Noelveiga said:
But that's for the same reason a public restaurant isn't free to deny service based on race. Regulation against discrimination has been in place far longer than gay marriage. This is just a realization that sexual orientation ought to be as protected as other sources of discrimination. Either it all goes or nothing goes. Either way, that's unrelated to stating opinions about either discrimination regulation OR gay marriage. The baker can continue to oppose it if he wants, he's just not free to actively discriminate or harass gay couples. Or black people. Or... you get my point.
No, it is not simply a matter of antidiscrimination law. If you think otherwise, you are simply, factually incorrect. Without the Supreme Court's rulings in Romer v. Evans, to say nothing of Lawrence v. Texas, the baker wouldn't be in the situation that he is. Oregon did not democratically pass a gay marriage law--quite the opposite, it democratically passed a DOMA. The baker finds himself in his situation not because his fellow citizens disagreed with him--your arch assertion that society changed--but because a small elite of society with a great deal of power changed.
(Like every lazy leftist, you analogize to race. You conveniently ignore the fact that there is no equivalent, for the baker, of the passage of a Civil Rights Act.)
Again, the freedom to speak is not the only freedom there is. I agree with you that the baker remains free to protest. And after violent video games are heavily regulated, and Anita Sarkeesian gets her way and Duke Nukem can no longer find a publisher, those gamers will, yes, be able to speak out. They won't have their games, and their lifestyle will be changed, a matter regarding which you appear to be singularly uncaring. And I get it--not your ox being gored, and the progressive gods have been propitiated, and you will have "won." But if I concede that they will retain their right to complain about the inequity, will you grant me that someone else's freedom has been limited?
I think you think the way democracy actually works is not democratic. I think you're wrong.
Democracy is merely a way of making decisions. What you're talking about isn't democracy, it's a concept of limited government. I don't know who your constitutional law professor was, but if he said what you're talking about, he's an example of exactly the kind of leftist march through the institutions I've been describing. Jeremy Waldron (far from a right-winger) would demolish the statement that "equality is about the right and freedom to be different" in a handful of minutes--it's far from the only, or even the best, conception of equality.
A point that's amply demonstrated by you following with, "when women or gay people or racial minorities manage to pass some regulation...." You have utterly missed the point. Critical theory, critical legal theory and (most relevant for Sarkeesian) feminist theory don't focus principally upon passing a law, or even implementing a regulation. They focus on undemocratic methods of exerting control, often through the redefinition of existing institutions. Again, same-sex marriage isn't legal in Oregon (unlike, say, Maine) because anyone passed a law--a fact that you appear to be singularly unwilling to acknowledge. (This dogged insistence to avoid actual facts may, of course, be why you see no threat in Sarkeesian. Or, alternatively, it's convenient because it's not a threat to you.)
The ability to speak up freely, to promote their political views freely and to be defended by the higher tier of constitutional principles is what allows for a free, democratic state.
Again, we're not talking about the ability to speak up freely. Catherine McKinnon can speak freely all she wants. If she gets her way, we can debate porn all day long, but anyone who wanted access to it would not be able to do so. Freedom is not limited to freedom of speech.
The connection to Anita Sarkeesian is tangential at best, and from what I've seen, your argument (which I think is wrong, but it's consistent and coherent) is not what most of this movement is throwing out there.
I've several times lamented the fact that I think my side makes its argument badly. I do think, however, that the realization of what comes from the social ostracization that the Sarkeesian-side of the left brings with it is--at a basic level--what drives the movement. Look at the move to take Lovecraft off the World Fantasy Award and replace him with Octavia Butler. Did Lovecraft have some problematic ideas? Sure. But he's had a greater influence on speculative fiction, and especially fantasy, than Butler by an order of magnitude. (Butler was, principally, a science fiction author. Heck, I like her and think she's great, but she's not Lovecraft.) Those wishing to replace him don't want Butler because of her fantasy bona fides--but because she ticks an ethnic box. And as wrong as I think they are, if you want my bet, in five years I'd be willing to bet the statue is hers.
So yes, I've never said that my position is that being articulated well by the Gamergate folks. I do think, however, that one merely needs walk a rainy street in a big city and see the huddled clutches of smokers under eaves, or read in the paper about Christians being told they may either shut their doors or provide sustenance to ceremonies that make a mockery of their beliefs, or see any of the other minority groups (and yes, practicing conservative Christians are a minority group) who have been given neo-untouchable status to understand, in the hindbrain, that Sarkeesian and her ilk wish to convert "gamer" culture into something that bien pensant types won't tolerate.
Maybe that's a good thing. Heck, I don't play FPS's, I don't curse at people over chat in LoL, and if Sarkeesian gets her way and the next Arcanum doesn't have a brothel--because, after all, who needs it and it objectifies women!--I guess it's not that big of a deal to me, personally.
But I can get why someone who likes those things will feel like they're at risk of losing it.
No, I disagree here too. At least we now know where we don't line up, I guess. If she were not targeting the market, she'd be lobbying politicians, like the anti-violence crowd did and does. Sarkeesian seems to be targeting consumers and creators. That's targeting the market itself, expecting to change it. That's legitimate.
Not that targeting legislators isn't legitimate. We went to that forum as an industry, the industry made its case, the proponents of censorship made theirs and the constitutional principle of free speech won the day. But Sarkeesian isn't doing that, we've agreed that censorship is not what you're discussing.
All I can say here is, you seem to have read little in the way of critical theory. There is a difference between targeting a market and targeting locuses of power within society. If Sarkeesian were targeting a market--saying, "Hey, let's make more games like Depression Quest," then I don't think we'd see half this uproar. (Not a tenth, actually.)
Again, I'd point out that The Passion of the Christ showed that there is a very large market being underserved by Hollywood. You attempted to rebut this by citing Transformers, but that rather proved my point--you don't get the demographics. (Indeed, the Transformers series is the drop-dead last example I would have used. You think that conservative Christians are enthusiastic about a film whose most memorable moment isn't plot or action, but a lovingly-shot pan across Megan Fox's posterior? A film series whose latest installment has a protagonist who literally--and creepily--carries around with him a copy of a Romeo and Juliet statute so he can show a daughter's father that sex with the daughter is perfectly legal? THIS was your example of Hollywood serving this market demographic? Wow.)
The Passion drew out an audience of people many of whom hadn't seen any, or very many, films that year--largely because it was among the few films being made for them. These are the folks who read CapAlert for movie reviews, the people who dragged eleven seasons out of 7th Heaven (a very, very mediocre drama that is, yet, on of the very few to tell stories amenable to conservative Christians, and was the most-watched series ever on the WB). The Passion audience and the Transformers audience are not the same, and the former is not served by Michael Bay.
Gamers have a legitimate reason to be concerned that they can end up like smokers or... gasp... conservative Christians. If I were a gamer who played CoD, Witcher, or more politically incorrect games, I'd be concerned that the budget for my entertainment might end up more like Heaven is For Real (currently in the top 30 movies of this year, surprisingly) than the blockbuster treatment they get now.
Not sure why you'd have a problem with that, from your political perspective. From what I gather of your ideology, you're cool with whatever the market chooses to do. It follows that if the market changes its mind, or its balance, you'd be just as happy with it, right? Surely you're not only cool with the balance of the market as long as it remains the same forever. If you don't think the problem here is censorship, then all she's doing is advertising. She's no more insidious than Pepsi.
If Sarkeesian were, actually, a libertarian, I would not have devoted this many words to her, and I'd be more dismissive of Gamergate folks. But as the Devil can quote scripture, a crit can engage in actions that are libertarian. Catherine McKinnon, with pornography, behaves perfectly consistently with a libertarian in speaking out against porn. The difference is that, if given the chance, a libertarian wouldn't ban it, while a crit would if it suited their underlying desires.
The trouble isn't that someone wants to speak or persuade. The trouble is whether, having spoken, they will then allow the other person to live and let live, or they will then go on to limit what the other person can actually do. This doesn't appear to trouble you--unsurprising, as your social preferences are ascendant at the moment, so you're happy if your opponents may (merely) speak. But I understand those who would like to be playing their games, and won't be satisfied with merely being left to complain that they can't have them.
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