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Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

thomasprosser.substack.com

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Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#41

Post by Jensson »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #36
ContrarianBrit wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not from the US, but I would consider Biden to be a traditional left-liberal. Unfortunately, moderates like Biden seem terrified of radical progressives!

To be fair, I could consider Sanders as a traditional left-liberal.

Sanders is far more left than any government in Europe. His reforms include giving 20% of every public/large company to workers, make 45% of company boards elected by workers, the government will instruct large companies what their long term plans must be and they are legally bound to follow those rather than the owners wishes, companies restructuring their organizations must give even more ownership to the workers who were laid off during the restructure etc.

Those things are much more radical than anything you see in Europe, he isn't left-liberal, he is about as far left you can go without being outright communist. Note that I myself support left-wing liberalism very much, I want public healthcare, strong separation between religion and state, free speech etc, that isn't what makes Sanders far left, it is all the other things he also wants to do.

Everything I mentioned here is all on his homepage: https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-an...

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#42

Post by ContrarianBrit »

giantg2 wrote: post #39
ContrarianBrit wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The balance of power has now changed. Liberal positions are favoured by majorities; conservative positions are favoured by minorities.

Do you mean favored by minorities, or that the conservative position is the minority?

Sorry should have been clearer; conservative positions now tend to be in the minority.

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#43

Post by krapp »

giantg2 wrote: post #37
krapp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel culture isn't a pursuit of legalized limits on free speech, it's an expression of free speech. Only conservatives are currently pursuing anything of the sort, by attempting to regulate social media, banning critical race theory, the discussion of gender identity and sexuality, etc.

"Only" Are they also banning religion/prayer in schools, or firearm education/imagery, etc? After Trump won, I seem to remember a lot of people supporting the idea of managing misinformation on social media. My point is that all sides do it.

No one has banned religion or prayer in schools. The Supreme Court ruled that public schools requiring the practice of a specific religion by students was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as public schools are government entities.

Granted, the campaign to ban coerced prayer in schools was led by a famous atheist activist, Madeline Murray O'Hair, but it's difficult for me to see the Supreme Court as more leftist than conservative in its decision making.

I don't know what "firearm education/imagery" refers to, all I could find was a case of a school banning gun imagery on t-shirts, but nothing about banning firearm education. I'd agree with you that this case seems egregious, but I don't see evidence that leftist ideology in particular is responsible. It's not as if the dress code only banned images of guns on shirts because the school board opposes the Second Amendment.

But even conceding that for the sake of argument - it still pales compared to what the right is attempting currently.

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#44

Post by herbstein »

Jensson wrote: post #41
seba_dos1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I could consider Sanders as a traditional left-liberal.

Sanders is far more left than any government in Europe. His reforms include giving 20% of every public/large company to workers, make 45% of company boards elected by workers, the government will instruct large companies what their long term plans must be and they are legally bound to follow those rather than the owners wishes, companies restructuring their organizations must give even more ownership to the workers w…

> make 45% of company boards elected by workers

This is already the case in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#45

Post by andrewclunn »

ContrarianBrit wrote: post #25
andrewclunn wrote: post #16

Whichever group seeks to push its values on others via force or compulsion will find a reason to dismiss or vilify freedom of expression and speech. Then all other groups will band together to oppose that first group of would-be tyrants. Claiming that there's something psychologically distinct about one political party or another at an individual level (which goes beyond a mere snapshot or moment in time) is to see t…

Yet countless academic studies find psychological differences between conservatives and liberals; see the blog for references.

If I split people along a single axis, I would be able to find all sorts of correlations. Does that pattern hold even as the lines and makeup of political parties change? Believing transient patterns to represent powerful truths is why so many social scientists theories are as temporal as their finding.

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#46

Post by Jensson »

herbstein wrote: post #44
Jensson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanders is far more left than any government in Europe. His reforms include giving 20% of every public/large company to workers, make 45% of company boards elected by workers, the government will instruct large companies what their long term plans must be and they are legally bound to follow those rather than the owners wishes, companies restructuring their organizations must give even more ownership to the workers w…

> make 45% of company boards elected by workers This is already the case in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

Not 45%, no. Being a third and being 45% are very different in terms of power. A third means you have a voice but the other part still has twice the seats you have, 45% means you are basically equal to the other part.

Also, if it was just the 45% worker representation on boards and not the other things I'd consider him traditional left. It is a bit further than what you can find in Europe, but not overwhelmingly so, however all those combined is.

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#47

Post by herbstein »

Jensson wrote: post #46
herbstein wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make 45% of company boards elected by workers This is already the case in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

Not 45%, no. Being a third and being 45% are very different in terms of power. A third means you have a voice but the other part still has twice the seats you have, 45% means you are basically equal to the other part. Also, if it was just the 45% worker representation on boards and not the other things I'd consider him traditional left. It is a bit further than what you can find in Europe, but not overwhelmingly so,…

> The law allows workers to elect representatives (usually trade union representatives) for almost half of the supervisory board of directors. [..] It applies to public and private companies, so long as there are over 2,000 employees. For companies with 500–2,000 employees, one third of the supervisory board must be elected.

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#48

Post by Jensson »

herbstein wrote: post #47
Jensson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not 45%, no. Being a third and being 45% are very different in terms of power. A third means you have a voice but the other part still has twice the seats you have, 45% means you are basically equal to the other part. Also, if it was just the 45% worker representation on boards and not the other things I'd consider him traditional left. It is a bit further than what you can find in Europe, but not overwhelmingly so,…

> The law allows workers to elect representatives (usually trade union representatives) for almost half of the supervisory board of directors. [..] It applies to public and private companies, so long as there are over 2,000 employees. For companies with 500–2,000 employees, one third of the supervisory board must be elected.

Ok, scratch that part. The other parts still stands. Also, Germany is relatively right wing in many other regards, cherry picking the most left wing part of every European country will still result in something far left of what you see anywhere in Europe.

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#49

Post by quantified »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #15
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

The way some people talk these days you'd think that freedom is the freedom to disable the fire alarm and lock the doors in a burning theater. (e.g. climate change and COVID-19 denialism) "Free speech" is so 1980s. Today it is all about protecting communication channels from spam, disinformation, revenge porn and other forms of coordinated disingenuous communications.

As long as the so-called “left” is against ideals of individual freedom, the so-called “left” is a complete joke. Freedom of speech for working people, who have always been subject to the whims of the authoritarian workplace, has never been realized in the United States. Still, abandoning it as an ideal altogether, and nonsensically insisting its passé while inciting a war on “disinformation” in the same breath is ut…

Since the “right” is too, we’re just screwed all around.

Re: Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech

#50

Post by giantg2 »

krapp wrote: post #43
giantg2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Only" Are they also banning religion/prayer in schools, or firearm education/imagery, etc? After Trump won, I seem to remember a lot of people supporting the idea of managing misinformation on social media. My point is that all sides do it.

No one has banned religion or prayer in schools. The Supreme Court ruled that public schools requiring the practice of a specific religion by students was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as public schools are government entities. Granted, the campaign to ban coerced prayer in schools was led by a famous atheist activist, Madeline Murray O'Hair, but it's difficult for me to see the Supr…

Yes, SCOTUS only did away with state sponsored prayer. However, the implementation of that decision tends to go farther. For example, prayer must be done privately, so most overt prayer is banned. Some schools have/tried banning religious items that would be overt, such as rosaries. So it goes farther than simply banning state sponsored prayer and becomes a 1st Ammendment issue if students are being told they can pray, but must not speak it.

For the gun topic. Some schools removed firearm education from the curriculum and even as an elective. So it's not an outright ban but a defacto one. Even when there is agreement that safety should be taught, there is a lot of debate about using a program designed by gun control groups or gun rights groups. What we also have seen are students getting in trouble for off-campus, non-threatening, lawful use of firearms. These discaplinary events are very egregious, and the schools has no basis for their actions in these cases. The only assumption that can be made is that the people making those decisions politically oppose that to the point that they are ignorant of the laws and overreact.

The issue of gun images is not a second amendment issue, but a first. School dress codes are only allowed to ban general things that would interfere with education. However, guns are usually explicitly called out. Not to mention the display of gun imagery in a manner that doesn't condone violence would not interfere with education.

"it still pales compared to what the right is attempting currently."

What is that?

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