The guy who was assaulted, a popular youtuber about Magic: the Gathering with anti-SJW views, reported the incident to the police and to Gencon. But Gencon refused to expel Loter, and in fact went on to promote his products on their social media, as if to REWARD him for his act of political violence. Because Gencon is clearly under the control of people like Loter, of psychotic little totalitarians who despise notions like freedom of speech and think that silencing your enemies by any means, including violence, is justifiable.
Two or three decades ago, it wouldn't even have been necessary to explain why this is a terrible idea. No one was openly praising the concept of political violence. But all over geek social media now, we have all kinds of people... you know, morons... defending Loter's actions.
So I guess I have to explain to some of you reading this why Political Violence against those who have differing ideas, no matter how bad you think those ideas are, or how hurt you think they make you feel or may theoretically make other people you want to convince yourself you care about feel, is a terrible, terrible idea.
If you punch someone for what they have said or believe, or what you believe they believe, then very simply put you are endorsing the higher concept of Political Violence, that it is acceptable to engage in violence against another person for having different ideas than you.
As soon as you do that, you open the door to civil wars, gulags, and death camps.
Western Liberal-Enlightenment Values work, and are the only thing that really works to create a prosperous and functional society that truly moves beyond barbarism. It was adopted and clung to in the West for 300+ years because of the alternatives, and every generation or two there was some horrible war or atrocity to remind us of the alternative.
It works because you recognize the inherent Rights of Man that everyone equally has a right to their own speech and conscience, as a kind of treaty against mutually-assured destruction. We have to recognize EVERYONE'S freedom of speech and conscience, because as soon as you claim that your brute force/power can be used to violently silence someone who disagrees with you, you are forfeiting your only argument against someone else more powerful than you using their brute force to silence YOU.
The problem is today we have a generation of lazy self-absorbed little megalomaniacs who were raised in the greatest of cotton-wool swaddling and have never known any real existential fear of anything (and, as a result, are horrified by all kinds of idiotically petty things). They are possibly the softest, weakest, most decadent, most narcissistic generation in human history, and have decided that the Western Enlightenment values are stupid because it stops them from being able to silence people who make them feel offended. They have no idea what doing this will cause, and hilariously don't realize just how pathetically, absurdly weak they are as people and how badly they will end up being the biggest losers when their incessant demand to legitimize political violence brings about a real response.
RPGPundit
Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Egg + Country Doctor
Amen!
ReplyDeleteSo mote it be.
ReplyDeleteNot my Gencon. I started attending at Gencon #2 and was Chairman for #8 and #9. Peter Adkinson needs to condemn this OUTRIGHT. Has Gencon issued any official response to this "incident"?
ReplyDeleteTheir only "response" was to help promote the attacker's products.
DeleteOh, and to ban anyone who discussed it on their social media.
DeleteAs I said in my own post on the subject, the need to literally strike out at people who disagree with you is infantile, in a very literal sense.
ReplyDeleteI'm against punching people over ideological disputes.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, is there any actual evidence against the alleged attacker besides one guy's say-so? Expelling him without any proof, over something that didn't happen on convention grounds, would be asking for trouble. Promoting his stuff does seem kind of odd with the hoopla still going on, but maybe they're contractually obligated or something.
Yes, there is evidence. The attack happened in the middle of a crowded bar. There were at least 5 eyewitnesses who saw everything.
DeleteI watched both YouTube videos originally posted by the Quartering shortly after the incident. In the first one posted, he had no idea who punched him, nor in the second one posted some hours later back at his hotel room. He could only identify a guy in a “dark top” with a GenCon badge, and some mention of a rainbow (his description). And, in the first video he posted, the witnesses who speak in his video only confirm he was punched, they don’t identify anyone. His initial description could describe, oh, maybe 30,000 men in Indy at the time. Nowhere was it ever explained how he went from that vague description to singling out Matt Loter. Now, those two videos appear to have been removed from YouTube, and all I see are a bunch of videos giving second-hand reports of the incident (and generally not citing any evidence to support the claims made), plus the Quartering’s new “official response,” where he has gone from victim-card waving and claims of how the police allegedly “didn’t care,” to speaking about how the accused deserves his “due process,” and how he understands why he has not been arrested. This seems like quite a 180-degree turn from the original videos that stirred up the Quartering’s fans and incited a bunch of wild accusation making and angry tweeting—even directed at the Mayor of Indianapolis (as if he had anything to do with some drunk jerk punching a guy at a bar). It almost seems to me that perhaps he already used the $13,000+ raised for his GoFundMe legal campaign to retain an attorney who quickly advised him that perhaps he better rein in his accusations just in case they turn out to be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI've seen the overwhelming evidence. Matt Loter even admitted it on social media! The Quartering is trying to do it right, despite difficult circumstances.
Delete
DeleteThen please post this “overwhelming evidence.” Also, Matt Loter made all his social media accounts private. I am not supporting anyone being punched, but I have not seen any “overwhelming evidence.” I have just read accusations and people making unsubstantiated claims on Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, etc. Also, I accurately described the first two YouTube videos the Quartering himself posted shortly after the incident—in both videos the assailant was not identified and other than a vague description that could have matched thousands of individuals, no identifying information was given.
If there is “overwhelming evidence” it should be pretty easy to post it and give a clear story of how it connects to Matt Loter.
I do not know, nor do I care about the politics of either individual involved, but if I am supposed to care about the incident, I need more to go on than hysterical claims posted by people on social media.
He pretty much admitted to it on FB. Screens are out there
DeleteNo, he did not. Not in the alleged Loter FB post that the Quartering showed a screen shot of in his latest YouTube video. (And, again WHY did the Quartering remove from YouTube his earlier videos describing the alleged assault??). In the FB post the Quartering showed, Loter actually DENIES he is the assailant.
DeleteThere's always a dirtbag like Septly who pretends he is seeking evidence but in fact any evidence you provide will be rejected as circumstantial, fake, unconvincing, etc. There's no point even engaging clowns like him.
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DeleteMatt, my name is Chris, and you are welcome to provide this “dirtbag” evidence if you have it, or you can ignore me. But, honey, posting a bitter and completely unsubstantiated comment isn’t choosing not to engage me, rather it’s just engaging me in a passive aggressive manner. You obviously want me to read your remark and respond. Fair enough, just be honest about your intentions.
DeleteNow, if you want to be an adult and post an actual link to some real “evidence,” I’m glad to review it. But, calling me a “clown,” because I truthfully point out that a supppsed piece of “evidence” says the exact opposite of what someone claims it states, only makes you look like the clown. So, Matt, stop being angry, and just communicate in an adult fashion—it’s not a game, we aren’t on a “reality tv” show giving a performance. No, it’s a discussion forum, and if you have something to discuss, you can do it in a manner that rises above “I’m right because I say I am.”
Will you still refuse to believe Loter assaulted quartering when he gets charged for the crime?
DeleteMore importantly, are you willing to say right now that if Loter did do this assault on Jeremy, and it was the way he described it, then this kind of assault is wrong?
The alleged assailant also claims to have punched a guy at GenCon 2014, which is enough 'evidence' for me to see him banned from conventions regardless of anything else.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/Y_Mkl_sbCZI
But before we continue I need to know: Do you believe the same standards of evidence should apply to _women_, both as perpetrators and victims?
Because Zak S, Bill Webb, Matthew McFarland, C.A. Suleiman, and Sean Patrick Fannon were all condemned solely through witness testimony without physical evidence and have been _and continue to be_ banned from sites/events/jobs because of it. And all the arguments you used to dismiss Jeremy here are identical to the ones people on rpg.net consider misogynistic when applied to women.
In the meantime despite video evidence to the contrary, both VidCon and Anita continue to gaslight us about what occurred there.
https://youtu.be/lm1icNJGxHQ
And given Matt Loter's #Tweet she was definitely a catalyst for this attack. So at the very least she needs to denounce his actions, because by their rules not doing so is equivalent to endorsing them.
http://archive.fo/rOhJL
So either physical evidence should be required in all situations of this nature, or witness testimony is enough and Jeremy's case is just as valid as anyone else's. Which is it?
Seriously, you can't edit these?
DeleteApparently it was GenCon 2004, not 2014.
Actually, Septly, I was talking about you, not to you, as I noted you are not worth engaging because you are disingenuous. The proof that you are a dirtbag is right there in your comments each and every time. Perhaps your cute response to me works in your echo chamber social circle, but I deal with actual adults, not childish provocateurs. Kids like you should be seen and not heard. Have a nice day in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Delete"because as soon as you claim that your brute force/power can be used to violently silence someone who disagrees with you, you are forfeiting your only argument against someone else more powerful than you using their brute force to silence YOU."
ReplyDeleteThis is true, BUT it is not really the American Right-Liberals (inc Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys, EDL, whatever), or the tiny Fascist Alt-Right, that the SJWs really ought to fear. Nor is it the Islamists, at least in the USA. It is their own fellow Che Guevara fan Lefties, who given the chance will happily exterminate counter-revolutionary elements, wreckers, Nazis, etc etc - certainly including fellow SJW factions.
The socjus Left believe in their boot stamping on a human face forever - but history shows that it's usually a socjus face being stomped by that socjus boot.
yes, absolutely. This has been a facet of the Left any time that political violence was considered justified, since at least the time of the French Revolution.
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ReplyDeleteAmen.
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, in line with "Russians don't start wars, but they end them" joke, sometimes I wish someone like that target me, but (un)fortunately there are no SJWs in my country, and those few there are are not aggressive enough to try something like that. I sure would enjoy getting physical with people like that.