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Post by michaelw on Jan 25, 2019 18:53:42 GMT -5
Disagree. (1) Your take of the initial "hot take" is not an accurate characterization. I cannot recall anyone saying he was "just trying to get by" (as someone might in a crowded room, for example). No one reads the posts in this thread. From earlier:
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2019 19:22:14 GMT -5
I think Haggis meant what I said in my last post -- that Phillips was moving through the crowd until the kid stood in his path and did the face-off. That's not the same thing as Phillips just trying to pass someone on a crowded sidewalk, with no other context. Certainly there was other context. He was moving through the crowd for a reason. Shit had happened and was still happening. But the initial media take, at least the one I saw go viral, was NOT that -- it was that the kids initially approached the Native Americans and surrounded them. And that was not accurate, and yes, it made the boys look worse. The initial MAGA take I saw was equally inaccurate, though -- that Phillips just singled out that kid and started beating a drum in his face for no reason. That makes Phillips look worse. Watching the videos, I think it's clear that yes, Phillips and his group approached the boys' group (rather than vice versa), but that the intent was not to stand there beating a drum face to face with a kid, and I think it's clear he didn't single out anyone. He says his intent was to disrupt the escalating interaction between the boys and the BHI dudes by singing his peace chant, and that the plan was to march between the two groups, then up through the boys (very large) group to get to the top of the steps to dominate the scene with his peace chant. Watching the tapes, I think that's what you see him doing. Until he hits that one boy, who won't step to the side to let him pass. And at that point, the Native Americans are surrounded by the crowd of boys, and other than physically pushing them aside, they were kind of stuck there. Phillips chose to keep singing rather than backing off.
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Post by michaelw on Jan 25, 2019 20:41:49 GMT -5
I think Haggis meant what I said in my last post -- that Phillips was moving through the crowd until the kid stood in his path and did the face-off. That's not the same thing as Phillips just trying to pass someone on a crowded sidewalk, with no other context. Certainly there was other context. He was moving through the crowd for a reason. Shit had happened and was still happening. Hey Haggis, you really need to up the clarity of your posts, lest these crucial distinctions become lost on the hoi polloi.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2019 20:49:51 GMT -5
Watch out. Haggis is a Chihuahua. They bite.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 25, 2019 23:40:05 GMT -5
In a related story, there's this. Looks like a teacher somewhere saw a picture of a kid, decided it was the Nick Sandmann before we knew Nick's name, and outed him, leading to harassment and bullying. Teacher demanded proof that this wasn't the kid in the picture and when received, just issued a corrective tweet, didn't delete the offending one until her school district was contacted. Now she's suspended. Looks like he wasn't the only teen wrongly accused in this. www.dailywire.com/news/42442/leftist-mob-wrongly-identifies-student-covington-emily-zanotti
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Post by robeiae on Jan 26, 2019 12:40:30 GMT -5
All this "but the BHI group was mean and that totes justified the boys in being racist to Native Americans!" is a joke. All this "but Phillips exaggerated his military record at one time and therefore the boys were justified in being racist to him!" is a joke. I agree with both of those things. My criticism of Phillips is criticism of Phillips. It doesn't excuse or justify anything done by the Convington boys (or by the Hebrew Israelites). But the people who were--and are--presenting Phillips as some sort of hero are, I think, wrong. And terribly so. Sure, his exaggeration of his record is hardly the biggest deal ever. Yet, it cuts into the narrative on this for those who wanted to be outraged, does it not? Because the only way to respond--for someone who was all bent out of shape that some "punk kid" disrespected a "Vietnam vet"--to that correction is with "well okay, but still..." And this isn't the only "well okay, but still" that's here, not by a long shot. I think that when one has to start offering a lot of "well okay, but still"s, one probably has to admit to have gotten something very wrong. Beyond that, my characterization of Phillips as seeming like a "royal douchebag" was a consequence with how he as acted, what he has said, since the initial brouhaha. I think he's full of shit, across the board. He's relishing his fifteen minutes of fame, I'm sure.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 15:04:42 GMT -5
I don't have a problem with anyone criticizing him for fibbing about his war record, nor for not caring for his brand of activism.
The reason I have a problem with the way some on the right did it (or as some did in this thread), is that it was used, expressly or tacitly, as a way to excuse the boys' being racist and obnoxious. "See! He's not a saint! Therefore, the boys did nothing wrong!"
And yeah, it excuses nothing.
It's a bit like excusing someone who grabs a woman's ass on the subway by saying "well, actually, she's a nasty human being who cheats on her taxes". Or like excusing a gang of hooligans who beat up a homeless man by saying "oh, but that homeless dude had a criminal record."
I mean, okay, the victim of the offense was not perfect. Maybe they are even a douche. But it doesn't excuse the person who grabbed the ass or beat up the homeless person one bit.
I mean, if I wrote an article about the subway ass-grabber, I wouldn't feel any obligation to report on how the woman cheated on her taxes in order to present a "balanced view" of the ass-grabbing incident. Grabbing asses on the subway is wrong, period, whether the ass you grabbed is that of America's sweetheart or that of a tax cheat.
Same here.
The thing that's really bugging me is people looking to smear Phillips any way they can in order to justify and exonerate the boys. It bothers me that much more because turning them into heroes and victims reinforces the idea, for them and others, that what they did was fine. Bad message, imo.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 26, 2019 16:47:17 GMT -5
I don't think his military record is of any bearing to what happened, but it does tell you, along with his changing narrative and the things he's said (Those are more important by far) that he's not a reliable narrator of what happened. He is not.
It's also not a matter of exonerated the boys. They were rowdy, and Nick Sandmann stood there and smirked at a man who chose to confront him, but chanting and beating a drum in his face. And for that, he's now being told he's got a punchable face, that his life must be ruined.
No, the boys weren't perfect little angels, but somehow the smirk heard round the world is fine to completely vilify and call the kid a racist, where most people have no issue with the Black Israelites horrible language directed at the teens. And many people are okay with this. Many articles seem to barely mention the BI's because that doesn't fit the narrative.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 26, 2019 17:02:18 GMT -5
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Post by nighttimer on Jan 26, 2019 18:23:50 GMT -5
I don't think his military record is of any bearing to what happened, but it does tell you, along with his changing narrative and the things he's said (Those are more important by far) that he's not a reliable narrator of what happened. He is not. If Nathan Phillips isn't a "reliable narrator," you're telling me Nick Sandmann is? The guy with the public relations team and the lawyer issuing statements. More like you, robeiae and Opty simply have a major hard bias against Phillips as you present him as a scheming liar and the lawyered-up Sandmann as a paragon of truth, justice and the American Way.
That's a nice smear job you guys got goin' here. Trouble is tearing down Phillips doesn't make Sandmann look any less of the smug and rude little prick he is.
Oh, cry me a fucking river. Nick Sandmann's life was ruined? And what about Nathan Phillips' life as he gets dragged and demonized all around the web by guys who haven't been where he's been or done for their country what he's done. Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit. There's plenty of blame to be spread around, but what you call "confrontation" I see Phillips placing himself between two groups who were getting increasingly rowdy. Philllips was not exacerbating an increasingly tense confrontation. He was deescalating something which could have gone south pretty damn fast. This was a volatile situation and Sandmann did more to egg it on that Phillips.
The smug, rude little prick does have a punchable face and I'm a little curious of how things might have gone for Sandmann had he been up in the face of one of the Black Israelites. Not at all well I suspect.
What narrative might that be? That everyone can look at this event and spin it however they want? The Black Israelites aren't sitting down for interviews with Savannah Guthrie or hiring P.R. professionals or issuing statements through their attorneys. But Nick Sandmann is and why? So he can spin the narrative in his favor and it is working as intended. Even when Sandmann sat down with Guthrie, the MAGA hat was nowhere to be found and that's because it would reveal his partisanship and make him less the sympathetic victim who was accosted by a grown-ass man who should have kept his distance.
Don't believe the hype. If Phillips was a dick so was Sandmann, but somehow excuses are made for his bad behavior while the other guy gets tarred and feathered.
It's bullshit and it's bad for ya, Vince. Think for yourself and don't follow the rest of the lemmings as they sail off the logic cliff.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 26, 2019 20:55:36 GMT -5
It seems to me that people want to make excuses for Phillips.
And considering how this thing started, with death threats, misinformation, and so many acting as if the kids went to Phillips on their own, I don't blame him for hiring a PR firm. Why shouldn't he?
Phillips chose to make this a big deal. He chose to wade in, then chose to talk about it, that these boys did this to a Vietnam Vet. (BTW, while I agree his misrepresenting his military career isn't very relevant, why was it okay for everyone to shame the kids for their treatment of a Vietnam Vet when they had noway of knowing that.)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 21:08:15 GMT -5
how about shaming them for their disrespectful treatment of an elderly man?
how about shaming them for their racially taunting a Native American?
The Vietnam vet thing was at most a bay leaf in the stew. Take it away, and it is still stew.
And he did serve four years in the Marine Corp during the Vietnam era, so, actually, he did serve.
ETA:
Seriously, you think if Vietnam had been taken out of the equation, and everyone was clear from minute one that the boys had been doing mocking war chants and tomahawk chops and that ridiculous face with someone who was just an elderly Native American former Marine (who hadn't been in the actual country of Vietnam), all of us would have been "oh, fine, then. Carry on. It's not like he was in Vietnam."
No. The larger factors were that he's elderly and a Native American. And he did serve. So --WTF? The outrage would have been equal, IMO.
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Post by robeiae on Jan 27, 2019 12:53:37 GMT -5
If Nathan Phillips isn't a "reliable narrator," you're telling me Nick Sandmann is? The guy with the public relations team and the lawyer issuing statements. More like you, robeiae and Opty simply have a major hard bias against Phillips as you present him as a scheming liar and the lawyered-up Sandmann as a paragon of truth, justice and the American Way. That's a nice smear job you guys got goin' here. Trouble is tearing down Phillips doesn't make Sandmann look any less of the smug and rude little prick he is. Lol, what a ridiculous strawman. I don't think Sandmann is a paragon of anything. I think he's one of the main people in that little pseudo drama who acted poorly (along with some of his classmates). But again, nothing all that significant actually happened. Yet now Phillips is milking it for all its worth, trying to play the hero, no doubt buoyed by all of the initial attention wherein he was cast as a hero by the clueless outrage mob on social media, a mob who managed to turn an almost-non-event into a national news story and--possibly--a life-changing event for a number of young people.
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Post by robeiae on Jan 27, 2019 13:11:47 GMT -5
how about shaming them for their disrespectful treatment of an elderly man? how about shaming them for their racially taunting a Native American? The Vietnam vet thing was at most a bay leaf in the stew. Take it away, and it is still stew. And he did serve four years in the Marine Corp during the Vietnam era, so, actually, he did serve. ETA: Seriously, you think if Vietnam had been taken out of the equation, and everyone was clear from minute one that the boys had been doing mocking war chants and tomahawk chops and that ridiculous face with someone who was just an elderly Native American former Marine (who hadn't been in the actual country of Vietnam), all of us would have been "oh, fine, then. Carry on. It's not like he was in Vietnam." No. The larger factors were that he's elderly and a Native American. And he did serve. So --WTF? The outrage would have been equal, IMO. That's the real problem, imo. The outrage WAS RIDICULOUSLY OVERDONE (and still is). I mean, this thing has gotten more attention and sparked more outrage than protests that have turned violent. And for what? Some name-calling? Some idiotic cheers? Some self-righteous arguing between people with agendas (and little else)? Yet, that's sufficient justification for a national shaming? Again, it's obviously all about the MAGA cap, imo. Remove it from the picture and there's no viral video, no idiotic dogpiling, no national coverage, no national media interviews with the principals. And going back to the Vietnam angle, again that aspect of Phillips was a clear part of the initial outrage-fest, from what I saw on social media: he was a Vietnam vet, therefore the smirking of Sandmann was even worse. I think it very obvious that this played a role in how quickly the "story" was shared. After the fact, it's easy for an individual to say that changing this would have had no impact on their level of outrage, but I don't think one can fairly argue that it was an inconsequential detail, with regard to how much attention the "story" received.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 13:29:19 GMT -5
I saw the video before I read anyone saying that Phillips was a Vietnam vet. It didn't change my outrage a single notch.
I seriously cannot imagine that ANY person who found the boy's behavior objectionable would have found it non-objectionable or less objectionable if the exact facts about Phillip's service had been reported accurately. The outrage isn't because he was allegedly in Vietnam -- it's because he's a Native American, and moreover an elderly one.
This is a right-wing strawman.
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