We All Need to Defend Speech We Hate: Liberals Silencing Conservative Speakers Is a Pyhrric Victory for the Left
Agreed. The campus conservatives set them up and they fell for it. There are more effective ways of illustrating Coulter being the voice and image of modern conservatives.
I am an ACLU member and supporter. They are right to raise alarms in instances like this. And we should definitely condemn violence aimed at shutting down speakers. But it needs to be pointed out that these are isolated instances. There is no free speech crisis on campuses across the nation. People who study this have come to that conclusion after doing research. I've linked to the study probably 5 times on MOL. And at this point, I doubt anyone here has ever visited the study or read its conclusions.
Just from a tactical standpoint, these students are stupidly playing into the hands of people like Coulter. She and the entire right wing media sphere are using a half a dozen or so incidents to smear thousands of campuses and millions of students who are NOT shutting down the exchange of ideas.
I listen to people who actually study this stuff. Where's your data?
Gilgul said:
Head in the sand alert for the prior post.
From the Atlantic article that the ACLU article links to, about Charles Murray's appearance at Middlebury :
The student went on to observe, correctly, that “a lot of media presented this as an issue between liberals and conservatives, but I think that this is inaccurate and misleading. Although the talk was organized by conservatives,” he wrote––the two student organizers I spoke to actually described themselves as libertarians, and said that the AEI club has leadership that is ideologically mixed––“the vast majority of those who profoundly opposed the disruptive nature of the protests, myself included, identify as liberals. Liberals and conservatives are together in this against a small but arrogant and vocal group that seems to be questioning the very value of free speech and civil discourse.”
From an article by Cal's chancellor:
The Berkeley College Republicans invited Ms. Coulter without consulting with the university about the date of the event. This meant we at the school were unable to identify a place and time that could satisfy the extensive but necessary security requirements.
ml1 said:
And at this point, I doubt anyone here has ever visited the study or read its conclusions.
Are you talking about the PEN report?
That Charles Murray, Ann Coulter and Donald Trump are the leading minds of modern conservatism is a much larger problem than some overreactive 20 year olds.
A quick search shows that in the past year or so In addition to Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Charles Murray, Ben Shapiro, Kathleen Parker, Gavin McInnes, Heather Mac Donald and Richard Spencer have all been prevented from speaking or disrupted while speaking. So ML1 yes you are head in the sand.
DaveSchmidt said:
From an article by Cal's chancellor:
The Berkeley College Republicans invited Ms. Coulter without consulting with the university about the date of the event. This meant we at the school were unable to identify a place and time that could satisfy the extensive but necessary security requirements.
That is the whole issue. A freakin' speech should never require "extensive but necessary security requirements". There would be no need for security if people would just let others speak and keep their protests quiet and non-disruptive.
Gilgul said:
That is the whole issue. A freakin' speech should never require "extensive but necessary security requirements". There would be no need for security if people would just let others speak and keep their protests quiet and non-disruptive.
A protest that is "quiet and non-disruptive" is not a protest. That you prefer the speech of Coulter, Milo and Charles Murray to their opposition tells us all we need to know.
that's a bunch of anecdotes, not data.
if we want to toss insults at each other, the term "chicken little" could also be applicable to your position.
but rather than that, I'd refer to the link daveschmidt provided.
Gilgul said:
A quick search shows that in the past year or so iIn addition to Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Charles Murray, Ben Shapiro, Kathleen Parker, Gavin McInnes, Heather Mac Donald and Richard Spencer have all been prevented from speaking or disrupted while speaking. So ML1 yes you are head in the sand.
dave23 said:
Gilgul said:
That is the whole issue. A freakin' speech should never require "extensive but necessary security requirements". There would be no need for security if people would just let others speak and keep their protests quiet and non-disruptive.
A protest that is "quiet and non-disruptive" is not a protest. That you prefer the speech of Coulter, Milo and Charles Murray to their opposition tells us all we need to know.
See that is where you go off the rails. Yes protest can be non-disruptive. And speech can be countered by more speech without being disruptive or sliding into censorship.
If one feels they need to be disruptive to make their point then they have lost.
Nice focus shift with your ad-hominem attack on Murray, Coulter and Trump.
Real story: the left is silencing political speech to which they are opposed (and such action by the left is acknowledged by the ACLU). Many leftist groups have been engaged in fascist anti-free speech actions recently. These fascist anti-free speech actions are likely attributable to the fact that "the academic left has built up a pseudo-intellectual bulwark around such fascism. They’ve told students that they deserve 'safe spaces' – areas in which their ideas are not challenged in any way." See http://www.dailywire.com/news/13084/fascists-campus-how-academic-left-paved-way-anti-ben-shapiro#
dave23 said:
That Charles Murray, Ann Coulter and Donald Trump are the leading minds of modern conservatism is a much larger problem than some overreactive 20 year olds.
More apologies for fascist violence propagated in order to stop free speech (of those with which you disagree).
dave23 said:
Gilgul said:
That is the whole issue. A freakin' speech should never require "extensive but necessary security requirements". There would be no need for security if people would just let others speak and keep their protests quiet and non-disruptive.
A protest that is "quiet and non-disruptive" is not a protest. That you prefer the speech of Coulter, Milo and Charles Murray to their opposition tells us all we need to know.
Gilgul said:
That is the whole issue. A freakin' speech should never require "extensive but necessary security requirements". There would be no need for security if people would just let others speak and keep their protests quiet and non-disruptive.
That's correct. But given the intent of others to exploit Berkeley's reputation for their own agendas, if your primary concern as a student group was having Coulter be heard, a little planning with the school couldn't have hurt.
RealityForAll said:
Nice focus shift with your ad-hominem attack on Murray, Coulter and Trump.
Real story: the left is silencing political speech to which they are opposed (and such action by the left is acknowledged by the ACLU). Many leftist groups have been engaged in fascist anti-free speech actions recently. These fascist anti-free speech actions are likely attributable to the fact that "the academic left has built up a pseudo-intellectual bulwark around such fascism. They’ve told students that they deserve 'safe spaces' – areas in which their ideas are not challenged in any way." See http://www.dailywire.com/news/13084/fascists-campus-how-academic-left-paved-way-anti-ben-shapiro#
dave23 said:
That Charles Murray, Ann Coulter and Donald Trump are the leading minds of modern conservatism is a much larger problem than some overreactive 20 year olds.
I'm perfectly fine accepting of the idea that I've engaged in an ad hominem attack on Murray, Coulter and Trump. Defend their character all you want, I'm good with my choice.
But as I said before, I agree that the left is too quick to shut these things down and that they ought be allowed to speak. (Calling it "fascist," however, is pretty much the same tactic they take. It's a war of the snowflakes!)
I'm sure Ms. Coulter is as gratified by the reaction to her speaking engagement as she would be by appearing. There may well be another hate-filled book in this episode.
I would agree with that. All the more reason to just let her speak and be done with it.
RealityForAll said:
More apologies for fascist violence propagated in order to stop free speech (of those with which you disagree).
And this is how we end up with Trump. Protest = "fascist violence."
No need to get upset. The thin-skinned liberals in Berkeley won one battle, but you guys won the election.
Gilgul said:
I would agree with that. All the more reason to just let her speak and be done with it.
Thankfully, college administrators put a bit more thought into their decisions.
If, not for loathsome Ms. Coulter, then for whom is the right of free speech written?
GL2 said:
I'm sure Ms. Coulter is as gratified by the reaction to her speaking engagement as she would be by appearing. There may well be another hate-filled book in this episode.
We support the ACLU as well and have a child in college. I want him, as I was able, to attend or not attend, hear or not hear campus speeches. I detest Coulter but don't want to shut down her freedom of speech. If you don't want to hear her venom then don't go to her speech.
In order to prevent high school and college students from becoming protected in Saran Wrap, they must get a dose of real world ish. If I were a Berkeley student, I would have wanted to attend just to hear what she had to say. The bigger picture is being missed: are we more harmed by what we hear or by what we don't hear?
+10
kibbegirl said:
We support the ACLU as well and have a child in college. I want him, as I was able, to attend or not attend, hear or not hear campus speeches. I detest Coulter but don't want to shut down her freedom of speech. If you don't want to hear her venom then don't go to her speech.
In order to prevent high school and college students from becoming protected in Saran Wrap, they must get a dose of real world ish. If I were a Berkeley student, I would have wanted to attend just to hear what she had to say. The bigger picture is being missed: are we more harmed by what we hear or by what we don't hear?
RealityForAll said:
+10
kibbegirl said:
We support the ACLU as well and have a child in college. I want him, as I was able, to attend or not attend, hear or not hear campus speeches. I detest Coulter but don't want to shut down her freedom of speech. If you don't want to hear her venom then don't go to her speech.
In order to prevent high school and college students from becoming protected in Saran Wrap, they must get a dose of real world ish. If I were a Berkeley student, I would have wanted to attend just to hear what she had to say. The bigger picture is being missed: are we more harmed by what we hear or by what we don't hear?
When you say +10, what's your guess for how many of the 9 who'd be joining you would be liberals?
Interesting question that you have posed. I base my positions on principles. And, I care not how members of the two major parties (or tribes) feel about these issues.
DaveSchmidt said:
RealityForAll said:
+10
kibbegirl said:
We support the ACLU as well and have a child in college. I want him, as I was able, to attend or not attend, hear or not hear campus speeches. I detest Coulter but don't want to shut down her freedom of speech. If you don't want to hear her venom then don't go to her speech.
In order to prevent high school and college students from becoming protected in Saran Wrap, they must get a dose of real world ish. If I were a Berkeley student, I would have wanted to attend just to hear what she had to say. The bigger picture is being missed: are we more harmed by what we hear or by what we don't hear?
When you say +10, what's your guess for how many of the 9 who'd be joining you would be liberals?
RealityForAll said:
Interesting question that you have posed. I base my positions on principles. And, I care not how members of the two major parties (or tribes) feel about these issues.
Interesting answer. Because the thread title suggests that liberals as a group are complicit, and that "the left" sees the outcome at Berkeley as a victory.
ETA: In other words, you've implied that conservatives alone, or at least mostly, would make up the remaining 9.
More evidence of the creeping (and yes Fascist) intolerance (and more indication that it is mostly coming from the left - you do not see this type of threats from the right):
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
For 10 years, the 82nd Avenue of Roses Business Association has kicked off the city of Portland’s annual Rose Festival with a family-friendly parade meant to attract crowds to its diverse neighborhood.
Set to march in the parade’s 67th spot this year was the Multnomah County Republican Party, a fact that so outraged two self-described antifascist groups in the deep blue Oregon city that they pledged to protest and disrupt the April 29 event.
Then came an anonymous and ominous email, according to parade organizers, that instructed them to cancel the GOP group’s registration — or else.
“You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely,” the anonymous email said, referring to the violent riots that hit Portland after the 2016 presidential election, reported the Oregonian. “This is nonnegotiable.”
The email said that 200 people would “rush into the parade” and “drag and push” those marching with the Republican Party....
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Reprint of recent ACLU article on free speech. Berkeley administration's safety concerns apparently forced the two student groups to rescind Coulter's invitation.
The ACLU article makes the following point:
In just the past few weeks, from one campus to another and another and another, liberal students have silenced conservative speakers with violence, outrage, and threats. This collection of heckler’s vetoes is the farthest thing from a victory for the progressive causes these students champion [emphasis added].
The answer to bad speech (AKA speech recipient does not agree with) is more speech by recipient who disagrees.
Link to NYT on Coulter pulling out: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
PS I believe Coulter is loathsome but she has a right to speak.
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https://www.aclu.org/blog/spea...
We All Need to Defend Speech We Hate
By Lee Rowland, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project
APRIL 25, 2017 | 9:00 AM
TAGS
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This piece originally appeared at Inside Sources.
Controversial, critical, confrontational, and challenging speech is an essential part of any successful college education. Without it, institutions of higher education cannot truly be said to be preparing students for the world outside of the ivory tower.
For many, a college campus is the last stop on the train to true adulthood. Part of being an adult in America means living our constitutional values — foremost among them, our First Amendment rights to make our opinions heard — and to listen to others speak.
The Supreme Court has spilled barrels of ink defining the First Amendment rights of students, from kindergarten to post-graduate studies. And there’s no question that the law has resolved into an age-based sliding scale: For young ones, the core goals are safety and discipline. But as students age, the shadows of the Constitution start to spread across the school day. By the time students graduate from high school, courts expect freedom of speech to be not just in the students’ best interests, but the schools’ interest as well.
And that’s not just because free speech is a formalistic constitutional principle; it’s an indispensable part of our civic education. Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the Supreme Court in 1943, wrote something truly beautiful about the purpose of an education:
“That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.”
Remarkably, Jackson was referring to grade school students, and the court rightly held that forcing patriotism on little ones was both unconstitutional and foolish. If we think inculcating constitutional values is important when kids are in K-12, it should be nothing less than a core part of the curriculum at any college or university.
Soon, your students will graduate. And when they do, they’ll step into the maelstrom of civic life, which can be, frankly, horrific. By constitutional design, ours is a world where homophobic street preachers have a right to accost you at a funeral for a loved one, where avowed racists can bring a Nazi rally to your town, where Congress has no right to criminalize appalling images of animal violence.
I suspect that many students would like to be able to effectively counter-protest the Westboro Baptist Church. Or effortlessly dismantle the racist garbage spewed by today’s alt-right. Or publicize and advocate against animal cruelty. I sure hope they do! Because we need them to tackle public policy issues with the confidence of a generation determined to better us all.
That means being an advocate: speaking out and convincing others. Confronting, hearing, and countering offensive speech we disagree with is a skill. And one that should be considered a core requirement at any school worth its salt.
But as students age, the shadows of the Constitution start to spread across the school day.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that free speech is without grave costs. I cannot imagine the pain that Holocaust survivors felt knowing that the KKK would march through their towns or the anguish a grieving father felt when his son’s funeral was surrounded by the petty signage of hate. On campus, if and when speech crosses the line into targeted harassment or threats or creates a pervasively hostile environment for vulnerable students, it isn’t protected. We fortunately have federal laws to ensure safe learning environments and equal access for all students. But being offended does not rise to that level. We live in an odd country, where the very First Amendment in our Bill of Rights protects hateful speech until it crosses that line.
But that same First Amendment also protects the most heart-swelling markers of our democracy: the right to speak our values, to have a press free from censorship, to gather en masse in the streets and speak truth to power. Our Constitution protects hateful speech, yes — but on the theory that truly free speech means the best ideas will win out. We need students trained to really listen to ideas they hate — and respond with better ones.
In that regard, recent incidents suggest that colleges are fundamentally failing their students in imparting these skills. In just the past few weeks, from one campus to another and another and another, liberal students have silenced conservative speakers with violence, outrage, and threats. This collection of heckler’s vetoes is the farthest thing from a victory for the progressive causes these students champion.
These incidents have not shut down a single bad idea. To the contrary, they’ve given their opponents’ ideas credence by adding the power of martyrdom. When you choose censorship as your substantive argument, you lose the debate. Because none of us are the wiser about the better world those protesting students want to see — instead of telling us, they silenced others. In curricular terms: They didn’t do the assignment.
When students leave the nest of higher education, they will immediately be thrust into a rough-and-tumble world filled with things many of us don’t want to see: racism, sexism, ableism, cruelty. But we all know these things won’t go away if we close our eyes. We need a next generation of students trained to take a deep breath, open their eyes, and change that world with their words and ideas.