Calling someone out on their opinions is one thing. Calling for those opinions to be silenced is an agenda I can't support. Yes, even if those opinions are noxious, hateful, or rightfully unpopular. That the harder line elements of SJWs have thusfar not been in a position do do much more than rage over the internet or in intellectual circles does not make some of their aims (the ones related not to what rights should be extended but to what speech should be restricted) any less things I cannot and will not support.

Naturally, they're welcome to keep talking, but I don't have to listen, and if I do listen I don't have to agree or support.

What does it mean to call for opinions to be silenced?

If I tell someone with a dissenting opinion to shut up is that calling for their opnions to be silenced?
If I go around giving speeches telling people that you shouldn't express dissenting opinions is that calling for them to be silenced?
If I petition to government to criminalize dissenting opinions is that calling for them to be silenced?
If I cut their tongue out so they are incapable of speech is that calling for their opinions to be silenced?

This one's the biggest issue. You can do it (to petition is your right) but I will not support you nor wish you success.

but cutting out tongues is fair game?

I would argue that the spirit of the movement lies in the second scenario. The nature of the movement is that it is trying to control the way people speak, and as such it is understandable how people feel censored by its existence, but the methodology the movement uses to achieve those ends seems to me to rarely involve a desire to control people's speech during the government (though certainly that sentiment does exist in some magnitude).

I am going to provide my personal line in the sand as someone who is a cisgender, heterosexual, Caucasian, male, probably lower-middle class citizen of the United States of America.

My line in the proverbial sand re silencing opinions is when a person or group actively bars another person or group from expressing themselves when said person or group should not otherwise be barred from the discussion (as an example, barred from speaking for reasons of knowledge or skills). I have, for instance, heard of college groups setting up safe spaces to talk of rape, like AA meetings, which barred men from the group.

If someone is advocating for the same is a slightly different matter. Tevish already mentioned that, despite the awfulness that is the KKK, they're allowed a platform for peaceful discussion and demonstration just as much as those advocating social justice. I think both groups are troublesome and tend to hold beliefs on the extreme end of their spectrums. I think the majority of people who hold up the ideal of equality, rather than the social justice warriors, are more balanced and well-meaning people than the average member of, say, the neo-Nazis.

i think that the average member of the KKK is going to have a lot more extreme ideologies than the average person who considers themselves a proponent of social justice

barring people from participating in various private social forums based on arbitrary qualities is something that needs to continue to exist i think, though the concept does give me some trouble. If someone wants to make a club or a support group or anything like that, then I think its important they be able to run it the way they want to (though not be immune to criticism). In the end, I guess I can't make it clear my head on how i feel about this scenario.

I think it seems inappropriate to bar men from a group designed to help people with rape, but as someone who has not been raped I am not comfortable providing my two cents on that.

It's a violation of numerous other laws in almost every jurisdiction. I really don't think it's a "free speech" issue at that point so much as a "Felony mayhem" issue

Some examples of what people would probably describe as silencing methods practices by the regressive left:
• Shutting down public discourse by preventing people from attending (Warren Farrell conference), or preventing it from taking place, e.g. by pulling the fire alarm (Janice Fiamengo conference) or disinvite them because their speech is damaging to student health or something like that.
• Trying to pass laws regarding acceptable behavior, like the UN conference on cyber violence.
• Convincing social media sites to regulate their users' contest, like shadow blocking on Twitter, and we'll see what happens with their Safety Council.
• Online lynch mobs that dogpile people for wrong think, like the #shirtgate and Justine Sacco cases, to completely absurd levels, for things that could be entirely trivial. People may be scared of sharing their opinion, from fear of exaggerated backlash with real life ramifications.
• Blocklists for that are propagated for social media sites, and spread to people that are less informed.

if everyone says so I guess it must be true

"Breaking the law is acceptable when done to people I ideologically agree with."
Keep on being spoonfed the narrative. Please show me any of their "extremist" views.

Yeah like by seeking them out and stabbing them.

I fully disagree with attack and suppression methods as the standard practice. They simply don't work and engender more hate. If you don't want to spend time educating, then figure out how to manipulate people and trick them into believing what you believe.

That said, I do think there is a time for attack and suppression methods. True hate speech is fostered by illogical beliefs and likely won't respond to education. If you've tried everything else, punch the idiot in the mouth. The problem still remains whether or not your belief is actually validated though.

As for "disrupting" demonstrations...shouldn't really be necessary. An educated public simply shouldn't agree with illogical beliefs. There really shouldn't be a need to suppress any type of speech because it should already be struggling against truth. I see no threat in allowing KKK members to speak their mind because all it should really do is highlight them as bad people. When you try to suppress it then some will support them because they feel the group was wronged, some people will support the for the idiot reason of "well if they were silenced, they must have been right", and the people who were trying to make the speech will just get angrier and try stronger methods to make their point.

Discussion of SJW is weird because its readily accepted that the talk will largely concern the most toxic or extremist examples of SJW, applied to the topic as a standard. Yet in almost any other discussion, if you moved forward using the negative excesses as your only material, you'd be seen as not having much to say.

If that is the case, then the most toxic or extremist examples are being invited to the UN, bully university presidents out of their jobs, tried to put a deadlock on the media coverage of Cologne and got elected as prime minister in Canada.

Because political extremists never get any recognition or media time, right?

So, where are the non-extreme SJWs? Where do I look for them? Should I go around on the street and ask them if they consider themselves a Social Justice Warrior so I can get the "grounded" opinions?
There's a difference between media recognition, and media acceptance. Huffington Post, The Guardian and BBC (idk if these are relevant media sources in burgerland or not) all perpetuate SJW narratives, where are the major publications supporting the KKK or MRA extremists? Where are their UN reports and western leaders?

Id say look around. This community seems to have its share of moderate SJWs. Though I doubt many identify that way, due to the a combination of the negative extremes (and parodies) being perpetrated around the net, and the hostility towards anyone who would relate to the values, on the other side of the page.

Also, if Im inferring your use of 'burgerland' correctly, its a: inaccurate and b: Why lace the conversation with nasty little shots?

Well, SJW is a derogatory term along the lines of keyboard warrior, I don't know why anyone would want to associate with it.
I feel like I've indicated significant traction towards the ideals pursued by SJWs, and it doesn't really matter if you consider them extremists or not. Obama himself has made official statements about women being paid less when it's probably the most debunked feminist argument. Why should I focus on what some nobodies on this forum thinks? (Although I made this thread pretty much right after razorborne made some conjecture about how one of my jokes was offensive to trans people, but I had intended to do it for a while.)

What's inaccurate about it, and what's nasty about it?
Why does it feel like your only statements so far have been mostly about untrue Scotsmen?

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-y ... re-racist/

This was a pretty good article related to the concept of Social Justice Warrior-ing. I've discovered in many of my conversations (like the first one I posted) the issue isn't the person really thinking I'm going overboard with PC Culture, but that they feel attacked when I try to educate them.

Also, cmon Mown...Brietbart, Fox News, and that super annoying Tomi person are obviously the examples you're looking for in the media. They don't need to be supporting the KKK or MRA, they just need to be denouncing the idea that any social progress is necessary. The two extremes in the example are "Everything is offensive and society is overly oppressive" and "Everything is perfectly fine and SJW are whiny"...not "White people are the devil" and "Minorities are subhuman".

This was another interesting article, although I didn't particularly agree with the Safe Spaces part:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-over ... g-america/

(Yes, I pretty much only visit this site, cracked, and facebook...I'm old, deal with it)

A heavily biased article, as well. Natasha is nothing but a straw man, apparently always in the wrong, and incompetent in her beliefs being unable to empathize and using illegitimate articles. Her paranoia is unfounded, despite twitter lynch mobs getting people fired by seeking out bigoted views. Her articles are illegitimate, compared to the completely valid papers on the wage gap and college rape statistics. She thinks she's being called a racist when she's totally being called a racist, and is not allowed to understand racism as a gradient. When she is unintentionally racist, everyone else agrees that it was akin to running over a person and not caring about it. And she can't put herself in the same position, because "she's just not oppressed enough", when the problem is actually that levels of stoicism varies between individuals, but individuality is a concept that is alien to a lot of SJW agendas. (I can play the homosexuality card if I want to. Is the difference then that I have a sense of humor and they don't? Or is that no longer an oppressed group?)
Have some other reasons that Yvonne can't convince Natasha:
6) Yvonne is claiming something negative about Natasha, and a natural reaction is to be defensive.
7) Natasha is ideologically opposed to the social justice movement, and therefore rejects it out of principle, even if she doesn't actually disagree with the specific comment.
8) Natasha has seen the witch hunts done by SJWs and believes that Yvonne is just trying to find anything that can be construed as offensive.
9) Natasha wasn't actually being bigoted.
10) Natasha is just baiting and Yvonne swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
11) Natasha doesn't consider Yvonne's views legitimate because she commonly likes and comments on articles from the regressive left, the actual content of her reply didn't really matter.
12) Yvonne is speaking on behalf of a group she's not a part of, and Natasha doesn't believe her assertions.
13) Yvonne has redefined the meaning of racism without Natasha being told.

idk why I wrote all that. No, SJWs are probably not always in the wrong. Neither is the other side. The world is nuanced. I wish the author of that article pulled out the stick and stopped assuming she's always in the right.


Like I said, I don't know what's considered legitimate American publications, because I don't really live there. However, I've never heard anyone speak about Fox News in a serious tone, I've never heard of Breitbart in any context other than with Milo (and the site describes itself as "Syndicated news and opinion website"), and I don't know who this Tomi person is. Would you not say that the examples I gave have a higher air of supposed legitimacy and objectivity surrounding them (again, I wouldn't really know (except for BBC, that is more British isn't it?))?
And they're not denouncing the need for social progress. MRAs (which there's nothing wrong with being a part of) tries to denounce Feminism because they see it as actively working against their agenda, and many people have started calling SJWs the regressive left because they are hampering society. A lot of these people are also for equality, they just disagree with the narrative.

I don't really know what examples you are talking about. White people are totally the devil though. (Contains swearing, but you should really already know what this links to.)

I mean...the article was written from the a perspective and followed it...the article wouldn't make sense it was "how to convince everyone they're racist", it's not a straw man argument because all of those scenarios actually exist. You can attack its psychological accuracy, but in my experience (which in no way determines fact) it's accurate. Also, hidden in one of the sections it talk about how were are all kinda unable to not be racist, which I believe is also true. The point is mainly that you (the royal you) have to look at your behavior and try to regulate it rather than assume everyone is over-sensitive. I do disagree with the "you can never know what it's like" arguments though (although I agree with most of the rest of that section)...you may have seen my debate with Razor about that months and months ago.

I can't disagree with the idea that there's nothing wrong with an organization which looks out for men's rights, but all of the MRA arguments I've seen are ridiculous and built on flawed logic. But I haven't read many. The major problem with MRA type arguments is the fact that in order to equalize, something has to be taken away. For a hypothetical scenario, it sucks if men lose employment positions based on legislation, and men qualified for those positions are entitled to feel angry, but if those positions have been wrongfully kept from women then something has to give in the name of fairness...and since women have been on the low end of the fairness bar, it might just be time for men to give up a bit.

I see that same "it's uncomfortable for us" argument when discussing allowing transgendered people to use the restroom of their choice. They literally argue that they will have to be uncomfortable in one place while ignoring that many (if not most) transgendered people are uncomfortable everywhere and all the time. And in the worst case scenarios they then go on to bitch about safe spaces...which is arguably what they are claiming gender specific restrooms are...my problem is mostly that people too often don't try to see the other persons perspective really.

As for news...yeah, I have no idea which ones are serious anymore. An analyst buddy told me 6 years ago (edit...dear lord, that was 9 years ago) that BBC and Al Jazeera were the best and most unbiased, but that has probably changed. I don't follow the news because it all seems like a biased joke these days. If I want to talk about an issue, I just research that specific issue, find arguments on both sides (which are actually never from a major news organization now that I think about it), and then form an opinion. The Tomi person has been floating around my facebook a lot lately. Hardcore conservative. Tomi Lahran, her voice is annoying to me and she has a dead eyed soulless stare. I dislike her enough to want everyone to see her and form an opinion...it's probably not healthly She just bugs me and I can't stop thinking about it...

You know what I don't fully understand is why some things elicit more outrage than others,even if it's the same over all issue