Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Tolerance vs intolerance - where is the middle ground?


LogicalFallacy

Recommended Posts

Finally rounded out some thoughts on this. As this is a forum and not the government I see no problem with agreed upon guidelines for posting. Toleration of all things in all situations can be counterproductive. Nor as a society do I think it is beneficial or noble for tolerance of all things to be the highest goal. Tolerance is a tricky word because of how it is bandied about in false equivalencies. Being intolerant of behaviors that trespass on a persons rights is not the same intolerance as the intolerant behaviors. One may be ethical and the other bigoted. That said it makes me uncomfortable for posts here to be deleted. I would much rather call out the things that I find loathesome. I also do not think that stating that something disgusts me and why is intolerant in the truest sense because I am not stopping that person from posting or advocating for posts to be deleted. There should be a place for disagreement to not be labeled as intolerance. Otherwise tolerance becomes apathy. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

A nice video clip for this thread of discussion: 

 

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

A rebirth of Free Speech? 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
21 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

A nice video clip for this thread of discussion: 

 

 

 

Rogan rocks!

Who is the other guy?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
4 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

A rebirth of Free Speech? 

 

 

 

I’ve got the audio version of this Dave Rubin podcast cued up for my commute. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator

"The niggers are moving into white communities and if one tries to move into our neighborhood we must use whatever means we can to keep them out."

 

"The Jews are at the heart of our economic woes. They are thieves who have seized control of our banking system. They must be stopped somehow."

 

"Muslims have committed terrorist acts so we must never let any Muslims cross our border."

 

"Mexican immigrants are mostly drug dealers and rapists, therefore we must do whatever it takes to keep them from coming here."

 

Are any of these statements reflecting what you define as bigotry? Should any of these statements be tolerated in a civil society? Some of them? Does free speech include hate speech that calls for action against a targeted group?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd like to add one to your list, since it is of relevance here recently:

 

"As long as we continue to treat women as equals to men, a biological absurdity that will one day be the butt of many jokes for comedians of the future, women will continue to make horrible decisions that hurt themselves, their families, and their reproductive potential. Unless we take action soon to reconsider the freedoms that women now have, the very survival of Western civilization is at stake." -- Roosh V

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

I'd like to add one to your list, since it is of relevance here recently:

 

"As long as we continue to treat women as equals to men, a biological absurdity that will one day be the butt of many jokes for comedians of the future, women will continue to make horrible decisions that hurt themselves, their families, and their reproductive potential. Unless we take action soon to reconsider the freedoms that women now have, the very survival of Western civilization is at stake." -- Roosh V

This is an excellent example of the kind of statement I am intolerant of.

And it's a rather sad fact that Roosh is getting tacit approval for saying positive things in another thread.

If a person advocates reconsidering freedoms for half of the human species, anything else they say in my books loses it's value and is garbage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Burnedout said:

 

Either you have free speech or you have censorship.

 

Do you think this site should allow evangelical Christians to proselytize members anywhere they want across the forums, and if not do you consider the fact that they are disallowed from doing so censorship?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Burnedout said:

 

Sure we should, but that does not preclude any of us to confront them.  They are allowed to do that in the Lion's Den.  You can see the result of those attempts in there.  Works. 

 

You are saying sure we should allow evangelical Christians to post anywhere on the site, or sure we should only allow them to do it in the Lion's den? Is restricting them to the Lion's Den a form of censorship? You wrote that "either we have free speech or censorship". I'm trying to understand what limits on "free speech" are tolerable to you, since clearly this site already has limits on what you can say, as was already pointed out previously in this thread. Do you think the rule against personal insults amounts to censorship also or should personal attacks be allowed?

 

I guess the other problem with what you wrote, and it's also been pointed out a few times, is that moderation on this site is not at all like "totalitarian government", precisely because this is one website and not the government. The guidelines again make this point succinctly:

 

Quote

Ex-Christian.Net strongly believes in freedom of speech. We believe everybody should have the freedom to post whatever they like on their own websites, within the boundaries of the law. Anyone who finds the moderation policies of this site too constraining is free to create another website tailored to fit his or her personal preferences. (emphasis mine)

 

My opinion is obviously that the guidelines that already exist make sense, are neither censorship nor a violation of anyone's rights (by definition), and are vastly preferable to a completely unmoderated forum, but mainly here I was just trying to get at what I see as a false dichotomy between "free speech" and "censorship". I suppose in this sense I think florduh makes a mistake to ask whether these statements ought to be tolerated by a civil society. I'm only really concerned about whether they should be tolerated by this forum. Hate speech laws are a different problem from forum moderation and it's probably not helpful to conflate them.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Although really, to cut to the chase, I think the bigger question is this: should this forum have a super moderator who believes that women are inferior and have too many rights? Can someone with those opinions fairly moderate discussions involving politics and social issues? Maybe the problem isn't actually the extreme views, but his seeming inability to participate without being an asshole to anyone who disagrees with him, but I feel like the two are related.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
12 hours ago, florduh said:

"The niggers are moving into white communities and if one tries to move into our neighborhood we must use whatever means we can to keep them out."

 

"The Jews are at the heart of our economic woes. They are thieves who have seized control of our banking system. They must be stopped somehow."

 

"Muslims have committed terrorist acts so we must never let any Muslims cross our border."

 

"Mexican immigrants are mostly drug dealers and rapists, therefore we must do whatever it takes to keep them from coming here."

 

Are any of these statements reflecting what you define as bigotry? Should any of these statements be tolerated in a civil society? Some of them? Does free speech include hate speech that calls for action against a targeted group?

 

All bigoted. All protected by free speech. No such actions were outlined. Do what to keep out blacks? Stop the Jews in what way? Legislate the Muslims from crossing our borders or something else? Keep Mexican's from coming here how? I've had the police say there's nothing they can do about speech that went in much worse directions than any of this. So I assume there's quite a lot blanketed by free speech. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
1 hour ago, wellnamed said:

 

Do you think this site should allow evangelical Christians to proselytize members anywhere they want across the forums, and if not do you consider the fact that they are disallowed from doing so censorship?

 

I'd let'em lose and tan their hides for trying, but that's just me. Other's seem to frown on that prospect. In other forums that weren't necessarily deconversion themed  (just atheist dominant) that's the way it went, so I'm familiar with absolute free range proselytizing and whipping the shit out of those who try it. Then the proselytizing get's more cautious by default. And readers can decide what makes sense and what doesn't.  

 

But I understand that the setting here is one where it may be too emotionally damaging for some to be subjected to christian proselytizing early on in a deconversion process. So it is what it is here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Burnedout said:

As for ASSUMING a mod hates women is a bit presumptuous.  Perhaps you should ask that mod directly instead of making an assumption about what he said purely made in frustration?

 

I don't have to make any assumptions, he's said as much himself. You'll have to forgive me, since I'm currently unable to access ToT it's difficult for me to quote the thread, but he was asked explicitly about the quote I cited above, and his response was this:

 

Quote

Not sure if there would be many who would be ready for my reasoning nor opinions about results and costs to society of universal woman's suffrage....


In some answer to your questioning I do not disagree with much of Roosh's printed rational about many issues.

 

So he explicitly agrees with depriving women of the right to vote and refused to disagree with Roosh's views on women's inferiority, instead stipulating his wide agreement with him. And it's not at all plausible that Skip didn't know of these views beforehand, nor does he argue that he was uninformed. The OP itself rather coyly refers to Roosh's radioactively toxic views. There's a reason Skip chose to approvingly link to those same views. 

 

And as far as skip being generally toxic to conversations, it's kind of obvious just in the choice to start that thread, as well as so many of his previous interactions with posters over the years. Like I said, I don't think there's really any "civil" way to say this, the root issue is probably more just that he's an asshole to everyone who doesn't share his views.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
30 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

So he explicitly agrees with depriving women of the right to vote and refused to disagree with Roosh's views on women's inferiority, instead stipulating his wide agreement with him. And it's not at all plausible that Skip didn't know of these views beforehand, nor does he argue that he was uninformed. The OP itself rather coyly refers to Roosh's radioactively toxic views. There's a reason Skip chose to approvingly link to those same views. 

 

How do you KNOW which views Skip agrees with and which he does not?

 

For one thing, the link Skip posted was entirely different thing than the separate blog entry which was brought into the discussion later. Which I had to ask for citation for because I couldn't find it in Skips posted article. After reading the separate article that Skip didn't post, I asked Skip, jokingly, to explain his thoughts on the second very misogynistic blog entry which wasn't part of the first article. I'm waiting to hear what he thinks about the overly misogynistic one. 

 

So conflating the two separate entries into one, and then assuming that you know exactly what Skip meant when he probably only meant that he disagree's very little with the link that he actually posted (the far less misogynistic one, and which the context of his OP comments alluded to) which was tame in comparison to the second one which was introduced later down the thread, seems like another case of crying wolf.

 

Maybe you're right, but I don't plan on taking your accusations at face value without first hearing what he actually thinks about the 2nd very misogynistic issue, before jumping to conclusions. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The entry I cited is linked from the page Skip cited. It's one click away, there in the sidebar with it's glorious headline: "Women Must Have Their Behavior And Decisions Controlled By Men". I found it by reading the page.

 

But this is beside the point given skip's response. What do you think he meant when he wrote that he was not sure if there would be many who "would be ready for my reasoning nor opinions about results and costs to society of universal woman's suffrage"? I contend that the meaning is very, very obvious, and even more so in context. As is his claim that he does not disagree with Roosh about much. If you want to pretend that the meaning of his response is not clear then you are free to do so, but I'd suggest you read it again in context because it's not particularly ambiguous. And by all means, ask him yourself if you want. He's welcome to post here and say that he does not agree that women's rights should be restricted.

 

Also, and I feel like I shouldn't really even need to resort to this kind of argumentation, but also it just seems kind of obvious, if I linked to a Roosh article and someone dug up that quote and asked me about it, my response would not be to double down on the fact that there is not much I disagree with him about. I would say I disagreed with him about that! And again it's obvious he is aware of Roosh's more inflammatory views. He said as much. I also think it's silly to ignore the fact that the stuff in the "neomasculinity" article is highly misogynistic all on its own. It's not like it was necessary to go find more, it's just that that article provided such a succinct summary of what is somewhat more diffuse in the other page. But all that talk about "the true nature of women" and the benefits of patriarchy is already awful male supremacist misogyny. Again, you can choose to ignore that if you like, that's your prerogative. But don't try to tell me that reading what is obviously there is a failure to give the benefit of the doubt. There is no doubt.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
14 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

The entry I cited is linked from the page Skip cited. It's one click away, there in the sidebar with it's glorious headline: "Women Must Have Their Behavior And Decisions Controlled By Men". I found it by reading the page.

 

 

Yes, you have to leave the page he cited to read it. There's all kinds of other links that aren't represented there. Hence my asking where it came from?

 

14 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

But this is beside the point given skip's response. What do you think he meant when he wrote that he was not sure if there would be many who "would be ready for my reasoning nor opinions about results and costs to society of universal woman's suffrage"? I contend that the meaning is very, very obvious, and even more so in context. As is his claim that he does not disagree with Roosh about much. If you want to pretend that the meaning of his response is not clear then you are free to do so, but I'd suggest you read it again in context because it's not particularly ambiguous. And by all means, ask him yourself if you want. He's welcome to post here and say that he does not agree that women's rights should be restricted.

 

You may be right, but I would think that given this accusation he wouldn't be for taking away the rights of anyone, man or women. The Skip that I seeing posting seems to me like a pro-rights activist, in the libertarian department. That being the case, it doesn't make any sense in context. Again, he might have conflicting views about libertarianism, but I doubt it. 

 

14 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

Also, and I feel like I shouldn't really even need to resort to this kind of argumentation, but also it just seems kind of obvious, if I linked to a Roosh article and someone dug up that quote and asked me about it, my response would not be to double down on the fact that there is not much I disagree with him about. I would say I didn't disagree with him about that! And again it's obvious he is aware of Roosh's more inflammatory views. He said as much. I also think it's silly to ignore the fact that the stuff in the "neomasculinity" article is highly misogynistic all on its own. It's not like it was necessary to go find more, it's just that that article provided such a succinct summary of what is somewhat more diffuse in the other page. But all that talk about "the true nature of women" and the benefits of patriarchy is already awful male supremacist misogyny. Again, you can choose to ignore that if you like, that's your prerogative. But don't try to tell me that reading what is obviously there is a failure to give the benefit of the doubt. There is no doubt.

 

I gave a summary of what I think about the American born Persians views on misogyny. Typical middle eastern archaic religious nonsense that comes out as you read further along, I agree with LF. That's why I went further and asked Skip if he was 'aware' of this other religious stuff. It's not very libertarian at all. And from what I can tell, he's very libertarian about personal freedom and liberty. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

 

You may be right, but I would think that given this accusation he wouldn't be for taking away the rights of anyone, man or women.

Is voting a right? I'm pretty sure it is. Pardon the sarcasm, but Skip's opinion on this issue seems to be pretty clear, as he is stating that his opinion likely wouldn't be too popular.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
7 minutes ago, TruthSeeker0 said:

Is voting a right? I'm pretty sure it is. Pardon the sarcasm, but Skip's opinion on this issue seems to be pretty clear, as he is stating that his opinion likely wouldn't be too popular.

 

Let's say you've judged this correctly and he really doesn't want women to have the right to vote. Then what? Shut him down from speaking or let it ride? Tolerate his right to an opinion or become intolerant of it? And if intolerant, to what end? 

 

This goes for Roosh too. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Let's say you've judged this correctly and he really doesn't want women to have the right to vote. Then what? Shut him down from speaking or let it ride? Tolerate his right to an opinion or become intolerant of it? And if intolerant, to what end? 

 

This goes for Roosh too. 

 

 

Since it was put so excellently earlier by @wellnamed, it deserves a repeat:

"Although really, to cut to the chase, I think the bigger question is this: should this forum have a super moderator who believes that women are inferior and have too many rights? Can someone with those opinions fairly moderate discussions involving politics and social issues? Maybe the problem isn't actually the extreme views, but his seeming inability to participate without being an asshole to anyone who disagrees with him, but I feel like the two are related."

 

To what end? Isn't is clear enough yet? Civil discussions would be pleasant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

Then what? Shut him down from speaking or let it ride? Tolerate his right to an opinion or become intolerant of it? And if intolerant, to what end? 

 

I think there's a discussion to be had about the site's mission and if a discussion about whether women deserve to be able to vote actually contributes to that mission or impedes it instead.

 

But, more immediately I don't actually care that much if he gets to express his opinion. I care that he is a moderator. You'll recall that a few days ago ToT got a timeout and a bunch of threads were deleted. That happened after I complained about Skip's threat to lock orbit's thread. Why did Skip do that? Why was that thread a problem while so many other threads in ToT -- many far less civil and productive -- were apparently not? Why did he go out of his way to treat her so insultingly in the process of threatening to close it? I would suggest the reason is because she's a feminist woman, he hates feminist women, and his actions demonstrate the way in which his bias clouds his ability to mod fairly.

 

After all that, why did he immediately create a new thread approvingly linking to just about the ugliest misogynist he could find on the internet, while throwing in references to sociologists as a jab? Why does he so often refer to femininity in a pejorative way, i.e. when he refers to "estrogen driven hipster... mankees" or complains about society succumbing to a "nutless androgynous so thought equality." Again, it's the same reason he approves of Roosh V. The misogyny is the point.

 

I recall that just in the last day or so we've had posts from ex-Christian women talking about the joy of being liberated from Christian dogma that makes them subservient to fathers and husbands. I wonder how they might feel about a discussion forum for ex-Christians where one of the principle moderators shares those same repressive views?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Burnedout said:

You are reading WAY more into this than I was saying or meaning.

 

I got distracted (obviously :P) but just wanted to say you're right. You were talking about government and I was thinking only about this forum. Sorry about that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
51 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

But, more immediately I don't actually care that much if he gets to express his opinion. I care that he is a moderator. You'll recall that a few days ago ToT got a timeout and a bunch of threads were deleted.

 

Discussion of moderator action is prohibited in the public forums here, as well as on most forums. 

51 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

I recall that just in the last day or so we've had posts from ex-Christian women talking about the joy of being liberated from Christian dogma that makes them subservient to fathers and husbands. I wonder how they might feel about a discussion forum for ex-Christians where one of the principle moderators shares those same repressive views?

 

Again, what if he did? It's all spelled out very clearly in the ToT rules.

 

Quote

TOT rules

Former Christian's are liberal, conservative, libertarian, independent, conservationalists, feminists, anti-feminists, kind, harsh, bitter, angry, laid back, hyper, heterosexual, homosexual, black, white, brown, yellow, red, capitalist, socialist, spiritual, atheist, etc., etc., etc. 

 

In other words, the only actual commonality between all former Christians is that they all formally considered themselves Christian. 

 

When leaving Christianity, a person gains a certain freedom from needing to ageee with or adhere to others' opinions, no matter how strongly held those opinions might be.  Ex-Christian authoritarian dogma does not exist. The only requirement to belonging to this community of ex-Christians is the act of leaving Christianity. 

 

When posting topics or participating in discussions, please keep the site's foundational purpose in mind: encouraging ex-Christians.  

 

Encouraging ex-christians to think differently about a controversial subject is fine, but insulting and baiting others when they disagree or for sheer entertainment is contrary to this site's purpose. 

 

Feel free to play here, but please try to respect each other and keep potentially heated (and for that matter all) discussions civil.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

Again, what if he did?

 

I already answered your question about why I think it matters and what I think should be done. I understand your reasons for not responding to what I wrote, but I don't think it's useful to act as if I didn't already give you an answer. In any case, while I understand the rationale behind the rule against public discussion of moderation, my opinion is that this issue has been festering on this site for literally years (it was a problem the first time I was here in 2015) and absent public discussion I doubt it will ever really be addressed. But at the very least I would encourage you to consider what I actually wrote privately, if not publicly.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, wellnamed said:

I recall that just in the last day or so we've had posts from ex-Christian women talking about the joy of being liberated from Christian dogma that makes them subservient to fathers and husbands. I wonder how they might feel about a discussion forum for ex-Christians where one of the principle moderators shares those same repressive views?

 

I was one of these women. Since you were wondering...

 

1) I would be curious to know what his actual views are. Who he agrees or disagrees with is his own business. What he thinks about women voting is his business. He has said he thinks people aren't ready for his views and, judging by the responses, I'd say he's probably right. But before we heap the labels and descriptions of his character, I'd want to hear and address what he actually thinks as opposed to the highest speculation.

 

2) I just don't give any sort of fuck, not even the softest or mildest of fucks, what skip thinks about women voting. It doesn't matter in the slightest bit to me, I'm not threatened literally at all. Whether he wants it or not, I can vote and until that right is even remotely close to being threatened, I will continue to not give a fuck. If he thinks what you think he thinks, well.... ha ha I can vote. If he doesn't, he'll clarify. But who cares, women can vote.

 

3) We can bitch about what he thinks all day long but it's not like it's changing his mind to "tsk tsk" him. These kinds of posts are a direct response to people telling other people how they should or should not think. A good "whatever, think what you want" calms this. As much as it pisses people off, his thoughts are his own and we cannot do one goddamn thing about it. Being "intolerant" of it just looks childish in my opinion. "Tolerating" it is not the same as accepting his views or embracing them. When you throw "you should or should not think/believe," around, things get messy.

 

4) I do think the "shit post" drama was not cool for the record, he knows I think this. We've aired grievances now, our options are to continue to make formal complaints, talk with skip directly about what can be done to alleviate the situation, or not tolerate it and leave. If it happens again, maybe more action can be taken. Maybe skip learned from that situation and will not do so again, which fixes some of the problem, right?

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.