381–390 of 550 posts
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What is a more basic right: 1) Life 2) Free speech Which one do you feel precedes the other?
Without free speech, I can be killed, and you'll never know it happened. Even if I in theory had a right to life. In that sense all other rights depend of free speech.
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Boohoo muh NYPD police can Tell me, when is property destruction justified, and when is it not? The USA was founded on the basis of property destruction; was that unjustified? When do you go from “freedom fighter” to terrorist?
Let me make it easy for you: if you throw a firebomb at the cop car, it's not justified.
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It is bizzare to advocate for fewer rights.
Increased rights have consequences. Decreased rights have consequences. There are limits on rights everywhere, even the US. I think it's quite rational for people to favour one or another system or limitation. The first amendment in America protects speech (etc), while freedom of expression in Canada has stricter limits on speech w.r.t. hate speech. I'd argue that Canada's limits are more reasonable. I also accept th…
Personally, I'll continue to defend the US model. Speech should have no legal limits, but that doesn't meant it doesn't have civic consequences. Those who disagree are free to do so publicly, repeatedly and loudly.
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Is discussion of Critical Race Theory an exercise of free speech?
Teachers are employees, and freedom of speech has never been recognized in that context. For example, it would be kind of ridiculous if a science teacher was allowed to teach students flat earth theory because of freedom of speech. Outside of the classroom, which was the subject of the comment above, obviously it would be covered by the 1st amendment.
In college, it certainly has and is recognized. Tenure, in particular, is at least partly designed to protect professors' ability to research and speak, free of censorship or influence.
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So if you even make an argument that sounds like one an unperson made, you are also an unperson?
smsm made a point that implied some facts. alecb rebutted those facts, added one of his own and made a critique on the rest of smsm's comment. Nowhere is that making smsm an "unperson". People are free to make a point. And others are free to critique that point. No one has the right to consequence/criticism-free speech.
And no, none of the facts I stated were "rebutted". One incorrect comment was made about Rahman and Mattis, clearly quoting old (and also incorrect) press articles, which totally missed the point (I never claimed they work for ACLU), and I was then hilariously called "parroting Taibbi". That's not rebuttal.
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True. We also need to keep soldiers from moving into our homes. More seriously, the ACLU has always faced an identity crisis and a consequent PR problem. If the ACLU embraced all civil liberties, wouldn't you expect more Bill-Of-Rights-T-Shirt wearers to be more supportive?
There used to be a grudging respect between the ACLU and the Federalist society. They disagreed on a lot, but not everything by a long shot. I saw ACLU officials speak at Federalist Society events and vice versa. RBG was famously friends with Scalia. But the current mood is absolutely moral certainty and off the charts self righteousness.
The moral certainty is obnoxious to a comedic level, bordering on tropes of self righteous college students in Che Guevara shirts lecturing about their enlightenment after two semesters at uni.
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It'd reveal my identity. More broadly, these faculty members include researchers who work in: * climate science (death threats, widespread media attacks, attempts from politicians to cancel grants) * digital privacy (death threats) * history of policing (death threats, attacks from Hannity, attacks from the Hoover institute trying to prevent her thesis from being accepted) * history of women in medieval europe (see b…
I am not sure how I am supposed to get your identity from you providing a few published examples. The UNC Chapel Hill case is a bad example as Nikole Hannah-Jones engaged in divisive political activism in her role instead of academic rigor and is the brains behind major indoctrination efforts such as the 1619 project. Someone like her that teach students what to think instead of how should not get tenure, and does no…
You may believe the 1619 Project is a "major indoctrination effort" and that it lacks "academic rigor", but that's not established fact at all. Many people think highly of it and of her work - including her potential UNC professional colleagues, who wanted her there in a tenured job at an excellent university. It does represent a point of view that disagrees with established ones, but that's almost the point of academic research: Find where established beliefs are flawed. Especially on sensitive topics, that may result in an angry reaction and division; that shouldn't stop people from publishing, and that's what tenure protects.
Nothing about the conservative response to the 1619 Project seems distinguished from that kind of reaction, or from the reactionary response to most attempts to address racism.
> Someone like her that teach students what to think instead of how should not get tenure, and does not meet the academic rigor to teach.
What basis do you have for saying she teaches in that manner? All professors have their own research, their own point of view, and they teach it. If you've taken a liberal arts college class, you will recall that you are expected to be able to handle that and think critically about it.
> Calls for academic freedom has been used to subvert university resources from academic pursuits to political activism.
What distinguishes those things? Who decides? Just because it has happened at some time in some place, is that evidence that it's happening now? Should we eliminate all academic freedom?
It's not ACLU's identity crisis, it's the Left's identity crisis. Civil rights are checks on government and institutional powers. When the left gained a massive institutional power and a lot of governmental power, it turned out it doesn't really like this power to be checked and challenged. It's one thing to fight for the free speech of people who are maybe abhorrent, but ultimately their speech won't change much, it…
I don't think your conclusion that the majority of the left has adopted that position is founded, but I agree that this is a very interesting tension that you've perfectly described. It's easy to be principled when it doesn't matter. To anyone who didn't live through it, the Nazis are an ancient demon that feels as relevant as Darth Vader or the Devil. What do I care if 4chan wants to name a soda "Hitler did nothing…
Yet somehow it's not a "tangible threat to safety" while a bunch of wackos fantasizing on the internet how Trump is about to be revealed as the Messiah is. Sorry, it's very hard to treat such "safety" concerns as genuine while keeping ignoring the real safety threats. It's more like a pampered $100K-per-year college student cries that she feels "unsafe" going to their college campus because somewhere there on campus there is a professor who once said something that puts him slightly on the right of AOC. It's not what people mean by "safety", it's weaponizing "safety" for political reasons.