Racism never went in Dead Horses and was never accomodated in the rules. It's become much more dangerous and virulent and acceptable in politics and that's why I think we need to be very clear on why it isn't on here and that when we say that we mean it.
There are people who endorse politics and policies and candidates which I may think are ultimately racist, but the people who endorse those things may genuinely not consciously see that.
One example: A former friend and self-described “hippie chick” who had bumper stickers on her car with hippie-style slogans, who went to a local Buddhist temple off and on, voted for Trump all three times. When Biden won in 2020, she cried. She really believed we were sliding into a socialist dystopia. It was only very recently in the past year or so that she started going to a right-wing evangelical church. (We finally disconnected from each other late last year.)
I’ve been encountering people who voted for Trump, even in the last election, who genuinely thought he was the best option because they genuinely thought the Democratic candidates were all going to drag us into a Soviet-style future, and/or they thought of abortion issues as the only litmus test, and/or (etc.). Not that he was a great candidate—that, no matter how bad he was, the Democrats were worse.
A bunch of people who voted for him seem to think that those of us on the left just don’t like his “mean tweets.”
(For decades, actually, the abortion issue alone—and remember, this is from a point of view which views abortion as horrific infanticide—was the explicit litmus test for a lot of people in the US. They considered it a sin to vote for any candidate who would not try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course we’re now in an odd situation where the abortion plank is no longer in the GOP platform…)
So I’d be very cautious about assuming that a Trump voter must actually believe in the stuff which I believe he really stands for.
So I’m with the posters who want us to stick with the rules we already have.
I must confess I haven't been following the Trump thread in Hell as I couldn't keep up with it and much prefer to read and contribute to posts outside of Hell.
But I'd expect anyone posting racist guff there to be planked if and when they articulated those views not when they said something like, 'Hey, I voted for Trump ...'
If the CofE is as institutionally racist as @ThunderBunk claims then let's plank all Anglican Shipmates.
The RCs and the Orthodox don't have women priests. Let's throw them overboard.
Most evangelicals are socially conservative. Some hold very Zionist views and support Israel uncritically. Over the side with them!
Where do we stop? Where do we draw the line?
If someone says something jerkish or crusades, trolls or intimidates other Shipmates chuck 'em overboard.
Don't plank them simply because they read The Telegraph or watch Fox News or vote Republican or for Reform.
I find it very difficult to say "no redeeming features" to large groups of people. Certain individuals, maybe--at least for human purposes. But to write off large groups--hell, just shut down the Ship. Then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors. (And if we do that, who's going to save the world? I'm not entirely joking about that.)
The rules we already have do ban racist behaviour though.
Publicly advocating for racists is racist behaviour.
I'm not seeing the scenarios people are coming up with actually happening here because the declarations of Trump support came on threads where the racism was explicitly brought up and people confronted with it - either ignoring it or going on to post support elsewhere for a political group notorious in its country for racist attitudes.
Trump is of course also a misogynist, an ablist, homophobic, islamophobic, transphobic - basically the embodiment of breaking C1 so it mystifies me that people excuse or accept explicit support for him on the boards - as if we should just pretend not to know any of that in case some pure innocent fascist voter turns up.
Maybe that level of ignorance shouldn't be an acceptable excuse because of the damage it has caused and is causing to others?
Maybe the people being harmed by fascism are more important than being a 'learning opportunity' for fascists and their ability to enjoy this space without being subjected to fascism should be prioritised?
Maybe we should just enforce our rules that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and is supporting other ducks and what they do, that duck behaviour which we explicitly ban is going on.
Can you point to a post where the poster committed a foul against Commandment One re fascism and did not get chastised for it? That's what we're talking about, right?
@Gamma Gamaliel I'm precisely not saying that it is exactly institutionally racist. I'm saying that accommodating racists is preventing its other, more numerous, voices from being heard. The task of hosting overwhelms the capacity to speak out entirely.
Are there practicing hosts and admins who are saying that right now? If so, we should hear from them. And I'd be willing to try to make that burden easier by making racism a one-strike-and-you're-planked offense. As long as it isn't zero strikes.
I must confess I haven't been following the Trump thread in Hell as I couldn't keep up with it and much prefer to read and contribute to posts outside of Hell.
But I'd expect anyone posting racist guff there to be planked if and when they articulated those views not when they said something like, 'Hey, I voted for Trump ...'
If the CofE is as institutionally racist as @ThunderBunk claims then let's plank all Anglican Shipmates.
The RCs and the Orthodox don't have women priests. Let's throw them overboard.
Most evangelicals are socially conservative. Some hold very Zionist views and support Israel uncritically. Over the side with them!
Where do we stop? Where do we draw the line?
If someone says something jerkish or crusades, trolls or intimidates other Shipmates chuck 'em overboard.
Don't plank them simply because they read The Telegraph or watch Fox News or vote Republican or for Reform.
Agreed with all of this. People's tendency to compartmentalize can be challenged, in Epiphanies or elsewhere as appropriate. At that point, the poster has a choice about how to respond to the problematic aspects of their group. That response is where a host might have to step in.
I find it very difficult to say "no redeeming features" to large groups of people. Certain individuals, maybe--at least for human purposes. But to write off large groups--hell, just shut down the Ship. Then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors. (And if we do that, who's going to save the world? I'm not entirely joking about that.)
Can you point to a post where the poster committed a foul against Commandment One re fascism and did not get chastised for it? That's what we're talking about, right?
Yes I see what's to me a C1 breaking post which is why I restarted posting on this thread the other day but the admin steer on this thread is not to get personal.
So I'll stay general. I think if someone were to praise a far-right racist 'and other isms' party doing well and approvingly reference the justification the party currently uses for its more racist positions that that would break C1. If they did it after supporting a known fascist/ racist then I personally wouldn't be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt on C1.
I'm frustrated about it because it seems to me that advocating for racists is racist and that public declarations of support for racists ought to be taken at face value unless there's compelling evidence to the contrary.
We ban Nazism because it's a portmanteau of all the worst isms and I have trouble seeing informed support for Trumpism as any different in that respect.
But what concerns me is that there seems to be a loophole where people can advocate for racism by going 'I support [ insert name of massive racist/ far right/ fascist grouping here] and use that for brinkmanship.
In general I dont think brinkmanshippers of this kind would be too open-minded to listening to what people subjected to racism have to say about it or in my opinion, they wouldn't be seeing what they can get away with in that line.
I think the trouble that causes outweighs any benefit.
I think it would be better for crew to confront them earlier on and say 'do you know what you signed up for isnt compatible with this?' and if they double down then say 'sorry advocating for this isnt compatible with what you signed up for. You need to stop it or get shore leave' etc as we normally proceed.
I dont think Tories rise to the extreme level of Trump - ICE, sackings for race, DOGE, and attacks on law and order/ democracy and something very like or equivalent to a Führerprinzip. I mentioned this side of things in earlier posts on this thread about Trumpism, as part of what makes them both extreme racists, lawless with it, and pointless to discuss it with on Internet forums.
The Rwanda scheme died on its arse with 'four migrants...voluntarily relocated while it was in place'. ICE deportations run into hundreds of thousands already and people die in those camps.
Yes. But when the scheme was still underway, the Tories were planning to go through with it and wanted their fans to assume it WAS going forward, and so anyone who announced himself a Tory at that time was announcing, at the very least, he was comfortable having a government in power that pursued such policies.
And, yeah, Trump's doing a lot worse, mutatis mutandis, but I don't know if I've heard Liz Truss renounce her trip in the Inauguration in 2025. She's still a Conservative, going by wiki. Suella Braverman was there, as well though she has now joined Reform, of course. Point is, these kind of differences in degree can, I would THINK, be kinda hard to enforce in practice without endless debate about the exact line between "Right-Wing Irredeemable " and "Right-Wing Redeemable", if all we have to go on is their announced formal partisan loyalty.
But, serious question. Can you refresh my memory and remind me...?
What side of the instant ban/benefit of doubt divide would you put a self-announced Reformer?
I'm not sure what this is trying to say. Obviously your experiences are your experiences, but that doesn't make them indicative of being working-class in general. I am not doubting your working-class credentials in any way, nor am I doubting your own beliefs. But there are still lots of anti-Reform working-class people - the issue is conflating Reform support and being working-class. Just because it's the case where you grew up doesn't make it representative of working-class people in general.
I do have to wonder why someone who isn't racist or xenophobic would vote for a racist and xenophobic party. I'm not saying that you're wrong wrt their beliefs, but I think it is reasonable to say that in general support for Reform is driven by racism.
I did not say anywhere that working class people can’t be anti-Reform; I am anti-Reform. I am saying that many working class people vote Reform. The reasons are mixed, some are racist but many feel left behind and forgotten. This has historic roots; in the 1990s my father and 3 of my brothers were made redundant during factory closures, for instance. This includes the two brothers I mentioned earlier. Memories are long lasting and governments resented.
Whilst Reform’s backers and leaders are rich, their MPs often represent poor areas; Farage’s constituency includes Jaywick, the most deprived place in England https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjd1q9yp04o
Luton also has an history of deprivation and is famously working class, with all those oh so funny jokes about Luton Airport and chavs. It is a great example of a working class town which is down at heel, feels sneered at by others and risks turning to Reform.
I think we should judge people by what they post, and not do some kind of pre-judgement of what their beliefs are.
My point was that many middle-class people also vote Reform - it is not just a working-class phenomenon. I don't know what jokes about Luton airport you're referring to. I'm from Coventry, I'm well aware of stereotypes about chavs and run-down former industrial areas. It's still no excuse when many fight against the far-right.
What about Shipmates that fall into groups that Reform want eradicated? What about their safety on the Ship? I think that's more important than pandering to someone who is already being pandered to by the UK media and most UK political parties right now.
I think what is being done is sufficient. I think any more is overkill and getting into thought-police territory.
And again, FWIW, I think it's vanishingly rare for someone to come in and, straight off the bat say "Hi, I'm a member of the KKK", or suchlike. They would post enough first that their leanings would be apparent.
If a poster came out with Andrew Tate style bilge or openly racist comments they'd be planked and good riddance to them.
But to plank someone or deny them access to the Ship because they support Reform or Trump or Pauline Hanson and One Nation or some other numpty populist group strikes me as a step too far.
People can change.
Planking someone purely because we don't agree with their political views would only fuel a martyr-complex. 'I've been blocked by those woke-lefties aboard the Ship, they must be really scared of what I have to say ...'
All it would do is reinforce their stance.
On a non-political issue now, and I hope people don't mind my using myself as an example - but a good few years ago I was regularly suspended for jerkish behaviour.
I'm still here and although I get the occasional Hostly admonition I try to avoid the kind of behaviour that used to lead to my suspension.
I'm not saying I'm perfect, far from it, but I've learned to abide more closely to the rules.
I agree with @KarlLB at the beginning of this thread, I think.
We've lost a good few conservative or socially-conservative posters over the years. None of them were closet fascists as far as I am aware. Anyone who has spouted fascistic views has rightly received short shrift.
There are enough of us around, whether liberal, socialist, centrist, middle-of-the-road-conservative around who can respond appropriately to racists and fascists until such time as a Host or Admin can deal with them.
What was it the Good Book says? 'By you own words you will be justified, by your own words you will be condemned.'
Judge people by what they do and say not what label they might happen to be wearing.
This, all of this, agreed.
(If anything, I think we should be more open to discussing certain things which used to go in Dead Horses. I miss that terribly. That change has probably driven old Shipmates of a less liberal bent off the Ship. It’s almost driven me off a couple of times in recent years.)
Sorry, why has it almost driven you off the Ship that you now have to consider the own voices of marginalised people? I don't think you can claim to be a liberal in any way if you think that is too strenuous a task.
I remember when Dead Horses was just unmitigated bullying of LGBTQ+ people and anyone who was pro-choice. Why do you think that is preferable to Epiphanies?
Also - fascists are not the same as conservatives and nobody has suggested wanting to ban regular conservatives. MAGA is a fascist group. Reform is a fascist group. One Nation is a fascist group. Opposing fascism should be the bare minimum for Christians. I'm shocked and appalled that so many seem to want to welcome open fascists with open arms.
With Trump we are talking about stuff on a huge scale actually happening including murders, mass avoidable deaths, covering a Nazi like portmanteau of -isms and danger of dictatorship.
The mental gymnastics necessary to make posting public support for all that compatible with C1 are beyond me.
For me this isnt in the same ballpark as individual policies in other parties breaking C1.
Some parties however do seem to have been set up on C1 breaking lines so it needs to be considered whether advocating for those parties is just another way of being racist - especially in a context of brinkmanship.
Again I think openly posted support for openly racist parties is worth challenging early as to 'How do you square that with C1 which you signed up to?'
I don't understand why we would bar certain people BEFORE they ever offend. Especially when that means pre-emptively barring 1/4 to 1/3 of a large nation's population, depending on exactly how one defines a Trump follower.
I don't believe people here are so fragile they can't withstand the presence of people who haven't actually offended yet, and who may never do so.
And the whole concept of a club for left-minded people--heck, of a club at all!
We've come a long, long way from Christian unrest.
Given the fact that in the US (as an example) racism is more common amongst white Evangelicals than amongst white non-religious people, surely coming down hard on racist groups is more of an example of Christian unrest than allowing such groups to be accepted?
Look. The minute we decide that simple membership of a group is grounds for planking regardless of behavior, we open the door to planking Evangelicals wholesale. Because, if your statement is true, they are a racist group. So why not get rid of them now?
That's just one example. I'm using it because it's right here in front of me. But there is no human group that cannot be plausibly, even truly, accused of group behavior that makes them worthy of planking.
In the past we've waited for bad behavior on the part of the individual. This respects human beings as individuals who make choices and have free will and moral responsibility. It also has the benefit of decreasing rather than increasing polarization on the Ship and in our cultures. We do ourselves and the world no favors by increasing polarization, especially if we do it because something "might" happen.
It's been suggested that by NOT pitching people overboard as soon as they mention belonging to a problematic group (and before they show any bad behavior), we are a) platforming fascism/Nazism/whatever-ism. This is false. The minute that shit comes out of someone's mouth, they get planked (okay, as soon as an Admin can get to the controls.). One bad post, which gets deleted immediately it's noticed, is not platforming.
The Ship has managed to stay afloat for 25+ years in a world full of fascism, Nazism, racism, misogyny, etc without becoming itself a hotbed of any of those evils. We've done it with the policies and tools we currently have. We should trust ourselves to keep doing it.
It does free people no good to adopt the methods of those who would take our freedom from us (fascists etc). We need to behave like the free adults we are.
I did not say that white Evangelicals are a racist group. I said that white Evangelicals in the US are more likely to be racist than white non-religious people, because that is what Pew Research supports.
Evangelical Christianity is not inherently racist. Project 25 (as an example) IS inherently fascist. It was set up explicitly to be fascist. Somebody who signed up for Trump signed up for that. Signing up for Trump WAS the pro-fascist behaviour.
I think that anti-polarization is frankly a false idol of centrism that inevitably just screws over marginalised people who do not have the option of not being polarizing, when their entire existence is considered polarizing.
Just looked back at my post @Pomona and as well as the riffing and ribbing there was a serious comment about Starbucks's poor record on employee rights and paying taxes.
Please take the serious point and I'll try to be less frivolous in future.
Concerns about employee rights and paying taxes would apply to a huge number of companies. Do you think that everyone that patronises such companies - even if they have limited options where they live - are equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis?
The reason why certain violent groups have been proscribed - at least traditionally - has been because support for them has raised their visibility and encouraged people to join them. Companies that take advantage of poor worker protections and tax loopholes don't need that public visibility to do such things, because those loopholes already exist for them. Your point makes no sense given the reasons for actually proscribing groups.
I didn't say these things were equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis.
This is the second time today you've either ignored or misrepresented something I've written.
I've said I'll try not to be so frivolous in future.
I haven't misrepresented or ignored anything you've said (at least not intentionally), I have clearly just not understood your point - sorry.
Just looked back at my post @Pomona and as well as the riffing and ribbing there was a serious comment about Starbucks's poor record on employee rights and paying taxes.
Please take the serious point and I'll try to be less frivolous in future.
Concerns about employee rights and paying taxes would apply to a huge number of companies. Do you think that everyone that patronises such companies - even if they have limited options where they live - are equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis?
The reason why certain violent groups have been proscribed - at least traditionally - has been because support for them has raised their visibility and encouraged people to join them. Companies that take advantage of poor worker protections and tax loopholes don't need that public visibility to do such things, because those loopholes already exist for them. Your point makes no sense given the reasons for actually proscribing groups.
I didn't say these things were equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis.
This is the second time today you've either ignored or misrepresented something I've written.
I've said I'll try not to be so frivolous in future.
I haven't misrepresented or ignored anything you've said (at least not intentionally), I have clearly just not understood your point - sorry.
There are people who endorse politics and policies and candidates which I may think are ultimately racist, but the people who endorse those things may genuinely not consciously see that.
One example: A former friend and self-described “hippie chick” who had bumper stickers on her car with hippie-style slogans, who went to a local Buddhist temple off and on, voted for Trump all three times. When Biden won in 2020, she cried. She really believed we were sliding into a socialist dystopia. It was only very recently in the past year or so that she started going to a right-wing evangelical church. (We finally disconnected from each other late last year.)
I’ve been encountering people who voted for Trump, even in the last election, who genuinely thought he was the best option because they genuinely thought the Democratic candidates were all going to drag us into a Soviet-style future, and/or they thought of abortion issues as the only litmus test, and/or (etc.). Not that he was a great candidate—that, no matter how bad he was, the Democrats were worse.
A bunch of people who voted for him seem to think that those of us on the left just don’t like his “mean tweets.”
(For decades, actually, the abortion issue alone—and remember, this is from a point of view which views abortion as horrific infanticide—was the explicit litmus test for a lot of people in the US. They considered it a sin to vote for any candidate who would not try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course we’re now in an odd situation where the abortion plank is no longer in the GOP platform…)
So I’d be very cautious about assuming that a Trump voter must actually believe in the stuff which I believe he really stands for.
So I’m with the posters who want us to stick with the rules we already have.
If they already wanted to repeal Roe vs Wade they already voted for brain-dead women being forced to be incubators against their families' wishes. Their views are already abhorrent. I'm not sure why you'ee presenting wanting to repeal Roe vs Wade as an example of "reasonable" Trump voters when it has killed many women. Just because they view abortion as horrific infanticide doesn't make them reasonable or mean they should be tolerated.
With Trump we are talking about stuff on a huge scale actually happening including murders, mass avoidable deaths, covering a Nazi like portmanteau of -isms and danger of dictatorship.
The mental gymnastics necessary to make posting public support for all that compatible with C1 are beyond me.
For me this isnt in the same ballpark as individual policies in other parties breaking C1.
Some parties however do seem to have been set up on C1 breaking lines so it needs to be considered whether advocating for those parties is just another way of being racist - especially in a context of brinkmanship.
Again I think openly posted support for openly racist parties is worth challenging early as to 'How do you square that with C1 which you signed up to?'
We're just lately hearing that ICE are now targeting stage doors of theatre shows in the US, yet people who claim to be Christians are handwringing over the feelings of people who heartily endorse such things. It is genuinely very upsetting to me that the risks to those targeted by MAGA/Reform/One Nation etc are being downplayed like this. How are MAGA not equivalent to the KKK just because they're lynching people from Latam rather than Black people??
I sincerely do not give one wretched fuck about the feelings of fascists, I care about the safety of their victims. I do not give a crap how left behind Farmer McWhiteguy feels when ICE are disappearing his hispanic farmworkers. He is not the victim here.
Have we all forgotten about the Nazi Bar parable? Why are people so eager to allow the Ship to become that?
I find it very difficult to say "no redeeming features" to large groups of people. Certain individuals, maybe--at least for human purposes. But to write off large groups--hell, just shut down the Ship. Then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors. (And if we do that, who's going to save the world? I'm not entirely joking about that.)
I think this is in poor taste when I know you know full well that for many people, their neighbour is now the person who might call ICE on them. I am failing to see why making the Ship safe for marginalised people is seen as such a ridiculous concept. Why is wanting respite from bigotry in the world at large so unreasonable?
What happens if a Shipmate calls ICE on another Shipmate? Is that risk worth having a MAGA supporter on board? Obviously, not that a Democrat couldn't call ICE on someone - but there's a clear increased risk.
There are people who endorse politics and policies and candidates which I may think are ultimately racist, but the people who endorse those things may genuinely not consciously see that.
One example: A former friend and self-described “hippie chick” who had bumper stickers on her car with hippie-style slogans, who went to a local Buddhist temple off and on, voted for Trump all three times. When Biden won in 2020, she cried. She really believed we were sliding into a socialist dystopia. It was only very recently in the past year or so that she started going to a right-wing evangelical church. (We finally disconnected from each other late last year.)
I’ve been encountering people who voted for Trump, even in the last election, who genuinely thought he was the best option because they genuinely thought the Democratic candidates were all going to drag us into a Soviet-style future, and/or they thought of abortion issues as the only litmus test, and/or (etc.). Not that he was a great candidate—that, no matter how bad he was, the Democrats were worse.
A bunch of people who voted for him seem to think that those of us on the left just don’t like his “mean tweets.”
(For decades, actually, the abortion issue alone—and remember, this is from a point of view which views abortion as horrific infanticide—was the explicit litmus test for a lot of people in the US. They considered it a sin to vote for any candidate who would not try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course we’re now in an odd situation where the abortion plank is no longer in the GOP platform…)
So I’d be very cautious about assuming that a Trump voter must actually believe in the stuff which I believe he really stands for.
So I’m with the posters who want us to stick with the rules we already have.
If they already wanted to repeal Roe vs Wade they already voted for brain-dead women being forced to be incubators against their families' wishes. Their views are already abhorrent. I'm not sure why you'ee presenting wanting to repeal Roe vs Wade as an example of "reasonable" Trump voters when it has killed many women. Just because they view abortion as horrific infanticide doesn't make them reasonable or mean they should be tolerated.
I didn’t read @ChastMastr as citing voters whose vote was driven by their anti-abortion views as an example of “‘reasonable’ Trump voters.”
He cited them as examples of people whose votes were driven solely by a single issue rather than by signing on to everything else, such as racism, that candidate might represent. He never said anything about them being “reasonable.”
Sorry, why has it almost driven you off the Ship that you now have to consider the own voices of marginalised people?
It hasn't, because that's not how I view the way the Ship's "new" rules deal with these matters. As for all of that in more detail, there is a thread here in the Styx on that that I started last year, I think.
I don't think you can claim to be a liberal in any way if you think that is too strenuous a task.
You can think what you like, though as I said above, I don't think that's what's happening on the Ship in the first place.
I remember when Dead Horses was just unmitigated bullying of LGBTQ+ people and anyone who was pro-choice. Why do you think that is preferable to Epiphanies?
I think that being able to discuss multiple sides on issues related to LGBTQ+ matters and on abortion (and on all kinds of others, though I don't expect the whole YEC stuff (which was also relegated to Dead Horses) to come back on the Ship, and if it did, it wouldn't fit in Epiphanies anyway) would be good, as long as people are able to do so without it being Hellish on whatever side. I'm gay and I'm not even sure if I can express my views on certain gay issues on the current Ship, even though it's presumably still known from before, and it's technically in my screen name.
If they already wanted to repeal Roe vs Wade they already voted for brain-dead women being forced to be incubators against their families' wishes.
I'm not going to debate Roe vs. Wade here (not least of which it's the Styx, not Purgatory/Epiphanies/Dead Horses), though again I'm not sure the Ship allows for it to be debated any more at all, or at least with more than one side allowed to express more than one view of abortion.
What happens if a Shipmate calls ICE on another Shipmate? Is that risk worth having a MAGA supporter on board?
You know that all of the boards and posts are viewable by non-Shipmates, right? (I just checked on another browser without being logged in.) So being a Shipmate doesn't give them more info to work with if someone wanted to do something like that.
I find it very difficult to say "no redeeming features" to large groups of people. Certain individuals, maybe--at least for human purposes. But to write off large groups--hell, just shut down the Ship. Then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors. (And if we do that, who's going to save the world? I'm not entirely joking about that.)
I think this is in poor taste when I know you know full well that for many people, their neighbour is now the person who might call ICE on them. I am failing to see why making the Ship safe for marginalised people is seen as such a ridiculous concept. Why is wanting respite from bigotry in the world at large so unreasonable?
What happens if a Shipmate calls ICE on another Shipmate? Is that risk worth having a MAGA supporter on board? Obviously, not that a Democrat couldn't call ICE on someone - but there's a clear increased risk.
Have you somehow missed the fact that me and my family are dealing with ICE up close and personal? And yes, we've had a death already.
There are people who endorse politics and policies and candidates which I may think are ultimately racist, but the people who endorse those things may genuinely not consciously see that.
One example: A former friend and self-described “hippie chick” who had bumper stickers on her car with hippie-style slogans, who went to a local Buddhist temple off and on, voted for Trump all three times. When Biden won in 2020, she cried. She really believed we were sliding into a socialist dystopia. It was only very recently in the past year or so that she started going to a right-wing evangelical church. (We finally disconnected from each other late last year.)
I’ve been encountering people who voted for Trump, even in the last election, who genuinely thought he was the best option because they genuinely thought the Democratic candidates were all going to drag us into a Soviet-style future, and/or they thought of abortion issues as the only litmus test, and/or (etc.). Not that he was a great candidate—that, no matter how bad he was, the Democrats were worse.
A bunch of people who voted for him seem to think that those of us on the left just don’t like his “mean tweets.”
(For decades, actually, the abortion issue alone—and remember, this is from a point of view which views abortion as horrific infanticide—was the explicit litmus test for a lot of people in the US. They considered it a sin to vote for any candidate who would not try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course we’re now in an odd situation where the abortion plank is no longer in the GOP platform…)
So I’d be very cautious about assuming that a Trump voter must actually believe in the stuff which I believe he really stands for.
So I’m with the posters who want us to stick with the rules we already have.
If they already wanted to repeal Roe vs Wade they already voted for brain-dead women being forced to be incubators against their families' wishes. Their views are already abhorrent. I'm not sure why you'ee presenting wanting to repeal Roe vs Wade as an example of "reasonable" Trump voters when it has killed many women. Just because they view abortion as horrific infanticide doesn't make them reasonable or mean they should be tolerated.
I didn’t read @ChastMastr as citing voters whose vote was driven by their anti-abortion views as an example of “‘reasonable’ Trump voters.”
He cited them as examples of people whose votes were driven solely by a single issue rather than by signing on to everything else, such as racism, that candidate might represent. He never said anything about them being “reasonable.”
I am failing to see why making the Ship safe for marginalised people is seen as such a ridiculous concept.
I’m afraid I’m failing to see where anyone has suggested making the Ship safe for marginalized people is a ridiculous concept.
Yes, I'm feeling a bit fatigued by the whole matter of people being told they said "X" when they didn't actually say "X."
I'm also a bit baffled by the whole matter of what constitutes "safe" on an online discussion board, particularly where it's supposed to allow for "unrest," and where people can even engage in all-out personal attacks on the Hell board. I had always understood the Ship, going back to ... 2001? Not sure when I joined... as a place where, unlike other Christian discussion spaces, any topic/position was fair game, whether you were conservative or liberal theologically or downright atheist or another religion, whatever your politics were, whatever country you were posting from, as long as you did not act like a jerk, and if you wanted to fight with someone in rude ways, there was always the Hell board. Other religious discussion boards had religious litmus tests, possibly political ones (heck, in the last year I was kicked out of a Christian Contemporary Music fan group on Facebook for being too politically liberal, and possibly for being gay as well, but the owner said that he considered Democrats "demonic," so that might have been enough), but not the Ship. I don't like how far I think it's already gone in the "litmus test" category as it is, and I would not like to see it go further down that path.
I find it very difficult to say "no redeeming features" to large groups of people. Certain individuals, maybe--at least for human purposes. But to write off large groups--hell, just shut down the Ship. Then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors. (And if we do that, who's going to save the world? I'm not entirely joking about that.)
I think this is in poor taste when I know you know full well that for many people, their neighbour is now the person who might call ICE on them. I am failing to see why making the Ship safe for marginalised people is seen as such a ridiculous concept. Why is wanting respite from bigotry in the world at large so unreasonable?
What happens if a Shipmate calls ICE on another Shipmate? Is that risk worth having a MAGA supporter on board? Obviously, not that a Democrat couldn't call ICE on someone - but there's a clear increased risk.
Have you somehow missed the fact that me and my family are dealing with ICE up close and personal? And yes, we've had a death already.
How could a shipmate call ICE on another shipmate unless they were undocumented, openly posted that they were, and gave their real name and location? That's a series of events that I think is very unlikely to occur.
Jigsaw identification - but I don’t think that scenario is likely, and as discussed above this is a publicly viewable site anyway so this not a risk we can mitigate.
On the one hand, Trumpers (let's subsume racists/fascists under that heading) aren't going to be persuaded by the sort of rational argument which (sometimes 🙄 ) happens in Purg. On the other, they're not going to convert anyone else, which is one of the reasons put forward for governments banning certain groups, that they will suborn others. So while engaging with them is a waste of digital bits, letting them rabbit on won't infect the Ship.
The Ship sails under UK anti hate laws. Which encompass, if I understand pics of bobbies roughhousing grannies, protesting Israel's genocide of Palestinians. That is deemed to be anti semitic. The UK Supreme Court will almost certainly quash those parts of the laws, as will the Australian High Court our corresponding legislation.
So unless the Ship is put in legal jeopardy, I'm for not planking plonkers, I'd rather that we all laughed at them.
Or, better still, constructing a rock-solid rebuttal of their argument, showing it without doubt to be wrong on every level.
It’ll take someone much smarter than me to do that, fortunately we have many aboard.
Originally posted by Pomona: I remember when Dead Horses was just unmitigated bullying of ....anyone who was pro-choice.
I am pro-choice. Part of the reason that I joined the Ship in October 2007 was that it seemed to be to be supportive of pro-choice views. I participated in every relevant thread in Dead Horses. I have no recollection of "unmitigated bullying of anyone who was pro-choice" in Dead Horses. Quite the reverse.
I don't agree that permitting supporters of far right politicians to post is a kindness we're doing them. Interacting with voices we disagree with isn't a kindness, except in so far as it's treating others as we wish to be treated.
We are certainly not going to stop the rise of the far right around the world by preventing from posting on one small discussion forum. (That feels like the politicians' fallacy to me.) The far right takes so much of its momentum from echo chambers and fake news outlets. It's just not clear to me that someone whose media diet consists of Fox News or GBNews does have an accurate picture of how fascist the Maga project is. Being a space where they have to interact with reasoned argument for other points of view - well, it won't halt the rise of the far-right either but it might temper one or two people.
However....
The only argument for banning that seems to me cogent is if the presence of far-right posters puts off other posters from other points of view, especially minorities. That is a matter for which we'd need evidence. I can see that people worried about far-right bullying may not want to say so in public. (PM the admins maybe?) Certainly the Ship would need to take a firm line on things that look like bullying and would have to treat patterns of stepping up to the line as forms of crossing it.
I find it very difficult to say "no redeeming features" to large groups of people. Certain individuals, maybe--at least for human purposes. But to write off large groups--hell, just shut down the Ship. Then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors. (And if we do that, who's going to save the world? I'm not entirely joking about that.)
I think this is in poor taste when I know you know full well that for many people, their neighbour is now the person who might call ICE on them. I am failing to see why making the Ship safe for marginalised people is seen as such a ridiculous concept. Why is wanting respite from bigotry in the world at large so unreasonable?
What happens if a Shipmate calls ICE on another Shipmate? Is that risk worth having a MAGA supporter on board? Obviously, not that a Democrat couldn't call ICE on someone - but there's a clear increased risk.
Have you somehow missed the fact that me and my family are dealing with ICE up close and personal? And yes, we've had a death already.
That's precisely why I'm so flabbergasted at your stance here.
MAGA/Reform et al want me and people like me (on several different axes of oppression) exterminated. I think it is reasonable in that context to be alarmed at people fighting for the right to welcome people openly in support of such groups. This is why your comment that "then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors" felt so astonishingly flippant to me at how real the dangers are here. What is wrong with wanting ONE online Christian space without the far-right?
Or, better still, constructing a rock-solid rebuttal of their argument, showing it without doubt to be wrong on every level ...
Waste of time. If they could be persuaded by argument, they would already have been. Since whatever they subscribe to - Farage, Trump, Netanyahu, whoever - has been absorbed by osmosis of a fungus dormant in their psyche, there is no anti-fungal treatment available. Just ridicule them.
Or, better still, constructing a rock-solid rebuttal of their argument, showing it without doubt to be wrong on every level ...
Waste of time. If they could be persuaded by argument, they would already have been. Since whatever they subscribe to - Farage, Trump, Netanyahu, whoever - has been absorbed by osmosis of a fungus dormant in their psyche, there is no anti-fungal treatment available. Just ridicule them.
Seconded: these people are either nutty ideologues or trolls and Oxygen thieves: so not worth the waste of further oxygen.
Just for the avoidance of doubt @ChastMastr@Nick Tamen - the comment "Then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors" seemed to me to be pretty obviously mocking the desire for a safe group - particularly "never have to deal with our neighbors" as if those of us not wanting fascist party supporters on here don't have to endure them in everyday life too.
I do wonder if perhaps the everyday rhetoric (in terms of eg stuff people will say to each other while waiting for a bus or what have you) in the UK is actually worse than in the US and that is what has prompted that phrase to sting so much - @Louise can maybe add her own experiences but certainly even I in my area which voted Remain and has a Lib Dem MP, it's not unusual to hear absolutely bonkers levels of casual racism said in passing like people are discussing the weather, especially racism towards asylum seekers. It's incredibly normal for threats of violence (like, actual violence) to be casually made towards boats or hotels housing migrants, especially when travelling into areas where hotels have had very explicitly racist and violent protests outside for months on end. It is in all the news media here and is basically impossible to avoid.
I think it's reasonable for marginalised people at risk from the far-right to want a space without them in it, because the far-right pose a direct threat to us. That is why I am so baffled in particular by people who are also directly threatened by the far-right to think that proscribing supporters of said far-right is somehow objectionable (sorry, can't think of a better word - I mean simply that you object to the idea, not in an angry sort of way). I'm sincerely confused as to why it's somehow not reasonable to want a space without the far-right in light of the real-life threat that they pose.
I think it's reasonable for marginalised people at risk from the far-right to want a space without them in it, because the far-right pose a direct threat to us. That is why I am so baffled in particular by people who are also directly threatened by the far-right to think that proscribing supporters of said far-right is somehow objectionable (sorry, can't think of a better word - I mean simply that you object to the idea, not in an angry sort of way). I'm sincerely confused as to why it's somehow not reasonable to want a space without the far-right in light of the real-life threat that they pose.
I think, perhaps, we are also dealing with pond differences in terms of free speech culture. The UK has a long history of "no platform" as a tactic for addressing fascism, whereas the US has culturally extended the constitutional protection of free speech somewhat into the private sphere. While there are obviously exceptions the disagreement here does seem to reflect that difference.
I cut my anti-fascist teeth in 00s battles against the BNP (and BPP) and the lesson I took is that the worst thing you can do is treat them as a legitimate political choice.
There are plenty of people from the UK who have posted on this thread to say that they don’t agree with banning people for political allegiance, including me. And I have a strong history of trade unionism, disability activism and am currently an outspoken and actively campaigning official EDI champion at work.
Far-right followers are deluded, but their grievances are real to them. If they can't even air them, their paranoia is reinforced - "We're being censored!"
Visibility of people in daily life and seeing the falsehood of propaganda about them is in my experience what works. Arguing on the Internet with the 100% implacably opposed is just a sport. When there isnt a shared attitude to what constitutes evidence - it goes nowhere - and there isn't a shared framework with people who come from the neo- fascist media/ social media ecosystem because it exists to slander various innocent people as scapegoats while extolling the aggressive cult leaders.
I'm certainly not under what I'd call the Student Union fallacy that anything we do here makes a significant difference in the wider world but I do care about the quality of discussion and how it affects people.
It didn't escape my notice that along with the -isms came an attitude of 'alternative facts' which when debunked just led to doubling down.
It might be fun sometimes to go 'Wow look what this twit just posted' but then large parts of threads begin to centre on debunking what the alternative fact merchant has said so the discussion revolves around nonsense.
Add to that the drip, drip, drip of posters who seem to want to post racism and hate for those who are different as they figure out how much they can get away with - and because people viscerally feel that and react to it, they can end up dominating and derailing threads.
Excusing forms of aggression against minority groups already heavily laden with stress from social prejudice, compounded with the rise of fascism which seeks to exterminate them, just seems to me to be something we shouldn't be doing.
We should be doing the opposite at a time like this - asking how in a society becoming more hostile and dangerous we make sure minorities in our community dont have to carry additional burdens, and can feel unharassed while being visible- not constantly looking over their shoulders for fascists when they post here. That's a simple justice issue to me.
I think the kind of visibility that does help those with an open mind and promote conversation has to involve very tight controls on the hate speech which pushes people back into various closets because that happens very easily - not because people are fragile but because if all or the majority of their spoons are being taken by everyday life, to post here becomes more expensive with spoons when we allow pro-fascist posting. It's not a fun hobby for those who know there's a racist/ transphobe waiting to come at their posts when they have to calculate 'have I the spoons for that? Fuck it I'll just not post.'
I find myself when I'm tired making those calculations. Have I got fuel in my tank for this if they come at me? And I'm not LGBT+, just an autistic person with very close loved ones who are directly affected by this hate.
I'm not keen on being profligate with other worse off people's spoons by allowing promoting racial and other hatreds here.
And I still haven't seen a good answer as to how promoting explicitly racist groups doesn't break C1 - answers seem to revolve around people not knowing the very notorious racists they promote are racist but the people posting support for them here do know that, as the evidence of where they post and what they post shows.
And I'm far more worried about people who have genuine worries in real life about these people attacking them and campaigning to harm or murder them than about them feeling sorry for themselves and feeling aggrieved that others reject their prejudices.
I also dont think that's a good answer for ignoring our rules against racist behaviour when fascist supporters support racist fascists. It's plain and simple racist behaviour.
Which brings me back to @TurquoiseTastic 's point that we're under no obligation to cater to every point of view.
We could just say ' No open support for MAGA, No open support for the far right' as posting open support for this breaks our rules that racist etc behaviour is banned here.
This is a choice we actually could make to just say ' nope' we dont want that round here. We get enough and more than enough of it elsewhere.
We're not withdrawing anyone's grant or stopping them going to hundreds of other places which welcome their views. Just saying 'nope - not here. Stop it.' and hopefully lightening the burden a bit for more people whose burdens need lightening at a time like this.
But you see I used to be centre left. But many of us, feel the left have lost the plot and gone too far left, so now we are automatically centre right.
It's interesting to me how many people say this. Personally I have had the opposite experience. I feel that I used to be centre-right but that the right have become so extreme that I now find scanning The Daily Telegraph - once my favourite newspaper - vaguely sickening. That leaves me on the left by default.
I guess this would square with the idea of political polarization in society. But I don't think the Ship is going to solve this problem. It seems to me that posters are made distressed and angry (on the left) and contemptuous and sneering (on the right) by the encounter with the "other side" - it does more harm than good.
Nowadays the Ship is populated mostly by over-50s hanging out with those who remain of our old "virtual" friends of decades' standing. You can get a lot of genuine thought-provoking chat on non-culture-war topics. You can get some interesting insights (from a particular angle) on hot-button issues. But I don't think one should expect it to be a forum for thrashing out the fiercest disagreements of our age. No-one has the energy to do that or police that. We're all getting old!
Interesting you've had the opposite experience!
I agree that it's an issue of polarisation. It's also about fragmentation because of social media.
I don't think it has to be about thrashing out the fiercest disagreements of our age unless you feel strongly compelled you have to change the other person's mind. Then you are wasting your time. There is a messiah complex and large ego in such things.
Really it's just about chatting. And perhaps preventing echo chambers. Which only increases polarisation.
I do have to wonder why someone who isn't racist or xenophobic would vote for a racist and xenophobic party. I'm not saying that you're wrong wrt their beliefs, but I think it is reasonable to say that in general support for Reform is driven by racism.
There's a glib response about making the trains run on time in there somewhere.
Is it always true that people who want to limit immigration are driven by racism?
I don't think it is. I think there are consistent raise-the-drawbridge-the-country-is-full type opinions that aren't racist at all. I think one could have a discussion about whether the "I like my culture and I don't want it to be diluted too much" opinons are always racist. I think there's a difference between "this is good: I want to keep this" and "I don't want "them" coming over here with their X, Y, and Z".
There is a danger, I think, that when the only people who are expressing opinions vaguely similar to yours are the racists, then you get drawn further in to racism.
A lot of the time, the answer to a question depends on the way you frame the question. Ask random Americans about immigration, and you tend to get fairly strong support for the proposition that people should immigrate via legal pathways, and fairly strong opposition to the idea that illegal border crossings should be tolerated. Many of the people expressing such opinions have wildly unrealistic ideas about what the legal immigration process actually looks like.
This. This. This.
I think the ship has a problem with their definition of racism.
Being anti-immigration is not racist. It's just that the damn country doesn't have the infrastructure to accomodate more people! This is the problem in Australia! Our hospitals are overloaded. Our housing is a nightmare.
I do not believe any of my posts have been racist and when I pointed out someone WAS being racist against white people I was planked.
If you define racism as something that “pre-judges the individual by regarding him or her simply as a member of a group, automatically attributing to the individual that group’s supposed characteristics, which are stereotyped in unflattering terms" (Nigal Biggar's definition) then automatically restricting people that believe differently to you is racist.
Criticising a religion or a culture for particular values of x, y, z is not racist because you're not criticising the individual, you are criticising the group. The individual may or may not have the attributes of the group. And if you are judging individuals, they should be judged on their own merits.
Criticising a group is absolutely fair game. We do it all the time in our political parties or what not. This ship is fine to critisize Christianity no? It is the magazine of Christian unrest. Is that racist?
It's what makes liberal democracies.
So I suggest the ship work on its definition of racism.
I think @TurquoiseTastic has the right of it. Which groups do you want to automatically ban? Is One Nation off limits? Are Trumpists off limits? Is the Reform party or Restore party off limits?
Keep it grounded. Keep it real.
At this point I have no idea what I'm allowed to talk about without getting planked again.
It is possible to agree with some things a group or person has said, without agreeing with all a group or person has said. That's called critical thinking./b]
I feel I have been punished for critical thinking and I think you're all better than that. It's not the British way.
@Pomona I apologise if I offended you but often use hyperbole for comic effect and yes, that can veer into poor taste at times.
I tend to riff with ironic comments at times and these can backfire.
That said, it sometimes feels like I can't crack a joke or make an ironic comment here - in a post-moderm kind of way or course - without being taken to task in some way.
I'm trying my best to keep things 'straight' and serious.
@WhimsicalChristian - apologies I assumed you were an Aussie bloke. I hope that hasn't offended you.
Why would I be offended you thought I was an Aussie bloke?
I think that the current system of C1 (or any other C) breaches being addressed as and when they arise is fine although I don't envy the hosts and admins for having to make that judgement call every time. I note that plankings usually happen after multiple transgressions and/or abuse of the hosts and admins and again I am all for that policy. I am also aware that there is backroom discussion so each Officer of the Ship is supported in these matters.
I hate labels. Once they are assigned to a person it is very difficult to not make assumptions about them. I try to take everything I read here at face value and without linking it to what that person has said before. If someone said that they support a certain person/party it would ideally pass me by but if they stated why they support one side on any issue I would enjoy considering their argument if rationally presented and if challenges are responded to. I have changed my mind sometimes after seeing such healthy discussion on the Ship.
I left a RL charity group last summer due to the racism of the (newly appointed) leader. The racism and transphobia in meetings was low level, if there is such a thing. Online they made openly fascist comments.
I complained to the wider organisation - which celebrates its support for diversity - and asked to be entirely anonymous.
Not only did nothing happen but the person found out who the complaint was from and now makes me very uncomfortable when I pass them in the street.
They have a stall at the local farmer's market so I only go when I have enough spoons. Which is a shame.
Luckily they don't live in our village and haven't spoiled life here for me in any other way.
A small thing, maybe. I'm white British so have never suffered racism myself.
Which leads me to my point - I'm very glad of the Ship's strong stance on this matter.
Being anti-immigration is not racist. It's just that the damn country doesn't have the infrastructure to accomodate more people! This is the problem in Australia! Our hospitals are overloaded. Our housing is a nightmare.
And here's me thinking Australia was made of immigrants.
I'm currently being treated for cancer. At my last surgery the surgeon was Spanish, and half the nurses non-British (South Asian, Eastern European and North African). All immigrants.
You think excluding employable/skilled people of working/child-rearing age is a solution to your problems? Really?
Comments
One example: A former friend and self-described “hippie chick” who had bumper stickers on her car with hippie-style slogans, who went to a local Buddhist temple off and on, voted for Trump all three times. When Biden won in 2020, she cried. She really believed we were sliding into a socialist dystopia. It was only very recently in the past year or so that she started going to a right-wing evangelical church. (We finally disconnected from each other late last year.)
I’ve been encountering people who voted for Trump, even in the last election, who genuinely thought he was the best option because they genuinely thought the Democratic candidates were all going to drag us into a Soviet-style future, and/or they thought of abortion issues as the only litmus test, and/or (etc.). Not that he was a great candidate—that, no matter how bad he was, the Democrats were worse.
A bunch of people who voted for him seem to think that those of us on the left just don’t like his “mean tweets.”
(For decades, actually, the abortion issue alone—and remember, this is from a point of view which views abortion as horrific infanticide—was the explicit litmus test for a lot of people in the US. They considered it a sin to vote for any candidate who would not try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course we’re now in an odd situation where the abortion plank is no longer in the GOP platform…)
So I’d be very cautious about assuming that a Trump voter must actually believe in the stuff which I believe he really stands for.
So I’m with the posters who want us to stick with the rules we already have.
But I'd expect anyone posting racist guff there to be planked if and when they articulated those views not when they said something like, 'Hey, I voted for Trump ...'
If the CofE is as institutionally racist as @ThunderBunk claims then let's plank all Anglican Shipmates.
The RCs and the Orthodox don't have women priests. Let's throw them overboard.
Most evangelicals are socially conservative. Some hold very Zionist views and support Israel uncritically. Over the side with them!
Where do we stop? Where do we draw the line?
If someone says something jerkish or crusades, trolls or intimidates other Shipmates chuck 'em overboard.
Don't plank them simply because they read The Telegraph or watch Fox News or vote Republican or for Reform.
Publicly advocating for racists is racist behaviour.
I'm not seeing the scenarios people are coming up with actually happening here because the declarations of Trump support came on threads where the racism was explicitly brought up and people confronted with it - either ignoring it or going on to post support elsewhere for a political group notorious in its country for racist attitudes.
Trump is of course also a misogynist, an ablist, homophobic, islamophobic, transphobic - basically the embodiment of breaking C1 so it mystifies me that people excuse or accept explicit support for him on the boards - as if we should just pretend not to know any of that in case some pure innocent fascist voter turns up.
Maybe that level of ignorance shouldn't be an acceptable excuse because of the damage it has caused and is causing to others?
Maybe the people being harmed by fascism are more important than being a 'learning opportunity' for fascists and their ability to enjoy this space without being subjected to fascism should be prioritised?
Maybe we should just enforce our rules that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and is supporting other ducks and what they do, that duck behaviour which we explicitly ban is going on.
Agreed with all of this. People's tendency to compartmentalize can be challenged, in Epiphanies or elsewhere as appropriate. At that point, the poster has a choice about how to respond to the problematic aspects of their group. That response is where a host might have to step in.
Re the bracketed bit: I have good news for you!
Yes I see what's to me a C1 breaking post which is why I restarted posting on this thread the other day but the admin steer on this thread is not to get personal.
So I'll stay general. I think if someone were to praise a far-right racist 'and other isms' party doing well and approvingly reference the justification the party currently uses for its more racist positions that that would break C1. If they did it after supporting a known fascist/ racist then I personally wouldn't be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt on C1.
I'm frustrated about it because it seems to me that advocating for racists is racist and that public declarations of support for racists ought to be taken at face value unless there's compelling evidence to the contrary.
We ban Nazism because it's a portmanteau of all the worst isms and I have trouble seeing informed support for Trumpism as any different in that respect.
But what concerns me is that there seems to be a loophole where people can advocate for racism by going 'I support [ insert name of massive racist/ far right/ fascist grouping here] and use that for brinkmanship.
In general I dont think brinkmanshippers of this kind would be too open-minded to listening to what people subjected to racism have to say about it or in my opinion, they wouldn't be seeing what they can get away with in that line.
I think the trouble that causes outweighs any benefit.
I think it would be better for crew to confront them earlier on and say 'do you know what you signed up for isnt compatible with this?' and if they double down then say 'sorry advocating for this isnt compatible with what you signed up for. You need to stop it or get shore leave' etc as we normally proceed.
Yes. But when the scheme was still underway, the Tories were planning to go through with it and wanted their fans to assume it WAS going forward, and so anyone who announced himself a Tory at that time was announcing, at the very least, he was comfortable having a government in power that pursued such policies.
And, yeah, Trump's doing a lot worse, mutatis mutandis, but I don't know if I've heard Liz Truss renounce her trip in the Inauguration in 2025. She's still a Conservative, going by wiki. Suella Braverman was there, as well though she has now joined Reform, of course. Point is, these kind of differences in degree can, I would THINK, be kinda hard to enforce in practice without endless debate about the exact line between "Right-Wing Irredeemable " and "Right-Wing Redeemable", if all we have to go on is their announced formal partisan loyalty.
But, serious question. Can you refresh my memory and remind me...?
What side of the instant ban/benefit of doubt divide would you put a self-announced Reformer?
My point was that many middle-class people also vote Reform - it is not just a working-class phenomenon. I don't know what jokes about Luton airport you're referring to. I'm from Coventry, I'm well aware of stereotypes about chavs and run-down former industrial areas. It's still no excuse when many fight against the far-right.
What about Shipmates that fall into groups that Reform want eradicated? What about their safety on the Ship? I think that's more important than pandering to someone who is already being pandered to by the UK media and most UK political parties right now.
Sorry, why has it almost driven you off the Ship that you now have to consider the own voices of marginalised people? I don't think you can claim to be a liberal in any way if you think that is too strenuous a task.
I remember when Dead Horses was just unmitigated bullying of LGBTQ+ people and anyone who was pro-choice. Why do you think that is preferable to Epiphanies?
Also - fascists are not the same as conservatives and nobody has suggested wanting to ban regular conservatives. MAGA is a fascist group. Reform is a fascist group. One Nation is a fascist group. Opposing fascism should be the bare minimum for Christians. I'm shocked and appalled that so many seem to want to welcome open fascists with open arms.
The mental gymnastics necessary to make posting public support for all that compatible with C1 are beyond me.
For me this isnt in the same ballpark as individual policies in other parties breaking C1.
Some parties however do seem to have been set up on C1 breaking lines so it needs to be considered whether advocating for those parties is just another way of being racist - especially in a context of brinkmanship.
Again I think openly posted support for openly racist parties is worth challenging early as to 'How do you square that with C1 which you signed up to?'
I did not say that white Evangelicals are a racist group. I said that white Evangelicals in the US are more likely to be racist than white non-religious people, because that is what Pew Research supports.
Evangelical Christianity is not inherently racist. Project 25 (as an example) IS inherently fascist. It was set up explicitly to be fascist. Somebody who signed up for Trump signed up for that. Signing up for Trump WAS the pro-fascist behaviour.
I think that anti-polarization is frankly a false idol of centrism that inevitably just screws over marginalised people who do not have the option of not being polarizing, when their entire existence is considered polarizing.
I haven't misrepresented or ignored anything you've said (at least not intentionally), I have clearly just not understood your point - sorry.
I haven't misrepresented or ignored anything you've said (at least not intentionally), I have clearly just not understood your point - sorry.
If they already wanted to repeal Roe vs Wade they already voted for brain-dead women being forced to be incubators against their families' wishes. Their views are already abhorrent. I'm not sure why you'ee presenting wanting to repeal Roe vs Wade as an example of "reasonable" Trump voters when it has killed many women. Just because they view abortion as horrific infanticide doesn't make them reasonable or mean they should be tolerated.
We're just lately hearing that ICE are now targeting stage doors of theatre shows in the US, yet people who claim to be Christians are handwringing over the feelings of people who heartily endorse such things. It is genuinely very upsetting to me that the risks to those targeted by MAGA/Reform/One Nation etc are being downplayed like this. How are MAGA not equivalent to the KKK just because they're lynching people from Latam rather than Black people??
I sincerely do not give one wretched fuck about the feelings of fascists, I care about the safety of their victims. I do not give a crap how left behind Farmer McWhiteguy feels when ICE are disappearing his hispanic farmworkers. He is not the victim here.
Have we all forgotten about the Nazi Bar parable? Why are people so eager to allow the Ship to become that?
I think this is in poor taste when I know you know full well that for many people, their neighbour is now the person who might call ICE on them. I am failing to see why making the Ship safe for marginalised people is seen as such a ridiculous concept. Why is wanting respite from bigotry in the world at large so unreasonable?
What happens if a Shipmate calls ICE on another Shipmate? Is that risk worth having a MAGA supporter on board? Obviously, not that a Democrat couldn't call ICE on someone - but there's a clear increased risk.
He cited them as examples of people whose votes were driven solely by a single issue rather than by signing on to everything else, such as racism, that candidate might represent. He never said anything about them being “reasonable.”
I’m afraid I’m failing to see where anyone has suggested making the Ship safe for marginalized people is a ridiculous concept.
It hasn't, because that's not how I view the way the Ship's "new" rules deal with these matters. As for all of that in more detail, there is a thread here in the Styx on that that I started last year, I think.
You can think what you like, though as I said above, I don't think that's what's happening on the Ship in the first place.
I think that being able to discuss multiple sides on issues related to LGBTQ+ matters and on abortion (and on all kinds of others, though I don't expect the whole YEC stuff (which was also relegated to Dead Horses) to come back on the Ship, and if it did, it wouldn't fit in Epiphanies anyway) would be good, as long as people are able to do so without it being Hellish on whatever side. I'm gay and I'm not even sure if I can express my views on certain gay issues on the current Ship, even though it's presumably still known from before, and it's technically in my screen name.
@Pomona also said
I'm not going to debate Roe vs. Wade here (not least of which it's the Styx, not Purgatory/Epiphanies/Dead Horses), though again I'm not sure the Ship allows for it to be debated any more at all, or at least with more than one side allowed to express more than one view of abortion.
@Pomona also said
You know that all of the boards and posts are viewable by non-Shipmates, right? (I just checked on another browser without being logged in.) So being a Shipmate doesn't give them more info to work with if someone wanted to do something like that.
Have you somehow missed the fact that me and my family are dealing with ICE up close and personal? And yes, we've had a death already.
Yes, I'm feeling a bit fatigued by the whole matter of people being told they said "X" when they didn't actually say "X."
I'm also a bit baffled by the whole matter of what constitutes "safe" on an online discussion board, particularly where it's supposed to allow for "unrest," and where people can even engage in all-out personal attacks on the Hell board. I had always understood the Ship, going back to ... 2001? Not sure when I joined... as a place where, unlike other Christian discussion spaces, any topic/position was fair game, whether you were conservative or liberal theologically or downright atheist or another religion, whatever your politics were, whatever country you were posting from, as long as you did not act like a jerk, and if you wanted to fight with someone in rude ways, there was always the Hell board. Other religious discussion boards had religious litmus tests, possibly political ones (heck, in the last year I was kicked out of a Christian Contemporary Music fan group on Facebook for being too politically liberal, and possibly for being gay as well, but the owner said that he considered Democrats "demonic," so that might have been enough), but not the Ship. I don't like how far I think it's already gone in the "litmus test" category as it is, and I would not like to see it go further down that path.
Sending prayers, as a side note.
The Ship sails under UK anti hate laws. Which encompass, if I understand pics of bobbies roughhousing grannies, protesting Israel's genocide of Palestinians. That is deemed to be anti semitic. The UK Supreme Court will almost certainly quash those parts of the laws, as will the Australian High Court our corresponding legislation.
So unless the Ship is put in legal jeopardy, I'm for not planking plonkers, I'd rather that we all laughed at them.
When in doubt, keep scrolling.
It’ll take someone much smarter than me to do that, fortunately we have many aboard.
I remember when Dead Horses was just unmitigated bullying of ....anyone who was pro-choice.
I am pro-choice. Part of the reason that I joined the Ship in October 2007 was that it seemed to be to be supportive of pro-choice views. I participated in every relevant thread in Dead Horses. I have no recollection of "unmitigated bullying of anyone who was pro-choice" in Dead Horses. Quite the reverse.
We are certainly not going to stop the rise of the far right around the world by preventing from posting on one small discussion forum. (That feels like the politicians' fallacy to me.) The far right takes so much of its momentum from echo chambers and fake news outlets. It's just not clear to me that someone whose media diet consists of Fox News or GBNews does have an accurate picture of how fascist the Maga project is. Being a space where they have to interact with reasoned argument for other points of view - well, it won't halt the rise of the far-right either but it might temper one or two people.
However....
The only argument for banning that seems to me cogent is if the presence of far-right posters puts off other posters from other points of view, especially minorities. That is a matter for which we'd need evidence. I can see that people worried about far-right bullying may not want to say so in public. (PM the admins maybe?) Certainly the Ship would need to take a firm line on things that look like bullying and would have to treat patterns of stepping up to the line as forms of crossing it.
That's precisely why I'm so flabbergasted at your stance here.
MAGA/Reform et al want me and people like me (on several different axes of oppression) exterminated. I think it is reasonable in that context to be alarmed at people fighting for the right to welcome people openly in support of such groups. This is why your comment that "then we can all retreat to our own little locked down safety groups and never have to deal with our neighbors" felt so astonishingly flippant to me at how real the dangers are here. What is wrong with wanting ONE online Christian space without the far-right?
Waste of time. If they could be persuaded by argument, they would already have been. Since whatever they subscribe to - Farage, Trump, Netanyahu, whoever - has been absorbed by osmosis of a fungus dormant in their psyche, there is no anti-fungal treatment available. Just ridicule them.
It’s possible to escape from a cult.
Seconded: these people are either nutty ideologues or trolls and Oxygen thieves: so not worth the waste of further oxygen.
Easier to ignore than to ridicule.
I do wonder if perhaps the everyday rhetoric (in terms of eg stuff people will say to each other while waiting for a bus or what have you) in the UK is actually worse than in the US and that is what has prompted that phrase to sting so much - @Louise can maybe add her own experiences but certainly even I in my area which voted Remain and has a Lib Dem MP, it's not unusual to hear absolutely bonkers levels of casual racism said in passing like people are discussing the weather, especially racism towards asylum seekers. It's incredibly normal for threats of violence (like, actual violence) to be casually made towards boats or hotels housing migrants, especially when travelling into areas where hotels have had very explicitly racist and violent protests outside for months on end. It is in all the news media here and is basically impossible to avoid.
I think it's reasonable for marginalised people at risk from the far-right to want a space without them in it, because the far-right pose a direct threat to us. That is why I am so baffled in particular by people who are also directly threatened by the far-right to think that proscribing supporters of said far-right is somehow objectionable (sorry, can't think of a better word - I mean simply that you object to the idea, not in an angry sort of way). I'm sincerely confused as to why it's somehow not reasonable to want a space without the far-right in light of the real-life threat that they pose.
I think, perhaps, we are also dealing with pond differences in terms of free speech culture. The UK has a long history of "no platform" as a tactic for addressing fascism, whereas the US has culturally extended the constitutional protection of free speech somewhat into the private sphere. While there are obviously exceptions the disagreement here does seem to reflect that difference.
I cut my anti-fascist teeth in 00s battles against the BNP (and BPP) and the lesson I took is that the worst thing you can do is treat them as a legitimate political choice.
I'm certainly not under what I'd call the Student Union fallacy that anything we do here makes a significant difference in the wider world but I do care about the quality of discussion and how it affects people.
It didn't escape my notice that along with the -isms came an attitude of 'alternative facts' which when debunked just led to doubling down.
It might be fun sometimes to go 'Wow look what this twit just posted' but then large parts of threads begin to centre on debunking what the alternative fact merchant has said so the discussion revolves around nonsense.
Add to that the drip, drip, drip of posters who seem to want to post racism and hate for those who are different as they figure out how much they can get away with - and because people viscerally feel that and react to it, they can end up dominating and derailing threads.
Minority stress is a real thing
https://www.urccp.org/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=69
Excusing forms of aggression against minority groups already heavily laden with stress from social prejudice, compounded with the rise of fascism which seeks to exterminate them, just seems to me to be something we shouldn't be doing.
We should be doing the opposite at a time like this - asking how in a society becoming more hostile and dangerous we make sure minorities in our community dont have to carry additional burdens, and can feel unharassed while being visible- not constantly looking over their shoulders for fascists when they post here. That's a simple justice issue to me.
I think the kind of visibility that does help those with an open mind and promote conversation has to involve very tight controls on the hate speech which pushes people back into various closets because that happens very easily - not because people are fragile but because if all or the majority of their spoons are being taken by everyday life, to post here becomes more expensive with spoons when we allow pro-fascist posting. It's not a fun hobby for those who know there's a racist/ transphobe waiting to come at their posts when they have to calculate 'have I the spoons for that? Fuck it I'll just not post.'
I find myself when I'm tired making those calculations. Have I got fuel in my tank for this if they come at me? And I'm not LGBT+, just an autistic person with very close loved ones who are directly affected by this hate.
I'm not keen on being profligate with other worse off people's spoons by allowing promoting racial and other hatreds here.
And I still haven't seen a good answer as to how promoting explicitly racist groups doesn't break C1 - answers seem to revolve around people not knowing the very notorious racists they promote are racist but the people posting support for them here do know that, as the evidence of where they post and what they post shows.
And I'm far more worried about people who have genuine worries in real life about these people attacking them and campaigning to harm or murder them than about them feeling sorry for themselves and feeling aggrieved that others reject their prejudices.
I also dont think that's a good answer for ignoring our rules against racist behaviour when fascist supporters support racist fascists. It's plain and simple racist behaviour.
Which brings me back to @TurquoiseTastic 's point that we're under no obligation to cater to every point of view.
We could just say ' No open support for MAGA, No open support for the far right' as posting open support for this breaks our rules that racist etc behaviour is banned here.
This is a choice we actually could make to just say ' nope' we dont want that round here. We get enough and more than enough of it elsewhere.
We're not withdrawing anyone's grant or stopping them going to hundreds of other places which welcome their views. Just saying 'nope - not here. Stop it.' and hopefully lightening the burden a bit for more people whose burdens need lightening at a time like this.
Interesting you've had the opposite experience!
I agree that it's an issue of polarisation. It's also about fragmentation because of social media.
I don't think it has to be about thrashing out the fiercest disagreements of our age unless you feel strongly compelled you have to change the other person's mind. Then you are wasting your time. There is a messiah complex and large ego in such things.
Really it's just about chatting. And perhaps preventing echo chambers. Which only increases polarisation.
This. This. This.
I think the ship has a problem with their definition of racism.
Being anti-immigration is not racist. It's just that the damn country doesn't have the infrastructure to accomodate more people! This is the problem in Australia! Our hospitals are overloaded. Our housing is a nightmare.
I do not believe any of my posts have been racist and when I pointed out someone WAS being racist against white people I was planked.
If you define racism as something that “pre-judges the individual by regarding him or her simply as a member of a group, automatically attributing to the individual that group’s supposed characteristics, which are stereotyped in unflattering terms" (Nigal Biggar's definition) then automatically restricting people that believe differently to you is racist.
Criticising a religion or a culture for particular values of x, y, z is not racist because you're not criticising the individual, you are criticising the group. The individual may or may not have the attributes of the group. And if you are judging individuals, they should be judged on their own merits.
Criticising a group is absolutely fair game. We do it all the time in our political parties or what not. This ship is fine to critisize Christianity no? It is the magazine of Christian unrest. Is that racist?
It's what makes liberal democracies.
So I suggest the ship work on its definition of racism.
I think @TurquoiseTastic has the right of it. Which groups do you want to automatically ban? Is One Nation off limits? Are Trumpists off limits? Is the Reform party or Restore party off limits?
Keep it grounded. Keep it real.
At this point I have no idea what I'm allowed to talk about without getting planked again.
It is possible to agree with some things a group or person has said, without agreeing with all a group or person has said. That's called critical thinking./b]
I feel I have been punished for critical thinking and I think you're all better than that. It's not the British way.
Why would I be offended you thought I was an Aussie bloke?
Aussie blokes are awesome.
I hate labels. Once they are assigned to a person it is very difficult to not make assumptions about them. I try to take everything I read here at face value and without linking it to what that person has said before. If someone said that they support a certain person/party it would ideally pass me by but if they stated why they support one side on any issue I would enjoy considering their argument if rationally presented and if challenges are responded to. I have changed my mind sometimes after seeing such healthy discussion on the Ship.
I complained to the wider organisation - which celebrates its support for diversity - and asked to be entirely anonymous.
Not only did nothing happen but the person found out who the complaint was from and now makes me very uncomfortable when I pass them in the street.
They have a stall at the local farmer's market so I only go when I have enough spoons. Which is a shame.
Luckily they don't live in our village and haven't spoiled life here for me in any other way.
A small thing, maybe. I'm white British so have never suffered racism myself.
Which leads me to my point - I'm very glad of the Ship's strong stance on this matter.
And here's me thinking Australia was made of immigrants.
I'm currently being treated for cancer. At my last surgery the surgeon was Spanish, and half the nurses non-British (South Asian, Eastern European and North African). All immigrants.
You think excluding employable/skilled people of working/child-rearing age is a solution to your problems? Really?
Including a cousin-in-law and her wife. So why is she, why are the other Brits, not a problem?
If, as claimed above, Australian hospitals are overloaded - oh no, wait, they actually work in healthcare.
Housing? Not only do they have a house, but they're raising 3 children who'll also want accommodation - the burden!