Why are you conflating protesting with violence? And what illegal acts are you referring to in that post? Protests are not illegal.
The comment you are replying to here mentioned “a protest against hate speech”.
Why did you add violence and illegal to what he said? Then you call him dumb? Really?
Do you not think of peaceful protests as “free speech”? And censorship to me has always been when the government bars some sort of speech by force of law. Does a non-governmental group disinviting a speaker now qualify? If I ask a guy to come speak to my friends, and then my friends say “hey, we don’t like that guy” and I then tell the guy not to come, am I guilty of censorship?
That was not Crazy Canuk’s point. His point was just that shutting it down was against free speech.
If you are going to accuse others of dishonesty, it is maybe best that you allay your ignorance first.
The only call for violence in the thread was BPC’s joke about milo and fire. I only visit this thread every few days, so only saw it an hour or so ago. While I do not believe that he was actually making a call for violence, I will agree that the joke was in bad taste.
But, at the same time, if you are so upset about some random internet poster jokingly calling for violence, why are you not upset about speakers at universities seriously calling for violence against groups who did nothing to deserve it at all?
If you think that BPC shouldn’t have said what he said, why do you fault me when I say that Milo or another person who promotes hate and violence against minorities shouldn’t say what they do?
Hypocrisy is far too kind a word to describe your actions.
Who in this thread is in favor of using violence to prevent invited speakers from speaking? I’ll note that I condemn any advocacy of violence (including the earlier thing about burning Milo, even if it was a joke).
Are you really dumb enough to think that that was what I said, or are you just a hypocritical partisan hack who has no problem embarrassing in public himself with obvious lies? (To be fair, I hear that qualifies you for president these days)
Noone is saying stop protesters from speaking. You know that. Stop arguing dishonestly.
People are saying the illegal actions the protesters are engaged in such as rioting, assault with weapons, and arson are wrong. :smack:
I haven’t heard Milo promote violence against people. You have a link? And if did, aside from promoting violence against folks like ISIS etc, then I’d be opposed to that sort of speech.
And back to Crazy Canuck, why are these speeches shut down? It’s because of the threat of violence and destruction of property from violent protesters. And everyone saying the complaint is against peaceful, law abiding protesters is arguing dishonestly.
I have no power to silence anyone into doing anything. What is in my power (thanks to freedom of speech) is to call people using the “heckler’s vote” to silence their opponents short-sighted morons. They are giving their opponents credibility and a weapon to use against them, and I think it’s a bad idea. However, you are confusing me telling people that it’s a stupid plan with me telling people it’s not allowed. Those are two completely different statements.
I honestly don’t want to see him die for what he’s said and done. I would like to see him face some consequences for actions that are pretty clearly harassment (I can think of at least two), and if he died, my reaction could be found in a famous Bill Hicks bit, but I don’t want him to be killed for inciting hatred against vulnerable minorities or outing and harassing trans people despite knowing full well that his fanbase is essentially made up of 100% awful fucking people who are going to catch the fucking dog whistle.
By all means, let him speak. But I think literally any legal means taken to stifle his reach is the right move. The same goes for most of these regressive shitbags. Literally anyone willing to identify as neo-nazi alt-right. These people shouldn’t be speaking at universities. Or at town halls. Or on facebook. Fucking hell, what does it say about this country that fucking CPAC extended an invitation to this fucker? And if that means using legal or pseudo-legal means of civil disobedience to shut down modern facists… Well, yeah. Why should I sit by and listen? Why do we even assume debate is possible, let alone preferable?
I specifically asked Crazy Canuck if peaceful protesting could count as “shutting down free speech”, and he/she said yes.
Nobody is arguing that those things are right though :smack:
Also, you are now calling me dishonest right after referring to another poster as dumb.
Interesting way to try to convince people of your position (which as far as I can tell nobody is disagreeing with). The argument being made is that peaceful protest of hate speech is ok, but you keep replying that violence is bad. Who is it that is saying that violence is good? Who are you arguing with?
The nice thing about having a massive fanbase consisting mostly of angry young men on the internet, a great many of which are of the chantard/gamergate sector, is that you don’t have to say, “Go after this person”. You don’t have to call out your harassment campaigns with a bullhorn. All you need is a dog whistle. All you have to do is publish an article ticking essentially every box on the character assassination checklist. Or hell, even just make a couple unpleasant tweets. Boom, instant massive, distributed harassment campaign. But that Sarah Nyberg case above is a pretty fucking clear example of character assassination against a vulnerable target, and you can read the effects of it yourself. It’s like… imagine if the New York Times put out a front-page article discussing what a terrible person you are, attacking you specifically where they know it will hurt your (in this case hypothetical) mental illness, citing shit you didn’t do but they somehow claimed to have “evidence” for. What do you think would happen? Except that’s not a fair analysis, because I think even given the relative sizes, less completely fucking evil people read the New York Times than Breitbart.
Alright. If you think violent protest to shut down that sort of speech is a useful and valid tactic I won’t be able to convince you otherwise. Let’s just see how effective it is overtime.
I think it’s counter productive. I also think the precedent of violent suppression of speech can be used against what you’d like to say as well. At which point, the merit of the idea no longer matters. What matters is who can assemble the most violent mob.
Where did he advocate violence in that post?
Who here is advocating violence?
Why do you keep accusing people here of advocating violence?
Are you actually saying that people shouldn’t have the right to protest?
Does octopus not know what “civil disobedience” means?
he has called out and outed people at his speeches. He has denigrated minorities. While I must admit that I avoid listening to him, and therefore have few examples, everything I have heard come from his mouth has been something that legitimizes violence against minorities.
You need to re-read the thread if you think that crazy canuck is only against violent protest. He is specifically against peaceful protest as well.
Pro-tip: don’t call others dumb or disingenuous when it is you who can’t be bothered to follow the conversation.
…he just finished explaining he supported legal protest, not violent protest. Quit with the strawman.
Milo no longer has a platform. He was shut down by a 16 year old girl. It looks like legal protest works quite well.
Protests do include many people speaking freely. However, I don’t consider protesting the exact same as practicing free speech. I can’t put my finger exactly on why, so I’ll have to think on that one a bit more. My gut says that it has to do with being about the individual vs. the group, but again, I’ll need to ponder this point more.
It is true the most people only use censorship to discuss governments restricting people’s speech. However, if you gather a group of people together for the purpose of ensuring that someone does not get a chance to speak, the word censorship seems very appropriate. This is regardless of whether you use violence or peaceful means to accomplish your goals.
I’d go further into this, but I just had a rather large pile of invoicing get dumped on my desk and sadly I’m going to actually have to work for my paycheck today. I’ll try and come back later, time permitting.
Thanks for responding. I think the difference between our viewpoints hinges on the sentence I bolded above – these protests (the peaceful ones, anyway, which describes the vast majority) aren’t aimed at stopping anyone from speaking in general, but rather from gaining access to particular venue and megaphone. Anyone can say anything they want – but does everyone have the right to say anything they want in any venue whatsoever? I don’t have the right to commandeer the stage at a local bar, very obviously… but what if they invite me and then change their mind? I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t count as censorship in your book. But what if they invite me, and then they get a stern letter from some of their customers saying they won’t patronize their bar any more if the bar invites me to speak. And the bar backs down, because they value their customers more than me. Is that censorship? It seems like it’s just customers telling a business something that the business would want to know – what their loyal customers want in order to continue being loyal customers.
Does the calculus change for a university? In some ways, perhaps… but I don’t see how it changes that peacefully writing a letter, or peacefully protesting, or some other expression of disagreement, is entirely within both the spirit and letter of the concept of free speech.