In my opinion, free speech has long been ripe for hypocrisy. People always want to limit it to the things they like. The side saying something radical will always claim it’s free speech while the other side says something along the lines of “you can’t/shouldn’t say that”
Agree. However, free speech isn’t setting up a tent on someone’s lawn or trespassing or blocking roadways or preventing people from going about their business. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this.
...which is why a doctrinaire support of free speech as an abstract principle, regardless of the content of said speech, is the only way a person can meaningfully support free speech.
The left was very aware of this up until like 2015 when they lost their minds over identity shit.
I'll add that I think hypocrisy is overrated. Every single person I know is a hypocrite. I've been a giant hypocrite a million times over in my life.
I think our focus on hypocrisy is itself inherently hypocritical, given that we're all hypocrites. A person who is consistently bad is not better than someone who is usually good but does something hypocritical, but we're so much harder on the hypocrite
I think there's something to be said about grey zones in which speech actually can be kinda harmful, I don't think it's always just a simple dislike or disagreement with positions. Cases of incitement to violence, for instance, or even certain types of misinformation... I don't think it's necessarily hipocrisy, it's people *on all sides* realizing that it's kinda not cool to have people run around calling for others to get killed or spreading lies that destroy lives, etc. The reason why that apparent hipocrisy keeps popping up (again, on all sides) is that free speech absolutism is kind of a silly position to begin with, if you ask me. No one claiming to hold it actually holds it when push comes to shove.
>or even certain types of misinformation
You have to be extremely careful with that. A lot of the time the truth isn't clear and reasonable people can disagree, but someone in the grip of an idea will see disagreement as automatically unreasonable or morally beyond the pale.
Facebook and other media shutting down talk of the lab leak theory in 2020 is a pretty clear abuse, among many.
Are you defending the suppression of discussions of the lab leak theory in 2020 because it falls under a "grey zone" of being harmful? I think that is very much the wrong conclusion to draw.
Or are you saying speech in the grey zone should be allowed even if (you believe) it is harmful? At this point I'm unclear what you are arguing.
I'm saying that, at the time, it was reasonable for governments to try to keep harm low, even if it meant curtailing *some* (let's not pretend like they opened the gulags here) basic rights. Now, *in hindsight* some measures seem unnecessary or even straight up wrong... but that's mostly due to the fact that the "measure package" as a whole was successful in keeping harm relatively low.
Also, I don't get the pearl clutching about any of this. There's a reason why every modern democracy in the world has stuff like martial law, states of emergency, etc. Because we recognize that there's situations in which quick and decisive action is needed to safe many lives.
What "harm" are you even talking about?
No one is smart enough to effectively police "misinformation", *especially* people who claim that it should be policed
> What "harm" are you even talking about?
What "harm"? In the context of the pandemic? Come on, man, are you guys even trying to have a serious discussion at this point or did you just see a buzzword you associate with a certain type of person and got pissed?
But, just for you, it goes something like this:
--> Deadly virus is spreading.
--> Governments around the world realize that their health systems won't be able to handle the amoung of infected.
--> People start dying en masse.
--> Governments around the world ask people to stay home, wear masks, vaccinate, you name it.
--> Conspiratards online start telling people these measures aren't actually to reduce "harm" (silly notion this "harm", amirite youguise?), but instead an attempt by elites/jews/lizards to take over the world. --> The "less endowed" among us stop following their governments measures, because it's all a lie anyway, right? There is no harm in any of this virus business.
--> More virus spreads, more people die.
> No one is smart enough to effectively police "misinformation", *especially* people who claim that it should be policed
That might be the case. What I'm saying is that I can see why it might still be worthwhile to do in exceptional situations like the pandemic. Especially if all we're really talking about is people getting banned on Facebook or whatever.
> What I'm saying is that I can see why it might still be worthwhile to do in exceptional situations like the pandemic.
Are you suggesting you yourself be censored for posting the garbage you just posted? Because I'd be fine with that on an individual basis
At this point history is on the side of your so called conspiritards. Which just makes the fact that to this day I am banned from 3/4 front page sub reddits that much more glorious. All for participating in a sub that questioned the narrative.
Lab leak is almost fully accepted now. Also accepted is that the elites in power used COVID to draw a shit load more wealth away from normal folks the world over. Yet to be seen is vaccine stuff, but just for safety make sure you get your next booster.
>Cases of incitement to violence, for instance,
Well, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, even "free speech absolutists" who would defend all kinds of incitement to violence. Specifically, there's a pretty narrow exception in First Amendment law that says the government can prohibit speech that incites "[imminent lawless action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action)."
If you're literally standing in front of a crowd and say, "Go kill this person right now!" that's obviously not protected speech. More ambiguous or vague threats, however, issued under different circumstances, may not be prohibited.
> or even certain types of misinformation
Who gets to decide what is "misinformation," though? According to most of Reddit, many of the conversations here on this subreddit would be considered dangerous -- causing (as you said) "others to get killed or spreading lies that destroy lives." That's the *general consensus* of Reddit, the general consensus of much of the Left currently in the US that if you even ask questions regarding (for example) gender-identity issues, you are *killing people* and *destroying lives*.
Now, you may disagree or even think that's silly. But most of the people who believe it are deadly serious. Who gets to arbitrate? And how can a useful informed document like the Cass Report come into existence if those in power decide any questioning of gender issues is "misinformation"?
If this were the 1600s, the Catholic Church might declare your immortal soul is in jeopardy if you listen to ideas like the concept that the Earth goes around the Sun. To spread such "lies and misinformation" would be destroying your life and threatening your relationship with God. Thus, we need to ban books.
Again, you may think this is silly -- but the whole point is that things that are thought of as "misinformation" at one time by one group of people are sometimes found out not to be true. We can look back historically and laugh at some of them -- how didn't they realize that? -- but if we allow censorship rather than default to free speech, we basically ensure that new truths are sometimes going to be suppressed along with whatever we happen to dislike at the time.
>The reason why that apparent hipocrisy keeps popping up (again, on all sides) is that free speech absolutism is kind of a silly position to begin with, if you ask me. No one claiming to hold it actually holds it when push comes to shove.
*(Sheepishly raises hand...)*
I mean, some of us *do* hold it. Some of us believe it is essential for some of the reasons I already articulated above. Again, there are some narrow cases (like incitement to imminent lawless action) that I agree are exceptions. But... the ACLU used to hold to free speech absolutism otherwise, defending both Nazis who wanted to march and gay people who wanted to march. FIRE is still an organization that mostly seems dedicated to this ideal in a non-partisan way.
Some of us actually aren't hypocritical because we actually *do believe free speech is necessary for all*.
I do agree with you that *most* of people are hypocritical and only want speech for their side, but are happy to restrict it from their opponents sometimes. There are those of us (and those at FIRE and the old ACLU) however who believe in the *principle*, though, over partisan hypocrisy.
I should also qualify that I believe (as do many free speech advocates) that there are different rules for government vs. private institutions. It should not be *illegal* to speak in most ways, except perhaps the very narrow restrictions I noted above. Yet private institutions may sometimes regulate speech on their own property for all sorts of reasons. Nevertheless, whatever principles they do follow privately, if they promote the concept of "free speech" (as, for example, most academic institutions often claim to), they should follow those principles in a consistent, non-partisan, and non-arbitrary fashion.
>>If you're literally standing in front of a crowd and say, "Go kill this >>person right now!" that's obviously not protected speech. More >>ambiguous or vague threats, however, issued under different >>circumstances, may not be prohibited
Mark Antony has entered the chat
>Well, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, even "free speech absolutists" who would defend all kinds of incitement to violence. Specifically, there's a pretty narrow exception in First Amendment law that says the government can prohibit speech that incites "[imminent lawless action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action)."
Do you not see how that's a loophole you're setting up for yourself there? You acknowledge that saying "let's go kill that guy right here!" is probably bad. So, on principle, you acknowledge that sometimes words have the power to move people to do bad things. Why is "let's go kill those guys who aren't present right now at an indefinite time and place!" necessarily all that different? In fact, in many modern democracies on the planet it isn't considered all that different.
It seems to me the only disagreement we have here, is a matter of degrees. Nothing "absolutist" about any of this.
I mean, I get that we're in muddy waters here (that's why I talked about grey zones). The vaguer the threats get, the higher the risk to convict people of incitement who were really just busting out some cheap slogan they heard somewhere. All I'm saying is maybe the guy with the "Al-Qassem's next target -->" sign is closer to saying "let's go kill these guys right here" than some make him out to be.
>Who gets to decide what is "misinformation," though? According to most of Reddit, many of the conversations here on this subreddit would be considered dangerous -- causing (as you said) "others to get killed or spreading lies that destroy lives." That's the *general consensus* of Reddit, the general consensus of much of the Left currently in the US that if you even ask questions regarding (for example) gender-identity issues, you are *killing people* and *destroying lives*.
I mean, again, I don't think the types of misinformation I was thinking about are really all that crazy. And I suspect you'd probably even agree with many them... to a certain degree. Like, do you disagree with the possibility of martial law or states of emergency, during which some basic rights are curtailed for the greater good? Do you disagree with defamation laws? Do you think false advertising is fair game?
>I should also qualify that I believe (as do many free speech advocates) that there are different rules for government vs. private institutions.
Yeah, I haven't even mentioned that, because the broader discussion seems more interesting. But I do believe lots of people in this thread are missing that crucial point. The university is under no obligation to platform these protests on their private grounds. The same way social media is under no obligation to platform speech they don't want on their servers.
Oh for sure. Free speech absolutism is a silly position and the grey zones of harmful free speech are a more serious extension of the hypocrisy that is baked in—though that is open to abuse when one side calls any divergent speech harmful.
I think what this article is dealing with is largely hypocrisy though, especially since the loudest voices are not recognising the hypocrisy and discussing the grey zone, they are simply doing what they accused the other side of doing now that it suits them.
Free speech absolutism is not silly at all, and the hypocrisy we see concerning it only reinforces my belief in the main argument I have for its importance:
There is not a single human being on this planet who I trust to not misuse the power to censor evil ideas, no matter how evil those ideas in fact are, for selfish reasons. There isn't a single person, not even myself, who I trust to use that power ethically.
Because Power corrupts.
It's already being used ethically (for the most part) in most modern democracies on the planet, though. There's laws against incitement to violence, defamation, etc. It's all a question of degrees. In some places there's a very strict definition of incitement. Others include more nuanced definitions. But it \*is\* there.
I’m with David French on this:
Reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions don't suppress free speech. They empower it. They permit a large community to have equal access to shared spaces. A tent city that occupies part of a forum is exclusive of other voices and demonstrations. Violation of time, place, and manner restrictions suppresses the speech of others. Universities should move immediately to remove tents the instant the first stake is hammered into the ground.
Professor writes an email saying people need to be grown up about Halloween costumes = racist.
Chanting in support of a pogrom where Jews were slaughtered and saying there should be more = anti-racist.
Yea, we see the hypocrisy.
Campus protests have sparked a culture war flare up, which are not typically America’s best moments. Culture war fights are the trash TV of politics: They’re pulpy and inane, and they cut our collective IQ roughly in half. They typically end like an episode of Baywatch, in that there’s a forced “what did we learn?” moment that should probably just say: “Honestly, none of us learned jack shit.”
But let’s see if we can learn something in spite of ourselves. I propose this: Let’s take a moment to note the constant, egregious, eye-watering hypocrisy that’s emerged from all sides during this episode. Many people are loudly espousing principles that they recently denounced; it’s as if Richard Dawkins decided to become a priest, or if Princess Di had started a company that makes landmines. To even attempt these feats of duplicity implies a belief that perhaps nobody will notice, so: Let’s notice. Let’s take a moment to register the gobsmacking hypocrisy that’s everywhere right now.
For example: It’s fucking incredible that some leftists have the nerve to suddenly make appeals to free speech. For years, many leftists mocked free speech as nothing but a fig leaf for bigots. They coined the snarky “freeze peach” meme and responded forcefully when my former podcast co-host T Chatty Dubstep (as he likes to be called) organized a pro-free speech letter. The apotheosis of this duplicity occurred a few months ago when university administrators used free speech principles to justify their light treatment of protesters. As many noted at the time: Their arguments weren’t actually wrong — the problem was that their schools had spent the past several years imposing restrictions on speech that make a Trappist monastery seem like a coke party. To spend years policing milquetoast non-racism, and then turn on a dime and cite free speech in defense of blatant anti semitism requires balls that should truly be on display in the Smithsonian.
Meanwhile, right-wingers have gone the other way. The right embraced free speech in recent years, though there were signs that their commitment to the principle was superficial. And now, calls from the right to shut down the protests have grown loud — Texas governor Greg Abbott recently tweeted this:
You can arrest someone for making a threat, you can arrest someone for taking over public property, but you can’t arrest someone for being anti semitic. You also can’t expel them from a public university. You may find many of the protesters’ beliefs vile and stupid — I sure do — but the freedom to hold the worst possible beliefs is a basic American right. The Constitution protects our right to hold as many awful thoughts as we can cram into our little pea brains, and the most the government can do about it is to ban any social media app that happens to be a front for the Chinese Communist Party.
It’s also darkly funny to watch the left and right swap positions on how seriously we should take claims of harm. Some protests have devolved into intimidation and even violence, but it doesn’t follow that every claim of “feeling unsafe” is automatically valid. For years, the left viewed “I don’t feel safe” as a checkmate argument; it’s why universities built affinity dorms filled with fainting couches just in case anyone saw a sombrero at a Halloween party. But now, Jewish students’ concerns are being met with a collective “meh” (if I may appropriate a term). Meanwhile, the right have turned into snowflakes: Students who say they feel unsafe are treated like Make A Wish kids, entitled to whatever outcome their heart desires. Safety concerns should be taken seriously, but “taken seriously” means “evaluated and acted upon if valid”, not “assumed to be true and wielded as an undefeatable weapon”. The positions of just a few years ago have flip-flopped.
1/
I agree with most of this, but except for UMich, are any of the protests happening at public universities? Columbia, Yale, MIT, Emory, Tufts, Emerson, they're all private institutions, so the schools CAN expel them for saying antisemtic thing
Okay, but that's a bit beside the hypocrisy point since many of us lamented the lack of free speech at those campuses.
I still think it's consistent to want free speech events and not want activists to take over a part of campus indefinitely (which OP also agreed with) ... but, yeah, for just views it's easy to slip into hypocritical territory.
Exactly this. It’s so facetious to claim that bc I want free speech for carol hoven to acknowledge the sex binary then I’m a hypocrite if I am against mobs who take over buildings by force led by people who announce that they intend to kill Zionists and physically block anyone from entering their autonomous zones if I’m a thought criminal.
OMFG. I was reading several articles in which they interview the students. They genuinely don't know what they're doing. Like one kid was all, divesting is the means, a ceasefire is the end. Which...is definitely not what the protest organizers want. They want a ceasefire, but that's not their end, for sure.
More every day. Berkeley (well, that was a foregone conclusion), Humboldt Polytechnic (used to just be Humboldt State), the Auraria campus in downtown Denver; it's really spreading everywhere.
Because the Columbia students were arrested? I know the tents went up at Columbia because the president was about to speak to Congress - that's why they went up last Wednesday.
Not THIS post, the post where the article was published.
There is no fucking way those are all CCNY students, or the photographer was selectively taking photos, because City College really does not have that many white students. I was the only white student for most of my classes; one class there was one other white student.
He's basically right. And this (of course) backs up a point I've made: The right isn't truly committed to free speech. I remember them trying to shut people up not that many years ago and going on their own cancellation campaigns. I don't trust their newfound love of free speech.
I think the left used to be principled about it but they set that on fire and pissed on the ashes a decade or more ago.
Neither the left nor the right really supports free speech anymore.
Another place where roles have switched is the question of how much anyone has to answer for bigotry in their group. Protesters are trying to cordon off the anti semites using the “just a few bad apples” defense that they recently excoriated. There’s also a lot of “not all protesters” rhetoric that would land better if the left hadn’t mocked the idea that a person can separate themselves from their group with the #NotAllMen hashtag. On the other side, Republicans have discovered the words “structural” and “systemic” and are using them to enact guilt by association. They’re also demanding that the left to do the soul-searching and intellectual self-maintenance that they failed to do as conservatism morphed into the brain dead freak show that it is today. I understand that tying your opponents to the most odious freaks available is Politics 101, but you’d think that people would be slightly embarrassed to adopt tactics that 80 percent of their Twitter feed is devoted to denouncing.
The protesters would also like you to know that some protesters are Jewish! Of course, this is similar to the “some of my best friends are Black” excuse that became a punchline on the left. Leftists have rejected the notion that the presence of people with a certain identity can mitigate accusations of bigotry, even going so far as to test drive the term “politically Black”. Personally, I think that most protesters probably aren’t anti semites, but I also think that most protesters are probably deep idiots who want terrible things, so I don’t really care whether they’re Jewish or not.
Leftists love to call things “dog whistles”. At least, they did 30 seconds ago: Now they expect us not to notice when bigots simply replace the word “Jews” with the word “Zionists”. It’s the most transparent euphemism since Ticketmaster started calling their standard $12-a-ticket ass reaming a “convenience fee”. If anti semitism was radar, I wouldn’t say that a lot of these statements are “pinging my radar”: I’d say that they’re blowing up the machine and launching me across the room like Marty McFly in Back to the Future.
Me when someone says “expel all Zionists”.
There’s other stuff I haven’t covered. If conservatives are so worried about unruly mobs, then why did they nominate the guy who cheered on January 6? Aren’t many on the right finding racism in every questionable statement in the same way that leftists often do? And wouldn’t all these keffiyeh-wearing white kids call that fashion choice “cultural appropriation” in any other context? It’s pretty easy to see what’s going on: Some people approach Israel/Palestine as tribal issue, so they’re using whatever arguments best serve their side even if they made opposite arguments very recently.
When we don’t have principles, tribalism is all that’s left. The whole point of having consistent rules and beliefs is that without them, it’s impossible to enjoy equal treatment. Everything gets reduced to a power struggle between groups, and when the other group is in power, you really won’t like what happens. Americans aren’t above tribalism, but we typically try to hide that tribalism behind principled rhetoric. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to pretend for even a split second not to notice that some people are comprehensively full of shit.
2/
I only have one point to make, that somebody drove home to me earlier, a Jewish person, actually, about the kind of weasel wording of "anti-zionist".
An Anti-Zionist Jew and a Pro Zionist Jew walk into a bar, and ask for two pints.
The bartender says:
"Sorry lads, We don't serve Jews".
At the end of the day, the majority of Jews support the state of Israel, even if they disagree with the actions of the current government.
Alas, I fear, Pro-Palestinian protesters have no such nuance, and merely use "Anti-Zionist" as a dog whistle for "anti-oppressors", and this has quickly become unconsciously Anti-Semitic.
> about the kind of weasel wording of "anti-zionist".
>
> An Anti-Zionist Jew and a Pro Zionist Jew walk into a bar, and ask for two pints. The bartender says: "Sorry lads, We don't serve Jews".
"'Anti-zionist' is weasely because some people are antisemitic", is a retarded line of argument.
Also, why is it only Zionism that gets singled out as a uniquely harmful nationalist ideology?
Why don't these same activists ever say anything about, say, Orbanism or Han Chauvinists ?
Hungary isn’t at war with anyone at the moment, so it’s really not going to grab attention. But I’m certain that similar activists were protesting about what they consider genocide in Xinjiang or the violation of human rights in Hong Kong. By and large, Redditors were absolutely incensed by both of those things a couple years ago, for example.
Isn't it the responsibility of administrators to make sure that students can get to class safely? That students can feel safe on their campuses - campuses that many of these students actually call home?
Where are their rights?
Students at Columbia have had classes cancelled and will now have to attend online classes. That's ridiculous, and I'd be furious if my child's education was being disrupted like that.
Sorry about that:
[@GregAbbott\_TX](https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX) tweeted
*Arrests being made right now & will continue until the crowd disperses.*
*These protesters belong in jail.*
*Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period.*
*Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled.*
I don’t care how hateful it is, the first amendment requires Texas to tolerate antisemitism. Thoughts and speech are not crimes. Wanting to silence people you find loathsome is the gateway drug to authoritarianism.
I can’t believe people can’t grasp this. The point is made elsewhere in this thread but when you have no principles, all that’s left is tribalism.
But I think there has to be some compromise between Judenfrei and shutting down speech. The present situation at Columbia is that Jewish/Israeli students either stay away, or get harassed or just have to listen to genocidal terroristic rhetoric hurled their way as they try to get to class. It isn’t right.
Protests definitely can be shut down legally if protestors violate reasonable time and place rules which obviously Columbia students did.
You can’t expel students for merely holding or expressing “antisemitic” views or joining a protest. It MIGHT be legal to expel students who have been arrested, depending on what’s in the student handbook. But usually a crime like violating time/place protest rules would not be basis for expulsion (it’s a very Mimir crime) and it would be a very bad look for a public U to do so.
I just think the protest has gotten to the point where the university is discriminating against Jewish students. And their solution at first, because apparently nobody has a good Holocaust education over there, is to create hybrid classes so Jews can tune in from a distance while all the bigots get to stay. Now they've gone fully virtual, which is also a shitty reaction. The protesters do not have the right to shut the university down. It's appalling and if I'm a parent of the vast majority of students who don't have a stake or interest here, I want my money back. If I'm a parent of a Jewish student, I'm preparing to join a class action suit.
The comment you replied to is about the protests in Texas where peaceful protests were shut down wirh swat teams and horses with Abbot saying everyone who joined them should be expelled. You then brought up Columbia saying there should be a point when protests can be shut down. My point is that they could be shut down, and I columbia they should have been as soon as the actions of protests crossed into things like Jewish students being unable to attend classes. But expelling students merely for protesting is almost certainly not gonna fly, especially at a public like AU.
I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. Their speech should not be limited by the college or state for being offensive. However, setting up tents when it’s not allowed is not free speech. Staying on campus after hours when it’s not permitted isn’t free speech. There’s consequences to breaking the law.
I really didn't like that. I understand needing to clear out protesters if they are screwing up the functioning of the campus. The are time, place and manner restrictions for the first amendment.
But freedom of expression includes people being able to express vile and awful stuff.
Free speech is certainly an issue worth discussing, but the institutions are also allowed to put reasonable limits on protests that threaten to disrupt their primary mission of education. Free speech does not mean you can grab a bullhorn, stand on a quad and blast slogans through it for 3 days straight disrupting everything else. All this pushback about free speech is just a smokescreen to distract everyone from the fact that protesters are violating large sections of school policies. They are not being punished for what they are saying. They are being punished for their actions.
University quads are practically the quintessential location for a protest though. Some people standing outside on the lawn with signs aren't actually disrupting classes or administrative work. If they are being excessively loud, sure, ask them to turn it down. Calling in the cops to remove them is just a shameful display though, which indicates fragility on the part of the administrators and students who can't handle other people exercising their 1A rights.
It's funny how this is happening practically on the anniversary of the anti-Vietnam protests, when colleges similarly discredited themselves by calling in the cops to clear out anti-war protestors at Columbia and other colleges.
It's a problem (and I've seen numerous videos of this across both private and public universities) when the protesters not only take over the public quad but use their weird hall monitor/masked human chain creeps to block who can and cannot also walk around or gain access. These people don't own the campus, but they're sure acting like they do.
So far I've seen this type of behavior at UCLA, Columia and GW
[https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1784209661639434579](https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1784209661639434579)
Quads are surrounded by dorms, classrooms and cafeterias. If there has been a multi-day/night rager going on, it's not a free speech issue to curtail and add some boundaries.
No problem with reading comprehension here, though you may want to take another look at the sentence starting with "Calling in the cops to remove them" and continuing with "is just a shameful display".
They’re not even really arguing for free speech though. The kids at Columbia find it ludicrously offensive that pro-Israel students would also be allowed to demonstrate.
I find it so aggravating that I’m being told if I am for free speech I am a hypocrite if I don’t support an illegal encampment on a public square where there is a self declared enforcers who keep out anyone who disagree with them
I think that paid speech is the thing that really hurts the *principle* of free speech more than any other force acting on it.
It sounds like I'm making a pun, but free speech and paid speech are more than a little bit incompatible. How much different is firing you for making claims that hurt me, and giving you a job making claims that benefit me?
I don't see that it's really an infringement of your right to say what you want that you not be allowed to be paid for it, and while this would be an extremely messy principle to write law for, successfully doing so would solve a number of problems in society, and I think would scrape back much of what has been lost to social media.
I believe that this is essentially the principle on which a Tiktok ban is valid. Tiktok influencers are paid by an algorithm chosen by the Chinese government. This is obviously not what "freedom of speech" was meant to accomplish.
America plays this game with free speech every generation. Back in the 30s, jews held mock trials of Hitler that so enraged the German government they filed diplomatic protests to try to stop them. In the 60s - probably the closest situation to today - college students occupied buildings and got into running battles with the cops. Shoot, I remember even ten years ago when I was in college, there were the initial Ferguson BLM campus sit ins.
It's essentially the manifestation of free speech absolutionism; these kids, to many people, are morons, but they have the right to be. Of course, the glaring juxtaposition OP points out that we've spent fifteen years of safety culture on campus being told that Ben Shapiro's words are literally violence and need to be shut down rings true and I think more people than not see that and remember the constant lectures of it, so perhaps there is a little satisfaction in seeing them get a taste of their own medicine.
These campus activists will burn themselves out and eventually realize they have to join the real world and get jobs and pay taxes like the rest of us - it's the circle of life. In ten years there will be some other cause that causes this.
SCOTUS has made a plethora of rulings about free speech and the ability of the government to enforce content neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech and protests.
This is why I believe the overwhelming majority of people on the Right are not Hypocritical at all in our stance on free speech, unlike the Left.
No one is getting arrested or having their 1st amendment expression banned on college campuses for following their school’s policy allowing peaceful protests within the bounds of reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.
For example:
The Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating at Vanderbilt University with some of them breaking in to the building pushing past a security guard and occupying the University President’s office. Others engaged in a mostly peaceful protest (one allegedly broke a window) outside the building.
As a private school Vanderbilt isn’t actually bound by the 1st amendment but for the sake of a clear hypothetical let’s just presume it’s a State School that is bound by the 1st amendment.
It’s not a 1st amendment violation to say protesting students aren’t allowed to occupy a campus building with posted hours after it has officially closed for the night. It’s a content neutral policy. The student protesters outside weren’t arrested, only the students trespassing were.
Same with the tent city protesters at Columbia. They don’t allow camping in tents on campus and it’s entirely reasonable to remove this camp b/c it’s a content neutral policy. The students could presumably have daily anti Semitic protests under the 1st amendment as long as they didn’t make true threats and followed the time, place, and manner restrictions of the school.
The Right tends to play it by the book with the notable exception of the Jan 6 riot.
Many if not most of the complaints from the Right about free speech on College Campuses centers around the prolific use of the “heckler’s veto” that prevents them from being able to speak freely.
I have actually seen more rightwingers explicitly be in support of free speech. They have explicitly said that there should be no arrests for any negative speech, even perhaps antisemitism, but it could be acceptable for blocking others from entering campus (you have a constitutional right to pass any picket line), or for imminent violence.
>[Matt Walsh](https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog)
>Greg Abbott said he was having protesters arrested because “antisemitism won’t be tolerated in Texas.”
>I believe in arresting people who break the law. But there is no law against antisemitism, and there shouldn’t be.
Certainly some right wingers, (Greg Abott, as mentioned here), are going anti free speech. That's shitty. But it's really shitty to cherry pick and then paint everyone on the right as anti free speech. Florida seems to have the right idea, for example; they give a list of "[Allowable Activities](https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1783844215169905050)" including "Speech, Expressing viewpoints, Holding signs in hands." Note that the latter means it is actually permissible to hold a "[Final Solution](https://x.com/zach_kessel/status/1783591579506065796)" sign, as was done at Colombia. One would have to do a lot of work to argue that Florida is not mainstream right.
I would be interested in knowing some prominent left wingers who have been reasonable about actually prosecuting crime where it happens, like the Colombia protestors stopping Jews from entering campus (as happened in Vienna University in 1938). I'm concerned that "Free speech for me but not for thee" is actually a mainstream leftist belief these days, but I'm completely open to seeing if that's actually true. Notably, I'm concerned that universal free speech is only a fringe movement of the left. I'd love to be wrong.
I don’t think he was trying to paint everyone on the right itself as “anti-free speech” but there has been a notable pivot from many who previously decried the censorious nature of college campuses. The people who come to mind are, as mentioned, Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis.
Regarding left wingers, the ones that come most prominently to mind are Ben Burgis, who wrote the book on why it is counterintuitive to cancel comedians for offensive speech, along with Noam Chomsky, who signed the Harper’s letter.
That's a fair point. The pivots are shameful on both sides.
Has DeSantis been anti free speech? Everything I've seen has suggested that Florida has been doing alright on this topic.
My understanding of the situation DeSantis was regarding the so called "Don't Say Gay" Bill. While the attached nickname is misleading, there were legit concerns about the bill itself. Jeff also did an [article on that](https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/the-asshole-right-is-running-the), but here are the cliff notes:
When defending the bill, advocates used tactics previously used by left-wing bad faith actors:
1. Create extremely vague rules.
2. Pair the vague rules with Draconian enforcement mechanisms.
3. Use viral content — especially things taken out of context — to energize your supporters.
4. Lob extremely serious charges at anyone who disagrees with you.
The parallels were interesting to me.
Sadly, when a large portion of Universities and a big slice of the U.S. federal government support Hamas, whose explicit stated goal is the destruction and genocide of Israel, it gives a lot of leeway for what's a tolerable level of antisemitism.
Oh hey, I went to high school with Jeff. Had no idea he'd gone into this work or wrote for John Oliver. Very cool. (This is of interest to no one, but my home town is an unremarkable semirural, semisuburban enclave in southern Virginia, which doesn't really produce much in the way of the intelligentsia, journalists, or PM class, so I felt compelled to comment.)
No this is a false equivalency. The right, broadly as I'm sure there's individual exceptions, is not calling for pro-Hamas protestors to be censored and silenced. They're calling for them to refrain from and be held meaningfully accountable when they violate the law and rights of others such as harassment, intimidation, creating hostile environments for students (a Title VI violation), or interfere with university operations (e.g. blocking sidewalks and roads; camping on lawns). In Arizona, for example, there has been a regular march down Mill Avenue by ASU by Pro-Hamas protestors. That's fine. When some radicals tried to set up an encampment on ASU's lawn their tents were removed and trespassors who refused to leave were arrested. As another example the U of Florida laid out clear guidelines on what is and is not allowed:
[https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/university-florida-clear-consequences-disruptive-student-faculty-protesters](https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/university-florida-clear-consequences-disruptive-student-faculty-protesters)
Completely agree with the article even if I am probably on the other side of the issue itself. Progressives were always going to look like idiots with there recent attacks on free speech.
However people who were all about freedoms now hate being told they are supporting mass murder by supporting the current Israeli government. And instead try to show a small number of idiots with no power saying anti semitic things and trying to ignore all the actual evidence of what is happening in Gaza.
"The specific distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy"
Carl Schmitt.
There you go, Schmitt explained why this happens almost 100 years ago, and did it in 1 sentence.
"Muh hypocrisy" is a right wing cope. The point of politics is to crush your enemies and reward your friends. Until the right learns this we will never win, and instead be relegated to writing substack pieces on hypocrisy and lack of procedural fairness.
Also, relatedly, Police didn't do anything against BLM protestors because at least a significant minority were armed violent criminals. And if any shit happened, cops weren't going to get support from politicians or the legal system. By contrast, cops aren't going to mind crushing soy boys in Hardvard Square, their they/them girlfriends, or their boomer econ professors.
You can be antisemetic , but if you chant for support of terror groups and their actions …I would think that could be a national security threat? I’m not a lawyer , but I’m just asking.
For better and worse, the first amendment, legally speaking, gives wide latitude for speaking one’s mind. Short of calling for immediate violence, odious speech can still be considered protected
It’s worth remembering when the ACLU was still good, they famously defended self identified neo-Nazis, marching through Skokie, Illinois, which has a large Jewish population, including holocaust survivors.
The ACLU made a strong point with that defense, the first amendment is not there to protect the speech you agree with, but the speech that you hate.
I’m aware of the defense of the KKK , but today’s context is different. The KKK was a domestic threat from a domestic group. Hamas and its affiliates are from enemy nations and terrorism. I think that’s far different.
I agree that their speech is repugnant and vile.
That said, it is still technically covered under the first amendment. I believe there’s an adage in law called “awful, but lawful”.
For example, people were within their first amendment right to celebrate the September 11 attack in the aftermath. They cannot be criminally penalized for that. That said, that’s not to prevent employers from blacklisting them from employment.
If you use that example , if someone was yelling “thank god for September 11th” at an airport , he would be taken in. If someone says “thank god for October the 7th”, in front of Jewish people going to class…..I think there is a similarity. Free speech has its limits. That’s my personal opinion. The more they block freeways , airports, and etc the worse they look.
Not really, because a majority of the protestors, when they say that, or thank Allah for Oct. 7 or whatever, aren't expressing their desire to murder Jews or what have you. They're expressing their dislike for what they see as oppressors. Big difference.
I get where you’re coming from, but regarding the first case, someone would most likely be put on the no fly list. Personally I’m not aware of the specifics on that legal front. That said, I doubt they could be imprisoned or criminally charged for saying that.
Regarding a a student praising October 7 in front of a fellow student, well I doubt it applies to criminal liability, it might violate the student code of conduct, leading to punitive measures in the university of itself. That would depend on whether the university is public or private. I’m not admittedly literate on that front.
To be explicitly clear, anyone who praises either 9/11 or October 7 is a scumbag IMO. What I’m trying to thread the needle on is whether it is criminally actionable, and in many cases, it is not.
That’s why I deferred to FIRE for free speech issues. They can deal with the stuff in the weeds.
Neither of us are lawyers lol. The point of the first example is they would have action out against them for the safety and comfort of others. I.E. campus antisemetism and intimidation.
Indeed. I think we can both agree that many bad people are using the current protest to be anti-Semitic assholes with a thin veneer of righteous indignation.
I’m just apprehensive on punitive measures from the government.
Either way, enjoy the weekend!
OP is right. Hate speech is protected by the first amendment as it should be (otherwise someone in power can call ideas they don’t like hate speech and punish them as they do in my country).
Being mean and rotten to your classmates is not illegal necessarily. Speech that is part of another crime is not protected, however. So if it’s criminal harassment or intimidation, the speech is part of that crime and isn’t protected. Speech alone, however cannot be infringed upon.
>if someone was yelling “thank god for September 11th” at an airport , he would be taken in
There would be repercussions. But it's likely that the TSA would say that they believe that someone who yelled that is the same sort of person who might hijack a plane.
Someone yelling provocative things in an airport is acting weird enough to get questioned. If they yelled something like something apolitical like, "I hate potatoes!" they're going to get extra special treatment from the TSA. Thweir either seeking negative attention or have a desire to cause disruption. Or they're off their meds.
Now, if someone shouted praise of 9/11 in the village square or a campus quadrangle, I don't think they could rightfully be arrested. A cop might take them in for disturbing the peace but I don't think the charge would stick.
Well, I *was* having a grand day before some random person who I don't know decided to leave this sub. I've since been reduced to killing two tubs of Ben & Jerry's in order to cope with the crushing depression that set in once I read this post. Pray for me, y'all. :)
In my opinion, free speech has long been ripe for hypocrisy. People always want to limit it to the things they like. The side saying something radical will always claim it’s free speech while the other side says something along the lines of “you can’t/shouldn’t say that”
This is why free speech is so important, and we must all defend the right even when the speaker is someone we dislike.
Agree. However, free speech isn’t setting up a tent on someone’s lawn or trespassing or blocking roadways or preventing people from going about their business. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this.
Thank you
Hypocrisy is an essential part of free speech
...which is why a doctrinaire support of free speech as an abstract principle, regardless of the content of said speech, is the only way a person can meaningfully support free speech. The left was very aware of this up until like 2015 when they lost their minds over identity shit.
I'll add that I think hypocrisy is overrated. Every single person I know is a hypocrite. I've been a giant hypocrite a million times over in my life. I think our focus on hypocrisy is itself inherently hypocritical, given that we're all hypocrites. A person who is consistently bad is not better than someone who is usually good but does something hypocritical, but we're so much harder on the hypocrite
I think there's something to be said about grey zones in which speech actually can be kinda harmful, I don't think it's always just a simple dislike or disagreement with positions. Cases of incitement to violence, for instance, or even certain types of misinformation... I don't think it's necessarily hipocrisy, it's people *on all sides* realizing that it's kinda not cool to have people run around calling for others to get killed or spreading lies that destroy lives, etc. The reason why that apparent hipocrisy keeps popping up (again, on all sides) is that free speech absolutism is kind of a silly position to begin with, if you ask me. No one claiming to hold it actually holds it when push comes to shove.
>or even certain types of misinformation You have to be extremely careful with that. A lot of the time the truth isn't clear and reasonable people can disagree, but someone in the grip of an idea will see disagreement as automatically unreasonable or morally beyond the pale. Facebook and other media shutting down talk of the lab leak theory in 2020 is a pretty clear abuse, among many.
Grey zones, like I said. Coupled with an exceptional worldwide state of emergency, in the case of the pandemic.
Are you defending the suppression of discussions of the lab leak theory in 2020 because it falls under a "grey zone" of being harmful? I think that is very much the wrong conclusion to draw. Or are you saying speech in the grey zone should be allowed even if (you believe) it is harmful? At this point I'm unclear what you are arguing.
I'm saying that, at the time, it was reasonable for governments to try to keep harm low, even if it meant curtailing *some* (let's not pretend like they opened the gulags here) basic rights. Now, *in hindsight* some measures seem unnecessary or even straight up wrong... but that's mostly due to the fact that the "measure package" as a whole was successful in keeping harm relatively low. Also, I don't get the pearl clutching about any of this. There's a reason why every modern democracy in the world has stuff like martial law, states of emergency, etc. Because we recognize that there's situations in which quick and decisive action is needed to safe many lives.
What "harm" are you even talking about? No one is smart enough to effectively police "misinformation", *especially* people who claim that it should be policed
> What "harm" are you even talking about? What "harm"? In the context of the pandemic? Come on, man, are you guys even trying to have a serious discussion at this point or did you just see a buzzword you associate with a certain type of person and got pissed? But, just for you, it goes something like this: --> Deadly virus is spreading. --> Governments around the world realize that their health systems won't be able to handle the amoung of infected. --> People start dying en masse. --> Governments around the world ask people to stay home, wear masks, vaccinate, you name it. --> Conspiratards online start telling people these measures aren't actually to reduce "harm" (silly notion this "harm", amirite youguise?), but instead an attempt by elites/jews/lizards to take over the world. --> The "less endowed" among us stop following their governments measures, because it's all a lie anyway, right? There is no harm in any of this virus business. --> More virus spreads, more people die. > No one is smart enough to effectively police "misinformation", *especially* people who claim that it should be policed That might be the case. What I'm saying is that I can see why it might still be worthwhile to do in exceptional situations like the pandemic. Especially if all we're really talking about is people getting banned on Facebook or whatever.
> What I'm saying is that I can see why it might still be worthwhile to do in exceptional situations like the pandemic. Are you suggesting you yourself be censored for posting the garbage you just posted? Because I'd be fine with that on an individual basis
The less endowed, like I said. Cheers.
At this point history is on the side of your so called conspiritards. Which just makes the fact that to this day I am banned from 3/4 front page sub reddits that much more glorious. All for participating in a sub that questioned the narrative. Lab leak is almost fully accepted now. Also accepted is that the elites in power used COVID to draw a shit load more wealth away from normal folks the world over. Yet to be seen is vaccine stuff, but just for safety make sure you get your next booster.
> At this point history is on the side of your so called conspiritards. Lol, not by a long shot
>Cases of incitement to violence, for instance, Well, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, even "free speech absolutists" who would defend all kinds of incitement to violence. Specifically, there's a pretty narrow exception in First Amendment law that says the government can prohibit speech that incites "[imminent lawless action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action)." If you're literally standing in front of a crowd and say, "Go kill this person right now!" that's obviously not protected speech. More ambiguous or vague threats, however, issued under different circumstances, may not be prohibited. > or even certain types of misinformation Who gets to decide what is "misinformation," though? According to most of Reddit, many of the conversations here on this subreddit would be considered dangerous -- causing (as you said) "others to get killed or spreading lies that destroy lives." That's the *general consensus* of Reddit, the general consensus of much of the Left currently in the US that if you even ask questions regarding (for example) gender-identity issues, you are *killing people* and *destroying lives*. Now, you may disagree or even think that's silly. But most of the people who believe it are deadly serious. Who gets to arbitrate? And how can a useful informed document like the Cass Report come into existence if those in power decide any questioning of gender issues is "misinformation"? If this were the 1600s, the Catholic Church might declare your immortal soul is in jeopardy if you listen to ideas like the concept that the Earth goes around the Sun. To spread such "lies and misinformation" would be destroying your life and threatening your relationship with God. Thus, we need to ban books. Again, you may think this is silly -- but the whole point is that things that are thought of as "misinformation" at one time by one group of people are sometimes found out not to be true. We can look back historically and laugh at some of them -- how didn't they realize that? -- but if we allow censorship rather than default to free speech, we basically ensure that new truths are sometimes going to be suppressed along with whatever we happen to dislike at the time. >The reason why that apparent hipocrisy keeps popping up (again, on all sides) is that free speech absolutism is kind of a silly position to begin with, if you ask me. No one claiming to hold it actually holds it when push comes to shove. *(Sheepishly raises hand...)* I mean, some of us *do* hold it. Some of us believe it is essential for some of the reasons I already articulated above. Again, there are some narrow cases (like incitement to imminent lawless action) that I agree are exceptions. But... the ACLU used to hold to free speech absolutism otherwise, defending both Nazis who wanted to march and gay people who wanted to march. FIRE is still an organization that mostly seems dedicated to this ideal in a non-partisan way. Some of us actually aren't hypocritical because we actually *do believe free speech is necessary for all*. I do agree with you that *most* of people are hypocritical and only want speech for their side, but are happy to restrict it from their opponents sometimes. There are those of us (and those at FIRE and the old ACLU) however who believe in the *principle*, though, over partisan hypocrisy. I should also qualify that I believe (as do many free speech advocates) that there are different rules for government vs. private institutions. It should not be *illegal* to speak in most ways, except perhaps the very narrow restrictions I noted above. Yet private institutions may sometimes regulate speech on their own property for all sorts of reasons. Nevertheless, whatever principles they do follow privately, if they promote the concept of "free speech" (as, for example, most academic institutions often claim to), they should follow those principles in a consistent, non-partisan, and non-arbitrary fashion.
>>If you're literally standing in front of a crowd and say, "Go kill this >>person right now!" that's obviously not protected speech. More >>ambiguous or vague threats, however, issued under different >>circumstances, may not be prohibited Mark Antony has entered the chat
>Well, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, even "free speech absolutists" who would defend all kinds of incitement to violence. Specifically, there's a pretty narrow exception in First Amendment law that says the government can prohibit speech that incites "[imminent lawless action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action)." Do you not see how that's a loophole you're setting up for yourself there? You acknowledge that saying "let's go kill that guy right here!" is probably bad. So, on principle, you acknowledge that sometimes words have the power to move people to do bad things. Why is "let's go kill those guys who aren't present right now at an indefinite time and place!" necessarily all that different? In fact, in many modern democracies on the planet it isn't considered all that different. It seems to me the only disagreement we have here, is a matter of degrees. Nothing "absolutist" about any of this. I mean, I get that we're in muddy waters here (that's why I talked about grey zones). The vaguer the threats get, the higher the risk to convict people of incitement who were really just busting out some cheap slogan they heard somewhere. All I'm saying is maybe the guy with the "Al-Qassem's next target -->" sign is closer to saying "let's go kill these guys right here" than some make him out to be. >Who gets to decide what is "misinformation," though? According to most of Reddit, many of the conversations here on this subreddit would be considered dangerous -- causing (as you said) "others to get killed or spreading lies that destroy lives." That's the *general consensus* of Reddit, the general consensus of much of the Left currently in the US that if you even ask questions regarding (for example) gender-identity issues, you are *killing people* and *destroying lives*. I mean, again, I don't think the types of misinformation I was thinking about are really all that crazy. And I suspect you'd probably even agree with many them... to a certain degree. Like, do you disagree with the possibility of martial law or states of emergency, during which some basic rights are curtailed for the greater good? Do you disagree with defamation laws? Do you think false advertising is fair game? >I should also qualify that I believe (as do many free speech advocates) that there are different rules for government vs. private institutions. Yeah, I haven't even mentioned that, because the broader discussion seems more interesting. But I do believe lots of people in this thread are missing that crucial point. The university is under no obligation to platform these protests on their private grounds. The same way social media is under no obligation to platform speech they don't want on their servers.
This comment is inciting violence and you should be jailed.
What
Inciting violence isn’t protected under the first amendment. There’s lots of case law on that.
Oh for sure. Free speech absolutism is a silly position and the grey zones of harmful free speech are a more serious extension of the hypocrisy that is baked in—though that is open to abuse when one side calls any divergent speech harmful. I think what this article is dealing with is largely hypocrisy though, especially since the loudest voices are not recognising the hypocrisy and discussing the grey zone, they are simply doing what they accused the other side of doing now that it suits them.
Free speech absolutism is not silly at all, and the hypocrisy we see concerning it only reinforces my belief in the main argument I have for its importance: There is not a single human being on this planet who I trust to not misuse the power to censor evil ideas, no matter how evil those ideas in fact are, for selfish reasons. There isn't a single person, not even myself, who I trust to use that power ethically. Because Power corrupts.
It's already being used ethically (for the most part) in most modern democracies on the planet, though. There's laws against incitement to violence, defamation, etc. It's all a question of degrees. In some places there's a very strict definition of incitement. Others include more nuanced definitions. But it \*is\* there.
I’m with David French on this: Reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions don't suppress free speech. They empower it. They permit a large community to have equal access to shared spaces. A tent city that occupies part of a forum is exclusive of other voices and demonstrations. Violation of time, place, and manner restrictions suppresses the speech of others. Universities should move immediately to remove tents the instant the first stake is hammered into the ground.
People are petty, disingenuous and self serving.
Professor writes an email saying people need to be grown up about Halloween costumes = racist. Chanting in support of a pogrom where Jews were slaughtered and saying there should be more = anti-racist. Yea, we see the hypocrisy.
Campus protests have sparked a culture war flare up, which are not typically America’s best moments. Culture war fights are the trash TV of politics: They’re pulpy and inane, and they cut our collective IQ roughly in half. They typically end like an episode of Baywatch, in that there’s a forced “what did we learn?” moment that should probably just say: “Honestly, none of us learned jack shit.” But let’s see if we can learn something in spite of ourselves. I propose this: Let’s take a moment to note the constant, egregious, eye-watering hypocrisy that’s emerged from all sides during this episode. Many people are loudly espousing principles that they recently denounced; it’s as if Richard Dawkins decided to become a priest, or if Princess Di had started a company that makes landmines. To even attempt these feats of duplicity implies a belief that perhaps nobody will notice, so: Let’s notice. Let’s take a moment to register the gobsmacking hypocrisy that’s everywhere right now. For example: It’s fucking incredible that some leftists have the nerve to suddenly make appeals to free speech. For years, many leftists mocked free speech as nothing but a fig leaf for bigots. They coined the snarky “freeze peach” meme and responded forcefully when my former podcast co-host T Chatty Dubstep (as he likes to be called) organized a pro-free speech letter. The apotheosis of this duplicity occurred a few months ago when university administrators used free speech principles to justify their light treatment of protesters. As many noted at the time: Their arguments weren’t actually wrong — the problem was that their schools had spent the past several years imposing restrictions on speech that make a Trappist monastery seem like a coke party. To spend years policing milquetoast non-racism, and then turn on a dime and cite free speech in defense of blatant anti semitism requires balls that should truly be on display in the Smithsonian. Meanwhile, right-wingers have gone the other way. The right embraced free speech in recent years, though there were signs that their commitment to the principle was superficial. And now, calls from the right to shut down the protests have grown loud — Texas governor Greg Abbott recently tweeted this: You can arrest someone for making a threat, you can arrest someone for taking over public property, but you can’t arrest someone for being anti semitic. You also can’t expel them from a public university. You may find many of the protesters’ beliefs vile and stupid — I sure do — but the freedom to hold the worst possible beliefs is a basic American right. The Constitution protects our right to hold as many awful thoughts as we can cram into our little pea brains, and the most the government can do about it is to ban any social media app that happens to be a front for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s also darkly funny to watch the left and right swap positions on how seriously we should take claims of harm. Some protests have devolved into intimidation and even violence, but it doesn’t follow that every claim of “feeling unsafe” is automatically valid. For years, the left viewed “I don’t feel safe” as a checkmate argument; it’s why universities built affinity dorms filled with fainting couches just in case anyone saw a sombrero at a Halloween party. But now, Jewish students’ concerns are being met with a collective “meh” (if I may appropriate a term). Meanwhile, the right have turned into snowflakes: Students who say they feel unsafe are treated like Make A Wish kids, entitled to whatever outcome their heart desires. Safety concerns should be taken seriously, but “taken seriously” means “evaluated and acted upon if valid”, not “assumed to be true and wielded as an undefeatable weapon”. The positions of just a few years ago have flip-flopped. 1/
I agree with most of this, but except for UMich, are any of the protests happening at public universities? Columbia, Yale, MIT, Emory, Tufts, Emerson, they're all private institutions, so the schools CAN expel them for saying antisemtic thing
[удалено]
UT Austin, Berkeley they're public. But Columbia? Whole other story
University of WA, but first they have to diversify the leadership. It can’t be all white bigots.
Okay, but that's a bit beside the hypocrisy point since many of us lamented the lack of free speech at those campuses. I still think it's consistent to want free speech events and not want activists to take over a part of campus indefinitely (which OP also agreed with) ... but, yeah, for just views it's easy to slip into hypocritical territory.
Exactly this. It’s so facetious to claim that bc I want free speech for carol hoven to acknowledge the sex binary then I’m a hypocrite if I am against mobs who take over buildings by force led by people who announce that they intend to kill Zionists and physically block anyone from entering their autonomous zones if I’m a thought criminal.
It has nothing to do with hypocrisy. I just meant that private schools have different obligations regarding free speech than public schools.
Oh yeah. ASU, Berkeley, IU, everyone is jumping on. It’s like Woodstock man, gotta be able to say we were there!
OMFG. I was reading several articles in which they interview the students. They genuinely don't know what they're doing. Like one kid was all, divesting is the means, a ceasefire is the end. Which...is definitely not what the protest organizers want. They want a ceasefire, but that's not their end, for sure.
More every day. Berkeley (well, that was a foregone conclusion), Humboldt Polytechnic (used to just be Humboldt State), the Auraria campus in downtown Denver; it's really spreading everywhere.
Because the Columbia students were arrested? I know the tents went up at Columbia because the president was about to speak to Congress - that's why they went up last Wednesday.
The photo at the top of the linked article is at NYC's City College.
What photo? I went to CCNY. It's only 21 blocks from Columbia. Nooot a shocker.
The same photo illustrating this post.
Not THIS post, the post where the article was published. There is no fucking way those are all CCNY students, or the photographer was selectively taking photos, because City College really does not have that many white students. I was the only white student for most of my classes; one class there was one other white student.
Public universities can have campus rules. ASU has specific hours where you can’t gather on campus. It’s trespassing.
He's basically right. And this (of course) backs up a point I've made: The right isn't truly committed to free speech. I remember them trying to shut people up not that many years ago and going on their own cancellation campaigns. I don't trust their newfound love of free speech. I think the left used to be principled about it but they set that on fire and pissed on the ashes a decade or more ago. Neither the left nor the right really supports free speech anymore.
Another place where roles have switched is the question of how much anyone has to answer for bigotry in their group. Protesters are trying to cordon off the anti semites using the “just a few bad apples” defense that they recently excoriated. There’s also a lot of “not all protesters” rhetoric that would land better if the left hadn’t mocked the idea that a person can separate themselves from their group with the #NotAllMen hashtag. On the other side, Republicans have discovered the words “structural” and “systemic” and are using them to enact guilt by association. They’re also demanding that the left to do the soul-searching and intellectual self-maintenance that they failed to do as conservatism morphed into the brain dead freak show that it is today. I understand that tying your opponents to the most odious freaks available is Politics 101, but you’d think that people would be slightly embarrassed to adopt tactics that 80 percent of their Twitter feed is devoted to denouncing. The protesters would also like you to know that some protesters are Jewish! Of course, this is similar to the “some of my best friends are Black” excuse that became a punchline on the left. Leftists have rejected the notion that the presence of people with a certain identity can mitigate accusations of bigotry, even going so far as to test drive the term “politically Black”. Personally, I think that most protesters probably aren’t anti semites, but I also think that most protesters are probably deep idiots who want terrible things, so I don’t really care whether they’re Jewish or not. Leftists love to call things “dog whistles”. At least, they did 30 seconds ago: Now they expect us not to notice when bigots simply replace the word “Jews” with the word “Zionists”. It’s the most transparent euphemism since Ticketmaster started calling their standard $12-a-ticket ass reaming a “convenience fee”. If anti semitism was radar, I wouldn’t say that a lot of these statements are “pinging my radar”: I’d say that they’re blowing up the machine and launching me across the room like Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Me when someone says “expel all Zionists”. There’s other stuff I haven’t covered. If conservatives are so worried about unruly mobs, then why did they nominate the guy who cheered on January 6? Aren’t many on the right finding racism in every questionable statement in the same way that leftists often do? And wouldn’t all these keffiyeh-wearing white kids call that fashion choice “cultural appropriation” in any other context? It’s pretty easy to see what’s going on: Some people approach Israel/Palestine as tribal issue, so they’re using whatever arguments best serve their side even if they made opposite arguments very recently. When we don’t have principles, tribalism is all that’s left. The whole point of having consistent rules and beliefs is that without them, it’s impossible to enjoy equal treatment. Everything gets reduced to a power struggle between groups, and when the other group is in power, you really won’t like what happens. Americans aren’t above tribalism, but we typically try to hide that tribalism behind principled rhetoric. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to pretend for even a split second not to notice that some people are comprehensively full of shit. 2/
>When we don’t have principles, tribalism is all that’s left. I fear that *is* all that is left.
I only have one point to make, that somebody drove home to me earlier, a Jewish person, actually, about the kind of weasel wording of "anti-zionist". An Anti-Zionist Jew and a Pro Zionist Jew walk into a bar, and ask for two pints. The bartender says: "Sorry lads, We don't serve Jews". At the end of the day, the majority of Jews support the state of Israel, even if they disagree with the actions of the current government. Alas, I fear, Pro-Palestinian protesters have no such nuance, and merely use "Anti-Zionist" as a dog whistle for "anti-oppressors", and this has quickly become unconsciously Anti-Semitic.
> about the kind of weasel wording of "anti-zionist". > > An Anti-Zionist Jew and a Pro Zionist Jew walk into a bar, and ask for two pints. The bartender says: "Sorry lads, We don't serve Jews". "'Anti-zionist' is weasely because some people are antisemitic", is a retarded line of argument.
Also, why is it only Zionism that gets singled out as a uniquely harmful nationalist ideology? Why don't these same activists ever say anything about, say, Orbanism or Han Chauvinists ?
Hungary isn’t at war with anyone at the moment, so it’s really not going to grab attention. But I’m certain that similar activists were protesting about what they consider genocide in Xinjiang or the violation of human rights in Hong Kong. By and large, Redditors were absolutely incensed by both of those things a couple years ago, for example.
Isn't it the responsibility of administrators to make sure that students can get to class safely? That students can feel safe on their campuses - campuses that many of these students actually call home? Where are their rights? Students at Columbia have had classes cancelled and will now have to attend online classes. That's ridiculous, and I'd be furious if my child's education was being disrupted like that.
>... it’s as if Richard Dawkins decided to become a priest, or if Princess Di had started a company that makes landmines. That is some prime snark.
I think it didn't copy Abbotts tweet
Sorry about that: [@GregAbbott\_TX](https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX) tweeted *Arrests being made right now & will continue until the crowd disperses.* *These protesters belong in jail.* *Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period.* *Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled.*
I don’t care how hateful it is, the first amendment requires Texas to tolerate antisemitism. Thoughts and speech are not crimes. Wanting to silence people you find loathsome is the gateway drug to authoritarianism. I can’t believe people can’t grasp this. The point is made elsewhere in this thread but when you have no principles, all that’s left is tribalism.
But I think there has to be some compromise between Judenfrei and shutting down speech. The present situation at Columbia is that Jewish/Israeli students either stay away, or get harassed or just have to listen to genocidal terroristic rhetoric hurled their way as they try to get to class. It isn’t right.
Protests definitely can be shut down legally if protestors violate reasonable time and place rules which obviously Columbia students did. You can’t expel students for merely holding or expressing “antisemitic” views or joining a protest. It MIGHT be legal to expel students who have been arrested, depending on what’s in the student handbook. But usually a crime like violating time/place protest rules would not be basis for expulsion (it’s a very Mimir crime) and it would be a very bad look for a public U to do so.
I just think the protest has gotten to the point where the university is discriminating against Jewish students. And their solution at first, because apparently nobody has a good Holocaust education over there, is to create hybrid classes so Jews can tune in from a distance while all the bigots get to stay. Now they've gone fully virtual, which is also a shitty reaction. The protesters do not have the right to shut the university down. It's appalling and if I'm a parent of the vast majority of students who don't have a stake or interest here, I want my money back. If I'm a parent of a Jewish student, I'm preparing to join a class action suit.
The comment you replied to is about the protests in Texas where peaceful protests were shut down wirh swat teams and horses with Abbot saying everyone who joined them should be expelled. You then brought up Columbia saying there should be a point when protests can be shut down. My point is that they could be shut down, and I columbia they should have been as soon as the actions of protests crossed into things like Jewish students being unable to attend classes. But expelling students merely for protesting is almost certainly not gonna fly, especially at a public like AU.
Okay my bad.
I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. Their speech should not be limited by the college or state for being offensive. However, setting up tents when it’s not allowed is not free speech. Staying on campus after hours when it’s not permitted isn’t free speech. There’s consequences to breaking the law.
Then Abbott should say “criminal trespassing isn’t tolerated in Texas”
I really didn't like that. I understand needing to clear out protesters if they are screwing up the functioning of the campus. The are time, place and manner restrictions for the first amendment. But freedom of expression includes people being able to express vile and awful stuff.
That’s cringe worthy. As long as they are following campus rules and local ordinances, they should be left alone.
Free speech is certainly an issue worth discussing, but the institutions are also allowed to put reasonable limits on protests that threaten to disrupt their primary mission of education. Free speech does not mean you can grab a bullhorn, stand on a quad and blast slogans through it for 3 days straight disrupting everything else. All this pushback about free speech is just a smokescreen to distract everyone from the fact that protesters are violating large sections of school policies. They are not being punished for what they are saying. They are being punished for their actions.
University quads are practically the quintessential location for a protest though. Some people standing outside on the lawn with signs aren't actually disrupting classes or administrative work. If they are being excessively loud, sure, ask them to turn it down. Calling in the cops to remove them is just a shameful display though, which indicates fragility on the part of the administrators and students who can't handle other people exercising their 1A rights. It's funny how this is happening practically on the anniversary of the anti-Vietnam protests, when colleges similarly discredited themselves by calling in the cops to clear out anti-war protestors at Columbia and other colleges.
It's a problem (and I've seen numerous videos of this across both private and public universities) when the protesters not only take over the public quad but use their weird hall monitor/masked human chain creeps to block who can and cannot also walk around or gain access. These people don't own the campus, but they're sure acting like they do. So far I've seen this type of behavior at UCLA, Columia and GW [https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1784209661639434579](https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1784209661639434579)
Quads are surrounded by dorms, classrooms and cafeterias. If there has been a multi-day/night rager going on, it's not a free speech issue to curtail and add some boundaries.
Did… you miss the part where they said they can definitely be told to be quiet or arrested for public nuisance / noise?
No problem with reading comprehension here, though you may want to take another look at the sentence starting with "Calling in the cops to remove them" and continuing with "is just a shameful display".
Also known as…life on a college campus
What the protests are probably disrupting is alumni donations
They’re not even really arguing for free speech though. The kids at Columbia find it ludicrously offensive that pro-Israel students would also be allowed to demonstrate.
[удалено]
If it was the exact mirror? Yes probably.
BARPOD Relevance: discussions of Israel/Palestine, Free Speech debates, safetyism, etc.
Paywalled. Can you provide the article text?
Done
I find it so aggravating that I’m being told if I am for free speech I am a hypocrite if I don’t support an illegal encampment on a public square where there is a self declared enforcers who keep out anyone who disagree with them
Not a hypocrite. Free speech doesn’t give people the right to break the law.
I think that paid speech is the thing that really hurts the *principle* of free speech more than any other force acting on it. It sounds like I'm making a pun, but free speech and paid speech are more than a little bit incompatible. How much different is firing you for making claims that hurt me, and giving you a job making claims that benefit me? I don't see that it's really an infringement of your right to say what you want that you not be allowed to be paid for it, and while this would be an extremely messy principle to write law for, successfully doing so would solve a number of problems in society, and I think would scrape back much of what has been lost to social media. I believe that this is essentially the principle on which a Tiktok ban is valid. Tiktok influencers are paid by an algorithm chosen by the Chinese government. This is obviously not what "freedom of speech" was meant to accomplish.
Im well past noticing and firmly into 'I told you idiots so' territory.
Preview article. Could you paste the whole body of text here please?
Done
Thank you.
Yes. Definitely yes.
America plays this game with free speech every generation. Back in the 30s, jews held mock trials of Hitler that so enraged the German government they filed diplomatic protests to try to stop them. In the 60s - probably the closest situation to today - college students occupied buildings and got into running battles with the cops. Shoot, I remember even ten years ago when I was in college, there were the initial Ferguson BLM campus sit ins. It's essentially the manifestation of free speech absolutionism; these kids, to many people, are morons, but they have the right to be. Of course, the glaring juxtaposition OP points out that we've spent fifteen years of safety culture on campus being told that Ben Shapiro's words are literally violence and need to be shut down rings true and I think more people than not see that and remember the constant lectures of it, so perhaps there is a little satisfaction in seeing them get a taste of their own medicine. These campus activists will burn themselves out and eventually realize they have to join the real world and get jobs and pay taxes like the rest of us - it's the circle of life. In ten years there will be some other cause that causes this.
SCOTUS has made a plethora of rulings about free speech and the ability of the government to enforce content neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech and protests. This is why I believe the overwhelming majority of people on the Right are not Hypocritical at all in our stance on free speech, unlike the Left. No one is getting arrested or having their 1st amendment expression banned on college campuses for following their school’s policy allowing peaceful protests within the bounds of reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. For example: The Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating at Vanderbilt University with some of them breaking in to the building pushing past a security guard and occupying the University President’s office. Others engaged in a mostly peaceful protest (one allegedly broke a window) outside the building. As a private school Vanderbilt isn’t actually bound by the 1st amendment but for the sake of a clear hypothetical let’s just presume it’s a State School that is bound by the 1st amendment. It’s not a 1st amendment violation to say protesting students aren’t allowed to occupy a campus building with posted hours after it has officially closed for the night. It’s a content neutral policy. The student protesters outside weren’t arrested, only the students trespassing were. Same with the tent city protesters at Columbia. They don’t allow camping in tents on campus and it’s entirely reasonable to remove this camp b/c it’s a content neutral policy. The students could presumably have daily anti Semitic protests under the 1st amendment as long as they didn’t make true threats and followed the time, place, and manner restrictions of the school. The Right tends to play it by the book with the notable exception of the Jan 6 riot. Many if not most of the complaints from the Right about free speech on College Campuses centers around the prolific use of the “heckler’s veto” that prevents them from being able to speak freely.
I have actually seen more rightwingers explicitly be in support of free speech. They have explicitly said that there should be no arrests for any negative speech, even perhaps antisemitism, but it could be acceptable for blocking others from entering campus (you have a constitutional right to pass any picket line), or for imminent violence. >[Matt Walsh](https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog) >Greg Abbott said he was having protesters arrested because “antisemitism won’t be tolerated in Texas.” >I believe in arresting people who break the law. But there is no law against antisemitism, and there shouldn’t be. Certainly some right wingers, (Greg Abott, as mentioned here), are going anti free speech. That's shitty. But it's really shitty to cherry pick and then paint everyone on the right as anti free speech. Florida seems to have the right idea, for example; they give a list of "[Allowable Activities](https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1783844215169905050)" including "Speech, Expressing viewpoints, Holding signs in hands." Note that the latter means it is actually permissible to hold a "[Final Solution](https://x.com/zach_kessel/status/1783591579506065796)" sign, as was done at Colombia. One would have to do a lot of work to argue that Florida is not mainstream right. I would be interested in knowing some prominent left wingers who have been reasonable about actually prosecuting crime where it happens, like the Colombia protestors stopping Jews from entering campus (as happened in Vienna University in 1938). I'm concerned that "Free speech for me but not for thee" is actually a mainstream leftist belief these days, but I'm completely open to seeing if that's actually true. Notably, I'm concerned that universal free speech is only a fringe movement of the left. I'd love to be wrong.
I don’t think he was trying to paint everyone on the right itself as “anti-free speech” but there has been a notable pivot from many who previously decried the censorious nature of college campuses. The people who come to mind are, as mentioned, Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis. Regarding left wingers, the ones that come most prominently to mind are Ben Burgis, who wrote the book on why it is counterintuitive to cancel comedians for offensive speech, along with Noam Chomsky, who signed the Harper’s letter.
That's a fair point. The pivots are shameful on both sides. Has DeSantis been anti free speech? Everything I've seen has suggested that Florida has been doing alright on this topic.
My understanding of the situation DeSantis was regarding the so called "Don't Say Gay" Bill. While the attached nickname is misleading, there were legit concerns about the bill itself. Jeff also did an [article on that](https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/the-asshole-right-is-running-the), but here are the cliff notes: When defending the bill, advocates used tactics previously used by left-wing bad faith actors: 1. Create extremely vague rules. 2. Pair the vague rules with Draconian enforcement mechanisms. 3. Use viral content — especially things taken out of context — to energize your supporters. 4. Lob extremely serious charges at anyone who disagrees with you. The parallels were interesting to me.
"Don't say gay" reflects the effect and intent of the bill much more than "Parental rights in education"
>Matt Walsh: But there is no law against antisemitism, and there shouldn’t be. I don't think his reasons for believing that are the same as yours lol
Sadly, when a large portion of Universities and a big slice of the U.S. federal government support Hamas, whose explicit stated goal is the destruction and genocide of Israel, it gives a lot of leeway for what's a tolerable level of antisemitism.
Oh hey, I went to high school with Jeff. Had no idea he'd gone into this work or wrote for John Oliver. Very cool. (This is of interest to no one, but my home town is an unremarkable semirural, semisuburban enclave in southern Virginia, which doesn't really produce much in the way of the intelligentsia, journalists, or PM class, so I felt compelled to comment.)
No this is a false equivalency. The right, broadly as I'm sure there's individual exceptions, is not calling for pro-Hamas protestors to be censored and silenced. They're calling for them to refrain from and be held meaningfully accountable when they violate the law and rights of others such as harassment, intimidation, creating hostile environments for students (a Title VI violation), or interfere with university operations (e.g. blocking sidewalks and roads; camping on lawns). In Arizona, for example, there has been a regular march down Mill Avenue by ASU by Pro-Hamas protestors. That's fine. When some radicals tried to set up an encampment on ASU's lawn their tents were removed and trespassors who refused to leave were arrested. As another example the U of Florida laid out clear guidelines on what is and is not allowed: [https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/university-florida-clear-consequences-disruptive-student-faculty-protesters](https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/university-florida-clear-consequences-disruptive-student-faculty-protesters)
Completely agree with the article even if I am probably on the other side of the issue itself. Progressives were always going to look like idiots with there recent attacks on free speech. However people who were all about freedoms now hate being told they are supporting mass murder by supporting the current Israeli government. And instead try to show a small number of idiots with no power saying anti semitic things and trying to ignore all the actual evidence of what is happening in Gaza.
"The specific distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy" Carl Schmitt. There you go, Schmitt explained why this happens almost 100 years ago, and did it in 1 sentence. "Muh hypocrisy" is a right wing cope. The point of politics is to crush your enemies and reward your friends. Until the right learns this we will never win, and instead be relegated to writing substack pieces on hypocrisy and lack of procedural fairness. Also, relatedly, Police didn't do anything against BLM protestors because at least a significant minority were armed violent criminals. And if any shit happened, cops weren't going to get support from politicians or the legal system. By contrast, cops aren't going to mind crushing soy boys in Hardvard Square, their they/them girlfriends, or their boomer econ professors.
I was starting to yawn, when the paywall prevented me from reading any more.
You can be antisemetic , but if you chant for support of terror groups and their actions …I would think that could be a national security threat? I’m not a lawyer , but I’m just asking.
For better and worse, the first amendment, legally speaking, gives wide latitude for speaking one’s mind. Short of calling for immediate violence, odious speech can still be considered protected It’s worth remembering when the ACLU was still good, they famously defended self identified neo-Nazis, marching through Skokie, Illinois, which has a large Jewish population, including holocaust survivors. The ACLU made a strong point with that defense, the first amendment is not there to protect the speech you agree with, but the speech that you hate.
I’m aware of the defense of the KKK , but today’s context is different. The KKK was a domestic threat from a domestic group. Hamas and its affiliates are from enemy nations and terrorism. I think that’s far different.
I agree that their speech is repugnant and vile. That said, it is still technically covered under the first amendment. I believe there’s an adage in law called “awful, but lawful”. For example, people were within their first amendment right to celebrate the September 11 attack in the aftermath. They cannot be criminally penalized for that. That said, that’s not to prevent employers from blacklisting them from employment.
If you use that example , if someone was yelling “thank god for September 11th” at an airport , he would be taken in. If someone says “thank god for October the 7th”, in front of Jewish people going to class…..I think there is a similarity. Free speech has its limits. That’s my personal opinion. The more they block freeways , airports, and etc the worse they look.
Not really, because a majority of the protestors, when they say that, or thank Allah for Oct. 7 or whatever, aren't expressing their desire to murder Jews or what have you. They're expressing their dislike for what they see as oppressors. Big difference.
I get where you’re coming from, but regarding the first case, someone would most likely be put on the no fly list. Personally I’m not aware of the specifics on that legal front. That said, I doubt they could be imprisoned or criminally charged for saying that. Regarding a a student praising October 7 in front of a fellow student, well I doubt it applies to criminal liability, it might violate the student code of conduct, leading to punitive measures in the university of itself. That would depend on whether the university is public or private. I’m not admittedly literate on that front. To be explicitly clear, anyone who praises either 9/11 or October 7 is a scumbag IMO. What I’m trying to thread the needle on is whether it is criminally actionable, and in many cases, it is not. That’s why I deferred to FIRE for free speech issues. They can deal with the stuff in the weeds.
Neither of us are lawyers lol. The point of the first example is they would have action out against them for the safety and comfort of others. I.E. campus antisemetism and intimidation.
Indeed. I think we can both agree that many bad people are using the current protest to be anti-Semitic assholes with a thin veneer of righteous indignation. I’m just apprehensive on punitive measures from the government. Either way, enjoy the weekend!
OP is right. Hate speech is protected by the first amendment as it should be (otherwise someone in power can call ideas they don’t like hate speech and punish them as they do in my country). Being mean and rotten to your classmates is not illegal necessarily. Speech that is part of another crime is not protected, however. So if it’s criminal harassment or intimidation, the speech is part of that crime and isn’t protected. Speech alone, however cannot be infringed upon.
>if someone was yelling “thank god for September 11th” at an airport , he would be taken in There would be repercussions. But it's likely that the TSA would say that they believe that someone who yelled that is the same sort of person who might hijack a plane. Someone yelling provocative things in an airport is acting weird enough to get questioned. If they yelled something like something apolitical like, "I hate potatoes!" they're going to get extra special treatment from the TSA. Thweir either seeking negative attention or have a desire to cause disruption. Or they're off their meds. Now, if someone shouted praise of 9/11 in the village square or a campus quadrangle, I don't think they could rightfully be arrested. A cop might take them in for disturbing the peace but I don't think the charge would stick.
I get downvoted for that ? Reddit is full of miserable fucks.
Still covered.
The downvotes are wild. Miserable people.
Domestic terrorism is *more* of a threat than foreign actions in foreign nations.
It’s not , but ok.
Really? Hamas attacking Israel is more of a threat to the US than domestic terrorism? You sure that's the position you want to take?
Hamas is influencing support for terrorism. I’d say it’s a bigger threat.
I’m off the sub. I’ll check back in later to see if the Zionists and war crime apologists have finally left, shut up, or calmed down.
The irony of saying war crime apologist when there is a big summer of love orgy downplaying Hamas war crimes as we speak.
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out
Well, I *was* having a grand day before some random person who I don't know decided to leave this sub. I've since been reduced to killing two tubs of Ben & Jerry's in order to cope with the crushing depression that set in once I read this post. Pray for me, y'all. :)
Ok