3 ms·

As far as I can tell, "a police state" is one of the apparent goals of progressivism.

dalke 11y ago
What does "police state" have to do with this article? Among other things, some of the feminist progressives in the article want the school to "provide lawyers for students who couldn’t afford them", and to have independent appeals body 'with no stake in defending the initial result.' How are these the markings of a police state, even metaphorically?
- xlm1717 11y ago
  It does seem like a random statement to make, but when you expand the definition of a crime so broadly that citizens, in this case students, start living in fear of accidentally committing a crime, you have the beginnings of a police state. One example I can think of with regards to a recent current event is when a school got the police involved because a middle school boy kissed a middle school girl. This was before even asking the girl and her parents if they wanted to press charges, and when school sanctions would have been enough without getting the police involved and charging the boy with assault. These kinds of things happen when you make the definition of harassment too broad, you end up with a punishment that does not fit the crime. We (in the US) are supposed to be protected against this by the Eigth Amendment to the Constitution. Providing lawyers for the student body is a great idea. The university I went to had such a program in place. Having an independent appeals body is also a great idea. You have a lot of instances where two parties settle disputes via an independent arbitrator ensuring fairness for all involved. To truly ensure fairness for all involved though, you don't criminalize every interaction between males and females.
  - dalke 11y ago
    I asked "What does "police state" have to do with this article?" Your answer also doesn't appear to have anything to do with this article. To start with, who in it suggests to 'criminalize every interaction between males and females'? The article even mentions the sexual harassment in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, which only concerned interactions (and not even ones based on 'sexual desire') between men. Plus, I disagree with your definition of a police state. The laws can be crystal clear about what's considered a crime - eg, holding a meeting with more than 5 people without permission, publishing without first getting an authorization stamp from the censor, not having an internal passport to move around the country, spending the night in a place not designated for people of your skin color - and still be a police state. The underlying difficulty is that "police state" is ambiguous. If you want a boss to be free to fire a employee who refuses to have sex with a potential customer, then a law banning that practice may be a sign of a police state. If you think a company should be free to reject veterans, Catholics, or Indians as employees, then certainly you might consider the existing civil rights laws to be examples of police state action. For someone who thinks that anti-discrimination laws are part of a police state, then of course anyone who supports anti-discrimination laws supports a police state. But that weakens the meaning of 'police state' to something rather tepid and useless. "There should be a law preventing the setting off of fireworks during periods of extreme fire danger" is a limit on freedom, yet hardly something that deserves being called a police state. So again I ask, "What does "police state" have to do with this article?"

dalke 11y ago

What does "police state" have to do with this article? Among other things, some of the feminist progressives in the article want the school to "provide lawyers for students who couldn’t afford them", and to have independent appeals body 'with no stake in defending the initial result.' How are these the markings of a police state, even metaphorically?

xlm1717 11y ago
It does seem like a random statement to make, but when you expand the definition of a crime so broadly that citizens, in this case students, start living in fear of accidentally committing a crime, you have the beginnings of a police state. One example I can think of with regards to a recent current event is when a school got the police involved because a middle school boy kissed a middle school girl. This was before even asking the girl and her parents if they wanted to press charges, and when school sanctions would have been enough without getting the police involved and charging the boy with assault. These kinds of things happen when you make the definition of harassment too broad, you end up with a punishment that does not fit the crime. We (in the US) are supposed to be protected against this by the Eigth Amendment to the Constitution. Providing lawyers for the student body is a great idea. The university I went to had such a program in place. Having an independent appeals body is also a great idea. You have a lot of instances where two parties settle disputes via an independent arbitrator ensuring fairness for all involved. To truly ensure fairness for all involved though, you don't criminalize every interaction between males and females.
- dalke 11y ago
  I asked "What does "police state" have to do with this article?" Your answer also doesn't appear to have anything to do with this article. To start with, who in it suggests to 'criminalize every interaction between males and females'? The article even mentions the sexual harassment in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, which only concerned interactions (and not even ones based on 'sexual desire') between men. Plus, I disagree with your definition of a police state. The laws can be crystal clear about what's considered a crime - eg, holding a meeting with more than 5 people without permission, publishing without first getting an authorization stamp from the censor, not having an internal passport to move around the country, spending the night in a place not designated for people of your skin color - and still be a police state. The underlying difficulty is that "police state" is ambiguous. If you want a boss to be free to fire a employee who refuses to have sex with a potential customer, then a law banning that practice may be a sign of a police state. If you think a company should be free to reject veterans, Catholics, or Indians as employees, then certainly you might consider the existing civil rights laws to be examples of police state action. For someone who thinks that anti-discrimination laws are part of a police state, then of course anyone who supports anti-discrimination laws supports a police state. But that weakens the meaning of 'police state' to something rather tepid and useless. "There should be a law preventing the setting off of fireworks during periods of extreme fire danger" is a limit on freedom, yet hardly something that deserves being called a police state. So again I ask, "What does "police state" have to do with this article?"