[heydenberk]

Just an FYI, before you listen to what he spews: McInnes is a white nationalist, homophobe, transphobe and misogynist. This mediamatters post summarizes some of the outrageous things he's said or done: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/06/05/meet-the-hipster-rac...

You can understand why Vice would want to erase this dude from their history. I don't think they should be allowed to shrug it off, but I'm also glad that they try.

[Torgo]

>Vice arrived at its current incarnation by a circuitous route. It emerged in 1994 as the Voice of Montreal, a countercultural magazine funded by Canadian welfare money

So, Gavin McInnes' fame, wealth and notoriety is all due to Canada's public funding of the arts!

[litmus]

I don't think he's a homophobe. In order to call him that you'd have to cast a very wide net. As for the anti-feminism [1] or misogyny, some of the same points he makes in more provocative tones are made by the like of Caitlyn Flanagan in the pages of The Atlantic.[2]

The article you link to seems kind of overkill at times. It links to his articles for evidence of racial slurs where it seems pretty obvious he's doing it intentionally since in one he mentions an uproar where Sarah Silverman called Chinese people Chinks ("People look really stupid shaking their fists at a clown"), however self-serving that may be.

But I think it can be said that his arguments are often repeat ad-nauseam versions of this scene from Rescue Me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJJpziU7wSs

[1] very NSFW http://old.noob.us/humor/what-if-women-were-as-horny-as-men-...

[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/11/boys-wil...

[cllns]

"[Caitlyn] Flanagan is a self-described anti-feminist"

[1]: http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2004/backtothekitchen.asp

[litmus]

To be clear, I wasn't trying to claim McInnes or Flanagan weren't anti-feminists. In fact I introduced the term in my response because I thought it was a more accurate description than "misogynist". In American culture are all anti-feminists considered misogynists? It would be easier to discuss if there were common understanding of certain definitions. Similarly, if you are against marriage equality are you by definition a homophobe [1]? Not sure really why I was downvoted, as the link given in the parent post was about racism not homophobia (burden of proof etc). Also, I'm saying all this as someone who disagrees with many of McInnes's positions, go figure.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FCLkZKIJF4&feature=youtu.be...

[benihana]

This is a textbook example of an ad hominem attack. You're not arguing any points he's made on their validity; you're trying to invalidate things he "spews" because you think his character isn't sufficient.

Intellectual laziness. Do you think that someone who says inciting things can't say insightful things simply because they stir up the pot? Or do you only think he's not insightful because he says things you personally don't like?

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[eertami]

How some people are so incapable of recognizing satire is beyond me.

[cholantesh]

I remain unconvinced that he's not simply a troll playing a very long con. When I read him as such, I have found him very enjoyable, but as of late, overexposure is really causing the joke to wear thin.

[heydenberk]

I don't find it funny, and I bet that most people in the groups that he's "trolling" (exercising hate speech toward) don't either.

[cholantesh]

Fair enough. I am actually one of those people, but there is a wide array of beliefs about him among my brothers and sisters, ranging all the way from indifference to disgust.

[drunkcatsdgaf]

you mean hes exercising freedom of speech? Regardless of views, he has that right.

[wk_end]

No one (here, anyway) is trying to take away that right. Freedom of speech also means that others have the freedom to criticize that speech, too.

[stinkytaco]

>Freedom of speech also means that others have the freedom to criticize that speech, too.

I sometime feel like people forget this. It comes up every time someone gets dropped by sponsors or their TV network for saying something outrageous (Duck Dynasty, Donald Trump, etc.). Freedom of speech means the government can't arrest you for saying it. It doesn't mean you get an automatic criticism free platform to say whatever you want. All of us (media owners included) are allowed to make our own assessments or business decisions about it as well.

[joshuapants]

> Freedom of speech means the government can't arrest you for saying it

As I mentioned above, that's overly simplistic to the point of being wrong. Yes, there are statutes in various legal systems throughout history preventing the government from limiting expression. No, that doesn't mean that freedom of speech only exists in that regard.

[akilism]

People only "forget" this when they are trying to be disingenuous about how freedom of speech works.

[eropple]

Man...I'm really, really sick of this lame, lame, lame defense of lousy behavior. Freedom of speech doesn't mean that anybody other than the government has to have anything to do with you and doesn't apply to anybody here in their personal judgments of somebody who's choosing to act shitty.

And maybe it's just me, but it strikes me that, when the best defense or excuse that you can trot out is that hey, it's actually going to get you arrested to do it, the moral argument is not exactly strong.

[joshuapants]

> Freedom of speech doesn't mean that anybody other than the government has to have anything to do with you and doesn't apply to anybody here in their personal judgments of somebody who's choosing to act shitty.

Man... I'm really sick of this lame, lame, lame misunderstanding of free speech. The first amendment of the US Bill of Rights is a legal embodiment (among many others throughout history) of the ideal of free speech, but that's not where it ends. Attempts to shame (or otherwise coerce) unpopular speakers into silence is still a violation of that ideal.

[eropple]

You are wrong both in the textual sense and the historical sense of it. "Freedom of speech" has never in the history of the United States been anything but a governmental restriction; it has never been a moral calling for the citizenry. Nor should it be: while there is a compelling argument for the government's agnosticism with regards to the viewpoints of the citizenry, there is no serious or compelling argument for the citizenry's agnosticism with regards to the viewpoints of each other.

Shame is a tool for fixing shitlords or, if they are unfixable, rendering them powerless. It's a good tool. It gets a bad rap when the powerful are powerful no longer, but--strangely enough--never does when the powerful are powerful.

[eertami]

I agree that it's obviously nothing to do with free speech.

But it's entirely disingenuous to claim somebody is acting shitty when writing satirically.

[eropple]

Sure, if you think it's satire. I am intensely skeptical of the idea that it's an attempt at satire--both from reading his stuff and from knowing people in the circles he's traveled in--and have never seen anything to convince me otherwise.

[ruacartoon]

It's not a ringing endorsement when one's supporters best argument is "it's not illegal to say what he said in this particular point in time and space."

[drunkcatsdgaf]

pretty sure we live in this time and space, though.

[vonklaus]

Apalled that this was downvoted. Either you are attacking the poster directly or you are against freedom of speech, either way, poor form.

[akilism]

What does he have to do to convince you?

[cholantesh]

At this point, I'm not sure. If he didn't have a track record of making deliberately misleading statements and admitting that he enjoys goading people into reactions by saying things that are patently offensive, I might take him seriously.

[serve_yay]

That's silly.

[cholantesh]

OK.