Apologia Pro Vita Sua

Since the previous thread with my name was locked and the desire to keep this out of the moderation thread was expressed, I post this here in a new thread.
In hia “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Dr. Martin Luther King sadly noted that

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more onvenient season.”

I go beyond “almost” and have definitely reached the conclusion that the biggest stumbling block for those who seek justice is the moderate who desires the semblance of “order” above all concerns for justice, who claim to what change but only if that transition does not come at a cost (that they have to pay). The game theory solution to this is obvious. If moderates care about preserving order (or civility or decorum), then the correct move is to threaten sufficient disorder, sufficient social unrest, equal to transitional costs of embracing justice. Giving them no way to have order, they should (eventually) come around to the acceptance of justice.

This does not mean that I advocate violence, in any way. I do not. However, I am realistic. With any true resistance, there will be violent outliers. If you increase the breadth of resistance and intensity of its spirit, the probability that there will be violent outliers increases. I do not call for violence, but I accept that true change will probably result in a few people doing things they shouldn’t. In his letter, MLK wrote:

We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence.

I do not believe in denying the truth just because of the chance that someone may happen upon them and be inspired to commit acts of violence.

There is a realistic concern that only violent disorder is enough to shake moderates out of their slumber. If Sandy Hook is not enough to move the needle on gun control, that suggests that Congress would only be moved if there was an even more traumatic event. Speculation on how much more traumatic is not advocacy of creating that event, just analysis of how politics works. Republicans don’t care about things that affect other people until it affects them directly. They aren’t part of the solution on guns until enough of them have been affected by guns directly for some of them to change their minds. Violence may only be necessary if you think they have to be part of the solution.

I care about accurately describing how the world works. I don’t care about coddling some leftist need to feel morally superior to conservatives. I don’t really believe that liberals are all that better or significantly smarter than conservatives. Many on the left are idiots who stumbled upon being on the side of what is right.

If someone reads my analysis and decides that violence is acceptable, that’s on them. It’s not on me. It’s currently not acceptable for me personally because of the cost, but the math says to me that at some point, the price of not acting and the benefit of acting becomes such, that the cost is acceptable. If I say that I don’t know what I will do if Trump gets re-elected, that only means that I haven’t evaluated the payoff matrix for certain actions in case that happens. I can’t lie and say what I will or will not due because it is not in my nature to lie about things like that. The future is probabilistic and I can only see what I might do in terms of a range of actions.

In my mind, what I am doing is the same as Maxine Waters advocating confronting members of Trump’s Cabinet in public and telling them that they are not welcome. This led to a bunch of pearl-clutching on the right, claiming that Waters was calling for Trump supporters to be harmed. You had Nancy Pelosi calling her words “unacceptable”, but civility won’t save us. I endorse the idea of harrassing Trump supporters. I do not endorse violently harrassing them, but I also don’t feel the need to condemn violence preemptively. The truth is that even if I do not want physical harm to come to them, I don’t have a problem with them feeling terrified that some liberal bogeyman is going to commit violent acts upon their persons.

If I call for the same treatment to be given to a MAGA baseball umpire, apparently some people can read my mind and tell what I really mean. If that is the case, then it doesn’t matter how I might try to moderate my words, because I will always be given the least charitable interpretation, so I might as well be myself and not bother trying to avoid being inflammatory.

I resent any suggestion that I am trolling. I generally mean what I say. What I choose to post about might be inspired by anger, but my mode of communication has been chosen by reason, with a desire to cause discomfort and cognitive dissonance in moderates who care more about civility. Some choose to resolve that cognitive dissonance by believing that I am a troll. It’s easier than believing that someone like me is on their side, I guess. If I were trolling you, you would feel a lot more triggered.

@zikzak Please lock until we get the forum rules sorted out. Nothing good can come from this obvious troll OP.

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lol

Same

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What were your accounts on 2p2?

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That would be a request for the mods, I think.

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Fair enough. This thread will just be the same as the other one you locked, which is why I asked.

I’ve always assumed it was BrianTheMick just from his mannerisms, but then I’ve always been terrible at that kind of thing.

I know Brian. There’s zero chance he’s NBZ. Brian isn’t even all that liberal lol.

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I called Brian once, he helped me with a personal problem actually, if this were Brian I think he’d have abandoned the gimmick 300 posts ago and started talking about chicken sandwiches. May be an SMP dude though who is overindulging/misapplying the polemics of late 2018 dvaut.

Yeah that’s Brian lol.

Definitely an air of SMP-style doucebaggery with this NBZ guy.

That’s bullshit.

So is this.

I’m all for protesting, shouting down the bad guys, verbally harassing them, etc. I draw a line at violence, you flirt with it at every chance.

Right, so basically in your own words you’re knowingly increasing the likelihood of violence, while also washing your hands of it, while also advocating for the use of more violent rhetoric on the left.

I have a gift for being able to read and understand the obvious.

Don’t put that on me, you predicted a ban for yourself from the jump and have at no point in time attempted to avoid being inflammatory, even before I got involved with this. You had at least one other poster call you out who is not a mod, and you declined to adjust.

I agree that you’re not a troll, and I think those who are choosing to believe so are giving in to the cognitive dissonance.

Folks, he’s telling you who he is. Believe him. He’s telling you what he wants and/or accepts, believe him. He’s telling you that in his opinion it’s not on him if his words inspire violence. That’s where you’ve got to make a decision about whether he’s right or not.

I say no, I say we can’t allow this kind of rhetoric.

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cuse, I largely disagree with everything you said above. I sometimes wonder if you really know what the term “rhetoric” means and its long-standing usage in political discussions throughout history and in social movements.

You use words like “flirting with violence” as if that means anything. This is an internet forum. We are typing and reading words. He is not reaching through anybody’s computer screen and punching them in the face.

If you mean that you think NBZ is inciting violence or advocating violence, then you should say that. I would violently disagree with you (do you see what I did there?) as I have not seen that in any of the NBZ posts I have read. In case it matters I am on record as condoning violence in many cases.

I also find it unreasonable for any mod to read somebody else’s posts in their most unfavorable light and then declare that they have crossed his/her imaginary line of acceptable forum posts. It should be obvious that just the opposite of that approach should be employed.

The standard of disallowing any post that could increase the likelihood by 0.00001% of some unknown person reading an internet post somewhere someday of committing some act of violence is beyond absurd, not to mention is “violated” by innumerable tweets, videos, facebook posts, other forum posts, etc. etc etc. each and every day by people on “both sides” and in this very forum.

Anyway this has all been discussed previously and there is another active thread where forum rules and moderation protocols will be hammered out. So I will leave it at that for now.

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Probably some duplicitous scumbag like chezlaw airing his alter ego every now and again.

I believe there is space between advocating violence vs approving violence and space between approving violence vs condoning violence. Agree or disagree?

Hi everybody!

The last time we discussed this topic a mod who wasn’t even involved in the conversation was on the verge of quitting.

Also, a years-long reg who was our largest recurring donor withdrew his financial support.

And another years-long reg who was our biggest one-time donor rage quit and hasn’t been seen since.

Oh yeah, and a third years-long reg committed suicide by donkey porn.

You have all made your points, over and over and over and over and over. Nothing new is going to be added to the discussion. Nobody’s mind is going to be changed. This situation will eventually resolve itself without any further discussion needed and then we can all move on.

The only thing being accomplished here is perpetual escalation that is doing significant collateral damage to the community. Personally idgaf about NBZ’s edgy posts or the fainting couch reaction a few of you have over them, or whether he eventually gets banned for it. But I absolutely do care about the very negative spillover that threatens the forum for the other 300 people here who also dgaf about any of this stupid shit.

So, please, for the sake of your fellow community members who aren’t involved in this and vastly outnumber everybody on both sides, could ya’ll maybe just put a fucking sock in it? Maybe don’t write another half dozen paragraphs reiterating an argument that has already been made 500 times? Skip the point-by-point rebuttal? Because that would be super incredibly awesome and helpful.

Thanks bunches!

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Have The Powers That Be reached a final decision on the matter?

What the actual fuck?