Facing pushback, Ryerson University cancels panel discussion on campus free speech - Sensationalist Headlines

I'm really confused by this speak of groups being responsible for the attack in Charlottesville, wasn't it just one guy?

[QUOTE=Hobo4President;52599251]I'm really confused by this speak of groups being responsible for the attack in Charlottesville, wasn't it just one guy?[/QUOTE] The car attack specifically, it was one guy who's basically the poster child for /r/the_donald or /pol/. But that wasn't the only violent incident of the weekend. Take a guess which side's groups hid weapon caches around Charlottesville.

[QUOTE=GunFox;52597650]The right wing is protecting Nazis. I want you to consider, very carefully, about what side you have chosen to be on.[/QUOTE] And a guy went to a baseball game to assassinate republican politicians because he thought they were basically "Nazis" or atleast assisting some. Maybe you have a false dichotomy of there only being one clear side to choose, and you should consider some nuance. What you are practicing by trying to guilt trip people into your argument is to ignore the real violence this mindset of "punch a Nazi" can deliver to innocent people by hurting them.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;52599228]Just a note, this happened in Canada and while Canada does have freedom of expression, it does not extend to hate speech in the same way that America's ironclad definition does.[/QUOTE] Oh, I thought you guys did.

[QUOTE=Hobo4President;52599251]I'm really confused by this speak of groups being responsible for the attack in Charlottesville, wasn't it just one guy?[/QUOTE] I don't know. Can we hold whole islamic extremism movement responsible if a lone wolf goes on a stabbing spree after being radicalized via internet?

[QUOTE=Sega Saturn;52584994]After Charlottesville, there was a lot of criticism against the police and the mayor for failing to prevent violence in public spaces. The university is taking a reasonable approach here: If they aren't confident that they can host the event safely, they shouldn't host it.[/QUOTE] That's kind of the problem though That means that people who think violence is a reasonable answer to ideas they don't like can use even the potential of "possible" violence to shut down ideas they don't like historically speaking, this is the worst possible red flag you could ever possibly raise. Also let's all take a moment to appreciate that the people claiming to oppose "fascism" use politically based violence against people arguing for the necessity of the individual's expression. Why can't i help but think of 1930's spain.

I'll never understand you people trying to shift the attention towards actual nazis at Charlotteville towards people who didn't run people over. Is it so hard to admit that actual nazis are a problem and that nazism is inherently violent. You have the kkk still being active and now people openly marching at Charlotteville with swastikas. These aren't just right wingers with different views on politics, these are people who openly wish for the genocide of people they deem unpure. So instead of trying to say "b-but antifa" and shift the blame, why not admit that both sides are a problem? Sorry If I'm rambling, English isn't my native language and my phone keyboard isn't cooperative.

Both sides are shit to be honest, it'd be nice if people didn't excuse crime (on the left's side) or want to kill all the Jews for some reason

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52599393]That's kind of the problem though That means that people who think violence is a reasonable answer to ideas they don't like can use even the potential of "possible" violence to shut down ideas they don't like historically speaking, this is the worst possible red flag you could ever possibly raise. Also let's all take a moment to appreciate that the people claiming to oppose "fascism" use politically based violence against people arguing for the necessity of the individual's expression. Why can't i help but think of 1930's spain.[/QUOTE] In Spain's case, the country then slid into civil war, takeover by literal fascists and even more authoritarian and violent rule. I'd say that's a very strong foundation to fear ""fascists"" if that's your best parallel.

[QUOTE=Starship;52599413]I'll never understand you people trying to shift the attention towards actual nazis at Charlotteville towards people who didn't run people over. Is it so hard to admit that actual nazis are a problem and that nazism is inherently violent. You have the kkk still being active and now people openly marching at Charlotteville with swastikas. These aren't just right wingers with different views on politics, these are people who openly wish for the genocide of people they deem unpure. So instead of trying to say "b-but antifa" and shift the blame, why not admit that both sides are a problem? Sorry If I'm rambling, English isn't my native language and my phone keyboard isn't cooperative.[/QUOTE] Nazis are a problem. Not only are they a problem, they have a tendency to be really organized and dangerous. I study them for my masters and have done work with a holocaust museum for a summer based on the recommendation of my professor who is head of the holocaust studies at my university. So if my case to point out the left has been politically violent as well at universities seems to detract from Neo-Nazis, then sorry about that, but it is undoubtedly the repeated speeches and events shut down by radical leftists that scare university administrators. You simply don't have recent cases of extreme right elements trying to shutdown events at universities like Antifa and other radical leftist groups have done. My points still stand that this "punch of Nazi" stance is intellectually careless and gets innocent people hurt. It is also highly dangerous in a democratic society that values freedom of speech since it acknowledges violence can be justified without action from the "nazi". What happened at Charlottesville is deeply concerning to someone like me because of the fact this was an organized movement of unabashed white nationalists, but I am also not going to ignore the political violence from the hard-left as well.

[QUOTE=Tudd;52599317]And a guy went to a baseball game to assassinate republican politicians because he thought they were basically "Nazis" or atleast assisting some. Maybe you have a false dichotomy of there only being one clear side to choose, and you should consider some nuance. What you are practicing by trying to guilt trip people into your argument is to ignore the real violence this mindset of "punch a Nazi" can deliver to innocent people by hurting them.[/QUOTE] So one guy attempting, specifically, to assassinate lawmakers, is somehow the same as siding with the KKK and literal nazis. Try again.

[QUOTE=GunFox;52599477]So one guy attempting, specifically, to assassinate lawmakers, is somehow the same as siding with the KKK and literal nazis. Try again.[/QUOTE] I'm not sure what point you are really trying to drive now after all that I have discussed on the issue. If you really want to be this intellectually low-brow, and just say I support the KKK and Nazis because I point out radical leftist violence, why shouldn't I just retort you are siding with dangerous antifa and communists with a history of implementing deadly force aswell? Which ironically this type conversation is one of the things that worries me the most. Two extremes fighting in the streets and trying to guilt-trip/force moderates to their side, is one of biggest similarities to the actual street/rally brawls of the Nazis and Communists of the 1920/30s. It is what helped set the conditions for the Nazis to get the votes and coalition they needed for total power. Luckily, I don't think Americans will consider nazism in a serious way at a massive level, but these types of conditions are dangerous for a democratic society to operate in.

[QUOTE=Tudd;52599486]I'm not sure what point you are really trying to drive now after all that I have discussed on the issue. If you really want to be this intellectually low-brow, and just say I support the KKK and Nazis because I point out radical leftist violence, why shouldn't I just retort you are siding with dangerous anarchists and communists with a history of implementing deadly force aswell? Which ironically this type conversation is one of the things that worries me the most. Two extremes fighting in the streets and trying to guilt-trip/force moderates to their side is one of biggest similarities to the actual street/rally brawls of the Nazis and Communists of the 1920/30s, and what helped set the conditions for the Nazis to get the votes and coalition they needed for total power.[/QUOTE] Anarchists are right wing. Less government control. They get labeled occasionally as left wing, but that generally makes no sense and isn't in keeping with other left wing factions. Communists are left wing. I mean, technically our left wing is actually comprised mostly of socialists, but let's go with communists for the sake of argument. Communism isn't bad. They aren't really the brightest folks, given that they don't understand one of the most basic concepts of Marx, namely that communism is an inevitability rather than a goal. It is the most likely point of homeostasis for a society and that capitalism was inherently unstable. He was a pretty chill dude. Hated Marxism. Anyhow, communists want economic equality and for people to have collective control over the means of production, rather than individual control. It suggests that humans are inherently productive and, left to their own devices, will continue to be industrious regardless of financial gain. In short, it seeks equality and has a remarkably positive, if perhaps naive, view of humans. On the other side you have the KKK and Nazis. I'll stick with communists. My argument is low brow because it doesn't need to be complicated. You have the faction that seeks to oppress people for their religious views, sexuality, skin color, ethnicity, etc and the side that opposes it. That is where we are in this country. Fifteen years ago that absolutely wasn't true. Today, however, the polarization of the parties has ensured it.

[QUOTE=GunFox;52599529]Anarchists are right wing. Less government control. They get labeled occasionally as left wing, but that generally makes no sense and isn't in keeping with other left wing factions.[/quote] I imagine you were writing this when I made an edit to change Anarchist to Antifa. I wanted to clarify on that because I am aware that Anarchism can be view on a political compass as completely against authoritarianism or right-wing on a spectrum. Problem is I also know Antifa members sometimes characterize themselves as Anarcho-communists, hence why I put Anarchists originally, even though that train of thought is amazing mental gymnastics. [quote] Communism isn't bad. They aren't really the brightest folks, given that they don't understand one of the most basic concepts of Marx, namely that communism is an inevitability rather than a goal. It is the most likely point of homeostasis for a society and that capitalism was inherently unstable. He was a pretty chill dude. Hated Marxism. Anyhow, communists want economic equality and for people to have collective control over the means of production, rather than individual control. It suggests that humans are inherently productive and, left to their own devices, will continue to be industrious regardless of financial gain. In short, it seeks equality and has a remarkably positive, if perhaps naive, view of humans.[/quote] The fact you went through all of that saying "Communism isn't bad" and didn't even address the elephant in the room of over 50 million+ people killed in the name of achieving communism; besides a slimmer of, "if perhaps naive, view of humans" is intellectually outstanding to me. And your view of communism as just the economic framework doesn't excuse the historical trend of violence that come from the people who try to implement it. If we want to just look at Fascism as an economic framework, we would just be in the same position as before. [quote] My argument is low brow because it doesn't need to be complicated. You have the faction that seeks to oppress people for their religious views, sexuality, skin color, ethnicity, etc and the side that opposes it. That is where we are in this country. Fifteen years ago that absolutely wasn't true. Today, however, the polarization of the parties has ensured it.[/QUOTE] You have always had factions like these in America, and in far far greater number than today, that is provable with numbers associated with groups like the KKK and Neo-Nazi group memberships and metrics. Fifteen years ago that wasn't true? Was post-9/11 America an exception in your mind of neo-nazis and the KKK? Please clarify this position. The alt-right people are certainly different than the neo-nazis of the past, but this type of presence didn't disappear in 2002. The only difference is that polarization has allowed fringe groups like them to surface or atleast get more media spotlight. But likewise, you have a group of people on the left that advocate the use of violence on their political opponents and try to limit free speech and other liberties. And their numbers are also on the rise, so why shouldn't we be concerned with them? Or specifically regarding this conversation, why is it if I just point them out as a bad faction, aswell as the neo-nazis, I have to be supporting the nazis?

[QUOTE=Tudd;52599586]But likewise, you have a group of people on the left that advocate the use of violence on their political opponents and try to limit free speech and other liberties. And their numbers are also on the rise, so why shouldn't we be concerned with them? Or specifically regarding this conversation, why is it if I just point them out as a bad faction, aswell as the neo-nazis, I have to be supporting the nazis?[/QUOTE] The problem becomes more apparent when you have someone endorsing political violence in WH ("Knock the crap out of them, I'll pay your legal fees I promise") and lying to public while denouncing free press at every opportunity. The situation isn't symmetrical, and problem with civil rights on the right can't be compartmentalized to literal nazis. You can't keep denouncing the left for its disregard for civil rights while turning a blind eye to the same done under the guise of Making America Great Again and pretend to actually care about civil rights rather than taking a partisan stance about them.

[QUOTE=GunFox;52599529]Anarchists are right wing. Less government control. They get labeled occasionally as left wing, but that generally makes no sense and isn't in keeping with other left wing factions.[/QUOTE] It depends actually, there are left-wing and right-wing anarchists. Left-wing anarchists support pure Communism, no government, no corporations, workers own and run everything from the bottom up and everyone is on equal footing. Right-wing anarchists support pure Libertarianism, no government, everyone is free to do as they wish, including corporations, the wealthy may run things as they wish, and those in need of help they can turn to volunteers or charities. And in my own opinion, both systems would end up in disaster. For Communism, it's impossible to run a structured society without someone using important positions to make power grabs. For Libertarianism, it'll reach a point where Corporations own and control everything of value at every level of society, and the average person is completely bumped out and left with very little freedom.

[QUOTE=Vlevs;52599424]In Spain's case, the country then slid into civil war, takeover by literal fascists and even more authoritarian and violent rule. I'd say that's a very strong foundation to fear ""fascists"" if that's your best parallel.[/QUOTE] Yes, caused by two increasingly extreme sides who refuse to open a productive dialogue. And there was also a similar iconoclasm to do with spain's past as well, though that was more to do with the monarchy, which both sides rejected. My point is exactly that this is not a road we want to be on, and unless something changes and we, society wide, value, hold up and have productive discussions, this is a road we're going to keep going down. And i think the one obvious thing that we can all agree on is that this is not getting better, and discourse is not getting healthier.[URL="http://www.dailywire.com/sites/default/files/antifa1.jpg"] Which sure as shit isn't being helped by the media[/URL], whom are now literally openly praising political violence.

[QUOTE=Tudd;52599586] The fact you went through all of that saying "Communism isn't bad" and didn't even address the elephant in the room of over 50 million+ people killed in the name of achieving communism; besides a slimmer of, "if perhaps naive, view of humans" is intellectually outstanding to me. And your view of communism as just the economic framework doesn't excuse the historical trend of violence that come from the people who try to implement it. If we want to just look at Fascism as an economic framework, we would just be in the same position as before. [/QUOTE] Not sure it's a good idea of using death toll to say communism is bad given how the alternative, capitalism, has a death toll of over [URL="http://guerrillaontologies.com/2014/05/attempting-the-impossible-calculating-capitalisms-death-toll/"]200 million+[/URL].

[QUOTE=gokiyono;52599712]Not sure it's a good idea of using death toll to say communism is bad given how the alternative, capitalism, has a death toll of over [URL="http://guerrillaontologies.com/2014/05/attempting-the-impossible-calculating-capitalisms-death-toll/"]200 million+[/URL].[/QUOTE] You linked a blog post that really did a terrible job of trying to lay all this out. The guy can have valid points on estimates changing, but his numbers are horrible aswell. [quote]So now to the main point of this post – to try to create a list of the number of victims that have fallen prey to global capitalism. Before I continue however, an important note must be made: unlike the death tolls associated with Communism (which are caused by regimes themselves), the deaths caused by capitalism are usually the result of capitalist constructions, be they systemic poverty, imperialism, Atlantic and post-Atlantic slavery, etc. In order to head off any potential critiques of this post when I mention things like “Hurricane Katrina” or “Poverty in the US” for example, I will be explaining how each of the incidents in question can be attributed to capitalism (both in neo-liberal capitalism or strict corporate capitalism).[/quote] Ah yes but here is the main problem with a post like this; If you use completely different metrics for each system and likewise count direct deaths for fascism/communism versus indirect deaths for capitalism, you can make capitalism look waaaaaaaay worse, which is why this blog post is a load of shit. [b]It has to make a special caveat for Capitalism to make his whole conclusion work.[/b] Not only that, but the guy lumps in liberally wars, events, and causes that have no clear capitalistic policy behind them, just a vague notion of it because capitalistic nations partook, even though other nations of Fascism/Communism have pulled the same geopolitical maneuvers. He only gets a few in with concrete anti-communist quotes from key leaders, but even then he follows for similar failures of high-end estimates the he just spent time criticizing. Not to mention he is lumping in events spanning hundreds of years, even before the term Capitalism was coined, to inflate his numbers. Which all of this is hard to take seriously in comparison to say something like the Holodomor, with clear communist policies that resulted in the famine that directly killed millions of Ukrainians due to the redistribution of food, and then this asshole thinks the unforseen deaths of Native Americans by European diseases (which he throws in as a very generous estimate of 50 Million dead to Capitalism) is remotely in the same realm of sense or reasoning for these types of metrics.

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52599699]Yes, caused by two increasingly extreme sides who refuse to open a productive dialogue. And there was also a similar iconoclasm to do with spain's past as well, though that was more to do with the monarchy, which both sides rejected. My point is exactly that this is not a road we want to be on, and unless something changes and we, society wide, value, hold up and have productive discussions, this is a road we're going to keep going down. And i think the one obvious thing that we can all agree on is that this is not getting better, and discourse is not getting healthier.[URL="http://www.dailywire.com/sites/default/files/antifa1.jpg"] Which sure as shit isn't being helped by the media[/URL], whom are now literally openly praising political violence.[/QUOTE] It really doesn't help that you're resorting to the tactics you condemn. I read the [URL="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/unmasking-antifa-anti-fascists-hard-left/index.html"]article[/URL] you provided as an example and it didn't read like they were praising antifa like you claim. On the topic of media bias, I'll link the article you sourced your pic from just for giggles: [url]http://www.dailywire.com/news/19954/cnn-alters-headline-after-claiming-antifa-seeks-emily-zanotti[/url]

[QUOTE=GunFox;52599529]Anarchists are right wing. Less government control. They get labeled occasionally as left wing, but that generally makes no sense and isn't in keeping with other left wing factions.[/QUOTE] (Social) anarchism is a form of libertarian socialism, which is left-wing. Almost all self-identified anarchists advocate for worker control of the means of production, along with the abolition of the nation-state and unjust hierarchies. Some anarchists are pro-market and money in a socialist context (like mutualism), while others are against it (like communism). Social anarchists argue that anarcho-capitalists aren't actual anarchists, because private property requires a state for enforcement. (Whether the corporations that takes the place of the state by definition is debatable.) Increasingly, right-libertarians are moving towards minarchism, where the a few core functions of the state are retained (such as police, military and emergency services). Less government control, A.K.A libertarianism, isn't an inherently right-wing trait. It occurs on both sides of the spectrum. Vice versa, authoritarianism also occurs on both sides, but I'd argue that the right wing is more susceptible to it due to more focus on nationalism and strength. The radical left wing is much more splintered. Libertarian socialists disagree with authoritarian communists on a fundamental level, therefore they don't get along, but they occasionally work together against a common enemy (fascism). Marxist-Leninism, an authoritarian form of communism, argues for retaining the state for a period after the revolution, where the single vanguard party takes on responsibility for giving the common workers control of the MOP and defending the revolution, and then the state is expected to "wither away" into stateless, classless communism. As history has shown over and over again, this fails spectacularly. The vanguard party becomes a new ruling class, the state retains the MOP (which is why it's called state capitalism) and dissidents get horribly persecuted. Anarchists see this and argue for a direct transition into a stateless socialist or communist society. They argue for voluntary institutions, confederalism, bottum-to-top direct democracy or consensus decision-making and a vast variety of revolutionary tactics ranging from violent insurrection to peaceful dual power. It hasn't had its chance to be put into practice properly apart from some small and/or short-lived examples (e.g. Paris Commune, CNT of Catalonia in the Spanish Civil War, Ukraine Free Territory and currently the Zapatistas in Mexico, PYD in Rojava and various squats and autonomous spaces around the world). It's a utopian vision for sure, but the radical left wing accepts the fact that they're thinking far ahead of their own lifetimes. They do what they gotta do to live their lives in the current society, while working to plant the seeds of change.

[QUOTE=UnknownDude;52599876](Social) anarchism is a form of libertarian socialism, which is left-wing. Almost all self-identified anarchists advocate for worker control of the means of production, along with the abolition of the nation-state and unjust hierarchies. Some anarchists are pro-market and money in a socialist context (like mutualism), while others are against it (like communism). Social anarchists argue that anarcho-capitalists aren't actual anarchists, because private property requires a state for enforcement. (Whether the corporations that takes the place of the state by definition is debatable.) Increasingly, right-libertarians are moving towards minarchism, where the a few core functions of the state are retained (such as police, military and emergency services). Less government control, A.K.A libertarianism, isn't an inherently right-wing trait. It occurs on both sides of the spectrum. Vice versa, authoritarianism also occurs on both sides, but I'd argue that the right wing is more susceptible to it due to more focus on nationalism and strength. The radical left wing is much more splintered. Libertarian socialists disagree with authoritarian communists on a fundamental level, therefore they don't get along, but they occasionally work together against a common enemy (fascism). Marxist-Leninism, an authoritarian form of communism, argues for retaining the state for a period after the revolution, where the single vanguard party takes on responsibility for giving the common workers control of the MOP and defending the revolution, and then the state is expected to "wither away" into stateless, classless communism. As history has shown over and over again, this fails spectacularly. The vanguard party becomes a new ruling class, the state retains the MOP (which is why it's called state capitalism) and dissidents get horribly persecuted. Anarchists see this and argue for a direct transition into a stateless socialist or communist society. They argue for voluntary institutions, confederalism, bottum-to-top direct democracy or consensus decision-making and a vast variety of revolutionary tactics ranging from violent insurrection to peaceful dual power. It hasn't had its chance to be put into practice properly apart from some small and/or short-lived examples (e.g. Paris Commune, CNT of Catalonia in the Spanish Civil War, Ukraine Free Territory and currently the Zapatistas in Mexico, PYD in Rojava and various squats and autonomous spaces around the world). [B]It's a utopian vision for sure[/B], but the radical left wing accepts the fact that they're thinking far ahead of their own lifetimes. They do what they gotta do to live their lives in the current society, while working to plant the seeds of change.[/QUOTE] Anarchist here, and your description is quite accurate, except the bolded portion. Anarchism isn't a utopian view, most sane anarchists recognize that social issues and struggles against injustice may still take place in anarchist society. We simply view anarchism as a better form of social organization than the current one, which is based on violence, exploitation, and ultimately an unsustainable need for growth and profits that threatens the future of human civilization itself (through the ever-looming danger of climate change or nuclear war).

[QUOTE=GunFox;52599529]Anarchists are right wing. Less government control. They get labeled occasionally as left wing, but that generally makes no sense and isn't in keeping with other left wing factions.[/QUOTE] this is dreadful ignorance anarchists are traditionally leftwing and almost all of them are leftwing (save for the weirder crypto-libertarian types). anarchists often teamed up with commies/socialists and almost always anarchists oppose the rightwing being for the decentralization of power or against the goverment (and the control it has) is not a rightwing idea

Really depends on what political spectrum a person imagines to place Anarchism on (Tyranny to Freedom left to right for example). But the political compass that a lot of people use situates it directly middle-bottom. Which atleast allows for the nuance you just described. It's hard to get solid numbers on anarchists demographics, considering unlike Nazis/Communists they usually aren't very organized for obvious reasons. :v:

[QUOTE=Vlevs;52599763]It really doesn't help that you're resorting to the tactics you condemn. I read the [URL="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/unmasking-antifa-anti-fascists-hard-left/index.html"]article[/URL] you provided as an example and it didn't read like they were praising antifa like you claim. On the topic of media bias, I'll link the article you sourced your pic from just for giggles: [URL]http://www.dailywire.com/news/19954/cnn-alters-headline-after-claiming-antifa-seeks-emily-zanotti[/URL][/QUOTE] Well, perhaps sympathetic would've been a better word. Like showing the guy saying "damn right, it's to avoid the ramifications of law enforcement" and then just moving on without challenging the fact that they're bragging about breaking the law and ending on "we're there to stand in their way" with a little "doot da doo" hero flourish.