Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

Things have changed. One side salivates just thinking about censorship and thought control and that side is not the side you think it is.

The fact that defining violence isn't trivial is a case for more speech, not less.

I don't think you can build arguments against censoring anti-vaccination opponents which are exactly valid to those advocating violence. Our ancestors lived worse lives without modern medicine, but it's conceivable to abandon some aspects of our technology and not fundamentally alter our way of life. Whereas the normalization of violence always, inevitably, leads exactly where you'd expect.

That's dogmatic. In history, there were plenty of situations where this areas was very grey. What if you are in 1943 and that you need to defend yourself? Will status quo be ever reversed at the same pace, saving lives of thousands, if there were no extremists that made "moderates" look moderate and pushed the power in place to negociate with the moderates?

I'm not at all advocating for violence, but your vision of "dont use violence is an absolute" is just simplistic.

> I don't think you can build arguments against censoring anti-vaccination opponents which are exactly valid to those advocating violence

Yes, I can, easily. The difference is that you are just going to say "no, they are not as valid, because my base hypothesis is that 'violence is never justified'". So, of course, FOR YOU, it will never be valid.

> Our ancestors lived worse lives without modern medicine, but it's conceivable to abandon some aspects of our technology and not fundamentally alter our way of life. Whereas the normalization of violence always, inevitably, leads exactly where you'd expect.

That's a good example: our ancestors went throught PLENTY of really violent time. By your own logic, violence is not that bad. You are also saying that any act of violence immediately implies a total collapse of any judgement, which is obviously not the reality.

But that's beyond the point: you just show that you have an absolute (so it's strange to criticize others for different absolutes). Which is fine. But you think that your absolute is somehow smarter or morally superior as others, while in fact it is not really advanced and rather simplistic.

That's the opposite of what I claimed.

You are keen to put words in my mouth. I point out that we can argue about defining violence properly and you imply that the existence of WWII challenges my beliefs. Not in good faith.

That's a really good example: if another institution admits it happened, it demonstrates that institutions are not controlled by a cambodian-genocide-denial-dogma.

Same here: as some left-wing events were cancelled by another university, even they are not the majority of the cancellation, it demonstrates that universities are not controlled by a left-wing-dogma.

> I'm a lot less concerned about Milo's exclusion than I am of Xi Van Fleet's.

And your Milo is another person Xi Van Fleet: you are basically admitting that you base your impression based on people you think were unfairly cancelled because they have an opinion that you think is sensible.

I was not able to find cases where Van Fleet was cancelled in an university event (the large majority of the research results are about how she is cancelled, again, the "bad leftist" has probably done more for spreading her view than what her views would have been otherwise, as they appear to be not really original). But I'm pretty sure you can easily find a person who say that the right-wing is like the chinese communists based on their own experience, and I'm pretty sure the right-wing people will criticize this person as much as Van Fleet is, and will protest as much to their event if they have the opportunity and if this person gets as much media coverage as Van Fleet.

(also about "democratic western academia problem": I don't get how this argument is a "win". It's basically "right-wing people are so stupid they cannot even find a way to publish something true themselves". If what a right-wing person is saying is true, then you will have universities that will support them, just because supporting someone who tells something that is true is just very very beneficial for the university. On top of that, as said elsewhere, it's not like the whole power spectrum is left-wing, so they will have plenty of support. Imagine the level of effort it will need for the bad university-leftist-owners to chase down every academic that is not a left-wing dishonest conspiracists (being left-wing does not mean a scientist will accept to reject the truth) in the WHOLE WESTERN WORLD so they cannot get any level of power in any one western uni? And at the same time, there are plenty of academic people who are right-wing, have done very well career-wise)