You Live In A Dystopia When The Government Has To Force Free Speech On Academia

[dunksby]

[QUOTE]WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would soon sign an executive order requiring American universities and colleges to maintain

[Kblaze8855]

The first amendment has nothing to do with what people can say to each other without repercussion. Just says congress cant make laws limiting speech.

The odd thing here is that most of the conservative speakers who try to go to colleges and talk get shut down by protesters in advance. What I read suggested that Trump wants the colleges to prevent the protesters from stopping the appearances which.....would just be using one part of the first amendment against another. How do you push for free speech by limiting free speech and assembly?

Besides most of federal aid to universities is directed by congress which isnt gonna change it for him with Democrats controlling the house. Its another likely empty measure that will just go to court and be overturned in part while the portions that arent simply have no real world effect.

500 protesters will always present enough of a problem for a school to say it called off an event for safety reasons. This is a gesture. Nothing more. Its the kinda thing that even if it worked...and it wouldnt...it would be outside congress so have little impact on their actual funding and whatever impact it did have could be overturned day one by the next executive.

Whats gonna be done? Put together a panel to investigate several thousand schools and figure out how much federal money they get that is within the executives ability to halt then block money to 6-7 schools that get on the news after speakers get pulled while 99.99999% go on doing whatever they want? And even the 6-7 will be large well known schools who wont care about a 2 year reduction in federal grant money to study dolphin diabetes.

Its just noise. The kinda thing to get a cheer in front of a friendly crowd that has few real world implications.

[dunksby]

The first amendment has nothing to do with what people can say to each other without repercussion. Just says congress cant make laws limiting speech.

The odd thing here is that most of the conservative speakers who try to go to colleges and talk get shut down by protesters in advance. What I read suggested that Trump wants the colleges to prevent the protesters from stopping the appearances which.....would just be using one part of the first amendment against another. How do you push for free speech by limiting free speech and assembly?

Besides most of federal aid to universities is directed by congress which isnt gonna change it for him with Democrats controlling the house. Its another likely empty measure that will just go to court and be overturned in part while the portions that arent simply have no real world effect.

500 protesters will always present enough of a problem for a school to say it called off an event for safety reasons. This is a gesture. Nothing more. Its the kinda thing that even if it worked...and it wouldnt...it would be outside congress so have little impact on their actual funding and whatever impact it did have could be overturned day one by the next executive.

Whats gonna be done? Put together a panel to investigate several thousand schools and figure out how much federal money they get that is within the executives ability to halt then block money to 6-7 schools that get on the news after speakers get pulled while 99.99999% go on doing whatever they want? And even the 6-7 will be large well known schools who wont care about a 2 year reduction in federal grant money to study dolphin diabetes.

Its just noise. The kinda thing to get a cheer in front of a friendly crowd that has few real world implications.

The matter is rather simple, despite your Gish Galloping; colleges and Universities cannot cancel a booked lecture or allow intolerant elements to stop a point of view, which they do not agree with, from freely expressing itself on campuses. Especially if it's by using physical and violent means.

The above is only one part of the problem or more accurately in fact a symptom. A symptom of academia being dominated by one extreme school of thought which sees freedom of expression and exchange of ideas an existential threat to itself.

It is truly unfortunate that colleges and Universities, places which got to be the bastion of openness and inviting of civil discussion have turned into a haven for those who are terrified of dialogue and facing individuals who might challenge their dogmatic set of beliefs. The situation is so dire that the damn government has to come in and try threaten these close minded pseudo-intellectuals to get a grip and relax their clutch on discourse within higher education.

[Long Duck Dong]

It's in these schools best interest anyways. Berkeley has had to pay out big money to young conservative groups for not protecting them from violent leftists who are issuing threats while armed, masked, and causing property damage. The police also should never be encouraged to stand down from engaging aggressors who fall more on the side of threat and intimidation than protest. The left is a shit show. They need to be reigned in. No one seems to have a problem with aggressive confrontation of the crazies on the right.

[Akrazotile]

Businesses like Blades of Freedom are designed as a free market solution against this exact thing.

More businesses who hire kids without worthless degree requirements. Fewer kids who feel compelled to take out loans and stress their repayment when they can start makibg money right away.

Who cares about these college nut houses? Conservatives should just walk away from them. But Im sure Starbucks wont hire someone for a job in the marketing deptartmwnt without a degree in gender studies and advanced sensitivity training. We have to give kids who wanna go into business more options.

OP have you copped the official shaving razor of liberty?

Or done anything at all to advance your views on the issues in question...?

[Hawker]

The first amendment has nothing to do with what people can say to each other without repercussion. Just says congress cant make laws limiting speech.

The odd thing here is that most of the conservative speakers who try to go to colleges and talk get shut down by protesters in advance. What I read suggested that Trump wants the colleges to prevent the protesters from stopping the appearances which.....would just be using one part of the first amendment against another. How do you push for free speech by limiting free speech and assembly?

Besides most of federal aid to universities is directed by congress which isnt gonna change it for him with Democrats controlling the house. Its another likely empty measure that will just go to court and be overturned in part while the portions that arent simply have no real world effect.

500 protesters will always present enough of a problem for a school to say it called off an event for safety reasons. This is a gesture. Nothing more. Its the kinda thing that even if it worked...and it wouldnt...it would be outside congress so have little impact on their actual funding and whatever impact it did have could be overturned day one by the next executive.

Whats gonna be done? Put together a panel to investigate several thousand schools and figure out how much federal money they get that is within the executives ability to halt then block money to 6-7 schools that get on the news after speakers get pulled while 99.99999% go on doing whatever they want? And even the 6-7 will be large well known schools who wont care about a 2 year reduction in federal grant money to study dolphin diabetes.

Its just noise. The kinda thing to get a cheer in front of a friendly crowd that has few real world implications.

If it

[Kblaze8855]

The matter is rather simple, despite your Gish Galloping; colleges and Universities cannot cancel a booked lecture or allow intolerant elements to stop a point of view, which they do not agree with, from freely expressing itself on campuses. Especially if it's by using physical and violent means.

The obvious response is to just not book conservative speakers to begin with. Whats your solution then? Government mandated right wing speakers? How you feeling about setting that precedent?

What would you like done? Maybe establish gated off "free speech zones" like they do with some government events?

You thinking that gets us away from a dystopian world? You remember the free speech zones right? The actual cages the secret service put up to keep protesters from making noise near president Bush?

Go read about HR347. A law proposed by a florida republican and passed and signed by Obama(so both parties in on it) giving the feds broad discretion to keep protesters away from some government buildings/events. It was supposedly because of the occupy wallstreet protesters making a safety issue.

A lot of the law around it dates back to vietnam era protests at colleges and some to the civil rights era. Free speech zones were put in a huge number of colleges to keep people from disrupting speakers and so on but there have been many legal challenges. Because of them a lot of college got rid of them.

There are in fact laws against free speech zones in several states. And a free speech zone is exactly what you would need to stop protesters from being able to assemble and make noise to drown out a speaker they dont like. And who would enforce it? The feds did it for Bush. The secret service mostly.

You want to bring in a gang of cops to keep students caged 500 feet from controversial speakers where the story would still become the protest? You wouldnt do anything but make the protests bigger and give them more news coverage....

Simple and plain...if one guy wants to speak and 1,000 people want him not to...they drown him out or create enough disruption so the event is cancelled.

Like I said...it would be a do nothing measure. The most likely result is colleges in question simply not allowing speakers who will be protested to be booked to begin with....while the states pass more laws against free speech zones. Whats odd is they are usually pushed by republicans...a republican tried to get a national law against them passed a couple years ago. But what it will do is give colleges an excuse NOT to limit where people protest.

In the end there isnt much to be done about this. You would have to have the government enforce free speech by limiting other peoples free speech and freedom of assembly. Which is why I dont think its gonna work.

You can make people...not physically block door. I dont know how the government enforces a ban of protest chants in America. Especially in places where you cant setup a free speech zone and make them chant from elsewhere. And the minute the feds try....states will pass more. Especially the blue ones. California wont allow it.

So...when you have a state law keeping you from using free speech zones and the cops are controlled by a democrat governor...whats your solution? Exactly what branch of federal law enforcement goes in? The secret service did it for Bush but they cant do it at a college unless a federal building is at risk.

Without anyone to enforce a federal free speech zone law over the objection of the states it falls to the schools to police it...and they wont. The sheer number of them would make policing it impossible. You only hear about a few major ones on the news. What...you pulling together a FBI task force to investigate every claim protesters drowned a guy out? Then trying to figure out how much of that schools federal money falls outside the congressional power of the purse? For something the next president can just undo?

Its a can of worms.

Its going nowhere.

You have to think past what you want...into piratical application of it. How do you investigate it across thousands of schools and how do you ENFORCE it without having congress pass a law they wont make?

None of this shit is getting done. Its a "Get applause from my base" EO that wont likely have much real world impact...if any. Mostly because they will NEVER get a law passed nationally....but states can. They make it illegal to establish the free speech zones required to tell people they cant protest where they want...you gonna attempt to punish them federally for NOT breaking state law? Think maybe a clever lawyer may find 10th amendment issues?

Call it simple all you like. We will see how simple it is in the real world.

[Raymone]

We've been living in a simulation since at least 2012.

[Kblaze8855]

If it’s a safety issue then that’s indication of violence which is no longer free speech so you’re incorrect.

If the university were to shut down a conservative speaker, well that’s arguably discrimination.

The university would simply not allow speakers who posed a risk to be booked in the first place. Hard to "shut down" a speaker who was never booked. Where does that leave us?

Federal government forces the booking of political speakers? That a small government thing to do? And if so...think its legal for the government to mandate speech from one side of the spectrum or the other? They can protect it....im not sure they can protect your right to it by forcing a place to book you to do it.

They can make it be even on TV for political ads because the feds own public airwaves but even those days are ending with all the streaming.

It comes down to one thing...

If colleges are mostly liberal....with a few conservatives....thats a bad place to have a far right speaker go and expect a warm reception. Its like sending Pelosi to speak to 200 democrats at an NRA convention with 10,000 members. Is it her right to speak? Sure. But how do you mandate people who hate her not also speaking to drown her out?

She chose poorly. I dont know why the feds are supposed to get involved.

[Akrazotile]

The university would simply not allow speakers who posed a risk to be booked in the first place.ard to "shut down" a speaker who was never booked. Where does that leave us?

Federal government forces the booking of political speakers? That a small government thing to do? And if so...think its legal for the government to mandate speech from one side of the spectrum or the other? They can protect it....im not sure they can protect your right to it by forcing a place to book you to do it.

They can make it be even on TV for political ads because the feds own public airwaves but even those days are ending with all the streaming.

It comes down to one thing...

If colleges are mostly liberal....with a few conservatives....thats a bad place to have a far right speaker go and expect a warm reception. Its like sending Pelosi to speak to 200 democrats at an NRA convention with 10,000 members. Is it her right to speak? Sure. But how do you mandate people who hate her not also speaking to drown her out?

She chose poorly. I dont know why the feds are supposed to get involved.

The speakers arent the ones posing the risk

[Kblaze8855]

Obviously they would say the event was a safety risk due to the protesters. Thats exactly whats been done. How you word it is immaterial. End result is the same.

No single speaker posts a safety risk. If Hitler himself rose and went to have a rally he would personally be no risk....but the tens of thousands of protesters he would draw...plus the few people there to hear him...would create a riot putting people in danger. You dont book the speaker....thats your excuse when people claim bias.

The rest is just wording.

[Kblaze8855]

Anyone curious.....people are tracking the disinvited speakers. Many of them are done for safety concerns just as I said. many from the right and some from the left. Here:


https://www.thefire.org/resources/di...t=field_6|desc


Sort it by date. Some of them may surprise you. Where it says left or right that means who got it cancelled not what the speaker was trying to say.

[Akrazotile]

Obviously they would say the event was a safety risk due to the protesters. Thats exactly whats been done. How you word it is immaterial. End result is the same.

No single speaker posts a safety risk. If Hitler himself rose and went to have a rally he would personally be no risk....but the tens of thousands of protesters he would draw...plus the few people there to hear him...would create a riot putting people in danger. You dont book the speaker....thats your excuse when people claim bias.

The rest is just wording.

If the protests are happening on campus, the university is responsible. People are allowed to protest in civil, organized fashion and if the university wants to permit that it

[Hawker]

The university would simply not allow speakers who posed a risk to be booked in the first place. Hard to "shut down" a speaker who was never booked. Where does that leave us?

Federal government forces the booking of political speakers? That a small government thing to do? And if so...think its legal for the government to mandate speech from one side of the spectrum or the other? They can protect it....im not sure they can protect your right to it by forcing a place to book you to do it.

They can make it be even on TV for political ads because the feds own public airwaves but even those days are ending with all the streaming.

It comes down to one thing...

If colleges are mostly liberal....with a few conservatives....thats a bad place to have a far right speaker go and expect a warm reception. Its like sending Pelosi to speak to 200 democrats at an NRA convention with 10,000 members. Is it her right to speak? Sure. But how do you mandate people who hate her not also speaking to drown her out?

She chose poorly. I dont know why the feds are supposed to get involved.

Do you not know what the difference is between a private event and a public university? Nancy Pelosi speaking at the NRA is a bad comparison.

[Kblaze8855]

Most of these things are just a matter of noise. Of people buying tickets and using numbers to drown out the message. Besides....go look into the federal funding issue. Trump is talking about some research grants which he can direct to some extent but the great majority is through the NIH and such which has a process outside his direct control. Plus many are government contracts and things allocated on multi year deals from long before trump that will outlast his presidency. We are talking cancer research labs and such.

Hes not gonna pull money from cancer research and childhood diseases over politics. I dont care for the man....but I dont think hes thats bad....nor does he want that news story.