A university president makes a case against cowardice • Hacker News Board

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#801

Post by themaninthedark » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:05 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #729

themaninthedark wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(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…

Wrong.

Yesterday the House January 6 Committee unanimously voted to recommend that former President Donald Trump be criminally prosecuted, for charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstructing an act of Congress, and, the most serious, insurrection. A congressional criminal referral of a former president is unprecedented, and if Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice decide to prosecute Trump, they will have to address a formidable defense: that Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, no matter how irresponsible or how full of lies about a “stolen” 2020 election, was, after all, a political speech and thus protected by the First Amendment.

Prominent legal scholars—and one lower-court judge—have rejected that argument, countering that Trump’s speech, in which he urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” was sufficiently inflammatory to permit criminal prosecution.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/january-6-...

When Congress' January 6 select committee asked the Justice Department to prosecute Trump in connection to the Capitol riot

>https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-january-6-criminal-ind...

Here is some other ink that has been spilled on the topic as well:

>Trump impeached for 'inciting' US Capitol riot https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55656385

>Trump ‘lit that fire’ of Capitol insurrection, Jan 6 Committee report says https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-lit-that-fire-of...

>Trump incites mob in violent end to presidency | CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/donald-trump-capitol...

So I will ask again, Do you condemn all those who called for Trumps prosecution for his Jan 6th speech?

I still call the charges and prosecution of Mahmoud Khalil as a first amendment violation, why will you not join me?

Or, do you believe that Trump incited the Jan. 6th riots? If so then the same fact pattern holds for Mahmoud Khalil.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/04/30/p...

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#802

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:11 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #795

saagarjha wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was considered acceptable to win the war. Should we now hold other countries to a different standard? Yes, we saw what happened and labeled them as war crimes. We don’t consider them to be acceptable anymore.

No, we didn't label them as war crimes. None of the WWII Allied military commanders or political leaders were charged with war crimes. They are still revered as heroes today. And if we faced an existential threat we would do the same to enemy civilians again, or even more. "Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell." -Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, Jr. 1941 I don't necessarily…

We do. Look up “Tokyo firebombing” on Wikipedia and I guarantee you there is a modern analysis of indiscriminate civilian casualties being analyzed as war crimes. Of course not everyone is willing to participate in that discussion but it does exist.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

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Post by jacooper » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:11 AM UTC

thyristan wrote: post #390

adhamsalama wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in that article implies supporting terrorism. They support Palestine. People conflating supporting Palestine with supporting terrorism should be ashamed of themselves, as Israel is the biggest terror state in the world.

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…

It literally doesn't matter.

What Hamas did or does, doesn't give any right to Israel to ethnically cleanse, forcibly displace, massacre 100+ people every day and commit a genocide in Gaza. 100 people, most of them kids!

These are people with lives, families, hope and compassion. Just imagine if the Ukrainian war came even close to this. People are not numbers.

And these are WARCRIMES, the entire global system was built to stop such things from happening, letting the occupation do whatever it wants while making a joke of any and every concept of the "international rule based order" will come back to bite the west, hard.

If this is allowed to happen, what's different about Taiwan and Ukraine then? Let the stronger one win right?

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#804

Post by mancerayder » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:16 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #746

mancerayder wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perspecti…

>Are you arguing with me or the person I am replying to? The way some people use the internet truly puzzle me. A username is on each comment. I made a comment, you replied, and I replied back. I wasn't arguing with myself. You took the time to reiterate your philosophy in more depth without even bothering to first take the literal second to check the usernames to clear up your confusion or pausing for a moment to act…

Because it's not that great a question: How do you define protected speech when the same speech is used to punish someone else, and if it's an expression for example, that performs an action, how do we draw the line if it should be protected? That's what you asked. It's not a username issue. I didn't read it as a direct reply because I hadn't conceptualized that stopping speech is protected speech. Or is the Internet perplexing us again and I'm making no sense?

I re-iterated my point that freedom of speech is loosely defined and we have a problem with weaponizing protection of one side at the expense of the other. The Consequences argument. I maintain that consequences of speech are the issue. Let me phrase it like this: the general principle of respecting differing views, however repugnant, has fallen by the wayside. The ACLU of the 20th century has excellent arguments for why we should consider respecting repugnant views. You're throwing in a curve ball of defining speech as also potentially blocking or causing 'consequences', but that's missing the bigger picture.

You don't agree, but does that better address the problem you raised?

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#805

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:18 AM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #317

kevingadd wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current administration refers to inclusion of PoC and women as "DEI", so when they talk about ending DEI, that's what they mean. See https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/defense-depa... for one example where it's particularly blatant.

> The current administration refers to inclusion of PoC and women as "DEI", so when they talk about ending DEI, that's what they mean. I call bullshit on them wanting to ban women and black people from colleges, that is not what they mean when they say end "DEI", you are crazy. Can you post a single link where they even hinted at wanting to ban black people and women from colleges? That is such an egregious accusatio…

> I call bullshit on them wanting to ban women and black people from colleges

Oh I’m sure it’s not as egregious as them wanting to ‘literally’ ban them. There’s no need for something quite that drastic. But think of how much nicer the place would be (not to mention more useful for networking) if none of these poor people were ever accepted in the first place.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#806

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:20 AM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #318

Aeolun wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of our "flagship" universities conspicuously sided with the Left I wonder if that’s related to universities often being places where ‘reasoning’ is taught. And then by extension, that tells you a lot about the arguments on either side…

I probably have a skewed sample, but in my observations those with the best reasoning skills tended to have a mix of views that would be labelled "left" and "right". The better the reasoning skills the less likely they were to just agree with things like "trans women are women" or "capitalism is the best economic system" and the more likely they were to dissect the statement and terms.

Sure, but you are picking things that are debatable. I’m thinking more of (somehow) controversial things like ‘climate change is bad’.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

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Post by int_19h » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:34 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #776

noworriesnate wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Fire in a crowded theator is the type of speech often used as an example serious terrorism plans should be stopped before they turn into acts. i don't know how you enforce the above though.

"Fire in a crowded theater" was originally a strawman introduced by the Supreme Court to justify their ruling in Schenck v. United States. To remind, Schenck was a Socialist Party member who was distributing flyers encouraging resistance to the draft during WW1, and was convicted for the same under the Espionage Act of 1917.

SCOTUS affirmed his conviction, saying that "the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils".

Here's the flyer itself, in case you want to read those very dangerous words for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#/medi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#/medi...

So, all in all, a good reminder that not only the slippery slope very real, but sometimes it's there from the get go.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#808

Post by wcarss » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:41 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #435

pclmulqdq wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure there's technically a due process right in the case of immigration visa revocation and the ensuing deportation. There is a due process right in the case of crimes, but getting your visa revoked is not a crime. The best argument I have heard is that visa revocation may be like firing: the US can do it for almost any reason and you can fire someone for no reason, but can't do it for specific prohibited re…

> The best argument I have heard is that visa revocation may be like firing: the US can do it for almost any reason and you can fire someone for no reason, but can't do it for specific prohibited reasons. Speech would probably be one of those bad reasons under the US's civil rights framework. No, the U.S. has the prerogative to pick and choose foreigners who are allowed to immigrate based on categories that would be…

> personally determines that the alien's admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.

What, exactly, about Rumeysa Ozturk's student newspaper contributions[1] could possibly justify the notion that her _residence in America_ is compromising a compelling US foreign policy interest?

The clear purpose of that statute including a long list of properties which would not normally be grounds for exclusion is to set a reasonably high bar for the Secretary of State's 'personal opinion' about a compromising admission. If the intent were to grant a broad, beyond question license to deport Fulbright scholars for _engagement in society_, it would just say they can do whatever the fuck they want and skip the salad.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#809

Post by nradov » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:51 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #802

nradov wrote: post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we didn't label them as war crimes. None of the WWII Allied military commanders or political leaders were charged with war crimes. They are still revered as heroes today. And if we faced an existential threat we would do the same to enemy civilians again, or even more. "Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell." -Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, Jr. 1941 I don't necessarily…

We do. Look up “Tokyo firebombing” on Wikipedia and I guarantee you there is a modern analysis of indiscriminate civilian casualties being analyzed as war crimes. Of course not everyone is willing to participate in that discussion but it does exist.

Nah. I don't know which "we" you're referring to but Wikipedia isn't a valid source for anything more controversial than Pokemon episode summaries. Many of the articles are highly biased depending on which clique of editors managed to gain control. Intelligent people don't take it seriously.

That aside, I have seen a loony fringe of revisionist historians and lawyers level spurious claims of "war crimes" against Allied leaders who are no longer even alive to defend themselves. They had no moral or legal duty to protect enemy civilians, and any amount of enemy civilian deaths were acceptable to save Allied lives.

If you're looking for war criminals, start with Tojo, Hitler, and Mussolini and work your way down the list of Axis leaders. The Allied powers were always clear that they would stop the attacks as soon as their adversaries issued unconditional surrenders. Therefore all enemy civilian deaths were 100% the fault of Axis leaders who started and continued the war.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#810

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 2:55 AM UTC

shellac wrote: post #408

ekianjo wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In western tradition governments exist to protect rights, such as the freedom of expression, not to grant them. You may be overgeneralizing here, only the US has enshrined freedom of expression in their constitution. Pretty much in any other western government such protections do not exist and freedom of expression has been under attack for a long time

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is enshrined in legislation in the UK and Ireland, and offers protections for signatories of the convention. (Edit: Oh, and the Bill of Rights gives parliamentarians quite an extreme version)

> Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is enshrined in legislation in the UK and Ireland, and offers protections for signatories of the convention.

it's enforced nowhere, since the European Convention on Human Rights has never attacked any of its members for putting people in jail or fining them for what they posted online. So, you can have all the laws on paper that you want, if nobody respects them, they might as well not exist.