And if anyone had said “smile and ced eht high ground” then he would be responding to that person.
Not sure the confusion. He said something that no one had said.
I responded, using similar phrasing and words, also saying something that no one had said.
Whether he was calling for a negative or a positive to the action doesn’t matter, it is an action that was entirely made of straw.
And the ACLU caves. Original here.
Such were the conditions which prevented the German liberals from suiting their actions to their word. They were forced to wait until the progress of prosperity and education could bring these backward people into the ranks of liberalism. Then, they were convinced, the victory of liberalism was bound to come. Time worked for it. But, alas, events belied these expectations. It was the fate of Germany that before this triumph of liberalism could be achieved liberalism and liberal ideas were overthrown—not only in Germany but everywhere—by other ideas, which again penetrated into Germany from the West. German liberalism had not yet fulfilled its task when it was defeated by etatism, nationalism, and socialism.
Welcome to the 1930s, where the choice is between the illiberal right and the illiberal left, to be settled by street violence and intimidation.
And welcome to people that do not know what perspective is. There has been a backlash against BLM regarding the Virginia issue. Again, over here, I only see here an effort to now willfully ignore that a lot going regarding the rights of bigots is that freedom of speech should not be protected when violence is involved. And again, hecklers were removed in the OP’s case at hand.
I have to complain about Budget Player Cadet for using an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal, bad form really.
You posted an anti-liberal opinion piece with very little substance.
Reading what the ACLU actually did, they changed the wording on a claim about what was wrong with the act by the BLM. Instead of claiming the dubious idea that “disruption that prevents a speaker from speaking, and audience members from hearing the speaker, is not constitutionally protected speech even on a public college campus subject to the First Amendment”, they changed it to refer to “the heckler’s veto.”
That’s the big story. That’s the big thing you are quoting to say they capitulated. They changed some words in how they denounced something.
I will 100% argue that their previous claim was wrong. There is not an exception to freedom of speech law that says that disrupting other people from talking (or people from listening) is not allowed. You have to go outside of speech law to handle the situation: particularly trespassing. They can disrupt the event. Then you can tell them to leave. If they refuse, then they are trespassing. Their speech is unaffected, just their ability to be present.
The idea of such an exception is ludicrous. It would mean that counter protesting was not protected. A counter protester is actively seeking to disrupt the original protest. They are trying to make their speech louder. Some, like those angel costumes against the WBC, take the form of directly shielding the audience from the speakers.
Disruption through speech is protected speech. The issue at hand is actually the college’s right to exclude.
I almost said this before, and I’m afraid I have to say it now. It really seems that you are just regurgitating what you read over at this other forum. This is not good.
I know places like this. They say they’re all about being openminded or rational. They say they avoid the tribalism. But they don’t. There is a clear anti-SJW, anti-liberal bent here. The argument I made was a very, very simple one, yet no one on your beloved forum made it.
It was literally all tribal bullshit, with everyone agreeing and making highly emotional arguments. That’s fine, but don’t think that means that they don’t have a point of view, and that you can shut your brain off.
That’s no better than those who just regurgitate Fox News.
I think you have it wrong.
The initial Virginia ACLU statement had the language about disrupting others’ right to speak not being protected “speech” itself, and being a classic example of a heckler’s veto. The revised version discards that language in favor of something softer. The new language in my opinion is not accurately described as “caving”, but does have a more wishy-washy tone, which is disappointing.
Preventing others from exercising free speech rights by shouting them down should never be regarded as “protected speech”. The idea is ludicrous and offensive.
Assuming it’s not a whoosh, this statement illustrates a common fallacy at the SDMB - attempting to dismiss an op-ed (or news story) on the basis of its origin, rather than making a real effort to verify the facts and deal with them.
I’ve said it before on this board: conceding defense of free speech rights to right-wingers (however hypocritical one may perceive their current devotion to the cause) is a gross error on the part of liberals.
And you have it wrong, I posted earlier why I think they got it wrong, then it is relevant to consider the source. What I was referring earlier is that most (including the WSJ) are ignoring the violence used by the extreme right in the recent events.
If you are referring to the idea that right winger’s speech should be protected, I agree; but again (really: AGAIN) there has to be an acknowledgment that when violence enters the picture it should not be ignored that that does modify or negates any mission to protect free speech.
You do realize that the violence by the extreme left directed at those on the right has been on ongoing problem. Did you honestly think that given enough time those on the extreme right wouldn’t fight as well?
Which leads to this question, if we can only have rights, as people in this country, by being able to successfully out violence an opposing side who wins?
If you’re saying that violence on the extreme right is a response to violence on the extreme left, that’s a ridiculous and counterfactual assertion. Dylan Roof didn’t shoot people because of any actions by the “extreme left” (or anyone on the left). The Charlottesville white supremacists didn’t surround and assault anti-racist protesters in response to violence from the left; the Charlottesville driver/killer didn’t plow into a crowd in response to violence from the left; etc.
So says the ignoramus of history, as others like you forget the REAL festering is to see the right defending monuments or institutions that do remind all about the “right” place minorities must have in America.
What has festered continues to be the denial (and current efforts to turn back time to when “America was great”) that minorities are and will continue to fight for their rights.
False dilemma set up by a sick ideology. As it happened, originally that was the way in America too, but thanks to the help by more enlightened Republicans, laws were changed to protect minorities better. Those days are gone and we do have to throw the current rascals out.
What’s the body count for Antifa again?
Nope, but they sure strung up them black boys in the 1920’s because of Malcolm X, yup yup yup.
So, there are acceptable and unacceptable forms of expression to you? What other forms of speech bother you so much that you feel they should not be protected?
Being gay, or trans, or a minority is essentially like being violent towards the right. Your very existence is an affront, even an assault on their sensibilities.
They are only employing violence in order to protect themselves, as it is the very existence of the “other” that threatens them.
…America is a fucking strange country.
Most of the western world has some form of universal healthcare: healthcare systems that both have significantly lower costs and generally better outcomes than what the US can do. The rest of the western world does not “ban guns.” But they have sensible gun restrictions: and as a result they generally have a substantially lower gun death toll.
Conversations about these topics, as we all know, generally don’t go well. America is set in its way. “Universal healthcare might be cheaper and it might help more people: but we are going to do it our way anyway, evidence be damned.” But this blindspot doesn’t just apply to healthcare and gun control. It applies to the constitution. It applies to the concept of free speech.
The first amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791. It was drafted by a bunch of long dead white men. Black people were not part of the conversation. Indigenous Americans were not part of the original conversation. Women were not part of the original conversation. The world of 2017 is not the same as it was in 1791. The world that we live in now is close to the one imagined by Karl Rove, that he described as " reality-based communities." The President of the United States lies on average 4.6 times a day. The White House broadcasts “soviet-level” propaganda now. Social media is carefully curated: showing only the things an individual wants to see. The news networks control and dictate the narrative. Trump has been normalised. The uranium scandal is now a thing. Hillary’s emails are still an issue.
It is ironic, that when people of colour, who were bought to your country in chains, only got the right to vote in the 60’s, who never ever had any input into your precious constitution and your first amendment, that when they try to make their voices heard, they get told to shut up.
There has never been a more important time in the history of the United States than now to have a conversation about what free speech means to its people. There is nothing wrong with having a conversation about this. You need to have a conversation about this. For many people in America: its about shutting up for a little bit and listening to the voices of the marginalised. A handful of protests that shout down a speaker might piss a few people off. But it isn’t a threat to “free speech.” The real threat to free speech can be seen with attitudes like that seen in the opening post. Where the fact that someone is an “elected official of your state” and “that earns him some respect” is used as a reason that a particular protest is unacceptable. The real threat to free speech are the small, but subtle changes that are happening every day under the current administration. And as much as I loved the previous administration: the US’s fall in the Press Freedom ranking (that I referenced earlier in the thread) happened under Obama’s watch.
The ACLU should be listening. And to its credit, it looks like that it has started to listen. I’m not arguing for a change in the constitution. I’m arguing that listening to the voices of the marginalised: that having a discussion about what free speech is, is not something that America should be hiding from right now.
Say what now? Blacks got the right to vote long before the 1960s. Try 1870. I’m not going to pretend those rights were always respected, but they had the right to vote before the 1960s.
And it’s not like minorities had it so great living in the British Empire. They were just abused in their own countries, so it was “out of sight, out of mind”.
Oh, don’t stop with anti-fa.
How many abortion doctors have been killed by pro-life terrorists? How many pro-life activists have been killed by pro-choice terrorists?
How many gay people have been killed by anti-queer terrorists? How many straight people have been killed by queer terrorists?
How many black people have been killed by the KKK? How many white people have been murdered by… well, hell, put any name in there you want. Black Panthers? Nation of Islam? Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition?
The only political issue where the American left has a significantly higher bodycount than the right is environmentalism, and that’s only because poisoning our water and air isn’t technically political violence.
Racism and homophobia aren’t necessarily and probably shouldn’t be part of a simplistic one axis left-right political categorization. Granted, in the US at least, it seems abortion maps a bit more accurately.
I’m not seeing the relevance of all this, though, in a thread about illiberal behavior with regards to suppressing fundamental civil rights. Can’t people be against violence and the suppression of free speech without being obligated to recite a list of historical sins first?
ROFL!!!
…this thread isn’t about minorities living in other countries. My grandfather died at the hands of New Zealand colonial forces in Samoa during the rise of the Mau. My mum is Maori, Ngā Puhi. It hasn’t been “out of sight and out of mind” for me. I know all about how “not so fucking great” it was to live in the ragged edges of the “British Empire.” If you want to know more feel free to start a thread about it and I’ll gladly participate. But I think the truth is you really don’t give a shit.
I don’t give a shit why, because I corrected you, and pointed out that the U.S. was hardly the only nation with a history of abuse and oppression?