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Link. It shouldn't be difficult.
UNC Professor suspended
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gtyellowjacket
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UNC professor placed on leave following alleged affiliation with 'anti-racist, anti-fascist' organization
Dwayne Dixon, a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, has been placed on administrative leave effective immediately.
www.dailytarheel.com
UNC administration placed Dwayne Dixon, a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, on administrative leave on Monday, effective immediately. The decision follows reports of Dixon's alleged affiliation with "Redneck Revolt," an organization that describes itself as an “anti-racist, anti-fascist, community defense formation.”
In a statement to The Daily Tar Heel, Stoyer wrote that Dixon's placement on leave follows "recent reports and expressions of concern regarding alleged...
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We’re tied with UVA at 4, FWIW, according to the latest U.S. News and world Report, but even then, we are well behind Virginia and almost all of the public and private institutions whom we consider peers, in many other reputable rankings. A major part of that USNWR ranking (which I'm very proud of, btw) is UNC's affordability, ability to provide upward social mobility, and lack of graduate indebtedness- which, to be clear, all of which should be lauded and in fact, I *do* laud it as I was one of the poor rural first-gen students who got an education because of it. But there's no question that UNC is currently facing major headwinds- specifically the political climate, increasing financial strain, and consistently losing our best faculty and researchers to peer institutions because of both- that will impede our ability to maintain that ranking in the long-term (IMO, of course). Obviously, I'd much rather be wrong than right.
My point is simply that at some point, a University cannot keep bleeding its best faculty, teachers, and researchers (not saying that *this* particular professor about whom the OP was started is any of those- I have no clue who he is and had never heard of him until yesterday), cannot have a reputation for seeking retribution against its own faculty for their political stances, cannot be seen as being run by political appointee firebrands (specifically the BOT and the Chancellor, in UNC's case), and cannot continue losing federal research grant money hand over fist- and expect to maintain its longstanding, hard-earned reputation as a top-flight public institution.
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First, can you give us the link to where that quote comes from? (Note that the video linked in what you quoted no longer exists.)
Second, I have never seen it reported that the driver or anyone else claimed that he was spooked into driving into the crowd by a guy waving a gun at him. Have you?
Third, and most importantly: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHY DIXON WAS SUSPENDED AND YOU KNOW IT. Again, just yum your classic m.o. of making up shit to try to come up with a theoretical “reasonable” explanation of something that is obviously not reasonable.
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Seems like if the dude who drove his car into the crowd were trying to get away from someone he saw threatening him with a gun, and that’s what caused him to drive his car into the crowd, that would give him a pretty solid and obvious defense.
gtyellowjacket
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Lols. You want me to find a link to a harvard panel because you believe a news article is making it up? But it doesn't really matter anyway because the professor who was suspended for advocating violent political views and not specifically suspended for waving a gun at someone at a political rally before that guy sped off and murdered someone.
I'm going to get right on that completely reasonable request. Let me know when you need it by.
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Can you identify what "violent political views" the professor advocated that he was suspended for? I have not seen any of them identified. I asked you that before, and you didn't respond, but I guess you can have another chance to try to respond.
It is telling that you are trying to focus the conversation on this made-up bullshit fantasy that this professor is somehow partially responsible for Heather Heyer's death (which does not square with any public reporting about what happened, and would have been a big story if it did) rather than actually acknowledging the basis for hm being placed on leave, which very obviously has nothing to do with what happened in Charlottesville and instead has to do with TPUSA and others speciously connecting him to a flyer at Georgetown without pointing to any evidence that he actually had anything to do with it.
Ddseddse
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This thread is making me question my decision not to invoke super ignore. Regular ignore not getting the job done here. GT does not engage in good faith. Refusal to understand this does not reflect poorly on GT, as much as it reflects poorly on folks who should know better taking the bait time and time again.
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And to be clear, showing up as a civilian openly carrying— let alone brandishing— a firearm to a location where there is civil unrest is a terrible idea that warrants castigation. I strongly disapprove of Dixon doing that. Generally speaking, nothing good can come of that. You just have to hope something bad doesn’t come of it. And if he ended up using the firearm and it resulted in injury or death, his actions should be heavily scrutinized. If we was an instigator or used excessive force, he should be charged and prosecuted accordingly. Frankly, I think it’s unfortunate that our laws allow people to place themselves in such situations carrying firearms.
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I understand your position and am sorry that it is negatively impacting your experience on the board, which is not my intent. But I don't use the ignore function personally, and when it comes to posters who don't engage in good faith, my personal opinion is that it is better to call them out on it and demonstrate how they are posting bad-faith bullshit. But I do appreciate that others prefer to just not see the bullshit at all, so I'm sorry for that.
gtyellowjacket
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This is my thought. Bringing a gun to a protest and threatening people with it is a bad idea. And I don't think its a great idea to have a guy with that kind of judgement on campus, especially paired with his other actions and comments.
I believe the murderer did try to raise Dixon's brandishing up as a defense in the trial and the jury didn't buy it. He is now in prison for a triple digit sentence. Good riddance.
Ddseddse
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Yeah, I really try to minimize my own use of the ignore feature(which is why I'd prefer not to go the super ignore route). I personally only have two posters on ignore.
But once you know a poster is not posting in good faith, then engaging them is (in my opinion) giving them a platform. In my opinion it is actively assisting them in their mission to spread division, contrarianism, and misinformation. I personally feel it's counter productive (and a strategic and tactical blunder) to platform these people.
I'm not prescribing how everyone else should engage on this board, and I think there's space where reasonable people can disagree here. That being said, my personal philosophy is once you know a poster is not posting in good faith, I don't amplify or platform them.
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I understand that perspective. But if a poster is posting on here they're already "platformed" and they can post as much as they want.
I also think, philosophically, that we've now seen pretty clearly that "deplatforming" people doesn't work, especially in the age of the modern internet. Social media deplatforming of Trump and others in the last few years was very obviously ineffective at stopping the spread of their rhetoric, and in ways it may have actually amplified it.
Ddseddse
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I will add one tactic I believe can be potentially useful to deal with bad faith posters without getting into the pissing match they so dearly desire is to "meta-post" by creating a post that calls out a specific tactic while not naming a specific poster, post, or falling into the trap of addressing the content of a single post directly.
An example from the "Racism thread""
I dunno... we're all trying to navigate this as best we can, and we'll each have different ideas about the best way to handle it. I'm just throwing ideas out there that I personally believe are the most effective.
An example from the "Racism thread""
The key is not not take the bait even when someone who feels that post called them out responds directly.
I dunno... we're all trying to navigate this as best we can, and we'll each have different ideas about the best way to handle it. I'm just throwing ideas out there that I personally believe are the most effective.
Ddseddse
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My personal philosophy is to "let them howl into the void".
Sure that one post is out there, but getting that one post out there isn't their goal.
Their goal is the big messy pissing match which devolves into chaos, which muddies the waters so much that they can can claim a bo-sided victory through a war of attrition.
This is a (rhetorical) war. And in war never fight on the ground of the enemy's choosing. Bring the fight to them on the ground of your choosing. At least, that would be my suggestion.
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I understand. And we're on the same side here. But no one is howling into "the void." When people make bad-faith, false assertions and the only response to those assertions is "that person is arguing in bad faith" then it leaves the substance unrebutted. And that leaves people who don't know what's right and wrong with a choice between one side that confidently asserts their side of the argument and another that just says "everything that guy says is bullshit said in bad faith" without offering a countering narrative. Is it any surprise that they often, then, end up choosing the side of the person who actually gave their side, whether in bad faith or not?
To me, this is the same logic that led liberals and Democrats to eschew conversations with people like Joe Rogan. Rogan is constantly platforming and uncritically amplifying the views of people who say stuff that ranges from zany to blatantly false and dangerous. Liberals' response was to say things like "this show is dangerous; don't listen to anything said on it; don't try to go on it or you'll just amplify it further." But that didn't leave Rogan's audience to just wither and die on the vine; instead it left a vacuum of truth that was filled with various levels of bullshit.
I don't really know what "bring the fight to them on your own ground" would mean in this context, but the reality is that liberals have tried to avoid the culture-war battlefields chosen by conservatives and it's gotten them nowhere. At some point you've got to go onto the enemy's ground, stand toe to toe with them, and explain right out in the open why they're full of shit. It's not perfect, but just politely refusing to debate on ground the enemy has staked out doesn't work.
Ddseddse
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Yes, we're definitely on the same side here. And I think this as a great and worthwhile conservation to have.
I would say that I'm not the one refusing to debate.
A debate has rules, one of which is that both parties have to agree to the existence and validity of "truth". If one party denies the existence of objective truth, then you aren't actually participating in a debate (and it's my belief that it's a grave mistake to believe you are).
Under those conditions there is no other possible outcome other than a both-sides draw, which is precisely a win for them. Having achieved a both sides draw in the moment, they just stake out a position further to to the right and repeat the process from the new starting point they gained in the last round.
To refuse to engage with them in these mock "debates" is to deny them the opportunity of using the both sides draw tactic to continually move the goal posts.
Again, all of this is just my own personal opinion.
I would say that I'm not the one refusing to debate.
A debate has rules, one of which is that both parties have to agree to the existence and validity of "truth". If one party denies the existence of objective truth, then you aren't actually participating in a debate (and it's my belief that it's a grave mistake to believe you are).
Under those conditions there is no other possible outcome other than a both-sides draw, which is precisely a win for them. Having achieved a both sides draw in the moment, they just stake out a position further to to the right and repeat the process from the new starting point they gained in the last round.
To refuse to engage with them in these mock "debates" is to deny them the opportunity of using the both sides draw tactic to continually move the goal posts.
Again, all of this is just my own personal opinion.
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I get all that. But the problem is that the other side won't admit they're denying the existence of objective truth. And the people who side with them don't believe they're denying objective truth. You can't shortcut an explanation of why something isn't true by just saying "that's not true." It's not rhetorically or persuasively effective. It may make you feel good and convince you that you've staked out the moral high ground. But to other people - especially people who aren't intelligent or well-schooled enough to understand the principles of logic and/or rhetoric and/or the scientific method, which is a LOT of people - it just seems like a cop-out; or even worse, that you're implicitly acknowledging that the other side is right by refusing to debate on the merits.
I entirely agree and understand that this can sometimes feel like a lose-lose proposition. But I am more convinced than I was five years ago that in our modern information ecosystem, principled abstention from debate (and/or attempting to exclude bad-faith actors from debate fora) because the other side won't be honest does nothing except cede the microphone to the other side. You are waiting for a "fair fight" that isn't going to come. So the choice is either to meet and beat the other side on their terms, fair or not, or to simply sit back and let them run rampant. The former choice is not pleasant, but IMO it is clearly preferable to the latter.
mynameisbond
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Same.