeah I can see you on NBC, or MSNBC with Rachel and Joy, you’d fit right in. Just a “vibe” y’all.
Neo – Were you a champion of the Fairness Doctrine in the 90’s?
“…all pretty clear here.”
Especially to all those Blacks and Hispanics who voted for GOP candidates this election, no doubt.
(And gosh, who knew that StromFront had all those millions upon millions upon millions of Fox-viewing members?)
Mark:
What about the Proud Boys? StormFront and Tucker Carlson?
How can you be a clown and a tool at the same time, are you multitasking or is it you wicked skilz that feed your “vibe?”
Jack – As someone who knows a lot about extremism, I doubt you have a great handle on what antifa even is writ large (it’s a bunch of keyboard nerds who are doxing guys doing things like Unite The Right).
But of course you don’t believe me. That’s fine.
I don’t think they get anything from the Biden administration. There’s no one even to “give them” something to. Biden isn’t in favor of “Defunding the police” and I don’t think a Biden administration stands down PD forces across the nation or any nonsense like that.
What are you imagining the pay-off would be?
Barry – Not all Tucker fans are Storm Front guys–but the Storm Front guys surely are Tucker Carlson fans.
If that doesn’t make you uncomfortable . . . it should.
Depends on what you imagine doing the job entails. Not hiring a 65 year old pole dancer for your so-called “Gentleman”s Club” despite the fact that she can successfully hang naked upside down on a pole three routines a night, is certainly justifiable age discrimination. Now I dont really approve of that kind of business, but the call of duty as I saw it, has, or long ago had required, my presence in a couple of famous Canadian examples. And I can assure you that none of the reasons for entering such a business in the first place had anything at all to do with witnessing such a routine per se.
Mark is uncomfortable about StormFront or Tucker Carlson or whatever. An uncomfortable tool. Not the same as a concern troll.
Mark says,
What a bizarre thing to say. You encounter the term racialist as applied to racialists, first Spencer , then Farrakhan et al, and you object that it is somehow inaccurate. But it describes them exactly. You were even provided a dictionary citation.
What terminology would meet your emotional needs: “goddamned racialist”? LOL
It is obvious that precision in expression is not to your taste, whereas playing the role of language commissar is.
Any basis you would have for disputing the application of the term racialist, to men who make racial identification the crux of their social “philosophy”, is something that requires a better explanation than your rather paranoid sounding and imaginary parallel with some “War of Northern Agression.”
Thus, as we speak of getting vibes and all, I get a a quite clear fascistical and collectivist vibe emanating from your Zeitgeist apologetics your, “we as a society” constructions and your incompetent zeal as language cop.
As far as the Black Hebrew Israelites and Farrakhan went, the question was not whether you had any love for them,. I did not ssk ypu that. I asked whether you would apply the same principles of evaluation regarding public accommodation to all racialists regardless of race or ethnicity.
You did not.
You took umbrage at the use of the word instead. And you then evaded the question of whether your supposed controversial entertainer rule justifying the ejection of Carlson from public accommodations would also apply to Maher and Cho.
It worked out just fine. You opened up enough to reveal that when it comes to your principles, you actually have none, but perhaps “expedience”.
And now , in adcition you justify attacks on Huckabee in public locations because you assert she lied. You tacitly justify – more than that actually, you approbate – the directing of mob action against these citizens lawfully seeking service in a public accommodation.
A morally vile, and unprincipled little man, Mark, be you a self-styled “conservative” or no. That’s the vibe you clearly give out
DNW:
Fire for effect. Or Time on Target barrage. Markey Mark is on ” the wrong side of brightness” again.
I figured rather than wait until I got to a proper computer with a real screen tomorrow, I’d respond on a tablet. I didn’t want Mark’s blatantly dishonest evasions and misrepresentations to go uncorrected overnight; even at the cost of using a hand held that I have disabled the spell correct function on. (It doesn’t have a sufficient vocabulary to be more a help than hindrance. ) The hell with double or keypad neighbor strikes that go uncaught in this tiny font. Good enough for rough work. LOL
MARK NEAR THE TOP: “You could call it a ‘Doctrine’ and demand ‘Fairness’ (equality of outcome). It would be a bold new conservative idea, of course–but that seems to be where y’all are headed.”
Like Moronielles, Mark attempts to turn the Right into egalitarians —and therefore either radical outcome equalitarianism, or else hypocrites deserving derision.
But as usual (eg, global warming, “race” justice, etc), he either is ignorant of history or ignores simple clear concepts and direct measurements in order to…Ah, Fork You (obscene play on words intended)!
Justice as fairness or equal outcomes is far too subjective and far too multidimensional to be clear or consistent or even just. Rawls implicitly admits this on page 526 (or 426?) where he says after many hundreds of pages that we still don’t have a definition of justice, but we know what we want (ie, the redistribution of wealth), so let’s get on with it!
(Yes, I kid you not. I you haven’t read these pages of Rawls Theory of inJustice, do have. Back in the 1980s, honest Leftists were kept honest by nonLeftists. But in the past 20 years, lies have become Truth, and Rawls was resuscitated precisely as The Late Ayn Rand predicted he would be in 1972s “Untitled Letter”, which is searchable online.)
Today’s Media is dominated by six transnational companies. And Americans very traditionally dislike not success but overweening Bigness. Too Big — too powerful.
And here conservatives on the right diverge from market fetishists — Libertarians and Anarcho-capitalists, mostly —who defend unrestricted market transactions, often by natural right.
But most Americans have long disliked and objected to market powers that restrict or block clear consent and herd people’s free choice.
And therefore, unlike market absolutists, Americans accept and agree with some traditional notions of trust-busting players that ill-serve the people because they can become too Big and Too powerful (ie, the Wagner Act, etc). Ergo, oppressive to the public and the ordinary consumer.
And Too Big turns on ordinal measures of market domination, not the subjective and highly debatable utopian “standards” that SWJs embrace.
In fact, I’ll put it further that if these Size contingent market players were not obvious by measurement, then Americans would not support this remedy to achieve justice (see polling data). And ethical consequentialism is the relevant theory (utilitarian or not).
Finally, Mark smearing Huckabee with guilt by association with folks who are insignificant in the US (ie, less than 0.00003%, ie, under 8,000, as held by the ADL and SPLC for many, many years! Until the magical Bears Hug conversion fallacy speciously inflating that non-existent menace and became the Left-tardsbHoly Writ with Trump), is ridiculous. Going by “vibes”… So, yeah: he’s an ignorant Herd Tool.
PS Richard Spencer says he voted Obama TWICE ( and Dementia Joe this year), in his interview in Dinesh D’souza’ film “Death of a Nation.” He’s a fad follower.
In that film interview, Richard Spencer states that Obama wants what I want, IIRC. Wow, is all I can say.
Senator Ted Cruz questions Twitter’s Jack Dorsey on being a publisher or not? 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzoOIjddDLw
“Tucker: Big Tech’s coordinated suppression amounts to a ‘censorship cartel’ “featuring Facebook’s Zuckerberg and Senator Hawley, as well as Chris Coons (D-Delaware)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBFJWfb8AFM
“Silicon Valley acts as one to censor your opinions….”
DNW – Man, that’s a rant.
1. No–I wouldn’t want Farrakhan or the Black Hebrew Israelites in my place of business. I’m so sorry this isn’t working out for you.
2. I didn’t take “umbrage” at racialist. I know that racists often use the term “race realist” to describe themselves. I expect racialist is somewhere in that spectrum. You aren’t really convincing me otherwise.
Is Spencer a racist?
3. Being asked to leave a place of business isn’t the same as a mob beat-down. Huckabee wasn’t injured (save, maybe for her pride?) and just as CTH being asked to leave a host is conflated with deplatforming, so you make the same mistake here.
4. As for her lying? I think it’s pretty obvious. This is an admin that coined the words “Alternative facts” to explain their lying.
Do you think Trump’s inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s?
TJ – Yes, Ted Cruz knows his audience and has very little respect for them. Same with Tucker.
I like the term CONSPIracist
Since many often see me or Ymar as a conspiracy person.
Just in case people don’t understand, Ymarsakar is an account name, I am the person using the account. Just as the ego is not the same as the body or the spirit.
Someone can delete Ymar’s comments or attack Ymar, but they cannot reach me unless I allow it. The same for territorial disputes. Only Ymar is on Neo’s blog, not me. This separation is distinct on the astral and magickal realms, because it is a legal, not fictional, declaration of realm boundaries.
Just as a child and their parent have “legal boundaries” and definitions that affect lawsuits and the application of particular laws, that allows CPS to traffick children in slavery.
This separation is actual intuitive, since anyone can pretend to be anyone else online. Even the account you think you are using, may be hijacked and hacked by someone else.
For example, what about all those Republicans for the US Constitution, when did they get hijacked by Satan and mind controlled to be for Biden? What about Roberts?
Hits a little closer to home.
I overall don’t have much to say, operations wise, since the operations are either in progress or over due to the Trump/Q election steal sting. Regardless of what happens, it is already over. A final pre christmas surprise gift may be given before Dec 21st, but the Friday 13th raid has already pretty much sealed the deal.
I enjoy reading TJ and other people’s comments here, Zaphod and even om’s now, as they pursue their personal awakening of their awful condition in the land of the once free and brave, America. Which is merely a subset of the world really.
Continual operational support will be provided, unless Neo ends up being mind hijacked.
You were writing comment after comment after comment on this blog about flat earth. None of my posts were related to it, but you brought it into the conversation over and over and over.
That’s an example of mind hijacking. On specific threads in which you yourself started talking about conspiracy theories and other people began talking about other conspiracy theories, I raised the issue because it was a good comparison of what Ytube did with conspiracists, via algorithm suppression.
The excuses you made during that mind hijack of yours, Neo, never made sense and you could never adequately defend your positions. You may have forgotten but you kept moving the goal posts from one rationalization/justification to another.
Even when I was speaking directly to fellow members here on the topic days after anybody else was interested in the thread, you would get triggered into hunting for the Flat Earth topics and deleting them. Regardless of whether the person I was talking to had read it, ignored it, or expressed any interest. You were playing the “Watchdog” and “Gatekeeper” role so many hijacked minds on Earth routinely do, when triggered by subjects that aren’t against the rules, they are just against the dark matrix and are a threat. But nobody can explain why they are against the rules or are a threat. They just are. The same reason why twitter and facebook keeps saying people have violated their community standards. When digging deeper into this, there’s no objective community standard that was violated. It was essentially just arbitration or arbitrary decisions, which would be ok if they were honest about it.
This is similar to what happened to SC Roberts. On the surface, his judgments seem rational, to him at least, but when seen in the comprehensive timeline of his life, it doesn’t make sense.
Just as it does not make sense that you, Neo, would write every other post about conspiracy theories, even though you dislike them, while talking about Facebook’s censorship, yet go so far to suppress a fringe topic like Flat Earth Theory.
As for why I was bringing up the subject, it was because that was the time of conspiracy theory threads, after all, and the timing was right given the context. You cannot justify as thread after thread, because you deleted the first comments that I mentioned it, and the later ones you deleted, were under the conspiracy topics and threads you and others kept writing about. What makes one conspiracy theory more valid than any conspiracy theory, especially when it is more important to discuss the psychological nature of this conspiracy land phenomenon?
I also made it clear that I did not mind you discussing it now and then, and in particular if if was relevant to a post, but that it was the frequency that was the problem.
That never happened from the writings I read from you. That was something you think happened perhaps, but what you actually wrote to me is that you were just deleting stuff because it was like pron, you didn’t want it on the website. You may have mentioned frequency or off topic once, but that was not the primary issue you wrote to me after I called you on what was going on.
When mind hacks happen, the person begins filling in the blanks of what happened, as they may or may not have been in control of their thoughts at the time it happened. This is why eye witness testimony is sometimes or often inaccurate, and why validation from second or third parties is preferred.
In the comments you directed to me at the time you were deleting the comments, not editing them, I read all of your rational arguments. I also countered all of them, making you have to come up with new or different tactics to take.
That’s because it was a relatively simple argument to make at a time when conservatives were being suppressed on Facebook. Since after all, Facebook also suppressed gamers, conspiracists, and that includes Flat Earthers.
Thus the history of Flat Earth theory in 2013-2015 was part of Facebook’s own actions. But you didn’t think to see it like that, obviously. What you saw it as was an eye sore, you justified it as deleting pxrno or spam links.
Which is funny I suppose to Om and others, but that wasn’t the same as the post event rationalization you came up with now.
Whenever conservatives got de platformed, the fact that Flat Earthers also got de platformed is off topic? No, you didn’t make that argument, because you knew it made no sense.
Alex Jones, anti wax or pro safe waxines, (words have to be spelled and pronounced differently or Google/Alphabet AI Algorithms catch you) and a number of other groups were de platformed way before conservatives started feeling the heat online.
These topics are not relevant, why is that?
You didn’t make that argument, Neo, the way you remember, because it’s not very strong. What it was “off topic” was it wasn’t the topic you wanted to hear about and you didn’t want anyone else to hear about it here. Because it is embarrassing? Welcome to 2020.
But I reserve the right to ban anyone. In particular, I also have blog policies about insults and the like, although there is a certain amount of leeway there, too. I have never banned you, but I have told you that if you keep discussing flat earth in the way you were doing it before – essentially, comment after comment after comment about it in threads that have zero to do with it – I will delete them.
You are free to think whatever you want. I am not a platform like Twitter or Facebook, either. This is a personal blog. I have no power to censor you out in the greater internet world, and I have no desire to do so. I ask you to abide by the rules.
I am not concerned about who you ban or don’t ban. I see no reason why you keep bringing that off topic subject up. Why don’t you delete that word you keep using if you want to keep things on topic?
Because deleting words arbitrarily is a kind of 1984 thought crime enforcement.
Again, your re writing of history does not work now, Neo. Most of my comments about Flat Earth had to do with conspiracy, science, or Leftist censorship threads and topics.
What you were doing is called Gatekeeping. You don’t have a “big platform”, you think, but Gatekeeping is Gatekeeping. No matter what or who your reach is.
@Mark,
You seem at it again. You say,
What you want, eho you love, or how you feel is not what you were asked.
But, just maybe, Mark, you have gotten confused by all the turns and extraneous matters which have worked their way into these exchanges.
So, let’s skip the terminology policing exercises, and what you like or dislike, want or don’t want, references to the Zeitgeist, and allusions to Loving v. Virginia; and instead review the real issues with regard to your statements that,
I early on asked,
“So, first we stipulate we are speaking principally of taxpayer funded institutions and privately owned “public accommodations”?
That would refer for example, to public schools, and restaurants, lunch counters, hotels, and so forth.
Then, the next point relevant to that with regard to your framing of “we as a society” deciding public right from wrong was,
” … I take it by “we as a society” you refer to Supreme Court decisions and various statutes found on the books?”
So then, we are principally talking about the application of the law, (that is, what “we have as a society” decided is right and wrong, in your terms) with regard to public accommodations.
Then, in the context of rules covering a denial of accommodation:
“whether your understanding of a denial of service also extends to, say, a person who is recognized as having expressed certain views in other venues … ”
And, if so, then in terms of what ” we have decided as a society”
” … you would be fine with it if Bill Maher or Margaret Cho were run out of an eatery … not because of their immutable characteristics but because they were provocative entertainers.”
The same question applies as said previously for,
” … Louis Farrakhan, The Nation of Yaweh, and some of the sub-sects of the Black Hebrew Israelites lately in the news.”
Or whether in the latter instances,
‘ … in their cases perhaps you would adjust your principles and issue them special legal immunities and exemptions based on their immutable characteristics. …”
So Mark, now that I have brought the pieces together in a way that should be less confusing for you, you can proceed to address the public issues of law and morality in play.
You already stayed it was not only expected but morally, and presumably legally, right on your view to drive Huckabee and Carlson from places of public accommodation because of their views and the controversy they engender among some.
Make plain whether you would also have either, or both, a legal and a moral right to eject Margaret Cho, Bill Maher, Louis Farrakhan, and the Black Hebrew Israelites from your place of public accommodation.
And restate the bases for your reasoning.
. . . You are really having a hard time with this aren’t you. I understand–someone having a principled take on things probably seems alien to you in 2020.
1. Yes–I’m fine with Bill Maher getting asked to leave a restaurant. IDK Margaret Cho–but if she’s in the same category? Sure. that too.
2. No–I’m not good with public services refusing people because of their positions. So the Police can’t decide not to help you. The fire department can’t decide not to come to your house, etc.
A restaurant/lunch counter isn’t the same.
Now: (this will be hard for you–so listen carefully). The law has figured out that you can’t deny people access to your public accommodation due to things like skin-color (even if serving a black person upsets you)–and I’m *okay* with that. That’s the law. I’m not seeking to change it–and I think it’s actually a good law based on my principle (what you are / vs. what you do/say).
In this case the law *happens* to align with my principle but my principle is not as it is *because* of the law.
In fact, my principle USED to be common to “conservatism.” Today, alas, it isn’t.
3. I don’t mean “the supreme court” as a proxy for culture–I mean “I would expect most Americans to hold that discrimination against someone based on their skin color is wrong.” Or “discrimination against someone based on their sex is wrong” (in jobs where the gender of the person is irrelevant).
I’d assumed all of this was pretty clear. But I guess I have to spell it out reeeeeely carefully for you.
Yammer is still being repressed here in this little outpost of ENGSOC. Poor Yammer he has nothing to say, again. 🙂
Mark:
For all your dodging around Bill and Margaret vs Sarah and Tucker you didn’t answer the question.
Ever hear of the “public accommodation” argument used to force baking of cakes and selling of flowers?
Tools and trolls are slippery things.
Good grief.
Yes–I’m good with all of them being asked to leave a restaurant. What kind of answer are you looking for?
Mark:
Supreme Court said no, bozo, you can’t be forced to do things (bake cakes for example) if they conflict with religious beliefs (that would be what the person believes, says, sings, recites, reads, does, etc.) and not their gender, sex, skin color, dis or ability.
So how does what Sarah, Tucker, Margaret, or Bill (they are actual people, sort of like you, a person, although you are still a tool and troll) say or think give you the right to exclude them from a public accommodation (a business) or harass them because you don’t like their words and thoughts? Your vibes or your feelz?
Not just a tool and a troll but a slow tool and troll.
Mark,
It looks as though you are either determined to avoid the legal principles involved here, or incapable of discussing them in a coherent way even when you have it all patiently laid out before you.
This problem you obviously have, is why when I noticed it, I attempted to get to the specifics of what you actually thought you were talking about with jabber about ” we as a society” , ” the decisioning process” and other airy and insubstantial references.
Here is what was at issue, Mark.
Was Mark, we naturally ask ourselves, talking about subjective and “evolving morality”? Was Mark talking about his feelings and his expectations regarding others feeling the way Mark feels, because … something as yet to be announced?
When Mark was involved in his personal “decisioning process”, involving who may be denied public accommodation and why, was he relying on the law and judicial precedent, or some other standards as decisive?
The questions in the final analysis resolve to a relatively few. Three of which I will list:
1, Is it legal to categorically deny an individual access to public accommodation based on a dislike of the individual, or their presumed notoriety? In other words may they be denied public accommodation based on Mark’s personal feelings about them?
Mark seems to think so. It is ok, he says to drive controversial people from public accommodations.
2. Assuming Mark’s premise and his stated feelings then, would Mark also deny all or any of Louis Farrakhan, Margaret Cho, Bill Maher, or the Black Hebrew Israelites accommodation in his facilities because of their public comments? Or, are there as Mark mentions, specially protected classes of persons; and further, do these “special protections” serve to legally immunize them from ejection based on their public statements or reputation?
3. Should, for example, Mark go ahead and do such a thing as ejecting “Minister” Farrakhan from his hotel, or a party of Black Hebrew Israelites from his tea room as he should do if he is impartial and consistent and principled, how would he justify it in legal terms?
Thus far, Mark has failed to say.
Man–no, this is all pretty simple.
1. Is it legal to deny . . . I don’t know–I’m not a lawyer. I imagine it has to do with legally protected status among other things.
2. Whether or not *I* would deny someone service is based on my own personal feelings. I don’t know anything about Cho so I would serve her, I guess. If my employees came and told me they were uncomfortable with Farrakhan (what happened to Sanders) I’d ask him to leave.
NOTE: I don’t know the laws specific to this–so I’d try to do it without breaking any.
3. I’m not trying to “justify it in legal terms.” That’s something you’re wrapped around. I’m telling you what my principle is. If legally I can’t do it, then I wouldn’t do it. Nation of laws and all that.
My decisioning process is pretty simple: you can’t help what you are (dark skinned, a woman, whatever). You can help what you do/say. If what you do / say is repulsive, expect to be shunned for it (by people who are repulsed).
Again, this used to be mainstream conservative thought. Now? Not so much.
Mark doesn’t care about the law, only his feelz and vibes. Stay away from Markey Mark, he don’t need no “stinkin badges,” and you may not comport with his approved feelz and vibes.
Om – thank you. I don’t think I could better illustrate how far conservatism has fallen in the Age of Trump than your reading of what I wrote.
Mark:
You said you don’t know what the law is but you will discriminate against individuals based on your feelz. You will try while being ignorant about what is legal, you apparently would discriminate against Sara, Tucker, Bill but not Margret because your feelz about Margaret aren’t formed yet. Your feelz are all you need for actions against other people.
Somehow I don’t trust your “try.”
You can’t seem to help that you are a tool.
Om – That’s right. I would elect not to serve people whose actions offend me. What happened to Sara was quite legal. The restaurant was well within its rights to do it.
That’s an unpopular take on the right these days, and I thank you for making that entirely clear.
NOTE: While I am not a lawyer, and will not claim to be an expert in discrimination law, I would, of course try to take all legal precautions before asking someone to leave. But to my understanding, that’s still quite possible today in many / most cases.
I realize that is upsetting to you–but five years ago, that’s what conservatives thought. Maybe you are too young to remember.
Mark:
You should be fired on the spot if you acted on those feelz by any and all business owners. Would you refuse to serve a policeman, fireman, EMT, military in fatigues because of your feelz?
Keep the evidence of your toolishness coming, it’s been quite revealing.
@Mark:you can’t help what you are (dark skinned, a woman, whatever). You can help what you do/say. If what you do / say is repulsive, expect to be shunned for it (by people who are repulsed).
You can stop being Catholic any time. There’s not even any paperwork. Are you saying then that discrimination against Catholics in public places ought to be ok if that’s what the people are offended by? How about Muslims? You can stop being Muslim being any time, and you can choose not to start being Muslim if you don’t want.
How about cops? No one has to be a cop. No one stops you from quitting once you are one. Are you saying then that discrimination against cops in public places ought to be ok if that’s what the people are offended by?
Mark:
It is also stupid as *uck on the internet to make any assumptions about someone’s age unless they choose to tell you. Just a hint for your education, sorry (not) if your feelz are not good with this vibe.
What a tool. 🙂
So Mark, in the case of your ejecting a party Black Hebrew Israelites from your tea room because you do not feel positive about them, what are all those aforementioned legal precautions which you would take before telling them to get out? You know, as the good old fashioned conservative you say you are.
Clock is ticking and they want to be seated at obviously vacant tables …
Frederick – The civil rights act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. Three out of four are within my principle and I would obey the law otherwise.
OTOH, if someone’s religion was offensive *enough* I might chance it. I would reserve the right not to serve a practicing Order of the 9 Angles*.
If someone doesn’t want to serve police? I don’t think that’s illegal. If they’re offended by police? I guess it’s okay (I don’t think it’d be too popular).
* Not that I suspect too many people here are well versed enough in extremism to know what that is without googling.
Om — as a guy who served, no–I wouldn’t refuse to serve any of those people.
DNW – I’d ask my lawyer if I was allowed to (yes, he’s on speed-dial). The answer would likely be “no” due to the Civil Rights act. So I’d seat them so long as they were behaving themselves and I didn’t have cause to think they’d otherwise make trouble in my establishment.
Mark says he served, I suspect he served with Yammer in Star Wars.
But to Markey the Mark, to serve a member of military is OK, but policemen, firemen, EMTs, and any other icky feelz can only be served if it’s good with his vibe of the day.
What if a military dude had a Maltese Cross tat, would he be eligible for good feelz, good vibe service? Your allies doxed a wounded disabled veteran for such a tat because they said it was an Iron Cross tat, which it wasn’t. They are not the same Markey the Mark.
As someone who has admitted he doesn’t know what the law actually is, your assurances of compliance are so much squat. Such a poser and a tool. 🙂
Om – I just gotta say, you seem really young.
Mark:
Five years ago it was not a conservative majority opinion that it would be a good idea to not serve people in a restaurant because of their political beliefs. However – and perhaps the following is the nugget of truth in what you seem to be trying to say – it was (and I believe it remains) a conservative belief to believe that you have a legal right to refuse to serve them.
And of course, other people have a legal right to boycott your establishment if they don’t like what you’re doing.
It was way back in the 60s when Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for the following reasons:
Goldwater was no racist, and his opposition was based on an entirely different principle. But he was called a racist, and the label hurt him in the election. His particular point of view became more and more rare in the GOP as time went on (actually, it wasn’t that common in 1964, either).
I’m pretty hopeful that Mark is not merely what Neo terms a “concern troll”, busy diverting himself by probing her site for evidence of “wrong think” when people use insufficiently emotive or too technical language.
No, I trust he is every bit the traditional conservative he claims to be; and one who embraces all the traditional libertarian property rights values of conservatives, except of course for the ones he doesn’t.
And unlike certain other people who infer racisism has reared its ugly head merely on the basis of a use of the term “racialist” to describe a racialist, instead of the synonym “racist”, we, on the other hand should refrain from drawing conclusions about Mark just because he complains of “cruelty” instead of crminal action, and talks of “we as a society” instead of law and real principles. So let’s make allowances and not be like certain others who shrilly indict on the basis of linguistic usages as “tells”.
And although Mark is no lawyer, much less a civil rights law expert, he would, he assures us, take all due precautions when ejecting would-be patrons from his establishments based on his feelings about them. So we should credit him with that too.
Unless it were Tucker Carlson and his wife or Ms Huckabee and her family, of course.
So let’s all give Mark-the-traditional-conservative a chance to explain exactly how this all works out. So far it apparently has something to do with feelings, and being out of step with the Zeitgeist, and something to do with a “decisioning process” which “we as a society” – some of us anyway – have undergone: all of which is not law, but kinda like law, maybe; or at least social permission. Sort of. Or something.
Let’s then give Mark another chance. Eventually he might be able explain himself in a way that will allow other people to better understand what he is really up to.
Neo – The edict of “My House–My Rules” is long-standing and conservative. The application of that to political position is, yeah, pretty new. However, make no mistake: I find the Trump admin repulsive and the multitudes who have bent to it, sickening.
I realize you don’t want to hear that–indeed, having thrown in, likely *cannot* hear it without making all sorts of internal deflections.
But here we are.
DNW – you asked for a answers, I gave them to you, and now what? Run away passive-aggressively with your tail between your legs? I thought you were one of the heavy hitters here.
1. As a church-going Christian I reject cruelty for the sake of it. If that’s alien to you, well, brush up. There’s a widely read book I feel certain you can get your hands on.
2. As for “inferring” racism? Well, I asked you if Spencer was a racist. You didn’t respond.
Is Spencer a racist? Tell us.
Mark:
You realize no such thing.
You think I care and/or “don’t want to hear” that you “find the Trump administration repulsive and the multitudes who have bent to it sickening”? Let me make it completely clear: that’s not my objection to you at all. I hear that every day from multitudes of people, some of them those near and dear to me. Why on earth would I care that you, a troll on the internet, would say it as well?
Although much of what you write is poorly reasoned and people find it rather easy to refute, I find that some of what you say is interesting and have chosen to engage with you for a while. That’s all.
Just in case someone hasn’t mentioned it: restaurants are not functional monopolies and neither are bakeries. The tech companies are analogues of the old Bell System, not ordinary retail trade. And they have been colluding in certain cases.
Neo – To be clear, here: I’m just explaining to you why people with the admin have trouble in other areas of their lives: because they have stood for a disgusting. unAmerican, vile regime.
That you personally have thrown in with it too is what makes these reactions seem so new and alien to you (and not-conservative) and why you misunderstand people’s responses.
Markey the Mark first threw down the veteran card to protect his arguments from scrutiny, now he throws down the “church-going Christian” card to add some additional vibe for his feelz.
Somehow I don’t believe this weak ploy either. Is your congregation out from under the COVID-19 restrictions? Can you pass the offering, can you take communion in the pre-COVID-19 fashion, sing hymns without a mask to glorify our God and Savior? Look these up on the web before you answer, tool.
It is rich that you purport to educate our hostess. What an arrogant poser and a tool. 🙂
Om – DNW apparently isn’t concerned with cruelty–so I explained to him why I was. Our congregation meets only partially in person with most meeting online and, no not out of COVID-19 yet. I expect if Trump had taken it seriously from the start we’d be far better off today.
Ymarsakar:
An example of a few of my previous comments to you about flat earth, etc.: this, this, and this.
Mark:
You ignorant **ut, governors set COVID-19 policy and restrictions for the states but the virus isn’t under their control or under President Trump’s control. Sorry that your feelz or expectations don’t match the world, much less facts. And you expect anyone to take you seriously?
What a tool.
Mark on November 18, 2020 at 2:53 pm said:
Now, you attempt to explain yourself in terms of public accommodation law and the consistency of operative principles instead of feelings, as I, and others have repeatedly asked.
If some of that effort takes you beyond your ken, then just tell us instead how you would “take all legal precautions … “ before ejecting the Black Hebrew Israelites from your tea room because you don’t like what you understand they stand for.
As I said, the clock is ticking. There are empty tables available, and they demand to be seated and served.
Not at all. Am I not patiently attempting to get you to clarify just what it is you imagine your are saying, even though you admit that you really don’t have much background knowledge relevant to the real constitutional principles involved?
Why you thought that, and how you arrived at that conclusion is something I have no interest in; and is irrelevant to the matter at hand anyway.
I suppose what you meant to say is that: you reject being cruel for no reason other than for the sake [benefit] of being cruel or for the sake of your religion; and not that you reject cruelty for the sake of [it] cruelty. As in: “I reject adultery for the sake of my soul.” Or, I reject adultery for the sake of my marriage”; and not that you as you appeared to have said ” … reject adultery for the sake of [it] adultery.”
Well then, nice to know that you reject being cruel just to be cruel, or for the sake of your religion.
Sure I did. Virtually right out of the gate. I even provided you with a dictionary definition which lists it as a synonym. You seemed disinclined to accept that definition because of some third and then eventually fourth term you mention which you believe you have detected racists using. I guess for you, it’s “Father Son and Holy Ghost” and never “Spirit”, or nothing. Always “Es regnet heute” and never “It is raining today”, or else – propositional content be … uh damned. [By the way, I admit that that illustration comes from Bertrand Russell’s essay on propositional content. But perhaps he was a racist too, and any reference to his work ought to be condemned as well.
Back reference.:
Re. Your claim that you did not take, ” ‘umbrage’ at racialist”. Well I did not say that you did. I said that you took umbrage at the use of the term racialist. You first claimed to have gotten vibes from the term because you have seen other people using the term “War of Northern Aggression” and you (apparently) conclude that they are prima facie proved racist there by. Now, you object to the use of the term “racialist” because you say that you have caught people you know to be racists using the term “race realists”. Apparently to your mind this indicates that use of the term racialist is prima facie proof of racism too. Do you have any idea of demented and irrational you sound?
I already did. Several times. Maybe you have some suspicion in mind other than racism?
DNW – Can you say “Spencer is a racist”? It seems you’re reluctant to–preferring the term “racialist” instead. Racialist is a neutral term. Racist is negative.
So–are you are unwilling to use a negative term to describe Spencer’s Nazism? It would appear so. Why is that?
Neo: you must be so proud of your readership here.
Secondly: I’ve already answered–as the civil rights act prohibits discrimination based on race or religion, I’d seat them.
What now?
Mark:
Are you are racialist? If not now, when did you stop being a racialist? It would seem so since you are familiar with racist sites on Google. You brought up StormFront after all which is quite unusual here.
I am amazed at the insight and wisdom shown since your recent arrival in the comments section (not). Those characteristics may appear at some time in the future, but so far you prove to be a tool and a troll.
I’m very well versed in extremism in America. So, yes, I know things like Tucker Carlson has his own fan-page on StormFront and that they love what he says on his show.
Mark doesn’t appear to understand the concept of guilt by association. What a sad little tool.
“I know things ….” LOL
om:
Oh, I think Mark understands it, all right. He just doesn’t understand that it’s a fallacy. Or maybe he does, and it’s still one of his favorite tools.
Looks as though you are determined to avoid addressing the legal issues you yourself provoked with your foggy minded bloviations.
Instead, you have assigned yourself the task of soliciting and then ensuring that denunciations are not only issued, but take on the snappy Hitler salute form which you find reassuring and emotionally satisfying.
This as your quest wends its way through the Internet in an attempt to identify wreckers, revisionists, and those whose zeal and ardor may be suspect.
Sure, Mark. I can say Richard Spencer is a racist, and I would be glad to do so to your crypto-fascist collectivist face if it came to that. But as a matter of interest first note that both you and Spencer have a great deal in common with each other in your general attitudes; diverging only on the details as to who gets into your solidarity prison, as opposed to the greater similarity as to how it works on the inside.
Now, people here know that I am not a fan of citing movies and books as a form of argument or even illustration. But in your case, I think an old movie I just watched recently called “Decision Before Dawn” fills part of that bill nicely.
The premise of the purportedly true tale is that of a young German POW recruited to enter Nazi Germany winter of ’45, and obtain information for the Allies on defensive deployments on the east bank of the Rhine.
Made in 1951, just a handful of years after the end of the war, it was shot on still ruined locations; where the memory and evidence of what the Nazi state was really like, were very fresh and alive.
What was most impressively conveyed, was the incredible vigilance of the Nazis, their incessant demands for expressions of ardor and zeal, the check-points at every cross roads, and the incessant demand that one show one’s papers and group membership; the intensity of which, along the insane mentality behind it, is only barely grazed by treatments made years later, and at a distance, but well exemplified by yourself.
So, in speaking of vibes Mark, it is you who give off the most incredible vibe: not of the “Christian” you claim to be, but that of the Nazi or the Stalinist Party operative.
I am not even slightly sympathetic to the principles of racism or Nazism or fascism. [The vaguely comic, sometimes explicitly so, homoerotic tinge these ideologies develop is alarming in itself as a cue to what natural law principles they run afoul of at a glance.] But your anti-intellectual, know-nothing solidarity pimping and denunciation fetishes undeniably amount to essentially the same life-way psychological program which the Nazis and Soviets embraced, just viewed from a slightly different angle.
You may be some kind of “conservative” Mark, but you are no American; no real principled friend of individual liberty and conscience. Instead you are a kind of proto-brownshirt, an embryo Chekist, masquerading as a Christian.
Now, if you want to get back to the issue at hand you can tell us, ” …. how you would, “take all legal precautions … “ before ejecting the Black Hebrew Israelites from your tea room because you don’t like what you understand they stand for.”
Personally I think your time would best be spent trying to use your mind to tease out the implications of your own jibber jabber, rather than trolling for abuse dressed in your brown shirt.
But it is your call, and your life … such as it is.
I know things like Tucker Carlson has his own fan-page on StormFront and that they love what he says on his show.
What does he say that bothers you?
DNW – That’s . . . a wall of text. I’ve answered your questions but you don’t like how it all turned out for you, I guess.
Maybe it’s because you’re enraged Trump lost (are you self-soothing with tales of “voter fraud”? I don’t know). But in the morning facts still don’t care about your feelings, alas.
Art – I don’t watch him with any regularity. But he’s got the nazis glued to their TVs.
Art – I don’t watch him with any regularity. But he’s got the nazis glued to their TVs.
I’m betting your contact at Correct-the-Record told you to be subtler than this.
Mark can’t digest adult answers to his questions.
Hillary is still not his President nor his mommy.
Sucks to be him, a sad little tool.
Art – Where is the lie, tho?
Mark
Barry – Not all Tucker fans are Storm Front guys–but the Storm Front guys surely are Tucker Carlson fans.
Mark is so lacking in original thoughts that he feels the need to recycle an old Demo theme that is at least 80 years old. I am reminded of Demo VP candidate Henry Wallace during the 1940 campaign.
From Thomas Fleming’s book The New Dealer’s War: F.D.R. and the War within World War II, on page 77.
Sounds a bit like Mark, doesn’t it?
There is a bit of irony in the “appeaser” label. Undoubtedly VP Wallace would have labeled as “appeaser” the Republicans who voted in 1941 against extension of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. Guess what? A quarter of the Democrats in the House of Representatives also voted in 1941 against extension of the Selective Service Act. (See footnote 4 of the link.)
Mark on November 18, 2020 at 8:18 pm said:
Yeah Mark, and there is another one coming.
But I don’t mind taking the time to lay out the problems with your reasoning. And watch for it … regarding your ethical practices and standards. It’s an education for all concerned.
Yeah, so, regarding these walls of text: It has apparently escaped your notice that quoting the question you are replying to, or at least keeping it in one place is sound practice … unless you are trying to get it in unnoticed, or playing a troll game and dropping replies like rabbit turds in the weeds …
So let’s assemble some of your latest material and see what we have got:
OK. So you address Om, and then drop in an apparent response to me in behind it, without referencing the question. Lazy? Negligent? Intentionally burying a retreat? I guess your motives are somewhat moot at this point.
Your response is basically that you would kick them out on principle and preference, but because you might run afoul the Civil Rights act, you would back down. Whereas you would kick out Huckabee or Carlson because you figure it won’t cause you problems. Got it.
Then,
There was no “First” anywhere, but apparently that is another part of your “answer” to the question of how you work your program; dropped in behind an address to Neo.
But we do learn that you would definitely suck it up, shut up, and start serving, if it were Farrakhan or the Black Hebrew Israelites, in order to avoid the trouble of defending your principles and preferences. Because someone might say you are a racist for acting on principle, and that might cost you, so better to to bend over and take it like a … “conservative church goer”?
Now then, let’s put it all together:
Where then does this get us regarding Mark’s principles and practices? Well apparently he will do what he thinks he can get away with: principled Christian Conservative that he proclaims himself to be …
Give him some credit for admitting it though.
Sometimes he figures he can live like a man:
Mark on November 17, 2020 at 7:54 pm said:
… I’m old school (conservative). My house, my rules.
Sometimes he feels downright bold!:
Mark on November 18, 2020 at 11:53 am said:
Whether or not *I* would deny someone service is based on my own personal feelings. … I’m not trying to “justify it in legal terms. …”
And sometimes when danger lurks, he just shuts up and does what he is told, whether the predicate directing it is true or not:
“I’d seat them so long as they were behaving themselves and I didn’t have cause to think they’d otherwise make trouble in my establishment.” Or trouble for you Mark … make trouble for you.
Thanks Mark. It was like herding a cat, but finally we got you there.
Equal treatment, until an exemption. Your “principles” and preferences, until you are told they cannot be applied. Your house, until it isn’t.
Like I said folks, give the guy credit for admitting it. Finally.
There was a troll named “Mark” on the Bayou Renaissance Man blog last week who I’m guessing is the same person as on this thread. The post was on 11-11-20:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2020/11/how-can-anyone-deny-what-is-now-beyond.html
The way the blog owner (Peter) handled him was classic:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6244999628674918029&postID=7740426866393764915&isPopup=true&bpli=1
Looks like the troll came back to comment on other posts, however.
Oliver T:
Yes, that may be the same person. However, trolls often do have a certain resemblance to each other. That “Mark” seems a bit more polite than this “Mark.”
Our Markey the mark claims to be a veteran and a church-going Christian too, but this is the internet and he actually is a dog.
I have two great dogs now and have had many other fine dogs before them. Markey the mark is an absolute stain on canines.
DNW – I’ve always said I’d abide by the law. I never said otherwise. That you think it’s some kind of massive discovery is . . . kind of amazing.
Neo can see how far her “conservatism” has come since now apparently obeying the law is some kind of moral failing.
But yeah: if it was legal to kick out Sanders and my staff was uncomfortable? I’d ask her to leave. That’s not a contradiction–it’s just, you know, the law.
I guess you idolize rioters who are not “just doing what they’re told?” Good to know.
Neo – Sorry. I’m not “the same person” as whoever that is. And I’m way more polite than your regulars.
Mark doesn’t even own his own words when quoted in a response, a typical slippery troll. What a sad little tool.
Another attempt at misdirection and baseless maligning. Recall, Mark, that what you claim is the right to discriminate in the matter of public accommodation based on reputation and politics, or any number of affinity reasons unrelated to the person’s racial makeup or other specially protected characteristics.
– “… I’m old school (conservative). My house, my rules
– ” Whether or not *I* would deny someone service is based on my own personal feelings. … I’m not trying to “justify it in legal terms. …”
As you are such a determined hunter of racists real or imagined, presumably your previously stated objection to the presence of Farrakhan or the Black Hebrew Israelites in your tea room, was due to their virulent politics and public statements, not to their skin tones or genetic heritage.
The question at issue then, was, as I have repeatedly stated: ” do these “special protections” serve to legally immunize them from [any] ejection [action] based on their [previous] public statements or reputation? “.(bracketted words added to clearly reproduce context which may have been lost in quoting))
Your answer is that you would speed dial your lawyer – who you presumably view as the civil rights law expert you say you are not -in hopes of finding out. That is, finding out whether you might get in trouble for acting on your preferences in their cases, as they were “black.”
However, in the case of a “white” person you wished to eject for wrong politics or opinions, you feel secure that you may do so without any messy legal entanglements or potential consequences to yourself, because they are white. In their instances you feel you have permission to just feed your spite and eject them.
So as you say, “Good to know”.
Now is there some principle or number of principles involved in all this that guide you? Well, on one level you say “No”. But on another level, the level of avoiding trouble and consequences for Mark, the answer is clearly a rather squalid, “Yes”. That is, if being determinedly unprincipled can be said to be a principle of some sort.
No, Mark, far from being “old school”, your conservatism, as well as your Christianity, must be some new kinds: invented specifically for the convenience and self-justification of Mark.
Thst is also “good to know”.
DNW – Don’t pull a muscle with that stretch. I know you’re feeling exposed now–but I’m sorry: you did it to yourself.
Let’s see if I can disentangle you:
1. I’m not a determined hunter of racists. I just know when someone calls Spencer’s racism by a neutral term what they’re doing. It’s not rocket science.
2. The law says I can’t discriminate on race or religion so I won’t do that. It doesn”t say anything about politics–so if someone working for the (vile) Trump admin is around me, I’m gonna seek to remedy that. Again, not rocket science. It’s hard for you–but there it is.
3. Rule of law is more important than my personal preferences. I also don’t go around punching people in the mouth who say things I don’t like. Am I to take it you do? Or . . . are u a sheeple? I bet you’re a sheeple.
Man, this election has really broken y’all.
Um, DNW, not sure if you’re aware of this (he mentioned it in another thread) but you’re “debating” with a Russia hoaxer.
FWIW.
Barry: I don’t think you can describe this “hoax” you think I believe.
I mean, I believe the Manafort report and the Senate Intel Report.
Do you?
* Mueller Report.
Mark “… I know things…” Who says he won’t assault non-people who think and say “vile” things he doesn’t like now says to DNW
“Am I to take it to you?”
Does Markey the mark want a duel and digital dust up, a LARP curb stomp? Markey the mark is LARPing the Black Knight of The Holy Grail.
Sounds like a keyboard veteran of Star Wars.
What a pathetic little tool.
I glanced briefly at the link to the other Mark.
Although concern trolls might make the rounds to a number of sites on their mission to confound and indict, the Mark over there does not look obviously like the Mark here.
This Mark, resembles no one so much as the sensitive conservative “Bill” of the 2016 election cycle. The shtick is the same: a self-described Christian and old time conservative (or Republican) bemoans the fallen state and the crass, vulgar, combative and, he has discovered, secretely racist nature his beloved Republican Party, or Conservative movement has assumed. Why, he can hardly recognize it any more. It is filled with rednecks, scripture spouting fanatics, science deniers, and unprincipled selfish types concerned with little more than their own “freedom” … in quotes, always in quotes: if seldom written, frequently implied.
But fortunately our old timey Sensitive Conservative has his Christian principles and his classical Republican committments to guide him in the “decisioning process” – as one example recently describes it.
Even, if liberty, or strict equality before the law, or the rule of law itself – as sensitive conservative “Bill” admitted – must be sacrificed for the good of, we the people, or society, or compassion or some other business like that.
Yes his principles are those of conservatism and his Christian faith. Don’t ask for details though, he won’t be pinned down by fanatical constitutionalist types. His conservativism, evolves, and grows and is his own – a secret garden of conservative beauty hypocritical present day conservatives are too blind to see or coarse to understand.
That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.
IDK, DNW– You look pretty cowardly here. You’re upset that someone would obey the law while finding the Trump admin–and its admirers–to be morally and ethically bankrupt (which, you know, they clearly are).
Look: Neo left the Democrats because of the lies. I get that.
Today you are forced to believe (or say you believe) lies to be a good “Republican.” And she wants more and more of that.
You know cruelty is wrong (if you’re a Christian)–but you can’t *say* that because, hey, The Great Man.
You know that following the law is the right thing to do–but you find yourself forced to speak against it when you’re faced with legal consequences of your actions.
I don’t know if you believe the election was stolen by massive fraud–but I assure you that your elected leaders know it was not–and they are lying to you guys out of fear of hurting The Great Man’s feelings (and, by extension, the tribe that has made him their idol).
You asked for details and you got them–you claim “I won’t be pinned down”–but I’ve answered every one of your questions.
Mark is still engaging in the same routine, but fraying noticeably around the edges.
If this went on long enough, Mark eventually would drop any references to his supposed Christianity and conservatism altogether, just as he has abandoned on point argument.
Mark is just about there now.
DNW – Do you believe the election was stolen?
What you are watching is Mark having a kind of breakdown as his facade of Christianity and conservatism has been documented and demonstrated, in his own words, for what it is: a sham.
As Mark claims he is not motivated by principle, one would think that he would not mind being quoted to that effect.
But when such an admission is highlighted, it cuts his facde off at the ground floor; and now we see him scurrying arund looking for cover.
Markey the mark (The Black Knight) has a few scratches but still fights on.
What a pathetic little tool.
DNW – I don’t mind being quoted–and I have no problem answering questions.
But I guess y’all can’t do the same.
Do you think the election was stolen?
Do you believe the Mueller Report and the Senate Intel Report?
These are easy.
Malarkey mark now tries to change the subject to show his rad skilz since his vibes aren’t cool.
Speaking to him doesn’t work so just speak of him.
What a pathetic little tool. 🙂
Hi Barry,
No I was not aware of it. And I guess I don’t know whether you mean that literally proximately, or ironically and at a remove as in an unwitting tool of …
I’ll take a look later this afternoon I have some work piling up at the moment, and although amusement has its place, I’m not Senile Joe’s crack head son, and I cannot delegate all the labor to the serfs at my command. One can only grind the faces of the poor so far, before they become useless; n’est-ce pas?
Mark on November 19, 2020 at 1:17 pm said:
Don’t see much that needs covering. A little clean-up maybe.
Mark says,
You might as well not mind, Mark. As whether you do or not, makes no difference to me.
Well now, that’s quite the matter of opinion, isn’t it. At the very least you have mechanical or protocol problems doing it insofar as you do it. And it certainly took some doing before I finally got you to admit that if faced with a matter of personal principle in standing up for your vaunted “preferences” and your doctrine of ” My house, my rules.”, should the Black Hebrew Israelites appear in your tea room and offend you with their socially “vile” expressions you would:
– “speed dial” (is that a thing nowadays?) your attorney
– and then fold like a cheap tent on the “preferences” and “house rules” game. Even though it is ostensibly not their race, but rather their opinions you find to be vile, and you would not presumably be violating the intent of the law by ejecting them for their politics …. As you assert would freely do with ‘white ‘people like Tucker Carlson, or Ms Huckabee.
What variety of Christianity is it that you claim to adhere to anyway?
Then you have guessed wrong.
It has not been yet. The popular vote has not been certified by all states, much less the electors having been convened and voted. Certainly you know that? Or do you?
In any event, given the multiple issues regarding the popular vote collection and tabulation, including ballot harvesting, mysteriously appearing ballots arriving many days after the election, assertions of vote totals exceeding eligible voters and numerous others: I am sure that you as a “conservative” would readily agree that cautious and deliberate examination of all the evidence is in order before Creepy Joe Biden P.O.S, metamorphoses into Creepy Joe Biden POTUS
Provide text in context, provide citations, be specific as to what exactly you are asking, and trust that all answers will surely come to you.
Lot’s of things look easy until you examine them closely. As you found out when your, “my house, my rules” , boast transformed into you dropping to your knees on command and without a peep, as soon as the critical operative distinctions which applied in the case, might have had to have been publicly defended.
The first line of the post above should not have appeared.
“Mark” did not say, “Don’t see much that needs covering … ”
I did.
Apparently the ID line of his comment did not back out after I copied his text for a response. It probably became “invisible” at the top of the text window as I produced my response.