I don't post here much but I do read it often. I'm glad that it's a bit more freewheeling even if it does tend to degenerate into these kinds of conversations.
I am fully okay with being a bigot against bigots. As said earlier, "I only discriminate against assholes."
It's not hard.
Hating Nazis is different from hating Jews. The people involved change the context
Pretty sure that's what they say that TBP right before you're found to be 'not a good fit for the forum.' Blazing Saddles, or your Superman takes on the Klan reference later, is a better way to handle it rather than shutting down speech.
Too often it's from people who don't apparently live in the real world where people have to deal with real people who will kill you if you piss them off or are the wrong skin color/gay.
Does that include getting my ass stomped and threatened with worse if I came back for being white at the wrong mall? 'Cause that's a rude awakening, let me tell you. It's usually explained to me by people as "that's different". I believe this is bullshit from both sides, not just 'neo nazis'.
When I see 'nazi' thrown around it just reminds me of what Orwell wrote about the term fascist. It's just as true now as then:
It will be seen that, as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
It literally means anything I don't like. This entire conversation is fascist. DeadDMWalking's letter was fascist. Humidity? That's definitely fascist. To keep it RPG related, D&D3.x is fascist.
FWIW most people here seem open to conversation. I appreciate -most- of the folks who lean more left who post here as mostly trying to be open minded and balanced in their discussion. The folks who lean right tend to be same. Everyone is called out on their bullshit and people move on.
Regarding the letter that started all this, I get that he's saying if people here are called out for "the idea that maybe they don't do enough to make gaming fun for as wide an audience as possible" people get upset. Yeah. People tend to get pissed at being accused of things that aren't true. There's a big hate here for story games, certainly, but I haven't seen anyone here advocate confiscation. Outside of that I'm curious as to what he means. Maybe it's the obtuse bullshit being discussed in another thread.
"I think they tend to forget that there are real people who'd love to sling dice but have real obstacles that they might not be able to overcome on their own." Like what? Like not having a local game store? Like just wanting to
indulge my hateful fantasies against [insert current oppressed group here] culture* and stomp some fucking orcs without being judged for it? Seriously tho, outside of 'he means SJW crap' what does that even mean?
TL/DR: Free speech is great. Silencing speech you don't like is bad.
*not actual reality. Your opinion may vary.