I don't get it. Free Speech Under Threat At University? (Added Extra)

[TheJebus]

If enough people in a Democracy are brainwashed enough to think free speech is a privilege and not a right then it is no longer a democracy as it is an aristocracy of an upper class clique.

In other words: Leftists think they're better than everyone else, so everyone else needs to shut up and listen to them or else.

There are hundreds of occasions where people like this will go to, say, a black cop and tell him how he's fucked up for working in the system that oppresses blacks, and when the cop in question asks them legitimate questions and rhetoric, they just scream he has internalized racism and the mob jumps down his throat with roars of applause. This is actually a situation that occurred though I cannot for the life of me find the articles pertaining to it as it happened some time ago.

Us filthy peasants are too stupid to know any better so we must be silenced and follow the true master ra- social justice crusaders.

 

[Mikeybb]

*large snip, only to scale down post*
Well, we could be as loud and stupid, but there's a problem.

Aside from the points you make, all valid, adopting the behaviour of a group to combat them can lead to a accusations of equivalency.
The old "you're just as a bad as X" argument.
Hard to see how to fight back against something when whichever move you take seems to cost you something.

The only personal experience I have that comes close to the current situation in the US, politically that is, would be our local grown sabre rattler called Farage.
Different, somewhat smaller scale of nasty but somewhere on the same ideological and methodological spectrum a Trump.
He's been held off thusfar, but still lingers and is probably going to bob to the surface again soon with the EU referendum looming.
For the similarities that there are in the situations, there are still a hell of a lot of differences.
The only thing I can say is in the end people were smart enough not to vote for him, hopefully there'll be a similar end to the Trump saga.

People need to know. But I don't do this without stress. Even here on the internet, it makes me nauseous to talk about this crap. I usually opt for complete avoidance when possible. I'm trying not to do that because it is seriously important that people know what's going on.

Well, I'm sorry to learn it's a pressure on you.
I hope it is ameliorated in some small way to know that you do so is appreciated and heard.
Read.
You know what I mean.
Not much to add other than that really.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I'm cutting down your post so it doesn't take up a bunch of space. I read all of it, but I only have a couple short things to say:

Have you actually bothered to figure out who Julie Bindel is? Go get informed. Julie Bindel, author of "Why I hate men", who recently stated in an interview that she would put all men in a segregated camp to keep them away from women and who hopes heterosexuality doesn't survive the feminist movement because it is a tool of the patriarchy that oppresses women.

That's why the term feminazi has taken root. I fail to see how this woman is different from any other somethingsomethingnazi (except grammar nazis, I love those). This woman is not special, she is just another face of the usual extremism, be it religious, political, racial, or ideological. Yes, she hates men, that doesn't mean everything she's ever thought is corrupted. There is no purity test here. I doubt I'll ever want to invite her for coffee, and I doubt I'll want to attend her seminars, but that doesn't mean she needs to be "no-platformed".

She is the type of person who got those things into place. She told attractive lies that manipulated people into institutionalizing hatred. People funded her by giving her columns to write and thousands of dollars for speaking opportunities and she used the influence she gained to spread her ideas of hate and ignorance against everyone and now you are seeing the result. Those things you are complaining about? That is what we are trying to change. That is what we are trying to prevent.

No, that's what I am trying to prevent. You would seek to replace her "institutionalised" badstuff with your own.

Ok, and what "badstuff" would that be? Please, tell me what I am attempting to institutionalize. That trans people are human?

Banning her and her kind simply means someone new with the currently "right side of history" attractive lies can take center stage without opposition when it was the lack of opposition from the very beginning that allowed her to spread her views without critical analysis. If you really want to defeat people like Julie Bindel then let her take the stage and destroy her arguments one by one. How challenging can it be to destroy the arguments of a woman that wants to put all men in "some kind of camp"?

It is literally impossible. She does not provide arguments, she provides attractive lies.

You can be right all you want against her, but a lot of people are going to buy into her attractive lies no matter how irrational. You can point out the inconsistencies in her positions, and people will still listen to her. You can provide iron clad evidence to the contrary and these people will still insist that her position is correct.

When she gets "no-platformed" all you do is drive her opinion underground where no critical voices exist and noone bothers to counter her views, and the resulting echo chamber turns her adherents more resolute. Why do you think Trump is doing so well?

Donald Trump is doing so well because he is by far the most effective orator of the republican party, probably of all the candidates. Donald Trump has been attacked and countered at every possible turn and he comes out on top every time because to a not insignificant amount of people reason matters less than charisma and the tone in which he speaks matters more to than what he says.

The same is true of Julie Bindel. She has managed to hold onto and even develop political power over years and years of people countering her lies with reason at every turn because her supporters don't care. It is only recently in the last few years that people have finally managed to start making headway against people like her.

And no, Julie Bindel did not create the current university climate. Everyone that engages in that madness is partly responsible, including the spineless administrators that bend over backwards to please the vocal man-children. Julie Bindel is most likely one of those, but that does not mean she should be "no-platformed" either. The system only works if everyone (deemed important enough by the relevant university authorities to warrant a platform ofcourse), regardless of affiliation, can participate in the education and broadening of the attending students. If you only bring in lefties for instance, we end up with a serious problem.

If I had my say, both Julie Bindel and her at-the-time opponent Milo Yiannopoulos would have been free to debate, and each attendant at the debate would be free to make up their own mind on the issue (which does not need to be binary; one does not have to agree with any speaker). That way multiple views are offered, and attendants can see the various ways they conflict and intermingle with their own personal perspectives.

Ok, here is the fundamental problem with what you purpose. University administrators are not going to provide you with a fair and balanced schedule. University officials and staff are notorious for abusing their positions to push their political agendas on the student body. If you take away no platforming you are not ensuring fair discourse. You are simply consolidating political power from the large and diverse group to the small and like minded group. You eliminate one of the major ways students can influence the selection of speaking candidates. When the university authorities are without oversight who do you think gets deemed "important enough" to speak on political topics? The speakers that agree with them.

And they could even pretend to be creating a fair minded speaking schedule. Julie Bindel vs Milo Yiannopoulos was never meant to be a fair and rational debate. They were pairing off a woman who has dedicated her life to developing skills as an orator, who has managed to build world wide political influence purely on the back of her ability to deliver convincing rhetoric in the face of constant opposition, against a man that barely managed to save face in an internet slap fight. They were never interested in a rational debate on censorship as it pertains to feminism. Despite my previous comments about university authorities being dumb asses, they are actually pretty smart. They know what they are doing. They know that if you want a rational debate you don't bring Julie Bindel into the room.

Their goal was to have Milo be a political punching bag for one of the most successful orators in the world. It is one of the oldest tricks in the book, find someone you think is incompetent willing to argue a point you don't like and bring in a heavy hitter to destroy them, reason and logic be damned. That is not my idea of arranging fair political discourse.

If university authorities could be trusted to create a fair schedule full of rational and reasonable speakers then your idea would have merit. I do not believe for a single second that this is the case.

 

[Areloch]

Actually, there's quite a number of people in the BLM movement I've seen that have launched into the extreme to the point of blatant racism and hate. So whatever their intended message is, it's rapidly becoming diluted with racism and hatred and distrupting people that haven't done anything wrong.

At the rate it's going, it's going to just be another flatly corrupted mush of a movement that exists pretty much to scream and do nothing, so I feel it's close enough for a comparison as way of the example.

So tl;dr, no you'll need to use a better example. There's nothing in any of those sources that say BLM is for black lives mattering more, in fact that's completely counter to BLM's message.

I mean I know you might not like them, but at the very least don't misrepresent their argument in your analogy. Use a better example, one based in reality.

Alright, I wasn't feeling that great last night and yeah, my post got away from me there and was basically incomprehensible. So sorry about that.

That said, thanks for presuming "I don't like Black Lives Matter" for using them as an example. That's pretty cool.

Trying to step back and de-muddle the intent of what I was going for:

The examples of BLM protesters disrupting completely unrelated peoples lives and being pretty antagonistic to totally unrelated people. This ties back to what some of the discussion in this thread was about pertaining to if a person or group does enough bad, should they be blacklisted even if they're not there presenting about the contested topic.
So the question is what's the threshold? Is the threshold groups of dozens chanting a metaphor about killing cops? Distrupting study for students that are completely unrelated to an issue? Apparently Julie Bindel's crossed that threshold, as well as the hypothetical KKK group everyone keeps bringing up. So has a group with a much less offensive initial message like BLM crossed that point with the extremists in their stead?
Should we start blocking BLM presentations because of their behavior?

I was also using them to parallel back to your original point, but it was messy and didn't work, so yeah, lets drop that.

Going back to your original thing that led to this entire tangent:

Like even in your example there, talking about white American history and how the US is what it is today because of white people, that would be borderline historical revisionism. Adjusted for inflation the slave trade in the US contributed billions, if not trillions, to the economy. Then there was of course the American Civil War, Lincoln, segregation, etc. I mean ignoring that would be pretty offensive to the history department of the Uni alone tbh.

You suggested that even if our hypothetical KKK group was there giving a white history presentation - which in the example is not hate speech or inciting violence - it's still offensive because it's talking around black people's contributions to history, and talking up white people over them.

So my point was, if a different group were to come in and do the exact same thing for black people, where 'This is why black history is awesome' and play down white people's involvement, is that just as problematic? Is that sufficient justification to prevent the presentation?

I don't believe that it is.

The entire anti-BLM argument online boils down to ways to say "I don't like these uppity blacks" without saying it. Youtube links are the new wink and a nod.

You know, I did just acknowledge that my point was a mess in that post because I wasn't feeling well, but you know what? Yeah, that's probably it. I don't dislike people being pointlessly antagonistic to people unrelated to the protest up to and including stopping their day to day lives for their protesting and other such behaviors, or large groups chanting metaphors for cop killing.
I'm probably just a big stinky racist that hates black people.

 

[Something Amyss]

Aside from the points you make, all valid, adopting the behaviour of a group to combat them can lead to a accusations of equivalency.
The old "you're just as a bad as X" argument.

You don't even need to adopt those tactics for that to be true. I'm accused of pushing an agenda every day I don't just roll over and die, and some days I think I'd rather.

But this is the conundrum of the supposed free speech argument, yes.

The only thing I can say is in the end people were smart enough not to vote for him, hopefully there'll be a similar end to the Trump saga.

Trump is going to get votes. The only real hope we have is that someone else gets more votes.

For perspective, even in several of the liberal states that have voted in the primaries, Trump is leading the Republican side of me. He got a third of the Republican votes in Vermont and half in Massachusetts. Trump is unlikely to pick up these states, but it makes a point. Even in the states that lean left, Trump is the man to beat on the right.

And part of the problem plays directly into what I said previously. The last Presidential election was decided by under 70,000,000 votes in a population exceeding 3 billion. Less than a third of the country voted. Of course, not everyone is eligible, but I still think it paints the picture that the majority don't really care.

More broadly, they say the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. I'm not big on the "good/evil" thing, but I do think this is something to pay attention to. People may want to do the right thing, but they tend to not in my experience. Inaction tends to rule the day, while the "bad" people continue to do "bad" things unchallenged.

wulf3n made the statement that LGBT individuals should be safe from violence everywhere. And I'm not saying these are his beliefs following. I don't know. But I've known a lot of people who will tell you that's the way things should be, but will take no action take make sure it is that way. It's why minority activists often have to fight tooth and nail for things, because they're fighting a basic level of inertia. Which also means being accused of being hostile, angry, confrontational, etc. For discomforting the "white moderates" Martin Luther King once chastised.

I sometimes envy the people who talk about being above politics or being apolitical. Thing is, that's a luxury I can't afford. I've got to fight.

Well, I'm sorry to learn it's a pressure on you.
I hope it is ameliorated in some small way to know that you do so is appreciated and heard.

Thanks. It's actually easy to forget given the number of people I butt heads with. Especially considering I see things like advocacy of harm to LGBT individuals on a regular basis.

 

[tman_au]

Looked though the discussion of the thread. Lots of "there should be freedom of speech,but...". Well here is how it goes, either you believe in freedom of speech, even if you disagree with it or you don't believe in it at all. There is no but's. This video should explain it better: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFnd6IS0DrY

 

[Something Amyss]

Looked though the discussion of the thread. Lots of "there should be freedom of speech,but...". Well here is how it goes, either you believe in freedom of speech, even if you disagree with it or you don't believe in it at all. There is no but's. This video should explain it better: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFnd6IS0DrY

Except the "but" is "but this isn't a free speech issue," so the black and white argument is bogus.

Also, since you're promoting an all-or-nothing version of free speech, do you believe there's the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater? Should it be legal to threaten someone? What about instructing someone to murder someone?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, then you have already accepted limits on free speech. More importantly, it means we actually never have had free speech at any time in modern history.

 

[wulf3n]

Have you actually bothered to figure out who Julie Bindel is? Go get informed. Julie Bindel, author of "Why I hate men", who recently stated in an interview that she would put all men in a segregated camp to keep them away from women and who hopes heterosexuality doesn't survive the feminist movement because it is a tool of the patriarchy that oppresses women.

I avoided bringing this up because I wanted to see if anyone would do their own homework on the matter, but since it's out of the bag, I wonder how many of the people here who are upset by this story would feel the same way if it was about her being "banned" for wanting to talk about her antipathy towards men.

Exactly the same.

Firstly If we're talking safe space in the sense of safe from physical violence, harassment, and persecution that shouldn't require the distinction "safe spaces", that should just be everywhere.

Should be, perhaps, but "should" and "are" ain't exactly similar.

Hence the word should and not is

There is every chance you haven't even the slightest idea what it's like to feel at risk for these things in what is ostensibly a modern society.

You shouldn't make assumptions about people you've never met.

But it's a very real thing. And not just for LGBT groups, but this is the one I am most familiar with. In this country, people will try and kill you for being queer. They will beat and rape you. You will often, though not always, find the police unwilling to help you. I mean, sure, it's illegal to assault or kill or rape someone, but what good is that if the police won't actually do anything? I don't know if it's the same in other industrial nations, but it's pretty fucking serious here.

Hell, I've actually had injuries I was afraid to take to a hospital for fear the police might get involved.

A terrible situation to be sure, which is why I don't understand why the discussion is rarely addressing societies propensity towards violence.

We're not solely talking physical violence, ether. But if straight people or white people were treated the same way LGBT folk and people of colour are, they'd be screaming loud and clear. In fact, they often don't need such provocation.

Understandably.

As for the discussion on safe spaces there appear to be at least two different interpretations people use, and rarely at the same time.

Weirdly, on of those is what people mean when talking about safe spaces, and one of those is what people mean when they're complaining about a fictitious concept, the free speech equivalent of a unicorn. People need to blow things out of proportion to get remotely into this authoritarian zone that keeps coming up, where people are prevented from ever speaking their minds on college campuses.

And the fact remains, that when it comes to college campuses, people are literally being hurt. This gets reframed as free speech by people who I'm pretty sure do not want this to change.

By fictitious concept I assume you're referring to the evidenced example [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S3yMzEee18&ab_channel=MarkSchierbecker] in which an assisstant professor was charged with assault [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/25/assault-charge-filed-against-mizzou-professor-who-called-some-muscle/79298692/] and subsequently fired [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/25/university-missouri-fires-professor-melissa-click/80940690/] for assaulting a student on school grounds for entering a "safe space"

 

[Therumancer]

As I see it the problem is the concept of "safe spaces" and the argument that people should be able to insulate themselves from contrary opinions and things they don't like while in an open space. As far as I'm concerned your "safe space" is your own home, and once you leave it and enter the public you might *gasp* run into other people, and some of them might really not like you or what you stand for. Universities might be private property but are still an "open" environment and as such I don't think they should be putting controls on what people can say, do, or express. Indeed in an academic environment even the radical... right or left wing, should feel free to express themselves.

That said I do find it remotely amusing to see transsexuals and feminists beating on each other this way (going by the article posted where a feminist couldn't speak because of fear of offending transgendered students). It reminds vaguely of that whole "Cotton Ceiling" thing. That's the case where the transsexual (physically male, but claims to be female) porn star got all upset when a lesbian porn star refused to do a sex scene with him, claiming it was bigoted because he was "really a woman". Strange world we now live in where we've gone from out of control political correctness to a sort of dystopia where the various factions bash on each other.

 

[Therumancer]

Problem is this isn't just getting yelled at, boycotted, or banned. It's active interference aimed at silencing opposing views in what is supposed to be neutral public ground. You may think what someone believes makes them an a-hole but that doesn't give you the right to prevent others from listening to them. If you don't like what they have to say counter it later. Hold a counter speech, challenge the speaker to a debate after their speech, protest peacefully outside. All you do by silencing someone is prove you can't defend your Ideology.

Pretty much my thoughts in a nutshell. The freedom of speech was put down in law at a time when it was believed only the government could control the speech of another person. Modern media and the complications that now arise with almost all forums capable of transmitting ideas on the needed scale are privately owned was not conceived of at the time. While it will take some doing, a new legal frontier the government needs to address is protecting people from private censorship, and yes that does mean removing a lot of the rights of the private owners of existing forums to control the speech of others.

To put it bluntly, one citizen holding more power over another citizen than duly elected officials is absolutely ridiculous.

That's my long held opinion on the subject.

 

[scorn the biomage]

While it will take some doing, a new legal frontier the government needs to address is protecting people from private censorship, and yes that does mean removing a lot of the rights of the private owners of existing forums.

to control the speech of others. To put it bluntly, one citizen holding more power over another citizen than duly elected officials is absolutely ridiculous.

so in order to fight censorship you want to take away other people rights moderate ,ignore or decide who goes on their piece of media. I don't know about you but that sounds pretty fascist to me.

 

[The Material Sheep]

While it will take some doing, a new legal frontier the government needs to address is protecting people from private censorship, and yes that does mean removing a lot of the rights of the private owners of existing forums.

to control the speech of others. To put it bluntly, one citizen holding more power over another citizen than duly elected officials is absolutely ridiculous.

so in order to fight censorship you want to take away other people rights moderate ,ignore or decide who goes on their piece of media. I don't know about you but that sounds pretty fascist to me.

Well nothing can stop you from ignoring something. Its kind of something anyone can to anything if they truly want to. The idea he was getting at was private media should be regulated to keep methods of censorship, and social ostracization out of the hands of unelected people who hold far more cards in life. The idea is that private citizens shouldn't have undue social control over the rest of the citizenry. A neat idea in theory, and something that's definitely a problem but there is no feasible way to regulate such things without opening a huge can of worms that flips things the other way or its just entirely impossible to do to begin with.

A middle ground would be, if a place is considered public, that it be considered public. At least in the US, rights are protections against the power of the majority, so the idea is that you have certain rights in public spaces that no matter how much others might not like you have can exorcise these rights. A tax payer funded university is a public space. If a student group wants to invite a speaker to speak for them, than he or she can come speak for them. Its a public venue, and as long as there isn't prior scheduling conflicts, the university does not have the right as a tax payer funded institution to discriminate based on political views, race, rhetoric, sex or sexuality. If its good for the goose, its good for the gander. If a speaker is invited by a student group to talk about one thing and is allowed, and another isn't under similar circumstances but has a different political view, that is unlawful discrimination for a public institution to take part in. Functionally that is a government backed institution not allowing people of different political opinions equal access to public resources. That is text book censorship and discrimination. A private institution? Sure it is there money, and if they receive no state funding that's fine they can allow whoever they want to speak and only the people who run the place have any say in it, but if you're taking tax payer money you lose that autonomy as an institution to discriminate in ways you might want to.

 

[scorn the biomage]

That is text book censorship and discrimination. A private institution? Sure it is there money, and if they receive no state funding that's fine they can allow whoever they want to speak and only the people who run the place have any say in it, but if you're taking tax payer money you lose that autonomy as an institution to discriminate in ways you might want to.

No because most university here in the USA receive some forum of subsidies even christian universities like liberty university are tax payer funded meaning someone like the thunderf00t can force a christian universities host one of his anti creationism speeches which does not seem fair to me. edit:this would allow creationists force secular universities to allow them spout theories how evolution is wrong.

 

[Something Amyss]

No because most university here in the USA receive some forum of subsidies even christian universities like liberty university are tax payer funded meaning someone like the thunderf00t can force a christian universities host one of his anti creationism speeches which does not seem fair to me.

I agree. Inflicting Thunderf00t on anyone seems lie cruel and unusual punishment.

 

[Something Amyss]

You shouldn't make assumptions about people you've never met.

Affording the possibility is not assuming. You should probably stick to what I've actually said and done.

But since you've pretty much stripped out anything of content from my message, I'm going to take it as a sign you're not interested in engaging me and just move on. This shit is not easy to talk about, and I'm not going to bother if only to be casually dismissed.

 

[scorn the biomage]

That is text book censorship and discrimination. A private institution? Sure it is there money, and if they receive no state funding that's fine they can allow whoever they want to speak and only the people who run the place have any say in it, but if you're taking tax payer money you lose that autonomy as an institution to discriminate in ways you might want to.

No because most university here in the USA receive some forum of subsidies even christian universities like liberty university are tax payer funded meaning someone like the thunderf00t can force a christian universities host one of his anti creationism speeches which does not seem fair to me. edit:this would allow creationists force secular universities to allow them spout theories how evolution is wrong.

They already try. They've been trying to legislate that for decades.

that is unfortunate I'm assume it never passed.

 

[The Material Sheep]

That is text book censorship and discrimination. A private institution? Sure it is there money, and if they receive no state funding that's fine they can allow whoever they want to speak and only the people who run the place have any say in it, but if you're taking tax payer money you lose that autonomy as an institution to discriminate in ways you might want to.

No because most university here in the USA receive some forum of subsidies even christian universities like liberty university are tax payer funded meaning someone like the thunderf00t can force a christian universities host one of his anti creationism speeches which does not seem fair to me. edit:this would allow creationists force secular universities to allow them spout theories how evolution is wrong.

I said if they are receiving no state funding. If there is no university in this country receiving no state funding or subsidy then you're correct they do not have a right to discriminate. See under my impression was that these things were not university sponsored but student organization sponsored. So in a situation if a christian student group wants to bring in an anti creationist to talk about all that silliness, and use a university public venue to listen to him or her, I don't see why that's a bad thing. You don't have to go, and the University isn't approving or disapproving of anything. It stays impartial as a state institution should towards matters of political discourse.

We aren't talking about curriculum. We're talking about public resources being made equally available to the populace, aka equal access to use of venues, times and speaking arrangements. If the conservative student organization want's to have Milo over to talk about stuff, and use a university venue to do so, than that's fine. No one should have an issue with that if there are other student groups being allowed to put on similar engagements using university resources.