I like you draw an equivalency between the 3. One’s assault, the next is trespassing, and the third is being obnoxious. I understand the real goal here is to make a lot of noise and get laws against protesting, like those referenced here, passed. It’s standard operating procedure for the party that brought us the fight against “voter fraud”, making abortions “safer”, enhancing the “drug war”, and has “exposed” Acorn and Planned Parenthood. In the end, it’s about suppressing liberal opposition and weakening liberal political groups.
Nobody is having their civil liberties curtailed on these college campuses but Republicans will work to make it seem that way, while they’re the ones actually proposing to curtail civil liberties.
So give me some stats. How many college speakers come to college campuses every year? How many are opposed by loud, obnoxious protestors? How many of those protests turn violent? Now, once you get those, tell me how many protests will be affected by the laws proposed in a variety of Republican legislatures. How many people will be under threat by these proposed laws? Once you get all the numbers together we’ll see who is really concerned about civil liberties and who is focused on turning assault, trespassing, being obnoxious, and exercising our right to protest into things like racketeering.
I think it’s possible to discuss the rise of Nazism, and the role of the highly liberal laws and society of the Weimar Republic in Germany’s failure to prevent it, without automatically descending into melodrama, particularly in a debate about the role of liberal free speech approaches as the best tool for defeating Nazism. It could not be more relevant.
I’m not saying “we have to do something”. I’m saying that there is a lot of confidence on display in this thread that free speech and open debate are the way to defeat the rise of neo-Nazism, and I’m asking for some sort of evidence base to support that confidence, especially since it didn’t work with paleo-Nazism. Understanding why it didn’t work then, and what’s different that means we can be confident it will work now, strike me as being useful exercises. There’s been a rise of nationalism in the US and Europe (and Turkey and India) over the past decade and while I’m hopeful that people can be talked out of it I worry that, as in the past, it isn’t going to help.
An interesting example, because the success wasn’t so much in stopping the Blackshirt march through Jewish areas of London on the day, though that was no bad thing. Ultimately, success came because the violence led the government to banning any marches through that area, or parading in quasi-military uniforms. This cut out a lot of the attraction for the sad-sacks who supported Moseley’s fascists, and meant that things quietened down enough that community activists could start working in the poverty stricken areas that were the main source of support for the BUF and start addressing the underlying issues of discontent. Silencing the BUF through force of law so that people had the space to make a different case worked.
There’s also the “Battle of Lewisham” in the late 70s, which similarly acted as a rallying point for anti-fascist action (education and debate definitely included) and decreased the willingness of the NF to use confrontational marches as a means of getting their point across.
In the US, I learn, there’s the Battle of Hayes Pond. in which, following the KKK burning crosses and holding a rally in an attempt to intimidate the Lumbee, the Lumbee shot four of them and dispersed the rally violently. The effect, it seems, was to turn public opinion against the leader of the KKK branch, who was arrested.
I’m not trying to claim these are the model we should follow for confronting neo-Nazism, just pointing out that there are times that pushing the extremists out of the public square has worked. Using violence to bring the issue to public attention has worked.
Yes, I wasn’t arguing that free speech had never worked. That would be stupid. But there are times when it has failed, and it would be good to know why, and it would be really good to know if this is or isn’t one of those times.
Yes, I agree. But can the same be said of Richard Spenser?
When Milo turns up at a university and outs a transgender student, that is a real threat to her safety. And this is what he always does. And arguing with him and his followers doesn’t seem to have changed their minds about the outing or the abuse and death threats. So I think there’s a real question about about the net gain/loss, justice-wise.
Maybe. Or maybe denying them publicity limits the harm they can do. I’m pretty sure Milo’s influence dropped quite considerably once he lost Twitter as a platform.
Except that it’s not. The recent anti-Milo protests at campuses have boosted Milo Yiannopolous’ nationwide profile and image much more than if he had just gone to campus, delivered a speech, and nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Also, almost anything can be made to sound bad, depending on viewpoint. A lot of folks are looking only at it from the perspective of, “What speech do I want to ban?”
It’s not hard at all to envision an ultra-conservative society that bans liberal views - “We must not allow people a voice to advocate for perversion, the murder of the unborn, etc.”
So by definition, that’s not denying him publicity. It’s not working. But it might, in time, lead to a situation where universities decide it’s not worth the trouble. At which point, he’ll lose his audience and his “hook”. Which in and itself is a good outcome.
It might not work out that way, of course. It hasn’t yet. But I don’t see that continuing to give him a platform to whip up abuse at vulnerable students is working any better yet either.
This is a good and important point. But there’s a trap there too. “We were so worried about hypothetical extremists taking over in the future, we gave actual extremists a platform for taking over today” is not a great epitaph.
The post you quoted was in response to Velocity’s general point about the potential long-term risks of putting limits on free speech, and not specific to Milo.
What seems to be forgotten in the talk of Nazi rise to power is that it was the Nazis who employed the kind of tactics that so many of you seem to endorse. Brown-shirted thugs would disrupt opposition assemblies, vandalize opposition campaigns, threaten and beat opposition supporters, etc.
Again, if you are wearing a mask and carrying a club for beating on people expressing speech you don’t like, you really shouldn’t be playing the Nazi card. And before throwing around the label ‘extremist’, you might want to take a careful look into the mirror.
Also, you had better pray that the people you are beating on don’t decide to beat back. Because if I had to pick a winner in a fight between a Berkeley prof swinging his bicycle lock and an ex-military student from Tennessee going to college on the GI bill, I know where I’d put my money.
Perhaps I should rephrase: The society I’m referring to doesn’t have to be in the future. We can look to the Taliban for a counter-example. You can be sure that a speaker who advocates gay marriage wouldn’t find a receptive audience with the Taliban. Although it is more for religious reasons, the underlying rationale is the same as the protester reasons for banning Milo: “We cannot allow the seeds of these evil ideas to grow and spread root.”
What people like Stanislaus don’t get is that this is what brings in oppressive regimes when people like him decide that street violence is a good idea:
It’s sickening to see, as I’ve seen first hand, hotheads bring forth the very thing they want to avoid by the stupidity of their actions.
You bring in violence into politics and keep at it then one of two things will happen, either your side, which clearly believes might makes right wins and establishes itself under those principles or the other side wins by the same effing method.
What people like Stanislaus don’t get is that this is what brings in oppressive regimes when people like him decide that street violence is a good idea.[/QUOTE
Is it too much to ask that I be taken at my word? I am not advocating street violence. What I am doing is challenging the cosy consensus that open debate is a surefire way to defeat extremism. I mean, let’s review 2016 shall we? A guy stands up and says Mexicans are rapists, we need to ban all Muslims, oh and lock up my political opponent. He leads rallies across the country where thousands chant the last as a slogan. Then he wins the nomination of his party. Then he wins the election. He installs a chief of staff and attorney general who have a history of making racist remarks and/ or pushing white supremacism. And yes, I know about the popular vote. Against that guy, a 3‰ margin. Behold the astonishing disinfectant power of sunlight.
I believe in free speech. But I’m also capable of noticing when it doesn’t work. And in the US in 2016, it failed us all. So it’s a bit weird to come into a thread in 2017 and see people patting themselves on the back about what a great tool it is for keeping extremists out of power.
Again, none of this is to say we should abandon free speech. Nor to start street fighting extremists. But just because you’re right and good doesn’t mean you get to win. Hitler was a charismatic and skillful public speaker who won people’s hearts and minds. So, in a bizarre way, is Trump. So what if you have the debate in the public square and you lose?
I don’t get it.
Free speech worked fine in preventing that corporate pawn and warmonger of a Clinton from gaining power.
Free speech also works fine in defeating the propaganda of the SJW clique. They are losing ground.
Surefire? I don’t think anyone claimed it is foolproof. I certainly don’t. Do I think it is the best way? yes, definitely but you can’t guarantee that bad ideas will never gain an audience or a foothold.
It comes back to how you want your own ideas to be received. Whatever method you use to silence an opposing view is immediately legitimised for use against your own. Then you enter a downward spiral of censorship and violence that ultimately helps no-one.
This. And the other side did the same - they just weren’t as good at it.
You can’t turn this kind of thing on and off like a spigot. If it’s okay to riot and shut down a speaker with violence and threats, then it’s okay to riot and shut down a speaker with violence and threats when the other side does it too. “We’ll just keep this on one side” doesn’t work.
Why do all the people involved in the incident itself see no reason to bundle up civil disobedience, intolerance of pseudoscientific racist ideas, assault, and vandalism? Why are you unable to do so?
Why don’t you just say you can’t provide an answer? The professor didn’t see a link between civil disobedience, intolerance of pseudoscientific ideas, assault, and vandalism. Use your words.