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[BlakeK]

I know the title in this thread may not be exactly accurate but I wanted to talk about it and see what people think. There are several huge conflicts happening between folks who would traditionally be considered liberal in terms of their political ideologies. They agree on many if not the majority of political policies that liberals traditionally support. The main disagreements seem to be centered around the role of Islam in world events. This was all seemingly sparked last year when Ben Affleck and Sam Harris appeared on Bill Maher's show, Real Time. Since that time, it's Ben getting pretty nasty with many hurling charges of racism and/or bigotry against others. I have also been hearing differences in opinion on modern (3rd wave) feminism, political correctness, the use of trigger warnings, and safe places. Opinions on war seem to be changing, as well.

Is everyone aware of what I'm talking about? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on these matters and where you stand on some of the issues listed above as well as other issues you have noticed as being hot topics or sore subjects.

[AaronTheCabe]

I too  have become much to aware of this divide. Interestingly enough, it came more to the forefront of my consciousness when deliberately watching political and psychological videos for which I had disagree or had written off. Due to the presence of the SJW and some of the actions of third wave feminism (specifically in Canada in terms of Law, there is someone jailed for using hate speech even though it now came out that it was someone else whom was using hate speech and the defendent, who did not agree with him, was fighting for his right of free speech) that are starting to practice a banning of free speech in mildest terms, leading [not there yet] to ideals similar to crimes of thought.

In this respect, it would appear current liberalism is moving toward an authoriatarian ideal, where in the place of dictators of statehood there is [for lack of a better term, i will use analogy] dictations of social hood. Identity politics is an example of one such device. THere is paradoxical problem that while it is logical to prove that identity politics separate people and limit individual agency, perhaps even freedom, certain problems that existed before the advent of identity politics cannot [apparently] be solved without it. Take affirmative action, the poster child for identity politics enforcing an authority. It would be ignorant to not consider AA as racist in its action as it specifically pertains to race. However, the problem it seeks to alleviate cannot be solved [arguably] without it [due to systemic problems, in this case racism]. Therefore AA is used and should be used to the extent that it is no longer a necessary...but since its exists leads consciousness toward the racist ideal, it may never [at least by itself] achieve this goal. It is a figure 8 if you will of logical politics.

Taking the above example can be applied, I think, to many such problems facing myself and liberals today.

[AaronTheCabe]

I found this awhile back and saved it. I think no better example of this growing divide can be seen than the man himself having to bring down the current authoritarian [ and while there is a difference i have been kinda using the term interchangeablly with dogmatism here, but the end result from a majority controlled liberal of such dogmatic designs would lead to a leftist authoritarian state]

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/17/9750654/obama-missouri-yale-political-correctness

[BlakeK]

When I was in college I was struck by how quick people I agreed with on 99% of issues were to try and shut up differing views or to act in an authoritarian manner when pushing their point of view. At the time, I just found it somewhat irritating. Looking back, it has become clear that some were dogmatic in their beliefs and were unwilling to listen to opinions or views that did not align with their often rigid beliefs. Maybe I'm wrong and they were just full of conviction which is something to be admired. I mean, some opinions don't warrant respect so I get it. At the same time, trying to shut other people up or being dismissive on a regular basis is counterproductive when trying to reach out and have an open dialogue with others.

I'm really interested in taking about trigger warnings, safe places, and other topics as well. Discussing Islam is something I think is probably most important to me at this time due to current world events and politics. I'm afraid though due to the possibility of being judged as bigoted or racist.

[AaronTheCabe]

I completely understand your sentiment, especially in regards to Islam.  Though the conservatives pushing this "liberal coddling" of islam is ridiculous to the point of absurdity. Ironically, while conservative dogmatism is much much worse and endorses much more illogical positions than those I previously alluded, convinction is definitely lacking on their side I think, and convinction is a great virtue when held with a desire to understand [the world and other people]

Now for islam....a problem to say the least. More worrisome than the jihadist is the possibility that they could eventually push right-wing democratic peoples to actually engage them in full blown war, which is what they want. In this way, the extreme christian consveratives and jihadist aren't too dissimilar, with one acting out their desires as another one does not. But Islam is by any measure a violent religion. but so christianity and its old testament judeo-christian theology is. As far as violence preached in gospel, the percentage is higher in the Koran [numerically small but smaller book]. An overwhelming majority of muslims are not from violent muslim countries nor practice violent practices, but the media narrative, partly due to the largest powers in Islam being countries and sects that are the hardline fundamentalism, gives off a perception that there are much more than truly exists [i suspect]. But then there's the hitchens logic, why have so few of the muslim leaders, leaders of their authority, come out against ISIL and such sectarian violence in the way that leaders [not all but majority] of christians now say things like INquisition- wrong. Gay marriage - support . etc. On the whole the other judeo-christian religions have moved steadily more liberal while Islam has ironically gone more conservative. Why? I can't answer but I suspect things such as classicism hidden underneath a society that has been continually oppressed and now used to further Jihadist leaders [much of ISIL leaders are admitted mercenaries, not jihadist, from Sadam's former government. They do not believe in caliphate ideaology *but have years of military and political strategy and experience*] and, in a way that can't be justified due old testament dogmatism, perhaps the core of Christs' teaching having a liberal and dare I saw somewhat democratic lean to it compared to nearly all religions of God style worship while Muhammed was a conquerer and warrior could have quite the cultural context and cultural conditioning that could to lead to current affairs. How do we deal with this problem? I have an idea and I could be very, very wrong.....  ignore them. We shouldn't try to keep assad out of syria, we shouldn't have gone into iraq and we shouldn't stay their, pull ourselves out and treat them like the spoiled child whom spankings makes more rebellious. Put them in timeout. the only and i mean ONLY way for this to work would also include breaking ties with Saudia Arabia, which is a country whose government would be just as bad as ISIL if they weren't on the world stage in the way they are [thanks again to capital / oil]

I have so much more thoughts but I am typing faster than thinking and I feel I need to gather my thoughts more and organize them a little before continuing. till tomorrow

[BlakeK]

I completely agree that the conservatives and majority of the Republican Party are espousing dangerous rhetoric that's fueling xenophobia and, in some cases, inciting violence against Muslims in the US. I believe that these are the exact same Muslims that liberals of all stripes are trying to protect. That, however, is where this whole debates starts. Many liberals started off with what I am assuming are good intention. These liberals ARE coddling Islam and acting as if Islamic beliefs need respect. These liberals do not acknowledge Islamic beliefs as being dangerous. These beliefs ARE dangerous! They subjugate women and advocate for the murder of apostates and homosexuals among others. Politics and poverty added to an already fundamentalist form of Islam is very dangerous. What makes these individuals so dangerous is the fact that they don't seem to care if they die. Until we are honest about what Islam stands for, we are in denial. Other religions are dangerous when taken literally and we can look at hardline conservative Christians in the US to see the dangers of Christianity. If you criticize Christianity as a member of the left or as a liberal, you will face no resistance (nor should you) yet many times when speaking of Islam, liberals will accuse others ot being bigots.

Your idea of ignoring them is dangerous. They aren't spoiled children looking for attention. They're angry and want to restore the caliphate. This is going to result in deaths of millions before it's over (I'm aware that close to a million if not a million casualties have already been incurred). I don't know what the answer is and I don't think that Islam is the whole problem. It is a huge part of the problem and many liberals can't seem to recognize that. I love Hitchens and agree with him on most things. Harris can be a little too cold and sometimes goes too far in my opinion. I want liberals to work together as progressives to enact change. If that can't happen, it's divide  and conquer by Republicans/conservatives. Trump has become so popular in my opinion not because he has good ideas, obviously, but because he preys on people's fears. He can say what he wants and some people will believe him because of the lack of honesty from traditional conservatives as well as lack of a realistic view of the world being conveyed by one side of liberals. We need to collaborate and come to some agreements in this country if we are going to solve our problems. The current system where you have to be one extreme or the other is not working and is not helpful.

[AaronTheCabe]

I'd like to thank you for a chance to have a conversation and inquiry of which debate is not a necessary. In this post I'd like to clarify and show mistakes [where i was wrong] before commenting on your above statement. I will first attempt to rebuttal my own position, then will offer you a rebuttal. please understand I am asking the forward questions to further the discussion and do not necessarily hold one view over the other nor am attacking you as a person.

Very quickly, I love trigger warnings, as long as they aren't Law. I read someone against them saying "any conflinct can be a trigger for trauma" or something like that. and I said yes, yes it can. and nice people will leave trigger warnings if they think its relevant to the topic. This is THE BEST thing to come out of third wave feminism, coupled of course with LBGT equalities

To give another example of the madness of current liberalism, yale students petitioned to have a tenured professor's name removed from the wall of his college *because his last name was lynch* and that had connotations to slavery, despite the etymology being from white men hanging colonials still loyal to Great Britain. But that doesn't matter because its his last name! Should we ban the new Twin Peaks TOO!?

*Corrections*
-While I was using authority and dogmatism synonymously, i do believe the progressiveness in current liberalism today is authoritarian and dogmatic. I would call it anti-liberal if its ends didn't match the anti-authoritarian ends as well. There means to do not justify this. In ethics, they are taking a hard line Kantian deontological ethic of *intention* despite any consequences [many of the political philosophers who are credited fore modern democracy were Utilitarians such as John Stuart Mill and John Locke, among others]

-THe jihadist as spoiled kids was meant to be anology, obviously most are the exact opposite of spoiled. It was meant to simplify a foreign policy that is so complicated that I'm not sure if I could sufficiently explain how I would do it or what I truly meant but it would include boycotting Israel as well as Saudia Arabia and not relying on the middle east for oil, while oil is not the main cause of many of these issues, it is an underlining influence and power that puts the region on the world stage where it otherwise wouldn't be. except for perhaps Turkey.

-When referring to the liberalismn of christ i meant something closer to what Hegel called a [damn i was reading pdf and i lost his exact phrasing] 'judgement' based, to paraphrase, which meant that christianity and Judaism both had a tendency toward ethics and morality. While I have not read the Koran from what I understand there is less value judgements as, from what a military intelligence form vet of both Iraqi wars who spoke and lived with Iraqis for two or three years, that those who follow the prophet have no need for moral judgements as this world is temporary. similar to new testament revelation in its apocalyptic description but differing quite a bit on what they deem *the present everyday world* to be and what their existence means in it. This is important and I will look into it further as it seems if true this could be a very direct ontological difference of the religion and culture

- Muslim leaders in Iran, every part of Indonesia, Pakistan, and others DID come out against ISIL.  In my previous comment, I didn't quite find my wording which is that no government but a secular government can produce and retain the freedom that liberalism aims to achieve. This is point of contention between my military friend, who honestly believes that if the US became a Christian theocracy, would not act in the same way as the muslim examples such as Iran

-Fun final comment: personal idea i have never read nor heard discussed [maybe it has i don't know] but if you look at the age of Islam, being a younger religion, and compare christianity at its equivalent maturity [roughly 600 years ago, the 1400s] Europe was ripe with authoritarian christian and monarchy governments, had little to no liberty for the common man, demeaned and killed women, etc etc etc and while I doubt this idea has much merit, i think it is an interesting one at least, that Islam is in its "terrible twos" or "terrible six" if you will, you get the metaphor i hope

The rest of this post is a copy paste from a video I commented on, needing to explain to someone where I'm coming from and how I feel. It is not necessary however for the discussion

I am feeling something that in the past could only be described, through similarity in description, as the absurd a la Camus. Last night I was reading Phenomenology of Self Conscious and under the chapter 'Stoicism, Skepticism and the Unhappy Consciousness' page 109 where the skepticism I have acquired and built, which led me to your videos recently when I began questioning liberalism and/or parts that evidence seemed lacking, is remarkably similar to the skepticism Hegel draws upon. Full disclosure, Hume introduced me to philosophy and therefore broke away my dogmatic slumbering.

I will try to be brief. Hegel describes the end result of skepticism as a global skepticism, which I too have found to be the result of inquiry via skepticism, but that it turns into a "negative knowledge" (109.) "We can know nothing and we cannot know nothing" and if we can't know that we don't know, the process further negates itself. While I concur with the aspect of freedom arising in this feeling or consciousness it pertains an overwhelming isolation and tends toward rather negative [depending on one's perception i guess] consequences, such as relativism which just doesn't sit right with me. For this reason, for lack of a better description and method for truthness, I have found you and others who use practical philosophy, supplying evidence for facts to attain veracity, and for lack of something better the closest approximate to any true perception of the UNiverse and our own consciousness must relie on consistency through our measurements, whether they be from our senses or from scientific instruments. Still, I feel an unrest that has cost my consciousness to be "lost" as Hegel puts it, due to its constantly affirming and denying itself. What began as a personal process through epistemological thinking now enters, i believe, the ontological one. What does my level or lack thereof of knowledge mean for my existence. It can truly be a wonderful but also terrifying experience because there exists an aloneness that goes far beyond Descartes meditations, perhaps. I don't know [of course]

*i will return to rebuttal myself and your previous comment within the next few hours, I will pull some resources just to make sure I don't blunder like the other comment I did*

[AaronTheCabe]

Update: The evidence is leaning toward your position. Ignoring the problem is and could be as bad as ignoring hitler when he first began invading eastern europe. That analogy is lacking in the fact that Nazism was a Soverign State and we're talking about a demographic of people, the concept of demographics can be hurtful to the gathering of data as much as it can be helpful. In case you get on and I haven't posted, I am leaving a video that not only agrees with your take on this problem but supports it with evidence

TRIGGER WARNING (as long as trigger warnings aren't law,  I think they're one of the greatest ideals to come out of 3rd wave feminism and represents a move away from the ape within and to the human without)
the following video is from a controversial speaker, though most label him without hearing what he actually says. He IS A DICK THOUGH! not all the time, not even half the time, but definitely a good 3rd of his content, which may be done to get the views while simultaneously being ironic in the battle to keep our Freedom of Speech. I do not always agree with him, but most of the time, due to his providing of evidence and multiple sources and structing his positions with logic, he tends to be correct. But he's not nice about it because he is,m perhaps justifiably, perturbed by the ignorance and willingness of ideologies and simply treats those who do not attempt to provide logical arguments as fools. THIS IS IMPORTANT THOUGH! If there ever was a rape culture [and i personally do believe the US and most western nations have a serious rape culture problem, this shows how much WORSE it could get **because of liberal, not conservative, ideology***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYwwyQWUrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze0sK8f48x4

[AaronTheCabe]

Well i'm wrong again. If this whats happening at Trump events....its much worse and much more serious than I thought....

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-yewGHQbNFpDrGM0diZOLA

[AaronTheCabe]

OK my paranoia, which is natural and has existed within me since I entered puberty at ten years old, tells me that Blake would have had other people commenting if I hadn't responded. and fact checking is apparently something called 'mansplaining, which is sad that intellectual rhetoric has been denigrated [perhaps similarly how modern poetry has denigrated and is only serious in academia. I just don't understand the internet culture, but despite the idea that Jeremy had that we all have and experienced the internet to know these things naturally via enculturation, at age 32 who spent nearly ten years being a drug addict [highly functioning one but whateva], attending college off and on depending on level of drug abuse, playing music, and honestly just didn't use the internet. I never had a myspace, I had AIM for a year or two when it first released over all platforms, and lets face the facts I'm bad at interpersonal communication both on and off the web, also as Jeremy pointed out [which felt like being the weird kid in the room] so if my posting is preventing others from this discussion I will leave for awhile, its cool. so i'm going to respond on the fly to Blake, and perhaps this is a more poignant response as it will be immediate...

so my conclusions are that yes, there needs to be a discussion of Islam among the policy makers, however i'm not sure there is any policy that could be implented that wouldn't break one's liberty and civil rights. I follow the golden rule of democracy, "Your rights end where mine begin"

I'm just not sure confrontation with what is an extreme minority in the US is a beneficial ...but then again, the coddling in Britain has led to self segregation and muslim courts within their bounds. so lets check out some numbers about Isam and muslims in the US:

https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Center-for-Security-Policy-Nationwide-Survey-Topline-Results-5.21.2015.pdf
-now the numbers at first in this one are definitely worrying in what many Islams *think* and *have faith* in but how do they *practice* it? HUGE majority supercede Shiar law to our Bill of Rights. Which means that in practice, they will stand by America as Americans [in ideals in practice]...

and then Jihad... the meaning according to the muslim, the very scary numbers of those 1/4 to a 1/3 whom are basically all but ready for the end times, even if they don't actively practice that violence. But look at events in Britain, events in Sweden, if these ideologies became more important *in practice* that could be a serious problem in the future. I would also note, but not elaborate in case i'm boring the hell out of blake, that much of current islamic violence is within the political spectrum of sectarian violence due the Sunni / Shiat fight. ISIS is maned  by former Sadam leaders not because they support ISIS but because they want a Sunni political state, as opposed to the shiat theocracy of Iran.

but again, more evidence for some sort of wrangling in rogue justice:

https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/150612-CSP-Polling-Company-Nationwide-Online-Survey-of-Muslims-Topline-Poll-Data.pdf

while not majorty, the numbers are generally around 35-40%~ for Shiarah law and a staggering 84% say they believe there are violent Jihadist in the UNited States!

My conclusion is that I have no answer because we're stepping close to a serious dangerous slope of what it means to be a democratic and free nation. So how do we deal with what appears to be staggering numbers of people whose relative belief is exactly as Blake said, regressive, anti-woman, violent to the core.

The main thing I can say is this: it IS a conversation that needs to be had.
Blake was brave to bring it up
He should never have to fear of being labeled racist for seeing what he feels [and based on evidence is] a possible danger to his family and person [he did not say this but I assume it implied]

Never break the Democratic Golden Rule, now all we need is an idea....(assimilation via brazil's method in early 20th century, very similar but more forceful than US that has lead to an almost non-existence of race and identity politics to separate people? maybe ..]

[AaronTheCabe]

I hope that this can get people questioning and objective....its hard when the person or people are mere words on page, as I recently parted with a friend [well I now know he was never a friend, friends don't shoot you down to an internet archetype and say your a fucker for merely having, or attempting to have, a conversation. I may not know what to believe and I may not know what or where my knowledge comes from, but I DO know convinction, I know what it means to be a good person, and I struggle daily with ethics and decisions because I truly want to be the best possible, moreso the best ethical, version of me I can become. But I fear these words are merely paint on the side of a store that no one ever shops at because no one ever cares.

Its a struggle to keep caring

[BlakeK]

I'm sorry but I can't respond to all of your points because I don have time but am glad you are participating.

I want to be clear about trigger warnings. I don't think that they are a bad idea, I just think they are overused. Not on this board but, from other sources, in places such as college campuses. I just fear that any topic that makes people uncomfortable will have "trigger warning" stamped on it and will be avoided. Uncomfortable ideas are important in many cases and need to be discussed.

I do believe that there is a rape culture in the US. I'm not sure that those who say there isn't know what the term means.

I would like to say something about the term "mansplaining". I dont understand why people don't just call it patronizing or being condescending.

[BlakeK]

Just a bit more on trigger warnings. I remember Ryan recently was talking about drugs in the television thread and you reacted strongly. You then apologized and suggested he put a trigger warning before talking about such topics. I think this would be counterproductive to you gaining a better understanding of yourself and would stifle free speech. I found it very interesting that you reacted so strongly and I believe I commented that you should explore why that made you so uncomfortable. Doing so, I believe, would have led to you gaining a better understanding about yourself by challenging you. I think that using a trigger warning in that instance would be going overboard. Trigger warnings are very valuable in helping people with PTSD to avoid extreme discomfort and/or great emotional distress. I think it's hard to find the line where it becomes overused and is no longer serving its intended purpose.

[jerkemy]

I wonder what the crossover is on people gnashing their teeth about both trigger warnings and movie spoilers

Trigger warnings aren't censorship, they're used on material that is being taught. If the material were being censored there wouldn't be warnings, the material would be, you know, censored. 98% of this "college students are demanding censorship" stuff is mostly just a new front in the ancient traditional "college campuses are lie-beral hotbeds" thing used to try and shut up Vietnam War dissent.  The other 2% is college kids sometimes being dopey, which isn't a big new existential threat, it's actually been around for awhile. "SJW" is just a new term for "Politically Correct" now that most people finally recognize "PC" as racist grandpa talk.


and that "Sargon of Akkad" guy is a stupid piece of shit who's only proved that Americans will think any steaming garbage is deep if you say it in a British accent

[jerkemy]

like no, seriously.... Sargon and his #GamerGate crew, who went absolutely nuclear because of an article with the obviously metaphorical and quite-well-explained-if-they'd-bothered-to-read-it headline "Gamers" Are Dead" is now trying to make a career of telling other people they're too sensitive?

I mean, I know you want us to engage with this bullshit academically but like....I can't stop laughing long enough

[AaronTheCabe]

like no, seriously.... Sargon and his #GamerGate crew, who went absolutely nuclear because of an article with the obviously metaphorical and quite-well-explained-if-they'd-bothered-to-read-it headline "Gamers" Are Dead" is now trying to make a career of telling other people they're too sensitive?

I mean, I know you want us to engage with this bullshit academically but like....I can't stop laughing long enough

your practicing one of the worst logical fallacies and you know, i don't think you want an actual conversation. thats cool. i give up on it and the fact that using the sargon video was one part of a long post of a nearly 3 part post trying to get a conversation....and you laugh...whats the logic fallacy, guilt by association. you're giving him more credence by acting like a holier than though, religious fuck only your religion is the new liberalism, you don't talk about it, you l;augh, you act like a prick, and goddamn it you're not worth it

i didn't watch his gamergate stuff as i know he was being a dick, as i said before, for the process of being a dick

But the logical fallacy is assuming a person is wrong about all the things they say because their wrong about one [or anything] else they say when there are multitudes of his using evidence, logic, and actually following structured debate. I discovered this, as a post above mentioned, when i went out to watch *things I distinctly disagreed with to open my mind to objectivity* and discovered, well, people like you are just full of shit and don't want to disucss anything. i give up. i'm done. i don't know when i'll be back

[jerkemy]

jesus, for a Being of Pure Logic concerned that people are being coddled by trigger warnings, you're unbelievably sensitive

[jerkemy]

Look I'm not trying to be a dick (well, not TOO much) or run you off the board. I've just been on the internet long enough that I have an immediate and uncontrollable full-body eye-roll at this whole "I'm gonna use a provocative reactionary term like SJW and link a bunch of videos from a known anti-feminist neoreactionary, and then when people have negative reactions, I'll go all Spock and accuse them of logical fallacies" thing. 

This shit has context and history, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Either you don't understand this, in which case you aren't quite the philosopher-king you present yourself as, or you don't care, in which case you ARE being a dick. Either way, it doesn't open the floor for anything productive. Ever notice that almost nobody ever responds to your threads? Yeah, that's not a coincidence.

[AaronTheCabe]

THen ill leave. and i never thought myself as a philosopher. you misrepresent just as much as any troll i've seen. as if trying to use evidence and logical analysis somehow is the same as saying " a Being of Logic" or a fucking philosopher king. delete me please.

by the way blake, jeremy proves you right [since he actually got your view and mine confused with each other, since you were the one worried about that] if belittling and trying to make people feel like shit is perfectly ok in the PC crowd as long as they use euphemisms maybe you are right about triggers be a bad idea.  lets take jeremy's sentence and show how a non-PC person would say it :

"Jesus, for someone who says their a vulcan, you sure are butthurt" and the PC crowd would CRY FOUL

even though the two sentences mean *the exact same thing* and have the intent to belittle and make someone feel like shit. so his confusion proves you right blake. very well indeed.
I won't be seeing you again sir, so it was a fun conversation until the hypocrite dick showed up

[jerkemy]

They don't mean the same thing at all, because words have history and connotations.

[jerkemy]

Also jeez, if this little pushback makes you pack up and leave i dunno how you expect to argue on the internet

[BlakeK]

I wonder what the crossover is on people gnashing their teeth about both trigger warnings and movie spoilers

Trigger warnings aren't censorship, they're used on material that is being taught. If the material were being censored there wouldn't be warnings, the material would be, you know, censored. 98% of this "college students are demanding censorship" stuff is mostly just a new front in the ancient traditional "college campuses are lie-beral hotbeds" thing used to try and shut up Vietnam War dissent.  The other 2% is college kids sometimes being dopey, which isn't a big new existential threat, it's actually been around for awhile. "SJW" is just a new term for "Politically Correct" now that most people finally recognize "PC" as racist grandpa talk.


and that "Sargon of Akkad" guy is a stupid piece of shit who's only proved that Americans will think any steaming garbage is deep if you say it in a British accent

I think there is some confusion. Aaron does not have a problem with trigger warnings and stated that he thinks they are one of the best things to come out of 3rd wave feminism. I don't know how they got started, but I'm the one who said I was concerned that they might be overused. I just think they lose their usefulness when overused and can sometimes be used to alert people that something may be said with which they disagree. I'm sure you're right and it's probably just a 2%er that caught my attention.

Aaron, try not to take all of this Internet talk too seriously. I'll be honest, I didn't watch any of the videos you posted and don't know what some of your posts mean. That's not your fault, it's just a lot of information and Im not familiar with your sources and much of the content.

[BlakeK]

I'm not saying trigger warnings are censorship, I just think that when used in the wrong context can mean, "you may want to leave because you may not agree with what is being said". I am fully aware that this is not widespread and the reason I brought it up was for fear that it may become more prevalent.

I'm much more interested in the rift among liberals and progressives over Islam but people often speak about free speech issues when talking about the rift. I'm finding it hard to form a coherent opinion because on one hand, I don't want to downplay how dangerous the teachings of Islam can be when put into practice by fundamentalists but on the other hand, I don't want to be one of the assholes running a gun store with a "no Muslim" policy and a "Make America Great Again" hat on.

[BlakeK]

I think my main question is how do we both protect free speech, freedom of religion, etc. while at the same time confronting religious folks who want to take those same freedoms away from others? I feel like any discussion about fundamentalist Islam results in people arguing about this. I believe most religions are very dangerous when followers take the texts literally and use the texts as an instruction manual. I feel like religions have taken turns being the most dangerous and it is currently Islam's turn.

[jerkemy]

I wasn't addressing any one poster, I was just scattershot editorializing about some of the topics in the thread. I didn't mean to make anyone quit the board.