Right in the Qualia @eliminativism - Tumblr Blog

Why Donald Trump’s Policy on China is So Fucking Stupid

Ok, now that the clickbait title is out of the way, please read:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-10/what-trump-s-odd-comment-on-china-trade-reveals

Honestly though, why do people:

1) Advocate for a return to zero-sum foreign policy when it completely destroys any hope of developing lasting alliances and maintaining our influence and power?

2) Believe that “fairness” matters in a zero-sum world, a point which the author points out in the article?

3) Think that we can actually compete with China in manufacturing–a country with a population four times the size of our own which is unbridled by labor & safety regulations?

4) Believe that using what leverage we have to demand policy changes “on our own terms” won’t seriously undermine the power that we already have?

Tagging the more conservative folks on here ( @friendly-neighborhood-patriarch @siryouarebeingmocked, @ad-hominem-sappies, @nyc-conservative and anyone else who wants to get in on this) so I can actually get a conversation going. If you’ve been tagged, please respond to this. I get tired of seeing the same stupid debates over SJWs and the “regressive left.” It’s time to focus on pertinent issues which will actually affect our society for years to come in more direct, meaningful ways.

-S3NATOR

siryouarebeingmocked

I’m “conservative”?

sosungalittleclodofclay-deactiv

well, you constantly take right wing positions, and attack the left… sooooooo

reasonandempathy

And apparently he lacks self-awareness as well.

thenuanceddebater

@siryouarebeingmocked. Yes. You are. Or if you aren’t, then you hold conservative positions on this website so you might as well be for all the interaction that most people have with you.

siryouarebeingmocked

I hold “conservative” positions on a fairly small number of issues. Positions which are shared by many liberals too.

theunnamedstranger

You’re a centrist if I’ve ever seen one, and not the annoying kind. Good to know these two gentlemen know more about your own politics than you do, though.

So much for nuance, huh @thenuanceddebater?

eliminativism

“Left-wing people deserve to be driven over by cars if they protest on the street”

“if you dont agree with me on foreign civil law, you agree with child rape”

Yeah… Just common positions shared by many people around the political spectrum I guess… Nothing unusual at all…

Get a grip man, SYABM has become a tooting horn for hardcore right-wing articles under the guise of being “against the left/liberal bias” and the completely unhinged new right on tumblr blows his epeen for it.

He doesnt even respond or even react anymore when someone points out he spread something completely fabricated and debunked as factual, no matter how thorough or polite the response, as long as the misinformation pleases his right-wing follower base.

theunnamedstranger

Tagging @siryouarebeingmocked so he can see this and add his word if he wants to. In the future, when you want to trash him, reblog directly from him.

Real nice job posting those quotations with no links to whatever posts you’re referencing. I’m sure you haven’t embellished or fabricated the viewpoints behind them in any way. In fact I KNOW you’ve falsified that first one, because I’ve seen those posts and SYABM has never, to my knowledge, expressed that he thinks protesters should get run over by cars if they block traffic (let alone “left wing protesters” as you so conveniently framed it to please your narrative).

Literally the most right-wing thing I’ve seen him ever post is his opinions on gun control. Everything else he’s fairly centered on. You just wanna paint him as some kind of right-wing lunatic because otherwise you’d have to admit that conservatives might actually be right sometimes.

This is both veritably false or incredibly misleading. He’s regularly reblogged counter-arguments without reading or responding so his followers can actually see the opposing argument. He doesn’t continue the conversation for long because he knows long posts on people’s dashboards are really fucking annoying, especially when it’s multiples of the same long post. That, or he just doesn’t have the time but still wants to respond in a timely manner so he doesn’t forget or look like he’s misinforming his followers.

I’m not sure, it’d really help if you ASKED him about it instead of trashing him behind his back and making assumptions, while also forcing him to adopt a political extreme because he disrupts your narrative that you can’t be reasonable while holding some conservative viewpoints.

eliminativism

An absolutely last post because this will not stand. Zombie magic.

In the future, when you want to trash him, reblog directly from him.

I have reblogged directly from him, tagged him, messaged him in private via the IM, messaged him via asks. Offered him any way possible to respond, in any timeframe, via any medium of his choice. I’m even available for him via skype if he wants.

He has not reacted once. Not even said “No”. Just nothing. Ask him if you don’t believe me. I can provide some screenshots of the messages insofar I can still find them, since this went on over months.

expressed that he thinks protesters should get run over by cars if they block traffic

http://siryouarebeingmocked.tumblr.com/post/156688377745/blackoutcatharsis-cisnowflake

"beep beep motherfucker”

This is what SYBAM endorses, reblogs without criticism or any call for moderation - if the victims are not of the political persuasion SYBM likes.

If a neo-nazi gets hit in the nose with a fist - “this is a sign that political violence on the left is getting out of hand”.

If so-called anti-fa protesters (who are not even really identified in the gif) get run over by an accelerating car - “it’s the law of physics”.

And now imagine if this was the alt-right or neo-nazis protesting and someone had hit them with a car. SYBAM would have declared it an act of terrorism, a crime against humanity, the evidence of the absolute evil of anti-fa and how a vast societal conspiracy enables antifa to act like that and how this is what can be expected to happen a hundred times more often in the future because the evil left is acting on a vast conspiracy to label nice, fine, slightly conservative people as “neo-nazis”.

http://siryouarebeingmocked.tumblr.com/post/151574681007/eu-split-on-whether-or-not-to-allow-refugees-to

Now look at this. A fairily tpyical right-wing propaganda article about “the EU is about to legalise child marriage”.

So far, so misleading.

Not only does SYABM endorse the sort of misinforming articles the OP represents - a parallel information world of racist and semi-racist nutjobs which has nothing to do with reality - he also accused me of something pretty disgusting: “Did Elimiativism just defend child rape?” <- although police and forensic psychologists found no sign of psychological issues or abuse happening and there is no mention of rape, whether of children or otherwise.

Obviously his sycophantic right-wing followers did not care about any facts about the case and only read from SYBAM that I was defending child rape.

At that point, SYBAM had already slid into the cowardly idiocy that is now his modus operandi, but this degree of disgusting behaviour was still surprising SYABM and I messaged him:

Never got a peep, in any way.

you just wanna paint him as some kind of right-wing lunatic because otherwise you’d have to admit that conservatives might actually be right sometimes.

I am a centrist. I have some conservative positions myself. Your attempt to paint me as a leftist ideologue because you cannot stop sucking SYABM’s cock is a tactic that can be fairly easily defeated.

What your problem is that you think far-right wingnut positions are conservative, maybe because you are used to American politics or related discourse, which is shifted

Ask me for my positions.

Ask SYBAM for his positions.

Check the facts and put them into perspective (and no, the american right and left is not what political science classically understand under “right” and “left”)

And then decide, instead of relying on your sympathy for someone.

Don't get me wrong - I liked SYABM’s blog too in the past. I agreed with stuff he posted. But there was a point at which the good stuff (criticism of feminist hypocrisy and misinformation) began to be outweight by the bad stuff - and there seems to be no self-reflection on SYABM’s part. Everyone who disagrees is an anti-fa shill.

This is both veritably false or incredibly misleading.

Check, for example the blog @thenuanceddebater who meticulously and politely debunked stuff @siryouarebeingmocked paraded in front of his followers several times and how often the response appears on siryouarebeingmocked’s blog.

SYABM has become a dishonest coward, who does not want to reblog dissent. Who does not allow dissent. Who does not care about facts. Who cares more about the praise from his followers than about truth. And because he was originally a feminist-critical blog, a lot of right-wing filth has accumulated in his follower base. The moderate anti-feminists have been pushed away - just ask around. Who reblogs when he is proven wrong with a funny gif and then let’s his follower base send hate messages to the person he disagrees with.Open your eyes, man.

Everyone who has been part of the community for the last years agrees about the severe change in atmosphere that has occurred. And that was, by the way, to a degree a planned effort by far-right activists. SYABM has fallen for it, and because most of his followers agree, he thinks he’s still the same old person.

I’m not sure, it’d really help if you ASKED him about it instead of trashing him behind his back and making assumptions,

You presumptive child. Again, I have reblogged directly from him, tagged him, messaged him in private via the IM, messaged him via asks. Over the course months. I did not do it too often, since I didn’t want to be annoying. Maybe his response would take time. But nothing came.

he disrupts your narrative that you can’t be reasonable while holding some conservative viewpoints

Reblogging far right-wing propaganda articles as factual and without comment is not “holding some conservative viewpoints”, it’s spreading dangerous extremist misinformation in an already polarised and idiotic community.

You do not know me - I have extensive knowledge of politics, anregular discourse with people who have different views than me, whether to the right or to the lest - including classic conservatives, and not what you try to sell as conservatism or actually consider conservatism due to your young age and ignorance. They are reasonable people because we share a care for facts and objective truth. Because regardless of your political interpreations or preferences, facts and objective truth is something that is the foundation for decisions.

Not “the EU is about to introduce sharia law tomorrow” or “anti-fa the most dangeorus organisaton of the US and no one talks about it” or “all people smeared by the violent left as neo-nazis are actually innocent, mild conservatives - prepare for the TRump revolution my fellow patriotic americans!” and similar headlines - that’s not conservatism, that is propaganda with intent, and without any base in reality.

I have, in the meantime, quit posting on tumblr. This blog can be considered dead and this single post a zombie post.

You, and any other interested parties, especially SYABM, can still reach me via the IM to clear things up, to present their viewpoints, to ask questions and give explanations. Because I actually care about the truth. And I actually allow different viewpoints, under the condition they are supported by facts and arguments. I am not pretending to be logical and interested in facts and then reblog meme pictures and right-wing tabloid articles to pwn the stupid leftists.

eliminativism

To followers: Blog Abandonement

Tumblr started out as a wonderful and fun activity years ago, where I connected with other people, had interesting and sometimes difficult discussions, and I have found some genuine friends here.

But lately, this website has been just a drag. The polarisation and extremity I observed in politics begs belief. The insanity has reached heights no one could predict in their worst nightmares. nothing matters anymore. You could write that 2 equals 2 here, and someone somehow will find a way to not onyl disagree but also blame the Jewish media or another oppositon party’s conspiratorial behaviour for it.

And I simply do not have the time to invest in writing informative and argumentative posts in the same way I did in the past, and my writing has thus also degraded immensely over the last months.

In between my job and my interests in software, electronics, foreign languages, history, as well as metalwork and other crafts, which already take up a good deal of the few evening hours I have after work, there is simply no time to properly maintain this blog. Thus I declare my leave. Be sure that the many disappointments tumblr presented me with as interlocutors will stay in my heart, as a lesson to never underestimate the debased nature of human beings with internet access.

I will still check for messages here and will be available for chatting for my friends, but otherwise, no further content will be added. Additionally, everyone who should have one also probably has already a way of contacting me outside of tumblr. Message me if I forgot you.

If you have followed me for what I wrote on e.g. political topics, I want to send you towards the following blogs

@social-darwin-awards

@thenuanceddebater

@reasonandempathy

@ranma-official

who are run by friendly and intelligent people who post on a wide range of topics of political nature and also on others.

If you followed me for the animal pictures, I trust you’ll find another source on your own.

reasonandempathy

I’m genuinely surprised you value me so highly, and am honored by it.

I’m both sad to see you go and happy you’re not stuck here anymore.

eliminativism

Thanks.

We had our personal differences, but that doesnt change that you are a good guy. Best of luck holding the fort here as long as you feel up to it.

To followers: Blog Abandonement

Tumblr started out as a wonderful and fun activity years ago, where I connected with other people, had interesting and sometimes difficult discussions, and I have found some genuine friends here.

And I simply do not have the time to invest in writing informative and argumentative posts in the same way I did in the past, and my writing has thus also degraded immensely over the last months.

If you have followed me for what I wrote on e.g. political topics, I want to send you towards the following blogs

@social-darwin-awards

@thenuanceddebater

@reasonandempathy

@ranma-official

who are run by friendly and intelligent people who post on a wide range of topics of political nature and also on others.

If you followed me for the animal pictures, I trust you’ll find another source on your own.

twitterlols

tsunderrated

eliminativism

@poorpoorpitifulme

pennsylvanian-patriot-deactivat

Imagine being such a festering, self-hating pile of sludge that you think people who want to defend their countries and cultures are evil.

life-interrupts-the-fandoms

Ok. Then maybe stop eating any type of food that isn’t completely authentic to your region. Then we’ll talk.

pennsylvanian-patriot-deactivat

me: I would really like to not have my country be invaded by a hostile people!

you: WOW RACIST WHY DON’T YOU STOP EATING OTHER PEOPLE’S FOOD THEN???

Just once please think before posting your kneejerk reaction.

life-interrupts-the-fandoms

Nah nah nah nah nah. You said countries and cultures. Food is huge part of culture. Don’t side step it. White people bastardized their own cultures and now are pissed about it?

No. We did this to ourselves. We brought blacks, and then Asians, and then Mexicans, and then middle eastern/Muslims to do Work that we don’t want to (farming, rail road construction, farming, customer service), and now you just want them all gone?

You want to protect your country and culture? Then fucking do it. Do it by preserving your culture, instead of Harassing people for being different.

pennsylvanian-patriot-deactivat

>food is a huge part of culture

The eternal Yank strikes again.

fasc-against-the-machine

>we did this to ourselves

>we

No, @life-interrupts-the-fandoms, “we” didn’t do this to ourselves. Rich elites brought the slaves, political elites brought the Asians, the Mexicans, and the Muslims.

The people didn’t choose these things. The politicians inflicted them on us, and convinced (some) of us that it was both virtuous and beneficial to do so after they had already inflicted it on us.

ranma-official

Tumblr user “fascism and free markets” suddenly concerned with “the people” and condemning “rich elites”

fasc-against-the-machine

There’s a difference between “being concerned with” and “stating facts about”. The slave owners were the rich elite, that’s simply the facts.

ranma-official

The slaveowners were at least a full third of the populace of the slaveowning states, with the majority of them benefitting from the system, and this can also be seen during the Civil War, where volunteers on the Confederate side were mostly slaveowners.

Your entire schtick is that the rich elites are absolute gods and should murder the people for disagreement, why the concern?

fasc-against-the-machine

They literally weren’t. At its peak only 1-2% of the US population owned slaves. Numbers claiming that a third or up to 50% of families owned slaves are specifically only counting the free households in their population count, failing to recognize that much of the white population didn’t fall under that category themselves.

The total US population in 1860 was around 31.5 million. Of those, 4.4 million were slaves, but only 385,000 were slave owners.

So depending on whether you count the slaves in your population count or not, the % of the population that owned slaves in 1860 was between 1.2% and 1.4%.

ranma-official

So this is the 1860 census that your numbers are most likely based on.

You will note that the majority of states have a 0% right next to them, which is because those were states where slavery was illegal by 1860. It makes little sense to evaluate how likely would a person on average be likely to own slaves by including those in your calculations, and instead one will regard free states with their 0% separately, and Slavery Georg (and Slavery South Carol, etc) separately, which I do, arriving at my earlier calculations of a full third of the populace being slaveowners. This is considering that we have Delaware at 3% and multiple states at almost fifty.

Still, federally this is a 8% slaveowner society while you have a 1% calculation. Where is this figure coming from?

Turns out that it’s the same kind of misreading of history books that leads people to allege that almost no one in the Confederate army owned slaves. Slaves were fairly expensive, so a typical young soldier would probably not have one of their own, and slaves were a property of the household, or a family, in other words. Keeping that in mind, we will find out that a large percentage of young soldiers, and a majority of volunteers, and almost all officers, are slavers. But how did you miss the figure by 8 times? You divided the total US population (in individual people) by the amount of slaver families (groups of people).

And while the first is a statistical error, the second is either middle school mathematics - I think that’s where you learn to keep in mind units of measurement - or just a lack of basic reading comprehension, since the total amount of families is, like, right there. I don’t care either way and choose to hold you accountable for both.

owarim

ambris

Please, never let this meme die.

silkirose

This is the best one I’ve seen so far

wizardshark

What kind of quantum fucking memeing from 2056 are you people beaming to us

justsomeantifas

New allegations in a DACA lawsuit, and reports from lawyers, reveal many immigrants were punished despite doing everything right.

eliminativism

“Just follow the laws and you will be fine”

wabisabiforrobots

"Jesus, he copy pasted his response to a mass shooting and forgot to change the location. What a clown."

Thoughts and prayers, minus the thoughts.

sarcasticcynic

An update on The Fact Checker's year-long project analyzing, categorizing and tracking every false or misleading claim by President Trump.

Trump’s average is now up to 5½ lies per day!

And he’s only getting worse:

“In the past 35 days, Trump has averaged an astonishing nine claims a day.”

peoplegettingreallymadatfood

melonmemes

scullyseviltwin

"The government is being run by a toilet."

I just needed to share this with… you know… the world.

theopenscroll

If you donate they’ll send you presents

redandpointy

#teamCondor

feels-by-the-foot

Why am I condemned to keep boycotting so many things I once loved…

nunyabizni

Riddle me this CaH, what is Eminent Domain? Not like they don’t just chuck money into the trash anyhow.

notyourmoderate

They did say they had retained a law firm specializing in Eminent Domain. They said it right up there. ED is a legal process that can take years or decades to sort. If their entire plan is to stretch the process out until there is a change in administration, that is a very achievable goal. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty dumb and petty. But if you think citing Eminent Domain is going to sort this easypeasy I have to tell you that’s not going to happen. It’s one of the most contentious powers the government reserves for itself.

eliminativism

Finally a political campagin appropriate for the dignity and honour of the outhouse of nations - the glorious UNITED STATES. Whoo!

luna-cry

Antisemitism in college/universities - an anecdote

@andarthas-web asked me a very long time ago to write up a post on a particular lot of antisemitic bullshit I encountered during my uni studies. @fearinyourheart also wanted the full story as well, so here it is…

So one afternoon I’m sitting in a legal war crimes class and my very openly Jewish professor had just spent an hour teaching us about the legal elements of terrorism. It was a simply a checklist for what counted as being a terrorist in international law. Naturally, ISIS being active at this time period made them prime candidates for being used in scenario examples for the explanation. Fairly simple stuff, you’d think? As it turns out my professor wasn’t speaking the same language as at least one half of the class.

Let’s call him… Brett. Brett was gay, left-wing, an activist and could not keep his ignorant mouth shut. The following exchange happened like so:

Brett: What if they’re freedom fighters though?

Professor: Freedom fighters don’t attack civilian targets. They attack military targets only. Freedom fighters don’t meet the legal criteria for being terrorists.

Brett: What if genocide can be justified (referring to ISIS’s spate of massacres)?

Professor: (dumbstruck) You can’t justify genocide.

Brett: But what if they had a really good reason?

Professor: You just can’t. Don’t you remember us discussing this in the second week of class? You can never justify genocide. It’s murdering innocent people through the incitement of hatred. You can never ever ever justify genocide. There’s never a good enough reason for indiscriminate slaughter..

Brett: But what if their reasoning requires the extermination? So in order to pursue freedom they need to commit genocide and achieve it through any means necessary?

Professor: (attempts to repeat the explanation a further four times then gives up)

According to Brett, ISIS was perfectly fine with killing piles of people so long as they did it for the right reason. After this exchange Brett’s friends got involved and brought up, you guessed it, Palestine and how certain areas of the Middle East “deserved” retaliation. I’ll let you guess the one country they were shitting on in particular. If you guess “Israel”, you’re correct. In a class of 20ish students you had at least half supporting Brett in his views that genocide is a-ok to a Jewish individual who had just spent 10 weeks explaining why genocide is bad (where we covered the Holocaust and Nazi trials extensively) and telling us that he taught classes like these to inform people as to the calling cards of genocide so we can avoid them. The professor stood there on the verge of tears and had no idea what to say. He was absolutely lost for words. I remember trying to derail Brett’s stupidity by pointing out the elements of terrorism again:

Me: Uh, that’s not how terrorism works. You need to have the intent to do it for a) a political purpose and b) you know, cause terror as your key intents. This is basic criminal law. What are you talking about? The professor’s been explaining this for an hour now.

Brett: But why is the guy who crashed a plane into the French Alps not a terrorist then?

Me: Uh, dude, he doesn’t meet the elements. There was no political purpose and no intention to create terror in him crashing that plane. He doesn’t meet the elements. He’s a mass murderer which is still bad, but he’s not a terrorist that’s part of a political group or movement. Still evil, just not a terrorist. (The professor is nodding furiously in the background.)

Brett: But what if you can excuse the mass killings? (Professor and I both facepalm violently.)

Me/Professor: You can’t!

From that point on it was me and the other half of the room arguing these people down that genocide is totally fine if it gets the job done. There was a particularly vehement Lebanese guy in my class who tore strips off these guys, rightfully pointing out that Hitler thought genocide was a great idea for dispute resolution too. Eventually we were saved by the bell and my professor staggers out in a daze. I got the fuck out of there as though the room was on fire.

A week later we have our next class. My professor tells us that he felt like throwing himself off the stairwell after the views he saw discussed in that class. “I have no idea what to say about such… postmodern, relativistic views (read: batshit crazy, what the fuck is wrong with you people).” Brett’s friend Roger decides to restart the debate…And is promptly told to shut up by 10 people while the professor looks as though he’s experiencing déjà vu. Our classes were never the same after that and our professor started actively avoiding the students he taught. If I heard half of a class of supposedly ethically minded, peace seeking individuals tell me genocide was fine after 10 weeks of pointing out the horror of it I wouldn’t want to speak to them either.

Antisemitism is alive and well in universities, and it’s not the right-wing who are the problem. It wasn’t neo-Nazis that were causing problems because there weren’t any that I ever saw, it was the left-wing activists hating on Jews and advocating for collective purges. You guys think the Neo-Nazis are bad? These guys would make them proud. Let me restate it, 50% of a legal war crimes class thought genocide for the right reason was okay and it wasn’t the right-wingers saying it. Have a think about that.

If anyone ever wants to know why I didn’t enjoy law school, this is it.

siryouarebeingmocked

> The professor stood there on the verge of tears

I wish they were tears of laughter at their stupidity.

amillionlittleproblems-blog

If this is true, the professor did a very poor job in explaining why genocide can’t be justified. Because he didn’t give a reason at all. If you can’t give a reason for why you believe what you believe, how can you expect anyone to reconsider? Especially from a law professor I would expect discussing the reasoning behind certain laws and rights and not just informing people what they are.

luna-cry

No, the professor did a perfectly competent job. This is against a backdrop of a bunch of fourth year law students who were 10 weeks into a 13 week subject. Some idiots like Brett were just too stupid/malicious to understand legal elements that we studied in previous years and the previous 10 weeks and numerous guest speakers discussing why genocide is bad as covering a legal and policy level (we had a prosecutor from the ICTY come in even), otherwise he would have grasped perfectly well why genocide is a war crime. Brett, and his cohort, were ideological morons first and foremost and since the professor’s reasoning (everyone has human rights) opposed theirs (fuck everyone they don’t like), he was doomed to failure. People like Brett don’t give a fuck regardless of the reasons they’re given, otherwise we never would have had Nazis or Stalinists in the first place.

Brett was also in my human rights class which studied the same sort of content. The guy was just an apologistic moron.

amillionlittleproblems-blog

Okay, I’ll take your word for it.

“People like Brett don’t give a fuck regardless of the reasons they’re given, otherwise we never would have had Nazis or Stalinists in the first place “

Not really, no. The people the Nazis in particular went after were not considered human by them. And dehumanization is still something we do all the time.

While I of course don’t know in detail what you went over, considering that the human right to life or liberty aren’t absolute (death sentence/imprisonment) and many infringements are routinely rationalized (torture, right to seek asylum, right to social security, Art. 25, the list goes on) Brett likely sees no issue in adding another exception. Think of that what you will, but the truth is that we’re all very far from truly respecting human rights.

luna-cry

Genocide is a synonym for indiscriminate mass murder. I’d like to hope that an adult sitting in a university class would understand that “mass murder” is a bad thing before he so much as left primary school. Because the people that don’t tend to spend their lives in mental hospitals.

That’s precisely my point. Brett is exactly the sort of person who dehumanised others and went after them for being a threat to his ideology, which is why he asked a Jewish man and a class full of relatives of genocide victims (the other 10 people who didn’t agree with him, many with relatives in Yugoslavia) about justifying it. Dehumanising people to the point of saying “every single person in this broad category should just cease to exist and die in a mass grave” isn’t quite the same as saying “this small portion of people in government are corrupt and have to be deposed without hurting civilians”. The fact that you, like him, seem to think that the situations are comparable is frightening. Dehumanisation happening also doesn’t mean that it should happen.

It was an international law class on war crimes and, under model practices, all human rights would be followed to the letter with exceptions frowned upon. It doesn’t happen in reality, but talking about why that happens was also part of the class and explained thoroughly. Brett wasn’t a case of wanting an exception, Brett was a case of being a total sociopath incapable of understanding why a class filled with the family of genocide victims would be opposed to the mass murder of their own relatives.

The fact that 10 people agreed with him and saw nothing wrong with the logic is the scary part.

amillionlittleproblems-blog

A primary schooler likely doesn’t “know”, as they either repeat societal consensus or go with gut feeling. Neither are proper justifications. There’s nothing inherently wrong with asking why certain things are forbidden.

That wasn’t my point, though. My point was that within the Nazistic ideology what they did was entirely justified. They were people who wholeheartedly believed that what they did was the right thing to do. So if one wishes to disagree with that on an intersubjective basis, they have to look at these reasons and dismantle them. One doesn’t necessarily need a reason to believe what they believe but that makes for a very weak point and insisting one is right without giving any reason is rather arrogant. Though I see how saying this in this specific context may seem quite appalling.

My point was that everyone who is outraged over this incident should take a good, long, hard look at themselves and ponder whether they themselves haven’t argued in favor of breaking human rights at least once. Because the person I reblogged this from originally, SYABM, most certainly did.

You should keep in mind that I neither know the people involved, nor what happened aside from your perspective and as such I’m not primarily talking about the situation at hand, I’m more talking about general principles.

luna-cry

Brett wasn’t a primary school student, nor did he have any reason for asking when the material covered it extensively across two classes and in the textbooks. There isn’t an excuse for his behaviour beyond stupidity or malice. If simple concepts are beyond Brett, then he shouldn’t be in law school. Similarly, these concepts also seem to be beyond you at a contextual level.

Thinking that something is justified doesn’t make it justified in any objective manner. I could kill you tomorrow, thinking it’s justified. That doesn’t make it justified at any level in reality beyond it being a delusion. I’m not sure what sort of philosophy classes you sat through, but they seem to have the major failure of ignoring how reality functions and how context shapes it. Also, you’re still ignoring that he had a total 20 weeks of reasoning about human rights in that year alone across two subjects along with 4 years of legal of prior education along with his cohort. Maybe you should stop defending idiots for willfully being idiots.

I think you should take a good long look at yourself, because you’re no different to Brett if the first thing you do is attack a teacher instead of questioning the work ethic of the students who haven’t absorbed 5 plus years of education. You’re looking for excuses for their ineptitude. SYABM isn’t me and guilt by association fallacies don’t tend to persuade me, nor have the rest of your strawman fallacies which are steadfastly ignoring why people are so appalled.

Your point is really moot, because your general principles are so far removed from context that they’re meaningless. All you’ve done is expose yourself to be the same sort of person as Brett and quite frankly, your attempts to defend him have simply made it more evident that there’s a class of extremely scary people in academia that should be occupying mental hospitals instead of positions of power.

thenuanceddebater

Okay. So this is… complicated to say the very least. Let’s start this off with a few statements about who I am as a person, just so we avoid any unnecessary labels. I am a practicing Jew. I am also a person who considers themselves a scholar of history and who has read and written widely in academic and non-academic contexts about genocides– and the Holocaust in particular. And my opinion of this is that…. Brett isn’t wrong, but he also isn’t right @loona-cry. I think that the frame that you’re viewing this from is a little twisted by emotion (and understandably so– I got upset recently when someone called the Einsatzgruppen a “minor trimming policy” after I told them that over half of my family had been murdered at Babi Yar). But we do in fact have to look at facts and not emotion here. I know that’s difficult. I feel the same difficulty. But if we are to understand the terrible lessons taught to us through these atrocities and properly burn the memories of the Holocaust into the collective consciousness of the world, we need to look at some very, very uncomfortable truths.

First of all, we need to acknowledge that @amillionlittleproblems is correct about the Nazi view of Jews. He’s not saying that this was the correct way to view Jews, but is in fact suggesting that if one accepts the Nazi viewpoint that Jews become a group that needs to be exterminated. That is what Brett was alluding to when he suggested that the killings might be justified to ISIS. The idea that our beliefs on the innocence of the victims and the brutality and unnecessary nature of their murders is not in fact objective as we might assume but subjective. That’s one of the terrible truths of the Holocaust. If a group is dehumanized, then actions not permitted against humans is permitted against them because they quite simply fail to be considered as humans. That’s what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust, the Armenians in Turkey, the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Ukrainian farmers during the Holodomor, Chinese Peasants during the Great Famine, and many other groups throughout history. No one is saying that this is objectively justified, as killing is rarely if ever objectively justified. But it’s important to keep in mind the perspective of the people being discussed. Seeing a group as inherently evil is one of the first steps to dehumanization after all.

Next, we need to acknowledge that the source of genocide is not from the fact that some people are terrible but the fact that all people possess a terrible nature to some extent. Genocide (or democide if you want to include canonical examples of genocide that are not typically understood as such) is not a problem with humans but rather a human problem. Phillip Zimbardo, the man who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment, discusses this in great detail in his book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil which I highly recommend you read if it wasn’t assigned in this course and your readings haven’t already exposed you to its arguments. But I’ll summarize one example and the problem with the idea that “Brett” as an individual (or even as a type of individual) is the problem here.

One example, that I found particularly striking is the summary of the Milgram Experiments. Most people familiar with genocide studies know the Milgram Experiments on a basic level. In the experiment, a participant was asked to administer a set of questions to another participant, who was actually an actor, and was told to shock the other participant if they answered incorrectly. The shocks would increase, with the actor expressing pain and even begging for the shocks to stop, until the participant administering the shocks would max-out the shocks and “kill” the actor. Milgram found that the majority of participants regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. would continue to shock the actor– especially when they were directed by an authority to do so. Another example was Arthur Asch’s conformity study, where an individual was asked as part of a group of three (two were actors) which line was identical to an example line and more often than not changed their answer to an incorrect one in order to fit in with the group. At least 75% of participants conformed at least once to an obviously incorrect answer and 33% of participants conformed consistently with incorrect answers.

These results essentially debunk the idea of the “Mad Nazi Hypothesis” which asserted that there was something particularly different about the brains and/or personalities of Nazis which allowed them to participate in such genocidal horrors as the Holocaust. Instead of a fact, what this hypothesis represents is a reflection of the fundamental attribution error which essentially boils down to applying flaws to a person’s character or an innate flaw as opposed to their situation or a changeable flaw. The truth is that most of the Nazi officers who were tested after the conclusion of World War II showed no psychological aberrations or abnormalities save for a higher than average intelligence. The Mad Nazi Hypothesis is itself mad. The truth is that if most of us were put into Nazi Germany (ignoring the fact that some of us are Jewish, black, untermenschen, etc.), then the majority would choose to conform to at least some of the terrible deeds and would likely follow authority. You’re not exempt from that, and neither am I.

Do I think I would engage in genocide? I hope not. I really, really do. But I can’t say whether or not I would if I was following something I believed in. Because it’s the fundamental attribution error to suggest otherwise. I think I wouldn’t because I hold to high a regard for human life, but the question is uncomfortable. Because it doesn’t have the answer that we might like it to have. If you want a good example of this, look up the S-21 prison guards who were brainwashed members of the victims’ families or random children taught to perform terrible actions. Or look at child soldiers. Humans aren’t immune to the things that brought the Holocaust. Nazi Germany was a developed, powerful, sophisticated Western Nation. And that’s part of the reason why the Holocaust was so devastating. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. That’s one of the most important lessons of the Holocaust. And I think your dislike of how Brett was treating your professor blinded you to that.

Third, I want to talk about the idea that this is antisemitic. As a Jew, I used to be a little… sensitive about how people talked about Jews and especially the country of Israel– the Jewish homeland. However, not every criticism of Israel or statement against Israel is antisemitic. And not every hypothetical examining the potential reasons for anti-Jewish thought and asking if they are justified under their own logic is antisemitic either. If that’s what Brett was doing, then I don’t see fit to call him an anti-Semite. He was merely expressing his understanding of a viewpoint he did not hold. If he tried to argue for an objective justification of genocide (or if hatred toward the Jews and a potential retaliatory genocide by the Palestinians or other perceived “wronged Arab groups), then and only then would I say that what he said was antisemitic. I would only call him an anti-Semite if he fully believed what he was saying. I don’t know if he does or if he doesn’t. I’d have to talk to him first, or get some more details about what he was actually trying to say. Because there are a lot of different ways what he said could be interpreted. It all depends on if he’s asking if you can objectively justify genocide (which, no of course you can’t) or if you can subjectively justify genocide (which, yes you absolutely can).

So, now comes to the question of what is the proper way to respond to such a claim. Well, it would be to point out the difference in the answer that I made above. In the case of the Nazis (or of ISIS), you could point out that the statements made about the victim groups were false, that these victim groups were not involved with the problems they were accused of, that they were innocent and undeserving of the atrocities inflicted on them. That is enough to deny an objective justification. For a subjective justification, we have to admit its possible. And furthermore, we have to admit it is so possible that things that you or I would perceive to be an atrocity is just a “job” to some people. I know its the end of the post here, but I have another book I think you should read. It’s called Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Adolf Eichmann did objectively evil, inexcusable things, but in his subjective frame of reference it was just a job and he wanted praise from his boss. This is the reality of many people– especially the “rank and file”– in places like Nazi Germany. And this is something that I think your anger at Brett has caused you to miss. Something that is vital to understand.

Because “Never Again” isn’t a promise. It’s a vow. No one is saying “This will never happen again because we are better than that”, they are saying “This will never happen again because we won’t let it.”

luna-cry

No, his point is largely irrelevant because he can’t acknowledge that Brett was in no way ignorant enough to be asking that as a question of legitimate curiosity. This wasn’t about Nazism, the entire reflection on Nazism is a strawman fallacy. Everyone knows that mass murder is bad unless there’s something terribly wrong with them. Brett with going on 5 years of legal education under his belt as well as a full adult lifespan certainly already knows that mass murder is bad even if it’s at a purely academic level. Brett’s entire point of asking the question was to find a way of making mass extermination carried out by ISIS specifically was rhetorically permissible, no more, no less. My “emotion” is irritation that this specific context is being repeatedly ignored. Every time this was raised he’d shoot off on some irrelevant strawman fallacies about Nazis. I never called Brett a Nazi. This has nothing to do with Nazism. My specific point is that Brett is indicative of the new “anti-Zionist” trend which shits all over Jews as a matter of guilt by association to Israel in the Middle East where this discussion was centred. Nothing he says is at all relevant to what happened, nor was Brett in any way referencing Nazism.

Brett was told “no”, that ISIS’ actions can’t be justified under any sane measure because they’re attacking innocents, otherwise it wouldn’t be genocide by definition. Instead of simply accepting what he was told, Brett and his cohort of morons carried on asking “why” like a group of particularly stupid parrots instead of understanding the words being spoken to them and the previous five years of law school in understanding legal elements. Brett persisted with this for at least an hour duration of the two hour class and this friend attempted to reignite in the following week’s class when the professor scolded them for their views. This was after both the class and professor gave them immense amounts of shit for it. These are not the actions of an innocently curious group of people. These are the actions of people stupid enough to think that the professor was going to tell them that indiscriminate mass murder is okay. They asked expecting a “yes” and BSODed when they got a “NO YOU IDIOTS”.

amillionlittleproblem’s fault is a fault of having no reading comprehension in understanding that Brett was willfully looking for an avenue to justify why ISIS specifically was obliterating everything in its vicinity, especially the local Jewish populations. My point is not that Brett’s mad, my point is that he’s so driven by ideology that he may as well be mad for the actions that would follow. I’m not talking about WWII, I’m talking about the depravity of modern university students. Context is a thing, people need to learn how to read it.

eliminativism

Everyone knows that mass murder is bad unless there’s something terribly wrong with them

This is the point at which one has to sigh in sadness.

“everyone knows” is not an argument of any sort. If this is an academic setting, that should be known.

Regardless, you continue to peddle this line instead of just giving a short summary of how the class processed the discussion of the topic, which were the counterpoints etc.

The best you offered was: “ It’s murdering innocent people through the incitement of hatred. You can never ever ever justify genocide. There’s never a good enough reason for indiscriminate slaughter. “ as a quote by the professor. Which barely counts as a line argumentation.

Supposedly there was more in-depth discussion… hopefully.

But if there truly was, and this topic was dealt with the minimum propriety, why continue to repeatedly offer an obtuse “adults know mass murder is bad, mkay?”

he can’t acknowledge that Brett was in no way ignorant enough to be asking that as a question of legitimate curiosity

The problem is: the way you present this situation makes you sound ignorant, yet you make yourself out to be the less ignorant party compared to Brett.

However, that’s not a given at all. On the contrary.

You present, by your own words, a specific inquiry and then people facepalming about the inquiry because they suposedly know much better, yet you refuse to mention in what way they actually know better. In any way. Instead, you rather present yourself, the professor and the facepalming party as emotional, stupid and entirely unable to argue.

And I think that’s the crux.

If you would have stated how the inquiry was dealt with in an appropriate manner, whether by mentioning how genocide was discussed at that point or how it had been discussed in the past, to actually show why it was worthy of the face-palming reaction, people like, I, and I dare sa,y amillionlittleproblems and thenuanceddebater (although I cannot speak for them of course), who are to various degrees familiar with proper argumentation, probably would not be so bewildered at the story. But you didn’t. You showed that it was dealt with in an entirely inappropriate and unsatisfying way.

Let me cite some examples of what I mean:

Brett, and his cohort, were ideological morons first and foremost and since the professor’s reasoning (everyone has human rights)

“Everyone has human rights” is not reasoning. It’s a claim.

“I have no idea what to say about such… postmodern, relativistic views (read: batshit crazy, what the fuck is wrong with you people)

“It sounds crazy” is not an argument against something.

50% of a legal war crimes class thought genocide for the right reason was okay

Really? You didn’t mention that. You said that people asked if it “might” be justified. Or “what * if * it could be justified”.

To which you say also that you and the professor simply said that “But it can’t be justified” without any “because etc. pepe”.

And the former without the latter is obviously a stupid response. No wonder 50% of the class remained unconvinced if that is what you present to us as the glorious counter-statement to stick it to the do-no-goods. Give us the proper responses, at least one of the ones you certainly discussed in your class so extensively before, as you mentioned, even if it were just in a very short summary. At best, one has to pick them out from your post like looking for the golden straw in the hay. And only then if you squint really hard - at best,the only thing you seem to allude to is the principle of individual responsibility.

If you would have done a better job explaining yourself, it would have been satisfactory. As such, you cannot really demand more reading comprehension from others, since one cannot read what isn’t there. And now three people well-versed with argumentation, and with knowledge and interest in morality and the philosophy of it (amillionlittleproblems), legality and the philosophy of it (thenuanceddebater), and then also I, did not see in your text what you seem to think to have expressed.

luna-cry

Again, another person completely incapable of reading context and who clearly hasn’t set foot in law school, wonderful. Brett did not have a single excuse for that question being legitimate curiosity. A man approaching his thirties, going into his fifth year of study in law school where every year consisted of “you can’t justify mass murder or crime sprees at all”. How utterly stupid to say “he wouldn’t have known in an academic setting” approaching final year of academia. Everyone in a war crimes class a week away from final exams definitely knows that mass murder is a bad thing, especially when I know he passed that subject. Especially since he sat through the companion human rights class and passed that subject as well. These are near graduate university students in their thirties, not children.

I’m not going to give you a rundown of 5 years of legal education (find a syllabus yourself for that), I don’t get paid to for that shit. As for the subjects, they were self-explanatory. That entire subject and the human rights class allocated weeks to the elements of international criminal law, policy reasons for how human rights breaches occur, Rwanda’s genocide, the Holocaust, Yugoslavia’s genocide, we touched on Pol Pot and traced how it occurred, why it occurred (political meddling in already fraught cultural relations 95% of the time in just about all of the genocides, people stirring up cultural tensions) and how they went about committing genocide and general war crimes. We also went through numerous kangaroo court trials of charming people like Hermann Göring, Speer and their other friends. The syllabus was comprehensive and touched on social, economic, legal and moral reasons for genocide being bad across a variety of genocides, from later history to more recent history such as in the Middle East. It was comprehensive. Half a year of this in these two subjects alone.

What you don’t understand is that Brett didn’t have any counterpoints himself. The previous weeks fundamentals were repeated, examples given by numerous people not just the teacher, and he ignored them. His argument was that “killing piles of people can be okay if you have a really good reason”, the response was “uh, the social, economic, military and financial disadvantages make that idiotic as a matter of pragmatism, not to mention that it’s morally reprehensible to lump innocent people into one group with others and then kill all of them without due process” as the summary. Unlike Brett, we bothered to learn the counterarguments, namely that it leads to societal instability and collapse if you look beyond the moral aspect. Brett knew this already, had it explained to him and ignored it.

I repeat it because you degenerates seem to think it’s not an inherent thing that people a) the vast majority of people already know (less than 1% of most populations are involved in murder as your evidence contrary to assertions that people don’t know that murder in any form is bad) and b) know after five years of law school with mandatory criminal law classes detailing the social, legal, financial and other impacts of crimes. For these people, it’s a given that he knows he was asking an incredibly stupid question which is why the class told him to fuck off in the following week and ultimately laughed at him. Him not continuing the argument also means that he knew he was in the wrong.

Again, I’m not paid to teach the war crimes syllabus on Tumblr. If you want a comprehensive explanation, sign up to law school or Wikipedia the genocides I mentioned above. We covered them in far greater detail than Wikipedia. If someone doesn’t understand why mass murder is bad after those classes, five years of classes before that and their life experience, then they wouldn’t be in law school in the first place.

Nuanced and little couldn’t even read the OP or follow ups to realise that mentioning Nazis and “broad general approaches” mean shit all in a specific context, especially as it was already explained by me that he was a fifth year student verging on graduation without any justification to not know the content. Their debates mean nothing in they can’t read and I note that nuanced hasn’t replied to my response. Have a guess why. He knows he fucked up, which is something you haven’t realised. As for little, this idiot tosses Nazism around where it’s irrelevant to current Middle Eastern politics and contemporary international law. The key part of debate is actually reading what the other person said without relying on strawman fallacies, or clarifying the other side’s argument before spouting off irrelevant shit. Something none of you have done.

It’s amazing how such a large amount of people seemed to understand upfront that ideology being abused to ignore the general consensus against mass murder is bad… but here are you three completely incapable of grasping why that discussion in that context is such a a bad thing.

It doesn’t have anything to do with my argumentation You people just crawled out of the same hole that Brett did, which is why is there’s so many frantic attempts to justify his behaviour in the same way he tried to justify ISIS murdering people.

thenuanceddebater

But the question wasn’t asked in a specific context– or at least it was never mentioned in your OP @loona-cry. And if you’re trying to say that I’m antisemitic or otherwise ideologically motivated, I’m going to need you to read my post again. If you in fact even read it in the first place. Because I wasn’t talking about World War II either. I was talking about human beings and why genocide happens. It’s only general in that it wasn’t explicitly rooted in the law but rather in psychology and exploring human nature. I acknowledged that objectively (that is to say under a non-ideological standard) that genocide could not be justified. So, respectfully, you can fuck right off if you’re saying I was trying to justify genocide. And I mean that. Fuck. Right. Off. Yeah, I don’t cuss usually but your complete lack of understanding about what I said is absolutely astounding, and the fact that you think I was defending genocide despite my family’s experiences with it and my passionate stand against it is disgusting. Get some reading comprehension. Seriously.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s address some of the things in this post.

Brett did not have a single excuse for that question being legitimate curiosity. A man approaching his thirties, going into his fifth year of study in law school where every year consisted of “you can’t justify mass murder or crime sprees at all”.

Are questions in law school solely restricted to the legal realm? Did he say “legally justify” genocide? If he did, then I think the professor’s answer was appropriate. If he didn’t, then I think it’s a safe (if not necessarily correct) assumption that he meant justification outside the legal frame of reference. Which is possible from a subjective viewpoint. Does that impact the legal truths of the matter? No, and it shouldn’t. But that needs to be explained from the perspective that “just following orders” isn’t a justification for atrocity (and perhaps from the point-of-view that a conviction for a crime is not supposed to represent just-retribution but justice as a whole). Your professor failed to do that for whatever reason. I don’t know why. In history classes on genocide in undergrad, my professors were more than happy to answer these sorts of questions. I fail to see why a graduate professor for a law school (who is likely used to the kind of obnoxious leading questions most people interested in law ask) would be so incapable. Maybe your professor was having an off-day. But, from my experience it just doesn’t make sense. Brett’s being a dick, but that doesn’t mean that his entire position is invalidated because of his dickishness.

Everyone in a war crimes class a week away from final exams definitely knows that mass murder is a bad thing, especially when I know he passed that subject.

At no point in your OP or in the subsequent details you’ve provided is there any indication that Brett does not think mass murder is bad. This kind of conclusion is where I had my initial objections with your story. Asking a question is not the same as advancing a position. Asking if something is justifiable (again, not even necessarily under legal grounds) is not saying that something is justifiable or acceptable. There’s a difference between those things that you’re ignoring or just not seeing. I can’t tell which.

I’m not going to give you a rundown of 5 years of legal education (find a syllabus yourself for that), I don’t get paid to for that shit. As for the subjects, they were self-explanatory.

Nobody’s asking for your syllabus and for you to teach us international human rights law. @eliminativism is asking for more details that substantiate your incredibly emotional and angry opinion about Brett. Because they don’t seem to exist in your OP and you kind of ignored the points that people were trying to make to be angry about Brett again once you got responses.

That entire subject and the human rights class allocated weeks to the elements of international criminal law, policy reasons for how human rights breaches occur, Rwanda’s genocide, the Holocaust, Yugoslavia’s genocide, we touched on Pol Pot and traced how it occurred, why it occurred

Did you touch at all on genocidal ideology and what the Nazis, Hutu Power Movement, Serbs under Milosevic, Cambodians under Pol Pot, etc. believed? Because if you did, then Brett’s question can be understood based off of these beliefs systems as opposed to based on the law as a whole. And that’s asking for a subjective as opposed to objective justification. Which has a different answer that leads to an important conclusion. But you know all about what I think from my first post.

The syllabus was comprehensive and touched on social, economic, legal and moral reasons for genocide being bad across a variety of genocides, from later history to more recent history such as in the Middle East.

Again genocide “being bad” is not a controversial thing here. If Brett said “legally justifiable” or otherwise alluded to an objective justification then he was wrong in addition to being a dick. Which I already said in my first post. But if he didn’t and in fact meant subjective justification, then you misunderstood him and your anger might not be justified here. Unless it’s solely anger for him being a dick (which spoiler alert: it’s not).

His argument was that “killing piles of people can be okay if you have a really good reason”

And my question is “is this a legal question?” If he’s talking about a subjective morality, then none of your responses really answered his question. If he’s speaking objectively then he’s a fool and I question how he passed this class or got into law school.

“uh, the social, economic, military and financial disadvantages make that idiotic as a matter of pragmatism

This is correct but it doesn’t answer the question. It answers the question “is genocide ever a good idea?” Which, I mean of course the answer is “no, it isn’t”. Even in Rwanda the economic gains by the Hutu were essentially overridden by the fact that no one had time to actually tend the fields because they were too busy killing Tutsi. But Brett’s question was as you worded it in your OP, “ But what if their reasoning requires the extermination? So in order to pursue freedom they need to commit genocide and achieve it through any means necessary” (referring to his third question here as this puts forward the most complete argument). Saying “genocide is a bad idea” doesn’t answer this question. Surely you see that, right?

not to mention that it’s morally reprehensible to lump innocent people into one group with others and then kill all of them without due process

This is true from an objective moral standard (i.e. the standard that I articulated in my original post that killing is rarely if ever objectively justified). However, if Brett was talking about a subjective moral standard i.e. the reasoning of genocidal ideology then this still doesn’t answer his question. It’s half an answer. Also, the degree of innocence has nothing to do with whether or not a genocide has been committed. According to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide innocence of the targeted group is never mentioned as a requirement for the crime of genocide. So, I don’t know why you seem to be stressing that as a denotational requirement. Because it’s not. It’s generally true, but there were mutual genocides (or at least reported mutual genocides) of Serbs and Croats during the wars of Yugoslav secession which I assume you learned about. The fact that the Serbs were accused of genocide against the Croats did not take anything away from their claim that the Croats were also engaged in genocide against the Serbs. Minor nitpick, but something important (and I’m ignoring the fact that you seem to only be referring to killing as well due to the fact that you may have used a simplified definition of genocide).

First of all, degenerates. Nice word to be using in a genocide discussion. Next, are you really conflating genocide with murder? That’s… really something actually. Murder (or homicide) and genocide may both have the same result in their most extreme forms (that is dead people) but they have significantly different reasons for their perpetration and significantly different rates of populace participation and acceptance/ tolerance. Most people don’t tolerate murder. A lot do tolerate (or participate in) genocide. They aren’t equivalent at all. This is… immensely dishonest. Is this what your class taught you? Because if it was, I think you need to read some material on genocide from a different perspective. You’re correct about murder. You’re wrong that this has any relation to genocide. Read the stuff I wrote about dehumanization and get back to me again. Please.

Him not continuing the argument also means that he knew he was in the wrong.

This is… a lot of attempted mind-reading. There are many reasons why people may choose to end an argument. The understanding that they are wrong is only one of them. Perhaps even though he was still curious or convinced he was right he did not want to deal with the ridicule from the rest of the class. Regardless, ridicule and dropping an argument does not mean that Brett was wrong any more than if you were ridiculed by the class and dropped his argument it would mean that you were right.

b) know after five years of law school with mandatory criminal law classes detailing the social, legal, financial and other impacts of crimes.

You still haven’t proved that Brett was speaking in a legal context about an objective justification for genocide. Until you do that, all of this is irrelevant.

If someone doesn’t understand why mass murder is bad after those classes, five years of classes before that and their life experience, then they wouldn’t be in law school in the first place.

You’re again speaking from an objective context. We don;t now if Brett was. You seem to assume he was, but so far have provided me no evidence that this is the case and some evidence that it may not have been the case. I’m getting sick of repeating myself. Your entire argument is built on this assumption. And quite simply I don’t think you have the proof for your assumption. You just think you do. It’s almost like you have the proof to justify your opinion subjectively as opposed to objectively. Now I wonder what else this dichotomy could apply to…

Nuanced and little couldn’t even read the OP or follow ups to realise that mentioning Nazis and “broad general approaches”

I did read the OP and your follow-ups. I had a different impression of what Brett was trying to ask– especially since he mentioned subjective reasoning. And I wasn’t engaging in “broad general approaches” and was using the Nazis as an example as opposed to disucssing the Holocaust. Because most of the studies that have an extreme amount of relevance in genocide studies were done after WWII with either an attempt to prove or discredit the “Mad Nazi Hypothesis” or an attempt to discover the reasons behind the Holocaust. There have been similar studies done afterwards, but I decided to speak about the originals. Again. Reading. Comprehension. Seriously.

Their debates mean nothing in they can’t read and I note that nuanced hasn’t replied to my response. Have a guess why.

…Because I’m very passionate about this issue and your response infuriated me quite a bit. You completely missed the point (which makes the not being able to read comment ironic) and I didn’t know whether that was intentional or unintentional. I was too irritated to do a proper response in case you were trying to address my points and honestly thought they were unrelated. But, since you want to take shots at me now I no longer care. Also, I was busy with my affairs. Because I have a life. Off of tumblr. Oh, and this would be another example of mind-reading. See how that can be very, very wrong indeed? You don’t know me. Don’t pretend that you do. And acquire some reading comprehension and actually read my post again. Don’t skim over things. Because it’s a heck of a lot more than “nothing”.

Have a guess why. He knows he fucked up, which is something you haven’t realised.

Nope. I stand by everything I said. Still. So you can just fuck off and stop putting words in my mouth you condescending little prick. See? I don’t like doing responses when I’m this upset. I think it lowers my ability to persuade. Not that I give a shit about persuading you anymore.

As for little, this idiot tosses Nazism around where it’s irrelevant to current Middle Eastern politics and contemporary international law.

He’s using Nazism as an example for genocidal ideology/ ideation. Because he’s German and knows the Nazis the best. He’s not only talking about the Nazis in WWII, but like me is using the Nazis as an example for a broader point. Oh, and you brought up Nazis and Stalinists in the first place in your OP. So, yeah. Don’t act like he was the one who thought of the Nazis out of nowhere.

The key part of debate is actually reading what the other person said

Couldn’t agree more. What part of my original post was talking about WWII exactly? Can’t seem to find it…And when was I solely talking about Nazism without alluding to a broader point? Hmmm… can’t seem to find that either. Curious. That’s what you said I did but it’s not there. Huh.

or clarifying the other side’s argument before spouting off irrelevant shit. Something none of you have done

And something you haven’t done either since you want to just put words in people’s mouths. But I completely understand your point. I agree with most of it. I also dispute the relevancy of the parts I agree with. I don’t think you have the faintest idea what my point is, because you’ve demonstrated approximately zero percent understanding of my argument. Instead, you want to play pretend and act like I knew I was wrong and therefore didn’t respond to your complete and utter obliviousness to my argument.

It’s amazing how such a large amount of people seemed to understand upfront that ideology being abused to ignore the general consensus against mass murder is bad

It’s even more amazing that you think I, eliminatvism and @amillionlittleproblems disagree with this. Really speaks to a lack of reading comprehension on your part to be quite honest. None of us made any statement that genocide was a good thing, or that mass murder was anything other than bad under objective conditions. Seriously. I’m beginning to think the whole “you guys didn’t read my posts” thing is projection.

but here are you three completely incapable of grasping why that discussion in that context is such a a bad thing.

Was that the context though? Was Brett trying to say that mass murder is in fact not bad? Or was he trying to ask if under a genocidal ideology people could see mass murder as not bad even though it is in fact bad? Do you see the difference between those two things? Good. If you do, then go back and read my first post. Because you just might be capable of understanding my argument.

Lovely end the post on more mind-reading why don’t you. No one is defending Brett from the charge of “being a dick”. I mounted a conditional defense from the charge of “being an anti-Semite” but if you re-read that section it’s very conditional. And no one is saying that they way Brett asked his question was flawless and you’re being an idiot for not realizing his true genius. No. The most anyone is saying is that is question isn’t inherently invalid, and there’s a way to interpret his question (which isn’t even a stretch) in which nothing you said in the story, or your professor said actually answers it fully.

And if you’re saying that I’m trying to subjectively justify Brett’s behavior under a certain and particular set of conditions, then your ISIS comparison isn’t too far off actually. Oops. Thought you had a zinger there didn’t you? Yeah, not so much. Sorry. Oh wait. No I’m not. Because you said that I was a degenerate (really really great thing to call a Jew in a discussion about genocide by the way) and implied that I supported genocide. So yeah. No. Not sorry at all actually. Fuck you.

But ya know what? Not even you deserve to be genocided. Because that is a fate that absolutely no one at any time deserves. And if you’re going to take a stand against this atrocity of unspeakable proportions then you’d better damn well understand the lessons that past genocides have taught us. You don’t. And that’s a problem. And that’s why I made my initial response. Because we can’t just pretend like genocide happens because of people like Brett. we have to understand that genocide can happen because of people like you and people like me as well. People who are doing things they believe in can do terrible, horrible things. Good people in other parts of their lives can become the monsters that we barely recognize as human when we hear about their deeds. That’s what you don’t seem to understand. So do me a favor, and read that a few more times. Burn it into your head, like my family was shot and then burned by the Einsatzgruppen or cremated in Auschwitz. Because that’s the lesson of the Holocaust.

thes3nator

Why Donald Trump’s Policy on China is So Fucking Stupid

Ok, now that the clickbait title is out of the way, please read:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-10/what-trump-s-odd-comment-on-china-trade-reveals

Honestly though, why do people:

1) Advocate for a return to zero-sum foreign policy when it completely destroys any hope of developing lasting alliances and maintaining our influence and power?

2) Believe that “fairness” matters in a zero-sum world, a point which the author points out in the article?

3) Think that we can actually compete with China in manufacturing–a country with a population four times the size of our own which is unbridled by labor & safety regulations?

4) Believe that using what leverage we have to demand policy changes “on our own terms” won’t seriously undermine the power that we already have?

-S3NATOR

siryouarebeingmocked

I’m “conservative”?

sosungalittleclodofclay-deactiv

well, you constantly take right wing positions, and attack the left… sooooooo

reasonandempathy

And apparently he lacks self-awareness as well.

thenuanceddebater

@siryouarebeingmocked. Yes. You are. Or if you aren’t, then you hold conservative positions on this website so you might as well be for all the interaction that most people have with you.

siryouarebeingmocked

I hold “conservative” positions on a fairly small number of issues. Positions which are shared by many liberals too.

theunnamedstranger

You’re a centrist if I’ve ever seen one, and not the annoying kind. Good to know these two gentlemen know more about your own politics than you do, though.

So much for nuance, huh @thenuanceddebater?

eliminativism

"Left-wing people deserve to be driven over by cars if they protest on the street"

"if you dont agree with me on foreign civil law, you agree with child rape"

Yeah... Just common positions shared by many people around the political spectrum I guess... Nothing unusual at all...

Get a grip man, SYABM has become a tooting horn for hardcore right-wing articles under the guise of being "against the left/liberal bias" and the completely unhinged new right on tumblr blows his epeen for it.