Seven Ideas You Can Never Discuss on Television

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SpeedofLife: Mar 11, 2010

Just found this article on a site called Taki's Magazine, which apparently is a libertarian online magazine. Regardless of your personal feelings on Libertarianism, I think this is an interesting read.

quote:

1. ALL MEN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.
Equality is a concept which nearly everyone believes but no one has bothered to prove.  The unassailable notion of blank-slate cognitive and physical equality, despite all contrary evidence, is the fat stump rooted deep in the soil from which all the other modern taboo branches sprout. The sweetest fairy tale ever told is the one where God made everyone equal.  It’s such a wholesomely peaceful notion, people will rip your head off your neck if you don’t submit completely to it. But if no two blades of grass are alike, how can any two humans be alike? If anyone thinks all men are created equal, they’ve obviously never been in a locker room or attended an interracial calculus class. All things being equal, there is no such thing as equality.

2. AT BEST, HUMANS SHARE AN EQUAL POTENTIAL TO BE ASSHOLES.
The main problem with “humanism” is that it fails to account for human nature. I look at the world and see a rainbow of people who all suck in different ways. I’ve met noble souls of all colors and screaming assholes of every hue. All tribes, nations, and individuals across this great planet share an equal ability to annoy and disappoint. Every culture, subculture, and counterculture is blindly self-justifying, and, when it achieves sufficient strength, it becomes rapaciously predatory. The best possible world religion, the only one with an outside chance of ensuring global harmony, would consist of a basic agreement that we can all be assholes.

3. IF YOU INSIST ALL HUMANS ARE EQUAL, THEN COUNT THEIR CORPSES EQUALLY.
We need to hear a little less about the fewer than 4,000 black American lynching victims and a little more about the 600,000 or so white peasants who died ostensibly to free them from slavery. A little less about black American slavery and a little more about colonial white indentured servitude and convict labor. A little less about the six million (give or take a few) Jews who perished in WWII and a little more about the 50-65 million other people killed in that war. A little less about white colonialism and a little more about the Mongols, the Moors, and Hannibal. For the sake of balance, let’s see some TV movies about communism’s 100-million-plus pile of cadavers. Let’s see some documentaries about slavery’s historical ubiquity and its persistence in Africa today. Let’s entirely ditch the concept that some dead bodies are more equal than others.

4. THE ENTIRE “JEW” THING HAS BECOME RIDICULOUS.
“Anti-Semitism” is a term used to describe some inexplicable mystery virus that, against all odds, has infected the hearts of nearly every ethnic group that has ever encountered Jews everywhere on Earth throughout history. Although many modern Jews aren’t technically Semites, you can be labeled anti-Semitic merely for stating this fact. I suppose it’s also anti-Semitic to point out that ancient Hebrews were pioneers in the art of genocide. Experts on “racism,” who tend to be disproportionately Jewish, blabber freely about “white privilege” and white over-representation in the corridors of power and finance, but to suggest that something such as “Jewish privilege” exists in even more absurdly disproportionate numbers is to risk permanent banishment from the discussion table. People routinely get fired by powerful Jews for suggesting that Jews have too much power, whereas you get a promotion for suggesting that WASPs are over-privileged. And do we dare mention the innate cosmic racism underlying the whole “God’s chosen people” thing?

5. ISLAM IS STUPID TO THE CORE.
For a moment, blot from your mind all the prehistoric fatwas, inbreeding, beheading, clit-slicing, stoning, and fag-bashing. Forget that Muhammad was a pedophile. Dismiss the idea that Islam is far more guilty of every fascistically intolerant cultural iniquity for which the “Christian right” usually gets hammered. Don’t think about the fact that the Arab slave trade in Africa predated and dwarfed Europe’s slave trade. I hope you never learn that Muslims captured and enslaved at least a million white Europeans, because it might subvert your internal narrative. Don’t think for a minute about the fact that the literal translation of the word Islam—“submission”—runs counter to every Western notion of freedom and individuality. Don’t even think about all the contradictions in a book deemed so holy, you can get killed for sneezing near it. No, flush all that from your consciousness and ponder for a moment that a quarter or more of the Earth’s population actually believes in a supreme being who’s so insecure and dependent upon your approval, he throws baby tantrums if you don’t submit. There is no conceivable intellectual defense of a religion founded on such a stupid premise. Quit making false distinctions between “extreme” and “moderate” Islam—it’s all retarded.

6. WOMEN AREN’T TOTALLY INNOCENT AND HELPLESS.
Although there isn’t a person alive who hasn’t met a despicable woman, it remains heretical to imply that women may possibly be human beings, and as such, they may be capable of acting with willful malice toward others. Despite the fact that nearly every sociological study of family violence ever conducted has concluded that women hit men at least as frequently as the inverse, “domestic violence” is still viewed as an exclusively male-on-female phenomenon. But who needs muscles when you have WMDs such as societal prejudice and the law squarely on your side? In her book When She Was Bad, author Patricia Pearson argued that until puberty, boys and girls both express aggression physically. Around age 12 women turn to more sophisticated tactics for intentionally inflicting harm: gossip, shaming, and false accusations. It’s like on Seinfeld where Elaine explains that instead of giving one another wedgies, girls tease each other until they develop eating disorders. False surprise sex charges, as well as phony claims of domestic abuse and sexual harassment, have become commonplace. The double standard is so lopsided, female spousal abusers are even permitted to become Secretary of State without it ever becoming an issue in their vetting process.

7. THINGS MAY NEVER GET BETTER.
Egalitarianism is merely another shortsighted and unworkable utopian scheme—not the first, but it may be the last. Advertisers aren’t banking on the idea that the world may fall apart soon, so you don’t get much doomsday prophesying on television. Despite overpopulation, peak oil, collapsing financial systems, environmental catastrophes, and deeply frayed cultural moorings, most people still operate under the dimwitted assumption that untold billions of collectivized humans is a sustainable project and that humanity will one day come galloping in on a white pony to rescue itself from itself. Both the “left” and the “right” pretend they have the answer, but they are mere flippers on the same thalidomide baby, and the truth is that neither side has a clue. But you won’t hear that on television, because it might lead you to turn off the boob tube and start living while you still have time.

http://takimag.com/article/seven_id..._on_television1

I'm not going to talk about the individual points the author, Jim Goad, has made, as I haven't made up my mind about most of them. Instead, I want to make a different, but complementary, point. We are being pulled into the future by a minority. This minority, and their vision for society, may be morally right. In fact, it probably is morally right. However, the point stands: they are a minority. For the majority, the future is still a long way away. A society free of discrimination based on class, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. may seem to be within reach for the minority, but, for the majority, these things are still far away, if they believe they are possible at all. The idea that the majority would eventually "go along" with the minority has not come to pass: people are getting left behind. The minority hopes that those left behind, those not on board with multiculturalism, with this society they have in mind, will just go away quietly. Like the baby-boomers ranting about Blacks and Asians to an audience of piers in their decrepit retirement homes. And, I guess, some of them are. But others may just go on a killing spree to voice their dissatisfaction with the way thing appear to be going

It's not that this vision for society is impossible to achieve. It is possible. It's just not within reach. Not even close. It will take generations for it to come to pass, assuming it ever does. But the minority believes, probably based on the progress made since WW2, that we can achieve it now. The difference lies in the fact that the society the minority wants is radically different than the one we have now, to be almost recognizable. It's a bigger leap than anything that's come before it.

There's also the issue of tactics. As much as modern feminists love to rag on "Men's Rights Activists", they don't realize that they're the ones that created them. Being overly-abrasive may seem necessary to them to enact change, but it's going to breed people on the other side of the spectrum. Same goes for anti-racist crusaders: you may be in the right, morally, but going around and calling people "skinheads" due to their beliefs, however wrong they may be, will, at best, make them stick to their guns even more, or, at worst, actually bring people on the fence over to their side. There may be a kind of "surprise sex culture" in our society, but being condescending to those who don't agree with that assertion is not going to win them over.

# ? May 1, 2012 18:57

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# ? May 23, 2013 17:28

nice mattimer: Mar 3, 2008; the wind that shakes the buttcheeks

Speaking of "minorities" and "majorities", the minority of the world's population gets to live in a house and post stupid poo poo on the Internet, the majority eats dirt

# ? May 1, 2012 18:59

TheJoker138: Jan 1, 2008; The Clown Prince
Of Crime

I can think of examples of almost every single one of these being untrue. Also, #4 seems like justification of the author to why he hates Jews and is mad that he can't say so in public.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:02

Convergence: Apr 9, 2005

So wait a minute, are you more angry at jews, muslims, or women? You should probably just pick one for now.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:03

Dauntasa: Apr 17, 2011; Hey Dauntasa,
where's my million dollars in Nigerian gold?

All of this is bullshit, you are an rear end in a top hat.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:03

nice mattimer: Mar 3, 2008; the wind that shakes the buttcheeks

I hate people who think they're 'philosophical' when all they do is bring up day-one poo poo that the rest of the world is already tired of arguing against.

The silence you'll hear isn't our fear of your knowledge. It's our contempt at you opening your mouth.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:03

z0331: Oct 2, 2003; Holtby thy name

Retarded Article posted:

If anyone thinks all men are created equal, they’ve obviously never been in a locker room or attended an interracial calculus class.

Stopped reading here.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:04

Holy Calamity!: Jan 2, 2006; no bm

TheJoker138 posted:

I can think of examples of almost every single one of these being untrue. Also, #4 seems like justification of the author to why he hates Jews and is mad that he can't say so in public.

Yeah, to not discuss the individual points the author, Jim Goad, has made is to ignore the fact that they are asinine and that the author, Jim Goad, seems pretty dumb.

Hell, the concept of dissecting "What can be discussed on television" is idiotic.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:05

Crows Turn Off: Jan 7, 2008; turn in your old, worn-out for the war effort

Why do the first three points of this article have to do with men being equal, while women get one measly point near the bottom? Why does he focus on Islam being retarded, and ignore the other religions that share 90% of the same ideas?

What exactly prevents these from being said on television? Maybe he think that complete idiocy can't be on television, but yet Fox News is the most popular news station, so I'm not really sure what he's going for.

SpeedofLife posted:

Instead, I want to make a different, but complementary, point. We are being pulled into the future by a minority. This minority, and their vision for society, may be morally right. In fact, it probably is morally right. However, the point stands: they are a minority.

Who is the "minority" you're talking about?
Majorities and minorities vary depending on what part of the world you're talking about. Where are you talking about? Like, what nation are you referring to?

quote:

As much as modern feminists love to rag on "Men's Rights Activists", they don't realize that they're the ones that created them.

I don't really have a question here....

# ? May 1, 2012 19:05

Shonagon: Mar 27, 2005; It is impervious to reason or pleading, it knows no mercy or patience.

That'll be the Taki's Magazine that just put up an article about how white people should tell their children:

racist article posted:

do not attend events where black Americans may be present in large numbers, avoid black neighbourhoods and do not be a "good Samaritan" to black people who appear in distress.

Linky: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-...orm-race-column

Obnoxious whining from highly privileged people.

Edit: He missed one. Where'a no.8, gay people shouldn't ask for equal rights because MY CULTURE or whatever?

# ? May 1, 2012 19:06

Pope Mobile: Nov 12, 2006; Talked to Jesus lately? More bars in more churches, synagogues, mosques and all other places of worship, guaranteed.

SpeedofLife posted:

Just found this article on a site called Taki's Magazine, which apparently is a libertarian online magazine. Regardless of your personal feelings on Libertarianism, I think this is an interesting read.

http://takimag.com/article/seven_id..._on_television1

I'm not going to talk about the individual points the author, Jim Goad, has made, as I haven't made up my mind about most of them. Instead, I want to make a different, but complementary, point. We are being pulled into the future by a minority. This minority, and their vision for society, may be morally right. In fact, it probably is morally right. However, the point stands: they are a minority. For the majority, the future is still a long way away. A society free of discrimination based on class, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. may seem to be within reach for the minority, but, for the majority, these things are still far away, if they believe they are possible at all. The idea that the majority would eventually "go along" with the minority has not come to pass: people are getting left behind. The minority hopes that those left behind, those not on board with multiculturalism, with this society they have in mind, will just go away quietly. Like the baby-boomers ranting about Blacks and Asians to an audience of piers in their decrepit retirement homes. And, I guess, some of them are. But others may just go on a killing spree to voice their dissatisfaction with the way thing appear to be going

It's not that this vision for society is impossible to achieve. It is possible. It's just not within reach. Not even close. It will take generations for it to come to pass, assuming it ever does. But the minority believes, probably based on the progress made since WW2, that we can achieve it now. The difference lies in the fact that the society the minority wants is radically different than the one we have now, to be almost recognizable. It's a bigger leap than anything that's come before it.

There's also the issue of tactics. As much as modern feminists love to rag on "Men's Rights Activists", they don't realize that they're the ones that created them. Being overly-abrasive may seem necessary to them to enact change, but it's going to breed people on the other side of the spectrum. Same goes for anti-racist crusaders: you may be in the right, morally, but going around and calling people "skinheads" due to their beliefs, however wrong they may be, will, at best, make them stick to their guns even more, or, at worst, actually bring people on the fence over to their side. There may be a kind of "surprise sex culture" in our society, but being condescending to those who don't agree with that assertion is not going to win them over.

So what you're saying is they asked for it.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:06

RagingBoner: Jan 10, 2006; Real Wood Pencil

Hey guys I just read this book called The Turner Diaries, let's discuss it in a thread

# ? May 1, 2012 19:07

Slo-Tek: Jun 8, 2001

The white protestant male has it pretty bad in the western world. And women, browns, and jews are making it worse.

Says so right here in this numbered list.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:07

James Trickington: Apr 23, 2008

z0331 posted:

Stopped reading here.

He goes on to itemize social taboos with which he isn't comfortable, nor has had a critical discussion about. It's pretty embarrassing, as his bias is almost perfectly visible in some clauses.

This has almost nothing to do with television, other than being pop culture relevant. Item number six was especially impoverished, if you consider TV.

SpeedofLife posted:

I'm not going to talk about the individual points the author, Jim Goad, has made, as I haven't made up my mind about most of them.

Consider that this guy might not be as immersed in the Socratic method, or television, as one should be in order to write the article.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:07

Gammatron 64: Nov 28, 2007; "Well, I gave the Dinobots simple brains because I wanted them to be authentic."
"Hey, I bet real dinosaurs had metal skin, too!"
"Fuck you, Huffer."

This is a terrible bigoted article and you are a dumbass.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:07

XQ: Jun 22, 2004; I came with Demond.

What is "interracial calculus?" My school didn't offer that.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:08

Dolphin: Dec 5, 2008

You've done a great job proving the first point.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:08

redweird: Aug 6, 2009

This is the dumbest thing I have ever read.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:10

surprisedmango: May 18, 2008

Hey guys I just found some bigoted magazine, here is an article hating on women, jews and muslims.

OP: Maybe you should get out of your basement and stop reading Libertarian magazines.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:10

Crows Turn Off: Jan 7, 2008; turn in your old, worn-out for the war effort

XQ posted:

What is "interracial calculus?" My school didn't offer that.

It was just regular calculus, but it took up three-fifths of the class time.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:10

RagingBoner: Jan 10, 2006; Real Wood Pencil

XQ posted:

What is "interracial calculus?" My school didn't offer that.

You missed out, I use Negro Derivatives almost every day

# ? May 1, 2012 19:10

Luigi Thirty: Apr 30, 2006; Emergency confection port.

This article is like a trainwreck of hate. It like, slowly derails itself as it goes along until it just veers right off into crazyland and explodes into a fireball of racism and sexism.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:11

Holy Calamity!: Jan 2, 2006; no bm

Please tell us more about what the minorities believe.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:12

Danzou: Oct 24, 2010

HOT HOT XXX INTERRACIAL CALCULUS ACTION CLICK HERE FOR ASIAN SLUT CURVES

# ? May 1, 2012 19:12

nice mattimer: Mar 3, 2008; the wind that shakes the buttcheeks

RagingBoner posted:

You missed out, I use Negro Derivatives almost every day

I use imaginary numbers to count the Libertarian contributions to society

# ? May 1, 2012 19:13

Target Practice: Aug 20, 2004; Shit.

gently caress you OP for even posting that, and gently caress the guy who wrote it.

Edit: gently caress how did I not see interracial Calculus class. gently caress that guy again.

Edit 2: gently caress.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:14

rezatahs: Jun 9, 2001

Did you mean to post this to stormfront or something?

# ? May 1, 2012 19:15

Ashenai: Oct 5, 2005; You taught me language;
and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse.

quote:

1. ALL MEN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.
Equality is a concept which nearly everyone believes but no one has bothered to prove.  The unassailable notion of blank-slate cognitive and physical equality, despite all contrary evidence, is the fat stump rooted deep in the soil from which all the other modern taboo branches sprout. The sweetest fairy tale ever told is the one where God made everyone equal.  It’s such a wholesomely peaceful notion, people will rip your head off your neck if you don’t submit completely to it. But if no two blades of grass are alike, how can any two humans be alike? If anyone thinks all men are created equal, they’ve obviously never been in a locker room or attended an interracial calculus class. All things being equal, there is no such thing as equality.

This is stupid nonsense, everyone knows people aren't "created equal" except in a legal sense (which is, surprise, what the Declaration of Independence was actually talking about.) Some babies are born with permanent physical or mental defects, for example.

This is just slyly trying to say "black people are dumber WAKE UP SHEEPLE" and is using "not everyone is born (physically and mentally) equal" as a trojan-horse argument. Everyone is born different, yeah. So? Black people still get to vote. Sorry!

The rest of the points are equally dishonest, and in a wide variety of ways to boot. You can, by the way, discuss all of these ideas "on television." Most people generally don't, because none of the arguments listed will stand up to even casual scrutiny, and most people are not interested in looking like complete idiots on television.

You know, when you're 16 years old and you stumble on a revolutionary idea that totally opened your eyes to the Real World, man, and then you see that no one is discussing it... sometimes that's not because The Man wants to keep the idea under wraps. Sometimes, it's just because everyone else has already realized how stupid and nonsensical it is.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:15

Nigmaetcetera: Nov 17, 2004; Sorry guys, I'm just a donut.

OP, I think you and your family would both benefit strongly from you immediately offing yourself in a very public way, preferably in a way that bystanders will ooh and ah at.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:16

Evil Sagan: Jan 22, 2011; Logic is a little tweeting bird, chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers that smell bad.

Dear Something Awful forums poster SpeedofLife,

Thank you for sharing a bigoted articled and following through with tone arguments. Your "maybe feminists are the real cause of misogyny" follow-through was masterful. I haven't seen poo poo this noxious since my regular visits to the Reddit thread in Debate & Discussion. I can't wait to get home so I can print out your post, piss on it, and roll all over it. Already my eyes are rolling into the back of my head as I fantasize about immersing myself in putrescence upon putrescence. You have made this goon's dream of achieving peak disgust a reality.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:16

Grifter: Jul 24, 2003; I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.

quote:

6. WOMEN AREN’T TOTALLY INNOCENT AND HELPLESS.

I'm a little confused here. Is this saying that TV always portrays women as innocent and helpless? I'm actually trying to think of a show that portrays women this way. I guess New Girl, but everyone on that show is basically a basket case. Literally every other show I watch has counter examples.

quote:

Although there isn’t a person alive who hasn’t met a despicable woman, it remains heretical to imply that women may possibly be human beings, and as such, they may be capable of acting with willful malice toward others. Despite the fact that nearly every sociological study of family violence ever conducted has concluded that women hit men at least as frequently as the inverse, “domestic violence” is still viewed as an exclusively male-on-female phenomenon. But who needs muscles when you have WMDs such as societal prejudice and the law squarely on your side? In her book When She Was Bad, author Patricia Pearson argued that until puberty, boys and girls both express aggression physically. Around age 12 women turn to more sophisticated tactics for intentionally inflicting harm: gossip, shaming, and false accusations. It’s like on Seinfeld where Elaine explains that instead of giving one another wedgies, girls tease each other until they develop eating disorders. False surprise sex charges, as well as phony claims of domestic abuse and sexual harassment, have become commonplace. The double standard is so lopsided, female spousal abusers are even permitted to become Secretary of State without it ever becoming an issue in their vetting process.

But then I got this bullshit and realized that the leading phrase here should have been MRA TALKING POINTS AREN'T PORTRAYED UNCRITICALLY, which is perfectly true because TV is very, very dumb but not that dumb.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:16

Holy Calamity!: Jan 2, 2006; no bm

SpeedofLife posted:

There's also the issue of tactics. As much as modern feminists love to rag on "Men's Rights Activists", they don't realize that they're the ones that created them. Being overly-abrasive may seem necessary to them to enact change, but it's going to breed people on the other side of the spectrum. Same goes for anti-racist crusaders: you may be in the right, morally, but going around and calling people "skinheads" due to their beliefs, however wrong they may be, will, at best, make them stick to their guns even more, or, at worst, actually bring people on the fence over to their side. There may be a kind of "surprise sex culture" in our society, but being condescending to those who don't agree with that assertion is not going to win them over.

Anti-racist crusaders. Following their moral duty to call people skinheads, bolstering their beliefs. What the gently caress are you talking about

# ? May 1, 2012 19:17

nice mattimer: Mar 3, 2008; the wind that shakes the buttcheeks

Hey OP, point #1 (and maybe some parts of others, I couldn't do more than skim for my own sanity) also helps the case of Egalitarianism. Funny how that works, huh? I'll allow you time to wiki that big scary word.

# ? May 1, 2012 19:17

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# ? May 23, 2013 17:28

T. Finninho: Aug 27, 2004; Likes: Katanas, Corea, Entertainment Centre, Couch, Yellow, Bald

click my av for a fun surprise

go gently caress yourself you idiot

# ? May 1, 2012 19:17

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Gas Chamber > Seven Ideas You Can Never Discuss on Television