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A university president makes a case against cowardice

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Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#721

Post by slg »

noworriesnate wrote: post #669
slg wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define which speech is speech worthy of protection and which speech is a consequence of speech and therefore not worthy of protection? For example, imagine some CEO says something politically objectionable, as is their right granted by allowing free speech. Do I have the right to protest or boycott their company as part of my free speech rights or would that be illegal because I'm rendering a consequence f…

This is a good question that would require a long debate to answer, but the answer obviously is neither of these two extremes: - Every entity except the US govt is allowed to enforce consequences for speech - there should never ever be any consequences for any speech ever

It is funny to see this type of comment downthread of a criticism of bothsidesism. You set up a spectrum in which one "extreme" is the status quo of American culture going back generations and the other "extreme" is a seemingly impossible to achieve idea for which I have never seen a single reasonable person advocate. One of those is a lot more extreme than the other. The only reason we are even having this conversation in this thread is because the Trump administration is trying to be more extreme than your first "extreme" by having the US government inflict consequences for speech.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#722

Post by hekette »

jgalt212 wrote: post #547
low_tech_love wrote: post #425

Some personal highlights: "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university." "People have said to me, “Well, you take all that money from the government, why don’t you listen to them?” The answer is, because the mone…

> The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath But it does come with some reasonable level of consideration and appreciation.

It is their right to be there. They do not have to show appreciation and the current government should never be one deciding these what is appreciation. Bowing to authority is exactly the opposite of what education is about.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#723

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

settrans wrote: post #691
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that the Jews were forcibly expelled from their homeland by the Romans 2000 years ago. You're saying that events from millennia in the past mean that the Palestinians should have had to cede the land they lived on to a group of outsiders from Europe. People can make of that what they may (I think it's ridiculous), but you at least have to admit that it completely invalidates your argument that Zionism is just…

You're changing the topic. Nobody is talking about ceding land, we're talking about re-establishing a nation in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. And besides, no Zionist demanded land or induced anyone to cede their land prior to 1947 anyway, since all Zionist land acquisition was through voluntary purchases and legal land transfers. So are you arguing that the Jews are not a people that merit self determin…

> Nobody is talking about ceding land, we're talking about re-establishing a nation in the historic homeland of the Jewish people

You're saying the same thing with different words. In order to "re-establish" that nation, they had to take over control of Palestine, against the will of the people who actually lived there.

> no Zionist demanded land or induced anyone to cede their land prior to 1947 anyway

That's not true at all. The entire point of Zionism was to take over political control of Palestine and found a Jewish state there. The mainstream Zionist movement wanted all of Palestine, and the radical right wing of Zionism (the "Revisionists," who eventually became Likud, Netanyahu's party) even wanted what is now Jordan.

> all Zionist land acquisition was through voluntary purchases and legal land transfers

That's formally correct before 1947, but the goal was to take over all of Palestine. The leadership of the Jewish Agency (the Zionist quasi-government in British-run Palestine until early 1948) knew that ultimately, it would come down to war with the Arabs, and they prepared for it. They were also very interested in forced "population transfer" (which today would be called "ethnic cleansing"), which they hoped the major powers would agree to.

Even the land purchases were extremely predatory. Imagine the worst aspects of gentrification, but at the scale of a country and enacted for explicitly racist reasons. The Zionists bought up land from landlords who didn't even live in Palestine, and then forcibly removed the Palestinian farmers who lived on the land.

Even so, they never purchased more than about 6% of Palestine, before they forcibly took most of the rest in 1947-48.

> So are you arguing that the Jews are not a people that merit self determination?

First, the obvious question, as I've said, is "where?" Is easy and relatively harmless to say in the abstract that "this group of people is a nation and deserves self-determination." But when you start laying claims to other people's lands, that becomes a problem.

I don't really want to get into who is "a people," but I'll just point out that what you're saying implies that American Jews are just Israelis who happen to live abroad. I think that's incredibly wrong. Jews belong to many different nationalities.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#724

Post by thyristan »

settrans wrote: post #523
thyristan wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when it comes to conflating, I'll take your calling Israel a terror state as a standard: The democratically elected government of Gaza-Palestine is the Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation. Thus by your conflation regarding Israel to be a terror state, the Gaza strip part of Palestine is as well. Its population chose a known terrorist organisation, everything is run by a terrorist organisation, they did ter…

"The antisemite does not accuse the Jew of stealing because he thinks he stole something. He does it because he enjoys watching the Jew turn out his pockets to prove his innocence." Although I laud your unassailable argument highlighting yet another instance of double standards against Jews, ultimately there is little upside in engaging with the "no, no, technically there is a difference between anti-Zionism and anti…

I'll bite as well.

There is a difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. The former is condemning a land-grab because of some 2000 year old claim. The latter is hating Jews because they are Jews. There is a world of difference there.

The forefathers of everyone in Europe, with very few exceptions, occupied a different strip of land 2000 years ago and were driven out by romans, goths, huns, germans or whomever. Most pieces of land changed hands a dozen times or more. Should we now rearrange all the maps and revert to our 2000 year old original national lands and identities? Why 2000 years, why not 500, 5000 or 10000? The maps looked different in those periods as well.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#725

Post by timewizard »

abbadadda wrote: post #720
Telemakhos wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university." I'm not sure I understand. If I want a medical doctor, I'm not looking for someone based on his political views or spirited independence from the Hungarian governm…

What are you purporting not to understand? It seems you’re fighting your own straw man.

The author of the article seems to accept "appeal to authority" he just wishes it was more critically refined to a point that it might somehow be justifiable.

The OP is expressing dismay at this obviously compromised position. There is no purportment or strawmen that I can detect.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#726

Post by nielsbot »

snapetom wrote: post #633
nielsbot wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be 100% correct while not being mainstream. And you're laundering what the linked page says--they try to paint a picture of JVP being anti-semitic, but don't specifically accuse them of that. They do call them anti-Israel and anti-Zionist but you must not conflate that with anti-Semitism. Do you find the ADL credible anyway. Seems they themselves could be accused of anti-semitism: https://thehill.com/homenews…

[flagged]

What is SPLC? What have they done?

I'm also wondering why the ADL would defend Musk at all. Can someone explain their motivation for that?

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#727

Post by adamc »

rayiner wrote: post #663
adamc wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have case law to back that up?

It’s like due process 101: https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-14/05-proce... (See link for footnotes.) > Non-Judicial Proceedings.—A court proceeding is not a requisite of due process.745 Administrative and executive proceedings are not judicial, yet they may satisfy the Due Process Clause.746 Moreover, the Due Process Clause does not require de novo judicial review of the factual conclusions of state r…

Fair. I sit enlightened. Although the court cases so far didn't seem to end up there.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#728

Post by yyyk »

kyralis wrote: post #693
rendall wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Advocating for the end of a state is not the same as advocating for the eradication of a people . Someone can firmly believe that the existence of the state of Israel is a mistake that should be corrected while still also believing that the Jewish people have every right to their own existence and freedom of religion.

If someone argued against existence of Ukraine, we'd normally understand their position as hostile to Ukrainians, and definitely one that ignores everything they want or deserve. This isn't different, except it also ignores the historical context to an absurd degree, not just the current context

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#729

Post by vkou »

themaninthedark wrote: post #699
vkou wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One ban consists of the exercise of their right to... Not associate with you. The other sends you to a Salvadoran gulag. (The silence from all the 'free speech' folks on this point is deafening.) It's odd that one ban operates within the constraints of freedom (the freedom to associate requires the exercise of the freedom to not associate), while the other does not. It's almost like there's a categorical distinction.…

>(The silence from all the 'free speech' folks on this point is deafening.) As one of the 'Free Speech folks', I'll bite. I absolutely condemn the administration rounding up someone like Mahmoud Khalil if the only thing he did was speak a rallies. If you look up Uncivil Law's video on Mahmoud Khalil Deportation, he is saying the same thing. Now, let's flip this around. Where are all my left wing friends willing to co…

The speech isn't why he would go to prison in a just world (that would be Georgia, the fake electors, and the toilet paper documents), and the impeachment that was a consequence of the speech is always a purely political trial. Someone can be impeached for any reason and no reason whatsoever, that is unfortunately how the system is designed. Two kinds of justice, with a few batshit SCOTUS rulings that make a criminal president unprosecutable as long as 34 senators are willing to go to bat for him.

It's not his speech that gave him trouble with the DOJ (before he dismissed all charges against himself), it's all the other parts of his conspiracy to steal the election.

Notice how none of the talking heads on TV were in legal trouble over their speech on the matter.

Every one of the cases against him had a bit more to it than 'well he said some bad words', the same way that a conman doesn't go to prison just for saying some bad words, or the same way that a war criminal gets a noose, despite simply saying words - giving orders.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#730

Post by mancerayder »

slg wrote: post #616
mancerayder wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not part of the rest of the conversation, just narrowing in on the idea of speech being free if there are consequences. That sounds like some sort of 1950's-era doublespeak. If there are consequences, how would speech be free? It's a very American-centric perspective that "Free Speech" is defined as "1st Amendment". Free speech means not getting fired, jumped, killed, poisoned, expelled, etc. Fired is something that…

How do you define which speech is speech worthy of protection and which speech is a consequence of speech and therefore not worthy of protection? For example, imagine some CEO says something politically objectionable, as is their right granted by allowing free speech. Do I have the right to protest or boycott their company as part of my free speech rights or would that be illegal because I'm rendering a consequence f…

Are you arguing with me or the person I am replying to?

I object to people casually paraphrasing, you have a right to free speech but not consequences of that speech. "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences" Aside from sounding vaguely like a threat, it's a paradoxical attack on freedom of speech. Here's my point again:

Freedom of speech means a lot of things. One of them is the American-centric perspective of "1st Amendment" + Supreme Court precedent, which is that the government should not be involved in unduly prohibiting speech, and we define a bunch of speech as protected. For example, we exclude imminent threat, which in the U.S. is not protected - I can't go up in a speech and rile people up to go attack another race tomorrow. But I can rail against a race (which in most of Europe would be prohibited speech as it's Incitement)).

Now that I've established it means a few things, let's talk about 'consequences.'. The 1st Amendment protects you from government prosecution for protected speech. It doesn't protect you from getting fired, people following you around with placards because of your speech, Instagram banning you, your ISP blocking you, your bank canceling your accounts, etc.

Yet these are the (non-1st-Amendment-centric) attacks on Freedom of Speech. You can argue they're good, they're not good, whatever.

Summary of my argument: freedom of speech CAN mean freedom from SOME consequences.

Consequences are the WHOLE point. In the U.S. we had McCarthyism, where if you were vaguely left-wing you would lose your job, you would lose your life. In the USSR if you didn't follow party lines you'd lose your job, or be reassigned a shitty job. These are Consequences.

In the Reign of the last decade of a new racialized political activism, some people lost jobs for reasons that were dubious, because they had unpopular views. The Left did it.

Today, the Right is doing it, and they're taking in an extra step.

When does it stop? Ahh, good question! It stops when we begin respecting Freedom of Speech as a principle and not a recycled way to attack our enemies.

Again, apologies for both-sides-ism, as someone who believes in civil liberties, I am a both-sides-ist.

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