Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

I guess technically they could pick a park, and go through Parks and Rec, who would, based on the situation, pass the buck to OPD

Unless they go for renting out a private venue ... which, outside of something huge like the Oakland Arena or Coliseum ... would be really bad for business.

The difference here is that people who sympathize/align with neo-Nazis control the executive branch of the government and have prominent representation in the House and Senate. This is a tangible problem in a manner that D&D Satanists were not.

― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP)

right, that's why we have an actual issue here. anybody who's going to abandon their commitment to free speech to defend america from the occult menace of gary gygax probably didn't have an actual commitment to free speech in the first place. it's when you have people like matthew prince of cloudflare, who's built his company's career defending people's ability to say all sorts of things on that internet, saying "yeah free speech is good and all but seriously fuck those guys", that we start having a problem.

personally i'm kind of on matthew prince's side. fuck nazis. the problem posed by violent fascists in the streets is more serious and pressing than the problem of people not being able to say whatever the hell they want without fear of reprisal.

the slippery slope is an overused and overemphasized argument, it's been kind of shit ever since the days of the "domino theory", but it does exist, and like matthew prince i don't believe that shutting these assholes down is the "right thing". i just don't care anymore. cue phil collins.

personally i'm kind of on matthew prince's side. fuck nazis. the problem posed by violent fascists in the streets is more serious and pressing than the problem of people not being able to say whatever the hell they want without fear of reprisal.

well, yeah, but the law's not on our side

if the law's on their side, let them prove it before a court! it's not my job to say what the law is.

there's a difference between "fuck it, this feels wrong and I'm acting, we'll have meetings to figure out what our official policy is from here on out" and just turning the corner and banning everything that "feels wrong"

I think there are a lot of things said and done by these neo-facist fucks that, in a society with a more nuanced definition of hate speech and incitement to violence would be legally actionable. I'm really tired of "good speech drowns out bad speech" line, because in 2017 that doesn't fly. The number of people who, consciously or unconsciously, believe that there's no harm in denigrating jewish or black people as a class (where they define who is jewish enough and black enough to be hated) because it doesn't personally affect them, it's just speech, and they have some deep-seated biases they don't feel like examining is a little too big.

There was an article I can't find the link for, recently published, that examined the anti-abortion movement and how a lot of people didn't have very strong opinions before joining it, but it gained enough traction and expanded its base enough that it became a movement. That's the thing -- people like platforms, cohesive sets of ideas, that they can wholesale join in on. Even if they don't start out agreeing with all of the points. There are enough people who are on the fringe of whatever this white supremacist thing is that we can't let it get to be a platform.

are there any parts of the US where gun and weapon laws are abridged in certain situations, such as political rallies or gatherings on public space? I know private venues can set their own policies, but I'm wonder if "you can't have concealed or open carry weapons if you're attending a public rally granted a permit by the city, on public ground" would be useful

Yeah, in many states you aren't allowed to be armed at a protest, according to the link I posted in the 'Limits of Free Speech' thread.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-chilling-study-shows-how-hostile-college-students-are-toward-free-speech/2017/09/18/cbb1a234-9ca8-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

free speech and hostile illiberalism

this is a very disingenuous article and seems to be written in anticipation of the Berkeley "free speech" week which is totally happening (probably not happening)

a few people have speculated this is the grift: make announcement of a bunch of speakers, a few of whom were surprised to hear they were included at all, for buzz. then bungle the logistics with speakers and venues more or less on purpose, then claim the university is blocking your event, keep the troops enraged

http://www.dailycal.org/2017/09/16/failure-confirm-berkeley-patriot-loses-zellerbach-wheeler-auditoriums-free-speech-week/

So I'm watching Milo's latest video about the coming Free Speech Week and, as expected, it's him claiming the institution is censoring him.

— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) September 19, 2017

In August, motivated by concerns about the “narrowing window of permissible topics” for discussion on campuses, Villasenor conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year colleges. Financial support for the survey was provided by the Charles Koch Foundation, which Villasenor said had no involvement in designing, administering or analyzing the questionnaire; as of this writing, the foundation had also not seen his results.

lol

... But if the results do not suit the Koch Foundation's propaganda interests, the rest of the world will never see them, either.

Lately I've been exposed to this new (to me) kind of dialogue on the internet, mostly from white people I vaguely know who are involved with SURJ, which is full of passive aggressive "education" and competitive allyship, and I just find the whole thing weird and a little bit new agey and cultish.

Maybe not a free speech thing but certainly strikes me as creepy liberalism.

every time somebody says "SURJ" my mind automatically fills in "TANKIAN"

In August, motivated by concerns about the “narrowing window of permissible topics” for discussion on campuses, Villasenor conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year colleges.

I'm pissed because I took these results seriously but apparently this guy (who is an engineer, not a social scientist) did this via online panel, making no attempt to randomize??

Lately I've been exposed to this new (to me) kind of dialogue on the internet, mostly from white people I vaguely know who are involved with SURJ, which is full of passive aggressive "education"

It is creepy, rot set in when American teachers started calling themselves 'educators' instead imo

Equally taking a squint at it the use of 'educate' in that assertive way is distinctly American, tying into a rhetorical and civil rights tradition and feels like it wouldn't be creepy if a victim of racism or a not white person basically was using it? I could be reading that wrong through because not American myself

I'm pissed because I took these results seriously but apparently this guy (who is an engineer, not a social scientist) did this via online panel, making no attempt to randomize??

lol just use fucking mechanical turk, what a schmuck

I can't wait for the Kochs to die

mostly from white people I vaguely know who are involved with SURJ, which is full of passive aggressive "education" and competitive allyship, and I just find the whole thing weird and a little bit new agey and cultish.

= ppl who begin sentences w/ an imperative, 'know that...'

rot set in when American teachers started calling themselves 'educators' instead imo

I'm curious. How many of the hundreds of thousands of American teachers calling themselves "educators" it would take for this rot to attain statistical significance? And if a teacher uses "teacher" and "educator" interchangeably, does this count as a partially rotten teacher or a wholly rotten one?

It is creepy, rot set in when American teachers started calling themselves 'educators' instead imo

― Never changed username before (cardamon)

uh, you know there are educators who don't teach students, right? my aunt is one of them. i don't think she's involved with SURJ.

the rot set in when teacher training institutions quit calling themselves "normal schools". clearly the choice of terminology here is of paramount significance.

errbody gotta be a university these days

I've only heard "educators" as a broader category that includes teachers, counselors, administrators, aides, speech therapists, etc

I'm fine, it's like me saying "I work in IT" instead of explaining what arcane role within that realm I actually click a mouse for

http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/the-toxic-drama-of-ya-twitter.html

― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Monday, August 7, 2017 12:12 PM (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.facebook.com/LauraMoriartyAuthor/posts/10213546821600822

The issue of diversity in children’s and teen literature is of paramount importance to Kirkus, and we appreciate the power language wields in discussion of the problems. As a result, we've removed the starred review from kirkus.com after determining that, while we believe our reviewer’s opinion is worthy and valid, some of the wording fell short of meeting our standards for clarity and sensitivity, and we failed to make the thoughtful edits our readers deserve. The editors are evaluating the review and will make a determination about correction or retraction after careful consideration in collaboration with the reviewer.

Fucked up to turn this around on the reviewer, claiming this was an issue of her shortcomings as a writer -- "clarity and sensitivity" -- rather than ideology.

I think the critique of this book -- that it is a clueless "white savior" narrative -- is probably valid, but the goodreads pile-on still disturbs me. Half the comments sound like bots, repeating the same social justice phrases we hear all the time: "White people: not everything is about you"; "this book silences marginalized voices" etc. The defenders of the book on there likewise repeat truisms about censorship and free speech. None of it reads like human beings putting their own thoughts into words. It's... creepy.

you're still saying the critique of the book is "probably valid" despite not having actually read it.

familiar

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/us/to-kill-a-mockingbird-biloxi.html

people should NEVER be "uncomfortable" as we all know

Xp fair point. I was just trying to point out that I am not opposed to these kinds of critiques in principle. But what's going on here isn't literary criticism.

literary criticism is something I enjoy but is really as an institution an ongoing judgment on the fitness of written works regarding literary merit, which is generally horseshit

I don't agree. It's an artform onto itself. The best critics show you how they read.

that said, the pile-on dynamic is unflinchingly *not* a populist one, despite people couching it in the ideals of equal representation and socially progressive goals

honestly I wonder what their favorite works are, and if they’d pass muster among their own group were they released today. the cynic in me assumes there are a bunch of Harry Potter fandom people who got real woke and are on the march to battle

literary criticism is also an art form because it distills good work to an outline and sound bites, because people who love to talk about books appreciate a narrative when they approach talking about books

Controversial opinion: They don't care about books or equality.

everyone needs a cause to believe in

They are attracted to conformity and censure. They found a creed. Now they can go around being internet police officers.

Treeship, you’ll find your day to be a cop, honest

You don't know me at all, mh. My flaw is reflexive contrarianism, not conformism.

Just as arbitrary, goes better with a leather jacket and sunglasses.

the contrarianism cop

Controversial opinion: the radical openness of art and literature is inherently threatening to all ideologies of any political persuasion because they cannot help but seek closure, finality, moral sorting. And paradoxically, the openness of the Internet makes those reared on it more attracted to ideological closure.

definitely.

more details on Kirkus tying itself in knots over this review

http://www.vulture.com/2017/10/american-heart-review-kirkus-editor-on-why-they-changed-it.html

And while the Muslim woman who wrote the original review was involved in the editing process — “the decision to retract the star was made in full collaboration with the reviewer,” he says — altering the review does not appear to have been her idea in the first place. According to Smith, Kirkus concluded internally that edits would be made before reaching out to the reviewer.

“We wanted her to consider if changing what we thought was sort of reductive word choice, and adding deeper context, is something she thought might be appropriate,” he says, though he emphasizes it was ultimately her call: “I did not dictate that to her. She made that decision on her own.”

I feel like this whole thing is super-weird and I don't get it -- everyone is sharing a review on Goodreads by Justina Ireland, who I guess is a bigshot in this world, and that review seems like ... kind of a normal negative review that focuses much more on "this book is not well written or made" than "this author should be publicly shamed." How do we get from that to Kirkus taking down their review?

I assumed they were getting angry letters and emails about it. Idk though. They might have just been responding to the volume of negative reactions on goodreads. There are many, many reviews on there that basically condemn it.

Like, here is a review from "Leah"

fuck your white savior narratives
fuck using marginalized characters as a plot device to teach the white mc how to be a decent person
fuck you for perpetuating the idea that marginalized people need to suffer in order to be worthy of "humanity"
fuck this book and everyone who thought it would be a good fucking idea

~

to my Muslim friends, i'm sorry this book and this mindset exists
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