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.
Yes, thanks HTRN. Is it your take that nobody here supports Conservatism in their community, with neighbors, or others they come into contact with?
You know better than that.
I rather have to ask, why do we have to personally bow to so called snowflakes which bid fair to chill us? A thousand points of light, not a government enforced sun, is the answer. We are so afraid of the sacrificial inconvenience of personally bucking individual so called snowflakes. This must change if we are going to regain America without turning it into fascism.
It’s my take that many hide it for shallow worldly reasons, yes.
I am sitting here wondering how to respond to someone so ignorant that they can’t grasp that our universities are being subverted for criminal activity.
The kids in China weren’t singling out more than half of the Chinese populace to label them racists based on their skin color.
The kids in China were not approaching a time when all property of that half the populace would be expropriated and given to others.
The kids in China weren’t not destroying public property.
The kids in China were not physically threatening someone who had an alternative viewpoint.
There has been no oppression of our kids on university campuses, like there was in China?
We have not brought in tanks. I did not suggest we take military action.
What the heck is going on in that head of yours?
If someone is on campus to be a subversive, expel them. Period. Kick them off campus and let the kids who are there to get a degree do it.
Once again, there is no reason why federal tax dollars should be taken for granted, if 90% of the faculty at the university campus wants to overturn our Constitution and implement something else to supersede it.
For example I saw it just yesterday. Someone’s secular business was so coveted that a word about the good done through Trump wasn’t dared.
Now just who was the snowflake?
There are times when you go full nut-job.
This is one of them.
Well then thanks for your opinion that all FReepers but you are stupid shallow idiots.
Strange...
How do I respond to your ignorance? America was wrought from above. You ignorantly propose rebuilding it from below. God sadly chuckles at such ungodly self pride.
I have no idea what you are talking about there.
And what’s more, I’m convinced you know less about it than I do.
Always happy to be a Jesus nut. May I be a veritable Planter’s.
HTRN, you’ve simply gone full-on moron.
You’re no even close to the fringe of reality on this.
Oh I am sure you don’t understand. That doesn’t deter or control me.
Happy to be God’s fool while you bare your ungodly soul FRiend.
This isn’t a religious matter.
It’s a matter of George Soros and company networking seditious activity across our nation on university campuses.
I’m suggesting ways to bring that back under control by peaceful and lawful means, and you’re defending Soros and his paid goons using the name of Christ.
Neither has common sense, deterred or controlled you.
Oh God guffaws at THAT dodge!
Sedition is godly...
Paid thugs running rampant across our nation, is godly...
The rule of law is ungodly...
Okay, got it.
Indeed not according to world wisdom. I am overjoyed to break those bonds.
Oh the world including you will crap on me for a season. But then I will win.
The really sad thing is, people watch you act like this and it really turns them off Christianity.
Do you have any idea how badly you are representing God by acting this way?
Non sequitur city, but we must be careful who rules above it. Sedition may be the godliest thing in some circumstances. George Washington agreed.
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