Banning political points of view

They are a private site and can do as they like. That said, I think they just should have banned political discussions, period.

Here's what I think is going on here:

I think this was likely a "fuck, we're having to constantly police discussions for white supremacist bullshit, and we'd rather not ban all political discussions, so we'll just draw this really awkward, overbroad line."

I mean, they're a knitting site. It spilled over into its members talking about other issues that interested them, including politics. Probably in less divisive times than these, that was fine; occasionally someone might cross the line, but no biggie. In times like these, though, people cross the line constantly. I regret to say that on Twitter, I've been mobbed by white supremacist Trump trolls more than once (not just because of my political stances, but because of my hispanic name). And yes, the people threatening to take away my green card (spoiler, I was born here) are always Trump supporters. Always. Not that all Trump supporters are white supremacists--they are not-- but I think the reverse is true -- overwhelmingly, white supremacists in this country are Trump supporters. It does not help that Trump and most of his prominent supporters are so reluctant to condemn white supremacists. Unfortunately, a lot of people thus conflate the two, especially if their only exposure to Trump supporters is social media.

That does NOT mean I agree with what the site did here. I don't. It's just to explain what I think was in their heads. As I said, I think they just should have banned political discussion. But what I think what we've got here is a couple of knitters owning/modding the site who never wanted to mod contentious political discussions, which are especially contentious now. Their members really do want to discuss those issues. And lots of them are getting upset and reporting stuff all the time. Likely in the owner's perception, at least, Trump supporters are always involved in the contentious stuff, so they threw up their hands and thought, "okay, we can keep political discussions and not have to parse out each dispute if we just take an ax and eliminate Trump supporters."


A poor choice, as I said, but I think it is one made by a couple of knitters who don't want to and don't know how to contend with modding political discussions (as Rob, Haggis, and I can tell you, it is no picnic), and yet were trying to please the bulk of their members.

Like I said, I sympathize with their not wanting to spend hours parsing and ruling political discussions, but I think the answer was "this is a knitting site -- please take your politics elsewhere."


ETA:

I know what some will say: "how hard is it to just forbid a white supremacist comment vs a Trump-policy supporting comment?"  Well, honestly, it depends on the policy and your point of view.  Trump's policies with regard to migrant camps and the current conditions there -- well, frankly, lots of the comments I see (alas, most, if you want the truth) defending those policies smack of racism.  Sorry, not sorry. Sure, if you are all into modding difficult political positions, fine, you can parse and weed out the bad'uns.  If you're cool with "hey, people can say what they want or ignore what they want, and if you're offended, walk away or argue, as you please" being the rule, fine.  But if you really just want to mod knitting discussions and not deal with offensive comments or offended people -- yeah, it's a goddamn nightmare. 

I don't blame the knitters for not wanting to deal, not a bit.  I just think they should have said "yeah, it's a knitting site. Take political discussions elsewhere, period."

Vince, there are videos, photos, and a ton of witnesses at this point, including congress critters.  There have been a number of deaths.  The Trump administration lawyers are on tape arguing before a court that the kids needn't be allowed soap and toothbrushes.  It's real.  I'm sorry, it is.  

As far as it being "the parents' fault".  Let's take aside the fact that these are desperate families fleeing desperate situations in which they and their children may starve or be killed, not abusive parents.  Let's pretend for the sake of argument they are all shitty, uncaring parents. 

 That means we should say "the parents suck, so fuck the kids?" really?  

Here's one of my hypotheticals.  A family down the street from you are shitty, abusive parents.  Their small children are suffering as a result.  You might, in that situation, be good with the children being taken away from their abusive parents.  But are you good with the kids being thrown into a cage to sleep on concrete in 55 degree temperatures with a flimsy aluminum foil blanket, without toothbrushes, soap, clean clothes, adequate food and water, medical care, or indeed any adult care, allowing ten year olds to care for babies as best they can?  I mean fuck, their parents sucked, so it's all the parents' fault, right?

Of course you aren't okay with that.  No one should be.  Take the adults aside --  these are children.  No matter what -- and I do mean no matter what -- we should take decent care of children who find themselves within our border, whatever the reason.  

And remember that this isn't about money -- these camps are costing $700+ per day, per person. We could keep the families in the Ritz for that.  Charities and individuals are trying to donate stuff for the kids, and being turned away.  

Honestly, the situation is real and it is not defensible. And "it's the parents' fault" is a really horrible argument to justify it.

ETA:

A friend posted this on facebook not long ago, and I think it's worth reading.  medium.com/@amandadeibert/to-the-good-person-who-is-defending-the-current-policies-at-our-border-e58a34664eaf

I think you misunderstood what I meant. My fault for not being clearer. That was my showing the danger of a certain thought process. Some people are saying the fault in these kids being in detention areas is the fault of the parents. Your answer, however, shows why a policy of no defense of Trump is wrong. You read what I said and provided a rebuttal. If I can't post stuff if defense, it disallows the discussion to point out the counterpoint. AOC has said people are being forced to drink from toilets, but I don't think that's been really established. Trust me, I'm not defending the detention centers in the least, but if you start to allow people to exaggerate claims, then it becomes easier for people to deny the horrible reality.

Okay. I'm all right with that. And yes, to the extent we can help to argue people over into seeing how bad things are, it's best to leave discussions open.  (As I said, I personally would not have done what the Ravelry people did with their site.)  

And no, I didn't think you personally were okay with conditions for the kids in the camps.  I admit, I find this subject so heartbreaking and have heard so many horrible arguments to justify it (including from some in my own family), I am, heh, triggered.  Anything to do with kids or animals or helpless things affects me that way -- honestly, I feel like we all have a duty stemming from basic humanity to care for them.

Thanks! I'm going to give it a read later, when I have some leisure to devote some thought to it. I'll bet you're right on the state of emergency thing. (And again, I've donated to shelters of various kinds -- seems like there's a way around it.)

You've got a point on the toothpaste possibly being poisoned -- I can see why a shelter wouldn't want to accept any old random donations. I know that shelters here won't take food that isn't sealed, etc., and it won't take just anything. But filtering donations through a reputable group could solve that.

I think it's my fault we got off on the detention center derail -- I mentioned it as a topic where all too often arguments supporting Trump's policy are tinged with racism. Not all, but way too many. It's kind of horrible to read threads on Twitter on them. And then, those of us who oppose them feel so strongly that such arguments punch us in the guts.  That's what, IMO, makes such arguments really hard to moderate, and are probably the kind of things that made the Ravelry people do what they did. (Which, again, I think was the wrong decision on their part.)  And then after I brought up the example, Vince chimed in and off we were to the races.

No, I haven't -- but that doesn't mean the stuff that a good many Congress people (not just AOC) and journalists are photographing, videotaping, and reporting is bullshit.

And it was a legit question; you did not previously assert, as far as I know, that you'd actually been in the camps, nor did I assert you had not been. Mere proximity, which is what you asserted here, doesn't necessarily give you a special perspective any more than my proximity to Attica gives me perspective to conditions there. I've never been in Attica, and can go only on what I've heard. I've been in two lesser security prisons, but I can only report on the parts I had access to when visiting my client, and I can't be sure they reflected conditions in the rest of that prison, much less other prisons. The same may apply here. But yes, your having been in them would give you a better perspective with regard to what you've actually seen than I have. Point ceded. That said, it may not give you a better perspective than the Congress critters, journalists, etc., who may have seen more than you and your wife have. 

The sarcasm on the "kids are not dying because of lack of toothbrushes" is really yucky, IMO.  They're going without a lot of other things besides toothbrushes, and they are indisputably dying, when they shouldn't be.

As far as "yeah but things were horrible in previous administrations!" Well, that's fucking awful, if that's the case.  No argument. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't remedy it today.  It in no way justifies the current situation.