The guillotine came into use after the poor people of France had already been starved half to death by the greed and indifference of the aristocracy.
The violence was initially instigated by those in power when they left the masses who severely outnumbered them to just rot; leaving them no choice but to ‘eat the rich.’
And as people do when they finally give in to their dark side, they overcompensated… sometimes becoming utterly monstrous themselves.
That is what the lofty oh-so-complacent, no-actual-skin-in-the-game, virtue-signaling devil’s advocates miss every time they waste good keystrokes regurgitating this same tiresome argument;
The guillotine imagery is a warning to us all, not just to the people whose heads would roll if the shit hit the fan.
Again this is not high school fucking debate club. It’s not a philosophical mind experiment. It’s reality for so many of us who are not White, straight, able-bodied, cisgender, males who claim to be Xtian.
Frankly speaking, I don’t care about any of your trivial concerns about false civility, or how you may feel about how others choose to communicate; the struggle is real and I have no choice but to face it if I want to survive.
They hold the similar core values, whereas you seem to be arguing just for the sake of arguing.
The post I replied to was, as has been pointed out multiple times, not using them in that context. It was an explicit request to use them in a way equivalent to that Trump video. Or is your argument that that video is also just a ‘warning’? Context matter.
Do YOU think b00fh was talking about posting gif:s on BoingBoing? Because as I and Fang has pointed out, context matters, and it was his comment the whole story started with. To me it sounded like he, and a bunch of other posters wanted to take the fight public, using the same style as that video.
The effect of comments on BoingBoing varies, but don’t underestimate the possibility that people to the right start linking to a nasty picture and use it as an argument that the left wants to kill them, better buy more guns. It also scares away people who don’t understand that when the left uses pictures of exectutions its just warnings while when the right does it its threats.
Even in a post some days ago about a mayor getting dragged behind a car, lynching style, the perpetrators had their supporters among the more bloodthirsty commenters.
I’m sorry, but if you’re going to bring in other threads, I’ll really have to say that I can’t parse this comment coming from the same guy that thought blackface Halloween costumes weren’t a problem:
I’m not a control freak or the tone police. People can express themselves however they choose*, and I can respond, or not, in return.
I have bigger issues to worry about than the rhetorical ‘concerns’ of a bunch of people who have far less to lose than I do.
Do whatever you’re gonna do, think however you wanna think, live your best life… it’s no skin off my nose.
But if your beef was with an incendiary comment that one particular rando made, you should have just taken it up directly with him rather than derailing the original thread.
*That includes willingly dealing with the consequences & repercussions of whatever one says.
That’s not my argument. If you’re not someone who will actively help when the shit hits the fan, then you are just in the way; that’s simply what it is.
Guillotine gifs on BB won’t “save my life,” as you so condescendingly stated up above… but neither will your indifferent virtue signaling about ‘being so much more civilized’ than everyone else who has commented in this thread.
He means no, he doesn’t particularly like the memes on BB either but that’s not what he was particularly talking about and he has a different reason for that.
Well, it’s a bit late after 130 replies, but better late than never; I feel I should apologize for my hamfisted delivery of what was intended to be a cynical joke, and the consequent derailing.
I find this church massacre video abhorrent to the extreme. I don’t condone emulating this behaviour in any way.
I was answering to a post concerned about “weaponization of memes” by the alt-right (and their nation-state ally who has an extensive history of a subversion-oriented foreign policy). As noted by countless others, BB repeatedly used the guillotine imagery in past articles. Thus, we are already engaged in a meme-war, and trumpists are not the only one who can successfully use them. That is all.
Agreed. Which is why I asked for clarification (that you haven’t really provided, yet, BTW).
In context you suggested that the only options were restoring a more polite political climate OR civil war. I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that was hyperbole, but you followed that up with by doubling down on polite political climate, or threatening people with guillotines. So, in context, I don’t think you’re intending hyperbole; you think those are the only options.
Clarification on my own positions (none of which would fall under “polite” or violent):
I applaud people like Rep Ihan Omar and Rep Rashida Tlaib who use strong language to call out Trump’s actions. People need to be shocked out of their complacency.
I applaud people who disrupt the comfortable, privileged lives of those who enable the creep towards fascism that the US is undergoing. Heckling Sarah Huckasans and Mitch McConnel at restaurants, for example. I’d personally spit in their food, right in front of them, if I encountered them. They don’t get to enjoy a Michelin-starred meal while toddlers are abused in cages, which they enabled.
By all means, punch Nazis. Just make sure they are Nazis.
I support the violent counter-protests of anti-fascism in Portland and Seattle. When the Hate Tourists come to town, if they are unopposed, they just turn to violence against marginalized people, which the authorities have largely failed to prevent.
I’m all for guillotine gifs as a reminder of the historical ramifications of when the elite abuse the populace too much and for too long. You seem to have jumped the the conclusion that is some kind of threat. I would not support targeting the guillotine images at individuals. THAT would constitute a threat of violence. It’s also unnecessary, as those who would typically be first in line already know that they are on someone’s list. That’s why they go in for secure compounds, self-sustaining megayachts, purchased New Zealand passports, and underground prepper bunkers. For the most part, they already have nightmares of what the mob will do to them.
