University Of Florida Denies Richard Spencer Event, Citing 'Likelihood Of Violence'
Texas A&M Cancels Sept. 11 'White Lives Matter' Rally Over Safety Concerns
Baltimore Removes Confederate Statues One Day After Voting On Issue
Charlottesville Rally Aimed To Defend A Confederate Statue. It May Have Doomed Others
GOOD. In my mind if you wave the flag of people who slaughtered millions and waged war on the USA, you should have bad things happen to you. Free speech and all, sure. But Free Speech is not free from consequence. Waving a NAZI flag, a Confederate battle flag, a Soviet flag, an anarchist flag should have real world consequences. And I say that as a guy who wants my racists loud and proud and out in the open. firstly, it reminds some of my weaker willed liberal friends that these people exist and there are still battles to fight. Secondly so that I know who these idiots are so I can not interact with them other than to mock them.
The right seems to have found a creative way to abuse something that is a bit unique to this country and when the First Amendment was written I'm pretty sure it was unheard of. Yeah, you guys have freedom of speech but everyone telling you to shut the fuck up is using the same right to attempt to shut you down.
It's been interesting to see how poorly we can handle degrees of sucking in public discourse -- it's kind of a zero-sum game. I think the anti-fa groups are getting a level of free passage that they don't necessarily deserve, simply because their opponents are so much worse (including being more harmful in the long run IMO). I'm worried about the degree to which we're allowing something we wouldn't accept otherwise because of whom it's directed at. And I get it in the case of neo-Nazis and the like, even if I think their threat level is overblown (as shown by the results of their even being this organized). So my problem isn't that the anti-fa groups who went to Charlottesville looking for a fight aren't being put on the same level with the neo-Nazis (since they're not), but that we're apparently not capable of having a real conversation about how white nationalism and racism should be discussed. We can't say anything that isn't 100% "these people are the worst and anything that happens to them is justified" without getting screamed at. Trump fucked the dog (as he does on every other decision he makes) in his public comments, but being in a place where anything other than violent condemnation is seen as solidarity is dangerous.
Just to call it out: There is no equivalency between Nazis and Antifa. The Nazis want to remove rights for the majority of the population. Antifa want to stop the Nazis from doing that. There in an American tendency to polarize anything into two equal and opposing sides. This false equivalency has permeated almost every issue in America, and does a disservice to everyone by elevating marginal beliefs to "common" status, and diminishing established, fact-based positions to mere "theories". Climate change is a great example. There is no debate. There is no question. It is better defined than gravity. And yet the tendency for Americans to give everyone an equal voice has led to climate change appearing to be a debate between equal players, when it is nothing of the sort. Equating Nazis with Antifa is the same problem. Nazis hate America, and the principles this country was founded upon, and want to remove rights that the Constitution grants their fellow Americans. Antifa wants them not to succeed in their efforts. Replace "Antifa" with "ProCon" for "Pro Constitution", and Nazis with "Anti-Constitution", and you see the difficulty of drawing an equivalency between the two movements.
Right, which is why I didn't. The fact that you can't criticize Antifa without being accused of equating the two is exactly the problem I was pointing out.
I live in the South so that maybe helps me better understand the level of tolerance for shameful history. Actually I don't understand it but I have to put up with it a lot. I cornered a girl once after she defended confederate statues and reacted pretty stupidly to a movie with a theme of racism as if the recognition of a problem makes it worse. She did these two things independently in about an hour so I just tried to make a point I usually avoid and make it very simply. I asked her if a German statue in honor of Nazi soldiers is appropriate in Germany since it's "part of history" I wish I could explain well her reply because it was absurdly nonsensical and at one point she mentioned North Korea in an attempt to deal with unexpected cognitive dissonance. And I still just had to end the discussion myself. I was pretty proud of the question to begin with because I thought it explained the situation pretty obviously without stepping on the toes of the confederate war dead which is not tolerated well here. I just gave up and told her history is understood differently in Europe and let her continue to think the war wasn't about slavery or whatever southerners believe. But I think that was the night my counselor told me I come off as a douche bag but I'm really not. And I think she said that after hearing a few different things I said that night about race or sexuality. And she's black. That's important to point out sometimes and that importance was a thing I tried to very carefully explain to a moron during group therapy
Can we just have a colosseum where groups that disagree can just battle to the death without hurting bystanders. That way we can get rid of all sorts of violent elements in our society. The Anti-Fa groups are just as dangerous as all the other violent groups and its a mistake to ignore them. Right now they might be getting practice fighting the white power people who nobody cares about, but soon enough they will wage violence in other places and for other causes.
Are the Anti-Fa people blameless? No, not at all. But evaluating the core ideologies of Anti-Fa vs. neo-Nazi-ism and reaching a conclusion that they are anywhere near equivalent is laughable. There SHOULD be a healthy measure of rage as a reaction to let white supremacists know that what they're standing for will alienate them from the rest of us who have agreed to play nice with one another. Calling for Anti-Fa to be culled because of things they might be doing in the future seems a bit draconian, and not what we should be expending our efforts on right now.
TIL. Maybe not the same guys in charge of wunderground.com, but both groups did/do a good job. Edit: "Maybe"
A PSA from your local weather enthusiast Wunderground is owned and operated by The Weather Network, formerly known as The Weather Channel. It is largely made up of members of the Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) as well as public NOAA data. Unlike Accuweather, which prides itself on telling people what they want to hear, Wunderground provides raw NOAA data and forecasts where available, and its own probabilistic curve fits where not. Wunderground reciprocates for this data by providing free memberships, free hosting of webcams and a general community atmosphere that Accuweather, a bunch of neoconservative fucktards that want to privatize NOAA, don't think you want or need. Note that your iPhone? It spits up Accuweather. We now return you to your regularly scheduled non sequitur.
Is there some unwritten rule that decrees any website receiving praise must change its current interface to something inferior within several weeks' time? I can't even get wunderground's fucking temperature/wind/heat index graphic to load anymore. The forecast graphs I used most often are now several "tabs" over. If I am being punished for using ad-blocking software, please, in the name of god, just tell me. Christ!
Oh, you mean like the stuff they trade on Wall Street, right?derivative
Yeah, sorry. (I mean, I know you're head webdesigner for them, for sure) Part of the problem is that I'm visiting the page to check whether or not the heat index is below 100F yet. I've gotta move away from this place.
The fact that non sequitor isn't in common use is pretty unfortunate. Because it's a term for a thing I do regularly in conversation. I was also scared you were going to tell me some reason not to use weather underground. I'm relieved. I'm not a weather nerd but I have 4 weather apps on my phone because the weather can be important and I'm not the kind of person who complains when the forecast is wrong because I know it's an almost an impossible feat to attempt in the first place. If you complain about TV weather men being wrong you should be given a Farmer's Almanac and told to deal with that to guess if you're going to get wet
When I non-sequit here it feels like a criminal violation, and all off-topic talk should be relegated to pubski. Sometimes I even feel remorse for bumping a post such as this one with irrelevant comment chains, just like I'm doing this very instant. But not badly enough to forego pushing "contribute"... Then, maybe several minutes to an hour or two later, I'll sometimes add an edit with slight signs of remorse.
The TV guys get short shrift. They have to say "looks like it might rain" and if it doesn't rain they're full of shit. On the other hand, the NWS gets to say "65% chance of rain" and if it doesn't rain the probability just wasn't high enough. They're saying the same thing.
By "good job", I guess I meant "the only source of weather I ever consult", and I use it multiple times each day. Saying "a 30% chance of rain on X-day" is woefully lacking compared to the hourly breakdown that wunderground provides. They do great with large-scale weather systems, but when a stationary front is overhead, I like to test my own guesses against their models. Under some conditions, I can really clean up. tl;dr - yes, fuck accuweather and weather.com