Is the alt-left a thing?

[aels]

What Gendo said. I agree with the other arguments, although I don't think "hitting someone without their consent is recognised as assault" applies in the case of (reasonable) punishment, any more than prisons should be abolished on the basis that locking someone up in a room would be recognised as abuse. There's a difference between hitting as punishment (where the person knew beforehand that if they did this bad thing they would be hit), vs hitting as unasked for assault.

If I ever have children I probably wouldn't hit them for the reasons aels laid out, but when done infrequently and in a responsible manner I wouldn't consider it abuse, because a parent lightly smacking a child on the bum for telling lies is very, very different from a parent regularly whipping their child with a belt. It's the equating of the two that bothers me, not the view that it may be better not to physically punish your child.

Then I guess where we diverge is one what constitutes reasonable punishment - I don't believe corporal punishment is pretty much ever reasonable (although I would be curious to know your feelings on corporal punishment in schools? Not a trap, genuinely curious).

I grew up in a house with physical violence so I wouldn't ever say that mild smacking is on a par with serious domestic abuse, but they both involve physical punishment as a means of exercising control and it gives me the squirmies on a visceral level.

[aels]

How is abuse dependent upon the motivations and intent of the perpetrator?

My understanding of abuse is that it has to be intentional. Harm is different, and is not dependent upon motivations or intent. A person may cause harm without it being abuse.

I disagree also on this (I LOVE YOU ANAKIN, I'M NOT PICKING FIGHTS). I would definie abuse, broadly, as a pattern of mistreatment. I think something can be abusive even if neither the abuser or the abused realises that it is. Certainly, my mother does not consciously recognise herself as an abuser and it took years for her victims to be able to frame it as such.

[Anakin McFly]

I love you too. <3

I think something can be abusive even if neither the abuser or the abused realises that it is.

Yeah, that's true. But it feels there should be a word for differentiating that sort of abuse (where neither realise that it is) from the sort where there is clear malicious intent to do harm and the victim is fully conscious of their abuse.

Re: school punishment - A few teenage boys here were just publicly caned (3 strokes) in school for outrage of modesty. They had a choice to be caned or be expelled, and they chose the caning. If not for their age they could have ended up in jail.

I'm always wary of cultural-relativity arguments, but when it comes to physical punishment in Asia there's that element of honour in it - taking responsibility for your actions and bearing the consequences. We have corporal punishment here (caning) for male criminals who commit serious crimes as well, so it's a model of discipline that's very much a part of the larger cultural worldview. Escaping corporal punishment feels shameful, and in that sense there may be consent. It's a way of owning up to the cost of what you did.

But there's been more dialogue about this over the past few years due to more Western influence and changing worldviews. From 2009: http://news.asiaone.com/News/Education/ ... 14279.html

From that article:

Dr Carol Balhetchet, director of youth services at the Singapore Children's Society, said that she still sees children who are abused by furious parents with hangers, belts and bamboo poles.
'There is a fine line between caning for discipline and abuse. If parents do it on impulse, it shows a loss of control and a loss of respect for the child,' she said.

That self-control respect for the child is important. I definitely do not condone parents yelling at their kids and whacking them, but other than that I'm not yet sure where I stand on this - currently I think that light physical punishment is acceptable in serious instances, but it shouldn't be the primary form of punishment. But I'm also a pacifist, and I'm glad that parents are seeking alternative forms of discipline.

(I got caught up in a Facebook debate with a friend of a friend who's a very passionate pro-lifer, so I'm a bit emotionally messed up now that I've spent the day arguing for killing babies and beating children. I'm going to take a break.)

[Blade Azaezel]

The problem with spanking is that it's done to you by the people you (usually) love and respect most in the world. If you have a good relationship with your parents, it can be difficult to consider them abusers given all the connotations that come with that word. Obviously it's a spectrum, but still...

So you end up with two sides to this spanking argument, as a VERY broad generalisation. Those who got smacked (or beaten) by the older WW2 generation and so are vehemently against it, and those who got smacked by their slightly moderate kids as a last resort rather than as the standard go to response. Give it another generation or two and i imagine it'll be virtually non existent as an acceptable punishment. Just means we'll all have to become far more cunning and creative in our punishment of children. I plan to dress up like Krampus and scare the shit out of them.

[Cassius Clay]

Hmmm...classic thread hijack

[Blade Azaezel]

alt-left isn't a thing anyway. I've pressed it numerous times on my keyboard and nothing bloody well happens.

[Anakin McFly]

^now we're back on topic!

[Cassius Clay]

Try pressing alt and type out the word left, not the arrow key. Julian Assange will appear behind you and take you to a wonderful place where an experienced woman running for President on a progressive platform is "just as bad" as an orange, puppet-looking man-baby running on a regressive, white nationalist platform...because defeating all those regressive, anti-civil rights politics aren't nearly as important as the fact that you don't trust this woman. In this world, you will be able to "protest" these equally bad options by voting for even less-qualified candidates every 4 years, while doing nothing in between that time. Also, the GOP just stands aside - because they respect gumption - and lets these less-qualified candidates take office to make whatever drastic changes they want. Because congress? Shieeeet, what fucking congress? Then you live happily ever after. The end.

[Blade Azaezel]

Remember, a vote for a third party is a vote for Trump!

[Cassius Clay]

The only downside in this world is that you have an abusive relationship with Russia. One minute Russia's your buddy..then suddenly they're apparently threatening you with nuclear war.

[Blade Azaezel]

Russia want to be our friends now we've voted Brexit. We'll see how long that lasts.

[Derived Absurdity]

Okay, well, to be back on topic (I guess...), those people who say Hillary is "just as bad" as Trump are just dipshits (she's ACTUALLY WORSE!!! ...jk). I'm not sure they're really "alt"-anything, just contrarian above-the-fray dipshits. Hillary and Trump are both catastrophically horrifying in their own unique ways, but she's not as bad as he is. The alt-right, as far as I understand it, are a bunch of people on the Internet who try to be as outrageously and shockingly horrible as possible. They take all the overt mainstream norms of our culture and try to be as maximally offensive to them as they can (being pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-authoritarian, anti-basic decency, etc). They're edgy teenagers. What would the mirror image of that look like on the left? Being as maximally horrifying as possible from a leftist perspective? It would probably look like people who jokingly praise Stalin and Kim Jong-Un and Mao, who say they want death to America, who rhetorically support violence against cops and bosses and politicians, who jokingly say they support a genocide against all white men, who say anyone who disagrees with them should be thrown in re-education camps, who... um...

uh...

um...



What were we talking about again?

[Cassius Clay]

Ummm...how did you get that font for "actually worse"? Did you hack the system?

[Derived Absurdity]

I WILL NEVER TELL.

[Gendo]

I gave DA the real text box window.

[Gendo]

Small fonts are for losers.

[phe_de]

I gave DA the real text box window.

You mean this one?

[Blade Azaezel]

idjits

[Anakin McFly]

Did you hack the system?

He got Russia to do it.

[Anakin McFly]

Someone did a graph

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvMZKsMWIAAVd8M.jpg

[Derived Absurdity]

... I need to move to Washington.

[Dr_Liszt]

Okay, well, to be back on topic (I guess...), those people who say Hillary is "just as bad" as Trump are just dipshits (she's ACTUALLY WORSE!!! ...jk). I'm not sure they're really "alt"-anything, just contrarian above-the-fray dipshits. Hillary and Trump are both catastrophically horrifying in their own unique ways, but she's not as bad as he is. The alt-right, as far as I understand it, are a bunch of people on the Internet who try to be as outrageously and shockingly horrible as possible. They take all the overt mainstream norms of our culture and try to be as maximally offensive to them as they can (being pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-authoritarian, anti-basic decency, etc). They're edgy teenagers. What would the mirror image of that look like on the left? Being as maximally horrifying as possible from a leftist perspective? It would probably look like people who jokingly praise Stalin and Kim Jong-Un and Mao, who say they want death to America, who rhetorically support violence against cops and bosses and politicians, who jokingly say they support a genocide against all white men, who say anyone who disagrees with them should be thrown in re-education camps, who... um...

uh...

um...



What were we talking about again?

The cultists idiots told me I am on the alt left. Because I believe Europe and the US should be accountable for the refugee crisis. Russia too... but this is about Latino men not wanting Europe to be filled with brown people and encouraging racism against them.

So I'm on the alt left apparently, whatdyall wanna know?

[Cassius Clay]

Someone did a graph

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvMZKsMWIAAVd8M.jpg

Jesus. And in November, People of Color will yet again save this mad country from itself.

[Blade Azaezel]

Someone did a graph

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvMZKsMWIAAVd8M.jpg

Jesus. And in November, People of Color will yet again save this mad country from itself.

Just let it burn

[Cassius Clay]

Someone did a graph

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvMZKsMWIAAVd8M.jpg

Jesus. And in November, People of Color will yet again save this mad country from itself.

Just let it burn

POCs are too damn patriotic(unlike the self-destructive nationalists who fetishize American symbolism) to let this country kill itself. Brexit would never have happened if you guys had more POCs.

[Anakin McFly]

I'm meanwhile baffled by how so many people are claiming as fact that Barack Obama is a "gay Muslim traitor" working with Satanists and Michelle is a transgender woman and the liberal media are trying to cover it up. Its like... Muslim extremists tend not to be gay pals with Satanists, gay men tend not to be attracted to trans women, and the liberal media tends not to work overtime convincing the public that powerful, well-loved people are actually straight and cis. As a conspiracy theory it was hilarious, but now I'm seeing it casually assumed to be a known fact multiple times in the same Facebook thread. Wtf people.

[Derived Absurdity]

Well, according to this new poll (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clinton- ... d=42993821), Trump is actually losing men by four points. That may be the first time he's been shown to be losing men.

I will laugh myself sick if he actually loses men to Hillary. Just sick.

He's also winning whites by four points. Romney won whites by twenty points.

[CashRules]

The last I saw Trump is only up by four points in Texas. A rock could run on the Republican ticket in Texas and beat Hillary. Dubya may have been right when he said he was afraid he would be the last Republican president. Trump is going to succeed in tearing the Republican party apart. Now if something similar could happen to the Democrats - PARTY TIME!

[Cassius Clay]

Just saw a poll that said 17 percent of Stein voters are also voting for David-fucking-Duke.

This is a thing.

The shifting of powers and demographics have brought about bizarre "anti-establishment" alliances. They are not really "anti-establishment", they are only anti-establishment because they're losing power.

Edit: Wow. Just took a closer look at the poll, and the sample size is incredibly small, so isn't significant on it's own. But, I've seen enough to believe that such alliances are real.

[Derived Absurdity]

It's not a fucking thing. JFC. Just stop and think for a minute. Would 17% of supporters of a far left hippie Jew who WANTS REPARATIONS be supporting David Duke? Really? While only 2% of Trump supporters are? Or are a bunch of centrist establishment fuckwits propping up one obviously terrible poll to slander the far left, as they do over and over and over and over again?

You didn't get that information from Sarah Kendzior, by any chance, did you?

[Cassius Clay]

Yeah...I already acknowledged that the poll is meaningless just based on sample size alone.

Also, certain far leftists have done enough to slander themselves this election. They don't need help from people like Sarah Kendzior.