Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:23 am**

And though most people are too fly these days, too aware of the lurking threat of Craig Brown, to use that form of words, there's a good deal of there-I-said-it-ism about these days. In particular, when it comes to the issue of 'free speech'. To read many serious commentators on the right, and some less serious ones, not to mention very many egg-avatared Twitter-users - this foundational human right is suffering an existential threat. From, um, undergraduates, apparently.

Big, serious books about all this are catnip to major publishing houses. This autumn Allen Lane publishes Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff on The Coddling of the American Mind. There's Claire Fox's 'I Find That Offensive!' and Mick Hume's Trigger Warning. There are contributions from Timothy Garton Ash, Nigel Warburton and Erwin Chemerinsky. Niall Ferguson has been making apocalyptic noises about the suppression of conservative voices on university campuses. My esteemed colleague Brendan O'Neill, bless him, doesn't seem able to find an issue in public life, these days, where the real problem isn't that old chestnut, illiberal liberals.

The problem here is that all this is, essentially, horseshit. That lone voice in the wilderness, Jordan Peterson, has sold hundreds of thousands of books. The online 'platform for free thought' Quillette gets millions of page views a month. And the self-styled renegades of the so-called 'intellectual dark web' were profiled at length in that noted samizdat journal the New York Times.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.spe ... peech/amp/

There may be a bit of table flipping at play .. with no small agenda.

"The libertarian position has become dominant on the right on First Amendment issues," said Ilya Shapiro, a lawyer with the Cato Institute. "It simply means that we should be skeptical of government attempts to regulate speech. That used to be an uncontroversial and nonideological point. What's now being called the libertarian position on speech was in the 1960s the liberal position on speech."

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.nyt ... t.amp.html

Social understanding changes with time, evolves over time .. against the landscape of facts, evidence etc

Many on the left have traded an absolutist commitment to free speech for one sensitive to the harms it can inflict.

Harms are always going to be a consideration for those possessed of social conscience. Today we see a shift in the way women are treated, how victims of sexual abuse are now considered, etc.

Such social shifts are bound to have consequences and effect the way see the world.

We once believed the world was flat, evidence proved that thinking flawed. Once it was believed that women are responsible for the corruption of men .. such a belief was tightly woven into early Christian thought and biblical commentary, we no longer believe that. Some still believe this, and require women cover themselves from head to toe lest the very sight of their flesh stir mens passions

We today would consider such attitudes ludicrous and arguably even barbaric.

Take pornography and street protests. Liberals were once largely united in fighting to protect sexually explicit materials from government censorship. Now many on the left see pornography as an assault on women's rights.

In 1977, many liberals supported the right of the American Nazi Party to march among Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Ill. Far fewer supported the free-speech rights of the white nationalists who marched last year in Charlottesville, Va.

I think this may provide an indication of how societies understanding of Free Speech and its proponents have evolved to what it is today.

To the contrary, free speech reinforces and amplifies injustice, Catharine A. MacKinnon, a law professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in "The Free Speech Century," a collection of essays to be published this year.

"Once a defense of the powerless, the First Amendment over the last hundred years has mainly become a weapon of the powerful," she wrote. "Legally, what was, toward the beginning of the 20th century, a shield for radicals, artists and activists, socialists and pacifists, the excluded and the dispossessed, has become a sword for authoritarians, racists and misogynists, Nazis and Klansmen, pornographers and corporations buying elections."

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:16 am**

Vraith wrote:
Cail wrote:
You'll be hard-pressed to cite a contemporary example of conservatives silencing any speech, or publicly intimidating speakers that don't agree with them.
Seriously? It's on tape happening at Trump rallies. A-fucking-LOT.

Seriously, that's your example? You say Trump rallies, and I give you the entire city of Seattle for months. I give you Trump's inauguration and the subsequent Women's March. Jesus Vraith, you mention a few scuffles between protesters and counter-protesters at Trump rallies, and you have nothing to say about a sitting Senator being harassed out of a restaurant? Your partisanship has blind you to the actual problem.

The fact is that if you show up to an event to cause trouble and find it, it's not entirely on the people who give you what you're looking for. That's in stark contrast to going to a restaurant for a meal.

Vraith wrote:Even FIRE identifies 30% of campus speech troubles as coming from the right [[and they don't include private religious universities AT ALL, even though none of them have ever had even a moderate, let alone liberal, speaker EVER.]]
The reason is our old friend "We're private---fuck the libtards."
BUT they're still allowed to get gov't backing/aid.

And with no link there's no verifying this. Even if it's accepted at face value, and not "crimes committed by conservatives" rather than politically-motivated crimes, that still means that 70% is committed by others.

Edit - I've now spent 10 minutes searching FIRE's site, and have seen nothing backing your assertion. The only thing I could find citing a 30% anything regarding FIRE was this site, which isn't FIRE's site, and does not support your position whatsoever.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:58 pm**

Skyweir wrote:
To the contrary, free speech reinforces and amplifies injustice, Catharine A. MacKinnon, a law professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in "The Free Speech Century," a collection of essays to be published this year.

"Once a defense of the powerless, the First Amendment over the last hundred years has mainly become a weapon of the powerful," she wrote. "Legally, what was, toward the beginning of the 20th century, a shield for radicals, artists and activists, socialists and pacifists, the excluded and the dispossessed, has become a sword for authoritarians, racists and misogynists, Nazis and Klansmen, pornographers and corporations buying elections."

Words aren't swords. The only way that injustice can be amplified with respect to words is when you silence them.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:58 pm**

Zarathustra wrote:
Skyweir wrote:
To the contrary, free speech reinforces and amplifies injustice, Catharine A. MacKinnon, a law professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in "The Free Speech Century," a collection of essays to be published this year.

"Once a defense of the powerless, the First Amendment over the last hundred years has mainly become a weapon of the powerful," she wrote. "Legally, what was, toward the beginning of the 20th century, a shield for radicals, artists and activists, socialists and pacifists, the excluded and the dispossessed, has become a sword for authoritarians, racists and misogynists, Nazis and Klansmen, pornographers and corporations buying elections."
Words aren't swords. The only way that injustice can be amplified with respect to words is when you silence them.

Exactly. Beware the person who warns against too much free speech.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:25 am**

Umm .. she is not talking ... literal swords ... shes using the descriptor metaphorically.

But you cant see how the narrative has evolved and is evolving? I thought it was pretty unequivocal.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:18 pm**

She's wrong. The fact that certain groups are more fully exercising their rights under the First Amendment than they once did or more than others do (assuming that is a fact) does not mean it has "become" anything other than it was. It simply means certain groups are more fully exercising their rights under it than they once did or more than others do. (And what delicious irony that people once said similar things when it was the radicals, artists and activists, socialists and pacifists who were exercising their rights under the First Amendment!

)

And the fact that certain groups are using intimidation and violence to prevent others from exercising their rights under the First Amendment also says nothing about the First Amendment. It means they are breaking the law.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2019 1:18 pm**

It's the fascist enforcement against wrongthink. Anyone who thinks that silencing "undesirable" is acceptable is a tyrant.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:11 pm**

Skyweir wrote:Umm .. she is not talking ... literal swords ... shes using the descriptor metaphorically.

But you cant see how the narrative has evolved and is evolving? I thought it was pretty unequivocal.

Metaphors aren't weapons. A metaphorical weapon doesn't amplify injustice.

If you want to say that this author is creating some interesting prose, fine. If you want to say that this author is saying anything meaningful about reality, not so fine. This is just hyperbole.

Authoritarians, racists, and corporations have always had their say. That's not new. What's new is the desire to silence them. That's the only reason the need to emphasize their right to free speech seems new. In the past, it was taken for granted. It's authoritarianism of the Left that has brought their rights into focus.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:41 pm**

Cail wrote: The only thing I could find citing a 30% anything regarding FIRE was this site, which isn't FIRE's site,

I don't think I remember ever being at that site, but maybe. Something got me looking at it 6mo/year ago or so...But that's not my info/source. FIRE is...
They publish lots of stuff [[including lists of ten worst for a few years now, which are pretty interesting reading in themselves]]

So I went through a bunch of stuff and counted.

FIRE site also says they don't track violations at private universities UNLESS the university itself claims to protect speech.

And the average number of dis-invites and other incidents was something like 30-ish a year. [[[there are almost 5000 universities now, I think.]]]

It's overblown, violence on the left is overblown---and the key thing is no one is ignoring it...
EVEN IF there are incidents [there obviously are], the idea that "PC is crushing Speech" is demonstrable false---in any given 60 seconds, almost anyone can find more speech on any issue/topic/idea than 99.999999% of all humans who ever lived before could get.
Never in history could so many get so much White Supremacist speech so easily. [[and the same is true of nearly every other idea/topic you can think of]]
The idea that the violence is growing, getting worse, a major crisis seems false, too. [[unlike "normal" violent crime, it's peaky and less rigorously tracked---hard to make a long trend line with the info, go ahead and find it/try it---but it is clear the participation numbers are up, and the coverage is up, but looks like the death/harm/destruction rates are not.

But, just for fun, I looked a bit at Seattle cuz I had no data/numbers.
Far as I an tell, a dozen or two people were arrested [and not all were lefties] over 6-8 months.
I'm pretty sure Trump campaign removed more people than that at a single rally.

Anyway, if you want to see people being silenced by gov't---go watch Mitch McConnell run the Senate.

YEA, that's a damn joke---but it contains enough truth people should be a bit pissed.

Or compare the number of "silenced" people on campus/at protests to the number of people the Cons/Right are preventing from voting and/or crack/packing into irrelevance.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:56 pm**

Sorry Vraith, you're completely wrong; your bias is getting in the way of your vision. Mitch McConnell isn't stifling anyone's speech, but Antifa beating the hell out of two Marines in Philly sure is, just as crowds of statists attacking Tucker Carlson's house is. The "conservatives preventing voting" meme is tired and has not been proven, ever.

But it's nice to see you clucking your tongue at how easy it is for free speech to be disseminated. Free speech is a good thing always, regardless of content. If you believe otherwise, your beliefs are antithetical to the foundations of this nation.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2019 6:50 pm**

Vraith, no one here is really arguing that white supremacist speech is being threatened. You're arguing against a strawman. We're saying that political correctness is stifling speech that otherwise wouldn't be controversial through public shaming and groupthink based on a set of values defined by the Left, as a tactic to drive Right Wing positions out of the mainstream. "Hate speech" has been so expanded that even liberal SNL comedians telling jokes that SUPPORT a liberal position are being caught up in this vastly expanded net of sensitivity/authoritarianism. It's a disingenuous way to argue against a position by pretending that it is immoral, rather than merely incorrect or impractical. It's inserting racism and bigotry into areas that contain none.

Vraith wrote:
EVEN IF there are incidents [there obviously are], the idea that "PC is crushing Speech" is demonstrable false---in any given 60 seconds, almost anyone can find more speech on any issue/topic/idea than 99.999999% of all humans who ever lived before could get.
Never in history could so many get so much White Supremacist speech so easily. [[and the same is true of nearly every other idea/topic you can think of]]

This is irrelevant. It's like saying that black people are not being killed by police because you can look around and see black people in every city who are still alive and breathing.

Technology is making is possible for people to get their ideas out, and for others to find them. The doesn't preclude the possibility that others are trying to suppress speech.

Vraith wrote: The idea that the violence is growing, getting worse, a major crisis seems false, too. [[unlike "normal" violent crime, it's peaky and less rigorously tracked---hard to make a long trend line with the info, go ahead and find it/try it---but it is clear the participation numbers are up, and the coverage is up, but looks like the death/harm/destruction rates are not.

I don't have the numbers to back up my point, but my impression is that Antifa is new, and the riots on campus to keep mainstream conservative speakers from speaking is new.

Vraith wrote: But, just for fun, I looked a bit at Seattle cuz I had no data/numbers.
Far as I an tell, a dozen or two people were arrested [and not all were lefties] over 6-8 months.
I'm pretty sure Trump campaign removed more people than that at a single rally.

You're comparing the removal of protesters disrupting a speech at a rally to violence committed by Antifa?

Posted: **Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:45 am**

Yes metaphors arent weapons .. metaphors are a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object, ie in this case ... weapons .... which it is not literally applicable.

Shes using the word analogously not literally.

Posted: **Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:04 pm**

I know. That's why I said it's hyperbole. It is literally not true.

This is a common tactic of the Left, to describe speech that they don't like in terms of violence or tangible harm. It's the justification for stopping that speech.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2019 1:10 am**

I would hope you do know.

And in this case, her meaning is clear. The evolution of political correctness and the changed nature of free speech advocating .. is an intentional flipping of the tables.

Again not a literal flipping

.. but one in which arguably libertarians and conservatives or even one could confidently argue, the less educated .... view free speech in terms of a freedom to be politically incorrect, to be racist, sexist, offensive and bigoted.

And should that ... right

be quashed or threatened .. those advocating this new evolved and irrefutably questionable perspective .. are in fact using their singular perspective as a weapon, in terms of their aggressive narrative.

Of course rational minded humans can see through this thinly veiled guise. The agenda is the dissemination of discrimination and bigotry messaging regardless of its social value.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2019 3:19 am**

And what should the punishment be for being politically incorrect?

One could confidently argue that the point of education has been missed by anyone who argues that only some views should be protected by the First Amendment.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2019 5:00 am**

Fisty its not about protecting only some views .. it's also not about enforcing political correctness .. to my mind the pertinent point is that free speech should not be s medium for expressing discrimination, bigotry and inciting hate narratives as well as criminal behaviour.

Freedom of Speech in law has limitations placed on it now. Well at least here .. but I would think its similar there.

You do not have the freedom to libel or slander someone .. or you expose yourself to litigation. In this country we also have racial vilification laws, and obscenity laws ..

So sure you have a right to speak but you do not have a right to say whatever you like. In some cases, you can find yourself in a court of law explaining yourself.

Political correctness is the .. supposed to be gentle reminder of what is appropriate behaviour. It cant for the most part be enforced and is unlikely ever to be the case in the US anyway .. no matter how many progressive type peeps want it to be.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2019 2:01 pm**

Skyweir wrote: .. but one in which arguably libertarians and conservatives or even one could confidently argue, the less educated .... view free speech in terms of a freedom to be politically incorrect, to be racist, sexist, offensive and bigoted.

Your BS snark aside, that's exactly why free speech is so important. It's very easy to ignore limitations on unpopular speech, but that's exactly the speech that needs defending the most. I want racists, sexists, the offensive, and the bigoted to be as free as me to speak as much as they want.

Because the second we start limiting their speech is the second that we open the door to limiting my speech.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2019 4:33 pm**

Difficult to know what you're saying, Sky. Political correctness is a gentle reminder. But people who do not agree with what is currently politically correct should not be free to speak their positions. Or maybe you mean they should be free to do so, but should not exercise this freedom.

It is fortunate (and amusing) that the First Amendment gives Americans the freedom to express their desires to limit Freedom of Expression.

All attempts to justify limiting someone's freedom of expression are nonsense. First and foremost, because that is the sign of tyranny, or fascism, or whatever. Just finished watching The Tudors. Good clean fun!

Second, because what is considered politically correct can change with an election, and what is considered offensive and vulgar changes with time. Vietnam draft-dodgers. Maplethorpe. Boys growing their hair as long as the Beatles. Find a FB post without the word fuck or douche in it. Find an episode of the highly acclaimed and beloved Outlander that doesn't show Clare naked, or receiving oral sex, or literally showing her nipples being sucked.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2019 6:04 pm**

Fist and Faith wrote: Second, because what is considered politically correct can change with an election, and what is considered offensive and vulgar changes with time. Vietnam draft-dodgers. Maplethorpe. Boys growing their hair as long as the Beatles. Find a FB post without the word fuck or douche in it.

Exactly. Just because something offends some people doesn't mean it's wrong. Maybe it means some people are prudes.

Fist and Faith wrote:Find an episode of the highly acclaimed and beloved Outlander that doesn't show Clare naked, or receiving oral sex, or literally showing her nipples being sucked.

Damn, I'm going to have to start watching that show!

Skyweir wrote:The evolution of political correctness and the changed nature of free speech advocating .. is an intentional flipping of the tables.

I know what she means, but she is wrong! Do you honestly think that racists are more free to speak their minds than in the past? What is this imaginary time when racists didn't speak? The 1960s? The 1860s? Her point is absurd.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2019 7:33 pm**

I can't remember my history will enough. Refresh my memory. Was it the 1960s or the 1860s when racist filth held their tongues?

(Oh, and I don't mean they literally held their tongues.)

Kevin's Watch

Is Political Correctness Evolving .....