The Limits of Free Speech

that was me and that was a month ago

i used a variation of "racial hatred all gone yet?" on a friend recently, so thanks

I saw this transition in yesterday's NYT story on Obama's UN speech:

The president worked to explain — before a sometimes skeptical audience that has never completely bought into the American idea that even hateful speech is protected — why the United States values its First Amendment so highly.

god your newspapers suck

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-police-unions-calling-on-officers-to-boycott-beyonce-concerts/

Thread

thought this would be a revive about metal polls

Did I miss some hi-q ilm action? cmon man you know I rely on youse to give me a nod on that shit.

your free speech ends where my penis enlarger begins

Hi contends btw

hallo, dags!

dagby?

in Beyonce's video there is non-violence even the word meme HANDS UP DONT SHOOT is non-violent yet here we have a state power structure suppressing it by falsely portraying Beyonce as an agent of violence essentially making some viral form of pro-status quo state propaganda. as individual the police unions can say whatever they want but as public service members, as people that walk around with guns and the power to lock you away from your family, they have a responsibility to not act like idiots and make things less safe by saying things like this. for me the limits of free speech is when you are making things dangerous for others.

Beyonce is not showing anything violent these days we have murders on afternoon daytime TV news bumpers. Beyonce is performing. these people are just idiots that don't get art. the problem is they can legally shoot someone and get away with it.

ho-leee fuc-king shit

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/23/university-of-california-adopts-policy-linking-anti-zionism-to-anti-semitism/

Thread

hmm, i wonder why pos morbz types would be upset about a non-binding, non-legal, resolution that condemns, among many other forms of prejudice, “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.” surely there's nothing to get up in arms about unless... no, but it couldn't be. i wonder if it's bc they're upset that ppl are catching on? holy shit you fucking cumrag you're just angry that ppl realized human garbage just swap out the word jewish for zionism so they can get away with it! xp

Oved said the policy was necessary to defend pro-Israel students who have been subjected to abusive language, like being called “Zionist pigs,” or told that “Zionists should be sent back to the gas chambers.”

nooooo they just meant zionists should go back to the gas chambers, not jews

ah "morbz types"... fuck off

No doubt, even the revised statement will outrage anti-Zionist activists on campus. They will argue that the statement of principles chills their own free speech and right to protest. But the statement is very clear that even all speech, including prejudiced speech, is to be protected. Mostly, one suspects that activist groups like SJP and JVP and their on-campus advocates will object because of the strong statement against actions on campus that violate by shutting down the free speech of others.

wahhh we can't keep speakers from speaking. stop restricting /my/ free speech!

This actually seems like the system working to me. Listing "anti-Zionism" as a form of intolerance doesn't work because anti-Zionism is a political position and there are lots of anti-Zionists who aren't motivated by anti-Semitism. People pointed this out to the regents, so they changed it to "anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism." Which seems as good as possible a way of endorsing the position that "There should be a binational state in which Jews don't have special privileges" is OK but search-and-replace stuff like "Zionist pigs back to the gas chamber" is not. Judith Butler is right that this leaves space for lots of arguments about which anti-Zionist expressions are materially anti-Semitic, but I don't think you're going to be able to make a statement of principles that precisely answers all questions.

That article seems so deliberately point-missing.

i honestly am not sure what the point of the UC policy is -- like, what effects do they think it will or should have?

i mean i'm not sure what the UC leadership felt like this was something they had to address as an official policy (which seems toothless, i.e. mostly symbolic)

and yes that intercept article seems to be /straining/ to miss the point. or at least one of the points. just another example of people talking past one another. like, there are plenty of jews (plenty of israelis!) who acknowledge that israel has done horrible things that people are legitimately angry about. but that doesn't excuse the anti-semitic tinge that colors some (not most! but some!) of the resulting criticism (indeed, some of that criticism seems to take the israel-palestine conflict as a pretext for expressing anti-semitic tropes that pre-date the foundation of israel).

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

i mean, this stuff isn't hard! or shouldn't be! if you apply it to almost any other place on earth, smart people seem to be disentangle political criticism from racist speech.

yes, it's sad that you need to make a disclaimer like "yes, not all anti-zionism is anti-semitic" before you can call out antisemitism. it's as if every time someone on the left wanted to call out racism they were forced to add "yes, not all critiques of the [?] community are racist." but when it comes to antisemitism you must make that distinction over and over or else ppl listening - even supposedly bright ppl who write for the intercept - will get hung up on "oh you're just using the anti-semitism card." when someone makes a "this is antisemitic" claim, we should be able to look at the specific situation and discuss whether it is or isn't but for some reason (some reason i just don't know what) you end up arguing about whether arabs are also semites and if jews use antisemitism as a way to protect israel and not the particular claim at all. if you read the comments on that intercept article you see right there in the open ppl explicitly trying to implicate jews as a group as a stand in for israel's crimes. in fact i'd suggest that's the very logic of the "you're using the claim of antisemitism to deflect from legitimate criticisms of israel" argument - to make jews complaining of bigotry complicit in whatever crimes of the israeli govt. it's not simply that UC jewish students want to walk down the hallway without having "zio-pig" yelled at them, it's that they want to whitewash israeli crimes and all of us in the diaspora are complicit. it's so perverse - another common argument i hear from these ppl (and is present under that article) is "well it can't be antisemitism because the good jews also criticize israel." putting aside the fact that the vast, vast majority of jews believe in the perpetuation of the jewish state - the term "good jews" is so laden w/ hate it makes me feel ill to read, and it totally ignores the idea of internalizing hate. can you imagine if someone said "well it can't be bigotry bc [member of discriminated against group] also agrees" and expected that to land as an argument anywhere outside the republican party?

it's not simply that UC jewish students want to walk down the hallway without having "zio-pig" yelled at them,

tbh i seriously doubt that this has happened more than once. there /are/ probably some jewish student prima donnas who are exaggerating the extent of the racist speech directed toward them for rhetorical purpose, just as some of the protestors at missouri seemed to want to exaggerate the number of racist incidents on that campus.

a major job of both university administrators and campus protestors (the former often responding to the latter) these days seems to be to react to every individual racist incident like the KKK or hitler youth just marched through campus.

the nastiest shouting match I ever saw on campus when I was in college was between a Lebanese student group & a Jewish fraternity in 2006

xpost i know, right? political correctness is ruining america!

seriously though that sounds pretty dumb and reactionary, amateurist

they should just channel that negative energy into a dance-off

xpost

i know, right? political correctness is ruining america!

if you want to paint me with that brush you'll have to try harder. i think "political correctness is ruining america" is a ridiculous trope, and even more exaggerated than some of the reactions to isolated campus incidents.

this is what i mean by people talking past each other.

also, fuck you! :)

i have to try harder? i'm not the one making shitty posts

sorry if it sounds "reactionary"

i guess i feel that people on ALL sides of these issues on campus have a tendency to make molehills into mountains and exaggerate their own victimhood; it's sort of the game everyone is playing. this is true of campus radicals, campus republicans, jews, blacks, whites, everybody.

"a major job of both university administrators and campus protestors (the former often responding to the latter) these days seems to be to react to every individual racist incident like the KKK or hitler youth just marched through campus"

i mean it speaks for itself

used to be 18 year olds charged the beaches at normandy, now they're crying for safe spaces etc etc

you sound like someone's ignorant grandpa

well, treat me like i'm six years old and explain "it" to me

i mean, this stuff isn't hard!

speaking as a professional educator, this is also armchair quarterbacky and lame. it is VERY hard, i don't wtf you're talking about.

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

wtf do you do for a living again?

used to be 18 year olds charged the beaches at normandy, now they're crying for safe spaces etc etc

you sound like someone's ignorant grandpa

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:24 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i didn't say either of those things -- you're projecting a worldview onto my posts based on what you associate it with

i don't think that political correctness is a major problem in america

i don't think that "kids these days" are coddled, or oversensitive, or anything like that

i just happen to think that a certain subset of students (of many different political persuasions) are in a weird sort of dance with administrators where the latter has to demonstrate their concern by raising the rhetorical stakes after every incident of real or perceived bias.

you seem kind of troll-y, frankly. i'm trying to explain my thoughts and you are just making little five-word posts that take potshots at me.

like:

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

wtf do you do for a living again?

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rather than asking a rhetorical question like this, why not explain why you think this UC policy is useful and necessary?

hey man i'm just suggesting you STFU and let the regents do their jobs

re what this is for, my friend zach says:

There is no attempt to police speech. Actions are what matter. “Actions that physically or otherwise interfere with the ability of an individual or group to assemble, speak, and share or hear the opinions of others (within time place and manner restrictions adopted by the University) impair the mission and intellectual life of the University and will not be tolerated.”

–“Harassment, threats, assaults, vandalism, and destruction of property, as defined by University policy, will not be tolerated within the University community. Where investigation establishes that such unlawful conduct was targeted at an individual or individuals based on discrimination prohibited by University policy, University administrators should consider discipline that includes enhanced sanctions.”

this is presumably their concern. that they will not be able to "protest" speakers w/ impunity. i imagine they can still protest kissinger or netanyahu all they want but they won't be able to protest, say, an israeli who has nothing to do with israeli policy, or someone speaking on a totally unrelated topic to israel but who happened to be invited by a local hillel.

hey man i'm just suggesting you STFU and let the regents do their jobs

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"sorry, we would be instituting this policy but for some guy on the internet suggesting it won't have much effect. everyone please go home."

xpost

i see. so this is in response (in part) to protestors not allowing events with speakers to proceed?

i actually am not OK with "enhanced sanctions" -- just as i'm not OK with "hate crime" legislation. seems like you are taking something that's already disallowed and appending a "thought crime" element to it.

wow you really are a reactionary idiot

it is VERY hard, i don't wtf you're talking about.

it is NOT terribly hard to disentangle "israeli government policy" from "the jews". even if people on various sides of the issue seek to conflate those two things for differing purposes.

that's all i meant.

ok troll away now, i have to get back to work :)

one last thing: there's a lot of debate about 'hate crime' legislation on the left, esp. from free-speech advocates. see e.g. http://www.thenation.com/article/hate-crime-laws-dont-prevent-violence-against-lgbt-people/

i don't know why i'm arguing with a troll, i shouldn't let this stuff get to me. oh well.