I was wrong to think that the time for me to step away from this community was coming. Recent events have shown me that said time is not coming, but is in fact already here.
I only have one more response to make. This is going to be my final word in this thread.
Quote: (06-14-2017 02:08 PM)Blaster Wrote:
Quote:Quote:
The problem I am having with Excelsior's method of debate is that he is personally attacking people's character in order to present his perspective.
Not going to go back and re-read the whole thread but my recollection was that accusations were directed at him first and he was responding in kind (more or less). I believe it was comments calling him a progressive or SJW or something like that. Muslim maybe, also.
No need to go back, Blaster. You’re correct, and I’ll prove it for you. LDN has given
his account of this thread. He has, as expected, left out quite a few details and used those omissions to paint me in as dim a light as possible.
Here’s where we
really are – posts will be linked directly to facilitate verification of my account. All are in chronological order, from first to last.
Post 1:
thread-63079...pid1586759 This is the post that started things. I post a tweet storm showing how muslim extremists have been elevated and supported by the British media against the desires of most muslims. Nothing personal here.
Zelcorpion responds:
post-1587025...pid1587025 Nothing personal here.
Post 2:
thread-63079...pid1587067 My response reiterates belief that few muslims actually support extremism embodied by the likes of Choudhary and they are effectively being marginalized by British media. Nothing personal here.
Zelcorpion responds:
thread-63079...pid1587081
Post 3:
thread-63079...pid1587122 My response to Zelcorpion.
Note that there have been no personal attacks so far from either side.
Zelcorpion’s response:
thread-63079...pid1587138 Labels me a progressive, posts meme claiming I am an SJW, claims I have “outed myself”
Have we gotten personal yet?
Leonard responds:
thread-63079...pid1587161 Nothing personal here. He does contend that Neo-Nazis are more fit for western civilization than muslims, a claim I found pretty absurd but definitely not personal.
Post 4:
thread-63079...pid1587493 My response to Zelcorpion. Nothing personal in it.
Another response to valentine:
thread-63079...pid1587494 Again, nothing personal.
Zelcorpion’s respone:
thread-63079...pid1587507 Equates me to May, Macron, Merkel.
Personal? Debatable, but getting there.
Zelcorpion response:
thread-63079...pid1587524 Excelsior is an SJW again. Is that personal?
Again, don’t take my word for it. I’m linking you to the posts – go back and read them. I will submit to you that you will not find a personal attack from me through this stage of the discussion, but you will have already seen at least two (3 if you count the equation to the notorious May/Merkel/Macron triumvirate) from others directed at me.
Post 5:
thread-63079...pid1587583 I contend that I actually have nothing to do with Macron, Merkel, or May and have very different ideas. Nothing personal here – read and see for yourself.
Valentine responds:
thread-63079...pid1587618 Questions my numbers and asks what my solution is. Nothing personal.
Post 6:
thread-63079...pid1587935 I pose some solutions and back up the numbers I posted earlier. Nothing personal here – read it and see for yourself.
Post 7:
thread-63079...pid1587936 Response to several members here. I attempt to back up my reasoning for not supporting broader anti-muslim policies and for proposing the solutions I mentioned above. Nothing personal.
Zelcoprpion:
thread-63079...pid1587938 “On Huffpo, NYT and every other mainstream media fake-news outlet they would applaud you. Feminsts would sing your praise and Antifa would invite you into their ranks. Congratulations.” Zelcorpion also calls me an Islam Lover and implies that I am semi-autistic.
Is that personal?
Post 8:
thread-63079...pid1587939 Mostly a response to Samseau. I accuse him of using red herrings and displaying historical ignorance.
Zelcorpion’s response:
thread-63079...pid1587940 He jokingly asks what my solutions would be before suggesting that I would probably propose “hug a muslim” campaigns and flower processions.
Post 9:
thread-63079...pid1587943 I imply that, by referring to Islam as an evil cult, Zelcorpion was promoting an islamophobic line of reasoning.
Personal? You can make the case.
LDN:
thread-63079...pid1587971 LDN wants me to imagine being “a black man or a Jew living in a nation where 591,850 people polled that they supported the creation of a thousand year white supremacist state”
Zelcorpion:
thread-63079...pid1587979 Finally gives up claiming that I am an SJW.
Post 10:
thread-63079...pid1588455 response to LDN by noting that I do live in a country where there are millions of people who support white supremacy. I say, specifically:
Quote:Quote:
I am black and I live in a nation where millions of people openly support not only the marginalization and disenfranchisement of people like myself (who they relentless dog as low iq genetic inferiors lacking in history/civilization, and unfit for western society), but also support white supremacy and policies designed to further it (up to and including neo-Nazism). I live in a nation where I would not even be a citizen if tens of millions of folks had their way, and quite a few more would prefer I not even be in the country.
HCE responds:
thread-63079...pid1588520 Apparently, my claim is impossible.
Blaster also says the claim cannot be taken at face value. Valentine says I sound like a refugee activist.
thread-63079...pid1588583
Post 11:
thread-63079...pid1588456 Response to zelcorpion and HCE. Nothing personal.
Post 12:
thread-63079...pid1588644 I post some data to back up my claim that there are indeed millions of people in the United states who believe in the inferiority of black people.
Kabal joins the fray and suggests that the real problematic enemies are not feminists, but “dysgenic immigration” that brings blacks, Hispanics, and muslims. (I’m black and a product of immigrants, for the record –
personal? Debatable, but getting there).
thread-63079...pid1588646
Post 13:
thread-63079...pid1588751 Response to Kabal clarifying my claims RE: white supremacy. I insist it was not designed to guilt anybody and was a matter of fact response to a question. I suggest he do more to name the “dysgenic” enemy he alluded to.
Kabal’s response:
thread-63079...pid1588812 This roughly translates to “You’re a feminist”. Implies victim-complex. Basically calls me a feminist SJW.
Personal or no? You be the judge.
Also, there’s a back-and-forth between me and Paracelsus about the geo-political implications of the solutions I proposed. That ends amicably here – nothing personal from either side:
thread-63079...pid1588839
LDN:
thread-63079...pid1588855 Implies here that I have called America a “festering Nazi scab waiting to erupt”. Says my statements are clownish and nonsensical. Claims I live in a dark cuckoo land and am wrapped in a racial victim complex (remember: my claim that galvanized all of this was that there were millions of white supremacists in the United States). Claims my solutions are utter nonsense.
I have a victim complex (implying that my opinions derive not from reasoned opinion but from emoton, not unlike an SJW) and my logic is clownish. Personal, or no?
Post 14:
thread-63079...pid1588872 My response to LDN pushing back against the claims that what I said was nonsensical, clownish, etc.
Zelcorpion:
thread-63079...pid1588878 Partially agrees with my plan.
HCE says I have an ego problem because I disagree with him (personal?).
thread-63079...pid1588892
Blaster at least admits white supremacy is real:
thread-63079...pid1588996
Samseau responds:
thread-63079...pid1589196 Presents some pretty faulty statistics regarding the slave trade, implies that I have “Stockholm syndrome” because of the arguments I have made so far in the thread regarding Islam.
I have stockholm symdrome because I have suggested taking a path to engaging with Islam and its adherents that differs from the mainstream consensus on the forum. Personal, or no?
Post 15:
thread-63079...pid1589422 I call out Samseau for the false numbers and also claim that he is a white supremacist
(personal? Yes) based on what he said in another thread (where he implied that East Asians and Whites were not only higher cultures, but higher peoples). I also attack LDN for claiming that my plan is nonsense when his alternative was an outright war.
LDN responds:
thread-63079...pid1589448
Post 16:
thread-63079...pid1589459 I imply that LDN hates muslims and wants to keep non-whites out – my reasoning is that this is the only way that someone could support an outright war as an alternative to the solutions I proposed, even though the reasoning given for opposing my solutions was their supposed propensity to create low level civil war. Personal? Yes.
LDN:
thread-63079...pid1589474 Threatens to report me for implying that he is a racist.
Post 17:
thread-63079...pid1589481 I claim that LDN could not possibly hold the position he holds if he did not hate islam/muslims. I note in gif form that I don’t care about getting reported.
LDN:
thread-63079...pid1589533 Excelsior conjures racism from thin air, expected cowtowing/bowing, is a progressive who only shouts racism when he’s losing an argument, and is a deluded member of BLM. Personal? Yes.
Zelcorpion:
thread-63079...pid1589714 Excelsior is a muslim
Post 18:
thread-63079...pid1589772 Response to LDN. Very personal at this point.
LDN:
thread-63079...pid1590007 Excelsior is a mentally ill progressive.
I can go on, but you guys can read. It’s all downhill from here. There's your account of the thread.
Several members took great offense to the claim that multiple millions of white supremacists could exist in a country of 300 million. This apparently is the sign of someone with a victim complex.
LDN will have you believe that “millions of Americans are demonstrably not having conversations about IQ/race/history/civilization” and that all I have done is “turned this issue into a society-wide surrogate for his lamentations of the shift in the forums' political direction”. Nevermind the fact that the recent election (which placed the man very well understood to be the chosen candidate of the HBD/Alt-right/ethno-nationalist sphere in the white house), coupled with the growth of alt-right mediums like Breitbart and Amren (as well as the morphing of others, like ROK, into similar spaces) make it pretty clear that conversations like that ARE taking place in millions of households across the country. We wouldn’t be seeing the level of societal tension in the USA we are seeing today if these things were not being discussed. Anyone who lives here (especially as a person of color) and experiences that tension first hand can see this.
To that end, I could also point out to you the absurdity of a white Australian telling a black resident of the USA (who has grown up in the USA and has first hand experience of many of the phenomena he is talking about re: blacks, whites, supremacy, etc) that he’s just “making everything up”, as if he would somehow know more about what the experience for people of color living in the USA is than actual people of color in the USA.
But there’s little point to me mentioning this reality here. As I said before, no claim of supremacy or even general racism from a person of color can be taken seriously in this sphere – people of color either totally disabuse the notion of white supremacy/racism or they are labeled folks with a delusional BLM conscious/victim complex. There is no middle ground.
You’d figure that after 7 years here as a contributor who has never had a reputation for mass-posting dishonest bullshit or failing to be objective, things would be a little different. You’d figure my first hand experience and objectivity, which has served this community well in legions of other discussions I’ve participated in over the years, might get some deference. Just a little – I’m not talking about agreement by default (nobody deserves not to be questioned), I’m talking about just enough measured skepticism to prevent folks from
immediate dismissal of the experience as soon as I type it out and to prevent the
immediate presumption that I would mention something (the existence of white supremacists) that I hadn’t seen with my own eyes or dealt with myself.
LDN has attempted to claim that my pointing this out is a sign of mental illness. After 7 years here and all of the positive, objective contributions I have made in that time, you’d figure I’d have done enough to at least earn a rebuttable presumption against the notion that I’m a madman. However, it seems instead (judging by the sheer number of supportive likes generated by the post in which the aforementioned claim of madness was raised and others like it) that most of the folks here would disagree. Just chalk it up to “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and be done.
That’s where this community has come today. I will not be changing any minds, and I have to accept this.
Suffice it to say the following:
thread-63079...pid1592667
Quote: (06-14-2017 01:21 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:
The problem I am having with Excelsior's method of debate is that he is personally attacking people's character in order to present his perspective. A lot of the pushback he is experiencing is more from people defending their character as men rather than politically disagreeing with him. If Excelsior focused on explaining in a calm way how people's ideas were misguided, I believe he would be getting a much better response from people.
Edit: I just want to say that calling someone to their face (or over the forum in this instance) a white supremacist or white nationalist is a pretty deeply personal attack on that person's character as a human being. If the focus of the debate was more on how someone's ideas or beliefs were misguided and then explaining rationally how those beliefs were misguided, I believe that they debate would be more productive and bear more fruit in changing people's minds.
All or Nothing has claimed that this debate has been undermined by personal attacks on others’ character as human beings. He suggests that I have employed too many of these attacks and implies that I’m the main source of that problem and the negative reaction. LDN has, as we would expect, made a similar conclusion.
Respectfully, All or Nothing, I disagee. I will submit to you, and the record should show above, that this is not the case. I did not come in here and kick things off by personally attacking anyone. I came in and made an argument in good faith with regard to my disagreement on the forum consensus with regard to Islam and Muslims. When countered, I responded with reasoned, impersonal explanations as to why those beliefs were misguided and proposed my own solutions to the problems being debated. The first several posts chronicled above back up this account. Don’t take my word for it – read them yourself, they’re linked right above.
In return, I was pretty much immediately labeled an SJW progressive and refugee activist. Users claimed that I was a semi-autistic member of antifa. It was also argued that I am a muslim and that I have Stockholm syndrome. Another user essentially called me a feminist.
And all of that happened before I even dared to throw out what you will claim to be a personal attack: calling Samseau a white supremacist (which I felt justified in doing, btw, because of a post made in another thread that pretty clearly implied a racial hierarchy). Once that happened and I mentioned the notion that white supremacy exists in the United States, I was claimed by some users here to have a mental illness.
I will therefore submit that I followed your advice, All or Nothing. I tried to explain in a calm way how I felt the views here were misguided with regard to Islam and muslims. I could not do that for long without being dismissed as a semi-autistic SJW (a completely unprovoked personal attack), so I conclude that this approach is not effective and never could have been. There was really no way for this not to devolve.
Why? I already mentioned why. There’s been a change. This is not about personal attacks, it is about a fundamental hostility to certain views. That fundamental hostility is the reason why personal attacks on my character (forcing me on the defensive against claims like SJW, autist, etc) were leveled before any similar provocation could come from my end. I did not need to attack anyone’s character to get that kind of vitriol – I just needed to hold a point of view hostile to the mainstream consensus. Even if reasonably argued in good faith, that view was going to get a personal reaction, and it did. It is simply too offensive to many people here.
People like me no longer belong here, nor are they welcome here if they are unwilling to fully embrace views and ideologies that are entirely hostile to themselves, their heritage, and their cultures. That is made clear by the discussion in this thread: even a reasonable, good faith effort to push back against some of the rhetoric here with regard to islam gets you labeled an SJW with Stockholm syndrome. It’s not even a discussion that can be had here anymore. Pointing out the hypocrisy and clear madness of calling enhanced policing/alternative foreign policy suggestions “too dangerous” while simultaneously promoting all-out war gets me labeled delusional, and has me facing implications of being a BLM supporter with a mental illness. Even attempting to note that there might exist millions of white supremacists in the USA (not a difficult feat in a nation of 300 million people) gets you the “victim complex” tag, even after you attempt to offer data to back it up.
I was suspended for personal attacks (linked to LDN in another thread) for several days last week – that’s the first time that’s happened to me here. We have said nothing of the personal attacks leveled at me here and described above, none of which have resulted in suspensions. I get suspended for, and I quote, “crossing the line into personal insults”, but that same member is free to claim I am mentally ill for disagreeing with him, and others still are free to label me a semi-autistic SJW feminist with Stockholm syndrome because I had a view of Islam that didn’t amount to “Islam is cancer”.
Meanwhile, a user with less than 50 posts openly expresses hatred for blacks and muslims, defends his hatred of blacks (claims he’s “forced” to do it), and defends the merits of using the term “paki” to describe other people. He hasn’t been banned, from what I can see. The few who are critiquing him are told by others to “get over it, it’s just a word”.
Credit to Blaster for calling him out, and credit to the handful of others who have joined him in this. The fact that there are still a few of you here gives me hope that there are still pieces of the old RvF left, and perhaps the old community isn’t irrecoverable after all.
…but the fact remains that his continued presence here makes my point, as do many of the other posts here tacitly or explicitly endorsing similar ideology. Also making the point is the silence of so many of the members here with regard to these posts – a few, like Blaster, Matsufubu, WalterBlack, and Teedub have rightfully called him out, but several of those who were most vocal about the notion that my concerns about racism were overblown, how I’ve “made it all up” and overplayed a “boogeyman” by talking about it, etc, etc, have had nothing at all to say to this user and have (in the case of at least one member) handed him rep points instead. I suspect he won’t be seriously punished here because he’s simply done nothing wrong, at least not on the forum as it exists now. This is his space. That’s the community this has become, and I don’t think I belong in it.
The unavoidable reality (one made abundantly clear by the discussion in this thread) is that myself and those like me no longer really match up well with this sphere. Having seen the shift take place I accepted a while back that, at some point, I would have to decrease my presence here so as to increase my presence in other spheres in which there was a greater match with my values and mindset. This is unavoidable and I hate that because, as I said before, I love this place. I grew up here. It’s been a home for me and many others like me.
But times change. People change. This community has changed, as have those affiliated with it. This has become a place increasingly tolerant, if not downright welcoming, to people who openly denigrate the culture and history of many people of color, all the while implying their own genetic racial superiority. I can’t stop that change – I’ve no power to do so, nor have I the right (it isn’t like I own the space – it is Roosh’s decision as to what he does and doesn’t endorse), but I can’t co-exist with it either. This shift is unstoppable and, as some have rightly noted, was perhaps always inevitable (especially given the fact that the societies around us are changing too).
This discussion has clearly run its course. I do hope that, over time, this community can evolve into something more closely resembling the space it used to be. If that happens, I’m hopeful I’ll get a chance to be a regular part of it again. For now, at least, I think it is best I step back.
The last word is yours. Good luck with your community going forward.