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I want to begin by reiterating that the point of my original post was the adamently disagree with the asseriont that: >> you don’t see conservatives going arou
by throwawayjava 8y ago
I want to begin by reiterating that the point of my original post was the adamently disagree with the asseriont that:
>> you don’t see conservatives going around trying to “no platform” people
I think this is false.
That said:
> I think you must live in a pretty opaque bubble. You might expect those things to happen, but they only do in your imagination.
Each of the things that I listed has actually happened in the past few years.
Consider reading, with an open mind, the link from my parent post. It's written by a former Cedarville student, which is about as far from a liberal bubble as you can possibly get.
There exist a contingent of conservatives who are extremely hostile to free speech, to the point where they create entire institutions dedicated to suppressing and blocking out any non-christian, non-conservative influence.
They are right there in plain sight. They do things like publicly threaten to have campus speakers arrested and fire faculty for opposing Republican presidential nominees [3].
Do you disagree these people exist?
> Most Christian colleges are actually pretty accepting of LGBT.
I agree! [1]
In my post, I referred specifically to conservative Christian colleges, not all Christian colleges. And I even named particular colleges that fit the mold.
And, btw, those very institutions agree with the facts I asserted (if not the way I phrased them). Cedarville, Wheaton, Liberty -- the presidents of these colleges will be the very first ones to tell you that you should not expect freedom of expression as a student or employee at their college!
FIRE, a free expression advocacy organization focused college campuses, even creates a separate category for these institutions (and their illiberal [2] peers on the left): "Warning Schools". The meaning is literally what I say: you should expect to be censored and this fact is very explicitly written in their codes of conduct and staff manuals.
> Schedule a conservative speaker to talk at a College, at you won’t be at all surprised when a gang of violent, intolerant liberals start a riot.
Wait, have you actually scheduled a conservative speaker on a college campus?
I have.
No mob.
Actually, of all the speeches I organized, only one speaker was heckled. (And the speech/speaker wasn't even remotely political. And the heckler was a conservative, not a student, and I think the heckling that was entirely unrelated to either of those facts. He was just a rude nutjob.)
Just as most Christian colleges are very accepting of a wide variety of viewpoints, most other colleges are very accepting of a wide variety of viewpoints.
You don't hear about the countless of uneventful Young Republican/Libertarian speeches. Or the countless weekly bible study groups that happen without incident.
You hear about the tiny handful that go awry. And then a narrative is crafted.
But the point of my post was not that liberal institutions are a bastion of free speech. Just like the point of my post was not to assert that all conservatives are illiberal re: free expression.
The central thesis of my post was just a refutation of assertion that:
>> you don’t see conservatives going around trying to “no platform” people
by pointing out the very real existence of places like Cedarville/Wheaton/et al. that very much do "no platform" any not-sufficiently-conservative-in-just-the-right-way speech.
And additionally to point out that illiberal conservatives (again, to be clear, a subset of all conservatives) are not new in this country. We are not surprised when a conservative expresses illiberal views (which, again, is not meant to imply that all conservatives are illiberal). Whereas the (also real, also subset) illiberal leftists are a newer phenomenon. Maybe that's why we "see" illiberalism on the left but not on the right?
Because we are used to, we expect, a form of conservative illiberalism re: free expression.
> If your unfortunate enough to voice a conservative opinion in the wrong place at the wrong time, you’ll get a Twitter brigade harassing your employer until they fire you.
It's unfortunate that some conservatives are harassed in this fashion, but this is an anomaly, not a norm. This country has millions of conservatives who are open about their political beliefs (on Twitter, FB, etc.) and do not suffer retribution for expressing those beliefs. E.g., the majority of my friends and family.
And, this sort of harassment also happens to (an also small number of) leftists and even not-quite-conservative-enough conservatives. The one person I personally know who was fired for political speech was targeted by conservatives.
Again, consider reading with an open mind the link in my parent post.
People with illiberal views on free expression and with a vendetta and no decency exist on both the left and the right. Which is why, again, I disagree with the initial assertion that:
>> you don’t see conservatives going around trying to “no platform” people
It's just not true. Those people exist, in plain sight, and are very open about their beliefs. Falwell openly threatens to have people (not-conservative-enough conservatives, no less!) arrested for expressing views he disagrees with at the wrong place and time.
I do agree that we don't always see them clearly enough. I hypothesize it's because they are so overt about their repression of speech.
But you very much do "see conservatives going around trying to “no platform” people".
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[1] For anyone following along, item #3 in this interview does a good job at distinguishing between the sort of conservative Christian colleges I'm referring to and the hundreds of less dogmatic Christian institutions that have much stronger free expression protections for faculty and students: https://www.thefire.org/is-speech-suppression-at-religious-colleges-the-invisible-free-speech-crisis/ https://www.thefire.org/is-speech-suppression-at-religious-c...
[2] To avoid confusion: I'm using "illiberal" to mean "illiberal specifically on the question of free expression", i.e., opposes free expression. I use "left" and "right" to refer to more general political affiliation. Hopefully that doesn't cause too much confusion...
[3] https://relevantmagazine.com/current/shane-claiborne-says-liberty-u-threatened-arrested-asking-falwell-campus-prayer-vigil/ https://relevantmagazine.com/current/shane-claiborne-says-li...
- AmericanChopper 8y agoI think you’ll find that most conservatives actually just want the NFL to enforce their rules, which already prohibit political speech on the pitch. Something the NFL has enforced in the past against conservative political expression. So where do you think this no platforming of liberals is taking place? It’s not happening in the media. It’s not happening on social media. It’s not happening on the campus. It’s not happening in the office. All you’ve actually been able to identify if _some_ conservative Christian colleges (you haven’t substantiated that, but I’ll accepts it’s probably true to some extent), and the football pitch (which isn’t a political forum to begin with). As I said, you want to have your cake and eat it too.
- dang 8y agoNo political flamewars on HN, please. Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political or ideological battle. The site guidelines explicitly ask you not to do that, and point out that we ban accounts that do. We have to, because flamewars consume everything if you let them. Please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended from now on.
- AmericanChopper 8y agoI’d like you to elaborate on that, because I don’t think anything I’ve said would be considered flaming. This thread is about a political topic and I’ve simply presented my perspective on it, in what I think is a pretty level headed manner. I also don’t think I’ve been using this site for any sort of battle, I comment on any topic that interests me.