Sargon of Oblivion
One bit of good news though: UKIP did very badly in the elections and Tommy Robinson and (wait for it) yes Carl Benjamin got hosed.
Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin, also known as his YouTube name Sargon of Akkad, was also hit with milkshakes (and fish) on the campaign trail.
His policies were overshadowed by controversy over rape “jokes” he directed at Labour MP Jess Phillips, for which he refused to apologise.
Mr Benjamin appeared with right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been condemned for his remarks on subjects including feminism, paedophilia, trans people, race and religion, and has called for journalists to be shot.
He failed to win a seat in South West England, where Ukip won just 3 per cent of votes.
Good. Glad the idiot lost the election. That’s how we should be taking these people out, with votes, not with milkshake and fish throwing.
(PZ recently endorsed the milkshake throwing, but once you start down that road, where does it stop? The bad guys can throw things, too, so legitimizing that tactic is not apt to end well.)
The bad guys already throw things, harass, and even shoot people so what’s the harm in a bloody milkshake?
#1
For me, the bright line is defined by bodily autonomy; punching nazis = bad, milkshaking nazis = not necessarily good – I won’t be doing it – but also not on the wrong side of said line.
While the humiliation of Benjamin and others is sweet (and milkshakey) it’s worth noting that this is largely because the racists just jumped ship to Farage’s Brexit ‘party’, which did well (although not as well in real terms as the media make it seem).
It seems likely that the most significant effect of this will be Farage once again demanding an unearned place at the trough. He has historically been granted far more airtime in political debates than warranted, often rather more than actual politicians in good standing when he himself didn’t have a seat.
Now he’s the leader of a party with no MPs and 4 MEPs, who will most likely be out of a job by Autumn anyway, but you can bet that the media will continue to frame him as an important political voice.
That can’t be good.
I should point out that the main reason the Brexit party did so well is that Labour and the Tories did so badly. The mis-handling of Brexit by government has caused a lot of people to punish them by voting for parties other than Conservative or Labour. So the Brexit party did well on one side and the Lib Dems on the other.
The way the media has it, Britain has suddenly gone even more racist than it was before, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I saw a tweet by boodleoops: “Beginning to notice that the Venn diagram of people who think it’s okay to assault others with milkshakes and people who call women ‘TERFs’ is a circle.”
I went to look it up to get the exact wording. It appears that boodleoops has been removed from Twitter. A shadow of the tweet is still available via Google, but the tweet itself is gone and Twitter says the user doesn’t exist. Crap.
I have to say, it really seems like Corbyn threw away a golden opportunity to gain traction here. All he had to do was swallow his opposition to remaining – even though he originally campaigned on it – and he’d have gained the lion’s share of those sick of the brexit fiasco. A pretty good deal by any measure: compromised on one thing to gain all of the others.
@Hoims
I think that would have cost him a lot more than gained. And it depends a lot, of course, on whatever it is he’s trying to gain. Fucked if I know.
Sackbut, that says almost exactly what I was thinking. Not in those words, of course, but definitely with that conclusion.
PZ: Punching Nazis is bad.
Commenter: PUNCH TERFS!
PZ: [Silence]
Then the ban hammer on people who object to men being in women’s spaces.
Sorry for the digression from the topic.
PZ is very much in favour of punching nazis. When I pointed out that ‘punching people on the basis of their politics being harmful to some demographic’ can be applied to vast numbers of people – all conservatives, for a start – silence from him, and handwavy bullshit from commenters.
Sackbut @ 6 – oh noooooooooooooooooooo
Because the next thing we know, we have left and right protestors showing up to the same event, all carrying milkshakes, and it degenerates from there. Burger King is the only winner.
If the bad guys throw things, harass, and shoot people, they should be arrested for assault, not used an excuse for the good guys to behave the same way.
This is a bit of a tangent to a tangent, sorry..
On the topic of Labour’s positioning wrt Brexit and what kind of difference differing stances may have resulted in.. this might be interesting (or not) – particularly the second graph:
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/05/my-euro-election-post-vote-poll-most-tory-switchers-say-they-will-stay-with-their-new-party/
Also, I think I’m against assault even if the assaultees “deserve” it. Rule of law and due process are not principles we should compromise in any circumstance.
Plus it allows us to hold onto the moral high ground. I’m not sure that has much meaning these days, but at least I can sleep at night (when I’m not being tormented by thoughts of the slipping backwards of women’s rights).
iknklast @ 9:
I would add this:
90% of Pharyngula commentariat: PZ DIDN’T SUPPORT THE TERF BASHERS LOUDLY ENOUGH!!1!!11! WE MUST START OUR OWN NEW BLOG AGGREGATOR THAT WILL WITHER ON THE VINE LIKE THE LAST ONE!
James at 15: And you put it in all caps, so it must be true!
I knew I should have started A– a decade or so ago. I’d be The One True Horseman by now.
Funny how the ‘horsemen’ accepted the mantle without ever identifying which ones they were. I think we can agree that Hitchens was War and Harris was Pestilence.
latsot, it has been suggested that PZ has never got over not being named as one of the four, which is why he is particularly vitriolic towards them. I don’t think I really believe that (although I do believe that does tend to criticise those atheists who have had books published more than he does those whose activities are largely or solely on social media) but it is odd that he has turned against so many whom he used to support, even though their own views and opinions have not changed over the years.
Maybe he sees himself more as the returning Christ from Revelations?