The Limits of Free Speech

it's not simply that UC jewish students want to walk down the hallway without having "zio-pig" yelled at them,

tbh i seriously doubt that this has happened more than once. there /are/ probably some jewish student prima donnas who are exaggerating the extent of the racist speech directed toward them for rhetorical purpose, just as some of the protestors at missouri seemed to want to exaggerate the number of racist incidents on that campus.

a major job of both university administrators and campus protestors (the former often responding to the latter) these days seems to be to react to every individual racist incident like the KKK or hitler youth just marched through campus.

the nastiest shouting match I ever saw on campus when I was in college was between a Lebanese student group & a Jewish fraternity in 2006

xpost i know, right? political correctness is ruining america!

seriously though that sounds pretty dumb and reactionary, amateurist

they should just channel that negative energy into a dance-off

xpost

i know, right? political correctness is ruining america!

if you want to paint me with that brush you'll have to try harder. i think "political correctness is ruining america" is a ridiculous trope, and even more exaggerated than some of the reactions to isolated campus incidents.

this is what i mean by people talking past each other.

also, fuck you! :)

i have to try harder? i'm not the one making shitty posts

sorry if it sounds "reactionary"

i guess i feel that people on ALL sides of these issues on campus have a tendency to make molehills into mountains and exaggerate their own victimhood; it's sort of the game everyone is playing. this is true of campus radicals, campus republicans, jews, blacks, whites, everybody.

"a major job of both university administrators and campus protestors (the former often responding to the latter) these days seems to be to react to every individual racist incident like the KKK or hitler youth just marched through campus"

i mean it speaks for itself

used to be 18 year olds charged the beaches at normandy, now they're crying for safe spaces etc etc

you sound like someone's ignorant grandpa

well, treat me like i'm six years old and explain "it" to me

i mean, this stuff isn't hard!

speaking as a professional educator, this is also armchair quarterbacky and lame. it is VERY hard, i don't wtf you're talking about.

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

wtf do you do for a living again?

used to be 18 year olds charged the beaches at normandy, now they're crying for safe spaces etc etc

you sound like someone's ignorant grandpa

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:24 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i didn't say either of those things -- you're projecting a worldview onto my posts based on what you associate it with

i don't think that political correctness is a major problem in america

i don't think that "kids these days" are coddled, or oversensitive, or anything like that

i just happen to think that a certain subset of students (of many different political persuasions) are in a weird sort of dance with administrators where the latter has to demonstrate their concern by raising the rhetorical stakes after every incident of real or perceived bias.

you seem kind of troll-y, frankly. i'm trying to explain my thoughts and you are just making little five-word posts that take potshots at me.

like:

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

wtf do you do for a living again?

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rather than asking a rhetorical question like this, why not explain why you think this UC policy is useful and necessary?

hey man i'm just suggesting you STFU and let the regents do their jobs

re what this is for, my friend zach says:

There is no attempt to police speech. Actions are what matter. “Actions that physically or otherwise interfere with the ability of an individual or group to assemble, speak, and share or hear the opinions of others (within time place and manner restrictions adopted by the University) impair the mission and intellectual life of the University and will not be tolerated.”

–“Harassment, threats, assaults, vandalism, and destruction of property, as defined by University policy, will not be tolerated within the University community. Where investigation establishes that such unlawful conduct was targeted at an individual or individuals based on discrimination prohibited by University policy, University administrators should consider discipline that includes enhanced sanctions.”

this is presumably their concern. that they will not be able to "protest" speakers w/ impunity. i imagine they can still protest kissinger or netanyahu all they want but they won't be able to protest, say, an israeli who has nothing to do with israeli policy, or someone speaking on a totally unrelated topic to israel but who happened to be invited by a local hillel.

hey man i'm just suggesting you STFU and let the regents do their jobs

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"sorry, we would be instituting this policy but for some guy on the internet suggesting it won't have much effect. everyone please go home."

xpost

i see. so this is in response (in part) to protestors not allowing events with speakers to proceed?

i actually am not OK with "enhanced sanctions" -- just as i'm not OK with "hate crime" legislation. seems like you are taking something that's already disallowed and appending a "thought crime" element to it.

wow you really are a reactionary idiot

it is VERY hard, i don't wtf you're talking about.

it is NOT terribly hard to disentangle "israeli government policy" from "the jews". even if people on various sides of the issue seek to conflate those two things for differing purposes.

that's all i meant.

ok troll away now, i have to get back to work :)

one last thing: there's a lot of debate about 'hate crime' legislation on the left, esp. from free-speech advocates. see e.g. http://www.thenation.com/article/hate-crime-laws-dont-prevent-violence-against-lgbt-people/

i don't know why i'm arguing with a troll, i shouldn't let this stuff get to me. oh well.

I really think the energy being spent by some people attacking the ACLU is better focused on opposing and confronting the alt-right.

Or we could just let Sessions decide what kind of speech to ban.

Great thread

Reposting this from the alt-right thread:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/blakemontgomery/heres-what-really-happened-in-charlottesville?utm_term=.xtQzxYqZ#.knkZrGOE

The right-wingers were more prepared for violence. Most white supremacist and Nazi groups arrived armed like a paramilitary force — carrying shields, protective gear, rods, and yes, lots of guns, utilizing Virginia’s loose firearm laws. They used militarized defensive maneuvers, shouting commands at one another to “move forward” or “retreat,” and would form a line of shields or a phalanx — it’s like they watched 300 a few times — to gain ground or shepherd someone through projectiles. It seemed that they had practiced for this. Virginia’s governor said that the right’s weaponry was better than that of the state police.

If this is the case, it's worth it to consider whether ACLU really did due diligence. Yeah, free speech rights, but if their clients are planning for violence, and they don't check for it, that's their fault, imo. This isn't a mistake, this wasn't unforeseeable, this is a violent ideology that is being planned and funded somewhere. It's bullshit when Greenwald is writing about Milo Literally nothing has helped Yiannopoulos become a national cult figure more than the well-intentioned (but failed) efforts to deny him a platform while actual journalists are digging into the large funding he is clearly receiving from somewhere, probably the Mercers.

― Frederik B, 14. august 2017 14:12 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/16/16153248/free-speech-nazi-first-amendment-democracy-hate-speech

I came in preparing to dislike this, but it's good.

just got an email from DailyKos imploring Boston's mayor to cancel the dipshit rally this weekend.

so, DK doesn't understand the Constitution. I am unsurprised.

(There will be no weapons, or even flagpoles, permitted.)

Go and confront.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/16/odd-statement-from-the-aclu-of-california-white-supremacist-violence-is-not-free-speech/?utm_term=.5bdeadc99229

Maybe Trump will end up breaking the ACLU, too.

i am a bit conflicted on these sort of issues but it does seem to me that the paradox of liberal democracy - that it basically only functions if the majority agree to certain foundations, but it is unable to force adherence to these without becoming illiberal - is going to be progressively debilitating, and, especially in an armed to the teeth country like the U.S., the fundamentalist view of free speech will allow for a lot of harm to the open society

I understand why ACLU feels like they need to release something like this esp since they got so much blowback from charlottesville but it really isn't their mission and it undermines what their mission is

Wow: We make decisions on whom we’ll represent and in what context on a case-by-case basis. The horrible events in Charlottesville last weekend will certainly inform those decisions going forward.

Wait, what part of it isn't their mission, Mordy? Representing white supremacists, or saying that white supremacists are violent. Honest question, I can see an argument for both sides.

saying that white supremacists are violent

ok.

So in Germany, Nazi symbols and regalia are outright illegal and banned. Other than that - and I ask naively, because I don't know - what can we do or say in America that they cannot do or say in Germany? How is our free speech in practicality better than or stronger than Germany's - or England's, or France's or whomever's? Because if the only real difference is that we can fly Nazi flags and they can't ... I mean, the whole idea of the 1st (and 2nd) amendments are as bulwarks against tyranny. And yet ... both are in many ways currently leaving us worse off than the tyranny we escaped (England) and the tyranny we fought (Germany).

uk has some of the strictest defamation laws in the world, you need a very high level of proof for any claim you might make or you are liable to be taken to court and fined all to hell

also many laws have been in place which have curtailed freedom of speech in a manner that would be unconstitutional in the US, e.g. this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988–94_British_broadcasting_voice_restrictions

UK has laws against inciting religious and racial hatred (replacement for blasphemy laws) & people have been successfully prosecuted for 'threatening and abusive words' for (peacefully) protesting a military homecoming parade

Germany has banned certain political parties, has broad hate speech laws, retains defamation as a criminal offence, etc. You can be jailed in the U.K. for social media posts considered supportive of proscribed terrorist groups, almost any speech can be considered a public order offence if deemed intended to shock and alarm.

These are, for the most part, fairly good things but it's not just a question of flying flags.

scotland has a law that means you can be arrested and charged if you say something "a reaonsable person would find offensive" (paraphrasing but the actual wording is similar) at a soccer game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_Behaviour_at_Football_and_Threatening_Communications_(Scotland)_Act_2012

i am a bit conflicted on these sort of issues but it does seem to me that the paradox of liberal democracy - that it basically only functions if the majority agree to certain foundations, but it is unable to force adherence to these without becoming illiberal - is going to be progressively debilitating, and, especially in an armed to the teeth country like the U.S., the fundamentalist view of free speech will allow for a lot of harm to the open society

― -_- (jim in vancouver), Thursday, August 17, 2017 8:54 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You basically just described Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance: "The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."

xpost Thanks for these. So do any of you have a specific example of some egregious miscarriage of justice that would not have transpired in the US thanks to the 1st amendment freedoms?

@Josh, to add another perspective: in Holland you can get arrested and prosecuted for sieg heiling and chants that seem intended to incite violence ("Hamas, hamas, jews on gas" a 'popular' one among the extreme right)

what can we do or say in America that they cannot do or say in Germany

On the 'do'-part: carrying guns. I know you know this, but for nearly every country in the world this is absolutely surreal and insane. All the more because it's directly tied in with the notion that carrying a gun protects citizen's right of free speech.

scotland has a law that means you can be arrested and charged if you say something "a reaonsable person would find offensive" (paraphrasing but the actual wording is similar) at a soccer game

So 10% of the population is arrested every Saturday.

Haha

(downside to Dutch defamation laws: writing "Away with the monarchy, it's 2017" on a piece of cardboard will also get you in trouble :( )

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-aclu-tensions-20170817-story.html

1934: “We do not choose our clients. Lawless authorities denying their rights choose them for us."
2017: “We review each request for help on a case-by-case basis, but take the clear position that the First Amendment does not protect people who incite or engage in violence.”

This is the explanation:
Ahilan Arulanantham, the legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, said it was not the organization’s perspective on civil liberties that had changed, but the nature of the far-right groups themselves — a willingness to come to events ready for violence.

“The factual context here is shifting, given the extent to which the particular marches we’re seeing in this historical moment are armed,” said Arulanantham.

Good. Armed marches should be illegal.

Like, open carry? Do your thing. But limiting groups of people with guns should be like convenience stores limiting the number of middle school kids allowed in at a time.

The guns thing OTM, LBI. I watched that Vice doco and was staggered by all the AKs and pistols and knives this guy proudly weilded/pulled from his pants/boots. I mean fucking hell. And he said he had every intent to kill, if that was neccesary! How is that not threatening speech inciting violence???