Poll: Violent reactions to speech

[Deepak]

Posting this for information gathering purposes and, while it might seem strange, would prefer if we kept discussion of the specific choices out of this thread. General response about the topic or requests for clarification are welcome.

Responses will not be public.

 

[Blahface]

Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

Because we will fucking kill those guys.

People who think that violence is an appropriate response to dealing with those who disagree with you deserve to get themselves beaten to death.

 

[Deepak]

Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

If I was simply looking to confirm suspicions I wouldn't have posted the poll in the first place.

 

[dystopian]

Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

If I was simply looking to confirm suspicions I wouldn't have posted the poll in the first place.

I think what Blahface meant to ask was; Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

It seems like the poll is designed in such a way that you will only ever get one answer... unless someone decides to troll. I mean, if I make a poll where the options are: "1. Do you want bad things to happen?" and "2. Do you want bad things to not happen?"; I will of course only get people answering 2.

 

[Deepak]

If I was simply looking to confirm suspicions I wouldn't have posted the poll in the first place.

I think what Blahface meant to ask was; Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

It seems like the poll is designed in such a way that you will only ever get one answer... unless someone decides to troll. I mean, if I make a poll where the options are: "1. Do you want bad things to happen?" and "2. Do you want bad things to not happen?"; I will of course only get people answering 2.

This is begging the question, I think. The poll was posed to determine whether someone considers a thing bad, not whether they want bad things to happen.

The world would be a neat & tidy place indeed if there were some universality to 'bad things'.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

We have a poster on here who feels that violence is an appropriate response to anti-Muslim cartoons.

 

[arkirk]

Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

We have a poster on here who feels that violence is an appropriate response to anti-Muslim cartoons.

So what do you think should happen to him? I find this a singularly unimportant poll with completely predictable results. It is not a question of JUST DESERTS. It is a question of likelihood. We are a violent nation doing violence in the middle east quite regularly. This poll does not deal with drone pilots or persons who proscribe death for Muslims in the area. If the religion of the Arabs is violent, why are we providing armament to Saudi Arabia?

 

[dystopian]

This is begging the question, I think. The poll was posed to determine whether someone considers a thing bad, not whether they want bad things to happen.

The world would be a neat & tidy place indeed if there were some universality to 'bad things'.

I think you're mixing things up there. The poll does not in fact ask or determine whether someone considers a thing bad. It just determines whether someone thinks someone else 'deserves' a violent reaction; which is not the same.

It's a poorly phrased poll, however. The questions make too many assumptions of knowledge and universal agreement on the objective facts behind them. In order for the poll to have any meaning, the questions would have to be seriously retooled, explaining first in detail (so there can be no confusion/disagreement on that) what the participants have done; then explaining (again in detail) what sort of violent response might be the consequence; and *then* asking whether one supports such a violent response or not.

 

[Deepak]

This is begging the question, I think. The poll was posed to determine whether someone considers a thing bad, not whether they want bad things to happen.

The world would be a neat & tidy place indeed if there were some universality to 'bad things'.

I think you're mixing things up there. The poll does not in fact ask or determine whether someone considers a thing bad. It just determines whether someone thinks someone else 'deserves' a violent reaction; which is not the same.

It's a poorly phrased poll, however. The questions make too many assumptions of knowledge and universal agreement on the objective facts behind them. In order for the poll to have any meaning, the questions would have to be seriously retooled, explaining first in detail (so there can be no confusion/disagreement on that) what the participants have done; then explaining (again in detail) what sort of violent response might be the consequence; and *then* asking whether one supports such a violent response or not.

You don't get to dictate what question I'd ask. And you're misunderstanding the purpose of asking the question - I wasn't trying to extrapolate from the poll what the general population thinks. I left the options open to interpretation to see if there was enough meat to pursue a deeper discussion.

I'm certainly not disappointed with the results.

 

[dismal]

I think you're mixing things up there. The poll does not in fact ask or determine whether someone considers a thing bad. It just determines whether someone thinks someone else 'deserves' a violent reaction; which is not the same.

It's a poorly phrased poll, however. The questions make too many assumptions of knowledge and universal agreement on the objective facts behind them. In order for the poll to have any meaning, the questions would have to be seriously retooled, explaining first in detail (so there can be no confusion/disagreement on that) what the participants have done; then explaining (again in detail) what sort of violent response might be the consequence; and *then* asking whether one supports such a violent response or not.

You don't get to dictate what question I'd ask. And you're misunderstanding the purpose of asking the question - I wasn't trying to extrapolate from the poll what the general population thinks. I left the options open to interpretation to see if there was enough meat to pursue a deeper discussion.

I'm certainly not disappointed with the results.

I think you asked the wrong question. At issue is not whether the cartoonist or writer deserves a violent reaction but whether he inevitably provokes a violent reaction resulting from some sort of pavlovian response to cartoons in the primitive hindbrain of some lesser humans.

One does not ask if the gazelle deserves to be taken down by the lion.

 

[Deepak]

You don't get to dictate what question I'd ask. And you're misunderstanding the purpose of asking the question - I wasn't trying to extrapolate from the poll what the general population thinks. I left the options open to interpretation to see if there was enough meat to pursue a deeper discussion.

I'm certainly not disappointed with the results.

I think you asked the wrong question. At issue is not whether the cartoonist or writer deserves a violent reaction but whether he inevitably provokes a violent reaction resulting from some sort of pavlovian response to cartoons in the primitive hindbrain of some lesser humans.

One does not ask if the gazelle deserves to be taken down by the lion.

I don't think it's the wrong question as it was the one I intended to ask; there was no mistake on my part. Asking whether they provoked would likely also be an interesting discussion, but wasn't what I intended to ask.

One could also ask whether OBL deserved death, or whether he provoked violence and not get a 1:1 correlation between the responses, as they're distinct concepts. and that certainly wouldn't change the dynamic between lions and gazelles.

 

[dystopian]

You don't get to dictate what question I'd ask.

...

I'm trying to *help* you get a meaningful result.

If all you wanted was a rigged result, then congratulations.

 

[RavenSky]

Who exactly do you think would answer yes?

We have a poster on here who feels that violence is an appropriate response to anti-Muslim cartoons.

You?

Because unless you are speaking for yourself, the poll results show different.

 

[Arctish]

Would the people of Iran or the Palestinians deserve a violent reaction to their actions? Would Barry Bostwick or Suzanne Collins deserve a violent reaction to their actions?

dystopian is right. Unless you spell out which actions and what sort of violent reaction, the question is so vague it's practically meaningless. But if you put some meat on those bones, the question could be a very interesting one, such as:

Would Salman Rushdie or the Danish Cartoonists deserve to be assaulted by prostitutes throwing condoms for how they portray women in the Middle East?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We have a poster on here who feels that violence is an appropriate response to anti-Muslim cartoons.

You?

Because unless you are speaking for yourself, the poll results show different.

I haven't seen the poster in this thread.

 

[dismal]

You?

Because unless you are speaking for yourself, the poll results show different.

I haven't seen the poster in this thread.

In any case I don't believe this was not the poster in question's actual position. I don't think anyone ever argued the violence in response was "deserved". More that it was predictable and expected given the provocation.

 

[dismal]

Would Salman Rushdie or the Danish Cartoonists deserve to be assaulted by prostitutes throwing condoms for how they portray women in the Middle East?

Prostitutes throwing condoms (in non injurious quantities) is counter speech. Whether we agree with the initial speech or the counter speech I would hope we think both parties are entitled to speak. Without violent response.

I suppose it's somewhat axiomatic that I would feel speech I disagree with deserves to be disagreed with, if we must work "deserves" into this somehow.

 

[ZiprHead]

Bad poll, no magical brownies choice.

 

[Deepak]

You don't get to dictate what question I'd ask.

...

I'm trying to *help* you get a meaningful result.

If all you wanted was a rigged result, then congratulations.

The result is meaningful enough, since (I assume) people answered truthfully - and there's no discussion to be had.

I wonder if people would have the same reaction to a poll asking if 'apostates deserve death'. Certainly it's possible that we don't have anyone here who would take a position, but I'm not entirely sure without actually asking.

Before I actually ran into an individual who believed that, and who did seem to me otherwise reasonable, I probably wouldn't have though anyone would take such a position either.

Again - the purpose of the poll wasn't to extrapolate to a generalized population. Any such self selecting poll on a freethrought board with that expectation would be flawed. The question was posed to see if anyone would take the opposing side in an argument.

And more to the point, there's a perfectly good thread on provocation here. Again provocation was not the question I intended to ask.