The Phillip De Franco show.

Language. It has nuances. I said his show spreads alt-right propaganda. Which it does. Whether that's because he's a member, a sympathizer, or just stupid, is not something I presented a theory on.

Yes, we know. Bigots find anti-Semitism very funny. No one else does though.

Would a court punish a Muslim or a black person? You actually asking that question? Black people and Muslims go to prison for things that white guys get, at most, a finger wag for.

Can you prove they aren't? Seriously, you're the one who chose to make the ethnicity of his accuser the issue, and dragged the ethnicity of one of his defenders (a card-carrying alt-righter no less) into the conversation. You're attempting to deploy the 'I have black friends' defense, which has frankly been a cliche since the civil war.

The slippery slope is never relevant. Ever. Under any circumstances. Everything is a slippery slope. You might as well be insisting that if meth stays illegal they'll come for your .5% play beer. It's by definition a fallacy, and you keep trying to build entire arguments on it.

Nazism is, of course, a threat regardless of the resources available. Not least because pretty much everyone in the world has the resources to make good on a threat to harm others—even a quadriplegic can, with the right circumstances, kill. That you're still attempting to argue otherwise is evidence that you haven't been paying attention to any of the points made against you, in this discussion, or in others.

And oh, how dare I disrespect Demolition Man? Really? Isn't the whole premise of your argument that I have the right to say whatever I want? Or is it only racism that gets that defense, while Stallone movies remain untouchable?

Yeah, you don't know what character assassination is. We are saying "De Franco did this thing and it is bad." Because he did do this thing, and it is bad.

edited 22nd Mar '18 10:53:25 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

This is kind of turning into a complaint thread. I'm wondering if it should be shut down.

Not quite a complaint thread thread but it certainly feels like it belongs in on topic conversations

New theme music also a box

The reality is that not every You Tuber needs his own page or forum thread here. Especially when that You Tuber makes a lot of his money off of peddling apologia for the alt-right and other similar groups. This isn't like with Jon Tron who, tool that he may be, makes a great deal of content that is (arguably) divorced from his political views, however toxic they are. I don't agree with supporting him by watching his content, but I can understand how people who don't support his political views can and do watch his content.

De Franco, on the other hand, bills himself as a news show, and while once upon a time that mostly consisted of talking about crazy things he found on the Internet, he has, since 2016, been increasingly discussing current political events, and a large part of that content has been defending the "free speech" of various white supremacist groups and the like. The very first video linked in this thread was of him defending an anti-Semite who had run afoul of British hate speech laws.

Any Philip De Franco thread is therefore, by definition, going to involve people engaging with his political views. And since those political views are, in a number of cases, highly toxic, that's going to mean people rebutting and criticizing those views. It's not all that different from when someone tried to start a Sargon of Akkad thread; De Franco's nowhere near as bad as Carl Benjamin, obviously, but it's the same issue, and that thread got shut down for a reason.

edited 22nd Mar '18 11:50:08 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

free speech" of various white supremacist groups and the like

I've said this multiple and I'll say it again: if you advocate for free speech you have to advocate for all groups even those whose views you despise you can't just pick and choose

This video somes up my points perfectly

On a lighter note here's a tour of Defranco's new office

edited 23rd Mar '18 10:28:10 AM by GraymanofBelka

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

By advocating for their complete free speech you are aiding and abetting their efforts to crush minorities, contrary to whatever Utopia you seem to think we live in groups do not have equal power and giving the ability to say what they want to a powerful privileged group that wants to crush the weaker group will only benefit the powerful privileged group.

You are happily sacrificing minorities at the altar of freedom and liberty.

edited 23rd Mar '18 4:00:37 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Yeah, all I'm seeing in that video is people whining about how they're not allowed to be bigots.

If hate speech is free, the speech of minorities is automatically censored. To take what fourthspartan said one step further, you're sacrificing actual freedom and liberty at the altar of "freedom and liberty."

edited 23rd Mar '18 1:42:45 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Yeah, all I'm seeing in that video is people whining about how they're not allowed to be bigots.

That is both an oversimplification and a misrepresentation. The video goes into far more detail and is far more nuanced your just letting your personal biases get in the way.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"

CS Lewis

edited 23rd Mar '18 4:04:30 PM by GraymanofBelka

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

I agree with Grayman, for several reasons. First, here's some history: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-12139150

The Nazis considered punishing a man for training his dog to sig heil, because they interpreted it as mockery of Hitler. So, yeah. Even the Nazis got the joke. About 77 years ago. Except not even they could actually convict the guy. Because they had no way of confirming the dog owner's INTENT. Likewise, Dankula's judge had no way of confirming intent either...but just decided that the dude was an evil Nazi. Because it was Tuesday or something, I dunno. The world's an Onion article these days.

Secondly, even if it had been an actual "heil yeah, Hitler was so great, even this pug loves Hitler or something" joke, it wouldn't matter because punishing him with anything more than public disapproval actively harms your cause. Execute someone for maybe-possibly-being-a-bit-of-a-Nazi? You make a martyr and some might decide that the Actual Nazis maybe aren't as bad as the government. And locking Nazis up doesn't make them go away. It just gives them a place to meet more hard-core, violent, Nazis. You'll find a lot of those in prison. Maybe he'll get a more mild sentence - community service or whatever - but it won't matter. The dude's still got a black mark on his record and is therefore going to find it harder to be employed. And, if this keeps happening, it won't even make the news anymore. It'll just be the "new normal." So, not everyone's going to be able to set up a Go Fund Me for survival.

Meanwhile, actual stealthed Nazis will know to stay stealthed, which means you'll have a higher likelihood of befriending one without even realizing his shitty views until he's murdering your Jewish friend (or you, if you are a Jew.)

I don't know about you folks, but I'm like Aldo Raine in that I prefer that my Nazis be obvious about it. Not because that'd make it easier to kill them - I'm not a blood-gargling psychopath - but because then I can stay away from them.

Thirdly, there are strong reasons for why laws like the one used to convict Dankula are bad news. The law's language is vague as hell and it's going to stick around even if the UK folk someday decide to pull a Trump and put a more right-wing government in place. Anyone who knows anything about the Red Scare knows that some people - both in and out of government - used the "fear of communists" to paint regular left-wingers as Communists and have them punished, by the government and by potential employers. Simply put, the power to punish speech because "it MIGHT have had the intent to cause damage" is too easily corrupted by a government. It's too easy to exploit such laws to control a people in any political climate. The pendulum could always swing the other way, smacking you in the head this time around. So, whether or not you hate people like Dankula, it doesn't matter. If his freedom of speech is endangered, so is that of everyone else in the UK and news stories like this should have people - left-wing, right-wing, whatever - very nervous.

edited 23rd Mar '18 4:23:47 PM by ChaoticTrilby

Just a little nitpick I don't think that Dankula will get the death penalty but I agree with the rest

It's also worth pointing out that the type of trial that Dankula had didn't have a jury it was just the judge

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

Oh yeah, absolutely! He won't get the death penalty of course (and I doubt he'll even get a year in prison, but we'll see.) I was speaking in the hypothetical, considering each "possible punishment for a Nazi who hasn't physically harmed anyone" that might exist, but I should have been more clear about that.

And oh yeah, no jury. That's a good point. Even more worrying in fact. Even in the UK, I imagine most juries would have been more likely to rule in Dankula's favor.

No, the video is very much people whining about not being allowed to be bigots. Seriously, if you're going to go on about the importance of free speech, could you at least quote John Locke or something instead of posting to another Internet hack? It's not exactly helping your argument.

All I'm seeing here is a total misunderstanding of what tyranny is, coupled with total disregard for the actual rights of threatened minorities. The argument that "punishing them will radicalize them" is of course nonsense, because if left unchecked they radicalize anyway. There's a reason why the United States, which has functionally no hate speech legislation, has a much higher rate of hate crimes than say, Canada, where the Nazi crowd has to be far more careful about what they say. That's because bigotry, left unchecked, doesn't fossilize—it festers.

It would be one thing to just limit your argument to how this particular incident was not in and of itself hate speech. You might possibly be able to make a case for that. But when you use it as a platform to go on about how all hate speech laws are bad, and all bigotry must be left unchecked, you lose the argument, because we have manifestly seen what happens when bigotry goes unchecked. We can protect minorities or we can protect hate speech. We can't do both, and given the choice I'll take the former.

When someone tries to stage a Klan revival, I want them locked up before they kill anyone. When someone forms a Nazi Party, I want them jailed before they get voted in and start up the gas chambers again. And you can't claim that's some new and dangerous policy, because you already do it to people who open al-Qaeda cells.