Posted on 04/24/2017 4:04:40 PM PDT by Kaslin
If you want to read something crazy, look no further than the New York Times opinion section. The paper actually published an editorial Monday morning that outright denied free speech applied to anyone who wasn’t a liberal. In his appalling article, “What ‘Snowflakes’ Get Right About Free Speech,” New York University professor Ulrich Baer argued that conservatives are simply wrong about what free speech means, and that protesters who censored conservative or otherwise “offensive” guest speakers were actually protecting free speech.
Baer begins his article by breaking down the modern understanding of free speech as “anything goes.” While Baer is not entirely wrong in the idea that certain situations do require limiting freedom of speech, (such as, yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater), that isn’t what Baer is arguing here. In a really bizarre way, Baer actually argues that by censoring speech the left finds offensive, they are doing a “public good” at restoring “freedom of speech”:
The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community.
In other words, the left gets to judge which view is “inherently” worthy of being heard.
Baer then brings up everyone from Ben Carson, to Donald Trump, to American Enterprise Institute’s Charles Murray as examples of people who “invalidate the humanity of some people” and deserve to be censored.
Some topics, such as claims that some human beings are by definition inferior to others, or illegal or unworthy of legal standing, are not open to debate because such people cannot debate them on the same terms...When those views invalidate the humanity of some people, they restrict speech as a public good...In such cases there is no inherent value to be gained from debating them in public.
Like President Trump’s attacks on the liberal media as the “enemies of the American people,” his insults are meant to discredit and delegitimize whole groups as less worthy of participation in the public exchange of ideas.
Not only that, but the liberal, hissy-fit-throwing protesters at school campuses across the country are actually protectors of “free speech:”
The recent student demonstrations at Auburn against Spencer’s visit — as well as protests on other campuses against Charles Murray, Milo Yiannopoulos and others — should be understood as an attempt to ensure the conditions of free speech for a greater group of people, rather than censorship.
He praises the protesters for keeping a “vigilant” watch against the “dangers to our democracy” (ie: anyone they disagree with politically):
As a scholar of literature, history and politics, I am especially attuned to the next generation’s demands to revise existing definitions of free speech to accommodate previously delegitimized experiences. Freedom of expression is not an unchanging absolute. When its proponents forget that it requires the vigilant and continuing examination of its parameters, and instead invoke a pure model of free speech that has never existed, the dangers to our democracy are clear and present.
The best line comes at the end, however, when Baer praises liberal protesters of all stripes as the guardians of the very “soul of our republic.” Yikes.
We should thank the student protestors [sic], the activists in Black Lives Matter and other “overly sensitive” souls for keeping watch over the soul of our republic.
We really are in the Newspeak era. Censorship promotes free speech. Who knew?
There is still much room to answer the people who use being offended as the shield-all. Tell them to be offended all they like but here’s the truth!
No kidding. It is interesting to find the professor in bed with both Soviet and Nazi leaders who share his philosophy on permitted speech.
What I find bizarre is that NYT would publish this screed. Perhaps they are too dense to see that they are sewing the seeds of their own destruction.
So a snowflake can burn the American flag as protected free speech but I can’t tell “FIRE!” when they do. LOL! Got it.
We don’t have to listen nor pass a test on what their fake news is about. Their fake news is as irrelevant as they are.
We don't need to watch Faux, ABCNNBCBS nor read the Compost/Ny/LARAZA Slimes, WSJ or any other left wing fishwrap or magazine to find out what our President is saying or doing.
Finally, our president and his people can reach us directly and daily via emails, tweets, and info on the Whitehouse.gov (See my tagline).
Official Washington is being traumatized by the tweets of Donald Trump.
Trump is speaking directly to his 62+ million voters, via Twitter or the Whitehouse.com is causing a crisis among mediots, politicians, Never Trumpsters and lobbyists. They just don't know how to handle “Trump’s Twitter feed which traumatizes Washington and his enemies.
All we have to do is to log on to Free Republic to read the real news and avoid the fake news from the places and sites mentioned above.
Burning the flag, while protected as free speech is disrepectfull
neither would I
Huh? You make no sense whatsoever.
EVERY liberal is a violent totalitarian thug.
I honestly think the federal government will have to demand no radical seditious activity on university campuses, and an even balance of faculty to be at least 45/55 Left vs Right/Right vs Left.
Without these standards being met, they should be refused any federal funds.
I also think the concept of student governance bodies should be eliminated.
Get back to basics. Focus on education. Eliminate the very troubling “brown shirt” activities at these institutions.
This is very dangerous, and we should not be funding this type of activity. We should be stamping it out.
We also need to identify who has been paying the radicals, and prosecute them for inciting to riot and seditious activities.
Somebody down at the Slimes been hittin’ da happy smoke? Attention deficit disorder? They definitely aren’t paying attention.
What if I light up a rainbow, Palestinian or ISIS flag? Is that approved free speech or does a professor beat me with a bike lock?
The American model never lent itself to such brute force policing. Never. It’s a classical biblical gracious God or nothing. To do what you propose might impose order but it would be something not America.
I.e. how to save America by turning it into a different flavor of China.
No. The gumption to just truth-tell needs to come back. Do that in the power of God and that might well spread.
And that means getting out of the FR ghetto cocoon, folks. Let it live on the streets where we go. The grocer. The landlady. The librarian. Give them earfuls
Ahhhhh...
Okay then. You think what is happening now is American?
This is open sedition. This has the makings of a separatist movement.
They do not respect our Constitution. They do not respect our government. They do not respect our officials. They don’t even respect the university staff.
They refuse to allow anyone with an alternative view to even talk.
They riot on campus if someone dares defy them, and try to make a presentation anyway.
They attack students whose only crime was to show up to hear someone talk.
For heaven’s sake, don’t let me destroy these fine American ideals.
You don’t cure the common cold with cyanide. False dichotomy.
I gave it some thought.
Here’s my new plan.
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I honestly think the federal government will have to demand no radical seditious activity on university campuses, and an even balance of faculty to be at least 45/55 Left vs Right/Right vs Left.
Without these standards being met, they should be refused any federal funds.
I also think the concept of student governance bodies should be eliminated.
Get back to basics. Focus on education. Eliminate the very troubling “brown shirt” activities at these institutions.
This is very dangerous, and we should not be funding this type of activity. We should be stamping it out.
We also need to identify who has been paying the radicals, and prosecute them for inciting to riot and seditious activities.
- - -
This is like China?
These kids are using clubs to severely injure other students. They are demanding Whites attend reeducation meetings. They are demanding Whites admit to being racist because of their skin color. They are destroying government buildings.
They are being paid to do it.
Pray tell me, who is persecuting them in any way?
China?
Yikes.
China methods. All of them.
If we succeeded we would find we had choked everything traditionally American away in the name of saving it by Chinese brute force.
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