Monday, June 24, 2019

Rugby culture wars

I'm pretty amused at the Right wing culture war outrage about GoFundMe deciding after a few days that it doesn't want to be the conduit for wingnutty people with too much money to fund the legal fees for a guy who has been earning millions for running around a football field.

They now want Folau to sue GoFundMe! 

As with donations to the IPA, this latest story is another example of how wingnutty people are very easily parted from their money.   They don't care how much money the donee may already have, if they think they are getting to be part of a great and glorious culture war it's a case of "shut up and take my money".   

Update:  here's Mark Latham getting uptight -


This from the man who was wandering around Western Sydney with a microphone in 2017 fretting about Muslim views on hitting women, Sharia law and wearing the burqa.    




72 comments:

Jason Soon said...

woke capital needs to be destroyed. I hope Bernie is the next US president

Not Trampis said...

This decision was a disgrace.
A man is sacked for paraphrasing a biblical verse and wants to gain funds to fight right up to the high court ans now is denied this.

I think Gofundme should be sued.

Steve said...

Getting your donation back from GoFundMe, hey Jason?

Look, I have trouble with the brevity of your comments and tweets telling how serious you are on this woke capital nonsense. 90% of complaints about it are just from sore losers in the culture wars.

Or does that CIS bloke who is doing talks about what a danger it is actually have some economic evidence of the harm it's doing (apart from to the bank balances of the occasional millionaire rugby player.)

Steve said...

Et tu, Homer.

Truth be told, I haven't read much about what was or wasn't in his contract, and how the decision was made against him. It's possible he has a good legal case - just one that it's pretty obvious he can afford to fund himself. (Not to mention the ridiculousness of the amount he was seeking.)

Not Trampis said...

The amount was clearly aimed at taking it to the high court if needed.

what rugby Australia has to do with whom enters heaven or hell is a mystery.
how a man can be sacked for [paraphrasing biblical verses is also a mystery. Folau certainly has never done anything against their inclusive [policy indeed quite the opposite.

much as I would like to see an organisation made bankrupt through their persecution of christians it will unfortunately not occur in this instance

John said...

woke capital needs to be destroyed. I hope Bernie is the next US president

Is Jason on meds? Bernie?

The Folau issue has become absurd. There was no hate speech, if anything what he stated is that God hates ... . So God is guilty of hate speech therefore the Bible must be banned. You heard it here first folks, soon the Bible will go underground.

Jason Soon said...

John
As Lenin once said, the capitalists are happy to sell you the rope to hang them.

Corporate America (and Australia) is simply contemptible nowadays, insinuating themselves into every little thing that doesn't concern them. They need a massive shake up. This is China's social credit system by stealth, dictated by lunatics who believe in 47 genders and all that stuff. Let someone from the Old Left destroy these new robber barons

John said...

Let someone from the Old Left destroy these new robber barons

Jason I sympathise with your concerns. Perhaps Bernie can do as you wish but I'm not particularly confident about that. My previous comment was to illustrate that we are in very troubling waters and pc has gone mad.

Not Trampis said...

This is the start John,

no-one but no-one can say that anyone is not allowed into Heaven and most certainly not God.

I have no doubt certain people will want the bible banned because of hate speech.

Jason Soon said...

Yep Christians are bound to be unpersoned soon under this new world order. Surprised steve isn't that concerned but he obviously was never a serious Christian

Steve said...

What a silly bit of libertarian moral panic you're engaging in, Jason.

You used to think the market could deal with this, as people are free to set up their alternatives to Google, Twitter, Facebook, Qantas, Rugby Australia, that will let users be as obnoxious as they want. In fact, there are (usually American) attempts to do this - Jordan Peterson was just promoting one new online forum, and isn't there a wingnut alternative to Twitter? They can even go eat at fast food outlets that they know have conservative ownership.

Now you want freedom through regulation, or smashing the whole sandbox, or something.

Get a grip.


Steve said...

Jason, the number of Catholics in the ranks who think all gays are destined for hell these days is pretty low.

And if they do believe it, most can manage if they work in a high profile job, to not post their private views about it on instagram.

Steve said...

I should have said post-libertarian moral panic, because as I noted, your attitude is anything but libertarian, or free market.

GMB said...

Who is the anti-Christian troglodyte who runs this blog? Now the money power is censoring everyone they don’t like, through their puppets at paypal, youtube, google, twitter, facebook and others; Who is it suggesting this is okay for Australians to be subject too this serf-like behaviour? We should identify the house-niggers whenever we see them.

Steve said...

I feel the urge to further clarify - I've made it clear over the years that I am no supporter of libertarianism, as I believe in governments for the common good, and despise the role of prominent libertarians in preventing political unity and earlier action to limit climate change.

But what annoys me about your "post libertarian-ism" is that it's pretty much based on culture war trivia - that you don't like it when corporations take views or actions on social or cultural issues in a way you don't like. (Or even worse, if you think its wrong for some capital to move away from supporting fossil fuels mining.)

Here's the thing: some corporate "woke" actions are going to be worthy responses to Right wing policies, some aren't. You have a problem with a movie studio saying, for example, that they aren't going to rush to film in a Southern US state that is implementing a pre Roe v Wade anti abortion regime? Because you don't think it's the place of a studio to interfere in local policy? Well tough luck, I reckon - I think its not good to ban abortion even though I don't like abortion myself, and if a company moves politicians to be more reasonable on a matter like that, fair enough.

Some companies will go overboard in the gay and transgender support actions - if they go far enough, the public is free to punish them. And conservatives do support some companies for their conservative attitudes - that Chik Fil Et (?) company in America is doing fine, I have read, despite liberals hating its conservative owners. Does this upset me? No. Why should it?

So here we are - because you have become so concerned about the culture wars, I'm the one supporting letting the market sorting culture war issues out, and you're the one throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

It's ridiculous.

GMB said...
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Not Trampis said...

Steve, Catholics do not read the bible that is why they are Catholics.
EVERYONE is destined to hell unless they repent.

homosexuals indulging is an 'active' lifestyle are in no different position to heterosexuals who do so out of marriage.
Then of course there is all that other stuff like lying, getting drunk etc without repenting which affects everyone.

GMB said...

Right but the bible itself is a product of the church Homer. It was a work-in-progress for a very long time. Intellectual development within the Catholic heritage is built up by a mixture of Athenian reason, but on top of various articles of faith that are likely bullshit. But still I respect the methodology since you have to have some sort of starting point. Therefore on the basis above, the concept of purgatory, more just than the concept of Hell alone, is just as valid as anything else and more just.

The Catholics think that on the basis of reasoning on top of a few fundamentals .... that they have now a better understanding of God and Gods nature than even the 2nd century Christians had. Why place every last thing on a single book? One written in Greek? Or in English as King James devotees would have it? People who believe in this stuff don't even suggest that Jesus spoke either Greek or King James English as his first tongue?

So this emphasis on the bible can be overdone. The good thing about the Catholic tradition is that its locked in inextricably with Hellenism. Those Classical Greeks were recently out of a eugenics inspiring dark ages. They got by on excellent fats like olive oil, fish oil, and raw milk. So they were smarter than everyone else. Its a great thing that Catholicism is Hellenistic. That German fellow wanted it to be all about a book and faith alone. But faith alone cannot serve a potentially rational animal like the homo sapien.

GMB said...

Very easy to be poopy-pants about what Mark Latham is saying here. But I think some sober reflection will find him word-perfect correct. Once upon of time it was governments we needed to worry about when it came to censorship. But now it is pretty clear that this mind control function has been privatised and corporatised ....... and in retrospect probably always was.

So the Randian view of free speech being purely connected to property rights, cannot now be sustained. If we knew now what we didn't know then, this Randian view was probably never correct, even when she put it forth.

Mayan said...

Let's not forget that all of this is a matter of the terms of various contracts, the sanctity of which members of groups such as the IPA and CIS claim to hold dear.

Folau had a contract with Rugby Australia, and it is claimed he broke the terms of that contract.

Folau had a contract with GoFundMe, and again it appears he broke the terms of that contract.

None of this in any way restricts Folau's ability to practise any faith he cares to follow. No government has compelled or prevented religious practise in this affair.

GMB said...

No we cannot take that point of view any more Mayan. For reasons stated above and also for the following;....... Corporations are no longer profit maximisers as suggested in the free enterprise models for which the libertarian ethics is based upon. That is to say the voluntarist ethics are based upon.

Corporations now exist to pursue the interest rate subsidy, which is part of the value loot that the fractional reserve system produces. So they are moochers only making a a profit margin allowing them to gain hold of the lower interest loanable funds. Once inflation and the tax rate are taken into account we find them with a subsidy. So we cannot allow the same view of free speech as we did before. We either get financial reform and slow levelling policy over many decades. Or we start beating these corporations up when they start censoring us.

In the interim we have to do both if we don't want to (continue to) be slaves. No ethics that leaves to universal serfdom can ever be thought to be valid. In the current context thats where this contractual view is pushing us.

Not Trampis said...

Mayan,
He did not break either

Steve said...

I see on news.com.au that a few groups are looking at alternative ways people can donate, and I have little doubt that one will be available tomorrow.

Culture warriors will then get to feel even greater self satisfaction by depriving themselves of even more money because that will really show GoFundMe. (Lots of folk at Catallaxy are saying they'll give even more now, as soon as they know how to do it.) They're that silly.

The GoFundMe aspect is therefore all going to end up being a storm in a tea cup: it won't detract from the fact that Right wing culture warriors have more money than sense, when financially supporting a rich dude in his employment contract litigation.

GMB said...
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Steve said...

Graeme, I assume that's you. How did I have the misfortune for you to find this blog?

GMB said...

I occasionally search my own name on google. This time I used Professor Quiggin in the search. I have a good vibe about the Professor at the moment. I had misjudged him overall. I wasn't being fair and balanced. I've still got bad things about him on my old blog that I am no longer able to get rid of. He had to kick me off his blog not long ago. It wasn't his fault it was mine. I got triggered.

Which Steve are you? Are you the Steve that once described me as Australias leading libertarian? Ha ha. If so that would have been about 2006. Since then I've gone sour on the libertarians. Bad company Steve. Bad company. How do I keep up with the new comments on your blog?

GMB said...
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Not Trampis said...

Sarah Hanson Young is allowed to crowd fund her legal defence against the bald bloke but not Israel.

Rank hypocrisy

Steve said...

Speaking of hypocrisy, you presumably think the non religious gay customer has to respect the right of a Christian baker to decline to take their money to make a gay wedding cake; but you have a problem with the non religious gay business owner saying to a Christian customer "sorry, I don't take money from people who publicise their belief that me and my partner are inherently evil and doomed to Hell".

In neither case is the refusal to take money depriving the customer of a service they can't find elsewhere.

Steve said...

And actually, I am not agreeing that GoFundMe was being hypocritical. Not that I would fund SHY personally, even though I hope she wins!

Not Trampis said...

You presume wrong Steve.

If the person is a christian baker he/she should have up a sign saying he ONLY sells to christians. ( such a person would go out of business very quickly). If he/she is a baker who is a christian he/she sells to whomever wants to buy their goods.

Not Trampis said...

so your argument is people take offence at being told they are going to a place they do not believe in?

That is Trumpian in its logic

Steve said...

Their concern is more legitimately that it encourages others to treat them differently (because of the perception that they are unrepentant sinners.)

Your position re the cake is not too dissimilar from what GoFundMe says anyway in its terms of use. I think the registration to set up a fund is pretty much instantaneous, and they don't have staff immediately review the cause and give it a tick or cross. But if they decide not to let a cause be supported via them if goes against their principles, I have a hard time faulting them.

Not Trampis said...

Steve,
gofunfd me says the fine print says you cannot use funds for private legal work BUT that is exactly what Sarah Hanson young is doing.

Rank Hypocrites.

What go fund me is saying you can only fund issues we agree with in practice.

Practice has shown it will take days until they find out 'undesirables' and they will only acr after occur certain organisations and people make a big noise and of course lie about what the issues are as the Folau has shown.

good to see you are not a christian however.

Steve said...

Homer, you have always been completely dismissive of Catholics, so I have always ignored your views on christianity anyway.

Not Trampis said...

tell me what Folau has done wrong then

Steve said...

He hasn't done anything wrong in a moral sense. In a contractual sense, though, from what I can make out, he's annoyed his employer and one of its rich sponsors who is prominently gay and against gay discrimination and runs a business that employs lots of gay men. The employer had told him before his current contract that his talking on social media about homosexuality and its inherent evil was a problem for them, as they like to have an inclusive image and, you know, one of the sponsors that keeps the whole thing going gets annoyed by this. He signed a new contract anyway, then put up posts on his social media about the inherent evil of being homosexual.

Argument started over whether this is technically something they can sack him for; they think it is. He thinks it isn't. Off to court they go.

They can go have their argument in court.

If he wins, RA will presumably tighten up the wording in their contracts. If he loses, the contract is wide enough as it is.

I have no problem with businesses telling high profile employees that their religious views expressed on social media are to be kept within certain bounds for the sake of the general image of the business - and in truth, you and Jason and John probably agree too. Unless you think it's fine for (say) a Muslim sportsman to insist that Brunei did the right thing to recently allow for gays to be stoned to death as as sincere part of the Muslim faith, and they wished the same could happen here.




Not Trampis said...

mate,
you are saying whatever a person says outside work is part of work.
Folau never said anything about rugby's inclusive nature.

All he did was paraphrase a bible verse.

People avoided adultery, fornication, drunkenness, lying and only concentrated on acts of homosexuality.

The 'tolerant' are very intolerant

Jason Soon said...

If I'm not mistaken Gofundme was also recently used by those 2 leeches to get people to pay for their overseas holidays. It didn't seem they were very transparent or fussed about what their platform could be used for until now

Jason Soon said...

why the hell haven't they cancelled these 2 leeches? http://www.traveller.com.au/begpacking-entitled-travellers-are-now-asking-people-to-pay-for-their-holidays-on-gofundme-h1fnav

Steve said...

Lots of people at Catallaxy are saying they will never fund anything at GoFundMe again because of this. That's fine too. Probably won't make any difference to GFM in the long run, but they took a commercial risk of alienating some people this way, and decided to take it.

What's the problem with that?

People can go set up their non discriminatory for any reason funding facilitation alternative. Nothing stopping them.

And at the end of the day, a rich guy is getting his litigation paid for by culture warriors with more money than sense.

Yeah, big crisis here...




John said...

why the hell haven't they cancelled these 2 leeches? http://www.traveller.com.au/begpacking-entitled-travellers-are-now-asking-people-to-pay-for-their-holidays-on-gofundme-h1fnav

The hypocrisy would be remarkable but for the fact that Joyce complained about Folau yet Qantas makes a fortune in countries where homosexuals can be subject to execution.

Corporations are caving into political correctness and readily engage in hypocritical responses.

Why are the LGBTi so easily offended? What about my being offended at the parade of hypocrisy that so permeates many modern corporations so desperately trying to appear woke?

Not Trampis said...

Hey Steve, this could well be your thread of doom

GMB said...

Contractual obligations. So that brings us straight back to the Ayn Rand version of free speech rights which were soundly refuted upthread.

GMB said...
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Steve said...

Not likely Homer - people aren't actually engaging with what I argue, just going on about how much political correctness annoys them, and wishing they could tell companies how to operate.

Not Trampis said...

Steve you have never read or participated in a thread of doom.😂

Mayan said...

All of this is ironic given that rugby has to be the world's most homoerotic sport, with the possible exception of wrestling.

GMB said...
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Steve said...

Graeme, you're not welcome here. I don't think there is an easy way to blanket ban you, but it takes but a click of my mouse to delete your comments.

Isn't 4chan more your style?

GMB said...

Are you a Jew? You see I think its YOU that is not welcome here. Thats what I think.

GMB said...

You are still pushing the global warming fraud, and you are arguing for a clampdown on the free speech of Australians. Now you would hardly be doing these things were you not a Jew. You don't belong here Steve. You don't belong here and you are not welcome here.

TimT said...

Steve is not welcome on his own blog?

I'm sure he'll give himself a stern talking to.

GMB said...

If he's a Jew trying to blackball Christians and Australians he's not welcome in Australia let alone his own blog. Not only ought he give himself a stern dressing down he should leave and go to his own miserable little country where he will be welcome. He could leave quickly as these people always sleep with a packed suitcase under their bed.

Now you tell me something. Can you explain Steve's motivation for continuing with the global warming fraud? Can you find a motive for him to want to blackball the rugby player? What is the motive here? Can you think of one? And his reversal was total. He failed to engage my arguments and then pretended it was the other way around. Thats completely offensive.

Sinclair Davidson said...

Thread of doom.

GMB said...

You never learned any economics from those threads of doom. You are still as ignorant as you ever were. Hey Sinclair. Tell everyone how you can run trade surpluses without tariffs. Thats a poser that always stumped you and lead to more Jew censorship.

GMB said...

Why is unemployment and underemployment so high in 2019 as opposed to 1959 Sinclair? How do we get full employment? How do we become a manufacturing super-power country Sinclair.... You see you are worse than useless. You cannot answer the questions, you cannot sing, you cannot dance. What are you good for?

Between the two of you synagogue buddies you would have us de-industrialised, placed under serfdom, and no right to defend ourselves verbally. Everyone worried about losing his job because he might hurt the feelings of inbred troglodytes, hiding behind Gays and Muslims.

Steve said...

Synagogue buddies! Oy vey, you've worked us out, Graeme.

GMB said...

Right. I have. Now in 1974 unemployment went up disastrously in Australia, and about that time pretty much all over the world and never recovered. There are reasons for that, and the people who the taxpayer pays to tell us what the reasons are, these people are called economists. But instead of doing that Sinclair blackballs the people who have the answers just like you Steve are trying to blackball one of our best rugby players.

These are not the actions of people who are friendly with their fellow Australians. Thats 45 years of pain and hurt in the Australian economy from high unemployment. And now when everyone who actually works productively fears unemployment you Steve step up to the plate to blackball a Rugby player just because you want the gays to be your human shields. Because its not about sticking up for gays. Its about not be able to criticise the Kosher Nostra.

GMB said...
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Anonymous said...

Bird

Just stop it with the Jewish stuff, you fat bald idiot. Leave it alone.

Anonymous said...

Here’s your problem with your theory, stepford. You’ve often advocated against the bake shop owner who refuses to bake a cake for gay weddings. You’ve spoken about them in belittling terms. Score one for hypocrisy.

Tech firms cannot be sued for carrying legally doubtful posts or articles on their site. They are protected by law.

Not Trampis said...

Hey Birdy,
I served on the Jury a few times do I get a guernsey?

Steve said...

Actually, JC, I don't recall talking about the cake shop cases at any length. Have even searched the blog to find any posts about it, but haven't found any.

Has always seemed like a storm in a tea cup to me, especially if there's another baker in town.

GMB said...

Ridiculous. You wouldn't encourage these people to go to another bakery or look for another cake. When you have a developmental disorder the idea is to work on a cure. That way you can meet a girl, have kids and live a decent family life. All developmental disorders get in the way of family fulfilment. See how the oligarchy is trying to ruin the life of everyone they don't actually slaughter.

GMB said...

Check out the Hate-Funds that the GoFundMe weasels are allowing at the moment. What a spineless bunch of hypocritical insects they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWbtpb4cRdQ

Steve said...

"That way you can meet a girl, have kids and live a decent family life. All developmental disorders get in the way of family fulfilment."

Graeme, another way to have a decent family life and family fulfilment is not to wall yourself into a lurid fantasy world of anti Jewish and other conspiracy. Your family life hasn't been hurt by your intense nuttiness?

GMB said...

That would be fantastic. So when are you going to get together with your inbred troglodtye mates and decide to stop murdering the rest of us? When are the false flags terrorist attacks going to stop? When are the holiday celebrations depicting the mass murder of innocent gentiles going to be cancelled? When are you going to end this science mafia where people are compelled to believe complete bullshit ..... such as that gravity is NOT a force but "space bending."

Yes we could all live a happy life if you guys stopped your centuries long bad habits.

Steve said...

Hey Graeme, I'll leave that comment up, so that readers fully understand your ridiculousness and why so many of your comments have to be deleted. (This one should too - and probably will be soon once Jason has seen it.)

In an attempt, no doubt futile, to at least get you to reconsider the matter of Einstein and his wildly experimental successful theories, I suggest you read this article at Quanta that I thought gave a good and relatively (ha, a bit of a pun) account of how he make his conceptual breakthroughs:

"Lurking behind Einstein’s theory of gravity and our modern understanding of particle physics is the deceptively simple idea of symmetry."

Link: https://www.quantamagazine.org/einstein-symmetry-and-the-future-of-physics-20190626/

Steve said...

Here, I'll throw more meat into your cage: I was just reading a study about Jewish conspiracy belief amongst the Malays of Malaysia. The abstract:

Two studies examined correlates of belief in a Jewish conspiracy theory among Malays in Malaysia, a culture in which state-directed conspiracism as a means of dealing with perceived external and internal threats is widespread. In Study 1, 368 participants from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, completed a novel measure of belief in a Jewish conspiracy theory, along with measures of general conspiracist ideation, and anomie. Initial analysis showed that the novel scale factorially reduced to a single dimension. Further analysis showed that belief in the Jewish conspiracy theory was only significantly associated with general conspiracist ideation, but the strength of the association was weak. In Study 2, 314 participants completed the measure of belief in the Jewish conspiracy theory, along with measures of general conspiracist ideation, and ideological attitudes. Results showed that belief in the Jewish conspiracy theory was associated with anti-Israeli attitudes, modern racism directed at the Chinese, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation. General conspiracist ideation did not emerge as a significant predictor once other variables had been accounted for. These results suggest that there may be specific cultural and social psychological forces that drive belief in the Jewish conspiracy theory within the Malaysian context. Specifically, belief in the Jewish conspiracy theory among Malaysian Malays appears to serve ideological needs and as a mask for anti-Chinese sentiment, which may in turn reaffirm their perceived ability to shape socio-political processes.

Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3412387/

So does your Jewish conspiracy ideation mask, Graeme? Perhaps Jason can theorise on this too, as his family does come from Malaysia - which no doubt you can work into some grander, specific nutball theory.

GMB said...

Sweet Moses fella. No wonder you were caught out by the global warming racket. You have no capacity to filter out a good study from complete crap. A conspiracy is when three or more people are able to co-operate for generally wicked ends. Apart from alleged natural disasters, evil outcomes are usually perpetrated by wicked people in concert. For the most part they have to keep a great deal of their thinking and actions covert. It therefore follows that the world turns on conspiracy.

The Jews are a poorly defined group and it may be that they are defined in practice by three constraints ... 1. Rejection of Christ and the Athenian conception of Logos 2. Anti-Judaism 3. As hirelings of oligarchical families for the purpose of covert evil.

GMB said...

"In an attempt, no doubt futile, to at least get you to reconsider the matter of Einstein and his wildly experimental successful theories...."

They are not even successful a little bit. Show me the data where it was proved that gravity is space bending? Think about your butt right now. There is no space between your behind and your chair to bend. Yet you still feel the force of gravity. So the theory is refuted right there. Yet the oppressive psy-op abuses us from childhood every day. What an incredible menace this oligarchy is when they subject you to that level of brainwashing.