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451 points pseudolus | 57 comments | | HN request time: 2.469s | source | bottom
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necubi ◴[] No.43576821[source]
Oh hey, Wesleyan on HN! I’m an alumnus (matriculated a year or two after Roth became president). Wesleyan has a rich history of activism and protest, and not always entirely peaceful (Roth’s predecessor, Doug Bennet, had his office firebombed at one point).

I’ve had a few opportunities to speak with Roth since the Gaza war started, and I’ve always found him particularly thoughtful about balancing freedom of expression with a need to provide a safe and open learning environment for everyone on campus. In particular, he never gave in to the unlimited demands of protestors while still defending their right to protest.

In part, he had the moral weight to do that because—unlike many university presidents—he did not give in to the illiberal demands of the left to chill speech post-2020, which then were turned against the left over the past year.

I don’t see any particularly good outcome from any of this; the risk of damaging the incredibly successful American university system is high. Certainly smart foreign students who long dreamed of studying in the US will be having second thoughts if they can be arbitrarily and indefinitely detained.

But I hope the universities that do make it through do with a stronger commitment to the (small l) liberal values of freedom of expression , academic freedom, and intellectual diversity.

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kevingadd ◴[] No.43578928[source]
People are being abducted off the street for writing tame op-eds and we're still complaining about the left chilling speech post-2020? What are we doing here?
replies(4): >>43579250 #>>43580751 #>>43581013 #>>43587658 #
decimalenough ◴[] No.43579250[source]
The left banning the use of certain words and the right banning the use of certain words are flip sides of the same coin.

Of course, if you point that out, you get yelled at by both sides.

replies(8): >>43579289 #>>43579321 #>>43579360 #>>43579383 #>>43579749 #>>43579804 #>>43583320 #>>43587542 #
hellotheretoday ◴[] No.43579360[source]
Except one side of the coin complains on twitter and maybe gets you fired from your job whereas the other side of that coin systematically removes over a hundred million dollars of research grants based on language and is literally disappearing people for their writing

but yeah, same thing. sorry someone put you through the absolute hell of saying they/them at work

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1. emptysongglass ◴[] No.43579792[source]
Your attitude and inability to see anything but your own view is exactly the problem we've seen in the new left.

"Maybe gets you fired from your job" is someone's entire livelihood you're trivializing.

Any attempt to control speech and silence opposition is wrong, no matter how you slice it. "Your side" isn't any better than the other's.

replies(10): >>43579833 #>>43579916 #>>43580171 #>>43585057 #>>43586164 #>>43586240 #>>43586736 #>>43586862 #>>43587632 #>>43588669 #
2. foldr ◴[] No.43579833[source]
How many of the conservatives complaining about it would support government regulations preventing people from being fired for expressing controversial viewpoints? AFAIK those complaining are the same people who support ‘at will’ employment and the liberty of religious organizations to impose more or less arbitrarily discriminatory hiring standards. So yeah, in that lax regulatory environment, your employer might decide to fire you if you (e.g.) feel the need to be an asshole to your trans colleagues.
replies(1): >>43580077 #
3. ◴[] No.43579916[source]
4. hellotheretoday ◴[] No.43580171[source]
Well for brevity I did trivialize it but I will expand:

The left side got people fired. This is objectively not as bad as getting people disappeared. You can get a new fucking job. You can’t get freedom from detention and you cannot easily return to the country (if at all)

Additionally there is the motivational factor behind both sides:

The lefts argument in policing language was to reduce harm to marginalized groups. You may not agree with it, but that is the rational.

The rights argument is to erase those marginalized groups.

These are extremely different in motivation. Asking you to respect a persons gender identity in professional contexts is far different than forcing someone to not be able to express it on federal documentation.

One side of this was “we want to create inclusive spaces that make people comfortable and if you don’t want to participate in that there is the door”. The other side is “we did not want to participate in that so go fuck yourself and we will do whatever we can to deny your right to express your identity”

“Any attempt to control speech” is an absolutist statement that is absurd in its fallacy. So I can say I can murder you? I can say you’re planning a terrorist attack? I can say you want to kill the president? Of course not. Speech is limited contextually and by law

replies(1): >>43583550 #
5. vimax ◴[] No.43583550[source]
You're still trivializing. The cancel culture would often follow the people it wanted to cancel to make it hard for them to get another job again.

Also, I'll add that the "there is the door" comment is entirely wrong. There are countless stories of open source maintainers being harassed to make language changes to their code base, master/slave, whitelist/blacklist. The harassers never offered to do the work themselves just demanded it be done for them or they'll keep harassing. These were people matching into someone else's "safe space" to police their private language.

The government disappearing people and dismantling the country is very bad, and nothing good can be said about it. What I'm talking about are the individuals on both sides not formally in power, and their equal efforts to stifle what they see as "bad speech". It's that mentality, on both sides, that led us to where we are.

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6. paulryanrogers ◴[] No.43584137{3}[source]
Harassment is bad. Extraordinary rendition is bad. One of them is significantly worse than the other. And the side complaining about A whilst celebrating B is significantly more hypocritical.
replies(1): >>43584489 #
7. wat10000 ◴[] No.43584307{3}[source]
You’re the one trivializing things by putting job loss and prison on the same footing.
8. vimax ◴[] No.43584489{4}[source]
What about the side that complains about A and complains about B, and complains that constant polarizing rhetoric has been ratcheting up to get us from the less bad A to the very bad B?
replies(3): >>43584564 #>>43586204 #>>43586849 #
9. ytpete ◴[] No.43584518{3}[source]
> never offered to do the work themselves just demanded it be done for them or they'll keep harassing.

I mean if you've worked much in open source, that is pretty much how nearly every feature request and bug report goes unfortunately.

10. paulryanrogers ◴[] No.43584564{5}[source]
Ah yes, it is the left's fault the right is spiraling the country into despotism. Feeling a lot of "Why do you make them hit you?" energy in this thread.
replies(2): >>43589229 #>>43589784 #
11. slg ◴[] No.43585057[source]
>"Maybe gets you fired from your job" is someone's entire livelihood you're trivializing.

>Any attempt to control speech and silence opposition is wrong, no matter how you slice it.

I don't know why "Hey company, this person you employ sucks, you should fire them" doesn't qualify as speech that should be protected. It shows that you aren't asking for free speech, you are asking for speech without consequences.

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12. aaronbrethorst ◴[] No.43585697{3}[source]
I renamed my codebase's primary branch to main because someone complained.

versus

I was abducted by ICE agents and shipped to a supermax prison in El Salvador without due process.

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13. mancerayder ◴[] No.43585764[source]
Not part of the rest of the conversation, just narrowing in on the idea of speech being free if there are consequences. That sounds like some sort of 1950's-era doublespeak. If there are consequences, how would speech be free? It's a very American-centric perspective that "Free Speech" is defined as "1st Amendment". Free speech means not getting fired, jumped, killed, poisoned, expelled, etc. Fired is something that would happen in Soviet Times as well, in the USSR, and in the McCarthy era, in the U.S.

Apologies for the "two sidesism".

replies(2): >>43586008 #>>43586243 #
14. foldr ◴[] No.43586008{3}[source]
Free speech doesn’t mean not getting fired. You can get fired in any county for things that you say (e.g. insulting your coworkers, lying to your boss, defaming your employer on social media, …). The exact laws and social conventions obviously vary from country to country, but this shouldn’t be a difficult concept in general.
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15. theultdev ◴[] No.43586038{4}[source]
Someone doxxing you and pressuring your employee to fire you because you said something they don't agree with politically is the same as you insulting your coworkers in your eyes?

You don't see any discrepancy between those two scenarios?

And you don't see anything wrong with the former scenario?

replies(2): >>43586290 #>>43588712 #
16. JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.43586164[source]
Eh, I’ve railed quite a bit against the left. But looking back, we should have fired and deplatformed more aggressively. The social menaces who weren’t fired or arrested went on to become a plague.
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17. adamc ◴[] No.43586204{5}[source]
1) Plenty of "Polarizing rhetoric" has come from the side of the current administration. 2) "Polarizing rhetoric" is not remotely a valid justification of disappearing people.
18. nothrabannosir ◴[] No.43586240[source]
When I see the left's recent brazen devotion to "winning" and "sticking it to the other side", sometimes it feels like Democrats have started acting like Republicans.

And it turns out that wasn't sustainable.

I know it's glib and coarse and lacking in nuance but when I hear American conservatives complain about the ways of the liberal countrymen I can't help but think, "That's how you guys sounded for a long time. Now they're doing it, lo and behold: everyone loses."

19. slg ◴[] No.43586243{3}[source]
How do you define which speech is speech worthy of protection and which speech is a consequence of speech and therefore not worthy of protection?

For example, imagine some CEO says something politically objectionable, as is their right granted by allowing free speech. Do I have the right to protest or boycott their company as part of my free speech rights or would that be illegal because I'm rendering a consequence for the CEO's speech?

I just have trouble conceptualizing what you think a world with consequence free speech would actually look like.

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20. ziddoap ◴[] No.43586290{5}[source]
They didn't say it was the same. You're arguing with what you imagined they said.
replies(1): >>43586310 #
21. theultdev ◴[] No.43586310{6}[source]
They presented a strawman. I'm unravelling it.

I want to know where their values are and if they contradict.

I'm re-presenting the original scenario being discussed and the scenario they introduced.

Comparing the two while also redirecting back to the original moral dilemma.

replies(2): >>43586341 #>>43586943 #
22. ziddoap ◴[] No.43586341{7}[source]
Unraveling it by creating your own?

Maybe we can have a strawman party after.

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23. aaronbrethorst ◴[] No.43586368{5}[source]
lol, are you seriously taking JD Vance and puppy-killer Kristi Noem[1] at their word when they claim he's part of MS-13? Good lord, dude.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-trump-accidentally-...

[1] why is this relevant? Because anyone who shoots a puppy that they considered untrainable and then brags about it in their own book is a stone-cold sociopath.

24. ziddoap ◴[] No.43586478{9}[source]
Right into the ad hominem, fantastic debate tactic. Very dialectic of you.

The irony of saying "maybe you'll figure out how to have a real debate." after a string of personal attacks is *chef's kiss*.

>yet you complain when you get a meta level comment about your behavior.

I'm not complaining. And you're not giving me a "meta level comment about my behavior". You're just attempting to insult me.

25. cultofmetatron ◴[] No.43586736[source]
> "Maybe gets you fired from your job" is someone's entire livelihood you're trivializing.

yes, the left doing that was pretty bad and I have gotten into many arguments over my left leaning friends over it. But it was largely private companies capitulating to pressure. To compare that to people being abducted and incarcerated by the government without trial or even an actual law being broken is worse.

You do understand why thats worse right?

26. 8note ◴[] No.43586849{5}[source]
i think that puts you in case A, harassing people for their speech, in this case, the "polarizing rhetoric" is the speech to be protected
27. anigbrowl ◴[] No.43586862[source]
The problem with such reflexive absolutism, as I've pointed out many times, is that you end up advocating for the speech rights of people who are advocating for genocide. I shouldn't need to point out that killing people also terminates their speech rights and that advocacy of genocide is thus an attack on free speech.

You do not have to defend the free speech rights of people who are themselves attacking free speech (and free life). In fact, it is foolish to do so.

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28. 8note ◴[] No.43586879{3}[source]
Generally i think harvey weinstein should be unemployable in any position of power. if people hear about what he's done and still want to hire him, sure, they can go for it, but they'd probably appreciate knowing about him before doing that.
29. anigbrowl ◴[] No.43586943{7}[source]
You're just abstracting it and trying to draw concrete conclusions form abstract cases. Of course it depends on what someone says; to ignore this is asinine.
30. noworriesnate ◴[] No.43587080[source]
The thing is, right wingers are very likely to protest over losing jobs. In Covid times, what made the right finally start actually marching in the streets was losing their jobs. They don’t protest over most things, but threaten their livelihood and yeah they’ll come for you.
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31. noworriesnate ◴[] No.43587116{4}[source]
This is a good question that would require a long debate to answer, but the answer obviously is neither of these two extremes:

- Every entity except the US govt is allowed to enforce consequences for speech

- there should never ever be any consequences for any speech ever

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32. anigbrowl ◴[] No.43587362{3}[source]
I bet you're thinking you're really clever with that context switch. I was actually talking about nazis, because posts above were complaining about left-wing cancel culture getting people fired from their jobs which is the sort of consequence that happened to quite a few extremely online nazis over the last decade.

Who taught you to argue like this? They didn't do you any favors.

33. kyralis ◴[] No.43587483{3}[source]
Advocating for the end of a state is not the same as advocating for the eradication of a people.

Someone can firmly believe that the existence of the state of Israel is a mistake that should be corrected while still also believing that the Jewish people have every right to their own existence and freedom of religion.

replies(1): >>43588168 #
34. albedoa ◴[] No.43587584{3}[source]
I suppose one way to prevent the left from getting you fired from your job is by making yourself unhirable in the first place with these embarrassing displays.
35. sterlind ◴[] No.43587632[source]
> Maybe gets you fired from your job" is someone's entire livelihood you're trivializing.

People are being shipped to a Salvadorean mega-prison for having autism awareness tattoos. Law-abiding students who write peaceful op-eds are being disappeared to a facility in Louisiana. Yes it sucks to lose your job, but it sucks a lot more to be indefinitely detained without even seeing a judge.

> "Your side" isn't any better than the other's.

Your argument reminds me of high schoolers that argue the US was just as bad as the Nazis for operating Japanese internment camps. Yes, both were wrong, but one was much, much worse.

36. slg ◴[] No.43587808{5}[source]
It is funny to see this type of comment downthread of a criticism of bothsidesism. You set up a spectrum in which one "extreme" is the status quo of American culture going back generations and the other "extreme" is a seemingly impossible to achieve idea for which I have never seen a single reasonable person advocate. One of those is a lot more extreme than the other. The only reason we are even having this conversation in this thread is because the Trump administration is trying to be more extreme than your first "extreme" by having the US government inflict consequences for speech.
37. yyyk ◴[] No.43588168{4}[source]
If someone argued against existence of Ukraine, we'd normally understand their position as hostile to Ukrainians, and definitely one that ignores everything they want or deserve. This isn't different, except it also ignores the historical context to an absurd degree, not just the current context
38. mancerayder ◴[] No.43588263{4}[source]
Are you arguing with me or the person I am replying to?

I object to people casually paraphrasing, you have a right to free speech but not consequences of that speech. "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences" Aside from sounding vaguely like a threat, it's a paradoxical attack on freedom of speech. Here's my point again:

Freedom of speech means a lot of things. One of them is the American-centric perspective of "1st Amendment" + Supreme Court precedent, which is that the government should not be involved in unduly prohibiting speech, and we define a bunch of speech as protected. For example, we exclude imminent threat, which in the U.S. is not protected - I can't go up in a speech and rile people up to go attack another race tomorrow. But I can rail against a race (which in most of Europe would be prohibited speech as it's Incitement)).

Now that I've established it means a few things, let's talk about 'consequences.'. The 1st Amendment protects you from government prosecution for protected speech. It doesn't protect you from getting fired, people following you around with placards because of your speech, Instagram banning you, your ISP blocking you, your bank canceling your accounts, etc.

Yet these are the (non-1st-Amendment-centric) attacks on Freedom of Speech. You can argue they're good, they're not good, whatever.

Summary of my argument: freedom of speech CAN mean freedom from SOME consequences.

Consequences are the WHOLE point. In the U.S. we had McCarthyism, where if you were vaguely left-wing you would lose your job, you would lose your life. In the USSR if you didn't follow party lines you'd lose your job, or be reassigned a shitty job. These are Consequences.

In the Reign of the last decade of a new racialized political activism, some people lost jobs for reasons that were dubious, because they had unpopular views. The Left did it.

Today, the Right is doing it, and they're taking in an extra step.

When does it stop? Ahh, good question! It stops when we begin respecting Freedom of Speech as a principle and not a recycled way to attack our enemies.

Again, apologies for both-sides-ism, as someone who believes in civil liberties, I am a both-sides-ist.

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39. singleshot_ ◴[] No.43588669[source]
If you get fired for saying something stupid, you might want to consider the notion that you deserve not to have a job. They’re called consequences, and if you don’t like them, remaining silent is free.

Put otherwise, it’s very possible that your livelihood is trivial.

replies(1): >>43588768 #
40. fabbari ◴[] No.43588712{5}[source]
Not the op, but no - I don't see anything wrong with the scenario: the employer is making the call, and if they find the speech of the employee doesn't fit with their worldview they have all the rights to fire them.

Practical example: the employer is an LGBTQ+ friendly establishment, the employee is on social media saying that LGBTQ+ people are all deviants and will all burn in hell for their sins. I think the employer should have the freedom to fire the person, right?

Forcing the employer to keep the employee is the equivalent of compelled speech.

Edit: fixed - no joke - pronouns

41. slg ◴[] No.43588757{5}[source]
>Are you arguing with me or the person I am replying to?

The way some people use the internet truly puzzle me. A username is on each comment. I made a comment, you replied, and I replied back. I wasn't arguing with myself. You took the time to reiterate your philosophy in more depth without even bothering to first take the literal second to check the usernames to clear up your confusion or pausing for a moment to actually engage with anything actually said in my last comment? I wasn't asking you for more details on your philosophy, I was asking you direct and specific questions on how this philosophy meshes with the complexities of the real world. I frankly don't know how to respond beyond just referring you back to the questions in my previous comment.

replies(1): >>43589997 #
42. strken ◴[] No.43588768[source]
This is just asinine. Consider the same argument flipped around:

"If you get deported for saying something stupid, you may want to consider the notion that you do not deserve to live in the US. They’re called consequences, and if you don’t like them, remaining silent is free."

Both arguments are ridiculous because they present no evidence as to whether someone deserves a job or a visa stay.

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43. ◴[] No.43588996{3}[source]
44. singleshot_ ◴[] No.43589017{3}[source]
Consequences as “asinine”? Let’s agree to disagree.
replies(1): >>43589266 #
45. JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.43589051{3}[source]
> right wingers are very likely to protest over losing jobs

Everybody protests over losing jobs. Currently, the MAGA crowd is busily putting itself out of work, so this really only comes down to taking action in the cities.

46. iugtmkbdfil834 ◴[] No.43589100[source]
Good grief man, deplatforming, chilling speech and all that is how we got into this mess to begin with. Have you learned nothing from the past 10 years?

edit: Holy mackarel, I am this close to accepting the argument that the people on 'the left' need to be treated that exact way you described just so that they can understand why 'the right' feel aggrevied. I simply cannot accept Soviet Union style 'do not employ this man' brand. I feel dirty just thinking about it as an option.

47. bluGill ◴[] No.43589209{5}[source]
Fire in a crowded theator is the type of speech often used as an example serious terrorism plans should be stopped before they turn into acts.

i don't know how you enforce the above though.

replies(1): >>43590127 #
48. bluGill ◴[] No.43589229{6}[source]
It is everyone who kept on the path instead of saying 'I don't care what you say I'll defend your right to say it'. If you can't allow someone else to say things you don't like you are at fault - it doesn't matter how good hou think you are.
replies(1): >>43590294 #
49. bluGill ◴[] No.43589238[source]
If you don't feel bad about it you are not a defender of free speech. Eventially a line must be drawn and you have to not allow things. However it should make you uncomfortable no matter how bad thone things are.
50. strken ◴[] No.43589266{4}[source]
No, I'm not going to disagree with your empty statement; there's nothing there to even take a stance on. The problem with your original position is that there are real differences between A) getting deported for saying there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza, B) materially supporting Hamas, C) getting fired because you have a secret twitter account where you're overtly racist, and D) refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding then getting sued and becoming a media spectacle.

Your argument can be used to support consequences for every single one of these scenarios because it's just "maybe when a bad thing happens it was deserved". Sure, yeah, sometimes people deserve things and sometimes they don't, but pointing this out is a useless addition to a conversation.

replies(2): >>43589315 #>>43589331 #
51. ◴[] No.43589315{5}[source]
52. ◴[] No.43589331{5}[source]
53. ThrowawayR2 ◴[] No.43589784{6}[source]
Because it actually is, in no small part, the illiberal left's fault for going all out to emphasize identity instead of unity, dividing and polarizing the U.S. population.

The illiberal left must be held accountable for their role in the Democratic defeats of 2024, expelled and publicly repudiated, and then the Democratic Party can work on rebuilding trust with voters.

54. ◴[] No.43589835[source]
55. mancerayder ◴[] No.43589997{6}[source]
Because it's not that great a question: How do you define protected speech when the same speech is used to punish someone else, and if it's an expression for example, that performs an action, how do we draw the line if it should be protected? That's what you asked. It's not a username issue. I didn't read it as a direct reply because I hadn't conceptualized that stopping speech is protected speech. Or is the Internet perplexing us again and I'm making no sense?

I re-iterated my point that freedom of speech is loosely defined and we have a problem with weaponizing protection of one side at the expense of the other. The Consequences argument. I maintain that consequences of speech are the issue. Let me phrase it like this: the general principle of respecting differing views, however repugnant, has fallen by the wayside. The ACLU of the 20th century has excellent arguments for why we should consider respecting repugnant views. You're throwing in a curve ball of defining speech as also potentially blocking or causing 'consequences', but that's missing the bigger picture.

You don't agree, but does that better address the problem you raised?

56. int_19h ◴[] No.43590127{6}[source]
"Fire in a crowded theater" was originally a strawman introduced by the Supreme Court to justify their ruling in Schenck v. United States. To remind, Schenck was a Socialist Party member who was distributing flyers encouraging resistance to the draft during WW1, and was convicted for the same under the Espionage Act of 1917.

SCOTUS affirmed his conviction, saying that "the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils".

Here's the flyer itself, in case you want to read those very dangerous words for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#/medi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#/medi...

So, all in all, a good reminder that not only the slippery slope very real, but sometimes it's there from the get go.

57. paulryanrogers ◴[] No.43590294{7}[source]
So because a vocal minority 'cancelled' speech in private spheres for a few years, it's the fault of (all?) progressives that the right wildly overreacted and installed facism and government enforced censorship?

By this logic if one member of my family makes you feel unwelcome then its my own fault that you got the cops to beat me up?