Berkeley "liberals" contra free speech

[untermensche]

...This is how a society becomes fascist....

Societies become fascist by electing people like Trump.

Not because some very distasteful people are uninvited from a handful of universities.

 

[Angry Floof]

...This is how a society becomes fascist....

Societies become fascist by electing people like Trump.

Oh no. This happened long before electing Trump. Electing Trump was one result of a society that has become fascist enough to elect a neo nazi wind sock to our highest office. Trump rode our Fox Newstainment-driven fascist tendencies to the Oval Office. He's not us "becoming fascist." He's decades of building fascism gone mainstream.

This happened because of ignorance, fear mongering, misinformation, media dog whistling, disdain for education and mistrust of the educated, cultural myopia, cultural entitlement, and last but not least, the most virulent driver of them all: backward, us vs. them religion.

Not because some very distasteful people are uninvited from a handful of universities.

True.

 

[Angry Floof]

OH, and add political correctness to that list. The PC that right wingers have screeched about for decades has also served to protect them from responsibility for their own conscience. It protected them from their own tribe of 7 billion that their fearful, closed worldview would like to banish from the universe. It protected them from the very same vitriol they've been lobbing at liberals and especially the Obamas for a few decades, now focused on their dumb asses from the rest of the world. It protected them from ever having to check a fact or think a single god damn thought before opening their mouths about what they think of a world they can't even fucking see from their cave-minds. Along with an infantilizing and stunted subculture, liberal political correctness protected them from ever having to grow up and be adults in the world.

We liberals have been sadly remiss in stupidly allowing our good intentions and political correctness to serve as an intellectual retardant for a large chunk of our population.

 

[DrZoidberg]

...This is how a society becomes fascist....

Societies become fascist by electing people like Trump.

Not because some very distasteful people are uninvited from a handful of universities.

Ehe... that's how the Soviet Union happened btw. I would argue they were just as fascist as the fascism they were fighting. Thought crime doesn't actually make people nicer. It just makes communicating harder.

I think your attitude is exceedingly dangerous.

 

[LordKiran]

Societies become fascist by electing people like Trump.

Not because some very distasteful people are uninvited from a handful of universities.

Ehe... that's how the Soviet Union happened btw. I would argue they were just as fascist as the fascism they were fighting. Thought crime doesn't actually make people nicer. It just makes communicating harder.

I think your attitude is exceedingly dangerous.

To be fair, he's about as threatening to academic freedom as you are to our civil right to freely associate.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

What you wrote above in no way addressed what I wrote above, so why quote me?

It does address your points.

You made a very bad analogy that has no connection.

I put it in perspective for you.

No. Nobody's right to publish anything was infringed when papers opted not to publish the cartoons either. They simply cowtowed to violence, just as the school did here. And the cartoonists had no right to force the papers to publish the cartoons just as Milo has no right to force the school to not uninvite here.

The main difference is that the cartoons were not already set to be published by the papers before the violence and Milo was set to speak at the university before the violence. So if anything my analogy is underdone, not over reaching.

And the point stands that in both cases the papers and the university were legally entitled to be the cowards and encouragers of violence that they proved themselves to be.

 

[untermensche]

Societies become fascist by electing people like Trump.

Not because some very distasteful people are uninvited from a handful of universities.

Ehe... that's how the Soviet Union happened btw. I would argue they were just as fascist as the fascism they were fighting. Thought crime doesn't actually make people nicer. It just makes communicating harder.

I think your attitude is exceedingly dangerous.

My attitude is that I would prefer he be allowed to speak. But I have no desire to force people to allow him to speak.

I also support the rights of people to band together and make decisions about their lives and the space they occupy.

I see this as an incredibly minor problem in the sea of problems facing this nation ruled by a few with great wealth.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

And it was based on the toxic ideas themselves, not any aspect of the speaker.

Was it? Or was it based on the revealed fragility and violent nature of the students? If it was based on his ideas, he wouldn't have been invited in the first place, but he was.

 

[untermensche]

It does address your points.

You made a very bad analogy that has no connection.

I put it in perspective for you.

No. Nobody's right to publish anything was infringed when papers opted not to publish the cartoons either. They simply cowtowed to violence, just as the school did here. And the cartoonists had no right to force the papers to publish the cartoons just as Milo has no right to force the school to not uninvite here.

The main difference is that the cartoons were not already set to be published by the papers before the violence and Milo was set to speak at the university before the violence. So if anything my analogy is underdone, not over reaching.

And the point stands that in both cases the papers and the university were legally entitled to be the cowards and encouragers of violence that they proved themselves to be.

Okay.

Suppose you are the editor and it is your choice.

Do you endanger people over your own petty righteousness?

Or do you protect people?

 

[untermensche]

And it was based on the toxic ideas themselves, not any aspect of the speaker.

Was it? Or was it based on the revealed fragility and violent nature of the students? If it was based on his ideas, he wouldn't have been invited in the first place, but he was.

A few unruly students.

Nothing to do with the "left" in any way.

Not censorship in any way.

If a publisher refuses to publish your book is that censorship?

 

[Elixir]

And it was based on the toxic ideas themselves, not any aspect of the speaker.

Was it? Or was it based on the revealed fragility and violent nature of the students?

It wasn't students, JP. Ya gotta let go of some of your alt-facts if you want to have a grip on what happened.

Anarchists, NOT Cal students, responsible for violence in UC Berkeley protests

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Okay.

Suppose you are the editor and it is your choice.

Do you endanger people over your own petty righteousness?

Or do you protect people?

I would protect people by showing that violence and threats of violence are ineffective methods to force others to submit to demands. Your version of society where the worst elements in it are encouraged to cowtow everyone else into letting them set the agenda seems an unnecessarily dangerous one.

 

[untermensche]

Okay.

Suppose you are the editor and it is your choice.

Do you endanger people over your own petty righteousness?

Or do you protect people?

I would protect people by showing that violence and threats of violence are ineffective methods to force others to submit to demands. Your version of society where the worst elements in it are encouraged to cowtow everyone else into letting them set the agenda seems an unnecessarily dangerous one.

So you would put your petty principles over the lives of your closest friends.

What a dick!

 

[DrZoidberg]

Ehe... that's how the Soviet Union happened btw. I would argue they were just as fascist as the fascism they were fighting. Thought crime doesn't actually make people nicer. It just makes communicating harder.

I think your attitude is exceedingly dangerous.

My attitude is that I would prefer he be allowed to speak. But I have no desire to force people to allow him to speak.

I also support the rights of people to band together and make decisions about their lives and the space they occupy.

I see this as an incredibly minor problem in the sea of problems facing this nation ruled by a few with great wealth.

You're completely confused about what happened. Berkeley uninvited him because they feared violence and reprisals. It's not minor. It is huge. It doesn't take a lot of terror to destroy free expression. Any time it happens is a disaster, and also a win for Trump. He's feeding off fear. It's people like you, people who support terror, who create the fear.

 

[Sarpedon]

Ehe... that's how the Soviet Union happened btw. I would argue they were just as fascist as the fascism they were fighting. Thought crime doesn't actually make people nicer. It just makes communicating harder.

I think your attitude is exceedingly dangerous.

That is NOT how the Soviet Union happened.

 

[untermensche]

My attitude is that I would prefer he be allowed to speak. But I have no desire to force people to allow him to speak.

I also support the rights of people to band together and make decisions about their lives and the space they occupy.

I see this as an incredibly minor problem in the sea of problems facing this nation ruled by a few with great wealth.

You're completely confused about what happened. Berkeley uninvited him because they feared violence and reprisals. It's not minor. It is huge. It doesn't take a lot of terror to destroy free expression. Any time it happens is a disaster, and also a win for Trump. He's feeding off fear. It's people like you, people who support terror, who create the fear.

This one deplorable not being allowed to speak at one institution is about as small a problem as could possibly exist.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I would protect people by showing that violence and threats of violence are ineffective methods to force others to submit to demands. Your version of society where the worst elements in it are encouraged to cowtow everyone else into letting them set the agenda seems an unnecessarily dangerous one.

So you would put your petty principles over the lives of your closest friends.

What a dick!

I would indeed, if those petty principles are freedom of speech and resistance to fascism. It's worth it. As was said above, the response here should have been added security, not submission to and rewarding of violence. This is the same reason we resist negotiating with terrorists. It only encourages more.

 

[untermensche]

So you would put your petty principles over the lives of your closest friends.

What a dick!

I would indeed, if those petty principles are freedom of speech and resistance to fascism. It's worth it. As was said above, the response here should have been added security, not submission to and rewarding of violence. This is the same reason we resist negotiating with terrorists. It only encourages more.

You're not resisting fascism by publishing cartoons.

You are just setting off some very insane individuals.

The problems with Islam will not be solved by non-Muslims in the West.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You're completely confused about what happened. Berkeley uninvited him because they feared violence and reprisals. It's not minor. It is huge. It doesn't take a lot of terror to destroy free expression. Any time it happens is a disaster, and also a win for Trump. He's feeding off fear. It's people like you, people who support terror, who create the fear.

This one deplorable not being allowed to speak at one institution is about as small a problem as could possibly exist.

Like Jolly Penguin said. You're rewarding violence. It won't stop. It'll get worse. And the people using violence to suppress uncomfortable opinions are never the good guys.

There's another word for violence used in the employ of politics. Terrorism. Condoning this gives a free pass to KKK, ISIS and any other mob who picks violence instead of working on their arguments.

You're supporting terrorism and you think that's a good thing. I think it's pretty huge when that's become mainstream. History has taught us that publicly condoned political violence has a predicable outcome. I think this poem is apt:

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

This is the world you are creating. Enjoy

 

[Nice Squirrel]

You can drown people with water. I once threw a cup of water at a car, it did not drown the driver.

Amazing how absolutes work.