Blocked!! How Tolerant

I was looking back on some past posts.  As my 2.3 faithful readers will recall, the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition ousted a book from the competition because the author held some opinions with which they disagreed.  The rest of the story from last winter is here.

At the time I responded with what I thought was a polite and positive response.  I thanked them for highlighting a book that I didn't know existed and that I ended up enjoying a great deal.

That was the sum total of my interaction with their X account.  Nothing mean nor derogatory.  Simple thanks.

Their response??

Progressivism is nothing if not the sterling examples of intolerance.

I will accept their kind offer and not bother them any further by referring people to any books involved in their competition.  I will however continue to indicate that the SPSFC is run by an intolerant crew and unworthy of any serious fan's attention.

A Brief Tour of Mastadonia

I opened up an account on Mastodon a while back to see how that environment has developed in the wake of the exodus of the "oppressed" from X (formerly known as Twitter).  I followed a few hashtags for topics in which I am naturally interested.  My account is on mastodon.social rather than part of one of the many personal fiefdoms created as part of that distributed network.

Many writers flounced out of X due to the alleged overwhelming presence of fascism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, commonsense, blah-blah, etc.  Any idea that slightly diverged from leftist opinions of the moment was called intolerable.  Mastodon was one popular destination.

My exploration began with topics of personal interest that were mostly related to genre fiction.  I explored some political topics as well.

My first impression is that there wasn’t much activity related to Worldcon or the Hugo Awards.  There also wasn’t a lot of activity related to several genre-associated hashtags.  Given the number of genre authors doing their Dorian Grey impression, I would have expected more activity related to those topics.  There was precious little activity related to those hashtags.  [I eventually identified some other genre-related hashtags that are more active.]

Later on, we had the misfortune of the attempted #assassination attempt on #donaldtrump.  For clarity, it was fortunate and good that he survived.  Political violence is always a bad idea.

A check of the hashtags #trump and #assassination in the days following the attempt suggests to me that the Mastodon admins are purposefully censoring or otherwise throttling which topics are allowed to trend on that platform.  The hashtag stats suggested that few were talking about the event.  A review of the search results of posts on Mastodon indicated that many people WERE talking about that event.  The hashtags were included in the text of various posts, but a hashtag search didn’t correlate well with a post-based search. 

Conversely, both tags were quite active on X.  I cannot say that the tag search and the post search accurately reflected each other on X.  Only that both were active.

There is also evidence of censorship/down-platforming/throttling of certain Mastodon accounts.  Doing topical searches, I found several accounts that Mastodon admins had purposefully muted.  You could still click through to read what they have posted, but you do get a notification that the account has been muted.

None of the accounts I found (roughly 5, so not a big sample) had posted anything overtly offensive unless one holds that moderate disagreement with leftist positions is ipso facto proof of offense.  Comrade Stalin would be proud.

It would be unsurprising if I learned that my account had already been deprecated or otherwise throttled.

Individually, Mastodon users generally (exceptions to everything) appear to lack any interest in critically engaging with diverse viewpoints.  One recent example was a discussion in the wake of the tableau from the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics that was designed to invoke da Vinci’s Last Supper.

My interlocutor responded at some point with “artistic license”.  I pointed out that the artists were appropriating another culture and that I am reliably informed that cultural appropriation is an unacceptable behavior.  Having nothing to offer in response, they blocked me.

Casual accusations of racism, sexism, blah-blah, etc. are routine.  I’ve already been called racist despite not once offering any opinion that relates to race in any reasonable manner.  Again, Comrade Stalin would be proud.

Before Elon Musk purchased Twitter/X the platform was infamous for quietly throttling accounts expressing opinions that were modestly right-of-center.  There was a two-tiered system of moderation in which the slightest of infractions by someone right-of-center would engender suspensions, throttling, and bans while identical (if politically inverted) behavior from left-of-center accounts would be overlooked.  [I came across a recent thread on Mastadon about abuse on that platform.  So leaving Twitter didn't really solve any problems, eh?]

After purchasing the site, Elon revealed exactly how biased the prior administrative efforts had been.  Many normal reasonably centrist and modestly right-of-center accounts were restored.

It appears that the Mastodon user base prefers to live in a mutually affirming silo.  The platform is distributed so that people may create private chatrooms where they can police ideas into conformance.  And that choice is their absolute right!

Yet they still are tolerating extreme forms of authoritarianism in their midst.  I found many profiles using Che Guevarra and communist Hammer-and-Sickle images as profile icons.  Other accounts will readily endorse socialism and/or communism as viable alternatives to liberal democratic capitalism.

Most informed people will recognize that socialism/communism continues to have a higher body count than fascism.  Socialism/communism also continues to foster higher rates of poverty and murder by state actors.  Ask the citizens of Venezuela about it.

While Mastadonians have cleared Hitler, the Nazi cross, and real fascism from their social media environment, they have left far more offensive, destructive, and murderous opinions untouched.

None of this is particularly surprising.  Nor is it unique to left-leaning folks.  People on the right (with some obvious exceptions) have seemingly lost the ability to participate in good-faith engagement with people who hold different opinions.  The number of right-leaning accounts that are comfortable with using helicopter memes to address communists is quite…well…deplorable.

People in all corners of the political pool only seem to want to assuage their emotions by participating in the vibe.  Labels matter more than substance.

Me, too…from time to time.  But I try to be aware of the problem.

Mastodonia isn’t a solution.  It is a reflection of the problem of reacting to conflict by shutting out contrary perspectives.  Siloed communities are not a solution.  Good faith engagement is the only solution.  I don’t see it coming back in fashion anytime soon.

Leash That Woman, Would Ya?

From that bastion of feminist thought that is Saudi Arabia comes news that the kingdom had created a policy where by the movements of the female chattel of that country...that would be all of them...are automatically reported to their male owners.  Anytime a woman crosses the Saudi border, a text is sent to "her man"; whether or not he requests such service.

The couple who alerted al-Sharif was travelling toegether (sic). As they did, the husband received a text message from immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh.

While details are sketchy, it sounds like the service is not opt-in. Since the husband in the couple above was surprised by the SMS, he didn't have to "sign up" to get the message.

It doesn't seem like the tracking is carried out using a tracking device on the person of the woman, at least. Instead, it seems that the immigration authorities simply text the "guardian male" on record when a woman leaves the country, manually.

In the article, someone sarcastically asks why they just don't install RFID chips in their women and be done with it.

Never give advice to oppressive regimes.  They don't understand sarcasm and just might do as you suggest.

Spring Or Fall

The recent events of the so-called Arab Spring have been heralded as an age of advance within the Arab world.  I remain skeptical of such predictions due to the significant influence of jihadists, Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and similar terrorist/extremist groups across the region.

Is this really the dawning of a new age?  Is this really an Arab Spring?  Or perhaps it is an Arab Fall, complete with an Indian Summer's false promise of warmth before the deep cold of winter.

A United Nations delegate from Libya’s newly formed government told a human rights panel that gays and other groups threaten “reproduction of the human race,” drawing a stern rebuke from leaders of the international body.
...

But the harsh stance against gays voiced Monday has some critics wondering if the new government ushered in by the so-called Arab Spring is any more tolerant than its predecessor.

"Today's homophobic outburst by the new Libyan government, together with the routine abuse of prisoners, underscores the serious questions we have about the new regime's commitment to improving on the dark record of its predecessor, and about its pandering to Islamists in its ranks," U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said.

Now after listening to the news from Washington State on NPR over the last few days, I think it should be obvious that we in the U.S. still have issues with respecting the right of gays to be treated as equal citizens. Not everyone is overjoyed at the prospect of the gay marriage law just signed by their governor.  Pure as the wind driven snow, we ain't.

But we are headed in the right direction.  While the Middle East appears to loping along in the wrong direction at a fairly fast clip. 

Just......Stop.....Please

This story is from a couple weeks ago.  Hank Williams Jr. decided that he would make the comparison between President Obama and....

They Told Me.....

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame has an ongoing series of "The told me if I voted Republican that....." over at his site.  You fill in the dots with some theoretically pernicious federal policy that some in the media and on the left....but I repeat myself....have expressed regarding voting for Republicans.  Of course, the policies that are mentioned are currently being enacted by Democrats and other presumably left of center organizations.

The most recent edition is about astronomer Martin Gaskell.  He has been denied the position of running the observatory for the University of Kentucky.  Because he is a Christian.

Glenn's observations are great, as always.  One that he bypassed was the concern expressed by the university that Mr. Gaskell might be "potentially evangelical".  Not that he was confirmed to be evangelical.  And no explanation of how being evangelical might make him unsuitable for the position in question.  They had a fear....an irrational and unfounded fear....and acted upon it.

Which is exactly what the left says about pretty much anyone that isn't on the left.  Someone's Freudian slip is showing......

I think diversity training is in order.

Confused

I do not endorse the theatrics of the Westboro Baptist Church.

I do not endorse the slashing of tires on vehicles owned by WBC members while they are out protesting some soldier's funeral.

But this seems an opportune moment for schadenfreude.  I am so confused.

When Faced With Questions Most Serious, What Does One Do?

If you are an old school scientist, one who has swam in the deep waters of rigorous science, and one who sees those same waters being polluted with influences that undermine the cause of science?  You pen a letter that will carry the weight of a battleship anchor with those similarly focused on the rigors of science and the weight of a feather for those who are willing to compromise their profession for wealth and relative fame.

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence---it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists.


....


So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind---simply to bring the subject into the open.


To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members' interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.


As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.


APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?


....


I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

I hope they remain friends, too.  For apparently the APS is no longer concerned with being scientists.

Where The Problem Is - Saudi Edition

We recently learned that a Saudi diplomat has asked for asylum in the United States.  He is afraid for his life if he returns to Saudi Arabia.

Why?  Good question.

He's gay.

He also has a very close friend....lady.....who is Jewish.

He's committed three of the biggest sins you can commit if you live in the Muslim heartland.  And he believes that the government will try him and kill him if he returns home.

It seems that the Saudi's have learned of his "lapses" and opted to terminate his diplomatic position and have recalled him to Saudi Arabia.

Hopefully, our State Department will look favorably upon his request.

These Folks Just Do Not 'Get' Living In The West

Perhaps they don't want to.

Afshan Azad, who has appeared in four of the [Harry Potter] films as one of the wizard’s screen girlfriends Padma Patil, hails from a strict Muslim family.


She was allegedly attacked at her parents’ home ­after she had started dating the new lad.


Her dad Abdul, 54, has appeared in court accused of threatening to kill her. The actress’s brother Ashraf, 28, faces the same charge and an allegation that he assaulted her causing actual bodily harm.

Perhaps that is the problem we need to be solving.

I Try.....And Sometimes I Fail

Ta-Nehsi Coates, writer for the Atlantic whom I have come to read frequently, enjoy immensely, and with whom I disagree on a wide range of subjects, offers the following thoughts regarding written criticism in the wake of the Dave Weigel/Washington Post affair.

With that in mind, a few quick words on my own approach to this matter. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of having dinner with James Fallows, along with a few other Atlantic folks. Fallows offered some really wise words on how to criticize people in print, the gist of it being, "Speak to those you would criticize as though they were standing right there."


That's a high standard, but one I've generally tried to maintain. My sense of my role here is as follows: I'm not here to try to humiliate people I disagree with. That goes as much for Jeff Goldberg, who is my friend, as it goes for Bob McDonnell, who is not. For sure there is a little more hot sauce on the thing, when I don't know the person. But by and by, I hope to speak to McDonnell as I would speak to Goldberg--not the other way around.


It's fun to be mean, and it makes your side howl--and sometimes it's even necessary. But  my game is as follows--stating my opinions directly, clearly and without equivocation and without undue malice.

A high standard of discourse indeed.

And yet today I find myself tempted by the following bon mot:

In sum total, what you people did was drive someplace where there wasn't a problem, complain about something you don't fully understand, get in the way of people who may actually be performing a function, and then do nothing, en masse, except hope that someone else notices your little snit and makes it all better.


My god, if there's a more perfect metaphor for the modern progressive movement, I've never seen it.

Emphases in the original.

I am privileged to know a fair number of intelligent people that are a bit left of me politically.  I am also aware of the many reactionary, reflexive, and unthinking people on the right.

Yet there is an underlying truth to the above.  I have sadly come to expect nonsense will follow whenever I hear the word "progressive", or the phrase "speaking truth to power", or similar leftist twaddle.  Sadder still, I am rarely disappointed in that expectation.

I try to think the best of all of my fellow Americans regardless of their opinions.  I hope that what animates their politics is a desire to improve our nation and our world.  I try to remain at least open enough to hear their point of view before presenting my own.

Today...momentarily...I failed.

An Unusual Fascination

As someone who it critical of America's fear of nipples, I naturally take note whenever breasts enter the American political consciousness.  It appears that Sarah Palin's critics have turned their attention downward; south of her chin and north of her navel.  The question currently occupying their little minds?  Are Mrs. Palin's prominently perky pair purely the product of her progeniture or has she opted to fan her fame with phony foobies made of flubber^[1]

I suspect that her critics are just trying to make boobs of themselves.

Tigerhawk adds some perspective.

First, does the left enhance -- and I use the word advisedly -- its appeal among the electorate by suggesting that we ought to ridicule women for getting breast implants? The boobery need no further reminder that the left disdains their sense of aesthetic, but if liberals want to beat them over the head with it, fine. This may, in the end, be Palin's greatest contribution to conservative political fortunes: She suckers the chattering left in to reminding everybody that they are, well, snots.

 [1] Yes, I know I'm reaching.

Don't Make It Easy

I struggle.  And some folks just aren't willing to help.

I generally work not to have an "those [fill in the blank] people are all [fill in mindless insult]" attitude.  The person most recently demonstrating an unwillingness to help being Sir Paul McCartney.  He had some mindless twittery to offer relative to former President George Bush and libraries.  Had Sir Paul actually known anything about Mr. Bush, he would have kept his yap shut.

This response seems to have it just about right.

In mocking the [supposed] boorishness of a former U.S. president, Sir Paul, and those who roared at his remark, unfortunately demonstrated their own.

More at the link.  The extra word is mine.

Having a passionate disagreement about policy is one thing.  Being petty and insulting is quite another.  Classless twits have a hard time hiding their classless twittery.

Everybody Draws Mohammed Day

As any person with a moderate level of political and social awareness should know, some guy started a Facebook page encouraging "everyone" to draw a picture of the prophet revered by the world's Muslims.  The reasoning behind this stunt is to push the belligerent and extremists among the world's Muslims into doing something stupid.

It isn't too far afield from the several "protests" held in the United States where people walk, ride bikes, go to work in the nude as a way of protesting....something.  Their reasoning goes that if you are offended by the sight of female nipples, then the protesters are going to bombard you with lots of nekkid female nipples until your brain ess-plodes or you develop some tolerance for having nekkid female nipples within your field of view.  Or penises.....penisi....

Or the Vag.

In any case, that is the logic...such as it is...behind that Facebook page. [now shut down.....Google is your friend]

Mark Steyn isn't enthused with the idea, but he does commiserate with these agents provocateur.

I'm bored with death threats. And, as far as I'm concerned, if that's your opening conversational gambit, then any obligation on my part to "cultural sensitivity" and "mutual respect" is over. The only way to stop this madness destroying our liberties is (as Ayaan Hirsi Ali puts it) to spread the risk. Everybody Draws Mohammed Day does just that. Various websites are offering prizes. I only wish we could track down those sicko Danish imams* who drew their prophet as a pig, and send them the trophy.

Mutual respect should mean just that.  An understanding that there are actions that are offensive and a mutual desire to avoid stepping on the other person's toes.  Listening to NPR a little bit ago, I learned that the Muslims of Pakistan not only approved of their government's blocking access to Facebook, but they also view such things as acts of terrorism that require the immediate creation of international laws to protect their delicate eyeballs.

So we know freedom of expression isn't high on their list of priorities.

Ann Althouse is a bit more firm in her opposition to EDMD.  

I have endless contempt for the threats/warnings against various cartoonists who draw Muhammad (or a man in a bear suit who might be Muhammad, but is actually Santa Claus). But depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats. In pushing back some people, you also hurt a lot of people who aren't doing anything (other than protecting their own interests by declining to pressure the extremists who are hurting the reputation of their religion).

The trick, IMHO, is to get those millions of Muslims that do not threaten violence to perceive their "own interests" to be best served by actively opposing the few belligerent extremists instead of simply remaining quiet and on the sidelines.  The intolerant are not deserving of tolerance.

That generates the larger question of when it is appropriate to do such things.  I recall our beloved daughter telling the story about a class she took at UNLV where the subject of flag burning was discussed.  Most of the class thought that flag burning was a right.  She stood fast in her belief that you shouldn't burn the flag because of the emotional pain caused to those that possess a deep respect for the flag.

Stop for a moment and read that again.  Those kids were having two different conversations.  One wanted to talk about rights.  The other wanted to talk about responsibilities.

We seem to do a lot of that these days.

In any case, I firmly support the right of anyone to burn the flag, show off their nipples, or to draw the so-called Prophet Mohammad.  At the same time, such things shouldn't be done for purposes as low as "because I can".

Mostly.

The recent Facebook stunt seems to fall pretty well within that limit.

When Olbermann is Uber-wrong

link

Mischaracterizing The Tea Partiers

A frequent theme in my regular reading is the serial mischaracterizations of the Tea Party crowd on the part of our friends in the major media and their fellow leftist travellers.  A. Barton Hinkle expresses many of my thoughts on that subject quite well here.

The nut of his rejoinder is quite accurate.

Yet as J.R. Lucas wrote more than three decades ago, equality has more than one dimension, and efforts to tame economic inequalities can produce bureaucratic empires that crystallize "an inequality of power . . . more dangerous than the inequality of wealth to which objection was originally made." Members of Tea Party Nation may simply prefer to tolerate monetary inequalities rather than to hand more power over their lives to progressives who, while purporting to care about the great unwashed, sometimes treat them with casual contempt.

Having witnessed the damage that government mischief can cause from afar as well as up close, I do not trust that they will use the new authority under consideration in a wise and responsible manner.  The vagaries of the market are preferable to the iron fist of bureaucratic authority and politically derived preferences.

The continued trend of disregarding that legitimate perspective and misrepresenting its proponents are not healthy for our country.

Tea Party And Race

The major media misunderstands almost every aspect of the Tea Party movement.  Their often repeated lie is that Tea Party gatherings are lilly white rallies of borderline klansmen.

Wrong.

Ordinarily, a free market doesn't reward businesses and people that produce valueless goods and services. Oh snap!  So that's why newspaper circulation is down and MSNBC's viewship is in this the toilet!

Carry on.

A Time For Intolerance

My 2.11....and [sigh] declining....readers might not have heard of the recent kerfuffle at Vanderbilt University.  It seems that Vanderbilt Adjunct Professor of Islam at the Divinity School and Muslim chaplain for Vanderbilt, Awadh Binhazim, recently gave his views regarding homosexuality and Islam.

What does the good professor have to say??

Question: Under Islamic law, if a homosexual person began to engage in homosexual relations on an ongoing and permanent way, with no intention of quitting, then the punishment under Islamic law would be death... unless, you know, he agreed to quit. As a practicing Muslim do you accept or reject this teaching of Islam?

Answer: ...I don't have a choice as a Muslim to accept or reject a teaching. I go with what Islam teaches.

...this is captured in other religions as well... so, the punishment is Islam is certain rules... probably a lot of time to explain it... you cannot prosecute someone just because you think they are homosexual. There has to be clear proof...


Question: Under Islamic law, is it punishable by death if you are a homosexual?

Answer: Yes.

You will note a fair number of ellipses in the above.  The reason is that the good professor attempts to weasel his way out of admitting his position that homosexuals can be appropriately punished by being put to death.

He tries to use the "but they do it too" defense by correctly pointing out that Jewish and Christian religious texts also condemn homosexuals to death.  He failed to note that the vast majority of Christians have either learned not to impose their faith on others, or how to ignore the literal translation of some portions of the Bible.

He tries to wriggle out of a tight spot by declaring that no country in the world is ruled exclusively by Islamic laws.  Apparently countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran [scroll down to see how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ensures that his country remains  where the vast majority of their laws are derived from Islam don't qualify under the good professor's very narrow interpretation as being nations ruled by Islamic law.

This [picture and story from the Washington Post] is how Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ensures that his country remains 100% free from homosexuality.

 Out of 93 countries where homosexuality is a punishable offense, 7 punish homosexuals by putting them to death.  In each of those 7 countries, Islam is the dominant religion.

To be fair, one Christian dominated nation is currently considering putting HIV infected homosexuals to death; Uganda.

Why are Professor Binhazim's comments a concern?  Perhaps because they demonstrate a lack of tolerance for homosexuals.  Perhaps because they demonstrate his acceptance of religion being imposed on those that do not share his faith.

Perhaps because had he been some flavor of Christian, he would have been dismissed from the University, his comments publicly disavowed by students, faculty, alumni, and administration alike.  Tar and feathers would have been discussed.

Intolerance towards such savagery ought not to be considered a vice.  It is a timely virtue.