The Freedom of Speech Thread

[Sheilbh]

I don't think it's that generalized.  Plenty of people use "capitalist" or "free marketer" as an insult but you don't see people running away from those terms.  Similarly with neoliberal, especially in Latin America.

Maybe - very few people would self-identify as a "neo-liberal" though or even as a "capitalist" (not least because that imples, to me at least, investor in some way). I'd definitely have "neo-liberal" on a list of terms only used by people who don't agree with them

[DGuller]

Hmmm.

I am not sure I agree that the right doesn't attack their own. I think they do that all the time.

RINO is still a common attack strategy, and we saw the last several decades where the right waged a war on moderates in their party, with sane Republicans attacked and destroyed from someone further to the right, and then those newly minted RINOs attacked by someone even further.

In fact, I would say that the difference between the left and the right around this is that the crazy rightists (the former Tea Party radical right, now the Trumpers) have won their internal war(only the whackjobs survived on the right, or those who became whackjobs), where the left wing radical crowd is still trying to win theirs, but have not yet. They are making progress though.

I think the right do attack their own, it's just that they often do it so successfully that the attacks take a short amount of time, and end with total success, leaving only a few mavericks behind to keep up the fight.  On the other hand, the intra-left disagreements tend to be a trench warfare that doesn't go anywhere.

[Berkut]

Hmmm.

I am not sure I agree that the right doesn't attack their own. I think they do that all the time.

RINO is still a common attack strategy, and we saw the last several decades where the right waged a war on moderates in their party, with sane Republicans attacked and destroyed from someone further to the right, and then those newly minted RINOs attacked by someone even further.

In fact, I would say that the difference between the left and the right around this is that the crazy rightists (the former Tea Party radical right, now the Trumpers) have won their internal war(only the whackjobs survived on the right, or those who became whackjobs), where the left wing radical crowd is still trying to win theirs, but have not yet. They are making progress though.

I think the right do attack their own, it's just that they often do it so successfully that the attacks take a short amount of time, and end with total success, leaving only a few mavericks behind to keep up the fight.  On the other hand, the intra-left disagreements tend to be a trench warfare that doesn't go anywhere.

Indeed. Although I would not say it doesn't go anywhere - political polarization is higher in the US then at any time in recent history. That is mostly due to the radicalization of the right, but not solely. 

There is some crazy shit out there that the crazy lefties have managed to move the overton window on successfully. Some of that is good (health care, public costs for higher education for example), but plenty of it is pretty bonkers and damaging. 

We have a thread to actually discuss whether or not a society that ought to value free expression is a good thing, after all. I am kind of stunned that is even something that the left has to have a discussion about.

[Josquius]

It's interesting that the far right knows they are toxic and must pretend to be moderates to get anywhere. You do occasionally get centre right people smeared as being communists or whatever but this is transparent nonsense.

The far left on the other hand doesn't get the whole fabian approach. Even centrist is a dirty word to them. They're too honest about what they want and usually more concerned with proving their left is the real left than actually doing anything useful.

[viper37]

In the Canadian context the Reformers destroyed the big tent PCs by attacking "Red Tories".

Jean Charest, former Quebec Liberal Party Leader will likely be their next leader.  So...

[crazy canuck]

In the Canadian context the Reformers destroyed the big tent PCs by attacking "Red Tories".

Jean Charest, former Quebec Liberal Party Leader will likely be their next leader.  So...

Is the point you are making that history will repeat itself?

Why do you think he will win, P seems to have the majority support including the far right in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

By the way, speaking of Trumpists, did you see the conservative MP standing in parliament yesterday calling Trudeau a dictator?

[viper37]

In the Canadian context the Reformers destroyed the big tent PCs by attacking "Red Tories".

Jean Charest, former Quebec Liberal Party Leader will likely be their next leader.  So...

Is the point you are making that history will repeat itself?

Why do you think he will win, P seems to have the majority support including the far right in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

By the way, speaking of Trumpists, did you see the conservative MP standing in parliament yesterday calling Trudeau a dictator?

The point is that he's the one, imho, likely to become party leader after, the campaign is completed.  What polls say right now is pretty much irrelevant as he is just beginning. There's plenty of time to make deals, candidate abandoning and rallying to his side. it is but an opinion.  Charest has won against odds in the past, the only loss he suffered was against Lucien Bouchard, when he was freshly arrived and didn't have time to solidify his party's machine and his opponent was at the highest point in his popularity.

I have seen the silly comment, and it is way overblown.  We hear such silly comments all the time in all chambers.  The National Assembly has had to explicitly ban such words from use so that MNAs would stop.  We've had English Canadian journalists comparing our former Prime Minister to Adolf Hitler.  Way, way before Trumpist was a term.

[Sheilbh]

For Brits - worth having a look at the Mary Whitehouse documentary on iPlayer. Interesting take on an old front in the culture wars/freedom of speech issues. The best criticism of it I've seen is that it underplays her political skills and experience and that she was basically a low Church Arthur Scargill, which may be a fair point.

Also trying to find a good balanced-ish article on the NUS/Lowkey controversy.