Universities are also "speakers," with an independent mandate to teach, research, and pursue truth for the common good. And this requires taking sides.
  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
    14·
    2 years ago

    The Right Wing strategy is to simply claim you are being censored or treated unfairly so that people who don’t know what you’re doing give you a little more leg room.

    Take that leg room and use it to advance your most extreme positions, go back to claiming you’re being treated unfairly if anyone calls you on it.

    The final step is that you must accuse anyone actually being censored or treated unfairly off pulling this bullshit.

    The Right were never free speech advocates, and if you still think they were, try using the word “cisgender” and the word “retard” on Twitter, and tell me which one gets you banned first.

    • Muchtall@lemmy.worldEnglish
      017·
      2 years ago

      > 5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion, please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.

      Wow. The updoinks… Such quality discourse and amazing insight!

      How is this entire sub not considered a giant circle tug?

          • Zink@lemmy.worldEnglish
            8·
            2 years ago

            I took a look at the “conservatives banning books” link and it says thousands of books have been banned and/or removed from libraries.

            I took a look at your link, and it describes the process by which one book was removed from the required reading list, but was still allowed to be used in class.

            It makes me think of the “we are not the same” meme.

          • Lightor@lemmy.worldEnglish
            81·
            2 years ago

            Yes, let’s also let parents decide what medicine they get instead of doctors. And decide when their kids should be able to drive, not the government.

            I mean why let educated professionals get in the way?

            • Muchtall@lemmy.worldEnglish
              112·
              2 years ago

              > Yes, let’s also let parents decide what medicine they get instead of doctors.

              As a matter of fact, yes. As a parent, I have the responsibility to choose what medicines to allow my children to receive.

              > And decide when their kids should be able to drive, not the government.

              Yep. If my 17 year old is too irresponsible to drive, I can choose to not let him.

              Parents have the right to withhold anything they deem to be harmful to their children.

              • Lightor@lemmy.worldEnglish
                7·
                2 years ago

                So if you decide you don’t want a medicine for your child because you think it causes cancer, even if it doesn’t, then you should be allowed to prevent him from taking it? Even if it kills him? No. No, that is a horrible idea.

                And you think that you should control when your kid should drive too. Great, now irresponsible parents can ask 12 year olds to drive to the store for them? Endangering everyone around them? Another horrible idea.

                Yes you can withhold things. But you don’t have absolute say. They are a person. If your choices would cause them harm, such as an improper education or not getting needed medication, then it’s the governments job to step in and protect that child.

                • Muchtall@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  016·
                  2 years ago

                  “Improper education”. There is the crux of it. Your definition of improper may not be the same as mine. You think that you should be able to force other people’s children to be taught what you want them to be taught, according to your political and/or moral standards, through the force of government.

                  I want parents to be able to decide for their own children how they are taught. I think parents of a child know better how to raise that child than a government bureaucrat.

                  Tell me again how I’m the Nazi.

              • daemoz@lemmy.worldEnglish
                51·
                2 years ago

                Yeah cool, you decide what your property gets to do since you’re responsible for them. Government, nor your doctor shall stop you from telling your creation what is right or wrong, if you eat paint for breakfast because eating plants and animals is evil/poison, thats your right as a free man on the land. Best to start early too, so they dont have the faculties to question it later on.
                It’s not like there are bad actors and tens of thousands of ai gemerated fake news to sway popular opinion with branding and politics. And its totally a boon for a society when we can isolate ourselves in thought bubbles and share as few values as united people as possible. Really helps us maintain our financial security and opportunities for quality of life, standards for education and licensing for professionals responsible for life altering decisions. Its not like devaluing those professional opinions im mass will lead to bad things; what do they evem know, they didnt even study at Facebook UNIV?

                The idea and value of freedom is great, but there are thresholds that cross into ignorant arrogance that causes individual and systemic harm. I know gov can’t solve this, but i fully believe it has a role to play in helping set standards that reduce harm, even for your kids.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            Removing a book from the curriculum and removing it from the school (and possibly public libraries) entirely are very, very different. Republicans are doing the latter.

      • bemenaker@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 years ago

        Because the post articulated what the majority of us already knew. That as always has been, the repression in this country comes from the conservatives. The very definition of a liberal philosophy would be against a threat to free speech. When conservatives complain their rights are being trampled on, it’s normally their “right” to harm some group or person that they do not like. A liberal wouldn’t say you aren’t allowed to have a negative view of such person, but may consider it flawed, but wouldn’t say you have a right to harm that person because you don’t like them. Conservatives want to control what you can say, think, and do, to only what fits in a world that makes them comfortable, and feel better about themselves.

        • Nowyn@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          4·
          2 years ago

          Please note that it is not only a US-specific issue. Right has especially in its extreme lengths always been somewhat oppressive and as the right has become more right (again) (also read as in more fascist) in recent years oppressive policies they support are getting more and more oppressive.

      • Poob@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        2 years ago

        You’re right that it wasn’t a very high quality post, but with this topic, what else is there to say? Conservatives have been pretending they’re free speech warriors while at the same time very publicly banning books. It’s so obvious that there isn’t really anything to discuss.

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        I don’t understand. You’re saying the conclusion is so obvious that the article is worthless and redundant?

  • dx1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    165·
    2 years ago

    In the U.S., yes, at this moment the major threats to free speech are coming from the so-called “right”. Forbidding teaching black history, LGBT issues, etc. A few years ago, lest we forget, it was Obama cracking down on the OWS protests and trying to prosecute Julian Assange and Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning. Before that it was the GOP again pushing the PATRIOT Act and trying to ban Grand Theft Auto. They did it for a long time with the Red Scare. That of course, basically kicked off in response to Stalin, who was doing his own purges of opponents and censorship. Pre-war, it was Hitler, Mussolini and Franco worst of all, but was happening in the U.S. too. That all goes back even further to the Comstock laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, you name it. There isn’t some magical quality about the directions “left” and “right” by which bad people in power in government under that label don’t want to silence their opponents. There is a tendency for what we call “the right” - this kind of more-or-less fascist, religious based, emotionally charged, etc. set of ideologies - to respond more eagerly to calls to silence or brutalize opponents, because they are by and large a good bit dumber at the end of the day.

    • Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      72·
      2 years ago

      > Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

      Jean-Paul Sartre

    • Kornblumenratte@feddit.de
      1·
      2 years ago

      As a non native speaker, I do not get the meaning of this post? And a lot of others. The word entitlement seems to have changed it’s meaning. What does it mean today?

      according to wiktionary:

      >entitlement (countable and uncountable, plural entitlements) > >* The right to have something, whether actual or perceived. >* Power, authority to do something. >* Something that one is entitled to. >* (politics) A legal obligation on a government to make payments to a person, business, or unit of government that meets the criteria set in law, such as social security in the US.

  • Bucky@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    2 years ago

    What they want is freedom to control reality. What Republicans say, every day is not real, they don’t live in reality. What they want is not free speech, they have that more than ever. What they want is to dictate reality to the rest of us.

    All conservative are bad, acab as it were.

  • Hazdaz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    …but, but, but they are the party for patriots and small government! They always talk about freedom-this, and liberty-that.

  • genoxidedev1@kbin.social
    2·
    2 years ago

    Typical bothsideism in the comments of that site as per usual. Would love to see those bothsiders on an article stating the opposite of this one.

    • aelwero@lemmy.world
      04·
      2 years ago

      I’m a massive bothsider, I tolerate (and don’t tolerate, depends really) either, both, neither, however you wanna say it…

      Why exactly would I argue the right hasn’t adopted the cancel culture playbook and cranked it to 11? That is a VERY “both sides” statement… This is arguably a “both sides” article, a “both sides” point.

      If anything, id point out that all the pissing and moaning is silly, because the shit the right is doing is coming straight out of the lefts playbook. The fact that they’re feeding you your own shit sandwich doesn’t equate to them not serving shit for lunch… It’s still shit…

      Moderate/centrist == the other team…

  • Wothe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    2 years ago

    Free speech might only be able to achieve online, and make sure you remain ANONYMOUS

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      2 years ago

      That used to be true, but if you use a word that Corpos feel “damaging to their brand”, you’re kicked off before you can say “But I…”

      Kind of like how when Elon Musk “Brought free speech back to twitter” he immediately banned anyone who made fin of him.

    • Saneless@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      They’re desperate since they’re fading. Their party or ideology isn’t attractive. Younger people have no interest and the older people are dying odf

        • Saneless@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          You don’t have to hope for that, it’s happening. Hope is reserved for it happening before they take away enough voting rights or even legislative rights so that when the takeover is complete, the government that is left over isn’t impotent

          There’s a reason they’re fighting harder than ever to block voting.