Free Speech: Is It Fine to Say Something Offensive?

Well, the guy would be beaten up, and no jury would convict the people who beat him up.....

 

Which is a shining example of theory vs real world application of said theory.

 

The opinion of judges should be based on law and legal reasoning. Otherwise, our system starts to breakdown (which is what's happening currently). The 9th Circuit no longer renders decisions based on the law. Judges in California, Hawai'i, etc. will give decisions based on the political views of those living in the state, not on any legitimate interpretation of the laws as written. Something has to be done, and quickly. I fear for the republic.

 

The only way around these judges is impeachment, upon the acceptance of the articles of impeachment, the trial must be pursued. Unfortunately, the "triers of fact" will be their cronies of "higher" standing. I have no faith in a process that is dependent upon political cronyism, and the "triers" most likely will hold the same opinions and views, in regards to the decisions made by the judge(s). Until a significant portion of this country becomes disgusted enough with the processes, there will be no impetus for judges to stick to the letter of the statutes they are sworn to uphold. If governors, mayors, and other elected "officials" who also take an oath to uphold the Constitution for the United States as well as "the laws of the land" and the state constitution they shall serve their term(s) in can openly state that they will not participate in the removal of illegal persons from within the borders and boundaries of their jurisdictions without fear of reprisal, there is no cause for me to hold confidence in such people. In my personal opinion, I believe that there is a move to internationalize this nation, more than it already is. The removal of borders of a nation means that the said nation no longer has sovereignty.

 

Offense is subjective. I can say that I see no evidence to support a factual claim that God exists, and I bet there are some who would take my claim as a direct attack upon their religion and be offended by it. What is the line that separates speech from hate speech? Harm says I, but then the next question would be what is the boundary that separates an action from harmful action? I think the answer to that question depends upon who you ask.

 

Here's more:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...issue-diversion-editorials-debates/101174882/

Free speech issue is a diversion: Opposing view
Shanta Driver 7:04 p.m. ET May 1, 2017
There is no government plot to abridge or abolish the rights of the anti-immigrant bigots.
America today is engaged in a historic struggle, testing whether the nation’s principles of freedom and unalienable rights can exist for millions of immigrants. Their freedom, their rights, are under attack.

The Trump administration is conducting a racial purge, a campaign of mass deportations against America’s Latino and Muslim immigrant communities. Immigrants who have lived peacefully in America for many years are being driven from their homes and families. This unfolding human catastrophe is the single greatest threat to all freedom and all rights in our nation.

But some of Trump’s supporters — anti-immigrant demagogues and even fringe fascist elements — are seeking to change the subject of discourse to a different sort of freedom, one that shows no signs of being in peril: the “free speech” of the anti-immigrant demagogues. It is a dishonest, hypocritical diversion.

The anti-immigrant demagogues organize followers all over the country, and speak incessantly. Their right to speak is effusively defended by every branch of government, by the politicians of both political parties, by every police department and by every major news outlet, including USA TODAY. The entire issue is a straw man.

There is no government plot to abridge or abolish the free speech rights of the anti-immigrant bigots; the real question is whether there will be anyone left to speak against them.

Campus mobs muzzle free speech: Our view
The objective of these anti-immigrant demagogues is to repress and ultimately silence the free speech of the growing Resistance: the mass movement for immigrant rights.


Today, the only true defense of freedom and equality rests on the shoulders of America’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” To the growing movement for immigrant rights that has mobilized in the streets and is braving the storms of persecution, and to the millions of immigrants who are fighting for their rights against a vicious campaign of scapegoating, the following declaration must be made: Your very presence makes America the home of the brave — fighting together, we will make it the land of the free.

Shanta Driver is national chair of BAMN (By Any Means Necessary).

 

Oh boy, here we go again, round and round in circles. The issue is not immigrant rights, first and foremost, those who are here without proper documentation are themselves breaking the law of immigration of this nation. Former POTUS Barack Obama had an uncle who was here within the United States, illegally, meaning without going through the proper channels to become an immigrant in good standing.
Donald J. Trump is following the actions of some of his predecessors in regards to disallowing migrants, refuges. and immigrants from nations whom the United States is at war with. This was done by one, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when Japanese citizens, refugees, and immigrants were under restriction during WWII.
Here are some examples of what I have stated above, in regard to Mr. Trump following the actions of some of is predecessors:

. . . and you say there is no move to abridge Free Speech! This time around, there are members f the public, namely those of Leftist and Liberal political orientation who wish to stifle legitimate concerns of the governments of this nation and their anti-American (so to speak) actions. . .

some more historical evidence of Mr. Trump following suit with tradition . . .

and still more . . .

To save space I will end this by stating the following:
Those who are here, in these United States without proper immigration status are in fact LAWBREAKERS, so that puts an end to the claim of people being here for generations and not breaking the law.
Many of the people who are here, as soon as they arrive, they have children, so in essence they are going by the guidelines of internal people who seek to change the political and demographic atmosphere of this country. Many of the people who come here are not interested in improving the national environment of the United States, by there actions, they are literally changing the political climate (there is your Climate Change) of this nation for the worst; they tend to come from nations with a long-term history of despotism, political corruption, despotism so this makes it easier for the national, state, county, and local governments to change the system of governance of this nation. As I have stated before, government's main objective is to seek its relevancy, and there is no better way of doing this than through "the peopling" of the nation. There is more at stake that what you Liberals, Leftists and others tend to think is at stake. The very existence of freedom is in peril because some people think that it is a game to live under tyranny. It is not. I have not forgotten what my fore-bearers had to endure in this very nation for centuries, so I do not take my freedoms, liberty and justice lightly, as many do who have not the ancestral history of me and others who share the same experiences. If people want to immigrate to these United States, by all means do so, but remember that every action causes reaction so be mindful of this fact.

 

Here's more:

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswi...-and-the-misnomer-of-the-marketplace-of-ideas

Hate Speech And The Misnomer Of 'The Marketplace of Ideas'
May 3, 20173:22 PM ET
Commentary
DAVID SHIH

A right wing activist holds a sign during a rally at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park on April 27, 2017 in Berkeley, California. Protestors are gathering in Berkeley to protest the cancellation of a speech by American conservative political commentator Ann Coulter at UC Berkeley.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Racist hate speech on campus has become the de facto litmus test for free speech protections today. But racist hate speech may not be doing what progressive free speech defenders think it is doing.

'Politically Correct': The Phrase Has Gone From Wisdom To Weapon
Last week in Wisconsin, Republican legislators sought support for "The Campus Free Speech Act," a bill that would punish University of Wisconsin System students and employees who disrupt or otherwise inhibit the free expression of invited speakers. The bill was introduced in response to a series of student protests across the country that interrupted scheduled talks by conservative speakers, including one given by ex-Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro at the University of Wisconsin-Madison last November. The bill requires the UW System to discipline those who engage in "violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, obscene, unreasonably loud, or other disorderly conduct" deemed to violate a speaker's right to free speech. Students could face suspension or even expulsion for repeat offenses, penalties Larry Dupuis, legal director for ACLU-Wisconsin, calls "unnecessarily draconian."

Although this bill takes objection to disruptive student protesters to the extreme, public support for students who would shout down the speech of others has been noticeably thin. This is true even if the speech is overtly racist, like that of white supremacist Richard Spencer, who visited Auburn University last month. Ulrich Baer, a vice provost at New York University, came out forcefully in support of student protesters, but his opinion occupies a distinctly minority position. Even voices expressly opposed to the messages of those like Spencer have advocated locating racist hate speech at the outer bounds of free speech protections — a necessary but repugnant fact of democratic life.

In a recent blog entitled "We All Need to Defend Speech We Hate," ACLU attorney Lee Rowland argues that preempting or shouting over racist hate speech amounts to nothing less than censorship:

Our Constitution protects hateful speech, yes — but on the theory that truly free speech means the best ideas will win out. We need students trained to really listen to ideas they hate — and respond with better ones. ... When you choose censorship as your substantive argument, you lose the debate. Because none of us are the wiser about the better world those protesting students want to see — instead of telling us, they silenced others. In curricular terms: They didn't do the assignment.
Rowland's rhetoric borrows from a familiar metaphor used to frame free speech debates — the so-called "marketplace of ideas." Censorship is not the answer, the story goes, but more speech — better speech — is the proper response to racist hate speech. Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison have both cosigned this approach as have prominent national opinion writers. The logic of this metaphor is that the public, as objective consumers, will reliably reject a shoddy product — here, the snake oil of racist expression.

Critiques of the metaphor as it applies to free speech debates are almost as old as the metaphor itself, and a recent one contextualizes it in light of recent campus speech clashes. To these, I add the question of whether we are so sure that the rhetoric of common humanity and rights for all races will prevail. What if it doesn't, at least not anytime soon? It might mean that racist hate speech is not a "necessary evil" that jumpstarts racial justice within a liberal marketplace but is — for the foreseeable future — nothing more than state-sanctioned injury of people of color.

Critical race theorists Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic addressed this possibility in a 1992 Cornell Law Review article entitled "Images of the Outsider in American Law and Culture: Can Free Expression Remedy Systemic Social Ills." They coin a term for the erroneous belief that "good" antiracist speech is the best remedy for "bad" racist speech: the "empathic fallacy." The empathic fallacy is the conviction "that we can somehow control our consciousness despite limitations of time and positionality ... and that we can enlarge our sympathies through linguistic means alone."

In other words, the empathic fallacy leads us to believe that "good" speech begets racial justice and that we will be able to tell the difference between it and racist hate speech because we are distanced, objective arbiters.

Does The Redskins' 'Free Speech' Claim Hold Water?
The romantic aura of transformative antiracist speech captivates us. It is comforting to think that the message of love in Martin Luther King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech vanquished the hate behind Alabama governor George Wallace's "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever" address delivered earlier that year. In hindsight, it was a total mismatch. It is almost as if King's words disappeared firehoses and attack dogs by their very utterance. Yet last week in Alabama, a US district judge granted the request of a predominantly-white suburb to secede from a predominantly-black county — despite acknowledging that the community's rationale is racist. "Bad" speech prevailed in the judge's marketplace.

The "marketplace of ideas" fails when we cannot make objective choices about racism.

"Racism is woven into the warp and woof of the way we see and organize the world — it is one of the many preconceptions we bring to experience and use to construct and make sense of our social world," write Delgado and Stefancic. "Racism forms part of the dominant narrative, the group of received understandings and basic principles that form the baseline from which we reason." They argue that this lack of objectivity explains how overtly racist caricatures from the 19th century were not received as negatively as they are now: "Uncle Tom" and "mammy" figures, for instance, connoted family loyalty more than racial oppression. Today, school segregation is never about racism but about "local control" and wanting the best for your child.

Once symbolic depictions depart from the obviously grotesque, the question of whether they are racist is up for debate and not likely to be settled anytime soon. It can take centuries for a society to reach consensus that an image or narrative is demonstrably racist.

 

With that is stated within the lengthy article you posted, one reality was not mentioned, it is more than likely several realities that exist but are not touched upon in the article. What comes to mind is the reality that many people who are NOT members of the traditional target group, tend to live out some of the most negative aspects of racial stereotypes that have been promoted by the initiator group of those negative stereotypes. This is probably do to several realities, of which I shall mention two.
1. Those who live-out those negative stereotypes do so for the approval of the initiator group.
2. Those who live-out said negative stereotypes have a grudge or dislike of the initial target group; most likely because of jealousy.

As for being anti-racist, what is to say that the author of the article in discussion does not have his or her own racial hatreds? I state this because ma people who are supposed anti-racist tend to view the group in which they are supposedly defending as completely incapable of the group as a whole or in part, of self-defense. To me it is telling that the article mentions Martin Luther King Jr., and “Uncle Tom's Cabin". As I have stated before, I am anti-integration and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was authored by Harriet Beecher-Stowe, who herself had a racially antagonistic views and opinions of Black people, which is why she wrote the book. For you to post an article that mentions both is nothing short of "race-Pandering" and "Race-Baiting". Yes I stated it, because this has been the practice of many who are supposedly anti-racist to introduce race into a conversation, thinking that this will nullify the discussion about illegal immigration. This tactic adds nothing but more discord, animosity and belligerence into a conversation that was going smoothly, in my opinion.

All of this because the conversation graduated from Free Speech, the First Amendment of the Constitution for the United States. Many conversations tend to start as one subjects, then over time delve into other topics; this is a normal progression of conversation.
Now, you seek to state that the First Amendment topic is a smokescreen for racial hatred and animist towards illegal migrants. I will admit that some may have those views, but so what? In life, there are people who like you and people who do not like you, as there are people whom you like and people who you dislike. This is also a natural occurrence in life. Is it your agenda or desire to derail any discussion about immigration in this country during a period of economic uncertainty? If it is, let history be the greatest example of people's reaction(s) when their angst and concerns are simply dismissed.

Is not "hate speech" legitimate speech? If the "marketplace" of ideas is truly legitimate, "hate speech" has to be included in the market or debate. Are those who host such events afraid that their own racial hatred will show, or are they not confident in their own rhetoric? As to the usage of the phrase "proper response", who is to say what response is proper or improper? This is censorship at work. Usually, etiquette, form, balance, due response, and such is brought about through consensus that involves ALL sides of the debate, NOT through one-sided decisions. Yet some criticize persons such as myself when we adamantly insist that there is a move to push this society from a relative free society, into out despotism and tyranny. As I stated yesterday, my ancestry has traveled to far through outright tyranny ad despotism in this very society, for me to sit idly by as I see it unfold.

 

With that is stated within the lengthy article you posted, one reality was not mentioned, it is more than likely several realities that exist but are not touched upon in the article. What comes to mind is the reality that many people who are NOT members of the traditional target group, tend to live out some of the most negative aspects of racial stereotypes that have been promoted by the initiator group of those negative stereotypes. This is probably do to several realities, of which I shall mention two.
1. Those who live-out those negative stereotypes do so for the approval of the initiator group.
2. Those who live-out said negative stereotypes have a grudge or dislike of the initial target group; most likely because of jealousy.

As for being anti-racist, what is to say that the author of the article in discussion does not have his or her own racial hatreds? I state this because ma people who are supposed anti-racist tend to view the group in which they are supposedly defending as completely incapable of the group as a whole or in part, of self-defense. To me it is telling that the article mentions Martin Luther King Jr., and “Uncle Tom's Cabin". As I have stated before, I am anti-integration and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was authored by Harriet Beecher-Stowe, who herself had a racially antagonistic views and opinions of Black people, which is why she wrote the book. For you to post an article that mentions both is nothing short of "race-Pandering" and "Race-Baiting". Yes I stated it, because this has been the practice of many who are supposedly anti-racist to introduce race into a conversation, thinking that this will nullify the discussion about illegal immigration. This tactic adds nothing but more discord, animosity and belligerence into a conversation that was going smoothly, in my opinion.

All of this because the conversation graduated from Free Speech, the First Amendment of the Constitution for the United States. Many conversations tend to start as one subjects, then over time delve into other topics; this is a normal progression of conversation.
Now, you seek to state that the First Amendment topic is a smokescreen for racial hatred and animist towards illegal migrants. I will admit that some may have those views, but so what? In life, there are people who like you and people who do not like you, as there are people whom you like and people who you dislike. This is also a natural occurrence in life. Is it your agenda or desire to derail any discussion about immigration in this country during a period of economic uncertainty? If it is, let history be the greatest example of people's reaction(s) when their angst and concerns are simply dismissed.


Rowland's rhetoric borrows from a familiar metaphor used to frame free speech debates — the so-called "marketplace of ideas." Censorship is not the answer, the story goes, but more speech — better speech — is the proper response to racist hate speech.

Is not "hate speech" legitimate speech? If the "marketplace" of ideas is truly legitimate, "hate speech" has to be included in the market or debate. Are those who host such events afraid that their own racial hatred will show, or are they not confident in their own rhetoric? As to the usage of the phrase "proper response", who is to say what response is proper or improper? This is censorship at work. Usually, etiquette, form, balance, due response, and such is brought about through consensus that involves ALL sides of the debate, NOT through one-sided decisions. Yet some criticize persons such as myself when we adamantly insist that there is a move to push this society from a relative free society, into out despotism and tyranny. As I stated yesterday, my ancestry has traveled to far through outright tyranny ad despotism in this very society, for me to sit idly by as I see it unfold.

 

Yeah, name another country that has rich and influential people of every ethnicity in abundance.

 

Didn't the Left use to defend pornography and obscenity on free speech grounds?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...362e4b03b485cb34a27?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000313

VOICES 05/22/2017 05:15 pm ET | Updated 7 hours ago
Stop Using Free Speech As An Excuse To Be Awful
Reminder to Mike Pence: public disagreement is not suppression.
By Zeba Blay
On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence was met with boos as he delivered a commencement speech at Notre Dame University. Before he had even finished his address, dozens of students, some wearing rainbow flags on their graduation caps, stood and walked out.

Undeterred by the silent protest, Pence continued his speech, saying to the graduates: “While this institution has maintained an atmosphere of civility and open debate, far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness ― all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech.”

This is a line of reasoning we’ve heard time and time again, mostly from those on the right. The pristine ideal of “free speech” is used to dismiss legitimate criticism of language and policies that harm marginalized communities. Figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, and Bill Maher have invoked the “free speech” argument when they’ve been called out, criticized, or boycotted for their rhetoric.

None of them, however, have actually had their speech curtailed. They have never been thrown in jail for things like inciting racist and sexist abuse against comedian Leslie Jones, or complaining about Jews in America, or suggesting Muslims are inherently violent. Indeed, it wasn’t until Yiannopoulos started speaking positively about pedophilia that he actually faced any tangible repercussions.

Perhaps to Pence, who has come under scrutiny in the past for his history of endorsing and enacting anti-LGBTQ policies, the students who booed and walked out during his speech were only proving his point: that we live in a society where political correctness (a phrase that’s often just coded language for “liberal oversensitivity”) is leading us to a future where young people balk at anyone who shares an opinion different than their own.

But it’s not that simple.

Contrary to popular belief, free speech, in the context of the Constitution, actually does have limits. The First Amendment does not protect speech that incites violence, fraud, or child pornography, or certain forms of obscenity. It puts limits and restrictions on slander, and intellectual property.



Free speech does not mean that people aren’t allowed to be offended by or disagree with what you say.
And while it protects criticism of the government (including the president), and also protects unpopular or potentially offensive political or ideological views, it doesn’t mean one can say or do anything they want without social repercussions.

In other words, free speech does not mean that people aren’t allowed to be offended by or disagree with what you say. Free speech is not an excuse to say racist, homophobic, sexist things. The Constitution may protect your right to say some of those things, but you are certainly not protected from being called out for doing so.

Beyond a seeming lack of understanding of the basic tenets of free speech, this line of critique also frames any identification of instances of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, ableism and transphobia as threats to free speech itself. And the ultimate effect of this argument can be chilling.

As Ulrich Baer put it in a New York Times essay published in April: “Requiring of someone in public debate to defend their human worth conflicts with the community’s obligation to assure all of its members equal access to public speech.”

The students who decided to publicly protest Pence for his views, many of whom identify as queer, have as much of a right to exercise “free speech” as Pence and his supporters. Safe spaces do not “suppress” anything ― they level the playing field in a landscape where so many of those who bemoan political correctness do so at the expense of already marginalized communities.

Of course, the conversation surrounding free speech is not a simple one. The difficulty of defining hate speech, for instance, has often come up in this ongoing debate, with some critics arguing that censorship is not the solution to offensive or hateful language that is constitutionally protected.

“There is no legal definition of hate speech that will withstand constitutional scrutiny,” Foundation for Individual Rights in Education president Will Greeley told Think Progress in January 2016. “The Supreme Court has been clear on this for decades. And that is because of the inherently fluid, subjective boundaries of what would or would not constitute hate speech. One person’s hate speech is another person’s manifesto.”

The pristine ideal of ‘free speech’ is used to dismiss legitimate criticism of language and policies that harm marginalized communities.
So, OK, both sides of the aisle must contend with how to express themselves and have vigorous debates about difficult without being awful. But research has shown that those who defend their “right” to use racial slurs and racist hate speech often use free speech to do so. A 2017 study found that out of hundreds of participants, those with high levels of racial prejudice were much more concerned with upholding freedom of speech, but were also less likely to defend free speech in non-racial scenarios.

It’s certainly savvy to deflect the argument that what you are saying is offensive by zeroing in on a political ideal, free speech, that everyone can get behind. It’s ultimately just a rhetorical ploy to normalize ideas that oppress others. And complaining when those who are oppressed call out these ideas, as is their right, is another petty ploy.

What Pence and Yiannopoulos and Coulter and other right-wing provacateurs are really doing when they weaponize free speech against marginalized people is perverting the idea of free speech itself.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story indicated that the First Amendment never protects hate speech. It does.

 

Yes child, bigotry is allowed under the constitution. Here's a newsflash, your feelings or what you consider offensive, or bigoted doesn't mean ****.

 

I know it's bad of me to respond and thus satisfy your need for attention, troll, but there's a difference between acceptable and allowed.

Thanks for the added insight into your little mind and its need to trash me.

 

Ugh... 'fine' is such a terrible word for a debate! Saying something offensive 'on purpose' is mean and makes you a dick. But its legal and *should* be.
Getting offended when you know someone wasn't trying to be offensive is *just* as bad.
Is it 'fine'? I dunno.

 

Your acceptance is irrelevant.

 

I was addressing your acceptance of bigotry, not how much you need to diminish by supposed relevance.

 

I accept free speech, or bigotry, or anything else that hurts your little feelings. I live in a society where any jackass can say any jackass thing they wanna say, without repercussions from the state. That's how it should be.

 

It's no longer PC to call drug users 'tweakers' now they must be referred to as methican americans.

Just kidding, but seriously this PC crap has become ridiculous...colleges no longer allowing words like he/she cause some unspecified non scientific gender person might be offended.
I'm Native American and if you don't think I've heard as many racial slurs as any other minority...then you've never been near a rez. I earned my respect by taking them behind the woodshed....I even threatened to scalp one kid.
Yeah I know, not PC.

 

Here's more:

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/23/opinion-what-is-behind-the-denial-of-free-speech-on-campuses/
70
Opinion: What is behind the denial of free speech on campuses
A protester is taken into custody by police during competing pro and anti-Trump demonstrations at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, Calif., Saturday, April 15, 2017. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)
Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group A protester is taken into custody by police during competing pro and anti-Trump demonstrations at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, Calif., on April 15.
By MANFRED WOLF |
PUBLISHED: May 23, 2017 at 2:21 pm | UPDATED: May 24, 2017 at 4:54 am
“No fascists in Berkeley!” shouts the young woman intent on closing down a meeting of Trump supporters, a handful of her Republican classmates.

“No racists on campus!” yells the young man, who with other students recently kept the scholar Charles Murray from speaking at Middlebury College. Murray is the social scientist whose comments on minority intelligence were called racist by some.

Such scenes have become commonplace on campus. What goes into that denial of free speech?

As a lifelong academic, I’m perplexed and pained. After all, this is so against all the obvious lessons that have been given students about free speech: that speech you disagree with, or find distasteful, or even abhorrent, is permissible, and has as much right to exist as your own speech, which someone else may disagree with or find distasteful or abhorrent.

Surely this has been drummed into them since they learned about the First Amendment and its importance in a democratic society. So how can these protesters so blatantly ignore what must be considered Free Speech 101, The Basic Message?

Here are a few possibilities.

They never got the free speech idea, or they knew it and ignored it, or were unaware of how it applied to them. The phenomenon of knowing something but not applying it to yourself is all too familiar. Or they know it but have been confused by the recent injection of the concept of “hate speech” into matters of free speech. Suddenly there is this other kind of speech that is not acceptable. It became easy for a protester to proclaim, “Hate speech is not free speech!”

But I see a much stronger, more emotional component at work in college protesters.

There is an almost sensual surrender to the feeling that “We Too Are Victims,” persecuted for being righteous. The sense of victimhood leads inevitably to anger, and even outrage, however self-defined that condition may be.


Add to this the excitement of the protest, its drama, and they become freedom fighters in their own eyes, battling evil.

Are these feelings sincere and genuine? I think they are: We feel what we’re allowed to feel, sanctioned to feel, encouraged to feel.

Outrage is something that people are frequently urged to experience, and therefore want to feel, and so feel.

“Are you angry, sir?” asks the reporter of someone who suffered at the hands of, say, clumsy bureaucracy or an inflated hospital bill. And of course the person answers, “You bet I am,” and feels a righteous anger swelling in his or her chest.

Changes in what we feel are fairly easy to trace from decade to decade. At a given point, we learned about the dangers of second-hand smoke, and learned that we were greatly bothered by cigarette smoke: A heretofore small annoyance became major discomfort. Or a sexist comment went from being just annoying to giving serious offense.

“Sincerity” has little to with it. We were sincere both times.

Our feelings are more malleable than we know. We are subject to the prevailing sentiment of our time and place, of other people, of fashion — and feelings rise and fall with time and place. Just as one set of circumstances might kindle certain feelings in one culture and different ones in another, so one period of time can ignite feelings different from another time.

Knowing this might restrain your own emotional reaction to protesters — though would hopefully still allow you, and us, to tell them once again about the beauties of free speech.

Manfred Wolf is a retired professor from San Francisco State University, and the author, most recently, of “Survival in Paradise: Sketches from a Refugee Life in Curacao.” He wrote this for The Mercury News.

 

Here's more:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/28/us/fareed-zakaria-liberals-cnntv/index.html

Fareed Zakaria: Liberals think they're tolerant, but they're not
By Alexandra King, CNN
Updated 2031 GMT (0431 HKT) May 28, 2017
fareed what in the world segment gps _00012906


A bonfire set by demonstrators protesting a scheduled speaking appearance by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos burns on Sproul Plaza on the University of California at Berkeley campus on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017, in Berkeley, Calif. The event was canceled out of safety concerns after protesters hurled smoke bombs, broke windows and started a bonfire. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Fareed Zakaria says freedom of speech is not just for ideas we find comfortable
Zakaria: Conservative voices and views are being silenced
(CNN)Fareed Zakaria said Saturday that though many liberals think they are tolerant, often they aren't.

Zakaria noted that "at the height of commencement season," many new graduates across the country had made their political views apparent, from the Notre Dame students who walked out as Vice President Mike Pence gave his commencement address to the crowd members who booed Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos during a speech at Bethune-Cookman University.
"American universities seem committed to every kind of diversity except intellectual diversity. Conservative voices and views are being silenced entirely," Zakaria said.
The CNN host said he found this attitude strange, especially given that these incidents occurred on college campuses that "promised to give their undergraduates a liberal education."
"The word liberal in this context has nothing to do with today's partisan language, but refers instead to the Latin root, pertaining to liberty. And at the heart of liberty in the Western world has been freedom of speech. From the beginning, people understood that this meant protecting and listening to speech with which you disagreed," Zakaria argued.
That means, he said, not drowning out "the ideas that we find offensive."
In addition, Zakaria noted what he called "an anti-intellectualism" on the left.
"It's an attitude of self-righteousness that says we are so pure, we're so morally superior, we cannot bear to hear an idea with which we disagree," he said.
"Liberals think they are tolerant but often they aren't," he added.
No one, he continued, "has a monopoly on right or virtue."
In fact, it is only by being open to hearing opposing views that people on both sides of the political spectrum can learn something, Zakaria said.
"By talking seriously and respectfully about agreements and disagreements, we can come together in a common conversation," he said.
"Recognizing that while we seem so far apart, we do actually have a common destiny."

 

Here's more:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/27/no-campus-for-professors-opposed-to-anti-white-racism/

No Campus For Professors Opposed To Anti-White Racism
Photo of Scott Greer
SCOTT GREER
Deputy Editor
9:36 PM 05/27/2017

Evergreen State College biology professor Bret Weinstein learned the severe consequences of opposing campus leftists this week.

Weinstein originally caused a ruckus on his very-liberal Washington state university when he sensibly opposed an event that required all whites to depart from the campus for a day. He called the idea a “show of force and an act of oppression.”
For voicing this opinion and being white himself, Weinstein was branded a racist and hounded by campus agitators who demanded his termination. On Thursday, the biology professor had to conduct his class off-campus due to police telling him it wasn’t safe for the mild academic to appear at his place of work.

One student said that this kind of threatening behavior was “necessary” because “it’s life or death for us.”

This incident is, of course, not an isolated affair and campuses all over the country have suffered similar bouts of racial agitation. Several universities have witnessed demands from students for segregated housing so minority students can live without the terror of white microaggressions. A few colleges, such as the California State University at Los Angeles, have conceded to these exclusionary demands.

Other students have gotten bolder and flat out demanded free tuition for all students of color — because of “white supremacy.”

And there’s been the very well-known displays of violence and intimidation against any college speaker who goes against the prevailing dogma of higher education. The activists frequently cite the danger of allowing supposed “hate speech” (a nebulous concept used solely to shut down any speech the wielder disagrees with) to go unchallenged on campus and how it will somehow physically harm minorities. That argument allows for violence and threats to be used against the opposition, as we’re currently seeing now at Evergreen State.

No wonder somebody even wrote a whole book about these developments and titled it, “No Campus for White Men“…


Professor Weinstein’s ordeal exemplifies the disturbing racial trends in education. Students wanted to kick off all Caucasians for a day of symbolic resentment and the scholar rightly thought it was a stupid idea for enforcing oppression. That only made him appear as an evil white racist who deserved to be crushed for expressing dissent.

Weinstein’s well-established progressive credentials were discarded in favor of seeing him only for the color of his skin. To activists, his whiteness is his primary attribute; everything else about him is secondary in importance.

The contempt for all whites shown by these students is simply racism, and that view seems to be the prevailing motivation for the demonstrations rather than a commitment to traditional left-wing principles.

Events like this will only continue to happen as minority identity politics continue to dominate campus life and white guilt is preached by professors and administrators. Evergreen State is public university and depends on taxpayers to survive. Washington is a pretty liberal state, but I’m sure the average voter — whether Democrat or Republican — would not be pleased that their money goes toward supporting shutting down speech and forcing white students and faculty off campus.

The states that provide the money for this ridiculousness to occur also have the power to curb it. Your move, Washington legislature.

Follow Scott on Twitter and purchase his new book, “No Campus for White Men.”

 

Here's more:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/us/free-speech-hate-speech-quiz/index.html

Quiz: Is hate speech free speech?

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN
Updated 12:56 PM ET, Thu June 1, 2017
Portland victims: Army vet, college graduate


Portland victims: Army vet, college graduate 01:32
(CNN)Let's get one thing out of the way: Hateful, nasty, vitriolic speech, even when it's bigoted or homophobic, is often protected.

There's been a lot of talk since the Portland, Oregon, train stabbings about hate speech and whether it is or should be legal. The short answer is it's legal, though there are rules against threatening people and inciting violence. There are also some nebulous court rulings about "fighting words" and obscenity.
But for the most part, telling people to go back to their country or that their race is inferior or that they're less human because they are gay, Latino, female, whatever -- that's legal, not that it should be encouraged in civil society.
War on campus: The battle over free speech
Whether it should be legal is another question, and while we won't wander too far down that path, it's important to remember the US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that it's the most offensive idea -- and not the notion with which everyone generally agrees -- that deserves protection.
In the words of Justice William Brennan in 1989: "A principal function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger."
Added Chief Justice John Roberts 22 years later: "Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and ... inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course -- to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."
Think you understand what's protected? Take our quiz and see how well you know your speech:

Know your speech!
With a few exceptions, the First Amendment doggedly protects speech -- yes, even hate speech and other utterances and actions that society tends to find offensive. But there are gray lines. Do you know what's protected speech and what's not?
Start the quiz

 

Five out of seven, not to shabby.

 

...Kathy Griffin receives death threats and a call from the secret service, for a bad joke - almost as bad as half of what comes out of Trump's big mouth.