Didn’t know that was an option Shawn.
V interesting indeed.

Its a long shot but theres many a Republican that won’t ever vote for trump, as well as many an American that will never vote for a socialist. Basically a moderate that isnt a clinton of which the Republicans could russell up. Interestingly enough the popular vote counts for jacks#/t , electoral colleges is where its at and if that fails its all about the house of representitives.

Shawn, what do you mean by ‘no one will get the minimum votes required at electoral level (270)’ (thereby letting congress/senate choose the president).

What does this 270 figure represent?

270 figure represents elector votes with 270 being the minnium required to be president. If it gets split and no one reachs 270 out of 538, the 12th ammendment kicks in as a back up plan.

What a load of crap. He appears that he would get things done but as we well know that won’t happen unless he has the majority in the house behind him.
What definition of fascist do you not get. :- a government ruled by a dictator in which people are not allowed to disagree with. Forcible suppression of opposition.
Donald Trumps Corp! Like all corporations are fascist in there make up and if you think that he can apply corporate control ( your fired ) of a people and government your very much mistaken. He will never never ever attain presidential executive power.
He is bigoted megalomanic insult to humanity and the sooner people wake up to that fact the better. Someone should start a twittering war and bury him in his own sh!t

my bad, I forgot thejournal.ie was filled with wannabe Nazis lol(no I didn’t)

@Lenny. Are you not a white man also? Kind of self loathing if you ask me……

Also from MLK:

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

MLK also believed in reparations and affirmative action to address the extensive inequality in American society. He didn’t feel simply enshrining equality into law would suddenly end racism.

I believe Leighanna’s point was not that white Americans who are suffering due to poverty are not deserving of sympathy, but that the solution isn’t pitting under-classed white Americans against under-classed Hispanic and Black people. America economic woes are not due to immigrants, but due to an economic system which has created obscene wealth inequality.

I agree with what MLK said about the white moderate (although it is a generalisation, many whites were absolutely for racial equality).

He was right that equality under the law couldn’t wait until a ‘more suitable time’. Equality cannot wait for those who are suffering inequality.

However, I disagree with the concept of reparations and affirmative action. I don’t believe in reverse inequality to reverse the wrongs of the past. White people alive today who have wronged no one should not be forced to pay reparations or give up college places because of the sins of their ancestors.

I believe in equality for all citizens, and bringing back inequality for those who had no part to play in its manifestation in the US (or anywhere else) is a fundamentally illiberal idea.

My point about Leighanna’s comment was that she was referring to white people today not deserving any more sympathy ‘because of their horrible past’… do you not agree that people should not be subjected to generational guilt, Monty?

Malachi: Would you accept than many white people in America today benefited from decades of white supremacism and that some of their privileges could be attributed to the system of racism that plagued the US? If so why is that fair? Do you feel wealth redistribution is a bad idea? What’s your solution for the high degree of wealth inequality in the US? What about war reparations from victims of illegal war crimes? How can they be compensated without reparations?

The fact is equality doesn’t just magically occur and the economic system certainly doesn’t facilitate it. Affirmative action is about ensuring that equality succeeds, and that minority groups who are qualified are not being overlooked due to prejudice, which is still an issue in the US.

The operative word in Leighanna’s post being “anymore” she didn’t say white people deserve no sympathy, but that their plight is no important than that of other ethnicities.

I don’t think there are many alive today that benefitted greatly from white supremacy in the past. Their family lineage may benefitted in the past, but why should that mean forceful redistribution of wealth?

Isn’t it a fundamental right, or shouldn’t it be, that if you break no laws you shouldn’t be subjected to what is essentially punishment? I abhor what black slaves had to endure and I would never even come close to understanding it, put the principle it sets is that bad deeds can be passed through the generations.

If you can prove that someone has directly benefited from racial discrimination in the past, I have no problem with them being reprimanded and preferably prosecuted for the crime they committed.

And I’ll say it again, the problem I had with the original comment wasn’t with how much sympathy white people get, but why it should ever be influenced by the past deeds of people they happen to share a race with.

Because really, if you want to instil this kind of attitude, that the ancestors’ crimes should be passed down through their lineage, then we should all be paying reparations (people of all races, that is) for war crimes and general crimes against humanity. It’s a question of how far back you want to go.

I wouldn’t dream of making the ancestors of those who enslaved Irish people pay reparations or be guilt ridden for things their ancestors did.

White Americans living today absolutely do not have nothing to do with colonisation. Centuries of history don’t just disappear like that. You still have Native Americans living on reservations and being killed by police at probably higher rates than even black americans. You still have Donald Trump and his wall.

It’s not about “guilt”, it’s about the fact that you can’t just call dibs on a country and say you’re inherently more deserving of it(manifest destiny) especially if it’s already inhabited.

at no point did I saw poor whites didn’t deserve help. but they’re not special either just because they believe they are. you are the one coming up with this because you do not want to deal with the consequences of what white americans did and are doing to the indigenous populations.

also white people quoting MLK to (effectively) defend racism is incredibly disrespectful to his legacy. he absolutely would not have agreed with you on this.

Malachi, first off white supremacy is not remotely in the past. There are still segregated districts and white people still hold a disproportionate amount of the wealth. One black president doesn’t change the vastly disproportionate amount of power white people wield in american society. White people are also the ones writing and enforcing these laws you seem to hold so dear. Did you know that 95% of prosecutors in the US are white? These facts matter. I am sorry but you are factually wrong here – if you want to continue to have a rational argument you must accept that white supremacy is not some past artefact.

Laws are often used against the marginalised, this is nothing new. Look at how sex work is criminalised in most states, marijuana etc. these are all motivated by an agenda.

You also have to understand that black americans were largely left out of the creation of the US middle class. Wealth is passed down through families for generations. Housing districts are also a huge part of this – and explicitly racist housing policies made it harder for black americans to live in “Good areas” or own homes with a lot of worth. There are any number of ways in which whites benefit from a past – and present – of white supremacy. We could be hear all day talking about white privilege, how black wall street was dismantled, the treatment of Indigineous populations but it really depends whether or not you want to listen and I’m not convinced you do. Most white people don’t.

You’re pretty much saying white privilege doesn’t exist which is pretty nonsensical. If it does not, then black/native/latinx/other PoC americans are somehow to blame for their lack of institutional power. they are inherently inferior. you can’t deny the concept of white privilege and not be a white supremacist.

Racial equality was only enshrined into law a few decades ago. I think it’s disingenuous to suggest that the country still isn’t affected economically and socially by more than a century of racism and inequality.

The US as a country has a remarkable amount of wealth, and it’s inexcusable that it’s afflicted by so much poverty which disproportionately affects black people. There are many methods of redistribution which doesn’t involve seising assets or private property, and I think considering much of the wealth the 1% possess has come from exploitation it stands to reason that much of it should be redistributed back to the workers of all ethnicities. What would be your solution to address the extreme levels of wealth inequality in the US?

It’s not so much guilt but more understanding and awareness of history and racism and how that’s had a detrimental impact on many lives that we seek.

@Leighanna

You make many points, some legitimate, some not (most notably I am not defending racism, why would a racism apologist quote an anti-racism statement from MLK?…) but it’d take an age to address them all individually. You’ve done a bit of a gish-gallop, but anyway;

What I want to focus on is this idea (in your first sentence) that white people are somehow culpable for the actions of their ancestors. You’re implying here that white people today cannot simply ‘wash their hands’ of colonialism.

Do you seriously think that white americans today are in some way responsible, or at least not guilt-free, for the actions of their ancestors?

I just cannot reconcile this idea with liberal values which I’m sure you would say you share. Do you regard fundamentally innocent whites today as somehow guilty, or at least deserving of punishment for what those before them did?

That’s pretty much the question I’d like to hone in on, because it seems bizarre to me and I haven’t heard anyone propose such a concept before.

White people use MLK to justify respectability amongst other things. Since MLK was largely perceived as a moderate, advocating non-violence etc. it’s very easy to use his legacy against people who become too outspoken on minority issues.

Again, white people continued to benefit from colonialism and white supremacy. White supremacy and racism also haven’t remotely gone away. If they had we wouldn’t even be talking about Trump.

Black & Indigenous people absolutely have to carry the weight of their ancestors on their back. You’re apparently OK with this. But not for the suggestion that white people should when they benefit from a legacy of racism?

I’m not a liberal either so there’s that. Liberalism to me is “if you tell a fascist they’re wrong you’re as bad as the fascist!!!” which to me is nonsense. I’m an anti-fascist.

You didn’t answer the question I had for you. I asked whether you think white people today who are innocent of any crime should be punished, either by the forceful redistribution of wealth or in some other way.

Also, if that’s what you think being a liberal entails… well you haven’t done your homework on the topic that’s all I’ll say. Liberals are open to social change, they are the opposites to conservatives. But classic liberals are also champions of the rights of the individual and proponents of the right to free speech among other things.

You cannot seriously say that being a liberal means you can’t call a fascist a fascist – liberal values are actually protecting your right to freedom of speech, if it weren’t for liberal thought you probably wouldn’t be able to call a spade a spade. I would recommend reading up about liberalism before making such a rash criticism of it.

The question you’re asking is a red herring and isn’t relevant to the discussion on hand. You’re purposely rephrasing things in a way that makes my argument look bad. You’re trying to force the idea of “White guilt” which isn’t what this is about. I’m telling you that you can’t separate past and present here, because white supremacy and even in some cases segregation hasn’t gone away. There isn’t an answer to your question because white people continue to be complicit in the subjugation of non-white people.

A red herring? Are you sure? It cuts right to what you’re talking about. Generational guilt.

You may not see it like that, but that’s essentially what you’re saying. I’m not reframing anything to make anyone look bad, I’m asking a legitimate question.

If you want to fix what you see as whites benefiting from white supremacy in the past, for example, do you advocate essentially punishing them for crimes they didn’t commit?

I know you also believe that white supremacist structures exist now that benefit white people, so when these white people break no laws, what is your solution for solving the problem?

I also find it odd that you’re fine making such a generalised statement about white people, saying that they are complicit in white supremacy. Isn’t that the sort of brash statement that Trump is called out for by people like yourself? It’s branded racist to characterise an entire race by citing the actions of some.

No, it doesn’t, because it’s not what we’re talking about and I keep trying to say. It’s not something in the past. It’s a living history. You can’t separate the two. It’s not that I “don’t like it”, rather the uncomfortable truth is you don’t want to tackle this argument head on so are going for a strawman instead.

How do you think I want to “punish” white people? Do you think that helping black people is “punishing” white people? This sort of thing reveals the bias and flaw in your thinking.

I don’t “believe” anything. It’s a fact that white people have more wealth, more opportunities. More back doors available to them. More power.

There’s also no such thing as the “white” race(or any other race, though that’s another argument). It was a category created to justify chattel slavery and appease poor “whites”. It doesn’t actually exist scientifically. What does most certainly exist is the societal structure that causes people to be seen as “white”, “black” or other.

Talking about racism against the privileged group(white people) is absolutely ridiculous and yet another diversion tactic. You are operating at an almost non existent level of understanding of racism/oppression theory if you think that this is something that even needs consideration. The problem isn’t with making “generalisations”, about a “race”, it’s about the myriad of ways in which non-white people are subjugated within westernised society.

No i’m talking about all men. Clinton actually does worse with all men than Trump does with all women.

Four times as many black voters say they will consider voting Trump compared to Romney in 2012.

The media are desperately trying to portray Trump as racist and sexist. That’s different to him being actually racist and sexist.

The problem for Clinton is that 30% of democrats don’t trust her. If they jump ship, she’s toast. Only a fool would trust Clinton. I’m going to enjoy Trump destroying her in these coming months. Unlike any other candidate in modern US history, Trump has the freedom to do that.

It’s laughable listening to reporters interviewing any mildly pro Trump person, every question/statement is trying say trump is almost Satan’s son, the only question I haven’t heard (YET) is “is 666 tattooed under Trump’s sparse hair” that fact alone is why he is still in the race even after his silly comments.

Bill – the bias from the likes of CNN and NYtimes against Trump is simply out of this world. Even the way the news readers literally turn their noses up when they start talking about him. They don’t even pretend to be objective and neutral anymore.

Trumps comments about Mexicans are racist. Banning Muslims is clear prejudice. His comments about women are sexist. If you believe otherwise that’s your choice.
We’ll see in November, I doubt those polls re black voters are going to prove accurate. Anything is possible but I think all the Hillary haters are going to be disappointed.

I don’t see a problem with banning migration from Muslim dominated countries such as Syria and Iraq until we can be sure that those ISIS controlled countries are not sending us Jihadis. Anyone disagree with me? Does that make me a racist?

Now Trump didn’t word it like that, but that’s clearly what he referring to, given that he said it in the context of the aftermath of November bombings in Paris when one of the bombers came in posing as a “refugee”.

Then he should have clearly stated ISIS controlled countries – not all muslim countries. That’s Trumps problem, generalizations all the time. Many border and security authorities have designated countries that are obviously risks. America doesn’t blacklist all Muslim majority countries and never should.
Ah come on now – and his comments about Mexicans? I see you avoided that.

How are comments about (some) Mexicans ‘racist’?

What race are Mexican people?

He said he is fine with LEGAL migration from Mexico, and wants to build a wall to stop ILLEGAL migration from Mexico, as well as illegal drug smuggling. I assume you are also against law breaking. Could you please explain precisely what is racist about that?

One of the city’s biggest landlords, the Trump Management Corporation, reached an agreement with the Federal Government yesterday in which Trump promised not to discriminate against blacks, Puerto Ricans and other minorities.

Source : New York Times , June ,1975

Says that Obama isn’t American

His disgusting (continuing) treatment of The Central Park 5 teenagers

Yup! There is racism running through his veins..

He doesn’t make much of a distinction between legal and illegal with his comments. He’s talking about immigrants. It’s just more generalizations which I believe are racist.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/

You haven’t listened to him much then, he explicitly says “We’re going to have many migrants coming into our country, but they’re going to be coming in legally”. However i don’t blame you as you won’t see the media report this.

Whenever people bring up Trump’s involvement in the Birther movement (re: Obama) as an example of racism I am puzzled.

He’s questioned Cruz’s legitimacy to be president based on where he was born, too. It’s not racism, it’s just politicians going at each other as they always do.

Trump tower plaza.
The story goes that anytime he was visiting with any potential business clients that the instruction to his security and yes men was to clear the plaza of any colored folk including any possibly pigmented challenged individuals. What these persons are is anyone’s guess. He’s a racist absolutely. There won’t be any colored individuals in his cabinet and hey he won’t even shake your hand !

so because he was racist towards more than one person(Cruz is a hispanic name you dope) he’s somehow not racist? the fact is, racists are sneaky, insidious, and amoral, and have spend the time since desegregation(which isn’t even complete to this day) figuring out ways to be racist while shaming anyone for calling them on it.

Yes, Donald Trump is racist. I’m sorry that statement is too “un-PC” for you.

Leighanna, regardless, how do you know that it is “racism” motivating Trump to join these Birther movements? It seems far more likely that he’s doing it to score cheap political points.

Let’s not forget, he’s done this to his opponents on both sides of the aisle. It’s clearly political and you have only conjecture and speculation to say otherwise, hardly concrete, clearly, to make such an accusation of racist motivations.

If you want to be un-PC, go right ahead, by the way. The world is better without ludicrous clamping down on free speech to protect the sensibilities of others. I don’t care if the language you use is offensive, just make your points.

“In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in four New York City-area newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty in New York and the expansion of police authority in response to the infamous case of a woman who was beaten and raped while jogging in Manhattan’s Central Park.

“They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes,” Trump wrote, referring to the Central Park attackers and other violent criminals. “I want to hate these murderers and I always will.”

The public outrage over the Central Park jogger rape, at a time when the city was struggling with high crime, led to the wrongful conviction of five teenagers of color known as the Central Park Five.

The men’s convictions were overturned in 2002, after they’d already spent years in prison, when DNA evidence showed they did not commit the crime. Today, their case is considered a cautionary tale about a politicized criminal justice process.

Trump, however, still thinks the men are guilty.”

Yep. No prejudice affecting Trump whatsoever. None at all!

lmao!

Monty, that again is more of a demonstration of Trump’s stupidity more than his racist intentions, I think.

You’d be gobsmacked to learn how many people (in both the general population and on juries specifically) who do not trust DNA evidence. I’ve read a lot about it, and it’s more to do with the anti-science sentiments that many in the states have more than anything else.

Not sure it’s a demonstration of bigotry, just of being scientifically illiterate and ignorant in general. Trump has too much of an ego to go back on anything he said (like when he pretended to be his own press secretary), and that’s a general theme more than a demonstration of his hatred for other races in this specific case.

That ad that he took out was absolutely disgusting,wanting to have five young black teenagers to get the death penalty …

This incident happened on the very same day, but there was no ad taken out by Trump for this..Wonder why?

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/04/nyregion/woman-is-raped-and-thrown-from-a-roof.html

Malachi

Woody Guthrie wrote the song ‘Old Man Trump’ about Trumps dad ..

http://theconversation.com/woody-guthrie-old-man-trump-and-a-real-estate-empires-racist-foundations-53026

Malachi: That’s certainly not implausible but it’s not an either or. It could be both stupidity and racism affecting him.

You’d be surprised at how often anti-science sentiments and racist prejudice overlap. The question is if those men were white would Trump display the same sort of searing hostility? I’d be inclined to think not.

Malachi you missed my point, I’m not invested in the concept of “PC” or “social justice warriors” as a bogeyman restricting free speech, I just find that it’s ironic that a particular group of people talk about these things but then act like calling someone a racist is shutting down discussion. IT seems there is a form of “political correctness” against the idea of calling a spade a spade when it comes to what some consider “politically correct” causes.

I don’t think you’ve been beaten half to death by someone screaming f*cking tranny at you like some of us have, perhaps if you did you might have a different view about “offensive” language.

That is quite frankly, a ridiculous comment. How could you possibly compare being ‘beaten half to death’ with the notion of a lack of PC culture?

The reason I am opposed to PC culture is because it puts limits on freedom of speech, which I believe to be a fundamental right of all people with minor exceptions for slander, libel, etc.

Taking offence at something should not give you the right to shut down what was said, that’s all I proposed. If you’re getting physically assaulted, how is that even relevant to what I said? Assault is a savage criminal act which has nothing to do with free speech and I’m not defending it at all.

If you thought from my comment that I was saying that you shouldn’t take offence to being physically assaulted, I can only conclude that you misunderstood what I meant about free *speech*.

Malachi: Expecting no constraints on language is silly. However it’s important to make a distinction between a social constraint and a legal constraint. Generally giving the state the power to limit speech is a bad idea, but from a social standpoint consequences for certain derogatory language makes sense.

In this instance Leighanna is referring to a slur that is used to denigrate and attack trans people. This word understandably causes a lot of pain to the community considering the history of its usage. Could you not understand why some people would be offended by usage of that word and believes that using it constitutes transphobia and a disregard for the feelings of trans people?

Is being aware of the pain certain words can cause to marginalised groups of people really undesirable?

I fully understand that words can be hurtful. But banning words (or prosecuting people based on offence taken) is setting a very bad precedent.

If free speech laws were based on people taking offence, you could be prosecuted for saying virtually anything because you may have hurt someone’s feelings by saying it. Hurt feelings is a subjective notion and it isn’t strong enough to base laws off of.

Imagine for a second that we banned offensive speech. Say that there was a cult that practiced honour killings and female genital mutilation. Would your criticism of this cult be a criminal act, if the cult members were offended by it?

Laws like this may stop (to some extent) abusive language towards transexuals, but the same laws would have the unfortunate consequence of being used to shut down legitimate criticism.

I don’t believe in a world where we police speech (beyond as I said, slander and libel) because a people who are constantly on their guard to try not to offend people are not truly free to speak their minds.

You don’t really understand the damage of words because you don’t really experience oppression. I’m never going to be able to explain to you this issue in a way you’ll fully grasp – but there’s no absolute distinction between “Words” and “Actions”. Because of the Ted Cruzes of the world, people like me live in fear. Because of the Donalds, Muslim & Latinx americans live in fear. Violence against them, against us, has increased. I don’t think you fully understand what that feels like.

You can’t draw moral absolutes here. The only real moral absolutes should be how to protect people from harm and ensure the greatest effective freedoms – make sure the most people have the best experiences, paying special attention to our vulnerable. You don’t have much effective freedom if you’re being deported thanks to a national atmosphere turned against you by the “free speech” of xenophobic racists. It’s really a matter of perspective here and being critical.

I would agree that laws like this aren’t particularly effective. There needs to be real systemic change. However we need to have our priorities right and if push comes to shove the right for someone to spread fear and resentment towards those filthy trannies, that put me in a position like the one where I was hit so hard in the head by some piece of crap I couldn’t blink my right eye for 3 days, is not more important than my safety and dignity.

The problem is with separating “offensive” from “oppressive”. I don’t like the word offensive, it misrepresents the problem. I’m not a conservative christian taking issue with whatever Beyoncé is doing now. I have a problem with distinct structures that hurt me and people like me(and unlike me). Language that paints me as a threat or degenerate is not offensive. I’m not offended(though in some cases I might be), I’m threatened. The language people use, the ideas that are spread have a very real effect on my life and I can’t ignore that. I don’t know the best solution to this problem, but when people draw these very stern lines in the sand it tells me how much they value trans – or mexican, or muslim – lives, which is to say not very much at all.

” Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.” (This is why I’m not a “Liberal”)

You also can’t say that Libel is an exception but extreme hate speech isn’t. That’s basically saying it’s important to protect against cases that can hurt you but not people potentially more vulnerable. That shows a cognitive bias in of itself. I think we can agree that we can have relatively free discussion of ideas while limiting the platforms of people who are simply out to target the vulnerable at least? Or that at least particularly extremely hateful words can be limited in some circumstances.

I don’t believe in criminalising speech ever. But that’s not what political correctness is.

Also the idea that the biggest threat to freedom of speech comes from the left is not grounded in reason. The left can certainly show intolerance to different points of view, and you could argue that it’s unhealthy, but it’s considerably different than actually imposing legal restrictions on speech.
I know of your disdain for Glenn Greenwald but he makes a pretty compelling case that the greatest threat to free speech in the West comes from the Israeli government, who are exerting pressure on Western governments to prevent activism against its crimes.

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-speech-in-the-west-criminalizing-activism-against-israeli-occupation/

“This campus censorship on behalf of Israel was comprehensively documented in a report last year by Palestine Legal titled “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech.” The nationwide censorship effort has seen pro-Palestinian professors fired, anti-occupation student activists suspended and threatened with expulsion, pro-Palestinian groups de-funded, and even discipline for students for the “crime” of flying a Palestinian flag. The report documents how pro-Israel campus groups and alumni “have intensified their efforts to stifle criticism of Israeli government policies.” The report explains: “Rather than engage such criticism on its merits, these groups leverage their significant resources and lobbying power to pressure universities, government actors, and other institutions to censor or punish advocacy in support of Palestinian rights.”

Notably, the students and administrators justifying the campus censorship of anti-Israel views invoke the very same “PC” rhetoric of “safe spaces” and “hate speech” denounced by ostensibly free-speech pundits. The University of Illinois student who led the campaign to fire Steven Salaita for his pro-Gaza tweets, himself a former AIPAC intern, told the New York Times: “Hate speech is never acceptable for those applying for a tenured position; incitement to violence is never acceptable. … There must be a relationship between free speech and civility.” Another “pro-Israel” student demanding Salaita’s firing said, “It’s about feeling safe on campus.”

the Right are generally more likely to pass actual laws restricting freedoms, it’s sort of part of being the Right.

I don’t particularly believe in the concept of “thought crimes” as some would suggest, though I would certainly be for some basic broadcasting standards, whether agreed for at a state level or otherwise. I don’t think for example Donald Trump taking out an advert on RTE telling us to beat up Muslims would be a very good thing, but crazy stuff like that happens in the US, and not so much in (Western) Europe, and I think we’re better off for it, not that Europe doesn’t have severe issues with racism either.

i’m actually pretty against censorship overall and fairly left libertarian(not liberal, think a bit more anarchist though not necessarily all the way) leaning.