"People Are Less Interested in Discussion Than Domination"

Wise words from the target of TrapPartyGate.

From Trent Colbert, quoted in the Yale Daily News (Eda Aker) (for more, see this post):

I do think that there's an atmosphere at Yale Law School where people are constantly under threat of denunciation by more progressive student activist types for one reason or another. This isn't the first time I've seen it happen in the GroupMe, although this case was special because it escalated to administrative involvement.

I think that the culture of public shaming and demanding apologies is unhealthy and encourages people's worst tendencies. People are less interested in discussion than domination, which is worrisome, considering the importance of this institution.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

"which is worrisome, considering the importance of this institution."

Sorry Charlie, that institution no longer has importance.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Sorry Charlie, it does too, in legal, political, and employment circles, whether you like it or not.

[I Callahan]

Concur. It SHOULDN’T be as important as it is, but it is.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why don't clingers start a strong school to fill this ostensible market failure -- all of the strong schools are liberal-libertarian mainstream institutions; the conservative schools are a shambling collection of fourth-tier (or unranked) goober farms -- if they genuinely believe they have better ideas than the people who run our better schools?

[Johnious Doughious]

The foundation of social justice is ornithology.

Humanity might learn something by studying the birds.

All things considered they represent the best that we can do.

[Krychek_2]

You know, I have this recurring fantasy in which I have the power to go back in time and prevent bad things from happening. So I go back and prevent 9/11, but the question is: Why stop there? Why not prevent World War II. Or the Russian and Chinese Revolutions. Or the Civil War. So before you know it, it's a quarter million years ago and I'm trying my best to teach the very first humans to not be tribal, to not take more than they need, to treat others the way they wish to be treated, only to realize that they already know all that stuff and the problem is that they're choosing not to do it. The only thing I really have to contribute is to give them specifics about the consequences of not doing those things, but being human they'll pay no attention to that either.

So maybe we're just hopeless.

[Longtobefree]

While wandering around in time, could you keep Bill & Hillary from meeting?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

it’s a quarter million years ago and I’m trying my best to teach the very first humans

You have that backwards. Maybe one of them could teach you why "trespasser" is not even remotely an accurate legal description of a human fetus.

[Krychek_2]

Or, maybe you could look up "encroachment" and figure out for yourself why it is.

Sorry you were so butthurt by that thread that you're still pissed about it how many days later.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Or, maybe you could look up “encroachment” and figure out for yourself why it is.

That claim was already shown to be ridiculous bullshit when you originally made it. Maybe you could stop being a lying coward and acknowledge that. Maybe...but highly doubtful.

Pissed? No. Amused by your consistent stupidity and intellectual dishonesty? Yes.

[Krychek_2]

"Shown to be" implies analysis, which I don't think you're capable of. You may have convinced yourself that you showed it to be. Like the two boys walking through a cemetery who saw a headstone that said, "He is not dead, but sleeping." One of the boys turned to the other and said, "He ain't fooling nobody but himself." Wuz, you ain't fooling nobody but yourself either.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Here's the analysis....again (for...what...the 3rd or 4th time now?):

There is no accepted legal definition for "trespassing" that fits a fetus' status in its mother's womb. Prove me wrong by providing a reference to one.

A very simple challenge that you still have yet to answer...you lying, cowardly moron.

[Krychek_2]

Well, it took me about ten seconds on google:

"Intentional interference with a person is also known as Trespass to the Person. This is classified as any unwanted, offensive, or unjustified interference with a person's body, liberty or rights."

https://tort.laws.com/intentional-interference/with-a-person/with-a-person.

Your lying, cowardly moron comment appears to be a case of projection.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It's hard to believe that anyone could possibly be as proud as you appear to be of the stupidity you're displaying. One has to wonder what the max IQ is that one could have and still conclude that a fetus is engaged in "Intentional interference" with....anything.

[Krychek_2]

Ok so you missed the part about unwanted or offensive. I just proved you wrong and rather than admit it, you’ve now doubled down. You’re pathetic.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Ok so you missed the part about unwanted or offensive.

No, I didn't miss that at all you mouth-breathing, window-licking dipshit...nor does it in any way eliminate the "Intentional" part...that being an essential element of ANY legal offense. That is so fundamental and should be so obvious to anyone with at least 2 brain cells to rub together that this...from your own link...shouldn't even be required:

"Charges of interference do not necessarily burden the plaintiff with proving damages, rather with proving intent to commit the offense.

Meaning of Intent:

In tort law, intent is a classification element for charges of assault, battery and infliction of mental distress. Intent is the desire and deliberate planning to do something. Tort law defines an intentional tort as a civil wrong knowingly committed by the offender. This is contrasted with a tort of negligence, which results from lack of concern or responsibility on behalf of the offender."

I just proved you wrong

Only if I'd claimed that you aren't the dumbest SOB on the planet.

[Krychek_2]

OK, so you're too stupid to follow a basic argument. Not surprising since you're also the halfwit who doesn't understand the concept of rhetorical license.

Trespass is both civil and criminal. Intent is only required for criminal prosecutions. In civil trespass, for which one remedy is ejectment, the mere fact of being where one is unwelcome makes one a trespasser. Sorry I overestimated you, but I thought that was fairly basic.

Suppose someone drugs you and places you on my property. You had no intent, but you can still be ejected.

[David Nieporent]

Trespass is both civil and criminal. Intent is only required for criminal prosecutions. In civil trespass, for which one remedy is ejectment, the mere fact of being where one is unwelcome makes one a trespasser. Sorry I overestimated you, but I thought that was fairly basic.

What? Trespass is an intentional tort.

Suppose someone drugs you and places you on my property. You had no intent, but you can still be ejected.

You can be, but you're not liable for trespass.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Intent is only required for criminal prosecutions.

LOL! This is your response to a post where provided multiple quotes...from YOUR source...that clearly and unequivocally spell out that intent is a required element of the TORT (you know...civil law?) of "Trespass against the person", which is what you claim a fetus is committing. You know, the definition you quoted that even begins with the word "Intentional".

And you have the temerity to accusing anyone else of being "too stupid to follow a basic argument."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

And if you do want to insist that a fetus is capable of such an intentional behavior then you're also declaring that a fetus is a......person.

[Krychek_2]

Oh, so you also missed where I said that I don't believe a fetus is a person, but *that if it is a person* it would then be a trespasser.

[Carl_N_Brown]

There was a Twilight Zone episode like that.
#112: No Time Like The Past

[Johnious Doughious]

The birds are the key to everything.

[dwb68]

"People are less interested in discussion than domination"

It was always about domination.

[Dilan Esper]

I think it's closer to "groups seek discussion when they have less power and domination when they have more".

You've seen it on the right too. Back in the days when the folks who made free speech claims were Hippies, Communists, pornographers, and critics of Christianity, conservatives were for the most part unsympathetic- they wanted to use their cultural power to suppress speech they didn't like. Now conservatives are far more sympathetic to free speech claims; the underdog always is.

[M L]

True. What is lacking these days is any sign of principles or understanding of history. Abject ignorance and stupidity are abundant.

[Krychek_2]

And how exactly is that any different from when conservatives were running things?

[M L]

What do you mean? I think I just said that it was the same. So-called "conservatives" in modern times have pushed foreign wars and interventionism, unreasonable spending, centralization of power in D.C. when it suits their politics, ignoring the Constitution when it suits their politics, occasionally punishing speech they don't like, etc. Unprincipled.

[I Callahan]

When were conservatives running people off campus for speaking? When were conservatives getting people fired for being progressives? When were conservatives demanding others shut up because their feelings were hurt?

Answer to the above: never, on all counts.

[Dilan Esper]

When were conservatives getting people fired for being progressives?

During the McCarthy era they clearly were doing this.

When were conservatives demanding others shut up because their feelings were hurt?

How about when they tried to suppress art that mocked Christianity?

[I Callahan]

McCarthy was an exception. Although in general he was right that Communists were infiltrating institutions (at this point, they’ve taken them over, proving his point). As for shutting down art - we just didn’t think US government grants should be paying for it. That’s a different point.

[Krychek_2]

McCarthy was not an exception. Have you forgotten loyalty oaths? Are you aware that when gay student groups were first forming at universities, a lot of them had to sue the universities to allow them to exist? The Hollywood blacklists? The fact that an Arkansas teacher had to sue to be allowed to teach evolution? The fact that a Tennessee teacher was actually prosecuted for teaching evolution? The students expelled from school for refusing to salute the flag? The student who had to sue her Iowa school to be permitted to wear a black armband protesting the Vietnam War?

These days, the left is no great prize on free speech issues, but to claim that conservatives somehow have the high ground given their own conduct when they were in power shows historical ignorance on a massive scale. This is one situation in which "both sides" is dead on the mark.

[I Callahan]

You’re blaming conservatives for all of that, but you’re forgetting that even Obama proclaimed that he was against gay marriage less than 20 years ago. Conservatives have NEVER run things in this country, for starters. Liberals have run the education system for decades, including during those times where loyalty oaths were in fashion. It is ironic you bring up loyalty oaths, however - some colleges are forcing students to pledge themselves to diversity oaths now.

[Krychek_2]

Being against gay marriage 20 years ago, and telling gay student groups that they're not even allowed to exist, is not quite the same thing. That aside, you're seriously blaming liberals for conservative policies?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Being against gay marriage 20 years ago

Except it wasn't 20 years ago. It extended into his first term as POTUS, and he's on the public record about it.

[Krychek_2]

Except that even if you're right it doesn't even remotely respond to my point.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

even if you’re right

"Even if"? You really are a dope.

And it responds to a claim you used to try to bolster your point...you idiot.

[Krychek_2]

Oh come now, Wuz, that's a stupid comment even for you. I'm starting to think I should just go back to my comment about you're barking again because it has the advantage of being both apropos and exactly the response you deserve.

I don't have to bother to look up when Obama changed his position on gay marriage, because my 20 year comment was not intended to be literal; it's called rhetorical license. When someone says "the sun comes up in the east," do you assume from that that he's a flat earther who thinks the sun revolves around the earth? Or in that context do you understand that not everything is intended to be taken literally?

The disadvantage to rhetorical license is it gives dishonest opponents like yourself the ability to play stupid and pretend that you really don't understand the concept. Go find a house to haunt.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Oh come now, Wuz, that’s a stupid comment even for you.

I more clear case of projection is difficult to imagine.

[Krychek_2]

No it isn't. I can imagine you.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You can also imagine that a fetus is engaging in "intentional interference" with it's mother's womb, so.....

[Krychek_2]

Ok so you missed the part about unwanted or offensive. You’re pathetic.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Ok so you missed the part about unwanted or offensive. You’re pathetic.

See that exchange. You're a lying sack of shit.

[Dilan Esper]

As for shutting down art – we just didn’t think US government grants should be paying for it. That’s a different point.

It was more than that. Conservatives supported using the FCC to shut down "indecent" television broadcasts, supported obscenity laws, etc. And even on blasphemous art, it was also trying to prevent government owned or supported institutions from displaying the art.

[I Callahan]

Community standards is a different talking point than conservative vs liberal speech or ideas. That’s a straw man. Saying “shit” on TV has always been something that the majority supported, no matter what party.

[Sarcastr0]

Piss Christ.

[Randal]

Wow, you sure have a lot of excuses for the bazillions of cases where conservatives have been and are anti-free-speech. I remember when the conservatives in my city got together to ban Simpsons clothing in schools.

Anyway let's get back to "When were conservatives demanding others shut up because their feelings were hurt?"

Every fucking day! Will they ever stop? Here's an example in the Senate from just a couple months ago: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/558375-gop-senator-introduces-constitutional-amendment-to-ban-flag-burning

Whether it's violent video games, the "War on Christmas," boycotts of Israel, drug references, kneeling, or "subversive" art, conservatives are all about trying to ban speech that freaks them out. It's a defining quality.

[Toranth]

Tipper Gore was a conservative?

[David Nieporent]

Why do you need to reach back to the McCarthy era, when just a few years ago we had 'conservatives' demanding that athletes who didn't genuflect to the fake patriotic displays at the beginning of sporting events be fired?

[Dilan Esper]

Good point.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

athletes who didn’t genuflect to the fake patriotic displays at the beginning of sporting events

Just because your wife fakes her orgasms doesn't mean everyone else's does.

[David Nieporent]

Hush; the grownups are talking.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Hush; the grownups are talking.

Did I interrupt your eavesdropping on them? Are they talking about letting you sit at the big people's table this Thanksgiving?

BTW...you might want to reconsider the "didn't genuflect" part of your comment as well. That word doesn't mean what you appear to think it means.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"When were conservatives running people off campus for speaking? When were conservatives getting people fired for being progressives? When were conservatives demanding others shut up because their feelings were hurt?"

1975, for one example of many.

You seem uninformed.

[Don Nico]

K_2,
Why is that question relevant except to start the usual "you hit me first" type of argument?
(which you succeeded at).

[Krychek_2]

Don, ML's comment, to which I was responding, is that "these days" there is no "sign of principles or understanding of history. Abject ignorance and stupidity are abundant." "These days" implies that that has not always been the case, and my view is that it pretty much has. Little has changed except for which side is running things, and which side feels picked on.

[M L]

Read the writings of our politicians from the founding era compared to today. There is no comparison.

[Krychek_2]

Oh, I bet there were just as many stupid and uninformed people in 1789 as there are today, and there are thoughtful people today as well. Don't assume Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are representative.

[AmosArch]

The difference is conservatives, at least in the time period where the current left/right divide is meaningful, never had the horizontal domination enjoined by the left today even at their most powerful. If you were sanctioned by an antiCommunist committee in academia back in the day you'd be toasted by the elite cultural cocktail circles, by and large your faculty colleagues and the most highly visible activists (youth) would have greater sympathy for you, and you could get away with being completely unapologetic.

Whereas the left dominates practically all major institutions and a conservative in terms of institutional support can only count on explicitly relatively small stodgy political organizations dedicated to the role of free speech. And most of these organizations implicitly accept aspects of the SJW philosophy in order to remain acceptable.

[Krychek_2]

Methinks you have a selective memory.

[AmosArch]

Show me the major national cookie and shoe companies that ran commercials promoting McCarthyism (if you even count that as conservatism) or overflowing with crosses saying accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

[Krychek_2]

I don't think that type of TV commercials were a thing during McCarthy's heyday. Can you find me publicity by cookie and shoe companies from that era welcoming as employees people with leftist beliefs?

[AmosArch]

thats correct we didn't have the omnipresent pressure from the media we have today. Also in the advertisements that were around companies were more apolitical in this area than they are about social justice today.

[David Nieporent]

Methinks he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Pardon my French.

[Dilan Esper]

If you were sanctioned by an antiCommunist committee in academia back in the day you’d be toasted by the elite cultural cocktail circles

This is seriously incorrect history. EVEN IN PLACES THAT WERE SEEN AS MORE FRIENDLY TO THE LEFT, such as academia and Hollywood, being named as a Communist could cost you your job. Indeed, part of the insidiousness of the blacklist was that institutions controlled by liberals were often trying to prove their anti-Communist bona fides and were throwing people under the bus as a result. This was the pressure they faced.

Nobody was "toasting" allegedly Communist professors. "Toasting" an allegedly Communist professor could buy you an FBI investigation or even cost you your job.

Indeed, there are left wing narratives about how courageous everyone was that were also bunk. People weren't courageous. They were scared. Even people who were sympathetic to free speech did things on the down low, like allowing a screenwriter to work on a picture under an assumed name.

[AmosArch]

According to sympathetic sources about 300 people were denied employment from the Hollywood African American List throughout the 'McCarthy' Era. Thats like what? A bad year in today's Holyweird?

McCarthyism was mainly instigated from the top down by a more limited set of high level stodgy executive figures. And comparatively speaking lacked the cadres of fanatical low level 'red guards' seen today. So you don't get quite the same sense of paranoia and fear.

Opposition to McCarthyism was widespread and open at both the low level (college, youth, Green feather movement) and high level (Eisenhower, Murrow, Supreme Court). And they all actively contributed greatly to its downfall.

Imagine Joe Biden, the CEO of Google, and John Roberts along with hordes of genZ social media influencers coming out openly against social justice today. Doesn't that sound like a ridiculous fantasy? But its totes exactly the same guise!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It is great that old-timey bigots are complaining about being shunned by the American mainstream for racism, misogyny, gay-bashing, and xenophobia.

It also is good that obsolete White men complain so much about modern America, with all of its damned progress, science, tolerance, education, diversity, and reason. If they are that cranky, we are still improving.

[Dilan Esper]

Just like with cancel culture, the 300 is the tip of the iceberg, due to the chilling effect and all the firings that did not draw publicity.

[OtisAH]

“Shaming me for the offensive and idiotic things I believe is, like, really unhealthy y’all!”

[M L]

What are the idiotic and offensive things?

[I Callahan]

You say they’re offensive and idiotic. I say they’re not, and that you’re wrong.

[Earnest]

"It is bad for me to be judged for my opinions." . . . Interesting too that the conservative views reportedly being "silenced through domination" (through vehement disagreement, i.e., the *expression* of different views, i.e. the First Amendment working as intended) have come to rather thoroughly dominate the federal judiciary. But we must also insulate those views from criticism in universities?

Do left-liberals go overboard in their dogma? Yes! Do conservatives? Of course! That's always been true. What's different today is that there're more outlets for speech and therefore more avenues for people's views to be criticized or rejected. "Cancel culture" is just more people having a voice, a broader marketplace of ideas, which I was told is basically what the first amendment is all about. But that process is never seen, at least on this supposedly libertarian website, as the marketplace working as intended, but rather as persecution.

[David Nieporent]

What’s different today is that there’re more outlets for speech and therefore more avenues for people’s views to be criticized or rejected. “Cancel culture” is just more people having a voice, a broader marketplace of ideas,

No. Cancel culture is about trying to prevent other people from having a voice.

[Sarcastr0]

Which isn't a new thing.

But also, who cares if it's always been thus? Lets not accept it being thus now, in institutions with traditions focused precisely on not doing that.

[Noscitur a sociis]

While it's true that no rational adult could have been offended by the email in question, and it's fairly obvious that the "outrage" here is contrived and performative, the issue here is not that other student's criticized the trap house invitation.

The problem is that the administration tried to bully the student into sending a pre-written struggle-session apology by threatening his career—an effort that probably would have succeeded had he not had the foresight to record and expose them. The administration's conduct would be wrong and worthy of criticism even if he had actually said something offensive.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, that's another good point - someone may have been offended, but the assumption of intent here seems quite instrumental.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

“Cancel culture” is just more people having a voice

Congratulations. Your today's winner of the "Dumbest Comment On The Internet Award".

[kkoshkin]

Trent Colbert is laudably courageous. I hope that others follow his example in the face of unprincipled mobs.

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah, me too. The kid deserves a huge pat on the back.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

For inviting people to enjoy some fried chicken at a 'traphouse' sponsored by the Federalist Society?

At best, this young man is unsophisticated and confused, probably someone who shouldn't be trusted to speak for any organization.

Let's hope he improves.

[Commenter_XY]

No Arthur, not for the gracious invitation to the traphouse. The kid deserves a pat on the back for having the balls to stand up for hirself (heh, heh - could not resist) and dealing with it forthrightly.

I could not agree more. Like you, I hope he does improve with time. In the courtroom, when he takes apart phonies. 🙂

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You figure this young man was acting in good faith rather than baiting or trolling others. Not everyone is going to see it that way, particularly outside Federalist Society meetings, where "fried chicken (and why not watermelon) traphouse" jokes are probably quite the chuckler.

[Commenter_XY]

Nah, I figure this was a youngish college student saying and doing things that...well youngish college students say and do. A party...in college? C'mon Arthur. You were a young man in college once. 🙂

What happened afterward is pretty straightforward. Two crybullies employed by Yale had their bluff called by a student who was not going to kowtow to any of their bullshit. Case closed.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yaseen Eldik already told us what it's interested in. He's interested in making the DEI office look like an effective source of conflict resolution.

If you get paid to resolve conflicts, then you better have some conflicts.

We can expect this crap to continue as long as these offices exist, and they're not going to let themselves be shut down without a fight.

And the fact that the DEI office spent so much time on this issue should tell you how much genuine racism is a problem on campus: Zero.

[Ed Grinberg]

I am reminded of this book:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966994000/reasonmagazinea-20/