That second link was the funniest thing I read in a week.
Hey, if Texas doesn't want those nasty US military folks around anymore, I'm sure North Carolina will take them.
The comment thread in this article on the same issue as 2 in the OP is full of truly magnificent things.
Marshall Law is coming for you! Watch out for the New World Oder!
It's pretty special, definitely. In that LTC's place I would be very tempted to start teasing the Texans to see what happens. "I assure you, Exercise VENCEREMOS ALAMO is an entirely routine training package for the U.S. Fuerza Especial. I'm sorry, the U.S. Special Forces. Don't know why I said that. Slip of the tongue."
I had to look up what the Texas State Guard is. Apparently, it's the National Guard except that it can't be nationalized during a war. Anyway, I sort of wonder how long the whole lot of them would last against a few squads of special forces.
Shit like this is why I think there's a small chance of an actual red-blue civil war in my lifetime. I doubt the likelihood is much more than 2%, but that's too high.
You should work in science. Less than 5% is the same as nothing.
5: We have a NY analogue, which for some reason is composed mostly of lawyers nearing retirement. I have no explanation for this.
I'd bet it involves drinking and guns and how great it is to combine them.
Huh. A bunch of states do. I bet being in the Illinois State Guard Navy is a barrel of fun.
And apparently being in a state guard doesn't protect you from the draft in the way the National Guard does. But that won't be an issue during the Next War of Texas Succession.
And finally, "legal" is in fact a specialty of the New York Guard. Huh.
Maybe that's why lawyers never get around to this paperless office thing. Without reams of printouts they won't have any physical objects to lob at the enemy.
At least the band won't have that problem.
Has anyone engaged Pamela Geller in a thought experiment substituting Jew-hatred for Muslim-hatred? I don't really want to know, but now that she's hitting the big time, it might be useful.
The map in 10 surprises me, because I was sure the Illinois Naval Militia had been abolished, about 20 years ago.
About 4 states had them around WWI, and you can see the weird, ancient vessels they operated, typically in backwaters like the Caribbean, in Janes Fighting Ships for 1918. If I remember correctly Michigan was using a paddlewheeler from 1842.
The Illinois Naval Militia ended up with the Eastland, which the Federal Government had bought during the war and had already put a short bow on to get it through Number 17 and out to the ocean when the war ended. Renamed the Wilmette, it sat on a slip near Navy Peer, an eery reminder of the disaster, until the end of WWII, going on frequent training cruises during the war, including one with FDR on board which visited Bayfield.
Goddamned HTML.
I thought <.05 was everything in science.
||
Carly Fiorina: not necessarily the most competent political candidate at the moment.
|>
17. Navy Peer
Goddam. Not only does Illinois have a navy, it has a whole marine aristocracy
19: Nothing is everything, because of null hypotheses.
5. You should work in science. Less than 5% is the same as nothing.
Not science, but social science, which is more scientism, a horse of a different color.
Real science uses 0.0000003
think of my pseud as "I don't proofread."
Navy Peers are like Irish Peers, such as Baltimore.
24: apparently me neither.
My 23 should have included this link
There are about 15 US military bases in Texas. Perhaps someone could introduce legislation to have them removed. Short of that could we at least rename Fort Hood for someone who wasn't a traitor to his country.
There's an argument that Hood shortened the war. When Sherman, before Atlanta, heard that his old adversary—and lifelong personal friend—Joe Johnston had been replaced by Hood, he held a council of war, and asked his younger generals, who'd have known Hood personally, what he was like and what he'd do. "Attack" was everybody's answer, so Sherman was ready for Hood to break his army against him.
Against Johnston Atlanta would have been much harder and the march to the sea not possible.
I don't really get OP.1. Baited in the sense that we know there are people who will kill people when provoked, so let's bring them out of the woodwork with the whole Mohammed cartoon thing, because we know that will drive people to kill?
More-or-less, yes. We will have 40 police officers plus our own security staff, so we don't really think anyone violent will get to us, but we will do the most provocative damn thing we possibly can think of to troll the crazy arm of the Muslim faith, and basically invite them into a situation to get themselves killed.
Art Goldhammer continues to be the epitome of intelligence and wisdom in the Islam/cartoons/PEN controversy: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/5/pen-america-charlie-hebdo-and-the-virtue-of-self-restraint.html
Very highly recommend.
There are about 15 US military bases in Texas.
This is the part that makes me think that the rightwing-o-sphere is just self-imploding - who on earth do they think built our military up? Who on earth do they think is populating those camps at Ft. Hood and Randolph and so on?
It sounds like Geller's plan was basically the same as the Westboro Baptist church: publicly antagonize some group in the most offensive way you can think of*, and then hope they react in a way you can capitalize on, either by suing them, as in Phelps' method of fundraising, or just by pointing at their and saying how it shows that they're dangerous/scary/etc. people who should all be something-something.
*I strongly doubt the 'draw the prophet' contest was judged according to respectfulness or artistic merit.
Not just the military bases, but all the Department of Defense money spent in Texas could go somewhere else too.
23: Medicine bases billions of dollars of spending on .05ing. They don't consider themselves a social science. Just social-science curious.
30, OP1,
I think Geller et al are disgusting, but I find this line of reasoning really unconvincing. Offensive cartoons, even if they are hate speech, do not "make" people shoot up crowds of civilians or commit acts of terrorism. I am ok with heavily restricting or criminalizing hate speech, but as of now it's legal in the US and there are PLENTY of other ways to protest without killing. This is a clear case of two wrongs don't make a right.
Happy ending for everyone. Geller gets attention, Texas police get to shoot someone, couple of headbangers get to die for their faith. It's just unfortunate that someone else got injured.
This is a clear case of two wrongs don't make a right.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this. It is just that different people are pointing to different wrongs and saying "That's wrong."
I suggested that Gellar's contest was incitement in the other thread, and people disagreed with me, but were reluctant to argue it. Maybe I should argue it here?
I should emphasize that I am only talking about the specific act of holding this contest. I'm not saying that we should ban depictions of the Prophet to appease terrorists. (Many depictions of the Prophet are quite pretty.) I'm suggesting that not only was Gellar wrong to hold the contest, but that the contest could have been cancelled by the government as a public safety hazard, without violating free speech rights.
the contest could have been cancelled by the government as a public safety hazard, without violating free speech rights
Not under current law, by a long shot.
unfortunate that someone else got injured
He's already out of the hospital and now has an "I got shot by Islamic terrorists" story. Everyone wins.
On the topic of the thread, I refer you back to this comment.
Honestly, I don't even trust myself with very much power.
38: could you say more about what you mean by incitement, in the non-legal sense?
Is there a difference between private, individual speech protections and group speech protections? In other words, I can sit around and draw Mohammed all day long, but assembling a large group of people together with the sole purpose of antagonizing another group seems more...inciteful. Doesn't freedom of assembly come with limits?
37: There was a post on Old Man Murray during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan where they quoted a jihadi saying that they would because they love only death, and Americans love only Pepsi. The Old Man Murray poster remarked, "He's probably dead, and I'm drinking a Pepsi right now, so really, it worked out for everyone."
38.4: Doesn't this create an "assassin's veto"? Do the protests in Baltimore become illegal if Cliven Bundy feels strong enough to take a shot at the protestors?
43: It is somewhere between "I morally disapprove of what Gellar did" and "I would like to see the law re-written so that what Gellar did can be shut down in advance as a threat to public safety."
I'm reluctant to go all the way to the latter version of the statement, because I'm not really sure how to re-write law and or re-interpret precedent in such a way that we don't throw out many many babies with the bathwater.
47: Yeah, that's a real risk. You guys might be able to talk me down from my instinctive authoritarianism here.
the march to the sea not possible
Say more, please. Sure, Johnston was the more careful general. And sure, Hood probably handed Atlanta to Sherman and the 1864 election to Lincoln. But beyond that, I'm not understanding how your counterfactual works.
48: That's a pretty wide range! I think pretty much everyone in this conversation thinks Geller is an a-hole who behaves badly pretty much all the time. It seems to me that "your religion is really stupid; let me crap on your icons" is usually an a-hole thing to say. But it also seems obvious to me that it's in the range of expression that ought to be legally protected and that it's covered by the moral value of freedom of expression. Your latter option seems awful both as a legal and moral matter. That and 44 make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
I'm more authoritarian than is the general American position, which is why I'm ok criminalizing hate speech. However, regardless of how stupid or offensive (even if criminally so), I can't conceive of any sort of printed/drawn image that is so offensive it can rationally be considered a direct incitement to murder. If what Geller did is beyond the pale (and it is), let's punish it with social ostracism and/or fines or prison time. Arguing that something shouldn't be done because it will incite vigilante justice seems wrong and dangerous.
That's a pretty wide range!
And yet I'm having a hard time articulating a coherent stance in the middle of it.
I'll ban myself after this, but I don't think anyone would think a remotely reasonable response to the Nazis marching in Skokie would be mass murder, nor would we consider the city granting permits for the Nazis to march to be a form of entrapment for Jewish militants or an invitation to suicide by cop.
I'm ok saying what she did was legal, but also saying that it was deliberately inviting other people into suicide-by-cop.
What about other situations where people taunt/egg on other people towards suicide? I know this comes up in online bullying sometimes - are there any rules of thumb there as to whether the bully has commited a crime?
I don't know about entrapment or the city granting permits, but I think the selection of Skokie as the site for the march was a very deliberate attempt to cause as big of a reaction as possible from Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.
deliberately inviting other people
I don't understand what this means, beyond saying that Geller was doing something with the intent to ridicule and anger muslims. How would you separate deliberately provocative asshole behavior from "inviting people to suicide"? Some other expressions of this line of thought seem uncomfortably close to "those Muslims, they just can't control their anger."
54: No, but you can drive through them, forcing them to throw themselves from a bridge, and people will cheer and laugh.
57: Isn't the difference that we already know that people have been shot for Mohammed cartoons? That is, the provocation is specifically chosen for being a lethal one. There are many ways to be offensive to Muslims, but this particular way has been shown to be fatal.
I'm not Team Helpy-Chalk here*, but I don't think we should treat this case as being identical to e.g. a speech in which anti-Muslim rhetoric is deployed.
*mostly because I don't think that holding this event in Dallas, vs. say Dearborn or Damascus, is all that close to incitement. Screaming "Niggers!" in the street is always wrong, but what street you choose says a lot about what sort of response you're hoping for.
Nazis in Skokie seems to me to be about the right parallel here. I don't think there's much value in banning them, or even in not provided some limited protection for them (in that citizens deserve that to some extent, but I don't know that they deserve to eat up a lot of municipal funds either). Geller's claim that they had no idea there would be an attack honest, and that they hired a massive amount of security seem a bit in conflict, so I'm guessing the first is just fake innocence and the goal really was to provoke something and let the security go to town on them.
Also I wouldn't (more accurately: don't) feel any much sympathy for them, because, come on, this happening was clearly their intention and they certainly didn't get hurt. (This is basically the 'Fightin' Words' defense, right? "You were trying to start something and then something started so give it a rest"?) If someone had thrown some punches or sneaked in and destroyed their drawings or something I'd basically think it was on Geller and her crew. Once deadly weapons get involved then it's pretty clear that everyone involved is acting badly, and one party (not Geller) illegally to boot though.
If she literally held a contest to draw disparaging cartoons of Muhammed, then there is no way that is beyond the pale. Drawing disparaging cartoons of long-dead historical figures is our inalienable right as Americans. Muhammed is dead -- we can't hurt him. If it offends the delicate sensibilities of Muslim extremists, then they can lump it, just like the "sanctity of marriage" people can lump it when gay people get married.
60: Would you be surprised if Geller ends up dead in the next year? Because I wouldn't.
Also Dallas has a reasonably substantial muslim population, so while I don't know if they were choosing it on those grounds (probably not) it's still not the same as doing it in a place without a lot of muslims around.
Now I want to find out if the Kentucky Fried Movie is on Netflix.
Given the number of anti-Islam jackasses running around in the US, and the fact that we haven't seen her or any other ones assassinated or attacked before this (questionable, not that personal) event I don't think she's at any serious personal risk. I mean, I'm sure she'll play up the 'martyr-life-at-risk' thing as long as she can for attention, but let's not exaggerate the threat here.
How would you separate deliberately provocative asshole behavior from "inviting people to suicide"? Some other expressions of this line of thought seem uncomfortably close to "those Muslims, they just can't control their anger."
Yes.
If she literally held a contest to draw disparaging cartoons of Muhammed, then there is no way that is beyond the pale. Drawing disparaging cartoons of long-dead historical figures is our inalienable right as Americans. Muhammed is dead -- we can't hurt him. If it offends the delicate sensibilities of Muslim extremists, then they can lump it, just like the "sanctity of marriage" people can lump it when gay people get married.
Also yes.
I actually don't understand how this stuff is even up for discussion among nominally reasonable people, except as some kind of weird enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend logic train which ends up at endorsing or at least extending wayyyy too much condescending empathy towards murderers who happen to murder in the name of Islam station. Though I guess tbh "destroy Pam Gellar by any means necessary" doesn't seem like that crazy a principle. I feel like just replaying that video of her singing "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me" is better punishment than shooting at her.
59:
Just musing, but provisionally: I don't think so, for a couple of reasons. First, there are a bunch of related reasons to draw the prophet, e.g., because they say not to, because the artists see it as a bold stand against a dangerous body of belief, etc. Knowing that people have been shot for it doesn't mean your intention is for someone to shoot at you. Second, cartoons have been "shown to be fatal" because they prompt a *choice* by the shooter-- it's not like the cartoons activate the suicide module in the Muslim brain. There might be a level of goading that constitutes an invitation to suicide but it's really hard for me to see this one as close to sufficient.
Some other expressions of this line of thought seem uncomfortably close to "those Muslims, they just can't control their anger."
Maybe those expressions are, but that's distinctly different than what we're saying here, which is more that this is one crazy fringe provoking another crazy fringe. Everyone's a shithead!
I'm just irritated that my state seems to be unusually full of shit, even for us, right now.
it's not like the cartoons activate the suicide module in the Muslim brain
Does it change things that Geller probably doesn't agree with this statement?
Is this the spoon-bending Geller or are there two of them?
Publicly agitating for women's education in the Swat Valley is another example of deliberately doing something that you know will offend the deeply held sincere religious beliefs of thousands of Muslims, even to the point where they may become enraged enough to commit acts of violence.
But I think the "suicide by cop" framing is a bit generous. They didn't just want to die - this wasn't the Texan version of setting yourself on fire outside Party headquarters - they wanted to kill a whole lot of people too.
71: do you mean, if she thought Muslims were like this, with an override switch activated by the cartoons, and then, in light of this belief, made a show of the cartoons intending that someone shoot at her? That's interesting! I guess (again provisionally) I'd say she thought of her action as causing suicide by cop, while it in fact did something different, in light of the fact that her belief is false. (I'm avoiding questions of mental illness here.)
To echo the comments of others, I believe that living in a society that allows participation in a liberal public sphere requires both being generally respectful of others but also having a generally thick skin. Tolerance of difference is a non-negotiable requirement, and if your religion as you practice it doesn't allow you to tolerate difference or to have a thick skin, then you're going to have to withdraw from the public sphere. I would say mocking someone's religion is a violation of the general rules, but so is not being able to deal with mockery without resort to violence. Also things like not sitting next to women on airplanes or transporting people carrying alcohol in taxis. We have to find a way to hate on anti-Muslim/anti-brown people idiots without judging lightly any and all fundamentalist behavior. It's wrong in itself and it's also offensive to the 99% of Muslims who aren't fundamentalists.
Fine, I give in. I was wrong, just like my first instinct was wrong on the linked thread where I said that the stupid 4chan meme wasn't protected speech.
Goddamnit helpy-chalk, I was disagreeing with you but the first rule of the internet is that you can't change your mind, just find ways to dig your heels in more deeply. What the hell.
35: Yeah, medicine is not a social science, but the incentives are even screwier. In the social sciences*, the incentives are publish to get tenure, raises and prestige within a limited circle. In medicine, billions of dollars are at stake, so persuading the FDA that your drug works is important, more important than whether it does indeed work.
*Economics is more of an anti-social science, and the incentives are more like those of medicine than is typical of the social sciences. Tax policy, trade policy, how the radio spectrum is auctioned, etc., etc. Big bucks are at stake, and economists can be, if they research properly, very nicely rewarded.
Nobody in either social science or medicine gets raises. Plus, you left out grants. That's a big commonality across all of this and in medicine more important than the FDA.
Also, the drug incentives doesn't work quite that way as most of the work happens well before anybody goes to the FDA. The drug companies are very worried about false positives and have very strong incentives to do so nearly all of the time.
Re #1 in the OP: one of the better things about the NYTimes article on the Dallas shooting is that Geller gets only one mention, though unfortunately with a link to a 2010 NYT article about her. I'm guessing that was a conscious editorial decision to not give her the type of publicity/notoriety she craves.
Physicists have to use 5 sigma because they're always drunk when they're using the detector, so they have to add 3 sigmas for the shakes.
82: Scratch that. The idiots now have an entire article about her. Defining deviancy down.
Something I always think when these things happen: sure, it's not illegal to draw horrible propaganda cartoons of Mohammed, but that's actually a pretty poor justification for doing so. As, I think, Terry Pratchett once said, if you appeal to freedom of speech you're basically saying that your only argument in your defence is "it's not against the law". Similarly, it wasn't against the law to run Washington Mutual like they did but it was pretty damn irresponsible and stupid. One of the worst things about this historical era is the number of people who think "Freedom! Whee! Now, how can I ruin it for everyone else?"
Obviously I blame Thatcher.
Is what Washington Mutual did not illegal only because really rich people tend to have too much influence on what is illegal?
It was pretty illegal for Washington Mutual to do a lot of what it did, if "illegal" means "you will have to pay large amounts of money after the fact for violating the law."
85: Would you apply that argument to the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen"?
82,84: At least when NPR did their pocket Geller bio they mentioned that Anders Breivik was a big fan of hers.
88: Not really. Was anyone going to be harmed in any way? No.
"One of the worst things about this historical era is the number of people who think "Freedom! Whee! Now, how can I ruin it for everyone else?"
Only in Texas could the right that needs to be refrained from use be free speech, not the right to bear arms.
