The Freedom of Speech Thread

[crazy canuck]

On balance I agree that collectively the left's ideas trounce the right's ideas on merit, but I do think that this advantage is eroding, in large part due to lack of respect for truly open and frank discussion. 

Even if you start off with the right idea, if you allow only one side to freely express their opinion, you'll eventually ratchet that idea to such an extreme that it would no longer clearly be a right idea.

You also lose out on the market place of ideas within the progressive movement.

Much like it is important to note that most people who Islamic terrorist kill are other Muslims, most of the people the woke left love to cancel and despise (like Sam Harris) are other progressives.

Rather than name calling and labelling, lets use a hypothetical to see where you stand.


You are a university administrator.  You learn a student group named "Tucker fan club" is hosting a speaker who will argue that the Western Media is lying when it says that the Russians are attacking civilian targets and that in fact the Russians are liberating Ukraine from Nazis.

You also learn that another student group named "survivors of Russian aggression" who have members who were injured by Russian attacks on civilian targets plan a demonstration in which they wish to inform everyone that is attending the speaker's session that it is the speaker who is lying and that their talk should be avoided.

Lets also assume that the university you administer is a private institution and so no constitutional rules apply.  This is strictly within the private sphere.

Do you restrict the first speaker from speaking on campus?  I think you and I would agree that answer to that is no.  The more difficult question on which I think you and I differ is what do to do with the second group.  I think the answer is obvious.  You certainly allow the second group to also express their views.  But you seem to be suggesting otherwise. 

[crazy canuck]

I'm talking specifically about shouting down speakers on campus.

Your counterargument about the school's reputation is a decent one and I admit it's validity.  However in pursuing that goal they are obstructing the ability of the speaker to communicate to the audience that wants to hear them.  I see the ability to communicate unobstructed as a pretty basic right, and it shouldn't depend on your liking of the message.

I guess my question is why the audience needs to listen to the speaker on a college campus specifically? If the audience is so keen to listen to the speaker, couldn't they rent a hall / convention centre / church basement somewhere not on campus? And if so, is anything really lost?

I mean - it's possible that many of the protestors would still show up (minus however many are there because they don't want the speaker on their campus), but they'd just be protesting outside. College students and staff would have much less leverage over locations outside of campus and would be unlikely to get the speaker disinvited - and thus their protest would fair game from your POV, right?

But there is already a functioning mechanism for deciding who ought to talk on a college campus. You cannot just show up and start chatting in a lecture hall at Yale, there is some kind of process in place that involves some kind of review and evaluation of the speakers credentials and the relevance of their message.

The cancel culture crowd you are so fond of is the mob Jake. It is people who have decided that that process doesn't confer on THEM the power to decide who gets to speak, and they demand that power. I think there are multiple examples where it is clear they are using that power in a incredibly negative manner, not at all based on their supposed concern for the repuational integrity of the school, but simply because the speaker is going to say something they don't like, or has said something they don't like in the past.

Your "reputational integrity" argument is kind of silly. You are pulling that out as a somewhat rational reason why a speaker ought to be not invited, but you know perfectly well that isn't the actual reason the mobs shut down speakers. There are already people at the school whose job it is to decide if a speaker presenting some topic is going to damage the school reputation in a manner that is not acceptable, and it isn't the twitter mob.

I think I see the problem.  There is a misunderstanding.  Not all speech on campus occurs in a lecture hall. Quite to the contrary there is lively discussion outside those settings.  That is after all the very purpose of a university.

[crazy canuck]

This shit is fucking terrifying:

My old friend Rod Dreher of TheAmerican Conservative argued that because the left controls the commanding heights of the culture and the economy, the only institution the right has a shot at influencing is the state. In these circumstances the right has to use state power to promote its values. "We need to quit being satisfied with owning the libs, and save our country," Dreher said. "We need to unapologetically embrace the use of state power."

This is what we are getting from the lefts refusal to allow anyone to speak openly. The right gets to say "See, the left absolutely dominates the colleges! They won't even let someone make an argument for conservative values in those institutions! We have no choice but to use whatever means necessary to take over state power!"

Its bullshit of course. But the idea that the mob has to shout down and de-platform some scientist because they once questioned the 1619 project has consequences, and they are real, and they are almost universally negative.

Utter nonsense.  The right is forced to use the power of the state to curtail freedom of expression?  No, they need to compete within the marketplace of ideas like everyone else. 

Hence the statement "It's bullshit of course".

Look, arguing about how fucked up the right is has zero usefulness. There isn't anyone here on the "No, they are totally correct!" side.

Of course they need to compete in the market place of ideas like everyone else - which is why we need to make sure to protect their access to that marketplace. What is more, we should be fully confident in our ability to beat them in that marketplace.

But you know who else we should make sure get access to that marketplace? Progressives who are not as progressive as you are, and even the despised moderates and centrists.

I don't understand your position.  It is too wrapped in self referential name calling.  Rather than me try to figure out what you mean by a progressive who is not progressive, it would be more useful if you responded to my hypothetical fact pattern so I can understand you reasoning in a concrete way.

[Berkut]

On balance I agree that collectively the left's ideas trounce the right's ideas on merit, but I do think that this advantage is eroding, in large part due to lack of respect for truly open and frank discussion. 

Even if you start off with the right idea, if you allow only one side to freely express their opinion, you'll eventually ratchet that idea to such an extreme that it would no longer clearly be a right idea.

You also lose out on the market place of ideas within the progressive movement.

Much like it is important to note that most people who Islamic terrorist kill are other Muslims, most of the people the woke left love to cancel and despise (like Sam Harris) are other progressives.

Rather than name calling and labelling, lets use a hypothetical to see where you stand.


You are a university administrator.  You learn a student group named "Tucker fan club" is hosting a speaker who will argue that the Western Media is lying when it says that the Russians are attacking civilian targets and that in fact the Russians are liberating Ukraine from Nazis.

You also learn that another student group named "survivors of Russian aggression" who have members who were injured by Russian attacks on civilian targets plan a demonstration in which they wish to inform everyone that is attending the speaker's session that it is the speaker who is lying and that their talk should be avoided.

Lets also assume that the university you administer is a private institution and so no constitutional rules apply.  This is strictly within the private sphere.

Do you restrict the first speaker from speaking on campus?  I think you and I would agree that answer to that is no.  The more difficult question on which I think you and I differ is what do to do with the second group.  I think the answer is obvious.  You certainly allow the second group to also express their views.  But you seem to be suggesting otherwise.

As a school admin, I would probably not allow the first group to speak. I am fine with exercising my discretion as a administrator to decide who I provide a platform to, and am fine with them finding some other platform.

This is not at all the issue I am talking about.

[crazy canuck]

On balance I agree that collectively the left's ideas trounce the right's ideas on merit, but I do think that this advantage is eroding, in large part due to lack of respect for truly open and frank discussion. 

Even if you start off with the right idea, if you allow only one side to freely express their opinion, you'll eventually ratchet that idea to such an extreme that it would no longer clearly be a right idea.

You also lose out on the market place of ideas within the progressive movement.

Much like it is important to note that most people who Islamic terrorist kill are other Muslims, most of the people the woke left love to cancel and despise (like Sam Harris) are other progressives.

Rather than name calling and labelling, lets use a hypothetical to see where you stand.


You are a university administrator.  You learn a student group named "Tucker fan club" is hosting a speaker who will argue that the Western Media is lying when it says that the Russians are attacking civilian targets and that in fact the Russians are liberating Ukraine from Nazis.

You also learn that another student group named "survivors of Russian aggression" who have members who were injured by Russian attacks on civilian targets plan a demonstration in which they wish to inform everyone that is attending the speaker's session that it is the speaker who is lying and that their talk should be avoided.

Lets also assume that the university you administer is a private institution and so no constitutional rules apply.  This is strictly within the private sphere.

Do you restrict the first speaker from speaking on campus?  I think you and I would agree that answer to that is no.  The more difficult question on which I think you and I differ is what do to do with the second group.  I think the answer is obvious.  You certainly allow the second group to also express their views.  But you seem to be suggesting otherwise.

As a school admin, I would probably not allow the first group to speak. I am fine with exercising my discretion as a administrator to decide who I provide a platform to, and am fine with them finding some other platform.

This is not at all the issue I am talking about.

Ok that is not what I expected. How do you reconcile a commitment to freedom of expression with the notion that you as an administrator can decide what should and should not be said on campus?

[Barrister]

On free speech:

I feel like we (on both left and right) have lost the ability to distinguish between attacking the argument someone has made, and attacking the person who made the argument.

Attacking the argument should be straightforward.  This is your idea, this is why your idea is bad.

Attacking the person who made the argument - has long been done using good ole ad hominem attacks.  This is your idea, but you're a bad person, therefore your idea is bad.

But now it's morphed into something even worse.  This is your idea, your idea is bad (without ever engaging in it), and therefore you need to lose your job / be de-platformed.

A common response is that "well freedom of speech only applies to the government!  Private actors can act as they wish".  Which is true, but unfortunate.  We need to somehow promote a culture of free speech in the West.  Culture is just as important in life as out governments are, and if we accept that private citizens can be completely intolerant then we really do have a cancel culture.

Now as the term cancel culture has grown, it too has become abused.  Remember "This is your idea, this is why your idea is bad."?  Well now some have taken to applying any criticism, no matter how valid, as constituting "cancel culture".

So I don't know what the answer to any of this is - other than people of all political stripes need to speak out in favour of the idea of free speech, both in law and in culture.


Finally, there are limits.  Some ideas are so odious that they need not be tolerated.  Typical exceptions are for direct calls to incite violence, or direct calls to incite hatred.  But these need to be narrowly drawn.  "Trans people need to be raped and murdered" has no place in any kind of public discourse.  But I think "Trans women are actually men" is not in the same category.

[Berkut]

You are constructing hypotheticals that are not interesting, because there isn't any contention within the groups around that issue.

I don't need to construct a fact pattern - my objection is to things that have actually happened. Not hypotheticals.

Like university professors having their invitation to speak about a matter they are experts on shouted down because they are not left enough on completely unrelated matters.

Or the left wing media absolutely just lying about what Sam Harris says (and being parroted here I might add) about transgenders, because he is willing to actually discuss difficult issues. 

[crazy canuck]

You are constructing hypotheticals that are not interesting, because there isn't any contention within the groups around that issue.

I don't need to construct a fact pattern - my objection is to things that have actually happened. Not hypotheticals.

Like university professors having their invitation to speak about a matter they are experts on shouted down because they are not left enough on completely unrelated matters.

Or the left wing media absolutely just lying about what Sam Harris says (and being parroted here I might add) about transgenders, because he is willing to actually discuss difficult issues.

I have constructed a hypothetical that is similar to the sorts of issues that often confront university administrators.  The very situations you have attacked as a mob screaming bloody murder or other such hyperbolic characterizations you have made in the past.

If you do not wish to explain the inherent contradictions in your positions regarding freedom of expression then I will never understand them.

It is not helpful for you to simply revert to self referential name calling and labelling.

[Berkut]

On balance I agree that collectively the left's ideas trounce the right's ideas on merit, but I do think that this advantage is eroding, in large part due to lack of respect for truly open and frank discussion. 

Even if you start off with the right idea, if you allow only one side to freely express their opinion, you'll eventually ratchet that idea to such an extreme that it would no longer clearly be a right idea.

You also lose out on the market place of ideas within the progressive movement.

Much like it is important to note that most people who Islamic terrorist kill are other Muslims, most of the people the woke left love to cancel and despise (like Sam Harris) are other progressives.

Rather than name calling and labelling, lets use a hypothetical to see where you stand.


You are a university administrator.  You learn a student group named "Tucker fan club" is hosting a speaker who will argue that the Western Media is lying when it says that the Russians are attacking civilian targets and that in fact the Russians are liberating Ukraine from Nazis.

You also learn that another student group named "survivors of Russian aggression" who have members who were injured by Russian attacks on civilian targets plan a demonstration in which they wish to inform everyone that is attending the speaker's session that it is the speaker who is lying and that their talk should be avoided.

Lets also assume that the university you administer is a private institution and so no constitutional rules apply.  This is strictly within the private sphere.

Do you restrict the first speaker from speaking on campus?  I think you and I would agree that answer to that is no.  The more difficult question on which I think you and I differ is what do to do with the second group.  I think the answer is obvious.  You certainly allow the second group to also express their views.  But you seem to be suggesting otherwise.

As a school admin, I would probably not allow the first group to speak. I am fine with exercising my discretion as a administrator to decide who I provide a platform to, and am fine with them finding some other platform.

This is not at all the issue I am talking about.

Ok that is not what I expected. How do you reconcile a commitment to freedom of expression with the notion that you as an administrator can decide what should and should not be said on campus?

Because a campus is a limited resource, so someone has to allocate that resource in a useful way.

That seems to me to be the very definition of the job of being a university administrator.

This is a more useful scenario, that illustrates my position. I am the guy at Yale who gets to decide who speaks on campus about various topics.

Scientists Joe Bob is a recognized expert in his field of pulsars in extra-galactic interstellar space and how that can be used to measure the heat death of the universe in a expanding universe model. He has done some ground breaking work in his field, and some of my own academics invite him to speak at the upcoming conference on inster-galactic space thingies. 

I due my due diligence, knowing nothing about intergalactic space thingies, and note that he is an up and coming expert, and the rest of my professors would really like to hear him speak, and in fact other schools are interested in attending the conference in order to hear the latest.

So an invitation is duly extended, and he agrees to speak.

Now, the local group of Students For Justice note that six months ago, while he was chatting with some friends in the faculty lounge, he once said that he didn't think the American Revolution was really all about slavery, and those 1619 Project folks were kind of nuts. And they are now demanding loudly that the racist SOB not be allowed to speak at our fine university, due to his being a clear racist.

I am going to ignore them. And if they plan on trying to get into the conference and shout him down when he present his paper on intergalactic heat death measurement using pulsars, I am going to do my best to stop them from doing so.

[Jacob]

I feel like we (on both left and right) have lost the ability to distinguish between attacking the argument someone has made, and attacking the person who made the argument.

...

Finally, there are limits.  Some ideas are so odious that they need not be tolerated.  Typical exceptions are for direct calls to incite violence, or direct calls to incite hatred.  But these need to be narrowly drawn.  "Trans people need to be raped and murdered" has no place in any kind of public discourse....

I generally agree with your analysis. The challenge is that the place where that line is drawn - and who decides where it is drawn - is hotly contested.

[crazy canuck]

On balance I agree that collectively the left's ideas trounce the right's ideas on merit, but I do think that this advantage is eroding, in large part due to lack of respect for truly open and frank discussion. 

Even if you start off with the right idea, if you allow only one side to freely express their opinion, you'll eventually ratchet that idea to such an extreme that it would no longer clearly be a right idea.

You also lose out on the market place of ideas within the progressive movement.

Much like it is important to note that most people who Islamic terrorist kill are other Muslims, most of the people the woke left love to cancel and despise (like Sam Harris) are other progressives.

Rather than name calling and labelling, lets use a hypothetical to see where you stand.


You are a university administrator.  You learn a student group named "Tucker fan club" is hosting a speaker who will argue that the Western Media is lying when it says that the Russians are attacking civilian targets and that in fact the Russians are liberating Ukraine from Nazis.

You also learn that another student group named "survivors of Russian aggression" who have members who were injured by Russian attacks on civilian targets plan a demonstration in which they wish to inform everyone that is attending the speaker's session that it is the speaker who is lying and that their talk should be avoided.

Lets also assume that the university you administer is a private institution and so no constitutional rules apply.  This is strictly within the private sphere.

Do you restrict the first speaker from speaking on campus?  I think you and I would agree that answer to that is no.  The more difficult question on which I think you and I differ is what do to do with the second group.  I think the answer is obvious.  You certainly allow the second group to also express their views.  But you seem to be suggesting otherwise.

As a school admin, I would probably not allow the first group to speak. I am fine with exercising my discretion as a administrator to decide who I provide a platform to, and am fine with them finding some other platform.

This is not at all the issue I am talking about.

Ok that is not what I expected. How do you reconcile a commitment to freedom of expression with the notion that you as an administrator can decide what should and should not be said on campus?

Because a campus is a limited resource, so someone has to allocate that resource in a useful way.

That seems to me to be the very definition of the job of being a university administrator.

This is a more useful scenario, that illustrates my position. I am the guy at Yale who gets to decide who speaks on campus about various topics.

Scientists Joe Bob is a recognized expert in his field of pulsars in extra-galactic interstellar space and how that can be used to measure the heat death of the universe in a expanding universe model. He has done some ground breaking work in his field, and some of my own academics invite him to speak at the upcoming conference on inster-galactic space thingies.

I due my due diligence, knowing nothing about intergalactic space thingies, and note that he is an up and coming expert, and the rest of my professors would really like to hear him speak, and in fact other schools are interested in attending the conference in order to hear the latest.

So an invitation is duly extended, and he agrees to speak.

Now, the local group of Students For Justice note that six months ago, while he was chatting with some friends in the faculty lounge, he once said that he didn't think the American Revolution was really all about slavery, and those 1619 Project folks were kind of nuts. And they are now demanding loudly that the racist SOB not be allowed to speak at our fine university, due to his being a clear racist.

I am going to ignore them. And if they plan on trying to get into the conference and shout him down when he present his paper on intergalactic heat death measurement using pulsars, I am going to do my best to stop them from doing so.

Ok I really did not expect that answer - freedom of expression depends on the resources at hand?  So in wealthy universities there can be more freedom of expression?  Isn't that where you analysis of the limits of freedom of expression end up?

[Berkut]

You did not expect that answer because you don't listen to what I say, only what you imagine the closed minded asshole you've constructed in your head would say.

Everything depends on the resources at hand, and expression doesn't get a pass.

There are only so many slots for speakers, so of course someone has to decide who gets to speak at some finite place like a University. How is this a surprise?

 I away your analysis of what I DID say, rather then your shock that I didn't line up with the 4,567 strawmen you constructed for me

[crazy canuck]

You did not expect that answer because you don't listen to what I say, only what you imagine the closed minded asshole you've constructed in your head would say.

Everything depends on the resources at hand, and expression doesn't get a pass.

There are only so many slots for speakers, so of course someone has to decide who gets to speak at some finite place like a University. How is this a surprise?

 I away your analysis of what I DID say, rather then your shock that I didn't line up with the 4,567 strawmen you constructed for me

You did say you would make the decision based on resources.  Rather than continuing to name call, try to explain your position.

[crazy canuck]

I feel like we (on both left and right) have lost the ability to distinguish between attacking the argument someone has made, and attacking the person who made the argument.

...

Finally, there are limits.  Some ideas are so odious that they need not be tolerated.  Typical exceptions are for direct calls to incite violence, or direct calls to incite hatred.  But these need to be narrowly drawn.  "Trans people need to be raped and murdered" has no place in any kind of public discourse....

I generally agree with your analysis. The challenge is that the place where that line is drawn - and who decides where it is drawn - is hotly contested.

I think that is too simplistic.  At least in Canadian law  there are clear legal boundaries in both our criminal and human right laws which would prevent that kind of speech.

The more interesting question is what we are discussing in this thread.  Does freedom of expression include protection from consequences of that speech in the private sphere.  And the related issue of whether protests against certain speech should occur on university campuses.

[Berkut]

You did not expect that answer because you don't listen to what I say, only what you imagine the closed minded asshole you've constructed in your head would say.

Everything depends on the resources at hand, and expression doesn't get a pass.

There are only so many slots for speakers, so of course someone has to decide who gets to speak at some finite place like a University. How is this a surprise?

 I away your analysis of what I DID say, rather then your shock that I didn't line up with the 4,567 strawmen you constructed for me

You did say you would make the decision based on resources.  Rather than continuing to name call, try to explain your position.

No I said that because resources are limited, someone HAS to make decisions on how to allocate those resources.

That is simply true - it is not a "position".

Nor did I say I would make a decision based on resources - I clearly laid out exactly how I would make my decision, and you fucking ignored it, and instead, constructed yet another fucking strawman that I would "make the decision based on resources".

Finite resources mean a decision MUST be made. It says nothing about how you will make that decision.