Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the chat-room dept

This week, both our winners on the insightful side come from the long conversation on our post about the deplatforming of Parler. In first place, it’s Bloof with a response to the notion of the censorship of conservatives academia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Watchlist

Remember when conservative AstroTurf group, Turning Point USA tried to set up a list of liberal professors for targeted harassment?

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-friday-edition-1.4396970/u-of-t-profs -alarmed-by-jordan-peterson-s-plan-to-target-classes-he-calls-indoctrination-cults-1.4396974

Remember when Jordan Peterson planned to use his platform to attack left wing professors and subjects?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss

Remember how Bari Weiss built her entire career on trying to get professors she disagreed with fired by making false allegations against them?

Damn the left and their censorship and attempts to purge the ranks of academia… Oh wait.

In second place, it’s PaulT responding to a comment complaining about the Parler bans:

“So it’s okay for the cool kids to blacklist the outcasts. Welcome to eighth grade.”

No, it’s OK for companies to refuse service to customers they believe will hurt their business by serving them. Whether that’s because you refuse to put on a shirt or because you were involved in violent criminal activity is meaningless. Welcome to the adult world.

“The LIBERAL definition of “hate” is what rules”

No, the real world definition of hate, which includes beating a police officer to death during an attempt to violently overthrow a legal electoral process. That applies to anyone doing such things, no matter their political viewpoint, but only one group has done that recently.

“If it’s that horrible make it illegal”

It is illegal, which is why so many people are being arrested.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start with a comment from That One Guy about Arizona prosecutors pretending “ACAB” is gang lingo:

Way to prove them right

Because nothing is going to make people less angry with police and the legal system that protects them like rampant and open abuse of the legal system to inflict as much suffering as possible on anyone who dares point out how corrupt the police and the legal system have become.

If they are trying to escalate tensions and distrust between the public and the police then they are doing an excellent job of it, if that’s not the goal however then everyone involved needs to be fired immediately as not just incompetent but actively harmful to the public and the agencies they are working at.

Next, we head back to the post about Parler for a comment from TFG responding to another complaint about supposed conservative censorship and the accusation that people responding were unfairly speculating about the commenter’s views:

Then don’t force people to speculate by refusing to provide specifics and instead going with generalities.

Understand that we’ve seen all this before. “Conservative thought is being suppressed!” the person says.
“That’s concerning if true!” We reply. “To enable a reasoned discussion, which conservative thoughts are being suppressed?”
“Conservative thought in general!” comes the reply.
“But that does not allow for discussion or actual action to be taken.”

And then it devolves into nonsense, as the person claiming that conservative thought is being suppressed retreats into the assumption that people asking for specifics are attacking them, and reveals that they’ve bought into ideologies that they call conservative but in reality are fascistic, racist, or conspiracy theories.

This trains everyone who comes across the argument to treat it as yet another instance of the same tired old nonsense. The actions of others, which are comparable to your own, lead to everyone being too weary of this shit to give it a fair shake. So please break the pattern, and when asked for specifics, give some specifics.

You want to have a reasoned discussion? Then be socially intelligent enough to be reasonable, and tell us exactly what conservative views are being suppressed.

Part of the reason for highlighting that particular comment is that, over on the funny side, our first place winner is Stephen T. Stone, who chimed in with a response to its closing question:

Oh, you know the ones?

In second place on the funny side, it’s James Burkhardt quipping about concerns that journalists are less able to monitor Parler on the systems that have let it come back:

How so? does Epik have a sweet ass captcha that determines if you are a journalist?

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with another comment from Bloof, this time on our post about Turkish President Erdogan:

Thanks to his handling of covid, the internet, whistleblowers, journalists and the truth, the Florida GOP have already tapped him for a gubernatorial run once Ron DeSantis leaves office.

Finally, it’s z! responding to a commenter who claimed, and I quote, “No, democrats hold 20th century traditional soviet values”:

You have an extra comma in there.

That’s all for this week, folks!