What Really Happened at That Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago Meeting? (Part 2)

Good! Now can we get back to some issues that are more important than he said/she said high school drama?

I hate Illinois Nazis Communists.

Yeah, agreeing with the above comment, I have to say that Sunsara Taylor makes herself out to be the most self-important person alive today.

As Bastiat put it,

Present-day writers — especially those of the socialist school of thought — base their various theories upon one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general — with the exception of the writer himself — form the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important group. Surely this is the weirdest and most conceited notion that ever entered a human brain!

While pretending to espouse equality, communism invariably comes down to one person shouting “everyone else should do what I say, or else” at the top of her lungs.

From all this, it is clear that the EHSC knew I was a communist from the very beginning.

This is pretty solid evidence that the reason she was uninvited had nothing to do with her being a communist.

the event, which was advertised as being “free and open to the public.”…

This one fails the “fire in a crowded theatre” test. The right to attend is distinct from the right to disrupt.

No one at any time told Ms. Taylor, the videographer or anyone else that they could not enter

This one is a bit more interesting, but also potentially much more disingenuous. Of course they weren’t refused entry; the event was open to the public. The question is whether they were asked to stop their disruption. Some members of the police have a shoot-first-make-polite-requests-never attitude, so I could see this one going either way.

This entire thing sounds childish to me. She was asked to speak on a specific subject, she wanted to speak about something else, they tried to work with her, and she threw a tantrum and protested them for being such big bullies. She clearly wants to make herself a martyr – just look at her speech about having to be “in exile”. When I think of this, all I can picture is Sunsara, arms folded, cheeks puffed out, trying to hold her breath until she turns blue.

Regarding the paragraph quoted by haley, I suggest you read it in context. Sunsara is stating that, by dis-inviting her, the EHSC is essentially supporting the beating and rape of women around the world. She’s put herself onto a ridiculously self-important pedestal and is trying to evoke emotional support rather than rational support. Don’t be fooled.

They claim he deserved it but do not give an iota of detail as to how.

Apart from, y’know, that bit where he assaulted and injured an officer.

As for “beating him up”, I don’t see any evidence of that apart from the claims of Sunsara and her coterie. There’s a photo of him being pinned to the ground, and that’s it. If we get word from the police (or an uninterested third party), or a video of the cameraman being beaten up, I’ll believe it. Until then, it’s he-said she-said.

In the EHSC’s response, they make it seem like they offered the workshop as a compromise. However, according to the Volunteer Tour Coordinator, the said workshop was scheduled far in advance, completely separate of this particular issue.

The “exile” discussion was, apparently given at the home of a person involved with the EHSC. The EHSC did not arrange for that or offer it as a compromise. It was independently voluntary.

I would like to see a video of the event as well. Unfortunately, the one person with a video camera, was seized and arrested. It seems that if Sunsara and her supporters were a threat, she would have been arrested….not the person trying to create a recorded document.

The other eyewitness is a lawyer, and even she was appalled by the illegality of what took place.

Rather than discuss if she was right or wrong, he-said, she-said, I would be interested in people’s perception of the importance of having “radical” ideas/speeches in public forums. Ultimately, I think that was the point Sunsara was making.

I’m Sunsara Taylor’s tour coordinator in Chicago.

RE:Did Sunsara give her speech or not?

She gave her speech “Morality Without Gods” in exile at the home of a EHSC society member, to nearly 50 people. At EHSC she gave a brief statement of a couple of minutes about how she was disinvited on the basis of misrepresentations of her positions, her talk, and who she is — and why that is ethically wrong and should be reversed. This all took place before the 10:30am start time of the regular Sunday program, while she was standing next to her chair. She was not disrupting their program.

Haley is right about the circumstances of the workshop — this was not offered in compensation for cancelling Sunday’s program.

And, yes, extremely important to all of this is the need to open up more space in society for critical thinking and debate, for radical, unconventional, communist, etc, ideas to get into the discourse and engaged – in the realm of morals and ethics, politics, sciences and art, etc. Moves to dis-invite people because of their unconventional or radical views — distancing from these views – is contributing to an increasing chill in society. And this is why it’s important for people to stand up to reverse these harmful decisions when they happen. You don’t have to go after everyone for the fear and chill to set in more broadly.

And now, since I can’t just leave well enough alone, I’m looking into information about the Revolutionary Communist Party of which Sunsara is a member. I’m sure that just saying this will stir up the pot a bit, but apparently other communists seem to look at the RCP as a personality cult focused around the leader, Bob Avakian.

This also isn’t Sunsara’s first time making martyr of herself and boasting about it. Example here.

And based on this kind of analysis of a movie, I can’t help but think that she’s slightly out of touch with reality:

While Judd Apatow, the film’s creator, is pro-choice and insists he is not trying to make any kind of statement with the movie, Knocked Up is nothing less than an ideological sledgehammer chock-full of the hard-core anti-abortion, patriarchal, and traditional values that are on the rise today. That it is a skillful work of art told with the smug comedic sensibilities of a raunchy “post-feminist” generation–replete with awkward sex scenes, smart cultural references, disdainful jabs at the stereotypes of married life, and no allusions to religion–only makes its vicious underlying social conservatism more insidious. Even deadly.

This whole thing is beginning to disgust me. Nobody did what they should have done, and it seems like everyone is grandstanding now.

Actually, yeah, she’s pretty rabidly pro-choice (according to the “ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY” banners she carries in protest photos on her blog), so I’d assume she’s similarly pro-birth control.

Also, she pretty much said the same thing you just did.

How dishonestly Martha Conrad portrays things, typical lawyer. Just because an event is free and open to the public doesn’t mean you can get up on stage and take over.

It is more than clear now that Taylor was disinvited to the Sunday event, was given her own event on Saturday and an alternate venue on Sunday, yet she insisted on interrupting the Sunday event. She trespassed on private property.

It’s clear who is in the wrong here.

Mike, thank you. Now that I have had a little time to poke around on her site, I do stand corrected on that point but the rest stands.

However, even in that blog, there is a creepy bit that this mother and grandmother would fight her tooth and nail on. She has a sentence about the collective raising the child. This is much worse than Hillary Clinton’s frankly offensive it takes a village to raise a child bit and my reaction to that has been, keep your freaking village out of my child! A collective woah, far worse, far more individuality depriving of said child. Both statements have chilling shades of let’s train the babies to conform.

If anything, parents need more control over their own children, not less. There need to be safeguards for abuse but, man, it’s gone from one extreme to the other.

Also, hello, just because I feel motherhood was one of the great accomplishments of my life doesn’t mean it’s the only by any stretch of the imagination. I haven’t done anything fame worthy and I haven’t accumulated great wealth but I have provided for me and mine without compromising my principals, without being utterly phony. I could have made more money but I valued other things more and made my own choices on that score. I am proud of myself for that in a society that does rather overvalue the almighty buck.

But I also pride myself on being a good mother and grandmother. It is part and parcel of who I am as a person. And this asshole doesn’t want women who do choose to have child(ren) feeling that way? Fuck her. I broke the cycle of abuse. I raised my child godless. I did not let the state dictate to me what values to instill. I am helping my daughter with my grandson and enabling her to go to college. Damned straight being a mother and grandmother is a large part of my identity as a woman — and that’s as it should be and it certainly isn’t limited to just women. I can’t stand my boss but we have this much in common, being a dad and a grandfather is something that’s a big part of who he is.

She also spends a lot of space on promoting the male leaders of her Communist party but I don’t see any promotion of women leaders. Other than herself, of course.

… and hated by left wing nutjobs.

Just balancing out your ignorance.

Here’s something written by an Austrian Economist over 60 years ago.

“The case against government-guaranteed loans and mortgages to private businesses and persons is almost as strong as, though less obvious than, the case against direct government loans and mortgages. The advocates of government-guaranteed mortgages also forget that what is being lent is ultimately real capital, which is limited in supply, and that they are helping identified B at the expense of some unidentified A. Government-guaranteed home mortgages, especially when a negligible down payment or no down payment whatever is required, inevitably mean more bad loans than otherwise. They force the general taxpayer to subsidize the bad risks and to defray the losses. They encourage people to “buy” houses that they cannot really afford. They tend eventually to bring about an oversupply of houses as compared with other things. They temporarily overstimulate building, raise the cost of building for everybody (including the buyers of the homes with the guaranteed mortgages), and may mislead the building industry into an eventually costly overexpansion. In brief in the long run they do not increase overall national production but encourage malinvestment.”

Socialists never learn. Then when they screw things up they blame it on free markets.

For example the economic mess we are in right now is quite predictable as the outcome of the policies we have been following for the past 20 years. The internet bubble was the classic symptom of the business cycle being created by monetary pumping, bailouts, government guaranteed loans and GSEs, etc. All socialist interventions that were also practiced worldwide by other countries who are also in this mess.

BTW, the current set of economic ignoramuses running the country are making things much worse. They are in fact following exactly the wrong policies. We will pay with an even more severe downturn in the future.

Spoke with the Skokie police today and learned two interesting bits of information.

1. The supposedly docile cameraman who was maced and arrested for “no good reason” has a long arrest record that not only includes violent crime but he has even been convicted of homicide.

2. The camera that he was using to record the even was NOT confiscated by the police. What is on this tape that the Sunsara Taylor people don’t want us to see? They sure are quick to post everything else.

The police report is now public for anyone interested in getting it.

Stagyar,

CDOs are a symptom not a cause. These episodes have been repeated throughout history and the primary reason is loose money. The main driver of the housing bubble was the low interest rates, GSEs like Freddy and Fannie, FHA, etc.

They set up a system where the government was accepting all the consequences for any risks being taken. Is it any wonder that people will behave this way when the government is picking up the tab.

Companies were selling risky loans because the government sponsored entities were buying them up with the claimed full backing of the Feds printing presses.

As you can see the government is assuming the costs of the risks taken, just as they promised. If the government is going to pay people to practice risky behavior then you’ll get stupid behavior. Especially if they get to keep the profits up to the point where things go bad, and then get bailouts to cover any mistakes. Especially if they are managing other peoples money.

The camera that he was using to record the even was NOT confiscated by the police.

There were upto 40 people in that room and only the one cellphone camara? What kind of luddites are you people?

Oh! and arrest record don’t mean shit – particularly for a serial protester. Innocent till proven guilty, remember. The conviction for homicide (or other violent crime) would be relevant, if true.

The police report is now public for anyone interested in getting it.

Link please? Although I’d treat any arrest report where the police describe how the perp violently assaulted all ten of their fists with his face with a tad suspicion.

“And speaking of ironic: no, being a communist does not entail opposition towards free speech, the concept of communism is not synonymous with the societies that have historically attempted to implement some interpretation of it. This is not intended as a defense of communism, I will not get into the political debate here, this is a general statement applying equally to any political philosophy.”

Of course being a communist entails opposition towards free speech. Communism entails the external control of every aspect of the individuals life, because it rejects private property.

Someone else gets to decide what your job is, and what resources you get to have. You can’t own a printing press, you can’t own a pen, you can’t own anything. You are not in individual control because ownership entails control and communists reject this for the individual.

Your first sentence didn’t make sense but if you were trying to claim that communists countries have historically had free speech then you are living in a fantasy world. Communist have always repressed free speech wherever they are in control, always. Especially when the free speech was against the thugs in control.

Look at Venezuela. It’s merely socialist and they are repressing free speech by closing TV stations, having union thugs beat people up who are not tresspassing, etc.

Communist heroes are violent vicious men, and not just Mao and Stalin, people like Che, and Lenin too.

To communists the worlds problems are caused by the very factors that solve our problems. They misidentify the problem and therefore come up with a solution that must inevitably end in repression, suffering and bloodshed. Private property is the solution to the problem of human cooperation, and plan coordination. Without property it becomes a political fight over who gets to stand at the podium to speak. With private property you can build your own podium.

@Brian Macker: You seem unable to parse a simple sentence, take a closer look at it.

the concept of communism is not synonymous with the societies that have historically attempted to implement some interpretation of it. This is not intended as a defense of communism, I will not get into the political debate here, this is a general statement applying equally to any political philosophy.

What this sentence means, for those unable to understand simple english, is not that the historical communist regimes (which I’m reluctant to call them) have not suppressed people freedoms, of course they have! I am strongly opposed to any regime that suppresses people’s freedom of expression, this has absolutely nothing to do with the idea of communism. This is what I actually said, and I was careful to note that this was not a statement that only applies to communism. No political philosophy is responsible for regimes that claim to be based on that philosophy and that have also suppressed people due to principles not found in that original philosophy.

Where are you getting your definition of communism? From Ayn Rand? Have you read the communist manifesto? But why bother to go to the source? I’m sure the opponents of a philosophy can be trusted to supply a fair representation of it… And just because you seem a bit lacking in your ability to understand english: No, this is not an endorsement of communism. I’m simply trying to clarify it’s basic ideas. As Marx envisioned it, it would be a classless society where decisions are made democratically! contrary to what most people seem to believe, communism is not an alternative to democracy, only to capitalism. I know many seem to think capitalism is a synonym for democracy but this is misinformed to say the least.

The main difference between the true communist society and the modern capitalist one, is that property is owned collectively (an idea which I don’t endorse), that the economy is planned and that no one has the freedom to own a company with workers under them, the workers would own the company collectively. I’m getting to much into the details of communism here, but my main point is simply that nowhere in these principles of communism, as laid out by Marx and others, can one find the idea that someone else decideds for you what you do and what you can say. Many people (though not me) call themselves communists because they believe in the form of society that Marx and others proposed, not because they supported Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other repressing regime. To imply that the idea of communism is synonymous with support of the oppression found in such regimes is to be ignorant of what true proponents of the political philosophy actually stand for. That is all.

Look at this dopey totalitarian wish list in the manifesto.

Notice how you can’t get past item 2 without being in contradiction. How the hell can anyone have income if you can’t have any property? Income is property.

Notice how in item 6) he’s confiscated all means of communication. No freedom of the press which means NO FREE SPEECH.

I think it’s you who has problems with comprehension, or it’s you who didn’t read the manifesto. Either one or the other.

I think you are going by what apologists for communism say instead of finding out for yourself.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

@Brian Macker:

You’d have fewer disagreements with people if you would read more carefully.

Notice how you can’t get past item 2 without being in contradiction. How the hell can anyone have income if you can’t have any property? Income is property.
…

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Not to defend Marxism or anything, but 1. proposes to abolish property in land, not all property. He may let you have a little bit of money once in a while.

Wow, after making the quick comment above, I went up and read. Scary stuff, even scarier than I thought, this communism.

The list Brian posted is bad enough but, man, this page alone from the link Lehoo provided is enough to say fuck that shit:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm

Seems Brian’s right. And communism wants to replace God with the State or at least that page sure as hell reads like that. Even your children are controlled by the State, not you. To be indoctrinated by it.

How… Very… Cult… Like…

Shove Communism. And, apparently, you’ve no comprehension just how much it would curtail personal freedom.

Let’s just look at that bit about no employees, just companies owned by the workers (i.e., State). Some of us choose to work for other people because it is freer than working for yourself in some respects. Hate your job, you’re free to find a new one. That’s not possible without a mountain of red tape (with the possibility of being denied or shipped some place horrible to work for merely making the request) in the scenario painted. If you are an owner, you don’t just get to walk away.

Please note we are not a pure democracy. A pure democracy would suck! It would be tyranny of the minority by the majority. No minority rights whatsoever. No freedom to dissent. We are a democratic republic and that’s a world of difference.

That’s what makes the US, despite all its flaws, still the best country in the world.

Newsflash, perfection isn’t possible.

You all who want Communism are nuts is what I’m saying. If you truly believe accepting a job is akin to being a slave anyway.

First of all, sorry for dissappearing from this conversation for so long! I certainly didn’t try to escape from it, I was simpy unaware that there were any new responses. I could swear I checked the box to get email notifications, but I received none. Second, regarding my ambiguous sentence there, yes I can see how it could have been misunderstood, my bad.

Now, on to the substance of our disagreement. Some of the replies here seems to assume that whenever anyone, be it me or Stagyar here, points out a perceived mischaracterization of Marxism and/or communism, this is equivalent to an endorsement of those ideologies. Needless to say, this is not the case. I have stated clearly that I am not defending communism and that I don’t endorse the ban of all personal property. I also never claimed to be an expert on communism, and some of your remarks were enlightening, I agree with some of your criticism of Marx and communism.

These issues however, interesting as they may be, are not related to the claim I tried to make: that Marxism does not support the oppression of free speech, even though the so called communist regimes always have. I never said Marx didn’t support his own idelogy. I was simply trying to make the argument that the originator of an ideology is not responsible for the (supposed) attempted implementations of it if the implementors did not adhere strictly to the original principles by twisting them, subtracting form them, or adding to them in a substantial way, nor are followers of the ideology guilty of the crimes others have commited in the name of it. This goes for all philosophies, political or otherwise, and all religions.

This was a fairly general statement trying to clear out what I thought I had already been clear about. Moving on to the specific, the issue of free speech, I have to again point out that it is not even adressed in the communist manifesto, hence the oppression of this freedom can not be said to be endorsed in that document. The only item that may seem to relate to this at all is the one you pointed out, number 6. However, the centralization of communication is not equivalent to an obliteration of free speech. That fact that the covernment is in charge of some channel of communication does not automatically mean that they censor it. If you are afraid that they will and feel it’s better to protect freedom of oppinion and speech with a free market, you can argue for that all you want, but don’t misrepresent what the manifesto actually says. If the manifesto of any political philosophy does not explicitly say that it endorses the oppression of free speech, you can not make an intellectually honest argument that the followers of that philosophy will inevitably be in favor of such oppression. Furthermore, your statement that:

When they do try to abolish private property that violates peoples free speech rights

is ludicrous. Free speech means freedom to express opinions, not to own property. If you want to call abolition of private property a form of oppression, then fine, argue for that, but to call it an oppression of free speech is beyond ridiculous.