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Sorry. I'm just somewhat incredulous that you can be making a good faith argument that shouting down an invited speaker and forcing him to leave is somehow just
by mhb 3y ago
Sorry. I'm just somewhat incredulous that you can be making a good faith argument that shouting down an invited speaker and forcing him to leave is somehow justified based on it being the audience's exercise of its free speech. Where exactly do you draw the line about when someone with whom you and your tribe disagree should be permitted to speak?
There has been so much written about this much more eloquently and throughout history that it seems ridiculous to try to persuade you, ab initio, in this forum.
- anigbrowl 3y agoI already explained my reasoning in detail, which you have avoided addressing. If so many of the audience want to express disagreement with the speaker that there is no consensus on shushing or ejecting the hecklers, then maybe the speaker's ideas are terminally unpopular. If you won't engage with the arguments I took time to lay out in depth, then you're just stamping your foot and insisting that your point of view should carry the day because you have repeated it so many times without elaboration.
- mhb 3y agoYour profusion of words scattered liberally about your theory that silencing people with whom you disagree is free speech hardly rises to the level of "reasoning" which needs engagement. Introducing Trump to a discussion that's not about Trump could be a sign that something has gone horribly wrong with your argument.
- smoldesu 3y ago> silencing people with whom you disagree is free speech If the local Amtrak goes by while you're preaching your Totally Free Speech Announcement™, you don't reserve the right to sue them for "silencing" your free speech. You chose a poor venue that you cannot control, the constitution does not obligate the people around you to give you the verbal right-of-way. You are spreading pure federal fiction.
- mhb 3y agoI appreciate you jumping in here with your hobby horse, but anigbrowl is not just referring to public fora (to which your "federal fiction" presumably alludes).
- smoldesu 3y agoThat's to their own private peril. The post I made has two points: 1. Your definition of "silencing" is nonsense. If someone is interrupted or spoken-over, they are not silenced. They are being ignored. If that is disrespectful, private venues reserve the right to remove offensive parties from their property. 2. The explicit thing that you are objecting to is free expression. You may disagree with it, or use it as the reason to eject someone on a private basis. At that point though, you're taking offense to being ill-prepared to handle your audience. With any luck, 3/4ths of college students will be comfortable with peaceful protest by 2025. Maybe it would encourage colleges to re-assess which guests they pay for with their student's (or god forbid, taxpayer) money.
- mhb 3y agoDoes this same argument justify DDoS attacks?
- anigbrowl 3y agoI gave you a straightforward explanation of why silently protesting a speaker by departure isn't an effective protest, but loudly voicing opposition to objectionable speech may be. Your whole line of argument seems premised on the idea that a person speaking may not be opposed at all, which seems more appropriate to a church or court than to a public forum. You have never addressed the question of why people in the audience should not exercise their own speech rights, which they did not give up upon entry unless they signed some sort of waiver/contract. As you know very well, I'm not arguing that 'free speeech must be limited because of people like Trump', but using him as an example of an extremely skillful public communicator who understands the psychology of mass communication.