You don't have to go far to find conservatives decrying what they believe to be liberal groupthink at universities and colleges.
But when a conservative university ruthlessly enforces its own version of groupthink, then all you hear from the Right is crickets.
Which tells me that to a good part of the conservative movement, "freedom" means "freedom to think the way I think," "freedom to write things that please me," and "freedom to believe as I believe."
About the only difference between Moscow University under Stalin and Liberty University under Falwell, Jr. is that, so far as we know, Falwell doesn't have people shot.
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16 comments:
I found this on Princess Sparkle Pony's Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/RealSparklePony/status/1154492091315044352
-Doug in Oakland
Another former staffer describes them as "shifty, dishonorable, and unprincipled."
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/06/27/former-liberty-u-staffer-the-school-is-shifty-dishonorable-unprincipled/
Yer right, if the accusation is true. (which it probably is, mind you)
But I didn't see you or any of your sycophants here decry the protests and outright blocking of conservative speakers at other universities. The violence that accompanied much of that, either.
Why the double standard now?
Ah, yes, whataboutism.
Political groupthink is an issue that has been bruited about by your team for the past few years. This is an issue that your side claims to care deeply about. So they should clean up their own nest.
As for me, when I hear a conservative screaming about academic freedom, I'm just going to wave it off. For I know, now, that when the shoe is on the other foot, conservatives think that it fits just fine.
More evidence that both sides are the same.
B., protects and blocking by groups and petition is quite different than the Administration taking direct action....well below your usual “whataboutism” level. You seem to have an inability to grasp basic differences between your “whataboutism” arguments and the issue, suffering from DDS perhaps?
"Whataboutism"? Perhaps.
You will notice that I agreed with you. The censorship of leftist/Anti Trump viewpoints and criticism of the University is a bad thing.
Still doesn't answer the question though:
If the censorship of opposing viewpoints is bad, then where were y'all when YOUR side was doing it?
Or, is it OK when the Left squelches opposing viewpoints or freedom of speech, but not the Right?
CP: Please, explain the difference between the discussed University actions and other universities allowing violent protests and blocking of speakers with an unapproved viewpoint. At the heart of it, I see no difference,.
So, B, would it be a violation of freedom of speech if the Physics Department blocked a seminar on the luminiferous ether?
The University specifically restricts in case one. In case two, the University is NOT “allowing violent protests and blocking of speakers with an unapproved viewpoint”, there are elements acting unofficially. The University is NOT the blocking party, the individuals are. Now, if we can show the University is not inhibiting the individuals, then we get to a similar case to case one. The problem with your constant harping about this or that pushing left, censoring right, etc, is that you provide this suggestion without either context or proof.
In the case of Twitter, violations of ToS are the main reason for suspension of Right-wing figures. Figures who advocate violence against individuals or groups...not something that Left-wing figures tend to do. Some Left-wing figures have been shutdown based upon ToS violations, but much fewer than the Right-wingers...so we must consider why. Simply put, encouraging violence against a group or groups is key to much of the Far Right-wing’s aim these days, where the Far-Left has moved away from the ALF and such. Antifa generally doesn’t broadcast their violent plans via Social Media accounts, and this isn’t banned, much to the disgust of the Right. Donnie does encourage violence, and doesn’t get banned, much to the disgust of the
EFT.
Cp: Are you losing it? Look back at any of the incidents at universities in the past 4 years where right-wing speakers were harassed, blocked from appearing, or disinvited. There was violence in many cases, and the University cops did nothing.
Bother to look for the incidents and you will find them. If not, you need better news sources.
Twitter is a private company, and can ban anyone they choose to. Not the same thing...although the double standard of their banning is obvious.
Do you REALLY believe that Left Wing folks don't advocate violence against those with whom they disagree? Yer smarter than that. Seriously. Open your eyes.
I lived close to UC Berkeley when the Milo bullshit came down, and I know for a fact that the right wing media lied their asses off about it.
He, or no other right wing speaker has been denied permission to speak at UC Berkeley.
You, B, or I, could go do it right now if we wanted.
What was denied were accommodations and security.
Want to take a sound system to Sproul Plaza and rabble rouse your ass off? Go right ahead. Want to have the University pay for a nice hall and campus police to keep you from getting your ass kicked for the hate you spew? That's up to the people in charge of the spending of the UCB budget, and what do they get out of the deal when Milo, Spencer, or Coulter want to use their facilities to spread lies and hate in order to personally enrich themselves by denigrating everything the UC system was founded to stand for?
And don't give me a bunch of bullshit about them not being allowed to expose students to their point of view. You can't escape their despicable points of view if you wanted to. They're everywhere. The students already know what they're selling and have rejected it wholesale, just like any other sane non-propaganda addict.
-Doug in Oakland
And yet, D, the Universities allow other "Despicable Points of view" to be espoused...if they agree with them.
I feel the same way about Socialism. Yet it is espoused every day at universities....and paid for with University (government) funds.
You show your true colors in the above comment.
Only those "approved" and "acceptable" views are ok. All others are verboten.
Double standards, as I said.
Which is exactly (with the opposite polarity) what the original post and article decried.
Thanks for making my point. You couldn't have done it better.
B, B, B. Once again you conflate a number of subjects. Open protests are not a University trying to stop a speaker, but more often a speaker whose views are offensive to many. The harassment of persons appearing at Universities occurs across the board, I suggest you widen your search criteria, because Fox ain’t reporting the liberal speakers being harassed like MSNBC isn’t reporting the conservatives...in both cases, they will only report that if the speaker is well outside the mainstream.
Disinviting is an interesting case, and happens (again) on both sides as inflammatory previous speeches are highlighted to the University leaders. You can whine all you want about it being only conservatives, but you are wrong.
The violence you describe is most often focused on so called “free speech” areas. In this case, the speaker is not an invited guest, but simply appearing at a free speech locality on the University. If you research this, the most common form is a neo-Nazi with about ten supporters who suddenly is faced with between 100 and 1000 people calling him, shock or all shocks, a new-Nazi. They went there specially to cause upset and hopeful violence to get coverage. Tell me again how that is the fault of the University.
Let’s go back to square one, private companies can restrict comment and speech, but the actions being taken by Facebook and Twitter do not target conservatives as a whole, but simply a loud mouthed subset who seek to gain attention by espousing extreme views (see Infowars, Stormfront, etc)...in the same way that a liberal group espousing similar things will get shutdown.
B., you have appeared reasonable and intelligent before, but recently seen to be fighting a desperate rearguard action to defend the indefensible by Donnie and the Administration. Maybe it’s time to admit that they have gone too far, and cut your loses...much as the Republican Party needs to face the reality of what will happen if they continue to turn a blind eye to the kleptocracy currently ensconced in Washington D.C.
Did you read my fucking comment?
NO ONE is being stopped from speaking there.
And have you ever perhaps heard of Regnery Publishing? They're a publishing house for all your wingnut propaganda, which exist there in competition with one another for wingnut book-dollars.
Their list of titles is quite long, so your garden variety wingnut, otherwise gainfully unemployable, has to try to stand out to get any attention to their book if they want to make any money off of it (and can't get any of the wingnut welfare organizations to buy it in bulk to hand out at conventions and such).
As of a few years ago when all of this bullshit hit the media, the most favored wingnut approach to getting enough attention to their book, as opposed to the zillions of other books that all say the same stupid lies and fear mongering propaganda, was to get "suppressed" by the "left wing establishment" when they went out to SELL THEIR MOTHERFUCKING BOOKS, and if there were public disturbances involved, well that just brought more media attention to the BOOK THEY WERE SELLING.
So basically, why should I want to pay for the security they require to be safe during the high-level media tantrums they throw in order to get paid to spread lies and propaganda?
They want the attention of a rabble, but somehow the rabble in their neighborhood won't do, because it doesn't pack the same wingnut media punch as the evil UC Berkeley, so they try to make a big deal out of the regulations on the use of campus facilities, which again, apply to everyone, in order to get news coverage to boost their sales.
And they have no incentive whatsoever to tell the truth about their interactions with campus administration, so the stories that run in right wing media reflect their desire to sell books rather than the actual circumstances of their tantrums.
This happened a number of times at UC Berkeley, but after the "outrage" spilled over into municipal parks run by the city of Berkeley, the police began taking a dimmer view of the phenomenon and requested that campus events be confined to the campus, and since then there haven't been as many public tantrums thrown there.
Whether that amounts to suppression of the rights of wingnut speakers by the BPD, I don't know enough details to say.
-Doug in Oakland
This is pretty much how I remember the Milo at Berkeley fuss:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/us/milo-yiannopoulos-berkeley/index.html
Shorter B: Free speech is only for people I agree with, and if people I disagree with exercise their own free speech rights in order to protest against my team, they're evil and wrong and should be shut down by the university.
The market of ideas is not a one way street. If your team gets drowned out by people exercising their right of free speech to express their disgust with your ideology, as happened at Berkeley, the answer is more speech, not the university police sending in stormtroopers to bust heads of people who disagree with your ideology.
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