• In Name of Free Speech, States Crack Down on Campus Protests
    45 replies, posted
Some sort of action is unfortunately necessary. As our social issues become more profound, the political dialogue is increasingly about fundamental values and divisions, and it wouldn't be significant if it wasn't offending someone, somewhere. It's not supposed to be easy, and the biggest issue is people having this idea they have a right to their sensibilities being respected or able to use definition creep to erode negative liberty and pluralism, placing previously acceptable behavior and ideas outside the norm so as to justify harassment, assault, and disrupting spaces for dialogue. As our society has become more integrated and visible, yet dumbed down and tribalistic, we see this disastrous tendency of people lobbying platforms to act a certain way on the basis of social responsibility, which is just an abuse of the more centralized nature of today's institutions. Pluralism of values is not something easily maintained, it's based on a careful balance, and it should not be a casualty of people whose ideas do not stand up to scrutiny of debate and believe in aggressive direct action to make up for it. Democracies have long seen battles between the left and right that spill over excesses that hurt civil society, and it's always been a fine line of permitting the debate that advances discussion and protecting the liberties of everyone involved. This means something forbidding Spencer from speaking, but not Milo, Coulter, Shapiro, Rubin, and others invited by normal College Republican groups while at the same time keeping an eye on so-called 'anti-fascist' left-wing radicals who manipulate language to their own power-gaming ends.
I think this is why trump started VOICE, to highlight some of the worst cases and making the circumstances of undocumented migrants seem worse than they are.
I had a script that turned tudd into VOICE (avatar and username) back on oldpunch. It was very thematic.
I thought sticking 2nd amendment arguments where they don’t belong was supposed to be my thing? Well since you’re bringing it up, no that statement is beyond ignorant. Here’s why: The Supreme Court rulings over time have maintained that no right is absolute. This includes both the first and the second amendments. Restrictions can be placed upon these rights if they are used in a way which infringes upon the rights of anybody else. For example: In some cases, the right to assemble or protest is restricted by requiring a permit (which IMO defeats the whole purpose of the right to assemble under the first amendment). If an assembly or protest causes an immediate threat or great public disturbance (such as rioting), then it is not covered under free speech. Making threats or inciting violence is not covered under the first amendment because it infringes upon the rights of others and threatens public safety. The press and media are not protected under the first amendment for publishing libel or slander. You cannot yell “fire” in a theater or “bomb” at an airport for obvious reasons. Supreme Court has made the same argument against the second amendment. Background checks and restricting felons from owning guns aren’t covered under the second amendment because the absence of those two things would threaten public safety. States requiring permits to concealed carry a firearm are not in violation of the second amendment because it can be argued that a lack of training or firearms courses could endanger public safety if just anyone was allowed to carry a loaded firearm. However a lot of other rulings they made I think are flawed, especially as of late. I don’t agree that any protest should require a government sanctioned permit. This creates a means for the government to deny protests if they don’t like the message. Technically that kind of discrimination is supposed to be illegal for a government entity to do, but that’s never stopped them from violating people’s rights in the past. In this situation with the article, restricting people’s right to speech on the basis of it being offensive is definitively not the way to go because it could have major consequences in the future. Who’s going to decide which viewpoint is too offensive, the government? What do you guys think will happen if the people in power decided that criticizing the government was offensive enough to be a violation of hate speech laws? This article perfectly demonstrates what happens when restrictions on free speech are turned against people. “Because protests have become too disruptive at college campuses, we’re deciding your group shouldn’t be allowed to voice their displeasure with fascism at public speaking events anymore. It’s for your own safety!” Do you really want to give more arbitrary power to an administration like ours? Because that’s what’s going to happen in the future if you allow the government to endorse or give preferential treatment to specific political stances. To be clear, I obviously don’t think the protesters should be censored either.
Colleges being forced to choose between safety and free speech is obviously a problem but it's never acknowledged that these campuses account for a fraction of a percent of the schools in the US. It's not really something "the US is going through".
Just remember. No matter how happy Sargon is, he's still called Carl and that is one of the worst names. Jesus christ imagine getting so bent out of shape over a bunch of university students protesting. That kind of stuff is a core part of university as it accounts for most of the introduction to politics and social movements for these people. 99.999% of these protests don't even matter outside of the university itself anyway as they're usually about matters related to that university (such as counter protesting the rising threat of Nazis or protesting a speaker known for spreading bullshit).
How can conservatives act like they're some embattled minority when they're getting shit like this passed.
When the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin wanted to address the issue of free speech on campus last fall, it adopted a three-strikes policy that is the strictest of its kind: Any student found to have disrupted the free expression of others is expelled after a third infraction. This seems like it would work pretty well against the kinds of fucknuggets that ended up on YouTube for pulling fire alarms and destroying audio equipment at events where someone gets one of the right-wing nutjobs to speak at the university. Sure, they're fucking lunatics, but it's a dick move to pull the fucking fire alarm when there's no fire.
get the state out of speech.
Umberto Eco's treatise on fascism put it best: The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Note: I am not saying conservatives are all fascists, but as both fascism and conservatism are right wing ideologies, they do have overlapping ideas, this happens to be one of them.
Yes, but only in places you're lawfully allowed to be. The government can say that school property is equivalent to a post office or something like that and call it tresspassing
if they're stopping others from speaking through use of the first amendment alone - meaning, if the speaker isn't appearing simply because they feel unwelcome, not because of threats of violence or having their speech legislated against - then yeah, i think it should fall under the amendment's protection.
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