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On June 26 2015 07:03 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 06:58 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:52 Endymion wrote:
i get that it's a free market.. i don't get the idea that your idea isn't "equally as good" as mine, that's what leads to censorship. That's an awfully black and white way to look at things...all ideas should be evaluated based on their individual merits. for example, Hitler's idea of how he wanted the world to be was NOT as good as everyone else's. Being able to say and do whatever the hell you want without people responding to it is what leads to anarchy. If the collective thinks you're an asshole for having a specific opinion, that makes you an asshole in the eyes of the collective, and as they say perception is reality. But our government would defend your right to have that opinion, as long as you aren't actively harming anyone by holding that opinion. If there actually is an organized movement to ban the Confederate flag from everywhere, I'd be right there with the racists claiming that it's a mistake, but for historical reasons. i realize that it's a black and white way to look at it, but it's necessary to prevent censorship.. for example, i'm sure a ton of people hate Lolita and they hate the amazon sells a book basically glorifying pedophilia, but it's still not banned.. Mein Kampf is also still sold on amazon and recognized at least by google's systems.. the collective might disagree with these ideas, but that doesn't decrease the validity of an idea, no matter how stupid you personally might think it is..
mein kampf is banned in germany as well as almost all nazi symbols if not used for historical accuracy or art.
what do i want to say with that? symbols, ideas and values never stand on their own, they are always in some kind of context and different countries or cultures rate them differently.
with our past, we dont extend the freedom of speech to nazis. this idea is not seen equal and as such wont get the same rights as other ideas.
that being said, no one is banning anything in the us, its just that people dont want to get associated with racists. and who besides a lot of people in south carolina and similar states really wants that anyway?
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On June 26 2015 07:44 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 07:29 Ghostcom wrote:On June 26 2015 07:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 26 2015 07:00 Ghostcom wrote:On June 26 2015 06:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 26 2015 06:51 Ghostcom wrote:On June 26 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 26 2015 06:46 Ghostcom wrote:On June 26 2015 06:04 Plansix wrote:On June 26 2015 06:02 Ghostcom wrote:
I think it is about the most appropriate time to pull out the old "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"... Forbidding symbols merely gives that symbol power, it has never proven to be a good idea, so why should it now? I agree completely that there is no reason for having it in front of governmental buildings, but forbidding it would be beyond stupid. Its not really forbidden any more that acid wash jeans. They just don't sell either at Walmart for different reasons. Read the post you are responding to before typing... I'm not even close to writing that it is currently forbidden. I'm saying that the current push towards forbidding it (AS FORBIDDING IT IN THE FUTURE) is moronic. There's a push to forbid it? Yes. Apparently it's bigger in Denmark than it is here. My bet is that it's ignorant people who don't know what they are talking about and perceive the removal from public property to be a ban. I wasn't aware that California was Danish, but I guess I learned something today. Sound's like you're talking about something specific. How about you clue us in? No one is familiar with any push to ban the flag except you at this point. Go to Twitter, search: #bantheflag #burntheflag #confederateflag You'll find some people arguing against a ban, but plenty more arguing that it should be banned altogether (and not just taken down no). My point was merely that it is stupid to ban symbols (and actually I would consider the retail-retraction of everything confederate equally stupid) as it is an empowerment of the flag. The actual white-supremacists are going to have a field-day utilizing this. So bringing up California was just you being stupid? OK. Like I said before, a movement to ban it beyond government grounds is insignificant and irrelevant to the conversation. Also unconstitutional. The flag isn't a mythical being. It being removed from government grounds and from major retailers at their discretion doesn't make it more powerful. Did electing Obama cause racist wingnuts to lose their minds in this country? Yes. Are they more powerful than they were when he took office? No. Your arguments are specious and ill-informed. There's nothing going on now with this flag than has not been going on in other things for quite some time. Wingnuts and the anti-SJW brigade choosing this hill to die on does nothing but show just how ignorant of real issues and current events they are. WalMart, Amazon, Apple, et al, did not suddenly decide today that they have/don't have a social conscience. They don't. This is a business decision, one they have the right to exercise and have exercised countless times.
Bringing up California was just me referring to where my social network originated. That I chose to bring up the topic of banning symbols with regards to the flag was probably because this thread was specifically pertaining to the flag and not because I thought the confederate flag to be the first (nor the last) example of people suggesting to ban a symbol because they are opposed to what it symbolizes. I could expand on this point, but as you found it prudent to start with the personal insults I think it would be rather fruitless.
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The Confederate flag getting removed from the public sphere is long overdue.
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting.
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On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place.
It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important.
On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them.
Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow?
You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced.
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On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced.
Looks like it's still there to me.
Oh, did you want to buy one?
I don't care if it's reactionary by business interests. This is all long-overdue and has only been held in place because of sensitivity towards ignorant southerners.
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On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced.
This is irrelevant.
These big companies, for whatever reason, believe that it is a better business move to remove these items.
Hell, it might not even be a business thing. They're just doing it.
Guess what? They have that right. It doesn't matter.
This whole sentiment against the Confederate flag isn't being done by the government; it is the consumers and other private entities. They have a right to do this, so what is the problem?
And no one is erasing the Confederate Flag from Google searches. You can still Google Hitler. Google is removing Confederate-related merchandise from their shop.
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Bisutopia19152 Posts
On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
The Confederate flag getting removed from the public sphere is long overdue.
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting.
The problem is that people are expressing intolerance with intolerance. If you don't want a cake from a bakery that doesn't support gay marriage then don't go there. Instead they sent them hate mail, death threats, and more just because they disliked the bakeries view. The same instance has happened to a pizzeria too. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
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On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting.
What makes you think like corporate HR departments are representing the public when they fire people?
And what's the free market supposed to be, some kind of hand-waving trick? These are huge companies that have dominating market shares in regulated markets. Even if we grant "free market," so what? Is there an independent reason to think free market forces in the economy are necessarily agreeable? right? moral? Can we just throw our hands up and go "welp, free market, that's all there is to think about?"
On June 26 2015 08:11 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced. Looks like it's still there to me.Oh, did you want to buy one?I don't care if it's reactionary by business interests. This is all long-overdue and has only been held in place because of sensitivity towards ignorant southerners.
It's the Shopping tab as you should have easily surmised from reading the OP.
+ Show Spoiler +
Is this really overdue? Have people been up in arms about like 10 stores selling CSA posters that nobody ever searches for on Amazon? Lot of uproar about people freely buying and selling things containing/relating to a flag before? Including you personally? Or is the fact that it's reactionary due to one set of murders maybe extremely relevant?
On June 26 2015 08:11 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced. This is irrelevant. These big companies, for whatever reason, believe that it is a better business move to remove these items. Hell, it might not even be a business thing. They're just doing it. Guess what? They have that right. It doesn't matter. This whole sentiment against the Confederate flag isn't being done by the government; it is the consumers and other private entities. They have a right to do this, so what is the problem?
Are you sure consumers did this?
If you believe in principle that corporate interests are equal to or more important than people, then we can just disagree there probably. I think of consumers as something to protect. Not in the sense of protecting them from a flag - or whatever other thing - that the media is telling them they can't handle. But protect the interests of consumers, including this and whatever shit to come that Google thinks they must or mustn't have. People were just selling and buying stuff with a flag on it. "They have a right to do this, so what is the problem? They're just doing it."
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On June 26 2015 08:23 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
The Confederate flag getting removed from the public sphere is long overdue.
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting. The problem is that people are expressing intolerance with intolerance. If you don't want a cake from a bakery that doesn't support gay marriage then don't go there. Instead they sent them hate mail, death threats, and more just because they disliked the bakeries view. The same instance has happened to a pizzeria too. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
I heart goes out to those proud bigots getting hate mail and then collecting a huge check from other bigots who supported them through crowd funding. This injustice must end before they are forced to cook pizza for gay people.
On June 26 2015 08:32 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
This is irrelevant.
These big companies, for whatever reason, believe that it is a better business move to remove these items.
Hell, it might not even be a business thing. They're just doing it.
Guess what? They have that right. It doesn't matter.
This whole sentiment against the Confederate flag isn't being done by the government; it is the consumers and other private entities. They have a right to do this, so what is the problem? Are you sure consumers did this?
Do you think the Illuminati might be part of this? Or the Lizard people?
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On June 26 2015 08:23 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
The Confederate flag getting removed from the public sphere is long overdue.
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting. The problem is that people are expressing intolerance with intolerance. If you don't want a cake from a bakery that doesn't support gay marriage then don't go there. Instead they sent them hate mail, death threats, and more just because they disliked the bakeries view. The same instance has happened to a pizzeria too. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
Well duh, but I don't think many people are condoning those actions (death threats and the like).
The problem I have is when (mostly conservatives) complain about stuff like this
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/uncucumbered/restaurant_that_refused_gay_weddings_closing_for_lack_of_business
The free market is deciding that they don't like what these shops are doing, and yet conservatives blame a "PC culture" and act like it's government fascism. It's complete hypocrisy.
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On June 26 2015 08:32 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting. What makes you think like corporate HR departments are representing the public when they fire people? And what's the free market supposed to be, some kind of hand-waving trick? These are huge companies that have dominating market shares in regulated markets. Even if we grant "free market," so what? Is there an independent reason to think free market forces in the economy are necessarily agreeable? right? moral? Can we just throw our hands up and go "welp, free market, that's all there is to think about?" Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:11 FHDH wrote:On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced. Looks like it's still there to me.Oh, did you want to buy one?I don't care if it's reactionary by business interests. This is all long-overdue and has only been held in place because of sensitivity towards ignorant southerners. It's the Shopping tab as you should have easily surmised from reading the OP. + Show Spoiler +Is this really overdue? Have people been up in arms about like 10 stores selling CSA posters that nobody ever searches for on Amazon? Lot of uproar about people freely buying and selling things containing/relating to a flag before? Including you personally? Or is the fact that it's reactionary due to one set of murders maybe extremely relevant? Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:11 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced. This is irrelevant. These big companies, for whatever reason, believe that it is a better business move to remove these items. Hell, it might not even be a business thing. They're just doing it. Guess what? They have that right. It doesn't matter. This whole sentiment against the Confederate flag isn't being done by the government; it is the consumers and other private entities. They have a right to do this, so what is the problem? Are you sure consumers did this? If you believe in principle that corporate interests are equal to or more important than people, then we can just disagree there probably. I think of consumers as something to protect. Not in the sense of protecting them from a flag - or whatever other thing - that the media is telling them they can't handle. But protect the interests of consumers, including this and whatever shit to come that Google thinks they must or mustn't have. People were just selling and buying stuff with a flag on it. "They have a right to do this, so what is the problem? They're just doing it."
It doesn't matter if businesses are doing this because of consumer pressure or the fact that they don't like the color red.
Are you suggesting we should force these companies to sell certain items?
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Is this really overdue?
Yes. Recognizing this as a symbol of hate you might not want to be associated with is long overdue.
What's even more overdue is the removal of things like the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee State House because "heritage." Of the removal of Jefferson Davis from the UT campus because "heritage." Removal of the banner from the flag of Mississippi, and getting rid of the "sons of the confederacy" license plates.
What's long overdue is and end to the historical revisionism that leads people who really don't know better to fly the flag. The same historical revisionism that allows it to be flown on government grounds. The same historical revisionism that leads people to think their "heritage" trumps the reality of both history and the lives lead by African Americans.
The flag was flown by those fighting to betray the United States so they could keep blacks in chains. It was revived to remind black Americans just who fucking runs the south. It's long, LONG fucking overdue to be recognized as such.
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it is disingenuous to call the confederate flag inherently racist, or pro-slavery (although there are plenty of people who chose to wave the flag because of the civil rights movement and all that came after.) slavery was just a PART of why the southern states wanted to secede from the union.
but in a twist of irony, the confederate flag just so happens to be as un-american as it gets. which is why I find it so distasteful for people to be waving it proudly in the united states.
in this instance, and all similar cases, banning the confederate flag is censorship. it is not free-market when accessibility of an item is being relegated to corporations that are bordering on monopolies. the apple and google store make up so much of the mobile game market, it is almost exclusive at this point.
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On June 26 2015 08:43 valium wrote:
slavery was just a PART of why the southern states wanted to secede from the union.
Wrong. It was the CENTRAL ISSUE.
Don't believe me? There's tons more where that came from.
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On June 26 2015 08:34 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:23 BisuDagger wrote:On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
The Confederate flag getting removed from the public sphere is long overdue.
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting. The problem is that people are expressing intolerance with intolerance. If you don't want a cake from a bakery that doesn't support gay marriage then don't go there. Instead they sent them hate mail, death threats, and more just because they disliked the bakeries view. The same instance has happened to a pizzeria too. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable. I heart goes out to those proud bigots getting hate mail and then collecting a huge check from other bigots who supported them through crowd funding. This injustice must end before they are forced to cook pizza for gay people. Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:32 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
This is irrelevant.
These big companies, for whatever reason, believe that it is a better business move to remove these items.
Hell, it might not even be a business thing. They're just doing it.
Guess what? They have that right. It doesn't matter.
This whole sentiment against the Confederate flag isn't being done by the government; it is the consumers and other private entities. They have a right to do this, so what is the problem? Are you sure consumers did this? Do you think the Illuminati might be part of this? Or the Lizard people?
Since you chose to answer (I'm using that word loosely) for Stratos_speAr, but seem to have missed the point, let me rephrase the question for you. When a group of corporations say they're doing something, is your first reaction, "Wow, those pesky consumers at it again!" ? Because if you believe that the vaguely referenced "consumers" are more powerful than the hundreds of billions of dollars company Apple, then you might need to reconsider which of us resembles a conspiracy theorist.
On June 26 2015 08:39 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:32 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 08:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On the public being PC in general: while I believe there are plenty of instances where people choose to get offended, just remember that things like this (companies firing people for being insensitive, businesses being run out of town because people don't like them being anti-gay, etc.) are the very definition of the free market at work. The government isn't coming in and punishing these businesses/people in most cases. The public is expressing the fact that they aren't pleased with how certain people/groups are acting. What makes you think like corporate HR departments are representing the public when they fire people? And what's the free market supposed to be, some kind of hand-waving trick? These are huge companies that have dominating market shares in regulated markets. Even if we grant "free market," so what? Is there an independent reason to think free market forces in the economy are necessarily agreeable? right? moral? Can we just throw our hands up and go "welp, free market, that's all there is to think about?" On June 26 2015 08:11 FHDH wrote:On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced. Looks like it's still there to me.Oh, did you want to buy one?I don't care if it's reactionary by business interests. This is all long-overdue and has only been held in place because of sensitivity towards ignorant southerners. It's the Shopping tab as you should have easily surmised from reading the OP. + Show Spoiler +Is this really overdue? Have people been up in arms about like 10 stores selling CSA posters that nobody ever searches for on Amazon? Lot of uproar about people freely buying and selling things containing/relating to a flag before? Including you personally? Or is the fact that it's reactionary due to one set of murders maybe extremely relevant? On June 26 2015 08:11 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 26 2015 08:05 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:But these companies are making an economic decision to remove the symbol from their stores because they feel the profits from selling the merchandise aren't worth the negative PR from carrying the merchandise in the first place. It is not that they stopped selling them. It's that they stopped listing them, and in a reactionary scapegoating way. How did you arrive at the idea that, say, Amazon was getting bad PR from somewhere? Amazon, eBay, Google, Apple, these are basically too big to boycott. You couldn't effectively boycott eBay because THIRD PARTY seller listed a flag any more than someone could organize a boycott of eBay because they took down a flag listing for being a "hate" symbol. Right? That's why this conversation is important. On June 26 2015 06:16 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 06:10 oBlade wrote:On June 26 2015 04:59 ZasZ. wrote:On June 26 2015 04:55 oBlade wrote:
I'm so glad a group of major corporations have decided to protect me from a society where 0.01% of my peers might think about buying a piece of fabric or something relating to it.
Of course companies are free to do whatever they want. Like when Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, et al., froze Wikileaks funds. Wikileaks was still totally free to find equally good alternatives to Visa for their banking problems, like looking for spare change under the sofa cushions. If I recall correctly, the government even had to pressure, I mean ask, the banking companies to do that. But in this case, the company with the largest market cap in the world, among others, decided purely out of their own good will that our society can't handle a 150 year old piece of colored fabric anymore, and are leading the way by being the first companies to make a point of banning it, which definitely won't bring more attention to this non-issue. Just like how publishers and libraries made the brave decision to stop peddling Salinger after John Lennon was shot. It was the right thing to do. Let's be real here, who is praising Walmart et al for "doing the right thing?" Everyone sane and reasonable knows that this decision impacts their bottom line and that is why they made it. Everyone has known this flag is a symbol of racism for the last 50 years but only recently are major corporations removing it from the shelves as a direct response to the shit storm. They're not protecting you from anything, but making an inventory decision like when they decide to stop carrying that brand of laundry detergent because it isn't cost effective to put on the shelves. It's not a simple "inventory decision" in the cases of Apple. Amazon, eBay, and Google. I'm not interested in what fabric a supermarket chooses to buy from a factory and sell. I care about things like this: Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. You should also care about what huge tech companies, that control markets and information and place themselves between you and the world, are doing. If the majority of Americans didn't find the flag to be a racist symbol, these companies would have no reason to stop selling them. Can you demonstrate that claim in a way that's not circular? They don't sell Polaroid or candy cigarettes anymore, and those aren't "racist" symbols. Why did they list them before anyhow? You seem to be tacitly implying that people believing something is offensive is a great reason to erase it from the results of the biggest web search engine. Have I got that right? Because I'm not convinced. This is irrelevant. These big companies, for whatever reason, believe that it is a better business move to remove these items. Hell, it might not even be a business thing. They're just doing it. Guess what? They have that right. It doesn't matter. This whole sentiment against the Confederate flag isn't being done by the government; it is the consumers and other private entities. They have a right to do this, so what is the problem? Are you sure consumers did this? If you believe in principle that corporate interests are equal to or more important than people, then we can just disagree there probably. I think of consumers as something to protect. Not in the sense of protecting them from a flag - or whatever other thing - that the media is telling them they can't handle. But protect the interests of consumers, including this and whatever shit to come that Google thinks they must or mustn't have. People were just selling and buying stuff with a flag on it. "They have a right to do this, so what is the problem? They're just doing it." It doesn't matter if businesses are doing this because of consumer pressure or the fact that they don't like the color red. Are you suggesting we should force these companies to sell certain items?
No, in society, we never have occasion to force a company to do something they don't want to do, like not dump waste into a river or sell internet bandwidth without throttling the connection when the user tries to stream Netflix.
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Bisutopia19152 Posts
On June 26 2015 08:42 FHDH wrote:Yes. Recognizing this as a symbol of hate you might not want to be associated with is long overdue. What's even more overdue is the removal of things like the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee State House because "heritage." Of the removal of Jefferson Davis from the UT campus because "heritage." Removal of the banner from the flag of Mississippi, and getting rid of the "sons of the confederacy" license plates. What's long overdue is and end to the historical revisionism that leads people who really don't know better to fly the flag. The same historical revisionism that allows it to be flown on government grounds. The same historical revisionism that leads people to think their "heritage" trumps the reality of both history and the lives lead by African Americans. The flag was flown by those fighting to betray the United States so they could keep blacks in chains. It was revived to remind black Americans just who fucking runs the south. It's long, LONG fucking overdue to be recognized as such.
How about the N word that has horrible connotations being used by our very own president this past weak on the radio. Our issues run deep these days.
On a tablet not sure if source is correct here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IR6UwAez8Ko
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No, in society, we never have occasion to force a company to do something they don't want to do, like not dump waste into a river or sell internet bandwidth without throttling the connection when the user tries to stream Netflix.
This is cute. What is it you're suggesting? Just go ahead and say it.
On June 26 2015 08:49 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2015 08:42 FHDH wrote:Is this really overdue? Yes. Recognizing this as a symbol of hate you might not want to be associated with is long overdue. What's even more overdue is the removal of things like the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee State House because "heritage." Of the removal of Jefferson Davis from the UT campus because "heritage." Removal of the banner from the flag of Mississippi, and getting rid of the "sons of the confederacy" license plates. What's long overdue is and end to the historical revisionism that leads people who really don't know better to fly the flag. The same historical revisionism that allows it to be flown on government grounds. The same historical revisionism that leads people to think their "heritage" trumps the reality of both history and the lives lead by African Americans. The flag was flown by those fighting to betray the United States so they could keep blacks in chains. It was revived to remind black Americans just who fucking runs the south. It's long, LONG fucking overdue to be recognized as such. How about the N word that has horrible connotations being used by our very own president this past weak on the radio. Our issues run deep these days. On a tablet not sure if source is correct here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IR6UwAez8Ko
So? Seriously, so what?
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There's a part of me that is just flat out disgusted at how much attention is being paid to the flag and not to the systemic racism it clearly represents, I mean when it takes a month+ and a 2/3 majority to take it down from the Capital area how can people still not see this...
It's literally waving in people's faces and they sit, blind as shit, still claimin' "I don't see races".
How about the N word that has horrible connotations being used by our very own president this past weak on the radio. Our issues run deep these days. On a tablet not sure if source is correct here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IR6UwAez8Ko
You didn't seriously just do that did you?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EsTrRLT.png)
