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Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Silvershield
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Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-22-06 03:20 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
...I don't understand how any personal association of yours is relevant. Surely I sympathize for whatever adverse effect history has on your personal life, but how does that enter into the argument? So, a Jew is immune from speech that trivializes his ancestors' deaths, but an Armenian, for example, is not?

You say that, since "your people" have been victims, you are more attuned to that similar struggle in others; so, why do you only extend that empathy to the Jews, but not to any of the other racial or ethnic groups that have been targeted?
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-22-06 03:39 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
What in the hell are you talking about?

You've twisted my words to a ridiculous degree. The fact of the matter is that the Holocaust is the worst of the bunch.
What the hell am I talking about? I'm just taking what you say and responding to it; can you point out how I am misrepresenting you?

Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
But yeah. Personal attachments are really relevant. You ever look at a picture of a dead man that was starved to death? You ever have to sit there and look and say "That man was probably related to me"? You ever have to sit down and think "What if my grandparents hadn't left that country when they did"? You ever have to sit down and completely question your existence, your identity, your heritage?
Now you're twisting what I'm saying - your personal attachment isn't irrelevant because it is a personal attachment, but because it is selective. That is, you can empathize with the Jewish perspective because your ancestors were victims of genocide, but you apparently do not empathize with other ethnic groups who have also been slaughtered. At least, according to what you've said.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-22-06 03:53 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
Once your people have been targetted for extermination...you tend to sympathize with other people who have gone through the experience. [For that reason, I support outlawing Holocaust denial, because I know how it feels to have ancestors who were slaughtered. However, I do not support outlawing the denial of other genocides.]
Seriously...

Now, of course, everything within the brackets is purely my words, but it's what you're saying.


Edit to respond to a post that came after I submitted this one:
Originally posted by Arwon
If you want an intra-Jewish example about why the Holocaust is worse, in order to forestall any accusations that it's considered different and sacrosanct because it was the Jews (and they, like, control the media) [...]
Hey now, let's not open this can of worms. Nobody made any sort of comment like that, and I don't need to be labeled an anti-Semite in addition to being the gay-hater that I am.

(edited by Silvershield on 12-22-06 02:56 AM)
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-22-06 04:12 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Arwon
You claimed free speech is absolute in all cases. Clearly it isn't. Speech can cause harm, we've demonstrated cases in which speech can cause harm, ranging from holocaust deniers adding fuel to the neonazi fire, to trolling cartoons deliberately inciting people with a very different attitude to their prophet and to the printed images, to yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater causes direct and tangible damage. Allowing people to deny the Holocaust "might" eventually cause the downfall of Western society by allowing the Holocaust to become trivialized in the popular memory, or it might just lead to whatever nitwit is spouting anti-semitic nonsense to be called an idiot by all his peers.

Originally posted by Arwon
Free speech does not mean freedom to deliberately and intentionally incite hate and incite violence, or to cause unjustified public panic, because that violates other folks' rights. For example, in the case of Holocaust denial, it violates the right of people to feel safe from fucking Nazis.
Wouldn't the denial of American slavery - you never see it, really, but its an appropriate hypothetical analogy - violate a person's right to feel safe from white supremacists? The KKK is notoriously violent, of course, and their cause would be furthered if they could convince the world that the historical event that the African-American community so often cites never actually happened, but you won't see America outlawing anti-slavery speech.

My point is, neo-Nazis aren't the only violent anti-ethnic faction out there.

Originally posted by Arwon
Many people feel that denying the holocaust is basically the same thing as saying "I believe group X should be violently opposed and elimianted". This is because there's a virtually 100% correlation between anti-Semetic hatred and holocaust denial. It's essentially a code for incitement of hatred.
I won't deny this for a second, and I will continue to say that Holocaust deniers are totally out of line, but I still feel like it's a case of choosing the most recognizable incident while ignoring so many other atrocities that have occurred throughout history.

Originally posted by Arwon
Now, what people who're against hate-speech laws need to ask themselves is whether they're against hate speech laws, or against considering holocaust denial as hate speech. Two different arguments.
Are you implying that a person who subscribes to the latter is automatically anti-semitic?

Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
Yes, Silvershield.

That is exactly what I'm saying. 100% absolutely. I mean, sure. You have to bend all of my words. And make vast accusations, but sure. I fucking hate everyone but Jews.
How am I bending your words? What I quoted was, indeed, a direct quote, and my own remarks in brackets are formed directly from the idea you were promoting.

Edit:
Originally posted by Arwon
SS, that wasn't an accusation against you, it was a joke.
I understood it as a joke, and I apologize if you thought I took real offense to it. I'm just afraid of what that might be twisted into, because I've had problems here in the past where innocent remarks of mine have been used to paint me as an out-and-out bigot. And that was no fun.

(edited by Silvershield on 12-22-06 03:14 AM)
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-22-06 05:32 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
No, it wasn't. You're pulling things out of nowheres ville. I said that the brutality of the Holocaust sets it apart from other genocides. Not that I was advocating vociferous hatred towards other non-jews or something sick like that. I was saying that the Holocaust, when it is denied, debases all of those that have been put through genocide.
Ziff, never once did I say anything that can even resemble "you are advocating vociferous hatred towards other non-jews." All I did was follow out these two points:

1. Ziff advocates maintaining anti-Holocaust denial laws. That is, denying the Holocaust should be illegal, but denying any other genocide or atrocity should not.

2. Ziff talked about how one reason for his opinion outlined in (1) is that he has ancestry who has been victimized in genocide.

The conclusion I drew, based purely on these two points, is that you feel empathy for Holocaust victims - as illustrated in (1), where it is shown that you want to protect them - but, for whatever reason, that empathy does not extend to victims of other genocides.

I'm not calling you a bigot or anything silly like that, I'm just saying that your logic does not totally check out. If anything, you would be supportive of laws that disallow the denial of whatever specific genocide your ancestors were involved in (if that particular event is, indeed, the Holocaust, then I've been misreading you - but it doesn't really change my point), because you would have a closer empathy with them than you would with the Jews.

Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
The only thing that you're promoting is a worthless attack on me.
I am never the aggressor.

Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
"but you won't see America outlawing anti-slavery speech. "

This doesn't happen because there is a large amount of people that seem to love being racists.
I don't see your point.

Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
"Are you implying that a person who subscribes to the latter is automatically anti-semitic? "

As it should be.
I argue to maintain free speech as a pure ideal - or, at least as pure an ideal as it practically can be - and I am anti-semitic? That's not really fair.

Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
No, it really isn't. The Holocaust is different, as shown by the JSR quote that Arwon used. Additionally, the failure to educate others about other genocidal compaigns is simply an educational and regional failure. You're never going to be taugh about what happened here or there until university or you research it yourself. Most kids only need one example to see how evil the Holocaust is. Although it'd be really nice to have the policies of Imperial Japan and its whacked ideas taught at high school levels. But it won't happen. There isn't enough time in high school.
As a sort of Devil's advocate remark: doesn't promoting the Holocaust as the only event "worthy" of being excluded from free speech sort of trivialize all of the other atrocities the world has seen over the years? I mean, if I am a survivor of any other historical genocide, it's fine to deny the event that killed my family, yet a Jew (or any other Holocaust victim - it wasn't only Jews) is free from that sort of thing? Did his family and friends really die, and mine just sort of died?
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-22-06 05:57 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Ziff, I'm above this. Nothing I said was ever intended to insult or offend, and the only reason I even questioned your logic in the first place is not because I want to reveal your dastardly Jew-hating ways, but because you were justifying your argument according to a system of logic that I found to be slightly questionable. I didn't intend for any sort of animosity for arise, and you're being unnecessarily defensive and, to be frank, a bit childish.

I was enjoying the direction of this thread. When there's a relevant point made, I'd love to respond to it; otherwise, I'm leaving for now.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-22-06 10:10 PM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
Words caused this

And that same scene has appeared countless times and in countless places - not all of them being World War II Germany.

To call the Holocaust "sick" would be about as dire an understatement as I could hope to make, but providing a gruesome photograph that acts only as emotional evidence and doesn't appeal at all to the intellectual discussion - and, for that matter, doesn't even work all that well as emotional evidence, because I could go out and find pictures of ten other genocides that look as bad, if not worse, than that one - is not too effective, I think.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-23-06 12:43 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Sinfjotle
We're all well aware of how the holocaust happened, we had to study the hell out of it, but as Arwon so easily pointed out to me, I know nothing about the Australian genocide and other such things.
So, I guess a tangent that I can suggest is, does allowing those more obscure atrocities to remain "speakable," but keeping the universally recognized Holocaust as unspeakable, further trivialize the former? Just as a sort of Devil's advocate question, maybe. Those obscure genocides are already given less attention than they deserve - murder on such a large scale, whether it's the high profile German Holocaust or some smaller event in a far corner of the planet, demands that the world community is made aware of it so that it may be remembered and memorialized and whatnot; by not addressing them, are we simply perpetuating a cycle of "ignoring" every holocaust that is not the Holocaust?
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-23-06 02:40 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Arwon
But here's perhaps the key point: just by saying that something wasn't as bad as the Holocaust, the worst crime in history, doesn't mean you're trivialising it. I just don't think it's terribly useful to try to equate colonialism with the Holocaust, because they're better understood as different things.
Absolutely correct, but wouldn't the equivalent of saying "Genocide X was not as bad as the Holocaust, but was still terrible" be to enforce some sort of restrictions on speaking about Genocide X, though having those restrictions fall short of the absolute ban on Holocaust denial? What I mean is, at the moment, the Holocaust is the single example with any sort of restrictions whatsoever, whereas every other example has no restrictions whatsoever; does that send the message that the Holocaust is really the only one that should be taken seriously? (Of course, that is not the conscious message being sent, but is it a consequential message that is somehow implied?)
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-23-06 03:24 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Arwon
How about the fact that Holocaust denial is an organised, actual, existing movement? It's not a consequence of trivialising the genocidal history of colonialism or whatever or giving the Jews special treatment, it's a conseuqnece of the fact that HOLOCAUST DENIAL EXISTS AND THE OTHER THINGS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT DON'T. Holocaust denial is a crime in about a half dozen European countries and Israel, and that's because these are places which have specific social and historical imperatives compelling them to want to severely repress anything smacking of resurgent anti-Semitism and Nazism. THAT separates Holocaust denial from other ideas. The implicit, automatic association with hategroups and Nazism.

Nonesuch groups exist around any other ethnic group or any other massacre, and that's why there's not denialist movements surrounding them. There's no reason, in Europe, to deny that, say, the Native Americans were given smallpox blankeys because there's no anti-Amerindian nazis who want to deny that in order to deny them sympathy or whatever.

Moreover, it could simply be a matter of different legal codes. Civil versus Common Law. Civil Law systems, of which continental European countries are examples, can be much more specific and proscriptive in their legal systems than can Common Law systems of the Anglo variety. The fact that Holocaust denial is the only idea of its kind that specifically needs combatting means that they might as well just make a law specifically saying that, to avoid confusion. If your hypothetical made-up hate-group denialist movements actually did exist and were problems, well they'd pass a law against them, too. Simple.

Talking in the abstract about denial of random other massacres is meaningless, because these other ideas don't really exist for various historical and social reasons. If they did, and if there were hate-groups for whom denial of these things was an essential plank of perpetuating their own hateful ideas about other groups, then we could begin to discuss equivalency, but until then, Holocaust denial occupies a special place because there are organised hate groups who push the idea as part of their general hateful anti-Semetic agenda. With NO other group is this true, especially of the societies which, you know, HAVE anti-denial laws.
Why take such a tone? I did everything I could to muster the most non-confrontational voice I was possibly able to muster, and you're getting bent out of shape.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-23-06 03:35 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Arwon
Well, now you get the point, so it was apparently effective. Anyways, I'm playing the ball, not the man (albeit aggressively).
You must be paying off the refs, then, because I am not personally a fan of the "no blood, no foul" rule.

(I can make basketball metaphors too! )
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-25-06 01:19 AM, in Holocaust Deniers Convention in Iran Link
Originally posted by Plus Sign Abomination
Limiting the fact that you can't say "Fucking they didn't die during that. They were invited to super-happy fun camps!" or something along those lines doesn't exactly draw you to being "not much better than the Nazis". I mean. Oh, yeah! Whenever you enact a hate crime legislation several college-liberals begin a process of beating up minorities, using castration methods, and waging a war wherein a massive percentage of the European Jewry was wiped out and the Roma and the rest of the civilian populace being put through hell on Earth. I totally forgot that is what happens when you make hate crime laws.
Well, the similarity would be in principle, but obviously not magnitude. If such a similarity exists.

Edit: ...which I'm not sure it does.

(edited by Silvershield on 12-24-06 07:19 PM)
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-29-06 03:11 AM, in Victimless Crimes Link
Concerning blue laws, if you universally condemn them then you are not examining every aspect of the issue. I live in Bergen County, the northeastern-most county of New Jersey, one of the only (if not the only) places in the region that still enforces blue laws. If you want to go shopping on a Sunday, your best bet is to cross the border into New York State and visit the Palisades Center in West Nyack.

Now, why are the laws still relevant here in Bergen County? Well, I live within 20 minutes of five or six different malls, and you can imagine that on Saturdays, as well as the days preceding Christmas and other holidays, the roads around here are a nightmare. To open up Sunday as a shopping day would make that a seven-day-a-week problem, rather than the somewhat preferable six-day-a-week problem it is at the moment. I'm fortunate to live off the beaten path, so to speak, so it's not as if there are cars driving by my house at every hour on Saturdays, but anyone who lives anywhere near a major road has to deal with an incredible amount of traffic. Is it unreasonable for them to enjoy one day a week that's guaranteed to be relatively peaceful?

It's not entirely a "separation of church and state" issue. It might've been at first, but I think most places that maintain blue laws have discovered new, more practical reasons.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-30-06 02:14 AM, in Looks like the Dems are winning Link
Originally posted by Alkis
Why do Americans feel the need to have weapons?
To the best of my memory, Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" points out that Canadians actually have more guns per capita than Americans. A whole Canadian culture of hunting and whatnot, I suppose. (The immediate question is, of course, why murder is so much more common in the States than in Canada. But there's no real answer for that at the moment.)
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-30-06 02:39 AM, in Looks like the Dems are winning Link
Originally posted by Sinfjotle
Maybe because of population density.
A possibility, maybe. The movie was decidedly inconclusive.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-30-06 03:07 AM, in Looks like the Dems are winning Link
Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not on Michael Moore's side. I'm a registered Republican, if that's any indication (and, if it's not, then just take my word for it). But he was pretty nonpartisan in pointing out that, even though America doesn't lead the world in gun possession or any other factor that would seem obvious as a contributor to violent crime, we still somehow dwarf every other nation in murders, armed robberies, etc. It irked me that he didn't suggest any sort of conclusive reasoning for why that might be.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-30-06 03:25 AM, in Looks like the Dems are winning Link
That was the initial impression I got, but I gradually began to question the idea that America's "culture of fear" somehow has a causal relationship with violent crime rates. It just seemed too circumstantial to me.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-30-06 03:33 AM, in Victimless Crimes Link
Originally posted by Arwon
Nah, that's a problem with shitty government and planning and a bit of NIMBY anti-development sentiment... and a convenient yet archaic law being used as an ad hoc method of salving a situation they helped create through negligent government. Pretty marginal case, especially since trading hours are hardly the central issue when we're talking about moralistic laws against things like drugs, sex and prostitution and how laws against them are wholly inappropriate and often counterproductive.
In my experience, "blue laws" typically refer to how shops are closed on Sundays, even though it is technically a much broader term. Like I said, though, just my experience.

Originally posted by Arwon
Of course, you could always move, no-one's forcing you to live there if its so unbearable.
I feel like that's not really ironclad logic. "If you don't like it, leave" isn't always a reasonable mantra.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-30-06 05:12 AM, in Looks like the Dems are winning Link
Originally posted by Arwon
I dunno, "it's the culture, stupid" seems like about the best conclusion you can draw from that movie.
But, does that really offer any sort of prospect of somehow improving the situation? I mean, in a country like the United States - in any country, really - you can't just "change the culture." But, if the culture is the single cause of such high crime rates, it would follow that the only way to curtail those crimes would, indeed, be to change the culture. Which is a hopeless prospect.
Silvershield

580








Since: 11-19-05
From: Emerson, New Jersey

Last post: 5920 days
Last view: 5908 days
Posted on 12-30-06 05:18 AM, in Community Colleges v. State Universities Link
I'm not sure how distinct the difference in terminology is between Canada and America. I know that, at least from what I've seen, the words "college" and "university" are used as roughly equivalent in the United States, at least casually. (The only difference is apparent in a more formal context, or in the proper name of a particular school - Rutgers University versus Marist College, for example.)

Just wanted to point that out, maybe for my own sake, because I'm curious about the terms Ziff uses and the difference could be important.
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